RHS 050 - Charles Specht on How to Get More Clients, More Quickly

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Terms and conditions apply. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the show.
Today we have Charles Speck on the podcast, a former producer for InterWest Insurance Services and Arthur J. Gallagher for the last decade has been running the Permission Group, an insurance productive production consultancy where he's helping agents and agencies produce more business.
And he does it through what he calls a broker of record mentality. And we talk about what that means.
We talk through his idea of micro-niching. We talk about the mental side of producing business.
and really, why I wanted to have Charles on is he's a great guy and I think a great thinker in our business and certainly helping a lot of agents and agencies produce more revenue. But the things we discuss in this episode, I find, are keystones to what success is going to look like moving forward.
We're at a time, a transitional time in our industry's history in which I think for a long time we've been able to do C plus work and be profitable. And I think that time is gone.
We have to be A players today. There's going to be The pace of business, the quality of business demanded by our clients, the aggressiveness of new agencies, agencies like Rogue Risk, like mine.
We're aggressive as hell and we're coming after people who are lethargic. And if you don't want to be the type of agency that is losing business to agencies like mine and others, then you got to get to work.
And I think some of the ideas that we talk about in here will resonate with you. And they're ideas that you can grab hold of.
And if they make sense, you can reach out to Charles and potentially work with him. But the ideas, I think, are really important.
And I was just glad that I could share them with you. And I just love talking with Charles.
He's a great dude. I've been on a couple panels with him.
And we always have good back and forth. I think you're going to take a lot away from this episode.
And I'm very happy to share it with you. Before we get there, though, I want to give a big shout out to the insurance website vendor for the independent insurance agency.
And that is Advisory Evolved. Chris Langell and his team at Advisory Evolved create the best insurance websites hands down.
There's no place else to go. I mean, you got Carruthers using his stuff, Nick Ayers is using his stuff, Jason Cass is using his stuff, and the list goes on and on and on and on.
All the best agencies are using Advisor Evolved and the reason is it's not just a website. It's a tool to grow your agency.
I use the PowerPack. I use QuoteVids all the time and these tools exclusively come with Advisor Evolved websites and plus, you know, cost versus other providers.
It's crazy. The amount of value you get.
I get asked all the time, you know, Hey, I'm looking for a new website. Where should I go? And I just tell, I tell everybody unequivocally, there's only one option and it's advisory evolved.
If you're looking for a website, if you're looking to take your brand and your game to the next level, if you're looking for ways to get in front of more clients, people who are searching online or just searching for you and present a better story to those people when they find you, go to Advisory Evolved. That's advisoryevolved.com.
Check them out. Get a demo.
Talk to Chris. Step your game up.
Let's get on to Charles. Think about insure tech and how it has completely changed the insurance industry over the five, 10 years.
Look, COVID is going to be disrupting the insurance agency. It's going to be changing the entire model.
Agencies are going to be downsizing their real estate. They're getting smaller in the office.
People are going home, right? The account manager can do what they do away from the office. People don't want their clients coming in right now, maybe to bring in a payment, pay online.
Insurance producers go home, you know, work from your home and we will pay you as you actually, you know, bring in revenue. I'm seeing a lot of producers going to 1099 and not employee status anymore.
It's going to be amazing to see what's going to happen with the insurance industry. And frankly, you know, unfortunately the COVID wave is going to be hurting a lot of agents.
They're just not going to be like making it in the end of 2020, 2021. We're going to see, I think a big shift of a number of people just leaving the industry because they just can't make it.
They can't write the business. They didn't actually look, you know, you know, it email marketing, social media marketing.
If agencies didn't have it at this point, they are struggling. They are, they're dying.
They're dying. Absolutely dying.
So, you know, it's one of the major things that needs to take place right now. Otherwise, insurance producers just are not going to survive.
You know, it's been, this starting an agency thing has been, it's been the most challenging professional thing I've done in my entire life. I mean, that's probably like a duh, like a, like a duh, you know, I'm kind of a thing to say, but it's, you never, you know, my wife actually said it to me this morning.
Um, she said, you, you underestimated how hard this was going to be, didn't you? And I said, and I thought about that for a second. And, um, I definitely, I don't want to say that I underestimated how hard it was going to be

because I knew it was going to be the hardest thing I had ever done professionally. I knew that.
But I definitely, there are definitely pieces inside of the business that I drastically underestimated how hard they would be to wrap my head around. and I'd say the major ones are things like consistency, finding routine, sticking, having patience and sticking to certain, you know, you go off, you're like, oh, I'm going to buy leads today.
And then a week later, you're like, ah, leads suck. I'm not doing that anymore.
And I'm going to do PPC. And then you're like, ah, PPC sucks.
I'm not going to do that anymore. And you know, any of those strategies could work if you stick to them.
And I've just found that almost like the emotional side of the business has been the most difficult part of it. Especially being on your own all the time.
Yeah. You know, and that's, I think the challenge, right? If you're in an agency where there's other people, if you're just a producer and you're with other producers, you've got that camaraderie, right? You even have probably somebody holding you accountable, but you are your own accountability partner, right? You're the one who kicking yourself in the pants.
You're the one who's doing operations. You're trying to manage relationships with underwriters and get, you know, appointments, all of that, along with making cold calls, sending out social media, doing podcasts, right? You're probably putting in, you know, a hundred hours, you know, a week, just kind of doing business, right? Just doing business.
And if you're seeing things over here and you're seeing things over there, it's very difficult not to get that squirrel syndrome. That's why like being micro niched is just very important because it allows you to actually stay focused.
So this is, this is one of the things that I really wanted to talk about today with you. And I have a bunch of topics that I want to talk about.
And I'm not going to do like your whole background because one, go check out Charles' LinkedIn and you'll figure out. Two, you did the full background on Cass's podcast and it's awesome.
So go listen to those shows. I want to get into your expertise.
I want to do more potatoes. Whatever, man.
Just fire away. I'm ready.
Yeah. So this idea of a micro niche, it scares the shit out of me.
And because I think, you know, what if you make the wrong decision? What if there's no revenue there? What if my carriers change their mind? You I, and I kind of got a little gun shy because I

spent before, so I launched the agency on March 9th and the two months leading up to that, um, I basically put tons of work in going after the fitness industry. Cause I was coming off of my brief stay as a fitness CEO, um, which is almost weird to say now.
Um, and I was like, this is perfect. I know insurance, I know marketing, and I have a really good feel for fitness businesses.
And I had Cincinnati as an appointed carrier really early, who has a tremendous fitness program. I'm like, this, it's like the, the, the, the moon is in the sign of Aquarius, right? Like everything is lined up here for me to go after this niche.
And then on one week into that, March 16th, uh, Emperor Cuomo ixnays all fitness businesses and, you know, Cincinnati throws up a moratorium rightly so. And, um, and now I'm toast, you know what I mean? I can't write physics.
So, so my thought is, you know, how do you talk me out of being nervous, feeling like maybe there's not enough like all those fears. How do you talk me out of that? Yeah.
First of all, I think the main issue to realize when you're micro niching is that it doesn't mean you can't write whatever comes your way. Okay.
It's a, it's mindset. Okay.
We're going to have to deal with that mindset issue because that's what you're struggling with right now. I don't know if I should do this, right? That's just mindset.
So it doesn't mean if something falls in your lap, someone refers something to you, you talk with somebody, you know, at a restaurant, they happen to have a business. It doesn't mean you can't write good business, but the whole idea of marketing and branding is focused on getting your, your prospect to see you as somebody that makes sense for them.
right? And so the whole idea of micro-nitching, what it does, Ryan, is it actually allows you to market more effectively. It allows you to brand yourself very effectively.
And this is really the issue, is that it allows you to get more clients more quickly. Okay? It allows you to get more clients more quickly.
And that really is the thing. Now, are there potential pitfalls to it? Absolutely.
You know, somebody who did, you know, residential construction back in the housing market, you know, being micro niched in, you know, even construction and residential construction got hit pretty hard, right? I'm doing fitness centers, restaurants right now, hospitality getting hit pretty hard, right? So it is what it is. Even if you wrote a bunch of that stuff and you wrote a bunch of restaurants and you wrote a bunch of car dealerships, look, you got hit.
Okay. It is what it is right now.
But if I was a Chinese restaurant owner and somebody came into me and they said, you know, I write some swimming pool accounts and I've got some general contractors and I write a furniture store over here and I've got 30 personal lines clients. So I have a pretty good feel for insurance.
And then another agent comes in, you come in and you're like, yeah, you know what? I've actually write 37 restaurants. I understand Chinese restaurants because I have 16 of them.
These are the four insurance carriers right now in our state that are actually very, very competitive for Chinese restaurants. And then I give them my timeline of services, which says Chinese restaurant insurance program.
And everything is focused on that. And my loss control program is the Chinese restaurant loss control program.
Look, it becomes very apparent which agent would be the better choice. And after all is said and done, that's really what we're trying to do from positioning.
When somebody's out there prospecting, you're trying to get that insured to see that Ryan is the better choice of which agent I should do business with. And because insurance buyers don't understand insurance, they don't know what's the difference between Ryan and me and the 7,000 other insurance agents in their community.
They don't know how to choose a good agent or what's a bad agency. They don't know if you have a really good relationship with Cincinnati or if you're about to lose your appointment because you haven't written anything with them in the last year.
They have no idea how insurance works. And so they are trying to figure out based upon having an overwhelming amount of ignorance in the insurance marketplace.
They're trying to figure out who is the better choice. And if you're micro niched, it's a lot easier to get broker record letters than if you just come across as just another insurance agent who's given them a call saying, I can offer you quotes.
Yeah. I actually can't wait to talk about BORs, but I want to pause that for a second because I want to talk more about this.
So, okay. So, I'm, so let's say I, uh, I, I buy into this micro niche idea and, um, I say niche, I'm sorry.
It just comes out of my face. Cass makes fun of me all the time for saying it.
Uh, it doesn't rhyme with rich man. You got to like, I know, I know.
I have tried. This is like a tick.
This is like my wife. So my wife always gets mad at me because I say crick instead of creek.
And that's like the way that I was raised. I just say crick in the neck.
Yeah. Okay.
So I'm like, I got a crick. I got it.
And, and, and, uh, and she drives me and she's like, you know, that's not the word. The word is C RR-E-E-K.
And you're saying C-R-I-C-K.

And I was like, I just can't change it. And the same thing with niche and niche.
I just, it doesn't matter. This is bad podcasting.
So. By the way, are we recording yet? Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Okay. Cool.
All right. Cool.
I'm glad. I'm glad.
I'm glad we are. It would be bad if we just did all that and we weren't.
That's right. so um let's say I start focusing on, I look at my portfolio carriers I have today and I say, geez, I got two or three markets that just absolutely crush manufacturers.
I can go into a manufacturer and know that I got a, I have a good, I got a real good shot of presenting them with something with a proposal if I focus in on manufacturers. Okay., so I'm going to be the manufacturing guy for upstate New York, because I would really rather that downstate New York secede and become the 51st state.
Um, and we can have a manufacturing agrarian society up here. Um, so let's say I do that.
My, you know, in my head, I'm going to go, okay, that's awesome. But now nobody else is ever going to call me because I'm just a manufacturing guy.
So the, the, the nice retail furniture store down the street here, they're, they're never going to call me because I'm the manufacturing guy. And now they're just assuming that I don't know anything about, is it, is there, is there any, is that baseless? What, what, you know, why? Yeah, I would say, I mean, look, there might be a thread of truth to that.

But again, does the retail shop know anything about your agency?

Probably not.

And, you know, you can have, I would say that it's, it's, it's probably important to have

a little bit of a generalist feel when you go to the homepage of your website.

But that doesn't mean you can't have specific pages on your website that are manufacturing.

And then you buy manufacturinginsurance.com.

And every time you're now prospecting to your manufacturing companies, you don't tell them to go to Rogue Risk. You tell them to go to manufacturinginsurance.com, which points right down to that page on your website, which has all of that information so that they can see you are an expert there.
And then in the same way, you can have another micro niche. You can have two or three as a business owner probably would make sense.
Or you can have restaurantinsurance.com and it goes there, right? So that way, like when a business is coming to your organization, they're not seeing just maybe that one thing. Now, I also, in the city where I live here in Fresno, there is an insurance agency that has grown very significantly.
They are called Landscape Contractors Insurance Services. LCIS is what they're known for.
That's the name of their insurance agency, Landscape Contractors Insurance Agency. They're big.
They have lots of locations all around. They write thousands of landscape contractors.
Okay. They write some other stuff too, but they are known for writing landscape contractors to the point in which they had insurance carriers come to them and say, hey, we would like to start a program with you.
And so they have their own program now for landscape contractors. So they went all in initially and they got a lot of business right away.
That's one way of doing it. Now, that's also very rare.
I don't know too many insurance agencies that are doing it like that. If I started my own insurance agency, I would probably do it the first way that I talked about it, having a little bit of a generalist front door.
And then I have lots of bedrooms, right, where that's where the micro niche is housed. I think that that just makes a lot of sense.
And also, depending upon what rogue risk is going to be in the future, you might bring on another producer, right, who might then also be a part of that micro niche. Or maybe they've got a book of business that they want to bring over and they've got some clients or some expertise in boat dealers, right? And so then you're going to have a boat dealers micro niche.
That's the beautiful part of it. So you can create these subsectors of your insurance agency and that's how the business is actually built.
But I mean, also the nice thing about it, you know, Ryan, from your perspective, coming into an insurance agency or rather starting an insurance agency, trying to get your markets, bit of a nightmare, bit of a hassle, no doubt, right? Now, when you look at Cincinnati or any other insurance carriers that you're writing business with, they also have their own micro niche appetite list. They don't write everything under the sun.
They only write a small amount of business. So it just makes sense for them to do that.
And so they tell you what their market is. Now, when it, when any business goes to their website, they just see, you know, their organization.
But from the sales perspective, you're micro niched. Now, if I can say even one other thing, you know, when you mentioned that, that example of the retail shop, okay, what if they still don't see you as like a generalist, they don't see you.
Does the average insurance buyer know anything about Marsh and McLennan? Does the average insurance buyer know anything about Willis? Anything about Aon? Ever heard of Gallagher in their life? Have they ever heard of Brown and Brown? Look, these are the big boys that are out there, right? These are the alphabet houses and they know nothing about them. So after all is said and done, most of it is up here.
It is absolutely mental. We just have to sort of get over that shift because we have been taught something for so long.
We have been force fed a generalist mentality for so long. And, you know, insurance agents and agencies built their books of business being a generalist agency.
So it's not that it didn't work. It absolutely did work.
It's just that it's probably not going to work going forward. Yeah.
I actually, you know, I'm incredibly bought in on this idea, obviously. I just, I love playing devil's advocate because I hear your, I want, because that was awesome.
So I do have a couple of questions. So I, well, one is a comment.
My first comment is, I think the reason we went so generalist early is that our niche was actually a locale, right? So pre-internet days, your niche was your locale. That's what it was.
So, so that was, it wasn't that you just did landscapers. It was that I did Latham, New York.
That's, that was my niche. I think that was the reason.
So, um, Ken, so let's say, um, so, so let's take like a line of business, like, um, you know, workers comp is obviously a really big one. A lot of people are talking about now.
Um, cyber is another one, which I think a lot of people are starting to consider, or, you know, I shouldn't say a lot because out of the 36,000 agencies, like 10 might be considering cyber, but, um, you know, so, so, so, you know, can you have, can this idea translate to a line of business and not necessarily an industry? Or do you think that's a different thing? It's very similar. In fact, I would almost say that they are kind of the same.
Now, if I was to start an agency, which I don't want to start an agency. I mean, I have an agency.
I'm actually the CEO of my own insurance agency. I just don't have any appointments, right? So I do something different.
But if I was to actually sell insurance again, I would 100% brand myself, not in a micro niche necessarily, but as a workers' compensation agency that goes after debit mod type of business, very high rate. So I would go after stuff that's got 150, 170, 225 X mod.
I would then focus on that. I know that it would be crazy successful and it's going to allow me to write a lot of other business.
The challenge, however, though, is that do you have the markets where you can feed it? That's the problem, right? And so it's easier when you're a startup agency or a smaller agency with fewer markets to go into the industry, if you will. But if you have access to the markets, then you can do exactly what I just said.
So it does make things easier. Now, you can also, however, brand yourself as the workers' compensation expert in maybe a few different micro niches.
Okay, so you don't have to necessarily do one industry, and you're only going to write that. You can write workers' compensation.
That's going to be your brand. That's going to be your marketing.
But you might do it for maybe eight different micro niches. So then when you're bringing in all your prospects, maybe then you accumulate, you know, 1,500 prospects in these eight micro niches.
These are going to be the prospects you're going after with the focus that I'm going to be initially going in on workers' compensation with high debit mod because I know I'll be able to help them in the long run. You're going to get a lot more business that way.
I actually know of a couple agencies that do that. Their entire model is workers compensation.
They go in, they broker it over, they do what they do, they show some expertise. And once they do that, you know, their agreement with the insured is that once we show that the other agent hasn't done a good job, you'll broker over the rest of the policies to us.
That's their entire strategy. Very successful.
Yeah. I definitely, so the comp model is the way that I've gone.
And I've been fairly lucky in that, you know, I've been able to, you know, since he's not a huge comp writer, they don't really do anything monoline, but I have Hanover, great monoline, sneaky, great monoline comp writer, Chubb, sneaky, very good monoline comp writer. I got employers.
I got a couple more, you know, I've, I've been blessed in just maybe just because of the podcast and some other stuff I've been able to get early on some, some direct appointments that have really helped push me forward because I haven't had to, you know, and I have a great relationship with a market access company in Indium, but I haven't had to lean on them as much because I've had some of these good early direct appointments. And I think, you know, today you can differentiate yourself like whatever you want.
I do think that there's a tremendous opportunity in comp. I just think there is.
I don't think the window will be open forever. And I think the people can establish themselves in the next three, you know, say one to three years will set themselves apart because I do think there are enough people talking about it today that it will start to spread.
But yeah, I mean, you're, I saved a guy $40,000 on a $100,000 comp account. 40 grand.
The beauty is that the comp is very often where the premium's at. So that's their big pain.
And also, I mean, it's also probably the easier policy in which to write, right? I mean, the core's not that much. I mean, it's pretty simple and straightforward.
It's the XMOD stuff where most agents don't understand that. It's not like a 17-page commercial auto app.
Exactly, right? You don't have to get all this detail, you know, VIN numbers, all that kind of stuff. But I mean, here's also a nice thing about it.
If you are like focused on a few different industries where you didn't have to have, you know, only one agent. For example, like contractors, they usually want one agent because they have to, you know, request multiple certificates of insurance.
But there's plenty of industries out there where it's not really that service intensive. And so there's no problem with having a different agent who only does the comp.
Yeah. So you don't even have to have a whole lot of other PNC carriers to actually have that expertise in the comp and be very successful.
Yeah. So this is, this is, takes me, I want to circle back to the, to the mental side, eventually, but I want to, I want to talk about BORs.
My issue that I've run into with BORs being from the Northeast, and I don't know how familiar you are with this part of the country, but we have almost a hundred domestics in the state of New York, little tiny mutuals. And then Vermont has a hundred, has 50 domestics.
And then you talk about micro regionals and super regionals and then nationals. And then, and it's like, you know, you, the idea, there's just such a small chance that you're gonna walk in and actually be able to bor that account from the standpoint of you already have the appointment right like yeah you can go in get the you know i shouldn't say yeah you can go in like it's that easy but like yes you could go in and say all the right things and and get the bor and want to provide them with that service but then then you come back out and it's like, you know, I don't have a community mutual appointment and community mutual has decided that, that they're going to write this account and they're half the price.
Like I, this is what I had. I am the comp only.
I only do the comp for this account in Vermont. Right.
and I got tremendous proposals from two of my carriers. Tremendous.
I mean, any other day I am writing this business and saving this guy money and it got, you know, great, you know, both two great companies. I was very, very happy.
Half his, his current carrier is half the price of those proposals because it's this tiny mutual that just decided they want this account and they're just going to write it for nothing. And there's no way I'm getting an appointment with that company for that one account.
Cause I'm never going to write another account with them. You know? So it's like that idea, how do you overcome that idea? Because I know like I talked to, and I'm going on, I just want to finish this thought.

I talked to some agents in Texas who think the exact same way on this BOR.

Mike Asalis, Mike Asalis, great example.

Texas has like five carriers.

Like basically everyone has one of five carriers.

So it's more about who your agent is and the carrier doesn't mean anything

because you're just like, oh, I'll just BOR it.

I'll do this.

In New York, it could be one of 700 carriers.

How do you manage that?

I've struggled with that a little bit.

And I would love for you to talk me through that.

Yeah.

I would say from a property and casualty standpoint, I hate broker of record letters. Hate it because it's such a hassle.
This is why being an employee benefits producer is a beautiful thing. They'll just take your appointment.
No big deal. And everybody accepts it.
I mean, really when it comes down to it, all it is, is an accounting function on the PNC carrier and they're just playing hardball, right? Now with all that politics, you know, aside, right? Yep. Broker record letters are sometimes hard.
Sometimes they're actually pretty easy, but I would say not even sometimes, probably more than half the times they're really hard. But here's the thing.
I'm not against quoting. I'm against foolish quoting.
I'm against just blind quoting. That unfortunately is the mentality that just happens so very often out there that you're so excited that somebody wants to meet with you and allow you to quote that you don't do the normal due diligence that you have to do.
And so again, it comes down to the mentality. I actually look at it as a broker record letter mentality rather than the broker record letter itself.
Because here's what has to happen. At some point in the process, whether you're trying to get the BOR from that one carrier or you're going to quote it with someone else to try and compete against that mutual, they're going to have to make a decision at some point in the process to terminate the relationship with that incumbent agent in order to do business with you.
If you can't get your competition fired, you will never get a new client, period. And so the broker of record letter is a mentality, not necessarily just a piece of paper.
If you can get it signed, awesome, because the statistics for the industry is very good. You control the account, you're going to write it.
You might place it with a different carrier, but you're likely going to write it. But it's the broker of record letter, the mentality of it.
It all goes back to the mentality of it. You have to do everything you can to get that incumbent fired.
You have to get the insured to allow you to access the carriers you want, right? You have to get them to tell you what you have to accomplish in order to get the business. You have to make sure that the incumbent agent's not going to get a last look.
If you can do those basic things, you're much more likely to win.

You have put yourself in a stronger position,

but to add even like one thing with regards to that example,

the mutual you just talked about, right? So going back to the micronage. Okay.

When I'm working with agents, I'm trying to figure out what's a good micronage.

If you're going after a class of business,

that there's another carrier out there that you don't have access to.

That's just flat out less expensive than everybody else.

Pick a different micronage. Yeah.
That one's not a good fit. That's just not a good fit.
Now, it doesn't mean it won't change in the future, but as of right now, you're not going to be able to write business if the other carrier is 50% less than you every time you're going out to market. It's just not a very strong play.
So there's a lot that goes into trying to figure out what's the right micronich. And if you don't have access to the carriers you need to have access to, then not only is that not a good micro niche to go after, but it's the same thing when you're meeting with a prospect.
If you don't get to access the carriers you want to access, you're not going to write that account. That's the broken record letter mentality.
Yeah, I like that. It's, it's, um, it's funny.
You know, I've learned so many, you know, I've, I, the other day I had this thing, I, I did exactly what you just described and you shouldn't do. Guy calls me randomly, um, you know, found me online or whatever.
It was having problems with his agent. Um, his agent wasn't responsive.
He was getting frustrated, calls me up, restaurant owner, decent sized restaurant. You know, he was about an hour and a half away, but I knew right.
I know the town he was in. It was a nice town.
And I start at, you know, I start walking through the process with him and he's got all the answers to the questions. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, which should have been a trigger for me in.
Right. But I'm just like, I got a call.
Let's do some business. Right.
So, um, so I get done. I'm looking at it and I'm going, okay, this is, I got a shot at this.
I got a shot at this account. This looks pretty good.
Dude's paying like between all his accounts, he's paying like 26,000 in premium. Like, okay, this is a decent size account.
Guys, give me the information I need.

I feel pretty good.

I said, hey man, can you just send me your policies

so I can verify what you've said?

And, you know, it's also kind of like a good,

you know, show of good faith.

Hey man, I'm busy.

I can't get those to you.

I go, okay, well, hey, just send them to me tomorrow.

Ah, no problem.

Okay.

Three days go by.

I don't get them.

Like, fuck.

So I, so then, you know, a week goes by, I get the quotes back, um, come back and I'm at like 16,000. I'm like, this is freaking home run.
I'm going to do a great job for this guy. He's gonna be super happy.
I'm happy with the coverages based on what he had told me. I'd actually improved some of them.
Like, this is great. Present with the court.
He goes, 16,000. This 000 this is outrageous and i'm like outrageous in a good way right like no why would you even send me this he goes i'm paying i got a quote for 6 000 and i'm like 6 000 what are you that's impossible i said i said dude oh i didn't say dude i.
I said, you know, I said, I said, man, you do 1.6 million in revenue. Do you think it sounds reasonable that you do 1.6 million in revenue and you're paying $6,000 a year for insurance? Does that seem like an, like the right number? And he's like, well, how come I have this quote? And I go, because the guy took your revenue and put in 400,000 instead of 1.6.
That's what he did. It's like, that's not, it's like a trigger.
It's

a game. I said, you're just going to get audit at the end of the year.
And he goes, yeah, no,

I'm good. Click.
And I was like, son of a bitch. I was like, this is what I deserve because I

didn't force the guy to send me his policies. I didn't ask him, are you quoting, getting quotes from other people? Like I didn't, I just gathered the information I needed and went to work and wasted like five hours of my life.
And, um, and that's the key right there, right? You wasted five hours of your life and you hurt your relationship with your underwriter. That's what you did.
You also wasted your underwriter's life. I know because, and cause, cause when she sent me, wow.
She's like, I looked at this online. Like, this looks like a nice spot.
Like, this is a good account. Like, we'd like this.
And I said, you know, it was, everybody was happy. And I, you know what I mean? So I agree with you.
It, it made me look like kind of an amateur in front of my underwriter, which I guess to a certain extent I am. And, um, and I wasted time and everything you're saying about this idea of of you I guess what I learned is if they're not willing to step towards me I should not be willing to step all the way to them like if there's a gap between us I can't be one, the only one closing that gap.
And when you are, it, it seems like a huge red flag that you're wasting your time or practice quoting or whatever, blind quoting. And that's hard to do, right? Because meeting with that prospect, that's your money.
It's so hard to walk away from that. Even though there's that little voice in your head saying, you know what? Something's just not right here, right? Something's just not right.
But I want you to just say like, and this is what I tell my clients, I say, look, remember those five hours because that's five hours of your life that you will never get back with your wife, with your family, working on your business. And you just got ghosted by this guy who's unwilling to like, even be ethical from the standpoint, knowing that he probably has something wrong on his quote.
He's just not willing to actually fess up. Right.
And so what I tell, and this just kind of goes into it, why the broker of record letter mentality works is because if we spend five hours here and five hours there and five hours there, like how much of your actual entire career is going to be wasted working on all of these accounts, quoting where you never had a shot to actually write this business. Look, if you spend the next, I mean, I don't know how old you are.
Let me just say you spend the next 25 years in the insurance business before you retire. How many months, if not years of your life might you potentially waste? I'm talking your lifespan of your lifespan that you are wasting doing that, right? Think about that.
How much time in the past now have you wasted of your life doing this? What would be maybe a better way in which to do it? Just saying to that guy, Hey, you know what? I really appreciate, you know, the opportunity to talk with you here, but you know, I'm sorry, I'm a much more of a professional that if you're willing to meet and give me the information, I'm going to get you the price that you need, but I can't, you know, do something that's not apples to apples here. Right.
And so if he says no, great. You know, you don't necessarily have to, you know, stop the relationship, but you also have to put yourself on the brakes here because you don't want to ruin your relationship with your underwriters because that's going to also ruin your appointments in the future going forward.
So instead just keep prospecting, finding the people who aren't happy right now with their current agent. Because I'm telling you, there's a bunch that aren't happy.
He might've actually used the 1.4 million. Maybe he just has a big exclusion for whatever he's doing.
I've seen that as well. I mean, you know, there's a lot of insureds out there not happy with their agent.
And if you just prospected to find those and go after the BOR on that first appointment, you're probably going to end up running a lot more business in the long run because you're going to get the control of it. And you're saving all that time that was wasted.
And you can actually focus that time on prospecting and then meeting with the ones who actually want to do business with you. Again, that's why micro-niching works.
Yeah. You had a LinkedIn post a day or two ago.
I can't remember when it was. I liked it, but it was something to the effect of like selling insurance is a relationship game.
Prospecting is a numbers game or something like that. And, you know, that kind of takes me back to the mental side of it, which is, you know, I, I talked to a lot of agents.
Just, you know, my disposition and haven't done this podcast for so long. I'm blessed in that regard.
And I'm sure you do too, but you know, you, so you probably know what I'm talking about, but you, you, there are, there's people all over the map right now, all over the map. There are people who have in the best year they've ever had.
And there are people who are worried that they might not be like you said, in the business a year from now that that spectrum, that, that full spectrum is out there. And that's not always the case in our industry, right? Like if you just put in a decent amount of work that the interesting thing about this industry is like a C plus pays your bills, right? Like a C plus effort pays the bills in this industry, which is crazy.
So, you know, today it feels like a C plus effort isn't going to pay your bills for very long. So you have a lot of people who are wondering where they get new business from.
And, and I, and I would consider myself one of those people because I thought I knew where that business was going to come from. And it just doesn't seem to be working.
And, and that's okay. And what I've started doing is is cold calling and when i think of the numbers what so that's fun right yeah yeah no it's it's quite literally the worst thing ever um but at the same time just because i don't like it doesn't mean that i shouldn't do it because you know we kind of have to take control of of this, you know, when, when you're working with one of your clients and say you're, you're working with someone like me, who maybe just at, at, at, at base function doesn't, I'm doing air quotes, the people at home can't see me, you know, doesn't like, doesn't like, um, uh, cold calling, even though once you get that first person to kind of talk to you, you start to feel a little better about it.
And I'm already just, I'm like one week into really making a concerted effort and I'm already feeling better about it. But how do you start to break down that mentality? Like just, it's almost as if, and I'll wrap this question up.
Like, it's almost as if, if I think we feel sometimes, and I don't get this from the best agents, this is maybe the agents that are struggling. And I put myself in that category.
It's almost as if we feel like we're above the numbers game, right? Like we're like, man, I don't need the numbers game. That's what agents, you know, that's not what we do.
You know, when you talk to the best agents in the game and all they do is just prospect. That's what they do all day long.
They hear a shit ton of no's. They get some yeses and everyone talks about those yeses and no one talks about the no's and all people hear is the yeses and they're like, geez, you know, this guy over here, you know, all he does is write accounts and they forget that he probably contacted 50 people who didn't want anything to do with him.
How do you get people past that?

Yeah.

Again, going back to the mentality of it, right?

I mean, look, sales is hard.

Sales is really hard.

And it's mostly mental.

It doesn't matter if you're selling copiers or insurance or work comp, whatever it is.

It's going to be mental.

I was actually just talking with a large agency a couple of days ago.

I think they're one of the top 50 in the United States. So a large agency, right? And they're doing 60 million, whatever it is a year, annual revenue.
And same problem. It doesn't matter how big the agency is or how small.
Everybody's having a problem right now, right? So just trying to figure out how to actually market in this place. And I said, look, you have agents that are, they've got $14 on the books right now.
And then you've got some agents who have $1.4 million books of business, right? All throughout the gamut. I said, and those agents who have been successful, what they've done is they played to their strengths.
No agent who's ever been successful says, you know what, I'm going to prospect in my weakest way if possible. And you're not going to build a book of business that way.
Everybody goes towards their strengths. So if cold calling is not your strength, I never have a producer cold call, at least not the first part.
You're going to have to pick up a telephone, but it doesn't mean that's going to be the first way you reach out to your prospect. It might be the third way.
Email might be first, social media might be number two, and then the actual telephone call. So it doesn't have to be the first thing.
You have to play to your strength. And the problem though is that most agents right now feel like they're fish out of water and they don't even remember what their strength is right now.
I feel bad for those producers who their strength was going out and shaking hands face to face. Those are the ones who are struggling right now.
That's why you have to take it to social media. It's the next best thing.
You just have to be very, very active on social media, not spammy. But it is the mentality, 100% the mentality of it.
But again, if it's not your strength, if cold calling is not your strength, Ryan, or whatever agent might be listening to this, if that's not your strength right now, make it your number three. Figure out what is your number one, right? That's what you have to go with.
I take this to a baseball mentality, if you will. If you've got somebody who is cut, if you need a home run as a team, if you've got to win and you need a home run, you're not going to send somebody up there to bunt.
Okay. The problem with most insurance agents right now is they're, they're trying to figure out like something else to do.
And they're just walking up there with bunts because they don't really know how to do this. They don't have the power.
They don't have the strength. They don't have the ability to be able to hit a home run right now.
And so they're walking around doing bunts and they're wondering why they're not actually winning anything. It's because they're not actually playing to their strengths.
It does take us to kind of step back and look at things different. We have to right now look at it with COVID glasses.
Absolutely. It's changing the business.
But every single one of your competitors is in the same problem. And let me just tell you, I speak to literally hundreds of agents every single week, hundreds of agents every single week from all over the place.
And some, I would say probably half, and they're paying me money. Half of them right now aren't doing anything.
Okay. They're just not doing anything.
And it is absolute mentality. So it does require the accountability.
You need to get somebody who's going to hold your feet to the fire, making sure you're actually doing the work, but you have to do smart work, right? And that's, I think the issue is that squirrel syndrome. You can't be like going off on different areas because you're not going to get the consistency.
You have to actually be doing the work that matters, playing to your strength. And I think that having that three or four prong approach, you can do email marketing, social media, you know, cold call and something else.
Very, very important because your prospect will reach out to you when they're ready in the format they're ready. Cold calling might not be their thing.
When you say email, so are you talking about cold emails, right? Outreach emails. What is that? Like, what is your philosophy on that? Are you, you know, buying lists and running large scale campaigns? You're doing one-offs.
You're doing like, how do you, you know, buying lists and running large scale campaigns, you doing one offs, you doing like, how do you, you know, what is your, your philosophy on, on, on cold email? Yeah. Again, every aspect of my entire coaching philosophy goes back to micro niche.
The micro niche is the foundation. Everything is built on top of that.
Social media is one floor. Email marketing is another floor, but everything has to be built on the micro niche.
And so the emails that you're sending out are going to be micro niched. If you're sending out, you know, emails to Chinese restaurants, the email itself and the services you're going to offer to that are going to be geared towards Chinese restaurants.
And even the email headline might say top three things Chinese restaurants can do to get more customer foot traffic in COVID-19. That's going to get opened by that

particular micro niche. And so yes, cold emails can definitely work if they are micro niched.

You're not going to send, you know, something that makes no sense and is no relevance to them.

That's just a big waste of time. And then you're just going to get, you know, sent in a spam folder.

So it has to be focused. Yes.
Cold email can be really, really helpful. And people tend to respond

to email and social media a whole lot quicker than they respond to cold calls. But just this script itself doesn't change.
Whatever you're saying on a cold call is what you would say in the email, is what you would say in the social media, in their message. It's what's your carrot.
So if you're like, even think about it, I'll put you on the spot, Ryan. Okay.
If I'm a prospect and I'm looking at rogue risk and I'm looking at you and we're talking on a phone, doing a zoom, or maybe even just come in and you stand outside and you're in front of my shop door. And then I say, Ryan, why should I do business with you instead of my current agent? What would you say? Jesus, man.
This is why I'm not selling any insurance. Fuck.
That would be the wrong thing to say initially. Yeah, yeah.
No, I would probably dial right in on the comp and I would let them know, hey, I've been in the business for 15 years and my specialty during that time has been workers' compensation, specifically looking inside of your program to find places where we can help improve your culture of safety, help improve the overall efficiency and effectiveness of your workforce, get your people back to work when they're injured, and ultimately use all of those things to help you save money on your comp. I'd probably say something like that.
Okay. Now, good.
Thanks for playing with me on this. Now, I ask that question to every single insurance agent I speak to, even when they're calling me on the phone.
And I ask that question because it tells me right where they're at. Now you said some good things there and I'm in the

insurance business. Um, but I already forgot three quarters of what you just told me.
Okay.

Cause, but the thing that I can remember is that you said save money on workers compensation.

Those are the two things I remembered. That has to be your carrot.
That's your focus.

I want you to think about it this way. Maybe this could be yours.
This could be your approach. This

is your tagline. 15 minutes can save you 15% or more on workers' compensation insurance.
Why should I do business with you? If you give me 15 minutes, I could probably save you 15% or more on your workers' compensation insurance. Kind of sounds like Geico, right? So here's the whole thing.
Geico's whole slogan, 15 minutes can save you 15% or more on car insurance. Their entire slogan is micro niched.
It's focused on buyers who are concerned about if they might be able to save a hundred or $200 on their car insurance. I'm not a Geico.
I would never do business with Geico. It doesn't resonate with me, but they know they're micro niche.
Their whole slogan is to try and get people to pick up their telephone and call them. Imagine that.
They are a multiple billion or multiple million dollar agency or carrier rather. And their whole philosophy is getting people to reach out to them.
Whereas an independent agent, we're trying to just figure out how to reach out to people and get them excited. Look, they're so much more difficult, but they've made it easy because of their slogan.
It tells people what is the carrot. When you're talking to people about workers' compensation, you have to remember you're talking to people that don't understand insurance.
They don't understand how a work comp works. They don't understand how it's quoted.
They have no clue whatsoever how their X mod is calculated. Most insurance agents don't even know that.
But what they can understand is the money, right? So that's why I say prospecting is about the numbers. When you're meeting with someone, when you're talking to them, that's the relationship game.
But when you're trying to actually get them to want to talk with you, to meet with you, to do a Zoom, it's show them the numbers. In 15 minutes, I can begin qualifying you for my workers' compensation program that could potentially lower your XMOD by 17%.
It's going to save you about $100,000 over the course of the next four years let's meet it's gonna take 15 minutes tuesday and i work for you right the whole strip changes because it goes back to what can you do for me that's what they want to know so i recently changed the tagline on my website and i've started using this about it for about two weeks now when when i when i see someone in person who asked me what I do and I say, uh, I've started saying, you know, business insurance is confusing, time consuming and costly. We solve these problems and costlies last on purpose.
Cause obviously, well, I like the alliteration of the C to help people remember too, you know, um, and it's not perfect, but I was trying to dial in on something that captures what those major concerns are is I don't know what the hell it is. I feel like I spend way too much time on it.
And I feel like I spend way too much money on it. And that's what I'm trying to get across to people with that tagline is and maybe I should just say that, although that wouldn't fit on the homepage of my website.
But and then just kind of simply saying, like, these are the problems that we solve. And it really is.
I mean, that's what we're trying to do is we're trying, you know, we, at Rogue, I over-educate people. I create so much ridiculous amount of content on purpose to try to make it not as confusing as it was.
You're never gonna understand it, and I don't expect them to, but I'm trying to make it not as confusing. Not as time-consuming, trying to make this an e-agency and whatever, you know, term in whatever idea that is.
And I don't think any of us have it figured out all the way, but I'm working towards that, you know, and then the last piece is costly. Right.
And, and that's a big part of the game for people. And I do hate when agents step onto their, their, their platform and go, Oh, you know, I don't like price shoppers or

we don't talk about price. And I'm like, then you're an asshole because you know what matters

to freaking customers, how much they're paying. It matters to me.
You know what I mean? It matters

to me when I'm hiring a landscaper, it matters to me when I'm hiring someone to come fix my plumbing,

you know, it matters to me when I'm going to get new tires. So, you know what I mean? Like price always matters.
It doesn't mean it's the most important thing, but it certainly matters. And, you know, I don't know that- That's the one thing they can understand, right? That one prospect, you know, you were 26,000, he was six grand on his other quote.
That's all he understood. He didn't know anything else.
That's all he understood. Yeah.
And that price difference was too big for him. Like in his mind and get it right.
I mean, this is a guy who doesn't know insurance. Like you said, you know, he doesn't understand.
He's looking at 6,000 and 16,000 and going, I would have to be an idiot to take 16,000. I got would have to be an idiot.
This guy's a professional insurance agent just like this other guy guy, you know, even though he's doing- Must be covered. That's what he said.
Must be covered. Yeah.
I must be good. He's handing me this thing.
He must just have a special market. And, you know, now if those were closer, I think I could have overcome it.
But with it being so different, you know, I mean, it's a big deal. And I think- Well, you hit, I think, the important part of like what you just hit, even what you're talking about on your webpage like there's three main objections you're going to hear from your prospect and it's the three things they want, right? They want to save money they want to save time and they want peace of mind they want to know that they went with the right agent the right carrier, those three things, right? But like when you're talking to somebody about, you know, we do a great job of putting together a loss control program.
We're going to come in and actually put together this great safety program for you and all your employees.

And we're going to be, you know, going to your job site and helping you out with your visits and so forth.

To the typical business owners are thinking, man, how much of my time is that going to take?

Yeah.

I don't even want that.

Right.

We start telling them the things that we can do and they don't even want that kind of stuff yet.

They don't even know they need it necessarily. So we have to speak to them like four-year-olds.
We have to speak to them like four-year-olds who just don't understand insurance. Are you hungry? Would you like a Dorito? Probably not the best thing for you, but I'm going to give you a Dorito because that's what's going to be yummy, right? So you're talking to them on their level.
It's funny. So I have as a tool, my wave connect for my business clients.
And it's an awesome, my wave connect to Zywave is an awesome tool. It's awesome.
And it really is a value add. And once you explain it to people and explain it, especially if someone has an HR manager, or if there's an operations or office manager who handles any kind of employee related issues, they, if they actually spend five minutes in my wave connect, they're going to love it.
I guarantee it. They could give two flying craps at the time of sale, whether or not my wave connect is concluded.
I was, so I have a process who ultimately did business with me, but I wasted easily fit. And he was a buddy of mine.
Uh, we'll say less than a buddy, but, but more than an acquaintance in whatever that zone is. And I ended up doing his insurance and he's got like 10 employees or whatever.
And I got to the end and it was a situation where I was able to then say, Hey man, like, how did I do? Like, what did you think? And he said, look, he goes, this and this perfect, great, happy to do business with you. He goes, you spent 15 minutes on that employee thing.
I could care less. He goes, I'm going to give it to Shirley.
You'll love it, but I could care less. And you know, it was just such a wake up call to me, to what you're saying is like, that, something that I'm not even going to talk to him about.
That is a schmuggy that they get afterwards that creates a nice fence around them, right? It creates a nice fence. And it's, and it is, I really do believe it's a really nice tool.
And I do think it's a value add that could retain a client, but nobody is buying insurance from me because I have that. Nobody.
Never going to have it. To even bring it up is pointless.
Yep. A hundred percent.
I believe that with all my heart. Absolutely.
I think that most insurance agents are very often their own worst enemy when it comes to prospecting because they're trying to sell the prospect some services, some products, and the prospect is just not interested in those things. Yeah.
Right. It's just not interested in those things.
So you have to find out where the pain is at, where's the struggle. And that's why like going back to, again, the micro niche is you have an idea on what is the problem for that industry.
Okay. Chinese restaurant, contractor, you know, plumbing contractor, furniture store owner, accountant, right? Right.
You have a pretty good feel for what their problem is. Now, workers' compensation, you know, right off the bat, got a high X mod.
I know where your pain's at, right? I already know where your pain, your struggle's at. You have no idea why this thing keeps going up.
Maybe your agent can't even tell you about why it's going up. It's just going up.
Nobody's actually even explained it to you. Right.
And frankly, if you kind of figure out even the basics of it, you can explain how an X mod is calculated in three minutes or less, and they will be able to see a significant amount of expertise from you. Where, frankly, I think they probably be willing to sign your broker record letter if you can actually follow through on their biggest pain.
So speak to the pain. That's where you got to go.
Yeah. Dude, this has been awesome.
I want to be respectful of your time. And we just blew through 54 minutes and it felt like 10.
So I just want to thank you. I appreciate you coming on.
Where can people learn more about you, about what you do? Where can they connect with you? Hit them with the whole deal. Right.
Well, hey, LinkedIn is where I spend my time doing business. All my other social media platforms.
I do it for fun and family and stuff like that. But LinkedIn is a hundred percent business connect with me there.
That's where I try to put out a lot of my free content. Um, but go to, go to one of my URLs, go to www.brokerofrecordletter.com brokerofrecordletter.com.
I right now, like I'm kind of getting away from a lot of even my one-on-one coaching.

I'm just doing a lot of this stuff. I'm just putting all of my material right there in the actual like program, the mastermind.
It's just right there. And that's where I'm spending all my time, you know, coaching individual agents right there.
Brokerofrecordletter.com, probably easiest way. But hey, send me an email.
Great. Dude, I appreciate you.
I appreciate you coming on the show. I love the way you think about the business.
and I just want more people to be in your ecosystem

because I think you. I appreciate you coming on the show.
I love the way you think about the business and, uh, and I just want more people to be in your ecosystem because I think, um, I think you're putting out the ideas that align with where we need to be as agents moving into the future, which, you know, I was talking, it's the last thing I'll say. Um, I was talking to a marketing rep, uh, right before this call, I got off a call with one of my marketing reps as a check-in call.
And we were talking about just everything that's changing and going on. And I said to him, you know, I feel like right now, the days of you being able to have an extraneous employee or a low performing employee or a piece of technology that you're paying for, but not using like, like the margins are coming down and it's time to batten down the hatches and get back to work.
If you were coasting and you're taking, you know, Tuesdays and Fridays for golf, you're going to have to cut Tuesdays out. You know, one of those days, I mean like it's time to get back to work because the margins are coming down and we need to be laser focused on what we're doing.
And this idea of going after bigger accounts of micro niching of, of focusing on, on hitting, you know, activity numbers that lead to the goals, you know, all this kind of stuff that I've seen you put through your LinkedIn feed. I think you're right dialed in on it.
And, uh, I just hope listening, who's not connected to you, finishes up this show and goes on LinkedIn and does because they'll be happy they did. Man, Ryan, hey, I just thank you for allowing me to be here today.
And frankly, I probably am going to echo what a lot of insurance agents out there are going to say, but just thanks for being an advocate for the insurance agent. It's such a blessing to have people like yourself out there

trying to really actually bring something positive and it's helpful. So thanks for that.
Thank you. Thank you.
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Oil and gas drive our economy, ensure our country's security and open pathways to brighter futures. Did you know the first oil well was drilled almost 1700 years ago? The first American well was drilled in Pennsylvania in 1859, and the Texas oil boom began in 1901, when the Lucas Gusher produced an astonishing geyser that flowed for nine days.
This oil boom helped launch the widespread use of the automobile and grease the wheels of the modern machine age. Today, the U.S.
is the world's top producer of oil and gas,

supporting 11 million jobs

and contributing $2 trillion to the American economy.

Look around, and you'll see the essential role

oil and gas plays in our modern lives.

Our world needs oil and gas,

and people rely on us to deliver it.

To learn more, visit ittakesenergy.com.