Building Producers from the Ground Up with Billy Wagner | Pathways, Planning & Leadership That Sticks

What's up everybody welcome to the scratch agency podcast hosted by scratch agents for scratch agents My name is even term a founder of T5 insurance services in Clinton, New York And I'm joined by my co's today the one and all you already know hold your applause mr Sean Fitzgerald founder of sound harbor insurance and long Island, New York beautiful sunny Snowy New York Sean. We're in the season Yes, no snow by me yet, but I heard you got some Crazy snow up there. We got 18 inches over the weekend up there. That was a great time for the snowblower to die after the first pass down the driveway That's a whole different podcast We got Billy Wagner back Billy. We're super excited and grateful to have you back on the podcast I want to make a comment before we start I look back this morning We had you back on episode 75 which was about a year ago So if we've got new listeners or anybody that wants to refresh we really don't deeper into Billy's story and agency operations and stuff like that in episode 75 But we wanted to talk about all things producers and everything and that but Billy We're just super grateful that you take the time to to be back with us. How are you today? I'm wonderful. It's my pleasure to be with you guys and you know I think this is a great thing that you're doing for the community and it's it's very needed and I'm just honored to be asked to help and and definitely learn some things that I can share and we're gonna add as much value as possible Today and the time we have and I look forward to it. Love it. Well, so we we want to talk about producers Specifically bringing it on and we mentioned before we recorded we're I love that I'm gonna use this from now I'm still from you that maybe Sean and I are now scratch plus in our journey. That makes me feel a little bit better about But you know the followers and the listeners in the community that we built a lot of people are in that maybe three year range We certainly have people that are further along people that have just joined and just starting But we have people in that maybe two to three year range that are looking at Hey, I got to bring on a producer now. What does that look like and you know, what are the things that You always see in the Facebook groups and everything is what should I pay the producer and all this But I don't think there's the conversation around like how do we help that person succeed For what we want them for and so we just love to have a conversation around you know the producer plan that you've created and you've shared on stage multiple times and Just kind of dive a little deeper into that today Yeah, I'm happy to do it. This is some of the work that I've spent so much time on I really Have figured this out and it was a very difficult journey and and I you know you guys again There's there's really your two phases into this because there's a less than scratch You like before you start then you're scratch and now you're scratch plus so you're really moving you're moving up And this is a really important topic and it's a really important one to get right Because especially the the margin for errors very small in the beginning and you know again It was 20 years ago for me But I remember it like it was yesterday because I still have the scars and the battle wounds and so you know It really for me. I think it starts with Having a plan and this is something that I wish I would have had a better plan when I was starting to know where I was going and Who's coming with me and what are what does their path look like when you bring on somebody And you really do have to spend some time kind of figuring that out and I do want to dive into that with you guys And just try to make sure there's a lot of clarity around you know kind of that planning phase of this Yeah, so barely can you talk about Let's start from the absolute beginning of hiring a new producer. So let's say Someone on Facebook says hey, you're looking for a producer in your area. You reach out. Yeah, you know I want to hire yeah, we're hiring. I'd like to talk to I'd like to get connected with Bob. You get connected with Bob He he's kind of on the fence. He you know, he's looking at different places. What's kind of I would say like I think that would be a good place to start. It's like what's your discussion look like with this potential new producer Yeah, and I think there's a couple different ways to look at this too and so you know If you're a scrap. Okay, you're a scratch plus agency, right? And so maybe you know Again, let's let's make sure we clarify this correctly. Is this their first hire or they already have some people on the team First and this is the first producer that they're adding on so this is a very distinct thing. We have to kind of make sure yeah What where do you want to start with that because like I would say folks already have somebody on the team as well I would say yes VA or one service person. Yeah, that's okay Yeah, so because I think One of the things that I think has really helped us and I want to start here because I think it gives some clarity to people Is that that first hire whether it be you know that customer service person or that receptionist that we call that role a client concierge And so what what ends up happening is we don't hire Generally we no longer hire just that hey, we're gonna go hire a producer What we do is we bring them on is this client concierge role and The purpose of it is really they got to learn the beginning and we tell them hey, we're gonna teach you a career You're gonna grow with us Here's your pathway and you're gonna and so we hired a producer Eight months ago and they started in this client concierge and they validated out of it in 90 days So that's one thing that I make sure everybody validates through that 90 days and so we're talking them about hey You're gonna come on board. You're gonna answer the phone. You're gonna learn how to intake new customers new clients You're gonna learn how to build rapport you're gonna learn how to cross sell and you're gonna learn how to set up the Administrative part of the business how to start the quoting all of that stuff And then when you validate that then we can make you we call it a junior producer And so so again, I'm telling them hey, there's a path here You can come on and be a producer, but you're gonna be a client concierge You're gonna be a junior producer then you're gonna be an agent and then you're gonna be an elite agent And so there's a lot going on here But here's what's really important for you guys to get is When somebody comes on to do a new position first of all They never wanted to get an insurance like this is like we're all got tricked into it. We're all here now But they want a purpose They want personal growth and they want a plan and they want someone to follow And so you've got to spend some time as the agency owner figuring those things out. Okay, so You know what you've got to be the leader that they're going to follow and you are generally essentially the way I look at it as an agency owner You're that elite agent doing everything correctly You're marketing you're cross-selling and they have someone to follow right and so eventually as you scale this thing I've got four or five of those elite agents and so you can scale it that way, but now you are that elite agent Right, and so that person is learning from you. They're writing shotgun. They're sitting right next to you and you tell them look You're going to get to work right with the owner and you're going to look I'm going to pour as much as I can into you so that you are going to be a very successful agent And I'm once you come on board with us. I will not let you fail you follow my lead I know exactly what to do because you should have Created an environment where you've built referral partners, right? You've got lead flow coming in and so you're just basically trying to replicate that with that new producer Man the confidence is just who's an ad you when you say that that's and I think that's the important thing to have like It's clear. It's concise. It's easy to understand and I think that those are some of the things that I've made mistakes on in the past, you know Um all right, so I love that so Sean before you go into that next point because I want to back up a little bit bill You talked a lot in the beginning about the agency owner having a plan So I we jumped kind of right into Bob as a example there Sean, but What and and I think you referenced this either before or in the beginning when we were recording Of Sometimes most of the times where that people miss on this is they don't take enough time to plan for that new hire It's just like oh, I'm so busy. I gotta go to school. It's like a handle. I got a hire Bob. He's gonna help me Here you go and then there's no plan Can we dive deeper into like what has worked and and what have you found that works really well for planning for that hire? Yeah, that's a great question and I think Where I think this starts is you know if you don't have an org chart and maybe your org charts two or three people But you you should have an org chart, right? So your chart is you at the top, right? So you're the agency owner and maybe you have a VA maybe you have an administrative receptionist And then this next person that you're looking at is a projected Producer so it starts with having an org chart and knowing the plan and then the other thing where most people miss And I miss this for a very long time is having a future org chart So one that says okay, what is the next two to three years look like even five years out? So I know where my agency to be a hundred million dollar agency I know exactly how many people I have and it's gonna take me five more years And I know exactly who they are and what I'm looking for right and so Backing up though, you still like what you're trying to do is build this org chart that shows what the next year is And then maybe the next two to three years right and so the next year you're saying okay this year I'm going to hire this one person. Let's just say and that's kind of what I did You know 20 years ago I hired one person every year now we hired two to three But that's where you start right so this one person and then This org chart at the bottom of it has all the responsibilities for the agency and it's you know Who's taking out the trash on Friday? Who is answering the phones? Who's doing the follow-up? Who's doing the post-bond the doctor sign every responsibility in the agency needs to be clearly listed on this org chart And then you start identifying names and tie those names to that responsibility So this new person comes on and you're like okay, you're gonna be the client concierge here's your first Responsibilities here's your three most important priorities that that you're responsible for And as you scale now you have a plan they have a plan right and this eventually again goes on their business plan And so and and I know some people are listening right now and they're like okay, that sounds great But the phone doesn't stop ringing and I got quotes to follow up with and I don't have time right And so here's what I would say to that and this is what I did when I didn't have time I remember walking in and then you know The phone rang a gazillion times and then I walked out going I can't believe it's seven o'clock and I and I went home right so I remember those days. Here's what you need to do You need to own your morning and I'm actually doing a keynote on this in two weeks where I should walk through the morning routine But the the short of it is you plan one hour every single day To work on these plans and on this business and so you're most important priority So let's just say I'm giving you guys homework your homework is to create an org chart To lay out all of your responsibilities and and start identifying what you want this new person to do So that you have a plan and then there's a ton of other things that you need to design like you need to design the pathway for them You need to design those different roles and positions and how they scale But imagine this okay, I want to paint a picture right so you've got a client concierge. You've got an agency owner A junior producer and then an agent and an elite agent right so you're taking somebody into your organization You're starting them as client concierge They validate that role then they become a junior producer That role has that basically think of junior producer like an inside salesperson They're not out knocking on doors and all that they're learning the job on the job They're running shotgun with you you are their elite agent pouring into them They're doing everything that you're doing at the same time you're doing it and they're helping you scale They're helping you clear your inbox out get all your quotes out all of that They have to validate all the carriers that we write with and know how to quote bind and underwrite every carrier So you have a checklist that says okay, this carrier do you know how to do all three of those things? So they should know how to quote bind and underwrite everybody. There's an underwriting memo. How do you follow through on it right? And so they learn that role and then they cannot become an agent until they have validated that role and To leave a junior producer role you have to have five referral partner relationships You have to pass secret shops. You have to have Google reviews. You have to show you can cross self So you've identified what it takes to move to those levels And then someone goes from junior producer to an agent and we've made that like a law Law partner does you're a partner now you don't just come on to be a producer And I would do the same thing if I were you and your shoes right now I'd be like you don't just come on here to be a producer That's something you earn your way too, right? I'm the producer now and I'm going to show you how and when you've earned it That's your role and then that person can become an elite agent And then they start mentoring the client concierge to do your producers And then now you have a pipeline And people will say when do you hire? Well, you know when to hire because Your experience is good. They're learning you move somebody to that role and you bring on somebody else to fill that spot Right, so that that's kind of how I want everyone to kind of think about it like here's the pathway This is how it's designed and then they you know exactly how to drive it and they know what happens next Yes, first of all I loved this so much there and I love all of it I'd say the first part I think it's really powerful is that org chart with the future org chart Because I think something cool you could probably do there is Showed this new person as well. This is what this is where you fit into the future org chart Which probably motivates them and gets them excited gives them a purpose like you spoke about earlier Um, can you talk about What what and how the validation process goes for the client concierge You know just to start in the beginning like how is that like is it spot check if it is like kind of what that process looks like or what tech you use to spot check the Things they're doing right and wrong. Yeah, great question. I think again, there should be a validation point for every role You have in your agency and it doesn't have to be a ton of things it can be like three or four things And like I said a lot of times that client concierge people can knock it out in the first 90 days It is number one When they answer the phone and intake a new client there is no difference between the elite agent doing it And that client concierge doing it meaning that you can trust that that person is going to provide an awesome experience They're going to know how to build rapport. They're going to have smile energy. They're going to cross sell. They're going to protect people They're going to set the agent up for the future of like you're going to love working with Sean He's one of the best in the business. He's going to take great care of you. We've got you you called the right place like that whole thing right They know how to do that and they know because we've spent 12 15 20 hours with them working on that five minute phone call It's so important to get that habit right and to get that experience right They have to answer a certain amount of phone calls per day And it's basically the way I would do it in a scratch plus agency is I would go how many times is the phone ring okay? You got to answer it that many times a day right? So they know that their main responsibility is on the phone Client concierge and then we teach them early on how to bind And what that means is um they learn how to do flood quoting auto quoting and they learn how to bind um policies right so So they're learning how to do the job of the junior producer while they're in that client concierge position and right and so When they validate that and it doesn't take that much But they basically learn how to do that job and that role very well. They're answering the phone They're providing a ready experience and they know how to quote and bind those initial policies Then they can become a junior producer Now when they're a junior producer, there's a lot more validation as I said like That is like basically bait So let's just say Sometimes there's crossover between that client concierge and junior producer. There's a lot of crossover honestly like If they're working with you as the agency owner, they're doing your quoting like something comes in your inbox You're like hey work on this send it to me. Let me look at it before you sit and so you're validating them and then eventually you're like Okay, you've got auto quoting down you can go ahead and just send that right to the client and copy me on it And so there's this validation point for each of those things And then the hard one honestly for that junior producer to go to an agent is really having those five relationships and we count five relationships As they send us five referrals that one person sent us five referrals. That's a relationship We know that that's when they trust us and they don't need but like 15 to fill their pipeline 15 20 of those depending on if it's a lender or a realtor or whatever center of influence And so we figured out like how much do we need to fill their pipeline because a lot of people are like well I don't want to hire someone if I don't have enough stuff coming in Well, we know that once they validate to that and they're an agent we don't have to feed them any business anymore, right? So that's how all that kind of works that each one has a validation point as they become an agent their validation point becomes revenue And how much revenue they do and how profitable they are because you're going to make it better for them when it becomes profitable to the agency And that's kind of the way we look at it and we tell them the agent the whole time it's like look, I've got you You're going to be successful. I mean and they don't ask you when do I get a raise or when do I earn more money? It's when you hit the validation your raise is effective when you are as soon as you start doing this You're going to hit that next level and then that tears up for them Gotcha. Do you go to five? I got a jump. I just hit on something that I realized I did terribly wrong and I want to bring this up Because I love that you said like and I wrote it down here. We teach her right away to quote bind and underwrite So what happened was Steven is a year and four months ago It was me and a VV and then I hired my first CSR completely green to the industry. Got him license or got her license She is a rock star. I know she was the right person and I had to teach up and what I did was is I did customer service training underwriting quoting but never taught bind And I'm literally sitting here real time thinking Steven that's where you that's where you went wrong And it's so interesting because this is so relatable to me because at that point now I realize Three months ago. I was like, okay, we got to we got to teach you how to bind in these different But at that time when I hired her I was just focused on you got to answer the phones you got to service the clients and then throw Some quotes in for me and oh, I don't need to teach you how to buy on the producer Right because that's gonna be more time to do that But that put a huge cog in the wheel because then three months ago or so. I had to go back to Retrain that instead of doing that from the start. I love that so much And the cool thing about that too is like once you train now It's an investment in time that you really don't have right but once you invest that time in that person They then can train the next one which is super cool You just got to do it once really well and right And then that person can do that whole first phase for you and then you're picking them up as a junior producer And then you're taking it from there so that person's doing that and then once you have a junior producer They can do that and there is also a way to scale this too just so you guys know like There's people that can be a client concierge forever, right? They can be a junior producer forever. They can be inside sales forever You just need to have a pathway for that as well as you scale But in the beginning you want you want to make sure you get that right so that it can scale through it So that it gives you that pathway to add those additional people on Yeah, Billy. I'm not I will not dare to ask you the question of how much do we pay junior producer? How much do we pay leaf producer? But what I am curious because I know there's probably half the people that are listening to this in the back of their mind thinking What does that pay structure compensation structure look like through those journeys? Because obviously when you bring them in and they're just servicing and just learning the systems and learning to quote There's no commission tied to the F and not selling policies and then when they establish those five relationships That's going to look like a different package So if you could share just a little bit on on how that it just at least looks like and then is that something that you Show them during the plan of these are the stages. This is what's going to look like in return for you Yeah, and again, don't compare my middle to your beginning, right? So there's a lot of stuff that I didn't do in the beginning, but I know now to do and so You know here's how I look at it too like I remember and and this is again the cool thing is we can pay and Pay people a thousand different ways It's also the awful thing that we can pay people a thousand different ways and we can get it very wrong And so you know, what I would say is just take it very slow in the beginning And I have an honest conversation with that person when they're coming on board and I remember you know Again, I couldn't really afford to pay some people back then and I was like listen You're going to come on here. You're going to be a different person in two years You're going to grow. I'm going to make sure you're successful But in order for me to not put a ceiling on what you earn You're going to have to start at the bottom and then I'll never put a ceiling on what you can earn in the future Now I could give you a higher salary like now. I can pay people higher salaries and it's probably more profitable for me to do that But I just talk to them through that journey, right? And so let's just say you're you're you're like I know I need to hire somebody Because I have two things already in my mind. I've got a great experience. I'm providing a great experience I've got leads coming in and I'm a little bit overwhelmed and I'm not getting them out at the right time That's when you know it's time to start developing somebody and when you bring them on maybe you say to them Hey, why don't you start 20 hours a week? And here's why in the beginning you're going to spend so much time training them If they're willing to come on and learn a career and they start 20 hours a week and you give them an hourly pay and again I don't want to throw out too many numbers because like New York is different than Jacksonville, Florida But whatever the hourly rate is 15 dollars 20 dollars now I don't know what it is in your market, but give them an hourly rate And then when they're in there two weeks and they learn how to do something Then they now have independent work that they can do and you're spending the rest of the time developing them to do more work That they can pull off of your plate And so maybe you give them a dollar bonus for every time they answer the phone and you have a report at the end of the week That says here's here's how many times they answer the phone they get a dollars for every time they do that That's the motivating thing you want them to do And then maybe you give them a spiff bonus when they help you buy something eventually So there's a couple different ways in that client concierge you can do it But essentially after 90 days for us they're on a salary And it's enough money for them to live and pay their bills But it's not like they're getting rich by any means But there's there's a future where they can go to the next phase And so I would just I tell them like look for the first 90 days you're a glorified intern And you're just going to learn and you're going to ride shotgun with us And you're going to then have a career when we're done But you're really just an intern and so we're going to you know we're going to But I'm going to pay you in a way that you can afford to live and learn Essentially and that's how I would do it as a scratch plus agency is just take it slowly And then you have to figure out again this talks about like planning that pathway Like I built like a little road like draw the south like a little road And it's like okay you're here at your client concierge here's your first 90 days When you get to junior producer we give them a bump to their salary So they get a little bump it's not a huge bump it's like two three thousand dollars annually And then they start earning commissions on things that they this is a very important distinction On client concierge we give them a ten dollar spiff for everything that they bind When they have fully validated it so like maybe it takes them six months to fully validate Or a three months when they know how to bind everything we give them a ten dollar spiff When they become a junior producer we are still getting them that ten dollar spiff For anything that is handed to them to bind right so you're like here take this and bind it Versus you paying them a commission which is a mistake everyone makes It's like it's a rewrite or a relationship you already own don't pay them a full commission on that pay them a spiff Now if they take a lead that called in for Google review a Google lead or came in and they took it from the beginning They quoted it they sold it then they can start putting it in their name and they earn a commission on that So there's kind of a combination So what you want to do is you don't want to pay them for just binding something and we make that mistakes as age You want them to make money but you've got to separate that so that it's profitable in the right You're paying people the right thing for the right task Yeah, and you're incentivizing them to do the right thing You know or you're let me refer to that you're incentivizing them To make them want to go build their own relationships and bring in business because they know they're going to get paid more Right, and that's what you want right you're trying to guide them and then you can give them A certain amount of new business commission that makes sense and then when they validate that Like let's say you give them a goal and they hit that goal then you make the new business commission a little bit more Right and so there's a pathway where you can kind of keep increasing that And you know you can do that a number of different ways But we have to look at is okay When it's profitable for you you make it better for them and you tell them like transparently like you can say listen I'm going to lose money the first year like I'm going to throw the numbers out there They're not that hard to figure out They are the numbers right so you don't want them to think that like they're making all this you're making all this money off of them That's not what's happening What's happening is when they become profitable you're going to make it better and share it with them And so you have to know what that profitability mark is right and so for us Like they have to do like $12,000 a week in new business sales To be to hit that first level for us where we start making it better right and so that's kind of what you have to think about is like What is that what is that profitability mark for for and then that's when you kind of make it better for them Billy can you can you dive deeper into um how you brushed over there There may be situations where you find a great congee here and that's what they that's what they want to do And that's the path and like they don't have interest in being a junior producer or a lead producer or you know Maybe they get to the junior producer stage and that's as far as they Can go want to go whatever and what that looks like the security yeah Yeah, I mean and again like different models too right like you can bring someone in the client concierge And maybe they're they're more service oriented right and so you can say okay I can build a pathway for you to be an account manager and you can be a junior account manager And you do the same thing on that side right so you you know What you don't want to do this is what we do a lot of times as business owners We make the mistake is like we get somebody and then we're like okay Well, we have this person so let's put him in a box and Don't do that But if they are valuable like you said that person you hired their rock star like you're gonna find a way to make sure that they have trajectory and a path and they can they can improve and grow and so you just want to like think through all of those scenarios But like if like for us we have three client concierge right now and one of them Like she will bind like 25 policies a week right so she's making pretty good money in that round I mean she's getting ten dollars for everyone she binds and then she's got a salary And then we have another one that is like our agency principle now that's running the agency for me It she's in his inbox So she's a client concierge he gets 400 emails a day She's in there starting new quotes and she's looking for binds that need to get done And she's binding them and she's gonna make a great salary and she's valuable in that role So again as you scale you'll have different opportunities for people you can create Team leads and all this other stuff you just got to have a little bit of vision and they got a like and you're gonna reward those people that are with you on the ground floor Right and and that's what you got to do is just kind of figure out what makes sense for them And then the junior producer like they will they can stay in that role and you can make we have three junior producers and they Some of them earn different levels at new business commission right and so if they're killing it and doing $25,000 a week then they have a higher percentage and the one that's doing 10 and so that's how you have to kind of scale that the difference for us is We give a small renewal to our agents and we allow them to build an annuity essentially from day one when they put that policy and their name Remember I told you they quoted it. They sold it. They bounded. They under what they did everything It wasn't given to them then it's in their name and they're building this annuity They don't get that access to that renewal income and it's a small percentage They get it when they validate and have the referral partners and built their own They learned how to build relationships and if they can go out and do that and do what you're doing now and replicate that It's worth paying them that if they're just doing inside sales and writing the leads that you're giving them Then there's a limit to the renewal income now you can still increase their salaries over a year and and look at it from a profitability standpoint But there is a pathway for folks and you kind of want somebody in that role again as you scale to teach the people coming through right So if you had client concierge a junior producer an agent in an elite agent That's really helpful and not one thing that we just figured out like two years ago that has been so valuable is figuring out the mentor Relationship of somebody in the agency. So initially it's it's you guys But then now we have people that are that we call them elite agents and they mentor those other folks And so what they love about it is we when people are kind of we figured out where they you can scale new business to a certain level And then you kind of hit a ceiling you can only do so much new business to do you know regardless of how much support they get There's a level of how much new business somebody can write and so what you do is you put that junior producer client concierge Tie them to that elite agent and that elite agent loves it and I thought we were going to have to compensate them differently It was really about them getting help with their workload and getting their quotes out faster And they like the idea of pouring into somebody else So you are that example in the beginning But think about that as a vision say hey look I want you to be an elite agent for us I want you to help develop teach and train and and have it build a team underneath you That you then validate and then you give them a little bonus when that person validates to become an agent and then they get that support It's huge I think the you touched on it at the beginning of this segment is like I think it's one of the biggest things is having Drawing out the roadway Of what their path looks like because Stephen You know when I think about why we left our family agencies I know what it is. It's we had no clue what was next It was hey, what's I have no clue what I'm even doing anyway I've been doing the same thing 10 years. I don't know where I'm going Um, and I think having that clear vision of hey if I do this I'll achieve this if I do this I'll achieve that It gives you a sense of purpose to come in every day and be motivated to show up and contribute to the team and grow as a person You know, so I think that's It built Billy hit on it too of just like the transparent communication of this is going to be a path and I'm talking a lot about the CSR that we have now, but like we had our monthly check-in last night and we were talking how things go and spend about a year and a half I was telling her that like hey, I want you to know like eventually you could be office manager You could be training new Service person that comes in whatever whatever's going to fill your cup at that time and and this is what we're working towards And she made specific comments around that of like oh, it's so cool to be a part of the startup because I feel like I'm really making an impact doing it and I can see the future and see how things change and like to to Billy's point If I just put her in a box and say you're a customer service rep go answer the phones call people back Quote when I need you you know that what what empowerment are you giving that person and that all comes back to The planning you know Billy talks about setting the roadmap up Where the step one step two step three and in drawing that out and one last thing. I'll say That if anybody's listening to this that's looking to start or just started I'll never forget how much Mike Crowley told me document your processes do all this act like you're a big agency from the start And I thought I did a good job at it and now looking back three and a half years later I could have done a much better job at it But to your point it's so important to like act like a big agency when it's just you know what those processes will look like plan all that ahead Go back to the quote bind an underwrite with training all those things ahead of time because it's going to pay off dividends in the future Yeah, so true Yeah, I think what you said T5 about talking to the person on your team about hey, this is the possibility You know these are the possibilities you have to become an office manager etc But then dive deeper is like this is exactly what you need to do to become that position Yeah, and I think what's so powerful about that and you know shout out to Kobe Allen he gave me some great advice a couple of years ago I don't know. I was just in one of those seasons where I was like I just want to give everybody equity That's that's myself pitch, you know if you work with me long enough you'll get equity And I remember Kobe being like Well, you know Sean some people don't Want the responsibility that comes along with equity and the more I thought about it and I wrote out You know what those roles and responsibilities are when I talked about it with people some people were like I don't want to do all that I don't want the responsibility that comes with that So I think that's just powerful to have it written out because Well at whatever you could be talking about Jasmine Steven right and You might tell her hey, these are the roles and responsibilities that come along with being an account manager and she might say oh well Screw that. I'll just keep doing what I'm doing and Keep contributing that way instead of you know trying to jump to the next position So I just think there's a lot of gold there and having that clear vision, you know Well, we're gonna wrap this up because we respect your time and I'm so grateful that you you came back to join us and share it So my good nuggets. I want to ask you the one last question And if anybody's listening to this and maybe they're not scratch plus maybe they're scratch if you had to go back Right now to 2006 when you open your doors What would you tell Billy in 2006? Yeah, I mean, I think the most important thing and I touched on it really quickly earlier it's Which make sure that the experience is amazing, right? Because like sales and referrals cures just about everything And so your experience has to be great And then I think the other thing that I would tell myself is What we talked about like lighting a path having a Having like get excited about those people and and sharing into their growth and like get them excited about this industry I mean there's so many people that are brought into this industry I mean we have a team of 17 people and none of them thought they were going to be an insurance I just shared a story with them and I wanted them to be a part of the story and No, we haven't lost a person in seven years and I think that the reason is is because they have a plan They have they have growth. They're personally growing So the other thing that I do with them is I do a life plan with them in their first 90 days before we ever do a business plan I do a life plan and I figure out what they want to accomplish in life I help them with their goals and I just you can do that as a scratch agency owner You can say hey, I've learned a lot about life. I've made a lot of mistakes I'm going to show you what I learned and I'm going to help you leapfrog other people your age Just by being a part of this team regardless of it being about insurance at all I care about them as a person and I want them to win and be successful So I'm going to invest my time in them To personally grow I'm going to give them a purpose and you guys do this thing You do this where you're like making an impact on what we do a ton of stuff like that where they feel good about being there And you just share your vision like we're going to blow this thing up It's going to be huge and you're going to be wildly rewarded by being a part of this team And so and and we've got you the whole step of the way like you just commit to us We're going to give you a very clear business plan. We're going to tell you exactly what you need to do to win And when you win we're not going to be like oh, he told me this and then didn't execute on it No, it's very clear and black and white you do this and you get that And that's how we're going to do it. We're going to ride shotgun together. We're going to be very transparent And we're going to win together and and you're going to have as much opportunity as you want here And that's the cool thing about starting in the beginning is You know, you're going to create a lot of opportunity for a lot of people And that's what makes the hair on the back of my neck stick up is like helping those people Have careers. I mean we have people that have gotten married paid off debt got their MBA You know had kids built a family like all that stuff is super cool to watch And so but it just it takes a little bit of a grind and it's not going to be fast and easy But you know you guys know like you know three or five years into this you've accomplished a lot more than you think And even this like my team we had a very busy year and I said hey Let's write down all the things we did this year and we were all both amazed right because It's like you're moving a lot faster than you think you are you think you're going slow But you're really not when you reflect back on it so true Yeah, I got I got to read this quote before you ended off T5 because it just has so much to do with leadership And what Billy talked about at the beginning and talked about through the whole episode And it's from John Max why I read this yesterday. It was the law of credibility And it says your most effective message is the one you live So think about that if you're bringing on a new producer If you're living with your preaching It's much more likely you're going to sell them on the dream, you know Yeah, so just like when you have kids like they're following you they're watching you right the same way It's more as taught than caught right? I mean caught the top so yeah I got to wrap this up by telling you my favorite Billy Wagner story. I don't know if you remember this Back in the IAOA days in Chicago you put on a killer presentation as always and after After the day was over at the hotel bar. We bumped into each other you stuck your hand out. Hey, I'm Billy Hey, I'm Steven and I'll never forget that interaction bill I just want to thank you for being the person that you are because immediately you're just like tell me about yourself How can I help and I was one year in business and we had a great maybe 15-minute conversation that felt like two hours And a ton of value and a ton of just reaching out and asking how you can help me and I just wanted to share that on the podcast Because I'll just never forget that and just appreciate the time you spent with us on these past episodes Appreciate the person that you are so thank you. Thank you for reading you Thank you so much. I appreciate spending time with you guys you guys are rock stars. You're doing so many cool things And it's it's an honor to to know you and and it's an honor to spend some time with you guys today Awesome. Well, thanks again everybody. That's another episode of the Scratch Incy podcast It is sure one to save and go back and rewind for a couple times over and over Thanks for joining us today do us a favor like the show share the show and subscribe Make sure to check out the telegram community. We also have announcement coming up for our meetup annually And probably the next few months here working on some nuggets on that. So keep an eye out for that Most importantly remember to dig down deep believe in yourself and on your own future. We'll see you next week take care