Transcript of Everybody's Replaceable, Even the Owner | Mariah Gates

They come up to a training and they're like, what's this training for? Um, the new CRM that your company spent the last 3 months working on, and the employees have no idea. And, um, most of the business owners will kind of cave to that, allow it, enable that behavior. And that's the can't. Everybody's replaceable. The business owner is replaceable.

I don't care who's right. I care that we get it right. All right, my friends, quick favor before we get into the episode. I love doing this podcast, and if you're getting something out of it, hit subscribe or follow, follow wherever you listen. On YouTube, give us a like, leave a comment, ask a question, share a story or experience, or explain why we're getting something wrong. I love hearing from you guys. It helps us reach new people, and it just means a ton to me and the team. This is the way. In

a crude laboratory in the basement of his

Mariah, you recently wrote, um, I didn't start my business with a marketing plan. I started it by solving problems publicly. And I think the publicly part is what caught me. What exactly did you mean by that? And what was the public nature of solving problems that ultimately, like, created the plan for you?

Yeah, so solving problems publicly, I would say what I really meant by that was the fact that I was solving problems in my business and I was sharing those solutions. I was sharing the problem. I was sharing what was not working. So many people are very scared to say that, to say these are the things that we struggle with. This is where we aren't performing well, or I have this lack of understanding, you know, and I'm trying to learn these things, kind of that very being very vulnerable and sharing the problem. And then as you find solutions, sharing that with the communities that are around you that have similar problems, because I believe that's how you change industries, that's how you change lives. I share not only just with my business where that ended up creating Accelerated Automation, but I share about my marriage, about being a parent, about being a woman in a man's, man's industry. So that vulnerability of saying these are the problems, these are the things that I struggle with. And then when you find that solution, being very willing to share it out with the people around you, because that, that's how we, that's how we make the world a better place, right?

By actually saying this is what I struggled with and this is what worked for me. And that starts to create discussion. Other people also share in that. They see that they're not alone in their struggles. And that there is a solution. They don't have to continue to struggle forever.

So knowing you personally and following your work for as long as I have, I know that when you share those posts, it's, um, organic, it's real, it's part of your process, et cetera. You're also trying to add value to people. There is another side of the vulnerability content piece where it becomes like a tactic where people are like mining vulnerability for likes and comments and, uh, that kind of stuff. How, how does How does someone navigate the, you know, look at all the problems I have, feel bad for me and like my post versus here's something that happened in my business and it's a real problem that most people face and here's how I'm trying to solve it.

Yeah. Are you talking about like, uh, the recordings of people crying where they're like, I just figured out this thing or my husband just left me and they're recording themselves. And then there's the spoof videos of like, the person is like setting up the camera and like getting ready and then decides to cry. on camera and it's very like, it's a joke because it's very fake. Is that what you're kind of saying?

Yeah. Vulnerability porn, I think, is what it's called.

Yeah, it's awful. Um, I would say that there's a difference. I think that you can sniff that stuff out because if somebody is really hurting in the moment and like legitimately is like, I need help. And they're, and what they're saying is they're reaching out and they're asking community for help because some of those types of social media content, like they also have comments blocked, right? Or there's a very specific message or like a take action or support me or give stars or I don't know, whatever. That's all the stuff that I see. But when those, when that, that moment when you're feeling that vulnerability and you want to share the story and you're asking your community for help, or you're saying, this is what happened to me, you're sharing it intentionally and then saying, but this was the solution that I found. That is very different than a fake emotion online, in my opinion. So I would, if, if I was vulnerable and struggling with something and posted into a community or jumped online and said, hey, I'm really having a hard time here, please help me out. And there's no other call to action or agenda, behind that.

To me, that seems much more like legitimate and real. Other times I would say that if you are, if you're sharing the solution, if you're sharing what you found is the solution, you're probably not like crying on camera because you've been past the initial struggle, right? Like you've gotten through that. I can see maybe you're getting emotional as you recant the story, but you are, you're like, this happened to me. This is what happened and this is how I solved it. And I hope this helps other people. And I think that comes across much more genuine. But intent, you know, And I think this is where it goes back to trust, right? Like, there's so much with AI these days where we can make content with AI. And, and I have always taken the stance of like, I'm not going to create an AI clone of myself. Like, I'm not going to do that because I believe that that degrades trust. Does it save me a ton of time? Absolutely. But there is something behind true human emotion where you can sniff out like, you're— this is clickbait, right? This is something you're doing for a purpose.

This isn't genuine. And I think that time is usually what irons all that out. You can tell over time if someone is genuine or if they are truly just looking for attention.

Yeah, I wanna come back to the AI clone conversation because, uh, I have very strong opinions on that, that, that mirror your own, and I wanna go down that path. But I wanna finish this idea of, of vulnerability and kind of building in public because one, I love it. Two, I watched you do it, uh, in different businesses. I have done it myself, and I think that done right and with the right intentions, right? Sharing your, sharing the lessons with the failures, not just the failures, I think is completely, to your point, it's completely different. So we're on page, but my question goes to like, all right, so when is it too much vulnerability? Because I have seen people who've embraced this and embraced it for the right reasons. Um, and then they start to see like, oh my gosh, and we'll take the industry that's both our like home industry that we grew up in insurance, right? I'll see an agent. So posting about insurance is not sexy. If you post like, what is, you know, answer some question has to do with insurance. You get no likes except maybe like 2 from friend agents or people in the industry and that's it.

And then you post something about a failure you had or whatever. And all of a sudden it's like, like, like, like, like, comment, comment, you know, you go girl, you go boy, you know, more power, you know, keep pushing, you know, all these cliché think comments. And, and all of a sudden you feel, you get that dopamine rush of like, oh man, I got all these people that support me. And now all of a sudden it becomes Like a vulnerable, like you start going too vulnerable. So maybe not necessarily the, um, the disingenuous vulnerability that we discussed the first time, but like, like what, how do you determine the line between what is something that is appropriate vulnerability online, kind of that building in public versus I'm, I'm almost unintentionally sharing too much of my life and it's having a negative, you know, it could potentially have negative repercussions.

I think that line is different for everybody. And that's kind of the beauty of social media is that you're going to see where some people's line is and where some people's, other people's line is. I don't think there's a real answer for that, to be honest, because I could share something that you think is way over the line, but I felt very convicted to share and felt really good about it. Right. That's the human aspect of this. I don't think that you can tell a business owner, this is something you should, or anyone, this is something you can share and this is something you cannot share. I have shared things that have created like detriment to myself, right? That I have decided I'm going to keep this up or I'm going to take it down. And you learn as you go. That's the human journey, right? Where you're deciding that this isn't just in social media. This is also in one-to-one conversations. You might say something that later you're like, oh, I— that was probably not super well-timed in context. And so I don't think there's much of a line. I think that you're— if you are truly with the intent, if the intent is marketing to build an audience for your company, you're Your community around you, the people who are following you, will tell you where the line is.

You will figure that out very quickly. I have done some content recently around this, like being in business. One of the biggest things I've had to learn over the last 12 years is sleep on it. So if you aren't sure, if you're like, I don't know if this is an overshare, I don't know if I want my community to know this, and you're unsure, sleep on it. Maybe even just talk to some people in your circle and then make a decision. I'm, I'm very religious, right? So I pray about it and try to figure out if this is something that I should be talking about. But I don't think that there's a hard and

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Um, it's always felt like something more, you know, something that I had to manage or whatever. But, um, I, you know, I go see a counselor. I've shared the show on the, I've shared the story on the show before, so I'll move fast through this. But essentially, you know, she was trying, we're trying to get to why do I respond this way or that way to certain things, et cetera. And she said, I think you should go get tested and find out what's going on with your brain. Long story short, and, you know, kind of didn't bury the lead there. I get, I got diagnosed with ADHD, and that's probably not a surprise to many people that have spent any period of time with me, but It was nice from the standpoint of I started to understand, like it gave me an anchor point to understand why I did certain things so I could actually, the ones that I felt either didn't help a relationship or weren't necessarily positive, I could start to work through and understand how to fix 'em. Okay, great. So I share that on the show and I shared that, um, you know, long drip, uh, uh, 10 milligram, uh, ER Adderall has actually helped improve my life quite a bit.

As much as Adderall gets thrown around as like a huge negative. Oh, what are you just taking a ton? I don't know. It has actually been, as much as I felt very shameful for a certain period of time taking it, like, it has been a tremendous, like, overall lift to my life. And I shared that on the show. And I got, I got 2, like, polar opposite responses, right? I got some people like, oh my God, I can't believe you talk about that on the show. Like, you know, why would you want people to know that? Like, people aren't going to hire you and blah, blah, blah, blah. And then I got this other side of people who are like, Oh my God, like, that's so amazing. Like, thanks for supporting the community. And I didn't— it's, it's for— I've been creating content for 20 years. It was a really weird moment for me. Like, I did not know how to— I didn't know how to digest that feedback because it was such a barbell. You know what I mean? Like, you— I find when you do these types of— when you, when you are willing to be vulnerable online, you, you, it create— it does, it definitely can bifurcate your community quite a bit.

And you can start to see. Like where people really sit on a line. Um, and it can be scary for people. Like, one, have you had that kind of moment where you, you shared a topic that, that pushed people? I could see, um, like religion being one. I know for me, I've started to downplay politics, but, you know, posting about any kind of politics or even having what people could infer as a political decision can be one. Like, have you had that happen and how have you dealt with it just to kind of wrap up this topic of being vulnerable online?

Yeah, I would say that having like support and conviction in what you believe in is key to this because like you shared it, you found value in that. And it means that you talked about, you were talking about a topic that was important, right? Like you were talking about something that resonated with people. And I, you know, I'm going to be 40 next year. As you get a little older and you deal with enough of this, like you said, 20 years of content, I am not nearly that close, right? I'm like 5, 6 years of like actively trying to put out information. Everybody has a damn opinion. You will never make everybody happy. I used to never understand how people could go into politics and just get ripped a new one from half the country and half the country agrees with you, or, you know, whatever that mix is. But at the end of the day, when you, when you have the conviction, and for me, a lot of it comes from my religion, right? Like the only person I'm worried about judging me is Jesus Christ. Like that's all the thing I'm worried about.

So if people on social media want to give their opinions and they agree or disagree, Great. You know what that does for content creators? It pushes the content further. Like, that's all it does. It allows you to reach more people. And so I think after being a business owner for 12 years, I try to look at everything as the big picture. Like, if people get upset because I say, when I hire, like when I interview and hire, I tell people, we are a Christian conservative organization. You don't have to be, but you're going to hear us talk about Jesus. We're going to pray together. We're going to talk about our path with personal growth and how that plays a role. My husband was saved from alcoholism. He's an alcohol Like after 10 years because he was saved by Jesus Christ. I'm a big believer that's never going to leave my core values. And I have gotten flack all the time from every side, even people who agree with me because we still have different variations of opinions. But at the end of the day, if you have conviction in your message, you believe in it and you believe it's important, like who cares?

Social media, the worst thing about social media is that opinions are visual and blown up. Everybody had opinions for all of human But they kept them to themselves for the most part. Unless you were a very confrontational personality type, you could say something in a crowd or at an event or speak on stage. You had no idea what the opinions of the crowd were. It's just more in your face now with social media. It's not like it's new. Just don't worry about it. Worry about the people close to you and your own conviction and just be yourself. You have to be able to let it roll off your shoulder. That's the only way you're going to get through life if you decide to put yourself out there publicly.

Yeah,

I

agree. I, uh, I actually had, I'm just going to share this story real quick and we can move on. But, um, really early in my career, kind of how I got started creating content was around, um, marketing for insurance, right? So, so people listening to the show know that, you know that. Um, and one of the things that I preached very early was video content, like back when we had 5-megapixel non-HD cameras on our phone and uploading a 5 megabit video to YouTube took like 2 hours, you know, like that's how long ago, you know, I was creating video, but, and I would get asked to speak at association events and stuff. And, and I would literally have people haggle me from the audience. And I would have people write long narrative posts on, uh, on, on social media as to why what I was, what I was trying to get other insurance agents to do, create video to market their business, was just horrible for the industry and it was a waste the time and you're like, so something so banal as like create video to market your agency can get hate, man, you're going to get hate for anything you say.

And, and frankly, you know, I think a lot of people overblow or, uh, how much hate they get. Like, I think like there's this badge of honor hate. Like, I don't get that much hate. You know what I mean? I post a lot of stuff. I post some, some stuff as well that is fairly controversial in different avenues. Um, And it's minimal. So I think we create this, we also create this like narrative in our head of how many people are going to like disagree or not going to work with us if we post something. And it's just not true. And what ultimately ends up happening, and I'm sure you've seen this in your business, is it creates a filter. Like people are always at, how do you get qualified leads from, from work that you do online? You, you get back exactly what you put out. Mm-hmm. So if you're looking for organizations that want to operate in a certain way and want to work with an organization that works a certain way, and you talk about the fact that you're Christian conservative and bubble, you know, in other aspects of your business, the people that align with those things are the ones that are gonna contact you.

And I can't think of a better way of working with the people that you wanna work with than being very honest and real with who you are. And I think this ties into your AI clone comment. Um, and I, I would like to spend just a little more time here in like this idea of being very honest. 'Cause I think, and I'm gonna encourage everyone to follow Mariah on LinkedIn, 'cause I think you do such a good job with this. Like, if someone sees your content, they know exactly who you are. That's the way that I feel, right? And I, you and I disagree on different topics. Every time we see each other, we seem to find them and it's fantastic. And I love having those conversations, but like, I know where you stand and I know who you are and I know what you're going after. And this AI clone advice, this, you know, to me, I just can't think of something that's more detached from, from like the message we're actually trying to put out than an AI clone. To me, it just says you don't give a shit. Like, that's what it says to me is you can't, you don't care enough to spend the time to pop open a video and talk to me that you're just gonna punch into a computer, create a video that says this, the computer creates a video that says this, and then some image that's not real tells the message.

It's just such a disconnect. I can't get behind that idea at all. And I can't actually find a use case that it works on except for These, these companies that do these crazy UGC videos, user-generated content videos that they spam blast on like Instagram and TikTok, like, and even then it burns out so quick that I can't even see why it's worthwhile.

Yeah. So, um, back to just kind of like being genuine and we'll talk about the AI clones, of course, as well. I would say that, um, when you mentioned about negativity, right? Like I didn't, I didn't know this back when I was young, but younger, I guess I should say, but your brain is programmed to pay attention to the negative and the dangerous and the potentially risky to you because we have an innate, you know, built-in mechanism. I don't know. I'm not, I'm not going to say it right with the right words, but we are, we're programmed to preserve ourselves, to protect ourselves from danger, right? To insulate ourselves from things that can be a risk, which is why on the news, 99% of it is negative. And then you get the feel good, like, oh, a puppy, you know, was rescued from a hole. And then it makes you kind of feel a little bit good because you're going to get sucked into the And that's what our brains are designed to do because it needs to know it. It wants to know it so it can avoid the risk, right? So when you see the negative on social media and it's 2 comments or you get a DM from someone just ripping you a new one, it's, it's one out of hundreds or likely tens of thousands who actually saw it, who decided to rip you a new one.

And it feels shitty, right? It just does. But the other people that saw it and didn't respond had different opinions. And again, those opinions are none of your business. That's my opinion at least, is that we don't know. We need everyone's opinion. But that negativity, it's the same thing. We have clients go through this, right? We'll automate workflows and like follow up and like check-ins and like one person will respond like that negatively to it. I get on a call with the agent, automation doesn't work, my customers are pissed. And I'm like, how many? Well, we got this one email. Okay, how many emails went out? 600. Okay. Why are you worried about one? Like, everything is going to have a plus and a negative. Every single thing you do in life. will have a positive and a potentially negative outcome to it. And if you have to sacrifice who you are because of one asshole who decides to message you and make you feel like crap that day, you will constantly sacrifice who you are. So I would say, think of the big picture and be— know that that negative, like that negativity, think about it as logically as you can.

Remove emotion. What is the actual sample size of the negative? And then make your decision. On the AI clones, like I have gone back and forth. I played with the AI cloning tool. Because creating content, Ryan, like, you know, it is extremely time-consuming. And if you really want to get your point across and if you're someone like me, I'm very wordy. Like, it takes me— I'm working on that. I'm trying to be more consolidated in my points. Yeah, it's hard, right? Because you want to add all the context. I'm like an over-explainer and it's very, it's very attractive. Now, do I make AI videos? Absolutely. But they're not me. They are legitimately like avatars or cartoons or whatever. They're clearly not me. But I believe where the trust breaks down is when you're trying to trick people, when you're trying to make it look so realistic that it looks like you and people can't really tell. And you can see this across the videos that you mentioned, right? The ads that go all over social media where people are like, is this AI? Is this real? And it instantly removes credibility and creates trust issues, I believe, because you're trying— you're purposely trying to mislead them.

But like, so what I'm working on is I'm going to have an AI avatar that'll be a cartoon. It'll be a cartoon character. It'll be very obviously not me. And it will say some things. And then my content that I make will always obviously be me. I feel the same way about voice AI. These voice companies are trying to make it impossible to know if you're talking to a person or AI, which is misleading. It's dishonest. It's not a person. And regulation is coming up. It's already in multiple states. I believe Colorado, it's already in effect. You have to disclose it. This call is being recorded. You're talking to an AI robot. Stop trying to mislead people and just be honest about it. And I think that's where the companies who embrace that in all aspects, be honest about who you are, how your business works, you will attract the right clients, what your content is, how you talk to customers. Don't hide behind it. They're going to sniff it out. A lie never ever lasts, right? It always comes to fruition.

I completely agree. And this is one of the things with the voice AI I've never understood is like, just tell people that it's That it's a voice AI. That's all.

Yeah.

This was my opinion. Consumers in almost every industry, certainly every industry I've worked in, all they want is a solution to their problem, right? If you're in insurance, they have an issue. They need a business owner's policy or a homeowner's policy, whatever. That's what they need. They need to get an answer to that. And if, if an AI voice tool can help route them to the right person faster, They could care less, right? If a, if, if it's after hours and a voice AI says, hey, everybody's asleep right now. You're calling us at 11 PM for some reason, but we still want to work with you. Let me gather your information. I'm the voice AI agent. I'll get your basic information and one of our team will call you tomorrow. No problem. Like, I've seen these things work really well, but to your point, when the, when the company using them is upfront about exactly what it is, this is it. You're talking to AI right now. Yes, I'm using a voice, but it's because you're calling us and there's no one in the building or whatever, right? Just as a, as a case. And then the person decides, is this the user experience that I want?

And they do it or they don't do it. But the minute, to your point, like, this is what I've never understood, is the minute I have to question, I've now lost the whole narrative, right? Instead of trying to get my problem solved, now I'm going, am I talking to a real— like, what do I say to this person? What's— now I'm not thinking about get my problem solved. I'm trying to decide whether or not I'm talking to a human or dealing with a human. And that to me me completely defeats the purpose. It's like, like, um, there's a couple of voice AI companies in the insurance industry that people will ask me about. And I'm like, look, if it were me, my agency, voice AI didn't exist when I had my agency, but, um, I would have used it after hours. I wouldn't have used it during real hours because I still think a human picking up a phone inside of 3 rings has the highest close ratio. It certainly did in all the testing I did in my agency. But after hours, when no one's around, I think if you let people know, and this is why you're using it, just to gather information so we can make sure we get ahold of you tomorrow, like, I feel like most people would be okay with that if you're upfront with it, right?

And it's a—

Yeah, I, we see the same thing. We see the exact same thing. When people wanna add it, I say add it as like, think about an IVR, right? And a call tree, right? Press 1 for sales, 2 for service, whatever. We are adapted to that as a society. We're very used to it. Do we always like it? Eh, not, maybe not. But we also don't wanna get connected to one person and have to be transferred 5 times to get to the right person. So there's a place for these things. Your AI receptionist or after-hours can do the same thing, right? Like, I'm, I'm the receptionist here. I'm AI. I'm just going to route you to the right person. Why are you calling today? And if they're like, well, I need your address. Oh, I can give you that, blah, blah, blah. Do you need to— still need to talk to somebody? Nope. Just needed the address. Great. Like, have a wonderful day. So there's a place for it. Don't pretend it's not AI. Don't try to trick people. And I really don't believe that it has a big place for like outbound calls. I think that's still very— and the problem for this, the reason that you can't really use it there is because of the sheer spamming.

Like, I legitimately switched my phone number because I get AI spam calls all day from this phone number I've had forever. I'm on some kind of list, so I got a new phone number. But about business lending, about Medicare— I'm 39. Take me off your Medicare list. And it is an AI robot and they dial and they dial and they dial and there's so many of them. I literally have like at least 20, 25, 30 calls every single day. Spam, missed. I don't answer that phone anymore. So the Bad actors, I really believe, have kind of destroyed that outbound AI. Don't know if that's going to get better, but inbound, disclose it. We have a lot of clients who use it, really like it, even as a backup. If it rings and you can't answer in 3 rings, let it roll to your AI and say, hey, we tried everybody. Everyone's with another customer. I'm the AI agent. Like, can I answer any questions for you? I'll try the team again to see if they're available. Just be honest. Yeah. Stop trying to mislead people. It will erode trust. We live, you guys, we live in the review world, right?

A review on every Amazon product, Google reviews, Yelp, social media platforms that ask for opinions and recommendations because we have so many trust issues as a country. I believe there's so much distrust and AI will only make this worse. And if you think about the last time you bought a product or looked at a service, if you were going to have an HVAC company come out, you probably looked at the reviews, right? Do people trust this company? Can I trust this company? Don't, don't break that trust. Be honest. Always.

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And we need to make changes to the business. And you kind of sit at a focal point for many organizations in this change management process. You know, let's— I want to dig into this and, and really Really, like, first of all, let's just talk a little bit about what change management and kind of define the term and the concept. So someone who's sitting here understands. I mean, I think the name gives away some of it, but I'd like to just set a baseline. And then I want to get into really what you're seeing as some of the most common change management mistakes that leaders are making when they try to adopt some of these automation or AI-related tools into their

So change management in general, like I said, it kind of explains itself. It's the management of the change process. And, you know, I have a, I have a sibling that is a project manager for a very large insurance carrier. And, and I've learned a lot from her as well through what change management is and how to do this. And as a small business owner, when I started out, I didn't have a change management process. And most small business owners don't. We see a shiny object, like you mentioned, we see something new, somebody recommends something, we sign up for it, or we, you know, start buying leads from a certain vendor, but we don't sit down to think about how is this going to change my business? What do I need my team to do to actually create this change? And what does success look like? So change management is, is just that. It's putting a plan in place, thinking through the starting point where you are today, what you're trying to move, what metric, and then how you're going to do that. And you got to do it through your people. So nothing happens in our businesses, especially in insurance, right, with all the regulations.

It doesn't happen without people. And if you don't have a plan going into into an overhaul. It could be something small. It could be, you know what, we don't want to write as much auto insurance because our customer service team is just drowning. We want to write more home insurance because it's a lower service level, right? Or maybe you are at an auto body shop and you're like, we have a particular service that has a very large margin on the service and we want to, we want to advertise and market that more. But the change process of that is, do you have enough people to do that work? You know, are they trained properly? How are you going to market it? What is your messaging? How are you going to maintain that? So you have to create a plan. And then, not only creating the plan, but following through with the plan. This is where leadership comes in, because you cannot make a plan, deliver it to your team, say, this is what we want to do, come back a month later, you're going to look at the results of that, and nothing will have changed.

So, you have to factor in that human behavior piece in your change management process. Change is literally the hardest thing for any human on the planet to do. It just is. Like, I, um, I, my husband, I feel like this is my, always my, my test, but my husband was an alcoholic. for 10 years. He's sober now. And watching him go through that change, trying to change that behavior that was so ingrained in him, taught me a lot about humans and change and behaviors and habits. There's books, there's seminars, there's entire industries built around change, right? There really is. And when you don't factor that in for your team and look at your leadership, where in my leadership is change going to be supported? How are we going to keep training and reinforcing this message and this adoption that we want? Um, any change management plan you put in place will fall flat on its face. You will not have success with it. And we've seen it in thousands of agencies that we've worked with now.

Because I feel like so much of the content online, so many of the resources, guides, things that you read, even podcasts you listen to, talk about what tools should be using and how should you use them. And I think you, you made this point earlier before we even went on air, was like, if, if you don't have the process in place to get your people to actually use the tool, how you use it and what you're using it for, like, literally doesn't matter because they're not gonna use it anyways. So, Mm-hmm. where do you see, like, like, what's, what are some of the most common mistakes that, that leaders are making when they try, like, let's say you have, like, you guys work a lot with, um, with, uh, CRM automation. It's one of the things that you do. Okay. Let's just take that as a microcosm. You working with a company, they've never had a CRM before, and now all of a sudden you need to implement You want to implement a CRM into the sales system for this company for the very first time. Like, what are some of the pitfalls that you see organizations doing when they try to take this on without a real change management plan?

And, and how do we make sure we sidestep some of those obstacles?

Yeah, the most common one is not talking to the employees who will use this tool early on. So, setting the stage, if you will, like, that's what I learned when I was in sales, right? You set the stage, like, this is what you can expect of our call. This is our desired outcome. Do the same thing with your team. Bring them in early. Say, these are the things that we're seeing that we're struggling in. These are the problems, and this is our expected solution. Bring that in early so they know it's coming. We have built out CRMs and systems and come onto the first live training, and this is the first time the staff is learning that this agency was even considering this change. They come up to a training and they're like, what's this training for? Um, the new CRM that your company spent the last 3 months working on, and the employees have no idea. We've done on-sites where we come in and we're meeting with the teams And they don't know why we're there. You've got to communicate with your people, you guys. You have got to lay the foundation because they're going to have all sorts of emotions about a change.

People, change is hard. So, give them as much time as they can have to process the change, think about how this is going to affect my job, ask questions, let their brain spiral into all the positives and negatives, and get through those emotions before you ever actually ask them to make the change. So, laying the foundation. communicating with your people, letting them know why. You know, when I used to be a bank manager at JPMorgan Chase and I had a district manager, I'm a very direct person, and he used to try to get me to build the why, build the belief, build the why. And I didn't understand it then. I was in my early 20s. I was like, I'm just going to tell them what to do because this is their job. This is how you get your paycheck. I didn't understand the importance of it. But the importance of it is you have to kind of let it sit and fester and then think about it. And they have to go down all the worst rabbit holes, and you have to be able to answer those concerns. With automation and AI, people are legitimately afraid for their jobs.

They think they won't have jobs. AI is going to replace everything. If you're going to start automating away some of the things they do, you need time to message. This is because I want you to do these activities instead, not because I'm trying to replace your job. So that is the number one thing. Talk to your people, lay the foundation, answer those questions, build that why, give them time before you actually have them change how they click or talk to people or what they're doing.

daily. Why do you think most leadership groups or decision makers avoid those conversations?

Yeah, I think that as a society in general, we are, we are not very direct. We are really worried about upsetting people. We are worried about negative backlash. A lot of times we lack conviction. So I have an agency owner now who's been with us on retainer for 18 months and he lacks conviction. He, he, to me, he can say, this is what I know is best for my business. And as soon as his team pushes back, he's like, oh, I don't want to rock the boat. So this is a personality thing. this is why some people are better suited for leadership than others, because you have a little bit more conviction. You can deal with those negative conversations maybe and not have it affect you so much. So I believe that personality plays a big role in leadership. I think a lot of small business owners are in the wrong roles. I don't believe that they actually are suited for leadership. And it's a skill you can develop for sure, but it takes a lot of work. So instead of doing the work, the average small business owner just avoids the discussion, which is why toxic culture exists in so many small businesses where you have like the Right?

Like the staff and whatever their opinions are, are making the decisions instead of the business owner who is truly looking at the big picture. And that we see a ton of that. We have to help agency owners navigate those discussions often because your individual opinion isn't always going to apply to the big picture and the direction of the company. So I think that people just have a hard time. It's a difficult conversation to have. Um, most recently I've spent a little bit more and more time with, um, Kelly Pierrot at Agency Performance Partners. And she always like famously says, you know, I'll be the bad guy for you. If you can't be the bad guy in your business, I'll do that for you. And I love that. I love that she says it because it's a lot harder for some people than others. It's not hard for me to be the bad guy. I was just given the gift of like being direct and having conviction. Conviction. I, that's just how God made me, but not everybody's like that and that's okay, but you also can't not have someone like that in your business. You kind of have to have someone that's going to be the bad guy, if you will, if it gets to that point, right?

You don't want to get to that point. You want to bring your team along. I have an agency right now that signed up with us, a husband-wife team. I actually asked them through the— we're asking them about other processes they've tried to change in the past and how it went. And he was telling us how his team pushes back and they won't do certain things in their job. And I asked them, they'd been married for a long time, like over 15 years, and I said, in your marriage, at home, with your children, who is the parent where the rules are kind of malleable? They're kind of like, you know, up for negotiation. And who is the parent where like the rules are the rules? And it was his wife was much more stern than the husband was. And I said, okay, she is going to roll out your messaging, not you, Mr. Agency Principal. Like, you, you, this isn't how you are built. So, she is going to set the standards and the expectations and hold the team accountable because she's better suited for it naturally. And I think that if people were a little more honest with themselves, they would understand that maybe they need to delegate some of these things out.

Yeah, it's why I hate the term like we're a family when referring to the business. Oh my God. Because to me, all we're a family means is I'm, I'm trying to manipulate you into doing things that you don't want to do because we're a family. And I also want to give myself an excuse as to why we don't have to do, or I don't have to do certain things because we're a family here. And to me, some of the most toxic environments in some of the businesses that I've worked in, I've ever seen, have been businesses that refer to themselves as a family. And really what that is code for is we don't communicate very well. Um, have you seen that? And like, how do you start to break down that? Like, besides outsourcing, let's say outsourcing isn't, let's say I, I'm the owner. And I want, I want to start getting into a more systematized professional operation. And we've been this kind of messy, non-communicative, passive-aggressive family business atmosphere. Like, how do I start to work my way out of that? Like, is it, is it more meetings? Is it more structured meetings? Is it, you know, I read the book Traction and implement EOS?

Like, what are the act— like, what are some tactical steps? Because to actually get to the fun stuff, right? The, the lift in growth and, and, and understanding how my business operates that comes from a lot of the systems and, and workflows and automations that a company like yours is able to put in place. Like, like you said, if no one knows what's going on or half the company's unwilling to do it, it doesn't matter how good those things are. They're not gonna work anyways.

Doesn't matter. Um, so I would say the very, very first step is you, you do have to make a decision and you have to be consistent. So consistency is very hard for people, right, as well. It's hard for me. Like, there's days I don't get to the things I want to do. Still working on it. But you've got to make the decision in your mind that this, this is going to end. And then you have to be willing to kind of do whatever that takes. So, in most businesses, the negative, the pushback, it usually stems from one person and/or maybe a couple, like a small group, almost always an employee who's been there forever and feels like they're irreplaceable. And it breeds this, like, culture problem. And the business owner has yet to rip that cancer out. And so a lot of the conversations I have with agencies, because, you know, we'll have a client that we're working with and they'll come to me and be like, this isn't working. We're not seeing the change, we're not seeing the lift or whatever. And I'm like, okay, let's get on a meeting, let's talk through it because we're next to them.

We're training them for weeks, months on end to make sure that that process happens through change management. And almost every single discussion that I have to have, and it doesn't always mean family, sometimes it's just people that they view as family or again, that irreplaceable where we start digging into why the change isn't happening. And it's usually one, maybe two people who are very loud in the business. They're pushing against the change and they are, you know, to use a metaphor, steering the ship in the opposite direction that the business owner wants to go. And the business owner avoids it like the plague. This person in the agency is usually extremely confrontational, very loud, does not make it, um, they make it very known exactly how they feel about things and that they do or do not want to do certain things. And, um, most of the business owners will kind of cave to that, allow it, enable that behavior, and that's the cancer. So, very first thing you have to do is decide, be consistent in your decision, rip out any cancer that you have, regardless of what that looks like to your business.

That's where the conviction comes in. If you truly know this cannot continue, then you've got to get rid of the wrong people. I promise you guys, I promise, I swear, I don't care how much you think someone on your team is irreplaceable. Everybody's replaceable. The business owner is replaceable. One of my favorite books is the Netflix story. It's called No Rules Rules. And he talks about that, the CEO, how he's like, if I'm not good for Netflix, one day, I gotta go. Nobody just gets a seat in the company because they have tenure, right? That's, that's not okay. So, pull out the cancer, make a plan, and you need to bring your team in. A tactical step that you can do as well that I am really falling in love with is personality assessments. If you have never done a personality assessment, you could do that tomorrow. There's so many different platforms that you can assign out to your team, and that is going to give you huge insight to the people that you have in your organization and if they're in the right roles. But I think that you have to start with getting rid of the cancer.

Everybody on your team, all the people, they have to be rowing in the same direction to the same goal. They have to be behind you. If your staff is not there to execute your vision, they cannot be there.

Unless your business really is just a charity, right? Like, I think one of, and, and I, and I, and I mean that like 100% because I have met, uh, particularly insurance agencies seem to be susceptible to to this, but I know there are other businesses as well where, you know, there's 12 people, there's been 12 people for 10 years. Every year we talk about, oh, we'd love to grow and we'd love to do this and we want to put more of this on the books or we'd like to move into this area, et cetera. Yet at the end of the day, they're putting up with 2 or 3 problem children inside the business. They're putting up with a producer who hasn't, you know, grown their book in 2 years, but it's a nice guy and knows people around town. And, you know, everyone's got their little story as to how they came And, and, you know, it's like there's all this verbal, you know, oh, you know, oh, I wanna grow. Oh, we wanna, you know, evolve. We wanna, yet every internal decision is really just basically prioritizing giving people jobs because you like them.

And, and, and even in some cases you don't like them, but you don't, you, you feel bad firing them or you feel bad adjusting their work or their pay because—

They have a family. They have children. What am I, what are they gonna do?

How do you, so here's, here's where my question comes in. I'm, I'm very interested in this. Like, when you're sitting down as a consultant with a prospect, how do you gauge whether that person actually has the real conviction to follow through on the work that you know it's gonna take, the hard work that you know it's gonna take to make these changes versus the person who's just gonna give you lip service for 12 months, pay their bill, and, you know, ultimately do nothing?

Yeah, I can't say that I can tell that in one meeting with a prospect. We definitely see it through behavior, but these are the trends that we see that, that actually relate to the people who follow through. So if we're going to meet with somebody, we prequalify a lot. Like you fill out initial information when you book with us, you fill out— we have what's called a revenue calculator where we have you put in your numbers so we can actually see like what is the opportunity in this business? What, what, what makes sense? What programs do you have? What do you not have? We want to have a lot of information going into that first conversation. And then still my customer success manager, she calls and asks more questions. Now, the individuals who execute, They fill out the questions before the meeting. We send them the calculator. They fill that out before the meeting. When we ask in like the question box on the calendar, you know, we have a digital calendar and we ask like, why are you reaching out? What are you looking for help with? There is an answer. It doesn't say like CRM.

It doesn't say automation, right? It says a lot of things. People who are more intentional and are going to follow through understand the problem. They've usually lived in their problem longer than somebody who is like, oh, somebody shared this post and it's automation and automation sounds good. I should probably go look at some of that automation. And it's kind of this flavor of the month thing and they're not really committed to it. Right. So as we've started working with larger clients, as we've worked with enterprise clients, we've learned a lot more about how they get to the decision-making process to make these investments and to put together a plan. And there is a lot of pain that has to surface consistently before they decide this is going to be one of our initiatives for the year. So and then by the time they get there and they've delegated a budget, they've thought about how this will change the business, and we meet with them, then they have conviction and those people stick to it. They might struggle still through the process because of team members, but they really get the results and they stick to it, right?

The people who are the tire kickers, right? Like, they really are the flavor of the month. Somebody said this was cool and they're looking for like a magic bullet, like a silver bullet. I don't know what the phrase is, but they're looking for something that they can plug into and tomorrow their life will be better. Nothing of value, nothing that's going to make your life better is going to happen in a day. It's just unrealistic. And so, that's, that's a lot of that. Like, we see that people, like, I can't see it necessarily in one call, but if I see they proactively did these things and we have a lot of context going into this meeting, they are much more motivated to solve this problem than somebody who gives one-word answers. We have to call them the day before, hey, you didn't submit this information. They're just not engaged in it.

Yeah. One of the things that I got in trouble for very early in my speaking career was I used to have this segment of my keynote where I talked about the difference between an agency owner and a business owner. And this could be the same for any industry. So if you're not in insurance, you know, essentially think of yourself as, um, you know, are you a trainer or do you own a gym, right? Are you a technologist or are you building a SaaS enterprise, right? Like what, like there's a difference between you are the best at a skill or are you an owner of a business? Because those are 2 very different hats. And, you know, one of the clear distinctions that I try to make in my mind when I'm talking to someone about these types of Is, am I talking to someone who is just the best? And, and I don't mean just, just is the wrong word. So I don't mean to belittle this. Are, is this person the best producer in their business and just happen to own the most equity? Or are they looking to grow a business? Because you cannot, to me, those are 2 very different ways of viewing an organization.

And to your point, I feel like the best salespeople salesman or salesperson who just owns the most equity is going to really struggle with follow-through, with consistency, with conviction, because they don't want to deal with the business. They're just trying to sell more stuff and make more money, where the business owner is the one who's actually going to come back and go, okay, this is going to take 3 months, 2 months of onboarding, a month of testing, maybe another month built in for potential implementation changes we need to make. Like, they're the ones who are thinking about this on a broader scale and from an enterprise value perspective. And that distinction, I think, drives so much of the frustration in our industry, especially when you talk to technologists as to why you could have 2 prospects that look almost exactly alike in every way, except one, you know, uses the product or the system or the advice or guidance and just goes off to crush and one just stays, you know, stuck in a place because there's no one actually thinking like a business owner in that organization, like emotionally detached from the day-to-day tasks, thinking, how do we take this as an enterprise and move it forward?

Um, do you— my question for you is, one, do you agree with that, uh, distinction? And 2, if you do, like, do you think it's possible to move from, in our, in the case of our home industry insurance, like agency owner to business owner? Like, do you think you just kind of are one or the other and you have to own that and make adjustments? Or can you evolve from agency owner brain, which is I'm the best producer and I just want the organization to run and for my revenue to go up? Or, you know, or can I evolve into that business owner mindset and have you seen it?

Yeah. Uh, so, uh, 100%, you can definitely evolve. So when I mentioned earlier about personality assessments, one of the reasons I love this so much is because it helps you gain insight into your team and even into yourself. And personality assessments change over time because the nature of human behavior is growth, right? You will continue to change. Now, there are people who purposely stunt their own growth because they're scared of change, and that's fine. But every person changes. When I was— when I was— I've been with my husband for 21 years. There was a period of 3 years where we were horrible. I was very close to filing for divorce multiple times. We were in counseling off and on, and our marriage counselor told us that every 10 years you're married to a new person because your experiences compile and they change your point of view and they change, you know, how you look at the world and how you behave and how you act. I think there's a phrase I'm going to— I'm going to butcher this phrase. You might know it better than me because it's political, where it's like if when you're young, you're like an idealistic— you have to be a liberal when you're young because you have like this idealistic view of the world.

Yeah. And as you get older, you become more conservative because you're like, you see the world as it actually is, right? So with time comes experience and insight and you learn lessons. So you definitely can evolve. But it doesn't happen accidentally. It happens intentionally. When you mentioned about being, you know, like the best producer, one of the books that changed my life was The E-Myth. It's been around forever. It's not new, but it is literally talks about one of the examples is the baker in the bakery who bakes the best pie. And they're like, screw this, I'm making this guy rich. I'm going to start my own bakery. I make the best pies. Okay, so they go open a bakery. They don't know how to negotiate a lease. They don't know what marketing is. They don't know how to do payroll. They don't think about taxes, compliance, the Food and Drug Administration for, you know, getting their kitchen approved. They just know how to bake a really good pie. They're going to struggle. They have to learn a lot of things to run a bakery, not be a baker. It's no different with insurance. I have sat across from agents, had discussions about what they love about their agency, and said, have you thought about just being a producer?

Because the only thing you've told me is you want to talk to clients more. You want to sell more insurance. You want to get out and advise on bigger risks. You don't want to manage people. You don't want to run a business. You don't want to think about revenue and ROI and marketing, and, you know, you just don't. That's not what you love. And I think fit, fit is the biggest issue in our country. People that hate their jobs, they don't enjoy what they do. There are people, you might remember the Dirty Jobs series. What was his name? Yeah, Mike Rowe. I think these people had jobs that other people were like, this is disgusting. And they were happy, happier than anybody else who was in a bad fit role. They loved their job. If you know you don't want to do these things, stop fighting it. You will just be miserable. This is why I like personality assessments, because fit's important. I do them every 1 to 2 years with my staff. We just did another round. My lead trainer, her personality assessment completely changed in the last 2 years. She's been with me from the beginning.

Her new role will be head of partnerships and community because she has turned into this social butterfly sitting behind a computer screen, it's making her depressed. She's actually having health issues, depression. And because I'm an open leader, we have these discussions. And I love, I love Lily. She's amazing. She's not my family. She is an employee. She's a very high-performing employee, but I do love her. And I see that she's unhappy and that her personality has shifted. So, I made a new role for her, something that benefits our business, but put her in a place where she's going to be able to thrive. So, if you yourself are very very unhappy. Think about what you're really good at. Do a personality assessment if you need some insight, but don't, like, put yourself in a job you hate forever. This was ingrained in me in my childhood. My parents were both cashiers at Safeway for 35 years. Hated their jobs. Bitched about it every day at home after work at my house. I was like, I will never do that. I will never hate what I do every single day. It just, it was like beaten into me.

So don't do it to yourself, you guys. You can hire an operations manager. You likely have somebody on your team if you do a personality assessment who already really good at that, and you can delegate that to them and start giving them those roles. You don't have to go hire someone for $200,000 a year. Look at your team and give them the tasks and the responsibilities for the things that they are really good at.

I love the example of Lily, and not to plug my own book, but that's actually the book that I'm, uh, I'm submitting the manuscript tomorrow, actually. It's called Easy Mode, and that's exactly what it's about, is this idea of in today's world where AI automation and outsourcing are so accessible, there is no reason for us to operate in our hard mode. And it becomes a leader's job to find the easy mode, the thing that an individual does that looks like cheating to everyone else, um, and put them in that position as often as possible. And I think the work you do is the perfect example of, of outsourcing the task of hard mode work for the team, right? Someone comes in and I want my salespeople selling more. Okay, let's build systems, automations, maybe AI tools, et cetera, but certainly workflows that allow them to sell more stuff and do less of the things that don't sell, right? Like this, this, and never before in history has this been, you know, this is what we always always did for thousands and thousands of years. Like, if you made shoes, the only way you got paid is if you made shoes.

So you had to make shoes as often as you possibly could and for as long as you possibly could so that you could make money. And that's what we did. We sold shoes and we sold shoes and you had an accountant who did your accounting and you had, you know, you, you paid someone to go get supplies and bring them into you. But then all of a sudden, somewhere like, and I don't know when exactly this was, I feel like, you know, '80s, '90s, 2000s, you know, I don't know exactly when the change happened, but it certainly has where now it feels like I have to do everything I have. You know, it's like this badge of honor. I saw someone post the other day, literally had their QuickBooks up, like the numbers were blurred, but you could see like their QuickBooks on a Sunday night, like posting about grinding on their QuickBooks. It's Sunday. And somehow that was like entrepreneurship. And I'm like, no, you're an idiot. idiot. Like, you don't do accounting for a living, right? Like, get rid of that. Go find a company like the one that I work for now, PFS, outsource your accounting, right?

Because you're not an accountant. You're, you're an insurance agent. Like, go sell more insurance or go support your team in selling more insurance or go develop a new relationship or take your 3 best VIP clients out to golf or whatever it is that grows your business. But like, glamor posting, you know, going to the vulnerability, all the way back to the beginning of the vulnerability thing, glamor posting that you're up at 9 PM on a Sunday You know, closing out your books to me is embarrassing. Not, not a badge of— it shouldn't be worn as a badge of honor. Like you're making a decision to take time away from either rest or your family or whatever in exchange for the work that, that could actually be growing your business and pushing it forward. Now, granted, there are seasons of every business. If you're a solopreneur, yes, sometimes you have to do things that aren't in, you know, aren't in your easy mode or whatever you call it, but. Like, I, I don't, I think we have to get away from wearing a badge of honor, this I have 17 hats thing. Like, that's not good.

Like that, that we have to, that should not be a badge of honor. A badge of honor should be, I own a business and I do 3 things. You know, I build culture, I set direction, and I do, you know, big level enterprise business development. And that's what I do. And everything else has either a team member, AI, or automate, whatever. Like, that's the badge of honor is how much time you spend in your easy mode to me. And I, and I, I hate this idea that somehow if you're not grinding 24/7 on all these different aspects of the business, somehow you're not like earning your entrepreneur, you know, merit badge or whatever. I just, that this philosophy is driving me absolutely nuts.

I do think it should be, it should be a very short season. So like when I started Accelerated Automation, I was an insurance agent and I had a team. I had stopped, you know, selling and servicing. I had implemented, I spent like a year on my CRM and was super excited about it and then Accelerated automation was born out of people asking me for help. And about 3 months into that, like I had said no for months, and then I finally said, okay, I'll give this a try. 3 months of doing it myself on the side till 2 AM, grinding, grinding. I was like, this is not sustainable. I need help. And I hired somebody. I hired a VA as my first hire because I couldn't, I didn't have the payroll money for someone in the States who was highly skilled. And I created a system. I created a checklist. I recorded Loom videos and I said, this is how I do this. You go do it. I'll talk to the agent. Day 2 months in, 2 months into something that I didn't know was ever going to turn into a company. It was a side hustle, you guys.

It was how I was going to pay for my housekeeper because I'm like the opposite of Martha Stewart. I hate cleaning my house and I wanted one and my husband was like, I don't want to put it in the budget. And I was like, well, maybe, you know, all these agents are asking me to help them with their CRM. Like, maybe I'll try that and then I can kind of pay for the housekeeper. And I started doing it and I fell in love with it. So I really believe it was where God was pushing me. But early, early, early, early, I was like, oh my gosh, this is— I can't do this. I can't keep staying up till 2 o'clock in the morning working all day on Sundays. Like, I have a family. family. I'm going to miss everything. So I brought in the help that I could afford at the time. That person was with me for about 18 months. I had to end up firing him because he basically didn't show up for work for 3 weeks. He didn't even know he was fired until like 3 weeks after I fired him. It was pretty funny.

But I replaced that person. They are, they were an important piece of how I started, but they weren't going to keep growing with me. They weren't the right person for that. And I've had, I've had a lot of turnover over the last 12 years in all of my businesses because it's a little bit of a guess when you hire someone, right? Like it really is. You're both putting your best foot forward. You see people for who they are when they work there. You got to learn to move quick if they're not performing well or they don't fit well. Let go of them quick because it never ever gets better. It always gets worse. But at the same time, you, you, there's really almost never an excuse to not bring in some kind of help fairly quickly. So the only excuse is usually ego. So I just met with an agency owner literally yesterday who on the call was like, I bet against my producers how many referrals I can get versus them. And we do competitions and I I'm like, okay, that's great. Um, are you showing them how you get those referrals? No, they got to figure it out for themselves.

Okay, so you have a skill that you're using to cut down your employees and show them how much better you are than them. That's what I just heard. And he was like, well, no, no, I'm trying to motivate them. I'm like, no, no, no. Motivation is you give them a goal and you support and coach them to achieve it. Them till they hit it. That's how you motivate people. He did not understand that what he was doing was belittling his team and showing how much bigger and better he was. And like, this is not the— I'm not going to use his name, but like, this is, you know, this is not the Mariah Show. In my company today, my team knows more than I do. Like, by and large, I have not delivered our service since I, since I had the company in the first 6 months. My team does it. They're phenomenal. They're better at it. And if you can't get out of your own way, if I think every customer has to talk to me because it's going to be better or this person is going to do it differently and it's not exactly how I want, you'll never scale a business.

You have got to give up that ego, that control, and delegate and trust people. Put the systems in place to verify, right? Trust but verify always has to be true. But you got to get out of your own way. You cannot be, if you're a solopreneur, you will miss out on your entire life. I don't think that's sustainable. I had an agent that I met with like earlier this month, 16 years in the business, $150,000 in revenue, has no employees, says he hasn't taken a vacation in 16 years, never sees his family, works 7 days a week. That's literally like the definition of torture to me. Why would anybody sign up for that? I don't care if you paid me a billion dollars a year, I would never do that. Are you going to be happy on your deathbed that you literally did not do anything other than work? That's crazy. My advice to him, go be a producer at an agency, get your life back, start spending time with your family. He was 60 years old.

$150,000 a year as a producer at another agency, you're probably working 4 hours a day. I mean,

honestly, if you're good at something, you can make so much more money by working in another business for the skill that you're good at versus dragging yourself through something that you are not well fit for.

Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it's interesting. I, I've lived both, both lives, um, you know, and I, and I've chosen different seasons, you know, and I think this is the part, you know, I, I, I have a very large ego. Uh, I have to manage it.

Um, no, nobody knows that. That's completely hidden. No, I'm just kidding.

And, but I, you know, I, I, I have to manage it because, you know, I think it is tough when, when you've put a lot of work into something, when you put a lot of thought into something, when you really care, it's, I think it's hard for anyone to not develop up, uh, an ego for the thing that they do. But ultimately what I had to ask myself, uh, a long time ago, you know, this is back in my Agency Nation days when I really learned this lesson, was, you know, would I rather we won or would I rather I was right? Right. And, you know, what I tell teams like right off the rip whenever I start working with them is, is You know, I don't care who's right. I care that we get it right. Right. And honestly, if I'm the one that's making the right call most of the time, then we have a problem. Like, we don't have the right people in our team. Like, that's, there's, you, the goal is to get it right, not to be right. If you have to be right, then you have a, most likely have a job.

You have a job. You're not, you're not running a business. You have a job. If you're the one that has to be right all the time. If your goal is to get it right, then it doesn't matter if the idea comes from, you know, a receptionist who's been there for 3 days or a service person who's been there for 30 years, because the goal is ultimately to get it right. And it's difficult. I mean, for high achievers, for, you know, you know, Ds, you know, those Type D, you know, up into the rights, you know, the initial skills that make you successful are not the skills that allow you to scale. And that is a very different, difficult transition for a lot of people.

Yeah, I 100% agree with that. Like, we have an agency, so we have AI Diffusions as our, as a company that I started recently, and our test agency that we built the tool with and around and everything, they, through the first 4 months of using the tool, they fired 2 employees because they appeared, these employees appeared a good fit on the surface and in their, you know, onboarding process and had been there for a while. And when we started having a tool that could actually monitor their work and measure their work, they were, it was very, very glaringly obvious that these individuals were not pulling their weight. They were actually very underachievers on the team, but that visibility was kind of missing in, uh, before that. And this is something that like business owners, you have to understand that the business itself, it's like its own living, breathing thing, and you have to do what's right for the overall business. So think about it like your body. Like if you have cancer on your finger, you don't kill yourself, right? Like you, you get rid of the finger, you get rid of the cancer, you cut that out, you make that change.

And because it's for the greater good, so the cancer doesn't spread, so your body can stay healthy and you can continue to live on. That's how you have to look at your business. So if you have employees in the, in the business, or if you yourself are not well suited, if you are the bad fit, if the business as a whole has a piece of cancer and it's you, and because you're in a job that you don't like, you're in a business you don't like, you're doing something you don't enjoy, and you start to track it and you start to see what's going on, you're going to get very, very clear. You're going to be very clear to you that you either need to change and put in the work and make that adjustment, or maybe this has to be delegated. You're not the right person for that role and you want to look at giving it to somebody else. And that insight, this is where like AI and the reason so many people are talking about systems and processes and SOPs and standards is because AI is, is showing people that any tool that you use now, it is elevating whatever is happening in your business.

It's exactly what happened with this agency with AI diffusions. They could see exactly, oh, these people actually are not right in their role. They provided coaching and guidance and they, they did not do well. They hired somebody new within the industry, within the insurance industry, hired someone new. She's been there for less than 30 days. She's doing double the work of those 2 people that they let go because they were the wrong fit. And, and this is very true in this same agency. I know the agency owner very well. He's local. I've known him for a long time, and he had to put an ops manager in front, in between him and the team, because he has a very difficult time making firing decisions and like accountability decisions. He's working on it. He's a lot better now, but he had to bring somebody in who could do that. And his, his agency has grown exponentially. It has allowed growth because they are very business forward for the greater good of the business. And they've put in the systems, the tracking and the AI that allow them to have kind of, I guess, the data to support the decision.

Right. Because sometimes we question ourselves like, is this the right decision or not? And if you have the data to support it, then you have a lot more conviction in making those decisions and you're— the rest of your team will get better. Like, this is what excites me about AI, you guys. It is not replacing people. It is making your people do 5 times the work in the same 40 hours. Your good people. If you're worried about firing people and finding talent, don't hire anybody. Make your good people as efficient as you possibly can. After you cut out the cancer, they will likely be able to handle all of that work without you replacing that, that role. It's very common.

Isn't it crazy that—

Tangent. I just can't, I get so excited.

No, I know.

I love that.

I, I, I'm down for it.

Your good people can do so much more work than they are doing today. I promise you.

Ditto. 100%. I, I, I, I completely agree. And, and I think what's amazing is like the, some of the most powerful work, the most valuable, scalable work that you can do as an owner or as a leader is literally going all the way down to, to creating tactical SOPs or, or being involved in the process and initiating these, this going all the way down and just documenting how things are supposed to get done the right way. Like, like the organizations that are willing to, like, I don't want to call it downshift, but like come down to that level, create that documentation, think about these systems, the outcomes you actually want, like this boring stuff, right? I'm doing air quotes for those that aren't watching, right? Like this boring work is ultimately the work is like the foundation that allows you to do all the amazing, fancy, cool, shiny AI automation, digital quantum shit that you want to do. Like all of that stuff is possible if you're willing to come down and actually do, you know, work through change management with your people, work, you know, all the stuff that you have outlined here and the stuff that you do.

And I think it's, it's, it's like right there. It's like 101. level stuff. And it's so clearly one of the prime differentiators, yet so few people are actually going to take the time to do it unless they work with you, which— Right. I thought for sure we would have more places that we disagree because we always have incredibly respectful but incredible comments when we disagree on things, and I love it. But we couldn't be more in lockstep on what we talked about today. I think it's amazing. I'm so glad you're out there. If people are listening to this and they want to get ahold of you, potentially work with Accelerate Automation, like, how do they get ahold of you? Where's the best place to go?

Our website is acceleratedautomation.net. We are on all the social medias, so you can look up Accelerated Automation. You'll find us on every single channel except for Reddit. That's the one that we're not on yet. But everything else we're on, you can just go to our website, you can contact us there, you can call us and a person picks up, you can email us, you can send, you can schedule a meeting, all that good stuff. We're at a lot of events. We're at Accelerate every single year, the NetView conference for Vertafore, because we're an Orange partner with them. So if you want to come see myself and Lily, actually this year we're going to have most of our team there. So if you want to come see us in person, we can have more of those vulnerable conversations, you know, one-on-one. That's where we always are. And then we're at a variety of other conferences. We'll also be at IndieTech this year, which is one of my favorites as well, because we get to talk all things insurance technology. But yeah, that's how you can reach us and we're always open to a discussion. And just always remember, when you're talking to firms like mine or others, be vulnerable because you're not going to tell us anything that we haven't heard before.

I love it. I appreciate you. Thank you for taking the time and wishing them the best. And I'll see you out there on the, on the, on the circuit.

Thanks for having me, Ryan. Appreciate it.

All right, you badasses. Thanks for hanging out with us today. If you got something out of this episode, please share it with somebody who needs it. That's why we do it, to help people. To help them grow. And I want your take too. Ask a question, share an experience, tell us where you think we got something wrong or we missed a reframe. I, I love those conversations. Hit subscribe or follow if you haven't. And if you're on YouTube, give us a like. Honestly, that stuff really does help us reach more people. I appreciate you either way. This is the way. Oh, and go out and crush it today.