How To Put Your Personality Into Your Prospecting with Ross Conner

Hey. Hey. Welcome back to the Broker's Voice. I am excited today. I have Ross Connor joining me, partner with Hotchkiss Insurance in Fort Worth, Texas. Texas. If that name sounds familiar, it's because he is also teammates with the one, the only Chris Hamilton, which we have had on this show prior. So, Ross, welcome to the Broker's Voice, my friend.

Thanks. Good to be here, man.

Awesome. As you can see, he's a busy, busy advisor. He had to pull over in his car just to do this episode, so. So, Ross, the question I ask everybody before we get into details about the career is how the heck did you find yourself in the insurance industry?

It found me, and I was a general contractor for about 12 years. I was building stuff. I had a business background. I love tangibility and construction and seeing progress at the end of the day's work. But the mortgage crisis took all that from me because I made a lot of bets in the housing industry in 0809. That turned out to be very untimely. And so I started over completely, in every sense of the word with my wife and five, now six children. And so we. I literally would have shoveled horse manure if you told me I was going to pay my bills. So. Not that insurance is like shoveling manure, but it is. Some days, as we know, you're actually.

Kind of delivering a lot of manure.

You are. Yeah. Right. Yeah, it's a. It's a good point. So I. I literally. Matter of fact, it's. It's interesting. We're talking today. Yesterday, I was literally at the campfire in a buddy's backyard at a. In an event, and our agency execs were around for a random reason. I said, hey, guys, believe it or not, this is the exact campfire I was at 13 years ago, and I decided to call you guys and change careers. And so I've been at it about 13 years now and just.

All with Hotchkiss.

Yeah. So how did you. I was just curious. How did you get in touch? Or did Hotchkiss get in touch with you?

I had relationships, man, going back to college days. And they. When times got tough, I never, ever leaned into those relationships in business. I just was carving a path on my own, running a construction company. But when things got hard, you know, there you can have a whole podcast on the power of relationships. Right. And just regardless of what, you know, who you know, and it's that old adage, but it was so true at that point in my life. I called them up and I Just said, hey. And they insured me for a while on my property and casualty. We didn't have a benefits program at the time. Actually that's not true. We had 401k, but it, it all came crashing down. I called him, I said, I know what y' all did for me, but what do you really do? And they're like, why do you ask? I was like, because I'm getting out of this. And that conversation led to four more and within two months I was an employee. So.

Wow, that's awesome. Quick question that I probably didn't intend to ask, but I'm going to ask it anyways. You're 13 years in now, right? Looking back, sitting at that campfire 13 years ago, like knowing who you are today and who you were when you got in, is there any advice you would give your 13 year younger self getting into the business?

Yeah, I would.

I would tell that, I would tell that guy, trust the people that you decide to walk through life with and if they tell you to do something and you'll be successful, try with every bone in your body to do that thing. Because for me, Andy, it was so prescriptive back in the day. They literally said, if you do this, you will be successful. And I didn't know any different. And in those days, this was before I the Andy Neary's of the world. And I didn't know Andy Neri. And it was, it was, it was cold calling and dialing for dollars and, and it was a numbers game and it was slow slugging for three to four years. And, and, and I would tell that same guy the attitude of I can't afford to fail. And truly I couldn't back in the day. But if you have the I can't afford to fail attitude and just do with everything you have, what people tell you to do.

Will happen. And, but people, people get so frustrated nowadays I feel because the sighting is so short term and it's in, in. I always felt this, Andy, and it's true today if I plant those seeds, they're going to get sprouted and they're going to grow something. Like they can't, they can't not grow something. If I'm just consistently planting seeds and I still plant seeds, but I also harvest a lot, you know, in terms of the manage, in managing the relationships we have now.

Yeah, I love what you said there because I remember when I got in the industry, I was sold the dream. Right. It was 2002 and the part I didn't recognize at that point Is, oh, you actually have to work hard to get this. So I did not have that attitude of I can't not fail. But you, you talk about now this whole planting the seeds. Of course we have better technologies and tools today than you and I had 15, 16 years ago. But I, I, that's how I view this thing. I tell some of our clients, you know, we, I call it opportunistic chaos. If you're throwing enough out there, planting the seeds, whether it's using LinkedIn, emails, what, you almost can't not fail.

Yeah.

Like you're gonna create activity. Yeah. And I think that's so powerful other people to hear because as funny as you talk about how you were trained, Ross, most producers are still just doing that today.

Absolutely, absolutely. And I've always understood this too, and believe this. And this goes back to sports. I played college football. I know you played baseball as well. So we have plenty of lessons we've learned through sports. Right. But I always respected and was in awe of the people that had God given ability to, on, on, on the football field in this case, but also worked their tail off. And that was a rare combination. Right. And the NFL is even full of people that have a ton of raw talent, but they don't work that hard. And we had those people on our team, but there were some people on our team in the, in the early 90s. We won a championship in the Southwest Conference back in the day and there were some people on that team that were the backbone of the team and those people that worked their tail off and were naturally gifted. Now, natural talent alone ain't going to get you there. Working hard sometimes ain't gonna get you there. But when you can combine both, and I'm not saying you have to have talent, what I'm saying is talent can be developed in education. I certainly kind of developed that, I think in insurance, because I couldn't even, I couldn't even spell insurance. But I've always enjoyed the complexity of it in the, in the verbiage, in the, in the intellectual exercise. I just always have. So if I combine that with, with strong work ethic and yes, we can talk more about throwing in personality into the deal. I'm like, to me it was like a difference maker. I'm like, man, I can go sell insurance or I can really sell insurance if I can combine some of this ability with, with, with, with just dogged determination, man. I mean, and I think one without the other ain't going to get you there.

So, so I'm going To admit something. I. I've worked with you and I don't know if I knew you played college football. Where did you play?

I was at Texas A And M from 92 to 95, I think is when I was there.

How did I not know? Okay, we gotta go. Okay, tangent. Okay, what position?

You've met me, right? So I'm about. What?

You're a tall man. You're a tall guy.

You would never guess, but I was actually a place kicker.

Yes, folks, this is the first time in the history of the Broker's Voice or my other podcast, Bullpen sessions we have a college kicker on the show. This is freaking awesome, by the way. Was that the RC Slocum days?

RC Slocum days, yes. And the quick story to the whole thing is I had many, many concussions back in the day in high school playing contact football as a tight end of defensive end. I wanted to play D1 for some unknown reason. And I don't know to this day, I could always kick a football really, really, really far. So when I quit playing and the coaches and doctors made me quit playing contact in high school, it literally. Andy, when I look at the life turns in my life, not to over dramaticize it, the fact that I could no longer continue to play contact football, but I had this weird little skill and I decided to stay on the team in high school anyway, I wound up kicking two really long field goals in the Texas high school playoffs at Cow Field my senior year. And they sent me letters and it was all kind of downhill from there. I mean, uphill.

That is there.

So.

Okay.

Coaching.

Live coaching. You're getting live coaching right now. One, I'm. I'm embarrassed that I've worked with you and I didn't know that. Number two, I need to see. I want to see you talk about that like that. You have a. There's a very important life lesson in what you just said about being that kicker. You had a very special gift, a unique gift, and you decided to use it and hold, lo and behold, here you are kicking Division 1 in the Southwest Conference. If you were playing today, it would have been sec.

Yeah, that's. That's pretty cool.

That's. Yeah, it is, it is. But a lot of pain and frustration in the middle of that. Right. And before that happened, and it was always second best for me. I always want to be out there mixing it up, and I didn't want to be just a kicker. There's so much in there. But when I look back on that, Andy, and that One little change in high school, having to shift a major career. Played baseball, too. Had an opportunity to play in college, but it just that I wasn't as good as that, as I was at the other. So I had all these decisions to make. But through the football team and my connections, I met my wife. I mean, all these things happen for a reason. Right. And there's a whole different lesson we can talk about on that, but it's. Maybe it's perseverance and maybe it's just, you know what? I'm going to keep. I'm not. I'm going to keep plugging away. And, And I think that's probably the biggest lesson is, man. And, you know, I've talked a lot about being yourself, but I. A lot of that comes from a lot of. A lot of hard, hard lessons and redirection. A lot of redirection. Right. And that's why 100.

No, that's. And thank you for bringing back memories of the Southwest Conference days. That's, that's, that's a blast from the past right there. You said something else I do want to talk about quickly, though, from, from a sports standpoint. You know, fake it till you make it or getting by on, on talent alone. I saw that a lot in college baseball, where in high school. Right. Especially if you're, if you're, if you're, if you're maybe a smaller town, you can absolutely compete your way through high school on skill alone and not have to put a lot of effort in. Off the field, you're just that good. But once you get to college, especially D1, you played D1 football, I played D1 baseball. You can't get away with talent alone.

You will.

If you do not put in the work off the field, you will get passed up. And I saw a lot of, a lot of guys in division and in baseball that happened to them. They come from small towns where they're the proverbial hometown heroes. And now they come where there's a team full of hometown heroes. And some of those athletes phase out because they're unwilling to put that work in off the field. You probably saw that. Even major college football.

Totally. Totally.

And this is a good segue. Yeah, this is a good segue into what you're doing today with insurance. You know.

One thing I want to talk to you about is you said something that's so profound, putting your personality in your work.

And you and I, I'm going to make, you know, disclosure. I've worked with you and we had talked, you Know, we started working on how can we help you create a content game? And you shared a story with me that I want you to share with the audience because it was, I felt like it was a kind of an unlock for you where you used to write these funny articles at the agency even when you were newer to the agency there. So there, there was a risk of like who the hell is this guy? But talk about that. Where you were putting your personality into the internal content you are creating for your team. I thought that was really cool.

Yeah, so I got a lot of, a lot of the raised eyebrows. But I had been in the industry long and got going back. I mean I had always, even back to, you know, single digit years. I had always created these characters and, and done skits and I was just, always just part of who I was. My family used to love it and laugh these Christmas times and I thought it was just awesome. And I love making them laugh.

Right.

And so it's just kind of part of who I am. But when I went through financial difficulty and re. Re. Re figured everything and got some stability, I started seeing some stability. I was starting to have a little success. I was also aware of how, how boring and anti climatic the closing process was an insurance transaction, right? Two to three months of work and hard work with a team leads to just the signing of a page and a handshake and nobody really wanted to deal with insurance even the first place. But we got them to commit to change a relationship and it was either hard or easy, but either way they just signed a paper and I walked out the door. Yeah, I'm excited, right? But, and so I just had the thought, man, I'm going to liven this up. Like what if there's a superhero, right? And, and he has this. There's AC DC thunderstruck music, you know, blaring from the bathroom. And this lady come, you know, this guy comes out in the blue suit. I mean I hold the whole vision. And so I started saying, I started creating fictitious emails using real client names about how the transaction went down and using the people in the office. And I was giving them props. And it was just this crazy wild ass story about. And people didn't know if it was true or not, you know, and they're like. And so I just love that they were guessing. And then people started calling me going what, what is this? I don't understand. I'm like. And it really started with them. I said, listen, after I sell an account for the next 24 hours, I want you to call me Vanilla Thunder. Like, I'm not going to respond to anything else. And so, and so literally the next day they would go, hey, Ross, blah, blah, blah. And I just keep walking, right? And they're like, vanilla Thunder. And I'd be like, oh, yeah, can I help you? You know, and, and so I started doing this. And so the character became Vanilla Thunder. But it was a part of my personality and it helped me during a really rough time of life. And yes, there were people that really thought I was nuts and whatever, but I started. Finally, people said, you got to send this to the entire agency. And so I sent it to agency. The agency. And it became, it became fun. I really would stay up at night writing these emails in articles, cracking myself up when I'm like. And I got to the point, Andy. And maybe there's a lesson here, too. If it's important and funny to me, maybe I'm arrogant enough to think it's going to be funny to somebody else. Right? Or at least I'm not going to be embarrassed when I send this out.

I have to. It's funny you bring that up because I, you know, I write our weekly email newsletter that goes out, and last week I wrote one where I had, you know, more than usual people reply, being like, that was good. And I, I, it's funny because I remember writing that and I was actually laughing as I was writing it because it was talking about how I used to be bad with women. And when I got done writing and laughing to your point, you're like, if I think this is good, I think it's going to be really good to everybody.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah. Yeah.

Which, which is kind of the whole concept of you can't fake it. And I quit doing it for one reason, is there's a feel and an intuition I think you respond to when it was forced. You know, I, I just, I took a step back. I actually started selling a bunch of insurance and I got in a leadership position. So I didn't want to make it seem it was kind of great when nobody knew me. But then when they did, it was more of a, hey, who's this guy? And so I'm not, I'm not beyond doing it. People still call me that to this day. Day. There were several Christmas parties that I hosted and led for our agency wearing a ridiculous blue costume and a cape. And so we took it to the whole, we took it to a whole another level at one point. But I still have a catalog of those stories somewhere. I read them and Just make myself laugh. But I have a lot of foster and adopted kids as part of our story as well. And, and so that. That character had these. This crazy family of kids all over the world. He would die. I mean, it was just. There was a little bit of life. Life is art, right? Is reality stuff going on.

But, well, you can, you can better damn guarantee Ross. When I put this out on social media, the description is going to include, you will learn why Ross was called Vanilla Thunder.

So.

I love it. But I think there is also important lessons in this. This was just who you were.

And.

I look at, like my early career. I'm a, you know, I'm just a very energetic person, like when I speak and stuff. And I remember how many times early on I was told to stop being this person because in this business, if you want to win and be taken seriously, you got to look stoic and you've got to look the part. And I'm like, but I'm not being me.

And if you're going to tell me I can't be me to win business, I'm not interested in this gig. And I think that's what you have done so well, is.

Bled your personality into what you're doing. So people are getting to learn and know the real authentic Ross Connor. And I think that's so important. And I want, I want us to go to one more event. You talked about offline with me. It was a post you made recently. If people saw it.

Oh, I think we just lost Ross there on a camera.

I'll keep talking if, if we'll wait for Ross's camera to come back. Hopefully if you didn't see it, Ross posted.

A piece of content online.

And.

In the post, he was at a. A gala, a charitable gala for the insurance industry. And I'm still talking about you, Ross. You're good. I was. He was at a. You were at a charitable event. A gala for a charitable event for the insurance industry. And you were wearing this ridiculous suit.

Yeah.

And what you said to me offline was very profound. Talk about. Literally, let's go to that evening to the point where elevator door opens, Ross exits out of the elevator. Talk about what that was like because you were just being you wearing the wacky suit is who Ross Connor is. So talk about that evening.

Yeah, well.

It'S. There's definitely a you got to be comfortable in your own skin mentality. I think I've had. And I don't know. I. I've always. I don't know. It's.

It'S, it's it is a little bit hard to talk about but without self promotion I've always been wired a certain way I felt if I could do business in the way that I'm wired it's going to appeal to a lot of people but it's not going to appeal to everyone but the people that it appeals to. Eventually my book of business and those relationships and business I walk through life with are going to be fully aware of who I am fully approving of who I am and have a good time doing it. I mean and if they didn't if those three things weren't happening I really don't want to do business with them anyway but but you know video content and I'll talk about that night but a lot of that when they do see me right or I get it's there's not a lot of mystery it's like hey you know you can hear my voice on the phone perhaps.