The Preeminent Producer Podcast

Finding Your Why When It Comes To Producing As A Preeminent Producer

• The Preeminent Producer

Share episode

Today we are going to be hearing from Rick Gregson as he shares about a time as a single parent and needing to produce and build his book of business. This is all about getting clear on your WHY. 

...

Are you a commercial insurance producer struggling to stand out from the competition? Do you find it challenging to grow your book of business and create a fulfilling career?

Then welcome to The Preeminent Producer Podcast! Each week, we'll be tackling important topics, sharing proven strategies and insights from successful producers that are in the trenches and have traveled the journey to becoming a Preeminent Producer.

You'll discover what it really takes to become Preeminent & build your book of business, in a way that isn’t being taught anywhere else. Our hosts are experts in the field and have built thriving businesses by becoming the most trusted adviser to their clients. Welcome to your journey to becoming a Preeminent Producer.

Let’s dive in!

Ready To Grow Your Book Of Business?
For More Information go to:
https://www.thepreeminentproducer.com/

Also, check us out on Youtube:    / @thepreeminentproducer

Speaker 1:

What's going on, guys? Welcome to another episode of the preeminent producer podcast. What do you do when life throws you a curveball and a crisis strikes, but yet you still have to produce? Today, we're going to be diving into Rick Gregson's story. A couple of podcasts ago, he mentioned something that really kind of just perked my ears up, and we need to talk about this more. He mentioned that he, in his early days, was a single parent and yet had to continue to produce, not out of just desire to be successful now, but for the sake of his kids he had. It was not an option. He had to be successful. So today we're going to be diving into his story about being a single dad, producing while raising kids, and figuring it all out as he went. And even if you're not a single parent, I think there's some valuable takeaways in some of the lessons that Rick learned. So here we go. Are you a commercial insurance producer?

Speaker 2:

struggling to stand out from the competition. Do you find it challenging to grow your book of business and create a fulfilling career? If so, then welcome to the preeminent producer podcast. Each week, we'll be tackling important topics, sharing proven strategies and insights from successful producers that are in the trenches and have traveled the journey to becoming a preeminent producer. You'll discover what it really takes to become preeminent and build your book of business in a way that isn't being taught anywhere else. Our hosts are experts in the field and have built thriving businesses by becoming the most trusted advisor to their clients. Welcome to your journey to becoming a preeminent producer. Let's dive in.

Speaker 3:

So this is kind of a story that came out of, I think, a podcast that we were doing about motivation, and motivation to be a producer is absolutely positive. It has a tibly critical. You know that. You know, the more motivated you are, the better you sell, the better you operate, the more, the more energy you put into what you're doing. And I made a comment, I think, after we had recorded that podcast, about why I was so motivated as a young guy, and Paul thought, wow, that would be really good. We'll see. I don't know how good it's going to be, because it's my story and it's a story that happened a long time ago, but it does speak to motivation.

Speaker 3:

So I was 36 years old and had started my own insurance agency and then, low and behold, all of a sudden got a divorce and I found myself not only divorced but with two kids, a single dad. They were fortunately a little bit older, they were 11 and 15. So they could dress themselves, they could eat, they could cause 11 and 15 year old problems and they're a great guy. So we got thrown out of the house and moving into what we call the Mondo condo, which was a crappy little condo that they cobbled together and the boys have since grown up, all graduate from college, have their careers and doing really, really well, and, as a result of probably me raising, these guys moved away to seek their fame and fortune and then recently moved back to Tucson, arizona, where I am, and live with it. They bought a couple of houses and they live within a two mile radius. So great, happy ending. But what it speaks to really is motivation. I found myself in a situation where I had just started an agency, maybe three or four years before that, and you talk about motivated. I was now motivated because I wasn't to the point that I was making much money yet I invested money in the agency. I was kind of scraping by and all of a sudden, with two mouths to feed, and one of them was now there's six, seven and six floors, so you can imagine feeding these guys with shovels.

Speaker 3:

All of a sudden, several things happened. Number one you become very motivated because, literally, finances are you have the responsibility to feed these kids and raise these kids. Number one. Number two you become very organized. If this is going to work, if this is going to, if I'm going to do what I'm supposed to do here organization, time management as best I could became a really critical thing. I mean, I would come home just as a funny thing. I would come Sunday nights, I would do laundry and we would fold it on Monday, because that's one Monday that I'd put balls on. And then I would go shopping and I would post the menu for the week on the refrigerator door because I didn't want to come home and figure out what I was making for dinner. And it was fish sticks and it was pot pies, and it was so bad that one of my kids actually went to culinary school and still learn how to cook. And then I'd learn how to cook and all was well.

Speaker 3:

People would say to me, why are you doing such an amazing thing? And I said, no, I'm not doing an amazing thing, I'm doing what I'm supposed to do. I'm a dad. I'm supposed to raise my children. A lot of moms do it more moms than dad. Sometimes you do it because of divorce, sometimes you're thrust into it because the death of a spouse or really tremendous, horrible things that can happen in life. But I was fortunate that wasn't the case. But it speaks to.

Speaker 3:

You need something to motivate you.

Speaker 3:

You need something that moves you forward and it's not something that you're running towards, it's something that's drawing you towards that item, and that's when motivation really works.

Speaker 3:

In other words, I'm not taking steps to get there.

Speaker 3:

It is sucking me towards what I absolutely positively have to do to survive as a dad of a family and, by the way, dads and moms, it's the same for you whether you're single or not, whether you're married, where you're a woman who's raising your children, guy, or you're a couple who are trying to raise children in this economy and you need more money and you need more free time and you need to work hard. So it just speaks to really motivation. Whatever, you have to find that motivation that really draws you in and makes you get up in the morning and say I gotta do this. It's better if you wanna do it too, I mean if you enjoy what you're doing. I love the insurance business, always have, so I've been very fortunate in that aspect. But finding something, whatever it is, that moves you towards that goal, that draws you, that commands you to come to that goal, really is the most important thing that you can do Get organized, know what you're doing, respect your career and then move forward and go for it.

Speaker 1:

Wow, I know it can be an uncomfortable thing telling your story and I appreciate you taking a time to do that. You know, when you're saying the motivation it kind of got me thinking about something people say now is finding your why. Like, what is your why? And that's really what you did. You know it got thrown at you and you had to figure it out, can you?

Speaker 1:

I'm going back to a previous coaching call that we had with some of our preeminent producers. One, I think, was expecting a baby this week. Another one was, I think he said he had two kids and they were talking about the adjustments right Of trying to figure out how to produce, stay productive, shifting hours around, waking up earlier. I mean, they went to all these things. You, I would only imagine and I'm not asking for great tea deal, but based on dealing with the emotional stress of what you went through and then finding yourself as a single parent, now you've got to figure out how to do the household stuff and the producer insurance stuff. How did you juggle all that and no one does it perfectly, I know, but how did you juggle all that in those beginning days?

Speaker 3:

It was a lot of trial and error. It was let's try this and see if it works, let's try that and see if it works. It was being aware of making changes and trying to find what really, really works, and what works for me may not work for somebody else. I was living a fairly simple life at the time. Also, the agency wasn't that big. We were in the building mode and I just come out of a national insurance agency, so I had a decent education. But you're right, it was the oh, now I've got to do laundry. Oh, now I've got to cook food. Oh, now I've got to get these guys to school. Oh, now there's swim team, now there's all those kind of things that these guys were doing.

Speaker 3:

So it really, in a way, paul, it was a blur. I mean, I'd like to say that I had goals and spreadsheets and all those kind of things. I was a ping pong ball. I was just running around, I was, and it took a couple of years of running around to really accidentally become structured, accidentally, to figure out. Oh, my God, I've been doing some things right and some things wrong. And it was more trial and error. I was very fortunate that I had two really great kids and that made a huge difference. The second one was a lot more trying than the first, but he turned out great. But it was trial and error and just putting your head down and just doing what you had to do every single day and enjoying it. By the way, I loved it. It was the best thing I ever did in my life.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, it's great.

Speaker 4:

I just wanted to jump in here and I know this is your story, but as another producer that started from the bottom of the business and really had no sales experience when I came into this. I think sometimes adversity and struggle and survival honestly just getting into survival and getting through that While sometimes it may seem like you're banging your, hitting your head up against the wall, if you come out the other end and through struggle you can have great success. And I think, if you, I know, when I look back on when I started, the times that I had success, I was pushing myself because of something that drove me, and I know we're talking about you but money is a huge driver for me. Failure is a huge avoiding failure is a huge driver. My children, my family, all of that.

Speaker 4:

And I just think for producers that are starting, when you find yourself in an adverse situation and you get through it or you write an account and you have a win, celebrate that win and try to kind of repeat those things that you have success at. And I think that's I think, rick, you've done that getting everything to a point where everything's structured takes a lot of time and that can be very overwhelming, I think, for a new producer, especially one that's just had a child, or like I had a child who didn't sleep at night. So I mean, I went through five years of my life coming to work just trying to stay awake and push through. But you do what you got to do.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, you do. You know, I think that the uncomfortable thing about telling my story is it's not a big deal. It was at the time and I think there are going to be people sitting out there going. My challenge is bigger than that, and it probably is. My challenge is easier than that. My challenge is I'm in a bad marriage and I can't get out, or I don't want to get out because of the kids, and so I don't want you to think that my story I think my story is it's just a story. It's a story about a normal guy average guy, believe me that went through adversity and came out the other side. But it's not about me. It's about finding that motivation. It is finding about what works for you. It is about celebrating the things that do work. It is about money.

Speaker 3:

I am money motivated and I am competitive. I love to win. I really don't care what we're playing, I want to win. I'm not gonna push you down. Those days are behind me and I was a jock in college, got all of that out of me, but I still love to win and I'm still very money motivated. You can do great things with money. You can spend it selfishly, you can give it away to your favorite church or your nonprofit friends. There are a lot of things that you can do. Money is not bad. You can do bad things with it, but money in itself is a wonderful thing.

Speaker 4:

And you can always make it, especially I find myself, when you're going through a tough time. Work wise, let's say work wise, okay, and you push through it and you get a win In our business. It's amazing because people always need insurance. So you can absolutely, and it's not going away. I don't care about AI and all that other stuff. People need insurance, they need knowledgeable insurance professionals, so you can always make money. And it comes down to what you said, rick the motivation. What's your motivation? Find it. What's your why?

Speaker 3:

as Paul says, you know, yeah, yeah, it's a great industry. You're right. You know we can choose our clients. Life's too short to do business with bad people. You can give yourself a raise by working harder and smarter. We have renewable revenue sources, we get paid on renewals and you earn the right to set your own schedule. Earn the right. That doesn't happen in your first few years, that's after you become a veteran. Those four things are something that our realtor buddies don't have. They don't get renewable revenue. Now, you know, next time I buy a house in three years, okay, our attorney buddies don't do that necessarily. We are, and our doctor buddies don't even do that necessarily. We are in a business that, if you are money, motivated, organized, professional and want to become preeminent wow, what a great career.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, really is. Well, I think it's a testimony to how you parented for your kids to move away and all move back. I think in a different conversation you said what they're like a block or two away from you now. So I mean that's it.

Speaker 3:

Everybody's within a two mile radius in a city of a million people. So that's, and they moved out of a city of five million people that come back. So, yeah, I hope they don't see this video because they're gonna go really. Dad, you really weren't that special at all. What the hell's the matter with you?

Speaker 4:

Put on Facebook. Paul Put on Facebook, I know yeah, we're posting this everywhere now.

Speaker 1:

So, Rick, to wrap up, what would you say to somebody who maybe is facing a hard time? They're maybe feeling discouragement, Maybe they have not figured out their why. What would you say to someone like that?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, that's a really good question, paul. Finding your why is really the solution to this, I think. Why do you come to work every day? Why are you in the insurance business? Understand what the insurance business is, understand what it does, understand its value, because you do a tremendous, tremendous service. We are the oil of industry.

Speaker 3:

If somebody has $20 million, as I've said in the past, well, if you get 20 million bucks, you're not watching this video. But if one of your clients has got 20 million bucks, they're not going to risk it to put it to work out in the community, buying real estate and developing without our product. They're not going to risk that stuff. Think of all the things that workers' compensation has done in the industry for safety and lost control and helping people's lives. This is a great career. So finding your why can be helping your community, certainly money-motivated. You've got to find that thing that makes you get out of bed and sprint to work in the morning, and it's going to be different for you, christian, paul, me, it's different for everybody, but that's the biggest thing is to find that thing that sucks you towards it, so you don't even have an option to run towards it. It's pulling you towards that.

Speaker 1:

All right, guys, I hope you got some good takeaways from that. Again, if even if you're not a single parent, I think there's valuable, valuable tips there. Do you currently know what your why is? If you don't, it is well worth taking the time to really defining that, getting clear on that and then being able to move forward with great purpose clear on your why continuing to produce for the sake of your why. So if you're not familiar with that, definitely take the time to do that. If you'd like help doing that, I encourage you to check out the preeminent producer coaching program, where we help producers become preeminent, build their book of business despite what's going on in their life. So check us out at thepreeminentproducercom. And until next time, guys, we'll see in the next episode of the preeminent producer podcast.

Speaker 2:

Thanks so much for joining us on this episode of the preeminent producer podcast. If you're enjoying the show, please feel free to subscribe, rate and leave a review wherever you listen to your podcasts. That helps others find the show and we greatly appreciate it. Once again, thanks for joining us and we'll catch you in the next episode of the preeminent producer podcast.