General Agent, Matt Harness, shares how he recruits agents and launches a successful insurance agency. Learn what Matt says holds agents back. View more information at MarkMiletello.com. Note: “Where The Insurance Pros Meet” is an audio podcast and is meant for the ear. A transcript of the audio is provided for referencing a particular section or for you to follow along. Listen to the episode to get the most out of our show. We use both speech recognition software and human transcribers to create the transcripts so they may contain errors. If you’re going to quote us in print, please be sure to check the corresponding audio.

---

TRANSCRIPT

Speaker 1:

Where the Insurance Pros Meet, episode 10.

Matt Hartness:

We are our own worst enemy in what gets in the way of future production.

Speaker 1:

Where the Insurance Pros Meet is a podcast that brings the greatest talent in the world together. Managers, coaches, and producers. The very best experts the insurance and financial services industry has to offer. Get ready to change the way you do business to have your most successful year ever. Now, here's Mark Miletello, a top 1% producer, manager, and your host of Where the Insurance Pros Meet.

Mark Miletello:

Welcome back to the show. We'd like to thank the listeners for tuning in. We have an exciting show as we always do. We have guests on this show that already with under 10 episodes launched, we have industry gurus. We've had outside talent, and marketing, and speaking, and coaching. We've had new agents. We've had leaders in the industry. I'm just crazy excited here to have a person that I have watched grow in this business from a producer to an assistant, associate general agent, and now has become the leading general agent in one of the top insurance companies in America. One of the oldest, and largest, and most dynamic companies in America. Welcome. Today, we're going to discuss with him recruiting and launching a successful agency. Welcome to the show, Matt Hartness.

Matt Hartness:

Thanks, Mark. I appreciate you having me today. I look forward to the conversation.

Mark Miletello:

Man, we got so much to learn from you. I just can't wait to extract it. Matt, I guess in the past, maybe I've mentored you a little bit. Would you admit to that, or no?

Matt Hartness:

Absolutely, man. I was early in my career, I was calling you or seeing you at various events out and about, picking your brain and asking questions. All along, I would have counted you as one of my mentors through my career, and still, I'd count you as a mentor.

Mark Miletello:

Well, thank you for that. I don't say that brag or to steal any of your thunder. What I say that too is a great mentor of mine, Garry Kinder, said "Hey, in the first three months, a new person does what you tell them to do. They don't know how to speak, so they speak like you speak. They walk like you walk. Then after that, you start to let them fly a little bit. Then before long, two to three years later typically, they become mentors of yours." That's what I'd like to say about you, Matt, is that you have now arrived at a place where I feel like we mentor each other. You are a mentor of mine, so congratulations on the hard work I know every step of the way, the hard work you've put to become based on the standards that they calculate. Now, I know there are rules here and there. You've become the leading general agent with one of the greatest companies in America, so congratulations on that. Thank you for mentoring me back now, which you have all along.

Matt Hartness:

Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, it's been an excellent ride. As we're talking mentors, I could not have done it with many of people and even current teammates that I have now to make it happen. It's been a collaborative of a lot of people to help with the success that I am currently having today. Thank you very much for that.

Mark Miletello:

Well, I know you're right in the middle of it, and you're a busy person, so thank you for taking the time because I think your perspective is just what I love about this show, that people all across our industry will be able to hear from someone, and really like myself, there was a producer and worked all the way through those different levels to now you're in a management and a leadership role. And so, I think it's going to be very interesting to talk and hear some of the things that you're doing. I'm anxious to hear and learn from it. But, you mentioned some mentors along the way. Would you like to pause for a minute and maybe give some of your mentors' credit?

Matt Hartness:

Yeah, absolutely. And I definitely want to give credit where credit's due. Mark, right off the bat early in my career, even actually before I started, I was handed a cassette, a CD cassette of books basically with Jack and Garry Kinder, had the Earl Nightingale information in there. And so, I literally took that information and started to just dissect it, take notes on it. And then years later, I got a chance to sit under Garry Kinder in an academy that lasted over the course of a year. So, got to personally interact with him some. And then just here in the last couple years as I was getting into the management, full-time management scene, I went out, and hired, and it was a long story how it came together, but an old, very old 43 years with one of the largest insurance companies in North America, and he had left that company being ranked the number three manager. And so, we struck a deal, and I just said, "Man, I'm ready to learn." For over a year, right after I got into management, I just learned from him and his name is Ron Strombon. He's just been a phenomenal coach. We were even running a meeting today, and he was there right by my side. There are many other people, but I would say that Jack and Garry Kinder, Ron Strombon, and another good friend of mine, who became a good friend is Steve Bramlett. He'd been a mentor of mine for many years. So, a number of people. The list goes on, but those would be three people, along with yourself and Dan Mueller, and a few other guys that just really have ... I just take information and run with it. So, thank you.

Mark Miletello:

Yeah, absolutely. It's interesting. I just want to see what's been there to mold someone that rises into a position that you. But I've got to tell you this, the calls I get from you, maybe one or two others have really called me consistently asking the questions. What I love about spending time and investing with you, that time is that I know when I ... you're like, Carl, one of my agents. I just know when I spend that time with you, by the questions you ask, you're doing something really special and you take it and you run with it, and you build upon it, and you give that feedback that, "Hey, here's how I made it work." Absolutely. As far as your career though, this shows about industry pros, and you are definitely a professional in this industry now. You've arrived, I can promise you that. Tell me in your own words maybe a little bit about your rise to success, your struggles. Tell us about your history of working up from scratch in this industry.

Matt Hartness:

Absolutely. Well, I'd have to give my background to pave the way for where I'm at today. I grew up, I was one of six kids, and we didn't have a lot when I was young. So, work ethic was something that I was taught early. Growing up, the idea of running my own little small businesses whether it was mowing yards or just making a buck somewhere, here, there, was important. And so, I quickly ... In high school, sitting down or when I was working, and I'm working with somebody, we're getting paid an hourly rate, and I know that I'm busting my rear. The guy next to me was sitting on the cooler all day. At the end of the day, we make the same amount of money, but we've put in two different levels of effort, I found frustrating. I quickly knew younger in my life that I wanted to be in an industry or in a position that I could get rewarded for my effort. Going to college, one of my dreams, even from a young boy was to live and work on a horse ranch someday. I got to do that. As soon as I got into college during the summer terms, I'd spend time out in Colorado on a horse ranch and would do that in the summers. Then after I ended up graduating from college, I moved out there full-time, was a wrangler. Did that for about a year, realized I couldn't make any money as a ranch hand, loved it, it was my passion, but I decided to move back to my hometown and get into the business world where I could hopefully come back, make some money and then go buy a ranch out the West someday. That's really where my background, and I quickly discovered the insurance business. What attracted me to the insurance business was that it didn't have a cap on my income, it had flexibility. If I wanted to work hard and then play hard, it gave me all that. And so, I started my career and I was an agent for about six years before the company, that I still work with at this time, approached me on becoming an assistant manager. They approached me there just because of some of the success that I was having as an agent. I got a chance to be in the assistant role along with keeping my personal agency. Then as time went on, the company saw that I was doing well there, and then they ended up coming along and asked them if I wanted to step into the full-time management route, of which I ended up taking, and the rest is history. Along that way though, we had a lot of success and hit some various awards, and financially was very rewarded for that as well. It's just been a great ride and something that I truly am grateful for because I know that there are so many other people in a lot of other industries that don't get near the