The Operating System That Freed Gibson's CEO to Build His 2033 Vision

Being a Midwesterner and Midwest work ethic and all that, I valued myself based on my productivity, what was my output. And so over these last three or four or five years, I've had more fun than I've ever had by doing less and actually helping my company more.

Hey. Hey. Welcome back to the accelerate your insurance sales podcast. Andy Neary here, CEO and founder, Complete Game Consulting. I'm excited for this episode. This is going to be an honor. This is a gentleman I've respected for quite some time. I think I've known for two, three years.

Right.

And just admire what you are doing and he and you're doing not only with Gibson, but just in the industry in general. Tim Lehman, welcome to the podcast.

Hey Andy, thanks for having me and I don't need to blow sunshine towards you because you've already invited me on, but I did want to start out with just saying one, I think we have just such a great business that we're in and, and two, I think it's the maybe the last great best sales job, you know, being an insurance producer in America. And so I love what you and some others are doing to help help continue to grow producers out there. So, so thanks for having me on.

Well, and Tim, it's actually a great jumping off spot because you know my background, I've sold all kinds of insurance, but the latter half was primarily employee benefits. And when I go out and speak to other employee benefit advisors, I tell them, do you understand how important your job is?

Right.

It can keep a door, businesses doors open. It can be the difference between somebody getting the care they need or not and help somebody avoid bankruptcy. What we do is extremely important and I one about one of my goals is try to get more producers to understand how important this job is.

Andy, when I was at Willis in the late 90s, early 2000s, our CEO, we were at some big event and he said, kind of making the same point you did and said how important insurance is. And he said insurance is the DNA of capitalism. I was like, yeah, I didn't really understand what he was talking about. But later it really over the years I got it. There's no piece of commerce that happens without insurance guaranteeing all the deals. And we're not on the front pages and we don't want to be on the front pages. That's how you know it's working well. But it really is such a great industry and I love working with young people and we recruit a ton out of insurance colleges too. And when I talk to these students it always gives me a lot of energy, but I'm like, you have no idea the opportunity that's ahead of you out there. So. Yeah. And it takes a lot of this, though, like people like you and others, though, just helping refine skills and, you know, sharpening the sword and all that.

Well, let's. Let's go back to the Tim that got into the business, because most of us did not get in it by design. Did you find the industry or did you. Did it find you like it did me?

Well, My old man's 83, and he's still selling life insurance in Fort Wayne, Indiana. And if we called him right now, he'd probably tell some story of jamming some table J down an underwriter's throat and getting D level rates instead of the table J rates. Anyway, so it was absolutely something I didn't want to do, you know, and he's a great guy, and he kind of considers it a ministry, really. But I ended up at Indiana State University in Terre Haute. Had an academic scholarship there, and they had an insurance program, and my dad kind of worked behind the scenes with the chairperson to keep. Keep calling on me. And so I agreed to take some classes, and one of my first. Well, the summer after my freshman year. And, you know, all Those years ago, 30 years ago, it wasn't common to do internships that early. And I got to work at an insurance carrier in Indianapolis and make, like, I don't know, 14 bucks an hour. And all my friends were mowing lawns and painting houses, and I'm like, this isn't such a bad deal, you know? And then the second big thing in college that happened, being a risk management major. So I got involved with it is REMS does this thing every year where they take about a dozen insurance kids from around the country and invite them to the big national rems conference. And that's Fortune 500 risk managers. And of course, all the Marshes and Aeons and Gallaghers and so on are having hospitality suites. So I got to have dinner with Pat Gallagher, you know, and he. I think he was in his late 30s, maybe still early 40s, and the Marsh leadership and so on. And so then that was my second point of. Wait a second. This broker job, that's where it. That's where it's at. Have cocktails, go to hospitality suites, sell stuff, make commissions like that. That's what I want to do.

Lifestyle business, right? That's what we all sell. The dream. Well, you started your career with a lot of the bigger firms. Some of the biggest out there. Right. Willis and Aon. And I believe it had even included a transition down to Arizona.

Right.

What was that experience like? Because you ultimately ended up at an independent firm, Gibson. What led to that transition? Where I'm, I, I. All I know in the industry is working for the big, big dogs. But now I'm going to make a transition to the inde. You know, the smaller independent type firm. What led to that transition?

Well, Andy, I've. I've. As a producer, I've built a book in three different markets. And I wouldn't advise that. It's actually not great career advice. You know, you can stay in a market and build those relationships over time. It helps a ton of. When I was at Aon in Indianapolis, right out of school, had such a great experience with the people there. They really took me under their wing. But I just felt like there was something more and bigger out there. And so thanks to a great mentor, helped me get connected, lined me up with a great opportunity in Atlanta, Denver and Phoenix. And we just took the Willis opportunity in Phoenix. It was the best one. And in those six years there at Willis, it was an incredible experience. I think I was still like 24 when I landed out there. And within a couple of years, my boss got promoted and so I was running the benefits practice there in the Southwest. And that was arguably, probably their best North American retail office at the time. And I got promoted to run the whole benefits practice. Like 26 years old. Willis went from this stuffy British company to having a leverage buyout and then an IPO with a guy that was straight out of the Soprano Central casting as our CEO, guy named Joe Plumieri, which is just a riot. And then about six years into that, I was getting frustrated and started realizing early on I was just a lot more entrepreneurial and wanted to do my own thing. So in my mind, you know, all the things I've learned, I'm so grateful for. But I was positioning to start my own shop out in Phoenix. And I knew a guy named Dave Gibson. Over the years, he built this great, know, family agency. And he called me on probably the perfect day. I was on one of those, you know, public company, all managers call in and, you know, just not having any fun. And he just randomly called me out of the blue and he's like, tim, you got to move back to Indiana. I sold to my senior partners. They're going to screw this up. They don't have a succession plan. They don't have perpetuation figured out. And, you know, they need a president, and also they're not any good in employee benefits, you know, something to that effect. He's probably a little kinder than that, but not much. And I'm like, Dave, people leave Indiana and move to Arizona, you know, not the other way around. And Andy, I know what you, you know what that's like going out to the Mountain west and returning back home. But my wife overheard all of that and she let me know that we were missing our family a lot, which was news to me. Um, but that, that, that meant that the opportunity I was looking for was going to be back there. And I'm glad she did too. It turned out to be a great thing. It was super difficult at first, though. You know, out at Willis in Phoenix, we did all of Jerry Colangelo's business. So he and his family owned the, the Suns and the hockey team at the time, and the Diamondbacks. And, you know, in our 20s, we went to every single, single concert, I think, that came through America west arena at the World Series games. Doing great stuff, the amenities. And so then to go back to small town northern Indiana was really, really difficult. And Gibson was a, was a great company, just tremendous reputation for integrity and doing things the right way. But Andy, we were still operating like a family business, so it was. We would make decisions that were centered around one family at the expense of the other. 99. That's probably the biggest thing that we had to change during that timeframe. I almost didn't make it. I watched Jerry Maguire one too many times and thought it was a great idea to send a letter to my fellow partners. Year and a half into it, they let me become the fastest partner in, I think I was there 13 months and I got to join the partner group and buy into the company. Bought 10% of the company at the time, and I just was sharing all the things I thought we could improve upon. And it was like dropping this bomb. And I don't know why I thought it would be different than that, but it was. And kind of spun us into crisis for a while. But with that, though, in this last 20 years, being there has just been some of the greatest years of my life. And also it was so important family wise too. I, I was concerned about the person I was becoming out in Phoenix too. You know, literally kind of working 70 or 80 hours a week. I had an extra 30 or 40 pounds to show for it. I was making a lot of money, more money than I ever thought I would. But I, I got to this point and I was Like I'm going to be that, that person who wakes up and their, you know, wife and kids moved on for, you know, no good reason really, other than just like neglect and all that. And so coming back to Indiana, being at a different pace and all that, and I was still me and hard charging, but turned out to be anyway, a great thing for, for me and my family and I. And I think Gibson too.

Yeah, it's. I'd love your thoughts because we made the move to Colorado in 2014 and I wouldn't even be here sitting on a podcast as an owner of a separate business if I had not made that move. It, it completely changed the person I was. And to your point, I hadn't thought about it until you said it. You know, the, the Colorado work culture is very different than here. I, I laugh, I tell people out there, everybody loves to call themselves an entrepreneur here. They say, no, I'm a business owner. How did that shape you, though? When you look at where you are today, do you think your career would look similar had you not made that move to Arizona and you stayed selling insurance in Indiana your whole career?

I can't even think about what it would be because I needed those years out there. Same here. And again, that Phoenix shop was this smash mouth sales culture. And I'd done pretty well right out of college. First two years at Aon in Indianapolis, I mean, I was at the top of the leaderboard in sales. And I got out there and I literally thought I was going to get fired. I called my wife up, she hadn't moved yet. And I'm like, I'm not going to make it. And she said, well, should I still move out? And I'm like, oh yeah, these guys are idiots. They're paying us a lot of money. It wasn't a lot of money, but it seemed like a lot. And we're going to live in a vacation city for a year and we don't have to tell my friends that I didn't cut it, but I don't know if I can do it. But I needed that to know, to kind of break that ceiling. That those self imposed limits I think that are so easy to put in place, that there is a higher standard of excellence and there is more achievement, you can do more. And I was just around some world class salespeople. I also began to realize that there is a toxic culture that's often associated with a lot of that too and how people were treated. And believe me, I'm a sales jockey at my core. We don't get much done without salespeople. But there's a difference between being sales centric, growth centric, being producer centric, or led by producers even. I learned a lot of formative lessons and I kind of had kept that scratch pad. Geez, if I was ever in charge, if I could ever do it my way, I want to do it differently. And so that paved the way to be able to get going immediately in Indiana. And you're a baseball guy. And in some ways, I left a major league city to go to a minor league city. I'd seen the movie before, so it was easy early on from a tactical and strategic standpoint, not a culture standpoint, but a strategic standpoint to get the engine running fast. And we did that. But then I had to learn to find that happy medium where I was probably always out in front of Gibson and most of our company and our people, but to find that space right in between where I was pulling them along to think bigger. But I was also staying a little more present and. And keeping. Keeping an eye on all the things that matter.

Yeah, it's. I made a post about that a few days ago with the. You know, I think we often just reward performance in this industry.

Yeah.

At the expense of that high performing sales rep might also be toxic to the culture. And I actually got some pushback on. It was interesting because I think people thought I was promoting performance. Doesn't matter. Just have everybody get along. Which I said, no, no, that's not the point. I love competition. I love. Hey, we're gonna have a rough conversation today. It's like a rugby match, but at the end of the day, we're gonna have a beer together.

Absolutely. You know, Andy, it's. It's about abundance, too. It's like, it doesn't have to be this zero sum game all the time on that, but. But it is true, though, too. You know, one of my early mentors out there in Phoenix, he used to say he's like, timothy, salespeople are like these prized thoroughbred racehorses. And this one wants its oats warmed, and this one wants its oats warmed and soaked in water. This one wants its hair brushed from left to right, and that one from right to left. But people don't go to the racetrack to see the owner of the track. They go to watch the horses run. So don't ever forget that. But there's a way to do that. Right? And I mean, again, I love producers. I'm a producer at my core. But some of the same skill sets that Makes these producers just indomitable in this resilience that they have this amazing ability to get rejected constantly and keep going. And this need to conquer, which is great. If it's not applied correctly, then it's trampling over staff and team and some of that. And there are certainly some not, you know, there's some bad actors out there. But I think a lot of times, I think a lot of producers don't. Don't even fully understand the wake that they create behind them, because most of the time, those skill sets are amazing talents that help them get where they're at in life. But. But that's one of the things we've worked on really hard. And I have appreciated over the years. I didn't early on, but there's just no level or amount of productivity that can outweigh the a. You know, a toxic performer like that. And the. The. What they destroy over time is you can never make it back up. And. And you don't even see it. You don't even know it until they're gone. And then all the stories creep out and you're like, it's always worse than you think it is. You know, I've found that when you think there's somebody that probably needs to move on, it's. It's usually even worse than you think it is.

Yeah, that's.

That's well said.

I'd be curious because I, you know, you talk about being at the helm of Gibson. I think when you took the helm at Gibson, if I. If my research is correct, was that right after the recession?

Yeah. So the reward for, you know, sending the Jerry Maguire letter out was we had this corporate consultant come in and interviewed all the partners, and I. I was anointed then, hey, you think there are all these problems, why don't you fix them? So. So I got put in the rotation.

Careful what you ask for. Right.

Carefully asked for. I bought a huge chunk of the company. You know, I was being an employee benefits person. You don't actually have to know how to read an income statement or a balance sheet. Right. And I was good at math. And I think you would appreciate this, Andy. I was a math lab tutor at Indiana State and tutored the baseball team my senior year. So I got math. I didn't get that. I bought in our fundamentals. We were in. We were. We were heading to a bad spot already. I convinced my wife, take everything we have, buy 10% of Gibson. I also should have asked how come 10% is available to buy to a guy who just got here 13 months ago. And it wasn't that anybody was hiding anything from me either. It was just we were in a spot, dealt with some toxic people, immediately pushed out a couple of our partners, which just made our perpetuation issue even worse. And then the Great Recession happened. So for the only time in our modern history, during my reign, right after I started, our stock value went down for two or three years in a row until it rebounded. And, man, that was hard. Talk about just getting punched in the face. And then I have tremendous respect for my predecessor, a guy named Greg Downs. And where we started around South Bend and Elkhart, Indiana, is like the headquarters of RVs and boats and all that stuff in America. And it's often a bellwether. We usually. We usually hit the skids faster and pull back out faster because RVs are these huge, you know, big purchases, but they're totally not necessary at any given day. So we were just crashing out there. And for the one and only time in our history, In November of 2008, we had to do a. A layoff. And it was. Oh, man, it was terrible. And I. And that. That really took the wind out of my. Greg's sails too. You know, he was still chairman of the board and was with us for, geez, I don't know, 40 years almost. And he was never the same coming out of that. I'm. I'm grateful that I was newer at the time, and I was able to. It hurt, but to set aside some of the emotion and knowing that, you know, times like that, you've gotta. Sometimes you have to cut your foot off to survive and move forward. And we had to, we had to do that, and we came out of it so much healthier. But I don't know if anything really prepares you for that. I know one thing. I was absolutely not prepared as leader of the company to go through all that stuff, but you learn quickly.

Well, and I still remember around the time of the recession, hearing and hearing about Elkhart, Indiana. And then often the story was often told about how hard that area was hit because of the R industry and things like that. So you guys were right at the heart of one of the worst hit areas of the recession.

Yeah.

Yeah. This episode is brought to you by true captive insurance. What if you could take full control of your healthcare strategy without the financial burdens of traditional insurance? At Trucaptive Insurance, they make that possible. As the only captive in the nation that puts up the majority of collateral on your behalf, they provide financial flexibility from day one. Making them an advocating partner for their customer success. True Captive's fully customizable plans and cost saving strategies ensure you never have to choose between affordability and quality care. It's time to break free from the limitations of conventional insurance. Take the next step today. Visit trucaptive.com and discover a smarter way to manage healthcare that is truecaptive.com okay, so that was 2008. 9. Looking back, it's been 16, 17 years. A lot of good things have happened at Gibson. Right. It looks a lot different today than it did back then. When you look back on these last 15, 16 years, are there some key moments that stand out for you? That has really allowed Gibson to be where it is today. A thriving agency that not only sits in South Bend, but now crosses what, five, six states?

Yeah, yeah. We've, you know, got, you know, offices in Indiana and Michigan and then we're getting Chicago up and running right now and Tucson, Phoenix and Salt Lake as well. So that's been a ton of fun. Yeah. A couple of things that come to mind that, Andy. One, on a personal basis, we used to do these 360 reviews, which we don't do anymore. I'm actually not a big fan of anonymous 360 reviews, but it was helpful and I was just getting hammered in these things and you know, a lot of it was deserved. Some of it I was okay with because it was part of pushing hard. But one of the things that stood out to me was I was getting hammered. Like Tim doesn't like people and all this stuff. And okay, I'll take all the other things but don't like, I'm like, I'm all about people. I'm all people all the time. So again, Greg was super helpful. We kind of sat down and sliced through it all and, and like, well, why am I not having problems with this person but that person. And what it came down to is really isolated being a benefits person who became leader of the whole agency. I was doing okay with all the EB client service people, but the Property and Casualty client service team just didn't trust me. And we figured it out down to like very, in a granular sort of way of those moments when I could ride around with Melinda and we were driving an hour to our renewal meeting and I could ask her about her kids and all that could be me. She gave me a lot of slack. Then when I was moving really fast, I wasn't having those moments with everybody else. So it was a huge learning opportunity for me. I needed to slow down and then become very purposeful about having connection moments. Because if I could get in front of people and be with them, I was in great shape. But I was moving so fast that I forgot, like, you know, it's like, oh, that's the soft stuff. I got bigger things to do here. I gotta, gotta save the company. And instead I just needed to be around everybody. So I took a page out of that old business. Author named Tom Peters and he had this thing called management by walking around and I just started making laps and stopping and pausing. And that made a, that made a huge difference. We had a really good run coming out of all of that. Elkhart also rebounded. I think President Obama visited literally like 10 times during an eight year period because it was the epitome of, during the campaign of things were terrible. And then it was the growth engine rocketing out of it too. So we had some great years going into the middle teens and we got by with this sales jockey leading the company. I was touching a lot of things. I was touching the individual producers. I was in this player, coach role where if things weren't going right, I could physically step in and change the narrative in the game. At the end, as we got bigger and more complex and started expanding, the whole thing was coming, just grinding to a halt again. One of those moments. Couldn't figure out what it was. And somebody you and I both know and respect a lot. Larry. Lenny was really impactful in that moment. And we sat down and for the first time in my career ever, he helped guide me. Larry's great about winding me up and then I take whatever he does and I kind of make it my own. And it was one of those three or four times in my career where he's helped me kind of get unstuck. So we put this vision together at the time on that. But even more important than the vision, which was very important, we had some real clarity. Our people were finally like, they knew where we were going. We started communicating all the time and, and I realized then that it was a gift that I had. I mean, my mom's always. Well, it's been in my report cards, you know, Andy, since the third grade that I talk too much and disrupt the other kids in class. But when you become an adult, you can actually harness that and you know, it'd be, you know, that, that galvanizing skill. So I looked for opportunities to be in front of our people all the time and share everything. I started posting on LinkedIn very early on and all those, those type of things. So that was helpful. But. But the other big moment was we around, I think 2015 or 16. I was just frustrated as heck, couldn't figure out what it was, and came across eos, the entrepreneurial operating system. And there's eos, there's Bloom, there's others out there, they're all great. And so I'll just kind of say, in general, having a growth operating system, this cadence that you work off of that helps guide you, was one of the most important things. And as valuable as I was to my team and our company is, probably being our fastest, biggest thinker and visionary type, I was also kind of our biggest problem too. Just creating chaos all the time. And sometimes I meant to, and sometimes I was just like, hey, this idea popped into my head. But for my team, it was like Moses had come down and added another commandment on and I'd find out later they'd already started working on it and like, oh, I didn't mean for you to work on it. I was just talking about it. So when we put that in place and started getting really good in it at it over the teens, 2017, 18, 19, things just really took off. And then I think maybe that third piece was getting better at EOS and really living it out and living out the tenets of this operating system. And one of those being most important, right people in the right seats, even when it hurts and it's hard. I had to transition our leadership team. So in this eight, nine year period, we probably had three iterations of our leadership team at Gibson. In a couple of those times, people have had left the company and that needed to happen. But for the most part, we've been able to using all those tenets to peacefully transition in and out and different coaches for different seasons and, and so right around 2019, 2020, we started really getting the right people in the right seats for that season. And what it led to is just this amazing growth from coming out of the pandemic through now, through 2024, 2025, and just rocketed. And the strange thing was, Andy, I've listened to a lot of your podcasts. I read a lot of your stuff. We have that driven personality and it's, it's such a gift and it's also painful. And in fact, there's this book called Driven and it talks about like the monkey and the elephant and the monkey riding the elephant and this need to always be achieving in all this and, and then being a Midwesterner and Midwest work ethic and all that. I valued myself based on my productivity, what was my output. And so over these last three or four or five years, I've had more fun than I've ever had by doing less and actually helping my company more. So finding my lane, really know thyself, like, really understanding what I did well or do well. I used to think, like, the CEO and president job were one in the same, and they're all rolled up in one. And I didn't know how much I really didn't enjoy operating the company. And I did a pretty good job because I'm that salesperson. I'm going to win. I'm going to find a way to win. But not out of love. Like, I love strategy. I love vision, I love communicating. I love new things. I love helping us expand in the West. And so when I was able to get my team in there and get my CFO in place and get my operating president in place and that, I could spend this time. And it wasn't about the output. I just need a couple of good ideas every week, every month. Maybe a couple of those turn out to be really good ideas, set the course and help keep the team focused on that. And so nowadays, Andy, I kind of think of myself almost as, like, the spiritual leader, if you will, the medicine man or something of. Try to keep the cultural flame in the direction we're heading in. But we've got this amazing team, and they're. They're doing the work. And I talk with other leaders, or I'll have a CEO of another company who wants to get something done call me, and we're gonna have a talk. And I'm like, hey, I'd love to help you on that, but I don't. I don't even know what's going on necessarily. Even if I did, that's somebody else's lane. And you're. You should talk to them. I want to talk to the. Well, yeah. You're not talking to the person who's in charge of that. I don't. I don't make that decision. So you're better off just calling them.

You just. What you just said hit home very hard. We. We run EOS here, and we're a very small team. We're probably technically too small for what EOS would consider as the ideal team. And. But we'll move. So we run a modified version of it. And I would say we would. There is no way we would have seen the growth we've seen in the last four years without it. And I am like you. I'm the visionary. My head's in the clouds all the time. And I laugh with what you just said because one of the biggest feed pieces of feedback I get is every time we do a team meeting, it's like, Andy, you're constantly bringing up a new idea and wanting to talk about the vision. We're still down here. Stay with us here.

Right, right. Well, Andy, you know the thing that. And I learned that over time, like I'm a lot and so I need to prepare people for ideas that. But. And I'd gotten okay with all that, but I'd had a previous CFO as an example that I was okay with the ideas going to a parking lot but not being ignored. And when. When he was running it, it was. He would find ways to not want to do them just because he didn't want to do the work to see if they made sense. And so that's where EOS was so great. And having the right people in place to, okay, we hear you. We're going to put it over here. It's not going to get lost. But that's a next quarter thing or that's a next year thing. And then I'm okay with it too. And I go off and do my thing again and get out of everybody's way.

Well, I do want to ask you talk about the vision and Larry helping you set that vision up of where you guys are headed. I want to get your thoughts on, you know, you created the 2033 Vision, which I definitely want you to talk about. But I do have one quick question that I think I see as a challenge a lot. When I look around the industry, we often promote people up through the ranks of an agency because of their sales success. And that doesn't necessarily mean that they're good at managing people, nor do they have leadership skills.

Right.

As somebody who is very sales driven but has also elevated to the ranks, where have you over those years had to make that transition so that not only are you good at sales, but you have that leadership skill set to be able to manage all different types of personalities?

Well, Andy, one of the things I realized is I was really, it's really good at sales. And most everywhere I've been and when I've been producing, I've been at the top of the leaderboard or close to it. But somewhere along the way, really one of those things I learned about myself is how much I enjoy team victory and doing it on my own. It's like I actually know I could do it. I know I could sell Anything and hit any quota or anything out there that for me that wasn't as challenging or as interesting as doing it with other people. So Team Victory started mattering a lot to me. And then I really, I realized how much I liked strategy. I liked. And I was kind of uniquely good at pairing people up together in a team. Like I could see why these two people would complement each other really, really well. But I was still hooked on the juice from being a salesperson from the compensation and in most of the national firms and even Gibson early on, it just didn't work to be able to earn the way I wanted to earn, but also to get the leadership fix. So I did both jobs for a long time and there was a point in time with my partners and I'm still so appreciative to them at Gibson where I went to them and I said, look, I could actually make more money just worrying about selling. I'm trying to do both. If you guys let me lead full time, I'm going to help make us all very successful. But you got to help me too. And they all stepped up and did. We made it work and I was able to lean into the leadership piece full time, which is really where my passion lies. And I think that is really tough. It's a really tough thing. Now the other thing I learned though is that I was different. And early on I tried to project me onto some of the other producers I worked with. And I realized that they didn't want to be doing some of the leadership things the way I wanted to. But what we created, one of those things on that scratch pad I always wanted to do was this kind of in between role of being what we call sales team leaders at Gibson. And it was. It's just the right amount. Now I joke around sometimes. I live in Michigan and Amway, you know, it has their roots in Grand Rapids. So I call it an Amway vitamin pyramid scheme sometimes. But to create these little. We created these pods, these sales teams and they truly integrate their compensation together. And one of them is in charge and there's usually a right hand person and they had a prenuptial together. And one bought this book to the entity and the other one brought their book. And then there's a client executive who cleans up all the messes and then a sparky out of college. And it has worked really so well. And what I found with producers though is the ones that are, I'll call it intrapreneurial, they need something they don't want to do. HR and IT and those kind of things, but they are very capable of leading a few other salespeople. They can handle the directness, both sides of that, but not service teams. And so we've created these that don't. They don't have service management responsibility, just a few other producers. And it's probably one of the best things we ever did. And I still think about coming through the pandemic. I mean, we had stellar retention, we added people, and I think those small units really helped a ton. And it gives that. That one producer in the group that, that handful that really want something extra, a little more to do just enough well.

And it plays to the skill sets of different people and talents they bring to the team. That's awesome. Being a visionary. Visionary comes with big goals, lofty goals, and the constant thoughts of scaling. Talk to us a little bit about the 2033 vision. That is a. Definitely a goal for scale, and I'd love to hear you just kind of expand on that. I think it's a pretty, pretty cool vision for the Gibson team moving forward.

You know, we've, we've, we've achieved some of that, that early vision. We achieved it way sooner than we thought, and we had tweaked it and done some other things, but I was right around coming out of the pandemic, just feeling like we were stuck a little bit. And we've been very fortunate, been very successful in a lot of rust belt, literally minor league baseball cities. And I had a mentor once say, like, you know, though, there's a real thing about minor league baseball cities there. It's an area that's big enough to support a minor league baseball team. There's sophisticated enough businesses there, but it's a minor league team. And so that had been our existence. And, you know, as it turns out, as you know, I know you moved back to Wisconsin and I moved back to the, to the area here, but not. Lots and lots of people are moving to Wisconsin and Indiana and Michigan. And so had this gnawing feeling that we needed to be in some markets where there's a lot more natural, organic people, growth going on and so on. And so I, I turned to Larry, you know, Lenny again, like, man, I need to get unstuck. So I flew out to see him in Colorado Springs, and it's been rumored that we smoked peyote in a, in a, you know, a tent smoke session up. But I don't even know if that's what you do with peyote or not, but I was there for literally 36 hours. And we walked through all the things that we're doing, where we're going, what we do really well. And it wasn't until the he's taking me back to Denver to the airport and he's like, you guys gotta do keep on this de novo startup office strategy. It's you, you like are uniquely good at it. Everybody's afraid of it. And we had an ESOP as well. And so our ESOP owned 37% of the company. We had gifted ownership to all of our employees. And because of that, the DOL has some really tight rules around ESOPs. And that's because ESOPs don't pay taxes. And it's this wonderful ownership vehicle for employees. And so with that, they're always very concerned about employee welfare. So they make you keep your valuation, your stock value, your enterprise value very damp and down because they don't ever want you giving shares to the employees that are overvalued. So our currency wasn't worth much. We had this great growth company, but we couldn't use it when it comes to acquisitions and so on. So we were always starting up these new offices from scratch. And we had learned a lot. We had been 150 miles away and started a new one up. And when things went wrong, Andy, I could drive over there and go handle a problem. Typically it was probably somebody I hired that I needed to go help exit and clean up my own mess. So we talked and we started to start in on Phoenix then. And this was really new for us because it's 1500 miles away in time zones away and all that. And that really became the genesis of all that. And it's like, you know what? We want to be operating in 20 markets around the country by 2033, which is our 100th anniversary. And it felt so huge and so big and it really was pretty scary for all of our employees. And I think numbers and metrics are really important. But I think sometimes if you just put a financial goal out there that doesn't usually relate or connect as well to the day to day people, but they're important milestones and all that. But the 20 markets to us has meant something different because it's like, well, what comes with that? Well, I can't handle a mass run on the office in South Bend or Fort Wayne or Kalamazoo, so please don't everybody leave. But if life presents you the opportunity you want to transfer out to the Phoenix office, you know, by all means. Well, we'd love to do that. And that's what it's become. And we've been able to transplant our culture and do that. And it made us think so differently and so much bigger when it came to solving problems. And we couldn't do it the way we had always done it. And that led us to make different decisions. You know, we've been leading with hiring employee benefits producers in markets versus almost everybody else starts with property and casualty. And what we found though is the PNC producers, they know this. It's almost like franchises in some ways. With the regional carriers you got to have a contract and you can't get a contract unless you have business and so on and so forth and employee benefits, that doesn't matter. We could stand up somebody and support them from the Midwest and get it going. And then what that's led to now is being able to hire PNC producers who for probably the first time in their careers, wait a second, I get to join a team that's already got EB producers with books of business who are going to refer me into accounts. And I'm like, yeah. And also we have like real sales producers as our, as our benefits producers. So it's been super fun going back again to the team that we're fortunate to have in place. They let me just rip on this thing, so I'm out. Tip of the spear, Andy. I spend a lot of time on LinkedIn too. I actually could probably use a brush up session with you. But I realized as we grew and getting back to that communication story earlier, LinkedIn's Become this really important vehicle for us and for me, it's one of the ways I actually am talking to my employees. Most of the time I write things that I think they would want to know because I don't get to spend the day to day, shoulder to shoulder time with them that I want. But it also is our chance to, you know, and for great talent out there to hear directly from the CEO, here's how we do things, here's what matters, here's what's important. And I think, you know, it's worked out not to share all the secrets, but it's great if other people use this too. But you know, it'd be Sunday night I'll put a LinkedIn message into somebody about hey, I want to, I've heard you're somebody I should know. And at first it's are you a bot? And then it's the CEOs recruiting me. On Sunday night on LinkedIn, I'm like, yeah, I'm going to be in town next week. Let's grab coffee or something. And that's led to just meeting a lot of great people and bringing some of them on board. So, yeah, I'm such a big fan of having a vision that makes you scared. That doesn't seem like there's any way possible you could get there and achieve it because it forces you to do things, know, differently.

Well, even if you don't get there, you're going to be in a much different place than when you started. And to your point, I mean, using LinkedIn. Yeah. You should absolutely be using it right now to be recruiting in these markets you are going into for sure. Absolutely. Well, Tim, this has been phenomenal. We, we end every show with a little get to know the guest. You ready for this? I can you this for this. So I'm a big routine, habits, rituals, discipline guy, so I'm going to fire away. What does your typical ideal morning routine look like?

Yep, I spent a little time either meditating or praying. Just a great way to just start with gratitude. Like that. And then I exercise every morning I need to exercise. And by the way, I mean, I mostly just either when it's nice, I'm outside, or I'm on the treadmill and I walk at a really, really fast pace and I'm listening to a podcast because, you know, I have to get more than one thing done at the same time and, or a book or something like that. So when I get started that way, you know, get, you know, sweat, get a little protein, and then I'm ready to go.

Perfect. Now it kind of leads into my second question. You got 60 minutes to work out. What is your exercise of choice?

It's, it is, usually it's the, the treadmill thing. I, I try to. I do Pilates once a week with my, with my wife, which is, she's, she goes twice a week and she's better than I am and all that, but I'm not embarrassed anymore and all that stuff, so. And I'll try to, you know, do some mild weightlifting. My sons would be embarrassed of me to call what I do weightlifting, but I'm gonna call it that.

Switching gears real quick. You got an afternoon off to do whatever you want, not exercise. What are you spending your time doing?

Yep. If I'm out in Arizona, I'm going for a hike. I love doing that. Or a Utah office, which is cool. And our, our office. Head out there. Taylor Covey and I, we love to zip up a mountain or two while we're there. If I'M at home in Michigan. We live on a small like 400 acre lake. So I love just being on the, on the pontoon and taking laps and not doing much of anything.

And then you brought up listening to a podcast in the treadmill. What? Any books or podcasts you recommend right now?

Yeah, you know the one I, the book I just got done, the science of scaling by Dr. Benjamin Hardy, is it's taken this whole like I'm a Jim Collins BHAG guy and like, hey, this 25 year, big hairy, audacious goal into, yeah, that, that's, that's like your dad's behead. Like the new one is. Why don't you like 10x in three years? So one of my producers, Craig Heatherly, who you've worked with a little bit, he's just read it recently too. We're talking like, okay, this is like blowing my mind right now. Yeah, I think it does take your.

It does make you go, all right, how do I, I gotta do more now. Wow. Yeah. It can almost haunt you.

Yeah. Yep.

Well, Tim, it's been an honor, man. Thank you for, for your wisdom. Thank you for what you do for the industry. You've got the podcast the edge, so make sure to go listen to that. If you haven't listened, tuned in on Tim's podcast. But if somebody is tuning in right now, hey, maybe a producer in a market you're heading to, what are the easiest ways to get a hold of you?

Hey, LinkedIn. I'm super visible out there. I know there's not many Tim Laymans and my last name L E M A N and so you can find me easy and we'll get in touch. Thank you, Andy.

I appreciate it and this has been awesome.

Keep doing what you're doing, man. It's awesome.

Appreciate it. For everybody else tuning in, take the heart what Tim said. This is one of the good ones in the industry. So have a good weekend, everybody. 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.