RHS 043 - The Legend of Seth Zaremba

Comcast Business helps retailers become seamlessly restocking, frictionless-paying, favorite shopping destinations.

It's how nationwide restaurants become touchscreen-ordering, quick-serving eateries,

and how hospitals become the patient-scanning, data-managing, healthcare facilities that we all depend on.

With leading networking and connectivity, advanced cybersecurity and expert partnership,

Comcast Business is powering the engine of modern business.

Powering possibilities. Restrictions apply.
Try angel stuff for your tushy. It's made by angels.
Soft and strong, budget friendly. The choice is simple.
A role that feels like paradise. And always at a heavenly prowess.
Angel soft, angel soft. Soft and strong, so it's simple.
Pick up a pack today. Angel soft.
Soft and strong, so it's simple. Pick up a pack today.
Angel soft. Soft and strong, so cool.
Pick up a pack today. Angel Soft.
Soft and strong.

Simple. Thank you.
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the show. Today, I have a guest who sits near and dear to my heart.
Our philosophy, methodology, everything about the way that we approach business is very in tuned and aligned. And the way that Seth Zaremba thinks about his agency and his work and the industry, it forces me to be better at what I do.
It forces me to think deeper about this industry and about my agency and about the impact that the work that I do has on all of you. And it just is such a pleasure and an honor to spend time with Seth and bring the conversations that we would normally have in private, though there would probably be more cursing.
we both would be talking faster. But to share just a part of that with you guys, because I think they're important conversations.
And I think that I think going below the surface of our industry makes the what we do more worthwhile, at least it does for me. And that is why it is my great honor and pleasure to bring you Seth Zaremba, the founder of Be Atomic and the Neon Platform of Zinc, co-founder of Indium Market Access Network that I am a part of.
Just everything Seth touches turns to success and he does it through hard work and trust and

partnerships and authenticity.

And I hope that you will give this episode as much of your attention as is possible because

it is worthy of that.

Big shout out to sponsors of this show, Tarmica.

Tarmica is changing the game for small commercial agencies. They're making small commercial profitable.
They're making profitability possible and they're improving the platform every day, adding carriers. I'm in Tarmica every day, quoting small businesses as it comes in.
And especially if you have a book of business that's renewing as your accounts renew, instead of making your customer service reps or whoever does the marketing in your agency go out to seven different carriers, bring those seven carriers to your CSR. So they only have to input that information in once and they can get the quotes back and you can turn them around and still do a tremendous job for your customers while saving time and energy and money.
And you can provide that service out to more people. So Tarmica is a game-changing technology.
Go to T-A-R-M-I-K-A.com, Tarmica.com. Go check it out today.
With that, I wish you guys, I hope that you guys take in what we're talking about

because this is really important stuff

and if you haven't subscribed to this show

go to ryanhanley.com right now

stick your email address in there

and get new episodes by email

okay that's all the pitches

on to Seth Zaremba

you're looking all spiffed out today man

you pitching somebody for some money

or what's going on?

I am

I just had Nationwide this morning at

9.30

yeah

nice

very nice

Thank you. for some money or what's going on? I just had nationwide this morning at 930.
Yeah. So nice.
Very nice. Yeah.
And then the air condition was on like sub zero all weekend and I just wore shorts and I'm freezing too. So I found a jacket that was in my thing.
I'm like, I'm putting a jacket on in June. I'm like, this is crazy.
Well, it is funny how quickly you acclimate to warm weather. Like we had a, basically a week of like eighties and nineties and all of a sudden it hits 75 on Saturday and you're like, got long sleeves on and you're walking around the house.
Like, like you're like, what the hell? You can see why all those Florida people get so soft. Oh, it's something.
So, yeah. So it's, uh, so yeah, I'm just, I was freezing alone in my dark office and I'm like, you know what? I'm like, I'm going to throw a jacket on for this one.
Oh, dude, I'm so pumped that you're on the show. We never, we don't get a chance to talk enough and a podcast episode is always a good, a good excuse to spend an hour together and chat about what's going on.
And I have so many questions for you about so many different things. But, you know, how's it going, man? Where's your mental, you know, coming out of COVID, you're raising money, you got the startup, you know, where are you at? What's going on? Yeah, things are good, which shocks me and to say, and I, I, but like zinc is, um, you know, as you know, we made an investment at zinc to, to invest in digital, like what, five years ago.
And so we, we've been living in that world while everyone said we were crazy for five years. Well, now it's like in spades, man's like zinc is crushing it which i hate to say during it but like covet has strangely has revealed that traditional models i mean now they're being exposed and our model which looked maybe out of touch maybe a few years ago is now i think it's proven so i i mean lucky to be where we're at Indium is same thing.
It's like, you know, this idea of indie agents and owning your business and, and doing stuff together as agents that, that kind of was out on, you know, that was out in left field for a while too. But even now Indium's like going like crazy.
And then, um, you got the atomic, which, you know, this crazy idea that agents could come together and, and use, and scale on stuff like that well that was really bizarre like two or three years ago people were like what but now especially with what zinc has proved out and other ones other other neons that's looking good too so I mean yeah I don't know pretty fortunate and I have an awesome wife and I also have three kids that are teenagers and have never given me one problem in my life and then good teams everywhere. So yeah, I'm pretty fortunate.
Well, I don't think that you should be apologetic for crushing it.

You know, in general, because I think, I think in general, I feel like right now people are

very apologetic for their success. And I get that there are many who have hit hard times

Let's go. I think, I think in general, I feel like right now people are very apologetic for their success.
And I get that there are many who have hit hard times. And, and obviously, it's on those of us who are in positions to help to do so.
But I don't think that it helps anyone to be a pop. No, I'm not saying this is particularly to you.
This is just in general. but like, I don't think, I think our, I think we've become so apologetic for success and it's like, screw that.
It's like, we need people to be successful. That's the only way that we can then help others pull themselves up and be whatever they want to be.
But for some reason, these days, like if you're going to say, Oh, I'm, I'm doing well, or things are okay. It then comes with some caveat where it's like, boy, it's like, nah, dude, you, you, you have lived, like your backstory.
And I don't want to necessarily go there on this show, because they can listen to the past episodes of this show or other episodes that you've done, where you talked about your history, but like, every thing that you every piece of bounty that you are receiving today, you have earned the hard way. And I think of anybody, you should not be apologetic for one single harvest that you reap.
Cause you've, you've sowed them all, man, like by yourself, you know, and then, and you've recruited the people that have walked alongside you, you know, and and and um and I I just I have so much respect for what you've done that uh you know I don't know that I I don't know where I was going with that other than I don't think that I think you should celebrate that success not be apologetic for it I appreciate that and I do like I um I don't know Midwest right I mean it's like you're just humble but um I do I've worked my butt off man I mean I've I mean, I put the, right? I mean, it's like, you're just humble, but I do, I've worked my butt off, man. I mean, I've worked, I mean, I've put the miles in, I mean, I have suffered, I have done the thing.
And so now to be in a position where what we've done, the investments that we've made strategically are paying off. Yeah, I don't, I, you're right.
I am, I'm super excited about that, but I also realized that there's a world out there that things are not great and and people are hurting so it's um so you just try to do the best you can to balance it but no i'm i'm 100 proud of what we're doing and couldn't do without i mean you got to have an awesome team right so it's the team yeah characters i mean like everything has to you have to have all that stuff but you know what to your to your to your point i mean that's that's time i've taken to build and i I think I am proud of that because a lot of people are looking for magic fairy dust or silver bullets or and it ain't there man it's just you just you do the work and I have so I'm proud of that yeah you know that that's really I think that um I actually wrote a post on LinkedIn uh a couple last week I published it or whatever and it was about starting starting my business on March 9, 2020 or whatever. And I think in my mind, I'd love to think of myself as someone who is thoughtful in terms of, I think I try to think through different decisions and try to be rational.
And even I, I, I felt like I had some secret that was going to allow me in some regard to jump the line. And I'm not saying, I think I'm doing the right things, but, uh, I definitely had some moments, especially in May where I was two, two months in and not that I expected the world to change in two months, that really wasn't the point.
But just, I, you know, 60 days of getting punched in the face, when you came in thinking you were going to be able to avoid some of that. And really what I had to, and I think, I think back to like, some of the stories that you told me, you know, working out of a broom closet, you know, 10 years ago.
And it, it takes me, you really have to have some self-awareness in this business because, you know, you see things on Facebook, you hear people talk in presentations or whatever podcasts about success they've had, and you don't see the day-to-day grind that got them there. And that it is almost unavoidable.
And everyone who has tried to avoid it, I think has suffered. Yeah, I mean, it's an asset, right? So you're building Rogue is an asset and you can build with quality materials, with quality craftsmanship, something that's sustainable long-term and holds its value in any marketplace.
Or you can slap it up, vinyl-sided, and stick it in a subdivision with someone three feet away. And you can't pretend that in 10 years or 20 years they're going to have the same value, that they're going to be viewed the same way.
And so I've watched, I mean, I, I did not grow up in social media, but now I'm in agent forums and I watch this stuff and I watch some of the lack of, of long-term view of their business. And I, and some of the short term tricks and tips that people are trying to put out there is, and it's, it's building with low quality materials in a fast and hasty way and sure you can move in before maybe rogue risk moves into their estate but it won't sustain over time you can't and so i really respect what you're doing and i i i tend to do the same thing myself and it's not faster but it's better bro.
I definitely think that, um, it is easy to get caught up in what everyone else is doing. I know that, you know, it's just, dude, that, you know, I'm not trying to make this about me, but like that, that it was so hard to write that article.
Um, and for anyone who's wondering what the hell I'm talking about about, I'll have it linked up in the show notes for this. But because I was carrying around all this pressure to be successful, that was completely unnecessary.
Like, you know what I mean? Like, it was completely unnecessary. Like, what were people like, somehow in my mind, I had the, like people have these expectations of me and I'm like, one, what do I care what other people think? I've never cared what other people think.
Two, why no one believes that in three months I would even, you know, that there's even anything there yet. And so, so what I said to myself is, oh my gosh, if three months in, I'm carrying this much pressure, imagine someone who's been in the business for a year, two years that maybe isn't where they want to be yet, how much pressure they're carrying.
And I think that's what drives a lot of this short-term thinking, um, and turn around their businesses is they just use this pressure builds and builds and builds and you, you feel like you're behind and're behind and you see what other people are doing and you're going, Oh my God, like, I feel like I'm just as smart, just as capable of that person. Why haven't I figured this trick out? And then that's when I think you start making some moves that aren't in the best interest of your agency long-term.
Yeah. And you've done it.
You've done it the hard way. You didn't take investors, right? You didn't, you didn't, you didn't take a lot of the things you didn't give up ownership.
You didn't do a lot of the things that people do necessary to get in. And so they enjoy faster.
The first mile of the race, they are often out front because they have those things. I can tell you the last miles though is where you pass them, you know, and if, and if you're looking at your agency road or zinc or any agency as a, as an investment, then it's really those last, it's that last leg of the race that people remember and watch.
I mean, it's like, that's, and that's where your investment will pay off. And so, yeah, to anybody, I mean, don't get caught up in the first miles of the race.
Let people go run their race. You run your race.
And if you've done your work and you have, I mean, look at the carriers you've brought on, the direct appointments, the strategic associations you've made, technology decisions, all of those things favor you in the long run. You're building with quality materials over time.
And that's what craftsmanship takes. And don't apologize for that, man.
That's the right way. That's the old school and right way to do it.
At least some of the technology decisions I've made, I won't say all of the technology decisions I've made have been the right ones. But, you know, I'd say some of the technology.
That was not a segue. I'm saying like, I watched you make decisions and you really ground these things out, both short term and long term and sacrifices, wishlist and, and, and things that would be nice and things that you need.
And we've even had conversations about what you really needed or didn't. So I mean, it was thoughtful, the decisions you made were thoughtful, and, and, and all those can be changed over time.
And I think that second point is the point that is the most important is, and actually, this comes from a lot of the conversations we've made, you know, I, you know, specifically Neon, I had wanted desperately to be part of this project on so many levels, right? Because I believe in it wholeheartedly. I have from the very first, the 10 minutes that you pitched me on it in Westfield, you know what I mean? We're in this hallway by ourselves at some high top and you're telling me about this idea and I'm getting like 60% of it.
But, but the 60% that I got, I was completely bought in on. And from that day, I have been, you know, one of the biggest supporters of the project only because I believe in you.
I believe in, uh, in, in the mission and what it's doing. Um, and the conversation that we had about neon, cause I've gotten questions about, you know, how come you're not part of neon? And I think it's, it's, I, to be transparent and honest, I just wasn't ready.
It's not a project. It's in my opinion, in my, and I think you would, this is, we would agree on this.
It's not a one man shop product. It's, it's not for me to get up to speed maybe a year from now, you know, even if I am still one man.
And the truth is if I can continue to align my business with carriers like Cincinnati and Hanover, I can continue to be a one man shop for much longer. Um, shout out to them.
Their, their customer care centers are, are world-class. Um, and you know, but, but that was really the judgment that I had to make.
It wasn't necessarily the cost. I certainly, the technology was there.
It was just a time value for me, learning curve, trying to learn 17 different systems at one time, not neon, like every system in my agency, I had to learn at the exact same time. So I just, I basically said to you, like, you know, I think that for now, QQ Catalyst is a nice, easy, clean system that can get me to where I need to be for these first, you know, two or three years, get me off the ground with something where the technology makes enough sense that I'm not wasting brain cycles on it.
And then when I'm ready, I can make that transition over into, into a product like neon, which I, I wholeheartedly believe it is a future. And if you see the people who are associated with this project, it's so, it would be so difficult for me to think that it's very difficult for me to believe the collection of individuals that you have directly connected to this project, that all of them could be wrong.
That to me is the thing. Like, you know, if it were one really smart people and a bunch of dopes, I'd be like, ah, maybe this is a miss.
But it's like rock star, rock star, brilliant, genius, rock star. You know what I mean? Like to have all these people in the ecosystem to me, I just, it's really difficult for me to see how you, how you've missed the mark.
Yeah, I haven't. And I, I'm right.
I figured something out and it's not, I didn't figure something out. Like the ether gave something up that was right.
was right. I remember sitting at that high top with you,

and that's when it took faith to believe in me.

You had to be ordained with a certain level of faith.

There's this dude pitching me something,

I understand 60% of it, and it might be there.

I require no faith of anyone anymore.

I'm tested and true.

My product is solid and good. It's right.
I I figured something out and people and the smart kids are getting it. And it's not just agents anymore.
Cause like, you know, people are like, Oh, you just have agents coming on. Now I got carriers and technology and big technology partners and people know what we're doing is solid and true.
I mean, yeah, I, I don't apologize for that. Yeah.
Yeah. Well, you know, so you sent me the Google Doc of your Elevate 2018 presentation that you did about me on the first time that you kind of did this on a public stage.

And it's been kind of fun.

I don't know why, but people have been sharing like Elevate 2018 memories,, I guess recently on social. That's been pretty fun to see that stuff.
But, um, uh, I was reading through this document. I got to page three and I was like, you should just sell access to this thing.
Like read only access to sell, like for a hundred dollars, I'm going to let you look at this for 24 hours. And then it goes away.
And if you want to see it again, you got to pay another a hundred bucks. You'd pay for neon right there.
You wouldn't need any funding. Just to read through where your mind was on this document and like how far ahead you were of everyone else at this moment.
Like, and probably, and you'd probably agree with this too, at that moment, probably a little too far ahead of everybody, but that's okay. Cause they're snapping, they're snapping forward.
But like this, this is something that I hope you never lose. Like this, just this document, this snapshot in time to be able to say in, you know, whatever it was, June of 2018, this is where my head was at.
Like, this will be a piece of insurance history, in my opinion. Like it, what it is so far out ahead of where everyone else was and articulated in a fashion that I think maybe people have thought of pieces of it, but never actually put the whole thing together.
And I think that's what was so brilliant about it was that maybe if you were to say, you know, oh, you know, John's thought of this and Steve's thought of this and Carla's thought of this, you know, but to have it all in one space and kind of lay out exactly how it's thought through, it really is, I think, a piece of insurance history. Yeah, well, I needed you for that.
I mean, somebody, someone had to take a flyer on me. And I remember that.
And actually, it wasn't the reason is it was July 28. And I, and so I remember that day, because that was a day that you gave me a chance to talk about this thing.
And I remember, like, when you first scheduled me, you're like, you know, I got my assignment. And I was like, at like, three o'clock in the Ontario room.
And I was like, Hey, Ryan, I can't take the Ontario room, I need like the main stage. And you're like, dude, appreciate you.
Love you. But it's kind of like 750 people like that's and you're kind of a nobody.
And I'm like, I need an industry moment, man. I need a moment where I didn't actually call him a nobody, by the way, just so everyone's clear.
That's exactly how that causes you. I was like, get me out my cario b room and put me on the main stage in front of a bunch of people and maybe someone will be there well you know what they were there and i appreciate that and to your ever loving credit you took a flyer on me and and that document it it needed you it needed me and then it needed that And in that room were like two, a CEO and a future CEO of an insurance carrier, and they heard it.
And I was hoping five agents were there and 50 heard it. And some technology people were there and they heard it.
And it's codified. It's a story, right? But in that story is everything that needed to be done.
And even to this point, I told you in that email, like I did everything I told you I would do on July 28th in Cleveland, Elevate 18. I laid out what needs to happen.
And two years later, I've done everything I said needed to be done and it's time. So I'm proud of that thing.
And I'm proud of you for seeing it or giving me the chance to do it. If I fell on my face so well, but thank you.
No, it was my favorite part. I guess my favorite part was after you were done.
There were two reactions. There are three reactions of people coming out of that room.
The first reaction was like, holy shit. Like, how do I get a hold? Because I stood.
So there were 250 people at least in the room. He said 50 that they might've seemed like that cause it was blurry to you.
But, but there were, there were a lot of people in the room. Um, they came out and I stood by the door cause I wanted to see like what the reaction was.
Cause I knew the topic that you were talking about and I knew that it was heady. And, um, and the reason that we didn't go mainst stage, just, just for the people at home, cause, cause I want to be, I want to be a little fair here.
This was some of the nerdiest shit ever delivered on an insurance stage at a marketing conference in the history of insurance. So I was like, I want people to self-select.
I'll give you the big room, but I need to be able to self-select into this. Cause this is as nerdy as it gets.
But so when people came out, there were three reactions. The first was like, how do we get a hold of this guy? Like, you know, like what's what, you know, can we just go up to him? I was like, you know what I mean? Yeah, just go talk to him.
That's what he's here for. The second reaction was, I have no idea what he just said.
You know, where's the coffee? You know, that was, that was the second reaction. And then the third reaction was yes, but he'll never be able to do it.
And that to me was the most interesting because I can completely understand why people align with it that I did. Right.
I completely understand why people, why it flew over people's heads, because there are a lot of great people in our

industry who are practitioners. This is just the way that they feed their families.
And that's as far as it goes for them. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
And then there are people like you, I would love to consider myself part of this, Jeff Roy, there's many of us, many of us who just enjoy going down into that

basement level of this. And, and, and it was that third group that came out and said, um,

yes, but he'll never do it. And I think I, that was the most interesting group to me because,

um, basically what they were saying was not that you were wrong or that you would

Thank you. that was the most interesting group to me because basically what they were saying was not that you were wrong or that you would actually even come to any conclusions that were inaccurate.
It was that systemically the industry would not allow this to happen. And in all honesty, that was my biggest concern for you too.
Having played the political game that I had played for so long and watched so many people just get beaten to the ground who had good ideas, I was very concerned. But I'll tell you, I think your force of will, your persona, the way that you attacked Twitter with your commentary and bravado.
And I mean,

these all in incredibly positive ways. And also the individuals who you aligned with so quickly.
I mean, getting the primorts on board, at least philosophically so early, I think was tremendous for you. And I just, I was, I've been so happy and proud and excited and whatever the right words are to watch you just now people are, you know, there's no one is saying, but yeah, but he'll never get it off the ground.
No one is saying that it's off the ground now. And it's just, it's amazing to me to have seen that over the last two years.

Yeah, I knew something that nobody else knew in that room that day.

I knew I could leverage the farm to do it.

I had enough industry experience.

That's part of it.

You got to be around.

I had an agency that was already starting to perform. I saw where it was going.
I was betting my butt that it would keep going there. And if I put that on the line, both from a performance standpoint, and if I leveraged it, mortgaged it, and drew the cash out of it, I could do that.
And I also knew that there was an opportunity coming. I was following the money, and I saw where carriers were going, and it had to go there.
And so if you have enough industry experience, if you're dumb enough or smart enough to be able to leverage your one asset to play that one card right to the river, right to the river when it's time to flip the cards. And then, and if you had enough understanding of where carriers were going on that, it was possible.
And I knew that. I knew that in that moment.
And now it took belief. And now it took people to come along with it.
And it took that talk. And I'll never forget that talk, because I went up to the lady that was micing.
She's like, what do you want? I'm like, I want a podium. And she's like, nobody has podium.
She's like, Ryan's just flying around. He's doing in the audience.
There's lasers, there's smoke, there's lights. And like, how many slides do you have? I'm like, I don't know, like four.
And she's like, what are you, so are you just going to stand up there and talk to people i'm like yeah i said we're gonna take him to church today and she's like i love that she's like nobody takes anyone to church anymore i'm like yeah we're gonna stand up there with a podium and we're gonna give a sermon and and if there are believers in the house they will hear the message of truth and they will come and um and then someone proceeded to dump hot coffee on me which soaked my shoes and i'm standing there and sl and sloshing shoes. I mean, that was just that was an epic moment.
Yeah. I'm forever tied to you for that forever.
What good or bad, which I warn you, it could be a lot of bad. And you were forever.
You were forever part of this. Good or bad when the time is right? Well, it doesn't matter good or bad because I'm I am will always be with whatever way I can be and hopefully will someday be an agency partner of Neon.
I already am an agency partner of Indium, one of your other projects, which I spout from the rooftops how much I appreciate Chad and his work and his entire team and everything that Indium is doing, the way they go about their business, the way they think about agency relationships, like, you know, market access, network, whatever you want to, whatever label you want to put on that organization, the culture and just the product is amazing. And it has been such a pleasure to be part of that group of people and get to know them better.
And, you know, watching, it's just funny how good people seem to find each other, right? And when you are authentic and transparent and honest about what you want and how you do business, the way people find each other amazes me every day. The way that you've kind of hooked up with Ragath and Tarmaca, which I think is a game-changing technology in terms of turning small commercial into a profitable enterprise for, and, and Tarmaca and which I think is a game changing technology.
And in terms of, you know, turning small commercial into a profitable enterprise for, for, for independent agents across the country and, you know, and to have them as part of the project and connected, it just, it really is fun to watch. It's fun to watch friends work together and, and just to see, you know, we're in the do phase of all the shit that we were talking two years ago.
And, um, and it's, it's really exciting. Well, I think I, I gave, we gave everybody their chance.
I'm 48 years old. I have volunteered in associations.
I've worked with carriers. I've talked to technologies.
And I have given every flipping person a chance to do what needs to reimagine the independent channel and to just make logic based as opposed to emotional or tradition based decisions. Right.
And those are all good people. Associations are good people.
Carriers are awesome people. Technologies are awesome people.
These are all good people. But in the end, they build things or they settle at the lowest common capability.
So you're in a room full of smart association people or smart carrier people or smart technology. Yeah, but what about that one guy who sucks? Will he use or do it? And so what happens is all of a sudden the right logic-based decisions go to the lowest common denominator which let's face it in the ia channel is not a great picture no right it's not a great picture and so we end up building for them and after 15 years of watching us take great ideas and build to the lowest common capability in the channel it it was time for somebody just to say wait a minute what about the about the winners? Aren't we ever going to pick the winners? Don't we ever want an advanced fighting force that's going to go behind enemy lines and do it? Do we not want Green Berets? Do we not want Navy SEALs? Like, why are we building everything for the infantry? And I think that's what NEON is.
It's like, hey, you guys go ahead and settle over there for the average. We're going to go over here and build a playground the right way, logic-based, for the people who really want to perform.
And that's the thing I think we've done is we've built a place for performers. And that's not wealth or power or success.
That's people who want to be successful and, to use your words, will do the work. That's it.
It ain't size, it ain't money, it ain't skin. It's not gender.
It's not, it's not any of that stuff. It's like, do I want to be better? Well, great.
Here's a place where we're not going to lower the standards of anything to the least common capable person. And I think that's what we've done.
And I just got sick and tired of being sick and tired. You know, I mean, obviously, we're so aligned on so many different on so many things in this industry.
But I just, I couldn't agree with you more. I mean, this is, this is what, you know, I think this is one of the things that we initially connected on.
I mean, here I am in 20, I think it was 2017, 2016, something like that. I met a young agents event in Ohio and this guy's sitting right in the middle of the room, just hackling the shit out of me during my, during my keynote.
And, um, I can just tell that he's not going to relent. Um, so I, so I, I think I stopped and I asked you your name and you said, Seth, and I could tell right away that, that you were a ball buster.
So I spent basically the rest of the time just like busting your chops and you were busting my back. And by the end of it, what we came to was this idea.
It was basically an agreement that we need to be better than we are as an industry. And that was really what that keynote ended up being about was a conversation about what does it mean to be better? And why not hold ourselves to a higher standard? And I get that it's not easy.
I'll be honest with you. I came into building this agency not understanding how hard it is and how easy it is to chase quick, quick policies to put revenue in the books.
You can keep the lights on, right? Like, like I get that whole thing at the same time. You, um, I think the, the delayed gratification of doing business the right way of demanding more of both yourself and the services that you provide to your customers, demanding more out of the relationships that you have with your carriers, you know, going back to kind of how we started this conversation, that is what, that is the future of this business.
And because you can scale past, you know, the little local, you know, $300,000 shop that isn't trying hard. Now, if you only want a $300,000 shop, because that's the lifestyle that you lead, that's perfectly fine.
There's nothing wrong with that. But the truth is, if you only have a $300,000 shop, because you're not actually doing the work, and you're not helping your clients, and you're just sitting on renewals and not actually providing a valuable service to them, then you're no longer necessary.
Like that carrier doesn't need you to get into that market space because you and I can be in there regardless of where we're located. And so can so many other agencies.
And that is what I think carriers are waking up to is that defining difference. Yeah.
And it's so funny. I i was listening i was trimming trees this weekend and i was listening to your podcast i was behind so i had three podcasts and you were talking to your friend who's a marketer and he said so what do you think about all these people like i can't even apologize anymore i just think the people who aren't trying suck i'm not gonna apologize for that and and i'm not either and i so many times over the last 10 years, I go to carriers and say, we should do this.
And like, yeah, but you know what? That guy's not going to adopt it. So we can't.
And it, Leon was just about like, fine, you go serve them over there. We're going to go build something for agents that want to perform, that want to be better for their customers, that want better margins within their agencies and want to be more closely and directly connected with services and a carrier.
Like that ecosystem, you acknowledge it to be, right? Yes, yes, okay, great. We're going to go build that.
And you're going to come because where agents go, carriers are going to go and customers are going to go. And so that's what we're doing over at Beatonic is we built that ecosystem and it's not about that person.
And that doesn't make that person bad you want to be a lifestyle agency if you want to go golf in four days we want to do that that's fine you are well served by the current marketplace and i don't know what your future looks like but you'll probably be on the golf course anyway so who cares you don't know right but but for everyone else the consumer has made their decision they are on their phone and they want professional services fast and nobody's paying us more. So I need better margin, which means I need better connections.
So let's go do that. Yeah.
I'm dude, I couldn't agree with more of you. And, and, and to your point, carriers go where the agents are.
I think that that's going to be even more refined. Carriers go where the right agents are and the right agents will be different for each carrier, but that's where they're going to go.
I think the days, I think the days are quickly coming to an end where a carrier will look at, will look at a service or an integration or a piece of technology and say, well, I can't get 80% adoption on this tool. So I'm not going to do it.
I think they're going to say these 10 agencies are on that tool. Yeah.
That's worth our time because these 10 agencies are worth a hell of a lot more to us than these other, than the other hundred that aren't going to get on. And I don't think that those, and, and, and, and some of those guys, some, some people listening may be saying, well, shit, that's the way it's always been.
If Brown and Brown and Marsh and Gallagher get on, then they just follow just follow i don't think that that's the case anymore you get what's simon's new agency cover link you get a cover link you get a zinc you get a coverage direct up in iowa you get uh tam's agency in iowa you get you get these types of agencies uh pushing forward on a singular tool and i i think i think that's think that's where, that is where the margin is. That's where the growth is, is in these middle market agencies that are, that are able to grow and expand.
They just, they just, that's, that's where it is. I mean, yeah, huge.
You can get huge, big dollars out of Marsh, but that's, that's really just pushing around dollars that already exist. You're not actually bringing in share.
It's this middle market space is where the growth is. It's dry tinder.
The bottom is served. All the current realities serve the bottom.
That's fine. The top is served, right? They're funded by external market resources and they have their deals cut.
But the dry tinder is you and me, the people in the middle

who are grinding every day and need to sell. I need to sell.
I got three kids, a house, and I got

12 years left in my career. I need to freaking sell.
And so I'm going to do whatever it takes,

including cut your throat to get that done. And those are the people who are attracted because

they are driving into space out of necessity. There is nothing more dangerous than a desperate insurance agent.
Because when the last bomb drops, there's going to be me selling to cockroaches. That's it.
And I'll do whatever it takes because I don't come from privilege and I'm not financing all those things. So I'm a stone cold killer and I need my tools to do it.
And that's what, crazy, I'm getting all fired up. That's what NEon offers, not just to agents, but also to carriers as well as to arm that force.
You want to mobilize that 80%, that dangerous group, that's what you do, you hook up with us. Yeah, I will say, so one of the tenants that Rogue was built on was this idea of being a digital human hybrid, right? Like my business plan outlines what I mean by that.
It is, it is a digital agency with a human behind it. And a big part of that solution was direct connection into customer care centers.
Now, three and a half months into building this thing, not a huge time period, but certainly enough time to tell you, I am a percent fucking right. I'm a hundred percent right.
I am a hundred percent right. And I'll just, I know I, I, I, I give Cincinnati a ton of credit, but I just love their organization.
Their customer care center replaces a CSR for me. I, if I could put every piece of business that I have with Cincinnati and all of my marketing now is being recalibrated so that they are number numero uno and actually Hanover has a great customer care center too.
They're there as well. Those are probably my one and two carriers on the commercial line side right now.
But like if I could put every piece of business with them, I would,

I would be a captive for Cincinnati because what they're cert, what they're able to do from a connection standpoint, and really, you know, some of their, their, their potential involvement with neon is a potential catalyst for my moving faster into neon as well because they're, they're an important part of my

business. And just seeing the service level and the, the quality of the service that just the

few clients that I've already put with them, the handful of clients I put with them so far already

get, I'm like, if I can have every piece of business Cincinnati, I could just hire an army

of agents. I would never need a CSR.
And that to me is the Holy grail is maybe an office manager at some point or someone to do the books and some of the backend stuff, but an army of agents serving customers, front end underwriters, relationship builders, true coverage experts, helping businesses get properly set up, properly built out programs, taken care of, and then leveraging the carrier. And oh, and I give up two percentage points on renewal to not have to hire a W-2? Are you kidding me? I'll do that all day.
I don't even think it's two points. I think it's less than that.
So it's like, you know, to me, this is, this is one future model, but I absolutely positively believe I'm right. And the technologies that connect those two things at a deeper level is the future of this business.
I just wholeheartedly agree or believe that. Sorry.
You're 100% right. And so the supporting technology.
And what's really happening there? We use words like service center and CSR and all that stuff. What we're really doing is looking at the margin inside of an operation and allocating resources to that, which is most relevant and most successful to the person doing it.
So for you, it is sales and marketing, but service, it's a better spend for someone like Jen Baker at Cincinnati, right? So, so it's, it's a, it's a movement of margin and performance and we need supporting technology that makes all that capable. If you think about it, there's a cultural shift that needs to happen.
What we're looking at here is upskilling people in different spots. And so the modern insurance agent needs to be upskilled with technology and data to be more human, to be more capable as an individual,

right? So they need access to things. They need access to information about the customer pre-call.

They need access to the performance about that account or that type of business and who's going

to be there. And they need the ability to place code, not to move code around because code is

going to facilitate all that stuff. And we need an ecosystem that upskills the person and the right

person. And keep in mind, the service center is upskilled by better technology too, because now

Thank you. code is going to facilitate all that stuff.
And we need an ecosystem that upskills the person in the right person. And keep in mind, the service center is upskilled by better technology too, because now they're getting that transaction coming to them in a way that's very consumable, better margins for them.
So maybe it's not 2% in the future. Maybe it's $1.50 to get something done as opposed to two points.
And maybe you're not giving it to the service center. Maybe it's staying in rogue, but when something needs to happen, it's going to Jen over at Cincinnati, right? And when she needs something, she's moving code to the customer.
And when the person responds to the code, it's coming to you as a salesperson. That's where the ball is going.
And that's where we need to be going. And that's what this industry needs to do.
We need to empower upskilling the agent and supporting them however that needs to be. And today it might look like service center.
Tomorrow it might be something else. That's the technology we need.
Yeah. I mean, and that's why forever I will be a supporter of what you're doing because it is absolutely, this is how you get to the promised land this is how you get to because I'll tell you just just early on some of my early I've just I have so many things flying around in my head I can't wait till I can get on stage again and just vomit all this stuff that I've learned over the last three months onto people it's gonna be awful um but like I I can't tell you how many times I've already heard, Hey man, you know, I can't believe how quickly you got back to me.
And in my head, I'm like, wow, it took me like three hours to get back to this guy. And in, in his mind, he's like, holy shit.
It normally takes you three weeks to get back. It took you only three hours.
You, yeah, the bar, the bar is so low. It's so low that these types of things are not just incremental improvements on process.
It is playing an entirely different game. This is like little league versus the major leagues.
And I don, and, and I don't mean that necessarily in

the quality of the business. I just mean in the, the, the, the way in which you can provide.
And

that agency today is taking three weeks to get a quote back to somebody. They can upscale,

upskill, up whatever too. It's not like they can't.
I'm just saying for the people who do,

they are taking themselves so much further ahead. It's, not even the same game.
I mean, I'm outpacing agencies that are a hundred X, a thousand X larger than me, simply because I have these relationships with a couple carriers that allow me to get quotes back faster.

Just that simple conversation, a little bit of technology, and you're just, and in the customer's mind, they don't know the difference. They're just like, wow, this guy must really be hustling.
Look, you know what I mean? Because he got back to us quicker. That's the kind of stuff that's changing the game well listen um 2018 july 28th of 2018 at elevate the title of my talk was the opportunity bandwidth is not the limiting factor we are not limited by opportunity this is not a zero-sum game the world is ours for the taking yeah the limiting factor are the road systems, the sewer systems, the things that have not been improved to facilitate or open up the opportunity.
The opportunity is not limited. If you are an agent, you are sitting on the number one most valuable thing in the world.
It's relationship. And relationship is the thing and you got it.
So just love where you're at. The limiting factor is we're still running on roads and sewers that were built 40 or 50 years ago.
You replace those and you make it a high powered, high speed freeway. And all of a sudden the opportunity will be coming so fast.
That's what I'm focused on. While everybody else is the opportunity, roads and sewers, baby Roads and sewers.
Fix those things. Get stuff moving fast.
Start moving code back and forth between carrier and agent and customer and not be dependent on these legacy systems and roads. Oh man, watch out.
Watch out. Yeah, I'm wholehearted.
I think, you know, what's interesting to me, I think it was Paradiso that tweeted out the other day, something about big data without trust is, I can't, I'm going to butcher the quote, whatever he said. Basically, what he was saying is, is you need to have both.
You need to have data and the ability to move and understand and implement data. You also have to have trust.
So what I would, I would argue is that traditionally we are very good independent agents where we, we are very good at trust, very good at trust. So, and then the insure tech, we'll call it experience that we had in 2016.
I don't, I think that the idea of it being a revolution is, is probably over at this point, But, um, since I've started being propositioned by lemonade to sell as an IA partner, which is I also declined it wholeheartedly. And they're like, why would you decline it? And I'm like, because of everything you've said up until this moment, I just morally cannot sell your product.
I just let alone read the frying print. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. And all those can, God bless them.
But I would not be able to wake up in the morning and say, this is the right product for someone after everything they've said about our channel. But that being said, that's a side tangent, more apt for whiskey than for podcasts.
But the, I think the idea here is that you have, right now we have data providers starting to realize that they need more trust and moving into the trust space. And then you have these traditionally trust-based organizations starting to move into the data.
And the ones who can combine it first with a tool that may or may not be called Neon through Be to B atomic, you know, I think that space who can get there first, these people are going to out, they're going to set themselves out far enough that they that it'll be tough to catch them. And you're 100% right.
Yeah. Data scientists are not coming to my agency.
They're not coming to Roe. They're not.
But we need need that, right? So what we need to do is take the ability of data. We need to bring it in and upskill salespeople, upskill service people with knowledge, with insights, upskill managers and business operators so that they can analyze and provide not only insight, but services and suggestions in a proactive way.
And if you look at what NEON does, it aggregates data that agencies have typically just let wash down the drain. It aggregates it together, right? Then it democratizes it so that anybody can access it.
So now Rogue's in there, and Zinc's in there. And if Zinc did 100 things, you can learn from it.
If you did 100 things, I can learn from it. So now it's democratized.
Anybody who wants it can get it. And then we can monetize it.
Meaning that is an asset. And over time, as you build your agencies, you build Rogue, why wouldn't you, why wouldn't you support and invest in assets that are going to grow in value? And so if you look at all of that big data coming to trust, trust needing big data to be relevant, bringing it together is thing and man i'm in the business of the thing yeah yeah it's exciting man i'm so happy for you i um it has to be done by someone who cares about it it's not even about getting this done ryan it never was it was about getting it done right by the people who need to benefit from it.
It was first to market because we've seen this movie before. If the wrong players get in, they just become another toll road that we have to go through.
And eventually we're just all throwing our quarters in the basket. That's money, kids.
That's a reference to tolls. When you went through tolls and you threw quarters in, most of you won't remember, but we don't- Quarters are little pieces of metal, which represented 25 uh cents so we don't need more tolls on the road right and we need to move stuff back and forth and that's that's what i'm doing and and and i'm doing it because i know it'll be done right this time so let me i want to i want to close with this yeah um what does what can we do to continue to help you.
And by we, I mean every single person who listens to this, regardless of their place in the industry, they're hearing this. And even if you never become a member of Neon, if you never buy into the platform, how can we support there, what's the lowest bar to support? What's the, you know, how do people get involved in the movement? Because to me, there's the platform itself and there's doing business and using and implementing it.
And then there's just the philosophy. And I think there's a lot of people that for a lot of reasons may say, you know, it might be a while before I can become an official, you know, paying member adding data using the platform for a lot of reasons may say, you know, it might be a while before I can become an official, you know, paying member, adding data using the platform for a lot of reasons, contractually or different things.
But I want to support what you're doing. So how can people do that? Wow.
It would be my honor, because we're all different places in this and an independent channel, everybody's coming at it with different, different places places so i you're completely right i think the first time is take time to learn about what we're doing i think there's too many people that are just drinking the kool-aid served up by whoever and they don't really think about the power they have this is a power this is a partnership manufacturing and distribution agents and carriers saying like enough we don't need anything between us anymore as a matter of fact we need to be more connected than ever so if you're a carrier listening to this you put 100 150 200 million in your systems or you're about to why if it isn't to connect directly with an agent and directly with a customer then why do it right and if you're an agent about what connection with a carrier means. It means access to information about the customer.
It allows you to do things or understand things because they have access to that in a way that makes you better relationship and more trustworthy for your customer, right? And if you think about just that mindset, less, nothing between carriers and agents is actually everything. Because you do that when you connect everything you can know everything and then you can do anything and that's what i want for me for my agency for rogue for any other agency out there if we connect everything so that we're not dependent on all these old wires we can know everything which makes us better relationship people, better purveyors of trust,

better purveyors of advice,

which makes us better for our customers, right?

And if we can just get there,

you're going to do okay.

There's a group that's there right now.

We are at Neon hosting technology

is empowering agents to run on it.

You can learn about that.

Go to beatomic.com.

You can learn all about it. Schedule a demo.
We'll show you exactly what you're doing. Donate your data to the center so we can aggregate, democratize it, distribute it, and then allow carriers to access it.
If you're a carrier, we have five carriers now that are piloting this and making the API connections from their system into customer transactions in the end. So go to beatomic.com, schedule a time to talk to me

or Clint or Sid or any of the two new members

that are about to join us next week

and three in the next month and come and learn about that.

You will find two things.

You'll find wicked smart people

that you wouldn't necessarily expect,

but you'll also find partners who want to get it done.

They want to get it done for the customer,

not for themselves, not for anybody's pocketbook,

but to get it done right this time. And i would say everybody is welcome at this party this is a dance it should be a packed gymnasium where everybody's having the best time of their life this is not some private country club this is not some select group of people that have fallen from heaven into fortune this is the place where the whole community should show up and do this together.
Because when we do, we all win when we all win this time. When are you having your first conference that I can emcee for you? Well, I actually, I have an offer for Ryan Hanley today.
So talking to our wicked smart CMO, Zid Rowe, you might know. Mid-July, beatomic.com is going to launch right now.
We have an embarrassing site, don't go to, that was put up really fast with no money. we're about to roll out that new site and we're going to have a countdown for an online event where we're going to let anybody come in and do that and we would love not like but love to have you present during that too and there's a lot that we can talk about offline and what we want to do but if you look at tenderizing meat you do it so that you can cook evenly and so you can season it the right way and if we can both together like like the old days tenderize and season the meat we can serve something up real tasty for the industry wow that's an obvious yes for me all right and that would be my my great pleasure so okay so the takeaway from this is get involved learn more follow be atomic on the socials so you can be updated when the website goes live is there like a newsletter or anything that you guys have um so we've been heads down selling so believe it or not we're sold out this year and we're selling out q1 of next year so sid's back on social here with our next two hires so youtube be atomic social be atomic 30 um and then website mid-july and it'll be a countdown to an online event where we're going to reveal a lot more about neon and where Ryan Hanley is going to be doing his thing.
And yeah, that's next. Awesome.
Well, dude, um, I have like a, I have all these questions that I wanted to talk to you just about zinc and we didn't even get to any of those. So I'll have to have you back in a couple, couple months, maybe just to talk.
I just wanted to talk like agency life and, and some of the things you have going on there, because you said at the beginning,

you digitize this thing and it's rocking. So I have another reason to bring you back, but

I appreciate your time. I want to be respectful of it.
And you know, I have nothing but love.

So thanks for coming on, man. Back at you.
I would not be standing in this place and the

industry would not be as capable if they are, if it wasn't for your work and your recognition. So I'm down for you anytime.
Thank you. Thank you.
Close twice as many deals by this time next week. Sound impossible? It's not.
With the one call close system, you'll stop chasing leads and start closing deals in one call. This is the exact method we use to close 1,200 clients in under three years during the pandemic.
No fluff, no endless follow-ups, just results fast. Based in behavioral psychology and battle-tested,

the one-call-close system eliminates excuses

and gets the prospect saying yes

more than you ever thought possible.

If you're ready to stop losing opportunities

and start winning, visit masteroftheclose.com.

That's masteroftheclose.com.

Do it today. We'll be right back.
And always at a heavenly price AngelSoft, AngelSoft

Soft and strong, so it's simple

Pick up a pack today

AngelSoft

Soft and strong, so cool