Your Why Matters – Tanner McKinley

If not now, then when? If not you, then who?

Tanner McKinley has stepped up to answer these questions this year and is on his way to an amazing accomplishment.

There is no need to bury the lead in this case; Tanner is in the final days of wrapping up a herculean effort with USHEALTH Advisors. In only his second year with the company, he is poised to finish as the #1 personally producing insurance agent in the company, to the tune of $3.85 million in individual sales!

That’s one application at a time over 365 days, a ton of calls, texts, late hours, six to seven days a week of incredibly tough work. A relentless schedule. A disciplined life that serves as an example for many. Yet, as proud as Tanner is of his accomplishment and dedication to the goal, he still has that as his second greatest challenge in life so far.

What’s number one? Well, his name is Mason.

“I would say probably being a father, to be honest with you,” says Tanner. “I would say that’s probably been my biggest challenge as far as adapting to that role and being there for my son and my family. So that’s probably the one that comes to mind, I think it’s just something that was newer to me, a unique challenge. I also wouldn’t say I’ve accomplished being a good dad yet. I’m working on that one.”

Anyone who has a child knows that parenting is always a work in progress, but if Tanner treats the challenge the same way he has his USHA career (which is still in its toddler stage as well), then he will rock fatherhood the exact same way.

After all, if Tanner wants something, he will get it, whether it’s being a good dad or being an incredibly accomplished and caring agent and leader.

“I would say being successful in this career probably locks down the number one spot in life as far as an accomplishment – being able to take myself from absolutely no sales experience, no book of business, no experience in insurance, and within two years chasing down the number one spot in the company. I would say that’s probably the biggest thing I’ve ever been able to accomplish.”

So how did he do it? That’s the question inquiring minds want to know; everybody wants to learn the secret sauce in Tanner’s success.

“I would say, to be honest with you, I started out just so strong this year,” says Tanner, “like sprinting from the beginning of the marathon and just trying to keep pace from quarter one, and then in quarter two, quarter three, I really just grinded it out. I didn’t take any vacations. I just said I was going to come out and hit it hard and I didn’t really have a specific plan for the beginning of the year. I wasn’t like, “Oh, I’m going to go for the number one spot.” That was never really my plan. My plan was that I was going to do the most that I possibly could and I was going to push myself. And if that was good enough, then great. If not, then I knew I was going to leave it all out there because this was probably going to be my heaviest production year I had geared up for. I had a great year last year, my first year as well, finishing top three in the country.”

While it appears Tanner turned himself into a singular sensation in 2024, he didn’t do it alone. Not only did he hit the top spot personally, but as a Field Sales Leader, Tanner still had a team to lead and to help thrive, which he says brought him his biggest sense of pride.

“I think I’m more proud of the team accomplishments than I am the individual ones,” says Tanner. “I think the team success is great because it shows people you can scale, that you can take a business to new heights and see how tall it can grow. I love the fact that the team makes it a replicable business, and I feel like working together as a team is what makes this special, and that’s what probably kept me writing even more business during 2024 – kind of sharing that dream and sharing that vision – that we all collectively, are working towards something as a team. So I really, really love that.”

Reach one, teach one. We all start looking out for ourselves, but when you realize other people need you too, and you can lead them along the way and see other people be successful and change their lives, that’s where the juice is. Tanner’s team is wrapping up 2024 with $14 million in sales, number one in the Caleb Montague Division.

“Yeah, it’s been a good time and we love our little team,” says Tanner. “I think the point that I was really trying to make with this year is that I’m in Chattanooga, Tennessee. I helped open up this branch back in 2022, and you always look at the top producers or the top people in the company – they typically come from other big cities. They come from Nashville, they come from Tampa, and so on. But Chattanooga is new and small and I think I just wanted to prove that it doesn’t matter where you are, or where you’re from. When I started I didn’t really have someone in my office that was writing big numbers. But I wanted to. So, I took the opportunity to pioneer something and I wanted to do it my way, and I did always believe that my ideas would work.”

“And then I finally got into a position where I can implement my own ideas because you have no restrictions on doing that here, as long as you’re doing it the right way. We don’t have a bunch of red tape that we have to cut through here at USHA. It’s similar to my military background. If you want to make your program better in the military, you have to convince 17 people that this is going to be good for them and convince them that it was their idea. It’s similar here at USHEALTH Advisors. If you think that something can work, you can implement it. But I think the main point is that it doesn’t matter what team you come from, it doesn’t matter what background you have. If you come into this opportunity with the right mindset and you’re willing to grow and learn by trial and fire and be excited to fail and make mistakes, then you can raise yourself up and you can build the number one business in the company and change your family’s life.”

Tanner could stop and drop the mic right there. But wait, there’s more. Tanner mentioned the military and his experience there, as well as some special relationships he developed, which have forever changed his outlook on life and what he believes he can glean from it.

Tanner grew up in Lee Summit, Missouri, a couple of minutes from Kansas City. Though he says childhood was good, a move to a different high school left him feeling, as he describes it, “like a loner”. It left Tanner wanting a change and wanting more.

“I wanted to overcome all of this,” says Tanner, “not let it be a crutch or not let it be something that would hold me down, but use it as motivation to fight twice as hard to build a life that I wanted to live. I was trying to get out of town as soon as I could and that’s why I went into the military right at age 18. I was trying to get out of there and do something different.”

“I went to Texas for basic training once I graduated, barely by the skin of my teeth, but then I went into the Air Force and that’s where I started working with dogs and developed that special relationship, working with the canine unit looking for bombs or explosives. That stoked my passion of helping people and it’s something I feel like I’ll never forget.”

“The experience was something that really built me as far as my confidence level and what I was able to do and the people that I had to communicate with. I would speak with high ranking officials constantly and have to learn to communicate with different people from all over the country. I think that’s where I gained a lot of my communication skills. You join the military and there are all these people that come from different walks of life and different backgrounds and even different languages. They throw us together and try to teach us how to all work together. So that was something where I tapped into a lot of those communication skills I could use in the insurance industry. I mean what is it that we do? We speak to people all day.”

There’s learning to communicate, and there’s learning the skill of survival, and facing fear head-on. Working as an explosive dog detector handler in Afghanistan, Tanner faced danger every day. In August of 2021, as Taliban fighters entered the city of Kabul, Tanner was part of the evacuation of the US Embassy there, helping humans and dogs to escape safely.

“I was probably one of the last few dog teams that were in the embassy,” says Tanner. “So after I evacuated most of the dogs, I was one of the last ones to leave Afghanistan. Originally I was going to go to take another position in Iraq, but after Kabul, I was done. I didn’t want to go to another embassy and have the same thing happen to me. My wife Brooke was pretty tired of it as well. She was probably ready for me to go. She’s always supported me no matter what I’ve done, and I’m sure she would’ve had my back, but I was looking to move on at that point.”

Tanner returned to Colorado, where he and Brooke (whom Tanner met while at his first duty station in Wyoming) were living at the time and started looking for work. It wasn’t easy, and Tanner was extremely frustrated.

“I was doing Zoom calls from Colorado and I had a long string of bad interviews and to be honest with you, I was checked out,” says Tanner. “And then I got on this Zoom with Carson Rogers from USHEALTH Advisors, and as he started talking about this opportunity, I was like, “Oh, I might actually have found something here.” I could tell Carson and Caleb Montague were like-minded. I could sense that. And I convinced them to fly me out for training, though I was still skeptical. I thought, “I know I can do this, but I want to come check it out.” Carson actually opened up his home to me for about two weeks and I got to stay with him and work with him every single day. I did very well my first week, not having any experience at all, just confidence on the phone and just wanting to speak with people and help solve their problems.”

But once training ended and left to his own devices, Tanner started to make the same mistakes many new agents do, selling instead of helping.

“My initial approach when I first came to USHEALTH Advisors was being a salesman and selling the products we had. Before my clients were even asking questions, or before I could even ask them questions, I was telling them what product they wanted and that was due to my lack of sales experience. I quickly learned sales is just good communication skills. But that was probably the biggest thing that was holding me back in the beginning.

Obviously, Tanner turned it all around, big time! And now, it’s his goal to bring on people who match his desire to help, to serve, and to work as hard as they possibly can.

“When I bring people into this opportunity, I don’t hire salesmen or saleswomen. I hire good people, and I make them advisors. By doing that I can teach people the approach where you’re educating your client on the entire health insurance market, to truly be an advisor and talk about the different aspects of it.”

Tanner also realized to go big, he couldn’t go it alone, not only by bringing on new agents to his team, but also seeking assistance for his practice.

“I’d say the biggest thing is the approach, and hiring support is the way to scale your business. It’s almost impossible to do a very high level of production six or seven days a week and still spend time with family without creating a business structure where you aren’t doing everything. Sometimes men, with our pride, we have this thing where we want to do everything ourselves. We want to prove that we can do it solo, but in business, you’ve got to check that ego at the door, and there’s nothing wrong with hiring a support position to help you stay on the phone speaking with clients and stay focused. We get compensated to help clients find the best coverage, so the goal is to spend as much time as possible doing just that.”

But before he could scale, Tanner says he had to grind. For any new agent starting out with USHA, here’s the secret… and to share it, we’ll let Tanner roll through how he ran his days early in his career.

“I’m not a morning person. I never am. I never will be, I don’t care. I was military for six years, plus two years overseas. I hated waking up at 3 or 4 AM and I never wanted to do it again. I was always a night owl though, and that is something that I really, really capitalized on here when I started at USHEALTH Advisors. I do believe that the low hanging fruit in this business are late nights. So I would be in the office about 9:00 AM and then I’d be working until at least probably midnight. At 9:00 AM I would be sending out my morning messages, emailing my clients for my appointments later on that day and trying to set up same day appointments. Those are always going to be the best appointments that exist. And then throughout the day, I would be running appointments. I almost always ate my lunch at my desk. Going out to lunch every single day is the stuff that eats away at your productivity.”

“But I think my biggest thing was efficiency. If a client doesn’t pick up the phone, you can do one of two things. You can either go prospect for another and take the effort to make your day more productive, or you can kick your feet up on your desk, watch TikTok and you can wait 30 minutes for your next appointment. And if you’re doing that, it’s going to crush your productivity. So I think that was something where I’m very focused. I can sit in there and I really don’t need a lot of breaks. I might go walk around the office, get a drink of water, maybe throw the football around with the guys for a minute, or whatever it might be. But then, I’m back at it, eat my dinner at six, and then I have my night appointments from six to nine. I think those are the best appointments to run.”

“Still to this day, six to nine PM is where I make most of my sales. Then, I would be up prospecting and calling clients till about midnight. I would shift my time zones so that way I could speak with more people during their prime hours. And I did that for pretty much for the first three to six months.”

So, that’s the secret, there is no secret. Work hard, don’t stop, be tenacious, be efficient, think outside the box, work the hours others are unwilling to work, and stay focused on your goal. And one more lesson, maybe the most important in being an advisor; learn to listen, to communicate, to educate, have compassion and put people in a better position than you found them. For years, during his military experience, Tanner got the rare opportunity to work very closely with dogs, one of God’s greatest teachers, (after all dog is simply God spelled backward). A dog will tell you all you need to learn about life, by showing you the one lesson we as humans should be wise to emulate, unconditional love.

Help, serve… repeat.

Anyone can do what Tanner has accomplished; it’s about belief and a big, bad work ethic.

But work is work, even if it takes up a good portion of the day – there’s still another work in progress. Tanner spoke about this earlier – his family – spending time with his son, Mason, and his wife, Brooke. Tanner wants to be there for his son, watching him grow while at the same time being a strong, supportive, and caring husband to Brooke.

His family is his why.

“It’s always about the why,” says Tanner. “You have to have a strong why. I mean without that why, without that vision, without that purpose, your goals mean nothing. That’s what I always say, goals without a why are just dreams. And you want to have a good why – my why is always going to be my family. It’s going to be my vision. It’s going to be what type of lifestyle I want my family to live, what I want to provide for them. And I just love this opportunity here. When I came into this, my wife was pregnant and we moved across the country to do this. We were living in Colorado. I spent every dime that I had. I had $0 in my bank account and my back was against the wall. So I mean that need to survive, to provide, to give all to my family, that was and still is, my why.”

“And then my son was born and it was cool. I was already doing things here at USHA that are going to benefit my family and my son years down the road. That’s something that is truly special, I was making decisions and I was helping families and these clients are going to be here, be on my books and support my family for 15, or 20 years into the future. That’s how long I want to stick with my clients and plan on sticking with them. I always pick up the phone for them and I think that that’s the reason that they stay with me. I have a really good retention with my clients. No matter how big your book is, you can manage to do that if you set systems in place that help you do it.”

“But my why helps me accomplish all of those things. It gets me up out of bed when I am tired, when I am sick when I don’t feel like making any calls that day, or I have a bad day, or I have a good day, or whatever it is. That’s what keeps me pushing every day, every week, and keeps the consistency to be unwavering. It’s all about the why.”

Being the best of the best is no accident and Tanner McKinley is proving that.

Tanner’s Why Matters.

Until next time, thanks for taking the time.

Your Storyteller,

Mark Brodinsky