RHS 073 - Breaking Down the "Human-Optimized" Agency

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Speaker 3 In a crude laboratory in the basement of his home.

Speaker 4 Hello everyone and welcome back to the show.

Speaker 4 Today we have an episode which is actually an interview that I did for Tony Caldwell's Uncaptive Agent, the future of insurance series.

Speaker 4 And I thought it was a really dynamic breakdown of the concept of the human optimized agency, this

Speaker 4 technology driven but human forward concept in which Rogue was really built.

Speaker 4 And while, you know, I've said many times that Rogue isn't where I want it to be yet in reaching this kind of human-optimized agency goal. It's what we work towards every single day.

Speaker 4 Every decision that we make around technology, process, the clients we go after, the carriers that we partner with,

Speaker 4 all of it is moving towards this idea of a human-optimized agency. And I thought the interview that I did with Tony was a tremendous conversation that I wanted to share with you guys.

Speaker 4 I also wanted to push you to Tony's podcast. If you Google search Uncaptive Agent or go to Tony Caldwell, C-A-L-D-W-E-L-L dot net, TonyCaldwell.net, you'll find this podcast.

Speaker 4 He's interviewing some great people from the industry. And I just wanted to give him a shout out because I thought he did a tremendous job and I really enjoyed our talk.

Speaker 4 And Tony has a ton of experience in the industry and outside the industry and is a great resource.

Speaker 4 I just wanted more people to hear this conversation and I wanted more people to kind of know that Tony's podcast exists and get in front of it.

Speaker 4 And I think you're really going to enjoy this conversation. Before we get there, I want to give a huge shout out to our title sponsor of this podcast, Tarmica, T-A-R-M-I-K-A.com.

Speaker 4 Tarmica, I've talked about it a lot.

Speaker 4 If you've been a listener to this show for a long time, then you know that I use Tarmica, that I advocate for Tarmica, that I think what they're doing perfectly aligns with the idea of being a human-optimized agency.

Speaker 4 And as I see them start to partner with other organizations like

Speaker 4 Indium, who I'm a huge,

Speaker 4 obviously I'm a member of Indium and I'm a huge fan of what they're doing.

Speaker 4 And I see them start to partner with companies like Better Agency and many others, I just, it feels to me like we're in the early days of this true independent insurance agency renaissance, where no matter your size, no matter where your workforce is, no matter who you're going after from a target market,

Speaker 4 it doesn't matter if you're, you know, you're in western rural Iowa or in downtown Manhattan. You can target the kind of clients that you want.

Speaker 4 You can provide them with a high-quality customer experience, and you can do it in a way that's easy and efficient.

Speaker 4 And when it comes to commercial insurance, particularly small commercial, there is no better tool to help you make that customer experience faster, cleaner, easier, more efficient, and most importantly, profitable.

Speaker 4 So go to T-A-R-M-I-K-A, T-A-R-M-I-K-A dot com today, get a demo, know what the tool is about.

Speaker 4 They're adding new carriers every day, you know, huge nationals down to super regionals, and you're going to find the carriers that you want, and you're just going to want to know what Tarmica is all about.

Speaker 4 And I do think this is one of the game-changing technologies that gets us to a real

Speaker 4 honest to goodness, human-optimized agency that can compete with anybody at any scale. And that's the goal of Rogue.
And Tarmica is a big part of that. So I hope you check them out.
T-A-R-M-I-K-A.com.

Speaker 4 Okay, let's get on to what was an absolutely tremendous conversation with Tony Caldwell.

Speaker 3 Hi, I'm Tony Caldwell, and thank you for joining me on another episode of Uncaptive Agency, the future of insurance.

Speaker 3 Today I'm talking with Ryan Handley, who's the founder of Rogue Risk in upstate New York, near Albany. Ryan is

Speaker 3 one of the new generation of independent insurance agencies, owners who is building his agency on technology and building for the future that is rapidly upon us. So welcome, Ryan.

Speaker 3 Thanks for being with me.

Speaker 6 Thanks, Tony. It's great to be here and excited to have a conversation.

Speaker 3 Good. So, Ryan, you've obviously, you're an insurance industry veteran.
This isn't your first rodeo, and you didn't start this idea to become an agency owner overnight. How did that develop?

Speaker 3 What was your previous background in insurance?

Speaker 6 A little bit of history, please. Yeah, so I've been in the business for 15 years.

Speaker 6 I got into the business, I guess you could say, by accident, although it was a very conscious decision.

Speaker 6 I met a young woman who I wanted to marry. And in order to marry her, her father basically made me a mafioso style offer I couldn't refuse.

Speaker 6 Strangely enough, we were sitting in high leather back chairs in the office of his house during a family get-together. And he essentially said, I want you to come sell insurance for me.

Speaker 6 And I accepted.

Speaker 6 Still my wife today, 14, 14 years later. So we're doing, it wasn't, it was a good decision.

Speaker 6 But that's how I got started. I worked for my wife's family's agency.
I was there for eight years. My wife still works there with her twin sister.

Speaker 6 At the time, my brother-in-law also worked there. So there was four members of her family.
There were 14 of us total.

Speaker 6 I was a boots on the ground producer and kind of cut my teeth,

Speaker 6 you know, the classic, the cliche story, right? I was driving from strip mall to strip mall, dropping off business cards. I was cold calling.
I was doing all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 6 This was 2007, 8, 9-ish.

Speaker 6 And the internet really wasn't a big part of marketing strategy.

Speaker 6 Email, you know, people barely used email.

Speaker 6 It was just a completely different time. I was really terrible at selling insurance in that world at that time.
I hated cold calling. I hated interrupting people.

Speaker 6 I did not have that, as much as I like to consider myself a very hard worker. I didn't have that like

Speaker 6 dogheaded,

Speaker 6 you know, mentality of I'm just going to plow my way into this account, come hell or high water and get, get in front of the prospect. I just didn't like that.
I was very uncomfortable with it. And

Speaker 6 I struggled for a long time,

Speaker 6 probably two solid years, up until the point where my father-in-law actually had to sit me down and have a conversation around like this career might not be for you

Speaker 6 as whether it was coincidence or serendipity or

Speaker 6 maybe the muse just decided to perch on my shoulder for a few minutes

Speaker 6 I walked into a conversation in which two referral partners that I was interested in engaging with I heard them speaking to each other and the one said to the other let's just connect on LinkedIn And now this is 2009.

Speaker 6 People did not say that to each other in 2009, right? So it was very odd. I didn't even have a LinkedIn at the time.

Speaker 6 I had heard of LinkedIn, but I didn't really know what it was. And

Speaker 6 it was like this light bulb moment for me because I said, geez, if

Speaker 6 here are two like two referral partners that I want to get in front of, and they have just chosen, I'm eavesdropping now, but they've just chosen to.

Speaker 6 at LinkedIn as the way, not email, not give me a phone call, not stop by my office for coffee, but

Speaker 6 let's connect on LinkedIn as their method.

Speaker 6 I just, I was blown away. I just was like, why would they choose this? All these questions started rushing over me.

Speaker 6 And I immediately left that business function, went back to my office and spent quite literally the next 12 hours on LinkedIn trying to figure out what was it about this platform that they would do that.

Speaker 6 So that's where I kind of learned about. digital marketing, digital communication, automation tools.
And that has been a big part of my philosophy ever since.

Speaker 6 Kind of just skipping through some of this stuff now. Eight years into that career, I basically had hit a ceiling at my family's agency.
You know, my last name wasn't the same as the name on the box.

Speaker 6 And that was kind of always the way it was going to be for better or for worse. So I left and took, became the chief marketing officer of trustedchoice.com.
I built the agency nation platform and

Speaker 6 ran Elevate 2017 and 2018, if anyone's ever heard of those conferences. I left there and became the chief marketing officer of Bold Penguin, which is a commercial insurance

Speaker 6 lead generation and comparative rating platform. Unfortunately, at that point, this was 2019.

Speaker 6 This is late 2018. My brother-in-law

Speaker 6 came down with a form of terminal cancer. And I was traveling three to four times a week for Bold Penguin.
And I just couldn't do that anymore.

Speaker 6 I my wife had to step up, take a larger role in her agency. So I put in my two weeks and I left the insurance industry or left that job to try to find something here in the Albany area.

Speaker 6 Unfortunately, Albany is not a hotbed for insurance. And I wasn't quite ready to become a producer at that point.
I certainly didn't want to going to be a producer felt like a step back after,

Speaker 6 you know, running 20-person teams and having a, you know, huge million-dollar budgets at different companies as a chief marketing officer.

Speaker 6 You know, Hawk and Holman Autos felt was a tough step to take, at least at that time. So I became the CEO of a fitness franchise and ran a six location.
We had more than 3,000 clients.

Speaker 6 We actually, in the nine months that I was there, grew them from 2,000 to 3,000 clients.

Speaker 6 At which point, and this is probably a much longer answer than you were expecting, but

Speaker 6 at that point, at nine months into that job, I had two new locations that were coming.

Speaker 6 I had grown our internal team from nine people to 15. We were absolutely destroying it.

Speaker 6 The founder of the business decided he wanted to to step back in and actually run the company again, which meant Ryan had to go. So at 8.36 a.m.

Speaker 6 on a Monday in October, almost a year ago now, I found out that I was no longer the CEO. And

Speaker 6 on that

Speaker 6 walk from

Speaker 6 our office to my truck, now unemployed, I basically said, I've been mapping out this agency for years.

Speaker 6 I've had as many or more conversations with a more diverse diverse group of insurance professionals from the CEO of Dow Jones Industrial Average entity, you know, publicly traded companies, all the way down to super regionals, or every size agency to every size vendor.

Speaker 6 I've had all these conversations. It's time for me to kind of put my money where my mouth is and start my own agency.
And that's how Rogue, that's where Rogue came from.

Speaker 3 Well, that's a great story. And, you know, as I'm listening to you talk, Brian, I mean, I don't think your story is actually very unusual.

Speaker 3 Most entrepreneurs get to a point where they realize the only way they're going to control their own future is to control their own future.

Speaker 3 And you've had some great experience both in the industry and outside of the industry. That's also really typical.

Speaker 3 What I think is compelling, and I want to explore next just for a minute, is that you really had a chance to grow up in,

Speaker 3 develop your skills in, what I'd call a traditional insurance agency. The traditional insurance agency has got to evolve very rapidly right now in order to remain relevant in the future.

Speaker 3 In fact, they point out that there's been 10 years of progress, digital shopping behavior, all those kinds of things in the last six months. So it's radically and rapidly speeding up.

Speaker 3 So with your background and your new decision that you're going to be in charge of your own future, you're obviously building a different kind of agency.

Speaker 3 You want to

Speaker 3 tell us just a little bit about the plans you have for Road Risk.

Speaker 6 Yeah, so

Speaker 6 this is one of the most interesting aspects of, I would say, the first seven months of my career as an agency owner.

Speaker 6 So coming into Rogue Risk, I had a notebook full of ideas that I had derived and distilled down from literally tens of thousands of conversations.

Speaker 6 That's Tony, I'm sure in your position that you have too.

Speaker 6 And I felt like there were certain aspects of building an agency that I could kind of, you know, do air quotes, but kind of like jump the line because I knew the people, I knew the tools, I was very digitally savvy.

Speaker 6 I understood kind of the basics of programming. I understood the basics of connecting certain tools together.
And

Speaker 6 I felt like that would give me a competitive, I still feel like it gives me a competitive advantage, but I thought it would give me more of a competitive advantage earlier. So.

Speaker 6 I think there's a lot of really interesting things there.

Speaker 6 So I came in and my, what I pitched the carriers that I am now directly appointed with, that I pitched the vendors that I partnered with was this idea of a human optimized agency, an agency that injected humans not throughout the entire process, but in the moments where they actually add value.

Speaker 6 I think a common misunderstanding and misconception of agencies is that humans need to do the work or they're not adding value.

Speaker 6 wholly disagree with that. There are aspects of our business in which we are not maximizing our value because we're still doing manual transactional processing that is of zero value to the insured.

Speaker 6 The insured does not care who does their car change. They don't care.
They care that the car change happens.

Speaker 6 Now, are car changes an optimal moment to step in and ask questions in which you could add value, you could cross-sell, you could find gaps in coverage or areas of excessive or additional risk that you didn't know available?

Speaker 6 Certainly they are. But if you're processing that transaction, how often has that happened, right? What's the number number one thing in what I just described to you that agency owners say?

Speaker 6 My CSRs never do that work. They never stop.
They never ask or they don't do it enough. They're not cross-selling.

Speaker 6 I've told them I'll give an extra week's vacation, whoever cross-sells the most and no one does it. Well, the reason is, is because they know their real life.

Speaker 6 Their real life is if I have 37 car changes I have to do today, I can't ask those questions.

Speaker 6 It doesn't let me get to the 37 car changes because if there's five car changes at the end of the day that I didn't get to that roll over, you're going to bitch at me as an agency owner that I'm not getting my work done.

Speaker 6 Okay.

Speaker 6 So if we take that idea just as a microcosm and we pump it back and we say, who is doing our car changes for us? Does it need to be Sally sitting in my office making $47,000 a year?

Speaker 6 Or could it be Tom who's making $7.50 a year in Puerto Rico or in the Philippines or wherever or India?

Speaker 6 And can they do the car change so that Sally can simply can take those extra five minutes that would have been all the nonsense of doing a car change and could she say, hey, how the kids doing?

Speaker 6 What's going on? Oh, you're taking them to your second home up in the Adirondacks. I didn't know that you had, when did you buy, how come you didn't call us about that?

Speaker 6 Well, Sally, I didn't even know that you guys did second home insurance. I mean, these are the kind of things where we don't even.

Speaker 6 Our customers don't know that we do them. They make assumptions because they're not supposed to be insurance professionals.

Speaker 6 And if we're not taking the time to ask the questions, we never get to root it out.

Speaker 6 I just had a buddy of mine who writes motorcycle insurance.

Speaker 6 And if you would asked him two years ago, he would have told you he prides himself on the number of motorcycles that he writes for his clients.

Speaker 6 And he actually

Speaker 6 started using a program which helps him find

Speaker 6 additional

Speaker 6 things that people own, right? So he plugs people's contact information in and he'll tell them, oh, they own this classic car.

Speaker 6 And something like 10% of his clients had motorcycles that he wasn't insuring. So he starts, so he immediately opened his eyes to, we are not asking these questions on phone calls.

Speaker 6 We're not making sure that you have this.

Speaker 6 So again, this is just one aspect of what I believe this human optimized agency is, but it's finding technology, automation, and tools that allow you to remove, you know, and in my case, it's VAs too, removing the work that doesn't add value so that your people can spend more time in the places where it does.

Speaker 6 And that is the core concept of what I'm trying to build with Rogue. I'm not there, and I would be happy to explain to you why I'm not there.

Speaker 6 Some of those reasons are me, some of those reasons are our industry, but that is where I'm trying to go.

Speaker 3 Well, I'm really excited to hear that. You know, for at least five years, I've been talking about this very idea, which is that, you know, first of all, the CSR, as we know it, is dead.

Speaker 3 You know, that the people in the agency that you hire need to be salespeople and then be focused on selling things. And that's based on relationship and that technology takes the drudgery away.

Speaker 3 And so it's really interesting. I love your term human optimized.
And I'm going to steal that and

Speaker 3 because I think, no, it's a fabulous way to describe,

Speaker 3 you know, what I think we're headed towards.

Speaker 3 And so, you know, with that in mind, I mean, obviously you're a smart entrepreneur, you're looking at the future and you're saying, hey, cost and also what people want isn't aligned with the way we're doing business today.

Speaker 3 So I got to build a different kind of agency. But you just mentioned, okay, that you started with that idea and it's not 100% today.

Speaker 3 Who would have thought it would be, right? You've been in business seven months and you're still building it.

Speaker 3 But let me ask you this, as you think about

Speaker 3 your agency over the next, say, three years or so, are you going to get to that place? And what does that place look like?

Speaker 6 I think it's going to be really interesting.

Speaker 6 So the realities are

Speaker 6 the technology is not there. It's not there.

Speaker 6 The carriers are not there. Carriers aren't even close.

Speaker 6 And I don't mean, I know the carriers always get banged for different stuff, but the truth is

Speaker 6 some of the carriers that I enjoy working with the most still force me to use Internet Explorer.

Speaker 6 A piece of technology which is no longer updated by Microsoft is the most vulnerable to cyber and malware attacks and only works on certain computers.

Speaker 6 Yet the only way to quote their business is through that portal. So I had to have a conversation with one of my marketing reps who said, Ryan, your new submissions have really trailed off with us.

Speaker 6 And I just said, your technology is so bad, you're losing business from me.

Speaker 6 And if you're losing business from me, you're probably losing business from a lot of agents because it takes, it, it's taking me too much time and effort to quote something with you.

Speaker 6 So if you're not thousands of dollars better, I'm just simply not doing it. I'm just literally not doing it.

Speaker 3 Just to interject, though, what's interesting about that comment is: I just interviewed a senior vice president for the Hartford who, in talking about the way they and other carriers are really beginning to look at agencies, are you using technology well or are you making them spend a lot of time and expense to handle your submissions?

Speaker 3 So, you know, I just immediately am thinking, okay, we've got a whole bunch of people here. It's like the Tower of Babel.

Speaker 3 We're all saying the same things to each other, but nobody's doing anything about it.

Speaker 6 So there are carriers that are. Hartford is one of the leaders, right?

Speaker 6 Hartford is absolutely positively, Hartford is one of the carriers that is getting business from me, that is stealing it from this other carrier that is not doing the right things because um you know chubb's another one chubb not perfect but man they are making strides and they're making it easier and and and i think they're doing a lot of the right things and i know that they've there's been some some negativity towards some of their digital stuff and automation over the last five years.

Speaker 6 But I really think just in the time that I've been writing with them, which I've had them since day one, which has been a blessing,

Speaker 6 I've seen improvements already. So I think we are trending in the right direction.
But the truth is we're not there today.

Speaker 6 And then in the Northeast, we have a lot of

Speaker 6 mutuals and really,

Speaker 6 you know, small regionals who may be in two or three states. Some of them, their technology is right on point.
Take Plymouth Rock.

Speaker 6 Plymouth Rock is obliterating some of the traditional carriers simply because they've just completely changed the way that we underwrite business, or at least the way that you quote business.

Speaker 6 I can get, we're not talking about some fancy insurtech startup who doesn't know the industry. I mean, we're talking about Bill Martin and a group of people who've been around for a long time.

Speaker 6 They're in nine states, and you can now get a homeowner's quote with them with two pieces of information, name and address.

Speaker 6 That's a bindable bindable homeowner's quote bindable not like now i need 100 pieces of information to validate it two pieces of information bindable homeowner's quote that that is changing the game and what i get from traditional carriers is oh you know well

Speaker 6 you know they're only in nine states we'll see how it goes and i'm like i'll be honest with you agents don't care how it goes but i don't care how it goes what's going to happen because because i've watched i've watched all these legacy carriers i've watched their rates go up and then they come back down and then they buy some market share and then they harden and but then they'll go to then they got the balls to like or sorry i don't mean to curse in your pocket then they have the the the the whatever to to to question a company like primitive rock i which maybe their rates will go up who knows but all i know is i can over the phone have a number in front of someone in minutes like two minutes and that that is what people want they don't want phone call information.

Speaker 6 Okay, let me get some more information from you. Follow-up email, couple texts.
They don't want that. That's not what they want.
They want to call and have their problems solved. Now, again,

Speaker 6 there are different levels of coverage needs. There are different risk exposures, right? I'm talking about fairly standard two cars in a home, and you want to put an umbrella on.

Speaker 6 That's what I'm talking about. That

Speaker 6 should not take time. When you have something, you know, maybe you're in a flood zone or maybe you're high net worth or, you you know, we're talking about packaging second homes and some toys.

Speaker 6 Okay, that's a different conversation.

Speaker 6 But, you know, these, these people who are calling who just, they got two cars in a home and you're going to pop an umbrella on the end, that should not be a five email, two phone call, you know, 40 question touch point.

Speaker 6 It just can't be today.

Speaker 3 So a couple of things I want to unpack there. So, you know, the first is you're really saying something that I say a lot, which is that the agent is competing with Amazon.

Speaker 3 Not that Amazon's selling insurance, but that's what's setting the standard in a consumer's mind about what service ought to look like, right?

Speaker 3 Because it's immediate and it's also thoughtful and it's anticipating issues and problems. Recommendations are done automatically, but it's fast.

Speaker 3 And so you're saying that's really important to you as an agent. I get that.

Speaker 3 But the really interesting thing is, just as Hartford is telling me, hey, we're going to look at agents in the future about technology adoption, you're saying you're pushing back and going, well, yes, that's also what I'm looking at today.

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 3 I'm assuming that, okay, you're a new agent. You probably, like many, wanted to gather as many appointments as you could get, but you're already making cutting.

Speaker 3 So you're like the coach of the basketball team, and it's the second week of the season. It's time to cut a few people.
Are you looking at actually getting rid of carriers based on that?

Speaker 6 I have not gotten rid of any yet, but there are

Speaker 6 at least two that if they come in and have any gripes or want to give me any flack, I'm just going to say, go. I don't care.
It means nothing to me. Like,

Speaker 6 what I found is

Speaker 6 I think

Speaker 6 I will believe that there was a time when carriers cared about the relationship with agents. And I am positive that if you have $5 million in revenue or just some number, they do care.

Speaker 6 But do they really care?

Speaker 6 I don't know. I don't, because I, because, and it's not,

Speaker 6 here's my point in saying that to you. That's not a knock.
I don't think they should. I don't need them to care about me.
I don't need them to

Speaker 6 have some deep, emotional, heartfelt relationship from me. What I really want is for them to do, to to make this relationship work is to just do their job, do what they promise.

Speaker 6 And what I will do my job for them, which is frontline underwrite, be honest in my submissions. and sell the shit out of their product.
Sorry, I keep swearing on your podcast. I swear on mine.

Speaker 6 So I'm sorry about that.

Speaker 6 um and sell their product you know what i mean like that is that is what my job is that's my side of the relationship is i'm gonna i'm gonna do the frontline underwriting i'm gonna be honest in my submissions and i'm gonna sell sell sell and if i do that all i want in return is a system that works i want honest feedback and an open mind to my underwriting and i want pricing that is at least reasonable give me good reasonable consistent pricing as as best as you can i you know there's always fluctuations if if we can just uphold those two sides of the bargain, we're all going to make a lot of money.

Speaker 6 But what happens is you get, hey, I want manufacturers.

Speaker 6 And then you submit a manufacturer and they go, yeah, but not manufacturers with joysticked masonry built before 1965, who have a building that's two stories tall that happens to be where the moon aligns with the sign of Aquarius in May.

Speaker 6 And you're just like, oh my God, how is this? What are you talking about? You told me you wanted manufacturers. I'm handing you one.

Speaker 6 Write the account. And,

Speaker 6 but then,

Speaker 6 and this is another small, this is small agent complaining, but like, I just had a carrier decline flat out say, no, we don't want it. We don't write it.

Speaker 6 And then have a big agency come in behind me and go, oh, yeah, but we'll write it for you. And

Speaker 6 I was floored that this still happens today, considering all the nonsense that we get from our carrier partners on a consistent basis.

Speaker 6 And we can get off carriers in a second because there are so many many who are doing amazing work in different regards. This is general gripes.

Speaker 6 I feel like there's, we're talking about, I'm talking about some of the exceptions and I am really the rules today, but you know, that

Speaker 6 there is now a carrier that I will never write ever again. And anytime I see them, I will do everything I can to rewrite their policies.

Speaker 6 It will mean nothing to their bottom line and no one in that carrier will ever make less money.

Speaker 6 But they now have an enemy in the marketplace because their underwriter flat out told me no on a first in submission. And then when a larger care, when a larger agency came behind me, they go, well,

Speaker 6 I think we could find a way to get, and I lost the account. And I also look like an idiot because I told the guy, yeah,

Speaker 6 they declined me. And then all of a sudden, he gets a side door submission from another agent, you know, who looks like the schmuck.

Speaker 6 So those are the kind of things we have to get out of our industry for,

Speaker 6 I'll say, my generation of agent, because where it used to be that there was no mechanism to talk about these things, there weren't, you couldn't get access to certain carriers because where you were located or just the lack of openness and communication between different people.

Speaker 6 Now I can go into IAOA's Facebook group and with 7,000 agents, I can go, here's exactly what these guys did. Be very careful of them.
Do not take them seriously.

Speaker 6 Make them, you know, and I can, and now, not that I'm going to do that because I, I'm not using this carrier's name and purpose because I'm not going to put them on blast, but like you can do that.

Speaker 6 And that happens. And all these, these

Speaker 6 iterative, all these

Speaker 6 actions that used to kind of, you could kind of grind an agency down or leverage the fact that they were small. It just, all those things get spread.

Speaker 6 You just can't treat people like that anymore today. Because I have 40 agents that are my generation, say 35 to 50 year old agency owners.

Speaker 6 I have 40 of them who are all growing like gangbusters, who are all going to to be the prime time middle market players in their regions in the next 10 years.

Speaker 6 And they all know what this carrier did now. And, you know, I think that ends up being a problem long term.

Speaker 3 So, you know, that, and that's not really any different than it's ever been, right? That kind of behavior has been going on for a long time.

Speaker 3 I think what you're really saying is that the communication capability is so widespread.

Speaker 3 And, and, you know, it's interesting because consumers now don't buy anything by and large without a whole lot of other people saying this is okay.

Speaker 3 I mean, I was talking to my wife, she never buys anything without looking at reviews, right?

Speaker 3 So people are looking at your reviews as an agency owner making a decision. And you're really saying, hey, you know what?

Speaker 3 We're finding ways to create a review system for insurance companies and that's going to impact their ability to generate marginal profit in the future.

Speaker 3 So that's a change. That's different than what it's been.

Speaker 3 Thinking about change and difference and how you're building your agency. So you were telling me earlier that you've basically got people doing things for you, either on a contract basis or employees.

Speaker 3 They're obviously not located there

Speaker 3 in your office.

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 3 how do you feel about the future of the agency workforce, either from a locational point of view, skill set? I mean, how are you going to build your agency as you grow with people?

Speaker 3 What are you looking for? What are you thinking about?

Speaker 3 you know what do you think will be different uh for your agency say than your father-in-law's so i

Speaker 6 uh so I'm gonna use a buddy of mine. His name's uh Spencer Holden.
He runs one of the most successful high-net worth insurance agencies in the entire country, Erickson.

Speaker 6 Um, I think it's Erickson Partners or Erickson Insurance Advisors. And

Speaker 6 we were having a wonderful conversation about remote work and how with COVID, he was able to get

Speaker 6 he was able, he was able to increase the overall productivity of his team by taking them fully remote. And I'm not going to share his secrets, um, but I will say I think the tools of today,

Speaker 6 the API, the ability for companies, the API connections, reporting,

Speaker 6 you know, it feels like some of the agency management systems are starting to adopt,

Speaker 6 although they're definitely under pressure because there's so many new players in the market today because their lack of effort for so long.

Speaker 6 You know, and then you have agencies who have straight moved to Salesforce. So that being said,

Speaker 6 the cloud computing,

Speaker 6 the general disposition of

Speaker 6 employees, work from home, it's now proven effectiveness.

Speaker 6 I think what it does, it allows you to hire the most talented people, the people who are right for the situation.

Speaker 6 So if you have a personal alliance producer and say she lives in Staten Island, which is three and a half hours from where I'm sitting, but she's perfect. She's exactly what I want.

Speaker 6 She's exactly what I need. I can hire her today because you know what? None of my personal audience clients care where she lives.
They don't. They just simply don't care.

Speaker 6 I think they care that they can call her.

Speaker 6 I think they care that they're talking to a human, that they have, I think they care that she's experienced and that she cares about their success and that she's going to do what she can to make sure they're in a good program.

Speaker 6 I do not think that they care even a little bit that she is not sitting in the office next door to me.

Speaker 6 I think having people in your office is wonderful as well, especially if your prime target is 50 miles around you.

Speaker 6 I think you can outsource a lot of the tasks that do not add real value to your agency. I think you can outsource them.
The VAs. I use agency VA is who I use.

Speaker 6 I like them because they are insurance industry specific and that they have

Speaker 6 they have specific software which manages their VAs. So, you know, there's no, it's far less likely that there's any funny business going on there.

Speaker 6 But the key with VAs, and I think we Americans have to remember this, is that these are just human beings too. They just live in a different country.

Speaker 6 Oftentimes, they are way more thankful for their job

Speaker 6 than, you know, and they're, they're, a lot of these people have college degrees. And just, it's just cost of living that makes them cost effective, not their lack of skill set.

Speaker 6 So I think the beauty of today is that there is no right or wrong way to do it. You can go fully remote across the country.
You can go fully VA. You can go everybody in your office.

Speaker 6 You can go everybody local, but working from home. You can have some hybrid method.
And that is the beauty of today.

Speaker 6 What solves your clients' problems best? And how do you make the people happy? who can solve those problems for your clients? And then whatever shape or form that takes is available to you.

Speaker 6 And that is what I love about where we are at in this moment is just the pure flexibility and vastness of options that agency owners have at their disposal.

Speaker 3 So we've talked about, you know, and I think you've given a really passionate,

Speaker 3 you know, not defense, but reason why people ought to think about maybe changing the way they handle employees in terms of distribution. How do you think about that in terms of clients? So

Speaker 3 you're trying to sell commercial insurance primarily. That's what your personal interest is in.

Speaker 3 But if you have a niche, a niche market there in New York, are you now thinking about, hey, I can sell insurance in California and Nevada and Massachusetts and Florida? Yeah, I already do.

Speaker 6 So

Speaker 6 I think it depends on the line of business. So again, I want to go back to how I finished the last one.

Speaker 6 When it comes to how you formulate the clients that you bring in, your marketing strategies, your prospecting strategies, again, we have so many options.

Speaker 6 Every possibility is on the table. You want to only sell insurance through a custom app that you build.
You can do that. I don't know it's the most effective way to do it.
I'm not even advocating it.

Speaker 6 I don't even have one. But

Speaker 6 what's great is that is a possibility, right?

Speaker 6 So,

Speaker 6 who do you want to serve? How do you want to serve them? So, having been a chief marketing officer for about five years in total, I made a ton of contacts in the marketing space.

Speaker 6 So, I actually write marketing accounts, marketing companies. It's not high volume stuff.

Speaker 6 It's not like, you know, middle market businesses, but, you know, I'm serving these clients and I can speak their language. I know all their problems.

Speaker 6 I have, you know, between Harvard and Chubb, I have two great carriers to write their full package.

Speaker 6 And because of my partnership with

Speaker 6 a different market access company, but a market access company, although I highly advocate yours as well,

Speaker 6 and have many friends who use a different master agency, but ultimately

Speaker 6 the network.

Speaker 6 I'm able to do that. And

Speaker 6 that is the beauty of it. So my specialty is really workers' comp.

Speaker 6 I write a lot of contractors, write a lot of comp for contractors. I've started to work into marketing agencies and I've also started to work into technology companies.
So startups, tech companies.

Speaker 6 Again, some of my markets are dictating that.

Speaker 6 Just I have a couple markets that really, specifically

Speaker 6 Hanover, Hartford, and Chubb all just love technology companies. They have great programs.
All three are kind of best in the business. So

Speaker 6 that gives me options and that has guided me into the tech space. Now, here's the beauty of the tech space is

Speaker 6 these men and women. could care less where you're located.
Literally, it is, it is, most of them don't even ask. Like I will have to tell them where I'm located.

Speaker 6 And I don't even know why I'm saying it. It's like I just feel obligated to share with them where I'm sitting.
They could care less.

Speaker 6 Another interesting thing. I haven't sold one account on Zoom.
Not one. All this talk, Zoom, Zoom, Zoom, Zoom, Zoom, Zoom, Zoom.
Everyone's going to want to do Zoom. Zoom this.

Speaker 6 I'm not saying that's not true because I have buddies who did it.

Speaker 6 I haven't sold one on Zoom. It's been email, text, and phone.
And I do, I do do video proposals.

Speaker 6 I think that's probably a big part of the reason why I I don't need to do Zoom because I do video proposals. But

Speaker 6 that I haven't had to do Zoom. People just haven't needed it.
So I think,

Speaker 6 again,

Speaker 6 the thing everyone should be excited about. And I want to take this back to if you're a traditional agent, a traditional agent.
I don't want to say that like it's a bad thing. It's a wonderful thing.

Speaker 6 You're probably killing the game and you're certainly making more money than I do. So Some part of you should be saying this guy's full of, you know, you know what.

Speaker 6 But if you, if you are sitting there and you're looking into the future and you're feeling uncomfortable, right?

Speaker 6 So I know plenty of agencies that would be classified as traditional, but they're loving life because they have a great process. They have zero stress.

Speaker 6 They know in five years, sometime in the next five years, they're going to sell and they're perfectly happy with where they're at. And it's all good in the hood.
You should do nothing.

Speaker 6 Well, I think there are things you could do to maximize your agency value, but in essence, you don't have to do a whole lot. You're in a good spot.

Speaker 6 But if you're looking out 10 years and you haven't started to make some changes you're in big trouble because

Speaker 6 um

Speaker 6 i so on my podcast i just had a i just had a guy dax craig he's a co-founder of pie insurance okay i really like pie insurance they're workers comp only carrier they write in i think 30 something states 40 40 something i know they're not in all actually i think alaska and hawaii are the only two states they're not in okay So Massachusetts, so maybe it's like 47.

Speaker 6 So

Speaker 6 I like them a lot. They have a great product.
I like the way they handle it. If you were to write a workers', I've written quite a few workers' comp policies with them.
And

Speaker 6 for what it's worth,

Speaker 6 it is similar in many regards to working with, say, an Amtrust or an employer's from the stand from like a workers' comp only standpoint. Like, you know, you're getting good service.

Speaker 6 They're easy to work with. You know, the coverages are all there.
The policy forms are there. They also write direct.

Speaker 6 They also write direct. So you, so they're also gobbling up some of the small business market and they're not paying us commission.
That is going to become more the rule than it is the exception.

Speaker 6 And we have to be,

Speaker 6 there's nothing we can do about it. I think it's great the companies that only work with IAs and I do try to place more business with them if I can.
But the truth is,

Speaker 6 PI's rating and service right now is on par or better than most companies that'll write contractors, workers, comp, which is what I write.

Speaker 6 You You know, if I have office risks, I usually put them with employers, but if I'm writing contractors, especially artisans, Pi is just dominating the New York market.

Speaker 6 So what I'm supposed to cost my clients more money to put them with a quote unquote traditional carrier. So my point in telling you this is all these different avenues start to eat into our margins.

Speaker 6 We lose one account here. We lose one account here.
One guy who would have been referred to us now gets picked off before he picks up the phone and he just goes direct to somebody.

Speaker 6 And then we have some digital players from outside the space. We have all these people building super niches all over the country.

Speaker 6 You know, I got another good buddy in Connecticut who does real estate investor insurance. He writes in like 17 states and every almost every week, he's adding another state.

Speaker 6 So he probably writes property in your state right now. And he lives in Connecticut and his office is in Connecticut and all his people are in Connecticut.
So

Speaker 6 my is everyone can reach out into other markets and add value and consumers are responding to it.

Speaker 6 So if you're just a 50 mile man or woman and you're not doing the things you need to do to build fences around those clients,

Speaker 6 every day you have more competition. And I think you'd be doing your entire team and certainly the valuation of your business a disservice by not trying to update.

Speaker 3 So Ryan, I'm hearing about four or five really key things that seem to be, you know, your philosophy about the future.

Speaker 3 The first first is distributed workforce hire people where you get the best quality talent pick insurance companies based on technology and what they can do for you in terms of saving you costs and speeding delivery to your to your client

Speaker 3 really focusing on the client experience niche marketing across geography and

Speaker 3 and then really

Speaker 3 not being afraid to to use market access providers or other people to broaden up the carrier set that you so that you can solve clients' problems.

Speaker 3 And it sounds like that's the way you're building your agency.

Speaker 3 For somebody that is listening to us talk and is maybe thinking about either changing the way they're operating or starting from scratch the way you have, any last words of advice you would give them about the agency, like skating to the puck, where you see the agency being in three to five years.

Speaker 6 Yeah, so

Speaker 6 I'm going to take these out of order and I want to add one caveat to one of the things you said about choosing your carriers by technology and pricing.

Speaker 6 That said, with the bar of they have great coverage forms, you know, good quality products.

Speaker 6 So obviously that probably goes without saying, but I just, I didn't want people to say, disregard that stuff at the expense of, so I just, you know, there are carriers who.

Speaker 6 If two carriers have equal coverage forms, equal quality, A-rated companies, I would lean towards the one who's pushing into technology because they're going to be your partner in the future.

Speaker 6 The ones that are lagging behind or acting as if it's not important or not prioritizing it, the cost, it's not, it's the cost of time.

Speaker 6 It's your time, your people's time to do business with them is a real expense that no agency owners are calculated. I shouldn't say no.

Speaker 6 That the

Speaker 6 median agency owner, the standardized agency owner is not thinking about their people's time as a cost to their business. And that is where that carrier starts to lag behind.

Speaker 6 This is the problem that Seth Zaremba is solving with NEON: tracking how much time, effort, how many activities does it take?

Speaker 6 How many communications back and forth does it take to get a quote out of a carrier, right? So when we start to think at a deeper, richer level, and I'm not saying you need to go this far.

Speaker 6 I mean, he is. he is on the spectrum of nerdiness that is beyond most of us.

Speaker 6 But what I'm saying is there is an idea, what with all things being equal, the reason that I would suggest you start to lean towards a technology-driven carrier is because they're going to reduce the amount of time taken out of your people's day to do business with them.

Speaker 6 And that is a real cost in 2020. So, okay.
So, where are we going next three to five years?

Speaker 6 I think that I would like to have somewhere between three to five commercial programs built out with program owners for each one of those three to five lines.

Speaker 6 You know, I

Speaker 6 beyond that, that that's really where I'm going is I want to get to these commercial programs. Um, I have ideas for what they're going to be.
Um,

Speaker 6 you know, marketing will be a huge branding will be a huge part of our agency, but ultimately, I want to run a profitable, growing agency like anybody else.

Speaker 6 I mean, my, I don't sell insurance to sell insurance, I sell insurance so that I can, you know, take my kid to baseball games and stuff. I don't, I don't want to be a producer.

Speaker 6 Like, the i know that in our industry, oftentimes, you know, the the um

Speaker 6 the big ego in the room is the, is the, is the producer, right? Oh, you know, I sold this account. I sold that account.
I could give two flying, you know, whatever's about selling an account.

Speaker 6 It doesn't mean anything to me. I want to run a successful agency.
I want an agency that's set up to grow. I want to run an agency that pays me.

Speaker 6 an amount of money that allows me to live the life that I want to live. I want to make my people happy.
I want to make my clients happy. When I'm ready to go, I want that agency to be easy to sell.

Speaker 6 And I'm going to sell it and I'm going to get out. And this, this to me, isn't this big ego-driven thing where like mine, I purposely didn't put my name on the eight, on the agency.

Speaker 6 Like this isn't the Hanley agency. Like I don't need someone stroking my ego because it's the Hanley.
And there's nothing wrong. I know a lot of you probably have your name on your agency.

Speaker 6 It's not your fault. You know what I mean? It's what everyone did for so long.
But this is just way I think is I want to be replaceable. in my agency.

Speaker 6 That should be my goal is I am providing an environment for my people to be as successful as they can so that I can go live the life that I want to live. I want to play golf.

Speaker 6 I mean, you know, I may look young on the screen, but I mean, I'm 40 years old, which isn't old, but I'm certainly not 25. I'm certainly not at the very beginning of my career, right?

Speaker 6 I'm in the prime years. I have 10 years to get this agency to the point where it is just.
cooking on gasoline.

Speaker 6 And if I want to step away for a month and take my kid to spring training games down in Arizona, I can do that and not feel like the thing's going to to fall apart.

Speaker 6 And that is what I'm building towards is a well-run agency business. I could care less about producing.
I still cold call, Tony.

Speaker 6 This afternoon, I have an hour and a half's worth of cold calling I'm going to be doing because you know what? Cold calling still works. So cold email works.
Networking works. It all works.

Speaker 6 You just have to put time into it. So I do some traditional things.
I do some digital things. all with an effort to build an agency in which I don't have to be part of for it to work well.

Speaker 6 And that's where we're going. And here's the very last thing I'll say.

Speaker 6 If you are a producer and you're sitting there and you're going, wow, that sounds great. That sounds sexy.
It is. It's very sexy and fun.
Don't get me wrong. It is also completely awful.

Speaker 6 So if you can find an agency that you can grow into and feel satisfied and feel respected and have the tools that you need and possibly down the road, when you've earned it, maybe become some sort of equity partner.

Speaker 6 If you can find that, one, it absolutely exists. I will not be the sole owner of Rogue Risk by the time this thing gets sold.
I know that.

Speaker 6 Those opportunities exist in the marketplace, and I would look for those opportunities first if you are unhappy.

Speaker 6 This agency has cost me valuable marriage capital. It's cost me time with my kids.
It's cost me stress, anxiety.

Speaker 6 I've spent a ton of money that I'm not making, you know, I'm technically on a month-to-month basis basis profitable today, but as a whole, as an investment, I'm certainly not, I certainly haven't recouped what I put into it.

Speaker 6 You know, like there's a lot here at my E ⁇ O expense, you know, my, you know, if I screw something up, you know, I'm the one that gets sued.

Speaker 6 So like, these are the things I think as, as young producers, we don't think about when we glamorize becoming an agency owner, all the, all the choices you have to make, all the pressure.

Speaker 6 So I'm not saying don't do it because obviously I did. That would be hypocritical.

Speaker 3 But I do think that if you can find an agency that you can become a part of that will help you be what you want to be I think that is a much you will be much happier long term in that scenario than starting from scratch starting from scratch is pretty awful you know in my book uncappy of agent which was published this year which really talks about the process of starting an insurance agency one of the things that I did right up front was to make the point you're making which is you know here's a gut check for founders you really got to think through the fact that it's not going to be easy it's going to be difficult and there's going to be a sacrifice and whether or not you're really willing to make it.

Speaker 3 So, you know, thank you for making that point.

Speaker 3 You know, I think that's true in spades if you're a startup, but I'll also observe that it's also true if you just want to own an agency, even if you buy the agency, you still have a lot of risk, a lot more work, and it's different.

Speaker 3 So not everyone's cut out for that. And so, you know, that's a great point.
I think that we're going to have more agencies in the future than we do today, in all likelihood.

Speaker 3 And entrepreneurs who have that fire in their belly can't be stopped.

Speaker 3 But there's many others who maybe have a banked fire and have to decide, do they want to, you know, they want to fan that thing into flame or, to your point, go to have an easier life.

Speaker 3 So, you know, I'm glad you recognize that.

Speaker 6 The only reason that I had to start this agency is because I've been fired three times.

Speaker 6 That was pretty much case in point that I don't do well as an employee. So,

Speaker 6 you know, in truth, I would prefer to have a partner. I would love to have someone who I could,

Speaker 6 who I could bump into every day and run ideas off of and keep me on track. And, and I would much rather have a team around me.

Speaker 6 Now, I'm building that team, but a lot of podcasts that I listen to with agency owners who, who, who have started their agency in the last three to five years, they talk about all the amazing stuff and then they kind of joke about the stress.

Speaker 6 I just want to let people know who may be sitting in that seat thinking about starting their own agency.

Speaker 6 Think about what it would feel like to look at the closest wall and run as fast as you can face first into that and then do it three times a day.

Speaker 6 That's basically what you're signing up for is like, I'm just going to run into this wall three times a day and hope that eventually I just knock the wall down.

Speaker 6 But you never, you don't know when it's going to happen, if it'll ever happen. And you come out with a lot of scars, a lot of black eyes.
It's not fun,

Speaker 6 um, the other side of it can be. So, so we'll see.
I mean, I think I agree with you. I think there'll be more agencies.
I think

Speaker 6 for a while, there's going to be a lot more small agencies because the, I mean, geez, the big guys are just what do we have? 700 plus transactions for two years in a row now.

Speaker 6 I mean, there is so much consolidation. I think there's going to be more.

Speaker 6 I think, I think, um, networks like that, the SIA, OAA, I think this, this model um is going to be a huge part of our future i think um there'll be a lot of uh i think there'll be a lot of different versions of of networks of shared equity environments of you know these these different types of operations franchise models like goosehead quantum just entered the marketplace brightway

Speaker 6 i think the standalone I do everything on my own, get my appointments on the own ease. One, I don't know that that's actually optimal today.
I don't know that's actually the best way to do it.

Speaker 6 And two, I don't know that you can.

Speaker 6 I just simply don't know unless you have, unless you are essentially a quasi-captive, I don't know that you can do it that way.

Speaker 6 I think finding a network, partnerships, you know, equity networks, you know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of different variations, finding the one that fits right for you is the best play.

Speaker 3 You know, this has been a fascinating conversation, and I'm really excited for what's happening in your life and your agency.

Speaker 3 You know, you started on March 9th, the week before COVID really just sort of

Speaker 3 crapped on us, I guess is one way to look at it. But

Speaker 3 you're being successful and you're proving the point that you can be successful. even when you have adversities, if you've got the right mindset and you've got a great business plan.

Speaker 3 And as you said, you're willing to work hard enough and run into the wall three times a day. So congratulations on where you are now and where you're going.
And thanks for being with me.

Speaker 3 I really appreciate it.

Speaker 6 Thank you. Thanks, Tony.
I appreciate it. And I know I didn't give you much a chance, much of a chance to talk.
You caught me too early in the morning on a Monday, but

Speaker 6 no, this is great. And I just appreciate you doing this podcast.
These conversations are super important. So thanks so much.

Speaker 6 You go fuck yourself with your fat fucking ass.

Speaker 6 Thank you.

Speaker 6 Thank you.

Speaker 6 Wanted a few drinks and smoke adjoint buttons?

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Speaker 1 10 years from today, Lisa Schneider will trade in her office job to become the leader of a pack of dogs. As the owner of her own dog rescue, that is.

Speaker 1 A second act made possible by the reskilling courses Lisa's taking now with AARP to help make sure her income lives as long as she does and she can finally run with the big dogs and the small dogs who just think they're big dogs.

Speaker 1 That's why the younger you are, the more you need AARP. Learn more at AARP.org/slash skills.