Episode 215: Take Your Agency to the Next Level with Michael Weaver (Recast)

My rule is always 3. So I have 3 absolute tasks that I'm going to do today before the day's over. I'm going to get done because as I accomplish those tasks, I mark them off is what I do. You can also put a check mark by it, but that means I won the day. I told myself I was going to have 3 things I was going to accomplish that day before the day was over. I accomplished them. I won the day. Like, what else can you do? Like, if you win every single day, you're going to win the weeks. You win the weeks, you win the months. You win the months, you're going to win the years. You win the years, you're going to have a hell of a life. Like, is my real firm belief. So it's all about what we do today.

So the big question is this: how do small business owners like us grow our leadership, develop our teams, and scale our business in a way that allows us to get our products and services out to the world yet still remain profitable? That is the question, and this podcast will give you the answers. I'm Bradley Hamner, and this is the Club Capital Leadership Podcast. Welcome to another episode of the Club Kappa Leadership Podcast. My name is Bradley Hanna, your host. On today's episode, we have a recast that we did with Michael Weaver. Michael's got a podcast of his own. You can reach out and check out his podcast. But this is one we did in August of 2020. So many of you may not have heard this. It was almost 3 years ago, which is crazy to think, but Michael is a great business owner himself, and I know you're going to pick up some nuggets that you can actually implement into your business right away with. So here's the recast with Michael Weaver. This podcast is brought to you by Autopilot Recruiting. Join over 1,200 State Farm agents in putting your recruiting on autopilot. Any successful insurance agent will tell you how important team is. Finding those rockstar team members doesn't happen when left to chance. It happens through consistent recruiting. You never know when you're gonna lose a team member, and the key to an incredible team is constantly searching for the best talent. Autopilot Recruiting is a continuous recruiting service where you'll be assigned a recruiter that has been trained to recruit on your behalf every business day. This recruiter will take over and revamp your CareerPlug, send out assessments, do pre-screen phone interviews, and schedule your in-office interviews. All you need to do is to show up and give a thumbs up or a thumbs down. This ongoing service is extremely affordable and a no-brainer for taking your insurance agency to the next level. Listeners of the Club Capital Leadership Podcast, go to autopilotrecruiting.com and use the code Club Capital to get started. Again, autopilotrecruiting.com and use the code Club Capital to get started.

Michael, glad to have you on the Club Capital Leadership Podcast.

Hey, thank you so much. It's a pleasure. Awesome to be here. Looking forward to talking to you guys.

Absolutely, sir. Welcome to the hot seat, Michael.

For people that don't know you, don't know your story, why don't you just give a little bit about your background, how you got started with your insurance agency, what you're doing now, a little bit about you?

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. That's a great question. So honestly, how I even got started in insurance business, I don't think anyone— I guess some people grow up saying, hey, I want to be an insurance agent, but I was not that guy. Never even crossed my mind. I needed to fulfill an internship in college, so I went around knocking on banks' doors, agents' doors. An agent I really liked, he told me no the first day. Went back the next day, showed up again, and basically told him, hey man, I'm gonna show up every day till you give me a job because one, you guys seem like cool cats. Two, I need an internship. I gotta get something to mark this bad boy off. So that's how my career originally got started. Kind of fell in love with it over the summer. He offered me a job, so worked with an agent shortly after college for about 2.5 to 3 years, learning the ins and outs of the business. Started my agency April of '14, and it's been awesome, man. We've been blessed. It's an amazing career thus far, and definitely looking forward to the future. And so the agency has been awesome. Me and my wife, we tackled it in the beginning. We tackled it together, started a new market scratch agency, no guaranteed income. She quit her job, put all of our effort into that. And about 2 years into it, she left, started her own business, which is awesome. She's flourishing in that, which really forced me to, hey, how can I tackle this? How can I make it easier on myself? And obviously that's when, as we've kind of talked a little bit about prior, that's when Weaver Sales Academy was formed, which is a sales training and coaching firm for insurance professionals. And it helps give the agent time back in the office by training their team, giving them processes and systems that work. And so now I run 2 successful businesses that have been awesome.

Great, man. Well, you've been highly successful in your own insurance agency. What are a few things that you could share with somebody that's just starting their agency?

That is a fantastic question because everyone always asks, if you could go back and change, what would you do differently? And there's a lot of stuff that I would do the same and do differently, but I think that there is no magic bullet. There is no secret to success, in my opinion. It all comes down to today. What are we doing today? Yesterday's over, tomorrow doesn't matter. What are we going to do today? And it's funny you asked me this question because I was just thinking like, if I had to give somebody advice and to be successful, I think one, leadership, the ability to create the culture, that winning culture you're going for, the ability to delegate, the ability to create clarity is always awesome. The second thing I always tell people is obviously grit. You got to have grit, the ability to work and work and work to achieve a goal. Not make any excuses at all. So you've got leadership, you've got grit, and then the next thing I would tell you about was going to be processes and systems. So processes and systems are huge for an office because yes, that kind of falls under leadership, but the ability to have a systematic office to where everyone in the office knows what they're supposed to be doing. You just can't have a process for here and there. You gotta have a process for everything. My firm belief when I started the agency was, McDonald's. Doesn't matter if you're at McDonald's in California, you're at McDonald's in New York, a double cheeseburger tastes the same regardless. It's made the same regardless. And that's really what I wanted to create from day one. And obviously it takes a lot of work, but I figured if I can create processes and systems, because my whole goal as an insurance professional is not just to be an insurance agent, it's to be a successful business owner. And that's different for everyone. But what a successful business owner looks like to me is someone that can create a business And that business flourishes regardless if they're day in and day out putting in the hours. And so fast forward 6.5, 7 years and where I— it's been a blessing. And I really believe that those 3 things are key to running a successful business, in my opinion.

You know, it's funny you bring up leadership. Obviously the name of the podcast is the Club Capital Leadership Podcast, but who in your life influenced you either at a young age or during your agency business career to really have the most influence on your leadership in the past and who influences you today?

I don't necessarily think leaders are born. I think, now, some people have that ability to lead, to communicate, to get people to follow them. But a lot of my development came from just personal professional development, reading a lot of books, trial and error, obviously surrounding myself with like-minded individuals, other business owners that I knew had been successful, not so much just in the insurance profession, but just people that have been really successful, the most successful people I knew. And so I reached out to them in the very beginning and asked, "Hey, how do you lead people? How do you manage people? How do you motivate people?" And so obviously I think that was key, especially early on in my career since I was only a 26-year-old. I mean, 26 years old, I barely know what I'm doing. And so to go in, run a business, have my back against the wall, get people on board wanting to run through walls for me just like I would run through a wall for them, I think that it's a combination of things, but a lot of development. Just, I'm a big reader. To read 50, 60 books a year, obviously just not over leadership, but that investing in yourself through different types of courses, whether it's a Grant Cardone, whether it's a John Maxwell, Brian Tracy, um, really big into self-development because my firm belief is if you're either getting better or you're getting worse, there is no middle road to this game. So just always trying to push the envelope and get as good as I can and surrounding myself with like-minded individuals that I know have been successful and just always continuously trying to learn from them and grow.

So I actually knew going into this before we talked that we were going to talk about systems and processes. I know that was going to come up. And so what are like some of the basic, maybe 2 or 3 of the most important systems and processes that are the foundational systems and processes that an agency owner needs to have in their business? Absolutely no question about it. What are some of those? Because I mean, that gets thrown around a lot. A lot of people talk about systems and processes. But very few people actually really then get into, well, this is the system or this is the process that you need to have.

Yeah, so processes and systems-wise, there's obviously a few crucial or critical systems I would recommend. So first and foremost, we're a sales organization. You have to have good sales conversation processes and systems. At the end of the day, we're in the people business. You just can't have word tracks. You gotta be able to have conversations. And so Conversations are made from training. So you have to have a good process and system around the training because the training is what's going to produce that sales conversation. And it doesn't matter if you're talking the multi-line auto fire conversation, if you're talking an appointment conversation, everything should be done in an office in a similar fashion. I don't care if you've got XYZ in your office. My opinion, everyone should sound the same. Now, not like robots, but sound the same with their own personality spin to it. And the reason why I say conversations are probably the first process or system is because one, conversations or sales conversations is what's going to bring income in the door. That's what's going to keep the agency growing, paying you for the rest of your career. And so consistent conversations are going to produce consistent results. Consistent results are magical because that provides clarity. Not only is it going to provide clarity to you, the agent in the office, so that you can do numbers and figure out, hey, if I have a 20% closing ratio as an office, so we're having a consistent conversation, that means everyone has a 20% closing ratio, which means if we want to write 1 household a day, everyone needs to do 5 quotes a day. So 15 quotes between 3 people for 3 households a day.

Boom.

Makes the math easy on— for the leader in the office, for the agent. Also, the clarity though with sales conversations provides to the team, because when you have a consistent conversation and everyone sounds the same, Everyone on the team now understands this is how we do things. If somebody sounds different, somebody cheats because they think they've got an easy sell, the team can hold the team accountable. I've never been one that likes to be the bad guy, likes to be just that micromanager. I would rather develop a culture that, hey, there's a certain way to do things because the way of doing things produces results and we all need to be on the same page here. So I think a process and system around a good value-based multi-line sales conversation where you take the money out of the equation is a great process. Processes and system. I hit on training. I think you gotta be training. I think one thing I did really well from the very beginning is every day for a minimum of 15 minutes, my team trains every single day. That's just a process I implemented in the office. We're always trying to sharpen the saw, get better. Another process and system that I really like is it involves team meetings. So like I hit on earlier, if there's one thing I could go back and change early on in my career, it would have been meeting one-on-one with people, with my people, with my team. Early on in my career, I used to meet one-on-ones once a month, and I thought that that was good. Now, with me not being in the office as much, I meet with my team one-on-one, so one person every single day. And so the gist of this conversation is meet with your people at least once a week one-on-one, not just to talk business, but to form that relationship, build rapport. How's the spouse doing? How are the kids doing? What do you got planned this weekend? And then yes, of course you're going to talk about business. How can I help you as a leader? How can I help help you be as successful in this position as possible? What help do you need from me? Are you maximizing your commission structure? Are you doing what it takes on a daily basis to be successful? And so I think the team meeting thing goes overlooked, especially the one-on-ones, but that's been a game changer in my agency. The last— I implemented that about 3 years ago, and to see how the culture formed I mean, my team, I always tell people I would run through a brick wall for every single person on my team. And I truly believe they would do the same for me. And when you have a culture like that, that wants to win for each other, it's really, really hard to beat. I mean, I could go on and on with processes and systems. That's just how my brain works. But when I narrow it down, or the things that I think are really helpful, team meetings are going to provide clarity. It's going to build that relationship. Sales conversations are what's going to produce income. Training is what's going to sharpen the saw. So I think Those two or three things are really beneficial.

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So value-based sales conversations, training, obviously you've made it a habit. Excellence is what you do, that whatever you make a habit. And then I totally agree with you on the one-to-ones. And so that's actually in our coaching programs, one of the things that we talk about quite a bit is meeting with the team on a weekly basis. I totally agree with that. Having those one-to-ones is something that is one of the most basic things, but it actually gets overlooked quite often. Would you agree?

Absolutely. And I'll go ahead and actually say team meetings in general. So 4 years ago is when we implemented my daily huddle strategy to where my team has 2 daily huddles a day. And so that means every single morning from 8:45 to 9 o'clock in our first team huddle, the team talks about income-producing activities. We call them IPAs because in our business, I really believe, yes, we are in the most difficult sales, I think, environment, sales industry in the world. I really believe that. But what we do actually on a daily basis I don't think it's actually all that hard to be successful. It all comes down to focus. And if you're meeting with your team every day, and it doesn't got to be a long meeting, for 10-15 minutes every single day, and everyone's on the same page as to, hey, what production do we have in the works? What life do we have in the works? What new households? What appointments? Well, guess what? What you constantly talk about, what you constantly focused on, that's what's going to happen. So the flip side to this, okay, If you always are talking about the negatives, if you're always talking about, oh man, this just isn't going well, or this customer's a pain, or man, this claim's just going sideways, guess what? You're not talking about the right things, so you're not gonna get the results you want. And so the biggest thing with team meetings is keep those things positive, keep them direct, always be talking. In those team meetings, I always talk about the 3 activities that my office tracks on a daily basis. And so we're always focused on how can we get better, how can we help more people, What do we have in the works? And so with us constantly talking about that, that's what happens in the agency.

Who doesn't like a good IPA either? I mean, I like Bell's Two Hearted IPA. So, you know, income-producing activities or an IPA beer. I mean, whatever.

That's absolutely right. I'm a New England guy myself. New England style IPA. I dig them.

I hear you.

Well, number one thing that I will say is that I'm going to steal this. It's probably going to be a tweet or something that I share on LinkedIn, but I'm basically going to say that Income-producing activity are the only IPAs that I want to be talking about going forward.

I can dig that.

Something like that, you know, something along those lines, you know. But don't worry, I'm gonna give you credit, you know.

Oh shoot, man. No, that's awesome.

So a couple things that come to mind when speaking to you, like, I'm listening to you speak and I'm seeing you because we're recording this, and your mannerisms, your tone of voice, how you communicate It sounds to me like you're a very personable person, have been very persistent from the jump because you were saying how you were basically telling this guy, like, "I'm going to come here every day until you give me an internship," to that original agent that you interned with. So how did you develop those soft skills? Because those are very important skills when you are going to be a leader, like you talked about it earlier, being persistent and being able to build a culture. So is that innate or is that something that you developed over time?

I think it's both, probably nature and nurture, probably, if we want to go to that. So I think my competitive side, the athlete in me, that's what taught me the persistence, the grit. When an opportunity presents itself, you always go out. If you don't go out and get the opportunity, somebody else is gonna get it. And so, um, that's just how it is in sports. Like, I was just actually talking to a buddy yesterday, and it's like, he was a linebacker, and he's actually considering opening up his own business. So he called me for some advice, and I'm like, look, man, If you're passionate about this and you know this is what you want— when you were playing football, a quarterback made an error and threw a ball your way, are you just gonna bat it down? No, you're gonna pick it and take it for 6 because we're trained killers. Like, that's what