"Do you know Kelly Bailey?"

If you're in Florida insurance, the answer is yes, and you're probably best friends. (And if not, you will soon.) 🐝

In episode 2 of Elevate the Hustle, Stan and Dom sit down with Kelly Bailey—founder of Hive Recruiter and serial connector who turned decades of "side hustle" placements into a full-time business.

They dig into:

• Why fear of failure keeps people from starting, and why Kelly did it anyway
• What actually drives people to leave their jobs (spoiler: it's not always money)
• The "vibe check" that matters more than checking boxes on a resume
• Why most agency owners are hiring the wrong people for the wrong jobs
• How Stan finally convinced Kelly to stop working until 1 AM and hire her own VA, and what happened when she finally did

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

If you're an insurance agency owner or entrepreneur who wants straight talk and stories from the trenches, hit play.

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

“A giraffe walks into an insurance conference…”

Sounds like the setup to a joke, right? Except this actually happened. And we were the ones who brought it. 🦒

In this first episode of Elevate the Hustle, founders Stan Meytin and Dom Piccirillo tell the real story behind the 16 foot giraffe they brought into the FAIA conference in Orlando—and why it wasn’t just a stunt, it was a statement about how they do business.

From there, Dom takes you back to the early days:
- Starting an insurance agency from scratch in New York
- Working 70–80 hour weeks and burning out
- Trying offshore help in India and realizing what doesn’t work
- Discovering Latin American talent and building a hybrid team that helped him scale and eventually sell his agency.

Stan and Dom break down how that experience turned into Elevate Teams—matching insurance agencies with trained, vetted virtual assistants from Latin America—and why they believe delegation, process, and culture are the real unlocks for growth.

They also dig into:
- The simple exercise that showed Dom he was doing “intern work” as the owner
- Why most agency owners stay stuck in the weeds
- Why sometimes, in business, you have to do something so bold people can’t forget you (like, say, rolling a giraffe into a ballroom)

The episode wraps with a rapid-fire round so you can get to know them—golf handicaps, Jets fandom, guilty-pleasure Starbucks orders and all.

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

If you're an insurance agency owner or entrepreneur who wants straight talk and stories from the trenches, hit play.

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