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00:00:00.000 I wanted to be the first to welcome you to casual season, and here's what I mean by casual season.

00:00:04.200 Effective Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, we go for this six-week

00:00:10.660 casual season. People get sloppy, they show up to work later, they don't stick to their

00:00:16.300 disciplines, they say the average person during holidays puts on five to ten pounds,

00:00:21.500 you get your energy goes lower, you're already in Christmas holiday mode, New Year's Eve mode,

00:00:25.860 and you're already living into 2021. Just want you to know, 95% of people are going to get this bug

00:00:32.180 of holiday season, and they're going to get very casual. And since 2002, till today, I have loved

00:00:38.960 this season. Here's what's crazy. I love Thanksgiving, but I love Thanksgiving Day. I love Christmas. I

00:00:44.900 love Christmas. I love family coming together on Christmas. It's my favorite holiday by a mile.

00:00:50.420 I love these two dates. But at the same time, December for me, historically, is one of the

00:00:56.120 busiest days of the month. I do a lot of business planning, strategy sessions, get-togethers,

00:01:00.640 gatherings. We get together and think about what we're going to be doing in 2021. We have carrier

00:01:05.100 meetings that we bring everybody together. A lot of people are saying, I can't make it. I can't come.

00:01:08.900 I can't do this. It doesn't matter. We're holding this meeting to talk about our good, bad, ugly.

00:01:13.560 Every single thing we do for 2021 happens in November, December. All the planning, and at the same time,

00:01:19.100 historically, November is a very big month for us. December is a very big month for us

00:01:23.420 because we like to finish off. And by the way, for some of you that may say that may be because

00:01:26.840 your industry, it's got nothing to do with the industry. Insurance industry is very slow in the

00:01:30.940 month of December. Insurance industry is slow. The week pre-Thanksgiving till New Year's, it's not a

00:01:37.080 good industry to be a part of because that six-week insurance agents pretty much take it off.

00:01:41.120 The insurance carriers take off. Their customer service starts later. Their customer service finishes

00:01:45.980 earlier. Everybody's off during the season. But why am I sharing this message with you? Here's why.

00:01:51.680 You know what's one of the hardest things to do in the month of December? I'm going to tell you

00:01:54.160 what's one of the hardest things to do in the month of December, especially in a weird like this that

00:01:58.140 we had in 2020, which at this point, everybody knows it's been a weird year. COVID, market election,

00:02:03.400 voter fraud, whatever you want to call it, Biden, Trump, riots, protesting, BLM, whatever you want to call it.

00:02:10.780 This has been a very weird year. It's a qualified weird year by a mile. However, however, the hardest

00:02:17.400 thing for people to do in December is to get their business plan out. They wrote in December of 2019.

00:02:24.660 It's the hardest thing to do. So hard to take out your business plan. You know why it's hard to take

00:02:28.640 out the business plan? Because why would you want to look at a business plan that you only got 50% of

00:02:32.560 gold done or you only got 40% of gold done? Some of you guys that are, you know, did really well,

00:02:37.160 80% of gold done. Typically what I've known from my career is somebody that doesn't hit 60% of their

00:02:42.860 goal of the year, they wrote out in their business plan. They don't even look at their business plans.

00:02:46.540 The biggest mistake you'll ever make if you don't look at a terrible business plan where you didn't

00:02:51.340 hit your numbers. Why? Because if you don't look at it, what's going to change the next year?

00:02:56.620 The first thing we do, like we've already started this a month and a half ago, two months ago,

00:03:00.920 where we sit down with our board and our board says that we hit our budget, that we hit our numbers.

00:03:04.600 What's on? What's off? What do we hit? The other day, we were looking at our numbers that we projected

00:03:08.880 last December of what we're going to do in September, October. It was August, September,

00:03:14.440 October. Do you know what we hit of our goals? 103% of budget, 97% of budget, 99% of budget. Meaning

00:03:21.520 we said last December, what we're going to do in the month of August, September, November,

00:03:26.280 September, October, and we hit it within 97%, 99%, 100%. By the way, don't let me impress you.

00:03:32.020 For 15 years, we didn't. Okay. I'm telling you, this is the guy that was winging first 10 years

00:03:38.460 of my business. I was winging. I'm just kind of like energy. Let's go. We can do it. All this

00:03:41.880 other stuff. Oh, we had, don't worry about it. Let's look at the numbers. Let's go. It's about

00:03:45.000 next year. It's not about looking at the past. It's about next year. We don't need to look at all

00:03:48.740 this stuff. And then I started hanging out with people that are actually winning at the highest level.

00:03:52.280 And I realized what they do, they actually go back and look at the bad news. They actually go back and look

00:03:57.480 at the stuff they didn't pull off. They actually go back and find out all the things that they said

00:04:01.100 they were going to do that they didn't execute. Why not? And they have the tough conversations

00:04:05.500 and they improve. So what does this mean to you? A couple of things it means to you. Number one,

00:04:10.960 if you're in the 95% category of people that are already checked out and it's already Thanksgiving,

00:04:16.120 you ate so much, this turkey was so good, the stuffing, oh my gosh, family, Black Fridays. If

00:04:21.620 you're in that community, but you're willing to be convinced to go to the 5% community, this is your 0.99

00:04:26.980 chance to do so when you're watching this video because it's still not too late. But I tell you,

00:04:30.700 if you wait, you don't recover January when everybody gets to work. If you take the six

00:04:35.140 weeks off, you know how long it takes for people to recover? Add another six weeks, which means you

00:04:38.780 take the six weeks off of being casual and you come back around January 4th, 5th, let's just say

00:04:43.500 Monday, Tuesday, you're not going to recover for six weeks after that, which is middle of February.

00:04:47.840 By the time you recover by middle of February, which means your year is really starting March 1st,

00:04:52.120 you're already toast. You ain't competing with the real competitors. You're competing with the

00:04:55.680 bottom 80%. That's who you're competing with. If you want to compete with the top five percenters 0.81

00:05:00.040 in November, finish off strong. December, finish off strong. Look at every single thing you did

00:05:05.920 right, wrong, whatever had happened. Any surprises, one of the things we love spending time with is

00:05:10.460 areas that we had surprises. And this year we had a lot of surprises. I'm talking about for myself,

00:05:15.160 a lot of surprises as a CEO, as a parent, as a family, as a business, as an investor. It's been so many

00:05:21.600 surprises this year. So what's made me do is just kind of calculate what surprises I'm going to be

00:05:26.640 ready for next year. So if it happens again, like some people are saying, oh my gosh, we're getting

00:05:31.140 the second wave of COVID. We're getting the third wave of COVID. We are fully prepared because we've

00:05:35.220 been through this already. So it's not a surprise to us because, you know, we know what's going to be

00:05:38.820 happening. Everything I'd be thinking about if I were you is go back at the business plan, see what

00:05:43.880 you didn't hit, ask yourself why you didn't hit it, and ask how much weight does your word have? Are you the

00:05:50.020 kind of person that keeps saying what you're going to do and you don't hit, but 20% of your goals?

00:05:53.680 Well, maybe that's a character issue. Maybe that's a work ethic issue. Maybe it's you got to keep your

00:05:58.280 word. It's not easy to have this conversation. Believe me, I've had this conversation with myself

00:06:01.360 for a long time. And I eventually made a decision back in 07, 08. I said, I want to be the guy that

00:06:07.640 when I walk in and I'm getting the investors, clients, whoever I'm talking to, I want to say,

00:06:11.620 if we're going to hit this number, we're either going to hit the number or they're going to say,

00:06:15.680 let me tell you, they hit 92% of it. They hit 88% of it. These guys, one thing I know about these

00:06:20.860 guys, they're going to bust their tail to hit the number that they gave. I wanted that kind

00:06:25.180 of a reputation amongst my peers, carriers, investors, partners, everybody, which brought

00:06:29.440 new partners in. So if you want to do that going into 2021, don't wait until 2021 to change those

00:06:35.520 habits. Finish December in 2020 strong. Don't go into 2021 yet. Finish December in 2020 strong.

00:06:45.680 This month strong. Then go into 2021 with a ton of momentum. And then you own 2021.

00:06:53.240 If you do that 2021 with all the havoc, that's still going to happen. Still going to be weird

00:06:58.020 auguration, new president, potentially with all the havoc, you're not going to have a lot to worry

00:07:02.940 about because you're going to experience the beginning of the greatest years of your life

00:07:06.260 simply because you, your new version came into 2021. Having said that, if you've never watched a

00:07:13.280 video, I did a one page business plan. I made this video, I believe four years ago.

00:07:16.520 If you've never watched a click over, you're going to watch this video and start your business

00:07:20.480 planning for 2021. And with that being said, have a great week, everybody. Take care. Bye-bye.

The Holiday Trap That Puts People Out of Business

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