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How Mike Ehrle Is Using Lumity to Fix What’s Broken in Employee Benefits · The Inspired Stories Podcast

0:04
Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast,
0:08
where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from
0:11
their successes and be inspired by how they overcome adversity.
0:15
My name is Anthony Kotaspodi, and today's guest is Mike Early.
0:19
He serves as the Managing Partner at Lumidi, where they
0:22
partner with employers and employees to drive a competitive
0:26
benefits program and a great experience.
0:29
Mike is also the CEO and Founder of Finparency, an investment
0:34
technology company dedicated to helping small businesses match
0:38
with the right investors and reach investment grade status.
0:42
They focus on guiding businesses to increase their value, connect
0:45
them with qualified investors, and facilitate strategic moves
0:49
for better growth. Additionally, over the years, he
0:52
has held leadership roles at organizations like Click
0:55
Boarding and Light Solutions, helping expand their market
0:59
presence and Dr. strategic partnerships.
1:02
Mike also is an Eagle Scout from the Boy Scouts of America,
1:06
demonstrating his commitment to service and leadership since
1:09
1993. Now before we get into all that
1:12
good stuff, today's episode is brought to you by my company Add
1:16
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1:20
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1:36
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1:54
All right, back to our guest today, Managing Partner at
1:56
Lumini and CEO and founder of Fimparency, Mike Early.
2:00
Thanks for making the time to Share your story today.
2:02
Thanks for having me, Anthony. It's good to be here.
2:05
So, Mike, you've spent years doing some pretty innovative
2:07
work in the insurance industry. How did you first get a foothold
2:11
in the space? I started in finance and
2:15
graduating from Drape University in Des Moines, IA.
2:18
Lovely, very balmy. Des Moines, IA I wanted to stay
2:24
and become an investment banker, but that didn't work out.
2:27
And so I was looking around for roles and ended up at what's
2:30
known as a TPACNA HealthPartners was the name as a financial
2:34
analyst. And in order to do that role
2:37
well, you had to know the insurance and outs of medical
2:40
claims and how the dollars move in the operations.
2:43
And so I ended up understanding the business and getting thrown
2:47
into the mix of Tpas and claims and we owned our own network and
2:51
was really an interesting way to understand the benefits space.
2:54
So that's how I got into it and really loved the area and so
2:59
from there. What would you say was your next
3:03
most formidable stop? I was excited.
3:08
To join in a sales capacity any way I could.
3:11
So even though I started in a finance role, I thought this
3:14
sucks OK, sucks so much. You wanted you wanted the people
3:19
interaction. Thank God I didn't become an
3:21
investment banker. I am so glad I did not do that,
3:24
even though now I'm on the periphery of it with the other
3:26
business conspiracy. But I'm so glad I didn't do
3:29
that. So no offense to investment
3:31
bankers. They're great and needed.
3:32
So it's. Just not your DNA.
3:34
I made the hop because I was willing to do anything I could
3:38
to be in a true sales role. Started at the very bottom at
3:41
United Health Group and actually it was a vision company that
3:46
United Health Group ended up buying and was almost fired six
3:50
months into it. But that was my big hop was
3:53
moving from CNA HealthPartners in a finance role into a sales
3:58
role, a traditional pick up the phone, get your foot in the door
4:02
sales role that became United Health Group.
4:05
And even though I was almost fired six months into it, I
4:07
figured it out with two great mentors that kicked my butt and
4:13
learned a ton and ended up having a successful career at
4:17
United Health Group and other places.
4:19
And So what was it that you were doing or not doing at the up to
4:23
that six month mark that almost got you fired?
4:26
I was waiting for the phone to ring.
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I'll never forget I was living in downtown Chicago.
4:32
I was newly married. We got married.
4:34
John, 23, was living in my condo in downtown Chicago, took the
4:39
second bedroom. I remember buying a desk,
4:41
putting the desk in. And I'm in a sales role now.
4:44
This is, you know, the Internet's new still at that
4:47
moment. And I thought, OK, I called
4:51
these folks once, They're going to follow up and they're going
4:53
to have proposals for me. What do I need to do?
4:55
Just go wait, Wait for the phone to ring.
4:58
And my boss, Tom Davis, who I now view as just nearly a family
5:02
member. That's how much I love this guy.
5:04
Lives in Indianapolis. But Tom Davis realized you need
5:09
a real sales manager, and he brought in a real sales manager,
5:13
Lou Formantini. And Lou Formantini, I hated that
5:16
guy for the first year, and then we became such close friends and
5:20
he kicked my butt. In an era where you were allowed
5:24
to probably do that more than today.
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And I learned the insurance and outs of what you needed to do to
5:30
just the grip required to make that work, both through brokers
5:36
and calling directly to employers and it worked out so.
5:40
So what was the general framework that he taught you?
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Was it call follow up once a week?
5:46
Was it make 100 calls a day? What?
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What was the structure he kind of put in place?
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Know Your Stuff was the first thing that Lou taught me.
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Know Your Stuff. His favorite trick and everybody
5:56
who worked for Lou fell into this.
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In fact, I need to share that I'm talking about Lou on this
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with him. He lives in Glenview in
6:02
Illinois, I believe. I haven't talked to him in a
6:04
couple years. He's so great.
6:06
But Lou, you'd walk into an office building, all right?
6:11
And let's say I was going to your office and you were on the
6:13
3rd floor and I'm going up and I don't just immediately go to the
6:18
elevator, I have to go to the board and look up what floor
6:21
you're on. He knew right?
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Then bam, you don't know your market, you don't know the
6:28
people you're calling on. He so he had these just little
6:31
things to know. If you were really getting to
6:34
know the brokers in your marketplace as a carrier Rep
6:38
then or the employers in your territory, you're calling on
6:42
them and visiting them so much where you just know the phone
6:46
numbers and you know exactly where they're located.
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That was the grip required. At least then I still believe
6:52
that can happen if you're willing to commit the time and
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you visit, you go out there, you know your market, you know your
6:59
people, you know the prospects. That's what he expected.
7:03
And it's, it sounds so silly and well, who wouldn't do that?
7:07
No one does that today. No one does that today.
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But that's what you were supposed to do.
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And I learned through lieu that that was the expectation and it
7:15
saved me. I I learned a lot by doing it.
7:18
And Mike, you say nobody does that today.
7:20
Was anybody doing that yesterday, you know, when you
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were doing it, or was that still a pretty rare thing?
7:27
I think it was, I don't know if it was universal, but it was
7:32
certainly not abnormal. It was uncomfortable.
7:35
That's always been consistent. Doing that was inconsistent.
7:39
Showing up to a Fortune 500 reception desk and asking for
7:44
fill in the blank, who leads HR, You know, that would work one
7:48
out of 100 times. But it was a little bit more
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common then because LinkedIn wasn't around.
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I don't think LinkedIn came out until 2005 or 6.
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At least that's when I started using it.
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People weren't on LinkedIn. So they're the old school way
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work. People weren't inundated with
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emails from carrier representatives and marketing
8:09
firms and all this other stuff. So I do think it was a little
8:12
bit more common. And due to AI, ironically, it
8:16
will be coming back. It will be coming back in two to
8:19
three years. But let's put a pin in that AI.
8:23
Yeah, let's, let's put a pin in the AI part.
8:25
But first, I want to go back to how you were doing it.
8:27
And you're going into these Fortune 500 reception desks.
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How are you getting past the receptionist?
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You had to be very creative. I'm not saying lie, you weren't
8:37
lying, but you would have to very, very nicely ask.
8:40
I remember I never got to meet her.
8:43
So this was a failure. But I remember the name.
8:45
Jane Carpenter worked at Johnson Controls.
8:48
I called on Jane Carpenter so many times on Johnson Controls.
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Her area code was 262. I don't remember the rest of the
8:55
phone number, but I called her so many times.
8:58
She probably has PTSD to this day.
9:01
If she were to see or hear my name, she never returned them.
9:04
But then her office being in Milwaukee, I would drive from
9:08
Chicago and I would do my routine in Wisconsin, my
9:11
territory, and I would stop by Johnson Controls and say to the
9:15
reception desk, I've been trying to meet Jane for a couple of
9:18
weeks here. I have some information for her.
9:21
We are United Health Group and this is what we're doing.
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And I'd love the opportunity to meet her.
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And sometimes I might say I've left a couple messages for Jane.
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She's called me back. What we've been playing tag.
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I thought I would just stop in and see if she had 10 minutes.
9:37
We're taking the truth, and you were stretching it pretty thin.
9:40
Maybe a little. Just a little bit.
9:43
OK. So we learned so, so, so these
9:48
more aggressive sales tactics. It was aggressive, yeah.
9:52
It's something that has continued to carry forward.
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Which no one likes. Yeah.
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And So what the the philosophy is just kind of wear them down.
10:00
You have to OK if you. It's terrible to say that, but
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it's not. It's reality.
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I viewed it and this is what Lou taught me.
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I viewed it as do you have a number?
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Yes. Do you want to hit your number?
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Yes. I'd like to exceed that.
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I'd like to be #1 then what are you going to do to be #1 And it
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really sounds so rudimentary and again, cheesy and aggressive and
10:27
anything you want to fill in the blank on that, the adjectives.
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But I think of that. Alec Baldwin classic series AB
10:35
CS always be closing, which is now politically incorrect to
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bring up to a sales team. You can't, you know what
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salesperson #1 gets a car, salesperson #2 gets steak
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knives, salesperson #3 gets fired.
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I think that's it. So, but it's the reality.
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Do you want to win or do you not?
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And in that kind of role, when you have an aggressive goal and
11:00
you have a finite period of time to do it, what are you going to
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do to hit your goal? And if it is, I'm going to sit
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on LinkedIn and send emails out all day, then welcome to failure
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because that's going to be failure.
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And I struggle with this even internally with our sales team.
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We're, we're using models that reach out and we're sending
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these things out all the time. And I don't know, I don't think
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all that works as well because as a buyer, now I'm a buyer, I'm
11:30
inundated with that. I get e-mail crap all the time
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and I do not respond to it. But in the event someone were to
11:39
send me something actually in the mail, if that were to
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actually occur, they went through the effort to figure out
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where I am, which they would find out I'm in my home.
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So actually, I don't want to encourage people to do this, but
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I would be blown away. I don't remember the last time
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in 10 years that happened. And so is that what you think
12:01
works today? You're saying the the emails,
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the Linkedins, they don't work? What, what are you going to be
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to be different? How about, how about you find
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out where your decision maker works and you send them a FedEx
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with nothing that more than a handwritten letter in the FedEx
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that would work, that would at least be read because a FedEx
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has to go through all the hoops versus you just throw it in the
12:29
mail. That might, that might work.
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And if it's a form letter, if it's typed out, I may not read
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it. It's handwritten.
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I'm reading the note. I think you have to be creative
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and different and a little old school, and that's how you're
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going to have a little bit more success today.
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I am not knocking all the wonderful systems.
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I work in three technology organizations.
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I understand technology is needed.
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However, everybody's using those tools.
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In fact, I'm in the middle of talking to two outsourced firms
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on dialing up, ironically, technologies to help us be more
13:09
efficient in what we're doing, including creative LinkedIn
13:13
videos that take my face in my voice, although my voice is
13:16
going today, unfortunately, Excuse me for that.
13:19
But those are interesting tools, but they're still used by
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others. What else can you do that
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differentiates you? Now a few moments ago you said
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with AI, you think some of the old school knocking on the doors
13:35
is going to come back into vogue, so to speak.
13:38
Absolutely, absolutely. And just what I used as an
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example, this company I'm talking to, they're in England.
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I was just on the phone with their founder and their founder
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showed me this technology. I make one video and this
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founders going to take my video and my voice when my voice is on
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a good day and replicate it for everybody that we're calling on
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countrywide and he's and this is how he got my attention.
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By the way, he used his own technology and he got my
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attention in LinkedIn. He created a video and he said,
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hey, Mike, I'm Jay, I'm doing XY and Z.
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This is the company and the solution that we have.
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I'd love to talk to you. I was like, oh, that's
14:21
interesting. I have no clue.
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It was AI designed for me and he had recorded it one time.
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This will work for the next year.
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It's creative, it's unique. And then none of us are going to
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start to believe these videos. None of us.
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And so if you are an aggressive salesperson, what will start to
14:44
work back to the old school routines?
14:48
It's going to have to get to face to face meetings.
14:52
You won't believe a video, you won't believe a voicemail, you
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won't believe it. How could you?
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And there's too much fraud now coming from it.
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So what are we going to do to believe it?
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Face to face meetings I believe in two to three years and before
15:09
the era of the face to face meeting will skyrocket, in
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person iterations will skyrocket.
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I'd even argue being back in a corporate office will skyrocket
15:20
for that reason alone. Because you can believe what
15:23
your own eyes can see in person, but everything else you're going
15:26
to question. Yeah.
15:27
Now I really know you're sitting in Columbus, you're sitting at
15:31
your office and you're Anthony. I know that because we haven't
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gotten to the point of sophistication with AI that we
15:37
can, that I could hold a real conversation with a made-up
15:42
version of you powered by let's say, Anthropic.
15:46
But in two years, that probably will exist, and then I don't
15:50
know if I'm really talking to Anthony.
15:53
Yeah. Then then, you know, we've
15:56
really passed the Turing test at that point.
15:59
So Speaking of technology, let's talk about the technology that
16:02
you're involved with. Let's first talk about luminity.
16:07
How did that opportunity come about?
16:09
There's a a good friend of mine I've known for 15 years and I
16:13
had my two start-ups going. One of them I'm a partner in.
16:16
The other one is my baby from perancy.
16:18
I have these two things going and my buddy calls me twice at
16:23
Alera, the corporate company, and he says I really could use
16:26
your help on this company we own called Lumini.
16:30
And I turned him down twice very nicely.
16:33
I love this guy. Turned him down twice.
16:36
I mean, this guy's gold. His name is Brad.
16:39
He's one of the most authentic humans I know.
16:41
So the third time he's in Atlanta.
16:44
This is last year. And he said, I really want to
16:47
meet you in person and talk about Lumini.
16:49
So I said OK, OK, We had a cocktail, got together, met
16:54
somebody else on their leadership team and he said we
16:57
really would like your help at Lumini.
16:58
And I finally opened my ears as to what Lumini is solving for.
17:04
And I thought that's pretty cool.
17:06
This is really neat. And I said, but I still don't
17:08
have time. Well, I do have time because
17:12
Finparency is still an incubator stage.
17:14
We're about to have AAV 0 launch in the next few months, but it's
17:18
not occupying all my time. And the other one that I'm a
17:21
partner in is passive. So that's not occupying all my
17:24
time. So I could do something.
17:27
And he and I worked through the particulars of how this could
17:29
work. And I'm probably putting so much
17:32
time into Luminity that I need to back down a little.
17:34
I'm, I'm driving my, our team at Luminity insane.
17:38
So I'm trying to monitor that, but I'm really intrigued by what
17:43
we're solving for community, which you're about to ask what
17:45
is that? That's exactly what I'm going to
17:47
ask. You set me up very well.
17:49
There was something you heard at the bar that night over
17:51
cocktails that you're like, OK, I'm in.
17:54
It is the right combination between technology and human
17:59
interaction in a brokerage firm starting with medical, but
18:02
everything else really for small group employers.
18:06
I've been in enterprise sales my entire career.
18:09
This is the first time I've been in small market at or even the
18:12
lower end of middle market. So our clients traditionally are
18:17
let's say 50 to 200 employees fully insured and rarely are
18:25
they even what's called level funded or self funded.
18:28
This is a a combination of very sophisticated clients that are
18:33
predominantly technology clients.
18:36
A lot of our client faces in California or New York, but
18:39
we're sprouting out to all verticals now.
18:41
But it is a solution that allows for a small business employer to
18:47
be an extension of their HR team and we become the benefits team.
18:52
We are the benefit administrator, what's known as
18:55
agency software, which allows us to compare all the renewals for
19:00
each year and make sure it's the most competitive and how to
19:03
negotiate with that carrier and come up the right contributions
19:07
in the software where eligibility verification, which
19:11
is not a fun part of the business but so important for
19:14
our clients. We are year round concierge
19:16
service for all their employees and we are the experts that
19:20
negotiate with the carriers. We are the broker and we do all
19:25
the implementation work. So we're kind of a full shop
19:29
solution or a small business employer and why it's it's an
19:33
extension of their HR team is most of those small business
19:37
employers have an HR leader normally with a compensation or
19:41
a talent background, not a benefits background.
19:44
And so we become the benefits experts and they need our help
19:48
and we guide them through this craziness that's going on in the
19:52
industry around medical renewal specifically and everything else
19:56
that surrounds it. So what is different about what
20:01
you do there on a digital platform versus what a
20:04
traditional? Broker does.
20:05
A traditional broker can do everything, but they're normally
20:09
doing it manually or in an Excel spreadsheet.
20:12
And so we take a lot of that work and we put it in a
20:16
technology that allows us to interface directly with all the
20:20
carriers, get their information, import it right on in so that
20:24
all the renewals that are happening, which we're in the
20:27
middle of that fun, is happening real time with the carriers.
20:32
And so if you're Blue Cross Blue Shield in a particular state or
20:35
your United Healthcare or Aetna or a Cigna, we can interface
20:38
with you through the technology and then we can take take all
20:42
those plan designs and spread it out.
20:45
So that allows us to scale in the small business space.
20:50
To do that work at a traditional brokerage firm is so many back
20:55
and forth emails and phone calls with all the different carriers.
20:59
If you're not efficient, we still have to do a touch of
21:02
that. But normally we do all of that
21:04
in the software and it allows us to control it and at a push of a
21:09
button, and this is abnormal, make it transparent for the
21:12
client to see. Most brokers get their most
21:16
favorable quote and they say, client, this is our
21:19
recommendation. Nah, we don't do that.
21:22
We're taking everything that the market gave us, pushing the
21:25
button and letting our clients see it.
21:29
And so they're not just getting our recommendation, which we
21:31
still give them, but they're seeing it around all the options
21:35
as they came in. The transparency is gold.
21:40
Yeah, really important. You know, I, I'm sure that most
21:44
brokers don't do this, but there's the potential for them
21:46
to be driven by, you know, where they're getting sort of the best
21:50
Commission from to steer what their recommendation might be.
21:54
And in this case, you have your recommendation, but you're
21:57
letting them see all the other quotes that came in.
22:00
Yeah. I mean, you've been in the
22:02
business, I know in the benefit space and add back benefits,
22:06
you're doing a lot of different things here and you have to
22:08
interface with different carriers.
22:09
There's efficient ways that you come up with to do that work.
22:12
So you've gotten very efficient at your role and and I don't
22:16
know every part of your business, but I know it's very
22:19
effective and it's efficient and you've seen the alternative when
22:23
others don't do that, it's a competitive advantage for you.
22:27
So we're using it as a competitive advantage for us.
22:30
And the way that this software has been designed, it allows us
22:34
to be more effective the not only for the client, but the end
22:37
users, the members. This is so critical in an era
22:41
right now where clients, especially in the fully insured
22:44
space are seen thirty, 4050% medical renewals.
22:50
This is the year where you need these types of capabilities.
22:54
Now and I'm guessing the reason why your target client is
22:58
somewhere between 50 and 200 employees is that 200 is kind of
23:02
the cap that you would traditionally see being fully
23:05
insured. And the benefit of your
23:07
platform, one of them anyways, is that it allows for the
23:11
different plan designs, a different pricing to come in
23:14
from all these different carriers and be viewed and
23:18
evaluated in an efficient way. We can differentiate greatly in
23:22
this space. We can differentiate for three
23:25
thousand life employers and we have a couple that are larger
23:29
that are technology companies. I oddly they're still fully
23:33
insured because it really helps with cost modeling and
23:36
budgeting. And when you're a fast growing
23:39
tech company that predictability is critical.
23:43
But yes, is the answer to your question.
23:46
It allows us to differentiate so uniquely in that 50 to 200
23:51
employee life space that we're really learning.
23:54
We've done this effectively outside of Alira directly to all
23:58
these employers across the country.
24:00
Now. We created it so the hundreds
24:03
and thousands actually, of smart producers and consultants inside
24:07
Alira can use this as a tool for their practice as well, which is
24:11
how we operate this business. You know, that actually you
24:14
bring up something I've, I've often wondered about.
24:17
You know, most employers I come across that are, you know, have
24:20
hundreds of employees, they're typically, you know, some level
24:24
funded fully or self insured. But I'll come across employers
24:29
that have 1000 employees, 5000 employees the other day that are
24:32
fully insured. Outside of the use case that you
24:36
just mentioned, You know, if you're a fast growing tech
24:38
company, having that budgeting can be really helpful.
24:40
What might be some other reasons that groups of that size would
24:44
continue to be fully insured? Well, I don't know, there might
24:50
be, they might just be so risk averse that they don't want to
24:55
deal with the alternatives. But frankly, I don't understand
25:00
a 5000 life employer being fully insured.
25:03
I I don't understand. I'd love to dig in and learn
25:07
more. To me, it has to be
25:09
predictability. That must be what they're doing.
25:12
But I think they should have a conversation with some other
25:16
brokers and consultants because you could come up with the
25:20
predictability with the right type of mix between your TPA,
25:25
your how your, your claims projections are coming in and
25:29
the right stop loss levels, which is known as in essence
25:32
reinsurance. So you have your United
25:36
Healthcare, Cigna, Aetna Blues, they become your network plan
25:41
and you could use a TPA to pay your claims and your stop loss
25:44
takes the risk out of it. So I don't know why someone
25:49
would do that at a 5000 employee life stage.
25:52
They're taking on probably 7 to 10% more costs than they need
25:56
to. I don't get it.
25:57
Significant, yeah. Have you come across a reason?
26:01
I haven't. I'm totally mystified by that.
26:04
But every once in a while you'll come across it.
26:07
It has to be CFO budgeting and maybe they're going to go
26:10
through an event at that company, some M&A event in the
26:15
near future and it's easier to not deal with that liability,
26:18
but they can neutralize after your stop loss.
26:21
Yeah. So they invited you to come in.
26:24
They really wanted your help there at Lumity.
26:26
Was it particularly on growth management or were there other
26:29
things in your background, your skill sets that they wanted to
26:33
tap into? Well, I like to believe they
26:35
liked the way that I LED other entities, probably my network
26:40
too. So.
26:42
And I don't mean this doesn't sound very humble, but I'm
26:45
relatively well networked in the industry.
26:48
And so that really helps in what we're going to do with Lumini.
26:53
So Lumini current space is really cool as a current
26:57
solution. What we're going to turn Lumini
26:59
into is exceptional and that's going to require partnerships
27:04
and some other things. And my network can help with
27:07
that. So it's a combination of
27:11
experience and distribution and go to market.
27:15
And I started in finance. So I do still wear that hat to a
27:19
degree in my head, even though I don't love it.
27:22
I never want to be ACFO. God bless you, CF OS.
27:25
But then also my network allows me to just avail us to some
27:30
things that could make this different so.
27:33
What can you tell us about where limiting is going?
27:36
What are you turning it into? This is going to be an absolute
27:40
Starship for rocket ship for the small business space.
27:47
What we're doing today in the solutions we have in Lumini are
27:50
great. We are going to expand that
27:52
solution set and make it accessible to so many more small
27:57
business employers, both outside of Alira and as a product inside
28:02
Alira for all of our wonderful producers and consultants.
28:06
So there's more things that we're going to add into this and
28:09
I'm not going to say in a podcast yet.
28:11
Fair enough. What kind of partnerships do you
28:14
have you found useful to this point, and what kinds of
28:16
partnerships are you seeking in the future?
28:18
Yeah. As an example, we're not going
28:20
to own our own bin admin company, not that I've heard.
28:24
So not owning our own bin admin company means we need to
28:28
outsource the bin admin work that we're doing inside
28:31
Luminity. We do that today through a
28:33
partner. You're fine.
28:35
But are they the right one to scale with us?
28:37
I don't know. They may not be.
28:41
Are they delivering to us the way they need to?
28:43
I'm not trying to send a secret message to them.
28:46
I'm rather just simply saying there is.
28:50
That's a great example of a partnership that's critical and
28:54
a partnership where our team needs to be able to run that
28:57
software and be able to get on the hot phone, the bat line and
29:02
get whomever they need to at a speciality level inside that
29:06
been admin organization in a second.
29:09
And that's where a partnership really matters.
29:11
And if we don't have that, if we're not able to get that, then
29:15
it's not going to be a partnership with you.
29:18
So those are the types of partnerships where in the heat
29:23
of the fight, you need to be able to get that partner on the
29:25
phone. And if you don't have the
29:27
ability to do that, it's not going to work out.
29:31
And that's where our relationship matters and
29:34
respect. We are not bullies to our
29:36
partners and our carriers and everything we partner and that's
29:42
critical in this. Tell me about penparency.
29:47
Where did the idea for this come about?
29:50
Penparency is A2 sided marketplace between small
29:53
business employers and the world of private equity, family
29:58
offices, bankers and then ecosystem.
30:01
And I was running click boarding for three years, which is an HR
30:06
tech company, great company. I was there for three years,
30:08
CEO. And over the period of time of
30:11
running that company, see, I'm going to get passionate here.
30:14
I'll try to contain myself. But I received 281 phone calls
30:19
from private equity groups. I know it was 281 because I kept
30:23
a list on my little remarkable notepad of every single one.
30:28
And I thought, oh, this must be unique because we're an HR tech
30:31
company. And it was not.
30:33
The more research I did, the more I learned that there's 4500
30:37
private equity groups in the United States, there's 4000
30:40
family offices, there's 600 investment banking firms.
30:44
And that's before all the strategic buyers and the lawyers
30:48
and the all the others that are in this ecosystem calling on all
30:54
kinds of sized employers. But when they're calling on
30:57
small business employers, there's three million of those
31:00
in the United States, and there's a paralyzing effect when
31:05
you're running. I'll call it Mike's Muffler
31:08
Shop. When you're running a muffler
31:10
shop and you've run it for 25 years and you're getting phone
31:15
calls from private equity groups.
31:17
And I'm not stereotyping, but Mike of Mike's Muffler Shop may
31:22
not know the world of private equity.
31:25
And so he doesn't take the phone calls.
31:27
And they use these private equity groups and all these
31:32
family offices had huge business development teams, and they
31:36
can't get the business owners to take their phone calls.
31:39
And I learned when 281 people were calling on me, I decided to
31:45
take some of those calls. And I started to learn from
31:48
those phone calls. I was taking that, Oh my gosh,
31:52
there's an unmet need on both sides of this equation.
31:55
So that's why I'm launching from parenting.
31:57
But that's only where it starts. How does the AI engine match up
32:01
the right private equity groups that you talk to?
32:04
And who should the private equity groups be talking to on
32:07
the small business side? And they will actually take the
32:10
phone call because the technology will encourage that.
32:13
But moreover, how to get the mics of Mike's muffler shops to
32:17
investment grade to make them two years down the road
32:20
extremely valuable? There's certain things they need
32:23
to do and we're going to help them through that.
32:26
And so is part of what you need to do just to recruit Mike's
32:30
muffler shops all over the country and help them understand
32:35
that this is even an option for them.
32:37
And then what? You're nodding your head yes.
32:40
And then from there, you have to educate them on the process and
32:43
how to, you know, get their books in order and how to make
32:45
them, as you called, an investment ready.
32:47
Yeah. I want to be the platform across
32:49
the board that does that work and then bring in the experts
32:52
across the realm of this ecosystem, all the crime
32:57
families that are out there, allow them to meet the crime
33:00
families by category. If we find out as an example in
33:04
the software, and we're going to surround our software with the
33:07
experts that work for Comparency that are building relationships
33:10
with those business owners. To your point, which is why I
33:13
was nodding my head, but the external crime families of this
33:16
universe, we're going to bring you to the fold via the
33:20
platform. So, OK, we find out that you
33:23
don't have the right insurance levels.
33:26
Who are the right brokers they should talk to to make that
33:28
happen? We find out that you don't have
33:30
a succession plan. Who are the right coaches to
33:33
help them get through that? We find out that you don't have
33:36
the right books in order. They need a different accounting
33:38
firm or lawyers. They might need the red team, if
33:45
you will, to come in and be the excellent consultants to guide
33:49
them through other dynamics of their business that will hold
33:52
them back from getting the valuation they want.
33:55
What if they don't have ACRM in place?
33:57
And even if you own a muffler shop, you actually need to know
34:01
who your clients are, and your buyers will penalize you and
34:05
penalize your value if you don't have those things in order.
34:09
Which part of this equation do you think will be most
34:11
challenging? Finding the the Mike's muffler
34:14
shops and recruiting them into the platform or finding all the
34:18
private equity, venture capital, etcetera, etcetera and bringing
34:22
them in. Well, I think it's going to be
34:25
the small business employer and this goes full circle and I
34:29
wasn't expecting this. So earlier in this discussion I
34:34
brought up calling on employers and getting out there and
34:38
meeting people again. Well, that's exactly what we're
34:41
going to do at Comparency to meet these business others.
34:44
It's one thing to have a technology and a platform, but
34:47
to get a business owner to use it, they need to put face with a
34:52
name. So the apparently we're going to
34:55
have people that get out there and meet those business owners
34:59
and I will be starting that soon.
35:01
What do you think that looks like?
35:02
This is, I don't know, like you're building up teams in each
35:06
geography or you pick a geography at a time.
35:10
Hey, we're going to start with Atlanta and I got a team of 5 or
35:13
10 and go. And then once we feel like we've
35:17
got this area blanketed, then we go to another one.
35:20
What what's, I don't know, just throwing out ideas.
35:22
What's your strategy? Anthony, when I started my
35:25
career, as I already shared in with this audience, I started my
35:28
career, the medical and ancillary insurers, the carriers
35:35
used to have sales representative schools and even
35:41
at CNA HealthPartners where I started my career, we trained
35:44
the hell out of everyone on understanding the insurance and
35:48
outs of medical economics, health economics, everything you
35:52
would need to know. This leads to your question.
35:55
I'm going to bring that concept into comparency and I'm just not
35:59
steal, but repeat the Enterprise rental car model.
36:03
Enterprise Rental Car out of Saint Louis is known for going
36:07
into college campuses over their decades of building their
36:11
organization. And what they would do is they
36:14
would hire the C + B minus extroverts, and they would bring
36:20
them in and train the hell out of them.
36:23
I want to do the exact same thing.
36:25
So market by market, hire the extroverts who they're smart.
36:32
They may not be actuaries, but they are smart.
36:37
They have high EQ. They can have wonderful
36:40
conversations with business owners and they have the human
36:44
skills to earn the trust of Mike, of Mike's muffler Shops
36:50
and teach them the insurance and outs.
36:51
Not to be an investment banker, but to help them get started and
36:56
to be a resource and to be a phone call away.
37:00
That's what I want to build, using our technology as a
37:03
foundation for it all. And how do you generate revenue?
37:08
Well, I'm going to start with a freemium model to get employers
37:12
and private equity groups going, very basic.
37:16
And then as you need more, it will be a subscription type of
37:22
solution at different levels depending on what you need.
37:25
That the investment are, so it's the investors who are paying to
37:30
access the platform. Both sides will.
37:32
Both sides. Yeah, an employer, a small
37:35
business employer won't have to for basic stuff.
37:38
But as it gets more complicated and we find out that they're
37:42
going to need the the lawyers and the accountants, I will get
37:47
a small introduction fee for that.
37:49
But also there will be subscription pieces that in
37:52
order to build Mike of Mike's muffler shops up for two to
37:56
three years to get him ready to sell his business because that's
38:00
what it's going to take. This isn't one time we're going
38:02
to introduce you to 10 private equity groups and you're ready
38:05
to go. This will be an education
38:08
platform to get Mike ready for a real event.
38:13
And here's why. In the United States, the mics
38:17
of Mike muffler shops, Anthony, they don't want to go through
38:22
the whole process of selling their business.
38:25
It scares them. It's exhausting.
38:28
And so many of the mics of Mike's muffler shops instead
38:32
just closed down. This is happening across the
38:35
United States. It's a big economic problem.
38:38
This is true, so I'll give you a further explanation in this
38:45
example. Let's pick on Mike again.
38:47
In my made-up example, my favorite one that I share with
38:50
everybody when I tell this story, Mike has owned Mike's
38:54
muffler shops for 25 years. He has 100 employees in five
38:58
locations and he's gotten a 30 million in top line revenue and
39:02
he's in his mid 60s. His two kids prefer to be
39:05
Instagram influencers and not take over the business, which I
39:10
know it sounds nuts, but that's kind of a true thing.
39:14
They don't want to run much muffler shops.
39:16
He saved up $10 million and he rationalizes, you know, we have
39:21
$10 million saved up. That's good.
39:25
And that is that's great. But he sold his business.
39:29
He might have 50 to 100 million. He just doesn't know it.
39:34
And so guiding him through and having a conversation with him
39:38
will create generational wealth. But instead he rationalizes
39:44
we're good with 10 million and we're going to close the
39:46
business down. This is real.
39:48
And we're in the middle of the silver.
39:50
Tsunana, you and I have Gray hair, but I'm not talking about
39:54
our generation. I'm talking people that are in
39:57
their mid 60s and they're about to retire and they don't know
40:02
who to pass their business to and so many of them are shutting
40:06
down. We as a country can't afford to
40:09
let that happen. Are you private equity backed?
40:13
No, I'm self funding this which my wife wants to shoot me over.
40:18
I was going to say going and hiding hire, hiring all of those
40:22
frontline salespeople, building a tech that's that's not free.
40:25
I know I'm going to stair step this so she doesn't shoot me.
40:29
So the self preservation model. Yeah, the self preservation
40:34
model. I'm I'm trying.
40:35
I'm, I'm very, I'm carefully walking through my home every
40:38
day right now. When do you think it'll launch?
40:42
December or January? Oh, I mean, here we are at the
40:46
beginning of November 2025. We're saying in the next month
40:49
or two. The rest of the team, we're all
40:52
doing this inside of our desks. The rest of my team is, if they
40:55
listen to this, they're saying, see crazy.
40:57
So they'll probably say February, I'm saying December,
41:01
January. Is that not so?
41:03
So March. So no, no, no, don't.
41:05
Be negative. No, not negative, just
41:08
realistic. I've been through this before.
41:10
I've developed tech and I get those timelines.
41:12
Everything takes a little bit longer, but yeah, yeah, you want
41:16
to, you want to drive the team. P ready in December or January.
41:20
I know that we will have a more robust solution AV1 in probably
41:27
March ish. OK, well, it's exciting stuff.
41:32
That's reality. Yeah, Boy Scouts of America, you
41:37
were an Eagle Scout. Nothing to nothing to sneeze at.
41:40
No, but also not something that I would have normally bragged
41:43
about. But I guess I did put it on
41:45
LinkedIn and you found it. I mean, you know, a lot of
41:48
people I've talked to who have achieved that award say, you
41:51
know, that really built a foundation for me.
41:53
Agree or disagree for you? Absolutely.
41:56
And I would have quit that 15 times if it weren't for my dad
42:00
who was heavily involved the whole way through.
42:03
Fact, he probably deserved, if you were still alive, the Eagle
42:05
Scout, probably not me, but he, he drugged me through meaning
42:11
you're going to get this done. And I'm so it, it changed me
42:15
because it taught me how to go after a goal, much like sports
42:21
does or anything else at that foreman of age or a teenager,
42:26
you don't want to stay in Boy Scouts.
42:28
And I had a similar thing with my son, who actually he's an
42:32
Eagle Scout. And now he's at Auburn and he's
42:35
in a fraternity and he's a super kid and he will tell you he
42:40
loved it. Now I had to drag him to finish
42:42
his Eagle Scout project. But short of that, he was just
42:46
in love with it the whole way through.
42:47
I do believe in the Boy Scouts, which is now boys and girls,
42:52
they have different troops, but, and I think that's great.
42:55
It is scouting of Americans how I view it.
42:58
And there's something about getting outside and not having
43:02
your cell phone. I didn't have to worry about
43:05
that problem when I was a kid. There were no cell phones.
43:07
But to get 100 kids out and they're not allowed to take
43:13
their cell phones and they're in the woods all weekend, you know,
43:18
camping, and they're building things and they're learning how
43:23
to take care of themselves. My gosh, that should be
43:26
universal. Moreover, it was the first time
43:32
that I learned real leadership because you have to teach others
43:36
as you age through scouting and you lead A-Team.
43:41
Well, you can't force A-Team to get something done.
43:44
How are you going to compel them to do it?
43:46
How are you going to compel an 11 year old when you're a 13
43:49
year old to listen to you? How do you do that if you're a
43:53
patrol leader or whatever it is? Scouting.
43:55
Talking a lot. I can tell you how my 11 year
43:58
old does it with the 9 year old and it is just brute physical
44:01
force, but that's probably not what you were talking about.
44:05
I, I wouldn't have said in my own house.
44:07
Now that they're older, they're not doing that.
44:08
Yes, I I know what you mean. So let's shift gears now, Mike,
44:12
I'd be curious to hear about a big challenge that you've
44:15
overcome in your life. Personal professional, how you
44:18
got through that and what you learned.
44:21
I I'm split on that. That's a big heavy question.
44:25
I have a professional 1 and a personal 1 so.
44:28
Let's do both. OK, on the professional level, I
44:33
mentioned clickboarding earlier. We had this in our conversation.
44:35
Then I was fired. I've never been fired before.
44:39
I was fired from clickboarding. I shared this on another
44:41
podcast, actually, now that I think about it.
44:43
And boy, oh, you don't want to get fired.
44:47
That sucked. And that we had a lot of growth
44:52
in our first year or two. And then it just flatlined.
44:55
And for a while I was Mr. blame, blame everybody else.
44:59
Bad, bored, bad people. Nah, I own it.
45:04
So I now reflect on what I would have done differently and it
45:07
goes back to go to market because click boarding's a great
45:10
company. And I'm now on speaking terms
45:12
again with the founder who's the chairman of the board, and he
45:16
and I get along great. I think he's a great person.
45:19
They have great people. They are at a great solution.
45:21
A lot of greats. I'm using the word great a lot.
45:23
I'll say superb. But that hurt.
45:26
And it also allowed me having never been fired before and
45:31
never having really a failure behind my name before.
45:34
Oh, did I learn a lot. That first 3-4 months though, I
45:38
was in a dark place, reeling from my God, how did I fail at
45:43
that? And more of it was letting the
45:47
team a clickboarding down. Very humbling for me.
45:52
But I learned so many things from that and I I've had to
45:55
bounce back from it. What was your biggest take away?
45:59
If you look back, big thing you would have done differently.
46:03
I would have redesigned go to market in a totally different
46:05
way. We were not aggressive enough.
46:08
I didn't push us enough on the go to market front and what we
46:12
could have done, we were doing a lot on the product side.
46:16
I would have done the go to market strategy differently and
46:19
I would have reached out in different ways to the
46:21
marketplace. Now, I mean there was some
46:23
softening in the market that is in the talent space of HR tech,
46:27
there was some softening in the market.
46:29
I could come up with a million excuses.
46:32
I would have also partnered and private labeled our technology
46:36
faster. I would have done some things
46:38
differently. And I would.
46:40
Have some different talent. I loved our our second CRO was
46:44
dynamite. I wish he and I did things a
46:46
little differently and I I work with him in one of my other
46:49
businesses now. I love the guy, so I know he and
46:52
I would have done some things different.
46:55
So as you think back to some of those lessons that you learned,
46:58
is there one specific one, just to use an example, that in one
47:04
of your future endeavors you were able to think back to and
47:07
like, oh, I remember at clickboarding, I wanted, I, I
47:11
should have done it this way and I'm going to make sure that I do
47:14
it that way now. Yes, back to grit.
47:18
I would absolutely make face to face relationships the priority.
47:27
All the systems that you can build for sales generation from
47:32
lead generation and all these fancy tools are needed.
47:37
I admit that Zoom info, you need sales force or whatever your CRM
47:42
is, you need these things that are reaching out, but everybody
47:47
else is doing that too. I would absolutely build a bad
47:52
ass team that knows how to build relationships face to face by
47:57
city. And it's expensive and it has
48:01
cost a lot of companies because three years ago, every tech
48:05
company out there was trying to do this and taking a bunch of
48:08
money from private equity and building these huge sales
48:11
forces. And the market didn't respond
48:13
kindly to it then. And so they've moved away from
48:16
that. And now we're depending on all
48:19
these technologies, reaching out in AI via LinkedIn and e-mail
48:25
and cell phone calls. I get 100 today.
48:28
I'm paralyzed by it now. I want somebody to call me and
48:32
what, you know, at my door or mail or something else for a
48:36
face to face meeting. That's not happening and we will
48:40
be getting back to that. I would have pushed us to get
48:42
back to that sooner. And I'm sure there's some people
48:46
if they listen to this, they'll say, oh God, come on, that's old
48:51
school. I know, but it's needed.
48:54
And I would have focused more on people that had deep
48:59
relationships, higher quality sales talent too.
49:03
I'm not blinding the sales team we had.
49:06
They're good people, but they were earlier in their careers.
49:09
I would hire maestros. So when you were going through
49:13
that dark place in those first few months, how did you cope?
49:16
How did you get through it? Who or what did you lean on?
49:20
Exercise. Prayer not to get religious out
49:23
of here. Probably the number one thing
49:25
was my wife saying get it together.
49:27
Kicking me in the butt. My friend.
49:30
Network finding out that I wasn't alone.
49:34
I thought, my God, no one's gone through this before.
49:36
No, apparently a lot of people have.
49:39
One of my mentors, he sent me a note in LinkedIn.
49:42
He's the CEO of a very, very large, well known company.
49:45
And he sent me the nicest note in LinkedIn.
49:48
He first thought I left on my own accord and I had to confess
49:51
to him now saying David said no David, I was fired.
49:56
He said, well, welcome to the club.
49:57
And I said, what do you mean by that?
50:00
And he said, well, pretty much every CEO is there to ultimately
50:05
be fired. That's a terrible way to look at
50:08
it, but it's it allowed me to look at this differently.
50:12
No matter what you're running, at some point it's going to end.
50:15
And it's going to end whether you're fired and pushed out by
50:17
the board, who knows the reasons, or you were successful
50:21
and they no longer need you and they go through an event and
50:23
somebody else takes over. So I've also learned you're
50:28
running a company. And I guess this applies to any
50:30
role. Almost certainly for the leader
50:32
of that company, they're either going to be fired or they're
50:35
going to be asked to move on to the next thing.
50:38
It's just going to happen. And then I had somebody else say
50:41
to me, three years is almost the average for ACEO, which is
50:45
exactly where I came in and out. So I got through it by realizing
50:51
I wasn't alone. I need to learn from my
50:53
mistakes. It was probably good for my ego
50:56
to get fired. I'm sure some people are nodding
50:59
if they'd known me. I had a little chip on my
51:01
shoulder at times. And having my family and friends
51:07
just say, hey, you're going to be fine was really important.
51:12
That's great advice for anybody listening that is going through
51:16
or might soon go through something like that.
51:19
So thanks for sharing that, Mike.
51:20
How about on the personal side? Oh, I lost my brother to a drug
51:24
addiction. And so he was, you know, a drug
51:29
thing earlier in life, probably. I know my mother will never
51:32
listen to a podcast, so I'm going to get away with this.
51:35
My mother were to hear me say this on a podcast, she would
51:37
probably be furious. She's 89 and smart as a whip.
51:41
But we talked about it as a family now.
51:43
And now I feel that it's important to talk about it as a
51:46
family because the more people I've talked to now about this, I
51:50
can't believe how many families have someone in their family
51:54
that might be on drugs. I can't believe how many they're
51:57
on. I bet I've had this conversation
51:59
with 500 people and I bet 300 have said to me this happened to
52:03
my family too. Brother, cousin, friend, I don't
52:06
know. So anyways, we lost my brother
52:09
Todd to a mix of heroin and cocaine and that was several
52:14
years ago and not soon after. Unfortunately my brother-in-law
52:18
died of Parkinson's and just the combination was a lot for our
52:22
family. It was a lot and watching your
52:26
parents suffer from losing a child, no parents should go
52:30
through that. So it was tough on us as a
52:33
family and he had challenges in life anyway.
52:37
But that was hard and we didn't know.
52:42
We knew he had drug issues earlier in life, but he gave it
52:44
up and he was in a good spot relatively.
52:48
But he was also a great human being and it's hard not having
52:51
him now. How long ago did that happen?
52:54
I think that was nine years ago. I'm I'm forgetting the year.
53:00
What's his name? Todd.
53:02
He went by Ronald Ronald Todd Early.
53:04
OK, how did you, how did your parents get through that time?
53:11
That was brutal. I don't think my mother fully
53:14
is. I don't think you ever cope you.
53:16
I don't think you fully ever get over losing.
53:18
I, I can't even imagine. I pray every day.
53:21
I know losing a child. So the empathy I have for my
53:24
mother and my father when he was alive, it was just enormous.
53:30
My brother also had bouts of manic depression throughout
53:34
life. So some of this shouldn't have
53:36
been so surprising that eventually he turned to drugs.
53:40
So it's a shame on me and some of our family that we didn't do
53:44
more earlier, but it was also in an era where you didn't do as
53:49
much about that. The country has changed on our
53:51
attitudes on this things like EAP and going to seek help and
53:58
or help that didn't exist. He would be, he was 11 years
54:02
older than me. He would be, I'm 48, he would be
54:05
59. So you just didn't do that for
54:09
somebody in those times. I don't know if I'm answering
54:13
your question directly. Yeah, You know, I noticed a big
54:17
shift in how our society viewed mental health coming out of
54:22
COVID. I don't know if you would agree
54:24
with that. Totally.
54:26
I see it right now. I was at the gym.
54:30
This is going to sound weird. It's good for a podcast.
54:33
It's kind of funny. I like to work out and if I can,
54:37
if I have the time to do it, go to sauna.
54:39
And when I'm in the sauna, I never talk to a soul.
54:43
I'm just in my own little world. I don't bring my phone in
54:47
normally because it's not good for electronics. 170° burns out
54:51
electronics and I forgot this last weekend and I brought my
54:55
cell phone. I look over and this guy is on
54:58
his cell phone too. And so for once, I actually
55:01
talked to the person next to me. There's somebody else in there.
55:03
I said, is this bad for your cell phone too?
55:06
Something like that. He said, I know I shouldn't have
55:08
brought it in. And it opened up a conversation.
55:10
The third guy got in with we were in there for 15 more
55:13
minutes talking. You know, both these guys in the
55:15
sauna said to me that they said thank you for talking.
55:21
It could not remove. This.
55:23
So what do you mean? Both of them admitted in the
55:25
sauna that they work in their homes.
55:27
And I work in my home. I travel a lot.
55:28
That's my mental health. But they they work in their
55:31
homes and they don't get enough outside time.
55:35
The one guy said, I don't talk to anybody ever.
55:37
To have a conversation right now is really nice.
55:41
It's like, oh, this is weird. Meaning our society has gotten
55:46
to this spot. Yeah, you bet.
55:48
Mental health is going to be a problem.
55:50
We need to get these offices opened up as a country as soon
55:52
as possible and keep get people out of their houses.
55:56
This isn't good. It's still here.
56:01
What recommendations do you have for somebody that's in that kind
56:04
of position? Like you are like those folks in
56:06
the sauna where, you know, they have the ability to work
56:10
remotely and they do. And there's some advantages to
56:13
that. But the disadvantage of, yeah,
56:15
you don't get that human interaction.
56:17
Like how do you how do you fulfill that bucket?
56:20
Even if you're an introvert, you find a way to build a network
56:25
and it might be your least comfortable thing to do.
56:29
And you tell yourself, I'm going to get out of my house once a
56:32
day and meet someone for a coffee and breakfast, to lunch,
56:36
a cocktail. You don't drink dinner,
56:38
whatever. Alcohol is not the point of it.
56:41
It's you're getting out and you're going to meet someone.
56:45
You make a point to do it once a day, every day.
56:47
I'm going to meet one person. How am I going to do it?
56:51
And that should be your challenge.
56:53
And it will help your business no matter what business you're
56:55
in. And in the event that you 2 are
56:59
fired or you're let go And one of these things, now you have a
57:02
network form and it doesn't matter if you're an introvert or
57:05
an extrovert, you need a network.
57:07
So you force yourself to build it.
57:09
That would be my advice. Well, I love that because it's
57:12
sort of two birds, one stone, right?
57:14
It's kind of filling that bucket of that human social interaction
57:19
that we all crave and need and at the same time building that
57:23
network, you know, and and the way that you framed it is you
57:27
never know when you're going to need that.
57:28
And the flip side of that is also you never know when they're
57:31
going to need you, right, And that's sort of the the beauty of
57:35
being a human being. It you know those relationships
57:38
are two way St. Gosh, it's so well said.
57:40
You want to make a best friend, help somebody find a job.
57:44
That person will never forget it.
57:48
It is a two hours stream. How about some daily habits that
57:53
you have, Mike, whether it's to help get your day started or
57:57
maybe to keep you on track. I'm evaluating that in myself
58:01
right now. I work out pretty much every
58:04
day. Let's go to the gym or walk
58:07
every day. I I need to do something.
58:08
I take one day off a week. Normally it's not always the
58:11
same day, but that is a daily habit that I do.
58:14
Unfortunately, it's not always at the same time.
58:17
So that's where I'm evaluating. My neighbor, a good friend of
58:21
mine, he and I are in the same church group too.
58:24
He gets up at 4:00 every morning and he has his own spiritual
58:29
time and he works out and then he goes to the office, which I
58:32
admire. And I think that's a good
58:33
formula. I don't get up at 4:00 and do
58:36
that every day. And I'm saying to myself, maybe
58:38
I should, maybe that needs to be the routine.
58:41
But my current norm is work out every single day and make my
58:48
list of things that I need to do.
58:51
And then I try to follow, but I'm really bad at it and I'm
58:54
trying to get better. Anthony, signals versus noise.
58:57
Have you heard this before? Signals versus noise.
59:01
Please explain. I love this and I, I think I
59:04
first thought it came from Steve Jobs.
59:06
I don't think it did. I think it was the Navy that
59:09
came up with this. Signals versus noise is the
59:12
following. You have noise all day long,
59:18
emails, texts, phone calls, conference calls, all the stuff.
59:23
90% of its BS and the signals are the critical.
59:30
A couple of things that if you don't get them done that day,
59:33
your days of failure. And the Navy came up with that
59:37
because you have a radar in front of you and beep, there's a
59:42
signal beep. You might want to pay attention
59:45
to what that beep is. So they developed this entire
59:50
habit of the signals in life for everything, the noise cut it.
59:57
And if you study some of the biggest performers in our
59:59
lifetimes, you can love them or hate them.
1:00:04
The Jeff Bezos, the, the Elon Musk's, they happen to have the
1:00:09
same habit. And universally they talk about
1:00:13
signals versus noise. And they have gotten to where
1:00:16
signals are 80% of their day. So if you want to succeed and I
1:00:22
again, I'm a hypocrite here, I'm trying to get better at this.
1:00:25
I try to isolate the 3-4 or five things that I have to do to win.
1:00:30
Unfortunately, I have too much noise.
1:00:35
I've encouraged others I've worked with to close e-mail.
1:00:39
Don't respond to your emails in 612 hours.
1:00:43
Now to some people, that's like a sin.
1:00:46
I know people that they can't go to bed at time until every
1:00:49
e-mail is literally their Outlook account is 0.
1:00:54
I do not subscribe to that. I think that is exceedingly
1:00:58
ineffective. I do believe it's different if
1:01:02
you're in a sales role. Sometimes you can't do that, but
1:01:05
you're leading something. What are the 2345 things you
1:01:09
have to do? Those are the signals, and you
1:01:12
don't go to bed until those signals are done.
1:01:17
Mike, I've just got one more question for you today, but
1:01:19
before I ask it, I want to do three things.
1:01:21
First, anyone who wants to get in touch with Mike directly, you
1:01:25
can find him on LinkedIn. His last name is spelled EHRLE,
1:01:30
Mike Earley EHRLE. And you can find the companies
1:01:34
that he's building and helping to grow, lumity.com and
1:01:38
finparency.com. And we'll have links to all that
1:01:41
in the show notes. Thank you.
1:01:43
Also as a reminder. If you want to get more.
1:01:45
Employees access to benefits that won't hurt them financially
1:01:48
and carries a financial upside for the company.
1:01:51
Reach out to us at AD back benefits.com.
1:01:53
Finally, if you take just a moment to leave us a comment or
1:01:56
review on your favorite podcast app, you'll hold a special place
1:01:59
in my heart forever. Thank you.
1:02:01
So last question, Mike, you and I reconnect one year from today
1:02:04
and you are so excited you were celebrating something big.
1:02:08
What's that big thing you hope to be celebrating one year from
1:02:10
today? I would like I will get
1:02:14
Fenparency to a monetization level where we're at break even.
1:02:19
I can now we will be break even in one year.
1:02:21
How about that? I'm going to write that down.
1:02:23
That's aggressive. I love it.
1:02:25
We're going to check back in with you to see how that's
1:02:27
coming along. Do Mike early from Lumity and
1:02:31
Fenparency. I want to be the first to thank
1:02:33
you for sharing both your time and your story with us today.
1:02:36
I really appreciate it. Thank you very much.
1:02:38
Greatly appreciate it. Folks, that's a wrap on another
1:02:41
episode of the Inspired Stories podcast.
1:02:43
Thanks for learning with us today.