RHS 139 - EXCLUSIVE: Inside the SIAA Acquisition of Rogue Risk

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Speaker 5 What's up, guys? Before we get into the episode, I just wanted to share what's pretty big news for me and for my agency, Rogue Risk. Hopefully, you guys find it interesting.
We were acquired by SIAA.

Speaker 5 We will become part of the SAA family.

Speaker 5 We will be a new division inside of their larger family of companies and work alongside their master agencies and agency partners to provide a digital insurance experience experience and platform that can help continue to boost independent insurance agencies, independent insurance professionals, producers, and client success associates on their career path.

Speaker 5 It's all in service of what has been my mission from the beginning that SIA shares culturally, which is a no-ceiling insurance career. We talk about that today in this episode.

Speaker 5 I couldn't be more excited about this move, and I hope to share more information as we go. Let's get on to Matt Masiello.

Speaker 6 In a crude laboratory in the basement of his home.

Speaker 4 All right, so.

Speaker 6 Matt,

Speaker 6 this is a kind of a different, this is a little different show than the first time time you were on two years ago or whatever it was, a year and a half for your book.

Speaker 6 Kind of big, big news, at least big news

Speaker 6 for the two of us, I think, certainly for me and Rogue and all our team.

Speaker 4 You guys acquired us a few weeks ago.

Speaker 4 Yeah, and it is a big deal for me. And it is a big deal for SIAA as well.
And, you know, going back the 18 months, two years ago, whenever we did the show,

Speaker 4 you know, you and I were spending a lot of time talking about what the agency of the future is going to look like.

Speaker 4 And, you know, we work a lot with startup agencies and existing independent agencies that are trying to make that transition.

Speaker 4 And I tried to get that across for sort of our constituency in the book that I wrote and was sort of fascinated to hear your opinion on what the agency of the future looks like.

Speaker 4 And I think, you know, sort of like all good business people, you end up living what you think.

Speaker 4 And you founded Rogue Risk. And we have just thought

Speaker 4 it's fascinating. And a word that doesn't get used in the insurance industry a lot is cool.

Speaker 4 It's a cool model. And so we're pretty excited about this partnership.

Speaker 6 Yeah. I, you know, I've been

Speaker 6 since it became official, I haven't wanted to like make an announcement until we made a big announcement, which is obviously what this is.

Speaker 6 But I've told a few friends and people in the industry and talked through. And

Speaker 6 it's funny, every time I kind of talk through both, you know, what our major plan is,

Speaker 6 as well as what my thought process was behind, you know, I think it's a fairly unique situation that an agency

Speaker 6 at our kind of existent, you know, how long we had existed for would

Speaker 6 be acquired or partnered or whatever the word is, but, you know, why we did it, I get more excited, right?

Speaker 6 Like every time I talk about what we're doing and explain, hey, here's where we fit into the larger ecosystem and, and, you know, how we're able to leverage their experience and expertise and different things like this and pull them all in,

Speaker 6 talk about what our, what our master plan is,

Speaker 6 I get, I get more excited. And that to me feels like a good thing, right?

Speaker 6 Because, you know, you would hate it to be the other way, obviously, or just neutral, but to like every time you talk about it, be like, man, this is, we, there's a, there's a there there.

Speaker 6 Like this is a really, really good thing. And

Speaker 6 I, I'm completely completely reinvigorated and not that i was down but you know like whole nother level of excitement so it's uh it's very very cool um

Speaker 6 i i'm interested uh i'm interested in like

Speaker 6 as much as you're willing to like what was the initial thing about the model or the brand or whatever what was the initial thing that kind of caught your eye and said, yeah, there might be something there.

Speaker 6 There might be, there might be something here that could fit into what we're doing.

Speaker 4 Well, I think there's a couple of things. And I think the first question is, do we actually tell your listeners where we were when we actually came up with this?

Speaker 6 Yeah, this is my favorite story of all time. This is, I love this.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 So you and I are both speaking at a meeting out West and the meeting's over and you're waiting to head to the airport and I'm waiting to head out for dinner with some folks.

Speaker 4 And I think two or three pints later,

Speaker 4 the discussion was.

Speaker 4 Yeah, it might have been more than that. But the discussion was, hey,

Speaker 4 what if there were some synergies here? And I think, you know, I think for us at SIA, we've been very fortunate over the years. You know, we have helped a lot of successful agencies join and grow.

Speaker 4 And we're just an enabler, right? Like we sort of bring some of the tools and the entrepreneurs do it.

Speaker 4 But where we've even been more successful over the years is helping insurance professionals start their own agencies.

Speaker 4 And these are entrepreneurs that are either producers or former captives that, you know, they just want that opportunity to own their own agency.

Speaker 4 And so we've helped thousands of insurance professionals realize that dream.

Speaker 4 But over the years, we've come across a lot of really great insurance professionals that either don't have the ability to own their own agency or just don't have the desire, right?

Speaker 4 I mean, they like to be an independent agency and work with their customers and be in their community and provide a service and help solve problems for

Speaker 4 both personal insurance and business insurance customers. And at SIA, we were trying to figure out how do we sort of get into that space?

Speaker 4 How do we find an opportunity to help those really great individuals get into the industry or get into the agency side where they have those opportunities?

Speaker 4 But maybe they want to own an agency in the future. Maybe they don't.

Speaker 4 And when you and I started talking about your vision, which is, I think, sort of what was the initial attraction, was the vision, right?

Speaker 4 You know, I think a lot of your listeners have heard Ryan Hanley talk about his vision and his excitement about rogue risk.

Speaker 4 And if we can take insurance professionals that are looking for and sort of a different work environment than that traditional independent agency or that traditional broker

Speaker 4 and give them that opportunity to create success for themselves and their families and maybe give them the ability to, if they want to, become a branch office or to become their own sort of independent agency in the future.

Speaker 4 I think sort of the sky's the limit for those folks. So, you know, at SIA,

Speaker 4 we were looking to implement something in that. And it sort of comes back.

Speaker 4 I think a lot of this discussion will come back full circle to, you know, 18 months ago or two years ago, you and I both sort of being of the same mind of what an agency of the future will look like.

Speaker 4 And then fast forward to where we are in this partnership today,

Speaker 4 actually helping create the agency of the future, not just in Rogue, but potentially setting the path for other independent agencies to follow in either how they are created or how agencies evolve into a different model.

Speaker 6 Yeah,

Speaker 6 that's awesome.

Speaker 6 I was talking to one of my buddies. It may have been Cass, who the hell knows.
And I was like, Never let anyone tell you that beers at the bar after the conference aren't a good idea.

Speaker 6 Because, you know,

Speaker 6 what's funny about, you know, my side of that story is exactly as you you described it, you know, and then I get on a plane and I fly home and the weekend happens and whatever.

Speaker 6 And, you know, the number of times that I have solved all the insurance industry's problems in a half-drunken conversation, you know, whatever,

Speaker 6 you know, and then, you know, when you, when you emailed me, you said, hey, you know, I'm thinking about that idea and would you like to have another conversation?

Speaker 6 I was, you know, I was like, oh my gosh, like.

Speaker 6 This is pretty cool.

Speaker 6 Like, you know, we, we, we did, you know, in that time period had mapped out and talked about where there were some some synergies and and certainly some some combined ideas and then when i really started to think about um where where we had deficiencies and and where my deficiencies were as a leader and where organizationally we had deficiencies and and what i did actually and i don't think i ever told you this is

Speaker 6 I took that following weekend after you emailed me and I did a full map out of how long I thought it would take to get to where

Speaker 6 I where I really wanted to be.

Speaker 6 And I just, I did the math and I came back and I said,

Speaker 6 man, with these guys, we're there in six months. You know, we're there,

Speaker 6 we're rocking and rolling and like full steam ahead, leaning into the wind in probably less than 12 months. If I try to do this on my own, it might be seven years.
It might be 10 years, really.

Speaker 6 When I started to map out actual growth, resources, what we'd have to do. And

Speaker 6 I just, you know, I said to myself, what's more important is it, and we actually had this conversation. What's more important?

Speaker 6 Owning the maximum amount of an age of the business that I can, or partnering with someone and being able to actually execute on the vision of what I think is truly possible. And,

Speaker 6 you know, delivering, you know, what I've kind of coined as a no-ceiling insurance career, delivering on that promise to the industry,

Speaker 6 it just fascinates me. Like if we can pull this off, which obviously I believe we can,

Speaker 6 man, I don't know anyone else who's ever created essentially an agency incubator system with

Speaker 6 the full ability to blossom into whatever you want. You know, there's a lot of triggers and you got to.
you got to obviously be able to do the job and you have to produce and all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 6 But assuming you do the work and you execute to be able to validate into your own, owning your own location or or fully outright owning your own agency or whatever.

Speaker 6 I don't know that that's ever been possible before. And the idea is just so intriguing to me

Speaker 6 because of how many professionals I know wake up every day and our hand.

Speaker 6 I literally was texting with a guy 10 seconds before we went live who is who is literally disconnecting from his dad and uncle's agency because they've just flatlined him.

Speaker 6 Like there's no place else for him to go. This is the son.
and nephew of the agency principles. They have flatlined him and he is now starting his own agency.

Speaker 6 I wish it was starting at six months from now because we'd be ready to get him into the rogue system. But like

Speaker 6 he,

Speaker 6 that shouldn't happen. Like he shouldn't have to deal with all that.
Like there should be a path for him. And man, I'm

Speaker 6 to be able to deliver on that makes me feel very happy.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I mean, and there's sort of a lot to unpack there. I think sort of starting at the end is we do see sort of those traditional insurance agencies.

Speaker 4 And we should be really clear, the traditional independent agency is a fantastic business model, right?

Speaker 4 You know, I'm very outspoken in the fact that I think right now, today, uh, is the greatest time period to be an independent agent or in an independent agency, or own one, or operate one, or buy one, or whatever the case may be, for a myriad of reasons, right?

Speaker 4 The market share for independent agencies is growing in all lines of business. Uh, the exclusive channel is shrinking, and we're picking a lot of that up.

Speaker 4 Direct is sort of peaking a little bit in their private passenger auto. So, that's a lot of opportunities for us.

Speaker 4 You know, technologies, which we'll talk about sort of high level in a couple of minutes, level the playing field for folks to move into these agencies.

Speaker 4 And I think if you were to do a SWOT analysis, which is really what you did after you came back from that trip, was you looked at your strengths, weaknesses, and your opportunities and threats, and you sort of weave that together into what could be.

Speaker 4 And I think independent agencies in general need to be doing that because if you're operating like an old way of an independent agency, that's a challenge.

Speaker 4 And, you know, young people don't want to work in those environments.

Speaker 4 You know, when people sort of look at you and say, oh, you're, you know, you work in an insurance agency with air quotes,

Speaker 4 they're picturing that old type of agency. And so we need to create a modern work environment for those younger people.
They want to be involved in technology and the digitization of the business.

Speaker 4 They also want to work with their clients

Speaker 4 and their customers the way they want to be worked with, utilizing digital tools and social media and various things. And a lot of independent agencies haven't made that transition.

Speaker 4 So that's their own SWOT analysis that they need to do. When you took your SWOT analysis and you and I kept talking about it,

Speaker 4 you know, I mentioned earlier that we're an enabler within the industry. You know, we enable good people and good insurance professionals to either create or grow their agencies.

Speaker 4 I think maybe a better term than enabler is accelerator.

Speaker 4 You know, you can go out and grow an agency on your own.

Speaker 4 And Ryan Hanley was going to be successful one way or another with Rogue Risk and the model due to the energy and the vision and the excitement and all the people that are pulling for you with it.

Speaker 4 But if we can accelerate it.

Speaker 4 And if we can, and I know you've maybe talked about what one of your personal goals are for people in the industry and that get involved with Rogue Risk, if we can not only accelerate our own growth, whether it's SIAs or Rogue Risks, but accelerate other people's personal journeys and professional journeys.

Speaker 4 That's a really big deal. And I think it does start with understanding your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, and then figuring out where do you go from there.

Speaker 4 And in many instances, whether it's agencies joining us on the SI side of the house to have access to horsepower and tools and energy, or whether

Speaker 4 it's us now with you bringing agents into Rogue and giving them those things, those are accelerators to growth. And we're in an exciting time where acceleration matters.

Speaker 6 Yeah. And the other thing too is coming back to

Speaker 6 the time period, because I 100% think that you're right. That was another part, a big part of,

Speaker 6 you know, I didn't technically do a SWOT analysis, but I guess I did,

Speaker 6 was

Speaker 6 I looked at the window that I think we're currently operating in and said,

Speaker 6 if I continue to grow at the pace that I am,

Speaker 6 there's a very good chance that even if I get to where I want to go, I've missed the window. And what I mean by that is

Speaker 6 independent agencies today really do have the ability to have every competitive advantage against every other form of doing business. And I don't care how big your budget is.

Speaker 6 I don't care who your backers are.

Speaker 6 Independent agencies who properly, and I've been banging the drum about this concept of human optimized, properly optimized, the humans in their business have literally every competitive advantage.

Speaker 6 Local speed, connection, understanding, expertise, market access. They have everything.

Speaker 6 So

Speaker 6 to me,

Speaker 6 if we could get this, if I can, you know, take instead of five to seven years, I can compress that down into five to seven months to get to where I want to be.

Speaker 6 And now all of a sudden, we're just, we're, we're giving people. this career or facilitating, you know, this career through Rogue where you're able to to live

Speaker 6 a life that has that you can make good money, you can feel fulfilled, challenged, you can be proud of what you're doing, you can actually help people in either your community or a vertical or an industry you're interested in.

Speaker 6 And to do that with the backing of

Speaker 6 resources that come from the combined effort of what Rogue's building systematically and you guys already have in place, that to me, you know, when I ultimately got to the end of it, um, it was just an absolute no-brainer because when I see, when I've i've always found more happiness in watching uh team members kind of like reach their potential and thrive than i have in my own personal my own personal journey and and this this now like now that that fits right in line with all the other that i love doing around marketing and sales and growth and and that just um it just made too much sense.

Speaker 6 There really wasn't, you know, when I really got down to the end of it, there wasn't much internal conversation to have. It was, it was, uh, it felt like the right move.

Speaker 4 Yeah, no, I agree. And I think, you know, anybody that's looking to enter into business relationships with anybody,

Speaker 4 you know, the first sort of, you know, part of that, that scenario should be, do you like each other? Can you get along? Right.

Speaker 4 Not just, not just when you're having more than three or four IPAs, I think it was.

Speaker 4 But, but, you know, you know, do you have the, you know, similar mindset? And how do you complement each other? And,

Speaker 4 you know, what are your strengths and weaknesses? And what are mine and our strengths and weaknesses? And I think as you, and to be clear with everybody, like this didn't happen overnight.

Speaker 4 I mean, you and I have been working on this for six months. Easily.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 through that sort of both informal and formal diligence, you start to figure out, yeah, you know, this feels good. Like good relationships feel good going into them.

Speaker 4 And then that's what you sort of, you know, out the other side of that

Speaker 4 comes success, which is going to be a really, it's going to be a really cool model. And there's going to be a lot of people watching it.
And,

Speaker 4 you know, I think you and I have talked about it. We're excited about a lot of people watching this and watching

Speaker 4 what we're going to do with this.

Speaker 6 Yeah. Yeah.
I

Speaker 6 definitely, yeah.

Speaker 6 It intrigues me that

Speaker 6 we, to a certain extent,

Speaker 6 there's not a lot of areas of our industry that are

Speaker 6 unexplored jungle, right? I mean, there's a lot of innovations to happen for sure. And a lot of people are getting better at,

Speaker 6 you know, building the mousetrap, I guess, but completely undiscovered country, such as the ability for a 22-year-old, unlicensed, right-out of college person, just using that as an example, to to

Speaker 6 come in and say,

Speaker 6 so some people, yeah, I've had a lot of people ask me, well, what does this no seal on career look like? What does that look like?

Speaker 6 And again, I I don't want anyone to hold us to exactly the words that we're using, but understand the, this is the, this is the map, whether the terminology and all the triggers are exactly the same is, is another thing.

Speaker 6 But to come in and say, start as what we would call a new business coordinator, right?

Speaker 6 You're calling, you're talking to people, you're gathering information, you're moving them from leads to suspects. You're unlicensed, but you're learning.
You're learning hands-on.

Speaker 6 You're learning the agency work. You're getting involved.
You validate. You become, say, a select producer.
Now you're handling inbound inbound leads. You're talking to people.

Speaker 6 You're getting a million at-bats, right? It's minor league baseball. It's all those at-bats.
You can make a mistake because there's another one right behind.

Speaker 6 Now, obviously, you don't want that to happen, but it's going to. So we facilitate that.
We train. We educate.

Speaker 4 We give people resources.

Speaker 6 We hold them accountable. We give them goals.
And if you validate there, you get to go to Premier. Premier, now you're actually, we're teaching you how to hunt.

Speaker 6 Now you're becoming a true, you know, that. chest thumping conference going, you know,

Speaker 6 agent who loves to talk about their big wins. We're teaching you how to do that, how to go out and prospect that vertical or that geographic region or whatever.
And at that point,

Speaker 6 if you validate through that process, now you have the option. You can stay and keep doing that.
You could launch your own rogue location. Maybe there's even an option for you to

Speaker 6 start your own agency out of that. But to think that at no time, because your last name isn't on the outside of the building,

Speaker 6 you're going to have a place that you have to stop or just, and I don't just want to make it about independent agents same thing with state farm right or or an exclusive at a certain point your territory gets to a certain size they're just not going to let you grow any more than that and all of those

Speaker 6 i personally

Speaker 6 struggle with any scenario where i know that i can't go as far as i want to go so some of this is is me kind of facilit facilitating my own fantasy but

Speaker 6 It feels to me like something that is, that, that people are asking for, and it just has never been available to them and the ability to blaze that trail and i'm sure we'll make mistakes and we'll have to re you know rework things and and course correct and and all that kind of stuff but to to get to that goal man that's uh that to me that's work worth doing Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 4 And, you know, sort of that trajectory that you outlined of the young man or woman coming into the industry and having that path is something that's rare unless there are agencies that are willing to make that investment into those individuals, or unless they go the captive of the exclusive route first.

Speaker 4 And then that creates a whole other route of obstacles. I think the other sort of trajectory you and I have talked about is, you know, the MA world right now.

Speaker 4 And there's a ton of merger and acquisition going on. And, you know, not everybody wants to work for

Speaker 4 the agency that acquired their agency.

Speaker 4 Or, you know, in some instances, large agencies are acquiring agencies and they're limiting what producers can write because only this one can write that size or only this one can write that class of business or whatever.

Speaker 4 And so, you know, this gives, you know, producers or

Speaker 4 agencies or account executives and agencies the ability to say, no, I want that, I want that ability to sort of do it all

Speaker 4 and go out and grow and come on board and be that premier producer or that select producer that we've talked about. And I think when we look at...

Speaker 4 You know, when we look at the number of agents in the insurance industry or agencies and the independent agency history, there's There's an insurance company executive that was quoted several years ago as saying, look, there's 37,000 independent agencies in the independent agency channel today.

Speaker 4 10 years from now, there'll be 37,000. It's just going to be a different 37,000.

Speaker 4 It just won't be all the same ones. And I think when we get to the agency level, and there's hundreds of thousands of agents,

Speaker 4 licensed agents in this distribution channel, in the other distribution channels, and giving them the path to be in a modern work environment, it's a big deal.

Speaker 4 I was actually, I actually heard today, which was the first time I'd heard it, that actually some of the exclusive carriers, the captive companies, are actually setting up virtual exclusive agency offices where

Speaker 4 they're not a brick and mortar storefront or they're not in a direct call center, but they're working virtually out of their home to be exclusive agents as well.

Speaker 4 And so I think sort of this model of the virtual agent, if you will, with all the tools to build their business, their book of business, either in a geographic physical community or an online community um you know i think it's a trend we're going to see in the industry and i think we're we're in the right part of the the wave on this um uh together so in two years zero clients of ours and prospects have asked where's your office zero right it's just it's just not a question unless unless you are leading with that in your marketing no one cares now if you lead with it in your marketing it's different but they just don't care they want you know, I was talking to, I interviewed

Speaker 6 Zach Mefford from Coverage Direct for the podcast a couple of weeks ago. A super good guy, very smart.
And we were talking about,

Speaker 6 shoot, what were we talking about?

Speaker 6 Oh, we were talking about the handoff

Speaker 6 from one provider to another and how

Speaker 6 what

Speaker 6 people want today is expertise. They don't care if that expertise is down the street from them, if it's over the phone, if it's via chatbot, email, text message.
They don't necessarily care.

Speaker 6 Now, people are comfortable with different types of

Speaker 6 communication methods, but I think what people are, what consumers, business owners in particular, just because that's our niche, they are so thirsty for someone who will respond and respond with a little bit of compassion.

Speaker 6 and some expertise. And if you can do that in a timely manner,

Speaker 6 that is the bar. If, if, you know, that's what they're looking for.
So they don't, they don't need you down the road. They just need you to get back to them, give a shit, and do a good job.

Speaker 6 And if you can do those things, you can do them from anywhere.

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Speaker 4 And an interesting comment there, right? One, number one, small commercial is, as we know, is an underserved market, right?

Speaker 4 So those of us sort of on the smaller side of the independent agency channel always think that's crazy because that's how we make our bones is is in the the small business local community uh business so um but when you talk about um you know when they need you it's it's when they need you It's how they want you and what they need you for, how they want to access you, right?

Speaker 4 And I think that's where, you know, that's where there's still sort of a disconnect there.

Speaker 4 And I think, you know, if you do want to be a storefront agency with a plate glass window on Main Street or a strip mall or whatever, that is a perfectly viable business for independent agencies to do.

Speaker 4 Look, you know, a lot of our business is still done on the Little League fields or BNI or Chamber or, you know, up and down Main Street supporting the other businesses or the food pantry or whatever the case may be.

Speaker 4 But also if you want to be a virtual agency, you can still do a little bit of those things too.

Speaker 4 But I think in either of those scenarios, and you talked about the handoff, in either of those scenarios, we have to allow our clients and our prospects to work with us the way they want to.

Speaker 4 And I think the problem with sort of the traditional insurance space is we still think that we can dictate to the consumer how they're going to buy a policy or how they're going to service policy.

Speaker 4 And that's nuts because the consumer dictates how they're going to buy and what they're going to buy in Walmart or on Amazon or at Best Buy or at Target or at the local store downtown.

Speaker 4 We don't tell them. We're the only industry that still thinks we can tell people how to buy things.

Speaker 4 And so the consumer is going to pick and choose those things. And we have to have that right handoff when, where, and how the consumer wants it.

Speaker 4 And I've got sort of a couple of examples of that is one, if we're going to be an agent.

Speaker 4 uh for somebody i think the agent of the future is going to be you know both an agent and an advocate or an advisor and an advocate.

Speaker 4 And when we talk about how we're going to be an advisor, a lot of people say, well, duh, agents are advisors. I mean, we help people protect their most valuable assets.

Speaker 4 But what is missed in that is a lot of people want to do some amount of that work digitally. DIY,

Speaker 4 you know, they want to get to a certain point and then deal with a human. And we sort of think that they all want to talk to us and they don't.

Speaker 4 At the point they need us, they want to talk to us. And so how do we within this industry provide the consumer both the digital tools to

Speaker 4 access us from an advisor, an agent, a sales standpoint, as well as

Speaker 4 the one-on-one tools that we have? I think the other part of it is, you know, we're advocates, right? We're advocates, because don't forget, as agents, we all work for the carrier.

Speaker 4 uh we all tend to forget that but we're advocates for our clients and and we're advocates for them maybe not performing all of the service functions uh that we've traditionally performed but advocating for them when self-service or a via agency virtual assistant or a service center or direct reporting claim sort of falls down and we have to step in and do that advocacy but if we try and do it all and we try and do it the way we've traditionally done it, we're not available to the customer when, where, and how they want.

Speaker 4 And, you know, we have a lot of agencies or agents push back on things like self-service or

Speaker 4 virtual assistants or service centers. And my response to them is, all you're doing is just giving your consumer, your client, three or four different ways.

Speaker 4 They can still call you, but give them options. Give them options for when you're not open, right? This is, this is, right? This is the human optimized agency.

Speaker 4 You know, this is digitizing functions so humans can be more effective in working with other human beings.

Speaker 4 And I think it's just a great time.

Speaker 6 And I think just back again, I mean, that's what we're trying to, that's what we're trying to get other agents to listen to, but that's also what we're trying to build here and what we will build with rogue so i'll give you an example during the contractual process of our uh you know our deal i had my main attorney who was my guy working me through contracts just like whatever and then there was a question about

Speaker 6 something with a security or whatever so he brought in a different attorney from a different from a different law firm who was a securities guy and he came in for 20 minutes on a call and he said this is fine and this is is fine.

Speaker 6 Ultimately, he said, You don't have any worries. 20 minutes later, calls over.
Okay, great.

Speaker 6 I didn't go, Hey, John, what the F-man, like, what's wrong with your law firm? You couldn't supply, or, or hey, John, what's wrong with you? You couldn't give me this advice.

Speaker 6 I was like, That's amazing. I just got a 20 minutes from a top-notch security guy to come in who my guy knew to solve our problem, give us the rubber stamp, and on we went.
Like,

Speaker 6 that

Speaker 6 I feel like we

Speaker 6 in at two the agencies that I see struggle with this concept, they believe any point of leakage in the process where they're not handling it is somehow they're losing connection with the insured.

Speaker 6 And from my perspective, I'm like, I tell my people, be the best at the things that we're the best at. and we'll find someone else to be the best at the other things that we're not the best at.

Speaker 6 And our customers will love us more for surrounding ourselves with the best in these other things and that

Speaker 6 that simple minds shift one it allows you to be even better at what you do even better because now you're not thinking about like i'll give you an example surety right

Speaker 6 you can have an assurity expert But if you're a standard property casualty agent writing commercial and you're going to tell me that you know everything there is to know about surety, you are freaking lying.

Speaker 6 You are lying. You don't.
Surety is a whole nother monster. It's important.

Speaker 6 i think way too many agencies give it away but with companies like propeller and companies like zip and others you now you know pick whoever your favorite is or you know do like we do we use both both have strengths and weaknesses and i love both i like what aaron does i like what zach does i think they're both great companies and um

Speaker 6 and by do you think one of our insureds has ever cared that either propeller or zip is the one writing our surety bond no you know what i get hey thanks man that that went great thanks for the you know whatever like this mind shift allows me to just be good at property casualty commercial insurance and not have to worry about surety or not have to worry about, you know, something else.

Speaker 6 It just, it's a, it, it opens you up to be the best at the thing that you can be the best at, which is what we should be doing from my perspective, versus this, we're everything to everybody.

Speaker 6 I just don't know that that can be the future.

Speaker 4 Yeah, you have to reduce friction in the process, right? And we talk a lot about reducing friction between agents and carriers, right? You know, we need to get better about that.

Speaker 4 But what you're talking about here is reducing the friction between the agent and the consumer and the client. And I'll just say it again.

Speaker 4 I think that some of us that sort of think traditionally about the insurance process, we're creating undue friction.

Speaker 4 And if we don't sort of smooth out those edges in how an agent is working with a client and offer them sort of a smoother path and a easier sort of resolution to things

Speaker 4 And it's usually a positive outcome, but we should be driving the positive outcome home if it was done on the other ways of service over

Speaker 4 the transaction's been created.

Speaker 4 But sometimes we're still creating that friction, right? Like my client wants to talk to me. They don't really want to talk to you, right? When they need you, they want to talk to you.

Speaker 4 Or if they have a question that they can't answer online, they want to talk to you. But

Speaker 4 help get the friction out of there.

Speaker 4 I think we're in this, this is sort that statement of it being a really cool time to be in the industry.

Speaker 4 There's always room for an agent in insurance, right? I mean, this is a complex product.

Speaker 4 I mean, sure, you know, you can plug a VIN number in and buy an automobile policy with sort of lower limits, and you're not going to know if you got the right coverages and things like that.

Speaker 4 But as people acquire assets,

Speaker 4 they want to know that these things are being taken care of and they want it done smooth, right? You know, our competition isn't, you know,

Speaker 4 the listeners, their competition isn't Rogue Risk or the agency down the street, or even the captive agency, or, you know, the other independent agency across town or the one that just sold.

Speaker 4 Our competition is how people transact business in other parts of their lives, right? And it is much smoother.

Speaker 4 And I think that what we have to do is we have to define, and this may be different by agency or agent for that matter, we have to define our place in the insurance cycle where we're delivering value to the consumer that they view as value.

Speaker 4 Because if they don't view it as valuable, ultimately they will migrate to a process

Speaker 4 that does deliver what they perceive or they see as value.

Speaker 6 The other thing that

Speaker 6 I want to say to people is, you know, I'm going to give them a little piece of advice to help with their next conference trip, whatever that conference may be,

Speaker 4 is

Speaker 6 the beauty of running, I don't want to say a digital because I do believe in local. And a big part of our long-term plan is having local offices or facilitating that for agents who so desire.

Speaker 6 But a digitized agency, a human-optimized agency is that you can figure out the way that you work best. and then find the customers that appreciate that way, right?

Speaker 6 So like, I think as an agency as a whole, you need to be able to take in all the different forms of communication.

Speaker 6 I do think that as an agency, thinking about that level of the entity, you need to be able to do an online chat. You need to be able to do a text message or an email or a phone call or whatever.

Speaker 6 But as an agent, as it, as a specific, as one unit of the larger organization, if you write badass cold emails and you're just really good at them, and that's how you like to start conversations, that's all you should do.

Speaker 6 If you like to cold call, if you like to be, you know, develop referral partners, like you get to be that thing, because once you digitize, you go from 15 miles from my agency location to a much broader set of area.

Speaker 6 And I actually did a great podcast with

Speaker 6 great because of the guests, not because of me, Andrew Darlington, who's in eastern Tennessee, right?

Speaker 6 You, I mean, he always makes the joke that like, you know, you couldn't find this place on a map and neither can I, even though I've lived here, you know, whatever. He's got some version of it.

Speaker 6 You know, it's, but like there's nobody where he lives.

Speaker 6 Yet he's, because he's a digitized agency and uses Salesforce and some of these other tools, he's able to expand his base to now he has as much ability to capture as much business as I do living in the northeast in a, you know, semi-metropolitan area in Albany.

Speaker 6 And that to me.

Speaker 6 is the big opportunity is that if you can figure out how you like to do business, you can expand maybe your geographical footprint or expand to another vertical or what have you and be exactly what you want to be for the people in the way that they want you to be it.

Speaker 6 And you can find them, where before

Speaker 6 you were kind of handcuffed by whatever was given to you in your local market. And that to me

Speaker 6 is a big piece of this and should be a really, hopefully a really exciting piece for agencies and agents.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I look, you know, your point about finding the right customers. It's the right customers for you as an agent or

Speaker 4 you

Speaker 4 as an agency. And, you know, I've talked a lot, you know,

Speaker 4 in this day of, you know, comparative rating, you know, over the years, I've had a lot of agents come up to me and say, you know, I can't compete with this one or I can't compete with that one. And

Speaker 4 my response is, it's usually a direct writer they're talking about that spends a couple billion dollars and advertising. And I'm like, man, you're fighting over your weight class, right?

Speaker 4 I mean, stop punching above your weight. Let's let's figure out who in your community,

Speaker 4 and let's come back to community again because I really want to make sure the listeners get that, but let's figure out who in your community wants your services and needs your services and see value in your services.

Speaker 4 You know, somebody that's going to sit in front of a comparative rater and, you know, offer every time the phone rings, offer the person on the other end the lowest rate.

Speaker 4 It's a diminishing value, right? I mean, you know, price is not the value proposition of the future for an agent's career.

Speaker 4 And so finding that right community, and I really think it is important because even if you're in a geographic community, you still can use and should use the digital capabilities at your fingertips, which are less expensive and they do create speed to build a digital community within your geographic community.

Speaker 4 But boy, building that digital community where you've got somebody, I think you said in Tennessee,

Speaker 4 that digital community, that can be anywhere.

Speaker 4 And we get licensed anywhere. The carrier is right in 48 or 50 states.
And so to expand your digital community and be seen as the expert within that digital community.

Speaker 4 I mean, you know, that's that's just a fascinating thing that didn't exist for years

Speaker 4 and years prior. And I think sort of the agility of the independent agency and the independent agent is real right now because large organizations are hard to be agile.

Speaker 4 I mean, we, you know, even though we play in the sort of local agency space at SIA as a large organization, it's hard to swing the ship.

Speaker 4 And I love seeing the agility of these small businesses or individuals in these businesses that can pivot to sort of increase their own success. So, you know, geography, you know,

Speaker 4 digital community is such a great opportunity for people in this day and age.

Speaker 6 Yeah. The other exciting piece is, I think, where a lot of the technology is going.

Speaker 6 Like we made a move,

Speaker 6 you know.

Speaker 6 It's working out. It wasn't a small endeavor, but we made a move

Speaker 6 to HubSpot.

Speaker 6 and the reason we did that was a couplefold one i think the internal user experience and as i described to you matt one of one of the things that sold me and i did 10 months of research and many of you listening are probably sick of hearing me talk about this but i'm gonna say it again because it's my show and i can say whatever i want so screw you uh no i love you all so uh

Speaker 6 was

Speaker 6 I did a demo with Salesforce and I did a demo with a few others and I would bring a couple of my people and

Speaker 6 like trying to train them. Like what were their initial eyes? Where did their eyes go? Whatever.

Speaker 6 And when we got to HubSpot and I started showing them around, we were doing a free trial and I was kind of demoing it to them as if I was training them. That's how I, that's how I did it.
Um,

Speaker 6 in five minutes, they had 90% of the basics. So I was like,

Speaker 6 wow, I can train somebody on this in like a week. I can have them fully up and running, no questions asked, rocking and rolling and have a knowledge base ready to go.

Speaker 6 That's a huge win versus the months that it takes to train people on some other systems.

Speaker 6 The other thing that we were able to do, and HubSpot's not the only system, some of the AMSs allow you to do this.

Speaker 6 So I don't want to make that sound like this is the only tool. Some of the better agencies, agency Zooms, all these others can do this too.
But like it condensed 10 tools into four.

Speaker 6 So instead of having 10 tools to do all these different things, we do text messages and take payments and e-signatures and all these different things that we need to log into and down to to four tools.

Speaker 6 And it's just this concept, like

Speaker 6 as the as the leader of the agency, one of the things that I'm constantly thinking about is how much time are people spending on things? Like where are they spending their time? Because if I can find

Speaker 6 a system or a process or a vendor or a consultant or a partner who can help

Speaker 6 take people this wasted time, we waste so much time with logins and nonsense and really start to streamline that so that the humans can do the thing they do best, which is talk to other humans and solve problems.

Speaker 6 That's what they do best. There are systems, processing things.
There's better ways. Humans are the best at talking to other humans and solving their problems.
That's where they're the best.

Speaker 6 And if I, the mac, I want to maximize that time with every person I have in my agency where, because they're also energized by that.

Speaker 6 If you talk to your people, they're not energized by processing TPS reports and sliding them across their desk. They hate that.
That's what drains the soul out of their body.

Speaker 6 But when they're actually given a challenge, and like, you know, some people can be jerks or whatever, but like, you know, when they're given a challenge and they need to go solve, figure out this thing, they may complain about it a little bit because obviously all these situations are frustrating.

Speaker 6 That's what really keeps them coming back, though, is they felt like they helped somebody at the end of the day. And the more you can get your people doing that, the better.

Speaker 6 And I think digitizing your agency is the best way to optimize that time.

Speaker 4 Yeah, look, you're not going to get a whole lot of instant gratification off of entering VIN numbers.

Speaker 4 Right.

Speaker 4 But, but when you've helped solve a problem for somebody, right?

Speaker 4 That's why we do what we do. I mean, I said it before, you know, we protect people's most valuable assets, right? And when they need us, we solve problems.

Speaker 4 And, you know, entering, you know, mind-numbing amounts of data in the 12-carrier systems and our AMS is just not a good use. It's not a good use of time.
Hey, humans are pack animals.

Speaker 4 We want to hang out with the pack. Yes, we do.
And drink and drink IPAs.

Speaker 6 And drink IPAs and solve all the world's problems. Yes.

Speaker 6 All right. So I want to be respectful of your time and time of our audience.

Speaker 6 I'm going to shift gears just slightly

Speaker 6 and ask you

Speaker 6 not just rogue or maybe using rogue is carving rogue out since we've already talked about that a lot. Looking out over,

Speaker 6 you know, it's been almost a year since you took over.

Speaker 6 Looking out over the space, looking out over the SI ecosystem.

Speaker 6 What's got you excited? What else has you excited? Like, what are you, you're waking up and you're going, man,

Speaker 6 here's another project that I just, this is going great. I'm loving this project.
Like, what else is happening out there?

Speaker 4 Yeah. And so, yeah, thank you for that.
It has been a year since the executive team and our private equity sponsors took over the business. We were a family started and run business for, you know,

Speaker 4 over three decades, approaching four decades.

Speaker 4 and so it's been a pretty exciting year i think the biggest thing for us we've seen very little change sort of in our execution of the core business model because it worked right it was already working yeah you you never break things that work you just make them better where we've put a lot of enhancements in uh to our world is i think in two specific areas one is creating a clear path as i was talking about before for people to own their own agency and start their own agency.

Speaker 4 We've invested really heavily in what we call our agency foundation 3.0, which is a new version of our program where we're actually in these agencies helping these people create and build a foundation for their independent agencies of the future.

Speaker 4 We got about 65 people around the country that are growth coaches that support agencies on that.

Speaker 4 I think we're gonna continue to see a significant shift of the exclusive channel coming into the independent agency channel. So that's one that's really exciting.

Speaker 4 I think the other place where we've made most of our investments along with our master agencies around the country, is really helping those existing independent agencies, right?

Speaker 4 Helping them understand what their strengths are, helping them understand sort of how they can get better, how they can evolve, how they can grow. You know, we've got a business model that

Speaker 4 It works, right? And we put a lot of incentives back into the agency's hands so they can reinvest into their business.

Speaker 4 And so, you know, if you were to bubble sort of those three things up, what we're really trying to do is make sure that we're in a good leadership position as the industry continues to evolve.

Speaker 4 And those are big shoes to fill because it's an industry that doesn't evolve very quickly.

Speaker 4 And what we want to do is stand with other like-minded people and organizations and be the leaders to help independent agencies into the future.

Speaker 4 And while you said, you know, talk about, you know, other than Rogue, I think Rogue is just a big part of that, right? I mean, it's introducing this model into

Speaker 4 the channel.

Speaker 4 And I think for carriers, and you've got some carriers that listen to this as well, these are distribution points for them, right? That we're all

Speaker 4 investing in so we can help produce with them. So it's been a really exciting year for us.

Speaker 4 But a lot of it isn't, you know, it's not inventing a new wheel. It's making our wheel better is where we've seen those investments.

Speaker 6 I love that. I love that.
Well, I'll tell you that. While I would have never handicapped

Speaker 6 where we are, I personally couldn't be any happier.

Speaker 6 I think that, you know, just the people inside the organization, not just, I don't want to make it just you're in my relationship, but, you know, everyone who I've worked with so far has been, has been great and,

Speaker 6 you know, very professional. And I can tell, you know, I'm excited about the challenge of living up to the professional standard that so many people have.
And

Speaker 6 it's going to be a lot of fun. And,

Speaker 6 you know i i would be lying if i said there wasn't a little bit of uh when when i was getting all the i get you know every once in a while i get people will send me these hate messages you know what have you done and what has this happened and all this and i'd be lying if i said there wasn't some part of a chip on my shoulder that that said you guys are going to see pretty soon what i've been talking about all this time and i um and hopefully we can just help a lot of business owners help a lot of professionals in our space do some really cool work have some fun and um it's it's an exciting time as you said i think we finished where we started is an exciting time to be in this space if we're not having fun we're doing something wrong i agree with that completely i agree matt thank you so much man i appreciate it um guys thank you for listening as always and uh lots more cool episodes coming down the pipe uh this is not the end this is just the beginning

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