RHS 124 `- Ciara Gravier on Winning the Start-Up Agency Game

Hello everyone, welcome back to the show. Today we have an absolutely tremendous episode for you.
We'll be talking with Ciara Gravier, the founder of The Bunker Insurance down in Florida, doing tremendous stuff. Commercial lines agency, love Ciara.
She's an absolute killer. Great at branding.
Great insurance agent. Great agency owner.
And someone I've wanted to have on the show for a long time. And I'm glad that we finally got a chance to spend some time.

I just, I think the world of the way she thinks, tremendous respect for what she's doing and just very happy to share her thoughts, her experience, and her story with you guys. You're going to love this episode.
Before we get there, I want to give a quick shout out to our newest sponsor here on the Ryan Hanley Show, Pathpoint.

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How's it going?

It's Monday.

Yeah.

Tranking along, you know, trying to solve all the problems that came up from Friday at five o'clock till this morning.

Yeah.

Same.

Yeah.

I can't believe we weren't connected on LinkedIn.

I always pull up someone's LinkedIn and I was like, oh, shoot. I got to.
So we're remitting that problem. Yeah.
Immediately.

no i'm excited to have you on the show it's um uh you know i've been a fan from afar for a while and just obviously uh every time i talk to caruthers he's like oh see what cr's doing

and i was like oh i follow on social so um i'm just excited why i said except linkedin apparently except linkedin although yeah because it's funny how and this is just a funny thing about the internet, like if you follow someone one place, which I think I think the place is probably LinkedIn and Facebook.

I know we're connected in those two places. You just kind of like assume that you're connected in all the places everywhere.
Right. Yeah.
Yeah. Cause you know, in my mind, if someone had, I mean,

not that anyone like goes around and like, Hey, insurance agent,

are you connected to this other insurance? Now that that's like a,

like a video or like a hey, insurance agent, are you connected to this other insurance?

Now that that's like a video or like a game show or whatever.

But yeah, I would have said 100%.

Yeah, absolutely.

But all good.

But no, I appreciate you taking some time.

I know you're busy and running the agency and everything.

But I think you have a super cool story.

I know you've told it on David's podcast, but no one listens to that podcast. I want to get it out to the broader market.
And, um, uh, and I just, I just wanted to, you know, I got a whole bunch of questions I want to ask and stuff. I have some questions for you.
Hey, you can fire away too. I got a couple.
This is a, this is a conversation. It is not a, uh, an inquisition.

So you can, uh, you can flip the script whenever you feel you want to, but I guess my, my first

question is always, um, in, in scenarios like yours, like why, why, why start your own agency?

It's so frigging hard. We started around the same time.
I guess I started a couple months before you. Yeah.
I think you're just like six months before. Yeah.
November ish. We had started a little on paper.
We started it earlier, but we weren't really doing anything. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
So that's not even six months. Cause I was like five months, maybe four or five months.
I was very beginning of March of 2020 is when we launched. So, yeah, I was like November 2019.
Yeah. You know, we've had several agencies in my family.
Like, you know, my dad had small states before and my parents always worked for corporate America and they were tired of being abused really in that and being overworked. And at 49, my dad was like, I've had enough and I'm going to open an Allstate.
And so I was with him during those long, hard days of, we started from scratch, zero. We didn't buy a book, you know, and we built it up.
And then we, we figured out that every Allstate agent has an independent on the side. So then i opened up my independent i was upstairs he was downstairs and so he would just you know walk at that time people still came into the office right so like he would walk people upstairs um and then we there was way more money to be made on this side so we got rid of the all-states we had two locations got rid of those kept the independent.
And then he ended up taking that over and he sold and now he's retired. And and then I was like, well, what am I going to do? Right.
I'm still young. Yeah.
So he always made it a point to tell me, listen, if you're going to stay in this industry, make it your career. So he he was one of the people he was always after me, get your designations.
You're going to have to set yourself apart because you're young and you're a woman. It's, it is what it is.
So that's why, you know, I have a couple of designations. He was like, you just have to show that you you're invested in this as your career.
It's not like you're trying it out, you know? So that's what I did. And then what am I going to do? You know, I, I liked the agency side.
I hadn't really worked for anyone ever outside of, out of high school. Yeah.
I had a job in high school at a veterinarian office, which I loved because I love dogs, but you know, from working for my dad and responding to him as a boss to going, I've never done it. Yep.
I've been very fortunate with that. So he was just like, just be your own boss.
You can do it. We've done it twice.
This is what, you know, and I was like, and he, he, you know, gave me the platform to try it again. He, he always pushes me to just try it again.
And I'm like, well, yeah, I think I should. And then here I am doing commercial only.
Yeah. Okay.
So this might be, this might be trivial, but did you ever regret letting the Allstate brands go? Was that a good lead gen or not? Or no. Yeah.
Never regret it ever. Yeah.
We regret it ever. We learned a lot with Allstate as far as underwriting.
It was, I think that it's very good training for someone that has no knowledge of insurance. Yeah.
Very good training because the, at least at that time, I'm talking 20 years ago, you know, they were very hands-on, almost two hands-on. And then once you got the hang of it and they still were hands-on, it's like, all right, I got it.
You know, I know how to do it now, but we learned a lot and, and we've, we've been very successful with kind kind of being underwriters upfront. You know, we don't write bad business, even at our independent, we never wrote, um, like non-standard business ever.
We don't do that now ever. Like it's just, it does teach you some of the initial underwriting, how to make a complete submission, how to just, you know, do things right.
So we were very appreciative of our time with Allstate. Yeah.
Why do you think a couple is five in South Florida? It's like a South Florida thing. Cause you said a couple of designations and you have at least five designations.
So I'm wondering, is that like a South, is that like a South Florida thing where you say a couple and you know, I just want to brag. okay let's be okay the CAC and the CRM you can get both you know together yeah so I was like well I mean I have the time I might as well do that so that was a two for one guys yeah the only one if you had if you threw the CPCU on the end of it one you'd run out of c's i don't think the i don't think you can use any more c's on the last one i'm gonna get rid of the last one that's like the one that i got first and it was like it's like a it's nothing it's not like real yeah the cpcu is crazy i passed the first one and then i was just like, I did it when we had sold.

And I was like, well, if I'm going to become an underwriter, you know, maybe that one is good for that. And I did.
I passed the first course. And then the second one, it was like actuarial stuff.
And I'm like, I'm out. Yeah.
I'm out. And it's self-taught.
Yes. So it's difficult.
Yeah, it's very, very. That one's very hard.
At my wife's agency, one of the women who is, is she has a CP, she got her CPCU and it took her like a decade. And that's not because she's not brilliant.
I mean, she's very, very, she's awesome at her job. She's awesome.
I mean, to be honest with you, if I could hire her away from my wife, I would, but, but it just was that hard and time consuming and the self-study. And it was just, it was like a huge deal when she got it.
And then you buy the books. And then if you don't do it within that window, they can update the material.
You got to rebuy it. So it's, I, I was like, it's enough.
I will say, and this is, I'm going to develop some haters out there. I don't mean it.
I don't mean this in a negative sense. It is just an observation that I've made is that people with the CPCU, I think, tend to struggle if they're not of the right disposition in sales only because they're taught underwriting, which is saying, no, here's all the reasons why you need to say no, where sales is, here's all the reasons why I think you should say yes.
And I have found, now, again, I'm going to get 10 freaking LinkedIn DMs. I sell a million dollars in revenue every year, Ryan, like on my CPC.
Yeah, I'm just saying in general, broad soup and stroke. I feel like it is a designation, unlike the CIC, which I found incredibly helpful for sales.
Incredibly helpful. And to a certain extent, I wish I still had.
I'm a dumbass. And I, when I went to trusted choice, I let it, I let it lapse.
Yeah. I'm an idiot.
And if I, if I, I wish I could have kept it going. I know I really do.
But I've just found the CPCU sometimes is a little no based because we're a little underwriting heavy. So I mean, I only did the first one, but I can understand how it's useful in that space more than on the sales side for sure.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Cool. So, um, so another thing I want to get, I want to talk a little bit about the brand too, but the decision to go, so all state is obviously highly, I mean, you have some commercial, but definitely I'm sure you were writing tons of personal, personal, right.
And then, um, you could see independent. I'm sure you picked up a little bit of commercial, but probably still did a lot of personal.
When you started the bunker, you went fully commercial. Do you do any personal at all? We did.
We started doing some commercial because that's what we know. We did some commercial at our last agency.
We bought a book. It had a couple of large accounts.
So, so we did, we know how to do commercial, but not like, well, that's why we joined killing commercial, not the middle market stuff of trying to get in there. Like that's a whole nother thing that we did not do.
Um, but we did, uh, do, I did start with some homeowners, but you know, it's impossible to get appointments here. Yeah.
Almost nearly impossible. So I had some relationships with some of the homeowners carriers that had been with us in Saul state and they came through for me real big.
That's great. But as soon as COVID came, they shut down.
Yeah. Everything is going to citizens, which is the state.
And I do not write with citizens. I don't want to, and it's a hassle and they pay you nothing.
So I was like, I'm not going to open this agency to be a citizen's agency. So then I checked this morning.
I have a 4% of my book is personal. I have about nine policies.
That's it. That's pretty similar to us.
I actually

just have, I have, it's funny. So I have this guy, he's a nice enough guy, but he has a, he has a $900 auto policy and a $481 homeowners policy with us.
And he wants to talk to me specifically. And I said, Hey, Robert, can you talk to Leslie on my team? She has the answers that you're looking for, which is basically like, dude, you have, you're paying nothing for your insurance.
Stay where you are. Like, especially because rates in New York, we just got an announcement, you know, we're probably going to see 15 to 20% increases in rates, which we're going to see around the country, but you know, that that's all coming.
So, um, but like, so it's just like, stay right where you are. You're in perfect.
And she says it. And then he writes me this whole big email about how he's concerned about his relationship with our agency.
And I emailed my wife and I'm like, do you want this guy? Like I will be, or this accounts right now, like you can have them. He's perfect.
You know what I mean? Like, let him like, you will this guy and he'll be happy with you. He's not going to be happy with me.
You know what I mean? So it's like, I I'm with you. I feel like it's so difficult.
The deeper I get into doing commercial and, and, and doing it better. Right.
I'm not going to say I do it right yet. Cause there's a lot of things I'd like to tweak, but certainly doing it better every day.
Man, the less I'm less. I am zero interest in person.

And here, yes, the premiums are big.

They're they're big.

Yeah.

Homeowner's policy is five grand.

Right.

But dealing with the mortgage brokers and the realtors and the closings and I don't have the staff.

Yeah.

Keep up with it and the service behind it.

And then the competition.

It's just I feel like there's not much extra value that you can add in that space personally I feel like in the commercial space especially because we are in South Florida there's a lot of people that come from other countries that have money and have and are coming here to open businesses and they have no idea how anything works here yeah I feel like we have I mean we I mean, we speak Spanish. All of us here speak Spanish.
So we're able to help these people find an attorney, find an accountant, you know, set up their businesses from the ground up. Right.
They can trust us. That's the problem.
They come here and they don't know who to trust. So I feel like I, and then it just makes me feel good because I feel like I'm actually helping someone.
I'm not just slinging a homeowner's policy. Here's your deductibles.
You know, like I like it way more. Have you got into the startup scene at all? I know Miami is one of the fastest growing startup and tech scenes in the entire country.
Have you been able to tap into that at all? I haven't yet, but it is on my list. Yeah.
I've been noticing that and seeing the influx. I just saw like last week, I think it was, there's about like 16 companies coming in.
Yeah. Yeah.
I know that that's picking up. I mean, I probably know a little bit too much about not the specific companies.
I just, a couple of the podcasts that I listened to that are in the crypto space, not necessarily about crypto in particular, but they're just startup related. And these guys are just talking about how there are just so many companies that are either opening up large offices here or moving offices here, or that are like founders that would have normally started up in Silicon Valley are now founding in South Florida for a whole bunch of reasons.
I mean, one, if you start your company there, you don't, you're not, you're not having to deal with California taxes and regulation. And the other side is it's just such a budding new scene.
It's just, it's cool. And you're, you know, you're right there, Fort Lauderdale, you know, you're basically right there.
So that's cool. It's not far.
Yeah. It's, it's definitely on my, on my list.
Like I, I follow a couple hashtags on Instagram of like women in tech, Miami tech and stuff. And I'm seeing some of the events, which I'm going to go to.
Yeah, that's cool. Pop up.
Yeah, they're I find that that tech stuff is really interesting. It's we don't have a ton of accounts.
I, you know, I say I say all this to you. And then, you know, obviously, I'm not drinking my own Kool-Aid.
We have New York, you know, it's only two and a half hours from here. I've gotten a few accounts from New York City that are startup tech related.
And they are really fun to work on. I find it a very interesting class because.
Who do you write them with? So we've written Chubb and Hartford have been the majority. And then we, the tech, you know, Chubb has a tech, you product they just that's that's actually pretty good i like it but um they tend to be fairly selective in who they'll they'll they'll write it with so then we have i've pretty much written all the rest of the tech you know has been with beasley so beasley's been the tech you know for us yeah yeah i don't i don't have any direct appointments like that so i have to go through brokers so it's a challenge for me to even get familiar like i asked for like uh specimens of the policies and stuff but i live in like excess and surplus world yeah yeah so it's it's been that's been a me to, you know, and then you have these underwriters and these brokers that say that they do it all.
Yes, they can do it. But like, that's why I'm, I'm, I started working with pro writers and they've been very, very helpful.
They're reliable. My underwriter there will take the time, explain things to me.
Like I've really enjoyed it. My relationship so far with them

because of that, because they're the specialists. I really like pro writers.
Um, I, I use RT specialty to get to Beasley because pro writers doesn't have Beasley yet, but other than that Beasley relationship, that's I've gone to pro writers quite pro writers has been the big one i i agree with you i think

brian thornton and oh geez what is her name uh man our direct our direct underwriters they've just been they have been uh very good very professional i like that they have multiple carriers they can walk you through i think that's tremendous so i don't know i, you know, I, I feel bad that you don't do any direct appointments. I can't, as, as it's got to find a way, there's got to be a way, right? I mean, what, what is the, why would they say no? What are they saying no to? well i mean progressive i had a book with progressive at my other agency

for 12 years on their special tier commission. And they won't give me an appointment because I don't have three years of, because I'm not an agency owner for three years.
Progressive is the worst though. But I wrote business, good business with you.
I'm on a higher tier commission for 12 years. So you're going to take someone, someone that will show you that, okay, I've owned an agency for three years, but you've never seen me produce.
Yeah. That doesn't make any sense.
Is it the South? Is it the Southern Florida thing? Yeah. That's what it is.
Yeah. Because none of these people write property here either.
So it's like they, they, so even I have access to like the Hartford through Halcyon, which is also owned through Brown and Brown. So I don't like to use them.
Yeah. So, you know, like, I'm, I feel like I can't trust them with my stuff.
You know, what might be a good fit for you is, um, uh, the Simon agency, which is there, uh, they're just a straight wholesaler out of New York city, but they have, they have next, they have Hartford, they have Amtrust, they have, and I'll tell you for small liability policies, next is great. Um, did you hook up a coterie? I did.
Yeah. Coterie is great too.
I'm very happy that they added hired and not owned. Now I will use them.
Yes. That was the other thing that I wanted them to add.
And I think they're coming out with it in early 2022 is is a sublimit for sexual abuse for some of their like professional and sports and camp line, like sports camps. Like I wrote a tennis instructor the other day who does events and it was perfect.
You get your GL, your PL, it's all together. Like it's super clean, super easy.
But then we had to write the sexual abuse on like a separate form, which sucked, you know what I mean? Cause then it's just like another thing, which, you know, but, but I'm very happy though. I have them and I haven't used them because I need that hired and on, but I'm glad that they came out with it.
It is very difficult to write a general liability policy today and not have a hired and on endorseowned endorsement on it. But that's, you know, unless they, unless they have that, that separate auto policy, you know, you're, I don't know.
I feel like you were like, so down here with the bops, right. It's, it's a challenge because any of those Bob carriers, which there's not many still doing it, they don't, they won't do the wind.
Yeah. So it's like, I can't move them there and then have not have the hired or not know i have to give them at least that and then i do the separate property yep yeah that makes a lot of sense i'm very happy that i came out with that though that's good yeah that was a good one well i think simon would be a good one um well i'll send you some other recommendations offline that i mean these are these are not tried and these aren't like set in stone.
They're just some of that. I do have an Amtrust appointment for the comp.
I have some direct, I have an Amtrust and ICW. Amtrust is good.
I wish, but they won't do anything else. Amtrustism is, oh, they, they haven't opened up the rest.
Just beat them over the head. Just pound them over the head.
Pound them over the head. I just need a daycare, right? A daycare.
I have a direct appointment with Amtrust only for workers comp. I got a quote through Wesco for the daycare through Halcyon.
I can't do it direct. Just here's, here's my method.
And for, for, for marketing reps, I will literally email them every, I'll just make their life hell. I'll just email, email, email, email.
Here's another account you lost. Here's another account you lost.
Here's another account you lost and finally they're just like what i gotta get more aggressive with that it's a button push for them this is you know what i mean all the guy goes goes into a system and he goes the bunker open i mean it's not like and in their mind they're like oh we need to make sure that she's gonna write enough comp with us i don't come on i don't get it i don't get it well and here's the this is this is the, this is what I said to him. I said, bro, if you open up your stupid comp restrictions and you make it so I can actually write accounts, I'll write accounts.
But if you say the first nine things I sent to Amtrust, they declined. And I was like, guys, this is not how you start a relationship.
Like, you know, you can't, you know, but they're like, well, you're new. So we're, we got a heavier pen.
I'm like, wait, wait, just think about that. You want me to get rolling with you.
You just sent me an email that said, Hey, let's get rolling. Right.
Like some stupid marketing email. And you climb the first nine things because I'm new and you're unsure about my submissions.
I'm like, where's the logic here? Where's the logic now? I will say once we had these talks and stuff, um, we, we've been, we've been, we've been writing more and more with Amtrust, but, um, it just, I just, I don't know. I have no problem talking smack about how these carriers operate at our level.
Right. Like, because, because, and this is why, you know, it's a big game because if you add, if you like, you like were swinging some like three million dollar book they would do anything that you wanted they would anything what do you want us to do we'll do it it's like i mean i had it though yeah i did have it you know they have someone's track record like you have it should it should not be that it shouldn't matter yeah it really But I mean, and I just did come through and it's like the same rep.
Our rep is super nice, very helpful. Yeah.
So I'm glad that I have them on my side, but it's that, that has been a challenge for me. Um, you know, putting business on the books because my, my, my, my arms are tied.
Yeah. The, the, that, that extended, that extended relationship is tough.
I, that's one of the reasons. So I will only work with excess lines brokers now who have quote bind issue platforms.
So like we're really developing relationships with Pathpoint and RT specialties version of that, which is RT connector. So now I started using that.
I love these two platforms and I won't say that I have a winner or loser yet. They both have advantages and disadvantages.
Um, I'm perfectly fine using both of them. I like both of them.
I think both are doing a good job. Um, I just think I'm very happy and excited about this movement to where like some of these smaller excess lines accounts and property accounts in particular, like I had a guy, he needed, he needed $50,000 in property coverage for chemicals that he stored that weren't necessarily hazardous, but they were, you know, chemicals and who the heck is going to write that? So, you know, it's excess lines.
Well, normally now I got to put together a 125, I'm going to put together a 140 or whatever it is. And then, you know chemicals and you know who the heck is going to write that so you know it's excess lines well normally now i gotta put together a 125 i'm gonna put together a 140 or whatever it is and then you know that's so much time and with connector you just jump in you know 10 seconds later you're like oh 700 bucks perfect let's go and um that's a game changer i think it is a lot of this stuff it is especially for someone like me that I have everything I do has to wait.
I have to wait. Yeah.
Like I got this one really good underwriter now that he's young and he like, I have his cell phone. I could text him.
I call him and he turns things around for me same day, which has had a substantial change in our agency because now he's my first choice. Yeah.
I don't have like even the prior relationships that I have, it's just like, I can't wait two days for a quote anymore. I just can't.
Yeah. I, uh, I really struggle with the, um, I had a, I had a carrier give me the, uh, the franchise value talk the other day.
Just don't do you understand the franchise value of having an appointment with us? And I was like, no, what am I getting? What does that get me? You know what I mean? Like, like, what am I, how much am I, are you increasing the multiple on my, when someone buys me because I have an appointment with you? I don't know. Yeah, I guess I don't, I don't understand.
And, and, and, and, um, and they were responding to my beef, which was they were like, well, how come we're not getting as many submissions as we did earlier? You know, like when you first were starting and I said, well, I've taken on a couple more carriers and they respond to me quicker and I could care less if I write them with them or you. And it's like, they had, they were blown away.
Like they were like, what, what, what do you mean? You don't care. I'm like, I don't care if I placed a business with you or them and whoever gets back to me first is who gets the, like you, what you're the paper, you know, the words on the piece of paper and your contract are almost verbatim to the words on the paper on their contract.
So I don't, I don't care if it's with you or with them. It's whoever gets back to me first.
If I got to wait three days for you and they're getting back to me in a day, they're getting the business. That's there's no, I don't care about franchise value.
It doesn't mean anything to me. This morning, I just got a declination for a workers comp account that had an effective date of 1022.
We sent that to them in September. This morning, I sent it to Guillermo.
I said, just in case you were waiting still, there it is. Here's your declination.
Well, here's the worst part. Someone was working on that.
Like that's the crazy part. There is someone at a carrier who's, who was working on that account morning at six o'clock in the morning.
They're like, Oh, I got declined you know and and they're wasting you're like i didn't even know that this was still out there they had already declined it it's it's baffling it's it's it's baffling and then you get the uh again we're just trashing carriers right now but i think i think they need general ribbing it's i mean we we're all partners i We all need each other. But like at the same point, like, I don't know, like I got this from my chub guy the other day, Ryan, you don't understand.
We're having a hard time staffing because of COVID I'm like, bro, we're, we're almost 24 months into this thing. Like you need to figure it out.
Like we're, you know what I mean? Like, come on, you're chugged. Throw a freaking.
Exactly. Indeed.
Zip recruiter, LinkedIn, LinkedIn recruiting. Like, there you go.
Go get some. I mean, that's not an excuse at that level.
Oh, I just was like, bro, this is taking way too long. Right.
You don't understand. He's the nicest guy too.
He's the nicest guy. Yeah.
He's the nicest guy. I have no beef with him.
I just like, just like man because i know it's not he's not the one doing the staff and making any decisions he's a messenger but i'm like dude i don't care no everyone's having the same issues you're not i am like we're having the issues of of finding people so i mean we can't tell that to our customers yeah so um so what stuff is working for you? Like what, and I don't mean that like a bunch of stuff isn't working, just, you know, what is, what is, so you've, you've kind of had this very unique career and that you, you haven't had to go work for it. You've been able to kind of craft and have a lot of autonomy and insight into running the business.
And you've seen the personal lines and you've seen captive and you've seen independent and now you're fully commercial, essentially your own agency. Like what is the stuff that's really hitting home for you? What do you get excited about? You know, what is it for you? Yeah, we, we, so we joined killing commercial and we have our, you know, what we're doing there.
And that has really been the best thing that we've done because I did some commercial, but it was also either we bought it in the book. It was a referral.
We never went and got it ourselves like those large, large middle market accounts. So learning how to do that has been very good.
And I'm very, I mean, COVID has been a terrible thing, but I, I think if COVID wouldn't have happened, I don't know that I would have done, you know, made the investment into Killing Commercial because I would have been busy doing homeowners policies. So I think that for our agency, you know, we, we use that time to really learn how to get it, our foot in the door and the process down and all of that stuff and the lingo to speak.
we just had, we didn't get the account, but it was our first one of the killing commercial, you know, target that we were going after. And it was us versus Brown and Brown, which was the incumbent.
And, you know, we asked all the right questions. We did, you know, we asked her, listen, if we're going to, if she had a mod above a one, we did everything.
It was textbook. You know, you know and then we asked the question listen you don't have an insurance problem you know you need risk management you're gonna you're they're gonna close your doors if you don't get this under control yeah because she had a lot auto losses too and she said no she said she was not going to sign the br and we were like okay well we did it felt like we needed to, to get that experience at that level.
And also, especially going up against Brown and Brown and, and another really, really large agency down here in South Florida. So we were like, let's, let's just go through the process and learn.
And at least it gives us the confidence to ask the questions. She was, she was helpful.
She, she wasn't like, no, I'm not going to send you anything. I'm not going to sign that.
She was helpful giving us all the information we, we needed. And we even asked her what's your connection to your Brown and Brown person.
Cause they, she had just gotten to them last year. So this was her first renewal with them.
So we're like, okay, she's not connected. There's not like a relationship there.
So, you know, she ended up staying with them. And then when we're sitting there presenting to her, what we had's like oh you know i do a lot of work for them you're electricians why are you wasting time yeah i mean you know but it that that experience has already given us the the knowledge of how to ask the questions and how to get our foot in the door.
It was necessary. We, we learned a lot.
It was a win for us anyway, because right after that, we, we, we've realized that the way we used to do commercial, where it's like, someone would call us and be like, Hey, you know, like I have, I need a GL. I need this.
Okay. Well, here's some supplementals, which is torture.
Here's some supplementals, fill it out. We'll talk.
Now we We got phone call, a referral from, from a lady, an elevator company. She got hit with an $80,000 audit because her, her agent misrepresented the sales.
And we're like, well, we can't help you until you hire us. You know, before I would have tried to fix it and then hope she gave me the policies.
So I think that doing business this way is way more fun, way more fun and obviously profitable because I'm not going to work for you until you hire me. Yep.
So I think that that's the biggest piece. I got a call, um, last week I sent an email saying, Hey, I'm, I know you probably already got your renewal, but you're paying 40% more on your comp.
Did you know what has your agent told you? The lady called me crying on the phone. My agent is not helping me.
I'm getting non-renewed. We need help.
Can you help us? I got her non-renewal lifted because I wrote a narrative about them. Lost runs, the mod report, everything, A submission this tall.
And I got her non-renewal lifted. And her agent couldn't do that.
Yeah, that's awesome. That makes me feel like I saved these people's business.
Yeah. That warms my heart.
And I was like, this is what I love to do. For sure.
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And I'd love for you to leave a comment about the show because I read all the comments or if you're on apple or spotify leave a rating review of this show i love you for listening to this show and i hope you enjoy it listening as much as i do creating the show for you all right i'm out of here peace let's get back to the episode i think that's awesome i um i i think that's i love that I love the, and I think, I think that's probably why most of the people listening love what we do, uh, is, is when you get to like really be a true value provider, problem solver, it's great. I struck, what I struggle with as a business owner is that I want to help both types of people.
So I also get off on building the systems and processes around helping that person. Who's like calling you, who's buying their first truck or, or their con and like, man, can some of those be a pain in the ass? Like, oh, it can be such a pain in the ass.
But I, um, I wrote down really early in rogues, like history, this concept of no customer left behind that I'd been in so many rooms and I'm not saying this is what you're saying by any, by any regards, but, um, I've been in so many rooms where agents would say things like those small accounts like I don't want, you know, or, you know, excess lines. We don't do that.
Or, you know, this stuff. And I completely get it.
Like, I completely get why they say that. Like, it can be a hassle.
And people who have $500 bops, you're making 50 on it 60 bucks total remind them for their payments yes and their payments and they still gonna call you and I and I get all that and then there's this other part of me and maybe it's a maybe I don't know what it is maybe it's a personality feeling but like the fact that other agents that agents look at that stuff and don't want it makes me want it because I see opportunity. Like we're really getting into excess lines big time.
And we're writing a lot of it. Mostly because other agents don't want to deal with it.
So it's not. So, example, we don't have a threshold, right? And I'm not, we've even scaled down the people that we were going after because we feel like we can't provide value.
Like for example, if they have, you know, a board that decides, I don't feel like I'm useful. Yeah.
Which I probably shouldn't say that about myself or maybe you probably would be, I probably would be, but I just don't, I don't feel like I'm useful. Yeah.
Which I probably shouldn't say that about myself.

Yeah, you probably would be. I probably would be, but I just don't, I don't, I like to help.
Like I said, the, you know, we have a manufacturer here that's from South America. It's a hundred thousand dollar account, him and his partner.
And they call us for everything because they need help. That's what, that is what I love.
That business owner that has, you know, has the money to do it. And but really needs some guidance.
Yeah, that's really and it's usually not, you know, I'm not making, you know, 25,000 in revenue on those accounts. But I'm okay with that.
Yeah, I'm fine with that. And I'm with you.
I think that I think I think there's just a lot of, especially in small commercial, which everyone defines differently, but I think in small commercial, for me, for our agency, we define anything under 150,000 and premium is small commercial. That's our space.
And then anything over 150, we would call middle market. I think that's still probably small for some true, certainly for middle market shops.
But for us, that's what I would say. Yeah, mine's probably lower.
Well, so we have what we call select business is 25,000 improvement under. That is very transactional.
It is. What's the problem? Here's the solution.
Do you want it or you don't want it? We have a very defined process, very defined funnel. It's like, it's step by step by step by step by step.
It's, you know what I mean? Like it is, get through, get through it fast. And that 25,000 and under, we call that select.
Anything over 25,000 in premium, we call Rogue Premier. And that is what we call true small.
That's probably true small business. Anything under $25,000 is probably micro.
I don't know. You know what I mean? I guess micro really is whatever.
Every defined, this is how we define it. But then over that $150,000, we would have to put some thought into, and we only have one account at that level right now, we would have to, we would have to put some thought into, we only have one account at that level right now.
We would have to put some real thought today, today's version of rogue into whether or not we were willing to take that on only because I would be like you, like I would be nervous that we're not set up to handle that kind of account today. That's how I feel.
Yeah. Yeah, not, I'm not set up for it.
And not saying one day, I mean, the goal is to be set up for it. But right now I'm not.
And then like how much service comes, especially if they're contractors, if they're manufacturers, he, the service wise, it's better. But if it's a contractor that size, the service is heavy.
Yeah. We have one that we charge.
we actually do a policy fee on because they do so many friggin i have i have such mixed emotions on on the fees and i have come around to them i just told them last week i was like you know what maybe i'm just not meant to make money but i feel bad i feel i feel like I feel like it's my job to do that. So I used to a hundred percent agree with you.
Policy fees are for scoundrels and the whole thing. Like I, you know what I mean? Like that's the way I felt.
Like if you, why are you feeing this? We get paid a commission. And I will say, you know, again, this is not advocating one tool over another, but AgencyZoom released this service pipeline feature, which tracks time per task.
So now I can actually see if we put a task in one of the service pipelines, how long it takes to go through, how many we've had, how many touches. It's pretty cool.
It's not like Salesforce in depth, but it's pretty in depth. And two things that I saw were CUI requests and billing were our two biggest time sucks.
Solved a lot of the billing issues by moving over to Ascend, which is just a payment tool, which we really like, helped us a lot uh but but for the cois there's some ways to streamline it and we're working on those but man it's just some of these accounts we're talking like three four cois a day for one account when i see that i saw that and i just said to them i said god i said to this because it's you know it's comp so we not, we're only making like 9% and I'm doing the math on this.

And I'm like, we're getting killed.

Like absolutely killed.

So you don't have a portal?

You don't have like a self-service portal?

We're on now.

I don't have one yet either.

We're on now certs.

Okay.

I've been, people have been giving me a lot of crap lately for trashing now certs okay uh i've been i've people have been giving me a lot of crap lately for trashing now certs i don't i don't have any so and i have hawksoft as my managing system they have a portal i guess but i haven't yeah i'm really hoping that something like glovebox is is awesome i'm just i just assume it's gonna take a while because i they're not there yet. So I'm not really...
There is a thing. It is not great.
So we basically, our VA that we have through agency VA, his number one, two, and three responsibility in our agency is COIs. So when one comes in, he drops whatever else he's doing, unless he's also doing a COI at that point.
And he does that COI. So we're able to do our right since he's basically, but that's a full human body task to basically one thing.
And then he just backfills some, some smaller tasks when he has time. And so we, we policy feed that account and they didn't even blink at it.
They were like, Oh, that makes sense. I was actually waiting for that because we sent so many requests to you.
Didn't even blink. And I was like, so am I on the dark side now? Or am I an idiot? Yeah.
I don't know. I don't know.
I'm struggling with that. I'm struggling with it.
bad. Honestly, I just feel, I feel like, I feel like I could use that against the agency that does charge them.
Now the difference is you, so this, and this is, cause I thought about that too, cause this is, this is a tough topic. And I, and I get that.
And there's people that are out there that are listening to this going, I policy fee everything. And there's people out there that are going, I would never, I'm with, I'm with you.
I would never policy feeling. I, here's what I would say.
If one of my competitors took this account and didn't charge a policy fee, I would be fine with it. Cause I would know that they were losing money.
They're losing. Yeah.
Yeah. They're not, I just, I've done the math and I just, the reason, and I don't think the policy fee was outrageous.
It's not like I did some crazy number. It just, I did the math on the amount of time and how much we were making and we are, we were losing money without the policy fee.
So for a rewrite, I understand I'm down with the policy fee because if you cancel and you're one of those people, you deserve it. I'm down with that.
Um, I feel like it's just, I'm, I'm struggling with it. And you know, I've, I've, the podcast that you had with James Jenkins was so, so good.
The one about like, are you running a business or are you running an insurance agency? Ever since I heard that podcast, I have, it is a struggle because I am an insurance agent first. I'm trying to do this side and I'm trying to do this side better.
Um, you know, and like now at renewal time, I sit with my renewal list and I think, okay, well, what am I making on this account? Is it worth it? I'm thinking in revenue now, which it's been a shift, but I feel like I just, and it would, it would, it multiplies pretty quickly too with the policy fees. So it really does add up.
So yeah'm trying to think. I think you just set a poll.
I think if you can get a close calculation on revenue for a specific account, I think it's just a calculation. I mean, I would not have, I mean, in all transparency to everyone listening, I would not have policy feed this account if the math didn't make it unprofitable.
And the, and the, the, the commission on the policy per the time that it was taking with the number of COIs we were getting, it just made it unprofitable. And that's where the VA who, who, you know, it's not like we're paying a full-time client success person who's licensed in the U S.
So if this was a, this is a client success person, someone here in the States and we were paying States rates, we would have been getting slaughtered. I mean, it was, you know, so that was the calculation.
The thing with James Jenkins, I think this is the hardest part of our business is one, the self-awareness. And obviously you already have it of, am I a producer agency owner or an agency owner who sometimes has to produce? I think that's a really, I think that's very tough self-awareness question for a lot of people.
And I recently had to let a producer, one of my producers go. Thankfully, I hired another one on the same day who just started today, who I'm super excited.
Shout out to Will. And I, so, so like the last two weeks has been all hands on deck.
One, I don't know if you've ever, and you probably have, and many people probably have have but this is the first time i had to have to look through a producer's email inbox who you had to let go it's like you you're essentially like knifing yourself in the chest like every 30 seconds because you're like wow there's a bind order he just never forwarded on to the service team what the you know i mean you're like as you're chugging freaking whiskey on the side to calm your nerves. So many things undone.
Yeah. How is this, how is this person existing? Like, no wonder they want to play.
Yeah. That's why I just finished reading traction.
And I mean, there's two of us here, you know, so it's a lot where I don't, I'm trying to like scale it down to me for what I can implement right now. But that's one of the things too, about like firing quickly.
Like if you, if you mess, if you were back and forth about letting this person go, I mean, how much, how much did you miss what they didn't do? Yes. Like it's, here's the crazy part.
So I'll just, I'm, I'm candid about numbers, but like, so he was, his goal was like 65,000 in premium, right? Which to me felt like commercial. Yeah.
Felt like a fucking layup layup. I mean, we have 215 leads a month that come into our agency inbound.
This is a layup. This is like, this is like Michael Jordan putting a perfect pass right on your hands as you're going up into the, I mean, this is like, it doesn't get any more easy.
This might be Michael Jordan shooting a three and all you have to do is like tap it on the way in. And if you could jump that high.
And, you know, he was not hitting that number, not even close. And so whatever, no, no big deal.
You know, i'm training and i'm trying i'm not the best

trainer so some of this is on me and in whatever and to traction's point i think it was more of a

a a a right butt wrong seat kind of situation like i think he's gonna have a tremendous career

in the insurance industry and i would i actually would would give him a glaring a very positive

review just wasn't right for us but that's okay well sure shit in two weeks we had our we have

Thank you. I actually would give him a glaring, a very positive review.
It just wasn't right for us, but that's okay. Well, sure shit.
In two weeks, we have our first two weeks of me producing on these leads. We have our first 100,000 premium month in our history.
So 17 months in, whack, there's six figures in premium. Just in two weeks of me working, I'm going, I'm having panic attacks.
Cause I'm like, we could have been doing this for months and months and months and be how much further along. I probably could have had another two or three producers by now.
If we had been producing at that level. And like now, now I'm having panic attacks.
Now I'm like questioning everything, life decisions. Yeah.
Everything, every, what do you do? I mean, so what's the solution where do you like, do you audit? How do you not use specifically, but what is the solution? Do you audit them? Do you, I don't know. I think the solution, so it's a really good question.
I think, um, I made a couple mistakes that if I were the consult, a third party consultant, I think would have been very obvious. And I, you know, that I just, so one, you need to have a regular, you need to have someone who's a sales access as a true sales manager.
Now that would have had to have been me, right. Or, or, but someone in your agency has to be a sales manager.
How many calls did you make today? How did they go? What's going on? What do you have like that really annoying shit that, that sales managers do. It's important because it forces people to stay on it.
And you can kind of figure out what's happening sooner too. I was a poor mentor.
So I take full credit for that. I, I, I'm obviously doing a few other things that not every agency owner does.
And, and, and some of those things, I didn't slow down and be a real mentor and I should have been that. And I wasn't, and I'll take, I take full responsibility for that.
So I think that those two things. But that's good that you know that though.
That's good because you have the power to change that aspect of it. And then, you know.
I think those, if I had done those two things, those two things were different. I would have caught and or moved, gone a different direction earlier and or possibly been able to right the ship and everything would have been fine.
So, you know, I think it was a couple of different things. It was just, it was a really good lesson as a leader.
I'm glad it happened early. Yeah.
It does make me want to run headfirst into a wall thinking about, oh my God, stepping into this maelstrom for two weeks, I was able to do this much like, oh my God, but whatever. So you said you had questions for me.
I want to be respectful of your time. So whatever you have, fire away.
Yeah. So I have to book time on your calendar.
You told me a while back back ago and I have not about SEO. Yeah.
And I just, you know, do you have a crypto calendar? Do I have a crypto? Yeah. Where I could ask you questions about that.
Is it too late for me to get into it? Like what's the deal? My brother-in-law's constantly telling me, see what are you waiting for? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.
So if you want you want to get into crypto it's never the cool thing about crypto is it's never too late do you like to go to the casino no i don't do you bet on sports i don't do any of that don't do any of that okay all right so all right so the good news is you're not a degenerate gambler no i'm not that's the bad news is you won't be attracted to the 24-hour nature of the gambling that is cryptocurrency. That being said, so the cool thing about crypto is that no one really has any idea what it's going to be.
That being said, because I think we're in like the top of the first inning, if this were a baseball analogy for crypto. Like it is, it is, we are just, just getting started.
Like people will be like, oh, well, in 2017, all these things were 100th of what the value is today. But in 2017, this was such a long shot.
You had to be a crazy person to put any substantial amount of money in. And the people who you see on like the TV that have gotten these, like, you know, change their whole life.
Like they were living in a gutter and now they're like have their own yacht. Those are crazy people.
Those are legit. Those people are legit bonkers.
And they just cashed a one in a trillion lottery ticket. Okay.
But now with all that. Yeah.
Today, one, it's a little more stable. I don't think the technology and the networks that are being built are going away.
What they're going to be, how much are they going to be valued at, which ones are going to be the winners and losers? You can have opinions and I certainly do. I just don't know that anyone knows for sure.
Bitcoin seems like it's not going away. That feels like, you know, Ethereum, there's a couple others that feel like they're not going away.
What they're ultimately valued at, do they go to a million? Do they go down to $10? I don't know that anyone knows, but it does feel like they're going to be here.

The technology itself, which I've really nerded out on is incredibly interesting, incredibly interesting. And I actually had this guy, shoot, I'm going to forget his name, but he's from steady state defy insurance.
He was on the podcast. His episode is maybe like four or five weeks ago, somewhere in the last few months.
Yeah. Yeah.
And he, so he said some really cool shit on the air. The stuff that he said off the air was even more incredible.
Just, and I can't really share exactly what it was other than he, and again, he's 25 years old, who the hell knows, but he did seem pretty brilliant to me. He's just like, we're literally just getting started.
So I would say take some small amount of money, very small, you know, whatever that is for you and get a Coinbase account and like buy some Bitcoin, buy some Ethereum, buy some Cardano, like just buy like four or five of the blue chip kind of cryptocurrencies and just watch them. And then what's naturally going to happen is you're going to do a little research and then that's going to turn you on to something else.
And then, you know, if something fun happens and one of them goes crazy, you win. But, um, you know, I kinda, I have my bets on the table.
I haven't bought in, in a while. I've kind of just been letting it ride, but, uh, I don't know.
It's interesting. It's just, yeah, I know.
I know it's a whole thing, but I feel like it's not that I don't trust it. I just don't, I feel like I don't have the time to dedicate to it.
Yeah. And I know that part I get that part.
And like, it's, you're up at all hours and doing stuff. I guess if you're really heavily investing in it, like, you know, it's been not, it's also, I started reading about it probably about this time last year.
Um, so it's just been slow, you know, slow.

Like I listened to a couple of podcasts that just, you know, when I'm on the car, I'll catch 20 minutes of a show talking about something. And then I don't know, I just pick it up.
And I also, uh, I have a really hard time personally, uh, when I, when something like catches my interest, not like completely nerding out on it. Like it's like a, it's like a tick.

Like I can't stop reading about it because I, what if that next piece of knowledge is the piece of knowledge that changes everything for me? Like I don't, you know, that's a rabbit hole. That's a crazy way to think, but I don't know.
I get it. No, I get that.
Yeah. Okay.
What, what other could be so close, you know, just one more nugget and they could just set it off. I get it.
XRP army for life. Just if anyone's listening, knows what that means.
I still believe in XRP big time. Um, so, uh, what, what other, any other, what other questions? Yeah.
I had a question. I wanted to know, like, give me, what's your best piece of advice for the protege.
I'm one of the coaches. What do I, yeah.
Yes. So I would say, and I mean this not negatively towards anyone, uh, anyone in particular, but I would say, figure out who's there to win early.
Um, that doesn't mean you can't help everybody, but I found that there were a couple of people that I invested a couple substantial amounts of time in who then who then all of a sudden were like, I don't feel like doing this and just like bailed. And you're like, oh, wow, that's like that was like three or four hours of my life.
And you just decided to pull the parachute, you know, whatever. That's kind of the way it is.
But like I would say the time spent with Keating because he because he took it very seriously from the very beginning, was wholly bought in. And, you know, he didn't end up winning.
But obviously now he, Crothers was awesome and gave all three of the final memberships. I would, man, I really enjoyed being part of his journey.
Just the questions and watching him work through things and then listening to, who's, co-coach. We don't know yet.
Oh, you don't know yet. Okay.
Okay. So, so, uh, Ricky Hader was the co-coach for our team and, um, listening to the way I found it very valuable listening to the way.
So, so Ryan would ask us a question or whatever. He'd have a problem.
We'd be working through it. And Ricky would have a different spin.
And then really trying to think like, how do I feel about that? And I learned a ton from Ricky as well, which was awesome. And it was just a pleasure.
The whole experience was a pleasure because David's great. The community is great.
I think it is well worth investing time into the process. I guess I'm definitely going to learn like anyone I'm, I'm paired with.
I'm excited to learn from because I love to learn and I, and you know, that's what's great about this industry, right? Is everyone can achieve success however they want. Yeah.
And everyone has a different roadmap to it. Yeah.
So there's always things that you can learn from anyone else, which is great.

Are you going to IOA?

I wish I was.

I am not.

Oh, no.

I know.

I know.

It is nothing to do with IOA.

I will be there in spirit. I promise.

I have to go to Arkansas on the 5th for a speaking gig that was supposed to happen in the spring of 2020. And they rescheduled it for this week on the 5th.
So that was my primary obligation. And I'm looking forward to it.
I don't want anyone to think I'm not, I'm not like I am, but that, and then, um, I've been on the road the last two weeks as well. So this will be three weeks in a row.
So it was like the idea of going, you know, two weeks ago last week and then going to IOA this week and then parlaying IOowa into this speaking gig at the end it just it was more than i can handle with bringing on a new producer and blah blah blah yeah but i i'm ah man i am um there was like this little part of me last night actually where i was like wonder how much plane tickets i mean you can at least go to the boot camp right right? I know, I know. I'm going to miss, I'm going to miss the bootcamp.
I'm going to miss, yeah, I, ah, it's a bummer, but no, I am not going to be there. That should be a tremendous time.
I'm excited. Yeah.
It's about a three hour drive for us. So we're leaving tomorrow.
What now? Okay. So you're for Lauderdale.
Yeah. So you go going north and west i'm actually going to be um right across alligator alley from you in naples uh on the ninth on the ninth yeah so my wife's family has a house in naples um her dad and uh once or twice a year we go down there And it's, I like it's like this golf community it's set away from the ocean and and i love the ocean uh but it just it's very quiet because you know you get closer to the coast it just gets noisier and um you can just kind of like woosah and like just feel the stress like fall off you.
And, uh, I actually don't know six, five or six days. We usually don't go for a full week.
It's hard. Cause I mean, you get it, right? Like, like my wife owns an agency too.
I own agencies. It's two separate agencies.
It's not even like we can co-work, right? It's two separate entities. And it's just tough to be away from it from that long.
So we get, we try to get the woosah, spend some time and then come home and get back after it, I guess. Yeah.
Naples, we went there actually it was this year for our anniversary. Just our brother-in-law and our friends rented us an Airbnb and we went and stayed there it's really nice and very very relaxing and the sunsets are beautiful and you can see dolphins like in the ocean in Marco Island is beautiful and yeah what do you drink wine I I do a little I guess I'm not really a wine drinker but okay well there's a really good wine shop there I don't know if you're into like natural wines but there's a really good wine little boutique wine shop there in naples that we drive to it from here oh really that's yeah and the guy's white drinks wine so maybe i take her there it's like funky wines though just i don't know if she likes conventional wines or they're like sulfate free low intervention i have never guys awesome i have never referred to my wife as funky before.
Your wife is a beast. Okay.
Okay. I have referred to her as that before.
She is fit. Yes.
She, that's awesome. She has figured out the optimal way for her to relieve the stress of her day-to-day life.
And she enjoys it. So I just, God, no matter how hard I work out, I just, it doesn't matter.
I look like a, I look like a slug next to her. She's, she's, she texted me today.
I'm going to work out for the second time today. I worked out this morning and so did she.
And then, um, and then she texted me. She's like, she's like, you want to go to Orange Theory? Cause she has Orange Theory for like the cardio part.
She's like, you want to go to, you want to go to Orange Theory? Stephanie? I'm like, no, she's like, well, I'm, I'm going at four and I think you should go. Cause I think it'd be fun.
And I'm like, ah, and she's like, I signed you up. You're going, I'll see you there at four.
I was like, oh, shoot. Now I gotta go.
Her asking you was just a way. Yeah.
It was more like she was being polite, I guess. Yeah.
Yeah. That's awesome.
That's awesome. Well, I, uh, I want to be respectful of your time.
I appreciate you so much. I'm glad we did this.
Um, as, as, uh, as your agency evolves and thing goes on, we got to have you back on again. I got a whole series of questions I wanted to ask you about, uh, your branding and the marketing and all that.
We never get to any of that stuff. That's a great reason to have you back on the show, which we'll do in a few months and it'll be fun, but I just appreciate you.
I appreciate coming on. I love what you're doing.
And, um, and, uh, and just thank you. I appreciate you sharing.
Thank you. You know, I had met you at Elevate.

And I think that that convention really did, you did such a good job there.

And you've done so much for our industry and agents and, you know, you and Paradiso, the GNN guys and, you know, Carruthers, Jason Kass.

You guys have really made an impact.

And I've seen the, I've been here since I graduated high school.

You know, the agency is shifting in the right, or the industry is shifting in the right

direction, I think.

Thank you. And, um, I'm glad that we've kind of become friends.
Yeah. And I hope you enjoy your trip in Naples and yeah.
And the next convention we'll see you at then. Yes, for sure.
And I definitely, again, this is, I'm not, not going for any other reason that i can't go sometimes people read into things please do not this is only because i want

to remain married to my very fit wife because if i travel that much she will she will not also it's

like you're coming here and then what by the night you have to be back in naples i mean that's that's

a lot it's a lot you're right there you. You're right there.
All right. Thank you.
Have a

great day. Take care, Ryan.
You too. Bye.

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