Finding Peak w/ Ryan Hanley - Michael Malfa on Building a Digital Experience for Your Producers

Episode Date: April 6, 2023

Spartan philosophy, built in the black-ops lab of business: https://www.findingpeak.comFinding Peak podcast: https://linktr.ee/ryan_hanleyIn this episode of The Ryan Hanley Show, Ryan Hanley sits down with Michael Malfa.Michael Malfa is the CEO and co-founder of Boardwalk Insurance, an independent insurance agency located in Ontario, Canada.I think Michael's LinkedIn bio says it all, "Championing change, always looking for new, efficient ways to deliver enhanced customer experiences. As technology evolves, so must we. Our goal is to leverage technology and make it our ally, rather than our enemy."We get down on many different topics associated with the digital production of insurance business.You're going to love this one...Episode Highlights:Michael discusses his experience in commercial brokerage and what led Boardwalk Insurance to develop its own unique solution and technology. (7:12)Michael discusses the process of creating the technology that will provide producers with the tools they need. (12:29)Michael explains that insurance risk management is a long-term investment and that it is essential for future-proofing the business. (18:18)Ryan mentions that when people consider their agency as a business rather than an agency, the decisions they make are different. (29:10)Michael explains that Boardwalk Insurance is developing a digital experience for brokers, and gradually releasing technology to clients and producers to gauge uptake. (36:14)Michael believes that having the right partner can help a business succeed. (41:19)Ryan mentions that the UK is far ahead of the US in terms of technological experience, but their broker model is archaic (47:07)Michael discusses the significance of having a method of communication with the clients. (54:33)Michael explains the importance of flow in direct selling and online selling. (57:54)Key Quotes:“Insurance Risk Management, the business is going to become more than just that in 5,10,15 years. If you're just doing that you're going to be left behind. So, you know, we're just trying to future-proof ourselves.” - Michael Malfa“When you think about your agency as a business and not an agency, the decisions you make are different.” - Ryan Hanley“A lot of the technology we're doing, our customers don't feel a lot of it yet. We're just giving them bit by tidbit…Our producers and our staff see it all, they're interacting with this with this system very digitally. And then eventually, it's just going to get to a point where we start flipping the switch and moving it directly to the customer.” - Michael MalfaResources Mentioned:Michael Malfa LinkedInBoardwalk InsuranceReach out to Ryan HanleyRogue RiskFinding Peak--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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From all of us at Believe, have a Merry Christmas, everyone, and a happy holiday. Prood Laboratory in the basement of his home. Hello, everyone and welcome back to the show. Today we have a tremendous episode. We're Michael Malfa, the CEO and co-founder of Boardwalk Incurance, a digital agency out of Canada. case and Michael and I were connected via Dylan Reed who was with Rundaright and then he went over to Buddy Insurance. Now he's back with Wonder Right. Dylan's a great guy and he reached out to me one day and he said, hey, you got to meet this guy, Michael Malfa. He's doing like a lot of the

same things that you're trying to do at Rogue. He's doing up in Canada. He thinks the same way as you do and he's got tons of interesting shit that he's building and doing and I connect to him Michael and we had this hour long conversation, which is absolutely phenomenal. I got the end of it. I was like, oh, my God, I can't believe we didn't record this. Like, it was just awesome. And sometimes it's good to have conversations that you don't record. I'm not trying to insinuate that you need to record every decent conversation that you have.

But Michael's a tremendous dude. And I love the way he thinks. I love what he's doing. He is going to be a force. And in his entire, his company, boardwalk insurance is going to be a force of nature in Canada. Can't wait to see what he's doing. Can't wait to reconnect with him. you know, as we both continue to grow and share notes on what it means to be building a digital

human optimized agency in 2023 and beyond. So you're going to absolutely love this conversation. I think you will. Before we get there, I want to give just a quick shot out to all you guys listening. Guys have been pumping out a lot of episodes lately, loving getting back into the show. You know, sometimes you just, sometimes, you know, doing all this podcasting, you just, I don't know, you just life takes over. And I hate when that happens because I feel, I just want to continue sharing with you guys, and I love you guys so much, and I love you for listening, and I just want to say thank you for that, but I'm glad I'm back on the horse, and I feel like the episodes have been dynamic and fun, and the conversations have been awesome, and you guys

are responding and listening, and I love that. And, you know, if you enjoy the show, share with a friend. That's all I can ask, right? I mean, share the show with a friend. That's the best way to support what we do here at the show, and just, I love you for listening. If you enjoy the podcast, you'll love the blog. findingpeak.com go to findingpeak finding p ea k.com finding peak where we talk about peak performance and business life your career um what are the things you need to be doing in your health and your

mentality um in in how you lead and how you sell and all those things um we're talking about what it means to to find peak performance in your life and what i'll tell you is we talk about all kinds of different dynamic things and no one does all those things i don't do all the things But what it is, I'm trying to share with you different tactics and strategies that you can cherry pick and place into your own life and help you be the best version of yourself day to day. And whatever that means for you and whatever helps that, whatever that helps you do better. So go to findingpeak.com, free articles. We do do some really deep dive kind of nitty-gritty behind-the-scenes stuff for insurance people. those come out on Tuesdays and those are paid mostly because I don't know I feel like if you're

going to step inside my brain the $7 a month is worth it and plus I just kind of helps me buy for Kate and prioritize comments and stuff from people so paid subscribers get get priority on comments and responses and stuff like that but but yeah 90 plus percent of the content is free and I hope you check that out. And last but not least, I want to give a big shout out to Tivli.com. T-I-V-L-Y.com. Guys, T-I-V-L-Y-D-C-K-G-L-Y-G-G. T-I-V-L-Y-D-L-Y. They're one of our largest and most important partners in our business. And if you're looking to write more commercial insurance, they have a portfolio of ways to do that. They're tremendous people. I enjoy working with them.

And we've been a client for going on 18-plus months. We're probably probably headed toward two years at this point. Big fan of Tivoli and was honored when they asked if they could sponsor the show and share their message with you. And if you want to learn more about them, go to tivl.com. You can also listen to the episode I did. Go back in the archives and find the episode I did with Mark McClure and Kim Reed and you'll learn all about Tivoli what they're doing. Guys, I love you for listening to this show. Let's get on to Michael Malfa. Mr. Hanley. What's up, dude?

Hold on. Let me fix my audio here. Let me fix my. I'm not hearing you. You feel, you, uh, see. I know, I know what it is. I'll tell you what. You look good, man.

I know you can't hear me. I know you can't hear me, but you look good. Only the audience can hear me right now. So Michael's working on his audio. I can hear you now. I was just telling the audience that even though you couldn't hear me, you look amazing the hair the you're all trimmed up i mean stop it very intimidating to come into a call with such a good looking dude it's i just got back from florida that's why you you asshole you know

much needed how was it so much needed sunshine was good fun how you doing yeah yeah man uh good but just just doing the thing, all the things. I'm excited. We're finally getting to do this. I know we kind of went back and forth a bunch and we've missed each other. And I think I canceled on you and you can't, you know, and we go back and forth. And it's always the way it is.

If for anyone who's listening at home that doesn't have a podcast, you know, I think in your mind, everyone thinks it's like clean and easy and you just schedule to. And then, you know, life happens. And, you know, and this is always the way it is. But we had, you know, I don't even, who connected us? I can't even remember now. Who originally connected us? You know what?

It was, uh, who was it? Dylan, I think it was. Dylan, he was working. Yeah, Dylan Reed.

Yeah, Dylan Reed. Yes. Um, and I knew Dylan at Wonder Right. And then he went to Buddy Insurance. And then he left Buddy Insurance, went back to Wonder Right.

And he said, you know, there's this dude up in Canada. You got to freaking talk to him. He's doing a lot of cool shit. And, uh, and we had an awesome kind of get to know you call. And, uh,

I think at the end, I was like, man, we got a gentleman on a podcast and talk about the business and what's on. So why don't we do this? For everyone at home who's listening who doesn't know you, doesn't know what you're up to, give us like the, give them like the 10,000 foot or, you know, maybe not back to birth, but give us kind of the origin story. What's up now? And then we'll go

from there. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So high level view, you know, I've been in the business, you know, since, since 2008, have been on the commercial brokering side. So I was doing commercial brokering similar to what you're doing there at rogue risks, you know, PNC, commercial PNC, you know, added for a number of years building up that book of business. And then I guess we got to the point where we plateaued, my partner and I. So we were both at a direct writer. We were working for a direct writer, captive agents for like 12 years at Fairfax Financial Company. And, you know, we decided to branch out to the brokering side. And then we started feeling a lot of the additional workload that's on the brokering side.

Like people have no idea what what brokers do behind the scenes. Like everyone is, you know, clients push, push brokers for quotes, push them for service. They don't realize how much back end work there is, how much administrative work there is. So we felt it.

And as we scaled that book up, you know, we were just drowning in service work. So we're like, hey, you know, we got to do something here. So that's when we kind of started building out,

uh, boardwalk insurance. and we're building out our own unique solutions, our own technology that's basically, you know, the brains behind the operation. It's like, I guess you can call it, we don't like to call it a BMS system, you know, for your listeners, I'm sure the technical ones will understand BMS is broker management system. There's also PMS and we're not talking about the time of the month PMS, like policy management system. Yeah. So it's sort of like that. It's kind of like everything, it's housing all of our operations, but the reason why we decided not to purchase something off the shelf,

you know, we got this, we built the solutions so we can remain agile and flexible and really plug in to different providers, different service providers out there and make this really robust and take away as much heavy lifting as possible from the producer. So that's kind of like why we did it. Two years in now, we launched in March 2021. It's been going great. We're writing a lot of business. You know, there's obvious some bottlenecks on the producer side, as you know. But, you know, we'll dive into it deeper. But that's kind of like the high level we're at. We're in Canada, in Ontario, selling mainly in Ontario, but we do sell out of province as well. And, you know, I did meet, you know, Dylan at InsureTech, New York City. So we were in insuretech. We were in a lab, an accelerator with InsureTech, New York. And that's where we met Dylan. And he had such great things to say about you, Ryan. He's like, you guys.

got to listen to Ryan. He's doing amazing things where we are. He's he's got he, he was talking about your content, how unbelievable it is. And I do commend you, Ryan, like the content you're putting out, that's a big commitment. And you're doing a great job. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. We can come back to that side in a minute too. I think, you know, what I'm what I think is really interesting. So this, what you have done, and one of the things that I think is so admirable and exciting and I'm so interested, and is like what you have decided to do is something that every independent, I shouldn't say every, all of the independent agents that I know who are thinking,

where is the puck going and not where it is today. Now, one of the interesting things about our businesses, you can think, you know, again, taking this kind of hockey analogy here, like, you don't even, to be successful in our industry, you don't even have to be playing where the puck is today. You could still be doing shit like the way it was 10, 20 years ago and be successful. that's the crazy part about our business. So then there are the people who are kind of just kind of going along, operating with the tools that are kind of given to them.

They go to enough carrier functions or enough association functions. Like, you know, I'll adopt this tool eventually. You know, they're all kind of laggards. They're not even like, they're not even like, you know, the late majority. They're like straight laggards if anyone's ever read crossing the chasm, which is a chasm or chasm or a tremendous book for anyone who has not read that and is interested. But anyone who I know, and it's a growing group of people, which is exciting, who is thinking about where the puck is going in our business, they all have this fantasy of, man, I'd love to create my own, you know, down here we call it agency management system, not a broker management system, so, you know, our own AMS.

And then you start to think about all the technical hurdles and all the sunk cost into technology and building out a development. team or hiring a third party development team and geez i sell insurance i don't know anything about developing software or what that looks like like how you know what was it in your past or like like it's such a big commitment to to take on building this out like when did you what was that moment like where you were like you know what there's no other path for us for us to be who we are for what we want to do there's no other path because because it is an enormous commitment and i am positive you know and i'm sure you talk about it this has not just been like very easy, clear incremental growth and everything's been fine. So like, talk to me about that first

moment when you look at, you know, you look at your partner and you're like, you know what, we got this is some we have to do this. Like there's no other option for us. This is where we're going. What was that like? Yeah, that's a great question, right? And it's pretty funny actually, you know, it took some naivness. I'm not going to lie. You know, we were coming from the product side like no different than you. Like we knew the product very well, but nothing to do with development. Now my partner is a little bit more tech savvy, you know, than I am. He's always had some kind of passion for technology. And he's never developed any technology, but he's always been very passionate and avid in,

you know, learning about it. So it started in a Starbucks, actually. We were sitting in a Starbucks having a coffee and just just on a piece of like a napkin, a piece of paper. And we just started, you know, we were talking about some problems and some hurdles we were having with our current AMS system and how it couldn't do this and couldn't do that. And we just started like wire framing. We just started drawing screens out on a piece of paper, a napkin.

We're like, well, what if a screen looked like this when the, when the, when the, producer came in and they can access this data and they could do this? And then we just started snowballing. We ended up talking to an advisor. So we brought someone on early on onto our advisory board. And he was a VP at a tech firm, a local tech firm here. And he started giving us the structure. So that took a lot of time, like that, that discovery period of where we had to learn what,

how to do this, like what wireform? framing is, what sprints are, development sprints, like front end, back end, UX, UI. Like it was exciting though. We were passionate about it. Like we love insurance, but it was exciting learning this new portion of the business. So we started, you know, we started investing tons of hours after work in the night, in the mornings and we're just researching and meeting with all these different, you know,

consultants as well, CTOs of companies. We had some friends that were CTOs. So we just started to gather all this info. and we start to get excited and be like, wow, you know, if we can do that, if we can pull this off, this system would be amazing. And right now, there's, there's really no system out there for, for producers that would give them these tools. And like you said, like the puck, you know, you could succeed by not being where the puck is. But if you can get ahead of it and you can be where the puck's going to be, you know, a year down the road, two years down the road,

then you could start, you know, you could start scoring and winning big. And that's what we want. Like, we were doing well without the tools, like you said, but it's just not. scalable and it's not going to be sustainable over a long period of time. We're young. Like, you know, we're young. So we got to get ahead of the curveball. Yeah. I, so this is, um, so for, for year. I mean, since I got in the business, this is going to be my 17th year in the industry. I've been hearing, you know, AMS is sucked. They're all behind. You know, they're, you know, there's as much as ahead, you know, there's so much work in writing insurance. And then your, your, your AMS is a second job essentially. You know what I mean? All this, you know,

we've heard all these things and they're all terrible. And look, I think that hopefully St. Peter will judge all of the people who've run legacy agency management systems harshly when they decide to make their trip up north. And but it has been a reality, right? That's just the way that it was. And, you know, when I, when I think about, you know, so there's always been this kind of this kind of catch 22 people will say, you know, people like you and I sit on these podcasts and we say, you know, this is where it's going. This is where the puck is going. This, you know, one of these

days, one of these days. And then you got these legacy brokers who are like, you guys are, you young guys are moron, you know, not that I'm not young anymore, but like, you know, you're morons. Just go get epic or just go get, you know, go get one of the standard systems and sell insurance. Our job is to sell insurance. And I'm like, I get that, right? Like, I wholeheartedly get that and have learned that lesson the hard way many, many times where I thought I was out ahead of something and just it just didn't make a difference. But there is something in my core. And I, and I think this is what we really connected on, even if we didn't verbalize it during our first conversation was like, I just feel, I can't not believe that there isn't going to be a day.

That's a triple negative, by the way. So I get points for that. That there is going to come a time when that when that, when that, that, when that, that, that, that, that, when it does happen, when, when, when, when, when, when being out ahead of it when having connectivity, when having clean, clear, easy systems that you can train people on quickly, when all the sudden that flips over and the people who haven't made that jump, who haven't thought about the things that you were thinking about and we're trying to think about it, Rogan, and there are many others, you know, we're not alone, but when all of a sudden being in that game and thinking out ahead is going to end up being a competitive advantage. I just, it's happening. It can't happen in every other industry and not this.

industry forever. I think eventually that rubber band is going to snap forward. And the people that are thinking the way you are going to be the ones that I don't want to say survive because you can survive without it. But I did a podcast that hasn't dropped yet and I can't wait for it to. And the title of it is, and I think this is kind of relates to this is, you're going to be okay, but your kids are fucked. And like that's kind of like my thought is like the 60 year old guy who's plugging along, he doesn't need to think the way you're thinking. He doesn't have to think the way you're thinking at all. He's good.

His spouse is always going to have a seven series BMW in the driveway. He's going to have his house in Florida. He's going to take his great trips. Everything's good. His life is set. We're doing this for the next generation, for the next generation. His 35-year-old kid or, or, you know, whether it's a guy or girl, comes behind him, that person's going to struggle.

That person's going to struggle. That's the one that's going to be, you know, you're setting your, you're setting your perpetuation up for a headache. Yeah. Do you have kids, Ryan? I do. Yeah, yeah, nine and seven, two boys. Yep. So there you go. The rogue risk will be ready for them. When they come in, there's going to, it's going to be just the machine that's running itself and they just plug into it and just watch it go. I'm telling you, I mean, we make that joke all the time. Like my partner and I, he's like, you know, he goes, you know, when your daughter Penelope, you know, grows up. She's six years old. He goes and she gets into insurance. That's when boardwalk will be ready to just, you know, take over. So it is a long term investment. And we understand. And like you said, you said you're not young. You're very young, Ryan, especially in our industry. Like in our industry, it is an aging demographic. So we are very young. And it's exciting to see all this young talent coming in that they're very passionate about the direction of the industry.

But you're right. Like if you speak to someone that's toward nearing the end, it's very insurance risk management. And that's important too. Like you said, that's important too. But insurance risk management, the business is going to become more than just that in five, 10, 15 years. If you're just doing that, you're going to be left behind. So, you know, we're just trying to future proof ourselves. And I think it's amazing, you know, and I don't want to be, you know, another thing that I've learned, and I learned this from one of my, one of my good buddies, Gordon Coyle, who's been on the show and anyone who's listening, we had a great conversation six months or so ago.

I can't remember when it was. But he's, he's in his early 60s. and and dude is absolutely crushing it like create a five year goal for himself said i don't want to be like all my peers who are just kind of coasting in i want to take my agency and i have x you know ex goal that i want to hit in these five years and he's got this great agency with like a i don't want to say a narrow niche but like a really interesting focus and and like d and oh and and cyber for like vc firms and all this kind of shit and he's like right outside new york and the dude is crushing it and he's thinking the way you and i are thinking so it's like

it's not an age thing, but it definitely, age tends to play just because of life cycles, but you can be at any point in your career. And if you, here's the other thing, man, I think the, thinking about this shit is fun, too. Like, selling insurance is great and I love making money and it's a great industry. I'll never leave it again. I did, but I never will again. But man, thinking about this stuff, dreaming about the way things could be, even if it's small, little tweaks. it's energizing.

Like you, you know, it can be frustrating, but it's also very energizing. I don't know. It is. There's so much room for improvement and so much room for disruption. It's, it's unbelievable. And it's amazing.

Your podcast, you interviewed so many, so many talented individuals. And it's, it's so interesting and exciting to hear what they're doing. You know, everyone's doing something a little bit unique and finding a better way to get to that, that puck in the net. Yeah.

You know, fewer, fewer strides to get. there. Right now we can get that puck in the net, but we're just, you know, we're really striding, like taking a lot of strides. We're skating hard. We're short-staffed. We're under man. That's another thing. Talent is another thing we should talk about. You know, I don't know how it is where you are, but finding like experienced commercial P&C producers, it's so challenging. I'll tell you what. You have people who live in Florida licensed in Canada because Florida is such a shit show from a marketplace. There are a ton of really talented people in the state of Florida

who've been let go or just fed up with the market. And so we actually find a lot of really talented people in the state of Florida because Florida, you know, all these traditional agencies in Florida, it's a shit show down there. I mean, and not anyone's fault. Just the hurricanes and the weather and all the kind of stuff, these eight, a lot of people get churned or spit out or agencies fall and so what we've we've found is that there's a lot of really talented people in the state of florida who because of that marketplace are kind of either disenfranchised with their business or they're they're kind of stuck or or they've been let go or they're kind of you know not there's nowhere for them to go because it's such a terrible market down there and and you know and i don't

mean terrible like the agents are terrible i just mean they're really handcuffed by what they can do and um and there's a lot of talent and there's other places. too, but like, have you thought about reaching down into, because we're lucky in that we'll hire anybody from anywhere in the States. So, so I have, I, we don't have the talent issue as much because we have such a large pool of pull from. Have you ever thought about coming down into the States and getting people licensed in Canada? You know what? We haven't. We've thought about getting them from other provinces, but never going into the States, I guess just because of the regulatory licensing requirements, like they would have to get their Canadian license. And I, I,

we've looked into getting the U.S. license. If you're, if you're not a resident, it's very challenging. You need someone there that's a resident that can get that license. You know more about it than I do. But we thought they would have the same hurdles coming north versus south. Now, are you using like a recruiter to find these individuals? Are you actually going out and hunting yourself? Yeah.

So I'll say part of the content is recruiting. Part of the content play is recruiting part of talking about who we are, the way we do it. I have this, this, um, a little, I guess it's a blog. I guess you could call it called Finding Peak, which, which I have a, I have this, I have to create content and get it out of my system. It's like, I don't know if you've ever seen a superhero movie where if they don't like get rid of their power or whatever, like they blow up. Like it's kind of like that for me.

Like if I'm not creating and writing, like I get a little crazy. But, but it's also a recruiting tool to say, hey, like this is, the way we think here, like, like this, this idea of peak performance and small incremental growth and getting one percent better every day. And like, if you like this mentality, then we could be a good fit for you. So the, so the content helps. We use indeed LinkedIn. So, so for I'd say for a lot of our positions, the vast majority, we do not use a recruiter. However, we have, like we recently needed, we needed an accounting person that could sit in our, We've been outsourcing our accounting and commissions.

And I have nothing negative. I have nothing negative to say about the companies that we used. It just got to the point where we needed someone in-house. To find that specific expertise, we had to use a recruiter. And we're also hiring a director of sales and a director of service right now for similar reasons. We had kind of had some hodgepages. And it's just we've matured to the point where we need a dedicated people in those positions.

and we're going to use recruiters for them too. So for some of like the more very specific skill-based stuff, we've used. And, you know, I have no affiliation with them other than we pay them, but we use the Jonas. The Jonas group is the name of the recruiting firm that we've used and had a lot of success with them. So that makes sense. So your producers that you're bringing on, are you sort of putting them through like a rogue risk class,

you know, where they become junior to you, maybe just licensed, or about to get licensed, then you start to, you know, train them up and move them through the ranks. Maybe they start in a service role and they move up into a sales role. Is that what you're doing there? You're looking for people ready to sell?

If any of my producers are listening, I'm going to talk where the puck is going and now where it has been. So depending on when you came into Rogue, you got a very different experience. So some of the early producers and people that came in, it was an absolute shit show. It was like, go do insurance.

Like I, there's so many things on fire. You're a startup. It's a startup. It's only natural. But so what we're actually building out and the reason we're looking for ahead of service is because the woman who was running our head of service, she actually is this really, she's just really. She's an affinity for the patients, the mind for training and development. She's really good at at putting things in SOPs. I wish I had that.

Right. She's just. And again, it was. was, um, we just figured it out by accident. I asked her to do a couple like, like trainings on stuff. And like I had her handhold a couple of people that were struggling with things. And when they came out of working with her, it was like night and day. And I was like, her name is Leslie. And I just said, Leslie, like, you know, it seems like while you're very good at service, this is something you're passionate about and whatever. So we are currently building out, um, what we call

the rogue digital producer school. Because I'm not going to like, there's killing commercial. There's Mick Hunt stuff. There's, you know, Kelly Dono Piro as a thing, Charles Speck. You know, there's a bunch of people that can teach you the core kind of classic tried and true and I don't mean that in any negative ways of selling insurance. What we do at Rogue is different. And it took me a while to realize how different it actually was. Like I would put some, I put a couple, we've had a couple fits and starts on producers and it's because you're either a digital producer or you aren't. If you take a classic producer and try to make them a digital producer,

they have to have the right disposition to do that. You can't take a classic producer, plug them into a digital model, and expect them to be successful. I was not aware of the amount of difference between those two things. And so what we're building and what Leslie's building and I, you know, we're going to start by launching this. to our internal team. So every producer that comes in

will go through the Rogue Digital Producer School. And then eventually we'd like to expand it to our parent companies network, the SIA network. And then eventually we may open it up to a broader ecosystem

because I do think that this will be, what I have tasked her with is building, you know, the best in class digital. We're not, I don't want to compete against these in person trainings and that kind of stuff. That's not what we're trying to do.

This is going to be like, you know, use them or not like a teachable style format that you go through with tests and you essentially come out like what i said to her is i want to have uh and i feel like you're interviewing me now so i will hopefully this eventually but well we will eventually have um what i want is to have something that's so good so valuable so important to the growth of a producer that they like take that badge and like put it on their fucking LinkedIn profile that's what i want i want people like going like look you know like almost like uh you know how if you get like 100 000 subscribers on youtube those people

hold like those plaques like I want someone like on LinkedIn like I'm a digital producing you know what I mean like that's awesome that's exciting that must be a big undertaking though to put that together like that's that's full time yeah and that's why we had to move her I mean that was really and you know and these are some of the decisions that I've found um when you when you think about your agency as a business and not an agency the decisions you make are different right so you know you can have a conversation because you know one of the the things I picked up on very early with you is that you think about your agency like a business,

not like, not like an agency, right? Agency is what you do or brokerage is what you do. You know what I mean? That's how you make your money. But it's a business and you have to make business decisions. I think, I think this mindset, this business versus agency or brokerage mindset is going to be one of the like when we look back at this period of time, this may be like 2015, you know, we probably have five or ten more years to go.

this block of time in the insurance industry. If anybody writes books about the insurance insurance, I don't think they do. But, you know, they'll look back on this time and say, this mindset was the delineation, not digital versus traditional, not any. This time period is, do you think about it like a business or do you think about it like an agency? Because us taking on the added expense of moving our head of service to training and development and hiring, that's a major expense. that's a fixed cost. It's another human, but it's the only way to get to where we're going.

And those types of decisions are what you have to do. And it's risky. It's stress inducing. But at the same time, it feels necessary to me. And I'm glad you touched on that because this is not just, like you said, it's not just a digital play. It's more than that. And you kind of summed it up really well with looking at it like a business. We're not just building technology here, no different than you. Like we're embedding SOPs and KPIs into every. everything we do. We're optimizing our CRM. We have consultants that come into our CRM to optimize how we're communicating with our clients, how we're following up with upsell opportunities, renewals, no different than you. There's a lot more to it than just the agency side and the tech side.

Then it's the business as well. Like what are your marketing strategies? Like what's your, you know, your key audience, like your ideal client profile and how do they want to be, you know, communicated with and interacted with? And what channels are you given? them to communicate with you. Like, you know, not every client is fully prepared for that full digital experience. So we do offer like a kind of hybrid experience where they still, they still can get that traditional approach somewhat traditional with a little sprinkle of technology. But it comes down to like you said, it's more than just tech and insurance. Like it's, there's so much more. And we're trying to really push, push the limits on everything, not just the technology, on the actual

business. What's up, guys? Sorry to take you away from the episode, but as you know, we do not run ads on this show. In an exchange for that, I need your help. If you're loving this episode, if you enjoy this podcast, whether you're watching on YouTube or you're listening on your favorite podcast platform, I would love for you to subscribe, share, comment if you're on YouTube, leave a rating review if you're on Spotify or Apple iTunes, etc. This helps the show. This helps the show grow. It helps me bring more guests in. We have a tremendous lineup of people coming in, men and women who've done incredible things, sharing their stories around peak performance, leadership, growth, sales, the things that are going to help you grow as a person and grow

your business, but they all check out comments, ratings, reviews, they check out all this information before they come on. So as I reach out to more and more people and want to bring them in and share their stories with you, I need your help. Share, the show, subscribe if you're not subscribed. And I love for you to leave a comment about the show because I read all the comments or if you're on Apple or Spotify, leave a rating review of this show. I love you for listening to this show. And I hope you enjoy it listening as much as I do, creating the show for you. All right, I'm out of here. Peace. Let's get back to the episode. Let me ask you this. When you think about, so I'm talking, thinking about through the customer

journey, right? And this is something that we ask ourselves all the time. Are you more in the camp of this is the way we want to do business and we're going to find the customers to do business the way we want to do business or are you in the camp of I want to provide customers who want to work with us with whatever experience they desire in working with us and we will adapt to the way they want to work. So to be honest, great question. I'd love to be in camp number one. And we're striving to get to camp number one, but it's taking a little bit more time. When we launched, We were more like, you know, this is how we're doing it. And, you know, we want to track, like you said, a customer that fits that profile.

The problem is the Canadian marketplace, the market is not massive here. And it's a little bit slow to adapt. You know, Canada is usually a little bit behind the U.S. So we were finding that a lot of these customers weren't ready for the way we wanted them to interact with. So we've had to step back a little bit and be a little bit more flexible, a little bit more patient, and give them the opportunity to interact still on the way on their terms. And then we're starting to slowly introduce, say like a certificate of insurance, for example, hey, you know, instead of emailing us, we'll give you this, well, this portal,

this link where you can create your own certificates. And, you know, the uptake, ideally we want every customer creating their own certificates. But the uptake, believe it or not, is low on that. It's getting better and better significantly as, you know, as businesses are starting to adopt technology and as newer, younger, more tech driven controllers are coming into place. But we've had to like slowly move into that. Like, hey, we'll do your search manually if you send us an email the old fashioned way. But we also have this great new way that saves you time.

And we try to, we try to incentivize them to put to nudge them forward to using the technology because it helps everybody. How do you manage the cost benefit analysis of, okay, we, we want to keep building towards what you said. just using this example that you brought up this we want insureds clients who are going to be who who desire and are willing to use this self-service coi portal okay that type of client is is who crushes with us but at the same time being that you have to make money to grow your business they're you know so so so so then there's there's there's a you know there's going to be process

procedures expense to to building out a process that actually wows them the traditional way so you know one thing that i'll tell you i constantly struggle with and I'm really interested in your take on this is like, I know where I want to go. And I actually said this the other day to, I was complaining because I had to, I had to let somebody go the other day. And it was one of the harder things that I've had to do in a very long time.

No, and it was tough. It was very tough thing. I did not like it. And it didn't make me happy. It didn't, you know, there was no part of it was, it wasn't even a sense of relief. It just started to finish.

It sucked. Okay. And, and I was just bitching to, to my, I have a boss. He runs all of SIA, Matt, Manseilla. I'm just bitching to him and I was, and I just said, man, I can see so clearly what Rogue is.

Like I just, when you, you know, it is this, I can see it. There's no fogginess. Like I know exactly where I want to go. However, if I were to just push all my chips into that, that path. Yep. we're not profitable for five years. You know what I mean? So in order to make money and to make our, you know,

to make sure that my people get paid and that, you know, all this stuff. Like we have to do these other things. But to do those other things, there's time. It takes you away from getting that vision. Yes. It costs, you know.

So how do you manage that? How do you manage the realities of making money, being a business growing with that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that path that you want to be on that excites you that gets you up every day like i find some some days it's easy to manage some days it's very very difficult to manage that that they're you know sometimes they click and sometimes they're diametrically opposed and that's a hard thing how do you how do you manage that so that's yeah that's another great question you're definitely good at this at digging out

information so you know i have an interesting answer to this ryan i think you're going to like it So what we've been doing is creating a digital experience first for our brokers. So that's how we're getting around it. So first, we want to give our brokers this digital experience. And that we have a little bit more control over because, you know, we can attract, like you said, staff that understands, you know, the commercial and the tech. We could train them on the tech. We kind of eat, sleep and breathe that philosophy into our business. So they come on already with that, you know, that's the philosophy here.

So we're giving them this experience, this tech experience. We're letting them be the guinea pigs. So they're interacting with everything very digitally, very tech forward. And then they can choose to give that same experience, pass it on to the client or do a more traditional approach. Like, hey, you know, phone calls, emails, traditional PDF documents. So once we feel that we get to a point where. you know, the client is starting to buy in slowly, we're going to push that experience right to the

client. So a lot of its back end now, a lot of the technology we're doing, our customers don't feel a lot of it yet. We're just giving them bit by tidbit by tidbit, a little of the time like the certificate feature, pink slips, you know, automate like rapid renewals, just little things at a time. Our producers and our staff see it all. They're interacting with this system very digitally. And then eventually it's just going to get to a point where we start flipping the switch. and moving it directly to the customer. So now instead of our producer going into the system and inputting the submission info,

they're going to be able to share that URL with the customer where the customer can input that submission info. So we're just like kind of releasing it slowly but surely to our clients, but right now it's all back in. We're just pumping as much technology to our producers as possible and seeing how the uptake is there with how they're interacting with it and how they're communicating with the clients.

I got a couple questions out of that. So one of the things that, one of the, one of the mistakes that I made quite a bit early was trying to do too much too fast. So I love what you said about thinking it in small bits. I literally write down small bits because, you know, that is something that I have had to, my way, you know, I've said this before and people, you know, have had different opinions on this, but like I'm like a wartime general. I am, you, you don't bring me in when everything's going great and you just want to like maintain.

That's not, that's not me. You bring me in when you're like, that hill has to be ours. Here's what you have. Go figure it the fuck. Like that's what I can do. Like when I get to the top of the hill, I'm like, all right, I don't want to be here anymore. You know, put me in and go get and go get. I could see that.

I could see that. That's my way. And in that way, you know, and again, I like like, like, you know, one of the things, I read a lot. And one of the things, one of the reasons why Lincoln chose Grant to be, you know, to be his field general and taking on Lee, Civil War, if you don't know those references, I'm sure you do, or maybe you do, is Grant was all offense. So he fired two of the two of the generals directly below him almost immediately.

because they were very defensive. And his whole thing was, you can play offense and defense, but you can't play only defense. You can't win only playing defense. You can't do it. You have to push. You have to apply pressure.

When you apply pressure, that creates cracks, cracks create opportunities, and then that's how you get in. Okay. So in war, that makes a lot of sense. How does it make sense in business?

Well, you don't know what works and what doesn't until you apply pressure to systems and see where things blow up and break. Now, I believe in that philosophy wholeheartedly. However, the hard lesson that I've had to learn, and I promise there's a question in here, is that the answer in business, unlike maybe,

and maybe this is similar to war. I've never been in war. I've only read books about it. So in business, applying massive pressure to multiple systems at one time does not work. It overwhelms your people. It overwhelms your ability to understand what's happening, what's happening well.

And that is a mistake that I've made is I've moved too fast, tried to make too many changes too quickly and too rapid a succession and it's created problems. So do you think that having and one thing I've never had is a partner. I've only ever been a solo op. And I've many times thought to myself, geez, I just had, even if it was like a movie and I could have like the angel and the devil on my shoulders just to have someone else talking to me, maybe better. But like, you know, I've never had a partner. Do you think having a partner allows you to. throttle either up or down, like be better about throttling up and down because now you have that constant conversation. Do you think that is like a competitive advantage for you that you did this

with a partner? A hundred percent, but it has to be the right partner. Yeah. So, you know, before getting into business, you know, we deal with a lot of business owners. So I've got a lot of advice. And the wrong partner could be the worst thing to your business, you know. So we won't talk to that, obviously we know the implications of having the wrong partner. But if you have the right partner and they complement your skill set and they come in from like a different lens, and you're right, I'm a lot. I'm like you, maybe not, you know, as much of a wartime general, but I like to push forward and I like to drive results. My partner is a little bit more conservative. He's very methodical. Like he thinks, he loves to think, think, sometimes it's like analysis paralysis.

Like I just like to do. I just want to get out there and do it. Let's just cross this off. Let's bang it out. Let's bang these things out. And he's more like, hey, let's stop. Let's plan. Let's drop. Let's test. Let's QA.

So, you know, it's good. It's good because it keeps me grounded. And a lot of times when, you know, I just want to jump into something that these waters, he may, you know, he may identify some sharks in the water before I just dive into it. So it helps. And getting that opinion helps as well, that second opinion. Because a lot of times you're right. It's like, okay, I think this is what we should do.

but I don't really know. It's nice having that second opinion. It's been a huge help. And having that backup, you know, we all have our uptimes and our down times. And when you're not on your game, it's nice to have someone else you can rely on. But it has to be the right partner. Yeah. Yeah.

Are you able to or how much are you able to pull from, say, U.S.-based insured tech companies and pull that up into your marketplace? Is there, are there companies that provide crossover for you or mostly do you have to watch what's going on in the U.S. And either try to find similar companies in Canada or recreate it yourself. I would say now it's a little bit more than before. You know, when we first started looking, there wasn't much that we can apply over from the U.S.

because, you know, the flexibility wasn't there, different wordings, different, you know, different docs, like WonderWrite, for example. Like we spoke to WonderWrite and, you know, they're completing documents really great what they're doing, like applications. The thing is it's U.S. applications. And when we first spoke to them, a lot of these accord forms weren't really relative to the forms we were using down here. But they're becoming much more flexible. Like now they're willing to adopt these forms and to program these forms into their system.

So now we can, you know, we use CSIO forms instead of accord forms. And we can actually program our forms into their system. So I would say it is opening up a lot more. And we're starting to look at some providers south of the border. It is very exciting. There's lots of opportunity. even there's there was another one we're looking at as well. I forget the name Andrew's talking to them.

It's another provider from the U.S. I'll share it with you after the podcast, but they've been great to help us with ingesting information into our system. Yeah. Do you, you know, so one of the things earlier in my career that I realized is that because the insurance industry is so far behind, I could just look at what it was going on in other industries, recreate an insurance industry,

and people be like, oh my God, look what you're doing. And I'd be like, well, you know, they've been doing this for 15 years in the marketing industry or they've been doing this for this much time. And, you know, and because it's such an insulated industry, you know, people were like, it was like blowing their minds and the things that I was doing. That has changed a lot today. Just, you know, I think people are more aware of what's going on in the world in general outside of the insurance industry.

And technology has helped a lot with that. Do you find that because you are dialed into the U.S. market, at least in being part of insuretech New York and having some of the connections that you do down here, it allows you to almost seem like you have superpowers because you can see just this, you know, not that the US is better or whatever, just bigger. And now you have this big, huge and you can kind of pull, hey, I really like what this company is doing. Man, we could create that in our own system.

And now we're a step ahead. Like are you kind of using your connections in the U.S. market, pulling them up into your market, building them into their system. And it's giving you kind of some advantage. Big time, big time. So before we joined InsureTech, New York and before we started really networking into the U.S. with some of the, you know, the agencies, the insurers, the technology providers, a lot of the stuff that we've seen south of the border does not exist and is nowhere even near development here in Canada. Like, especially with the on the MGA side.

In the U.S., like you have so many tech forward MGAs with API connectivity. Like, we don't have any of that here. like it's just wild to see what's being done down there. So it has given us a bit of an advantage because now we have that foresight and we know where things are eventually going to go. So we can see that and we can start to position ourselves to capitalize on that. So we know, you know, this API is coming, you know, in this segment, you know, because Hartford's doing it or Travelers.

You know, it's only a matter of time before Travelers Canada starts to adopt that as well. So let's start getting ahead of it. So it has been helpful. And one for you, what would be good is to look, and I'm sure you already have, is look to like the UK, Europe and the UK. There's that insure tech conference out there. And there, I think they may even be ahead of the US. They're either on par or ahead of the US because the technology that's happening there,

the plays out there are also mind-blowing. We don't see too much because we haven't been participating in any events out there. but I am on the newsletter and I have been on a few panels where they're trying to like, I was on a panel where they interviewed, interviewed me on what's happening over here. And it just was like a dinosaur compared to what they're doing over there in the UK. It's really the interesting part about the UK and even the Western European market in general is that it's almost from what I can take. And I will say that I have not spent as much time in the UK. market as I think I should. It's actually, it's funny that you say that. I was listening to something

the other day or, oh, I don't what it was. I did a mastermind last week. I'm, you know, again, you have all these thoughts and they come rushing back. I was at a mastermind last week that Doug Benz put together, who's an amazing agent out of Buffalo, New York, go bills and not Sabers. And the, and we were in New York City. So he brought in 15 agents in New York City. It was, it was really cool, really, really well done. It was an awesome mastermind. because it was event-based. So we went, one of the things we did was we went to Lloyd's London's headquarters, which is the U.S. headquarters in New York City. And this gentleman, Hank Watkins, who is the president of all of U.S. Lloyds. Okay. Lloyd's is an incredibly interesting operation.

And he gave us this really detailed, it was either 90 or 90 minutes or two hours, breakdown on Lloyd's and what it means, what's going on and all this kind of stuff. And he was, and he was kind of contrasting the UK and the U.S. And one of the things that hit me is that from a carrier perspective, from a distribution perspective, in many ways, I feel like the UK is just so far ahead in terms of what they're able to deliver from a technological experience. However, when you look at their broker model,

their broker model is almost archaic compared to the U.S. or at least, and I don't want to say I'm sure, but this was the feeling that I got was that the the deed so I I don't want to say this for sure. And if someone who's listening knows, please school me on this, hit me up on LinkedIn. I'd love to learn more. This is something. And I had this thought of I want to learn more about this market because it felt like it almost felt like the broker model, the gap between what they could do D to C and what the brokers were doing. It almost got too big and it got untethered. And now all of a sudden you have this broker model and then you have this D to C model, particularly

on personal insurance. I don't even think there's any brokers that sell personal insurance anymore. And it's just because the brokers didn't keep up. And in the U.S., that hasn't quite happened yet. But I do feel like we would be naive to believe that it couldn't happen, especially in certain segments. I mean, we've already seen it. We're already seeing it in personal lines.

With the lemonadees and the hippos, I guess. Yeah, it just, I just feel like at some point that, that market's going to get, you know, detached that, you know, right now they kind of follow each other one takes a little bit one takes back where they kind of follow each other i feel like at some point they're going to get detached and i don't think it's going to be i don't think especially for downstream products bops uh person you know standard personal lines i don't think brokers agents are going to win in those games i think eventually the way the UK is gone for some of these smaller downstream products.

The market is just going to say, if I'm buying, if my business owner's policy is a thousand bucks, I don't need to talk to a human. I don't need to talk to a human for a thousand dollars. It's just true. You're right. There is that school that think that the agency is alive and well and strong. It's not going anywhere. And it's true.

It's not going anywhere in certain lines of business. But in the lines of business that you've mentioned that are very heterogeneous like that, you know, a lot of these smaller, very micro-bop policies and small personal lines, they're not looking at coverage. Like when you're going to buy car insurance and home insurance, you know, 90% of the buyers, they're just looking at the price. They're looking at the price. And they don't want to speak to human beings.

They want to go online. They want to go on to a Bel Air Direct, which is in Canada, you know, and they want to just buy their insurance online and just get the best price and be done with it. Well, here's the other thing, man. A bop is a bop is a. a bop is a bop is a bop. Like, you know, I have these people go, wow, but you don't understand. Well, I got to make sure their coverages are set up properly.

I'm like, what don't they have? Yeah. That's what I don't understand. Everything's in the extensions. You just throw a bunch of extensions in a package of extensions. It's all in there. Every year, the carriers put more shit. And again, my market is commercial.

So I'm thinking, you know, Bop business. Like every year, they just put more shit into the bop, more shit into the, what don't they have? What are they missing? Like, if they go online and they. like, you know, Hartford, you know, uh, uh, you know, whatever, like a bakery bop. What are they fucking missing? I don't get what they're missing.

You know what I mean? Like workers comp. What are they missing and workers comp? What do they do the workers come now? Okay. Commercial auto. Yes. You know, maybe you set some can't go below this limit kind of shit.

Like I, I guess, you know, I get your manufacturers, your wholesalers, your distributors. Large contractors that are doing like. contractors, construction, general, you know, that kind of stuff. Some of the technology businesses, yes, okay, I get it. And that's the market where the brokers dominate and should dominate because you do need a human in there. It's anything that requires like a substantial amount of underwriting or some like, you know, unique coverage, some specialized coverage based on a niche operation. So if it doesn't have that, it doesn't have that specialized coverage based on that really,

niche or unique operation or doesn't require extensive underwriting, there's no reason. why they can't fulfill it D to C. And see, this is the distinction that I think a lot of the purists miss is that I think, and I'd be interested in your take, what I'm not saying, and I don't think you're saying, is that it doesn't mean they don't need good service, if they need help, that a human shouldn't be involved, that if they have questions, those questions shouldn't be answered with someone experience and guidance and expertise, but they don't need it to purchase the policy, right?

To purchase the policy, a human does not have to be involved. to purchase the policy. Once the policy is purchased, it doesn't mean someone can't go behind and go, okay, this looks good. But, but, but, check, check, check, check, okay, this looks good. Or they call with a question and you don't need someone who's licensed, who can answer that question and be there for them and care for them. It doesn't mean the service side goes away. I'm saying from purely a sales perspective, if your BOP is, I'm going to go so far as to say, under $5,000, what do you need a human to sell that policy to you for? I don't think you do. I honestly, in our numbers and what we're doing, I do not think you need a human to sell those policies.

Service, renewal, you know, some of the other stuff, cross-selling. Sure, for sure. But like, I don't think you need a human to sell those policies. No, you're right. And I think customers are rapidly getting to the point where they don't want a human involved because they only slow it down and muddy it up. Yeah, exactly. You're right.

And as long as the experience, you know, answers the questions of the customer because that's the only thing that would come up. While they're going through it, the customer is going to have questions. are going to be like, okay, well, why do I, what's CGL or why do I need liability? Or, you know, as long as the flow answers those questions and you kind of have, give that those descriptions, then I can't see there being any issues with that. Yeah. Yeah. So that's the only barrier we see.

That only barrier we see is sometimes I'll have, you know, some questions. But if you have a really good online flow, you should be able to answer those questions. And if you can't answer those questions, you just like you said, there's a chat. There's a chat. there's a line they can call and they can get those questions quickly answered yeah i i think you know i i i mapped out this like years ago i mapped out this vision because because you know i pitched uh trusted choice dot com the company that i worked for a few years ago i pitched them on so everyone listening to this is going to hate this but you know we we listened to every one we saw

everything that happened so lead would come in and they did a massive amount of leads you know they put a massive amount of leads to their system and we we listened to we would see what would happen to those leads most of the time the agents wouldn't follow up for days um this this was 2014 to 2018 so today i think that has gotten a lot better not much rapidly improved our response well i'm not saying you but i'm just in general like that that human is the bottleneck yes so so i'm watching all this and i pitched them on like why are we giving these to agents do you know how much money i was like do you know how much money trusted choice dot com i make if we just said fuck We're just going to sell this insurance ourselves because they obviously don't want it.

We're watching the numbers. They get these emails because we would have read receipts on the email so we could see. They didn't even open this email for like three days. And then they're bitching at us that it's a bad lead and all, you know, all this crazy stuff. And we recorded the phone calls so we could hear like, and like agents on the phones would be like, what? What do you want?

Oh my goodness. It's so true. Who are you? Why are you calling me? And I'm like, oh my God, we just sent you a person who raised their hands in the internet. Okay. So I pitched them on like. Guys, what if we created, you know, we still send leads, but we given customers this option where they can do their own path and I map this whole thing out.

And I think that there are ways and I'm happy to discuss this offline too because it's probably not appropriate and we're running out time. But like there are a lot of ways if you look at really well done flows around using call out videos, call out boxes, rip cord polls, chat feature. You know, customers like you commonly chose these things. Yes. Good, better, best. There's all these really classic but important customer behaviors that you could add into it that I have never seen ever. I've never seen it in an insurance flow that you can, that you could add that would drastically

improve what I believe drastically improve the close ratio. But here's the other thing, man. I don't think anyone. And I would even put lemonade in this. as well. I don't think anyone has fully committed to the D to C model in a way. Because you look at Geico, Geico's and flow kind of sucks. They only take a small amount of information, but their flow is kind of not great. Next is the same way. It's just a, it's just a, it literally looks like a freaking wedged in an eye frame. Like it's not, you know, it's it's it's clunky,

crazy stuff. And I look at it and I'm like, wow, no one is really committed to, to, to, to this full experience online. They're just kind of like, we ran an ad, click here, you know, buy this thing. And you're like, geez, your business model is D to C. And your flow is kind of like, man. Like I don't, I don't understand. And so I feel like there's still a tremendous amount of opportunity for D to C out there for certain segments. The flow is everything. When you get a chance, have a look at, you know, they're a competitor, so I don't really want to shout them out. But I'm sure you've heard of them, Zensurance. So they're in Canada.

of they've done they've done a pretty decent flow on on on on on policies and they are brokerage but but you know they're backed by an insurer so they do have a direct flow yeah it's it's pretty interesting but you're right when you when you're selling direct and you're selling online the flow is everything and you got to put like you know everything into it you have to run through that flow over and over again and find out where those friction points are where they're dropping off you have to have trackers and tags on every page okay where's the customer dropping off where are they unsure, where are they reaching out to us chat with an agent? And then it's just, it's a huge undertaking.

But you're right. If that's your business, you need to invest in that area. It's number one. I think that what happens to a lot of these DDC companies and I don't, I don't, I don't think, I don't know their business, but this is my best guess is running the insurance part of the business is so hard that they put up with. They get a certain amount of inbound business that allows that. them to make money, they, they kind of stop there from an improvement of flow standpoint because

it's so difficult and so labor intensive and costly to actually run an insurance company. And I think, you know, when you're when you're reporting to a board of directors or investors, and you're like, yeah, we're putting millions into improving our flow. They're like, eh, how about you put millions into your underwriting? Because that's where we make more money. And I get that. But I think it, I think it leaves opportunity for idiots like you and, me who are stupid enough to try to take these things on and figure them out because it's all

there it's all there for us. We started that flow. We have like a little online capture and we just we just saw how what a big undertaking it is. It is a big undertaking. We're going to revisit it. You know, next quarter we're revisiting it. We're going to use a third party provider to help us with that. We're going to connect in.

But you're right. It's a massive undertaking building that flow out. We don't have the resources. Like you don't have the resources to do it all, you know, to build the technology, to run the brokerage, to manage the insurance partnership side, to manage the employees and the service team, the SOPs, the KPIs. You're like literally spread so thin amongst everything. And you only have so many brain cycles.

And that's the part. That's one of the biggest lessons that I've learned. And I think it's probably a good place to leave this conversation, which has been tremendous. And I appreciate the hell out of you. Likewise. Likewise. I think that I think it is very difficult. to explain to people who aren't in this space

how hard it is to manage all the different all the different veins of thought that you have going on in your head at one time. And you probably only listed a third or maybe even a half of the things that you have to think about every day and your brain has to jump from SOPs to some service persons having a baby

and now you have to figure out a way to backfill him or her, you know, whatever. And you know, and you're like, And all these different things. You're like, oh my God. You're right. Generated leads. And then after you generate the lead, the producers want leads.

And then they don't call the leads. Like you said, it's true. We have that problem too. We got leads for you. Call the leads. Why aren't you calling the leads? Do the training. It's endless.

It's endless. But dude, I think this has been absolutely wonderful. I'm rooting for you. Hopefully we can do this again. You got to, anytime you want to come back on and just chat, let's do it. Where if people just want to connect with you a little bit more about you, LinkedIn, where's the best place to learn more about you and your business?

Yeah, absolutely. I would say LinkedIn, just look me up, Michael Malfa or Boardwalk Insurance. We're also online at Myboardwalk.ca. Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn, or you can send me an email at Michael at myboardwalk. com. It's been a pleasure being on the podcast, Ryan. I got, you know, nothing but respect for you. Kudos to you for doing this.

And, you know, this is not a sprint. We're in a, we're in a, we're in a, we're in a, we're in a, We're in a long race. We'll get to the end. We'll get to the finish line. Absolutely, dude. Be good. You too.

Thanks, Ryan. Take care. Close twice as many deals by this time next week. Sound impossible, it's not. With the one call closed system, you'll stop chasing leads and start closing deals. In one call. This is the exact method we used to close 1,200 clients under three years during the pandemic.

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