Elite Producers Share Their Biggest Lessons At The Northwoods Retreat

When you get in situations like this and you hear other people's stories and things that we're dealing with or struggling with, you realize, oh, I'm not the only one that's got something going on. There's. There's another brother over here that's dealing with something that you can relate with. You just find most people don't want to talk about real things in day to day life.

We're up here in the northwoods of Minnesota. I am joined by a whole slew of people here. We've got Chris Hamilton, 2025 Broker of the year, Jake Rushton, Justin Burgess, Michael Krupa, Colton Storla and Kyle Depi S. Welcome gentlemen. This might be just an episode about nothing. Brought you guys up to the Northwoods to do a little get you guys away from the noise of business and so we can work on. On everything going on. Anybody want to chime? Chris, how about you kick us off? What has been your experience so so far up here in the Northwoods?

It's been tiring. Kyle had us going all day doing some pretty extreme physical activity.

Why don't you talk a little bit about what we've done so far today?

Well, we started the morning with a swim across the lake. I am not a swimmer. I'm more of like a rock, I think. But I'm thankful that I stayed with it and I made it across. So I'm proud about that. That's probably my most proud achievement of today was making the swim across this beautiful lake.

Jake, how about you, man? I know we're trying to get this episode done as quickly as we can so you can get some ice cream.

Yeah, we need ice cream. That's the only thing would top it off. Experience been amazing. Yeah. Getting out, getting away from all the noise.

Lake is a little different than Salt lake, isn't it?

It's, yeah, it's a little less salty. It's good. I like it. No, it's been, it's been awesome to swim I think was a good start.

Justin, this is my second guys trip in the last 30 days. So it's definitely, it's a been doing.

A lot of stuff.

But doing hard things with people, high performing people. It's definitely an experience that you, you treasure.

I'll say for me guys, it's been, it's been fun having you guys. I know we don't. We, we're up here what barely two days. I actually was been really surprised how today went. I was a little nervous like, okay, is this agenda going to Work. Is it going to go well? But that workout kind of kicked our.

Ass a little bit.

You're surprised in what way?

I just didn't know how it would go. Like swim scared me a little bit. I won't lie. I'm like, oh, crap. Are some people going to freak out here? But Mike Krupa, talk about a little bit about you actually went on an extra little adventure on your own to go chop some. Chop a tree down. How'd that go?

I did, you know, spent a good time. I agree with Chris. I'm pretty wiped out, guys. I don't know about you almost threw up. But yeah, I think the highlight for me was chopping wood.

Almost chopping a.

Getting about a third of the way through that pine tree down there.

It's just looking you.

Is the goal to get it down before you leave?

Not gonna happen.

Kyle doesn't want to drop it, so I think it's gonna probably stay as is.

Yeah.

Colton, for you, man. You're. You're the, you're by far the youngest gentleman in this crew right now. How was that was the workout for you today?

Honestly, until Chris said something about swimming. We did so many other grilling thing I forgot about this one. But this one did suck. Finish it because I am also like a rock.

But hey, hey. What do we end up doing, a third of a mile?

Yep.

Oh, I think the trick is half a mile.

You guys swam like this.

That's like three quarters.

That might actually be a mile.

Yeah.

People watching this. Can't see across the lake right now, but it is a good distance across the lake there. Kyle, how about you, man? You're the only non insurance guy here. Yeah, but you put these kind of trips on all the time. What, what's been in your experience with a new crew, a new cast of gentlemen here.

I think it's fun to, to design a series of challenges because you just never know like who's going to excel at one thing and then that person's really gonna struggle somewhere else where someone else excels. And I think it's cool to design. Like you gotta do some things on your own, but then you gotta do some things in partner workouts. And so for me, it's really fun to watch people like in partner workouts and encourage each other.

Well, one of the reasons I wanted to do this is I don't know how you guys feel, but you know, we're so used to going to industry conferences where it's long days, a fire hose of information, late dinners, lots of Alcohol and I kinda wanted to be the anti conference. This is a small retreat like style event. I would love if anybody, whoever wants to chime in your experience so far, like a reflection on like getting yourself out of the noise. Has anybody had any good reflections on, you know, since you've been here? And again, I know we haven't been here all that long, but just some reflections on your time here so far. Anybody can chime in.

Yeah, I need to, need to make some more time for my wife.

It's a great reflection. Has nothing to do with business either, does it?

We're not alone. Yeah, we're not alone. Oftentimes, you know people that are in certain positions in their career or in life, you don't have other people in your immediate day to day that you can go to and just be real with. And when you get in situations like this and you hear other people's stories and things that we're dealing with or struggling with, you realize, oh, I'm not the only one that's got something going on. There's, there's another brother over here that's dealing with something that you can relate with. And you just find most people don't want to talk about real things in day to day life. You pass people. Hey Kyle, how's it going?

Oh, it's going great.

And how are you?

Oh, things are good, right? It's just real surface level. But to get people to have real conversations and be in that environment is really cool. Yeah, but just those conversations about, hey, what are you seeing, who are you working with, how does it work? And it's not very often you're going to run into somebody who is like you said, Kyle technically is a competitor. But really just to pull the veil up and say, this is what I'm doing. What are you doing? How does it work?

And I think it's cool how we've all built friendships like online. This is the first time a lot of us have met in person but didn't feel like we. I feel like we knew each other. It wasn't like we were just meeting, which I think is just a cool way to, to kind of make it all real.

We do too, right? It's like we want our prospects to know us. We come to this thing and we.

All follow each other, know each other.

It's kind of cool.

I think there's been a lot of epiphanies for people here. You even said it earlier. You know, you're here with Chris Broker of the year and you're like hey, he deals with this too, Right. I think that's good for everybody to see that, because I think in this industry, we do put up this veil of I've got to appear perfect so that people. So that I can have credibility. And I think we've arrived at a day and age.

It's.

It's the exact opposite.

Well, we talk about the case studies and the wins, but you don't talk about the losses or the. The groups that you lost out on. You talk about the. How we save this employer a lot of money, and everyone here has lost the group.

What would you guys say? I'm curious. You know, going back to the stuff we did this morning, we did everything from, what, swimming to chopping wood. Wheelbarrow race, hauling weights. I was saying hauling oats. Hauling what?

Limbs.

Limbs from trees. Were any of those, like, harder than you guys thought they would be or anything? I was like, dang. I didn't think this would beat me up as much as it did.

The swim was by far the hardest thing for me, and the only reason I made it, I'm to be honest here, is because of Jake. Jake did the first leg across.

Yep.

And he was gracious enough to swim back. You literally were my swim Sherpa.

First answer. But you.

So I dissed you at the end, and I just wanted to do it. I wanted you to put some energy into the.

Yeah, yeah. But I've never swung in an open water setting, and I didn't know where I was going. I was like, where am I? There's no lane to follow. I don't know where I'm going. But Jake was my guide, and I was like, oh, I see him kicking. I know where I'm going. And then he stopped and let me catch up. And then he would go further again. And I think that's just a good metaphor for life, that sometimes you need another person there to walk with you or carry you when you can't go yourself.

Yeah, Colton. Colton was. He was pulling that wheelbarrow for me while I was pushing.

Well, that's a great point, though, because I think what we're trying to say is there was a moment, probably for all of us, where we got a little outside our comfort zone. So maybe we do take it to business for one second. Think about that a little outside your comfort zone. Every one of you are selling something that's probably a little outside the comfort zone for the people you're trying to do business with. Where do you feel like buyers in this industry? So employers have to make better mindset shifts so that we can create a better result in this industry. Because I think a lot of times we as an industry want to blame the health care system, we want to blame the health insurance carriers. But let's be honest, employers are to blame too, because they're not making much in the way of decisions. So where do you think employers need to make some mindset shifts if we're going to fix this thing called health care?

I think the biggest thing I've learned from Chris actually is separating health care from health insurance are two different things and employers just like lump them together. And I think that's the first step is like, and I even phrase it that way, I'm like, I help actually help you fund the health care your employees are buying. Right. They're going to buy it no matter what. And it just frames it in a different way than, hey, I sell health insurance. Like, that's just, yeah, better way to start.

You know, where I feel like we have a long way to go because I get to observe it now through you guys. And there's two comments that have been made to me in the last day and a half that I'm like, it just, it's frustrating you with the client that you've been going back and forth with and the CEO, I believe, saying, I just got to make my HR director happy, even though it's the wrong decision in his world right now is, I just got to make the HR director happy. And then you having that HR director say, we are not happy with our broker, we don't like our broker, but we're not going to do anything until 2027. It's shit like that. I'm like, how do you allow yourself to sit in that mediocrity when you're dealing with something that is has as many zeros in the budget as it.

Does, I guess in my mind, because, you know, I have to make decisions on what my priorities are that either tells me one or two things. Either they really do have bigger issues that they're trying to solve that are really more important, or they don't understand the importance of dealing with this specific issue. It's one or two. And either I'm not doing a good job helping them understand that, or really, in fact, they've got bigger things to deal with, which that's okay too.

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Take the next step today. Visit trucaptive.com and discover a smarter way to manage healthcare that is truecaptive.com what is one thing? So now that you've been here and we did a day of working out together, what is one thing you've learned about someone else here through the workouts or whatever that you may have not known two days ago or something that impressed you or whatever? I'd love to know.

I thought I was in shape, but then looking at half the room here, I'm like, man, Andy shredded. Chris is jacked. Cole Colton's jacked. I mean, and Jake.

It'S that ice cream. I gotta get it done. You know, everyone is. This is a crazy group of fit people.

It is pretty.

I mean, was that part of a.

Breath of fresh air though, too?

Like, I would feel like if we were to do this again, like with the heads up, I think people would.

Probably get in the gym.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You got, you got 30 days to get ready for this.

Yeah, I think three weeks ago and.

I haven't worked out in three weeks. That was a mistake.

You'd see like rocky stuff, workouts. Ready for this? Like what? That's another good question. Because again, I want this to be more on like health and stuff, not just business, but like if you have like one go to little health hack or health thing you go to that has led to or helped you with your overall vitality, what would it be?

Sleep.

Okay.

Because I struggled with sleep and that's. I don't remember who I was talking to this morning about. Maybe it was you, Justin. That the one, the one thing actually, it was you, Colton. Because I was talking about, you know, people getting up early to go work out, but they go to bed late and they're like, oh, but I got to get the workout in to be healthy. What I have found the number one thing to feel well and perform well and just have a good mental state of mind is sleep and knowing the difference. When you dial your sleep in and you feel well, everything else is better.

I think getting your blood work checked as a male, we don't talk about it enough. And your PCP is not going to do the stuff that you really need to do. And all of us have talked about getting our testosterone checked and doing it on our own and paying cash for it. And, you know, the insurance system is not designed to get men's hormones optimized. They're trying to do the opposite. And those doctors don't understand men's age and hormone levels. So I think that's my biggest hack, is just get your stuff checked and use these tools that will say, okay, you're deficient in these, so you should take these supplements. So that was you, Jay.

I think just consistency. I think all of us are pretty good at just always showing up and having some sort of rhythm and habits that are good for us. And I think that's. You don't necessarily always have to have a goal or some extreme diet or something crazy. You can just keep getting better every day and forming habits, and eventually you become what you want. But if you set that expectation, you don't reach it and you fail and you give up, like, that's the struggle I think most people have. But I don't feel that here with this group at all. It's like, we figured it out.

It's kind of the secret hack to anything, I think, is consistency.

Right.

What would you say having brand awareness has done for you? Whether it be your business, personal, you name it, Chris, you've done it. You've been doing it consistently for three years now. What has it done for you?

I think it's actually helped me grow the business.

Whether directly creating lead opportunities, but most importantly, when you actually meet with people, they're able to review your body of work and get a sense of who you are. You only get a certain amount of time with somebody sitting in an office face to face. But if they have the ability to go through and see other content that you've created, it helps them get a better sense of who you are and what you're about.

I'd say opportunity. I mean, it just opens doors you didn't know existed. I wouldn't be here if I hadn't made content. If you hadn't made content, like, I wouldn't know nothing about you. That's how we Utah. I wouldn't have known, Chris. I wouldn't know. It just wouldn't have happened.

Right.

And so I think that is why you got to do it, because no one will know and you'll never make those connections. But how awesome this has been that everyone's been on board with making content. I mean, to get seven guys together and like, we're gonna make a bunch of videos. It's pretty rare, by the way.

We're here just to create content.

It's just rare. And it's just awesome that everyone's on board with it. And I think it just leads to good things.

How about you, man?

I think it's funny how, like, early on I was scared to do public speaking or even do open enrollment meetings. And I remember my first open enrollment meeting. It's like, that was terrible. But at the. When you translate that to content, if you look at our. All of our first videos, they were terrible. And just you, you learn as you grow. And you're like, okay, this is what. This is my style. And we all have different styles. Like, I love Mike style. Chris has got a unique style. Jake's got. We all have a unique style. And that anybody can replicate it, they're gonna have to find their own thing.

Yeah.

That makes them unique.

So let's go around for somebody listening in, because, you know, my audience, probably a lot of people in our industry, caught in the noise, caught from going to one conference, the other, busy, busy, busy, running from here to there. What would be your advice to that person who is in that. That part of their life who doesn't get a chance to do this and isn't breaking away or taking time for them? What would be your advice to them, Chris?

I would ask them to take an inventory of what actually provides value to their business, to their life. Because oftentimes we find ourselves following people to things that don't add value. It's, oh, we're, John's going to this conference. I should go to that. And it's like, well, you should think before you commit to something. Does this meet my objectives? And for me, I have it written on my whiteboard in my office. These are the three things I'm focused on. Does it fit one of these three things? And if it doesn't, I'm going to delegate it to somebody else. And if it's not worth delegating, I'm going to delete it. And so when somebody asks me to come to a conference, does it fit one of these key objectives? No. And so I think if all of us took a more discerning view of the things that we do, whether it's attending conferences, going to a happy hour, going on a trip.

Does this fit what I'm trying to accomplish? Yes or no? Then move on. Make a decision to move on.

That's great, Jake.

I'd say two things. Number one, like personal, brand, has got to be a focus. And I see too many people in our industry get stuck hiding behind the firm name or whatever kind of situation they're in. And I think that's.

Limits their future because they feel so tied into that. And at the end of the day, a client saying yes is to them. And personal brand is something that will open up so much more opportunity for them to continue. And then just patience, like, you can't. It's not gonna be overnight. You don't need to copy anybody. It's not like it's gonna be a result tomorrow, but it will eventually start to bring things and results that you didn't know are available. And so personal brand of patience are the two things.

I would say reach out to brokers that you resonate with and be humble and open just to like, say, like, hey, man, I really like your content. Like, would you be open to chat? And obviously not everybody can do that, but if you do it in a respectful way. There's a couple brokers that I've just reached out to randomly and we've kind of built up a friendship where I can just call or text them. And I think that's. I'm like Chris Wampart out in Seattle. I'm not going out to Seattle for any groups, but we've kind of built a little small relationship over the last couple weeks. And we did a podcast together. We had a conversation.

He.

He made a good comment. He's like, every time I go to a conference, I meet three new people and learn three new things. That's my goal. Every and. And take every single conference. You do that same approach.

And you got me onto a book. Atomic habits, I think it was.

You.

Start small and start manageable, but just freaking start, you know, start doing stack small wins, start stacking it. And you would be so surprised what happens in 30 days if you start stacking stuff.

I hope you guys have had your. I hope you guys have enjoyed your time.

We have a group workout in the morning. Right. I know you're jacked because it's got influencer lights in the gym, but anyways, thank you guys for being a part of this and everybody else who's tuning in, thank you. Get out of the noise. Break away. This is. Yeah, Kyle, thanks for the hospitality, my friend. You good? That's all we got for this episode of the accelerate your insurance sales podcast. One of the most valuable things you can do to help us and other new potential listeners find our show is for you to rate the show and leave a review so as a special bonus for you, if you leave us a review, take a screenshot of your review and send it to me as a DM to my LinkedIn profile. I will send you a free copy of our LinkedIn Diamond Playbook, our proven four step strategy to grow your business on LinkedIn. So go right now, leave us a review, screenshot it, and send me a DM on LinkedIn. Also, please share this podcast with anyone you think would enjoy it. That's it for now.