You’reinvited.

I'm Justin Jacobs. Welcome to Closed. And today we're going to do something a bit different. We've been asked, how are you guys putting this podcast together? So we're going to go behind the scenes today to show you how the donuts are made. Let's jump in. So this is our podcast studio. And this is Tim. He's behind the camera. You can't see him. So I'm gonna wave at Tim. Hi Tim. So in this room essentially we were renting a podcast studio a couple miles away. We thought it was a really great idea to kind of get our footing on it and when we first started doing this we realized that we didn't know what we were doing very quickly.

So I started off with a handheld and an idea and started just kind of rolling with some of the scripting and some of the ideas that I had with closed. And so moving forward, we said, hey, you know, it'd be a good idea to try to find a place where we can invite guests in and have a proper desk and proper microphones. And we found a place not too far from here, gave that a shot. And I think we really fell in love with the process of inviting guests in and having a professional place to do this podcast together and really move the needle for us.

So availability became a thing, distance became a thing, and we had this extra room here at HPM. This is our operations headquarters. And so we initially had this room set up for training slash meeting room, which is why we have the whiteboard here. I don't know that we normally see this on camera, but some people do come in and kind of still work around the cameras and do their thing. But we had this really awesome sign, this awesome backdrop, and Tim was like, hey you know this would look really good for the podcast.

So we bought a table, we went out, we got the mics, we got the cameras, and we started putting this thing together. So I don't know all the technicals behind the equipment, so what I can tell you is the the basics. So I normally sit in this chair, we have our guests in that chair, so this is my main camera here. This is a camera I've had for a very long time. It's a Sony ZV-1 if I remember correctly and I had this camera just kind of laying around and so we started shooting the podcast on this and so Tim liked it so we bought another one and then we bought another one so I'll get to those.

So that one shoots me here. I sit here because we have a timer that I use. So this is our timer that we use and you set it up, we have the volume off, but that is how much I actually shoot for. We typically go over, but it gives me an idea of like where I am and the questions. And so having this timer is really important for me. So we set it up. I can see it while I'm talking. I also have, we have our headphones here.

This is our podcast gear. These are AKG K240s. These are personally my favorite headphones. I'm a musician by trade and if you've never listened to these, these are open back which means you can kind of hear your surroundings but they go over the ears very comfortably and music in these things sound incredible. So if you've never checked these out, I highly recommend them. And then we've got our Shure SM7Bs. These are our podcast mics. This is what makes us sound really good. And we've got these swivels here.

I've got a Lenovo tablet here that I use for my questions. I've got it plugged in right now. We bought this cool table that has power on it, but we don't really use the power. I don't know why, but that's something that we just don't use it for. But it's got plugs and stuff. And then obviously we've got one for the guests as well. We have a... we'll go really behind the scenes and it's kind of like where you find all the crumbs in the couch, right?

So we have a a surge protector back here as well that's kind of hidden and that barely works but it's there for just making sure that the equipment doesn't blow up in case there's a power outage or a brownout. We've got the cables, all the cables are running behind here and to our board, which I'll get to in a minute. This is camera two, the guest camera, and camera two shoots here, so we get a, you know, profile picture of our guest here. And then our third camera, which captures the entire room.

But more importantly, you'll notice it has a housing on it. And this is a teleprompter. And I think the company is Elgato, if I remember correctly. but we, I do my intros and outros with this, so we'll position this later, and I can use this as a teleprompter. So this is a teleprompter housing, and we just keep it on there, because it's a pain in the butt to set it all up. So that's our camera setup, that's our headphones, microphones, and then this is Tim's setup, and so Tim's gonna show you what he's working with, And one of the things that I was adamant about is making sure that we could quickly make this thing mobile.

So we went out and we found this mobile rack unit that we can essentially put all of our gear in and then send it wherever we need to go. So we did a few episodes down in Miami. So Tim was kind enough to pack all this up. It fit nicely in this casing. and we were able to get it into his truck and he moseyed on down to Miami and rolled it up to the hotel room. We set it up, we had everything we needed. The one thing you'll notice in this studio is we don't have proper professional lighting.

So we rely on these LEDs, which actually have worked out pretty well. One of the things that is annoying is we have some of these on motion sensors. So, you know, a tiny detail, if you go back and watch some of the podcasts, you'll see like the light go off or on. It's because we have, this is a working office. So somebody will walk by and then turn it on or if nobody walks by in a while, it'll just turn off. So that's kind of a thing.

So here we have Tim set up, he's got a monitor and on the monitor, he's got all three cameras and he also has his board here that manages all the audio as well. And then I believe he's doing some live switching from camera to camera and he uses some of the gear here. He's got a hard drive as well so everything's backed up. I think the RODECaster Pro has a little bit of memory on that too so we've got like a a double backup system just in case.

We've got a power conditioner over there to make sure that our power is making sense and some other goodies that are buried in that rat's nest there. And that's just because we try to keep everything in one place and all together. So we've got all sorts of gear and things that we might need to pull out. Tim's got a pair of headphones, so he's listening in to make sure that he's getting good audio from the guests, good audio from me. And yeah, essentially this is our main podcast studio and this is where we hide and do our best work.

So now we're gonna go around the office. I'm gonna show you around and yeah, let's see what that's all about. All right, so we'll start at the start. I like to joke with guests that come into our office that I'm gonna give you the 30 second tour because this building is not really that big, but it does everything that we need it to do. So this is our front reception area. Typically we have [name] who sits at HR. She's the one that's usually here. Phones are usually routed to the department, but sometimes you'll catch her on the phone.

And we bought this building a couple years back and it was a full renovation. So we went all the way to the studs and completely renovated this thing because we wanted it to have the functions that we needed as a company and also to modernize it. The building was built in 1927, if I remember correctly, so definitely needed a ton of upgrades. So this is our reception area here and then you can follow me back here. We have what we call a huddle room or co-working room.

And in here during AEP and busy season we have agents that come in and kind of use this For just a quick pit stop if you will But [name] also works back here. She needs a little bit of space to have meetings and we've got a print stations scanning Shredder all that fun stuff that a normal office has we kind of hide it and tuck it back here. I joke I joke, yeah it's loud in here. I joke that this is our Sonic because it's like the hottest room.

So [name]'s from the Caribbean so she likes to be in this room. So we'll come back here. To our left you've got our podcast studio. This is where the magic happens. We went through that and then to the right is our conference room. In our conference room it also doubles as a green room for our guests so you kind of come in and spread out a little bit. Tim's got some of his equipment here he's got a brand new beautiful bag that he's showing off so that's there and we do our meetings as well.

This is one of the coolest things if you don't have. I love this thing this is a e-meet conference camera so you stick it you set it up to your computer and it gives you a 360 view of the room so you can see everybody on the call in the meeting. And it locks on the person that's talking, which is really cool. But it's got the mic and speaker and camera all in one. So super helpful for conferences. I love that thing, because it makes you feel like you're there in the room, as close as you can be anyway.

So walking down the hallway here, we've got on the left side, we have our IT and contracting room. We've got the boys here. They're working on some projects here. Anything that has to do with tech or AI or systems, these are the guys that make it happen. And then our contracting gals, they're not here today. They kind of switch on and off. Hybrid. So they come in and they handle all of our contracting needs for agents and agencies for onboarding here at Health Plan Markets. So that's where they sit.

This is where they do their best work. So. I'll close this door cause we don't want to disturb them. They're disturbed enough. We also like to say don't tap on the glass because it scares the fish. Behind you we have our restroom and then we walk on down here, watch your step. We've got a kitchen that was set up, you know We had very limited space But we wanted to make sure that we absolutely had a coffee bar because coffee is a really big part of our culture I have learned how to make a proper espresso so I'm still practicing my barista skills, but this is a Breville and it makes two shots of espresso.

I've already had mine too. Tim's had his too. We're this thing. This is not just like a regular microwave, this thing is actually an oven, an air fryer, it's kind of crazy but I love this thing because you can make chocolate chip cookies and you can also heat up your leftovers. So kind of cool. Fridge, you know how those work. We got a little bit of a like a half dish washer which is really cool because we don't need a full one so that's a neat little thing and then tons of snacks.

Our folks love to snack here. So here in this room this is another office that is kind of a shared space. It is our IT manager slash integrators room and it is always a hot mess in here so I don't like to be in this room. I'm gonna leave immediately. They just never really clean it up so We'll close the door. How about that? This one's really cool. This is a call room concept that we came up with where maybe you had to do a video call with a client or have a conference where you didn't really need the big room and we set up a TV, we've got a camera there, and you can come in and do a proper conference call or a consultation call with the door closed, which is nice.

And you can still hear me but this has just got a cool little light feature in here too. This is just really nice to kind of have us like a phone booth if you will to do what you need to do especially for the agents and their clients and then this is my office so I get to hang out in here and for many many years probably the first say six or seven years of building an agency I did not have my own desk I did not have my own office.

So I always treated it as like a nice treat to have my own office. So finally when we built the building, it was a non-negotiable, Justin had to have an office cause I was tired of working at a Starbucks. So here it is, I've got my monitor, my mic in there and then I'm a big reader, that's what I do. And this is where I do most of my work, most of my conference calls, and just really essentially get some of the stuff that needs to get done done.

And then I love to preview our closed episodes on this big TV here so I get to watch how that works and how it comes out finally in the final product. So and then last part of our office is Our game room one of the concepts we came up with is we kind of needed a decompression space So the team says hey no work in this office. You can't or in this room You can't talk about work in this room. So you chill out. We've got video games under here.

We've got an arcade system and Just a really nice space to just kind of you know, say hey when you're in here, you're safe from the enemy, you're good. You can decompress, you can take a personal phone call, you can lay your head down, chill out. Unfortunately, sometimes it ends up being a bit of a storage unit, which I'm not happy about, because we have a whole nother storage unit outside that's really where things should be stored. But anyway, come on down, play some video games with me, and have a little bit of fun, right?

Because it can't all be work. You got to have a little bit of fun. All right, so we're outside of our building here on Edgewater Drive here in Orlando, Florida, and this is our operations. We also have a sales office in downtown Orlando where we keep all the wild animals, the sales agents. But for the most part, you would come here if you need help with any admin, if you're an employee in operations, or if you have any contracting issues, this is a great office to work from.

This is the office I work from, even though that I'm a recovering insurance agent, I really should be at the sales and marketing office, but this is where we're at. So we bought this building, we renovated it. This is the outside view. I'm going to take you around the building so you can see, you know, from the outside it doesn't look like much. And it's kind of small, you know, but it does exactly what we need it to do. So here it is. One thing that I was really excited about doing for the building is modernizing a lot of the stuff.

So we have brand new internet and we also run off of solar. So we have the Tesla system here. The solar really feeds our office more than enough power that we ever need. In fact, the energy company usually owes us money because nobody's here on the weekend, so it just feeds the system. So that's really nice. we got rid of our power bill and we pay a mortgage instead of rent which from a business perspective is really where you want to be eventually so we've got that going and then I'll show you around we also have our storage facility we got Scorpio he's up next so he's on the phone this was one of the first things that we did when we bought the building is have storage because storage is expensive and we really needed a place where people could come to get marketing supplies like tents, tables, tablecloths, banners, all that stuff that you need to do.

Grassroots marketing which is one of the most successful ways to go out and be an agent and so I'll show you some of the stuff that we have here. I'm gonna Let's see if we can get in here because this is [name]'s office. [name] is our logistics manager and he really doesn't like people in his space. So, and you'll see why. Turn the light on in here. So this thing is jam-packed with everything you could ever use or need to go out in the field and do events.

So, tents, tables, tablecloths, chairs, projectors, projector screens, promo items. That's one of the things that, you know, the community really loves is freebies. So we've got tons of that all organized. We've got waters. And then we kind of store some other stuff that we use here as well, but it's jam-packed all the way to the gills. So we kind of need more space. In fact, we have another storage unit for some of our deeper storage needs, such as equipment for the office and things like that.

But agents would come to [name] and they would ask, hey, I'm doing a presentation or I'm doing a health fair and I need a tent, table, tablecloth, and he would, you know, have the meat here or he would bring them to the actual event. So he's typically in a van and he drives around and he sets things up and then off he goes. So we have it organized by some of our carrier partners and we have some swag that we love to give away here at the office.

So next I'm going to show you over to our RV. We have affectionately named her Stevie. It's called a Fleetwood is the name of the model. So from Fleetwood Mac we nicknamed her Stevie and we wrapped it, we bought it, we wrapped it, and we started taking it around to community events. And so the idea is we can pull up into a health fair or a supermarket or wherever we're at. Open up a tent, table, tablecloths, and our agents show up and meet people, get leads, and hopefully do appointments.

It's kind of a beast. You don't need a series, I think it's series C or class C driver's license, but you definitely need a little bit of training before you get behind the wheel of Stevie. It's a lot of work. So that's our RV. It doesn't get used quite as much, but it's also just a really cool marketing vehicle as we roll around. So that is essentially our podcast tour, our office tour, and I hope you've enjoyed it. And Tim, watch your step there. Please don't die.

And at any point in time, if anyone is ever in the Orlando area or you're interested in coming by for a personal tour, someone will be here to give you the 30-second tour. This is a little bit longer because I'm going through a lot of the details, but we would love to have you here at Health Plan Markets and at the closed studio where everything is shot and performed. So one thing that I'll ask is if you have any ideas for our podcast or if you have some thoughts about the direction or vision, we would love feedback.

It's one thing that I really thrive on is making sure that we're listening to the people that are listening to us, and we can make this thing better for you. So if you have ideas, please don't hesitate to reach out to us or leave a comment on the video or the podcast. And we definitely read all those things and we take all of it into consideration. So we'd love to have your feedback on that stuff. So with that, I'm Justin Jacobs. This is Closed Behind the Scenes.

Thanks for watching. Hope you have an awesome day.