Finding Peak w/ Ryan Hanley - Are You Really Independent? Seven Pillars to Self-Determination in the Insurance Industry

Episode Date: February 26, 2024

Spartan philosophy, built in the black-ops lab of business: https://www.findingpeak.comFinding Peak podcast: https://linktr.ee/ryan_hanleyAs we steer through the evolving insurance landscape, I often reflect on the importance of independence for agencies.✅ Free step-by-step video series for generating inbound revenue for your insurance business from YouTube: https://go.ryanhanley.com/youtube✅ For daily insights and ideas on peak performance: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanhanley✅ Subscribe to the audio podcast here: https://ryanhanley.com/podcast** More about this episode **Independence is a topic that stirs both my strategic mind and my entrepreneurial spirit, and this episode is all about sharing those insights to light up your path to agency growth.From strategic sales tactics that underscore insurance as an entrepreneurial safety net, to crafting a communication style that resonates with clients, I peel back the layers of my experience to help you build a stronger, more resilient agency.Navigating the seven pillars essential for agency autonomy, this conversation ventures beyond the typical partnership mentality with carriers. Consider carriers as suppliers, a subtle but powerful shift in perspective that can clear the fog from your business decisions.The pillars—relationships, staff, geographic spread, regulatory compliance, product diversity, tech savviness, and networking prowess—form the backbone of our strategy talks. Regarding sustainable growth, striking that perfect chord between rewarding your team and safeguarding the agency's future is an art I delve into with genuine passion.In our final act, we embrace the transformative power of technology and networking. I'll walk you through how to pick the tools that won't hold your agency captive, alongside recounting the enduring value I've reaped from associations and masterminds. Wrapping things up, I extend an open invitation to connect and explore the Insurance Growth Masterclass—my life's work designed to elevate your agency to new heights.If you're as invested in this industry's success as I am, this episode is your beacon, illuminating the path to triumph in the dynamic world of insurance.--Recommended Tools for GrowthOpusClip: #1 AI video clipping and editing tool: https://link.ryanhanley.com/opusRiverside: HD Podcast & Video Software | Free Recording & Editing: https://link.ryanhanley.com/riversideWhisperFlow: Never waste time typing on your keyboard again: https://link.ryanhanley.com/whisperflowCaptionsApp: One app for all your social media video creation: https://link.ryanhanley.com/captionsappGoHighLevel: It's time to take your business workflow to the Next Level: https://link.ryanhanley.com/gohighlevelPerspective.co: The #1 funnel builder for lead generation: https://link.ryanhanley.com/perspective--Episodes You Might Enjoy:From $2 Million Loss to World-Class Entrepreneur: https://lnk.to/delkFrom One Man Shop to $200M in Revenue: https://lnk.to/tommymelloIs Psilocybin the Gateway to Self-Mastery? https://lnk.to/80upZ9This show is part of the Unplugged Studios Network — the infrastructure layer for serious creators. 👉 Learn more at https://unpluggedstudios.fm.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Happy holidays. Want to give your host a gift? Consider subscribing, rating, and reviewing the show this holiday season. It really helps the show grow. From all of us at Believe, have a Merry Christmas, everyone, and a happy holiday. Our current technology set in the independent insurance industry does not allow us to provide, I think, the level of service that our customers would expect in any other space in a streamlined manner. That being said, you can hack it. You can, you know, there's manual process entry.

You can, you know, there's all kinds of things you can do, but they're all hacks. So you're not going to find, you know, that's what I mean. I guess what I'm getting to is it doesn't mean we can't provide it. And we should be efforting to provide it, in my opinion. Uh, you know, we're a service business. But all the solutions are hacks. In a crude laboratory in the basement of his home. What's up guys? And welcome back to the show. Today we have another solo episode for you, a deep dive into the idea of independence in the insurance industry and really something that I have talked about more and more. I've been kind of dipping my toes into these ideas as I test them as I think through them. I've never really dedicated an entire piece of content to this idea that we're going to discuss today.

I've been kind of teasing things out and mentioning things in interviews, not necessarily in any kind of calculated way other than just, you know, I like to think things. through things and the only way that I can do that in a productive manner is to talking. So, you know, while some people are able to sit in silence and marinate on ideas, how I work and I'd be interested if you work this way as well, let me know in the comments below this, below the video, or if you're listening to the audio, you can always hit me up on social or just come over to the YouTube video and leave a comment. I'd love to know, like, are you one of those people who you have to talk to think through ideas or are you someone who can kind of sit in their own thoughts, maybe journal and get things

out? For me, journaling does work. Journaling helps, but it's more of like a brain dump. If I really want to think through a concept, if I kind of have to hear the words. I have to hear the words come out of my mouth. I have to, you know, like almost, it's almost like when I speak them, I listen to what they sound like and I'm like, I don't like, that's not how I want to frame that idea or that's not actually what I believe, even though it's what I said. So this, what we're going to talk about today is the first of what will hopefully be many discussions around this topic. And, you know, I want everyone to take what I'm about to talk about, not as an indictment of any particular aspect of our business or how we operate. These are ideas. These are things I want

you to think about, right? This is how my brain works and how I approached both, you know, different aspects of when I'm as executive in different companies. Also, just in all the very business dealings that I have as well as when I was running my previous agency. You know, these are, this is how I think about things. I really think, uh, in, in two layers, right? I try at all times to build sustainability into my business. That's what we're going to be talking about today. Sustainability.

How do you weather the storms, right? Uh, you know, I had this quote that I shared, uh, I think on Instagram. And if you want to follow me there, I'm Ryan underscore Hanley. I talk much more about the leadership, psychology, philosophy, philosophy, philosophy, kind of emotional side of growth on Instagram where LinkedIn is really where I share business ideas. And I try not to cross-pollinate the two so much. So if you're interested in that side, go over to Instagram, Ryan underscore Hanley. I'll have it linked up below. If you're interested in the business stuff, go to LinkedIn. Just search Ryan Hanley. You'll find me there.

Happy to connect. Happy to answer any questions that you have. So when I was selling insurance, if I was talking to someone who maybe I could tell, didn't necessarily understand the value of insurance, and I thought that it was appropriate. This is not scripted. This is not something scripted that I would say to every prospect that I would talk to. Situationally dependent. But it was a tool in my tool belt that I would bring out when I thought it was necessary. And essentially what I would say to them, this would be a lot of times for startup businesses.

If I was working with particularly an entrepreneur who thought that they were smarter than me or knew more about insurance than me or knew more about the value of insurance than me. And anyone who's written insurance ever is probably not in the head going. You have talked to one of those people before. This is kind of how I would frame our product is I would say, look, you're starting this business or you're new in this business, et cetera. You're growing. You're in growth mode.

That's amazing. That's where you should be. What I do is I help you build the foundation upon which you can grow. Usually that concept of insurance is the foundation upon which your business can grow. That usually stops people in their tracks. Because they haven't heard it framed that way before. So I frame what we do is that. And maybe they'd either pause and give me space to expand or they would ask a question.

And when I would expand, I would essentially say, Look, if you want to add a second location, you need insurance to do that. You want to hire more employees. You need to have a solid insurance program to do that. You need to buy your first commercial vehicle. You decide to add professional services and need E&O, etc. Insurance provides the foundation, the foundation of support, the sustainability. You have that terrible day.

That worst day of your business life happens. Insurance is there to make sure that, you still have a business, right? You can extend, you can reach, you can take chances, you can take those entrepreneurial growth focus. What's up, guys? Sorry to take you away from the episode, but as you know, we do not run ads on this show.

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as much as I do creating the show for you. All right, I'm out of here. Let's get back to the episode. Just business risks because you have a solid insurance foundation behind you. Okay. So that's how I would frame. Again, that was a scripted tool, not something I said to every prospect. I don't want you to think that, but in the moments where it felt appropriate or I felt like I was getting pushback or some, you know, I would pull that out occasionally. And it seemingly worked really well. I think it's good to have little scripted tools that we keep in our tool belt and can pull out needed and a lot of that just comes to practice and you know training which is what we do at finding peak so if you're interested in more things of that nature go to masterclass.

insure or depending on when you watch this video go to findingpeak.com both of those links will take you to the same place learn about the insurance growth masterclass where you know you can join a community people that are all about growth that's that's what we're doing growing insurance businesses so how does this pertain to an independent insurance agency and and they're independent. So the beauty and the most amazing part of our industry, particularly the independent side of our industry, is that each agency is its own snowflake.

It's a choose your own adventure for the ownership group or the owner depending, you know, if it's an individual or a group, right? Like you get to build whatever you want, which is amazing. And it tends to be very, very, I'm gonna use the word ego-driven, but not necessarily in a bad way, just like people who believe in themselves, people who believe in their mission,

believe in what they want to do, believe in their own ability to make things happen and manifest. It's an individualistic ideal. It's an American ideal. It's, you know, independent insurance agencies are as American a business as it gets. And because of that, I think we automatically assume that we have autonomy. And I think as a byproduct, though, I'm not going to assume that people would verbalize it this way. a level of sustainability or foundational support below us. And I don't believe that's true unless we intentionally make it true.

And that's what I want to spend the rest of this video talking about with you. So I have seven pillars for self-determination. And what I mean by that is I want to help independent agencies. And this is this idea. I want you to think through some of these actions. if you just watch this video and join the masterclass, you're going to have to work out on your own. However, we can't grow if we don't have a rock solid foundation upon which to grow, right? That's the whole pitch that I made for the insurance thing.

The exact same thing is true in our agencies is that if we are not taking the necessary steps, building the necessary cultural ideas, and ultimately doing true risk management around our autonomy and independence, then we don't actually have the ability for. self-determination. We can't actually choose the path and the extent that we grow. We are always going to be handcuffed. We're always going to be throttled. We're always going to be saddled with other organizations or entities' priorities if we don't address these seven pillars. Okay. So what are the seven pillars? Carrier relationships, our staff, our geography, regulation, products, technology, and our network. There may be other pillars. These are the seven that I think are the most crucial

and that I want to address. I'm going to address them in a relatively succinct manner or as succinct as I can possibly be, being that you're watching this show, I'm assuming you least have some idea that I like to talk. And then these will ultimately be expanded upon inside our masterclass, but I want to make you aware of them here on the show because I think this is a crucial idea that I don't hear a lot of people talking about. So, okay, first, let's get to our first pillar, and that is carriers. I believe that today, and this is no one's fault, I don't even think it's a bad thing, I think we need to realign our cultural perspective, the independent agency carrier relationship. What I mean by that is we often refer to each other as partners.

I don't believe that we're partners, or I don't believe that that framing is healthy anymore. That does not mean I do not think that we shouldn't have a good relationship with our carriers. It doesn't mean that I don't think carriers should support and help agencies as much as they should. I think that that relationship is one of the most vital, if not the most vital relationship that we have in our entire business as independent agency owners. However, carriers are not our partners. They are our suppliers. We have a contract with them to distribute their product. How we get in trouble with this when we think about carriers as part,

partners is we assume that what they say today is going to always be true, and that is simply not the case. It is not their fault that it is not the case. Storms happen. Appetites change. New leadership comes in. New market dynamics. All kinds of different things happen that change how a carrier supports you, what they're able to pay you, what their appetite is, what products are available to you, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, none of those things, I don't believe carriers act nefariously towards independent agents. I just believe they have their own set of priorities to run their business. And that we as independent agents need to detach ourselves from the emotional connection to carriers and think of them as suppliers.

Feed them the business that they want to write that's profitable to them. That's profitable to us. That helps us have a good standing revenue generating relationship. Nothing more than that. Because when we get emotionally attached to carriers, we start to become upset if certain things don't happen. people leave and we feel disconnected from them, you may have a really great relationship with an executive or an underwriter

or a team inside a carrier, and that's amazing. But those people are real people who can ultimately leave, go to other businesses, other carriers, they can retire, all kinds of things can happen. Your contract is with the carrier, not with those specific people inside the business. So we need to remove our partner mentality

and replace it with, this is an important supplier to us. I have a good buddy who runs a retail furniture store. He has incredibly important relationships that are vital to the success of his business with suppliers. And sometimes over time, he has to change suppliers because that supplier is no longer a good fit for him. To build sustainability and ultimately self-determination, we have to extract our emotional connection to carriers. And I think carriers should do the same with agencies. And we should hold each other accountable to the contract that we signed.

and we should make good on that contract. And in that way, if a carrier needs to reposition their agency plant, their distribution arm for some reason, that's what they have to do. And if an agency needs to throttle down how much new business they're writing and throttle up with someone else, that's what they have to do. Because the agency is responsible to their own profitability and the carrier is responsible to their profitability and we need to remove this like, you owe me something idea. That's it.

carriers don't owe agencies anything. Agencies don't owe carriers anything outside of the contract that we signed with each other. We can be great. We can have a great relationship and make tons of money together without that emotional connection that I think sometimes drives bad decisions. It drives agencies to get box into corners, specifically when carriers that they overindex on drop commissions all the sudden. Now you're taking a real hit.

So your partner just decided randomly to pay you less. I think if we want to build sustainability into our business, the sustainability that's going to allow us to grow despite market conditions, despite what's going on, right, that's going to allow us to be kind of that Bruce Lee style agency, like water, adapting to whatever scenarios are putting in front of us and being successful regardless, I think we have to remove the partner moniker from our carrier agency relationships

and think of them as what they really are. Suppliers certainly think of agencies as their distribution. distribution arm, and we have a tremendous wonderful profitable relationship in that context. Okay. That is my idea concept there. Something to think through. I think we just have to be very careful with over-indexing on any one care. I know there's more money to be made in profitability.

I get it. All you traditionalists that are going to bang on me for you don't understand. If you just put max amount of business with a carrier, I'm not discounting that there's potentially more money to be made by piling tons of business into one carrier. I'm the guy that did the viral video on LinkedIn that said maybe we should all I'll just be Hartford captives, right? Like, I understand that concept. I'm just saying that when we look out over the long term,

with sustainability in mind, I think that over-indexing on any one particular carrier or carrier set or set of carriers that all writes the same thing can ultimately create hazards or potential blind spots in our business. There we go. Okay. I don't want to beat it up more than it needs to be. That's a big one.

I want to spend some time there. I would love your thoughts on this, especially you're watching on YouTube, listening, come over to the YouTube video, leave your comments. I'm sure you guys have comments. I guarantee you guys have comments. Would love to hear what they are. These are important topics, interesting topics, and let me know.

Okay, let's get on number two. I'm going to make some of these. I'm going to go through some of these kind of quick. Your staff, incentives drive action, constantly be looking at your incentives, how you're incentivizing them, and make sure that why I always believe in giving your,

your team members, your staff members, upside and action and the ability to make their financial goals come true, we never want to over-index on a team member so much that their decision to leave or, you know, I hate to be more, but they could pass away. There's a million things that could happen. They could have a life situation which forces them to move to another state or whatever. We just never want to over-index on any staff members. We want to compensate their fairly, we want to treat them well, build a great culture, incentivize the actions that are important to you, but always through the lens of if Tommy were to leave or Tammy were to leave, how would that impact our business? We would hate to see Tammy go. She's amazing. She's a great

employee. We love her. But if her son decides to move to another state and she wants to be close to him and his wife and her grandkids and she goes and does that, well, are we set up to maybe we can, she can go and she can work remote. That would be a great way to make sure your staff is, you know, you can sustain with your staff. Or if she were to leave, are we constantly knowledge transferring and never allowing one person to be such a subject matter expert that their rapid departure would negatively impact our business, right? Something to always have our mind around. This is another pillar of self-determination, making sure that the agency survives, the agency has sustainability so that everyone can grow. Okay.

because you're not just, and I know people get a little emotional again. I think a lot of these things have to do emotion. They get a little emotional around, you know, well, this person's been with me 20 years and I want to be, I want to be loyal to them. I am not talking about being disloyal or treating anyone poorly. But if you over index on one employee so much that there are a departure, negative impacts to business, you're not actually being loyal to the other members of the business who stick around because there's less money to go. around and less security in the agency. So just something to consider. Okay, geography, I do think that we should try as much as we can to expand our geography, considering the

digital environment that we work in. This, and I think particularly, again, very specific on what you're doing, how you operate, et cetera, I think being in two or three states is a good idea. The reason I think being in two or three states is a good idea is because carriers base their appetite by state. And if you can be in multiple geographies, again, as you expand, things become more complex, things get more expensive. I get that.

Again, we're talking about best case scenarios, best practices for sustainability in your agency. I'm not necessarily saying this is the easiest path, okay? And these are all just levers, right? We have to make business decisions across the board. And some of these things you could say, hey, I think that's a great idea. But I can't get to expanding our geography.

for 12 months, 24 months ago. That's all great. I just, I want to put these things in front of you so you can think about them, right? I think being in multiple geographies is important because carriers based their appetites on geography, right, state by state for the most part. And like, I'll give you a good example of this. You know, when I was at my previous agency, my Hartford rep came in and was like, hey, I know you guys read a lot of contractors.

We crush landscapers, but you're not writing a lot of landscapers with us. And the issue was when I first took on that appointment, we were just in the Northeast and primarily still writing mostly in New York at that point. We hadn't gone national. So my understanding of their appetite was just that they didn't write landscapers in New York, which they didn't because New York for contractors is terrible. Any New York agent knows that or any agent that is trying to write a contractor in New York knows how terrible contractors in New York are.

But they had an awesome appetite in program in some other states. And it was like, oh, so I have this great market for this particular class of business, but because of the state I'm in, I'm not getting access to it, which is limiting my growth, et cetera. And maybe that's not the best example, but I think that I think having multiple geographies, if possible, again, if possible. And I know a lot of agencies in New York that will write New York and they'll write like North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida.

They'll have clients, be they business clients or personal clients, et cetera, that may be be expand operations or move, have a secondary home in those states. And then they start to build up through a referral base in those states as well. And now what you have is, okay, if something ever happened in my home state or, and number four, as I said, was regulation, a regulation changes. Now I have these other states to lean on. And this is one of the reasons why at broke risk. I didn't know we were in a hard market until like August of 2023.

I didn't know. And I'm not saying that to be a jerk. I mean, I'd seen some of the articles and whatever, but it just didn't sink into my brain because being national, being very broad in the industry classes that we wrote, we just didn't feel it, right? We were able to move and maneuver

and write new business where new business was being written, not dependent on a particular geography. So while I get it, especially if you've been around forever, it can seem scary, daunting, there's extra costs, there's, you know, the potential for E&O exposure, if you're not doing things right in that state. But I do think that if you can and if it's important to you, geographic expansion and even a small scale

can help create sustainability for your business in case something changes. Okay. Number four, I just mentioned it regulation. Guys, I do think leaning on the political departments of your state associations, the lobbying, the lobbying arms of your state associations is very important. You know, get rid of the ideas of like,

Big Eye, PIA, which one's better than the others. Choose one or choose both, right? Why not? I think that I understand why both exist. I'm not saying, you know, I've worked for the big eye. I've done speaking engagements for the PIA. They're all good people. They're all trying to do the best they can.

Pick an organization who has some form of political influence, some sort of lobbying arm, some sort of insight into what's going on from a regulatory environment and make sure you're staying on that. That is not one of the places that I think we can stick our hand in the sand. I completely get like getting deluged with new sales concepts or whatever. A lot of the stuff that I talk about, I can understand if you're like, you know what, Ryan, you might be the most brilliant marketing professional in the history of the insurance industry, but it's just too much for me.

I'm not going to focus on it. Okay, that was, I'm joking, by the way. That was facetious. Hopefully you got that. Although it's probably true. But so I'm not interested. I'm on subscribe. Okay.

I can understand that. It is easy to get deluged with certain aspects of our. business. One place that I do not think we can stick our head in the sand is the regulatory environment and understanding what's coming, understanding how those changes can potentially impact coverages, impact carriers, impact the appetites of carriers, impact our ability to finance business, wholesale relationships, et cetera. I think we need to stay on top of the regulatory environment. And the best way to do that is through the political arm, the lobbying arm of your state association or however they decide to distribute that information.

There are some other good newsletters that can get you that information. You know, one, I'm going to forget the name of it now, so I'm not even going to say it. But there are some other kind of general newsletters, etc. That you can stay on top of this stuff. But at the end of the day, it's going to be state specific. And joining the associations associated with your state, important. stay on top of the regulation, it's going to help you with sustainability, right? It helps you get out in front of things. And if you're smart, if you can get out ahead of these things, know what's

coming, you can position yourself as a subject matter expert on these ideas through content and through outbound or newsletters to your clients, et cetera, to help get out ahead of it and either retain business and or use it as something to prospect. Cool. Okay. Number five, products. While, you know, I don't think anyone advocates to only write. one product. There are some very specialized insurance agencies out there, and I completely understand why they do that. I think we should have an expansive portfolio of products, depending on where you fit in the market. If you're a middle market agency, middle market producer, you know, you may have a little more specialization, but if you're small business, personal lines,

write everything, right? If you're like uncomfortable with the D&O policy, call the underwriter. They will help you better understand it. Go get your CIC, read your manuals, take a CE course seriously, instead of just clicking through it while you're flipping through your Instagram Reels. Like having a wide variety of products not only helps from a rounding out perspective, account running perspective and retention perspective, but it gives you the ability to say like with cyber, right? if you over indexed on cyber in 2020 and 2021,

and then all of a sudden we had these massive friggin rate increases, and now, like, everyone is either canceling their cyber policies or just rapidly changing, et cetera, tearing down coverage because they can't afford it. Like, that's a major hit to your business. Think about, you know, so that's just one example, right? You can see this in D&O, right? D&O, I'm going to forget the exact year.

It was within the last three, four years had this massive spike and massive appetite hit where like literally carriers who wrote a broad range of D&O just literally like, nope, we're not writing that coverage anymore. If you've over-indexed or over-specialized in one particular line of coverage, that can be an issue. Again, we're thinking sustainability. It doesn't mean it will happen. And being a product expert can rapidly jumpstart your agency, particularly at the beginning. but I do believe that for most agencies who are watching this,

who are maybe smaller middle market to small business to micro and personal lines, learn and write as broad a set of products as you possibly can and don't forget about surety. And if you don't love surety and don't understand it, zip bonds and propeller bonds. Those are your two resources. Between those two, right, you have those two guys in your portfolio. You can write any bonds you want. You'd be very happy.

And don't forget about surety. Okay. Number six, technology. All right. I don't want this video to go too long, so I'm going to make this very concise. After trying every tool that possibly exists, making every, you know, chasing every shiny object, you know, the biggest and most legitimate criticism of my tenure as an agency owner would be. technology. Now, I do believe that we, you know, I rounded into it eventually, we got there eventually, but man, I made a lot of mistakes here. So this is all coming from my own personal

beats. I wanted to build something that, you know, I wanted to build the vision of what I had for the customer experience into technology. And I don't believe that's possible. Our current technology set in the independent insurance industry does not allow us to provide, I think, the level of service that our customers would expect in any other space in a streamlined manner. That being said, you can hack it. You can, you know, there's manual process entry. You can, you know, there's all kinds of things you can do, but they're all hacks. So you're not going to find, you know, that's what I mean. I guess what I'm getting to is it doesn't mean we can't provide it and we should be efforting to provide it in my opinion. We're a service business,

but all the solutions are hacks. So do not allow the idea, as I did, to creep into your mind that you're going to find one product to rule them all. Now, I am a little enamored and interested in what Margo Giles is building. I do think it's very interesting. I find some of the things that are going unnoticed in the broader sense that like NowSertz is doing. and their partnership with insurance gate, et cetera. So I do think there are some companies that are doing that. You obviously have the vertifor and applied ecosystems that hopefully will continue to optimize. But none of them today are complete solutions.

So get that out of your head. Get the idea of a complete single solution out of your head. It does not exist. It's not HubSpot. It's not any other non-insurance tool either that does not exist. Okay. So how do we get there? I think that early on pick the simplest, cheapest tools you possibly can. A simple CRM, a simple AMS. If you pick the right CRM, you're going to have email marketing, texting, et cetera, call tracking included. Make sure those two systems talk to each other. Make sure that you can do your accounting somehow, whether that's through, say, a QuickBooks integration or if the system has it built in. But simple, easy clean. This is my filter for technology and when it comes to sustainability. It's simple, easy, clean, easy to train on technology is also easily replaced if somehow it blows up.

So what we're really fighting against here are rapid price expansions, insurance technology providers holding you hostage, right? They get you in, they make it incredibly hard to leave, and then they continue to jack the rate up. That happens. That happens in every industry. So that's not just our industry. So we need to be fair. there's also inflationary costs, et cetera, that it takes. So some of it is legitimate.

It's always going to happen. But if we have simple, clean, easy to use, and this is the keystone here, easy to train on technology, then if something happens, if that tool blows up, if it falls apart, if it gets bought by somebody

that you don't want to do business with or can't do business with for whatever reason, if the price rapidly expands, if all of a sudden it gets buggy, whatever, right? If it's simple, easy, and clean, you can get your,

data out and get it into another system very fast. Okay. And if it's easy to train on, people will have no problem moving to another system. If it's incredibly difficult and nuanced to train your team on a piece of technology, understand that you are becoming a slave to that piece of technology because their knowledge, right, becomes dependent to that system because there's so many click here, click here, here, this, this tab that's hidden here, and you've got to put in this keyword, etc. And so they're wasting so many brain cycles on how to use the technology that they're not spending on using the technology, if that makes sense.

So I advocate for. I do think insurance technology is the way to go. So someone who has built their tool specifically for insurance. I know there are exceptions that have built awesome systems out of systems that were not originally meant for insurance. I know that that happens. that's most likely not you. If you haven't done it already, it's most likely not you. Nor do I think it should be.

I think that you pick a piece of insurance technology over index on easy to train your team. Easy to train your team. Because the less brain cycles, they have to think about on how to use the tool. They're thinking more about using the tool, which is like putting the information in, whatever, whatever needs to get done.

It also allows you to easily move to another piece of technology if something happens to it. That's a sustainability part. Okay. Last but not least, network. What I mean by that is not joining an aggregator or a network. I have no problem with aggregators and networks. I know some people do. I don't.

I think they're fine. I think if they work for you, fit your business model and culturally align with you, awesome. I think that's great. There are plenty. You know, I was obviously part of the SIA network. for two years and met tons of great master agency owners and and team members and think that that could be a great solution for a lot of people. You know, there's there's all kinds of different networks and aggregators out there of all

different shapes and sizes. So just because one might not be a good fit doesn't mean another wouldn't be, right? I know the guys down in Insurance Super doing great things. Mike McCormick is going to be on the show pretty soon. You know, there's Keystone. and I know Donnell Smink and CLI just merged with them. And, you know, so there's all sorts of great people, all different shapes and sizes, all different flavors of network.

That's my opinion. If it works for you, great. If it doesn't, that's fine too. I do think it's becoming harder and harder to not be part of a network, especially at the beginning. And if you talk to somebody and it's not a great fit, there might be another one out there that is. So just keep your eyes over. That being said, what I am talking about from a sustainability standpoint is you cannot operate your agency in a vacuum. You cannot operate your agency in a vacuum and be successful.

You cannot operate your agency in a vacuum and be successful. Join your state association. Join a Facebook group. Find an agency owner to mentor you or a mastermind group, right? Like that's what we're trying to do at Finding Peak is bring like-minded, growth-oriented insurance, you know, professionals and agency owners together who can ask similar questions, who can share mindsets, who can, you know, share best practices,

along with all the things that I want to kind of teach you guys and help you guys and guide you guys through, right? Like, that's what that is. But there are other mastermind groups. Ours will be a good fit for the people that's a good fit for. There are plenty of them out there, right? I, Mick Haun is one of my, one of my best friends in the world. He has Patty. We're not Patty. Patty. Patty isn't us. Patty might be a great fit for you. If Patty is a great fit for you, that's amazing. I'm so happy for you or killing commercial with David Cruthers. Right. Or what cast us like there are all kinds of masterminds find one get on a text chain with a bunch of other agency owners like I said join your state association if the carriers are having an event go to those

carrier events mix and mingle with the carrier professionals you know and then and mix and mingle with the other agents who show up and get to know what's going on what are their challenges what are they seeing what worked for them what did this tool do did they try this have you ever said this to a prospect before these are all the amazing conversations that come from building a robust network in this industry. And the networking part of this industry is why I love it. I probably wouldn't still be here if it wasn't for the network of people that I've gotten to know, that I just absolutely adore that I love rooting for, that I love helping,

that I literally will just text sometimes and be like, like, who can I connect you with? Like, how can I help you? There's just so many amazing people in the space. And that's why I've stuck around for 18 years and why, you know, in this moment of transition, I decided to doubled back into the insurance industry with Finding Peak as an insurance coaching program because I love you guys. Like, this is a great space. But I've seen too often, I would say less today because the internet does make it easier,

but I've seen too often agency owners who, you know, put their head down and they want to grind, but they do it in a vacuum. And they do it, you know, without feedback, without conversations, without mentorship, without masterminds or coaching or whatever. And what happens is they make all the mistakes. They slam into every obstacle. They hit every pothole, right? They just, and then they get bitter and they get frustrated,

and they're not making the money they want to make. And that's not the way it needs to be. There are so many avenues to help you guide you on a path, especially at the beginning of your journey that can get you to escape velocity, so much faster with so much more momentum and can put you in a place where you can really go back and choose your own destiny,

that true self-determination that makes our industry so amazing. So guys, those are the seven pillars, carrier relationships, staff, geography, regulation, products, technology, and building our network. I hope you found value in this video. If you did and you're watching on YouTube,

please smash that like button. If you're listening to the audio podcast, I love you for listening to this show. I love you for being, part of Finding Peak and a part of my audience. I hope you guys appreciate the work that I put in here because I do it for you. And I just love doing it. Any questions, comments you have. You can always email me at Ryan at Findingpeak.com. And I'm going to pitch once again, go to masterclass. dot ensure, go to masterclass.

dot insure or Findingpeak.com. Either one will take you there and learn more about the insurance growth masterclass. My life's work put into coursework, webinars, community resources, et cetera, to help you guys grow your agency. I love you, I'm out of here. Peace.

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Consider subscribing, rating, and reviewing the show this holiday season. It really helps the show grow. From all of us at Believe, have a Merry Christmas, everyone, and a happy holiday. If you like the show, please take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe. It really does help the show to grow. Thank you for listening.