 There's something you just said that I freaking love, and I think a lot of agents that are watching this is a big nugget I'm about to mention that I hope, I don't know if you guys heard it, but I heard it, and it stood out, which is that you had growth, you've seen some things go well, but you're always looking for ways to improve on what you're doing. You're like, okay, how did this work, right? Just because you're growing, doesn't mean you can't constantly be tweaking. I mean, I find the most successful people in our industry are never satisfied, you know? They're always looking to, they're at least looking to improve, right? It doesn't mean that I always want to make more money and be greeter and everything else, right? It doesn't mean that. It means that like, I know I can do better. I know I can get better. I know the company can get better. I know the company can get found by more people, right? I know we can write, we can sell more. Is that always been Abe, you know? I mean, has that just always been you, man? Just like, you know, I know I got more in me. I'd like to take credit for all of it, I really would. But you know, I mean, the bottom line is the honest truth is I'm just a sales guy. Hey, what's up guys? I'm super excited to welcome and introduce a good buddy of mine that I'm really getting to know and enjoying Mr. Abe, bowling of the insurance connector. How are you today, man? I'm fantastic, how are you? Doing awesome, buddy, doing great, man. So you guys, we've recently gotten connected and our companies have been working together. You guys are getting involved in 8% Nation, which is awesome, so thank you for that. Yeah, we're excited about it. What was it about the conference that really stood out to you and made you guys want to get involved? So, you know, actually it was you. It was your YouTube channel originally that caught our attention. You know, we're looking for a way to get in front of a whole bunch of insurance agents and insurance agencies at the same time. And my wife was like, have you heard of Cody Askins? And I said, sounds familiar. So I looked at some of the videos. I'm like, this is exactly what we're looking for. This is perfect. That's awesome, that's awesome. That's what's cool. I mean, and everybody that's watching, like I'm excited about the fact that you and your wife are, you know what you want. You're finding someone in the marketplace that can help you get what you want and you're going for it. Too many people in our industry that are not succeeding and failing as 92% do, they don't really go for it, you know? And... Yeah, they're complacent, man. And I'm super impressed by your willingness to just flip and go for it. Where does that come from, by the way? You know, I don't know, both of us, that's kind of how my wife and I first started talking was we both had entrepreneurial backgrounds. And so when we first met each other, one of the first things we did was start a company together. And... That's awesome. Yeah, but I mean, eventually we landed in the insurance industry and we were in a way kind of forced actually to start our own agency. That's a whole nother story for a different time. But, you know, we started our own agency and it grew and grew and grew. And you know, I hear your podcasts and your YouTube videos talking about the level of opportunity in the insurance industry. And I mean, it's just crazy. It is crazy the level of success that you can... I mean, it's normal people. Like, I mean, I'm not any different than anybody else, right? I just, you know, pick up the phone and dial. And you get out there, you get in front of people. I'm fortunate to be married to my business partner who's got an incredible mind for, you know, finding ways around obstacles like nobody I've ever met. And so, you know, the two of us just, we really compliment each other and we just find something that we wanna do and we go. Yeah, for those that are, those married couple of business owners out there that are working together either in an insurance agency or in a company of some sort or outselling together, you know, whatever it may be. I actually met one recently where one's selling and one's recruiting, you know? And so it's just kind of funny. For those out there that are really looking to learn from what you guys have done, because I do view both of you as very successful in this industry in multiple ways, what are some tips that you can give to someone that's in y'all's shoes, you know? So you're talking, so speaking specifically to married couples that are working together? Yeah, yeah. Cause well, you know, and I may be thinking about my wife and I right now too, by the way, so. Yeah, well, I mean, you know, so we always had had a rule that, you know, basically home stuff stays at home and work stuff stays at work. So, you know, if one of us are irritated at the other one at work, that we try and leave that in the office when we go and we start making dinner and then the same thing, I mean, you know, when you're married, your life together is gonna merge. So I mean, your home life is gonna merge with your work life and your work life is gonna merge with your home life. Luckily, both of us are kind of workaholics. So, you know, other people are, you know, sit and watch a Netflix or whatever at 10 o'clock at night. And we do that sometimes too. But most of the time you'll find us, you know, looking up stuff and trying to figure out, that's actually the thing, I think how she found you was a couch one evening, was looking around. But, you know, so that I think is huge. But then just finding each other's skill sets and really just being able to allow each other to unleash on those. My strength is sales and kind of diplomatic relations. And, you know, so anytime there's any kind of government audit, you know, I was the person that they came in and talked to. And she did the systems and processes and, you know, revisiting things and saying, okay, we've grown, you know, 30% since last year. So what do we need to drop? Or what do we need to revamp? Or what do we need to reinvent to make it more efficient to continue? Because I mean, you know, there's one way you mow. That's what I tell everybody. There's a way you mow a lot in a city. And there's a whole different way you mow a 100 acre field in the country. And if you try and do, you know, both of them are successful. But if you try and do one the other way, like, you know, if you're mowing your 100 acre field with a push mower, you're crazy. And if you bring in a giant tractor for your lot in the city, you're crazy. So, you know, you've got to look at where you're at and just how you can help, what you can bring to the table. And then, you know, just allowing each other to have the space to succeed. Yeah, I love, there's something you just said that I freaking love. And I think a lot of agents that are watching this is a big nugget I'm about to mention that I hope, I don't know if you guys heard it, but I heard it. And it stood out, which is that you had growth, you've seen some things go well, but you're always looking for ways to improve on what you're doing. You're like, okay, how did this work? Right, just because you're growing doesn't mean you can't constantly be tweaking. I mean, I find the most successful people in our industry are never satisfied, you know? They're always looking to, they're at least looking to improve, right? It doesn't mean that I always want to make more money and be greed or everything else, right? It doesn't mean that. It means that like, I know I can do better. I know I can get better. I know the company can get better. I know the company can get found by more people, right? I know we can write, we can sell more. Is that always been Abe, you know? I mean, has that just always been you, man? Just like, you know, I know I got more in me. I'd like to take credit for all of it, I really would. But you know, I mean, the bottom line is the honest truth is I'm just a sales guy. And, you know, I like talking to people. It's my favorite thing in the world. It's not even, you know, something that I've trained to do or anything. I mean, I've done a lot of sales training, but it's not like, you know, when I grew up, I want to be a sales guy. It's just what I found that I loved. And so talking to people and helping people with our insurance agency, we worked specifically with contractors and specifically with brand new contractors. So helping them get a license, helping them, you know, achieve the American dream and drum up some success. I mean, that was so fulfilling for me and I loved it. And, you know, on my wife's side is the systems and the processes and the inventing and reinventing ways of doing things. And, you know, she would come in the early days of the agency, she would come and sit behind me for an entire day and she would watch everything I do and she would write down everything and she would create a procedure off of it. So that way when we hired people, we had, you know, not only a schedule for their entire day, but we had a script on what they should say. And she said, you know, every person you talk to, you say this and I said, I do. And she said, yeah, you do. And so we're gonna integrate that into what every sales person that we bring on is gonna say to every customer that they talk to. And so, I mean, it was just stuff like that, just working together, you know, together, but kind of separately too, that really was able to just kind of catapult the thing and, you know, land us where we dreamed of being from the day we started. That's so awesome. That's, and what's your wife's name, by the way? Roshina. Okay, Roshina, I'm gonna steal her for our company after what you just said because we got some processes. You know, and that's crazy because I've talked to her is because, you know, I mean, we've got these different companies going. And I told her, I said, you know, at some point in time, somebody's gonna hear this and hire you to be a consultant. That's right. I said, no, it's gonna happen, you'll see. That's awesome. I'm in, by the way, tell her I said that because I'm already hearing like these systems and processes and procedures and stuff. And I'm the sales guy that doesn't love all those flipping processes. I don't want to listen, I don't want to shadow you for a day, you know? Right, well, and, you know, so my personality type too is I'm naturally prone to kind of cut some corners and honestly do things a little bit the lazy way. And which can help in business, right? That's not necessarily a liability. You can turn that into an asset. But, you know, so that was one of the things that she would do when she was revisiting systems and processes. She would bring one to me and get my input on do you think we should dump this or not? So a perfect example is we had a checklist position. So like obviously in insurance, there's different things you've got to have for government compliance, right? You've got to have, you know, your premium finance agreement. If you're charging a broker fee, you got to have a disclosure and everything, you know, you got to have all these documents. Because if you get audited, you better be able to produce them. Because if you don't, you're in big trouble. No doubt. And so, you know, that was what we found is that, you know, the first year that our checklist person was sending stuff back to agents and CSRs constantly. And then the second year was a little less and the third year was a little less. And by the fourth year, we're reevaluating this system again for the fourth time. And we're going, you know, 98% of the time there's nothing wrong. And the other 2% of the time, we have backup systems in place where we can go grab those documents if we need to, if they're missing, we can search them and find them. So why don't we take this person that spend in six hours a day doing checklist and, you know, retool them towards growth and drop this old system that is, you know, because by then our agents and our CSRs were in such good habits that, you know, really it became an unnecessary position. Now, if we start having to find documents all over the place, then maybe we got to re-institute that and revisit it again, we never did. But, you know, that's a perfect example of the kind of things that, you know, so there's a couple of ways to get growth, right? You can sell more or you can become more efficient and free up more of your time. And that was what we continuously tried to do was tackle it from both sides. So that way, not only are we selling more and we're increasing in, you know, the policies in force and in our book size, but we're also making it to where our existing staff, including ourselves, had more time to grow and to give better service to our existing customers. Yep, yep, exactly. I love that. Make sure your wife watches this, by the way. She's heard both of us brag on her already, you know? You know, it's like... This is really important. I mean, if you're gonna work with your spouse, you both gotta be all in. It's gotta be 100% or nothing. No doubt. And, you know, either the business becomes your life or you might as well not do it. You know, I mean... For sure. For sure. That's huge. That's a huge nugget as well for everybody that's listening. So instead of, like we see this awesome background behind you, I love that it's up, right? I see the insuranceconnector.com at the top, the bridge, your agency's bridge to success. Who doesn't wanna be successful? The insurance connector on the bottom. I'm not gonna ask yet what it is. Okay. What I'm gonna ask though is, before we get into what it is, who can benefit from going to that web address right now, theinsuranceconnector.com? Who that's watching needs to go there right now? So, you know, pretty much if you're watching this podcast, you should go. Because I mean, if you're watching the podcast, that means you're involved in the insurance industry in some way, shape or form. Probably. Or you're thinking about getting involved and if you're thinking about getting involved, you should go too. Because if you're an agent, if you're an independent agent, you should go. If you're an agency or a brokerage, whether you've been in business since last month or for 30 years, if you're looking to grow your book of business and the options that you have available for your customers, you should go. And then if you're an insurance company or wholesale or MGA and you're looking to expand the network of agents that right through you, you should go too. So, probably everybody. Boom. I'm assuming no one's watching everyone's left the interview and they're all sitting on your website now, you know. It's hope so, huh? It's hope so, I love it. I love it, I love it. You have to go check it out, okay? So pull that up and go ahead and start reading through it and checking this place out while you're listening, right? You know, you can pull up another tab. I've got three screens in my office. I don't know who does that, you know, but how many screens you got on your computer? You got a couple of monitors? I actually, we've always used dual monitors and we kept our agency management system open in one monitor and then Outlook and the internet can open in the other and so that way we're operating everything out of our agency management system, everything we do, we operate it out of there. But I found this new HP computer and I don't know, it's called the Elite One, I guess. It's got like this crazy like 35 inch monitor or something like that. So it's the one monitor is the size of two monitors. So we both got one of those and my wife's had one for a couple of years now. I've had mine for almost a year. We love it. That's awesome. HP Elite One, I just wrote that down. I'm a nerd when it comes to monitors and stuff. Yeah, yeah. I know, that's what you have to have. I mean, you know, if you want to operate efficiently, you got to have big monitors and you got to have more than one. That's right, that's right. Yep, that's exactly right. So for those that are sitting on the website now and they're looking at this thing and they're checking this thing out, they're like, okay, this is a sharp looking website. It's going to help me be more successful, which I agree with. What is it? Sure, so, you know, kind of a little bit of a backstory on it. We're writing insurance for contractors. You know, we've had some degree of success. We've got thousands of contractors on the books. We're writing in, you know, over 100 businesses a month. And I get a call from one of my company reps and he goes, hey, I wanted to tell you in person, we got a non-renewed, you know, we got to notice that your carrier that you're writing through is not going to be writing insurance in the state of Washington and Oregon. So our agency operated in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, California and Texas. And so they said, you know, the first phone call was Washington and Oregon or off the table. Well, Washington and Oregon were our two biggest states. So we're like, okay, that's a problem, but you know, not a complete problem. So then the next week, we got another phone call and they're like, okay, well, you know, actually it's all 50 states. We're, they're not writing in the United States of America anymore. Yeah. Okay. So we went on a giant scramble and you know, you always as an agency, you're always like, man, if I had this new market or if I had a better commercial auto carrier, if I had a better, you know, general liability writer, gosh, life would be so much easier. But you get busy with day-to-day stuff. You get busy with growth, with quoting, with selling, with service and you know, when do you ever go really look to, to look around and make sure that like, you know, your competition is not taking your lunch money. You really don't do that unless the fire starts, right? So that was our fire. And so we start going on and filling out appointment applications and meeting with reps. And we found that the process from the day you filled out the appointment application to the day you sat down and met with your rep was, you know, usually three or four weeks because it took a week for them to respond at least. And then a week or two to get somebody out to your building cause they always want to sit down and talk at least. And it was just a really time consuming, inefficient process. And so, you know, and then other market shifts happen. One of our main commercial auto carriers quit right in a million dollar, you know, combined single limit in a couple of states that we operate in and just these different things. And every time we had new appointments to go get, we're going, this is going to be terrible. Like, we're not looking forward to this process at all. This is such like, it takes away from production. It takes away from our internal audits of trying to grow and trying to hire and different things. And so we're like, there's gotta be a better way to do this. And so my wife, who's the systems and processes person, I was actually out assembling my kid's swing set in my backyard and she came up to me and she goes, I've got it, I've got it. We create a website where like the, cause you know, a lot of them get turned down and I won't say on the air who turned us down, which they all be ashamed of themselves, but we, a lot of them turn you down. Like you fill out, you know, nine, 10 pages of appointment applications and run all this data on your book of business and throwing your ENO insurance deck page and all this stuff and licenses and you send it in and they're not doing new appointments right now. Or the only way you can find that out is by turning in all this information. So anyway, so she comes out and she goes, I thought of it. There's, we create a website that companies can put in what their appointment criteria is. And obviously the only people that are gonna be on the website is people currently issuing appointments to insurance agencies and insurance agents. So if we can get them on and we can get them to fill out this profile on, you know, they require 10 years in business to appoint an agency or they require that you have a million dollar book of business or that you're balanced personal and commercial lines like all these different things that the company's required to become appointed. What if we could have the company say this is what we require and this is how close of a match we wanna get. And then we could have the agencies fill out about their themselves and they would only see the matches that are like, you know, yeah, I'm looking for you. Yeah, I'm looking for you too. So that was the idea and the birth of it. So we hired web developers. We spent several months, you know, building the algorithms to support the match criteria. And then, you know, here we are several months later and we're launched. We're often run into the races. That's awesome. So in essence, would you consider it a software platform? Yeah, so it's like we kind of consider ourselves a little bit of an insure tech type of service as a software. But, you know, I always tell everybody it's kind of like the e-harmony of the insurance agency world, you know, you find your perfect match on our website. There we go, there we go. Farmers only, you know. Yeah, something like that. I'm in Missouri, so, you know. That's right, that's right. Little e-harmony of the insurance, that's what I like that, that's good, that's good. So it's really, you're finding, you're connecting the carriers that once, they're looking for specific agencies and agencies are looking for specific carriers and you're really just marrying the two and matching them up. And then what happens from there? So, you know, on there, you create your profile, you hit the register button. Again, for independent agents, agencies, brokerages, totally free. So you just go on there. You don't take any of your credit card information or anything, but you register. And then as soon as you hit register, you go to your dashboard screen. And your dashboard screen shows you all the matches that the algorithm has come up with that, you know, that we think that's who you're looking for and they think that they're looking for you. And it tells you how close of a match you are. So, you know, it'll sort, starting at the top with 100% matches hopefully. And then it'll go down to, you know, whatever the carrier has set to be their match criteria. Because the carrier can set it from 50 to, you know, 80 or 100% matches. So the nice thing is when you get on and you log in and you get on your dashboard, you can, you know, you're only seeing people that the carrier has said, we're interested in appointing agencies that are, you know, fit your profile. So really that whole time waste. We've taken at least two weeks off of the process, maybe three off of the process of getting appointed. There's a lot more efficient and a lot of time savings. Oh, I love saving, I mean, time is money. I love saving time. I love finding products that help us be more efficient. What's the, why wouldn't someone use this? It doesn't make any sense why someone wouldn't try it out. You know what I mean? So, you know, I've been calling around to some companies and again, none of them have a name on their hair. But no, there's some of them that I've talked to that are like, yeah, we're not, we just don't wanna grow. And it's like, part of me wants to be like, really, are you the owner or can I talk to your manager? Yeah, you need to be fired. Yeah, right? I know, that's what Rashida was saying. She's like, to these people, you know, do these companies know that they're employees? They're literally saying we don't wanna grow. Like we're not looking to expand at all. We just wanna keep doing what we're doing and live how we're living. I mean, and if that's where you're at that, I guess that's fine, to age is known. But I mean, it's a concept we don't understand. But you know, really, that's the only reason that we've heard somebody not wanting to sign up is they just don't know where they're at. So if you're watching and you do not wanna grow, do not go to theinsuranceconnector.com. Correct. Right? Yeah, go. I love that. I love that. I guess, I don't know. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I love that. What else should anybody that's watching right now that's like, okay, I want some more information. I'm curious, right? Obviously go into the website and it's free to sign up. I mean, heck, if someone's telling you, and you're hearing it because they're hanging out with me, like they're watching my stuff because they must trust me. And he's saying, hey, everybody needs to check this thing out. Oh, and it's free. And you can go look at it for yourself. Heck, I'm gonna go sign up, you know? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, and that's the whole thing is, it's like, you know, there are so many insurance companies. There are so many wholesalers. There are so many, you know, for us at our agency, you know, one of the things that we really looked for when we were appointing, which made it more difficult, by the way, because, you know, we write construction contractors. So a lot of our stuff is non-standard surplus, you know, type of stuff. And then so what we wanted though is we wanted a platform where we could quote the customer and get a price online and get, you know, S and approvals, if possible. Because then we're not, you know, sitting there waiting on an accord form on somebody's desk for a week. We wanted it to be, you know, that's our whole thing is we tried to be fast, we tried to be easy, and we tried to be affordable. So we seem a lot alike. Very patient, very patient individuals, you and me. Yeah, no kidding. Patience is not our virtue. That's probably the most difficult thing about our life at this point is we're going, that's still not done. How is that not done? That's crazy. So yeah, but, you know, and so like I said, you know, you log on, your perfect match of an insurance company or the perfect market for you to write your clients in, maybe you're out growing your current carriers. Maybe you just entered the market and you can't find anybody to issue you an appointment. You know, there's something on here for you. And so just hopping on and taking a look. And then the nice thing is, is you have a profile, you have a login. So, you know, shoot, next year, your agency's grown by $500,000 in premium. Just go edit your profile, adjust your numbers, and boom, you got a new set of matches that are gonna pop up. So, yeah. I love it, yeah. I love it. So, and you've been in the industry for a while. How long, by the way? It's about 12 and a half years, 12 years. Good man, awesome. So for those agents out there that are newer or struggling, what's some tips that you can give as we close out here in a few minutes? What's some thoughts or some advice or some motivation or some help that you can provide? This is the subject that's near and dear to me. Wow. Because this industry's changed my life. You know, 12 years ago when I first started in the insurance industry, I didn't have anything. I had nothing. And the majority of my career, I have been fortunate to spend with business owners and I'm kind of got a little bit of analytical mind. I like to pay attention and look for patterns and kind of see what I can notice. And the one thing that I noticed over and over and over again, because I went out and I wrote these companies, I mean, some of them was like a one-man operation. And some of these guys had, you know, 30, 50, 75 employees. And I always looked for like, what's the difference? Because ever since I was a little kid, I've wanted to do business and I wanted to be an entrepreneur. And obviously all of us want to be successful, right? So we're always looking for those differentiating factors. And the one thing that I found over and over and over again is the guy that made the most amount of money or Gal, I might just say guy, but the person that made the most amount of money, they weren't necessarily the smartest. They weren't, you know, the hardest workers always. I mean, they were all hard workers and they, you know, but there was really nothing where it was like, oh, all the smartest people make the most amount of money or all the people with the most connections, you know, they're the most successful or have the biggest crews or, you know, biggest workforce. It was always just the people that don't quit. And it seemed like the people that don't quit, they'd refuse to take no for an answer. They keep going, even in the face of it, like not really, I mean, at a certain point in time, an idea is bad, right? And you've got to drop it and you've got to move on to something else with your life. But insurance, you know, there's so much opportunity. There's a lot of competition, but, you know, those of us that call people back and stay in touch and really care and really want to, it seems like there's a little bit less competition for us. And that was the thing that I noticed over and over again was the people, they were just too stubborn to quit. They wouldn't take no for an answer. If one way didn't work, they'd go a different way, pivot and figure it out different. But, you know, they didn't stop until they figured it out. And then once they figured it out, they kept looking for a way to improve upon the idea. So that to me is the number one piece of advice for anybody starting off is probably not gonna be easy at first. It gets really easy later in certain ways and then new headaches pop up, right? But, you know, but it gets a lot easier. And if you don't quit now in 10 years, you'll thank yourself. No matter what your path in the insurance industry is, if you just want to be a producer and you just want to sell or you just want to, you know, do CSR work or you want to start your own agency and grow it and sell it or whatever it is, whatever the path is that you want to take, you can do it. You just have to put in the time to make it happen. That's right. I love it. We just did a personation virtual in April and the theme was, if you don't quit, you can't fail. Yeah, that's it. It's exactly the secret. Yeah. And most people, have you ever seen the graphic where the guy's hacking away and he quits one step before he gets to like all these diamonds, you know? I don't know if you've seen that, but it's just like that. That's the insurance industry, man. You know, like- Yeah, it really is. There's somewhere in my office, we recently moved. So I don't know exactly where it's at right now. But I've got this poem, it's called, Don't You Quit. And it's the same thing. It's just, you know, often the goal is nearer than it seems to a faint and faltering man. And, you know, at any given point, we have no idea how close we are. Not a clue. So true. So good, man. Dude, this has been fun, man. You are very cool, calm, and collective, and casual on camera. I don't know if anybody has ever just said that, but really good. Thank you. Seriously, like you got this calming, like social presence that is just warming. You know, it's awesome. Thank you. So for those that haven't went to theinsuranceconnector.com yet, they're gonna go, but they haven't been yet. What's something you can say as we close out to really get their attention, to make them think, maybe I should be checking this thing out, man. Yeah, I mean, it's, you've got nothing to lose and you've got everything to gain. Even if you think, you know, well, my agency, you know, gosh, that sounds like a great service. I don't need it right now. You take it from somebody that's, you know, the beginning of February of 2018, I didn't think I needed it either. But like five days into February, I really needed it real bad. And so, you know, if you go and you sign up, even if you don't need it, you know, poke around on there, check out, see who's on there and get your profile ready for the day that something unexpected happens. And, you know, it's like the insurance way, right? You know, be prepared for what is, you know, maybe even if you don't think as likely, I don't think I'm gonna die, but I have life insurance. And so, you know, just get over there, sign up, check it out, maybe develop some relationships with some new carriers, you know, as a safeguard for your career, your agency. And then the day you need it, you just hop in there and start making phone calls and you could save your agency. I love it, I love it. Abe, unbelievable job, appreciate the partnership and thank you so much for being on today, buddy. Yeah, no problem. Thanks so much for having me, Cody. I really appreciate it. You got it, Mr. Abe Bowling of theinsuranceconnector.com. Please go check this thing out, your agency's bridge to success. Thanks for watching. Again, huge thanks to Abe and everyone watching. Go check it out, theinsuranceconnector.com. If you love this interview and any part of it, you're like, dude, I don't wanna make calls anymore. I maybe got a video for you, how to make 5K a week and have to never pick up the phone. Check it out. Let's do that, let's do that now, right? 5,000 bucks, I want a minimum of 60% margin.