Your Broker Might Be Costing You: Micah Salas on Insurance That Actually Works

Welcome, Guest, And Networking Tip

SPEAKER_03 0:00

And so that's what a insurance agent, in my opinion, should be doing is coaching the the business owner. Hey, let's let's just look at your risk, not just your insurance. That's the byproduct of your ultimate risk, right? A reflection.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

What is going on, LM family? We are back again. And this time I got a guest that I got to meet in person first, which was awesome. He's in the 512 in Austin, Texas. He's an author, so we have that in common. He's his book is probably way more uh dramatically correct than mine is. He's the author of the Business Insurance Playbook. One of the things that really stood out, and I hope you folks out there, this will kind of land in your head. He's a simplifier of things, and I'll tell you what those things are. But in my brain, that translates to a translator. And I've been able to see, and I'm fortunate in that the folks that can figure out how to make things easier and translate them for the end user, the customer, the client, whatever that is, have dramatic impact in delivering value. And Mr. Micah Salas is our guest today, and he is out there simplifying commercial insurance for construction companies, gives them the tools to hold their broker accountable, which I'm curious to learn a little bit about that. But ultimately, his purpose is to help business owners focus on running the business, and he deals with all the other fun stuff. So we're gonna get to learn from Mr. Micah. But first, if this is your first time here, you're listening to the Learnings and Missteps podcast, where you get to see firsthand how amazing human beings just like you are sharing their gifts and talents to leave this world better than they found it. I'm Jesse, your selfish servant, and we're about to get to know Mr. Michael. Mr. Michael, how are you doing, friend?

SPEAKER_03 1:57

I'm good, man. I'm nervous, so I gotta talk about my missteps.

SPEAKER_01 2:01

I don't make any mistakes, right? I'm good. That's good that you know, you know, it's an interesting thing. Several people have asked me, like, you titled it learnings and missteps, but don't the missteps come first? I'm like, oh yeah, in real life they do. Like, well, then why did you call it missteps and learnings? I was like, that doesn't flow, and maybe it's all marketing, right?

SPEAKER_03 2:24

It's got to flow, it's gotta roll off the tongue.

The Quote Blocking Reality

SPEAKER_01 2:26

Yeah, man. So yeah, like uh dude, glad you're here. And you know, I said it in the intro. You and I got to meet face to face. One thing I want to applaud, and one applaud because you did it, but two, so that the LM family member out there listening can let's turn them on to a little cheat code. We connected on LinkedIn, and you said, Hey man, let's connect. I'm in Austin, you're next time you're here, and then bam, bam, bam, we're meeting for coffee, and we talked probably longer than we should have, but it was a meaningful connection. And so the cheat code is just reach out to people and say, Hey man, it's me. And so, one, thank you for doing that. I like to start off with a softball question. And so here's the softball for you. How simple is insurance for construction companies?

SPEAKER_03 3:16

Oh man, that's kind of a loaded question. I think I think the problem is we make the process. When I say we, I'm talking about construction companies, make the process of buying it more way more complex than it needs to be. And the problem here comes in that a lot of construction companies basically when they think, hey, my insurance has come up for renewal, I need to get some other options, gotta get some bids, right? That's what because that's what you do in construction. So it makes a ton of sense. And that's honestly what you do for almost every other product or service we buy personally or professionally, right? Hey, need a new copier machine. I'm gonna talk to three different copier guys because you know they all have different overhead costs and all that stuff. So the problem with insurance is that it doesn't work like everything else, especially commercial insurance is unique in the fact, and I'll explain why it's unique, but it's not even like personal. So if you need a homeowner's quote, you can go to three different agents and get several quotes. If you need health insurance, if you guys offer health insurance, same thing. Those other lines of business, they allow, for example, let's say you talk to two different agents, you can go get two health insurance quotes from the same carriers from two different agents. Okay, same with personal lines, homeowners insurance, right? Three different agents can get you the same quote from travelers for your home insurance. Okay, business insurance, underwriters will own this. Is the number one rule I wrote in the book. This is all reason I wrote the book is to basically hopefully simplify insurance for people, right? But underwriters, there's 1200 property casualty insurance companies in the US, probably more than 2,000, maybe. I don't even know. Yeah. But once you get down to geographic territory, scope of work, size of business, that pool becomes probably let's say five to ten carriers that would actually even offer a quote to your construction company. And the caveat here though is the underwriters at those five to ten companies, they won't let multiple agents quote with them on a given year. They only will work with one agent, and that is the agent that sends in a submission first. And so that's kind of where the biggest pain point and frustrations come in is like, hey, I like my agent, he's cool, but I want to kind of check around, make sure we're not overpaying, right? And so you call a different agent in, and neither one of two things happen. This new agent goes out to these under other underwriters to get quotes, like you asked, but then your current agent, he tries to do his job, he goes out to the market, he's blocked. These underwriters say, sorry, we already have submissions in from this other guy. And then then he calls the owner, and now the owner's like, I wasn't trying to, you know, hamper you or hurt your your efforts to get me a better deal. I just wanted to check around. The other thing that happens is that you bring a different agent to get a quote, and your your current guy, he goes, he finds out your quoting, right? Because you ask for some information, his kind of spidey senses go off, and then he sends out submissions to the boom five or six carries. Yeah, and that's called quote unquote blocking, right? And then and then you're and then you're pissed off and you're like, Man, this is this is rigged, insurance is rigged. I hate this. This is the stuff I hear every day. So I'm just telling you what I hear, and hopefully your listeners can relate. And that's insurance, that's how it works, that's the biggest headache, that's why people think it's a scam. But ultimately, it's not, you just got to understand this simple rule, you know. And I say that's the most important thing. What I just told you guys, but that's the most important thing to understand from the get-go. You don't need to know all the different coverages and all the different nuance about how claims work. Yeah, it's good to kind of know high-level some of that stuff. But hope that's why you have an agent, right? Is to kind of be the eyes on the back of your head so you can focus on running your business, you know, managing your people, growing profits, bringing on new clients. That's what you want to do. Yeah. And the the insurance person should handle the nitty-gritty.

SPEAKER_01 6:52

10 for okay. So I'm gonna ask some kindergarten questions just in case. So I can make it make sense in my head. I heard you use the word carrier and underwriter. Is that the same entity or is that two separate people or business companies?

SPEAKER_03 7:06

Good question, man. So yeah, when I say carrier, that's short for insurance carrier, which is the same as basically the underwriter. The underwriter is just the employee at that insurance carrier that actually quotes the business.

SPEAKER_01 7:16

What prices it got it? So I let's just say I say, Hey, Mike, I need some insurance for my construction company. You say, I got you. You're not a blocker, so you're not just gonna send out random stuff to everybody so that you got it locked down. You're gonna say, Okay, I'm gonna reach out to the broker who works for a carrier, and then that you're gonna get the information and make the proposal, and then we get to make a decision.

SPEAKER_03 7:41

Is that accurate? Well, kind of. So, as a business owner, you're gonna call probably an agent, right? Like my I'm an agent or a broker. We use the words interchangeably, and then yeah, we would go out to we have contracts with several different insurance carriers or under you know, which and then so you go to those five or six and try to get the best deal, right? Just kind of like that's where the negotiation comes in, that's where the presentation you got to tell the story. Hey, why I always tell people this one, you know. I talk about simplifying. Instead of thinking about, hey, I gotta bid out my insurance, I gotta shop my insurance, I gotta get quotes. Think about this. I I'm I want to sell my risk this year. My insurance comes up for renewal July 1st. Yes, I gotta sell my risk because when you take on this mindset, everything shifts. You go from like, I gotta meet with this loss control person. Oh, Micah's asking me for a safety manual. Oh, they're asking me all these questions. If you want better pricing and you want to drive down your overhead costs, you gotta be attractive to underwriters, right? And so that's a good agent will help you with this, but but you have to have as an owner the mindset of I'm gonna, I want to sell my risk. Just like if I was gonna sell my house, you don't want to make it look dumpy, you know, you want to stage it, it's gotta look nice, you're gonna cut the grass, you're gonna pick up your kids' toys, you know, all that stuff. Maybe move out if you have to, and then your broker's gonna write up a really nice write-up that makes it sound like the best thing on earth, you know, like, oh, I gotta go check this house out. And then the more interest they attract to the home, hopefully, some of those turn into offers, drives up the rate. Insurance is just the inverse. The more interest from underwriters, it hopefully drives down the premium because they're like, Man, this is the best risk in the world. We can make money on this bad boy. So, this is what we wanted to do, right?

Sell Your Risk Mindset

SPEAKER_01 9:19

Man, I love and thank you, man. Thank you for like being patient with my silly questions because the wording, like we, you know, once a year I'm worried about insurance. And like, who do I call an underwriter? Do I call a broker? Do I call an agent? Do it, and some of the words are interchangeable, but some of them are not, right? Underwriter is not the agent or the broker, so that's kind of the latter. Now, I absolutely love the framing of selling my risk. How did you come up with just that framing? Because it's pretty damn clear for anybody that's operating a business, you understand risk, right? Because you've either you're pursuing work and you're looking at how much risk there is in the work for you because you know it may or may not be estimated 100%, and there's always external factors that could crater the budget, but selling your risk like that's a I've never heard that before. I it totally resonates with me. What helped you get to that pinpoint idea?

SPEAKER_03 10:22

Well, I love analogies because they simplify things, right? So kind of along the theme of simplification. And so when I first got in this this game, I call it the insurance game 15 years ago. Um, and then on the broker side about 12 years ago or the agent side, I was just talking with a lot of business owners, right? And so I was trying to use different analogies to simplify things. And the first obstacle was like, hey, we want to get quotes. And I would try to convince them that, like, you know, what you really should do is just pick one agent to represent you in the market. And that's a big, that's a big ask. Because if someone's used to talking to three different agents, well, their immediate assumption is, well, you're doing this out of your own selfish interests, but also how was that really gonna give me the best deal when I don't have multiple people competing? So I had to think of analogies to explain why this is and why I believe that this ultimately you can you can still go the other route, the traditional route, but I would have to explain to people why I think this alternative route makes sense. Yes, and and so one of the analogies I used was selling a house. And so I was like, hey, think about everyone can relate, right? We've all sold a house before, most of us have. What do you do? First step, you hire a real estate agent, right? You don't hire two or three or four. You hire one after interviewing them, talking to them, and you say, Hey, who do I think it could be a gut feeling, it could be off of their history, it could be off of all their bells and whistles they have, whatever. Who do I think is gonna help me get list my house, right? Yep, and get drive the most interest for my house, right? Have the have the right contacts in the right marketplace, whatever. And so that's the agent you're gonna pick. And then they're just paid a you know, you know, it's similar because on on that side, you pick one agent, you don't pay them anything, they pay the they take the commission out, right? And so insurance is kind of similar that way, where it's typically a commission read into the premium. But so I really that that analogy got me thinking about hey, sell your risk, you know, that's ultimately what you're doing, and because you're you're listing your risk first, right? So list your risk, that's the same deal, and then you gotta sell it, and that's the that's your agent's job, is to it to do that, but also it's not just talking and negotiating with underwriters, that's the back end. But first and foremost, we got to have a talk with the business owner and make sure, hey, you and I are on the same page because you're complaining about your premiums, but man, you're you're doing a terrible job checking MVRs, you're letting this guy drive, or you're doing and so that's where the front end work comes on, and just like a real estate agent, like coaching a home seller like, hey, let's kind of paint paint your front door, you know, let's kind of maybe fix up that bathroom, whatever. And so that's what an insurance agent, in my opinion, should be doing is coaching the the business owner. Hey, let's let's just look at your risk, not just your insurance. That's the byproduct of of your ultimate risk, right? A reflection, got it, and then and then we shine that thing up, you know, get the owner to buy in and say, Okay, now we can go present and sell and do our deal with the underrators.

Cutting Premiums With Risk Controls

SPEAKER_01 13:10

All right, we got to do the LM family member shout-out, and this one goes to my brother Rolando Sanchez from Phoenix, Arizona. He took the time to leave this comment and it kind of made me blush. He said, You leave an imprint on everyone you come across. I appreciate you, my brother. Rolando, I appreciate you, my man. I know he's a ball, he's a catcher's coach, like for real, for real, high-level catcher. And he's in the construction industry as well. He just got a new role. So, Rolando, I appreciate you, my man. And folks out there, if you're listening, you know I love me some attention. So anytime you take the a shot at leaving me a review, leaving me a comment, it gives me an opportunity to shout you out in the future. And if you just want to like leave five stars and share the the the podcast with your people, that's even gooder. Like, I'll take it all, man. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I want to bring this up for you know the average listener out there, right? And in the construction insurance game, the best approach is uh, Micah, I'm not gonna be sourcing quotes and getting three, five different people to bring me information. I get to say, Micah, I want insurance, you're gonna do the sourcing of the quotes and and evaluation and bring the best option, make some recommendations on the options to choose from in terms of what the the rate or the fee is gonna be and all of that. And you're also going to say, Hey, your fee, it looks like this. But here's some stuff that if we take action and like push the buttons and do the things that will lower the cost of the risk that you're trying to sell for the underwriter. Am I reading it right?

SPEAKER_03 15:01

Yeah, correct. Yeah, so you do these things, you know, because insurance is one thing that makes up a company's cost of risk, right? So, but that's that's probably the biggest portion of it that that the most quantifiable is like, hey, we're paying 150 grand a year for our business insurance. Okay, well, if we could how can we get that down to 125 or 150, right? And you every everyone has a floor, and so the goal is what what is that floor? How can we get there? And then how can we maintain it? But then outside of just insurance, you know, you have claims that you maybe just self you eat, right? Like ah, these little minor nicky knack things, and maybe you add all those up, and that's that's 20 grand a year, or you have lost time, you know, a person gets injured. That's there's lost time associated with that. You know, if the culture sucks and the the communication's poor on the job site, or you have subs that are out of control or uninsured, you know, so there's various costs of risk. And so as an insurance agent, you know, I can't be everything, but I try to kind of have a holistic picture when I'm talking with clients, and it an agent really should. Like I said, first goal is hey, where where do you compare to the market? Right? What is your cost compared to the market? Kind of uh relative peers. And then if there's a gap, okay, how do we bring you down and get there? And then how do we maintain? Right? That's really kind of the what you ultimately want to do. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:21

Awesome, awesome. Okay, so you you published the book, the business insurance playbook. When you were in high school, did you say, I want to write a book about insurance? Like, how did that happen?

SPEAKER_03 16:35

I don't even think I knew how to spell insurance in high school. This was weird, but basically, I I'd been in insurance since 2011, got out there, was working with a ton of people, heard the same pain points from you guys, right? The construction owners, same same pain points all the time. And then a 2020 hit. I was doing some stuff on social media, and eventually I was like, I think I spoke at a deal, put up put together a PowerPoint, and I was kind of thinking, like, hey, what are some ways to beat the hard market? The insurance pricing was going up, and then I kind of just took that PowerPoint and I made it into a really just made it into a book one day. And the the crazy part is people saying, Oh, how much time did you spend on this? I literally sat down for like two days over Christmas and just started typing. Nice, and I was like, you know, you know, they say you get in the flow state, but that's what it was. And I was like, All right, and it was easy for me because this is what I did, this is what I did, and and I kept it short. And this isn't like a 500-page novel. I kept it short on purpose. You know, the copy editor I kind of worked with, he was like, Hey, should we beef this thing up? I'm like, No, no, no, keep it at you know, 18,000 words or whatever. Yeah, because I wanted people to read it because no one wants to read about insurance, so that's the other thing. Like, people got to read the thing you write. So, yeah, that's that's kind of how it happened, man. And then I just got with the publisher, a ghost, kind of a ghostwriter helped rearrange things and like make it sound a little bit better. And then we just published it and it's been out now for like three, four years. But it's been a really good marketing tool, you know. So that's been the a cool part of it, just an educational thing, a drop-off. It's it's not pushy. It's like, hey, we had a good conversation. Here's a book I wrote. You know, hopefully you find this helpful in terms of like holding your broker accountable, just kind of knowing how insurance works, and and had a ton of good feedback from it. So it always leads to a couple new clients every year, nice, and just also just other you know, good feedback from owners and CFOs, which is what I what what the whole goal was. I wanted them to just read it and just understand at a high level, this is how the game kind of works.

SPEAKER_01 18:29

Nice, nice. So the book's designed to inform the insurance buyer of like this is how this game works, these are the things, what to look for, what not to best practices, that sort of sort of stuff.

SPEAKER_03 18:42

Yeah, yeah. It's so if you're if you're looking for a book to understand insurance and become an underwriter or an insurance nerd, like this is not the book for you. Because again, I always try to put myself in the other people's shoes, just like if I'm talking to an underwriter, hey, put myself in their shoes, what are they looking for? If I'm a business owner, put myself in their shoes, do they want to read a book about all the insurance intricacies and coverage language and law history? You know, no, they don't, they just kind of need to know the basics, right? And that's that was the whole purpose of the book, and so that's why I kept it short and sweet to the point, and just and again, you have an agent to know all the coverage and stuff. So, again, I wouldn't really, if I owned a business, I don't want to be wasting my time trying to become an insurance expert or a banking expert or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 19:27

Brother, I'm with you. You know, there was a period of time I said, Okay, I need to apparently I need to learn marketing because I have a business, it's kind of important. And I said, Okay, I'm gonna dedicate, you know, 90 days of just really diving in and learning marketing, and then I got into it. I'm like, oh my god, there's too much, there's too much. I'm just gonna outsource it and I can learn, you know, a couple of specific lanes that were really interested me. Um, and I'm outsourcing the rest of that stuff because it's just too much to learn and operate the business and serve my clients and all the you know, all the other things. So I'll feel you on that. Now, this might be in your book, I don't know. Like full confession, I'm ignorant, I haven't read it, even though you offered it to me. I didn't take you up on it, then that's just because I'm you know overwhelmed and being selective. But what are some things that business construction business owners like they can like the impactful things that are a little bit of effort that would make their risk digestible?

SPEAKER_03 20:34

Good question. Good question, man. So honestly, so one of the first things is look at who your agent is, they might be great or maybe they're not, and ask yourself are they truly having conversations with me proactively about this stuff, right? Because that that is a big thing. Because again, you don't have the time to go down all the different things related to insurance and what what underwriters look for, don't look for, don't like, whatever. And so that's just one of the biggest things is like find an agent who you really trust and is proactively advising you on this stuff and just having conversations. I'm not talking every week or month, but you know, it could be quarterly, depends on the size of your company, or at least one to two times a year, they're going through things thoroughly. Like, hey man, this is kind of what underwriters look for. Like, you know, here's what's going on with risk, here's some threats to be aware of. So that's the first thing I would say. But but otherwise, let's just say you don't want to talk with an agent or you're you're fine, whatever. Just some practical things. Right now, you know, auto the auto market is brutal. And so if you're looking at your premiums, you probably notice that if you know you have a pie of premiums, auto's making up probably 50% to maybe 60% of your overall premium, you know, compared to your GL and your umbrella and maybe your work comp and your equipment. So a practical thing there, I tell people, is man, you got to run M VRs and have a really good driver's list. That's the that's probably the number one thing you can do. Like take it seriously, have a policy in place, but but you got to hold to it. And then you know, have toolbox talks with your guys, make it make it a priority to talk about to distract the driving, and not just once a year, but I would probably bring it up, you know, once a week, yeah, almost. You know, and so that's that's the biggest thing that would probably impact the driving. The other thing is you can put people are looking at dash cams, you know, forward-facing cameras are really helpful, and there's great companies that do that. So that's it that's more of an investment.

SPEAKER_01 22:26

Yeah, but one incident and it pays for itself. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. That takes me back selling my risk, like in the work that I do, it it's about optimizing the work, making it better, removing the risk to the human body of you know, construction, because we just do work, and a lot of times it's like, well, yeah, just but how do we know it's working? It's like because you're not having the problem anymore. Like we do this up front, and and the beautiful thing, maybe not so beautiful, I'm just being nice, is the ideal situation is to like let's get together. You're launching a project, let's before we get started on the project, let's start introducing and engaging your leadership so we can put these things in place out the gate. Yeah, yeah. Well, usually like they're like, Yeah, that sounds great. What happens is they call me two-thirds of the way or third of the way into the project and say, Yes, we need help. You know, like, yep, no problem. I'm here to help. But because they we have this optimistic perspective on life in general, and especially when we're pursuing work and business, like everything's gonna work out when we know it never works out, and so we don't take action until it hurts, and then we let the dollars, the price tag, divert us from taking meaningful action that can protect us in the long run. Again, selling that risk, some front-facing dash cams, like, yeah, whatever that is, I imagine it's probably 30, 60, 80, maybe over six figures, depending on how big the fleet is. Sure, that's a cost, but have you budgeted like for real? Does anybody have a line item in their PL statement that says 250K just in case we get an offender bender? Like nobody has that budgeted. Yeah, yeah. And the Cam can help you in the event there were, I'm assuming there was an incident, right? An accident, and it was you weren't at fault. You got the the evidence to defend your claim and protect yourself against it, which could be up, you know, all cost involved could be upwards of six figures, and so it's a wash at the end of the day. Worst case. I mean, in my mind, anyways.

Leadership Signals Underwriters Track

SPEAKER_03 24:42

Yeah, no, a hundred percent. And yeah, the the cost of auto insurance, I mean, auto insurance is just crazy. So it's one of those things, and I always hear from people like, I want the carrier to fight for me and stuff, right? So, hey, give them some some tools to help fight for you, right? And deny these claims because they're you see the billboards everywhere, like people are trying to sue you, and it's so easy to sue. So, but you know, a lot of the things don't even have to cost money, man. It's or it was it's pretty small investments are another big thing. Like, what's your attitude as a leader? Like, like what's your communication with your team? Are you because underwriters will ask about that? Like on the surety side, a lot of times they'll ask about character, right? They want to know the character of the ownership and the leadership. And it's the same with insurance. Like, are you taking safety seriously? Do you are you hiring good people? Are you cutting corners? Are you, you know, all those different things really can help paint a better picture for underwriters? Yep. Yep. And so, and not just you, maybe you have that, but are you hiring the good are your PMs or your foreman? Are are they are you are you developing them? Are they have you know, and because guess what? They do better work, they communicate better, lower general liability. If you do shoddy work, that increases the odds of a construction defect claim. Not to mention all the other side effects that cost you a ton of money and eat up profit, but then the safety work comp, right? You know, less injuries if if you're doing you know drug testing. And the list can go on and on. And this is where like having an agent can help kind of talk through each kind of category or where your pain's at. But like a simple thing on the on the work comp, I would say, is have a light duty program in place. Now that's obviously post-accident, but do the training on the front end. But if you have something, have a program set up where you keep these guys at work. You know, there's it helps reduce basically the it's going to reduce the claim, what counts against your claims history by 70% if you get them back to work within like three two days, three days. I always forget. So have a light duty program in place, keep the guys working, have a subcontractor agreement in place, is another one, right? Like, like I I still there's still a lot of guys with handshakes or yeah, most are subs, you know, it's like, hey, it's 2026. Yeah, you gotta like make sure your subs have insurance, and if they can't afford it, maybe just say, hey, put it put into your bid price or something like that. Right, up your rates a little bit. Yes, yes, it's worth it. Yeah. So use subs that have insurance and they're willing to sign a sub agreement because everyone says, Hey, we're good, we're good. But when it hits the fan, that's when it doesn't go according to plan. So those are just some quick kind of things that would help, you know, help underwriters feel better about your risk. Yeah, man.

SPEAKER_01 27:16

You know, it's funny, like it sounds so common sense, but just exactly like common sense, it ain't common practice, right? People trust relationships, all the thing. I get it, but stuff happens. I'm really curious about one applause again, but two, really curious about the idea or the connection that clearly you understand, and sounds like the insurance market understands the connection between the leadership, the character of the leadership, and the impact it has, like financial impact in terms of risk. So is there like like do you do a character assess? I mean, how do you figure out besides saying, man, this guy's a jerk, they must have a lot of problems. Like, is there a method or is that like a super secret thing that we can't talk about?

SPEAKER_03 28:10

Man, that's that's actually a great idea. There is no method or scoring system of or a personality test that's given to an owner, yeah. You know, I think a lot would probably be like, I'm not taking this thing. So there's two two ways it's assessed. One is the agent is kind of the underwriter's eyes and ears and in the field, so to speak. But a lot of these carriers, if you're if you're with a if your construction company's paying, let's just say 200,000 or more for insurance, a lot of them will want to send out like a lost control guy to do a visit, or maybe the underwriter will want to get like a teams call with the owner, right? Yep, and so that's where I said a lot of it comes down to there's not gonna be an official character assessment, but they're gonna ask questions and they're just trying to gauge right your coachability, your openness, open-mindedness, or do you have like a massive ego and you think you're the best God's gift of earth and you're running the best company in the world?

SPEAKER_02 28:56

Like, you know, and if that's you, yeah, that's fine, but you're gonna pay for that.

SPEAKER_01 29:00

You gotta pay for that. Yeah, oh man, okay. This is ooh, this is meaty. You probably know this, Micah, but I'm probably a nightmare for insurance carriers because I I'm okay with risk. Like to me, risk is exciting. I don't think part of business. Now I do I have insurance, right? Because they said you need to do like okay, fine, I'll do the stupid thing, anyways. But what's interesting is you pointed out, right? Like, is there training? Like, are is there any leadership development in place? Is there any training in place? And it really resonates with me because it's one thing that I look for in my potential clients is like, okay, what are the capabilities? Like, what are the things that you focus on? And four, there's four things that for me, if they well, now there's five. The fifth one's gonna seem dumb, but it's super, super valuable. Like, if they have these things in place, the likelihood of me having fun with them goes way, way up. Amount of we'll say saturation in terms of whatever we're doing actually sticks and and happens within the teams or the business goes way, way up. And so one is do they have a leadership development program? Period. Now, and it doesn't have to be, you know, some super elaborate thing that's run on a learning and management system. Like, do they do training for their leaders? Basically, if it's a yes, that's a really good sign for me. The second is do they utilize BIM or 3D modeling? Uh, because I to me, I know the value of it back when I used to do like real work. But to me, that's a signal that they're embracing, embracing and open to like learning and staying on the front edge and leveraging technology to make things better. So, again, forward thinking, right? Uh, the third is do they have a production planning method? And I don't care if it's a stupid sheet of paper that they make their foreman or their leaders fill out, or they have a really robust system that's tied to their estimates and all the other things, project budgets. But if they're doing that any any to any degree, like, all right, now we're cooking with sauce. And lastly, do they have a full-time safety professional or like somebody on staff that their job is to support the wellness of their people? And whether it's a safety professional or like a lot of times they're fall under the umbrella of like general superintendent, but that person's job is to go out and make sure the project teams have what they need and fill the gaps wherever they are. They have those four things, man. We're gonna it's gonna be a good outcome. The fifth, and this one's new, is are they active on social media? Like, do they have a presence on the LinkedIn, the YouTube, doesn't matter. And this one's kind of selfish, but not entirely selfish, because I know if they're active on social media, that they're gonna be okay with me posting about the engagement that we just did, which is valuable for me in terms of marketing, but also I know that they're attracting talent because they are visible with the things that they're doing for their people. And so the combination of that is like gold star, like honeymoon forever. How does that land with you? What do you think about those criteria in terms of would that inform the assessment of like how much risk the leader has in terms of what they've put in place to support their people?

SPEAKER_03 32:28

Yeah, I love that, man. The thing I was thinking about as you were talking a little bit is underwriters look at all that stuff, really, you know, the leadership, the training, having a superintendent of the person to support number five, even the social media, just FYI. If you guys have websites that are archaic, underwriters are looking at those. So they're digging into your Facebook. So if you have a it's all your selling your risk, right? So if you're gonna sell your risk, you're trying to attract good people, to your point. I think that's really important. But also, underwriters are looking at that, right? I think the biggest thing with what that I was thinking about though is people know, like, okay, we have a safety director, let's talk about that. Or that's the main thing out of all the stuff you talked about. What goes missed and never spoken to the underwriter is all that other stuff you just mentioned, the leadership training with your foreman, you know, the that kind of stuff. That's what you want to bring up. So, one of the questions I like to ask a client is like, all right, we're about to go to the market, we're gonna start the negotiation process. Pretend I'm pretend I'm an underwriter, like sell me on why you guys are awesome, why you're the best civil contractor in central Texas, you know, like and then and that's where all the stuff you just said, people don't associate that with like risk, but all that does go into that character side of things, right? That and just that softer skill side of things that underwriters do take into account when looking at everything.

SPEAKER_01 33:46

Yeah, awesome. Well, I'm gonna say this out loud because I know it'll help a lot of the clients that I work with, simply in terms of like direct safety connection and all of those things. How did I come up with the list, except for the social media thing? Is because I was in the safety space for a little bit, and it was clear the the organizations that had some degree of the first four things, safety performance on the job, smoked the ones that didn't have it, particularly the the BIM capabilities. Because if that in the subcontractor space more accurately, but if they have BIM capabilities, what they're doing or what they have is the capability to do pre-fabrication or off-site construction. That's the new terminology for it, anyways. And when they're doing that, so they're taking a percentage, let's say they have a hundred thousand labor hours in a project, they could take, like for real, for real, they could take 60 to 70 percent of the work that actually happens on the job site that is at higher risk because it's subject to to weather, other trades, you know, all the stuff. They could take that and do it under a controlled environment, which minimizes the impact on the human body and also minimizes the headcount that has to be on the job side. I think every time anybody steps on a job site, risk goes up, production goes down, period. And so that capability, whether they're using it yet or not, but the fact that they're using it to do prefabrication, if they have an investment like internal spend on 3D modeling and prefabrication, it's massive in terms of the headaches that it removes from the job site. There's still risk, but it's very different. I'm sure you've seen, right? You go out to the job site, and man, you can bust your butt just walking from the parking lot because you know, they're muddy, there's rocks, and you know, the whole thing. Whereas if I'm going to a shop where we're prefabricating, I've got paved walkways and I'm working under a roof. Like I don't have to worry about the snow and heat stroke, any of that. It's a for me again, it excites me because it has a dramatic impact on the human beings that are doing the work, which in my head, as it relates to insurance, that might be like, oh, okay, like that's a big deal. The fewer people on the job, the less risk there is. But again, that's Jesse Matt. So I don't know for sure all the ins and outs of it.

SPEAKER_03 36:13

Yeah, no, I would I would I would second that for sure, man. I mean, like hey, uh yeah, you're making some of the component parts in the shop versus on the how live on the in the field. Yeah, that's gonna limit risk. It's also gonna be more controlled again from an underwriter's perspective, which should uh lead to higher quality work, more controlled work because you're not even taking it there until it's like, hey, it's inspected, we know it's good. And then on the worker side, yeah. Again, and and underwriters, again, on the side depends on the size of your company, but some will want to go walk a job site, yeah, right? They're lost control person. So, but if you could say, hey, half of our work is done back here first, and then we just put it out there, all of that is part of your story, right? Yeah, I think we keep coming back to this theme, but it's all kind of related, you know.

Sales Through Service And Side Hustles

SPEAKER_01 36:59

Yeah, yeah, totally, totally awesome. So, listeners out there, now you know, do better at telling your story, don't just tell them how often you are. Tell them about how you make stuff happen and how you're taking care of your people. All right, I'm gonna flip the other side of the coin because we've been talking a lot about like delivering the service and the value of insurance to to construction companies out there, but there's a real truth that we need to talk about and and also will benefit the LM family member out there because there's a lot of the listeners that are side hustlers. And so sales. What do you think about selling, Mr. Mike Gus?

SPEAKER_03 37:37

Man, I love selling. No, I you know, growing up, I never used to that. I was I was a kid to play tackle football. We our our school launched tackle pop owner football in middle school, and before that was flag football. We were the first class that was gonna be instituting this. My family was kind of lower middle class because we couldn't afford to play, right? My mom's like, hey, we can't pay the 175, we can't afford it. I'm like, oh. But we got this fundraiser, go sell sports illustrated subscriptions. All you gotta sell is two, and you'll pay for your uniform and the pads and all that, dude. I was too afraid. I didn't even approach one person to sell it. Like I and so I missed the first week of practice because I and then some coach raised the money for me. He's like, Man, you should be out here. And I was a pretty decent player, and so he kind of knew that. And and but that's if that gives you some background on like who I was as a kid, and so I'm like not a natural-born salesperson, if that's all I'm trying to say. Yep, but yeah, if if you're the main thing with like that's led to some of the success I've had in sales is and just putting yourself in the other person's shoes and solving problems and educating people, and you don't have to be sales even. Yeah, right. You just gotta be real with people and and and be willing to walk away. You know, either people have a problem you could solve or they don't, right? Yep, and if you're side hustling, that that means you got some idea in your head of like, hey, I think this this can help some people, just go talk about it on social media, right? Like, start putting stuff out there. And so, like, speaking side hustles, I mean, I sell I'm an insurance agent, been doing that for 15 years. I've created a digital course, right? For for helping agents, actually. Nice. And do we've can shot it on my phone? First iteration, put it out there. A buddy of mine, we did it, I think we've sold 150 grand worth of courses over two and a half years. Okay, cost us zero dollars to make the thing. So I mean that's like a side hustle, right? Yeah, but but I but I at the core of it, it was like, hey, can I help people, right? Okay, I know my stuff. Do I what do I know really well that I enjoy talking about? And a way to give back to your industry. So if you're listening, I guess, and maybe you're a shoot. I mean, you could be a foreman or project, whatever. You could if you have some type of if you're if you you're in the trenches, you obviously know the pain points of people in your shoes and just talk to them, yeah. You know, yeah, you'd be surprised, like how many people like, oh man, I'm so glad you said something. I feel this, or you know, and then it just starts to grow. You're you you're kind of doing that, you know.

SPEAKER_01 39:54

You yes, did that. Yes, yeah. Actually, I mean, um perfect example. Um, I'm doing this time management for construction workshop that last year, Q1. The idea was I was gonna create an online course of the way I do my time management. Um, I was gonna do some version of like, here's some self-management tips, and it was gonna be just a lead generator. That's what was in my head. Anyhow, talking to a friend, Lance, up in California, and he's like, dude, how do you get all the stuff? Like, you're you got you're doing a million things. How do you keep track of everything? And I kind of like rattled off. He said, Man, I need to see what you're talking about. It's okay, fine. We schedule a call. I I walked them through it, like future planning, uh, schedule management, and then daily execution. He's like, dude, that's a whole system. Like, what are you talking about? Just what I like, doesn't everybody do this? Anyhow, then I said, I was talking to Megan Shapiro, and she's like, Jess, this is not an online course. I said, Okay, why not? Like, does it suck? She's like, No, I just have too many questions. Like, I can see how I can use it, but I need my questions answered so that I can make sense of it. So I said, Okay, well, I'm gonna do a workshop. And so I hosted three workshops, expecting you know, maybe five people total to show up. I had 45 people show up like wow of 15 in each session. I'm like, oh, like it blew my mind. Of course, the first one was clunky, and I had real quick, real short intervals. I was like, Okay, I need to fix this and fix this, and then second one got a little smoother, and then oh, I gotta do some more tweaking, and then by the third one, I'm like, man, that was super smooth. I'm like, and it was free because I was like, these were my friends. I'm like, hey, I'm doing a thing. Do you want to come? And I said, Hey, would you pay for this? And they're like, Absolutely, and so then I turned it into a virtual workshop, and then it's turned in again. I was telling you before we hit record, I was just in Phoenix, Mississippi, Kansas City, and Dallas doing these workshops in person, which I totally didn't plan for or expect. But from simply saying, hey, you know, this is kind of how I see time management, I'm doing some live streams and whatever. And people are like, Man, I need some of that. Now, that on the same note that I feel like most of the people I'm getting that sign up for it are the ones that kind of show up to the live streams and engage with the posts and whatever. I'm also running ads on on Facebook. And guess what? I'm not getting any buys from Facebook. Coming from the people that are just like showing up to the webinar, showing up to the live streams, and then and I'm just kind of like, hey man, here's how to think about it, here's something to consider, blah, blah, blah. Bottom line, serving others, helping them is generating more conversion for me than the hard sell, and what I'm I'm classifying the the ads as the hard sell because I haven't had one person buy from an ad. And based on what you've told me, what you've shared so far, your book is not a hard sell. Your book is about, hey man, let me help you, right? You got your course. Yep, that's a that's a helpful tool, but you have we'll say credibility in the industry. So, of course, people are going to come to the thing. Now, you mentioned being active on social media. Have you cracked the code to go viral with every damn post you do?

SPEAKER_03 43:21

Oh man, I wish if I did, I think I'd be a millionaire and wouldn't be here right now talking to you. But I haven't yet, man. But it it has created good brand awareness, you know, and and full disclosure. I mean, most of my 90% of my sales as an insurance agent, how I pick up new clients, is still coming from cold outreach, cold, cold calling on the phone. Yeah. Not a sales, but but leading with I try to leave with value first. So it's like, hey, can we just talk? And then if there's some pain, let me do some due diligence for you up front. Like let me do an assessment just to see if maybe you you you know, if we can help.

SPEAKER_01 43:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 43:53

And then that's given to them, and then they can decide what to do from there. But uh but yeah, the social media stuff, I haven't cracked that code yet, man. I wish. But it is interesting. I'll go to some meetings and you know, or call people and they're like, hey, I watch all your videos, man.

SPEAKER_01 44:05

I was like, I had no clue. That's awesome, man. And I mean, two things I want to touch on because I know when I got started, I had to learn not to take it personally, right? Not to think it's because I suck. Um, cold calling is I've never done it. Actually, I did do it one time for about an hour. I was in high school, and you know, with some call center thing, and and I'm like, I am not, I'm not doing this because you know, no, click, no, click, and I just couldn't take the rejection. Like, that is brutal from my perspective. So, props to you for sticking to it. But I think what maybe comes second to that is producing content that gets crickets, it feels the same, like, oh man, nobody likes me. I suck. But the truth is, that's like that for all of us, right? Until we kind of figure it out and massage and tweak and and find the path. It it takes all of the rejections and failure to get to you know the formula that produces the results that we're looking for. So I haven't figured out the five the viral thing. And and also another thing I'll add, I have one post that I put on TikTok, and that thing's got, I don't know, three or four hundred thousand views. But the tone of the post, I was talking about the Foreman role in construction being the hardest role in that I've ever had, but also just in construction. And I'll, you know, I said a bunch of things. What it ended up like, yes, I got a lot of view, views, and followers, and comments and la la la. But the majority of the comments are pissy money complainy people. And I'm like, damn it, like what good is it if I go viral if I'm attracting people that just show up with negative energy? So I, you know, that's when I was like, okay, I'm not gonna, I could do that again, but I'm not gonna because that's not the kind of people I want in my community. I want people that want to contribute and you know, make themselves better, not piss and moan and blame everybody. So be warned, folks out there, going viral can be a problem.

SPEAKER_03 46:14

Yeah, yeah. You're always gonna attract the detractors, right? The people who are like throwing shade or throwing rocks at you. And you gotta kind of have some thick skin to put yourself out there, you know, and and stay say stuff that you truly believe, which which is gonna not gonna be for everybody.

SPEAKER_01 46:31

True. So true. So in terms of putting yourself out there, what is the max revenue show?

SPEAKER_03 46:39

So the what it's here's the deal. When I started putting stuff on LinkedIn, it was 2018, so that feels like a forever ago, right? Eight years ago, and my I started with videos. I do like two videos a week, and people in my office and everyone would be like, they would kind of laugh, like, oh, that's cool stuff, man, good stuff, you know. But it was kind of like kind of making fun of me slightly too. Yeah, I didn't care. I was like, whatever. Now, my whole in my mind, all I was talking to is business owners, right? I was like, hey, I'm just gonna make a video as if I'm talking to my brother-in-law, and he has a question about how insurance works or why did my rates go up, right? That's that's what I that was my goal. So I started doing that. What ended up happening as a kind of a byproduct of that is a bunch of people in the insurance industry started following me and whatever, right? Yep, and that kind of kept growing, and then they kept reaching out, especially in like 2020, 2021. I got so many DMs and messages, hey, do you do coaching? Or I have this question. Can we chat for 15 minutes? And I was like, dude, I so it got busy, and my friend started a podcast, the guy that I kind of do the max revenue stuff, and he started it and he's like, Hey man, we should do a podcast. And I was like, you know what? Actually, that's my way to kind of give back to my industry, yeah. Um, and help other salespeople and also get back to these people who are reaching out to me that I can't really talk with all of them individually, unfortunately, right? So, because that wasn't my bit, I wasn't trying to go into coaching, I wasn't trying to do anything like that, and so that's that's how max revenue kind of came to be. And now it's basically more like uh we have the the one product that I that I came out with called the producer playbook that coaches producers, but then other than that, we're more of a media company, I would just I would say at this point, we have some podcast, we do podcasts, right? So we do commercial insurance, it's all kind of focused for salespeople in general, and usually in the insurance field, we're trying to kind of diversify some of that, but but at this point, that's where we're at. So people selling health insurance or business insurance, you know, that are in the insurance industry, that's what the max revenue is all about.

Leaving Comfort And Building Again

SPEAKER_01 48:30

Nice, though. Okay, so you have a book to give back and serve others, you have a podcast to give back and serve others. You you're you're in sales, so I believe that if your heart is not in about serving others, it's not a healthy situation. So, like, you're my kind of people, man, right? Like we serve others, yes, there's a return on it, but we're it's this cyclical thing of the more I serve, the more I get. So I'm totally, totally down with that. Now, here's the question: did somebody tell you, hey Michael, what you should do so you can be super successful is write a book, start a podcast, post, and like how did what was that path like? Was it a straight line, or was there some bumps and bruises along the way?

SPEAKER_03 50:19

Oh, yeah, there's definitely bumps, man. Um, no one told me, hey, you know, do the posting, do the book, do all that stuff. It was that was not told to me. I think my mindset was always like, hey, I wanted I like helping people and educating, and so that was kind of like the core premise of like, hey, who can I find out there that needs help today? But that being said, you can have that mindset, but still suck, right? Still have terrible results, or no one's buying from you. So yeah, it's it's a grind, man. Insurance, it's tough. Everyone has an agent, no one really likes insurance, everyone's busy. And so there's definitely like starting out like year one, it's like you definitely are like, wow, no one, no one's buying from me, you know, and you just gotta be committed to what you believe in and what you want to do, but it definitely screws with you mentally for sure. And actually, four years and a half years ago, I left my other, I was with a different agency, had built up a million-dollar book of business plus, you know, was doing well, walked away from it all because I got a call from the agency on my own. They're like, hey, we want to open up an office of Texas, we'd love to bring you on, blah, blah, blah. So I was employee one, we had no infrastructure here locally or anything. And so that was like at the time, I was really scared to do it. I was like, man, I could stay in my little comfort zone here. And I'm you know, I'm I'm content. But then I then I was like, then I started thinking the future. I was like, well, what if I'm like 75, 80 and I'm looking back at this, like, will I be happy I didn't do that? Or will I always kind of wonder, man, you should have just done it, you know? Yep. And so that's eventually that kind of warred wore on me after about three, four months. I said no at first. I kept thinking about it, and about three, four months later, I said, Hey guys, let's talk again. And I said, Let's do it. I just put the band-aid off. And and but but yeah, it sounds sexy and glamorous, but man, I can tell you, month number one, like the first week, you're all pumped, and then all the kind of the reality hits, right? Some of that excitement wears off, dude. I had anxiety so bad that first, especially those first 60 days. I was just like constantly anxious and like, I gotta get I gotta find a client, you know. You kind of get into that mindset, and so you but uh it's that dude. Yeah, there's there's bumps, dude.

Stillness Tools For Hard Seasons

SPEAKER_01 52:21

There's bumps, and and like enough said, I think anybody that's tried something new, like stepped out of their comfort zone. We know, and and it's important. I was talking to Manya, I was I just interviewed Mania earlier this week, and the topic or idea of credentials came up, and like basically people will ask me, and I'm sure they've asked you, like, how did you do it? Like, what certifications, what training, what credentials should I get? It's like there's nothing out there to like it's a result of me, my time as a plumber, my time in leading people poorly, right? Making everybody hate me. It's a result of all of those things and the combination of those experiences and doing it wrong a bunch of times until I got it right. And one thing you said is like you gotta be committed, and also you brought up like the the mental, I'll say even say spiritual tax or toll it puts on you. So, from that person from that point, what practices did do you recommend for folks that are like starting something new because it's rarely a grand slam out of the gate? What practices did you use or would you recommend so that people can like stay firm and stay healthy within their mind, knowing that it's not gonna be easy and we don't know how long it's gonna take?

SPEAKER_03 53:39

Yeah, man, I thought one thing that helped me a ton was stillness, silence, meditation, whatever you want to call it, starting my day that way. I started doing that in 2019. I just had anxiety from some other stuff outside of work too. But dude, that changed my life. Man, it brought up so many different things. I'd never sat in stillness before. I was going up to like this is pre-kids for me, but I had like I was going like 45 minutes some morning. So I was like, this feels you know, at first it felt great, but then all of a sudden stuff started coming up from my past and stuff I hadn't dealt with, and and so that kind of made it not so great. I say actually meditation ruined my life for a minute there because I had to deal with some of that stuff, yeah, and actually fix it. Yeah, yeah. So it's like all that suppressed stuff, all those years like, I gotta be tough, or you gotta ignore this feeling or bypass this feeling, or and so that's kind of so then I then I had to deal with that stuff, and so that was another growth opportunity personally to deal with that, which which which unlocked more fulfillment in the in the professional side, but that that was like the key thing, and then you know, another thing because your mind's gonna play tricks on you, dude, and your ego's gonna mess with you because your ego's job is to protect you. Yep, and so you got to one of the things that really helped me a ton is to understand that I am not my thoughts and I am not my feelings or emotions, right? Those are just I'm the observer of those feelings and thoughts, and so when you kind of have that out-of-body view or or kind of understanding, you understand what your true identity is, that you can't be touched and that these thoughts aren't even real. Yep. The problem is we get so you get detached into them and you kind of take that on as your identity, and then you get bogged down in the fear, right? You get bogged down in the whatever. And now I'm not saying you just so that was the first thing is understanding not to attach and to understand that those thoughts aren't me. Second thing is when I do feel emotions to be more, and this is where the meditation, the silence helps you be more in tune with whatever emotional you're feeling in your body, right? And so then actually instead of trying to bypass it and say, I gotta go work out, I gotta have a drink, I gotta do whatever. None of that stuff's bad. But if you're doing that stuff to actually suppress or whatever, or distract yourself, go down your phone, whatever, distract yourself from dealing with whatever emotion you're feeling. Maybe you just had a big fight with some co-worker or whatever. And so, or a client says no, you get rejected, and you're like, I gotta go do something now. No, no, no, sit with that. Let that feeling allow it to be there actually willfully be like, hey, no, I feel this in my chest. I'm gonna sit here and allow this. You're fine to be here, I will survive. Be here, teach me something if you need to teach me, and then it'll just eventually dissipate and fade. And maybe something will come to mind, maybe it won't. Man, those practices that I just kind of rattled off there, those were all like the main things. I think if you do all that stuff, then when you're going through a difficult time starting a new challenge, you're not gonna wrap your identity in that difficult time. You're not gonna listen to all the doubts, the fears, whatever. And you're just gonna kind of have this kind of steady mindset and kind of stay the course because again, you you kind of know, you know, from experience what you want to do and and just be committed to it.

SPEAKER_01 56:38

Yeah, so and solid and real talk because when you start the practice of stillness, stuff pops up. Man, I I've been like, what the hell? Like, wait a minute, I thought this was supposed to make it better. Where's that coming from? And the separation, like, super, super power. So, folks, if you're like, okay, you're gonna sit down for 10 minutes. Like, how are you? There's a lot of resources out there to figure out how to do it. There's guided meditation, all of like I don't know anybody that I've had a lot of recommendations and I've tried a bunch of them, and none of them really work, especially guided meditation. That I cannot like I don't want to hear other people's voice. So, point being try different ways until there's a way that fits, but also know there's gonna reveal more work to be done, and I appreciate you, man, being the vulnerable and sharing that because, like, for real, there's stuff that we got that we've been diluting through work, through exercise, through substance abuse, through chasing women.

SPEAKER_03 57:37

Uh, if you don't know social media, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Contact Info And Final Takeaways

SPEAKER_01 57:42

That's all my stuff, that's all I did, anyways. But the detachment thing I think is is the most important thing. So there's two things that came to mind while you were talking about one is like failure is not fatal. I've failed chingles of times and I'm still alive. Number one, and number two is I'm a meaning-making machine, which what does that mean? I make sense of whatever I'm feeling and experience, I assign meaning to it, which means I can also take away the meaning. Like I get to choose what meaning I assign. So before I got a rejection, that means my services suck, nobody wants to work with me, they know my history, right? I'm assigning all that's all happening between my ears. Nobody said it. Right? Or I could say, Oh, they're not ready yet. No, not a problem. They need to get to where they can get, and I can support them on that path, you know, from a distance. And when they're ready, we'll talk. And it's really just me assigning a different meaning to that stinky experience. And I think everybody can do that. Rather, I know we all do that, we just don't own the fact that we're assigning the meaning and we can assign any meaning we want, right? Like I look in the mirror every morning, and the meaning I'm assigning is like, damn, that's a good son of a gun. Whether it's true or not, that's what I'm saying. That's what it means to me. Yep. Oh man, dude. Okay. If people want to get a hold of you, like you got the producer playbook, the business insurance playbook. Of course, you you provide services for insurance for companies. Where should we send them?

SPEAKER_03 59:20

Best place is go on LinkedIn, or you could probably Google me, go on LinkedIn, and my I think I have my cell phone, my email, all my contact info on my LinkedIn profile. So that's the best route, I would say, is okay, look for me there and happy to talk with anybody. Yeah, like I said, you know, to to the construction owners, listen to this, or even if you're thinking of starting a company and you're like, Yeah, I'm thinking about it. Well, how does the insurance work? Happy to talk, man. I I enjoy helping people, and so at any point, any size of your company, happy to talk, advise you, give you what my perspective, and hopefully you find it helpful. Do you have clients all over the US? So it doesn't matter what state you're in, can definitely at least give you a perspective on the insurance. So beautiful, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:02

And and folks, if you don't already know, Mike has gotten my vote. Not only is he an expert in his field, but he's a real freaking person. You just heard it, right? Like you can connect with somebody that's pretty damn down as a human being and and has has got there, has been through the bumps and bruises, the learnings and missteps that we all experience in our life. So, Mike, I thank you for like for real for opening up and sharing, you know, the the not so glossy parts of being a business, being in business, which brings to our closing grand slam question. Are you ready for it? Oh, I'm nervous. What's up? Well, don't be nervous, man, because you've learned like it's clear that you're a constant learner, not just about business, but about yourself. And so, like the combination of those two things and your focus on serving others, I I'm just excited to hear what the answer is going to be because that combination is a special damn combination. So here's the question What is the promise you are intended to be? Wow. Man, that's a deep question.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:06

Oh the promise I am intended to be. Man, I would say someone who's going to listen, be honest, and try to help you as much as I can to the to the people around me, right? And just that's the main thing. I mean, just be there for people, listen to them, be genuine, genuinely listen, genuinely care, and try to be honest with them. And and even if it's not what they want to hear, be like, hey, this is just you gotta know this, right? And I'm just trying to help you, right? So but do it from a place of like, hey man, I I just want to see the best for you.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:43

That sounds easy, but that ain't that ain't easy. Like, that's that's real, bro. Man, solid, my man. Did you have fun?

SPEAKER_03 1:01:51

Oh, yeah, this was a blast. We'll have to uh do it again or you know, meet up in person again for sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:56

Oh, and yeah, when you're up in Austin, yeah, man. 10 four. Before you go, I want to thank you for spending part of your day with me. Your time and attention mean a ton. And it's because of listeners like you that this podcast even exists. If you enjoyed today's conversation, make sure to subscribe to the Learnings and Missteps podcast so you never miss an episode and you get extra credit if you share it with your friends. Also, if you want even more insights on leadership, personal growth, communication, you know, all those fancy magical things, you can sign up for my newsletter on LinkedIn because I got a newsletter that goes out every single Monday. All the resources I share there are designed to help you put yourself first so that you can leave this world better than you found it. There's also a digital copy of my book, Becoming the Promise You're Intended to Be. And it's sitting there waiting for you on my website. All you gotta do is do the click and do the download, and you get the free PDF. And if you want even more bonus points, share that PDF with somebody you know or the family of somebody you know that is currently struggling with self-destructive behavior. That would be the ultimate gift for me. While you're there, do some exploring of the trainings, workshops, and services that are designed to enhance your performance at home and at work. Just click the link in the show notes to check it out. Thanks again for listening. Take care of yourself, and I'll see you on the next episode. Peace.