RHS 054 - Chris Langille on Exactly Where to Spend Your Marketing Dollars Going Forward

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

Speaker 6 Hello everyone and welcome back to the show.

Speaker 6 This is a wild, fast episode. We talk about a lot of stuff,

Speaker 6 very tactical.

Speaker 6 Chris Langell is our guest today. And the reason Chris is on the on the show for this specific episode, although he's been a guest in the past, is because he had this Twitter storm, we'll call it.

Speaker 6 He just was kind of, I don't want to call it a rant because that diminishes like what he was actually saying, which I think the questions and thoughts that he was sharing were very valid, very well thought out.

Speaker 6 So I don't want to diminish it in any way.

Speaker 6 But he kind of had this flurry of posts and they were all about things that he would do differently or things that he would do if he were starting an agency today, just some core ideas.

Speaker 6 And I thought that they were, I thought they were pretty heady topics. I thought they were pretty interesting stuff.
So I immediately sent him a message. I said, yo, bro, like, let's

Speaker 6 get on the podcast and just talk through these ideas because I think they're really, I think it's really interesting stuff.

Speaker 6 And obviously I have my thoughts as I'm building rogue around some of the ideas. And that's what this is.
So this is kind of impromptu. He had this Twitter storm on Friday.
I sent him a message.

Speaker 6 I said, dude, let's jump on on Monday. Let's talk about these ideas.
And here we are, four days later, recording the episode.

Speaker 6 So I don't know when you'll actually listen to this, but it's four days after the Twitter storm.

Speaker 6 And I think there's some really good stuff. I'd love your feedback on this episode.

Speaker 6 You know, you guys, I get like one-off messages from you guys, but if you ever want to just like hit me up with an idea or whatever, obviously any of the socials, you can always hit me up or Ryan at RyanHanley.com.

Speaker 6 I'd love your ideas and feedback because these episodes are meant to push the way we think about the industry.

Speaker 6 And Chris is certainly one of those guys who's dialed in and can give us a lot of really interesting insights. And I think you're going to love this episode.

Speaker 6 Before we get there, I want to give a huge shout out to our sponsors, Tarmica. Tarmica is changing the way commercial insurance is done.
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Speaker 6 You get the number and you go to bridge and you find out the price is $2,000 more, and you look like a, you know, you look like you don't know what you're doing to the client.

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Speaker 6 All right, let's get on to Chris. Chris Langell,

Speaker 6 let's go.

Speaker 8 So, dude,

Speaker 8 you have been super freaking hardcore on the Twitters lately. And I saw you ripping it up the other day.
I don't even know what day it was. I think it was like a weekend.

Speaker 8 It was either Friday or Saturday. And

Speaker 8 I kind of responded to each one. You put like six things out and I responded to each one.
And

Speaker 8 I just, I was like, this, and I reached out to you immediately and I was like, dude, we should do a podcast about this because I think that some of the topics that you were bringing up are super relevant to today.

Speaker 8 I also think you have a unique perspective in that, you know, you were an agent, now you run a technology company that serves agents, but at the same time, because of the nature of what you do, you're kind of inside and talking to and seeing what's going on with so many agents across, you know, at so many different levels, right?

Speaker 8 I mean, you have Carruthers, you know, doing, doing high-end, middle-market, commercial stuff, all the way down to like, you know, just a generalist, local, doing a lot of personalized, small commercial stuff.

Speaker 8 So you, your, your agencies run the spectrum. So I just was like,

Speaker 8 let's jump on, do kind of, I don't want to say impromptu because, I mean, we can rip it off on anything, but

Speaker 8 I just thought I want to kind of walk through these things and maybe just start with like where, like, you were obviously fired up. So

Speaker 8 what's going on?

Speaker 5 Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think people that don't know me probably think I'm like a psychopath on Twitter.

Speaker 5 But, and I was talking to somebody about this the other day. It's like, I'm just passionate, man, about this industry.

Speaker 5 And I have a lot of friends and people that are in this, in this industry who are,

Speaker 5 some are struggling, some are not. A lot of people lean on us for advice.
It's not just how do we do this with our website. It's Chris, what would you do if you were doing this XYZ?

Speaker 5 So even though I'm a technology vendor, I still feel like some days that I work in an agency, just I'm making decisions for other people's agencies because they just, they, they need that guidance.

Speaker 5 But yeah, I definitely sometimes I get off on a, on a tantrum or a tirade, if you will, sometimes. And it's, to be honest with you, man, it's because

Speaker 5 I really do, at the end of the day, want the best for agency owners and I want the best for the industry.

Speaker 5 And if I see something that in my mind doesn't make sense, I'm going to I'm going to be vocal about it.

Speaker 5 I'm going to call it out because I don't want to see my brothers and sisters making mistakes that they could avoid. I mean,

Speaker 5 you know, one of the things, right, is there's this thing like, you know,

Speaker 5 what do they call it? Shiny object syndrome, right? And one of the comments that I made on Twitter, and some of this comes from internal conversations with clients. Some of it I see.

Speaker 5 I see other agencies kind of making these mistakes. And it's like, you know, we had an agent that was like, we really want to have this,

Speaker 5 we want to have this like web widget that helps us get Google reviews, right? I'm not going to name any names. There's a million of them now, right?

Speaker 5 But this particular one is expensive for what it does. It's $300, $400 a month.
And the same client didn't want to sign up for our local traffic marketing program, right?

Speaker 5 And I'm thinking in my head, you're willing to spend $300,000, $400 a month. on a web widget, right?

Speaker 5 But you don't want to actually invest in traffic to come to the website So people actually use this web widget. Like the logic in a lot of people's minds is like ass backwards and it

Speaker 5 gets on my nerves. Like I wanna, I wanna tell, I wanna get these people and tell them like, guys, like I love you, but dude,

Speaker 5 what are you doing? It's like Sebastian Melascalco.

Speaker 5 What are you doing?

Speaker 5 And again, dude, it's because I want the best. I'm not trying to be a like blowhard or jerk or aggressive or anything like that.

Speaker 5 And, dude, I'm the first person to tell you, I don't have all the answers. But what I do know is that I was in this industry in the foxhole for 10 plus years, both as a you know, agency producer.

Speaker 5 I was out taking out the trash, man. Like, I did everything.
I wore all the hats that you guys all wear.

Speaker 5 And it was one of the reasons why I started the company that I started because agencies just need that guidance and that help.

Speaker 5 And so, I hope to anybody that's listening that has seen me, like, you know,

Speaker 5 on Twitter in these like fits of rage,

Speaker 5 I hope that like you're taking it as like tough love and not like, you know, this guy's being, you know, a South Jersey jerk, whatever.

Speaker 8 Yeah.

Speaker 5 Well, so, you know, the easy.

Speaker 8 I could see, be easily confused. I, um, well, the good news is if they're listening to this show, then there's, it would be tough for you to offend anyone.

Speaker 8 Cause if you're still listening to this podcast for any, like after one or two episodes,

Speaker 8 I've had to offend you or a guest would have to offend you already. It doesn't go.
Usually about 10 minutes in, we just, the offensiveness starts. So

Speaker 8 I think, I think you're in good company in that regard. I, I think it's what's needed.
I, I think for a long time, um,

Speaker 8 I think for a long time, people just stayed quiet on this stuff in general. And it was like a secret sauce, right?

Speaker 8 Like you wouldn't say anything because you were getting feedback that you knew you could then use to wedge out other people from different vendors or whatever.

Speaker 8 And instead, what you're doing is you're taking to the public forum and saying, guys, these are questions we have to ask ourselves.

Speaker 8 Like, where is your value structure when a $400 Google reviews widget is more important to you than a $300 in Google ads that are driving traffic to the actual site? Like what,

Speaker 8 and if... If you weigh those two things and the Google reviews widget is still more important, then, okay,

Speaker 8 are you building to maximize the value of that tool and it's and see that's kind of the level that i think i think i think what happens uh at a high level now i i do i want to really dig into some of these questions i think they're great that you asked on twitter um

Speaker 8 and uh you know i think i think a big part of the issue is we we oftentimes stay super surface it's i need a google reviews widget because this agent over here that i really respect has a google reviews widget and he's killing it so i need to have one i have no idea how I'm going to generate traffic to it or get my clients to it or how I'm going to use it, but he's paying $400 for his and I'm as good an agent as he is.

Speaker 8 So I'm going to pay $400 for mine.

Speaker 8 And instead, like you say, actually,

Speaker 8 this, what you're talking about now is from one of your most recent tweets. It's like

Speaker 8 you can get Google. And again, not a knock on any of the vendors.
I actually used a new vendor for the first time the other day. I was reviewing

Speaker 8 Indium, the market access company. They did a, you know, hey, can you do a review thing for me?

Speaker 8 So I went through the process and they use a company called Ask Nicely, which is a, I think a Salesforce or it integrates with Salesforce or something.

Speaker 8 I know it's not cheap either, but the process was awesome. It was very conversational.
It took you through. It was easy.
It worked. And I was like, oh, this is really cool.

Speaker 8 I wouldn't pay for that because I would rather just send someone an email with a link to my Google page and say, hey, man,

Speaker 8 can you write me a review? That's free with your email marketing software or whatever, or you probably even do that out of your agency management system. But like,

Speaker 8 or like what my wife does,

Speaker 8 she just puts as in her signature that goes automatically with every email, if you enjoyed the service that you received from our agency, can you leave us a Google review? Click here.

Speaker 8 It helps us grow our business. They get three to five Google reviews every month just from that simple thing.
They do nothing else.

Speaker 8 So like, there's, yeah, the point, I guess my point is, what are you actually trying to do? Like,

Speaker 8 there's nothing wrong with buying a $400 widget if it fits into a strategic plan and

Speaker 8 you have a whole method behind it. But if you're just doing it, it doesn't, you know, you're wasting money.

Speaker 5 Oh, yeah. And I mean, it's not even necessarily about the tool.
It's about the 30,000-foot view. Like when you, and we'll just, we'll stay on this topic because we're on it.

Speaker 5 You know, Google reviews is, you know, obviously important, but in the grand scheme of your digital footprint, it's 5%, 10% of the total thing you should be doing.

Speaker 5 It's a very small sliver of what matters online. And a lot of people are, it's their only, it's their only digital marketing expense.

Speaker 5 It's like, no, listen, like, it's cool, but is it really more important than this, that, and this?

Speaker 5 And so it's just really about helping people prioritize.

Speaker 5 Like, dude, if you want to, if you want to go get this tool or that tool or this software or that, like be my guest, but just have a plan in place, like, and understand the grand scheme of where your marketing dollars should go.

Speaker 5 Because a lot of people in our industry are doing zero advertising, but yet they spend, you know, 25 grand a year on a bunch of fluff that really isn't,

Speaker 5 they barely even use.

Speaker 5 I know people that have signed up for, you know, the infusion sauce of the world and this and that, and they don't, they barely even log in and they cancel it before they ever even used it.

Speaker 5 It's like, you know.

Speaker 5 The shiny object syndrome is definitely a real thing.

Speaker 5 And I think that's part of maybe what I'm trying to help people prevent with my tips, advice, consulting is like, listen, like there's a lot of noise, there's a lot of, you know, people in our, in our space,

Speaker 5 and there's just a lot of information. It's, and it's all very fragmented.
Like, you can't copy another agent because what works for them, it doesn't necessarily mean it's going to work for you.

Speaker 5 And like, I think a lot of people, they just want to copy what other people are doing. Well, what is so-and-so using on their website? And I'm like, why does that matter?

Speaker 5 We're going to, we're building it for you. yeah why do you want to look at 40 different websites before we build yours like are you gonna

Speaker 5 that's that's a mistake like we're building it for you so I think a lot of people they don't want to um

Speaker 5 put in the work maybe they you know they just don't know how or to where to get started and they just want to do what other people are doing because they think it's saving them time and really At the end of the day, it's actually costing more time because yeah, you start off with someone else's thing and you realize six months in, it doesn't work, you got to rebuild it anyway or you gotta start from scratch anyway so it's like start with what you need what works for you in the right order and you will grow faster than copying other people you know a hundred percent all the people that i know who quote unquote today have like figured it out they have 40 iterations behind them to get to the the version that you see at some moment in time and go, oh, look, they figured it out.

Speaker 8 Well, you didn't see them, you know, a year and a half ago when they're flailing all over the place, spending money on different things that aren't working, but they just kept iterating and iterating and iterating and iterating.

Speaker 8 You know, and again, some of this man is

Speaker 8 digital Darwinism. You know what I mean? Some of it is that there is always going to be a hierarchy of individuals and people are going to end up at the bottom because they don't want to work.
And

Speaker 8 that's. I think, I think, you know,

Speaker 8 there are times when I, when on this particular topic, I just want to tell people, just don't do anything. Just ask for referrals.

Speaker 8 Have a simple postcard website and just ask your clients for referrals. Here's what's going to happen.
You're not going to grow fast.

Speaker 8 Your business isn't going to be sexy, but you can probably maintain and live a freaking great life. Go golfing, take your kids on trips, go, you know, do well, you can't take trips today because

Speaker 8 the freaking emperors of our whatever state you're in have decided that they're going to mandate you can't. But, you know, the idea here is um

Speaker 8 i guess my idea is figure out who it's probably even a hundred thousand foot who the heck do you want to be like do you want to be that guy up on stage do you want to be like christian moore who grinds it out all the time like the dude is constantly working and pushing and and that's not a knock on him he's coming on the show like i can't wait to talk to him but the dude works like he he's gone out and found partners he's hired people he's built systems and he's constantly you know, he's on better agency with me.

Speaker 8 And I see him asking all these questions as he's tinkering with things. Like, is that who you want to be? Because that dude is constantly working.

Speaker 8 So if that's what you want to be, that's freaking amazing. But then you have to do what he's doing if you want to be the guy up on or the woman up on stage.

Speaker 8 The other side of it is maybe your business isn't, you know, in the sexy group, but you're just crushing life. You know what I mean?

Speaker 8 Your spouse has got a new car. Your kids are going to a great school, you go on vacations, you play golf whenever you want, you know what I mean?

Speaker 8 Like you got the newest fresh gear and kicks on, or whatever, the new Jordans, you know, like whatever your deal is. So, I think we got to figure that out first because I just,

Speaker 8 you know, you get down to this level and people are spending money, and you're like, why'd you buy that? Well, I don't know.

Speaker 5 Yeah, and it's not even about the money part.

Speaker 5 You know, I, it's really just about making the right decisions in the right order based on you, based on your agency, not based on what someone else is doing.

Speaker 5 You know, I mean, there's people that they can afford to spend X amount of dollars a month on this, that, and a third.

Speaker 5 And because they're already established, they've put in the work and they have processes and people in place to,

Speaker 5 you know, where it doesn't matter if they lose 10 grand a month, you know, it's, and there's agencies out there that do.

Speaker 5 They do their taxes at the end of the year and they're probably like, where does this money go? I mean, they lose more money than other agencies spend. It's just, it is what it is.

Speaker 5 Some agencies have been at this for a very long time. But, you know, my, my, my comments or my, my outlook is never to like demean or say, hey, what you're doing is 100% wrong.
Like, you do you.

Speaker 5 But I am definitely of, of the, um,

Speaker 5 personality where, like, I'd rather help you prevent something bad from happening as to let you just like learn and take your lumps on your own.

Speaker 5 You know, like, I'm the type of person where I'm like, my, my eight-year-old son, he's like, you know, he's like a bull in a china shop. He wants one of these like hoverboard things you lean forward.

Speaker 5 It's like it you know, it brings you forward and backwards and you flip around and I'm like no, dude, like

Speaker 5 No, like I don't want you to break your arm. Like he's a really good athlete.
He plays baseball. He's, you know, he's one of the better kids on his team.

Speaker 5 And I'm like, I don't want you jeopardizing like

Speaker 5 baseball or this or that because you broke your arm being being stupid.

Speaker 5 And so to the same kind of point, it's like, I kind of maybe, you know, offer that advice to other business owners.

Speaker 5 Maybe people appreciate it, maybe they don't. But again, it's coming from a good place, man.

Speaker 8 So

Speaker 8 I think we can firmly establish that anyone who's listening to this agrees and believes that when you

Speaker 8 get aggressive on Twitter, which I personally fucking love,

Speaker 8 you know, that it's coming from a good place. You're trying to use your experience, your expertise, the conversations you're having.
You're trying to get people to take action. So, okay.

Speaker 8 So let's actually run through.

Speaker 8 You posted six points and we can go off on tangents as necessary, but I'd like to run through these because I think they're really interesting ideas. And,

Speaker 8 you know,

Speaker 8 you started it by saying, if I had to run an agency all over again, I would. And number one was never have a physical location.
It's a waste of money. period.
So

Speaker 8 I have my, I have, I actually have very conflicting thoughts, but I'm super interested in why, like, just why period, no conversation, would you just not have a physical location?

Speaker 5 Yeah, so I think that for a lot of reasons.

Speaker 5 So going back to when I ran my agency, we had, you know, face-to-face meetings and stuff like that, but I very rarely met with clients in my office.

Speaker 5 So that's a big reason for it. And our office space was not cheap.
I mean,

Speaker 5 it was a big spot. It was a nice place.

Speaker 5 I mean, it was $6,000 plus thousand dollars a month just for the square footage that we had, not including, you know, other bills and stuff that goes along with that.

Speaker 5 And I think that when you look at the current landscape of a lot of the agencies that are out there, that

Speaker 5 a majority of our users, and obviously not to say that every agency is like this, but a lot of our customers are personal alliance focused. And that whole game now is

Speaker 5 virtual in my mind. You can sell insurance

Speaker 5 without a physical office and you could take the money that you're spending on that office space and put it into

Speaker 5 ads or advertising, which people are not doing enough of in our industry. You can put it into VAs.
I talked about VAs too. I'm sure we'll talk about that in a second.

Speaker 5 Just, you know, reallocate that money where it would make a bigger difference than having a place to go.

Speaker 5 And like, I've been working from home for you know five six seven years now and sure i have days where i'm like i need to get the hell out of here Like, I can't sit in this room one more day and look at these walls one more day.

Speaker 5 I need to have an office, I need to get out. And, but at the end of the day, it would be a complete waste of money for me.
And we have a team of eight people now.

Speaker 5 I mean, none of us, all of us work from home. We don't have a physical office, and we run a very lean, mean, efficient,

Speaker 5 you know, company. So, it's like, I just, and again, it's my opinion.

Speaker 5 I'm not saying it's right for everybody, but I think for a large majority of agencies, again, especially if you are smaller and personalized focused, think about working from home.

Speaker 5 Think about, you know, communicating with your team through Zoom. And we use Telegram.
We don't use Slack. We use this thing called Telegram, which has been a game changer.

Speaker 5 You know, there's other ways to run. And insurance is not this.

Speaker 5 you know, physical face-to-face game anymore for the most part. And even if you are commercially focused and you're,

Speaker 5 yeah, there's going to be times where you need to physically go out to the place of business to win win a sale or whatever or meet you know a couple different decision makers so it's not the case for everybody but i just look at what most people are probably spending man three to six grand a month but they don't want to spend you know 500 bucks a month on google ads or or a website or this or something that will get them greater exposure in their market you know yeah so my here's here's my thought on it because i think i i actually think there's a uh hybrid answer to this that i think works really well and it's uh i think co-working spaces are the answer to this.

Speaker 8 So I pay a hundred dollars a month for a co-working membership that gives me the ability to in a very professional, very clean, it's freaking beautiful. The place is actually awesome.

Speaker 5 It's better than any Troy Innovation Garage.

Speaker 8 Troy Innovation Garage.

Speaker 5 Yeah. I see, I see your pictures and stuff.
I'm like, that place looks pretty dope. It's dope.
I agree. I mean, you're making a really good point.

Speaker 8 It's better than any office that I could buy, that I could buy like solo. And anytime I've ever brought anybody there, I had every one of my appointment meetings with, so this is is pre-COVID, right?

Speaker 8 So I'm having my meetings with carriers about getting appointments.

Speaker 8 I brought every single one of them to that space and I explained, because, you know, because carriers get kind of weird, you know, they want to make sure you're bought in.

Speaker 8 So they want the physical space thing. Because I actually asked a buddy of mine who's a carrier guy about the physical space thing.
Cause everyone goes, carriers make you have a physical space.

Speaker 8 That is not written into anybody's

Speaker 8 thing. That is not a real thing.
That is a trigger that they use to try to find out if you're legit, right?

Speaker 8 So what a carrier doesn't want to take the time, effort, energy to make you part of their organization as a appointed agent and then have you crap out in six months because really you weren't really, you weren't committed, right?

Speaker 8 A physical location shows, at least in some regard, commitment. Now, so I brought them to that space and I said, look, like I'm running this agency.

Speaker 8 It's going to be primarily digital work from home, but I have this space that I've contracted contracted that anytime I can go in this meeting room, I can go in this meeting room. It's super pro.

Speaker 8 Boop, checkbox, move on.

Speaker 8 So now, because I believe today that if you're starting an agency and one of the first things you do is go out and get a physical location, I think you're wasting, I'm with you, you're wasting money.

Speaker 8 I am primarily a commercial lines agent. I have met face to face with one client so far.
That's it. And just because he wanted to, it wasn't, he didn't even really need to.

Speaker 8 He's just like, hey, man, why don't you come over? Like, check out my, check out my place. That was it.
So like,

Speaker 8 I, I wholly agree with this. And I think that co-working spaces give you some flexibility.
Maybe do a team mastermind if you're all in the same town or in the same region or whatever.

Speaker 8 But I'm with you. It just, there's no reason for it anymore.
I'm sorry, commercial real estate brokers. There's just, but there's no reason for this.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I just, the reason I look at it, I think for most of the agencies, right, it's probably their biggest monthly cost.

Speaker 8 Yeah.

Speaker 5 So it's like

Speaker 5 does it really and do people really walk into that place of business to do business with you do you even want that i wouldn't want that i wouldn't want someone to come into my office and say hey can can i pay my car insurance real quick and they hand me a physical check i'd be like all right man you know you can go get a quote from the guy down the street like i don't want that type of customer um and so again not right for everybody but i just think in my mind could what if you could put 36 48 64 000 a year into promoting your business and drawing attention to yourself versus putting it into an office location that no one comes into anymore.

Speaker 5 That was my point. That was why I said what I said.

Speaker 8 Yeah. Okay.
So we're in agreement on that one.

Speaker 8 I think we've dialed it in. And I obviously agree.
Okay. Number two.

Speaker 8 I would draw way more attention to myself, build the top of funnel awareness. Talk me through that idea because I think that's going to be foreign to some people.

Speaker 5 Yeah, man. So I look at everything through almost a sales funnel, right? The top of every sales funnel starts with the awareness phase.

Speaker 5 And this is a thing that maybe, again, you said people are foreign to, but when you, you know, when you sell anything, right, there's always going to be a funnel. And

Speaker 5 the beginning part of that is like, you need to make people aware of what you do, who you are. You need to draw attention to yourself.

Speaker 5 There's a tax company around here called Liberty Tax. I think it's like a national chain.

Speaker 5 And every year during tax season, they dress this dude up in a statue of liberty costume. And the guy is waving people into the parking lot.

Speaker 5 And I look at that and I'm like, man, that's kind of like corny. But at the end of the day, like, I think about Liberty Tax, like they did their job.
Like they got me, they got into my head. Yeah.

Speaker 5 And so few agencies do any form of advertising. Like people are just purely working through referrals.
I get it. It works.
It's a warm lead, whatever. But the volume just is not there for most people.

Speaker 5 And really what sets you apart from from other people in your especially with insurance is very competitive I mean if it wasn't this competitive you wouldn't have to advertise draw attention to yourself but that was a thing that I was not really good at when I and it was a lot of it had to do with I was wearing a lot of different hats I really at the end of the day like only had X amount of hours to put towards it and I got to be really good at it towards the end of my like tenure in in the agency um but I look at a lot of my other like friends that are in the space and I'm like, man, like, don't you think like way more people would do business with you if they just knew who the hell you were?

Speaker 5 Like, you're a great guy, dude. Like, you're a cool dude.
I would kick it with you. I would play golf.
I would drink beers with you. Like,

Speaker 5 and a lot of other people would too, but they just don't know who a lot of agents, they have no brand awareness. They have no.

Speaker 5 you know, they have no identity, not even in their local marketplace. And it's like, dude, if you could just dominate a 20-mile radius, you have all the business in the world.

Speaker 5 You wouldn't have to go outside of that. You know, it's, I would just, I would have done that a lot differently.
And like, I look at guys like,

Speaker 5 you know, Nick, we talk about Nick Ayres and stuff sometimes. He's really good at doing this.
He's really good at drawing attention to himself, whether it be. good, bad, or weird.

Speaker 5 He's just good at the attention game. And I think you put this in your book a while back.
Like, it's an attention game.

Speaker 8 It's a game of attention and it's like you just yeah the more competitive the industry the more of that you should be doing dude and here's what i'm going to say to all my we work on referrals agents and this is one of the things i used to bang on when uh in my so i'm in my keynotes back when you could do keynotes which i miss as soon as conferences open back up start contacting me again i can't wait to come and speak at your conference um

Speaker 8 is that you i would set them up set them up set them up and then obviously there would always be that dude in the back who's like, no one can see me, but I'm like slumped down in my chair.

Speaker 8 Usually they'd have their arms crossed and they'd be staring at me. And actually, the best one I ever had was this dude in Connecticut.
I'm at Connecticut. I'm in Connecticut.

Speaker 8 And this dude is just, he is fully lamped. It's probably like, it was a young agents event in Connecticut.
Great group. And this story actually ends up being very positive, but like.

Speaker 8 This dude's probably in his mid-50s. So he's like probably there with one of his young producers at this event.

Speaker 8 But so he's got, but he's, he's like front table and he's just got the, he's way slumped down, arms crossed, and he is just mean mugging me the whole time, everything I'm saying. I can just tell.

Speaker 8 And then finally, I say something, hand goes up, hand goes up. You know, this is all great, but it doesn't work for us because we've been around for 50 years and our leads come in through referrals.

Speaker 8 I said, you know what?

Speaker 8 That's a great, that's great. That's great.
Let's talk about how let's talk about that. Are you happy with the number of referrals? Well, you know, obviously we could always have more.

Speaker 8 Okay, how do you think you get more referrals? Do you think you ask for them? Well, yeah, we could ask for them, but we have a referral program.

Speaker 8 Okay, so do you think maybe it's just that when someone gets referred to you, they look at your digital presence and you look, they don't like what they see maybe.

Speaker 8 They just, you know, how old is your website? And, you know, dude, this is the shit that like people don't realize.

Speaker 8 Just because Chris tells me to buy something doesn't mean I'm going to buy it just because Chris told me to buy it.

Speaker 8 I'm going to go check it out and go do i like this thing so if you haven't done the work of building your brand and letting people know who you are then when you get referred you're gonna lose referral traction referrals aren't a one-to-one thing you're not a hundred percent converting referrals there's a certain number and depending on how good your digital presence is there's a certain number of referrals that just never call you because they don't like what they see or they don't see anything and they don't they're like ah no i'm not going to call that person i'm people are shallow man people are shallow like that it's just how people buy they buy on appearance.

Speaker 5 They buy on what they see, hears, you know.

Speaker 8 Well, dude, it's not even being shallow. It's legit.

Speaker 8 Like, if I go and look at your, if someone tells me that you're the baller, super gangster website guy, and I go check out your website and it looks like it was built in 2005, am I going to be impressed?

Speaker 8 Like, am I going to be like, yeah, no, his website's shit, but I bet the one he's going to build for me is great.

Speaker 8 No, they're not going to say that. They're going to go, no, this dude looks like a freaking schmuck.
He can't even fix up his own website. How's he going to make me a gangster?

Speaker 5 so no it's it's funny man it's true i dude i i saw this i was driving the other day and i saw like a um this suv and i just kind of caught out of the corner of my eye i'm like what was that

Speaker 5 that thing was nice and my buddy goes oh it's a kia and i'm like oh forget it forget it

Speaker 5 like i could never and i apologize to anybody listening that drives a kia like if i had to i would but like i just i would never buy a kia and it's it's a brand thing like it was probably the telluride every once in a while a telluride catches my eye the kia telluride dude i don't know what it was

Speaker 5 it was fresh man it was fresh and nowadays like when i was a kid you had to buy like rims aftermarket rims you had to have your cards handed out

Speaker 5 so we were talking we were talking about um

Speaker 5 We were talking about the Kia, where we left off.

Speaker 8 Yes. So long story short here, I'm just going to come in this way.

Speaker 8 Just so everybody knows, that little weird break there was because I just sold the umbrella behind my house to someone and the person ended up being incredibly chatty.

Speaker 8 And we have no idea where we really left off. So we're just gonna come back in at number three.

Speaker 8 Okay,

Speaker 8 so

Speaker 8 number three is I would spend a minimum 5,000 a month in ads on Google and Facebook.

Speaker 8 That number is probably

Speaker 8 more than most people, than feels comfortable to most people. So why 5,000?

Speaker 5 Yeah, I kind of equate that to like what the, you know, average physical office space is. And I guess maybe I could have reframed that and just said, you know, instead of having that physical office,

Speaker 5 I would work from home or work remotely, kind of like what you talked about with the,

Speaker 5 what's the word I'm looking for? Like

Speaker 5 shared community space, whatever, co-working space.

Speaker 5 I would just reallocate that into ads.

Speaker 5 And one of the reasons why I say that is because um you can cover a lot more ground in places where people actually are online through you know we we do a lot of google search and facebook display ads retargeting ads we run ads to the customer's book of business so we will local traffic marketing.com local traffic marketing.com yeah man i appreciate it and so i would basically do that to cover more ground i mean you can pinpoint certain zip codes where you're not physically located people say this all all the time.

Speaker 5 They're like, Chris, you know, we're located in, you know, Philly, but we're licensed also in New York, Maryland, New Jersey, etc. Like, what's the best way?

Speaker 5 Can we rank our websites in those locations? And my reply normally is no, because Google's going to show a localized result based on the location of the person searching for insurance.

Speaker 5 So you have to reach those individuals with ads.

Speaker 5 And there's no better way to do it. Through Google and Facebook, you can literally type in zip codes.
You can exclude certain areas.

Speaker 5 So if you're like, I don't want business from this side of town, you can exclude that. And just, that's where the eyeballs are.

Speaker 5 So I said 5,000 really based on what I think is probably like the average cost of like people's office space,

Speaker 5 especially the people that are out in California where like just the cost of rent is like. triple what it is

Speaker 5 out where I am. I mean, I know a lot of agents in California,

Speaker 5 but

Speaker 5 I just would be more active with ads.

Speaker 5 And one of the big reasons is like, we tell this to people all the time, and I kind of hit on this earlier, like a lot of people aren't advertising at all, but a lot of independent agencies,

Speaker 5 they don't know what they're doing. So if you, you know, with Google and Facebook ads, so if you do or you hire someone like us who knows how to do it.
It's going to be like shooting fish in a barrel.

Speaker 5 You know, from an advertising and brand play perspective, like you're also taking traffic away from your competitors too. So it's not just always about getting leads yourself.

Speaker 5 It's also about taking leads from competitor agencies, which there's no shortage of, I mean,

Speaker 5 in any location.

Speaker 8 I mean, literally just take a list of every one of the agencies within 30 miles of

Speaker 8 your agency and then run an ad when someone types in their name for both an exact and a broad form match. And now you're now you're literally ranking above all your competitors every single time.

Speaker 5 Yep. And that's that's a valid valid strategy that a lot of people do.
That, you know, that's not a,

Speaker 5 despite what some people believe, that's not a unethical marketing strategy. I mean, when you look at,

Speaker 5 go Google the iPhone. I mean, Android,

Speaker 5 Google is running ads against Apple. I mean,

Speaker 5 everyone does it, right?

Speaker 8 Everyone does it. I mean, if it's your best buddy and it's his agency or her agency, maybe don't run an ad against their agency.
But if you don't, there's nothing unethical about using

Speaker 8 ads. So, okay.

Speaker 8 So, so if you've ever done hard mail and you send a hard mailer to someone's house who isn't your client, is that unethical because they're some, you're sending mail to someone's home who isn't your client?

Speaker 8 Like, that's to me, you know, these are some of the things that we tell ourselves because we either don't want to pay someone or we don't want to do the work.

Speaker 8 And that's, and, you know, and I think that's kind of a dangerous place to be, man. Yeah.
And that's what we want to push through. And to your point, I just want to jump on top of this.

Speaker 8 You said, you know, the bear, the bar is so low that doing something puts you.

Speaker 8 We're not talking about like linear growth like we're not talking about you know if you're at one doing nothing and then doing a little bit puts you at two doing a little bit puts you at like 10 yep you know what i mean or a hundred and and that's how much further along you can go i mean

Speaker 8 you know it's just it's crazy what is possible um with just a little bit of work with a little bit of effort and and i've actually been dabbling a lot in hard mail lately like like physical works man postcards and stuff it still works in certain verticals if if you can if you can follow a postcard up with a call

Speaker 8 you have a really good chance of talking to them it doesn't mean they're gonna buy from you it just means you got a really good chance of talking to them this is specifically in commercial and i think there's a lot of opportunity in personal lines too if you're really ballsy and you want to do some like cold calling to people who aren't on the do not call list with some hard mail followed by a call i think you could write a lot of personal lines insurance too that i'm i have zero interest in that but i i think it's worthwhile.

Speaker 5 Yeah, it's funny while we're on this topic, because we're doing this in conjunction with some digital ads for a client.

Speaker 5 And the way that we're building out the campaign real quick, just maybe like high-level geek,

Speaker 5 kind of nerdy stuff here, but if you are going to do hard mail, drive them back, put a URL, put like a shortened URL on the postcard, drive them back to that page so that you can then target them with like your Facebook and Google Pixel.

Speaker 5 Then you have them. Then you could start remarketing them them everywhere they're at.

Speaker 5 But you could also send them back to Facebook, like native Facebook videos where you can then retarget based on like percentage of video watched and stuff like that.

Speaker 5 Just get them back to your content and get them familiar with your brand. And that's really how you can warm up cold traffic from postcards, from ads.

Speaker 5 Like at the end of the day, dude, advertising is a game of retargeting. It's a game of repetition.
Most people are not going to do business with you the first time they see your ad.

Speaker 5 Maybe not even the 10th time they see your ad.

Speaker 5 So it's a game of just repetition, repetition, repetition. You have to just keep never stop advertising.

Speaker 6 Yeah,

Speaker 8 that's 100% the truth. It's just not,

Speaker 8 it's not a monster that you can feed once and expect to get any kind of results out of. So all right, let's let's move on to, let's, let's keep going.

Speaker 8 Okay, so

Speaker 8 this is technically number three as well, because I think you just screwed up the numbering, but

Speaker 8 number three in the Twitter stream, number four in our hearts, I would delete my AMS agency management system. They are pointless in our industry.
They store contact info and notes. Cool.

Speaker 8 So does this Word doc?

Speaker 5 Yeah, I'll catch some flack for this.

Speaker 5 I stick by that. And here's why I say that, right?

Speaker 5 And I think this is something that this is a problem that is

Speaker 5 on its way to being fixed. But right now, as we sit here right now, despite the functionality of a lot of these agency management systems, it's getting better.

Speaker 5 The way that a large majority of agencies are using their AMS is no different than

Speaker 5 any other CRM. It's no different than freaking MailChimp or Active Campaign.
Any CRM that can store custom fields, that can automate some stuff internally, that has a sales pipeline,

Speaker 5 could technically be used as an agency management system for all intents and purposes. Like, I understand that there's download data that flows through an AMS and I understand that that is,

Speaker 5 you know, a thing or maybe important for

Speaker 8 can be based on your type of agency and how your processes are set up.

Speaker 5 For me personally, when I ran the agency, our AMS, I like, yeah, cool, we had downloads, cool. I didn't do anything with that information.

Speaker 5 When I really needed accurate data, I would go to the carrier because a lot of the stuff would not be accurate in the AMS. Sometimes the downloads were not correct.

Speaker 5 And so at the end of the day, I was really only using it for storage, information storage. And there's this thing, I get it, there's this thing now, right?

Speaker 5 With data and like the importance of data. And I agree with a lot of it.
I think at the end of the day, the way that I view data might be different than some other people.

Speaker 5 I view all of this stuff as temporary. Like, I don't care, me personally, I don't care if I own the data.
I'm renting everything right now until I retire. Like, I don't care if I own my AMS.

Speaker 5 I don't care if I own my website. I don't care if I own my office space.
I don't care if I own my automation tool. I'm renting all this stuff so that I can ultimately retire.

Speaker 5 That's not to demean or say that none of it's important to own or whatever. I get the power of it.
But again, going back to the AMS thing,

Speaker 5 I just, I think that because most and a lot of agencies are not even using 10% of what they can do, it's like, dude, how important really is this?

Speaker 5 We've been taught to, we've been taught to think that you can't survive without one.

Speaker 5 But the reality is like, there's a lot of successful agencies that multi-million dollar agencies that were still using spreadsheets up until five years ago. Like, I'm not saying that's the way to go.

Speaker 5 I'm just saying that. We shouldn't think that it's all about the AMS, that it's all about this or that.

Speaker 8 It's not. So here's what I'm going to tell you.
Now that I'm on,

Speaker 8 and this is, I guess this is a plug for Better Agency, but it can be true of any system if you think about it this way.

Speaker 8 Since I've been on Better Agency and I've seen what its functionality is, I have stopped logging into my agency management system. I've literally just stopped.
I have no reason to go in.

Speaker 8 It captures every piece of data I could possibly need from a contact information standpoint. It captures the basic information like FEIN number.

Speaker 8 So, you know, that kind of stuff that I I could need for

Speaker 8 personal information. It then captures the policies, the policy number, the policy term, the premium, and commission split if you have a split with a producer or whatever.

Speaker 8 So now, so take that, and it has the ability to do notes, tasks, and attachments. It also has a service pipeline and a renewal pipeline.
Okay. So the only functionality.

Speaker 8 that I cannot duplicate in Better Agency today

Speaker 8 is

Speaker 8 accord forms. Have to get accord forms from someplace because if you're doing commercial insurance, you still have to use accord forms.

Speaker 8 I actually prefer accord forms over inputting information into most systems. It's why I'm also a fan of Tarmica because

Speaker 8 putting commercial lines marketing, you know, as in the insurance version of it, quoting is miserable. So

Speaker 8 just doing accords and emailing an underwriter accords is actually my preferred method. But okay, that's a different story.
So, okay, so I need accords.

Speaker 8 I need to be able to do accounting somehow, and more the reconciliation of accounting, not just the actual accounting, because that's really where our industry becomes tough.

Speaker 8 And the third piece is the downloads, if you believe that that functionality is necessary. So, I'm going to throw downloads out because I don't think the future of our industry is downloads.

Speaker 8 I think that that window is coming past. We missed that boat.

Speaker 8 I feel like 10 years ago, if the industry could have got its shit together and figured out downloads, like Ron Berg has been pushing for 15 years, right? Right? I mean,

Speaker 8 if they just listened to Ron Berg 10 years ago, then we would be downloads, would probably be a different thing, but no one has, and it's still a mess.

Speaker 8 And some of the information comes in, and some of it doesn't. And some people download immediately, and some people take a week, and some people take a month, and it's like it's a disaster.
Okay.

Speaker 8 Plus, you don't actually need them because here's my opinion: downloads were necessary because broadband internet sucked and was slow.

Speaker 8 Today, we have 5G, we have 4G, we have high-speed broadband, we have, if you can get one of those Verizon T1 cables they build into your house, they literally the internet can't run fast enough to get to your house.

Speaker 8 You know what I mean? So like you don't need, you don't need the information to be quick, you don't need it in your system.

Speaker 8 You can be just as quick with a simple button click into the carrier system. And then the carrier system is the system of record,

Speaker 8 which is what it's going to be anyways right

Speaker 8 if if you are you know the the downloads and the making the changes in your system and then going and making the changes in the carrier system is opening you up for e and o and errors and clerical shit and then you need to hire someone to check the person who is doing the changes and it's just this mess so okay so let's pretend like you don't actually need downloads you just need to know their policy number, how much they're paying, you know, what the, what the confirm, you know, what the premium amount is once it's issued, you want to put in the S, you know, what, what you're quoted, and then you want to make sure you check.

Speaker 8 You definitely want to make sure you check to make sure the quoted premium comes in.

Speaker 8 So if you have that, you're freaking good because then you can just log into the system and punch in and make the change there. Okay, so what's the last

Speaker 5 or have your VA do it?

Speaker 8 Or yeah, or have, yeah, I'm a

Speaker 8 person in your agency. Yeah, VA can handle this.
Okay, so.

Speaker 8 the so okay so i threw that in there because i know that's another bullet point that we're gonna yeah yeah we'll be there in a second so the um, so the

Speaker 8 uh, well, there's actually a really good one in between now and then. So, okay, so the last piece, really, so accords you can get a lot of different places.
I have mixed opinions.

Speaker 8 I still think, unfortunately, there is not a tremendous and affordable place to get accord forms that isn't.

Speaker 8 I think the best place to get accord forms right now is probably now certs for 65 bucks a month, it's probably the best place to get accord forms today because

Speaker 8 a lot of these accord form automation tools are really expensive.

Speaker 8 They don't pump out the accord forms in the standard accord format, which messes with carriers because they're not used to looking at the data in this different format, even though it's technically the same fields.

Speaker 8 So, okay, so, but that's still pretty easily solved. Accounting is the hard one.

Speaker 8 If a tool like Better Agency or something else can figure out the accounting piece, meaning the reconciliations with the commission forms that that come in,

Speaker 8 with the commission statements that come in on a monthly basis and reconcile that.

Speaker 8 If you can figure that piece out, which it's so funny, I said this the other day in a podcast and Cass called me and he's like, you know, and

Speaker 8 Cass is like, if you want to be a professional agency, you have to do your commission reconciliation, blah, blah, blah. And the only best place to do it is in your management system.
He's not wrong.

Speaker 8 And then I had another agent call me literally 10 minutes later and go, yo, Hanley, you got to see this shit I'm doing right now. Like, dude, I'm doing the whole thing.

Speaker 8 You don't need an EC management system. He's like, he's like, it's a little clunky right now.
We're figuring it out, but I'm telling you, this is like, this is like, this is like a $2 VA project.

Speaker 8 Like, this is easy stuff. So, you know, my point in saying that to all you is saying that is

Speaker 8 we have to be able to move fast and communicate. If the shift in our business is, and then I promise I'll be quiet, is

Speaker 8 from data managers, which I think has been a big

Speaker 8 outside of the insurance piece, right? Like making sure someone's program is set up, which a lot of agents don't even do to begin with. But let's say that is your primary focus.

Speaker 8 Your next focus has really been data management. That's really the next thing that agents did.
I don't know that that's the case anymore. I think the next thing that agents do is communicate.

Speaker 8 You have to be able to communicate.

Speaker 8 You have to be able to communicate everything that's going on and get to your people and move them through processes and help them understand and work them through life changes.

Speaker 8 And you can't do that if you're not communicating. Data management is gone.
It doesn't matter. It's easy.
It's commodity stuff. So I'm with you on this one.

Speaker 8 It's just, there's no perfect solution or easy solution yet because there's a few pieces that are tough. But man, some of these systems are close, bro.
Some of them are real close.

Speaker 5 And that's another reason. Like, and again, I said that.
I made that comment because that's what I would do. I'm not saying that that would be right for

Speaker 5 any other agencies, but just based on the current state, but also like what's to come,

Speaker 5 I

Speaker 5 just, you know, I, I, I don't know that there's really any difference between that and a tool like Better Agency, for example.

Speaker 5 I mean, there's a lot of stuff you could do with freaking active campaign. I mean, there's a lot of tools out there.
Better agency is awesome. I mean, their development speed is insane.

Speaker 5 So, I mean, it would not surprise me whatsoever, you know, if one day we heard that that's what they were doing.

Speaker 8 I mean, yes. And

Speaker 8 I just, well, I put enough freaking

Speaker 8 product improvement requests in like on a daily basis to, and it's already great. You know what I mean? But I'm just like, oh, I would love it if it could do this thing.
And I'd love it.

Speaker 8 And the crazy part is like a week later, you'll see a rollout and like one of those things will be on the list.

Speaker 8 And I'm sure I'm not the only one putting them in, but it's just, it is pretty interesting to see how they're doing a good job of slotting changes in.

Speaker 5 It's not easy, man.

Speaker 8 You definitely feel like you're, I will see two things about them. One,

Speaker 8 I, you know, just from being at trustedchoice.com, I know product development is not easy. Two, I think a big part of it is making sure your users feel heard.

Speaker 8 And that part, they're definitely getting right. There's no doubt.
But you definitely feel heard as a user of their tool. Okay.
So let's keep moving.

Speaker 8 I would, wait a minute. Oh, hold on.
I wouldn't, so this is four slash five. I wouldn't share revenue with anyone.
You want to sell a product that you have to sell by law, no recurring commission.

Speaker 8 So I think specifically you're talking about personalized insurance in this point, but

Speaker 8 walk us through no sharing revenue.

Speaker 5 Yeah, so

Speaker 5 when you look at the landscape of insurance, how you know we make money, obviously you make money on recurring commissions.

Speaker 5 I think a lot of agency owners would agree

Speaker 5 that producers that they've hired through the years, people that they've hired through the years, have not earned

Speaker 5 that recurring revenue.

Speaker 5 It's very easy for us to sell something upfront, right?

Speaker 5 It's not easy to help really maintain that relationship and retain that business, right?

Speaker 5 And I think a lot of, and I know that this is true because I talk to a ton of agency owners who have this struggle.

Speaker 5 And they're like, man, like this guy, you know, we hired him a year ago and we had to let him go. Like he was great in the beginning and then he got comfortable and

Speaker 5 you know, he's not really doing anything for the money.

Speaker 5 And, you know, as a, as a business owner myself, like I've struggled with that at times too through the years, certain relationships that I've had with people that were on our team,

Speaker 5 some of them are not around anymore, but it's like, you know,

Speaker 5 if you look at it, right, by law,

Speaker 5 you have to have car insurance in a lot of states. If you're selling something that's mandated by law and you're not doing anything to retain it, why should I pay you recurring revenue?

Speaker 5 you know um so i think a lot of agency owners may that's a bold again it's a bold statement, you know, and I'm not saying that everybody should change how they're paying their people.

Speaker 5 I just said that's what I would do. I would have some young, up-and-coming, you know, personalities, maybe that didn't know anything about insurance, somebody that I just knew were good with people.

Speaker 5 They were good communicators, good talkers, good salespeople.

Speaker 5 and motivate them. Like when

Speaker 5 you go to sell cars, you think car salesmen get paid recurring commission? Do people that sell iPhones get paid recurring commission?

Speaker 5 I mean, could those salespeople have an impact on whether or not the customer comes back to that dealership or comes back to that store for their next purchase? 100% they could.

Speaker 5 But they don't get paid recurring commission. A lot of salespeople don't get paid recurring commission.

Speaker 5 So I'm not saying I wouldn't pay my people well. I would.
I think I would go about it differently. I would go about it differently.
I would maybe incentivize them in other ways.

Speaker 5 Hey, you know, here's a larger upfront number for you, right? There's no recurring revenue.

Speaker 5 Here's a larger and if you hit 25 of these per month or 20 of these per month, you know, I'll scale your, your, your next upfront payments. Like that's how we got paid at AIG.

Speaker 5 When I cut my teeth in this industry, you never got paid recurring commission. It was a sliding scale bonus payout.

Speaker 5 And, you know, it wasn't hard to make six, seven, eight, ten $10,000 a month based on their volume of calls that were coming in and their sliding scale payment system. You're still making good money.

Speaker 5 And each month starts over, you're hungry, you're motivated to hit that goal that next month. And it just keeps, it keeps everybody honest in the agency.

Speaker 5 It doesn't allow you to get comfortable because every month now, the next month, you have to do it all over again. You know what I mean? Yeah.
It keeps you hungry. It keeps you motivated.

Speaker 8 And I think that's a big challenge with our current payout structure that a lot of agencies use that's i also think here's what i'm gonna say i think two things i think one i agree with you on personal lines especially if the agency is generating the opportunities if the agency is generating the opportunities there's no reason that the producer or the salesperson should get recurring revenue there's no reason for that if you are if you're going out and buying leads or you're doing paid ads or you're you're doing that no reason two

Speaker 8 um i think something like middle market commercial sales i think that

Speaker 8 i think you do because, but part of the job description is keeping the business, right? So I think that's a little different model.

Speaker 8 Here's what I ultimately think it comes down to: if you're going to have employees, you have to be a leader.

Speaker 8 And so much of that is on the leader to say, John, you haven't hit your numbers for three months in a row. I'm sorry, we have to let you go.

Speaker 8 And then Sally sees John get booted because he didn't, she's like, oh shit, Chris is legit. Okay, I got to step my game up.
And now that's draconian, but the idea is

Speaker 8 we struggle to actually, you know, what happens is you're a year later, you're still going, geez, man, John, I can't understand why you never hit your numbers, man.

Speaker 8 And it's like, okay, are you providing him with the opportunities, the technology, and the time to be successful? If those things are all true and he's still not producing, get him out.

Speaker 5 Yeah, exactly. And I think this, you make a good point earlier about the hybrid workspace thing.
And maybe the same could go for this.

Speaker 5 It's like, if you're going to go out and hunt your own food, dude, you can eat all of it. You can eat all of it.

Speaker 5 But if you are, if opportunities are coming just flying through the door and you're not doing anything to generate them, we have to have a conversation about that, you know, because then it's, I'm just giving you money, you know, for very little in return.

Speaker 5 And I think that that's a problem in a lot of agencies. And it doesn't have to be.
I think you just have to be a little bit creative about how you're going to structure that.

Speaker 5 And I know, I know, it's not easy to find talented people.

Speaker 5 They don't grow on trees. But I think if you just spend a little bit of time training people,

Speaker 5 you can turn people into the salespeople that you want them to be. And they will like their job and perform well for you if you're fair.
And

Speaker 5 you give them their creative space.

Speaker 8 Not everyone wants the stress of managing. a $200,000 book of business that comes with recurring revenue.
Not everyone wants wants that stress. Some people are like, you know what?

Speaker 8 You send me the opportunities. I'll sit here and I'll close them and I'll make $75,000 a year all

Speaker 8 day and be completely happy.

Speaker 8 And you're just, you're making money. They're selling policies.
They're hitting their numbers.

Speaker 8 Your book of business is growing. Yeah, you're maybe just covering your nut on the advertising or like the cost of acquisition expense, but that's fine because you're making full 100% on the back end.

Speaker 8 And if you're doing the right things with all the

Speaker 8 automation systems and all the touch points and all the opportunity to retain business on the back end, that's possible, then

Speaker 8 you can push your retention rate way up. So, all right.

Speaker 8 I want to hit this last one because now I'm running up against a timetable because I got to go pick up the kids. So, last one.

Speaker 8 I would never outsource to a VA for customer service. This is just me.
The relationship needs to be between me and the client and no one else. I'll pay someone internally to be a rock star.

Speaker 5 Yeah. So VAs,

Speaker 5 I don't disagree. They're very important to any type of business.
I use them. A lot of agencies are starting to use them.

Speaker 5 But I've seen and heard some of our clients run into issues with having them do

Speaker 5 client-facing stuff. And I don't mean physically face-to-face.
I mean through email and through phone and stuff like that. That's been a somewhat of a nightmare.

Speaker 5 So I think when they're using the right role, doing the right thing, they're extremely,

Speaker 5 an extremely important part of any of any business.

Speaker 5 I just personally would not use them for customer service type thing because I think at the end of the day, and we've all of us have beat this to death, right?

Speaker 5 Me, you, everybody out there who's in the space, you know, really at the end of the day, what differentiates you from your competitors is the relationship. And I think that

Speaker 5 a lot of agency owners, again, because of time, maybe just energy,

Speaker 5 they tend to outsource some of the stuff that at the end of the day they're the best ones in the agency at sales and relationship why are you having john over here do it when he's you know he's an introvert and doesn't want to talk to anybody like don't ever outsource the thing that you're best at to somebody else who's not as as good as you at it and that maybe was probably the lesson more so than don't use vas like i i don't have anything against vas i mean like i said they're they're very important to a lot of different businesses I just think that you have to make sure that you're using them in the right spots and not delegating stuff that really, at the end of the day, you are the best one to do.

Speaker 5 You know, you're the best one to do it. So like, be careful with that.
Like, and, you know,

Speaker 5 I think some agencies would admit to you that they do that more than they would like. You know, they delegate stuff.
I mean, they're trying to leave at, you know, three o'clock on a Friday. I get it.

Speaker 5 I try to do the same thing when I can, especially in the summertime when I have two crazy kids bouncing off the walls.

Speaker 5 But it's like, you know, if there's a, if, if there's a, um, you know, an aggregator in Florida that has 200 agencies, like, I'm not going to have someone else take that call.

Speaker 5 I'm going to be the one on the call. So I think, I think maybe the lesson behind that was more so not necessarily to not use a VA, but it's to not delegate your core competency.
That makes sense.

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 8 You know, my, so I have a couple of feelings.

Speaker 8 I think that

Speaker 8 whoever handles those interactions needs to be bought in.

Speaker 8 And I also think the other side of it too is, and this is where I see the major discrepancy and particularly with service and VAs, is a lack of expectation setting.

Speaker 8 So the client thinks they're getting,

Speaker 8 you know,

Speaker 8 Tammy Sue, who's sitting in your office with you, and they don't realize they're getting a woman who's sitting in the Philippines.

Speaker 8 That doesn't mean the woman in the Philippines isn't as good or isn't is less capable.

Speaker 8 I will say that, you know, with VAs, you have to be very tactical and straightforward and deliberate in how you build out what they're meant to do. They're on the other side of the world.

Speaker 8 Like you're not getting a chance to sit with them.

Speaker 8 Now, you can do a lot of onboarding and over time, they can become, and I have seen situations and talk to people who have high, high-functioning VAs.

Speaker 8 So, so I, you know, again, another thing, I'm not. There's no knock here in any regard.
But

Speaker 8 the idea

Speaker 8 here is there's no expectation setting.

Speaker 8 If you think you're getting Tammy Sue, who lives in the same town as you, and you're getting someone who lives on the other side of the world, and maybe doesn't understand the industry or doesn't understand the local vernacular or doesn't understand the references, and you're not expecting that, that is, I think, one of the major shocks.

Speaker 8 If you sit down with them and at the front, you go, look, I use Filipino VAs for most of my service work. So when you email, understand that it might not be as warm, but it'll be faster.

Speaker 8 It'll be 24-7. And I promise whatever you need will get done.
And if you ever have a problem, I'm available. You set that up front.
And now that person can make a decision.

Speaker 8 They may say, hey, Ryan, I don't do business with people who do VAs.

Speaker 8 But what you don't get is sell somebody one thing and they get another because there's going to be another person.

Speaker 5 like me who'd go oh that's cool all right man whatever all right whatever you know that's a great point man i mean like if I'm, if, if, if I'm, you know, I personally would not care if I was like, yo, Ryan, I need an ID card.

Speaker 5 And it was a VA that replied back with it. I don't really care because that, that's kind of like a lower level type of ask.

Speaker 5 Um, but there are people out there that care.

Speaker 8 Yeah, there are.

Speaker 5 And I, my whole point is just don't outsource the thing that differentiates you from other people.

Speaker 8 I think, I think you're 100% right. I, I, I love that point.
I just, I guess a bugaboo for me is missed expectations.

Speaker 8 And as someone who I use a lot of customer care centers, where I feel the customer care center is up to a certain level, Hanover, Cincinnati, I use those examples all the time, right?

Speaker 8 If I, with one of my clients, I tell my clients up front, when you send me, you send me an email,

Speaker 8 the carrier person is the one that's going to fulfill that and send it to you. You send it to me, I'm going to look at it and I'm going to get it to them and they're going to take care of it.

Speaker 8 So when you get that back, I want you to know why you're getting it from them so then people have no they're like all right whatever man as long as i get it you know and if they did have a problem we could talk through it and i could so i just think that missed expectation setting is a huge is a piece of this right is a big piece is they just you never want your customers to think one thing have something else happen it just that's what causes a lot of problems yeah that was an issue for us man when i ran the agency it was like And back in, back in those days, I might be showing my age here, the call centers were a new thing.

Speaker 5 There was not that many carriers doing it. And the marketing reps were really pushing it.
They're like, Chris, you know, you're like a two-man operation.

Speaker 5 You really should think about this. I'm like, there's no way that I'm paying, I'm losing commission dollars to lose touches on these clients who are like paying my bills.
Like,

Speaker 5 we drove all service through the agency. And because of that, we had a very high retention.
I mean, we very rarely lost a piece of business.

Speaker 5 And if we did, we had a lot of people that would come back because they went to another agency that they did not handle the client the same way with the same sense of urgency i mean you know how it is man when you sell insurance especially on a personalized side you know if somebody buys a car on a saturday and they call you and you're not there people think it's like the end of the world like i need an id card and i'm like no you really don't dude you can still use your current id card people don't you know know that but it's like

Speaker 5 it was serve customer service was a big thing for us and was one of the reasons why we got the amount of new business that we got and um yeah i just I don't know, I hate seeing people delegate the stuff that they're really good at.

Speaker 5 That's all it was about, man.

Speaker 8 And I think it's a great one to end on because if you're not good at marketing, right, delegate that shit. Delegate it to localtrafficmarketing.com.
Localtrafficmarketing.com.

Speaker 8 Guys, you've heard me talk about, Chris obviously sponsors the show. every couple episodes.
I do a big plug for him.

Speaker 8 He's built every website that I've had in the insurance industry, industry, even the ones that he completely effed up because I'm always his beta guinea pig on all his shit, which I love.

Speaker 8 But dude, you want to see his work? Go to rogue risknock.com, check out. That's the gangster shit he put together for me.
And

Speaker 8 I say that, I say this in jest, but I do, dude, I think you do a tremendous job. It has been, I always say this when you come on the show.
It has been such a pleasure to see you.

Speaker 8 evolve from the conversations we had when you were an agent to today and watch how big Avisor Evolved has gotten and you know just it's it's amazing, man. And I appreciate your insight.

Speaker 8 I thought that this tweet storm or whatever was awesome. You brought up some really great questions.
I'm just glad we had a chance to talk about it.

Speaker 5 Likewise, man. Thanks for letting me, you know, maybe clear the air a little bit.

Speaker 5 Hopefully people that follow me or that might end up following me as a result of this episode, you know, now that they've heard my voice and maybe know my personality a little bit, understand that, you know, I really do want what's best, man.

Speaker 5 I want to see people win. And if I can help you in any way avoid a mistake or if you have a question for me, please tweet me and ask me, man.
I'll give you my honest opinion.

Speaker 8 Good voice, bro. It's Langilly Does.
L-A-N-G-I-L-L-E-D-O-E-S.

Speaker 8 And

Speaker 8 so Chris is from Jersey and is a dick, but he tries very hard not to. That's probably the best thing that I can tell.

Speaker 5 No.

Speaker 5 I'm actually from Louisiana. And I'm a nice guy at that.
I live in the suburbs of Philly. I don't know why you always say Jersey, but yeah.

Speaker 8 Because it's just funny. And I know it bugs you just a little bit.
So that's why I did it.

Speaker 8 Sure.

Speaker 8 All right, bro. I love you, man.
Thank you for coming on the show. I'll catch you on the flip.
All right, brother.

Speaker 8 You go fuck yourself with your fat fucking ass.

Speaker 8 you,

Speaker 8 bro.

Speaker 8 Making it by

Speaker 8 the driving,

Speaker 8 making it good.

Speaker 8 Making this my brother challenge.

Speaker 8 Thank you,

Speaker 8 you go.

Speaker 8 Make it body from the driving.

Speaker 8 Make it good.

Speaker 8 Oh,

Speaker 8 thank you, this my brother.

Speaker 8 Thank you,

Speaker 8 oh.

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