"You have to be resilient, and you must be able to change gears quickly."
Galen Hair, owner at Insurance Claim HQ, is a property insurance attorney who has helped over 800 families rebuild their homes and businesses. He has been rated a Super Lawyers Rising Star and voted one of the National Trial Lawyers Top 100.
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Table of Contents
We are thrilled to have you join us today, welcome to ValiantCEO Magazine’s exclusive interview! Let’s start off with a little introduction. Tell our readers a bit about yourself and your company.
Galen Hair: My name is Galen Hair. I am an attorney based out of New Orleans, but I practice nationally. I run a law firm called Insurance Claim HQ. We represent insurance policyholders when they have suffered a disaster but have not been paid fairly.
2020 and 2021 threw a lot of curve balls into business on a global scale. Based on the experience gleaned in the past couple years, how can businesses thrive in 2022? What lessons have you learned?
Galen Hair: You have to be resilient, and you must be able to change gears quickly. This is not optional if you want to grow in today’s climate. 2020 kind of divided people into two groups based on the traditional fight or flight classifications. 2021 was a different animal altogether. Fight or flight was no longer applicable. A lot of those that would flee were already gone albeit some slowly returning. By then the “flights” had learned to fight when confronted with adversity.
Now the challenge was separating yourself while the entire world entered into financial, political, and public health turmoil. Hiring became a massive issue as well. There is no one magic bullet, but I learned that you have to focus on drawing in the right team members – showing a unique value proposition that is more than just a paycheck (while not minimizing the paycheck). You also must specialize. With all the information out there, if you aren’t specializing, you are opening yourself up to be put out of business.
The pandemic seems to keep on disrupting the economy, what should businesses focus on in 2022? What advice would you share?
Galen Hair: We don’t focus on the pandemic. We never focus on the pandemic. We focus on human behavior, which, of course, may be affected by the pandemic. Businesses should monitor human behavior daily. Segment this out: vendor behavior, consumer behavior, employee behavior. Watch for changes and trends. We always say “row with the disaster, not against it.”
How has the pandemic changed your industry and how have you adapted?
Galen Hair: It has taken a lot of bad apples out, which has been good for the overall health of the industry. It has, however, taken a business that is really face to face and built on personal interaction and made people concerned to personally interact. It has forced an industry to adopt more technology than ever before. We have done our best to stay at the forefront of technology that makes communicating with people easy and pleasant.
What advice do you wish you received when the pandemic started and what do you intend on improving in 2022?
Galen Hair: The only thing I regret is not going all in on Day 1. It took me a couple of weeks to decide what I wanted to do. I wish I had not wasted more than a minute.
Online business surged higher than ever, B2B, B2C, online shopping, virtual meetings, remote work, Zoom medical consultations, what are your expectations for 2022?
Galen Hair: I expect to see remote becoming the “norm” but with a healthy return to in-person interaction. We can do all things with technology, but we are social creatures and conferences, festivals, and in-person events are booming in 2022.
How many hours a day do you spend in front of a screen?
Galen Hair: Is 23.9 a fair answer? In all seriousness, I try to limit my screen time to 7 or 8 hours a day. Basically ⅔ of my work day.
The majority of executives use stories to persuade and communicate in the workplace. Can you share with our readers examples of how you implement that in your business to communicate effectively with your team?
Galen Hair: We use client success stories all day every day. We teach our team that we are here for our clients. The only way to truly adopt that mindset is to show the results of what we do. We do this with emails, videos, text messages, meetings. We want to make sure we never forget what a positive impact we can have when we work together.
Business is all about overcoming obstacles and creating opportunities for growth. What do you see as the real challenge right now?
Galen Hair: Unreasonable growth comes with unreasonable costs. As we head into what looks like a potential recession, cost is going to be a major factor. But, it also is going to weed out some competitors that didn’t plan well.
In 2022, what are you most interested in learning about? Crypto, NFTs, online marketing, or any other skill sets? Please share your motivations.
Galen Hair: Online marketing changes every single week. It is the way that we do most of our marketing and I consume as much content related to online marketing as I can. I want to understand what our marketers are doing and why.
A record 4.4 million Americans left their jobs in September in 2021, accelerating a trend that has become known as the Great Resignation. 47% of people plan to leave their job during 2022. Most are leaving because of their boss or their company culture. 82% of people feel unheard, undervalued and misunderstood in the workplace. Do you think leaders see the data and think “that’s not me – I’m not that boss they don’t want to work for? What changes do you think need to happen?
Galen Hair: See what I am talking about? Yes, leaders absolutely think it isn’t them. But it is them. Ego is the most dangerous thing for a business. Self-awareness is the most valuable thing for a business. Be self-aware, not egocentric. Evaluate your company culture weekly, not quarterly.
On a lighter note, if you had the ability to pick any business superpower, what would it be and how would you put it into practice?
Galen Hair: I would be like the Flash. I want to be all the places and see all the things. Anything that can speed that up is more than welcome.
What does “success” in 2022 mean to you? It could be on a personal or business level, please share your vision.
Galen Hair: Success is measured by happy clients. I want to put 1000 people a month back in their homes..
Jed Morley, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Galen Hair for taking the time to do this interview and share his knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Galen Hair or his company, you can do it through his – Linkedin Page
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