RHS 052 - Wessly Anderson with the Definitive Guide to Virtual Assistants

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Hey guys, before we get started, I just want to let you know,

I'm switching up the intro and outro music a little bit.

You want to know why?

Because I can.

In a crude laboratory in the basement of his home. Hello everyone and welcome back to the show.
Today we have someone who I absolutely just enjoy every time I get a chance to have a conversation. Not just because he's incredibly smart, or knows insurance.
I mean, those things are kind of a given, but it's how deep he takes in life at any given time, he's willing to have a deeper conversation about not just the tactical nature of our business, but the emotional side of it, the psychological side of it. And as if you've been listening to this show that for any period of time, you know that I love to go to those places.
So Wesley Anderson is just an absolute monster in our space. Not just he runs a great agency, but he is also developing Agency VA, the premier VA platform, virtual assistant platform in our industry.
And with his partner, Ben, the two of them are just dominating the space and doing incredible things. And this podcast is created and distributed by an agency VA VA.
And even though they're not a sponsor of the show, Wes is just a tremendous friend of mine and someone I respect a ton. I can't speak highly enough about what agency VA does.
And if you're thinking about virtual assistants, I just, I don't know where else you would go besides agency VA, but this is not a commercial for them. Like I said, they're not a sponsor.
You're going to hear enough about them. I wanted to talk to Wes about VAs because VAs are something that I'm considering for rogue risk.
And it's always fun to have those conversations. But you're just going to enjoy this one.
Wes is just tremendous dude and super smart and thinks about this business in a way that most of us do not because of his technical background as a developer. And I think you're really going to love this one.
Before we get there, I want to give a big shout out to my people at Tarmaca. Tarmaca, changing the game, making small commercial profitable for independent agencies.
It is a tool that I absolutely think that you need to know about. And you may be saying to yourself, but Ryan, you always talk about Tarmica.
What's so special about them? Guys, they simply make small commercial profitable. That's what they do.
They allow you to single point entry information that provides multiple quotes back for a risk, allowing you to compare some of the biggest and baddest carriers in the industry you just you don't have to go into multiple systems you don't have to learn all the nuances between the various platforms and you know this one asked for this piece of information and this carrier doesn't ask for this piece of information and this carrier me to use this web browser. And this carrier only works between hours of 10 and 3 on Tuesdays.
And you can't remember all that stuff. And the amount of time and efficiency lost by logging into multiple carrier systems.
It's just silly, guys. That is the way of the past.
Tarmica is the future. And whether you

get on the platform right now or not, I encourage you to know what it's doing, to have what they're doing in your mind space, because I guarantee sometime in the next 24 to 36 months, you will have Tarmica in your office. It will be the default commercial lines rater in your office.
and it's just a good time to get ahead of that if you can.

So go to T-A-R- tarmika.com, get your demos today, tell Chris Lane that Hanley sent you and maybe hook you up with, you know, I don't know, maybe he'll just be nice to you. But I don't have any special discounts.
I just think it's a bomb platform, and I think you're going to do well if you bring it into your agency,

and you use it, and you build some systems around it.

Maybe you build some automations that go along with that, with better agency,

and you hook it up on your advisory wall website.

I don't know.

I'm getting crazy now, but go to T-A-R-M-I-K-A.com today.

All right. Let's get on to Wes.
Wow, the legend. What up, dog? Legend, there he is.
Look at him. How you doing, man? I'm good, dude, and I'm good.
I mean, I'm trying to grow an agency by myself and figure stuff out and not chase, not chase rabbits and do all kinds of different stuff. But yeah, otherwise I'm, I'm good, dude.
It's, it's, uh, life is good. What about you? I'm well, I, uh, bro, it's just as, as COVID does this, if it seems like business is like just a hair uh more aggressive following it so it's been just exceptional and while while the world right now is just in retreat and hunker down and bunker down mode uh we're in like all-out attack like we're just um and you know political agendas and how people fill aside, like we're, we're, I'm traveling everywhere.
I'm going at it more aggressively than I probably ever have because the opportunity is greater than I've ever seen. So, um, it's been phenomenal.
Dude. And, and, you know, what's, what's been funny for me and there's so much stuff that I want to talk to you about, and I have no idea even, I think you would ask me for an agenda, and I just went like, ha, ha, ha.

Yeah, I can send you something, but there's no way that that's what we follow. though.
You know, what's been so interesting for me, and it's something that I've been dealing with even, you know, right before I jumped on this call, I was talking with, we'll call them a client portal vendor of sorts, I guess you could say.

because there's just the agency technology struggle is real.

And there are so many gaps in it. and then there's so many places where things need to get done i can only imagine you know when i when i when i fantasize when i'm sitting here by myself in my basement i'm not that kind of fantasy you sick bastard but um sounds good yeah i i you know i mean you're like geez i just another set of hands.
I'd love someone to do this thing. God, if I could just have someone doing these three things, I could have an extra hour to get out in front of clients or, or, you know, work with some of my renewing clients to help them expand their, their product portfolio or do risk reviews.
And, um, and, and who do you hire? You know what I mean? That's what I'm saying. Like, who do you hire you know what I mean that's what I'm saying like who do you hire like I I saw three I mean this is and this is another thing too and I'm gonna be quiet I'm just kind of rambling here but it is the afternoon um I've I saw three three and this isn't sexist they just all happen to be dudes three different dudes that I thought would be good potential producers in the future.
Right. And I really, in the next six months, my goal is to hire both someone to start doing more sales and to have someone helping on the service side.
That's my goal is in six months to have enough revenue where I can bring those people in, bring, bring those people. And you start talking to people about commercial insurance and insurance in general and sales in particular, and like their eyes cross and they don't want to think about it.
And then, okay, so here's three guys that seem pretty hardworking, pretty dialed in and getting them to listen was tough. So now I'm looking for people who are already inclined.
That's a difficult situation because, you know, half of them have all this legacy baggage, man. It is just, it is tough.
This, this whole piece of it is, is very, very tough. Some of the greatest factors that are causing deficiencies, I think in hiring is how many people are graduating college and saying, where the hell's the next insurance agency? I can go just, you know, blow up and make work.
I'll tell you, zero. You know, there's zero that are putting in their plan of action or for their future, you know, a life inside insurance.
And I feel like we've done a lot of that as an industry to ourselves. It's not a desirable place to be, you know, for up and comers.
They just don't want to do it. So then you're left with, do I hire someone in my local city that has experience by which I'm more than likely going to get an enemy if I poach it from this agency? Now you have an enemy.
Or do I hire someone with some extreme amount of baggage and I overlook it and train and hope that, you know, they, they figure this out. Well, the answer is they won't.
And it's, it's kind of, it's, it's, it's, it's fairly bleak. And I think that we're not trending to where that's going to change anytime soon.
In fact, I think it'll get more aggressive such that it's going to be harder to find good talent. Yeah, I see that.
I, you know, I do think, and I do think that there's hope for bringing people into the space. You know, I see some of the younger agency owners and high performing producers, I think they're starting to step out into social media a little more, talk about their life a little more, maybe just show their life a little bit in Instagram pictures and stuff, not in a braggadocious way.
Just, you know, people picture, you know, if you're constantly posting pictures from the lake, you're doing something right. You know what I mean? Like someone is eventually going to look at your career and go, man, I wonder what that guy does for a living that he's seems to be balling out on the lake all the time.
Like, geez, I wonder what he like. I think that I'm hoping that eventually that starts to change, that people see the lifestyle that an insurance or a well-done insurance career can provide to you.
And then we can start to pull in fresh talent. But I agree, you know, the sex the sexiness has not been there.
Now I do think we can change that. I mean, some of the tools that are out there, the way people are talking about it, how hard people are starting to push.
I think I see things like, um, I see things like, uh, what David Carothers is doing with killing commercial, right? Just the title of his his platform, Killing Commercial. It sounds sexier, right? Like, yeah, I want to go crush some business.
I want to sell some stuff. It breeds into the, whatever that is, that adrenaline rush, that macho-ness, that good men and women salespeople and hard chargers want, right? You want a little bit of that.
And so I think there's a lot of hope, but there are definitely days when it feels like, you know, I'm still triple entering that $125 renter's policy into four different systems just so I can capture it and I want to punch myself in the face. Well, and I think you've used the word hope multiple times.
And I mean, God, we could we could do a whole podcast. I can't remember who it was.
It was Maya Maya Angelou says, hope and fear. I can't remember hope and fear cannot occupy the same space at the same time invite one to stay and so I think in the insurance world and in the world in general you get the fear mongers well they don't have that hope and fear is so contagious I mean we're seeing our country right now in this state of fear and decisions are being made on fear now when you switch and you have the hope that you suggested.
Hope is more powerful than fear, I would argue.

And hope, you have to have that hope in the industry, in the world, in everything that you're doing. Because once fear creeps in, you can't have the ball sitting there.
There's not like a balance of a little fear and a little hope. You have one or the other.
And that is one situation where it is, it's a binary type feeling. You got to have that hope or, you know, you can let fear rule you.
And there is hope inside insurance. You're, you're spot on, but that hope, you know, is, is layered with hard work and it's layered with grit and it's, it's, it's layered with, um, a hope for a better day, which I, I have seen more in the past three years than I saw in the first 10 years of being in insurance.
Like the pace is going quicker. I think that one of the positives, look at Silver Lining, have some hope.
You know, one of the positives of COVID is it's forced many business owners to think of the customer experience and where they putting their energy. A lot of them had crazy amounts of energy inside the sexy office and let's meet for a two hour review.
And the clients are showing us, the world is showing us that we can still perform and be in a basement. You know, we can still perform and provide an exceptional experience and not be inside that office.
I mean, because technology exists, you know, the world's small. We got so much we can offer.
Yeah, I completely agree with that. I also think that the business models are rapidly changing.
I think that you have, I think there are legacy agencies that 10 years ago, if the world was the same, would probably be stagnating and instead are, I think you have generational, I don't know, I'm going to say this the right way. I see second generation or the next generation being given a little more leeway to push into some spaces and to try some stuff because of COVID, right? The elder generation is looking at the going, well, I can't really say no to this piece of technology anymore because we can't sit in front of our clients.
Like, what are we going to do? We have to do something. We have to try something.
And, you know, just with some of the pieces of technology that I've talked about that I use here, like Tarmaca and Better Agency and a few other things, I am getting calls. I mean, I've literally had to push my calls.
Like we're doing this on a Tuesday, but that was just to accommodate your very busy schedule because you are such an important person to me and to our community. Yeah, that's laughable.
But for everyone else, I had to push them all to Fridays because I simply, you know, I can't get regular work done because people are asking questions and it's awesome. Hey, I'm thinking about doing this.
I really want to, you know, I had an agency owner call me a couple of days ago, ask a couple of questions about better agency. And normally it would just be like, Oh, is this going to help me? But no, his questions were, were sophisticated.
It was, can it do this? And I'm really trying to layer this in. And, and, you know, I tried this here and it didn't really work.
And I want to make sure that I can do this. And, uh, you know, the actual tool aside, just the idea that I feel like we're asking more sophisticated questions, we're thinking deeper about our businesses.
And, and it's almost as if in some regards, it's reinvigorated the baby boomer generation to start to really engage in their business again. And that is a wonderful thing for us.
I mean, I think that that and empowering those who come behind them, that's what this industry needs. Well, here's some cool stuff for you, little things that we're seeing.
For those that don't know, I co-founded a company called Agency VA. And at Agency VA, we're now at a couple hundred virtual assistants, which allows us to see under the curtain of best practices.
So we're seeing those agencies that are just killing it and excelling. And an interesting trend that is incredibly powerful that is often overlooked is everyone takes their quiver of arrows and each weapon that they have.
And there was such a push for automation, which there should be better agency. there's so many tools out there for automation um but a lot of people forgot about the phone and one of the trends that we're seeing with some of the most successful agencies i mean i can think of gosh there's there's five on the top of my tongue that you know they're producing hundreds of thousands of premium per month in uh in new committee i mean pardon me in uh in the insurance sales and all they're doing is the new arrow is nothing more than an old arrow they're picking up the phone and they're actually using ever quote quote wizard all these uh quote vendors that everyone when you say anything on an internet forum about these it's so funny to me how everyone just blasts them and says how garbage it is.
Well, it's garbage to them because they didn't work it. They thought that on the first or the second call, they were going to close the business.
Well, it's usually the eighth to the 12th call that something happens. So what these agencies are doing, what we're seeing is they're loading up even the $5 old leads and they're having virtual assistants hit that and they're live transferring that to the agents after X amount of data, you know, is collected.
And we have one agency, they have 11 virtual assistants. Each virtual assistants averages 27 live transfers per day.
So they have flowing through their agency over 300 live transfers per day, of which their producers close at a large clip. That's an old tactic, an old technique.
And it's so funny when you explain something simple like that, instead of, oh, how do we do it? Oh, you know, what can we do? We hear, well, the attrition is going to be so high, or that's going have crazy high loss ratio. Well, no, you know, that's a thought of someone that doesn't want to put the muscle and work into it.
Some of the larger agencies are doing that very, very, very well. Yeah, I mean, look, the interesting, you know, you said you can have fear or hope and that there are fear mongers.
There are absolutely fear mongers in our industry. And I would actually add a third bucket that maybe is part of fear.
It's just a general negative outlook. And I would say it's more, I would say instead of fear and hope, I might categorize it more as abundance and scarcity.
We have people who think from a scarcity mindset and they operate every day with, I never want to hear no. So I'm just going to wait for referrals to come in or for someone who has a need to call me.
And then I'm only going to work with the people who kind of are super easy to work with and fit my little bucket. And then anything that doesn't provide a high frequency of those type of opportunities, I'm going to blast as being bad business, low retention business, non-profitable business, non-standard business.
And because that gives me the validation that I need to say my model is the best, which I can then bitch when the economy changes that I'm not doing well. And that is one way to live your life.
And unfortunately, in some of the groups that we're in, you see a lot of that. And it's fine, but you can pick that person out immediately.
Wow, that's the way they operate. And then you have this whole other mentality, which is I am going to try everything.
I'm going to test everything. I'm going to track and I'm going to do different things so that I can figure out what the actual answer is.
And then I'm going to share that maybe or whatever. And that is coming at it from an abundance mindset.
And to me, I think that ratio is actually changing. I think in 10 years ago, I would have said we were a pretty scarcity mindset dominated industry.
And I think slowly, but surely that that equation is starting to shit. And I'm doing something with my hands that only Wes can see.

No one else can see this scale that I'm doing with my hands.

But I feel like slowly but surely

that those percentages are changing

and kind of flip-flopping.

And whether it's, you know,

one is more than the other still, who knows?

But I do believe we have many more people

in our industry today

who are operating from an abundance mindset.

And it's just clear

in a lot of the conversations I'm seeing. Well, abundance connects, abundance grows, um, scarcity causes wedges.
And I learned, oh man, 20 years ago from a mentor of mine. He said, Hey, watch closely human behavior.
And if you see individuals that cause wedge between two like-minded people run, that's as scary as cancer. Get it out, get it out of your wife.
Now the inverse of that, if you see people that are constantly connecting, gravitate towards and make your crew and everyone around you, those that you, uh, that you talk with, that you socialize with, make sure they have that abundance mindset and they're constantly connecting. And Ryan, me and you have experienced this, I think in our life and been blessed a great deal of this.
When you connect two individuals free of gains for yourself at 100%, that's the best investment you could do. That always comes back.
And like, even if it doesn't, you get to feel good knowing that those you love are doing well. Now the scarcity mindset of, Hey, you know what? I don't actually want you to speak to him because that's going to like hurt my value proposition and who I am.
That is just, that hurts everything. I can show you this part of my agency, but not this.
Because if I show you this part, like, you know what? You're going to get on the airwaves and it's going to get exploited. And that is so much scarcity.
I mean, nothing that anybody is doing is so silver bullet, you know, that it shouldn't be shared. And I think a lot of the thought leaders, just as much as being a thought leader, they're connectors.
They're connect. The book, The Go-Giver is one of the greatest and most impactful books I ever read.
And all he discusses is connecting. Connecting individuals, connecting process.
I mean, we had a conversation, Ryan, that wasn't insurance related about a friend of mine that's doing a gym and he's setting it up. And my brain instantly thought of you like, and it was like, I couldn't let the meeting end without connecting you to, I don't know what'll happen there, but I know if I'm always throwing you connections, like your life's going to get better.
And in turn, our ecosystem and, and who we are as a collective group is going to get better. Connectors will thrive.
Scarcity mindset. It is exposed.
It is, it is it follows greed it follows fear it follows negativity um and it's dying and it should yeah it is it is definitely it is definitely dying because there is a hubris in believing that somehow anything you know is unique to you and that you can build walls around it and keep it in. Like there is a comical hubris to that mentality because one, there are no original ideas, right? Really.
I mean, anything that even could be considered original idea is so incredibly rare. and the other side of it is one of the beauties of both being a human and in particularly

the Anything that even could be considered original idea is so incredibly rare. And the other side of it is one of the beauties of both being a human and in particularly the industry that we're in is that I, and I used to fight this idea, but I firmly believe that every agency is a unique snowflake.
Every agency is a unique snowflake. And I used to fight that idea hard, especially early on in my agency nation days.
I used to fight that idea so hard. I hated when agency owners would say, oh, well, you don't understand, but we operate this way and we do that.
And today, you know, five years later, whatever, I can tell you, I believe, and it's the beauty of our industry, that every industry, that every agency is the digitization of the soul of that agency, right? It's taking it and it's networks and it's systems and processes and relationships, and it's all kind of mashed together. But it depends on who you are, right? So because we're all different, you know, okay.
And my point in telling you that is, Wes, you could give me the secret, the secret, the thing that made you the absolute positive success of all successes, and I could not even make it work for a day. You know what I mean? Or I could take it and implement it, and it could look 180 degrees from its implementation in your agency.
And, and because of that, it makes no sense to keep it inside. Cause the only thing that can happen is you don't evolve.
Cause when you share with me and you see what I do with it, you can course correct a little, and then I'm going to share it with somebody and they're going to do something a little different. And I get to see that too.
Cause I, cause I shared it with them and I get to course correct a little more. And all that's happening by sharing ideas is that if you're just a completely selfish person, all you're really getting is more trials, more iterations of your methodology that allows you to continue to optimize your game plan.
And, you know, whether you do, you know, so even from a very, because I always like to look at things and say, well, does it make sense from a selfish perspective? You know what I mean? You know, to see the kind of other side of why someone might do that, even from the selfish other side of the coin, it doesn't make sense not to share it. It just don't, you know, it just doesn't make sense.
Well, you look at, look at the fruits of scarcity, you know, the fruits of scarcity are negativity, they're not growth, they're isolation, isolation, you know, is distance from those that you love. It's distance from everything.
The talking about the opposite of that with going back to abundance. Yeah, everyone in technology, I think, you know, that's, that's my's my wheelhouse that's my love that's where I always revert back to that's all I know technology has the tendency to be a features arm race so it's feature after feature after feature and when you stack up two technologies you take all these different features well people fail to realize that deep within each features execution of how they set it it up.
How's the UI experience? You can say that you do Google reviews, but the way that you do Google reviews versus another piece of technology can be completely different. The secret sauce doesn't lie in strategies.
The secret sauce does not lie in features. I would dare say that the secret sauce of success sits in with your mindset of abundance and with, it's not a piece of technology.
It's not a strategy, an execution of a strategy. But every time there is that abundance, success follows.
Success is right behind. Every time there is scarcity, negativity and failure is just behind the curtain.
And you could have a scarcity mindset, I think, before social media and technology kind of put everything on blast, you could, and you could operate in your little town and have that and not communicate with others. And it worked.
But it doesn't work in today's landscape. You have to give you have to get out there.
And in turn, you're going to feel good. Those around you're going to feel good.
And we're going to see success. Yeah.
going to see success yeah yeah i'm i'm with you man i'm with you and and you know i i think is this the second time you've been on the show or the first time this is time number one i haven't been on is it really yeah dude god that is a travesty you know i i i this this this whole and probably we're 25 minutes into abundance versus scarcity and everyone's like, oh, my God, just tell me about VAs and let's move on. But, you know, the thing that, the reason that even came to my mind was because of one of the very first conversations that we ever had.
God, I don't even, I think it was right after I was fired from the gym or I was thinking about the agency and I was telling you about what happened with the gym. And we had like this, I think I called you for like a 10-minute conversation.
It ended up being like 90 minutes long or I don't even know. It was a long conversation.
And we were going in all these different places and we had never met each other in person. And it was really the first time I think we'd ever like talk, talked on the phone before.

And it was just like one of those moments where I was like, okay, like you get done with the conversation and you hang up the phone.

And I think I texted you after and I was just like, holy shit, man, like I needed that or I said something.

And it was just like, all right, I'm pretty much going to do anything that that guy needs like forever.

Like whatever he needs, if I can connect him with anybody, you know, like it was just one of those things. And, you know, I think if like you had played it close to the vest or if I had played it close to the vest, there would have never been that connection made.
You know what I mean? Never. It would have never happened.
but because you were open to sharing some thoughts and different things and

some experiences you had. And, you know, that made me more willing to share some of my stuff.
And like, at the end, I think we both had a really good feel for who each other were. And like, you know, I haven't used a VA yet.
I haven't gotten to that point yet in my business. I will.

I will absolutely use agency VA because of you. But more importantly, I've probably told every, you know, every person I bump into asking about VAs, I'm like, agency VA.
And it's not just like, I feel I have no obligation to you, none, right? And you have no expectation of me. And it's simply because there, you know, you were so willing to open up in a time when I really needed that.
Right. I, you know, those months after I first got let go from, from, from the gym were a very dark period for me, even though I was building the agency, it was emotional.
And like you, um, it was just very meaningful time in, in, in what it, what you did, whether, you know, and I don't think it was contrived in any regard. It was, was you created a fan of who you were, right? Not just of your business, but of who you are.
And, and that's always been, it's always been meaningful. Well, it's, it you share that because the willingness to be open to your peers, to everyone, you more than often hear the bad stories about this.
And I've had my fair share of letting my peers in my home, sharing beautiful, beautiful ideas, having them take those ideas, monetize those ideas, creating competitors in different, you know, areas of my life. But you know, what's so powerful about that is it doesn't hurt, because I would have shared it with them should they have asked.
And so the fact that they didn't ask, and they sleep under my roof, and they stay here, and I invite them, and I give give them everything I have and then they just go and sneakily take things, it doesn't hurt because if they would have said, will you show me how to do this? I would have. And I can't tell you how powerful that is and how liberating it is to not be confined by ideas that can't be shared, even when the worst happens, and your competitors are created by your very words by your very charity, you know, like, honestly, and many of the scenarios, it's not happened to me once, they have stayed at my house, they've slept under my roof, I've shared with them what I would share with anyone.
And if they said, hey, this is what I'm going to do at the starting of it. I actually don't think I changed much.
Yeah, I don't think I would I would hold back much. And that kind of, you know, gas all the way to the ground mentality.
And this is who I am. This is what I offer and all of my weakness and the very minimal strength that exists.
You know, here you go. And then let people decide what they want to do with that.
That's okay with me. And I'm, I'm okay being open.
And I've taken my lumps. I'm constantly getting, you know, injuries and bruises from that mentality.
But there's the negative side. I can't share with you how many doors it's opened.
I can't share with you how many people I, the list of people that I can call at 2am when I have a flat tire, or the list of people that I can call when I say something stupid to someone big, and they come and have my back. It's very, very great, because they know I would do the exact same thing for them.
And it's not a question to them, like, who are you going to call at 2am when you got the flat tire? You know, who are you going to call to come help and you don't have your spare? You know, and that's kind of how I try to do things is, look, maybe I can't help you in my business right now. But I want to help you in life because I align with you.
And we are going to have a future. It may be not in this business venture, but we will have a future.
And that's just I have to treat that with everyone I interact with. You can't hide from the universe, bro.
You just can't hide from the universe. You can, you can gimmick and scheme and plot and you can undercut people and you can make all the excuses in the world that sound reasonable at face value, but you cannot hide from the universe.
And you know, this is going to, this might, I don't want to polarize people too much, but I believe that that, I believe that in large part, scarcity in this, in this, what we're talking about here is because too off, I think, I think our culture in general is skewed too secular. And I think a lot of the turmoil that you see today is because of secularism is because we've lost touch with the idea that someone is always listening and watching.
And we can be and say whatever we think makes us look good on TikTok or Twitter or Facebook or in some group, or we feel good about dominating someone for some moment and some time. But at the end of the day, the universe is watching.
And, know, insert universe for whatever it is, that thing that you may have prayed to at some time in your life. And you're, you have to come back to that thing.
Like it's still there. You can pretend like it's not, but it's still there.
And, you know, and, and, and you just see it over and over again. Shitty people always get taken down.
They don't, you know, maybe it takes a long time longer than we would like, but they always do. They always do.
And, um, and, and one way, shape or form. So let's, uh, let's, you know, you can share any thoughts you have on that, but then I want to, I want to talk about some tactical stuff too.
I want to talk talk about some some business stuff, not just this fluffy, I could talk about this stuff all day. But you know, I, I'm interested in some business stuff, too.
What specific tactical stuff can I share with you? Because again, keep in mind, you know, it's, it's, it's kind of now been sitting in a couple years of watching agencies,. I, I, we're getting a very good understanding of best practices.
Yeah. You know, what is working and what is not working? Um, is there something specific with lead generation with retention? Um, something specific as it pertains to insurance, I can extrapolate a process that I'm seeing, you know, be very, very effective for that.
So here's what I want to do. This is going to be a little different than normal shows because normally I just meander through a conversation with someone I really enjoy, which we've done for 34 ish minutes so far.
And that was tremendous. That's why I love you.
But I want to kind of do some, I'm going to run some scenarios, some scenarios that are impacting me day to day. And I want to use those as kind of, we'll say just like micro case studies.
And maybe you could say, okay, that thing that you're struggling with, here's where I see some agents using VAs or using, you know, using whatever you think is the right answer to help that process because to this goal, right? Always to this goal. My goal is to flip, is to flip the service heavy nature of independent insurance agencies in the United States.
And what I mean by that is if you walk into an independent insurance agency today, you see something like a producer and seven service people, three producers and 15 service people. And what I believe is possible with tools like agency VA automation and a heavier partnership and integration with carriers, like some of the stuff that neon is doing, which, you know, I got, I spent some time with Seth the other day on the podcast, and then we've spent some time talking afterwards afterwards and some of the shit they're doing is a rock star so um I am I I want to give a shout

out to them before I don't want to break your thought but they spent four days here in Utah

I had the pleasure of uh Seth Sidney and Clint four days alone in Utah right before the pandemic

hit its peak and I'm just telling you I would echo your words they're doing great things for

be Sidney and Clint, four days alone in Utah right before the pandemic hit its peak. And I'm just telling you, I would echo your words.
They're doing great things for the industry. They're incredible people.
I gave Seth a board, 15-foot board and a marker and said, I want to be stumped. I want you just to go through and tell me the inception, where Neon is, where it's going.
And unless i need you to you know to stop right here and and it was 20 minutes that board was filled and it was some of the greatest and and and and but at the end of the day of these people that's very good people doing very great things for our industry i'll be honest with you i'm i'm probably you know i i uh, I need to bridge a gap to neon because I just don't have the service work to utilize the platform yet. Like I just, I'm not, you know, when you have 27 clients or whatever, I just don't have the volume of service work yet, but man, I'm telling you the, well, the, the concept of real time, non-downloaded integration into a carrier system from a claim, just from a claims billing and policy standpoint, just those three aspects of a carrier system real-time, like you're basically operating on the same system.
That idea is so groundbreaking in terms of the velocity at which you can handle customer interactions and the level of service that you can provide to them is, I think, at a level that will be the standard someday that is going to blow minds for a while. People will not understand it, but when they do, it will quickly become the standard.
That's the last thing I'll say about that. I just, I'm very bullish on where they're going, but okay.
So I want to flip that. I want to have 13 producers and three service people.
That's kind of my mentality is I want to be, I think that's possible is that you don't need to have this kind of reverse ratio sales to service. I want to flip it.
Okay. So I sell an account.
I'm a sales and marketing guy, relationship guy. When it comes to like standardized, so everything, I get really bogged down.
I take two steps forward and then one and a half steps back every time I sell a policy because I sell that policy and I'm good at that part. And then everything happens after the policy, getting it into better agency, getting it into QQ, sending out the emails to confirm different things, going back into the systems and confirming this piece of data and that piece of data.
And did we get paid and all that stuff, sending out thank you cards, right? Setting up the tasks to do these different things, making sure they're onboarded into my wave connect that we have through Zywave. Like I, I hate like with a passion, like dislike my job doing that stuff.
So like, this is probably like a softball question of these, but like, talk me through what are people doing? How are they, how are they handling this part? Cause I'm assuming most agents are more like me. They don't like plugging 30 freaking tasks into their system after they sign an account.

I use the example and I share the story often with agencies as I interact with them.

I use the example of restaurants and maybe you've heard this before, but I think it's really powerful.

Restaurants and the business model of a restaurant.

You don't walk in and see the owner of the restaurant bussing tables.

You don't walk in and see the owner of the restaurant mowing the lawn out front. You don't walk in and see the owner of the restaurant cooking the food.
But insurance, you do walk into an agency and see the owner of the agency servicing policies. You see the owner of the agency selling policies.
You see the owner of the agency deciding what technology needs to be implemented, when and where and how. They're doing all the different tasks inside the agency.
Well, just like restaurants, insurance agencies, you only have a certain amount of time in the day, and you only have a certain amount of bandwidth that exists. Every time, and I love mowing my lawn.
It's something therapeutic to me. Every time a restaurant owner mows the lawn, his valuation of himself is the same that he could pay to someone to substitute and mow the lawn for him.
Now, if someone mows the lawn for that restaurant owner, he can do the things that generate him income. Having a clean lawn is great.
It's powerful. But having someone mow their lawn for you while you do more profit generating tasks is even more powerful every time you do each thing that you said and i think that this this causes some hatred towards vas because i think it's bold and blunt truth every time you're doing each of those things your valuation of yourself is whatever it would take someone else to step in to do it.
And I'm telling you, VAs can do a lot inside an agency. And I think it's Cass that talks about automation and manual automation.
Well, we're going to be stuck with manual automation, you know, until the likes of Neon and all these other technologies, you know, start getting more and more momentum and steam. And manual automation should always be done by a VA.

And the thing that has to be thought is that's replacing my time of doing that. So now I need to expand my brain and do things that are going to generate a higher level of income.
And so as it pertains to putting things into various systems, because our technologies don't connect well, that is just a VA's job. A VA should be doing that.
And when you talk with people about VAs,

they get kind of lost just like when technology and a features arm race. And I always try to make

it simple for them and explain, have a VA do the things that are going to generate you income

out the chutes. Quoting to me is the number

one thing that agents hold on to, but it's linear, especially on the personal line side. It's linear

and with technologies like Tarmica, it's getting more simple. It's getting more efficient.
So VAs

can take the quoting and that is going to generate you much higher income opportunities if someone

else is quoting. I have one individual that quotes inside my agency.
And the reason that I have

Thank you. generate you much higher income opportunities if someone else is quoting.
I have one individual that quotes inside my agency. And the reason that I have one individual, and he has a team, but there's one that I connect with, one VA that I connect with, is because as it pertains to Safeco, he only sells the highest of packages because it is the best for our client and it pays us the most as an agency.
Well, when I spread it out in the days that I had eight agents all quoting for themselves, one was selling the lowest package, one was selling the middle, there was no standardization. When I moved that task to a VA, you know, that's a 5% swing on renewal income and the efficiencies that I gained that one person is quoting is incredible.
We now have an individual that can get three pieces of, three questions asked and they can have MVR ran, finalized quote ready for a video proposal in 17 minutes. That doesn't happen overnight.
That happens when someone is fundamentally quoting every day, all day and they get good at it. And the thing about trying to create that same process outside of a va is eventually that individual that was doing that is going to tell you ryan i'm sick of quoting i want to do other things as they should well the va on the other hand is going to be excited grateful and happy to quote for the next how many ever years you'll have them yeah so for everyone who everyone who's listening, Jack Wingate, who was just on last Monday, I think just look in the past episodes.
So Jack Wingate actually first turned me on to this idea of having a VA. So Jack Wingate has PL rate, Jack, all choice insurance, just a couple episodes ago.
He, so we were talking about Raiders, right? And I was like, oh, I got PL Raider and there's not really any better options out there. And he was like, yeah, we have PL Raider, but we don't really use it.
And I was like, bro, you write tons of personal lines. How the hell do you have PL Raider and you don't really use it? And he's like, yeah.
He's like, I have a VA who I send all the info to. We have a form.
We fill out the form. Form goes to the VA.
The VA goes into each native system with the defaults that we've predefined and comes back with a spreadsheet side by side. So now think about the actual deliverable.
The deliverable is better than what you give most clients because now he's able to give a deliverable to a client that's a spreadsheet that literally says, you know, travelers, X amount, Safeco, Y amount, Erie, Z amount. And now you can say to them, look, like, you know, look at what the market is showing.
And here's what we recommend. And here's what the prices are.
And even though this company is more expensive than this company, here's why I think you should have it. But the transparency, the value, I mean, there's so much there.
And when he first said that, I was like, man, that's got to be expensive. And he's like, dude, VA, they learn the system.
Because again, a VA is a human being. I feel like we talk about VAs like somehow they are lesser individuals.
I mean, these are, these are, these are smart, hardworking, energetic human beings who just happen to us in some cases live in a different country or whatever. And this is what they do for a living.
They learn a system and they crush the system. And these are, a lot of these are Jack's words, not my words.
And I was blown away by that process. And he's like, our close ratio has gone up because we're getting real rates, bindable rates, because they're not pulling them out of the rater.
You know what I mean? These are, you know, these are like, what would be post bridged rates and a rater. I mean, this is coming right out of the system.
Jack is one of my favorite clients. I love working with Jack.
He's very powerful. He's very, I mean, he's got the second best beard I'd say in the country.

Beautiful, beautiful beard. He's on a pontoon boat.
He's a, he's a man's man. I love me some Jack Wenge and I've loved working with him.
And I, and I think, I think when agencies hear this

kind of stuff, they get overwhelmed, but the reality is just like me and you are sitting on

a zoom call and it's being recorded conceptually. That's the same way I would bring a VA,

I think it's being recorded. Conceptually, that's the same way I would bring a VA about quoting each system.
And you do one Zoom video showing them how the intricacies that you want with inside Liberty Mutual, whatever system you're at, you hit record. And then you just put that as this is how Liberty Mutual is to be quoted.
They will refer back to that one training you did every time they get into Liberty Mutual until it is engraved inside their brain. But your efficiencies are so great.
And you used a free piece of technology, which is Zoom. You recorded it.
You take that MP4 file. And this isn't hard.
Don't let this, like people get too scared about this kind of stuff, and you throw that into a YouTube link, there's a system and process. I call those freedom recipes.
Every freedom recipe you have, if you build out your whole agency with VAs, and you have all these freedom recipes, you now have a scalable business that should you choose not to use VAs, you're so powerful in utilizing these freedom recipes for whatever else, whatever endeavor you pursue after, They're like Like they're so, so powerful. And everyone that sets an expectation of how something has to

be done, you cannot expect what you don't inspect. And so even if you're inspecting something,

with a VA specifically, like we'll go back to our quoter, I just created an Excel spreadsheet.

It went inside of Slack and July of 2019 was when my quoter started. So we're now a year.
And he just took the name of the family, how many pieces of business he was quoting, two autos, two homes, and the time it took him to do it. And all I cared about was just progress.
But I was inspecting because my expectation to my VA was we are telling people 30 minutes, which means you have to be about half of that because then we have to take your data and get it to them in a timely manner. So I need 15 minutes out of you, 17 minutes right in there, and we can make this work.
Well, his first one was 97 minutes. I didn't care as long as the next day was 96 and the next day was 95 And because we had that very simple Inspection of the expectation we created, you know when I talked to the VA at the starting was probably overwhelming to the VA Yeah, you've got to cut your time Dramatically, but I don't I don't care how long it takes you like as long as you are just progressing Yeah, and I don't know if he's progressing unless I'm inspecting what's happening.
And he's reporting to me those reports. I'm not going to look at anything.
Every time you have a report or some form of inspection that you're creating and you're doing, that's, that's terribly inefficient. They bring to you those reports.
And now I'm to the point where I tell my VAs, create a report such that we can inspect these efficiencies. They set them up.
And I say, okay, that works good. Let's tweak this, this, and this move.
Yeah. Implement, execute.
I think about, you know, I, I, you know, I have to realize in my agency. And again, I think about this all the time because, um, at, you know, with, with, like I said, with each client that I add, I take two steps forward and a step and a half back.
And so I, it feels like, you know, I signed a client the other day. It was like a 2,500 in revenue.
You know, you think, you know, for a young agency, I'd be like, oh, this is great. Except then, you know, I got to put it into this system and set up this thing and make sure this is here.
And I got to do all these tasks set up. And this is, you know, and by the time I got done, I was like, Oh my God, like that, geez, like that was awful.
And then the other side of it is the delivery of the services that needs to be done. You know, the touch points that you want to deliver.
It just, you know, if I'm all, this is the problem. This is the problem in a nutshell is if I'm thinking about something and now all of a sudden I have to turn my brain from thinking about prospecting and now I need to think about this thing over here, this system I have to put in place or this tasks I have to add.
Well, then it takes my brain time. There's brain lag to get to that thought.
And then once I get dialed in on that thought, then I need to come back to prospecting. And you do that two or three times.
And by noon, you're freaking exhausted because you haven't just been able to focus on what's driving your business or what you're best at. And, um, you know, I, to me, this is, it's like a no brainer.
Well, what you're saying, very simply put, going back to the restaurant analogy is you just mowed your lawn. You're dirty from, you know, the after effects and the collateral damage of mowing your lawn.
And then you went and prepared the food and you're getting dirt all over that damn food and it's getting gross. And, and, and you know what, that's going to happen when you're cross doing so many different parts of your business, but people forget to own their agency, write your own story.
What do you love doing? And do that. Write your story on what you love doing.
And if you love mowing the lawn, by all means, keep mowing the damn lawn. Like keep, stay there.
If that's, if that's, you love it. I still mow my lawn at my house cause I love it.
I love to mow my lawn. It clears my head.
Yeah. I'm weird.
I love, I love a nice lawn and I love to do it I've tried to hire it out I can't within the agency remember what you're doing validate what you're doing and it's a business put a cost on what you're doing and what is your value of who you are and the time you spend in that and the argument is well I'm too small I don't have the systems and processes get a VA. And I would argue, no, this is the exact time you need one.
This is the time where bet on yourself, bet on you, bet on that you can do higher generating profit, you know, higher profit tasks and things for your agency by allowing this to be taken by someone else. And Zoom, I'm going to hit it again, Zoom, recording, getting the MP4 file, that is a freedom recipe.
Or in the tech world, they say SOP, system or process or whatever. That's something.
And it works so effectively. It's free.
You are going to do it anyways. And if you're still mowing your lawn, record yourself mowing your lawn and then say, you know what, VA, this is how I do it.
I do crisscrosses, man. I'm a crisscross mower.
This is how it's done. Look at my drone showing me how to mow the lawn.
Now you crisscross when you mow because you've seen how to do it. Yeah.
I mean, this podcast that you're listening to right now, this was put together, packaged, and distributed by an agency VA. Yes.
And a high percentage of those vendors out there and now insurance carriers are white labeling agency VA. So a high percentage of people we've talked about and names we've dropped on this episode, they're utilizing VAs in one way or another.
So if they're doing it and having success, you know, why can't? And that's what I've always said is the biggest of agencies or those that just start, they can use a VA. And it's being used everywhere right now.
So let's, I wanna finish with this idea. How do we remove the scary? Because if I completely, I know I like to be transparent on the show.
I'm scared. I want a VA.
I'm, I'm actually logging off seven minutes before two so that I can have six minutes with you to talk about VAs. Cause I know you're a busy guy.
And if your scheduler Facebook guy doesn't build time for you, then you don't have it, which I get. Hey, brother, I get it.
I'm with you. I want to address that right there.
It's the duchiest thing on the planet that I do when you hit me in Facebook Messenger and someone else comes in and answers that. But I need to let the record show and set it straight.
It's because when you put yourself out there with this abundance, it's not rare that in any given day, you have 70 questions asked. Oh, I know you are, but I want to set it like, I hate that, but I, it's, it's a necessity.
And, and my, I have two now, I have two virtual assistants full time that sit in my communications, whether it's email, Facebook, messenger, text, I've got my text

controlled and they bring to me after the day ends, you know, these are the things you have to do because time management became such a problem because I'll spend three hours talking to someone about mowing a lawn, you know, and that's not making money for my two agencies or agency VA. And so I had to, I had to practice what I preached there.
You're standing on the mountain, brother. We're all just climbing the hill.

So, all right. So here's the last thing that I want you to answer.
So I firmly believe that I can move exponentially faster if I have a VA in rogue risk. I believe that.
I believe that wholeheartedly. We've talked about it before.
I am scared to death about adding a VA for a bunch of different reasons. One, I feel too small.
Two, I know my processes aren't worked out all the way, and I don't have a clear written set of plans. Three, I don't know how to manage a VA because I've never done it before.
I've managed people before, but I've never managed a VA. So these are just a couple of the things that, you know, and these aren't like fears, like, you know, you know, being, I don't know, these aren't like real fears, but there are things that make me hesitant.
So how do we remove, for those listening at home who are seeing themselves, man, I've heard everyone's talking about VAs and everyone makes jokes like all the cool kids have VAs, but that's not 100% true because I know some really nerdy insurance agents that aren't cool at all that crush VAs. So which kind of makes them cool.
So maybe they are actually cool. The idea here is how do we remove for those people at home that have some of the same hesitations that I have? Like what's, how do we remove some of that scary for them so that they, maybe they can engage a little bit or, or take that next step or, or whatever to start to do this.
If it's something they think they should. Okay.
So there's a couple of things I did. I wrote down your, your three things.
Number one, you said you're too small, um, to, cause so you're not alone. I mean, I, I probably, if I, there was a time where I was talking to 15 insurance agents, agency owners every day, and I was hearing the same thing.
So you're not alone. So to help validate your, your concerns, the too small, uh, I spent a lot of time trying to figure that out.
And I have two answers to the too small. Number one answer is we created a product called VA On Demand, which allows you to get your feet wet and pay an a la carte price for a VA.
A quote is X. Lead generation is X.
So you can just test it, try it, not break the bank. Number two, we're tinkering and playing with an idea and beta testing a program that's $500 a month for a VA, but you don't get some of our systems and processes that we have.
But I actually think we're doing that because the next step you said is processes. Using freaking Zoom, recording how you want things done, putting it in YouTube and creating your own little freedom recipe is what I'm doing.
So you can just do that. That's why I'm able to take the price of a VA and skyrocket it because my VAs are learning and have a basic understanding of systems and processes.
So by the time they get to you, they can fundamentally dribble a basketball. They can't dunk, you know, but they can fundamentally dribble.
And we're spending a lot of bandwidth and resources on that. But I believe you can do that on your own.
So for the too small, going back, use VA on demand, try a couple quotes, try, you know, have some live transfers, you know, come to you, try that, try it and try various things of where VA is working. And you're not, you know, going all in with the VA when you don't know what you're doing.
The managing of VAs, that is something that you would pay for. And that is what these VA outfits are offering.
And we're getting to the point where a lot of our managers are turning into licensed insurance people because you can then communicate to them. They can go on the back end and train for the system and process you want.
And so that is some of the, as you extrapolate the costs associated with having a VA and paying for a service, that's a big one right there on the management of the VAs. But with VA on demand, where you take the a la carte approach, you have a manager there, but your VA isn't working just for you.
Your VA is working for maybe a team of agents. That is a way to get in the game and to kind of get your feet wet.
Yeah. Cool.
Cool. I, uh, and, and agency va.com, right.
That's where they go. Yeah.
Right. Not your Facebook messenger.
People should not be blowing up. Go, go, go in there.
I mean, you're going to be, what happens? What happens, Ryan? You get the stars, you get your, you've been going to be like a, it's going to be like a battlefield triage. You're going to get in and he's going to say, gonna say i want you to know sir that wes only talks to people if they're on his calendar so please use his calendar that's because if my calendar doesn't tell me to use the restroom i pee my pants i live and die by every minute of that calendar my vas are like wes you have baseball baseball practice for kid number two at this time.
You have a flight that you got to catch at this time. I was for a while there waking up in States and not knowing where I was.
And I'm calling my VA like, you know, so as I've had to expand on different roles, it just, I hate it. I hate that part.
I try to make it as personal on the VAs that do that. I try to make ones that are as close to me.

They do a great job. They really do.
I honestly, they do a great job. They're good.
They're good. Just, um, it is low hanging fruit to give you a hard time.
So I, I'm not, I'm not above that. Well, I'm not above of receiving a hard time.
brother i appreciate appreciate you so much. Everyone that's listening, agencyva.com.
This is something that I'm going to be starting to dip my feet into because I want to go fast. And I know already know the things that are holding me up.
And if you're interested, you know, reach out and have the conversation. It's like everything else I say on this show.
know what it is, whether you use it or not is up to you, but know what it is. You know, don't make decisions in points of ignorance.
And I think a lot of people are making decisions about VAs from positions of ignorance. And I don't mean that in a negatives content.
So they just haven't invested into learning about it. And agencyva.com is a good place to start.

So I appreciate you, man.

And I'm going to end it with find me on Facebook and message me if you have VA questions.

I do respond.

I do answer.

I work through that VA.

But Wesley J. Anderson,

don't ever feel like a question is too small or too stupid.

That's how everything starts.

What you view as a small, stupid question, not so ask i will help um i'll try to be a resource any way i can good thanks dude yep all right party people that was a good show it just was a good show every time i talk to wes i always just feel better he's just one of those people that makes me feel better when I talk to him. But quick outro for you.
We are expanding our advertising, the amount of advertisers we're willing to take on. You probably noticed that we recently took on Better Agency as an advertiser.
We've always had Advisor Evolved and Tarmica. We have room for at least three more sponsors in this show.
We're going to be adding some mid-roll reads and we'll be rotating reads more at the beginning of the show, maybe adding some reads at the end of the show. And you may be listening to this as a non-advertiser going, ah, geez, that's the last thing I need is more advertising.
Well, my friends, putting this podcast on costs money. I love you.
You will never actually have to pay. But what you'll have to do instead is listen to me talk about some companies that I filter very heavily.
Some of I use, some of I don't in case every sponsor I have right now I actually use. That won't always be the case, but I filter world-class companies, the companies that care about independent agents, that care about our channel.
I filter those companies. I bring them to you.
And in turn, they pay me so that I can pay to put this show on. That's how this game works.
But if you're out there, if you're listening to this, or you know a company that is interested in sponsoring, we have open slots. We have three open slots.
As companies come in, as I feel that they're a good fit, we will add them to the showcase. But you got to reach out.

Just hit me at ryan at ryanhanley.com.

Ryan at ryanhanley.com.

That's my email.

If you just want to send me a nice note, you can do that too.

But if you're looking to sponsor, that's where you hit me up.

We'll talk about what the show is.

We'll talk about what sponsoring looks like.

And you'll have the opportunity to access this platform.

But here's what I'm going to tell you.

You have to believe in the independent channel.

No posers, no hacks, no one who's just looking to sell some shit to independent agents and

then jump out and make some money.

That's not the kind of companies that I allow to advertise on this platform.

So if you're going to come, come hard, my friends.

All right, I'm out of here Take it! You go fuck yourself with your fat fucking ass. Thank you.
Do you want to have a few drinks and smoke a joint bubbles?

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