Episode 307: The UPPOnyx Agency Operating System

Hey everyone, it's Mike Stromso. I want to welcome you to UPpionics, your agency operating system, presented by the Unstoppable Profit podcast hosted by Daniel Metcalfe with Mike Stromso. Enjoy.

Hi, this is Daniel Metcalf. If you're running a multi million dollar revenue independent insurance agency, there's a good chance you're successful and still carrying too much of the weight. This podcast is for agency owners who've already won, but know the next level doesn't come from more hustle or more tools. It comes from a different operating system. Onyx was created for that exact moment when leadership, structure, automation and identity all have to evolve together. Today's episode sets the foundation. I'm joined by co founder in this venture, Mike Stromso. He's an industry icon, architect of the three piece framework, and a mentor to hundreds of agency owners who have stepped out of the operator seat and into true ownership. So, Mike, welcome to the show.

Daniel, I'm honored and privileged to be here and to work right alongside you as. Right alongside you. Excuse me. As co founder of Onyx, the work that we've done to this point has been so rewarding and I am pumped. I'm thrilled. I'm excited to start working with agencies and make this reality in their agency.

Yeah, same here, Mike. I'm so excited. The fact that we've come up with this new program and operating system to help others succeed at the level that you've been able to succeed and all the other agencies that you've worked with to succeed at that level and then take them to the next level. So that said, I want to start with a question.

Sure.

Burning on everybody's mind. Why do so many successful agency owners still feel maxed out?

First of all, it's my 100% belief that your mindset is your skill set. So if you're maxed out in your mind, you're maxed out. But there's a reason that you feel maxed out in your mind. And the number one reason that that maxed out feeling, that overwhelmed feeling, that oh my gosh, I'm never going to get anything done, feelings in place right now is because they're still working in their business too much. And the secondary factor to that is they don't have a quality teammate, in many cases, a second in command, which is one of the very first things I did many, many years ago, was hired a quality second in command to take stuff off their plate that they shouldn't be doing. You know, one of the Greatest strategies I ever learned was you should only be doing the things that only you can do. That's elevated scaling and leadership thinking at its best. And when you're doing stuff that you shouldn't be doing, you're never going to get to the next level.

With that said, though, Mike, you've coached hundreds of agencies, so why do so many of those owners hit a ceiling even after doing everything right?

You met, you mentioned it right out of the gate, they don't have a complete operating system in place that can take them as far as they want to go. And that's why. That's why I'm so thrilled. That's why I can't wait to jump out of bed every morning to continue the work in the Onyx operating system. Because I know and you know, and we talk about this all of the time.

This is it. Yeah.

This is what's going to take them as far as they want to go.

Right. But that being said, what revenue level or, you know, where in their income of the agency do you see the owner becoming the bottleneck? Even when they're extremely talented, somewhere between.

A million and 2 million in revenue because they've grown to a certain point just by hustle and working their butts off and maybe a little bit of Lux involved. However, you know, somewhere between a million and 2 million, it's going to get to the point. And that was the case in my agency. Right.

Right.

It was probably about a million and a half in revenue, where I said, I remember the moment, my team, because we had a team bonus structure, and we were humming and we had all the carriers, we were right in business as fast as we could. And the phones were ringing. We had a marketing department and they were like, we can't handle the incoming calls. There's so much. Because the marketing, it never stops. And they missed their goal three out of the 12 months that year. And I said, hey, team, what happened? And they said, we just can't handle the amount coming at us. Something's got to change. And that's where we stopped. Really thought deeply about this, a lot of collaboration, and we separated the sales and the service department, reinvented our agency. And I'll just be completely transparent here. First year out of the gate, I say it was more of a failure than it was a success. But we didn't give up.

Right.

Went back the next year, reinvented it again, changed things a little bit, got better. We had more success than failure. But it was year three when we hit probably 80 to 90% success in what we had envisioned. And then we were off to the races, so to speak, and we had all of that, everything that I've talked about and so much more.

While you were going through that process, what did you identify, what are agencies identifying that you're already working with, of the quiet cost that you and I talk about all the time? Right. What's the quiet cost that agencies are paying when the owner stays too close to the day to day?

Well, I mean, it depends on how you want to think about it. It's obviously revenue. They're not earning the revenue that they could be earning because they're not doing the right work, so to speak. They're just continuing to work, to break even, maybe to grow 5 or 10%. They're not experiencing that exponential growth. But you know what the real cost that is, Think about your valuation, think about your ebitda. That's where the real cost is.

Right.

Because if you really start looking down the road of where you want to be three years from now, five years from now, ten years from now, and you want, you expect that, that valuation to be at a certain number, it's not going to be there. And what's going to happen then? I talk to agency owners all the time. I mean, you know, I, I plan to retire, you know, at certain, at X number of age, at this age and et cetera, et cetera. I said, well, you can go ahead and, you know, multiply that times 0.70 at least if you want to be conservative, go 0.60. And they go, what do you mean? I said you're going to lose 30 to 40% to taxes.

Right.

And that's the number that you're going to be left. Well, that's not good enough.

And you and I talked about this as well. Like, we don't feel it's because of a lack of opportunity.

Oh, no, they can't do it. No. And in today's opportunity, my gosh, it's so much more. This PE money that's getting thrown around out there. It's not for everybody, right. I mean, producers, let's just take producers as an example. There's a lot of producer contracts that are getting restructured because, you know, the PE money has a three to five year cycle before it needs to be rerun. We'll just say, right?

Yep.

And so when that happens, when they need to cut costs, I mean, that's one of the first places they look. It might be producer agreements as an example.

Okay.

So, you know, producers, there's not there's a lot of producers out there that are not thrilled with the way things are going. As an example, bigger than that, I think that a lot of people from the consumer standpoint, whether it be personal or business, just want that relationship. You know, automation definitely has a place within business.

Right.

But they don't want the full extent of automation. They want that personal relationship. And that's why I'm so excited about Onyx, because Onyx is designed to free up agents time to continue to build and enhance those, those human to human relationships.

Right. And you and I both know that, you know, talking to some of these private equity firms and what we're knowing, you know, other things that are happening in the market, in the industry. They don't want the independent insurance agencies to learn some of this, to get ahead of them on this part of it because it's going to increase their value. Right. The agency's value is going to go up and then the P firms are going to have to pay more to get access to that value. And so that's the little secret in the industry is they really don't want the independent insurance agencies to actually learn this operating system. Do you agree?

100% agree. I mean, let's take an example. Let's say you have a $5 million revenue agency and you're operating at a 30% net. Right. Correct me if I'm wrong on my math. That's 150,000 or 1.5 million.

1.5 million. Yep.

1.5 million and 30% net on a 5 million revenue agency. You've got control of a lot of your shots at 1.5 million net.

Right.

You don't need others. And that's what excites us so.

Absolutely.

Because we built in Elsa. Right?

Right.

Got executive coaching which helps you make the right strategic decisions on that 1.5 million net. We've got leadership coaching which helps you understand the people and make sure right person, right seat, you know, through our teammate Natty Lewis.

Then change management, which is always, you know, when you're put in change leadership.

Leadership, right. Hey, look, everything rises and falls to leadership. It's really that simple. You've got Jesse. You have Jesse, who's our sales coach. You know, he's working with the production, the producers to make sure that they're constantly focused on being a full time producer. And then we've got you, Daniel, and your team who's focused on the AI, the automation and the technology to make sure that you removed everything from the teammates table. So to Speak so they can build those relationships and then you bring it full scale from the back end with the security and the dashboard. I mean, doesn't get much better.

Right.

In fact, where were you 15 years ago?

Yeah, well, in a different space. But I'm so excited the fact that we can now bring a lot of these types of opportunities that other industries have already taken advantage of. Like I told you, Mike, right. We're doing AI and automation and machine learning in a couple of other different industries before LLMs were even in existence.

Right, right.

We've now just had this opportunity to bring it to all the industries because of what those LLMs have done for us, because of the focus on AI and automation, on what the open eyes and the, and the Google Geminis have brought to the attention. Right. This is, this is what's going to help. And now that it's become a day to day reality, that also means that anybody can do it, but not everybody can do it.

Right.

That's what I'm so excited about at, you know, Onyx as well, is combining it with all the rest of what makes elite agency so that they can maximize not only their revenue and their goals, but their legacy. And I'm really excited about, of that, of that part too.

Well, I mean we, we missed a very, very important piece because I'm consistently reminded how vitally important this is. The accountability piece.

Right.

We've got our accountability director who built into Onyx and I was just on with him earlier this morning talking about supporting our founding Onyx member agencies through accountability. And we're going to step up our accountability to all new levels. Not that it's not at a high level now.

Right.

But we designed that platform up to the next levels this morning to launch for the member agencies because I mean, look, accountability breeds responsibility. We're not looking to, you know, slap people's hand. We're looking to make sure that they're doing the right work.

Right.

And if they get, if they fall into working in the business too much as an example, we're going to gently remind them, hey, business partner here, we need to get back to doing this if we want to get to that goal.

Well, and you, you know, your experience and you know, years of what you were doing inside the independent insurance agency world, you were adding systems. Right. You mentioned even the story of when you knew you needed to make a change. Right. And that was the systems at the agency. Yes. That was the system you were putting in place. Right. You know that without that accountability, that system will not get will not get the success that it needs to. Right. It's not going to get the attention if we don't hold ourselves accountable in order to be able to do that or have somebody holding us accountable. This, this Onix program is no different than any other operating system other than it is specifically designed to create legacy type agencies. Right. So we still need that accountability in order for this to be as successful as possible.

It is different, however, in what Onyx brings to the table.

Correct.

And what's different about Onyx? You get everything that you need from one singular resource, one singular partnership that is solely focused on driving your agency forward to wherever you want to go. You don't have vendor A, vendor B, vendor C, vendor C, vendor D, maybe vendor G, and beyond. Right, Right. You've got one singular partner who's focused on helping you get to where you want to go. And that's, that's what excites us so. And we are so excited about this. I mean, to point every dollar you invest, we are guaranteeing that you will get $3 back in return. We put our guarantee in writing. And if you don't, we're going to work for free until you do. It's really that simple. That's how much we believe on what, in what we built. And I can't wait to continue to have great conversations within the marketplace. And we've already had a lot of great conversations.

Yeah, absolutely. Now. But I have to ask you this, Mike. So you've already had an elite coaching program and programs for a number of years now. When did you determine or why did you determine that it wasn't enough anymore?

One, because I identified that there were a lot of missing puzzle pieces, if you will, in our coaching programs. And that next higher level is what they all aspire to become. But it's like, you know, you're reaching for something and you can't quite grab it. And so a big, big, big part of that has been the sales coaching and the automation technology and AI. And for that fact, the eq, the emotional intelligence, leadership, coaching. And when all of that came together this year through our ongoing collaboration and work together for agencies, it all became crystal clear. And the great thing about it is every single person on Our team is 100% focused on Onyx qualified agencies.

But other than what you saw, what else changed in the agency world, Independent insurance agency world that forced a different solution?

That's a great question. There's a lot of changes. I mean, things are changing like every five minutes in the agency world. Let me Give you if you want to go up to a really high level thought process.

Yes.

Let's do it through Covid as an example. Right. We remember that transition through Covid. It was brutal for in a lot of situations the hardened market, the hardening markets and some of them are still difficult. We don't know what weather is going to do at any given time and it could get really, really hard again, whether it be hurricane, tornadoes, winds, fires, whatever that is. Recently re read that from the property standpoint that consecutive years they're reaching the high billions of property losses because of weather events. So we never know. It's a numbers game is what it really is. Bottom line, the what I'm trying to get to is this. The carriers, the carriers are watching everything that's going on and the carriers think that they can deliver direct to consumer insurance product and eliminate the agent. And they've been working on this. Look, I remember 25 years ago when I was early days of my scratch agency and Safeco, I'll just go and drop a name here came out with virtual producer and they said this is going to change everything. I'm a fire ready, aim guy. I said I'm in. I jumped in. Within two years or less the program was gone. Why? Because they couldn't find profitability. They had no way to do frontline underwriting, they had no way to build relationship, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It's the same thing today. These carriers feel that they have the data, which they do. Is your agency management system data 100% secure. Just leave that on the table. Yeah, they have the data, they have the money, they have the people they're investing in from an analytics and automation standpoint to mine that data. And they've been lining up for quite some time their abilities to go direct to consumer market. And they're already doing it in a lot of cases.

Right.

But the one thing they will never ever, ever be able to overcome is the relationship piece. That deep, significant, meaningful relationship with consumer whether it be personal or business. Right. And so that's why Onyx is so key because it frees people up through the automation and technology and the ability to do the heavy lifting so they get their time back. I mean our first 30 day freedom wins. Right, right. That's, that's a primary design in the first 30 days is to free up the time for the agents so they can build those relationships.

Right, right. In the community, in the individuals and the businesses. That is what they can't replicate. Right. And that in in no, same with my history. Right. How many people, because of our experience in that machine learning, automation, AI, how many times like, hey, I think we could use all this technology in order to bypass the agents altogether. And I've been bullish about it. You are not going to be able to use machines and software to replicate that relationship. You're just not. Especially since we all still are as human beings. Community driven. Right. Tribe driven. Right. So how are you going to replicate that? Instead of fighting it, why don't we try to find a way to partner with them instead? Right. Find a way to make things easier, make things more palpable for them to want to work with the carriers so that you have that partnership together rather than trying to, you know, everybody trying to work around each other. Like that's. And that's really where I see Elsa can really start to drive through the Onyx operating system a lot of those types of relationships too.

Well, the other thing, I mean, let's be real here. I remember when we started getting big revenue wise as an agency, I had every carrier knocking at my door, wanting to give me an appointment. I mean, I had leverage. I, I had a lot of leverage. Right. And so that's the huge benefit of what we're doing here. We're going to help you get to that level so much faster and we guarantee it.

Right.

And once you get to that level, your doors are going to be wide open for whatever it is you want to accomplish.

Right. What have you identified as a shift that the most successful Onyx type owners are going to have to make?

Get out of their own way. And what I mean by that is they were used to doing things a certain way for so many years and now they're going to be asked to make a change in their daily operations for themselves and they've got to let go. I remember those conversations in the agency. I remember those days and the conversations with our leadership team. And I had to trust, I had to let go. And I remember those leadership meetings when, because it wasn't me anymore. I was one of four. I only had one vote. I owned all the stock, but I only had one vote of the four. And I'm sitting there in leadership meeting knowing darn well they wanted to do this or they wanted to do that. And I knew they were going to fail. I knew it. I'm. Because of my experience. Right, right. But if I didn't let them fail to some extent, I was ruining a good, I was ruining a good future leader. And that right there is vitally vitally important. And that's where it all gets tied together in Onyx because you've got the executive coaching, you've got the leadership coaching on how to lead your teammates through all of this and you have the ability to maybe include them at some point and somehow. And then you got the producers doing their full time production thing to keep the numbers moving in the right direction. And then Daniel, you and your team come in with the AI, the automation technology to better support them so they can be doing those things. And then of course, Joel McKinley comes in with the accountability to keep everybody moving in the right direction and so much more by.

But did you always have the belief that the agent could be at a higher elite level than it was at the time? Did you always have that belief that there was another level that you could take the agency to with that leadership team?

100%? All of the time. But you know where that came from, where I learned it before the turn of the last century, more than 20 years ago. We'll just say one of my early marketing mentors said, invest a dollar, get a dollar and one cent back or more party almost exact words, right? And I'm like, what is, what does that mean? He said, look, if you invest a dollar in anything and you get a dollar and one cent back or more, you've got an equal one to one roi. That's a celebration. And then I correlated in my mind to the insurance industry. I thought, and that's first year commission only. What do I have to lose, right? I have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Then I started investing in myself to learn from the best of the best of the best at the highest level. And I remember, I mean, I'll share a story. I mean I've got a lot of, lot of failure in my journey, right? I mean I remember speaking with my wife and I am super, super blessed because my wife, she is my biggest fan. And if I say, honey, I think we should invest in this, she goes, if you think it's a good idea, go for it. And she's always been that way. So I'm super fortunate in that aspect. And so there was a point where it was a hundred thousand dollar investment. And so she goes, that's what you want to do? I said, well, we need to do a HELOC on our house because that's the only place we have that kind of money where we can write a check. She goes, well, if you think it's a good idea, go for it. Well, that one we lost. Okay, okay. I bring that up for a reason. That is part of what made me and made us who we are on the journey. Because we've always been willing to invest in ourselves. And of those failures, I would be willing to bet there's been, I don't know, three to five times as many wins. Maybe not as significant, but there wins. And you know, when we try something, we try something. If we fail, fine. We learn. You never lose, right? You either win or you learn. It's really that simple. And so, you know, through those journeys, through those wins, through those lessons is what we call them, not failures. I mean, that has created the belief in ourselves and myself is the compound effect of it. All, right? The, the. More like, wait a minute, because I learned from a billionaire in 2007 when I invested in myself to go sit in a room to listen to how he became a billionaire in 2007. And he said, know this, guys, you don't know what you don't know. And I'm like, wow, think about that. So simple, right? And he goes, look, when something goes wrong, think about it like this. Nobody died. We can recover and move on. That really changed my mind forever. So, I mean, there's lots of other things that happen in my journey, but the bottom line is mark Twain said 80% of the things in my life that I worried about never actually happened.

Right?

And my great. One of my greatest, favorite all time quotes, Irma Bombeck. When I stand before God at the end of my life, I hope that I'll be able to say I've used 100 of the talent that you've gave me. And it perplexes me from time to time. And this is why, part of why I get out of bed. Everybody's got so much talent, so much ability. I mean, Daniel, we live in the greatest country in the history of Earth, right? Or the universe, if you will, with abundant opportunity for everybody. It's right there for the taking. If you're willing to believe in yourself. We believe in you.

100%.

Join us on the belief journey because we know you can do it. And now that's the other cool thing about accountability, right?

100%.

From the outside, we can see things that sometimes people can't see.

Can'T see the labels from inside the box. Right, Mike?

That's right. That's right.

So.

And you get the combination of all of us as your team working for you.

I was just about to ask that. So why did you insist? And I remember, I remember how adamant you were about this, why you insisted that this operating system under Onyx be built as a super team instead of a single coach model.

Look, that's why I wrote the book last year, the power of three. I've identified in my life's journey so far that everyone has three personal talents, gifts, superpowers, whatever your description is. And if you will focus on operating within those superpowers, 80% to 100% of the time, you will be more productive, you'll be happier, you'll produce more result and everything else that it brings to the table. And that's why, if, you know, back to the EOS model, a lot of people have heard of eos, right? We were an EOS independent insurance agency. So we bring a lot of that thought process to the table. Right person, right seat is what they teach. You gotta have the right people in the right seat, right? And so I know what I know. My three personal talents, gifts, vital functions, or superpowers, if you will, are sales, coaching and marketing. And if I get to do that, you know, 90% of the day or more, I'm like over the moon. And Daniel, we've really never talked about this.

Oh, the big reveal.

Do you have three?

I do.

What are they?

They're vision builder and grit.

Interesting. Now that's very interesting. Vision builder and grit. But with AI technology and automation as the result.

You got it.

That's cool.

Not only the result, but also the ability to scale my three powers because of the wonderful gift that's been given to us with AI and automation.

Right.

Have I been able to help so many more or get more, to have happier days and to have more opportunities to use those powers to positively affect more people's lives, My own community, the wonderful country that we live in, that has been the most amazing gift, using those tools for good. Right? You see me speak at many different industry events, and when I talk about all AI and automation really is, at the end of the day, is a machine for the knowledge worker, right? We've had machines as humans for thousands of years, from the wheel to fire to, you know, levers, all those different things, right? Printing presses, you named it all. From a physical standpoint, to help us become better humans physically. Now we have tools that are available to us to make the knowledge worker even more productive and even become better humans. And that's what makes me so excited about these tools and how we can bring this to our industry that we love so dearly in the independent insurance agency industry, to where they can take advantage of it, where they can use it in, in combination with sales, with leadership, with, you know, leadership coaching, executive coaching, all those combined together is where they are going to be able to scale at levels that they never even dreamed of up to this point. And now we have that belief, going back to belief. We have that belief in them that if they follow this Onyx operating system framework, work with our super team, they're going to be able to achieve all of what they will believe that they can be as an agency. I'm sure it's sitting in the back of their mind, Mike, that they've got goals, they've got things beyond just revenue, beyond just dollars and cents, that there are legacy items that sit in the back of their heads that they've been thinking about. And instead of having to sit behind and say, oh, I don't have a family member to sell this to, or I don't, you know, I don't know who's going to take this over. They can build something that still is left behind even when they're gone out of the agency. And that's. That is another piece of Onyx that I'm excited to be a part of, to see some of those legacies being being built.

I mean, if you look at legendary people, I mean, just a couple that are coming to mind. Jim Rohn, Rohan is one. Andrew Carnegie. Now, I've heard some things about Andrew Carnegie and his personal habits, et cetera, et cetera. But let's look at it from a business perspective. I mean, both of those gentlemen as an example, Maya Angelou is another one, right? So the goal for all of those people were to build, build, build and become so significant from a wealth standpoint and others that they spent the rest of their life looking to give it away. And if you really want to think about something that's important, think about that. I mean, we were having this conversation before we went on today. Why are we doing this?

Right?

I mean, we could go do other things with our life because we've worked and earn that right, but that's not what we want to do.

No, we do.

We want to help independent insurance agents who believe them, believe in themselves, who are ready for the Onyx experience to get to that next level, because it's out there. But you've got to believe in yourself. You have to be willing to take the next step. And not everybody's willing to take that step.

Right. Well, let's take the last couple of minutes that we have here and let's talk a little bit more about what Onyx operating system looks like from a high level. That way they can start to understand what we're building here, at least from a high level. And then over each time that we, we have this podcast, next episodes, we start to break down each, each one of them and how it's operating with other agencies. So let's, let's start at the, at the top level. Like, where does Onyx start?

Well, it starts with executive coaching. And the executive coaching is one on one executive coaching with the owner and leadership team. There's multiple deep dives throughout the year where we get together for a day and take a deep dive into your business to make sure that we have created a rock solid plan based on the numbers and the goals that you want to achieve. Then every single month we have executive coaching where we get together and we will expect that you plan for those sessions and be ready for them. Okay, so we're huddling every month to make sure that our plan continues to move forward. And then you were huddled with the best of the best other independent insurance agency owners and leaders in your mastermind groups. And so we have ongoing group collaboration throughout the year as well, scheduled online and live and in person as well. So all of that comes together and this executive coaching is all based on the future self that you need to be thinking about operating now because that's the essence of scaling operating. If you want to be here three years from now, you need to start operating like that right now.

Then we take that and the next step is we start to build you your dashboard from a standpoint of the. This dashboard is going to be our true north star on how we're gonna get you right where you're at today and what numbers we need to review on a regular basis to determine what our next actions are from the agency standpoint. Right. Whether it's from the executives or the rest of the team. And we build all of the AI and automation. Cause the next portion is we have a strategic session, a strategic technology session with my team that will then go through and say this is what we have to do from a technology standpoint point within the first quarter, if you will, to sprint through. Here's what we need to do from a technology standpoint. If we want these numbers to start to make, start to change. If we, if we want to start to hit some of the executive coaching milestones that we want to hit within this quarter. These are the types of technology changes we need to make. But from there it doesn't stop. Right, Mike, what's, what's the next step after that?

It doesn't Stop. It never stops. It only stops. Well, I mean my personal belief, it's the infinite game. I'll pause there. The other thing Daniel, I think is important to mention, don't they need to have a reputable tech stack in place to get started with Onyx? I mean what are the minimum requirements?

Yeah, absolutely the minimum requirements only because we, it's the table stakes for the type of technology that we need in order to actually save time and more importantly drive more revenue towards the goals that we're trying to hit. That tech stack has to, you have to have an ams, an agent management system and, or a CRM system. So some use an AMS system and then they have the CRM, the customer relationship management tools that go along with ams. And some have them separate as long as they're a component between, between those two. We need to have an AMS and a CRM system. Then we need to have Some type of VoIP or multi communication system. Right. So that is a voice over the Internet phone that we can connect into to be able to make, you know, the types of outreaches through phone, text message. And then we have to have an email tool. Right. Or a productivity tool like Outlook or G Suite or Gmail if you will. We, that's the stack. Those are the things that we can all put together as one. Right. That's what a stack actually means. They stacks on each other to be able to use AI and automation to drive and scale the results that we're trying to get. So that's the, that's the baseline of technology that needs to be stacked together.

Right. And to boot we also have been discussing that it's to their advantage if they have a person on their team who is the IT leader who owns it.

Right?

Yes. Not the owner.

Right? Right.

If possible.

Right. So and if they even have just somebody that has the want and the will and the the capacity to be that technology leader, we can use our team to help them grow into that role. Right. So being able to identify that there's somebody on your team today that is more technology focused or has has a technology background, we can train them and teach them and coach them into that more leader role for technology as well. Doesn't have to be somebody that's already been running that on a day to day basis today. Right.

Fabulous. So next step after that is the L& Elsa.

Right.

So executive leadership. The L is leadership coaching. And the platform and thought process in the leadership coaching is, is eq if you don't know what EQ is it's emotional intelligence. And I don't want to begin to even get into that because it's not my area of expertise. But the person on our team, Natty Lewis, who is that is her expertise over many, many, many years, she can see things and help improve your agency's collaborative ability internally. Like nobody else that I've seen, she works already works within the industry and the primary result that she's helped teams achieve is greater retention. When they learn to play together better, they provide a better result from a retention standpoint. So that's the short view on that. And then so that's executive leadership, leadership training and coaching. And then the S is sales. So we have our leader as far as working with. I'll pause when I say this again. Your full time producers, not part time, full time producers, meaning they are actively producing or building relationships to produce 80 to 90% of the time or more. So Jesse comes in. Mr. Jesse Parenti comes in and works with your production team. He is industry renowned. His agency six or seven years in a row, a Reagan consulting best practices agency. He has built multiple niches within the independent insurance agency industry to national acclaim. He's built out an entire system for your production team to learn from. So and then of course, the automation is the A which is you, Daniel, and you just described that. So that's what Elsa is.

Well, Mike, this has been a fantastic conversation. It's been an honor to put this new operating system together for the industry. I just want to share if this conversation felt familiar, that's not an accident. Onyx isn't about doing more more, it's about carrying less. Because the business finally knows how to run without the owner holding everything together. This podcast is for leaders who are ready to step fully into ownership. Not someday, not after a busy season. Now, in the episodes ahead, as I mentioned, we'll break down the Onyx operating system, the super team behind it, the leadership shifts required to build an agency that scales without heroics. And we might bring in guests from time to time that are already in the process of Onix that want to share their experience and where they are and what might be unique to them and to you to become successful in the ONNX operating system. That leaves only one real question. Are you trying to scale harder or lead differently? Mike, thank you again and to everyone who's listening, welcome to Onyx.

Welcome to Onyx, everybody. We're excited for the journey. We look forward to seeing you on the journey. Daniel, thank you for all you've done so far. And we're just getting started.

Yeah, you too, Mike. Talk soon.