Elevate The Hustle

Curtis Barton wanted to be a lawyer. His dad told him he didn't like reading enough. So he helped his dad start an insurance agency with zero clients and did whatever needed doing, including taking out the trash.

Years later he bought the agency, reinvested his own commissions into it, and nearly tripled it. Then, instead of selling, he merged seven agencies to form Alchemy Insurance Services. Nearly 100 transactions later, Alchemy has 1,500 people.

Curtis tells Stan and Dom why most agency owners are running lifestyle businesses, why organic growth fuels everything, how freeing up account managers drives cross-sell, and why independents who don't reinvest will get out-resourced. Plus the one question he asks every owner before he buys: if I gave you $10 million, would you still show up?

Connect with Curtis Barton and Alkeme:

Alkeme website

LinkedIn: Curtis Barton

Elevate the Hustle is presented by Elevate Teams. 

🔗 Elevate the Hustle is the #1 insurance podcast in the U.S., hosted by Stanley Meytin and Dominic Piccirillo, co-founders of Elevate Teams. Every week we sit down with agency owners, founders and operators to break down what it actually takes to build teams, scale companies and lead with intensity. 
 
Elevate Teams matches U.S. independent insurance agencies with pre-vetted, bilingual LATAM virtual assistants who become part of your team. Please tell us your AMS and the hours you need covered, and we'll show you who fits. 

elevateteams.io

LinkedIn: / elevate-teams
Instagram: / elevatethehustlepodcast
Connect with the hosts
Stanley Meytin: / stanleymeytin
Dominic Piccirillo: dominicpiccirillo

Follow Elevate the Hustle 
 
Real talk, real stories, and occasionally real bad language.

Real talk, real stories, and occasionally real bad language.

Real talk, real stories, and occasionally real bad language.

🌐 Website: elevateteams.io
📷 Instagram: @elevateteams
🔗 LinkedIn: Elevate Teams
🎙️ YouTube: @ElevateTheHustlePodcast

Daniel Rojas walked into insurance by accident in 2004. A couple of months later, four hurricanes hit Florida. He figured if he could survive that, he'd be fine.

Twenty years later, he's co-owner of Lime Street Insurance in Miami. Along the way he let go of every account under $50K in premium to double his book, got two weeks to sign a new contract when his agency sold, and started his own agency during COVID with three kids under three.

The hardest part wasn't selling. It was everything else. Daniel tells Stan and Dom why operations nearly capped his growth, how he got out of doing payroll and COIs himself, how he's hiring during the M&A wave, and why his goal is an agency that runs itself.

Connect with Daniel Rojas

Website: Lime Street

Linkedin: Daniel Rojas

🔗 Elevate the Hustle is the #1 insurance podcast in the U.S., hosted by Stanley Meytin and Dominic Piccirillo, co-founders of Elevate Teams. Every week we sit down with agency owners, founders and operators to break down what it actually takes to build teams, scale companies and lead with intensity. 
 
Elevate Teams matches U.S. independent insurance agencies with pre-vetted, bilingual LATAM virtual assistants who become part of your team. Please tell us your AMS and the hours you need covered, and we'll show you who fits. 

elevateteams.io

LinkedIn: / elevate-teams
Instagram: / elevatethehustlepodcast
Connect with the hosts
Stanley Meytin: / stanleymeytin
Dominic Piccirillo: dominicpiccirillo

Follow Elevate the Hustle 
 
Real talk, real stories, and occasionally real bad language.

Real talk, real stories, and occasionally real bad language.

🌐 Website: elevateteams.io
📷 Instagram: @elevateteams
🔗 LinkedIn: Elevate Teams
🎙️ YouTube: @ElevateTheHustlePodcast

Jerry Katz was an immigrant kid named Igor when nobody came to his birthday party. That's the day he says his hustle started.

From there: a sales mentor who warned him about the golden handcuffs, a stint at Stratton Oakmont, millions made and lost in the dot-com bubble, a Miami real estate portfolio, and a $144,000 insurance increase with 72 hours' notice that pushed him to open his own agency.

Today, Premier Protection Insurance covers around $5 billion in commercial real estate across 15 states. Jerry and Stan talk about selling value instead of coverage, how one reclassification cut a client's premium from about $80K to $11K, scaling toward $100M in premium, and hiring the right integrator.

🔗 Connect withJerry Katz CEO
Linkedin | Instagram | PremierProtectionInsurance

🔗 Elevate the Hustle is the #1 insurance podcast in the U.S., hosted by Stanley Meytin and Dominic Piccirillo, co-founders of Elevate Teams. Every week we sit down with agency owners, founders and operators to break down what it actually takes to build teams, scale companies and lead with intensity.

Elevate Teams matches U.S. independent insurance agencies with pre-vetted, bilingual LATAM virtual assistants who become part of your team. Please tell us your AMS and the hours you need covered, and we'll show you who fits.

elevateteams.io

LinkedIn:   / elevate-teams  
Instagram:   / elevatethehustlepodcast  
Connect with the hosts 
Stanley Meytin:   / stanleymeytin  
Dominic Piccirillo: www.linkedin.com/in/dominicpiccirillo
Follow Elevate the Hustle 

Real talk, real stories, and occasionally real bad language.

🌐 Website: elevateteams.io
📷 Instagram: @elevateteams
🔗 LinkedIn: Elevate Teams
🎙️ YouTube: @ElevateTheHustlePodcast

You built your agency on relationships. Now everyone's telling you to automate, buy more leads and spend more on ads. Darrin DeFouw has watched that pressure from inside one of insurance's most loved software companies for 22 years.

Darrin joined HawkSoft in 2004 as employee #8, after years as an agent and CSR. His interview was a backyard barbecue with the founder's family, his first desk was a shelf in a coat closet, and the first thing he was told was that his family comes first. Always.

In this episode of Elevate the Hustle, Darrin joins Stanley Meytin and Dominic Piccirillo to share how HawkSoft grew on word of mouth with no marketing department until 2012, why it treats sales like consulting and walks away from the wrong fit, and the Purple Cow philosophy behind its passionate users.

He also gets honest about AI in insurance: when the tech stack helps clients, and when it starts to replace the reason agents do this work.

If your best clients came from someone who trusted you, this one's for you.

elevateteams.io | LinkedIn | Instagram: @elevatethehustlepodcast @elevateteams.io

Real talk, real stories, and occasionally real bad language.

🌐 Website: elevateteams.io
📷 Instagram: @elevateteams
🔗 LinkedIn: Elevate Teams
🎙️ YouTube: @ElevateTheHustlePodcast

In this episode of Elevate the Hustle, Scott Lingle and Peter SerVaas, co-founders of High School Hustle, join Stanley Meytin and Dominic Piccirillo to talk about the summer competition teaching teenagers to build real businesses. One of their students was 15, couldn't drive, knocked on 1,031 doors, and made $25K.

Peter shares how he threw high school dance parties to help pay his parents' mortgage and built a software company acquired by Ford. Scott explains how he became an entrepreneur at 45 and started High School Hustle after his son's summer pressure washing business taught him more than college.

They break down the lunchroom pitch that changed their growth, the $2,500 "beat the summer" benchmark, the newspaper route lesson behind every business, and why even their best young founders struggle to make the first hire.

If you believe the best business education comes from doing, this one's for you.

Website: elevateteams.io 

LinkedIn: Elevate Teams

Instagram: @elevatethehustlepodcast

Real talk, real stories, and occasionally real bad language.

🌐 Website: elevateteams.io
📷 Instagram: @elevateteams
🔗 LinkedIn: Elevate Teams
🎙️ YouTube: @ElevateTheHustlePodcast

Ricky Brito joins Stanley Meytin and Dominic Piccirillo to break down how he went from working rooftops at age 10 to becoming one of the most connected people in the insurance industry, and why his next chapter is built on relationships instead of transactions.

Ricky shares how he stumbled into insurance through a family connection, built his reputation at Agent Brokers United through pure persistence, and why LinkedIn has been his single highest-ROI marketing tool. He also opens up about launching his new venture, ForgePoint, alongside his own daughter, and the mindset that's carried him through every setback along the way.

Whether you're an agency owner who feels stuck or an entrepreneur trying to figure out how to build real relationships instead of just closing deals, this conversation is packed with lessons on resilience, follow-through, and what it actually takes to grow.

Elevate Teams: elevateteams.io 
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/elevate-teams 
Instagram: @elevateteams

Real talk, real stories, and occasionally real bad language.

🌐 Website: elevateteams.io
📷 Instagram: @elevateteams
🔗 LinkedIn: Elevate Teams
🎙️ YouTube: @ElevateTheHustlePodcast

Greg and Becky Hile, co-founders of QuoteRUSH, join Stanley Meytin and Dominic Piccirillo to tell the real story behind one of the insurance industry's most trusted quoting platforms, now serving over 1,100 agencies.

Greg shares how he got fired from a construction job for refusing to cut corners, then taught himself to code from library books, betting he could build a business with zero physical product and a worldwide market. Becky shares how she went from supporting his obsession with computers to running the entire business side of QuoteRUSH, including the moment a longtime client credited the platform with letting him retire early and walk the Appalachian Trail.

They also get honest about Becky's years-long skepticism of virtual assistants, and what changed her mind after watching Elevate Teams train and match VAs the right way. This is a conversation about building something real with no formal background, no ad budget, and no shortcuts.

Learn more about QuoteRUSH at quoterush.com.
Connect with Elevate Teams at elevateteams.io 
LinkedIn
Instagram @elevatethehustlepodcast

Real talk, real stories, and occasionally real bad language.

🌐 Website: elevateteams.io
📷 Instagram: @elevateteams
🔗 LinkedIn: Elevate Teams
🎙️ YouTube: @ElevateTheHustlePodcast

Justin Goodman, founder of Total CSR, joins Stan and Dom to break down how he turned his own agency's biggest problem, watching big houses poach every employee he trained, into an online trade school now used by 1,400+ insurance agencies across the country.

Justin shares his path from a golf career cut short by a degenerative spinal disorder, to building his own agency with his brother, to eventually stepping away from it entirely to go all in on Total CSR. He talks about why the first few months of sales made it obvious he had something real, why he believes AI is quietly making agencies dumber if it's used the wrong way, and the mental health journey that led him to launch Project 55, the industry's first tactical training on how to step in when someone is struggling.

If you're an agency owner tired of training people just to lose them, or you're trying to figure out where AI actually fits into your business, this one is packed with lessons on training, leadership, and building something that outlasts you.

Elevate the Hustle is hosted by Stanley Meytin and Dominic Piccirillo, co-founders of Elevate Teams. New episodes every week.

🌐 elevateteams.io 

💼 LinkedIn

📸 Instagram: @elevatethehustlepodcast

Real talk, real stories, and occasionally real bad language.

🌐 Website: elevateteams.io
📷 Instagram: @elevateteams
🔗 LinkedIn: Elevate Teams
🎙️ YouTube: @ElevateTheHustlePodcast

Brett Young and Matt Main of Erb & Young join Stanley Meytin and Dominic Piccirillo to break down how three guys with zero insurance experience and $17,000 in year one built one of the fastest-growing P&C agencies in the country.

Brett shares the real story behind leaving a corporate benefits career to start Erb & Young from scratch, why moving fast and failing faster became their biggest competitive advantage, and how a referral marketing model borrowed from medical sales became their entire lead gen engine. Matt breaks down what it's like joining an agency after 25+ years on the carrier side, why he believes there's no ceiling left in this business, and the two of them dig into what they call the single biggest threat facing the insurance industry today: a shortage of young talent.

If you're an agency owner, a producer trying to break through a revenue plateau, or anyone building an insurance career, this episode is packed with practical lessons on segmentation, lead gen, and building a culture people actually want to stay for.

We also get the first look at Million Dollar Operator, Brett and Matt's new community for agency owners trying to break through the million-dollar plateau — free training kicks off September 9th.

Elevate the Hustle is hosted by Stanley Meytin and Dominic Piccirillo, co-founders of Elevate Teams, for agency owners who want to grow smarter.

🌐 elevateteams.io
📧 [email protected]
🎙️ New episodes every week

Real talk, real stories, and occasionally real bad language.

🌐 Website: elevateteams.io
📷 Instagram: @elevateteams
🔗 LinkedIn: Elevate Teams
🎙️ YouTube: @ElevateTheHustlePodcast

Melissa Rivera, Head of Training at Elevate Teams, joins Stan Meytin and Dom Piccirillo to break down what it actually takes to build and train a great virtual assistant.

Melissa has trained over 1,500 VAs for U.S. insurance agencies over the last four and a half years. In this episode, she shares her own path from pre-med student to Head of Training, the framework she uses to coach VAs through training, and the thinking behind Elevated Plus, the program built to give every agency its own custom process.

If you're an agency owner, a leader building out a team, or anyone curious about what separates a VA who thrives from one who doesn't, this episode is packed with practical insight on training, ownership, and what it really takes to build something that lasts.

In this episode:

• Melissa's path from pre-med student to Head of Training at Elevate Teams
• What "hustle" actually means, and why it's not about the hours
• The 4 traits she looks for before hiring any VA
• Why less than 60% of trainees make it to graduation, and why that's intentional
• The story behind Elevated Plus and why every agency's process is different
• Why licensed producers doing $15/hour tasks is costing agencies more than they realize
• The culture programs that keep the Elevate Teams team invested in the mission

Elevate the Hustle is presented by Elevate Teams, the bilingual virtual assistant company helping U.S. insurance agencies grow smarter. Hosted by co-founders Stanley Meytin and Dominic Piccirillo.

Want to be a guest on the podcast? Email us at [email protected]

Real talk, real stories, and occasionally real bad language.

🌐 Website: elevateteams.io
📷 Instagram: @elevateteams
🔗 LinkedIn: Elevate Teams
🎙️ YouTube: @ElevateTheHustlePodcast