Latest / Elevate The Hustle / Ep.33 Fired, Then Founder: Greg & Becky Hile on Building QuoteRUSH From Scratch

Transcript

Ep.33 Fired, Then Founder: Greg & Becky Hile on Building QuoteRUSH From Scratch · Elevate The Hustle

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_03: I've always kind of went against the thing of I don't like saying we're like family because I think family gets abused a lot of Come work for your uncle or something and Elevate the Hustle.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_04: Welcome to Elevate the Hustle, where we break down what it actually means to build teams, scale companies, and lead with intensity.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_04: I'm your host, Dan Mayton.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_04: And today I have two very exciting guests with us, Greg and Becky Hile from Quote Rush.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_04: Welcome to Elevate the Hustle.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yay! Thanks for having us.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: We appreciate it.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_04: Excited to have you guys on and uh hear your story.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_04: Uh I have, I mean, 15 years ago, Greg and Becky started building Quote Rush, a comprehensive rating coding platform that now serves over 1100 agencies and still growing fast.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_04: Before we get into how, why, when, and the whole story behind it, I'm gonna ask the question I ask everybody what does the word hustle mean to you?
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: I think that hustle is cardio for your career, right?
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody knows gotta do it, gotta do it consistently if you want to be successful, if you want to be fit, but uh it's it's hard to be consistent with it, right?
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta consistently do it on the regular, and that's what it means to me.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_03: Greg, what about you?
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_03: I would say hustle means to me probably setting your uh sales in the morning, making sure you get up early and you you make your list to get things done, and you set your sales and you and you make it make it happen.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: So uh set your sales for your sales.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_04: I I like that as well.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_04: So my next question, because you know, and I I'm I'm gonna be honest and transparent, you know, before we started, you're like, well, we have a different pathway of how we start a code rush.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_04: I said it's okay.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_04: Everybody has everybody has a story, and that's what we that that's what we're here to find out.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_04: Where how did you guys come up with Code Rush?
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_04: Why did you come up with Code Rush?
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_03: Well, well, it all started, I would say, when I I got a computer, but I knew nothing about computing.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_03: I was a high school dropout, you know, went in the army, came out of the army, uh uh, got a job, hard construction work job in Florida, because those those are the best lowest paying jobs you can find.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_03: You know, so I I was doing that and um had a uh a bit of a crisis with the owner because he wanted me to steal for him, you know, from a construction site.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_03: And I told him I'll make a deal with you, I won't steal from you, and I won't steal for you.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_03: That's that's what we do.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_03: And uh so I didn't, I ended up being unemployed.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_02: Fired.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_03: And so, you know, humans, you you're like, okay, well, I did construction for all the back then.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, I don't I have an opportunity here not to do construction if if I'm you know, so six weeks of unemployment, yeah.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_03: Unemployment and everything else, I started calling computer places because computers fascinated me.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_03: I just didn't know anything about them.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: This was back in the early 90s.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: This was this was a while ago.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_03: You floppied us for Windows 3.1.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but so we started uh going out there and um I started calling places, and every place said, Um, you have an experience?
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_03: No, well then we're not interested.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_03: So finally I kind of changed my tactic because I realized it's just not gonna get anywhere like this.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_03: So I called a place and said, uh, you know, and and talked to the owner's wife, and they had a position open.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_03: So I told her, you know, I I don't have any experience, but you know, since I had six weeks of unemployment left, I figured um I'll work for the first six weeks for free.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_03: And I figured in the end, I'm gonna have experience, you know.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_03: So if it doesn't work out here, my next job I can say I have experience.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_03: And so she was like, Well, we really like that attitude.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_03: So uh, you know, next thing you know, I was I was a shipping clerk uh for a few months, and then I got insurance world that they were doing, and they were like uh setting set up all the machines and everything else, and set up, you know, replace everyone's machines and servers and everything like that's the company I work for, uh Computers by Design.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_04: And so in doing that, uh I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna slow you down because I I and I apologize.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_04: I have questions because what you did is absolutely genius.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_04: Where you know, there's a lot of people that have the same issue, right?
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_04: They're like, hey, I don't have experience, I don't know how to do this, right?
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_04: And some people are just like, you know, blaming the world and saying, Well, you know, you gotta hire me.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_04: And you're like, no, I'm willing to put my you know, my reputation on the line.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_04: I'm willing to come in here for free and work for you.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_04: What made you come up with that idea?
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_04: What made you just bleed in yourself?
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_03: Uh well, I I I yeah, I like computers that much that I I felt that once I could get in there, you know, I could do a good job.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_03: I had had my first computer, Tandy 1000 HX, and some some die came along and a computer club guy, his eyes were way too close together, and he came over my mouse to optimize my thing and he broke everything.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_03: So I had to reinstall Windows, and that's when I realized, hey, I could do this.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_03: So, but in the end, I've you know, everyone always told me, you know, you you should get into computer stuff.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I had, you know, my daughters playing on computers when I was doing construction, I'd teach them how to load up DOS, you know, boot up DOS and play their, you know, Ernie's magic shape.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_03: Ernie's magic shapes and stuff like that.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_03: Before my wife didn't know how to do it, and I said, Don't worry, our four-year-old would teach it.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_03: She did.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_03: But uh it just it fascinated me.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_03: But in working with computers by design, they had a program called Visual Basic 4.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, ooh, what's this?
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_03: And then it was basically, you know, your first program anybody has learning programming is hello world.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_03: And it's basically you I make a button and you said click me on the button, and it pops up with a label says hello world.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, this is amazing.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_03: I can sell this.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_03: He called me up.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I said this is a computer room to show you.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_03: It's not even a physical thing I could sell.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_03: This is a you know, it's there's nothing physical.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not building a chair and selling you a chair.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_03: I have a worldwide market.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_03: I can sell this.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_03: I won't make a dime because no one will buy it right now.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_03: But I got the concept of it.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_03: The concept was amazing that you can create something from your mind and have no physical anything to it and sell it to somebody else.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_03: To me, that blew my mind.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_03: I was like, you know, because you wait, you know, we construction everything's physical-based stuff, you know.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_03: So I just started buying books and you know, learned the books aren't cheap, so you you know, you read through them and everything, and then buy the next book, buy the next book.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_03: And so I started building out uh Quote Rush, and I was doing it all wrong, just as wrong as you could get initially, because I was like, oh, save it to XML files on the local PC.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_03: And it was just as a horrible idea.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_03: And so I said, I should learn this networking stuff.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_03: So I should learn how to write to a server, you know, and have a database.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_03: So I just started bit bit by bit just bought books and learned uh here's what I need to learn.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_03: So let's go sit in Barnes and Nobles for a while and uh read through books and stuff like that, and then uh and figure it all out.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_03: And luckily, I teamed up with uh uh insurance carrier um that originally they were just gonna buy the product for themselves, and then they're like, we could sell this to the entire insurance industry.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_03: So they let me talk to their best producers, and I got their workflow down.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_03: And that's how when I started writing quote rush, I was like, okay, let's do workflow here.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_03: You know, what do you put in first?
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, it's the you know, the client's name, the contact information, the spouse information.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_03: Then, you know, on the property side, we do all this.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_03: And oh, wait, there's RCEs.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_03: Holy cow, there's all this stuff.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_03: And I was learning to automate all that stuff.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_03: Uh um, and the technology back then was Watton, it was called, which is uh, but it was automating uh the computer.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_03: So I could automate going out to websites and logging in and filling it all out and do everything for them.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_03: So that the first iteration of Quartrush was the very basic go out, you know, and fill out the website.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_03: And then so that was uh a neat experience.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_03: And then, you know, once we did HO3s, it's but well uh hold on, hold on, hold on.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_04: I got a lot of questions, though.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_04: I apologize for cutting.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_04: So, but why why Quote Rush?
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_04: Why did you decide, hey, this is like why did you decide to build the system?
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_04: Was there a need in the marketplace for it?
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_03: There's well, I was actually uh when I uh started working for myself doing programming work, uh a friend of mine, Dave, uh he had a Russian build this program for him that was kind of in the same vein.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_03: It's called Prefill Assistant.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: TFA.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_03: And so, you know, he had he the Russian would disappear for months.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_03: And all of a sudden he has this code that nobody knew, Visual Basic 4.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_03: So I knew Visual Basic 4.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_03: So like he said, Hey, could you help me out with this?
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_03: So I I learned what the guy was doing and saw this different stuff, and basically it was working for him.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_03: He'd say, I need this fixed, I need that fixed.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_03: So I'd patch this and I patch that.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_03: Then finally he said, I can't sell this product to anybody.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, because he'd go into insurance agencies and you know, just did he couldn't sell it.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_03: So he said, You can have it.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_03: And the idea and everything, and he's how I got met with uh Ray and Gene, my part was two of my partners.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_03: And so that's when I said, he said, if you'll you want it, you can have it.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_03: Just take it and go.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_03: And so I took it and I basically scrapped everything and restarted it from the ground up.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_03: But I had a product, you know, this time I had people that are interested in helping me build out a software thing.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_03: So, you know, like I said, I I had no experience.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_03: I just had read a lot of books and learning how to do it.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_03: And then luckily, you know, I had great agents at hand that could teach me things like, you know, what's a convo, what's a coverage A, what's this, what's that?
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_03: So we just started building it out, and then you know, it took about you know a year or so, you know, hammering at this stuff, and then we went to FAIA, one of the trade shows, and it was so great because it was just you know nerve-wracking.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_03: You're there for the first time ever, and everything else.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_03: But people were coming up and looking at my the product and loving it, you know.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: This was 2010, I think.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_03: 2010, end of 2010, yeah.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: So there was no social media, there was no podcast stuff that anything like that.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: So it was just people face to face.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_03: And then it's like yeah, so we just came up with a pricing model on the spot, you know.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, how much did we sell this for?
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_03: Okay,$99 a month.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_03: So we started doing that.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_03: And I think people like the enthusiasm most of all.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_03: I think they really liked how enthusiastic we were with the product, and that we knew, you know, we in listening to the agents, it was really nice to listen to their needs.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_03: That's one thing Zig Ziggler always listened to him before he's you know, you're you're not you're trying to solve someone else's problem.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and that's how you'll be successful is solve their listen to their problem, solve their problem, and then they will buy from you.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_04: So uh first of all, kudos to both of you.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_04: Amazing.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_04: But let's let's back up.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_04: Becky, Greg is like, hey, we're gonna start, you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna quit my job, I'm gonna learn computers, I'm gonna start programming, and now we're gonna build an insurance software.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_04: Uh are you like, hello, is everything okay?
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_04: Like, well, what's going through your mind at this point?
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: Honestly, I I had no doubt that he could do it.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he's he uh is brilliant when it comes to learning programming languages.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you've had anything to do with that ever at all, but at one point I did try and think, well, I can he's working so hard and so many hours and constantly doing this as sciatic is killing him because he's sitting in this computer chair too often.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, the kitchen chair, not a computer chair.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we we moved up to a computer chair later.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: But um, so I thought, well, I'll I'll read the books that he's reading and then I'll be able to help him.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_03: She she no, she turned into more yeah, she ended up thank god she didn't because she became the person that actually made us money because I was building software, and then she's like, Well, how how are they paying us?
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, I don't know, I'm I'm busy coding.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_02: So she became our accountant.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: I would I would, you know, because he's he's writing this amazing software and it does all of this really neat stuff and it automates stuff, and it's it's almost like magic, right?
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: That he he can, you know, you put the stuff in there and he clicks a button and it just starts it it opens a browser and goes to the carrier's website and starts filming.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and then you know, you kind of walk with the software and click next, next, next.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: Now we've gone beyond that, but we would sign people up for it.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so I I would take them through training.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: I you know, would walk them through using the software and get it all, yeah.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: Well, no, Bill was with us.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: Bill Bill was the one that taught me to be support because I worked support for the probably the first five or six years.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um I actually I did everything except the coding because that stuff just makes my head hurt, even to try and read it, but it makes sense to him.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, so I would train these people and do support.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I then, you know, they they go through their trial period and uh say, okay, yes, we want to pay for it.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'd tell him, you know, because he had access to the the merchant account.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Okay, well, this agency is ready to go live, so you need to process their application.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: He'd say, Okay.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then I'd ask him a day or two later, did you process that application?
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: He'd say, Oh no, I forgot because he's coding, right?
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: He's in his he's like a starving artist, but it's a starving coder.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_02: You're the starving part I was mastering.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_02: I had mastered the starving part.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: It was uh so I was like, All right, that's it.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm taking over billing.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: You you just do not have a knack for this.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: Let me do the billing and you do the programming, and and I'll do billing and support and all of this.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, so then we started getting paying clients, which is nice.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's always good to have a paying client.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_03: Um I remember thinking, what one day we're gonna have a client for every day of the month.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_03: It's gonna be amazing.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_03: So we'll have party 31 clients that'll be paying us, you know.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_04: It's what how how many clients did you guys sign up and and call your first FAIA?
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh honestly, I don't remember how many, but I do remember the our first paying client, Virginia Rothrock.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: We, you know, we're there, we're explaining to her what the software is gonna do, and her and Dunleen McManus should uh Virginia hands Gregor card and she says, I want to be your first paying client.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: And they were, and she she stuck with us through thick and thin.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: And um honestly her her database, uh she would she's long since retired, but um the they were active clients with us until they were uh purchased their their account was purchased um by a larger organization.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was World Insurance or one of their clients.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, they did become one of our clients, so that's good.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: But um, I had to merge that database into another larger database.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: I almost cried.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_03: It's almost as sense of your since the beginning.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: It was hard.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: That was that was the hardest one I've ever had to shut off.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_03: But we've made some great friends with uh you know customers.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_03: We uh you know, we we realized they're out there trying to get a job done too.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_03: And what we do is try to save them as much time as we can.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_03: You know, you don't have to eat purple tunnel while while doing your job.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_03: And then we had our iterations of Court Rush that went through because it was it was just the basic at first, it would just open up the browser and fill out the website, and then okay, now another one, now another one, now build another one, and then build all the form types out and the RCs.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_03: And so we got all that done.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and then it became a, you know, I was I was doing support with somebody and I fixed their problem and uploaded the code so it fixed it for them right away, which is you know neat when you're that small that you can fix the code.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_03: Here you go.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_03: And he's like, that's great.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_03: And I said, Okay, we'll have a good lunch.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_03: He said, Uh, I'm not going to lunch.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_03: I uh have to have these quotes done by one o'clock for this lady.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_03: So I started thinking, I'm like, we go through and we fill it out.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_03: All you're doing is basically verifying it and clicking next.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_03: So that's when we came up with a version called Hands Free, to where he could go to lunch, he could put leads in, select the carriers for those leads.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_03: He goes to lunch and his computer starts working just like he's there, working furiously, doing all this stuff.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_03: So that became a great huge hit with everybody because they're like, oh my God, I can actually do automate this stuff, and I can go to lunch.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_03: One lady said, I use it all day long.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_03: I just put my hand on the mouse and keyboard, and when my boss walks by, it looks like I'm working furiously.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_03: But so it that would that was a it was it was neat getting to talk to people and have them say things like, I found with a carrier I would have never quoted because they're you know such a pain to quote by hand myself.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, a lot of the slides.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_03: I never would have thought to go to them.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_03: So and we didn't have any carrier permissions at the time.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_03: It was like carriers were like, You we have we hate raiders, you know.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_03: In 2010, they could not stand raiders at all.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_03: The relationship with carriers has changed a lot, and it's because they don't get represented properly.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_03: So my big thing was once we got found out, like at FAA, and a bunch of people started using us, then the carriers are like, Oh, so you're doing it this way, and they liked it.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_03: So we we had a we had carriers, we still have carriers tell agents what should we use?
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_03: They say quote rush, you know, because they know we work with them hand in hand and we and we go for accuracy.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_03: That's the biggest thing we go for, is we want an accurate quote that they get represented properly in the market.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_04: So what point are you guys like, holy smokes, we have a real business here?
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_04: Like we got bank clients, we got everything going on.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_04: At what point you're like, this is real.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh sometimes I still think you know, it's it's it's hard to believe sometimes, but you know, it's it's for the longest time because we're I think of us as like back of house.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have restaurant?
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: You have restaurant experience.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_04: I do have restaurant experience, yes.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: So you know, back of house and front of house, right?
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: So Quote Rush is really kind of back of house for everything.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: We're just all the stuff that goes on in the background, and then the the agents are out front and they're the ones presenting to the the you know the risks, the insured, that sort of thing.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: And um so I've always just kind of thought of us uh as making all the stuff work out there for everybody else, like uh one of our uh agencies.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: This this was early on, like 2013, maybe 2014.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh one of our first cancellations of a longtime client.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: He'd been with us almost since the beginning, Steve Adams.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, he he called me and because he had worked with Bill extensively and me and Greg, you know, when it was just the three of us, and uh kind of helped us get to where we were at that point, that very embryonic point, really.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: But uh he called me to cancel and I was I was almost heartbroken.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, you know, Steve, why are you leaving us?
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we've we've done all this great stuff together.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Becky, I'm retiring.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: I sold my book, and he sent us an email.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: This was pre-Google, right?
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: Before we had a Google presence.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, he sent us an email saying that he gave credit in large part to Fort Rush Automation, that he was able to sell his book and retire early.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: And he walked the Appalachian Trail.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I was like, that's epic.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's you know, something that we had a part of in this man's life, allowing him to achieve this, you know, bucket list item for himself, you know, much earlier than he ever thought he could.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I was telling Greg the other day, that's kind of like a a high that that I've been chasing ever since then.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I I really feel like our product, our platform does that for people, does that for agents.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: It sets them up in such a way that um they can grow their book and keep, you know, keep their their retention ratio at a phenomenal level without really having to break a sweat.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: They can focus on the the front of house stuff, you know, that that doing all of that stuff while we take care of all of this background stuff.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a that's a really powerful thing to be able to to be part of somebody's success in that way.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, positively affect someone else's life uh through your work, I think is is a great reward.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, the the money's great too.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_03: You know, you're in my that's good, but their biggest reward is is seeing agents.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_03: Uh and and we'll have agents.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_03: It amazes me, the insurance industry, how I would expect they'd be in competition with each other, all these different agencies, but they're you know, they're they're recommending us to all their other agency owners.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, word of mouth is what sold Quote Rush first.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_03: It was we had no advertising, sales, budgets.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_03: It was just word of mouth from agents saying, I love this product.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_03: And it was like a grassroots thing.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_03: All of a sudden, you know, we're getting, oh, we've got we broke 100 agencies.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_03: We broke 200.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_03: We broke 500.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_03: We broke 600, 800.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_03: And it was just this great, you know, momentum going, but it was mainly because we did exactly what we said we did.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_03: We automated the RCEs, we automated the sites, uh, and then we grew it further from there.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_03: We made it so that you know, you get um uh one of my next iterations was because I was talking to an agency owner, and he was he said, I've got a brand new machine, got course on it for my CSR.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_03: She just left on maternity leave.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_03: What are we gonna do?
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_03: And so, you know, do you have any ideas?
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_03: And I was I started thinking about it.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_03: I thought, well, we already have that hands-free stuff.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_03: So if I write this to a table, then we could make it so if somebody's sick in your office, you have three people in your office, you can turn their machine into a quote bottle.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_03: So it would actually quote for everyone else, could submit it and it would put it in this table, and this machine would just grab it and start quoting with it.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_03: So if somebody's out sick, you're not down a man, you actually were, you know, all of a sudden you could do more work with the two people, you can get everything done.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_03: They could get that done faster without the third person.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_03: So that that was, I think, one of our best breakthrough ideas is to be able to send it to another machine.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_03: It was also one of our worst ideas because the IT nightmare became real.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_03: Because now you're supporting with your program on all these machines.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_03: We literally had a customer go, I picked this PC up in the garbage on the side of the road and I made it into a quilt bot.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_03: So so and we wanted that's to make it work.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and it was like these whole so all of a sudden it was like so.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_03: That's when we came up with the next level with virtual bots.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_03: We realized we can't support all the different hardware out there, all the different software out there.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_03: So we do it on our bots and they're optimized for it.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_03: And that that just was a huge game changer for everybody then because it's completely scalable.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_03: Like we had a customer that uh in Florida a few years ago.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, carriers were leaving like crazy.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_03: Um receivers.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so there was a lot of carriers.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_03: 2022 is just like, yeah.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_03: So we turned around and um we could make it so they could do book rolls uh where they could take the information.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_03: Get, you know, we'll have if you have your leads all in quote rush, you can mark them all for this carrier, and you say, okay, quote them with everybody else.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, you can turn around and say, okay, I need to do this.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_03: Give me 20 virtual bots for a month.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_03: And we could in a week, we had this guy's business cleared up of 17,000 quotes he had to do, or 17,000 clients.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, they got like a 40-day window to get all those bound with somebody else.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_03: So he just used quote rush and the bots, and he within a week, he's like, I've got all the quoting done.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_03: Now I got to go out and do all the, you know, do all the other work, which you know, is you know, quite on one thing with elevate teams.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_03: It was like, well, how can you get more?
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_03: How can you we could do it with bots, what you're doing with personnel, and and say, okay, now you need more boots on the ground.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_03: We can do the bots on the ground, but uh I I think you guys are doing it using humans instead of uh programming.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_04: Humans instead of programming without us, correct?
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm I got to say that I really respect Elevate Teams and the way that you guys have approached it because uh uh I've I've cards on the table.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: I have never liked the idea of virtual assistants.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: I always had a um back of my mind, I was thinking, you know, there are lots of people in this country that are looking for work, and you know, we should hire the people here in the United States, and you know, hiring overseas really bothered me.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then the pandemic happened, and I had uh agency owners, you know, calling me terribly upset because they they couldn't get anybody trained and employed.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: This oh, I can't remember her name, but anyway, there's one agent she calls me and she's like, I just got her trained, Becky.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: She walks in, clears out her desk, and says she's going to Guatemala.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: What's in Guatemala?
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, so she the you know, they didn't they couldn't get people to stay long enough to train on the software.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: And then we had all of these other companies, a lot of companies through the years have had their virtual assistants, you know, using our software, but you know, they're overseas, number one.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: So the internet connection is horrific.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: Different time zones, different time zones.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: They weren't trained properly, and they're they're using our software in a way that with no knowledge of the issue of the that we did not appreciate.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I really respect and appreciate Elevate Teams because you did it the right way.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you came to us and you said, Hey, you know, we're training these people.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: We'd like you to be a part of that.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, what was her name?
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: The young lady that is is Melissa running point.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: Ramirez, yes, Melissa Ramirez, right?
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: Rivera.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: Rivera.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: Ramirez is our niece, Melissa.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: No, sorry about that.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: Two Melissa's.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, uh, I really was impressed with her uh organization and the the way uh the the essentially the the format that she was already had prepared before even meeting with our lead trainer Matt.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know, she had a pretty solid understanding of, you know, everything that that the VAs are gonna need in order to, you know, assist our agencies to, you know, leverage Quote Rush into something that is a game changer for a lot of people.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_04: No, I I I thank you.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_04: I appreciate the kind words.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_04: And I appreciate listening to your journey.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_04: I'm actually like you you two are probably the most two humble people I've ever met in my life that you're just like, oh, you know, we're just trying to do good for other people, and like you built a massive company.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, you have 1100 clients, and you're truly just trying to help people, right?
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_04: You're like, hey, there's a need.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_04: I I mean there's more than two employees now, right?
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_04: I hope you guys have 18 employees now.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_04: You have you're you're you're you're a real business now, right?
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like there's exactly and like Greg, he had said for years and years and years, we need to hire people smarter than us.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I really feel like we've done that.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: We have an amazing team.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: They're uh just such smart people.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_04: What do you what do you think is the biggest lesson you guys learned in the last 15 years running your company?
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_04: Lots of lessons.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_03: Not everybody can work from well, especially pandemic-wise, not everybody can work from home.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, okay, you know, even if they're a relative, you know.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's the thing where uh, you know, there's different type people, and I I've learned to understand there's different types of people that are different than me that are good at their job that you know I necessarily not not good at.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_03: So I've I've learned to listen more uh and and and let my employees have more input as to you know what's you know, and and that has really helped grow the company because we have some very creative uh employees, you know.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_03: And I've always kind of went against the thing of I don't like saying we're like family, because I think family gets abused a lot of come work for your uncle or something, and you know, it's uh that, but this is not, you know, this is it just I think one of the nicest things is like said the customers, but also we I have employees that actually want to come to work every day that want to work for us, and and we have, you know, I I think you know, there's not a single employee I have right now that that I regret, you know, we've had to get rid of some, but that that did, but we've found some really good creative people and you know, and all different walks of life they do, but they all work from home and they all come together and and form a really good team.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_03: And uh that that's you know, I love taking them to shows and they get to meet customers.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_03: How many people have customers come hug you at your booth at the show?
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_03: It's a constant, you know.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_03: I have customers come and show, let me demo for this new person you're showing Quote Rush, I'll show them how to use it and they'll sit there showing them how to use Quote Rush for us, things like that.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_03: So we have amazing clients.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, it's amazing clients.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_03: Uh and our you know, my team's amazing.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_03: We're we're doing so much more now than we did then, you know.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_03: Back back then it was like just filling out the carrier site or whatever.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_03: Um, then APIs came along.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_03: Finally, carriers started actually doing APIs.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_03: They said in 2000 they were, but come finally 2020, they started.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_03: It's like, well, let's we'll do it.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_03: And um, so you know, we built a ton of APIs out, so they're a lot faster and everything else.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and that's been uh exciting to see, you know, how fast these can come back and working closely with the carriers, trying to keep them from doing shortcuts where it'll come back faster but inaccurate.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_03: And that's one of the you know biggest things we saw with agents is once they see something come back fast, that doesn't sell them on it, that just says, Oh, okay, it came back fast.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_03: Is it accurate?
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_03: And and that was the part two to everything where now you have the client on the phone because wow, look how quickly I did this.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_03: And oh, it's not accurate.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_03: It went up by$700, you know, from this time.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's a hard sell.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_03: And then all of a sudden it's you're you're baiting switching me, and they're not, yeah.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_03: But it's just a distrust.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_03: So, you know, we built things in a quote rush to enhance things so that they can get a more accurate quote than anybody else.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_03: Uh uh, because we want we want the most accurate quote we can get delivered to the agent.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_04: So you're 15 years in, you guys obviously have a presence in the market, you have clients, you've you've grown both as you know, founders and and business people, and or you know, it seems like you're just generally happy providing great service to people, which I think is super important, right?
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_04: I I think a lot of times, you know, entrepreneurs and business people are always looking for kind of what's the North Star, right?
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_04: What's next?
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_04: Where do we go from here?
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_04: And it seems to me like you guys are just like, we're really enjoying this ride, right?
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_04: We're really enjoying this thing that we're building and engaging with our clients and providing a great service to a client.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_04: So, first and foremost, thank you for that.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_04: That is amazing to see witness.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_04: But on the other side of it, like what you guys have been able to do is just uh extremely unbelievable, right?
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_04: Like you you quit your you quit your job, right?
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_04: Like you you started learning programming.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, uh when we started the conversation, you're like well, you supported him, right?
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, and you were there to help build the business, but I I think that story is a lot more exciting and interesting than you know, somebody that maybe inherited a business from somebody else or you know got into some fancy business school.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_04: I I think the pathways are different here, but uh I I love the story.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_04: I love everything that you guys have built and uh super excited for obviously our partnership between LA teams and and quote rush.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, I am too.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_04: What what's what's next?
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: Go.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: You guys, you guys are doing it right.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I I'm excited.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm excited to hear happy to say I was wrong about all VAs.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_04: Uh what what's next?
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_04: What's next for Greg, Greg and Becky?
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_04: And what's next for Quote Rush?
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I I think right now we are uh refining.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_03: Uh we just rolled out Awesimation, it's called.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, we we go from the beginning of you having a name and an address to actually third-party utilities that will grab like the property appraiser because I used I also automate the property appraiser sites.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_03: So whenever in Florida they would do something, they would they say, I'll go to this property appraiser site and get it.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_03: And I go, I could go get that for you.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_03: And I would do that as they collect data.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_03: We collect the property appraiser data and all that.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_03: Now they have third-party vendors that have all the information the same as the property appraisers for the most part.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_03: So uh we have automation now where people can take a list of names and addresses and go through it.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_03: And we have AI that looks up the roof shape and roof materials from a picture of the of the thing, uh of the property.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: I want to put a quick caveat in there.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: We use AI as a tool, not a co-worker.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's where a lot of people kind of get it twisted.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: They're thinking that AI is a a coworker and and we do not.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh if we do use it as a tool.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_03: You can't replace people with it, is what is how we feel.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_03: You can't replace people, but you know, we're still old, we're kind of get off our lawn, you know, pipe uh people for some things.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_03: But AI, we've come around to go with uh, you know, we have my my you know my uh younger younger staff members, which is everybody apparently, but I'm and uh but they're they're more than others like hey, I got this, I got that.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_03: And it's just a lot of enthusiasm.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_03: So but the Awesome thing, I think, is gonna change everything because it goes all the way from the beginning to the end.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: You can turn around and then and then send out, you know, mail uh basically, you know, they send them a good, better, best type uh email for the this is what I think is is equally as big as Awesomation in the coming months, years, what have you is the uh proposal manager premium because what our our agents can do, they can you know run all the quotes, they can pick the top three that they recommend for the insured and send that over to them.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: We spin up essentially it's a web page or a website for them that the when the uh insured get gets the email, they click on that link and uh it opens up.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: Noted by the agent, right?
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, it opens up the the proposal, the the three different proposals, and it's a little card that flips and they can see different details.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: But the second that the insured clicks on that link and opens it up, the agent gets sent an email saying, Hey, they're looking at your proposal right now.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: So the agent can then pick up the phone and it looks too baby if they don't do it right.
• 36:31
  unknown: Right.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: No, you can do, you know, I was thinking about you, or I, you know, just sent this over a little while ago, wanted to follow up with you, and you know, be there to answer the questions.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, the the uh the the risk or the insured is never going to be as uh interested or focused on that proposal than when they first open it, right?
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: So if you can get them on the phone right then and there when they're engaged, when they're focusing on it, because it's hard to get people to focus on anything anymore, right?
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: Our attention spans, yeah, yeah, have have just shrunk.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: So if you can if you can catch them right at that moment, you know, that's I feel like that's a pretty big deal.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_04: And also, you know, not not not to go super anti-AI, right?
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_04: I think that showcases how companies like you guys are gonna be like, well, we're gonna continue to build and grow in the space, and we're not, you know, we're not scared about AI because you know AI is like, well, we could do that too, right?
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_04: We could send a notification that automatically sends out some sort of email to that person, but that hand-to-hand touch is no longer there, right?
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_04: That hand-to-hand contact of that agent that you know sends you a quote, right, that's gonna reach out and say, Hey, I'm just reaching out.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_04: So they have the advantage, they're using technology as an advantage, but it's still on the agent to go build that relationship, close that relationship, nurture that relationship.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_04: Um, I mean, I I think more and more of that type of you know, human contact is is gonna continue to win because you're gonna get that fatigue, right?
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_04: Of like that automated AI call or that automated AI email or whatever else it is.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_04: And now you're you're getting you're this is you know, and AI will win in certain cases, but the human contact is you know what's what's what's gonna continue to the people that are going to be.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_04: High value.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_04: I I agree.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_04: I agree.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_04: Um I mean smart, it makes sense.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_04: And Greg, you're still you're still coding every single day.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_04: Is that is that is that accurate?
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_04: Is that is that a is that a fair assessment?
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_03: I uh well it my days change a lot when you're managing the company, you know, then you have a lot more duties to do also, but yeah, I still enjoy enjoy coding.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_03: But uh yeah, they're very immature.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but mainly my my team has taken it to the next level for a lot of it that really just impresses me too.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_03: It's and it's full of great ideas.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_03: It's uh you know, I had uh my nephew, he actually became a partner, uh, but he was working for Raymond James and doing you know really good work there.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_03: But he started checking checking us out, and we started building out Client Dynamics, which is a management system for a contact management system.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_03: And uh next thing you know, he's a partner with Quote Rush, and we've got both under one umbrella now, and uh they work hand in hand, and we're just looking, keep an eye out for every everyday new tools that will make it easier for the agent and easier to bind a real quote.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, bindable quote a bindable quote, get him a bindable quote and something.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, you know, we have so many carriers, especially Florida.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_03: Florida's like a uh gold rush right now of carriers wanting to get into Florida again.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_03: And um, so it's it's very much interesting to be able to have all these different carriers and offer agencies, hey, here's another carrier.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_03: And so agents are getting really excited about, you know, look at all these different carriers.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_03: It gives me all these opportunities.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_03: And to them, it doesn't have to add any more work.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_03: They just they click that carrier's name with all the other carriers' name and they send it off and it comes back, and they didn't do any more work than they did with your 14 carriers.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_03: Now they have 15.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_03: It's not like, oh, you know, in the old days, it was like four minutes or five minutes or 10 minutes of website to fill this stuff.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_03: That was a nightmare for them.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_03: So now, you know, between APIs and everything else, we can get back instant quotes, we can get back, you know, a lot, you know, only about half the carriers have APIs, and the others don't.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_03: And I kind of like the avenue of competition took was we don't do anything but APIs.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_03: So it's like great, all those carriers that that you know agents have that don't have it, we can still automate through you know form filling.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_03: So you know the old stuff still works great for the carriers that aren't up to you know running APIs yet, but the ones that are, it it's it's just even better.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_03: So to me, it's uh now you know we have to make sure we're doing something better, it not necessarily just faster because everyone concentrates.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_03: Look how fast, fast, fast, but fast and accurate.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_03: I I you know, I told from day one, I can give you 10 inaccurate quotes right now.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_03: I don't even need a computer.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_03: And uh, you know, so it's important to be accurate too and not waste your customers' time.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_03: If you call them with a number and it's not it, they they probably are gonna go look elsewhere.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I think something you mentioned and you know, a pattern that that we hear a lot consistency, right?
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_04: You want to be consistent with the product you're going to put out, you want to make sure you're providing value to your customers.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_04: You may want to make sure, you know, the the quote is accurate.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_04: That is something that is is also always gonna continue to win, right?
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_04: We go to our favorite restaurants because you're gonna consistently have a great meal, right?
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_04: If you go one time the meal is bad, and one time the meal's okay, and one time it's great, yeah.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_04: Maybe you're not gonna keep coming back there.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_04: Um, one probably the most important question I have is how has you know your relationship changed in the last 15 years?
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, you guys are finishing each other's sentences, so like how has it grown working together?
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I've only known her since she was 12 years old.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's true.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_03: And I was 13.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't get together then.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he was kind of a butthead.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_03: I was a boy.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_03: I was a boy, natural-born idiot, you know.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_03: But uh, after military, everything else, we we ended up, you know, getting together and we like each other, you know, we're best friends, and working together hasn't been a challenge at all.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_00: That was our dream, really, when uh back when I was still.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we did multi-level marketing, Ameriplan.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that was that was way back when the day, and we saw in dental plans, and uh one day we're gonna be able to work together all day and do everything else.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_00: We were um I was still in nursing, you were working at Computers by Design, we were doing that American plan on the side, and that's when we learned about uh residual income, which is an awesome thing.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that that that was life-changing.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but then we would uh for exercise, we would walk every morning before he went into uh Computers by Design.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_00: We'd go for this walk.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_00: We'd set our clocks for 5 30 in the morning and get up.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_00: And that sounds so late to get up now, doesn't it?
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like four o'clock now.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_00: So we could have a good hour or two in the morning before the girls would get up and we'd walk around the block of our neighborhood.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_00: We're a tiny little neighborhood in Old Mar, Florida, and we'd walk around the block, uh, just you know, talking about our days and dreaming about.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, dreaming about someday we'll be able to work together and you won't have to go into work.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_00: We could just be together 24-7 and wouldn't it?
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_03: And having goals.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_03: Having goals is I think the biggest thing that changed our lives and still does.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_03: If if we if you don't have a goal, you just seem to go stagnant.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_03: You know, and so us we always had this goal and people are like, Oh, you're talking blah, blah, blah.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_03: Court rush, quote rush, quote rush.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_03: You know, you get when you get from you know, my in-laws, yeah, you talking, you know, you're all you guys are all excited about this, but and now that uh people are understanding, yeah, this is why they are so excited about this.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_03: But it was it's the enthusiasm is everything, and but it's something that made both of us happy.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_03: And uh, I think that's the biggest thing we have in our relationship is every day I wake up thinking, what can I do to make her happy?
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I'll when I'm making the coffee, oh, she's gonna like this.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_03: It's a it's just the mindset you have.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_03: You know, we we like to make people happy, and we like to, you know, make each other happy.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_03: So it's really worked out to be uh a lot less stressful than everyone would have you believe working with your spouse.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_03: If you're not friends with your spouse, you probably shouldn't work with them.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so that's a good point.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, you guys are literally living the American dream, right?
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_04: You're you're you're waking up doing something that you love to do, or you're a significant other, you're you know, you're providing value to your your clients, you're providing a you know a community to your employees.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_04: It's it's really an amazing story.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_04: And and you know, for those who are watching or listening at home, uh not everything looks the way it's supposed to look, right?
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_04: You might be 19 years old and you're like, I want to be an entrepreneur, or you might be 45 and you're like, I hate my job, what can I do?
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_04: Uh there's no perfect pathway to to to doing it, but you do have to put in the work, right?
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_04: You you have to grind, you have to hustle, you have to set goals, and you're gonna fail along the way, right?
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, I think that's probably I'm I'm sure you guys have had some you know failures along the way, not not everything was win-win-win, but you were oh yeah, determined.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes, another good saying.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because we've uh since we moved up here to Georgia about 10 years ago, um we do homesteading.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_00: We have a little farm hobby, hobby farming kind of thing, but cows paint chickens.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, he says it, and it's true in quote rush too, but he says any day on the farm where you can learn a lesson and nothing died, it's a good day.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_04: So it's a good day.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_00: We're finding that in quote rush too.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_00: If we can learn a lesson every day and nothing dies, it's a good day.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_02: I I I love that.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_04: Where can where can people find Quote Rush?
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_04: How can people learn more about the platform, the software?
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_04: Go for it.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_04: Plug it, plug it away.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_03: Uh quoterush.com is is the site, and you can go there and you can learn about Quote Rush and client dynamics.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, what training class schedules on there?
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_03: You can sign up for training classes.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_03: We have a map of the US that shows what carriers we have in each state, um, all that type stuff.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_03: So that that's where you can go to get more information on Quote Rush.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_03: Or if you're in Florida, ask your carrier what they would recommend.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_03: Most carriers would recommend this.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_03: So it's uh works out good too.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_00: Or just shoot an email to sales at quotebrush.com.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, email each.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_00: And do the work you want sales, we can.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_00: And they are super guys.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, they are like superheroes.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_00: You after I make sure they say make sure you're emailing them when you are ready for them to call you because it it won't be 10 minutes and you're gonna get a phone call.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_02: They're gonna call you.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_00: They are on top of it, they are just very impressive.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the our sales team are the people you should ask about hustle because they are they are the epitome of hustle.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_03: And our onboarding, you know, we do what we consider for onboarding the support is what we call white glove service.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_03: We want our customers to feel just like they're a concierge at a fine hotel.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_03: Well, you take them by the hand and show them what they need, what information they need and how to do it.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_03: And our team does that very well.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_03: Very compassionate team of people that listen and will solve your problems.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_03: And and that's the you know, type of team we build.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_03: It was funny when when I first became a boss, I was like, what do I do?
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_03: I is there a boss for dummies book or something?
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_03: Do I talk more important?
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_03: What am I supposed to do?
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_03: Do I talk deeper?
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_03: I wasn't sure what to do.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_03: And then said, Well, just be the kind of boss you'd want to have, just be a straight shooter.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_03: And it's very casual, you know, it's never uh it could it's weird when someone calls you, yes, sir.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_03: You're like, what is wrong with you?
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_03: You don't know me.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_04: I love it.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_04: I love the story.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, kudos to you guys, congrats on all the success.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, I I think you guys are an inspiration to to people that are out there that are you know looking, whatever it is, right?
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_04: Building their insurance agency or building a business or you know, success in marriage, right?
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_04: I I think that's another one that that that demonstrates that you guys are living proof.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_03: Uh I'll give one tip for marriage.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_03: One tip for people in marriage.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_03: Took me a long time to get it, but when you're best thing you can do when your wife has a bad day and she comes home, she doesn't want you to solve the problem.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_03: Do not try to solve the problem.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_03: Just say, what can I do to help?
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_03: And if you just say those words and leave it alone, and it you will find you will uh it's a lot less stressful than let me solve this for you.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_04: I I mean, I think there's like an inspirational book about marriage coming out by Greg.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, I I I think there's one coming shortly.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_04: Awesome.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_04: Uh Greg Becky, I really appreciate you guys coming on to Elevate the Hustle.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_04: It was a pleasure meeting you guys and hearing your story.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, go check out Quote Rush, everybody.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_04: I hope you guys all enjoyed the show, and we'll see you guys back here again next week.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_04: Thanks, everybody.