RHS 159 - Efficiency Isn't the Answer in the Agency of the Future

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Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the show. Today we have what will hopefully be a tremendous episode with you.
When I do these solo episodes, I never actually know if they're going to be good or bad, but I'd like to think it's going to be tremendous. So we're going to talk about a couple experiences that I've had, a little bit about Rogue, what's going on in terms of how it kind of relates to those experiences, quick story of how it all relates back to Blockbuster, Netflix, and what we as an independent insurance industry need to be thinking about as we move into the future.
Lately, I've been asked to talk about kind of where the puck is going. What does the agency of the future look like? Which is a common topic, I guess you could say.
Not so common for me in that it is not often what I am asked to speak about. Most people just want to hear about like inbound lead generation.
But building out Rogue has kind of given me a PhD in building the agency of the future. And I want to talk a little bit about how all these stories relate to that.
So this is going to be a quick punchy episode, mostly because it's 11.40 a.m. on a Friday and I have a noon call.
So we're going to be fast and furious today. But I think that's fine because everything I want to share is fairly tightly packed.

And I just want to get this out, get it in front of you because it's kind of thoughts that have been on my head.

And I want to share them with you.

So before we get there, I just want to talk a little bit about Rogue in particular. And the key, or the key, specifically what I want to talk to you about is we're hiring.
We are hiring a lot. We are moving into kind of Rogue 2.5, you could say, where Rogue One was really just me and a couple of my core employees that have been with me for a while.
I would say Rogue 2.0 is the immediate post-acquisition version of Rogue where we kind of ramped up our producer force, hired a couple more CSAs and some supporting people, and kind of started to prove out the model, our select and premier model and what that looks like. We just had a month where we did almost $2 million in premium production.
So I'd like to believe that while I don't think right now every month will be that big, we'll probably be a little choppy. There'll be some volatility as we bounce around in that range.
But there is no doubt that the Rogue model is proving to be effective, to be efficient, and to be something that can be duplicated by those with the vision and guts to do so.

And much of my mission beyond my role as CEO of Just Rogue and the larger SIA ecosystem is to help SIA members and independent agencies

see what we're doing, understand what we're doing, and potentially be able to implement that through different technology solutions, processes, cultural aspects of company culture, strategy, all that kind of stuff. And one of the things that just kind of keeps coming back to my mind is this idea that efficiency isn't always the answer.
It's not efficiency isn't always the answer. And it's a big part of this, of the human optimized concept, right? You need humans for your business to retain.
Now, granted, you can listen to every D to C VC backed insure tech a-hole who tells you that you don't need humans to sell insurance. And frankly, outside of maybe more robust middle market, I think that's probably true.
You do not need humans to sell small business and personal lines. You just don't.
However, you need humans to retain that business. And if you want to retain that business, it starts by having humans involved in the sale.
So if you're just looking to build a company and spin it off to some large enterprise

like what Travelers did with Simply Business or whatever,

then go get some VC money, hammer out some process where you spend a whole bunch on paid ads

and lead flow and then have a non-human-based sales process where you just pound that business through and regardless of how efficient or inefficient it is, you're just ringing that cash register to a new business. And then the best part is you won't have to prove out any of your retention numbers by the time some unsuspecting middle executive at some large company who's looking to make a name for themselves comes in and makes you an offer and buys you and everything's great.
Except that's not the business that any of us are running, nor is it the business that any of you listening to this podcast want to run, right? You care about your customers, but you do need to grow because carriers are putting more pressure on agencies that aren't growing. There's a whole cultural concept or cultural conversation that's happening in the ecosystem right now around growth versus lifestyle agencies and the amount of resources you put into growth-based agencies versus the amount of resources you put in lifestyle-based agencies and what that means and how do you trigger them.
And you may not even heard that terminology, but I'm telling you it's happening behind the scenes with carriers and all kinds of different organizations. And if you're a lifestyle agency, as much as it is absolutely your prerogative and right specifically as an American to do that, you're not going to get the attention and resources that you may have gotten because you're not adding value back to the ecosystem in terms of growth.
It doesn't mean you should do anything different. Just be aware that that's coming.
So in order to get business on the books that sticks, that allows you to grow, to get that exponential growth that's possible by marrying the new business, the streamlined new business opportunities that exist in the market with real humans who build real connections with your customers that ultimately get that business contained, to retain, sorry. You need to build a human optimized business.
So we are hiring at Rogue because that is our mission. You know, I like to believe I coined the phrase in our industry of human optimized and that's what we're doing every single day.
So we're hiring and we're hiring a lot. And if you're out there and you're listening to this and you're looking for the next big challenge in your career, you want to come into a fast growing business that's trying to do big things.
I mean, look, I've said this before. I'll say it again.
I operate every day with a chip on my shoulder. There are a bunch of people in this industry who gave me a whole lot of shit early on for things that I said, for things that I supported, for concepts that I spread and talked about and had conversations around because they said it couldn't be done.
They said I didn't know what I was talking about. Trust me, I know every a-hole in the industry who wrote what has he done next to some comment on or as a comment next to some piece of content that I shared.
And I carry that chip every day because I know there is a way and I'm seeing it in Rogue day in, day out to build a human-based business that can also grow at scale and has incredible service and incredible relationship with their customers are we perfect today absolutely not but we're getting better every day and that's the key and I'm not afraid to fail and the company culture we built is that we're not afraid to fail we try things we go down paths and then and then sometimes we have to back out. And you know what? I don't care.
And in order to get there, in order to try more paths, in order to bring more insights into our company, we need great people to do that. And that's what we're looking to hire.
So a couple of positions. I need a chief revenue officer, someone who is going to sit.
This is going to be an experienced person, someone who is, I don't

need another visionary in this company. I need someone who can look at what we have going on and be a true integrator, get their hands into every revenue generating opportunity that we have in this business, manage that process, manage the people, and grow top line revenue across all, across the entire spectrum of revenue streams at rogue risk.

It's a big position. It's one of the most important positions in the company in terms of long-term growth and success.
And we're looking for that position. We're looking for that position today.
So if you think that's you, reach out. I would love to talk to you.
If you haven't done the work before, if you're a visionary type person, if you don't like to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty, if you don't want to get into reports, if you don't want to get into nitty gritty process, this position is not for you. Please do not contact me if you're a visionary.
I don't need another visionary. We have more ideas than we know what to do with.
We have more opportunities than we know what to do with. I need someone who can take those ideas and opportunities that we select and turn them into streams of gold.
That's what we're looking for. So we need a chief revenue officer.
The other big position that we need is a head of insurance sales. So specifically, someone who can sit over the top of our premier and inbound sales teams specifically and manage those teams.
Carriers, underwriters, questioning, lead flow, just what it takes to be a manager. I don't need a good producer.
I don't need someone who knows how to produce in that position. I need someone who's good at managing producers.
Someone who, again, I don't need a visionary in this position. I need someone who likes to get shit done, who looks at processes and looks at building culture and supporting producers and beating the crap out of underwriters and carriers who like to give a shit.
I need that person to sit over the top of our insurance sales. They're going to report into the chief revenue officer and also be part of the leadership team.
But I need that person on our team to manage our insurance sales. So if you think that's you, reach out.
We are also hiring a ton of producers and we call them CSAs, Client Success Associates. So if you're a CSA, if you're a producer and you're looking for a new opportunity, if you're willing to buy into the way we do business and you're looking to grow your career and be part of something special, we would love to talk to you.
This is not for everybody. If you are a traditional agent, this is not a position for you because you most likely will come in, not understand what we're doing and not like like the way that we do it.
However, if you like to sell, if you like to build relationships, if you like to solve problems, if you have an open mind to a slightly different way, I mean, it's not like we're doing everything different, a slightly different way of handling business, a more virtual way, a more streamlined way of doing business while still providing the same insights and expertise

that classically independent agents are valued for, then we absolutely positively would love

to talk to you. Whether you're focused on service or you're focused on sales, please reach out.
We

have a few other positions that we'll be posting, but for now, those are the big ones. And guys,

I just wanted to get those opportunities in front of you because we're always looking for amazing

people. We tend to recruit amazing people and find out where they fit best in the organization versus just finding someone that checks a bunch of boxes but maybe doesn't fit culturally or doesn't fit into what we're trying to do.
Our culture is very, very important to us here at Rogue and we don't like to mess with it and if you mess with our culture, you don't last very long. I don't mean to be so draconian, but it's just the way that it is.
I've realized very quickly here over the last two and a half years that culture is really, it's one of the key pillars to your business. And if you're not focused on culture, then it doesn't matter.
Or none of the other stuff matters because it ends up creating more problems and more issues and lack of efficiency in your business. So I called this episode Efficiency Isn't the Answer because I want to tell you a quick story with the remaining time that we have around an experience I recently had purchasing a vehicle with Carvana.
So I, for the last three years, have driven a Ford F-150, a 2016. It's a XLT, so fairly straightforward, kind of slightly better than base model, but nothing fancy.
Ford F-150, silver, nice truck, great in snow. I've always enjoyed it, had a lot of fun with it.
And, you know, with everything that happened in my personal life and, you know, having signed my divorce papers, my new lease papers, and my acquisition papers for Rogue to be sold to SIA all on the same day. I never really got myself anything.
I never really, I didn't really like, I didn't throw a party or whatever, but I didn't really celebrate it all. And, you know, I kind of been looking for like, you know, now that I'm kind of through a lot of that and life is kind of getting into a new flow and feeling better and feeling healthy and feeling a lot more energy and good and all that kind of stuff, I was looking for something.
And I didn't really know what I was looking for, but I lately have been looking for something. And about a month and a half ago, I got a call from the dealership that sold me my F-150.
And the woman called and said, hey, you know, my name's, I can't remember, we'll call Sarah maybe. My name's Sarah.
And did you, you bought an F-1, a 2016 F-150 from us three years ago? And I said, I did. Yeah.
And she said, do you still have it? And I said, yes, I do. And she said, how many miles do you think it has? And I think it had like at the time, 78,000 or whatever.
And she's like, well, would you be interested in coming in and letting us give you a trade-in value for it? Because we can't find enough used trucks and, you know, we're looking for used trucks. And I don't know.
I had an hour in the afternoon free. So I said, sure.
I said, I'll come over right now because I got a little time and whatever between now and my next call. So, you know, I just needed a break.
So I drove over there and they threw what I believed for a fairly beat up 20 F-150, 2016 F-150, a fairly ridiculous number at me. They threw a number at me, $22,000 for that truck.
And I was like, it like opened my eyes to, holy crap, like this truck has some value. It's falling apart.
If they're going to give me that kind of money for it, like I need to make a move now. So I started working with the salespeople at the dealership and what I realized very quickly was that they weren't particularly interested in what I wanted and really were trying to sell me something, right? Like they had a specific set of inventory, call it 30 to 50 vehicles, and that's what they wanted to get me in, right? They tried to get me in, first they wanted to just get me in another Ford F-150, which I wasn't against.
There was this big, like, I don't know what Dodge Ram's Denali, you know, version is or whatever, but like the Denali version, the GMC Denali version of a, of a, of a Ram, which I thought was a really cool truck. Um, I didn't love the color white, but, uh, but you know, that's what it was.
And I liked that. And then, you know, I've always wanted, um, a Jeep, a Wrangler and, uh, and, and my buddy, Matt and I'm only has a Rubicon and, um, uh, my, my boss, Matt Masiello has a Rubicon and I've, you know, hung out with them and seen their trucks and some of the things they've done with their Jeeps and I've always kind of wanted that and then hanging out with those guys a lot recently, I've just been like, it's really got the bug in me and at this Ford dealership, they had the new Ford Bronco and they were trying to get me in this thing and it had this weak ass I4 engine engine in it and I hated that and you know I'm sitting there and the guy's talking me through it and like there were parts of it that I liked right there were parts of this thing that were cool and and then but I didn't like the engine and I'm going you know I don't love the i4 because there's just you know it's kind of like you hit the gas pedal and you you feel like you're you know it's being propelled by like a by like a wet fart right there's just nothing to it.
You're just like, I want a little punch. If you're going to get something like that, you want a little punch to it.
You don't want to feel like you're just kind of dragging along. So I'm like, what's with this I-4 engine? And obviously, I knew a little bit about it, but I always play dumb with these guys because they, whatever.
I feel like you get more dumb when you act like a dummy than when you do like you act like you know what you're doing. So I'm kind of like country dumbing this guy, which I learned from all my friends down in Alabama and Mississippi and Louisiana who always try to play country dumb on me because I'm from the north, even though I know none of them are dumb.
So, you know, I'm doing that with this guy and he's going, no, the i4 is

a great engine. It's a great engine.
You know, you're going to love this engine. And, uh, you know, he's telling me all this stuff.
And I'm just, I'm looking at this guy going, he's not listening to me. He wants, he just wants me to get into this.
He just wants to get me into this thing. Um, he's got limited inventory instead of trying to work with me to figure out exactly what I want, he just wants to sell me what he has access to.
And he's not really listening to the way that I want to do business. And I kind of started to get like, you know, guys, I really appreciate the trade-in and I'm interested in the trade-in, but I don't really love anything that you have here right now.
And no, no, what about this Bronco? And it's going to go fast. And I'm like, and I'm like, yeah.
And it was like this fire engine red, which if it were like a big truck, the fire engine red would have looked cool to me. But on the Bronco, I thought it looked like something like a teenager would get.
It just didn't look, I don't know, it's not what I wanted. So he's trying to force me into this thing.
And I go, well, hey, man, can you just give me like five minutes? Because I just want to like text a couple of friends and see what they think, right? And really, I'm just stalling. But, you know, I did want him to just get the hell away from me for a minute.
So he says, oh, yeah, yeah, no problem. Sure as shit, no more than, and I set a timer, no more than 90 seconds.
It was like 97 seconds or whatever. This guy comes back and now he's futzing around some paperwork on his desk and he's going, yeah, you need some more time? And I'm like, I fucking told you five minutes and here we are a minute and a half later and like you can't get away.
Now I know that you're desperate, right? Now I can smell it. I can smell that desperation coming through, complete turnoff.
And I basically just said, dude, I need time. I need to think about it overnight.
You know, I gave him like the classic brush off. He goes, well, I know what that means.
And I said, yeah, I said, I don't want what to tell you. I'm not buying the car right now.
You can, whatever. I'm going to stand up and I'm going to leave.
We can either kind of have a good whatever and maybe I reach back out to you or you can kind of give me crap. You have to make that decision, but I'm leaving.
And he's like, well, no, it's not like that. It's all good.
Just text me tomorrow what you think. And this car is going to go quick.
And long story short, that Bronco was on the lot for at least two more weeks, as much as he's telling me like any minute someone could walk in and buy it to, you know, I got to drive by actually have to drive by the dealership to get to my gym. So like I saw it, I saw it there for at least two more weeks and I stopped looking.
But while I, so, so all that happens, I get home and you know, I had seen, you know, had seen Carvana license plates around town. And so I just went online and started checking it out.
And I'm looking at these cars, and they have 37,000 cars, and they're all over the country, and you have this massive inventory. I mean, you can basically sort and fix and figure out exactly what you want.
And sure enough, I find a black with red highlight trim, our Jeep Rubicon 2019, 14,000 miles. It's got all the tricked out features, which I was kind of looking for.
You know, I'm a single guy now, so I kind of, you know, wanted something cool. I wanted something fun.
I wanted something that I could get in and have some fun with and put the top down and bomb around, which I've loved doing. Like in all fall, I've had the top down and anytime it's a nice day out and having tons of fun.
My kids love it. And, you know, that's what I wanted.
So I looked at it and the price was, you know, I did a bunch of research. The price was right on point.
It looked great. Passed all the inspection stuff they gave me like, I think like $20,500 for the trade-in.
So it was like $1,500 difference, which versus the convenience of getting exactly what I wanted on my own terms to the in-person experience of kind of being forced into something that I didn't really like, but it's what they had, the experience was way better, right? So I kind of, so I started looking into the process and I'm like, geez, they freaking dropped the car off right at my house. I don't have to deal with the dealership.
I don't have to deal with some freaking sales guy who's up my butt about this and that and this feature. And you want this warranty and all this nonsense that just, you know, it's just car buying is a terrible experience.
And the Carvana experience was much better. Now, it's not all roses, right? Nothing is, nothing's perfect.
This isn't like a, this is an analogy or metaphor or whatever to me, like saying that independent insurance agents and blah, blah, blah. That's not exactly what I'm saying.
There's a little bit of that in there and I'll get to that in a second.

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I'm out of here. Peace.
Let's get back to the episode. You know, so we get into the process and some of the parts are super easy.
It's like, bam, financing, right in line with what I get at a local bank, finance through, you know, Carvana's thing. That's easy.
Take pictures of the truck, validate the trade-in. That's nice.
Bim, bam, upload a bunch of documents. That's all great.
But then there were two hiccups. One was in verifying.
I had to verify whether or not I was transferring my plates or replacing. And I had to figure out, and the lien.
So I had the lien, or I had paid off the loan on the truck. So my former truck, my F-150, I had completely paid that off.
So I didn't have any payments on the truck. But I had the title, but I didn't have the lien release.
Most likely my ex-wife has it, which is fine. I just didn't want to bother her.
So I go and get, so I just went to the bank. It takes two seconds.
Drive over to the bank. Hey, can I get my lunar release? No problem.
They hand me a document. I come back.
I scan it. I send it in.
We don't accept this. And I'm like, well.
And again, I'm talking. Everything is done.
I haven't talked to a human on the phone. Everything is via the text message.
They have a cool text message feature, actually, which I thought was really, really cool. And then there was like web chat and email.
And I'm going back and forth with all these people. And I'm starting to get frustrated because there's no other version of the lien release at my bank.
It's like they're not – I'm like there's nothing else for me to show you. Like this is what it is.
I don't know. I could go back 20 times.
This is the way that it comes. And, you know, I'm going back and forth.
And finally, I'm like can someone someone call me? How do I get a hold of somebody? So I'm starting to get frustrated. Finally, I get a human on the phone.
That human kind of gives me the party line at first and I'm just like, and I can't remember what her name was. She was being pleasant and she was doing her job.
I'm like, ah., finally, I said, I'm getting very frustrated. I don't understand how to move forward here.
There was no, like, this is the way this bank. Now, granted, it's a local, the bank that I used to have was this local, like, credit union or whatever.
Unfortunately, with interest rates being what they are, like, the credit unions, like no real advantage to being there anymore. I was like, this is what it is.
I don't know what to tell you. You're saying it says right here, I've paid the truck off, all this kind of stuff, going back and forth with her.
Finally, she says, you know what, Mr. Hanley, let me look at this.
Give me a day. I'll call you back so whatever a little bit frustrated maybe a little more than frustrated because like every day that this went on it's pushing my delivery date back so uh for the truck because the truck had to come from like someplace in the midwest or like southwest or something it wasn't like it was right here in Albany and uh so she gets she calls me back the next day and then there's back and forth with like she called me and I missed it, blah, blah, blah.
So finally I get her on the phone and she goes, look, I understand the problem. I've checked it out.
I've talked to our manager. You're all set.
Your delivery date is here. Thank you very much.
So and then I went from being like, this is really frustrating. I'm feeling like maybe I made a mistake working with these guys because I'm feeling I'm not getting stuff done.
I'm not getting the answers I need. The self-service functionality had kind of run its course.
Like escalating it up to a human was a little bit of a pain in the butt. I was starting to get very frustrated.
And then when I finally got a human involved and I could tell that, you know, not that she cared about me personally, but she definitely cared about the outcome. I could tell by the tone of her voice and the way she approached me that she did care about the outcome of this situation.
Like she didn't want me to be frustrated. I could tell by the way she was trying to figure things out and the way she spoke to me.
And when she finally gave me the answer, I mean, again, I liked that the answer was actually what it was. I'm glad she didn't say no.
Maybe my feelings are different if she'd just come back and said, I don't know what to tell you. We won't accept it.
She got it approved and everything was good. I was like, this is great.
And I had one little hiccup where they told me it was going to be this date and then the delivery date got pushed back and it got pushed a week,

which was frustrating because I kind of set my day up in order to receive the car.

But also we have a labor shortage because, well, for all the reasons that I won't get into,

that I believe we have a labor shortage and they just don't have enough drivers, blah, blah.

So, okay.

So date gets pushed back. We get to the delivery date for the vehicle.
Okay. So guy texts me, Hey, it's looking like 3 PM.
Great. Hey, I'm 15 minutes out at two 45.
He texts me. Great.
Hey, I'm here. Awesome.
I walked downstairs. It's on a Carvana truck.
I don't know if you've ever bought cars from Carvana, but literally they pull up in a flatbed. He takes the Jeep off, hands me the key, says, hey, take it for a spin.
I bomb around. He takes my truck, pulls it up onto the bed of the truck.
I come back around. He says, how was it? I said, great.
Love it. He was awesome.
I signed two pieces of paper in person. He takes my truck away.
I now have this awesome, you know, new to me, but still at 14,000 miles, like basically brand new, you know, six-speed manual transmission, black Jeep Rubicon tricked out, like feel like a pimp when I drive it, which is, you know, I've drove trucks for so long. It's kind of different being in a Jeep and everything, but I really enjoying it.
And it was like, oh my God, why would I ever go to a fucking dealership again? Like, why would I ever do that? I got exactly what I wanted. Was there a little bit of time? Yeah.
But I think could Carvana set expectations a little better? I think they definitely could set expectations a little better. I think they can make the process of getting from the self-service text message kind of automated processes and kind of text-based processes to a human faster when a situation needs to be escalated.
But I'll never go to a car dealership again. Maybe if I'm buying a super sports car or something someday, which I kind of have this bug in me that I kind of someday, not today, would love a certain sports car.
But that's down the road. That's play down the road 10, 15 years from now.
But if I need to get my next vehicle after this Jeep or whatever, if I want another vehicle, I'm going to buy it through a service like Carvana. I got exactly what I wanted.
Exactly what I wanted. Now, let's just spin this real quick over to the independent insurance industry, right? Because I'm going a little bit longer here with this story.
This, to me, was complete validation in the human-optimized model for the agency of the future, right? If your traditional, local, independent agency still dictates the way business will be done, I don't believe that you have a future in the

industry. Now, you can maintain for sure, but you're not growing, right? Because to me, I don't

care about lifestyle agents. I don't care.
I think lifestyle agents are amazing, but I don't even

consider them when I think about the future of the industry. A lifestyle agent has earned the right to do whatever the F they want to maintain their business so that they can live the lifestyle that they've built.
And they have every right to do that. And I applaud them.
And I think it's wonderful. And if I had built a traditional agency over the last 20 or 30 years and was in a place today where I was in my late 50s, early 60s, and I was looking kind of at retiring or selling or whatever, would I want to implement massive growth solutions and take on new technology? No, I would not want to do that.
I would do exactly what 60-ish percent of the industry is doing, which is what we've always done with minimal changes and hold on and wait for someone to come in and offer to buy me that I can actually feel like I can tolerate. That's exactly what I would do.
But for the growth-focused agencies, for the growth-focused organizations that are looking at our industry, that are looking at the future and thinking not just about what makes you successful today, but about where the puck is going. This concept of a human-optimized business, a business that does not rely on local, not that it can't be.
Carvana has local shops or local dealerships that you can go and walk around and touch and feel and see the cars. They have that, but they also have this very robust online process that provides various layers of interaction escalating to a human as the customer so needs and desires.
Do I think Carvana's experience is perfect? No, I do not. Do I think it's pretty freaking good? Yes, I do.
And I believe we can replicate models like

this in the independent insurance industry where we're allowing the customer to escalate to the human as they desire, not going right to the human because that's the most expensive way to go. It's also not what every customer wanted.
I had that experience at the dealership with this desperate, he stunk of used car salesman desperation and all he wanted to do was shove me into this vehicle that I had basically told him I didn't want. And like it became like a psychology experiment for me.
I mean being that I do this for a living and I've been in sales my entire life, like I could see it. I could feel it.
I could taste it. I could smell it.
It was dirty and disgusting, and I hated it. And I hated that he wasn't listening to me when I said I didn't want that thing or that I didn't want to communicate with him in that way or when I explained to him how I wanted to communicate, how he made it about what was best for him, about his timetable.
It's not about him. It wasn't about him, and it's certainly about you and it's not about me.
It's about the customer. What do they want? And I feel like if we push them right to what we want, then we're not doing them, we are not setting our business up for exponential growth.
What we're doing is setting our business up to grow in a sub-segment that is going to pigeonhole us, that's going to handcuff us from true growth. So what does that look like for an independent insurance industry? No problem with local locations.
I think you should have local locations at Rogue. Our long-term plan is to have Rogue locations owned in partnership with our producer force throughout the entire country, right? I want Rogues all over the country owned in conjunction with our producer force, our producers that validate and earn the right to launch their own locations out into the space.
And that's a very important part of the model. But another incredibly important part, the human optimized part of the model is this step upup process from self-service to automation to

outsourced virtual assistants, VAs, and outsourced workforce to finally an inside force of licensed

professionals who care, who give a shit, who will take the time to solve problems, who will do the

right thing by the customer. But that process must escalate because you're going from least

expensive to most expensive and let the customers decide where they need to go in that process. And if you find that customers are jumping certain parts or pushing right to your most expensive options, maybe there's a branding issue.
Maybe there's a marketing issue. Maybe there's a technology issue.
Maybe there's a product issue. There are ways to solve those things.
And I think all of it comes back to properly setting expectations through internal comms, through marketing and prospecting comms, through initial sales calls, through initial messaging after a lead form is filled. Properly setting expectations by explaining the process, by allowing customers to choose their own adventure throughout your organization, you're able to create the most efficient and effective business.
Pure efficiency isn't always the answer. I was just at ITC in Vegas and while I thought it was probably one of the best insurance conferences I have ever been to, some of the biggest power players in the industry were there.
I had never seen so many major influencers, not just from a social media media standpoint, but like people doing real shit in the industry. I'd never seen so many in one place bumping into each other, having amazing conversations.
I also saw a lot of people that still believe that humans are not the answer. Humans are still an incredibly vital part of our business, still the most important part of our business.
However, if we push all our customers directly to our humans always the way we want it to be done, we are limiting our ability to be efficient, we're limiting the margins we're able to create inside our business, and we're ultimately limiting our ability to grow. And just as a kind of, I guess, fourth piece to that, I feel like it's not actually always what our customers actually want.
I wanted to shop the 37,000 plus vehicles that Carvana had on my own without some sweaty, four-eyed, stinky, desperate freaking used car salesman over my shoulder trying to push me into something that I didn't want, right? I wanted to be able to shop for what I wanted and that's the experience that I wanted and I think a lot of our customers in the insurance industry are slowly, I think that's where the puck is going. Let me put that a better way.
I think that is where the puck is going is this human optimized idea, this idea that while efficiency is incredibly important, it is not the answer, and that by marrying those two ideas, the effectiveness of a human with the efficiency of technology and automation and self-service, and marrying those two concepts and building a step-up process that allows our customers to choose their own adventure, that is the agency of the future, my friends. That is where we need to be going if we truly care about growth.
My lifestyle agency friends, God bless you. I love you.
I'll slap you up forever and I think you're amazing. But this is not the advice for you.
You do you. You do what you've always done.
Don't spend money on these things. Don't.
I wouldn't. Put more business with the carriers that are going to pay you more money.
That might be late stage of your business. Moving to a model like SIA, moving to an aggregator of some sort who's going to allow you to maximize your revenue and finding a way to do that.
Or maybe it is just selling or maybe it is looking at our carrier partnerships, looking at your carrier partnerships and consolidating your book of business. Those are the things I'd be looking at if I were a lifestyle agent.
I'd be looking at maximizing the revenue I already have internally. But that's not the future of the industry.
You are on the way out. God bless you.
Thank you. I think that you've paid your dues and it's amazing and I'm very thankful for the work that our lifestyle agents in this industry have done.
But I'm 40 years old. I got 20 more years in this industry at a minimum, 41 years old.
So I still got 20 more years in the industry. But, you know, so for me, I want to focus on the growth agencies, the agencies that are going to push their business to where the puck is going.
And my friends, this is where I think the puck is going. I hope that this was valuable to you.
I'm going to save the blockbuster story because we've kind of run long and I just, at this point, I think it's unnecessary. So we'll save that for another episode.
But I hope this was valuable to you. This is where I think the business is going.
This is where I think our industry is going. I'm so bullish on the independent insurance industry.
I just feel like this move to a human optimized model is the best way. And it's how we're building Rogue.
I mean, look, I'm putting my money, I'm putting my legacy, I'm putting my reputation where my mouth is. This is what we're building every day.
This isn't just theory, right? This is what I do. And I share it with you on this podcast because I love you guys.
And I know that so many of you listening to this actually do take in some of this. And you do take some pieces from the things that I share or say or the ideas.
And it does help your business. And so many of you give it back.
And I'm so incredibly grateful from that. And I learned from so many of you too, you find things and learn things and experience things.
And by us sharing and communicating and working as a community, we all get better. We all have a lot more fun and we can do awesome things.
So I hope you enjoyed this. If you are interested in joining Rogue, if one of those positions that I mentioned is something that kind of lights you up a little bit that you think you might be a good fit for or you know someone who would be a good fit for one of those positions, love you to reach out.
You can hit me up, DM me on any of the socials. You can always email me at ryan at roguerist.com.
Don't tell anybody that email address, but it's ryan at roguerist.com is my email. You can always hit me up, share a name, or put your own name in.

Love to talk to you if you're interested. Guys, we're growing fast and we're doing interesting things.
And I need more people who can help make that happen. We're starting to reach the point where I'm getting a little spread too thin and I need to focus on the things that I can add the most value and all the people in this business need to focus on the things where they add the most value, where they're responsible areas.
We can't have people wearing 20 hats. It's just not how you grow a business.
We're past that stage and that's why we're looking for more great team members to come in and do awesome stuff. So if you think that's you, reach out.
As always, I love you for listening to this show. I appreciate you for listening to this show.
You can always get at me and if you liked it, share with a friend. That's the best way to support this show, to support what we do here, to support these ideas is just share the show with a friend.
Tell somebody, share it on social, text. If you got a Facebook group, share it in there or whatever.
You know, if you disagree and you hate these ideas, share it even more and tell me all

the reasons why I'm a jerk and don't know what I talk about. That's just as interesting to me

as everyone who agrees. So I hope you guys absolutely crushed today.

I'm out of here.

Peace.

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Peace.

Peace.

Peace. Thank you.
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