Finding Peak w/ Ryan Hanley - Micah Salas on How to Win the Insurance Game

Episode Date: June 11, 2020

Spartan philosophy, built in the black-ops lab of business: https://www.findingpeak.comFinding Peak podcast: https://linktr.ee/ryan_hanleyMicah Salas, a commercial risk advisor at Marsh, breaks down his process for winning the insurance game. Micah's five-step formula, including the idea of "Hiring" an agent versus selling insurance is a game-changer for everyone that takes notice. Get more: https://ryanhanley.com--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

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It is a great pleasure to bring you today's guest. It's someone who I actually first found on LinkedIn and then I heard him on Cass's podcast and was just completely taken by the way that Micah Salas, I was completely taken by the way that he approaches commercial insurance. And in particular, his process and idea of he works to get hired as the agent for an account. He's not working to sell that account insurance. And that may sound like a nuanced difference or, you know, sales, trainery lingo. But Mike is a producer.

I mean, this is how he approaches it. And that methodology and mentality of you're going to hire me and I will be your agent versus I'm going to be the person who sells you insurance, that's a big difference. I think with it comes self-respect. I think with it comes an air towards quality, towards becoming a trusted advisor. I think all the things that we hope to be as insurance professionals, that simple change in thought process and language can be very very mean. meaningful to that. And in this episode, we break it all the way down and talk about how Micah puts

it into practice. And just really, I'm very happy to be able to share Micah with you guys. I think he is an absolute tremendous resource for our industry and as much additional exposures we can get on him and what he's doing and how he operates, I think is a good thing for everyone who puts into practice what this type of methodology. Before we get there, I want to give a big shout out to David Carruthers. His new book, The Extra Two Minutes, is absolutely tremendous. A few episodes ago, I had interviewed David. Hopefully you listened to that. If you haven't, go back and check it out. But I've had a chance to read the book now. And it's just, it's just a, it's just a, it is a step-by-step guidebook on how to separate yourself from the

competition and it all centers around this idea of the extra two minutes. I think that this is a must read. You can get it on Amazon. You can go to extra to the number two minutes.com and get a signed copy. That's what I have. I got a signed copy from David. Obviously, I'm a member of his killing commercial program and it found that to be really a game changer for me in so many ways. and I just can't speak highly enough of David's work and just this book. So if you're not going to spend and invest in the course and the program, then I certainly think that grabbing a copy of the extra two minutes is worth it. I just think it is.

I also, before we go on, I just want to give a big shout out to Tarmica. Tarmica is really changing the game for commercial producers such as myself when it comes to small business. I'm focused on larger small and middle market accounts, but small business accounts do come in. And I know that maybe the standard methodology is to say, you know, you're not a good fit and pass on that piece of business or maybe that's what people like to say they do. I don't even like to say to do that. I want to help everybody, everyone who I can help and wants to be help. Maybe that's a better way to put it.

And Tarmka allows me to do that. I go in. I get quotes from, you know, five to seven different carriers. In my case, it's six. carriers in the state of New York. In other states, it's more. It depends on carriers per state. Like, I don't have acuity in New York. So, you know, there are, you know, tremendous carriers. You're able to punch in small business risks. You know, there's like 300 class codes plus and more class codes coming almost every single day, it seems like. And you're able to find out

where the best rate is for that small business. Put the information in once, get that person taking care of, get that account taken care of, and move on and spend time on. accounts to take a little more of your bandwidth. And Tarmica is that solution. T-A-R-M-I-K-A dot com. T-A-R-M-I-K-A dot com. Go get a demo today. You should at least know that Tarmica exists if you decide that now's not the right time. But this is the tool that is changing the game for agencies that focus on small commercial. It absolutely is. Okay. With that, let's get on to Micah Siles. You're going to love this episode. So I appreciate you coming on and chatting with me.

I became familiar with your work. I seen you a little bit on LinkedIn and then Cass had you on his podcast and I was very enamored by your perspective. And then I've been a fan of the stuff that you've been doing on LinkedIn ever since. Thank you, man. Yeah. Yeah, LinkedIn's been interesting. it's really been something I just I think I posted my first video was like I did one

probably a year and a half ago or so almost two years I was at a war memorial and I was like oh this is kind of a cool it wasn't even about business you got a ton of views and I wasn't even trying to really I wasn't thinking about that but then I didn't do anything for about three four months and then last year I was like you know what I should start doing this a little bit more more consistently and yeah it's it's been it's been good it was it was fun to be on castes a podcast that was my first time ever being on a podcast so it was a good learning experience and it's fun to get the exposure out there yeah i um you know i think it's you know i think uh anytime you can i think the podcast thing is great for a lot of reasons i think one um not

not necessarily so much the exposure, but I think just it opens you up to potential conversations with people that you probably wouldn't have met before. And that part of it has been so valuable to me in my career and its various iterations that there's literally no way for me to quantify it. Like I couldn't tell you like how much value I've directed. arrive from just having conversations with people on podcasts. Like it's it's insane to think about in truth. I you know, I can I can totally feel you on that. People ask with the video, they'll ask me all the time on LinkedIn, you know, throughout my agency and just other agents.

Man, how many leads are you getting? Are you actually getting sales from it? I'm like, you know what? I actually don't have any direct sales yet. I've had some kind of people ask, you know, reach out that weren't good fits. But I tell them, like, you know, there's something weird. that happened when I started doing the video. It instilled some like some confidence in me for some reason. I don't know why. Just maybe putting yourself out there, whether it's, you know, like you said, in a podcast and meeting people or just even video, for me, it just instilled a lot of confidence. And even when I'm meeting with prospects person to person, I just feel like I felt like a different person. So I don't know. It's hard to, like you said, I can't quantify it, but it's, I've told my

friends, I'm like, I don't know what it's done, but it just feels, I just feel different. So. Yeah, I completely I completely get that. You know, I do, you know, I do a lot of video too. And one of the ways that I taught myself insurance, you know, all those years ago was just talking about it on video and like researching articles that I'd want to write. And it would force me to calibrate my mindset around how I wanted to talk about this topic, the stories that I wanted to tell. And it also forced me to just dig into the coverages. And it's one of the reasons that I went, got my CIC, which I may go get again, mostly just because I want the information that I actually care about the letters or whatever. But I think it really forces you to dial in your mindset. And that practice is really powerful. Yeah, yeah, because when you're making a video, the last thing you want to do is miss speak on, you know, on a coverage or I don't know, that's just me personally. but yeah so you're going to do the extra research and you don't need to know everything but in a video you want to know enough to it's kind of like you're talking to your you know you'd be talking to a prospect essentially you're just broadcasting it so yeah i think it can really help of that for sure yeah that's cool so you know one of the thing the reason i wanted to have you on the show and um and and share really just basically it gives me a reason to pick your brain for free but um you know i i wanted to share you

your mindset and this what what has grabbed me is this five video series that you did which I don't know if this is the official title of it but I just wrote down as I was watching them you know how to win the insurance game and not not necessarily win from the agent's perspective but win from the client's perspective and then ultimately if you're helping your client do these things the assumption is then as an agent you'll win but um I found these five videos to be so incredibly valuable. They, you know, and one of the terms, pieces of terminology, and I want to get to this because I'd love for you to break at least some of them down and I want to talk through them. I think there's a lot of agents, at least a lot of agents that I've started hanging out with more and more who are thinking the way that you talk in these videos, right?

The way that you're talking about working through an account, the way that you're talking about adding very. value to a client, it feels like, and it just feels like there's a lot of people interested in this right now. As smaller business accounts and personal lines accounts become more and more commoditized, this middle market, larger small, you know, enterprise level accounts, that, that range, this is, this is an approach that everyone is looking for. And I wrote down and then I'd love for you to just talk maybe talk a little bit about how you develop this. But what I wrote down is step one, due diligence, step two, hire an agent, step three, create competition among carriers.

Step four, give yourself time or timing and the importance of that. And step five, tell a good story about your business or, you know, present to your account in a flattering way to underwriters. You know, where did you, what is the genesis of your development of that, of those five steps? Yeah, man, that's a great question. So when I became an, when I got into insurance, I was working for a direct writer at first.

So I had to quote everything because all I could offer was that one product. And when I moved across the country, down to Texas. It was, you know, MMA, you're an independent agency. And I was always told by the director writer I worked for, they said, you know, if you go become an independent agent, you good luck trying to get it into the doors and, you know, everyone's the same. You all have the same products to offer. And so you kind of hear this. And then, you know, I get down here. And actually I credit a lot to the CEO at the time. I got here and his first thing to me says, we don't quote. And it totally threw me off because that's all I knew how to do. I led my

region in quoting activity and, you know, was always trying to get indoors that way. But once I actually listened to the reasons of why it made sense to not quote, I'm like, my gosh, this makes complete sense. I bought in 100%. I didn't listen to the older, no offense, but the older generation of producers that were like, good look, you know, getting into construction accounts if you don't quote or whatever the case may be. So that's kind of how I started to, first, think about things and then, you know, from there I realized I'd be going on these prospect meetings and just so many buyers of insurance didn't have an understanding of how the game works. I call it the game, you know, the distribution model, whatever you want to call it.

And there was a lot of frustration because of that, but it seemed like no agents were really telling them how it worked. Their incumbent agent would be saying things like, you know, don't talk with any other agents. It'll screw things up, which there was some truth. in that statement, but they didn't really tell their clients. They weren't telling their clients why, right? So I kept getting these meetings and people would, if I realized if I could help the business owners just understand. And I would even tell them, like, even if you don't work with me, if I own a business, here's what I would do. And that was kind of my mindset going into these

calls and these meetings. And so I just think taking that approach of educating them first and just saying this is what's the best way to handle the insurance based on how things work. And then from there, I built out, you know, the framework of that five-part series. And just kind of, I just went back and thought, okay, what are the things that I, you know, that I've been able to do and take my new clients, what process of by taking them through that has helped them improve their overall experience and ultimately, like I say, win the insurance game. And, and yeah, that's really how I came up with that, that model. which so the the one that immediately stood out to me was hire an agent and that idea

although i've started to hear it creep up and other conversations the first place that i heard it was from you and the idea that you know i think a lot there are many agents who i think operate in that mindset. I really, in all my conversations until very recently, and this could be because they're all stealing it from you and you're in your, when you had that conversation with Cass, but the idea of you're not, I'm not selling you insurance. I'm not quoting or bidding out or putting in an RFP. You're deciding to hire me as your agent and trusting that I'm going to go out and do a good job for you. And then, you know, that idea, I guess, I guess where did that come from?

Because it's simple and kind of intuitive as it sounds when you say it. I've been around for a long time and had tens of thousands of conversations and I had never heard of it until last year when I heard you on Cass's podcast. So it's very interesting to me that you use that terminology. Yeah. So I think what happened with me and how I came across that is, you know, when I, I went to school originally for marketing. I kind of always think outside the box and try to think of different angles.

And I think when, again, when talking with real life business owners out there, if you can use analogies or compare things to other ways of looking at a situation, it helps them get it, like just click faster. So one of the very first things I thought of was real estate, you know, and that's, and that's where it's like it's, it's just a foregone conclusion. You know, I just bought a house last year and a couple, you know, bought another one a couple years before that. And it was like, I didn't think to go use three different agents to go bring me to buyers or to represent me.

It's not even, no one even does it. So that was actually the very first kind of analogy I had thought of. And that's what I used all the time, probably that first year or two is like, you know, it's like you just don't hire multiple real estate agents to sell your, you know, $300,000 home. It doesn't make any sense at all. And once I started thinking that, way and explain it to people why it doesn't make sense. Like, oh my God, yeah, that I get it. You know, and I would see the look in these business owners' eyes and, and I'm like, okay, this is,

I have some traction here. And I've kind of actually taken that same analogy and help business owners think about, you know, selling their risk. Same kind of concept. I tie it back to real estate and listing their home. You know, I've kind of used that one and telling your story. So I just felt the real estate agents got it, they're doing it the right way, right? They have a client that trust them and hires them. They don't know who's going to get them the best price, but they put their trust in an agent beforehand. Same I'm asking me to do on the insurance.

And then later on, I think last year, I thought of the analogy of sports athletes in the same type of analogy. So now I've actually kind of gone back. I'll use both in a meeting, one or the other. But ultimately, I think they just help drive the point home and help these business owners or executives just get it quicker. Yeah.

I really liked the, you know, the Aaron Rogers won, the sports one. You know, that, that connected with me. I mean, real estate does as well. But, you know, I think what I liked about it was, you know, you are like the, you are the Aaron Rogers of your own story, right? Like it makes sense to think, well, geez, you know, here's a guy whose livelihood is determined by his ability to sell himself. and he puts his trust into one person. Same thing with a, you know, a female professional athlete,

an MMA fighter or a soccer player. You know, she's going to do the same exact thing. And, you know, it really is, and again, you know, part of this is my eyes opening

to be an agency owner again, right? Like I've sold for eight years. I never, I never dove this deep into commercial. Here I am coming back into it after five and a half years. And, you know,

My eyes are fully open, I guess you could say, where maybe they weren't my first time around. And, you know, it is crazy. Like you walk into these accounts and you talk to people. And I had actually had an a OR situation where I basically used, I mean, I'm sure I'd butcher it versus how you or some other people would approach it. But I basically said to them, you know, they had blocked a market that I had wanted, that I knew would be perfect for them. They were woodworking and millworking manufacturer. And I just knew that this particular market was exactly what they needed. And some agent who, you know, they weren't even

really attached to had blocked this market. And I just said to them, guys, you don't even know if he's going to present you with this company. Like you've, you've now touched three agents. And I didn't I actually and again I'm learning quickly but I didn't know they had approached three agents I thought I was only going against one other guy and I knew he didn't have this market so I just got in there and I said to him you know you have to choose which one of the three of us you're going to hire don't even worry about the companies because the companies are all going to be around the same price they're going to be around the same covered some better than others they're going to be around the same claim service some better than others

but like who are you going to work with like which agent is the one that's going to get you to the Thomas land. Ultimately, they picked me, which was great. But, um, regrets. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, it was the account wasn't setting the world on fire, but it keeps the lights on. Um, the idea being that I walked away from that. And actually, I talked to my wife about the conversation that you had had on Kais's podcast and I just said, I called my wife Shorty. I just said, shorthy, like, there's this guy on LinkedIn. He talks about this stuff. Like, this situation that I was just part of was bananas, like absolutely nuts, that there's three agents jockeying for carriers. Like, you know, how the hell do they know that they're going to get the best deal or if

they're even going to get taken care of? I mean, it's crazy that this is how we operate. It really is, man. And that's why even before I get into using the analogies on, you know, the sports agent or anything, I guess those help drive the point home, but I always like to still educate the buyer on, I'll ask the question a lot of times. Do you know how the insurance game works? and, you know, not even talking about agents or any of that.

And then they'll kind of say, I don't know, maybe, but why don't you tell me? You know, and then that gives me the opportunity to either draw a little depiction of kind of how the market blocking works and just walk them through that whole process. So there's a couple of things that are interesting with that. Because I'll take the, I'll kind of play devil's advocate too. I'll say, you know, you want to get another quote from another agent, which makes sense. But what if your current agent is just trying to do their damn job? You know what I mean? They're just shopping. They're not even blocking. So then it kind of creates that thing that's like you really got to just trust your agent ultimately. But, you know, so I kind of walk them through and they're like, oh, yeah, maybe you're right on that. So it's like, how do you know and how do you know if your agent's blocking or are they actually shopping and doing their work? So that all kind of just drives a point home of needing to hire one agent and really just trust them ultimately. And that's what I think a lot of people just have a hard time grasping that. initially because it feels like it just goes against their human nature.

You know, they feel like I'm going to get screwed over if I just trust one agent or what if it get burned? And that's people's biggest concern. I think once you can help them get past that, ultimately really it makes the process just a lot easier going forward. Yeah. And you also have from the agent side, you know, you want to have a shot at everything you walk into. I mean, that's the kind of standard methodology is like, oh my God. We act as if, and I am as guilty of this, especially early on as anybody, we act as if every account that we walk into and have a chance at is the last account we're ever going to walk into and have a chance at.

And that creates this lowest denominator game. Like, you know, and ultimately it creates negative situations. The guy that I actually presented the agent of record against, you know, wrote this nasty gram back to the guy about how I'm a one man shop and won't be able to service them and all this kind of stuff. And, you know, why would you ever choose a one man shop over, over, you know, we've been in here business for 20 years, you know, all that nonsense. And, you know, and I have a, I have a perfectly fine response to that, which so wasn't an issue. And again, I still got the AOR. But, you know, now you have this negativity in the system. And,

And, you know, that situation, I went back and watched your video series again after that happened because I wrote this account like last week. And I just said to myself, like, there are so many accounts in the world. There's so many just in my local space, let alone if I extend out 100 miles, let alone if I reach into Vermont in Massachusetts and Connecticut, which are less than 20 miles from where I'm sitting. So like there are plenty, there's plenty of business for me to take care of my family. Like every account is not the last account I'm ever going to walk into. And this idea of being hired versus just bidding to me is a much more, it is much more sustainability, I guess, and it establishes the type of relationship you want from the beginning.

Okay. So my question to you then is, what is the biggest piece of pushback that you get to that idea. So you sit down, you explain to them how the insurance game works, this idea of hiring an agent, you either, you said this the other day in one of your videos, you're like, you either trust your agent or you don't. And like what is besides just, hey, we trust our agent, we're good. Like, what kind of pushback or questions do you get about this process that maybe, you know, what are the most common questions you get? Yeah, I mean, obviously besides the, hey, we're happy thing. And besides that one, I would say one of the most. common ones is you know I've I'm not signing anything I've done that in the past I've been

burned so that's again like you said there's just such a bad stigma around BORs actually I was just talking with the client yesterday I wrapped up a renewal that I won four years ago this is this is our fifth renewal and he said man I get people coming here all the time he's like I really appreciate you and but I always tell I'm not signing anything and I said well I got you to sign something for me and he kind of laughed you know he had at a 25-year relationship I broke up where he was completely happy. But again, once I kind of diffused the situation, I think because he had such a bad taste about he had signed a BOR in the past and got totally burned.

So I think to diffuse that, it's, I'll look them right in the face. I don't even know I want to ask you to be hired at this point. This is our first meeting, right? And that kind of goes to my series where I talked about due diligence, but I don't want to get ahead of myself, but essentially that's, that's the very first thing. I'm not even saying I, I want to ask for a BOR. I don't even know if it makes sense. Your program might be in a great spot. You're telling me the service is excellent already, you know, so that's, that's a huge one. It's just that, just a bad experience and they, and trusting. And then it's just from there,

the other kind of objections would be, you know, be like, well, how can I, if I don't know a price, how can I, how can I just eventually, you know, let's say you come back and you present things. and you don't show me a price, how can I just move to you? So that's the second one. And I say, diffuse that one. There's a couple ways. One way is, you know, worst case scenario, I come back. I show you have some major issues.

And let's say you want to hire me. Worst case scenario, you can stay with the same carrier and your price won't get any worse. There's no real downside. But your coverage can go up and better and all that stuff. And also, I let them know that technically by the book. If you switch agents, a carrier can't just jack up their price because you switch. agents, right? So that kind of helps diffuse that. I'll also diffuse that one by saying, you know, you can, if I, if I, you hire me, I haven't showed you a price yet. I come back.

I present something. You're totally just unhappy with what I've came back with. You think I've not done a good job. You can fire me, you know, right then and there. And so that's always an option as well. You can fire me just as quick as you're hiring me. So those are some ways to kind of diffuse that the second one, which is, you know, how can I just trust you without seeing an actual price? But one thing I like to show a lot is, you know, I think I have, I don't know, 35 clients or something, but over the last five years, everyone who's hired me, I keep a before price and after price and also kind of the coverage enhancements or service improvements. I'll kind of show them. Here's a list of all the people who've hired me over the last five years. Here's what

their premium was the year before. Here's the premium after they hired me. And actually, most of them have gone down. Some stayed flat. Some went up due to exposures or increased coverage. But I think the power in showing them that is to let them know that like, you know, when I come back and present to be hired, I do a benchmark analysis. I review the coverages and I kind of tell them, I'm saying, hey, I know 99% sure that we can save you to $20,000. I'm saying I can save you based on what I see in the market, but I never promise it. So that's, I guess that's kind of the two biggest things I would say that ultimately are the I'm scared. I've been burned in the past.

And the second is how can I trust you without seeing a price? I just can't, I can't do that. Yeah. So when you first meet with a client, you just said, you know, you may even tell them, like, I don't know that this is something that I even want to do. Like you're kind of giving them a little bit of that scarcity of, you know, you have 35 clients. and you don't necessarily need to add them, right? I mean, whether that's true or not,

that is the perception that you're giving them and what you're really trying to look for is a good fit for your book of business, for your agency, for what, you know, you're trying to do. What are you looking for when you, when you go back and you do your due diligence? So they buy in, they haven't hired you yet,

but they are willing to allow you to do your due diligence on their account. what kind of things are you looking for for them? Like are you, do you have certain triggers? Is it, you know, is what, what thing, and it doesn't have to be everything, because I don't want you to give away all your secrets, but like, is there a particular piece of an account that you look at and you're like, this kind of, this shows me, this aspect of their business shows me that this is somebody

who I can work with and that will be a good account and that we can actually provide value to? Yeah, so you're not, I just want to make sure I'm answering this. You're not asking like, what am I looking for in terms of policies? What you're asking what am I looking for kind of in terms of culture or just overall feel from the account, right? Or either. If there's a, if there's a cultural aspect that immediately says yes or immediately says no or, you know, what would be, you know, one of the top three triggers that you'd say, you'd bring this back, you'd look through it and you'd go, you know what? These guys are checking the box. This feels like something I want to work with.

So this is going to seem so counterintuitive, but number one is loyalty. And when I know a guy, like a client or a prospect has been with their agent for 20 years, I love that. And I tell them that. I'm like, you are my dream client because you've shown loyalty to your agent. That's awesome. You get it from that standpoint. So then when I tell them the story, it maybe helps them get it even a little bit more. And they're like, okay, yeah, I am kind of doing the right thing.

They didn't even know it, but they kind of just were happening. Stan Slee. So loyalty is a big one. If I come across someone that, yeah, last year we looked, year before that, we looked, you know, I bring in five people every year. I'm like instant red flag. I don't know if I really, you know, I'll try to educate them, but I'm not getting my hopes up. Or at one meeting, I just literally walked out after I show up and the guy was like, yeah, here's, here's the packets, here's everything. I'm like, no. And I said, well, let's take a step back before we get down that trail. And he just was like, no, we can't really do that. I said, well, then I think we're done here. I just don't have a whole lot I can do for you or better served by someone else.

So yeah, so that's that's number one is just have they been loyal to their agent? Do they, you know, and then, you know, number two for me is kind of, I have a weird customer client base. You know, some people are kind of hardcore blue collar, some are more white collar. But at the end of the day, they're ultimately, they want to find, again, it kind of goes back to the loyalty, but they want to find like someone like, that's my guy, right? Or that's my guy. girl like I got a real estate guy I got an insurance guy and like yeah I do hold them accountable from time of time or I do maybe talk with other people but ultimately unless they really screw up that's my guy you know they kind of have that mentality and that that kind of ties into that you know

that agent right so um those two factors I really like and then the third maybe is just just kind of an intelligent buyer I guess you could stay from the standpoint if they get it that you're going to make mistakes as an agency, right? You're going to maybe, your service team maybe is going to drop the ball from here, you know, once in a while, but they get it, right? They get that in business, things happen. They make mistakes. We make mistakes. Obviously, not, I'm not talking about, you know, blowing coverage or anything major, but just that kind of, they view it as a relationship. And in a relationship, they know it's not perfect, but they know that ultimately you have their best interests of hand, that you care, that you constantly communicate with them, and that, and they value

those things, you know, that advisement and the attack. mention that you give them. Yeah, I think, I think to me that, again, it's that scarcity mindset that, you know, you're never going to have that account again, that you just run through all the stop signs. And you're telling, do you know David Carruthers? I actually, I actually heard about him through you, following you, and then I've connected with him recently. And yeah, I do like his killing commercial, right? Yeah, yeah. So I'm part of that program and I really like his methodology and I call him one day. I ran through these stop signs so bad. And like it was it was such a great learning experience because you just like when you go

back and you, if you know, if you actually take the time to dissect, you know, each account that you tried to to quote on, right? Which I, which I do. I try to take a minute at the end of day and say, okay, hey, why did this work? Why didn't it work? And I looked at this account. It's just like, it was like, one, the guy knew every piece of information that I needed off the top of his head. Like almost as I was asking the question. Like that should have been like red flag number one. Like he's done this too many times. Like no one should know, you know exactly what I'm asking. before I even ask it. And then, you know, number two, wouldn't send me his policies.

Number three, you know, and I'm just like, bang, bang, bang. And this was like real early on when I started the agency. So I just, I was like, screw it. You know, like, hey, it's an opportunity. I need some work to do. Why not? Why not waste my time? And I got to the end. And obviously, you know, nothing happened.

and, you know, some agent ended up quoting like a quarter of the revenue. The price is way down. I'm trying to explain to him like, bro, you're going to be audited at the end of the year. Like, it's not like you just get away with not paying that premium because he was, you know, doing air quotes. You can't see me like smart enough to put 25% of the sales in, you know, like, come on. And didn't care about any of that. So good, you know, I'm actually glad that he's not the account.

But I was like, man, I was operating from such a position of like, just, just, I was so willing to sell my soul to get that account to blow through stop sign after stop sign. And I just feel like too many of our brothers and sisters in arms in this industry do that. And, you know, what being someone who doesn't operate in that space and maybe you have some advice here, maybe you don't. Like, how do you work through some of that? Because I'm sure you get anxious when you're sitting in front of account. You know, maybe yours are slightly larger than some other people's, but the mentality isn't different. Like, how do you work through some of that anxiousness when there's an account you really want

or that feels like it's lining up really well, but maybe there's some red flags? Like, how do you control yourself versus maybe someone who's listening to this and is constantly feeling guilt for blowing through stop signs on a sale? Yeah, I mean, I think it's easy to sit here on a podcast and say, oh, man, I never go after accounts I shouldn't go after because we all see those premium dollars or the commission, you know, the revenue we start adding it up in her head. I mean, if you're going to deny that, you're probably a liar, I would say, or you're very disciplined. And so I'm guilty just like you are still, you know, I've been doing this 10 years. And there's probably people listening that have been doing it in 30 years and, you know, or one year. I think everyone kind of can get sucked down that path.

What I've found has helped me the most, though, kind of stay from chasing is, well, one, it's always having a full pipeline and having people that you're talking to. Like this year, I've had an amazing start to my year. My revenue is crushed halfway through the year already. And so that puts me in a whole different position. I'm not out there chasing prospects. So I think that's a really big one is just to always have other people you're talking to. That really, for me, helps a lot.

And I totally just lost what I was going to say. I was going to say another point on that as well. But, oh, here's what I was going to say. That's where the due diligence piece helps so much. Because let's say I'm in that first meeting and I'm kind of getting some red flags. And they're like, you know, I don't know. I'm just unsure. But to me, doing due diligence doesn't take that much time.

And that's why I love that model versus quoting. I think it's a win-win all around. Because now instead of having to make that commitment to quoting, because we all know it takes a lot of effort from not only us, but if we have a marketing team or account management team, I see their pain they go through and the frustration and how annoyed they get trying to gather all that information. Where due diligence, I can say, hey, here's the, you know,

let's take the next step. Let me see if there's anything. I can do to help and all I need is copies of your policies and I can do a full-blown analysis and I'll let you know. And, you know, that doesn't take me a whole lot of time to review policies at this point in my career for some younger people, it might, but still bringing someone in your office or someone through LinkedIn you've met to help you out that would be willing to mentor you and kind of walk through how to audit policies in a fairly timely fashion. And I actually kind of, I'm an insurance nerd at heart. So I kind of like looking at people's

programs, even if it's like, you know, I might learn something anyways. So those two things that I think can really help. You there, Brian? Yeah, you cut out for a sec. We lost, yeah, those two things can really help. Oh. Yeah, I would say those are the two things that keeping on track is the due diligence because it doesn't take a whole lot of time.

And for me, that's been a good way to, I guess you learn more about them through that then too. Because then if I say I need policies and let's say they send me the policy, policies, but the policies are whited out. The premiums are whited out. Well, it's like, man, I'm not even trying to quote. I'm just trying to do some due diligence. And then, you know, if that's a headache, just trying to get insurance policy, that might even be another red flag. So I'm just not, this isn't really worth my time. And I'll just call them to say, not a good fit. So that was one of the things that I implemented in at Rogue. Now again, I'm implementing it for myself since it's just

me, but that was one of the things that I implemented about two weeks ago was part of my checklist for a new piece of business is if they won't send me their current policies, I will not move forward with them. I just won't do it anymore because one, I don't have the time to, you know, as a single person shop, I do not have the time to practice quote or, you know, go off of information that is often incorrect. You know, it's things like that.

Like if they're, if they're not willing to give me the basic information in their policies that you need, then I literally will not take the next step. And I'll just, and I've already told two people like, I would love to work with you. But if you're unwilling to take the two minutes to forward me your policies, then I,

you know, I just wait until you are. And, um, you know, that, that, you know,

one of those people actually went back and got me all their stuff and it was perfectly fine. And the other person, was like, ah, you don't give me whatever and we're not going to do business this year. And that's also perfectly fine. But it's, it's, you know, this is what I learned from that restaurant account with the guy on the phone that I was telling you before. Like he was unwilling to commit to the process. And if he was unwilling to commit to the process, then why would we commit to the process? It puts you in a position where you can't actually be of service to them. They haven't

giving you all the information that you need to do your job. 100%. And I would add on this because the beautiful thing about insurance is that, you know, you sell a client, hopefully keep them for life and you get that residual component, you know, because they keep selling it. It's like being a real estate agent, not to use analogies again, but imagine being a real estate agent and having a client that needs to buy a home every single year. You know, it's awesome, right? But the clients to commit to your process up front, I found are so much sticky here. Like I go into my renewals. I mean, I really, I'm high touch in terms of not out to see them every day, but just, you know, talking with my clients on a consistent basis, checking

in with them mid-year, doing that, you know, the marketing strategy meeting every year. And I just finally, the renewals I'm not even really nervous about. Sometimes the account managers, like, do you think they're going to shop? I'm like, no, if they do, you know, I have the direct talk with them. If they ask for loss runs, I'm like, here you go. And I just remind them how. the process works, never a bully, but what I found is just the stickiness level of these accounts that you bring in this way. It's just so much, man, it's priceless. And of course, you keep that trust. You can't just burn it, but that's a huge benefit to making sure they check the boxes up front because it's going to pay off when you're building your book.

Yeah. So I want to be respectful of your time. And I have two more questions that I want to run by you and this has been this conversation has been very out of order but i think i think that's perfectly fine um i think a lot of people who are listening to this um they hear that you have 35 accounts um that you work for marsh and they and they probably would say to themselves like you know wow you know how he gets businesses and how we get business or you know what i mean or something something silly like that and uh you know so how do you go about finding the accounts that you want to work with. Like are you out cold calling?

Are you networking? Are you, you know, how does that work for you? In as much as you're willing to talk about that, you know, I think a lot of people are interested in how you go about finding these accounts that you sit down with and have these conversations with. Yeah, that's a great question. I would tell people, anyone listening, I get them the same way you get them. It's out there.

and I'm old school. Every client that I've sold has been through cold call, which maybe I should be ashamed of because I'm not getting a whole lot of referrals. I've suck at referrals. That's probably what I need to get better at, you know, especially because I have good relationships with all my clients. But I've gotten,

I have gotten referrals. Usually they're a little smaller than makes sense for me. And that that's kind of the struggle I've faced. But yeah, man, it's been cold calling in my first year. I was, my goal was I was about 40 to 50 cold calls a day. Because in my mind, I was just thinking if I can just have, and I didn't base it on meetings. I didn't care about meetings.

I mean, yeah, that was awesome to get a meeting set. But I was based on conversations. And I would make these cold calls. And my whole thing is if I make 40 a day, I kept the statistics for my whole first year of being in the industry. I set 83 appointments in a year. And I knew, statistically speaking, you know, and this bears out if people got national numbers, but I kept my own. For every, I think it was 10 people or 11 people, I would talk to one.

For every five people I talked to, I'd get one meeting to one to two, somewhere in that range. So I just kind of knew it was a numbers game for me. And I know there's a lot of stuff on LinkedIn right now telling, you know, don't make it about numbers. And that's fine. Do whatever works for you, but I'm just telling you what works for me. So, and when I make these cold calls, I'd have these conversations, I would really keep a list of the people that said, you know what? Yeah, I may be open. Let's call me back later.

And I counted that as a win. So I have my call me back later list. I create a specific list of people who said call me back later. And then I also had a master X state list, which is, you know, everyone's done that in the industry probably. But so everyone I talked to went on the either warm lead list, I called it. and then I would just stay on those people and follow up with them. And how I found most of the people would be just Google, LinkedIn, you know, driving around town. I went to, I was in Houston my first five years.

I'm living in Austin for the last year and a half, but still spent a lot of time in Houston. And I went to a lot of parts that a lot of people weren't going to of town. The east side, which is very industrial part of town. A lot of brokers just didn't go over there. Well, I found some really nice accounts kind of on some sort of. side streets that, you know, they had a lot of employees, a lot of risk, and they paid a lot of money. So I was going into those areas of town. I wasn't afraid to get up in there. And also one, one resource I used it was a factiva, which is a Dun & Bradstreet kind of deal, which you can

just kind of search by zip code. So then you just type in a zip code industry size and it pulls every business in that zip code. So those were, that's really how I've done it. I've tried networking. I do network still. I'm going to go meet with people. Being in my young 30s, I think this is a challenge probably a lot of us face

is that a lot of people we know and friends we have, maybe they're in the finance department, but they're not making the decisions yet. So I still think networking is important. I'm doing it, but I'm not relying on that. And then last year, I started linking. LinkedIn. And that is a long-term play for me. I think, yeah, CFOs, I don't know if they're hanging out there, business owners, I don't know if they're spending tons of time on LinkedIn yet, but I think eventually

they will be. I think, as buyers get a little bit younger, they will be on there. And I still think it builds that credibility factors. So that's pretty much everything I'm doing. Yeah, I mean, I hope everyone listening just kind of really dialed in or maybe even just hit the like 15 second back button a couple of times however long that answer was. This is exactly what I've found and how I've gotten business at real risk. Like I launched this agency to be this digital hybrid and their aspects of it that are because I had this vision. And what I'll tell you is that vision is very possible, but you got to spend a lot of time

and effort building funnels and landing pages and ads and you're going to have to test ads or you got to hire people and even those people. And that is a whole game that takes the same amount of time and effort as it does to what Mike is describing. And I'll tell you that in many regards, what I've found is that the business I'm writing here at Rogue, that's how I'm getting it. I'm cold calling people. I do some cold email. I don't know if you do a lot of cold email but but I do a lot of cold email too and uh hold on a sec dude the kids have decided to start um so I just I just hope the I hope to people listening at home because I think I feel I've run into so many agents that are like all right I was talking to an agent the other day

and he's like how you get in your business what's going on and I was like I'm I've been cold calling and cold email doing a lot of cold email some cold LinkedIn outreach and that started some conversations um and he's like oh that makes me sad that you're your cold calling. And I was like, and at the time, I just let the comment go, you know, at the time. But then I got off the phone and I was thinking about it. And this is nothing negative against that agent. It just was like, what? I almost feel like the count, the, this is the only way to be targeted in who you write. Like, otherwise, you are kind of at the mercy of, of inbound. And I'm not knocking inbound, but like, inbound alone, you are kind of at the mercy of what comes in.

When you're proactive, you can actually try to find the accounts that fit what you're trying to do. And I do think it's the secret weapon of some of the most successful agents in our industry. And I do think far too many agents because it makes them uncomfortable, they don't do that. And I think it's a limiting factor to the upside of a lot of people's personal growth in the industry. I would agree 100% man it's it's almost like cold calling has a bad stigma to it and I don't I don't get it especially in commercial you know where you're hopefully can sell some decent size accounts and get paid a little bit more and you can be so much more targeted like you had said so yeah I don't get why why it does people are shocked when they're like how do you get new business and in various sales industry they'll tell them you know

cold calling and they're like what really that still works and you know so yeah just you know be careful of everything you read on LinkedIn isn't, isn't true, you know, 100% or it just might not be true for you, you know, but I definitely think cold calling still works. And I still think there is some aspect two of it in terms of a numbers game, which sounds so old school, but but it works. Yeah. No, it 100% works. It's, I would be far more frantic and probably not doing this episode of the podcast if I hadn't, if I hadn't been cold calling, because I wouldn't be selling things because inbound marketing takes a long time. And I really think the answer over time if you're looking over an agency, not just an individual producer, and really link the LinkedIn is an

inbound play for you. Like I think it's really about having a set of tools outbound, inbound, you know, doing some cold email, you know, different stuff like that. You know, I actually started mailing out in addition to the targets that I want a cold call, mailing out like some hard folders. with some material in it that kind of describe our process and what I'm trying to do as a way to just warm some people up when they get the call, you know, just trying different things. You know, some of it will work. Some of it won't. I may realize I don't need to send up, you know, it's basically $3.75 worth of hard material in the mail of someone to call them. That's very possible. But I think it's testing. But for producers, man, individual producers,

I just, I've been happily shocked at how, how relevant cold calling still is and how productive it still is. Yeah, exactly. And I would even encourage people, man, I guess I've gotten into accounts paying $1 million, $2 million via cold calling, accounts with 1,000 employees, 2,000 employees via cold calling. So it works at all. Is it tougher? Yeah, but you don't need as many of those accounts.

Yeah, exactly. And I would say the smaller businesses, your odds of cold call and working are even higher, you know, small, medium-sized companies. You can catch the guys, the people a lot easier. Yeah. Well, man, I want to be respectful of your time. This has been a tremendous conversation. I'm actually going to leave a teaser first for what you're doing on LinkedIn as what

would have been my final question. I wanted to talk about, you know, telling a good story for the client. but I think you describe it so well. And I'm actually just going to tee it up. Anyone who's listening to this and wants to get to know what Mike is doing more and just be involved in where he is. And not that you need 10,000 insurance agents following all your stuff. But if they hit that like button, it spreads the message, right? And it's just good to mix and get to know people more.

So I highly recommend following what Mike is doing on LinkedIn. is that the best place for people to connect with you if they're interested? Yeah, yeah. LinkedIn is by far the best for me. I have my email on there, my cell phone. And I would say I do get messages from quite a few agents across the country that don't work, you know, for my company. And I'm always, most of the time, I'm willing to just have a quick phone call to talk with people. I really want to see young agents and all agents be successful.

And it can be a great industry. And I think the problem is there's just a lot of. a lot of lack of direction when you get hired on or you get in this industry. And it has some nuances to it that make a little bit different than some other sales jobs you might have had in the past if you're coming from outside the industry. So yeah, man, I'm all about helping people. Yeah. I highly recommend everyone to do it.

Dude, I think you are doing things the right way. I love it. I love that you've started talking about it and sharing what you're doing, whether it's indirectly or directly on podcasts like this. I really think that the way you're approaching the business at your age is, it's tremendous. It's a great sign for what the insurance industry could be, the value proposition that we present. And, you know, if we can build a next generation of agents who step away from that, who step away from that kind of quote, bid, crank mentality to more of a value proposition mentality,

I think in general we'll do a better job for our clients. And, you know, and ultimately we can help change some of the, some of the perspective that people have on our space, right? I mean, how many times you run into somebody, you tell them in your insurance and they give you the, the janky eye, you know? And you're like, you know, so I think we can change that, you know, one client at a time. And I just appreciate you, man. I'm glad that you spent this time.

Are you willing to spend this time? And I wish you nothing but success. and I hope that everyone listening connects with you. Yeah, man. I appreciate you having me on. And, you know, hit me up anytime. I'd be happy to jump on another call with you, podcast with you.

And it's been a pleasure following you as well. So I always like to learn from other agents out there. And that's the only way to grow is to kind of see what other people are doing. Take a little bit of what they got. Add it to your skill set and keep moving forward. Absolutely. But thanks, man. Hey, thanks, Ryan.

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