Deliberate Growth with Bradley Rutt

Brent Kelly:

Welcome to the Agent Leader Podcast. My name is Brent Kelly, your host. Thanks so much for listening and joining us for this episode. I have an incredible guest with me today. Someone who is... He's smiling at me as I said that, because he's incredible, is a powerful world's word. So now he's got a lot of pressure on him, but I've got Brad Rutt who is a P&C Producer with HUB International. I'll let Brad in a minute or two share his background, his story, and be able to talk with Brad about some of his experiences, good, bad, ugly, the whole deal, and how he's had some of these great successes. So have your pen and paper or pencil and paper or whatever you're writing with, ready, because I know Brad's going to share some great wisdom today that you can take with you and use.

Brent Kelly:

As always the purpose of the Agent Leader Podcast is to help you, the agency leader, whether you're a principal, whether you're a producer, whether you're a sales leader, if you have influence, you are a leader, to help you gain clarity, to help you build consistency and to help you make a commitment to become your best version possible. I know Brad can see behind me and some of the people that watched on video can see me. I have our book, which by the way, you can get, entitled Best Version Possible. We'll put it in the show notes as well, but if you go to sitkins.com/bvp, you can get a copy of that for yourself. I'd love for you to take a look at it and share it.

Brent Kelly:

We're always looking to grow this podcast and our message to help agencies like yours. And last note, before we get into Brad is, we have a great sponsor for this podcast, Rough Notes Company. They are publishers of the insurance industry's leading magazine and technical insurance content. Rough Notes Magazine profile successful agencies plus keen insights from respected experts on a host of must-know topics. And there's Rough Notes Advantage-Plus which provides the tools to help your agency grow providing authoritative information on complex coverage issues. So go to roughnotes.com to learn more about them and their services. Great sponsor with us here on the Agent Leader Podcast. So, Brad, I hyped you up a little bit. Are you-

Brad Rutt:

Maybe too much.

Brent Kelly:

Are you-

Brad Rutt:

No. Thank you. I feel ready. Let's do it.

Brent Kelly:

Are you ready for this pressure packed? I told Brad we're having a cup of coffee and then I hyped him up, so now I got to put the pressure on. Yeah, we've got Brad Rutt. Again, he's a P&C producer with HUB. And by the way, he told me right before we started recording, he's also an attorney. So I got to hear this. You've got 16 years in the insurance industry, right Brad? Is that what you told me? Correct?

Brad Rutt:

16 years, man. But, you know, you slip and fall in a restaurant, give me a call. Maybe I'm your guy. We'll see where I'm admitted to practice.

Brent Kelly:

All right. So give me your background, your history, but now you got to include the attorney part. I think we got to hear this one.

Brad Rutt:

Yeah. And it was kind of a strange experience. I graduated college in 2004, so you could figure out how old I am. 39, almost-40 years-old. I had a great time in college. President of my fraternity, all this kind of stuff, big football school. I really enjoyed it. I think my parents saw me and they're like, "This guy's way too frat-guyed out. What is going on with him?" My mother is very quickly, "He needs to learn the value of a dollar." And my father was like, "He needs an advanced degree." And I'm a child of divorced parents and unfortunately there's those rare occasions where your parents actually line up on something. That's the worst thing that can happen to you. So my parents lined up on this idea of, "Encourage him very heavily to go to law school, but you're going to go to law school at night. You're going to get a job during the day, and then you're going to go to law school every night."

Brad Rutt:

So where normal law school's three years, I was in a night program that was four years. So I'd finish my work at our family's insurance agency. My mom's been in the business for, honestly, 38 years. Ran a very successful agency focusing on real estate and then high value P&C here in the greater Los Angeles area, but certainly with some national exposure. Eventually we were acquired by HUB and I was part of the ownership group there. But long story short, I worked at the agency during the day and law school at night, and at the agency, I mean, whatever the worst jobs were, I did them. This was not the proverbial owner-son kind of mentality where I was going to get the corner office and nap all day. It was like, "Hey, we need 10,000 envelopes stuffed. You look like you're free. Have at it, boss."

Brad Rutt:

And that's what I did. And so, as you're stuffing envelopes, I'm like, "I'm never going to be in insurance. I'm going to go be an attorney." And I got to law school and very quickly I was like, "Oh, my God, actually I'd rather stuff envelopes." The attorney game wasn't for me. And as I progressed in my legal career I saw my friends go off to internships at various law firms and after we graduated saw what they were doing. And I wasn't interested in standing by a Xerox machine watching people make copies for a hundred bucks an hour and sort of having billable time. The legal background has really served me well in insurance, right? Contracts, conceptually advice, policies here in California employee practices liability, and some of the spaces that I focus in D&O becomes hugely important.

Brad Rutt:

But long story short, through law school I knew I didn't want to be an attorney, but I gained this appreciation for insurance, and what I really liked about insurance the most was being able to meet new people and spend time with my friends. I mean, fundamentally, every person, or most 99% of people are going to have some sort of insurance need, right? And when I'm explaining to people what my value proposition is, if you're sitting in a restaurant, look at that restaurant, the restaurant itself needs insurance, P&C, health insurance comp, EPLI and all that stuff. But look at all the people in that restaurant. Most of the people drove there, in LA certainly. We don't have public transportation or we have very little public transportation.

Brad Rutt:

Those are all potential customers. There's 1,000, $2,000 pop. And I enjoyed that. They had me doing some account service work, and so I spent some time on a desk managing a book, but very quickly they realized I was terrible at it. My ADD was way too fire, and just sitting in a computer screen wasn't for me. And they just said, "You're not adding a ton of value as an account manager. You're like a C+ account manager, but for whatever reason people tend to like you." And then I was swiftly kicked out the door into being a producer and tried to figure it out on my own. I was at an agency with a principal and my mom who was naturally good at sales and had a really honed sales and value proposition, but not one that I understood at the time.

Brad Rutt:

I didn't understand what made her successful, and I'm not sure that... She did, but she was very successful. So no formal sales training. So I slogged along for a long time and I was making plenty of money, right? Because you could make plenty of money being fairly mediocre in insurance. And I thought, I was like, "This is great." And you're in your 20s, early 30s and making a lot of money, but I got to HUB and I was a small fish in a very large pond. Some of the numbers and some of the quality of the talent in this organization, it's humbling. And I'm a competitive person. I wanted to be up at the top with my peers, with my mentors, and I needed to figure out how to do that.

Brad Rutt:

So I was really lucky to get introduced to, I think at the time, Roger, when we were still doing things in person, and Roger came out, did a multiday sales acceleration for a very large group of producers. And it was the first time in my career where I saw things laid out very clearly for me on how to accomplish my goals, right? Here are the steps. Here are the concepts. And at the time I was like, "Okay, I'm going to write all these concepts down and I'm going to master them all very quickly, and this is my key to greatness." And what I did is I got 10% better at 15 different concepts. I didn't master a single thing. I still keep my Sitkins binder from that first day, now three-and-a-half years ago. It's on my desk. It lives. It's got a hallowed place.

Brad Rutt:

I can see it right now, and it lives here and it lives here for a reason, to be a reminder. So, over the course of the last three years I've been fortunate to engage in more Sitkins classes. I got to meet Brent and got to continue along the way. And the one thing that's been the most important thing, or the greatest realization that I've had, and it only took me three years is, right now I'm really focusing on a couple of concepts and I want to give those a 100%, right? When those concepts become part of my routine, when I am consistent in these few concepts and it becomes rote, then maybe I can open myself up to more concepts or more principles.

Brent Kelly:

Yeah. There's a lot of layers in that, Brad. There's few things I want to-

Brad Rutt:

I'm a layer cake.

Brent Kelly:

Well, that's all right. I love it. First of all, I'm smiling now. I didn't hear the attorney story before from you. So I'm thinking about frat guy who goes to attorney who goes to insurance office, and now of course I want to hear more about your specialty, which is in the cannabis industry. And now you're kind of back to the... Different version of the frat boy, maybe, right? From a different perspective, I say tongue-in-cheek. But it's really an interesting walk that you had, and it is refreshing, too, to hear Brad the fact that it was a family agency, but you didn't get the corner office stuff, right? There was stuff that you had to do in there. I wrote this down, because you probably heard this in our trainings before, but if you have someone who's an account manager who either doesn't like it or doesn't do a very good job and they make mistakes all the time, what do you do? You probably fire them-

Brad Rutt:

Make him a producer.

Brent Kelly:

... or make them a producer, right? You're already there so you might as well be the producer. This is what I love to do. So, you did mention stuff out here that I want to ask you, because obviously being part of HUB and that great team there, and how many, as you mentioned, there's a lot of top talent there, right? Also, you're part of our Elite 50 Sales Mastery program. And it reminded me a little bit of, I call it the small town syndrome that I have, at least personally, which, I grew up in a small town and I was a pretty "good athlete" in a small town, right?

Brad Rutt:

Yeah. Saw where this was going.

Brent Kelly:

Look at this guy. Look at me. And then all of a sudden you show up to a bigger school, bigger environment and you go, "Oh, oh, oh, oh, I see. I see the light. Maybe I wasn't so good." So, here's a question on this and I just find it interesting. As you moved into, as you said, "You're a small fish, big pond," as you moved into that environment and saw that, what was your mentality around it? How did you approach that? What jumped out at you in that aspect?

Brad Rutt:

So, outwardly confident, put my suit and tie on, showed up at the sales meeting but probably inwardly intimidated. And this is probably true of producers at HUB and all over the insurance base. You don't actually know who's a big producer and who's not. There's a lot of big personalities. You're like, "Oh, my God, you're probably the biggest producer ever," and it turns out no, no, that wasn't the case. But outwardly I was like, "Wow, I'm in the big leagues now." And then you start to figure it out. HUB is tremendous from a resource standpoint, but like we've talked about before, we have every resource but there's still plenty of challenges. Same challenges that I think a lot of people have in the insurance space.

Brad Rutt:

I hate the word luck, but I was fortunate to get into a specialty. I was fortunate to see the cannabis insurance space grow dramatically, pardon the pun, as much as we saw some of these companies grow dramatically. And to now having been in this space six plus, if not seven years, to gain an expertise. And ironically enough, as HUB was looking at purchasing our agency, our cannabis specialty was something, or my cannabis specialty rather, was something that they were interested in. HUB had a practice in its infancy with a focus, or at least a realization that there were real needs for companies in this space. Still not a day goes by where somebody at HUB doesn't say, "Do all your clients pay you in cash?"

Brad Rutt:

And I was like, "No, nobody pays me in cash. I get wires from banks like any other normal insurance person, and my clients come from big four, big five accounting firms and hyper pedigreed and very, very intelligent buyers and intelligent people." But being part of an industry that is accelerating and there's a lot of activity, it lined up for where I was in my career at HUB and where I was in my insurance career, and we've been hand-in-hand as this industry continues to grow or this cannabis specialty continues to grow.

Brent Kelly:

Yeah, and there was that, and even I kind of did, there's that, "Hardy-har, cannabis, what are you doing and what's going on there?" But it's extremely sophisticated in a lot of different ways and you know this stuff. And again, I guess you can comment on that either way, but I'm curious, too. There's a lot of people that listen. I think this is where you could be really helpful, Brad, to the audience. You talked about how it worked out for you. We all know the importance of specializing by owning a market, by really understanding the business inside and out. How have you approached that? And I guess I'm curious, too, where do you see the competitive advantages that you have in truly being a specialist in the space?

Brad Rutt:

Yeah. I think for us there's a lot of new insurance products being launched in the cannabis space, and I think if I weren't a specialist spending 99% of my time doing this, maybe you miss a new product or you don't know what is going on in your space. Being a specialist also has helped us, or at least helped me, create products where they haven't existed because I think the carriers take us seriously, or take me seriously, rather. When I can say to them, "Look, I found a bottleneck. I need you to solve for this bottleneck. The person who solves for this bottleneck or the carrier that solves for this bottleneck, the program that solves for this bottleneck, is the one who's going to get not only my business, but probably everybody's business in the cannabis insurance space."

Brad Rutt:

And being able to have those conversations as someone who lives in this and being a top trading partner for at least the majority of the cannabis markets out there, the credibility that being a specialist has offered me is hyper important. I mean it sounds a little bit cliche, but I mean if you get enough of one kind of business, or you control a large enough segment of the market or enough market share, one of our key differentiators is that at this point we can actually move the market. And I don't know, if I were writing restaurants, I could never say that.

Brad Rutt:

I could never move nationwide in their rates, but given our market share in the cloud, we can literally say like, "Hey, we're seeing rates and we're going to push rates in this direction." And we do so reasonably and circumspect about how I approach the carriers. We're not trying to burn anyone, but we're trying to tell good stories and push the rates to where we feel like they need to be. And it works the majority of the time, not always. Sometimes we're like, "Dude, we're not giving... You're not getting insurance like that. You're not getting that coverage."

Brent Kelly:

All you can do is ask, right?

Brad Rutt:

All you can do is ask. And I mean, most of the time if we're trying to move the market or if we're trying to price something, we've got a pretty gosh-darn good reason for it about why we think something deserves, and having those conversations has been awesome. So, to directly answer your question, the fluency in the material is everything, right? And it's not just about the insurance. It's about what is actually going on in the global cannabis space, or the macro cannabis space, or the US cannabis space, and being able to have conversations. I said this to a client. I was presenting right before you and I jumped on today, and I said, "Look, part of my job is insurance, but probably a larger part of my job is problem-solving. So if you have problems that you can't solve, come to me. And it's not because I'm that smart. I'm not. It's because somebody else has had that problem and told me how they solved it, because I like people and I like talking to people."

Brad Rutt:

So what do you know? And I said this to a client, "Whatever I can do to help, you can't get a mortgage because it says you're in the cannabis base and Chase won't lend to you, give me a call. I'll connect you with whoever at the end of the CFO down the road used to do something." Can't get a bank account, you get kicked off of Mailchimp, you get kicked off of, name this platform, because of your affiliation in the cannabis space. "Give a call and I'll go through my network and let's see if we can all solve problems together, because we all face countless problems."

Brent Kelly:

Okay. So I'm just sitting here listening to you say that, and I just have to smile. I mean, it's just so cool because, just as you said that, what you basically said without saying is that my approach isn't to sell people insurance. My goal is just to listen to them with an open ear and solve their problems.

Brad Rutt:

I mean, I think you got it, and at least for what I'm doing right now, 10% of my time is focused selling insurance to clients. 90% of my time is actually spent selling my clients to insurance carriers.

Brent Kelly:

Oh, write that down people. That's good. I mean, listen-

Brad Rutt:

This is the truth.

Brent Kelly:

... now part of this, and you share what you want to share, but I have a pretty good idea what you accomplished just in one year, and if you want to share where you're at, I think it provides perspective because people, as you said, before, "Oh, I'm out there killing it." Would you like to share what you wrote in new revenue last year, Brad?

Brad Rutt:

Yeah. I had a seven figure new revenue year last year and great sales, great teamwork, great innovation. A lot of that was stuff that had never been done before. Had a couple of things where a competitor will take a second look, and I think the upper echelon of competitors, I could do a separate podcast about that. But the upper echelon of our competitors has looked at the work and said, "I didn't even know you could do that. Never seen that before. That's awesome." Right? And I mean, you hope that your competitor... That's what I would do if I saw something. But, yeah, the innovation has been really, really important about what we're trying to accomplish for our clients.

Brent Kelly:

Yeah. And for some people, like, "What? Seven figures in a year?" I mean, let's face it. I mean, there's a lot of people that'd be an incredible career. And, yes, you're with a great agency. Yes, you're in LA, right? Bigger market, all that stuff. But it's just amazing what, when people get committed to something and they go deeper. Like what you said earlier, I love that, even to go back to one of the first things you said it was about your goal was just find a few areas and go deep. Get focused on those, versus, "I got to know everything for everybody all the time for anyone." And I think, obviously, the numbers certainly are proving that that's a good path for you, and certainly for-

Brad Rutt:

Well, I would even... Most of my clients aren't in LA. I happen to live in LA because I live in LA, but that's actually not where I'm finding business. I could be anywhere at this point. It just happened to be in LA. As long as I'm close enough to an airport, I think it works out. But, yeah, I'm in a good market, but I think really what it's about is the team around me, the mentors within our organization. I'm a medium fish in a big pond at this point, and still have a lot of room to grow, to hone my craft and to be able to best serve my clients.

Brent Kelly:

Yeah. I mean, and I'm glad you mentioned that because it's one of those things where, it doesn't mean your clients are there. But I just... People are going to listen. I'm just telling you, Brad, they're going to go, "Well, yeah, but he's out in LA." It's like, "That's not really the reason why he's having success. Yes. He happens to be there." So I'm glad that you shared that.

Brad Rutt:

I know. And you know what's even worse, because I'm really tough on myself? I look at the opportunities I didn't get because that's a number that I track for revenue, and I don't know Brent if you were there, but I told the story to Roger about the meeting where I don't know what went wrong, but I did everything that you're not supposed to do in Sitkins, I did in one single meeting and it was like-

Brent Kelly:

You've shared this before.

Brad Rutt:

... I wish you could see a recording of this.

Brent Kelly:

Yeah. Yeah.

Brad Rutt:

It's my favorite story. I don't know what happened. I went in, I felt decently prepared and I went into this tall office in the Midwest and walked into this thing and I was ready for this. I was ready. I had my approach dialed in and the client asked me a question. It was such a good question that she asked me, and it was one of my hot button issues. She asked me this question and I ranted for 45 minutes. I just did. No breaks, no questions, no nothing. I took a sip of water because my mouth got dry, and for 45 minutes I ranted.

Brad Rutt:

And it was just, yeah, shocked, we didn't pick that one up. Don't know why, but those are the ones that stick with me. And I remember after that meeting calling Roger and being like, "I need training. Please help me." And just saying like, "Hey, that's a great example of what I'm never going to do again," albeit an expensive lesson on what was probably like four or 500,000 revenue account, but things I'm never going to do again.

Brent Kelly:

Well, lessons there, Brad. I mean, number one is, just again, to me it's... And you don't see it because you're in the middle of it and this is who you are, but for many people, if you had that amount of success, they'd be like, "I'm pretty good. I'm good." And you're here tracking the revenue you didn't write and you're continually going, "What else can I do? What else should I have done? Why didn't I do that?" And now, see, I get the opportunity to work with a number of producers and I'll just be very transparent here. The most successful producers say less than some of the less successful producers, right?

Brent Kelly:

And they apply more to the trainings, or at least focus and go deeper wherever... The ones that struggle go, "Yeah, I know that. I'm fine." And so the bottom line is, are you coachable, right? And are you willing to learn? And listen, you're extremely coachable. This is fun conversation, but I can go longer, but I want to be respectful of your time. You've shared some successes of what you've had in your niche. Anything else you want to share, feel free to do that. You've also just shared one of your failures, which is actually one of my favorites. I think you shared that in one of our Sales Mastery programs or something.

Brad Rutt:

Yeah, I might have. I mean, it was so epic. It was such an epic fail and it keeps me humble and it keeps me wanting to learn and it keeps me kind of not just... I don't come back to Sitkins once. I'm doing sales acceleration right now while I do sales mastery, and then I think I'm in a third class all at the same time. And the reason... Somebody asked me and I think Roger asked yesterday is like, "Why are you doing this again?" And it's like, "I still have so much to learn, and not even to learn. I have so much to practice," right? Practice.

Brad Rutt:

And I remember one time where committing to Sales Mastery, I was thinking to myself, "Oh, I don't have the time for this. I can't really do this. I can't really squeeze it in." And that was my aha moment when I was like, "I don't have enough time for this training. That's when you really need sales training, because you're not prioritizing things correctly." Okay? And then it was like, "Yeah, I'm going to wake up because y'all start your sales meetings for me at 5:00 AM. Not cool bro. Not a morning dog." But-

Brent Kelly:

That was just one time, sort of.

Brad Rutt:

Those were long days.

Brent Kelly:

Yeah. You had your coffee. Well, I mean, listen-

Brad Rutt:

I had my coffee.

Brent Kelly:

You said, it is, and Rogers says it all the time and I agree. It's like, really? Because people say, "Well, I'm awfully busy." It's like, are you too busy to get better? And now again, if you believe that, in essence, this isn't just about our stuff, but we believe in our stuff. But regardless, if you're at that point where... And Roger's alluded to this in some of our programs as well, it's like you're out having a match of golf or whatever, and someone's all of a sudden really good. It's like, "Well, I've been taking lessons." It's like, "What? You've been practicing? That's not fair."

Brad Rutt:

Yeah. Shocking.

Brent Kelly:

Right? And it's like, "Yeah, I have been." So, again, kudos to you for that, because again, I mean, to me, Brad, one of the biggest things we see with success is it leads to complacency and that's certainly not happening with you, and I don't see any point of that ever slowing down. Like, you're not going to be done.

Brad Rutt:

No. And I also, again, I look in our organization and we're on teams or whatever at HUB and you can see our most successful people are online. They're working. They are not just sitting around doing nothing. No, you got to have drive, right? You owe it to your HPT, you owe it to yourself, you owe it to your family. Hard work is really important, and you're right, complacency is extremely dangerous.

Brent Kelly:

Right. I've written articles and speeches. I believe it's the most toxic word in insurance, complacency, because-

Brent Kelly:

Yeah. It's easy, too.

Brent Kelly:

Well, yeah. And as you said at the beginning, you don't have to do a lot to still make decent money.

Brad Rutt:

A lot.

Brent Kelly:

All right.

Brad Rutt:

Yeah.

Brent Kelly:

Pretty good. So, all right. I have two more questions. Is that all right?

Brad Rutt:

Okay. Yep. You're good, man. I have plenty of time.

Brent Kelly:

One question is deep or I think really impactful. The other one has nothing that we've done to prepare for, but I've been looking at this over your shoulder and I have to know the story behind it. So-

Brad Rutt:

Okay.

Brent Kelly:

... we'll get to the meaningful question first, and I ask this to every guest I have on. So, let's say that you're having a conversation with the young Brad Rutt, right? Someone who's just getting their feet wet, just getting started. Maybe decided at this point they don't want to be the attorney thing, they wanted to be the insurance thing. So, 16 years ago. Something like that, right? And this young Brad Rutt is looking up at today's Brad Rutt and says, "Hey, future me. If you could give me one piece of advice as I start moving forward, what would you tell me?"

Brad Rutt:

Yeah, I think the number one thing is be deliberate, and as a corollary to that, be patient. When I was kicked out of the account manager role into production, I just was running around at a million miles an hour, trying to take any meeting I could take, driving across the city, wasting my time, probably wasting the staff's time, wasting my carriers time. And I had this fire. I thought that's what you were supposed to be, and I'm like, "I'm not lazy. Look at me. I'll drive this far. I'll drive this far," on some really dicey accounts or accounts that were unwinnable or accounts that you get it once, you lose it the next year. Win by price, lose by price, right? And if I had a better kind of infrastructure, or if I had a better sales plan, I really would've spent my time developing my network, right, and realizing that I'm not going to make a million dollars in day one.

Brad Rutt:

I'm sure there's stories in insurance about the guy who starts insurance and hits the ball out of the park guy, girl. But, yeah, I wish I had just been a little bit slower about it, kind of nurture things. Have lunches, have breakfast, spending quality time with people, having them get to know me before I started the big pitch for insurance. And I will say that most of the successes I had early on in my career came from people who'd known me for a long time. I should have taken the time to have people get to know me, centers of influence. That's where my effort should have been. The other thing I would say is I wished, and I had this opportunity through another producer at our family agency who's also now joined HUB and remains one of my mentors and is probably one of HUB's most successful producers.

Brad Rutt:

But being on somebody's team and seeing how somebody else does it and being patient and be willing to put that work in because he invested his time in me and showed me kind of the ropes of how he sold. Our approaches aren't the same. They're really not. But having that time to see how somebody else did it, getting exposure to bigger accounts because he was at a different place in his career. That is so helpful. So to the younger Brad, spend 40% of your time, 30% of your time being deliberate and nurturing your relationships that will at one point flower.

Brad Rutt:

And I mean, you also say this. I'm almost 40-years-old, but I look like I'm 12 and I still can't buy a lotto ticket. People want to see some maturity and sometimes that takes a while to develop, but the time getting to mentor under someone, that has resulted in the success that I'm having today. And so, if you can have that patience and if you can be deliberate, and I wish I did because I'd probably be further ahead than I am today.

Brent Kelly:

That's really powerful stuff. I mean a lot of great stuff. It's interesting, too, just because you put... It's almost two ends, but I know exactly what you mean. Be deliberate yet be patient. That's a challenge, right? But it makes so much sense in what you have. And I know in my life, too, Brad, I mean mentors have meant the world to me. I'm also jealous of you, though, because you're about 40. I'm 44 and I was told when I started that if I got some gray hairs I'd be more successful, and I have achieved many, many, many gray hairs, but you do look like you're 23-years-old and I'm-

Brad Rutt:

Yeah.

Brent Kelly:

... I'm a bit jealous, honestly. It's a good thing. So congratulations on whatever it is you're doing. It's working.

Brad Rutt:

I appreciate it. I appreciate it. It's the beautiful California weather.

Brent Kelly:

That's got to be it. That's got to be it. All right. My silly question is, hey, I'm looking at this dinosaur over your left shoulder. I think it's your left shoulder.

Brad Rutt:

Yeah.

Brent Kelly:

What's the story with the dinosaur? Or is there one?

Brad Rutt:

Story of the dinosaur is a gift, actually, probably from one of my best friends, best center of influence. He just said, "Now that we're in this Zoom world, this kind of reminds me of you." And I don't know if it's a thing, like he's saying I don't pick up enough checks because the T-Rex arms, you know, I can't reach for the check. I don't know if there was a subliminal message there, but, yeah, of hungry and fun.

Brent Kelly:

That's cool. Well, I mean, it's fun. Just by doing that because there is in the Zoom world, it just sparks conversation, just like anything else. Obviously one of our common friends here in the program, Jeff Jones, he puts stuff on his Zoom calls. He always has different stuff he moves around, and it intentionally just makes you go, What is that?" Or, "What are you doing there?" For some fun. But, hey-

Brad Rutt:

I love that. And you know what that is? That's real, that's deliberate. Look at that. That is someone who is prepared for the meeting. I'm actually in the process of changing this stuff out soon. And I put a piece... I actually like to take pictures. All over my house is decorated with the pictures that I've taken and blown up and poster size, all wall size, I've got some real big ones. But I want to take a picture. I want to put a picture up there, one of my own experiences is something that maybe I connect with someone over, in this strange... But again, it's deliberate, right? It's not, "Oh, I just threw a bunch of stuff." It's...

Brent Kelly:

I mean it's deliberate, it's with purpose, with intention, like there's a plan behind it. And you're spot on. I mean, yes, Jeff's having fun and you're having fun with doing that, but there's a reason behind it, right? I mean, and whatever that is, it's with purpose. I love that.

Brad Rutt:

Yeah. And I don't think it's like a nefarious reason in any way, shape or form. If that allows someone to ask a question of me that perhaps they weren't comfortable asking, or if that allows me to connect better and faster with someone because we have a similar interest, I mean, heck, I think you do that every day of the week. I'm trying to accelerate relationships and there's nothing wrong with that.

Brent Kelly:

Give yourself every opportunity. And for me, it's funny. I honestly didn't notice at first and then I'm sitting there looking at it, and I've got a nine-year-old son. He loves dinosaurs.

Brad Rutt:

They're pretty cool.

Brent Kelly:

Right? And so, I mean, it's just, to me, I'm like, "Oh, man." I actually was thinking, "I wonder where he got that. My son would think that that would be cool if he had that in his room." Of course we have like 75 dinosaurs around our house in different buckets, but-

Brad Rutt:

You could have 76, though. You could always have 76.

Brent Kelly:

That's true. That's true. So, well, hey, Brad, thank you so much. This is awesome. I mean this. I would love to go deeper and maybe I'll have you on again and talk about some other things that you're doing. I know we'll see each other again, but just thank you for your time. And I mean-

Brad Rutt:

Brent, anytime. The pleasure's mine. Thanks for your time, man, and thanks to you and Roger for the investment that you guys have made in me in terms of time because it's not just the couple of hours we spend in class. I have access to you. I have access to Roger when I need to run some ideas or I'm trying to get next level. So, thank you both.

Brent Kelly:

Hey, well you're welcome. So, well, hey, if all the listeners, like I've got a bunch of notes for Brad said that hit me in different ways that certainly, hopefully will hit you in different ways. And just again, something I've said so many times in this podcast, success leaves clues. You just got to follow the trail. So, Brad, you left some breadcrumbs today for people to pick up on, and we appreciate that.

Brad Rutt:

Okay. Take care.

Brent Kelly:

All right, guys. Thank you so much for listening-

Brad Rutt:

Thanks a lot.

Brent Kelly:

... and all the best for your success.