WEBVTT
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Hey, what is up?
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Welcome to this episode of the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.
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As always, I'm your host, brian LoFermento, and if you lived your whole life thinking gosh, I was not a good student, I didn't find the career path that I enjoyed, but that's why you're pulled to entrepreneurship, then you're going to love today's guest.
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You're going to love his story.
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You're going to love his career transitions and how he has taken massive action to really do something cool in a space that he was familiar with, but something where he gets to serve so many people in a really meaningful and impactful way in a very complex industry.
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So let me tell you about today's guest.
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His name is Ryan George.
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He's the vice president of Part C, which is a national healthcare insurance brokerage specializing in Medicare and individual health insurance.
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His path into the industry, though, was anything but typical, because he will be the first to admit that he was a terrible student and he didn't read a full book until he was in college, but his passion for business led him to the finance and insurance space, where he found success in estate planning, before realizing it wasn't for him.
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So what did he do then?
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Well, he started his first venture in commercial insurance, and it failed.
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And then he decided I'm going to start toying around with and maybe going into veterinary clinics.
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And he decided against that.
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But that's when he discovered Medicare and never looked back.
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Now, ryan and his team help Medicare beneficiaries navigate their coverage, ensuring they're in the best possible plans year after year.
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They partner with financial firms, insurance brokerages and pharmacies to support Medicare clients, and his journey, like so many entrepreneurial journeys, is one of persistence, adaptation and finding success in unexpected places.
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So I'm excited about this one.
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I'm not going to say anything else.
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Let's dive straight into my interview with Ryan George.
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All right, ryan, I am so very excited that you're here with us today.
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First things first.
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Welcome to the show.
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Thanks for having me.
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I really appreciate you having me on.
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Thank you very much.
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Heck.
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Yes, I teased a little bit about your entrepreneurial beginnings with your bio, but take us beyond the bio.
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Who's Ryan?
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How'd you start doing all these things?
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Yeah, sure, so let me.
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Let me, I guess, uh, date back.
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Like you said, I was not, uh, I'm not, a good student.
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Uh, that was never my uh strong suit.
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I uh probably ventured more into the social aspect.
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That was more of my strong suit.
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Uh, out of college it wasn't really sure what I was going to do.
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Uh, ended up going into financial advising and estate planning world, was in that for about 12, 13 years.
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I did that with my partner, went to law school with my dad.
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That's how I ended up getting involved in that, but ultimately it just wasn't for me.
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I hated the aspect of just sitting around with wealthy people just trying to handle things all day.
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For them wasn't really my speed.
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For them wasn't really my speed.
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So, yeah, like you said, I transitioned over.
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I bought a home and auto commercial insurance agency, actually out of Florida, and that failed.
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It was miserable, hated that, learned real quick, was not a fan.
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And then, yeah, found a guy that I was going to partner with for vet clinics.
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He owned about three of them, ended up selling those had a non-compete.
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And then I fell into the Medicare space.
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And here I am today.
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Yes, I love that overview, especially because, ryan, here on this show, we so appreciate transparency and honesty and the fact that you are so open about the fact that your first venture didn't work.
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I'd love for you to go deeper there, because most sane people we entrepreneurs we're definitely not sane, but most sane people would go through that and say, all right, I'm just going to go get a job.
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That is the way, easier way.
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Walk us through your mindset when you decided, no, this is the beginning of an entrepreneurial journey.
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Yeah for sure.
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So this kind of dates back to when I just graduated college, wasn't real sure what I was going to do and I started I had to do a business plan, and the business plan that I drew up, uh, it was called party you.
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Uh, I know not very uh, not very creative uh, but it was similar.
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It was around 2010 ish.
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This was similar to when Barstool sports was kind of on the rise and they were doing their uh kind of party stuff.
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You know things like that.
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Um, so I did that with a buddy of mine for a little bit.
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That was kind of my first soiree.
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Uh, we did some colleges and things like that.
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Uh ran out of money quick, realized I needed a job, went to the uh financial world, if you will, and then from there, uh said, well, I got a lot of business owner clients, let's do the commercial route.
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Went there.
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Um, they agreed to allow me to come.
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One of my largest clients was a privately held tool rental company.
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That's nationwide.
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So I thought that was going to be a layup.
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It was anything but Basically, when I got in, they said okay, we don't really want you to do the commercial aspect of things anymore, we just want you to focus on home and auto.
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That was for about two years, couldn't take it anymore, bowed out, and yeah, I was 25, 26, 27 is when I got out of that.
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But yeah, it was a tough pill to swallow.
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I really thought that I could kind of make it work and just grind it out, but that was anything but.
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So, yeah, I mean I just I don't know, I'm just a big believer in you know, you just kind of keep going until you ultimately figure out what it is that you're kind of meant to do and don't let things stop you, because at the end of the day, I mean, the only way you're gonna, the only way you lose the game is if you quit.
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So I just kind of kept trudging along if you will and along if you will, and that's how I ended up where I am today.
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Yeah, that's absolutely true, and it's I mean, you and I are of the same generation.
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So, looking at what with what Dave Portnoy did with Barstool Sports, that was also an inspiration for me early on in my entrepreneurial scene, because I think you and I would both admit that it looks easier than it is.
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That's why I have all the respect in the world for Dave and everything that they've built over at Barstool Sports.
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But I would also argue, I want to add on to the point that you made, and that is not only are you willing to just do things and figure it out along the way, but you also accumulated skills, experiences, perspectives that you probably didn't realize would serve you in future endeavors, whether you like them or not.
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Talk to us about some of those skills or mindsets or experiences that you picked up that in hindsight you're thinking, gosh, I'm glad I did that, because now I use that to this very day.
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Yeah for sure.
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So, uh, I think one of the biggest things is is, I mean, I know it's cliche and kind of corny, but just networking and just talking to people in general.
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Um, obviously, today this is a podcast, I guess, about me.
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Uh, I'm not usually very.
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I am open, I'm an open book.
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I'm not usually very comfortable talking about myself, so ordinarily I just ask a lot of questions and listen to people.
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So that was one of the big keys, I would say, to kind of getting to where I am and hopefully where I'm going to go is just being able to mix it up with different people in that kind of way, because ultimately you don't know where you can go.
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So I don't ever really like to close a book on anybody or burn a bridge.
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You don't know what ultimately the future will bring you.
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So I always try to keep an open mind with that.
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I always try to listen.
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I never know who's going to have an idea for me that might not be for me in the current moment, but hey, maybe they have a better sense of what's good for me.
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So I'm always down to just listen to people and I think that's one of the key things.
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And then, ultimately.
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I used to want to own car dealerships growing up, so in college I sold cars.
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This was before any of the car salesmen had computers or anything in their desk.
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So my dad was like, look, if you want to learn something and I usually don't give him credit, but I'll give him credit here he said, if you want to learn something, go learn sales.
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And that's what I did.
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So I did very good that summer selling cars Coincidentally blew all the money on material things that my apartment got broken into in college and all the stuff got stolen anyways.
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So I learned the hard way about not blowing all your money.
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But yeah, that's a roundabout way of just, you know, keeping your options open, learning sales, then obviously just keeping doors open because you don't know what the future will hold.
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Yeah for sure, which leads us to the industry that you are, in which, when I look at that, I'm like Ryan.
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Are you crazy?
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The world of Medicare, holy cow.
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What industry is more complex than that world?
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Talk to us about Part C.
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Yeah, so Part C, like you said in the introduction, it's a national health insurance brokerage firm.
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We specialize in Medicare, but we do all things health insurance related.
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It's really not that complex.
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If you have insurance health insurance, and most people do you can kind of figure it out and learn it.
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The most complex part of it is the hurdle of understanding the differences between all the plans and the parts from social security to CMS, which is Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services, and ultimately it's something that even when I was doing financial advising and estate planning, I knew nothing about.
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My mom was a trauma nurse and she has lupus, the autoimmune disorder, so she had to go on to Medicare under 65.
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Most Medicare people are 65 and above.
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She had to go on it under 65 because she wasn't able to work anymore.
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I know I talk fast, so I apologize.
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Um, she wasn't able to work anymore and the guy that she was dealing with knew of me and said hey, is Ryan interested in Medicare?
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I scoffed at it.
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Uh, this was years prior and uh, now you know, uh, I am here today doing it.
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But it is a complex thing, especially when you're dealing with the older generation very face-to-face, very human interaction.
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They do not like dealing with you on the phone, they do not like dealing with it over the computer.
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Really, a lot of times we get people that say, hey, I don't even have a computer, can you guys help us?
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And that's really where we kind of come into play.
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And the most beautiful thing about it, brian, is that ultimately it is federally regulated, so we don't get paid off of the premium the way that it was when I was in the estate planning world and the financial advising world.
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So somebody that's sitting across from me as long as you're talking to a broker, that's the most important thing, because ultimately we don't have a dog in the fight.
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All we're there to do is educate you and then we'll give you our opinion, but you pick what you think is the most suitable for you.
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And I will say that the government does a pretty good job of that because ultimately, like I said, whether the plan costs $1 or $1,000 a month, the broker's getting paid the exact same.
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Yeah, it's an interesting world.
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I'm excited to go a little bit deeper, but part of what I hear is obviously your sales beginning Huge shout out to your dad.
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I know you joke that you don't like to give him credit, but honestly, the fact that he got you into sales early, that is a transferable skill to literally every industry.
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And when I look at your professional background up to this point estate planning, financial advising now you're talking about insurance A lot of that is education.
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Talk to us about the role of teaching and educating when it comes to serving the clients that you work with.
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Yeah, sure, so, uh, when I I always liked teaching, shout out to teachers.
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I think they have a very hard job.
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Even though I didn't like school, I like the idea of educating and teaching and helping people and walking people through, and I think, with my background in estate planning, for probably the first five, seven years I'd be in these meetings with accountants, financial advisors, family office advisors all different types.
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I had no business being in some of these rooms people that are worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
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I had no business being in these rooms, so I didn't really get a chance to speak, which was kind of a blow to my ego, if you will, because I set up these meetings but then ultimately I'm in them and people pretty much didn't even realize I was there.
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So I was able to, from that, learn a lot of valuable skills when it comes to breaking down complex matters and then basically giving it to you in digestible form, because, at the end of the day, I have been in rooms with people that will go round and round.
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I've been on calls with people industry, people that will go round and round, and they just bore people to death.
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And the one most important thing I learned when it comes to teaching and breaking things down, is that if you just give somebody the relevant stuff today and ask a lot of questions and try to figure that out, but if you're just giving them what is most important to them today and that does come with a little bit of, I guess, emotional intelligence and social awareness and all that stuff and it comes with time but if you are good at asking the questions, listening and then just giving them the basics of what they need to know, that's the most important thing, because we can sit here for the next five hours and I can bore you about insurance and Medicare, but I could realistically give you a crash, crash course in I don't know probably 12 minutes and you'd be able to go talk to a relative with somewhat, uh, idea as to what the hell you're talking about.
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Yeah, I love that and, ryan, I absolutely believe you.
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That's, that's us Northeasterners as we move quick, we talk fast.
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Absolutely, I love that.
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I want I feel like this is probably an appropriate part to talk to you about networking, because you brought that up and I know I cringe, even though I'm an extreme extrovert.
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When I think about networking, I'm just like no, I don't want to do it, and I know that so many listeners feel that way as well.
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It seems like you leverage listening and asking questions and natural curiosity and, of course, emotional intelligence.
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It seems to me like you actually have learned to embrace the networking side of what you do.
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Talk to us about how Ryan George navigates the world of networking.
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Yeah.
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So I would say I don't do the networking in the formal sense because I hate it, the events, I'm not good at that.
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What I am good at, though, is following up.
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If somebody's like hey, I want you to meet somebody, I will talk to anybody, I'll have a conversation with anybody, and then, ultimately, leveraging those relationships not for me but for them and something that I can help them with.
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And I know that's corny and I know it might sound self-serving and things like that, but at the end of the day, it really is true.
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I have a lot of different connections in different areas, so I'm always trying to piece things together for other people, and I know that, ultimately, there have been times when I've been left out of getting paid on things or commissions or things like that, and I know that happens and it sucks, and I don't want that to happen, but I have no real control over it once I turn over the relationship.
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But I have learned that if you are able to connect the dots for people, that it comes back full circle, and it really is true.
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So I would give advice if anybody wants the unsolicited advice to ultimately not really do the traditional networking stuff, because, at the end of the day, the people that are going to that, they usually have just as little, if not less, connections than you do, and a lot of times it's people that are just trying to you know, I don't know kind of beat their chest and say what they do and at the end of the day I just don't really know how effective that is.
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So yeah, I mean just talking to different people being in different spaces, and especially now with being in the Medicare space, because we deal with people that are at the Medicaid line.
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So that would be, you know, poverty line all the way up to you know somebody that has a company worth tens and tens of millions of dollars, because at the once you turn 65 or once you are eligible for Medicare, most instances I won't get into the weeds of it all, but most instances is when you get booted onto it.
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So we can't really discriminate the way that I would when I was in the financial advising and estate planning space.
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So I think just talking to people and just kind of seeing what they do and seeing how you can be of help and I know that's become more popular over the years and it can come across as self-serving a lot of times because people are usually a little bit leery what are they trying to do?
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But I do think if you're genuine with it and you're honest about it and you really are trying to help, I think it will come back full circle Not necessarily from them, but maybe from somebody else on the road.
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Yeah, and I think honestly, ryan, I'll tell you this as someone who talks to entrepreneurs for a living.
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It shines through in the way that you talk about it and your attitude of just openness and transparency of hey, I love helping people.
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I know it'll come back in some way.
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I don't know exactly how, but that's why I'm here and and that in and of itself is just an abundance mindset that you're right, it just reaps rewards in so many ways.
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I will ask you this while we're on the air, because I'm so fascinated by it Tactically how the heck do you manage all of the different people that you know and how do you connect those dots for people?
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Because I'm not the best when it comes to my phone.
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I've always wondered how people like you organize your phone, your records, your thoughts.
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How do you stay on top of all that stuff?
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So I will say it probably goes back to my years of not being good at school because the social aspect was what I wanted to shine at.
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So, you know, I honestly just with my phone, and then we have different platforms and different systems and things like that.
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But yeah, I mean, that's kind of the basic of it all is that we just try to find people that are in one arena and that we can possibly introduce them to another arena and then let them kind of run with the relationship.
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It's not really our forte in all areas of insurance.
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Obviously you can't be an expert in everything, but you know we have different people for commercial insurance, we have different people for personal insurance, we have people for financial advice.
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You know, there's just a totally different, different way to go about it and everybody has a different way to go about it.
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But the other thing too is is because we do get a chance especially me to sit down with so many different people.
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I just try to keep it in the back of my head.
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Okay, this person I just met with a guy and his wife the last week uh owns a home maintenance company and, coincidentally enough, two weeks ago, uh, I told my wife.
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We need to find some sort of handyman.
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I wasn't sure, uh, I know nothing about that stuff.
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So, uh, now he's coming over to do some things for me.
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So I just always am trying to connect the dots and think that, okay, if I can put this person with this person, obviously that'll look good.
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And in Medicare it really is one of those things where one person can turn to five, can turn to five to 20, so on and so forth.
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It's not necessarily that in financial advising and estate planning because everybody wants to run from you.
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I was the enemy sitting across the tables of so many people, but now we're just there, like you kind of stated more of the educator, and that's all we're there to do is just educate, listen and then, if we can provide value afterwards.
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That's something that we always try to do and that we're always trying to look, always looking to do.
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Yeah, and it seems to me from the outside, looking in that, a core part of your strategy.
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It leverages so many of these ingredients that we've already talked about, and that is partnerships.
00:18:35.613 --> 00:18:41.226
I think it is so smart the fact that you guys partner with financial firms, insurance brokerages, pharmacies.
00:18:41.226 --> 00:18:45.136
Talk to us about that partnership strategy and how it's become that driving force.
00:18:46.404 --> 00:18:47.007
Yeah for sure.
00:18:47.007 --> 00:18:56.805
So, like I said about my mom, there was the Medicare aspect to it and when I was in the financial advising and estate planning world, we stuck to our lane.
00:18:56.805 --> 00:19:01.497
So if we needed a tax attorney, we would bring one in.
00:19:01.497 --> 00:19:04.855
If we needed a specific accountant, we would bring one in.
00:19:04.855 --> 00:19:06.009
So I kind of learned that young.
00:19:06.009 --> 00:19:11.277
I started doing that, like I said, when I was 22, after my first failed business, if you will.
00:19:12.464 --> 00:19:33.795
But yeah, when we partner with these people, it's mainly because the Medicare space predominantly is and I'm making these numbers up, I have no idea but I would say 98% of the Medicare agents that we meet are kind of girl scouts in a sense, where they just set up a booth and they're like hey, we got Medicare and there's only certain times when you can enroll in Medicare.
00:19:33.795 --> 00:19:37.074
If you're new to Medicare, it's when you're turning 65.
00:19:37.074 --> 00:19:45.897
And then everything else is during the open enrollment for all those annoying commercials that you guys all see on TV for the last 30 years with Joe Namath, johnny Walker, things like that.
00:19:45.897 --> 00:19:51.125
But what we have done is we've kind of taken a different approach, and we're not the only ones to do it.
00:19:51.125 --> 00:19:59.169
There's a lot of great brokerages out there that do this, but you partner with those financial advisor firms, the accountants, the pharmacies.
00:19:59.329 --> 00:20:15.917
We had a contract that's on pause with one of the largest privately held grocery store chains in the United States for their pharmacy customers not for their employees, but for their pharmacy and the customers who they come through there.
00:20:15.917 --> 00:20:20.556
So what we would do is we would just basically go in and say, hey, we can partner with you.
00:20:20.556 --> 00:20:33.971
There are some legality issues when it comes to commissions and things like that and how we pay, but ultimately we're just a value add for people and we get brought in a lot and it is something that very few people do, uh, especially at a larger level.
00:20:33.971 --> 00:20:51.546
So we are kind of able to get in with people more from that area, just because there aren't a lot of people that specialize in this, let alone people that have big agencies or big financial firms or pharmacies that even know somebody that truly does specialize in solely this.
00:20:51.566 --> 00:21:09.935
Yeah, it's so clear to me honestly, even more so after our conversation here today, how important relationships are to you honestly even more so after our conversation here today how important relationships are to you and I'm just thinking about the fact that you're managing these partnerships and relationships that you just gave us insights on You're also simultaneously managing the actual end consumers, the clients, the customers that you're working with.
00:21:09.935 --> 00:21:11.826
How's your time split up, ryan?
00:21:11.826 --> 00:21:14.853
I'm so excited to hear how you manage all these different sides of the coin.
00:21:15.854 --> 00:21:17.897
So I will you know again.
00:21:17.897 --> 00:21:18.900
I said I'm fully transparent.
00:21:18.900 --> 00:21:37.972
I am not good at service work, not because I'm not responsive, I just I hate it Because you know kind of similar how you were saying, like with the introvert, extrovert type scenario If I have a problem, I have no patience Maybe it's a Northeast thing, like you said, and I just want to get things done immediately.
00:21:37.972 --> 00:21:40.897
So I call somebody as quickly as I can to get it handled.
00:21:40.897 --> 00:21:50.413
I have a lot of people that rely on me and us for service, so I'm not good at that.
00:21:50.413 --> 00:21:51.596
So I try to get that off my plate as much as I can.
00:21:51.596 --> 00:21:58.921
But when it comes to handling all of that it's a lot of hats to juggle and I know people are much better at it than I am.
00:21:59.763 --> 00:22:05.817
Ultimately being able to pass off that was one of the things that I learned at from the estate planning side.
00:22:05.817 --> 00:22:11.657
The place I was at was wonderful in a lot of learning and teaching lessons.
00:22:11.657 --> 00:22:18.375
But yeah, just being able to pass off like listen, you can't be everything to everybody and that's okay.
00:22:18.375 --> 00:22:26.707
So I just try to get in, get out with what I know and then afterwards just kind of follow up, say, hey, you know this is what we talked about.
00:22:26.707 --> 00:22:28.411
These are your point of context.
00:22:28.411 --> 00:22:29.554
Hey, you mentioned this.
00:22:29.554 --> 00:22:32.989
This is my guy, derek, that handles all this stuff over here.
00:22:32.989 --> 00:22:40.468
This is my guy, jeff, that handles this stuff over here and then just kind of leave it from there.
00:22:40.509 --> 00:22:41.391
But I will be honest with you.
00:22:41.391 --> 00:22:48.811
I'm not good with boundaries, and we get I get texts at 9 PM on Saturdays and I do respond just because I'm sitting here and I don't have anything else to do.
00:22:48.811 --> 00:22:53.307
Uh, my wife and I don't have any kids yet, so maybe when that happens, uh, that'll change.
00:22:53.307 --> 00:22:56.332
But uh, yeah, shout out to my wife too, because she does.
00:22:56.332 --> 00:22:57.752
Uh, she has very understanding of it.
00:22:58.554 --> 00:22:59.634
I love that, ryan.
00:22:59.634 --> 00:23:00.596
That's why we have that phrase.
00:23:00.596 --> 00:23:02.878
Behind every great man is an even greater woman.
00:23:03.179 --> 00:23:03.660
That's it.
00:23:03.700 --> 00:23:16.452
That's it for sure, and I will say, having interviewed so many entrepreneurs, I've always found the baby effect is incredible, where actually, yes, time is shorter, which places a larger emphasis on the fact that we still need to get things done.
00:23:16.452 --> 00:23:24.515
So I join you in having no kids right now, but I imagine things will change when we reach that point in our lives.
00:23:24.515 --> 00:23:25.337
So exciting things to look forward to.
00:23:25.337 --> 00:23:28.769
With that in mind, I love reflecting on all the lessons that you learned in the past.
00:23:28.769 --> 00:23:39.298
So I do want to pick on that entrepreneurial mind of yours of what's different, because I would imagine that through each experience, through each venture, you grew and you started to operate differently.
00:23:39.298 --> 00:23:50.713
When you look at the work that you're doing these days, where in your mind do you say, oh my gosh, I've become so much better of a delegator we just heard a lot about your delegation skills or a networker, or productivity wise.
00:23:50.713 --> 00:23:53.125
What are some of those changes that you acknowledge in yourself?
