Fitness & Focus to Double Agency Revenue
00:02 - Brent Kelly
So how important is it that agency leaders model the right attitudes and behaviors that others on your team want to replicate? On today's Agent Leader Podcast, I interviewed Dick Gibbs, who's the CRO and Vice President of Sales for Hartwig Moss in Louisiana. This is an agency that's doubled their revenue in the past six years, from just under $5 million to now over $10 million in revenue, and one of the things that I took away from this interview is that culture is contagious and it starts from the top. Enjoy the show. Welcome to the Agent Leader Podcast. This is the podcast for independent insurance agency leaders to learn, to grow, to develop and ultimately become their best version possible.
00:48
My name is Brent Kelly. I am your host, excited to be with you on this podcast episode and absolutely excited to bring on a very special guest. I have Dick Gibbs, who is the VP of sales and the chief revenue officer for Hartwig Moss in the great state Louisiana. He's in New Orleans and so excited to have Dick on with us. He's going to share his experience, his role, some of the things the agency's doing. We've had a long relationship with the agency and always excited to hear some of the updates, the successes, the challenges, and we might just get into the fact that Dick likes to work out and he takes care of himself and it means a lot for the business. So we might get into that because selfishly I want to know more about some of his tips, of what he's doing on there.
01:32
So, first and foremost, Dick, welcome to the podcast.
01:35 - Dick Gibbs
Brent appreciate it. Thank you so much for thinking of the agency, thinking of me to participate in this, and I've heard some past podcasts and I'm honored. Thank you.
01:47 - Brent Kelly
Yeah Well, I'm glad to have you and, again, it's going to be a really fun discussion. And I want to start off just so the audience knows more about you and, of course, the agency. Right, just give an overview of the agency, your role within it, things you're proud of, of the agency.
02:05 - Dick Gibbs
Appreciate it. Yes, I've been in the industry for 30 plus years. Started on the company side, spent about 15 years with the Hanover, worked my way up to VP of marketing for the Eastern region, handled 26 states east of the Mississippi and prior to.
02:27
This was the best job I've ever had. Had a customer in New Orleans that was up in age and he was the managing general partner of his agency and asked me if I'd be interested in coming to the agency side and taking over his agency, which I did and spent about 11 years with him and had a great run and we eventually sold to Brown and Brown and then I spent three years with Brown and Brown, which was I'm going to be very, very kind, an education you couldn't put a price tag on, but one of the most demanding, most stressful positions I've ever held with a business. And then Hartwig Moss came calling. They had a position for really operations but I evolved into sales and I always had a strong sales background and I drove the revenues and eventually became the chief revenue officer of Hartwig Moss. One quick story about Hartwig Moss 153-year-old agency, a staple of New Orleans, really a staple of the Gulf Coast, and we had one owner and he's very old. No, I'm kidding, it's the fifth generation. We're in our fifth generation of Hartwig Moss, so we're real proud of that.
03:56 - Brent Kelly
Yeah, it is a testament to the organization. Obviously you know the family and things we're doing, but I mean, let's face it, every generation it gets a bit more challenging right to continue on that legacy and again, you've got as much as family agency, different generations, different personalities so I think it's a it's a huge testament to your team and what you've accomplished there. So I appreciate the background, Dick, and I mentioned right away at the beginning. You know just more about you and if you're not watching a video here, I think there's some real power, not that people do exactly what you do I wouldn't say that but what it means for you and as a leader and your mental and physical preparation. I'd like to hear about some of that. So, Dick, go ahead and shock people, probably like you shocked me, of what your daily fitness routine looks like.
05:05 - Dick Gibbs
Well, let me first tell you what brought me to that. I played college football. I was 5'10", 235. I played linebacker, and once you get out of college you no longer need that weight. You either succumb to it and live that way or you pick up a hobby. And this was before Nike, this was before ESPN when I got out of college. So, anyway, I started running. I ran a block, liked it, ran another block, liked it. Six months later I was down to like 185.
05:42
Just changed my diet a little bit. Back then that was not en vogue. Sure, it's just something I chose to do, um, but the last 21 years and the reason it was 21 is because I missed a uh calendar date because a flight was delayed so long it went into the next day. So I'm 21 years into running 11 miles every morning and then following up with a crossfit workout. But I do have to tell you I'm not a huge vitamin taker. I don't do the proteins. I I just. I burn whatever I eat and I eat whatever I want. It's just, it's just something that I like to to be able to do.
06:24 - Brent Kelly
I mean it's. I have to do the math. I'll do it later, but I was thinking 21 years times 365 days, and you know, and again you know, Dick is located in New Orleans and we were talking about again prior to starting the recording about just hurricanes and all the things that go on and COVID, and I'm thinking you went that many days in a row based on all the other stuff. We didn't get into personal sickness or any of that kind of stuff. So, like what I mean? Let me ask you this and this wasn't expected or anything, but it's fascinating to me how does that help you do your role as a CRO? Because we've talked to it before, it's a demanding, challenging, hard business. As fruitful as it is, it's challenging. So how does that, how does your personal routine, your fitness, all that goes into that, help you in your role in the agency?
07:15 - Dick Gibbs
Well, before I leave every evening, I write five things down that I've got to accomplish the next day. As mundane as they might be, I just do it. So I'll have a sense of accomplishment the minute I walk into the agency. But I handle the personal lines and the commercial lines, account managers, I handle all the revenue that needs to be driven into the agency on top of our sales force, and handling 13 sales guys not meeting their numbers, not making their calls, becomes extremely stressful because you want to do it without being, you know, dictative.
07:56
I got a great relationship with the 60 employees we have, but I'm going to tell you, when the day's over, your stress level is so high you got to find a way to be able to tamper it down and I find a long run every morning prepares you for the day and by 8:30 runs comes around you have zero problem sleeping sound.
08:28
You have zero problems sleeping, you get in bed, you go to sleep, and so my whole point is this business brings so much stress and every day, every single day, is something different. You could have a series of claims of a hailstorm that just came out of nowhere. You could have an account that drops in your lap. That's going to take three AMs and it's going to take two producers to handle, but you got to find the markets for it and there's no hesitation. They're looking at you for guidance, they're looking at you for results and you got to provide it. And when I tell you, being able to release all that stress through a long run every morning prepares you for the day to be able to handle it all. That's one of my biggest reasons for being fit. It's not for a beach body, it's not for I do like to intimidate the guys that date my daughter, of course, but it's for health, not vanity, and it's certainly for work.
09:29 - Brent Kelly
Yeah, well, you know, again, part of everybody's got their own reasons for stuff right, and obviously gravitated to running and fitness, which, again I told you before, I feel like I take care of myself pretty well and now I feel like, oh my gosh, I got a long way to go right to where I need to be. But I will say this you know I talk about this in the podcast and other episodes. You know, your role as a CRO or sales leader, I truly believe, if not, is the most difficult role in most agencies. Right, you've got these producer demands and my joke is that, you know, leading producers is kind of like nailing jello to a tree. They squiggle a lot, right, there's a lot of moving parts, you care about them, but there's challenges and there's problems and I want to do better and all that. And you've got to make sure you're producing right up the chain, so to speak, that you're delivering for the agency and you got all these clients around this. There's just a lot of noise.
10:15
And when I wrote down Dick and I don't know if this is correct or not, but I believe, pour into others, right, like I got to pour into you, I got to pour into you. I got to pour into you and you want to do that. But here's what I can tell you If you never pour into yourself, there's nothing there to pour right. And so part of that I think about from a mental approach of what am I reading? Who am I hanging out with who? You know what I hear for you, that physical fitness part as a leader is first pouring into you. Not that you're thinking about that selfishly, but getting yourself to a higher state so that you can help others perform in higher states. Is that fair?
11:06 - Dick Gibbs
Very, very fair, the only the only thing I can add to it really quickly is is everybody that has an issue on that given day gets the same energy level as any of them. Some of them it's so important that they get their client taken care of and then another producer needs a market right away. Everybody gets the same energy level and that definitely does take its toll toward the end of the day.
11:38 - Brent Kelly
Yeah, yeah, that's a great point, great point. All right, what I'm going to do and again, this is a wide, open conversation, but again, you guys have been in existence for a long time. Like I said, five generation. You mentioned 60 employees. I always like to talk about wins or successes first, right, and there's been a multitude right at the agency. But when I think about you know where you're at. The question I have for you is what successes really jump out? Because I believe success leaves clues. Certainly I'm sure it's left clues for you and your agency, but also for all the listeners of this podcast. You know some clues that they might be able to pick up on. So if you would, Dick, share a success or two, what you learned from it right and how you capitalized on it.
12:17 - Dick Gibbs
Well, the generational expertise it was one of the is a big plus for the agency. When Robby took over 20 years ago 22 years ago his father was still in business, but he brought in the most modern technology this agency could appreciate at that time. And then we fast forward 20 more years and we have the state of the art informational systems in this agency.
12:53
We can go totally remote in a matter of minutes and that is a huge success because there's no interruption in obviously writing new business, no interruption in customer service. And when I tell you the customer service experience is the top priority of the agency. Having the technology to be able to provide it is second to none. So the generational experience from the fourth generation to the fifth generation has moved this agency so far ahead of where it was, from technology to revenues. The revenues jumped tremendously over the last I don't know six years, from literally roughly $5 million to over $10 million.
13:40
And it has a lot to do with just how modern this agency has been brought to. We got tailored markets, niche markets. We're huge. We're known for auto dealerships. At one point we wrote just about every dealership, franchise dealership in the metro area, upwards of 40 to 50 auto dealerships, and we became an expert in it the person that handles that niche literally has 50 years with this agency and he's still employed and still doing it, which is a remarkable story.
14:23
But on top of that, his father spent 48 years with the agency. Between the two of them, they got 98 years. That is amazing. So having tailored niche markets really allows us to get reoccurring revenues, expected revenues and our retention levels in that are just off the chart. And then the last one is high-touch relationships. It has a lot to do with, again, the customer service experience and being way out in front of our accounts. One thing we'd pulled away from Sitkins was we don't renew accounts. What was the phrase?
15:15 - Brent Kelly
We don't renew accounts we continue relationships.
15:19 - Dick Gibbs
That's it. We did pull that away from you guys. In fact, two of our producers that were on participating in that six-week or eight-week event used that today. It was a big takeaway.
15:38 - Brent Kelly
Well, huge successes there. I appreciate sharing. I mean, obviously I'm making notes here and I mean from a revenue perspective to go from. You know, I said roughly five million, over 10 million in that amount of time six years is pretty darn impressive. And it's interesting as I'm sitting here thinking about this, because there are a lot of multi-generational agencies, right, I mean, at some point they may sell whatever in five generations.
16:04
The thing that often happens and this is true whether it's a family agency or whatever is the word complacency. There's this complacency that often creeps in hey, we're good. It's very fascinating to me and impressive that throughout the generations, of course, certainly recently that even though things were going well, we're always looking for that next level when it's technology, high-tech, customer touch, right, the things that you're talking about, being proactive in our relationships or education. Is that, just curious? How is that fostered within the agency? I mean, is that just part of the DNA and has been? Is it something you continually talk about and communicate? You know, I think there's always that balance of appreciating the past and the legacy, because it needs to be appreciated, but not standing on that because we know there's bigger, better things to come and continue to innovate. So again, how has that fostered in the agency? I'm curious.
17:00 - Dick Gibbs
I'll put that solely on Robby Moss, the president and CEO. He's 52 years old and just a staple of the New Orleans metro area. He's involved in so many community activities. He brings a work ethic. That is man, what is the word? You're infected by it. So he's got the biggest book in the agency. He writes them and he's very competitive. So being competitive makes everybody else better because they want to compete. A sales guy that's not competitive probably doesn't belong here and probably is not going to be too successful. But back to my main point. It's directed from Robby, from his work ethic, from his drive, his energy level, and he's got a way of expecting things. By showing huge appreciation even before you, you show the success of what he expected. So he's there, he's a mentor, he's always available. So I put a lot of onus on him, driving what our culture is. Yeah.
18:29 - Brent Kelly
Well, I think and thanks so much for sharing that, because I think you know one of the things and I talk about this in the podcast, probably frequently actually but one of my favorite phrases from John Maxwell, leadership expert, is that everything rises and falls on leadership. And you know when I hear that, I'm like, well, that's a lot. In fact, we talked about that in a recent leadership program, Dick, you attended with us, and everything rises and falls on leadership and part of that is the modeling aspect and even if it's different roles, I'm just sitting there thinking, boy, if I show up at Hartwig Moss and Robby's out there modeling, you know appreciation, hard work out there making things happen. Dick, you may not say this for yourself, but I know that Dick's up at 3:30 running 11 miles and doing his thing and going to CrossFit and has energy throughout.
19:22
That's who we are, right, that's who we are as an agency and there becomes an expectation. So I think, oftentimes interesting, there's a lot of ways, I believe, that culture is built and I know culture is a buzzword, but I think sometimes it's like we'll just talk about it, which is great, but let's live it first yeah, no question.
19:41 - Dick Gibbs
The takeaway from Robby's involvement and his hands-on but not dictative way of running the agency is his contacts and the amount of business that comes in through his centers of influences that turn into referrals, and those turn into referrals. He is able, he truly is able, to feed our sales staff to where it can. That's a double edged sword, because you can become complacent and lazy because you know it's coming in.
20:17
But the business that he brings in comes with a huge expectation because they're related to his friendships, to his centers of influences. So we have to, we've got to be able to offer the results that are expected. So if they're complacent, they're not going to be able to do this. Whole point is they're not. When we get a referral from the top, it goes to a producer. It's going from soup to nuts, comp managers involved, everybody meets the new client. So it's you know. You pull a textbook out and try to find that chapter. It's probably not there, but it's all in the body language and the leadership.
21:27 - Brent Kelly
Yeah, love that for so many reasons. And, again, every agency leader in your role is a bit different, but I was, you know, talk about whether it's a producer who's kind of on their way out right near the end of the career, or could be an agency principal or whatever, and it's like, well, maybe they don't again, every situation is different, Dick, but maybe they don't want to do all the work for every account, but they often have so many key relationships. Like, at a minimum, they're out there just making rain I mean, they're rainmakers and open up these opportunities and doors and build these relationships and you take that and you replicate it and replicate it and replicate it. Pretty amazing things can happen. So that's fantastic.
22:03
Let me flip it a little bit here and talk about some of the challenges. Every agency's got challenges. I'm sure if I ask you to name the challenges, you could probably write down a list of things for the agency, right, because that's just the way it goes in this business. But I like to hear that could just share, you know, maybe a top challenge or two or whatever it is that you're dealing with, and either how you faced it or how you're facing it today. What does that look like?
22:30 - Dick Gibbs
I've been asked this many times with the challenges and it's balancing the growth and profitability. That balance is very difficult while managing the client expectation balance is very difficult while managing the client expectation. So, client retention versus new business acquisitions, we got to maintain the highest retention levels we can while bringing in a level of new business that the producers are challenged with every year as part of their goals and objectives. And balancing that and getting them to not just them, but getting the agency profitable, getting the growth expectations at least nearly met all factors into, to me on my desk. The biggest challenge, because you got revenue size. We don't pay commissions on certain accounts but these accounts are so important to the producer that we have to have a discussion about it.
23:43
That’s my biggest challenge yeah the others subsets are the uh technology we've got to stay above and ahead of everybody else with technology, carrier relationships that is like huge in New Orleans, because many of the carriers are either pulling back or terminating contracts because of reinsurance, because the reinsurance are saying we're no longer doing business in Louisiana not because the agency's bad, but because of economics.
24:27
So we've got to keep our relationships as solid as possible and I'll tell you, Brent, how we do this. Robby and I sit on a lot of advisory boards for our carriers. We get relationships built so strong that they ask us to sit on these. And when I tell you how far that goes, when they're making decisions to pull back in different areas of New Orleans, the state, the Gulf South, it goes a long way. So while it doesn't generate any revenue, it generates future revenues because you're keeping the contracts. Yes, the carrier relationships to me, other than the customer service experience are the two most important. If you don't have the customer, you can't eat. If you don't have the relationships with the companies, you can't write the business, yep. So I take that extremely serious and that is on my plate, that is a responsibility of mine, so we figure it out. The biggest challenge is making sure we keep those relationships strong and we have markets to be able to use.
25:34 - Brent Kelly
Yeah, I want to go a little deeper in that because it is so crucial, right, it's so important and I you know, even as we teach in our programs, whether it's producer, sales leaders, whatever that there's, you know five key relationships that we've got to be cognizant of right and make deposits and clients pretty obvious. Future clients, yeah, pretty obvious. Centers of influence, yes, of course, our colleagues internally, right, and then not that this is fifth, but carriers, and that's the one that seems to get kind of pushed to the back of the line and again, probably not intentionally or maliciously, but just because we're busy and stuff's going on and no one's got really responsibility. It just kind of comes and goes in different ways and, let's face it, like, how crucial are those relationships? Crucial. And you know, I want you to speak maybe more on that.
26:25
You mentioned sitting on boards, but you're right, like when carriers make decisions, this is same as true as buyers. Right, we make decisions or make purchases, whatever you want to call them. We make them emotionally and justify intellectually. And I have to be willing to bet and I don't know the specific situation, but there are times, like you said, a carrier might want to pull it, pull him back or pull it out, and they go, well.
26:55 - Dick Gibbs
A few will survive and I know these guys 10, 100. This agency does a fair amount of personal lines, high net worth and main street and you can only imagine there's no such thing as second best down here.
27:03
It's demotic yeah so these are small, they're not even regional carriers. They're a couple, multiple state carriers, yeah, and these guys have really filled the void, but they're very limited on their contracts with agencies. Sure, we’ve been very blessed to have the reputation that when they come in, they'll come see us, but the big thing is we, we embrace them, we offer all the expertise we have, from geographics to deductibles what's working, what's not.
27:45
And all of that brings them to ask us to sit on their boards and when I just feel like when we get asked to do that we're in. The only way that this is not going to work is if the if they sell their small regional to a big carrier or they just go out of business. So I put huge emphasis on our relationships with the carriers.
28:13 - Brent Kelly
Yeah, I wrote down and I talk about this quite a bit control the controllables and this idea. Obviously you play football and there's certain things it doesn't matter. Sports, business, life, there are certain things that, quite frankly, you have little to no control over. It doesn't mean it doesn't matter. It doesn't mean it doesn't impact you, but too often the human brain will go oh, we worry and we think about this and I mean I guess it's, it's normal to a degree, but it's not very well.
28:40
I'm going to serve you and I was thinking about like this, where you know people go, well, it's not fair what the carrier did and they whatever, and again, some of it you can't control. But it hit me on there. I'm like there's certain things you actually can and part of that is just being kind and being nice and providing proactive solutions and getting to know people and learning about what they want and how it aligns with what you want and how can we work together and having these conversations and open communication and proactive communication. And all of a sudden, what you thought you couldn't control, you actually did. You just weren't intentional enough about it.
29:14 - Dick Gibbs
You got it, Brent, but you got to be genuine. You can't come across as you know, thinking you know it all and this is the route I'm going to take. They'll see right through it. You got to be genuine. I got to share real quick something that Sitkins did for us and you're probably aware of it, because you guys, when we participate in breakouts, you guys are listening. But about four years ago I think, we took a big step with you guys and opened this up to all of our employees and we've all participated in different programs. But there was one huge takeaway that has moved our agency into. If one thing we can correlate it to is higher retentions, and it's the high-performance meetings, high performance team meetings.
30:09
When we first heard that, it really made me sit up, because, while we always had a good relationship with our producers and our account managers, it wasn't a once a week, maybe hour and a half. Everything's off your desk, it's it's one-on-one focus, um, from uh expirations to new business, to what is bothering the AM right now, because, um, there's many times that something's bothering the AM and they can't address it right away. But in this hour and a half they've got it written down and they're able to address it. It eliminated so many daily calls the producer just asking can you go into the management system and get this for me? I don't need it till next week. It eliminated that call.
31:04
It has strengthened the relationship between the account manager, the producer, um increased our retentions and, and I'm going to tell you, the relationship between these two is so much stronger, um, they've gotten to know each other better. They know their families more. They know what they did. You know um didn't know they were fans of Oklahoma, just in small talk. But if I can, if I can emphasize one thing that we pulled away that has helped our agency is high performance teams. It's it's made a big difference.
31:39 - Brent Kelly
Yeah, thanks for sharing that. I yeah, because even part of this you know we have conversations with clients that work with us is that, you know, sometimes even we take for granted oh yeah, that was a big deal right of what was taken away from that. And listen, you know you've heard us talk about this and I've mentioned this podcast. But, like, we talk about the art of communication with sales and service and it's the ART acronym appreciation, just appreciate what people do. It's difficult, right, our roles are different, but they're both really important and there's challenges to it. The respect, right they are.
32:15
And then trust building, trust that, hey, we're going to have these conversations. And, Dick, as you mentioned, a big part of this is this proactive communication. It doesn't completely eliminate, but it majorly reduces the reactive things that we have to do because we've already engaged and I think that is so important. I'm glad you shared that, because it always feels cliche when I say this, but it's true is that if we want to have the best external communication and relationships with clients you mentioned carriers, right, future clients, centers of influence We've got to have great internal communication.
32:53
And I think so often, we just take it for granted.
32:55 - Dick Gibbs
Yeah.
32:56 - Brent Kelly
Yeah, and we did, we did take it for granted, we did but this strengthened it.
33:00 - Dick Gibbs
It was the greatest idea and we even call it, we even stole the title of it. Have you had tell me about your high performance team meeting and our sales meeting? I'll ask. And I have meetings with our account managers once a month and I'll ask them how the high performance team meetings are going. We use that as the title of it, so it was a great takeaway.
33:24 - Brent Kelly
That's great. That's great. Well, did you have time for one more question?
33:29 - Dick Gibbs
Yes, sir.
33:33 - Brent Kelly
I asked this question to every guest, so I appreciate you participating. I was trying to find different ways to phrase it, but it's basically the same question, so I'll keep it pretty simple. Right, if you bumped into a younger version of you, right, the person just starting your professional career? I don't know. You're walking down the street, you're, you're in New Orleans, you're at Mardi Gras, I don't know, you probably don't go to that you're in too good a shape or whatever, right. But you're at some event and all of a sudden you bump into someone and you go oh my gosh, that's the younger version of me just starting this professional career. And that younger version of you looks up at yourself today and says okay, wise, experience, older me, if you could give me one piece of advice that'll help me shape my future, what would it be?
34:20 - Dick Gibbs
So I did give this some thought and I, I, if I was looking at myself, I wouldn’t cause I didn't like myself many, many years ago when I got out of college. I just didn't I would I'd have been more respectful.
34:36
That has nothing to do with business, but I wouldn't have been afraid to take some, some calculated risks which I didn't even think about back then. It wasn't even a thought Technology. You know how quickly technology has changed since I got out of college from the 80s. I didn't embrace it and I wish I would have embraced it more. That's just something that to this day, I'm sorry I didn't. I feel like I got a good handle on.
35:11
You know what we're using, but what's out there and if I learned it as coming up, I'd have been much better at it. And then, from a personal perspective, I just wish I would’ve invested, saved a little more, been a little more frugal and then didn't take so long to finish school. I was one of those guys that you know, burned up the scholarship playing football without having to go to class, and then, when reality hit, it was time to become a little more mature and it took me quite a while. So, embracing technology, taking calculated risks earlier and then investing, I think I would have been a much better person, certainly financially right now, than I am, but when I've had this conversation in the past, had that not happened, I don't know if I would have been in the position I'm in right now.
36:13 - Brent Kelly
That's right so I'm not one of these guys that you know. Things happen for a reason but we can, we can have that discussion, that's for sure, yeah, I really appreciate it, it's fantastic and I mean there's obviously no wrong answer on that and I certainly don't ask that question to get people to think about, you know, regrets or should have, would have, could have. I mean that's it. To me is just this idea of thinking about and you're part of this too is serving the podcast audience, because we've got people of all different ages newer leaders, younger leaders, middle-aged, older leaders doesn't really matter, and you can learn from people's experiences and things that they've done.
36:51
And you're right, Dick, like it's always a challenge because you're like well, I kind of wish I would have done that, but I guess if I would have done that, I don't know if I'd be here and I like where I'm at. So it's, you know, it's one of those things where, to me, it's not about as much of the regret as it is about what can I learn from that, what could I share to someone else? How do I pass that on? And I mean, and obviously your agency is a great testament of multi-generations passing on certain things to others, yet continue to innovate and not just resting on the past.
37:20 - Dick Gibbs
Right, yeah.
37:21 - Brent Kelly
You know, I think it's fantastic. Well, Dick, thanks so much for being a guest on this.
Any final comments words you'd like to share with the audience before we wrap up here?
Well, I guess the first thing. I interviewed a young account manager this morning and he's got a degree in finance University of Alabama, 22 years old, I mean. This happened just this morning and we were talking about why he picked insurance. But he didn't. It picked him, as most people that are in insurance, insurance finds you. Well, we agreed that it's not a sexy business. It's not. If you're very successful, you can live better than a doctor, and if you're wildly successful, you'll beat every attorney's compensation package out there. So it's a great business to be in, but you don't have to be flamboyant to be hugely successful in it, and I shared that with him. He said you're in a good position. So I guess that's the last thing I can leave you with. It's not sexy, but you can certainly make a very handsome living.
38:34 - Brent Kelly
Absolutely, and obviously there's a huge opportunity with what we're seeing. Just in the generational gaps we're going to have in this business, and so it isn't someone that people go. Oh my gosh, I've been dreaming of being in insurance. That doesn't happen very often, but it's interesting when people get in that you don't usually leave because you believe that you know you start to see how fulfilling of a career it is, and I had I heard this years ago. I love this. This is from a recruiter and he said you know? I said what do you do to help recruit people in the insurance? He goes. Well, I show people and tell people that have a really cool job but a crappy career that there's an opportunity to have a job that's pretty hard and challenging but it's an amazing career, and I thought that was pretty well said.
39:15 - Dick Gibbs
That's fair.
39:18 - Brent Kelly
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think it was pretty well said so well, Dick.
Thanks again. So much. Appreciate you being on. Thank you, the agent leader listener. If this podcast, as well as others, has helped you in any way, do the old rating review subscribe thing. We'd love to pass this information on to more insurance agency leaders. So with that I wish you all the best in your success. Take care everybody.
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