Episode 301: The Bottom Line - Bandon Dunes

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 The Bottom Line, a new weekly podcast series that we drop every Thursday to complement our weekly Monday podcast interviews with the industry leaders. These podcasts are going to be designed to give you short, impactful, and value-driven information that you can start using right away in your business. I value your time and attention and will do my very best not to waste it. Just get what you need and go. So with that, let's get into today's episode. Are you an agency owner looking to grow your revenue, increase your bottom line, and better manage your taxes? Club Capital is here to help. Club Capital is the largest accounting and advisory firm for insurance agents in the country, providing monthly accounting, tax strategy, and CFO services. Way more than bookkeeping and your everyday run-of-the-mill tax prep, Club Capital is focused on providing financial and tax advisory services that help you plan and forecast your agency's performance. Their financial dashboards and agency forecasting tools help you better understand your agency's historical performance, create, measure future targets, and see how your agency compares to your peers around the country. Imagine what it would be like to understand the impact to your bottom line when deciding to hire a new employee, or forecast the impact rate changes or commission rates will have on your business. With over $200 million in tracked annual revenue and $140 million in tracked annual expenses, Club Capital has the data and the team to help you make better informed decisions for your agency. They will help you turn that back office stress into the backbone of your agency's success by giving you the tools to take your agency and your leadership to the next level. Visit club.capital today to book a solution overview with one of our business consultants. Club Capital, way more than a CPA firm. Ambition is the first step towards success. It's time to level up your agency, and Coach P Consulting will help you do just that by using the same strategies he used to sell over 700 life insurance policies in 2021 alone. Now, this is not your regular one-and-done type coaching. You'll get personalized coaching 2 days a week, every week of the month, and you'll get a live look behind the scenes of his team training and an office that's performing at the highest level. There's a reason Coach P Consulting is the fastest growing coaching company for insurance agency owners in the country. Coach P will train your team alongside his own and show you the exact steps they are taking to achieve Chairman Circle, Exotic Travel, and Multi-Line Presence Club and be one of the few agents to be selected to have a third office. So whether your goal is to be at the top of your local market or amongst the best in the country, this training will give you the strategies and the tactics to get there. For just $250 a month, you'll get high-level coaching each week from someone who is already getting it done at that level. And his strategies work, and it's time to put them to work for you. Sign up at coachpeakconsulting.com and get your first full month for free when you mention the Club Capital Leadership Podcast.

Hey everyone. All right. So just by this title, some of you probably have no idea what Bandon Dunes is. Some of you absolutely know what Bandon Dunes is, and you've either been there, or if you're a golfer and you haven't been there, you're probably a little jealous about it. But if you are a golfer, you absolutely have to go to Bandon Dunes. It is the really probably the world's— it's certainly the United States' greatest golf resort. It has some of the absolute best public golf courses you can play. I can't even remember the rankings. We looked it up. Outside or behind, uh, Pebble Beach, Pacific Dunes, Bandon Dunes, Sheep Ranch, Old Mac, uh, Bandon Trails are some of the highest ranked public golf courses in the United States, if not the world. And so it's really probably the best collection of golf courses there is to play. It's an incredible place. It's not easy to get to. In fact, it's probably easier to get to Scotland, or is easier to get Scotland, than it is to Bandon Dunes. And so There are a few things though that, and I'm not here to gloat or here to talk to you about a golf course. I'm here to help you and to share with you some things. And this is be some analogies and metaphors, but also some experience, really 3 different things that I feel like that I just got back from that trip at the time I'm recording this. This won't drop until sometime early November or late, late October, early November. But I want to share with you my experience because I'm a couple days removed from getting back. Number 1 is the expectations. That was my 3rd time to go to Bandon. I went in 2006 the first time. I went again in 2019, and then half the group, uh, this time was the same group that went in 2019, and we had 6 new people. So we had 12 people to be able to go. So there's a few lessons, uh, that I wanted to share with you. 2 things, and then an experience I had with one of the guys on the group that I didn't really know well that I thought would benefit all of First of all, the expectations that I had going out there after a second time were already really high. And so my expectations were— I mean, it's the best place I've ever been to be able to play golf, met with the weather and the group that you're with and the food and all of those things. And the reason I'm saying that is because the expectations are really high, and everybody else in our group had really high expectations. I mean, we talked it up for 2 years. We've had this trip planned. And so text message thread after text message thread, and then the text kept getting longer and longer and longer. And so it ends up getting hard to keep up with, uh, but everybody starts getting excited and it exceeded expectations. But here's the reality: if it had met expectations, if it had just met expectations, it would have been phenomenal. But once again, it exceeds expectations. Now, part of it is just because, I mean, honestly, the golf course and, you know, their design and where they are on the, on the Pacific Ocean, etc. I mean, some of that's great, but the food is good, the service is outstanding. When you buy clothes in the pro shop, and they have amazing pro shops, they have the, some of the best gear. If you're a golfer, you know what I'm talking about. They have so many of the brands that you've heard of— Grayson and Peter Millar— all of them. Okay, uh, the pro shops are phenomenal, the food is phenomenal, the drinks are phenomenal, and they exceed expectations every time. You buy a shirt there, they'll say, hey, you're going to go play golf, uh, we'll have it in your room. And they— and it's in your room. They thought ahead with different things. I had forgotten my, uh, some toothpaste And so they didn't just bring toothpaste, they bring like a whole toiletries kit. I was like, wow, this is pretty phenomenal. That's number one. Where in your business can you find ways to actually exceed expectations? Because the reality is, if you in most businesses just meet expectations for people, you're exceeding, you're doing more. But where can you go above and beyond where people say Man, that was an exceptional experience, and that is a really high bar, but Bandon Dunes does it. And I know I'm talking really highly, but this is not a golf show. You can go and watch all kinds of YouTube videos about Bandon Dunes and all those kind of things and get fired about it, and I promise you it will exceed those expectations. Only thing that they're obviously not in control of is certainly the weather, uh, but if you go at the right time of the year, you're going to pay more for it, but you're going to get exceptional weather as we did. Okay, that's number one, just expectations and, and them exceeding expectations. It made me think about like, how can we exceed expectations? Just do more than what people are expecting. Okay, number two, they know their audience. They know their audience, and their audience is golf groups. You never see a twosome at Bandon Dunes. You just don't do it. It's always a foursome. It's oftentimes 12 people, if not larger groups, and they can accommodate it fantastically. When you go and you look into, into the different restaurants they have, and they have multiple different restaurants, the tables are not 4-top tables. I mean, they have a handful of those. Most of them are tables like at McKee's or tables that seat 10, 12, 14, 16 different people. They know their audience. You're there on a buddy's trip. That's what you're doing. You're there on a guys trip. You're there on a girls golf trip, whatever that may be. And so they know their audience. They do the food incredibly well. They do the wine amazing. They do a transfusion. If you don't know what a transfusion is, just look it up. It's a— it's like the golfer's drink. It's a Anyway, whatever. So they know their audience, how to, how to do it from the, from the way that they stock their, the, the, the turns. And made me think, how well do I know my audience? How well do I know my clients? I mean, I kind of know it generally, but am I able to then do things to cater directly to them, to give them exactly what they want, or am I just giving them, giving what I want versus what it is they want. Does that make sense? Okay, they know their audience so well, and they do everything they can from the transports, the transportation from the airports that you're coming into. It's not a 4-person car, it's for 12 to 16 people. That's how— that's what it's built for. And you might say, well, it's pretty obvious, Bradley, it's a golf course, there's a golf course resort. Yeah, but they do so many other things to exceed expectations, but they also know their audience. It made me think about, again, for me, how well do I know my customer? All right, number 3 is a story. So there's a guy on the trip, I won't use his name. He is the CEO of a very large division of a very, very large company. I'm just going to say a Fortune 500, uh, company. And he's the CEO of one of the divisions, which, let me just tell you, is a very big division. And I had not gotten to meet him yet. He's a member of the club that I'm a member of. And I just— I got to play with him on the last day. We played the par 3 course and we got to play together on the last day. What an amazing guy. He is not from the United States, um, he is from a European country, and, uh, I think he's been in this position for 5 or 6 years, something like that. And so the last day on Sunday— Saturday we got to play together, and you end up having, you know, some banter, but you're talking golf things and you're trying to hit shots or whatever. But on Sunday, we got to ride together, and so we really spent the entire day, uh, traveling. And we had some, you know, uh, difficult travel experiences, we'll say, to say the least. But we had an opportunity to spend a couple hours in a, in a car together on the way to the airport. And then we get to the airport, we're able to have breakfast together, and we were then able to have a beer, um, in inside the airport. And so anyway, we got several hours together, uh, to really get to know each other. The reason I'm saying this is because in all of the opportunities he's been given, he said to me, you know, I probably was given— so he had a mentor, um, that, that kind of took him under his wing and he busted his tail. And he said, you know, I really was probably given some opportunities before I was really ready for them, but I had a mentor that really believed in me. But at the same time, I really worked my tail off. And so this is a little bit of This is like lesson 3A, so to speak. Where can you be a mentor for somebody that on your team that you have to where maybe they're not exactly ready for it, but you see the work ethic in them that then ultimately with that they could then take that and be able to continue to grow in your organization because you poured in and believed into them. Okay, that's number one. That's like point 3A. Okay, point 3B. He was— I was sharing with him like, well, what was that like coming into this organization? And he said, you know, there was a lot of, a lot of strategy that needed to change. I mean, that we were using some old technology and it was really kind of a cash cow for the business, but we really needed to modernize things. And because of that, we needed to change the strategy. We needed to change direction. On pretty much everything. And that's not the point. The point was he then needed to change the people. And that was the part that absolutely really resonated with me the most as I heard him talk. And I was sitting there thinking about all of you. He made the difficult choices. The person before him didn't. Now, they didn't have the expectations, they didn't have the vision, they didn't have the, the strategy. But he knew that he had to match the strategy with the people. And he was— had to make some really difficult decisions, decisions that ultimately meant people had to lose their job. People that had been in positions, I think, you know, 15, 20, 25 years had been in this position working for this company, but they were not going to be the ones that were going to take the organization to where ultimately it is today. And I'm not going to try to recall or speculate exactly what the growth of that division has been in the 5 or 6 years since he's been in this position. But it has been phenomenal. It has been— we're talking hundreds of millions of dollars of value, maybe more. But I don't want to overstate that just for making a dramatic point here, but more to say that the strategy alone needed to be matched with A players. And he was willing to go out and make the difficult decision and say, these people are great. And he made such a good point to say, these are wonderful people. I see them still at the club. I see them in town at different places. But they were not the right people in this position for where we were going to go. And it took him coming from the outside, not necessarily from a foreign country per se, but literally somebody new coming in with a fresh perspective. So what— okay, great, Bradley, what is the point? I think the point is really twofold. This is like 3B and maybe 3C. The point is, is you— it's another reminder of the importance of having A players on your team. You can have the best strategy in the world, but if it's not matched with the people that can execute it, the business is just not going to grow. And it's not going to— it may grow incrementally, but it's not going to scale. If you want to really want to scale, the two have got to match. You got to have the right strategy. You have the right people. He talks so eloquently about how he pours into his people and how they are absolutely phenomenal at what they do. And he sets them up for success and they gets out of the way. And he holds them to a really high standard, but they're really smart at what they do. And I think then the last part is he was just willing to make— he was willing to make the tough call. He was willing to make the tough call. And so that means if you could think about if someone else stepped into your role as the CEO of your business, what would they say? Maybe that's a great thinking time exercise for you is to say, what would somebody else tell me? My guess is you're smart. You are smart. You know what they would say. Well, write that down. If you were coaching you, what would you say? If somebody else came in, and I'm not going to say me, but let's just say somebody else comes in, David Peterson, Alex, who are incredible business owners, they came in and they said, step out of the seat of CEO, I'm going to sit in this seat for the next week. You probably know what they would say. We don't have an operating system. We have no documentation of our systems and processes inside of playbooks. The talent on this team is just not up to par. You're not holding the team accountable. It's unclear the vision that you have the company. Where is this company going? What are you trying to do in the business? What is the game plan? None of that is in place. We don't have a scoreboard. What— how are you allocating your time? I mean, you know what they would say. And I'm not saying it would be all those. I'm saying that it would be maybe some combination of that depending on where it is. So consider maybe doing a thinking time exercise or maybe even— I've heard this before. Maybe even consider having one of your trusted friends to come in and say, you know, depending if they're in the same industry, if it's, say, it's insurance, and, and say they're— you're close enough and say, will you sit in my seat for the next week? Will you, will you run my business for the next week? And I'll go run your business for the next week. And let's, let's come back together. I've heard of that CEO swapping thing to where they, they do that. Maybe that's a good thing to do. But if If that freaks you out, at least be willing to step out, go to Starbucks and do a thinking time exercise and say, what would someone else say if they stepped into my organization? And I think if we can get out of our head with that, we can at least begin to see it from a different perspective and maybe see a little clearly. So those are some of the lessons and things I picked up. I loved getting to know and, and see some of my old friends I hadn't played with, some guys I played college golf with. I hadn't seen them in a long time, and so it was great to reconnect with them. I mean, certainly, uh, I will share with all of you, whether your thing is tennis or golf or fishing or just vacationing and sitting on the beach, it doesn't matter. Whatever your thing is, the value of getting away and completely disconnecting from the business is— it's, it's hard to, uh, really be able to even verbalize that. The clarity that you'll come back with— yes, I'm a little, uh, tired, jet-lagged, even today on a Tuesday from just being gone, um, and, and not getting it, catching up on my sleep. But the clarity that I have of just being able to not think about the business— I didn't think about the business when I was playing golf. I was trying to shoot a score, trying to win money off my buddies, uh, And just that was, was so refreshing. And then on the flight back, I started to do, do some work. And, you know, just for many of you, I know you've been on some flights and the clarity that you have whenever you're able to not have Wi-Fi on the flight back and, you know, the reading I was able to do and some of the things, even frameworks, I even one of the frameworks I created on the flight. I mean, that's invaluable time. And so I've heard Michael Hyatt say that sometimes he's, he's jumped on a flight just to be able to have time. To get away. I don't think you necessarily have to go to that extreme, but certainly being able to get out of your office to be able to do some thinking time, I think, is critical. So hope this served you, and there's a little bit of my story around Bandon Dunes. All right, everyone, till next time, lead well.