Building a Winning Culture: Leadership, Sales and Teamwork

Alana Muller:
Welcome to Enterprise.ing, a podcast from Enterprise Bank & Trust that's empowering business leaders one conversation at a time. Each week, we'll hear from top business professionals about lessons on leadership and entrepreneurship that they've learned along the way. I'm your host, Alana Muller, an entrepreneurial executive leader whose primary focus is to connect, inspire and empower community. We at Enterprise Bank & Trust thank you for tuning into another episode.

Enterprise.ing listeners, welcome back to another episode. Today, I'm focusing on winning. As some of our listeners know, a signature event of Enterprise Bank & Trust Kansas City market is its annual Enterprise Games, which brings together companies in the spirit of friendly competition in games like pickleball, picklepong, Connect Four®, Giant Jenga® and cornhole, with all the prize winnings being donated to the nonprofits of the winner's choice.

So, speaking of winners, I'm so happy to have Paul Cohen in the studio. Paul is president of HUB International, a leading North American insurance brokerage that provides employee benefits, business and personal insurance products and services. HUB International competed in the past two years of Enterprise Games and will compete again in 2025. In fact, in 2023, HUB won second place and the Spirit Award, and then, in 2024, the company won first place and also the Spirit Award. Winners all around. So, with that, Paul, welcome to Enterprise.ing podcast, and congrats on your Enterprise Games wins.

Paul Cohen:
Thanks so much for having me. It's been a blast with Enterprise Bank. It's been a lot of fun. It's been a great way to get our team engaged, and we'll put some charity behind it and have some fun. We've certainly enjoyed it and glad to be part of it coming up here in October.

Alana Muller:
That's terrific. So, to kick off our discussion, let's bring our listeners up to speed. Talk about HUB International, who the company is, and the clients that it serves.

Paul Cohen:
Yeah. Thank you. We have been in the Kansas and Missouri market only for about the past six years. HUB is the largest privately held insurance brokerage in North America, and six years ago, we went through a process, and we found HUB and brought them to this marketplace as a platform to grow in the Midwest. It's been an unbelievable ride. HUB's main focus is in the property and casualty space. About 50% of our business is in the property and casualty insurance, and about 40% is employee benefits, and then the rest makes up our personal lines and private client space. So, our business continues to grow: 21,000 employees across North America, 650 offices. Six years ago, when I took the reins, it was an honor and a privilege, but our team stepped up to the challenge, and the growth has really been unbelievable. So, it's been fun.

Alana Muller:
That's so great. Well, I know, in particular, you're very proud of having built such a solid sales team. Tell us a little bit about your solutions-based selling approach, how you've gotten your bench… you've grown your bench strength, basically, and what it takes to create that winning culture.

Paul Cohen:
Yeah. Thanks. We've always felt like we had a really strong sales team, and what HUB's brought to the table for us is additional tools and resources to enable those sales consultants, the tools in their tool chest to go out and bring solutions. In the past, it's always been that, in the insurance world, you had to be a specialist, a real sniper in healthcare, transportation or real estate. With HUB's ability to have national capabilities and national specialists in these areas, it allows us to play a little bit more quarterback and bring the solutions to the table, surround our client with the proper solution, and our teammates have been doing a great job. We've expanded that sales team from about… we had roughly, six years ago, about 28 sales consultants, and now we've got just over 45 and growing in St. Louis. We've had four acquisitions in the St. Louis market that we're really excited about, building a new office there right now as we speak and bringing those folks together. The sales team is what sets us apart.

Alana Muller:
Yeah. That's so exciting, and it sounds like you're able to meet the needs of the customer without them having to do the heavy lifting of explaining to each new associate on the HUB side what's going on, that the HUB team really leads it from a broad-based perspective. What has that meant to your clientele? How have they reacted to that? Because it sounds like it just makes it a lot simpler to do business with you.

Paul Cohen:
Yeah. That's a good point. The teammates are really what's gotten us to where we are today. Every quarter, our executive leadership team hosts a new hire lunch, and this is an opportunity for all the new hires that we've brought in over the last quarter to sit down and really engage with our executive leadership team, get feedback of how their onboarding process has gone, ways we can make it better, and ultimately make sure that they feel connected to that executive leadership team. I think the feedback we've received from a lot of new folks is that they don't always get that. They don't always get that feel with the executive team.

Just two weeks ago, we had 24 new hires in this room, and to be able to surround yourself with these folks, both industry veterans and new associates, new to the industry, some college grads, it's really what set us apart. Being able to surround a client with expert advice, industry experts, specialists in certain verticals, is really the key to us winning and expanding the team.

Alana Muller:
I love that. For yourself, who do you look to for guidance? Who's a mentor or somebody in your life who's made a difference to you personally or professionally, and is there one great piece of advice that they've given you that really has stuck?

Paul Cohen:
Yeah. When we first were going through the process, about seven years now, kind of the number two guy inside of HUB, his name's Larry Lineker. Larry was one of the original founders of HUB International, and the way he went about things and the way that he talks about being an attractor and when you create people that want to be around you, it creates curiosity. It creates a culture of winning and people that want to help each other, and that's really what… when we first met, and I just knew, okay, this is the guy at the helm of a 20,000 plus person organization that still is connected to the clients, still understands what it takes to win a deal and then keep it for many years to come. That's really what I just knew, that we were in good hands with the leadership at the top.

Alana Muller:
Yeah. That's very cool. That's very cool. Well, so, when it comes to your sales team, what guidance do you have for them for getting through the tough times? Because all businesses sort of have their ups and downs, but is there a particular way that you motivate your team to stay on their game?

Paul Cohen:
Yeah. Sales is tough, and there are times when you feel like you've got something at the goal line, and it just didn't quite come together for whatever reason. I think those are situations, when we don't win, of ways you can reflect, "Okay, what could I have done differently? Is there a reason that I didn't secure the win? Did I not ultimately have the relationship that really mattered when it came down to making a decision?"

Just this morning, we bring together all of our operational leaders, and by every metric, just about, every metric that we track inside of HUB, our region, 35 HUB regions across the country, leads the company in a lot of different metrics…

Alana Muller:
Wow.

Paul Cohen:
... and a lot of different factors. Really good leaders and really good organizations focus on the areas that they can improve just slightly better. Right? How can we sharpen the spear a little bit more? I talked to the team. We kind of laughed about it. Everything's going great, and we're focused on this one thing that we can improve. It's no different than looking at sports teams or any of the best companies out there. They're always focused on maybe their warts or what they can do a little bit better. Not always. We focus on the wins. There's no doubt about that, and we got to celebrate the wins, but for a salesperson, when things don't go your way, being able to reflect on the things you can get a little bit better on, a little bit sharper, is really what I guide our sales team to do.

Alana Muller:
It's a good attitude, especially in light of the fact that you can't control everything, and you're right. When things are going great, yes, definitely celebrate the wins. You want to be sure to engage in that celebration, but I think to your point, it is kind of correcting those small things because the small things add up to much bigger things. So…

Paul Cohen:
Absolutely.

Alana Muller:
... I love that as an attitude. That's great. One of the things that I ask every single guest that I have is this one question, and I'd love to ask you the same question. If you could meet for a cup of coffee with one person, anybody, could be living, not living, fictional or non-fictional, who would it be and why?

Paul Cohen:
I don't know if I have a single person, but I'm sure many people have seen social media or different things on the internet. I'm a big golfer. My family, we golf together. It's what we really enjoy doing. I'm very involved in the golf community. Watching Travis Kelce, Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake play golf, if I could join that foursome, that would be a pretty good day for me.

Alana Muller:
How fun would that be?

Paul Cohen:
So, I don't know if it's a single person and a cup of coffee, but if I could tag along with that group on the golf course, it'd be a pretty good day.

Alana Muller:
Oh, I'll tell you what. If you get to do that, I'll be happy to caddie.

Paul Cohen:
Perfect. Perfect.

Alana Muller:
That sounds really fun. That sounds really fun. Well, I want to go back to Enterprise Games. I know that your team is competing again this year and that one of the things that Enterprise Bank is particularly proud of is that the winning team gets to select a charity of choice to commit those dollars to. What's HUB International's charity of choice, or in what ways is your team giving back to the community?

Paul Cohen:
Yeah. That is something that we're really proud about. The Big Brothers Big Sisters has been a proud partner of ours, and several clients have got us involved. My wife, Erica Cohen, has been on the board of Big Brothers Big Sisters for several years. HUB International is also a supporter and sponsor of the corporate club. We stay very involved. We have continued to encourage our folks to become Bigs, Big Sisters, Big Brothers. We had, I think, 10 teams that were involved in the Bowl for Kids' Sake, so we've stayed very involved with Big Brothers. We're very proud of that organization and what they've continued to do, and that has been our charity the last couple years with Enterprise Games. Two years ago, we raised about $18,000 for Big Brothers, and this past year we took first place and raised $29,000 in support of Big Brothers. It's been a ton of fun and an opportunity for us to bring teammates together, some team building, sweat a little, celebrate a little and have a great time together.

Alana Muller:
Well, it's a fabulous organization that I myself am privileged to have interacted with a little bit, so I really admire you for the work that you're doing there, that your wife is doing there. I think that's just terrific, so thank you for that.

Paul Cohen:
Thank you. We love what they're doing over there at Big Brothers.

Alana Muller:
Yeah, so important. So important. Well, Paul Cohen, it's been such a privilege to have you. Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and about HUB International?

Paul Cohen:
Great. Thank you. Appreciate you having us on, and hubinternational.com is our website. You can find more information about careers that might be out there, more information about areas and industries that we focus on, and certainly appreciate you having me on.

Alana Muller:
It's a privilege. Paul Cohen, thank you so much for being on Enterprise.ing podcast.

Paul Cohen:
Thanks so much.

Alana Muller:
Thanks for joining us this week on Enterprise.ing. Be sure to visit our website, enterprisebank.com/podcast, to subscribe so you'll never miss an episode. If you found value in today's program, please consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or telling a friend about us. Enterprise.ing, powering business leaders one conversation at a time. The views expressed by Enterprise.ing presenters or guests are those of the presenter or guests, and not necessarily of Enterprise Bank & Trust or its affiliates. All content of this podcast and any related materials are for informational purposes only. Enterprise Bank & Trust does not make any warranty, expressed or implied, including warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose, and specifically disclaims any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information presented. Enterprise Bank & Trust is not under any obligation to update or correct any information provided in this podcast. All statements and opinions are subject to change without notice.