Building Success from Setbacks with Mark Shipp, HUB International

What can you, as an agency leader or sales leader or producer, learn from a multi, multi-million dollar producer, in fact, a producer who was fired early in his career only to have the success that he has now? Well, we're going to talk on this podcast episode in my interview with Mark Shipp, about mindset and what that really means, about consistent processes and about the fact that everything he does is not about him. It's about serving the needs, the wants, the desires and the outcomes of the other person. Enjoy today's Agent Leader Podcast. Welcome to the Agent Leader Podcast. This is the podcast for agency leaders to learn, to grow, to develop and ultimately become their best version possible.

 

00:54

On this episode, I have a fantastic guest with me. Someone, in fact, I told him before we started recording officially that I hear a lot about, I feel like I know this guy because he's been part of our organization in different ways long-term relationship with our founder and CEO, Roger Sitkins and has grown a very substantial book of business, and I'm sure we'll talk about that. But welcome to the podcast, Mark Shipp. Mark is the Senior Executive VP at HUB International. So, Mark, welcome to the podcast.

 

Thank you, thank you, thanks for having me.

 

 Absolutely Well, again, we're going to talk about a lot of different things with Mark's experience and successes and challenges, and I also know he's someone who has accomplished a lot but wants to give a lot back and I know he'll be able to share some of that on this podcast. But, Mark, before we get into all my extremely challenging questions for you, please provide the audience some background, maybe your history in the business, a little bit about your book, your specialty. I'd love to share just some background information on you and what you do.

 

02:00 - Mark Shipp

Sure. Well insurance is a family business for me. My mother was in the insurance business her whole life. I worked my way through college with a variety of jobs, specifically one in construction that I really, really liked. Towards the end of my college career and you know I was pre-law and thought I wanted to be a construction lawyer. Decided after doing an internship at a law firm that I needed to pivot and do something else. So I worked for about six months. My mom looks at me and she's like Mark, I think you'd be really great at insurance.

 

02:35

Farmers are supposed to have a decent training program. Why don't you go check them out? So I begrudgingly did and went over there and, kind of you know, was there for a year, found insurance to be fun and challenging and rewarding and got my first insurance job commercial insurance job after working for farmers for a year, working with my mother and the agency that she was working for, and started off somewhat successful but not really, ended up getting fired because I didn't produce. I had a desk and a phone book and go sell, kind of support. And my mom she was very technical but she wasn't a sales-oriented person, she didn't know really. It was all about the coverage forms and being a super coverage guru geek and that was kind of her thing and that's how she would say I'll just go, I'll make them hurt and show them where they had been misinformed about their current insurance program. And that's not the skill I could have starting as a new producer and didn't really have any, you know management and didn't really have any kind of support structure.

 

04:02

It was just that you know, here's your desk, here's your phone book go and, you know, started to really, you know, become a student of insurance at that time. And, you know, really in a, but really the focus was how do we get new business? And after I lost my job with that firm, I worked in the car business for about six months, okay, and it taught me professional selling skills. You do, you know feature advantage, benefit, presentation, all these strategies and tactics for selling cars to people that didn't know they were going to buy them that day. And you know different ways to approach strange people and to get them to entrust you and, you know, get them excited about that car.

 

05:00

And I found it to be somewhat fun for the period of time I was doing it and after getting fired, you know, I was like my ego was bruised, you know, going into the car business by the second month I was there, I was their top salesperson, I sold like 30 cars in one month and got the biggest cash bonus you could get that time and I was on fire. So I was like, yeah, this is time for me to really start looking at the next insurance agency. I went to another brokerage American Pacific Insurance brokers at the time and they were small agency. Marketing oriented and they gave me a tiny tiny draw and said we've got these programs and we've got this and that and we'll give you this marketing support. Go. I read this book at that time called Insurance Commander. It's written by a guy named Baxter Dunbar and he talked about having a process, having, you know, doing a diagnostic risk questionnaire, having a process. And I followed this book to a T and it helped me just absolutely explode at that time. So I decided to focus on tree care companies at that time, just had the marketing support of that agency and I was a road warrior, I just wrote all kinds of business and had a great time, had great success with my process.

 

06:33

And then what I discovered at that time was. It was good to have a couple of areas of specialty At that time, it was meat distributors and processors and tree care companies and I had a, I could because me being a little bit ADD or a lot, my wife would tell you. So it made it, it was more interesting to have a couple of different markets to play with and have fun with and dominate and have you know, so you can really build out your process for each of those.

 

07:12

That agency got into financial trouble, ended up finding Ogilvy Hill Insurance, was a producer there and they provided equity in the book. I turned equity in the book into stock in the company, ended up becoming a third owner of the agency. Two brothers I had that were my partners, didn't get along that great and one left and I became the president of the agency. We sold to Hub, you know, almost 15 years ago now, and it's been a great success story working with Hub. It's just, it's the, you know we kind of have a moniker of you know, having a boundaryless agency and that's perfect for me because I'm able to extract resources to the benefit of our clients from all over the country and it's so fun and just great people. You know it's a people business and I love working with great insurance people that that love their clients and that's really been my focus.

 

08:22 - Brent Kelly

Yeah, fantastic. And as we get into stuff, I hope that the audience heard like, oh yeah, I started insurance and I got fired, because where you're at today is pretty incredible. And again, I don't know how much that you want to share, Mark, but I, you know, I've mentioned you build a substantial book of business, yeah, and you've talked about some of the failures already, or at least early on, the learnings you have and a couple. I'm going to ask this question maybe in two parts, or however you want to do it. First of all, I'd love for you if you want to share with the audience kind of what you've been able to grow into, because I think it would say a lot of people that I talked to earlier like, well, I don't know if this is going to be for me, I don't know if it's going our programs I mentioned.

 

09:04

Roger Sitkins talks about you and the mindset shift and the story of Grande Gringo, which is from your trips you had in Nicaragua and the fact that you've had some mindset shift changes. So hey, I guess, put these together. I'd love to hear kind of what you've grown to like, what it looks like today based on some of your past situations you just mentioned, and a little bit about the grande gringo story, because Roger talks about you guys having chicken wings, uh, and talking about life and business, and I want to get your perspective because I always hear Roger's side of it. I want to hear how true that is, um so share some of that, if you would Mark

 

09:36 - Mark Shipp

Sure, sure so. I, you know, I think that if I'll start with the grande gringo stories, gringo grande, um, okay, so you know, we were part of the Sitkins 100, Roger, put together with Mark Rollins, a group of interested agency owners that were part of the Sitkins 100, and what an amazing opportunity that was to give back to and, you know, really start there was, a start of becoming a global citizen and really understanding the plight of other cultures, other countries and just the people, and how absolutely awesome they were. Well, the average Nicaraguan is about 5’2”, and they see me walk in the door where I'm 6’7”, and they're like you know, they're bewildered and you know we're out here, we're, you know we're in 90 plus degree heat, with whatever humidity index was, and we're, you know, hand mixing concrete and throwing brick.

 

10:43

Well, we're throwing brick with these, you know Nicaraguans and I don't think they ever saw a gringo work that hard, you know, and I'm able to throw them, hand them bricks very high and they're like they were just amazed by all that and it was super fun and just really rewarding from the perspective of what kind of impact you have on the family. Your ticket to the game to go to this trip was to support the organization there at Bridges to Community in building one home. You'd build a home for this Nicaraguan family and it would provide them with shelter. That was hurricane proof for generations and keeps them out of the dirt, keeps them out of, you know, disease infested. You know areas and you know just some much more clean, clean living. So that was, that was extremely rewarding. And they came up with the name Grande Gringo for me, you know, and it was. I would go back there today and they would still remember me.

 

11:53 - Brent Kelly

Yeah, we, and just again, the audience won't know this, but we do our ProducerFit program, which is our sales training. The very first session, Roger opens with a story because it's about changing your thinking yes, and these clicks and he has a picture Mark of of you standing there with you know, a Nicaraguan child, I think, but you're the size difference of him on your shoulder and it's a really cool story. And so now I gotta ask the next part uh, did you guys actually have chicken wings somewhere and talk about your next click of business, and what does this sound like?

 

12:25 – Mark Shipp

So this, so this Roger story is two-faced so, I talked Roger into going fishing with me before one of our training camps and when we went fishing and I was just kind of about close to $900,000 in revenue in my book at the time, yeah, and I had some kind of like internal, like head trash about, well, what, when I get to the million, what am I giving up in my life? Will I still be able to have that balance? And blah blah, and I started having all this. You know, am I? Am I trading this for? You know, balance in my life? And yada, yada.

 

13:07

And you know, really it was just getting through the fear that you know the false evidence appearing real. You know, and once you take the borders off and your limitations off and you really focus on others and what you can do to make a difference to not only your agency but your clients, what is it that you can do to be a resource to them that they can't live without and then, understanding their business better than anyone, you're able to assist them, make those businesses better. If your focus is to make the business better, everything else changes. It's like you're connecting them with resources that are not insurance related. You're connecting them with things and the focus is about.

 

14:02

You know, when you have an industry like the tree care industry, my focus is very simple let's keep companies from killing people and to me that's very simple but very you know it's very impactful. Yeah, what can we do to make and I know the work, I've done a lot of it's. You can't, it's not measurable, but you know the work, a lot of work that I've done in supporting the industry in tree care has prevented that. You know different programs I've helped create with industry associations and different things. And it's what we say is our goal is to utilize both our internal and external resources for the improvement of your business and if we can't do that, there's no reason for you to talk with us.

 

14:59 - Brent Kelly

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's well said and it's interesting, you know, and when I would talk to very successful producers like yourself, Mark, and again, part of this is building multi-million dollar books of business, you know it's like, oh, and you talk to some people that are struggling, it's like, well, if I just do enough of this or this or this, and they get stuck, and there's part of that and what you're getting to is the mission, yes, the why behind it, the why, yes, like why does this matter? Because, well, if I make this connection and I want you to speak into this, not me but if I make this connection or this extra touch or build this relationship, I can help this person, this organization, to accomplish things and move them forward in places they couldn't without me.

 

15:46

Exactly, exactly, but back to the chicken wing, so the two-faced.

 

15:54 - Mark Shipp

So we're having chicken wings together in Fort Myers and we're having this conversation after fishing. One of the most memorable times over chicken wings is after we were there with our week. We're over this, you know, at this kind of palapa style restaurant and there was a whole group of agency owners and it's overlooking like the Nicaraguan volcano, and you would have thought we were in the Sahara Desert for a month. I mean the piles of chicken wings that we ate, I mean just absolutely so hilarious. And you know the 60 cent beers that we would have there and just I mean it was like it was such an amazing afternoon to kind of just like relax in this plaza style restaurant and gorge on chicken wings and beer. It was so fun.

 

16:50 - Brent Kelly

I mean, it was such a memorable time that's great, yeah, it's, it's funny I mean to hear that again your side of it, because Roger talks about it and just I mean the impact it had on him and obviously you know the multiple conversations but that one of, but I think you know you, you hit it and I I don't know if you agree with this or not, Mark. So I love you. You know multiple conversations but that one, but I think you know you hit it and I don't know if you agree with this or not. Mark, I think you've kind of said it in a different way.

 

17:11

I did a podcast a while back and the way I expressed it was it's not the thing, it's how and why you think about the thing, and meaning that the thing is important, that could be the action or the specific process. Those things is important, that could be the action or the specific process. Those things are important, but how and why do you think about it? Because that, ultimately, to me, is what's going to drive the behavior. Without that belief in it, you're going to get tired, frustrated, worn out, feel like it doesn't matter and, I think to your point, have a whole bunch of self-limiting beliefs or excuses of why either it didn't matter wasn't important any of that. So what's your take on that, Mark?

 

17:51 - Mark Shipp

Agree, I totally agree. I mean, I think, really what's really like having an agency like HUB has allowed me to think more globally and to act more globally for the organization and for myself. So, removing all borders, anything is possible. It's just it's having, it's a different model of servant leadership and really it's about serving the clients in a different way. It's not about selling them insurance. The focus is making a difference. And how can we do that with what we do? You know it's, and it's having a process really. So we have a very defined process that we utilize with our clients that help us to, you know, make the process easy for them and you know, being an industry expert, it's it really. You know, we're able to collaborate with clients in a completely unique and beneficial way.

 

19:03 - Brent Kelly

Yeah, that's fabulous, and you know we talked a little bit before we officially started recording, but I would like you to speak in this a little bit, if you would. You talked about high level producers and agencies and say you know, is it about money or is it about winning? Now, of course, winning can mean a multiple, multiple things, and every time it's like winning, winning. Yes, and you know we talked before and again part of this, and there's other producers that are in this, this boat too, that you know, at this point, writing another account is not going to change your life.

 

19:30 - Mark Shipp

No.

 

19:31 - Brent Kelly

But so let me ask you why do you do it today? Why are you still seeking and learning and asking and growing? What's, what's the mission and purpose behind what you do today, Mark?

 

19:43 - Mark Shipp

Well, it's about being of service of others. It's about looking at the legacy that I'll be leaving behind in the insurance industry one day. It's about a mission the mission of supporting reduction of catastrophic injuries and death, and then, just overall, it's impacting lives of people that you are doing business with and putting people in your consciousness that you want to make a difference with and just really focusing on them and it's, it's very rewarding and it's way beyond, you know, the financial piece.

 

20:30

It's just, it's really just hey, let's make a difference here and we have, we have a platform to do it and there's a little bit of nobility in our profession that says, hey, I know, the actions that we're leaning towards are preventing people from dying and those families being impacted. I know I saw an article just yesterday of a company that hired a brand new employee that was not trained. That ended up becoming a double amputee.

 

21:05

You know, and that's where you think about you know, hey, if I see the characteristics and the behaviors of a particular company that I think is going to kill somebody, I'm going to tell them flat out I'm not going to do business with you, I'm not, I'm sorry, you don't get a ticket to the game with that behavior. And really, the number one characteristic I look for with an organization that matches up well with us is how do they treat their employees. If the employees are happy, if the employees are going to pull the oars in the direction that they want to have happen cooperatively, they're going to perform better. They're going to embrace changes. They're going to do what's necessary to make that for them.

 

21:55

They don't have to have everything right, but they love their employees and their employees love them. That's the number one characteristic I see that makes them better.

 

22:08 - Brent Kelly

Yeah, it's. Yeah, I think it's. It's again so powerful and it's again. It's interesting to me, not surprising anymore. It probably used to be years ago. I'm like, oh, wasn't he focused on the next account in the next? Well, no, I'm focused on my mission and my purpose and I love the fact, like what you stated I think I forgot how you said it. Like it's the let's keep companies from killing each other.

 

22:29

No, let's keep companies from killing their employees.

 

Yeah. And part of that's like oh well, that seems pretty, you know, basic, it's super powerful, super impactful.

 

22:43 - Brent Kelly

And there's meaning and purpose behind it. So I think that there's so much to learn, uh, from from everybody myself and hearing that. What I'd like to go to next Mark is that I know that on your road to success and you continue to evolve in that there's probably been a challenge or two or a frustration along the way, so I'm not going to ask you list all of them, we'd be here for a while. I know you've got things going on, but if you would think about a top challenge or frustration, either you've dealt with in the past, maybe you're able to overcome it, or maybe you're dealing with it still today and you're still working through it. What jumps out at you? And again, obviously, the audience we have here. What could they learn from it?

 

23:20 - Mark Shipp

So, you know, we take the mindset that I've had about serving others, serving the industry itself, and then one of the things that has never happened before I launched this three years ago was a homogenous group captive for the tree care industry, for the tree care industry, and that that is something that really, uh, took dogged determination, over 20 years of trying. And, and what I'm saying is, if you have a purpose, if you have a passion and a direction and dogged determination, you don't give up. You can accomplish those things. And you know, now it's been in existence for almost three years it's a tree care specific captive called Ascend. It's the best insurance facility ever put together for the tree care industry and it's it's for the benefit of them and the industry itself. And so that's what I'm talking about is giving to them, giving them a platform to be able to achieve higher profits, to be able to achieve and really it was what kind of a side thing that I really didn't realize how powerful this was going to be.

 

24:49

But when we have the meetings, the information sharing, the togetherness, the camaraderie, the learning, the relationships that are being built because of this, and we get to have these meetings, you know, once a year with all of our clients in this group at one time. And it's so fun, it's great, it's rewarding for everybody. It's a, it's a dream come true. And that's really because of dogged determination and focus, because I knew it could, could happen and just needed to happen. The things that needed to happen were changes in attitudes from industry owners, mechanization and better safety records. That took a time to develop that, but you know we're having generational changes in ownership, different changes in ideas about how they treat their employees, and you know they're seeing better results than they ever have in that industry. Because of that, yeah.

 

25:50 - Brent Kelly

Yeah, there's going back. I mean there's certainly a tie into all of this and it's just back without a mission or purpose. And what really hits me is a mission and purpose about who.

 

26:01 - Mark Shipp

Not me.

 

26:02 - Brent Kelly

It's right, it's them, and this quote's been around forever and it's probably overused, but I love it from Zig Ziglar If you help enough people get what they want, you can have anything you want. Yes, and you know, I think I first heard that quote when I was, like you know, kind of starting my career. I'm like, oh yeah, that's cool.

 

My favorite Zig Ziglar, and I use it all the time. Is this your attitude, not your aptitude, that determines your altitude? Because we can get punched in the face every day in this business. It's a hard business, but if you're focused on the service of others and you are sharpening your craft, you understand. Always take into consideration how you are being perceived by the person on the other side of the Zoom meeting or the desk. How are you being perceived? And if you were talking to you, how would you perceive yourself? That, to me, is insight. That, to me, is I'm a CEO. What do they want to see from me and how do I calibrate myself to that? Understanding the psychology of a CEO or CFO. We talk about matching a mirror and we talk about understanding, but really it's I'm able to say, when we're being a former business owner, that hey, I understand what it's like to walk in your shoes and I don't want somebody to come here and sell me insurance. Really, my focus is about what can we do to make your business better, doing what we do, and how can I connect you with some. You know my internal and external resources to help you achieve that goal.

 

27:53 - Brent Kelly

Yeah, yeah, I mean the central theme comes back again I'm. Everything I'm doing, I'm creating, I'm building is all to serve someone else. Yes, and you know some people. That sounds basic, it is, but how many people do it right? And I think, there's so many lessons in that. I want to add one more thing. What you said hit me on from a leadership perspective. I heard this quote years back as well. It said leaders see more and before others, and part of a leader's job is to have that clarity and vision of I see it. I don't know, actually, how it's going to all work out yet, I don't know, but I see it. And you talked about 20 years of determination and persistence. My guess is you probably got kicked in the teeth or punched the mouth or whatever term you want to use. Yes, anytime, yes. So how did you? I mean a part of it might go back to your mission and purpose, but what? What helps you persevere through that, because most people do quit.

 

28:54 - Mark Shipp

Well, it's just knowing that that's, that's a temporary obstacle, and that if you really believe in what you're doing, it pushes you beyond that.

 

29:05

I mean, if you look at any kind of and what I categorize it as research and development, if you can, if you can categorize it as research and development, and it's like, oh well, and then you take a backwards look at what did I learn from that failure? What can I use from that failure to make it better the next time? But that's what research and development is. It's a series of failure after failure, after failure, after failure after failure, until you get to the success.

 

29:41 - Brent Kelly

Yeah, I hope those that were listening, that weren't driving, wrote that down, because there is such power in that Mark of the difference of and I'll use my terminology here I made a mistake and my people go oh, I suck, I'm not very good, this will work versus wow, what a great learning experience yes, wow, and I heard go ahead when you turn it into the learning experience it takes.

 

30:09 - Mark Shipp

It takes a negative and makes it a positive yeah.

 

30:15 - Brent Kelly

I said this to an earlier call with someone. I said I remember I forgot who said it. Like you know, some people see me today after all these years and they go wow, this is the guy standing on top of the mountaintop. Because if they only knew this entire mountain was cut was basically poo. That's what it is. I just decided to stand on top of it instead of get inside of it.

That's the only way I just kept climbing out of it Right, and it does go back to your attitude.

 

30:39 - Brent Kelly

That all comes back to attitude and beliefs. Yeah, one of the things, because I want to get this next kind of some of the learnings that you got from Roger and the Sitkins experience and mission of the 100. But one thing Roger always talks about, we talk about as a team it's beliefs, behaviors, results, and a lot of people talk about this is the result I want? Great, okay. What are the behaviors? I'll do this and this, okay, but what do you believe about those behaviors? Because if you don't believe in them we said this earlier you'll probably up and quit or find something else or find a reason to, you know, be discouraged in some way. Right, so, all right. So I want to ask you how long have you known Roger officially, then, because I go back to some of your trips to Nicaragua.

 

31:22 - Mark Shipp

It's been like 25 years, if not longer.

 

31:24 - Brent Kelly

Yeah, okay, so 25 years and obviously you know just being associated. You know I've been with Sitkins for seven years, so you know it way longer and more than myself. Seven years, so you know it way longer and more than myself. But I'm always interested and curious from your perspective. What have been some of the biggest principles or maybe it's a strategy, or maybe it's a mindset that Roger or the Sitkins 100, the Sitkins process has taught you over the years?

 

31:46 - Mark Shipp

So it's really about having way. So to me it was how to cultivate business and really utilizing the consistency for business cultivation. That was much more in keeping with a professional mindset and that to me and having the previous knowledge that I had from reading and adopting the book the Insurance Commander, it gave me kind of the insight. The book the Insurance Commander, it gave me kind of the insight and I was ready to have you know something like that for you know, for me and our agency. So when I became a partner at Ogilvy Hill, we needed some kind of you know, a track to run on that was very succinct and specific and was focused on growth and retention and all those things that we talk about. And it was a perfect plug and play for us as an ownership group at the time to set us in a strategic direction that really worked for my principles, for their principles, and made us kind of made us better and having the group that we had to to make friends with and to share ideas. And you know it's very similar to that thing I talked about with you know the group captive and its really you know the group captive and it's it's it's really about you know sharing. I mean, I, you know, made so many great friends, uh, through the sickens 100 that that was absolutely amazing and but really it's, it's having a defined process, it's having, you know, having look being different.

 

33:33

You know who wants to look the same as every other insurance shill. It's trying to sell insurance and really, if we're focused on really you know used to call it the risk reduction approach we had a. The risk reduction approach was a, a selling tool. That was basically what we call the set offense. You know that that's morphed and changed over time, but having a set offense, you know that was really key and critical. And then really focusing on what's your role, what's your role in your agency, what's your role in the development of new business and retaining business, development and of new business and retaining business and making sure that there's a line between sales and service, because how many people get stuck in the service trap? They don't have an understanding and it simply it was the greatest thing to come back to the agency after we talk about doing takeoffs, landings and in-flight emergencies.

 

34:35

You know that's what I'm doing and like what is that? Well, you know, let's figure that, let's figure out exactly what that is, and having that attitude and then really it, all of those things together just have really made a huge difference on my career and I wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for Roger.

 

35:02 - Brent Kelly

Yeah, well, he speaks obviously so highly of you and just from this discussion I was talking before we started recording. I'm like I feel like I know you but I don't, and obviously everything you're saying here resonates right with the beliefs and the things that you're doing. And yeah, I mean to's that offense. It's interesting. However, that's executed. I use a lot of sports analogies, probably way too many. But yeah, you can go out there to the court or the field and be like, yay, we're going to be great and I'm so excited, like, where are we doing? Just do your best, yeah, and you know, by the way, you know this, could you get away with that a little bit? Sure, sure. It's just really hard to repeat and replicate and continue to grow upon it Exactly.

 

35:46

It's like I've got to win here, win here, win here. And I think, too, you talked a little bit about the idea of this high-performance team or sales or service, and you know there's so much of that that we see, still, I mean in the industry of yeah, I can do everything, and you said the word knowing your role, can you speak into that a little bit? Because I think some people still struggle with that, like, well, shouldn't I still be doing more of this and more of this and more of this, because I can hang on, but what have you learned? I mean so I still grapple with it. It's, but you know it's something that where you're checking yourself about what it is you're doing on a daily basis and really where's the impact that you can have on your clients and your team by focusing on your unique abilities and, put it, having people around you that have different unique abilities to support you where you're not strong.

 

36:44

Yeah, and to me, I'd rather be my, have my heads up in the cloud, thinking about what's the next big problem I'm going to solve yeah and if, if I can do that, it gives me that you know satisfaction, that gives me that you know real, you know enjoyment of this business I'm gonna get what do you get drawn down into tactical little things. It's like Roger goes it's an energy sucker. You know how many times has he and Roger do that. You know, take away the energy suckers and actually feed yourself with those activities that you know you're really great at and it's not service for me, you know so, having great people around me that are focused towards you know serving our clients, making it a great experience for them, it always, you know, everything works well.

 

37:43 - Brent Kelly

And you know you say heads up in the clouds and thinking, like part of that is you're thinking and devising big picture solutions on some things that are critically important to these businesses. Right, and part of that is because you freed yourself up my last silly sports analogy I used too much. I said you know, I've never seen, at least so far on a football team, where the person snaps the ball to themselves and then drops back and throws it down the field and runs and tries to catch it themselves. Right, and could you do it? Well, I don't know, maybe I don't know I could try it, but there's a reason. There are specific roles and there are people that are really good at football. You got these big offensive linemen, like they're really good at that, and you've got skilled people that are really good at that. And guess what? We're all accomplishing the same goal let's get to the end zone, but very unique in how we do things and very effective and efficient versus I'll just figure it all out, right, yeah which can be really really, really difficult.

 

38:38

All right, Mark, I have one final official question and anything you want to add. All right, my favorite question I ask every guest on the podcast and I don't know how far you want to go back. It's up to you whether you start your career or, at some point, your younger version of you. Okay, so we can go back to the beginning, but you can tell me if there's a certain spot that you like better but the beginning of your professional career. You're walking down the street today and you happen to bump in to the younger Mark Shipp. He was just kind of getting started in this career path and he looks at you today and says, okay, I've only got 30 seconds, you've been through this. Can you give me one piece of advice that would be most impactful for me today? What would you say?

 

39:29 - Mark Shipp

I would say don't be focused on the commission, focus on them. Everything else will come. Come to you and if you've, even if you, you know you're not going to pay your grocery bill this month, if they smell you needing the account, you're going to act in a way that's not in accordance with what you need to accomplish. Like you know, selling a client on cheap price.

You know, whatever the, the focus needs to be different and if I'd learned that sooner, it would have been very helpful.

 

I love that and I could I get so many variety of answers that there's probably more than one, but I I love that. I just wrote down like no matter what, do what's best for them.

 

Yes, and this is something that I learned from my mother on the first day I was in commercial insurance she said, Mark, you always do what's best for your clients, even in spite of them sometimes.

 

40:48 - Brent Kelly

Oh, good one. That's fantastic.

 

40:51 - Mark Shipp

If you lose a client because you know you were doing the right thing for them. So be it. You can sleep at night.

 

41:01 - Brent Kelly

Right, right and somehow the universe works for typically that also lends a success.

 

41:08 - Mark Shipp

Somehow, I don't know.

 

41:12 - Brent Kelly

Just do the right thing. Yes, the people that you care and serve right novel concept.

 

41:17

I'm glad I see we got through 45 minutes to get to that point, but it's true and it's so powerful and I think it dig it. It sets example to have a conversation with someone like yourself that's been through that had success, to come back to go hey, don't, don't complicate the simple right, don't complicate the simple well, before we depart, we depart. This is up to you, Mark. I'll leave this open. Anything goes, anything you want to add to the audience or want to share before we officially depart on this episode.

 

41:44 - Mark Shipp

So I talk about specialization and I've got you know a couple of different areas and there's a reason why you don't want to focus just on one thing. I would suggest focusing on two. Two, disparate markets, because you can have down cycles in revenue generating activities, like when we had the market turned down, the construction industry just kind of went away and then we had people that were focused in construction that basically lost all their income. So you need to have kind of a look at your book of business in a way where you've done a little dollar cost averaging yourself and the focus is to me I've got three different pots, I've got three carat, I've got casinos and I have what I call custom accounts. Custom accounts are anything I want to write that fits the behavior model that I want to do business with.

 

42:43 - Brent Kelly

Yeah.

 

42:44 - Mark Shipp

And I would say you know, what is it that you can't do, Mark? And it is nothing. I can do anything. Give me, give me an insurance problem, I'll solve it. That's that it takes longer to do. It's not the same as doing tree-care, casinos, but it keeps my insurance noodle wet, it keeps us sharp with the whole Marketplace and it's fun to see how we're going to do that.

 

But it really is having a couple of different areas, so that you're making yourself risk averse, yeah, so that's fantastic advice and it really reaffirms even something I heard from a very successful broker a few years back. Maybe you could comment on this briefly, but it doesn't have to be this exact, but he said a very similar thing. He said you know, what we try to build isn't as perfect. As I love to have 40% in niche 1A, 30% in niche 1B and 30% in what I call general accounts, which means I just run because I want to Exactly, that's the same thing.

 

43:49

Yeah, and I was like that's really interesting. He goes yeah, because I think it's important to have a focus, but you can have some fun while you're doing it, so you hit that perfect.

Well, Mark, again, thanks so much for being on this. This was great. I took a ton of notes. I know leaders, producers, anybody in this profession can get so much out of what you just said. Out of what you just said, and although so many things would be considered I'm putting in quotes here, by the way basic, they're incredibly deep and powerful and I think it's been obviously the catalyst to your success. So thanks so much for coming on and sharing that today.

 

44:25 - Mark Shipp

You're welcome. Thanks for having me.