RHS 048 - Jack Wingate on How to Maximize Your Personal Value

Hello and welcome back to the show.

Today we have one of my absolute favorite people in the insurance industry.

Someone who I kind of watched from afar for a while.

I'd heard these tales.

You know, as a northerner, you hear these tales of people from the south and you don't know how true they are.

And then you actually get to meet them and you realize that they're amazing people who are doing incredible things. And that is exactly the way that I think about Jack Wingate.
I think a lot of people get caught up on the beard and actually make a little joke in the episode about it because so many of the episodes of podcasts that I've heard with Jack Wingate focus on his look. He's got this big ass beard and it's baller as shit.
Don't get me wrong. But that's not what makes Jack Wingate special.
What makes him special is the way he thinks about what we do for a living. And I wanted to talk to him about that.
this is an incredible episode. I just am so happy to share this with you.
Listen or don't listen, love it or hate it. This is an episode that I personally loved.
I just loved this conversation. I just did.
I just, it was one that I was looking forward to. I look forward to every conversation I can have with Jack.
And, and I think you're going to learn a lot if you take it in. Before we get there, I want to share with you two things.
One, if you're listening to this and you're not subscribed by email, please do go to just type in ryanhanley.com into your phone or your computer and stick your email in and subscribe by email because you don't just get updates on new episodes, which you do. And if you're subscribed on iTunes or wherever, I get that you may not want the emails, but you get other pieces of content as they come out and they're super random.
Like I don't know when I'm going to write a LinkedIn article or I'm going to do a podcast with somebody else that I think is really baller, like the one I shared with David Crothers the other day. So make sure you subscribe by email if you're really interested.
Also, okay, so that's number one. Number two, I want to give a huge shout out to our newest sponsor, our latest sponsor of this show, which is Better Agency.
So I just made the move from Agency Zoom to Better agency. I'm incredibly excited about that move.
I am absolutely in love with better agency. I just am.
I just, I've had everything about it makes sense to me. And agency zoom is a great product.
I, this is not about knocking agency zoom. I think agency zoom is a great product.
I just love Better Agency. And I love, in particular, the way both William Shaw and Nick Ayers think.
Just the way they think. I've talked about Nick Ayers, what, a thousand times on this show? Nick Ayers is part of Better Agency, and I can see his thought process in all aspects of Better Agency.
It works. I love it already.
I've been using it for a week. I've already gotten three new Google reviews.
I've had text message conversations with clients that I wouldn't have had if I didn't have this tool. And I just love Better Agency.
And the fact that they then wanted to sponsor the show, it's just amazing. And you can read into that whatever you want.
I love Better Agency. I think this is a game-changing tool.
I'm probably going to talk about it more. And if you're thinking about a CRM, I would give Better Agency a shot, mostly because Billy Wagner uses it.
And if Billy Wagner uses the tool, then who are you to not use the tool, right? I mean, come on now. All right, let's get on to the show.
Oh, dude, I can tell you, like, right, what was it? When did we, I probably locked down, like, March 16th was, like, when I moved to the house. And I was, you know, making some videos.
And I was like, man, that old Dell that I got for the business, you know, it's slow. And I don't like using my Mac because I've got limited, like, processor capacity.
so like dude you know it's it's slow and I don't like using my Mac because I've got limited like processor capacity so like dude you know editing in Adobe Premiere was just like taking forever and so I was like did I had to I bought like about two weeks and I bought a new Lenovo like gaming computer just so I could have processor speed I know know. I, um, so, um, the last, when I worked for, when I worked for Trusted Choice, the last year that I was there, um, cause I was creating so much video, I got like whatever the most bad-ass Mac book pro you can get was like that.

Just every feature pushed up to the top of the little slider thing online.

And, uh, man, dude, I could put, I could put, I mean,

I was producing 12 to 15 minute videos.

It would pump those things out of Adobe premiere in like 10 minutes.

It was crazy. It was just like, I watched that little dial just zip across the screen.
Now that same video today, and that's with like max rendered depth, like all the custom controls, like VBR up to 40. So like you're talking like, it's like, this is like a notch below going to IMAX.
You know what I mean?

Like the quality of those videos. And now using this thing, you know, if it's not like 16 centimeter pixels on the screen, I did my computers locked up for an hour.
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
No, I went from like, again, you're talking 20, 30 minutes for a render. And heaven forbid you realize that you missed something and have to like change something, redo it.
But dude, now this one, this computer, like the video that I think is going live today. Yeah, might already be there.
I was at the lake this week and uploaded it from there so we're you know in the middle of

nowhere north carolina and um uploaded on this computer and it was like two minutes for an eight minute video and again max render depth blah blah blah but then again i don't put a lot of you know objects other than the video in there which make a difference yeah you don't do you use do you use

like adjustment layers?

So if the lighting's really bad, I'll use an adjustment layer. This one I did, I recorded like four videos before I left for the light just because I'm getting, it's hard for me to produce the content.
you know what I mean? I like, I, and it's not the making the video, it's, it's like the editing.

So I just went ahead and recorded four videos and said,

I'll just edit them one by one so this one I was like I'm just gonna see how it comes up when I publish it see if I because I don't do a ton of like I like to make the blacks a little blacker just but this one I did nothing with because I thought the lighting was pretty decent yeah have you ever messed with Lutz I know know what they are, and I've watched, what is it, Peter McKinnon? Yeah. And I'm like, dude, there's some crazy stuff in there, but I'm like, I'm making an insurance video.
So I'll tell you, I have – so look and feel. I'm not going to pull it up now, but, like, I have this Lutz pack that I can send you I think you dig it because the colors one of them is called Viking ham and um and and the the uh the um coincidence of you looking like a Viking and it can't be calling Viking ham aside like the what I like about it is it you know the way that they so basically it's they've edited the shot for you already that's what I like about it is it, you know, the way that they, so basically it's, they've edited the shot for you already.
That's what I like about these. So what it does is it like pulls the blacks out a little bit.
It pulls the skin tones out a little bit and then it darkens, it kind of vignettes you. So if you have like a center shot, like if you're in the center of the shot or even like a little to the side or whatever, it, it gives you, it kind of focuses the person's attention on you.
And I don't have to do any manual dialing. I just, as long as I shoot it and have like a decent amount of light on me as the subject, this LUT takes care of everything else.
And it makes it look like you're a freaking guru, but really you just, you know, toggled this one little thing. It's, uh, I need that then.
Yeah. Cause I mean, you know, I'm shooting now in the basement and like, so everyone, you see like the three pictures behind me, it's just, that's our basement.
Yeah. I know.
You know, and I also, I started doing like, I put a video out yesterday where literally I just, I just leaned up against the table with my, with my phone this way. And then I use this stupid, you know how you get that.
I shouldn't say stupid because I use it all the time. But, um, you know how, like if you scroll, you know, once you get into doing anything with marketing, you look at any marketing tool online, you now have your Instagram and Facebook feed are filled with like these little $60 tools, right? $60 to do this, $60 to do that.
Well, I, you ever hear of Splashio? Yeah. Okay.
So Splashio is a great tool, but it costs like $95 a month to do four videos a month. Just bananas.
So I love what Splashio can do for you. And I love that it allows you to just upload the video and then, you know, automatic transcription with the, you know, I love that.
But $95 a month for four videos is bonkers. I mean, that's just for, for that stupid little thing, which you can do in premier pro for less than $10 and really just not that much more time.
Um, but then I, so one of those little tools comes through and it's called clip scribe, C L I P S C R I B E clip scribe, clip scribe.com. I think It's 60 bucks lifetime.
It does the same exact thing and it's better. So my new thing is I just do these like raw videos.
I upload them to this Clipscribe. It transcribes.
It allows you to do the header. It allows you to do all the branding.
You can put your logo in there. And the transcription's pretty good.
60 bucks one time. in less than 10 minutes i'm pumping these videos out and it's so easy well you know i i saw you when you were really pumping them out early on like what may whenever it was yeah i think i asked you about it and so i signed up for it paid the whatever trying to upload the first one and it never went up like.
Like it shows that it's uploaded. It was just like spinning.
And since then I was like, oh, that's an effort. Oh, man.
I need to get back in there. I would say that might have just been a wanky day because I used it.
I use it all the time. I used it yesterday.
And I have slowed down on the content production a little bit because obviously when you're doing everything, you know, in the beginning,

I didn't have any clients. So it was so easy to create content, but, um, you know, that's, you know, dude, that's the hard thing.
Like I was like, I want to put out a video a week and I want to put out, if I can't associate that with a blog a week. Yep.
We've been so fricking slammed, like business wise that, man, I just, I don't have the time. And then, you know, I'm working on, you know, we're fricking fine tuning some automations, which, you know, it just takes time.
And it's just like, okay, I don't have three hours or whatever it is to record, edit, you know, do the latest thing is the thumbnails. Cause now I'm just geeking out on thumbnails.
It's a while to like do it. And you got great thumbnails.
You know, I, um, so I have a, one mistake that I've always made as a, um, as a marketer is that I do too much content production and not enough content promotion. So one of the things that I've been trying to do is say, like you said, produce one video and corresponding blog posts a week.
Okay. That's a reasonable goal.
And, and what I would do in the past is I would produce a new piece of content literally every day, just every day, a new piece of content, new piece of content, new piece of content, instead of, you know, and maybe 500 people see each one, instead of producing one piece of content, and then making sure 50,000 people see that piece of content, you know, like that, that idea. I think, especially, you know, in I've banged on independent agency owners for a long time, and now I'm kind of getting my comeuppance for all the hating I've been doing.
But, you know, the amount of time that you actually have in your day is, you know, I think it's so much easier to promote than to create. And I think that's a better strategy.
Yeah. And I think what I see, too, and, dude, so, you know, one of the carriers i represent um i don't know if we'll say names here or not it doesn't matter but i don't care so so they do they just like every carrier likes to give their agents here's some social media posts so i'm friends with them on facebook and i just i know every time that carrier gives them something because I get five feel like, but like, you know, guys, that's great.
You know, come up with some original stuff, but it is, it's hard though. And you really got to be all in and understand the content game because you and I take it for granted.
This is just what you do. Yeah.
There are people that are, that don't do any of it. Yeah.
I, um, i right now i'm in a battle to crack page one for the term workers comp experience mod and workers comp x um workers comp x mod workers compensation experience mod x mod um i'm in this battle because i i subscribe to scm rush which is a social or a SEO tracking tool for people that might not know. It's like Moz or another good one is Arefs.
That's what L'Angelo uses. And I like Arefs.
It's just a little too nerdy for me, but it's a very good tool as well. And what you see is like, as you create content, where your content ranks, and I just find this to be very interesting, bounces around a lot.
And I think a common misconception that people have is like, I created this piece of content. And over time, if I do the right work, eventually it just kind of moves up and up and up.
And what really happens is like one day that piece of content will be ranked 60th. The next day it'll be ranked 14th, which is right, you know, right on the cusp of page one.
Then the next day it'll be ranked in the fifties. And then the next day it'll be ranked in the twenties.
And then the next day it'll be ranked back down close to page one again. And it's this constant battle because at all times, you have all these other people that are fighting for those positions and they're getting links and they're driving social traffic and they're driving paid traffic.
And Google is, it is not like, oh, All Choice Insurance wrote a great blog, number seven,. You know what I mean? Like check or check it out.
Like we, you know, we accomplished something today, you know, they're number seven. That's just not the way it works.
It is this, it is this living thing. And, and you do have to keep doing the work.
I think paid traffic is a huge part of it. It's a huge part of it.
I mean, running,PC and driving traffic from things like YouTube, Google ads, Facebook ads, two pages that you want to rank is an important part, just like good SEO, just like good, you know, organic and social media and email stuff. Like, it pays huge dividends, but it's always, I mean, they're always moving.
Well, and I think, honestly, that's what you just said, that moving around of, I guess, ROI, let's just call it. That's why so many agents are scared of the game.
Yeah. Because for us, it's real easy.
It's like, Hey, let's go sell something. Boom.
We get instant gratification. But man, I've been working on this website, this iteration for five or six years, the iteration before that five or six more years.
So I mean, I've got a, over a decade in this and it's funny, you know, I put out in the last month, I got two leads that hit, and I do zero paid, no paid, nothing.

I had two people hit requesting quotes for commercial insurance, and they hit weird. The reason I know it was weird, they hit some weird internal quote forms.
One was for commercial umbrella insurance and one was for EPLI both of them were in California

nothing one was for commercial umbrella insurance and one was for EPLI. Both of them were in California.
Nothing I do, so I'm like they had to have come from my YouTube videos because I did a commercial umbrella. And I think at some point in time during the whole COVID stuff, I did maybe something to talk about EPLI.
So of course, you know, I had to send one to Grant Davis because I owed that guy just because he anytime I need have a question he'll answer it uh and then I sent the other one over to Daniel God what is it song I can't remember his name sent him because you know he he's just awesome but I'm like you know that's just weird and awesome all at the same time like I called a buddy of mine down here he's a realtor and he and I work on SEO stuff a lot I was like dude I just got to tell you what happened yeah it's just I love it I didn't make any money off of it but that was just kind of cool yeah you know and that's the kind of stuff that comes back and pays a lot of dividends too I mean um I and what I just mean like karmically or serendipitously you know you you you're you're helping people find. And the other side of it too is, and if we're talking straight, if we're just talking straight like SEO too, someone Googles something, finds a YouTube video, clicks through that YouTube video to your website, fills out a form on your website, that whole action is tracked by Google.
And they know that someone did a Google search, that they clicked on a link inside one of your YouTube videos, probably a description. And as I get a call from California right now, because I didn't turn my ringer off.
And then took an action on your website. When, when someone fills out a form on your website, that's a huge indicator to Google that, that your site has value because they've now, they've now the Google knows they filled out a form and that kind of stuff.
It all helps. And then in the long run too, you know, you say you just threw referrals at two, at two agents on the other side of the country.
Someday they're going to have somebody who's in your area. They're going to think of you.
And that's how we all work together. Right.
I mean, I was kicking some stuff down to, to a couple of New Jersey agents. Cause I get a lot of Jersey stuff, um, on a writing Jersey.
So, you know, I think, I just think that, um, it, I think to a lot of agents, they'll go off, man, those are, those are shitty leads. This SEO stuff doesn't work.
And I'm like, no, those are, yes, you did not cash a check because those two people came in. But in the long game, that's a huge win that those people contacted you.
And if nothing else, again, you just talked about how the tracking goes up and down. That right there, and again and again i i never look at my analytics it just i don't have that kind of time right now um but to me that's like dude i'm doing something right so it's sort of like that win that you're looking for and again it's like i'm not cashing a check but you know i i want to say this i was i listened i just got back from the lake last night because we went.
I can work from there. So it's fantastic.
I feel like Jason cast sometimes being able to go on the pontoon boat after after a day, you know, um, not nearly as awesome as he is, but you know, we're driving back. I'm listening to you and, um, you and Seth.
And yeah, I just, I wanted to, I want to say this cause I thought about it and I just, you know, dude, I'm an idiot. I know I, I, I am not a smart person.
I work my tail off. I grind.
But it's people like Seth and you and Cass and, you know, freaking Nick. I'm calling Nick, Nicholas Ayers, Nick, because I'm, I guess we're tight.
No, we're not, but you know, whatever. I mean, Cass, dude, it's like the community we live in right now is so awesome.
Yeah. Because, you know, you can reach out to any of these guys and like, dude, like, Hey, can you tell me this? I reached out to Jeff Shee over the weekend.
Cause I'd listened to a podcast casted with him and i was like i got a question about this is something i'll do and he was like oh yeah let's schedule something and i'm just like you know right now we're in that great era of independent agents working together and if man if in my utopian world if we could get the carriers to start understanding that it's, it's not a battle.

No one has the secret sauce. Yeah.
The secret sauce is actually us. Like, you know, it's like, what's the magic pill? The magic pill is you being willing to ask questions and go put in work.
And if we can get the carriers to somehow or another get together and go, you know what? Erie, Cincinnati are great. You know're not competing against one another yeah you know what i mean it's like if we can get that to happen and think about this if you can put in kind of i'm thinking tarmica ish on a grand scale you can put in hey i've got this personalized risk here's the stuff and we send it out into this you know tarmica world if they could and every carrier comes back and says hey we want that we'll take a look at that and they just give us all these options think about us as advisors but we gotta if we can get the carriers to jump on board which they're never gonna do and let's let's get all be night and a couple of other big heads to um to get a bunch of uh carriers in a room and dude let's just freaking not let them leave we get some action.
And you know what? I love that you brought that up because I think, I do think that perception is starting to change. I think slowly but surely.
So one, I want to touch on the first thing you said. I wholeheartedly agree with you that this is, we are living in a golden age or maybe even like the second inning of a golden age of independent insurance agents because I look at when I first got into the industry 15 years ago say I um the no one no one I mean yeah people would talk to each other but not like this not like Facebook messaging Nick Ayers yo bro I can't get over the first line of this YouTube video I'm putting together.
Like, how would you position this? 15 minutes later, you know, move this around. There's no scarcity here.
Try an urgency play on this line. Boom, here, push this out.
I mean, there's nothing in it for him. He's not getting it.
I mean, yeah, like I about him and he, you know, he gets some run like on the podcast and stuff, but, but that's not why he's doing it. And it's not like I'm like, he's not like he's yo bro, I'll, I'll do this for you.
If you blow me up on the podcast tomorrow. You know what I mean? Like that's, that's not what it's about.
It's a hundred percent. Just like he's willing to do that.
Think about how much you helped me when I was first started, I called you on the phone. We're talking, you're walking me through different things.
And, um, and some of that stuff I want to talk about too, but like, I just think that right now agents, so many agents have, have become so comfortable sharing their expertise and their insights. And Hey, my book is this big and this makeup and you know, and here's what I'm using.
If that helps you. And then you can kind of go, okay, yeah, they're a little different, but man, I can see what they're doing there.
And, and I just, you know, I was talking to, so yesterday I was, I did, I was interviewing Eric Garcia from Garcia Insurance Services down in, down in New Orleans for, for the podcast. And we were talking, he was talking about how like every agency is a unique snowflake.
And I think it speaks, I think that speaks perfectly to what you said about when carriers are completely open to the idea that the secret sauce isn't a process, it's the agents themselves, the whole game changes. And I hope that that day comes.
I think there are a lot of carriers that are starting to wake up, and I shouldn't say starting, that are embracing that more, that as younger executives who have kind of come up through their own ranks with agents like you, like me, like Daniel Sung, like Cass, you know, they're seeing this type of agent and now they're moving into these upper management roles inside of carriers. They're more comfortable with this idea.
And I think it's just a, I think the abundance mindset is permeating our industry more and more every day. And it just makes me happy.
Oh yeah yeah. And, you know, and Seth said it perfectly.
And I have this debate sometimes, because my largest carrier is Erie. Erie is an, they're an old agency force.
Great agents. I mean, nothing wrong with these agents.
They make great money. They take care of their clients, whatever.
But I have conversations with a lot of them.

They're like, you know, I just don't see how you're doing what you're doing.

That doesn't work.

You know, it could never work.

And what they're talking about is the fact that over the last, dude,

it wasn't that I was smart.

It just, I got out of necessity.

I started moving to this like sort of online presence, you know, no real,

we'd have offices, but it's like, it's more virtual type stuff. It'll never, never work.
Never work. People don't want that.
Here's the thing. Geico progressives, those people, they have that lower tier customer.
There's nothing wrong with that. They have a certain segment and then your marshes, your big boys, they have this upper segment, but man, that sweet spot in the middle is where every agent

can play and win in a big fashion if they're willing to put in the work you know what i mean and it's not like i'm not gonna do this because it'll never work i mean there's a person that we all know and bless his heart it's a multi-generation agency and i'm not gonna on blast here. But older person owns the agency.
Younger person is moving up in the agency. When COVID hit, dude, they were having to take desktops around to their people.
Younger guys like, Jack, how do we, you know, what's going on? What are y'all doing? And I'm like, realistically, man, we've had, we're ahead right now of where we were last year. Like, we're crushing it.
And I'm like, yay? Yeah, no, 100%. I had a guest on, and I can't remember which one it was, but he was talking about his agency and said that they were ahead.
And then he was like, oh, you know, I'm sorry. And I just said, what, what, what the fuck are you sorry for? Sorry about, you know what I mean? Like, like, what are you sorry about? Like, you're killing it.
Like that's this, you know, and again, the audience knows who's listening to this show knows who I am. I believe in capitalism and I believe that hierarchies exist for a reason.
And I don't mean you keep push people down. And I believe that people ascend to a certain level in life because they push and they learn and they adapt and they work hard.
And, you know, I was just listening to this. I got caught on the Facebook video feed.
You ever ask something? I try not to hit that button because it's like crack. You get in that video feed and there's so much cool stuff you can't get out of it.
But I hit it today for some reason there's a Steve Harvey video comes up right and I and I like Steve Harvey um he's just got like a good you know he's a worker man a dude who does like 10 shows like yeah he makes a lot of money but like he makes a lot of money because he does all you know he's a worker and he's he had this clip and it was short and he's just like he's like no one got rich sleeping hours a day. That's what he said.
That was the whole point of his clip. And he says this other stuff.
But when that hit me, I was like, I was like, you know, that's just so true. Like, like, you know, sleeping besides the idea is you have to actually put in the work.
You can't just rest where you are. You have to keep moving forward.
You have to keep grinding and sacrificing. And I think that what COVID did was expose the people who hadn't done that work.
And a lot of them have adopted and are adapted. And I think that's a great thing.
But I think it exposed a lot of agencies that hadn't done the work that had been coasting along because this industry allows that. Well, and I think you know as well as I did.
I mean, it's an older agent. Independent agents are older.
I can't remember what the statistic is, but it's like so many above like 55 or something. It's ridiculous.
And dude, everyone can make money the way they want to make money and it's great. But I think that COVID is one, pushing more people to a,

a hybrid model, kind of like what I do, what you're, you know,

what you're doing, you know, augmenting the human S you know,

the human ability with, with virtual stuff. But you've got some people,

this COVID is going to,

it's going to push them down the retirement road because they're're not willing to put and it's not like it's money does it cost money to do all this yes but it's it's not a ridiculous amount it's not any more than they're spending now dude I'm a cheapskate all my stuff is done on the dime bro it's you know but it's it's but the amount of time I put into it that that's what they're not willing to do.

And you know what?

They deserve it. They don't need to do it.
100%. But the problem that they're going to find is, and I believe this wholeheartedly, and if you're an older agency owner out there listening, the value of your book, if you do nothing, starts dropping big time here in the next five years.
Yeah i was i was uh i was at a central event this this cool personal lines event that they put on uh central mutual we're in atlanta and um god tom from and i'm forgetting his last name and i'm gonna apologize if he listens to this or someone shares this with him but um i'm forgetting his last name but tom and i've oh mine's killing me that I can't remember his last name, but we're from, from Reagan Consulting was there. And we were talking about this because I was brought in obviously to talk about content and marketing and how do you, how do you build these digital relationships? How do you do, how do you digitize the soul of an independent insurance agency? That's, that's kind of the idea.
And then he was talking about, you know, valuations, but ultimately what he was talking about was how do you, how in the digital world do you maximize, in this case, your personalized book value? So it was a really cool event. And it was cool that Central was putting this on.
And one of the things that he said was right now, your valuation is not impacted by your digital presence right now. You know, this was probably a year and a half, two years ago.
He said this moment that is not being impacted. He goes, but our prediction at Reagan, and I don't want to speak for them.
So if this is wholly false, they can, you know, just course correct or come on the show. But, but, you know, basically what he was saying was like, there is a good chance that in the near future, when we're valuing a business, this, this is good.
If you can't email, if you can't text, if you don't have cloud-based records that people can get access to, or the ability to get them into the cloud. Like, like if you don't have this ability, these agency, people that are buying you, they're not going to be willing to pay the same amount of money because of the amount of work that's going to go into getting them into those systems.
Because as your system gets older and older, it gets harder to get that information into the modern technology. It doesn't get easier.
It gets harder. And, was just talking to my wife about this because they're on TAM, you know, and they're always, unless basically because of the way TAM is set up, their only option for upgrading their agency management system is Epic.
And that's a four month nightmare. So not to mention it's so expensive.
Yeah. And it's terribly expensive and it's time.
And you have like lost days where you're just down. You've duplicate days where you're putting stuff in Tam and in, I mean, it is a nightmare.
And, um, you know, it just, it limits you. It limits you in a lot of ways.
And again, like you said, make money however you want. But I will say any agents that are looking to sell a smaller book in the state of New York, you know, I'm your guy, Ryan at roguerisk.com.
I'm looking to get the game. So, um, so dude, Ditto in North Carolina.
You used to look me up all choice insurance. Yes.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Roguerisk.com roguerisk.com for, for New York, for North Carolina, go to all Choice Insurance.
And I'm dead ass serious about that if any of you are listening or know someone. So the reason I wanted to have you on was not just to shoot the shit like we are, although I love this.
I wanted to talk about two aspects of your business that I am incredibly impressed with and just supremely interested in because I do think they are setting you up for long-term success. And not that you have all the answers, but that your model is providing you with the flexibility to be able to navigate a COVID or, you know, God forbid, another weather event in your state or, you know, whatever, like the nature of how you have your business set up is giving you a ton of flexibility, which I think is one of the keys to, to, to sustainability for us.
And that's, you've, you've gone super deep into Infusionsoft. Now take the tool, take the tool away because you know, there's other tools to use and that's kind of more of a personal and business choice.

But the idea, I want to talk about what you're doing in there. And I also want to talk about

kind of the distribution of your workforce and how you've brought these producers on

and kind of, it's almost like they're like satellite aid, they're satellite locations,

but really it's just like one producer. It's not like you have whole five-person,

10-person offices in these different spaces. So, um, talk to me a little first about, you know, your, your decision to go as deep as I know you've started to go into a tool like Infusionsoft to automate your business.
You're like, like what, what was the first key to say, this is something I need to do. And why do you continue to put work in it? Cause you're obviously must be seeing a benefit.
Yeah. Yeah.
So fun. I mean, oddly enough, through the journey of owning the agency, I've always been like enamored with not shiny objects, but with how other businesses run their business.

Because I think as insurance agents, we get stuck into, we see Joe Blow down the street

has done it this way.

And so we try to mimic that.

But that's not the real world.

I mean, other industries do things far better than we do.

So, you know, I don't know, that's probably five, six years ago, I actually started working

with Infusionsoft.

And honestly, it didn't, I think probably what you found is that the tool is ridiculously awesome, but you got to work it. Yeah.
And at the time I didn't have the time and I didn't have the money. Cause I mean, you know, it's not, I mean, it's not like it's expensive, but it's not cheap, you know? So, you know, I dabbled in it.
And then I think when about two years ago, I was making the decision between going with, um, Michael Jans's was the agency revolution. I was looking at that or, um, or infusion soft again, because I felt like that I needed to have a deeper relationship with the customer.
Yep. And, you know, I started in finally, I think someone was integrating management systems and infusion soft.
And I was like, look, this is what I need to do. So realistically just started was just looking at the sales funnel and then we brought Jared on.
So I really hyper focused on the, on making sure our sales process was good upfront. But then I started looking at him like, you know what? I can, I can automate a lot of the just mundane stuff that we have to do on a daily basis.
One, two, again, I'm a cheapskate. I don't like having staff.
So I can get the automations to where a lot of the stuff we do is taken care of. You know, sans people, if we will.
And then I started thinking, you right, you know, when Amazon, when you order something from Amazon, whomever, it's a, the same process happens every time. You know what I mean? It's like, I order, I get email, I get email again when it goes out to shipment, whatever the case is.
And I was like, you know what, that's what people expect now. So how can I build that in? So, I mean, literally we started with just a sales pipeline and we automated and tweaked and tweaked and tweaked.
And then I was like, Hey man, I can run my endorsement processes through this. Hey man, I can run my renewal processes through this.
And I'm still, I'm not even halfway done, but you know, review processes. So it's like every, everything that I found that used to be, I would need a person to remember to do that.
Now there's nobody that needs to remember, you know, it's, and that's what I want to get to. I want to make sure that me, my people, we're doing the work that we should be doing, not freaking moving widgets around.
You know, that's, I'm losing a client today. I got this text this morning and He was like, I just want to let you know I'm shopping because when I signed up with you, I wanted you as the agent and I like to be able to call you and you do stuff.
And that's great. There's nothing wrong with that.
The guy's like a $4,000 in premium personalized account. And he wanted me to answer my cell phone, do the changes myself, you know, file the claims myself.
And I'm like, man, if you want to talk about risk, I'm your guy. I'm going to let my people process a change.
And I'm okay with that. I'm okay with losing that guy.
But that's, but my dollar value isn't in making changes. You know what I mean? So it's like Infusionsoft is just taking me down that road.
Here's the coolest one that I've set up here recently. I thought this was awesome.
So you probably, I don't think you do a lot of home closings, like home loan closings. So, you know, get a referral from mortgage broker, they're freaking, you know, you got a closing three weeks from now.
So we were having an issue with closing dates moving. So we were always having to personally follow up.
I made a daggum quick little campaign to where we set it in motion as soon as we get a yes. And it starts reaching out to the loan officers, to the realtor, making sure, hey, we need this, this, and this.
Hey, is the closing date this? And it automates automates automates and i mean they love it and my team isn't having to follow up with stuff it's awesome so yeah maybe i answered your question maybe i did no you 100 did i um you also just wrote the title for your episode but um because i always i write i make the titles up as i listen to the things you're saying, you won't know what it is until it comes out. Um, and it doesn't have to do with your beard.
So that's a good thing. So every other podcast I see that you do has to do with that.
Um, so I, okay. So I think what you just described is the battle of our generation of agency owners.
I think this is our flag, our hill to climb, is this idea that the transaction is not the value that we add to this process. It's part of the business.
You have to figure out a way to make it happen. It has to work, but it's below the barrier to entry.
There was a time when good service was, you know, I used to stand on stage and I would say, you know, good service, good price, ease of business. Like this, these are the, this is just the bar.
This is, you have to be able to get over this just to get in, get on the ride, right? You have to be taller than this to ride the ride. I don't even think that's the case anymore.
I think that's, that, you know, that's the little, that's the, the little dragon ride that goes in a circle like this and kind of bops up and down. That's that ride.
You want to get on the roller coaster, you're way past that. And I think that this idea of maximizing, how do you maximize your personal value to the experience that the person's getting? If you're maximizing your personal value is doing a car change, then your agency doesn't really deserve to be more than a small, personalized, non-standard business because you're taking your time and applying it to very low hourly wage stuff that can, for the most part, if you work with a service center, can be done by the carrier and probably done faster and more efficiently than your team can do it.
I actually, I just had this debate with my wife the other day because we were talking about service centers because I try to use every service center that I can. And I'm still working on that process.
I have wins and losses in that, in that, in that area. And, um, you know, I said to her, when you take, cause she was asking me about it.
And I said, when you take a car change, right. Cause she got a, basically this all started.
I'm, this is a huge contextual thing. When this started, she got a call on a Saturday afternoon to do a car change call on a Saturday afternoon.
And she's just like, son of a bitch. You know, this is the last thing I want to be doing, but blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
This person was referred to me and, and she's, she's very good to her clients. And it's part of why I love her and part of why her agency is so successful.
At the same time, she's doing $15 an hour work at three 30 on a Saturday afternoon. So I said to her, you're going to take that car change.
You're going to, you have to log in to TAM, put it into TAM. Then you have to take that same information, log into the Safeco system or whoever the car insurance is with and log it into their system.
Again, think about that when all you could have done is gone, Hey, Tammy, great forward that I'm gonna forward you right now on to our our Safeco car change specialist and they're gonna do this for you okay all right thanks Tammy you have a great day forward the call to Safeco Safeco does it for you and then the change downloads into your system like those are what you know I mean like you just think about the difference there and um I just I I think the quicker and I'm rambling but the quicker we can get can understand where we maximize our value and and that that person is not is not helping you do that I just think that this is our battle this is our mountain we have to climb well and here's if you talk to some older guys, and even some younger guys who have just always done it this way, they'll think that using a service center is crazy. Man, I can't believe you're giving up, you know, not even the comp points, but I can't believe that you're doing this because then you don't control the customer.
And for me, I'm not a service center person, but i think that if you have a plan for however you work your business as long as you have a plan for that then it's right for you yeah so like if ryan hanley says you know what rogue is service center oriented we want all that going there as long as you can find a way to i think circle back the value to make sure yeah much point whatever it is yep with the client dude the client doesn't care how stuff happens they just want it to happen yes and so like for us we found that you know obviously like erie's our largest carrier they don't have a service center doesn't matter but if you ask most people what happens when sally takes the

car change at your office oh we take it in you know and it gets done and our clients love that

okay i mean that's what's supposed to happen but how are you gaining any value versus a service

center now they were like well every time a car you know a call comes in we do that we we review

the account we cross sell what whatever it is if they're doing it and it's a plan that's good

Thank you. Every time a call comes in, we do that.
We review the account. We cross-sell.
Whatever it is, if they're doing it and it's a plan, that's good. I know that every change we get, we open a ticket, and the customer gets a text and an email saying, hey, we got your request.
Again, kind of going back to that Amazon thing of I'm going to tell you way more than you want to know. You got the request.
And then when we finish it up, we close the ticket and they get, you know, hey, we're done with it. Here's your ID card automatically.
You know, we're business processes. And then, oh, by the way, we need you to do one more thing.
Click here. Boom.
It's taking them to Google to give me a review. I'm gaining value even if I don't get a sell out of that.
Yeah. Because it's the review.
So I've got a plan. You've got a plan.
People who said there's no value in service, it's not the service that counts. It's the plan, what your plan is.
100%. Because you can follow up with that same process with a service center.
The same thing you said about VAs. Oh, well, you know what? You know, no one wants to talk to, you know, you know, Samantha who's in the Philippines.
First of all, no one frigging knows that Samantha's in the Philippines. Second of all, do you think they honestly care if Samantha's in the Philippines? If Samantha is doing a great job and helping them with their thing and walking them through whatever.
No, no one cares.

By the way, by the way, the endorsement process that they were talking to and getting fulfilled by my VA in the Philippines. Right.
And you have, you know, and then this is I was actually talking to Wes Anderson about this maybe six months ago. this was during the fall, you know, talking to him about he and Ben,

his partner are, are, are, have a really large call center in Puerto Rico. And now you have bilingual, you know, you have English first language speakers, but you have native Spanish speakers, but English, like wholly proficient.
So now you have US citizens who are pure bilingual speakers who can take calls from Spanish speakers, who can transfer, who are completely understanding the English side of it as well. And you've just added a whole nother, a whole nother discipline to your agent.
If that's something you need, if you have a contingency of clients who speak Spanish and you want to offer that, I mean, these are the type of things that are at your disposal. And I think what it comes back to is what you've said is this idea of having a plan.
You don't need a VA to have a VA. You need a VA if the VA helps you execute on the plan that you're trying to experience, you're trying to provide.
And the truth is, you know, I don't know that I'll always be a hundred percent service center forever. I know there are certain service centers like Cincinnati's, like Hanover's that I have had incredible experiences with so far, just absolutely incredible experiences that I've sent my clients to.
My clients have come back and said, that was great. I have no problem ever calling them, no problem emailing them.
And they talk to your clients as if they're part of your agency. And it is a pure, it's a real relationship.
I don't think every service center operates that way. Every VA isn't the best fit for your agency.
You know, sometimes you want the person sitting in your office, but I think what it comes back to is what you said is having a plan, not just doing it because, you know, someone who's, who's a slick speaker on a stage told you that VAs are the future. Do it because it helps you execute what you're trying to do for your clients.
Yeah. And here's the thing.
And that goes along with any automation platform, anything. My job as the owner of AllChoice is to identify and fix bottlenecks.
That's all I do. I mean, Jared, when we brought Jared on, we figured out there are bottlenecks in our sales pipeline that I can automate messaging so people aren't dropping out because they didn't hear from us in a day.

You know,

there's bottlenecks.

We just brought on a shout out to Wes,

even though he won't call me back most of the time,

Wes Anderson.

He'll send me a quote, unquote lives and dies by his calendar.

If you ain't on my calendar,

I ain't picking up the phone.

So,

but you know,

I brought on a,

at one of the VAs from Puerto Rico because we we we weren't able to outreach to leads fast enough i can fix that you know i mean dude she's off does it so yeah i mean it's that that's where most people in our agency in the agency world have gotten fat and happy is that they they think that their process is just good and that this is just how we do it dude i my team hates me i bet sometimes because i'm like we got to try this this is a better way to this i think this will work and if it doesn't do it i'll scrap it real quick like but i'm really willing to try something so you know and i think it comes back to this idea of being flexible right like like nobody saw covid coming no you know, if you were to, to, to list the top 10 things that agency owners are worried about pandemic, you know, complete total economic shutdown from pandemic wouldn't even make the top 20. You know what I mean? Like just nobody saw this coming.
And I think the lesson is that, that this, this type of, of flexibility that releasing our kind of dogmatic views on what works and what doesn't work, you know, that's really the key. And, um, uh, Carruthers always bust my chops because he says, I use this example too much, but like the Bruce Lee, be like water, right? Like, like that idea of, you know, two years ago, you'd probably never, you thought never even hit your mind.
I'm going to look for a VA in Puerto Rico who can help me outreach to my leads faster. But because you're open to being flexible and understanding that, you know, that's an area that, that maybe you have some deficiency in and you're willing to try it.
Dude, the worst thing that can happen is you call Wes and you go, hey, man, it's not really helping. We're going to table this.
And he goes, okay, no problem. I mean, that's literally the worst thing that can happen.
Yeah, exactly. I think I went down a rabbit hole there, dude.
I'm sorry. I didn't.
Yeah. No, show is people listen to other shows for a for a coherent linear narrative that is not what this show is about um so let me ask you this man because um I want to be respectful of your time and we've been chatting for a while um what do you see like from so so from where you are um you know you have some you have you have some kind of older school carriers like Erie, you work with some of the nationals, you know, so you've got a full spectrum there.
You have this distributed workforce, you have some younger producers, you got some hungry guys like Jared, you know what I mean? Like, what do you see? Like if you, if there's another mountain, right, if there's something else that's kind of on the horizon for you that you see maybe is another challenge that you want to make sure you're prepared for, you know, is there anything out there that you're looking at going, you know, we might not be ready today, but we're working towards being able to climb this hill. You know, is there anything else coming? That's, yeah.
Like you just said, I don't know that we were ever intentionally preparing for COVID. You know, we, thankfully, and again, this is, let's just call it sheer luck that I was already moving this way.
But so we're good there. But, you know, I think the one thing that we are really trying to do here, and, you this is not secret sauce stuff, but my business partner is much older than I am.
He'll be retiring in a few years. He taught me how to sell, and there's no one better in this world at bird-dogging somebody to get a sell.
He's old school, but he's trying to move away from that day-to-day stuff. So he's starting to adhere to some of our processes now where he kind of lived outside of everything.

And it was funny because I said, look, man, if you allow me to do this and you enter the leads this way, you watch and see the success.

Because his whole sales point of view, and I'll wrap it up.

I'm going a long way around here. But his way of selling was, I see what you got now.
I'm going to come in there and I'm going to try to beat it by 10%. Commercial, I need to beat it 20% and no one will move.
That's a fallacy. Same thing with personal lines.
I'm going to, oh, you only pay this amount of money right now. I'm going to give you this coverage.
I'm going to tell you maybe you don't need medical payments instead. I'm going to save you a little bit of money.
That was a sales thing, and it worked uber successful. But I said, watch this.
That game is done, I think. I think the consumer of today, especially with COVID happening, all the people that didn't have coverage for whatever, whether it could be had not that's a debate for the for a different time now more than ever they value your knowledge and if you know the agencies agency owners of the world who always like to bitch and complain about oh geico is doing this with the direct model or whatever show some daggum value and stop selling like they do.
You know, it's, we sent out a proposal for my business partner to a person said, look, I said, remove yourself from the situation. I had my director of operations, I love titles.
I had him send our video proposal, you know, which we do a platinum gold, silver, bronze option, because we found that we weren't selling enough umbrellas and upselling because people were just reading the font. Here's the number.
We get a message back immediately, like, oh, man, this video is awesome. Yeah, I mean, right now in the state of North Carolina, we have 30, 60, 25 are our bodily injury and property damage limits.
In the last week, I think we have sold three or four people that had 30, 60, 25, 250, 500, 100 with a million dollar umbrella. Why? Because we just showed value.
We told them what they needed to know. So long way around to get to that.
The next hurdle we as the agency force have to get through is competing like we always did. We have to get to the point where we have a value.
Because otherwise, Amazon can automate the crap out of something and can say, hey, you got 5,100? Here's 5,100 at a better price. So you've got to find a way to present your value to someone and tell them who cares about insurance.
You don't care about insurance until you have a claim. When you do, it's really a big deal.
But you need to hit and let people know why you're better. So that's age-old kind of truisms there, but it's true.
The agents of the day, if you sell like you have always sold, or you try to sell based on price alone, man, you're dying in the water. Yeah.
Truly believe that wholeheartedly. You know, and it's funny.
Um, when I first, the first couple of times I had accounts in, I hadn't sold a policy in five years. Right.
So first couple of like leads that came in and I'm quoting them up and I'm selling, I can hear myself.

It was like, it was like two bodies, right? Like my mouth is selling straight on price. And there's this, you know, over someone over my shoulder going, what are you doing? Why are you talking that way? You know what I mean? And it took me kind of getting back into it because it's so easy because the easiest thing to say is I'm saving you money..
Because the easiest thing to say is, I'm saving you money. That's the easiest thing to say is, hey, I'm saving you money.
And it takes some guts, I guess, is probably the best way to say it. But it wins.
It's how you win. It's the only way you win long term to say, look, I appreciate that want to save some money but if you get in a car accident that's not going to get you that's that's not going to take care of your family and um and and there's a million ways to say that and you have to be true to yourself and you do but but that's that's the only way that that we move forward and and and digitizing that is the key well you think it, and I don't know David Carruthers personally.
I think we might have communicated via Facebook, but I guarantee you, because I see you doing it, right now you're positioning yourself, I'm assuming with his help, kind of tutelage, kind of training to get away from that. Like, hey, yeah, you have workers comp and yeah, we can go get you a price, but yeah.
How can, how every, I'm doing the same thing everyone else is doing, except now I can show you how moving forward, you know, we can do X, Y, and Z. Yeah.
That's it's, it's, it's where we have to be advisors, man. And I hate that term, but you gotta, you know, the worst thing that we ever did was bastardize that term trusted advisor because it does exactly describe what we need to be.
We are in the trust business. That is why people buy insurance.
People buy insurance from Geico because they trust Geico. As crazy as that is to independent agents.
They're like, how could you trust these guys? It's a gecko. They have all these exclusions on their policy.
They don't want to, and it's like, because Geico speaks to the consumer over and over and over again with the same consistent message and they trust nothing else. They're just going to be there.
They trust that it's an, it's an operating entity that's going to continue to exist. And, and not that it's hard to dismant to dismantle that trust.
I think when we really get in, but if you try to compete with them on that level, they have way more price trust than we do. When it comes to price selling, the consumer trusts them a hell of a lot more than they trust us.
And you know, just that, that idea, um, if you can step away from it, that's the whole key, man. I mean, and I just, if anyone has listened to this show for long enough, how many people who've been on the other side of the microphone have said this, we've said this thing so many times, it's not easy.
You got to change your mindset. And I think the key is doing things like, um, you know, I know you had a Crowley in to sit in one of your sales meetings, right? It's kind of going all the way back to how we started this about it's, it's about surrounding yourself with other agents, sharing information, talking, you know, if you had a bad sales day or you said something stupid, talk to somebody about it, call somebody up and go, dude, you're not going to freaking believe what I just said to this guy and he didn't buy and I'm an idiot.
And then the person in the line go, Hey, it happens, man. And then you feel better about it and you move on and you learn.
And, um, sometimes too, man, you gotta have that support system because you've, and I guarantee you've gone through this and shame on me for not, I told you, I think, well, I texted you a couple of, like almost a month ago. Hey man, how you doing? We hadn't talked lately, you know, bad for me, but you know, sometimes you got to get out of your own daggum way, get out of your own head and just, but you need people around you to, I mean, not everyone is as stupid as I am just to think that I know what the hell I'm doing.
Some people actually need to hear, Hey, look, man, you're okay. Yeah.
So dude, Hey man, I, uh, I appreciate you. I appreciate all the help and, and, and, And as we've gotten to know each other and become friends, it's been very meaningful to me.
And I just appreciate all you're doing. I think you're running a world-class shop.
And I love that you continue to grow. And I'm chasing you.
You know what I mean? And I mean in the most positive way. Like I look at what you're doing and the way you think about your business.
And, and, and it's, uh, it's definitely, um, something that I aspire, I aspire to. And, uh, I'm just glad that you'd give us some time today.
Dude, I tell you what, I was, I was talking to somebody the other day. I said this, I said, in my perfect world, if I could do what I do now, and I can bring on people like Jared, who's just been fantastic.
And if I could grab Ryan Hanley and to join the team and let's freaking become like the Avengers, and just handle all my content and run New York, dude, that's my perfect world, man, because, dude, you're awesome. I can't say enough.
It was two or three years ago I was driving to the lake, and then I will get off. I was driving to the lake and it's, you know, in North Carolina is going backwoods and I'm listening to a podcast with you and Jason Cass.
And I was, it dawned on me. I said, you know what? I'm not stupid for thinking the way I've been thinking because you guys were just hammering at home.
Like I was like, these guys are saying what I've been saying. And so it gave me the trust and the faith to go, you know what?

I'm not crazy.

And you guys are a huge part of the reason that we're here.

You know what I mean?

So thank you for what you do.

That's not just me blowing sunshine up your ass there.

I'll take a little sunshine up my ass.

I mean, I'll blow it up Jason Cass's all day he, he needs to hear that. He's, he's not confident enough.
Someone said, someone said on Facebook, um, oh man, they said something about, uh, uh, it was something about, you know, we're never going to see sports again. And I just said, it's all Cass's fault.

This is everything.

It's all Cass's fault.

I don't know what, I don't even know what you're talking about,

but I'm just assuming that Cass is the problem.

All right, brother.

Hey, I appreciate you.

Be good.

Thank you, brother.

Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the next episode.
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