RHS 092- James Jenkins on Niche Business World Domination

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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 guest who I've gotten to know fairly well over the last, I'd say, six months or so.

He's about a year ahead of me in his journey building risk-well insurance.

Our guest is James Jenkins.

Now, if you spend any time in IAOA or the Now Certs users group or the Better Agency users group, you are well aware of James because I like to bust his chops because James submits more

user feature requests to service providers than anyone I've ever met in my life.

But that's a good thing.

I mean that with full sincerity because as I say to him, I will always be chasing him, but a solid number two on that list.

I like to submit feature requests as well.

But it's all in good fun.

I really want to talk to James because one of the things that he's been able to do and how he's reached escape velocity in his agency, been able to add some staff and really start to deliver the product that he kind of, I think, had in his mind when he became an independent agent

is he really dialed into some niches.

And while at the beginning we talk a lot about

the technology challenges that agencies have, as we work through that conversation, we get into what I believe is some incredibly valuable ideas, thoughts, concepts around how agencies are going to dial into niches moving into the future, the importance of that, and the hard decisions that we're going to have to make as agency owners and insurance producers and sales professionals in the coming years as things become

more compartmentalized.

it becomes easier for people to dip into our backyard.

We really have to become experts and dig deep into our expertise.

So, this is an incredible conversation.

I think you're really going to enjoy it.

We definitely go all over the map, but that's what you've come to expect from this show.

So, hopefully, it's right on par with a lot of the other conversations we have.

Valuable, no doubt.

Before we get to James, though, I want to give a big shout-out to Agency VA.

I can't give give agency va enough accolades and and the reason is um that i now have two agency vas and i have two of them i have uh a guy um by the name of nat who uh lives in the philippines and he's doing a lot of my back-end um

data work he's helping me um clean up my systems he does my c ois he will make billing changes in my systems and and he's great and i really like nat he's coming along quick he's learning he asks questions when he needs it it.

And a big fan there.

And then I also now have someone who's doing outbound dialing for me and helping me reach out to more potential prospects.

And we have a whole process that we work through there.

And she's been with me for going on two or three weeks, depending on when this is published.

And at least the first, I'd say 10 days have been tremendous.

And just how enthusiastic she is.

And I'm listening to the phone calls.

And, you know, we have some things we got to work out.

I'm trying to make my words work for her.

You know, we have to do some massaging there.

And I think I tend to be a little wordy.

And, you know, we're trying to get it down to where it's cleaner and simpler.

And we can just kind of real punchy, deliver our value proposition and get meetings.

And the whole time, you know, so all that is great.

But what the reason

I choose Agency VA is not just Wes and Ben, who obviously I'm friends with and I love those guys.

It's, you know, I also have Lally, who's the manager.

So I can go to Lally and say, hey, I need this or this is going on, or, you know, I'm struggling to get Nat to look at this.

Can you help him?

And she's tremendous.

And just the whole team over there has been phenomenal.

So if you're looking for horsepower in your agency, Agency VA is the way to do it.

Go to agencyva.com, agencyva.com.

That's agencyva.com.

Here we go.

What's up, man?

Hey, sexy.

How you doing?

Good.

Since you're late for the podcast, you have to watch me finish this handwritten

contractors form that I am

written.

That's gross.

Wow.

You know,

only the best.

What carrier are you doing that requires handwritten apps?

Leatherstocking Cooperative Insurance Company.

Never heard of them.

Well, they only operate in upstate New York.

They're actually a phenomenal company.

And in 99% of their classes that they write with, you can get a rate online.

They just

for their for contractors, they they don't have

online rating for contractors.

So

there, yeah.

So I basically

I use them,

Liberty Mutual and

Dryden Mutual, which is another

upstate only

insurance company domestic to New York for like contractors who are just starting, you know, because first-year contractors are never something anyone really wants.

So these guys will all write them and

they do a good job, you know, for the handyman, carpenter, renovations guy, you know,

they're perfectly fine.

They just,

you know,

takes an extra step.

So that's the deal, but they're good companies.

They're really, they're really good companies.

New York is weird.

We have, if you take Westchester, like the northern border of Westchester County, and you go south and then out towards the island, that almost should be a separate state.

And a lot of carriers operate as if it is a separate state.

It's just so much different.

You go from, you know, where I live could be Iowa, and down there is like Hong Kong.

You know what I mean?

Like when you think about the difference in densities of people.

So I mean,

I imagine if I were in New York, there's city and nut city.

Yeah.

I mean, the rest of New York is kind of homogeneous, but then you get within half an hour of the edge of the city and everything changes.

Yeah, we also New York in general, I can understand why a lot of the best companies in the in the country do not come into New York, because not only is upstate, so upstate is homogeneous for a certain extent, but we also have some of the oldest cities in the entire country so albany was the first incorporated city in the country 1664.

so yeah yeah the average age of a downtown building in albany is like 1840 something

so

you go so yeah you have these suburbs that are like any other suburbs you know 1980s houses, 1950s houses, you know, that, you know, during these waves of building.

But then you have these cities that are kind of tightly packed uh in terms of the where the buildings are not a lot of people live there and they're old as so people don't want them it's it's a really weird it's a weird dynamic up here i mean i this this is not the easiest state to do business in but it's all good i mean there it's not by accident that i've avoided the northeast

because i mean you guys have

so many small uh regionals and mutuals that someone from texas will never get access to no

and those companies are almost always more competitive than the nationals.

Yes.

So like the, so the difference is, so like you're saying, you know, why would you be handwriting out an application for leather stocking cooperative insurance company?

And the deal is

incredible claims handling.

Yeah.

I know my underwriter, first name basis.

you know, talk on the phone.

I know exactly who she is.

If I say to her, look, I know you guys don't want X, but he, it never happens.

It's one job a year, she'll go, Oh, okay, you know, or not.

But I mean, you know, I mean, she'll talk me through it.

And like you said, usually better priced.

And for certain risks, they're just really good.

And Dryden's the same way.

And that's why when people do the um

like the like uh uh Moic Asalis, who's who's down there in Texas, right?

He does the I don't know, he's been on Cass's podcast.

I don't know if you're familiar with him, he's a Marsh guy, real good dude.

Um, he always talks about BORs, like 90% of his business comes from BORs,

And it's like the BOR game here.

I mean, you'd have to have like 750 appointments to be like a,

to be BOR, you know, to be.

Yeah, I mean, it's, it's like when we go down the coast, I don't like writing business south of Houston because it's a bunch of carriers that I don't have and don't want to have.

You know, with Lighthouse and UPC and Mason and Saged Sure and Conifer and like all of these little tiny companies that only write coastal x-wind or only write you know monoline property and their their appetite is this big yeah it's like it yeah it's texas but i mean kind of like you were saying with new york texas really is three states we are coastal texas which is its own thing totally different and then north texas like the dfw area and like draw a rectangle around that part of the state.

And then the rest of Texas, because DFW and North Texas is freaking hail central, man.

Like you go from starting like an hour west of Fort Worth, which is like two hours west of Dallas.

There's like this line where

on the west side, no big deal.

you have thunderstorms but you don't have like crazy hail and then just magically a line drawn in the map and it's oh well you're going to get a bunch of hail now it's it's like literally flipping a switch it's crazy because we

beginning about a month from now you know third week of march is almost the official beginning of storm season where we can be going fine and you have

from third week second or third week of march until the second or third week of june and you could have the clearest day ever i mean sun is shining out a cloud in the sky 30 minutes passes and boom the world is ending.

It is like

biblical thunderstorm just comes out of literally nowhere.

The only time I've ever been scared on an airplane was actually on the tarmac at DFW.

It's the only time I've ever been nervous.

I we come down, just like you said, we're coming down out of the sky, no big deal.

It's like a couple clouds, no big deal.

We we hit the ground, and from the time it took us to get from the time we touched down to taxiing over to our gate, gate, this storm rolls in.

And I shit you not, it was like a, we get like maybe,

I don't know, 20, 30 feet right we can, we're, you could reach out and touch the freaking uh arm thing, whatever that is thing that comes out, the

gateway thing.

Um,

and the whole plane lights up like a nuke went off.

I mean, whack.

So everyone goes,

and we look out the window and another lightning strike hits

50 yards from the plane, hits the ground.

And now people are like, whoa.

And the pilot comes on and they're happening.

Like it's like, whack, whack, whack.

And the pilot comes on and goes, everyone be calm.

If a lightning strike hits the plane, everyone's going to be fine, but we can't have you out on the jet.

The jet bridge was the term I was looking for before.

The jet bridge, because if you, if the jet bridge gets hit and you're on it, you're toast.

So we just sat there and watched this ridiculous thing, but there was like a moment where I was like, oh, shit, like that, that's a badass lightning strike.

And that's real close.

No, man, I saw this meme yesterday because it's, you guys are used to cold up there.

Texas, like we're, it's literally going to be maybe zero degrees in DFW on Monday.

It's definitely going to be in single digits.

And we're going to get probably seven or eight inches of snow overnight, Sunday into Monday.

But the meme yesterday, it was.

I laughed a lot harder than I probably should have.

The first box of the meme was like, North Texans in storm season, and they're just like,

like, whoopty freaking do.

It's a bad storm, whatever, I don't care.

But then the second thing was like, North Texans in winter, and they're like, ah,

it was like a normal random snowstorm, and everyone is just like, oh my God, we're going to die.

Yeah.

It's so funny how people,

I mean, obviously,

unless it's, you know, the major car accident that probably, I think it made the national news, it was like 120 vehicle pile up on I-35 yesterday.

Outside of people that don't know how to drive when it ices,

I mean, you're not going to die in cold weather, but some of these, some of these storms, man, are just like tornadoes and hailstones, literally the size of a softball, just come out of nowhere.

It's like, yeah, you might actually die in a storm, but you're probably not going to die when it gets cold outside.

No.

So I'm with you.

Tornadoes scare the crap out of me.

So I don't, I'm glad.

I definitely,

if tornadoes are a regular occurrence in that area, I will never live there.

Yeah.

I mean, I don't want to say they're regular.

It's not like a once a week thing.

And Oklahoma City, like that, like there to Wichita, Kansas, there's what they call Tornado Alley.

Technically, DFW is in Tornado Alley, but we're like the very southern edge of it.

But I mean, we'll get, you know, two, three, four tornadoes a year that come through the area.

Most of them are little, little baby tornadoes, you know, an F1 or, you know, which is, I mean, it's still a tornado, but, you know, a little tiny thing that hits the ground for 15 seconds and then leaves.

But I mean, yeah, it's, there's a lot more wind activity here than in most other places in the country, that's for sure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, thank you.

So, all right, we've talked about the weather for long enough.

Sorry.

Let's, it's kind of a thing right now.

Yeah, no, I get it.

It's been cold.

I mean,

yeah, you say the cold.

It hasn't gotten above 20 in six weeks and there's been snow on the ground since like December.

So

I'm kind of sick of, I'm kind of sick of it.

I could use some vitamin D, but

Emperor Cuomo will not allow us to leave without without being microchipped.

So I'm not going to do that.

All right.

So let's talk about something that people listening actually want to to hear, which is, um,

you know, you can.

By the way, I'm sorry, I just realized that you started recording a few minutes ago.

I wouldn't have been talking that much about the weather if I'd have known, hey, we're already on the podcast.

Well, that's all right.

Screw them.

They're, they're, they got to listen.

They can, this is my show.

I can, I can talk about whatever I want and they got to listen to it.

So there you go.

You know, whatever.

Sorry, go ahead.

I interrupted you.

Go for it.

I love you guys, though.

Thanks for listening.

You're the best.

All right.

So

you have kind of carved out your space in the industry really around um one being being relatively new but hard charging i think that's a good way to describe you right two two years in the biz approximately um

and

um

also uh one of the most epic feature suggesters of all technology that you use that wouldn't be another feather in your cap um and i do want to talk about that a little bit

and uh lastly i'd say your

focus on

your dedication to certain niches of business and how that's really driven your agency forward, which I think is another important topic.

But let's start with the most fun one, which is why do you pepper the shit out of every technology tools Facebook post with feature requests like you do?

I mean, you have to have some sort of feature request record in some of these Facebook groups.

Hey, man, you know, and to my friends at Better Agency and now certs,

I make no apologies whatsoever.

Here's the thing, man.

I am your best client and the biggest thorn in your side, because when you do something cool, man, I think that's really cool.

And I'm going to talk about it a lot.

I'm going to post about it.

I'm going to share about it.

I'm a great brand ambassador.

But if there's something that doesn't work, or for me, it doesn't work, because I mean, there's a thousand different varieties of agencies, obviously.

But when something doesn't work for my team, and really it's, I'm the filter for my team.

I have three young ladies that work in my office full-time, and they're what most offices would call a CSR.

We call them relationship managers.

When they complain about something more than twice, I pay close attention.

And when they are saying, hey, this isn't working, or something broke, or why doesn't it do blank?

Why can't it do blank?

I feel like it's my responsibility as the business owner to be their voice to our vendor partners.

So, I mean, feature request,

yeah, man.

I mean, you have not because you ask not, right?

It's in the Bible for crying out loud.

I don't mind being the guy who's waving the flag, you know.

There's been a couple of things with Better Agency where generally speaking, BA is a great platform.

I'm really impressed with a lot of what they do over there.

I know there's a lot of good options, you know, Agency Zoom and Insured Mine and et cetera, et cetera.

There's a lot of options.

I chose Better Agency.

One, because I believe in the guys that are running it.

I think they got a lot.

of power.

They're the credentials behind the people making stuff happen.

I mean, their CTO was employee number six at Infusionsoft.

I mean, Will Shaw is

former NFL player.

So you know he's got some hustle and some grit and just a smart dude.

And then Preston Schmidley and Nick Ayers jump on last year.

I don't know what their deal was, but they bought into the company

in some big equity position.

And we all know those guys.

I mean, anybody listening to this podcast knows who Preston Schmidley and Nick Ayers are.

That's the main reason why I did the BA thing and really why I'm still doing it, because there have been times last year when my team was like, can we fire them?

I want to go somewhere else.

I don't like better agency.

Just real talk.

But I see where they're going.

I see the vision.

And the things that stink about the platform don't stink for very long.

It's, they stink for a few months, maybe.

And then, I mean, what is it, twice a month, they roll out a major update.

I think every platform should be like that.

You know, having the communication that they do of, we get emails twice a month with very specific updates of, hey, guys here's what we changed here's how you need to be aware of it here's how you do stuff with the new thing it's like teaching us how to play with the toys they give us let's talk about the flip side of that the flip

now certs hour-long happy hours where they don't get into what's actually changing until 35 minutes in and they're doing it at 7 p.m eastern time and i i'm like Guys, they're like big announcement in the happy hour.

And I'm super interested because I like now sorts.

I'm becoming a power user of now sorts.

I think it's a good tool.

I'm like, how about you just tell me what you're doing?

Where's the announcement?

I shouldn't have to listen to you guys ramble on about your weekends for 30 minutes to figure out what the update is.

Yeah.

No, I mean, real, real talk, man.

Jonathan and Richard and Caden and Vlad and Peter and the team.

They deserve to get a little slap across the face, just a little bit.

Yeah.

Because I mean, the happy, happy real talk the fact that they even have the happy hours to begin with the fact that that's even a thing i think is really cool i think it is cool that most other vendors don't have anything like that they don't engage with their customers on a ground floor level and with any kind of regularity but yeah i mean holy crap man that was so i was i was causing so i i bring up this topic first only because i'm probably one of the i'm probably i'm never going to ascend to your level of feature requestness, but I, I ride your coattails.

I'm like a, I'm like a solid number two or number three of feature requests.

I'll never be at your level, but I'm right there.

So I, um, so I, you know, I, I'm in, I see this thing, you know, all for the last two weeks.

Big announcement at the happy hour, big announcement at the happy hour.

I'm like, okay, you know, whatever.

And 35 minutes in, I'm finally, I'm just like, guys, how about this?

How about we do the happy hours, which are really cool?

And you do like a one page PDF that says

what the heck the update is in case I don't have an hour to spend in the video.

Like

doing 10 seconds forward.

When do they get the update?

10 seconds forward.

When did they get the update?

Yeah.

No, I mean, the 7 p.m.

thing is awful.

It is truly just terrible timing because anybody with a family, like

my wife and my kids, are in, you know, with her, her parents, my in-laws for this week,

just giving me some i get like once a quarter i get a week where they go hang out with the in-laws and i get to work 80 hours if i want to and just knock out my project list and it's glorious i love it those weeks are great it just so happens that this is one of those weeks most of the time if my family's in town i'm not gonna be on a freaking webinar for work stuff at thursday at seven do you want me to like commit suicide in my marriage like my wife would be like what are you doing

Honey, I'm watching a I'm on a happy hour where guys are talking about their weekend.

She's like, You're doing what?

Yeah.

You're watching a nerdy, happy hour Facebook live for one of the tools in my insurance agency.

I'm gonna knife you when you fall asleep, just so you know.

It's bad enough.

I mean, I know you and I are the same with this one, man.

I nerd out and get excited about dumb stuff.

The things that the general public would be like, really?

Seriously, like you care about stupid stupid things yeah like yeah i mean i'm a risk manager by trade like i dig this stuff and we'll talk about stuff at the house and i'm like babe you'll never guess what happened insert insurance or risk management store here and she's just like struggling to stay focused in the conversation so she already has to deal with that kind of stuff in general but if i told her i'm on a happy hour at Thursday at seven, I'm not putting the kids to bed tonight.

So I can watch a bunch of guys jibber jabber about their software platform.

To your point, she would probably threaten to smother me in my sleep.

And the worst part is, and I'm only, and hopefully if they listen to this or this gets back to them, I watch, this is out of love.

I was super interested in the announcement.

Like, I wanted to know what it was.

And to be honest with you, I don't even have the full announcement yet because.

I was told in the comment section, go to minute 32.

And I'm just like, as soon as I saw that, I'm like, I'm just going to wait until someone tells me what it is or it or the platform changes you want you want the cribs

i would love the crib though

yeah yeah here's the thing there is a platform called high level

yep i know of high levels it's a crm yep a lot of really big companies white label high level and put something out that's flavored for their vertical um

Now certs bought a license of high level and they're building out a whole bunch of crap to complement what now certs is doing because there's some features that are glaringly absent in now certs.

Like they don't really have a sales pipeline at all.

It's kind of weird for me because I see now certs kind of inching closer to a CRM type of features.

And then you got CRMs like Better Agency and even Agency Zoom.

I think they have certain features that kind of look like an AMS.

And I don't know what your take is on this, but I don't believe in the one killer app platform.

I don't want one thing to try to be everything.

You know, Microsoft has.

I mean, I'm on the Microsoft ecosystem.

We use Teams.

We use OneDrive.

We use SharePoint extensively.

Travis Gensler, thank you for that.

Shout out to Travis and his group.

They've been amazing for Microsoft.

He's like the oracle, the evangelist for Microsoft.

But Dynamics with Microsoft is a perfect example.

Just awful for my needs.

Like, I got into it.

I'm just like, this is crap.

This is, it's their version of a CRM and it's terrible in my opinion.

It's, it's just bad.

So it's, that's kind of what you get when one platform tries to be everything.

The, the whole concept of one killer app to do whatever the insurance agent needs.

I don't believe in that.

Yeah, I have a very clear clear take on this, and it is, I think that's a bad idea.

I think this is a bad idea by now certs.

I think that there's too many other places that they could drastically improve their product.

So I, I'm on now certs, not because I don't think it's a good product.

I really like now certs.

And I said this to, I was talking to, um,

I was talking to somebody that maybe was Paradiso, and he was asking me because Paradiso is on Hawksoft.

And right now, Hawksoft actually integrates with every tool that I use right now that I want to use.

But I'm like, eh, Hawksoft doesn't have a writable API.

They're very slow to make improvements.

I think some of that is cultural.

I also know Hawksoft is a good product that a lot of really great agencies run on not a knock on Hawksoft.

You know, no one's perfect, but I look at now certs and I say to myself,

this platform could take over the AMS space.

It could, but things like, like the, they just seem to have a very casual attitude towards things like growth and things like, you know, improvements to the product and stuff like that.

But server downtime.

Server down.

Well, the fact that like 11 o'clock every day, we just get a hey guys, just so you know, WW8 is down today.

You know, it'll be up as soon as we can.

I'm like, no, here's, here's the problem.

In their defense, they have like 24 servers, but the problem is you and I are both on their test server.

Yeah.

So we get features before everybody else does because WW8 is their test server.

That's where they drop out the new things and beta them for a week or two.

But WW8 is also the one that goes down more than any other server because it's the test server.

Yeah.

But here's my point: I think now certs is awesome.

I really, I don't really have a beef in general.

Their UI is a little tough and you know, there's some different things that are a little wonky.

I really wish, you know, but but then I look at it and I'm like, okay, don't add some third-party white label licensed CRM tool.

Just be really awesome at AMSing and connecting to other tools like Insured Mind, Agency Zoom, Better Agency, HubSpot.

You know, pick the top 15 CRMs and be ridiculously easy and fully integrated with those tools.

And you will become the default AMS for the middle and smaller agency.

Like this is a no-brainer win.

I don't understand why these platforms don't get it.

QQ doesn't get this from Vertifor.

Well, that kind of makes sense.

But all these small guys, I don't, because granted, I'm not trying to call now certain Hawksoft small, but versus applied or Vertifor, you know, they are.

I don't understand the thought process.

And I think this goes,

this is larger than, I'm not trying to just not talk about now certs, but like, I just look at now certs and I'm like, oh my God, they could be the default tool from everyone in the middle market down to startup.

They have that potential.

It's that good of a tool.

And to waste, for me to waste dev time and brain cycles on a CRM when you could just plug into BA Insured Mine or Agency Zoom, whichever you choose, and have it work seamlessly, I don't understand that decision.

It doesn't make any sense to me.

Well, why don't you tell them that?

And I will tell them that.

And then if enough people tell them that, they may, you know, realize that this is not a long-term solution solution.

I'm in a weird spot because I've got better agency going out and getting Ivan's integration, which they've been working on that behind the scenes for like six months, I heard from Will.

And then my AMS is trying to act like a CRM.

So my CRM is trying to act like an AMS.

My AMS is trying to act.

Eventually, you're going to have to make a decision where you have a product that

doesn't do everything that you want on either side.

That's ultimately what these tools are forcing us to do which is what bothers me so much and i think and this may segue into other things we talk about uh on this recording uh episode sorry um as i sit here at my desk i keep on forgetting that people are listening to this on their phones or they're driving in their car right now so uh let's stay focused james stay on message um it's the the whole thing of being a generalist versus a specialist of being the do everything the state farms and farmers of the world versus the carrier like your small regional mutual, the leather stocking, the leather stocking community, something or other.

Shout out to Dryden Mutual too.

I love you both.

Shout out to Dryden.

Yeah.

I mean, the upstate

mutuals and regionals, like those carriers have no interest in being everything to everybody.

They want to do a very small number of things.

at an extremely high level of performance.

And if you're not in their target market, they don't care a thing about you.

Yeah, you're not

discussed in their meetings, they don't care what you want

because they're not interested in that.

They're staying really focused on their message.

And I think that as we move into 2021 and beyond, the more that the direct channel becomes commoditized for small commercial now with InsurTechs like you know, Pi and Next and et cetera, like small commercial five years from now is going to be exactly like personal lines is now, where it's highly commoditized.

It's, you know, very low barrier to entry.

The typical run-of-the-mill insured isn't even going to talk to an agent.

I'm talking like the lowest common denominator person, not

the people that you and I want to work with.

But the

gap between the generalist and the specialist, I think, is going to get just massive within the next couple of years, where the people that are trying to be the everything to everybody, you know, the ones that are offering seven different product lines, and they've got, you know, 14,000 links on their website,

those people, I think, are going to be in a really hard place before too long.

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All right, I'm out of here.

Peace.

Let's get back to the episode.

Yeah, I agree with you.

I think you have to pick a thing, right?

If you're going to be a generalist, then you need to be the generalist of the 10 mile radius from where you live, right?

If you're going to be,

you know, if you're going to be industry specific, you, you, you know, that's what you got to be.

If you're going to be product specific, right?

Like I'm trying really hard to be product specific.

And even that I'm finding is, is to, is a little broad for where I'm at in my development.

So, so I'm making some changes there.

And I think, you know, this, this, you know, this, this works in tech.

It certainly works in insurance agencies.

You know, this, you know, what bothers me is,

this is what bothers me in general about the, and I kind of knew about, I heard about the, the high-level thing.

I just didn't know the details, but

the, what bothers me is.

I want to be able to pick the tools that are right for my, for what I'm trying to do, right?

I like a very simple CRM.

I personally, the way I work, the way I manage my, my, I have a, I have a, I have a team now, everyone.

I can say that it's official.

I've hired people.

It's not just me.

And these aren't alter personalities.

They're real other humans.

You know, I like very, very simple.

It can be simple and works.

That's all I want.

I don't need 10,000 triggers.

For my agency management system, I need to be able to connect into that.

I can hate duplicate entry.

So, you know, so, and now now all of a sudden what I find is every tool I start to use, and this is going to come back to our insurance example, because I do want to ask you about, I want to finish the podcast talking about your work in certain niches, is that I get a shitty version.

I pick a tool and then it evolves into a shittier version of itself because it wants to be this big, broad, huge thing.

And I'm just like, God, I picked you originally because you did the thing that I needed really well.

And every time you do an update, it becomes a bigger monster.

And again, some people like that,

the complexity and overarchingness.

I mean, look at people

who live in the applied network, right?

If you're an applied network, you go there, one, because it is the best agency management system that exists.

I have to give applied epic is the best.

It's just expensive as shit.

Then you got to devit yourself and build out exactly as you want it.

and spend a hundred grand on it.

But yeah, it's a big thing.

For the Josh Gurleys and Brad Rosenkiels of the world like there's a reason why yep of the top hundred agencies in the country like 90 of them are on applied epic yeah so for sure yeah for sure so that's so there are people that like that ecosystem thing 100 but i just think for for for people who are starting to work for agencies that are starting to work target markets i really think that our technology providers are doing us a disservice by not just being a plus pluses at the thing that they do best so then i can cherry pick the tools and say, I want this, and I want to plug it into this, and then I want this to plug into this.

And holy crap, this really works.

Now I can deliver my workers' compensation program and Roger 365 and plug in the self-managed certificate program from something like Certificial, which is a tool that needs to be on your radar, by the way.

Certificial.

Oh, yeah, dude, dope.

This is a game changer for anybody that works with contractors or produce a lot of certs.

Game changer.

That's good.

Absolute game changer.

I'm telling you, it is, it's, it's so baller.

I'm going to have him on the podcast

as soon as I can.

His name's Peter.

He did 18 years as a CTO at applied and not like the dopey part of not applied, accord, not the dopey part of accord, but like he, he was really one of the people that were pushing them forward.

And

it's just, that's a really cool tool.

But like, I'm just saying, like, I want to be able to say, okay, certificial

Zy Wave client portal, um, you know, this tool, this tool.

And if you guys were just all awesome at what you did, I could plug you all together.

And now I have the perfect agency tech platform.

But instead, they all go, Hey, you know, I do certs, and I think we're going to get download.

And I'm really thinking about building out a chat bot feature.

And you're like, motherfucker.

Well, I mean, the whole

idea of stay in your lane and

I think it really just comes down to people get delusions of grandeur and they allow tribalism

and the whole like my club, your club thing.

Like, oh, our club's the best.

We can do it better than that other vendor over there.

Well, why don't you have an open API and allow other companies to just integrate directly?

Well, because we're better than them.

It's like, okay, well, I disagree fundamentally with your premise, but I digress.

Oh, well,

it creates a situation where guys like you and me are spinning our wheels because you take a great platform like an outserts or a better agency.

And would I prefer that they not do the downloads and do something else with their dev time?

Yeah, I definitely would.

There are a lot of features that I'm basically like arms outreached, begging for at this point.

Yeah, definitely.

But the same goes for a lot of platforms.

I think we just need to keep banging the drum.

The reality is when they, you know, climb up on their hilltop and wave their flag, they're not going to back down from that because then it seems like a defeat or a failure.

And no business owner wants to do that.

I think the important thing is having those behind the scenes conversations where you can influence the decision makers before they decide to climb a hill and wave a flag.

Yeah, I think the decision comes down down to, and this is, I promise, is the last thing I'm going to say about this, and we're going to talk about, we're going to talk about the questions I have about your agency and what you're doing,

is

you're basically managing, I think you're basically, all these companies come to a decision point.

And that decision point is maximize enterprise value or build a customer base that is ravenously in love with us.

Because I don't think you can do both of those.

I think the companies that can do both of those things are the unicorns.

Those are the unicorn companies.

I don't mean in valuation, I just mean in general.

Like you, you have to either maximize features and things that someone else would want to buy to make the most money, or you could stay tight and amazing and awesome and have people who would literally tattoo your brand on their arm.

And I think that's a very hard decision.

And when you're talking about the dollars in terms of valuation dollars that a lot of these companies are getting and that better agency is most likely worth than a lot of the tools that we talked about are worth, right?

I mean,

I can't imagine they're not already fielding calls for at least eight, if, you know, eight digit offers.

I don't know if they're a nine digit company yet, but I'm sure they're getting eight digit offers.

And,

you know, that's a really tough decision to make.

And if now you have something, you know, just.

I'm not,

I have my own feelings about the download thing as well, but I think if you're looking at them from an enterprise value standpoint and they have download, you're going, whoo,

whoo.

I mean, deaf, you know, there's something there.

Yeah, man.

I mean, we could talk about the difference between, you know, driving EBITDA and going after shareholder value and starting to think like a larger company versus keeping the mission, you know, front and center.

We could say the very same thing about.

every agency and every agency owner listening.

And are you pushing for a multiple?

Are you trying to sell in five years?

Or are you on mission?

Like, do you wake up in the morning excited about advancing the cause?

Yeah, I think, and you know, so this takes me into, you know, where I see valuations going and why I think you're on a great path.

So you've chosen, so you have, you have habitational, right?

That's one of them.

Contractors, what are the other niches that you, that you've lined up?

The, we made, and I'm honestly, I'm trying to figure out what to do with personal lines right now.

I mean, flip a coin on if I sell my personal lines book and just go all in on commercial and real estate investors.

We stumbled into the real estate investor world about four years ago because I had one client who had nine rentals.

And at that point, I was still an agent with a captive company.

And I was able to write that account and was like, oh, crap, that's good money.

That was pretty easy.

I want to do more of this.

And so over the next two years, when we were at the captive agency,

we did that extensively.

And that's part of the reason why I left that company is they're not very good at serving real estate investors.

And that's the kind of how we got to where we are now, where it morphed into, well, it's not just single family.

It's the people doing flips and renovations.

And, oh, the people doing, you know, small commercial and oh, apartment buildings and condo associations, which I don't like nearly as much as apartments because boards and gosh, the certificate request for refinances on condo unit owners is just like put a gun in my mouth.

Certificate,

certificial.

I'm going to change your life for you.

I promise.

You and I are going to talk later about that because I've seen it a couple of times.

I don't know anything about it.

To answer your question,

roofers and general contractors in particular, I mean, the contractor world is just mess.

So there's literally hundreds of trades.

I'm not really interested.

in the small trade contractor, the drywall guy or whatever.

I want the GC.

I want the hard stuff, you know, the concrete, the

masonry, the roofing, the general, the stuff that has a lot of premium and it's hard to place.

I find the harder something is to work in, the less competition there is, and the easier it is to point it out when posers try to come in and act like they know what they're doing.

Yeah.

If a generalist tries to play in my space, I'm going to bury them in knowledge of forms and exclusions, endorsements, and just all that CIC and CRM stuff, you know, and those the designation programs, the stuff that most agents don't even know about or care about.

That's the difference between an okay program and a great program in that world.

The other two really are the tech space and then healthcare medical, doctor's offices, healthcare technology companies, durable medical equipment manufacturers.

If it's healthcare medical or if it's in technology IT.

you know the the geek squad kind of contractor who comes to your house and fixes your computer

those kind of folks own vehicles.

They have a lot of employees.

They need ENO.

Like, those are just great accounts because you can rack up a lot of premium pretty quickly if you know how to cross-sell.

Yeah.

I have never,

I have purposefully not involved myself in the, in the healthcare space.

I just don't know that much about it, even though

the carrier plant I have, much to their chagrin, they would love it if I did.

I get every time I talk to my reps, they're like, oh, you're going to, you're going to start soliciting healthcare stuff.

And I'm like,

I don't know.

I do really like, I like technology.

I like media.

You know, anyone with big cyber exposure, I mean, which most companies today actually have big cyber exposure, but, you know, anyone who, I really like that because I feel like, you know,

I took a nice size account away from an agent the other day because uh solely on cyber.

I took the whole package on cyber.

They, they, they put basically first party only, you know, data breach cyber coverage on this account.

And I'm like,

do you understand what you have?

They're like, no, we have cyber.

I'm like, okay, let's talk about that.

And

by the time we got to,

I was explaining, have you ever got an email that looked like it was from your mom, but really it was from somebody in a different country?

And they're like, yes.

I'm like, yeah, that's not covered on this policy.

They're like, well, how do we fix that?

You ever hear of a BOR?

So it's like, you know, that I think I like,

And this is coming back to your point, why, where I think we have to start making decisions.

If this is 100% true in commercial, and I think a lot of commercial agents, I shouldn't say a lot, I think more commercial agents in general get this idea.

I think personalized agents who are thinking about commercial do not.

And I've seen that a lot.

And that to me, there is tremendous opportunity in saying, I write real estate investors.

Yeah.

Because what, because just like you said, man, then you start to get the branches.

Well, oh, this carrier also writes HOAs.

This carrier also writes condo association.

Okay, I can get into there.

And now

you're playing in a really interesting space.

Here, I have a question for you around carriers.

Yeah.

Now, I know we already said, you know, the Northeast has way too many carriers and you guys have less.

But

I recently just purposefully dropped two personal lines appointments.

And in general, I've been thinking about the carriers that I use.

And I said to myself,

I know there's a philosophy of have as many carriers as you can get and write as much business as you can write.

And then the other philosophy is have carriers that you know and have deep relationships with and work inside of their appetite and be experts in the carrier as well.

Where do you fall on that and why?

You know, I love this topic because I think this is the kind of meat and potato agency owner conversation why people listen to podcasts like this.

This stuff just lights me up.

I love this topic.

It only took us 47 minutes to get there.

Bro, I mean, this is why I'm into podcasts.

If you and I were face to face in Tampa in November, we'd be sipping something talking about this right here.

100%.

I'm the second one.

And

I'm like that for a variety of reasons because it plays right into my general business philosophy of do a small number of things and do them incredibly well.

The captive agent doesn't understand market management.

I had no idea.

When I first got in, I didn't understand it.

Two years ago, I had no idea.

And I said some really stupid things early on that now looking back, I'm just like, that is not a good idea.

And I mean, I was greedy for appointments at the beginning.

And then I realized about six months in, I'm like, oh, crap, every appointment I take expects to get fed.

And when you're a small agency, you don't have enough submissions to go around.

And like where we're at right now, I have six direct commercial appointments.

And I don't mind saying it openly because I mean, if you want to come at me, let's go.

If you think you're going to be aware of my account, come on, bro.

Let's do this.

It's Chubb, Hartford, Nationwide, Liberty, State Auto, and

crap.

I can't even think of the other one.

They're last place.

Anyways, those, I have six carriers, and Mercury has monoline commercial auto.

And then BHHC, I just picked up, but that's mostly for outside of Texas because their property market in Texas is crap.

But their auto product, especially fleet auto with BHHC, is really, really strong.

But the whole philosophy of

I want to do a very small number of things with this carrier that absolutely loves it.

Like Chubb, for instance, their cyber program is phenomenal.

It's great form, good insuring agreement.

The exclusions and endorsements are really favorable.

I like the language on their documents, and it's really easy to navigate, and it's really well priced.

I mean, there's like three or four things that Chubb does extremely well.

You know, almost a year ago, they got into food and beverage and they were sending a bunch of emails about, hey, give us your restaurant submissions.

And I'm like, bro, you're never going to get a restaurant submission for me.

That's not what you guys are.

Stop trying to be that.

It's they, them and Hartford, I see them as clones of each other.

Travelers is like in the middle.

You got Liberty and State Auto and nationwide are blue-collar companies.

They want to write the manufacturing, the contractors, the blessors risk only.

They want to write that blue collar, get it done, middle of the economy sort of stuff.

They don't have good cyber options.

They don't have good E ⁇ O options.

They're just not that kind of carrier.

And then Travelers and Hanover and some others that are kind of in the middle between blue collar and white collar.

And then you got Chubb and Hartford and CNA.

which are like super white collar where they've got excellent cyber and E ⁇ O and

their management liability, their EPL, like their coverage options are really, really strong.

But in certain areas, like you're not going to take a contractor to Hartford.

That's just not a good fit.

But Hartford loves writing consultants, like management and business consultants.

You don't even need to submit to anybody else.

If someone calls you up and they're a work from home, white-collar consulting company, straight to Hartford, you don't even need to submit anywhere else because Hartford is going to be gangbusters.

So did that answer your question?

No, 100% it did.

I mean, it's the exact same way that I feel.

I,

yeah, I have no, I never have any problem talking about the carriers

because like you said, if someone's going to, I mean, this, it's just interesting that you brought that up because that is still like a thing.

Like, I remember when I first got in the business 15 years ago, my, my father-in-law, and it's not a knock on him, this was the prevailing idea, was like, you don't tell anybody who you have appointments with because, you know, they'll come after you.

And I think that is, that has really changed.

And I'm glad that it's changed because it's, I think what it does is it allows us, just like with our technology providers, to put more combined voices to a carrier about a thing like Hanover.

I love Hanover.

If anyone from Hanover is listening, you have to know that when I get to place a piece of business with you, I really enjoy it.

I've never had a bad claims experience.

I've never had a customer.

I had a customer have an $8,000 homeowner's claim a month ago, five-star claims review.

They said, no, handled perfectly, perfectly so i love hanover their technology is grossly inadequate considering the quality of the company probably the worst in my entire shop and i handwrite accounts to leather stocking so just understand that you know just to put

by the company with handwritten apps yes and it's it is that bad that being said it's a tough position because Their product is tremendous, their pricing is tremendous, their claims are tremendous, and their people are tremendous.

So, so this is kind of the thing you fight.

I'm with you on Chubb.

I adore Chubb.

They're my number one carrier.

I absolutely think that Chubb's small business unit, what they've done to improve it, their quoting, their handling of customer accounts, their billing needs work.

But outside of that feature, I think they are tremendous.

You know, I also have Guard, Cincinnati, Liberty, and then some Select.

So I basically have five main carriers that I work.

And then I have, I have some

like workers comp only, like Amtrust Pie and employers.

And

then I have a couple mutuals that I write with for

some stuff here in the Northeast.

Like none of those guys are taking on an 1840s four unit in downtown Albany.

That, you know what I mean?

That's, that's a leather stocking dried-in account.

So.

My point in saying all this to you is I made that same mistake early, right?

I was like, gobble, gobble, you know, oh, you'll, you'll give me me an appointment, give it to me, give it to me, give it to me.

Oh, you want 30,000, 100,000, who care?

You know what I mean?

Like say yes to everything.

And

the deeper I get into this business, the more I say to myself, I'd almost rather give a piece of business to somebody else that I, you know what I mean?

Like if an account comes in and it doesn't fit my markets, I'd almost rather hand that to someone else and say, here, you take this and do a good job for them versus I'm going to go out and find some carrier that this is going to be the only piece of business I have.

Bro, perfect example yesterday i don't know how well you know joe campert in austin with redwood i know him and we've talked online but we have he hasn't been on the show yet i mean the kid is is doing something special him and his dad i think of him as my little brother in insurance because we just we hit it off and he's got a great story perfect example with him he is a trucking insurance god i mean him and cameron patch over in uh washington state i think is where cameron's located.

Cameron and Joe and his shop are like the only two people in trucking that I think of, except for maybe Francis Nunez in Texas,

but you know what I mean.

I got a trucking inbound request.

Somebody hit my office and was like, hey, I've got a couple of trucks.

I do OTR.

We haul just general freight.

And I'm like.

bro, I'm not even going to touch this.

I said, I'm going to connect you with my friend and colleague, Joe.

He's in Austin.

Him and his shop will take great care of you.

I'm not qualified to do this account.

he's like, that's awesome.

Thank you for telling me.

I'm just like, dude, it's so much better.

Is there a lot of premium there?

It's probably a $35,000, $40,000 premium account, probably, you know, five grand in revenue, plus or minus.

I have no business taking that account.

So I handed it straight over to Joe.

I texted Joe.

I was like, hey, this dude, here's his information.

I told him you'd be calling him.

It's just.

washed my hands of the whole thing.

But the flip side of that, Joe sent me a large condo association in Missouri in January.

It's probably $150,000 in premium.

Joe's like, I have no business trying to write this.

I probably could write it, but it would take me way longer.

And you're better at this than I am.

I'm just a perfect example.

Like that flow of experts sending over here to a different expert, someone who's got enough self-awareness to realize I probably shouldn't try to do this.

Yeah.

And I think that's one thing that your listeners, our listeners for this episode, would really serve themselves well is figuring out where do I draw the line?

At what point do I say, I'm not going to try to do that.

And then you just establish this network of subject matter experts for various verticals within the insurance world and stay in your lane and kick some serious tail in your lane.

I couldn't agree with you more.

This trucking thing, I actually, so a good one for Ohio is Seth Zaremba.

Jay Mueller and Camargo Insurance is another good resource for different people.

If you're on the East Coast, it's tough to find people that focus on trucking on the East Coast, but

I give out probably a dozen trucking leads a week at this point because I just get them in and I send them to, I didn't know Joe did trucking.

I send a lot to Cam.

I send some, I send them all over the place

because I just can't, I don't want to go down that path.

It's so much and the trucking path, but I completely agree with you.

I think early on, what the vast majority of people do, myself included, is whatever you can get.

I think you have to do that, right?

You got to survive.

You have to survive.

I think if you have a natural niche and connections, do it.

But to a certain extent, survive.

Once you're past survival mode, and I think this is where I've seen some other agencies really struggle.

And I was actually talking to my Liberty rep who I've known for like almost since like my first week in the business 15 years ago at the Murray Group.

And he said he had three, he appointed three agents in January and February of last year that didn't make it through covet and he said a big part of it was just like you at a certain point like you have to know you have to recognize i'm out of survival mode maybe i'm not thriving but i'm out of survival mode i now need to pivot from everything i can get to to what's going to get me to the next level and um like for me i'm trying to focus on uh contractors comp and technology businesses.

I'm interested in them.

I can speak the language and I like helping them.

I have the markets to help them.

That's where I'm going.

So if you send me, like I'll write some hab if it falls into Cincinnati or whatever, but there's really big stuff.

If I had a really big hab come in,

I would have no idea what to do with it.

I'd waste, I'd waste three months trying to figure that out, you know, or some of these other healthcare.

If I had, if a non, you know, I had a medical transport company call me.

Sorry, can't do it.

I just, I have no idea where to put medical transport.

I just don't.

So I think this is one of the most, and I want to be respectful of your time.

And I actually have to go too,

but I think that this topic is

one of the most important topics for companies as they evolve.

And look at you getting your coffee delivered.

You slacked that to her, didn't you?

Bring me a coffee or a cappuccino.

Is it a cappuccino or a coffee?

Brecklin, she's my right hand.

Literally, as we're doing this, I see it come up on here.

She goes, hot cocoa?

Oh, you son of a gun.

I'll look at you.

Right there.

Yeah.

If I could share my screen with you, all you see is a smiley face.

I didn't even say yes.

I just said.

Teamwork.

Teamwork makes it dream work.

So just to wrap up, man, I, one, I appreciate your time and thoughts.

And we went a lot of places here that I didn't expect, but I think that's a good thing.

This, this idea.

to your point, this is one of the most important topics.

It's almost like you got, at some point, you got to grow up.

And maybe, maybe, if growing up for you is i am going to dominate everything inside of 10 miles right i think that's a i think that's kind of a tougher road to play today i don't know that that's the right path even though it may feel like the right path i think i think if you're starting up

as fast as you can get to a thing whatever that thing is so dude um where can people get at you where's the best facebook linkedin the gram you tick tocking you know what's the best place for people to connect with you if they just want to?

I'm kind of old school.

It's probably Facebook.

I've never gotten on TikTok or Twitter.

LinkedIn is nothing but spam.

It's kind of Instagram for family stuff and Facebook for work stuff.

LinkedIn is my number one, is my number four source of new business at Rogue Risk.

No kidding.

Shit, you not.

Dude, we need to talk about LinkedIn because I, I mean, it's basically.

a non-existent platform for me.

Yeah.

My wife says the same thing.

It's a completely opposite for me.

It is the most valuable social platform.

outside of blasting the technology platforms that i pay to uh help me service my customers on facebook uh linkedin is the most valuable platform to me it just doesn't even come close bro i think we've got a great opportunity for a second episode yeah for sure well we need to be more focused on our our topic yeah we'll be more focused i can't always promise friday afternoon recordings could go anywhere so that's kind of what happened today but um i'll say uh absolutely gives us a reason to come back in a couple of months.

I appreciate your time.

I appreciate you.

Riskwell.com.

If you want to check out James's agency,

let me just say, so we can save people from messaging me going, hey, I really like that idea.

I was like, okay, here's the thing.

And if I'm going to ask for one thing, go to YouTube and subscribe to my channel.

I'm putting a lot of effort into putting good content on there.

It's one, it's for insurance agents and also for other business owners.

But don't ask if you can borrow or adapt or adopt something you see from me i give it freely take it make it your own don't message me and say hey can i use this because that happens all the time yeah i just want to be like dude of course you can go do your thing amen yeah risk risk wells youtube channel if you're going to connect with me i'd love for you to connect there shameless plug and while you're there if you haven't already subscribed to to hanley's uh rogue risk channel he's got some good stuff there too hell yeah unless you're going to do what someone did the other day and downvote every one of my videos.

She's not actually on camera.

She can come in.

I don't produce the video.

Oh, you don't?

Okay.

Well, she just threw a snowball on my desk.

So maybe I should put her on video.

That's a good way to end it.

Hey, man, appreciate you.

Be good.

Thanks, bro.

Take care.

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