RHS 061 - Aubie Knight on the Impact of COVID-19 on Independent Agents and What to Do Next

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

Speaker 7 Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the show. My name is Ryan Hanley.

Speaker 7 I am your host, and today we have an absolutely tremendous guest, someone who I have known for quite a while now and had just over the years

Speaker 7 fantastic conversations. I don't know, I don't know how else to describe it.
Just Aubi Knight is so, is a thoughtful guy. He thinks about our business.

Speaker 7 He comes at it from a very pragmatic point of view.

Speaker 7 And his position as president and CEO of the Independent Insurance Agents of North Carolina puts him in a unique spot to understand both the political dynamics of our industry as well as the boots on the ground, how to get things done.

Speaker 7 He's got some tremendous agents in his association in North Carolina, so he's always talking to some of the best and brightest in our space.

Speaker 7 And the way he thinks about running his association is just different. And every chance I get to spend some time with Aubi is time that I consider well spent.

Speaker 7 And I think you're going to love this interview. So the reason I had Aubi on

Speaker 7 was because North Carolina did a

Speaker 7 survey or a study, I guess you could say.

Speaker 7 And it basically

Speaker 7 got feedback from their member agencies about the impact that COVID-19 had had on their businesses. And there's some really interesting stuff in here.
And that's what we talk about.

Speaker 7 We talk about how has COVID impacted independent insurance agencies based on this study that North Carolina did and what we can be doing as independent agency owners, producers, you know, people in the space.

Speaker 7 what can we be doing moving forward to put our businesses in a position to succeed i think you're gonna love this episode before we get there i want to give a big shout out to our sponsor for today that is advisor evolved advisor evolved.com uh i get asked quite a bit you know hey i'm thinking about i need a new website or who should i use or what what's the best website vendor out there

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Speaker 2 That's it.

Speaker 7 All right, let's get to Aubi.

Speaker 10 Probably the biggest account of my career that I'm working on right now. It's a retail furniture store.

Speaker 10 Hartford and Chubb are looking at it, and

Speaker 7 which is cool.

Speaker 10 And,

Speaker 10 oh my God, the number of follow-up questions is like killing me. And

Speaker 10 like some of these questions, you know, some of this is just why I just think to myself, I mean, I get it, I get it, and I'm not trying to knock an industry that has done

Speaker 10 so well for so long and knows what it's doing. I'm not knocking that, but like

Speaker 10 who is the option? If I give them all the vehicles and all the drivers, the fact that a follow-up question is, we don't have a driver specifically attached to vehicle seven.

Speaker 10 Who is the and I'm like, guys, you have all the MVR records for all the drivers, you have all the a-plus records for all the for all the vehicles does it really matter who is on vehicle seven of a 20 driver 17 vehicle fleet do we really is that really worth spending time on like is that the question that we need to know

Speaker 6 well our our system means that we that's how i have to enter it in ryan so i've got to have somebody attached and you're like it's a fleet it's a freaking fleet i know i'm like i may i i may need the cargo van one day i may need the sedan one day.

Speaker 6 I may need the bigger truck one day. I mean, it just.

Speaker 10 Yeah. I mean, look, he checks off all the boxes.
They're all experienced drivers with three or more experience, and all of them have to maintain at least 100, 300 on their personal auto.

Speaker 10 They all have good, for the most part, MVRs, like a couple of little nicks and bumps, but nothing major. Like, this is a good, solid fleet.
It's a good, solid driver list.

Speaker 10 Why are we spending time on who drives vehicle seven?

Speaker 10 I just, it's like one of those things where I'm like,

Speaker 10 I just look at this and I say to myself, there was a time when I am sure that based on how long things took in general, that everybody was okay going, oh, yeah, I got to figure that out.

Speaker 10 I'm going to figure that out.

Speaker 10 I don't know how in the next wave of agents who I think have dispositions of varying degrees similar to my own. how this question continues to be something that is even tolerated.

Speaker 6 Like just, oh, and forget just from the agent's perspective, from the consumer's perspective yeah exactly right i mean from from the consumer's perspective when you know when the disruptor comes along that doesn't require that that degree of information then i mean it turns everything on his head i mean i'm old enough to remember ryan yeah i got in the business in the in the mid 90s well i actually got in the business on the retail side in the early 90s but then transitioned over to the association in the in the mid 90s and you know the guys the the the old guys would come in and i mean they used to hand deliver applications applications you know i mean you've probably heard those stories right i mean the association office was located you know in a convenient part of atlanta and and the guys you know those guys would drive down and go and deliver applications to the various carriers and take those guys to lunch then swing by the association office just to see what was up and chat yeah you know and you're like

Speaker 10 i don't know it's just a I'm with you man I uh you know and then I look at Tarmica and I'm like I don't think people realize what

Speaker 10 Raghav has going on. Like, I don't think people really understand

Speaker 10 what an API-driven comparative rater means for our industry. I just don't think people get it.

Speaker 10 I think they hear it and they're like, oh, we've heard some of those terms before.

Speaker 10 And I think there's some of that. But like,

Speaker 10 I mean,

Speaker 10 the stuff that he's doing is game-changing stuff. I mean, the ability, I mean, so

Speaker 10 I'm not giving away any trade secrets. Better Agency just announced a partnership and integration with Tarmica.
So,

Speaker 10 and I actually don't have any intrinsic knowledge into what this is going to be, but

Speaker 10 I can tell you what I'm pretty sure it's going to be is you have an account, a prospect comes into Better Agency through a form fill on your website, immediately sent to Tarmica and returned with a rate,

Speaker 10 a comparative rate for both personal and if it's a commercial account, commercial lines for the classes that that's capable of right inside a better agency that you then can package up and mail to the person.

Speaker 10 We're talking about that whole process taking minutes,

Speaker 10 minutes.

Speaker 10 This is what's coming because when you drive something via API,

Speaker 10 and I mean, I know you know this, but I feel like, I feel like so many people hear these terms and because we've heard it for so long,

Speaker 10 and it not really being true. Like someone would say, I'm using API, but really it wasn't an API or it was

Speaker 10 a version one or a version two API. Like these new version three APIs are full, full application integration into another application.
That's what we're talking about is you have one thing

Speaker 10 and all the utility of another thing is sucked into it

Speaker 10 as if it was there. And

Speaker 10 that's game-changing stuff. I mean, that's stuff that just,

Speaker 10 you know, when talk is.

Speaker 6 it ties back into the whole thing that Seth is doing with Neon as well, right?

Speaker 6 I mean, like, like where you could actually go in and look at a client screen and be real time looking to see if the payment's been made. Is the policy enforced? Is the bill gone out?

Speaker 6 Where's the, you know, I mean, that, that sort of thing.

Speaker 6 You know, the only thing that, you know, I've got my fingers crossed for with Tarmica is, you know, it's all going to be about carry adoption, right? I mean, if it's

Speaker 6 the carriers that are in your agency have to have to allow Tarmica to do that in order for that to end up being, you know, the benefit for you.

Speaker 10 And here's what's going to happen, because I'll tell you what's going to happen in my agency

Speaker 7 is

Speaker 10 the first carriers to get onto Tarmica are the biggest bit. No one's getting to business.

Speaker 10 Because if, I mean, rumor on the street is two questions for an auto quote.

Speaker 10 Right.

Speaker 10 So when you, when people look at some of these new insure techs and they go, and and you only need like a name and address or a name, address, birthday, and they're like, how can they, how can they rate them?

Speaker 10 All the data, all the data that you're, hey, what's your VIN number? I just had a guy text me his freaking VIN number, a picture of his VIN number from his car, right?

Speaker 10 Like this information is available online. You just have to have access to the databases.
So,

Speaker 10 you know, when I...

Speaker 10 So, so the fact, again, it goes back to the idea of how they're building this thing out. And again, I don't want this to be a commercial for them.
I just, I feel like.

Speaker 6 But dude, I'm all in. I mean, we,

Speaker 6 you're probably not. I mean, we, we took an equity piece.
I mean, we're in the, we're in the rat, we're in the, we're in the round, man. I mean, we've, so we're all in.
I get it.

Speaker 10 I, I just, I, it just, to me, is like, I look at it. I'm like, this is one of the few insurance technology solutions that it, that feels feasible.
that is actually getting real adoption.

Speaker 10 I mean, I've written, I've probably written somewhere between a half dozen and a dozen small commercial accounts through them now.

Speaker 10 I did a podcast the other day. I wrote, I had a guy call me 21 minutes later, booked with Liberty Mutual, done.
He has the policy. 21 minutes from phone call to booked policy.

Speaker 6 Well,

Speaker 6 I had a buddy, one of my, one of my best friends

Speaker 6 and neighbors, his daughter. is getting ready to start her sophomore year at Georgia.
So she moved out of the dorm

Speaker 6 a couple of weeks ago and moved into her first time college apartment. And he sent me,

Speaker 6 I'd love to show you the screenshot. He sent me because, you know,

Speaker 6 he's an insurance consumer. And this guy, he's awesome.
He's an awesome guy, small business owner. He's a great client, right, for any agency.

Speaker 6 But he's always bellyaching about the customer experience to me. You know, oh, it sucks.
My agent doesn't do anything to earn my business. And, you know, da da da da.
So he sent me a screenshot.

Speaker 6 a couple weeks ago and he had purchased a renters policy for his daughter through Lemonade, yeah, you know.

Speaker 6 And it's like, I don't know anything about this, but all insurance should be this easy, and you know, this is what I'm talking about.

Speaker 6 Have you ever heard of these guys, you know, that sort of thing? So, that that resulted in a conversation, but then I also had to raise him.

Speaker 6 I was like, Well, why did you have to go either a separate renter's policy? I mean, I get it, I mean, you can, but you could have also just had your.

Speaker 6 So, then he ended up being mad that he had spent, you know, $89 when he could have just had the college department listed, you know, as an additional residence and

Speaker 6 satisfy the landowner, the landlord. So it's, it's funny stuff, man.

Speaker 10 Yeah. I um,

Speaker 10 I don't know if you heard the uh,

Speaker 10 if you listened to the episode that I do with Chefi Ben Hutta, I had her on, and um, we were talking about lemonade.

Speaker 10 And um,

Speaker 10 I just, you know, I

Speaker 10 think

Speaker 10 the deeper I get into, so it's, it's been so interesting, man.

Speaker 10 I mean, I know you've, you've, we've known each other for a while now, and going from agent to doing all the association stuff to then going to Bold Penguin, now back to owning an agent, like to see that spectrum.

Speaker 10 Um, and to come back sitting here, uh, there's part of me that's like, there's part of me, I was worried. Like, there's a lot of people that ask me, um, why the hell are you starting an agency?

Speaker 10 Like, everything you've done, they everyone just assumed I would go to an insur tech or something.

Speaker 10 Um, which and and I have no beef with insurtechs at all, obviously. Um,

Speaker 10 but I just,

Speaker 10 the more I get into it, the more I believe in the human. Like, I believe in the human.
I just think, one,

Speaker 10 the humans need better tools. And

Speaker 10 that's why I speak the neons, the better agencies, the Chris Langel Advisory Volves, the Tarmica. It's why I talk about these companies all the time.
And there are others, but like

Speaker 10 I feel like

Speaker 10 every step those companies make moving forward. Actually, you know who said it to me the other day? Zach Mefford from Coverage Direct up in Iowa.
He said, Hanley, he goes, oh, dude, awesome.

Speaker 10 Him and his partner, Ryan Salve, they run this tremendous agency up in Iowa. Tremendous.
Absolutely. They're rock stars.
They're both like, I think they're mid to late 30s, maybe mid 30s.

Speaker 10 They just, they're, they're awesome dudes. Neon pilots.
They, he goes, he said, Hanley, he goes, it feels to me like for the first time, we're not being bullshitted.

Speaker 10 Like the technology actually is as good as advertised. Like the things that are coming out are as good as advertised.
And it was cool hearing it from him because he's a discerning guy.

Speaker 10 He's not a smoke, you know, he's not just going to blow smoke, you know, because I'm kind of a hype man. So I talk shit and people are like, oh, you know, this is, this is Ryan being crazy again.

Speaker 10 But with this dude, he doesn't say that kind of stuff unless he means it. And I believe him, you know, I think it's really exciting.
I think we've.

Speaker 10 All the stuff that went on in 2016, 2017, I feel like it's bearing fruit today. And it's exciting.
I don't know if you see that from where you are.

Speaker 6 Well, I mean, and I'm so encouraged to hear even you, you make a real life story of saying, hey, you know, a guy called and

Speaker 6 20 minutes later, he's got a policy, right? We've gone through the whole process because

Speaker 6 that's evidence, right?

Speaker 6 I mean, that's proof that this type of technology is working so that the human of the human and the relationship can start to deliver on an experience that's far more like the lemonade experience than the, hey, by the way, of the 20 drivers, who should I assign to vehicle vehicle number seven?

Speaker 6 You're like, Jesus Christ, are we really?

Speaker 10 You know, it's, I know, it's, it's, uh, you know, what?

Speaker 10 So, what's funny for all you haters out there that are listening to the show religiously, that VIN number that I told you I got snapped the picture of, that's the guy.

Speaker 10 So, because the guy's policy that I wrote in 21 minutes was like a $600 bop, right? So, all the haters are like, Yeah, of course you're writing $600 bops in 20 minutes.

Speaker 10 Well, I'm cross-selling his auto and his renter MFers, So I'm doing exactly what I told you I was going to do. And now it's a really nice account because he's left me a Google review.

Speaker 10 I'm going to write his personal stuff and I got his business policy. So that's what that and I say, I'm obviously a little fired up.

Speaker 10 It's Friday afternoon and I'm really, this, this podcast ends my professional

Speaker 10 for the day. So

Speaker 10 the next thing is a nice crispy crack of an afternoon Friday beer for Ryan. So

Speaker 10 my point in saying all this is

Speaker 10 I think, you know, I think that we are in,

Speaker 10 for the agents whose heads are in the right place, I mean, you got a bunch of them in your state, man, a bunch of people doing really fun stuff. And,

Speaker 10 you know, I think for those agents who are partnered with the right technology partners, man,

Speaker 10 it feels to me like that independent agent renaissance that we talk so much about. 2015, 2016, 2017.
It feels like we're in the early stages of it today. Like it's really starting to happen.

Speaker 6 Yeah, it never happens as fast as you think it's going to or at the exact moment that you think it to, but it's happening. And I think even

Speaker 6 maybe to

Speaker 6 segue into one of the things we want to talk about today is the acceleration that COVID has caused in terms of just adaptation, you know, adopting new technologies and trying to provide a different type of customer experience, not because you necessarily wanted to, but because now you've been forced to.

Speaker 6 So, I mean, I think that's,

Speaker 6 I think that's huge.

Speaker 10 Yeah. And that is really, you know, I mean, obviously, you and I could chew the shit about a lot of different things.

Speaker 10 But

Speaker 6 at

Speaker 10 IANC,

Speaker 10 you guys did this. I keep showing pictures like I do video.
I'm like showing, I'm showing Aubi stuff on the screen that he doesn't need to see. Like I even produced the video.

Speaker 10 So you can tell where my head is at today. But

Speaker 10 you guys did this COVID-19 impact survey on your members and i wanted to have you on because i feel like um well i was kind of hoping when we got to the day when we'd actually talk covet might be going away it doesn't feel that way at least not where i am because the emperor of my state has decided to not be so but um

Speaker 10 uh i'm super interested in the results because i think uh i think some of the findings that you have in here speak to a lot of the stuff that we've talked about so far.

Speaker 10 So I guess my first question to you is,

Speaker 10 like, what was what was the first thing that jumped out at you about this survey?

Speaker 10 Like when you, you know, and there's a couple different things that I want to dive into, but like for you personally, knowing your agents, spending time, you know, being so connected with others

Speaker 10 executive directors around the, around the country, like

Speaker 10 what

Speaker 10 What caught you? What what grabbed you? What what said you're like, whoa, I didn't expect to see that if there was anything.

Speaker 6 Yeah, well, you know,

Speaker 6 there were two main things. One had to do with the work from home orders and

Speaker 6 the fact that 43% of our respondents to the survey basically responded that they stayed open. Their offices stayed open with most or all of their employees reporting to the office every day.

Speaker 6 That on the surface was initially shocking to me.

Speaker 6 And then the other thing that I was I was sort of surprised by, but then also very encouraged by, was just

Speaker 6 the level of optimism and there hasn't been a tremendous shift in how agencies are look thinking about the future. You know, not their

Speaker 6 very small percentage of agencies are significantly less optimistic about the future.

Speaker 6 Most are

Speaker 6 you know slightly less optimistic, about the same or slightly more, but

Speaker 6 not very many agencies are thinking that this is going to have long-term and significant implications to their revenue and to their business. So

Speaker 6 those were the two big takeaways for me.

Speaker 10 Do you think that that is

Speaker 10 because they

Speaker 10 feel their business is rock solid, they have a good plan? Do you think any part of that is just maybe having some blinders on and not really fully taking in what's coming?

Speaker 10 Or

Speaker 10 where do you think that is from?

Speaker 6 Yeah,

Speaker 6 there's always that ripple effect in insurance agency revenues.

Speaker 6 I mean, we've got a certain degree of insulation from economic downturn and from recession, and it normally takes a while for those things to impact premiums at the retail level and then

Speaker 6 impacting agency revenues. So

Speaker 6 I think by and large, member agencies are thinking this thing will be over before that ripple effect really hits my agency with any significance. Now,

Speaker 6 we did have

Speaker 6 8% of the respondents are forecasting their agencies are going to be down, their revenues are going to be down significantly this year.

Speaker 6 So we looked at those, did a little bit of a deeper dive into those agencies, and that's largely being driven by agencies that are just kind of overexposed in a couple of industries that are being hit hard.

Speaker 6 If you're an agency, or even if you have a producer or two within your agency that are focused on hospitality and restaurants, then obviously you're kind of taking it on the chin.

Speaker 10 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or if you were going to launch your startup agency in the fitness industry, that was also not a good play.

Speaker 10 So one of the stats that immediately jumped out to me was about

Speaker 10 the question was: how did your agency workforce respond to the state and local stay-at-home orders?

Speaker 10 And this, that the result was 75% of respondents with revenue over 5 million fully converted staff to remote, while only 11% of the small agencies, 200,000 or below. And I thought, you know,

Speaker 10 I don't know what I would have thought, but that was one of the largest discrepancies in terms of how big of a percentage difference it was. And I just, it just, that stood out to me.

Speaker 10 I was like, wow, that is a very substantial difference in terms of philosophy.

Speaker 6 Yeah, completely.

Speaker 6 And one of the things that I've kind of found out anecdotally just by talking with some of the smaller agencies is even though they were showing up at the office every day along with their employees, they were still closing the office to outsiders, right?

Speaker 6 So they were not allowing marketing rep visits. They were not even seeing customers in the office.

Speaker 6 And a lot of those were family-owned agencies.

Speaker 6 So it was almost like their agency

Speaker 6 was their social distancing bubble.

Speaker 6 They all

Speaker 6 got up at home, had breakfast together, got in the car, drove to the office, and then worked from the office together. And it it was

Speaker 6 more or less the same, you know, the same group of a group of people.

Speaker 10 Yeah. No, and that makes a lot of sense.
That's actually what my wife's family agency did was they, they kind of, the way their office is spread out, they kind of are socially distanced to begin with.

Speaker 10 And they did let anyone who really had a real issue work from home, and they did do that. But actually, there was only three, I think they have 12 people.

Speaker 10 And I think only about three of them stayed home full time. The rest, you know, basically came to the office and stayed away from each other and wore masks.

Speaker 10 And they did do the thing where they just put a sign that said, hey, call us. We'll come out.
Don't come in. We're not doing that anymore.
Now you can come in if you have a mask on.

Speaker 10 But, you know, during the early days, they just said, stay out. And

Speaker 10 I thought that was interesting. It is funny to think they all wake up together.
They all get in the same car. They all drive the same office.

Speaker 6 Yeah,

Speaker 6 I had lunch with Josh Lipstone yesterday.

Speaker 6 And, you know, they're not that small of an agency and they don't, it's not like, it's not like they are all under the same roof, but Josh was like, you know, they went into the office and it's his dad and his sister and the one employee and they just kind of keep their space

Speaker 6 in the office. Yeah.

Speaker 10 Killing commercial member, by the way, represent Killing Commercial.

Speaker 7 Josh Lipstone.

Speaker 10 You know, I was talking to, I was talking to my, so my brother-in-law owns a renter's insurance agency nationally.

Speaker 6 Yeah, I remember that in New York City, right? But based out of New York?

Speaker 10 Well, he lives up here now. He started in New York.
He's since moved up. But he writes

Speaker 10 apartment complexes all over. Not the building for those, he doesn't write the buildings themselves.

Speaker 10 He actually manages the renters' insurance programs inside the building to keep the loss ratio down for the agents and carriers that write the structure themselves, which is

Speaker 10 an interesting business. But we were talking about,

Speaker 10 and this is just kind of speaks to the larger businesses going remote, but we were talking about

Speaker 10 he wants all his people in-house. He's got about 20 employees.
And my wife and her family, they want their people to work from the office.

Speaker 10 And they're like, you know, I just can't imagine a world where we're not operating in the same space. Like we feel less efficient.
And I was like, yeah, Amazon does not feel that way.

Speaker 10 Like American Express does not feel that way. Like those businesses are never coming back.
Not for a long, I shouldn't say never, but.

Speaker 6 No, Amazon's the the opposite, Brian. There was actually an article yesterday, it was two days ago in the Wall Street Journal, and then yesterday it kind of hit the other media.

Speaker 6 They just purchased huge amounts of corporate retail space. Like in Manhattan, they bought the big building from WeWork, and it completely made me rethink, you know, what is the future of the office?

Speaker 6 And it seems like Amazon's going the zag strategy, right? I mean, everybody else.

Speaker 10 He's probably already got the vaccine because he's part of the Illuminati. So he's already got the vaccine.
He's been stamping them for months.

Speaker 10 They're all vaccinated. That's the thing.

Speaker 10 The Illuminati already have the vaccine, man.

Speaker 6 What the future work is,

Speaker 6 it's so hard. I mean,

Speaker 6 we've had a 17,000 square foot office building in the association, and a significant portion of that has been always dedicated to live in-house training. and then office space for staff.

Speaker 6 And now, you know, I go into the office and

Speaker 6 either we've got way too much stuff or I can now, where I thought I was maxed out in terms of the number of employees I could house, I could grow by another 30%.

Speaker 6 And through office sharing and remote work and others, I've got enough

Speaker 6 floor space to last forever now.

Speaker 10 You know, I really, I think what you just described, this kind of hybrid model is, is really where a lot of people are going because I do think sharing the same space at times is very important.

Speaker 10 But, you know, I think back to like my agency nation days when we had a distributed workforce, like we had people in Wisconsin, we'd are Milwaukee, people in Minneapolis, and then the rest of my team was kind of spread out through the Midwest and East Coast.

Speaker 10 And for the most part, we worked remote. And, but then

Speaker 10 four or five times a year, we would all get together and spend three to four days. And that time was very, very important.

Speaker 10 If we skipped one of those because something was going on, you could see it in our work product. So I think it's important for us to share space.

Speaker 10 At the same time, I do think people are more comfortable in the in-between getting work done from home. And

Speaker 10 I also think it depends on your work from home culture.

Speaker 10 Did you get any feedback from the survey or from any of the respondents on the side or whatever? And in addition, additional comments around just in general,

Speaker 10 their experience building a remote culture? Because I think that's the heart.

Speaker 10 The technology is solvable. The culture is really tough.

Speaker 6 Yeah, no, 100%. I mean, that's something that I've spent personally a lot of time thinking about.
And I've talked to a lot of my colleagues as well as agency owners.

Speaker 6 And that is how do you maintain culture? How do you maintain the spirit of collaboration and the spirit of purpose and mission and focus, you know, in a remote environment? And

Speaker 6 it's something that I think is doable. You just have to be super intentional about it.
Yeah.

Speaker 6 I mean, so, I mean, I was, especially early on in the early on in the process, I mean, I was sending out, you know, weekly videos to my team.

Speaker 6 You know, I was checking in, you know, just really over-communicating. Um, but it's it's funny, man, how quickly you fall back into a new routine.

Speaker 6 I mean, now, I mean, and I hate, I freaking hate the whole new normal, but it's almost gotten to the point where we've been doing this for so long now, it has kind of become the new normal.

Speaker 6 And I'm not being, I'm not being as intentional about checking in with my team and saying, Hey, how are you guys doing? How's your family doing? Um, you know, those types of things. I know

Speaker 6 we've had one agency that contacted us

Speaker 6 with an address change. And so now they went from having a fiscal address to a PO box.
And he just said, absolutely, hey,

Speaker 6 my lease was coming up for renewal and we were working so well effectively, we're just remote now because

Speaker 6 we're not going to have an office.

Speaker 6 I think I heard you make that comment. or maybe a tweet or something I saw something and I'm attributing to Ryan Hanley.
It might have been from someone else that said,

Speaker 6 I'll never have a a bricks and mortar agency.

Speaker 10 Yeah, I don't think I will. You know what I do do is I do pay a monthly fee for a co-working space.

Speaker 10 So I have a coworking space where they got four offices that I can, or not four offices, four conference spaces. There's offices that you can rent for the day.
There's all this open space.

Speaker 10 So if I need to have it like all my carrier meetings when we were meeting. that I did when I was looking for appointments, I did down there because obviously I'm going to the basement of my house.

Speaker 10 But I have a this is probably a 12 by 14 office space that has everything i could possibly need why would i need a physical space now when i do get employees if they are in the albany area you know i want to have a place i can go meet with them and we can whiteboard and you know chit chat and share space and time and that's what that is but that we don't need to be there every day not for a thousand, two thousand, five thousand dollars a month.

Speaker 10 I mean, as you grow, these that fixed cost and then all the fixed costs that comes along with that, when i can go to light speed voice send them a 30 phone and they're basically plugged in ready to rock and roll right i mean um

Speaker 10 it's it's i think that world

Speaker 10 it'll it i would just have to be i would have to be a i would have a heavy shift in mindset to believe that I would need to rent a space

Speaker 10 when coworking is available.

Speaker 10 If it's not available in your town, then I could see renting a small space to kind of get together if it it wasn't you know if it was financially feasible but um co-working changes the game for me yeah and and i think also um

Speaker 6 even just going to the hybrid model all of a sudden everybody even if you believe that you still need physical space like you know that your square footage per employee has just shifted downward tremendously you know

Speaker 10 so i agree you know the other thing too is i think this is going to really press leadership like like i don't mean um

Speaker 10 I guess what I mean by that is it's going to press all of us to be better leaders of our people. And, and, and,

Speaker 10 I, and I talk to my wife about this all the time because she is, she does not like leading her team remotely. She likes to see them and talk to them.
And I don't think she's wrong for that.

Speaker 10 At the same time, what if a rock star walks in the door and says, three days a week, I want to work from home? And you, you know, they're 125%

Speaker 10 production employee. They're just hardworking.
They're smart. They get it.
They're engaged. But three days a week, they want to be home.

Speaker 10 What you're going to say, no, that's a tough, that's a tough thing.

Speaker 10 You know, you got to be able to adapt as a leader to that and somehow manage that person alongside, you know, your other employee who's been there for 20 years, who loves coming into the office every day, and then your other employee who wants to be home every day.

Speaker 10 And how do you productively manage all three of those personalities

Speaker 10 without one feeling like they're getting more or less or, you know, whatever.

Speaker 10 I think it puts a lot of pressure on leadership.

Speaker 6 Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 6 And just from the standpoint of just being an employer and being competitive in the marketplace, I mean, to your point, you know, to a lot of people, you know, compensation is always going to be important, but there are other factors that are important in terms of attracting talent and

Speaker 6 flexibility with work schedule, particularly now. I mean,

Speaker 6 the degree of flexibility that people are having to

Speaker 6 allow and really encourage right now with schools, in a lot of places, schools being shut down and your employee is, not only are they working remote, but they're working remote and they've got two elementary school age kids at home that they're, you know, they're tag teaming with the spouse to try to make sure they're doing their schoolwork.

Speaker 6 And,

Speaker 6 you know, it's...

Speaker 6 It's a challenge and it does provide an opportunity for leadership and to display some, you know, some flexibility and

Speaker 6 you know allow your employees to really do what's best what's best for them and in the belief that ultimately that's going to be what's best for you know what's best for your organization right they're going to pay that forward one one one

Speaker 6 question on our survey was

Speaker 6 will will you be considering expanding you know your telework policy and only 26 percent of the respondents said no so the other 74 were yes we've already made that decision we're definitely going to or we're we're still that's still under consideration.

Speaker 6 That was about divided. That was about divided in half.

Speaker 7 I think you'd have to be crazy not to, not to let them work from home.

Speaker 10 Well, I shouldn't say that because I am,

Speaker 10 I've decided I'm not giving agencies a hard time for being snowflakes anymore. Not snowflakes in the liberal sense, snowflakes in the, we are all actually unique sense.
And,

Speaker 10 you know, I mean,

Speaker 10 it,

Speaker 10 I, I, I, you know, I've, I've said this before on the show, but I think it just bears repeating because I honestly believe it today. That was been one of my biggest mind shifts.

Speaker 10 And I think it bared out. And a lot of what I saw from this as well is that

Speaker 10 you and I may have even had this conversation in previous lives, but like

Speaker 10 I could never really understand why we couldn't find at least semi-templated solutions for agencies.

Speaker 10 Why is it that you could have a thing that you know works and 75% of the agents just can't figure it out? And that used to really drive me nuts. You know, I'd be like,

Speaker 10 and it's because they're so different and rightfully different.

Speaker 6 Well,

Speaker 6 one of the most beautiful things about the independent agency system is there's so many different paths to be successful, right? There's so many different ways that you can be successful.

Speaker 6 And then what you just described is the flip side of that same coin, right? There's no standardized solution because there are so many different paths forward.

Speaker 6 And so it's, you know, you kind of have to play both sides of that, but it can be frustrating.

Speaker 6 And it's, it's, it's incredible to look at agencies that are doing well and are successful and their business model can be completely different than

Speaker 6 another.

Speaker 6 That's equally as successful.

Speaker 10 Yeah. And then, you know, I think

Speaker 10 I, yeah, yeah, it's been, dude, I just, this, this, I could go on. I could, I could, my mentality has changed.

Speaker 10 uh so so much i i would like to say matured maybe is a better way to put it so much just in these, since March 9, just in the process of building this agency.

Speaker 10 So many things that I thought I understood from the outside that now,

Speaker 10 even in a small sample size, right?

Speaker 10 I mean, I've only been doing this for a little over six months, but even in that small sample size, how my eyes have just been open to here is really what's going on and why.

Speaker 10 Not just that all agencies are different, but the reason they're different is because they serve a niche market in a rural community in a highly regulated state that also has natural disasters, that also has a ton of mutuals.

Speaker 10 Okay, how do you, you know, what do you, how do you figure that out? Okay, you know what I mean? Like, it's just that, and they've built the agency that fits that market. It's kind of like

Speaker 10 Darwin would be super pumped about independent agents. Darwin would be all, his next book, if he were still alive, would be the evolution of the independent agency.
Because that's what it is.

Speaker 10 You stick an entrepreneur into a place and all of a sudden they build this thing adapting to all the unique aspects of geography,

Speaker 10 of the legal environment, the physical environment, the nature of

Speaker 10 the businesses and the commerce in the area.

Speaker 10 It is truly wild.

Speaker 6 And

Speaker 6 I've never thought of the Darwin and the evolution analysis, the evolution analogy, but now it's like, yeah, why does this one agency have that one little toe that sticks out a little further with a claw on the end, right?

Speaker 6 It's like, well, because he needed that to climb this type of tree in the environment that he was living in or whatever.

Speaker 10 Exactly.

Speaker 10 So one of the questions that I had for you, too, and

Speaker 10 the stat is in the,

Speaker 10 and we're going to, I want,

Speaker 10 at the end, we're going to tell everyone where to get the report and, you know, how they get it and everything, because I think this is awesome that you did this.

Speaker 10 And I was excited that you're willing to come on and talk about it.

Speaker 6 And you're welcome to share it, Ryan. If you, if you've got a,

Speaker 6 if you want to put it on your website and share it directly, you're welcome to do that. You don't have to direct, you don't have to direct them towards it.

Speaker 10 Okay, cool.

Speaker 10 So, so we will tell them how to check it out on yours, but also if you go to the show notes, which will be ryanhaley.com forward slash obby dash night, um, or just go to the ryanhaley.com, you'll find it.

Speaker 10 I'll have the PDF linked up in the show notes as well. But, um,

Speaker 6 uh,

Speaker 10 so one of the stats that I, that I thought Baird, um, there could be a lot of interesting uh

Speaker 10 education opportunities out of was if your agency transitioned to remote work or increased the number of employees working from home during the COVID-19 crisis, how would you describe the level of efficiency that those employees were able to achieve?

Speaker 10 And only 6%

Speaker 10 said they were more efficient working homes, 6%.

Speaker 10 So 65% said they were able to operate at the same, which is awesome. That's awesome.
But I think the goal of work from home is a higher efficiency level.

Speaker 10 And I guess my question for you is, have you thought about or what have you heard? Like,

Speaker 10 what are some things that agents could do to take this opportunity and actually create a more efficient agency operation?

Speaker 6 Yeah, so you're really drilling down now to the heart of why did we do the survey? I mean, because what we want to identify is

Speaker 6 what problems is COVID presenting to our members, right? Where do they see they're having specific problems and challenges?

Speaker 6 Because that's how we have really redefined and really repositioned ourselves as an association. What's our value proposition and what our whole purpose is is to help our members solve their problems.

Speaker 6 So, whatever our members are having,

Speaker 6 wherever they're having problems, we want to be able to come up and offer solutions. So, part of this was, okay, let's see what specific problems our member agencies are having as it relates to COVID.

Speaker 6 And that's certainly one.

Speaker 6 And I also will throw in the fact that

Speaker 6 I thought the really probably the most honest people in the survey are the 10% that I don't really know how effectively my

Speaker 6 employees are working.

Speaker 6 I'm not,

Speaker 6 I don't, I don't even know how to, how am I supposed to measure whether they're being more effective or less effective? I don't even know.

Speaker 6 I thought I ought to go back and give

Speaker 6 the people that that 10% ought to receive a higher weighted score in the other areas because I think those guys are are the ones that are probably the most.

Speaker 10 I'm just guessing.

Speaker 6 I don't really know. Right, right.
Yeah, exactly. I think those are the more honest folks.

Speaker 6 One thing,

Speaker 6 we had some open-ended questions, and we tried to summarize those open-ended questions in about seven or eight different categories. And that's the last page of the report.

Speaker 6 And so nearly all of the open-ended comments and questions kind of fell into how do I increase and improve my remote work capabilities?

Speaker 6 I need to increase my investment in technology. We really need to make steps to improve the customer experience.

Speaker 6 One thing is that

Speaker 6 we've not drilled down and can answer definitively, but it appears that the agencies that are significantly more optimistic and have actually seen revenue growth during COVID are those agencies that have a strong online presence.

Speaker 6 So people people are shopping, people are sitting at home, and you have those agencies that have a strong online presence are getting opportunities for new business during this time.

Speaker 6 So, you know,

Speaker 6 there's all sorts of opportunities for us to

Speaker 6 just continue in helping educate members and allowing them to evolve so that they can, you know, better serve the customer.

Speaker 6 be more efficient in times like this. So

Speaker 6 we've had some webinars already on transitioning to a remote workplace.

Speaker 6 And I do think that we need to continue along that path of helping agencies, one, understand how to measure efficiency, and then two, understand what the right tools and technologies are so that you can stay as efficient in a remote environment.

Speaker 6 I mean, you know, like personally,

Speaker 6 we've made investments just in things like making sure everybody had dual monitors at home.

Speaker 6 You know, I mean, that was something like when I'm talking to my staff and they said, yeah, well, I'm not quite as efficient as I would be if I were if I were in the office because I've only got a single monitor.

Speaker 6 So, um, you know, we went out and bought out these, you know, these Lenovo, really portable,

Speaker 6 really, really cool monitors.

Speaker 6 Yeah, I've got one in my laptop bag now, so even when I'm even when I'm working remote, I just pull out this little thin, thin monitor and plug it into USB port, and you get dual monitor time.

Speaker 6 So, just little things like that can make a big difference.

Speaker 10 Yeah,

Speaker 10 I agree, man. I think, I think that

Speaker 10 I think

Speaker 10 COVID has opened people's eyes to, in a very sharp way, a lot of the prognostication of the last decade or so.

Speaker 10 I think it was like, yeah, you know, we're fine, we're fine, we're fine.

Speaker 6 Oh, no, what is going on?

Speaker 10 Like, how do we, and the good news is there's plenty of solutions out there. And I think the solutions are relatively cost effective.
I think they're becoming easier to use.

Speaker 10 I think, you know, we've mentioned some of my favorites, but there's so many more. It's kind of, you know, there's plenty of good solutions.

Speaker 10 You know, I think,

Speaker 10 you know, I talked to,

Speaker 10 I talked to

Speaker 10 one of my insiders at Vertifor the other day.

Speaker 10 And even he said, you know, you know, this, this, you know, he goes, I know, I'm sure on the forums we're getting hammered for being sold or whatever again.

Speaker 10 And he said, but I got to be honest with you, it frees us up to do a a lot of the things that we couldn't do under PE.

Speaker 10 And, you know, he said, you know, he, I think it feel, in my general sense in making that comment is

Speaker 10 it feels to me like everybody, everybody sees what's necessary now, that these ecosystems don't work. You have to be connected.
You have to be easy to use. And

Speaker 10 we are really slingshotting forward, which makes things like being more efficient in remote work possible. I mean,

Speaker 10 I look at what I, you know, I was talking to my wife and I was showing her better agency because I think very highly of this particular program. And I just said, it has really changed the game for me.

Speaker 10 Like I've never used a CRM that also is essentially

Speaker 10 everything up to downloads and accords an agency management system.

Speaker 10 And to have everything in one place and to have it be visually easy and streamlined, I was like, and the fact that I could plug into it from any computer anywhere doesn't matter boom boom boom you know web web internet access you know website browser doesn't matter if you're on a mac a pc it's just boom there it is use it your person could be anywhere they can use it on their phone and um

Speaker 10 you know though that type of technology it changes the game for agencies it changes the game the um the the

Speaker 6 agencies that were leaning forward in tech now, I think exactly see things the way that you do, Ryan, in terms of like integration and the ease of using technology. But

Speaker 6 the other,

Speaker 6 you know, I guess, impact of COVID is those agencies that I never thought would evolve or change, you know, that were still happy to see customers and give them a cup of coffee and have a 15-minute chat with them so they could drop off a payment.

Speaker 6 Those agencies are changing and they're adopting the EP policies and

Speaker 6 they're adopting DocuSign instead of having

Speaker 6 the customer come in and leave forms and things. things.
So

Speaker 6 the evolution is taking place across the continuum, if you would, of technology. Everybody has shifted to be more technology savvy, regardless of where you were.

Speaker 6 Everybody took a step in the tech savvy direction.

Speaker 10 And you know what's great about it?

Speaker 10 I had someone who I would throw in the category that you just described call me the other day and they were just asking me a question about something.

Speaker 10 And he said to me, he goes, you know, I've been fighting this for years. Really hasn't been as hard as I thought it would be.

Speaker 10 He's like, I always imagine this transition being more difficult than it has actually been.

Speaker 10 He goes, yeah, the first couple of months were a little rough, but we've made the changes and added a couple of things. And he goes, it really hasn't been that bad.
And I was like,

Speaker 10 in the most positive way, I was like, yes, exactly. That is what we've been trying to tell you.
It's what everyone has been trying to tell you for all this time. And

Speaker 10 it wasn't like a football spike. I said it in a very nice way.
I was just like, that's great. That's great.
And I wasn't trying to spike the football on him. I just meant like,

Speaker 10 yes,

Speaker 10 it is true. Like, you are 100% right.

Speaker 10 You know, if you're coming off a, if you're coming off a TA or one of these old,

Speaker 10 yeah, you're going to feel a little bit of pain. But ultimately, I think the tools have evolved to the point where like changing an agency management system 15 years ago, it's not as hard today.

Speaker 10 It's not nice, but it's not as hard.

Speaker 10 You get through it faster. The other side is easier.

Speaker 10 You can pick up the tools. They're more visually appealing, the things, and And it's not as difficult as people think that it actually is.

Speaker 10 And I think it's important, you know, guys like you or leaders like you, I don't want to just say guys, you know,

Speaker 10 I think a lot of the people are saying the right things.

Speaker 10 They're putting the right options in front of people, letting people choose from a palette of options so they can still be independent.

Speaker 10 They're not having solutions shoved down their throat, but saying, here, here's three. Here's three solutions that can help you figure out which one makes the best.

Speaker 10 But if you choose one of these, you're going to be just fine. And I think, I think it's great.
I think

Speaker 10 I feel as positive about the business as I have ever felt in my career today, despite COVID.

Speaker 10 I almost maybe because of COVID, because we've come through this so strongly, and because, you know, half our industry didn't get wiped out and people aren't, you know, bitching and complaining all over.

Speaker 10 They're really pushing hard and learning and adapting. And

Speaker 10 friggin' Darwin, man,

Speaker 10 that's what it is.

Speaker 6 I was, I was, If you didn't throw the Darwin, I was going to go.

Speaker 10 I mean,

Speaker 6 independent agents are resilient. And man, they may not,

Speaker 6 a lot of agencies do not drive change, right? But a lot of agencies don't drive change. They're not looking to drive innovation, but they have proven themselves capable of adapting when they need to.

Speaker 6 And in some cases, when they're forced to.

Speaker 6 And so this is a situation where many have been forced to change and

Speaker 6 to evolve. And I've talked to a number of agencies that sound exactly like the conversation you had.
And they always sound like, I'm really not sure why we didn't do this years ago.

Speaker 6 Well, I mean, I hate to be a smartass about it. Well, you didn't have to, right? I mean, you were not required to do it, so you didn't.

Speaker 6 And now that you're now that your customers or carriers or just the business environment in general is requiring you to do it, well, you did it.

Speaker 6 you know you you grew you grew the six toe that goes out sideways and has the special claw on it because you you had to.

Speaker 10 Yeah, exactly. Well, hey, man,

Speaker 10 I obviously thank the world of you and your work.

Speaker 6 Yeah, likewise, buddy. I appreciate it.

Speaker 10 And I'm glad that you guys do things like this survey because

Speaker 10 it just gets people having conversations. It shows them.

Speaker 10 I think it just...

Speaker 10 It helps show them that there's light at the end of the tunnel, that these things are possible, that their peers are making it happen, that there's hope for them in the places where maybe they feel lost or that they have blind spots.

Speaker 10 And

Speaker 10 I'm just glad you're willing to share your time with me and everyone that's listening. So thanks so much, dude.

Speaker 6 Yeah, anytime, buddy. And I certainly don't want to prolong the conversation since I'm the last thing standing between you and a weekend.
So,

Speaker 6 yeah, I hope you have a great weekend. Thank you for having me on, Ryan.
I appreciate it very much. Be good, buddy.

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