Fitness & Focus to Double Agency Revenue with Dick Gibbs

So how important is it that agency leaders model the right attitudes and behaviors that others on your team want to replicate? On today's Agent Leader Podcast, I interviewed Dick Gibbs, who's the CRO and Vice President of Sales for Hartwig Moss in Louisiana. This is an agency that's doubled their revenue in the past six years from just under 5 million to now over 10 million in revenue. And one of the things that I took away from this interview is that culture is contagious and it starts us from the top. Enjoy the show. Welcome to the Agent Leader Podcast. This is the podcast for independent insurance agency leaders to learn, to grow, to develop, and ultimately become their best version possible. My name is Brent Kelly. I am your host. Excited to be with you on this podcast episode and absolutely excited to bring on a very special guest. I have Dick Gibbs, who is the VP of Sales and the Chief Revenue Officer for Hartwood Moss in the great state of Louisiana. He's in New Orleans and so excited to have Dick on with us. He's going to share his experience, his role, some of the things the agency is doing. We've had a long relationship with the agency and always excited to hear some of the updates, the successes, the challenges. And we might just get into the fact that Dick likes to work out and he takes care of himself and it means a lot for the business. So we might get into that because selfishly, I want to know more about some of his tips of what he's doing on there. So first and foremost, Dick, welcome to the podcast.

Brent, appreciate it. Thank you so much for thinking of the agency, thinking of me to participate in this, and I've heard some past podcasts and I'm honored. Thank you. Yeah.

Well, I'm glad, Glad to have you. And again, it's going to be a really fun discussion and I want to start off just so the audience knows more about you and of course, the agency. Right. Just give an overview of the agency, you roll within it, things you're proud of, of the agency. So give a. Give a scope so people know more about you and. And the agency.

Appreciate it. Yes. I've been in the industry for 30 plus years. Started on the company side, spent about 15 years with the Hanover, worked my way up to VP of Marketing for the Eastern region. Handled 26 states east of the Mississippi, and prior to this was the best job I've, I've ever had. Had a customer in New Orleans that was up in age and he was the managing general partner of his agency and asked me if I'd be interested in coming to the agency side and taking over his agency, which I've, I did and spent about 11 years with him and had a great run and we eventually sold to Bernard Brown and then I spent three years with Brown and Brown which was, I'm going to be very, very kind. An education you couldn't put a price tag on. But one of the most demanding, most stressful positions I've ever had held with, with a, a business. And then Hartwig Moss came calling. They had a position for really operations. But I evolved into sales and always had a strong sales background and I drove the revenues and eventually became the chief revenue officer of, of Hartwig Moss. One quick story about Harwig Moss, 153 year old agency, a staple of New Orleans, really a staple of the Gulf Coast. And we had one owner and he's very old. No, I'm kidding. It's the fifth generation. He's. We're in our fifth generation of, of Hartwig Moss. So we're real proud of that.

Yeah, it's, it is a testament to, you know, the organization, obviously, you know, the family and things are doing. But I mean, let's face it, every generation it gets a bit more challenging. Right. To continue on that legacy. And again you've got as much as it's family agency, different generations, different personalities. So I think it's a, it's a huge testament to your team and what you've accomplished there. So I appreciate the background. Dick and I mentioned right away at the beginning, you know, just more about you. And if you're not watching a video here, I know a lot of people listen to this podcast, which is great. But as I'm interviewing Dick, if you've got a video, Dick take care. Takes care of his body, his self, physically. And we're talking before we started recording here about your daily regimen. And I don't want to forget about what you said and not have the audience here because I think there's, there's some real power. Not that people do exactly what you do, I wouldn't say that. But what it means for you and as a leader and your mental and physical preparation. I'd like to hear about some of that. So Dick, go ahead and shock people. Probably like you shocked me of what your daily fitness routine looks like.

Well, let me first tell you how what brought me to that. I played college football. I was 5, 10, 2, 35. I played linebacker. And once you get out of, out of college, you no longer need that weight. You, you either succumb to it and live that way, or you pick up a. A hobby. And this was before Nike. This was before espn when I got out of college. So anyway, I. I started running. I ran a block. Liked it. Ran another block, liked it. Six months later, I was down to, like, 185. Just changed my diet a little bit. Back then, that was. That was not in vogue.

Sure.

It's just something I chose to do, but the last 21 years. And the reason it was 21 is because I missed a calendar date because a flight was delayed so long it went into the next day. So I'm 21 years into running 11 miles every morning and then following up with a. A CrossFit workout. But I do have to tell you, I'm not a huge vitamin taker. I don't do the proteins. I. I just. I burn whatever I eat, and I eat whatever I want. It's just. It's just something that I like to. To be able to do.

Oh, it's. I mean, it's.

I. I have to do the math.

I'll do it later. But I was thinking 21 years times 365 days. And, you know, and again, you know, Dick is located in New Orleans. And we were talking about, again, prior to starting the recording about just hurricanes and all the things that go on and Covid. And I'm thinking you went that many days in a row based on all the other stuff. We didn't get into personal sickness or any of that kind of stuff. So, like, what? I mean, let me ask you this. And this wasn't expected or anything, but it's just fascinating to me, how does that help you do your role as a CRO? Because we've talked to it before. It's a demanding, challenging, hard business. As fruitful as it is, it's challenging. So how does that. How does your personal routine, your fitness, all that goes into that help you in your role and the agency?

Well, before I leave every evening, I write five things down that I got accomplished the next day. As mundane as they might be, I just do it so I'll have a sense of accomplishment the minute I walk into the agency. But I. I handle the personal lines and the. And the commercial lines, account managers I run. I handle all the revenue that needs to be driven into the agency on top of the. Our sales force. And handling 13 sales guys, not meeting their numbers, not making their calls, becomes extremely stressful. Yeah, because you want to do it without being, you know, dictative.

You.

You just. I got a great relationship with, with the 60 employees we have. But I'm going to tell you when the day is over, your stress level is so high, you got to find a way to, to be able to tamper it down. And I find a long run every morning, perhaps you for the day. And by 8:30 run comes around, you have zero problem sleeping. You get in bed, you go to sleep. And, and so my whole point is this business brings so much stress and every day, every single day, there's something different. You could have a series of claims of a, a hailstorm that just came out of nowhere. You could have a, an account that drops in your lap that's going to take three AMs and it's going to take two producers to handle, but you got to find the markets for it and there's no hesitation. You, they're looking at you for guidance, they're looking at you for results and you got to provide it. And when I tell you being able to release all that stress through a long run every morning prepares you for the day to be able to handle it all. Yeah, that's, that's one of my biggest reasons for the being fit. It's not for a beach body. It's not for, I do like to intimidate the guys that date my daughter. But, but it's for health vanity and it's certainly for work.

Yeah, well, you know, and again, part, everybody's got their own reasons for stuff, right. And obviously gravitated to running and fitness, which again, I told you before, like, I feel like I take care of myself pretty well now. I feel like, oh my gosh, I got a long way to go right to where I need to be. But I will say this, you know, and I talk about this in the podcast and other episodes. You know, your role as a CRO or sales leader, I truly believe if not is the most difficult role in most agencies. Right. You've got these producer demands and my joke is that, you know, leading producers is kind of like nailing jello to a tree. They squiggle a lot. Right. There's a lot of moving parts, you care about them, but there's challenges and there's problems and I want you to do better and all that. And you've got to make sure you're producing right up the chain, so to speak, that you're delivering for the agency. And you got all these clients around this. Right. There's just a lot of noise and what I wrote down, Dick, and I don't this is correct or not, but I believe this in leadership, right? Your job all day is to pour into others, right? Like, I got to pour into you. I got to pour into you. I got to pour into you. And you want to do that. But here's what I can tell you. If you never pour into yourself, there's nothing there to pour, right? And so part of that I think about from a mental approach of what am I reading, who am I hanging out with, who, you know, what, my relationships. And then physically, like, it's really hard to pour into other people's cups when you're tired and you're stressed and all these things which are going to happen. So this is my take on this, Dick. You can correct me or challenge me or tell me what you think, but it's like to me, what I hear for you, that physical fitness part as a leader is first pouring into you. Not that you're thinking about that selfishly, but getting yourself to a higher state so that you can help others perform at higher stage. Is that fair?

Very, very fair. Very fair. The only. The only thing I can add to it really quickly is, is everybody that has an issue on that given day gets the same energy level as. As. As any of them. Some of them, it's so important that they get their client taken care of. And then my other. Another producer needs. Needs a market right away. Everybody gets the same energy level. And that does. That definitely does take its toll toward the end of the day.

Yeah, yeah, that's great. Great point. Great point. All right, what I'm going to do. And again, this is a wide open conversation, but again, you guys have been in existence for a long time. Like I said, five generation. You mentioned 60 employees. I always like to talk about wins or successes first. Right. And there's. There's been a multitude right, at the agency. But when I think about, you know, where you're at, the question I have for you is what successes really jump out? Because I believe success leaves clues. Certainly, I'm sure it's left clues for you and your agency, but also for all the. The listeners of this podcast, you know, some clues that they might be able to pick up on. So if you would, Dick, share a success or two, what you learned from it, right. And how you capitalized on it.

Well, the generational expertise it was. Was one of the. Is a. Is a big plus for the agency. When Robbie took over 20 years ago, 22 years ago, his father was still in business, but he brought in the most modern technology this agency could. Could appreciate at that time. And then we fast forward 20 more years and we are, we have the state of the art informational systems in this agency. We can go totally remote in a matter of minutes. And that, that is a huge success because there's no interruption in obviously writing new business. No interruption in customer service. And when I tell you the customer service experience is the top priority of the agency, having the technology to be able to provide it is second to none. So the generational experience from the fourth generation to the fifth generation has moved this agency so far ahead of where it was from technology to revenues. The revenues jumped tremendously over the last, I don't know, six years from literally roughly 5 million to over 10 million. And it's, and it has a lot to do with just how modern this agency has been brought to. We got tailored markets, niche markets. We're huge. We're known for auto dealerships. At one point we wrote just about every dealership, franchise dealership in the metro area, upwards of 40 to 50 auto dealerships. And we became an expert in it. The person that handles that niche literally has 50 years with this agency. Fifth. And he's still employed and still doing it, which is a remarkable story. But on top of that, his father spent 48 years with the agency. Between the two of them they got 98 years. Right. That, that is amazing. So, so having tailored niche markets really allows us to get reoccurring revenues, expected revenues and our retention levels in that are just, are off the chart. Yeah. And then the last one is high touch. High touch relationships has a lot to do with again the customer service experience and being way out in front of our, our account. One thing we pulled away from Sitkins was we don't renew accounts. What was the phrase?

Don't renew accounts. We continue. Relationships continue.

That's it. We did pull that away from you guys. In fact, two of our producers that were on participating in, in that six week or eight week event use that today. There's a big takeaway.

Well, huge successes there. I appreciate sharing. I mean obviously I'm making notes here and I mean from a revenue perspective to go from, you know, he said roughly 5 million, over 10 million in that amount of time. Six years is pretty darn impressive. And it, it's interesting as I'm sitting there thinking about this because there are a lot of multi generational agencies, right? I mean at some point they may sell whatever in five generations. The thing that often happens, this is true whether it's a family agency or whatever is the word complacency. But there's this Complacency often creeps in. Hey, we're. We're good. It's very fascinating to me and impressive that throughout the generations, of course, certainly recently, that even though things were going well, we're always looking for that next level, whether it's technology, high tech, customer touch. Right. Things that you're talking about, being proactive in our relationships or education. Um, is that. Just curious, how is that fostered within the agency? I mean, is that. Is that just part of the DNA? And it has been. Is it something you continually talk about and communicate? You know, I think there's always that balance of appreciating the past and the legacy because it needs to be appreciated, but not standing on that because we know there's bigger, better things to come and continue to innovate. So again, how is that fostered in the agency? I'm curious.

I'll put that solely on Robbie Moss, the. The President, CEO. He's. He's 52 years old and a. Just a staple of the New Orleans metro area. He's involved in so many community activities. He brings work ethic that is. Is man, what is the word? You're. You're infected by it. So. So he's got the biggest book in the agency. He writes the. And he's very competitive. Yeah, so. So being competitive makes everybody else better because they want to compete. A sales guy that's not competitive probably doesn't belong here and, and probably is not going to be too successful. But back to my main point, it's. It's directed from Robbie, from his work ethic, from his drive, his energy level. And he's got a way of expecting things by showing huge appreciation even before you, you show the success of what he expected. So he's there. He's a mentor. He's. He's always available. So I put a lot of onus on him driving what our. Our culture. Our culture is.

Yeah, well, I think, and thanks so much for sharing that because I think, you know, one of the things. And I talk about this in the podcast, probably frequently actually, but one of my favorite phrases from John Maxwell, leadership expert, is that everything rises and falls on leadership. And you know, when I hear that like, well, that's. That's a lot. In fact, we talked about that in a recent leadership program, Dick, you attended with us. And everything rises and falls on leadership. And part of that is the modeling aspect. And even if it's different roles, I'm just sitting there thinking, boy, if I show up at Hartwood Moss and Robbie's out there modeling, you know, appreciation, hard work out there making things happen. Dick, you may not say this for yourself but I know that Dick's up at 3:30 running 11 miles and doing his thing and going to CrossFit and has energy throughout. Like that's who we are. Like. Right. Like that's, that's, that's who we are as an agency and there becomes an expectation. So I think oftentimes interesting. There's a lot of ways I believe that culture is built and I know culture is a buzzword but I think sometimes it's like we'll just talk about it which is great. But let's live it first.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No question. The, the a takeaway from, from Robbie's involvement and his, his hands on but not dictative way of running the agency is his contacts and, and the amount of business that comes in through his centers of influences that turn into referrals and then those turn into referrals. Yeah, he is able, he truly is able to feed our sales staff to where it can. That, that's a double edged sword because you can become complacent and lazy because you know it's coming in.

Sure.

But the, the business that he brings in comes with a huge expectation because they're related to his friendships to, to his centers of influences. So we have to, we have got to be able to offer the results that are expected. So if they're complacent, they're not going to be able to do this whole point is they're not. When we get a referral from the top, it goes to a producer. It's going from soup to nuts. Comp managers involved, everybody meets the new client. So it's, you know, you pull a textbook out and try to find that chapter. It's probably not there.

Yeah.

But it's, it's all in, in the body language and the leadership.

Yeah. Hey there agent leader Brent Kelly here want to take just a few seconds to remind you that now is the time to create your true best version possible agency. If you go to sitkins.com bookacall sitkins.com bookacall we'll get to know more about your agency, conduct an agency assessment and provide your agency with a customized plan to help you avoid some of the pitfalls, frustrations, challenges and roadblocks to get your agency to true ultimate freedom and become its best version possible. It all starts by going to sitkins.com bookacall. Love that for so many reasons. And again, every agency leader in a role is a Bit different. But I, you know, we talk about whether it's a producer who's kind of on their way out right near the end of the career or could be an agency principal or whatever. And it's like, well, maybe they don't. Again, every situation is different. But, you know, maybe they don't want to do all the work for every account. But they often have so many key relationships. Like at a minimum, they're out there just making rain. I mean, they're rainmakers and open up these opportunities and doors and build these relationships. And you take that and you replicate it and replicate it and replicate it. Pretty amazing things can happen. So that's, that's fantastic.

Let me flip it a little bit.

Here and talk about some of the challenges. Every agency's got challenges. I'm sure if I ask you to name the challenges, you could probably write down a list of things for the agency. Right. Because that's just the way it goes in this business. But I like to hear that could just share, you know, maybe a top challenge or two or whatever it is that you're dealing with and either how you've faced it or how you're facing it today. What does that look like?

I've been asked this many times with the challenges and it's. It's balancing the growth. Growth and profitability. That balance is very difficult while managing the client expectation. So, so client retention versus new business acquisitions.

We.

We gotta maintaining the highest retention levels we can while bringing in a level of new business that, that the producers are challenged with every year as part of their. Their goals and objectives and balancing that and getting them to not just them, but getting the agency profitable and getting the growth expectations at least nearly met. All factors into. To me to. On my desk. The biggest challenge, because you got revenue size. We don't pay commissions on certain accounts, but these accounts are so important to the producer that we have to have a discussion about it. That's my biggest challenge.

Yeah.

The others subsets are the technology. We've got to stay above and ahead of everybody else with technology. Carry relationships that is like huge in. In New Orleans because many of the carriers are. Are either pulling back or. Or terminating contracts because of. Of reinsurance. Because the reinsurance are saying we're no longer doing business in Louisiana not because the agency's bad, but because of. Of economics. So we've got to keep our relationships as solid as possible. And I'll tell you, Brent, how we do this. Robbie and I sit on a lot of advisory boards for our carriers. We get relationships built so strong that they ask us to sit on these. And when I tell you how far that goes, when they're making decisions to pull back in different areas of, of New Orleans, the state, the Gulf style goes a long way. So while it doesn't generate any revenue, it generates future revenues because you're keeping the contracts.

Yes.

Carry relationships to me, other than the customer service experience are the two most important. If you don't have the customer, you can't eat. If you don't have the relationships with the companies, you can't write the business. Yep. So. So I, I take that extremely serious. And that is on my plate. That is a responsibility of mine. So we figure it out. The biggest challenge is making sure we keep those relationships strong and we have markets to, to be able to use.

Yeah. I want to go a little deeper in that because it is so crucial. Right. It's so important and you know, even as we teach in our programs, whether it's producers, sales leaders, whatever, that there's, you know, five key relationships that we've got to be cognizant of.

Right.

And make deposits and clients. Pretty obvious. Future clients. Yeah, pretty obvious. Centers of influence. Yes. Of course, our colleagues internally. Right. And then not that this is fifth, but carriers. And that's the one that seems to get kind of pushed to the back of the line. And again, probably not intentionally or maliciously, but just because we're busy and stuff's going on and no one's got really responsibility. It just kind of comes and goes in different ways. And let's face it, like, how crucial are those relationships? Crucial. And, and you know, I want you to speak maybe more of different. You know, you mentioned sitting on boards, but you're right, like when carriers make decisions, this is same is true as buyers. Right. We, we make decisions or make purchases, whatever you want to call them, we make them emotionally and justify intellectually. And I have to be willing to bet, and I don't know the specific situation, but there are times, like you said, a carrier met me want to pull, pulling back or pulling out and they go, well, a few will survive. And I know these guys.

10, 100, 100%. This agency does a fair amount of personal lines, high net worth and Main street. And you can only imagine there's no such thing as am Best down here. It's dematech.

Yeah.

So these are small. Small. They're not even regional carriers. They're a couple multiple, multiple state carriers.

Yeah.

And. And these guys have really filled the void. But, but they. They're very limited on their. Their contracts with. With agencies.

Sure.

We have been very blessed to have the reputation that when they come in, they'll come see us. But the big thing is we. We embrace them. We offer all the expertise we have, from geographics to. To deductibles, what's working, what's not. And all of that brings them to ask us to sit on their boards.

Yeah.

And when I. I just feel like when we get asked to do that, we're in. The only way that this is not going to work is if the b. If they sell their. Their small regional to a big carrier or they just go out of business. So I put huge emphasis on our relationships with. With the carriers.

Yeah, it's. Yeah, I wrote down. And I talk about this quite a bit. You know, control the controllables. And this idea, obviously, you know, you play football, and there's certain things it doesn't matter. Sports, business, life. There are certain things that, quite frankly, you have little to no control over. It doesn't mean it doesn't impact you. But too often the human brain will go, oh, we worry and we think about this. And I mean, I guess it's. It's normal to a degree, but it's not very well going to serve you. And I was thinking about, like, this, where, you know, people go, well, it's not fair what the carrier did, and they, whatever. And again, some of it you can't control. But it hit me on there, I'm like, there's certain things you actually can. And part of that is just being kind and being nice and providing proactive solutions and getting to know people and learning about what they want and how it aligns with what you want and how can we work together and having these conversations and open communication and proactive communication. Vacation. And all of a sudden, what you thought you couldn't control, you actually did. You just weren't intentional enough about it.

You got it, Brent. But you got to be genuine. Oh, you can't come across as, you know, thinking you know it all, and this is the route I'm gonna take. They'll see right through it. You got to be genuine. Yeah, I got to share real quick something that Sitkins did for us, I think, and you're probably aware of it because you guys, when we participate in breakouts, you guys are listening. But about four years ago, I think we took a next. A big step with you guys and opened this up to all of our employees. And we've all participated in different programs, but There was one huge takeaway that is, that has moved our agency into if one thing we can correlate it to is higher retentions and it's the high performance team meetings. High performance team meetings. When we first heard that, it really made me sit up because while we always had a good relationship with our producers and our account managers, it wasn't a once a week, maybe hour and a half, everything's off your desk. It's, it's one on one focus from expirations to new business to what is bothering the AM right now. Because there's many times that something's bothering the AM and they can't address it right away, but in this hour and a half they've got it written down and they're able to address it. Eliminated so many daily calls to producer. Just, just asking, can you go into the management system and get this for me? I don't need it till next week. It eliminated that call. It has strengthened the relationship between the account manager, the producer, increased our retentions. And I'm going to tell you, the relationship between these two is so much stronger. They've gotten to know each other better. They know their families more, they know what they did, you know, didn't know they were fans of Oklahoma. Just small talk. But if I can, if I can emphasize one thing that we pulled away that has helped our agency is high performance teams. It's made a big difference.

Yeah, thanks for sharing that. Because even part of this, you know, we have conversations with clients that work with us is that, you know, sometimes even we take for granted. Oh yeah, that was a big deal, right? Of what was taken away from that. And listen, you know, you've heard us talk about this and I've mentioned this podcast, but like we talk about the art of communication with sales and service and it's the art acronym appreciation, like just appreciate what people do. It's. It's difficult. Right. Our roles are different but they're both really important and there's challenges to it. The respect. Right. They are. And then trust building. Trust that, hey, we're going to have these conversations and you know, Dick, as you mentioned, a big part of this is this proactive communication. It doesn't completely eliminate, but it majorly reduces the reactive things that we have to do because we've already engaged. And I think that is so important. I'm glad you shared that because it's, it always feels cliche when I say this, but it's true is that if, if we want to have the best external communication and Relationships with clients. You mentioned carriers. Right. Future clients, centers of influence. We've got to have great internal communication, and I think so often we just take it for granted.

Yeah, yeah. And we did. We did take it for granted. We did. But this strengthened it. It was the greatest idea. And we even call it. We even stole the. The title of it. Have you had. Tell me about your high performance team meeting in our sales meeting, I'll ask.

Yeah.

And I have meetings with our account managers once a month, and I'll ask them how the high performance team meetings are going. We use that as the, the title of it. So it's. It was a great takeaway.

That's great. That's great. Well, Nick, you have time for one more question.

Yes, sir.

I asked this question to every guest, so I appreciate you participating. I was trying to find different ways phrase it, but it's basically the same question. So I'll keep it pretty simple. Right. If you bumped into a younger version of you, right, the person just starting your professional career. I don't know, you're walking down the street, you're. You're in New Orleans, you're at Mardi Gras. I don't know, you probably don't go to that. You're. You're, you're in too good a shape or whatever, right? But you're at some event and all of a sudden you bump into someone and you go, oh, my gosh, that's the younger version of me just starting this professional career. And that younger version of you looks up at yourself today and says, okay, wise experience, older me. If you give me one piece of advice that'll help me shape my future, what would it be?

So I did give this some thought and, and I. If I was looking at myself, I would. Because I didn't like myself many, many years ago when I got out of college, I just didn't. I would, I'd have been more respectful. That has nothing to do with business. But I wouldn't have been. Been afraid to take some. Some calculated risks, which I didn't even think about back then. It wasn't even a thought. Technology as you know how quickly technology has changed since I got out of College, from the 80s. I didn't embrace it, and I wish I would have embraced it more.

That's.

That's something that to this day, I'm, I'm sorry. I didn't. I feel like I, I got a good handle on, you know, what we're using, but what's out there, and if I learned it as Coming up, I'd have been much better at it. And then from a personal perspective, I just wish I would invest it, saved a little more, been a little more frugal, and then didn't take so long to, to finish school. I, I was one of those guys that, you know, burned up the scholarship, playing football with without having to go to class. And then when reality hit, it was time to become a little more mature. And it took me quite a while, so, so, you know, embracing technology, taking calculated risks earlier, and then investing, I think I would have been a much better person, certainly financially right now than I am. But when I've had this conversation in the past, had that not happened, I don't know if I would have been in the position I'm in right now.

That's right.

So I'm not one of these guys that, you know, things happen for a reason. But, but we can, we can have that discussion, that's for sure.

Yeah, I, I really appreciate. That's fantastic. And I mean, there's obviously no wrong answer on that. And, and, and I certainly don't ask that question to get people to think about, you know, regrets or should have, would have, could. I mean, that's it. It to me is just this idea of thinking about. And, you know, part of this too is serving the podcast audience because we've got people of all different ages. Newer leaders, younger leaders, middle age, older leaders, doesn't really matter. And you can learn from people's experiences and things that they've, they've done. And you're right, Dick. Like, it's always a challenge because you're like, well, I kind of wish I would have done that, but I guess if I would have done that, I don't know if I'd be here. And I like where I'm at. So it's, it's, you know, it's one of those things where to me, it's not about as much as the regret is. It's about what can I learn from that? What could I share to someone else? How do I pass that on? And I mean, and obviously your agency is a great testament of multi generations passing on certain things to others, yet continue to innovate and not just resting on the past.

Right. Yeah.

So I think it's fantastic. Well, Dick, thanks so much for being a guest on this. Any final comments, words you'd like to share with the audience before we, we wrap up here?

Well, I guess the first thing, I interviewed a young account manager this morning, and he's got a degree in Finance, University of Alabama, 22 years old. Truth. I mean, this happened just this morning, and we were talking about why he picked insurance, but it didn't. He. It picked him, as most people are. Insurance. Insurance finds you. Yeah, well, we agreed that it's not a sexy business. It's not. If you're very successful, you can live better than a doctor. And if you're wildly successful, you'll beat every attorney's compensation package out there. So it's a great business to be in, but you don't have to be flamboyant to be hugely successful in it. And I shared that with him since you're in a good position.

Yeah.

So I guess that's the last thing I can leave you with. It's not sexy, but you can certainly make a very handsome living. Absolutely.

And obviously there's a huge opportunity with what we're seeing. Right. Just in the generational gaps we're going to have in this business. And so, yeah, it is someone where people go, oh, my gosh, I've been dreaming of being in insurance. That doesn't happen very often. But it's interesting when people get in that you don't usually leave because you. You believe that, you know, you start to see how fulfilling of a career it is. And I had. I heard this years ago, and I love this. This is from a recruiter. And he said, you know, I said, what do you do to help recruit people in the insurance? He goes, well, I show people and tell people that have a really cool job but a crappy career, that there's an opportunity to have a job that's pretty hard and challenging, but it's an amazing career. And I thought that was pretty well said.

Fair. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I think it was pretty well said, so. Well, Dick, thanks again. So much. Appreciate being on the podcast. Thank you. The Agent Leader listener. If this podcast, as well as others has helped you in any way, you know, do the old rating review, subscribe thing, we'd love to pass this information on to more insurance agency leaders. So with that, wish you all the best in your success. Take care, everybody. Wait, you're still here. Hey, Agent Leader podcast listeners. Brent Kelly again, I want to, first of all, thank you for listening to the Agent Leader podcast and your continued support. If you would like to have more content come your way, please help us by sharing the podcast, subscribing to the podcast, telling people about the podcast, and if you as an agent leader, are truly ready to take that next step in your agency, you're committed and want to be that best version possible agency see, don't wait. Go to sitkins.com bookacall sitkins.com bookacall we want to provide the blueprint for your agency to help you create more impact with less effort. And it all starts by going to sitkins.com bookacall all right. Now you can actually go. Thanks.