How Trailstone 2x'd Their Close Rate by Rebuilding Around Trust [Endless Customers Podcast Ep. 148]

This transcript has been generated by AI and not checked for accuracy. 

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:09:19

Marquece Cunningham

don't abandon the fundamentals that are within the book or just within the process, because if you follow them in the way that they're model like, it will work for you

00:00:09:21 - 00:00:29:08

Bob Ruffolo

You're listening to The Endless Customers podcasts, brought to you by the team at impact and Endless Customers, is the proven system to become the most known and trusted brand in your market. You can start to learn the principles of Endless Customers and how you can implement them in your business. Pick up a copy of Endless Customers, a national bestseller wherever books are sold.

00:00:29:10 - 00:00:52:13

Bob Ruffolo

Ready to start implementing Endless Customers in your business? Talk to impact about how our coaching program can help you implement Endless Customers to success. And if you want experience Endless Customers in person. Do not miss our upcoming conference. Endless Customers Live in Hartford October 5th through the seventh, 2026. Registration is now open. And now onto the show. Here's your host, Alex Winter.

00:00:52:15 - 00:01:02:17

Alex Winter

Today's episode is about one of the hardest trust building decisions a company can make. Choosing to address negative reviews publicly instead of hoping buyers never see them.

00:01:02:20 - 00:01:15:20

Alex Winter

Let's face it, most businesses instinctively want to protect the brand, minimize the criticism, or move the conversation offline. But what happens when you do the opposite and use transparency to build even more confidence?

00:01:15:22 - 00:01:28:05

Alex Winter

Joining us today are Mark Rogers. He's the president and founder of Trailstone Insurance and Marquece Cunningham, their marketing director to share their story behind their decisions to turn bad reviews into video content.

00:01:28:07 - 00:01:40:00

Alex Winter

In this conversation, we're going to dig into the internal resistance they had to work through how they're coaching, and the four pillars of a known and trusted brand helped shape their strategy and what they've seen since publishing.

00:01:40:02 - 00:01:50:19

Alex Winter

More than anything, this is a story about leadership, trust, and what can happen when you choose to answer the questions and concerns buyers are already thinking about. Mark and Marquece, welcome to the show.

00:01:50:21 - 00:01:52:00

Mark Rodgers

Thank you.

00:01:52:00 - 00:01:52:17

Marquece Cunningham

Thanks for happy To be here.

00:01:52:18 - 00:02:10:02

Alex Winter

Yeah, we're really happy to have you guys here. We got a lot of ground to cover today. It's going to be an awesome conversation. But before we get into it, maybe, Mark, if you could, could you just tell us a little bit about yourself and then the company and then Marcus, we'll go to you as well. I just want to set the stage for our viewers and our listeners about, who you are and what you guys do.

00:02:10:04 - 00:02:35:02

Mark Rodgers

Yeah, absolutely. So, started Trailstonel, an insurance group. It's an independent insurance agency back in 2013. Scratch agency. Just myself, and really, I was focused on, focus was taking care of customers, and it was kind of our core value to treat other people the way you want to be treated from the get-go. And we were able to do that better than the state farms of the world and so on.

00:02:35:02 - 00:02:57:17

Mark Rodgers

But about six years, five years into that journey, we decided that we needed to grow a little bit larger to compete with the Amazons, the Googles, the the venture capitalists that want to buy up all these independents. And, so we had about seven people in 2019, and now we are approaching 70 people. Oh. Wow. Total in the agency.

00:02:57:17 - 00:03:20:10

Mark Rodgers

So yeah. So we've grown quite a bit, primarily through really just, documenting everything we do, standardizing it and then lather, rinse, repeat. We brought, in those customers are they ask you answer in the agency a couple three years ago and it it took a little bit to get started. It took an impact plus or two to, to kind of get things under our belt and going.

00:03:20:10 - 00:03:38:12

Mark Rodgers

But now we have the whole leadership team that's attended at least two, if not 3 or 4, impact plus and, and we're going to great direction there. So our growth is has been great. But we operate in seven states, primarily in the West. We are, headquartered here in Colorado.

00:03:38:13 - 00:03:47:03

Alex Winter

Very nice. I love Colorado and Marquece. How about you? You're the you're the marketing director. Can you just give people a little bit about your background in, what you do at trail Stone?

00:03:47:05 - 00:04:10:12

Marquece Cunningham

Yeah. So, Marcus, I've worked in marketing for, almost 20 years at this point, and primarily my background was in, SAS and software. I joined Trailstone, almost a year. So in June of 20, 25 and, really, I pay close attention to everything we do across all of our digital platforms.

00:04:10:12 - 00:04:30:04

Marquece Cunningham

Content is really big, at the forefront of what we do here. So we have a studio in our office. We have filming days at work, worked really closely with the impact team to redesign our website that we had launched, in Q4 of last year. And I work really closely with Mark and the rest of our leadership team.

00:04:30:06 - 00:04:40:17

Marquece Cunningham

In terms of, you know, getting the messaging around what we do here at Trailstone, which I know we'll talk a bit about a bit more. But yeah, that's me and, happy to be on the podcast today.

00:04:40:17 - 00:05:06:02

Alex Winter

Yeah, well, we're happy to have you. I can't wait to dive into all that stuff, especially the video. You've been doing a lot of really cool things with video, but also seamlessly through the organization. It seems like everyone's on the same page. Everyone's really like paddling in the same direction. Mark, this one's for you. What made you or, like, when was the moment when you were like, endless customers is the answer, and I got to get the whole company doing this and like, picking up the vision and just really implementing it inside of trail stone.

00:05:06:04 - 00:05:27:22

Mark Rodgers

We have one of our core values is heart of a teacher. That comes from Dave Ramsey. So we are Dave Ramsey endorsed. And so they ask you answer resonates with that. All we're doing is educating people, helping people understand more about insurance at all. And so when I first I think I listened to the book originally in 2020 on a road trip, and then I read it and then I got obsessed with it.

00:05:28:00 - 00:05:54:23

Mark Rodgers

And so, yeah, it's been it's been, something because we had, some leadership that weren't really buying into it. They just wanted to to spend money on advertising, things like that. But it wasn't really bringing the right type of clients to us. You know, we're primarily focused on home, auto and commercial and insurance clients. And the home of the auto client really wants to be educated.

00:05:55:01 - 00:06:12:21

Mark Rodgers

The the person that just wants mono auto, meaning just an auto policy. And they're just trying to say $3 a month is not our ideal client, so we don't work it to that person. We typically market to the family that is looking for better coverage for the homeowner or excuse me, the business owner that really need some help understanding what they're doing.

00:06:12:23 - 00:06:43:22

Mark Rodgers

And so it's taken a little bit of time, but I would say over the last year and a half, as, as the leadership has kind of, evolved or changed with some people and some seats, the attitudes have really grown to accept it. And now Makis really leads that charge. We've done meetings at House similar to your alignment day, where we go and we talk about, you know, we have we have five systems that we actually operate inside of Charlestown, you know, market share it and talks about us.

00:06:44:00 - 00:07:02:02

Mark Rodgers

And in those customers, we added a couple of other things there, but we talk about it on a quarterly basis because of our US state of the company and and, and things like that. So it's taken time. In fact, we just did a poll yesterday. About half of our team has not read the book officially, you know, from Miller's customers.

00:07:02:02 - 00:07:03:07

Mark Rodgers

And it's been out,

00:07:03:09 - 00:07:04:13

Mark Rodgers

what, 15 months?

00:07:04:15 - 00:07:05:03

Mark Rodgers

Yeah.

00:07:05:05 - 00:07:21:05

Mark Rodgers

yeah, it's it's constant because, we're we're insurance agents and insurance account managers, and a lot of those folks have come from other agencies, and they just want to, you know, they want to take care of people with insurance. They don't necessarily want to be on camera or whatever.

00:07:21:05 - 00:07:27:17

Mark Rodgers

But we've explained to them, hey, we're a media company, we're a technology company, and we're trying to build more trust through that.

00:07:27:19 - 00:07:45:21

Alex Winter

Yeah, I love hearing you say that you're a media company. That's something we hear Mark is saying is in the book. And I also I also have to note you scaled the company pretty seriously, going from seven people to 70 people. That's a lot to try to get everybody to read a book, to understand the vision, to get everyone like it, tracking in the same direction.

00:07:45:21 - 00:08:01:21

Alex Winter

So it sounds like you've done a lot of the legwork. And for the majority, that's what's happening. And so, Marquece, I guess this is a question for you. I have a note here that says that video is so important and that you want to tackle reviews, and you want your agents and team members to be on video as much as possible.

00:08:01:21 - 00:08:06:21

Alex Winter

Can you talk a little bit about how you do that and why it's so important for you as the marketing director?

00:08:06:23 - 00:08:29:18

Marquece Cunningham

Yeah, honestly, it's it's really goes into, you know, the level of transparency specifically within our industry. We don't see it a lot, and we want people to know that there are real humans behind the brand. So one of our pillars in the organization is, Charleston, OS, which is our trust on operating system. And it means to be efficient, be human and be, accountable.

00:08:29:18 - 00:08:55:16

Marquece Cunningham

And part of the human piece is getting, the humans that do work here to help make our culture great, on camera, so people can essentially associate, you know, or have a relationship even prior to them getting on the phone with someone, they may feel like they already know them. So, you know, getting folks within the organization on camera, and also just saying things that, you know, a lot of people aren't willing to say on camera is also really important for us as well.

00:08:55:18 - 00:09:15:01

Marquece Cunningham

But but really, it it boils down to, you know, that that core focus of being able to not only share stories, but also, you know, add an additional layer of trust with our marketing efforts. So people are like, they really care about us. They really care about the work that they're doing. Because at the end of the day, we're protecting people's assets.

00:09:15:01 - 00:09:23:19

Marquece Cunningham

You know, we're not looking at our customers is just another number in a sense. So that's that's where the video component really, hits home for us.

00:09:24:00 - 00:09:40:03

Alex Winter

Yeah. I love hearing that. And I love that you said, too, that it's not typical in your industry. And I it's not my insurance company. I'm with one of the big box, and they don't have videos like that. They don't do 1 to 1 videos. They don't answer reviews of videos. So it's really amazing to hear that you guys are doing that and have embraced it.

00:09:40:05 - 00:09:57:10

Alex Winter

But my note, so I does note here, is talking about how there's been some bad reviews and how you've addressed that on video. And I think we talk about this a lot internally here at impact, where sometimes the ostrich effect happens, you get a bad review or people don't want reviews and they stick their head in the sand because they don't, they don't want like, oh, it has to be five stars or nothing, right?

00:09:57:10 - 00:10:14:17

Alex Winter

And Mark's laughing. It's true though. People do ostrich, they get scared. But you can't do that. And we know that avoiding those tough conversations makes you look even worse. It breaks trust. It makes people skeptical. So what have you been doing to mitigate some of those reviews, and have you been using video to do that? Because it's pretty cool.

00:10:14:17 - 00:10:17:05

Alex Winter

What you guys been doing?

00:10:17:07 - 00:10:33:03

Marquece Cunningham

Yeah. I mean, in terms of, you know, what we've been doing to mitigate a lot of those bad reviews, well, one of our videos that we had done was the, one with our one star reviews. And sure, we could have highlighted a lot of our really good reviews that we had, that came across on our website.

00:10:33:03 - 00:10:48:19

Marquece Cunningham

But again, we wanted to make it about building trust with our customers and back to our core values, which is one of our core values, which is treating people how they want to be treated or, treating others how you want to be treated. And part of that is, you know, asking tough questions, or answering tough questions.

00:10:48:21 - 00:11:06:10

Marquece Cunningham

And if something comes through that isn't a good reflection of our agency, then we want to be able to address it and not just sweep it under the rug like a lot of companies will do. And we also wanted to show, you know, where we may have came up short. Our goal is to be the best within it, within this industry, and that was just a focus of ours.

00:11:06:12 - 00:11:20:02

Alex Winter

I love that, I love hearing that because disruption is a real thing. And I know it's kind of a cliche, overused word, but companies need to disrupt, and the best way to do that is to be honest. And I love your core value. Treat others the way you want to be treated. That's that's a big deal.

00:11:20:04 - 00:11:21:19

Mark Rodgers

So stand on the golden rule, right?

00:11:21:21 - 00:11:39:20

Alex Winter

I was going to say it is I mean, it's old school. It's old school, but it's it's, the golden rule for a reason. Right. And I think it's I think it's just interesting to hear that coming from the top down from you, Mark. So as we're starting, as you guys are starting to implement video, you're starting to think outside the box and create all this content that most people in your industry aren't doing.

00:11:39:22 - 00:11:51:09

Alex Winter

Was there is resistance from your team members or other people that were like, I don't want to get in front of a camera. I don't want to do like, what do you mean, get in front of a camera, right? Did you have to navigate through some of that? And if so, can you just expand upon that? For us.

00:11:51:11 - 00:12:21:21

Mark Rodgers

We're still navigating through it. Okay. That's fair. Excuse me. Yeah, we're still navigating through it. You know, we've that's why we have have every quarter kind of a mini alignment day, you know, compared to what impact us. And we talk about it. Hey, guys. We have to build trust. They have to see your eyes. And so, yeah, we know that there's probably 20% of our team that will never be on camera because they don't sleep for two nights before or whatever, but it's even part of our hiring process now.

00:12:22:01 - 00:12:42:08

Mark Rodgers

You know, they we send out videos to them, kind of an assignment videos for a prospective employee. And then Cynthia or HR director spends about 30 minutes on a on a zoom call. Their next step, if they want to continue in the process, is to record 90s on their cell phone. Hey, who are you? Why do you want to work across them?

00:12:42:10 - 00:13:03:06

Mark Rodgers

And we find that about 40% of the people are too scared to do that. But now we're screening those people out that are not going to come on board and find us. They will go on camera, you know, but there's there's little things their logistics. Marquesas Clyde code the other day to build a scheduling system that now has the script in there.

00:13:03:08 - 00:13:18:04

Mark Rodgers

And we generally have at any one time, 5 to 10 scripts ready to go. And the people need to go in schedule it, they can read the script, they can practice it ahead of time. And we're telling them, Mark, this is only going to be on camera 40% of the time. The rest of y'all have to be there.

00:13:18:04 - 00:13:42:07

Mark Rodgers

We talk with their leaders and their departments to do that, and it's it's constant, but it's getting better and better. And the other thing too is, you know, we we put together a little video of bloopers and things like that, that show, hey, we all make bloops too. It's okay. And the cool thing is, is, you know, we teach them, just clap, you know, stop, catch your breath, clap, and then just go on.

00:13:42:07 - 00:13:52:23

Mark Rodgers

And then the editor knows, okay, we got a we got a blooper here or we got something to stop. So I don't know where you got anything to handle or add to that you handle the stuff.

00:13:53:01 - 00:14:11:16

Marquece Cunningham

I think one of the biggest things you kind of spoke to is, you know, having the systems in place that help make it easier for people to kind of, you know, feel comfortable with getting on video if they have the opportunity to sit with the script for, you know, maybe a 48 or 72 hours prior to jumping into the studio, then they feel a lot more comfortable.

00:14:11:18 - 00:14:34:19

Marquece Cunningham

And part of it is to. Yeah, like showing them that we do make mistakes. You know, while I may have been on video primarily, most of the time, there's still instances where I'll go in there, I'll read too fast or I'll fumble over my words, or completely skip over a word or say things incorrectly. You know, but being able to take, you know, those methods and share those with the team, it just humanizes what we do.

00:14:34:19 - 00:14:35:06

Marquece Cunningham

Really?

00:14:35:10 - 00:14:48:11

Alex Winter

Yeah. Build some camaraderie and gets people to laugh a little bit. You can't take it too seriously. I think I even said to you guys as, a free frame before we started the show that, like, I'm probably going to mess up at some point, too, and we'll just edit around it, you know, you just have to embrace it.

00:14:48:11 - 00:15:10:06

Alex Winter

It's part of yeah, it's part of the process. And it it's like anything, right? It is scary at first. I'm usually behind the camera, getting in front of the camera and doing the show for me was definitely a stretch, out of my comfort zone. But with practice, you just, you get more comfortable, you get better with it, and before long, it's I think the big piece is when you start to see the results from it, that's when it's really like, oh, hey, this is this is a game changer.

00:15:10:06 - 00:15:11:12

Alex Winter

This is working.

00:15:11:14 - 00:15:29:11

Mark Rodgers

Yeah. To tell your viewers out there, I would say, you know, I think I think it may have been Marcus and they asked for answer maybe I heard on this podcast, but you got to do at least 100 videos before you even start to understand what you're doing. But what we tell our team, you know, are our sales producers and account managers.

00:15:29:11 - 00:15:50:15

Mark Rodgers

They're not going to do 100 videos probably in their lifetime with us, but you're going to need to at least do 5 or 10 before you feel somebody comfortable. And so for the folks that are afraid of putting other people in front of their, you got to give them some grace. Let them let them go in there, mess up, have fun with it, you know, tell them they did a great job, even if it's not so great.

00:15:50:17 - 00:16:06:14

Mark Rodgers

The editors can clean up a lot of that. And, you know, we can change that, especially if you're shooting with a couple of cameras angles. Absolutely. And, putting graphics and B-roll in, you can make it look pretty good, even if they're messing it up and look horrible. Yeah.

00:16:06:16 - 00:16:24:04

Alex Winter

Yeah. Well, so that's good advice right there. I'm curious, you had mentioned Alignment Day and Alignment Day's a big day here at impact when you start on the coaching program with endless customers. That's like the the kickoff day, everyone gets in a room and you roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty. It sounds like you're doing that every quarter, which is really cool that you're doing that internally.

00:16:24:04 - 00:16:40:18

Alex Winter

But I'm curious, how has it been for you guys working with impact and the coaching team here and working with your coaches from an accountability standpoint, from implementing the system? Like, I'm just curious from each of your perspectives how it's helped the trajectory of your journey without those customers?

00:16:40:20 - 00:16:43:11

Marquece Cunningham

Go ahead, Mark, let's take that one first.

00:16:43:13 - 00:17:05:18

Mark Rodgers

Yeah. So we started, on the website, impacting coach first. That was about a year and a half ago. And then we had some personnel changes and everything. That's when workers joined us. But I'm able to contrast that to the previous website provider that helped us build previous site. And it was really, hey, you got to have SEO, you got to have SEO, you got to have SEO.

00:17:05:18 - 00:17:23:08

Mark Rodgers

Everything is about lead generation. Nothing is about trust. It's just getting them to click into the funnel. And it didn't work. We were with them for a couple of years, you know, at the same time, I have already read, they ask you to answer and enlist customers. And I'm saying, guys, have you even read this stuff? This is what I want.

00:17:23:10 - 00:17:45:05

Mark Rodgers

And it wasn't, it wasn't a cheap website. We spent a lot of money on that site and it didn't perform, and it didn't live up to our values on how we, you know, the four pillars of trust and our core values. It didn't live up to it. So the first thing, that that we did, we spent a lot of time with Tom and, and he spent hours on the phone with us.

00:17:45:05 - 00:18:08:15

Mark Rodgers

Just what is important to you guys? What values do you want to project? And I think the website became a better representation of that, because of it. Because impact went into it with the mindset of, first of all, understanding all of everything that's taught, and then less customers, but also understanding who we are and and how we operate with our customers.

00:18:08:15 - 00:18:19:08

Mark Rodgers

You know, heart of a teacher I brought up before, those type of things. So that's my perspective. I've been blown away by it. Work. Yes. You've how many websites have you developed? Like 300.

00:18:19:10 - 00:18:28:14

Marquece Cunningham

Yeah, close to 300. Yeah. Over the course of my career, across all platforms. Framer, Webflow, HubSpot, Squarespace, Wix, you name them. So I can see.

00:18:28:16 - 00:18:39:21

Mark Rodgers

What was your contrast or your perspective coming to you didn't get a choice in the matter. I did not get you when we hired McGee's were like, by the way, we're building a new website on HubSpot. He's like, okay, great.

00:18:39:23 - 00:19:13:01

Marquece Cunningham

Yeah, yeah. I will give, props to Janet. She she's our impact coach. And she stayed on our butts like a hard core, and very thorough in terms of how they were able to look at the website from a holistic perspective to understand all the different moving parts, and really kind of gave us just insight on setting up a website that we can scale with, over time, specifically with AI and as different technologies and whatnot change.

00:19:13:03 - 00:19:35:03

Marquece Cunningham

But it did for, Mark, myself and our sales director, Ken, to lock ourselves in a room, probably for 4 or 5 hours at a time sometimes. And, we have over 160 pages on our website, and we touched every single page, rewriting the copy, focusing on things on the back end in terms of all tags, in terms of schema, in terms of images.

00:19:35:03 - 00:19:56:02

Marquece Cunningham

And I mean, like, you name it, and the impact team, like they were very thorough in their systems and whatnot. And I had never worked on a website that required that many moving parts. So to get to the finish line and we in full transparency, we had to delay the website, but only by one week, for our launch date.

00:19:56:02 - 00:20:11:15

Marquece Cunningham

And typically, anytime you're dealing with tech or websites like things can get pushed out a lot further. So yeah, the fact that they were able to stay on on top of us and we were able to see it across the finish line just a week after our, original launch date. It's it's a big feat.

00:20:11:17 - 00:20:31:07

Alex Winter

That's a huge feat. Yeah. Congratulations on that. Well done, well done. I'm not surprised. Janet. Janet is, web wizard. She's just incredible. I love working with her, too. She knows so much. It's way over my pay grade. And I'm glad to hear that it went so well in 160 pages to go through. That's a that's a substantial amount of content to, to be looking at.

00:20:31:07 - 00:20:42:18

Alex Winter

So good for you guys. Well, and I'm curious I'm curious how many of those pages had video or how many of those pages were you like, ooh, here's opportunity for video where you just focused on the web piece at that one point.

00:20:42:20 - 00:21:03:02

Marquece Cunningham

All of the pages needed video. And so Mark is our, script writer. And we operate under the entrepreneurial operating system EOS. Yeah. So and, and that world, Mark reports to me as the script writer and, like, we would just sit down and say, okay, we need a video for this page. We need a video for this page, this page of this page.

00:21:03:02 - 00:21:14:08

Marquece Cunningham

And I mean, like, we're still creating videos because we're only, you know, human, you know, and, but there were a almost all of the pages and that was where we were able to get.

00:21:14:10 - 00:21:18:07

Mark Rodgers

3430 for what we call website videos or.

00:21:18:09 - 00:21:20:04

Marquece Cunningham

Videos. Yeah, web 30 for that.

00:21:20:04 - 00:21:26:20

Mark Rodgers

We identified originally that had to be done to launch. And we didn't get there. I think we only launched with maybe three.

00:21:26:22 - 00:21:28:05

Marquece Cunningham

Yeah, 3 or 4.

00:21:28:07 - 00:21:49:05

Mark Rodgers

And then every and then we've got, you know, I don't know how many people on the website, about 50 or 60. So today our Philippine team and we haven't put them on the team, but on the website, but of the 70, but those are bio videos that work. Yes. And his team are developing as well. So we're really trying to build trust there.

00:21:49:07 - 00:21:53:10

Mark Rodgers

You know, before they meet us. Yeah. Or in person.

00:21:53:11 - 00:22:07:09

Alex Winter

Yeah. That's the key assignment selling. I mean, that's that's the beauty of it, right? There's to the best way to build trust is to let people see your team and to not just tell people about it, but to show them who they are. That. Mark, you said it. Look them in the eye like there's there's something to be said for that interaction.

00:22:07:09 - 00:22:22:16

Alex Winter

And I know it's a lot of work, but I also admire that you you set a goal and maybe you didn't hit it. You wanted to do 36 or somewhat videos and you only got 3 or 4, but you still launched and you're going to keep iterating and keep adding to it. And I think that's something for business owners and marketing teams out there to hear that.

00:22:22:16 - 00:22:33:05

Alex Winter

Like, it doesn't have to be perfect. And if you want 36 videos, but you only get 4 or 5, like it's okay to launch and then continue to the progression of like pushing yourselves and pushing the team and growing.

00:22:33:05 - 00:22:44:21

Mark Rodgers

Yeah, perfect is the enemy sometimes of growth. You know, so you got to be careful there. You got to be you got to be focused on doing it right. But, you know, if we had waited to go perfect, we probably would have been launched until a month ago.

00:22:45:02 - 00:23:04:14

Alex Winter

Yeah. Yeah. Wow. So I'm curious I like data and especially since you guys are on HubSpot with your website, I know Janet probably did some back end stuff there too. Between the video, the website, all the things that you've been implementing as a team, what's what's the journey been like? Where did like from starting before launch until where you're at now, today?

00:23:04:14 - 00:23:14:02

Alex Winter

Like, have you have you seen some changes in traction and leads coming in and quality of customers like, can we just talk a little bit about some of the results you guys have been having?

00:23:14:04 - 00:23:22:15

Mark Rodgers

Sure. We're snickering because we changed the URL and so we lost some of our SEO juice.

00:23:22:15 - 00:23:24:09

Alex Winter

Yeah, that's a big, big deal.

00:23:24:11 - 00:23:42:02

Mark Rodgers

Yeah, we were trail. So an insurance group and we moved it to trust insurance. And, you know, there was a lot of discussion with Janet and the impact team on why we would do that. We had some issues with shadow listing because we had stuff being redirected from trust and insurance group and, and trust in insurance.

00:23:42:02 - 00:24:07:08

Mark Rodgers

Anyway, long story short, our, our traffic volume did fall off by about 40% originally. And now it's come back to the where it was previously. But the things that is really exciting to us. We had no idea what was happening with AI, and now HubSpot is actually tracking it. And the first yeah, the first week that Janet produced a report, I literally almost cried.

00:24:07:08 - 00:24:30:08

Mark Rodgers

I said, I can see the search string in ChatGPT. I can see what web page they clicked on, how long they were there. Then they clicked the form to get help. And then we reached out 20 minutes later and we closed them like a week later. And that's not uncommon in our in our journey, we typically will sell somebody about 10 to 14 days after they make contact with us.

00:24:30:10 - 00:24:45:02

Mark Rodgers

So, I couldn't believe and I'm like, wow, this is the Holy grail. This is what we've been looking for. But, you know, now the volume is kind of getting back to where it was. We launched, what was the first week in November?

00:24:45:04 - 00:24:46:09

Marquece Cunningham

Yeah. Early. No.

00:24:46:10 - 00:25:06:04

Mark Rodgers

So we are getting back to where we were on the volume, but, even even yesterday, our sales director was telling us the the quality of the leads now are so much better. They're coming in pre-qualified, just like in those customers talks about, you know, 80% of the journey is being done before they ever reach out for help.

00:25:06:06 - 00:25:21:14

Mark Rodgers

And so we're actually seeing that now, where these, these customers are closing about double what they were closing previously. But the volume has not come up that much yet. But we're just getting crawled by algo.

00:25:21:16 - 00:25:36:14

Alex Winter

Yeah. After a big reset like that it does take a little bit of time. We did the same thing here at impact where we changed our URL and traffic took a pretty serious dip for, for the initial piece. But then if you have everything set up correctly it starts to ramp up and you'll start to get more of a groundswell.

00:25:36:14 - 00:25:55:12

Alex Winter

And it sounds like you really are. And also, I think it's important to point out you had mentioned your previous website. Guys were like SEO, SEO drive, drive leads, drive leads. The quality of your leads is more important than the quantity, in my opinion. And I think sometimes people yeah, people forget that. And they think if we just get a ton of leads in, we'll figure it out.

00:25:55:12 - 00:26:09:11

Alex Winter

And it's a good problem to have. But I don't know if that's actually true. And the quality is so important because it's way less stress on your sales team. The people that are coming in trust you. They want to buy from you. I mean, that's the you said it's the dream scenario. And I think that's it's cool to hear that.

00:26:09:11 - 00:26:11:08

Alex Winter

That's what's happening for you guys. So bravo.

00:26:11:14 - 00:26:34:05

Alex Winter

last big question for you guys. So can we talk a little bit about and I mentioned this earlier but the insurance game there's a lot of preconceived ideas for consumers about insurance. And and this is that you guys have done such a great job with your content, with your website, with everything you've been doing to to build trust and to break through a lot of that noise or a lot of that like, negative energy, if you will, or skepticism.

00:26:34:05 - 00:26:46:16

Alex Winter

Right. How how is that endless customers played into you creating that content or like disrupting the industry in a way that other people aren't? And like, how has that really affected your company as a whole?

00:26:46:18 - 00:26:50:15

Mark Rodgers

Get that one Marquece. Oh, yeah.

00:26:50:17 - 00:26:51:13

Marquece Cunningham

That's a big question.

00:26:51:13 - 00:27:08:14

Alex Winter

It is. It is a big question. I know I'm putting you on the spot, Marquece, but it's one of those things where I think sometimes people in insurance, I think certain industries go like, oh, we can't make content and all like this doesn't really apply to us and it's really not true. And you guys have proven that that's not true and you've been leveraging it to your advantage so well.

00:27:08:14 - 00:27:11:09

Alex Winter

And that's, I guess, where the root of the question is coming from.

00:27:11:11 - 00:27:30:04

Marquece Cunningham

Yeah. Like I, I really think what it's about is putting yourself in the shoes of, you know, what customers are looking for and what they're searching for. And honestly just trying to build that relationship with them there can I don't it doesn't matter what industry you're in, there can be video content. There can just be content in general on it.

00:27:30:04 - 00:27:58:14

Marquece Cunningham

And in our case, you know, with insurance not necessarily being a sexy industry, we, in my opinion, not always strive to do a really good job at making content that is interesting, that is educating people, following under the formats of, you know, that are within those customers framework, whether if it's the big five or whatever it may be, those specific things are very much embedded into our script writing process, into the content we release across other digital channels, whatever it may be.

00:27:58:14 - 00:28:19:20

Marquece Cunningham

So that way we really create it more or less like an ecosystem. So the same experience customers get when they jump on a phone with our sales team or with our service team, is that same initial experience they had gotten when they first saw a video of myself or Mark, or someone on the service team. And the big goal here was making sure that entire experience was cohesive all the way through.

00:28:19:22 - 00:28:36:14

Alex Winter

Yeah, I love hearing that, especially from you, because you have so much experience. You said 20 years, 300 websites. My God, that's that's really substantial. How was it? How was it for you? Because it's like, let's just say you're an OG in the game. How was it for you learning this new system? And you had just mentioned the big five and the selling seven.

00:28:36:18 - 00:28:55:20

Alex Winter

I kind of have a similar background to where like when I started to understand these systems, I was like, wow, this, this makes a lot of sense. And it wasn't like it wasn't anything like I hadn't really done before. But it's it was packaged in a way that was like tangible. And you could really apply it immediately and not have to, like, try to figure out all this gray area and interpretive stuff.

00:28:55:22 - 00:29:29:00

Marquece Cunningham

Yeah. So prior to, joining Trailstone, I had never heard of, you know, endless customers or impact or any of that. But the model behind it, like, I feel like it's very applicable to everything that I had done and even in some aspects of my personal life as well. But I would say the overall packaging and just the way that, you know, or the time that I've had to digest it, whether if it's from the book or attending the conferences, whatever it may be, it's set up in a way that if you follow the framework, like, you will see success from it.

00:29:29:00 - 00:29:49:18

Marquece Cunningham

The biggest thing is being able to commit to it. And we, we try to, be a sounding board, you know, for the rest of our team that leadership is brought in on endless customers and everyone else within the organization. You know, it's it's basically a requirement, you know, that way we can all be in alignment and have the same vision.

00:29:49:20 - 00:30:08:06

Speaker 2

But the biggest thing is being able to commit to it because a lot of people will say, you know, yeah, we're doing this, we're doing that. But you'll see areas where they may have fallen off, you know, a two months, three months. And it's like, oh, we got busy, whatever. But, you know, it started with Mark and, you know, he's done a really good job at making sure that we don't deviate from that specific plan.

00:30:08:06 - 00:30:17:02

Marquece Cunningham

And there are things and iterations that make changes, whether if it's through technology or personnel that joins. But, you know, it's it's deeply embedded within our culture.

00:30:17:04 - 00:30:25:02

Alex Winter

It's apparent. It's it sounds like you guys are living, breathing this, this system. And it's great to see really, really want to see you.

00:30:25:03 - 00:30:42:09

Mark Rodgers

You brought it up a package. Excuse me? A package, you know, is what endless customers is to us when you know, the four pillars, the, you know, the the the big five and the so and seven when you put all that together, we just follow the, the process. And it's a lot easier than trying to invent it.

00:30:42:11 - 00:30:47:09

Mark Rodgers

We have invented a lot of things around here that are proprietary and.

00:30:47:11 - 00:31:07:13

Mark Rodgers

That worked very well for us, but they're always built around the system and their process. And so yeah. Yeah, it was customers. It was it was a all we have to do is learn it and then start to execute on it. And EOS much the same way package. And we learned a long time ago we tried to self implement, iOS didn't work so well.

00:31:07:15 - 00:31:25:00

Mark Rodgers

So anybody out here aspiring for us hire an implementer. It's going to cost you some money, but you're going to get way ahead. But the biggest thing that we did when we tried to self implement iOS is, you know, there's six components in that in that iOS will we're only doing like three of them. And we we thought we were hey we're doing great.

00:31:25:00 - 00:31:47:08

Mark Rodgers

We just picked and choose same thing endless customers okay we got to do it all. And let's try to do it to the best that we're taught and the best knowledge that we have available at the time, you know, and that's evolving a ago and so on. But but don't go halfway you. No. And I'm really talking to your listeners that are thinking they're doing something really great.

00:31:47:13 - 00:31:49:13

Mark Rodgers

But at the same time they're not doing all of it.

00:31:49:15 - 00:32:07:22

Alex Winter

No I appreciate what you're saying. And this is unsolicited, by the way. And it's true because we listen we we're partners with iOS. We love the iOS system. We practice it here internally at impact as well. And we know that EOS and unless customers pair really well together, they're just like a good symbiosis if you're trying to grow and scale your business.

00:32:07:22 - 00:32:34:04

Alex Winter

But it's also one of those things to your point, Mark, where you think you can do it and maybe you are doing some of it, but to have an implement or to have an impact coach, to have somebody that's objectively looking at it from an outside perspective is going to give you, a lot more, a lot more direction, I would say, is probably the best way to put it and keep you accountable, because it's easy to think you're doing the right things or or think you got it, and you're only doing three of the six or whatever the case is, and you need that.

00:32:34:05 - 00:32:54:06

Mark Rodgers

The accountability is key. Yeah. Because we tell ourselves stories, hallucinations of what we're doing. You know, like I said, you know, whether it's the four pillars or whatever, you know, or the five types of videos that you're trying to put out may not be doing it right or you may not be doing it. You know, maybe you don't have your story brand figured out.

00:32:54:08 - 00:33:06:02

Mark Rodgers

And so that's another thing that needs to be there, too. Yeah. It's a it's a package. It's a system. And that's one reason why I think it's working well for us is we just follow the program.

00:33:06:04 - 00:33:16:18

Alex Winter

What does the future look like for Trailstone. In your in your eyes Mark. Where do you see we're we're in Q2 right now. What's the rest of the year look like. And maybe a few years into the future. What's your vision?

00:33:16:20 - 00:33:21:02

Mark Rodgers

Oh boy. I say, oh boy, because we have a VTO.

00:33:21:04 - 00:33:22:09

Speaker 3

That's where I say.

00:33:22:11 - 00:33:43:17

Mark Rodgers

Users know that. And and we just did our annual planning back in November, and we and we moved it to a five, a three and a one year goal. And we're scrapping it almost, you know, in two weeks, primarily because of what we're seeing in the market with customers. They're demanding price. We know that from every industry.

00:33:43:19 - 00:34:03:15

Mark Rodgers

As an independent insurance agents, we cannot deliver price because we don't set the price. And we have gone round and round and trying to figure out technology to provide them. We're using price guide AI right now. It's not it's not good. The customers are not happy with what we're giving them. I'm not saying price guide is not good.

00:34:03:15 - 00:34:25:10

Mark Rodgers

That was a blessing for 4 or 500 bucks a year. But, so anyway, what does the future look like? We have to use AI in a way that we can deliver everything the customer is looking for before they come to us. They also want to quote when they talk to us, they want to finalize the the process in one 15 minute phone call.

00:34:25:12 - 00:34:48:07

Mark Rodgers

That's what they're doing at State Farm and all. We take 25 minutes to talk to them, and then we have to follow up with them. Typically after it takes a couple three hours to get a quote done. Well, you know, a day later. So we are really we are revamping our whole video and it's probably going to include hiring a developer because we are we were able to design a lot of this stuff with cloud code.

00:34:48:07 - 00:35:11:19

Mark Rodgers

Now, but we can't deploy it very well without because none of us know Python or backend development, or even none of us know it, you know? So that's that's why we chuckle is because we're meeting with our implementer on May 8th, and I can see us kind of throwing the VTO out, you know. So that's one thing. Why don't you, when you talk about Sherpa workers?

00:35:11:21 - 00:35:33:17

Marquece Cunningham

Yeah. So, the Sherpa, actually dates me a bit, to joining Trailstone, but basically one of the big initiatives that we have here, obviously lead generation and whatnot, but we also want to be able to serve, some other verticals. So right now we're in insurance, but we want to be able to do insurance, mortgage and loan officers, as well.

00:35:33:19 - 00:36:03:06

Marquece Cunningham

And with that, being able to essentially spin up a media company that educates those specific verticals, and does lead generation through their, serving nationwide, essentially. So we'll create a ton of content around it. But being able to get to that point is it's going to be ran through the system and the machine that we put together here at Trailston and then essentially replicate it over to another company, that will spin off, that can the sky's the limit with that one.

00:36:03:08 - 00:36:10:06

Marquece Cunningham

But the big thing is it's content. It's at the forefront of everything we do here and being able to do that.

00:36:10:08 - 00:36:25:01

Alex Winter

And it sounds like you have the systems in place to be creating a lot of content and putting it on your, your new website. And I just, I love hearing, all the stuff that you guys have been doing. And for everybody out there watching and listening, we're going to drop a link for Trail Stones website and their content in the, the description.

00:36:25:01 - 00:36:40:22

Alex Winter

You definitely going to check it out. It's worth it's worth a watch. Any closing thoughts, guys, as we start to wrap up here for maybe for our listeners and people out there who are just starting to hear about endless customers for the first time, what would you say to them? If they're dipping their toe in the proverbial waters, going like, what is this?

00:36:40:22 - 00:36:42:22

Alex Winter

Endless customers that you speak of?

00:36:43:00 - 00:37:10:10

Marquece Cunningham

I would say stick with it and that it's iterative. And, you know, since I've, I've been with Charles Stone, Mark has maybe reread the book 4 or 5 times, and continues to get new ideas, ideas from it. And, you know, don't abandon the fundamentals that are within the book or just within the process, because if you follow them in the way that they're model like, it will work for you that that's that's my $0.02.

00:37:10:12 - 00:37:14:05

Marquece Cunningham

Mark's been doing and doing it a bit longer than me. So he may have something different.

00:37:14:05 - 00:37:20:09

Alex Winter

Yeah. I'm curious. Thank you. Mark and Mark, I'm curious about you. How many times have you read Endless Customers. What are we up to?

00:37:20:11 - 00:37:35:16

Mark Rodgers

Matt? Close to Chris Green. But, no, I, I don't think it's been 3 or 4 times, but I did listen to I had a flight last week and I put it on, like 2.0. If you ever listen to market share on 2.0, I have audible. It's fast.

00:37:35:16 - 00:37:39:23

Alex Winter

It is fun. Yeah. I've edited a lot of Marcus videos at 2.0, and it's,

00:37:40:01 - 00:38:00:04

Mark Rodgers

Yeah. So it's, but yeah, but it was, it was inspiring because I picked up a little the little things and I think I even came back and I'm like, you know, I, I'm primary script writer, blog writer and everything. And I told my keys, I'm sorry, guys, I screwed up on this one. We need to probably reshoot this.

00:38:00:06 - 00:38:18:21

Mark Rodgers

So, stay focused on what they teach in there and just, you know, you can't, you know, they say, how do you eat elephant? One bite at a time. And yeah, there's very few companies that are going to have the financial resources or the leadership teams brought in. Maybe you have the financial resources, but you don't have the team to buy it all at once.

00:38:18:21 - 00:38:38:15

Mark Rodgers

And so get them to an impact conference. And just somebody has to be the visionary on it and then keep it going and don't stop. You know, that's that's the main thing. Keep it going I see. Yeah. Yeah. I've introduced endless customers to probably ten different insurance agencies. They'll read the book and they go, oh, that was great.

00:38:38:18 - 00:38:52:20

Mark Rodgers

I'm going to do something about that. And then, you know, they they change a blog and they're on their website or something. But yeah, they really never do anything beyond that. And it's, it's so it's a lot of words but not a lot of action. And even if the actions are micro steps taken.

00:38:52:22 - 00:39:09:23

Alex Winter

Yeah. Great advice. And I think the conference is to a shameless plug. We have conferences twice a year. Endless customers live in Hartford and in Chicago. You got to go check that out as well. It's a great way to get new ideas, especially when it comes to AI and trending tech and things that are happening in, in, the marketing space and in the endless customer space.

00:39:09:23 - 00:39:15:10

Alex Winter

So with that, Marquece, thank you so much for being on the show and taking the time to share your story today. I appreciate it.

00:39:15:10 - 00:39:16:20

Marquece Cunningham

Yeah, thanks for having.

00:39:16:20 - 00:39:24:19

Alex Winter

Me. Absolutely. We'll have to check back in. And Mark, thank you too. Thank you so much for sharing your story and letting us peek behind the, the curtain trail stone.

00:39:24:21 - 00:39:28:19

Mark Rodgers

Yeah. Thanks for having us. Happy to help anybody out there. So reach out.

00:39:28:21 - 00:39:39:05

Alex Winter

Absolutely. Yeah. We'll drop their info in the description so you can reach out if you have any further questions. But that's our show. This is endless customers. I'm your host, Alex Winter, and we will catch you on the next episode.