The Producer Recruiting Playbook: Who to Hire (And Who to Avoid)

If I can sit in front of employers and say, if I owned your business, this is what I would do, and be passionate about it, know what I'm talking about, you close those deals because you earn trust very quickly that way. I don't think if you're dealing with C-suite people, they want to deal with people that are subliminally coming in and saying, I'll do whatever you want me to do.

Hey, hey, welcome back to the Accelerate Your Insurance Sales podcast. Andy Neary here, CEO and founder of Complete Game Consulting. I'm excited Excited. Today I am joined by Nancy Grasso. Nancy is the regional vice president for growth for OneDigital's DMV region. If you're not familiar with the DMV, we're talking about the Washington, DC, Maryland, Virginia area. She has spent her entire career in the employee benefits space, partnering with employers to help them navigate the complexities of workforce management with clarity and confidence. Today, Nancy's focus is on accelerating growth by building and leading a dynamic Business Development Team, which we are going to talk about today. Now, Nancy, welcome to the show.

Thank you, glad to be here.

Awesome. Well, Nancy, I know, uh, for me for sure, and most of the people I know in this industry, we did not get in the insurance industry by design, most of us. I'd be curious, how the heck did you find yourself in employee benefits?

Um, long story short, I was, um, actually in finance after school and was working at a bank and had a child. And when my first child was born, he had a couple little issues and I had to leave the bank. And my dad owned an agency like everybody else, right? That's all the life around us. My dad owns an agency. And, you know, in the early, late '80s, early '90s, and I went to work for him, you know, playpen in his office, me answering phones and doing all that. And yeah, I just grew to love it and I just got good at it and You know, eventually I left my dad, went to work for a carrier, did all that. I haven't had a lot of different jobs. I've only had 3 real employers per se during my tenure. My dad, then I went to work for an insurance company called American Medical Security. I was in the Florida market. They're long gone, got bought by UnitedHealthcare. I learned a lot there, especially about self-funding. That company did a lot of smaller group self-funding in a time when people didn't do that. So I learned a lot there. I became the Regional Director of Sales and was moved from the Florida market into the Virginia market in the year 1999. And since then I've been in the Virginia market in the DMV.

And, you know, I'd be curious because one thing I really respect about you and I like about you, and I hope this doesn't come off the wrong way, but you're kind of no-nonsense. You shoot it to the point. And I really like that about people who are that way. Do you think that, you know, that personality trait has played an important role in your sales success?

100%. You know, I feel like, you know, after the company I worked with was bought by UnitedHealthcare, I just decided I'm doing this on my own. I feel like I can— I'm trying to guide other brokers to learn about self-funding. And again, this is the late '90s. I came from a market where there was a lot of self-funding into a market where there was very little of it. And so I said, I'm going to, I'm going to go out there and I'm going to teach employers how to do this. I think I could do it better than the brokers that I'm helping. And literally hung a shingle and just started. I think it's just a confidence thing. Like if you really believe in yourself, sometimes that confidence shows up as, I don't want to say arrogance, but more about this take-charge personality when it's really just like, I have a confidence, I know what I'm doing, I know how to help employers. And I also think that has been very helpful to to my individual contributions towards sales within the companies I worked. Because if I can sit in front of employers and say, if I owned your business, this is what I would do, and be passionate about it, know what I'm talking about, you close those deals because you earn trust very quickly that way. I don't think if you're dealing with C-suite people, they wanna deal with people that are subliminally coming in and saying, I'll do whatever you want me to do. They're hiring you to consult and help them be a sounding board and give them ideas and help them to get to the next place as opposed to just, you know, here's a bunch of quotes, what do you want? They don't want that. And so I think that confidence has served me really well over my career.

That's a good point. You know, I— we, we throw the words broker, consultant, advisor around pretty loosely in the industry. And I think one of the big things that does separate a broker from a consultant— broker is the one that's going to put the spreadsheet and numbers in front of you and says, okay, which one do you want? Whereas a consultant is really giving you that advice. Like, if I were you, this is what I would do. And I think one of the things that makes all top advisors successful is they have an opinion. And I think that's what you were kind of alluding to is when you meet with a client, you're giving them your opinion, your advice, not just, I produce a set of numbers and a bunch of plans and let you decide which path you want to go.

100%.

Yeah. And I think a lot of people struggle because of that. We, I, we have clients I, we work with from time to time where I can tell like you're just trying to be your client's friend and be your prospect's friend. And that's why you're not winning business. You're not coming in with an opinion, right? And saying, this is the stake I'm laying in the ground and what I believe I can help you with. That confidence, like you said, it's not arrogance, it's confidence that comes off as credibility with the prospect. Would you agree?

I agree. I think you build trust very quickly that way because you're not only telling them, this is what I think you should do, this is why, this is why, and here's where you are. And this may be a 1, 2, 3, 4-year strategy, but here's the first move and here's why. And if you don't do this, you're just going to be doing the same. Like, you're always going to be continuing this cycle. How do you break that cycle? How do you do something different? This is why you would do it, and this is what it's going to lead to. And if you could kind of thread that needle and pull it all the way through, I think that you're earning trust because You're, you're helping them to understand how we think about things. And so part of, I think part of my success is yes, you build that confidence. But the other thing is, is you have to be able to teach a little bit, right? Because you want them to do things they don't already know how to do. And while you can gain trust really quickly, I don't know that it makes sense to tell them what to do and just say, just do it because I told you so. You tell them, just do it because this is what it's going to lead to. So there's a component of teaching and explaining. And all of that packaged together builds a really long-standing trusting environment. You're not easy to replace as a broker when somebody comes in with a spreadsheet and says, I found you a cheaper option. That doesn't mean anything. And I will be honest with you, there are clients, you know, you say broker, consultant, you know, advisor. Um, I think when the brokers out there want to sell with price They kind of ruin it for a lot of other people because sometimes I think the industry has set our customers, our customers up to think that's what we should be doing. They're like, well, you know, I can't give you my business unless you get me a quote. Well, why? Everybody's going to get the same quote. Quotes are quotes. They're just numbers. What do you do with them? And so we've kind of trained people, you know, business owners to expect quotes from us. And sometimes that's a little hard to unwind. And we all know we don't want to do a bunch of quotes and a whole bunch of work in order to get the business. Because if you win it that way, you're going to lose it that way. It's more about how do you How do you turn that conversation into a more strategic evaluation of what they're doing and leading them in a different direction? And so sometimes that's a little hard when they're almost expecting us to lay out some spreadsheets in front of them.

Well, and to your point, we all could agree a lot of businesses are making bad decisions about their benefits because of the way they make the decision. However, if we broker consultants are just playing into their bad decision workflow, nothing ever gets better.

Right.

And I do believe a lot of that, those bad decisions were years of how we trained them to make the decision versus trying to guide them down a different path. And I think your point's well made with having the opinion. Sometimes they don't even know what their problem is, right? We think it's obvious, but they don't know what the problem is. So when you come in and you have an opinion, you say, hey, here's what's going on, here's why I advise you to do this and why. And you spend a lot of time educating them. On what the problem is so they can get to the point where they realize they have the problem. Those are the true consultants that are growing books fast these days.

I would agree. I would agree.

So how, how long did you have your agency then in the DMV?

Uh, 2004 to 2012.

Okay. And then is that where you became, uh, were you part of an acquisition then with OneDigital?

Correct. In 2012. 2011, 2012, uh, OneDigital acquired my agency.

Okay, so you've been with OneDigital now 14 years, so you've seen a lot of evolution at OneDigital.

Um, OneDigital, I— when I tell this, I think it floors people. When I started with OneDigital, there were 200 employees and it was a $50 million company, and now it's just shy of a $2 billion company with 6,000 employees. So it's just, uh, the, the— I've seen it all. I've seen this, you know, exponential growth that I could have never imagined. But it's been, it's been fun. It's been fun.

I will share this story because when I, I, I still share this with prospects. When I look at how our business has changed and who we serve today compared to maybe who we served 18, 24 months ago, a lot of it comes back to the event I spoke at that you hired me for in the Mid-Atlantic when you had me come to your summit. I think it was the summer of 2023.

Mm-hmm.

I, you had the, it was like a barbecue, barbecue luau, right?

Yep.

And I, by pure happenstance, happened to sit next to Adam Breckman for dinner. And he just started telling me the story of how he built One Digital. And I never knew it. I mean, basically it was one agency. He just grew, right? Mm-hmm. And it made me realize, I still think about that conversation today when I go, what separates an agency owner that's had an agency for 20 years that's still sitting at a half million dollars.

Mm-hmm.

Versus an agency that started as one shop that now has 6,000 employees and worth $2 billion.

Mm-hmm.

It's just the way people think.

It's vision. It's vision. Yeah. You know, and evolution, right? And, and, uh, you know, Adam is surrounded by a, a team of really great thinkers. Our SWE, uh, C-suite. And, you know, I always give kudos to Mike Sullivan. I don't know if anybody knows him, but, you know, Mike Sullivan is, is, always, always thinking about 5 steps ahead. What do we need to be doing to be better? What do we need to be doing? And so, you know, he was the first one talking to us years ago about, you know, AI and about, you know, bringing group benefits down to the personal wealth and individual. Like, that's, that's been a really big part of how we have grown and how we think about the organization. So, yeah, it's vision. It's constantly thinking about that. And if you, if you find yourself doing the same all day, every day, every year, year after year, at some point the business will outgrow you.

Mm-hmm.

It just will.

Yeah. Good point. So you now sit in a leadership position at One Digital. You made a comment offline, um, where you never thought you would be in a leadership position.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. How was that transition for you?

Um, from an execution of my work standpoint, It's been really good. I just, I just never really envisioned myself leading so big of a team. I think I, I like it a lot and I think I'm pretty good at it. I think my team really enjoys my leadership and we work really well together. I think we, you know, my work and the work our team does together, we really move the needle together. There's a lot to be said from going from individual contributor in a large organization to being in leadership in a very large organization now, right? Early on in my leadership days, because I've been doing this job for about 7 years, so, and it's evolved. You know, it's evolved. I was a kind of a player coach when I first started. And then at some point it gets to be really a full-time job. And so do I, I have to choose one path or the other. And monetarily, the path is to be a producer. Like, producers will always make the most amount of money that you could possibly make. I'm also someone who's enjoyed a pretty long and lucrative career. I'm fortunate enough to have a family that's grown, children that have grown. I'm having grandchildren now. I'm in a stage in my life where I had to make the choice, like, is money where I want to focus, or do I want to kind of give back a little bit? And I know that sounds super philanthropic and fluffy, but I mean, I think that was the the decision I was faced with. I was at a fork in the road. I'm like, I can cap what I can earn, but I can be fulfilled by helping others. And when I look around the team today, and I see people who started and didn't know anything, and today they're, you know, making hundreds of thousands of dollars and taking their kids to Europe for spring break, and they're buying new homes, and they're raising families, and they're in a career that they love, that they're good at, that they're accelerating at. That's kind of the reward for me. And sometimes I have to remind myself of that, you know, because being in leadership, believe it or not, takes more time of my personal time. When I was in production, you have to work hard, you have to do all the blocking and tackling, do the things that you have to do all the time, and you can't let your foot off the gas. But sometimes I feel like I'm in Zoom death. Like, I'm constantly in these meetings. Everybody wants your opinion, and they don't really listen to what you have to say sometimes. It's just leadership. It's being part of a bigger leadership team and being in just a host of different decision-making points, meetings to discuss that. And so sometimes that can be a drag. It really—

well, but, you know, I think going back to what you even said earlier, the success with a producer being able to educate and teach— being a leader now, your job is to educate and teach not just the CFO of a business who's trying to control their benefit costs. You're now teaching a team of producers, you know, how to be successful. And, and you've seen a lot of producers come and go, I'm sure, over the last 7, 8 years. When you're recruiting right now, like When you look at the gaps we have in the industry when it comes to producers, do you see gaps between a producer who could say produce and open doors versus producers who have the ability to not only produce, open doors, but close business too?

Yeah, it's a rarity. You know, so the way that I've seen it unfold is the industry is getting really, really complex. So there's a lot of things that you need to learn. And it's, it's, it's not easy. It's not easy. You need to be somebody who can manage a lot of different thoughts and talk tracks and trails at the same time. So it's a complex sale. It's got a relatively long sales cycle, right? And the larger the group, the longer the sales cycle. So there's that. So if you set the stage that way and then think about there's a couple of buckets of talent out there. There's people who have been doing this successfully and have a pretty decent-sized books of business. Most of them— I'm not saying all, but most of them— are older and going to exit the business at some point. So are they really the ideal hire? First, they're already making a lot of money, they're under non-competes, they don't have the energy they have today to do it all over again like they did them when they were young. So hiring those rock star producers that are out there today are not going to yield you the same thing that it did when they started. And they're very difficult to get to move because they see the horizon of their, of their either their retirement or their slowdown or, you know, whatever, whatever their future looks like. So there's that bucket. Then you've got the bucket of people who are very young and are coming out of, you know, payroll companies and adjacent businesses that don't necessarily know our business, but they're being taught prospecting really, really well, right? Like, they're coming from a grit prospecting type of an environment. I like those people to take them in, but they're not going to yield your results for years, possibly, right? And then you've got the people who are a few years in, like the industry, have built a small enough book where they're able to move around, but they're few and far between. And so that, for me, is kind of the sweet spot because they know enough to be able to be independent, but they also have have a lot to learn and they're not coming in totally green and you have to teach them everything because there's a lot to learn. Um, we hire a lot of both of those buckets, right? At some point, I don't think we're any different than any other agency around that there's a, there's a core group of people who hold a lot of the business today that are aging up. And so we have to have that succession plan. And so we have time to get young people in who who have that prospecting grit, because that will take them very far. Right. And what we're trying to do is pair them up in a mentorship program so that early on they're learning and hearing and watching. I think most of us who've learned this business didn't learn it from our test or our exam or even from being an underwriter or any of that. We learn it from watching people who are successful doing it, do it. And so we have a pretty strong mentorship program that we take those— all of our new hires have to spend 1 year with a seasoned, experienced person who does it really well. And I think for me, that's, that's the, the best way I've been able to put it together to find the right talent, pair them with, with the right person. And then, of course, you know, myself and my team, we're spending a lot of time really making it as easy as possible for them. We're using a lot of technologies to help them, to help them get to all of that quicker.

Yeah, that's one thing I've really, from the outside, I've seen with OneDigital that I respect is the amount of work that's going into building tools, automations, AI, to help producers succeed faster. You don't see that at every agency, especially at the size you guys are at. That is something from the outside looking in, I'm going, okay, they get it. They're really trying to create the stuff to speed up the path to success. You know, you brought up something about the mentorship. Success leaves clues, right? So if somebody's already having success, You might want to take a look at what they're doing and try to model that. I am curious though, because you came from the AMS world, so you were that person that said, you know, if they can do this, I can do this. A lot of people sit in that position, whether they come from payroll or voluntary benefits or whatever, where they go, all right, these guys are winning business. I think I can do this too. Where do you see though, when they— people make that jump, is there any part of becoming a full employee benefit advisor that they may underestimate, where it's like, oh, okay, maybe this wasn't as easy as I thought it was?

Yeah. You know, I think people who come from outside of the business, one of the things that they look at is, what do you mean we don't really need to compete on price? Like, I could, you know, take a broker record, take a piece of business over, usually for really close to what they're paying. It's more about what are the services, a little bit of tire kicking around that, you know, and, and, and strategies and technologies and things that we could bring. So it's more of like, what is the scope with this company versus the scope of that company? So I think they think that that's easy. I think what they underestimate is how complex this business is, how important it is to an employer, CFO, CHRO, CEO, whoever you're working with, to have the right person and the right team in there. And when they find it, it is very hard to displace it. I think they underestimate that, how valuable that relationship gets to be. And there's a lot of tolerance, I think, for mistake if you have the right person who's really leading you in the right direction. So kind of a little— going a little further back in our conversation, if you're being strategic and you're have a vision with this, with these companies, and you're on the same page and they trust you and you're thinking about their business in a holistic way, not just how much is your benefits and how much can we save your money, but all of the HR functionality, the, all the benefits of the employee and even, you know, their property and this big thing, wellness and, you know, employee satisfaction, just all of that. We roll it up into into our deliverable and these conversations. When you start having that conversation, you know, if somebody didn't get their card on time or if, you know, your technology didn't work during open enrollment, you're not going to get fired because they trust you and they're tolerant of those kind of little blips and mistakes. So I think newcomers don't realize how hard it is to get them to divorce that relationship that they have today. It's very, it's very difficult to do and you have to earn it. You can't get it. You can't get it with a price. You can't get it with a product. You have to earn trust. And that isn't always easy for people to do. And thus the long sales cycle, because you can't cold call somebody and earn trust. You might get an appointment, but even if you get an appointment, you sit and have lunch with them, they still don't have trust. It takes time to build that trust. And so I think they underestimate the value that this service brings and how connected they are to their current relationship and how long the sales cycle will be. And I will be honest with you, it took me a long time to feel comfortable articulating that to people. When I'm hiring people, I tell them that. Don't look at this and think it's easy because it's hard. This is the hardest job in this whole entire 6,000 employees. This is the hardest job. Maybe not the CEO job, but this is the hardest job. And here's why. And so you have to be patient. You have to be diligent. You have to put your foot on the gas, keep it on the gas. And even if you're getting a million nos, you gotta wait for that one yes, but it's gonna take time and you're gonna have to lean in. You're gonna have to work with people. You're gonna have to continuously learn. Like, I have that conversation. I'm more comfortable with it now because I'm not just trying to hire people. I need to hire the right people.

Well, I think that's important how you do that though. It's almost like you're overselling how hard it is.

Mm-hmm.

And that's important cuz I think, I know when I got in, You, you were sold the dream and you were sold that, hey, all you gotta do is stick around long enough and you'll be playing golf 3 days a week. I think I was undersold how hard it could be.

Mm-hmm.

And I think you just brought up a really good point. We operate in an industry where you're selling them something they already have.

Mm-hmm.

Trying to replace somebody they already work with.

Mm-hmm.

And there's probably an 80% chance they're happy with who they work with.

Mm-hmm.

And so that is not an easy sale. And I coach our clients that when you walk in and you meet with a prospect for the first time, come out and just say that, hey, listen, I know you have health insurance. I know you have an advisor, and I'm going to guess you're probably happy with them. You want to walk in, knock the walls of defense down on a prospect, just state the obvious. Mm-hmm. But here's what I love. I should have asked this earlier about the mentorship. I love the fact you guys do the mentorship, but what I'm curious about is when you pair a newer producer with a mentor, how do you ensure— I, I see, I've seen other agencies struggle this with this where it's a, where the mentor's truly educating the new producer and letting them grow versus call it like performative where the producer, the mentor's like, here, just do it my way and let, let me go close business for you. How do you ensure that it's a good quality mentor, new producer relationship?

Yeah, that's a really great, really, really great question. Um, I don't know that we do it perfectly, to be honest with you. Um, The first thing I have to identify is that not all really good producers will make a good mentor. Right. You've got to like, there, there are those people who are, you know, if you read the Challenger Sale or any of that, they're the lone wolf, like they're the guy out there and they're going to charge forward. They're going to do their thing. And, you know, if you ask them to mentor somebody, they will likely say yes, but they're not going to do a great job. Right. So there's that. Um, secondly, I meet with the mentors. To get some feedback, and I meet with the producers, the new producers, to get feedback on the mentorship. And so, all the way through this process, I am understanding how this relationship is working. We also build some financial incentive into the mentor— for the mentors in the first year, simply because I would rather— I would rather have them really interested than saying, "I don't have time to do that." like, what's more important, my things or their things, if there's no money in that, right? And so I want to make sure there's financial incentive for them to do that. And, um, and so far, I mean, it's worked really good. We've graduated some people out of that that I felt like it was really good. Have I had mentors that didn't exactly work? Yeah, I have. Um, and you learn through, you know, through process and iteration. Um, but, you know, I feel like we're at a place now where we've honed in on it enough to really understand it.

That's great. That's great. With new producers, I am curious because I'm sure I will think you would agree it's got to be a little harder these days to find a good hunter. I hear this from sales leaders all the time. You know, my producers are great when we give them leads, but hunting their own business continues to be a challenge. When you bring new producers in, whether they're brand new to the industry, maybe coming from payroll or whatever, Within that first 6 to 12 months, are there certain things you can see about a producer where you're like, okay, I know they, I know they got what it takes to be successful?

Yep, I do. So a couple of things before I even hire somebody, I make them write a marketing plan with me. So part of the interview process, once I've met them, we've got some camaraderie, I feel like this person would be a good cultural fit. Um, you know, that whether they know enough about the business or eager to learn, whatever, whatever, wherever position they sit in. I make them sit down and they can redact all the names. Who do you know? What do you belong to? What do you do every day? I want to know what it looks like for you today. That helps me understand where I need to help them in the future. We also do, you know, assessments and evaluations on, on people, and believe it or not, they're really helpful. I find them to be really helpful. Um, you can, you can take someone who has no drive and just take them off. But if they don't show up with having drive, they're not generally not going to work. Have I ever hired someone that didn't have drive? Yeah, because I think sometimes people take that test answering it in the way that you— they think you want them to answer it, and they mess up their own test. Um, but you can see drive. You can ask questions of people to get to drive. Um, I also, in the first 6 months, can see— it's funny, you know, if you If you've interviewed, hired, and trained, and onboarded, and successfully brought enough people to success, you could very early on know who are the people who are name droppers, who aren't getting out there and actually do, "I know this one, I know that one, I know that one, I do that." And I'm like, "Okay, where are these meetings?" Okay, if you know them, why aren't we having meetings with them? And it's the people who come in early and are, The other thing we do is— it's funny, we just had one this week. We do a little bit of like call day contests still. And I know it was kind of cheesy and whatever, but it forces people who don't always prospect well, like these really seasoned producers who have been around a long time making a lot of money. They don't ever really want to prospect, right? They, they, they're— they have a book and they grow incrementally, but I want them to prospect. And so we have these prospect days. You can see who shows up, who wants to win, who's got the activity. I mean, we'll have people who have 200 points versus like 12. Like, you could see the, the people who will double down. Now, sometimes we have people who are great door openers, but they can't move things, things through the pipeline, and they need a lot of help. And, but I will tell you, I've never had a good door opener that I had to fire because they couldn't learn it. I've had people who know the business really well that can't open doors, and I've had to fire them. So, you know, I'll take someone with grit and tenacity any day of the week versus someone who knows it all.

Yeah. You also said, you know, I think it was on one of our past conversations, one of the traits that makes a producer successful, common trait, and I've heard others say this too, is curiosity. I say all the time. What are your thoughts about that? How does curiosity play into a producer's development and success over time?

I think the best consultants, the best relationships are built by the naturally curious people. I love when I interview people and they ask me a lot of on-the-fly, unprepared, really good questions. I love that because I know that inside they are just naturally curious. And naturally curious people will build trust really quickly because they're curious. So they ask that second level, third level, fourth level question. Oh, how do you do that? Oh, well, what does that look like? Oh, wow, that's really interesting. What if that doesn't work? What, you know, they just keep picking and picking and picking at it till they get what they're looking for, till they really have it answered. And if you're the recipient on that, guess what? You get to talk about yourself a lot. And you know that clients love that, right? They want to—

everybody loves to talk.

They love to talk about themselves. So I find that very curious people make excellent salespeople, and I look for that particularly. And when somebody has it and they have it in spades, I tell them that. I say, don't lose your natural curiosity. Don't let anybody shut that down because that— I have one right now. We talk about it all the time. That is your direct path to success. Just continue to be curious about everything, about what you're learning from us, about what your mentor is doing, why they're doing it, why they're asking those questions. And of the people that you are talking to on, you know, on the opposite side of the table. Keep asking those questions because it's going to serve you really well. Sometimes I wish I had a little bit more of that natural curiosity. I force it, you know. I watch—

I agree. I do these podcast interviews every week and you've got to be really curious.

Sure.

And I admit there's probably days, times I feel forcing it versus watching some, some people who, you know, just are naturally curious. It's impressive to watch. With that said, I would be curious, maybe you don't have an answer for this cuz, cuz not many do, you know, when you get a producer on the team who is extremely successful.

Mm-hmm.

And they've grown their book to a certain point, million dollars plus, whatever. How do you keep, and maybe this is just finding the right people, but how do you keep somebody naturally driven at that point to want to keep scaling? You know, I think there comes a point in the career where you could take the foot off the gas a little bit because you're making great money. And that's your choice, I guess, if you wanna do that. But you know, as a sales leader, you probably are saying, hey, you've hit a million, let's get you to 2, let's get you to 3, let's get you to 5. How do you keep somebody at that level motivated?

Yeah, it's, it's, it's not easy to do, but I have quite a few of them actually. You know, we've got, you know, people that have really large books, continue to grow them. They make obscene amounts of money and they just, they're driven by success by wanting to win. So it's, you know, finding those people and then, And then continually— I don't know that I have a good answer, but continually tapping into that piece of them to encourage them to keep moving on. I think one of the things that I think OneDigital does really, really well that I don't think a lot of our competitors— they'll say they do it well, but, you know, we interview everybody. And the one thing that I don't think competitors do really, really well is hang on to the teams. You know, you have a person who works for you who is growing. Who has, you know, they grew, they grew a book big enough to have a consultant, account manager, an analytic person, whatever, whatever your team is built and looks like. And then you got to, you have to continually scale that up as they're scaling up. Because what happens is, is if they have to spend too much time on managing the account, then they don't have capacity or bandwidth to be able to continue to grow. And we allow that we love to add people to teams. And, you know, we have some people who they're in a book and they want to touch everything. Those are the people that will slow down because they slow themselves down. And we have others who will continue to nourish the relationship, take them out to dinner, take them to a ballgame, you know, call them up on call days. How are things going? But they're not doing any of the heavy lifting. They're no longer in strategy. They're no longer— they are out looking for new opportunities and, and continuing. And those people touch more people and it's easier for them to sell because they're not bogged down with those clients. They're meeting people all the time and their clients are referring them to people all the time. The key to that success is you've got to have good teams beneath that are able to capture the trust of the C-suite as equally as the producer did. And so you've got to have really good people to do that. And so I think that's the formula for success. But you will still have people who have a $3, $4 million book. They're making a lot of money.

Yeah.

And in, in quite, you know, quite honestly, when someone's, you know, in their late 50s, early 60s, they've kind of deserved it and they want to slow down and they don't have the same— they don't have the same drive that they had when they were 30 and 40. Right. They don't. And so I think we just have to accept that and make sure we're we're building succession, right?

Yeah. I think what, when you look at the three layer, three, three paths or the three parts of a producer journey, unvalidated to validated, call it all-star. I think the thing that ties 'em all together is time and how they use it, right? At the beginning, you got a lot of time, so you gotta be a good time manager, learn the ropes, learn how to, learn how to prospect. When you become validated, your ability to continue managing your time so you can keep scaling. Because you have to scale at that point. You're validated, but you got to keep growing, right? Then you hit that point where you've demonstrated success. There is a difference between need to grow and want to grow, but at that point you don't have time. So what are you doing to scale when you do lack the time? To your point, is you got to put the right team in place so you can continue spending time in front of prospects and clients.

There are some producers who love, love, love that— to roll up their sleeves, dig in, and consistently do strategy. And those producers over time build a very large block and almost become a consultant. You know, they grow incrementally because, you know, I worked with the CEO and he moved up from that company, this company, and hired me there. They grow that way. They're not prospecting, they're not out there, they're not going to events, they're going home after work at night, or, you know, um, but they have almost become a consultant. And so you just need to identify who those people are, how their paths are, and make sure you're filling your team with alternatives to that so that you've, so that you don't, you don't stunt your own growth.

Well, I'm gonna ask you one more question, then we're gonna go into a fun little quick lightning round to get to know Nancy Grass a little bit. Okay. So, uh, when you look back on your career, spent a lot of time producing, now you've been leading. When you look back at when you were selling 10, 15 years ago compared to today, where have you seen maybe the biggest change in employee benefits or how employee benefit advisors have to sell themselves, maybe that compared to what we had to do 10 to 15 years ago?

Yeah, well, I think it's interesting because, you know, my career came full circle. When I started in the business, there were not a lot of providers. Then there became a lot of providers. And then we've scaled back down on the medical side, right? I think the difference today for me is it's a little— it's a lot more complex. You know, it's HRIS systems, it's HCM systems, it's, you know, total value, it's surveys, it's compliance, it's, you know, everything to do with FMS, like legal, FMLA, and those laws are changing. And there's just so much more. That I think we're, I'm gonna say, saddled with, we're responsible for because the business has gotten more complex and employers just started to expect us to do more. Right? So, there's a little bit of that. So, I think for me, I would say that's the biggest evolution that our producers need to have a wide array of arrows in the quiver. They know they need to know how to talk about analytics. They need to know how to talk about retirement. They need to know how to talk about property casualty and human resource and, and all that goes with that compliance technology. Before it was more about just really employee benefits, medical, dental, vision, putting all that together. Now it's just a much bigger— it's a much bigger undertaking.

I like to describe it. I got in in 2002. 2002, and when I was— got— when I got in, it was kind of, all right guys, here's a list of suspects, go hammer them with calls and emails. Somebody's going to submit to an appointment, throw some quotes at them, and if you're competitive, you might win. Today it's a lot more than that. It's, it's not only you got to know all these different systems, but you got to build more awareness with your prospects than you used to. You got to build more credibility. The sales cycle is longer than it used to be. There's just so much more that goes into it versus pure numbers, throw a bunch of stuff at a wall. Something's going to stick. It doesn't work that way anymore.

That's why, that's why I think you'll—

you—

we've seen one of the other, uh, very, uh, obvious things that happen is, is those very small agencies, you know, mom-and-pop shop, they're gone. Yeah, they've all been acquired. They're all been gone because they couldn't keep up, right? All this that has to be produced and has to be delivered. Our, you know, our value proposition and scope of service went from, you know, 6 or 7 things to— it's literally a laundry list of like 2 pages now. And, um, and those small agencies just could not— quite frankly, that's why I sold my agency. Like, I couldn't keep up. I couldn't put compliance and technology— I had to keep changing my systems that was managed— were managing our groups because we had to keep adding things to it that our system didn't have the capability, you know. And, uh, you know, we started, I don't know, in 2000 2003 with Employee Navigator, and now it's, you know, Navigator Workday. Like, you have to know everything. And so there's, there's a lot more to it today than, than there was years ago. And it's a lot to get your arms around. And if you don't have people on your team that are excellent at it, or they drop the ball, your whole deal goes the whole way.

And we're transitioning away from you know, transactional broker, even transitioning away from consultative advisor to industry expert. You need experts on your team.

Yep.

Yep.

And all things—

who each have a unique skill set. Yep.

Yep.

Well, Nancy, it's been an awesome conversation. I really appreciate it. I actually went over what I probably promised you, but it was so good I just kept going. I apologize. No problem. Um, we're gonna get to go— we're gonna take a couple minutes here to get to know Nancy. I did not prepare you for these questions.

Okay.

Uh, but I'm a big proponent of habits, rituals, discipline, all those things. Uh, so my first question for you is, what does a typical morning routine look like for Nancy Grasso?

Uh, well, at the moment I need a hip replacement, so my exercise routine— yeah, my exercise routine is kind of getting out the door, but I'm generally an exercise, um, Bible, pray, do, do all that in the morning. Um, then I get— literally, I get to work pretty early. I start pretty early organizing my day. My organization is spillover from the day before. I close all my days with organizing my next day. But sometimes even overnight you have to reprioritize as you think of things, reprioritize. And I literally, I fill my calendar pretty hard to make sure that I'm doing all the things that I need to do. So, you know, I meet with everyone on my team every week. They're calendared. And so my calendar starts to run my day, but everything I need to do is calendared. So sometimes I feel like I'm just going from thing to thing to thing to thing. But sometimes that thing that I'm going to is focus time and focus time on building whatever. Or, you know, so I'm blocking off little sections to actually do work or to think, have think time. And I cover that time on my calendar. I don't let people take it because if not, then I start to scatter. Then I'm just— my days are just running me.

That's what most successful people do. They schedule time with themselves. The calendar looks intimidating, but a lot of the meetings are with themselves. I call it CEO time.

Yeah.

And, and that's exactly it. No, I love that. Uh, okay, so hip replacement aside, if you had 60 minutes to exercise, what's your go-to workout?

Um, I love to do a good hard 30-minute cardio, right? So whether it's an elliptical or running, a really hard swim— like, I love to do a 30-minute swim. I like to swim. We have a pool in the back, so yeah. And, and, you know, I was thinking that even with my hip I could swim, but it— that wasn't working either. So, you know, it's— I'm happy.

Well, I do have some advice for you on that if you want to. So I swim a couple times a week, love it.

Floating thing between my knees. Yeah, everybody keeps telling me that.

You put it between your legs so you don't have to use them.

Yeah, yeah. Um, I've heard— I've actually heard that. My physical therapist told me that. Um, but then I like to do Um, I have the Lululemon mirror in the house, so you kind of— I take these exercise classes kind of with myself. I get to watch myself and they instruct me as I'm going. And so I love to do, um, more strength and less cardio. So it could be yoga, it could be Pilates, it could be barre, it could be any of those. And I'll take a 30-minute class. So I like to break it up into two, um, 30 minutes of cardio and then 30 minutes of a class.

That's great. I love that. How about an afternoon to yourself? If you had an afternoon off by yourself, what would you do?

It depends on the time of year. So we live on the river, so we have a boat and a pool and a really beautiful outdoors. Um, quite frankly, lots of times I'll take off, you know, 3 o'clock in the afternoon and I'll go out my garden and put my earbuds in and everybody just leaves me alone and it's good thing time for me. It's good time for me to just reflect on what's happened, what I need to do. It's great thinking time to me. So, I like to dig in the dirt, but I also love to go out on the boat. And I also love to be with my family. You know, I love family time.

So, any books or podcasts you've read or listened to lately you recommend?

I'm trying to think. You know, I listen to a lot of different things. I try to listen to— I love the Cut the Crap. Have you ever watched the Cut the Crap? They call it Cut the Crap, and basically they're a 30-minute podcast that takes all the new books, new podcasts, new information out there, distill it into 3 or 4.

You need to know.

And then they just kind of do it that way and they cut to the crap. So I like to watch that. I like to listen to that one a lot.

Yeah, that's a— I'm going to check that out because I've gotten to a point where I'm like, you know what, all professional development books say the same thing.

They do. And, you know, so, you know, this person who runs the Cut the Crap, you know, he reads the books listen to the podcast and say, these are the two things that I got out of that that was a little bit different. This is what the book's about. And a lot of times we'll have the, the author of the book or the podcaster on the 30-minute and say, what were you trying to— what, what was your— the real, you know, nuggets that you were trying to lay out here? Um, and then here's what I got out of that book. So that— I, I like, I like that the best just because it, you know, I'm very direct and quick and cut to the chase, and that's my style.

Well, I like you, Nancy.

Yeah.

Well, Nancy, it's been awesome. Well, uh, thank you for, for jumping on the show today. I think people are going to get a ton out of this. If anybody did want to reach out to you, um, what's the easiest way to get in touch with you?

Oh, just hit me up on LinkedIn. Okay. I'm in there all the time. If you send me an in-message on LinkedIn, I answer them, as long as you're trying to always sell me something, like the in-mail salespeople. Like, please, I get so many of those, I can't filter through them.

Nancy, I got something your team should see. Yeah, yeah.

But if, you know, if you're somebody who wants to connect in any other way, just hit me up on LinkedIn.

We might get a couple producers looking for a new gig that are probably going to reach out. So love talking to you, uh, love, love your no-nonsense. This is why I'm not surprised you listen to a podcast called Cut the Crap. Nancy Grasso, everybody. Thanks, Nancy.

Thanks, guys.