Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Beyond the Startup features Atlanta-area business owners and leaders sharing their entrepreneurial journeys. We explore how businesses get started, the challenges of growth, and the lessons learned along the way.
Clay: Their desire for control becomes
a limiting factor because they're just
not willing to let go of anything.
A term that I love that we've used is
replace yourself, put somebody else
into that seat, and you go and work
on something higher or different,
and that way you've built an actual
structure that is repeatable.
Lliam: If new business feels
like wind in your sails,
you're probably doing something
right.
Hi, my name is Lliam Holmes, and
welcome to Beyond the Startup.
This is where we have business owners
come in and talk to us about how they
started their business, share all of
the bumps, all their successes, and
hopefully be able to give you some
insights as to things that you might
be able to use in your business.
And so today we have Clay Snellings of
Snellings Walters, and he's gonna talk
to us about his experience in coming from
the ground up in that insurance company.
Clay, would you like
to introduce yourself?
Clay: Super.
Thank you Lliam.
Clay Snellings and I've worked
at Snellings Walters Insurance
Agency since June of 1986.
So this year will be our
40th, my 40th anniversary.
And, our company was founded in in
1952 by my father, John Snellings
and had the luxury of working with my
father and with siblings in my family.
and today our company looks much
differently than it did when
I started there 40 years ago.
and it's just been a great
ride and I'm happy to be here.
Lliam: Oh, thank you.
That's a really great place to start.
Can you maybe talk us a little bit about
that sort of early foundation, because
you walked into a family business.
That, to, to your point
Yeah.
Speaker 2: Was very different
than what it looks like today.
And, make, talk to us a little bit.
what'd you walk into?
Clay: Yeah, that's a great question.
And we used to joke and call my
father the benevolent dictator.
Because he, it was his company that he
started and, we, he came up with most of
the systems and processes and hired most
of the people and he set our compensation
and, pretty much ran the place.
and at the time that I came there
as a 22-year-old, straight outta
college, I had an older brother,
bill who worked there, and he's
13 years older than me, so he was.
Experienced.
And then I think our total
staff in 1986 was 10 people.
And I think we did about a
million dollars of revenue.
which, it only took my dad
30 some odd years to go from
zero to to a million dollars.
Granted, prices were lower back
then, but still it was a milestone.
and so it felt a lot like a
family business, although we
did have 10 people on staff.
as a new person in the company, learning
the industry, learning the products,
getting training, having a mentor.
I'll never forget Nancy, who was my mentor
as she taught me how we, do what we do.
Lliam: Yeah.
Anyway, in 1986, if you
put that into perspective.
There was a lot that
didn't exist yet, right?
there's a lot that has changed.
I mean?
Yeah.
you think about not only the last
couple of years, but you get back
to 1986 and it was a completely
different universe, right?
So talk to me a little bit about
what was that inflection point?
What was that point where
you came into the business?
Obviously you had to learn the ropes
from dad and from Nancy, right?
There was that gestalt, there was
that point at which you're like,
okay, now I know what I'm doing.
Here's what we're gonna do.
I'd love to hear, your thoughts
about, when was that point and
what, pushed you in that direction?
Clay: yeah.
So couple of different,
points in the, my career.
first was 1993, that's the year
that my dad decided to retire.
At the age of 70.
And so my brother Bill Snellings, and
Nunnally Walters, whose name is on
the door, both of them had been at the
company for 20 years at that point.
So they were certainly my superiors.
And at that point I was brought
into the management team having had
been there for about seven years
at that point and was doing well.
And so I felt that was a major milestone
where the three of us were in debt to
my father 'cause we bought him out.
Lliam: Okay.
Clay: Okay.
So you got, a 10 year note that you've
got a service to buy out the founder.
And we are making the decisions as a
three person team of how are we gonna
grow this business and how are we gonna
continue to be successful and, what are
we gonna do budgeting wise or operational?
And then technology was
becoming a major part of our
business in the early nineties.
And frankly, one of my leadership
roles from like 93 to 2000 was IT guy.
So everything we did in our company
related to going to paperless
environment and just lots of things in
the insurance industry that caused us
to be more efficient using technology.
those kinds of things happened in
that first era of maturing as a
business leader and as a company.
Lliam: Yeah.
And that was what I was
thinking my way through too.
You, you're brought into
the business, right?
You're the son.
They're trying to teach you the business.
And I'm sure your kids like mine.
You grew up listening to dad
talk about work all the time.
Work there in high school and summers.
Speaker 2: And just like my kids.
Yeah.
and so you go through this,
you, get into that business.
All of a sudden, dad wants to retire.
Proverbially, you gotta
put the big boy pants on.
Because now you're going into
the, into that leadership role.
Yeah.
And it, in your case, it
sounds like it's three amigos.
and you guys are like, okay, now what?
And.
I'm gonna guess that's where
the real learning started
Clay: it.
It did.
And who is going to be the manager or the
president, and who's gonna run sales and
who's gonna run service in our business?
'cause we're in the
customer service business.
Who's gonna be operations?
How's accounting gonna work?
And luckily as you, I'm sure you saw
in your company as you've got key
people who are already there, that you
just want to continue to develop that.
Yeah.
There was a lot of learning to do.
And, the next milestone in the evolution
of the company happened in 2007.
and that's when Nunnally Walters
was getting ready to retire.
And my brother and I are now pretty
experienced at running the company.
And, I think our revenue in
2007 was probably $6 million.
and.
Bill and I basically, I can
remember this like it was yesterday.
We're sitting there saying, okay,
do we wanna bring others into the
company in ownership or do we wanna
make this the Bill and Clay show and
continue just to be a company that
nurtures its clients and has some
growth goals and things like that.
So we've, we basically said, we've
got some talented people working here.
We can recruit some others.
Let's make this about more than us.
And that at that point, Lliam,
we, we spread the ownership.
when it was time for Nunnally to be
purchased, he earned about 30% of the
company at the time of his retirement.
And so another couple of guys who
were a little younger than me were
coming, were come, came in as partners.
And what was so refreshing
was the energy, the ideas.
The skill sets that they brought,
we saw the business really scale.
And I'll tell you that my recollection
of the time from say oh seven, up until
around, frankly about 2018, we learned
how to attract talented people in the
industry and some outside the industry and
really start to build the revenue model
and the service model so that we could.
Become a larger company.
And over that next 10 years, I think we
probably went from five or $6 million
in revenue to probably around 12.
So it was, it was a nice, it was a nice,
a nice run and we learned a lot about
make, getting things more structured with
governance and leadership and all that.
and in that timeframe, 'cause I
know you're an EOS company as well.
We adopted the EOS system into our
company in the summer of 2013, so
that was a big time change as well.
Lliam: Do you feel like that was one of
those foundational, structural decisions?
Like you could have gone left,
you could have gone, right?
No, it wasn't.
Yeah,
Clay: Quick story there,
if you don't mind.
Sure.
So I was put into the president
and CEO seat in about 2010 or 11.
I joined Vistage.
You familiar with that organization?
I'm so Vistage great.
CEO round table group where I'm getting
together once a month with 12 to 15
other CEOs, not all in my industry and.
You helped each other with your issues.
And I learned so much about
leadership and about other companies
facing similar challenges and
unique challenges and all of that.
long story short, as the leader of
our company, we would get together,
every 60 days for half a day.
Planning meeting.
And we would have a, bunch of metrics
that were telling us how the business
was doing and we would have great
conversations about, great ideas about,
let's do this over the next 60 days.
At the end of that meeting,
we'd say, okay, you ready break.
And everybody would go
back to their offices.
We'd come back together 60 days
later and our execution on our
strategic initiatives was not good.
So life happened.
I got busy.
No accountability, all that kind
of stuff started to be evident.
And I'm the leader, so it's on me.
So long story short, I'm in Vistage
and we invited this guy named
Walt Brown to come and talk to our
Vistage group, one of our meetings.
And he was an EOS implementer.
And basically he explained
the EOS platform to our group.
And I went back to my, my, my senior
leadership team and I said, guys, I
think we have something we ought to try.
So we invited Walt to our office.
He went through the presentation of how
EOS works and the team was behind it.
And we implemented EOS in
August of 2013, August of 2013.
And I will tell you that hard, hard
to get going and a lot to learn
and all that, as you well know.
But that really was a game changer
for the scalability of where we are.
Lliam: Because it's interesting, right?
And, all of us have it no
matter what business you're in.
Where you, go from this, I or we a
small, we make all the decisions.
And as much as you try to push those
decisions down to your department
managers or you, try to get them to think
strategically about parts of the business.
Or even to own a piece of that
business, figuratively, right?
It's really hard to get
someone to step up to do that.
And I think all businesses
go through that.
And, I think for many businesses, that's
one of those limiting factors that they
never get over because they never quite
figure out how to get beyond that.
in some sort of meaningful,
measurable, articulate way.
I think we were very similar
right in, in the fact that EOS
was the framework that we used.
And it didn't mean that we didn't still
have to do the work 'cause we did.
But at least we had a common language,
a common platform, a common framework
that we could all look at and say,
we're supposed to be doing this and
we're supposed to be doing that.
And I think that helped get us unstuck.
and,
I'd love to hear a little piece of your
journey there, but I know for us, when
we saw EOS, we tried to self implement
and we learned really quickly that self
implementing was really hard, right?
Because you can't be the facilitator
so hard and, the participant, right?
And we very quickly learned, the value
of actually hiring an implementer and
having them walk us through that process
and teach us those new skills, right?
And, the second time took the first time.
First time was rough.
Clay: When did you try it the first time?
Do you remember?
Lliam: Oh, I did.
we started in, in 2010.
Okay.
before us.
and we probably spent the next
two years self implementing.
And at the end of that two years,
we were in a position where.
We could still see value in it.
But I think we could
recognize that we weren't it.
Clay: Yeah.
Lliam: And that it, was actually
valuable having someone else
come in and do that for us.
And, we've never looked back, ever since.
Clay: That's one of the, let, when
I was thinking about our talk today
and about lessons learned and how
did you learn some of the leadership
skills and all this kind of stuff.
And basically when you're in a
small company, like I joined.
all those years ago, our trade
association, for example, the
Independent Insurance agents of
Georgia, was a great, outlet for me to
talk to my peers who worked at other
places and share ideas and all that.
And Vistage was one of those places.
And EOS through our implementer was
one of those places as well, because,
You don't know what you don't know.
And we've hired sales consultants to come
in and help teach our salespeople a system
that works for our brand and the way that
we wanna do business with our customers.
And just outside expertise is one of
those things that you hate paying for it.
'cause a lot of times you're like,
oh gosh, another consulting business.
Sure,
But.
At the end of the day, you're gonna
pick some good ones and you're
gonna pick some bad ones over time.
But I think
just knowing in business that
you don't know everything and,
to get outside counsel is, has
certainly been good for us.
Lliam: Yeah, certainly.
And I don't know, I don't know about
for you guys, but for me, the value
of a peer group or, a, Vistage for
you or IAG right, or some of these
sort of industry groups, isn't.
It's really hard to recognize
something about your business.
But when you see it in someone else's
business, it's a lot easier to recognize.
You're like, I dunno, I
don't understand why, what is
right.
Yeah.
But I think that through that education,
almost as a bystander, and seeing
how they handle these challenges
To me, is almost the value of those
groups beyond the formal education.
Yeah.
I like to say it's the
spaces in between, right?
It's that dinner that you went
to where you got into that one
conversation that had nothing to do.
But it was, topical either
for you or for them.
And maybe a couple of years later,
all of a sudden you're like,
I remember that conversation.
That made sense.
And I see what they did
and I see what he did.
And Right.
We should, split it up and Right.
Clay: Oh, big time.
Lliam: Much easier to see it in
someone else's business sometimes,
I think, than to see it in your own.
Clay: Totally.
very much.
very true.
yeah.
Yeah.
Lliam: I'd love to hear how at
Snellings Walters, you guys, from my
viewpoint, you really mushroomed, right?
You went from this really small million
dollar business, the $6 million business.
To bigger.
To bigger, And, it seems like the
piece from my perspective, that it
accelerated every year over year.
Yeah.
And number one, that's hard to do.
Number two is.
That there's operational challenges,
there's financial challenges,
there's skills you don't have
yet that you have to learn, and
you're gonna learn those quickly.
Because if you don't learn
those skills quickly, then
you're gonna be either stuck.
Or sometimes your company
actually gets demoted.
Back down to a level that you
can't operate efficiently.
Because when you're doing
things and everything's chaotic,
You eventually have to step back
and then rebuild, rethink, retrench
before you can step forward.
Yeah.
I'd love to hear about some of
your experiences, things that
you might share with somebody who
Sure.
Might be going through that today.
Clay: I'll tell the story of.
The adoption of EOS.
So when you are onboarding EOS,
and we used an implementer from the
beginning, and so we spent two days
on a retreat with our senior leaders
and we wrote our first VTO, which
is basically your business plan.
And what do we believe?
Why do we believe it, what do we wanna
look like in one, three, in 10 years?
all of that.
And, then you go from there to.
Creating your org chart or we
call the accountability chart.
And in doing that, that's where we
realized that our names were on a lot
of multiple seats inside the company
and in the beginning of EOS, because
we were trying to get everything
set up right and do things right.
We also realized that some of our
senior leaders were some of our
best salespeople, and they got.
Distracted, if you will.
Sure.
From thinking about our sales goals
and our revenue production to getting
the accountability chart and the vision
set properly, and the new processes
and the new data points, and the right
people in the right seats, and all
the other components of running our
company better on an EOS platform.
We saw our revenue start to flatten off.
We were like, whoa.
So at that point, this was 2018,
we realized, one of our best
salespeople was our integrator
in EOS term for basically COO.
And, and so we said we gotta
get somebody else to do this.
And of course, in our business, paying
for non-production related overhead in.
In people cost is expensive, right?
And so biting that bullet and saying,
Hey, we're gonna invest $200,000 in A COO.
Was scary, was a risk, right?
And so we started doing these
things and we got people in
working in their strengths as we
learned that we all can't be just
administrators running EOS platforms.
And that's when we realized that,
delegate and elevate all these terms
that you use and learn in business is
to put people in seats where they're
suited and strong and then let.
The revenue producers get out there
and do their thing, and I think that's
where we had this little stall out, and
then it started to really go because the
operators of the business were making
sure we were ready to scale and that we
had the tools to serve our clients and
that we had people in training so that
if somebody, was leaving or whatever,
that we weren't left with a big hole
in the company.
sure.
So I can't even remember what your
question was exactly, but that was really
an, a transformative time where you were
talking about the growing of our revenue,
where we went from $12 million in 20.
It's about 2014 - 15, and really took off.
And today I'm, I feel like I'm bragging,
but we're, we're at $30 million today
and so we've seen the company been able
be able to double in, in revenue size
about every five or six years, which
is, you do the math, that's 15% growth.
So it's healthy and steady, but really
getting those people in seats where
they're strong across the organization.
Has been super strong and we could talk
all day about the now the influence of
technology and AI tools and all that stuff
that is changing the game and what we do.
I'm sure every business is feeling it.
Right?
Lliam: There are.
And I think that I, think in life the
only thing that's constant is Chang right.
And, at least my view of it, no
matter what industry you're in.
changes now, you know it's gonna, at some
point it's showing up on your door, right?
And you really have two choices.
You have two options.
I can embrace it or I can fight it.
There really aren't any other options.
Right now you could be, you could,
only fight it a little bit or
you could embrace a little bit.
There's do you crazy there, but
at the end of the day, you either
see this as an impendent and as
an impediment or an opportunity.
And I think that most
people, we don't like change.
And as a result, our natural
instinct is we wanna fight it.
we wanna step back.
let's see what everyone else does.
we don't wanna be on the bleeding edge.
but the reality of it is,
it's coming to your doorstep.
And at least in my view of
life, those early years when,
this change is happening.
These are the, these are what
I call the forgiveness years.
Because no one knows, everybody's
trying to figure it out.
But you're learning, right?
You're learning to, sit, to crawl, to run.
And there's forgiveness
at this point in time.
But if you wait four or five or six
years and everyone else has developed a
model and now you're like, okay, me too.
You never learned all those
lessons because you were like, hey.
We're gonna hang back a little bit, right?
Yeah.
and so I think that, can be, a
foundational thing, that it's almost a
mindset where you have to know Hey, look,
being a business owner comes with risk.
Get comfortable with that.
There are gonna be decisions that you're
gonna make that hopefully they work out.
And if you've done a little bit of
planning and it doesn't work out.
At least it didn't kill it.
And sometimes that happens too.
And I don't know what, your story or
your thoughts about this is, but if I
don't look at MIS, and I think about
the, the years and years that we've
been in business for 35 years, we didn't
hit every one of them out of ball park.
There were times that
cost us, that hurt us.
But I think back on some of
those times, and I'll tell you.
Without exception.
I'm grateful for each one of
those times because each one of
those things taught us something.
They motivated us to
do something different.
They allowed us to learn a
hard lesson that maybe we
wouldn't have learned otherwise.
'cause sometimes when things are
good, as much as I hate to say it.
You might get a little
bit complacent, right?
Because there's nobody kicking your
butt, making you learn these lessons
that you really should be learning.
And so all of a sudden out of the blue,
here comes a new competitor, or here comes
a thing, or maybe your largest customer
leaves and you're like, oh my gosh, all of
a sudden we're gonna have to do something.
Those are those transformational periods.
And I'm sure that you guys
probably had a few of those too,
right?
Clay: Certainly.
Certainly.
It's, I can, yeah.
Plenty of them.
I that almost too many to name, but I,
was thinking about as you were describing
that evolution and experiences that
so many people in our industry and the
world of insurance agents, they, they
make their agency, their lifestyle
business, and, it's just, a person is
the primary salesperson generates the
revenue, maybe has a family member who's
doing the books, all this kind of stuff,
and their desire for control and for no
change, their desire for consistency,
I guess you'd like to say, becomes a
limiting factor because they're just
not willing to let go of anything.
Because of that, it truly, I've
talked to people frequently that,
hey, we've been in business 30, 35
years and we are ex, they're small.
They're just still two or three
people and they've liked it that way.
So that's where, to our listeners
who are trying to say, how
do I scale this thing up?
How do I hit, how do I
double this business?
How do I prepare it to sell it
one day or whatever the, goal is.
It's simply to follow, a
path where you're letting go.
And in a term that I love that
we've used is replace yourself.
put somebody else into that
seat and you go and work on
something higher or different.
And that way you've built.
An actual structure that is repeatable.
And so that's the big thing is I see
lifestyle businesses a lot imperfect.
It could be in any business
really, but I'm sure you see it
consultant firms and support firms
that are just a one person show.
Yeah.
And they love it that way.
That's what they want.
Yeah.
but they're vulnerable as heck because
that one customer can fire 'em and
then they realize they're down 50%.
Lliam: Yeah.
In fact, 80%.
IT providers are under 10
people in the United States.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think it's exactly
what you're saying, right?
I know insurance is the same way.
So way tons of, just really little guys.
Tons of,
Clay: And we're, yeah, we've got 105
people on our staff and 22 shareholders,
so we've certainly broadened the ownership
bucket as well as the people bucket.
And If you take out the big, people
in our industry, the Marsh and the Aon
and Lockton, the big national worldwide
brokers, when you look at privately
held firms in a major metropolitan
area like Atlanta, there's probably
two or three insurance agencies
that are larger than we are today.
I don't say that for bragging purposes,
but I say it out of thankfulness.
we were able to make a couple of
good fork in the road decisions
along with plenty of bad ones.
I've had to divorce a business partner.
I've, we've been through a lot.
We've had staff to by an employee.
We had to get over just, lots of problems.
but at the end of the day, 40 years in the
rear view mirror, we made more good fork
in the road decisions than we did bad.
And now, we've got a really
good, viable company.
Lliam: Yeah.
Yeah.
one of the things that I see in our
company, and, we're certainly not as
big as you guys, but you guys, you,
guys must come face to face with this as
well, and that is the cultural component.
At some point when you're
little, I think about MIS when
it was five or six of us, right?
We could all get around
the table and we were good.
Clay: It's family,
Lliam: it's family, right?
But
at some
point.
You can't fit around the table.
At some point, you've gotta
start thinking about structure.
At some point, people
have to own roles, right?
And one of the interesting things that
happens as that sort of progression
happens is that people lose connection
to the culture of the business.
The why are we doing this?
Why?
You know what, why,
what makes us different?
I know EOS for us really helped.
Clay: Wow.
Wow.
Big time.
Lliam: Right?
Big time.
But I'd love to hear, gosh, as you guys
went to 105 people And particularly
you guys have 22 owners, right?
I can't imagine having 22
decision makers, right?
That's a lot, right?
Yeah.
And so that's a challenge
we haven't gotten to yet.
but I just think about this and I'm
thinking like, how, were you guys
able to have such a rich culture?
Because.
I know enough about you guys that
you, guys have an admirable culture.
Thank you.
And that's, difficult to
do, particularly your size.
Clay: I appreciate that.
And yeah, first thing on the
shareholders, 22 of them, but we
have six board members who make.
99% of the decisions, A
shareholder votes on the slate
of who is gonna be on the board.
I see.
But then the board, from a governance
perspective, we make the decisions
to hire the CEO and approve the
budget and all those kind of things.
So we do still have a manageable
group of decision makers, if you will.
but what you were saying a minute
ago about the culture piece and that,
and it's Cool for me to see this.
Natalie, who runs our marketing and
branding side of the business, and
you guys do a wonderful job with
this as well, but people see us on
social media, for example, and they
come up to me strangers and say,
gosh, I just love y'all's content.
And I'm like, that is, I really
appreciate you saying that.
And we're.
Conscious because of EOS to talk
about our core values and to talk
about our vision and to talk about
our purpose statement, which I what?
I'll just segue to that real quick.
Our mission statement or our why
statement as we say it, is we
lead to inspire confidence so
that your potential is unleashed.
What I love about that mission statement,
Lliam, is it doesn't say insurance.
It doesn't say customer
service, it doesn't say
ethical, it doesn't say quality.
All those things are important, but
why we exist is to everyone we touch,
our employees, our customers, our
suppliers, our partner vendors, is to
say, if we can be related to these.
Constituents and inspire, lead them in
a way that inspires confidence in our
relationships and how we do business.
Then the, potential is unlimited.
That's what unleashed
potential means to me.
So those are the things when
you talk about a strong culture.
That, those are some of the components.
And the other thing that I really, I'm
so lucky that I get to do after anyone
has worked for our company for 90 days,
then they have a meeting with me and
we spend an hour together and we go
through the VTO, the vision traction
organizer, and I pull it up on my screen
and I usually start it with, these are
the six key components of our business.
Vision is one of them.
And then I go through the vision
statement, which describes
the core values, and I tell
them how they were created.
And then we talk about our 10 year target.
We talk about our niche in the market,
we talk about our strategy going to the
market, we talk about our guarantee.
All those things that are part of
this, constitutional document that
describes what is Snelling's Walters.
And I love doing that because it
allows me to tell stories and it also
brings everybody on the same page
as to, like you said, we get so rac,
we get fragmented and distracted and
they're like, I'm not even sure what
this company's trying to accomplish.
I know what I gotta do day to day
as my job, but I'm not really sure
how am I rowing the boat to help
this company achieve its short,
medium, and long range goals.
And why do I care?
Yeah.
And those are the things that
are just really powerful.
And what I've loved about, being in the
role that I'm in today, and then I get
to, bring people to the same page about,
why they work here, why we hired them.
I tell 'em we hired you
because we perceive that you
align with our core values.
and we're gonna talk about
that every 90 days, right?
It's part of the EOS process.
So that's, the long
answer to that question.
Lliam: to me, I think I heard two
things that are worth repeating.
Number one, it's like the
Simon Sinek thing, right?
Starting with why.
Clay: Yeah.
That's where that came from.
Lliam: Yeah.
And, it sounds so obvious, right?
But if you ever sat down
honestly and tried to figure
out your why, that's not easy.
it takes companies sometimes
years, sometimes decades.
And I think many of them actually
never quite figure it out.
Because they don't give it the,
attention that it deserves.
But without understanding your why.
You are literally blindfolded
throwing darts against what you
hope is a dart board, right?
Yeah.
And so it really, behooves you to sit to
think about like, why are we doing this?
And it's, it's not the obvious
things like, I need to feed my
family like that, that's not it.
It really is.
It really is about,
what is that core thing.
And I think when, you are
very clear about your why.
It's very clear to explain
it to someone else.
Yeah.
But when you're not clear, how do
you explain that to someone else?
Because they'll never be as clear
as you, and then they're gonna
turn around and tell somebody.
It's kinda like a whisper game, right?
And it's not long before
the why doesn't exist.
Clay: Well said..
Lliam: And then I think the other thing
I heard was really just alignment.
and we learned this lesson
ourselves, a number of years ago
in a couple of different ways.
for most businesses, certainly
we were not excluded from this.
We only hired people when
we needed people, right?
Like the work was to the point where
we didn't have enough people to
do the work, so we had to go hire
someone to help us do the work, right?
Day one, we were like, you
get the two part training.
Right?
Good luck and hang in there.
And, we put 'em to work and, but
what we realized was that was
completely the wrong approach.
And this was one of those
things where you almost have to
slow down the speed up, right?
And today, when we hire somebody.
They have a 90 day plan that's written
down that we bring them in and there
are certain milestones you saying they
gotta sit down with me for an hour
and they gotta go over the VTO, right?
That's very strategic, right?
That think that takes an
incredible amount of commitment.
That's very expensive to do that, but it.
Really puts in the focus that one
word, which for me is alignment.
Love that.
That's
what, 'cause once you have alignment
and once your team is aligned, we're
all pulling in the same direction.
Whereas I think for many companies,
what they tend to do is small tweaks.
But the reality of it is these
small tweaks are endless and
it is a. It is a Rubik's cube
that does not want to be solved,
right?
And at some point you really have to
sit down and say, we would be better off
if we just took two steps back, studied
this problem, thoughtful about our why,
understood what alignment looked like,
and then used a framework.
We used EOS.
You guys used EOS.
Use what EOS gives you to really be able
to understand, did I hire the right guy?
Do we have the right metrics?
Is it a cultural fit?
And all of these things
sound silly, right?
Because they're not very
complicated, but Right.
But how many of us got so stuck on that
for years that we couldn't get over it?
Clay: I don't remember where I read the
phrase work.
On the business, not in the business.
I don't know if that's an
EOS thing or some other book.
And the other, business book and
concept that really stuck with me
in, in, in that vein was, a book
called The E Myth of Small Business.
Yes.
Michael Gerber.
Yeah, Michael Gerber.
But it had to do with, the guy who had
a pie shop and he was really good at
making pies, but he didn't know how to
teach somebody else how to make pies or
to scale the thing at all and all that.
And that's if you don't have a
culture component and an alignment
component to go with that.
it's gonna be harder now.
I'll just add one other thing that's been
really cool for us in addition to EOS and
Vistage and other things is Culture Index,
which is a program and a system that we
use that everyone in the organization
takes and everyone who is a prospective
employee, before we even interview them,
they take, it's a quick word association
thing and it basically just shows us.
What their personality is and
where their strengths are and
what their tendencies are.
And it's really cool because
it, it says the top graph, which
is similar to the bottom graph.
The top graph is what you've been
like intuitively since you were six.
And the bottom graph is what do
you feel like you need to be at?
And it, identifies the conflict that
could be between what you believe you
are innately from a social ego, sense
of urgency, attention to detail, logic,
intuition, all these things versus what
you think your job calls you to be.
And we want to try to keep people
from having these conflicts in their,
graphs so that they're not miserable.
Lliam: Yes,
Clay: because you can only fake it
for so long and, if you're in a system
where you're in this state of stress
and conflict between your natural
tendencies and your work life, it's
not gonna be a good long-term outcome.
So we're trying to make sure
that we put people in the right
place, so that, culture's good.
and all of that.
And then the last piece on the whole
culture thing and the vision and
having people on the same page and
understanding why they do what they do
and their job and all of that is the
EOS component of quarterly meetings.
And we love those, Billy and
Jennifer, our president and CEO run
those meetings, for the most part.
And, The transparency that we bring
to that meeting for everybody in the
organization to know about how we're
doing revenue retention, attrition
of people, all these metrics that
a lot of business owners would
say, they don't need to know that.
Why would I share that with them?
We're like, unless they understand how
their role contributes to this and how
achieving a goal is good for them and
why should they care, then, that's part
of the reason I believe that you get
these big disconnects between, it's just
a job and I don't even really know what
this company's trying to accomplish.
Sure.
Then those people are obviously, the top
talent especially, they're more likely
to go and find a company that does that.
And so being able to attract
and train and retain top talent
is, is, vital as in any company.
Lliam: Yeah.
I'd love to hear your thoughts
about growth mindset, right?
These sort of founders and clearly.
you were the growth mindset.
You started this business at a
million dollars when you stepped in.
You guys are literally 30 times
bigger than where you started.
So clearly there's a growth mindset.
I know when I look
across many of our peers,
There are people who have that same
growth mindset versus people who are
wanting to have that lifestyle business.
But sometimes, how do I turn that,
how do I turn that into action?
I'd love to hear from you.
How are you able to turn your growth
mindset actual, actually into action?
Clay: Wow.
I think it probably evolved.
As most things would, and that, we, I
remember, this, I remember in, shortly
after I came to work, I told you earlier
that, my father used to set compensation.
And when we, changed our compensation
model to one where people in
sales could immediately know how
they were gonna be personally
rewarded monetarily for success,
that was a, time when I started to.
Started to make sense to me personally
that, if I do more and do better
and bigger and all that and more
efficiently, that it can benefit
me and my family immediately.
And of course, everybody in our
organization doesn't work on a
con compensation model like that.
but as a, as an owner, I think the growth
mindset for me was triggered by that,
where I realized, the sky is the limit.
As to what this business can bring,
to the people that work there.
And we just wanted to, build on that.
And then, making sure that everyone in the
organization who wasn't in a production
role was also tied to growth is good.
Yeah.
And, growth can bring rewards.
because many times in a business,
if you're in service, especially.
Growth is bad.
Growth is more work.
Yes.
And one of the things that I love
to talk about when I'm meeting
with our new people is I show them
our revenue per employee matrix.
And I show them, one year goal of this
and three year goal of that and all
this, growth, And I say you're probably
sitting there going, I'm in service.
This just means I'm gonna be
working till 6:00 PM every night.
And, I assure them, I say one of the most
important metrics we have in this company
is $250,000 of revenue per employee.
So if we see that we grew by, X percent
or x number of dollars last year,
we know we need five more people.
And, that's good for you because,
Lliam, you're in service today.
You're in service level one.
But if we have five new people,
you've now got somebody to mentor.
And somebody that you can be the
manager of and it's a promotion for you.
And that gets people excited about growth.
Yeah.
Because people love promotions, right?
People love getting a bonus because
they went from a junior to a senior.
and so that, I think that's the component
that I. Have embraced, if you will,
through my, business life to say,
how can we communicate to everyone in
the organization that growth is good?
And not to mention from an
ownership standpoint, shareholder
value, which is a, an important
term that we use at our company.
every, everything we do to increase
the bottom line is bringing greater
investment value to those people
who are invested in the business.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Lliam: So good thoughts.
One thought I was thinking as you
were going through that, and you see
a lot of people like this, right?
And I think it's an easy litmus test.
If new business feels
like wind in your sails
You're probably doing something right.
Yeah.
If new business feels like an
anchor around your neck, you're
probably doing something wrong.
And, the reality of it is.
It can feel like both, but I think that
it really, if you look at your staff,
if you look at everyone else in your
company and you land a new customer
and everybody goes, ah, exactly.
You probably have some work to do.
If everyone cheers, you're doing it right.
And I feel like that's a, that's
an easy litmus test, Clay, you've
been so generous with your time
and, your knowledge and your talent,
and I really am truly grateful.
Thank you.
I am gonna leave with, one last
question and I'd love to know.
Okay.
35 years later.
Do you still feel dad's fingerprints on
your business?
Clay: Yeah, that's a great question.
I do because I, I'm a
storyteller by nature.
and.
My nephew, Banks is his name.
He's 22 years old.
He just got his risk
management degree from Georgia.
He started working for us January
the first, and I'm his mentor.
And it's so funny that when I
started to work at Snellings
Walters in 1986, my dad was my age.
So I am now full circle playing
mentor to a 22-year-old.
I'm 62 years old.
And, It's just really cool and
I'm trying to emulate a lot of the
things that my dad did well with
me, which was to teach me about what
good customer service looked like.
One of his big mantras was
always, we're gonna always have
a live person answering phone.
You know how That's changed, right?
calling people back rather than sending,
email didn't exist in 1986, but picking
up the phone and talking to people,
all of those kinds of just blocking
and tackling type skill set habits
that a young person needs to learn.
I look back on what my dad taught me,
and his pictures on the wall in the
company and a lot of his principles
of how he started the business
are still revered at our company.
And so that obviously makes
me real proud because, My dad
lived to be almost 95 years old.
He only passed away seven years ago,
and when I would go and visit him at
their home, his favorite question was,
what's going on at the insurance agency?
To be able to talk about growth and to be
able to talk about additional owners and
just all the stuff that, that he would
be able to appreciate and be proud of.
that was some of the most fun,
conversations that we would have.
Lliam: So what
an honor and a privilege
to be able to, do that.
Yeah.
To have your dad proud of you, to be
able to service that and a blessing,
to be able to turn around and pass
that now to another generation.
That's truly a life's work.
A blessing's, fun, both coming
and going and hey, I really do
appreciate you coming in and sharing
your, wisdom and knowledge in this.
My pleasure.
My pleasure.