RHS 153 - 3 Things I’ve Learned 120 Days After Rogue Risk Was Acquired by SIAA

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In a crude laboratory in the basement of his home.

Hello everyone and welcome back to the show.

Today we have a solo episode for you, something we haven't done in a long time.

I wanted to update you on what's going on with Rogue.

I wanted to make sure that I connected with you guys in general.

I feel like lately I haven't been as motivated to help,

to be, to share.

Not that I don't want to or that anything has changed with my desire to help you guys do better.

Just,

you know, it's probably worth sharing this with you guys now just because I've had some people reach out to me and it's kind of some people know, some people don't, but

I'm no longer married.

And that has been a personal struggle for me

that I've been kind of going through

since December.

And

for a whole bunch of reasons,

that has,

you know, it hasn't really impacted my work at Rogue because I've just kind of doubled into that work and really put my mind to making sure that Rogue Risk is everything that I dreamed that it could be and that

I made good on the promises that I made in my deal with SIA.

Cause obviously I want to be,

you know, you always want to make good when you say you're going to execute on something.

And

that's not even really a question.

Like, obviously, I

anything I committed to with them, my actual dreams/slash personal goals for Rogue are probably 3x, 10x, who the hell knows?

Just bigger for the most part.

So, it hasn't really impacted that too much, but I haven't felt

inspired is such a bad word because you get inspiration through doing work.

And maybe this is step one of doing that, but inspired, motivated, whatever, like the creative side of me has been kind of dead lately.

I've been trying to coax it back into existence.

If you follow me on Instagram, I've been posting a lot about, you know, just working out.

Have used

lifting weights in particular.

Also added some yoga, some hot yoga recently, which has been awesome as like doing that twice a week to mix in between lifting weights and then just always being active.

I hate running, so I don't run very often, but go for walks and stuff, long walks, and listen to podcasts or just think.

And I'm trying to use physical activity and rogue to take my mind off some of the stuff that's going on in my personal life.

So,

but all of it, kind of coming back to the reason that I started this little contextual diatribe, I guess, has been to say that

I realize I haven't been as good with you guys.

I haven't been at,

I haven't shared as much lately.

I haven't been as open.

I haven't been as willing to make phone calls with people.

I always prided myself on taking phone calls and even if they're 15, 20 minutes, just talking through, helping someone with their problems.

Scheduled a lot of those on Fridays and stuff and have done that for years.

I mean, geez,

I've been public in the space for 10, 12 years now.

I guess 2009.

So, what's that?

13 years.

I've been in insurance for 17 years

and 16 years, I think, 16 years, 16 years in the business, been sharing online for 12 years and helping you guys and doing speaking gigs.

And frankly, haven't taken as many speaking gigs.

I don't have any.

Right now, I have zero speaking gigs booked.

Some of that is I just wasn't taking any.

And some of that is I haven't been as active in the space creating and helping,

which is something that I absolutely love to do.

It's cathartic for me.

I also feel a sense of obligation to this industry for everything that it's given me.

I've said that a bunch of times.

Not obligation in a negative way, just, you know, I feel like I owe,

in the most positive sense,

you guys, you listeners, the industry, the people of our space.

Everything that I have in my life has come from all the obstacles, challenges, amazing experiences, friends, colleagues, competitors.

people who've called me at two o'clock in the afternoon on a Tuesday to yell at me.

Most of those were board members of the National Big Eye.

But, you know, all those battles have just have turned me into the professional that I am today, the leader I am today,

hopefully the person that I am today, someone that, you know,

I just enjoy.

I enjoy who I am.

And I owe that so much in large part to the people of our industry, you guys.

So

when I hit a spell where I don't feel creative or I feel like I'm not adding value to you guys, that impacts me too.

But, and this isn't an excuse, but just being, you know, kind of authentic and transparent with you guys as much as I can be.

You know, I just, last few years have been really tough.

You know, getting fired, let go, whatever, from trustedchoice.com, having that kind of fall apart.

I mean, I loved working there.

I loved what we were doing.

And having that kind of fall apart was tough.

Bold Penguin was never a good fit.

And then, you know, I took the job at the fitness company and thought that that was, though different and not what I expected, I thought it was going to be a good thing.

And then that came to a screeching halt when that a-hole fired me for no reason.

Ego is a, is a mother.

So,

you know, and then, and then starting rogue and then having the COVID hit and feeling like I was never going to get it off the ground and I just put, you know $30,000 $40,000 of my own money into this startup agency that you know was kind of felt much of the time dead on arrival

kind of getting through that and then having everything happen between my ex-wife and I

just just has been tough and and some of it is I just got to shake it off and get through it some of it is you know surrounding myself with good good people which I've tried to do

and some of it is just life right like um

it's it's i have to look at all of it as an obstacle to be overcome to learn from um it's life this is this is it's far those things are far from the worst things that could possibly happen to me and keeping that in perspective is very important um my kids are doing amazing my relationship with them is amazing um

you know uh

you know just restarting my life in a new apartment and you know all that kind of stuff has been tough.

But, um,

but so many things are good too.

And, uh, and that's really what I want to talk about.

So, I, I, we're, what, six or seven minutes in.

I apologize for being so negative.

Um, I just wanted you to know that I'm aware that I feel like I haven't been living up to my end of the bargain and sharing with you.

And, um, and I'm going to try to be better about that because

I love delivering value to you guys.

And in return, um, I do get a lot out of it, right?

I get, I I get, I, I get a lot of joy out of helping other people and helping seeing that light bulb come off or come off, go on over someone's head, you know, especially when I am doing speaking gigs and I'm out out in the world and, you know, you say something and you see somebody sitting at a table or in a chair, just, you know, kind of their eyes change because like, whack, something hit them.

Or, or, or you get a message from somebody on, you know, one of the socials or email or whatever that they listen to the show and one episode just caught them and it and it turned a switch for them.

Man, that guys, that stuff is, uh, it just, it turns me on so much.

It's what I live for, right?

I, I, I, I, I, I don't know how to be, you know, to a fault probably in many ways.

Uh, I don't know how to be selfish.

I don't, I don't get very much joy from my own wins.

I just don't.

Um, I get joy from helping other people have wins and watching them grow and evolve.

And it's always been the case.

Uh, it's why I'm not a great negotiator in my own contracts and stuff like that.

And I think,

you know, I just,

I just don't care about

my own success as much as I care about the people around me.

And that's been something that I've really seen at Rogue.

I love my team and I want them all to be so incredibly successful.

And I tell them every day, you know, like I am in my job as the president of Rogue Risk is to be in service of you guys.

that's my job.

What do you need to be successful?

How do we get you there?

What do we need to do?

You need training.

You need a tool.

You need time.

You need freedom.

We need to have a tough conversation with another teammate.

Do we need to have a tough conversation with a carrier?

Or do we need, you know, how do we, you know, where do we need to be?

Do you and I need to have a tough conversation to get through something?

We need to talk through something, right?

Like, my job is to be in service of other people.

That's very much become clear to me why I was put on this earth is to be of service to other people and help them go as far as they can go.

And in turn, I get to have a great life.

And

I just felt very much like I wasn't holding up that my end of the bargain to you guys, the listeners of this show, who I just, you know, maybe you don't always realize it, but I absolutely love you guys.

And the fact that you spend 30, 45, 60 minutes in some cases, with me or my guest or whatever,

you could spend that time with anybody and you spend it with me.

And

that is never lost on me.

I want you to know that.

And

so with that, we'll stop all this mushy stuff.

I love you guys, but

let's talk some stuff.

So I just said I'm gonna add some value.

I'm not gonna spend the entire episode belaboring the obstacles that I face in my life.

Let's talk about how some of the things that I've learned in the first 120 days.

The first 120 days of Rogue being part of the SIA ecosystem.

And that's how I'm going to refer to it because we're not a master agency and we're not an agency underneath a master agency.

We're a new vertical inside of the SIA

ecosystem.

They're, you know, essentially holding company ecosystem.

There's master agencies, there's, there's

member agencies, there's some owned agencies.

There's all different stuff that SIA is doing.

And it's really exciting and fun.

And a lot of it is

just, it's, you know, they're starting to push boundaries and to look out two, three, five years where they're going.

Matt, Maciello, the entire team,

they've been absolutely incredible to us.

I want that publicly on the record that

for what it's worth, you know, I obviously had a very good feel for Matt before we started talking about the rogue deal.

And throughout the entire negotiation process and all the due diligence and stuff, you know, obviously he was very good.

His entire team was very good.

You know, shout out to

Kristen Collins, to Sean Kenney,

both of them in particular, from both a legal and finance perspective, been amazing.

Christy Jarvis in accounting, there's just a lot of great people inside SA.

And I'm going to butcher it if I missed any of you.

Please, please don't take that offensively.

I just wanted to name a few people, but in general, the entire team has been amazing to us.

You never know what you're going to get.

right like it all seemed good and then you sign that contract and it's like okay you're part of the family now here we go.

And, you know, they could press all kinds of crap upon us and slow us down.

And it has never been like that.

It has been absolutely amazing.

So I just want to go on a record and just say, hey, you know, if SAA comes calling on an acquisition, at least from my experience,

it has been absolutely, absolutely tremendous.

A one plus one equals five kind of scenario, to be honest with you.

Just couldn't be happier.

Felt like part of the family day one.

And, you know, you just never know.

and they've been awesome my people and and you know I can't you know I look after my employees like they're family so even the ones that that

you know that that even on the days where we don't always get along

which is always gonna happen I think of them as family and

you know they've been great to everybody so that that's that's a really good thing so just kind of broad 40,000 feet or whatever, however many feet you can go up.

SA has been tremendous and very, very, very happy with them and excited because seeing many of the things that they're doing and that, you know, in small part, Rogue's going to be part of, testing different things, trying different things, sharing,

you know, I'm on the executive leadership team and, you know, being part of some other projects and helping deliver more value to member agencies who are part of SAA ecosystem.

You know, I haven't dug too much into that yet, but there's been some initial conversations on different projects and different stuff like that.

And

that's exciting too, because man, oh man, like just thinking about, you know, this is kind of similar thoughts to what I used to think about when I was at trustedchoice.com.

You know, you think about all these agencies and you're like, man, if we could just get some of these ideas, some of these concepts, some of these tools into

some percentage of these agencies who are looking to grow, who want to push the envelope, man, we can do some real damage.

We can really put some premium on the books.

We can help clients.

We can help change people's lives by improving their career, not just financially, but being happier, more fulfilled, more engaged, finding more meaning in what they do in the insurance industry.

I mean, it just excites me on so many levels.

So tons of really great stuff to come.

It's still very early days.

You know, we're only four months, 120 days into,

you know, our acquisition or being acquired by SAA.

So lots to come.

And we got so much work to do at Rogue, too.

It's not like I'm dipping out of there all the time.

I don't always have the time for that.

But, you know,

it's been really good.

So I wanted to share that with you.

You know, I wanted to talk about to just kind of,

you know, the HubSpot thing.

So I mentioned a long time ago, or not a long time ago, I've been talking about it for probably since

December.

We made, and again,

this is me.

We made the decision, I made the decision, I made the decision, to try to make HubSpot essentially our AMS.

I wanted to do everything we could to

see if the fully integrated from website to marketing to advertising to

sales to service to retention to renewals to have it all in one place utilizing

2022 technology, right?

Like, so,

you know, I really.

I saw what was possible, the tracking, the communications, the

collaboration potential inside, and

I went for it.

I figured, and I've said this on air before, if you're using the same tools as everybody else, then you have the same limitations as everybody else.

And I didn't like that.

I knew what we were doing from a marketing perspective was different and bigger and bolder than many agencies of similar ilk, right?

Like while SIA acquired us, it's not like we got some $50 million

VC bucket dumped on us.

You know what I mean?

We still have budgetary constraints that we need to think through and a level of reasonableness, I guess you could say.

And I just was, I was very excited.

So we were on Now Certs as our agency management system in HubSpot.

And I can tell you unequivocally, our HubSpot experiment as a as an insurance, particularly service tool, is just a, it was a fail.

It was a hard fail.

There just is not

to build back into a system like HubSpot insurance lingo, fields, functionality, the way that the way our particular business works that that is unique, it just was too much.

I am positive that someone who is smarter than me, that understands HubSpot better, that understands development better, and that has a bigger budget and more time could absolutely, positively turn HubSpot into something that would be electrifying.

I think it's possible.

Just not us.

It's not me.

I'm not willing to do that.

And in the

words of both my head of service and my head of sales who said almost the exact same thing although maybe they coordinated this who knows um in different meetings uh why are we reinventing the the insurance part of our business and as much as i hate to admit it i they're right they're right like right now growth is what's most important to rogue you know we need to grow we want to grow we can grow uh we have all everything in place and we're starting to grow which is great um

But the systems were holding us back.

The systems,

the lack of clear insurance functionality was holding us back.

So about three months ago,

two months ago, sorry, I made the decision that we needed to get off of HubSpot

from an insurance perspective.

So we are currently in the process of carving out all of our insurance operations out of HubSpot.

HubSpot will continue to host our website.

They will continue to be where we do, you know, track all our marketing, run all our marketing, social.

We run, or at least have all our ads accounts connected so we can see attribution.

We don't do a ton of ads.

We're mostly just doing remarketing stuff for website visitors right now.

And we can track it all.

We can see it all.

I can tell you which posts are doing what, how they're doing.

It is, from a marketing perspective, just an unbelievable and undeniable tool.

That all being said,

so we keep our marketing, our website, our recruiting function, function, and

our channel partnership, business to business development, sales process.

That will be all done through HubSpot.

So we're going to use HubSpot.

We're going to just dial back basically the insurance functionality and dial back our overall

seats we need and stuff.

But it is an incredible,

almost from like an internal insurance operations standpoint, it is a tremendous tool.

I mean, your ability to track and community, it's really, I mean, I love HubSpot.

to be honest with you, I'm, I, I love it.

It just,

the work it takes to turn it into an AMS is

daunting.

And I am not willing to continue to feel the pain of trying to build that out in exchange for

growing.

So that being said, we went out into the market and started doing demos with all kinds of agency management systems again.

Now, we had done this about a year ago.

And

so I knew kind of what was out there.

We looked at

applied, we looked at better agency, and we looked at now certs.

Those are the three systems that we looked at.

I threw out applied almost immediately, mostly because I wanted to see the functionality and what it was all about, but I'm not interested in paying that price, nor even though I like a lot of the stuff that Taylor Rhodes is saying and I don't knock him.

And it does feel like, in general, Applied is on a better path, I still don't trust them.

I'm hoping over time, Taylor can change that.

He seems like potentially the guy that could, but also he, you know, he's got bosses and those bosses need returns.

And to get those returns, you need to do things like lock your clients in, overcharge them, nickel and dime them, you know, all that kind of stuff.

And truth be told, when you look at the total, when you get all the things you need to buy to really run your insurance agency operation out of an applied system, it's like, oh my God, holy crap.

Like, it's just a lot.

So we didn't go with applied.

That's that being said, I'd like to carve out just for purposes of conversation.

I think a lot of the things that Reed Holdsworth is doing at Ivens are actually pretty fantastic.

And I know Applied owns Ivens, technically they're two different organizations, but I do think that Reed and what he's doing at Ivins is wonderful.

I got to see Reed and chat and catch up with him a little bit at InsurTech Boston, which was awesome.

That was a month or so ago, maybe a little more.

But

so I do think the stuff that's going on at Ivins is good, which kind of says to me maybe stuff with Applied is starting to change too, which would be awesome.

But I'm just not willing to go down that road with them.

Not at this time.

They're just, they're still my perception, and I think this is not just them.

This is certainly,

you know, what's going on at Vertifor still.

Although the QQ agency Zoom setup

is not bad.

It's not bad.

I still think you have a lot of people who don't understand, have never worked in, nor have never really sunk their teeth into what it means to be a next-generation agency,

the digital hybrid model that you need to have.

I don't think any of them really understand what we're trying to do.

You know, I mean, we're kind of pioneering this.

The way we think, you know, the way we think about geography, the way we think about carrier appointments, the way we think about sales, it just, it still does not fit the general mindset of the standard agency management system and the standard technologist vision of what our agency should be, right?

And that's where we get this, you know, kind of yin and yang of the insure tech,

you know, these insurtech people who come in and make bold claims and don't necessarily understand our business, but are trying to push the boundaries.

And then you have the other side of the coin where you have these, these old school who understand the old school way of doing business really well, but aren't willing to, you know, I talked to one, I talked to one, this is just completely anecdotal, but it kind of makes my point.

I talked to this carrier the other day and I was like, you know, da-da-da, do you have this?

And

his response was, well, not a lot of agencies are asking for that.

And I was like,

well,

I feel like you're talking to the wrong agencies then, because this is absolutely something that every agency is going to need.

It's killing me that I can't remember what it was.

It was something, it was basically, I think it was a Zapier connection for something.

We're looking for a Zapier connection for something.

And you're just like, I'm like, oh my God.

I get that like you got to go out to West Podunk and talk to the agent who still sends in paper files because they've been with you for 30 years.

But if you're making your business decisions based on that agent, you're toast, you're absolutely toast.

Um, because I you can see it in the way the market is trending.

Um,

you know, so we'll, we'll, we'll see.

I don't know, I maybe I shouldn't say toast, that's probably too bold.

You guys will all be like

hyperbole, but um, I just can't imagine that.

But that all being said, um, the basically the final decision came down to two agency management systems: one was uh better agency and one was next year.

Better agency, we gave a super hard look to.

I love better agency.

I love what they're doing.

I think this is a serious, serious platform for the future.

I recommend Better Agency all the time now.

I really, really like where they're at.

You know, I've I've been back and forth on them at different points just as they grow.

That's normal for a company that's growing as fast as they are.

But I just, I think they're going to be a player.

I don't know how long it's going to take or how much damage it'll actually do to the big guys considering, you know, they, you know, you got to remember, Verti4 and Applied don't care about a 10-person agency.

It just doesn't make them any money.

And that's not a knock on them.

If you have, you know, if you have 25 of the top 50 agencies in the country using your platform and they're paying you millions upon millions of dollars a year, why would you spend, waste any time on someone that's spending $20,000 a year?

Right.

So, so, you know, you look at it, someone like better agency right now if i'm a 20 person agency or below and i have a 60 40 or 70 30 personal commercial split i'm looking at better agency going holy this is the platform for me like basically everything is there the accounting piece is almost there uh i know i think it's in beta right now i don't want to overstep my bounds on where they're at but that was really the last piece and there's some more configuration on commercial some of the more sophisticated commercial you may struggle with but i think the benefits drastically outweigh any type of

drawbacks, especially if you are like a 60, 40, 70, 30, 80, 20 personal commercial type agency with 20 or less people.

You're going to be able to dig into this thing.

It's going to make sense and you can fly.

I really like it.

That being said, for some of the things that we needed to do,

for some of the more sophisticated accounting that we need to do, because we have a lot of referral partners that we have different deals with and joint joint venture stuff that we're doing and then you know with the with the no ceiling insurance career being able to split out like kind of subco all the different things that we need to do um it just wasn't there yet and and we need a solution now so uh better agency continues to be on our radar but we did not go to them i just wanted to make sure everyone didn't think it was because i think the platform is crap i don't not at all the the exact opposite actually um

We went with Nextshare.

So we will be, you know, we're going to be in the process over the next month of making the move to Nexture from Now Certs and HubSpot.

So basically, we're taking everything out of HubSpot that was insurance related and everything that was in Now certs and we're putting it into Nexture and our entire insurance function will be run out of Nexture.

Our marketing, our operations, our recruiting, our channel partnerships will be run out of HubSpot.

Everything else will be run out of Nexture.

And

I'm not going to say Nexture is a perfect platform.

It's not.

However, I like a lot of what they do.

I think they have a solid, solid system.

Their pricing is right on par with where I think it should be.

They have all the functionality that you can need and more.

I think a lot of people don't consider Nexture because Nexture traditionally has been kind of the agency management system of networks to a certain extent and MGAs and wholesalers and stuff like that.

But their retail option is tremendous.

And to be honest with you, I was shocked.

I mean, Nexture was referred to me by Michael Blake, who's a good friend of mine and the show.

And he's a great technologist, a great agent.

He recommended in some talks to him that I look at them.

They weren't even on my radar.

And then about a year ago, I took a look at them, really liked it.

We weren't ready at the time, and now we are.

So just kind of want to give you guys an update there.

I firmly believe that your sales and service operation have to be run out of the same system.

This is the drawback of many of the traditional agency management systems because they, for some reason, have not figured out basic sales functionality,

certainly do not prioritize digital sales functionality.

And I found that Nexture didn't, you know, didn't inhibit any of those things.

And so I was pleasantly surprised there.

They actually have some really cool

functionality that we can use in some of our marketing stuff.

And then the service team, fully robust, but I just cannot stress enough.

sales and service have to work in the same system.

That's my belief.

I'm sure there are cases out there where that's not true, but sales and service need to be in the same system.

And

we went with next year.

What's up, guys?

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All right.

I'm out of here.

Peace.

Let's get back to the episode.

So I'm excited about it.

I'll have more updates as we go.

I just wanted to kind of put that out there, put some of that thought process out there, why we were thinking the way we were.

And I also just wanted to be candid.

You know, I'm fully capable of admitting when I make mistakes and bringing our entire insurance operation and trying to shove our insurance operation into HubSpot was a mistake.

It just was.

For where, for us,

you know, like Cruthers always talks about HubSpot, and Chris Green talks about HubSpot.

And I think both of them, for what they do, it's a wonderful tool.

You know, for if you're doing, if you're doing huge B2B middle market accounts, then the functionality of HubSpot actually works really well for those type of accounts.

Where we were struggling, in particular,

I just want to be candid, it's the small business stuff.

It just wasn't capable.

It didn't have the right setup.

The UX just wasn't set up right for high volume, fast-paced small business

sales.

It just wasn't.

Large B2B, middle market, enterprise type accounts, oh my gosh, I mean, it's the holy grail for that stuff.

So if you're doing David Cruthers middle market stuff, I still to this day recommend HubSpot.

But if you're going to get into personal lines or small business, it is not the tool, not unless someone builds it out for you.

It's just not ready.

It doesn't have download.

So all that kind of stuff just made it, didn't work.

So just wanted to talk through some of that stuff.

You know,

Rogue's vision, the vision for Rogue, the process for Rogue, it only continues to solidify in my mind that we are absolutely on the right path.

We're just seeing the results, you know, more leads, better leads, routing leads.

You know, there's some work we need to do.

But if you go back and listen to the Alan Ringwald episode that I did from, he's with the founder of Relativity 6.

I talk a little bit about this front end tool that I want to build.

We still need to build that.

That doesn't exist in the world.

But you know, outside of that,

you know, just where does the business go?

Answering that question, where does the business go in real time?

Because remember, carriers' appetites are a guess.

They don't really know what they're going to write and what they don't.

There's no marketing rep in the industry who can tell you unequivocally what they write

consistently.

They just, it just, and it's not marketing rep's fault.

It's, there's algorithms and underwriters and, you know, all kinds of stuff.

And then once you break out of, you know, any kind of geographic constraints, meaning you work nationwide, there's just no way because you could have, you know, you could have, you know, if if the you know my underwriter at Harvard paints me a picture of what Harvard will write in New York or even just in the northeast as soon as you go to the Midwest or the West Coast or the Southeast that all changes and that's not you know, she has no way of knowing it's not her fault.

So my point saying all that is

you where when you get into small business high volume small business and if you start to break traditional geographic boundaries state lines

you immediately have a where does the business go problem that needs to be solved still but outside of that

I think you know we're we're we're dialed in in many ways some more process uh both in service and retention and renewals but um you know and just solidifying that and tracking it and all that kind of stuff just like every other agency but

our kind of human optimized vision for our agency

every day I get I just feel stronger about the model model every the model every day I feel stronger about the model every single day it just,

it's working.

It's working.

It just is.

And it's not finished.

I'm not ready to stand on a TED stage and give a, give a, you know, this is the be-all end-all way of blah, blah, blah.

I mean, not that.

But,

but it is working.

And we've learned so many, so many things.

You know, and so that's kind of how I want to finish this episode is just what are a few of the things that I believe, you know, that have been absolutely solidified solidified over these first 120 days in my mind.

And kind of why those 120 days, because I've,

one of the things SIA has been great about is we got to offload some of the internal operations functionality that was really bogging my time down and my operations manager, Sarah.

It was really just crushing our time.

SIA has been able to kind of economy of scale, take some of that, flow it through them and take that off our shoulders.

So I've been able to kind of get right back into the business, you know, with both hands, which is where I want to be.

And three things are

absolutely, positively clear to me.

You could not, no matter, you could not push me off of these three things.

Okay.

First,

content

is the greatest weapon that we have for generating new business leads in 2022.

We create a lot of content.

In the last 365 days, our YouTube channel has had over 100,000 views.

An insurance agency's YouTube channel done on a zero budget.

I've now made most of the videos with my iPhone

47 or whatever the hell I have here.

It's got the three cameras on the back and it's got cinematic video mode.

With that and a little three-legged $100 Gobi tripod that I bought off Amazon like five years ago, I am creating almost all the content that goes on our website now.

You couldn't tell the difference between the quality of the video and

we just continue to crank, and our little channel has done 100,000 views.

Now, you may be saying, Ryan, views aren't revenue.

You know, that's like the classic bitch that I would get is views aren't revenue.

What's the sales?

Well,

so basically, we're doing out of those, you know, over the course of the year, I actually don't have that number,

But right now, we're averaging 12.

Nope, that's not true.

That was last month.

This month, we're currently averaging nine and a half form fills

a day, a weekday, Monday through Friday.

And that's down, which is normal because it's July.

And then in August, it'll be down too.

That's the natural cycle.

So if you're seeing your numbers go down right now, don't worry about it.

That happens every year across the board.

You know, second half, you know, really second half of June, early June, July, August are always down for everything.

And then, you know, towards the end of August, September, you're going to see a ramp up.

September, October, beginning of November should be big months for you from a content new lead perspective.

And you'll see that ramp down a little bit.

And then January, really through to May and June is, you know, that's the prime time season.

That's the go season.

So we're down a little bit, but nine form fills a day.

That is an incredible number.

You know, our biggest issue has always been we didn't have enough producers to write all that business.

We're starting to change that.

And we saw a 5x jump in premium written

last month.

And that's huge for us.

Absolutely huge.

And it's, and it's because, and my second thing is, you need producers to sell, right?

You need producers to sell.

I know that codery's got this thing, and there's another thing over, another carrier's got this thing, this widget that you can put on, and the people go in and buy it themselves.

And if you can set up up a marketing campaign that consistently drives profitable revenue off of those buy-it-yourself tools, and I love codery, don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking codery, I'm just saying they have it tool.

I like codery, they're not a knock on codery, just a bunch of people have tried this tool.

Um,

you know, if you can create consistent traffic that leads to buying, that sticks long-term off of those do-it-yourself tools, God bless you.

God bless you.

Please, I will pay you to teach me how to do that.

But here's the thing.

It has to be profitable and it has to stick.

I believe you can drive shit tons of unprofitable, and by unprofitable, I mean you're paying more for leads and marketing than you are actually getting back in revenue, not just unprofitable in terms of class of business, like the traditional insurance way.

I'm talking about actual revenue in your agency.

I don't think long term that you can write profitable business that way, that you can be profitable paying for and driving people in to buy buy themselves.

And I also don't believe you can retain the business that way.

So while I think that from a snapshot new business perspective, if you're thinking just new business, snapshot perspective, these do it your buy-it-yourself tools can be successful from an actual like business sense, like am I making more money that I'm spending?

And then long term, is the business retaining?

I just haven't seen it work.

I've seen plenty of people use that methodology to drive their new business numbers up to look awesome, but I haven't seen them be profitable doing it.

And I just, and I, and even in our own, we've tested this shit.

I mean, we've tested it.

I test everything.

I have not seen it be profitable.

Now, there is some stuff that you can do with niches.

So if you have like a pet, a specific pet thing that's special program or something like that,

that can work.

But,

you know, general personal lines, general small business, I just don't see it.

I don't see it.

I haven't seen the case.

I'm waiting for the business case because I would love to be wrong about this, but I just haven't seen it.

So you need producers to sell because what a producer does is create the emotional trust relationship connection during the sale, even if it's a tiny sale, during that sale, so that the person renews the business on the back end.

That's why the human is important because without the connection, there's not the renewal.

Without the connection, the renewal doesn't happen.

So you need that human connection.

You have to have it.

It's why Geico is starting all these agencies.

It's why you see,

you know, these franchise models taking off.

You have to have boots on the ground.

You have to have someone talking.

You have to have, you know, video connection or whatever.

There needs to be that emotional human connection that this person has me.

He, she, whatever,

it has me.

See how I went woke there for a second.

I'm learning, right?

The consumer has to know that.

They have to know that.

They have to know that you have them.

And it doesn't have to be an hour-long conversation.

It can be just an email that says, hey, I got you.

You're good.

This is the right coverage.

Best price I have.

Shopped you on 17 people.

Maybe a little vidyard video or loom video, something like that.

Like that stuff.

builds the connection, locks in the retention.

Without it, you can't, you're not going to have the retention numbers.

So you need producers to sell.

That being said, you do not need producers to be in your town or walk into your agency to sell.

I have a producer here in Albany.

I have a producer in Florida.

I have a producer in Arizona.

And I have three producers in California.

I have another person who may be joining us from, that's in the Midwest.

And we're talking to someone from, who's in Michigan.

I have a CSR in Michigan.

I have

two in Florida.

I have, you know what I mean?

Like, so my point in telling you this is you need producers to sell, but those producers don't have to be doing hand-to-hand combat.

Go, you can find a great producer who doesn't live in your town, but can write in your town.

There's no reason that person can't write in your town or in your state or whatever, and they just don't live there, or they live, you know, they live an hour away.

They don't need to come into the office.

That is 100% true.

If you believe today that your people, producers, still have to come into your office, understand that is a you decision not a not a reality that is not react that's not an absolute truth of the universe that is your

your uh personal opinion slash um preference

So if you're struggling to find producers, expand your search is really my point.

You need producers, you need humans.

Those humans do not have to be geographically located in an area to do a massive amount of sales in that area.

They just have to be good at what they do, which is building relationships, understanding coverage, and helping people feel good about the decision they make to purchase insurance from them.

If they can do those things, it doesn't matter where they live.

It just matters that they give a shit.

They care about your agency.

They care about your clients, and they're going to show up and do the work.

They don't have to be in your same area.

They just don't have to be.

I am so sick of hearing, it's so hard to find producers.

It's not hard to find producers.

It's only hard to find producers if you are geographically pigeonholing yourself.

There are amazing people out there who want to help clients, who want to grow, who want to be successful, who want to make money, who want to help your agency.

They're just not always going to be in your backyard.

It's just, that's a reality.

Okay.

But you need producers to sell.

So the last thing I want to talk about today, I hope this has been valuable to you guys.

You know, just giving you some insights.

Guys, you have thoughts, questions about any of this stuff, LinkedIn DMs.

I'm on all the socials.

Just DM me on one of the socials.

I check them all because I'm a neurotic, crazy person,

and which probably leads to some of the anxiety that that I live with day to day.

Uh, but I still do it and will be for the foreseeable future.

So, whichever your favorite social is, feel free to hit me there, uh, DM, or just email me, or whatever.

Um, the last thing I want to talk about is answering inbound leads, because I get a lot of questions around,

well, Ryan, we heard you get a lot of leads, but uh, you know, those people are just price shopping, you know, and they're

which

some of them are for sure,

guys.

When you an inbound lead is different than an outbound outbound lead or referral.

You cannot treat someone who picks up the phone or emails you or fills out a form on your website the same way you treat that person who was referred to you by, you know, your cousin or your golf buddy.

You can't treat those two people.

They're two completely different scenarios.

A person who was referred into you is starting with some modicum of trust.

Some level of trust.

They were referred to you.

They may not trust you enough to purchase from from you yet.

You may still have some work to do if it's a referral, but they've coming in with something, right?

They trust John, your golf buddy, and John, your golf buddy, said that you were the right person.

So they're coming in with a little bit of that.

So you cannot talk to inbound leads because inbound leads don't know you from Adam or Eve, and they don't,

their assumptions, their base assumptions are you're a call center, that you don't give a shit, that you have limited options, and that you're going to do everything you can to hose them.

Those are their assumptions when they fill out the form.

They chose you and they still believe you're going to hose them, you don't give a shit, you're going to overcharge them and that you're somewhere in some big faceless enterprise.

Even if they fill out a form on your little agency website, that's the mentality that they're coming in with, okay?

For good reason, because

most of the people who do digital marketing and have the money and create content are not independent insurance agencies.

It's progressive, or it's Geico, or it's, you know, whatever.

Insert other well-funded, large organization that is looking for volume, right?

That's that's what they're assuming they're getting.

Somehow, they found their way onto your website or wherever, your YouTube channel, and they filled out some form or they called some phone number, and they got you.

You cannot go into this thinking that they already trust you.

They don't.

They don't trust you.

So, what you have to do is, and

Carruthers does a great job of talking about this.

Mick Hunt does a great job of talking about this.

Billy Williams does a great job of talking about this.

Kelly Donohapura does a great job of talking about this.

Like, you have to build trust.

You have to then validate them through that process.

So what does that look like?

It is like

you have to ask them questions.

Like when someone calls me, so I'm going to walk through how I, so I'm not a great cold caller middle market guy.

I'm never going to go into killing commercial and be a trainer on the shit that like Josh Gurley talks about or Caruthers talks about.

I'm just never going to be that guy.

I'm not a great outbound guy.

I'm just not.

For whatever reason, it doesn't work for me.

I own that.

It's a thing.

I have successfully executed it, but in no way, I'm a C-minus player at best.

Just put that out there.

Okay.

Referrals are easy.

That's why I don't give any, that's why I give very little credence to and or

I don't want to say respect because that sounds disrespectful, but like I don't hold in high regard people who work only on referrals it's like who cares you're if you get referred business and you can't sell it like you shouldn't be in this business to begin with so referrals are easy outbound is incredibly difficult but a different skill set

okay so so with inbound i'm pretty freaking good at an inbound i can i can spin an inbound lead and get them to buy shit from me like it's no one's business so first you have to give a shit about them, right?

You have to care about the person calling you.

You can't immediately think there's some a-hole who's just price shopping.

You have to care about them.

You do.

Maybe you got to psych yourself up.

Maybe you got to write yourself a note.

Maybe you got to listen to some love music or whatever, you know, Marvin Gaye before you get on there, before you start taking inbound calls, but you got to care about the person because if you don't, it's going to come through the phone.

Now, this isn't like some of that crappy smile when you talk.

So you're, maybe that works, maybe it doesn't.

I don't know.

But I do know that you need to actually care about the person you're talking to, even if they're an idiot.

You have to care about them.

So when someone calls,

or, you know, let's say, let's say it's a form fill.

So if form Phil comes in, I'll pick up the phone, give him a call and say, you know, I'll just say it's Sally.

Hey, Sally, Ryan Haley here from Rogue Risk.

I saw you filled out an interest form on our site.

It looks like you need some help with your workers' comp.

What's going on?

That's all.

That's all I'll say.

Then I'll just shut up.

What's going on?

And I'll let Sally talk.

Sally's going going to say, Well, you know,

we've had this business for a while, and it's always just been me and my husband.

And we both own the business.

And, you know, we didn't need workers' comp, but we just decided to hire our first employee.

And, you know, now the state requires workers' comp.

And I'll say, that's amazing.

Wow, I'm so, I'm so happy to hear your business is growing.

That's that's great.

Oh, yeah, you know, we had a great year.

Blah, blah, blah.

Okay.

Sally, um, uh, just tell me a little bit about what you do, right?

And then she'll tell me what you do.

And let's say it's something relatively easy, like, uh

uh

let's just say it's like a uh a janitorial business right so janitorial business so i know i have pie we have guard we have nationwide all three of those guys will write janitorial workers comp so okay so i know i got so now i know i got markets right so so by by understanding what she does and what's going on um

I now know, I now know, one, she has a real issue hiring her first employee.

So there's urgency and she's not 100% sure what she's doing.

And so it's not like someone who's had comp for a while.

So I understand the level of detail that I'm going to have to go into with her.

And I now understand,

and I understand that she's got an urgent need.

So she's kind of checked a couple boxes there.

And now I know the industry she's in.

And then I have markets for it, assuming,

you know, she's in a state that those really, I'd say, Florida and California would be the only real problems with that class.

But

so let's say she's in New York, where I live.

Those three carriers all write janitorial businesses.

So I know I got three markets.

I'm in good shape.

Okay.

So

we've gotten to there.

So now I'm going to say, well, so tell me a little bit about your insurance.

Like, do you have general liability?

And, you know, she may, she's probably going to hesitate a little bit because she's going to wonder why I'm asking that question.

I'm going to say, I'm only asking because,

and I'd love to do business with you.

I'm just surprised that you didn't call whoever had your general liability insurance.

And, you know, she'll say something.

She'll either say two things.

things.

One, she'll say,

I don't think my agent does workers' comp, which is awesome because that means the agent wasn't doing their job and probably stinks at their job.

Because if you're one of your general liability clients doesn't know that you do workers' comp, then awesome.

I'm going to capitalize on that.

Okay.

Maybe she'll say, hey, I'm with Next or insert some other

D to C player that, you know,

the person who she talked to originally, whether maybe she bought the policy herself or she talked to someone who could give two flying craps about her.

So, you know, she has no real connection.

Let's assume, because we do get a lot of these, that especially for a janitorial class, she went to someone like Next and purchased the policy herself all the way.

So I now know she's got

probably not the right general liability coverage.

She has absolutely no connection or loyalty to the carrier that she's doing business with.

And she has an urgent need for her workers' comp.

So I'm not, you know, I'm kind of taking this in.

So what I'll say is, I'll go off.

Regardless of what she says, she could say it's, you know, really I'm trying to find out, is it her, is it her, um, is it like her cousin or something?

And assuming it's not, which it rarely is on inbound form fills, that's much more of, um,

that, that's much more of like a myth that that happens all the time than is reality.

We just almost never hear that.

So much more often, uh, someone who comes to us is either with some crappy agent who isn't really doing their job or doesn't understand commercial insurance or they're with some D2C player.

And that's like almost a home run because, God, god you give me someone who does business with next and i'll just cash that that register all day long um

even though we write next we do write some next policies um it's just that there's no connection the initial sale has zero relationship so i can i can take that okay so regardless of what she says no matter what she says i'm gonna say to her hey sally i just want to let you know we're workers comp specialists and we're gonna get you squared away.

So, you know, if you can make a commitment to me, I'm going to make this commitment to you that whatever your timeline is, I'm going to turn my proposal around inside that timetable,

get it to you.

I'm going to explain everything about the policy that I can so that you know all the information I know about it.

I never want to have a discussion with you where

I have the power because I have the information.

Okay.

I said, in three, I am going to offer you out of the 42 carriers that we have, have, I'm going to offer you the best coverage and price combination that I can find.

Now, truthfully, there's only three carriers that are going to write your business.

That's Guard, Hartford, or Guard, Pie, and Nationwide.

Okay.

So there's only three.

I said 42, there's only three.

But what I'm telling you is we have access to all the companies.

There's only three that write it.

We're going to quote those three.

But I'm going to come back to you with the best.

pricing and coverage that I have in the timetable that you need.

And I'm going to explain everything you need to know.

If I do that, and it makes sense to you, are you willing to do business with me?

And if she says yes, I got her, 91, 89% of the time.

That's how you handle an inbound lead.

You gotta do a little bit of qualifying that isn't negative, right?

So here's the keys.

Here's the high levels.

And I'm gonna get to the 89% in a second.

So the keys are qualify without being an asshole.

Because look, I used to work for trustedchoice.com and listen to thousands of phone calls that independent agents take from inbound leads from a platform like trustedchoice.com.

And what happens is we pre-qualify like

the decision is to send this person to jail or not, right?

Like we pre-qualify like the person is a complete jerk and we're just trying to get rid of them.

We need to pre-qualify with caring.

Just simple questions.

Hey, you know, why'd you call us?

What's going on?

You know, I love that first question.

Or I just, how can I help?

That's that, that'll, that's another version of my first question hey sally thanks for reaching out really means a lot to me how can we help

and just let them talk right and then dissect a little dissect a little but but always with the hey we're going to get you there i always try to reinforce with oh that's great you know what no problem seen it before seen a thousand times it's all good um we're gonna get you squared sally no worries i say that all the time we're gonna get you squared that that's like my line to them we're gonna get you squared We're gonna get you squared.

Don't worry about it.

We'll get you squared up.

Sally, if it's possible, we're gonna get you squared.

Don't worry.

And what I'm reinforcing to them is like, we got you, because that's what they want.

That's what they want to hear.

All they want to hear is we got you.

That's what they want to hear.

They want to know that when the shit hits the fan, that you're going to be there for them.

And I completely understand that.

I completely understand that.

So

here's, so, so, okay.

So after we've kind of done our pre-qualifying, we've done that, you know, and she says yes, I'll say, okay, here's the next steps and this is the key to the 89 close ratio on this stuff okay

um one and and uh i'll dissect the 89 a little bit more because it's not 89 of all leads that we get in so basically let i'm working a situation where all the you know where the tumblers lined up she could have said hey we do you know excavation you know 10 feet below the surface of the earth I'd be like, yeah, I got to stay fund, right?

Or she could say, you know, we're a dynamite factory.

She could say, like, we clean asbestos out of walls, you know, stuff like that, where there's just not a market.

Okay.

So let's, in this case, there was a market.

She did have a need.

That need was urgent.

If her need is not urgent, we will pause them.

We will not quote them now.

So if she says, hey, yeah, I'm just kind of figuring out what pricing will be.

I'm thinking of starting a business in January.

Hey, Sally, I really appreciate you reaching out.

I'm going to give you a ballpark off the top of my head.

That ballpark is not bindable, guaranteed in any way.

I'm just going to give you a ballpark.

But then I'm going to call you back three months, you know, I'll pick, you know, whatever three months is.

So in this case, I'd say October, November.

I'm going to give you a call back and then we can rate it up because I can't lock in any pricing for you right now.

So, okay, so that would be one that wouldn't happen.

Okay.

So let's say we're going all the way through.

She's committed to if I can deliver on her timetable

that I'm willing to explain everything to her and that she believes that I'm going to give her the best coverage and pricing combination that I I have, that she'll do business with me.

If she agrees to that, okay,

then I, then this is the key.

This is the absolute key to inbound leads, really the key to all sales, but just particularly inbound leads.

And then we'll be done with this episode.

I set expectations for her, what's going to happen next.

I don't want Sally to be surprised by anything.

So, what I say to her is, okay, Sally, the next step is I'm going to get some information from you.

There's some information that I need to run this quote.

She goes, oh, okay, okay.

I go, once I have that information, I'm going to take it and I'm going to go to my carriers and I'm going to shop your insurance and figure out who's the best fit for you.

Okay.

There may be some follow-up questions.

In this case, I'm assuming there really won't be, but there may be.

If there are, I'll hit you up with them.

Is it okay if I text you?

Yeah, great.

Okay.

I always go for text because people respond to text.

Okay.

So

get the text.

So, you know, I have her cell phone number, whatever, and I always, is this, can I text this cell phone number?

Yes, you can.

Okay, great.

So

I say, okay, I'm going to get, once I get that back, if I have any follow-up concerns, I'm going to text you.

Once I have all the info I need and the quotes back, the next thing that's going to happen is I'm going to send you a video proposal.

Okay.

Very simple.

It's going to have a copy of the carrier's proposal and it's going to have a video from me breaking down why I chose that company, why I chose that coverages, and why I think that pricing is the right pricing for you to purchase for this policy.

Okay.

I'm going to send this to you before we get back on the phone.

The reason is I want you to know everything I know because if you know everything I know, then when we have our next conversation, we're operating as equals.

And that's what I want.

How's that sound?

That sounds great, Ryan.

Some people will even say, like, I've never heard that before.

You know, they fucking love it because, one, it's genius.

But

setting that expectation and telling them exactly what they're going to get, they're locked in now.

They're pot committed.

They're like part of the process.

They have like a, they have a schedule.

It's on their calendar, their mental calendar.

This is happening, right?

I've described a deliverable that they're going to get.

It's real.

I just made insurance tangible in a video proposal.

Okay.

Once they get that video proposal, 89% of the time.

So now, okay, so this is how we get to the 89.

So then I got to go shop it.

Sometimes my understanding of the market doesn't work.

You know, in New York, we're not ready janitorial anymore.

You know, again, right, all carriers lie about their appetite.

So,

so, assuming I get a competitively priced

good, the right, the coverage I need at a price that is reasonable, you know, is I get that back from one of the carriers.

If I do that video proposal for them, they close 89% of the time.

89% of the time.

That is how you sell inbound business.

And if you can do that at scale, you will make a shit ton of money.

My friends, I absolutely love you for listening to this podcast.

I hope you know that.

If you enjoyed this episode, share it with a friend.

Share it with someone who needs to hear this stuff.

Leave me a rating, review, whatever.

You know, just whatever you want to do.

You don't have to do anything.

I frankly, you know, either way, it's all good.

I just love you for listening to the show.

I appreciate you guys.

I hope you absolutely crush the remainder of the summer.

Have some fun.

And it'll be football season soon.

So go, Bills.

I'm out of here, bitches.

Peace.

Close twice as many deals by this time next week.

Sound impossible?

It's not.

With the one-call close system, you'll stop chasing leads and start closing deals in one call.

This is the exact method we use to close 1,200 clients in under three years during the pandemic.

No fluff, no end-less follow-ups, just results fast.

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

If you're ready to stop losing opportunities and start winning, visit mastertheclose.com.

That's masteroftheclose.com.

Do it today.

As a designer, you know clients want it all.

A stunning site that runs their business and scales with their success.

But tight deadlines shouldn't mean compromising your vision.

Wix Studio is built for designers like you.

Plan sites in seconds with AI-powered site mapping, then design, starting in Figma or in the Wix Studio editor with precise layout tools.

Then bring your vision to life with no-code animations, AI tools, and one-click responsive design.

Design smoother and deliver sooner.

Go to WixStudio.com.

At Capella University, learning online doesn't mean learning alone.

You'll get support from people who care about your success, like your enrollment specialist who gets to know you and the goals you'd like to achieve.

You'll also get a designated academic coach who's with you throughout your entire program.

Plus, career coaches are available to help you navigate your professional goals.

A different future is closer than you think with Capella University.

Learn more at capella.edu.