RHS 024 - Mike Crowley Defines the Relationship Between Insurance Agents and Carriers

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Speaker 6 Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Ryan Hanley show.

Speaker 6 You won't know this because I've deleted them all, but this is like the seventh time I've tried to start the show and just kept like either burping or stumbling over my words.

Speaker 6 And when you podcast, this stuff just happens sometimes. All right, guys.
So let's get into the show. It is, this is a tremendous episode.

Speaker 6 This is a insurance nerdy deep dive conversation with one of my absolute favorite people in the industry, Mike Crowley,

Speaker 6 fellow upstate New Yorker, Syracuse guy. And what I love about talking to Mike is that There are many aspects of the insurance business that

Speaker 6 I'm not going to say that we don't agree on, but just how he's building his agency is not how I will build Rogue.

Speaker 6 Like we have different opinions or just different vantage points or are interested in building our agencies different ways. But the core of what we believe an insurance agency should be.

Speaker 6 The core of what we believe an insurance agency should be is exactly the same. And that's just why I love spending time with him.
I love talking to him about the business.

Speaker 6 He's very insightful, very thoughtful. He is a true pro in our space.
And I love the opportunity to have him on the show. Okay, so before we get there, got to pay the bills, my friends.

Speaker 6 And we're going to do that by talking just a little bit about the inside. The inside documents my journey building rogue risk.
It is also a wide open, transparent, authentic.

Speaker 6 Just collaborative effort, collaborative community of insurance pros talking about what it takes to be successful in this space.

Speaker 6 So we really use documenting my journey of building Rogue Risk as a construct, but it's not what we're talking about every day. And we have more than 25 members in the community now.

Speaker 6 It is a paid community, so you do have to have some skin in the game to be part of it to kind of get this inside look at what's going on. But I feel like the name is almost a little misnomer.

Speaker 6 I feel like the name, and I've gotten this feedback like, oh, you know, these are the insiders and everyone else on the outside. And it's not like that.

Speaker 6 When I came up with the name, the inside, what I was really talking about is, let's talk about the guts of an agency. Let's talk about the inside about what's actually going on.

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Speaker 6 We're getting our hands into the inside of an insurance business and the struggles

Speaker 6 and the wins and the losses and all the things that just don't make sense in the mornings that you wake up and you're stressed as hell because this thing doesn't plug into that thing.

Speaker 6 And how the heck am I going to sell this customer? And, you know, oh my God, where'd all the money go? You know, all these different things that you have to deal with. And

Speaker 6 as I'm experiencing them for the first time, you know, starting my very first scratch agency.

Speaker 6 So even though I've been in the space for 15 years, I'm experiencing a lot of these feelings for the very first time.

Speaker 6 And I'm kind of sharing that unique, you know, been in the space for a long time, but going through starting an agency for the first time. And

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Speaker 6 I love you guys for watching this. Sorry for the long promo, but the inside is important to me, and I think it's important to everyone that's in there.
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Speaker 6 Let's get on to Mike Riley. Here we go.

Speaker 7 The good news is, you know, there are founders and and and leaders and and agency owners in particular and and carrier people and technologists who are really tremendous people and you know uh even if it's from afar to be able to apprentice for people like jeff roy and and chris paradiso and and uh seth who are probably the three that i watch i watch i try to watch what they do as closely as i can the the way they connect, the way they interact.

Speaker 7 You know, I think that, what, what the internet has really given us is the ability to not be

Speaker 7 so hamstrung by our geographic circumstances, right? I mean, one of those guys lives in outside of Toronto, one lives in Connecticut, and the other lives in Ohio. Yet I watch what they do.

Speaker 7 I listen to them. I connect with them.
I text with them and I learn from them every single day.

Speaker 7 And I think that's the beauty of where we're at in our industry today is that we get to learn from such a broader swath of people.

Speaker 8 Do you know what one thing that those three people specifically do, and they do it differently than most others is

Speaker 8 they don't shove things down your throat in a way that like

Speaker 8 I need to hurry up and get that shiny object or I need to do business a whole different way because that's what he's doing

Speaker 8 where it's like you don't know some of the behavior if you don't really pay attention and really dive into their specific agencies or whatever you don't see every little thing that they're doing

Speaker 8 but you still want to like it's like there's still like that epitome up here where it's like all right i want to run the agency this way I want to have the tech this way.

Speaker 8 I want to have all these things. But then I'm not sitting there going, ooh, like they just signed up for this.
I need to sign up for it.

Speaker 8 And it's like, it just makes that nice, I don't know, it's different.

Speaker 8 And then when you see all this other noise going on, it's kind of like, oh man, you feel like you're behind because you're not doing this or you have this.

Speaker 8 And it's, it's, it's almost like it's just way too much fluff.

Speaker 7 You know,

Speaker 7 so I completely, I completely understand.

Speaker 7 And, and, uh, you know, I don't know if you saw it or not, but I wrote a LinkedIn post the other day, which was basically like, I'm sorry to the industry for not fully appreciating the technology struggle.

Speaker 7 You know, like I've been talking about it for so long and watching and listening. And,

Speaker 7 and then now that I'm living it, you know, it's really difficult to not feel like if you don't have this tool or you don't have that tool, that somehow you're not going to be able to provide

Speaker 7 this type of service. And then I had this agent on Facebook reach out to me

Speaker 5 who

Speaker 7 is going to remain anonymous because he actually uses an anonymous Facebook

Speaker 7 thing.

Speaker 7 Like he's whatever, just because he likes to, he, you know, he likes to talk about politics and stuff, but he doesn't want to shove that down anyone's throat, you know, like that's in his ecosystem or whatever.

Speaker 8 Doesn't matter.

Speaker 7 But he, he sent me an email and he's like, he's like, I love all these conversations about technology, but he's like, I, he's like, you know how I get Google reviews?

Speaker 7 On Sunday nights, uh, after I put the kids to bed, I open up my email and I copy and paste in emails to every account that I wrote that week about sending me a Google review.

Speaker 7 He's like, that's my automation: I have a Google Doc and I go copy, paste, copy, paste, copy, paste. And I do that for as many accounts as I wrote that week.
And that's how I get Google reviews.

Speaker 7 He's like, so, he's like, you know, so automations are cool, but let's not pretend like they're in any, like they're necessary.

Speaker 8 And

Speaker 7 it's just an interesting vantage point, you know, because it's really hard. It's really hard to defend the opposite, you know, when we talk about it so much.

Speaker 8 Well, and

Speaker 8 it was one of your posts recently, and it was about data.

Speaker 8 And I didn't jump in on this. It was a couple days ago.
And literally the comments between Cass,

Speaker 8 Nick,

Speaker 8 and all sorts of other ones just, I mean, it turned into a big, and everyone was like agreeing, but saying it differently and fighting and this. And it's like, wait, guys, like.

Speaker 8 And what Nick said, like,

Speaker 8 I forgot what the phrase he used, but it was

Speaker 8 yeah, but if people don't change their behavior, it doesn't matter like what kind of information we have or what kind of message we have or whatever else.

Speaker 8 And I couldn't, I was just so shocked to see it just explode into a 50-comment thing.

Speaker 8 But it's so true is that, like, you can implement all these things, but if your clientele, and you know this with your, with your wife's agency,

Speaker 8 their clients, 75% of their clients might not adapt to having a mobile app or having this or that.

Speaker 8 And like, so it's great that you can put these things in place, but it doesn't mean that like that agency or those customers are going to use this stuff.

Speaker 7 Dude, that, that post. So for those listening at home, that post is,

Speaker 7 that was newsletter number seven. And it was titled, Insurance Has Always Been a Data Business.
Now it matters.

Speaker 7 And essentially, the argument I was trying to make that I think was lost or got morphed in the comments a little bit is what I was saying.

Speaker 7 It was actually, I was building off a conversation that Cass had had with Chris Buran. And Chris Burand is brilliant in the way.

Speaker 7 And what basically what he was saying is, is that the ownership of expertise, and what's funny is like, like Matt Wood, who I who I adore too, was like, you know, the ownership of expirations is a contractual term based on between agents and carriers, which I 100% agree.

Speaker 9 But

Speaker 7 the core idea of the ownership of expirations is that you know when someone renews because that's the most important point at which you can retain that business, right?

Speaker 7 At a high level, if we're backing it out, there are, there are other reasons why the ownership of expirations is important and we don't have to get into all those nuances, but at like a 30,000-foot view, it's because for a very long time, that was the trigger point at which you could resell that policy and sustain your business and actually grow your business.

Speaker 7 That's why it was important for the agent to own it and not the carrier, because the carrier could then take that from you, market it, allow someone else to market it, and it defined where that data stopped.

Speaker 7 Okay.

Speaker 7 Anyone who's super geeky on this, feel free to hit me up or comment on it or whatever. But like at a high level, that's what it was.
And what Chris Burhan was saying was that

Speaker 7 because of

Speaker 7 the access to life moment data that now exists in various different pools and lakes and streams and wherever else you want to reference to data,

Speaker 7 there are water reference you want to use for collections of data,

Speaker 7 that companies can now go essentially,

Speaker 7 and the analogy I was using was hop a dry moat. So, you know, we always want to build moats or lines of defense around our clients in terms of value.
And

Speaker 7 some of that is value to us, some of that is value to them, but they're things that keep others from taking our clients from us or from our clients from leaving. And

Speaker 7 essentially, what I was saying is

Speaker 7 the ownership of expirations is becoming a less effective method of defending your client base as your competitors are able to define life moments in your clients daily activities and market to them in moments of need outside of their expirations.

Speaker 7 That's what I was trying to get to. And I think I probably talked, I think I, I think I went around it a little too much.
And

Speaker 7 I said in there, there may be a time when

Speaker 7 the total pool of data that you have is of equal or more value than the actual revenue you generate. Okay, that is a bold statement.
I'm aware of that.

Speaker 7 I was being slightly provocative in that I wanted to see where it went, but I do, but I think the point is

Speaker 7 our ability mine and use data and this was what i was really our ability to utilize data is what's valuable right not just i'm gonna sell my data as a batch you know thing but more can you take your data and and and sell that second life insurance policy to the spouse because you know that they're about to have another kid or you know i mean something like that like can you peel that information out can you add additional services through partnerships that keep that really build a trusted advisor relationship with your, I mean, whatever value structure you want to do.

Speaker 7 But can you do that? Or is it just, oh, Sally's renewing in a month, might want to remarket her. You know what I mean? Like, there's, those are different things.
So that's what I was saying.

Speaker 7 And that conversation just went so squirrely. It was pretty fun to watch, though.

Speaker 8 Well, and

Speaker 8 the whole point about the expirations is there's a great, I mean, I look at, I'm at least on the personalized sales side, and that's over 50% of our business. I don't care when somebody renews

Speaker 8 as a new business prospect. I never ask them because I'm not waiting till their renewal.
Yeah. Like, and I don't think most of the industry cares.

Speaker 8 Like the mindset of like, oh, you're going to renew in July, okay.

Speaker 8 And we're going to re-quote this in June and we're going to try and move your home and your auto and your umbrella over to our agency.

Speaker 8 No, if I have all their information, I'm writing it in the next week, or actually, probably eight to 12 days, depending on the carrier, because you get the best pricing that way.

Speaker 8 But the thing is, it's like

Speaker 8 when you look at that,

Speaker 8 nobody's waiting to the renewal. Nobody even pays attention as much as they used to of,

Speaker 8 okay, my renewal came out. What's my renewal? What's my bill? No, they're looking on a month-to-month basis.
They're seeing that EFT withdrawal.

Speaker 8 They're seeing, I mean, to the point where they're clueless of what's really going on when it comes to an annual policy period scope,

Speaker 8 they're looking at their day. Okay, this just got withdrawal from our charge on my credit card.
Why does that seem high?

Speaker 8 Well, it was the same as it was last month and the six months prior to that, but because of whatever their circumstances are in life,

Speaker 8 they're assuming it's high. They're assuming it because their buddy or their neighbor just said, hey, I only pay 100 bucks a month.
Why are you paying 125? Yeah. And so that's good.

Speaker 8 I mean, to me, that's like, and I was listening to that podcast with Cass and you're sitting there and it's like, yeah, they used to go based off expirations, but I mean, expirations on personal lines, in my eyes, mean nothing.

Speaker 8 Yeah.

Speaker 7 I think one thing that's important for,

Speaker 7 you know, so we're having this conversation. And just so you know, and the audience is going to hear me say this to you, like, I've already introduced you, so we don't have to do that whole part.

Speaker 8 But like, I don't even know where we're recording for a while. Yeah.

Speaker 7 I just, it's, I just, I just start from the beginning because that's when a lot of times we get really interesting nuggets that I hate to lose.

Speaker 7 And if you do like, all right, man, are you ready to start? Then you get kind of like buttoned up and it changes the whole mood. And I'd rather just like get right into it.
So

Speaker 7 any, any, any trash talking at the beginning, I normally lop off, but

Speaker 7 unless it's about Cass or Nick Ayers and then I leave it in. So good.

Speaker 7 You know, I think for someone like you, someone like myself, some of the, a lot of the people that we kind of talk to on a regular basis, I think the idea that you just referenced is like a duh.

Speaker 7 Yeah, of course. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, of course.
When someone comes in, I help them and we rewrite the policy, you know, two weeks out or whatever, and bam, we're off to the races.

Speaker 7 I don't, I think some, I think it's easy to.

Speaker 7 I think it's easy to lose sight of the fact that there's 36,000 independent agencies in the United States and that number could be, and that's like with a standard deviation of about 5,000 one way or the other, right?

Speaker 7 And not to mention all the captives, not to mention all the quasi-captives, not to mention all the MGAs, not to, you know. And so I think that there's,

Speaker 7 I think that it's easy, or I shouldn't say easy. I think that sometimes because of the level and the, and the frequency of conversations of the people that we tend to hang out with have.

Speaker 7 And I don't mean that as a knock to anyone who doesn't or engage as much. I'm just saying, you know, I know the groups that you're in.
I know the people that you go to conferences as much as you can.

Speaker 7 Like, you're engaged. You're trying stuff.
Like, I think that

Speaker 7 ups the bar for what is considered average in your mind, right? Like, your average, like, what's average in your mind?

Speaker 7 I think is much higher than what the average activity would be for most agencies that operate. We just don't ever hear from them.
So, so we tend to not get that perspective as often.

Speaker 8 That is 100% true. And

Speaker 8 a good testament to that is probably what you're going through right now when you're meeting with carrier reps.

Speaker 8 I heard you talk on your podcast with Bradley Flowers the other day. I listened to it, I don't know, yesterday, or whenever it launched.
I actually listened to it. And

Speaker 8 one of the first things you said was that

Speaker 8 carriers are coming in and they're questioning,

Speaker 8 like, am I in this? Am I in this 50%? Am I in this 100%?

Speaker 8 Like, the fact that they're even questioning you shows that those carrier people don't pay attention. They don't pay attention to what's going on in the industry.

Speaker 8 I mean, to me, they should have jumped at the chance that, okay, he wants an appointment with us. We're going to give it to him, whether he's in it 70% or not.
And it's because of

Speaker 8 what your mindset is, what your experience is, what you're doing, and what your goals are going to be, it's only going to make things easier for the carriers.

Speaker 8 I mean, they come in and they meet with me, whether it's on a quarterly or an annual basis, and they leave and they're just sitting there like, I haven't heard any of this stuff before.

Speaker 8 And I'm looking like, I'm so behind the curve because I'm comparing myself against the other people that we've been mentioning. Yeah.
And I put myself down at the bottom with them up top.

Speaker 8 But then when these carrier reps come in, they have no clue. And they're like, wow, you're doing this.
And I'm thinking,

Speaker 8 yeah, but I want to do this, this, and this. And I'm not really happy with this, but they're, because they're comparing it against those 36,000 agents that don't have websites.
They don't have email.

Speaker 8 They don't, if they have an email, it's at AOL.com. It's not even at their agency's name or whatever the case may be.
So it's like, it's tough to always keep yourself into that.

Speaker 8 We're going to say, I'm going to say the upper half or the upper 10th or that 3% that are actually trying to make the waves and changes for the future.

Speaker 8 And then, when you get brought down, whether it's on a local level or state level, and they sit there and they're like, huh, wow, like this is what you're doing.

Speaker 8 So, when I heard that yesterday, and I'm thinking, are you kidding me? Like, and being another New Yorker, I wanted to be like, Who are these carrier reps questioning this?

Speaker 8 Let me call them and yell at them. Like, because I might, because I might know them somehow through the through the channel.

Speaker 8 So, yeah, it was crazy to hear that, but I can like, I mean, yeah, sure, sure, I can see why they're doing it, but that shouldn't stop them from wanting to give you an appointment.

Speaker 8 Anybody can get appointments through MGAs or groups or whatever else it is.

Speaker 8 So it's like, why are you going to limit what you can potentially get when he launches this and puts his foot on the gas and starts writing business to, okay, well, yeah, I missed out the first six months.

Speaker 8 Well, guess what? He's got a nice rhythm going, and now he might not throw you into the mix, or you're going to be that last choice, and you're done.

Speaker 7 Yeah. so so i want to be um so i want to be fair uh

Speaker 7 and say that

Speaker 7 so i've had two two two i have like a i have like a three-week span here where i have basically six or seven appointment meetings um

Speaker 7 and i have i've had two since since uh that episode with bradley dropped or since i had since i recorded the episode with bradley i've had two of the meetings so far and and here's what i would say to be fair to at least those two carriers was though though focus was a concern going in,

Speaker 7 I will say that both were very receptive to the business plan that I have, which is essentially my business plan in a nutshell. Well, I have a, there's a lot, there's different moving parts.

Speaker 7 An enormous piece of my business plan is the carrier service center. I am going to leverage carrier service centers.

Speaker 7 It's part of my business plan. I will take on other agents and VAs before an in-house service rep

Speaker 7 and push business to service centers, which means I want to keep a small pool of carrier, of appointed carriers, and just use,

Speaker 7 only use wholesaler, which will be Indium. Seth Zaremba is part of that and Chad Eddie runs it.
Great, great people.

Speaker 7 You know, that will be my wholesale option.

Speaker 7 But,

Speaker 7 you know, I I will say that when I, when I, when I walk through the business plan with them and they,

Speaker 7 and this is just an interesting thing about agents too. So when I told them like an enormous part of my business plan is the quality of your service center.

Speaker 7 And regardless of what you call it, they all call it something a little different.

Speaker 7 I need to know that I can, that it has some integration capabilities that you're going to be able to cross-sell, upsell. you know, that you're going to be able to handle the business.

Speaker 7 You know, like I need you, I want to work with the best in class. And that

Speaker 7 I could tell that is a hot button item because that immediately changed the conversation.

Speaker 7 And for the positive, and I don't mean that in a negative way at all, like that immediately changed the conversation because they're like,

Speaker 7 wow, nobody, like, I, we struggle so hard, like, we put so much time and effort into our service center, and it has such great numbers, and we can't get agents to use it, or at least not as many as we would like.

Speaker 7 And I think the idea that I was going to build an agency around, like, built into my business model, is carrier service centers

Speaker 7 was a game changer for me. And

Speaker 7 I didn't get any no's yet. I have one basically maybe or basically yes.
You know, I got to go through the process still. And then I have one,

Speaker 7 we're not saying no, which I thought was a win for that particular carrier for them not to say. you know, come back and talk to us in two years.
I thought was a big victory as well.

Speaker 7 So I feel like I'm in a good spot. But it was interesting to see, like they were were worried about focus, but then, you know, when I could kind of say, look, like, yeah, I get that.

Speaker 7 Here's how I'm going to address that part of it. Yeah.
And, um,

Speaker 7 but then here's where I want to go.

Speaker 7 And when it started to align with what I think carriers see the future is, which is leveraging those service centers more, it took down a lot of the obstacles between us.

Speaker 7 And we started having what I thought were very productive conversations.

Speaker 8 Well, and that's that's the benefit and the reason that you're the carriers that you met with are not seeing the adaption from the independent agent is because you're reversing it.

Speaker 8 You're building it based off of that versus, hey, I'm going to switch my X book into a carrier service center. The problem is, I can't switch in my A, B, and C book because they don't have one.

Speaker 8 What they have isn't worth it. And then all of a sudden, it's like I'm 25% in and 75% out.
That confuses so much stuff. So it's either all or nothing.
And it's too hard for

Speaker 8 any agency, let alone established agencies, for a long time to say, okay, well, hold on, we're going to just, we're going to just move everything into carriers that have service centers and then cut the ties and do that.

Speaker 8 It's almost impossible to do that. And that's why.

Speaker 7 Do you use any? Do you use any carrier service? No.

Speaker 8 None. And I've told carriers, because they come and they push and they push hard.
And I said, listen, you got to stop pushing. I will be the last agent on earth using carrier service centers.

Speaker 7 And just walk me through, besides what you said, are there other reasons?

Speaker 8 That's the main reason is because I see it as a hindrance to the flow that we have.

Speaker 8 Because I don't want somebody on my staff to have to be like, okay, well, yeah, you need to call this 800 number for a change on your auto policy, not, but we'll handle your home because it's still in one of these mutual companies that like we still handle the service for.

Speaker 8 That, that mindset is a,

Speaker 8 if I bring myself into a customer's mind, that is a terrible customer experience.

Speaker 8 Like if they don't know exactly where to go, like I don't like when the carriers came in and said, we want you guys to stop calling and sending in claims. We want to hear from the client.

Speaker 8 And we said, no.

Speaker 8 like we're still calling in claims like because we want every claim unless the person can't wait because it's midnight and the person could call an 800 number i want i want our staff calling in claims because I want to talk to them first because I want to stop the claim from happening when it's something that is just ridiculous and not going to be covered.

Speaker 8 Yeah. Because it's under their deductible.
So like that is one of our value-added processes for our agency. And that's why I'm like,

Speaker 8 the way this industry moves, the way these carriers are, the way we're my carriers and where my business is kind of separated through.

Speaker 8 None of them are all, they're never all going to have that solution that's going to satisfy us.

Speaker 8 So I'm not going to even entertain the possibility that hey, this one book with a million dollars can get service there, and it's going to free up so much time.

Speaker 8 I'd rather pay for more service people, I'd rather do that, and yeah, instill those processes that make us

Speaker 8 better than the service center.

Speaker 8 Yeah, like, so there that's that's where, but again, that's taking the stuff I'm learning and implementing it and making the experience better because that's the whole focus. Where

Speaker 8 35,100 of those agents in the world aren't doing doing that yet. And so we're still in this

Speaker 8 long-term game that is like, we need to make these changes because of all this stuff around us. But nobody else besides the few hundred or maybe a few thousand are actually looking at doing it.

Speaker 8 But then again, how many of those 36,000 independent agents are going to be retiring in five years and selling out to somebody else? Yeah. And somebody mentioned there's going to be a lot less agents

Speaker 8 in the future servicing this stuff because of all these different tech stuff coming in. I don't even think it has the tech stuff.

Speaker 8 I literally think there's going to be that much less agents because everybody's going to retire. Yeah.
And everyone's going to consolidate.

Speaker 8 And now my local town that had five within a mile is going to have one.

Speaker 8 And then the local town, I mean, so you're going to have you're going to have maybe a couple small ones, you're going to have a couple medium ones, and you're going to have a whole bunch of large ones.

Speaker 8 Like, and the only small and medium ones that are going to last are the ones that have those relationships and have the customer experience that they still want to come in and talk to that same agent and then work as their advisor and do all that kind of stuff so yeah that's really where i see that and that's where i kind of am shifting our focus is to make sure we're there and that's why it's like all right service centers are never going to get to that point in the state of new york with the carriers that we have

Speaker 8 some of the small ones you got a lot of domestics and stuff yeah i mean i mean you know you know the carriers the new yorks the new york central mutuals of the world the adirondacks the the dryden mutuals the nice small carriers that you love doing business with because they write a good product they they take care of claims they do all these things we have nice books with them that are always profitable these carriers aren't going to switch their focus and try and create service centers to offset these things they're not big enough and and nor is all the agents going to use them so

Speaker 8 We're not going to if half or a quarter of our book is in these handful of five carriers that are never going to do that We're never going to to we're never going to sway that and we're going to still be that local hometown agency that you can walk in and and hate to say it still pay cash and and and pay for your premium because i'm not going to tell the lady that's been here for 55 years hey i know you've been paying annually every year with with cash for your home and auto and you come in and your hundred dollar bills are starting to fade but we're not going to do that anymore you can't do you can't come in anymore like that's not the experience we want to give her or the experience we want to give any new customer if that's what is convenient for them.

Speaker 8 We're not going to force them to do it, but obviously,

Speaker 8 we're still going to be here to allow it.

Speaker 7 I think that,

Speaker 7 and I mean this in the most positive sense, I think that is a very noble way to go about handling this,

Speaker 7 what's going on. And I mean that in a very, in the, in the most positive sense, not in a patronizing way.
I think that

Speaker 7 I think there's only a couple ways that you can go, man.

Speaker 7 You know, what I'm,

Speaker 7 I think, I think what's going to happen is I think peak independent agency influence, I think independent agency influence in the marketplace is on the rise.

Speaker 7 I'm bullish on independent agency influence. I am bearish on independent agencies in terms of their scale.
I think the number of agencies is going to go down.

Speaker 7 I think you're going to see consolidation.

Speaker 7 And I think what's going to happen is everyone, it's going to be, you're going to get a barbell effect. You're going to get agencies like what I'm trying to build, which is going to be more

Speaker 7 sales focused, a smaller force, more, you know, very sales heavy. Like, you know what I mean?

Speaker 7 Like I want to keep, I want, you know, a service person to be towards the end, a true service person to be towards the end of my hires, to be not, you know, the first couple of hires I want to be other individuals who are going to be out producing business

Speaker 7 and and kind of lean mean fighting machine I guess you could say if I were to if I were to put it that way I think that you're then also going to have a lot of big

Speaker 7 consolidated you know agencies owned by either PEs or just you know agencies that have scooped up all over the place

Speaker 7 I think what's going to be really difficult is that middle-sized agency to exist. Now, I think in towns like where you are, I think there are pockets where they'll survive.
I think New England,

Speaker 7 they'll do better in New England because

Speaker 7 there's so many highly populated pocket towns where you can do tremendous work for a community, make a great living, employ people, and be perfectly fine.

Speaker 7 I think as you spread out west and the towns become farther away from each other, sparser, I think it becomes much more difficult to have that middle-sized agency where you have all the payroll,

Speaker 7 but you're also competing as some of the big guys push down into the smaller markets and the little guys are able to extend up a little bit.

Speaker 7 I think the middle-size agencies are the ones that are really going to have to do the most work

Speaker 7 to survive. That's, I don't know, that's if I'm if I'm spitballing, you know, or kind of prognosticating, that's what I'm seeing.

Speaker 7 And why I made the decisions that I made and how I'm constructing Rogue.

Speaker 8 Well, and that's that's absolutely the way it's going to be. And I see that middle, that middle agent.

Speaker 8 If you're not already making changes, it's either going to hurt the future of your specific agency, or I think it hurts the value of the sale of your agency.

Speaker 8 And I look at that as somebody that will go buy up those small people, that will still take those

Speaker 8 longtime clients that that person had, that still wants a local person.

Speaker 8 But what I'm willing to pay and what I want to pay in my local community for these things

Speaker 8 is going to be

Speaker 8 tie really close to what you've done the last five years.

Speaker 8 Is your book slowly going like this upward? Is it staying even or is it slowly dying?

Speaker 8 And there's a lot of those agencies that I think are just slowly dying and barely hanging on here because I see and I hear them and I network with them and it's like you guys at 65, 70, 73 years old, whatever the case may be, you're just riding this out and you look and feel and look like you're miserable.

Speaker 8 Like because you have to grind to make ends meet to reach what you did last year because expenses just go up. Where it's like,

Speaker 8 try and do something. If you're not going to bring somebody in to try and like help grow the agency that way, get out of it now.

Speaker 8 Like take top dollar if you can and hang out for a little while and then just and then just retire. And so

Speaker 8 There's too many that still have a nice comfortable life that they don't think that they need to do anything.

Speaker 8 Like, okay, yeah, I made this amount last year, and I'm going to make 4% less this year, and then it's 4%, 5% the next year, and just slowly grow, but it's still very comfortable to them.

Speaker 8 And so they're like, well, I'm not ready to just sit home.

Speaker 8 And there's so many of those still here that either the large, big ones, the multiple hundred employee agencies that have their hand all over the place, are going to buy them up.

Speaker 8 And those clients are just going to get thrown in. Or you're actually going to

Speaker 8 like,

Speaker 8 you're going to have people like myself or any other middle ground ones that are starting to establish a culture and an experience for clients that literally they are people are going to want to come there and that's but there's so many i mean there's a reason captives are going independent like that that train is not going to stop like nationwide started it Other ones are going to follow suit.

Speaker 7 I mean, All State just sent out that letter that's very ominous, right? I mean, 2021, who the hell knows what's going to happen?

Speaker 8 I had a question that somebody called and they're like, you want to talk to Allstate? And I'm thinking, you know,

Speaker 8 I get enough emails or LinkedIn messages or whatever from carrier people all the time. Hey, you want to have a meeting to talk about adding another carrier? Listen, I don't need any more carriers.

Speaker 8 Like if one carrier starts to slack in the state of New York and I need to make some changes and I have a way to look in, like I will definitely look.

Speaker 8 Or if you're starting to kick butt and you've been kicking butt for a few years and you're still on that train, okay, maybe I got to look at you because, hey, listen, I'm not like, I'm not going to miss out the opportunity to grow a book.

Speaker 8 We added one a few months ago and I'd say 50% of our new business has been going going to them because they have the product, they have the pricing, they have all the back-end service stuff that is excellent.

Speaker 8 I did a bunch of research before adding them and I said, you know what?

Speaker 8 I'm losing, not losing business to it, but I'm losing prospects because of what you have and I don't want that I have the prospect and like I and like I've said and I'll continue to say the customer isn't a customer of the carriers yeah this is this is a huge I will shout this from a rooftop if I say if I have another product that and I tell somebody to jump we're moving here they're gonna jump and to me that means we own the customer And so I want to make sure that I have the right products so that my customers will keep listening to me and we can move them to what we need to move them based on what their needs are in their in their life are.

Speaker 8 So

Speaker 8 it's going to be interesting, but I think that the train of this is going to take a little bit longer than some of the people that we communicate with on a regular basis is thinking.

Speaker 8 We're like, oh man, look, it's going to be, it's already started and it's going to be next year and it's going to be in the next, no.

Speaker 8 There's going to be still so many agents that aren't doing anything five to seven years from now. The only way is if there becomes a bigger shift in the gap between us and carriers.
Yeah.

Speaker 8 If us and carriers don't figure a way to improve the partnership and it keeps dividing in certain ways, that's when we start to see some things change.

Speaker 8 Yeah.

Speaker 7 Can I ask you?

Speaker 7 I'd love to know what the carrier is that you took on, but you don't have to share that information unless you want to.

Speaker 7 I'm interested in your research process for choosing them beyond just seeing them in the market or whatever it it is. Just

Speaker 7 when you're considering that new carrier that you just took on a couple months ago, like what is that research process for you? Where are you going? What are you looking at?

Speaker 7 Like, how are you formulating, okay, we're ready to take on another carrier?

Speaker 8 Claims. Claims is 100% the only thing that I care about when it comes to the carrier.
Obviously, pricing stability makes a nice... difference.

Speaker 8 The problem is

Speaker 8 over half my carriers don't have pricing stability. We're great for two years.
We have a 12% increase. I mean, it's this roller coaster of pricing that you can't control.

Speaker 8 You can't say, I'm only going to keep these four carriers because their pricing stability is good and it's going to keep my overhead down because I'm not going to have to remarket and do any of this stuff.

Speaker 8 So for me, is okay, once I give you a customer of mine,

Speaker 8 what problems am I going to have that you cause?

Speaker 8 And

Speaker 8 the number number one, the number two, and the number three in my eyes are claims. If I file a claim for my client that has the coverage, are you fast? Are you reasonable?

Speaker 8 I mean, like, I'm not expecting lemonade-type claims, but I'm expecting, do I have to get involved and start like

Speaker 8 following up on your adjusters to make them make a phone call? And I have, and I've tweeted this before, and I tag them all the time.

Speaker 8 Every claims person needs the John Bachman attitude of claims.

Speaker 8 And there's, I told him before, I'm like, you need to go train claims people all across the country because people are not doing a good enough job training them to the point where the experience that the client is going through, they need to massage that.

Speaker 8 Half of that job is bedside manner. Like you need to make sure that the person feels comfortable.
They're walking them through, letting them know this is a process. This is a step.

Speaker 8 They can't ghost them. They can't just like not recall, return their phone call because then we get the phone call.

Speaker 8 And then we have to get involved and then, oh, wait, I got to stop everything I'm doing to take care of this because this is a big client of mine and I want to make sure their claim gets handled appropriately.

Speaker 8 So if the least, the least amount of work that I have to do after a claim is filed, like I want to follow up with a customer and be like, hey, I just want to make sure everything's going smooth and them to say, everything's great.

Speaker 8 We got our check yesterday.

Speaker 7 Okay, awesome.

Speaker 8 Like I don't want to have to. get so much involved.
So if I talked to other agents and I was finding other things, I'm like, all right, how's the claim service? Oh, claim service is great.

Speaker 8 Okay, great. Okay.
Next, next agent.

Speaker 8 And I think there's where me being so involved in some of the local insurance agency association type stuff has allowed the relationships with other agency owners that I can say,

Speaker 8 how long have you had this company?

Speaker 8 Bad experience, good experience. And so I can get their true opinion, off-the-record opinions about a certain carrier before I jump on.
And

Speaker 8 it worked. And this one, and

Speaker 8 I mean, I probably had about three more since we added that one to reach out. And they're like, hey, we're looking to add you.
Are we looking to do this? And again, it's because

Speaker 8 if their territory is central New York area

Speaker 8 and they're looking at me like, who are we going to add?

Speaker 8 My job this year is to add five new agents and get them to grow. Who are you going to add that you don't already have?

Speaker 8 I mean, the state of New York probably jumped when they said, oh my God, there's another person that wants to start an agency.

Speaker 8 like people aren't starting agencies in in in New York and it's like there's where it's like these guys are stuck Trying to figure out how they're gonna get more business because that's their job on the line and so they're they're reaching out to the people that are actually trying to do something and growing versus because they're like we're already in the big shops because the big shops have everybody and when you look at the small shops well these ones are not growing or not doing anything and then there's maybe three in the middle so it's like there's not many things that can separate.

Speaker 8 I mean, there's so many things that are separating yourself from this that the carriers are like, they're like, they're throwing themselves at you.

Speaker 8 Like when they, when they, when they've called, I've said, listen, like, you know, that, hey, you need 500,000 in three years or you need this, you need this, all these old school guidelines of like, we need volume or we need that.

Speaker 8 I'm thinking, I don't, I don't, I don't do that. Like, I don't go by any of those.
Like, you'll get opportunities. It's up to you to have the product that allows you to respond.

Speaker 8 We're growing X number of percent a year. You can see that.
That's why you're here. But if your product stinks in Syracuse, New York, it might be great 15 miles this way or 20 miles that way.

Speaker 8 But like, we're the bulk of our businesses. If you're not competitive, you're not going to get any get any product.

Speaker 8 And so for you to expect us to say, okay, yeah, we want, we'll get you 500 in three years. Well, no, that's not going to happen.

Speaker 8 And so they, they, they might hem and hop, but they're like, just quote us. That's all we care about.
We just, we just got to show that you're giving us the opportunities.

Speaker 7 Yeah, I got one of the carriers that I talked to. Um,

Speaker 7 they were very interested in adding me on commercial lines, which is awesome because I that they were a high target.

Speaker 7 They were one of the carriers that I was that was high on my target list, so that was very fun.

Speaker 7 But then when the conversation switched to personal lines, they're like, Well, you know, we're 500,000 in three years. I'm just like, really?

Speaker 7 Like, what if I give you 325?

Speaker 7 What if I do 250 and it's all good, profitable business?

Speaker 8 Like, is is that a bad thing i don't know like

Speaker 8 and and that's where you get that old mindset like and that's it's like the mindset i talked about of like oh should we add ryan as a as a as a person or as an agency here because you know is he doing this full time or is he still consulting on the side like are you kidding me if you're gonna write 250 000 in good business that's good for the the carrier and that's only going to grow like why wouldn't you take that on i'm sorry besides some paperwork and maybe a few other little things, there's no expense to add an agent, like at all.

Speaker 8 And if you can't, and I understand you don't want to be on every street corner, and there's all these other things, but it's like that means you should pick the people, you should pick the people that are doing the things that's going to help your company grow.

Speaker 8 But, like, I mean, I've had a few conversations with

Speaker 8 the commercial rating platform that you're signing up for.

Speaker 7 Yeah, Tarmica.

Speaker 8 Awesome guys. And

Speaker 8 the fact that every carrier isn't throwing themselves at them to get on that just shows you again, like their mindset and where things are. Yeah.

Speaker 8 Like, I even asked them, okay, where's the big expense on this? They're like, well, it just depends on their technology, but we can help them and they're going to, we'll give it back to them.

Speaker 8 And I'm thinking, like, why wouldn't any carrier do this? Like, to me, it should be one phone call and every single person should just jump on it, but they don't, yeah, they don't care.

Speaker 7 Dude, from my trustedchoice.com days and bold penguin days

Speaker 7 i can just tell you that it is it's a that decision doesn't happen because of a thousand like you never hear like a death by a thousand cuts or whatever it's death by a thousand decisions like that's why that doesn't happen it's not that intrinsically

Speaker 7 any one person isn't like we should be there yeah it's or you know or or you know pick the tool you know pick the tool it's that

Speaker 7 and some of it just comes down to straight,

Speaker 7 I'm not going to get my bonus this year because I killed myself to integrate with that tool. So, you know, whatever.
You know, because even though you look at it and you're like,

Speaker 7 like,

Speaker 7 take, take Travelers, right? Like, Travelers isn't yet on Tarmica. Now, hopefully they will be soon.

Speaker 7 And if there's someone listening to this who works for Travelers, please email whoever possible and say, this is a tool you need to be on.

Speaker 7 Because I can tell you firsthand, excluding myself, some of the best agents in the entire country are either going to be signing up with Tarnuka or are circling around Tarmaka right now as a potential resource for them.

Speaker 7 It is worth your time and effort. Now, for you and I to sit here, we're like, why isn't travelers on this platform yet? Like, this is silly.
Like, just take your technology, plug it in, go.

Speaker 7 But you're not dealing with travelers. You're dealing with John and Harry and Tammy and Sally, who have to all make sure that this doesn't get them fired, right?

Speaker 7 Because adding a new tool doesn't get anyone a raise. All it does is create risk in their life to get them fired.

Speaker 7 Now, when you deal with some of the, this is why I've always really, and it's nothing against travelers, just great people that work there.

Speaker 7 It's just very legitimately, and you and I, if we worked there, would operate the exact same way.

Speaker 7 Does putting your neck out on the line to integrate with a tool that could, yes, help your agents for sure.

Speaker 7 How much risk am I creating in my career by doing that? Because you are expending social and political capital internally in order to say, hey, I think we should be on that tool.

Speaker 7 So, and that's that's like that's human survival instinct, right? In a company that big. And it's one of the reasons I've always really enjoyed operating with the super regional carriers.

Speaker 7 Because even though in some cases, yeah, they're still behind, still slow, but

Speaker 7 it's Sean or it's Kevin or it's Steve.

Speaker 7 And if you can get that person or it's Sally or whoever, you know, Cindy, if you can get that person to believe in what you're doing, they can execute on it and make it happen.

Speaker 7 And though sometimes that's a harder sell,

Speaker 7 at the same time,

Speaker 7 you know, they know that making that decision isn't, they're usually operating in what they believe is best for agents versus their ability to allocate resources, which is a much different equation than if I say yes to this project, will I get fired?

Speaker 7 Those are two, you know, both have challenges when trying to get someone to make an integration, but I feel like

Speaker 7 they're just very, they're also very different. So

Speaker 7 that has been the challenge for me, man.

Speaker 7 I started this by saying, I wrote this post about

Speaker 7 apologizing, and I do. I apologize.
I apologize profusely.

Speaker 7 I am epically sorry for

Speaker 7 not fully empathizing with the stress and strain that comes with choosing the right technology. But I love the way that you approach the game, man.

Speaker 7 It's not, I'll be honest with you, some of the things you're saying, I don't 100%,

Speaker 7 I wouldn't build my business that way and won't build my business that way, but I don't think that you're wrong.

Speaker 7 And I think that, and when I said I think it's noble, I mean it in the truest and most positive sense. I love that you are going that way because I do believe it is one of the paths to success.

Speaker 7 I believe, you know, know, I think there are many, many, many paths.

Speaker 7 I absolutely positively believe that you are on the right path because you also, and we didn't really touch about this very much so far, and it's kind of where I'd like to go.

Speaker 7 You do so much, like as much as you're taking cash from the 87-year-old woman who's been there for 50 years, you're also crushing the content game.

Speaker 7 You're working on automations, you're having conversations with different tools to help you automate your business.

Speaker 7 So, what I'd love to know is, is how does an agency like yours who is on a path that you just described, which is much more high touch, much more in-house, which is amazing, how do you marry that philosophy with all the new tools?

Speaker 7 Like when you're looking at them, how are you evaluating them? How are you thinking about integrating them while maintaining the virtues that make your business special?

Speaker 8 Slowly.

Speaker 8 It's

Speaker 8 there's there's and

Speaker 8 this is the nerd insurance nerd of me that like okay

Speaker 8 I see these things. I see what's a bit like what's very valuable.
I see how it's going to intertwine into whether it's the sales process or the service process within our agency.

Speaker 8 Not necessarily what I think the

Speaker 8 what the industry is definitely going to do. Like, I mean, I think it's awesome that some people are able to automate their agencies like almost to nothing or any of that kind of stuff.

Speaker 8 There's, I mean, there is, and I had this conversation and I got no problem telling the company's name, Rocket Referrals. Okay.
Rocket Referrals is a great software program. Okay.

Speaker 8 I signed up for it years ago. And, but after about, you know, 18 months, two years, I stopped it.
Why? Because the garbage that we had in our management system at the time

Speaker 8 basically

Speaker 8 produced garbage as Cass says garbage in garbage out. Yeah.
Okay.

Speaker 8 And so I

Speaker 8 got off of the software. And when I talk to them again and I say, okay, yeah, this is the reason I did this and this is the reason I left and all this other stuff has nothing to do with their program.

Speaker 8 It had, it has to go with ours. So I couldn't set their program, which is meant to be fully automated, that you basically set it and forget it.

Speaker 8 And all of a sudden you start getting different things in.

Speaker 8 I couldn't set it up on automation. I had to manually go in every single day to see what happened, what's going on, and personally send out, okay, we're going to send these out.

Speaker 8 We're going to send this out. We're going to send that out.
And after after a while, I just got tired of it and didn't do it. Did it work? Sure.

Speaker 8 But that was just one thing that it's like, so when you're doing these things, it's like, as much as all these systems and things look awesome and everybody's watching it and it's like, it's almost like that shiny object.

Speaker 8 You really got to bring it back to saying, okay,

Speaker 8 how is this going to affect your clients?

Speaker 8 How is it going to affect your sales process? Or how is it going to affect this? And if it's not going to make your life easier, your staff's life easier, your clients' life easier.

Speaker 8 It's not worth it right now. And

Speaker 8 let's put that in the list of maybe next year or maybe two years around. So where for me, a lot of the stuff that I tried to implement and put in was really initially to help my process.

Speaker 8 I still handle 90% of our sales.

Speaker 8 So being still the new business sales, like I focus a lot of stuff on some of the marketing aspects to make sure that, okay, this is going to help me now and it's also going to help me down the road.

Speaker 8 It's going to help build a personal brand along with an agency brand. It's going to allow me to do all these different things.

Speaker 8 That's going to help grow the agency

Speaker 8 without potentially knocking on doors or cold call.

Speaker 8 And as that started to work and some things started to happen there, then it's like, all right, what tools can I implement in my staff's

Speaker 8 day-to-day that's going to help offset some things and clean up some things and make things easier?

Speaker 8 And it's like the guy you mentioned earlier. How am I going to get Google reviews without having something like rocket referrals or something set up on automation?

Speaker 8 Okay, well, why don't you build in your own? So I built in five different layers of where we ask for Google reviews. Some of it's automated, some of it's manual.

Speaker 8 But everybody knows and everyone's on those systems. But it's taken a while, obviously, because you test it and see if it's working.
If it's not working, you stop it and fix it and relaunch it.

Speaker 8 And it's worked out really well. It's just in my eyes and somebody that

Speaker 8 is a constant studier of the industry and the studier of others in the industry, especially the ones that I respect really highly, I always feel I'm 10 steps behind.

Speaker 8 So it motivates me to try and catch up. So at least that way I can always be testing and thinking about new things, but I'm not driving my staff crazy.

Speaker 8 I'm not tearing down all our processes and having to rebuild them and tear them down again and rebuild them up again. Like the goal is to do that once, maybe do some tweaks, and then we're done.

Speaker 8 And we just had this conversation in our agency over the last few weeks. At the end of the year, it was basically like, we're doing this project that we're doing so we never have to do it again.

Speaker 8 Like, this isn't like, hey, we're going to do this every year and between Christmas and New Year's when it's a little slow. No, no, no.

Speaker 8 We're doing some of this stuff now because we're never going to have to do it again because the process now prevents us from having to do this again.

Speaker 8 But it's just one little aspect and one little layer. And it's like we just keep making those steps and moving them forward.
But you got to go somewhere. You got to do something.

Speaker 8 You can't just keep jotting these stuff down and hope that you're going to eventually get there. You got to pick a thing.

Speaker 8 And a perfect example is, and it's, it's, it's great that you're going to be at the conference the next week and and all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 8 And seeing some of the questions you probably see within that Facebook community group.

Speaker 8 But one of the questions and one of the topics all the time is like, when you go to a conference, what are you looking to get?

Speaker 8 Like, you can't sit there and drink from a fire hose and go back to your agency and let something, nothing is going to get done. Yeah.

Speaker 8 Like, you really have to go and say, Okay, I'm thinking of two or three things that I want to take out of here, and I'm going to go implement them before the end of February.

Speaker 8 And when that works, hey, then maybe I'll touch base and reach out to a couple of the speakers or people that maybe are doing some other things, but that's not on my list.

Speaker 8 I remember the first conference I ever went to about three, four years ago, I came back with all sorts of ideas and I was jacked up and ready to roll. nothing got done

Speaker 8 nothing for for 10 months i had my i'd have 15 different projects started nothing got finished nothing moved forward and finally i just sit there and i was like wow like

Speaker 8 that's not good like so the next conference i go to i'm going to start over and this is what i'm going to look to do And I'm going to learn how to do this, or I'm going to figure out this person that I can always reach out to as a contact that's a specialty in this their area or whatever.

Speaker 8 And that's kind of been my mindset and it's worked so far and we keep making those steps forward so that at someday, whether it's three years from now or five years from now, I feel a lot more comfortable

Speaker 8 where our tech is and where our marketing is and where our processes are, that maybe you look back and you're like, wow, okay, that was good, but I didn't do a full overhaul within 18 months. And

Speaker 8 it's been a fun ride and a fun process.

Speaker 8 And I look forward to learning new things the problem is everything you learn and change three years from now it's going to change again and and and that's you always got to stay on your toes but i like to be on my toes there's too many people in this industry that just sat back and and got comfortable and just coasted and and i don't want that like i want to be able to always have my foot on the gas pedal driving forward

Speaker 7 just because it's going to motivate me to keep going and hopefully someday maybe my kids would want to come into the the business like turn that third generation into a fourth generation so it lets you own your future too you know what i mean that's that's the part for me you know man i i've i've lived the opposite life right like i've worked for other people and you know i've had some tremendous experiences and all that but you know when you're when you're driving forward you own your destiny and and sometimes you know people are able to knock you down but you get back up when you when you start to relax and you start to take it easy

Speaker 7 You know, now you're kind of, it's much easier to push you around. And I don't mean like literally push you around.

Speaker 7 I mean, like, you know, just have life knock you down and throw things at you that you can't navigate.

Speaker 7 You know, I want to be respectful of your time. I'm going to run and wrap it up, but I want to share this with you as well.

Speaker 7 So, you know, Dave Aydanzo, right, from Dryden Mutual?

Speaker 8 Yes.

Speaker 7 Yeah. So,

Speaker 7 you know, I talked to him every once in a while and he reached out to me and was just talking to me about the domestic market and stuff and, you know, pitching me on Dryden a little bit because he's a good salesman and all that.

Speaker 7 And

Speaker 7 I say that like in Jess, he's a super good guy. And mostly we were just talking about business.

Speaker 7 And I said to him, and I'm taking this back to what you were saying about chasing tools and chasing things. And

Speaker 7 I have this like

Speaker 7 martyr syndrome where the decisions that I make, I feel like

Speaker 7 I'm making a decision for the industry, like along with the decisions that I make, because I know I'm going to talk about the things that I choose or the tools that I use or whatever.

Speaker 7 And I've like had this pressure building inside me the last few weeks where it's like, you know, of course I choose to like document my journey because I'm a freaking a-hole and

Speaker 7 I just can't help myself. Right.
So so some of it is self-imposed. I that's fair criticism, I guess.

Speaker 7 But,

Speaker 7 you know, I've had this pressure because there are certain tools that I would love to consider that I know like in our crew of peeps would be considered like, oh, why would you even think about them?

Speaker 7 Right. Like, oh, you know, they're part of the evil empire.
Why would you join that? Or why would you be part of that? Because they're this.

Speaker 7 And I'm like, and I was talking to Dave. And I think because Dave doesn't, you know, Dave is a, you know, he,

Speaker 7 you know, he, he don't care. So I just was sharing this frustration with him.
And he's like, he looks, he goes, he's, he's got this.

Speaker 7 And I don't know how often you've spoken to him, but he's got this way where he like.

Speaker 7 Even though we were talking on the phone, I felt like he like swiveled in his chair and made eye contact with me and was like, son, he called me young man. He goes, he goes, young man,

Speaker 7 it's time you start making decisions for yourself.

Speaker 7 And I just was like,

Speaker 7 what? It was like, I was like, I had a bucket of cold water dumped over my head. And the reason I share that is because

Speaker 7 through this process of starting to map out, you know,

Speaker 7 first, the vision for the agency, then the actual business plan slash battle plan for launching, and then getting into the actual nuts and bolts of how I implement that.

Speaker 7 It is

Speaker 7 so incredibly easy to want to chase the new, hot, fresh, just off-the-presses tool that, you know, if it hits, is the big thing, and you were on the wave, you know, at the very beginning. And

Speaker 7 it's very, very difficult to not get sucked into that, into that mentality

Speaker 7 when there are tried and true, established tools, products that aren't as sexy, like no one's writing insurtech exposés on them, but they get the job done. And

Speaker 7 I've had to like, it's like weird to say this out loud, but I've had to do like soul searching around that idea of like, like, how do I not convince myself that

Speaker 7 How do I make sure that I'm making a decision for the right reasons? Right.

Speaker 7 Which the right reasons are establishing an agency that takes care of my family for the next decade and a half, which is why I started this agency in the first place. Like, that's why I started it.

Speaker 7 And,

Speaker 7 and that's like a thing. It's like something I've had to deal with.
It's been weird.

Speaker 8 Well, because, because, well, and Drive and Mutual is a company that is that. They're not the sexy new tool that is there, but they are so consistent.
Yeah. They are so good at their niche products.

Speaker 8 Yeah. And we grew 25% with them this year, last year.
And we've had them for years. And it's just because they're that good

Speaker 8 that it's like, you get the thing that crosses your desk. Like

Speaker 8 you're not going to load it into tarmaca there and say, okay, where is this going to go? No, no, no.

Speaker 8 You call and just either go to their online rater or you, you know the rates off the top of your head and you're like, no, this is going to dry it. Like that is who they are.

Speaker 8 And that's like, that is great for the agency. Yeah.
Like, and

Speaker 8 it's, and it's tough because I can see how you would have the mindset of being like, all right, this is what I'm, this is where I'm building. This is where I'm going.

Speaker 8 But man, that is just so consistent over there. Yeah.

Speaker 8 Like, yeah.

Speaker 7 And, you know, and, and the truth is, like, you know, I look at what Dryden does and I used to write Dryden products when I worked at the Murray Group and I know exactly who they are.

Speaker 7 And, and I just think to myself, like,

Speaker 7 is it make headline presses for anybody if I take an appointment with Dryden? No, no one could give two flying shits. Is it going to help my people don't even know who they are? Yeah, most people,

Speaker 7 it's a single state domestic in New York that mostly writes in upstate, right? So like,

Speaker 7 but at the same time,

Speaker 7 having worked with them before and knowing exactly who they are and what they do, I feel like I would be an a-hole if I didn't have them as part of my product mix, considering the niches that they have.

Speaker 7 are are i don't want to say easy to market to but you can create targeted market at those things drive them in provide good service there's plenty of opportunity to cross-sell those people into other products you know i mean it's like and and i just think to myself like

Speaker 7 you know i and i and i'm i'm talking through personal experience but i know other people struggle with these things like i i think it's so easy to want to do that that thing that feels like what you should be doing when really all we should ever be thinking about,

Speaker 7 I think it's good to think about the industry as a whole, consider it and support the projects that help the industry grow.

Speaker 7 But at the end of the day, like we got to do what's best for the business that puts food on our table. Like we have to do that.

Speaker 7 And I'm as much, I mean, you know that better than I do. Probably.
I'm as much speaking to myself as I am to anybody, but that's been a lesson.

Speaker 8 A great example of this is I tried to partner with the state association to

Speaker 8 because it's so much easier, or at least you think it is, that to have associations be the voice of the agent to the carriers. And it goes back to that comment you had.

Speaker 8 Well, we're not hearing this from our agents. Yeah.

Speaker 8 Like, well, that's because the agents aren't going to be able to call you, Steve, or Tammy, and Sue in this department at this one carrier, especially on a national level, that says the agents in upstate New York have an issue with this.

Speaker 8 And one of the projects I was working on was basically like, you guys need to improve your online picture. Okay.

Speaker 8 All right. Some of these carriers that we represent, that we love as carriers, when you go to the general public, they have no clue who they are.

Speaker 8 And they're like, oh, wait, this isn't Geico and State Farm and All State. Like, I got to go search them.
And when they go search them,

Speaker 8 you find every negative thing possible because that's what you find with every carrier online. And I basically said, like,

Speaker 8 the fact that I have to present your product and then when the customer actually looks at things and then I have to defend your product and potentially like do like you need to like take that focus of whatever all these projects that you're on and say you know what for the next three months we're going to put a little focus and we're going to do what that guy that emailed you and says on sunday nights we're going to ask all the people that had claims how well the claim process went or or or whatever the case is to build up our online presence

Speaker 8 They can't even do that. This was like 18 months ago that I started to try and push this product.
And like when the association goes and talks, they hear the same thing.

Speaker 8 Oh, well, our agents aren't complaining about this.

Speaker 8 Well, it's because one, they're too afraid to say anything to you because they think it's like you guys are the big, bad people that control their destiny.

Speaker 8 And for me, it's like, all right, no, no, no. Like, your online presence sucks and mine is great.

Speaker 8 And I'm not going to let you ruin mine and me to potentially get and grow my book of business because

Speaker 8 I want to present your product to them. So like either, either improve or I'm not going to present your product anymore.
Yeah.

Speaker 8 Like that and it's going back to like, all right, is the claim experience good for me? So it's less work for me. Well, how's the new business process?

Speaker 8 Well, the new business process sucks because when they go and search your carrier, nobody's ever heard of, they have issues. And some people have never heard of travelers.

Speaker 8 Some people have never heard of

Speaker 8 other insurance carriers that we represent because they don't pay attention to insurance carriers. If you don't spend billions on advertising, they don't know who you are.

Speaker 8 So if you're using us to advertise your product, you at least need to improve what your online presence looks like. Yeah.

Speaker 7 You know, that was the case. So one of my favorite carriers that I've used in the example forever is New York Central Mutual, right?

Speaker 8 I love them.

Speaker 7 Great carrier. So steady, at least, I don't know, maybe very, very recently, but I'd say for, I'd say consistency is a hallmark of theirs.

Speaker 7 They do a good job on claims, well-run company.

Speaker 7 When you push a proposal for for New York Central Mutual with that old ass-looking train logo across the table to someone, they're like, What kind of podunk country insurance bullshit are you trying to sell me?

Speaker 7 And

Speaker 7 in your mind, you're like, holy, like, these guys qualified for New York Central's preferred program. Like, they don't realize they just hit the freaking jackpot.

Speaker 7 Like, they're never going to have to switch their insurance again for like a decade. Like, they're good.
And then, and then that's your mind.

Speaker 7 And the client's mind is like, this paper ain't worth the wipe my ass with it. You know, they have no idea.
And, and it's like that, that second sale. Um,

Speaker 7 you know, and New York is a New York Central Museum is a tough, it's a tough example because

Speaker 7 one, they have been in the state for so long that anyone, Westchester North, there's a good chance that they've bumped into him at some point, or at least a lot of, you know, people who have been established and maybe people in their 40s or 50s.

Speaker 7 But and the other part is they're a single state domestic, so they're, or they're a domestic carrier. So they're only in New York and they don't have the marketing budget to run the campaigns.

Speaker 7 But to your point, the idea that they would, and they have done some branding, and I think it's a good thing.

Speaker 7 But if they just got out ahead of that sale a little bit or gave you a little bit more in terms of frontline branding, when you push that across the table, New Yorkers could go, Whoa, I qualify for New York Central Mutual.

Speaker 7 I've seen them. Wow, this is pretty cool.
Like, thanks, man. Like, I'm excited for this.
Like, that to me is, it's a ways off, but it's, if that mentality could be just grabbed onto a little bit more.

Speaker 7 And, and for everyone working in New York Central Mutual, I love you guys. Like, don't, don't get me wrong.
I'm using you as an example out of love. Um,

Speaker 8 uh,

Speaker 7 but you know, that that's where I think to myself, like, there's so much opportunity there. There's so much opportunity if the agent doesn't have to do the second sale that

Speaker 8 to write more business because it tears down a whole obstacle a whole additional obstacle for the agent that that's writing that business and and they're definitely making strides yeah and i echo everything you said about them like i mean that's where i have all my insurance personal insurance yeah like i mean it's it's and and but the thing is and there's something that i don't even know if you know this they are the seventh largest auto insurance writer in the state of new york I did.

Speaker 7 I knew they were high. I didn't know seven.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 8 And if you look at the six,

Speaker 8 they're six that you would think that would be. Huh, Geico or Steak Farm.
Like, I mean, this isn't like, they're probably the second when it comes to independent size behind travelers.

Speaker 8 And so you look at that and it's like, wow, like they write and they're bigger than you think. And it's like, and they are doing a good job starting to brand.

Speaker 8 And there's TV commercials, there's radio ads. The problem is, again.
And they're doing some social media pushing, which is great.

Speaker 8 I mean, they got the JD Power Award like two years in a row for customer satisfaction. And who knows what that really is, but whatever.
They're still pushing all those things.

Speaker 8 The problem is, okay, what is the 28-year-old buying this first house doing after you present, hey, here's your new auto and home for your new house. Here's all your coverages.

Speaker 8 You're sitting there thinking this is a great preferred product. You're good when you buy this new house.
You got all the bells and whistles that you need.

Speaker 8 And he goes and goes, I've never heard of these people. I'm buying a house.
I'm nervous. I'm going to go search them.
And then there's negative reviews online.

Speaker 8 I mean, I had a personal injury attorney once tell me that he did not want to do business with them because they give him a hard time when he's trying to get money from them from other personal injury cases i go i go i go you mean because they're actually defending their clients and he's like yeah and i'm like well you just gave me the best uh

Speaker 8 uh referral for or a review of them that anybody could ever want is because they're actually they're not just paying people to pay them they're actually have people defending their their claims and doing the claim process it's just not good for your bottom line pocket and that's why you're angry about it and and i love that like so i'm like thank you i won't give you this product but guess what everybody else can get it and be completely satisfied and

Speaker 8 it's it's just things like that where it's like if they if and it's not that they don't want to do that It's the problem is they got a list of 35 things that they want to do.

Speaker 7 Like every other business.

Speaker 8 They put that at number 30. And it's like, all right, well, these are.

Speaker 7 The truth is, man you already said it like i would rather be working with a carrier with stable prices a great product and good claims handling than a product like i'd rather have to do the second sale for a carrier and have those other three things be dialed in as much as it is for them so yeah you know it's all about levers again and you know it's easy to two dudes pontificating on a podcast but um

Speaker 7 you know i do think that trying to like you said like you've like you've done with your agency step by step time and and and uh and again i use new york central mutual as an example because i know they're working hard um and getting their brand out into the space um while maintaining you know what i mean i mean so many other carriers fly into new york state they got these really rock bottom prices they're there for a year maybe two and then all of a sudden 15 20 40 percent increases on renewal and you're like oh my god and then they're gone and um you know that's that's the hard part but dude this has been tremendous i mean we went so many different places um i didn't give you an agenda i just said yo bro let's jump on the podcast and uh this has been awesome i i think uh everyone listening at home will have enjoyed it hopefully as much as uh as much as i just enjoyed having this rap with you and yeah that's good so so dude people just want to check you out connect with you i mean you're you're one of the guys in the industry that i think is is doing things the absolute right way i love your mentality like i said i don't i'm not going to build my agency the same way but i respect the hell out of the way that

Speaker 7 you're building yours because I know you're doing it from the way you want to build it and with intention. And I think that's what's important.
And I love that.

Speaker 7 And there's so many places where we do cross too. So

Speaker 7 I just, where can people just connect with you and get to know you better? Where's the best place to find more?

Speaker 8 You know, I mean, any social media channel works really well. I'm active on all of them, depending on the situation.

Speaker 8 LinkedIn right now is definitely getting most of my attention because anything you push on there, you're getting huge return on your time.

Speaker 8 And that goes for anyone that wants to create content. I mean, there's posts that I put on there that

Speaker 8 I don't think twice now like I used to of being like, is this valuable to anybody?

Speaker 8 Like, no, this was valuable to me. So if it was valuable to me, then maybe it'll be valuable to somebody.
And where you post it on Facebook, you post it on another social media platform,

Speaker 8 25 people might see it or 57 people might see it, where all of a sudden you post it on LinkedIn, you could have thousands

Speaker 8 within a day get get this kind and there's people connecting from all over the place. And so that's probably my go-to right now

Speaker 8 where I can kind of connect with people, but definitely any social media platform works. Definitely.

Speaker 7 Awesome. Well, dude, I appreciate your time.
I appreciate you sharing so much of what you have going on with the audience. And I look forward to seeing you out in San Diego.

Speaker 7 I mean, we only live two hours from each other and we have to take eight-hour plane rides to see each other in person. But

Speaker 7 we'll remedy that here in upstate New York pretty soon once we get established.

Speaker 8 When are you flying in?

Speaker 7 I get in Thursday at 10.30.

Speaker 8 What flight, where are you connecting?

Speaker 7 I don't know. Delta.
I'm Delta. So maybe Detroit?

Speaker 8 Yeah. All right.
We might be on the same plane out of Detroit. Oh, boo yeah.

Speaker 7 I mean, I'm not flying first class like you, bro. I'm back in steerage, but, you know.

Speaker 8 Come on, you've got the delta miles still.

Speaker 7 I used them all up.

Speaker 7 Used them all up.

Speaker 8 The end of the major speaking career, you're like, nah, I'm flying first class everywhere. I got to use up these miles.
Exactly.

Speaker 7 All right, dude. I'll catch you, man.
Later. Everyone listening at home, thank you for watching.
Thank you for listening. I love you for listening.
We're out of here.

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