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Agency Acceleration Lab is the podcast for insurance agents and agency owners who want to scale smarter, not harder.
Hosted by Alex Branning, each episode breaks down real growth strategies, marketing systems, and client retention frameworks that help you attract better clients, increase lifetime value, and build a more predictable agency.
If you're serious about building a high-performance insurance business, you're in the right place.
Episode 21 – Jason Mickool Went From His Kitchen Table to $600 Million — Here Is the System Behind It
Alex Branning
Hey, what's up everyone? It's Alex here with a new episode of the Agency Acceleration Lab. And today I have a giant in the space. I'll be honest with you guys, I had not heard of Jason Mickool until a few months ago when I met him at the Greatness Factory. This guy built an over $600 million business selling annuities, building systems, and creating massive scale. And one of the keys that he really unlocked is recruiting Gen Zers into his operation. And as the dad of a Gen Zer, one of the things that really bugs me is when people talk negatively about the entire generation as a whole. But Jason, man, you have created a powerful system in place to attract these kids and then bring them up and propel them to success in your agency. Let's talk about that.
Jason Mickool
Yeah, I guess the best thing to say is what I believe around Gen Z is what I see. And what I hear on the news isn't what I see. I think every generation is painted with a broad brush. The hippies were hippies, the eighties were hair boys, the nineties is grunge, and now Gen Z. There was always good eggs and always bad eggs in every generation. And I think the difference in terms of what happens is the leadership that's provided.
What I see every single day is this generation is the best of all the generations I've worked with. I've been doing this for 25 years. They're not entitled, they're not lazy, they don't spend any more time or less time than the older people that are on Facebook today in terms of screens. What I find them to be is coachable, committed, qualified, really smart, great on teams, hardworking, disciplined people that are really trying to make a difference in the world.
The narrative however is that they're lazy and entitled — by people out there that don't work with them, or are judging their own kids without looking in the mirror and saying maybe it's the leadership of me as a parent that is affecting the outcome. We will probably hire seven hundred kids right out of college this year in my two locations and eighteen states. And those people will come to work every morning at seven thirty and we'll burn the midnight candle and continuously work on their personal development.
Alex Branning
I love that. You segued into my next point there. For those of you listening, I got to hang out with Jason and his team for a couple of days in Nashville at the annuity operating system that they did. And one of the things that you guys really focused on is the personal development of every single person on your team. Can you talk about some of the structures you have in place to not just give them a system to follow on building their business, but really the systems you've implemented to help them grow as people?
Jason Mickool
Yeah, and I think that's actually the most important thing. The mission of Florida Financial Advisors and the Greatness Lab and everything is my personal mission statement and has been this way for a very long time — to take people to the highest possible level in their career and life. As a company, there are many mission statements that fall flat and then they don't do anything about it. But when I say people, I'm not saying clients, I'm not saying staff or infrastructure. I'm talking about every single person inside of the organization and our desire for them to achieve the greatest potential in their life.
Our mission, our vision, our values — integrity, work ethic, drive, entrepreneurship, and servitude. So when we talk about what we're trying to do and what we're looking for to attract people, we tell them exactly what we want them to be: high integrity, big time drive, entrepreneurship, servitude, work ethic. And then we tell them what that means — it means you come in at seven thirty, you work at seven o'clock. And there are cadences of things that we do.
So I'll talk about some of those cadences. The first thing we do is we have everybody come in every morning and we say there is no white space in your calendar. We teach everybody time management. I always say people are really good at time management — if you have nothing in your calendar, meaning you have white space, that's what you do. So we say you schedule your priorities, you don't prioritize your schedule. And inside of there, there is a piece every single day that you have to decide as a financial advisor or as a leader what you're going to work on for your personal development — whether that's how to make a phone call, how to present a presentation, how to build a marketing plan. There is always something in your calendar that is core to you becoming better at doing the job at hand in order to propel your career. So that's an important daily task that we teach people.
The second thing we do is a monthly strategic team meeting. A strategic team meeting is basically where people as a team get together and talk about what their personal goals are — did they hit them, did they not hit them, if they did not hit them why not, and what is my action plan to get better every single month. This is an important component because they present that in a presentation to their peers. And they allow for feedback to be given by their peer group, and everybody gives feedback in terms of what are we doing as an organization to rally around supporting people to achieve their objectives.
The third thing we do is what they call an IDP — an individual development plan — which gets done on a weekly basis as part of their monthly strategic team meeting. People have one-on-ones all the time. But who's preparing and speaking at the one-on-one? If I'm your boss, a lot of times what I've seen in organizations is — what did you do there, why didn't you do that — there's this accountability session that's happening. We flip that switch. What happens is that you as the individual are always presenting to me about what you're doing around your individual development plan, and I'm just providing coaching and feedback.
The last thing we do is daily training where feedback is a must. Every single day we have six classes going on in two different time zones based upon your level. It's half learning, half role play. And part of role play is at the end of it you get critique, you get feedback. And I think those things together create a culture where people are like, wow, these people care that I get better. They're allowing me to define the pace that I run at, and they have a mission for me to be able to achieve great things. And when you win, we win all as a team. And I think that's what really builds it.
Alex Branning
You inspired me hanging out with you guys. I was like, I need to do more training for my team members because I'm watching myself grow just by hanging out with Coach Burt and others. And I'm not pouring into my team nearly as much as I could. But one of the other things in your book Built to Lead Built to Scale, and when you speak, you talk about how as you've scaled up, the number of people that report to you hasn't really changed. And that was mind blowing to me — you have a maximum of four people that report to you at any given time. Can you talk about how you've been able to scale without constantly adding more hours to your day?
Jason Mickool
There are a lot of studies around this. It's called span of control. Span of control is — for a leader to be effective, what is the maximum amount of reports you can have? For me it's four, partly because I don't want to do anything else. But the maximum is seven. So the way we built the organization is we created titles and roles and responsibilities as we grew based upon what we could handle in span of control. For example, when I had seven people I was like, I can't manage ten. So what I need to do is figure out how to get back to four. So we created a district manager position. And that's all that was — a title and responsibility of things I needed them to do so I could continue to do my job effectively.
And that has turned into — as we've gotten bigger and bigger — we've continued to say, what's the span of control problem? What would be a job and a role and responsibilities to fill it? And then we make people earn that. So that has turned into associate manager, district manager, associate vice president, field vice president, regional vice president, senior vice president. Each of those have different roles and responsibilities. They're all doing the same exact job, but just in terms of who they're managing as opposed to what they're managing.
Alex Branning
As you created that — and I'm sure you could talk for hours on this alone — was this something you planned out from day one or something you and the team developed on the fly as you scaled up?
Jason Mickool
It's a little bit of both. Before I started the business I was an executive and I had been doing this type of work — recruiting, training, and developing people — for a number of years and I was the best at it. But I was told by corporate America there was no value in it. Then I was a district manager, then an AVP, then an FVP, and then I never got to GVP at one firm. At another firm I ended up getting GVP. So they had titles and responsibilities and I knew what those people's basic jobs were. Those weren't a perfect fit but they fit enough — meaning I knew enough about what I needed people to do.
So we wrote out expectations of what these people do and when they do it and who they report to and what forms do they have to fill out and how do we manage coverage and development of people. But it changes over time because most of the time I worked for a company that said hey, we need you to build and grow by this much. And I said well I want to grow by more. And they said no no no we just want you to grow by this much. When they took the reins off, meaning when we built the business the way we wanted to build it, it grew a lot faster than what corporate America would allow me to do.
Alex Branning
Let's close on this. We're talking directly to an agency owner that's listening right now and they're going, okay, I want to bring on some Gen Z kids to grow and do the sales like Jason did, but I don't believe I have the structure yet that Jason has. Can you talk about what you think an agency owner needs to start hiring Gen Z kids and building out an organization from day one?
Jason Mickool
Well I think the first thing is shift your identity. Instead of I want to run a small organization and make five hundred thousand dollars — if you're thinking five years from today I want to have three hundred financial advisors or insurance agents all writing two thousand dollars a week in commissions and I want to be in fourteen states — if you have a bigger vision, that's where it starts.
The second thing is you have to have a system. Most people think of recruiting like I need this person to do this task, so I spend time trying to find the right person rather than implementing a system. What I call the Pareto principle — 80% of the results come from 20% of the people. Same thing is true with your activities. 80% of your results will come from 20% of your activity. If you want to grow and scale, that 20% of your activity needs to be on recruiting, which is sourcing, interviewing, offering, and onboarding. I'll say it again because it came at you fast — sourcing, interviewing, offering, and onboarding. Those four things — 20% of your calendar should be those four things all the time.
And then once you're onboarding them you have to figure out how am I going to train them, what's my span of control, what am I going to have them do when they get there — those are model weeks, cadences, one-on-ones, and training systems that you put in place. But right now what I'd be thinking about is where do I put 20% of everybody's time in my organization — I don't care if it's from the receptionist to the client service advocate — 20% of everybody's time is going to be recruiting, either sourcing, interviewing, offering, or onboarding somebody.
Alex Branning
Nice. As we close out, talk about the Greatness Lab and what you're building there with Coach Burt and how the person that's listening can join in.
Jason Mickool
Yeah, the Greatness Lab is our vision 2.0. We have a very successful organization — 800 financial advisors, this year we'll do over 100 million in sales. We started it nine years ago from my kitchen with my wife. I have a math problem if I want to continue to grow, and the Greatness Lab is filling that. So basically what it is is a coaching program for people that want some help with this type of stuff. You can go to thegreatnesslab.com and set up a call.
The second component is that if you wanted to plug into our system and you said you know what, I don't want to figure all that out, I'm coachable and I want to scale — you and I can partner together in some type of equity arrangement where I can take your business and say I'll put in my systems and accelerate your growth. Just hold on tight and let us go. And then we're just an IMO, a broker dealer and RIA, an IMO. So if somebody said hey I'm looking for better contracts, better service, and to be part of something — a seat at a bigger table where you're around a community of people that are aspirational and are growing and have done it — we have that aspect of it as well.
Alex Branning
Awesome. For those listening, grab the playbook — you're going to get links to get Jason's book Built to Lead Built to Scale. I'll also include a link to the Greatness Lab at thegreatnesslab.com and Jason's social links. Jason, thank you for joining the Agency Acceleration Lab, man. Excited to hang out with you in October. And you guys follow Jason — his story is inspiring and he's only getting started.
Jason Mickool
Thanks Alex. Thanks guys.