RHS 084 -Justin Sloan on How to Build an Agency

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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 Justin Sloan on the podcast. Justin is the principal agent and owner at BSP Insurance in Connecticut.
And if you are part of the IAOA group, then I'm sure you're very familiar with Justin and the work that he does and his level of professionalism. And, you know, I first met Justin in person out in San Diego at last year's Innovate event and or innovation.
And, you know, we just became fast friends in terms of, you know, having similar viewpoints on the business. the business.
Justin has a deep history in insurance and he's told that on a lot of other shows. So we don't necessarily get into his backstory as much as I just wanted to wrap the business with him.
What was going on? What tools is he using? What is he seeing coming down the pipe? How is he handling running that business? And it's just a tremendous conversation. We have a ton of fun and I think you're going to love this one.
Before we get there, I want to give a big shout out to today's sponsor, Agency VA. If you're looking to scale your business, if you're looking for horsepower, Agency VA is the tool to help you get that done.
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So go to agencyva.com, agencyva.com. I also want to give real quick a big shout out to my guy, Chris Langell at Advisory Evolved.
Chris is taking the Advisory Evolved brand as well as the local traffic marketing brand to a whole nother level this year. And I just want to give him a big shout out because the work that that dude does, he's one of the most unheralded people in our industry.
And the websites that he's put together, the digital properties, the digital traffic that he's helped create for agents across this country is absolutely unbelievable. If you need a website, if you need digital traffic, specifically local digital traffic, go to Advisory Evolved, go to Local Traffic Marketing, Chris and Nate Bunty, the work that he's doing there as well.
Go to advisoryevolved.com, localtrafficmarketing.com. They will get you hooked up.
No questions asked. They're the best in the business.
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All right. Let's get on to Justin Sloan.
There he is. Dude.
What's up, man? What's up, buddy? Just, you know, living the dream here. Living the dream? Trying to, at least.
Look at you. All your plaques in the background.
I got Hanover, Guard. New York Central Mutual is the other one.
Yeah, what are they good at? They're domestic here in New York, and they mostly do home auto umbrella renters. They have a commercial product, which are starting to roll out.
It's just, it's just bops. It's still a little light, but in general it's coming along for main street stuff.
But man, you, you, you got a couple of rentals, a couple of nice rentals, home auto, you put them in New York central, you'll have them there forever. That's great.
Are they a true mutual? It's like the dividend check and all that. They don't, they don't pay a dividend.
They don't do a dividend check, but they function like a true mutual in every other way. Like their rates are so stable.
It's insane. Like they just, their rates like just never change.
A good company to have in your arsenal, you know? Yeah. So they were just being in New York.
I mean, they're the sixth largest writer of auto insurance in the state of New York. Wow.
Yeah. So they're, they're not like a, like a little baby, a little baby company.
They only, they only write in New York, but in New York, they're a pretty major player. Yeah.
Great. Yeah.
So, so there's that, I mean, New York's an odd state in that way. We have a lot of, we have a lot of mutuals and domestics and, um, you know, a lot of the big guys just don't really play here or play in such a small way that it's not, you know, I hear these stories texas where people are like i'll just b or

it i'm like like their b or game is so tight and i'm like bro i'd have to have 570 appointments to play the b or game here like it just doesn't work the same way like what happens when they have mid-state mutual i'm gonna go get a freaking mid-state mutual appointment just to write that account. I can't.

I just don't worry about it.

It's just a different ballgame.

But no, it's all good.

So what's going on with you, dude?

Nothing, man.

Just living the dream.

We're actually finally implementing the EOS system in our organization, if you're familiar with that.

I'm mildly.

What is EOS?

I've heard Paradiso talk about it a lot. Yeah.
So it's the entrepreneurial operating system. So all relatively large organizations that you probably have some sort of product in your house, Apple, McDonald's, all that stuff, they all operate on this platform.
And it's a way of structuring your organization in a way that you, Ryan Hanley and me, Justin Sloan, as an owner of our organizations, aren't so involved in wearing 12 different hats. Yeah.
EOS model, you have a visionary at the top, which is usually like a CEO or someone of high level.

And then you have an integrator.

So those are two separate positions.

A visionary tries to look forward for the organization.

The integrator. So those are two separate positions.
A visionary tries to look forward for the organization. The integrator is somebody or implementer or whatever you want to call them.
There's somebody that kind of has a final say over all decisions within the organization. And then you have your typical hierarchy in your organization.
So like my role in BSP right now under this model is like I run sales and marketing and then there's another bucket of like client experience and then like we have technology as its own little thing and Chris obviously is going to run that piece we have like an HR type bucket and you know you see this in all organizations but behind the scenes there's a lot more that goes into that. And it helps you hit benchmarks and make sure things get done.
Because the biggest problem in any organization is, hey, Ryan, we should redo our website. It's kind of outdated, right? And you kick that can down the road, you try out a couple of different vendors, and then nothing gets done, right.
So this means you have quarterly rocks where you have to hit certain things, get it done. And if you don't, and then it kind of, the, the micromanaged piece is like the scorecard, the KPIs.
And then, you know, I can, I'm trying to take a 400 page book and tell you in like, yeah, no, it's fine. But, um, I definitely recommend reading it.
Traction is the name of the book. And then, um, he also wrote good to great, which is a little bit drier.
Um, but it's a pretty cool book. Um, and there's a whole series of books that goes with it, but it's like weekly meetings, level 10 meetings, 90 minutes.
You can't, if you miss it, the meetings still go on with or without you. You have quarterly rocks, which are usually like four, four things or so that each person at the head of each department is responsible for.
And at the end of the year, you have like larger goals and, you know, whether it's like, for me, it's, it's focused on sales, right? So premium, you know, commissions, bringing on new producers, stuff like that. So my rocks for this quarter, for example, would be two new producers.
I got one here already. I'm courting a guy right now, bringing them on.
So it's pretty cool. It definitely is a game changer.
People that implement it and actually execute on it, the year-over-year growth is just exponentially compared greater to what they were doing previous to it. So Chris has implemented it in his organization.
I don't know if they started it like a year ago, but I think they started it like halfway into the year and BSP is doing it effective now. So I'll know more.
It's a little premature to talk about it now, but you know, if you see us growing 30 new employees over the next, you know, year, you can, you can tell it's working, right? Yeah. Yeah.
Oh, that's awesome, man. I mean, I think, you know, there's a part of me that says the system is less important than having the system.
You know what I mean? There's so many systems and there's probably a good argument for all of them. That's not to say I have heard nothing but the best of the best use EOS and there's a reason for it.
It's because that system works. And if you follow it, you grow.
Like I've heard that from people in our industry, people in other industries, like I've heard it across the board. So I have no doubt that you're doing the right thing.
I just think a big part of me says, you know, if you don't have a system and you don't have goals, where the heck are you going? And I'd say that's probably was 2020 for me at Rogue was like, oh, my God, you know, just flailing.

Just if I had to put a word in like 2020, why would you describe Rogue Risk 2020?

I just put flailing.

I was, you know, I've been following you before we started.

You know, I think I met you out like physically met you out in San Diego last year in January, like right around this time last year. Yeah.
You know, obviously the pandemic wasn't a thing back then. We didn't know, you know, 30 days, maybe 60 days later it was.
But, you know, you were gung ho, like, you know, commercial and this and that. And it was interesting.
And then watching you and your organization and how you've pivoted, you know, and adapted, because that's what you have to do in a lot of industries. Like, it doesn't matter where you are right now, you know, rest in peace to the restaurant industry right now.
I feel bad for them. But, you know, at the end of the day, like you evolved, right? Like you went after homeowners and personal lines and building up that book.
I think it's a blessing in disguise. I think for you and your organization, because we always joke, not you and I, but me and other business owners about even David Carothers is a great example.
When I met him out in Vegas, he had no personal lines, you know, and he was middle market commercial. And to this day, he kind of like loves hates that he has that book of business, but it's a good foundation.
It's, it's stable. It's going to always be there.
I know for him, maybe his agency isn't set up to support that bandwidth and that volume of, you know, problems or whatever the case may be. But I think all organizations need to have, they can't be a one trick pony anymore, you know, going after a middle market commercial in the middle of a pandemic where nobody wants to meet you face to face.
You can't market to them easily unless you're doing it digitally, cold calling, snail mail, stuff like that. But I think the biggest relationships that you're going to get are face-to-face and it's, you know, Zoom's great and everything, but there's nothing like going to a happy hour and, you know, a networking event and end up staying there until nine, 10 o'clock at night, even later, because you just got the CEO of a 500 employee organization, you know, in love with you and wants to hear more about Rogue Risk 365, right? Like, yeah, your dream, but no, I think you're, I think you're right, man.
I think you're a hundred percent right. I think that I, you know, what, what is it, you know, I mean, the most overused, you know, every, uh, Mike Tyson, you know, everyone's got a plan to get punched in

the mouth. You know, I think, I think that you can be, I think there is a clear, um, let me say

this a different way. I think that grit, perseverance, dedication are, are, um, it's

undeniable how important those things are. At the same time, you have to know when dogged determination is actually pointing you in the wrong direction.
And I think, you know, one of the things that has helped me, one of the things that has helped me be successful in my career is that I could give two shits about saying, Hey, I was wrong about this, or this isn't working in adjusting course. I just don't care.
And, um, I don't care if, you know, I've had people say, well, geez, Ryan, you were on Infusionsoft and then you went to agency zoom and now you're on better agency. Like, why don't you just pick a, pick a CRM? And I'm like, because I'm trying to figure out what can works for me, all right? Like, I don't, you know what I mean? Like, what do I care? You know, Infusionsoft and Zoom are perfectly fine tools.
I chose this one, you know, Better Agency because it works for me in this time and what I'm trying to do. And I don't care about being wrong or being considered someone who switches services.
Like, it doesn't. Like these, these are things I think what we ultimately have to get to is what do you want your business to be? How do you make money? I mean, that's really why we're doing this to begin with.
So, you know, I, I just find it to be, um, you gotta know when to adjust course and, uh, not that that's easy, but you got to. Yeah.
I'm, as you're aware, you know, we're in the protege and you're one of the coaches and stuff like that. I'm pivoting.
Everybody knows me through IOA and through the industry and I'm vocal about it with my real estate investor niche. And we're actually partnering up with a local RIA here in Connecticut to actually build out an insurance agency inside the RIA because the one in Long Island is going wildly successful.
So they're kind of, you know, mirroring that. But, you know, what we're really focusing on this year is what opportunities can we go after that are currently in our wheelhouse that we're not actively exploiting? For example, our sister company, Bon Giovanni Insurance and Financial, they do group benefits and their groups are big.
You know, they're a hundred plus lives inside these groups, large organizations that we're just not going after. It's not that, you know, we don't have the resources.
It's just that we never actively pursued them from the property and casualty piece. And, you know, they, most of these clients have middle market type agencies, USIs, the and Browns, the big players in the world.
So why can't we go after that? Why can't we do that? Well, do we have a value proposition that mirrors what they're offering? Well, the answer is no at this point in time. So that's why I took that.
Bro, you want to license Rogue Risk 365, we can make that deal happen right here over the... One low price of $4.99.
We can broker that deal right over the phone here. Yeah.
So, you know, that's kind of why I jumped this year and I saw what David was doing. And I took that leap because my background, as you might be aware, is small commercial.
I mean, that's what I did. I was a wholesaler at an ENS shop here in Connecticut.
My average premium that I was underwriting was 35 to $4,000. So it wasn't big ticket items and no one really versed you or taught you that when you're playing in the middle market space, you can't just sell the insurance product.
You got to sell more than that. And we provide value.
Don't get me wrong on the home and auto and the side-by-side analysis and all that stuff, but what real value are you bringing to these people? And to your point earlier about, you know, Hey, I went from Infusionsoft to here to here. You're trying to find a solution, not necessarily for your agency, but for that overall holistic customer experience.
And we went through that as well. I mean, we started off Excel spreadsheets, and then we went over to capsule five, and now we're flirting around with a couple of different ideas.
Obviously neon's, you know, an option as well and things like that. But, you know, at the end of the day, agencies like yours and mine that are very nimble, relatively newer, can do things like that.
And whether what people say that's neither here nor there, you know what I'm saying? Like at the end of the day, you've got to do what's best for you, your organization, and most importantly, your clients, because that's the customer experience. And if it's good and great, you're awesome.
But if it's subpar, you're going to get passed up to some other Joe Schmo down the street, right? So I like the fact that you're trying different things, because that shows that you care. If you didn't care, you would just, you would have stuck with Infusionsoft and adapted and to that product.
And maybe it's not the best thing for you. So yeah, you know, the truth is, I probably, you know, Infusionsoft was a really good tool.
It was too big for me at the time. You know, I think one of the early mistakes that I made was because I was so aware of all the products in the market, you know, just I moved faster than an agency of my size should.
I also did not expect that I would have two months of pandemic before I'd sell my first policy. So it's really difficult looking at an infusion soft build out in April of 2020, when nothing is happening and you're going, geez, I have this tool, I'm paying, you know, whatever I was paying for it.
And I was, you know, and you're just like, Oh my God, like what's going on. And, you know, and then you're like, Oh, I just want something easy.
And, you know, but I guess my point in saying all that is, you know, you we're all going to you're all going to we're going to have different seasons.

Right. There's all there's going to be so many different seasons.
And I think people think it's just like, oh, your buildup season and then kind of like you're you're you're you know, you're just kind of know who you are and then kind of your twilight. It's like, no, you could be a different company every six months because of, you know, as you,

as you adjust and change and the economy changes and your clients change and, and partners and vendors change. I mean, I just think that the, our industry, we tend to be so, um, we put so much emphasis on perceived consistency, right? If we're with the same agency management system for 20 years, it's that's, you know, that's a, that shows consistency.
And if we're with this vendor for this many years, it shows consistency and loyalty and not that I don't think consistency and loyalty are important, but, um, we just, we just don't want to be, we don't want them to be at the detriment to, as you said, which I think was great, at the detriment to the experience you're providing your customers. And if your loyalty or whatever to a vendor or to a setup is causing you to not be able to deliver on your customer experience promise, well, that's more important than what product you're on.
Yeah, wholeheartedly. I mean, you got to adapt.
I mean, at the end of the day, right now, there's a lot of movement going on in our industry with the direct riders, with the Lemonades and the Hippos and things like that. We actually just got appointed with Hippo.
I didn't

even know they were appointing independent agencies until I saw someone mentioned. And Lemonade reached out, but we passed on that opportunity.
But at the end of the day, we just got off a call with a local captive here. My buddy's a newer producer in the agency.
I was like, listen, I think you could be wildly successful in the agency. What you need to do is call every single state farm farmers, all state, all the captives within 20 square miles and say, hey, listen, when you have a prospect and you can't help them out, I'm your guy.
Just tell them, listen, if you write their home and you can't help them in the auto, whatever, and just be that guy. Because what's happening in the marketplace, and I've seen this on other podcasts and things of that nature is I think it was even on your podcast recently I forget who was on but you were talking about I think it was State Farm or Farmers and how they're using like you know celebrities to make their brand you know build customer loyalty that's so backwards I mean why not invest that money in the technology to make your platform even stronger and better? And maybe they have certain buckets and budgets or what have you that, hey, we got to spend 10 million this year on some kind of endorsement, etc, etc.
But I think that's a detriment to the consumer, the people that are actually using the product. Like that's great for brand awareness.
Like you can have the strongest, coolest brand in the world, but if your product sucks, which

I'm not bashing them, I'm not saying that their product sucks, but could it be better? Right. Yeah.
And investing in that R and D and that, you know, product development, I think it's going to be, you know, in a few years, you're going to see a few people sitting at the top and there's going to be billions and billions of dollars shifting from one company to the one that actually invested in that technology, invested in that customer experience, that UX and all that. Because right now, like if I want to get pet insurance right now, that comes to mind is lemonade.
And I've never even thought of like pet insurance before this. I have a dog, but like the fact that they just launched that product, what six months ago or newer, or just started marketing it.
And the fact that I think of lemonade for pet insurance is like mind blown. That's how strong that brand is.
And they're not using, they're not using, you know, some famous celebrity to pitch their product. They're using very good targeted advertising based on demographics and things of that nature.
And I think that's where everything's headed. I think a lot of the companies that we even represent, which you I'm sure have, Travelers, the Progressives of the World, stuff like that, they are investing in this, but I think they could be doing more.
I think they could spend more time on the integration between the data that we have, a lot of the unstructured data, like the phone calls that we take in every day and taking that and using it to both their advantage, travelers, the consumer and us as the independent agent. I know Neon's been doing that and working on that and some other vendors like Donna, for example.

I'm not sure.

But, you know, I think there's going to be a huge change pretty quickly over the next few years. And you're going to see some money move around very quickly from some of these old behemoth companies that have been around 100 plus years to some of these startup, what I would call tech companies, not even insurance companies, you know, so.
I think about like some of the, you know, you just think about it, the opportunity that the average independent agency has is based in large part around the lethargy of the larger players in our industry. And the scary thing that, you know, that I think about when I think about what are the, what are the real vulnerabilities of, of this business that I'm creating? Like, how could I be three years in and just get wiped out? Is that, you know, what would make that possible? Well, you know, there are obviously internal things, there are things with employees, you know, I could do something illegal, you know, something like that.
I mean, those are all possibilities.

Hopefully they won't happen.

But from an external standpoint, one of the major things is if any of these larger companies,

you know, say anybody in the top 100, if they ever actually decided to play in, because

middle market to you and me is not necessarily middle market to anyone in the top 100 or even the top 250, right? It's just, we're talking about two different things. So we'll call it the smaller middle market and down.
If they ever actually wanted to play in that space and invested the time and technology to do it, which wouldn't be tremendously hard since most of the stuff is already plug and play off the shelf and, or will be within six months. How do you, how do you compete? I don't, I know I, I get that like you can still write your family and people in your local market, but in terms of really scaling and growing the, you know, that two to 3 million revenue agency that your, that your grandfather or your father built, um, that's going to become incredibly difficult to do.
Um, if the, if that downward pressure ever comes. So, so how do you defend against that? Well, you have to be that company first and it's way easier, but you know, I mean, so many, so many agents are unwilling to do those things.
I think, um, I, and which is again, fine. We live in, thankfully we live in America and you get to run your business, however you want to run it.
But, um, I, I feel like these type of tools, Donna, Neon, um, there are others, but I don't see any of them really being in the data being implementable you know the one the one outside of Neon that I'm the most excited about is Donna I mean especially after we saw that demo at Paradiso and Tom Larson's thing yeah that's when I really got hooked I mean I had seen a demo before but excuse me after you know seeing it live and getting to talk to those guys that's when I really got hooked. I mean, I had seen a demo before, but excuse me, after, you know, seeing it live and getting to talk to those guys, that's when I was really became very interested in it.
That, that's the kind of, that is the kind of insights that allow you to scale your business in a way that only companies with, you know, tens of millions in investment capital can do right now. All of a sudden you and I have that capability at our fingertips.
Yeah. I think to your point, two things.
Number one, kind of going back to my original point, you can't be a one-trick pony anymore, right? You got to have multiple product offerings or at least have the capability to do that. Because if you're, like you said, all of a sudden, middle market, there's a carrier that has some great AI and data scraping and all this jazz, and they're killing it in the middle market on X industry or whatever industry or vertical.
If there's somebody in there that has a niche that's doing it and doesn't have access to that, they're screwed, right? So, you know, I always preach niches. I love niches, but you can't just have one or you can't just sell home and just auto or something like that.
Like you got it. You got to divest.
You got to diversify your portfolio. But our other point, you know, talking about like Donna and stuff like that.
I saw the product a while back. It's come a long way from when I first saw it.
think you know the biggest problem in a lot of organizations kind of we were talking about this earlier too is you know like transparency um i think one of the biggest problems that i experience in my in my organization um i'm not in the weeds every day on accounts i try not to be as much as possible i let the own thing, but, you know, doing like an NPS score or just gauging the temperature, um, is tough to do, you know, and Donna does solve that problem. And I think once that's implemented properly, we're going to see higher renewal retentions, right? Because we were talking about, um, you know, growth and agencies and stuff like that.
Like, I think just being able to see the transparency of what your clients are experiencing and feeling is going to be the wave of the future because someone buys a policy for me, I saved them $500 and they're happy-go-lucky. I get a glowing five-star review.
They refer their cousin John over to me. And then a month later, the insurance company screws up to billing and sends like an AP endorsement for a couple hundred bucks.
I don't know, someone, I'm not saying low level, but someone, you know, at the bottom of my organization that processes payments or whatever, just moves that paper along. That person can be very upset by organization 45 days later, and I'll never know it.
And then next year, they're leaving out the back door because no one ever addressed that issue and they just paid the bill, right? So I think the Donnas of the world, the Neons of the world, that's where everything's shifting. and being able to expose that is greatly going to help your agency, my agency, all the agents,

those technology, those vendors that are willing to provide that as a resource to us.

Right now, I know what's going on in my agency, but I can't tell you like the click of a button without using something like that, that that's going on, right? So to your point, I think agencies that don't adopt that technology, and I know I was saying it about the companies before, but even the agency level, those are gonna be the types of agencies that got bought out for two times multiples, right? Because they're complacent, they're lethargic, they're fat and happy. And then all of a sudden, you got the Ryan Hanley's of the world coming in, you know, and cleaning them up and you'll be able to grow that, right? You'll be able to grow that both organically, renewal, retention, cross sales, referrals, et cetera.
So a lot of opportunity out there. Yeah.
I just think, you know, I think that just being local too, is another huge vulnerability. And I know there's a lot of, a lot of agents that are listening to this that probably would highly disagree with me.
I think local for them is probably one of their strongest value propositions. And I don't mean this as a negative, but I can drop into anyone's backyard tomorrow, right? I can get in front of them when they're watching TV.
I can get in front of them when they're on Facebook or whatever social network, YouTube. You know what I mean? You can drop in front of them with mail.
You can call them on the phone. No one cares.
You know what I haven't had at Rogue in my whatever nine months? I haven't had anyone want to meet with me in person. So, you know, I guess that's another place that I see huge vulnerability is local only.
It doesn't mean local can't be part of it. And I certainly think that delivering quote unquote local service is important, right? I do think that that's a, you know, that caring, you know, being caring and compassionate, you know, Zappos service, I guess you could say, you know, rest in peace, Tony Hsieh, even though he seems like a wacko.
And, you know, so I think that's another huge, huge vulnerability. Now you guys, you guys write throughout the Northeast, throughout the country.
Yeah. So when we first started up, we piggyback Paradiso's agency because he has a FedEx program.
I mean, he's in almost every state state. So we were able to out of the gates, you know, almost be a national player.
And I kind of piggybacked that very early on because when I started going up to the real estate investor niche, as you're aware, investors go where the money is, right? So just because they're located in Connecticut, they live here physically, doesn't mean they're just investing. A lot of them have properties down in Florida, down in the Gulf, stuff like that.
I literally just wrote a deal in the Gulf Shores, Alabama, and I beat. He's a client of mine here.
He lives in Connecticut. Ironically, he works at one of the big insurance companies here.
And I said, listen, you know, I wrote your personal lines, did a great job, obviously quote this, but you know, I reached out to Chris Green. He helped me with the flood insurance.
We did it competitively. I wrote the fire, so to speak, with one of my in-house London program.
I beat out a local Alabama independent agent that had like 100 plus five-star reviews. I even hit up like Bradley Flowers and his team and stuff like that.
And I'm not bashing anybody down there. It's just, it doesn't matter that I'm located in Connecticut.
Like he even went out of his way. I said, listen, call someone down there.
Like, I don't care. I'll hit up my buddy, Bradley, blah, blah, blah.
The fact that he still went with me, yes, my price was better. My product was better.
But, you know, he didn't care. He doesn't care where I'm located.
Nobody cares anymore. Logistically speaking, like you said, I could literally jump into California tomorrow and start writing.
Granted, something that's profitable for me, not just because our expertise isn't there with like the quake and the fire line and all that. Granted, you could pivot and have a specialist out there and do things like that.
But like you said, I think geographically speaking, if that's your top three reasons why someone should do business with you, you need to find another reason. Because logistically speaking, Zoom, video proposals, like cell phones, FaceTime, whatever, it doesn't matter.
All that stuff, you know, the whole boundary game, old news, right? Yeah. So, you know, to your point, I definitely see growth for our agency on a national level this year.
We do mainly focus here in the Northeast, but we do get a lot of opportunities outside that. I do have a network of real estate investor insurance specialists, Jeremy Goodrich at Shine.
And I got people all over the country, James Jenkins, stuff like that, where we pass stuff behind the scenes that nobody sees, right? Because we know, hey, this is better suited for him. Even though I can do it, I can do a deal in Texas.
Doesn't make sense for me, right? And putting resources on that for me to do sometimes doesn't make sense. Yeah, I know.
Because of the YouTube stuff that I do, I probably get half a dozen to a dozen leads from states that I don't write in a week, you know, and I pass those out to people as much as I can, because one, I think, you know, you got to take care of people, it's the right thing to do. But, you know, I've thought to my, you know, through Indium, I could write a lot of those accounts, you know what I mean? Because Indium, the network that I'm part of, like, you know, they have the ability to write that account on their paper.
And then I just am a sub producer or whatever. So, um, you know, and they can write nationally, but you know, there's part of me that's like, yeah, that's, I could do that.
But at the same time, are you really one, are you helping the agency and are you doing what's right by the person? Because, you know, I, I do think though, if you build out strategically, you know, the idea of someone being in Buffalo, there's nothing that I can't do for someone in Buffalo or Rochester or Syracuse. And I mean, these are towns that traditionally would be completely out of reach.
um but today you know new york city long island can be its own monster it's a little different

kind of space for me but uh vermont i say I have 30. I checked the other day.
31% of the premium that I have in this agency comes from Vermont. That's crazy.
I've just tapped into a bunch of accounts that have come from Vermont and people who have second businesses in Vermont or second homes in Vermont. And, you know, and that's a state that I'm directly appointed in with all my carriers.
So I, you know, there's not one of those people care that I'm in a completely different state that they're in. So, you know, I think I don't, we kind of beat this point up, but I just wanted to, I think it's something that's important.
And in this exercise in general of kind of thinking about where are major vulnerabilities, you know, not knowing what's going on inside your agency. And that's where like a Don or Neon comes in and, and kind of holding on to holding on to local as a primary value proposition, I think is, one.
And you brought up the point of valuation.

And this is the part that makes me nervous for people.

Everyone, not that I feel like sorry for them,

that's not what I mean.

I just nervous in so much as I do think that that I do think the peak in agency valuation is here. One, there's, there's almost no way that interest rates don't start going up.
And the moment interest rates start going up, valuations are going to come down. And two, I've already heard from some valuation experts that based on your agency's makeup, based on its technology, the type of data that you have, how much information you have, how it's stored, where it's stored.
Like these things, it was kind of theory that they were going to impact valuation.

And I've started to hear rumblings that they are actually going to impact valuation. Now, I know, I'm not sure if you have bought anyone, but I do know that you had been looking into some agencies or potentially some acquisitions.
So from your standpoint, like, as you look at acquisition as a way to grow, you know, talk to me a little bit about that. Like if you walk into somebody and they got a book that matches what you're looking for, but you know, it's inside of applied TAM and you can't get at most of the information without a $10,000 extraction fee.
And who knows what it's going to look like once you do, you know, all this kind of stuff. Like, is that impacting how much you're willing to offer today? Or, you know, what's that looking like? Not necessarily.
We're going more organic this year in regards to, I wouldn't call it acquisition. It'd be more on the merger side, so to speak.
So like right now we're a financial advisor about two, three towns over from us has been kicking the can around for about three to four years about doing an independent insurance agency. He's exhausted every single outlet I've ever seen.
And the fact that he, you know, we went through two, three rounds of interviews with him and he said, listen, you guys are the right fit. We want to do it.
So we're not necessarily looking too, too aggressively this year into agency acquisitions. Look, if something falls in my lap or I catch wind from a marketing rep that someone wants out, yes.
And even at the end of Q4 of last year, I literally in my CRM, which is Pipedrive, I created a pipeline of agency acquisition opportunities. This was straight cold, me going on, you know, using what you said with Hunter.io, getting the email addresses if they weren't available and literally looking at websites, trying to find the outdated website or the guy or the woman who's, you know, looks like they're about to retire and just saying, Hey, you know, and I try and get on their level, you know, I've worked with you at my old wholesaler, you know, I now own an agency, I'm looking to grow my footprint, etc, etc.
You know, I got a lot of, hey, let's talk in a year or two, or no, thank you, what have you. But to your question, if we were to pursue an agency acquisition this year, nothing really surprises me anymore.
I expect the data to be relatively dirty. I expect them to be on some kind of archaic agency management system.
I expect I'm going to have to pay some type of fee to get out of that contract or move that data over, whether it's an in-house person here doing it manually, or we literally pay the Piper, so to speak, and pay that 10, 20,000 to get them out of that contract and get that data. But, you know, at the end of the day, if you're buying an agency that's bringing in a million, 2 million a year in revenue, what's $10,000 to get out of a contract, right? Like over, you're getting a loan from the bank, like you said, anyways, interest rates are low, it's relatively free money, you don't have to pay it back right away.
So, you know, what So what we would be looking at if we were doing agency acquisitions this year would be synergies that would help our organization grow. I don't need to just buy an agency that has a book of business of 99% home and auto.
That doesn't really strategically help us grow. Yes, it does increase our premium and we get the overrides and we get the contingency bonuses at the end of the year.
However, I'm looking at it more strategically. What verticals do we need to go in? Let's do a SWOT analysis of the marketplace.
Where are the weak points? What should we be doing to pivot ourselves and make sure that we never get, like you said previously, three years from now, some company's really hot and something that that's all we do and we can't compete, you know, so finding that and I think you said something about like, how do we value, you know, I hear this all the time in the groups that you and I are both in circles in with EBITDA and two times 3x commissions, etc. I think each agency is unique.
And I don't want to say I'm devil's advocate here, but I do disagree in regards to your statement about the valuations being at a peak. I think right now, because I'm with Chris and his agency and all of our data is intertwined in the same management system, we're investing heavily in cleaning up that data.
It's not that it was dirty, we're just making it more accurate. And we're putting things in like, not just a source of the business, but like the true, true source, like, oh, you found us on Google, that's cool.
But what did you put in Google, right? Like, those types of agencies will get paid multiples upon multiples greater than anybody else. And I foresee that increasing in the near future as agencies implement things like Donna and Neon and other technologies that help transparency because the more transparency of the data, the cleaner the data, the more uniqueness of the data, which is a big thing you don't hear too many people talk about.
For example, Ryan, you know, Ryan, you might be a diehard Broadway show guy that likes to go to Broadway with his wife once a year. Like you might not tell people that because you're embarrassed or whatever, but knowing that, like that's huge, right? Like if I found some kind of connection between you and you are my client, my agency in Broadway or did something like you're going to have brand loyalty to my agency because I know that intimate information about you.
Right. And that type of information, maybe only right now, one person in my organization might know that, but what if everybody knew that? Right.
Well, how, how deadly, I don't want to say the word deadly, but how like awesome would it be to know that information? And I know you're talking like

privacy issues and things like that, but I think the uniqueness of data and the transparency going forward is really going to help differentiate valuations of agencies because somebody that just has your name, your number, your policy number, and you know, what cars you drive, like that's cool but what if I you know had way more unique about you like what's that worth right yeah no I think that's a great point and and I think and thank you for pushing back because I I think it helps me clarify what I was trying to say which was I think the I think the days of a ubiquitous valuation I think that's at a peak where just, hey, I want to sell my agency and you get 5X this multiple or 13X this multiple, whatever it is. I think those days are over.
And I think what you said where if someone can come in, look at your system, know what's going on, trust the information and can really dive into how you're operating, they're going to pay way more for that than someone who comes in and goes, well, you know, here, you know, here's how much money we made. Well, what, what does that mean? Like, where, where is it? Well, how did you get it? How does that, you mean like that's, you know, that, that's the kind of stuff.
So I, stuff so i i yeah i i agree with you there so looking looking into 2021 um you're trying to hire people um so your your goal is to hire two people in the first quarter is that what you said or for producers yeah two producers so how do you go about hiring producers so i'm i am currently and I'm going to get some free consulting out of you now, as we finish out our podcast together here. So I am in the first quarter, my goal is to hire both an account manager and a producer.
That's, I, I am not delivering on the rogue promise from a service standpoint. It's not my specialty and I just am struggling with it.
So how, how do you, what does your process look like? Everyone probably heard Cass's recent podcast with Billy Wagner, where he's got, you know, 50 touch point email spreadsheet thing, which is amazing. Actually, it's, it's actually overwhelming.
And Billy's the best, but like, how do you go about finding, in this case, producers? Like, what's your process look like? What are you looking for in them? How does it work for you? Somebody that knows nothing about insurance. That's like my dream.
Because insurance, and what I've noticed, I'm not bashing anybody in insurance or a producer in insurance for that matter. It's just sometimes it's difficult to bring somebody in that might have certain expectations from a previous employer or previous experiences.
I'll find them fresh, like I'm going to get them licensed type green. And the reason why is I know how to sell insurance.
I know how to sell small commercial. I know a small home and auto.
I know how to do real estate investor. I know how to build niches.
I know how to market. I know how to do social media.
I know how to do all that, right? I can take everything in my brain and put it in somebody else's brain that has similar characteristics as I do. Are you good at home? Do you do what you're gonna do? Do you follow up with people? Do you have good empathy, right? You need to be empathetic with people.
There's certain characteristics of people in general that you can't train. You can't teach.
And you probably heard this a hundred times over various books and stuff like that. But, and then passion is a big one too.
So when we, like we are hiring type thing, those are the words we're using when we're reaching out to people to become a producer. Are you empathetic? Are you passionate? Do you do what you say you're going to do, right? Like, those are like the core principles, core foundations of our organization.
And as long as that person understands that, and that's what the expectations are of their role, we can teach them everything else. So I recently just posted on our scorecard that we use.
I just implemented a new one for a producer here, Sal. He's actively doing it.
And it says, listen, each day, all we need you to do is bring in business, right? And I know that's really easy and everybody's like, that's a whole nother conversation how to get business. But the KPIs, that scorecard basically says, all right, it's Monday, December 1st.
Today, I need to make 10 phone calls to people. You know, he's new, so he can call his mutual friends, you know, family and stuff like that.
He can start there just like anybody else. Then he's got a call or text, you know, one or two centers of influence, whether it's like a mortgage loan officer, buddy, he knows an all state person that works at an all state, he'll do that.
Right. Then the next step is social media.
He can put a post out or engage in social media. So each day he has these little activities he does.
Now, mind you, none of it talks about sales. It doesn't say like, I expect you to make one home sale or I expect you to get one business insurance policy.
Like doing those activities will in turn result in sales, right? So people always like, we're not big in our organization on like numbers per se for sales, like hitting goals, unless they have some kind of profit sharing or whatever overrides with us. But aside from that, we're more focused on those activities and just doing it consistently.
And if you can do that consistently, that will result in the sales. And obviously every three extra phone calls you make, you're probably going to get one extra sale, right? So then you can start reading books like 10X and all these other different things that kind of amplify that.
So, you know, when you're saying, what am I looking for in a producer? I'm looking for somebody that's green, doesn't have an insurance license, we'll get them licensed or relatively newer in the insurance space. Maybe they worked at a local insurance company as like cold call center or even the claims division.
It doesn't matter. It's just, you know, this individual that is our new producer, he was what I call maybe a secondary ticket broker, you know, think StubHub, stuff like that.
Every time I bought sports tickets and I bought them through him, always a good experience. Text me after the game or the, you know, conference concert.
How was it? Did you have a good time? Were the seats good? He didn't have to do any of that stuff and you're not going to get that experience to stub up right like that's him doing that going out of his way to make sure that that experience was fun he wants to know if it was bad you know obviously he can't fix that now that it's done but those characteristics of what people should be looking for is everybody's trying oh i want to steal that middle Brown and Brown. Well, good luck.
Cause he's getting paid six figures base plus some crazy commissions. Like you're not gonna be able to afford them, nor do you have the resources to support that individual.
Right. So, you know, um, I think that back to a point, maybe you and I were talking about previously is, you know, don't try and get that shiny object problem where you see something everybody else is doing.
You need to do that. Like blaze your own trail, create your own way of doing business and you'll be wildly successful.
He's already brought in about two dozen leads and he's only been here in like 30 days or less. To me, I think that's huge.
I think he did a great job. We're closing them.
He's actively getting his license and stuff like that. And, you know, obviously we can't compensate him yet because he's not licensed, but once he's licensed, we can compensate him.
So, you know, he's learning from the ground up. And the cool thing is we have all these different technologies.
So he's learning them and he's implementing them and using them and it's going really well. So.
How many producers do you think you can bring on in a period of time. Like if you wanted to scale,

I mean, because I've had people, you know, cause I said, you know, I've said to my, one of my goals is to bring on three producers in 2021. And I've had people say, you're freaking crazy.
Like you're, there's no way you can bring on that many producers. Like they're, you know, it'll be overwhelming.
You got to manage them, blah, blah, blah. And I guess I don't understand why someone, why someone would think that's crazy.
Yeah. Yeah.
I could see why someone would say that just because they're probably a smaller shop. They might be the owner, the account manager, the janitor,

everything, and maybe have one part-time VA or something. But if you have a structure,

and that's kind of back to our original talking point about the EOS system, as long as you have clear defined duties and roles inside of an organization, and you have the bandwidth,

meaning people to help support you, it's doable. You can hire as many producers as you want.
The real question you should be asking is how many of them are going to succeed? Yeah. Well, see, that's, that's the thing is I didn't say that all three of them would stick because who the hell knows, right? I just said, you know, I figure if I hire three, if I bring three in, maybe two stick.
Yeah. Maybe one sticks.
That shouldn't be the thought process that you have. They should all stick because you should have in the beginning to make sure they're good fit.
I'm literally Chris and Chris Paradiso and myself were at a call last week with a guy who reached out through a mutual acquaintance to be, he wanted to be a producer. He got life and health license about a year ago he got his pnc license about six months ago he owns a company not too far from here where he rents out like big trucks like trailers like 18 wheeler stuff he rents them out um he owns a handyman type business um he like subs out some work handyman business and he does something else know.
There's like three things. And I'm like, and then he also somehow had time to study for insurance and thought it would be a great thing.
He's probably not going to work out. And Chris and I've, you know, we've had a Zoom call.
I've had two conversations with him and every time just something weird inside my gut. And this happens all the time.
Like even with new accounts, I'm sure you see it comes across your desk something just strikes you off about the account or yeah or whatever usually your gut instinct is usually right majority of the time there's just something off about this guy um he's going up to Chris's office tomorrow for some training and see if he likes it and yada yada yada but I was talking to Chris I was like Chris there's something. And he's like, yeah, I just can't put my finger on it.
But like the fact that we both felt that way, and I'm not going to say his name and I'm not bashing him, he might be the best producer we've ever hired. But the point is, is sometimes, you know, you got to focus your resources and all your efforts.
And that person who said, oh, you're crazy for bringing on three producers, but are they the right three people, right? If you bring on three people and only one of them in your gut, you feel is going to work out. Stop

wasting your time on these other two. Take the amount of time you would have spent on those other two and focus on that and really, you know, over-invest in that one because they're going to become that exponentially better.
They're going to ramp up that much quicker. You can bring on, Ryan, you, I know you're structure of your structure of your agency like you could bring on three four five producers but there needs to be a uniform process i would also go about it with like a lot of pre-recorded videos a lot of make sure your own in um inside procedures like what to do when a claim happens what to do when autopop like everything needs to be uniformed as long as you have that and you have the bandwidth to backfill it, like the service request, because producers, what do they do? They produce, right? So they're going to constantly bring in new business.
And we all love new business, the shiny new object coming in the door, like let's drop everything and focus on that. And that's the problem.
A lot of agencies that are smaller will say you can't bring on three producers because everything else is going to fail. Right.
And so you just got to make sure you have the proper infrastructure. And that's what we're going to do.
Now that my role in my organization, because of the EOS is exclusively focused on sales and marketing. I can spend all day, all week with this individual.
And I literally do that. He's in my office here right now, you know, studying for his exam and he'll ask me a question here and there and bring in deals and I'll stop what I'm doing because I have the resources, the infrastructure and everything behind the scenes to support him.
And we have the team that does all the quoting, the rating. I do the video proposal on his behalf.
You know, once we get the lead closed, I send it over back to the rating team to, you know, they have their policy issuance. And I could clone him five times over because we have the proper infrastructure.
And, you know, I said two this quarter, but I didn't tell you my goal for the year was five, right? So, like, that's what I want to bring on this year. It's awesome.
And we can do it. It's just I don't want to say he's my guinea pig because we do have other producers, but he's my first like green, no insurance background.
So, you know, maybe we hop on a podcast a year from now and I can show you. For sure.
I love that. Well, dude, I want to be, I want to be respectful of your time.
This has been great. I appreciate it.
I mean, I know we went a lot of places, but you, you have an interesting perspective on the business and, and kind of how you've got here. I know you've told your backstory so many times on like Carothers' podcast and others.
So I didn't want to necessarily get into that again. But, you know, this has been this has been wonderful.
So if anyone wants to reach out to you and they don't already know how, what's the best place? Yeah. So our agency is called BSP Insurance.
So BSspinsurance.com. You can go on there.
There's

actually a link right on the homepage where you can book a time to chat with me. If you guys want

to talk, um, my emails in there, my phone, everything's in there, uh, DM, Facebook,

Instagram, just my full name, Justin Mark Sloan. And, um, yeah, you know, I'm happy to help.
I

love connecting with people like you to just help better the independent agency channel and bring us that much closer to, you know, better success. Cause right now I feel like it's an uphill battle sometimes with these companies and they're supposed to be your partners.
And sometimes you feel like the exact opposite. So sometimes, you know, sticking together and we can move the ball forward together a lot faster.

I agree. I agree.

All right, man.

Well, hey, appreciate you.

Be good.

And we'll catch you next time.

All right, Ryan. Have a good one.

Cheers. Thank you.
Charlie, that's really good.

You go fuck yourself and your fat fucking ass.

Charlie, it's my brother Charlie.

Take it easy, baby. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, Thank you.
Do you want to have a few drinks and smoke a joint, Bubbles?

Yes. Take it Take it Take it Take it Take it Take it Take it Take it Take it Take it Take it Take it Take it Take it easy, my brother Charlie Take it easy, really, really, oh Take it easy, my brother Charlie Take it easy, really, really, oh Take it easy, my brother Charlie Take it easy, really, really, oh Take it easy, my brother Charlie Take it easy, really, oh Take it easy, my brother Charlie Do you want to have a few drinks and smoke a joint, Bubbles?

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