RHS 044 - Dawnyel Smink on Communication, Workflows and Leadership

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Speaker 11 Hello everyone and welcome back to the show. Today we have an incredible guest, Donielle Smink, the president of Canningland Insurance and the founder of WISE, Women in Insurance Sharing Empowerment.

Speaker 11 And I met Donielle for the very first time in person at this last year's

Speaker 11 innovation conference for IAOA.

Speaker 11 And I just see her as one of the most professional, hardworking,

Speaker 11 thoughtful leaders in our entire industry.

Speaker 11 And, you know, ever since I had a chance to spend a little bit of time with her and learn more about what she was doing at CLI, I, you know, I've been looking forward to having her on the show.

Speaker 11 And if you don't know Donielle, I think you're going to be blown away by the way that she approaches the business, how she built her business, and the insights and experience that she shares around building workflows to drive success.

Speaker 11 And particularly how

Speaker 11 she thinks through that process.

Speaker 11 this is something you're absolutely going to learn a ton, but you're also going to be hopefully introduced if you haven't been already to someone you need to know in this industry.

Speaker 11 So, it is my great pleasure to bring you Donielle Smink today. Before we get there, I want to give a big shout out to our sponsor, Advisor Evolved.

Speaker 11 I get a lot of questions about my website, about websites in general, just because for so long I've talked about content marketing and marketing.

Speaker 11 And I'll tell you, hands down, there is no other choice.

Speaker 11 It's Advisor Evolved or bust when it comes to websites.

Speaker 11 Chris Langell and his team, you know, watching him build this company, build Advisor Evolved into just an absolute juggernaut in the insurance website game.

Speaker 11 And not just because he's got good marketing or he knows the right people. His websites work.
They drive traffic.

Speaker 11 And the new product that he just recently launched, local, his local marketing product where he's helping people do traffic generation in their local market, like micro-targeting, geo-targeting, stuff like that.

Speaker 11 It's absolutely incredible. He's changing the game in terms of digital brand, digital storefront for agencies across the country.

Speaker 11 And if you're thinking about a new website or you just need a website and you work in the insurance space,

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You will not be disappointed. In fact, you'll be blown away.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 11 With that, let's get on to Donielle.

Speaker 10 Well, I appreciate you coming on.

Speaker 10 I have a lot that I want to talk to you about. And I just felt like

Speaker 10 I just felt it was also be a good opportunity. This gives me an excuse to talk to people that I want to talk to.
So I just appreciate you taking the time and coming on the show.

Speaker 13 Yeah, thanks for having me. And I can't wait to have you on CLI Connect in August.
We do that quarterly.

Speaker 13 And it's really cool because it's not just our agencies, it's our way to outreach to other agencies.

Speaker 13 And so we capture to the first, you know, hundred

Speaker 13 owners that come on and then we record it and then we put it out there.

Speaker 10 Oh, that's great. Well, that'll be my pleasure.
I'm looking forward to it as well. So

Speaker 10 one of the things that I find, have found interesting about

Speaker 10 starting my own agency is I get asked a lot of questions as if I know the answer to the questions.

Speaker 10 Like, you know, even though I've been in the industry for 15 years, this is my first, you know, I've only been an agency owner for four months.

Speaker 10 So, you know, I don't, I haven't really figured things out yet. Though I get, and for all of you listening, I love the questions.

Speaker 10 So don't stop sending the questions because I'm happy to help when I can. But there's just things that I don't know about that people ask me about.

Speaker 10 One of those things that I asked about a ton.

Speaker 10 And actually, I was super, super happy because I think someone I referred to guys actually became a member of CLI.

Speaker 10 But I get asked about network, market access, aggregator, relationships, all the different feel.

Speaker 10 And everyone that I've met in your organization loves, you know, there's just, it feels like there's so much respect between you and the different agencies and between each other. And

Speaker 10 I just, you know, I just felt like I wanted to bring, I wanted to talk to you about that. I want to talk to you about how these things work and your experience.
And

Speaker 10 particularly, and then I'll actually have a question here, but I want to talk about

Speaker 10 in general, not just in the ecosystem that you operate in every day, but just in general,

Speaker 10 you know, agencies working together. It feels like agencies work together a lot more than they used to.
They share a lot more.

Speaker 10 They're so much more willing to talk about, you know, here's this thing I did. When I first started going to events 10, 12 years ago, you didn't talk about what you did at all.

Speaker 10 It didn't matter if that agency, you know, wrote only life insurance and was on the other side of the country you didn't give them one piece of information and now it's like everyone is willing to barf everything they do onto you and in and I mean that in a positive way and I'm just you know I'm just interested in your perspective on on how we got to this place and you know you know how we continue to nurture this

Speaker 13 so

Speaker 13 Thanks for asking that question because I absolutely really love that question because I thought about it too.

Speaker 13 I've been independent since 2004. I was really fortunate to join our group as an agency location first.

Speaker 13 And so I just happened to pick the group that really, I felt like, emphasized working together early before like what you're talking about.

Speaker 13 Like there's this feel of like, hey, it's not like it's my secret sauce. I'm not going to share it with you.
Like I'm going to hoard it over here. And it's totally special.

Speaker 13 And the thing is, is that... A lot of the things that we're doing, there's commonalities in it.

Speaker 13 And if we can find them, we can help tweak each other for it so I've been doing that for you know 16 years with the other members that are a part of our group so I feel really fortunate that I had that prior but I've even seen it just through the council work that I've done through the years and I would say you know carriers that are really reaching out to us and promoting the the independent channel I think they have a play in it too so it's not just us as owners but they're actually being more open about like, hey, here's best practices, here's things that we can do together, you know, as a carrier, but make it not just like carrier specific.

Speaker 13 So I think it's a combination of that. And I think it's a combination of that the captive channel is really starting to migrate over to the independent channel.
You start to see that with, you know,

Speaker 13 American Family bought, you know, MSA

Speaker 13 recently. You see Nationwide, you know, taking Allied and Nationwide and putting it together.

Speaker 13 And then they just finished, I think it was yesterday, you know, converting over gases over to independent so there is that part of it and there is this

Speaker 13 I call it is your ego in the way is your ego out of the way and I see a lot of egos getting out of the way and I see that as they're coming in there are pain points and so I feel like a lot of times my job is to help agencies with pain points because I will tell you I have done so many things wrong as an agency owner.

Speaker 13 And I hope that I've learned from them, or at least I can say I would never do it this way. I did it this way.
Please don't ever do it that way.

Speaker 13 And I think that conversation is a lot more open with agency owners, and they're recognizing these pain points, and they don't have to suffer some of that alone. But also, there's

Speaker 13 a merge of technology

Speaker 13 for so long.

Speaker 13 I remember in 2008, when I took over the group, I introduced a web-based CRM that we basically,

Speaker 13 I'm not going to tell you who we were using at that time as far as our management system, but they had an open API and didn't realize it.

Speaker 13 So we actually were pushing the data from our site that we had created in 2008 and pushed the data into the management system that we were using. And no one was talking about an open API at that time.

Speaker 13 You know, that just, that was 12 years ago. That wasn't happening.

Speaker 13 And when I presented it to the group, they're like, I look like I was like an alien from another planet. Like, you want me to do web base?

Speaker 13 You're talking to us about APIs, you know, you're talking about workflows and things like that. And so, it's really cool to see how far the technology has come to.
So, I think

Speaker 13 it's a combination of the ego out of the way, the carriers actually really pushing towards the independent channel, and then the technology that we've been getting investments in from the tech insure

Speaker 13 side of it.

Speaker 10 Do you think that the customers have anything to do with it? Do you think a change in the way customers operate, buy, think,

Speaker 10 the way that they, 15 years of being marketed to on speed? Do you think any of that has impacted some of it too? Just, you know, it seems the way my father, I'm going to position it this way.

Speaker 10 So when I first got into the business 15 years ago, my father-in-law had been in for 36 years at that point or whatever it was, 32 years, and runs a tremendous shop.

Speaker 10 The way he did business was literally the exact same way that every other agency did business, right?

Speaker 10 It's just how hard you work, how gregarious you were, how willing you were to reinvest, you know, that kind of thing.

Speaker 10 It wasn't like there weren't really that many trigger, you know, like levers that you could pull to differentiate, you know, some branding here, but basically it was the same stuff.

Speaker 10 And the consumers expected the same stuff. And today it feels like.

Speaker 10 you know, just in my time in the industry, but then thinking maybe even a little further back, today the market segments are so much different. There's the people who still want belly to belly.

Speaker 10 There's the people who never don't even want to know your name. And then there's this enormous spectrum in between.
And sometimes I think I ask myself,

Speaker 10 is this,

Speaker 10 has part of the

Speaker 10 camaraderie sharing this been, we just don't really know what to do. You know what I mean?

Speaker 10 It's like we've kind of hit this point where everyone is just a little, a little less sure of exactly what the path looks like. And maybe, do you think that's led to it at all I don't know

Speaker 13 I think as a human species we are highly connected now and so that helps too with the sharing of it but so are our customers so they're highly connected too so they're looking for the answers in a different way than ever before but you can never take the relationship piece out of this.

Speaker 13 I mean, all of this that's happening right now shows us that we are people that long for belonging, that we long for people to validate, you know, what we're doing or help us with something.

Speaker 13 We're still that human race in there. It hasn't been taken away.
So you're right.

Speaker 13 It's a Mod Podge of, you know, the old ways of whether we used to do it, very paper-driven, face-to-face, like you said, belly-to-belly kind of thing. And some clients still, you know, enjoy that.

Speaker 13 part of the process. And so you've got to be able to be

Speaker 13 basically fluent with them. You have to say, hey, how do you like to do business? And in that, you have to be able to meet them where they want to meet.

Speaker 13 So if they want to meet face to face, what if you are just somebody that works out of your house and they want to meet face to face? Where is it that you're going to do that?

Speaker 13 So you're going to have to figure out and solve that piece of the puzzle for them to meet them where they want to be.

Speaker 13 And then if you're somebody that is online, you're going to have to, you know, especially through COVID. I'll give you an example.

Speaker 13 I got in there with my team and really helped them out with some clients because we were getting for a while there, especially when the billings changed, we were getting probably about three to four hundred phone calls extra a day.

Speaker 13 That is a large call volume for a team to just like overnight like tons of billing questions and then you know making changes.

Speaker 13 And so we actually had to train some of our clients because we weren't meeting them in person and they were long-term clients. I taught a 92-year-old how to do DocuSign on their phone.

Speaker 13 And it was the first time they ever had a phone. So to walk them through it and get them trained is something totally different.

Speaker 13 But if you have somebody else on the other spectrum, they're going to expect it to be really easy. They don't want to have paper to deal with.

Speaker 13 And no matter what, we're still dealing with a lot of paper, whether it's electronic paper that we send to them. There's still a lot of documents that are being processed in the insurance industry.

Speaker 13 We haven't really shortened those. And in fact, with the more legislation, we seem to be, here's a waiver for this, and here's a waiver for this.
And by the way, here's your privacy notice.

Speaker 13 You know, all of those things keep getting compounded. And so it really is about how can we mold to be there for our clients when we need to.

Speaker 13 And that's, and sometimes some of the agencies that didn't do this prior to COVID, I've seen that they've had a very difficult time, you know, adjusting.

Speaker 13 And then those that had already, you know, gone. the route of being virtual, they've really thrived during this time period.

Speaker 13 And so I think it's a learning lesson to those who that are not fluid for their clients that they need to be.

Speaker 10 Yeah.

Speaker 10 I know I was,

Speaker 10 if COVID had to happen either way, I wish I had started my agency like a year earlier because I have found as much as there's some

Speaker 10 There's some obvious

Speaker 10 headaches that come with it from a business perspective. And I think if you have employees, it's definitely more difficult.

Speaker 10 But the way that I set up my agency, COVID had a zero impact on my business and the way that we operate.

Speaker 10 You know, there wasn't, there is no other option than hello sign. You know what I mean? There is, you know, it's little things like that or, you know, whatever DocuSign, e-signed tool you use.

Speaker 10 And I've talked to other people and,

Speaker 10 you know, that hasn't been the case.

Speaker 10 The idea.

Speaker 10 So there's two ideas in there that you pulled out.

Speaker 10 I've talked to some people about this idea.

Speaker 10 I wrote an article the other day and I talked a little bit about it.

Speaker 10 Shout out to David Crothers because he said it's the first time I ever got this analogy correct. But the idea, Bruce Lee's idea of like be water, right? Like be whatever that client needs you to be.

Speaker 10 Okay. So I was talking to someone the other day and they brought up the idea.
You either have to be, you either have to fully invest in that methodology, right?

Speaker 10 Go where they are, be fluid, have flexibility, have options, or you have to go all the way to the other side, which is you do it this way or no way, right?

Speaker 10 You either walk this path and you come down this path exactly the way I've outlined it because that's where I can add value, or you're just not for me, go someplace else.

Speaker 10 And you have to, you make that delineation.

Speaker 10 But that where agencies are getting caught is that space in the middle where they say they do text, but they don't really like doing text and they're not really set up to do text.

Speaker 10 So the text process, instead of making it easier for the client, becomes a nightmare because they didn't actually, you know, they didn't actually go there.

Speaker 10 So I guess with this person's, with this person, and again, I talked to so many people, I'm forgetting exactly who it was.

Speaker 10 So I apologize if they're listening to this and they're like, that was me, and you're not right.

Speaker 10 You know, their point was, you either have to, like, you either have to, you know, just do not say you do the thing and don't even make it an option, or invest in making sure that it actually adds value.

Speaker 10 Does that, is that, does that seem like a clear clear idea? Or do you think there's it that's just theory?

Speaker 13 I think it fundamentally goes down to is you have to own your process of how you are going to work with clients and you need to make sure that each step of that process is

Speaker 13 defined.

Speaker 13 Everyone's looking for somebody to lead them down a path. So whenever I'm talking to clients or agencies, I always think about taking a flight with them.

Speaker 13 And I always talk about where have you been before with your insurance? Where have you been before with your agency? Where are you right now and where do you want to go?

Speaker 13 You listen to that path of how that client, you know, wants to work with you, whether they're insured or an agency.

Speaker 13 And then what you do is you map out what that flight is going to look like with your processes in mind. So you'll say, you know, our first step is we collect the information and we believe that

Speaker 13 we want to compare what you had before. So you may have some insurance baggage.
You may have duplicating coverages, like you may have towing already with AAA.

Speaker 13 So why would we include that in there for you? It doesn't make sense. But I won't know that until I can actually like TSA your baggage through

Speaker 13 you know our systems look at it and through our process and then at the end of it you know basically

Speaker 13 We're checking them, you know, they're getting off of the plane and we want them to make sure that they are safe and they're going in a good direction.

Speaker 13 So you're telling them, my process is that we do not

Speaker 13 offer, you know, basically we're paperless.

Speaker 13 We believe in the in saving the environment and if you have problems walking through the docu sign, we will walk that, well, we will walk you through that too and get you completed with it.

Speaker 13 So, but we're during that process as we are.

Speaker 13 gathering the information, as we're completing, you know, the what we call an insurance review, not a quote, but an insurance review, and we're finishing it off with them in that we are landing and

Speaker 13 putting together their paperwork, we let them know through that process what it looks like. So, I think one of the disconnect agencies have is that they don't go through workflow process.

Speaker 13 That's something that I really work really hard on. And in fact, I recently got back into personal life again with my sales team, and I noticed there was gaps in that workflow process.

Speaker 13 So, we have a map,

Speaker 13 and it coordinates with our CRM of every step of the workflow process so that my team knows here's where we go here, here's where we go here, and this is how we lead the client through that process.

Speaker 13 So you can't just assume that the client knows exactly what flight path you're taking them on. You cannot assume that your team knows what flight path you're taking on.

Speaker 13 You as a leader have to define the workflow process. So, and what resonates for you.

Speaker 13 So I see what you're saying, but both sides have that in common, and that is that there needs to be a workflow process that works for you.

Speaker 13 And as long as you define it and communicate it, communication is the biggest thing with the clients,

Speaker 13 then they will feel comfortable working with you, like the 92-year-old doing docu sign on a cell phone when they've never had a cell phone before.

Speaker 13 She's comfortable with it because we walked her through that process, but we didn't change our process.

Speaker 10 Yeah, I

Speaker 10 one of the things that I think solves almost every

Speaker 10 technical

Speaker 10 process

Speaker 10 from workflows to the tools you use to the clients you go after is

Speaker 10 setting expectations, right? So, what I just heard you outline was,

Speaker 10 you know, from communicating and workflow plus ideas, is just

Speaker 10 every step is you're setting expectations for those clients. So they know what the next step is going to be.
They never feel like they're just stepping off the tarmac to continue this airline

Speaker 10 into the abyss. Like there's going to be something there when they take that next step.
And

Speaker 10 that's why

Speaker 10 I hear pushback about

Speaker 10 all different things.

Speaker 10 Whether it's

Speaker 10 prospecting middle market accounts or going after

Speaker 10 online leads or

Speaker 10 whatever the issue or the process is, when the client comes in, if you're properly setting expectations, you're going to get them there more often than not.

Speaker 10 It's, I feel like so often, and you know, and I make these mistakes too, because I am the worst about documenting things.

Speaker 10 This is like a known issue for Ryan, that I've done so many of these interviews with leaders like yourself who say very similar things that I know how I know this is a failing of mine.

Speaker 10 But like, if they, if the clients know where they're going, they'll accept they'll accept so much from you. Hey, this is how we operate.
It takes us 24 hours. It takes us two hours.

Speaker 10 It takes us five minutes. But if they know what the expectation was, they're willing to accept it.

Speaker 10 It's just, I think so often we're in such a hurry that we never actually tell them what's coming next. So then they're left.

Speaker 10 They get off the phone and the client's like, well, I hope I get something soon, maybe, right? And then that's when they call someone else. And now, you know, and that's when the trouble starts.
And

Speaker 10 I'm not saying that's an easy thing to do, but that seems to be my breakdown of hearing so many people who've, who've hit levels of success that you have, you know, that's what it kind of feels like,

Speaker 10 the derivative idea. Does that seem reasonable?

Speaker 13 Yeah, so what needs to happen is that we talk about in cells assuming the cells. Like I try and like, even in my cell scripts with my team, I put together what are assumptive sentences, right?

Speaker 13 for the cell, but it needs to correlate with an assumptive process. So we do what's called a wrap-up.

Speaker 13 We tell the client, here's what we talked about and here are going, here's what our next steps are going to be.

Speaker 13 So even if they haven't, I love this for commercials too, commercial, and it works for clients too, but in commercials,

Speaker 13 I'll talk to them, especially like on a first meeting where I'm talking to them about, hey, they have no safety practices in place. There's a lot of work we need to do here.

Speaker 13 And we've gone through this conversation. I just assume that we are coding them.
We have spent time together. We have figured out what the pain points are for their company.
And

Speaker 13 I know the next steps I want to take them. So what I do is I lay it out for them.
I tell them, you know, based on the conversation that we have, you know, you need to put these things in place.

Speaker 13 Here are the next steps of how I'm going to take you on that journey. And so this is what I'll need from you and expectations.

Speaker 13 Is there anything that you feel like you need from me that I'm not mentioning on the next step? So I'm assuming the next steps with them and I'm doing a wrap-up for them.

Speaker 13 So then there's a clear expectation over here and there's a clear expectation over here. So for personal lines,

Speaker 13 in in our proposal for our

Speaker 13 risk management that we do for our clients on personal lines, we also have a part of it that says, this is what you can expect from us and this is what we expect from you.

Speaker 13 And we let them know from the get-go, like if you have a change in your life, you need to let us know. We are super not, you know, mind readers.
That's not going to happen.

Speaker 13 And so that expectation and that communication starts from the get-go with them. So then if they call back and they say, oh, yeah,

Speaker 13 you know, I have this, that's, you know, I, you know, added a vehicle and it was like a month ago, right?

Speaker 13 And you're like, remember, I promise to do this for you and protect you, but I can't do it if you don't fulfill the other side.

Speaker 13 So that expectation and that communication, not just now at the beginning of the sell, but that expectation of the communication going forward.

Speaker 13 And so that's a promise between the two of you.

Speaker 13 I think that's a promise that's not being communicated, that the insureds don't even know they need to do that, you know, with their personal or their commercial lines type of business.

Speaker 10 Yeah.

Speaker 10 I actually, um, I wrote a very small account today, but the guy calls me and he's like,

Speaker 10 So the very first thing he says to me, he gets on the phone. He says, you know, I'm trying to find someone who can help me.
What are you going to do different?

Speaker 10 And I was like, I, you know, it's just an interesting first line before he even said what his name was or asked me what mine was. And,

Speaker 10 you know, I said, well, why, why would you ask that question? And he said, I've talked to three people. i'm seven days into this process and i haven't received a

Speaker 10 communication back i reached you know so the idea there was you know he or he was three days in the process so for in his mind three days was too long to have not received a proposal or or a quote for for his you know for his risk and it was small it was like a thousand dollar bop or whatever it wasn't a big deal but um but in his mind three so so he had never there was never no one who had spoken to him had taken the time to stop and say, here, here's how, what we have to do to get you to where you need to be.

Speaker 10 And, you know, we're going to have to go check a couple companies. Now, thank God I have Tarmica.
Shout out to T-A-R-M-I-K-A.com. We got that done over the phone, but,

Speaker 10 you know, for all your small business needs.

Speaker 10 But

Speaker 10 the,

Speaker 10 you know, the idea there that I took away from that phone call was,

Speaker 10 you know, all he, he, he wasn't like in this major rush. Like, it wasn't like three days was like his head was on fire.

Speaker 10 He just got to three days and went, geez, it seems like someone should have communicated with me by now. And I said, you know, because I'm, you know, I'm fire hose learning right now, right?

Speaker 10 Like for, even though I've done this before for eight years, you know, I've had a five-year break in between selling.

Speaker 10 So I'm back on full fire, you know, every phone call I get, every conversation is a learning experience big time. And,

Speaker 10 you know, I took away from that call. Like, if one of those agents had simply said, Hey, it's going to take us four days, he would have never called me.
He would have never called me.

Speaker 10 That's all they had to say was, Hey, just so you know, it usually takes us for this kind of risk four days to get back to you. On that fourth day, you'll receive a proposal for us.
Is that okay?

Speaker 10 Yes, okay, great. We'll talk to you in four days.
But,

Speaker 10 you know, he just had no expectation set, no, no process. It wasn't explained to him.
And,

Speaker 10 you know, I'm $100 richer. So, you know,

Speaker 10 woe me.

Speaker 10 I don't know where I was going with that.

Speaker 13 It's just simple to ask for a due date. Like, that's the biggest thing.
Like, so I'm putting this together to you.

Speaker 13 I want to make sure I am, you know, meeting the expectations or beating the expectations you have. So when do you need this by?

Speaker 13 And if they say, you know, you know, whenever, I think my renewal is coming up in a month, then just give yourself a buffer time.

Speaker 13 I've seen so many agents that are like, oh, I'm going to get it to you by the end of the day.

Speaker 13 Okay, you're setting yourself up for failure possibly because you haven't really looked at what you have else in the day so if you tell them hey it's gonna take about four days and you get it to them at the end of the day they're like oh my gosh that was super fast and there's and they're really appreciative of it so you just got to ask them like what is the expectation of it and sometimes it's like for example workers comp they're like i would like that right now i'm like well if you have you know an effective state in a current policy you know let's talk about you know short-term penalties and let's not do this right now.

Speaker 13 And this may be an issue for you. And they may not even realize that.

Speaker 13 You know, I have a client that actually canceled with us, went with another agency, got that penalty, but that agency never even discussed it with them that that was a possibility.

Speaker 13 So sometimes the expectations of what they can do, they don't understand actually how the policies work or how that can impact them, or that they're going to, when they cancel a policy, there's an audit that goes along with it.

Speaker 13 Well, guess what? That's extra work for them, too.

Speaker 13 So those conversations are not having, you know, they're not having it with their clients at all. And you can win this just off being,

Speaker 13 you know, somebody that communicates.

Speaker 10 Yeah,

Speaker 10 I think,

Speaker 10 you know, one of the

Speaker 10 one of the pillars of when I was starting Rogue, one of the things that I had in my mind when I was trying to figure out what I wanted, at least at the beginning, the culture of the agency to be.

Speaker 10 Now, again, it's just me, so culture is a little easier. But, you know, as we grow, one of these things that I had written down was the idea of over-communicating.
Because even if

Speaker 10 I feel like just by simply over-communicating with a client, just by asking them an extra question or taking a second to give them a claim scenario on underinsured motorist coverage,

Speaker 10 you're setting yourself so far apart from so many of our peers, unfortunately.

Speaker 10 Because it... you know, I can't tell you, and you've probably had the same thing.

Speaker 10 How many people you explain a coverage to them, like something that you, that, you know, you you might look you may say is fairly straightforward and seems like every agent and they go wow i've never no one has ever explained that to me before and you're like what like how wait wait wait but you didn't know that that was a thing on your policy like how let's talk about this and um those little extra moments uh the the little the little tangential stories on on a claim scenario or on a on a risk management technique that can help them prevent a claim for a certain uh for a certain risk on a policy.

Speaker 10 Those are setting,

Speaker 10 for my opinion, the foundation for them never to leave, right? That's the foundation of the walls of your city. They're just never going to want to leave.

Speaker 10 If there's just building brick here, brick there, just a little piece of advice, little piece of

Speaker 10 setting a proper expectation,

Speaker 10 just giving them a little bit of tangential information that can help them. And I always use the joke if I feel like I'm talking too much, which is obvious that I do.

Speaker 10 I'm I'm like, there's a great piece of cocktail party information for you. Just drop that little underinsured story on.

Speaker 10 That's so funny. You know, and those kind of things are what keep people.
You know, those are, that's what keeps them coming back. And

Speaker 10 I just wish I am.

Speaker 10 I have the only thing that I have been slightly disappointed about. coming back into the agency life and selling policies again is that

Speaker 10 I feel like nothing nothing has changed from five years ago in terms of the way we communicate and interact with clients at least

Speaker 10 predominantly broad sweeping stroke obviously more and more so many of our peers that come on shows like this and stuff that that's changing but it's changing very slowly um

Speaker 10 maybe maybe a more positive word is methodically um

Speaker 10 you know because I just you talk to clients every day and it just doesn't seem like they're being treated You know, there doesn't seem like this guy, this guy I talked to today, he wasn't given the time of day because his account was a thousand bucks and all three of those agents knew it.

Speaker 10 They all knew it was a thousand dollar premium. I knew it as soon as he told me what he did.
And the difference was,

Speaker 10 one, I'm broke and new, so I was willing to spend the time with him. But two,

Speaker 10 I didn't care. I would have done it either way.
And

Speaker 10 I think

Speaker 10 I just have, I guess I've always wished that more agents took that time.

Speaker 10 I guess I don't have a question as much as I, that's one thing that has stuck out to me is that it feels, it feels exactly the same as when I left in terms of what the client expectation is.

Speaker 13 And I totally agree with you. I think that the biggest thing is I've always kept in my mind, and I think this has really helped me with my clients and why my clients have stayed with me, even though.

Speaker 13 I'm functionally out of the process of talking to them as much as I used to. And that is, is that my goal wasn't to close someone a day.

Speaker 13 My goal was to help and protect what mattered to them, not what I thought mattered to them, every single day.

Speaker 13 If I could touch and help one company, one person, every single day, then it's going to come back to you. It's absolutely going to come back to you.

Speaker 13 And so like you're saying, that $1,000 client, guess what? You helped him and he saw it and he appreciated it.

Speaker 13 He probably knows some people that have higher premium that will send it back to you, you know, and it'll come back. And I think we look so much on premium.

Speaker 13 We look at so much on the closes and, you know, that we do. And I'm not saying that's not important.

Speaker 13 I'm saying if you look at it, like my goal when I went independent in 2004 was I was going to every day

Speaker 13 help and complete helping them, which means a sell, you know, one person a day.

Speaker 13 Like if I did that every single day, then that's, you know, and the average premium for those type of clients, if it was personal lanes, is $2,500.

Speaker 13 Well you're doing $10,000 a week in premium

Speaker 13 for just the scratch agent that equates to about a half a million if you just did that.

Speaker 13 I did commercial too so that helped a lot but it really helped me say I you know my commercial clients was a ton more premium.

Speaker 13 I was only helping one person but you got bigger bang for your buck on those ones.

Speaker 13 But it didn't matter to me because all I wanted to do was I just wanted to help and complete helping somebody and make them better today than they were yesterday.

Speaker 13 And it helped me from a mindset side of it, because if I couldn't help that person, I would actually tell them, like, you know what, I think you're better where you're at right now.

Speaker 13 I'd like to revisit in six months. And you're communicating that plan with them for a win back.
We don't communicate win back.

Speaker 13 Think about all the lost leaves we have of the people that did not go our way. Like it did not work out today.
It doesn't mean in six months to a year, it's not going to work out.

Speaker 13 But we never communicated that our plan is to, I'd like to be your agency of choice.

Speaker 13 So we're losing all of those leaves that we worked really hard to get into the door because we don't communicate the next step in the win back very effectively.

Speaker 13 And we don't market to them that, hey, I want to be your agency of choice. And we don't do that in that process.

Speaker 13 So, I really think in the workflow that you do, there needs to be that communication for yourself of the script of what you're going to say within that process.

Speaker 13 So that your team knows or you know, you know, how we're communicating to the client.

Speaker 10 Yeah, I love that idea.

Speaker 10 I love that idea that you just brought up of

Speaker 10 letting them know that you want to be their agency of choice, right? That's a that's an idea that's very common in like middle market commercial sales. Like

Speaker 10 Micah Salas, who's been on the show, talks about on LinkedIn all the time. Carruthers talks about a lot of people who are in middle market talk about this idea of,

Speaker 10 I'm not trying to sell you insurance. I want to be your agent.
And then together we're going to build the package that works for you, whether, you know, and that idea. That

Speaker 10 has not, for the most part, translated down to anything below middle market commercial, for the most part.

Speaker 10 And I love when I hear personalized agencies or small commercial agencies or just agencies who happen to run into one of those kinds of using that language because

Speaker 10 You know, this, and you actually said this before, like the guy that I, the example I brought up today, you know,

Speaker 10 I would have to be crazy to not believe that there's some serendipity in the world, that that guy that I wrote for $1,000 to get him taken care of isn't going to then maybe possibly bring over his personal lines, maybe refer me to his sister or his buddy who owns a business down the street, because he don't know.

Speaker 10 You know, I helped him. He doesn't care if his premiums are $30,000 or $130,000.
He's just like, oh, I got this guy that helped me with my business. Right.
So, you know, that idea

Speaker 10 of not just selling, which you got to be able to sell, there's no doubt, but like, but of actually,

Speaker 10 you know, of actually taking the time to

Speaker 10 care just a little bit. And not that people don't care.
I think we just get caught up in, I need to make my numbers if I'm a producer, or I got to keep the lights on. And

Speaker 10 I feel that, right? I feel that. I completely feel everyone.

Speaker 10 But taking that little extra time, just like you described, I would like to be your agency of record.

Speaker 10 I would like to be your agency of choice um you know showing that they're just not another account that you actually want to work with them you desire to work with them it's man that that they seem like little semantic things but they're so important

Speaker 13 well and it's so important to your mental well-being i will tell you honestly when i get in places of that fear the fear of like you said paying the bills the payroll and having those things over me or meeting the benchmarks of the carriers, the expectations of the carriers.

Speaker 13 I have this really healthy habit for myself. And that is I will go back into

Speaker 13 my early day clients, the clients that have almost been with me almost two decades. I will go into their file in our CRM.
I will call them up.

Speaker 13 And I will just tell them, you know, I was thinking about you today.

Speaker 13 And I just want to say how thankful I am that you stuck with me through the years and that I've been honored to protect your your family.

Speaker 13 And you just open up a conversation and then the really interesting thing is

Speaker 13 that as you're having that conversation and if you listen to them closely, you'll hear other opportunities to work with them and help them more, right?

Speaker 13 Then you'll also have the opportunities to just plainly ask them and just say, I would really love to work with more clients like you.

Speaker 13 Like, who do you know that would enjoy the type of relationship that we have had for almost, you know, two decades.

Speaker 13 You should totally cash in on those relationships, but in a heartfelt and human way.

Speaker 13 And I'm telling you, the fears that I had prior to those, you know, the conversation of calling that client, those are subsided by the feeling of help.

Speaker 13 that I've helped them through it, you know, in talking to them, that I've seen them through.

Speaker 13 When you're talking about that, that length of time, I mean, we've gone through, you know, they started having kids.

Speaker 13 Now their kids are driving, you know, like all the little scary things or they may have like they might have been singled and they got married and you help them through those things and we talk about our lives they know about my life when we talk about those things that will also retain the client and they're surprised that you call and just saying you know I was just thinking of you today and I was feeling really thankful and I just think you should know that That goes a long way.

Speaker 13 We did that during COVID for our commercial clients. We just decided we, you know, each account manager, we called out the clients first that we felt were most hit by this.

Speaker 13 And we plainly said, we're calling you to check on you. And want to let you know, we're here for you.
We're working from home, but if there's anything you need, let me know.

Speaker 13 And so we helped them through PPP loans. We helped them with telecommuting policies.
Those are not insurance-based products, but in the end, they're super thankful and they'll work with us on it.

Speaker 13 They didn't cancel their policies. They ended up, you know, hey, let's look at payroll, make some adjustments.

Speaker 13 They also refer to people because they would talk about, hey, this is what my agency did for me. They reached out and they said, are you okay? What can we do to help? Yeah.

Speaker 13 And so that is like the best marketing that you could possibly do is

Speaker 13 be super duper duper thankful.

Speaker 10 Yeah.

Speaker 10 That call is great unless they go, Jesus Smink, I thought I canceled that policy years ago. We got to take care of now.
I'm just kidding.

Speaker 13 Yeah, I make sure I totally bet out the account first.

Speaker 10 So, you know, I want to be respectful of your time, but there is another organization that you

Speaker 10 are part of and help and help found or are the founder of. And it's the Women in Insurance Group.
And I can't remember exactly the name, but I know, is it WISE?

Speaker 13 Yes, it is. Yeah.

Speaker 10 And I just wanted, so I,

Speaker 10 you know, I just wanted to talk a little bit about that. I'm, you know, I guess diversity is a big topic today, but in general, I just like, I just think it's important to have different voices.

Speaker 10 And I'm just interested in how,

Speaker 10 what you're doing with that group, how it's helping women grow in the industry or recruit them. Or I just interested in learning more and sharing it with the audience.

Speaker 13 Yeah, thanks for asking. I'm passionate about the insurance industry as a whole, but I'm also,

Speaker 13 when I started the industry, I was one of the few female females that would be sitting at a table. And then especially when I started working

Speaker 13 on council.

Speaker 13 And so I've seen that grow, and there's been more women involved.

Speaker 13 But I was really, it started, why it started a number of years ago, because I wanted to find a group of women that we could work together, but also, like you said, help bring in the younger generation into

Speaker 13 the industry. But also a lot of the

Speaker 13 team members of offices are female they just may not be agency owners and so even though we make a greater percentage of the actual workforce within the industry and we're not taking the next steps to help you know our careers and so that's on us right that's not on any male and and I also want to do it because I love the men that I work with they've helped me they've picked me up they've like here I'm dragging you over here and you're going to be doing this and they've promoted me so I didn't want like this is like the men haters club.

Speaker 13 Like I wanted nothing to do with that. But I think there it comes down to communication again.
I think the whole thing we're talking about is communication.

Speaker 13 And that is that sometimes men and women do not communicate appropriately. So how do we bridge that gap with one another? Like it's awkward sometimes, you know,

Speaker 13 for men to reach out and say, hey, I want to help you and have it not be perceived a different way than it should be. So how do we have that conversation?

Speaker 13 How do we have, you know, women feel like they can be assertive without being, you know, excuse my language, bitchy?

Speaker 13 You know, like, how do you have those conversations and how do you help one another? And sometimes, honestly, women don't play nice with one another. We don't.
We're getting better. We definitely are.

Speaker 13 There's a lot more women leaders that are standing up and saying, you know what? We're not going to be catty. We're going to be there for one another.

Speaker 13 And it doesn't mean that only one of us gets to succeed. We can all succeed together if we work together.
So we've done

Speaker 13 a lot of speaking events over the last couple of years with carriers and then then different special groups.

Speaker 13 I've been able to, we put together some retreats actually at my cabin over the last couple of years, which is a lot of fun.

Speaker 13 We do workshops with them and then we do follow-ups.

Speaker 13 We're working on a project right now called Dynamic Vitas, and that is getting women into the coaching realm to help other women in the industry on their next steps and be able to take them through a full coaching side of it from the sales component to it to the personal component.

Speaker 13 And that is that

Speaker 13 taking care of yourself.

Speaker 13 And then having that communication between men and women.

Speaker 13 We've been thinking about, we were going to do it this fall, but everything's kind of weird, but having a session where it's men and women in the room and talking about how we can communicate better as a group.

Speaker 13 So then if you have like a team member that comes with you to the retreat that we were going to do,

Speaker 13 then you guys can go through some exercises of how you can help and support and promote each other without ever feeling awkward about it and having real genuine communication with each other so both parties can go in the direction that they want to go.

Speaker 13 And so it is, it's really bridging that gap.

Speaker 13 So I felt like there was a huge need in that, that we needed to, you know, bring men and women together, help women with some of the things that we just, we don't push ourselves on, and then also help women, you know, lift each other up as well.

Speaker 13 So we've been doing a lot of that type of work and then other groups have spun from it too. So I've been super happy to see,

Speaker 13 you know, other groups. I'm super, it doesn't mean that, you know, ours is the only group out there or anything like that.
The more things that are out there are super helpful.

Speaker 13 I know that men have been very thankful for some of the things we've done to help them with their team members and so that they can,

Speaker 13 you know, push them along in their careers. So I've been very proud to be, you know, leading that.
that charge over the last four years.

Speaker 10 Yeah, I think that's tremendous. I think it's tremendous.
And I think I've been happy to see over the last three to five years

Speaker 10 an improvement in the demographics that you see on the stage and in different General Assembly conferences as well, both carrier association,

Speaker 10 different groups. You've seen more diversification in the speakers.
And, you know, and diversification means so many different things.

Speaker 10 It means rural agencies, urban agencies, big agencies, small agencies, female led agencies minority led agencies agencies from the south agencies from the north you know i think you know it's so easy to get in this routine where it's the same half dozen dozen people dozen voices and um

Speaker 10 it has been uh a pleasant a very pleasant um it's been pleasant to see in general just the keynotes and the people up on the marquees it they just look different and and that's a good thing you know what i mean i i don't know that i love differentness for different sake but i love differentness for the improvement of everybody and um and it's just been great to see and uh

Speaker 10 and you know i'm just i'm happy that that there are people like you out there putting these groups together because um

Speaker 10 you know i just think it's good it just just helps us all get better at what we're doing and i think it's very very important so i wanted to make sure we talked about that before i let you go

Speaker 13 well i really appreciate that because i will tell you honestly, when I started this, I was like, okay, this can go two of his ways.

Speaker 13 It can go, this is going to be awesome, and we're going to help men and women.

Speaker 13 Or this can go the other way where they're going to be like, oh, she's that girl that doesn't like to, you know, hang out with dudes.

Speaker 13 Like, it was like, I have more guy friends than I have girlfriends. I grew up with brothers and I relate to men probably more than women a lot of times.

Speaker 13 So that was like a fear of mine that went through. And I have been pleasantly surprised.
There was some of that that I think sometimes when you do do spotlight a certain group, whether it be

Speaker 13 race or gender, that sometimes if you have that passion to help

Speaker 13 whatever segment you're thinking of, don't let the other side impact you because you're going to get some comments.

Speaker 13 of it, but know your intentions, know your heart, and go for it. And if you can make an impact, you know, in other people's lives and careers, then that's the only thing that really matters.

Speaker 13 So that would be my advice to anybody that starts a group like that or wants to be a part of the group that they're like, well, I want to feel like I belong, but I don't want to feel like I'm being put in a box over here because I am, you know, because it's this race or this gender.

Speaker 13 You know,

Speaker 13 belongingness is important and feeling like you have a safe place to talk about concepts and be able to work it out so you can do it in a productive way is super important.

Speaker 10 I completely agree.

Speaker 10 I completely and wholeheartedly agree. And, you know, when I used to put the elevate conferences on, you know, our the speaker lineup was so important.
It was so important to me.

Speaker 10 It was, I spent all 12 months leading up to the day that we actually put that conference on, just thinking about the narrative of the speakers and the voices and how do we make sure that

Speaker 10 how do we make sure that the that every cross section that could be heard from is heard from so that no one sits in the audience going, you know,

Speaker 10 no one talked about my situation or no one touched on anything that I'm actually dealing with. And

Speaker 10 I do think that's very, it's very, very important. And I think, you know, I think the unfortunate part is

Speaker 10 some people see that as, well, if they're going to, if we're, if, if they get a voice, well, then that's diminishing my voice.

Speaker 10 Instead of saying, well, no, we're all shit, we're all just friggin louder now. You know what I mean? Like, and that's, and it's tough.
Um, I don't do well with scarcity mindset people.

Speaker 10 I really struggle struggle to communicate with them. That's a deficiency of mine.

Speaker 10 But I think

Speaker 10 it seems like more and more

Speaker 10 those in our community who do think from a position of abundance are rising up to spots where they're able to bring people along and then put them up on their own shoulders.

Speaker 10 And that's been, that seems to have escalated in the last three to five years. And it's been awesome to watch.
So,

Speaker 10 you know, I want to be respectful of your time. We're already over.
It's been absolutely tremendous talking to you.

Speaker 10 I'm so I'm just glad we got to spend this time together. And where can people both learn a little bit more about you and CLI and also

Speaker 10 WISE? And, you know, so, you know, where can they connect with those groups and just get to know you and the things that you're doing more?

Speaker 13 Yeah, definitely. And our website for our group is CLI select.com.
Pretty easy. And then for WISE, it's just W-I-I-S-E women.com.
And then we both have Facebook pages for both as well.

Speaker 13 And then also, you know, we're on the other social media platforms too.

Speaker 13 But, or you can ds at cli select.com and that's my email. And I'm just happy to help people if you're thinking about joining a group and you're looking for options.

Speaker 13 I think one of the things is I have a lot of people come to me because I'm not going to sell you on how wonderful we are, even though we're awesome.

Speaker 13 I'm going to tell you, here's what you need to think about. It's still the journey.
So when we're taking that journey with our client, I do the journey with our agencies that we talk to.

Speaker 13 And guess what? Sometimes the journey means like I'm going to have you do a connecting flight over here with somebody else. And maybe that might fit you better.
And I do that for agencies.

Speaker 13 And it's really interesting because sometimes I do a connecting flight with them with another group or some, you know, another direction just to help them because it's their journey, not my journey.

Speaker 13 And then they'll be like, I'm going to take a return flight and come back to you. But sometimes that happens.
It happens with clients too. So you just got to keep that in mind too.

Speaker 13 So it's respect other people's journey. Take them on it with your process, with your workflow, but always be respectful and helpful to others.

Speaker 10 I also am going to give you mad props for pulling the aviation theme throughout the entire show at multiple levels. That is skillful work.
So I just, I appreciate that.

Speaker 13 I'm your total stewardess, right?

Speaker 10 All in one.

Speaker 10 Well, thank you so much. I wish you nothing but the best.
I appreciate your time. And just thanks for sharing it with us today.

Speaker 13 Yeah, thanks so much, Brian.

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