In this solo episode of the Club Capital Leadership Podcast, host Bradley Hamner acknowledges he has no formal authority on macro‑economic forecasting but shares a practical mindset for navigating an upcoming recession. He argues that small business owners, especially insurance agency leaders, should focus on what they can control and adopt an "up‑market" pivot: deliberately target more affluent prospects rather than entry‑level or middle‑income customers, because wealthier households are less vulnerable to economic downturns. Hamner explains how this strategic shift should be reflected in marketing messaging, sales qualification language, and overall client expectations. He emphasizes modest adjustments—raising the quality of language and expectations—rather than wholesale business overhauls. The episode is framed by sponsor messages for Club Capital, Coach P Consulting, and Autopilot Recruiting, but the core content delivers actionable advice on market positioning, lead qualification, and maintaining profitability during economic uncertainty.
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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. Hey, before we get into today's episode, did you know that Club Capital is the largest accounting advisory firm for insurance agency owners in the country, providing monthly accounting, CFO services, and tax preparation. Check them out at club.capital.
Hey everyone, so the title of this solo episode is going to be called Preparing for the Recession. Now you may say, well, what authority do you have to be speaking about preparing for the recession? And I would say, uh, I actually don't have any, uh, authority to be speaking about preparing for the recession. But I am sharing with you something that I heard that has helped me think about preparing for the recession. And I thought I would share all of that with you. I have no idea when, how bad, how deep. Watch CNBC News, whatever you keep up with, regardless of your political leaning, and you can make your own predictions about when and how deep and how long the recession's going to come. I think a lot of people at some point recognize, just through the natural cycle of the economy and where interest rates are going, and probably what's going to ultimately need to bring interest rates back down, is we probably are going to go into some sort of a bear market, uh, for a period of time. And so I have seen all the headlines, just as many of you have, and I thought to myself, Well, what do I actually do with this information? And for the longest, I thought, I don't really know. I'm just going to keep my head down and truck along. Now admittedly, I don't watch the news very much. In fact, some of my friends, not necessarily in business, have said, you know, don't you think that you maybe should keep up with the news a little bit more so that you kind of have an idea of what's going on? Maybe, maybe it's fair, uh, to say, but I also feel like that it helps me to be able to stay more focused on the things that I can control versus the things that I can't. So that being said, what was the thing that I heard that actually did help me in thinking about preparing for the recession? And it's the pivot. It's the pivot about who you target. And so whenever going into the— to a recession or downtimes, you actually want to go upmarket, you want to go upstream, you want to target more affluent people as opposed to targeting entry-level, the middle. Target the people who have more money. And the reason is, is because any recession is not going to affect them nearly as much. And so depending on your business, so in other words, you may have some people who, uh, a lot of you obviously are in insurance that listen to the podcast. Certainly not all of you. So I think this is a principle that applies regardless of the business that you're in. But if you go upmarket and instead of targeting maybe someone who is renting, as an example, just getting started, they're going to be more prone to be shopping for certain things as opposed to someone— I'm not saying across the board anybody, these people certainly could too— but a 10%, 15%, 20% rate increase is not going to have as nearly as big of an impact to a household that makes $300,000 a year than it is someone who makes $30,000 a year. I mean, I think we all get that intellectually, but the, the thing is, is do we actually begin to make a pivot to those people who can afford it? In other words, if I'm working with a business owner and there's somebody who's just getting started, as opposed to working with someone who is a little bit further down the line, then it helps to be able to know that if and when the recession, whatever that's going to mean for that business owner's business, they're going to be able to weather that storm a little bit better, which is going to help insulate that client. And so that is the thing that has been playing around in the back of my mind. And so what specifically do you do? I think you can look at the messaging of the the marketing. So are you attracting in your messaging, in your marketing, the, like, the language that you use, um, uh, in your marketing and also in your sales process? And so when you get somebody on the phone, understanding kind of where they are, um, and knowing, okay, when this is a lower tier target, the likelihood of this affecting them and me being able to land this customer is going to be a lot more difficult. Um, so I think it's in the marketing, I think it's in your sales conversations that you have. I've been thinking about that myself. So it's almost like the qualifying, um, the qualifying language goes up. Okay, so the, the expectations of the client being a little bit further down the line, I think, helps out quite a bit. So those are a few things that have really been helpful to me to begin to think about. I try to, as much as I possibly can on these Friday solo episodes, is to be able to share with you something that I am actually thinking about, um, and not necessarily telling you to do something, but what has actually resonated with me. And this is one that has resonated with me. And so I think it's not, uh, major pivots. I don't think it's like a big change. I think it's just a little bit of a tweak around language. I think it's raising the expectations for your prospects in your pipeline to be a little bit higher level, targeting more affluent people as opposed to maybe people who are at the entry level or even in that same middle area depending on the business that you're in. So anyway, hope this resonates with you. Uh, let me know. And hey, if you're not in our Leadership Podcast community, what are you doing? Jump in. Uh, we are, uh, got some big plans, uh, to be able to continue to put cool content in there just for the members in our Leadership Podcast community. All right, everyone, till next time, lead well.
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