RHS 173 - You’ll Be OK, but Your Kids Are F@cked

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Speaker 3 my uncontrollable movements cold td tard of dyskinesia felt embarrassing i felt like disconnecting i asked my doctor about treating my td and learned about ingreza a prescription medicine clinically proven for reducing td in adults that's always one capsule once daily and number one prescribed people taking in grezza can stay on most mental health meds Ingreza can cause depression, suicidal thoughts, or actions in patients with Huntington's disease.

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Speaker 9 in a crude laboratory in the basement of his home.

Speaker 10 Hello everyone and welcome back to the show. Today we have a tremendous episode for you.
A wonderful, wonderful conversation. A conversation that's going to be ear candy, like

Speaker 10 really good

Speaker 10 ear sex, filled with multiple ear explosions for you

Speaker 10 on this Thursday. And that is going to be a wonderful conversation with Billy Vandura.

Speaker 10 Billy is known for hot takes on LinkedIn and Twitter, being a tremendous agency owner, a wonderful professional of our space, and someone who challenges both the

Speaker 10 new thinking and the old think of the industry.

Speaker 10 And I don't know too many people who are willing to take shots at both the kind of more progressive, tech-forwarded, sure tech-focused aspect of our industry, as well as the way the industry has always been done.

Speaker 10 And he's finding that middle ground.

Speaker 10 Just absolutely respect the hell out of Billy. Love every conversation I have with him because he always makes me think, and this one is no different.

Speaker 10 Before we get there, if you enjoy the podcast, you'll love the blog. Go to findingpeak.com, subscribe today.
It's an email a week. You get a thought-provoking article.

Speaker 10 I'm writing all kinds of stuff about peak performance, about running your agency, stuff I've learned at Rogue Risk. I think you'll love that.
And big shout out to our friends at Tivly, T-I-V-L-Y.com.

Speaker 10 Tivly creates that foundational, consistent growth in your business when it comes to small commercial and middle market.

Speaker 10 I mean, we get some accounts through Tivoli that are occasionally $50,000 to $100,000 in premium.

Speaker 10 The key is Tivly is delivering warm phone call transfers to business owners so that your team or yourself can take those leads and write them quick.

Speaker 10 They're consistent. You can really dial in all the triggers.
You know who's calling from where.

Speaker 10 Love Tivly. Love that they're a part of this podcast.
But also, we've been a paying client of Tivly's at Rogue Risk for more than two years. So

Speaker 10 not only a client, or not only the spokesman but also a client i guess you could say all right so let's get past all this get on to what is one of my favorite conversations i've had in 2023 by far uh this conversation that you're about to hear with billy van jern i'm going to sham

Speaker 9 yeah i don't i don't produce the video anymore because

Speaker 9 one it's just too much work and you know i I hate asking people to like, you know, people get kind of like,

Speaker 9 you know, which I get like when you know you're going to be on video, people kind of like want to look a certain way and they're worried about the way they look.

Speaker 9 And so I use the video just for the conversation so we can see each other and see our, um, you know, see our expressions.

Speaker 9 And I feel like the conversation goes a lot smoother when you can see the person, but I don't produce the video.

Speaker 9 I know some people do.

Speaker 9 I get it. I know that I know, and what's crazy is, and I have never enjoyed this, but like personally, but there's a lot of people that like watching like podcast conversations.

Speaker 9 They like watching it on YouTube. Like you get probably, if you produce,

Speaker 9 if you produce your podcast and publish like this, like this Zoom video on YouTube as well, you can add like another 30 or 40%

Speaker 9 in some cases. And,

Speaker 9 you know, that could be be a lot of extra views but you know i still you know as much as i do this and i you know uh lucky to have tivly as a sponsor and that but basically pays me to pay cash and you know whatever it's like i don't really make that much money i basically basically affords me like a few dinners you know what i mean it's not like it's a huge thing but um but it's appreciated and I really, you know, it's still just fun.

Speaker 9 Like, I just, I like bringing people on that I like that I want to talk to and sharing the the ideas and stuff. And it's still just something that I do mostly for fun,

Speaker 9 you know, for fun

Speaker 9 than it is like trying to make a business out of it, you know, like

Speaker 9 Bradley and Scott and the things they do. You know, I think it's amazing.
And I think it's awesome how they've grown their audience. But,

Speaker 9 you know, they have like a full-blown studio with a production.

Speaker 9 I'm not interested in that. You know, I think it's awesome.
I just, you know.

Speaker 9 It's the whole content thing for me. It's I'm a capitalist.
I appreciate you earning money. However, you choose to earn money.
Good for you. You're not harming anybody.
God bless. But

Speaker 9 I just got other things I want to do. Yeah.
And

Speaker 9 I've recorded and haven't recorded something in a while, but it's like,

Speaker 9 if the quality is good enough,

Speaker 9 the audio is sound, you can hear it. It's good.
Like, man, all the other stuff is just fluff.

Speaker 9 you know i like your intro music like i enjoy it it kind of leads into things it's nice it sounds good but like

Speaker 9 and and all the other stuff, like, uh, I was listening to one last night and the credit role was almost like it was on TV, like the amount of people contributing to doing it.

Speaker 9 I was like, yeah, okay, but it doesn't sound any better than the business podcast I heard, but two dudes just with basic setups and everything else. Yeah.

Speaker 9 That's, that's the tough part today is like, you know, you, you.

Speaker 9 you know, you, you even think about the Joe Rogan show.

Speaker 9 This guy has, what, 30 million people downloading his podcast every month it's basically three people he's got him he's got his guy who does the the the pull-ups whose name is escaping even those listening jamie yeah jamie and then he's got one other guy that does like the production stuff like it's basically a three-man show and then he's got people that like run the building and some other stuff but like the actual podcast is like a three or four person production crew including Joe Rogan, 30 million downloads.

Speaker 9 And then you have like these other shows, like I, somebody sent me one. They're like, you got to listen to this show on NPR.

Speaker 9 And first, I, I fucking hate NPR, but, um, but, you know, like you said, it was like in production with this and this media company and this and that, and I'm like, oh my God, like the amount of money that this show, which was,

Speaker 9 you know, I mean, interesting, but they could have done it sitting on a park bench holding a iPhone between them and I would have been just as happy.

Speaker 9 And like, I just, to me, there's no way for that to be successful long term. That is an absolute loss leader forever if you do it that way.
There's just no way for that to be successful.

Speaker 9 And I don't, and that's like because we're both in the insurance realm. There was a, there's a thread the other day and

Speaker 9 Nick Ayers and some other anonymous person was in there and it was about like SEO and websites and stuff. And you know this and I've got data that can back this up.
There are plenty.

Speaker 9 My website is dog shit. I have four websites.
They're all equal levels of dog shit, but I don't need them.

Speaker 9 I sit in that camp of like Craigslist is amazing. You can bang on Craigslist all you want.
He's sitting on his pile of cash and doesn't worry about your opinion.

Speaker 9 And then you go to somebody's websites and I'm like, man,

Speaker 9 I've been into your office. Like, I know where you are and who you are.
That website's just a front. Like, that is just like, it looks amazing.

Speaker 9 You spent a lot of money putting that thing up there, but it's like useless. And like you said, like the Jill Rook and stuff, like

Speaker 9 before you go all in on all this production, all this, just

Speaker 9 be good.

Speaker 9 Just be worth listening to. Yeah.
So, you know, Cal Newport wrote a book back in, I think, 2013 called Be So Good They Can't Ignore You. And it was based off of the,

Speaker 9 wow, my brain is not functioning today.

Speaker 9 Shit, from the tonight show from the 70s and 80s, or not the tonight, it was a Saturday Night Live.

Speaker 9 Martin.

Speaker 9 Oh, Martin Sheen?

Speaker 9 No, not Martin Sheen. Steve Martin.
Steve Martin. Steve Martin is, he, in an interview, said, you know, someone asked him, what's your secret to success?

Speaker 9 And he said, be so good, they can't ignore you. And

Speaker 9 basically, then Cal Newport took that, pulled that quote out, and wrote this really cool book.

Speaker 9 I mean, you kind of get the gist of the book from the title, but it is a good, you know, kind of airplane read book. And I enjoyed it.

Speaker 9 But like, that's really the key. And I think,

Speaker 9 you know, I don't anymore, seemingly. And I'm so glad that there's a new class

Speaker 9 of insurance

Speaker 9 talking heads who are willing to answer all these kind of what I call seemingly think of as seemingly trivial questions about what kind of microphone you have.

Speaker 9 I used to get asked those questions incessantly. I don't seemingly anymore.
I feel like those questions go to other people now, which I'm happy about.

Speaker 9 Because not because I don't want to answer the questions, but because. My answers are this microphone, which I have just off camera, which you can't see.
This microphone is 11 years old.

Speaker 9 I bought this for 80 bucks on Amazon back in like 2012.

Speaker 9 And I've had the same, I've, I've, the only thing I've had to replace is I had to replace the arm one time that holds it because the arm springs just atrophied from being so old that I had to replace the arm.

Speaker 9 Other than that, the microphone, I've had the same microphone for more than a decade.

Speaker 9 I use a $40 Logitech camera to do these calls. And Zoom, which calls me, costs me 14 bucks a month.

Speaker 9 And then i've switched from i used to use all the adobe products and truthfully now like they've gotten so difficult and so time consuming and all that i just use the free apple that comes on the mac computer now the iMovie and garage band so like you think about like the the setup costs you know that i do the cost of the podcast you know for cass helps me put it all the put all the show notes together and all the publishing and that is well worth what that what i pay for that but like um

Speaker 9 but just it's it's like you don't need all that stuff to to have a show and you know and whatever and and it i feel like people get too caught up in the stuff and not in the substance and that's probably a life thing but certainly in a content production thing

Speaker 9 you said this a minute ago and it parlays to so much stuff is the

Speaker 9 they don't ask me anymore. I guess because you're a person that's asked a lot more than me, right? You are a known entity out there.

Speaker 9 You did a post on this somewhere. There's a blog post.
There's a video. There's like, you already answered these questions.
And then they come ask them of you, right? And now I get it.

Speaker 9 They're having a dialogue. It's the same reason I don't engage in any of the Facebook message stuff because

Speaker 9 the new people

Speaker 9 are, yeah, they're lazy. Yeah.
Don't look for the information. Now, if you find Ryan's post and you have a question about his post, by all means, you should send him a note.

Speaker 9 But

Speaker 9 the answer is already existing. And now you're going to waste my time by asking it.
It's not, you know, and like you said about the substance part, I'm like, man, like

Speaker 9 I started putting some stuff out and I had a bunch of stuff backlog. And I said to somebody, it's like, yeah, you know, I didn't share all this.

Speaker 9 I spent two years putting all this information together. Like this is hand picked, hand curated.

Speaker 9 but no one's going to execute on it. So what the hell's the point of keeping it on my computer? Here you go.

Speaker 9 Like, like, I said it to a bunch of people, and it's like, yeah, you're not going to do anything with it. So, who cares?

Speaker 9 It's you know, I don't, um, I don't know if you listened to the episode that I put out recently. Um, it was the full keynote for that I did from um the one city world tour.

Speaker 9 Oh, it's so it was so spot on. The second half hour, I was sitting here.

Speaker 9 We've we've interacted a bunch before. I mean, the first 25 minutes of the day, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 9 The second half hour is so,

Speaker 9 and I, and it's embarrassing that I get frustrated by it, but it's like,

Speaker 9 I think I wrote it, it's $880 million in funding, yet they can't complete leads.

Speaker 9 Like, you're still, I did this, and I keep a separate email address.

Speaker 9 If I see a new service, I sign up just to see, hey, what's their quality flow? How's it work?

Speaker 9 I think it was next. I ended up in some shop in Missouri.
They couldn't help and then they passed me off to somebody else. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Speaker 9 How is that possible? Like, you're not, you're not even a broker. You're just a lead generator.

Speaker 9 Like, how,

Speaker 9 could you imagine in your world getting leads

Speaker 9 and passing them off? Like, we do it as brokers, right? Like, if you just don't have the right thing, if it's just a big commercial thing, I am just not the right guy. Here's some suggestions.
But

Speaker 9 could you imagine just that's your business model? I'm going to generate traffic and then I'm just going to farm it out.

Speaker 9 So it, it, so I have, I i have a bunch of feelings on this um because in because at rogue i've had to solve a bunch of problems that i never had to solve before and that i didn't necessarily see coming looking back i probably should have but you know uh and one of those issues was because of covid and i talk a little bit about this uh on other shows like because of covid

Speaker 9 um I kind of had to survive, right? Like I put like 40K into this business, no idea COVID's coming. It's going to be a middle market, you know, high touch, white gloves shop.

Speaker 9 I'm doing all the killing commercial stuff. I'm working with Mick Hunt and basically I'm using Mick's stuff and David's stuff and my own stuff and all the other people.

Speaker 9 And I'm mashing together in what I believe is like going to be this awesome, best in class,

Speaker 9 New York, you know, New York only middle market shop, right? This is what I wanted Rogue to be. The original vision of Rogue, that's what it was, right? And it's like me and like.

Speaker 9 a couple you know a couple other like service people and like we're writing accounts and being world class boutique that was rogue that was the original vision of rogue 40k all the systems everything i needed i am ready to go i'm excited jacked out of my mind one weekend covet happens it all just it's like i lit it the whole thing on fire every plan every piece of marketing material half the tools that i had purchased to service middle market accounts just light them on fire they're useless okay So when I pivoted to the small commercial and I started doing all the content on YouTube, the unfortunate thing about that is it is incredibly difficult to target geographically.

Speaker 9 And also, no matter what you do, it is very, very hard to target industry.

Speaker 9 So one of our biggest problems up until very recently, which I'm happy to talk about how we've, at least we're trying to solve it today, is,

Speaker 9 dude, I don't get to choose who contacts us, right? So it's like, I got.

Speaker 9 plastics manufacturers from southern Louisiana and, you know, shotgun retailers from East Montana and, you know, and all these and also shit that's kind of down the middle and stuff we really want to work with.

Speaker 9 But like,

Speaker 9 what do you do with them? And to be honest with you, you know, I can see how like, so I did an interview a few weeks back with the CEO of Tivly.

Speaker 9 And, you know, basically what happened to them is what happened to us, but he chose a different path. And

Speaker 9 they were a digital shop. had a very similar challenge to what we had.

Speaker 9 And basically he just started to get frustrated with with the insurance sales part and said, screw it, we're going to sell the insurance sales part and just distribute the leads.

Speaker 9 And so I can see, I agree with you, that's a really tough decision to make. And I obviously chose to go a different way.

Speaker 9 But I will say that there is such a large amount of frustration around where does the business go. You know, yes, you know, a perfect example is Hartford loves landscapers in about 35 states.

Speaker 9 Love them. Probably one of the best carriers in the country for landscapers is Hartford in 35 states.
And the other 15 states, they either won't write them at all or they're not even close.

Speaker 9 How the hell do you know which states are the ones that they will and which ones they won't?

Speaker 9 You know, like, it's like these kinds of, these are like the crazy, silly challenges that you come up against that like.

Speaker 9 And by the way, anyone who knows how to code that wants to help me solve that problem, I will, I, I have, I have the solution mapped out.

Speaker 9 I just don't know how to make ones and zeros make things happen in the magic box but like you know these are the kind of things so i can see it it's not i agree with you it's not the business model i would want but i can see how people get frustrated with that and go that way um

Speaker 9 because

Speaker 9 especially in commercial personalized is completely different but in commercials holy it's just so dynamic it's it's overwhelming So, and even, and it's, it's, I think it's good that other people would hear you say this because it's like

Speaker 9 you are, you've crossed that hurdle where you've got your 50 states license.

Speaker 9 You've got a market in every state, not necessarily for every risk. Yep.
Technically speaking, you have carrier representation in every state, right? Yes. Yep.

Speaker 9 What I continue and it's, and I go back to something and I paraphrase this because I don't know when it was, but like you had said, like, who the heck am I?

Speaker 9 you know, to tell some billion dollar operation what to do. Yep.
It was you and cash just going off on a ransom time. And that stuck with me because I fall into that trap.

Speaker 9 I fell into that trap last Tuesday, I think it was. I snapped on,

Speaker 9 you know, at my level, I'm talking to the underwriter who did a field thing and they changed the rate. And I'm like, you know,

Speaker 9 you're just following corporate policy. It's crap.
It hurts me. I'm going to bear the brunt of this, but it's crap.
Like, what would you do differently? I'm like,

Speaker 9 I'm not paid to do things differently.

Speaker 9 I'm paid to fill in the boxes you give me. I'm paid to produce business.
You pay consultants for ideas that don't work. If you want my ideas, we're going to have to figure out a way to do this.

Speaker 9 And it's, but I fall into that trap of making suggestions because what I don't get is, I remember talking with a large brokerage not too far away.

Speaker 9 Guy said, I want to get to a billion dollars of premium. And I was like, well, that's pretty easy with your size.
Like you've got this and this, everything's already solved. And they didn't get there.

Speaker 9 And they're not there yet, at least publicly, right? Like at least the numbers like open to rankings. Yeah.

Speaker 9 How does that happen?

Speaker 9 Like you have all the resources and then you're just not putting it together. Like there's always this dispatch where like a guy like you has figured out so many pieces.

Speaker 9 And then the guy with the other pieces just isn't interested in solving those problems. Yeah.

Speaker 9 Just like, dude, this is, I tell you, I, I, I think, I think you just, I mean, you just nailed a major problem, right? So like, I sit here every day.

Speaker 9 And even though SIA has been amazing and I want to give them credit because they really have. And I know they get banged on a lot.
And I know they're not perfect. And I completely understand all that.

Speaker 9 And I understand. None of them are.
None of those. None of them are.
And I get that people will write me messages, Ryan. They did that.
I completely get it.

Speaker 9 I also know that the Matt Maciello version of SIA is a completely different organization than his father, right? It's just different, different, different philosophies.

Speaker 9 Again, not saying right or wrong, saying different philosophies. That being said,

Speaker 9 you know, they've helped us a lot, but they're also not, it's also not 20, it's not like I got a $20 million check to grow Road, right?

Speaker 9 right we still have an operating budget that is reasonable it's it's much bigger than when i was putting the entire payroll on my credit card and then trying to find ways to pay it off you know so it's a little different than that scenario that what it was beforehand but um but you know it's not like we have mega money we have we've we're we're growing and doing great and and all that but but it's not we have mega money i look at these carriers and uh that are trying to go direct.

Speaker 9 I look at insure techs that raise 5, 10.

Speaker 9 You know, I just had a call with an insure tech that was launched in 2016 that some people would know the name of if I told you, that is now that I'm, that we're considering acquiring because I want the tech.

Speaker 9 Dude,

Speaker 9 they raised $12 million.

Speaker 9 And if you saw the amount of premium and what they actually had for $12 million, I think about what I can do with $12 million.

Speaker 9 I mean, I could turn $12 million

Speaker 9 into two months.

Speaker 9 Yeah, I mean, the things that I could do, I mean, I think about just the simple shit that could just, I mean, just absolutely explode and the arbitrage that's available in the market, just to crush and, and, and, like, and just the money that's been wasted.

Speaker 9 And, like, I did 57 VC meetings back in 2021 and went 0 for 57. And these jackasses gave this guy 12 million bucks and they got about $250,000 in premium and

Speaker 9 a platform that is pretty slick, but no idea how to use it. And now they're wholesale and now they're like fire sailing it.

Speaker 9 And I look at that and I'm like, oh my God, like the people with money, they don't want to either don't want to take chances or they want to give the money to these MIT Silicon Valley dicks or, you know, or the people that have solved the actual problems, they can't get any money because they're not building proprietary tech.

Speaker 9 And I'm like, this is, it's so so wacky how this works. You know, that's what I heard.
0 for 57 for one reason. No proprietary tech across the board, every email, every response.
No proprietary tech.

Speaker 9 Sorry, can't help you. I'm like, that's silly.
That's crazy.

Speaker 9 I don't,

Speaker 9 I've got, you know, a bunch of verses. I've sat in the offices.
I've said, listen, I appreciate what you're doing, but here's what you're going to run into.

Speaker 9 Now it's three, four, five years later, and you're like, oh, I told you. Like,

Speaker 9 you know, I mean, I went through

Speaker 9 kind of like a self-audit and I deleted so, I mean, literally a thousand emails, either with no replies or sort of polite replies. And I'm like,

Speaker 9 look at where you are now. But at the same time, they probably cashed out okay.
Yeah. You know what I mean? They didn't put any capital in.

Speaker 9 They didn't put their blood, sweat, light, like to really get things going. So they probably ended up okay.

Speaker 9 But

Speaker 9 seeing that continue to occur

Speaker 9 is just baffling. And even on, even on your side, I'd wager like, if you were like a next

Speaker 9 and it's an ongoing thing in insurance, you would struggle to find people, because you remember you talked about this with like trusted choice.

Speaker 9 You're actually in probably a very similar scenario, like states, the dynamite manufacturer in Missouri. Like maybe you shouldn't be touching that.

Speaker 9 But there's 10 agents in Missouri who have the markets.

Speaker 9 And depending on the premium, can't be bothered.

Speaker 9 And I'm like, oh my gosh, you make me want to pomin. Like you just like, but, but I respect you.
I respect you making your money. You're doing your thing.
But like, holy cow, like it's a layup.

Speaker 9 It's not even a sale. It's a help this guy buy.
And they're going to ignore it. It's,

Speaker 9 dude, our industry is.

Speaker 9 is so i mean this is what i find so dynamic and interesting and the you know these frustrations that we're discussing are also what make this so interesting a place to work right like like you know people come in and into this space and you meet them and they're fresh and they're doing things and they have these opinions.

Speaker 9 And, and, and I love it because we always need fresh perspectives, you know, as long as people come in, my perspective, my, my first filter is always, do you have respect for the fact that this is a 440-year-old industry that is not broken?

Speaker 9 Like, do you operate from that mind frame? Yes. Okay, now I'll hear all your crazy ideas, you know, because.

Speaker 9 if you come in and your first thought is this is broken or you're you only understand like three to five years of history, or you think that it's, you know, it's, it's, you know, I know I can, I can, that filter alone, if you don't pass that first filter, you are,

Speaker 9 and that is so many of the 2015, 2016 insurtechs that came in and told us all that we're toast, they're the ones who had no respect for the industry, no respect for where we came from, and the people that are in it and how it works.

Speaker 9 The people that do, um or the ones that had spent even a small amount of time in agencies, those are the ones that I, you, you look at their products and whether the product works for you or you agree with the product, they're sticking around, they're doing good stuff.

Speaker 9 You know, I think about like, here's a perfect example. I actually just liked this post on LinkedIn.
Aaron Steffi from Propeller Bonds, right? Some people like the model.

Speaker 9 Some people don't like the model. I think it's brilliant.
We use Propeller Bonds for a lot of stuff because especially for the smaller shit, man, they're so easy. They're great to work with.

Speaker 9 But Aaron came from a family agency outside of Philadelphia. He got a taste for the business, found this thing that he was interested in, that he thought there was a gap in the market.

Speaker 9 He had the expertise, and the guy took a shot. And here they are.
You know, the post that I liked was a cameo from the guy that played Shooter McGavin, like one of those cameo things.

Speaker 9 Yeah, it was pretty cool.

Speaker 9 But I'm like, you know, and the announcement was that they have 2,500 agencies on propeller bonds now. And I'm like, you know what? That's an idea that if he attacks the market,

Speaker 9 the Silicon Valley dick takes that idea and goes, I'm going to cut agents out and write all the bonds myself, right? Instead, they never went direct.

Speaker 9 Every bond they've ever sold has been through an agent or through, you know, a licensed person. And here they are, 2,500 agents growing like crazy, great business.
And I'm like,

Speaker 9 these,

Speaker 9 like, he passed that first filter, understood the business, had respect, and here they are.

Speaker 9 It's just, that kind of stuff to me is,

Speaker 9 you know, that, that's what excites me is that for every five ten companies that are just garbage that will never actually make it as loud as they get you get a propeller bonds which is really a value add to our industry as a whole in my opinion

Speaker 9 see you you've covered like two things there at once where it's the

Speaker 9 they see the size or size potential like yeah i don't know instead of realizing what insurance is is that you take that bond and that bond's probably in place for three to ten years yep no service just write a check every year done finished whatever and they look at at the 2,500 and they poo-poo that.

Speaker 9 I'm like, you know, all right, good. That's your economics.
Except had you invested in that, you're looking at a conservative five times return on your investment.

Speaker 9 If you could just be patient, if you just give it a couple of years to get those agents on board and get that there, all of a sudden you're going to look and be like, huh, I got this drip in recurring revenue.

Speaker 9 All right, what else can we do? And that's where I think

Speaker 9 if you take that bottom,

Speaker 9 I can't understand what's next. I told it to a guy, I'll tell you offline, it's probably not fair to say him out loud, but like $500 million of premium, all sorts of locations.

Speaker 9 And he said something interesting, and I've known this, but then to hear it from his side, a guy who's acquiring agencies and doing things, it kind of like punched me in the face.

Speaker 9 He's like, yeah, but what is an Across your going to do now?

Speaker 9 You've half acquired a bunch of operations. You've fully acquired a bunch of others.
But what are you actually doing?

Speaker 9 And this is where I've personally maybe sabotaged myself on a few occasions where I said, I respect your rollup,

Speaker 9 but it's not enough for me because it's actually not that challenging.

Speaker 9 You have money, you have a process, you just got to apply effort to that and be a little patient, and you're going to roll up businesses.

Speaker 9 It's wonderful, it's good for you, you're going to make your money. But

Speaker 9 what next?

Speaker 9 That's where I think the propeller bonds of the world, that's where I think the MGA's program kind of business becomes really super interesting because at some point,

Speaker 9 carriers have to push back.

Speaker 9 Like they have to. And at some point, somebody smart is going to get ahead of it and say, you know what?

Speaker 9 I bought up all these operations. I've got 50,000 customers.
They weren't cross-sold. If I've got the best bond set up in the world, I probably got a thousand bonds in my book.

Speaker 9 I just don't even know they're there.

Speaker 9 That's where I think those things get really interesting is when the people with the existing books, like I've tried this for a number of years.

Speaker 9 Everybody wants to sell you a social media setup. Everybody wants to say, I'm going to get you more traffic.
And I come back with, cool,

Speaker 9 I've got 6,000 prospects already in my system. I've got 3,000 of them that'll respond to my email or my phone call without even a question.

Speaker 9 Make me money off that. Don't go find these 6,000 strangers, take the data I have and drip new products to them.
Now you'll get my attention and I'll split the revenue with you.

Speaker 9 If you're so good, you shouldn't be worried about it because your system works. And it's always a no.
It's always a no. I want you to pay me to set this up and this up.

Speaker 9 And I'm sitting here saying, you make this platform. There's 2,500 agents that'll sign up for that platform because you showed it works.
I don't know. You know, you're completely right.

Speaker 9 Book optimization and revenue per client

Speaker 9 maximization

Speaker 9 is the key.

Speaker 9 And this is one of my major beefs with the agency management systems in general and why, you know, I don't, we can't, you know, they've just so missed the mark and every, there's so much friction and bitching about agency management systems is tired and I don't need to do it.

Speaker 9 But like, these are some of the things that they completely miss on, right? It's like, it's today,

Speaker 9 how do you build a system that allows me to know who has a bond, who doesn't, and send automated messages to those people and then get a response from them.

Speaker 9 Why can't I send an email that says, hey, do you have a bond need? Yes or no? Let us, if you say no, I'll never send you another issue about bonds again.

Speaker 9 But if you say yes, we, one of our team members, can reach out and show you the examples. And or, hey, you want to do it yourself?

Speaker 9 We have this do-it-yourself option through this, through one of our partners that allow you to buy the bond yourself. So we're testing.

Speaker 9 You know, one of the things I believe is a major mistake, most, most,

Speaker 9 I shouldn't say a mistake. I have a theory that a missed opportunity for many, especially larger.

Speaker 9 I don't want to say smaller, maybe single location shops, but like like larger shops with it with a decent amount of clients, you know, thousand plus, three, you know, two thousand plus clients is do-it-yourself options for quoting.

Speaker 9 And people go, nah, nah, you need insurance agent. No, I hear that, but there are, there are products, and small bonds are one of those products.
I'm not talking $5 million

Speaker 9 performance bonds and stuff. Yeah, you probably, you need, you know, you need a surety specialist involved for a lot of that.

Speaker 9 But like these little $200, $250 municipal bonds and janitorial bonds, and, you know, why can't that person? Cemeteries the bonds. Cemeteries the basic bond.
Like, done, finished.

Speaker 10 What's up, guys? Sorry to take you away from the episode, but as you know, we do not run ads on this show. And in exchange for that, I need your help.

Speaker 10 If you're loving this episode, if you enjoy this podcast, whether you're watching on YouTube or you're listening on your favorite podcast platform, I would love for you to subscribe, share, comment if you're on YouTube, leave a rating review if you're on Spotify or Apple iTunes, etc.

Speaker 10 This helps the show grow. It helps me bring more guests in.

Speaker 10 We have a tremendous lineup of people coming in, men and women who've done incredible things sharing their stories around peak performance, leadership, growth, sales.

Speaker 10 The things that are going to help you grow as a person and grow your business. But they all check out comments, ratings, reviews.
They check out all this information before they come on.

Speaker 10 So as I reach out to more and more people and want to bring them in and share their stories with you, I need your help. Share the show, subscribe if you're not subscribed.

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Speaker 10 And I hope you enjoy it. listening as much as I do creating the show for you.
All right, I'm out of here. Peace.
Let's get back to the episode.

Speaker 9 Real estate agents oftentimes need bonds in many states.

Speaker 9 Like there's all all these little bonds that people have to buy that should just be bang bang bang bang and then they auto renew every year and and you know you take a company like cincinnati their surety department rolls up to your contingencies so now you have basically you you build a surety book with a company like cincinnati and now you're essentially you're you're building like a zero loss you know zero loss ratio product essentially you know unless something really terrible happens into your book and you build a substantial amount think about how how much that pushes your loss ratio down.

Speaker 9 Like, these are the types of agency optimization techniques that, as we continue to grow at Rogue, and I look at how easy new business acquisition is, you know, that's that's the one of the biggest jokes to me is how is new, how new business acquisition is hard.

Speaker 9 If new business acquisition is hard for you, honestly, this may not be the business. Like this new business acquisition is not hard.
It's work, but it's not hard. It's just work.

Speaker 9 Would you agree it's easier today than when you started? The forgetting your knowledge part, I believe it's

Speaker 9 easier. Exponentially, easily.
Exponentially easier. Not even close.
Because with social and branding and email and cold drip, and dude, I was doing, you know, because, you know, I get a little crazy.

Speaker 9 I was, there's this tool that I was looking at here. Let me look up the name real quick so people can check it.
Actually, pardon me not to not tell you guys, but I'm going to, anyways.

Speaker 9 I just want to tell you the name of this tool.

Speaker 9 It's,

Speaker 9 yeah, yeah, no one will actually do it. Windsor.io.
So, what this tool allows you to do is you record a video one time. Okay.

Speaker 9 So, let's say I was on here and the video was like, Hey, Billy, just want to say thank you for purchasing insurance through Rogue Risk. Uh, I am the founder and CEO.

Speaker 9 And it means even though we never may never actually interact, I just want to tell you, it means a lot to me that you're here. Our team is going to take care of you.

Speaker 9 Our proprietary, blah, blah, blah, right? 45-second welcome video.

Speaker 9 Well, all my team needs to do is plug in the person's first name and I never have to record that video again.

Speaker 9 The AI takes it and makes it so it looks like I am saying and it recalculates my voice so that it sounds like I'm saying your name.

Speaker 9 And then, you know, and then Jason and Sally and Tammy and Tommy and whoever. And it's the same video, but AI generated.

Speaker 9 voice and mouth movements so that it looks like a personalized video every time to every customer. And And then you can scale that out to every customer every time they purchase.

Speaker 9 And now it feels like they're getting this incredibly personalized thing, but you literally did it one time. Like that kind of stuff to me, that's solid gold.
That's our business, right?

Speaker 9 That's like, you want to grow huge and have people love you. These are the kind of tools that do that.
Not, you know, I mean, not the Facebook ads or whatever, but like.

Speaker 9 pay somebody to do your Facebook ads for you if that's what you want to do.

Speaker 9 Like don't, this is the kind of shit that like takes our game to the other level and helps you optimize your book because it makes people feel the warm and fuzzies.

Speaker 9 And it's like, this stuff is coming. Like, if you're not thinking about this, can you survive today? Yes, you can.
Can your kids survive? No, I'm going to fuck on your kids.

Speaker 9 I'm going to eat your kids' lunch. I'm going to put your kids out of business.
You will be fine. Right.
But like, that's the way that I think, you know, not just me.

Speaker 9 There are other people, other rogues out there. There's guys like you.
There's people out there like, I'm coming for you. I'm going to do what's necessary.
You'll survive. Your kids will not.
Sorry.

Speaker 9 I'm just going to chip away at you. And even like you said, personalize that, you know, and gosh, I just

Speaker 9 need the self-control to stop asking the carriers for these things. I have,

Speaker 9 we've acquired four businesses. Yep.
Through these businesses, I now have

Speaker 9 five American modern codes.

Speaker 9 Five.

Speaker 9 Now,

Speaker 9 average premium is like $100 a policy, right? So I'm not a big hitter with him

Speaker 9 but

Speaker 9 nobody will allow me to consolidate into one code that i can manage with one login

Speaker 9 guy says can you do 250 000 of business this year with me and i says

Speaker 9 you can't even make it so i want to do business with you and did you look at my average policy cost it's a hundred dollars it's classic cars and it's jet skis or snowmobiles like i can't even tell from the policy i'm looking at well then you know we can't help you so i talked to the other companies that have the codes.

Speaker 9 They're like, well, it takes a year. You need to sign a broker record.
I'm like, gang, you're paying me $7.50.

Speaker 9 I'm not going through the effort of signing a broker or record just to consolidate that stuff. But

Speaker 9 if they're not willing to do that, and then I turn to them, I say, you know,

Speaker 9 if I could pull the data by your name and your address, there's ways to pull stuff up.

Speaker 9 We could bang on the management systems all we want, but between PO Radar and Google, I could get a pretty darn good profile on 90% of the households.

Speaker 9 I know you can look up who has a car older than 1980 registered.

Speaker 9 Why don't I just give you my 6,000 addresses?

Speaker 9 You run it across there for two bucks a pop or whatever, find the classic cars, and then we will literally send them a quote. We'll get a massive, well, you know,

Speaker 9 that'll cost us a couple dollars each, and we're not sure.

Speaker 9 But the information is available. And you want more business from me.

Speaker 9 You know, I can't prospect for classic cars because you don't pay enough for me to prospect for classic cars and you do nothing with it what am i supposed to do with that infrastructure you know what are we supposed to do here and that's where to your point on a big shop that what's next part

Speaker 9 you you know a friend of mine he said he says smoke them out right like i i've researched the state of new york i can show you maps i can show you everywhere i've driven i could show you the agencies i've seen

Speaker 9 And I feel bad saying it, but I don't need you to sell me your business for me to take your business. Yeah.

Speaker 9 like i could run it off zip codes i know who your carriers are it would take a little longer but i can put you out of business and like you said it may not be you but your kid's not taking over when i chip away half the revenue you know and it's it's doable i don't know it's interesting stuff but the the ai stuff you said uh and i'm sure you've had your own version of these conversations

Speaker 9 I've seen stuff that scares me. Like, like there's a company in Europe.
I've met with them a few times. They

Speaker 9 were in manhattan and we met and they showed me they said well give us a list we're not going to do anything with it we're going to show you what our product does and the stuff they can pull on you just on your google address you know just on your email rather it's freaky it's it's just downright scary but i get it and and the challenge i told them is probably the same thing you know but but

Speaker 9 carriers aren't ready for your data Same as Hazard Hub, right? They've been bought by GuideWire.

Speaker 9 Their biggest challenge is not that they've got the the right information is that the carrier aren't ready for new information i mean i mean i'm i'm still picking protection classes with billion dollar companies how is that possible if the data exists the correct data exists and you're still making me guess based on who has a well and who has public order

Speaker 9 and dude this is this is our industry unfortunately um just like our government is run by bureaucrats not by leaders And if you're a middle manager and someone comes to you and brings you this project, hey, let's make sure the protection class is right for every property across the country.

Speaker 9 So when one of our agents pops it in, they don't have to put in one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. It just pulls automatically.
It's not even a question, right? We just know.

Speaker 9 The only thing that can happen to that bureaucrat is that that project costs too much, gets screwed up or doesn't work well. And now they're in trouble.
So they go, meh. I'm good.
No thanks.

Speaker 9 So we just kind of keep moving along. Like,

Speaker 9 so I'm a big fan of Michael Lieborr and what he's doing at Insurance Gig. He's got an enormous, enormous project ahead of him, but the things that he's trying to do, I think, are worth our effort.

Speaker 9 And basically,

Speaker 9 the core concept is, I know it's much bigger than this. And Michael, if you listen to this, please don't think I'm trying to diminish what you do.
I'm just trying to give a broad stroke.

Speaker 9 It's kind of a zapier for insurance products for agents.

Speaker 9 uh or for agencies and carriers so okay you know we're talking about you know hey you know and he's got hazard hub linked up he's got uh fenris linked up He's got Relativity 6 linked up and a couple of other databases.

Speaker 9 And I was like, you know,

Speaker 9 I'm talking to some carriers and similar projects, right? I mean, you and I think very similar on how do we create these opportunities at scale with the data we have and all this kind of stuff.

Speaker 9 And I was like, okay, can we, can we pull, you know, small businesses in this state of this class and then in, you know, and then just rip in Fenris, rip in property data from Hazard Hub and rip in the Relativity 6 data, pull it all together, and then just batch batch quote all these guys and then what i'll do is freaking cold email them with you know essentially you know um call them like like uh uh uh introductory quotes like hey you know we need to we need to clarify a few things but based on the data i have we could potentially get you like let's say a workers comp policy for x amount right and there are certain carriers right now that have lcms that are like literally 1.01 right like like literally you're basically playing flat rate or in some cases, even less than that.

Speaker 9 It's crazy what workers' comp rates are with some carriers right now in certain class codes. So it's like,

Speaker 9 this is a way to absolutely scale and dominate. And it's like the carriers can't put it all together.
And then they're like, well, we're not sure about that data source.

Speaker 9 And I'm like, who do you believe more? Me? Who I will lie to you in 10 seconds if it gets a policy written, right? Or the data that comes off of these big, huge databases.

Speaker 9 It's a freaking job to be accurate. Like, it's just crazy to me where our mentality is and our lack of willingness to take risks on some of these things.

Speaker 9 It just, you know, and then you look at a codery and like, I don't think codery is perfect, but,

Speaker 9 and I don't love that they went direct. I really don't love that they went direct, but

Speaker 9 but their product, the ease of their product is so crazy. It's so easy.
And the policy forms are good.

Speaker 9 Again, not perfect, but but good. And like, I just just say to myself, like, no, codery is probably, it'll be decades before they're ever able to actually make a dent into some of the big carriers.

Speaker 9 And the scale is the problem. But like, the things they're doing are so far out ahead of these companies that

Speaker 9 seemingly should be just leading. It just boggles the mind.

Speaker 9 But you get,

Speaker 9 I'm just fatigued by the whole thing. I've got all my own stuff I got to work on.
And I'm just like, you said it with the data.

Speaker 9 Fris Fris is the company that bought him, and I can't even think of Piush's company. This guy, Pius, showed me that everything you just described.
I saw this years ago, yeah.

Speaker 9 And I said, kind of what you just said: it's like, the problem is, what are you going to do with the data at the Hadith Hub?

Speaker 9 I remember meeting those guys at Hartford and like, I've seen their demos, like, this is amazing, but like, nobody's up to it. I still, I don't know why I'm so long on view spectrum.

Speaker 9 This guy out in Arizona, he owns a property inspection company. Like,

Speaker 9 he's correct, he's been correct for years.

Speaker 9 Yet, I still have companies spending four or five hundred dollars to send a human being out to a property to take pictures of a house.

Speaker 9 And I'm done. Like, I just, you're going to pay me for my time or some other arrangement.
Like, I just have other stuff I need to be working on right now.

Speaker 9 And it's just so fatiguing when you know the answer is available. And, but back to your original point.
And it really is like,

Speaker 9 this is how unbroken insurance is. They're making so much money.
We don't need to make these changes because

Speaker 9 we're good where we are.

Speaker 9 And listen, I'm 100% certain the best thing any national or even super regional company can do is audit their books right now, shrink the overall premium size, probably lose some piff count,

Speaker 9 and profitability will fall like, but they don't need it because they're already profitable, right?

Speaker 9 Come on. And I know maybe you're not like writing the weeds with the quotes necessarily today, but like.

Speaker 9 The stuff I'm replacing, and then you look at the, like, I kind of stopped looking at dead pages because if it's been in books for four five ten years whatever it is there's nothing accurate about what was rated four five ten years ago

Speaker 9 and nobody's correcting this stuff and even i've gotten pushback when i said i i lost a little over 12 grand like a month ago on a profitary thing

Speaker 9 the book shrank

Speaker 9 well i raised deductibles A couple of accounts went to another agent. It's from an acquisition I did.
So you didn't actually lose the premium. And

Speaker 9 you saw the dozens of policies I rewrote correctly to correct premium.

Speaker 9 And then you dig me on profit sharing. The profit sharing number, like I went down from 40 cents to 28 cents or something like that.
So we went down like 20 cents.

Speaker 9 And you know, it's better because you saw all the paperwork, all the adjustments. And you're going to screw me out of profit sharing?

Speaker 9 That's a good contract, right?

Speaker 9 Because that's the dirty little secret. The dirty little secret is quality of coverage only matters in presentations.
It does not matter in truth. It's premium, premium, premium, premium, premium.

Speaker 9 That is one, two, three, four, five. You know, loss ratio then comes in at some point in there, but like all that really matters is top level premium because

Speaker 9 that's what most of these people are getting bonused on. And then loss ratio is a conversation that uses their tool against us.
But like quality coverage, raising deductibles.

Speaker 9 I mean, like you said, you could go into a book. Let's say you had 100 clients, right?

Speaker 9 Just for purposes of easy numbers, you had 100 clients and their deductibles are all super low and out of whack and their coverage sucks and all.

Speaker 9 And you go in and you raise their liability limits, you push their deductibles up on property.

Speaker 9 So they're not going to pay out nickel and dime claims, you know, and ultimately the premiums come down in aggregate, right?

Speaker 9 What you just did was create a highly profitable, much, you know, much more sticky, much more retained book of business that's going to be, that's going to be great long term for you.

Speaker 9 And you're going to get screwed in terms of revenue to you and to your agency. And, you know,

Speaker 9 I guess that's part of just the way the world works.

Speaker 9 But I get it. And I think you said it.
There is a point where like, I have saved a lot of these types of conversations for just the podcast because I am fatigued.

Speaker 9 I like having them like here in these venues because it's fun and you get to talk and whatever, but like.

Speaker 9 all the Facebook posts and the LinkedIn threads and I just, I'm fatigued fatigued by it it's like there is a reality the way the world works i have a business model that i'm going to execute because i think it's the way that i can leverage that world to do right by customers and make money and that's what i'm going to do but the days of like trying to convince people that the that you and i believe and and seemingly i think is the way right

Speaker 9 done convincing done convincing you believe it or you don't um or figure it out on your own but um the convincing days are over yeah yeah no and really it's even

Speaker 9 and even like you had said before like when agents and meets and stuff like

Speaker 9 i've driven around this state a couple of times all my focus is new york

Speaker 9 i've met dozens of amazing agents who

Speaker 9 like you don't even know they exist they barely have a they don't have a google profile they don't have a website but they own their building they've been in business for 35 to 65 years maybe they took over from a parent they've been betting 100 grand a year in some rural village for decades, writing everything off through the business.

Speaker 9 They're even as garbage.

Speaker 9 But yet they're better than you and your new company, you know, not you, but you know what I mean? Like,

Speaker 9 that fancy shiny thing. And I'm just like,

Speaker 9 they're actually some of my biggest challenges because the math is just not there. Like they are correct.
Their business doesn't go anywhere.

Speaker 9 And by our standards, they treat their customers like shit. They're overpriced.
They haven't remarked a piece of business in years. Nobody questions them.

Speaker 9 And if they leave, they've already done the math in their head. They don't really care if Sally leaves because they've already made money on Sally.
And

Speaker 9 it's beautiful and disgusting all at once. Really, that's been my biggest challenge for years now.
It's the lifestyle agent. The thing, you know, I say this.
Yeah.

Speaker 9 Whenever someone, whenever, you know, every once in a while, I'll get pulled in by a carrier and they'll ask me some questions about this or that or whatever, like I fucking know what I'm talking about.

Speaker 9 And,

Speaker 9 you know, I'll say to them, like, are you building this for growth agents or lifestyle agents? That's the question I start asking. Like, I hear everything you just said.

Speaker 9 You're like, they'll pitch me something. Ah, we're going to do, we're going to do this whole thing.
Okay. Is this for growth agents or lifestyle agents? And they'll kind of look at you.

Speaker 9 Some people will get it. And then a lot of them will look at you like, what do you mean? And I'll be like, because.

Speaker 9 If you're looking at your agency plan and you haven't carved out lifestyle and growth agencies, then this is screwed day one, because lifestyle agencies will could give two shits.

Speaker 9 If their spouse has a new seven series, if they have a house in some place that they like to go other than their hometown and their and their lights are on every day, they run every expense to their business.

Speaker 9 As you said, they could care less about losing a client. They know, you know.

Speaker 9 you know, Tammy's going to refer her niece in who's been, you know, and they'll get that back over the court, you know, net over the year. And they don't care.

Speaker 9 They don't run their agency to be great insurance agencies. They run their agency to finance their lifestyle.

Speaker 9 And like that agent could give two craps about this new thing, even if they quote unquote need it. They don't.
They don't want it.

Speaker 9 So like most of these new things that we talk about are actually only for a very small subset of agencies versus the larger ecosystem who are growth focused, who are like, I'm pedaled to the floor, going as hard as I can.

Speaker 9 Everyone else could care less. They could care less.

Speaker 9 So So,

Speaker 9 two things, Alauda, because

Speaker 9 I'm just your choir at the moment, right?

Speaker 9 So, there's a guy closer to you than to me. Three locations.
I'll send it to you afterwards. Like, I finally got him on the phone.

Speaker 9 I said, All right, well, if you are interested in selling, what's your note? He says, 900. I said, All right, give me a few minutes.
I've got some private finance. I gotta make a phone call.

Speaker 9 He says, What's it look like? He says, Okay, we're in. Called the guy back.
It's okay.

Speaker 9 What do you want? Like, when can we be like,

Speaker 9 you got to show me some numbers?

Speaker 9 he's like no no well hold on a second here i've got derek who's been with me for a while and this and this he goes and you're not you're not changing anything until i got my money i said well

Speaker 9 that's not exactly how it's going to work but but if you want 900 which is really like and his stupidity is that it's really like one times revenue right so that like that that's giving it away okay fine

Speaker 9 He's a well, I don't know. Let me think about this because exactly what you just said.
Kids are older and don't need his money. Owns two or three buildings that he's in.

Speaker 9 And he started calculating, like, he knew at that moment, like, oh, wait a second, I'm 80-something years old and I'm so good, but now

Speaker 9 a business person has offered me this much money and he's probably starting to do tax calculations. And what is all the crap that I'm not showing anybody that I'm writing off?

Speaker 9 And I admire him, I really do.

Speaker 9 At the same time,

Speaker 9 bridge it around to your lifestyle agent versus growth agent.

Speaker 9 So

Speaker 9 Tarrier kind of questions some stuff and they're looking to maybe appoint some agents and

Speaker 9 undo some clusters. And I've done this before.
I pick up some of our URB companies. I don't know what they call them in other states, like little co-ops, right? Like, you know, I think

Speaker 9 I've never heard URB anywhere other than New York State. Really? Okay.
So if you're in another state, you're

Speaker 9 under 50 million in premium, some cases under 10 million in premium. tend to operate in one to six counties, even though you got a statewide license.

Speaker 9 But you go on their websites, you pick out a grid of zip codes and go i got a couple of guys on fiverr that have done some stuff for me they pull down all the agents

Speaker 9 and you look at it and you could identify pretty quickly who's the lifestyle versus who's the growth yeah but that then i realized those aren't even accurate because what would happen is uh a brown and brown or you know out in the middle of the state there's a couple of bigger operations

Speaker 9 They just relabel it. So like there'll be nine entries for the same agency with nine different addresses.
And I'm like, well, what do you actually do with there? And the answer is nobody cares.

Speaker 9 Like, really, the guy that said he wanted this information, and it was cool to see because I put it on the map and you could see just how clustered they are in one area.

Speaker 9 Like, I think it's a huge opportunity to get me four hours away to buy one of those agencies because now

Speaker 9 you've got some spread. Like, you're already geographically screwed at this point.
Yeah. But they don't.

Speaker 9 care because honestly some of these corporations i and i can show you through like they are lifestyle companies yeah actual insurance companies that are lifestyle and it's

Speaker 9 i believe the sooner we kill the romance of the independent agent the better

Speaker 9 you distribute insurance get past anybody giving a about you being local because it's just not important doesn't matter like you said you said earlier listen i appreciate that you have a job running a state association or running a national association but the reality is you're a lobbyist And in New York, I hate you because you couldn't even get the photo inspection thing passed after 10 years and millions of lobbying.

Speaker 9 So don't talk to me anymore. Don't ask me for more money because more money didn't solve your problem.
But there are actually lifestyle companies at this point that you and I probably work with.

Speaker 9 And you're like, gosh, like,

Speaker 9 how can you tell me you want this?

Speaker 9 But you're not even optimizing your company because you're making so much money. You're sitting up.

Speaker 9 Have you ever driven by Community Mutual?

Speaker 9 Oh, wait, would you say community? I don't know. Community Mutual barely has an office because they're really in Vermont, right? Is that a community mutual?

Speaker 9 mutual it's part of an aggregate of mutuals that was created with uh

Speaker 9 what's the one in vermont vermont you know who it is because i know an opera yeah i know exactly you're talking about uh but community mutual is literally a raised ranch yes it's a raised ranch you could go look up franklin fire cherry valley uh walton firing cooperative you look at the addresses like uh

Speaker 9 Oxego, but then there's a chart out there, and I got rid of it because I kind of felt like I'd get some trouble if I had it. It shows their profitability.

Speaker 9 They're making 50 cents on a dollar. Like they're destroying profitability numbers, but they're run by a board of eight to 20 people.
God bless them. I am not, this is not a criticism.
No, no.

Speaker 9 At the same time, oh my gosh, what I could do with your customer base where you're here. And I'll say them out loud because we don't do new business with them.
They came via an acquisition.

Speaker 9 FauMont Mutual. Yep.

Speaker 9 They're what you described. They sold their building because things are kind of tight.
now they rent the space actually a really cool old converted building uh

Speaker 9 johnson it's out 90 just just just before amsterdam fulton or something like that yeah

Speaker 9 but they did something really cool like 30 years ago when i was looking up prospects they made websites for all their agents now if you go look up agents now you're finding safe go you're finding travelers you're finding progressive right those are your big three that you you see them and let's not even talk about how the agents aren't even using that tool like they're not even filling out the sheet completely like like yeah, you've got this really high search is better than your search, and you're not even bothering to fill out the profile.

Speaker 9 Like, it wants, but Fulmont Mutual made websites for their agents. I think it was in 2000.
It's like before you and I even did the business. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 9 Yet, the search is still beating progressive and travelers. Like, it's insanity.
And, and, and it's, and

Speaker 9 I'd have to look at my notes like some of the pictures, like, the humans are actually dead. Like, they're not even physically alive anymore, but the website exists.
And it's like,

Speaker 9 how do I shit on you? I can't.

Speaker 9 What you did 23 years ago still works today. And you're making your money.
And it's.

Speaker 9 That's the thing, man. I mean, that's, that's, you know, like

Speaker 9 there's just New York is so odd with the mute. I mean, the history of New York and mutuals.
Do you know Dave Ayadanza from Dryden? He used to be like the number two, number three guy at Dryden.

Speaker 9 They recently kind of, I don't want to say pushed him out, but uh they're dry's one of those bigger like we think we're bigger than they actually are they show up on that general's like partner side and it's kind of weird but people like dryden yeah i like dry and i think they're a good company but like you know dave date so so dave is a buddy of mine i i think very he's he he is new york insurance like you and him what you would love having coffee with him he just it's new york insurance he knows the mutuals he knows the games he knows the numbers he knows all this stuff and because he's been in in the mutual game for so long, and he sent me some stuff.

Speaker 9 He sent me some, he probably sent me a similar chart to what you saw on like profitability and stuff. And

Speaker 9 these mutuals, you know, I, again, I don't want to, it sounded like I was knocking Community Mutual. I'm not.
Community Mutual is a highly profitable company.

Speaker 9 It's just insane that there is this company with probably 20 million in premium tops sitting in Skodak, New York, in a raised ranch that's making, that's just making ungodly amounts of profit because they have this niche market.

Speaker 9 They write just property in the eastern half of New York and non-flood zones. And their rates are great on those particular properties, but they don't do anything else.

Speaker 9 And their loss ratio is nothing. And it's like, you look at this and you're just like, oh my God, these people print money.
Like, we're going to bang on them.

Speaker 9 And, you know, all these, you know, young kids are going to say, ah, you know, why they don't do this. They don't have tech integrated and download.
And I'm like, yeah, except they print money.

Speaker 9 They absolutely print money like there's just you know new york mutual not new york central mutual but new york mutual

Speaker 9 is right over here in a strip plaza it's in a freaking strip plaza it's like what

Speaker 9 i mean and the comical just because there's a tie i mean i'll kind of wrap three things in here like the first time i met them you know who was across the hall from right

Speaker 9 effectively like how is this amazing technology modern company directly across the call from this company that I have to fill out a PDF and email it to them and hope I get a quote back this afternoon if Cindy's not busy, right?

Speaker 9 So, when you say community mutual, I guess I say them out loud because who knows who's going to listen because I would love other examples because I can't figure this part out.

Speaker 9 Uh, Kim is down in Florida, yeah, we're a direct property, et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 9 Eventually, they're going to pivot. We know what's going to come, you know, hippo did it openly started that way.

Speaker 9 Kim will have to pivot eventually. Suquite Valley, S-A-U-Q-U-O-I-T.
If you just head out 90, you'll run into them.

Speaker 9 You have like four employees, they're a direct property insurance and like farms, right?

Speaker 9 It's amazing. Simple website.
They probably, it's probably like you said, it's just in a simple ranch building somewhere. They know who they serve and they do it amazing.

Speaker 9 Yeah, they don't give a darn about any of the web stuff. But what where I get stuck is with them,

Speaker 9 what happens next? Yeah,

Speaker 9 I think the SANS

Speaker 9 or Iroquois or any of these big aggregators, sooner they really develop an MGA program, the sooner they really develop their own carrier, the more interesting it gets.

Speaker 9 But then I get stuck. So when I was out prospecting,

Speaker 9 inevitably down the street from somebody that was a community bank, you've got some community banks around where you are.

Speaker 9 Yep.

Speaker 9 So,

Speaker 9 but they're an insurance operation, right? They have an insurance brokerage. They're probably doing $100 million a year in premium,

Speaker 9 but they don't like who are they like they're nothing they're just they bought little operations they run it efficiently it's just another line item on their stuff and you're saying

Speaker 9 nobody cares yeah they're just turning profits over on top of each other and i looked i i was annoyed and shame on me for not having the courage to do it uh generations back bought an operation they're a public company so they have to file And somehow they're losing money on their acquisition, right?

Speaker 9 They have to file their stuff because they're a publicly traded operation. And you read through the reports, like, how is it possible with all that infrastructure, you're losing money? Like,

Speaker 9 how has that happened? Now they sold their operation to Northwoods. You know, Northwoods out in Buffalo? I've heard of it.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 9 It's, I look at that and I'm like, how could you not figure this out? You have this infrastructure in place. Banks, I think, are the future.

Speaker 9 Like, if you're a bank, a bank should be banking is not the right word. Banks should be knocking down the door of regional SIAA and similar situations and saying, how do we work together?

Speaker 9 Because I think there's just such a huge crossover.

Speaker 9 And it's just,

Speaker 9 you know, there's been, there's been

Speaker 9 Sheffie and Abby over at Coverager have been writing a lot lately about embedded insurance.

Speaker 9 And, you know, I said on a somewhere the other night, who the fuck knows where I said it, but I said, I said sometime recently, I was like,

Speaker 9 I never believed that the shit that was going on in 2015, 2016, 2017 was going to disrupt our market. I do honestly believe that if there is a,

Speaker 9 I don't want to call it a technology, but if there is something that could truly disintermediate the independent insurance and not everybody, but make a major impact, it's embedded insurance.

Speaker 9 And I see it because we are doing it. Like we have partners that we are getting in front of.
and we are the insurance provider before that company even sniffs insurance, right?

Speaker 9 Before they even think about insurance, they're buying something else. And then rogue is being presented to them as, do you want an insurance quote or whatever?

Speaker 9 And then we're, that person is being sent to us on a, on a warm referral plate. Here's this company I just did a bunch of research on and bought shit from.
And they're telling me to use these guys.

Speaker 9 And it's being handed to us. And it's like, that's never going to get down.

Speaker 9 to the to the to the baseline local agents that business will never get there like and and i'm not even the best at this i'm a C player at best right now.

Speaker 9 You know, I mean, obviously, we're trying to improve, but like there are companies now, most of them right now are still run by the Silicon Valley Dicks.

Speaker 9 But as soon as we get some insurance people in some of these embedded companies, dude, that's the stuff that scares the crap out of me. Because think about how many people use Venmo.

Speaker 9 Think about how many people use PayPal and da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And now every single one of those tools is saying, hey, if you need insurance, we have a provider.

Speaker 9 Every time, every time they use a function, they're being hit with it. Every time it's being thrown in their face, and then Sally on your team has one bad day.
She's in a bad mood.

Speaker 9 Her husband gave her a ton of shit as she was walking out the door. She shows up, kind of bags it, does something shitty.
That person looks at their Venmos, get a quote, and they go, you know what?

Speaker 9 Fuck these guys. Beep.
They get a quote and now they're gone. And you're like, what do we do?

Speaker 9 And it's because they just got hammered over the head 17 times in every platform that they're in that to buy insurance. And

Speaker 9 they decided to give it a try and then the purists among us and this is why i love your perspective on this the purists among us like ah

Speaker 9 you know we're all our expertise oh yes there are some very complicated larger accounts that need our expertise i get that but more and more as the products become more and more commoditized and guys i have 57 markets I have a pretty good feel for how commoditized our industry is, even at the small business level, right?

Speaker 9 Like,

Speaker 9 there's only, there's a certain level where we need that expertise. There is, I'd say 10,000 under in premium, you don't need a human.

Speaker 9 You certainly don't need a experienced 30-year vet with all this expertise. I just don't think you do.
There's just not enough there. There's not enough risk there.
You can package it up.

Speaker 9 It's all, you know, mashed across the, you know, 100,000 accounts. It's easy for the carrier to distribute the risk.
They, they boilerplate it and off you go. I just.

Speaker 9 So, so you're, you're human optimized. You're probably one of the first buddies to have heard it, right?

Speaker 9 You need to be able to do that. You need to reduce the options.
A million dollars is a million dollars. New York State sets the rules.

Speaker 9 I don't care what, what, what policy, you know, header has on there. You have a million dollars in liability.
I have a million dollars in liability. Stop offering 300,000.
Yep. Making you choose.

Speaker 9 It's a million. Take the numbers.
It is what it is. So you're embedded.
See, here's, I don't, I can't understand why it continues to be ignored. Munich Re has Hartford Steam Boy in it.

Speaker 9 I know you're not looking at your water back, it should be your service line endorsement, but let me break the news to you. It's not coming from Safeco or the other carrier, whoever is.

Speaker 9 I just said Safeco because it came to mind, right?

Speaker 9 It's coming from Hartford Steam Boiler.

Speaker 9 They've already shown you how embedded works and white-labeled works. Take another one, not far from you, and it didn't pan out because the guy sold his business, which is fine, good for him.

Speaker 9 Sharon Springs Garage. You don't know it.
I don't know it. When I say Sharon Springs Garage, like, what is it? It's a hardware store.

Speaker 9 Three locations, very successful hardware stores in Troy, Sharon Springs, and one other location. Kuboto tractors.
I don't own one. I don't expect to ever own one, but they're financed just like cars.

Speaker 9 If you buy a Komodo tractor and it's financed, guess what? You need insurance. Do you know what a pain in the ass it is to add your Kuboto tractor to your homeowner's insurance policy? Colossal.

Speaker 9 Come on, everybody. If you're listening, you know, it's not necessarily the easiest thing.
And it's also not super quick. Yeah.

Speaker 9 So

Speaker 9 if you work with Kuboto, who has Allianz and I belong on the company, but like I believe it's Allianz behind the scenes, you have Allianz paper insuring that tractor.

Speaker 9 Dang, the guy just bought a tractor worth more than your car. Yeah.
You think he's a good prospect? You don't think we could sell more into that?

Speaker 9 Allianz partnering up with a, and I just don't get why the brokerages are still spending so much money on advertising.

Speaker 9 You just need to partner with Allianz and say, this guy's got 13 000 customers emails mailing lists everything's in place what are we doing so you take the embedded and you leverage it already exists so don't tell me it's not going to work because it already is working yeah you know it's it's just

Speaker 9 dude

Speaker 9 it's beautiful though it's exciting i i i love all this stuff dude i could talk to you about this forever i want to be respectful of you time my time we're way over um you know this is i i love these conversations we'll have to do this more often um glad glad you took the time we told we went all over the place um but hopefully somebody likes it oh no they will i and and and if they don't they can you know screw off because i loved it uh i appreciate the hell out of you man um if people want to just connect with you is linkedin the best place where's the best place if someone just pretty much most of you don't like me on twitter so it's like i tell you like there's a couple of us that like talk and avoid and you're in there like we have we have dialogues but like and i said this I caught some flack over something a few months ago and I really kind of recoiled a bit and I was like, gosh, like you just attacked me personally.

Speaker 9 Like, it wasn't attacking my idea. It was like, they came at me personally and I got it.
And it was like one message and it was one comment.

Speaker 9 It was one message, but I was like, you didn't attack the idea. Like, you came after me as a human being.
Yeah. I'm out.
Like, I'm just not going to bother. Like, I'm not questioning anybody.

Speaker 9 I don't root. I don't have time to root against you, nor would I give a shit to root against you.

Speaker 9 like we're just asking questions we're just two people that like to think bigger and now i'm gonna listen i'm gonna put my head down and go do some freaking paper applications and just point a bunch of business.

Speaker 9 I know what I'm talking about because I've done years of work. You've done years of work on this stuff.
I get frustrated with, like, you said, Cheffy before,

Speaker 9 dang, like, she's been around for seven years.

Speaker 9 Where have you been? Like, like, you were aware of her, you were aware of like the accelerators and stuff. Like, this stuff's been happening.

Speaker 9 Like, yeah, you don't have to pay attention, but it's been there. Yeah, you know, I, the thing I love about Avi and Sheffield is that

Speaker 9 I know they think about what they say, They do not say anything on a whim, right? And I, and they have, they have proven over time and they both come with pedigree even before they start a coverager.

Speaker 9 And what I love about their perspective is they're always pushing the bounds, but I think they do it in a respectful way.

Speaker 9 And also you can disagree with them and they will have an engaging conversation with you. And there are things that I have disagreed with both of them on.
And we have awesome conversations. And

Speaker 9 then you move on. And that's what it should be.

Speaker 9 I think both of them are wonderful huge supporter, and I think that um,

Speaker 9 but people will dismiss them, and I'm like, Oh, shoot,

Speaker 9 yeah,

Speaker 9 yeah, at your peril, dismiss, dismiss their perspective at your peril for sure. So, hey, man,

Speaker 9 it's good stuff, appreciate you,

Speaker 9 yeah, be good, buddy. Later, man,

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