Episode 286: High Performing Agency Teams with Laura Hicks

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.

Greetings, everybody. Welcome to the next episode of the Unstoppable podcast. And if you are viewing this podcast on our YouTube channel, yes, I have my set of glasses on because I am privileged and honored to have on the podcast today the one, the only, Laura Hicks. Laura, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you, Mike. Wonderful to be here. Thank you.

Grateful. So I've got my high eyeglasses on because that is my personality profile and I'm going to let Laura share all about that and so much more. But if you haven't heard of or know of Laura Hicks yet, you will when we get done. But to intro Laura, Laura's a trainer, a speaker, a business consultant, and author of the Blue Circles. And this is a book that she authored. And we'll, we'll dive into that just a little bit. By the way, we'll let you know how you can get a hold of that as well, which is a book about building relationships. And my add on is always deep, meaningful, significant relationships, which is what we're trying to do. Prior to starting her own business, she spent 21 years working in corporate America in sales, marketing and human resources, and worked for Ma Bell, AKA Pacific Bell. So, Laura, we originally met in, I'm going to say, 2008 at a networking event. And I like what I heard, so I came up. I remember I went up to meet you and I still have the picture of when we met. And then the next year, I found myself and my teammate Andrea Wyatt in your master class for an entire year, learning all about people.

And to this moment in time, we're still learning about people.

Aren't we all?

Aren't we all? Yes, we are. So Laura works with a number of our clients in our Unstoppable profit producer program, Also works with a number of other independent insurance agents and insurance agents in other areas, trying to help them understand and work with the people. And to point, right person, right seat might be a good analogy. You always want to have the right person in the right seat. And a lot of times, Laura, when we introduce somebody to you and then you start working with them, you find the right person is not in the right seat, or maybe they're in the wrong agency. Tell us more.

Okay, what would you like me to elaborate on first, Mike?

So, in working with independent insurance agents.

What'S the most critical area that's needed in agencies related to the work that you do? I mean, you do personality profiling, but you do leadership assessments and a whole myriad of other things. So how does that help an independent insurance agency leadership team and ownership team make the right decisions?

All right, so to begin with, there are different agencies across the country that have different challenges. And when you ask me the most critical, I can't think of just one. But I can give you the top three.

Fantastic. Let's go there.

I'm going to say the first one is actually finding the right person for the right job relative to looking at their ad, their resume, the interview questions, as well as are they testing properly to make sure that the person that they're hiring has the right skills. So all of that encompassing and then to boot is do they have the right behavioral style for the job title? Do they have the right core values that are in alignment with the team? Do they have the right critical thinking? Or do you have, quote, unquote, a wackadoodle, which we do have a lot of. And some people especially, I hate to say this, but it's true. A lot of the younger generation don't have a lot of life experience and therefore don't have a lot of complex problem solving skills. That would be item number one. It's finding the right person for the right job. Item number two is not motivating their team in a way that works for the team member. So let me give you an example. If a business owner is motivated by making money and being time efficient, I see a tendency to transfer that onto the team members themselves. And not everybody is motivated by money. Some people are actually motivated by helping other people and feeling that they're making a contribution. Now, mind you, I said feeling. And a lot of business owners forego how their team people actually feel, and they're just driving the business. Other people, as I've run into lately, I have more than one of my clients has on the core values a very high, what we call power, which is someone that wants to be in charge of their own destiny. And when they hire someone that also has that high power as a core value, we end up with power struggles. And so what I notice over time, especially with someone that's new to working with me, is unfortunately, they've hired people that are a lot like them instead of Hiring the right people for the job and the job duties and responsibilities, that's number two. Number three is actually retaining their people. There are a lot of people out there that are, that are have a constant churn, or not even constant even. Just if they lose two or three people during the course of the year, they're not looking. That's where your leadership come, the leadership skills comes to play is how are they working with this person? Are they micromanaging when they shouldn't be, or are they letting the people go and hang themselves with enough rope when they need to be managing them more tightly with guidelines and deadlines? That's one of my new phrases these days. I've used it probably about 7 to 10 times just this last week alone. If you bring this person on, you're going to need to make sure they have guidelines and deadlines. And not just guidelines, but guidelines that work for the individual. Because if a business owner asks someone to do something.

That they think is okay, but the team member questions relative to.

That may not be morally ethical to that team member, like asking them to quote a policy that's outside the state. When they're not licensed outside the state, they're just asking to run the quote.

Okay, I've seen that happen a lot.

And it doesn't work. So those are the three areas basically. Hiring, motivating and retaining. And different owners have one and, or two and. Or three.

But how many do you encounter that has something positive operating in all three? What percentage? 5, 10, 15, 20? More than that.

In all three?

Yeah, in all three, probably about a third. Okay, that's good.

About a third of. And a lot of my clients are in your program. And thank goodness, because they have at least a good job description of what it is that they're looking. People that are not in your program have real trouble creating a job description. So then when they're creating the ad or hiring, they're not necessarily hiring the right person for the right job, period.

Yeah, you just opened up a whole bunch of questions for me. So thank you for planting the seeds. Now I've watered them a little bit. Let's help people grow that are either listening to or watching this podcast. So I'm going to jump back to my own story.

Okay.

It was in the early days of our relationship and I said, well, what do I need to be do. What do I need to do to be better as a leader, to attract the right people, et cetera? You said, well, let me see your ad, your hiring ad. So I sent it to You. And she goes, now, do you expect to hire people with this ad? I said, I do. She goes, do you have any idea what kind of people are going to respond to this ad? I said, the people that I want. And you said, well, you're trying to attract people exactly like you. And I thought to myself.

Mike, isn't that what you want? And you said, no, that's not what you want, because you just mentioned that a couple minutes ago. You want to have people that are complimentary to what you want to accomplish.

Which was absolute goal. And so since that point in time, we've gotten so much better because of working with you. So thank you.

You're welcome.

The next thing that you've done over, you know, there's. There's a whole list, and we've gone for hours. But the next thing that you just said was job ads as an example. And so you started working with my teammate, Andrea Wyatt. In fact, the story is behind my back. You were both working behind my back, and it doesn't bother me one bit. I was grateful that you were. But you created job ads for every position in an independent insurance agency based on the personality profile that's needed for that particular seat.

Right. For those job duties, it requires different behavioral styles. Some people, you need to have soft sens. I'm putting up my green sunglasses here for the high s behavioral style. So you attract, you know, someone that is sensitive, supportive, a team player, not someone that is going to drive business. You want this high Ds or type A personalities for your sales.

Right.

But I got to tell you. Oh, yes. And you and the friendly, you want someone answering your phone, the receptionist. You want someone friendly or welcoming and approachable. So when they answer the phone, they're saying, hi, thank you for calling ABC Company. How can I make this the best day of. How can I make this the best call for. I can't even say it right now.

Of the day. Yeah.

How can I make this your best call of the day? Thank you. Or if you've got a processor, then you want someone that has the analytical skills. And so when people don't use the right words to attract the right people. Oh, gosh.

People have a tendency to write their ads to attract who they are, not who they need for the job.

Right, Right. And once we learned that, we got so much better and we grew that much faster because we had the right people based on what they brought to the table, their personalities, their skills, their abilities, and all of that. And it got really, really good. But you also Said so anything else on the job? And by the way, I also know that I also talk to the agents in our program that you work with as well, and they tell me, you know, working with Laura has been fantastic. And, you know, she helps us with our job ads currently. You know, we have those templates that we created, you two, you and Andrea created together, and that we provide to our member agents. But you have also identified the changes going on in today's society with the people, and so you're updating the ads to meet the current relevant needs, which is fantastic. So that's the feedback I hear. So thank you for that.

You have something to add on that? Go ahead.

Yeah, actually, I do, because not everyone uses the same job description. Some people want some nuances. Some people want a CSR and an account manager in their drawers, drawing distinctions between those job duties.

And adding and subtracting. So, yes, I do help people with their custom ads. One of the things that has really jumped out at me over the last, and we actually, believe it or not, Andrea and I created those ads seven years ago, back in 2018.

So what has also evolved over time, as I'm going to say, since COVID really, is there's a lot of competition out there to hire talent. And other people have really gotten creative with their ads. If you go look on indeed or ZipRecruiter or any other job website that you might be using and look for the job title, you know, and look at some of these, they're going, we want a dynamic. But they're also talking not just about the kind of person that they want. We want a dynamic person that does blah, blah, blah. They're going, we are a great organization to work for. They actually talk about themselves and put their agency or their company up on a pedestal to say, come work with us. We're great people. And a lot of the ads, Mike, that I see between your clients and mine don't have that extra marketing twist to it that says, we're a great team. Come work with us and have a good time. So that's what's missing from a lot of it, is talking your company up.

Yeah. And the other thing that I want to jump back to in just a moment is the core values, because you said that also. And I want to make sure that we blend that in as how you might attract the right team members for your organization, meaning the best, not the best available, which is what I share a lot. But back to your comment about, you know, look at us, etc. Etc. Yes, they want to be surrounded by a special group of people.

Meaning these, you know, top talent candidates. But if that's not their personality style, let's say they're high S, which is stable. You know, let me get back to my card.

Stable, steady, supportive, thoughtful, sincere, team player.

If it's that kind of person, they don't want this, you know, party atmosphere type thing going on.

No.

But then we changed the ad to, we are a solid organization that's been around 20, 30, 50, 100 years, and we rarely hire. So we're looking for that special, sincere, thoughtful person to come join our team and make us. That's why you got to tweak what it is that you're promoting about your company to fit the right person.

That's right. But that right there is the core of why we're here today, sharing this information with Laura Hicks from SBL Consulting. And I didn't even get that in the beginning. Forgive me, but it's so vitally critical that you work with a professional like Laura to truly understand.

How you can meet the person you're looking for. Because like you said, there's thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of candidates out there. But if you don't meet them in the mirror related to who they are, they're going to pass, and they're going to pass quickly. In today's marketplace, they are.

And there's been some shifts since COVID too.

You know, wages have gone up across the board, benefits. The candidates out there want more, they want more money, they want less hours, and they want. Typically, they want less responsibility. I've been very surprised because some people actually have me do the interview for.

Them.

And I listen to these people. The other thing that's very common, by the way, that you all should be checking, is looking at the resume. On Friday morning, I was looking at a resume, and I went, oh, my gosh. You want a processor? And the person misspelled, get ready. You can't make this stuff up. They misspelled the word insurance.

I will never forget. Well, it won't be anytime soon. We were masterminding in Nashville, Tennessee, last year. You were kind enough to come in and do special sessions for our members. And the conversation in the room was, what percentage of information on a resume may not be truthful?

Up to 70%.

Up to 70% of information.

By the way, I didn't make that up. That came out of Forbes.

Say that again, please.

That came out of Forbes.

Okay.

Yeah.

Which is generally known to be fairly accurate.

Fairly accurate, yeah. Which is More than my own judgment, by the way.

So it is my wholesale belief that the war for marketplace talent is won at the interviewing table. Now that's part of the reason that our hiring system includes phone screen first interview, preferably face to face, but at a minimum zoom and the camera's on.

Then if they get past that, we have Laura in step number three, which is coming in for assessments. Talk about all the assessments that an agency can use to make sure that that's the right person for the agency and for that seat.

Okay, so first off, let's just start off with the sales skills. Because if you're looking for a salesperson or a CSR slash account manager that can cross sell, you're going to want to know if they have the sales skills or not. And it's the least expensive of all the assessments that I offer, to be honest.

You mean a salesperson needs to know how to sell.

Wouldn't that be ideal? So, so the guy that created our sales, our scale, our sales skills assessment is Jeffrey Gittamer, who wrote the Red Book of selling. And he got together with a couple of other gentlemen, they've been friends for like over 30 years, which is Jim Cathcart and Dr. Tony Alessandra. Three of them got together, created this incredible sales skills in all honesty test. And it breaks down the eight different areas of selling and whether or not someone is below average, average or they're stellar. As a matter of fact, just earlier today I had someone that came in extremely stellar. So I reached out to my programming staff, this is before, right before you and me got together. And I said I need to know how long this person took because they did so well and most people don't. They took an hour for a 20 minute sales skill. So they were googling to try and find the right answers. So with that said, I've had this happen multiple times. I highly recommend that whenever you're doing an assessment that you bring them in unless they're remote. But if they're remote, then watch them take it. So you know how long by the way, the take the record to take the behavioral style, the core core values and the critical thinking along with the sales iq. Because if they pass the sales piece, then you want them to take the other ones. And the record is four hours.

Wow.

It shouldn't take more than an hour. So this person, this person, that, and that's the record. It was just set earlier last year. And I've been doing this for pushing 20 years by the way. I was shocked because they said how come this person, you know, taking the, the assessment right now and I don't have their report yet, and it was after an hour, I said, I don't know, let's see how long it takes. They were trying to beat the assessment.

Yeah. And I had that experience as far as having them come into the office many, many years ago. I could swear that they had a family member taken and it wasn't them. So you just want to. But that was a big aha moment that, what you just said. If they can't come into the office, you can actually dial them up on Zoom and you can watch them or at least monitor them taking it. So you know, it's the real person taking it and they're actually feeding their answers into it versus, you know, Googling or GPT or perplexity or whatever they're using nowadays. Right. So that's great stuff. So we've got disc profiles, we've got sales iq, we've got the executive. What's the executive again?

The Executive Insights is one report that's comprised of three different assessments. Behavioral styles, you know, behavior, who you're dealing with, you know, how they show up. Then we have core values, motivators, which is why they do what they do, what's driving them. See, we can adjust our behavior to adjust to the other people that we're interacting with. But I will tell you, core values, you don't adjust.

No, no.

You cannot motivate someone with money if they are not motivated by money.

Right.

Okay.

It's the economical on the motivator.

Correct. And so that's the second component. And then the third is the critical thinking. And when we look at critical thinking, we're actually looking at practical thinking, we're looking at intuitive thinking and systems thinking. And we're looking at that in six different areas in totality. So whether or not they're crystal clear and attentive or balanced, or whether they are unconventional, I've been running into that a lot lately, where people are unconventional with their practical thinking and they learn with patterns. Now, that element in itself is not necessarily a red flag. Well, when you read sometimes what unconventional thinking is, initially we go, that's not okay. But it can be okay if we know what the pattern is. And normally with patterns comes a routine. And a lot of people like a routine on how they do business. So the thing to uncover is in another interview after they take the assessment. Well, actually, after you talk to me, because I'll tell you if they need what you need to ask for the Next interview, which is, you know, so tell me about your routine and structure. How do you start your day when you're on the phone with someone and you're talking to them about their policy and then you want to make sure, oh, you realize that they only have, you know, monoline. You only have the car. Well, let's, let's segue into, you know, offering a home, an umbrella and things like that. What's your. What's your routine? What's your script? What's your pattern? How do you do that?

Okay. And a lot of people aren't doing that. So a great way, way to take that to the next level is actually role play and have them sell to you.

Fantastic. And what I just heard you say, you know, we've got the disc, we got the motivators. It's all part of the executive suite. We have the sales iq. But you help agents, agency leaders and owners more specifically ask the right questions. And the interviews after you do the assessments. So it's phone screen, first interview, all the assessments, connect with Laura, find out what to ask, and really get to the nitty gritty of what we need to uncover to see if they're a good fit for the team. Then you go into the next interview series and get to it. So that motivators is absolutely huge. And I remember you telling me, you know, as an example, you may not want a team member on your team that's like super high power. They're just going to want to come in and dominate everything. And they're going to. They want to Burger King it. Right. They want to have it their way.

Oh, yeah. Oh, I like that. Burger King it. Yeah. They're going to want to do it their way and they can be pushy. Now here's the deal. If we have someone that has very low D, but a very high power, then we have someone that wants to do it their way that's going to go be covert about it versus over, and then they'll go passive aggressive.

Yeah, that generally doesn't work out too often, does it?

No, it does not. You know, a lot of people want to just run the sales piece and think, you know, can I hire this person? Can they sell Other people go, I just want to do. You know, a lot of people use omnia, but omnia is only that one piece of behavior. We can all mask our behavior depending upon who we're talking to.

Right.

You want to dig, you know, in my humble opinion, you want to dig deeper and know what you're getting.

That's part of the beauty of your reports. It shows the natural and the adapted style. And then you unpack all that because you have three or four designations behind your name. You're well educated. You continue to educate yourself so you're at the top of your game to be able to help business leaders out there. And you do great work. So thank you for that.

So I wanna. I wanna elaborate just a little bit more on that motivator piece because you mentioned high power. But one of the things that's been showing up a lot since COVID is the victim mentality. And they can hide that in an interview. It's kind of like a first date when if any of you ever, you know, remember dating. But it's like that. They're hiding that. And the victim mentality will show up in our reports. And then you get to choose. Some people can deal with that and some people cannot.

Right? Yeah. So that. That's no disrespect to anybody out there. You got. You have to. You need to understand all of these things when you're trying to put together the right team, because your culture and your core values. And we didn't necessarily get to that. And I want to jump to one other thing as we begin to wrap up.

By the way, Laura, if anybody out there watching this, listening to this, wants to reach out to you, let's have them start at least via email. And you willing to share your email, of course, or any other contact information.

It's Laura. Laura at sbl, as in Sam, Brian, Laura.

Okay, Laura, BL consulting dot com. So if you want to have a deeper discussion with Laura about anything that she's talking about and how to make sure you've got your right people on the bus, so to speak, and maybe evaluate your entire situation, I can't recommend that enough. It's been a critical, critical part of our existence as an independent insurance agency business. So great stuff. And the other great thing that you've got going on right now, and we didn't even get to this, is I know the leadership, the leadership skills. And that's really what perked my interest to get you onto the podcast, because we've been pursuing you for a while. I'm looking at the following 25 competencies are key contributors to superior performance professionally as well as personally. And it actually came from, you know, one of our members. And I looked at it and I said, holy Toledo. This is an owner leader who is struggling with managing change, exceeding customer expectations, proactive thinking, creative thinking, giving and receiving feedback, visualizing the future. And I said.

And that's what came to my heart. Because everybody that's watching or listening to this podcast, I want you to be aware of where you are, because that's our beginning point of improvement.

We've got to continue to get better every single day. So give us just 30 seconds to a minute on the leadership skills and everything around that.

The leadership skills is ideal for all business owners, number one, that have direct reports.

Especially if they have any churn. I'll add emphasis. So if you are going through people or you are building or expanding, if you are expanding and growing your team and you want to know, I mean, in all honesty, deep down, I mean, I spent 21 years in corporate America having a team that I managed myself. And in all honesty, I found that it was easier to work with some people than others. And other people drove me absolutely nuts.

And I suspect that I am not alone in that, that some of you have people that are wonderful and you get along with and others not. But what is most important are what are your blind spots? You know, do you delegate well or do you manage interruptions well or not? Do you have an open door policy or not? Do you know how to manage your stress? Do you lose, you know, your self control? Are you, you know, are you a loose cannon? Do you go from 0 to 100 inside of, you know, 30 seconds when something is bothering you and then you explode? And some of you are going, yeah, that I've done that.

And others are going, no, I would never do that. So are you avoiding confrontation instead and letting your people want all over you at times? You know, they're 10 minutes late coming back from lunch. Do you talk to them about that? You know, so there are different. There, there are 25 different areas of leadership that you actually.

Take a look at and measure yourself. So it's about being honest with yourself. Where are your strengths and where are your challenges?

But the agency teams that are performing at the highest level in today's marketplace are the agency teams that use the other part of your service in leadership, where they have their team members take the assessments on them.

Yeah, it's called the Leadership360 and yes, so that is a different assessment. And the business owner or manager, if they're a manager, because a lot of you have managers in place, take the self assessment and then send a link to direct reports, peers, your boss, or even to you, Mike. You know, the people in your program, they want to know how you perceive their decision making or the way that they look at the Future, you know.

Well, that would be cool. We should talk more about that. I can't wait. I mean, because at the end of the day, I get out of bed to serve independent insurance agents. Yeah. And I know you do too, and that's why we're here. And help them get further down the road and grow and create wealth and have more time, freedom and other freedoms to live life on their own terms. And when they're stuck with this people part of the equation all of the time, they can't. And so that's why you are so valuable and you are a large piece of that whole people puzzle. And when we can bring it all together, it gets a lot more special because we've got millions of people out there. We just have to find the right few to become part of our team together. Everybody achieves more. We got to find the right team members for the right culture. Because when the culture is right, the team is right and operating at the highest level and they all have the right attitude, they have the right character, they're coachable and capable and competent. Is my new fifth one. Then it gets really special and Laura helps with that and she can pull out things that we can't see because us human beings are a mixed up bunch.

Well, it's not necessary. Well, some people are mixed up, but.

It'S just I myself, I was talking about myself.

Okay, all right. But in all honesty, I am able to pull things out of the report with all the years of experience and the fact that I do this every single day. And the other thing that I'm working on in draft form is a new book on all of this for specifically the world of insurance.

That's fantastic. I was going to ask you that right now. Laura, is this your original book? Yeah. Your original book called the Blue Circles and it's available on Amazon or on Laura's website, Correct?

Yeah. And it does say Laura Bruno, because at the time I wrote it, I was not married. And then my new book will be Laura Hicks because I changed my name when I got married several years ago.

Got it. Fantastic. So I can't wait for that one to come out. And so do you have a title for that one yet?

I believe it's Hiring Right in the insurance industry, something like that. Oh, how to Hire. Right. How to Hire Right. And you're putting me on the spot. This is good. How to Hire Right in the independent insurance agency world.

Fantastic. So Blue Circles, which I still refer to, I've got pages, you know, dog eared, torn out, the whole Nine yards. I bought the book, so I'm going to use it just so I can get the highest and best use out of it. And I still refer back to it as far as Ideal client, avatar, pursuit, the blue circles. And so Laura's new book coming out, how to Hire Right in the Independent Insurance Agency Industry. We'll look forward to that hopefully this year to learn more about how to hire right in the independent insurance agency industry. And it's a moving conversation, endeavor, activity, pursuit. Because it's my belief that you attract exactly what you are and who you become from the owner leadership chair. Okay. And then you begin recruiting, attracting, recruiting, interviewing and hiring. Okay. And Laura fits into all four of those quadrants and does great stuff and helping us make the right decision. And sometimes if they get through the door and we miss something, back to what you know, I started teaching years and years ago and it's hard because there's two kinds of relationships out there. Personal relationships and business. Right. This is a business relationship only we got a higher, slower and sometimes fire fast. So. And I know that agents who have worked with you for years in our program, their high D, as Laura says, they just want to, you know, dominate and all of that kind of stuff. And they want a quick decision. They're direct and all that. They just call you and say, hire yes or no.

And you just say.

Well, I'll say, actually, I texted someone on Friday. I said, I like this guy a lot. Hiram now.

Okay.

And then earlier in the day last week, I texted someone, you do remember the song by One Republic. It's called Run, Run Run.

Got it. So I mean, some people just want that quick decision. Is it a yes or no, Laura? And you just say yes or no and then we go on from there. Yep. Because the war for marketplace talent is one at the interviewing table. And this is part of that. When I say interview, the whole process of evaluation. Yeah.

And I do have, I've worked with several of our mutual clients, Mike, this last year to actually create a great 30 minute phone interview.

Ah, I would love to hear more about that. So maybe we can schedule some time to get that into the mix as well. So fantastic.

I'll email it to you.

I would be grateful. And anybody who would like some more of that information. Again, I've got Laura Hicks on the podcast and we're going to wrap it up so we can get on to what's going on with D Bears organization, but which is her football team. And a quick personal story from years ago, I used to follow a team from Oakland. Since they're no longer in Oakland, I don't follow them as much anymore. But and she's a Bears fan, Raiders fan. And so we were always collaborating on Sunday, especially if they were playing each other. But that's our kind of football past history. But with that being said.

Laura at SBL Consulting, that's L A U R A at Sam Brian Lima Consulting.

Laura oh boom. Sam Brian Laura forgive me consulting.com laurasbl consulting.com Shoot Laura an email. If you'd like to learn some more information about what she has going on, you can get her current book, the Blue Circles Turning relationships into Referrals or introductions, as we say in her new book coming out, how to Hire Right in the Independent Insurance Agency Industry. That was one of many, many, many reasons why I wanted to have her on the podcast now. So you all are aware that it's coming out. And if you haven't spoken with Laura about making sure that you've got the right people in the right seat and the right team members within your independent insurance agency, I strongly encourage you, Laura.

Sam Brian, Laura Consulting.

So connect with her. She's got lots to offer and she can tell you a ton more about how she can help your agency grow, become more profitable, and just be a better place to serve others in the independent insurance agency industry. So, Laura Hicks, thank you, thank you. I'm glad we were finally able to get you on the podcast. And again, if this is your first time on the podcast, welcome. My name is Mike Stromso. I am widely recognized as a leading author, speaker and coach for the independent insurance agency industry. You can learn more about what we do at upplife.com upp Unstoppable Profit producer l like Laura, I like Igloo f like frank elikedward.com, upplife.com it's our passionate mission developed over 35 plus years as a proud independent insurance agency owner to help agents grow their business, create wealth and have more freedom to live life on their own terms. And so if you haven't done it yet, go to Unstoppable Profit Podcast. Go up to the top, click, subscribe so you don't miss one valuable episode like the one that we just recorded with the unstoppable Laura Hicks. And if you feel so inclined, feel free to share this podcast through Unstoppable Profit Podcast to anybody out there in the industry so they too can get this valuable information to help them grow their business, create wealth, and have more freedom. So Laura, again, thank you thank you. All right, everybody, I will see you on the next episode. Until then, you know how it goes. Make a difference, be unstoppable, leave no regrets. And you got to get out there and take action. I'll see you in the next episode.

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