The Entrepreneur is Changing Flood Maps and the Business of Insurance

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Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of The Ryan Hanley Show. And today we have a really interesting interview with an entrepreneur that most likely doesn't fit the standard mold.
And though our conversation starts a little slow as we kind of feel each other out, I highly recommend that you listen all the way through to the end and get a feel for what Chris Green has been through as an entrepreneur, his journey, how he makes decisions, and the way that he set up his business to be successful in the future. In an unexpected niche, in a boring industry, Chris is thriving and it really speaks to what I believe is one of the key aspects of success in general, but certainly entrepreneurialism, which is attacking problems from an angle that most people don't see.
And whether it's Chris's learning disability or just something inside him or the way that he has built his life, Chris is absolutely attacking common problems from a different angle and has created a business that many in his industry and many people in general would be envious of.

And it was just a pleasure to have him on the show. Before we get there, I have a new project coming out.
It's ultimately going to be a product, the first product that I've ever created myself. It's something that I think is going to change the way we build our brands by making our communications more accessible, more consistent, and more tailored to what our audience needs and also super easy fun fun, and all the other, you know, all your wildest dreams will come true kind of stuff.
But it is pretty fun to really take on what I believe is my first entrepreneurial journey, even though I've done many, even though I've cashed many checks under my own company name, I've never actually felt like an entrepreneur because I was always really just acting as a speaker or doing workshops, something like that, consulting work, which is more of just a business than it is being an entrepreneur, I guess. Maybe some would argue with me in that.
It's just the way I personally feel. This is putting my own time, energy, capital, resources into building a thing that I think over time at scale could change how businesses communicate online.
And the first iterations will be basic and simple and straightforward. And over time, if the customers of the product, if that's you, if you find that there are additional features that you're interested in, we'll consider building them.
I have a list of features and kind of different iterations and versions of the product already mapped out and we'll see based on customer demand where those things go and what this ends up being. It has a name.
The name is The Daily Material, dailymaterial.com. If you want to know more about this product, about what this thing is, go to dailymaterial.com, enter your name, enter your email address, and you will be one of the first people to know as updates come.
The beta for the product is going to launch sometime in the next few weeks, and then the actual first iteration of the product will be sometime in Q1. Um, so keep your eyes open for that.
Uh, so daily material.com name, email, and you will be, uh, on the list to find out more as updates come. I'll be updating you on what that product is all about, what it looks like and and how you can be more involved, and potentially a beta tester of daily material.
All right. So with that, I want to get to Chris Green, the flood insurance guru.
I hope you enjoy this episode. I love you for listening to this episode.
Let's do this. So you got – you have a pretty interesting story, and you've done a lot of really hard work over the last year plus.
And, um, you know, I'd like to like, why flood insurance? Well, my master's degree is in flood mitigation. Say again, my master's degree is in flood mitigation.
So that, so that's, uh, why get a master's degree in flood mitigation. Well, I've actually had my master's degree.
My master's degree is in emergency management with a focus in hazard and flood mitigation. I've had it for like 10 years.
I wanted to go work on weapons and mass destruction overseas. But what just what happened is when I started my master's, Hurricane Katrina hit.
So I just kind of accidentally got into it. I bought a house about 10 years years ago in a flood zone didn't know it was in the flood zone until probably 10 days before closing had this horrible experience realtor had a bad experience lender had a bad experience but through all that they're like you know your premium is gonna be three thousand dollars i'm like no it's gonna be three hundred dollars and here's why and i showed them the law showed them what i went all that discovery, I said, everybody's having a really bad experience.

You know, nobody knows what to do.

So I still worked for a casualty agency for about five more years after that.

And I started my traditional PNC in 15.

And I just came up with a catchy website, floodinsuranceguer.com, just to start the conversation.

But once people started learning what our educational background was in, you know, it kind of went deeper and deeper.

And then starting in 2020, we're not even going to offer auto insurance anymore. Really? Yeah.
Because I also run a, I built a flood education company as well called the Flood Professor, where I teach CE now to insurance agents, realtors and lenders across the country. And then I also run a flood consulting company where we help property owners with litigation and getting flood zones changed, disputing with FEMA and all that stuff.
Like right now I'm helping a property owner who FEMA told them they have to, or the community told them they have to fill their basement. So we're helping them argue that case.
Jesus. So where did you get this entrepreneurial bug from? Like, I mean, cause, cause you know, I gotta be honest with you, you know, we've known each other online for a while and you know, you just look like the crazy ass flood guy.
And, and, you know, and, and obviously like I've, I've heard that, you know, you've, I've heard you talk about some of this other stuff, but like, you know, you go and get a degree that is very specialized. I mean, there can't be that many people in the entire country or world that have a higher level education.
I mean, I'm sure there's others obviously, but it's not like, you know, it's not like a psychology degree from a liberal arts school. You know what I mean? It's certainly specialized to a certain extent.
And then you have, you know, so beyond that, you then have this really interesting mix of a flair for branding and, and entrepreneurialism. And where do you think that comes from? I grew up with a superior learning disability.
So I was always trained growing up because I wasn't even supposed to go to college. I had a 1.9 through my second year of college.
I ended up graduating top class for my master's. And so it was always kind of beating me as a kid that I had to work three times as hard than everybody else just to get on a level playing field.
So as I kind of grew up, I just kind of kept that mindset. And so that's where it's come from.
But it's just funny because I don't come from a family of entrepreneurs. I come from a family of engineers.
Dad's a physicist. My brother's a civil chemical

and environmental engineer. I dropped out of math classes because I wanted to be lazy in high school and didn't want to take calculus like everybody else.
And so I accidentally got into it. I used to be a certified storm spotter.
You know, most of the people who have my degree are usually emerging managers in local communities or people who are working for fema or something like that because i'm also working on my certification as a floodplain manager so that we can help communities even more um so what does that mean a floodplain manager well basically when you get that certification it basically means you know your stuff in and out when it comes to flood when it comes to mitigation when it comes to understanding maps uh this thing called base flood elevation it's all flood is based on well a lot of times when there's not one when you have that certification you actually have the authority to go in and calculate one and turn it into FEMA.

I feel like most people,

so you have obviously,

obviously this is your background in terms of you have a science,

a science oriented family background

and you have a master's degree

in a very technical and very specific area.

And you've transitioned that into your professional career. But so it makes sense, right? I mean, there's, though I'm sure it was not linear, if there is a linear mental path, looking back that you can take that that makes sense that you are where you are.
That all being said, it still would, I think, to many of the people listening feel scary as hell to focus all the way down on a product like flood. Like there can't be too many other insurance professionals who have focused solely on flood to the point that they would even consider dropping, you know, kind of home auto and other lines like that from their agency.
So, you know, what, how did you, what gave you the confidence or, or just maybe even you didn't have confidence when you started, but like what pushed you down this path beyond just, this is where your head was because people be like ah yeah i love flood but i want to keep this other side you know they want to keep the safety net over here and you have worked away from that and how do you think you got there well i'll tell you how i got there's actually you know j listen to jason cass you know he's always talking about you know going after the well you know, focusing on that great thing. And I've always had this saying that, hey, I would rather be great at two things than good at 30 things.
That it's just not fair to clients. It's not fair to everybody else that, hey, I can give you average service or I can, you know, help you, the average person, or I can help you like nobody else can over here.
So it's not fair to those individuals over here. And so finally, in 2018, 2019, I kept getting pulled and I had to make a decision.
I was like, look, where are we going in the future? But there's probably about 10 or 15 companies that do flood only, but a lot of them just focus strictly on sales. And we are all education-based.
With our 365 flood education videos in 365 days, our daily flood blog on our website now, our daily podcast now, it is all education based. And there really isn't anybody else in the country right now that's doing that on flood.
You know, they'll be kind of generic about it with their blogs and a webinar. But I mean, we've traveled the whole country.
Every time there's a flood map update, we address it. Like today, I'm putting something out on san diego so um you know i know that that that strategy for you that i guess i want to i want to go back a little further i want to go back a little further because like i see you we're talking you know if you're watching this on youtube if you're if you're at home watching this on youtube or wherever um you'll see you know ch Chris has got the flood insurance guru shirt on and he's got the hat on and he's all decked out and I love the branding and everything.
But, you know, I'd like to go back before you fully embrace the branding to like when you were, you started the agent, did you start your agent? Like give me your first step into the entrepreneurial path like when you weren't the flood guy, right? And you weren't creating all these videos and all this content. Like what did that version of you look like? Because I want to talk through, because I think what makes you, to me, just from the outside watching, what makes your story so interesting and special is how you've embraced content and branding and kind of really owned this space.
And I want to talk people through that transition because I think there's a lot of people out there who may see a thing that they would love to grab onto like you have. But they either don't have the confidence to do it.
Maybe they don't know how to do it or, or who can help them get through it. So I would just love to talk through that transition.
Yeah. So as I said, I started a PNC agency back in 2015.
I worked for captive agents for about seven years before that. Every single year when my contract came up with a captive agency that I reviewed it, you know, am I ready to go into dependent? Do I want to do this? And so finally in 2015, I did it.
But actually what pushed me out the door is we adopted our daughter in 2015. And I was like, you know, how am I going to raise my daughter to take chances in life and go out there and do it if I'm not willing to do it myself.
And so that's actually what pushed me out the door is basically I walked out and started an independent agency, basically with no cash, no income, two months after we adopted her. And I was the main provider of income.
And so, you know, for the first two years, I mean, it was just crazy trying to make money anywhere I could. I was on the ground, you know, pavement, door to door trying to get mortgage companies and realtors.
And I was just killed and I killed myself for three years. I was like, you know, I'm killing myself.
I can't keep this up. But at the same time, I don't feel that I have the passion.
I'm not on the home side that I do with the other stuff. And that's kind of how I made it flood.
But I've always been, look, you might be a better salesman than me, but I promise you, you'll never outwork me. Yeah, I what I, you know, I think, I think what's interesting, you know, so what I heard in there that I think is, is a good takeaway and just correct me where I'm wrong.
Like you, you, to get off the ground, you do what you had to do, but you know, cause I hate, and I think everyone, this is kind of cliche to hate this thing, but like follow your passion, right? Like, like to just simply follow your passion is, is really a recipe for failure. I think you have to follow, yes, flood and emergency services and things like that, like, like, this, this is a passion of yours.
But it's also something you have incredible expertise in. And it's something that you've worked at, and that you have proficiency in, right? Like, I'm sure that if someone walked

in with a question about, you know, something that had to do with their house or their business or their car versus something that, you know, some water damage that they had from, you know, from a flood, you know, one, you can snap right to and own. The other, you may know, but it's just not in your, so we tend to gravitate towards what we're good at.
And, and, and I like that you, you do what you had to do to get off the ground to follow your passion, right? Like if you didn't hawk home and autos at the beginning, you know, you probably couldn't have just built the business on flood. But then once you're able to, you know, you started to, to go to that next space.
And, and, and I love that. You know, what did you, did you always see flood as a, as a niche that you would eventually move to or was it, you know, that three years taught you that, that, that being a generalist to a certain extent just was not it.
No, I honestly had never had the idea of going flood only. I didn't even think that would be a physical pause.
You know, there's not enough. first of all, there's not enough demand out there.
And like when I first started, got into it, you

know, all flood the same, you know, there's no opportunity on the education side. There's no

opportunity on the consulting side, but as I got deeper and deeper into it since 2015 to now,

you know, spending an hour and a half studying the FEMA manual every day,

answering every single of these questions. Now I realized, you know, if I knew what I knew now,

I would have never started a PNC agency. I just would have gone straight into flood.
Because it would have been a whole lot easier. First of all, there's not as much competition.
There's not as much overhead. There's not as much servicing.
And when it comes to the insurance side, that's the one thing that drives most people either out of business or they just don't enjoy it anymore. Yeah.
Yeah, that is really the part, you know, what I find to be interesting about, in particular, the insurance industry, is how many products our peers sell that they don't even like. Like, they don't even, they're not interested in it.
It's not something that wakes them up in the morning. It's, they don't, like, you're talking about reading the FEMA manual for an hour and a half every day.
I mean, when's the last time that most of the insurance peers that we have listening to this podcast even looked at a policy form, you know what I mean? Even, even looked at, you know, besides being able to, besides the you know, whatever's necessary to get some CE credit, like, you know, no one's diving into this stuff. So, okay.
So you start to realize that you enjoy the flood, that that's where your passion is. And when do you start to think that this could be something more than just, you know, a nice secondary policy that you add into a package? Oh, when I started looking at revenue, as I said, like my brother Cass always says, you know, you can't make a business profit off premium.
You can only make a business profit off revenue. So when I looked at the opportunities there, you know, the commissions that pay, I said, without the service, but with our background and being able to negotiate some of these contracts that no one else out there can negotiate because of our background.
And I realized, you know, I can work half as hard as I was before and make twice as much money, but I can make a bigger impact with that money. Yeah.
So, so when someone comes to you with a, with a flood, you know, when someone, when someone approaches you, how are you, how are they finding you today? Were you building this niche at the beginning? Were you building it off of just the standard way that you would get opportunities and then you started to work more towards flood? When did people start seeing you as they were coming to you first with flood? Talk to me, talk me through the transition from to when you actually started having people reach out to you and say, you know, leading with flood. Like I have a flood insurance related question.
I want to talk to you versus you just being knowledgeable about flood in a home and auto package. I was really, you know, what happened is I'll tell you the way I look at things, everybody looks at referrals and all this.
I try to turn all of our customers into cheerleaders. That might be an insurance agent.
That might be a mortgage company. That might be a realtor.
So when we started doing that, it's when we started to see the change. Now, when we really started to see the change was when we started investing in those educational videos.
Because all of a sudden, these insurance agents are sharing it. They're odd because they're like, look, this guy's helping me with it.
He's helping me with a client. He's helping me keep a client.
I'm going to share his content all day long. And all of a sudden, people started coming to us for that.
But then I'd say back in February, March, I decided to put together this disaster assistance video series just to help the people in Oklahoma, Nebraska. We weren't getting anything off of it.
Sorry. But when they started sharing all of our video content and all that stuff, that's when we started to see the change.
And that's when we started saying, you know, if we keep investing in these videos, you know, not selling something strictly educational, though, people are going to keep sharing it. And, you know, those Walmarts that are spending millions of dollars a year to market, we don't have to spend that.
And that's kind of when it took off for us. And people started seeing, you know, hey, this guy really knows what he's talking about because of some of the subject matters that we were discussing.
Because we would go through the FEMA manual, but every single question we got from a lender, a realtor, insurance agent, we wrote it down and we would either do a video, a blog or podcast about it every week. Right now I'm doing 26 days, 26 videos, 26 blogs and 26 podcasts on FEMA cancellation rules.
Wow. That sounds, it sounds, that just sounds thrilling.
I love that. I mean, tactically though.
So, so where do you get that? Like, where do you, where did you pick up on this idea of doing these educational videos? Because to me, this is, I mean, Jesus, I've been banging my head off the wall for a decade now trying to get insurance agents to do this. And you're one of the few.
And one of the reasons I was so interested in interviewing you. I mean, you have really taken this to heart in what in a niche that no one would expect in a in a that, you know, in an industry that is often completely, completely blank from real, you know, education from from education in the words of the actual practitioners and not pass through a marketing profession who then had to pass it through a VP who then had to pass it through a lawyer who then had to circle it back to ultimate, you know what I mean? Like, like this is a tactician, um, with a, with a deep subject matter expertise who has his own voice, who's able to create and is doing it at scale.
I mean, you're literally proving a case that so, I mean, 99 point something percent of the insurance industry pretends like these tactics don't work or that they don't have time. And here you are building a business around it.
Like, where did you pick up on this? Like, why did this trigger in your head is something that you needed to do? I'll tell you, when it really changed for me is when I invested in Nicholas Ayer's major league video course. Let's see, I think it was last August of 2018.
And when I, you know, when I started learning from him, not about ads and all that stuff that people would think about, but about the psychology of video, I was using video for video quoting all the way back to probably 2016, 2017. I was probably one of the first to start using it, even before, you know, Neo Territ came out with their app that we had started using.
I've always been in the video, video quote, but it's when he taught me the psychology of it. And also mixing that with, you know, Donald Miller's story, Brad, walking people down that journey.
And if we can use video to do those two things if we can use video as a solution to a problem and that's where youtube is in the play i tell people so look i don't get a ton of business off of youtube but we use youtube as a knowledge-based article we've built now and people have these questions we can share these videos and we've already got something built for them normally before they ask the question and that's changed for us and that's how I got into it with his course and like I tell him I said he's almost criminally responsible for our business where it's at because of video. Yeah Nicholas Ayers the fanny pack wearing rollerblading video advertising guru of the insurance industry also former guest on the podcast so go back in the archives listen to my interview with nick and you mentioned because this is just tremendous uh neoteric agent whose founder grant botma has also been on the podcast when he was talking about his new book um so you go back and listen to those episodes in the archives my podcast listening friends um so dude i i think you know so first uh one of the things you've mentioned cas who hasn't been on the podcast but will i'm just saving his crazy ass from when i'm emotionally ready for that um two uh you know nicholas ayers three grandpa you know what i mean and and don miller who's not in the insurance industry but is like one of the most authorities in the world on um using story as a way to uh build audience, garner appreciation for your product, and actually serve value to the people who would be interested in your product, service, or expertise.
You are surrounding yourself. I mean, this is what I really enjoy about entrepreneurs like yourself is that, you know, and I like to talk about you as an entrepreneur and not an insurance professional, because one of the issues that I've always seen with our particular industry is we think of ourselves as insurance agents.
I'm an insurance agent. And you know what insurance agents do? They take orders and process changes.
That's what insurance agents do. Insurance agents sell, take an order, and then process changes.
That's what an insurance

agent does. They are no more than that.
But you know what an entrepreneur does? Takes, and they're a part insurance agent. They're part marketer, part brander, part communicator, part accountant.
And they piece all these things together, including and also being a technologist, being a futurist. And what I've

heard you say just in this, this brief interview is a full 360 view of a business. And yeah, you help with flood and you have these other pieces of your business that you do.
And these things that aren't just selling and you have the educational platform and you have these accreditations you're going to get and this expertise that you're building. And I'm sure at some point, if you haven't already, you'll be up on the witness stand as a, as a, um, as a,

um, as a, um, an expert witness. I know that's probably the next step.
I had a couple of storm chasers as clients, um, up here in Albany area and they got called to the stand all the time as expert witnesses. So I'm sure you'll be there soon.
And, uh, and, and that to me is a more productive, it's, it's how you maintain and grow a business that happens to do insurance moving into the future. And I just, I think, you know, your story, it's why I was so excited to have you on the show is just that this is the type of story that I think more people in the insurance industry need to hear.
I just want to tell people in the insurance industry if you want to be out of the insurance industry in the next three to ten years become an insurance agent if you want to survive for the next 20 or 30 years then you need to think of yourself as a marketing agency who just happens to have an insurance license and offers insurance and that needs to be your first mindset because people are like, oh, I'm an insurance agent. Well, that's great and all, but how do people get to your door? They got to your door because you were a marketer first.
Yeah. You know, I've, I've, I used to, part of my keynotes that I used to do to the insurance industry is I had this, this module that I talk about, you know, and basically people calling themselves

insurance agents is a huge pet peeve of mine. Call yourself a business person, call yourself

anything other than an insurance agent, because for, you know, for the reasons we just discussed,

right? Like a business person, a businessman, a businesswoman, whatever, they look deeper into,

they take on that next layer.

It's not just, Oh, I need to make 15 phone calls so that I can sell one policy so that I can hit

my quota for the day. And then I'm going to, I mean, that that's not, there's no future in that,

that, that is that day has come and gone. Like that life, how the, the, the agents that built

their business that way. So if you're 50, 55, 65, listening to this and you're going, that's

Thank you. Like that life, how the agents that built their business that way.
So if you're 50, 55, 65, listening to this and you're going, that's, but that's exactly how I built my business. That's great.
20, 30 years ago, you could build your business that way. You know, make 20 phone calls, set up two appointments, sign one of them, do it again.
You know, like that, that methodology that worked 20, 30, 40 years ago, it does not work today. The agents of today, you know, the flood insurance guru.com, like you, that this is the path of sustainability.
It's the only path of sustainability. And there are many iterations of this.
It doesn't have to look exactly like you do. It doesn't have to be as niched out as you are.
It doesn't have to be as tightly branded as you are, but it certainly has to be as strategic as you are or you're screwed. It does.
And what's funny is to hear the people that, you know, two years ago said, you know, you got your face. There's no way that you can build just an agency on flood outside the coast.
And now they're like, well, maybe you're onto something. Yeah.
You know, I was told, I was told a while ago that you couldn't build a high net worth agency online, that high net worth people didn't go online and look for accounts. And, you know, now we've seen, we've seen five or six agencies pop up.
I was told that, you know, big business, you know, good size business doesn't, doesn't go online and shop yet. We, you know, we've seen over and over and over again that this isn't, we get, we get a little, we got a little bomb there.
I like it. A little video.
Yeah. Hey man, this is real life.
I work out of my home too. The whole time my dog has been nose bumping me because I'm like, she wants me to scratch her while I'm talking because I finally sat still for the day.
You know, it's, this is really, this is really, this is, this is the future of, of our industry is, is thinking this way. So, you know, one thing I want to circle back on, and then we can, we can keep moving forward with, with your story, because there's more here that I want to dive into but like um you said that uh either after your first year your second year you had a 1.9 grade point average and you had uh you had a learning disability how I'm super interested in how you overcame that like like you know how did you how did you know what what I when you say that what I hear is you know the ship was was it wasn't going the way you wanted to wanted it to and you turned it around and how were you able to do that like what what did that look like for you was there a moment when you said I have to do things differently did someone step into your life like what what did that look like that you were able to turn that around for me it was when I met my wife because I was 19, 20 years old.
She was a couple years older than me, but she kind of forced me to grow up. And, you know, we dated for a couple years.
I was 64 hours short of graduating when we got engaged. And she's like, well, we're getting married at the end of next year.
You know, you've got to make sure to be out of school. And I was wanting to even change my major to emergency management at the time.
And I ended up completing 64 hours of college in one year. And so that I could graduate in time.
And my friends did not see me at all for a year. It was 21 hours, 21 hours, 21 hours.
But I got it done. And so when she stepped in my life is really when I grew up.
Yeah. And it just changed things for me.
But then when I told people, I said, you know, once I started getting into like the things i had a passion for in college it also changed for me you know growing up with severe learning disability i was also able to teach myself what my best learning style

was in college now it took me till i was 22 years old to figure that out yeah but once i figured

that out i could excel so beyond like i think a lot of people would have given up right like a lot

Thank you. so beyond like i think a lot of people would have given up right like a lot of people with learning disabilities a lot of people who struggle whether they have a diagnosed learning disability or not um i think a lot of people give up and they give in and they kind of take what's given to them instead of, um, standing firm, I guess, not to sound too, you know, foo fooey.
Um, but you didn't do that, right? Like you, you, you pushed through it. You, you, you know, do you think if you hadn't met your wife or do you think there was something inside you or like, it couldn't have, I mean, maybe I guess it could be your wife, it could it could be your wife but like how did you keep pushing to find that right style because so many people give up I had well I had two educators who stuck by my side one was my mom one was a high school teacher I had all the way through college you know it took me six tries to get past my first English course in college which is really funny because now we blog every day yeah that's what I tell people it's like look you know but it was really them pushing me and helping me and you know finally helping me figure it out and now you know not as much now but years past I used to work with a lot of kids at a high school level that dealt with learning disabilities as well and teach them hey you know a lot of them would get into detention school suspension, but it wasn't because they were bad kids.

It was because they didn't learn inside the box that the teacher told them to learn inside of.

Yeah.

And so because of that, they acted out.

And so that's why we used to work. I built a partners in education program when I first got into insurance back in 2009, when I worked for Liberty Mutual and MetLife and on my own.

And we grew up to about six states. We did stuff for staff appreciation, student achievement, parent involvement, community involvement, because education was my passion.
And we donated 20% of our revenue back to that every year. Through about 10 years, it was about a million dollars back to the schools through that.
And so that was where my passion was. And I didn't really find myself living that until I saw the need for the education on the flood side and that's when I ended up leaving I said you know I can serve a greater purpose here as much as I love these schools you know there's a greater purpose out there where people need our help and that's where we kind of started to make that transition a couple years ago now we still do some stuff with our schools kind of selective now just because of my time, but I still have that passion there.

Do you think that the learning disability and the work that you had to do to fight through it helps you see alternative options where many people just see what's presented to them?

Yes. I saw a sign on the door a couple of weeks ago and absolutely loved if all you see is a disability you'll never see the opportunity and it just kind of sticks it has always stuck in my mind ever since i've seen it and that's what i always try to think about every day is like you know hey you know maybe i was dealt a bad you know a bad situation but you know how am i going to respond to it am i going to dwell to it? Am I going to dwell on it? Or am I going to say, how can we take advantage of this? Yeah.
Well, you know, I, you know, I don't have a diagnosed learning disability that I can attribute to anything to. But I do think that one of the keys and the more people that I've interviewed, the more this has become clear to me is that one of the keys to long-term success is a willingness to look at things from angles, from just different angles than the average person or the standard viewpoint of something.
And while I don't think anyone would ever wish to have a learning disability, you know, placed in place as an obstacle in their life, you know, from from other interviews that I've had as well, people with dyslexia and things like that, oftentimes, overcoming those things gives them this, this trait that they learn over their lifetime of forcing them to look at different angles of problems that that I look at maybe and just say, okay, this is the way it is. And you would look at that same problem from a different angle and see it in a different way and possibly find a more efficient or just different outcome, right or wrong.
And I think that there's a lot to be learned there for people that I, and And I think it probably in some ways has impacted your willingness and ability to go down this path that you have when so many, like we said before, so many of our peers are willing to just put the shingle up standard thing. Hey, what's the what's the standard way of doing this? What's the standard email service? What's the standard AMS? What's the standard products I should use? What's the standard carriers I should use? Okay, I'm an agent and now I'm gonna complain about all the same things that everyone else complains about and just accept everything that's given to me because this is the way it is.
And that feels to me like the standard agency operation. And when I see someone like you or like like Cass, who has always done it different, or Ayers, who has always done it different, or Grant, who has always done it different, or any of the other men and women that kind of run in some of the circles that you and I run in, they attack this problem of serving insurance and from angles that I think the standard guard or the best practices community laughed at five years ago.
And today, now this whole group of people, you know, everybody wants them to speak at their conferences. Everyone wants to know what their secret sauce is.
And to me, there is a huge lesson to be learned from these people. And I think it is no surprise to me that when you reference the individuals who have had an impact on some of the decisions you've made, that it's this group.
And I'm positive that the things you're doing are, if not already, are going to have an impact on many others in this industry as well as your story starts to permeate out because it's just too intriguing. It's just too intriguing.
It's too, there's too much there. There's too much meaty, meaningful decisions and work that you've made.
It's not like you just fell into this. Like you, you made some very meaningful decisions, which is kind of where I want to go.
I want to, I want to learn a little bit more. You mentioned this flood professor program, and then you're also doing, and if I butchered this, just, just correct me, but it's almost like you're doing some flood, and I don't know all the terminology, so again, excuse me, but like some floodplain or flood-related consulting almost.
Talk to me about that because that's not selling insurance products. Those are different things.
So talk to me about how you saw the need for them and what they are and that kind of stuff. Cass, I mentioned this on this episode a couple weeks ago about how we're going around changing flood maps.
What most people don't realize when a flood map's done you might have three structures in a high-risk flood that shouldn't be there because FEMA bases it on a parcel and so we teach people that. We teach people hey here's how you can get here's the process to follow and here's how long it would take.
Here's how it would impact your property values. So now we go across the country and when a customer comes to us, it's the first thing we look at.
Hey, I get a flood quote because I'm in a high-risk flood zone. Well, you cannot be in a high-risk flood zone.
Let's show you if you are or not. And if you're not, let's show you the other options.
If you are, let's show you how maybe we can help you lower risk lower the premium because it's a mitigation effort you know if you're building a house like a builder for example we work with a lot of builders they said hey i'm in the special flood hazard area what do i do we teach them how to build the house where we build it out of it i've got texas right now the insurance agents into us customers get very bright ground on it and they were going to ground on a slab so we showed

them how to break ground on an above grade crawl space instead it's going to help minimize their exposure over the years and we don't charge really all that we don't charge for like we're helping an insurance agent now when we do a flood zone changes and things like that we do charge a consulting fee for that but we only charge it if we win if we lose we refund all that money back to customer.

Right now, I've got 12 hotels for Hampton Inn that I'm removing in Cincinnati that he was paying $50,000 a year for. And we show them that, hey, let's get the floods unchanged on these things.
And the flood insurance costs you about 500 bucks of property instead of $50,000. And so we're doing that right now for them.
Wow. That is just, it's crazy.
It's a whole different level than people just getting a flood insurance course i don't realize and i tell people look it's all about the customer experience yeah you know that we're taking them down and i said if you're an agency whatever that's what you have to create you have to create such a unique customer experience that when people they just kind of step back hey that was refreshing you know it's finally needed to know that someone is listening to me. To know, you know, someone's pointing me in the right direction, then, hey, I can just get you a quote and save me 20%.
Well, you know, I know you can save me 20%, but I need you to help me get me from point A to point B. I don't just need you to throw me to point B, but actually show me how you got me there.
Yeah. You know, Cass was talking to me the other day about this workers comp mod thing he does.
Now I hear, you know, which is, which is bananas. And then, you know, I hear you talking about work and flood maps.
And I think, you know, I, again, I come back to this idea of how the, the, the individuals who are changing the way insurance is done, who are leading this charge into what being an insurance professional is going to look like three years, five years, ten years from now.

It is so much more as a consultant than, and I hate the term trusted advisor, so'm not I'm I'm gonna use it only to say how much I hate it but um because I just don't believe that if you if you want to be trusted you should have the word trusted in your name uh which is maybe a little odd considering I used to work for a company that had that word in its name but I never really cared for that either but that being said you know it's just like CSR

I don't

you odd considering I used to work for a company that had that word in its name, but I never really cared for that either. But that being said, you know, it's just like CSR.
I don't use the word TSR. We use flood education specialist.
Yeah. And this matters.
This stuff matters, you know, cause, cause, okay. So you say that, right.
And if I was in a crowd, if I was at a big guy event doing a breakout and there's 200 people in that room, half that room would go, you know what, Chris, who cares? You know, it's just a name, you know, who cares? It's not a big deal. But so I believe that it matters as much as the actual, it matters, it matters immensely.
It matters as much as the work they do. It sets an expectation for the level of professionalism they're going to receive, right? I mean, am I wrong about that? I mean, that thinking about how you name people, you know, when I was with, when I was with metabolic for my, my brief, my brief stay outside of the, we renamed our, we renamed our service.
They were service agents or something there was two women and they were very good um and we renamed our service, they were service agents or something, there was two women, and they were very good. And we renamed them to member success managers, right? Not my best or most creative work, but just that simple change from, you know, client agents or whatever, customer agents or whatever they were, to membership success managers, basically Basically what we were saying was we want your membership to be a success.
And you know, obviously all the words are in there, right? And we want to, we want someone who's going to help you manage the success of your membership and what that means and all that kind of stuff. And it makes an impact.
People approach these individuals differently because they, they don't feel like they're dealing. As soon as you have anything that feels call center-y, they immediately think they're talking to someone offshore who could give two flying craps about them.
But when you give them a name that's a little meatier or a little meaningful or establishes an expectation, right? I think the clients approach that person with maybe a little more respect or certainly with a little more interest in what they have to say. Have you found that to be the case? I have, but actually I've also found the opposite about the people overseas because we've used a lot of people overseas.
And I said, look, people just want someone who's going to listen. And a lot of times it doesn't matter who they are or where they're at.
They just want someone who's going to listen to them. And if you can kind of build your team and teach them that, it doesn't matter where they're at.

If they're creating a great customer experience for them through that,

then you could have someone.

You can have someone next door.

Like I said,

but it doesn't matter where they're at.

It's all about,

you know,

how that customer feels through the process.

Yes.

Okay.

So let me reframe that.

I,

I think I don't care where they are in terms of if anyone's listening to this, who's considering VAs, go talk to Wesley Anderson. Like, you know what I mean? I am a huge proponent of VAs and I actually don't think customers care.
I'm talking like, just like when you say you're an insurance agent, the very first picture that hits someone's mind is a ratty suit that doesn't fit in a briefcase knocking on their front door. When you think of a call center person, you have this meme of what a call center person is not the actual person, but this meme of who they are that hits their brain.
And, you know, I think I think that people are perfectly willing to talk to someone overseas. I just think you have to present that individual in the proper light, right? You just don't want the person to engage them with the meme, with the, with the, you know, the, the, the worst case scenario of what that call center could person, that person could be.
Does that, does that make sense? I guess that's what I'm the stereotype. That's why we use a, that's why even with our VAs through cover desk, we use a video.
So if they're just sending something over to a customer, it's all through video because then that customer, whether it it's me or whether it's them, they have the instant connection. All right.
I know I'm not dealing with a call. I'm dealing with this individual.
They've sent me a video. They explained to me what they did.
And they told me and they did what they said they were going to do. And so that's the reason, you know, video has been so important for us too.
It's like I tell people, whether someone's two miles away or 2000 miles away, we can build that instant connection through video. I couldn't agree more.
The other day, it was a flood quote, but they said, hey, can you send an email or a call or something about this flood analysis? I said, I'll tell you what, I'll just put a video together and I'll explain to you what these flood zones mean, what it means for this property, what your options are based on your loan type. And so I did all that without even doing a quote for her the other day.
And all three parties saw it, but it addressed every single one of their questions immediately. So it took a two week, maybe sales process down to two hours.
And they sent us an email today to finish everything up because they're buying the house now. Yeah.
So you've been using the personalized video for a while. Yeah.
Since probably 2016. Yeah.
And are you using Neoteric Agent? I'm not anymore of Neoteric Agent, but the only reason I'm not is because I've kind of invested in HubSpot. I got frustrated with AMSs.
And so I started to build HubSpot basically out as my own AMS without downloads. And I use Vidyard inside there.
And so inside there, I get a notification each time a video is viewed so I can create the automation off of that and different things like that. And so that's the reason I'm not using Neoteric though is because I just have some other tools that are native interactions with HubSpot that have just been a little bit better for me, that's all.
But I was actually original, I was a beta tester for Neoteric. yeah i mean hubspot vidyard are are more of the cadillac tools for sure yeah but man they um they work they work really well um they better yeah exactly um so what does the future look like for you man like we've talked through this this journey and and uh and, and, uh, and, and I think, you know, I want to get, I wanted, I wanted to bring you on the show.
You, you, you, you, you had reached out and we talked and I've been following your journey for a while and, uh, I'm glad we're getting to know each other a little better. I'm glad I'm getting to share your story with, with, with this audience and just expand what you're doing.
Cause because I do believe that, you know, I do believe some version of what you're doing is the future of insurance, of this more consultative, of this, you know, you say, you know, be a marketing business first that just happens to sell insurance. I think this is the future.
This is the way that you can stay independent. Otherwise, the only other option for you is going to be a slow burn into nothing or get gobbled up by a large conglomerate or have to pass, give away either equity or revenue or profit sharing in some way in exchange for volume.
I mean, these are the only paths that are left. I mean, just look at the, you know, we're approaching, if we haven't passed at 700 transactions in 2019.
I mean, this is the only way I think to really stay relevant and independent is to take this more consultative approach. So that all being said, what is the future look like for you? Like, what are the next steps? How do you continue to build this out? You obviously have this ridiculously amazing content campaign coming up over the next, you know, this 26 days thing.
Like, but even further out, like, like, how do you keep moving this forward? Well, I call it the trifecta. We're going to have the flood insurance side.
We're going to have the flood education side. We're going to have the flood consulting side.

We're going to keep growing up.

Like I said, look, my goal is not to have a $10 million agency.

My goal is maybe only have a $1, $2 million agency.

But on the consulting side or the education side, we are able to help you through that journey.

Then maybe we get your risk down.

We get your premiums down.

And that's why we'll have a $10 million agency.

We're able to walk you through that journey. But also in 2020, I'm starting not really, I mean, I guess you call it a digital marketing agency.
And I'm basically going to be teaching small business owners completely outside of insurance. Hey, here's how you compete with companies like Walmart.
You know, let us show you what we did in our journey with content. You know, here's how to build a million dollar brand with a hundred dollar budget.
Yeah. Is what I call it a lot of times.
And I said, you don't know, here's how to address those local questions, those local issues, local content, and here's how you can compete with them. And so in 2020 I'll be working with a lot of small business owners, helping them understand their business process, you know, when to use automation, when not, but how valuable that content is.
Because like I tell people, so look, you put this content out and you get disappointed because somebody didn't read it. Remember it's there for when they need it.
They

may not read it for six months, but when they do, it's there. And all of a sudden you've got leads coming in from that.
So that's why you just got to keep committing to it every day. Yeah.
And that's how we are. You know, I'm trying, you know, I kind of have this goal of a thousand videos in a thousand days.
It's ridiculous. I think today is a 345.
You're putting my a hundred videos in a hundred

days to shame. And I both love you.
I love you and hate you for it. Uh, no, I think it's amazing, dude.
I'm so glad like you are one of the very few people who embraced the, um, kind of just putting content out consistently. I'm so glad that it works for you.
I wish there were more case studies. I wish that I could not be paid to go talk about the things that I want to talk about, that I talk about, because everyone was already doing it.
I wish that was the case. It's not that keeps my family fed, or I'd have to come up with something new to talk about.
But dude, I'm so happy for you.

I'm glad we finally had a chance to connect.

Where can people- My Crowley is another one that has done it really well.

Oh yeah, well Crowley, yeah, no, I love Crowley.

Where can people get ahold of you?

Like if they just wanna connect with you,

see what you're doing,

like where are the best places for them

to get to know you better?

You can connect with me on LinkedIn. You can connect with us on our business Facebook, Flood Insurance Guru, our YouTube channel, Twitter, at CF Insurance.
I think that's what I have it on there now. You can just go to our website, FloodInsuranceGuru.com, and just send me a quick email.
If you want to have a conversation about video, about how you can use video. I just interview with digital broker this week about that like you know like you know what do you think the biggest struggle is why people don't do it and i said they don't pick the camera up and start recording yeah well man i wish you nothing but the best i'm sure that uh it's going to be fun to watch what you're doing i can't wait wait to see you get to a thousand videos.
That'll just be ridiculous.

But I'm sure there's nothing but, but, um,

wife doesn't divorce me before then.

Yeah.

You keep cranking.

I'm sure that won't happen, but, uh, um, no, man, I, I,

I just can't wait to see where you go.

I thank you for your time.

This has been tremendous and, uh, I appreciate you.

And thanks for everyone listening at home. Thank you.
Hey, guys. Sorry to interrupt the fresh hypno beats.
But I just wanted to remind you, if you're interested in learning more about the new project that I have coming out, it's basically done for you in your words marketing. It's a new product, new project.
Go to dailymaterial.com. That's dailymaterial.com.
Enter your name and email and you'll learn all about it. I am incredibly excited about this.
It is the very first Ryan Hanley original product to ever be released, I guess outside of content warfare, my book, but we won't count out right now because it's more exciting to say it's the first. And if you want to be the first to know

about it, enter your name and email at dailymaterial.com. Thanks again, guys.
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