Simplify to Succeed: Joe Calloway’s Strategies for Maximum Impact

What can you learn from a sought after performance coach, speaker and author of eight books? Well, the answer is a lot. In this 45 minute interview, I discuss so many great topics, important topics around leadership and growth with Joe Calloway. As I mentioned, Joe is an author and a speaker and a performance coach and has an incredible insight and perspective on things that matter the most to you as an agency leader. I don't think this will be the last time I'll have Joe on because we had so much great conversation that there's more we wanna unpack. But enjoy this next 45 minutes. If you take notes and really understand the things that Joe and I talk about, it will change your perspective and how you move your agency forward. Enjoy the show. Welcome to the Agent Leader podcast. This is the podcast for insurance agency leaders to learn, to grow, to develop, and ultimately aspire to become their best version possible. My name is Brent Kelly, I am your host. Delighted to be with you and super delighted to have a very special guest, someone who I've known for way longer than he's known me. That's because he's an author, he's a speaker, he's a high level performance coach, he's got a who's who's list of clients he's worked with. And in fact, as I started my journey with the Sitkins Group about eight years ago, one of his books was extremely transformational in how we viewed things. And why talk about that? I've got Joe Calloway, an amazing guest today. Joe, first and foremost, before I want to hear about your backstory and how you got here and all the things you've done. Just hello and welcome into the Agent Leader podcast.

I'm telling you, I'm so happy to be here. I wouldn't be anywhere else. Thank you for having me.

Oh, 100%. And I just want to tell the audience again, you know, Joe's experience and background and the companies he's worked with and obviously the books that he's written, they are so impactful for leaders. And it really is a privilege and honor to have Joe on today. You know, Joe, if you want to kick things off, share a bit about your background, what you've done, all the stuff that makes Joe Joe.

Well, let me try and make a long story short. I grew up on a farm in a little town in Tennessee. I got a degree in political science. So I had no marketable skills, had to go out and find a job. I ended up working at a small real estate firm actually up in the Northwest in Washington State. And I was a real estate agent. I sold, then I became the sales manager, then I became the general manager. Now, this was a small firm, like a dozen 14 agents. But the way I got paid was based on the revenue of the company. So my job was to help them be more successful. That was totally 100% the. The way I made a living. And so I was a coach. I did all the training. We did a meeting five mornings a week. And it was my meeting. And it was all about, how can I help them be better at what they do? And I kind of got hooked on that. I enjoyed it. Well, word started to spread. Some of the agents would tell their spouses, and word got out. And so other businesses in, in Nashville, which is where I live, said, hey, could you come talk to our people? And we, we will scrape a little money together. And it went on from there. Ended up ultimately on the stage of the Staples center in Los angeles speaking to 13,000 business owners and managers. And so it was, it was. That was a long ride to that point. And I'll tell you something interesting about that, Brent. I would infinitely rather be in a room with 12 people working than a room with 12,000 people working. I just, as I told you earlier, I like conversations way more than I like speeches. But as you mentioned, I wrote some books along the way. Now I pretty much just manage investments. I work with startups, and that's fun for me to work with a number of different businesses, particularly the young ones that are starting businesses. I love, I love that energy they've got. Yeah.

Well, it's just, again, we'll probably dive into more things. Right. Based on some of the questions I want to ask you. But I start off, and we were, we were talking before we officially started recording about, you know, conversation versus features. And I'm with you, Joe, so often. You know, we'll talk about this with groups. Like, this is going to be a conversation, not a presentation.

Yeah. And.

And there is a difference. And by the way, audience, just so you know, warning, warning. From what I can gather, Joe and I are both very conversational and we might go off the rails. But as I said to Joe and I think you agreed, if we find something that's really impactful and a great discussion, we'll just go there and stay there.

Yeah.

You know, if. If need be. So. Well, listen, you mentioned you wrote eight books and, you know, we're not going to, you know, we certainly could unpack all the books and there's different values and all kinds of things. But I really would like, and this is admittedly a bit of a selfish question, so I want to get into it, but one of your books, and I've got it with me here, is Keep It Simple.

Yeah.

And again, I was telling Joe, before we started recording as well, we use this book even before some of our presentations and conversations that we have with people of let's not keep, let's not get things too complicated. And I will tell you, and I'd love to get your take on this, we find so often for insurance agency leaders, and this is true of leaders of any kind, is that it's really easy to take something and make it complicated.

Yes.

Add more layers to it. But we're the best leaders that I see, and I want to get your vantage point, you've written a book on it, is that they do take things and make them to where I get it, I understand it, I can execute it. So what have you seen from your experience, Joe? How do the best leaders keep it simple?

Yeah, you, you really hit on a key word that it's easy to make it complicated. And it is. Making stuff complicated is easy. Anybody can do that. Taking what actually is kind of complex and making it simple, that's hard. But that's what great leaders do. Brent, I think a big part of a leader's responsibility is to simplify the complex. And you know, it's funny, I used to. You talked about the agencies that it's true for everybody. It is true for everybody. I would be speaking to a group of, from all kinds of companies, business leaders, and I'd say, all right, let me ask you something. Raise your hand if you ever find yourself saying this or thinking this. You know, we're making this way more complicated than it needs to be. And of course, every hand in the room went up. Mine too. I do the same thing. I'll stop myself times and go, wait a minute, this is silly. A couple of things. And then I want to give you an example of a company that I think had a really good approach and an approach that I've used with leaders on how to make things simple and much more effective and more powerful in a positive way. You kind of hit on it when you said at the start of a conversation, you'll hold up the COVID and say, okay, folks, let's keep this simple. If we're intentional, if, if, if even just in our own mind, or maybe we've got our leadership group sitting with us and we're wrestling with something that's, that's on the Face of it, very complicated. If somebody. Timeout, time out. We're trying to deal with the complicated. Let. Let's back up a little. How can we simplify this? And if you get everybody thinking on that track, I mean, it'll be amazing what people will come up with if you just point them in that direction. The example I want to give you, and it's a model that I've used with so many of my clients. I just love it. I did a lot of work with the company. I bet. I bet most of you, the people watching, have heard of it. Old Dominion, it's a shipping company. It's freight line. Okay. That business, logistically, has more moving parts than you can count. I mean, there's so much information flying around and schedules and people. It's. It's overwhelming. And if you ask Old Dominion, well, okay, you're in a really complicated business. Tell us about it. They'll say, no, it's not complicated. Listen to this. This is so strong, we have to do three things. Pick it up when you said you would deliver it when you said you would deliver it intact, and all there. And every job in this many thousands of employees company is geared to make those three things happen. Now, when I work with companies, I say, let's cascade that down. So you come up, and a lot of times I'll tell people you've got three things that you have to do. And they'll say, what are they? I don't know. You've got to figure that out. But when you figure that out, then you go down from the company, three things to this department, all right, what is this department? What are their three things that will drive the major three things. And then to the. To the leader, the manager of that department, what's her three things? And then every employee. And so. And of course, there's things that come up. There's a million little things. But if we stay focused on what's most important and let that drive our decisions and our choices in a simple way, it can be really powerful.

A lot of great takeaways there. And I want to comment a couple and if you got additional feedback. But I love what you said. Part of that, Joe, was about what I heard was you're asking the team of, how can we simplify this? And again, however that's structured, I guess it would probably vary. But just thinking about that, if you ask your team, how do we simplify this to get that approach of everyone's kind of thinking on the same page? And listen, they're the Ones that are involved in all the day to day stuff anyway. They don't want things to be complicated. So to me that is just such a simple but powerful, you know.

And I'm going to mention him again in a few minutes, I think, if we get on this subject. But in becoming the category one, one of the companies I reference is Tractor Supply Co. And at the time the President CEO was Joe Scarlett, who's become since a very close friend of Min. But Joe used to go out to, to the stores, to the warehouses and he would say, he would go in the warehouse and they'd all gather around. He'd say, hey, I'm Joe Scarlett, I'm the, I'm the president of the company, I'm overhead. Here's what I need you to tell me. How are we making your job hard? What are we doing from corporate that's getting in your way? He'd say, tell me. And they'd tell him because he was the kind of guy that you could tell he really wants to know. And they'd say stuff like, wait a minute, let me go get that stupid form this. And he'd say, that is stupid.

Right?

But, but it, yeah, just, just if, if you've got your antenna out for how to simplify everywhere, you can. Strong stuff.

Yeah, boy. It's just okay. It's one of those things that can just get away from you. And I, I do want to reference some insurance stuff, but I think you'll get it here just for the leaders. I always joke, and this is true for anybody, but for all of our sales people, the producers in the game. And I heard this from a sales trainer years ago, he goes, you got to stop techno barfing on people. And that was a term he used. And every industry has their own jargon, right? Their own acronyms, whatever the insurance industry has got as a bazillion of them. And it's like we talk in this language that we think is pretty cool, but the people we're trying to communicate with have no idea what they're saying. They sometimes try to be nice and like, huh, huh. But there's, there's, there's, there's nothing that they're really grasping. There's no real connection there.

God, that's a, that's an important observation. There's no connection. And you know, it's, it's funny. I, I finally reached a point in my career where I was confident enough when I was talking with a client or a prospect and they were techno barfing or throwing their jargon at me. And I got confident enough to say, whoa, whoa, wait a minute, back up. You just used the phrase, I don't know what that means. What does that mean? But it's. It is amazing how often we can get stuck in our own. Our own secret language.

Yeah.

That the rest of the world doesn't know. They have no reason to know it.

Yeah. The other part of that, too, and you, the example, tractor supply. Part of that is just about connection, is just being open for feedback, being open for criticism. And I think a lot of us, we miss out on connection. And this is. I'd love to get your take on this. I said, it just, it hit me, whatever you say, like, we miss out on connection because we're so worried about our own perception, our own ego, our own whatever it may be that we miss out of. Like, it's really all about you. And if I don't ask this question, if I don't dig deeper, then I'm selling you short. I don't know. You agree with that or any experience you've seen with that, Joe.

Well, yeah. And you. We were talking beforehand about this, this leadership assessment that, that I've used, where you do just that, you ask for feedback and, you know, it's also, oh, my gosh, here's one. Brent. I would. I was working with a company. They had a new CEO who had never. He had no executive experience, but he was a young guy, young company. They made him the CEO and he had a group of his, like 40 people in the leadership team, and they were talking about whatever the next thing they were going to do going forward. And he said, okay, so if. If everybody's with that, that's what we'll do. Let's go. And then, blessedly, they took a break. And I called him over, I said, dude, your two top people were sitting on the front row and they were like this. They're not buying it. You got to go back. And when you start the meeting again, say, wait a minute, before we make this a hard and fast decision, tell me what we're missing. Tell me where. But he could. He wasn't reading the room. I mean, it was as simple in that case, really. He wasn't reading the body language. Yeah. And so, yeah, feedback is so, you know, when I work with startups, which I do a lot, I'll tell them, I'll say, you've got. You've got your plan, you got your product, you know exactly what you're going to do. Put it out in the marketplace and you'll go, wait a minute. The market will give you information.

Yeah.

And. And you will change course. And. And that's a good thing. That's fine. But we. Yeah, I totally agree with everything you said about feedback and being open.

Yeah. It. It's just, you know, it's always an interesting thing. Like, in our business, obviously, you know, just like you. You're talking about in your open. Joe. The only way we're successful is that we help agencies be successful.

Yep.

That's how we win. And, and one of the challenges, this isn't surprising, is that the best agencies are successful, had the leaders that are open to be criticized or coached. And, and, you know, even that, like, to go with their team. Like, a lot of people don't want to hear the reality of, hey, this isn't working.

I. I used to have a tagline that said, we help great companies get even better. And a guy told me, he said, that's dumb. He said, it's lousy companies that you need to be working with. I said, lousy companies won't hire me. Right. Yep. Or anybody like me, because they don't. They don't want to hear it.

Right. 100. 100% true. I don't want to get off on the side about our business right now, but we, you know, there's. In our scope, there's 40,000, approximately independent insurance agencies. The majority of them don't want to hear a thing. And again, I don't have any ill will. It's just a matter of. There's a few that say, hey, listen, is there a. Is there a higher level of this? Are there things that.

Can we. Can we. Is there any way we could do this even better?

Yeah.

Yeah. There always is.

I was, I was at a. An event last week. I was speaking at Joe. And it's funny brought up because I was out in San Diego and we're talking about performance and all those things, and it just, it reminded me. I was like, do you remember? I hit me like, if you're not a golf fan, I apologize. But I think most people know Tiger woods. And do you remember when Tiger was, like, winning all these tournaments and then he totally reconstructed his restructured a swing?

Yes.

You know, it's like, most people would never do that. I'm doing so good. He's like, there's a whole nother level.

I used to ask audiences at the time of years back, I'd say, who's the best golfer in the world? Everybody in the room would say, tiger Woods. I'd Say, let me give you a clue. Tiger woods has a coach.

Right? It's, you know, it's funny. Well, that's not fair. He has a coach. If you've ever been like at a, a wreck golf perimeter, that's not fair. You have a coach. It's like, huh, yeah, we want to win. It's like, yeah, so. Oh, that's good discussion there. Well, I wanna, I wanna ask you another question, Joe. And you did send out, send me the assessment and what you do and there's such gold in that. And again, we don't. You can take this wherever you want. But, but one of the things I want to ask you, just thinking about working with high level leaders, right, the ones that do want to be coached, what are some of the things that you see? High level leaders, right, they struggle with, right? What, what do they do that maybe many other leaders, you know, high level leaders do certain things a certain way. Some leaders struggle with stuff. Where's the gap? What does it look like? What have you learned? I want to tap into your experience here.

Yeah, let me, let me talk about three or four of those because I do, I have an assessment and it's said called mistakes leaders make and what to do instead. Yeah. And I mean everybody can improve on everything. Gosh, gosh knows I can. But I picked out just a couple of these that the people might not necessarily think of. I mean, we've all got to be good communicators. We've all got to be good at feedback, we've all got to be learned to be good at change and that sort of thing. But let me, let me give you one. I'm going to take it straight off the assessment here. Yeah. Recognizing and rewarding superstars, but not focusing on consistency. And, and here's the idea. It's tempting and easy to single out and recognize the superstar. But when you look at consistently sexful successful teams, their strength is in consistency of performance across the board, not occasional superstar performance. I've said forever, consistency of performance is the great brand builder. Inconsistency of performance is the great brand killer. And, and I, I've thought there are, we've all dealt with companies like this that if there were truth in advertising, they'd hang this over their front door. It would say, feel lucky, come on in. And then underneath it would say, depends on who you get. And so the thing is, you know, we might get an email from a client that says, you know, I work with you guys all the time. I got to tell you that I worked With Susan the other day, I've just got to say she went above and beyond. She was incredible. And that's a great thing to hear. And Susan needs recognition for that. What's better to hear is Brent, I work with you guys all the time and I gotta let you know, no matter who I work with in your company, they're always top of the line, first class, professional. They know their stuff, they're a pleasure to deal with. Now that's, that's a hard standard to reach. And I'm not saying don't give recognition to superstars, but gosh, I had a person in a conference one time say I went, there's a grocery store that I love and if you go in, you'll see 10 carts lined up behind this one register and one or two or no carts behind all the others. Even though there's cashiers there that's caused that one cashier is so great that everybody wants to deal with her. Isn't that great? And I said, no, that's terrible. There shouldn't be one person out of five that people want to deal with. So consistency of performance across the board.

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Thought comment.

Oh, I, well, I, yeah, I do. I know you've got more so I want, this is fun to go through this but again, I want to, I mean for, for this audience. Oh my goodness. You know, first of all, we always see this. We talk to sales professionals in the insurance industry. It is without a doubt and this isn't 100, but it's pretty close. We've got this top third tier that are elite performers. We've got this middle tier that they may go good or bad, we're not sure yet. And the bottom tier, we don't think they're going to make it or, or they're new. And you know, it's really interesting. Joe, I had a recent podcast interview with a C suite leader and she was talking about how their at least one of the companies she was with rated the leadership performance and they rated off their worst performer. And it kind of caught me. I was like, whoa. She goes, think about how that changes you as a leader.

Yep.

Whereas most people go, well, these two or three or whatever it is, they'll help propel us and me to the top or where we need to be or be good enough to make numbers or goals or whatever. So that whole philosophy, I mean, consistency of performance is amazing. And the other thing too. And I'll just. If you don't mind, just a really quick plug on how we look at things. And some of this came about because of COVID But you know, I've talked about this on a podcast. We would often have Joe in our business model, a producer or two come to one of our trainings and they would get great value out of it. There's no doubt. But I always say, well, how do they relay that to the rest of the team and what are the other producers doing? And Right. All that things that comes into it is, yeah, it's good to up level a couple performers. And yeah, I think you need to, you know, you need to encourage and stroke those that are doing great and give them the atta boys and all that. But wow, consistency. So much good, so much gold of what you said there. And I, I gotta give one more example. It just hit me because it reminded me on the way back machine. I was with an organization, insurance agency, years ago and names will, will remain nameless. There's no, no names here. But I'll never forget it was lunchtime and so the majority of the. The office team were on lunch or whatever and I was hanging around doing something. I was walking to the office and somebody had called in and the lady who answered the phone was typically more in the accounting department. Right. Doing the money stuff and is certainly not a people person. And literally was like, yeah, what do you want? Yeah, we'll get back to you.

We can.

We're at lunch now. Like, this is what I heard. And I'm like, that is the impression that someone just got for our entire organization.

Yeah.

So I don't know, I don't have the question there, but just it really struck home when you said of how much inconsistency do we have and what impact does that actually have?

That's the thing. A lot of times companies, for whatever reason, I guess maybe let me just take website. They never go to their own website. Yeah, because. And it's funny, I could go on around about this because I was dealing with this yesterday. I would love to buy a big purchase item from a company, I can't figure out how to buy it. And they say to do this, go here on our website. And I go there and it's like, I can't, I can't figure it out. I would love to get the CEO of this giant company, sit down beside him and say, you figure it out. Here's your website. How would you buy this product on this website? I defy. I bet you a hundred bucks you can't.

Yeah.

And so yeah, there's, there's so many touch points. The consistency applies to all of them. All of those touch points.

Yeah. What else you got on your list? Because you've got a number of things here.

Being out of touch. The tricky thing about being out of touch is that if you are out of touch, you don't know it. You think morale is good. It's not. You think the rollout of the new dealer communication system is going well. It's not. The cure is to, and we touched on this earlier, is to invite and even demand that people tell you the truth. That the truth filters up to you. I was sitting in a meeting of a company, 300 people, all of them in, in management leadership positions. The CEO got up and, and in this example I just gave, I talked about the new communication, dealer communication system. And I was thinking about this example when I wrote that. He got up on stage and he was talking about different things. He said, and let me take a second to talk about the, the rollout of the new community communication system with all our dealers. Couldn't be more pleased, thrilled. You all did a great job. I mean, let me give you some applause for that. I'm sitting on the back row. I'm going to go up on stage later. I'm sitting on the back row with a bunch of the people in the company and the guy next to me, Brett, when the CEO said that, he goes, oh, literally put his head on the table and he leaned up and he said he's so clueless, he doesn't have the first idea. Now that's an extreme example. But yeah, it's real easy to think, yeah, everything's okay, everything's running just fine. Find out. Hey, it's so easy to assume that with your customers. No, no, they're happy. I worked for a major airline that hired a company to do a one year survey, customer survey. And the main result was, and I'll never forget, the CEO announced this in a meeting to all of the senior leadership. He said to me, here's the number one thing the survey told us, our best customers hate our guts. They were best customers because they lived in hub cities where that airline was darn near the only choice.

Yeah.

And they thought, yeah, we got some great customers. They come all the time. They have to. He said they can't stand us. But they didn't know that until they were open to finding out. So being out of touch.

Can I make a quick comment on that? I'm gonna hit another one. Just maybe expand upon it. I mean, there's so many different areas when I hear out of touch that come to my mind. If these relate, let me know. But one of the things we'll often see, too, with leaders and leadership teams is not only out of touch with themselves and their team, but out of touch with their other leaders. And it hits me because we'll do an assessment. I know you've got an assessment here that you're going through with some of the leaders, and I'll ask a question. And one of the leaders. I think we're probably a four or five in this area.

Yeah.

The elevator is like, oh, I thought we were an eight, nine.

Yeah.

And there's a complete disconnect even between. Between leaders on that. Is that something you see as well or has been part of your.

Yeah, And I love doing that kind of feedback survey because you do. You, You'll. You will have people saying eight or a nine and somebody else going, I gave us a three.

Yeah.

Well, that's, that's good. Stir that pot up.

Yes.

And see what's going on with those perceptions, because there could be something really juicy in there that you need to be working on. So. Yeah, I'm a, I'm a huge fan of that kind of communication. Yeah.

And there's, there's many times, too, where it's like, it does stir up that conversation. It's like, this is something we should talk about 10 years ago. We're finally talking about it, you know, and so it's that kind of hidden, you know, the, the, the, the hidden idea in there. One more thing. I want to hit on this and, and I don't know if you want to go deeper here, but obviously, in terms of your customers. And you mentioned that.

Right.

And the. Oh, there, they love us. No, it's just the hub cities, you know, when I talked to either sales professionals, the producers we work with, or yesterday, in fact, I was on with the service team group. And one of the things that we talked about, it was really about referrals, but it's Interesting. It's like, well, why. Why don't we get more? Well, we don't ask. Well, why don't we ask? Well, you know, somewhere deep in our soul, we don't know if we've really earned it. So one of the things. And again, this is something we've talked about, there's a book written on it. So I want to give it credit. The ultimate question. There's a lot of different variations of it, right? But on a scale from 1 to 10, how likely would you be to refer a friend or associate to a firm? And even that question, as. I don't know, I would say it's not a threatening question, but people are nervous to ask that. And it came out and we finally kind of got to the bottom of it is why are we worried about asking that question? Because what if they give us a 5? And I always say, well, when would you like to know that?

Exactly.

And do you see that where there's a hesitation for. As part of the. And I get. I don't. This really leads the out.

I do see it. And let me tell you, along with that, Brett, what else I see is that companies will sometimes structure that kind of survey so that it's really easy for the customer to give them a high mark. You need to be going the opposite direction. You need to say, no, tell it. Tell us where we could be better. And there's ways of phrasing that, like instead of saying, tell us what we're doing wrong, a lot of people don't want to say, well, here's where you're wrong. So tell us what we could be doing better. We know we could be better, but sometimes we can't see it. So tell us. I. I did years of work with Enterprise Rental Car, and they had one survey question that drove everything. How likely would you be to refer us to a friend, family member, or, you know, associate? That was it. They said, that's the magic, magic number. Would they tell other people? I wrote a book called Magnetic the Art of Attracting Business. My whole approach to business wise, because it's so funny. I've worked with so many salespeople. I personally hate to sell. I don't want to sell anything to anybody. I want the market to come to me. And so I always figured out, how can I get the market to come to me? How can I do work that is so good that word of mouth is going to refer other business to me? And I don't. When I say I hated to sell, a lot of people that know me Say, no, that's stupid. You're a great salesman. But the way I did it. And actually that kind of gets into the three customer rules. You want to talk about that?

Yeah, let's get into it. I want to hear about it, please.

Yeah. The book. Book. Brent asked me before we did it. He said, in becoming a category one, you've got a chapter called the three Rules. So let's talk about that a little bit. The three rules are know the customer better than anybody else. Get closer to the customer than anybody else. Emotionally connect with the customer better than anybody else. And let me kind of wrap those together, starting with knowing the customer better than anybody else. I would. In my business, very often there would be four or five of us up for a job, and the prospect would. Would very often interview each of us separately in a, In a, in the day, a conference call, now a zoom call. There'd be a committee, or maybe it would be one on one. But anytime. And I did. This is forever. This is the only answer I ever gave Brent. If somebody said, so, Joe, great talking to you today. Okay. Why should we do business with you? My answer every single time was, I don't know that you should. That's what we need to find out right there. Whoop. The whole dynamic was shifted. It wasn't, I'm going to try to talk you into something. It's no, we're not on opposite sides. We're on the same side. Let's find out. Because if I'm not the right fit, believe me, I will tell you in a heartbeat. And so I would ask them questions, and I would also say, and this is about getting to know the customer than anybody else. If I was on the call like that, I would very often say, well, at some point, I would always say, let me tell you what I know about your business, your company, the industry. What I do know is this is going on in an industry that's going on in industry. I know you got a new CEO, and he's the first CEO that has not come from sales. He's come from engineering. And. And that's put a kind of a different spin on. On the leadership view of things and on and on and on to the point that they're just go going, how does he know so much about us? Because it's my job. I have to know that to know if. If we're the right fit. Let me tell you a step further that I would go, and this is where you get closer. Literally, as well as, you know, figuratively, there would Be many times when, when I'd be talking with a prospective client and I'd say, listen, Southwest has got nonstop flights to Denver from Nashville. Let me hop on a plane. Pick a day if you want to. If you would like to do this, let me come out and spend two or three hours on my dime. I'll pay for it with you and whoever else you think it would be useful for me to talk to and for them to talk to me. And again, let's find out if we got the right fit here. I'll never forget there's a company in Columbia, South Carolina, Brett. I flew down there and the CEO was waiting for me. It was a kind of a mid sized company. He was waiting for me outside security and we said, hello, how you doing? Glad you're here. And as we walked to the car, he said, you know you've pretty much got the job, don't you? And I said, well, that's nice to hear. He said, we've never had anybody do this. We've never had anybody show this much interest in and getting it right with us. Boom. See, I didn't consider that selling. I considered that finding the right fit. You know, the other thing, obviously once you've got a customer, it's so easy to your customers. Everybody watching, listening to this right now, their customers change all the time. As an insurance buyer, I change my life changes, my business changes, my family changes. And so that customer you talked to a while back doesn't exist anymore. They're now even a slightly, sometimes a significantly, significantly different entity. And so we, we have to maintain that. I know, I know. With you guys to brag on you guys a little bit, my understanding and in my contact with you guys is that that's something you do very well.

Yeah, we should work on it.

Yeah, it's really powerful.

Yeah, it's. I want, I want to hit on a couple of things here. First of all, the, the. No more man. The. Let me tell you what I know. I love that line. I hope listeners are writing that down because we teach and preach and again, part of things that we do so much. In fact, one of our, our I don't know if it's a title of a section. We do, I guess that's what you call it is called the ultimate competitive advantage. And the ultimate competitive advantage is preparation, which is really what you're talking about, right? You've done your work, you've done your homework.

I've always said I want you to pick back up. But I've always said if I could have one competitive advantage, one. Assuming that price and product and all that is, you know, everybody's kind of in the. In the same ballpark. If I could have one thing to set me apart, it would be that exact thing. The way I said it was, let me know the customer better than anybody else. Yeah, I'll win almost every time.

Yeah, I. I just did. It was a section this week, so it's very relevant that I did with a Group about 70 some salespeople. And I said, you know, like, some of you got more experience, some of you got more resources. Somebody got different tools, all these things. But there's one thing that you all can control, and that is your level of preparation. And when you walk in that meeting again, it just. It just shows. And just to be able again. There's so many ways you can phrase it, but, you know, in preparation for this meeting, let me ask you a few questions. I love it. All of a sudden it hit me. It's like, let me tell you what I know. And it's like, wow, this. This is different. This person really showed up to play. They really know me.

You know, even. Even the little stuff, the just human stuff that every. Everybody on this with us knows this sort of thing. I'll never forget, I walked into a CEO's office one Monday morning. He said, how you doing? I said, go Buckeyes. He lit up. And I knew because I'd. He was an avid. He was a Ohio State graduate.

Y.

And just. It lit him up.

Yeah, those things. Well, maybe. And maybe that gets. And you've kind of already hit on. I don't know if there's more to add or you want to add, but that last one I thought was interesting. And that's an example of what you just shared to emotionally connect. And, you know, we talk about this. I mean, this is kind of sales 101 and even part of leadership, you know, say that people buy emotionally, they justify intellectually. I think that's true in communities. Yeah. So how. How do you see businesses, leaders, whatever it is, how do you see them best connect emotionally? What are some examples or just ways of thinking about that?

Well, I do. I do know that the first presentation by any kind of speaker consultant was when I was in real estate. It was in the late seventies in the ballroom of the Olympic Hotel in White in Seattle, Washington. A guy named Tom Hopkins, who was a legendary real estate speaker trainer. He said, the two main things you got to do, they got to like you. They got to trust you. And that was Decades ago. I still remember that. Yep. I think the biggest part of that. And this is so hard to do, and everybody knows this. While they're talking, please stop thinking about the next thing you're going to say. Really listen. Because if you really listen, you'll hear things that'll make you go, whoa, wait a minute. Yes, I had that same experience, and I've run up against that myself. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. That's a connection. And you just build those connections. CEO of the Deluxe Financial called me in his office one day, and we were talking for two hours, and all of a sudden he stopped, said, do you know why you're in my office and your competitors aren't? I said, why Chuck felt. I said, why Chuck? He said, because you get us. He said, now everybody else knows what they do. You know what we do. You know where we're trying to go, and you're helping us advance that strategy. And so it's. And again, this is stuff we all know, but being really intentional about it, keeping it top of mind is a big deal.

It's a huge deal. And it is. It is work. And there's a skill to it. And there. I mean, all of that comes with it. And I can be very transparent, you know, as I do these podcast interviews. That's been a huge challenge for me. And it's skill, and I'm working on it. Is. Okay, what's the next question? Wait. Wait a second. Just listen to what they're saying. And there's a question there.

Yeah, And.

And let it happen. And it's just better conversation. It's real conversation.

There's just.

There's more emotional connection there. And I had something written down that I was going to say, because I was going to say, you're talking about, you know, leadership, and I think of leadership and sales and emotional connections on things. You know, there's so many examples in so many ways. But I think about starting, like, with salespeople and how often, again, we want to talk about our stuff. And I had a. There was a. One of our top performers that we had the pleasure of working with. He's got a huge book of business, very successful, and talking about keeping things simple. I said, of all the things, like, what. What is it about? And he goes, I have one mindset or general mindset in every conversation, because, first of all, I'm not an insurance agent or a producer. I'm a business consultant. And my only thing I ask myself is, how can I help this business move forward? And that is the that is the foundational part of every question I ask and how I approach things. And guess what? It works pretty well. And I think about this with leaders and tell me if this, this relates as well, but same thing with your team. How can I help this person move forward?

Yeah. What do we got? Another couple of hours? Because I could really talk about.

We can. I got. My only hard cut off is another 15 minutes. And I want to respect your time, but I love this. I can sit and talk forever.

Yeah. The thing I've got, I've got a good friend who's a consultant and speaker and she talks about the important in knowing the people that you work with, your leadership team and beyond. All through the knowing their story. I had a. There was a bank I was working with small bank, 150 employees and they were going to undergo a big change. And the CEO, after I did a bunch of sessions with leadership, he said, joe, what can I do to make this whole thing work? Maximum. I said, you ready? Do you mean that? He said, I mean it. I said, have coffee or breakfast or lunch with all 150 employees one at a time over the next, you know, however many days that would take. I mean, devote your breakfast, a coffee break and lunch and another coffee break afternoon to talking one on one with employees about the changes and why you're excited about them, but more important, what's going on with them. And he said, that's a lot. Yeah, it is. Really did it. And he said it was life changing for everybody involved and certainly for the business. He said it was just an incredible experience. It changed everything.

Yeah. As you said that this is a conversation I had a while back and you know, it's, it's easy to be on the, you know, the outside. I always say it's easy to be a coach or consultant because you can sit and go, oh, we'll just do that. Yeah, A lot of it is just we have blind spots and you're in the midst of your day and your week and you just don't see it. But I was having a fairly casual conversation with an agency leader and we were just talking about different stuff and the challenges and problems he was facing and whatever. And, and I said, hey, share with me like just what a day looks like. And it was funny because he was just kind of going through, ah, you know, I get her about this time. And then I, I head up the stair, I walk through our, our lobby and then I head up to the stairs and then I go through, you know, whatever there's A corridor or whatever. And then I, I get to my office and, and start usually whacking away at emails and different things and returning phone calls. And I said, oh, I understand. So they're like, do you have your, your team? Are they there? Well, it depends when I come in, but yeah, usually I've got team members around. Said, most important thing you can do every day is acknowledge those people. And he's like, oh. And again, he was a great guy. He just goes, oh my gosh, I didn't even think about that. Of course I love my people and I, it. I'm going to share my favorite quotes, Joe, and I'd love to get your perception of this. And I don't even know I should give quote where it's due, but I think it's. Several people have said different aspects of it, but here's the quote. Silent gratitude is no gratitude at all.

In my book. Be the Best of what Matters Most. One chapter is about Marty Grunder and his upscale landscaping company in Dayton, Ohio. Yeah. Marty handwrites thank you notes and mails it to the employee's home.

Wow.

Where the employee will open it and his wife or her husband and the kids are there and they could say, wow, look what Marty wrote me.

That's just, you know, all these things we could probably get, we probably could go on forever. But it just hits because again, I'm thinking to myself, how many times? Like, why do I do that? Or why, you know, I, we. We have these. And it hit me. It's like, it doesn't take a lot more, it just takes more.

Yeah, yeah.

In some of these ways. So, all right, here's what I want to do. And if you're open to this, first of all, I would love to have you back on at some point. Maybe we can take a topic or two, you know, whatever you want to do. I think there's, there's such value in this, in this conversation, but I always want to, and I want to be cognizant of your time and respect your time, Joe. But my last question I want to ask is really about you, but in, you know, and how it relates to what you've learned in your experience. And that's a question I asked for, for all guests. So just imagine today, I know this is a kind of a weird, hypothetical make believe story, but today, let's say we get done with this interview, you walk out of your office there or whatever, and all of a sudden you bump in to the younger version of you. And I don't Know how many years you want to go back? 20, 30, 40 years, it doesn't matter, right? Kind of. The, the younger version of you and that younger version of you looks up and says, oh, wise, all knowing experience, Joe.

No, he would say, he would say, what the hell happened to us?

What, what, what's going on? That's how I feel about myself. So anyway, he looks at it, goes, hey, I only got 30 seconds. If you give me one piece of advice that I should know right now, what would it be?

My great nephew asked me that exact question. He's about 24 years old at a wedding last week. And I'll tell you what I told him. And it's exactly what I would tell me. I'd say, bud, it's all relationships. One word with two words. I got a follow up word. It's all about relationships. The quality and success of your life, of your business, more important, of your family, all of it. It's all about relationships. And the word that drives me and I aspire to it, it's an aspirational goal for me. One word, kindness. It's all about relationships. And I just, I want to try and be about kindness in, in everything I do, including my business.

Sure.

So there you go. One, two word answer.

I, I think that's the. Yeah, you kept it simple, but that's what matters. I mean, because I remember that. And it's, it's again, you ask anybody. I don't want to go too much of this because that's just a great answer. But you know, in business, you know, is this business still about relationships? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then it just comes back and I asked myself this question, like, what deposits am I making daily into these relationships?

Yeah.

And have I take it for granted? And you know, one thing I think all of us as we, you know, different ages, but we're all aging, we're all getting older, regardless of where we're at. I know for me right now, and you know, as I watch my kids grow up, I've got one in college, she's going to be married. I've got another senior in high school. And you know, I'm aware now how, how fast things go. It's so true, Joe, as you say that, like all these things and money and trivial things like, yeah, it's fun, but like to have my, my daughter say, dad, I just love and appreciate you to have a client say, you know, it's just, it's great to, to know you and the impact you've had like that.

Yeah.

That's it.

That's it.

So listen, as we wrap up here, a couple things. What I know you mentioned a little bit what you're doing now, I know you're not doing as much consulting things and you've got a few different things and working with startups. What are you doing? And if someone want to reach out to you or go buy your books or whatever they are, because they're great.

Yeah, they can. They can buy my books. And I encourage you to buy the whole library because I've still got a daughter in college. We got a late start. Well.

But yeah, seven. Joe.

So I encourage you to buy the whole Callaway library.

Yes, please do.

You can get them on Amazon. You can just go put my name in on Amazon under books and it'll show you a bunch of them. And what I'm doing now, as I mentioned briefly, I am actively investing and participating in a number of businesses and projects, real estate stuff, some startups, as I mentioned to you. One interesting one is I am now with a group of other guys in the wholesale bourbon business. We buy every quarter. We buy 5,000 barrels of new Kentucky bourbon and we store them and then we resell them and we're. A few of us are doing the same thing with an Irish distiller. So.

That's so fun.

Yeah, it's great. Interesting stuff.

100. Well, again, thanks again. Any final, final words you want to say to the audience, Joe, before we officially say goodbye?

Just, you know, I saw a guy wearing a cap yesterday and it said no bad days. So I thought, yeah, there can be tough times, but don't make it a bad day, make it a good day. Listen, I appreciate the time everybody took to join us on this, so I hope you got at least one or two good ideas out of it.

Well, I. I know selfishly, I got many. I got lots of notes. So thank you, Joe. Appreciate it. Again, Joe Calloway, go check out his books. Go buy some bourbon. I go, I don't know.

Go, go, please. The bourbon. The bourbon drinking market is way down right now.

Okay, all right.

Go buy.

Yeah, I. I have to mention it's funny, just why I got you on here. I just, I was interviewed in a podcast or actually one of our clients, they got some young people do a podcast and their insurance. It's called Whiskey and Risk. So maybe I'll do a bourbon. Bourbon and Brent or something. I don't know. We'll figure it out.

That's perfect. Let's do it.

Hey, thank you, Joe, so much. We appreciate you and for all the listeners. Go go. Wish you well. Go make it your best version possible. Take care everybody. The Agent Leader Podcast is brought to you by the fine folks of the Rough Notes Company. They are publishers of the insurance industry's leading magazine and technical insurance content. RoughNotes magazine profile successful agencies plus keen insights from respected experts on a host of must know topics. RoughNotes Advantage plus provides the tools to help your agency grow, providing authoritative information on complex coverage issues. Visit them and learn more@rough notes.com 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 step in your agency, you're committed and want to be that best version possible. Agency. 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 sidkins.com bookacall all right, now you can actually go. Thanks.