RHS 085 - Preston Diamond on Worker’s Comp and Using Language Your Clients Can Understand

in a crude laboratory in the basement of his home

hello everyone and welcome back to the show. Today we have the one, the only, Preston Diamond, founder of the Work Comp Institute, educating insurance professionals around the country on everything workers' comp.
They give the Worker insurance advisor designation and master masters in work comp designation as well. And Preston has forgotten more things about workers comp, selling insurance, handling customers than most of us will ever know in three lifetimes.
But that's not necessarily why I wanted to have Preston on the show, although his expertise in the insurance world is undeniable in his reputation. Why I wanted to have Preston on the show is, one, I just don't see him on many shows and I wanted to have a chance to talk to him, as well as Preston has this ability to put insurance into terms that, you know, kind of the non-insurance folk can understand.
And I think that's a superpower. So often we get caught in our, you know, using our own language that it's an enormous turnoff to our customers.
It's actually one of the things that I pride myself on. And as much as I'm not an incredible insurance salesman, I do think that one of the things I've been able to develop over the years is an ability to boil what we do down into language that people can understand and it is relatable.
And Preston is a master at that. So anytime I have a chance to talk to someone who is, you know, light years ahead of me in a skill that I want to continue to develop, it's a huge win.
And I think you're going to love this conversation. There are a few technical issues in the middle.
So you'll hear what feels like a couple jumps. Those are just where I've spliced where his internet went down.
So just, you know, I hope you'll look past that. It's nothing major, but if it seems like there's a weird moment, that's what's happening.
And in general, if you're interested in digging deep into the real nitty gritty of comp, the work comp institute is a great place to get that education. I know a lot of people who are part of it.
And before we get to Preston, I want to give a big shout out to today's sponsor, and that is Donna. Donna for Agents by Arius Analytics.
Donna is starting to take over the independent agency ecosystem by storm.

They're hooking into agency management systems. They're already inside of Hawksoft.
They'll be in NowSearch soon. I know they're looking at connecting to different CRM systems.
What Donna does is it gives you insights into your customer base that you didn't even know were there. They have a proprietary scoring system for your communications, your text messages, your emails, your phone calls that boils down the language, how often people are contacting you, what they're saying, what they're talking to you about, what your responses are to them.
And it creates this centimeter score that is basically how someone feels about your agency. And then it's ranking.
It can show you that based on the agency as a whole, broken down into segments, all the way down to individuals. And what that allows you to do is get out ahead of customers who maybe have the potential for leaving.
Now, this might sound a lot like MPS. And MPS is great, don't get me wrong, but MPS, the most that you should be tracking net promoter score is once every six months.
If what centimeter score is taking every conversation that you have with one of your clients and it's able to real-time gauge where they are, and there's all kinds of other features to Donna. It's not something that I have implemented into my agency yet, but it is on my 2021 roadmap.
Delivering this type of customer experience, this type of insightful, engaged customer experience is a priority rogue. It's an important aspect.
I'm bypassing other aspects of my business to make sure that this is part of it. And when they get hooked into Now certs, I will absolutely be on the path to putting Donna in.

But I've spent a lot of time with Ron Scheuer and with Anurag and the entire team there.

I met them through Paradiso and have just been blown away by what their tool can present to you.

Specifically, the sentiment. there.
I met them through Paradiso and have just been blown away by what their tool can present to you. Specifically the centimeter score, but then there's a whole bunch of other stuff as well that comes with it that I'm not going to, you know, kind of waste your time with right this second.
Go check it out. Go to just Google Donna for Agents.
You can check them out on Twitter, LinkedIn. They got social profiles all over.
Donna for agents. I'm telling you guys, this is something you absolutely want to know about.
I did not steer you wrong with Tarmaca. I absolutely didn't steer you wrong with Tarmaca.
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You need to get the demo and just know what it's about because I'm telling you, for some of you, this is going to blow your mind and change the way you view data and analytics. All right, guys, let's get on to Preston Diamond.
Hello, sir. Hey, how are you? Excellent, sir.
You too, young man? I appreciate you coming on and doing the show. Hey, I appreciate you asking, of course.
Well, I, uh, so I, um, I have been following these, some of these LinkedIn posts that you've been doing. And I just was like, oh my gosh, we, I want to learn more about this stuff.
Like, um, just some of the concepts and ideas that, uh, the way that you break them down or

it's, um, it's really, it's fun. So, and, and interesting.
And I'm, I'm, I have a ton of

questions. So, um, what were the things you said you added a few things that you definitely wanted

to talk about? What were those things? Well, you know, this, this year's, let's say this last

Thank you. you said you added a few things that you definitely wanted to talk about.
What were those things? Well, you know, this year's, let's say this last year and this coming six months at least are different. And the difference is so many unemployed.
Our webinar tomorrow is hiring producers. And you're probably not on that list but we have 14 or 15 questions over a two-week period that we're going to talk about on hiring producers with the new yorker who does that and there's so many unemployed people if any agent isn't looking for a new producer

it seems their folly

because there are a lot of good people

they probably don't have to pay

they just need to put somebody to work

and even if it's an intern in their agency

every agency should have an intern

to do research on prospects

take it out of the producer's hands

Thank you. Even if it's an intern in their agency, every agency should have an intern to do research on prospects, take it out of the producer's hands.
The producer just has to draw the specs. The agency draws the specs and then put the $15 an hour person to work.
We've had an intern for a bit. Actually, right now we have one who's 35 who's just getting his degree in college, but he owned a business and had a bad accident so he had to sell his business.
And so he went back to school to get his college degree. We're going to try to keep him.
But for us, he runs the automation. He's learned how to be a great videographer, produces the wisdom letter, and manages our Infusionsoft CRM really well.
And he never bothers. He's just great.
He's a stay-at-home dad. His wife is a fundraiser for a college down the road.
So there's so many opportunities. We had, you know, the major statistics, and not the middle of the road are different, but we had an advisor who did $600,000 in new revenue last year, All online.
And another who did 300.

Because they really learned how to use Zoom.

And they really engaged their folks.

And truly, it saves a buyer time.

You just have to be active at how you use Zoom.

Make it engaging and not make it very long a lot of the time.

Thank you. time.
You just have to be active at how you use Zoom. Make it engaging and not make it very long a lot of the time.
But the one who did 300 is a 38-year-old producer who only talks about cyber and cop. Two hotspots.
Doesn't get muddled up in packages or those kinds of apps,

things of that nature.

And his call is for large companies is direct to the risk manager.

Who's in charge of that, which is pretty smart.

Going after high mod, high mod stuff or just, just, no, it doesn't matter. You know, he's calling accounts.
Well, he has no fear. His first job out of college was making cold calls to business owners to sell them seats to the masters golf tournament and to the baseball all-star game.
So he was selling $25,000 tickets at 20

years old out of college at 21. And he's kept that mentality.
So he's called a hospitality firm with 500 locations, cold call, bless you. And he's called another retail establishment around the country with 300 locations.

Direct call.

Didn't know.

But he found out who the risk manager was and just called the risk manager. Yeah.
So. Yeah.
I know. I've talked about it before on the show, but the thing that holds me back the most is call reluctance.
I make the calls. I just don't make enough of them or make them often enough.
And I get so twisted up in my head. And it is one of the things about my own personality that I struggle with the most is call reluctance.
And it's like, even saying it out loud makes me crazy that I struggle with the most is call reluctance.

And it's like, even saying it out loud makes me crazy

that I struggle with it so much.

But left to my own devices sitting here,

I don't make enough phone calls.

That's all, you know, that's a number of us.

And I, you know, I've been doing this for a long time.

It bothers me to get on the phone.

It's like I'm disturbing somebody now.

And I'm calling people who are agents, you know, so i can talk to them in their language easily enough yeah but you just

have to trick yourself and there's a couple ways to do it my guess is that you go to the refrigerator

a little bit during the day occasionally what's the first time what's the what happens what's the

first thing that happens when you open the refrigerator door start scanning no what

All right. first time what's the what happens what's the first thing that happens when you open the refrigerator door start scanning no what when you open the door exactly what's the very first thing that happens the light comes on right so pretend you're on the stage that's a practice moment for

a call yeah trick yourself into doing these things that become automatic. Set your alarm.
Set your phone alarm for 37 after the hour, two hours a day and practice for a minute. The script in front of you.
that kind of stuff the other two things that make calling easier that we talk to the young new agents about is our phones obviously record you can talk back you can use apps like Otter that will print what you're saying. And when you read anything

out loud, you'll know how it sounds to the listener. And we try not to let a letter get

out of here unless somebody reads it out loud. We're not really good at it enough, Amanda is.

But like I write it, you know, I just get it out. So I'm an old lazy guy, maybe.
So it's

Thank you. Amanda is, but like I write it, you know, I just get it out.
So I'm an old lazy guy maybe.

So it's doing things that change how we think.

Like I have a document that I think is up here.

It's break the rules and make new rules for this year.

It's just one page with, I think, three, six, nine, 12 squares on it.

So those are the rules that we're talking to agents to break and make new rules this year.

Yeah.

Because, you know, one of them is something I've been touting for 50 years.

I started consulting in 77, so 43 years, 44 44 years coming up and that is not talk insurance talk purely and for my next like posted a little bit on that but the next one's going to be getting rid of a couple of insurance terms to make it simple and I've done a powerpoint I've distributed to a few advisors called food and insurance so that you relate something that everybody knows to a product that nobody understands like I used to ask folks when I was teaching CIC how many of you have when you get your personal policies at home call your best friends and have a let's read my insurance policy party. Yeah, not exactly.
Yeah. So the biggest thing an agent can do, the strongest thing an agent can do is create insurance understanding.
And you can't do that by words. So if your personal lines or personal insurance client, we throw out the word lines because that's our term.
If you sell auto and home insurance and people come into your agency when that was the case, the salespeople and personal department should have two toy cars on their desk and crash them together and let them go to the floor to talk about collision.

Visual sell. You know, if you Google visuals versus words, it opens your eyes on how to sell insurance.

Yeah. I've started, I took this little like mini online course called, oh, geez.
I'm going to tell you a story a story about it and I don't even I can't remember what it was virtual visuals something like that this is gonna kill me oh my gosh whatever some visual course and so I started creating and basically it was just a course to teach you how to make graphics out of ideas that you have. So if you have an idea, how do you create a graphic that represents that idea? And I started creating these and I've created maybe 30 of them so far.
And what's been interesting about them is the feedback that I've gotten has been tremendous.

I don't want to necessarily say people are calling me to do business because I put some social media graphics out, but I will say that in some cold emails that I've sent to people, I've included one of these visuals and stuff like that. I have one that's like, it's three V's next to each other.

And one. that i have one that's like um it's three uh three v's next to each other and um one one is uh one of the v's is then filled halfway and then the middle v is filled halfway and then the third v is filled all the way to the top um and it has our logo in the middle and the, and on top of the first V it says, uh, half empty.
And in the middle one, it says half full. And then in the third one, it says rogue risk.
So the title of the graphic is, are you getting a full cup experience? So like this was right. So it came out of the idea of like, you know, you, you, I wanted to basically say like, why, why are we arguing over a half, you know, this cup that is obviously not full? Like, why don't we just fill the cup up? Why don't we just do all the things we say we're going to do? And, um, you know, it's been interesting.
I've emailed that to a few potential clients that I'm working and I've at least gotten responses from them, right? It's at least gotten them to engage me back. You know, so it's, it is, I will say the visual thing is, is, is hugely powerful.
It is. And that's why, that's why Zoom theoretically works better than a phone call.
Cause I can see your body language. And we're having a face-to-face conversation, not a mouth-to-ear conversation.
And so I wonder how many agencies have their account managers calling all of their clients so they have a face-to-face meeting. Because account managers rarely get to meet the people they service.

Yeah.

And if those agencies aren't taking advantage of Zoom or whatever platform they use.

Well, you know, I think about this from the standpoint as well of there being like virtual assistants becoming so both now from a security standpoint, virtual assistants have become, you know, a more secure part of your business that you can have. So before it was just bringing someone in that you didn't really necessarily know.
Now, if you use an agency VA or one of these other companies that have secure systems that they use, they can actually get into some of your systems. And my reason for bringing that up is whether it's someone in the States or someone outside, if you're utilizing virtual assistants for some of the tasks that would normally keep an account manager from having the time to make some of these calls and do some of these things like Zooms.
It really, you know, coupling a tool like Zoom or even just like one of these video tools like Loom or Vidyard, you can give your account managers more time. It just, it feels very much like what COVID is, this COVID with the pandemic and all the repercussions from it have shown us is what is actually available to us now? Like how much more we can do with the time that we have to be a value add and build relationships with our customers.
Absolutely. Absolutely.
And how many agencies are doing it? No idea. How many are complaining because they can't go see people? No idea.
But this and the other thing that Zoom has done in this environment has done is you can get referrals from friends 300 miles away from a client and take care of them as well as you can take care of somebody in your own backyard. Yeah.
So our exposure to new clients is unlimited now. Oh yeah, we had a program for assisted living and anybody who took care of people.
We still do. And I don't think we saw 10 clients except when we did marketing seminars around California.
It was more than marketing. It was helping them with a code because they're assisted living and they were regulated and all that.
But today, when the team there makes calls, they're all picture calls.

So now they get to know the people, which increases retention.

And if every agent isn't doing that, with their top accounts at least,

not just the owners of the account, but the account manager, the person that writes the check or the person that takes care of the audit in the business, somebody in safety if they're that large, the HR person if they're that large, anybody that the agency has a relationship with, everybody who handles that account or services that account should have zoom their clients. Yeah.
I'm sure that happens very often. No, no, I don't think it does.
I think that, uh, I think it's going to take a while for agencies to become accustomed to doing, to working video. I think, I think most people have still to this day, I think they're still hoping that eventually it goes back to face-to-face.

And, you know, if you're in a lot of the southern states, then, you know, you haven't had the lockdowns like we have in the north.

I mean, up here, there's clients that I literally don't even know what they look like.

You know, it's been interesting.

I've had clients who haven't wanted to do Zooms.

They're still, they're perfectly fine with the phone.

They've never met in person.

They're fine over the phone, you know? So I think it is, it's just a very dynamic time. And I think it's, to me, it feels like, it feels like it's very easy to, it's very easy to, to, to present, to, to feels like it's very easy to feel like you can't deliver as much value because of COVID.

And I guess what I'm seeing is you can actually deliver a lot more because of what COVID has

forced us to do as a bright spot, as a good way of looking at it. Yeah, no, I agree with you 100%.
And I think part of our problem as agents are we don't ask our clients how they like to do things. Like my favorite, and we don't ever use the word question, my favorite, we call it, I mean, we check a few points because question can be an intimidating word.

So, you know, one of the points that we would always check is when we communicate, how do you like to communicate?

In person?

Well, we're social people, but it's a little harder today, Ryan.

So do you like phone?

Do you like fax still? Do you like a Zoom call where we face-to-face? How long do you usually like to talk? A couple of minutes? I think when we ask our prospective clients how they like to do things, do you prefer me just to drop by when the time is right? Is that okay? Or not to who is it that i should talk to who helps you out you know none of those things are on a court apps yeah so we don't a lot of time use common sense ways to frame our business around how the client wants to frame the business as long as it's not costing us more money and how to communicate isn't. And when we come back to present, and we don't use the word proposal or presentation, we have our own keywords for things like that because those are too hard to, I think it puts the buyer on a little defensive.
But anyway, when I come back to give you our report of findings is what we use. You prefer one at 30,000 feet, which would be for me because I'm a skimmer.
I'm not a detailed person like Kevin. And he would like it boots on the ground.
He wants to know everything. yeah would you like your report of finding at 30 000 feet we'll give you the highlights

would you like it boots on the ground he wants to know everything yeah would you like your report of finding at 30 000 feet we'll give you the highlights would you like it at 10 000 feet

we'll give you a few more details that we think are important would you like boots on the ground

or we'll give you a 52 page report of findings so the key is to find out how your buyer likes to do

business and if that fits into your way of doing business financially then why wouldn't you do that

Thank you. Find out how your buyer likes to do business.
And if that fits into your way of doing business financially, then why wouldn't you do that? And you'll keep the buyer more because they're not straining to fit into our way of doing business. Yeah.
And I don't think agents pay much attention to that. Well, not I don't think.
Yeah. Well, I think that, I think most of us feel so lucky to get an account that everything you just described would never even enter the realm of consciousness.
You know, I think that it's a, it, yeah, I had, I had someone the other day, um, they were talking about, um talking about, they sent me this quote.

And again, now I couldn't figure out the name of the visual course.

And I'm not going to remember the quote either.

So I'm going to butcher it. But the idea was basically most people live by chance.

Basically what they were saying is that the average person is just kind of bumping into things.

And if something good happens, that's great.

I'll see you next time. um by chance you know basically what they were saying is that the the average person is just kind of bumping into things and if something good happens that's great something doesn't good app you know something doesn't happen that's that what they want they kind of deal with it and that um we have to be conscious and consistent and focused or otherwise every everything is just by chance and i and i think that's what what you're talking about you're talking about is like, if you're not figuring out upfront that someone, how someone likes to communicate, like if someone said, I don't care about COVID, you have to come into my office and coming into their office doesn't work for you, right? Or you're 400 miles away from that person.
You know, you've just, you're putting a ton of work and effort into an account that's never going to actually work out for you. And you're wasting time and energy.
And then you'll complain that it, you know, why does, you know, why didn't this happen? Or, you know, the insurance customers, you know, they don't care anymore. And you make up all these excuses, but really it was because you didn't take the time to figure out right up front if this person was a good fit for you or not.
Sure. But every agent should be in charge of that.
What are your rules for having a client hire you? Because they have to live by your rules because you're governed by the insurance company because they're not flexible. So what are your rules knowing how the insurance companies operate? Like way before you were born and direct bill started, you know, we were all worried that we were going to lose all the business and all of that kind of stuff because, because, because.
And then now it's ingrained in everybody's business because it's personal and commercial. So those were rule changes.
So what are the rules of doing insurance business with Ryan Hanley? Do you have your 10 rules that your buyers can fit into to make it easier for them and for you. And they're pretty common sense.

Like, how do you like to communicate? When I come back to present my report of findings, we can say nonfat, low fat, and artery clogging. We can use any metaphors that we want and we should use so that the buyer understands it exactly.

You know, one of the secrets of selling is, well, for you,

if you suffer a disaster, not have a claim because that's an insurance word.

So if you suffer a disaster or an employee suffers an injury,

not has a claim because that's an insurance

word.

Do you want to know how much the check you're going to have to write when that happens or

how much the check the insurance company is going to write when that happens?

What do you prefer, Ryan?

Yeah.

Are you asking me personally or?

Absolutely.

Yeah. I want to know how big a check I'm going to have to write.
Right. But how many agents know that and ask that question? We created a proposal system in 1995 that had to be put on the shelf a couple of years ago because our coverage analyst took another job.
And I haven't really done much work to find somebody who wants to keep up wording on the insurance industry. But it was all, it was visually based back then.
And it was three columns on the left-hand side column was the house. The center was just the word where you live.
And then are about 10 words describing a homeowner's. And then coverage items with pictures.
And it was simple, built in word. So agents didn't like it because it didn't fit in their agency management system.
They'd rather produce something that everybody else produces that people can't understand because it's insurance stock and have an intern put together these presentations, report of findings, proposal, whatever they call it for them, which buyers understand. Because they're put together how the mind and the brain work together.
Yeah. You know, if I spell G-A-R-B-A-G-E for you,

your mind would automatically go to garbage.

You wouldn't go to G-A-R-B-A-G-E, the letters.

So that's creating insurance understanding,

which is the key to selling the product because people fear what they don't understand. Yeah.
That's human nature. I've said this before on the show.
I was lucky to be raised in an agency where my father-in-law is like the ultimate storyteller. And I would sit in my office and I could hear him selling people.
And he had these stories that he would tell. And I basically stole all of them and made them my stories.
That's great. But he would run people through a story for every coverage on a home and auto.
Exactly. Every coverage had a story.
No fault, uninsured motorists. Why do you have full glass on comp when you need collision, when you don't need collision on and story, story.
I had a client that did this. Here's how this happened.
What if this happens? And by the end, the people would. They would be talking to him, not an insurance language, obviously, but they would they would know what they were buying.
And it was insane watching the transformation. And it was because even though he didn't necessarily have imagery, he created that with stories.
That's wonderful. Stories and gossip still.
Facts confuse. Yeah.
You talk too much, you confuse, you lose. Yeah.
I have an Asian friend in washington that's a monopolistic state so he's not a cop agent but he's a big personal insurance agent big big accounts obviously microsoft amazon all of the wealth there and he just roams around taking pictures of accidents when houses are on fire.

So his... wealth there and he just roams around taking pictures of accidents he gets when houses are on fire so his stories are on his laptop showing actual loss of events clipping articles from the local newspapers and and that that's his report of findings or presentation yeah and it's really persuasive and really simple today.
Yeah. Agents make it hard.
Well, you know, I think, I think we forget sometimes that everyone just assumes that they're never going to have a bad loss. Like, unless you've actually had one, you basically assume it's never going to happen to you.
And that's why, or at least I think one of the reasons why just talking people through coverages and like you say, the facts, it's so meaningless because if they are operating under the assumption it's never going to happen to them, which I think most people do, and they've never had it happen, then what is just telling them, you know, what does a million dollars in liability mean to someone who basically assumes that's never going to happen to them? They're, they're too small or they, they're too safe or they've been doing it for too long and it's never happened. And, you know, I mean, these kinds of things mean, you know, all of a sudden it's meaningless.
Totally. Yeah, totally.
We had an earthquake program and I have a good friend client in New York City who was wiped out by Hurricane Sandy five or six years ago. And when Jim and I were talking about afterward, he was saying, you know, I should be able to sell flood insurance.
He's the only one in his block that had flood insurance. And he said, these people are silly.
I should be able to sell them all flood insurance. And the New York Times and all the papers said, this is a once in a thousand year event.
That was noted all the time. So who do you think bought flood insurance from him? Nobody.
Right. Didn't sell one.
We had an earthquake program and we had San Francisco quake during the World Series of 89. We had about 200 houses with problems.
During the Northridge quake in 1994, which sort of made us think about moving from California, we had about 800 houses damaged. And there hasn't been a quake like that since 1994, little ones.
So the 89 and the 94 quake. So that's, we're going on six years to 2000, 26 years since a big quake.
And you keep reading about the big quake is coming. But the people that buy quake insurance are those whose lenders make them.
Yeah. Early, we insured some houses of 10 million.
We insured stars. We were a wholesaler, so I didn't know any of these people.
But, you know, the premium didn't matter to them.

And they had managers that bought insurance.

Their managers had to cover their buns.

Yeah.

So they did it.

But you're right, 100%.

And your father-in-law has it exactly right.

Gossip and stories, still insurance.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So one of these items on one of your LinkedIn posts that I was, that I was super interested in is unseen and untold is unsold. What, what does that mean? Can you break that down for me? Well, just, you know, the words talk for themselves, really.
If I don't see you and I don't tell you, I can't sell you.

So picture cell.

Now, phone, but Zoom makes that happen.

Yeah.

So unseen, face-to-face person.

But the point is really back to your call reluctance.

You can translate unseen as not talked to.

Yeah. So if you can't talk to you can't sell them unless you're really direct market you're selling some product they can buy by mail and never see you um so then there was another post you had about winning questions and this was another one this is one of the ones that I wanted to break down a little bit because this was really interesting as well.
So you had, these are winning questions, 12 winning questions posted on LinkedIn. And if you're not following Preston on LinkedIn, everyone that's listening, I would absolutely go do so.
Must follow on the LinkedIn. ins.
But there's a few of these questions I thought were really interesting. And this is like, you know, you've already broken down a couple of these.
When I present, do you like 30,000, 10 foot or boots on the ground? I liked, what was it? Non-fat, low-fat or artery clogging was one. I like that.
You have to be a little careful about who you use artery clogging with. Yes.
Yeah. Yeah.
I'm sure. I'm sure.
But I, you know, even 30,000, 10 foot or boots on the ground probably gets it done. Um, you know, when you're, when you're, for these particular questions, I guess my first part is when are you going through the, some of these with them? Are, is this before a sale post sale? Should this be part of your, um, like the courting process, you know, but as you're, as you're getting to know them as a prospect or a suspect, or are you, is this after the sale is over? I, you know, they've signed all the docs and I pull out my trusty notebook and I go, you know, okay.
Uh, how did you get in the business? Like what, what is, what, when is the appropriate time? Um, and I'm assuming you do not want to just like rattle these off one after the next, like there's gotta be some artistry to working your way through some of these questions as well. Sure.
And that, and that, you know, it starts with your intern researching, finding out because today information is pretty readily available through many sources. And if one belongs to an association or a group, like every agent should belong to two at least to become an industry insider.
So we happened to be in California when the assisted living industry started in 1977. And a friend introduced me to the president of the association.
So I was on the ground floor of that industry in California. So I got to learn it.
And California is an anomaly for that industry. So other states don't have what California has as far as licensing is concerned.
Yeah. My wife and I could become an assisted living facility and just have one resident in and get paid by the state or the city or by the resident if it's private, as long as we had a fire alarm and an exit in that room.
So California has a law that six beds or less can be in a private dwelling or had a law. I think they still do.
So I think there are five or six questions that are paramount. The very first zoom meeting and the very first meeting.
And then I actually put together, I think, 112 blue chip questions that cover all of the incidents that you can run into, pretty much any of them back when I did it, but it's not up to date with cyber and the new coverage that are out there. But anyway, the number one is always, how did you get into this business anyway? Because you want to know their background in that business so you can learn what they learn, what they know, and talk to them the way they talk about their business.
So that's critical. The second one is as critical, please share your marketing plan with me.
Are they going to expand? Are they going to go all virtual? Is their website going to be their main source of revenue? Are they going to go international? Are they hoping to increase revenue by three times? So you understand when you come back and how you can model your program. The third one and only insurance question, because we're comp people, is please share with me how you felt when an employee suffered an injury and how your insurance company took care of you and your injured employee.
The reason for that question is a BOR opportunity number number one. If they said they didn't like what the company did, then getting them to sign a BOR may not be the right thing.
If they liked it, then it comes down to you, not the company, which is what you want. Because what you're going to provide for them is an error-free, overcharge free program and i'm betting most of your listeners clients don't know what their lowest possible mod could be so you know we go that in the course as you know yeah and and some of these things are key so that's the question that leads into that the fourth one is how do you like to communicate? The fifth one is when I come back to present, you like 30,000 feet.
So those are the five all-the-time ones. And with that, you have a checklist because everybody knows checklists.
And the metaphor for that is when you go onto an airplane in those days when we will again, most of us look to the left because it's just common, just it's habit to look into the cockpit. And typically we'll see the pilot or co-pilot filling out a checklist.
So people are familiar with checklists. So checklists are really important and compare that to your implementation checklist at the end of your present report of findings to show the buyer how you operate.
Because if they don't know, well, maybe fear will set in. But when you have a checklist at the front end and a checklist at the back end, your buyer is going to feel more comfortable.
Yeah. Because you're checking these points of interest.
Yeah, I think that's a really interesting point. And it's something that I have, I have, um, creating that type of process, a checklist

based process. And it's something that I have, creating that type of process, a checklist-based process, has never been my strong suit.
A strength of mine is that I move fast. A weakness of mine is that I move fast and I don't slow down to put some of these processes in place.
But I have started to do it. And I have found just in the few interactions with clients that I've had where I've started to use some of my, you know, whatever, standard documentation that it almost provides security to people.
Like it's almost like they want to see that you have this defined, like, I think some people, I think my, I shouldn't say some people, I'm going to speak for myself. I think my perception would be that I would, I would, my perception would be is that some, you know, you want to be loose and engaged and back and forth.
And, you know, you want to, you know, you want to feel confident and off the cuff and that you've done this a million times and that a checklist takes you away from that. But the opposite is actually true.
Like the client wants to see you going, yep, we got this squared away and that squared away. And okay, seven things, boom, check number seven.
Hey, you know, we're in good shape. Look, all seven of my boxes here are checked.
I got it. I know exactly what you want.
You know that I have the information. Here it is.
Like, let's move on to the next step. Like it provides peace and security that you actually have a process that you're following and that you're going through it.
Do you know anybody who's never made a checklist? Do I know anyone who's ever not made one? Is that just asking? No. I mean, most people have at some point in their life, right? Yeah.
In the morning, come in, I'm going to do these five things today or before I go home last night or we're going to buy these groceries or checklists like report cards are part of American life. Yeah.
And if you fit in, you know, the old saying that I've used forever, if you can see John Smith through John Smith's eyes, you'll sell John Smith what John Smith buys. Yeah.
Hmm yeah so understanding your buyer and not using insurance language and creating insurance understanding are the heart of a great program yeah people buy people they don't buy things yeah so tell um so for everyone who's listening um i'd like you to maybe spend the rest of our time together just talking a little bit about the Institute and about what the Institute is about, why you got it started.

Who considers joining?

Who are the people who become part of your organization?

Thank you for that question.

I met a consultant in a hot tub in 1977, which was a watershed point for me. And I invited him to come to our agency.
This was in Southern California. We were a couple hundred miles away.
So we came up, he wasn't busy. We were doing pretty much what he would recommend to any of his clients.
And he was an icon in the industry. He sadly died at 52.
And back in those days, he had a Volkswagen, he had a van, and he would consult with an agency during the day. At night, he'd go back to his van and type up the report and leave it at the front door of the agency when he drove on to the next appointment overnight, someplace close.
And so he taught me that, and I consulted with a number of agencies. And that led me to be in 400 plus agencies over a period of time.
And I've spoken to a number of groups. And when I was speaking to a group out in Las Vegas in about 1995, an agent there came up at the end and said, I like what you said.
I'm a comp guy. Can you help me? And so we formed a relationship in that.
And then I work with a nice comp agent in California who wanted to do like we're doing. And so just from that, it morphed in to the Institute.
Because we moved back to Chapel Hill, North Carolina in 97, up to Asheville in 04. And so my wife and I would drive around the country with me consulting.
And she was a spent the day in the hotel room reading then we'd go to dinner and then driving back to either to North Carolina or California at that time too we'd spend time really sightseeing because I spread my gigs far enough apart so that we'd make a lot of a pleasure to see the country. We did.
It's great driving around the country and finding things you read about and all of a sudden you're there. And so we started the Institute in 2001, 30 days after 9-11.
And because I had consulted around the country, I had a cadre of a lot of agents I knew. So they were handpicked to come and critique us and do that.
So from there it started. And our daughter was going to school in Virginia and came home for one semester and happened to meet Kevin during that semester.
And he's a techie through and through. He got his first computer at age eight.
And he's going to North Carolina State. He was a techie there.
And so because he was dating and then married our daughter, he helped us with our stuff because neither of us were technologically handy. And so that led to him coming aboard.
And so it was just something that happened based upon my consulting that no agent treated workers' comp as an insurance policy because every state has the same policy. There can be no value ads.
There can't be other stuff you can throw onto it except the right endorsements because of the hazard. So agents didn't pay attention to comp.
Commissions were the lowest. Every policy was the same.
They couldn't differentiate themselves. And little did they realize that

workers' comp is incredibly complex, especially today when there are so many multi-state employers,

because every state makes their own rules and regulations all moderated by NCCI in 37.

You were saying when you first started to break up a little bit, you were talking about NCCI.

Oh, it then. Back then, not the laptop.
No, before the laptop. Okay.
37 or 39 states are NCCI. The rest are independent states.
Four states are monopolistic. So there was a great opportunity because agents didn't treat workers' comp as an insurance policy.
It was just comp is comp is comp. You can't have value.
You can't add value to it really, et cetera. And the most important part of comp are injured employees, obviously.
And all of that was delegated to insurance companies. So mods could be rampant if the injury wasn't managed correctly.
So there was a lot of opportunity in a complex coverage policy that has a lot of moving parts. And comp is money.
You pay a premium. You have an audit, money.
An employee suffers an injury, doesn't have a claim, suffers an injury, is money. Reporting date to NCCI or your independent bureau is money.
Renewal is money. So comp is really more money than it is insurance.
And it's the only insurance that the buyer has complete charge over because of safety, because of preventing errors and overcharges, because of getting to their lowest possible cost. And no agents knew that back at that time, or let's say very few.
That was too strong a word. So that's what we focused on.
But our very first institute in 2001, we offered everybody to come as a teaser, a laptop. I thought that would do it because we're teaching them comp, which they just, everybody sold.
It's a takeover insurance, which is another great thing. You don't have to sell a new policy like EPLI or cyber where people say, well, I've never had a claim.

I'm not going to buy it.

So comp, we knew every agent sold.

That was part of it.

And the computer was to entice them to come.

But I was the one who called to fill the seats.

And most people never wanted to talk about the comp.

They wanted to know what kind of computer they were going to get and how was it specced. And that was just disaster because I'm certainly far along.
I'm not a techie. So we cut that out after about five phone calls and went back to convincing them to come.
And we charged a lot of money to do that. And the write-ups for the first one were great.
They were hand-picked to come and we charged a lot of money to do that and the write-ups for the first one were great they were hand-picked to come agents I had worked with so we had a strong relationship because I consulted in their agency I knew their agency and so it grew and it morphed into instead of a training session like I taught CIC so instead of a training session where you pay to get trained, we made it a membership organization where we train you and we certify you and we hold your hand to make money. Like Kevin is at 981 mod worksheets so far, analyzed since 2011, and will hit a thousand in a month or two or three maybe.
And we have records of being able to help employers. Well, we have one advisor who's been an advisor since 2004, and I challenged him when he came to keep records.
He's very, very detailed. And he kept great records from 2004.
And we have a testimonial from him that he's helped employers reduce costs and return money over 50 million bucks in that time, and he's tripled their revenue. So it's the only insurance where you have a 100% hold on the employer's money.
And we really say all the time, lead with comp, prove yourself, and let the buyer beg you to take over the rest of the insurance. And I try all the time to get some producer in the agency to only be the comp person.
We have a few agencies like that. We have one that we work with closely where they always team sell.
One of them is the liability person and the other is the mod is the comp person. And whoever gets the appointment takes the other one who doesn't say a word unless spoken to, but introduced as a liability person.
So when the cop has put to bed, the liability person can call. Smart.
Smart. Very smart.
So it's morphed into that and we've got you know the only state that we can't seem to get into that we're dying to is hawaii we have an agent in alaska it's great who's active we've had a few hits in hawaii i've a few times, but that hasn't worked because that would be obviously more than just an institute. And we've done a number of agencies in-house and we have a number of groups.
Yeah. Like we're doing an institute next week or early February for an agency with 47 locations or 37 locations.
So virtually makes it happen. Yeah.
They wouldn't bring anybody to one location, but now they can have 30 offices sit in. Yeah.
I know the NYCIRB in New York has been, it's been interesting, you know, because I work in Connecticut, Vermont and New York, primarily, appointing a few other states, but most of my clients and even inside of there, Vermont and New York are the bellwethers. bellwethers and just, just, just keeping it straight in my head between Vermont being NCCI in New York with the NYC IRB, you know, there's not, it's just, you know, just those differences can be, can sometimes be a little, I don't know, you just, just trying to keep them all straight and how does this one work and the difference in the rating and getting all the information.
It's you know, if you, if you work primarily in NCCI States, it's nice because at least they're operating under the same organization. I know the States tend to differ too, but you know, New York is always its own monster.
So that's been interesting. Well, and you have it like we do, you we're 50 miles within four states yeah send employees to another state to work it's a different rule maybe yeah so you know kevin lives with all of this every day and he loves it yeah starts every day at ncc on their website to see what's new and then you know we have agencies in california has their own Bureau.
carolina has their own bureau we have a number of agencies in your state we have them in states with their own bureau and there's state exceptions so we get into all of that stuff yeah so if someone wants to um learn more about joining or just what membership looks like, just where do they go?

What's the best place for them to head?

Sure, there's workcomprofessionals.com.

Or there's, that's a good starting point.

Yeah.

Certainly you can email Kevin at iwcpro.com or Preston at IWCPro.com. Conversation with you.
Guys, I will say if you're looking to really become an expert in comp and drill down into the nitty gritty of what's going on and be surrounded by other people who appreciate the nitty gritty of the coverage.

And in particular, when you're dealing with multiple states and just all the different facets that come with, you know, workers comp in general, I think the work that you and Kevin are doing, I mean, I can't speak highly enough. and you know I

I think that you guys are doing

some of the best work in our industry for, for, for any of the, for any particular coverage, but, you know, workers comp, especially, and I, you know, I, we do, you know, I'm building my agency around comp. So I, I think, I think I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm excited that you were able to give

us so much time and I appreciate it. And I hope that more people after hearing, you know, if they,

if they weren't aware are going to give your organization a second look or a first look,

learn more. There's, there's tons of free resources on your site.
There's ways that you

can, I think there's a newsletter they can subscribe to, right? Correct. WorkComp Advisory, which we've been doing since 2006, which is no marketing.
We private label it for your agency. Yeah.
There's a net charge over institute fees. I didn't mention Teresa, who's our injury management person.
But Teresa was a claims manager at Disney World for seven years. And she is a licensed adjuster, and she worked at Disney World for 14 years.
And so she manages injuries for our advisors who have larger accounts, retro plans, or things of that nature based upon her time. And she's helped advisors really manage claims very well.
And well, obviously, look at her background. Yeah, that's tremendous.
So we hold your hand after you take the course and get certified. Yeah.
Master Work Comp Advisor course, which is free form. The Certified Work Comp Advisor course, we filed for continuing ed.
And now we provide continuing ed for Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, and Missouri, and we've just filed for four more states. And we're going to bleed it out four states at a time.
So continuing ed is part of the certified work comp advisor course. The Master Workup Advisor course is more limited in attendance and it's not as structured and the tests are different.
And we go way deep into the manual and the master course and deeper in a little bit of the how to get and keep clients once you learn the process. And thank you for asking us.
Appreciate everything.

Yeah.

Wow.

Thank you. I wish you nothing but the best.
And thanks for coming on the show. Yeah.
And I didn't mean to call you a different name than Ryan. You know what? Wandered there for a moment.
I just, that went right over my head. I didn't even realize.
I wouldn't even know the difference thanks guy keep well please stay safe yeah be good Oh, take it. Oh, take it.
Oh, take it. Oh, take it.
Oh, take it. Oh, take it.
Oh, take it. Oh, take it.
Oh, take it. Oh, take it.
Oh, take it. Oh, take it.
Oh, take it. Oh, take it.
Oh, take it. Oh, take it.
You You go fuck yourself with your fat fucking ass.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Thank you, this is my brother Charlie.

Thank you, this is my brother.

Oh, oh.

Thank you, this is my brother Charlie.

Thank you. Do you want to have a few drinks and smoke a joint bubbles?

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