Episode #11 - Coverage from Fayetteville, NC to Qatar w/ Landon Bentham

In this episode, Carey and Lindsay sit down with Landon Bentham from Callahan & Rice to talk about carving out a niche, the value of marketing, and how they took their agency worldwide. 

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Episode Transcription: 

lindsay_wallace:

Hey mom, how's it going?

carey_wallace:

I am doing fantastic today. I gotta tell you, it's a little chilly here,

carey_wallace:

I started my day on the beach with Hudson, and we literally only ran into four people. 

lindsay_wallace:

Oh, rub it in. It’s pretty here too, but kind of chilly, so I really just woke up and went right to working, but since its chilly I’m enjoying having a fluffy cardigan on, which I like when I get to like bundle up and still be professional. Well, we are so excited today. We have a great guy on today, Landon Bentham. He is just one of the best people in the industry that both of us have gotten to meet. And one of the people I almost regard as the video master. Welcome, Landon, how's it going?

landon_bentham:

I'm doing really well, video master. I'm gonna beg off on that title. There are some people out here that do some really amazing things, but I appreciate the compliment, yeah.

lindsay_wallace:

I think your videos are great. 

landon_bentham:

I appreciate it. No, it's definitely something we focus on. So absolutely. Y'all doing great. It's so good to see you doing this together. This is awesome.

lindsay_wallace:

Tell us a little bit about how you ended up in insurance and what you've got going on over at Callhan & Rice. 

landon_bentham:

Wow, those two questions, I feel like we could probably fill two hours with those, those two questions by themselves. Not that I like to talk about myself all that much, it's just there's a lot that is in that story. You know, when I got out of college, I ended up staying in Fayetteville, North Carolina, which is where I went to school and got connected with the university there after school still and worked with them. And once I graduated, you know, I got to know the local business community a little bit with some of the work I was doing at the university. And one of the people that I met early on was Mark Rice. And I always knew that he had an insurance agency. And it's so funny because at the time I can remember thinking to myself, well, why would I want to insure with him and not State Farm or nationwide or all state? Why would I want to do that? I didn't understand anything about the independent insurance model. I thought, well, do you have to be invited to be a policy holder or do you have to, I mean, all these things and I mean out of college, I mean, it's a really, I mean, if you've never bought insurance products before, you just don't think about that, especially from the business sense. So I think we often, now that I've been in the industry as long as I have, we often forget about the fact that the majority of, not the majority, a large portion of people, especially moving into the income earning years of their life, they really have no idea what independent insurance is. agents are or do or you know what makes them different from anyone else. So that was definitely me. I had no idea. Honestly, I got to know Mark before I still had any idea what he did. He's just a very, uh, a good community presence here in Fayetteville locally. Um, and he just became, uh, someone in acquaintance. I was trying to improve my business savvy, if you will. So I met with him on several occasions, say, how do you do it? What do you do? What do you like about business? All that kind of thing. Um, and so that was sort of the beginning of our relationship. Well, at some point along that timeline, he felt it necessary. I don't think I've ever told a part of this story public, Carrie and Lindsay, but I will tell a little bit of it here for you. So this is exclusive, all right? This is an exclusive for you. Mark at one point in time sat me down and said, you have a lot of things in common with my daughter and I'd like you to meet her. And that was sort of the beginning of me then at the time, obviously not. And one thing led to another, we got married, I stuck around and then a year into our marriage, Mark asked me to consider joining the team here at Callahan and Rice. So that is the quick version of how I got started in the industry, I was reeled in, didn't know anything about it, I was the furthest from understanding of what an independent insurance agency was. I lapsed, some of your listeners may find this funny, farm auto policy two months before I was supposed to join Calhann and Rice Insurance. So I was the derelict client that we all just cringe at when we, but that was me, right? I mean, I didn't have any idea what this was about. But, but now I'm in it and I absolutely love it. So.

carey_wallace:

So, Landon, I got to tell you, you might have the best entry into insurance, the story of anyone I know. I know nobody has a straight line into insurance, but that one might take the cake. Like that might be the one to beat! Had, I met my future father-in-law and he brought me in by way of introducing me to my wife. That's pretty special, you know? Most people can't say that. I'll also tell you, when I came into this industry, I had absolutely no idea what an independent insurance agency owner was or why I needed to know what that was. And I worked in the industry for about, I don't know, four years before I admitted to an independent insurance agency owner that I was covered by USAA. When you're a military family, you don't move away from that. Like you think you have something exclusive. When you said exclusive, I thought, you know, I actually believed that. So, and you know, I found someone that I trusted and he did not chastise me for not understanding that and doing that faster. 

landon_bentham:

And from a macro standpoint, right? I mean, how good of a job have the big whales in this industry done of pushing us down, right? I mean, I didn't know. I mean, we're not out there with ads and things like that. So, you know, the independent insurance agency channel, I mean, so I mean, we are, we, you don't, that does not come to mind. And that I think parlays nicely into the advantage that I felt like I had when I came into the industry. As I mean, I'm sure a lot of people have this, the same advantages that, you are coming in from outside. And so you get to see from that perspective, those first two, three years when you're in the business, you're like, how can I position myself to actually take advantage of the market in the current scenario and situation that it's in? And in that people don't know us. So what advantage does that give me? What can I actually do? And so I know that what we wanna talk about today in part of this is the modernization of the independent agency and how that looks. and works in small town USA, which is what I consider Fayetteville to be. So it's, I think all of those things give me an appreciation for where we are as a company right now, as Callahan and Rice, but then where we're headed as an industry because I've seen some great things since I got started in the industry. And it's just an exciting time for us.

carey_wallace:

No doubt, let's go there, my friend. Like you've done something pretty special that a lot of people may not know about you, right? You have created a niche that, I know we talk a lot about niches in our industry. And actually some people call niches areas of specialization. Like you truly have a niche that's unique to Callahan and Rice and actually unique to you. Would you tell us about that talk about how you even came about doing it? Talk about how you even came about doing it? 

landon_bentham:

You know, when you first ge in the industry, the first thing everybody tells you? Find a niche, figure out what it means, then you can just lean into that. And there are some people that go so far to say, just pick a niche before you really start to understand it. Like they'll say, just picking it. If you, if your passion is movie theaters, go write every movie theater in the state. Well, until you understand how insurance works and how it operates and what it looks like. to just pick one thing and feel like I'm gonna be confidently moving forward in this pathway. So I'm a huge believer and you have to fail first to find the fortune. Like you've got to fail first. And so, you know, we went through this period, the first two, three years of my career here was about trying and finding different industries and subgroups that I might jive with. Like one of my backgrounds is my dad's a carpenter, my uncle's an electrician, and hardware operator and my other uncle's a plumber. And so the trades, well gosh, independent agencies are known for helping people in trades and contracting. So let's try that niche and we got a little traction there. I mean, we do a lot of contracting business, but it wasn't the niche. It just, it felt like it was almost too common. And when you're looking for niches, you're like, okay, what is the next thing? Another part of my background is golf. And so I was a PGA professional for a couple of years, not a playing professional, but a teaching professional. I went through a professional accreditation program and I was designated a PGA professional. So I took that and said, let's create a brand. I created insurmicourse.com, which I still own that URL. We created a brand around it and I started to loop Eastern North Carolina and call on smaller private and public golf courses in this area. Absolutely fell flat on my face. And the reason was because that industry how many members, how many regular players that are already insurance people playing golf. If there's one thing about our industry, there's already a lot of insurance people that play golf. And that sometimes is a knock on our industry, but it's true. And so those golf courses, I already had relationships with insurance professionals, so they really didn't need me. Now, I got a little bit of traction. I did write one. And then, you know, they ended up leaving to a nationwide agent that was a member the very next year. So that was a really difficult process. website, brand, koozies, signage, everything. We had a lot of money invested in it, but it just didn't work out. So then I say all that to say what that led me to was lots of conversations with my brokers and wholesalers. Quick side note, as an independent agent in Eastern North Carolina, we deal with a lot of hurricane issues, and so we have a big ENS book and a lot of need for the ENS market. And so I have a lot of good relationships with with underwriters and brokers in that space. And one of them said to me, they said, Landon, you're in Fayetteville, North Carolina, the home of Four Bragg, the 82nd Airborne. Surrounding that is a ton of defense contractors. And one of the things that defense contractors need when they send their people to other countries to do work on behalf of the government is they need a type of coverage. It's basically like a foreign workers compensation coverage. It's called DBA insurance. I got to researching that. I was like, oh, that's interesting. And the broker, you know, threw the carrot out. There's some big ones out there, like a million dollar premium and da da da da da and all this stuff. So I did a lot of keyword research. I was getting involved with marketing and understanding like how to create SEO, search engine optimization. What do I do with blogs and video? You mentioned video, Lindsay. We do a lot of that work. So how can I pour those resources and know how into this niche? If you Google today, what is DBA insurance? Or how much does DBA insurance cost, Callahan and Rice Insurance will rise to the top of that search result in Google every time. We're either number one or two past the Department of Labor website, which the Department of Labor set up a website to say, hey foreign international contractors and whatnot, if you need DBA insurance, try to find someone that sells AIG here, try to find someone that sells Chubb or try to find someone that sells CNA, but they never connected you to a broker, the actual resource that you needed to do it. myself on the web to be able to handle those leads, to be able to talk to those people, understood the product, talked to a ton of people that are specializing in that in the E&S market, got connected with a couple of great brokers, and so now today I'm in 54 different countries. We ensure contractors in 54 different countries. A lot of those contractors like live, work, and play in the country that the government is trying to contract to. So, you know, we have a big, presence in Kosovo. We have a big presence in Qatar, Qatar. We've had people in Kazakhstan, in Mongolia. All these places that you're like far off lands that you learned about in social studies and history classes and stuff. It's just neat. It's something that I absolutely love to be able to help people figure that portion of their business out and it's just led to more and more and more and more opportunities within the whole defense contracting space. It's definitely worth it. I think it's beautiful after industry. I want to look at it.

carey_wallace:

It's actually one of the things I think that's beautiful about our industry, Landon, like here's the deal. You're in Fayetteville, North Carolina and you're in 54 countries. And it's because you used your partnerships, figured out something that no one else was doing and had the skills in order to position yourself that way. Like that is super impressive.

lindsay_wallace:

Yeah, like how did you, what, when you sit down at your desk during the day, what does marketing look like for you? Like what do you do?

landon_bentham:

Oh man, that is a great question, Lindsey. I think it looks different every day. I don't think I'm so stuck on one form of marketing or another that like I only do that. Because I think I've heard it said, and there's probably, I don't know who said, somebody has said this out there recently that, the currency of today is a content, right> And so if that's true, if the currency of today Media is just how many eyeballs can I get on myself? Where do I have to be to do that? And it's not necessarily how many, it's how many relevant ones, right? So in the DBA example, it was blogs and videos. And I created those blogs and videos in what used to be called a pillar page, where you have one landing page and then linked to it and linked back around to all the other content is everything around that one topic. That's tactically what I did. that together and laid all that out in such a way. It took extra time to link everything back and all the stuff. But what happens is Google gets into that rhythm and it starts cycling through there and they're like, wow, this is incredible. And I have a form linked on all those pages and that form gets filled out. This week, end of January, we dealt with eight leads in the DBA space by itself this week. So, I mean, it's, so when Google sees that, people are filling out that web form as they're searching for DBA insurance, and going higher and higher and higher. So that was that process. But you know what, one of the things I wanna make sure I mentioned before I forget it, all of that content work and all the videos, and I don't do videos just for that space, is I do videos, I do some TikTok stuff and some Instagram things, and I try to sprinkle it everywhere. But it's enlightening to me that you do all that, and there's times when you think to yourself, why am I doing this? Like, I feel goofy. doing this like I mean and it's not natural for me I have to build myself up to do it like it there's certain days and I'm like I planned to shoot today but I just can't I'm not in the frame of mind like I can't do it but I get to my get to the place where I am doing it you post that content and the 70 year old physician that I've seen in this town on and off for years who I'm not friends with on Facebook I'm not friends with on Instagram didn't even know he was there not from the same not from the same country as us, okay? He stops me on the street as we're going to an event and says, Landon, I love your content. Like I just love to see you. You're always on Facebook, you're always there. And I'm like, wow, I didn't even know you watched that. That's amazing.

lindsay_wallace:

Ha ha ha!

landon_bentham:

But those stories locally that I hear, to me, makes everything worth it. Because it makes you, if nothing else, it makes it look like you're trying to stay up with the times, you're trying to at least do something to keep yourself relevant, knowing that the world so fast. So I hope that answered your question, Lindsay, but that's where I'm at with that.

lindsay_wallace:

Definitely. Well, I know that I've seen you. You've popped up on my TikTok before when I'm just like sitting on the couch like scrolling through my own TikTok. I'm like, I know him. That's Landon. Like, where did it? How did he get here?

landon_bentham:

Yeah,

lindsay_wallace:

So I know I've seen you. But tell me, how do you... So, right, there's a lot of talk about marketing being important, but it's so hard. And being a new marketer, I struggle with this. How do you connect it to... Actually creating value in your agency like how do you draw that connection?

landon_bentham:

Do you mean like how I would use marketing to like further our value proposition as an agency? Is that kind of what you're asking?

lindsay_wallace:

Yeah.

landon_bentham:

Yeah. So once you start to realize that marketing, marketing and content creation and what we consider marketing, I guess is what I'm trying to grasp out here isn't cookie cutter. I mean, to me, it can be a lot of different things. What is marketing? What is branding? What is sales and all that sort of thing? I think what we've been able to uniquely do is this. We look at what is the highest touch point on our website, for instance. When people find us, what's the first page they go to? Well, after the homepage, it's the biography page. Who are these people?

lindsay_wallace:

Mm-hmm.

landon_bentham:

So we made everybody begrudgingly, in some cases, sit down and do a bio video about themselves, right? And we put that together. So then what we do is we use that video to say, in the sales process, once we've sold a lead, And we'll say, hey, John, so great, you got to work with me, Flandon. I really want to introduce you to Wendy. Wendy's going to be your right hand person from here on out. I'm always available for questions and consider us a team of two, but really it's a team of 12 here in the agency, but I really want you to know who Wendy is because if you have a call she can help you. And here's her bio video. And so, and that just, we use that content to help that. We've talked about what is, you can break that all the way down to coverage type stuff. Why would I need an umbrella insurance policy? What was one of the first videos I did? It's horrible. If you go out and look at it and think it's goofy, send me a message because it's goofy.

lindsay_wallace:

Thank you. Bye.

landon_bentham:

Okay? But I mean, I had umbrellas and all this. I mean, it was super on the nose. It was terrible. But it works. And so what our folks do is anytime someone doesn't have an umbrella or needs an umbrella, they send that video and then that starts the conversation. So we use that stuff internally to our business. It's also helped us a ton, Lindsay, with recruiting new talents. Because we're out there and we have a face and face is that represent who Callahan and Rice is in all these different platforms whether that's on Google or if that's just on YouTube or wherever on our website people say I really like what you've got going on there like I would love to come talk to you about a job. The last four people five people we've hired came in this office because of the content that we created like they came to take an interview with us because they saw our content and our Google reviews and they said, I want to see what they've got going on there. So marketing can be lots of different things. And then what does talent do? Talent brings in more business because like they know how to do it, right? So like all of it works together. It's not one thing.

carey_wallace:

You said something Landon that I think we need to just put an exclamation point around because, you know, obviously I value businesses. I place a fair market value on these agencies and you do something very unique and you described it so beautifully, whereas the relationship is with 12 people inside the agency and you let your customers know who all of those people are, which means that relationship is far deeper than one producer holding these relationships super tight and then not being able to transition that business if you lose one person or someone retires. It is so incredibly important to understand how you're marrying relationships with the technology and the marketing strategies that you're using that I think some people don't really connect the dots on that. And you know the hiring we're in this crazy marketplace today where everyone's saying it's super hard to get Is it? I think it's challenging for those that aren't thinking about it differently. They're not thinking about remote work, putting their culture out there thinking about it just differently and its a beautiful thing to hear how you guys have done

That. 

landon_bentham:

I mean, you can't do this stuff in a vacuum, right? I mean, I could. I mean, i could close my door,  not ask people to participate in these sort of things and our content or whatever it is that I'm doing and do it all myself and we would get some traction. I mean, just because we're out there. But I mean, I think the other side of that, Carrie, is I probably once every other month, we have a meeting with everybody and I say, hey, my next batch of videos is I'm gonna be shooting them. What topics have you all been hearing about? Like what's out there that we need to talk about? And we all go through and just say, hey, well, we could do a video about this. We could do a video about this and da, da, da, da. Like they're all very involved with the creation process. And that, I think, to your point, I mean, we're really linking them to the agency in that way. We're not just telling them to sit your butt in the chair and bang on the keys. Like we need your help because you're the front lines. So yeah, I mean, we really intentionally try to do that. We have lots of ways that we do that. Yeah.

lindsay_wallace:

Yeah. So when you got started with that process, did you like the very first, you know, time you started doing videos, did you have pushback from people? Did people want to do it? Or what was that process like?

landon_bentham:

Oh yeah. Yeah. As you can imagine, right? It's probably not like I could tell some stories, but you probably already know the stories. Like, you know, what's, what's a, what's a, you know, 40 year, 30 year vet in the industry that's done personal lines their whole life. Gonna think about this kind of thing.

lindsay_wallace:

Mm-hmm.

landon_bentham:

Well, of course, you know, and that's, and that is what it is, right? And I think that sort of leads into, you know, leadership, how you position yourself amongst your staff and amongst your peers to say, hey, we're trying some new things. It's going to feel uncomfortable. Just stick with me. Like at the end of it, if it doesn't work, if we fall on our face, we'll change. And I tell the story about the golf niche that didn't work, right? I mean, we will do some things differently, but if we stay stagnant, that's all we're going to be. And do you want to work in an agency like that? No. I mean, it's you want the next thing. Like, for you as a person. That's me speaking to like an employee or something like that. So yeah, I don't know where I was going. Sure.

carey_wallace:

Well, let me ask you, yeah, let me ask you something a little different about that land in because, you know, I know Mark very well, Mark Rice is I consider him a mentor and a friend and an incredible guy, like he is salt of the earth is how I would describe him. And, you know, you you joined the agency with him as the leader. You are obviously moving into a leadership role in that agency. And I'm assuming a gradual process. Can you talk to me, because there's a ton of agency owners that have their future owners working alongside them for a period of time. Can you talk to me what that transition of responsibility looks like, especially when some of the people on your team have been there for many years? What does that look like? 

landon_bentham:

I was talking about this with someone morning, like in my career  for one reason or another, I've always had the opportunity and been put in positions to lead people in generations older than mine. And that started right out of school almost. It just so happened that I had someone who was, 40 years my senior, 50 years my senior that was reporting to me. It was awkward and it was weird. And obviously generationally, So I've had a little bit of experience before moving into the agency with some of that, but I'll say this too, just to start to answer your question. Mark Rice is a cheat code, okay? He is, I'm as blessed as any person can be in family business, and so I own that, okay? Now at the same time, there's still a lot of care and intentionality behind how he and I work together, from my perspective. I could come in with an attitude or a chip on my shoulder about certain things. Clearly, we need to do this. Why are we not doing that? I've had those moments and I can point to some really specific examples with that. But at the end of the day, developing the relationship first obviously with the family is the most important. I'll get into a couple examples because I think I can better explain it this way. When I first started here. of y'all cringe that are listening to this. When I first started in this business and in this agency, I came in as a producer, right? I came in as, and the only way that Mark knew what a producer was, and that was go out, find the business, knock on some doors, call some people, figure it out, right? So I did that, and I was somewhat successful with it. I wasn't gangbusters successful with it. Like I wasn't reaching terminal velocity right away, but it was getting there. But we're in our office as set up, I have to tell just a quick, side note, our office is very open for anybody that has been here. It's very open and so you can hear everybody's stuff going on at once. It feels like a call center. We've done some things to soften it up a lot in the last couple years actually, but when I first started it was very much hardbox and it was bouncy and noise would go everywhere. I would hear CSRs in our office, none of which are here right now. They've just retired. It's not that we had to let them go or anything, but they're not here anymore. I would say things like Sir or ma'am, we don't quote over the phone. And so if you wanna do business with us, I'm gonna send you a PDF. You're gonna have to print that PDF off, fill out all your information, like name, date of birth, social security, driver's license, cars, all that stuff, fill it out completely. If you don't turn it in completely, we're not gonna work on it. And then, and then, spax it back to us. Okay, and then, and then we will work on it. That was, that was what I heard consistently every single day our agency. This is 2015. Okay. So this is not all that long ago. Okay. We did not have an e-signature platform.

carey_wallace:

What year is this?

Landon_bentham:

2015

We had no presence on Google, and yet we were still getting call in's that we were handling in that way. Okay. And so it took me some courage and some motivation from my wife. I said, I've got to go talk to your dad about this. Like, because this we're losing big time here. And I went and talked to him as like, Mark, you know, if you would let me handle anybody that calls in and says they want insurance, like, let me talk to him. Let me vet him. Maybe we work with him. Maybe we don't, but at least let me have that conversation with them. Um, and we did that. And that is when everything changed. I mean, we talk about, and it was, it was, I consider it modernizing the process in, in which that my only job and my only responsibility at that time was just to hear that new prospect out. And I didn't have the service work to deal with that would keep me from standing on the phone with them as long as I need to to understand what they had going on. What did that do for me? I learned a ton about the industry. Like I learned about what people's needs are and what their main questions are. I got so much better at coverage and understanding because they would have issues or claims that we had to talk about. Like there was just a lot of really healthy conversations involved with that. But it all got back to, I didn't go into Mark and say, You don't do this, I'm done. Though I may have felt that way, it's like, ooh, this is gonna be tough. Like this business is gonna be tough if we don't do some, we don't change some things. I went in with kind of a humble approach, a humble heart and just said, I'm hearing this, I'd love to do an experiment and see if you'd be willing to try it. And that's sort of the way we've approached a lot of these things. And he's been willing to walk down those roads and it's paid dividends. It's been amazing. So. Yeah.

carey_wallace:

It also probably gave a sense of confidence to your staff that you weren't just going to do knee jerk things. It was going to be a thoughtful approach to change because here's the thing, we are in an industry that's changing where our customers are changing, technology is prevalent, the way in which we all engage in our lives are completely different. It's the reason, you know, we believe that insurance is going to be refocused in the next 10, 20. You know, imagine what this industry is going to look like. It's going to look very different, right? And so being thoughtful and being able to bridge that gap, I think, is a skill that many people struggle with. And I think it's a challenge in our industry today. So I guess my question to you, Landon, is what piece of advice would you give to someone who wants to be a leader and wants to take on that role, but is frustrated by where they are. Like what things would you tell them from your experience? 

landon_bentham:

The theory of leading people instead of leading through people, um, and, and trying to, trying to, I guess, think about the situation you're in and know that because you're not the owner, because you're not the, the, the end of the road and the end of the line, you do not have the ability to flip the switch. You just don't as much as you feel like it's warranted or necessary or whatever. don't have that opportunity. And so you can't think that one meeting, of course, you should understand if I just tell you that we need to get e-signature, like you should just know that that's I can't believe we're talking about that. That's that's probably so old school. But like that was a deal when I started, we didn't have e-signature. But like you can't just expect the first meeting to equate to, yeah, let's do it. Because if you think about it, and this is what I would remind all young leaders and young producers coming into this industry. your dad, your mom, your uncle, your brother, whoever's above you in the chain of command, whoever is currently in charge of the agency, they likely took their risk 20 and 30 years ago, built a business that they can rely on, that they aren't expecting the world from, that they know is comfortable. They took that risk 20 and 30 years ago. And you have to somehow get them to understand that you're ready to take a risk, right? Because they did. at one point. And so it's just you can't, does that make sense? Does that make sense? Like you just have to think of it that way. It's not, you can't come in and flip the tables. If you do, you're just gonna get shut down. 

carey_wallace:

Yeah, I think it's about respecting the fact of where they are, but also getting them to understand that this is your next 20 and 30 years as well. Like there's a there's a balance to it. It's not a it's not an either or it is a negotiation. And it's a constant renegotiation in that relationship. And I think you said it best, you know, you have to build the relationship first and then figure out how to navigate through it. And, you know, I think we all have a urgency. And what you do with it though is incredibly important. And so it's beautiful to watch when it works really well. And it's really devastating when it doesn't because then you have you have missed opportunities where I think people can navigate that. And honestly, that's what we kind we want to do with this podcast is share stories. So people actually know that there's people out there doing the things

 they're they're struggling with as well. And they're doing it may not be the ones that are talking about it. You know, that's the beauty of us getting to actually talk to some agents in our roles and hear those things. So I appreciate that, Landon. It's not an easy thing. There's no two ways around it, right? 

landon_bentham:

It's not, its not and it's, it's funny. And I can't believe I'm about to draw this anecdote here, but I'm going to do it because to me, it's popping out of my brain. So I'm like, I'm going to share this. This would be great. So the other night, I'm reading to my daughter, who's three, the story about Cinderella. Now, it's not the traditional Cinderella story. Okay, it was a different adaptation of it. So it's something, it's some other thing. But it was about Cinderella and her that she wanted to be at because no, she had chores to do and she had stuff she had to get done and da da da da da. And she just shouldn't be there. Okay. So what did she do? She went out and collected a year's worth of wood, firewood, brought it into the house and then went to the thing because that's what she was told to do. And through that process, the story goes that she complied with what she had to do and then that led to her having the opportunity to showcase what she wanted to and she got, you know, all the roses and stuff at the end. Now, children's story. But like, when I was reading that to Mary Austin, my daughter, I was like, man, that just struck me. I was like, that is a microcosm of what we're talking about, Carrie. Like sometimes you don't have an option. And yes, you could say, well, just go find another agency or go find, but if it's your family, you don't have another option. You got to bring in the wood first. You got to do the activity first. And there's time still. There's still time at the end of the day to try a little something. to yourself and to your family, what could be next and what the horizon looks like for the agency. And if you can get to that place, if you can stay focused on that, I think they'll listen. 

carey_wallace:

I can say it any better than that. Bring in the wood people. Yeah, I love it. Well, Landon, I am so happy that you joined us here today. You know, we've tables have turned, I think it was a couple of years ago when I was invited on a Callahan & Rice podcast episode. 

landon_bentham:

I think that's true, I think that's true, yeah. I do remember that.

carey_wallace:

So, tell me, Landon, if someone is starting their career or thinking about being the next agency owner and they wanted to reach out to where could they find you? Because I think that you have a wealth of knowledge, and the beauty of our industry is that we all help each other. 

landon_bentham:

I am totally an old school twitter guy, I love twitter, you can find me on just about any social media @Landon Bentham. I'm out there. My email is just my first name at CallahanRice.com. If you wanna send me that, it'll probably get lumped in with a bunch of other ones that I haven't read. So maybe that's not the best tactic, you can try there. No, I try to pick up with that. I'm at least somewhat responsible with email, at least I try to be. So anyway, that's where you can probably find me. Any of the socials, I'm there. I'm there.

lindsay_wallace:

So good luck. Well, thank you so much. Thank you so much for coming on land, and we really appreciate that. Thank you.

landon_bentham:

Thank you all for doing this. This is a great project and I'm excited to see where you take this project.