Living in the new normal and during this trying time, how do you create a Blue Ocean Strategy for your business? In this episode of Incorporating SuperPowers, host Justin Recla is joined by guest Billy Bray as they talk about the ways to create a Blue Ocean Strategy. Billy is in the insurance business, and in this episode, they discuss how he pivoted during the height of the COVID pandemic. Justin and Billy also talk about the importance of finding your blue ocean strategy and how business owners and entrepreneurs can find the courage to step out on their own to find the freedom they desire. Join Justin and Billy in today’s episode to begin creating your personal Blue Ocean Strategy.

Welcome back to Incorporating Superpowers. Today, we’re going to be talking about a topic that I know a lot of you out there, especially in the business world have been considering, especially given 2020, the height of COVID, and so forth. That’s the concept of how do you create your own personal blue ocean strategy? What does that look like? I think the route 2020, I think so many entrepreneurs and business owners were faced with this exact problem because it became quickly obvious that the old methodologies of business were not fit and didn’t work for something like a worldwide pandemic.

I think that speaks a lot too, not just the fact that there was a pandemic, but I think it speaks a lot to the fact that we’ve evolved over the last 40, 50, 60, 70 years in realms of business, and there are certain industries in particular that haven’t evolved and there were a lot of these industries that had huge, huge deficits because they weren’t positioned to pivot with something like COVID. The conversation continues because there’s still a lot of uncertainty out there. What’s the world going to look like? What’s business going to look like? I’m super excited to bring a good friend of mine back on the show today, Billy Bray. Billy has been on the show before. I believe it was last year that he was on.

So I started trying to redesign this in my head. What would a perfect model look like? I wrote it down on a piece of paper and I was trying to find a company to go work for that had all of those characteristics. Then I had the just smack-in-the-face moment that said, “You’re not going to get this unless you build it.” So it was kind of like I just need to build it on my own if I want to fully be satisfied at work every day with all of these things that I want or demand or expect.

I challenge the listeners to do that as well. Whether you’re internally working right now, or if you’re looking to go out on your own, make you a hit list, say, “This is exactly what a perfect world best-case scenario would look like for me day in and day out at my job.” If you can’t find it, then maybe you build it on your own. So to answer your question, I was looking for the perfect job and I determined that for me to have the perfect job, I’ve got to build it myself. So that’s what we’ve been doing. 

Yeah. That resonates because I mean, as far as jobs are concerned, Tony and I had some of the coolest jobs in the world. We were government agents. We were training counterintelligence agents. We just kept, like you said, that wall, right. We’re only going to go up so far in the construct in which we were playing and the next dream job for us that could… The only dream job that could exist for us that connects was something that we had to build on our own, which is what got us to where we’re at today. I think that’s so true of everybody that is looking for a way out, looking for something that they can do better or do on their own. I think that’s absolutely spot on. 

So my next question to you is going to be one that is… It’s one of those that I know, at least for me, I can remember looking back and looking back on it now, reflecting upon my own journey of looking out and getting a little discouraged, because I wasn’t going to be the next… I’ll put it into insurance terms, I didn’t see how I was going to be the next Farmers Insurance. I didn’t see how it was going to be the next State Farm, right? I didn’t see how I was going to be able to do that. But when I realized that that necessarily wasn’t the aim, that wasn’t the goal and that wasn’t the purpose, it shifted for me. So in your experience, what’s that look like? I mean, do you see a way of building up to being that big or will you always be a niche and is that okay? 

Yeah, so I think that’s a beautiful question. So first of all, I’ll give State Farm some credit. They’re a great personal lines insurance company. I started with them. They were my first insurance job. They have a model that works really well. Their agents can be successful. Their customers can be successful. Team members can build a resume and start their career and all that stuff. I think that the ambition me is not… So we do commercial insurance strictly, so we don’t do personal lines, don’t do life insurance, don’t do health insurance. We’ve got partnerships with folks that do. So if you’ve got questions, we can help with that. 

But my ambition is not to be the biggest as far as top-line revenue, but rather to deliver something to my clients and to the market that’s different and better. We call it upgrading your insurance. So when we talk to people, we say, “Look, our only goal for you is to upgrade your insurance.” So rather than having a storefront on every corner with a big fancy sign on it and commercials on TV and all that, I think flying under the radar a little bit. I was just talking to one of my clients and the big fish, and this could be debated, I’ll acknowledge that before I say it, but the big fish, if say you’re fishing at night and there are lights around, there’s little fish that are in the lights in that spotlight, but the big guys are lurking right outside of that light. They’re probably eating the fish that are in the spotlight. 

So I use that analogy to correlate the answer to your question. I want to be just outside that spotlight where I can see what’s going on and be really in tune with it. But when the time is right, maybe we’ll eat the fish. Maybe we’ll go buy a competitor. I don’t know. The whole idea is to take the model of my best competitor and all of their value that they deliver to clients and provide my clients in the marketplace more value than what they have. I would challenge your listeners, think about their own industry. What do you do? Who’s the competitor that you cringe at when you’ve got to go up against them? How can you put more value into your clients than what they provide to them and how can you price it aggressively so you can convert those clients to become yours? That’s the million-dollar question.

Folks, this is good stuff. Stick with us because when we get back from the break, we’re going to dive down into these rabbit holes a little bit further and expand out on how you can create your own personal blue ocean strategy and some of the things that you need to be taking a look at in order for you to do as such. Before we go on break, brother, where can people go to learn more about you?

I’d go to LinkedIn and just type Billy Bray Houston. You’ll find me. You can go to Facebook as well. Billy Bray Houston. I’ll register. The website is outsourcedrm.com for my company page, but definitely send me a friend request on LinkedIn. That’d be great. 

Fantastic. Folks, go connect with Billy on LinkedIn. Reach out. He’s doing some great things in the world, and he’s got a great perspective on the insurance industry and business and life in general. Stay tuned. We will be right back.

To listen to the entire show click on the player above or go to the SuperPower Up! podcast on iTunes.