Husband & Wife Duo Take on an Ultra Competitive Industry by Applying Their Own Fiduciary Standard with Donovan and Chelsea Ryckis

0:01Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire. Brought to you by the HubSpot. Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like My First Million. Today, we'll be breaking down how this husband and wife duo took on an ultra competitive industry by applying their own fiduciary standard. To drop these value bombs, I brought Donovan and Chelsea Rikus into EO Fire Studios. Donovan is a former Series 65 wealth advisor and Chelsea is a Division I athlete and insurance agent owner. They are a husband and wife duo taking on the employee benefits market for large employers across the country.

0:41In today, Far Nation, we'll talk about your goal, your North Star. We'll talk about the industry standard. We'll talk about creating your differentiator and so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Donovan, Chelsea, and our sponsors. Sales Evangelist, hosted by my friend, Donald Kelly, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Each week, Donald interviews the world's best sales experts, successful sellers, sales leaders, and entrepreneurs who share their strategies to succeed in sales right now. A recent episode you should definitely check out is the five ways to do daily outbound with LinkedIn.

1:17Listen to Sales Evangelist wherever you get your podcasts. Ever thought of giving a TEDx talk? It's one of the most powerful ways to share your message with the world and four-time TEDx speaker, Taylor Conroy from Thought Leader can help you get there. Visit thought-leader.com to join Taylor's free training where he teaches you how to land a TEDx talk and spread your message to millions. All right, Fire Nation, we have Donovan and Chelsea on the mic. So we're going to have them both say what's up to Fire Nation. And Donovan, why don't you start by sharing something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with?

1:56Hey, John. Hey, Fire Nation. So something most people disagree with, I would say don't diversify your business. In fact, niche down until you start saying no to business. And by doing that, you'll be working with your most ideal client, the people that bring you the most energy, and you'll be well known either in a niche or a vertical or a certain industry of your clientele that you're looking for. Fire Nation, you know that I love saying niche till it hurts. Niche till it hurts. Chelsea, what do you got? Well, I think this might get me canceled in social media culture right now, but the whole work-life balance thing for me, work-life balance at the beginning, that's the caveat.

2:38It's a total lie. We'll get into it with you here in a bit, but so much of what we did in the beginning with those long days, long hours, working weekends, going and working way harder than our competition allowed us to be successful very quickly. And you want to look at the people who are giving you the advice, right? I can't tell you how many times I had friends and family that were like, you've got to slow down, you're going to burn out. But when I would look at where they were, I'm like, well, I don't want the life that you have nothing wrong with the life that they had, but I wanted something different, right?

3:08So you just have to stay true to yourself. I think eventually the work life balance becomes important. But at the beginning, you got to be all in. Fire Nation, as you heard in the intro, we're talking to the husband and wife duo who took on an ultra competitive industry by applying their own fiduciary standard. And Donovan, I want to jump back to you because a lot of people don't even have a North Star to point towards when they're starting their business. But you did. What was your specific goal when you started your business? Looking back, I'd say the journey is not linear, right it's not perfect and it doesn't necessarily happen the ideal way that that you had expected so I kind of went through a couple different businesses a couple different things and all did well you know I'd say other people would probably look at it and think it's successful but you know personally I wasn't finding it so I had a couple things that I was looking for in whatever ideal kind of career business I really dedicated myself to.

4:11And I was looking for basically the ability to make a difference. I wanted to have personal kind of freedom of location. So if I wanted to work in Puerto Rico or Canada or Florida, wherever I'm at, that that wouldn't erupt, interrupt my ability to service my clients. And I wanted to work with good people that inspired me and be able to solve kind of new and different problems instead of just having a business that was a little bit more transactional where you're just expected to kind of do the same thing, make the same sales week in, week out. And Chelsea, I know you have a story to add to this as well.

4:49Why don't you take that away? Sure. Well, I knew from a very young age that I wanted to be an entrepreneur. My mom and my dad run a roofing company in Canada. So I saw it my whole life and I never really knew what that looked like until I knew what it didn't look like. So my senior year in college, I was playing D1 softball. I sustained a brain injury, and it actually stopped me in my tracks from becoming a doctor. In an attempt to save the world a different way, I thought I'd go into nonprofit. I was making$30 ,000 a year and fundraising boatloads of money for a large national nonprofit. After having a really successful event, the most successful they've ever had in the history of this particular event, I went and I asked for a raise.

5:31So I asked, instead of$30 ,000, will you pay me$33 ,000? And here's my business plan on how I'm going to make even more money for you next year. Well, they said no. It wasn't in the budget. But they're going to send me a bonus check. So little me is super excited about this bonus check. A few months go by. I had to inquire about it a couple times. It finally came in. And it was$10, period. period. So that for me was that moment where no one ever is going to tell me my worth again. Donovan actually framed that check for me. It's in my office hanging up and it's that daily reminder of nobody will tell you your worth.

6:10So my goal ultimately when we started the business was to never be in that position again. Oh, Fire Nation, if you are not moved by that story, like check your pulse. I mean, I can so clearly remember being back in the military and, just busting my butt to be the best officer that I could be. And just looking around and knowing I'm working so much harder than every other officer that's the exact same rank as me. And then months and months and months went by of this. And we would all get our paychecks. We'd go out to the bar that night to kind of like celebrate and do our thing. And then it struck me.

6:45All these guys are getting paid the exact same amount of money as me. And I'm doing so much more work. I'm working so much harder. and they're just in cruise control and they're just not getting any less money than I am, although they're putting in so much less work. And that's when I said to myself, man, I'm going to serve my time here and continue my commitments to the military. But when I'm out, I am never putting myself in this situation again. So I love that story. And Donovan, I want to talk about the specific industry that you and Chelsea are now in and why you chose it. So we are in financial services, but more specifically, we are employee benefits consultants.

7:27So we work with employers, usually large corporations, 500 employees plus, on advising them and basically trying to mitigate and lower the ever rising cost of health care in this country. So our competition is huge. It is very competitive. We're usually working against, you know, publicly traded companies that do a couple billion dollars a year. So Chelsea, I want to talk about how you've been able to successfully compete against much larger, better funded businesses. Because a lot of people, when they're in a specific industry, they're like, man, they're just so much bigger than we are. They have so much more money than we do.

8:09They started so much earlier than we do. We give each other all these excuses of like, why we're not going to go for it, why we're not going to succeed. But you're doing all of that. Tell us how. Well, it's evolved over the last few years. But at the beginning, the first six months when Donovan and I partnered, we each had our own agency. When we partnered together, we decided the first six months are all about focusing on partnerships. So we found other insurance agencies that were not writing employee benefits. And we aligned ourselves with them as that expert. And then we actually leveraged their credibility in their respective communities.

8:48And we built a network of over 60 referral partners in the state of Florida, which then started to expand to the Southeast and is now nationwide. And that was really nice from a volume perspective, which is what we needed in those early days to get that runway of funds up front. Because, you know, I think we alluded to this, we were a scratch agency. We had no funding. It was just the two of us busting our butt every single day. So it was nice to have that volume. But on the flip side of that, a lot of the business we were getting is not our ideal client. And for what we mean by that is we're very values based.

9:21And I know we're going to talk a bit about alignment and values and what that means to us within our fiduciary standard. But something that's super exciting that just happened in September is we actually sold 80 % of our business. Yeah. And it's crazy to even say it. And it's a seven figure deal, very exciting time for us. But it wasn't in any attempt other than to align ourselves with our fiduciary standard, which I know we're going to chat about here soon. And Chelsea, I want to actually stick here for a second with you because Fire Nation is listening and they're hearing the success story. You sold for seven figures.

9:59You're still retaining 20 % of your company despite that. So, I mean, you have a real upside as well, which is super exciting. What piece of advice would you give to our listeners who are like, man, Donovan, Chelsea, they've done that. They were able to compete against larger, better funded businesses. I want to as well. What's one just quick piece of advice you'd give to them? Out-educate your competition. So, I remember in the very beginning, probably one year into the agency. It's still just Donovan and I. We closed a huge deal. It was the largest at that point. We had just landed in Cuba for a weekend vacation and we worked the entire time.

10:38We were so in it, so committed, so ready to go on this crappy Cuban Wi-Fi. We made everything happen in three days. It was amazing. But the only reason we won that account and had the opportunity to grow the business after that was because we were out educating our competition. So from the day one, we've reinvested. Even when we felt like we didn't have the money, we would reinvest by going to conferences, getting certifications, becoming experts in that niche, which is the fiduciary standard in employee benefits advising. So educate yourself, find your niche, and just run with it. Don't look back.

11:15And Fire Nation, yes, they might be larger. Yes, they might be better funded, but you can choose who's better educated. You can choose to out-educate your competition, to outwork your competition all day, every day. And we have a lot to talk about around this topic when we get back from thanking our sponsors. The new year is upon us and that means new goals, more growth, and upgrading your day-to-day workflow. While most sales folk are stuck in the mud of manual scheduling, digging into data, and tracking down leads, let me share with you a better way to win so you can crush your Q1. The new HubSpot Sales Hub is smart sales software for today's multitasking reps.

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13:04You might be thinking a TEDxTalk sounds great, but where do you start? Taylor has put together a free training that is going to teach you how to land a TEDxTalk in as little as 90 days. Join Taylor to learn exactly what TEDx organizers are looking for in their speakers, how to write a talk that goes viral once it goes online, and more. Visit thought-leader.com slash fire. Join Taylor for his free training and get your message out of your head, out of your heart, and out into the world where it belongs. That's thought-leader.com slash fire. Donovan, we're back, and I want to start with you because you and Chelsea have created this big differentiator that really sets you apart.

13:45What is that? Yeah, that's something that evolves over time. When you start a business and you start to figure out where you exist in the marketplace, it's not something that comes right away. I think it comes to Chelsea's point with all the education we were getting. In a new business, we were going three or four conferences a year, spending a lot of money traveling across the US. But that's kind of what allows you to find that. So for us, it was really looking at how the entire employee benefits marketplace operates and then looking for a more ideal structure that kind of aligns with both employers and employees, which wasn't really happening.

14:29Specifically, you know, aligning interest with compensation. We were challenging our client's view and their understanding of what was going on and providing them with more data. So that was the top three things. So I'd say, you know, the first thing was fixing perverse, what we call basically perverse incentives. And how that kind of works in our vertical of employee benefits is that most companies have what they call broker representing the options and the choices they bring for their employees for healthcare. These brokers are basically representing themselves as buyer's agent, right? Employer, I am working for you.

15:09I'm going to get you the best deal. I'm going to, you know, find you the best plans and I'm going to service them real well. The truth of it though, is that they're actually getting paid as seller's agents. So they're not getting paid directly from the buyer they're working with. They're not coming to an agreement on compensation. They're not even disclosing it. They're getting paid by the insurance company, a commission. Now that doesn't necessarily make everything evil. But if that reason is not being disclosed, it can lead to basically interest not being aligned in between our role as the consultant and the employer.

15:47So that's the first thing we did. We disclose all of our compensation from day one. Usually we set up commission prohibition. So we're basically working with that employer directly to get a fee from them instead of getting paid a commission by the carrier. and we're also foregoing any bonuses. So there's nothing kind of on the back end that might be motivating our behaviors. The sad story is, you know, like these commissions come as a percentage of premium. So if a employer gets a 10 % premium increase for their renewal next year, that means the advisor gets to share in that and they get a 10 % bonus as well.

16:27So just kind of not a situation that made a lot of sense. when we're talking about the relationship between the two. See, what I love about this Fire Nation is that it aligns everybody's expectations and goals together because now they understand, hey, this is what's best for everybody involved, not just two of the three people in the equation. And you really are going into this kind of stuff in a little more depth, Chelsea, when you guys decided to launch and just continue to create content for the Ethos Effect podcast. Talk to us about this. Yep, the Ethos Effect podcast, it's basically we're going to be spotlighting business pioneers who've unlocked their ethos and have leveraged it to become trailblazers and revolutionize their industries.

17:16And what inspired us to do this is what Donovan was talking about, being transparent, right, with the compensation when we were working with clients. There's a couple other things. Healthcare packages, very rarely are employers getting access to their claims data, which happens to be the only thing that matters when it comes to rising cost of healthcare. So we were seeing in our industry, you know, perverse incentives, lack of data so employers can make data-driven decisions, and lack of focusing on the root cause of the problem, which is the management and frequency and severity of claims. So when we started working the way that we were working, you know, I mean, there's other people in the industry doing it, just not a lot.

17:56And the reason is, right, these large publicly traded insurance or brokerages, they're not incentivized to do this kind of work. So we know what it's like to go against giants every single day in an effort to do the right thing. And we know how hard it is, right? You get kicked in the teeth and you get back up. Some days you're like, man, is this really worth it? Like, I feel like I'm fighting a good fight, but holy crap, is this hard. We wanted to create a place where we could spotlight people in other industries doing that same work because we feel like very often they're under-recognized. So that's what the Ethos Effect podcast is.

18:32And we actually had our first guest this past Saturday, Michael Gorton, 15-time serial entrepreneur, founding partner of Teladoc, which is now a$3 billion market cap when it was founded in 2002. Huge people that were able to spotlight and it's a very exciting time for the podcast. And Fire Nation, you can tell that Donovan and Chelsea are going to bring the energy, the passion, the heat. And that's actually where I want to end. And let's start with you, Donovan. What is the one thing that you really want to make sure Fire Nation gets from our conversation today? You know, I've been a longtime listener.

19:06John, I've been listening to you probably, geez, must be seven, eight years ago. I think going back to what I said kind of initially, like the journey of entrepreneurship of your business is not necessarily going to be linear. Uh, there's times we really progressed and then we kind of changed our business model or the clients we were serving. Like Chelsea was alluding to, we sold off 80 % of our clients. Um, but we did so because we looked at it and it was a typical Pareto principle, right? Those 80 % of our clients were only generating 20 % of the revenue coming into the agency. but doing that really changes everything it changes the volume it changes what you're focusing on every single day but it's good for the business and also for our end goals at the same time so i would just say the journey's not linear it's going to go up it's going to go down it's going to go sideways maybe even backwards but enjoy the process as long as you feel like you're doing the right things you're serving your customers you're going to get to the place you want to be.

20:08Chelsea, what about you? Very similar. It's just for me, transparency and my personal ethos and actually the ethos of our company is that if something can be done better, it should be. So look at your personal life, look at your business, look at anything that you're touching. And if something in that world can be done better, why are you sitting and waiting? Somebody's going to come and out educate you, out compete you for that business, for that spot in your life. You know what I mean? So if something can be done better, it should be, which is just constant evolution. Don't be afraid to grow.

20:38Don't be afraid to learn. Don't be afraid to change. Chelsea, let's give Fire Nation a way that they can connect with you and Donovan. The Ethos Effect podcast is, of course, a great place to start. What else would you have for them for a call to action? Call to action. You can find us on LinkedIn, Chelsea Rikus or Donovan Rikus and our company Ethos Benefits. LinkedIn will definitely be the best place. Fire Nation, you're the average. Of the five people you spend the most time with, you've been hanging out with DRCR and JLD today. So keep up that heat. And for links to everything we talked about, visit eofire.com.

21:12Just type Donovan or Chelsea in the search bar. The show notes page will pop up with links to everything that we've talked about. Donovan, Chelsea, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation. For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Donovan and Chelsea for sponsoring today's episode. Fire Nation. Successful entrepreneurs accomplish big goals. That's why I created the Freedom Journal to guide you in accomplishing your number one goal in 100 days. And we're talking step-by-step. Visit thefreedomjournal.com.

21:47I'll catch you there or on the flip side. Sales Evangelist, hosted by my friend Donald Kelly, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Each week, Donald interviews the world's best sales experts, successful sellers, sales leaders, and entrepreneurs who share their strategies to succeed in sales right now. A recent episode you should definitely check out is the five ways to do daily outbound with LinkedIn. Listen to Sales Evangelist wherever you get your podcasts. Ever thought of giving a TEDx talk? It's one of the most powerful ways to share your message with the world and four-time TEDx speaker, Taylor Conroy from Thought Leader can help you get there.

22:27Visit thought-leader.com to join Taylor's free training where he teaches you how to land a TEDx talk and spread your message to millions.