RHS 040 - Micah Salas on How to Win the Insurance Game

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Hello everyone and welcome to the show. Happy to have you here.
It is a great pleasure to bring you today's guest. It's someone who I actually first found on LinkedIn, and then I heard him on Cass' podcast and was just completely taken by the way that Micah Salas, I was completely taken by the way that he approaches commercial insurance and in particular his process and idea of he works to get hired as the agent for an account.
He's not working to sell that account insurance. And that may sound like a nuanced difference or sales trainery lingo, but Mike is a producer.
I mean, this is how he approaches it. And that methodology and mentality of you're going to hire me and I will be your agent versus I'm going to be the person who sells you insurance, that's a big difference.
I think with it comes self-respect. I think with it comes an air towards quality, towards becoming a trusted advisor.
I think all the things that we hope to be as insurance professionals, that simple change in thought process and language can be very meaningful to that. And in this episode, we break it all the way down and talk about how Micah puts it into practice.
And just really, I'm very happy to be able to share Micah with you guys. I think he is an absolute tremendous resource for our industry.
And as much additional exposure as we can get on him and what he's doing and how he operates, I think is a good thing for everyone who puts into practice this type of methodology. Before we get there, I want to give a big shout out to David Carruthers.
His new book, The Extra Two Minutes, is absolutely tremendous. A few episodes ago, I had interviewed David.
Hopefully, you listened to that. If you haven't, go back and check it out.
But I've had a chance to read the book now. And it is a guidebook.
It is a step-by-step guidebook on how to separate yourself from the competition, and it all centers around this idea of the extra two minutes. I think that this is a must-read.
You can get it on Amazon. You can go to extra2minutes.com and get a signed copy.
That's what I have. I got a signed copy from David.
Obviously, I'm a member of his Killing Commercial program and I found that to be really a game changer for me in so many ways. And I just can't speak highly enough of David's work and just this book.
So if you're not going to spend and invest in the course and the program, then I certainly think that grabbing a copy of the extra two minutes is worth it. I just think it is.
I also, before we go on, I just want to give a big shout out to Tarmica. Tarmica is really changing the game for commercial producers such as myself when it comes to small business.
I'm focused on larger, small, and middle market accounts, but small business accounts do come in. And I know that maybe the standard methodology is to say, you know, you're not a good fit and pass on that piece of business, or maybe that's what people like to say they do.
I don't even like to say they do that. I want to help everybody, everyone who I can help and wants to be helped.
Maybe that's a better way to put it. And Tarmka allows me to do that.
I go in, I get quotes from, you know, five to seven different carriers. In my case, it's six carriers in the state of New York.
In other states, it's more, it depends on carriers per state. Like, I don't have acuity in New York.
So, you know, there are, you there are tremendous carriers. You're able to punch in small business risks.
There's like 300 class codes plus and more class codes coming almost every single day, it seems like. And you're able to find out where the best rate is for that small business, put the information in once, get that person taken care of, get that account taken care of, and move on and spend time on accounts that take a little more of your bandwidth.
And Tarmica is that solution. T-A-R-M-I-K-A dot com.
T-A-R-M-I-K-A dot com. Go get a demo today.
You should at least know that Tarmica exists if you decide that now's not the right time. But this is the tool that is changing the game for agencies that focus on small commercial.
It absolutely is. Okay.
With that, let's get on to Mike Asalas. You're going to love this episode.
So I appreciate you coming on and chatting with me. I became familiar with your work.
I seen you a little bit on LinkedIn and then and then Cass had you on his podcast and I was very enamored by your work. I seen you a little bit on LinkedIn and then, and then Cass had you on his podcast and I was very enamored by your perspective.
And, and then I've been a fan of, of the stuff that you've been doing on LinkedIn ever since. Thank you, man.
Yeah. Yeah.
LinkedIn has been interesting. It's really been something I just, I think I posted my first first video was like i did one probably a year and a half ago or so almost two years i was at a war memorial and i was like oh this is kind of a cool it wasn't even about business we got a ton of views and i wasn't even trying to really i wasn't thinking about that but then i didn't do anything for about three four months and then last year i year I was like, you know what? I should start doing this a little bit more, more consistently.
And yeah, it's, it's been, it's been good. It was, it was fun to be on Cass's podcast.
That was my first time ever being on a podcast. So it was, it was a good, good learning experience.
It was fun to get the exposure out there. Yeah.
I, you know, I think it's, you know, I think anytime you can, I think the podcast thing is great for a lot of reasons. I think one, not necessarily so much the exposure, but I think just, it opens you up to potential conversations with people that you probably wouldn't have met before.
And that part of it has been so valuable to me in my career and its various iterations that there's literally no way for me to quantify it. Like I couldn't tell you like how much value I've derived from just having conversations with people on podcasts.
Like it's, it's insane to think about in truth. I, you know, I can, I can totally feel you on that.
I, people ask with the video, they'll ask me all the time on LinkedIn, you know, throughout my agency and just other agencies, man, how, how many leads are you getting? Are you, are you actually getting sales from it? I'm like, you know what? I actually don't have any direct sales yet. I've had some kind of people ask, you know, reach out that weren't good fits, but I tell them, I'm like, you know, there's something weird that happened when I started doing the video.
It instilled some, like some confidence in me for some reason. I don't know why, just maybe putting yourself out there, whether it's, you know, like you said, in a podcast and meeting people or just even video.
It, for me, it just instilled a lot of confidence. And even when I'm meeting with prospects, person to person, I just feel like I felt like a different person.
So I don't know, it's hard to, like you said, I can't quantify it, but it's, I've told my friends, I'm like, I don't know what it's done, but it just feels, I just feel different. So, yeah, I completely, I completely get that.
You know, I do, you know, I do a lot of video too. And one of the ways that I taught myself insurance, you know, all those years ago was just talking about it on video and like researching articles that I'd want to write.
And it would force me to calibrate my mindset around how I wanted to

talk about this topic, the stories that I wanted to tell. And it also forced me to just dig into the coverages.
And it's one of the reasons that I went and got my CIC, which I may go get again, mostly just because I want the information and I don't actually care about the letters or whatever. But I think it really forces you to dial in your mindset.
And that, that practice is, is really powerful. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because when you're making a video, the last thing you want to do is misspeak on, you know, on a coverage or, I don't know, that's just me personally. But yeah, so you're going to do the extra research.
And you don't't need to know everything, but in a video you want to know enough to, it's kind of like you're talking to your, you know, you'd be talking to a prospect essentially you're just broadcasting it. So yeah, I think it can really help with that for sure.
Yeah, that's cool. So, you know, one of the things, the reason I wanted to have you on the show and, um, and, and share really just basically it gives me a reason to pick your brain for free.
But, you know, I wanted to share your mindset in this. What has grabbed me is this five video series that you did, which I don't know if this is the official title of it, but I just wrote down as I was watching them, you know, how to win the insurance game and not necessarily win from the agent's perspective, but win from the client's perspective.
And then ultimately, if you're helping your client do these things, the assumption is then as an agent, you'll win. But I found these five videos to be so incredibly valuable.
They, you know, and one of the term pieces of terminology, and I want to get to this, because I'd love for you to break at least some of them down. And I want to talk through them.
I think there's a lot of agents, at least a lot of agents that I've started hanging out with more and more, who are thinking the way that you talk in these videos, right? The way that you're talking about, um, working through an account, the way that you're talking about, uh, adding value to, to a client. Um, it feels like, and it just feels like there's a lot of people interested in this right now as smaller, uh, business accounts and personal lines accounts become more and more commoditized, this middle market, larger, small, enterprise level accounts, that range, this is an approach that everyone is looking for.
And I wrote down and then I'd love for you to just talk, maybe talk a little bit about how you develop this. But what I wrote down is step one, due diligence, step two, hire an agent, step three, create competition among carriers, step four, give yourself time or timing and the importance of that.
And step five, tell a good story about your business or, you know, present your account in a flattering way to underwriters. You know, where did you, what is the genesis of your development of that, of those five steps? Yeah, man, that's a great question.
So when I, when I became an, when I got into insurance, I was working for a direct writer at first. So I had to quote everything because all I could offer was that one product.
And when I moved across the country down to Texas, it was, you know, MMA, you're an independent agency. And I was always told by the direct writer I worked for, they said, you know, if you go become an independent agent, good luck trying to get it into the doors.
And you know, everyone's the same, you all the same products to offer. And so you kind of hear this.
And then, you know, I get down here and actually I credit a lot to the CEO at the time I got here and his first thing to me says, we don't quote. And it totally threw me off because that's all I knew how to do I led my region in quoting activity and you know was always trying to get indoors that way but once I actually listened to the reasons of why it made sense to not quote I'm like my gosh this makes complete sense I bought in 100 I didn't listen to the older no offense but the older you older generation of producers that were like, good luck, you know, getting into construction accounts if you don't quote or whatever the case may be.
So that's kind of how I started to first think about things. And then, you know, from there I realized I'd be going on these prospect meetings and just so many buyers of insurance didn't have an understanding of how the game works.
I call it the game, the distribution model, whatever you want to call it. And there was a lot of frustration because of that, but it seemed like no agents were really telling them how it worked.
Their incumbent agent would be saying things like, don't talk with any other agents, it'll screw things up, which there was some truth in that statement, but they didn't really tell their clients. They weren't telling their clients why, right? So I kept getting in these meetings and people would, if I realized if I could help the business owners just understand, and I would even tell them like, even if you don't work with me, if I own a business, here's what I would do.
And that was kind of my mindset going into these calls and these meetings and so I just think taking that approach of educating them first and just saying this is what's the best way to handle the insurance based on how things work and then that from there I built out you know the framework of that five-part series and just kind of I just went back, what are the things that I, you know, that I've been able to do and take my new clients? What process have I taken them through that has helped them improve their overall experience? And ultimately, like I say, win the insurance game. And, um, and yeah, that's, that's really how I came up with that model.

The one that immediately stood out to me was hire an agent. That idea, although I've started to hear it creep up in other conversations, the first place that I heard it was from you.
And the idea that, you know, I think a lot, there are many agents who I think operate in that mindset. I really, in all my conversations until very recently, and this could be because they're all stealing it from you and you're, and you're, when you had that conversation with Cass, but the idea of you're not, I'm not selling you insurance.
I'm not quoting or bidding out or putting in an RFP. You're deciding to hire me as your agent and trusting that I'm going to go out and do a good job for you.
And, and, and then, you know, that idea, I guess, I guess, where did that come from? Because it's simple and and kind of intuitive as it sounds when you say it uh I've been around for a long time and had tens of thousands of conversations and I had never heard of it until last year when I heard you on Cass podcast so it's very interesting to me um that you use that terminology yeah so I think what happened with me and how I came across that is I you know when I went went to school originally for marketing, I kind of always think outside the box and try to think of different angles. And I think when, when, again, when talking with real life business owners out there, if you can use analogies or compare things to other ways of, of looking at a situation, it helps them get it like just click faster.
So one of the very first things I thought of was real estate, you know, and that's, and that's where it's like, it's, it's just a foregone conclusion. You know, I just bought a house last year and a couple, you know, bought another one a couple of years before that.
And it was like, I didn't think to go use three different agents to go bring me the buyers or to represent me. It's not even, no one even does it.
So that was actually the very first kind of analogy I had thought of. And that's what I used all the time.
Probably that first year or two is like, you know, it's like, you just don't hire multiple real estate agents to sell your, you know, $300,000 home. It doesn't make any sense at all.
And, and once I started thinking that way and explain it to people, why it doesn't make sense. They're like,, oh my God, yeah, I get it.
And I would see the look in these business owners' eyes and I'm like, okay, I have some traction here. And I've kind of actually taken that same analogy and helped business owners think about selling their risk, same kind of concept.
I tie it back to real estate and listing their home. I've kind of used that one in telling your story.
So I just felt the real estate agents got it. They're doing it the right way, right? They have a client that trusts them and hires them.
They don't know who's going to get them the best price, but they put their trust in an agent beforehand. Same I'm asking you to do on the insurance.
And then later on, I think last year, I thought of the analogy of sports athletes in the same type of same type of analogy. So I've now I've actually kind of gone back, I'll use both in a meeting one or the other.
But ultimately, I think they just help drive the point home and help these business owners or executives just get it quicker. Yeah, I really liked the, you know, the Aaron Rodgers one, the sports one, you know, that, that, that connected with me.
I mean, real estate does as well, but you know, I think what I liked about it was, you know, who, you know, you are like the, the, you are the Aaron Rodgers of your own story, right? Like it makes sense to think, well, geez, you know, here's a guy whose livelihood is determined by his ability to sell himself. And he puts his trust into one person.
Same thing with a, you know, a female professional athlete, an MMA fighter, or a soccer player, you know, she's going to do the same exact thing. And, you know, it really is.
And again, you know, part of this is my eyes opening to be an agency owner again, right? Like I sold for eight years. I don't, I never, I never dove this deep into commercial here.
I am coming back into it after five and a half years. And, you know, my, my eyes are fully open, I guess you could say where, where maybe they weren't my first time around.
And, you know, it is crazy. Like you walk into these accounts and you talk to people.
And I had a, I had a, actually had a, an AOR situation where I basically used, I mean, I'm sure I butchered it versus how you or some other people would approach it. But I basically said to them, you know, they had blocked a market that I had wanted that I knew would be perfect for them.
They were a woodworking and millworking manufacturer. And I just knew that this particular market was exactly what they needed.
And some agent who, you know, they weren't even really attached to had blocked this market. And I just said to them, guys, you don't even know if he's going to present you with this company.
Like you, you've now touched three agents. And I didn't, I actually, and again, I'm learning quickly, but I didn't know they had approached three agents.
I thought I was only going against one other guy and I knew he didn't have this market. So I just got in there and I said to him, you know, you have to choose which one of the three of us you're going to hire.
Don't even worry about the companies because the companies are all going to be around the same price. They're going to be around the same coverage, some better than others.
They're going to be around the same claim service, some better than others. But like, who are you going to work with? Like which agent is the one that's going to get you to the promised land? Ultimately, they picked me, which was great.
But congrats. Yeah, yeah.
Well, you know, it wasn't the account wasn't setting the world on fire, but it keeps the lights on. The idea being that I walked away from that.
And actually, I talked to my wife about the conversation that you had had on cast podcast. And I just said, I call my wife shorty.
I just said, shorty,

like there's this guy on LinkedIn. He talks about this stuff.

Like this situation that I was just part of was bananas,

like absolutely nuts that, that there's three agents jockeying for carriers.

Like, you know,

how the hell do they know that they're going to

get the best deal or if they're even going to get taken care of? I mean, it's crazy that this

is how we operate. It really is, man.
And that's why even before I get into using the analogies

on, you know, the sports agent or anything, I guess it was help drive the point home. But I

always like to still educate the buyer on, I'll ask the question a lot of times, do you know how

the insurance game works? And, you know, not even talking about agents or any of that. And then

Thank you. I always like to still educate the buyer on, I'll ask the question a lot of times, do you know how the insurance game works? And, you know, not even talking about agents or any of that.
And then they'll kind of say, I don't know, maybe, but why don't you tell me? And then that gives me the opportunity to either draw a little depiction of kind of how the market blocking works and just walk them through that whole process. So there's a couple of things that are interesting with that.
Because I'll take the, I'll kind of play devil's advocate too. I'll say, you know, you want to get another quote from another agent, which makes sense.
But what if your current agent is just trying to do their damn job? You know what I mean? They're, they're just shopping. They're not even blocking.
So then it kind of creates that thing. That's like, you really got to just trust your agent ultimately.
But you know, so I kind of walk them, and they're like, Oh yeah, maybe you're right on that. So it's like, how do you know? And how do you know if your agent's blocking or are they actually shopping and doing their work? So, um, that all kind of just drives the point home of needing to hire one agent and really just trust them.
Um, ultimately. And that's what I think a lot of people just have a hard time grasping that initially because it feels like it just goes against their human nature.
You know, they feel like I'm going to get screwed over if I just trust one agent or what if I get burned? And that's people's biggest concern. And I think once you can help them get past that, um, ultimately really, it makes the process just a lot easier going forward.
Yeah. And you also have from the agent side, you know, you want to have a shot at everything you walk into.
I mean, that's the kind of standard methodology is like, Oh my God, we act as if, and I am as guilty of this, especially early on as anybody, we act as if, you know, every account that we walk into and have a chance at is the last account we're ever going to walk into and have a chance at. And that creates this lowest denominator game.
And ultimately, it creates negative situations. The guy that I actually presented the agent of record against you know, wrote this nasty gram back to the guy about how I'm a one man shop and won't be able to service them and all this kind of stuff.
And, you know, why would you ever choose a one man shop over, you know, we've been in here business for 20 years, you know, all that nonsense. And, you know, and I have a perfectly fine response to that, which so it wasn't an issue.
And again, I still got the AOR. But, you know, now you have this negativity in the system.
And, you know, that situation, I went back and watched your video series again, after that happens, because I wrote this account like last week. And I just said to myself, like, there are so many accounts in the world.
There's so many just in my local space, let alone if I extend out 100 miles, let alone if I reach into Vermont and Massachusetts and Connecticut, which are less than 20 miles from where I'm sitting. So like, there are plenty, there's plenty of business for me to take take care of my family.
Like every account is not the last account I'm ever going to walk into. And this idea of, of, of being hired versus just bidding to me is a much more, um, it is much more sustainability, I guess.
And it establishes the type of relationship you want from the beginning. Okay.
So my question to you then is what is the biggest piece of pushback that you get to that idea? So you sit down, you explain to them how the insurance game works, this idea of hiring an agent. You said this the other day in one of your videos, you're like, you either trust your agent or you don't.
And like, what is besides just, Hey, we trust our agent. We're good.
Like what kind of pushback or questions do you get about this process that maybe, you know, what are the most common questions you get? Yeah, I mean, obviously besides the, hey, we're happy thing and besides that one, I would say one of the most common ones is, you know, I'm not signing anything. I've done that in the past.
I've been burned. So that's again, like you said, there's just such a bad stigma around BORs.
Actually, I was just talking with a client yesterday. I wrapped up a renewal that, um, I won four years ago.
This was, this was our fifth renewal. And, um, he said, man, I get people coming in here all the time.
And he's like, I really appreciate you. And, and, but I always tell him I'm not signing anything.
And I said, well, I got you to sign something for me. And he kind of laughed.
Um, you know, he had a 25 year relationship. I broke up where he was completely happy.
But again, once I kind of diffused the situation, I think cause he had such a bad taste about, he had signed a BOR in the past and got totally burned. Um, so I think to diffuse that it's, I, in my, I'll look them right in the face.
I'll be like, I don't even know if I want to ask you to be hired at this point. This is our first meeting, right? And that kind of goes to my series where I talked about due diligence, but I don't want to get ahead of myself.
But essentially, that's the very first thing. I'm not even saying I want to ask for a BOR or i don't even know if it makes sense your program might be in a great spot you're telling me the service is excellent already you know so um that's that's a huge one it's just that just a bad experience and they and trusting and then it's just from there the other kind of objections would be you know be like well how can i if i don't know a price how can i uh how can I just can I just eventually, let's say you come back and you present things and you don't show me a price, how can I just move to you? So that's the second one.
And I say, diffuse that one. There's a couple of ways.
One way is worst case scenario, I come back, I show you have some major issues. And let's say you want to hire me.
Worst case scenario, you can stay with the same carrier and your price won't get any worse. There's no real downside, but your coverage can go up and better and all that stuff.
And also I let them know that technically by the book, if you switch agents, a carrier can't just jack up their price because you switched agents, right? So that kind of helps diffuse Um, I'll also diffuse that one by saying, you know, you can, if, if I, you hire me, um, I haven't showed you a price yet. I come back, I present something, you're totally just unhappy with what I've came back with.
You think I've done, not done a good job. You can fire me, you know, right then and there.
Um, and so that's always an option as well. You can fire me just as quick as you're hiring me.
So those are some ways to kind of diffuse that. The second one, which is, you know, how can I just trust you without seeing an actual price? But one thing I like to show a lot is, you know, I think I have, I don't know, 35 clients or something, but over the last five years, I've, everyone who's hired me, I keep a before price and after price and also kind of the coverage enhancements or service improvements.
I'll kind of show them. Here's a list of all the people who've hired me over the last five years.
Here's what their premium was the year before. Here's the premium after they hired me.
And actually, most of them have gone down. Some stayed flat.
Some went up due to exposures or increased coverage. But I think the power in showing them that is to let them know that like, you know, when I come back and present to be hired, I do a benchmark analysis.
I review the coverages and I kind of tell them, I'm saying, hey, I know 99% sure that we can save you the $20,000 I'm saying I can save you based on what I see in the market, but I never promise it. So that's, I guess that's kind of the two biggest things I would say that ultimately are the, I'm scared.
I've been burned in the past. And the second is how can I trust you without seeing a price? I just can't, I can't do that.
Yeah. So when you first meet with a client, you just said, you know, you may even tell them, like, I don't know that this is something that I even want to do.
Like, you're kind of giving them a little bit of that scarcity of, you know, you have 35 clients, and you don't necessarily need to add them, right? I mean, whether that's true or not, that is the perception that you're giving them. And what you're really trying to look for is a good fit for your book of business, for your agency, for what you're trying to do.
What are you looking for when you go back and you do your due diligence? So they buy in, they haven't hired you yet, but they are willing to allow you to do your due diligence on their account. What kind of things are you looking for, for them? Like, are you, do you have certain triggers? Is it, you know, is what, what thing, and it doesn't have to be everything, because I don't want you to give away all your, your secrets, but like, is there a particular piece of an account that you look at and you're like, this kind of, this shows me this, this aspect of their business shows me that this is somebody who I can work with and that, uh, will be a good account and that we can actually provide value to.
Yeah. So you're, you're not, I just want to make sure I'm answering this.
You're not asking like, what do I, my looking for in terms of policies, what you're asking, what am I looking for kind of in terms of culture or just overall feel from the account, right? Or either. If there's a cultural aspect that immediately says yes or immediately says no, what would be one of the top three triggers that you'd say? You bring this back, you'd look through it and you'd go, you know what? These guys are checking the box.
This feels like something I want to work with. So this is going to seem so counterintuitive, but number one is loyalty.
And when I know a guy, like a client has, or a prospect has been with their agent for 20 years, I love that. Cause, and I tell them that I'm like, dude, you are my dream client because you've shown loyalty to your agent.
That's awesome. You get it from that standpoint.
So then, and then when I tell them the story, it maybe helps them get it even a little bit more. And they're like, okay, yeah, I am kind of doing the right thing.
They didn't even know it, but they kind of just were happenstantly. So, so loyalty is a big one.
If I come across someone that, yeah, last year we looked the year before that we looked, you know, I bring in five people every year. I'm like instant red flag.
I don't even know if I really, you know, I'll try to educate them, but I'm not getting my hopes up. Or at one meeting, I just literally walked out after I show up and the guy was like, yeah, here's, here's, here's the packets.
Here's everything. I'm like, no.
And I said, well, let's take a step back before we get down that trail. And he, he just was like, no, we can't really do that.
I said, well, then I think we're done here. I just don't have a whole lot I can do for you.
You're better served by someone else. So, yeah.
So that's, that's number one is just, have they been loyal to their agent? Do they, you know, and then, you know, number two for me is kind of, um, I have a, I have a weird client base. You know, some people are kind of blue, hardcore blue collar, some are more white collar, but at the end of the day they're ultimately, they want to find, again, it kind of goes back to the loyalty, but they want to find like someone like that's my guy, right? Or that's my girl.
Like I got a real estate guy. I got an insurance guy and like, yeah, I do hold them accountable from time to time, or I do maybe talk with other people, but ultimately, unless they really screw up, that's my guy.
You know, they kind of have that mentality and that, that kind of ties into that, you know, that agent. Right.
So, um, those two factors I really like. And then the third maybe is just, just kind of an intelligent buyer, I guess you could say from the standpoint of they get it, that you're going to make mistakes as an agency, right? You're going to maybe your, your service team, maybe he's going to drop the, you know, once in a while, but they get it, right? They get that in business things happen.
They make mistakes. We make mistakes.
Obviously not, I'm not talking about, you know, blowing coverage or anything major, but just that kind of, they view it as a relationship and in a relationship, they know it's not perfect, but they know that ultimately you have their best interest at hand, that you care, that you constantly communicate with them, and they value those things, that advisement and the attention that you give them.

yeah i think um

i think to me that again it's that scarcity mindset that you know you're never going to

have that account again that you just run through all this

Thank you. to me that again it's that scarcity mindset that you know you're never going to have that account again that you just run through all the stop signs and um y'all was telling uh do you know david carruthers i actually i actually heard about him through you following you and then i've connected with him recently um and yeah I do like his killing commercial right yeah yeah so I'm part of that program and I really like his methodology and um I I called him one day I ran through these stop signs so bad and like it was it was such a great learning experience because you just like when you go back and you and, and if, you know, if you, if you actually take the time to dissect, you know, each account that you tried to, to, to quote on, right.
Um, which, which I, which I do, um, I take a, try to take a minute at the end of the day and say, okay, Hey, why did this work? Why didn't it work? Um, and I looked account, I just like, it was like, one, the guy knew every piece of information that I needed off the top of his head, like almost as I was asking the question, like that should have been like red flag number one, like he's done this too many times, like no one should know, you know, exactly what I'm asking before I even ask it. And, and then, you know, number two, wouldn't send me these policies.
Number three, you know, and I'm just like, bang, bang, bang. And this was like real early on when I started the agency.
So I just, I was like, screw it. You know, like, hey, it's an opportunity.
I need some work to do. Why not? Right? Why not waste my time? And I got to the end and and obviously you know it nothing happened and you know some some agent some agent ended up quoting like a quarter of the revenue the price is way down I'm trying to explain to him like bro you're going to be audited at the end of the year like it's not like you just get away with not paying that premium because he was you know I'm doing air quotes you can can't see me like smart enough to put 25% of the sales in, you know, like, come on.
And didn't care about any of that. So good, you know, I'm actually glad that he's not the account.
But I was like, man, I was operating from such a position of like, just, just I was so willing to sell my soul to get that account, to blow through stop sign after stop sign. And, um, I just feel like too many of our brothers and sisters in arms in this industry do that.
And you know, what being someone who doesn't operate in that space and maybe you have some advice here, maybe you don don't, how do you work through some of that? Because I'm sure you get anxious when you're sitting in front of an account. Maybe yours are slightly larger than some other people's, but the mentality isn't different.
How do you work through some of that anxiousness when there's an account you really want or that feels like it's lining up really well, but maybe there's some red flags. How do you control yourself versus maybe someone who's listening to this and is constantly feeling guilt for blowing through stop signs on a sale? Yeah.
I mean, I think it's easy to sit here on a podcast and say, oh man, I never go after accounts I shouldn't go after. Because we all see those premium dollars or the commission, you know, the revenue, we start adding it up in our head.
I mean, if you're going to deny that, you're probably a liar, I would say. Or you're very disciplined.
And so I'm guilty, just like you are still. You know, I've been doing this, I don't know, 10 years.
And there's probably people listening have been doing 30 years and you know or one year but I think everyone kind of can get sucked down that path what I've found has helped me the most though kind of stay from chasing is well one it's always having a full pipeline and having people that you're talking to. Like,

like this year, I've had an amazing start to my year. My revenue was, you know, crushed halfway through the year already.
And so that puts me in a whole different position. I'm not out there chasing prospects.
So I think that's a, that's a really big one is just to always have other people you're talking to. That really, for me, helps a lot.
And I totally just lost what I was going to say. I was going to say another point on that as well.
But, oh, here's what I was going to say. That's where the due diligence piece helps so much.
Because let's say I'm in that first meeting and I'm kind of getting some red flags and they're like, you know, I don't know. I'm just unsure, but it, to me, doing due diligence doesn't take that much time.
And I'm not, that's why I love that model versus quoting. I think it's a win-win all around because now, instead of having to make that commitment to quoting, because we all know it takes a lot of effort from not only us, but if we have a marketing team or a sale, you know, account management team, I see their pain they go through and, and the frustration and how annoyed they get trying to gather all that information or due diligence.
I can say, Hey, here's the, you know, let's take the next step. Let me see if there's anything I can do to help.
And all I need is copies of your policies and, and I can do a full blown analysis and I'll let you know. And you know, that, that doesn't take me a whole lot of time to review policies at this point in my career.
For some younger people, it might, but still bringing someone in your office or someone through LinkedIn you've met to help you out that would be willing to mentor you and kind of walk you through how to audit policies in a fairly timely fashion. And I actually kind of, I'm an insurance nerd at heart.
So I kind of like looking at people's programs even if it's like you know I might learn something anyways so that those two things that I think can really help there Ryan yeah you cut out for a sec yeah we lost yeah those two things can really help oh yeah I would say those are the two things that keep me on track is the due diligence because it doesn't take a whole lot of time and and um for me that's been a good way to guess, you learn more about them through that then too. Because then if I say I need policies and let's say they send me the policies, but the policies are whited out, the premiums are whited out.
Well, it's like, man, I'm not even trying to quote. I'm just trying to do some due diligence.
And then, you know, if that's a headache, just trying to get insurance policy, that might even be another red flag. So I'm being, you know, I, I'm just not, this isn't really worth my time and I'll just call them and say, not a good fit.
So that was one of the things that I implemented in at rogue. Now, again, I'm implementing it for myself since it's just me, but that was one of the things that I implemented about two weeks ago was part of my checklist for a new piece of business is if they won't send me their current policies, I will not move forward with them.
I just won't do it anymore because one, I don't have the time to, you know, as a single person shop, I do not have the time to practice quote or, you know, go off of information that is often incorrect. You know, it's things like that.
Like if they're, if they're not willing to give me the basic information in their policies that you need, then I literally will not take the next step. And I'll just, I've, and I've already told two people, like, I would love to work with you, but if you're unwilling to take the two minutes to forward me your policies then I you know I just wait until you are and um you know that that you know one of those people actually went back and got me all their stuff and it was perfectly fine and the other person was like ah you know whatever and we're not going to do business this year and that's also perfectly fine but um it's it's you know this is what I learned from that restaurant account with the guy on the phone that I was telling you before, like he was unwilling to commit to the process.
And if he was unwilling to commit to the process, then why would we commit to the process? It puts you in a position where you can't actually be of service to them. They haven't given you all the information that you need to do your job.
A hundred percent. And I would add on this because the beautiful thing about insurance is that, you know, you sell a client, hopefully keep them for life and you get that residual component, you know, because they keep signing.
It's like being a real estate agent, not to use analogies again, but imagine being a real estate agent and having a client that needs to buy a home every single year. You know, it's awesome, right? But the clients who commit to your process up front, I found are so much stickier.
I go into my renewals. I mean, I'm high touch in terms of not out to see them every day, but just talking with my clients on a consistent basis, checking in with them mid year, doing that, you know, the, the, uh, marketing strategy meeting every year.
And I just find like the renewals, I'm not even really nervous about. Um, sometimes account managers, do you think they're going to shop? I'm like, no, I'm, if they do, you know, I have the direct talk with them.
If I, if they ask for loss runs, I'm like, here you go. And I just remind them how the process works.
Not a, never a bully. Um, but what I found is just the stickiness level of these accounts that you bring in this way.
Um, it's just so much, man, it's, it's priceless. Um, and, and of course you keep that trust.
You can't just burn, burn it, but, um, that's a huge benefit to, to making sure they check the boxes up front. Cause it's going to pay off building your book.
Yeah. So I want to be respectful of your time.
And I have two more questions that I want to run by you. And this has been this conversation has been very out of order.
But I think I think that's perfectly fine. I think a lot of people who are listening to this, they hear that you have 35 accounts that you work for Marsh and they and they probably would say to themselves, like, you know, well, you know, how he gets businesses and how we get business, or you know what I mean, or something silly like that.
And, you know, so how do you go about finding the accounts that you want to work with? Like, are you out cold calling? Are you networking? Are you, you know, how does that work for you in as much as you're willing to talk about that? You know, I think a lot of people are interested in how you go about finding these accounts that you sit down with and have these conversations with. Yeah, that's a great question.
And I would tell people, anyone listening i I get them the same way you get them. It's out there.
And I'm old school. Every client that I've sold has been through cold call, which maybe I should be ashamed of because I'm not getting a whole lot of referrals.
I've suck at referrals. That's probably what I need to get better at.
Um, you know, especially cause I have good relationships with all my clients, but, um, I've gotten, I have gotten referrals. I just, usually they're a little smaller than makes sense for me.
Um, and that, that's kind of the struggle I've faced, but yeah, man, it's been cold calling in my first year. I was, my goal was always about 40 to a day.
Because in my mind, I was just thinking if I can just have, and I didn't base it on meetings. I didn't care about meetings.
I mean, yeah, that was awesome to get a meeting set. But I was based on conversations.
And I would make these cold calls. And my whole thing is if I make 40 a day, I kept the statistics for my whole first year of being in the industry.
I set 83 appointments in a year. And I, I knew statistically speaking, you know, and this bears out if you look at national numbers, but I kept my own for every, I think it was 10 people or 11 people.
I would talk to one for every five people I talked to, I'd get one meeting to one to two somewhere in that range. So I just kind of knew it was a numbers game for me.
And I know there's a lot of stuff on LinkedIn right now telling, you know, don't make it about numbers. And that's fine.
Do whatever works for you, but I'm just telling you what worked for me. So that, and when I make these cold calls that had these conversations, I would really keep a list of the people that said, you know what? Yeah, I may be open.
Let's call me back later. And I counted that as a win.
So I have my call me back later list. I created a specific list of people who said, call me back later.
And then I also had a master X date list, which is, you know, everyone's done that in the industry probably. But so everyone I talked to went on the, you know, the warm lead list, I called it.
And then I would just stay on those people and follow up with them. And how I found most of the people would be just Google, LinkedIn, driving around town.
I was in Houston my first five years. I'm living in Austin for the last year and a half, but still spent a lot of time in Houston.
And I went to a lot of parts that a lot of people weren't going to of town. The east side, which is very industrial part of town.
A lot of brokers just didn't go over there. Well, I was, I found some really nice accounts kind of on some side streets that, you know, they had a lot of employees, a lot of risk, and they, they paid a lot of money.
So I was going into those areas of town. I wasn't afraid to get, get up in there, one resource I used was Factiva, which is a Dun & Bradstreet kind of deal, which you can just kind of search by zip code.
So then just type in a zip code industry size and it pulls every business in that zip code. So that's really how I've done it.
I've tried networking. I do network still.

I'm going to go meet with people. Being in my young 30s, I think this is a challenge probably a lot of us face is that a lot of people we know and friends we have, maybe they're

in the finance department, but they're not making the decisions yet. So I still think networking

is important. I'm doing it, but I'm not relying on that.
And then last year I started LinkedIn and that is a long-term play for me. I think, yeah, CFOs, I don't know if they're hanging out there, business owners, I don't know if they're spending tons of time on LinkedIn yet, but I think eventually they will be.
I think as buyers get a little bit younger, they will be on there. And I still think it builds that credibility factor.
So that's pretty much everything I'm doing. Yeah.
I mean, I hope everyone listening just kind of really dialed in or maybe even just hit the like 15 second back button a couple of times, however long that answer was. This is exactly what I've found and how I've gotten business at real grisk.
Like I launched this agency to be this digital hybrid and there are aspects of it that are because I had this vision. And what I'll tell you is that vision is very possible, but you got to spend a lot of time and effort building funnels and landing pages and ads and you're going to have to test ads or you got to hire people and even those people.
And that is a whole game that takes the same amount of time and effort as it does to what Mike is describing. and I'll tell you that in many regards, what I found is that the business I'm writing here at rogue, that's how I'm getting it.
I'm cold calling people. I do some cold email.
I don't know if you do a lot of cold email, but, but I do a lot of cold email too. And hold on one sec, dude.
The kids have decided to start. So I just, I just hope the, I hope the people listening at home.
Cause I think I feel I've run into so many agents that are like, all right. I was talking to an agent the other day and he's like, how are you getting your business? What's going on? And I was like, I'm, I've been cold calling and, and, and cold email doing a lot of cold email, some cold LinkedIn outreach.
And that started some conversations. Um, and he's like, oh, that makes me sad that you're cold calling.

And I was like, and at the time, I just let the comment go, you know, at the time.

But then I got off the phone and I was thinking about it.

And this is nothing negative against that agent.

It just was like, I almost feel like the count,

this is the only way to be targeted in who you write.

Like, otherwise, you are kind of at the mercy of inbound. And I'm not knocking inbound, but like inbound alone, you are kind of at the mercy of what comes in.
When you're proactive, you can actually try to find the accounts that fit what you're trying to do. And I do think, I do think it's the secret weapon of some of the most successful agents in our industry.
And I do think far too many agents, because it makes them uncomfortable, they don't do that. And I think it's a limiting factor to the upside of a lot of people's personal growth in the industry.
I would agree 100% man it's it's almost like cold calling has a bad stigma to it and I don't I don't get it especially in commercial you know where you're hopefully you can sell some decent size accounts and get paid a little bit more and you can be so much more targeted like you had said so yeah I don't get why why it does people are just shocked when they're like how how do you get new business? And in various sales industries, I'll tell them, you know, cold calling and they're like, what really? That still works. And, you know, so yeah, just, you know, be careful of everything you read on LinkedIn.
Isn't, isn't true, you know, a hundred percent, or it just might not be true for you, you know, but I definitely think cold calling still works. And I still think there is some aspect to it in terms of a numbers game, which sounds so old school, but it works.
Yeah, no, it 100% works. I would be far more frantic and probably not doing this episode of the podcast if I hadn't been cold calling because I wouldn't be selling things because inbound marketing takes a long time.
And I really think the answer over time, if you're looking over an agency, not just an individual producer, and really link, the LinkedIn is an inbound play for you. Like, I think it's really about having a set of tools, outbound, inbound, you know, doing some cold email, you know, different, different stuff like that.
You know, I actually started mailing out, um, in addition to the targets that I want to cold call mailing out like some hard folders with some material in it that kind of describe our process and what I'm trying to do as a way to just warm some people up when they get the call, you know, try, just trying different things, you know, some of it'll work. Some of it won't.
Um, I may realize I don't need to send a, you know, it's basically $3 and 75 cents worth of hard material in the mail of someone to cold call them. And that's very possible.
But, um, I think it's, it's testing and, but for producers, man, individual producers, I, I just, I've been happily shocked at how, um, how relevant cold calling still is and how productive it still is. Yeah, exactly.
And I would even encourage people, um, man, uh, I guess I've, I've gotten into accounts paying 1 million, $2 million via cold calling counts with a thousand employees, 2000 employees via cold calling. So it works at all.
Is it tougher? Yeah, but you don't need as many of those accounts. Yeah, exactly.
And I would say the smaller businesses, your odds of cold calling working are even higher. Small, medium-sized companies, you can catch the people a lot easier.
Yeah. Well, man, I want to be respectful of your time.
This has been a tremendous conversation. I'm actually going to leave a teaser for what you're doing on LinkedIn as what would have been my final question.
I wanted to talk about, you know, telling a good story for the client, but I think you describe it so well. And I'm actually just going to tee it up.
Anyone who's listening to this and wants to get to know what Mike is doing more and just be involved in where he is. And not that you need 10,000 insurance agents following all your stuff, but if they hit that like button, it spreads the message, right? And it's just good to mix and get to know people more.
So I highly recommend following what Mike is doing on LinkedIn. Is that the best place for people to connect with you if they're interested?

Yeah, yeah.

LinkedIn is by far the best for me.

I have my email on there, my cell phone.

And I would say I do get messages from quite a few agents across the country

that don't work for my company.

And I'm always, most of the time,

I'm willing to just have a quick phone call to talk with people. I really want to see young agents and all agents be successful and it can be a great industry.
And I think the problem is there's just a lot of lack of direction when you get hired on or you get in this industry. And it has some nuances to it that make a little bit different than some other sales jobs you might've had in the past if you're coming from outside the industry.
So yeah, man, I'm all about helping people. Yeah.
I highly recommend everyone do it. Dude, I think you are doing things the right way.
I love it. I love that you've started talking about it and sharing what you're doing, whether it's indirectly or directly on podcasts like this.
I really think that the way you're approaching the business

at your age is, it's tremendous. It's a great sign for what the insurance industry could be, the value proposition that we present.
And if we can build a next generation of agents who who step away from that, um, who step away from that kind of quote,

bid crank mentality, uh, to, to more of a value proposition mentality. I think in general, we'll do a better job for our clients and, you know, and, and ultimately we can help change some of the, some of the perspective that people have on our space.
Right. I mean, how many times you run into somebody, you tell them in your insurance and they give give you the janky eye, you know, and you're like, you know, so I think we can change that, you know, one client at a time.
And I just appreciate you, man. I'm glad that you spent this time on you willing to spend this time and I wish you nothing but success.
And I hope that everyone listening connects with you. Yeah, man.
I appreciate you having me on. And hit me up anytime.

I'd be happy to jump on another call with you, podcast with you.

And it's been a pleasure following you as well.

So I always like to learn from other agents out there.

And that's the only way to grow is to kind of see what other people are doing,

take a little bit of what they got, add it to your skill set,

and keep moving forward.

Absolutely, bud.

Thanks, man.

Hey, thanks, Ryan. Take care, man.
Bye-bye. add it to your skill set and keep moving forward absolutely bud thanks man hey thanks ryan take

care man

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