Be Like Mike Malinowski of EHD Insurance Agency

Sometimes I dream that he is me. You got to see that's how I dream to be like Mike. If I could be like Mike. On today's Agent Leader podcast, I interview Mike Malinowski of EHD Insurance. And you'll see why you and your agency should be like Mike and what they've done in their sales culture and how they train and develop their number one asset, their people. Enjoy the podcast. Welcome to the Agent Leader Podcast. My name is Brent Kelly. I am your host. I'm excited to be with you today and I have an exceptional guest. And if you're watching on YouTube or on video, you can see us as we are in the windows right now. Mike Malinowski, who's the president and CEO of EHD Insurance, will be joining us. I'll make sure Mike gets a formal introduction here in a minute, but excited to have Mike on. I know he'll share some great ideas, struggles, challenges, successes that they've had as a very successful agency and his role as President and CEO. Also want to remind you the purpose of this podcast is always to help educate, empower and equip you, the independent insurance agency leader, to become your best version possible. And as a reminder, I've mentioned this on other podcasts, the best version possible. Fast track, a 90 day process and plan for your agency is officially being rolled out in January. So I'll say this ahead of time before I introduce Mike. If you want to be like Mike, sorry Mike, I couldn't resist. And, and work with us as an organization. The Fast Track is a great way to get started. It's a 90 day process and then from there you can decide what you want to do to move forward. So go to sitkins.com fast track to learn more. Now with that, I want to get into today's podcast and my incredible guest. I mentioned Mike Malinowski with EHD Insurance. Mike, welcome to the Agent Leader podcast.

Thank you Brent. Great to be here. Thanks for having me.

Awesome. Well, again there's a lot of things we're going to touch on today and you as an agency have, have been with us as a partner and we, we love the relationship for five plus years now looking back of our work together. So it's been a while and obviously lots of learning on both sides and growth along the way and all the challenges and things that you're going through. So can't wait for you to share some of that before we get into some of the, the challenges and successes just for the audience. Mike, if you could give a little background or bio on certainly your role and how you got to your role as well as EHD as an organization.

Oh, thanks, Brent. Well, yeah, I've been in the insurance business after graduating college since 1995. Started with the carrier, and through that I worked a little bit with government, and that's how I met EHD. So been with EHD for 18 years. I started off as a producer, you know, out doing the things that producers do. I learned the business from the ground up, and it's been a great experience, a great company, great culture. And right after, you know, six months being here, I knew this is a place I wanted to grow and continue to grow with. So, yeah, as an agency, we're. We're doing pretty well. We were very proud of still being privately held and independently owned. That's. That's a big, you know, point of differentiation for us. How's that sound? Grand for a pod for us. So we like that. And, you know, we're in our 127th year in. In business. So, you know, here in pretty much a Commonwealth, Pennsylvania, we used to look at ourselves kind of as regional offices, but now we look at ourselves pretty much as, you know, a large regional broker throughout the whole Commonwealth, and not just, you know, in particular areas of the state. So, you know, we surpassed, you know, 30 million last year. So we're pretty proud of that, continuing to grow, hopefully to 40 and 50 million and keep this train rolling. So, you know, do the full gamut of benefits. Largest 68% of our business, property casualty benefits and personal lines. So it's been great for us to continue to, you know, just do what we do, have fun doing it, and really help clients and customers. It's. It's important because, you know, the old corny saying is premium's only important the day you pay it. But actually helping customers and business owners through what's been rough times over the last several years has been a great differentiator for us. And we do, we take great pride in it. So it's. It's been a blessing for us as an agency to be so involved in our community. So hopefully we can keep this thing going.

Yeah, thanks, Mike. And, you know, I'll just say this. You know, I've been out your place several times now, different events and, and obviously some of the trainings that we've done. But, you know, we talk about at Sitkins, you know, culture. What is culture? What's the language and behaviors that are normal in your agency? And, and no agency culture is perfect. I know, Mike. You and you're always trying to improve and grow the culture in positive ways. But I'll say it's one thing you mentioned that, you know, when you were there six months, like, hey, this is the place I want to be. There's something really special about EHD and what you guys do. And you can just see it in the, feel it when you're, when you're in the building, around the people. So I want to applaud you certainly for you. I know it wasn't, wasn't just you, Mike, but as an entire organization, what you've all done to establish that culture. Now, now that I said all that positive stuff, I'm going to ask you the challenge question. This is the first question I always ask my guests, you know, listen, and we could probably be here all day about, hey Mike, share some challenges you're facing as an agency. There's many, but if you could, certainly in today's climate, right. And we're all dealing with different stuff with market conditions and everything else going on. We know that. I'm curious, just from your perspective, Mike, what do you believe are some of the biggest challenges that EHD is facing today and what are you doing to address those?

Yeah, well, that's a great question. I mean from a corporate level, I guess, you know, perpetuation is always the number one challenge. To be able to meet our obligations to prior shareholders and perpetuate the company long term and doing that long range planning, which is this day and age when you have a 100 year pandemic, you have this type of inflation. It's tough, right? It's really tough. And to continue to concentrate then on the day to day blocking and tackling stuff of rewriting and retaining customers, you know, and the pipeline, and continuing to develop the pipeline to find the right talent as every agency I think is looking at. And how we continue to focus on recruiting the right people to the agency. And our hiring process can be lengthy. And there's a reason for that, because we want to pick the right people and that can create some challenges for us. But you know, that's probably one of our most challenging thing is just, you know, if we want to continue to meet our growth goals, our sales velocity goals, the things of that nature, we got to find the right talent and develop them and train them. And not just, you know, when I started, you got a pencil and said go write. You know, business is how we help the younger generation. There's such a huge opportunity for the younger generation to get into our business and we're really trying to attack that through several measures, but, you know, perpetuating and stuff. We talk to you about Brent all the time. Pipeline development. Pipeline development. And you know, it's a hard business. You got to work hard. I put that in every single email I think is, you know, you got to work hard and the right stuff will come. But we'll continue to try to address those challenges and develop our people both organically and try to find some people out there that want to come to a privately held agency.

Yeah, yeah, Mike, that's a great point. You know, we talk about all the time. I mean, and, and with, with leaders out there, I mean, hopefully this isn't cliche, but many cases you're not even in the insurance business. You really are in the people development business. And obviously those, those things overlap. But it's, you know, it's one of those things that's not an easy thing to do. And you know, my, my joke, Mike, which isn't a very good joke, is that, you know, leadership would be really easy if it wasn't for the darn people. Right. You know, because again, there's different backgrounds and experiences and all that. And again, certainly, you know, like I said, you go through a pandemic.

Right.

There's a lot of challenges with that and how do we reestablish culture and all those things. But I, I guess part of this too, Mike, when you're talking about people development and I think it hits me, maybe this, I don't this analogy will relate to you or not. I may have mentioned it before in different discussions we've had, but I said it's a lot like college recruiting today, in my opinion. You know, and I know you just said you were out and you were in State College, right. With Penn State just recently, but they're pretty big sized programs, certainly. But you just think in general terms about, you know, college, you know, college athletics. You got to recruit. And now with, with nil, certainly there's, there's money factors involved, just like you're dealing with, with talent and you've got the transfer port. So it's not about just getting people in and get, you know, but then it's developing them and retaining them. And again, this may be a pretty wide open question, but I'm just curious, like, what things maybe have you done as an organization EHD to help in those ways? Cause it's not easy. People are trying to get the same talent you are and they're trying to pick off some of the talent that you've grown.

Yeah. I think, Brent, we've probably talked about this is almost as we look at clients like future ideal clients. We need to look at recruiting the same way. Just as you mentioned, as a college program needs to recruit is sometimes I think of the leadership group, we're so concentrated on the numbers and the day to day stuff where we talk about behaviors. Right. So we should have those same behaviors when we're going out to recruit folks. And quite frankly, the one thing that we were lacking on and we're trying to address is we never had a formal internship program. So we just started that. And to tell you, we had our first internship program and guess what, we're hiring the kid who's graduating, by the way, from State College in December, who's going to walk into a sales role, who was with us through our first internship program. So that's one of the ways we're trying to address it. We did experiment with the Producer Academy internally. We had three recent college grads go through that. So we're really trying to concentrate on some organic ways to develop the folks through the internship program. But you're right, we have, you know, we always worry about some of our best producers, how we lock them up, make them feel comfortable so they're not flying ship, going through the transfer portal because everyone's looking just like we always say, right. Your best client is someone else's best prospect. Your best producer is someone else to come in offering more money. So you have to make sure you're creating a culture and rewarding them for their hard work. So, yeah, I think that's, you know, a challenge in this day and age that we'll have to continue to deal with. But as I said, and you mentioned, just continuing to try to attract the younger generation to get, you know, who I think from a technology and all the things they do can really provide some value to business owners and customers. That's what's most important.

Yeah, it's. It certainly is that awareness. And, you know, a lot of this, you know, to Mike and you're talking about, you know, we're talking about the college, college example there. But there is so much truth to that. And I think, you know, going back to the culture world, it's interesting. I just was looking at some studies and there was a couple different studies, so I don't remember the exact numbers, but, you know, somewhere around a third of millennials. And again, millennials is the primary portion of the workforce. Of course, now we're getting in a generation, you know, Z, I think that's the next one. I can't keep track of it anymore, quite frankly, Mike. But anyway, they were just talking about as far as benefits, and, you know, they. They really do. There's a substantial amount of millennials in the next generation behind that that are saying, hey, the thing that I'm really looking for is growth and development. Who can help provide some of that, right? That feeling of I want to be somewhere where I can grow and develop. Of course, there's some that probably don't want to do that, but you don't want them anyway, so. But. But the ones you want, it's like, hey, listen, you know, the question I was asking agencies is if someone came to you and said, listen, how. How will I get better? What are my development, growth opportunities in the next year? And maybe someone's offering more money, but they know there's a better, longer path, right, With. With another organization like ehd. So I think that's fantastic. I want to flip a little bit. Obviously, you know, we talked about the challenges, but you've had some great successes, too. I know. Mike, I've known you long enough that you're not going to sit on here and brag and brag and brag, although you could. But I would like, if you could highlight a success or two that you would say, hey, listen, I'm really proud of what we accomplished here. And I know some other agency leaders listening could go, hey, that's something we could think about or consider or maybe do at a higher level. So what's an area that you're really proud of, Mike, at the agency?

Well, I mean, one of them, to start with, I think, as you know, is when we created a minimum. You know, when I got first into the CEO position, the prior CEO, who was a great mentor and leader for us, you know, you know, I wanted to fix our special business process unit. And I think that has really helped the agency grow and turn into more of a sales culture than before, where we really. And the leadership. Lori Keene, who leads that department of us, has done a fantastic job, but we wanted to separate that business. It's extremely important. You know, the whole world's made up of small businesses, but it's a totally different sales process, really, than it is at when you get into the larger commercial clients. So I'm very proud because that was a big culture change to tell producers that they can't work on something because of a certain revenue size or it needed to go to another unit because they know what they're doing, they know how to handle it, they know how to quote it, they know how to talk the language, you know, and it's a little more commodity driven if we're honest with each other and we've made that unit, you know, efficient and you know, technology driven. Be able to talk to small business owners where, you know, when you're talking to CEOs of, you know, larger companies, it's different conversation. So took us some time to get there, but I'm really proud of our leadership team. We stuck by it. Now producers come on board, they don't know any other way. Right. This is the way we do it. So that, that was, I think, a tremendous accomplishment for us because it was really tough culture change and helped build us to being more of a sales organization. And you know, I can sit here and see it was, it was a concept, it was a strategy and the team just did a great job all around of putting it in place. And, and you know, I think that's helped freed up our larger commercial producers to really go after some of the, the accounts. We bring a lot of resources and we think we fit really, really good at. So that's one brand I would have to comment on.

Yeah, and I want to speak on that because we've had some conversations with other people in your leadership team and you know, a couple of things I want to highlight and for the listeners, I mean, you said, you know, improving the sales culture. Well, there's that culture word again. Right. And I know we've talked about this, Mike. You know, one of the, one of the pros of being a long established agency. We say 126, seven years, which is.

Yeah, 127.

Right. There is, there's credibility and there's long term relationships are great. The challenge could be have we kind of morphed into it kind of just a service culture. And we just been around a long time and again, there's some pros to that, but certainly within the culture, if we're not careful, then we stop growing, which again, you either grow it or you're dying. I mean, there's no, like, we're just going to hang out here for a few years. So I think that's a testament certainly to, you know, your entire leadership team because it's also something with culture that it doesn't happen overnight. Right. This isn't like, hey, we're going to have a big meeting. By the way, we're now officially a sales culture. Congratulations.

Yeah, it took some time and you've seen it, Brent, through the last Five years that you, you guys been involved. So it's been, you know, you're a big part of that. And I'm not saying it's because, you know, we're looking at each other. It's the truth. It's. That was the first step to do that. And, you know, we're continuing to try to do that, even our personalized departments or then look at stuff a little differently to grow that. But it does, it takes time. And if you just sit on the service business, which, you know, was very successful for us for a while, but, you know, then, you know the way the world works. If it's to your point, if you're not growing in this business, you're not going to be privately held and independently owned anymore. That's just the reality of our, our insurance world. So, yeah, it's been a tribute to the whole team, but it does, you can't just snap your finger and say, oh, we're going to, we're going to be sales group now. You know, just doesn't work that way.

Yeah. And I do want to get a little more feedback you mentioned on the, you know, the minimum account size or raising that standard. Right. For the, for the producers and of course, part of that building in that business unit, select business unit behind it to take care of a lot of that. But listen, you know, I wasn't, I wasn't around for a lot of that, but I heard some of the conversations or some rumbling right when you're going to say, well, I can only write that now, and consistent pushback. And one of the things that, you know, we talk about all the time and Mike, you've heard this a million times from us. You know, obviously, the power of 8020 and understanding that predictable imbalance we have never seen at this point, again, someone could come try to prove me wrong, which I'm open to hearing. But those producers or agencies that have begun to trade down, whether to a select business unit like you've done or somewhere else, even to younger producers or what have you that have lost money in the process, what typically happens is they become more efficient, they become more aware, they raise their skill game because they're working on the right type of accounts. As you said it, I forgot exactly how you word it, but, you know, there's that you said, you know, the smaller business, as much as we love them, it's just different selling process and it is more of a commodity. So. And I know in having conversations with your organization as you guys have moved up the ladder, so to speak and saying, listen, we really need to only work on these accounts. Your producers not only have done better financially, but they've been much better in closing ratio and the conversations that they've had. But I do want you to speak on, because I know there's leaders that go, oh, that's easy for, you know, Mike and his team, because, you know, they're 30 million and they've been around for a while and whatever. Which, by the way, any agency can make this culture change. But how did you as an agency overcome some of that pushback from the producers? You're like, I don't want to do this. We've never done it this way before. How dare you?

Right?

I mean, that's some of the conversations.

To some degree, right? Oh, yeah. Well, it's like anything else. You know, as a leader, you can. We always talk about, Brenda, you want to be a manager, you want to be a leader, you know, and you have to lead the people for them to understand why it benefits them. Not only just, you know, because Mike's sitting in this chair and wants it done so they can go out and concentrate on what we're paying them to do, and they can all do well at it. So. Because the. The s. We call it sbu. And if you. There was an article that was just. Just put out. I don't know if you read it. I don't want to give a commercial to one of the valuators, but I sent it to our small business department head and she was like, this is unbelievable. It's like they interviewed EHD about what to do and how to create a special business unit. It was kind of comical. Well, yeah, we got a lot of rumblings, you know, oh, well, I'm going to round out the account. It's going to be over the minimum threshold. And we're like, no, you know, then go get the whole thing. And, you know, we just, you know, from how they get paid and from a commission standpoint, you know, know, we just had to show them like this. We're doing this for a reason, to help you be better, to be your best version possible. And if, you know, and it really helps, I think the special business unit, our small business guys and gals, really be able to concentrate what was their role, Go to attack all those small businesses and do it the right way, gain relationships there and have the other folks work on the large stuff. Yeah, there was some rumblings, but, you know, we had good leaders that would say, no, you know, we're not bending. This is the way it's going to be. And once they see, you know, their, their year end, you know, commission statement, they get, you know, they said, oh, you know what, this is pretty good. And I'm not working on, you know, a book of business. And some of our top producers will tell you, do you want 150 accounts that pay a million dollar book of business or do you want 20? You know, and, and that's just kind of how they were like, oh, you know what, you're right. I'd rather not have the worry about that many accounts.

So such a great point. And again, something we talk about all the time. And I mean, my quick analogy, you want 100 pennies or four quarters right in your pocket. And some people say, well, give me a couple dimes too. Fine, whatever, have a few dimes. But, but the idea, again, the mindset is, is so important. I think the thing that you stressed that I really want to highlight, Mike, this goes back to like leadership and developing your people is that this is not a, hey, we're out to get you and want to, you know, chastise you or take away accounts or it's like, no, like, we want you to grow to your fullest potential, to have you the most freedom possible. And the way that you're going is not going to get you there. We want to help you. Does it grow the agency? Of course it does. But here's the other thing too. Hopefully agency leaders listening will see is not only does that free up sales capacity for the producers that need to be out doing producer stuff, but writing the better sized accounts, the better relationship also frees up service capacity. You've got a select business unit now, Mike, that does that. But I guarantee your account managers don't want 150 accounts and many of them that got to deal with some of the problems and issues either. Is that, is that fair?

Oh, absolutely. And our account manager in the SBU unit, you know, they love it, they know it. They get to know the small bit. It's like you said, a different renewal process, a different proposal process that they're good at. And if it takes an account manager, service team that's handled, you know, a small, little, small business that, once again, very important to us, but a different way to handle it. But then handling one of our largest accounts of the agency, it's tough for them to even concentrate and know their role. So it was not just to your point, Brent, it wasn't just the producers, too. We had to let the service team get tremendous feedback about you Know, the ability to not, you know, have such a tremendous amount of accounts. The ones who handle large commercial and the ones who handle, you know, the transactional, more small business stuff, they're good at it and they're very good at it and they like doing it. So to your point. Yeah, it has to be from all avenues and aspects of how we handle customers, not just producers, but the service team is just as important.

Yeah. And last comment I'll make on this, by the way, I do want you to reference a resource, the article too that you mentioned so that agencies is that online somewhere, people go check it out. Mike.

Yeah, I got a. It was from Marsh Barry, Oracle. I can send it to you.

One more thing and I'll make sure I didn't lose my, lose my train of thought. I probably did now that I asked you that question. But obviously we're talking about. Oh, we're talking about capacity issues. Right. And those kind of things as well. But it really is, I mean, again, this comes back to the basic, the bottom level of we want you to be your best version possible. And to do that, we've got to help you think a bit differently. And I. All I could think of too, as you said that, Mike, I always get this flashback of when I was way back in junior high. So like a billion years ago now, playing basketball on a, you know, I played on a very small school, small team, and in my world I was pretty good. And then all of a sudden I played some larger opponents in a travel league one summer. And when I was in what, seventh, sixth or seventh grade, some kid in eighth grade came and reverse dunked on me. And my coach said, hey, Brent, like if, you know, listen, you're in the big leagues now, if you want to play there, you got to improve your skill. And, and right. We all, we all get better in those areas. So I think it's again, a testament to the culture at ehd. A couple more questions, Mike. I'll let you get out of here. And again, this may be a bit of a selfish question, but answer however you want. Obviously, we've been working together in partnership for, again, I said five plus years at this point. What would you say has probably been the biggest takeaway in working with Sitkin? Stuff that you've been able to go implement out in the marketplace or in your agency over the years?

Yeah, I mean, and we talked about this before. It's, it's been game changing for us as an organization to talk the same language and come from the same sales process and that's been the biggest thing. I mean, even our account managers, down to our receptionist, when they know, they know, you know, the Sipkins methodology and they understand it. And some of the things you've done, even from the service team, we've just talked about the am fit to, all the way up to the huddles, to the low risk practice when they know they're doing, practicing all the stuff that we all speak the same language. And it's not the, you know, general liability and workers kind of the insurance language, the sales process language. So it's, it's been so ingrained in us now and it's worked so well. I mean, our best producers are the ones who really help follow the process of what we've been learned through you and Roger and your team, Brent. It's just been, you know, it's been a great culture shift for us where we were so siloed about, some guy was doing it this way, some gal was doing it that way, and someone's having success, says one. But now we can really help, you know, not just evaluate, but help lead newer producers in the right direction. Like, here's the process, here's the referral process, here's the green zone, here's, you know, why you want fics or coins or all the terminology. Now, if you would ask me those 10 years ago, I would have looked at you like you were weird and what the hell does that mean? And why are you saying that? Now you have, you know, you'll have new producers who go through your, you know, your producer fit and they'll say, hey, I have this coin, you know, that like, it's just, it's, it's funny to think, like, what did we do before? You know, what we do before is the truth. And as you know, we've been very, you know, successful with our new business over the last several years. The most we, we've had in the agency, Roger will say we need more, but, you know, we're trying our best to keep breaking records and, and that's just a matter of the team doing what they do. But the sickens. I don't think we would be where we're at now if we would have engaged with you and going through this similar sales process that you guys have been great, great at teaching us and guiding us.

Yeah, well, thank you, Ma. I appreciate that. Again, we, we love the relationship and I mean, we talk about this. I mean, there's, there's demographic, demographics of agencies and certainly work with agencies of different sizes, but really, is And I know this isn't tough to be cliche, but the psychographics. We want to work with agencies that, you know, listen, no agency has it all figured out, but they know one thing that we know, that we can be better. We strive to be better. We desire growth, we're coachable. We're looking to do things at higher levels. And we love our team.

Right.

I mean, if you do those things, then, you know, we can. We can be really successful together. So I appreciate you sharing that and it's always great for us to hear, too. And I want to say, I don't want to be too long here, but one of the events that we had a few years back when we were out with you guys in person, it was pretty cool. I know Roger was. Got a bit, you know, a bit emotional about this, but you all taking the ACRO acronyms and had some fun with it and put those all up on the, on the board and kind of put those together and everybody told a story. And as cool as that was, and it was so cool that the neatest thing is that you all were speaking a similar language. Right? Yeah, you know, it's the EHD way. But certainly we could contribute to how you speak internally around that. So thank you. I have one more question. Mike, you ready? This is the big one. This is the big one. And I asked this question to every guest, so hopefully you're prepared. But if you were having a conversation, actually your younger version was having a conversation with the current version. So let's say you mentioned, you know, got out of college or you're starting your career. Right. Your first, first day at EHD maybe, right? So years ago, he said, 18 years, right. Been with the company. So the first day you could ehd, and you're talking to yourself today and said, listen, experience wise, Mike, if there's one piece of advice you could give me to help me over the next 18 years, what would it be?

Follow the Sickens process. Love it. No, I. I'll tell you, though, that, honestly would I. I tell you it would have helped. You know, as a producer, just starting is to come up with a process. You know, I don't want to say a rigid process, but have a process like you talk about the relationship management calendar, all that stuff. But for a younger producer, if I was sitting there, I'd say, you know, listen to folks that, you know that are telling you how to be successful and be your best version possible. Also read, read, read, read, read as much as you can. Books that you guys always Tell us about to make yourself better and you have to invest in yourself. And I think when I started, it was so much go out and write business. Go out and write business where I didn't do enough time, like even learning my craft, you know, and educating myself. Because now you're so darn busy. It's just not as easy unless, you know, you're taking a flight somewhere or, you know, you're doing something with some downtime. But yeah, when you just start, just when your mind. You're young and just soak it all in and try to make yourself uncomfortable. And that's the hardest thing to do, is really just make yourself uncomfortable to be better. And when you're younger, you know, you're always on guard and you don't want to do that, but that's the only way you get better and surround yourself with people who will make you uncomfortable, who will make you, you know, be constructive and want you to develop. And I think that's the most important thing, that I was blessed to have some good leaders, some good people here that would do that once in a while. But, you know, if I wish I would have done a little more on my own when I first started it, to educate myself to get better, not just as a salesperson, but as a technician in the industry. So now I'm too old and impatient. Friend, I just don't have. I just. It's a struggle now. I. Podcasts are better for me than books.

How's that? Listen, I'm the same way. And you know, I've been. First of all, I love your perspective on that. That answer. I mean, there is no wrong answer. And when we were going there, it's, you know, it's. It's kind of the. The Charlie Tremendous Jones quote. He was a famous speaker, but he's also a successful life insurance agent. Said, you'll be the same person in five years as you are today, except for the books that you read and the people that you meet, you know, and. And think about that back 18 years ago. And I think part of this is, you know, when you're. We'll just say in your early 20s or whatever, like, I got extra free time. The problem is we don't always invest that in the right place. Which is. Which is. Which is normal. You think about man, if really at a younger age, like you said, you know, whether it's books or, I think, you know, podcasts didn't exist 18 years ago. Right. I mean, so be able to invest in some of that knowledge. And I Mean, obviously, with what. Continue to expand in the information world that we live in. It's incredible of the advantage that you can get. The challenge, I think, Mike. And again, I'll speak from my perspective. Maybe you agree or disagree, but, you know, when you're in that frame of mind or that age, it feels like you have forever. Number one, right? Like, I'm young. I'll be doing this, whatever. I got plenty of time. And number two is the results from a lot of the reading and the growth and the mentorship, they don't happen overnight. It's like you're building this foundation that not many people can see, but when you start to really tap into it, you just start to grow so much faster than those around you. And that's not to be mean to other people, but you're just making that investment yourself again and again and again. All of a sudden you're like, where did that come from? Well, it's because you put the time in, so I don't know if that makes sense.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, when you're 25 years old or whatever, 24 hours, you don't have to act like you're the smartest guy in the room.

No.

You know, you don't have to come across like, you know, learn and listen and, you know, it's as corny as everyone says, but, you know, sometimes you're so out to prove yourself, like, that you're worth and your value, that you just don't, you know, sit back a little bit and say, you know, maybe I don't know this, and maybe I should be a little more receptive to ideas instead, you know, I got to walk in the room, and I know everything. I'm this young, hot star doing this, and, you know, it can be humbling, but I think if I look back, I wish I would have did a little more of, like, not trying to be that guy and a little more learning and that where. That's what I think could help some of the. The younger folks get into this industry. So, Yeah, I don't know. But like you said, you turn around and it's 20 years later, you know, that's it. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, hopefully you got a little more time left, Mike. You're still a young guy.

I hope so, too, my friend.

Well, hey, we never know. But you're.

You're.

You're still very young, Mike. I. I hope. I try to be, but all of a sudden, I'm like, man, like, time goes fast, you know, it really does. So great perspective, Mike. Thanks. So much for being on the podcast. Great, great thoughts that you shared today. I know our audience will appreciate it. We appreciate you being a partner with us and really, again, the relationship means the world and we're happy to add value to where we can. So with that I want to wrap. We'll close up here. Thanks for being a listener. The Agent Leader Podcast As I mentioned, I'll go back to what I said earlier. If you want to be like Mike in this case and work with Sitkins, we've made it as easy as possible to get started with the best version possible. Fast track our 90 day process and plan and go to sitkins.com fast track to learn more. Mike, thank you again. Any final words before we depart?

Nope. Thank you very much. So it's good talking with you.

Awesome. Thanks so much for being a listener. Wish you all the best in your success. Take care. The Agent Leader Podcast is brought to you by the fine folks the Rough Notes Company. They're publishers of the insurance industry's leading magazine and technical insurance content. Rough Notes Magazine profile successful agencies, plus keen insights from respected experts on a host of must no topics. Rough Notes Advantage plus provides the tools to help your agency grow, providing authoritative information on complex coverage issues. Visit them and learn more at roughnotes. Com.