RHS 025 - 20 MUST FOLLOW Insurance Pros for 2020

Speaker 1 There are millions of podcasts out there, and you've chosen this one. Whether you're a regular or just here on a whim, it's what you have chosen to listen to.

Speaker 1 With Yoto, your kids can have the same choice. Yoto is a screen-free, ad-free audio player.
With hundreds of Yoto cards, there are stories, music, and podcasts like this one, but for kids.

Speaker 1 Just slot a card into the player and let the adventure begin. Check out YotoPlay.com.

Speaker 2 Welcome back to Listen to Your Heart. I'm Jerry.
And I'm Jerry's Heart.

Speaker 3 Today's topic, Repatha, Evalokimab.

Speaker 2 Heart, why'd you pick this one? Well, Jerry, for people who have had a heart attack, like us, diet and exercise might not be enough to lower the risk of another one. Okay.

Speaker 2 To help know if we're at risk, we should be getting our LDLC, our bad cholesterol, checked and talking to our doctor. I'm listening.

Speaker 2 And if it's still too high, Repatha can be added to a statin to lower our LDLC and our heart attack risk. Hmm.
guess it's time to ask about Repatha.

Speaker 4 Do not take Repatha if you're allergic to it. Serious allergic reactions can occur.
Get medical help right away if you have trouble breathing or swallowing.

Speaker 4 Swelling of the face, lips, tongue, throat, or arms.

Speaker 4 Common side effects include runny nose, sore throat, common cold symptoms, flu or flu-like symptoms, back pain, high blood sugar, and redness, pain, or bruising at the injection site.

Speaker 2 Listen to your heart. Ask your doctor about Repatha.
Learn more at rapatha.com or call 1-844-RAPATHA.

Speaker 5 Think you know your breaking point? If you're a woman with weak bones due to osteoporosis after menopause, sadly, you may not.

Speaker 5 Women can lose up to 20% of their bone density within five to seven years after menopause, making bones weaker and more likely to break.

Speaker 5 And after the first fracture, we're five times more likely to break another bone within a year. It could happen from a simple slip or just bending to lift a bag of groceries.

Speaker 5 Don't wait for a breaking point. Visit bonebreakingpoint.com to learn about how osteoporosis medications can reduce the risk of fractures.

Speaker 2 So I've done the intro for this show like seven times now, and every time I add like 40 ridiculous superlatives to how awesome this show is

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 They never seem to do justice to what you're about to listen to basically Jason Cass

Speaker 2 my man

Speaker 2 The guy who's been fighting alongside me for independent agents for more than a decade now We jump on a podcast for more than an hour and break down

Speaker 2 the top movers and shakers in our business. Now, not all of them by any regard.
Some of you will be listening to this going, geez, I wonder if I'm on that list. And you won't be.

Speaker 2 And I want you to know that that's not because Cass and I don't love you. It's because

Speaker 2 we just, there's so many amazing people doing amazing things in our industry right now that we could only limit it to like. what ended up being almost 40 people.

Speaker 2 And we started out trying to keep the list to 20 and we could have done another 100. And

Speaker 2 I just want everyone to know that I love the people who we talk about.

Speaker 2 And I love so many more people who we didn't talk about.

Speaker 2 And I just want you to know that we will probably do this again and talk about people that didn't, we didn't talk about this time because this isn't a rank order thing.

Speaker 2 It's just a people that came to our mind thing. And

Speaker 2 there's just, it's a tremendous time. to work in insurance.
And I've said this a million times on the show, and I promise I'm going to stop saying it, but I'm just so glad to be back.

Speaker 2 And I'm glad that you're listening to this show. And if you listen to this show and you don't listen to Cass's show, jump over and subscribe to his show.

Speaker 2 And if you're listening to this version, my version of the show, but you're really a Cass subscriber and you're not subscribed to the Ryan Hanley show, the show you're listening to right now, then please subscribe because that's amazing.

Speaker 2 And then you can get all the other cool things that I produce. Because

Speaker 2 even though I also talk about insurance stuff and Cass and I do interview some of the same people, we also interview a lot of different people.

Speaker 2 I do some solo episodes, he does some solo episodes, and then something that I tend to do is bring people from outside our industry in, like Ann Hanley, and Tamson Webster, and Ron Tite, and Marcus Sheridan, and

Speaker 2 just, you know,

Speaker 2 that's cool stuff too. So, you are going to enjoy this episode, but this is what I want you to

Speaker 2 be ready for this.

Speaker 2 RyanHanley.com/slash 2020, the numbers 2020, ryanhanley.com forward slash 2020 like the year it i'm going to have a list where you can click and connect on linkedin with every single person that we mentioned during the show every single person and i hope that you will go to ryanhanley.com forward slash 2020 and connect with every single one of these people on linkedin because you absolutely positively should should do that ryanhanley.com forward slash 2020.

Speaker 2 okay before we get there real real quick, I want to talk about our sponsors. We got to pay them bills.
We're going to make it very quick. Tarmica, tarmica.com.

Speaker 2 This is the platform doing commercial rating. Shh, they may be offering personal lines rating in a single platform coming out soon.
So you want to get on this bus before it leaves the station.

Speaker 2 All the movers and shakers are talking about tarmica.com.

Speaker 2 Tarmica, the commercial rating platform for independent agencies built by an independent agent for independent agencies, t-a-r-m-i-k-a dot com t-a-r-m-i-k-a.com get you some tarmaca and then I want to give a huge shout out to my man everybody's man but my man I knew this guy when he was still hawking home in autos and doing design work on the side Chris Langell from advisory volved

Speaker 2 roguerisk.com is now a thing you can go check it out it is gangsters bleep and you want

Speaker 2 if you're looking for that next level website, go to advisoryvolve.com, sign up, get yourself a website, stop dealing with that janky website that you know you need to update, but you don't know what you're doing.

Speaker 2 Chris and his team will take you through the process. Your website will look gangster as

Speaker 2 fill in the blank, but it'll look that gangster, whatever that next word is that makes it the most gangster in your mind. Advisory Volve will get that done for you.

Speaker 2 RogueRisk.com built on Advisory Evolved. Go get yourself an Advisory Evolved website with that.
My friends, remember, ryanhanley.com forward slash 2020.

Speaker 2 You can connect on LinkedIn with every one of these people we're about to mention. These are some of just they are

Speaker 2 one collection of the most amazing people doing amazing things in our industry right now.

Speaker 2 They're not the only amazing people, but they are a wonderful collection of amazing people doing amazing things. I hope you enjoyed this episode.

Speaker 3 Let's get to it.

Speaker 2 three

Speaker 3 so handley dude i think um what we're about ready to do i think is is is a big deal to you and i because 20 people to watch in in in 2020.

Speaker 2 i think it's going to be uh this is this is a pretty good list i think that we've come up with yeah you know and i think it's worth mentioning you know safego did their own 20 and 2020 list and that's all agents that's a tremendous list and uh they did great work putting that together i think what we've done a little differently here and when we were talking I think this is 20 insurance people.

Speaker 2 This is

Speaker 2 consultants, technologists. This is people from inside and outside the industry or from inside, from every aspect of the industry.

Speaker 2 These are kind of 20 people that we see in 2020 who you just need to be paying attention to, who's, you're going to hear their name more because they're making real moves and you should keep an eye on them.

Speaker 3 Well, and Hanley, and the thing that I mean, everybody knows that Cass is an open book here.

Speaker 3 Really, I was speaking to the marketing department of Safeco back on January 4th, and I happened to mention to them that we were doing 20 people in 2020.

Speaker 3 And then last night, they released 20 people in 2020, which I think is complete crap that they would steal. All right.

Speaker 3 No, I'm joking. Safeco, I'm joking.

Speaker 3 Loyal listeners, okay, I'm joking. No, it was ironic.
I mean, Hanley, we have had this planned for a couple of weeks. It was when I saw it last night, I was like, oh my gosh.

Speaker 3 But they have some studs on there. I mean,

Speaker 2 no, it's a great list. It really is a great list.
You know what?

Speaker 2 If you're listening to the Hanley version of this podcast, then I'll have that linked up in the show notes and you can check it out. It's the Agent of the Future 20 for 2020 list.

Speaker 3 It's a great list. It is a great list.
And so I want to let everybody know that I did this last year and I did 22 people.

Speaker 3 And the reason I did 22 people is because my list just kept growing when I just wanted to put,

Speaker 3 I just wanted to get it out there. But here, Hanley, it's only fitting and for marketing purposes and other things that we would just put it at 20.

Speaker 3 so no disrespect to anybody who's not out there there's people out there i'll say right now i think nicholas ayers is a stud in the industry but he's not on our list oh actually he is on our list man i just goofed that up didn't i ryan i really didn't know he was on our list he shouldn't be on our list ryan we need to take nicholas off

Speaker 3 All right, man, I'm just joking. All right.
So here's what we're going to do.

Speaker 3 I don't know how you want to start this out, Ryan, because Ryan put some i put some and then we we sat down together and said here's who we feel they are how do you want to go about this you want to go first ryan

Speaker 2 let's just start at the top and start cranking so uh the first name is someone who i put on uh the list his name's chris green he is the flood insurance guru i actually had him on the podcast cast i know i'm pretty sure you've had him on your podcast um if you haven't you should and the reason i wanted to put chris on was because he's doing something that I think takes a lot of guts.

Speaker 2 It takes a lot of belief in yourself and in your business. And that's he's going flood only.

Speaker 2 And he, you know, if you follow him on Facebook, which I encourage you to do or LinkedIn, he's written about the fact that

Speaker 2 he, you know, he's obviously has, he's a little anxious, a little nervous about going flood only, but he, this is his, his niche. This is his expertise.
It's what his his degree is in.

Speaker 2 It's what he's passionate about. It's not just flood insurance, but flood mitigation, flood protection, flood restoration.
And I think that

Speaker 2 he is going to be a poster child for what it means to go all in on a niche. And I just, I know a loyalist.

Speaker 3 He, Hanley, don't you notice these Northeasterns? He says niche and Chris Peradiso says ideas. It's like, where do these people go? Did they go to the same school we went to? I don't know.

Speaker 3 I don't know.

Speaker 3 It's what makes you guys unique up there. Hey, Hanley, you know, now I will tell you, ironically enough, today at the podcast, we're releasing one with Chris Green.

Speaker 3 I'm not going to go on about Chris Green.

Speaker 3 You did a good job with it, but I want you guys to understand that he is very vocal about the fact that he has a learning disability, and he believes that learning disability has given him

Speaker 3 the person who he is. So that it's just multiple, well-rounded person.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and Cass, before you jump to the next person, I just want to let everyone know who's listening to this.

Speaker 2 You know, whether you're listening on Cass's podcast or you're listening through my podcast,

Speaker 2 I'll have at least like the LinkedIn, the LinkedIn profiles for everyone that we talk about.

Speaker 2 You can go there and connect with everyone on LinkedIn at a minimum and then, you know, follow them from there. So that way, if you go to the show notes page,

Speaker 2 if, you know, for me, it's ryanhanley.com.

Speaker 2 What is it? Insurance agency intelligence.

Speaker 3 Okay, so here's, here's one of my names. And I want to also say these are in no particular order.
They really, truly are not. No order at all.

Speaker 3 If you saw how we have them grouped up, you'd see that we're just kind of randomly pulling them here. But ironically enough, I will start with

Speaker 3 one of the first that I thought of, which was Seth Zaremba. Now, he is a staple.

Speaker 3 I think we don't need to go on a lot about who Seth is because I think if you're in this industry and you haven't at least heard his name or found out about him,

Speaker 3 I would highly encourage that.

Speaker 3 The reason why I say it is I say he's Mr. Transformation and the fact the way that he looks at things, whether his model will work and be the super model of 2050 is yet to be determined.

Speaker 3 I'll tell you right now, I'm on that train and believing it.

Speaker 3 But the fact is, it's just the fact that he's brought to the thing, Ryan, in my opinion, because he's brought to the surface and brought to the light that data is playing an important role in other industries and we should start looking at it as playing a big role in our industry.

Speaker 3 I think he's finally brought that to the light. At least he did for me.
And that's why I believe that he's important to watch in 2020.

Speaker 3 I will say, almost of everyone on here, I think he's important to watch in the 2020 decade. I really, really, truly believe that, right?

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 I think, and I think we, you know, I want to add Sid Row on there as well. I think,

Speaker 2 you know, she has kind of taken all the skills that she

Speaker 2 that kind of blossomed in her Agency Nation days, and she is just doing an incredible job diving down into Neon and kind of taking this, what is what, what is, you know,

Speaker 2 I think legitimately a complex idea, what Seth is trying to do. It's, it's different and new and complex.

Speaker 2 And she's, I think she's doing a wonderful job of taking these complex ideas and turning them into kind of bite-sized,

Speaker 2 understandable, attainable concepts that agents who are on the outside, and I know the beta pilot program is still very new, but that they can start to understand what this thing is and the real gravity that it has

Speaker 2 in our industry. So I kind of have them as, I guess, one, or not one person, but

Speaker 2 one.

Speaker 3 They really are.

Speaker 3 They really, truly are.

Speaker 2 Yeah, a team. Yeah.
Because there's a couple of teams on here.

Speaker 2 But yeah, I'd say Seth and Sid, names that have been around for a little while, but absolutely two names that everyone has to know and be connected to.

Speaker 3 So I'm going to throw somebody else on that team, which his name is Robbie Burton. I have him listed on the list, but just while we're talking about it, he is,

Speaker 3 and I can't remember

Speaker 3 his teammate, his guy's name that works in his office. I believe it's Randy Fark.
I hope that's right. Randy, if you're listening, I apologize.
I know you got your first name right.

Speaker 3 But him and Robbie Burton are actually have kind of created their own neon, let's say, in Virginia and are kind of the first two neon pilot agencies, you could say, besides Seth and then Robbie.

Speaker 3 Robbie is unbelievable. If you get to know him, he's kind-hearted.
He's gentle. He's soft-spoken, and he is a huge advocate for insurance agents.
So go ahead. Go ahead.
Go back to you, Hanley.

Speaker 3 Pick the next one.

Speaker 2 Yeah, no, Burton and Associates. And just, I would say,

Speaker 2 an understated asset to our industry that

Speaker 2 if you ever have a chance to connect with, do it.

Speaker 2 Connect with him just in kind of the virtual space and hear what he's saying, what he's doing.

Speaker 2 Absolutely a standard bearer for our space, there's no doubt. Okay, so

Speaker 2 keep moving forward.

Speaker 2 The second one that I want to talk about is Zach Mefford and his partner, Ryan.

Speaker 2 I always pronounce, I think it's Swalve

Speaker 2 from Coverage Direct. I think what Zach and Ryan are doing at Coverage Direct,

Speaker 2 you know, if they were in any place other than Iowa, every single agent, every single industry person in the country would know who these two guys are and what they're doing.

Speaker 2 Coverage Direct, in many ways, is like the template that I'm trying to build at Rogue Risk. They are absolutely one of the agencies in this country that I'm looking at and going,

Speaker 2 I'm going to take a lot of pieces of what they're doing and how they built Coverage Direct and apply that to my own agency as I build it out.

Speaker 2 I think that Zach, Zach tends to be a little more public-facing than Ryan, though they're both incredible.

Speaker 2 I think they'll be household names in our industry.

Speaker 2 If we do this in 10 years, I think they'll be household names in terms of what they've done with Coverage Direct.

Speaker 3 December 3rd, I'm sitting in Cleveland, Ohio at the Neon Pilots meeting, and we get put into these tables and we get asked these certain questions and sitting right next to me is Zach Mefford.

Speaker 3 I had really, never, really got to know him.

Speaker 3 It only took five to ten minutes for him to talk for me to realize like, wow, he knows this stuff at a much closer level to in the dirt where I'm way in the clouds, right? This guy knows it.

Speaker 3 And when he speaks, he speaks, he speaks authoritative. You know, he, he is, you can tell he knows what he's talking about.

Speaker 3 And when I saw you add him, Ryan, I was like, that was good stuff right there. Well deserved, very much so.
I'll say it because I'll put it on there as Nicholas Ayers.

Speaker 3 I think sometimes people could say, Nick Cass, he's been on your list for seven years.

Speaker 3 And I could say, well, he might be on it for eight, nine, or ten the reason is nick is a different person he likes to get his attention out there by just doing crazy and wild stuff and it's proven that it works the thing is i think there's a lot of you either really like nicholas or he gets on your nerves the fact is is that why i love him is uh i mean i personally went out to his place and and went to his house and and had we've had a really good time together but the fact is is nicholas what he does for video and I know video is important and he was the first and only person I know to really break the video mold as far as getting other people to understand its importance.

Speaker 3 Even you, Hanley, you've talked about video and displayed what you do a lot and you've talked about it since, oh my gosh, even before Nicholas, I even knew Nicholas was in the industry.

Speaker 3 But Nicholas really took it to where he broke it down into very simple, basic bite-sized concepts.

Speaker 3 And I think that is going, we're going to see in the next year, three years, and five years, all the people who are successful with video. And I think a lot of them are going to point back.

Speaker 3 Chris Green, he'll tell you right now it goes back to Nicholas's program. So kudos to Nicholas and I just, I think he had to be on the list.
I couldn't imagine 20 people to watch and him not be.

Speaker 2 And the only thing that I'll say about Nick and I'm an enormous fan of his and is that he is an understated connector. He does a lot of kind of back channel connecting of people.

Speaker 2 Hey, you should talk to this person. Hey, I know this guy over here.
He's really interested in what you're doing. He is a great connector.
And I don't think that he gets the credit for that.

Speaker 2 And he's been you know he has definitely helped me take my video game to a whole nother level that I wouldn't have got to if I wasn't part of his uh made you look program which I which I am so

Speaker 2 uh okay so I want to bring in this is kind of like this is fun because you kind of get to pick like who do you want to talk about next all right I'm going to talk about

Speaker 2 about Danny Kimball so I first ran into Danny during the Agency Nation days and as soon as I saw her work like I don't know if I saw something she did on social or what, or to be honest with you, at this point, I can't even remember how we first connected, but it was like immediately, it was obvious to me immediately that this was a special talent, that she saw, that she was able to take our industry and make it fun in ways that most people just cannot do.

Speaker 2 And I love, and I know that she's had. opportunities because she's anyone who is this talented is going to have them.

Speaker 2 I love that she has stuck with O'Neill Insurance and that O'Neill Insurance has stuck with her and really given her the freedom and the resources to

Speaker 2 kind of to be

Speaker 2 to be exactly what, you know, to be as much as she can be in that space. And

Speaker 2 I just think, you know, you look at O'Neill Insurance's brand and, you know, I don't have any numbers, but just from the continued effort and the smiles on the faces of all the the people that are involved and the content she creates and the way they go about marketing both local and and digital and to me um she is uh the gold standard for how you build a brand uh particularly a local agency brand um in in the independent space like i just don't know i don't know you know if she's not the best she's in she's in the conversation um top five there's no doubt wow and that's awesome and see that's why i love this already because i really don't know who she is i had to look her up.

Speaker 3 I'm going to take your word for it.

Speaker 3 If she's a rock star, she's a rock star. And the most important thing is the S-H-E

Speaker 3 and the fact that she is a woman.

Speaker 3 And I believe that this industry is going to be taken to a different level because of women who are going to start rising up and already have and don't get the recognition, which hence, that's one of the things I try to do.

Speaker 3 If you know of some woman out there or you know that some person out there that's a special gem, you need to reach out to to ryan and i you know you can reach out to me at jason at agency dash intelligence.com you can reach out and say hey this person is a special person um he's not on the list but billy van jura is good for that he's always reaching out to me saying cass get this guy get this guy but i'm gonna billy is

Speaker 3 i'm gonna continue on with my next one though and i'm gonna say carrie and nadoo now if um or nado if you don't know who carrie ann is i highly encourage you to listen to the podcast that her and I did last year.

Speaker 3 And she's been on many, many podcasts. You can find her over on Insurance Nerds.
You can find her everywhere.

Speaker 3 But I have to tell you, she, in my opinion, and this is no exaggeration, is the most dynamic woman I have met in the last year in any, in anywhere, in any business or industry.

Speaker 3 She, in the last year, she has really, I've reached out to her a couple of times and talked to her about things because, yes, she comes from MIT, but she's coming from MIT and she's like, like really, really down to earth and you can talk to her.

Speaker 3 And the things that she's doing with analytics and teaching insurance companies how to look at roads differently and how

Speaker 3 she's literally changing the game behind the scenes. And I think that she's getting through to carriers where other people weren't.

Speaker 3 If you look in our industry or you look in the insurtech industry or any, pretty much any industry. around insurance, the transportation industry, you'll see that she is actually a huge stud.

Speaker 3 And Carrie Ann Nadu or Nadeau is somebody you need to go to LinkedIn and you need to follow because you'll be amazed. She's doing some incredible things.

Speaker 2 Yeah,

Speaker 2 I don't know Carrie-Ann. I just know her by name and reputation.
And that, you know, all the people who I respect that know her have incredibly high respect for her.

Speaker 2 So that, that's, uh, that's tremendous. I'm, I'm glad that you

Speaker 2 kind of mentioned her. I want to take this to

Speaker 2 Jack Wingate from All Choice Insurance. I have had the opportunity to,

Speaker 2 Jack and I have never met in person, but we've done quite a few video calls together now. And,

Speaker 2 you know, he's, the way that he runs all choice, his story, I think, is a story that many agencies share in terms of, you know, kind of got into the industry, didn't have a lot, building it up, you know, kind of grinding, making decisions.

Speaker 2 But, you know, I think the way that he has built that business and in particular, taking on Jared Bellman, who's across, so they're in North Carolina.

Speaker 2 And Jared, who was not having a great time at his agency, was very old school, very restrictive.

Speaker 2 Jack, even though Jared doesn't live like, I think a couple hours from where Jack's location is, he brings Jared on as a producer and a partner in the business and basically creates a satellite, a one-person satellite location in Jared's hometown and extends the all-choice brand.

Speaker 2 But also, you know, and even though I know there's a lot of,

Speaker 2 there's tons of camaraderie in there and support and, and training, and he also lets Jared kind of be his own guy too. And Jared does these Instagram videos and, and it's really cool.

Speaker 2 And, and, um, and he's really kind of, to me, I've seen Jared, Jared seems to be flourishing in that space.

Speaker 2 And it, and I think it speaks to a new style of, of agency owner in Jack Wingate and that he's snatching up talent, not just that lives within 15 or 20 miles of his office, but wherever that talent lives.

Speaker 2 You know what I mean? Bring them in, teach them the process, give them the systems, and allow them to expand your brand and expand the methodology that you believe best serves

Speaker 2 your clients. And

Speaker 2 all choice insurance, Jack Wingate is an absolute must follow, must connect, and Jared Bellman as well, who...

Speaker 2 to me i've seen a tremendous maturation in him as he's joined all choice from, I think, and I mean this with tremendous respect for Jared because I have tremendous respect for him to kind of flailing a little bit in his old agency to really, it feels like he's really starting to dial it in.

Speaker 2 And you just love to see someone who you appreciate and enjoy seem to find their place. So

Speaker 2 I guess we'll call it another team of Jack Wingate, Jared Bellman,

Speaker 2 two guys that I think are doing, for different reasons, doing tremendous things right and are absolutely should be in your network.

Speaker 3 Don't know Jack. I do know Jared just a little bit through the social media.
Um, Jared is a class act. I've talked to him.
I think I've talked to him when I was at Elevate one time, that

Speaker 3 conference. Uh, let's see.
What I wanted to do is, I wanted to just pull something out there, though, Ran, uh, Ryan. Is you said something there, which I thought was good.

Speaker 3 You talked about how Jack is expanding the brand, expand the brand. So, I went and searched expandyourbrand.com.

Speaker 3 It's such a good term term that that thing is on sale for $149,000,

Speaker 3 that URL.

Speaker 2 That's how good you are, Hanley.

Speaker 3 Come on, dude. I mean, no, it's not $11.99 and it goes to $7.99 if you buy it for five years.

Speaker 2 This is $149,000.

Speaker 3 You got to quit giving that shit away for free, man.

Speaker 3 The next.

Speaker 2 I have too much on my plate as it is.

Speaker 3 The next person I'm going to talk about,

Speaker 3 which means

Speaker 3 it has been...

Speaker 3 This guy flies under the radar, and he's okay about it. That's why I wanted to put him on here.
And his name's Chad Spade.

Speaker 3 Pure Potential Automation, I think is the group name. Pure Potential Automation.
I'm pretty sure is what his face.

Speaker 2 It definitely is because I went down one of his rabbit holes for like 45 minutes last night while I was watching the national championship game.

Speaker 3 That's the truth. So he literally works 10 hours minimum, works like 12, 14 hours every day.

Speaker 3 He doesn't have kids, so that allows him to do a lot of things that some of us can't. But the great thing about him is, here's where I think he's inspirational.
He has a true desire to help agents.

Speaker 3 And the problem with it is his agency is already so big and so successful. He's actually too nice and he gives away too much for free.
And he'll tell you he doesn't plan on charging for anything.

Speaker 3 What he wants is, is he wants agents to be ready for the digital transformation.

Speaker 3 Why he believes in that so much is because you can go back as early to 2014, 15, and 16, and his agency had no automation in it, had nothing.

Speaker 3 And he saw a couple other agents and what they were doing, and he literally sat down, Hanley, and like for the next two years, has worked in his business to do nothing but grow it to what you just said.

Speaker 3 You would listen to him and see some of the stuff he talks about and go, this guy was born automating when he was two. No, four or five years ago, he didn't even know how to do any of this.

Speaker 3 And so as I've seen him grow, I know where he's going.

Speaker 3 And I think you're going to start to see more people look to him for guidance, start to look to him to say hey Chad Can you help me in understanding it? Because like I said,

Speaker 3 he understands what's happening and he lives it every day. And his revenue of his agency is about 3 million.
So, I mean, this is in a small agency whatsoever.

Speaker 3 So he's a good-sized agency, very, very down-to-earth person. And I think he's going to help a lot of people, a lot of people.

Speaker 2 Yeah, if you and I ever put on a conference, he would. absolutely be the first person we reach out to to do a workshop you're damn right no doubt you're right um Chad and Billy Williams.

Speaker 2 If you could just, if you could just take Chad, Spade, and Billy Williams workshops like once a quarter,

Speaker 2 you'd be, you'd be all set.

Speaker 2 You wouldn't have to listen to anybody else. You'd be all set.
So put Billy Williams on the list as well because he's right about that. He's like one of my absolute favorite master gurus.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 So I'm going to go next

Speaker 2 to,

Speaker 2 so technically this is one that you put on the list, but I'm going to steal her because she's one of my favorites. And I feel like you most likely ganked her

Speaker 2 from me.

Speaker 2 And that's Olivia Schmidt. I think that,

Speaker 2 so Olivia does,

Speaker 2 she works for Tricor in Wisconsin. Pretty sure Wisconsin, but definitely Tricor.

Speaker 2 Met her back in the Agency Nation days and she's doing a lot of, she is pushing change in a very large agency, and she's doing it, I think, in a lot of the right ways.

Speaker 2 And there's challenges, and not everything I think that she wants to have happen happens exactly in the time that she wants.

Speaker 2 But what I love about the way she's doing is that she's not doing it the way that, like, I did it, which is just coming in and being like, hey, you old bastards, like, you're doing everything wrong.

Speaker 2 Like, no, she's being very respectful, she's working through the process, she does tons of research, she networks, she finds the right solutions, and she implements them in the right way, which means more efficiency and effectiveness for Tricor.

Speaker 2 She also does these videos on LinkedIn, like Monday morning, and then she'll do like a little five to six minute video. Sometimes it's like life stuff, sometimes it's business stuff.

Speaker 2 It's always very valuable. She's very sincere, very authentic, very transparent.

Speaker 2 I always take the time to watch them. And I think that Olivia is absolutely going to be

Speaker 2 like a superstar in this space, whether it's with Tricor, if they're able to keep her, or, and I've also, and, you know, and,

Speaker 2 you know, if they do the right thing and take care of her and give her the space to be what she can be, if not for someone else, not that I want her to leave Tricor.

Speaker 2 Let me, you know, just, I just want to make that. She's going to be a superstar, hopefully a Tricor.

Speaker 2 But she's absolutely. a follow on LinkedIn for that Monday morning video.
Absolutely, positively a follow for on Monday morning.

Speaker 3 Olivia Schmidt. Monday magic.

Speaker 2 Monday magic. Monday magic.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 Monday magic. Yes, yes.
No, Olivia was,

Speaker 3 was, yeah, I had met her in Nashville at the

Speaker 3 Applied Net last year. And then I reached out to her because I made a challenge to my team at

Speaker 3 Agency Intelligence that I wanted to double the amount of women that were at BrainShare. And we did that.

Speaker 3 And she was one of the people we personally invited. And then I got to know her at Brain Share.
And fantastic individual.

Speaker 3 Yeah, runs an eight-person small business unit for Tricor and they are out of Wisconsin. You're right.
I think her location is out of Iowa, but mainly all their locations are out of Wisconsin.

Speaker 3 So fantastic. I had to add her.
It's good that you stole her because, shoot, I just,

Speaker 3 we really got to know each other and she, she is, she's dynamite. She really, truly is.
I want to talk real quick about David Carruthers.

Speaker 3 You're probably saying to yourself, if you're a loyal listener, you know who David is. If you listen to Ryan Hanley, you may or may not.

Speaker 3 But I encourage you all to reach out there and check out what David Carruthers is doing down at Florida Risk Partners.

Speaker 3 Basically, I'm not going to go on any more than he has become our sales trainer over the last year, and he looks at insurance very differently.

Speaker 3 He has grown his agency substantially fast since 2016.

Speaker 3 He's one of the stories I've told Ryan about as Ryan starts Rogue Risk is that, you know, it's not like it takes forever anymore to grow substantially.

Speaker 3 And David is, is an example of that, of what he's done in the last three years. If you are where he is in three years, Ryan, you're doing freaking awesome.
Let me tell you that right now.

Speaker 3 And so, and he's just got a lot to learn out there. I think you're going to start to hear his name a lot more in some of the innovative things that he is doing.

Speaker 3 Throw out another name there with Mike McDonoghue as well. Todd Tames.
We're going to be having dinner with them at, well, actually this Thursday, Ryan, we're going to be having dinner with them.

Speaker 3 And I think you're going to get to see some of the genius that these guys have planned. But David Carruthers is somebody that you need to check out out there.
He is special.

Speaker 2 Yeah, so I don't know David beyond you recommended to me that I start following him. And I've started and I'm.

Speaker 2 I think he's coming out with a course or he's doing a workshop or something. And like, I'm already saving my pennies for that because I'm going to be first in line.

Speaker 2 I love the way, just, just, just from the thing, the points of view that he shared on different articles i've written and you've written and then in like ioa group and stuff like that like uh i just i can already tell that this dude thinks about insurance the way that i want to think about it and um he's been he's been he's been a tremendous connection for me and i'm i'm looking forward to uh innovation 2020 i get to meet um get to know him a little bit better uh cool all right we are we are doing so much better on time than I thought we would.

Speaker 3 I thought so too.

Speaker 2 I know. So let's keep that going because

Speaker 2 that's that's important.

Speaker 2 I got a carrier appointment meeting. I'm meeting with Cincinnati in about an hour and a half.

Speaker 3 And I'm excited for you. Anybody out there knows Cincinnati and is a big dog there? Tell them they need to do that.

Speaker 2 I want to take that one down. That's a big one for me.
Okay. So I'm going to move to Wesley Anderson.
Now,

Speaker 2 Wesley's agency owner in Utah, either did own a second agency in LA or still does,

Speaker 2 but very successful, highly automated agency,

Speaker 2 also known as being founder or co-founder, Jay, of Agency VA.

Speaker 3 No, he is co-founder.

Speaker 2 Co-founder of Agency VA. One of the best.

Speaker 3 Ben is his partner's name, Ben.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah. Okay.
Yep. I knew that.
Okay.

Speaker 2 And Agency VA, tremendous VA company

Speaker 2 and just, you know, one of the most respected VA companies in the country. If you're not using a VA and you're thinking about it, I would absolutely give them a call.
Not a sponsor of of the show.

Speaker 2 That's an unsolicited recommendation for that service.

Speaker 2 Here's why I wanted to put Wesley, not because he's a great insurance professional, not because he's one of the best automators in our industry, not because he understands the VA game better than anybody,

Speaker 2 but because he's one of the people who when I first

Speaker 2 decided to go all in on rogue risk, right, which was about three months ago,

Speaker 2 I have talked about this a lot on the show, so I won't get into it now. But when I made that decision, you know,

Speaker 2 Cass was obviously one of the people, Ayers was one of the people, and Wes Anderson was one of the people who sent me immediately, sent me a private note and said, as much time as you need from me, I will give to you, and we can walk through it.

Speaker 2 And the selflessness with which he operates, because I know that I am far from the only person that he's done that with, I think, and I'm not saying that he's the only one.

Speaker 2 I'm just saying this is why I wanted to talk about him. The selflessness with which he operates,

Speaker 2 I think, is a testament to what makes our industry so important, powerful, special.

Speaker 2 You know, coming having worked in many other industries, not just my most recent joint in the fitness industry, what we have here in the insurance industry is very special. Wes embodies that.

Speaker 2 And I think that if you don't know him, you should know him because,

Speaker 2 again, he's just a true asset for our space. There's just no doubt.

Speaker 3 Oh, yeah. So, I promise if I go on too long, I really won't.
Wes means the world to me.

Speaker 3 He really has become,

Speaker 3 Ryan, he's become a very, very close friend like you have in a very, very short time because of everything you just said. The dude has a heart of gold that's genuine.
He wants me to succeed.

Speaker 3 He tries to help me to succeed, whether it's in insurance, AI, whatever. He's constantly sending people my way.

Speaker 3 He just embodies what good is. And so much so that he called me and he said, Cass, I think I want you to come out on September 18th and 19th and see me.

Speaker 3 And I was like, all right, just got a plane, went out there. I don't question it because Wes wouldn't question me.
I've done a couple speaking gigs with him. He's phenomenal.
People love him.

Speaker 3 Thank you very much for adding him. If you wouldn't have, I would have.
You just beat me to it.

Speaker 3 And that was,

Speaker 3 yeah, Wesley is,

Speaker 3 man, he's awesome. Great guy.
Great guy. And then we also, next, I'll talk about Travis Gensler.
If you don't know Travis, you probably do. You've probably seen him walk by.

Speaker 3 He doesn't say much if it's in person because he's very quiet. And when he comments online, it's only one or two sentences.
That's just who he is.

Speaker 3 Now, if you go to his Facebook site and you look at it, you'll see around 4th of July or any kind of party, wherever there's fireworks or fire, he's like the main guy.

Speaker 3 Like he just comes out of his shell. I don't know why.
But the other thing is, is that Travis is known for that people don't know is he is huge in Microsoft.

Speaker 3 He runs another Facebook group that I highly encourage you to check out, highly encourage you to check out, which is Automated Insurance Agency. Automated Insurance Agency.
Go there.

Speaker 3 Tell Travis that you found out about us from Cass and Hanley. So, you know, at least we can give him, we can say, like, hey, it really meant that we put you on our.
podcast because we need some data.

Speaker 3 Yeah, that's right. We need that data.
So that is, is he's cool in the fact of this. He runs that.
He's very smart. Him and Chad are like boys.
They're really good friends.

Speaker 3 But he has built his own quote-unquote AMS because it's not an AMS, kind of like Neon. He's built his own thing on Microsoft.
And it's really, really interesting. He's built this out there.

Speaker 3 So I wanted to throw him out on the list because not only does he run an awesome group, and I say this all the time, you loyal listeners, you know what I'm talking about.

Speaker 3 Like half those guys inside of his group should not be in the insurance industry. They should be working for NASA.
They're that smart.

Speaker 3 When they talk, I'm just like, what what the heck did they just say? So that's why I add Travis Gensler.

Speaker 2 Yeah. All right.
So I want to talk about a technologist, another, I guess we've talked about a couple of technologists here, I think, but

Speaker 2 Ragath Tana, who is the founder of Tarmica. And

Speaker 2 here's why I wanted to bring him up.

Speaker 2 I think he embodies a whole series of

Speaker 2 technologists in our space. His father's owned an agency for 20 or 30 years.
He was an agent for five to seven years, something like that. I'll get some of the details wrong.
But

Speaker 2 all the people that I respect

Speaker 2 in this industry and, you know, have back channeled me about him in particular and Tarmica as a solution. And

Speaker 2 I'm not selling you Tarmica.

Speaker 2 Just what I, what I like about, what I like about, and I call him rags, you know, what I like about him is he's, he's building a product what I believe in what I believe is a, is the right way.

Speaker 2 It's a Seth Zaremba way. It's a, it's a, um, well said, you know, like Alan and Mike at Ask Kodiak.
It's a very respect. He's very respectful of the channel and of what

Speaker 2 it means to be an independent agent, what independent agents need. And he's, he's going about, he's not, he didn't come in and shove his solution down people's throats.

Speaker 2 And whether you use tarmac or not for your for your rating it that's not the point i what i what i like about him and why i think that he will be successful and will be a technologist in our space that people know is because

Speaker 2 he's getting to know the right people he's he's kind of working through the process in a way that is respectful of those who've established themselves and who act not as gatekeepers, but as filters, as like bullshit filters for the rest of the industry.

Speaker 2 True. Right.
And that to me says a lot because it's not easy to work through those people.

Speaker 2 But he's doing it because I think he really sees what the, I think he sees the importance of being respectful of independent agents. Seth calls this indie tech.

Speaker 2 I throw the guys that ask Kodiak on that list.

Speaker 2 You know, Alan and Mike are friends of mine. Alan and I talk about all kinds of stuff.
So Alan Eggbert

Speaker 2 and his co-founder, Mike, you know, those are two guys to follow as well, because I think they would fall under this.

Speaker 2 And there's many other solutions, but I do think I wanted to bring up Rags because I think he embodies this whole group of technologists that are kind of working through the system in a way that is productive and collaborative with independent agents.

Speaker 2 And versus four or five years ago where it was disrupt, disrupt, disrupt, it is very,

Speaker 2 I think it's a very positive thing for our space.

Speaker 3 Dude, totally, totally for real. Rag is awesome.
And

Speaker 3 I've talked to him on the phone just a couple times, but he comes highly

Speaker 3 touted by Seth. And Seth doesn't tout a lot of people unless he's serious about who they are for the Independent Agent channel, which jives with me hardcore.

Speaker 3 And yeah, Tarmica is a, is a, they exemplify what Indy Tech is. Please check them out.
Check them out. Like I said, whether you use their raider or not, doesn't matter.

Speaker 3 When you look at all the commercial raiders out there,

Speaker 3 I don't know why you wouldn't because all the others don't do what they do. But, anyways,

Speaker 3 it's not a plug for them. It's just that they really, really are good people.
I believe his partner's name is Chris, his business partner, if I'm correct about that.

Speaker 3 It's Chris something, and I can't remember. And I know that they're both really good partners together.
So we don't want to leave him out. But yeah, that he's out there.

Speaker 3 Here's another thing I want to tell you guys about the next one: Billy Wagner. Now, you may say to yourself, Who's Billy Wagner? Cass, you don't even talk a lot about Billy Wagner

Speaker 3 to us as loyal listeners. Well, the reason is

Speaker 3 because I'm trying to look to the future, you know. And Ryan asked me the same thing.
Ryan was like, Who's this Billy Wagner guy?

Speaker 3 And I said, Listen, I know him, um, and he's doing some really, really great stuff. He works over there with

Speaker 3 Brightway Insurance down in Florida. Um, How I know him is him and I have a back channel relationship.

Speaker 3 And I talk to him about some of the different ways I need to pay my producers, the way that I'm looking at advertising and operating expenses, and what the average agent, I almost use him as a best practices.

Speaker 3 His agency is large. He does compensate his producers.
He does things differently in his agency.

Speaker 3 And those people always seem to attract me because it's not that I take on everything they do, but I take take it and mix with what other stuff I've heard to create this dynamic agency that I have.

Speaker 3 And I say that, like, not that it's awesome. I'm just saying it's a, I take pride and joy in my agency.
And I spend time with people like Billy Wagner behind the scenes.

Speaker 3 And a lot of people don't know that. But I think Billy, I think he's going to start getting some speaking gigs.
I think people are starting to hear him.

Speaker 3 And he's my projection for 2020 or my prediction for 2020, 2021, that Billy's going to be somebody of more that you're going to know about.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 I don't know how this next one and Bill, from everything you've told me, Billy sounds like a tremendous guy. And I can't wait to meet him and get to know him.
So that's, that's awesome.

Speaker 2 Um, this next one I'm going to drop in here. We didn't have on the list.
I don't know how, I don't know how we didn't have this one on the list, but it's, it's Paradiso. Like,

Speaker 2 so I've known Paradiso for like probably close to a decade back before

Speaker 2 um, you know, he was only a few years out of doing, he, I think he started financial advising life insurance and then came to property casualty. And like, he was just getting his brand going.

Speaker 2 And like, I tell people all the time, like, the Paradiso today is exactly who the dude was 10 years ago. He just has executed on everything that he said he was going to do.

Speaker 2 And so few people do that, right? Like, it's, it's something that I, I think, you know, like when we have those insecure moments, you know, you know what you want to be.

Speaker 2 And then you have these moments where you're like, geez, am I ever actually going to be that thing that I want to be?

Speaker 2 And what I think is so tremendous about Chris is that he is exactly who he is, unapologetically, and he executes on exactly what he says he's going to execute on.

Speaker 2 And, you know, then there's a million other things, you know, being a connector. And, you know, there's just so much to him that makes him,

Speaker 2 you know, I think he's one of the most influential and important agents in terms of his ability to connect people who need to know each other.

Speaker 2 I mean, he's one of the best and one of the most important nodes in

Speaker 2 the system.

Speaker 2 And I don't know how his name was, maybe just because I think at first we weren't going to name people who've kind of been in the in the game for a while, but I do not want him to be missed because he's just a vital, he's a vital component of the ecosystem.

Speaker 3 Well, and right at the end of this, we're going to name off some mentions really fast because it's just too hard to do it in 20, but it was really, really important. And yeah, and Chris is on there.

Speaker 3 One of the things I love about Chris, I'm not going to, we don't need to keep going on, but people don't know this story.

Speaker 3 When he first started his agency, after a year, year and a half, two years, he was so frustrated as himself as a leader that he fired everybody in his office, except I believe one person.

Speaker 3 And then he realized as a leader who he was, and then he rebuilt his agency to who it is now. The reason why I like that is I say it all the time and I'll say it again and he lived it.

Speaker 3 If you can't change your people, change your people.

Speaker 3 That's what's going to be a main factor in the great separator for everybody out there your people are going to probably be a big factor in putting you out of business unless you step up to the game and you're willing to change your people kudos to chris for that he has a great team now and he is a great example he'd retire right now and he'd be in the hall of fame of independent insurance agents

Speaker 3 he would be the barry sanders he just walk away and boom he's the best ever right just that i pulled out barry sanders barry sanders anyways okay i'm gonna go on one more here um yeah let's the pace back up because we got a bunch of names to go through.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I want to make sure we get to them all.

Speaker 3 Ryan Deeds, digital podcast broker. All I got to say about him is, is as data becomes more important, which is every day, you're going to find people like Ryan to be the diamond into the rough.

Speaker 3 No one knows about what he does right now is he goes into agencies, signs a three to five year contract, basically says in three to five years, you're going to have all your data clean and you're going to be driving and making, getting real insights and driving real money from that.

Speaker 3 And he goes into organizations and creates it. And I'm going to be honest with you, the dude makes a ton of money because he makes organizations a ton of money.
He understands data.

Speaker 3 Ryan Deeds, you loyal listeners, pay attention because you're going to hear more from him.

Speaker 2 Yeah, get to know Deeds. He's, he's, he's one of those guys that, um,

Speaker 2 you know, if you're not paying attention, you might not, you might not know him, but you should because he knows exactly what he's doing. And I absolutely huge, huge fan of Deeds.

Speaker 2 Love being on his podcast, too. That's always fun.

Speaker 2 All right. I'm going to hit this name real quick.
Kind of, I think I'm going to say new to the scene, though, probably will be a household name. And it's Christian Moore.

Speaker 2 He's doing some tremendous work out of Kentucky. And I just had a chance to talk to him on the phone for a little while a couple of days ago.

Speaker 2 And, you know, take the, take the growth out, take, take, take what he's doing, how he's mashing kind of being a local agent with being a digital agent, multi-stays. He's doing a lot of things right.

Speaker 2 What I love about what Christian is doing is that it all runs through his agency mission, which is, I'm going to butcher it, so I'm not even going to try to tell you what it is.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 the fact that he has a very clear, very,

Speaker 2 very rich agency mission, and everything he does runs through that mission. Everything is driven by that mission.
And it's a big part of what's made him successful.

Speaker 2 Everyone wants to focus on automation and sales. And those things are incredibly important.
Don't get me wrong.

Speaker 2 But if there's not like a reason why you're doing them, then you tend to flail, you tend to create gaps in that process. And,

Speaker 2 you know, I think everyone, myself included, Cass, I'm sure you as well, are going to be hearing a lot more from Christian Moore in the future.

Speaker 3 Yeah, dude, Christian Moore is

Speaker 3 he is a class act, dude. He was a class act.
To be honest with you, it's such a class act. It was a little corny, but I've got to know him face to face.

Speaker 3 We spent a couple of days together, drank some beer.

Speaker 3 He's what he exudes. He really is, he's a really good guy.
And I'm glad you, you threw him on there for real. I would have definitely done it if we'd have gone there.
Good call on that one. Seriously.

Speaker 3 Chris Burand, I am going to, I think, is this number 20? I think it's 20. And then we got some mentions.

Speaker 3 Chris Burand, Hanley, I have to tell you, I'm anxious to see it, but no one has had more downloads quicker. than this than this guy in my podcast.
Never.

Speaker 3 I think in the first day we had like 330 some downloads we're already up to 800 and some downloads on him and normally it takes a podcast a couple months sometimes to get up to 800 downloads and i mean this has happened like in less than a week and i think some of this stuff i really don't want to talk about it right now but what i want to do is i want to point them back to your newsletter what was it number seven yeah right dude i did an entire video newsletter just on that one one little tiny piece of that episode that episode is is uh

Speaker 2 staple. It should be a state.

Speaker 2 In order to get your insurance license, you should have to listen to that episode.

Speaker 3 I agree. I agree.
But, dude, you did it really, you broke it down

Speaker 3 on the video really well. So go search wherever you find Ryan Hanley and look for newsletter number seven.
Watch that video. I think it was a 19-minute video, but dude,

Speaker 3 you break down

Speaker 3 what's occurring there. And that's just one piece of Chris knows the entire industry.

Speaker 3 I told Travis that our goal is a year from now, I want to bring him in to valuate our agency.

Speaker 3 That's some of the things that

Speaker 3 Zach Gold and Matt Naomi did is that they were evaluating their agency every year.

Speaker 3 And when I heard them tell me that earlier this year, I thought to myself, like, I know it's money, but why am I not doing that?

Speaker 3 Like, I want to know rather than sitting around and saying, here's what the value of my agency is, I want to know. I'm going to bring Chris in.

Speaker 3 If you go to Brandon Associates, you will see that he has a ton of documents and a ton of white papers out there. You can just read one of them and you will be blown away.

Speaker 3 This guy, I'll be honest with you, Hanley, I first met him back in 08 or 09 and it was like at an edge conference for the Illinois Independent Insurance Agents, young agents, and like he had like an overhead projector and had like the clear,

Speaker 3 the clear, you know what I'm talking about?

Speaker 2 Where you write on the marker?

Speaker 3 Yeah, dude, I was like, this guy is old school as can be. And this is back in 08 and 09.
And so I kind of dismissed him a little bit. I really did.
And then I picked it back up around 2012, 2013.

Speaker 3 And I followed ever since. And I can't believe I haven't got him on the podcast.

Speaker 3 And when I tried to get him on the podcast, it took me two and a half months to get him on because he's so busy out there going around. So, Chris Perenz, good guy.

Speaker 2 Dude, I'll tell you, that's one of the things that Paradiso taught me about this industry was to not

Speaker 2 that, like, I would do the same thing, right? Like, you'd see somebody go up and their slides maybe don't look super slick or whatever.

Speaker 2 And he's just like, he's like, a lot of those guys are the smartest, most ingrained guys, and they just don't care to make it look fancy because they don't need to.

Speaker 2 He's like, those are the, he's like, that should almost be an indicator that you need to dig into what they're saying because that's how you get a lot of value out.

Speaker 2 And, you know, I'm not saying anything about Chris. I, I was enthralled by that episode.
I've listened to it twice. I did a whole newsletter about it.
I pushed everyone to it.

Speaker 2 And I'm jealous as shit that you got to interview him first because that just annoys me. Okay.

Speaker 2 And as we, you know, Cass, as we transition over into, you know, what I don't want to call them honorable mentions because that, I think, diminishes who these people are.

Speaker 2 It's just, there's so many people we could get to.

Speaker 2 But I just want to let everyone know, if you're listening to my podcast, because Cass and I are both releasing this show at the exact same time on our individual feeds.

Speaker 2 If you're listening to my podcast, if you're listening to the Ryan Hanley show, make sure you go over and subscribe to Cass's podcast, IA Intelligence. He interviews different people.

Speaker 2 Some of the same, but different. He also interviews a lot of different people.

Speaker 2 He talks a lot about different topics, and he just attacks the industry from a different vantage point and even if we were to interview the same exact person they would be very different podcast episodes so i highly encourage everyone who's listening to this show uh the ryan hanley show to go over and subscribe to cass's podcast um if you haven't already yeah and you know my loyal listeners dude you know that i take a lot of what hanley does and i re-dice it up and tell him how stupid he is and how right he is it just all depends on what type the loyal listeners right now handle they're laughing because they know exactly what i'm talking about so be sure to check out ryan Hanley's podcast.

Speaker 3 That's probably a known for you guys.

Speaker 3 You know how much he means to me, and we love to try and shake up this industry. And the thing about it is, is I'll always end with this for all of Ryan's listeners wanting to know who I am.

Speaker 3 The goal of my agency or the goal of my podcast is to make you think. That's it.
I just want you to challenge the norms that you've been told all your life.

Speaker 3 In the meantime, let's get on to these people. One thing you just said about these people that we want to mention here, real quick, is the industry is stuffed with like great people.

Speaker 3 It's one of the reasons, Hanley, it's one of the greatest times to be an independent insurance agent. It's just not so much of the, of, of everything else.

Speaker 3 It's, it's the people that we're making friendships with and learning to grow with. It's incredible.
You agree?

Speaker 2 Oh, I couldn't agree more. I mean,

Speaker 2 you know, truthfully, we said this was 20 for 2020. And I think we did like...
22 or 23 highlighted people and we had another long list here. So I'll get right into it.

Speaker 2 The first name that I'm going to bring up is Kelly Donaho Piero. She has been doing consulting, speaking,

Speaker 2 being a brand agency and the work that she's doing specifically in highlighting and maximizing the evolving role of customer service reps, of CSRs, who really shouldn't even...

Speaker 2 CSR is really almost a diminutive term at this point, but I think she's doing tremendous stuff. You had a great podcast episode with her.

Speaker 2 And if you're not following Kelly, if you're not aware of the work that she's doing, you should absolutely become so.

Speaker 3 I've known her for a while. Just by listening to her, I can tell what she's talking about.

Speaker 3 But it's the other large agencies and small agencies that have used her and talked so much good stuff about it that reinforces that. Next guy that I would like to talk about is Billy Williams.

Speaker 3 I don't have much to say because you probably hear me talk about it a lot. And if you're one of Hanley's listeners, you heard him on the podcast recently.

Speaker 3 Billy Williams is the number one consultant that I have listened to for the last five years, and he has dramatically changed my agency, which has changed my life, which has changed my family.

Speaker 3 And I'm thankful for him for that. He is a staple in this industry.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and I actually

Speaker 2 am going to be reaching out to him. I'm committing to go to fix my agency workshop at the end of February.
So I'm going to be there.

Speaker 3 I am too, dude.

Speaker 2 Awesome. I am too.
Oh, sweet. Yeah.
No.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 I tried to get my wife to go with me.

Speaker 2 And she just said, you go, learn everything you can, bring it back because she needs to be at her agency right now.

Speaker 2 But I think this, to be able to learn what he's teaching in that workshop this early in Rogue Risks evolution, I think is going to pay tremendous dividends down the line.

Speaker 2 So I've committed to do that and they're very excited. And now I'm even more excited because I know you're going to be there.

Speaker 3 Yeah. And the thing is, I've been to it before.
That's how awesome it is that he's told me some of the stuff he's updated. And I'm like, I got to go again.
Just FYI. Go ahead, bro.

Speaker 2 Awesome. Okay.

Speaker 2 i'm gonna hit um one of my absolute favorites in the entire industry uh he i i i had him asked him hired him whatever you want to say to kick off elevate 2018 uh for a reason and that's jeff roy i think um even though he's from canada and we don't hold that against him um nope we don't he um i think that he is just i mean The fact that he's from Canada allows him to say that he is probably one of the top five independent insurance agencies in the world.

Speaker 2 Now, he could say that anyways, but being that he's outside this country, it makes it easier for me to say that because the things that he's doing,

Speaker 2 they just buck every trend of what I think most agents would even think is possible. And he doesn't even see how they could not be possible, if that makes sense.

Speaker 2 That's what I love about him is that the things that he's doing, the pace that he moves at, the decisions that he's making, the ideas that he's implementing in his agency, you know, to him, it's just like, this is the next thing I need to do.

Speaker 2 And I think to everyone else, they wouldn't even, you know, to most of us, we wouldn't even think that it was possible. And to be able to call him a friend and his wife, Una, is amazing as well.

Speaker 2 And the work that she does, and she's a speaker. And

Speaker 2 I just, I consider myself blessed to have him in my own ecosystem. And if you can connect with him at any point, if you're listening to this, it is worth every second that he gives you.

Speaker 2 Not just because of his intelligence, because of his empathy and the way he thinks and connects with people. It's just, it's something to aspire to.

Speaker 3 He's unbelievable. I just, I'm not going to say any more.
He's unbelievable. He's, he's, he is a highlight of this industry for me.
Top five person in my life as far as helping me.

Speaker 3 He helped me a lot with the mastermind too. He was one of my first mastermind members.
And he really said, Jason, you need to do this, do this. And it was really good.

Speaker 3 I owe him on many different levels. I'm going to knock off three of them at one time

Speaker 3 because a lot of people don't know these names and they're nothing that's ginormous in the industry, but they're doing things that I know about that are going to come to the surface.

Speaker 3 And I just want to mention them. Troy Thompson out of Pinnacle Insurance at a Minneapolis, Minnesota, the 30-day flip phone challenge.
Hashtag 30-day flip phone challenge.

Speaker 3 Go look it up, see what he's doing. It's incredible.
Bogus and Lucas Hansel.

Speaker 3 They are two Polish insurance agency owners out of Chicago. Very proud Polish

Speaker 3 community that they serve. They do a lot of stuff, large, large agency.

Speaker 3 They're doing things with automation and doing things with Hawksoft that I think they're going to take their game to the next level and they're already high up there.

Speaker 3 And last but not least, Miles Merwin. Miles Merwin is my agent consultant.
He's the agent that I actually reach out to besides Christopher Cook.

Speaker 3 He's the agent that I reach out to and say, Miles, am I doing this right? I'm reading best practices and this is what it's saying and I'm way under that. How do I get there?

Speaker 3 And he'll just give me some strategy. We share accountants.
We share all kinds of things.

Speaker 3 Miles Merwin is a huge to me. And if you get the medium out there, pick his brain on your hardest thing that you're dealing in your agency.
And he's probably got a good perspective.

Speaker 2 There's three of them. How did Christopher Cook not make this list?

Speaker 3 Because I talk about Cookie all the time. So I had to leave him off at least one list.
You know what I mean? He's laughing right now.

Speaker 2 All right. So if you're listening to my show and you don't consistently listen to Cass's show and you do not know Christopher Cook, explain to everyone why they should.

Speaker 3 Don't call him Chris. His name's Christopher Cook.
Long story short, he's one of the most genuine people that I know. He's a best practices agency out of North Carolina.

Speaker 3 He owns agencies in five states. He's an investor in a lot of other things besides insurance.
He's very, very smart. He's kind of my financial guru.

Speaker 3 If I'm going to try to make a financial decision, he's one of the people I'm going to bounce it off of.

Speaker 2 You know, big shout out to Matt Wood from the Mets Wood Agency up here in New York, Columbia County.

Speaker 2 Tremendous golfer, great agent. And also just became a best practices agency.
So I just want to give him a shout out.

Speaker 2 Did not know though. Yes.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Very, very happy for him because that's definitely an achievement to get your agency to that point.

Speaker 2 All right. This is another name that's been around the industry for a while that you should know.

Speaker 2 But his, his recent move, I shouldn't say recent because it's been a couple of years now, but his move to the Sickens group, when Brent Kelly made that move,

Speaker 2 I think at first some people were...

Speaker 2 Not that it confused them, but they weren't really sure what he was trying to do. I think it's blatantly obvious.
I mean, he is absolutely one of the best sales trainers. The way that he looks,

Speaker 2 the way that he's able to take concepts, break them down, the mentorship that he's taken or apprenticeship that he's had with Roger Sickens and

Speaker 2 being able to elevate his own game, spending so much time with someone like Roger.

Speaker 2 I think Brent Kelly is just,

Speaker 2 you know, kind of from that consulting strategist role like a Kelly Donahoe Piero, you know, Brent is a treasure to the industry and someone if you get to spend time with or need and can hire or go to one of his presentations, you will never be disappointed and you should absolutely be connected to him.

Speaker 3 Bro, check this out. You're so right.
You know, more than anybody listening to this podcast, Handley, at the beginning, there was a lot of us, but there was only a few of us.

Speaker 3 It was me, you, and Brent. We were out there in 09, 2010, 2011, trying to tell people the things that we're still telling them today.
And they thought we were crazy.

Speaker 3 Now they just know that we're more crazy. Bradley Flow,

Speaker 3 Bradley Flowers, and Scott Howell, these dudes are awesome. Insurance guys podcast.
You got to check them out. They were on Gary Vee, invited them onto their show.

Speaker 3 They're doing a lot in this industry. Here's why I love them the most.
I created Agents Influence to give a voice to those who have no voice.

Speaker 3 I end every one of my shows saying, tell me your thoughts, tell me your ideas, and I'm going to tell the world what you have to say. The whole point of my podcast was to project people's voices.

Speaker 3 And people say to me, aren't you getting upset or jealous that there's all these other podcasts? No.

Speaker 3 People like Bradley Flowers and Scott Howell, excuse me, Scott, help project that around the world for us to help keep forward progress and forward momentum in this industry.

Speaker 3 And Bradley Flowers and Scott Howell, I am proud to call a podcast a colleague. They are really good for this industry.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you know, you bring up a really interesting point that I'm going to take two seconds on. And it's this idea of so many podcasts out there.
I just... I think that that's a good thing.

Speaker 2 There should be more voices. I'm going to be on a podcast that a couple of all-state captive agents do called the Insurance Guys Podcast.

Speaker 2 Like, this is what it's all about, sharing ideas, spreading ideas. We can learn from everyone.

Speaker 2 Like, I've said it a million times, mostly because I'm envious that they came up with this, but IAOA got it right. Better together.
Like, hashtag better together. It doesn't, you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 And,

Speaker 2 and, you know, Bradley was just on my show. I've been on their show.
Like, that's, and it's, it's just about sharing ideas and doing what we're doing right here, just trying to connect people.

Speaker 3 Like, that's the more, the better um and here list we're gonna do i'm gonna end with dave and eric and then you end with matt and zach and we'll wrap this up that sound good perfect dave jackson's awesome because he is nicholas's counterpart in iaoa i mention him not just because i just want to mention him i want to mention him because he nicholas is very in the front

Speaker 3 dave is behind the scenes those partnerships always work well And Dave needs some recognition for what he does. Everybody sees what Nicholas does, but Dave Jackson, you carry the flag well as well.

Speaker 3 Eric Garcia, down in New Orleans, down at Garcia Insurance Services. The reason why I bring him up is because he's on the financial advisor side, also owns an insurance agency.

Speaker 3 But the way that he tries to teach people about money and how he does it with insurance agents, he created his own podcast. I watch his videos.

Speaker 3 He teaches me a lot about how I should be teaching my kids how to think about risk and think about money. Comes from a very unique position.

Speaker 3 And if anybody knows Eric Garcia or Chad Toops, they represent Louisiana better than anybody I know. That's who I have so far.
So who you got left?

Speaker 2 All right, the last two,

Speaker 2 Zach Gould, Matt Namoli, GNN Insurance, made big waves this year when they sold to the Hill Group. They're still part of that agency.
But here's what I'd say about these two guys.

Speaker 2 They're not done in our space. Like, I don't have any insider knowledge, at least not any that I'm willing to share openly on the airwaves out of respect for them.

Speaker 2 But what I do know is these guys love insurance. They're still very much part of the industry.
They're still very much part of GNN insurance and keeping that agency going.

Speaker 2 But I think what we're going to see over the next five to 10 years from these two guys is

Speaker 2 their influence, their expertise, their experience starting to permeate out into different, you know, different agencies through Babylon and through different technology companies. And

Speaker 2 I think that even if they're not day day-to-day in GNN, you know, and it'll be their decision whether they are or not, I think we're going to start to see their influence spread out.

Speaker 2 And, um, you know, they're just two guys that they're incredibly intelligent, good guys, and they have to be on your radar if they're not already.

Speaker 3 Totally are. And if you really don't want to pay attention to Zach, that's fine.
Just pay attention to Matt. He's really the one doing all this stuff.
So

Speaker 3 Zach's going, yes, come on. No, you're right, Zach.
I love following Zach also and just both of them.

Speaker 3 I really do love them and i love following them on facebook zach with the things he does with his kids but matt as well matt has this dog that's um just exactly like my dog so i i love it and i said i have this dog dude that i've never been a dog guy ryan and this dog that we have now he's an australia aussie poo he's an australian shepherd and a poodle And he is just the coolest dog in the world.

Speaker 3 This dog plays frisbee and everything. I just love it.
But his dog is like that as well. So we're going to end this podcast and quit talking about dogs.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that was an odd tangent to go on like an hour and a half into the show.

Speaker 3 An hour and a half. That's funny.
That's funny. So Hanley, you promised me, dude, we're going to do this again and we're going to do this again soon, right?

Speaker 2 Yeah, absolutely. I want to do a show where I want to interview you.
You are normally interviewing me. I want to interview you.
We actually have that podcast episode recording date on the books.

Speaker 2 I'm looking forward to that.

Speaker 2 So fans, subscribers to the Ryan Hanley show, you will get me not talking about things that I'm up to, but diving into the depths, the abyss of what makes Jason Cass tick in an upcoming episode.

Speaker 2 Bro, this has been so much fun. These are my favorite people.

Speaker 2 There's so many more we could have got to. Anyone who's not on this list, please do not feel left out.
Know that we love you. And in a future episode where we break, just.

Speaker 2 We're just trying to connect people. That's all the point of this.
It's not meant to be inclusive or exclusive. It's just, here's a list of people.
Let's connect with them.

Speaker 2 And then we'll do this again and connect more people. And just, that's that's the whole point.

Speaker 2 So, um, I just want to say, uh, to everyone listening who's still listening after this long-ass episode, I love you for listening. Thanks for listening, dude.

Speaker 3 The episodes we've been doing studies, bro. The longer the episode for us on our podcast, the more hits it drives.
I'm not joking with you.

Speaker 3 It's a really crazy thing we have our reasoning for that, but I won't go into that. But I do want to say that this is being released on the 21st.

Speaker 3 You may not be listening to it on the 21st, but if you are on the 21st or 22nd, please keep in mind that if you're at IAOA

Speaker 3 on the 23rd, 24th, or 25th, Ryan and I are going to be there. We're just going to be there visiting and just getting to know people and learning, just like everybody else is.

Speaker 3 We're not speaking or anything. So please come up to us, say hi.

Speaker 3 If we forgot to put you on here and you think you should have been, come up to me and say, Cass, I should have been on there and here's why.

Speaker 3 And I'll make sure that maybe I'll take your thoughts, maybe I'll take your ideas, and I'll tell the world what you have to say. This has been Jason Cass.
Handley, take him away, brother.

Speaker 2 Yeah, guys, I hope to see you at IAOA.

Speaker 2 As I said,

Speaker 2 it's just such a pleasure to share these people with you.

Speaker 2 Cass, any time I get to spend with you virtually or in person is a treasure. I love you, man.
Let's get out of here.

Speaker 2 Close twice as many deals by this time next week. Sound impossible? It's not.
With the one call close system, you'll stop chasing leads and start closing deals in one call.

Speaker 2 This is the exact method we use to close 1,200 clients in under three years during the pandemic. No fluff, no end-nil follow-ups, just results fast.

Speaker 2 Based in behavioral psychology and battle-tested, the one-call closed system eliminates excuses and gets the prospect saying yes, more than you ever thought possible.

Speaker 2 If you're ready to stop losing opportunities and start winning, visit masteroffeclose.com. That's masteroftheclose.com.
Do it today.

Speaker 1 There are millions of podcasts out there, and you've chosen this one. Whether you're a regular or just here on a whim, it's what you have chosen to listen to.

Speaker 1 With Yoto, your kids can have the same choice. Yoto is a screen-free, ad-free audio player.
With hundreds of Yoto cards, there are stories, music, and podcasts like this one, but for kids.

Speaker 1 Just slot a card into the player and let the adventure begin. Check out Yotoplay.com.

Speaker 2 I know, I'm putting them back. Hey, Dave, here's a tip.
Put scratchers on your list. Oh, scratchers, good idea.
It's an easy shopping trip. We're glad we could assist.
Thanks, random singing people.

Speaker 2 So be like Dave this holiday and give the gift of play.

Speaker 2 Scratchers from the California lottery. A little play can make your day.

Speaker 3 Please play responsibly. Must be 18 years or older to purchase play or claim.

Speaker 2 Lowe's knows that saving is always top of mind, especially this season. That's why we've picked some great deals for early Black Friday.

Speaker 2 Get free select DeWalt, Cobalt, or Craftsman tools when you buy a select battery or combo kit. More tools? Why not?

Speaker 2 Plus, we've got select pre-lit artificial Christmas trees starting at $59.98 because it's never too early to think Christmas. Get Black Friday prices without the crowds.
Lowe's, we help. You save.

Speaker 2 While supplies last, Selection varies by location. Save on your favorite holiday dinner essentials at Safeway.

Speaker 2 This week at Safeway, get signature-select Grade A frozen whole turkey for the member price of only 39 cents per pound. Limit 1 while supplies last.

Speaker 2 Plus, get Fuji or Gala apples for the member price of $1.69 per pound. Also, this week at Safeway, get 18-count large, Grade AA Lucerne cage-free eggs for just $4.97 each with digital coupon Limit 1.

Speaker 2 Visit SafeWay.com for more holiday dinner dinner deals and ways to save.