How to Ask The Right Questions Using Thoughtful Curiosity

How to Ask The Right Questions Using Thoughtful Curiosity written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with Dr. Amber L. Wright

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Amber Wright. Dr. Amber L. Wright is a communication expert, coach, facilitator, and former communication professor. She helps organizations improve how they make their people feel seen, heard, and valued. As an executive coach and speaker, she guides leaders to express their highest selves with authentic authority and grace. Her popular TEDx Talk, “Ask Better Questions to Build Better Connections,” has inspired people around the world to become stronger communicators in their everyday lives. Dr. Wright has been featured in Fast Company, Essence, and Mashable, and is the creator of Can We Talk? Cards – 50 questions designed to take the guesswork out of small talk.

We talk about the importance of asking the right questions to foster better connections and how self-awareness and active listening are crucial in effective communication, especially in business settings. Dr. Wright’s emphasis on making others feel seen and heard and how thoughtful curiosity can enhance interpersonal relationships. Our conversation also touches on navigating different personalities within teams and strategies for resolving conflicts.

Key Takeaways:

• Every relationship begins or ends with a question.
• Asking open-ended questions invites more profound reflection.
• Self-awareness is essential for effective leadership.
• Listening to understand is more important than listening to reply.
• Thoughtful curiosity helps in asking appropriate questions.
• The relationship with oneself is the most important.
• Questions can help challenge limiting beliefs.
• Understanding personality differences improves team communication.
• Conflict resolution requires understanding the other person’s perspective.
• Engagement in conversations can be enhanced through thoughtful questions.

 

Chapters:

• [00:00] The Power of Questions
• [03:06] Feeling Seen and Self-Awareness
• [05:54] The Art of Listening
• [09:02] Engaging in Business Conversations
• [12:06] Intrapersonal Communication and Self-Reflection
• [15:03] Navigating Different Personalities
• [18:02] Conflict Resolution Strategies

More About Dr. Amber L. Wright:

• Check out Amber L. Wright’s Website
• Connect with Amber L. Wright on LinkedIn

 

Duct Tape Transcript

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John Jantsch (00:00)

Hello and welcome to another episode of the duct tape marketing podcast. This is John Jantsch and my guest today is Dr. Amber Wright. She is a communication expert, coach, facilitator and former communication professor. She helps organizations improve how they make their people feel seen, heard and valued. As an executive coach and speaker, she guides leaders to express their highest selves with authentic authority and grace. Her popular TEDx talk, Ask Better Questions to Build Better Connections has inspired people around the world to become stronger communicators in their everyday lives. So do I call you Dr. Amber, Dr. Wright? Either way, welcome to the show.

Dr. Amber Wright (00:41)

Thank you. can call me Dr. Amber. Amber's just fine as well.

John Jantsch (00:45)

So let's start with referencing your TED Talk. Why questions? Why are questions so powerful? Or why do you suggest that's the medium for better connections?

Dr. Amber Wright (00:58)

That's because every relationship that we ever enter into, personal or professional, begins or ends with a question. What's your name? How are you? Are you single? Are you hiring? In the middle of it, what are we doing? Is this working? Is this not working? Is it over? So having that realization is the impetus of my work and in the sense that knowing that right why aren't we better at asking questions since they're so important.

John Jantsch (01:28)

Yeah. So as I listed that list of questions you gave as examples there, I mean, in some cases they're almost punctuation to conversations, right? They're almost not real questions. Like when somebody says, how are you? Do you ever really give that some thought? Well, let me think about it. But you do talk about the right questions though. can you give some examples of what you would suggest are powerful sort of right questions? I know they're probably different different situations, but let's go there for a

Dr. Amber Wright (01:52)

Yeah, I frame a better question or a right question, a good question as one that is open ended, obviously, and that also serves as an invitation. It invites the person to reflect. And I tell often, and I say this in my talk, my TEDx about how when my teenager now, when she was in grade school, I'd pick her up and say, how was your day? That's technically an open ended question, but a better question is, what was the best part of your day?

John Jantsch (02:30)

Yeah.

Dr. Amber Wright (02:30)

today. That gives her an invitation then to reflect on her day and we can have a richer discussion as a result.

John Jantsch (02:38)

It's much easier question to answer too, right? I mean, how was your day? I don't know. Let me think. What did I do all day? Whereas a very specific question, I think, I mean, in a lot of contexts is easier for us. One of the pieces, you know, it's in your bio and I know you talk about it in the talk is this idea of feeling seen. And I think that's, it seems like that's become a pretty common or almost trendy thing to say.

Dr. Amber Wright (02:42)

Dude, yeah.

John Jantsch (03:06)

And I wonder if you could make that practical for us. What does that mean?

Dr. Amber Wright (03:12)

I think when you make someone feel seen, there's something about kind of quietly saying, I see you. And that comes by way of just paying closer attention. It's noticing that, you know, someone on your team is tearful on a call or maybe they are off camera for some reason consistently. It's noticing when it's the drop of the shoulders non-verbally. It's the role of the eye in a meeting. It's being able to kind of notice the things that are happening around you in both times of chemistry and in conflict and be able to say, I see how you might be feeling disappointed by X, Y, and Z thing. How can I support you?

John Jantsch (03:40)

Thanks

Dr. Amber Wright (03:58)

To see someone is to acknowledge them.

John Jantsch (04:02)

So what are some of the kind of most, well, let me back up. was going to ask you for most, like, there's lots of applications, lots of uses for this technique, if you will. But what are you, what role does self-awareness play in this? Right? I mean, as I listened to you talk about that idea of, I mean, you have to really be very aware of yourself, I think, to understand what's going on in the other person's world.

Dr. Amber Wright (04:32)

Absolutely. And that is the harder work that's at play. I give keynotes and talks to leadership teams all the time. And to be a good leader, think the first thing, the first rule of order is to know thyself. You got to know who you are as a person because then that impacts the way that you show up as a leader. So then just interpersonally, who am I as a person?

John Jantsch (04:50)

Right, right.

Dr. Amber Wright (04:59)

How do I take in information? How am I energized? Do I prefer introversion, extroversion? That's why personality assessments are so popular because they help give us language to grow in our self-awareness, to describe what it's like to experience us as people. And I like to encourage people to do that work because it can be such a good investment in all of your interpersonal and professional relationship dynamics. Self-awareness is so key.

John Jantsch (05:26)

So I could create a list. In fact, I have created a list of questions that I plan to ask you, or at least something close to those.

Dr. Amber Wright (05:32)

Yes.

John Jantsch (05:37)

Equally important, as important as, maybe more important than the question is actually hearing what the person said. Right? I mean, so most of us are, I would say the majority of people are not great listeners. How key is that role?

Dr. Amber Wright (05:54)

You're on a roll here, John. think after self-awareness, it's listening. I always say we have two ears and one mouth for a reason so we can listen twice as much as we speak. And that is another layer of the deeper work. Are we slowing down enough to pay attention and to listen to understand, not only to reply. Many times we were just listening for that on-ramp to be able to say whether that person is right or wrong about whatever they're telling you. And that's not true active listening. And I think that's why some people are so bad at it because it takes intention to say, I'm going to look you in the eye. I'm going to be present with you and pay attention to what you're saying so that I can respond thoughtfully.

John Jantsch (06:37)

And let's face it, you have to kind of care about what they're saying.

Dr. Amber Wright (06:44)

Yeah, I think that's relative. Because you might not, but it's still worth it to pay attention.

John Jantsch (06:50)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you want to give a couple examples? A lot of my listeners are business owners, entrepreneurs, or they work in team leaders and things of that nature. What are some examples of the different places, say, in a business that this is important? mean, we've got customers, some of them are happy, some of them are not so happy. We've got team members, we've got prospects in selling environments.

Dr. Amber Wright (07:14)

Okay, cool.

John Jantsch (07:19)

You know, is this what you're talking about? Questioning a skill that we ought to bring to every one of those situations.

Dr. Amber Wright (07:25)

Absolutely. You can't solve the client's problem if you're not listening to what they tell you. When you ask them the question, what's the biggest challenge you're having right now? And listening intently for the answer. And then that's where we paraphrase and say, well, what I hear you saying is you're struggling with your marketing or your messaging isn't landing with your potential clients. This is how I can help you with that. So listening is paramount just as much as and asking really thoughtful questions as well.

John Jantsch (07:58)

Yeah, and I know just in my own selling situation, certainly in my own leadership role with my organization, if I just lecture, people check out pretty fast. And so certainly questioning is a way to keep engagement, keep attention too, isn't it? mean, we all, it's almost like in school, like if you think the teacher's gonna call on you, you're gonna pay more attention, right?

Dr. Amber Wright (08:10)

Yeah. Yeah.

John Jantsch (08:24)

Even if all they're doing is repeating back what you said. I mean, how much of that is almost a tactic in some ways to keep people engaged?

Dr. Amber Wright (08:34)

It's a lot of it is and I think that's why it's important for us to be thoughtful about how we show up and how we engage. You mentioned earlier the example of how we say things like, how are you doing? Even though that's a question, we use it as a punctuation statement. I don't answer. My answer to that is I'm good, thank you. Because I want to pause and say, do I really want to ask this person how they're doing?

John Jantsch (08:55)

Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Amber Wright (09:02)

If I know that I don't have time to actually listen. And that helps me to kind of slow down enough to be thoughtful about that. And that's what I think that can be of service to us as business owners and entrepreneurs. Again, are we asking thoughtful questions and are we listening intently for the responses?

John Jantsch (09:20)

How much awareness may be the right word, but I know sometimes people, they're clearly, they've clearly listened to you or had coaching from you. So they're asking me questions, but I don't know them well enough to feel like that's a question I should answer to you. know, somebody before I meet them or even on LinkedIn, you know, will say, what are you most excited about, you know, this year in your business? And I'm like, I don't even know who you are.

Dr. Amber Wright (09:32)

Hahaha! Mm-hmm. Yeah.

John Jantsch (09:50)

That seems like too far of a reach. So, you know, how do you kind of meter out like what's an appropriate question given the level of our relationship?

Dr. Amber Wright (10:01)

That I think comes down to being able to just keep your finger on the pulse of the environment. know, that's such thing as reading the room and engaging. Or if I'm at a networking event or if I'm at a conference, I'm meeting somebody for the first time. I'm not going to tell them my whole life story. I some people do, but you know, I'm going to be thoughtful and going to be mindful. So I use what I call thoughtful curiosity and that is to inquire without being intrusive.

John Jantsch (10:07)

Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Amber Wright (10:24)

And that takes, it goes back to that big I word of intention, that takes me thinking about like, all right, if I'm going to this event, how do I want to show up and how do I want to engage with people? And then let that inform the types of questions that you ask. So for example, if you're meeting someone for the first time, instead of just the, what do you do? You can say, what inspires you about your work? It's a more thoughtful question, but it's not intrusive. And it's a better question, just, so what do you do? Right? So it's that kind of intention that I'm speaking of.

John Jantsch (10:56)

All right, so let's say your intention is awesome, and you ask a question like that, and it really goes to like a dark or negative place, you right off the bat. And you're like, wow, I really wasn't trying to go there. How do you handle situations that kind of go off, you know, where you were intending to go?

Dr. Amber Wright (11:17)

That goes back to being just a good human, I think. If someone responds and they're just like, well, you know, I threw my back out, my wife left me, I'm having a bad day. You know, I'm sorry to hear that today's not going well for you. I hope that it gets better. And then you let it go.

John Jantsch (11:20)

well, we're done here. If that's your answer, we're done here. Right, right, right, right. Yeah. Right. Okay, so we're talking about asking questions to others. I do a lot of meditation practice and a lot of the teachings around meditation are getting kind of the questions we ask ourselves out of the way or at least not holding us back. How do we frame questions we ask ourselves in a way that are going to be the right questions?

Dr. Amber Wright (11:53)

I love that you asked that question, John. It's one of my favorite things to do, to talk about, because I say so often we focus on interpersonal communication. We don't think enough about intrapersonal communication. So the number one relationship that you have in this world is the one that you have with yourself. So these same principles apply to how we talk to ourselves. I don't meditate heavily, but I'm a journaler.

John Jantsch (12:14)

Right.Mm-hmm.

Dr. Amber Wright (12:31)

And that's my opportunity to say, what's going on girl? How are you really feeling about such things or about whatever is going on in your life? what do you want to do about it? What are you thinking about it? And just again, it's another invitation for reflection so that I can grow in my self-awareness. I love communicating with myself and I talk out loud that, you know, I'm not ashamed to admit it. I talk out loud and I think that all of those things are in service to us getting to know ourselves better, which informs the way that we show up.

John Jantsch (13:04)

So let's stay on that track a little bit. I mean, some of the questions that I think we ask ourselves, they're sometimes deeply rooted in what all of our stories have been, right? And some of those really are limiting, that come from limiting beliefs. How do we, let's say we're saying, I want to stop doing that. I want to get out of that. Are there questions or are there practices that we can use to challenge our own limitations?

Dr. Amber Wright (13:31)

wow, that's an excellent question, John. I think is the answer to that. And what I mean by that is what's my issue? Really? How am I feeling? Really? That's when we can dig a little deeper and get to the true heart of the matter. And a question that was very helpful to me that I listened, I heard in a book that I listened to last year, the author said, when it comes to defining or deciding what your true wants are, she says to ask yourself. If I knew that it would work out and I knew nobody would be mad at me, what would I want then? Wow, it was such a powerful tool to get me to reflect. So that's when you can get as honest as you can because you're the one that has to live with your truth. Yeah.

John Jantsch (14:28)

That's what's holding us back, right? All right, so let's go back to teams again. Sometimes teams are made up of people that have vastly different personalities. So are there ways to, like some people, man, you come in, you ask them the most direct question you can, and they're all about it. And then there are definitely other people that are like, no, we got to go through about eight layers of this before we're to get anywhere deep, right? So how do you...

Dr. Amber Wright (14:38)

Yes.

John Jantsch (14:55)

How do you approach those situations where you've really got vastly different personalities that you need to communicate?

Dr. Amber Wright (15:03)

This is why I love, again, personality assessments. I'm a certified MyArch Greggs practitioner, for example, and we use those tools because if I'm onboarded to your team and I'm working at Duct Tape Marketing now, we're sitting down, we're having this meeting, and I say, you know, the way that I like to take in information is I need a lot of details, but you as the CEO are an idealist person, it's helpful for me to know that.

John Jantsch (15:06)

Yeah.

Dr. Amber Wright (15:26)

I think sometimes on teams, don't spend enough time talking about our individual selves and our individual approaches to the way that we work. And then we end up with some misunderstandings, miscommunications, challenges, conflicts, because I'm taking it personally that John is a big ideas person and he doesn't give me the details that I need in order for me to feel secure to do my job. So I think carving out spaces for us to actually say, what is your communication style? What is your conflict style?

John Jantsch (15:55)

Yeah.

Dr. Amber Wright (15:55)

What is your leadership style? And being able to talk about that, I think can then empower and equip teams to work more efficiently. We just, we're so busy we don't have time doing it.

John Jantsch (16:03)

Do you think people know the answers to that? Like, have you asked me what's my conflict style? I don't know. Do I know? It's usually like to run, but...

Dr. Amber Wright (16:14)

Also, you're an avoider. Avoiding, competing, collaborating, compromising, accommodating. My avoiders are my runners.

John Jantsch (16:26)

Actually, I've gotten much better about that. So let's talk about conflict for a minute. are there particular, I mean, in situations where, you know, sometimes there's emotions involved, but sometimes there's just really deeply not agreeing opinions. For example, tomorrow, depending on those of you when you're listening to this, tomorrow's election day in the United States, and there seem to be really differing opinions, very strong on different sides.

Dr. Amber Wright (16:43)

Mm-hmm. Yes.

John Jantsch (16:55)

You know, is there a way to mitigate conflict or to try to, you know, try to be seen and see, you know, that other person when you have really strong differing opinions.

Dr. Amber Wright (17:02)

Yeah, that's a loaded question. But I think that my answer to that is no. I think when comes down to, when we were talking about handling conflict effectively, like a mature grownup is one to consider the other person's perspective. I don't think we do that enough. And taking a moment to think about like, if I'm this person or I'm in their shoes, can I see things from where they're coming from?

John Jantsch (17:10)

You don't have to name any names.

Dr. Amber Wright (17:38)

Having the wherewithal to name what the issue actually is, because sometimes we get caught up in the sparks of conflict, and that draws us away from the actual issue. And if we can stay focused on what the issue actually is, and name it and frame it in such a way we use this device called iStatements to say, I felt this way when you did x thing.

John Jantsch (17:47)

Yes, yes, yes.

Dr. Amber Wright (18:02)

It's less about the behavior of the person themselves, but really about how you reacted to the choice that they made. That allows for more fruitful conversation, but we've got to tamp all of the sparks down a little bit so that we can get to the heart of the matter and actually resolve the thing. But we're so impatient. We want to yell. We want to argue. We want to be right. Those are my computers in conflict. Someone's going to lose and it's not going to be me, right? So understanding.

John Jantsch (18:26)

Yes.

Dr. Amber Wright (18:28)

There's such thing as time, place and manner for everything, but just kind of also then making a point to say, I didn't really enjoy what happened in the meeting the other day. Things got heated. Can we circle back and come back to this tomorrow at two o'clock and have a discussion about it when we've been able to both think about our differing perspectives. But, you know, that takes more effort than sometimes we have the time to give.

John Jantsch (18:51)

So you're saying name calling is like off the table. Is that what you're saying?

Dr. Amber Wright (18:54)

If you want to, you write that in your journal. Write the name calling in your journal. That's where you can tell yourself the whole truth. Just for you and you alone.

John Jantsch (19:02)

All right, so I'm going to put you on the spot. What is your favorite question to ask somebody, particularly maybe somebody you're just meeting for the first time?

Dr. Amber Wright (19:13)

It's the question that I used earlier, what's the best part of, what's been the best part of your day today? Because you're gonna get a different answer every time. So I'm gonna ask you that if I can. What's been the best part of your day today, John?

John Jantsch (19:17)

Yeah, you know, I live in the mountains, and we got about eight inches of snow last night and, I just think that, well, it's, it's pretty magical to wake up and have eight inches of snow if, unless you just really don't like it.

Dr. Amber Wright (19:30)

Wow. There you have that. I love that. And that then is going to come from me to ask you more questions like, wow, you know, how do you manage living? Exactly. You got it.

John Jantsch (19:45)

That's right. I've invited you now, right, instead of you prying. Instead of you prying. Absolutely. Well, Amber, it was awesome having you take a few moments to stop by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. Is there someplace you'd invite people to connect with you and learn more about your work?

Dr. Amber Wright (20:02)

Absolutely. The hub of all things, Dr. Amber Wright is wordswellsaid.com. I'm also active on LinkedIn. If you search for my full name, Dr. Amber Wright, you'll see me there, my little pink sweater. So definitely connect with me there. And I've had such a good time talking to you today.

John Jantsch (20:19)

Awesome. Well, again, I appreciate you taking a few moments and maybe we'll run into you one of these days out there on the road.

Dr. Amber Wright (20:25)

Not in snow in the mountains.

John Jantsch (20:29)

Not everyone's cup of tea, that's for sure.

Dr. Amber Wright (20:32)

Absolutely. Thank you, John.

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Why You Should (Never) Play It Safe

Why You Should (Never) Play It Safe written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with Chase Jarvis

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Chase Jarvis. Chase Jarvis is an award-winning artist, entrepreneur, and one of the past decade’s most influential photographers. He’s created campaigns for major brands like Apple, Nike, and Red Bull, and directed Portrait of a City, earning an Emmy nomination. His fine art has been showcased globally, and he contributed to the Pulitzer-winning Snowfall story in The New York Times.

As a tech innovator, Jarvis created Best Camera, the first photo-based social networking app, and wrote the bestseller Creative Calling. He also founded CreativeLive, an online learning platform acquired by Fiverr in 2021, where over 50 million students have honed their creative skills.

In his new book Never Play It Safe, Jarvis dives deep into the power of safety and focused attention as key drivers of success. We examine strategies for conquering self-doubt, uncover the transformative impact of play in our lives, and underscore the essential role of practice in mastering any skill. Jarvis passionately reminds us that life’s most rewarding experiences often await beyond the boundaries of our comfort zones and urges us to focus intently on what truly matters.

Key Takeaways:

• Safety is often a construct that holds us back.
• What we focus on defines our reality.
• Attention is a superpower that shapes our experiences.
• Self-talk is crucial; we must be kind to ourselves.
• Playfulness is essential for creativity and joy.
• Everyone starts as a beginner; it’s part of the journey.
• Success is often a result of consistent practice.
• Practices and habits are crucial to achieving our goals.
• Unfortunately we are influenced by those who have given up on their dreams.
• We must challenge societal norms about success and safety.

Chapters:

• [00:00] Introduction to Chase Jarvis and His Journey
• [02:51] Defining Safety and Its Impact on Creativity
• [05:50] The Role of Attention in Achieving Success
• [08:49] Overcoming Self-Doubt and Imposter Syndrome
• [11:59] The Importance of Play in Life and Work
• [14:54] The Power of Practice in Mastery
• [17:57] Conclusion and Where to Find Chase Jarvis

 

More About Chase Jarvis:

• Check out Chase Jarvis’ Website
• Connect with Chase Jarvis on LinkedIn
• Grab a copy of Never Play It Safe: A Practical Guide to Freedom, Creativity, and a Life You Love 

 

This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by:

Nobody does data better than Oracle. Train your AI models at twice the speed and less than half of the cost of other clouds. If you want to do more and spend less, take a free test drive at Oracle.

 

 

 

Duct Tape Transcript

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Testimonial (00:00): I was like, I found it. I found it. This is what I've been looking for. I can honestly say it has genuinely changed the way I run my business. It's changed the results that I'm seeing. It's changed my engagement with clients. It's changed my engagement with the team. I couldn't be happier. Honestly. It's the best investment I ever made.

John Jantsch (00:16): What you just heard was a testimonial from a recent graduate of the Duct Tape Marketing certification intensive program for fractional CMOs marketing agencies and consultants just like them. You could choose our system to move from vendor to trusted advisor, attract only ideal clients, and confidently present your strategies to build monthly recurring revenue. Visit DTM world slash scale to book your free advisory call and learn more. It's time to transform your approach. Book your call today, DTM World slash scale.

(01:02): Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Chase Jarvis. He's an award-winning artist entrepreneur. In one of the past decades most influential photographers, he created campaigns for major brands like Apple, Nike, and Red Bull, and directed Portrait of a City earning an Emmy nomination. He's also a founder of Creative Live, an online learning platform acquired by Fiverr in 2021, which where over 50 million students have honed their creative skills. But he's out with a new book called Never Play It Safe, A Practical Guide to Freedom, creativity, and a Life You Love. So Chase, welcome back to the show.

Chase Jarvis (01:46): John, thanks for hosting. It's nice to see your face. It's been a little bit,

John Jantsch (01:49): It's been a little bit, I have fond memories of Creative Live.

Chase Jarvis (01:54): I

John Jantsch (01:54): Got to do two shows there. It was a lot of fun. You really did something very significant there. Well,

Chase Jarvis (01:59): Thank you. Those were impactful shows that you put together and grateful to have had you on the platform. That was certainly ahead of its time, and it was fun to see the world finally recognized. What would that be? About 12 years after we started the company that, wow, hey, online learning is a really, it's a big thing. Who knew? Yeah, it's fun to be on the other side of that as well. That was acquired in 21 as you said, and I got to rest a little bit goof off. And then when I thought, what do I really want to spend my time doing? It was very much writing a little bit about the lessons I'd learned along the way and that gave birth to never play it safe.

John Jantsch (02:37): So as an author, I know that certainly authors and publishers pick apart titles every word in a title. Right? So let's start, I know this is a crazy question, but how do you define safety, especially safety that holds people back, right?

Chase Jarvis (02:51): Sure, yeah. It's important to acknowledge that this is not about belts and sunscreen. It's not about emotional or physical safety. All of things are very important in life. The kind of safety that I'm talking about when I take on this book, this topic is the kind of safety that keeps us stuck living the lives that other people are trying to prescribe for us. The thing that is on this side of our fear and our comfort zone, and part of the reason that I ended up working on this particular book and titling the book as such is I realized when I sort of deconstructed my own experiences and having had a show and a podcast of my own where I've done more than a thousand episodes and many of our mutual friends are some of the world's most creative and talented entrepreneurial people. And it turned out that when I sort of did the research on myself and folks like you and others, that man, everybody reports that all of the best stuff in their lives was on the other side of risk, on the other side of discomfort.

(03:51): So I started to ask the question, well, how can we get better at reliably going there? The word, the sort of analog is safety, because when we are taking risks or we are outside of our comfort zone, we feel unsafe sometimes in our head, mostly in our head, a little bit less in our body. But how do we get good at going there if all the best stuff in life is over there? So that was the topic of the book and how I think about the term safety. Again, the title of a book is meant to get you to pick it up, and it is, I want to make sure that people know it's like, Hey, seat belts are real sunscreen's. Good, let's keep up with that stuff, but let's, how do we get at the best stuff in life?

John Jantsch (04:31): It's sort of playing small.

Chase Jarvis (04:33): We get

John Jantsch (04:34): Talking

Chase Jarvis (04:35): Out of living our dreams by people who've given up on theirs. So we end up taking advice from the wrong subset of people, the people who haven't done what we want to do or people who are themselves afraid for us. And sometimes this is our parents, our career counselors, our peers, they have great intentions in mind, which is what makes it tricky and why so many of us fall short of our potential. There's no evil overlord. Someone is not out there trying to keep you down. People want you to be safe, but what they're really talking you out of is the safety, the fear that they have for if you took that chance and went after that career that only 1% of the world has. Or it turns out though, that's again where the best stuff is and how most of us are going to feel most alive.

John Jantsch (05:23): And I wonder since this wasn't my original question, but since you went down that path, I mean is some of that fear, especially a lot of times, like you said, they wouldn't do that leap, but is there also a fear that you'll be more than me, that you won't need me anymore? I mean, is that the genesis of some of that

Chase Jarvis (05:44): Advice? It is, and it's generally not. I think people that, especially people that are close to us, they want the best for us, but just their understanding of what is the best for us is filtered through their own filter of what's good for them or their perception of what's good for us. So most of those things, while you make a very valid point that some people, this is usually in the peer landscape,

(06:09): Don't want us to leave them in the dust and go on some grand adventure when they chose to play it safe. But I think the takeaway is that there's so many inbounds, so many inputs to our decision frameworks and processes, and it's really managing those inputs and categorizing them appropriately that this book is about. It's like no one's out to wants you to live small and most of the people that are giving you advice love you very much. And still the cultural message is we celebrate people who've taken great risk and have helped move culturally. Society, technologically, conceptually, artistically helped us move forward, and yet we're reluctant to take those steps in our own lives. So this is really about how do we untangle the programming and in the same way that we're largely talked out of our creativity, you know, can walk into any first grade classroom and say, who wants to come to the front of the room and draw me a picture?

(07:12): Every hand goes up. So we get talked out of that stuff, this awareness that we are creative and it's very similar. We get talked out of our dreams by people who think we should be all the things that their parents and the generation before, and that's what our aspirations should be. So this is like, wait a minute, who are you to define my aspirations? Realizing that we get again talked into or out of so many of these things and how do we both acknowledge and maintain our own sort of independence and get to do the things in life that really light us up?

John Jantsch (07:50): So the book is arranged around seven, what you call levers, and I was on an AM radio show one time for one of my books, and the host had clearly not read a word of the book. And so they're doing the interview and he goes, chapter two is called this, tell me about that. And I've hesitate to do that, but your book, your titles, your levers all start with one word. And I feel like we could do an entire show on tell me about attention

Chase Jarvis (08:14): Because

John Jantsch (08:16): I mean, it is pretty obvious the way you've arranged it. These are things that hold people up. And so I would suggest, because you call it the superpower, that attention is kind of the linchpin to starting this whole process.

Chase Jarvis (08:30): It really is. And yeah, thanks for inviting the reader to know a little bit or the listener to know a little bit about essentially when I deconstructed my successes and failures and the successes and failures of so many of our peers and friends and ordinary people who've lived extraordinary lives, there's a very clear pattern that a handful of things, the same thing sort of creativity that I mentioned earlier that are native within us, but that we sort of give up on or get talked out of by just cultures messaging that man, if we actually just paid attention to some of these things and reconnected with these parts of ourselves, that's what people who have really tapped into the best stuff in life, that's all they're doing. So I do trot out there's seven levers, seven tools that live net natively within us. And the most important, and the first one in the book is attention because whether, I guess we're largely taught to get attention, that's how you stand out and that's how your business becomes successful.

(09:34): That's how you find a mate. And yet what we know about attention is that the people who are the best in the world at directing attention, at focusing at paying attention to what matters to them and what is important and can eshoo distractions and are eshoo the things that aren't important or will make a difference in success or failure or fulfillment, that's actually where the gold is. Because what we pay attention to literally defines the experience that we have of life. And I gave a really very challenging and heartfelt difficult example in the book Viktor Frankl, if you may be familiar with his work, he wrote an amazing book called Man's Search for Meeting, which was about his time in 1942 in a concentration camp. And man's search for meeting is a master class, a master work in what you pay attention to defines your existence.

(10:30): Now Viktor Frankl was in the middle of the most horrific thing that humanity may have ever known and is managing through. He's a professional trained psychologist, so he's got some additional skills above and beyond what our normal skill rate is, but he's unable to have an experience that is filled with meaning and connection even in the most difficult circumstances. Now, fortunately for everyone who's listening to this, you are not in that situation and yet it's still true, like what you pay attention to where you direct your attention, it is the experience of your life. If you think things are hard and the world is difficult because all you're doing is glued to social media, then that's what your experience is going to be. By contrast, if you spend time doing what you love around people who care about you and in a connected community and get a healthy dose of nature, then you're going to have a different experience of life so that we can control. That is what I'm calling attention to and that this is a trainable, it's a skill that we ought to stay connected with.

John Jantsch (11:40): AI might be the most important new computer technology ever. It's storming every industry and literally billions of dollars are being invested. So buckle up. The problem is that AI needs a lot of speed and processing power. So how do you compete without cost spiraling out of control? It's time to upgrade to the next generation of the cloud. Oracle Cloud infrastructure or O-C-I-O-C-I is a single platform for your infrastructure, database, application development, and AI needs. OCI has four to eight times the bandwidth of other clouds offers one consistent price instead of a variable regional pricing. And of course, nobody does data better than Oracle. So now you can train your AI models at twice the speed and less than half of the cost of other clouds. If you want to do more and spend less like Uber eight by eight and Databricks Mosaic, take a free test drive@ociatoracle.com slash duct tape. That's oracle.com/duct tape oracle.com/duct tape. You see on social media, as you mentioned all the time, people posing the idea of imposter syndrome, which is really to me is sort of saying, I don't trust myself or I mean, how much of that do you see playing a role that there's almost like a self-sabotage that goes on because I don't trust myself enough to actually do this thing, so I'm going to distract myself with something else.

Chase Jarvis (13:09): It's so true, John, and I think it's a smart point to bring up in the book. I frame it as such that, but the world does some dirty work on us by telling us the things that we should be and what we should do and whatnot, but we actually do the dirtiest work on ourselves. The most important words that we say are the ones that we say to ourselves and to me being able, this goes hand in hand with attention. What messages are we giving ourselves? Of course, if the world wants us to be either accountants or doctors or lawyers, when we really want to be a YouTuber, an artist or a race car driver, I'm not articulating one is more virtuous than the other, but there are dominant paradigms and if we buy into that and start telling ourselves stories about who we were yesterday and what we can possibly do achieve or how we can be connected or fulfilled in this life, then again, we are the ones that we're in conversations with most, right between our ears.

(14:19): So the goal in learning to pay attention or to direct attention is that what you feed yourself matters and choosing to feed yourself not junk food is out. It has a tremendous downstream effect on what's possible with our one precious life. So as you mentioned, imposter syndrome and there's all sorts of other, I guess, related things that, look, we can't pretend that these things don't exist, but what if we developed the muscle that when we made a mistake, it wasn't that we talked so nasty to ourselves, but what if of ourselves as experience, what kind encouraging thing would we say like, Hey, that's not like me. Next time I'm faced with this, I'm going to do X instead of Y. That's how we would talk to our friends, and yet we don't have that relationship with ourselves way too often. So this particular chapter is trying to get us to realize words matter, what we say to ourselves, matter matters, and that we're actually in charge of that.

(15:22): Whether we think so or not, the world is happening for us and it's our job to do what we can get in the driver's seat and pay attention to the things that truly do matter. What if you started, there's that famous exercise and we'll play it here for anyone who if as soon as you get the gig, then stop playing and listen. If you haven't played before, then follow along and it goes like this. Look around wherever you are right now and notice for me take 10 seconds and count everything in your field of view. That's red. Go ahead now just look around and count everything in your field of view. That's red and you're kind of going, okay, 1, 2, 3, 4. I mean right now the truth is you're even calling things that are sort of rust. You're calling them red too to do as many things as you can to chalk up all the things you're looking for.

(16:12): Now the question is how many blue things did you see? And you're like, wait a minute. That's the punchline. You see exactly the things that you're looking for. So how does that extend had we extend this metaphor to our lives? Well, what we pay attention to and what we're looking for, what messages we are telling ourselves between our ears really, really matters downstream to what we see in the experience that we have. So if you can decide that you're going to be open to a universe of colors or that you are especially going to look for things that light you up rather than the blueprint, as I mentioned earlier, that social media might have us believe or an imposter syndrome would have us believe, then that's what you're going to see. So how do we get out of the backseat, get into the driver's seat, and again, the phrase that stop playing it safe because the world wants you to be safe. Your biology thinks that in choosing to become a YouTuber or to pursue your passion or to eshoo the, let's call it the career that your career counselor or that your parents wanted for you, that's somehow riskier. But the truth is it's all risky. How risky is it to park the desires that you have for this one precious life until it's too late? I would say that's the ultimate risk.

John Jantsch (17:30): So a lot of two people when they decide, I'm not going to play it safe, I'm going to go all in, right? I'm going to go for it. Sometimes that leads to blinded like I'm on the goal, nothing else matters. And lever five is play the most important work we do. And I would suggest, especially since you've called it the most important work we do, it's probably the one that people counterintuitively forget.

Chase Jarvis (17:53): Absolutely. And what I like to think about in terms of that is success leaves clues. So think about the time, and this is, anyone can do this right now, while if you're sitting in traffic or walking on the walking path or on, you're at the gym with us in your ears right now. Think about the times where you felt the most lit up, the happiest, most playful, the highest version of yourselves. I promise you there was levity in your day-to-day in moment to moment, there was joy, there was connection. And yet whether this is our puritanical roots or the culture, this work hard culture, this grindy culture that we have become a part of or that's memeable on social media, it ignores that playful part of ourselves and that's playfulness and joy. That's the engine of life. It truly is. And the world might have you believe otherwise that the tortured artist is really where the best work comes from.

(18:54): And yet look at the people who've had really long, fruitful, rich, connected careers and have been doing what they're doing for a really long time. This joy, this playfulness, it can be brought to anything even to work. Again, watch an 8-year-old, you say, okay, it's time to pick up your toys. And they might be disappointed that they've got to pick up at their toys, but they're going to make room noises while they're running around the room, grabbing the toys and picking up their stuff. That's our natural state is to seek, find and engage in play. And yet as an adult, we somehow disconnect from that thinking that, oh, it's all about work and play is something that we only do after all of the work is done. Well, let me tell you, there's never a time where all of the work is done. So do not deny this great state that it pays dividends to be in for some future time that never comes.

John Jantsch (19:50): So you're not supposed to have favorites, I suppose. But my favorite is practice. And the reason, I mean, that sounds really boring, the grunt work, right? But you have a set of principles in there that I think by themselves really are a masterclass. And I think a lot of people, I was talking to somebody who's a writing coach and he said, you won't believe how many people show up and say, I want to write a fiction book, but I've never written one. I've never taken any classes I've never practiced. And it's like, no, it's all practice and it's being okay with being really bad, but that's not what people want to hear. It's like I want the magic pill. But to me it's my favorite because I think it really is what brings it to the heart.

Chase Jarvis (20:32): Absolutely. And there's nothing like if you can't be willing to look foolish beginning something, then you will do nothing because we're all terrible at everything when we start out. Think of how basic, if you had an able-bodied child watching them learn to walk,

(20:53): It looks like it's the most difficult thing in the world. And yet we all walk around completely unconscious. If you're an able-bodied person and without thinking about it and everything, including something as basic as that takes practice, why then would we think that that career we want the outcomes that artistic, the master work of fiction that we completed, why would we think that we could somehow become, do that without a whole lot of stumbling and some really important good foundational habits, IE practices to go with it? And the reason there are manyfold, but one is that now we can see the best in the world do their thing effortlessly at any time by just picking up our phone, staring at it for five minutes. You don't see the iceberg of work underneath the surface. You just see someone who's the best in the world that unlike thousands of years ago when we were in tribes and we watched someone start to not know how to hunt, then to become the best hunter in the tribe, we watched it with our own eyes and it made sense to us. Now we just see what appears to be effortless brilliance everywhere. Well, I'll tell you what, underpins every person you look up to, admire, appreciate for the things that they have done or the people they've become in their life is a set of really profound, often very basic practices that they've put into play and that's available to you. It's just understanding what practices, what habits are going to get you to your desired outcomes.

John Jantsch (22:27): Well, chase, I appreciate you taking a moment to stop by the Duct Tape Marketing podcast. It is always so great to visit with you. Another excellent book. Where would you invite people to connect with you or certainly find a copy of Play It Safe,

Chase Jarvis (22:41): Never Play It Safe is available everywhere books are sold and Amazon will ship it to you wherever you are. If you can support your local, that's cool too. And I'm just Chase Jarvis everywhere on the internet. So Instagram, YouTube, Twitter x, I don't know what they call it anymore, but I'm just Chase Jarvis everywhere. I'd love to connect with you. I've got a popular email newsletter if you like, these tidy bits. But John, just hat tip to you for running such a tight ship and building the community that you have over there. And I love Duct tape and grateful to always be welcome to feel welcome here and to be a guest on the show. Thanks for having me.

John Jantsch (23:15): Alright, well again, thanks for stopping by and hopefully we'll see you one of these days out there on the road.

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Weekend Favs November 16th

Weekend Favs November 16th written by Jordan E read more at Duct Tape Marketing

My weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week.

I don’t go into depth about the finds, but I encourage you to check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is a favorite for the week from an online source or one I took on the road.

• Albert.ai is an autonomous AI marketing platform that manages digital advertising campaigns across multiple channels. It optimizes campaigns by analyzing data in real-time and making decisions to enhance performance.
• SalesAPE.ai is an AI-powered sales assistant designed to engage and qualify leads through personalized conversations via email, SMS, or messenger services. It automates lead engagement, qualification, and scheduling, aiming to increase sales efficiency and conversion rates.
• Ohai.ai is an AI-driven platform that offers virtual meeting assistants to enhance productivity during online meetings. It provides features like real-time transcription, action item tracking, and meeting summaries to streamline collaboration and follow-ups.

These are my weekend favs; I would love to hear about some of yours – Connect with me on Linkedin!

If you want to check out more Weekend Favs you can find them here.

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Personalize Employee Benefits By Granting The Right To Choose

Personalize Employee Benefits By Granting The Right To Choose written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with Brandy Burch

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I had the pleasure of interviewing Brandy Burch, CEO and co-founder of BenefitBay, a company innovating the employee health benefits industry through Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement Arrangements (ICHRAs).

With a vision to make health benefits more accessible and customizable, Brandy has rapidly expanded BenefitBay and helped redefine how employers approach employee health coverage by ensuring fair and equal purchasing power.

We discuss the evolution of employee health benefits, the advantages of ICHRAs for employers and employees, and the complexities involved in implementing these arrangements.

From Tech-first inexperienced health benefit startups to the burden of having too many choices, Brandy Burch explains that DIYing health benefits internally is not all it’s cracked up to be and giving employees a say in what benefits they choose from pets to fertility can be an enormous BENEFIT to seeking talent, as an agency.

Brandy Burch also shares insights on risk management, the role of BenefitBay in the market, and the importance of personalization in employee benefits. The conversation also touches on the challenges female CEOs face in the insurance industry and the unique advantages of Kansas City as a tech hub for health benefits innovation.

Key Takeaways:

• ICHRAs provide employees with more choice in health benefits.
• Employers can budget more effectively with defined contribution models.
• The complexity of ICHRAs requires careful partner selection.
• BenefitBay acts as a software service to streamline the process.
• Personalization in benefits is becoming increasingly important.
• Kansas City is a growing hub for health tech innovation.
• Female CEOs face unique challenges in the insurance industry.
• Employers can attract talent by offering personalized benefits.
• Risk management is crucial when transitioning to ICHRAs.
• The market for individual health plans is competitive in many states.

Chapters:

• [00:00] Introduction to Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement Arrangements (ICHRAs) and BenefitBay
• [01:08] The Evolution of Employee Health Benefits
• [02:44] Understanding  ICHRAs
• [05:00] Benefits for Employers: Cost and Budgeting Advantages
• [06:43] Risk Management in ICHRAs
• [09:41] BenefitBay’s Role in the Market
• [10:32] Target Audience: Who Benefits from ICHRAs?
• [12:27] Mitigating Chaos in Transitioning to ICHRAs
• [14:25] Attracting Talent with Personalized Benefits
• [15:47] Trends in Employee Benefits
• [19:10] The Shift Towards Personalization in Benefits
• [20:17] Kansas City: A Hub for BenefitBay
• [22:56] Challenges for Female CEOs in the Insurance Industry

More About Brandy Burch:

• Check out Brandy Burch’s Website
• Connect with Brandy Burch on LinkedIn

 

Duct Tape Transcript

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Brandy Burch (00:00): Can you hear my dog?

John Jantsch (00:01): I can. This is a dog friendly show.

Brandy Burch (00:03): This is a live dog friendly show. Yeah, there are a lot of rules around ensuring that individuals aren't discriminated against and ratios are met and affordability calculations based on what's available in their market and ensuring that their employer is not classing people unfavorably and everyone's getting equal and fair purchasing power. So it is complex, but really what it means is we're going to be able to access our benefit dollars and make the choice that's right for our family.

John Jantsch (00:32): Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Brandy Burch. She is a CEO and Co-founder of Benefit Bay, a Kansas City based company innovating the employee health benefits industry through individual coverage health reimbursement arrangements. That's a mouthful. Hopefully we'll unpack it with a vision to make health benefits more accessible and customizable. Brandy has led Benefit Bay's rapid expansion and helped redefine how employers approach employee health coverage. So Brandy, welcome to the show.

Brandy Burch (01:08): Thanks, John. Thanks for having me.

John Jantsch (01:11): I mean, I definitely want to unpack an I-C-H-R-A because I usually talk about marketing and not necessarily insurance, but a lot of my listeners are business owners and employers and it's certainly a topic that will be of interest. But before we get into that, I'm just curious, was there something that had you sitting around one day and said, I need to start a company that does I ccra?

Brandy Burch (01:38): No, that was not something I was envisioning or thinking about. I was actually at a different software company and was really introduced to the idea and asked to join this startup vision and actually started as the operations lead, not the CEO. So I was part of the founding team and got to build it from the ground up, but our CEO left a year in and then I've been leading the Reign since then. So it wasn't something I was sitting around on my couch thinking about, but it absolutely was something that I was solving throughout my career because I was in business, I was a business operator for my entire career and I was a purchaser of benefits, which are one of your largest spends when you're running a small company or any size company.

John Jantsch (02:24): So we have, as part of our employee benefits, we have a health insurance coverage for employees. And I imagine most listeners are fairly familiar with how those work. There are different arrangements that you can do in different pays and things, but so how significantly different is an individual coverage health reimbursement or maybe before we even get into the difference, what is it?

Brandy Burch (02:46): What is really defined contribution? So it is an employer's ability to set a bucket of dollars aside for the health benefit and allowing the individual to choose. It's much more complex than that because there are a lot of rules around ensuring that individuals aren't discriminated against and ratios are met and affordability calculations based on what's available in their market and ensuring that their employer is not classing people unfavorably and everyone's getting equal and fair purchasing power. So it is complex, but really what it means is we're going to be able to access our benefit dollars and make the choice that's right for our family. That's the definition of what it's a large acronym. Yeah,

John Jantsch (03:29): So you hit on really probably what's a key part of it. I mean most, at least in my experience, I could be wrong on this, but most benefit plans are like, here it is, do you want it? Do you want your spouse in it? I mean that's pretty much the decision. So what you're suggesting is this is vastly different in that you have a lot of choice.

Brandy Burch (03:49): Yeah, you have a lot of choice. And I know you mentioned you're in Colorado. I'm in Kansas City, the average market has 68 to 133 plans to choose as an individual. So you're up to the market of all the carriers in your plan design. You have HMOs and EPOS and PPOs, and you have HSAs and you have the flagship brands and the Aetnas and the Cignas and the Kaisers and the United Healthcares, which you also have option to be in a community health related product. And so maybe you have a Denver Health Plans, maybe you have a Connecticut, if you're in Connecticut now you have an ability to purchase that and your employer likely wouldn't have purchased that because they would've needed something that fits everyone in all 50 states. So they would've had to have purchased a larger network product that is more expensive. You may decide to buy something that is more community-based, direct primary care driven, something that you are really passionate about that's driven by a hospital system. There are a lot of hospital system carrier plans that are out there, and so that allows that individual to be put back into the driver's seat, but also make a more conscious decision with those dollars that matters more to their family for access to care.

John Jantsch (04:57): Alright, so theoretically, and I'm going to come back to that, that's a better idea for the employee because it gives them choice. I mean, we can argue maybe I'm the employer and I've done all the research and I'm telling you this is the best plan. Maybe that's an option, but what's the benefit for the employer? Is this cheaper? Is this easier? You've already said it's complex, so what's the benefit for the

Brandy Burch (05:19): Employer? Yeah, I mean, in the Colorado market, it's cheaper in the Kansas, Missouri market, not necessarily. So in 34 of the states right now, individual products are priced competitively to a large margin to group insurance. So the employer would benefit by going to this model because the employee has higher purchasing power with lower dollars. So that drives the budget down. In addition, it allows you to budget because you set a defined contribution model, it's always $800 or $450 or $650 for that employee that's seated in that class that you've modeled out. It's not, oh, does that employee have seven children? Now they're going to break the bank because I'm doing something over here that's going to be different. It's going to be a set defined contribution and there may be an additional child add-on that. You could decide as an employer, but you can budget.

(06:14): And I think that's the biggest piece. And if you budget significantly higher than lower cost silver products, you do not have to change your budget every year as an employer. They're having to change it every year because the rates going up 6, 10, 19 31 51. The types of rate increases we're seeing are pretty significant. And then if you were an employer in self-insurance, you're now getting out of that risk pool because self-insurance, although it sounded really exciting for employers to manage their risk and manage their cost and drive care saving behaviors of their employee populations, that's a lot of administration. It's also a lot of work. And then if you end up with one or two laser claimants, you're suddenly in a balance sheet risk problem. And so that allows that employer to budget and just stay out of the risk game.

John Jantsch (07:03): So speaking of risk, obviously you just pointed to one, but this versus sort of the traditional one carrier path, does this approach actually aid in reducing risk for employers as well?

Brandy Burch (07:17): It does. I would say the only area of risk for employers in ICR is choosing the wrong partner.

(07:26): Anytime there's a new market, you're going to have a lot of startups, you're going to have a lot of people wanting to disrupt it from different ways. However, not all startups are created equal from a compliance perspective or from an insurance acumen perspective or from an ability to become licensed and appointed with a carrier. Right? Your technology tool set has to meet a certain level of guidelines. Your engineers need to be in the US there are various types of risk that exist out there when you decide to go with something that's new and a disruptor and you don't vet your technology providers. I also would say a lot of the technology providers are going direct to the employer and cutting out the broker. I feel there's a risk there because who is going to be the consultant in that situation? Who is providing that advice and who is holding that technology provider accountable?

(08:17): Now the employer's back in that business of trying to manage something. So I would recommend that to eliminate a risk, you're always working with a broker still, and you're not trying to just go with a technology provider who's trying to now become an insurance agency and now become a direct to employer sales agent because the insurance acumen and knowledge that needs to be at that table needs to include those other pieces. It needs to be that they're bringing a quote every year to the employer of what is best for you this year. And icra, even though I'm an ICRA provider, may not be best for you every year. Maybe you suddenly are in Kansas and Missouri and you have 300 employees because you acquired a company. Kansas and Missouri is about 10 to 15% higher unless there's a certain geographic population that works out there on individual rates. So you need an honest person at the table with you who's not trying to just cut your consultant out of the conversation to win those dollars.

John Jantsch (09:17): So do you consider Benefit Bay a broker or do you consider yourself a marketplace or a software? I mean, how do you characterize yourself?

Brandy Burch (09:25): Yeah, we consider ourselves software as a service and we consider ourselves the chosen partner of those employers and brokers. So we add value in this chain where we're taking away that administrative lift, that decision making at a large population. Imagine you've got 2000 employees. Your broker nor your HR team, can handle 2000 employees going through a decision that they've never had. They've never had the permission to make themselves. They've traditionally just had a carrier, an HSA and a PO

(09:56): Or maybe a buy up and a buy down. So I've got two choices. I've got one carrier, I've got two paycheck choices, that's all I'm deciding on now. You've got the paycheck choices, the carrier choices, the type of plan choices. So benefit based steps in that gap as a partner to the broker because these brokers as well haven't been selling individual products. So they were selling group products and they've become experts in their states and now they have to be experts in every state. And so we stand in that value chain there and then we solve the technology gap for the carriers on taking a large group population in individual products.

John Jantsch (10:34): So are you suggesting then that there's a certain size company that this makes sense or does it make sense for a 20 person company

Brandy Burch (10:44): It makes sense for the sub 50 in a certain way? Benefit Bay does not specialize in the on exchange market enrollments. That's an under 50 lives. You are subsidy eligible, you could remain subsidy eligible for your employees. So there may need to be an on exchange enrollment that's dealing with healthcare.gov or that's dealing with an on exchange product. There's a lot of long wait times and hold times. We are looking to service those larger employers. So I would say for us it's more of a 200 plus employer size that we service up into the thousands. What we do see is there is a great company called Stretch Dollar that's doing the sub 30 really well. And so we refer any groups that try to come to us in that area to them, but they don't utilize a broker, right? Because it's a smaller group, it's not going to have enough commission for a broker to, and so they're able to play as the broker and as the technology system. But in the same respect, they don't service up over 50 because there's a lot of compliance laws around the over 50 employer space. Those are called applicable large employers. And we service those well. So we have a partnership. They're sitting in tech, well, actually I think they sit in Pennsylvania and San Francisco. Can you hear my dog?

John Jantsch (12:00): I can. This is a dog friendly show. This

Brandy Burch (12:02): Is a live dog friendly show.

John Jantsch (12:06): I can't hear your dog. I was actually going to tell you. I could see you were starting to fidget about it. So let me ask you this then let's, I don't know, pick a number. Anything over a hundred. To me migrating to this would seem like chaos, right? And so I assume that I would think that would be one of the reasons a big company might actually go, maybe I see some benefit, but the chaos to change isn't worth it. So how do you mitigate that?

Brandy Burch (12:34): Yeah, we mitigate that by speaking to how we've solved the problem and we've thought about it. How does a group insurance experience work? And this individual experience really is similar. The only difference is when they get to that enrolling in your benefits, we've all done it. We've all enrolled in our benefits and have been admin. When they get to the enrolling in their benefits, it's just that they get to put in their healthcare providers and they get to search for things that matter to them. And they get to decide, I want a gold product, or I want a PPO, or I want an HSA or I want to only go to this carrier. It matters to me and they take care of me. And so they actually get to filter down what it is that matters to them. Once they select that product, we submit the application to the carrier for them through technology, and then we facilitate the payments in a lump sum for the business. So the business is able to just have one deduction via a CH that we pull. And then each of these payments are individual on behalf of the individuals, but we expose all of that the way the employers used to. So our largest group right now enrolled is 3,430 employees. Imagine 3,430 employees sitting across 49 states. Actually,

(13:46): Those employees are going to make vastly different choices than they would if they were on group. This employer thought about going back to group, they surveyed their employees because they were having a technology solution that wasn't doing a great job. They ended up just switching technology solutions, which was significantly important for us because we were able to deliver a better experience. But in that scenario, they looked to go back to group and their employees were like, no way we get to choose now. What are you going to dump us in? I get to be in the plan that matters to me here, and I get to have a better product than if you would've narrowed us down to a larger network, it would be more expensive. So we have seen it's a little stickier once it gets going though, once you give someone a right to choose, it's kind of hard to be like, no, I'm just going to decide for you now. Right?

Testimonial (14:30): I was like, I found it. I found it. This is what I've been looking for. I can honestly say has genuinely changed the way I run my business. It's changed the results that I'm seeing. It's changed my engagement with clients. It's changed my engagement with the team. I couldn't be happier, honestly. It's the best investment I ever made.

John Jantsch (14:46): What you just heard was a testimonial from a recent graduate of the Duct Tape Marketing certification intensive program for fractional CMOs marketing agencies and consultants just like them. You could choose our system to move from vendor to trusted advisor, attract only ideal clients, and confidently present your strategies to build monthly recurring revenue. Visit DTM world slash scale to book your free advisory call and learn more. It's time to transform your approach. Book your call today, DTM world slash scale. Well, benefits play a large role in attracting and retaining talent. So would you say that companies would even have the ability to maybe promote that as a differentiator? As a benefit, I mean, and play a role in retaining and attracting?

Brandy Burch (15:39): Yes. I would say that is true. I see that a lot in our Northeast clients because Icra has been around a little longer and competing well in that market. And so we see that they're advertising that on their websites. They're saying, you get to choose by over X number of health plans that they've given back two and a half million of cost share from the employee's paychecks with this program. And so also, most of the employers, when they do see this savings, they invest in other benefits. So then they improve the benefits package overall. They're adding additional disability payments paid by the employer or life insurance at X of your salary, or they're allowing you to spend those dollars in some other product that matters to you and your family, whether it's pet insurance or something else. So I find that's a motivating product to employees to be able to have access to that.

John Jantsch (16:31): Yeah, yeah. So since we mentioned pet insurance, are you seeing it, are there some trends that you're seeing in employee benefits that people are really trying to push the boundaries on?

Brandy Burch (16:42): Yeah, I feel like employers are trying to have a more engaged employee population. They're trying to offer a lot of new mom or new parent type benefits. They're trying to offer infertility. For those that have concerns with infertility, they're offering mental health, virtual mental health, virtual care, zero access to those types of programs as add-ons. I think all of that's really important to have access to as an employee. And then individuals can choose which piece of it matters to them. And if they would've tried to add infertility to an entire population, it would've been insurmountable. But if they're able to just add it for those who need it, then it is something that matters. And there's a lot of really great startups out there in these types of spaces. Kansas City has a couple marma and Leva apps that are around surviving that first year as a mom or a nursing mom or a new parent. And those are really engaging and keep your employee feeling like you care that they're returning to work and they're not sleeping and all of the things, how do you survive that? Where's the network online that can help me get those materials? So seeing a lot of those types of engaging and rather than our employer knowing our health outcomes, which happens in current traditional group insurance,

(17:56): They're able to access through a lot of the big brother tools around drug usage and claims. They're able to know what's going on in our family rather than them having that type of overbearing access in the individual side. You just get to make an individual decision with your dollars. They don't get to know that you're maybe getting cancer treatments

Brandy (18:15): If

Brandy Burch (18:16): You don't want them to know. So there's a little bit of that that I'm seeing as an evolution of this personal choice. Also, holding carriers accountable to deliver actual customer service and to deliver payments on our claims timely to approve services that we need. Because if we're in the driver's seat of our benefit dollars, we could be brand loyal or

Brandy (18:43): Not,

Brandy Burch (18:45): But if our employer is or our broker is, we really are voiceless in those types of service outcomes.

John Jantsch (18:53): Yeah. Yeah. And while you talked about the positive benefits of working with a broker, there probably are some negatives where a broker is like, Hey, I get more commission over here. I'm going over here. So

Brandy Burch (19:07): I mean, every industry, there's going to be motivators that are driven by greed. There's going to be motivators that are driven by fear. And I think that we have carriers that are motivated that way. We have brokers that are motivated that way, and we have employers that are sometimes motivated by just doing what's easiest. And if I change carriers and get a better outcome, that's even noisy. And I'm nervous about that because Susie or Tom may be mad.

Brandy (19:33): And

Brandy Burch (19:33): So sometimes getting that better outcome requires a little friction, and that's why benefits have kind of evolved to where they are. I think a lot of people just keep status quo, even if it goes up year after year, because it's all that fear around personal benefits and changing them and causing any type of outcome to anyone on your team. And recruiting has been hard the last five years it's been employee's market. No one wants to upset the apple cart,

John Jantsch (20:01): Right? Right. Hard to replace people. It really is. So I kind of hear you saying that if there's an overarching trend, it is personalization of the benefits, right? I mean, is that a good way to say it? Yeah,

Brandy Burch (20:13): I think it's personalization of the benefits. I think it's the last area that we haven't been able to personalize, right?

(20:20): I describe this as favorable legislation, like when pensions move to 401k and allow your investment dollars and make your decisions after a few poor decisions based on lifelong service to a company and your retirement's gone, you were able to move to individuals have the accountability to invest their benefit dollars and to invest those appropriately. Now, some don't do what's right with their actual benefit dollars, don't access those. And that does happen on the healthcare side. They may not use all the dollars available to 'em. They may go with the lowest price product because they don't use their benefits or they don't want anything out of pocket. And it goes back to a personal accountability. And I think we need to get there, especially for our own health and improving health outcomes. Right.

John Jantsch (21:09): I'm curious if there, you and I talked before we started, I grew up in Kansas City. I'm curious, is there any reason that Kansas City is a good place for benefit Bay two b? Was it started there for a reason or that just happened to be where the players were?

Brandy Burch (21:23): It really was founded in Omaha by Zach Harris, the CEO. And when I took the seat a year later in April of 22, I moved into Kansas City and the reason why I moved into Kansas City is one, I'm here, but two, there's a great tech hub in Kansas City around health tech. We have a ton of health techs that are of all, we have a lot of investment from larger ecosystem players in this market. It's a great market to have a work from home role and recruit. There aren't as many companies in Kansas City allowing the flexibility of working remote.

(21:58): And when you have a remote first company and you're in Kansas City, I feel like the recruiting is really easy for us. I wasn't having as much luck in Omaha, and I think it's because there's a long tenure of large insurance ecosystems there and a lot of enterprise business where people are very comfortable and confident in their compensation, in their benefits and in their retirements package. To go to a startup I think was a little more risky in that market. In Kansas City, I'm not feeling like people have that aversion. They're saying, oh, that sounds fun. I want to be a part of this. You mean I get shares, I get to be remote, I get to do the commute with my family or a handle to school drop off. And the motivation here, we've been able to hire 26 people in market. So now we do kind of have a hybrid work location downtown, and people can come if they want, but Tuesdays and Thursdays tends to be when we're all heading in there. No one wants to deal with the commute Monday, Wednesday, Friday, I guess. But I do think the recruiting, the tech ecosystem was really important and the investment ecosystem is really great here. Casey Rise just introduced me to a great partner within CVS Aetna, and you just never know when those types of networks and really support your growing startup. And I feel like everyone's here to lift each other up in this community.

John Jantsch (23:22): I would agree with that sentiment. My final question really is there probably aren't a lot of CEOs that are females in your particular industry. Is that first off, is that correct? Is that changing? Has that presented a hurdle? How have you navigated that?

Brandy Burch (23:37): It is correct. You've

John Jantsch (23:38): Got four questions by the way to answer any one of 'em you want.

Brandy Burch (23:41): It's correct. Across all industries, there are limited female CEOs in insurance, even less so in venture backed companies, even less, right? So we are a venture backed company. It is tough to raise capital as a female in a VC world. It is tough to raise capital in a non-original founding role of an organization. You have to survive that transition of a founder nuisance that people may feel that's on the cap table and they have to believe that you are the one leading the company and that you can do this and you didn't lose team members talent. The tech didn't serve it, and you were able to keep your customers. So that has been some things that I've had to overcome. I think the biggest thing is there's one other female CEO in this industry right now. I think the biggest thing is being able to transfer experience rather than I haven't been a part of the Facebook or some other tech startup

(24:43): And I wasn't necessarily an Ivy League grad. So those two things have been hard in a tech startup world. What I think has allowed us to be successful is that we are operators as an overall team, and our VP of engineering was in large insurance carrier technical development, and then cancer research, technical development. We come with the expertise to the technology solution rather than come with the technology skillset or background of being in serial startups. We come with various small business, medium-sized business grit and experience. So I think that's made us successful. It's made it hard though, to start that journey from here to here. Now here, everyone loves us, but you've already got your proof point, so 400% growth. And so it's a little better when the numbers are black and white and then they can't really go to all those other things to make a decision.

John Jantsch (25:42): The intangibles.

Brandy Burch (25:43): Yes, exactly.

John Jantsch (25:45): Well, Brandy, again, I appreciate you taking a few moments to share the story with the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. Is there anywhere you'd invite people to find out more about Benefit Bay and your work?

Brandy Burch (25:55): Yeah, I'd go to benefit bay.com or you could follow us on LinkedIn Benefit Bay or Brandy Birch, CEO, and founder of Benefit Bay on my profile.

John Jantsch (26:04): Awesome. Well, again, I appreciate you spending a few moments. Hopefully I'll run into you one of these days when I'm back in Kansas City

Brandy Burch (26:10): For sure, John, Chris Hotten. Now you're going to be hearing about it all the time. It's hot in Colorado, so now you'll have a little experience there. We are going to grow 300% in Kansas City, so it's starting to move,

Brandy (26:23): But

Brandy Burch (26:23): That 300% is based on, we used to have one to two customers and now have Right. Pulling uphill climb. Yeah. It's

John Jantsch (26:30): Harder to do that every year.

Brandy Burch (26:32): Exactly. Yeah. Thanks John. Take care.

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