Cold Calling Isn’t Dead - It’s the Most Efficient Way to Grow with Clayton Wood

Interrupting the podcast to tell you about our sponsor, none other than Insurance X-Date, generate leads when new Biz Insurance X-Date is where new business begins industry-relevant data delivered on a software platform built for sales, identifying, engaging with the prospects and minutes, keep track of your opportunities and get production done. Here's the gist of it, whether you're an EB guy or a PNC guy, they got what you need. Work comp X-Dates, PEO info, 5,500s, health and retirement data, they got stuff on non-profit orgs. They got it all used at top agencies all over the country, big and small and everything in between. Go check them out, thanks to Rob and the boys over there for sponsoring. And with that, we will get back to the episode. Hello, and welcome to the Max Revenue show. I am your host, Trey Shields, along with the Zen Master of Commercial Insurance, Michael Salas, Michael Aurel this morning. I got the shakes. I had four ounces of caffeinated coffee and I am wired as a guy who only drinks, doesn't even drink coffee, but if I do, it's a matcha and that's like equivalent of basically no caffeine. So I had to drop my car off and I was looking for something and all they had was caffeinated. So I drank four ounces of my eight ounce cup and I'm just like, so. That's crazy. There you go. That little caffeine stimulates you that much. Oh yeah. Well, but I'm excited for today. So I'm glad I got a lot of energy because we got an awesome guest that I know you're going to intro, but just quick background is I think I got a DM Clayton from a colleague or someone in the industry like, dude, have you seen this and they sent me a post that you did on a cold call workshop and built your seven figure book on cold calling. I was like, dude, this is awesome. And then here we are. So Trey, I'll let you kind of take it from here, but I'm excited. Yeah, oddly enough, I had multiple DMs over the last probably three or four days since we had Clayton lined up where it was like, hey, do you know anybody that is successful cold calling and, you know, no hate to any of the particular people would just like, dude, that's literally all Mike has talked about for three and a half years that we've been doing this. But you know, everybody jumps in at a different point. But today we have with us, Mr Clayton Wood, top dog CEO, whatever. I don't know what you want to call it of pinnacle benefit partners. Does some really cool stuff. Great follow on LinkedIn, by the way, has some really honest, no BS hot takes on industry stuff, which Mike and I love that POV. So we've reached out and going to have him on. And basically what I'm thinking about for this podcast gentleman is, Mike, you are you know cold calling inside and out and how to get in the door on the P and C side. And Clayton is a benefits guy. So Clayton, you know, I want to compare and contrast getting in the door on the EB side as well. So before we get into your cold calling methodology and your thesis on cold calling and is it dead? Is it not dead? Whatever is I was on your LinkedIn and you had this hot take on are you a consultant? Or a broker? You don't mind, could you just recap that hot take for a second? And I actually got a little bit of backlash on that one. But first off, thanks. You think you guys were having me on here. Like I said, you guys I've watched a couple of your episodes and Luke is a great add to you guys for the benefit side. But yeah, I think a lot of brokers out there like to pound their chest and say I'm a consultant and I'm not a broker and brokers make you broker. And I think we all like have say the same things because we hear it over and over again. My opinion, who cares? Like just if you do your client right, you are a good person. Who cares what you call yourself? I don't care. Like at the end of the day, yes, do we bring strategic things to the conversation and yes, does that sound more consultative? Yeah, great. But like ultimately you were the broker of the insurance that you're selling. You're the broker of the TPA broker of the stop loss, the PBM or whatever it is. You are still a broker. Doesn't matter. You just do good for your clients and people will do right to you too. Is that my thought? Reminds me of a P and C. when we hear when we hear the risk architects. Yeah. We can't say that though. Sure somebody has trademarked that you get trademarking for a minute. Sure. Sure. No, that's great. Love that. Back when we were first getting this thing off the ground, you know, it was basically everything it was like a shock shock type of deal. It was like we just nothing but hot takes. You could do the like stir the pot in the industry and you know, as we've, you know, become a little more established and gotten some sponsors who can't quite have the same hot takes we used to have. But I love that from you on it. So let's get into, you know, kind of your thesis and methodology on cold calling. I know you've done a workshop. You actually help other eb brokers, you know, kind of teach them show them the ropes. So if I'm an eb guy and I'm going to give you the floor for a little bit. So feel free to run. Mike and I try to talk as little as possible. I'm going to give you the floor here to take it as long as you want. If I'm an eb guy and I've traditionally networked or tried to, you know, backdoor my way in places and I realized that I can't network my way to where I'm trying to go and I've got to start doing this cold outbound thing. How would you teach me how to do that? ABCDEF. Yeah, I think it, I guess I want to start off why, why do it versus and then I'll go into the steps of it too. Because, you know, most people get into the industry, a lot of dads were in the industry, moms were in the industry. That's what they got them into it. Maybe they were past a book. Maybe they were given a little bit of a book to get them started. Maybe they had a few relationships of friends and whatnot that were CFOs or HR people that got them in. But then, okay, maybe you join the local B&I group or the Shurm group or Chamber of Commerce. And later, all those contacts dry up. There's a day that you just don't have the next referral from friends and like, of course you can always ask for referrals. But if you're early in the industry, it's like, how do you ask for a referral when you really haven't even proven what you've been able to do yet? And we all have these like one, two, three year runways to say, okay, is this going to work or is it not? And if these people can't fly their plane and get off the runway, then they're, you gotta get a new job. So in my opinion, having some type of marketing resource so you can outbound reach out to people instead of a wait at your desk and twitle your thumbs until somebody calls you, which we know never happens. So we need to have some type of marketing in my world where I learn how to be in sales is to call call the CFO call the HR manager get in front of them and do as much as you can so that and do as much volume as you can. So somebody says yes to you. Like when you're young and dumb and in the industry, meaning like, I just don't even know it. I don't know. Just call people until someone says yes to you to get and get immediate. It's someone's going to say yes to you regardless of how bad your script is. And of course we can tweak scripts and help your call to meeting ratio go up. But like, hey, my name's Clayton Woods. You want to meet? So someone's going to say yes to that sooner or later. So what thought is if you want to make it in this business and you're like most people that don't have a ton of contacts out there that are already in the position that's the buyer. Learning to call call is so important or we're probably not going to make it in sales. Unless again, you're a glorified sales person. They just hired you to manage a book. So that if you said trade you want me to just keep going into. Yeah, tell me your script. Right. You might have Clayton lost half of our audience. So they're probably to call you a hair tick now because you said the word volume. They're going to say, Hey sales is a numbers game. That's the 90s bad. I'm like, so go ahead, sorry. Look. Interrupting the podcast to tell you about our sponsor. One other than insurance X date generate leads when new business insurance X date is where a new business begins industry relevant data delivered on a software platform built for sales identifying engage with prospects and minutes. Keep track of your opportunities and get production done. Here's here's the gist of it, whether you're an eb guy or a P and C guy, they got what you need. Comp X dates, PEO info, 5500s, health and retirement data, they got stuff on nonprofit orgs. Go check them out. Thanks to Rob and the boys over there for sponsoring. Sales is a volumes game, especially in our industry. You get in front of somebody and an employer. You don't even know if they're the right buyer. You don't even know if they're fit for your solution. They're fit for the risk that you manage. I know I come from the eb world, but they may have a sweetheart deal with their current carrier and they might not even be able to beat the rate. And like, yeah, we don't sell on the rate. It's like, whatever one says, but come on at the end of the day. Most people are pointing to the spreadsheet. But it's like the rate matters somewhat. And like, if they have a sweetheart deal, then they should stay with where what they're at. Excuse me. So you just got to talk to enough people that and find the one person that your sales story rings true to. And then when that person says, yes, you want a client. So to me, it is volume. Like, we're not a good fit. We're not a good fit. let me run as hard as I can with this one prospect. So that's where I'm looking volume is just trying to find the right fit for our solution to what we do. But I learned by cold calling doctors, I was 22 years old. I used to call doctors all day long. They were 50, 60, 70 years old because we had certain minimums of assets that we needed to have, two million of assets to work with our financial planning firm. And I was told to screw off and sworn at every day. So I got some pretty thick skin to be able to go and call a really nice old HR lady. So like, this was easy compared to what I used to do. But really the, I guess the ABCs, it's get past the gatekeeper, do your pitch, control the call, get over the objection, set the meeting, and then of course then it's your prospect meeting. But if we want to start with the start of it, what matters really in our business is knowing the name. So we all look at 5500 forms to look at who's the HR, who's the CFO signing it. We have things like Judy Diamond, we have things like my edge out there that are producing all of this into a database. Everybody's cold calling down these lists. But they're not always up to date. They could be from 2023, 2022. They could have the wrong name on it. Someone else could sign that document. So having that name is really important. So you know, first, the first call could be saying, hey, is Jeff in and Jeff's the name on the 5500. But their first answer is Jeff retired four years ago. And so understanding who that is really important. So of course it is 2026. I still know people that are using Excel spreadsheets for their prospecting. Get a CRM so you can keep track of who's who and what's going on and what did you say prior in those calls. But getting the name is the first important part. Because if you don't know the name, then the phone call is, hey, my name's Clayton Wood. Hey, just curious. Who's in charge of employee benefits here? And it's if you sound just curious and confident and simple. That front desk lady is going to go, oh, it's it's Susie. Great. Right, Susie down is Susie available. They know you're a salesperson seven, eight times at a 10. They're going to throw you the voice now. Call a day later, call two days later. This is Clayton Wood is Susie available now instead of Jeff. She puts you through because you're confident. Perfect. You get through. Well, let me back up. You're not always going to get through. There's some gut gatekeepers that are golden. Like they're just perfect gatekeepers. They're they don't let you buy. There's nothing they can get to you. In that case, you got to have fun with it. Like you know, you're you know, you're never getting through. So you just got to be able to control the call and every time they say something to you when you respond. And this is even in the pitch is you need to answer. You need to end your statement with a question. So you're controlling that call because if you end in a statement, then you're allowing that person on the other side of the phone to dictate where the call goes next. So gatekeeper keeps saying no gatekeeper keeps saying no gatekeeper says no. No big deal. Hey, maybe I'm just calling up the wrong time. When's your renewal? Because again, if you're calling people under a hundred, that's not on the 5500, write it down. You sound like you really into the benefits. Is it you or you're the one in charge of it? And like sometimes it is when you call. So it's just having fun with it and getting as much information as you can and then going back to Apollo, zoom info, wherever you're getting your data, LinkedIn and finding the HR name and trying another name another day. Okay, but let's you know, you move forward. You get the call. You get to pitch somebody. There's no silver boy in pitching. Like there's I think like I said before, if you just said, hey, my name's Clayton. I do insurance. Do you want to meet someone's going to say yes to you? It's going to be a terrible call to meeting ratio, but someone's going to meet with you. So I don't think getting hung up on the call or like what you say is really important. It's again, the volume learning how you do it, tweaking how you sound is what's the most important being confident. It's really important hearing your tone because I can my young guys that do our script. They sound nervous, they sound scared. It might take them one out of 80 calls. It's pretty normal for a new guy. A young guy, one in 30, one in 40, one in 50 to set up meeting. So, but it's all the same pitch. It's just how confident are you from saying it? I like the pitch of say your name, say a stat with a number asked for the meeting. So in our case, it's, hey, my name's Clayton Wood, Pinnacle Benefit Partners. We build cost containment strategies that build around lowering the cost of prescriptions. Our average savings is $2,000 per employee. Do you have time on Wednesday or Thursday? I would love to show you that's a very Zoom call. It's something simple like that. It could be pharmacy driven. It could be medical driven. I was trying to give you think of an example, which way we want to go. But you say a thing, you say your name, you say where you're from. What do you do? A build cost containment strategy around health insurance plans are say a number. Our average savings is $2,000 an employee. And then I like to add in maybe one more line sometimes depending on who you're calling. I think if you're calling HR, maybe add a line saying with that, we're able to provide free prescriptions, free surgery, free primary care, whatever your stick is. Can we meet? So because, yes, they care about the number, but they also care about the benefit. So it's like giving those two sides and then getting through the call and then sitting and waiting and half the time, they're just going to say like the way half the time when they say yes to a meeting, they say it yes right up front. The other half is getting over the objection, but I think getting through your call is really important. Some people like to use and Micah, sorry if you're one of these guys, hey, do you have 27 seconds to set the call or hey, are you not interested in making my call or something like that? So you can reverse psychology them into saying yes, like just say the freaking call, like I don't get it. But I'll try. From there, handling objections. I'll let you guys go. I know, I've been ranting a little bit. No, no, that's perfect. I'll chime in on that. First of all, is I totally agree with you. 27 seconds is so cheesy and nowadays it's not even a patterned interrupt. When I used to do it, honestly, I was it would be more like, hey, Jeff, we've never spoke before in case you're wondering and trying to figure out who I am, but you know, it's a cold call, right? And that'd be the only thing I would just say and then just get right into it. And I'd be curious if you take on this too. A lot of times I'll say their name. I'll say mine or I'll say their name and then I'll say my name and pause right away before even pitch. And then what I always say, there's power in the pause, but it actually dictates what route I go because some people like, should I ask how you're doing? I'm in a rural town. I'm like, I don't you don't need to. I generally don't, but you can. I mean, if I don't think it really matters, but what I found is then I actually allows me to pick up their personality a little bit more. And if they're like, and those, those are just chiming and say, okay, what's this about? Or, hey, what's going on, man? How are you doing? Well, I'm great. How would yourself? Right? Now I know that this guy's more of that type versus the get to the point type. So, no, I like that. And sometimes they just say, hey, what's up? Or, hey, and you know what's going to, I keep using Jeff, whoever it is, like I'll say Jeff, you know, and let them respond and do that. So, one, you know, you're pitching the right person, but two, same thing, it's like, it gives that pause that you're not rushing into it. Yeah. Yeah. So, I think, too, it's like, don't, like, like I said, don't rush. I go, hey, my name's Clay Wood could have gone better. And like that just blow doses the person. And then your off it, slow down, do the pitch, talk like a normal person because it's people match patterns or match it. So if you say, hey, my name's Clay Wood, I'm with pinnacle benefit partners. I build benefit, employee benefit strategies. And like, that slows them down a little bit instead of just hanging up as fast as they can on you. I think it was what's important. No, that's really good. I'm curious, like how you get guys to improve their confidence. Is it because to your point, and I've shared this before in our channel, it was like, I used to be very afraid of cool calling, right? And I actually, I still will come, the fear will come in. If I try some new over complicated script, I'm like, this just feels off to me because I've tried like the pose three question or three pain points. I think it's the Sandler script. I'm like, this just, and then going into those calls, I don't even feel like, I feel like a lesser than right. Like I'm not talking like a peer. And so that's where I back in 2015 at MMA. I was trying to use all these fancy scripts and language. And I just went to like, to your point, Clay, and I was just like, Hey, this is Micah. I know you have an agent. I'm not looking to quote. I'm just curious, would you ever be open to talking sometime about your business insurance? And that was almost a pattern interrupt because it was like just so different because I wasn't pitching anything. So how do you, so that was how I kind of overcame and got confidence and just doing the calls. And there's some mental mindset things that we've talked about. But like, what's your top one or two things that you've seen boost confidence for people who have that fear? I think that a lot of sales managers like to tell their employees to go cold call and they've haven't cold called in 15 years or they, they won't do it. And I think that I think it's a big BS that these guys do that because they, they never cold called like a lot of these sales guys and sales manager, they were, and I don't mean to, you know, be too rude about it, that they were given a book to go work somewhere. And now they like went up the ranks and they tell the young guys to cold call and their marketing program is the young guy that cold calls winner two, two, three or four counts and then they quit and then the old guy gets to keep it. I'll stay off that rant. But the is watching me do it. And like, see, watching me do it, hearing me do it. And then the best thing is when you get a bad gatekeeper, a bad salesperson or a bad buyer, a decision maker, hang up on you, you know, mother FU or whatever it is. And then what do you do as like a confidence? I call him right back right in front of my young guys. Is it, hey man, you hung up on me. You shouldn't do that. And then do the pitch again and then get back. And I'm never going to set that meeting. What is it? It's just to show them. It's like, it doesn't matter. This person, no better than you. If people are worried about stash, like, what are you worried about? They're higher level than you. Their title says CFO. Like a lot of us, a lot of insurance guys make more money than that CFO. Like, who's weird? Like just, like, they're just another person on the other side of the phone. Call them back. And like, if they're being, and I'm not sure, an A hole to you, I'll keep the swear words on. They're being rude to you. Like they're like, be rude back. Like, like get right back on them. And like, I do that on purpose in front of them. So that, and of course, there's limits. Like, you can't do it go too far. But that sort of shows you, like, it's a confidence game. It's like, who can like you that quickly or feel confident in you? And all you really have is, because they're really not listening to you at all, is like, maybe they pick up one or two words. But did you sound confident and did you ask for the meeting? And that's where they said yes. So a lot of it's just watching me to get them more confident. And also, it's doing a lot of calls. Like, you know, if you've done this as long as you said, Mike, you've done 100,000 calls in your career. Like, you've got to go do that. But you just have to have thousands and thousands of calls in your belt to like, just be confident at the end of the day. Yeah, yeah, I love that. We've talked about that too. And man, I don't clear or trade. Are we talking to my clothes? I don't know. I'm just sitting here. I'm like, it's very obvious when someone has made the calls, because it's like, they sound like this, where they sound like you. And it's like, if somebody says that co-calling doesn't work, I know two things about them. Number one, either they never did it or number two, they never did it long enough to get good at it, right? Because it's so obvious. So like, yes, this is literally Clayton. And Mike, you guys are on the exact same page. Clayton just has a little more of Clayton's piss runs a little bit hotter. If that makes sense, Mike, you're a little more chill out. You won't go back at him. Clayton's just like, yeah, giving it right back to him. I used to. I just kind of was like, you know what? What's the point? But to your, the reason I like that Clayton, when you're teaching guys, especially if you're probably by yourself, it's like, I don't care. I'm just gonna let go. But if you have a guy looking at you, and this is the biggest thing, and this is the only way to get over a cold, clawing fear, I think, to the root cause of it is you have to not associate your personal identity with like someone's response. And if, and that's what you're doing, whether you think you're not, oh, I'm detached. You're not detached. If you're getting offended, if you're getting scared, that means you have some level deep down inside of you that cares what this person thinks. And until you actually get down to the root core of that, I'm a people pleaser by nature, man. Like, you look at my background. It's bad. And so, but if you get down to the root core of that, it's the most freeing thing ever. If you can be like, who cares? And that doesn't mean you're a total a-hole. You'll probably actually be nicer to people now that they get offended. It doesn't matter because that's on them. It's not you. But that's why I like that you use it Clayton is because that is the only way to get over this is like, you have to understand this is a CFO. Oh, man, I had a guy one time. I'll let you try my trade. But he literally like, you know, they get that smugness to him. And he's like, you're cold calling me? No, thanks, man. Don't call me back. And I was like, this guy's probably making, it was probably my ego talking. But like, dude, I'm making double this guy's make you get he's treating me like I'm some peasant or a homeless guy. It's like, whatever, man, if that's, if that's how you want to look at me, I don't care. But, but yeah, that's why I love that you take that a little bit more aggressive approach when you are training and mentoring and having people watch you. Yeah, I should, yeah, I should make that point. I only do that when I'm training. Now I'm not calling him back for the fun of it. But if we're training someone, for sure. True, you want to say something. Yeah, you are. He said what I was going to say is it's going to say like the two best things that I've ever heard. Somebody say, y'all was literally what Clayton just said was like, dude, I, I make more money than you. You know what I mean? Like we both put our pants on one leg at a time. And the other one I've heard you say before, Mike is like, the person that you're calling is too chicken shit to actually pick up the phone and make a call, right? Like you're, why would I take stock in someone who's more afraid of doing this than I am? It's like, dude, they're just a person like anybody else. They put their pants on one leg at a time. If you're an established producer, you probably make more money than they do. It's probably some nerdy looking dude, you know, in the new balance, whatever's in a pair of blue jeans that are two sizes too big, sitting in a office chair somewhere. The guy probably can't do 10 push-ups in a row. So why do you care like what he thinks, right? And it's also as soon as you hang up the phone, they will move on with their day. They don't know your name. They don't know what company you called from. They don't even remember it. You probably call them tomorrow. Like how many times Clayton, if you called somebody two weeks later and then you even remember that you just talked to, they have no idea. They go on without about their day. Well, I've been doing these workshops and we work with benefit brokers all across the country and like one of our goodwill things of just educating is trying to teach these guys a cold call more. And one of the guys in the call asked, when should I call them back? Should I call them in a month? Two months? I'm like, call them the next day. Like what are you worried about? Call them two days later. Call them next week. Like it does not matter. You're not the only phone call they picked up yesterday or today. Like they're going to forget about you. Go on. And when you call back, they're probably, they didn't hear your name when you said it. You probably said it too fast anyway. Like call again. Call calling. I'll say this. Cold calling is a necessary evil. Like it, cold calling sucks. Like it is not easy. But that's why the people that do it and are good at it are the ones that are successful in our industry. Because I would always sit there and tell myself when I was starting my career, it's like if I don't pick up the phone and call the HR CFO, someone else is going to call them and get lucky that day. And like, that's what like got me going every day. I don't make that call. Someone else is going to and then I'm going to be the failure. So like it sucks. I get nervous doing it too. Like frankly, I'm on workshops and I'm cold calling in front of people. But still, it's like it's still nervous as many calls in. You just got to get in and get into a flow. And like, you know, most guys are doing, if you do cold call, like if you just did 30 calls a day, like you can sell 150,000 new business in our industry. Right. Do in 30 calls a day, which is an hour, like it'll take you one hour a day of prospecting and you can book is you'll earn 150 grand of new business a year. Like it's, it just doesn't make sense not to do it. It's so inefficient though, Clayton. It's too inefficient. We can't. We can't do that. We have to spend our time networking and building relationships with clients, Clayton. Go to the lunch and learn, sit an hour and get a, get a $25 crappy hotel meal and you'll talk for one HR person. That person will never call you back. Or you can sit in cold call per hour and go make money like that. That's my thought. Like I try, I don't, I wait going to those things because of that because like it's just wasting time. Yeah. No, the inefficient. We think it kills me. Kills me. Go ahead. Mike and I have always said like if, if, if our industry would just treat sales like a SaaS company where you had your BDRs, your, your table setters and then you had your closures or whatever. And actually, it's funny because now there's a couple of agencies around the country doing it, especially like your tech forward companies, guys that came from that background and dude, they're, they're experiencing like more organic growth because they literally had to have their guys on speed dialers. They're calling in, you know, they can bang out 100 calls on the speed dialer in two, two and a half hours and that's still plenty of time to service your clients or whatever. And dude, they are writing business like it's going out of style, but our industry and and this is my thesis, which sounds like it's kind of like yours too. It's like you have the boomers. So you have this whole, you know, a scaffolding of the insurance, right? And then we have a succession problem because we don't really have anybody to handle this business too. So you kind of have that first layer underneath them and they were all like seeded books of business, right? Yeah. Well, those guys that first layer are now the ones that are in leadership positions. And they're basically vegetarians trying to teach people how to hunt. I'm not saying that that's ubiquitous, but I'm just saying that's a very common theme that we both saw and that everybody that's in the trenches like yourself also reports. And so this, our industry has this weird disconnect between organic growth and prospecting because we've had this 30 year stretch here where like people just didn't have and had to do it. So it's like in lost art. And now you have all these guys that are in year one to year 10. And they're learning from vegetarians on how to go out and hunt and they're just completely lost. And to be honest with you, I was, I was frankly one of them, right? Until I, until I crossed paths with Micah when I was still in production. Go ahead, Micah. Yeah. I was going to add is we had a guest. I don't think he'll mind me sharing this, but Sean found her for a Zella tech for middle market agency. Essentially hiring a bunch of young guys, right? And we're, we caught up. We haven't talked since they really started hiring people and ramping up. And he was like, Hey, what's your young, what's your guys is or how's it going? And he's like, pretty good. Actually, we just got into a half a million dollar, $500,000 revenue account last week. We just closed a 30, a 40k revenue deal. I was like all over the country. Yep, all over the country. Guys, he's like, are guys with no insurance experience or doing better than the guys with insurance experience? I'm like, that's not shocking to hear. And then this is what, what, I was like, hey, what's your, what's your revenue target or goal for these first year guys? He's like, 200k. I said, man, that's pretty aggressive, you know? And he's like, well, yeah, but when I was talking to you, you said you make 40 calls a day essentially and you always at least do 125, 150. So I figured, hey, if we're making 100 calls a day, that's 500 calls a week. It's a numbers game. And now if you, if anyone listening has talked to Sean, he's probably one of the most confident, he talked about confidence. Like he's very confident when he's trying to call people and all that stuff. And so he's coached his guys on that. But I was like, yeah, that's, his guys don't have to do anything else. And they just have to sit down and dial and make 100 calls a day. It takes probably, he said, you know, three, four hours, maybe, maybe two and a half, three hours, I don't know. But it just was reaffirming and now we're having this meeting with you. So I'm like, man, especially if you're a younger guy, get out there and make as many calls as you can just to get your feet wet. So, Kelly, if you want to add to that, feel free. But otherwise, I want to, I know people are probably dying to know, hey, okay, so you say, can we meet? And they say, nope, we got a broker. We're good. How do you overcome the subjection? Or what are the top objections you're seeing? How are you guys overcoming them? So feel free to kind of share that. Top objections, we already have a broker. That's my time. Well, sometimes I'll challenge you and say, why isn't my broker doing that? Not, of course, not the right time is a big one. Just flat out and no, like they always hear that. But we'll go down the list. We always have, I already have a broker. I think this is as good as it gets. I think that's the hardest one to overcome. What I like to say is like, look, totally understand that every client we've ever hired us had a broker before us, even if it was five or 10, 20 years, we appreciate our long-term relationships too. Hey, just in case your broker gets out of the industry, retireors or maybe something goes wrong, like do you have a time on there Tuesday, just as an intro call, and just kind of leave it at that. Because you guys know, it's like a 90 plus percent retention ratio. Like they've been with their broker for 20 years. And unless they get a 50% increase again, or I mean, if it's their brother, that's the broker, they're not firing them. But if you just kind of use it as a light-hearted thing to get in, like we try to do it light, sometimes they just go, I'm not interested. What I like to shoot back at them is that's probably the fastest answer back on purpose. Because whenever they say not interested, like you know the phone's hanging up. So I try to almost stop them before, like the only time I actually interrupt people is go, oh, is it a timing thing? Because they'll go, well, you're right, yeah, we actually just renewed. Like I like to stop them, 'cause you know that second they say that, they're hanging that phone up. Oh, is it a timing thing? When should I be calling? And they go, oh, yeah, we renewed July 1st. So I should call you in April. Great. Hey, can I shoot you an email so you have my information? Awesome. Hey, I know you said you already renewed. I'll call you in April, but do you still want to jump on a call just to meet quick? And like usual, this time say no to that, but you know the decision maker, you know the renewal date, you know when to call and statistically, and I don't know the number here, this is in my head statistically. My opinion statistics is the people that answer first time are gonna answer again. So that's what's important about having the CRM is, now I have a list of Jennifer, Reneuse and July and I'll call her April 1st. - Micah, this is crazy. It's uncanny. What? The phone picker, phone picker uppers. - There's companies that validate that for you, by the way, Clay, I don't know if you knew that. - Tell them around that. - Do you have a stat around it? 'Cause I've been saying it for years, I don't know what the actual numbers are here. - Well, yeah, I mean, I don't know the stat of like how many people pick up the phone, but there's companies out there that tightnecks is one, for example, and maybe you guys have been getting calls if you're listening to this, I get like 30 calls a day, but if you pick up your phone, they'll say, they'll report, but they're basically just calling to see who picks up their phone or not, right? - Interesting. - And then essentially they know statistically that if people pick up their phone, they're gonna do it again, 'cause they're a phone picker upper. Versus people who never pick up the phone just aren't gonna pick up the phone and the odds of getting in there are so slim. Like, so if you, their theory is like you get a list of essentially people who only pick up the phone, and then you call that list, and you're calling efforts will be a lot more efficient, right? - Yeah, when we know the renewal, and we know who the decision maker is, and we've spoken to them before, I call down that list, I'm gonna set a meeting one in 21 and 25. But if I know nothing, it's gonna be like one in 50. So it's like, I want the one in 21 and 25 list, and that's why this CRM is so important. That's why the volume's so important, because you gotta just keep stacking these renewal dates and people in your roll of decks so you can call them back when it's the right time. - Yeah, I was gonna say, I wanted to hear you compare you all's conversion rates. - You mean, what the conversation? - The conversation. - I go for a conversation to meetings. - Yeah, just in general. Like, you know, we've always talked about, I need to make this many calls to get a decision maker on the phone, I need this many decision makers on the phone to get this many conversations, I need this many conversations to get meetings, meetings, whatever. - Yeah, I'll go first, mine kind of fluctuates. It's basically, if I make 40 calls a day, I know I'll probably talk between five to seven people. Typically, you know, is, or four to seven, somewhere in that range, a bad day could be three or four, a good day could be seven, eight, nine, and then to get a meeting from that, typically, if it's total cold first call, it's probably gonna be more like a one in seven, eight, nine, maybe, you know, and then if it's, I've talked to them, or it's like a call me back, that's gonna be one in probably two to five, right? Just depending, I mean, if they were like call me back a month later, and I'm calling them, and we had a decent little conversation, that's probably gonna be pretty high. But I would say, so what it comes out to be is about one in six, I think, you know, one to five. And Mike, are you counting all like the people that don't answer and the gatekeepers you don't get to and all that? - No, no, I'm saying, if I actually, I'm saying like, I talk to the decision maker, they're on the phone, and then how many of those convert to a meeting? - Right. - Yeah. - Okay. - Yeah, that doesn't make sense. - Yeah, I would say, like, people that start in the industry, one in 80 phone calls, one in 100 phone calls, sets of meeting. And that's just, again, you have no data, you don't know anybody, you're unconfident on your pitch. So young guys that are girls, I keep saying guys, so I've both sides, that it's a day of cold calling, but if you could, and what else do you have to do? You have no clients, you have nothing to do. Sit there instead of meeting. Like, if you can go set three to five meetings, because you did 100 calls a day, then go do that, 'cause that resonates. I would say, like I said, one in, probably one in 30 to one in 50 calls, sets of meeting. I don't know what that is per conversation. So yeah, I'm probably the same on the line with you, and like the amount of conversations I'm having, I don't track that, I just, the one in, it is a cold call, so people forget that, people think it's like a referral. So when you, if I need a referral, you're gonna close at 50% of the time, but if you need a cold call, you might have to meet 10 of them before you close one, because you could get on that phone call and get really excited, but they just, they might have 50 employees, but two on the plan. They might not even have a health plan, all they have is dental and vision. So like you just gotta run through enough of these prospects to find the one. So I would say probably one in 10 to one in 15 for cold calls to close it. And that's why we think it's important to stop going after these small groups. Like you gotta go after the 50, 100, 150, 200 groups, and I'm talking to the independent guys. Like of course, if you're, you know, hub, USI, Mars, Christians and group, like you guys should be going after the big stuff, but like if you can go after that 75 life group as a broker on the benefit side, that's a, that could be a $50,000 commission. So I'd meet with 10 groups all day long to make 50 grand a year. Please, if you're listening and you're gonna go into cold calling for the first time, please use the numbers that they just gave you and don't go off what Bob on your company's calling day said. I was just always gonna kick out of that. Whereas like we would have these calling days at MMA and it would, you know, basically like, ah, big raw raw, let's go make some calls for one. You'd look and you'd see like these guys would set six meetings and only 15 calls. I got 12, you know, this is insane. I saw 12 meetings. They were, they were sandbagging Sunday and called nobody. Yeah, that. So please use those conversion rates that they just said and don't listen to the guy down the hall 'cause it's all BS. Dude, my first, my first quarter at MMA when I had the first cold calling day, I go in there, I'm like, I have my list of 100 people in my sales force. And also, I start seeing these emails. I was hoping to get one meeting that day, right? I was like, if I get one, I'd be happy. Dude, people are like 10 minutes in like, this guy, Chris just set a meeting, Chris set three meetings. Michael set a meeting. And also, dude, I'm like, what the hell? I felt so inadequate. At that afterwards, I started talking to guys, like, dude, oh, no, that was that was sandbagged or that was the COI of like, what a joke, man. Like people should just be real with it. Like get these false expectations, you know? So when we started, when I started learning the cold call, we got to the office at six. I used to call hospital at 6 a.m. All the hospitals in the state that we were calling, just to figure out who was the doctor in the radiology of the pathology offices. 'Cause like we knew they weren't meeting with people. And then we'd call back at like two in the afternoon. But we, I mean, I, it was boiler room. Like if we didn't start calling at a certain time, like every single person's phone calls every single day [BLANK_AUDIO] on a spreadsheet that was passed to everybody. How many dials did you make? How many meetings did you set? How many, how much time were you on the phone? And then at four o'clock every day, you'd be pulled up into the owner's office and you were yelled at for an hour if you didn't have your leads. And so then it's like, okay, you didn't get your lead. You stayed till eight until you set one. You get to Friday if you didn't have your leads. You came in on Saturday morning called cell phones. Like it's like, so I lost like 15, 20 pounds. I think I need to go back so I can lose more weight. But I'm just saying like, I think like when we go into like these days, like those those days I look back at, it's like, you know, those are more fun than I hated it back then, you know, and now, but now I know how to do it, which is a huge skill to have in the business. Yeah, man, you made another point previously that I wanted to just drive home to people. And again, this kind of goes to the inefficiency thing. But again, we don't, we're an insurance, right? So, well, first of all, there's a huge gap less than 100 size groups. I know on the EB side is way underserved, right? 50 to 100, like the top guys aren't really focusing there, but like you said, Clayton, there's a lot of really good revenue accounts there. First of all, but secondly, we don't need to sell 100 policies or 100 new clients a year. You just really probably need to pick up a cash. I mean, six to 12, maybe 20 if you're a little bit downstream, you know, smaller, but the tier point you should probably be calling at least bigger stuff. There's no point to dabble in small business because the numbers are still going to bear out if you're making the calls and make it worth your time. But that's what what always drives me to call more is like, I've done the drop-ins occasionally since stopping doing them years ago. And every time I do, I leave the day like, man, yeah, I had one or two decent conversations, but like, I just feel like it just was inefficient for me. And what what always drives me is like, there's all I need to do is have one to two, three good conversations a week. And that's a really productive week. And like, so if I just keep that in my mind, it's going to stack, right? And you just do that every week. And all of a sudden, you're like, you're going to set 50 to 150 meetings somewhere in that range a year. And you'll need to close 10 of them, you know? But then now next year, you have all those people that are warmly needs that you've had conversations within the past didn't work out due to timing, whatever. And now you have that the next year, right? And it kind of keeps building on itself, but compounding. Yeah. So I think on your first comment about the revenue and then the compounding good days is, I love that thought process. I'm a big runner and we say that a lot. But when you start in the business, like I'm talking independent guys, like you go after groups, maybe a lot of these people go after groups, five, 10, 20 enrolled, which is like a 5,000 or maybe a 25 enrolled as a $10,000 revenue account. And which is great. And it kind of gets your feet wet. But sooner or later, like if you're on a 25 or 35 split or whatever it is, like a $2,500 pay raise and a $10,000 group, like that doesn't move needles. Like that's per paycheck or per month is like $200, like free tax. So it just like it doesn't move needles. So then you're like, OK, I got to go a little bigger. I got to go a little bigger. About 50 enrolled is about 25,000, 30,000 in commission, 50 enroll. And you get to 100 enrolled. Maybe that's 60, 70,000 in commission. I was just talking to an MMA guy. They're not allowed to talk to people under 100,000 in revenue. So I know like the mid-tier bigger firms, yeah, they're maybe able to touch that. But they're not smarter than you. Like a lot of these shops, they were an independent shop that was purchased. That doesn't automatically give them a PhD in insurance. Like that just means they sold out and made a lot of money. And now they're lazy. So my thought is, is that go after these groups, they're not doing anything different than you are. Find a good sales story. The pitch and benefits definitely changes and Luke does great with the pitch. You can-- he's talked about a lot on this podcast. But find a new story that's 50 up. And the other guys aren't doing it, even at the big shop. So people are so scared of 50 up, 100 up. It's the same thing. But as long as you know what you're doing, then you'll win the group over them. That's why we pair with brokers. Because we love winning against those big stuff. We just paired with the broker. He has like five clients. He just won a 250 life group, probably making 150 grand a year on that group. And he has like five clients independent guy. But getting back to it, it's like go after bigger groups because you only need four closes a year at 50 grand. That's a 200,000-- like I know you here, like these-- I go to conferences. Oh, I had a half a million dollar a year. I had a million dollar a year. Those are so few and far between. Most brokers' books are maybe like a half a million bucks. And they act like they got million dollar books. Like truthfully, if you really look at people's books, half a million, maybe 750 is like the average book. So like, again, don't get scared. These brokers' books aren't that big. There's a lot of talkers here on LinkedIn that want to just talk about how everything they do is perfect. And they say the same stuff. They're no better than you guys. So just go after those bigger groups. And you'll be able to close for a year and not 50 clients that you have to manage long term. I just wanted to share a quick story that I know you got to run so we can kind of te you up. But yeah, man, I had a friend that just got out of the industry, right? Left the agency side, went to the carrier, bounced around a few shops. He always would say, how can't have any success, cold calling, can never get people on the phone. His goal is always 40, but he was always like never really sticking to the plan, right? And that was just at 40. And I'm like, man, but come to find out after he kind of acts it, send him your exit on his own terms. After like, you know, three years, he's got a book of, let's say 20 clients, but do 10 to 15 of them are like less than 15 and a 10 in revenue, right? And the accounts that no one wants. And it's like, that those suck your time too, right? And so like he was probably just so entrenched in all those little accounts where it's like, if you're going to call call first of all, and only make 40 a day call on to your point, Clayton, just call on the people that are upstream. And otherwise, you're going to be out of this industry because it's, you're just, it's not going to pay the bills that you want it to pay or it's going to be such a grind. Then when you lose one account, it's going to be a knife to the heart, right? So I always preach people like the reason you always want to write, you know, there's kind of two thoughts when you're right in new revenue. It's like one is insurance, right? Hey, I just got to ensure my biggest book, my biggest client. So get to that level, do ensure. And then what's my bonus, right? So get my insurance amount done for the year. Then what do I want to make on top of that? Give myself a raise, right? And so, and then if you don't lose the accounts, it's all a raise. So it's awesome. But, but yeah, it was just a sad story, not sad story. It was just like, man, it's just what everyone preaches, right? Bigger accounts. And if you don't, you're going to be out of the industry and you're going to be miserable and just not enjoy it. So, Trey, what can we do? Let's talk about what it is specifically that you do. You know, we have, you know, a lot of P and C, but we do have some EB guys. So what is it specifically that you do? And who can you help? Yeah. So I started on the broker side. And kind of like this, what I said, you start with a $10,000 group, then you start with a $25,000 group to really get you excited. And then you maybe need to go out for $50,000 groups to get you excited. Right at that 50 point is when the story changes and benefits is where you could start becoming, it's all claims underwritten that you can get more unique with your strategies. And I was young and dumb. And I thought that I had to build everything from scratch. Right. I just thought I had to go do it. So I met with all the third party administrators, the pharmacy benefit managers, the stop loss carriers, alternative sourcing cost containment. So and so forth. And I just built my own plan because I just thought that's what you're supposed to do. And I found out after going to conferences, nobody does that. Everyone goes and they rely on the stop loss carry to quote the whole plan of the TPA to quote the whole plan. And they just run with whatever plan that those vendors create for them. So it's having a lot of success with our plan that we build. And because you run through so many vendors trying to figure out what fits, what's the most efficient, what saves the most money, so on and so forth. And I started doing building plans for some of my buddies that had created the industry and you know, tacking on a little bit of here and there, like just overrides and whatnot, just to build it for them. And we're free to success, successful at it. And I got to the point where we were helping a couple buddies and I'm like, this could be a business. And so moving forward, all we do now is we work with brokers across the country, mostly independent, but yes, we do have some big boxed agencies to be able to build level funded. I call it unbundled level funded or self funded plans for 50 up employers to help them help brokers win business in that space. So we implement, are we underwrite the business? So you can look at us maybe as a GA on that side. But then we help pitch it, we implement it. And then we're with the client as long as the broker is with the client. So just like everybody knows in the industry, it's easier to renew a client than it is to win a client. We're doing everything we can to manage cost, manage claims, manage everything we can to keep those rates down so we can keep the client long term too. So it's another day for another topic, but tons of strategies on how we're lowering the cost of claims and how we're managing claim. But ultimately, we're taking that small independent broker, mid tier broker and helping them win bigger business with what we're doing. Dude, that's freaking awesome. I tell you some. Yeah, so basically you're a consultant to the broker. I mean, you truly are. And then you're kind of a, you know, you're brokering all the backend stuff, helping them give them bigger deals and making them appear way more sophisticated, I guess you could say or, you know, then they, I mean, there's hundreds of PPAs, there's hundreds of PBMs, there's hundreds of stop-loss carriers, every at the moment. on LinkedIn, there's a new shiny I've jipped of who's saving money in the industry. It's like, do you want to and these independent guys, they don't want to guinea pig their biggest or one of their biggest clients with one of these things that they've maybe heard of on LinkedIn. So we've already done on the guinea pitting, guinea picking. We've gone through all the problems. We've gone through all the hurdles like we know everything that's gone wrong and can go wrong. So lean on our expertise and our experience. And then we can implement a good, smooth, efficient level funded or self-funded plan. To Micah, that's probably the highest leverage thing we could do with Max Revenue would be to go out and build some program, just build our own MGA and then leverage it out to our network on the P and C side. That's really smart. Yeah. Who knows to you? Any, I know you got to run here soon, but any final words that you would say to the anyone listening to this who's feeling stagnant, feeling like they want to grow. But you know, like, like what would you say if they want to, if they liked what you heard, what should they do? What's some advice? I, I think the, for the person stagnant, like this business is not a business you can sit and just sit on your book forever. There's a trish in in our books. Like you're going to lose clients if you're just sitting there. If you're not growing, you're dying. I truly feel it in my heart. Like I, that's probably my biggest, biggest anxiety in life is how do we keep growing? Because I'm nervous about what could possibly happen. So in this industry, it's not a sitting game. You've got to get up and keep going. And if you could take one hour out of your day, every day, you could have a million dollar book in a couple of years. So it's just take one hour out of your day, put it toward prospecting, shut everything off, no emails, no anything. Do your one hour, get in and get out, set a couple meetings a week, meet with those prospects, go after larger groups, you know, 25 up commission. And every year bump that up, go to 30,000, go to 35,000 as the group is your minimum client. And then don't take anything under that. There's a ton of people out there that say, oh, you need a good base of small clients. That's BS have enough larger clients that even if you do lose a larger client, it doesn't matter because you're going to replace them because you've done it so many times. So in my eyes, it's all it takes is an hour a day. And you're going to be way better off than most brokers in the industry. And I talk to a lot of brokers every single week for those listening. When he says our day, that means you have to be very organized and use a CR and not just when I Google trying to find prospects, because that will lead to probably 10 calls in an hour if you're lucky. So exactly. Yep. All right. Well, let's put a bow on it there. Clayton will I want to talk to you off air in the future about some other stuff. But dude, thank you so much, man. This was awesome. Yeah, awesome. Thank you guys. Appreciate you having me on. Thanks Clayton. See you. See you.