RHS 121 - Will Shaw on How to Build Technology for Independent Agents

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Speaker 5 In a crude laboratory in the basement of his home.

Speaker 6 Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the show.

Speaker 7 Today, we have an absolutely tremendous episode for you: a conversation with Will Shaw, CEO and co-founder of VeterAgency, the only sales-driven AMS and CRM in the insurance industry.

Speaker 7 And I'm an enormous fan of Will's and what he does. And,

Speaker 7 you know, I think he'll kind of take that away from this conversation.

Speaker 7 We go all over the place talking about entrepreneurship, growing in insure tech, things that Will has learned about the business, kind of coming at it from the vendor side, and just a bunch of other really valuable and interesting insights that I think you'd be able to take a ton away from this show.

Speaker 7 Just so happy to have Will on and enjoy every conversation that I get to have with Will. So

Speaker 7 I think that'll come through in the episode. I think you're going to like this one.
Before we get there, I want to give a big shout out to Propeller Bonds.

Speaker 7 Guys, Propeller Bonds is changing the game for how bonds are done. They're making bonds accessible,

Speaker 7 easy.

Speaker 7 It's giving you another income stream. Like, think about it that way.

Speaker 7 You know, how often do we write a contractor and we just never ask about their bonding needs because we look at bonds as difficult or time-consuming or not profitable?

Speaker 7 And what Propeller Bonds is doing is changing that. They're making it so that you should be asking every client if they have bonding needs.

Speaker 7 Do you, you know, do you work in a municipality and have to get a municipal bond? Are you a notary? Do you know

Speaker 7 how many of your clients are notaries? Do you know that? Like, if you're asking everyone and they can now get their notary bonds for you, that's just another touch point.

Speaker 7 It's another product that you're selling. It's continuing to build that moat.
And what Propeller does is give you a simple, easy, almost, almost no-touch way?

Speaker 7 There are certain policies that you will, or certain bonds that you will have to get involved in, but you know, 90 plus percent of the bonds that you're going to sell through propeller bonds are zero touch.

Speaker 7 You send the link to the client, the client fills it out, they pay for the bond, and they're getting their bond certificate in the email in like five minutes.

Speaker 7 Um, we use it all the time, absolutely love it, changing the game bonds. Go to propellerbonds.com, that's propellerbonds.com.

Speaker 7 Guys, go to propellerbonds.com today and start making surety bonds and bonding in general part of your product mix. Do it today.
All right.

Speaker 7 With that, let's get on to Will Shaw.

Speaker 5 Ryan, what's up?

Speaker 8 Yo, what's up, dude?

Speaker 5 How we doing?

Speaker 8 We're having a good talk here. I'm excited.

Speaker 8 Trying to figure out what the heck we decided we were going to talk about, but scrolling through my socials to figure out

Speaker 8 what what particular topic of conversation we were talking about. And I was like, come on, the podcast.
And you're like, let's do it.

Speaker 8 Now I was like, it's super interesting, but I didn't save it, obviously, because I'm an idiot. So now I'm trying to figure out what the hell we were talking about.

Speaker 5 I'm trying to remember too, man. I feel like you and I are always going back and forth on Twitter and LinkedIn.
It's got to be one of those two.

Speaker 8 I was literally scrolling through Twitter as I was bringing you into the conversation to say,

Speaker 8 you know, to figure out exactly what it was, but I'm sure it is.

Speaker 5 Let me hit my link. Let me hit my LinkedIn because I feel like you shared something that I posted.
I think that might have been part of it.

Speaker 8 Oh, that is what it was.

Speaker 7 Is uh,

Speaker 5 yeah, yeah, yeah,

Speaker 5 because I've been trying to get active on LinkedIn.

Speaker 8 Yeah, LinkedIn's good. I like LinkedIn.

Speaker 5 Yeah, it's good. Uh,

Speaker 8 here it is. Shit.

Speaker 8 Post.

Speaker 8 Just saw it.

Speaker 3 Here we go.

Speaker 8 All right.

Speaker 8 So this is the post. This is the post.
I'm going to read it so that everyone who's listening knows and that what we're talking about. So this is the post.
So

Speaker 8 for those of you listening at home, Will and I have gotten to know each other

Speaker 8 better and better all the time over the last 18 to 24 months which is great

Speaker 8 and um and when we do have time to chat we have very good conversations and i've been meaning to have you on for a while but then uh you posted something that i that i reshared and this is what you post i'll i'll i'll recap it quickly here you said today i've spent time listening to industry experts and leaders from zebra eliminate others speaking about insure tech and firms trying to come into insurance a few things i found really interesting Insuretech has received $2 billion in four consecutive quarters.

Speaker 8 That's a massive amount. Why this is happening, what it means below.
Personal lines hit $350 billion in premium, accounting for more than 50% of the PC market.

Speaker 8 Insurtech companies like Lemonade haven't hit a billion in written premium yet. What does all this mean for independent agents?

Speaker 8 Insurtech isn't slowing down and they're bringing in more and more experience from the travel sector, think Kayak and Expedia, to try and allow carriers to be direct to consumers.

Speaker 8 Investments are probably not slowing down either based on current market conditions, which is true, although I have heard multiple times that

Speaker 8 we have about an 18-month window and things are going to start drying up.

Speaker 7 I have heard that.

Speaker 8 So, okay. So, your biggest takeaway, these companies are almost solely going after personal auto, basic commercial lines.
And they're getting as much and it's getting as much attention as home,

Speaker 8 which you found surprising, you know, not Cyber GL. Other takeaways: independent agency needs to be focused on digitizing their agency, customers getting smarter.
I think we all agree with that.

Speaker 5 We can talk a little bit about what that means.

Speaker 8 The importance of cross-selling your clients, personal and commercial, and digital companies that are coming after auto, keep your relationships, getting home, cross-selling auto, things like that.

Speaker 8 I think we'd also agree with that. We can talk about how we do that.
Quote-bind issue has to be something that we figure out.

Speaker 8 We need to be able to quote bind an issue, particularly personal lines, without without expending too much personal capital.

Speaker 8 I think, you know, what I think, and what I think the topic that I'd really like to talk to you, and we can go as many places as you want to go, obviously.

Speaker 8 But the topic that intrigues me is,

Speaker 8 I think at face value, all these things make sense, right? Insurtech made a big push. They kind of.

Speaker 8 They kind of got there like, it was like when the little brother, you know, tries to come at the big brother and thinks they're going to get a little froggy and they kind of get bucked back.

Speaker 8 Like, I think that's kind of what happened with InsurTech. Obviously, pushing the industry forward, obviously a net positive.

Speaker 8 I think we all would 100% agree with that, but certainly not like taking over the game, even those who have been so lucky as to IPO. However, it does not feel like as an industry, we have yet

Speaker 8 even come to some basic best practices on how to digitize. You know what I mean? There are people that are starting to figure out.

Speaker 8 There are are certainly tools that are pushing the envelope, but you guys are doing it better. You can see it's a big part of it.

Speaker 8 But like, it just still doesn't feel like we really have our hands around this digitization process.

Speaker 5 I would agree with it. And I mean, there's a lot to unpack with all of it, but I think like the reality is the writing's on the wall.
Like, I would agree with you.

Speaker 5 Like, I don't think like, and this is why I think I even said that in the post. Like, I don't, I think this is a five-year play for InsurTech.

Speaker 5 Like, when you talk about like everybody's, so I get really involved in the investment market because i want to know what's going on like i want to understand like what's happening m a activity in terms of insurance companies acquiring insurance companies what's coming up going on with private equity i'm curious there but i also ask the questions like when people write two billion dollars worth of checks in four consecutive quarters i want to know what's going on and

Speaker 5 you know they don't have to take over the industry to make a lot of money but those companies when you start listening to the heads of those companies and there's more than just lemonade and zebra and that's that's that there's a lot more than just those companies coming into it is

Speaker 5 they are trying to go IPO. They're trying to become a unicorn.
And to become a billion-dollar valued company, you're going to have to figure out how you produce $100 million in revenue.

Speaker 5 Reality is there's a lot of independent agencies. There's more than I originally thought that actually do that today.

Speaker 5 But, you know, at some point, they're going to get some traction.

Speaker 5 And I don't think it's today. I don't think it's next year.
I don't think it's two years from now. But I think there's a five-year window right now

Speaker 5 the enough money coming in and then figuring out what's going on and where the market's going that insurtech is going to have a better grasp and i don't think they ever overtake independence and i can get into why i believe that and that might be more of a fairytale belief instead of actual hard numbers that i have but the decisions that are made right now as an industry whole i think in terms of standardizing workflows and technology and those kind of mindsets are going to make the difference of what this looks like in five years and i think as an industry

Speaker 5 old school agencies do a great job of thinking what's two to five to 10 years ahead, even though they might not be thinking that in terms of technology.

Speaker 5 But I don't think as a whole, like people really take the

Speaker 5 amount of time and effort needed to go and say, what is my agency going to look like in two years, four years?

Speaker 5 Like going through, it's so played out, but going through a traditional SWOT analysis, like what's going on? Like I just posted last week about like M ⁇ A activity.

Speaker 5 The reason there's so much is there's the potential threat of looming capital gains tax changes that's affecting people's decisions to potentially exit and inject out of their companies right now.

Speaker 6 Yeah.

Speaker 8 Yeah. It's um so I don't

Speaker 8 five years feels long to me. Um right.
I know you have recently been through a fundraising round. Uh I am in the middle, hopefully towards the end of a fundraising round, talked to

Speaker 8 22 VC firms,

Speaker 8 some of which we knew right away weren't a great fit, but but it was, but it's good to have these relationships and know people, I found.

Speaker 8 And one of the really interesting things that I found, and this is completely side note, that I found about meeting these VCs is even though they did not decide to do invest in Rogue yet, most of them are more interested in a Series A.

Speaker 8 It was kind of like a teaser.

Speaker 8 Still completely willing to make connections. I've actually made quite a few.

Speaker 8 connections with people who who've just said flat out no we're not interested so you know building your network is always important and i think having those conversations is worthwhile if you can have them.

Speaker 8 That all being said,

Speaker 8 I think we're looking at more of like an 18 to 24 month window where there is really land grab

Speaker 8 left.

Speaker 8 That doesn't mean that you can't grow. It doesn't mean everyone goes out of business.
It doesn't mean we're all going to be disrupted.

Speaker 8 What it means is it feels to me like, and personal lines, this may just be over, but in commercial, in the cross-sell of commercial and personal, in some of these places like cyber, it feels to me, and and just the disposition that i get and and and the conversations that i've been having with some of these guys there's like an 18 to 20 more 24 month window for distribution partners so think retail agencies being a distribution partner for for

Speaker 8 for distribution partners to grab land because

Speaker 8 they're like you said there are a lot of entities that have received a lot of money that

Speaker 5 that

Speaker 8 that money hasn't gone anywhere they

Speaker 8 They just haven't gotten around to closing.

Speaker 5 There's $8 billion floating up by some of the most powerful firms out there that haven't made a dime on that money. Now, that money will be made to good use at some point.
Yes.

Speaker 8 And

Speaker 8 again, I think it's coming at places like Small Commercial. I think they're going to push up into middle market tools.

Speaker 8 I don't think they're going to be middle market agencies, but I think there's going to be a lot of

Speaker 8 think Zy Wave buying up all this stuff, Vertifor buying up all these tools. Like there's going to be more tools injected into the marketplace.

Speaker 8 I think that, um, I think that the one thing from my perspective, that if I were building a local or more traditional or standard agency, which Rogue is just simply not at this point, um,

Speaker 8 the thing that would concern me is that the business isn't even going to get to my level. And what I mean by that is

Speaker 8 everything that's happening is

Speaker 8 happening inside of other platforms.

Speaker 8 So, when someone starts a business, they're looking for a lender, they're looking for a bank account, they're looking for an attorney to do an LLC, they're looking for some service.

Speaker 8 Insurance is never the first service that a new business goes out and gets ever. No one goes, I'm gonna go get general liability on this entity that doesn't exist.

Speaker 5 And then the only reason we did it with Better Agency was we were working with insurance agencies and like, hey, you gotta have this.

Speaker 8 Yes, yeah. So, like, so that being said,

Speaker 8 if you're our, if you're, if you go to Gusto for your payroll or you go to

Speaker 8 American Express for your check, for your credit card account, or you go just about to any of these major platforms, a lot of them are starting to develop major business relationships with

Speaker 8 either direct carriers, think Next, or, you know, all your friendly nationals all have these, their own agencies.

Speaker 5 It's a lot of gusto. I mean, when you go to Gusto and you start having employees, they're going to start offering a relationship for health insurance.

Speaker 5 So if you're a health insurance primary, primarily health insurance agency, you have to compete against that. I think there's two things I wanted to touch on.

Speaker 5 You mentioned earlier the 18 months.

Speaker 5 I've heard 18 months and

Speaker 5 I come from the real estate industry previously in a former life, I like to call it.

Speaker 5 I've been hearing 18 months on a real estate pullback since

Speaker 5 2013. Hasn't happened.
Arizona is a bit of a unique market with how much people we're getting from

Speaker 5 California in that specific regard.

Speaker 5 I do think, like, I am hearing from enough people that I trust, like, from an investment perspective, that something like everybody's kind of cautious about 2022 right now.

Speaker 5 They're not like not being aggressive, but they're being like,

Speaker 5 it's not allowed aggression right now. Like, it has been.

Speaker 8 It's not full throttle.

Speaker 5 Yeah. And I'm hearing the same thing from like the investment side of things, both PE firms.

Speaker 8 I mean, the

Speaker 5 investment, I mean, the PE firms in insurance right now, they're killing their ROIs right now. But

Speaker 5 I'm hearing kind of the same thing, like everybody's really aggressive and bullish on funding companies right now. If you're following that at all, I mean, it's a frothy, frothy market.

Speaker 5 I think that's going to continue, but I think people are going to start latching down a little bit going into next year. Like, I don't think it's going to be quite the same as it is now right now.

Speaker 5 I think there's a lot of, I think people are just kind of assuming like, hey, we've had a course.

Speaker 5 And it's well overdue. And I think there's some cautious going on.
That doesn't mean that things aren't still going to be aggressive.

Speaker 5 I think there's some cautious, a little bit more cautious coming into play.

Speaker 8 There's just, there's also some major, undeniable macro trends that have changed with the new administration.

Speaker 8 I mean, there's more ships circling the United States that can't get, I mean, try to buy an air conditioner right now.

Speaker 5 Right.

Speaker 8 Try to buy.

Speaker 5 I can't get a second car key for my car right now. Right.

Speaker 8 I mean, so, and it's probably it's exists. It's just on a ship somewhere out in the middle of the ocean and it can't dock.

Speaker 8 And again, that not to get political although i could easy um you know that's a real macro trend that could drastically impact our economy that if it starts to slow down you don't want to be throwing you know overvalued money uh really you know really cheap money at companies if you're if you're a uh a vc or a pe company you do not want to be throwing really cheap money at people when you see this coming because you have no long you have no idea how long it's going to last you got all this stuff with taxes you have all the stuff with you know you Janny Yellen saying that she's going to tax unrealized capital gains' income, which is friggin' bananas.

Speaker 5 You want to talk, I know, we've been, I know, we've been having some Twitter threads on that.

Speaker 8 You want to start destroying the investment community, you know, there's a real good way to do it. Um,

Speaker 8 so you know, I look at all this stuff, and then, you know, and then, like you said, I, you know, maybe some of our sources are the same, maybe some of them are different, but um,

Speaker 8 I'm hearing that there's a slowdown coming, and and what I think that means is

Speaker 8 there are people that are more connected and way smarter than the two of us who've already been given a boatload of money that know that's coming.

Speaker 8 And they, if they want their next round, which they're going to, which they have to live and die by, they are going to push hard. That's where a lot of my 18 to 24 months come from.

Speaker 5 So I agree. And that's what I found interesting is like, and you, and you know this, we, and I mean, we can get into this if you want, but like, we didn't, we don't have to live.

Speaker 5 The nice part about what we did at Better Agency is we bootstrapped this from the start. And so we don't have to live and die by our fundraise.

Speaker 5 Like we may not ever raise another dollar again because we just don't need to or want to.

Speaker 5 If the opportunity presents itself and there's, there's, it makes sense to, then maybe we will.

Speaker 5 But I think the interesting part is my realization that the insured tech community is going after small, small market commercial.

Speaker 5 Like that general liability, that cyber policy, things that they feel right wrong are indifferent. We can get in that debate, like like that debate.

Speaker 5 We were at, I think, Brain Share and I got a crash course in cyber liability for about 45 minutes. Yeah, that was good.
That was a good conversation. It was great for the first 15 minutes.

Speaker 5 And then you guys, you guys blew my mind. And I had to check out there for a little bit.
But,

Speaker 5 you know, I mean, they think they can do that. And that's where they're going.
They're going after the personal lines and they're going after the small commercial.

Speaker 5 And the reason is, is I dug in the numbers, it makes sense. Auto compared to home is three, it's a three to one ratio.
There's 3x the money to be made and personal lines auto compared to home.

Speaker 5 I had no idea same thing goes with general liability and cyber liability is any company that gets over about a quarter million dollars on average is actually getting those policies yeah um at some regard and they feel like they can standardize that for a company that's under a couple million dollars in revenue because it's basically the same as long as you're not doing anything that's vastly different yeah um

Speaker 5 and so i i think that leads into as an independent agency a lot a lot of the saying has been at least since i've been in the industry has

Speaker 5 standardize your personal lines, figure that out, and then move into small market commercial.

Speaker 5 And I think what we're going to have to continue to see a shift is how can you create processes and you utilize and leverage technology to sell more personal lines in small market commercial so that you can become more of an advisor for your high net worth clients, whether that's mid-market commercial or you're doing some non-standard stuff on the personal lines.

Speaker 5 um or doing becoming more of that advisor role i i think it gets blown out of proportion like oh independents are going to go away it's like they said the same thing with with realtors.

Speaker 5 If you follow like OfferPad and some of that new real estate tech that's come into play, it's really heavy in Arizona.

Speaker 5 The reality is that real estate agents have been having the best years of their life since they've entered because it's more competition. People get better.
You have to change your game. And

Speaker 5 I believe this to be true in insurance. And

Speaker 5 I may be wrong here, but I don't believe that. Just like in real estate, the largest purchase of people's lives, they're going to use technology.
I don't believe in insurance.

Speaker 5 I believe they'd rather call somebody and talk to them and make sure they're making the right decision.

Speaker 5 That might not always be the case, but I feel like I have enough backing in what's going on in the economy overall, whether it's real estate. Look at barbershops.

Speaker 5 Barbershops are on a 10% increase year over year since 2014. Why? Because people don't want to go to supercuts.
They want to go to a barbershop. They want that one-on-one connection.

Speaker 5 And I believe that it's like, you can call me. You can tell me I'm reaching in that comparison, but I don't think I am.

Speaker 5 I think it has to go with the mindset and the culture of a younger generation that they want to have that personal relationship, but they want things to be done

Speaker 5 efficiently. And I think that's where we got to catch up.

Speaker 8 Yeah. It's barbershops with an app that you get to schedule when you can walk in.
The days of walking into a barbershop and sitting there for three hours, people don't have the time for that.

Speaker 5 Yeah, you're not doing that anymore.

Speaker 8 But to know that you're going to get that personalized service, that they know what your cut is.

Speaker 8 I mean, that's, I go to a, well, technically, I go to a hairstylist, but she, she like, you know, she knows when I sit down in the chair, we literally pick up our conversation from the last time I was there.

Speaker 8 She knows exactly what the cut. I don't have to say do this this unless I want something different, which I never do.
And the process takes a half hour. I'm out the door.

Speaker 5 I've thought, I've had the same guy cut my hair for 10 years. Yeah.

Speaker 5 Like, and I've lived across, I've lived in Philly, I've lived in Ohio, I've lived in a couple different places, and I got a little shaggy sometimes. Same person's cut my hair for 10 years.
Yeah.

Speaker 8 It's, and, and so I, I agree with that part. What I will say is, um,

Speaker 8 what I will say to to to what you just said is, I think not everybody,

Speaker 8 I think

Speaker 8 there is something to, so I'm going to take my own experience. So I am going very broad in small commercial.
We write, we are not niches are in the riches. We write freaking everything.

Speaker 8 And when I say everything, I mean 95 plus percent of the class codes, we write them. It's not easy.
It's freaking brutal some days.

Speaker 8 But it's our mission, which the problem we're trying to solve. So, so taking some of the lessons that I've learned from that,

Speaker 8 I would always,

Speaker 8 I just think

Speaker 8 the riches are in the niches. I don't know that a local agency should be personal, small commercial, and middle market.

Speaker 8 I don't think that that's the right path because, because here's what I'm telling you, if you're in all three of those things, I'm going to take your small commercial business.

Speaker 8 I'm going to take it from you. I'm going to drop in your back door.
I'm going to take your customer. I'm going to give them better service on their terms and they're going to talk to somebody.

Speaker 8 So, but I couldn't handle your middle market account the way you can and i certainly can't handle your personal lines the way you can so my point in saying that is if you're going to be small commercial i think you might be able to be small commercial and some personal i think you might be able to be personal and some small commercial but if if we're going to try to be all three of those things i think you're going to get torched and the reason is because

Speaker 8 there is everybody is attacking there are there are billions of dollars and i'm not part of that billions but i'm just smarter than those people. There are billions.
That's my show. I get to say that.

Speaker 5 So this is my fantasy land.

Speaker 8 You know, there, no, I'm kidding. But there are billions of dollars, like you said, that have already been deployed in the marketplace with people who have, that are attacking all of these spots.

Speaker 8 So, and, and, and small commercial is a skill set. It, you know, the going thing has always been, it's unprofitable.
Stay away from it. It's unprofitable.
You can't write it.

Speaker 5 You got to believe that.

Speaker 8 Yeah. No, it is.

Speaker 8 If you aren't properly set up to do it if you're not using tools like tarmaca if you're not using automation tools like better agency if you're not if you're not giving them the quality they can get from next go take a look at next user experience outside the fact you can't talk to a human next is brilliant outside of the fact that you can't talk to a human if they could figure that part out i would be worried as about them Right.

Speaker 5 And I think that's the, that, that's the thing. It's like, hey, I agree with you.
I think you do need a niche down. You need to know what you're doing.
I think

Speaker 5 um

Speaker 5 what surprised me most was just that the insured tech community is going after that small market i i i didn't in my mind i just hadn't assumed that i don't think most people know that yeah um i don't and i agree with you like next like what they do is great they just can't figure out the human interaction and that's what my argument is i don't even want to say argument or i guess my point of like what my post was or what i've been talking about online is If you're an independent insurance agency and your niche or where you play is either personal lines or small market commercial, You need to have the tech stack in place so that

Speaker 5 you can compete on an efficiency level with the insured tech space, but offer that local community expert that independents, like basically an advisor role that independents are known for being great at.

Speaker 5 I think you've got to figure out how to do both because I don't think the insured tech space is going to figure that out.

Speaker 5 You want to know why I feel that way is they're going to figure out the tech side of this. I believe that they will.
And they already have for the most part.

Speaker 5 And it's because they're bringing on all the money from like hotels.com and kayak and all those guys that did the travel industry and blew that up in the early 2000s. They're now all in insure tech.

Speaker 5 There's, there's a reason for that. You want to know what they are all terrible at? They all run call centers.

Speaker 8 Yes.

Speaker 5 They have no ability how to to actually have a high level of customer support. So they're going to figure out the technology piece, right? Most of them already have.

Speaker 5 They're going to have that piece down. They are not going to figure out the human interaction piece here because what do what do you and I know about insurance is it's not difficult.

Speaker 5 It's not easy, right?

Speaker 5 It takes time and you've got to be good to people you've got to genuinely care about them to provide a high level of service that is not what the insure tech is going to bring the insured tech is going to bring the space the problem is is where the the industry is headed what consumers are going to want is that insurance piece of it or that technology piece of it but you've got to figure out how to wrap the insurance piece and still provide that high level of customer service and i don't think that's what insurance tech is going to get see and this is where i think we have to in some so one most well the people listening to this show will will are going to be nodding their head at what you say and agreeing with you.

Speaker 8 A lot of the peers of the people listening to this show are just simply not going to do it. They're just not going to.
I mean, dude, I've been banging my head off the wall since 2009.

Speaker 8 Well, my first keynote on content marketing was in 2010. Think about that.
I have been preaching this digitization message for 11 years now. And think about how many people are actually doing it.

Speaker 8 I mean, that's. 377 keynotes the last time that I checked, right? That's ridiculous.
Still isn't happening.

Speaker 8 So my point point in saying well maybe i just suck at it but i would like to believe that and there's many others not like i'm the only one my point in saying that is i think a lot of people are just not going to do it so there are a lot of people that are the ones that do are going to be able to reap

Speaker 8 more

Speaker 8 faster than their predecessors i think that's the win is that they get more faster so the agency that took 10 years to get to a certain number is only going to take three years to get to that same number if you digitize.

Speaker 8 That's what, that's, I think, a big part of it. The other side of it is I think there's a, some agencies agencies are going to have to reimagine who they are.

Speaker 8 I think they think about themselves, there are agencies that think about themselves as sales oriented today that are doing things in a way that is not, you're not going to be able to produce sales at the same level that you were be able to.

Speaker 8 And there is a major opportunity for

Speaker 8 independent agency-minded individuals to create that service arm that the insurtechs need.

Speaker 8 And what I mean by that is stop being a sales entity and start being a service entity and partner with people who are really good at acquisition and be the service arm to their acquisition arm.

Speaker 8 And that is a major, major opportunity in the space.

Speaker 5 I think, I think, you know, and I would agree. I think, you know, I was actually talking to David Carruthers about this and I think he said it really well.

Speaker 5 It's like, at the end of the day, like an independent agency, it's a sales organization. And it doesn't matter if you're focused on actual front end sales, servicing, retention, or cross-selling.

Speaker 5 Like at the end of the day, what you need to be doing is selling. And that includes the service part.

Speaker 5 Like if you don't have a great service arm to your agency, A, you need, like, to your point, you need to partner with somebody, but you need to figure that out.

Speaker 5 You need to figure out how to, for your clients, supply a great certain, a great experience of service. Because if they're just going back to the carrier, you know what happens every time?

Speaker 5 I love Love Boxes. They talk about this.

Speaker 5 You know, every time, like, if let's, let's say it's with State Auto and they go to State Auto, you know what they're going to say on on State Auto's website, bundle your insurance, call us now.

Speaker 5 Like they're literally going to try to take your customer. Like, if you don't have a good service arm to your, you're going to lose business.
Like, we see it all the time.

Speaker 5 People come to better agency and they're like, yeah, I have a, you know, 95% renewal rate. And we look at their data, I'm like,

Speaker 5 it's like 84 at best. Like, at best, it's, it's mid 80s.
And the reality is, is like, if you're really intentional about the service side and the renewal side, we can get that up into the mid 90s.

Speaker 5 But like, most people don't put in as much effort on the service side and what that actually means from cross-selling and the actual numbers behind

Speaker 5 what it means towards to your client retention to actually cross-sell it, cross-sell somebody and bring in so that they're not just monoline. They have two or three or four policies with you.

Speaker 5 It's a massive difference. It's why Amazon is so successful.
They, nobody knows this, but they had a monopoly on the, like they created the one click upsell.

Speaker 5 like most people don't know that and they created certain technology to do that that wasn't released to the public amazon owned that until literally like 2016.

Speaker 5 That some part of that technology, and I don't, you might know better than I, what that actually was, but that one-click upsell, it just changed the game and they owned that until like 2016.

Speaker 8 One of the most brilliant things that Amazon ever did was people who buy this also buy this and this.

Speaker 8 So, so think about this. Yeah.
They didn't just say

Speaker 8 when Will Shaw and people like Will Shaw buy a new football jersey, they also buy the matching matching socks and the matching football or just the matching socks.

Speaker 8 They said they buy the jersey and they get the socks and they get the belt.

Speaker 8 So now you're going, well, I don't really need the belt, but shit, those socks look dope. I'll keep the socks.

Speaker 8 So now you went to get a jersey and you just bought a $30 pair of socks instead, you know, and maybe you buy all three, but you're probably going to buy at least one because the cheapo takes both things off, but you're not a cheapo, Will Shaw.

Speaker 8 You want the jersey, and because you're a true fan, you're also going to get the socks, but you don't really need the belt. And now they just got the upsell.

Speaker 8 When you think about that thing and how we're almost at this point,

Speaker 8 we've been brainwashed to think: what are the other things that people buy when they buy this thing? It's insane. It's just part of your consciousness.

Speaker 8 When you go to Amazon now, you're like, oh, today. So, today I wanted to get my kid.

Speaker 8 We're really deep into Little League. And

Speaker 8 I wanted to get him those

Speaker 8 pyo, pie, pie, pile, pyro, pylo, whatever they're called, squishy balls, the heavy balls. So you toss them and they hit them and they're heavy and it teaches them to hit through the ball.
Okay, great.

Speaker 8 So I went to Amazon because that's where you go. And I didn't actually end up buying the ones on Amazon.
I bought them someplace else. But the one, but

Speaker 8 I put them in my thing. And then I scrolled down.
It was like, you also get the T and the special net that comes with it. So now you have the full set of stuff and

Speaker 5 for a split second my finger hovered over add all three to cart and then i was like no no no i don't want these ones i want to go someplace that's what it's funny yeah that that's brilliant it's the brilliant first of all i tell my wife this like i have a 16 month old daughter now like if i ever start another business again it's for sure going after parents like i'm selling stuff to kids and babies and stuff because there's not like there's not a dollar amount that parents won't won't spend on their kids.

Speaker 5 And I now know that firsthand. So it's like anything to do with kids it's like that's the business to be in

Speaker 7 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 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, et cetera.

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Speaker 7 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 7 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.

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Let's get back to the episode.

Speaker 8 Oh, dude, yeah,

Speaker 8 I bought him this.

Speaker 8 I bought him this bat.

Speaker 8 It's a training bat called Camwood Bats. Anyone who's into baseball

Speaker 8 may know about Camwood Bats, but like Tony Gwen recommends them and a bunch of other hitters, you know, obviously when he was still with us.

Speaker 5 But

Speaker 8 it's, and what's funny is, so, so this is like straight out of ClickFunnels stuff, right? And the bats are great. They sell them at dicks, they sell them at sporting goods stores.

Speaker 8 So it's not like the bats are a scam, but like the way these guys have built their sales operation, again, this is coming back to insurance, right? Is like a click funnel.

Speaker 8 I think they literally use ClickFunnels. It looked very familiar.
So it was like, I bought the regular size bat for his age. And then it's, well, for, you know, would be 97 today, 47.

Speaker 8 You can also get the one-handed bat and then, and the 30-day training program. But understand, if you click off this page, you know, you're not getting the one-handed bat in the training program.

Speaker 8 You have to come back and buy it for full price.

Speaker 8 And, you know, ultimately, I didn't do that because I probably at this point, like turned off by ClickFunnels, but, but my, but my, but, but I think this is the idea.

Speaker 8 And I think this is what we're trying to say to people if they, if they haven't already stopped listening, um, is that we don't do that at all, zero as an industry. For us, it's, oh, you need auto.

Speaker 8 Okay, I'll write your auto. Hey, maybe someday, please, if you're thinking about us, would you like give us a shot? I hate give us a shot.

Speaker 7 I hate give us a shot at your whatever.

Speaker 8 It's like, no,

Speaker 8 you did your auto with us. Let us do your home.
You obviously made that decision. Like, come work with us.
And hey, have you even thought about an umbrella?

Speaker 8 Because 17 people in the last month who look just like you bought umbrellas from us too. And, you know what I mean? And this is the type of way that we need to think about having everything.

Speaker 8 Like

Speaker 8 you, you, you, we can't survive on one thing.

Speaker 5 Every client you have should have every single policy with you. And like, and the problem is, is like, we think that's ideal, and that's not the baseline.
It needs to be the baseline.

Speaker 5 Like, every client should have everything with you. And, and don't get me wrong.
If you're like, hey, I don't touch commercial and one of my clients needs this.

Speaker 5 Well, then you need to need to be the liaison to refer that out and have some kind of partnership with somebody.

Speaker 5 But you need to own that. Like, we've, we've set the expect.

Speaker 5 Let me back up. Like, I feel like the expectation has been set.
Like, that's the ideal. That's the pinnacle.
That's where we need to be. Like, we can't actually get there.

Speaker 5 That's what everybody says is like the pipe dream. No, that needs to be the baseline.

Speaker 5 Like that needs to be the baseline, in my opinion, is you, you need to own your client relationship from start to finish.

Speaker 5 And if you're not an expert in what they need, then you need to, you need to own that too and refer that out.

Speaker 5 Don't get me wrong, but like the baseline needs to be you write everything for a household. Yes.

Speaker 8 I would say you need to write everything that you can write with that person.

Speaker 8 And

Speaker 8 that relationship.

Speaker 8 I wholeheartedly agree.

Speaker 8 You know, this is something at Rogue that we've really worked on and we still, we work on it every day is we use like a Billie Williams style

Speaker 8 declination sheet, right? And what we're working on is building that into our actual automation process. How do we tag and all that kind of stuff?

Speaker 8 We have cross-sells set up specific to certain industries for things like bonding and cyber and EPLI.

Speaker 8 And I'm actually just talking, I'm talking to a Berkeley company right now about, about EPLI auto, you know, automatic cross-sells and quote bind and that kind of stuff.

Speaker 8 And like, how do we, you know, these are the kind of things like, you know, people listen to me on the show talk about like propeller bonds and pro writers.

Speaker 8 And like, I'm not lazy, you know what I mean? Like, like, this isn't, I'm not, I'm not advocating for some of these companies because we're lazy. You know what I mean?

Speaker 8 It's, you know, people are like, oh, you should be talking to your customers. If my customer can ask six questions and get a cyber quote from nine different companies, I'm doing them them a service.

Speaker 8 And if that comes through an automated text message or email that's dripped out at a certain number of days after they become a client, and now we can actually then, if seven days after with one reminder, they don't actually purchase, we can then send them a declination form and say, hey, we just want to let you know you did not purchase cyber from us.

Speaker 8 We had sent you some things. We talked about it.
We just want you to sign this declination form. We're doing a service to them.

Speaker 8 That's helping your client. And I just just feel like we just let that stuff go into the ether and forget that it even exists.

Speaker 8 And, you know, I know in large part, this is part of what you guys are helping solve is make it so that doesn't happen.

Speaker 8 But like, it's just, we too easily forget that someone is a client once they've become a client.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I agree. I mean, it just falls, it just falls through.
And like, you know, it's the, I mean, it's still cliche, but like, at least to me and you probably, it's cliche.

Speaker 5 And maybe it is to the industry, maybe it's not. But like, like,

Speaker 5 as a whole, I just don't know if the industry understands like how much easier it is to sell something to an existing client. Like that is like business 101, right?

Speaker 5 Like we know that somebody is 70% more likely to purchase from us if they've already purchased us from the past. So why, why, why, why do you come and say, you know what?

Speaker 5 My book of business is 80% monoline and I have a thousand households. Like.

Speaker 5 Listen, like in two months, three months, you should be able to increase your revenue by 50%. Like that's just reality um

Speaker 8 i think some people just don't want to do it because they're kind of you know checking it in i i see that sometimes probably more than i care to in the industry which kind of is a little bit frustrating to me um but i think some people just don't know because it's not like i said i don't i don't think that's been the baseline the standard set i think that's like the pipe dream that's been set from an expectation perspective yeah i think to be fair to to people as well they're depending on where you are and the maturation or the season of your business plays a large role in this as well Yep when you first get started and I know you've seen this from some of the clients you've had and all the people that you've talked to and and it's what I live for for for a little while Thankfully, it feels like we're starting to move into a new season, but you are just surviving for a while.

Speaker 5 Yeah, survival mode.

Speaker 8 Yeah. And the unfortunate part is

Speaker 8 I think for some of us, we never, whether we, whether we actually like financially get out of survival mode or not, I feel like mentally, we never trigger out a survival mode.

Speaker 8 I was, I was talking to a guy today briefly about something who had a question. And he said, you know, my, my, he was asking me about VAs.

Speaker 8 And he, you know, we were on the phone for 10 minutes. So I'm not going to say this is a super long quite call, but,

Speaker 8 you know, he just, he was like, you know, he was asking me about Agency VA because that's who we use. And, you know, I was giving him my feedback, which is obviously very positive.

Speaker 8 My longest tenured employees in Agen VA.

Speaker 8 And

Speaker 8 he was like, well, you know, and I said to him, I said, the key to any VAs, whether you use Agency VA or someone else,

Speaker 8 although I highly recommend Agency VA,

Speaker 8 agencyva.com,

Speaker 8 is

Speaker 4 you

Speaker 8 have to have process in place, right? You have to be willing to manage the person. Like they're an employee.

Speaker 5 I said, this isn't a robot that you're hiring.

Speaker 8 You have to have process and procedures and you have to track and do some auditing.

Speaker 8 But if you can get those things in line, man, you get a really, you can get a really high functioning process driven employee for a price that will not break your budget. That was my feedback.

Speaker 8 And so, well, Ryan, geez, you know, we just struggle with that because, you know, we're doing this and this, and I'm responsible for this. And I got to do this.
And we got to do this and this.

Speaker 8 And I go, how long have you been in business? 15 years.

Speaker 8 I was, I like my head almost hit the table. I was like, you're 15 years in.

Speaker 8 You have, I think you had like 13 or 14 people and you are, you as the CEO are still doing like eight or nine different functions in the agency.

Speaker 8 Like give up 30 grand and and get yourself an assistant or something like like i'm not trying to be judgmental because we're all in different situations but if you have that large of a business and you are still doing nine functions as a as a leader you're actually doing a disservice to your business this regardless if it's insurance you're doing a disservice to your business like you gotta you you gotta get out of survival mode and get into a different mindset.

Speaker 5 Yeah, and I agree. And honestly, I would say to your community too, because what, that's why I'm passionate about independent agencies.

Speaker 5 It's like, it's the true local, like, it's the true local small business. And I love like how that affects the communities,

Speaker 5 especially when you talk to like, you know, we know some of the same people, but like you talk to some of the better agency users and people like where they're at in the states location wise.

Speaker 5 And like those communities aren't necessarily thriving communities. And it's really cool what they're able to do.
And I get really fired up about that stuff. Yeah.
But.

Speaker 5 you know, I hate recommending this book because I think it's so played out. But like there, there's the reason I think think it's good is just this idea behind like it's the myth.

Speaker 5 You probably, I mean, everybody's read that book, I feel like, but it's that idea of you, when you start a business, you're the technician.

Speaker 5 You're essentially the producer, a one-man band, and you're the producer. And then eventually you get another producer and you kind of do more of the CSR work.

Speaker 5 And eventually you become a C, you get a CSR and you kind of become the manager. And then eventually you get enough producers and CSRs, you get a manager.

Speaker 5 And I don't know that people always know how to make that transition as their agency is growing.

Speaker 5 Like I was actually talking to somebody about this, I think, yesterday, like better agency, when we started, I did sales, I did onboarding, I did, I was a product manager, I worked with our technology tech team, like I did literally everything.

Speaker 5 Now I think we're around 20-ish or 21 or 22 employees. I don't, I don't, I'm rarely in a product meeting.
I am rarely in a sales meeting. And I'm never in a customer success meeting.

Speaker 5 I get, there's like, I'm still involved in a lot of that.

Speaker 5 And there's other things I do, but like we built a rock star team and I have like the things I'm working on today are the things people are going to see in three or four months.

Speaker 5 And I don't know that, you know, as I feel like some of those agencies have struggled to make that transition is as your company grows, you've got to start working on what's coming out in three months instead of operating on that day-to-day, like it's that classic line of like working in your business versus working out your business.

Speaker 5 Don't get me wrong, I struggle. What was I doing before, you know?

Speaker 5 What was I doing before this is I was sitting on hold with the Marriott because I need to adjust a reservation for our team going after IOA in the next month because I need to adjust something, couldn't do it online.

Speaker 5 Like at the end of the day, I'm a glorified admin assistant to our own team because that's just, that's the way it is. We're still a very small company in terms of SAS and technology.

Speaker 5 So it's, it's all good fun.

Speaker 8 What, what, what,

Speaker 8 I'm going to give you the reason why most people do not make this leap that you have made.

Speaker 8 It is the little, is the little throwaway caveat that you just added onto the end when you said, there are still a lot of things that I do. Right.
So you said, I used to be part of this, but I'm not.

Speaker 8 I used to be part of this, but I'm not. I used to be part of this, but there's still a lot of things that I do.

Speaker 8 And I know what you meant, but that little mental trigger is why, is that you, and this isn't a knock on you, because I would have probably said the same exact friggin thing, but it's this idea of like.

Speaker 8 you stepping out of those processes and not you specifically, you, the broader, all of us, you know, us, us stepping out of these processes as leaders or managers, you know, whether it's departmentally or organizationally,

Speaker 8 because we stepped stepped out of a process and gave autonomy to someone inside our business, there's this sense of like, well, what am I doing now?

Speaker 5 Like that was my role.

Speaker 8 Now I'm not doing that role anymore. And

Speaker 8 it's hard to say, I'm going to add more value to less things

Speaker 8 when you were

Speaker 8 all the things at one point. That is a very difficult thing to do.

Speaker 8 It's one of the reasons why when I'm talking to someone in insured tech in particular, and especially

Speaker 8 someone who's coming from the technology side or the business side, not the insurance side.

Speaker 8 One of the pieces that I vet very hard on when I'm trying to like figure out how I feel about somebody or whether or not they're going to be successful is how much respect they have for

Speaker 8 what it takes to get an independent agency off the ground and where this industry came from. Those two things to me are cornerstones to insure tech success.

Speaker 8 Insurance technology success. I want to say insure tech because it feels so much.
The insurance technology success is like, if you don't under, if you can't respect the fact that

Speaker 8 even the three-person agency in the 7,000-person town,

Speaker 8 it was incredibly difficult to get that up off the ground and keep going. And those are incredibly hardworking people.

Speaker 8 And you can't understand and you have no respect for the fact that we've been doing this for as a collective 463 years or whatever it is at this point.

Speaker 5 Like

Speaker 8 if you don't, if you don't have respect for those two things, you're really going to struggle in this marketplace.

Speaker 8 And even if you're not pitching into the independent space, just working in the industry, you're going to struggle.

Speaker 8 I look at lemonade and then I'll be quiet here for a second, but I look at lemonade and I.

Speaker 8 Bleet D, just as big a one as it gets.

Speaker 8 And the way he came into the industry, the way he's handled himself, the way he's talked about independent agents, the way he's talked about about legacy carriers, zero respect.

Speaker 8 And while I am positive that he has made a tremendous amount of personal wealth from growing that company, IPOing and all that, that company will never even scratch the potential success that they could have had if he had come in respectfully, gained relationships, built bridges.

Speaker 8 That company would be 10X where it is today if he had come in in the right way and had respect for the people that came before him, he did not need to do the things he did.

Speaker 8 What he did was, was burn bridges, isolate that company. And granted, today he's probably on his second yacht somewhere after the yeah.

Speaker 5 I mean, that's fine for him, but like, if that's really, you know, we get into that.

Speaker 5 I, I want to touch on one thing and then I'll stop on the whole like agency success because I think this will resonate with you two. Cause just like, I feel like we connect on the sports level too.

Speaker 5 Like I'm, my life is a walking sports cliche. I like try to avoid it.
And now I just own it because like my team loves it. and that's kind of how we operate.

Speaker 5 It's like, yeah, I think the coolest thing about independence is like, you hear a lot of people on like their core values, like, hey, we're a family.

Speaker 5 We actually intentionally left that off at Better Agency. We're like, hey, we're a sports team, like, we're a team.

Speaker 5 And so, one of the things, like, when you talk about like, hey, as you're growing your company, what do you, where do you like, how do you feel like you're still involved in what you're doing and helping?

Speaker 5 And, you know, now that you're not producing anymore, doing this or that, like, I look at it as like,

Speaker 5 I, I ask a lot of questions, but I hire people that are better than me in every, every way. Like our, like our VP of products, the guy, he built the campaign builder before automation was even a term.

Speaker 5 Like he built that before anybody had a visual. Like our UX designer, like, it's way better.
Like our, our sales rep is better than me.

Speaker 5 Our, everybody on our team is better than what I did in that individual role. And so.

Speaker 5 I think as a culture, what we've created is like this idea of performance and we have a lot of fun and we treat like just like a sports team, like you're, you're family and your friends, but like,

Speaker 5 and this might sound wrong to some people, but like we're going to put the best person in that position. Like when I played college football, I was a safety.

Speaker 5 I was recruited as a safety and I moved to tight end and I moved to tight end. I moved from safety to tight end.
Why did that move happen?

Speaker 5 Because as a team, the coaches decided, hey, we have an athlete that's a better linebacker, better safety than Will, but he is still good enough to be on the field. Where can we put him on the field?

Speaker 5 They literally moved me all the way to tight end. And I was able to make that a profession.
And I look at it the same way about about our agency.

Speaker 5 Like when we, when we're bringing talent, like we hire the best people, irregardless of position.

Speaker 5 I think this will really resonate is like, when you talk about like the bills and why they think the bills are good right now, and I'm going, I'm reaching all over the place, but I'll get to my point here in a second.

Speaker 8 You're about to make my day.

Speaker 5 You talk about the bills. You talk about like, I know the Steelers are having a down a year, but why I think they're always good.

Speaker 5 You talk about the Patriots, the Ravens, like these staple franchises that. And I'm putting the bills in that category because I think that's where they're at now.

Speaker 8 With McDermott, they are.

Speaker 5 Yeah. McDermott on bills, yeah.
Right. And I i think that's i'm probably one of the first people to say that and

Speaker 5 but the reason i say that is they don't draft for need they draft best player available they draft best player available it does not matter you don't draft for need you draft best player available i don't know an organization that does it better than like the steelers or the ravens the pats and i think that's what the bills are doing and why they're having success you take the best player available and you move people around and you figure it out like they drafted literally a corner uh the ravens this past year they drafted a corner and they said you're never going to play corner for us we have the best corners in the league you're going to play safety you're going to play safety for us like they draft best player available and they figure it out and i think that's how kind of we look at better agencies we we get the best person in the door and we put them in that position we move people around and i think that's a good way to i think that's why we've had success in in our team and our culture and i think going back to you know, what do you do as a company as you're trying to grow, like where do you find that is try to go and try to hire people that are better than you and ask questions and learn from them because you getting better is not going to, that's, that's so limited in your growth as your company.

Speaker 5 Like, if, if I get my IQ better by one point or 10 points or whatever, or if I can get a little bit better, that's so limited. Can I get 15 or 20 people a little bit better?

Speaker 5 That's going to be way better growth as a company for our community and for clients.

Speaker 8 Yeah. And I think, you know,

Speaker 8 Unfortunately, ego still plays a tremendously large role in our industry.

Speaker 8 Just look at how many last names are the names of agencies, not knocking any of you who have them, but to pretend as if that's not an ego play would be bananas, like

Speaker 8 basically opposite the definition.

Speaker 8 And it just, my point in saying that is like,

Speaker 8 it's very,

Speaker 8 it is difficult for a lot of people to do this. You and I are saying this.
I think it's one of the reasons that we connect. We're cut from the same mold.

Speaker 8 I purposely did not name this the Hanley agency or anything even remotely close to that because I didn't want it to be about me, right?

Speaker 8 I can't wait for the day that I'm like the 20th best player on this. And we've never, we don't really refer to our, we don't go full sports analogy, but we also don't think of ourselves as a family.

Speaker 8 We're more like a crew, um, I guess you could say right now, plus, we're small, so it's tough for us to be a team, we're kind of a crew, but um, but but that same thought process, and my point in saying that is like

Speaker 8 if you want this kind of culture, like you have to also live that culture. Like, you, there is, there is this, there is this authoritarian aspect to way some agencies are run.

Speaker 8 And I can say this because I get, since I started hiring producers, I get calls almost daily from producers who are like,

Speaker 8 oh my God, I'm suffocating, or I have to do this, and this doesn't work. You know, so I'm getting, I get a lot of these insights.
And

Speaker 8 it is insane.

Speaker 5 The

Speaker 8 I built this, be happy. You're getting a paycheck mentality still exists in our industry.
Now, I love that it does because I am going to poach every one of those

Speaker 8 agents and bring them over to Rogue and I'm going to dominate. Like, that's fine with me.
And I'm okay saying that out loud because I know you're not going to change.

Speaker 8 If you're doing, if you're living that today, it's not going to change. And if you're in that environment, call me.
And,

Speaker 8 but, but that has to go. You have to.

Speaker 8 If you want this type of culture and you really want people to shine, I was literally just talking to my client success person. She lives in Florida.
I've never met her in person.

Speaker 8 She's an absolute friggin rock star. And she, and I said to her today, I said, how long have you worked here? And she was like, well, nine weeks, 10 weeks.
And I was like, holy shit.

Speaker 8 Like, look at how much you have done in 10 weeks. Like things I didn't even tell her to do.
Like.

Speaker 8 like, you know, adding a whole tagging system based on how many days it's going to take to get a quote back so that the producer knows in a in a in a finger snap when they should be expecting that quote back versus not.

Speaker 8 And like, these are the little, like you said with your, with the campaign manager builder, you know, like, these are the things that if you give people

Speaker 8 respect and, and, and some, and some space and then hold them accountable to the things they say they're going to do, and you live and breathe, just, just those three simple things.

Speaker 8 There's a lot more to it, but even those, those three simple things, you will get brilliance that you didn't even know we needed.

Speaker 8 Like you didn't even, I didn't know that we needed that tagging system. I had no idea, but my producer loves it and she loves it and it's working.

Speaker 8 And it's like, those are the kind of things that if you try to have your hand in everything, you're just never going to get out of your business.

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 5 I

Speaker 5 agree.

Speaker 8 Let's talk about how more, how, how, how awesome the bills are more.

Speaker 8 That would be an awesome witness.

Speaker 5 I think the bills are great. So I'm biased towards the bills now.
I got you on my Twitter feed.

Speaker 5 My brother-in-law, who lives down the road from me, is like just like a fantasy football expert, all into sports, but he's from Buffalo. He's like a massive Bills fan.

Speaker 5 So, I've got both of you guys constantly in my feed on the Bills. So, like, I feel like at this point in my life, I'm like, I'm a Bills fan.

Speaker 5 Like, if the Bills aren't playing like

Speaker 5 the Eagles, where I have some loyalty still, or the Ravens, just because I'm from Baltimore, I have some loyals there, or the Cardinals, because I live here in Arizona, like minus those three teams.

Speaker 5 And probably even then, like, I still probably root for the Bills. I'm not, first of all, I'm a Josh Allen stand.
Like, I stand by Josh Allen.

Speaker 5 Yeah, um, when they went and got what's his face from minnesota um

Speaker 5 gosh um stefon diggs

Speaker 5 yeah i was like that's the move that's the move um i thought i thought he was the best quarterback coming out that year followed by lamar jackson and i feel like i'm validated in that i feel like those two are the best um

Speaker 5 yeah i mean i i love josh allen i love the gunsinger gunslinger mentality but yeah between you and my brother-in-law man i'm just like I feel like a Monterey or Bills fan. I got family.

Speaker 5 So I think you and I have talked about this.

Speaker 5 Like I grew up in Baltimore, but uh all my family my mom's side they all came from italy they all migrated to rochester new york so i like i was in buffalo all the time yeah um so i was never a buffalo fan but like half my like most of my mom's family they're all buffalo fans like everybody in my family except the ones that i'm where i'm from specifically in baltimore everybody's either a ravens fan or a bills fan so i'm like i feel like an honorary member yeah hey we'll take we'll take all that we can get that's the best part of being uh a bills fan is that we'll take everybody it doesn't matter it's uh bills fans don't get enough credit for how they travel throughout the country.

Speaker 5 Like Bills fans are everywhere. They don't get enough credit.

Speaker 8 Yes. They're,

Speaker 8 well, it depends on how crazy you want to get, but there are Instagram feeds and Twitter feeds that you can follow of like the random places that you'll see, like hashtag Bills Mafia spray painted on things or like just the random places that you see it.

Speaker 8 You know, this is going to leadership, I guess, and just talking about Josh Allen because I

Speaker 8 really liked the Josh Allen pick. I won't say that I was sold on it.
I liked him.

Speaker 8 I liked him the best out of all the options, but I wasn't like, he's a shoe-in.

Speaker 5 And then,

Speaker 8 and then I saw before he even threw a pass, I saw the way he immediately embraced the culture of the town that he was coming to. He immediately, it was like uncanny.
He started, he finished it.

Speaker 8 So anytime he talks to the media, every single time he finishes by saying go bills, every time.

Speaker 5 There's no just like, what's this this place down in lsu go tigers it's every interview every time

Speaker 8 even if it's a three second interview yeah yeah stefan diggs caught the ball he's the best i love him to death go bills out he goes right and you're like and people are now like holy i mean when has someone

Speaker 8 so you think you know you think about how prima donna a quarterback could be if they wanted to be right right and here's this guy he just got this enormous contract and what's he doing he's he's he takes the linebacker who's tackling him on the long run reaches his hand around the back of the helmet and as the guy's tackling him he pile drives the linebacker's head into the turf just to say if you're going to tackle me you're coming down too and then jumps up and flexes and points and you can watch his mouth yell go bills yeah mother effort right and you're like holy god is there someone who has just completely embraced the culture of a town and and and my point in saying all that is not to go super bills or what, obviously, I love them and we're lucky.

Speaker 8 I mean, it's been so bad for so long, like to have him is amazing, but but I've, you really have to live this stuff.

Speaker 5 Like you got to,

Speaker 5 you've got to be ride or die. And like, that's the thing that, like, for me, that's why I'm a Josh Allen guy.

Speaker 5 Like, you see it, you know, and it's why like I'll ride with a guy like Baker or Lamar too, because you see it in those teams too.

Speaker 5 It's like, those organizations and those cities are like ride or die behind them because they're ride or die for their cities. Like, like, you've got to have that mentality.

Speaker 5 And I think you got to have the same in like our company. Like, I'll ride or die with the people on my team.
Like,

Speaker 5 we talk about it. Like, when, like, we didn't make easy decisions.
And you know, this journey a little bit that we went on a little bit better than most because we've had some candid conversations.

Speaker 5 Like,

Speaker 5 what we decided to do, like, we, like, we went to the team and we said, we're going to plant a flag on the hill. And this is ride or die.
We're going to die on this hill.

Speaker 5 Like, if this is where we die, this is where we make the stand. And we planted a flag and said, this, this idea of a sales-driven AMS, we will die on this hill because this is what needs to be done.

Speaker 6 Yep.

Speaker 5 And, you know, we'll see. We'll see if we live, you know, and survive it or if we die.

Speaker 5 But, like, it's so cool, like, bringing that type of ride or die mentality that you talk about in sports, like, and what makes those players great. And why people, I think, like, why us as fans can

Speaker 5 just be so behind them is because they have this feeling of like, well, they're rider or die. Like, I'll ride or die with Josh Allen then.
Like, Josh Allen is going to, he'll put it all on the line.

Speaker 5 I think that's like why you get so like why i get so like just enamored and and i can tell whether a quarterback is gonna be good right away because of that and how they throw the ball so i can tell you like if if zach wilson and win any other franchise except the jets he'd probably be a pro bowler

Speaker 8 god i hate zach wilson and the jets i do think he's going to be good but i think he's going to be great i just i can't wait till

Speaker 8 he's going to survive that organization yeah he's also not going to survive the bills because we're coming for him but yeah um you know i here here's here's to the point of playing a flag and then i want to be respectful of your time and and of our audiences but i i i could not agree more with that point um

Speaker 8 you know when when we took on our team when i started building the team right which was me it was me for a very long time and then i hired a va and i was terrible to him because i gave him no prizes and i finally started to figure that out but then i started to hire the broader team and now there's five of us including including our va

Speaker 8 and we made a decision about

Speaker 8 it, it was two weeks after we hired our most recent employee, Leslie, in Florida. So, this is probably

Speaker 8 the first week of August. And we got together as a team, and I said,

Speaker 8 personalized. I was like, we're not going to be a personalized agency.
I'm not saying it'll be never part of our business, but we are not going to be a personalized agency.

Speaker 8 We are wasting time, effort. It's not that I want to help people who need help.
And we do get some referrals and we do help agents who have clients that move here.

Speaker 8 And I love doing that because I love doing that. But, like, I'm talking about push into the market, marketing, driving, trying to be a personalized agency.
We're not going to be that.

Speaker 8 We are going to be small commercial. That's what we do.
That's who we are everywhere we think about it. And what's funny is, to your point about being a sales-driven AMS,

Speaker 8 man, when you give your team a target, they find ways to hit that target. And it might not be how you thought to hit that target.

Speaker 8 And that's the brilliance of giving your team space and respect and accountability, but then ultimately giving them that target.

Speaker 8 I mean, does your team, everyone listening, does your team know what your target is? Do they know for a fact what your target is? Do they know?

Speaker 8 And if they don't, there's a reason that you're not hitting your target. It's because they don't know where to point, where to aim.

Speaker 5 I can say this, like one of the targets we have, the sales-driven AMS, this is the hill we're going going to die on our company like our people love it and one of the things we throw out there is like we have this purposely our purpose as a company is to help independent agencies succeed and our mission is to help issue a billion dollars of new new written business premium and we track that through obviously downloads from the carriers and stuff like that that's how we're doing it we're trying to do it by our stretch goal is to do it by the end of next year actually downloaded premium and um

Speaker 5 you know we'll we'll see if we hit that but the point is is like we said everything we do have to align that. So it was so funny.
We were working on a project.

Speaker 5 We were talking about some product stuff. And one of our engineers,

Speaker 5 our engineer stood up in the meeting. He was like,

Speaker 5 is this going to help an independent agent issue more premium? And it's like,

Speaker 5 well, I don't know. Is it? And like, we like all the way to our lowest engineer,

Speaker 5 to our customer success people, to whomever, it's like, if we're going to make a decision, is this going to help independents issue new premium? Like our whole company is aligned to that.

Speaker 5 Like before we decide on anything, whether that could be a product feature, a marketing agenda that Nick does, if it's a customer success process, onboarding, is this going to help independence issue new premium?

Speaker 5 Because what blew my mind is me and our VP of product, like we're local here to Arizona, about half our team's remote. The other half is here in the Phoenix metropolitan area.

Speaker 5 We went on site to a client. We were like, take us through your process.
Right.

Speaker 5 And like, even on personal lines, man, like it is obnoxious.

Speaker 5 like it is obnoxious how many steps you've got to go through like let's say you get notified of a lead what do you got to to do to work that leave now you get you got to get this information how do you get that information now you got to put it in a rater now now you got to get that information now you got to put it into another system you got to deliver a proposal or do you want to call them do you want to schedule an appointment okay now they've accepted it now you got to go back to the care you got to re-enter all the like it is an obnoxious process so like

Speaker 5 and that's when the light bulb went off a couple months ago we're like we got to solve that problem we have to solve that's the hill like that's That's where this all came from was like in that meeting, we're like, oh, find an issue.

Speaker 5 Like, we have to, we have to solve that problem because it shouldn't take two three hours of manual effort to sell a personalized policy branch clear cover hippo openly done yeah

Speaker 5 they'll all integrate with you i mean you guys are probably already on it but like yeah i love openly yeah i love i actually tweeted this the other day and i like i like i only want like the carriers i talk to i'm like i i just want to work with carriers that are like supportive of the independent space and like will be tech forward because the problem is is like everybody says well carriers won't let you do that well they're letting them do it with the insure tech space yeah like they're like we're not insure tech better agents not we're broker tech right insure tech like they're letting all of these apis happen for insure tech but they're not letting it happen for broker tech and it's like then i don't want to work with you you know what i mean like it's something

Speaker 8 that's the have and have nots they look at they look at some 10 million dollar funded MBA run dick organization that and they go well geez these guys are going to generate a lot of leads so we're going to give them whatever they want oh hey mr independent agent who's willing to pay for the same connection sorry not worth our time that's why i love openly yeah yeah i i'm with you man i think i i i this well i guess this is to be the last thing that i say and on this show we can always do another one but um to me there is a reckoning coming

Speaker 8 with carrier tech

Speaker 8 There is a reckoning coming with carrier tech. And I'll tell you what, like today, we are very broad in the number of carriers we have.
That will not, absolutely not always be the case.

Speaker 8 Today, it has to be the case for different reasons, but we are going to start selectively pairing down the carriers that we write business with because I refuse to believe that that carrier is doing me a favor by giving me an appointment.

Speaker 8 I am doing them a favor by selling their friggin product. And granted, maybe our agency isn't moving their needle enough.
So they don't really care.

Speaker 8 But I, but, but that doesn't mean that that doesn't matter to me. You, you don't have to believe that I'm doing you a favor.
I believe I'm doing you a favor.

Speaker 8 So if you change that mentality, even if the carrier doesn't share it, it changes the way you view that relationship.

Speaker 8 And I do think that there is a reckoning coming because I look at what Branch is doing. I think it's friggin brilliant.
And when a company like Branch gets national, why would you put your business?

Speaker 8 I can have an appointment in every state that I'm licensed in in a fingersnap.

Speaker 8 I couldn't write my best friend's insurance in Vermont the other day because in order for me to get licensed, I'm licensed in Vermont. I write commercial business in Vermont all the time.

Speaker 8 For me to get a personalized appointment with any of my carriers, I have to talk to the regional manager and the vice president of this and the under, and I'm like, screw to it. I don't care.

Speaker 8 And I just word it out.

Speaker 5 It's changing. Those companies are driving and we're trying to drive it too.
And I think independents have to drive it.

Speaker 5 It's like, I think now, and it might not be today, I think, to your point, but it's going to be very soon is like independents are going to have the decision of saying, you know what, I'm just not going to work with this carrier anymore because they make it too difficult to sell this insurance where I can go somewhere else that's more integrated in my tech stack or for my agency.

Speaker 5 And that's kind of what we're trying to push the agenda on with as well.

Speaker 8 Will Shaw, president, CEO, founder, better agency? What do you call yourself?

Speaker 5 Co-founder, CEO, really glorified executive assistant at this point.

Speaker 8 Glorified executive assistant of better agency. That's betteragency.io.
Guys, you can go. No more dollar demo, but you can still get a demo, right?

Speaker 5 Yes. Yeah, you can still get a demo.

Speaker 8 Still get a demo. Check it out.

Speaker 8 You know, I've seen the back end and better agency many times. And guys,

Speaker 8 you couldn't find, you couldn't find a better tech if it fits what you're doing.

Speaker 8 You know, everyone knows I don't use better agency, but that doesn't mean I don't believe in it and I don't believe in what you guys are doing.

Speaker 8 Enormous fans of you, Nick, and a lot of people over there. I wish you nothing but success and I hope you keep pushing the envelope, man.

Speaker 5 Appreciate it.

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