Episode 210: The Biggest Leap with Tim Gaspar

Welcome to the Unstoppable Profit podcast. This podcast will give independent insurance agents all of the tools to grow your business and live life on your terms. Wherever you are today, if you're starting with nothing or well on your way to the success you desire, with the right people, processes and promotions in place, you will be unstoppable. And now I'd like to introduce your host, Mike Stromsol.

Foreign.

Everybody. Welcome to the next episode of the Unstoppable Prophet podcast. And I'm excited, I'm beyond excited for our guest to be on today. Have known Tim a long time, not super close, but we've been in kind of the same insurance market for many years, a lot of common relationships and carriers. But now he has taken some big leaps. And what I want to learn about today is the latest of going what's going on with Tim Gaspar. But he recently published a new book called the Biggest Leap. Tim Gaspar, welcome to the podcast.

Awesome. Thank you, Mike. So you might not feel like we know each other closely, but I've been stalking you for a number of years. And so from my standpoint, I feel like I know you fairly well. And I've just, I was telling you before we started recording, I've just been a huge fan of the energy that you bring to the industry and I've learned a lot and just watching you and what your values are and the. The commitment that you bring to this industry. So thank you for, for all you do.

My honor and my pleasure. And thank you for your kind words.

Yeah, it's just a privilege and I know you feel the same way. It's a privilege and an honor not only to serve our clients and our communities, but the industry colleagues and folks out there. So. And that's what excites me so as I got to dive into your brand new book, you said got notes all around me about the nuggets that you dropped. You wrote this book primarily for one reason. To help people build the agency of their dreams.

It's exactly right.

And I love that. I love that, you know, it's why I get out of bed. So tell us a little bit about more of the early days of inspiration to help people build the agency of the dreams. And why do you decided to invest the time to put this together?

Sure, sure. So the. So you know, sort of starting with kind of the inspiration to write the book, I was seeing a lot of what I'll call, I'll call it misinformation. What I should really say is a lot of folks Selling systems to build agencies in a way that is not. Not in line with the way that I did it. So more like, you know, buying leads and sort of going that route in regards to building your book, which was a lot different than the route that I went. And I'll talk a little bit about that. But, you know, you mentioned that the inspiration being building the agency of your dreams. And really I wanted to be able to paint a picture of what that could really look like, because for some folks, maybe they think like, you know, I'll start this agency, and maybe I can get it to, you know, five team members, and maybe I can get it to a million dollars in commission. And then that's kind of like the big goal. And what I want to just make sure that people see is no matter where you are, even if you're in a small town, you have the ability with this industry because the way you can scale it and the. The wonderful business that it is, you can make it into an agency that's 10 million in revenue, 50 million in revenue. I mean, really be able to build something that is just far beyond what you think might be possible. Because I, you know, I built my agency to a point that if you would have asked me 15 years ago, I never would have made a bet on how large it would eventually become. I was as surprised as any as anybody, for sure. But, yeah, I was lucky enough to grow up aware of the industry, which is a big. Definitely a key piece of what's important. I know a lot of insurance folks share that people typically either fall into it completely by accident as a first job that they were supposed to be at for a month, or it ends up being a family connection. So for me, my stepdad was a very successful life and health agent and growing up. And I didn't spend a lot of time with him growing up, but enough time to see that boy. He had a. He had a great lifestyle, and he seemed to really enjoy his work. You know, he had total control and flexibility over his time. And it was something that, as a kid, I just thought, whatever he's doing, I want to know more about it. And so, like most people in insurance, wasn't immediately interested in it. I got serious about it when I was about 20 years old. @ that point, I'd already had another business. I'd already been sued, I'd already filed bankruptcy. I hadn't gone to college. I mean, I was not in a good spot to, like, you know, really start anything, but I was eager and really needed to make it Work to move forward with my life and, you know, started passionate about the business from day one is probably the key more than.

Anything. Yeah. And when I was going through the book in the last couple days, you and I have something in common you don't know.

About. What's.

That? I, too, was selling candy for a profit in sixth grade until it got shut.

Down. We. We should do a study of insurance people and see, like, what percentage sold candy in middle school. It might be pretty high.

Maybe. I don't know. I went down to Long's Drugstore and I bought candy, and I figured out how much it costs per piece. I tripled amount that I was selling it for. And it was amazing to me how many 6th graders had money in their.

Pocket. Yeah, absolutely. You know, it's funny, Schools, they find out about that, and you get in trouble. You should get, like, a medal of some kind for being, like, a young entrepreneur. But right, that's you. You learn at that point. Honestly, there's some truth to this. Getting in trouble for something like that at a young age is the first clue that you get that you might be wired a little different than the rest of your classmates. And that's a bond that anybody who's an entrepreneur can, I think, relate.

To. Yeah. Yeah. So, again, the biggest leap, Mr. Tim Gaspar, building a profitable insurance agency from the ground up, suffered bankruptcy and, you know, later, in a very short period of time, built a very respectable insurance agency business. And I just want to dig in and find a little bit about his thoughts in doing that, his milestone. The first four years, I'm looking at the back of the book. I hit a million in revenue, grew 15 to 25% every year after that until selling the firm 15 years later for an excess of 30 million. So congratulations on that, Tim. But bigger than that, again, to reiterate your heart is to helping others do the same thing. So I love that I. I shared with you when I asked you to come on the podcast, a little bit about an experience that I had in my career journey with one of our clients. And I said, I want to ask you the same question and see what your answer is. And I'll give you the answer after years, because I don't want to see the answer. But our largest insurance client in my career went from zero to a $1.3 billion revenue company. And I asked the founder of the company, when they were about 7 to 800 million, a question, I said, if you had to pick one thing that you've done that made all the difference in helping you achieve your current level, what would that be? I continued to study success and I'm only curious. So I posed that same question to you, Tim, and I can imagine there was probably a lot of answers. But can you. Did you come up with one thing that helped you achieve that.

Level? Absolutely.

I've always prioritized learning within this industry, within sales, within leadership, within systems, within anything. You could learn amazing things in this world just by being curious. I went to a class at the Disney Institute. They do a class at Disneyland about their customer service because when you go to Disneyland, there's a certain level of service that you expect and they deliver. And I learned so many things there that I was able to the furthest extent that I could, without a Disney type budget, be able to implement in my own agency. And so I've always been a big advocate for investing both time, money and also energy into learning. Because you have to be really intentional about it. It's not as simple as just, hey, I'm on an email newsletter that I read and learn some stuff. You have to have some formalized way of doing that. And so for me, I had, you know, insurance coaches, I'm in a group, business owners and CEOs that meet once a month and discuss best practices. I have, you know, certain places that I like to get information, sort of read up on. And then honestly, Mike, I wasn't, you know, a standard for flattery like the following. Folks like you that have good ideas that you just take a nugget from here and a nugget from there and, and incorporate it into your operation and you add all that stuff together. And most importantly, you do it consistently on a daily basis, weekly basis, and you'll, you'll always be moving.

Forward. Yeah. And I can't re. Encourage what Tim just said, and I agree with everything you said. The number one reason I've learned this from one of my mentors, the number one reason that people don't get to where they want to get to in life or achieve what they want to achieve in business is that lack of consistency.

So. Absolutely. That's.

Right. Vitally, vitally important. I'm going to go off path here for just a minute, if I may. So when those tough days came or something happened, what continued to cause you to get out of bed, to push through.

Consistently? Oh, sure. You know, just that the passion for the business, you know, people have, a lot of times I've, I've heard, you know, entrepreneurs be asked in so many different interviews, you know, why are you so passionate about this business, and why. Why do you feel so strongly about growing this company? And the reality is, the reason every entrepreneur you talk to is really passionate about their businesses. If they weren't passionate, they would have gone out of business a long time.

Ago.

Right. Because the reality is every business owner has stories where they should have been put out of business by some calamity that happened, whether it was their fault or not. And so really, just having that passion to get up, you know, you can feel bad for yourself for an hour or two, but the next day, you got to get out of bed, you got to show up even if you don't feel like it, and at least go through the motions of continuing on. And it's like you said, it's consistency. You do that every day, even when you're not feeling like it, and you have the passion to win and the passion to move forward, and you'll have more good days than bad at the end of the.

Day. Fantastic. Thank you so much. So I'll share with you what that entrepreneur said. And it's. It's interesting to me because what I've seen about Gaspar is the fact that you built a phenomenal team as.

Well. Super important.

Yep. Very admirable. So this entrepreneur said, simple. When I evaluate all the decisions I have made and how I got there, there's one common theme, and it's.

Team.

Yep. You can't win if everyone does not have the same vision. I'm only successful because of the balance you need within a team. After all, you're only as good as your weakest.

Link. 100. That's.

Right. So all of that's in play. And I. I remember I saw a piece with you. I don't remember how many years ago it was, but you ended up in a room with Warren.

Buffett. That's right. Yeah. That was Ian. I had the opportunity to ask him what he thought the future was for, specifically personal lines, insurance agents. And, you know, this is asking the guy that owns Geico, so not a better. You know, I can't think of a better person to ask.

And.

Right. You know, he's. He's so sharp. And you could ask him literally, I think anything in life, but his answer was basically he. And I think he was completely genuine where he says, if I was in your industry, I think I mentioned what my role, what my job was. And he said, you know, as long as you're providing value to your client. And he said, as long as you mind your store, you'll be Fine. And that's turned out to be so true. We treat our team the right way and our customers and the rest kind of takes care of.

Itself. As long as you mind your.

Store. That's.

Right. Everything else will take care of.

Itself. Exactly right. Exactly.

Right. That's a gold nugget right there. So thank you for sharing that and awesome stuff. So this book, the Biggest Leap by Tim Gaspar. There's so many gold nuggets in it. As soon as I got it and I opened it, started going through the chapters. You know, I, I, we could spend hours going through the chapters here. You know, from dress the part, the imports of follow up don't water the weeds. I want to stop on chapter six, which is be.

You.

Yep. Everywhere you go.

And in today's world, where online, you know, a lot of people put up a facade, if you will, or share stuff. Why did you write that chapter? Why'd you title it like that and tell us your, your belief about that in accomplishing what you.

Achieved? Oh, sure. So it's really a matter of being authentic, being true to yourself and knowing who you are and what you do for a living, I think is a big part of that. And so, you know, I've met people that are in the insurance business that at parties and stuff, they'll enter you. If you ask them what they do for a living, they'll say something negative about the insurance business, almost as if like they're embarrassed about it or they don't want to talk about it, they're not proud of it. And so, you know, I've always had the opinion that what I do has value and people need it. And if I get asked what I do for a living, certainly not obnoxious about it, but saying what I do to protect people and their assets and my role within the insurance business is something that I've been proud of since I started. And, and also a key part of that is when you leave the office every day at 5, 6, 7 o', clock, whatever it is, you don't, you don't turn the profession off. So if you're at the grocery store and you bump into a customer that for whatever reason wants to talk about why their rate went up or has some issue with the claim, it is so impressive to customers when you're outside the office and you give them the time of day, you take it seriously, even if it's something that's not going to result in a sale. It's just the epitome I think of being professional and that's a lot of times, I think, what sets apart really professional people from those that just kind of see it like a job and on the weekends they don't want to be bugged about it. And that's a different type of folk, for.

Sure. That's.

Mindset. Absolutely.

Absolutely. It's having the right kind of mindset and correct me if I'm wrong or, you know, not thinking correctly myself and, and stating this, but you know, you attract exactly what you are and who you.

Become. That's right. Exactly.

Right. You mentioned intentionality and learning and all that. But it's intentional as far as being a professional and people recognize.

That. They do. And people that are serious about what they do, whatever it is, they're going to want you to be their agent because you're somebody that's as serious about what you do as they are with what they do. And absolutely. The rule of attraction, you know, it applies a hundred percent and it pays, you know, it pays huge dividends and it makes life a lot easier in so many different.

Ways. Well, it's back to the 8020 rule. And you reference the 8020 rule a lot in the book as well. And I'm a huge advocate of the Pareto principle. But can you think of a couple examples of, you know, how that's come into play in the agency world? I mean, it's true there, right? To suit with the marketplace, you know, you're probably attracting 80% of the people as.

Well. Yeah.

Absolutely. And then you got to learn to deflect the bottom 20%. But go.

Ahead. Right. Well, you have to be really intentional about what types of clients that you attract. And also, you know, what types of folks you want to do business with and, and how you do that. And so you, you need to, to really determine what your agency is, do you go after preferred business? Are you going after non standard auto? You know, do you want the model line auto business? Do you want the full package account? And there's no wrong answer. There is agencies that do, you know, every single one of those things that do really, really well. But you can't be all things to all people. So what will happen is if you're set up as an office, like I'll use our office as an example, that half of what we do is personal lines. And on the personal lines piece, we're set up to handle the full account, auto, home, umbrella, ideally the life insurance. And so the systems that we have in place are for that. So we know if somebody comes in with only their auto insurance or only a renter's policy. It's not a matter of making less money. We will absolutely lose money. And if that person has claims, which a lot of times model line policies do, then it's digging into possible contingency bonuses and, you know, affecting that piece as well. And if you're not careful, if you're taking every type of client and not paying attention to where the revenue is coming from, and this is where most agencies are at, and I was in this spot for many years, you will absolutely end up over servicing your smallest clients. And because of that, you will ultimately under service your biggest clients that are paying all your bills and to your point, account for typically 80% of your revenue. And that's not what you want to do.

Obviously. No, no. And you talk about that in chapter 13, understanding your numbers and data. And I saw reference in other areas of the book as well, and I love that. And, you know, we're not going to get deep into this one, but you mentioned profit loss statements and balance sheets and, and other critical data. It's just amazing to me. Everybody listening or watching out there, please. It may be 80% who aren't paying attention to those.

Numbers. Oh, I think, I think that's so true. And I think some folks are. They're intimidated and they think like, that must be. That must be complicated. Like, you know, I'm not an accountant or whatever it is. But the reality is, if you spend just a little bit of time educating yourself on those types of financial statements, and there's a couple books in particular I pointed out in my book, you'll be able to read the financial statements just like any CPA or any, you know, private equity firm or whoever it is, and be able to make much better decisions based on understanding your numbers and understanding the.

Data. 100. And, you know, the bottom line is we're business.

Owners. Absolutely.

Yeah. Who just happen to operate within the independent insurance agency business, which is our choice, and it's a.

Privilege.

Yeah. But, you know, we've got to understand all of those things and we have to be intimate with them to an extent. Because if the. The net isn't in the black and a positive and certain other contributors are not in the right place, then there's a whole nother issue. So I love that you brought that up and I want to get back to where we were. So thank.

You. Who you.

Are. And it's a lot easier that way.

Anyway. Right? Oh, boy. Yeah, it makes it. Yeah. Much, much easier. You know, you don't need to Think about who you are when you walk into a room. If you're the same person, you know, everywhere you go, and people are attracted to that, especially as a leadership quality. Being somebody who's authentic and not hiding things or being, you know, somebody, or being somebody with two different personalities depending on who they're talking to. That's not something that anybody respects. So being, you know, the, the same everywhere you go is so.

Important. Right, right. And then you go on in chapter eight talking about full time clients only. And so you, you drop a lot of nuggets there, alluding to what you were just talking about, how to build a more profitable, bigger agency faster. And, and that's a key part of it. But the other contributor that I really want to touch on in our short time together today is chapter 10. And in chapter 10 of the book, you, it's titled Specialization. But you know, that caught my eye as well. So I dug in. And it starts out, there are riches and.

Niches. That's right. That's.

Right. So talk about that. And you said the first reason. Reason is efficiency. And the second benefit of being niche focused is leverage with your carriers. So what have you learned about that? And I'm sure you did that. That was a huge part of your ability to grow to the level you did so.

Fast. You know what? And I would. My only regret in regards to that is not doing more of it. I have a chapter in the book with a lot of things that I would do differently if I started over today. And being specialized in everything that we do would be a huge part of that. Because when you think about, you know, your marketing efforts, you can be really focused with your marketing efforts if you have a specialty that you're the expert on. And just think of from a sales process standpoint, when you meet with a client, let's say the client's a restaurant, and let's say they're specifically a Mexican restaurant. Imagine you walk into this Mexican restaurant to the owner, and maybe this is a cold call or first time you're meeting this person and you tell the owner of the Mexican restaurant, I'm Tim, I'm the specialist in Mexican restaurants. Nobody knows Mexican restaurants as well as I do. And because I've got so much business with Mexican restaurants, the rates that I get from the Hartford or Travelers, whoever it is, are 20% lower than the rest of the marketplace. And it's got better coverage because I know exactly what the coverages need to be. So that's kind of a hard thing to say no to From a value proposition standpoint. And then at the office, your account managers, they only have to worry about one type of business and probably like maybe two or three carriers the most when they make changes. And you know, just with the general office processes that exist. And so everything about it is just more efficient, more profitable. It creates a moat around your business that makes it difficult for competitors to get into. And for all those reasons, anybody who would ever be interested in buying your business, whether it be a private, a private equity backed firm or a bank backed firm, or just, you know, another entrepreneur, Businesses that specialize are always valued more than a business that is a generalist. And that's just, you know, the way it works in doctors, specialists are paid more than generalists. I mean there's a lot of examples that work the same way in.

Life. Yeah, 100 agree. And it's easier to do business. And when somebody calls in, let's say it's a client and you only have two or three carriers who are in that particular specialty, the team members who are servicing them, it's much easier for them to say, hey, we deal with the top carriers. I, I know the rate's gone up a little bit, but you know, we keep our fingers on the pulse of all of the marketplace and you're still in the best place. Let's work together and see if we can get this where you want it to.

Be. 100 and being able to talk about it, you know, confidently. So many account managers and producers, you know, whether it's personal, commercial, they work with 100 carriers and they really like can't get too deep into a particular carrier because they just have too many to know. So just think of, you know, how impressive your team will be when they know that policy form like, like the back of their.

Hand.

Right. It's real differentiator for.

Sure. Yeah. And I was just in a conversation within the last hour with a significant agency, national agency, you know, of your caliber, and we were talking about relationships and it just lends you a greater ability to build deeper, more significant, meaningful relationship. Less is more.

Philosophy. Right. Oh, and that's really like if there's one real theme to the, to the book, Mike, it's, it's the relationship piece. It's everything that's worked out for this company. The best team members that I found, the best clients, the best ideas, they all came from different relationships that I've had over a number of years. Both in my people I met in my personal life that came over to business and vice versa. That is so important. And that's why building an agency based on relationships creates like a flywheel of success, if you will, where if you rely on things that are like buying leads or doing SEO and stuff. And again, there's a business model that, that works. You're missing that relationship piece and you're becoming more of a vendor and it's more.

Transactional. A.

Commodity. You really are. You're playing into the commodity piece. And if you're an insurance agent, like we are trying to win in the commodity space, good luck with that because that's an area where I think the agents that focus on being the lowest cost are going to have a tough time because the carriers that don't use agents, they have a lower cost structure. They just do. And that is what it is. That's a fact. It's just harder to bring value to the client if it's all about the monthly cost or something along those.

Lines. Well, and speaking of lower cost structure, without going into details or naming names, there's a direct market in our state who's more down on my neck of the.

Woods. Yeah.

Yeah. Direct carrier who's having financial issues because maybe because there's not agents out there protecting the business.

Yeah. You know, it's, I've never seen such great examples of this. One and some other. There's been so many situations over the past couple of years that have made tech firms and PE firms realize, wow, agents have a lot of value because, you know, I don't need to name names. But you're aware of all the PNC carriers that came in that were going to cut us out and now they're begging us to do business with them because they realize the value that we bring to the.

Table. Yeah. And the industry knows. And you know, I, I saw, I heard a number fairly recently. I've heard it again over the years. 86 or 87% comes to mind. The independent agent has that kind of influence and ability to write profitable business up to that.

Level. Yeah. Part of our job is to be the field underwriter. And if you're doing that well, and that's a, you know, that's got to be a key part of your business. It's just for the long term. Maybe you miss a few easy sales and those are the sales you want to miss anyway, you're going to build a much more profitable agency and your reputation will be such that you call a carrier. They're going to know who you are, you want to do business with them, and they're gladly going to give you that appointment because, you know, they'll know what your reputation is and they'll know that you produce profitable.

Business.

Bingo. That's worth a lot.

Profitable. That's right. Learn how to build a profitable business and write profitable business. So, yeah, awesome, awesome stuff. Again, Tim Gaspar's new book, the biggest leap, built a phenomenal insurance agency fairly quickly, faster than most, and he spills all the beans in the book on how he did that. But Tim, I just got to ask this question because it's one of the things that privilege to help people with the most, not their favorite, which is the people portion. Chapter 16 Building your team the importance of a players.

Give us a couple minutes on that. I heard you say maybe you attracted a players because as of the last couple years, you have roughly how.

Many team members currently we have just over 50. I think.

52. Okay.

Five.

Two. Okay. That's. That's a fairly significant team starting from.

Nothing.

Yeah. Congratulations, by the.

Way. Thank.

You. And congratulations on being a great leader. So what was the key to building the team up to 52 and, and identifying the importance of a players and all.

That? Yeah, well, you know, you, you pointed out before, like you can't do everything yourself. And as an entrepreneur, you're going to want to do everything yourself. And then, you know, again, there's 24 hours in the day for everybody, obviously. So you need to have people that will follow you and believe in your dreams and be able to. To do the work. And the amount of productivity that an A player has compared to somebody who is maybe mediocre or maybe somebody who's not committed to the cause. A players aren't, you know, twice as good or three times as good. They're ten times as good. You know, a players can take any problem that you encounter and they'll figure it out without ever needing to come to you. And so the key is being able to be an authentic leader that has a vision to attract just the first couple. And those are typically going to come through personal relationships. This isn't usually an ad that you have in the paper. And once you have a players on board, they will attract other A players. And so, you know, it sort of. It becomes something that it gets a certain amount of momentum and continues. The most important thing though, that you have to realize as a leader is if those people are going to continue following you, you always have to be working on yourself as a leader to become the type of leader that people will follow. Because, you know, there's obviously the thinking that leaders are born and, you know, not made and all that stuff. But the reality is, even for somebody who maybe has natural leadership qualities, there's so much you need to learn and you will make missteps and maybe not handle a situation the way you wanted to, but you learn from that stuff. You don't beat yourself up. But making sure that you value those team members and you know, take care of them, even maybe take care of them like, like I'll use the word family, is making them feel like they're part of something, that you value them is. It's the most important thing. Because if those folks leave you, you can't do anything. You can't scale your business, you can't write more business, you can't service the business. You're sort of dead in the.

Water. Yeah, and that's the last question I want to get to and I'm going to go there in just a minute. But I've got a question that just came to mind that others out there might be thinking about. And I encountered this a lot. So what would you say to the agency entrepreneur, owner, decision maker who has two candidates on the table? You know, one wants X per year, but maybe the better candidate wants, you know, 20 or 30% more as far as compensation. Yep, I know my answer. But what's your answer? Is it the smart move from a scalability standpoint and a business operations standpoint to invest in the better candidate and pay them.

More? Oh, 100%. It's a bargain to pay more for the better candidate because the efficiencies that you get, the additional people that you'll attract, if you go after the lowest paid candidate, it'll just hold you back. And a lot of times that candidate, depending on their habits and such, might cause more negative consequences than even the productivity they bring to the table. So go with, as long as it's legitimate and you feel that you checked references and, and there's value there. Go with the, the higher paid candidate every time. Even if you stress out about it and have to pay yourself less, it'll be the right decision every.

Time. Good point, good point. Pay yourself less. And you outline in the book as well, there was a period in your evolution where you had a line of credit and all this kind of stuff and you almost max that out and that's what you had to do to build the business.

Right. If you're absolutely, you have to put the business is separate from yourself and the priority has to be the business if you want to see it flourish. And yeah. So I took out private equity homes, private equity loans in my house and max them out and, you know, maxed out credit cards or did whatever I had to do to make sure that I would make payroll, even if it meant, you know, hanging on to my car a little bit longer or, you know, maybe putting off a trip or whatever it was. If you make it a lifestyle business that's funding a nice lifestyle, there's nothing wrong with that, but that's not going to be conducive to building a really successful business. You've got to be willing to make the sacrifices and, you know, make the choices that sometimes are a little painful in the short term, but to get your business to.

Grow. I hope everybody caught what Tim just said. That was another gold nugget. So if you missed it, stop, go back, rewind it. Listen to what he just said again about, you know, how to build a business, not a.

Lifestyle. Absolutely. Yep. Two different styles are overrated. The, the, the satisfaction that you get from driving a nice car and having a nice watch is. It's, it's fleeting. You get that stuff and it wears off quickly. The satisfaction that you get from building something that, you know, potentially your kids can follow into that gives you an opportunity to leave a legacy that provides jobs to other people and opportunities. Oh, man, you can't get, you can't get satisfaction like that anywhere else. There's nothing material that's going to do that for.

You. That's ultimate fulfillment. Ultimate.

Fulfillment.

Absolutely. 100%.

And.

Yeah. And because of your hard work in building a business, now you're at the point in your life and you're in your 40s, maybe early 40s, and now you have built this legacy and business where you can just turn around and give back for a lot of years in the.

Future.

Yeah. Because of who you are, it's going to make a significant impact in the lives of many. So thank you for that, by the.

Way. I'm looking forward to.

It. Yeah. Yeah. So my other question for you was. And I think we might have already begun to answer the question, if not mostly fully, but I want to hear what you have to say. So in your opinion, because a lot of people, you know, talk about building their business. Building their business, but you also talk about in the book scaling your business. So in your mind, what's the difference between scaling and just growing your.

Business? Well, if. If all you do is grow and you don't scale any systems, you don't scale your technology, your workflows, and all you do is just Sell a lot. That's actually something that'll be just as detrimental as not selling anything at all. So Dave Packard once said, more businesses die of ingestion from starvation. And so you write a lot of business, and it's great because you get the cash coming in from the new business commissions. But then somebody's got to service this business and somebody's got to make sure you're servicing it well enough to not have EO claims or terrible retention or terrible loss ratios. There's so much that goes into building a business the right way that you want to make sure that, you know, obviously the sales is incredibly important. It's the lifeblood of any business. But just as important is the infrastructure around those new, you know, having the ability to service your business and having those A players we talked about and really paying a lot of attention to that because I always laugh. You know, the companies that you see sometimes in like a magazine is the fastest growing companies in the world. It's like 5,000% growth year over year or something. Crazy. Yeah, you look at that list over the last 10 years, most of those companies that grew at those kind of clips, they're not around anymore. It causes a lot of problems that are. It's tough to be able to resolve those things and come up with good solutions real time. So you want to do enough growth to be aggressive, but not enough where it exceeds what you're able to build around.

It. Sustainability.

100.

Absolutely. Yeah. Tim, great, great stuff. And thank you for sharing myriads of gold nuggets on the podcast today. So, just for everybody out there, the biggest leap by Mr. Tim Gaspar. 80% of insurance agencies never hit a million dollars in gross revenue. Gaspar conquered the milestone in four years and grew 15 to 20% in just 15 years. Fifteen years later, I should say, took some chips off the table, if you will, for over $30 million. Not bad for a guy who is bankrupt at age 20. So here he is to tell about it. And you've told about it, and thank you for sharing it. There's a lot more in the book, Tim, if people are looking to get a copy of the book, where they can, where can they find.

It? You know, it's going to be the same place where so many of us get books and groceries and everything else. The books for sale on Amazon. If you search for the biggest leap or biggest leap and then my last name, Gaspar, it'll pop right up. You can also go to the biggestleap.com and that's a website that I've set up that has the book and then also some different forms that I put up there to help agents with some things to help you avoid EO and things to help you figure out what a good specialty is, and whatever I can give people to hopefully be able to make them that much more successful in the business that I.

Love. Awesome. Well, thank you for doing that, and thank you for being who you are. And we got started so fast, I forgot to ask you the most important question out of the gate, so I'll circle back to that. You have a spouse and you have a family now that you get to build a legacy with.

Right. Oh, that's. You know, it's funny. I think we all. So I'm 41. My kids are 9 and 12. And, you know, like most insurance kids, they're not, like, jumping up and down to work in the insurance business. And like most parents, I just want them to be a surprise. Is shocking. You know, I want them to be happy. So if they want to, you know, whatever they want to do that makes them happy, I'm. I love that. But there's absolutely a part of my heart that says I'd love for them to continue the legacy. And, you know, my wife Christina, you know, I've got my face on the book, and it's my name on. On the agency and stuff. And the reality is she does all the work, and she really holds the family together. And when I do have the days that are tough, you know, holds me together and really, like, it'd be more, you know, probably a book about picking the right person to marry might actually be the most important book.

Right? A hundred.

Percent. Yeah, I got that right. It made everything else.

Easy. Yeah, I got it right the second time. But anyway, with that being said, we were talking about that before we went on. Behind every good man is a great woman. Great woman. And I 100 agree with that. So thanks to all the great women out there. And honestly, this podcast will air the day.

Before. Oh, Mother's.

Day. Possibly one of the most important days of the year, if not the most important. Right? Mother's Day.

Yeah.

Right. So to all the moms out there, Happy Mother's Day. And we are 100% not only aware of the fact that we wouldn't be here without.

You. That's.

Right. But we wouldn't be half of who we are without you because of what you did for us in our formative years. Thank you to all the moms out.

There. So absolutely. Happy Mother's.

Day. Yeah. So Tim, again, thank you for being on the podcast today. As we wrap up today, anything else you'd like to add? Any last gold.

Nuggets? No, just. Hey, you know, just want to reiterate what a great business this is. Business isn't going anywhere. Websites aren't going to put you out of business. The. The future is bright for so many reasons. And again, thank you, Mike, to all the knowledge that you are sharing with folks and need more people like you to go and share the. The news about this industry and get more people into it, because I honestly feel it's the best in the.

World. I would love to have a side conversation with you, maybe sometime when we can, about younger people and getting them into the business and how we can help them. That's been a conversation inside our circles for a couple of years, and we haven't made tracks with it or gotten traction with it yet. So I would be super interested in that. And we build an infrastructure that might be able to help.

So. Awesome. That'd be.

Fantastic. Let's connect on that sometime. I'd love to have a combo with you about.

That. That'd be.

Great. That'd be fantastic. All right, Everybody out there, Mr. Tim Gaspar, thank you for being on the podcast. His recent book, the Biggest Leap, you can check it out on Amazon. Just put in the Biggest Leap gas bar. It'll pop up. Tim's also got some free tools and resources there as well to help you in your agency business. Congratulations again.

Tim. Awesome. Thank you so much, Mike. Thanks for having me.

On. All right, everybody, if this is your first time on the podcast, welcome. My name is Mike Stromso. We are super honored and grateful that you're here. Please make sure that you go to unstoppable profitpodcast.com go up to the top and click, click, subscribe so you don't miss one episode where we bring on incredible agency entrepreneurs and other people, entrepreneurial people and industry people, to help you grow your business, create wealth so you two can have more freedom, and we can't wait to see you on the next episode. Thank you for being here. Until then, get out there. And I'm sure Tim's an advocate of this. There's only one thing that people.

Need to do, right, Tim.

Make sure you take your mom to a nice dinner for Mother's.

Day. Absolutely. Good point, good point. But take.

Action. Take it. Oh, 100. Nothing happens unless you know every great journey starts with the first step, right? That's absolutely true.

Mike. Yep, yep. It'll lead to your next win or your next lesson, but simply take action. And that's what Tim kept doing, taking action. And he continued to grow to record numbers. Congratulations on that. But also, by the way, if you got great value out of this podcast, please share it with somebody else that you know, just simply forward them the link unstoppable profit podcast.com and they can get all the helpful tools and strategies and resources that you experience on the podcast. So thank you very much for being here. And until next time, get out there, take action, and remember this. You got this. We believe in you, Tim. Thanks.

Again. Thank you.

Mike.

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