 Hi, everybody. My name is Jeff Sophia here with Ideal Traits and Insurance Sales Lab. Super excited to go over this topic today. If you guys have seen this video, one of our videos are ready. That's awesome. We're glad to give you some more content because we got a really good response from the previous video that we did. And for those of you who haven't watched, I just want to give a quick intro again of Vlad and Kevin because they are obsessed with helping people in the insurance industry. And I think it's just going to be pretty great for you guys watching because it just gives credibility to who's going to be talking about avoiding costs of bad hires and also talking about insurance recruiting strategies. So Vlad, if you could just give a quick intro on what you do and how you help agents and why you're here today. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for the introduction. I'm glad with the insurance sales lab and what I do is I work with PNC insurance agents and help agents and their staff close more business. That's what it really boils down to. I have a sales training course called the one called Close Masterclass. I'll include a link at the end of this video for agents to check it out. But one of the things that I always tell agents is that even if you don't train your staff and you don't give them the best leads and you don't hold them accountable. If you have the right people working for you, the A players, they'll find a way to figure things out. And that's the that's why having this conversation is so important and identifying some of those key components of hiring great people. And why we're doing this call is because if you can find the best team members out there to work in your agency, it makes your job as an agency owner that much easier. There'll be a lot more receptive to learning how to sell. They'll close more business and long term it'll be better for them and you as the agency owner. So I'm excited to share these hiring tips in today's call. Thanks, Vlad. And, you know, we love getting on with you because, you know, you provide so much value to agents and anything we can do to support you, we're going to do because we know you're very credible. And then Kevin, give a little background on you and talk about, you know, why you're on this call today. Yeah, thanks, Jeff. And thanks, Vlad, as always for joining the conversation. First and foremost, I'm an agent. I'm an insurance agent, just like you. And I've been an agent since March of 2007. We've opened up five locations from scratch group 20 million organically. And also the co owner of ideal traits. We've done, you know, lots of sales training and staff training and love the topic of hiring, of course, and anything that we can do to provide more value and to be able to just give you extra little nuggets. That's that's what our ultimate goal is to do today. So looking forward to today's topic. Thanks, Kevin. And again, I appreciate both of you guys being on here. I know I brought this up to you originally when we were talking all the agents that joined our last webinar. They wanted a topic like this. They want to know, you know, okay, so there's a process to hiring just like you have a process of sales. But what do we need in that process to avoid the cost of bad hire. And that's why today I just wanted to set the table. Right. A lot of agents. They want to know about hiring, you know, that they sometimes don't have the greatest experience. And sometimes they don't know what the cost of bad hire did to their agency. Maybe they don't have their numbers because they're so busy in other areas, but we're here today to, to really go over the and talk about that. So, if I may I wanted to go over just some, just some big key things here of why the cost of bad hire and what the breakdown looks like is important to know what your agency so number one is you know the advertising. When you're getting a job at out there. Some of you have already been on the job boards are using them now to get really good placement. It's going to be hundreds if not, maybe thousands of dollars. Right. It's not even close to the what goes into the cost of a bad hire. It's the recruitment cost, it's the interview cost, it's the productivity loss. And what I would like to do is have Kevin, you know, because Kevin, although you're amazing at at hiring now right, you still have sometimes costs of bad hires and you know you've had your failures so let's dive in and talk, talk about what did that look like to your and talk about what, what was the most costly on your end when you had those experiences. Well, you know I think some of the hidden costs that you know a lot of age maybe don't consider is you didn't mention productivity lost and that would just be putting a new person in particularly even untrained person on the phone with a valuable client, and then they don't close. That's the cost of a higher knowing that cost if you hired the wrong person. The other is just the thought of training them. So it's going to take countless hours of training and mentoring. And during that time, you're not selling your I mean you're literally doing something else you've got your new hire and yourself or your manager, all together. And that's a lot of time and effort out of it so those are some of the hidden the real costs that if you didn't train you would be more productive. And for obvious reasons of course, you want to spend a lot of money to make sure that it becomes productive down the road. And then the most obvious is just if you wanted to dismiss all of that which I don't think you really can. Yeah, you definitely want to look at how much you pay him. If somebody sticks around for three, four or five months. I mean you got 1012, you know, $15,000 just in hard costs that that you wrote checks for. So, you know, there's, there's a lot more to be said than just their paycheck alone. So if you break down the math on just the paycheck alone not the other hidden costs. Let's say you hired someone and you're paying them 2,000, 2,500 bucks a month. Let's say with with payroll taxes, your out the door expenses $2,500 per month. Most producers or even CSRs they're not super productive in the first month because they're getting set up, they're getting trained. So after the first month you realize that okay this person is not learning as quickly as I wanted them to they're not producing second month rolls around they write a little bit of business but not as much as you want them to. Now you spent 2,500 the first month, 2,500 the second month. Now you're $5,000 out for this new hire and then the third month they don't improve. So you spent 7,500 and that's that's money out the door that you can never get back. You can't ask for a refund with team members. Once you hire, right. So, and that's not even factoring in the hidden costs that you just mentioned, Kevin of missed sales opportunities of a potentially a big household anytime that you or your staff spent training that person. So $7,500 is the bare minimum that you have to factor in as a loss for you as the agency owner. When you're bringing on the wrong person. So that's the cost of a bad person in my opinion and frankly and tell me if you disagree on this Kevin but a lot of agents after 90 days they feel like man I'm knee deep with this new hire. Let me give them another month. Let me give them another two months and see if they find a way to make this work. And then, as it turns out, a lot of times they don't. After a couple months that the new team members never gets better, maybe a little better but not enough to keep them on board but the agency owner feels like I can't let this person go. I've already invested $12,000 into this person. So, letting them go is just parting ways with a $12,000 investment, and that's how bad teams are formed agents rush the higher, and then they end up paying the consequence. And guess what, once you have a few of those bad hires, and then a great candidate comes through, and they look at the people that work there, they might be reluctant and joining that agency so it's super important to only bring on great team members. I'm glad that's a good point. Career Builder actually had an ad, not an ad, but an article, and it might have been a year or two ago, but it was like 50,000 is what they said is the average hire. And then think about this Vlad and Jeff is not only whatever number you come up with in your head between 10,000 and 50,000, the bad hire versus being a good hire, right. So now the good hire you can generate, you know, especially in year two, let's just say 50,000 so instead of losing will take the middle 25 grand making 50 it's a $75,000 swing. So either way you look at it, we're talking about large dollars for each individual hire that you make. Yeah, and I know that's one of the videos right coming up where we're going to break down that map of what a player will do to the agency in terms of your bottom line and then versus like a B or C player so excited to have that webinar. So for anyone watching this video make sure you stay tuned and look out for the upcoming webinars that we do. Thanks Vlad thanks Kevin and you know it's it's one of those things we a lot of agents will just laugh it off and it's tough because you kind of laugh with them but when it starts costing the agency more and more money and then sometimes I mean with my new agents that I talked to it could be to potentially going out of business right it's not a laughing matter. So how do we avoid the cost of a bad hire. And one of the biggest things that we found with all of our research and data that we've done here ideal traits because it was actually created by Kevin and a couple other agency owners that he partnered with. We only work with insurance agents so we have this data to show that the desperation hire leads to more times than not the cost of that hire right. So what can we do and Vlad I know you talked a lot of agents yourself that you know they say they're not going to hire right now because they don't have time for it. And then all of a sudden they lose someone and shoot hey I have to hire someone within the next couple weeks. So how do we avoid that. How do we avoid the cost of that hire. Well it's being prepared and you know it's not doing the desperation hire. So that's what I want to kind of lead into here because we need to really discuss this especially with brand new agents coming in because unfortunately they don't know what that could look like. So Kevin or Vlad I'd love for you to discuss what your recommendations are here. Yeah so you know we'll call this you know pointer tip number one is we really like to refer it as the ABH role which is always be hiring always be hiring. You know a lot of agents and I could say that I'd be guilty to at some point or another is this unrealistic approach and thinking that you know you walk in with your team which just happened 32 days ago now and this is the team like we're good for the year that's what's going to happen. And I want you to think back at all those years and how many times that was true by the time December 31 came around. And that doesn't mean that you did anything wrong or they did anything wrong or you hired the wrong people you may or may not have. I mean there's a lot that goes into it but ultimately realistically there are there are not too many agencies that look exactly the same January 1 as they do 365 days later. And so I think it is being realistic. You know the realistic approach that says at some point someone may leave and or I am going to need to grow my team and grow into the goals that we've set ourselves out for. And so be realistic in your approach and always be hiring what that does is let you take a look at approaches be there. You're there passively hiring or you're actively hiring now passively hiring means that that January 1 where the team looks good and maybe you just hired somebody to feel really good about your team at that point. Well that that point is when you passively hire. So you get your job out your job at out on the job boards, you maybe do free advertising, you may go to a job fair if those even exist anymore in today's I'm not really sure. But hopefully those things come back around but you're staying in tune, you're staying in touch, you're being realistic, as what I like to say, and then actively hiring is when you kind of kick it up a notch. Somebody does leave you're going to grow your team, even a better reason why, and you can actively hire and if that's going to take a few extra dollars, you'll probably sponsor your job ad on indeed or some other sites and get out and spend more time, each day, and or, you know, each week, than what you were doing on the passive side passive side, you may spend an hour to a week active you might spend an hour a day, because you, you know, you need this, but by passively hiring the actively hiring is going to be a lot less time. And by doing that, you know you're going to always be interviewing, and it creates for a much better and a smoother transition for that new hire. So let's look at the flip side of that Kevin for a moment let's say I'm not always hiring, because I have a full step to sales producers to CSR is I'm happy, life is good, we're hitting our numbers. And suddenly, one of the team members like you said has to leave. I'm in a different position because I know the second person is going on paternity leave, and I need to fill those spots ASAP. What am I going to do not only am I going to spend more money on the job boards to get more candidates but I'm going to find every reason to take anybody with a pulse who's who's ready to get licensed, and who wants to work in that position and offer them a job. I offer them a job at say a $2,000 a month base salary and they say look the only way I'll take your job is that 2500. I'm, I'm going to do that because I'm desperate, right. Yeah, that's not a position that we want to be in. And the kind of questions that you're going to ask in the interview are all going to be like you like to say set up questions. Kevin, you brought up some examples last time we spoke. Maybe you could share some of those questions. The agents often ask when they're desperate to hire a team member share some of those questions please. Yeah, I mean it could be something like, I mean, do you like to show up. Will you show up on time every day. Of course. I think the interview on time. Yeah. Hey Vlad, as far as, you know, staying late now you don't have to every night, but if you had to stay late, could you possibly stay late. I think I can make that arrangement. If I'm good. Good. Okay, and then Vlad, I know you interviewing for a sales position. And do you think that you'd be good at sales. Oh yeah, I'm great at sales. You know, I maybe over exaggerated a little bit. But what happens is you're articulating activating system you're looking for these positive results because you're you have this desperation need you need somebody right now. And then whatever they say, you really filter that in you take it through your, your filter and say this is good. And then you might even filter out what would be bad like, you know, hey, do you like to, you know, market all day long and Vlad goes, you know, kind of maybe and you're like, well, he didn't really mean that I'm sure he understands that in sales and he's going to have to do some telemarketing. So he's okay check the box. You know, so we just have to be and again it comes back to being realistic like your gut is going to tell you your gut will know. And, you know, in that desperation higher what happens is we we avoid our gut like we, we don't take it to its full effect. We know what it what should happen. And yet we maybe set that aside a little bit because we're desperate. Two quick points on that before move on is that the timeline to get a person who's not licensed to get license first put a two week notice if they're employed somewhere else, then get license, go through through all the the hoops that they have to jump through before they can start in day one. Best case scenario we're talking about one month. One scenario could take who knows how long five to six months or longer. So, if you know you're not looking to hire someone this month, but you might be looking to bring someone on in the future. Be actively recruiting at all times, so that you're not, you're not desperate and scrambling last minute or you have a month where you don't have a producer in place. If you're going to be always hiring, even though you're fully staffed. It gives you some more control in the fact that you'll be looking out for just the a players and that's something that I want to make very clear is that agents should commit to only hiring a players and a players are not just above average. They're the best of the best. The top 1%. Those that can come in and write 60, 70, 80 or up to 100 items a month without having a lot of leads without having any coaching without having an accountability. They just have that in their DNA and those people are out there. They're in every city, every town. You just have to find them. And if you're always hiring and you're fully staffed and that person comes along and you interview them. They like you. They like the team. They like everything. Are you going to offer them a job, even though you're not hiring at that time? Probably. And then that person comes in. They crush it for you. So those are some key points to consider as far as why agents should always be hiring. And, you know, last point on that is great with the A and B and C players. The A players, because they're more rare, they do take longer to find. I mean, again, realistic. It's going to take a little bit longer. You could stumble into one of your first interview, but realistically, you can have to kiss a few frogs. Yeah, yeah. No, that's, that's a very good point to Vlad that you made because Kevin and I, when we're doing sales meetings, obviously it's virtual now, but what we try to do when we're listening to calls with agents and we're talking to them on the phone is know what their timeline is. Exactly, because if the timeline, like they might say, Hey, I'm, I don't want to start with, let's just say ideal traits, I don't want to start posting an ad, or I don't want to start looking at another, you know, month, right. But then you ask them when you want to hire someone. Oh, a month and a half from now, or two months from now. Yeah, exactly. So we have that timeline. If any agents around this, and you just want to know a timeline for specific roles that you're looking for with specific requirements, we have the average timeline that it takes. So definitely get with us, give us a call and we'll talk to you about that. So this is good because if you are always hiring, not aggressively per se, unless you're in full growth, that's great for you agents out there. But what Kevin and Vlad are talking about is at least passively have an ad out there all, all your long, in case someone were to leave. Or in case you're there is that top producer that's out there, and you want them to apply to your agency versus another agency, you want to get on them first, of course. So what does that look like? Are we just going to throw any ad out there? Are we just going to throw any opportunity out there? Or are we going to really deliver a value proposition? So that's what I want to get into, like what is a compelling job ad? We talked about this a little bit and a couple of our last webinars that we did. But Vlad, I'd like to lead off with you. What would be a compelling ad and what would you say to an agent if you're talking to him or her, what would you add? What would they add to make it effective? Yeah, if you look, if you go to Indeed and type in insurance sales position in your city, they're going to have a lot of different companies pop up, state farm farmers, all state Liberty Mutual, Geico and some cities, independent agents. Everybody's job description looks very similar. Like if take the title out, you could, and you compare all the job descriptions to about 90% identical. So it's, it's the little details that you can implement or put in your job description that can make you stand out. Something I did for myself about four to six weeks ago is I added a few points there. One says, if you're looking to be part of a very competitive sales environment with an opportunity to make a, and then I put in the number of how much they could make in the first year, then this may be the career for you. That's in the job over you. And then in the responsibilities, I put in having a ton of fun while being part of a competitive team. So incorporating the word fun and then saying that we have a very competitive team. And then in the requirements, you know, you have the basic requirements that you need to have a person, but then at the very end I said, must have a fun and easygoing personality. And then incorporating some of those key buzzwords and a lot of these millennials look for it. And it's funny when people are submitting their short answer responses of why they're applying for this job or what interests them about this job. They bring up those specific things that I like that this is a fun and competitive environments where the other thing I put in here is that ability to achieve high sales targets. I'm not afraid to put that in there because that's what we would expect of them. So right off the bat, this candidate knows that, okay, if I'm not someone who's good at sales, I've never sold anything before. I probably shouldn't apply for this position because it's a competitive position, and they expect you to achieve high sales targets. They're not going to apply in the first place. But if I feel like, oh, this job speaks to me, I'm going to try to sell myself in the short answers and say, I have sold things before. I like working competitive environments. So those are just like the surface level things that make a huge impact. But to go one step deeper. Nowadays, the job board is just one of many things that candidates look at. They will always Google your company. They'll look at your Google reviews. They'll look at your Facebook page. They'll look at your pictures. They'll look at, they'll stalk you personally on Facebook or Instagram. They'll look at a lot of different social channels to better understand what kind of agency this is. They're going to do that for your agency and other agencies. And if they see that the agency just down the road from you has a better Facebook page with team pictures, better Google reviews, just overall their online presence is better. They might give that agency a shot over you. Even though you might be a better environment, you have to sell them on your agency past just the job description. So it's an obvious thing to say, but I think it's worth noting that a lot of agents miss that. I know of a lot of great agents. You two know those agents where they just amazing environments to work in, but they don't have great reviews. They don't have many reviews and they don't have any pictures of their team doing fun stuff. And I think that prevents them from getting a lot of new people to apply. You're on mute, Kev. Oh man, how many times has that happened in our virtual webinars? Oh, you're still muted. There we go. I just don't get it. 2020 2021. But I was just going to say, you know, really good points. And in addition to that is, you know, what about the awards and successes that your team has already achieved? You know, I think that people, you want to be a part of winning team, what kind of words have you already won and to know, you know, kind of what the level and what the expectations are. And, you know, beyond that would even be community outreach and involvement and being able to get out in the community and knowing that you're making a difference, not only at work, but also any community to help out in any way. So those are things that the environment, the culture is really important to the people today that are applying for jobs more than it ever has been in the past. No, that's great. Quick live example of yesterday. And then we'll go on to the next key point. I had an agent call in from Texas, and he gave me a call after a webinar that I was on and he had a few applicants that apply he was really happy with the what was going on with his, with his exposure with his job at but he obviously, you know, was just calling and to see how to get maybe more exposure how to what would be the best advice and I just took one quick look at his ad before I sent him over to my client success team. And, you know, it looked like a good ad he used really good templates, but I just went ahead and asked him, David. Why would an agent, a producer sorry, apply to your job ad. Why would they do it. I, if I could write all this down Vlad and Kevin, he probably gave me 12 points he went on and on about how great his opportunity is, right, how for farmers they have a produce your program, and there's a room where they can mentor them and obviously get them to an agency owner position and I know I'm skipping ahead on our slides here but also he gave all the awards awards that he has. He's one of the best agents in the state and even top five or sorry top 1% in the country. And I was none of that was on his job at at all. Right, and he says that he usually doesn't bring it up in interviews because he doesn't like to brag. Well, Kevin, what would you say right you would say it's good to brag about your office winners want to work for winners. Right. And so that goes a long way, and I just said, David, everything you just told me, I would articulate or just put it right into the job at. But now, Kevin, this is something where with your hiring process and I know this firsthand because I went through it. You do create what seems to be obstacles for the candidate. Right. Obviously, you provide a really good can experience. You do a really good job I feel like which agents definitely need to adapt to is walking in the shoes of the candidate. What are they going through. They're doing what Vlad said and they're obviously looking online at reviews. And you got to think okay why would they apply to your ad. What do you have at your office other than other offices but what Kevin does is, he creates obstacles because he knows that if they can't handle that type of candidate experience. Well, are they going to be able to handle the day to day obstacles at their office. So, at his office sorry. So Kevin, if you could elaborate on that and talk about why you do these obstacles and what it consists of I think it would be helpful to agents tuning in right now. And it leads a little bit back to, as far as, you know, avoiding the desperate desperation hire is you put a job ad out there. They apply to the job ad you say come in for an interview and then you say well, you know, just come in on Monday will have your computer ready to go. And there's no obstacles in place and it's really simple and easy to do. And I think what you'll find that you get out of that is a very non committal employee. They didn't have anything they can show up on Monday and if they don't like it by Wednesday gets like, well you know hey sorry, you know it didn't really work out. So, what I like to do is to make sure that someone is committed, and I make them, you know, really commit up front by going through our process. So our process, you know, consists of generally as you know that they find the job ad, and they have to take the assessment and get that will do a zoom kind of meet and greet will be will do that. Maybe it's just in the phone but I like to get it on zoom. Next I'll have them come in face masks and all, and we'll do an in person interview with them. And then after the in person interview so you know I'm feeling pretty good about the candidate at this point. At this point the next obstacle I do is I give them a task and the task is, I'm going to give you three days. So and I was kind of doing like okay today's Tuesday and I go Wednesday Thursday Friday. So by Friday at noon is when I want you to call back if you're still really interested in role, and then I'll think about it to, but you have to be the one that commits first. So, then I know like Friday at noon passes and they can't follow directions. So make sure that they have a specific deadline for that. So Friday at noon comes and they say, boy, this is great. I'm really excited about it and I said you know I'm interested in learning more to. So I bring them in once again to do an observation. And by observation they come in, and I let them know that you know it'll be a few hours but you can stay longer if you'd like. So obstacle there is they have to take off work, they have to set time aside. I told them that it's a few hours but they can stay longer. So here's a big tip and the longer they stay the more interested you are and committed you have as a candidate. What they need to observe is exactly what they'll be doing on a day to day basis. I mean they truly get a sample. They'll get a sample of all the telemarketing and all the phone calls, and you know the behind the scenes so to speak, of what they're doing. With that, I'll bring them into the office and I'll say how was your observation day, you know they give me the feedback, and then I specifically asked them this question which creates another obstacle in their mind I'm trying to catch them off guard. And I'll say, and this is right out of a chat homes book, the ultimate sales machine, and what he says is, oh yeah, is, you know, I'm not quite sure you're the one. Now I didn't say, for sure you're not the one. I didn't say you're not the one. You know I left some room for some for them to read into it and said you know for someone you like. Even for somebody I like, because it, what happens next is is the critical moment. So again glad it's, you want the job right think about this you're the candidate you really want the job. I don't do these obstacles already and I go, you know, I'm just not I told you in the beginning, I'm only looking for a players, and I'm just not quite sure you're the one. And then I be, and I've shut up, I just be quiet, and I observe, and then two things is going to happen number one, they're going to get up, Vlad's going to get up and walk away, and he's going to go okay and what does that tell you that when faced with an objection when faced with an obstacle, they're going to flee. And so this is really emulating and representing, maybe they're on the phone with the client client says you know I'm not quite sure I want to switch to your company. And they're going to go, Oh, okay, well, thank you, haven't I say call you in six months, or do they fight back into they defend themselves. I'm glad you probably would come back and just say something like, Well, wait a minute, like in my last job, I was, you know, in the top 5%. And I was, you know, captain of the football team. And I was head of student council and everything that I've done I've succeeded at and I'm sure I can succeed at this too. And that's exactly the type of answers that we're looking for you said you wanted this and that's exactly what I am essentially. And so when they fight back, I was like, and then I kind of do one of these like thank you like I didn't want to. I was hoping that you would come as kind of a test. And so I really appreciate that. And then the last and final obstacle which is a big one. A lot of agents can't swallow this. They can't really stomach it to know that I say, Next, what I need you to do is to go get licensed on your own. And you pay for that. And the answer is no, after six months, I will have working here I'll reimburse you, but you're going to have to find the money, you're going to have to do it on your own time on your own dime. And by that, if they go through that, and they come into your office. I mean, you blocked them in for at least six months and they told all of their friends and family. I'm studying, I'm going to be an insurance agent, I'm going to sell insurance. They told everybody and while they're doing that, they're actually creating a binder and a folder of, you know, 50 deck pages of their closest friends and family. So day one when they walk in, they're ready and they're prepared to succeed. And you think about the difference of somebody who has nothing into it, other than literally arriving on day one, first, a folder full of deck pages and an insurance license. Now tell me, who do you think it has, is going to be most like these to succeed. So that's what I talk about when, you know, creating obstacles don't make it so easy. You're going to have to throw some wrenches in there, because if they really want to be a job is going to be a career, what we really want to call it for for long time years to come. Aren't you willing to put in a little effort actually willing to make a few sacrifices. Yeah, yeah, I could not agree more and what I'd like to say to echo that is what you're doing there. And Kevin is you're not coming across as a desperate employer who's just willing to hire anyone and fill the shoes of the person who left or just add another person in your organization. What I like to do early on in the interview process. What I like to do in an in person interview is I tell them how many people applied and how many people I'm actually meeting with so I often say, you know we had in the last 30 days, 75 people apply for this position. I've only met with three people and you're one of those three. So congratulations and make like that. It makes the person feel good about themselves. And it makes them want to continue jumping through those obstacles and hoops to prove to you that they're better than these those other two people that that are coming in. So all that said, having those obstacles put you in a puts you in a position of control and power, but there's also fine line that you have to walk and I'll bring up a couple points on this one is that if if you portray yourself as a non desperate employer, that's good. But once you're past that phase of putting them through all those obstacles, you've got to flip the switch and make it very clear to this candidate to this applicant that look, I want you, I think you would succeed here. You're a great fit in this organization, and you need to massage that relationship up until the points and really even later, but until they start working in your agency until day one occurs. Talk to them every day, set up a coffee meeting, grab lunch with them, learn more about them. This is why they're getting licensed. Tell me about the last few jobs, sit down and say Kevin, tell me about your family. Tell me about what you do outside of work. What are you into. What did you think of the game last week whatever they're into just talk to them learn more about them to guess, guess what, something might come out through those conversations that will tell you more about that individual that never really came out during the process. And then you'll identify that okay, I do not want this person but I think john Smith down the street is desperate. I'll, I'll refer this candidate over to them. You'll call up the other agent and say hey I'm not going to hire this candidate for this reason but if you want to interview them you can, and then maybe you can refer that person over to another agent to save yourself. The headache of bringing on the wrong hire. So the point is this, you have to make the candidate feel like they're wanted back in 1983 1984 when Michael Jordan was drafted by the Chicago Bulls as the third pick. He was coming in as a good prospect of good player, but no one really thought he was going to be who he was meeting. So, back then Nike was not a big organization, not nearly as big as Adidas, and Michael Jordan really wanted to sign with Adidas, that's the organization that he wanted to work with, but Adidas was very passive. When it came to that meeting, he came to the meeting all hyped up. They offered him a number. He countered with a bigger number. He said, look, let me just take, he didn't even want to interview with with Nike, his dad forced him to do that interview. So he had that meeting with Nike they gave him a way better offer than Adidas. I think it was like, I don't remember the figure so I'm not going to make it up, but it was like two or three times as much as what Adidas offered him. And MJ still wanted to go with Adidas. So they came back, he came back to Adidas and said, Hey, I'm going to give you guys one shot. This is what Nike gave me. Are you going to offer or match the offer? They said no. And that was the beginning of the end for Adidas in the US. And it was the beginning of something special for Nike because they made MJ feel like they really wanted him. And that was a big bet that they won, right? They ended up crushing it. Massively. Yeah, massively. It was that move that changed the organization around and Nike would not be what it is right now if it wasn't for that meeting. Like think about that. Nike would not be as big as they are if it wasn't for the way that they handled that meeting. And you never know who you're speaking to when you're hiring a staff member. You might be talking to a candidate who has been working in the library for the last six years because that's been their job. They've been very committed. They've enjoyed what they've been doing. And you might look at that as a negative thing because they haven't been a salesperson for the last six years. But look past the obvious. Try to learn more about the person. Put all the obstacles in front of them. But once you realize, okay, this person is going to be good. Make them feel special. It's kind of like dating. You don't want to act overly desperate, but you want the other, you want the partner to feel like you want them. So it's the same thing when it comes to recruiting. That's my two cents. I love it. No, Vlad. I didn't know. I mean, I've heard about that story a little bit, but I'm glad you said it because it makes so much sense. And of course with the girl situation, I think it relates to a lot of people, right? You can't be obviously overly desperate, but you also have to acknowledge. You have to acknowledge like if you get to candidates, you mentioned like telling them like, hey, there's a certain stepping stone where you know what's a good fit for both. Acknowledge that and tell them that they're a good fit, right? You got to acknowledge the candidates existence. And what I would say is make it mandatory to your office to always think every applicant for applying and going that far through the process. Provide the feedback if they're not a good fit. Provide the feedback on why they're a good fit. So important. And it goes a long way. A couple of stats I just want to share real quick because I just want this to hit home on why it's so important to have positive candidate experience. And as Vlad mentioned, really good reviews. 60% of job seekers report a negative candidate experience with the employers they engage with. 72% of job seekers report sharing their negative candidate experiences online. 72% and then 55% of job seekers report avoiding certain companies after having negative experiences with those companies, right? So if we think about farmers or all state or, you know, state farm, your agency, of course it hurts you because it's your agency in the community where they don't want to ever apply to your ad again or don't want to do business with you. And then also you're hurting the company, right? Because it's state farm as a whole or farmers as a whole or all state as a whole. So think about those things. And the adversity part, Kevin, I think it's amazing that you said that because it makes me think of all the awkward moments in the interview. I think it's good for agents because when I give them this advice, they sometimes they'll get back to me and they'll be like, it was a little awkward when, because I really liked them and I wanted to move to the next step and I didn't ask them. It makes them feel uncomfortable. And I've done a lot of interviews and it's weird for me to do it. Kevin, you've done thousands of more interviewers, sorry, interviews than I have. I think that takes practice and I think what would be good for the agent if they've never done it before is to role play with current employees or their spouse, because I think it's something that it's super awkward, but then super important. And how many interviews have you had where you are so on board with them. And at the end, just like a customer to a prospect or prospect sorry to a sales rep they don't ask for the clothes. You don't put them in that situation, and then the cat or sorry you do put them in that situation the candidates like, I okay you said you don't think I'm a good fit. All right, well, I thought I was I respect where you're coming from, then interviews over. Right. So I think that's super important to do that. But I do want to talk about what makes a good like if you're if you're talking about your company culture, not only on the job boards but like on social media on your websites. Why sell the career to that candidate what's so important what what kind of I know we talked a little bit about for farmers the protege program for State Farm the agent aspirant program the mentorship that comes into play but I'm glad. Let's go to you with this one. I know you're very passionate about this can you give the audience some sort of feedback that you give to your agents one on one here. Yeah, one of the key components that I like to emphasize is selling the candidate on the dream or the dream of working in the agency. What I mean by that is too often agents focus on the day to day of what you're going to do when you work in the agency, and they don't discuss what it will be a year from now three years from now five years from now what that could mean to their to their life What I mean by that is if you're interviewing a candidate who says, yeah, I want to run my own business at some point. I don't know what that business is but I want to be a business owner. I want to be an entrepreneur. So I feel like this is a stepping stone for that. That's what they say, then you can say look, I'm willing to help you open up your own agency after a year or two you feel like that's what you want to do. And you walk them through that process of how you could help them achieve that goal of being a business owner. If someone says, look, I don't really want to run my own business but I'd like to advance with an organization, which is most people. Then don't tell them that this is your job, and this is what you're going to do for forever I don't think anybody says this is what you're gonna do forever but they don't tell them what they can do six months from now a year from now, if they demonstrate the qualities of a leader. So you can say that look if you if you produce well, and you do a good job for our organization, there will be room for growth. We will need sales managers in our organization will need customer service managers, and the best person will get that job. So, in our agency, it's not just the sales team or the service team. That's where we're at right now we have one sales person one service producer but five years from now, the landscape is going to look very different. Our goals to have 10 people working here five years from now, you literally need to tell them that, because it's not obvious to them. As far as they're concerned, you're just hiring one additional person so they're thinking, is it really going to be me plus these two for the next however many years. But if you tell them that hey the next few years I want to have 10 people working here, and I'm going to need to sales manager service manager. Now they're thinking beyond just the next few months, does that make sense. So, that's what I mean by selling them on the dream of working in the agency that not just fixating on the first year or two of that being an agency but what happens afterwards. Yeah, so good to tell them about the future and you know really paint the picture. What does it look like. And you know I like always like to say like painted in color. You know not just black and we're like yeah you know we're going to have more people than we have now, and we're going to be doing more than we're doing that I mean give them some. Yeah, that picture and color. Yeah. Well, now you get to the point and we're going to go to the fifth strategy here. You know they did the candidate went through the whole process right and they came back with the results you're looking for on the assessment. The phone screen interview went great. You even gave them some of those obstacles that Kevin was talking about right and they handled it. So now, we would say it's up to the agent right it's up to the agency to train your employees, right you hired them and you're training them. So, what do we do here. Right and that's why I'm actually really glad that Vlad on this webinar right because he literally has a training course that designed for this for new employees and of course exist employees to and you go into that as well and just talk about what you're doing and elaborate a little bit more than you did in the introduction so so that all the audience members knows how you can help. Well, I'll start this one out here. I can wrap it up and just know that it's, I think this is a really big point because, you know, as we were discussing earlier it's like the candidate did everything that you asked them to do it showed up. They applied, they took the assessment. They got licensed, they followed all of your instructor they did everything. Now they're, they're moldable and we hope and coachable, but they're in your hands. And I think it's a big responsibility that maybe some agents don't recognize and realize that, you know, they've got a future them and they might have a family that they need to and with all that being said, it's up to me now to give it my best, like I have to jump through the hoops to make sure that I'm allowing them every single opportunity and possibility to succeed. It's my job to train them it's my job to hold them accountable. It's my job to set goals with them it's my job to role play with them. And if I don't do my part, then, then I'm responsible for that large bill that we talked about in the beginning of how much it would cost to hire the wrong employee, because I could hire the right employee the best employee. But if I think that I'm just going to give them a pen and set him aside, give him a couple videos to watch. It's not enough. It's ongoing. It's never ending. It's staying in contact it's getting to know them personally. So it's almost this is like the accumulation of everything we've already talked about, all wrapped into one, and to let them know that, you know, we do care about their success. And if we care about their success first, then the sex success of our agency will ultimately come in. But it's too many times I've heard like I hired the right one sales leader, it's the perfect profile, they need to be great they did everything, and they're failing. And it's like, but what did what were your expectations and what did you do, how are you cultivating, and how are you being a leader to this, this point. And so, ultimately, it's up to us as the agents see owner to make sure that they're given every opportunity to succeed. It's funny, I look at managing team members kind of like parenting and raising kids because when you raise kids I'm father of two kids it's two and a one year old, you can either just let him grow up in the family and hopefully adopt some of the same values and principles and learn things as they go, or you can teach them from an early age, how to respect the elders had opened up the door for the person in front of you, proper table manners, those things you can teach. And if you teach him at the right age, then those things will stick with them forever. Right. You have to teach those things they don't just come naturally to the kids with team members it's the same things. Being a good sales person doesn't come naturally for most people they might have been great at sales in their previous job, but you have to teach them how to sell insurance. I'm a little passionate about what I do because I believe agents to do a really good job of training their staff on on how to talk about insurance they they they know all the ins and outs of all the little nuances when it comes to insurance. They know all the nuances when it comes to their quoting systems and everything that has to do with what the company provides but when it comes to the sales conversation. That's where agents typically don't have a process. And that's the part that keeps them away from being super successful, because think about it you brought on this great producer you taught him. The terminology has to do with insurance you taught him the systems, but then the thing that makes them actually successful you don't teach him how to do, and this is where agents drop the ball so for agents who want to see a great sales process in action will include a link right below this video. It's insurance training webinar dot com very simple to remember insurance training webinar dot com. You can opt in for a webinar where you can see a sales script in action that agents use to write over 100 items a month just yesterday interviewed a girl from a gal from all states she's LSP. She wrote 184 items last month in January, because she followed this sales script. She was already a good producer but she fluctuated between 1500 items on an ongoing basis. There wasn't consistency but once she learned the script and started using it and every conversation just kick butt the following month wrote 184 items so not saying this will happen for everyone. But when you teach your people how to do their job better. It's surprising how much better they end up producing so that's my two cents on that topic. Awesome. That's great. Yeah, I know some agents that they heard that they'd be like where do I sign up right, even half of those policies in a given month, I mean for some agents right so I think that's super important. What's that. That was just one LSP that went from 50 to 100 to 180. Crazy. For sure. And no, and that's awesome and then Vlad, I know we give a ton of material today. A ton, which is awesome but like if agents want to have this material as like a PowerPoint slide, can we include that in today's webinar or will they reach out to us and we send it to him how do you want that to work. Yeah, we'll include a link right below this video where people put in their email address and we'll email them a one pager with a summary of everything we discussed about as well as a link to ideal traits. The most powerful. Yeah, recruiting platform for insurance agents and really outside of insurance agencies. I recommended it to a CPA friend just a week ago hopefully she signed up with you guys. Thank you. Yeah, if you're looking for a salesperson or a CSR, and you're not using ideal traits then you're not using the most powerful tool that's available to you. You guys aren't paying me to say this you're not telling me to say this. I believe or you know this that I use the competitor before you guys and I was really happy with that company but just because I didn't know enough about ideal traits I didn't try it. 100% bought in but in the first month of using ideal traits I brought on to sales people I had over 100 people apply and I went through the through the process had everybody do the assessments and it prevented me from having a few really bad hires there's one guy and I'll end here real quick that I really liked perfect resume I mean I have not seen a resume like this in a really long time. I brushed it in the phone interview when we did our zoom call. And I gave him the assessment results. I said, he came back as a nurture. Jeff, I said, okay, tell me if you agree with that. And one of the things that it says in the nurturer summaries it says that these people interview really well, but they get bored doing the same task over and over again so be it comes to hiring them for a sales position. And I asked them what he agrees with and what he disagrees with, and I brought up that particular point and he said you know what that's true. I like sales I'm good at sales but I do get bored easily if I'm doing the same thing over and over again. I knew for a fact that this won't be a good candidate for me because they might be good for a few months but unless I'm motivating them to do a good job they might not be around to for too long so that assessment alone provided me from bringing on a bad team member so we're the wrong team member. I highly recommend the agents check out ideal traits and we'll include a link right below this video. Awesome. Well, yeah, thank you guys all for joining us today. And we'll, we'll keep these coming we'll keep trying to provide value and get as much content as we can. I would see any blood and, and thanks for joining. Like, yes. Thank you guys.