RHS 025 - 20 MUST FOLLOW Insurance Pros for 2020

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Sign up for Greenlight Infinity at greenlight.com slash podcast. So I've done the intro for this show like seven times now, and every time I add like 40 ridiculous superlatives to how awesome this show is, and they never seem to do justice to what you're about to listen to.
Basically, Jason Kass, my man, the guy who's been fighting alongside me for independent agents for more than a decade now, we jump on a podcast for more than an hour and break down the top movers and shakers in our business. Now, not all of them by any regard.
Some of you will be listening to this going, geez, I wonder if I'm on that list. And you won't be.
And I want you to know

that that's not because Cass and I don't love you. It's because we just, there's so many amazing people doing amazing things in our industry right now that we could only limit it to like what ended up being almost 40 people.
And we started out trying to keep the list to 20 and we could have done another 100 and I just want everyone to know that I love the people who we talk about and I love so many more people who we didn't talk about and I just want you to know that we will probably do this again and talk about people that didn't we didn't talk about this time because this isn't a rank order thing. It's just a people that came to our mind thing.
And there's just, it's a tremendous time to work in insurance. And I've said this a million times on the show and I promise I'm going to stop saying it, but I'm just so glad to be back.
And I'm glad that you're listening to this show. And if you listen to the show and you don't listen to Cass's show, jump over and subscribe to his show.
And if you're listening to this version, my version of the show, but you're really a Cass subscriber and you're not subscribed to the Ryan Hanley show, the show you're listening to right now, then please subscribe because that's amazing. And then you can get all the other cool things that I produce because even though I also talk about insurance stuff and Cass and I do interview some of the same people, we also interview a lot of different people.
I do some solo episodes, he does some solo episodes, and then something that I tend to do is bring people from outside our industry in like Anne Hanley and Tamsyn Webster and Ron Tite and Marcus Sheridan and just, you know, that's cool stuff too. So you are going to enjoy this episode, but this is what I want you to just be ready for this.
RyanHanley.com slash 2020, the numbers 2020, RyanHanley.com forward slash 2020, like the year. it i'm gonna have a list where you can click and connect on LinkedIn with every single person that we mentioned during the show, every single person.
And I hope that you will go to ryanhandley.com forward slash 2020 and connect with every single one of these people on LinkedIn because you absolutely positively should do that. rHanley.com forward slash 2020.

Okay, before we get there, real quick, I want to talk about our sponsors.

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And then I want to give a huge shout out to my man. Everybody's man but my man.
I knew this guy when he was still hawking home in autos and doing design work on the side. Chris Langell from Advisory Evolved.
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Go get yourself an Advisory Evolved website. With that, my friends, remember, ryanhanley.com forward slash 2020.
You can connect on LinkedIn with every one of these people we're about to mention. These are one collection of the most amazing people doing amazing things in our industry.
Right now, they're not the only amazing people, but they are a wonderful collection of amazing people doing amazing things. I hope you enjoy this episode.
Let's get to it. Three.
So Hanley, dude, I think what we're about ready to do, I think is a big deal to you and I, because 20 people to watch in 2020, I think it's going to be, this is a pretty good list, I think, that we've come up with. Yeah, and I think it's worth mentioning, Safeco did their own 20 in 2020 list, and that's all agents.
That's a tremendous list, and they did great work putting that together. I think what we've done a little differently here, and when we were talking, I think this is 20 insurance people.
This is consultants, technologists. This is people from inside and outside the industry or from every aspect of the industry.
These are kind of 20 people that we see in 2020 who you just need to be paying attention to, who you're going to hear their name more because they're making real moves and you should keep an eye on them. Well, and Hanley, and the thing that, I mean, everybody knows that Cass is an open book here.
Really, I was speaking to the marketing department of Safeco back on January 4th, and I happened to mention to them that we were doing 20 people in 2020. And then last night, they released 20 people in 2020, which I think is complete crap that they would steal.
All right. No, I'm joking.
Safeco, I'm joking. Loyal listeners, I'm joking.
No, it was ironic. I mean, Hanley, we have had this planned for a couple of weeks.
When I saw it last night, I was like, oh my gosh. But they have some studs on there.
I mean. No, it's a great list.
It really is a great list. You know what? If you're listening to the Hanley version of this podcast, then I'll have that linked up in the show notes and you can check it out.
It's the Agent of the Future 20 for 2020 list. It's a great list.
It is a great list. And so I want to let everybody know that I did this last year and I did 22 people.
And the reason I did 22 people is because my list just kept growing when I just wanted to put, I just wanted to get it out there. But here,

Hanley, it's only fitting for marketing purposes and other things that we would just put it at 20.

So no disrespect to anybody who's not out there. There's people out there, I'll say right now, I think Nicholas Ayers is a stud in the industry, but he's not on our list.
Oh, actually, he is on

our list. Man, I just goofed that up, didn't I, Ryan? I really didn't know he was on our list.

He shouldn't be on our list, Ryan. We need to take Nicholas off.
All right, man. I'm just joking.
All right. So here's what we're going to do.
I don't know how you want to start this out, Ryan, because Ryan put some. I put some.
And then we sat down together and said, here's who we feel they are. How do you want to go about this?

You want to go first, Ryan? Let's just start at the top and start cranking. So the first name is someone who I put on the list.
His name is Chris Green. He is the flood insurance guru.
I actually had him on the podcast. Cass, I know I'm pretty sure you've had him on your podcast.
If you haven't, you should. And the reason I wanted to put Chris on was because he's doing something that I think

takes a lot of guts.

It takes a lot of belief in yourself and in your business.

And that's he's going flood only.

And he, you know, if you follow him on Facebook, which I encourage you to do, or LinkedIn,

he's written about the fact that he, you know, he's obviously has, he's a little anxious, a little nervous about going flood only, but he, this is his, his niche. This is his expertise.
It's what his degree is in. It's what he's passionate about.
It's not just flood insurance, but flood mitigation, flood protection, flood restoration. And I think that he is going to be a poster child for what it means to go all in on a niche.
And I just, I think he's an incredible asset to our industry. You know, loyal listeners listening out there, Hanley, don't you notice he's Northeasters? He says niche and Chris Paradiso says ideas.
It's like, where do these people, did they go to the same school we went to? I don't know. I don't know.
It's what makes you guys unique up there. Hey, Hanley, you know, now I will tell you, ironically enough, today at the podcast, we're releasing one with Chris Green.
I'm not going to go on about Chris Green. You did a good job with it, but I want you guys to understand that he is very vocal about the fact that he has a learning disability and he believes that learning disability has given him and made him the person who he is.
So that it's just multiple well-rounded person. Yeah.
And Cass, before you jump to the next person, I just want to let everyone know who's listening to this, you know, whether you're listening on Cass's podcast or you're listening through my podcast, I'll have at least like the LinkedIn, the LinkedIn profiles for everyone that we talk about. You can go there and connect with everyone on LinkedIn at a minimum and then, you know, follow them from there.
So that way, if you go to the show notes page, you know, for me, it's ryanhanley.com. What is it? Insurance Agency Intelligence.com.
Okay. So here's one of my names.
And I want to also say these are in no particular order. They really truly are not.
No order at all. If you saw how we have them grouped up, you'd see that we're just kind of randomly pulling them here.
But ironically enough, I will start with one of the first that I thought of, which was Seth Zaremba. Now, he is a staple.
I think we don't need to go on a lot about who Seth is because I think if you're in this industry and you haven't at least heard his name or found out about him, I would highly encourage that. The reason why I say it is I say he's Mr.
Transformation and the fact the way that he looks at things, whether his model will work and be the super model of 2050 is yet to be determined. I'll tell you right now, I'm on that train and believing it.
But the fact is, it's just the fact that he's brought to the thing, Ryan, in my opinion, because he's brought to the surface and brought to the light, that data is playing an important role in other industries. And we should start looking at it as playing a big role in our industry.
I think he's finally brought that to the light. At least he did for me.
And that's why I believe that he's important to watch in 2020. I will say almost of everyone on here, I think he's important to watch in the 2020 decade.
I really, really, truly believe that, Ryan. Yeah.
I I think we, you know, I want to add Sid Rowe on there as well. I think, you know, she has kind of taken all the skills that she, that kind of blossomed in her Agency Nation days, and she is just doing an incredible job diving down into Neon and kind of taking this, what is, what is, you know, I think legitimately a complex idea, what Seth is trying to do.
It's different and new and complex. And I think she's doing a wonderful job of taking these complex ideas and turning them into kind of bite-sized, understandable, attainable concepts that agents who are on the outside, and I know the beta pilot program is still very new, but that they can start to understand what this thing is and the real gravity that it has in our industry.
So I kind of have them as, I guess, one, or not one person, but one. They're a team.
They really are. They really truly are.
Yeah, a team. Yeah.
Because there's a couple of teams on here, but yeah, I'd say Seth and Sid, names that have been around for a little while, but absolutely two names that everyone has to know and be connected to. So I'm going to throw somebody else on that team, which his name is Robbie Burton.
I have him listed on the list, but just while we're talking about it, he is, and I can't remember his team, his guy's name that works in his office. I believe it's Randy Fark.
I hope that's right. Randy, if you're listening, I apologize.
I know you got first name right. But him and Robbie Burton are actually have kind of created their own neon, let's say, in Virginia and are kind of the first two neon pilot agencies, you could say besides Seth and then Robbie.
Robbie is unbelievable. If you get to know him, he's kind hearted.
He's gentle. He's soft spoken and he is a huge advocate for insurance agents.
So go ahead, go ahead, go back to you, Hanley, pick the next one. Yeah, no Burton and associates.
And, um, just, I would say would say, an understated asset to our industry that if you ever have a chance to connect with, do it. Connect with him just in kind of the virtual space and hear what he's saying, what he's doing.
Absolutely a standard bearer for our space, there's no doubt. Okay, so keep moving forward.
I, you know, the second one that I want to talk about is Zach Mefford and his partner, Ryan, I always pronounce, I think it's Swalve from Coverage Direct. I think what Zach and Ryan are doing at Coverage Direct, you know, if they were in any place other than Iowa, every single agent, every single industry person in the country would know who these two guys are and what they're doing.
Coverage Direct, in many ways, is like the template that I'm trying to build at Rogue Risk. They are absolutely one of the agencies in this country that I'm at and going, I'm going to take a lot of pieces of what they're doing and how they built coverage direct and apply that to my own agency as I build it out.
I think that Zach tends to be a little more public facing than Ryan, though they're both incredible. I think they'll be household names in our industry.
If we do this in 10 years, I think there'll be household names in terms of what they've done with Coverage Direct. December 3rd, I'm sitting in Cleveland, Ohio at the Neon Pilots meeting.
We get put into these tables and we get asked these certain questions. Sitting right next to me is Zach Mefford.
I had really never really got to know him. It only took five to 10 minutes for him to talk for me to realize like, wow, he knows this stuff at a much closer level to in the dirt where I'm way in the clouds, right? This guy knows it.
And when he speaks, he speaks, he speaks authoritative. You know, he, he is, you can tell he knows what he's talking about.
And when I saw you add him, Ryan, I was like, that was good stuff right there. Well-deserved, very much so.
I'll say it because I'll put it on there is Nicholas Ayers. I think sometimes people could say, Nick Cass, he's been on your list for seven years.
And I could say, well, he might be on it for eight, nine, or 10. The reason is Nick is a different person.
He likes to get his attention out there by just doing crazy and wild stuff. And it's proven that it works.
The thing is, I think there's a lot of, you either really like Nicholas or he gets on your nerves. The fact is, is that why I love him is, I mean, I personally went out to his place and went to his house and we've had a really good time together.
But the fact is, is Nicholas, what he does for video, and I know video is important, and he was the first and only person I know to really break the video mold as far as getting other people to understand its importance. Even you, Hanley, you've talked about video and displayed what you do a lot, and you've talked about it since, oh my gosh, even before Nicholas, I even knew Nicholas was in the industry.
But Nicholas really took it to where he broke it down into very simple, basic bite-sized concepts. And I think that is going, we're going to see in the next year, three years, and five years, all the people who are successful with video.
And I think a lot of them are going to point back Chris Green. He'll tell you right now, it goes back to Nicholas's program.
So kudos to Nicholas. And I just, I think he had to be on the list.
I couldn't imagine 20 people to watch and him not be. And the only thing that I'll say about Nick, and I'm an enormous fan of his, is that he is an understated connector.
He does a lot of kind of back channel connecting of people. Hey, you should talk to this person.
Hey, I know this guy over here. He's really interested in what you're doing.
He is a great connector. And I don't think that he gets the credit for that.
And he's been, you know, he has definitely helped me take my video game to a whole nother level that I wouldn't have got to if I wasn't part of his Made You Look program, which I am. So, okay.
So I want to bring in, this is kind of like, this is fun because you kind of get to pick like, who do you want to talk about next? All right. I'm going to talk about, um, about Danny Kimball.
So I first ran into Danny during the agency nation days. And, um, as soon as I saw her work, like, I don't know if I saw something she did on social or what, or I, to be honest with you, at this point, I can't even remember how we first connected, but it was like immediately, it was obvious to me immediately that this was a special talent, that she saw that she was able to take our industry and make it fun in ways that most people just cannot do.
And I love, and I know that she's had opportunities because she's anyone who is this talented is going to have them. I love that she has stuck with O'Neill insurance and that O'Neill insurance has stuck with her and really given her the, the freedom and the resources to, to kind of, to, to be, to be exactly what, you know, to be as much as she can be in that space.

And, uh, and, and I just think, you know, you look at O'Neill insurance's brand and, you know, I don't have any numbers, but just from the continued effort and these, the smiles on the faces of all the people that are involved in the content she creates and the way they go about marketing, both local and digital. And to me, she is the gold standard for how you build a brand, particularly a local agency brand in the independent space.
I just don't know. I don't know.
If she's not the best, she's in the conversation top five. There's no doubt.
Wow. And that's awesome.
And see, that's why I love this already because I really don't know who she is. I had to look her up.
I'm gonna take your word for it. If she's a rock star, she's a rock star.
And the most important thing is the S-H-E and the fact that she is a woman. And I believe that this industry is going to be taken to a different level because of women who are gonna to start rising up and already have and don't get the recognition, which hence that's one of the things I try to do.
If you know of some woman out there or you know that some person out there, that's a special gym. You need to reach out to Ryan and I.
You can reach out to me at Jason at agency-intelligence.com. You can reach out and say, hey, this person is a special person.
He's not on the list, but Billy Van Jura is good for that. He's always reaching out to me saying, Cass, get this guy, get this guy.
But I'm going to continue on with my next one though. And I'm going to say Carrie Ann Nadeau.
Now, if you don't know who Carrie Ann is I highly encourage you to listen to the podcast that her and I did last year. And she's been on many, many podcasts.
You can find her over on Insurance Nerds. You can find her everywhere.
But I have to tell you, she, in my opinion, and this is no exaggeration, is the most dynamic woman I have met in the last year in anywhere, in any business or industry. She, in the last year, she has really, I've reached out to her a couple of times and talked to her about things because yes, she comes from MIT, but she's coming from MIT and she's like, like really, really down to earth and you can talk to her.
And the things that she's doing with analytics and teaching insurance companies, how to look at roads differently and how she is, she's literally changing the game behind the scenes. And I think that she's getting through to carriers where other people weren't.
If you look in, in our industry or you look in the insure tech industry or any pretty much any industry around insurance, the transportation industry, you'll see that she is actually a huge stud and carry in to do our Nadeau is somebody you need to go to LinkedIn and you need to follow because you'll be amazed. She's doing some incredible things.
Yeah, I don't, I don't know Carrie Ann. I just know her by name and reputation and that, you know, all the people who I respect that know her have incredibly high respect for her.
So that, that's, that's tremendous. I'm glad that you kind of mentioned her.
I want to take this to Jack Wingate from All Choice Insurance. I have had the opportunity to, to Jack and I have never met in person, but we've done quite a few video calls together now.

And, you know, he's the way that he runs All Choice.

His story, I think, is a story that many agencies share in terms of, you know, kind of got into the industry, didn't have a lot, building it up, you know, kind of grinding, making decisions. but you know i think the way that he has built that business and in particular taking on j on Jared Bellman, who's across, so they're in North Carolina, and Jared, who was not having a great time at his agency, was very old school, very restrictive.
Jack, even though Jared lives, I think, a couple hours from where Jack's location is, he brings Jared on as a producer and a partner and a, and a partner in the business and, and basically creates a satellite, a one person satellite location in Jared's hometown and extends the all choice brand, but also, you know, and even though I know there's a lot of, um, uh, there's tons of camaraderie in there and support and, and training. And he also lets Jared kind of be his own guy too.
And Jared does these Instagram videos and it's really cool. And, and, um, and he's really kind of, to me, I've seen, uh, Jared, Jared seems to be flourishing in that space.
And it, and I think it speaks to a new style of, of agency owner in Jack Wingate and that he's snatching up talent, not just that lives within 15 or 20 miles of his office, but wherever that talent lives. You know what I mean? Bring them in, teach them the process, give them the systems and allow them to expand your brand and expand the methodology that you believe best serves your clients.
And all choice insurance, Jack Wingate is an absolute must follow, must connect. And Jared Bellman as well, who to me, I've seen a tremendous maturation in him as he's joined All Choice from, I think, and I mean this with tremendous respect for Jared, because I have tremendous respect for him, to kind of flailing a little bit in his old agency to really, it feels like he's really starting to dial it in.
And I, you just love to see someone who, who you appreciate and enjoy seem to find their place. So I guess we'll call it another team of Jack Wingate, Jared Bellman, two, two guys that I think are doing for different reasons, doing tremendous things, right.
And are absolutely should be in your network. Don't know Jack.
I do know Jared just a little bit through the social media. Jared is a class act.
Talk to him. I think I've talked to him when I was at Elevate one time, that conference.
Let's see. What I wanted to do is I wanted to just pull something out there though, Ryan.
You said something there which I thought was good. You talked about how Jack is expanding the brand.
Expand the brand. So I went and searched expandyourbrand.com.
It's such a good term that that thing is on sale for $149,000, that URL. That's how good you are, Hanley.
Come on, dude. I mean, no, it's not 1199 and it goes to 799.
If you buy it for five years, this is $149,000. You got to quit giving that shit away for free, man.
The next, I have too much on my plate as it is. The next person I'm going to talk about, um, which means, uh, which, uh, it has been this guy flies under the radar and he's okay about it.
That's why I wanted to put him on here. And his name's Chad Spade.
Um, pure potential automation, I think is the group name, pure potential automation. I'm pretty sure it is what his face.
Yeah, it definitely is. Cause I went down one of his rabbit holes for like 45 minutes while I was watching the national championship game.
That's the truth. So he literally works 10 hours minimum works like 12, 14 hours every day.
Um, he doesn't have kids. So that allows him to do a lot of things that some of us can't, but the great thing about him is, is here's where I think he's inspirational.
He has a true desire to help agents. And the problem with it is his agency is already so big and so successful.
He's actually too nice and he gives away too much for free. And he'll tell you he doesn't plan on charging for anything.
What he wants is, is he wants agents to be ready for the digital transformation. Why he believes in that so much is because you can go back as early to 2014 15 and 16 and his agency had no automation and it had nothing and he saw a couple other agents in what they were doing and he literally sat down handly and like for the next two years has worked in his business to do nothing but grow it to what you just said you would you would listen to him and see some of the stuff he talks about and go this this guy was born automating when he was two.
No, four or five years ago, he didn't even know how to do any of this. And so as I've seen him grow, I know where he's going.
And I think you're going to start to see more people look to him for guidance, start to look to him to say, Hey, Chad, could you help me in understanding it? Because like I said, he, he, he, he understands what's happening and he lives it every day. And his revenue of his agency is about 3 million.
So I mean, this isn't a small agency whatsoever. So he's a good size agency, very, very down to earth person.
And I think he's going to help a lot of people, a lot of people. Yeah.
If you and I ever put on a conference, he would absolutely be the first person we'd reach out to to do a workshop.

You're damn right.

No doubt.

You're right.

Chad and Billy Williams.

If you could just take Chad, Spade, and Billy Williams workshops like once a quarter,

you'd be all set.

You wouldn't have to listen to anybody else.

You'd be all set.

So put Billy Williams on the list as well because he's right about that he's like my one of my absolute favorite master gurus um okay so i'm gonna go next to so technically this is one that you put on the list but i'm gonna steal her because she's one of my favorites. And I feel like you most likely ganked her from, from, from me.
And that's Olivia Schmidt. I think that, so Olivia does, she, she works for Tricor in Wisconsin, pretty sure Wisconsin, but definitely Tricor.
And I met her back in the agency nation days and she's,'s doing a lot of she's pushing change in a very large agency and she's doing it i think in a lot of the right ways and there's challenges and not everything i think that she wants to have happen happens exactly in the time that she wants but what i love about the way she's doing is she's not doing it the way that like i did it which is just coming in and being like like, Hey, you old bastards, like you're doing everything wrong. Let's you know, she's being very respectful.
She's working through the process. She does tons of research.
She networks, she finds the right solutions and she implements them in the right way, which means more efficiency and effectiveness for Tricor. She also does these videos on LinkedIn, like Monday morning, and then she'll do like a little five to six minute video.
Sometimes it's like life stuff. Sometimes it's business stuff.
It's always very valuable. She's very sincere, very authentic, very transparent.
I always take the time to watch them. And I think that Olivia is absolutely going to be like a superstar in superstar in this space whether it's with tricor if they're able to keep her or and i've also and you know and you know if if they do the right thing and take care of her and give her and give her the space to be what she can be um if not for someone else um not that i want her to leave tricor let me you know just i just want to make that she's going to be a superstar, hopefully.
But she's absolutely a follow on LinkedIn for that Monday morning video. Absolutely positively a follow on Monday morning.
Olivia Schmidt. Monday Magic.
Monday Magic. Monday Magic.
Yeah. Monday Magic.
Yes. Yes.
No, Olivia was, yeah, I had met her in Nashville at the Applied Net last year. And then I reached out to her because I made a challenge to my team at Agency Intelligence that I wanted to double the amount of women that were at Brainshare.
And we did that. And she was one of the people we personally invited.
And then I got to know her at brain share and a fantastic individual. Yeah.
Runs an eight person, a small business unit for Tricor and they are out of Wisconsin. You're right.
I think her location is out of Iowa, but mainly all their locations are out of Wisconsin. So fantastic.
I had to add her as good that you stole her. Cause shoot, I just her because, shoot, we really got to know each other.

And she's dynamite. She really, truly is.
I want to talk real quick about David Carruthers. You're probably saying to yourself, if you're a loyal listener, you know who David is.
If you listen to Ryan Hanley, you may or may not. But I encourage you all to reach out there and check out what David Carruthers is doing down at Florida Risk Partners.
basically I'm not going to go on any more than he has become

our sales trainer over the last year. And he looks at insurance very differently.
He has grown his agency substantially fast since 2016. He's one of the stories I've told Ryan about as Ryan starts Rogue Risk is that, you know, it's not like it takes forever anymore to grow substantially.
And David is an example of that, of what he's done in the last three years. If you are where he is in three years, Ryan, you're doing freaking awesome.
Let me tell you that right now. And he's just got a lot to learn out there.
I think you're going to start to hear his name a lot more in some of the innovative things that he is doing. Throw out another name there with Mike McDonahue as well.
And Todd Thames, we're going to be having dinner with them at, well, actually this Thursday, Ryan, we're going to be having dinner with them. And I think you're going to get to see some of the genius that these guys have planned, but David Carruthers is, is somebody that you need to check out out there.
He is special. Yeah.
So I don't know, David, beyond you recommended to me that I start following him and I've started and I think he's coming out with a course or he's doing a workshop or something. And I'm already saving my pennies for that because I'm going to be first in line.
I love the way, just from the points of view that he shared on different articles I've written and you've written and then in IOA group and stuff like that, I can already tell that this dude thinks about insurance the way that I want to think about it. He's been a tremendous connection for me.
I'm looking forward to Innovation 2020. I get to know him a little bit better.
Cool. All right.
We are doing so much better on time than I thought we would. I thought so too.
I know. So let's keep that going because that's important.
I got a carrier appointment meeting. I'm meeting with Cincinnati in about an hour and a half.

I'm excited for you. Anybody out there knows Cincinnati and is a big dog there, tell them they need to get an appointment to handle it.
I want to take that one down. That's a big one for me.
Okay. I'm going to move to Wesley Anderson.
Now, Wesley's agency owner in Utah, either did own a second agency in LA or still does, but very successful, highly automated agency, also known as being founder or co-founder, Jay, of Agency VA? No, he is co-founder. Co-founder of Agency VA.
Ben is his partner's name, Ben. Yeah, yeah.
Okay, yep. I knew that.
Okay. And, uh, agency VA, tremendous VA company.
Um, and just, you know, one of the most respected VA companies in the country. If you're not, uh, using a VA and you're thinking about it, I would absolutely give them a call, not a sponsor of the show.
That's an unsolicited, um, recommendation for that service. True.
Here's why I wanted to put Wesley, not because he's a great insurance professional, not because he's one of the best automators in our industry, not because he understands the VA game better than anybody, but because he's one of the people who, when I first decided to go all in on Rogue Risk, right, which was about three months ago, I have talked about this a lot on the show, so I won't get into it now. But when I made that decision, Cass was obviously one of the people, Ayers was one of the people, and Wes Anderson was one of the people who sent me immediately, sent me a private note and said, as much time as you need from me, I will give to you and we can walk through it.
And the selflessness with which he operates, because I know that I am far from the only person that he's done that with. I think, and I'm not saying that he's the only one, I'm just saying this is why I wanted to talk about him.
The selflessness with which he operates, I think is a testament to what makes our industry so important, powerful, special. Having worked in many other industries, not just my most recent job in the fitness industry, what we have here in the insurance industry is very special.
Wes embodies that, and I think that if you don't know him, you should know him because, uh, again, he's just a true asset for our space. There's just no doubt.
Oh yeah. So I promise if I go on too long, I really won't.
Wes means the world to me. Um, he really has become, um, Ryan, he's become a very, very close friend like you have in a very, very short time because of everything you just said.
The dude has a heart of gold. It's genuine.
He wants me to succeed. He tries to help me to succeed, whether it's an insurance, AI, whatever.
He's constantly sending people my way. He just embodies what good is.
And so much so that he called me and he said, Cass, I think I want you to come out on September 18th and 19th and see me. And I was like, all right, just got a plain one out there.
I don't question it because Wes wouldn't question me. I've done a couple of speaking gigs with him.
He's phenomenal. People love him.
Thank you very much for adding him. If you wouldn't have, I would have, you just beat me to it.
And that was, yeah, Wesley is, man, he's awesome. Great guy.
Great guy. And then we also next, I'll talk about Travis Gensler.
If you don't know Travis, you probably do. You've probably seen him walk by.
He doesn't say much if it's in person because he's very quiet. And when he comments and online, it's only one or two sentences.
That's just who he is. Now, if you go to his Facebook site and you look at it, you'll see around 4th of July or any kind of party, wherever there's fireworks or fire, he's like the main guy.
Like he just comes out of his shell. I don't know why.
But the other thing is, is that Travis is known for that people don't know is he is huge in Microsoft. He runs another Facebook group that I highly encourage you to check out, highly encourage you to check out, which is Automated Insurance Agency.
Automated Insurance Agency. Go there.
Tell Travis that you found out about us from Cass and Hanley. So, you know, at least we can give him, we can say like, hey, it really meant that we put you on our podcast.
We need some data. Yeah, that's right.
We need that data. So that is, he's cool in the fact of this.
He runs that. He's very smart.
Him and Chad are like boys. They're all really good friends.
But he has built his own quote unquote AMS because it's not an AMS, kind of like neon. He's built his own thing on Microsoft.
And it's really, really interesting. He's built this out there.
So I wanted to throw him out on the list because not only does he run an awesome group, and I say this all the time, you loyal listeners, you know what I'm talking about. Like half those guys inside of his group should not be in the insurance industry.
They should be working for NASA. They're that smart.
When they talk, I'm just like, what the heck did they just say? So that's why I add Travis Gensler. Yeah.
All right. So I want to talk about a technologist.
Another, I guess we've talked about a couple of technologists here, I think. But Raghith Tana, who is the founder of Tarmica.
And here's why I wanted to bring him up. I think he embodies a whole series of technologists in our space.
His father's owned an agency for 20 or 30 years. He was an agent for five to seven years, something like that.
I'll get some of the details wrong. But all the people that I respect in this industry have back-channeled me about him in particular and Tarmaca as a solution.
And I'm not selling you Tarmaca. Just what I like about, and I call him rags, you know, what I like about him is he's building a product in what I believe is the right way.
It's a Seth Zaremba way. It's a- Well said.
Like Alan and Mike at Ask Kodiak. He's very respectful of the channel and of what it means to be an independent agent, what independent agents need.
And he's going about, he didn't come in and shove his solution down people's throats. And whether you use Tarmaca or not for your rating, that's not the point.
What I like about him and why I think that he will be successful and will be a technologist in our space that people know is because he's getting to know the right people. He's kind of working through the process in a way

that is respectful of those who've established themselves and who act not as gatekeepers, but as like bullshit filters for the rest of the industry. True.
Right? And that to me says a lot because it's not easy to work through those people. but he's doing it because

I think he really

sees what the

I think he sees the importance of being respectful of, of independent agents. Seth calls this indie tech.
Um, I throw the guy that asked Kodiak on that list. Um, you know, uh, Alan and Mike are friends of mine.
Alan and I talk about all kinds of stuff. So Alan Egbert and his co-founder, Mike, those are two guys to follow as well because I think they would fall under this.
And there's many other solutions. But I do think, I wanted to bring up Rags because I think he embodies this whole group of technologists that are kind of working through the system in a way that is productive and collaborative with independent agents.
And versus four or five years ago where it was disrupt, disrupt, disrupt, it is very, I think it's a very positive thing for our space. Dude, totally, totally for real.
Rag is awesome. And I've talked to him on the phone just a couple of times, but he comes highly touted by Seth and Seth doesn't tout a lot of people unless he's serious about who they are for the independent agent channel, which jives with me hardcore.
And yeah, Tarmica is a, is a, they exemplify what Inditech is. Please check them out, check them out.
Like I said, whether you use their Raider or not, it doesn't matter. When you look at all the commercial Raiders out there, I don't know why you wouldn't because all the others don't do what they do, but anyways, it's not a plug for them.
It's just that they really, really are good people. I believe his partner's name is Chris, his business partner, if I'm correct about that.
It's Chris something, and I can't remember. And I know that they're both really good partners together, so we don't want to leave him out.
But yeah, he's out there. Here's another thing I want to tell you guys about the next one is Billy Wagner.
Now, you may say to yourself, who's Billy Wagner? Cass, you don't even talk a lot about Billy Wagner to us as loyal listeners. Well, the reason is, is because I'm trying to look to the future, you know, and Ryan asked me the same thing.
Ryan was like, who's this Billy Wagner guy? And I said, listen, I know him and he's doing some really, really great stuff. He works over there with Brightway Insurance down in Florida.
How I know him is him and I have a back channel relationship. And I talk to him about some of the different ways I need to pay my producers, the way that I'm looking at advertising and operating expenses, and what the average agent, I almost use him as a best practices.
His agency is large. He does compensate his producers.
He does things differently in his agency. And those people always seem to attract me because it's not that I take on everything they do, but I take it and mix with one of the stuff I've heard to create this dynamic agency that I have.
And I say that like, not that it's awesome. I'm just saying it's a, I take pride and joy in my agency.
And I spend time with people like Billy Wagner behind the scenes. And a lot of people don't know that, but I think Billy, um, I think he's going to start getting some speaking gigs.
I think people are starting to hear him and he's my projection for 2020 or my prediction for 2020, 2021, that Billy's going to be somebody of more

that, that you're going to know about. Yeah.
Um, I don't know how this next one and Bill, from everything you've told me, Billy sounds like a tremendous guy and I can't wait to meet him and get to know him. So that's, that's awesome.
Um, this next one I'm going to drop in here. We didn't have on the list.
I don't know how, I don't know how we didn't have this one on the list, but it's Paradiso. I've known Paradiso for probably close to a decade.
Back before, he was only a few years out of doing, I think he started financial advising life insurance and then came property casualty and he was just getting his brand going. I tell people all the time, I'm like like the parody so today is exactly who the dude was 10 years ago he just has executed on everything that he said he was going to do and so few people do that right like it's it's something that I I think you know like when we have those insecure moments you know you know what you want to be and then you have these moments where you're like geez am I ever actually going to be that thing that I want to be? And what I think is so tremendous about Chris is that he is exactly who he is unapologetically, and he executes on exactly what he says he's going to execute on.
And, you know, then there's a million other things, you know, being a connector and, you know, there's just so much to him that makes him, you know, I think he's one of the most influential and important agents in terms of his ability to connect people who need to know each other. I mean, he's one of the best and one of the most important nodes in the system.
And I don't know how his name was. Maybe it was just because I think at first we weren't going to name people who've kind of been in the game for a while, but I do not want him to be missed because he's just a vital, he's a vital component of the ecosystem.
Well, and right at the end of this, we're going to name off some mentions really fast because it's just too hard to do it in 20, but it was really, really important. And yeah, and Chris is on there.
One of the things I love about Chris, I'm not going to, we don't need to keep going on, but people don't know this story.

When he first started his agency, after a year, year and a half, two years, he was so frustrated as himself as a leader that he fired everybody in his office.

Yeah. Except for, I believe, one person.

And then he realized as a leader who he fired everybody in his office, except for I believe one person. And then he realized as a leader who he was, and then he rebuilt his agency to who it is now.
The reason why I like that is I say it all the time and I'll say it again, and he lived it. If you can't change your people, change your people.
That's what's going to be a main factor in the great separator for everybody out there. Your people are going to probably be a big factor in putting you out of business unless you step up to the game and you're willing to change your people.
Kudos to Chris for that. He has a great team now and he is a great example.
He could retire right now and he'd be in the hall of fame of independent insurance. He would be the Barry Sanders.
He just walk away and boom, he's the best ever, right? Just that. I pulled out Barry Sanders, Barry Sanders.
Anyways. Okay, I'm going to go on one more here.
Yeah, let's pick the piece back up because we got a bunch of names to go through and they're all awesome and I want to make sure we get to them all. Ryan Deeds, digital podcast broker.
All I got to say about him is as data becomes more important, which is every day, you're going to find people like Ryan to be the diamond into the rough. No one knows about what he does right now is he goes into agencies, signs a three to five year contract, basically says in three to five years, you're going to have all your data clean and you're going to be driving and making, getting real insights and driving real money from that.
And he goes into organizations and creates it. And I'm going to be honest with you.
The dude makes a ton of money because he makes organizations a ton of money.

He understands data.

Ryan Deeds, you loyal listeners, pay attention because you're going to hear more from him.

Yeah, get to know Deeds.

He's one of those guys that if you're not paying attention, you might not know him.

But you should because he knows exactly what he's doing.

And I'm absolutely a huge fan of Deeds. Love being on his podcast too.
That's always fun. All right.
I'm going to hit this name real quick. Kind of, I think I'm going to say new to the scene though, probably will be a household name and it's Christian Moore.
He's doing some tremendous work out of Kentucky. And I just had a chance to talk to him on the phone for a little while, a couple of days ago and, you know, take the, take the growth out, take, take, take what he's doing, how he's mashing kind of being a local agent with being a digital agent, multi-stays, he's doing a lot of things, right? What I love about what Christian is doing is that it all runs through his agency mission, which is, I'm going to butcher it.
So I'm not even going to try to tell you what it is. Um, but the fact that he, he has a very clear, very, um, very rich agency mission and everything he does runs through that mission.
Everything is driven by that mission. And it's a big part of what's made him successful.
Everyone wants to focus on automation and sales. And those things are incredibly important.
Don't get me wrong. But if there's not like a reason why you're doing them, then you tend to flail.
You tend to create gaps in that process. And, um, you know, I think everyone, myself included Cass, I'm sure you as well are going to be hearing a lot more from Christian Moore in the future.
Yeah, dude. Christian Moore is, um, he, he is a class act, dude.
He was a class act. To be honest with you, it's such a class act.
It was a little corny, but I've got to know him face to face. We spent a couple of days together, drank some beer.
He's what he exudes. He really is.
He's a really good guy. And I'm glad you threw him on there for real.
I would have definitely done it if we'd went went there. Good call on that one, seriously.
Chris Burand, I am going to, I think, is this number 20? I think it's 20, and then we got some mentions. Chris Burand, Hanley, I have to tell you, I'm anxious to see it, but no one has had more downloads quicker than this guy in my podcast.
Never. I think in the first day, we had like 330 some downloads.
We're already up to 800 and some downloads on him. And normally, it takes a podcast a couple months sometimes to get up to 800 downloads.
And I mean, it's just happening like in less than a week. And I think some of this stuff, I really don't want to talk about it right now.
but what I want to do is I want to point them back to your newsletter. What was it? Number seven.
Yeah. I did an entire video newsletter just on that one, one little tiny piece of that episode.
That episode is, is a staple. It should be a state like in order to get your insurance license, you should have to listen to that episode.
I agree. I agree.
But dude, you did a really, you broke it down on the, on the, on the, on the video really well. So go search, uh, wherever you find Ryan Hanley and look for newsletter number seven, watch that video.
I think it was a 19 minute video, but dude, he, he, you break down what, what was gut, what's occurring there. And that's just one piece of Chris knows the entire industry.
I told, I told Travis that our goal is a year from now, I want to bring him in to evaluate our agency. That's some of the things that Zach Gould and Matt Naomi did is that they were evaluating their agency every year.
And when I heard them tell me that earlier this year, I thought to myself, like, I know it's money, but why am I not doing that? Like, I want to know rather than sitting around and saying, here's what the value of my agency is. I want to know I'm going to bring Chris in.
If you go to brand associates, you will see that he has a ton of documents and ton of white papers out there. You can just read one of them and you will be blown away.
This guy, I'll be honest with you, Hanley. I first met him back in 08 or 09.
And it was like at an edge conference for the Illinois independent

insurance agents, young agents. And like, he had like an overhead projector and had like the clear,

um, the clear, you know what I'm talking about? Yeah, dude. I was like, this guy is old school

as can be. And this is back in 08 and 09.
And so I kind of dismissed him a little bit. I really did.

And then I picked it back up around 2012, 2013, and I followed ever since. And I can't believe

I tried to get him on the podcast, it took me two and a half months to get him on because he's so busy out there going around. So Chris Perrin, it's a good guy.
Dude, I'll tell you, that's one of the things that Paradiso taught me about this industry was to not that, that do the same thing, right? You'd see somebody go up and their slides maybe don't look super slick or whatever. And he's just like – he's like a lot of those guys are the smartest, most ingrained guys.
And they just don't care to make it look fancy because they don't need to. He's like those are the – he's like that should almost be an indicator that you need to dig into what they're saying because that's how you get a lot of value out.
And I'm not saying anything about Chris. I was enthralled by that episode.
I listened to it twice. I did a whole newsletter about it.
I pushed everyone to it. And I'm jealous as shit that you got to interview him first because that just annoys me.
Okay, and as we, Cass, as we transition over, what, I don't want to call them honorable mentions because that I think diminishes who these people are. It's just, there's so many people we could get to, but I just want to let everyone know if you're listening to my podcast, because Cass and I are both releasing this show at the exact same time on our individual feeds.
If you're listening to my podcast, if you're listening to the Ryan Hanley Show, make sure you go over and subscribe to Cass's podcast, IA Intelligence. He interviews different people, some of the same, but different.
He also interviews a lot of different people. He talks a lot about different topics and he just attacks the industry from a different vantage point.
And even if we were to interview the same exact person, they would be very different podcast episodes. So I highly encourage everyone who's listening to this show, the Ryan Hanley show, to go over and subscribe to Cass's podcast if you haven't already.
Yeah, and you know my loyal listeners, dude. You know that I take a lot of what Hanley does and I redice it up and tell him how stupid he is and how right he is.
It just all depends on what type. The loyal listeners right now, Hanley, they're laughing because they know exactly what I'm talking about.
So be sure to check out Ryan Hanley's podcast. That's probably a known for you guys.
You know how much he means to me and we love to try and shake up this industry. And the thing about it is, is I'll always end with this for all of Ryan's listeners wanting to know who I am.
The goal of my agency or the goal of my podcast is to make you think. That's it.
I just want you to challenge the norms that you've been told all your life. In the meantime, let's get on to these people.
One thing you just said about these people that we want to mention here real quick is the industry is stuffed with great people. It's one of the reasons, Hanley, it's one of the greatest times to be an independent insurance agent.
It's just not so much of the, of, of everything else. It's, it's the people that we're making friendships with and learning to grow with.
It's incredible. You agree? Oh, I couldn't agree more.
I mean, you know, truthfully, we said this was 20 for 2020. And I think we did like 22 or 23 highlighted people.
And we had another long list here. So I'll get right into it.
The first name that I'm going to bring up is Kelly Donahoe-Piro. She has been doing consulting, speaking, being a brand agency, and the work that she's doing specifically in highlighting and maximizing the evolving role of customer service reps of CSRs who really shouldn't even, CSR is really almost a diminutive term at this point, but I think she's doing tremendous stuff.
You had a great podcast episode with her. And if you're not following Kelly, if you're not aware of the work that she's doing, you should absolutely become so.
I've known her for a while just by listening to her, I can tell what she's talking about, but it's the other large agencies and small agencies that have used her and talked so much good stuff about it that reinforces that. Next guy that I would like to talk about is Billy Williams.
I don't have much to say because you probably hear me talk about it a lot. And if you're one of Hanley's listeners, you heard him on the podcast recently.
Billy Williams is the number one consultant that I have listened to for the last five years. And he has dramatically changed my agency, which has changed my life, which has changed my family.
And I'm thankful for him for that. He is a staple in this industry.
Yeah. And I actually am going to be reaching out to him.
I'm committing to go to fix my agency workshop at the end of February. So I'm going to be there.
I am too, dude. Awesome.
Oh, sweet. Yeah, no.
Yeah. I tried to get my wife to go with me.
And she just said, you go learn everything you can bring it back because you know, she needs to be at her agency right now. But I think this to be able to learn what he's teaching in that workshop this early in rogue risks evolution, I think is going to pay tremendous dividends down the line.
So I've committed to do that and they're very excited. And now I'm even more excited because I know you're going to be there.
Um, yeah. And the thing is I've been to it before.
That's how awesome it is that he's told me some of the stuff he's updated. And I'm like, I got to go again.
Just FYI. Awesome.
Okay. I'm going to hit, um, one of my absolute favorites in the entire industry.
Uh, he, I, I, I had him asked him, hired him, whatever you want to say to kick off elevate 2018, uh, for a reason. And that's Jeff Roy.
I think, um, even though he's from Canada and we don't hold that against him. Nope, we don't.
I think that he is just, I mean, the fact that he's from Canada allows him to say that he is probably one of the top five independent insurance agencies in the world. Now he could say that anyways, but being that he's outside this country, it makes it easier for me to say that because the things that he's doing, they just, they buck every trend of what I think most agents would even think is possible.
And he doesn't even see how they could not be possible. If that makes sense.
That's what I love about him is that the things that he's doing, the pace that he moves at, the decisions that he's making, the ideas that he's implementing in his agency, you know, to him, it's just like, this is the next thing I need to do. And I think to everyone else, they wouldn't even, you know, to most of us, we wouldn't even think that it was possible.
and to be able to call him a friend and his wife Una is amazing as well and the work that she does

and she's a speaker

and I just, I consider myself blessed

to have him in my own ecosystem

and if... And his wife, Una, is amazing as well in the work that she does.
And she's a speaker. I consider myself blessed to have him in my own ecosystem.
And if you can connect with him at any point, if you're listening to this, it is worth every second that he gives you. Not just because of his intelligence, because of his empathy and the way he thinks and connects with people.
It's just something to aspire to unbelievable. I just, I'm not going to say anymore.
He's unbelievable. He's, he's, he is a highlight of this industry for me.
Top five person in my life as far as helping me. Um, he helped me a lot with the mastermind too.
He was one of my first mastermind members. And he really said, Jason, you need to do this, do this.
And it was really good. I owe him on many different levels.
I'm going to knock off three of them at one time because a lot of people don't know these names and they're nothing that's ginormous in the industry, but they're doing things that I know about that are going to come to the surface. And I just want to mention I'm Troy Thompson at a Pinnacle Insurance in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the 30 day flip phone challenge, hashtag 30 day flip phone challenge.
Go look it up, see what he's doing. It's incredible.
Bogus and Lucas Hansel. They are two Polish insurance agency owners out of Chicago.
Very proud Polish community that they serve. They do a lot of stuff, large, large agency.
They're doing things with automation and doing things with Hawksoft that I think they're going to take their game to the next level and they're already high up there. And last but not least, Miles Merwin.
Miles Merwin is my agent consultant. He's the agent that I actually reach out to besides Christopher Cook.
He's the agent that I reach out to and say, Miles, am I doing this right? I'm reading best practices and this is what it's saying and I'm way under that. How do I get there? And he'll just give me some strategy.
We share accountants. We share all kinds of things.
Miles Merwin is huge to me. And if you get the medium out there, pick his brain on your hardest thing that you're dealing in your agency.
And he's probably got a good perspective. There's three of them.
How did Christopher Cook not make this list? Because I talk about Cookie all the time. So I had to leave him off at least one list.
You know what I mean? He's laughing right now. All right.
So if you're listening to my show and you don't consistently listen to Cass's show and you do not know Christopher Cook, explain to everyone why they should. Don't call him Chris.
His name's Christopher Cook. Long story short, he's one of the most genuine people that I know.
He's a best practices agency out of North Carolina. He owns agencies in five states.
He's an investor in a lot of other things besides insurance. He's very, very smart.
He's kind of my financial guru. If I'm going to try to make a financial decision, he's one of the people I'm going to bounce it off of.
You know, big shout out to Matt Wood from the Mets Wood Agency up here in New York, Columbia County. Tremendous golfer, great agent, and also just became a best practice agency.
So I just want

to give him a shout out. Did not know that.
Yes. Yeah.
Yeah. Very, very happy for him.
Cause that's a, that's definitely an achievement to get your agency to that point. Um, all right.
Uh, this is another name that's been around the industry for a while that you should know. Um, but his, his recent move, I shouldn't say recent cause it's been a couple of years now, but, uh, his move to the Sickens group, when Brent Kelly made that move, I think at first some people were, not to confuse them, but they weren't really sure what he was trying to do.

I think it's blatantly obvious.

I mean, he is absolutely one of the best sales trainers, the way that he looks, the way that he's able to take concepts, break them down, the mentorship that he's taken or apprenticeship

that he's had to take concepts, break them down, um, the mentorship that he's taken or apprenticeship that he's had with Roger Sikins and, um, and being able to elevate his own game, spending so much time with someone like Roger. Uh, I think Brent Kelly is just, um, uh, you know, kind of from that consulting strategist role, like a Kelly Donahopiro, you know, Brent to the industry and someone if you get to spend time with or need and can hire or go to one of his presentations, you will never be disappointed and you should absolutely be connected to him.
Bro, check this out. You're so right.
You know more than anybody listening to this podcast, Hanley. At the beginning, there was a lot of us, but there was only a few of us.
It was me, you, and Brent. We were out there in 09, 2010, 2011, trying to tell people the things that we're still telling them today.
And they thought we were crazy. Now they just know that we're more crazy.
Bradley Flowers and Scott Howe. These dudes are awesome.
Insurance Guys podcast. You got to check them out.
They were on Gary Vee, invited them onto their show. They're doing a lot

in this industry. Here's why I love them the most.
I created Agents Influence to give a voice to those who have no voice. I end every one of my shows saying, tell me your thoughts, tell me your ideas, and I'm going to tell the world what you have to say.
The whole point of my podcast was to project people's voices. And people say to me, aren't you getting upset or jealous that there's all these other podcasts? No.
People like Bradley Flowers and Scott Howell, excuse me, Scott, help project that around the world for us to help keep forward progress and forward momentum in this industry. And Bradley Flowers and Scott Howell, I am proud to call a podcast colleague.
They are really good for this industry. Yeah, you know, you bring up a really interesting point that I'm going to take two seconds on.
And it's this idea that there's so many podcasts out there. I think that that's a good thing.
There should be more voices. I'm going to be on a podcast that a couple of Allstate captive agents do called the Insurance Guys Podcast.
This is what it's all about, sharing ideas, spreading ideas. We can learn from everyone.
Like I've said it a million times, mostly because I'm envious that they came up with this, but IOA got it right. Better together, like hashtag better together.
It doesn't, you know what I mean? And, uh, and you know, Bradley was just on my show. I've been on their show.
Like that's, and it's just about sharing ideas and doing what we're doing right here. Just trying to connect people.
Like that's the more, the better. Um, and here, let's what we're going to do.
I'm going to end with Dave and Eric, and then you end with Matt and Zach and we'll wrap this up. That sound good.
Perfect. Dave Jackson's awesome because he is Nicholas's counterpart in IAOA.
I mentioned him not just because I just want to mention him. I want to mention him because he, Nicholas is very in the front.
Dave is behind the scenes. Those partnerships always work well.
And Dave needs some recognition for what he does. Everybody sees what Nicholas does, but Dave Jackson, you carry the flag well as well.
Eric Garcia down in New Orleans, down at Garcia Insurance Services. The reason why I bring him up is because he's on the financial advisor side, also owns an insurance agency.
But the way that he tries to teach people about money and how he does it with insurance agents, he created his own podcast. I watch his videos.
He teaches me a lot about how I should be teaching my kids how to think about risk and think about money. Comes from a very unique position.
And if anybody knows Eric Garcia or Chad Toops, they represent Louisiana better than anybody I know. That's who I have so far.
So who you got left? All right. The last two, Zach Gould, Matt Namoli, GNN Insurance made big waves this year when they sold to the Hill Group.
They're still part of that agency. But here's what I'd say about these two guys.
They're not done in our space. I don't have any insider knowledge, at least not any that I'm willing to share openly on the airwaves out of respect for them.
But what I do know is these guys love insurance. They're still very much part of the industry.
They're still very much part of GNN insurance and keeping that agency going. But I think what we're going to see over the next five to 10 years from these two guys is their influence, their expertise, their experience starting to permeate out into different agencies through Babylon and through different technology companies.
And I and, um, I think that, uh, even if they're not day to day in GNN, you know, and it'll be their decision where they are or not, I think we're going to start to see their influence spread out. And, um, you know, they're just two guys that they're, they're incredibly intelligent, good guys, and they have to be on your radar.
Um, if they're not already totally are. And if you really don't want to pay attention to Zach, that's fine.
Just pay attention to Matt. He's really the one doing all this stuff.
So Zach's going, Cass, come on. No, you're right, Zach.
I love following Zach also, and just both of them. I really do love them.
And I love following them on Facebook, Zach with the things he does with his kids, but Matt as well, Matt has this dog that's just exactly like my dog. So I, I love it.
I have this dog dude that I've never been a dog guy, Ryan. And this dog that we have now, he's an Australian Aussie poo.
He's an Australian shepherd and a poodle. And he is this, the coolest dog in the world.
This dog plays Frisbee and everything. I just love it.
But his dog is like that as well. So we're going to end this podcast and quit talking about dogs.
Yeah, that was an odd tangent to go on like an hour and a half into the show. An hour and a half.
That's funny. That's funny.
So Hanley, you promised me, dude, we're going to do this again and we're going to do this again soon, right? Yeah, absolutely. I want to do a show where I want to interview you.
You are normally interviewing me. I want to interview you.
We actually have that podcast episode recording date on the books. I'm looking forward to that.
So fans, subscribers to the Ryan Hanley Show, you will get me, not talking about things that I'm up to, but diving into the depths, the abyss of what makes Jason Cass tick in an upcoming episode. Bro, this has been so much fun.
These are my favorite people. There's so many more we could have gotten to.
Anyone who's not on this list, please do not feel left out. Know that we love you.
And in a future episode where we break, we're just trying to connect people. That's all the point of this.
It's not meant to be inclusive or exclusive. It's just here's a list of people.
Let's connect with them, and then we'll do this again and connect more people. And just, that's the whole point.
So I just want to say to everyone listening, who's still listening after this long ass episode, I love you for listening. Thanks for listening.
Dude, the episodes we've been doing studies, bro, the longer the episode for us on our podcast, the more hits it drives. I'm not joking with you.
It's a really crazy thing. We have our reasoning for that, but I won't go into that.
But I do want to say that this is being released on the 21st. You may not be listening to it on the 21st, but if you are on the 21st or 22nd, please keep in mind that if you're at IAOA on the 23rd, 24th, or 25th, Ryan and I are going to be there.
we going to be there visiting and, and just getting to know people and learning just like everybody else is. We're not speaking or anything.
So please come up to us, say hi. Um, if we forgot to put you on here and you think you should have been come up to me and say, Cass, I should have been on there and here's why.
And I'll make sure that maybe I'll take your thoughts. Maybe I'll take your ideas and I'll tell the world what you have to say.
This has been Jason Cass, Hanley, take them away, brother.

Yeah, guys, I hope to see you at IOA. As I said, it's just such a pleasure to share these people

with you. Cass, anytime I get to spend with you virtually or in person is a treasure.
I love you,

man. Let's get out of here.
We do. Thank you.
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