Justin Schmick - Dad Jokes, Social Media, and Everybody Hates Insurance - Episode #62

0:00 What's up, friends? Welcome back to Root of Wisconsin. Appreciate you for clicking another episode. Grateful to have you here. Today's episode is with Justin Schmick from the Schmick Insurance Agency and a whole lot more excited to drop the conversation. Justin actually reached out when I made a TikTok about another podcast that was started in Wisconsin and a guest that I asked to be on and then created the podcast and LED to this whole chain of events. And that's why Justin reached out to be on the pod, does a lot of cool stuff. One thing we talked about his career transition. Justin was a law enforcement officer for I think like 7 years and then obviously decided to take his career in a different direction.

0:40 He's passionate about marketing. He's passionate about insurance, which talk about a little bit, not too much but some, and also has a huge social media following by doing dad jokes online. And we talked about all of those things in his career path. We talked about our shared love of Wisconsin and our shared non love of the Vikings and the Bears in Illinois and Minnesota. I mean state wise, more Illinois team wise, definitely, definitely both. We talked about the Wisconsin supper clubs and his favorite one down in his geographic area of Amro and social media and mental health. You know, we get into that once in a while. So we talked about that too.

1:26 He's got almost 200,000 followers on Facebook. So he's kind of ridden the wave that he never expected to have, by the way. He's kind of ridden the wave of having that happen and using it to grow a business. How do you navigate the Creator Fund? A lot of different things. So it was great talking with Justin and no dad jokes dropped surprisingly. So might get a little bit different content if you're one of his followers coming from over. Big shout out to our sponsors at Carouser bringing a non alcoholic beverage into your social scenarios that you can use as we enter into a new year. Maybe some of you thought about drinking a little bit less in 2026.

2:07 Carouser can certainly help you do that. Visit carouser.com and they'll ship it right to your door. Also a shout out to our sponsors at Epic Mortgage. Trying to make trying to ease the burden that can be eased of buying a house. It could be stressful, it's of course expensive and there's a lot of stuff to learn. Let it let the great folks at Epic Mortgage show you about the the people centric view that they have of mortgage and lending and helping you get into a home. And thirdly, shout out to genuine Lynn. We've got our new rooted Wisconsin apparel Lynn send us Adm if you're interested. There's plenty more of this where this is coming from. And check out genuine Lynn store. Of course, they do a bunch of cool apparel. Another cool side of what she does. She has an Etsy store will she'll make custom shadow boxes or trinkets, custom things that represents something you want them to.

3:07 I know that's kind of cloudy. You'll have to go to her website to learn more because I don't have enough time to explain it, but super cool. She's really creative and one of her main focuses is customer service and is really responsive, really good at working with you to bring your creative direction to life For me and making apparel for the podcast, interviewing is my specialty, not creating apparel. And she was super helpful. And you know, this is retty straightforward. The logo got Wisco roots on the back. I think with Lynn's help, I'll be able to bring to life a lot more creative things in the realm of apparel. So stay tuned for that too. But without further ado, let's get in the episode with Justin.

4:02 Where did the love go? Where did the talk end? We need to help to make this been telling everybody this story. I, when I started the pod, I would do this intro live into the camera and then I'd come to the guest and then they'd be like sweating bullets, super, super nervous that it was actually starting or whatever. So we just kind of start chatting and then wherever the episode starts, we'll just take it off from there. But I know where I want to start with you because I added you on LinkedIn soon after you reached out. Funny how we got connected just in general, but added you on LinkedIn. And one thing I love talking about is career trajectories, chasing passions and, and not being afraid to, you know, jump into something if if even if it's different to you or something.

4:58 Yeah. So on your LinkedIn, you were a police officer for a while, went to school for that. Yep. And then at some point transitioned out of that to do something else. What's what's the story, man? We got to start there. I mean. I, that was a great job. I really, I had a lot of fun with that job. It was never a passion for me. Some, a lot of law enforcement, they're like, they've wanted to be a cop their whole life. Me, I met a really pretty girl and she said that I had to get a real job or she wouldn't marry me. So, you know, for me, that's, that's what pushed me into that because I had a buddy that was, that was in law enforcement and I was like, well, he's an idiot. If he can, if he can do this, I can do this. So. And these are your buddies, so you can say yeah. Exactly. Exactly.

5:38 So that kind of, that's what got me into it. So I never had a really like a real true passion for it, but I, I did for like 8 years or so. And it was kind of getting to the point where I was having kids and, and I would see them coming home as I'm going to work. And I was just that I didn't want to do that anymore. So I went and I always wanted to be in business. I always wanted to do something in sales or marketing or anything like that. And I only had a, a degree in law enforcement. That's not going to get you very far in the marketing world. So I went and kind of shadowed a couple people. So I, I shadowed somebody that does real estate. My friend Megan at Coldwell. She's like runs Coldwell now. But then she was just a realtor. So I, you know, kind of went along with her for a little bit and learned what she did. Then I had a buddy that worked at Thrive in. So I tried to learn about that, that no, I can't, like I can't be trusted with somebody else's finances. I barely have mine figured out.

6:28 So that was that was nothing. I couldn't do it. And then I had a buddy that was a farmer's insurance agent. And so I went and sat down with him and he showed me his five years of, of how he got paid and how it works. And I was like this, this just makes sense. And really through all the my career I've done, you know, since high school, done everything from screwing nuts and bolts together to, you know, law enforcement. So I've done a lot of stuff and there's only been a couple things that have really clicked. And one was law enforcement. I did well, I finished, you know, high in my class and all that kind of stuff. But as soon as I started learning about insurance, it just just clicked immediately. It like it just made sense it all, you know, the, the, the way that, that you accumulate policies and money and all that kind of stuff for insurance. It's, it's, I liken it to like making a snowman, right? You make that big bottom part, right? And you're rolling that snowball and you're making it as big as you can and you get paid on renewals. So when, when the clients come back up again the next year, you get paid again, right?

7:24 So at a certain point you roll the snowball to where it's like nice and big and how you feel comfortable. And then all you're doing every once in a while, some snow falls off. All you're doing is just maintaining it, putting it back on, keeping that snowball the size that you want it. So it just, it all just made sense and that's got me right into it. Absolutely. That's awesome, man. There's one more layer I want to get to, but one I love it. This happened with one previous guest. I I so the the set of circumstances that led to you reaching out. I think it's hilarious because in the video that you saw me, I act like one of the lines I said was I don't like insurance companies either. Yeah. And like you, you reached out. Didn't even think about that. I had a previous guest who is a local politician, and I share the same name as the guy he beat in his race. And it was a real contentious race, you know, And he didn't know that I have no affiliation with that guy at all. I didn't even think of it when I reached out to him to be on the podcast.

8:19 And what I thought was super cool is he didn't even bring it up, said he came on the said he would come on the pod came and talked. We didn't talk about it till after the conversation that I wasn't connected with that guy. And I liken that to this scenario because in that video I like I said that and then what I added you on LinkedIn. I was like Dang he he sells insurance and I said it in the video. Now listen, man, I get it. Nobody likes insurance. Like nobody grows up and like I'm going to be an insurance guy someday. Like it's not, that's not a thing. Like I understand that completely. And I get why you don't, like I still have to pay for my insurance too. And I don't like it when it goes up either, you know? But you know, it is what it is. And that's, and that's exactly what it is. It's, it's nothing against, you know, the individual like insurance person. It's the concept of insurance that sometimes grind my gears. But I thought, I thought that was both hilarious and it speaks a lot about a person where, you know, you reached out. Didn't didn't say anything about that. I didn't even know you were in insurance. And like I, I had walked out like, and that leads me to my next question.

9:21 You got like 300,000 followers on Facebook or something. How did that happen? 175 on Facebook? OK. Maybe 200 across all the platforms? OK, yeah. How'd you how'd you get into social media and how did that happen? Super crazy scenario. Pretty, oh, not crazy, but it just, it was it just so when I, when I left law enforcement, I got into insurance. I owned a farmer's insurance book for 5-6 years and I got a job offer to do marketing for a restoration company in Oshkosh. It was a really good offer. And I was like, you know, do I want to keep building a snowball and grinding or do I want to kind of like take a break and go work for somebody else? So I decided, you know, I got, I sold my book back to farmers and, and went and took this job and it was for the, for the marketing Rep. So like the person that's goes out and like meets insurance agents and plumbers and stuff and gets them to refer their clients to us when, you know, water losses and fires and things like that.

10:16 Like that's, that was my job is to go out and shake hands and pull on doors and, and everything. Well, my first day was the first day of the lockdown, the, the COVID lockdown. So I'm supposed to be out there pulling on doors, you know, kissing babies, shaking hands, all that stuff. Everything shut down. My first, my very first day, I couldn't leave the office. So the first couple months or few weeks, I'm just sitting in there like just, I'm going on YouTube, I'm just hanging out and I go into my manager's office and I'm like, hey, man, I, I'm not going to lose my house. If you need to send me home for a week or so. Like I, I'm OK financially. Like if, if I'm not doing anything, like I'm not doing any work. And he was like, you know what? It gets kind of tense around here sometimes, and you always come out and you say dumb stuff and everybody laughs. Let's just do that for now.

11:02 And I'm like, well, OK, I guess so. That's pretty. Much job in the world. That's pretty much like, so that's a lot of it was that like I, I started learning how to edit video like I just started watching YouTube videos on how to edit video and I found the right program. I said, what's the easiest program for somebody as dumb as I am to be able to, you know, edit videos together and shoot videos. And my manager and I, Matt Snell, who actually has a podcast now too, it's a fishing one. We started just shooting video because I, I can't go see anybody, but we still want to have those touches. So I just, everything was on their Facebook and I just started making, making that stuff. And then the front desk girl at, at that, at that place was her name was Heather. And she was very standoffish.

11:49 It's like she had her, you know, the front desk like that answering voice, like it's like, oh, hello, thank you for calling. But then as she hangs up, like, man, you know, she's very standoffish. Like in, in short. So I started telling her dad jokes from my office because it was Kitty corner from hers. So I would just say, hey, Heather, you know, blah, blah, blah. And she'd call me an idiot and it'd be fine. And then one day I decided, you know what? I'm going to, I'm just going to record myself telling her jokes and I'll put it on TikTok. And so I, I did it every day during the week, I would do another joke because I had a joke book and I just picked up and I would just tell her more jokes and more jokes and more jokes. And one day I did one about bees and it just got like 2 million views and it just blew up. And it added a whole bunch to my, to my TikTok.

12:31 And as, as that was going on, I was also posting them on Facebook, but I wasn't paying attention. I would just post it on both places. And then I got an e-mail from Facebook saying, Hey, would you like to be in the creator fund? And I'm like, why like do I who's paying attention to this? And I look and I got 35,000 followers. You hadn't even been following. No idea, no clue, no clue. I had any followers on Facebook, no idea whatsoever. And I think I'm going through like all the comments and all this kind of like there was, it was just, it was crazy. I had no, no idea whatsoever. So of course I'm like, yeah, I'll be in the creator fund. And then I started focusing more on putting things on Facebook. I edited on Facebook. I, I put it there first because that's the one that kind of picked up faster. That's the, that's where the market that wants to hear my terrible jokes is. So yeah, I did that while I was working at Acquire. I worked there for a couple years and I left and I had a friend named Steph, who I do these videos with now, who worked for the city of Amro that I lived there and I was like a block away.

13:29 So I was like, Hey, I don't know if this is going to be a thing. Like I by that time I had like 65,000 followers or something like that. I don't know if this is going to be a thing, but you want to try like just see if I come and say Hey Steph instead of Hey Heather and see if it's if it still goes And she's like, yeah, whatever, That's fine. Until we did a couple and they just 400,500 thousand couple million views. Like it just blew up and it just it just kept growing and growing and growing. I've I've sort of plateaued now like 1175 is probably about where I've been sitting for a while on Facebook. But yeah, that's a it was just random. Randomly started telling jokes and they started to hit and that was that was how it went. That's so funny. That's crazy. What about what about that first marketing role? Why?

14:11 How did you get hired to do marketing when you hadn't been doing that? Did you have some experience in the realm previously? No, I just had a lot of experience with like networking and going out and like making a name for myself in the insurance industry. OK. So I just, I spent a lot, a lot of time going to chamber events and, and, and I said yes to everything I could to get my face out there and, and get out there as much as possible. And I think that's what they were looking for in this role was somebody to kind of spread their brand around a little bit more so. They needed they needed the office extrovert. Yeah, yeah, pretty much so. So, yeah. But that that was, I mean, it was a great job. It was, it was a perfect job for me. But I just, I can't work for other people. I just, I'm not good at it. I'm just not good at it.

14:54 So I had to go back into insurance and start my own thing back up again. Sure. Gotcha. So what I like digging into like the human nature of things. What what satisfied you about your law enforcement role And then what kind of made you think like something else is for me, Like where, what? Why wasn't the passion there, do you think? I it just, it was just always a job. It wasn't anything then like I thought it was cool, it was fun. It was fun to like never know what you're going to do at work. But I think after a while, you start to get sort of numb to the world. You see so much stuff that's not great that you kind of stop trusting people and you stop having any emotion on things. As soon as you had emotion into things that you're doing, you're going to make mistakes.

15:38 So you have to be, you have to be numb. You have to have no emotion when you go into a situation. It's got to be logical. And that just started carrying over into everyday life too. So I think for me, that was that was a big one. But yeah. That's very real in that in that job, man. That's something I think about a lot that I feel like maybe not so much as of late. I saw a really cool episode of Rogan actually, where there was a guy on their awesome guest talking about psychedelic therapy, treating PTSD and law enforcement officers here. And it's cool that got that conversations being had because it's, that's really real, man. Yeah. Now don't get me wrong, I worked in small towns. I didn't have a whole lot of PTSD stuff when there's a lot of guys that that work really hard and get in the really scary stuff.

16:24 I wasn't in the really scary stuff. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Regardless, though, I mean, still you, you, we live in a social climate where you, you know, you pull over 5 cars a day, you walk up to them, that's five different people that you have no idea who's behind the window, man. That's that's and then you know, you got a kid. You said you got kids to go home at the end of the day too. And that is the last stuff that takes a toll. One of my favorite things about that job, I had enough time because I worked in a small department to talk my way out of situations instead of fight. There's there's so many times when there was just big 200 and 5300 LB guys that are like, hey, you're not going to arrest me. I'm going to, I'm going to beat your ass. And I would say, yeah, you might be right. There's a good chance if you fight me that you're going to win.

17:11 But there's 15 guys coming here that just are going to beat the living tire out of you. So you can we can fight and I'll get my ass kicked and you'll get your ass kicked and you're still going to go to jail or put the cuffs on the front. You pick the the music on the radio and we take a nice trip. And most of the time they're like, all right, let's do that. Let's do that. That sounds better. I know. I know it does. Nice. Yeah. So where did the like why the dad jokes? Is that like part of your, is that something you were doing before you started telling this to the front desk person or that just happened at? That point where that happened and then it just kind of like just took off from there. So it's just been, I've just been people send me dad jokes now. So I'll get like messages, a lot of messages every day with different dad jokes I'll find in my file, some different, you know, dad joke Facebook pages where they come up like not some of it's original stuff that I think of, but not very much. Most of it's just dad jokes that have been out there forever and I'm just telling somebody else.

18:06 Yeah, I know a guy who who made his crafted an entire personal brand in his job around being the dad joke guy. He works in education. Super cool guy. And like, yeah, I'm pretty sure he could be. He'd be the president of the college if he wanted to, just because everybody likes him. He he's funny, he's personable. And it brings like some levity to the room, similar to the front desk person who maybe was a bit of a curmudgeon, but you make him laugh a little bit. I got in. Good for the goose, good for the gander, man. So what? What is what's the conversation alike around like going back to that thing about me saying that then people in general just don't like insurance.

18:55 Yeah. What is that conversation like as an agent, as someone who you know, sells insurance and and obviously has to advocate for it, What are the what are the sides of the industry that people don't see that you do? I think there's a lot, there's a lot missing in the education department and insurance. A lot of people have no idea what those numbers mean that are on their policies. A lot of times that's the that's the first thing I do when anybody comes in. I say, hey, has anybody ever told you what this all means? And 90% of the time they're like, no, we just that we have an insurance guy and he just does that. Well, yeah, that's great. But you should know, like this is, this is your life. This is your stuff. You should know what it is and why you have it, right? That's one of the aspects.

19:38 The other part is like insurance is, is was designed to help in a catastrophic situation that would normally bankrupt you, right? You buy a brand new car and you have a loan on it. You want insurance because you don't want to be upside down. You don't want to have to pay that loan back and get another car, right? So somewhere along the line, insurance companies started giving these little things like glass breakage coverage and and offering these little like towing and all that kind of stuff, which is all great, right, But. Insurance companies look at claim frequency, not necessarily always the amount of the claim. So if you start having a lot of little claims here and there, insurance companies notice that and you are now more of a risk to have a bigger claim.

20:24 So not a lot of agents talk about that part of it. They're like, oh, we have all this coverage for you. So, you know, you know, call us if you need us. Well, yes, OK, great. But do you need to make that claim? Is does making that claim help you in the long run? Because uncle insurance is always going to get his money back. They're all, I mean, that's it's essentially a long term loan that you're getting, right? The same with home insurance. Home insurance is for catastrophic losses. And people start like we have hailstorms here quite often, right? So roofing companies come around and say, oh, well, you can get a new roof. You need a new roof now because there's, there's damage on your neighbour's roof. I'll bet you I can get you a claim. And that's one of those things that like, yeah, maybe. But is it enough damage to like make your roof leak? Or are you just trying to get a new a brand new roof? If you're just trying to get a brand new roof, now you're going to make a claim.

21:15 And so is your entire neighborhood. And the claim frequent frequency in that neighborhood's going to go up. And so are the rates because everybody's making claims in those in those spots. And not a lot of people talk about that kind of stuff. It's not. I don't want to blame, I'm not going to blame anybody. You know, it is what it is. Claim frequencies up, you know, a lot of companies lose money every year on auto insurance, a lot of insurance companies because there's just, I don't know what happened since like COVID, everybody came out of the lockdown and was like, yeah, balls of the walls, let's go. And there's so the claim frequencies higher. The cost to fix vehicles is way up because not as many people are in the in the job market. So they have to pay higher wages and it costs more to to fix things. So there's a lot of times that that like it's more, it's more cost efficient for an insurance company to total the vehicle than it is to try to fix it just because of all the different bells and whistles that are on there and how much that will cost.

22:08 So all that kind of stuff factors into these rate changes. And, and, and I can understand why people would would be upset about it. Like, I get it. Like why does my insurance keep going up? I'm not really getting anything out of this. But you're really what you're getting is Peace of Mind and you're playing paying a small amount for that Peace of Mind. Like if you think about it like let's say you have, you have home homeowners insurance, right? You have a $20,000 loss, you have $1000 deductible. Think about what it would cost you monthly to take out a loan for $20,000 compared to what it cost you for the year to pay for your home insurance, right? It's you have to figure it as a, as a, just like a, a loan to value ratio, right?

22:49 Is it would it cost you more to get a $20,000 loan than than it would be to just pay your $1000 a year home insurance and get that paid out? Of course. So I just, it just depends on how you think about it and how you look at it. Yeah, that's so that's one thing. So I have this this concept in my brain and it's part of the reason that brings me to probably my, my perception of the industry. I think with home, it's a little bit of a stretch just because it's, it could be so much, you know, like your home's $400,000. It's going to take a long time to do this plan. But for auto insurance, I've always thought, why can't I like fund an account that is my money still?

23:33 And then if I can prove that I have this money, I don't have to pay because it's the law. You have to have car insurance, right? And I get there's like liability and a bunch of other stuff that comes into it. But why can't I fund to an account, keep my own money, and then say, OK, I don't need to pay this anymore because I have X amount of dollars here? I don't know. That's one thing that I've thought about a lot of times. And of course, it'd probably be like a bunch of things, right? It would be a legislative nightmare, like who, who overseas these accounts, blah, blah, blah, who does all that stuff? And it would increase the barrier to entry. So like, if that was the case, then you'd have to have an extra, you know, $20,000 or whatever when you buy a car, whatever.

24:15 But it just seems to me that that could exist because it's never, like I said, it's never the it's never the insurance person that I know. Like my best friend's dad is my, my insurance agent. He's a great dude, you know, I love it. He's a great guy. He's there. If something happens, I call Gino and he hooks me up with whatever needs to happen. But I think the part about me that gets it is there's no light at the end of the tunnel. There's no, there's no day that I can say that, OK, I won't need to buy this anymore. I always have to buy. You know what I mean? Right, yeah, I think it's, it's a transfer of risk. You know, think about whether that's what that's worth to you, right. And then you got to think about how like let's say you just have your your base coverage, right?

24:57 Let's say you have 103 hundred, $100,000 per person in an incident that you that you caused the accident, 300,000 aggregate for the incident, right? And that covers your liability. So that covers like anything people can sue you for, right? So lost wages, injuries, you know, hospital bills, rehab, if they've got that, let alone like if they're, you know, incapacitated, they lose a leg or whatever, you know that, that kind of stuff. So let's say you just have that 300,000, right? How long? I don't, I don't make a lot of money and you're a teacher. You can't make. So how long would it take you to save $300,000? And how much would you have to put away every month to get to that point? And so that's the transfer of risk part. Like do you want to have a 300?

25:38 You can, you can self insure. That's great. And you can just go to minimums for, for insurance for the for the state 2550 as the minimums and then you can self insure past that if you'd if you'd like to. But you have to save at least 300,000 if not upwards of $1,000,000 just in case. Yeah, yeah. And that's where the it's not just the property loss, right? It's all of the other stuff you're liable for when you get behind the wheel. Yeah. And have that happen. Yeah. It's fascinating, man. I mean, we're going to get you either way. I'm going to get. It's the best. It's true, though. It's true. It's one of those things like you have to have. I always tell people like, listen, insurance sucks. You don't want it. You have to have it. At least have it with somebody that's looking out for your best interests.

26:20 That's fun to talk to. Like just find somebody that you mesh with with that you trust because you're going to have to have it just but, but always have an agent. I don't, I do not recommend anybody could just go on online and get it themselves because there's just, there's so many nuances in the industry and, and in the coverages that if you don't have a, a license in it and education in it, there's things that you're going to miss and you're not, you're going to be underinsured. Yeah, couldn't be more timely with that. I actually had a student do a presentation this week actually. And she's she's buying a book of business. She's an insurance agent right now and she's buying, she's buying out the agency. She's going to be the owner now. And she did her marketing analytics presentation on insurance.

27:05 And it was funny because it ended up being very insurance focused and not so much marketing focused, but all of that stuff you just said came up and I learned more in that hour than I knew about insurance my whole life about she said the exact same thing about like you can log in any portal right now with big insurance company and you can sign up for your coverage. But do you know what type of and how much coverage you need and all of that stuff? And I think that might be, that might be another thing that kind of maybe creates that feeling for folks because, like, we don't like stuff we don't understand, right.

27:48 Yeah. So you cut this check every six months for your car or yearly you see your home insurance come out of your escrow and you're like, you know, damn it. Yeah, yeah. But I don't know. So connecting the the social media stuff in that you're, I'm assuming they seem kind of maybe disconnected, right? Like you've got into that by happenstance and you're a business owner, but you're a lot of your followers probably aren't local, they're from all over. So do you do the two overlap? Like are you still in the creative creator fund in, in Facebook? And is, is that like that's obviously a little fiscal benefit, but do you, have you overlapped it with your business at all or has that happened? Yeah.

28:32 Yeah, I am still in the creator fund and it does OK. Yeah, it does. I'm I'm really bad at like there's, I don't have a lot of overhead on the Facebook side of things. Yeah. So it really stinks around tax time. It's pretty tough. So I'm fine if it doesn't like blow up. But yeah, the the business itself, I don't it's I can't track it. I can't track what's coming in because of. Attributions tough. Dad dad joke videos, right? But what I see it as, I see it as a digital billboard. So my logos out there, I'm usually wearing some kind of logo and apparel in everything. Most of my Facebook pages, it's got dad jokes and insurance stuff. So if you're watching my stuff, it's just it's automatically there. You know what I do?

29:15 And I don't want to throw that in people's faces. I don't want to be like salesy and say, hey, come buy insurance or here's why I should buy insurance. Like nobody cares. I know that I get it. Like there's, there's a lot, I'm a nerd about it. I like it and I like talking about it, but nobody likes listening to it. Like you're probably going to get a lot less people watching this as soon as you start talking about insurance. But I, I just, yeah, it's like a digital billboard. So if they, they see me, they know I have an agency, They know what I do. Especially like LinkedIn, I think Linkedin's one of the ones that where I where I where that crosses over a little bit more because I don't do what normal people do on LinkedIn. I put those jokes on on there and that's what I do. I don't put the regurgitated stuff that corporate says you should put. I don't, I don't do that.

29:57 So that sets me apart a little bit there and that scenario and I think I get some decent, you know, traction in the business world through that. 100% I have a previous guest who did the same thing with like hunting and fishing content. He started putting on LinkedIn and that's why I asked him to be on the pod. That's How I Met him because I was fat. He was getting a ton of great traction. He was getting good leads for his business. He's a, he's like a digital media guy, makes video content marketing strategist, I think. And he was putting on his hunting and fishing stuff on LinkedIn and no one else was doing it. And it resonated with me and I, I could see it was resonating with other people. And that's, I think what often times the the proof in the pudding that people miss.

30:45 Like everybody's looking for the secret sauce of like how to reach people. And it's like don't try to reach them. Just be you and those people will find you if they want to like. Exactly. Yeah. So I don't know, I think that's cool. So there's a couple themes here that we can really dig into that are kind of like recurring themes on the podcast. 1 is entrepreneurship. You, you mentioned earlier you always kind of had a penchant for that. You said earlier you can't work for somebody you want to work for yourself. Did you always know that? Did it develop into that? How did that transpire? Because I see people constantly who have that feeling, but they don't take the risk. Well, it's scary.

31:33 It's scary. It's scary as hell. So was it always like that for you? I think I was always a bad employee and I just didn't realize why I was a bad employee. Like I I was just I, I didn't if it if it didn't make sense to me what they were having us do or having me do. I didn't like I wanted to question all the time and I told people even when I was working at the at the restoration place, I'd have insurance people because they knew I was in insurance before, asked me to come work for them because they like my marketing style. And I, I would tell them every time you'll fire me, you'll fire me in three months. I guarantee it. They said when I'm going to charge you to, to hire me, you won't make back fast enough to make it worth it. Like it just, it's not going to work and you're not going to like the way I do things.

32:17 Like you're just, and it's OK. Like it's just not going to happen. So for me, like I, it took me a while to realize why I was a bad employee and why I sucked at it so much. And it was just that. I, I, I don't mind taking direction from anybody or, or constructive criticism or anything like that. But I just, I have an idea and a path that I see for myself or my business or the, the business I'm working in. And that's the path I'm taking. And I, I don't do good, I don't do well with being pushed off of that path when I know that it's the right the right one to go down. Isn't that such a weird thing, man? Because so another another like interests space of mine is leadership. And as a leader, I think one of the most effective things you can do is just empower your people and let them do. Let them cook.

33:08 Yeah, let them go, let them cook. And a lot of time it can be a plethora of different things. It can be risk averse. A lot of times it's ego. People's ego gets in the way of stopping people from doing something. But I think there's a there's a certain value in that that gets squashed so many times that leads people with that mindset of saying, well, I can't, I can't do this for somebody else because I've been quelled. I've been squashed my ideas, so I have to do it for myself. When in reality, if effective leaders embrace that correctly, someone could have had that. Like in your skill set and talent. If they let you cook, Yeah.

33:54 Isn't that a weird thing? Yeah. And a lot of times you, you and I, I explain this to people that work for agencies, like insurance agencies all the time. So I'm always looking, I'm always looking to see if I can find somebody talented to come and work with us. Right. And my partner, Deanna, she came over because of one thing I said to her. I said, how good does that agency that you're working for do? She said really well, like we're a top tier agency said, OK, how much money have you made for that agent? Oh so much. How much did you get? Well, like this much. So if you can do it, if you're this good at it, why are you doing it for somebody else? Why are you making somebody else money? Come, come make yourself money here. So I and my pitch for her was I won't, I don't want anything. I don't want anything from you.

34:38 I want her 5050 right from the get go. Like you can come in. I don't you don't have to buy in nothing. I she just I knew she was talented. I knew that she was exactly if she fit exactly what I was trying to do and I had no, I don't want I didn't want money from her right. I wanted her to succeed and us to succeed together. And I think like that's that's the thing I tell people all the time, like if you're good at it, don't do it for somebody else. Don't do it for yourself. And that, that's where it's bad is a relative term, right? Because you reference yourself as a bad employee. The first thing I thought of was 10 minutes ago in this conversation, you went up to somebody and said, hey, like, I'm not really doing anything here. Yeah, send me home.

35:22 That's the opposite of bad employee, right? But bad can mean so many different things. And that same person, even though they kept you for that bad, could mean that you have this awesome idea. And they're like, Nah, we just, we can't do that. It's it's risky. It's not what, you know, the brand, what we want the brand to be or whatever. And I don't know, it's Bad's relative. And I think that that thing is in far more people than who let it come out. Oh, yeah. You know, because of that and the, you flip side of the, you know, the other side of the coin is there's a certain risk that someone doesn't have to take by being with AW2 employee, right?

36:14 Like the money's coming in, you go along to get along and then you end up in these revolving doors of like, man, what jumps out in my mind is just like pharmaceutical ads. They're always the worst ads you've ever you'd ever see. And I think about the I'm passionate about marketing. Obviously we're talking. And I think about the people making them. Who needs to create that? Like, OK, we need to, we need to get the three people that look right, that represent our target audience. And we need them to gallop through a little field here a little bit. And then we have to put our disclaimer on. That sounds so God damn boring to me, you know? What's crazy about that though?

36:55 That works. I know that's the crazy part. Like that work because for me, like that one of the things for me, I don't, I don't want to market. I'd right now we just do word, word of mouth marketing. We're not I don't, I pay for some from mailers and I only pay for mailers because I, I really didn't think they would work. And they're like, Hey, you have to do this to work with our company or whatever. And so I was like, fine, I'll do it. And it I hate those. I throw them away. I use them to start fires. It works. People read them and call. I don't understand, like I don't some of these marketing things. Like, I get it. Like you watch one of those commercials, you're like, this is the dumbest commercial I've ever seen, but I'll bet you it works. Yeah. I and I think that's, that says more about us as people in general than it does really about the marketing guy at that company.

37:38 Yeah, the consumers in general, Yeah, it's interesting because there are some very there were very especially at the like company level. So like Progressive, State Farm, whatever, there's some very innovative thinkers in that space as far as marketing goes, like I mean Progressive has done a great job over the years flow and then they added those other two that you can tell were to different target demographics and stuff and real innovators in the space. So I don't know. It's we have progressive case, anybody wants to know just give me a call. Nice. Yeah. How does that, how does that work, man? Like some people, like some agencies will affiliate with like one specific one and then others, I'm sure there's a word for it in your industry, but can sell or can write different policies with different places. How does that work in the insurance industry? So there's captive agents and there's independent agents. Captive agents would work for your farmers, your state farms, your American families.

38:33 They can only write business for those companies and companies affiliated with them. So some of them have some spin off companies that like I think American Family has the general. Most of them do now, right? They bought out smaller ones, yeah. And then independent you can write business for whoever you want you I, I don't get those captive companies, obviously, because they only, you know, they stay in that in that zone. But, but I can, I can any, any insurance provider that is willing to give me a contract, I can write insurance for them. So what I like about that, because I was in the captive space and now I'm in the independent space. What I like about that is when those rates do go up, we've got other options.

39:16 I can, I can send out, you know, your information to a few other companies and give you some, some, some comps on did it go up a lot? Is it normal for the industry? Like are we, are we, are we in a normal spot or is this a better, a better rate for you? So I kind of that's I really, when I, when I got back into insurance, I did not want to work for a captive agency. I wanted to start an independent just so that I have more options for the people in my book of business. OK. That's interesting. And it sounds like it's probably as confusing to start working in insurance as it is the first time for somebody buying insurance. It was a, it was a six month process just getting everything together and getting appointments and it was, it was a lot, yeah. So let's talk about marketing a little bit more. Was that was like the creative side that understanding consumers?

40:09 Was that always in the back of your mind or was that like grown and learned? How did you? Get just kind of been from observation, just kind of seeing how people react to things right, like you. And if you really stop and pay attention and watch people like even just the people in your, you know, immediate circle, you can see how different. Like for me, I think everything is marketing. Everything is absolutely everything that you do is, and this is shown to you is all marketing. That's one of my colleagues famous line, she says. Marketing is life. Yeah, it's, it's everything. So it's you can and you can kind of tell just by watching people as as I'm talking about insurance, when I first started, I could, I could see their eyes gloss over as I started to talk about it, right.

40:53 And so I just tried to start thinking about different ways to keep them from glossing over. And I think that's what everybody does, right? They, they know exactly the colors and the, and the schemes and everything to keep people focused and interested. So I don't know, over a long period of time, just throwing stuff against the wall and seeing what sticks is pretty much how I figured it out, right? Or I figured out whatever I could so far. Like, I don't have everything figured out, but it was just screwing up a whole bunch. And that's really the best way to learn. Yeah, super interesting. So another theme that we can touch on that we regularly get into the podcast and maybe with with having 35,000 followers and not knowing and maybe maybe you haven't experienced this much, but I'd be hard pressed to think. So the connection between when you gain a social media presence, there's a certain amount of online fodder and back and forth that's like just not productive for people unexpectedly gaining this following on social media. Were there any surprises that you came across that you had to like work through or like, you know, when people interact negatively on your stuff, Was that a surprise? How How is how did that develop over gaining an audience? Yeah, there's a few things that I really picked up from it. One I'm I'm on the City Council in my small town of Amro. So and the Stephanie, my friend work worked for the city at the time.

42:24 So a lot of people try to to push it into that. I was using my my standing, my high standing as an Amro City Councilman to make money off the Internet. So they started this whole shut this down thing and I just, you know, for me, I just, I knew that I wasn't doing anything wrong. I wasn't doing anything illegal. They just didn't understand. And so I, if I just keep pushing through, they'll shut up. And they did. Yeah, they're gone. Well, one's in the nut house now, but the rest of them shut up. That was, was a satisfying situation. I'm, I'm not a bad person, but for that one I was like, yeah, that's good. Can we can we talk about it? What was it? I can't. Like it was a local person that was very boisterous about a lot of things and for a long time, like this person was at one point on the school board and saying Mary had a little lamb to try to filibuster in the middle of a meeting.

43:17 And at that point I was like, this person is insane. Filibustering at the school board? That's a bold move. Yeah, they just kept going. But I, and I said it for a while after that, I was like, this person's not 100%, but everybody, it's a small town. So everybody's like, well, she, she does so much for in the town. And you know, so we, you know, we, you know, we got a back here and done. It's like, OK, but she's crazy. And so it just, it all kind of came to fruition at a certain point and she got put in a, in a, in a hold or whatever it's called. I don't know, I don't want to get in too many details, but it was, it sucks because you don't want bad things to happen to people, but it was nice to like, I'm not crazy.

43:59 I, I said this from the beginning, I'm not the guy. I wasn't the crazy one. But yeah. So anyways, that was, that was one of the big things. Another one that I, that still gets me to to this day is, is the things that people will say. I'm on the Internet and I don't feel like they don't understand that it's there. And it's if I don't delete it, it stays there. Like I don't mind people being mean to me or saying my jokes are stupid because they are stupid. That's that's the rub. Like that's yes, I know they're stupid. And I think at first, when I first started doing it and first started taking off, I would get upset that people were saying things right and being mean or whatever. And then I started to realize, like, I don't know, Dave in Detroit, I will never see this person. Why am I upset?

44:46 Why do I care what he what he thinks about my jokes? And also if he doesn't like them and he keeps commenting, I make more money, so I'll just, I'm happy to help him write some more stuff if he needs to. So that was one, like, it took a little while to get past that, But once you're past it and you can make a joke out of it or or, you know, I sometimes I just like it. That's good. Yeah. And sometimes they're really funny. Like they'll say really mean things, but they're really funny. And I'll be like, that's good. Yeah. Nice job. But the one that really gets me is what old boomers will say about Steph, like they say the grossest, most inappropriate things on the Internet.

45:29 Like it's like, I get it. I get if you think things right, that's fine. What some of the things it's probably not even fine for them to think, but to to take the time to type it out and hit enter and send it out into the world. Like what are you doing? What are you thinking? What what's your end game? What do you think's going to happen? You think like Steph's going to see it and be like, this guy really likes my boobies. What why? So like I did we, we Steph and I tried to start a podcast, but we just were too busy and it wasn't a thing for us. But one of our first one was just was titled just be better. Just like I'm not a I'm not an advocate for any kind of ISM or anything like that, but don't be gross.

46:14 It's not that hard to not type that even just say it. Say it out loud at home. Like I like Steph's boobs. Just say it, don't type it, don't do it. And then most of that, the crazy part is, and this is actually kind of fun, I would click on their profile and their profile picture would be them and him and him and his wife, right? And so then I'd take his wife. You would do the nice. And say, hey, Gina, you're going to want to get Dave off the Internet today. And then they would, they would they'd be gone then after that. Yeah. But now I've gotten to the point where I just, I at this point, I just block them. Yeah, if it's if it's too inappropriate. And that's the ideal scenario, let's say ideal headspace to get in if you can just kind of realize that something I often say is like, you have to remember the comments section is an embodiment of the entire society and. Boy, that's a sad thing.

47:04 Isn't it? And on the fringes of both sides of those things, there are the people that you ran into in that Lady in your town where they are, they're not in the right spot that no one would ever let that comment hold any weight if they met him in person. But it's in writing. So there's no like there's no depth or detail behind it. It's just this phrase exists now that you typed and people read the comment section and that goes gets logged into their mental backlog of things that are in there. And I think in the past, whatever 20 ish years of social media that has caused us to look at our neighbors differently, look at our friends differently, look at society differently.

47:56 And it's ideal scenario, healthy scenario, when you can get to the places of understanding that and saying, you know, it's cool. Like let them say it's going to make me more money. And I like, I wonder what the avenue is to get the vast majority of people there, because I think a lot of people, you know, we're sensitive, humans are sensitive and, and we, we take those things into account and it starts kind of it, it builds inside of people. And then, you know, we create this animosity over one another that doesn't have to exist. But that I mean the the latter scenario there, that's such a double edged sword of like if if you're a what's considered an attractive female, you can do social media probably easier than some other people and gain a following on the flip side of it, one of the best stories from the podcast.

48:50 I had a pole vault around from Milwaukee and she makes awesome content. She's a great athlete, very cool human. And I talked to her about what she experiences from the older boomers you were talking about and just men in general comments on our stuff. And she had one where her dad actually did what you did and reached out and like alerted the wife of like these nasty comments that he had sent. And I just think that's such awesome vigilante. Just it's. So fun. It's so. Yeah, just like, because that is amazing. Like it's one thing to be a dirt ball, it's another thing to be a dirt ball and then force it upon someone. And then it's a third thing to be a dirt ball.

49:31 Force it upon someone and then do it in a public forum. I just I don't know that everybody understands. I think that some of those at that level, they don't understand what's happening and what, where they're typing that like you're, you're probably somebody's like drunk uncle, right? You, you don't understand what you're doing, but it's it's not good. Yeah, this is out here for everybody. Anybody can look at the comments that you've made and find this, like, most of the time I'll delete them and I'm doing them a favour getting that off of there. Yeah. Like they have kids and stuff. It's wild. And like daughters, like what? I had one where a guy was like, hey, I'd really like to get a picture of Steph. I said, would you say that to Steph if you just walk past down the street, we'd be like, hey, can I get a picture of you? Yeah.

50:15 And he's like, are you implying that I'm some kind of pervert? I'm not a pervert. I was like, well, I wasn't, but it seems like you might think you are. So it's something you might want to get in respect and, you know, look inside about a little bit. Yeah. But yeah, to go back to the, to the dealing with the hate type stuff, I every once in a while, like in my networking groups, they'll ask me to do like a 5 minute you, you go around, I don't know if you've ever been in the networking group, but they'll ask you to stand up and do your little 10 minute spiel or whatever. One of the things I like to talk about, especially for people like in groups where there's a lot of people on social media is I don't know where I got this. I don't know if it came from a book or I dreamt it or it just popped in my brain. I have no idea. But one day I was kind of like, what if I just, if I take 10 people, like I think of 10 people in my life that if they, if I woke up tomorrow and they said, what, what you're doing is wrong and I don't want to talk to you anymore because you're doing it, that would devastate me, right?

51:07 So I found those 10 people that I care about their opinions the most, right? And I draw a circle around those 10 people. And if it's not one of those 10 people commenting on my stuff, why do I care? Why do I give a crap? Why do I care if somebody in Boston doesn't like what I said or what I'm doing? But I'm never going to see like, like I said before, I'm never going to see that person. You're not part of my 10. I don't care. I don't care. That's another perk of being, well, actually it could be a plus and A minus depending how you look at it. But being a business owner, you don't have to worry about the the online snowball tribe coming after you about something. But I think that's one thing that holds people back in that realm a little bit of like, so I think of I got a little Fender Bender. This was probably four years ago now, something like that, four years ago, five years ago in the winter and it was just comical scenario where like there was this roundabout that was glare ice and like nobody could have ever known it. So I was driving up and I got in this little Fender Bender and like there was a cop there immediately and he asked us to pull into this parking lot.

52:16 And then I come to find out that they were like, like they were parked watching this roundabout and so much of that stuff in my head, I was like, why did that happen? Like why didn't somebody tell somebody that, like, why don't you park there and put your lights on and say this is something. So I didn't do it in a malicious way or a vindictive way or anything. But like I posted about it on social media. I was like, I got this ticket and I end up getting a ticket out of it, which is ultimately happened for driving too fast for conditions. I was driving like 15 miles an hour into this roundabout because the roads were slippery and this person commented on it like talking like she had done this deep dive, found where I worked like made this comments about it about I can't believe you're able to have this position or this opinion and do this job and dot dot dot dot dot. So I one of the few posts in my life I've ever deleted and like still to this day, I think I was completely in the right because the rest of the story when I was parked in that in that parking lot, I physically watched four to five other cars spin out in the roundabout.

53:27 So it was like this a ridiculous scenario that I shouldn't have gotten a ticket for. Like it's a it's an accident purely at by definition. And like, I took down the post because there was this one lunatic that could have affected like, my earning money for my family, you know? And I think that's something people run into, I guess is what I'm getting at, like. Would you been even in that scenario if you really think about it? Do you? Was there some kind of rules about you posting on social media for your job? No. So wouldn't would that would anything have happened there? More than likely not, no. Yeah. So like I'll give you another good example. When I was doing that those those videos with Steph, we had one person come in.

54:14 It was starting with this posse of people that was trying to make it stop for whatever reason, they don't like it, they don't like me, whatever, I don't care. But he came in and he had a meeting with me and the mayor and the and the city administrator and said you have to stop doing these the videos. And I said why? And he said because it's illegal. I said prove it. And he's like, I'm going to call the District Attorney. I'm going to get him on the phone and I'm going to file charges on you. So let's let's call him right now. Let's get him on the phone right now. Let's call him. Well, I'm, I'm going to do it outside of here. I said, why you, here's my number. You tell him to give me a call and I'm happy to, to be a cooperative witness or, and testify for whatever you need me to do. I'll tell him everything I did. Well, you're going to be in trouble. Guess who never heard from the District Attorney? Like people think that they can make these threats and, and, and do this stuff right?

55:01 Because, because a lot of people will back down to it. But if you don't back down and you just keep doing whatever you're doing, they'll shut up. Yeah, most of the time. And especially if you're not doing anything wrong, like if you're not. If you didn't do anything wrong, what do you care? Yeah. Why? Why you let Sharon get mad at you? Like, go ahead and be mad. Call who you need, who you need to call. Yeah, yeah, that's such a fascinating space. Just the and, you know, adults dealing with it is one thing. I the conversation where I often get to is like, you know, the average age that we start social media is pretty young man. And I've had some people, you know, in my extended network and beyond, even stories that I've read of like devastating outcomes because of interactions that children had on social media. And it's like, it's like that.

56:00 There's not a comprehensive picture of that, an understanding of that, or at least a A want to alleviate it? Yeah. I've said a million times I can't imagine what it would be like if I had social media when I was that age. Oh, I know. I can't, I can't fathom what kind of trouble there would have been. You know, it was, it was bad enough going through high school when you could just talk about each other and let alone put it on the on the Internet and record things. Yeah. So I, yeah, I can't, I can't imagine what kids are going. I mean, I've got a 13 year old and an 11 year old and A, and an 8 year old. So like I, I, I try my best to like, show them these situations, right. And say, look at this guy's mad at me.

56:41 It doesn't matter. Doesn't make a difference. I don't know that person. They're not, they're not in my inner circle. It doesn't make a difference. Yeah, but those, the hormones and the age and the, and everything's firing in their brains and the neurons and everything there's, I don't know what I'm talking about, right. So, yeah. But yeah, we don't have anything. There's no, there's nothing in the education system that I know of to, to help, you know, teach kids how to deal with this kind of stuff. Yeah, if they're lucky enough to have parents that'll have the conversations and help them through it and stuff, that's great. But I don't know, it's it's not the majority, probably. What did you say the oldest one is 1313 on social media yet or no? No, he just really doesn't. He doesn't want to. Nice. Yeah. You know, that seems to be a growing trend and I'm kind of all about it. Yeah, you'll, you'll be in my videos, but that's the that's the end.

57:27 OK for him. Yeah. He doesn't doesn't want his own Facebook or LinkedIn or anything like that. And I said, if you ever get Snapchat, I'm taking your phone. Yeah, because I I don't know what gets shared on Snapchat, but it can't be good. It just can't be good with those kids, right? That's the one that happened in my extended network, Yeah, with a devastating outcome. There's that thing happening where it's like a scam where they'll get the teenager to send them, you know, like revealing pictures and then blackmail said person. And luckily it seems like there's now being some like legislation written in place that at least provides I don't know if justice is even the right word because there is no justice really in that scenario.

58:15 They're. Not here. They're in some other country, right? So. Yeah, but the stuff like that is terrible. And like, you know, I teach social media marketing and it, it's this constant tug of war between like the positives and the negatives of social media. Because I truly believe there are a ton of positives too. Yeah, there's a there's a lot of people that have better relationships with their friends and family because of social media. There's a lot of things that we learn and know now because of social media. And it's like a lot of things in life, balancing the positive and negatives and working through it. But it's, it's a lot of times it's, I think it's through the lens of youth. And I completely agree.

58:58 Like Facebook was kind of just starting to be a thing right when I went to college. So I was still a knothead, but I was an adult knothead. Right. And you know, I think of 4-5 years prior to that I was a bigger knothead and like glad that that stuff wasn't being posted online. And I, I feel for today's youth that have to navigate that and probably grow up quicker than they need to and all that stuff. I always thought it would be a good assembly idea to get all the kids in the gym. Everybody has their phone. Teacher takes a selfie with one of the kids and say OK, send it to three of your friends. When you get it out there, you send it to three of your friends and as soon as you get it, you raise your hand and just watch how fast this one picture can travel throughout the entire school. And so like, let's let's say you send in a nude, right? This is how fast everybody can get it and how fast it exponentially grows just to kind of give them the idea, like let them understand.

59:59 Like that's not to mention the fact that every one of those people at that in that scenario is now in possession of inappropriate kid pictures, right? So like it to be able to like articulate that and explain it to him. I don't know if it would help or not. I have no idea. But I thought that would always be a good like assembly. Event to do. Cool idea. Yeah. Eye opening if nonetheless. Right, Because you wonder what that, what that understanding is. I'm sure it varies, but you know, the, the level of understanding of what they have about that and where it is. Because it's, I don't know, it's easy to think we're we're hip to it.

1:00:40 No, but we're not. We're middle-aged adults. The time has passed us by. And think about like when we went to those assemblies, how much do we really retain any of that information and like, give a shit? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I recently found out I was, I don't even, I never investigated the truth about this or anything. So don't come after me online Army. But I saw a thing where there was financial incentive for the like for the police officers who did the what was that? What was that like, large scale DARE? Yeah, there was financial incentive and I'm waiting to see I, I, we have a family friend from my hometown that was a, is a retired police officer and he was part of the DARE thing. I can't wait to see him because I want to say like you make money off of.

1:01:29 That the whole thing too. Isn't that why it was a pyramid scheme? Yeah. Crazy, crazy. They had sweet shirts though. The logo was perfect. The marketing was on point. It was on point, man. Yeah, but it's interesting. I can't remember why I started talking about that, but that was funny. I don't know, just the things how we evolve as humans. I I think social media has played such a huge part in how we interact with each other. Yeah, it's made us angrier as a people from what I've what I've been able to kind of observe. It's just people get really mad really easy and everybody is everybody has the idea that if somebody says something on the on the Internet that they're saying it right directly to them.

1:02:09 Like I feel like that's like a, I don't understand where that disconnect is. Like if if I posted something and, and it was a joke, but it was offensive to you, doesn't mean it's offensive to everybody. It just means you didn't like it. But just because you didn't like it doesn't mean you got to be nasty and, and say that this is terrible. You know what I mean? Like it's just, it's interesting to see like people get upset about like I did a joke, I think about a blind guy or something like that or a deaf something about a deaf guy or whatever. And people got tried to come at me and said you can't make fun of deaf people. I said yes, I can. I just did. I just did it. And it's fine. If you don't like it. I don't, that's OK. If if there's a deaf person that's mad at me, I get it, you know, that's fine. But it's just a joke.

1:02:54 My my first like question in my mind in that instance is always like, are you deaf? Are you the first? Because then we could probably have a conversation. But I think that that's part of it. I think people, they think that their posts have more influence than they really do. Like we think we can puppeteer all of these parts of society just by making a comment. And it's like you're going into the abyss. It's solely a reflection of yourself is all it is. Yeah. It's what? Yeah. Your content shouldn't be on Facebook. Well, you just commented on it, so now it's going to be on more people's Facebooks. So yeah, swing the miss. Do your do your dad jokes land with your kids? No, they think I'm an idiot.

1:03:37 So yeah, I guess they do. I guess they do. Yeah. Sometimes they like them, sometimes they think they're funny, but not not super often. Yeah, So is that, is that still like the main shtick? Like do you still do the videos where you're like, hey, can I tell you a dad joke and. Is that the thing? Yeah, Steph's getting busy. We don't see each other as much anymore. But I've got, I've got Deanna in the office and, and we just hired a part time person. So Mackenzie's going to get some crappy jokes thrown at her here and there. But right now I've got, I've got three years of jokes that I can just repost at this point when I, you know, if there's a long lull between when I find a good one or, or think of a good thing to do, I'm trying to, I'm trying to write some more stuff just to get into a little bit of a lot more of a long form kind of funny stuff.

1:04:25 So we're we're working through that just more based on the dumb stuff we do in the office. Like I bought a bus and I put my face on it. So we got to figure out some kind of way to, to make that into a thing. So. You bought a bus. I bought a short bus. Yeah, nice. I found it on. I found it on Facebook Marketplace, bought it and I took it in. I got my face put on it and logos and all that kind of stuff. And we drive it in parades and everything. But then the main reason I got it was all my kids are in sports, so we got basketball tournaments and stuff like that coming. Pile all the parents in. We got to go to The Dells this weekend. Pile them all in. Let's go. Awesome. Yeah, that's nice, Nice comfortable ride and put ATV in there, got some music. We're we're all good to go.

1:05:10 Nice little write off man. Right, yeah, logos going all the way up. All the way back. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, It's just I like finding different random things to do that nobody like not a lot of people would think about. Yeah. Or people would think it's ridiculous. Well, and at the foundation of it, that's often what effective marketing is, right? You're trying to get your unique value proposition out there in a creative way that gets through the noise because we constantly live with all kinds of noise. Yeah. And what can you do to captivate attention and then make that attention useful? Yeah, Yeah. I know that the bus was the right thing to do because my wife told me that she thought it was clever. Most of the videos I do, she says. Oh, that's cute.

1:05:53 Almost everything I do, she's like, well, that's cute, cute. And I know it's OK. But then she said, you know what? Getting that bus and putting your face on it was clever. And I was like, damn, I did it. I did it. She's like, people text me all the time. When they see it driving around, they'll take a picture and they'll send it to me and say, oh, your bus, the bus is out. She's like, that was pretty clever. That's awesome. You know, I Speaking of social media, I saw a video just the other day that said like a a husband will hang on to that one compliment from his wife for months. Just live on that. Live everybody. I tell everybody that she thinks I'm clever. Everybody that'll listen. That's the best. It's super true though. Super true. That's the best thing about a wife is at least my experience with a wife is. That is where I can go for the most authentic feedback that I could ever want.

1:06:42 And really that's invaluable because back to, I mean, even back to the leadership thing, like I don't want a bunch of people around me that are just yes, people. I say this is great. Like do this. My wife will tell me that like when something sucks she'll be that shit. Yeah, like our wives went to the same schools for wiping. I think they have like a, there's like a wife gathering school that they all go to that we don't know about where they come up with these things. It's A and it's probably. You're about to marry a moron. I tell her all the time. She chose to say I do. She did, yeah. Yep, it's I tell her. I tell her, too. Like we got three kids.

1:07:23 You're stuck with me now. Where are you going? Like you're going. You got baggage. If you're going to leave, good luck. It's tough out there it. Is yeah, that's great, man. OK. We got to get a little bit back into the into the nickel a guy a little bit. All right, let's do it. Yeah. So ultimately that's how you reach down. I made AI made a video where I had reached out to him to come on the podcast. He said he was too busy and then started the podcast, which is eerily similar vibe to mine, similar conversations, a little bit bigger geographic area, but, and that's all well and good, but yeah, that's why you reached out, man. I got, I got made-up beef with the guy. I, I don't think he, like I told you earlier, I don't think he knows that I have beef, but I'm the bald guy with a beard in Wisconsin.

1:08:13 That's it. Like the only difference between him and me is I can't pay for a bunch of billboards everywhere like. Do you have a billboard? I don't, but if I did, if I had billboard money to throw around, I'd put one right next to his after the ones that like insurance companies fear me and I it would just be me being I don't, I don't, I'm not scared. But yeah, that, like I said, when when he was when he first started coming in, I first started seeing him a lot. I'd see his, his Tik toks and, and, and stuff like that. And I'd say, hey, get out of the state. I'm the I'm the guy. I'm the bald guy with the beard. You got to go. And then he wouldn't say anything. And I'd say, well, shave your beard or leave. That's this is this is it. You don't have any choices.

1:08:54 But then he did that. He did that thing where he's the official law firm of the Minnesota Vikings. And I was the final straw for me. I can't, I can't let that stand. So I did a video that that said I would never, ever be the official insurance advisor of the Minnesota Vikings. And that's a year that's a poser move. He's got Viking stuff all over Minneapolis. He's ever all those huge billboards you see here with no Packer colors. Those are all Vikings, all Vikings colors all over the place. My guess is, and again, this is just me spitballing here, but the the Packers are a classy organization and they make good marketing decisions. The Vikings aren't. I love that, love that angle.

1:09:38 That's my thought. I don't know. And then again, that's just me. So I don't know. But I I've had people say like, well, he's got a podcast. What if he asked you to be on it? And I said I would, I would be on it if he either takes on all his billboards or he shaves his beard and then I'll go on his podcast. That's it. Those are the only rules. Yeah, yeah. Talk about marketing. We could talk about that for days and days. That's one thing he's done really well. He's a. Yeah, he definitely did. Definitely painted the highways his face. Yeah, no doubt. And but you know, we're talking about a little bit. I knew, you know, I knew a little bit about his geographic targeting, didn't know that he was the official lawyer law firm of the Minnesota Vikings. Like if there's a conflict of interest in marketing, that's. It it's a tough one.

1:10:28 It's tough to get over. I don't think he wants us all to know about that over here. Yeah, I think that's kind of one of those hush hush deals. Yeah. Yeah, Well, I'm going to shed some light on it whenever I get a chance. Yeah, yeah, well, he's also got he has got the, you ever see those house divided flags where the house divided it'll have like Packers Vikings or Packers Bears or something. I guarantee. Like if I'm thinking of OK, how do I PR this? How do I PR spin this? Which PR is a whole another thing where I can love and hate at the same time. If I PR spin this, he's in that zone where it's like, OK, maybe where his where he lives is like half and half because you're right on the border over there. I think somewhere and I used to live in the UP where it's half Packers, half Vikings or Lions.

1:11:11 And, you know, there's probably APR angle you can take there to be like, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm just, I'm serving everybody. Yeah. That's the way he went with it when I when I finally posted and he actually replied to it. Yeah. And I get it. I get it. Yeah. But I mean, if you're, if you're Packers and you're Lions, if you're a Lions fan, you're, I mean, you're a solid hardcore fan, right? Because the Lions have always been terrible. They're finally getting good, right. But you, if you've been a Lions fan forever, I got I've got respect for you. I don't I you can be a Packers and a Lions fan. I'm OK. Like, you can be the official law firm of the Detroit Lions, you'll be busy, but not the Minnesota Vikings. So just no.

1:11:54 And that, that's only one. Worse would be the Bears. The Bears would be terrible. Yeah, that was the first thing I thought about. I don't know if he's in Illinois too or not, but I don't. Know I don't go down there. It's not safe. Yeah, that's a whole other thing. I drove through Illinois a while back going to a concert in Indianapolis and I logged on and I paid my tolls, which is just ridiculous the way it is. So I log on and I pay my tolls. And then just a couple weeks ago, the concert was in October. Just a couple weeks ago, I get a thing in the mail saying I have to pay my tolls. So I call and I talked to the nicest guy you could have ever wanted to be on the other side of the phone.

1:12:36 Like I I called in ready to ready to talk about these tolls and we finally got to the bottom of it. For some reason, my payment must not have went through or whatever blah blah blah ended up on. I ended up deep down the Reddit hole of this and this had happened to other people. So I don't know where the break in the chain of it happening was, but like my tolls didn't go through and there were like, I can't even remember a little over $100.00 of fees added to these things. So I call and as nice as this guy was, I was like, I'm not going to pay all that extra money. Like I did this already even though you says I didn't do it because I went through my credit card statement, there was no payment. So I didn't pay twice.

1:13:24 But in our conversation, like he pulled up my profile to pay tolls in Illinois and I was like, dude, let's talk about this. Realistically, would I have a profile to pay Illinois tolls if I if I wasn't going to pay the tolls? Like I logged on to do that and created and he's like, yeah, you're right. And ultimately I didn't have to pay the fees. That's good. But I can't remember what the actual thought was around just talking about how bad Illinois is. I think that's the main. Thing. It's weird that logic actually worked in that scenario. Usually when you go call any kind of thing like that, logic is not out the door. Out the door yeah well they could have it was either that or what Come and get me I wasn't going to pay it I wasn't going to pay it so but yeah, I guess that that was probably the main point just to talk about how bad Illinois is and just and.

1:14:18 Just Bears fans in general. Oh, they're the worst. They are going to, they are going to take the north, but. Maybe we'll see in a couple days. By the time this episode drops, we'll know. Yeah, we'll know. But yeah, I don't I and Mike you. Can know back there, but I don't know. I'm nervous, man, I'm nervous. Yeah, this weekend will be interesting. Or a Sunday night. I think it is Saturday night. Is it Saturday night? I think so, yeah. Yeah, I'm doing early supper club so that I can make sure that I get back for the game OK. Yeah, OK. So go to go to supper club Saturday night. Where? Where's your spot down by Amro? Hazes. OK. Hazes Supper club outside. It's all. It's all it's called in a little town called Borth.

1:14:59 Borth. Yeah. OK. Best steak I've ever had in my life, hands down. Isn't that classic Wisconsin the drive 20 minutes to a town with 1000 people that has the best supper club in the G? Has 100 people in the town, yeah. Nice, what do they do? A good prime rib or what's the Saturday night thing you go for? I usually just get AI get a sirloin, just a solid sirloin and they got a good surf and turf OK, where you get like a nice like a hunk of crab too. OK, pretty good old fashions are good. OK, You know, they don't muddle. That's a problem for me usually, but they're all right, OK, if you do, if you're pre mixed and if you had a pre mixed old fashions, you're not really doing the supper club thing, right. But their their argument, because I've had this argument with the bartenders many times because I'll say, just give me a muddler and and I'll do it.

1:15:46 I don't mind doing it myself. And they're like, no, we're just too busy. Like this is how we have to do it. Because otherwise if we had to muddle everybody's old fashions, nobody get drinks. And I get I get that. I, I resonate with that. I want to make sure I have my drinks. So, so I you know, I understand, but. So here's my qualm, Here's my qualm with supper clubs. Love the the Wisconsin vibe and the connection to our culture. Supper clubs are awesome. The food's always banging. It's always good. My qualm with it. And this has been amplified by two things It's been I've always felt this way, but it's been amplified by becoming a dad. I have a four year old and it's been amplified by a quit drinking alcohol like 6 or 7 years, well more than that now, probably 8 years ago now. And my supper club appearances have dramatically decreased because of those two things.

1:16:32 One, I can't go in and sit at a bar for an hour with a four year old before we get seated at a table. It's not happening, just not going to happen. Like we don't have, there's not enough coloring books in the world or not enough games I spy in the world to make that work. And two, like you want me to take up a bar stool with my seltzer water and lime I'm going to drink. You're going to kick you right out of there anyway. They're going to, Yeah. And I'm going to get dirty looks because they want their tips. And so that has dramatically decreased my supper club appearances. And it's a bummer because the supper club food and the vibe I still love. Yeah, but I just don't go.

1:17:18 We, we, when we started having kids, we didn't go anywhere. We didn't take them anywhere in public because they're the worst. Kids are terrible. They're just Oh my God. So we've for the longest time kind of just got away from it. We didn't go out with friends and we didn't and we just didn't bring my life unless we had a sitter. We didn't go out. And now my oldest is old enough to to babysit. So now we can start, you know, going out and and enjoying. Take advantage of that labor you created. Exactly why did I get them otherwise? You know, But yeah, I, I couldn't imagine trying to take a kid to a supper, but I wouldn't, I wouldn't even think about it. Like it would just be an absolute disaster. Especially with three. You got three of them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now that'd be fun. Now that'd be fun there, but I'll wait till they can till the oldest can drive and then you can get me home and have more old fashions then.

1:18:05 Yeah, so that's my qualm. It's like my I love fish fries, man. Fish fish fries my jam and you can't get it to go fish fry like you don't you don't go get it to go fish fry. You get home, it's a little soggy, the fry, the fry stink like so my my fish intake is way down my supper club your. Omega fatty acids are going to be way. Down, way down. Brain health out the window, dude. That's bad. That's my qualm with it though. Yeah, that makes sense. I think mainly it sounds like the problem that you really had was having children. And that's my that was my problem, too. Here we are. I mean, the process is great.

1:18:46 Worst roommates I've ever had. Terrible roommates. Really bad. Yeah, well, I would put it the best and the worst roommates that they've had. Sidebar, Austin, just while I'm looking at this, how is how is my camera shot with the sun shining directly into the is it bad? OK, I'm going to stand up. I got to roll pretty soon too anyways, so. Are we getting close to Austin? How are we doing on time 15? Oh, we are. How's that? Did that make it better? Yeah, Yeah, man, I usually have.

1:19:26 I usually come up by this time with a grandiose way to end it. I don't have it right now though. I mean, just let me just tell everybody to buy insurance for me. Yeah, that works. That works. I mean, I, I really appreciate you having me on it. I mean, I'm not, you've had some I've kind of been looking through, I've looked through a little bit. You've had some big deals around here on I'm not that, but I was. I'm happy to come on and be able to to take on my soapbox of insurance and and the the bearded bald guy and in Wisconsin. So I appreciate you you having me. Happy to have you, man. Good to meet you. Good to chat. Good luck. Good luck with the insurance realm. Keep keep spreading the word in a real way to the people and maybe you could get 1 billboard you got.

1:20:06 You probably got 1 billboard money. You might not have all the Billboard money, but if you have 1 billboard money, you could probably make some awesome social media content fuelling that beef you've got with 1 billboard with you on it. Yeah. I think between him and I, we could probably go like, I kind of wanted him to take the bait in the beginning on the stuff I was posting, but he never took the bait. So, you know, it is what it is. Yeah. He's too big of a deal now. He's a big deal. A lot of billboards. He probably has trouble going to the grocery store. Oh yeah, I would think. I'm sure he hates that. Thanks for coming on me. Appreciate. Thanks for having me.