Podcasting Stories

Join David Spray as he talks with business owners about their podcasting stories.

Ep008: Building a Community with Chris Kolkhorst - Transcript

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Dave: Hi, Chris. Welcome to the podcast.

Chris: Hey Dave.

Dave: Well thank you for coming on, I appreciate it. I wanted to have you on for a while and I'm glad the schedules can finally line up. So-

Chris: Thanks for having me.

Dave: My pleasure. So let's start off with, I think with the most fun part of the interview. I think you're the first guest I've ever interviewed, who was a member of a division one national collegiate championship team unless our mutual friend Adam, he was not on a winning team, was he?

Chris: He was on some good Rice teams after I played, that he probably got to Omaha, but he did not win us a championship. So still your first guest that did that.

Dave: Okay. Well let's go ahead and fill them in. So you played baseball at Rice University, right?

Chris: I did. So I played three years at Rice, was very fortunate to be there at the right time, made two trips to Omaha in '02, we got to go to the college world series. Didn't turn out as well, we were happy to go there, but we proceeded to lose to the University of Texas and then to Notre Dame, and we came back after two games. So the next year we had that experience under our belts and went back and we actually won the national championship. We beat Stanford in the finals in 2003, they hit me in left field. I was a left fielder, so I was fortunate to have some amazing teammates.

Dave: Well, that is awesome. If you can give me one second, I just realized I forgot to turn, do not disturb on. Okay. When I said it's like a live radio show, I mean it's like a live radio show. There's no editing, no cutting, nothing. So when you on that team, you had a nickname, didn't you?

Chris: Well, it's funny you asked. So I created my own nickname based off of a character that I'd heard about when I played one year in junior college, that was a hard-nosed player. And he always slid into basis hard, he dove for balls, he got hit by pitches. He was kind of a pest and he called himself Gritman, G-R-I-T-M-A-N. And I brought that story with me to Rice and in my junior year, which was '03, I tore a ligament in my left shoulder and I was a left-handed hitter. And for the life of me, I could not turn on an inside pitch. And so I didn't hit for much power anyway, so I figured I would just stand on the plate, and if the pitcher missed inside a little bit, I would just get hit. And that was as good as getting a single in my mind.
And I got on base, which was my role anyways as the lead often. So fast forward, we were about to go to Omaha. We won the super regional and I had a few teammates that were awesome guys, but they're the type of friends that you like to needle and get under their skin. And so I would joke with them that I'm the Gritman, and they need to call me that they'd say, "Kolkhorst you aren't the Gritman, you don't dip," which is snuff that I never had a taste for that kind of tobacco. But at that time I had hair and had highlights and they said, "Kolkhorst you're not the Gritman, you take a shower." And I said, "All right, I'll make you a deal. If we go to Omaha and win that championship, for the rest of our lives, you have to call me Gritman." And they'd had a few beers and were feeling good. And they said, "Look, we go and win that championship, I'll call you whatever we want." So we go win that championship, and I became the Gritman.

Dave: Awesome. That is awesome. What about that nickname and the word grit was attractive to you? What resonated to you about that word?

Chris: I liked it because I'm a smaller guy, I matured late and never got very tall. And so baseball was a good sport for me that I could compete with physical size, but I always try to be an overachiever and look for advantages, and where I could have an impact and outwork somebody and bet on yourself, be resilient. And just so grit, I think is just a great word and something that the world needs more of rather than less.

Dave: And I understand that you've got an idea to encourage the development of grit in men, is that right?

Chris: I do. And I think the time's right. The marketplace will tell me if it's a good idea or not. My wife wasn't on board, she seems to be thinking it's a better idea as of the last few days. But I think there's an opportunity to connect men on a level that you subscribe to a certain way of life or philosophy, core values and form certain bonds. And so it'll be a men's club, for those out there that are into a men's club that maybe has dancers, it's not that type of men's club, but it's more like a society, part fraternity, part locker room if you ever played a team sport, part tailgate, part hunting club, park golf club. So you combine those elements, bet you, you'll subscribe to a certain way of life built around grit.

Dave: I like it. Where do I send my application for consideration?

Chris: Well, I got you on the list to be a founding member, Dave. So just watch this thing, it'll be coming to your inbox shortly.

Dave: Okay. So, but this helped though, because I was introduced to you by Adam Traweek, who was a guest on my other podcast who also played at Rice. And so, what about somebody who doesn't have a connection to you, that's listening to this, that's interested in learning more, do you have a website or anything on it yet or?

Chris: We don't, it's in the developmental stages. So right now there's a lot of people who will probably be introduced virtually. I thought the power of the logo would be important. And so, like a good country club or a good sports team, I wanted a logo that people would be proud of and happy to display. So I've hired a really good designer, we're going through the process, we're on our third round of revision, we should have that soon. But we're now planning to launch a website, a podcast and social media platforms as well. And then eventually I think we'll have some brick and mortar grow by word of mouth and probably have different chapters in different cities.

Dave: Okay, I like it. If somebody is interested in getting on the pre-release list, what would be the best way for them to reach out to you?

Chris: So my personal email is probably the best, so it's Gritman, which is gritman7@gmail.com.

Dave: Did that bother you that there were six ahead of you?

Chris: Well, I'm not sure there was, so my number in college was seven. And so growing up, I liked Craig Biggio was my favorite player, and so I always try to pattern my style of play after him. And Biggio, if you're listening, I think you're a Gritman as well. And so I'd be happy to invite you to be in the Gritman club. But then when I went to Rice, I was just giving seven. And so, Mickey Mantle wore seven, so just always liked the numbers, so that's why. If there's other six grit men out there, we should invite them to the club.

Dave: We should. I knew that was Mickey Mantle's number because of the Seinfeld episode that I don't know if you ever saw. Where George wanted to name his kid seven in honor of the Mick and his wife wouldn't have anything to do with it. And she mentioned it to her pregnant friend as an example of what a horrible idea it was and her friend liked it. So they decided to name their child seven and George was really upset and tried to talk them out of it up until the point that she was going into the delivery room. So yeah, that's why I know Mick's number off the top of my head. So that is great. So gritman7@gmail.com if folks want to learn more. So let's switch gears back to your entrepreneurial business and we'll come back to the Gritman later. So you seem like a classic serial entrepreneur. So why don't you tell me what was your first entrepreneurial endeavor that you can think of?

Chris: Oh, shoot. It was probably a little lawn mowing business that I started when I was 12 years old and I wanted to make some cash money and started lawn mowing yards and picked up a few neighbors. And when I turned 16 and had a car, I went around and got me quite a few lawns. And it was a great first business to learn how to manage your time, customer service, sales, talk with the homeowners. Unfortunately, conflict management at times with mowers and sprinkler and had an angry homeowner had to repair that. But that was probably the first business. And then somewhere in high school with a few buddies, we started a very random business thinking back, but it was a lot of fun. We didn't make any money, but we learned some lessons the hard way. We had a friend that had a beach house down in Galveston and designed a product to keep live bait alive for fishing, Bait Well.
And Some other homeowners were interested after seeing that product that they created. And so we started a little business and manufactured it, sourced the products, went around trying to sell them out of the back of the truck. I think fortunately, one of our parents had a gas card that probably helped us fill up. So driving back and forth from Galveston, any profit we made would have been eroded by our fuel expense and luckily we didn't have to incur that. So then fast forward, went to college and played in minor league baseball. And during that time in life, I had a Rice degree and I didn't know the value of it, I was confident it had some value. And playing minor league baseball, I was making $800 a month and just felt like I was going backwards in life and just stifled in some ways. And so I did want to get into some type of business where I felt I could better use my skill set and connections.
So I got in the insurance business, had a good mentor, learned the business for five years at a big firm and then broke off and started my own company named Kolkhorst insurance, grew that. Invested in another firm as well, that was focused more on employee benefits side. Grew both of those, exit them, sold them. I went to Frost Bank, went to the Marsh & McLennan agencies and started a few other financial service related businesses. So yeah, I don't know what the definition of serial entrepreneur is, but I like to meet new people, I like the relationships and form businesses and serve and so, it's been good.

Dave: Well, that is great. And I love the stories. So what would you say the biggest lesson you learned from the Bait Well business?

Chris: Bait Well business, I guess the first thing is that you should probably, before you... You come out with the prototype and before you incur a bunch of costs, you should make sure there is demand.

Dave: Okay.

Chris: And you probably need to evaluate the size of your marketplace, and what kind of local market exist and how much market share you need to go get to be profitable. So we had a good product, but there wasn't much demand and it was a very tiny marketplace. But you live and you learn. I'm glad I learned that lesson at 17, instead of 40.

Dave: Yeah, those lessons that at that age seemed to be cheaper, right?

Chris: Yes.

Dave: Because you don't have as much money to waste, so your mistakes are smaller by definition. So well, that sounds great. And so now let's talk a bit about podcasting, and are you thinking about it for the Gritman business, for your insurance business, both? And I'm not asking you to make some big, lifelong commitment at this point, but I'm just curious what are your preliminary thoughts?

Chris: I can see a couple of different podcasts. One for the Gritman club, as a tool to create content and to just interview some interesting people that display grit in their life. Not necessarily a celebrity, I guess it could be, or an athlete, but just everyday hard working Americans, and bring their story and hopefully, I want to say to the masses, but I guess we'd have to get some subscribers, so hopefully a lot of people. So I can see that. Then with my core business, my insurance business, that business sometimes it's hard to differentiate on product. And so it's service and you can... Ultimately a lot of times you're trying to win ties, because someone's making a commitment before they get to experience it. And so I think the podcasts would be a neat way to maybe differentiate or to create content that's interesting, or at least maybe possibly open some doors. And then if business is supposed to happen, maybe it will. But the door opener piece and creating interesting content, I think would be a good tool.

Dave: Okay. I think you're on to something, before we go much further though, why don't we do a quick assessment and see if you are a good fit. So we have a scorecard that we've created for just this purpose. There's eight questions, one to 12, so the top scores is a 96. Don't tell me how we came up with this scaling, it was because 10 questions seemed like too many and five was too few, and so you end up with eight. And so your total score out of 96 was 80. So you're actually a pretty good candidate. And for folks that are trying to follow along, you can see the scorecard at yourpodcastscore.com. And yes, you can take a look at it.
And basically there's eight questions and each one has four answers that are statements, and they're ranked from one to 12. So for example, let's go through the one that you scored the lowest on, and that's podcasts listening. And the answers are, I don't listen to podcasts. I'll listen to an episode once a year, when someone recommends a specific episode. I occasionally listen to podcasts and something triggers me to do so. Or I regularly listen to at least one podcast a month. And your score you gave yourself there was a six, maybe a seven, because you listen to more than one a year, don't you?

Chris: I do.

Dave: Okay, so-

Chris: It's truly been dependent on really if I'm flying or not. That seems to be the time when the plane's not going to have internet, I'll quickly download a podcast prior to getting on the plane.

Dave: Okay. So you gave yourself a seven there. And just so you know, the reason that question is there is we have found that, it doesn't matter what the other scores that people have, if somebody has never listened to a podcast, then I can tell them that a podcast is not a good fit. Because it'd be like trying to have a TV show if you've never seen a TV or watched a television. So that's why that's on there. But the fact that you at least listen to some podcast, you have a podcast player on your phone, you know how to use it, but I would say you meet the minimum standard for that question. So congratulations, good sir, you've met the minimum qualifications for that one. So now let's get to... the next question is one that we call keeping in touch.
And basically... and I'm not going to read all these statements out loud. But the question that you scored yourself on 11 on is the statement, I don't have content systems or tools, to reliably keep in touch with prospects and clients as much as I'd like to. And the people that answered this question high, this is a really good fit for them. And so talk to me about, as opposed to the other end of the scale which is, I send out enough emails to engage with clients and prospects. So tell me how you ended up in that box, and why that's the score?

Chris: Yeah, I think a lot of sales gurus, relationship gurus will say that you meet a defined systematic approach to touching your network every so often, and make it systematic versus leaving it up to chance, "Oh, I haven't done anything in a while, maybe I should send out something." So I've tried that. But I think personally what happens is that, I respect people. I respect their relationship and their privacy, and we get so many emails that, if it wasn't something very relevant, I just wasn't comfortable sending it out. And I never wanted to be put into that annoying salesmen space, which is easy. Selling insurance products, you're always aware that I may start in that space, and so I don't want to do anything that would jeopardize or damage reputation any further.

Dave: Yeah. And you know what, I hear this so often, and this was my exact situation before I launched my podcast a couple of years ago. For the same reason, I'd send out a couple of emails a year, if there was something that was real newsworthy, that impacted what we did, I'd send an email to the whole database, people generally appreciated it. But like you, I could never come up with... I talked to a marketing person that said, "Yeah, you need to send out an email a week." And I'm like, "That's 52 emails a year, what the heck do I have that people want to hear from me 52 times a year?" And the answer was, I didn't, at least I didn't think I did. The marketing people said, "We'll figure out something." But I didn't feel like I had something that was that valuable to email people 52 times a year.
And so like you, I did the same thing. I said, "I'd rather under email them than over email them."

Chris: I agree.

Dave: So, and that's where the podcast comes in, because we recommend for our clients that to start with, we recommend they just do one podcast a month, and then the corresponding email for that. And I can tell you, having done a podcast for a couple of years, I've never received a reply from somebody that said, "Your two paragraph email telling me that Chris Kolkhorst, was a guest on your show and he's a nice guy, and it's worth listening to, I just found that offensive." Nobody ever sent me such an email. And I think it's because it's not annoying, the subject line says, new podcasts episode with Chris Kolkhorst.
And if they want to just read that, and like, "Okay, I know Chris, I don't know Chris. I want to hear about or I don't." It's okay. And what we found from our 10,000 contacts that we have, probably 90% of them don't read the email, but they read that subject line. And so, that's not bad because it's still gets my name in front of them, it's not annoying. And for folks in Houston, there's some percentage chance that they might know you. And if they do know you and they have a positive opinion of you, I now have just enhanced my reputation slightly, because if they know you and they like you, and maybe they know you better than they do me, they subconsciously connect us. And they think, "Hey, Dave must not be too bad of a guy if he knows Chris and Chris was on his podcast."
And then if they actually open the email and read it, it's a short email just saying something like, "Hey, had a great call with Chris, he's a serial entrepreneur on a national championship baseball team. He's really got some interesting ideas. He's what's known as the Gritman. And he's wanting to start a group for guys who want to have more grit. And the episode is up now, if you're trying to listen to it, click here." It'll say something like that. And so we find it's just a great way to stay in touch. Because it's really funny how many times I'll get a response that's got nothing to do with the episode, and they'll say, "Hey, I've been meaning to reach out to you about XYZ." And that email just happened to trigger their memory. So does that sound like that would mesh with your thinking's on grit marketing using a podcast?

Chris: It sounds genius. And now's probably the appropriate time to let you know that, I don't think I'm going to damage your brand when you send that out, I hope we don't get your first opt-out, that's a lot of pressure.

Dave: Oh, no. We've had opt-outs. No, opt out are just part of the game, but as far as anybody going to the trouble to reply and say, "Your podcast is so offensive and your email's announcing it." I've never had that, so.

Chris: Well there may be one or two people out there that don't like me, Dave, I'm just warning you in advance.

Dave: Okay. Well, those things happen, you can't please them all. So let's go to the next question. And this one you answered with a resounding 12. And so this one talks about the lifetime value of a client. And so the first quadrant is the lifetime value is less than 1,000, the next one is 1,000 to 10,000, then 10 to 20,000, and then over 20,000. So every client is worth at least $20,000 over the life of our relationship. And you answered that one at 12. And so talk to me about that?

Chris: Yes, so in my business, it's a recurring revenue model. And so your sales are annually, so there's renewal. And so it's hard to get clients and so you want to hang on to them. So the lifetime value of the client can be really large if you get good clients and then take care of them, because they can pay you for 20 plus years. And so some of my clients, if you happen to listen to this, no I don't make $20,000 a year off you, but I hope to do business with you a long time. And that relationship is very profitable over time.

Dave: Yeah. And so the reason this matters is, and I think I shared these numbers with you there on our website. But if somebody wants to use this for a podcast, we charge $1,000 it's a one-time setup fee. And then we charge 750 a month, for one episode a month. So you do the math on that, and that comes out to be about 10 grand a year. I think 750 times 12 is nine grand plus a grand, so about 10 grand a year. And so the idea is if the lifetime value of a client is 20 grand or more, that if you did a podcast a month for 24 months, and you could point to just one client that came from that, then the podcast has paid for itself. So that's the idea. But that economics is a little more difficult if you're selling-

Chris: Donut holes.

Dave: ... a t-shirt. Yeah, if you sell donut holes to tourists who you only see one time, and then they go back home, it's a little hard to sale. So that's why that question is there. And it's why we find that people who the lifetime value of their clients is high, have more value there. And so does that math makes sense to you?

Chris: Oh, for sure. Absolutely, there's people ask you, what would you be willing to pay for this opportunity? It depends, but when you look at lifetime value, when you look at just relationship building, which is important, you can't have a relationship if you don't get in the door. And so, in my business, it's a long sale cycle. And so I try to meet people and position myself as someone they can trust and potentially do business with. And when the business is supposed to happen, if it is, it happens at the right time, when they're ready and there's a fit. And so, yes, I would think this could be a really good tool for that.

Dave: And thank you for that. And the other way that you could also use this is, and we do this frequently, at the end of the email, we'll have like a PS and we'll actually use the language, "Whenever you're ready, here's one or two ways we can help you." And so, one of the things that you could do, or we could help you with, if you want to move forward, is we could actually build some kind of a call to action, like a scorecard for them, for example, or some other informational piece. Or we could help you have a book with the 10 things you need to know about buying property and casualty insurance, something that would give them a reason to engage further.
Or said another way, it's a way for people to raise their hand. If you have a free ebook or a guide about something and people decide they want it, in a way they've went from being an invisible prospect to a visible prospect. So that's something else that we can perhaps help you with too.

Chris: Sounds good.

Dave: So here's a question that's actually not on the scorecard, I need to add it. And this one is also around just helping people. What we find are most people who have some podcasts familiarity and are generally on board with it, they can find an hour a month to do a podcast but they still need to financially justify it. So this other question is another way to financially justify it. So, do you have any clients or referral sources that are so important to you that you would spend $750 to entertain them, like to take them on a hunting trip or a golf outing? Do you have any clients like that?

Chris: I do Dave. And I'm chuckling because it's funny, my daughter was scrolling through my iPhone looking at my pictures and I had a picture of a receipt to document the expense, and she, "Daddy, you spent a thousand dollars on one bottle of wine." And I said, "Well, first of all, don't be going through daddy's phone, but that's a really good client." And when you get in business and you have good relationships that they help you support your family, you're willing to show your appreciation. So yes, long answer, but absolutely.

Dave: Would you say you have at least 12 of those relationships?

Chris: I do.

Dave: Okay. So here's why I asked that, I have discovered, I've had clients on my other podcast, clients that I've taken golfing, that we've had drinks, we've spent a lot of time with them, and I swear the hour they were on the podcast did more to further the closeness of that relationship than everything else we'd done. And I think part of it is that, having as a guest on the show, the focus is totally on them. I'm really showcasing them, their life. It's the equivalent of a very biased biography that only points out the really good things, that's what I do. And then at the end of it, I always sincerely thank them for the opportunity to serve them and how much I enjoy working with them.
And I've got to tell you when you publicly thanked somebody like that to in theory, 8 billion people on earth can hear that, it really does something. And so again, I bring that up as, even if you'd never got around to hardly sending out any emails announcing the podcast, or even did a poor job of that, and even if you never got any business from it, I think you would find that just the relationship enhancement of having them as a guest, you might be able to justify the price. What's your thoughts on that?

Chris: I think you're onto something because I find it's getting harder and harder to entertain. And so everybody's busy, everybody has their own places. When you take them hunting they successful want to go for their own hunting trip. You want to take them golfing, they've got their own golf club. And then you want to take a trip, well it's away from the business, away from the family, which is hard. And so that's interesting to hear what you have to say and I can see it. If you spend an hour talking to them, you book them, you get their time and then you highlight them in a way that makes them look good, which is just telling their story, I think you're onto something.

Dave: Yeah, that's been my experience. And the other secret tip or secret weapon of a podcast is, I've had guests on the podcast... I had an attorney on a podcast who charges $1,500 an hour and hard to get on his schedule unless you're willing to pay him. And he happily came on the podcast twice. He actually was on two different times. He happily gave me an hour rearranged his schedule to accommodate mine, never sent me a bill, and he proceeded to email his whole database proudly announcing that he was now famous because he was on my podcast. So that's another little one too, is just the people who you might have a hard time getting in front of them otherwise. But yeah, you'd be surprised if you just had a target list of 20 successful entrepreneurs that you'd like to talk to and you've had no luck getting an appointment, you'd be surprised if you reached out and invited all 20 of them to be a guest on your podcast.
I'd be surprised if at least one of them didn't say yes. And so that's another little use of it there.

Chris: You think I could get six? I like to at least get six, because that would be a 300 hitter, which is good.

Dave: Sure. It depends, I think it's certainly possible.

Chris: We'll set the bar there.

Dave: Okay, we'll set the bar there. And a lot of it is just luck in terms of if that person you call listens to podcasts themselves. If you call probably-

Chris: Yeah, I was just joking with you. One out of 20 will probably...

Dave: Okay. That's good, because I've played team sports. I know when you're being needled, it means that you're doing something right. Okay-

Chris: I didn't want to be below a 200 hitter.

Dave: Sure. Well, and the other thing is, just because they don't say yes today to being on your podcast, doesn't mean they won't say yes another time. It's a long-term game. Okay, let's go, we're nearing the end of the scorecard. So guest list. So the bottom one is, I don't know who I would invite to be a guest on a podcast. And then the top ranking question is, I can think of at least 12 people who would immediately say yes to being a guest, and you gave that a 12. So I get the sense it's even more than 12 people. Is it more like 20 or 30 or 50, what's probably your realistic number?

Chris: Probably, I have a list of potential guests that I'm keeping and it keeps growing. And so I think hopefully as you release episodes and you have people that hopefully like it, I'm going to encourage them to recommend potential guests. So I think that shouldn't be a problem at all.

Dave: Yeah. Because I've had several interviews today in pre-calls and post calls, and I forget who I've shared the stat with. So there's a stat on how many YouTube videos and podcasts and such there are. So let me go ahead and share it for you, and if I've shared it with you already, just humor me please for the audience. So there's roughly 50 billion YouTube videos, two billion websites, 600 million blogs, but only 1.7 million podcasts. So podcasts are the rarest of all online content. And of that 1.7, when you drill down, 1.1 million of those folks have not released an episode in the last 90 days. They suffer from what we call podcast fade, it's just drifted away. And so of the remaining 600,000, only half of them have reached the 10 episode mark.
So we tell people we talk to, if you can release an episode a month for 10 months, you're in the top 25% of the rarest form of online content. And if you can release 50 episodes, you're in like the top 1% of all podcasts. And so if you off the top of your head can think of 40 or 50 people, you've got a pathway to having something that could really turn out to be something. Had I shared those stats with you before? And if I have, is that interesting at all to you?

Chris: You did. And it's very interesting and I've since shared it with lots of people because I was surprised. And one of my concerns was, since podcasts have become more popular, I was concerned, has that medium become saturated? And based off my research and what you've told me, no, it hasn't. Because you have a podcast doesn't mean that you aren't thriving or serious about it. A lot of people launch it, but then get that fatigue and go another direction.

Dave: Yep. I agree. And there's a motivational speaker named Jim Rowan, I don't know if you've ever heard him. And he has a saying that the higher the barrier, the lower the competition. And I think that proves out with those podcasts stats because the barriers to entry are higher than the other options. I've never posted a YouTube video, but I'm pretty sure I could figure it out in about five minutes on my iPhone and get it posted, and up and live. And I'm pretty sure I could start a blog without a lot of trouble, but podcasts are so much more complex. There's so many pieces and then you have to actually get on all the platforms. So yeah, there's a lot going on. And for every podcast that was launched, there's probably a hundred more that people wanted to launch, but just could never get past those barriers.

Chris: Yeah. You could do a YouTube video pretty easily, I figured it out back in the day in my first company, I took most of them down because they were embarrassing. But I left one of them up because it's good to laugh and teach you a lesson, like I think humor's important and being able to laugh at yourself. So there's one if you get on there and look, it's me and the guy, he actually worked for me. He's the one that I like to get under his skin about being a Gritman. You'll see that video is still up there and it's totally embarrassing. I've almost taken it down about a hundred times, but somebody will send me a text and be like, "Hey, I saw your video up there." And Hey, maybe there's no, what is the saying? No good advertising or publicity.

Dave: No bad.

Chris: No bad. That's what I meant, yeah. But it's good for a while. So anyway, yes. But I don't have a podcast and I even have YouTube videos. So your stats are, at least in my case, seem to be correct.

Dave: Well, that's awesome. So we're down to our last two questions here. So this one is called, do what you love. And the bottom score is, I don't like talking with people. And the top score is, I enjoy talking with people one-to-one, understanding more about their situation and helping them better understand my subject. And you gave yourself a 12 there. So first off, the first statement, the bottom statement, does that surprise you that anybody would answer, "I don't like talking to people?" Or have you actually met some people like that are just, back office types?

Chris: There's some people, some engineers, some technical folks like my wife, I think she could go all day with not talking to someone and be perfectly fine. But I like to be around people, it recharges my batteries, but for her, it drains them. So we're all different, but I do enjoy meeting new people, I'm inquisitive, I'm just curious and I like to ask questions, so that's why I scored that high.

Dave: Well, good. And then the last one here is on outsourcing, and this one's a little bit self-serving, but it also it's here to figure out if we're a good fit for someone. So the bottom statement is, I believe in keeping everything in house because it is the most cost-effective way to do things. And then the upper end is, I'm laser focused on our core competency and outsource everything else. Now on that one you gave yourself a nine, which is the high side of the question below it. I look to outsourced most activities that are not our core competency, but sometimes do things in house when the cost differential is high. So you can probably guess why I've got that in there, because if somebody is not a fan of outsourcing, then they're probably not going to be interested in outsource their podcast. So podcasts, does that sound like something that falls into something you guys would want to do in-house? Or is that something, if you do it that you'd probably want to outsource it?

Chris: Probably outsource. I do some things in-house if we can or make sense, but if there's somebody that has a model already built, is quicker to market and knows the ins and outs, then I see value in outsourcing.

Dave: Okay. Well, like I said, your score was an 80, which makes you a pretty good fit. So-

Chris: That's an 80 on a 96 point scale, right? There's no 100 in this test?

Dave: Correct. So that's really the equivalent of an 84.

Chris: Like an 83 or something. 83, 84, yeah. Okay. So it's a solid B.

Dave: It's a solid B. That's exactly right, it is a solid B. So what I'd like to do with the little bit of time we have left, is just talk about any questions you might have, maybe some brainstorming ideas on how you might use the podcast either for the Gritman company or for your insurance businesses. What questions do you have for me? What thoughts do you have?

Chris: I don't, I would say that this has been very helpful. You have me as a guest because, just I got to see the process, and folks I'll tell you, it's pretty simple. We talked with Dave a little bit in the beginning, and talk about an agenda and it's pretty loose and we've gone a few different directions a couple of times during this. But then there's a call-in number and I'm not sure what happens after this, I'll get to see it, but I guess you'll probably record some opening or closing. But I would say this has been very helpful to have me on to experience it for myself. Kind of dipping my toe in the water, so I appreciate you having me.

Dave: Well, my pleasure that's what this new podcast is for, is for people who currently have a podcast, used to have a podcast or considering one, so it's a way to learn more. Well with that, let me just repeat your email address, which by the way, I don't think I'll ever forget it now, gritman7@gmail.com. Chris Kolkhorst, former professional baseball player, you were paid 800 a month, so that qualifies. Member of a national championship baseball team, has a degree from a well-regarded university, Rice University, and a general fun guy to be around. So please after you call Adam, give me a call, let me know when Gritman club is ready to launch, okay?

Chris: Hey, you'll be one of the first to know, hopefully pretty soon, that logo should be ready soon.

Dave: All right, sounds good. Hey, have a great day, Chris.

Chris: Okay Dave, thank you.

Dave: Bye.