F-bombs, Failures, and Forward Momentum

The straight-talk summary 

Q4Live is a no-frills, no-ego gathering of Goose community members who come together to learn, share, and challenge each other to grow. This week is all about real conversations on leadership, marketing, community, insecurity, and even big screw-ups that push everyone in the room to get uncomfortable, rethink assumptions, and leave better prepared to run and grow their businesses.

Sorry, not sorry, but you’re missing out.  

The members of our #GooseCommunity are gathered this week to learn, share, celebrate, reminisce, and grow together at #Q4Live. 

You may think we’re getting together for “just another industry conference,” but that is the entirely wrong impression of what this gathering is about.  

There are no registration desks,  no name badges strung around lanyards,  no long-winded presentations with 42-slide decks,  and definitely no mainstage, over-the-top, bravado-filled rants filled with motivational catchphrases. 

Q4Live is real, sometimes raw, and perhaps the most vulnerable room you’ve ever experienced professionally. It’s best described as a business-boosting, family reunion of the Goose community.  

This is a gathering of peers and professionals who know what it feels like to face the challenges of running and growing a business. Nobody is showing up this week expecting to be passively impressed; we’re showing up to engage with our community and find the support we need to grow and reach our goals. 

Your FOMO builds 

Don’t think this is just a feel-good experience. Yes, we are celebrating ourselves and one another, but our time together will be productive and filled with growth conversations and experiences. 

The agencies that will continue to perform at the highest level are willing to constantly challenge themselves to rethink the old assumptions that got them here. You have never seen a room more willing to embrace “tough love” for themselves and to offer it up to one another than this one. 

Following are a few of the discussions we are having.  

Community 

In the spirit of the overall event, we are kicking it off with a conversation (not a keynote presentation) built around our theme of “community.” We’ll discuss the real loss of personal connections we are facing, as participating in activities as a community has become all too rare. It has taken a toll on us individually and organizationally.  

We’re having a wake-up call about how important it is for us to all be active participants in a community and nurture our connections. A strong community gives us a deeper sense of personal satisfaction and leads to a tangible competitive advantage for our businesses.  

Leadership and net revenue growth 

In an industry of “accidental” business owners (we know you didn’t grow up with the goal and aspiration of being in insurance), not nearly enough of us feel adequately prepared to be the leaders our growing businesses now require. It can be overwhelming to realize you’re not entirely sure how to lead and grow your business.  

We will discuss the need for intentional growth with clarity and purpose. We will also openly discuss leading through complexity, remaining focused on profitability, and avoiding the trap of “growth at all costs.”  

Marketing, Sales, Service 

Because Q4i and the Goose community exist to drive the growth of our agencies and businesses, we’re digging deep into how to build a successful foundation to support our growth. 

Building successful businesses may not be rocket science, but it also isn’t easy. We will discuss how successful agencies market themselves, develop and celebrate a sales culture, and create a service model built around driving client success.  

What’s actually working  

We’ll open the discussion to share examples of what’s working well in our businesses, from prospecting and selling to technology and generally managing the chaos that is agency life.  

We know this room, and everyone will bring something useful to the discussion. And, as we insist on, the sharing won’t just be theories or non-repeatable wins; it will be actionable strategies and tactics that others can go back and implement themselves.  

And, we’re going from real to REAL!! 

It may be uncomfortable for many in the room to participate in the following conversations, but that’s part of what Q4Live is all about: allowing ourselves to embrace a healthy level of discomfort today to be better prepared and more comfortable with tomorrow's increasingly complex challenges.  

Insecurity and other things holding you back 

We all feel it, yet none of us wants to admit it. But we’re tackling it head-on: the conversation around what holds us back. We may appear confident on the outside, but most of us have an internal voice that drives insecurity and self-doubt, telling us we’re not what others think we are (think imposter syndrome). 

Yep, I said it out loud, and we’re discussing it as a community. We have to because it’s real, damaging, and exhausting to pretend otherwise. Everyone in that room has their version of the same insecurities: “I thought I was the only one feeling this way.” They aren’t. 

We’ll hear admissions of not knowing how to lead, nurture a team, or predictably grow revenue. The most meaningful lessons come from discussing the times we were knocked down, but knew we had no choice but to get back up. 

Conversations that make a difference 

The most important conversations are usually the most difficult and uncomfortable to have. We dread them, avoid them, and, when we do have them, we fumble our way through. But addressing uncomfortable situations helps both parties grow. 

Whether we’re giving hard feedback to a team member, setting boundaries with a client, or confronting a personal issue, our instinct is to avoid discomfort. When we do, we choose temporary comfort over long-term progress and growth. 

F’d up confessions

We’ll move into happy hour for this next one! It will be an honest discussion about how we royally screwed things up at some point. These are the stories we’d rather forget, but that also helped us learn and grow.  

We’ll hear confessions of the lost clients, misaligned team members we allowed to stay for too long, or huge financial investments that almost took us down.  

If you don’t have failure stories to tell, you’ve played it too safe. Telling our failure stories gives us new confidence and allows us to let that weighty baggage go.  

Help us help you  

We are committed to growth and how we can ensure it for all members of the Goose Community. We will wrap it up with a conversation about what we are doing as a community and a platform that we need to do more of, things we need to start doing, and even things we should stop (or do less of).  

Our goal with Goose is to create the most mutually supportive community possible. Because if we don’t continually push ourselves to build that for our member agencies and ourselves, then what’s the point? 

We’re coming together this week to progress and improve as individuals and as a community. While the conversations may be “structurally unscripted,” the impact will be anything but accidental. 

So no, this isn’t just another industry conference; it’s a growth experience. Maybe you’ll join us next year?