Finding Peak w/ Ryan Hanley - Stop Being Afraid of Your Numbers

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Starting point is 00:01:45 Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the show. Today we have an absolutely tremendous episode for you, a conversation about agency accounting, something that everybody wants to talk about. I say that laughing because accounting is horrible. However, having done four years as the CEO and founder of Rogue Risk and having been an executive multiple times now, and actually most people don't know this about me but I used my math degree and was a consultant

Starting point is 00:02:17 for one of the top five accounting firms, RSM and Gladri for almost five years. I've always appreciated how important accounting is. Like I hate it. I absolutely hate thinking about it. To me, I want to see the numbers. I want to see the financial statements. I want to see the numbers. Numbers are important.

Starting point is 00:02:35 You can't operate your business without knowing your numbers. And we talk a lot about that today with this crew of absolutely amazing people. people who I just adore. But, you know, I hate the work of accounting. So that being said, this solution that we're talking about today, agency point, is a rebranded version of a solution I've actually used. And I talk about that and I want to be up front. Like PFS, we were a client of PFS and Aaron Stocks for about two years. And when I sold to SIA, they took us off of PFS. But we were a client of theirs. I was incredibly happy. I love what they're doing. I love this crew. I think this is an important topic.

Starting point is 00:03:13 You, these guys are not paying me to be here. This is not an advertising advertisement. I love Carrie. I love Chris. I love Mick. And I think Aaron is amazing. And while I don't know him as well, I enjoyed working for, or I enjoyed being a client of his company and they helped us clean up our accounting a ton.

Starting point is 00:03:29 And I just think this topic is so important that I want to get it in front of you. So whether you use these guys or don't, it means nothing to me. They're not an advertiser. I want to be very clear and upfront about that. I just think this topic for most business owners, it's not something you should be doing. If you are an agency owner, you should not be doing this work. Someone else should be doing this work for you and delivering the reports to you so we can make good business decisions.

Starting point is 00:03:54 But you should not be doing this work. Every minute you spend on this type of work as an agency owner is time that you are losing to actually running your business, to growing your businesses, which is where your focus should be. So with that, I love you for listening to this show. So guys, this is a highly tactical episode. It's a wonderful episode. I think you're going to get a lot out of it. And if you do, I would hope that you could share this episode.

Starting point is 00:04:20 We are trying to grow as we came off of the agency intelligence network. We are rebuilding our listenership, right? And we're gaining more followers every day. We're gaining more listeners. Our audience is growing. We have the YouTube version of the show. If you're not watching there, we're going to have some audio exclusives coming. So if you're not subscribed to the podcast, you're not going to get those audio exclusives

Starting point is 00:04:47 and, you know, diving more into this content work and really being a true information, concept, thought, framework, idea, statistic, concept, trend provider for you guys is something that I love doing. It's what wakes me up every day. And in order to continue, you doing that work, we have to grow the audience. And that shows me that this is good stuff. So if you enjoy this, share it with a friend. Subscribe if you're not subscribed. I love you for listening to this show.

Starting point is 00:05:21 Let's get on to Carrie Wallace, Chris Paradiso, Mick Hunt, and Aaron Stocks. All right, party, people. Well, I'll be honest with you, when you guys wanted to do this conversation, I was obviously very excited, but I didn't mentally prepare for the powerhouse squad that. would be on the call here. I was just kind of like, Carrie was like, hey, you know, we're doing this thing. And I was like, of course, let's talk about it. Sounds amazing. And then I, I just didn't wrap my head around that we would have four power brokers at one time on the call. I mean, normally, you have to pay for this kind of thing, like some of those back room deals that Paradiso does when he,

Starting point is 00:06:04 when he visits New Orleans. So, you know, this is, this is a very interesting and exciting time for me. Just a guy trying to make his way through the podcasting world to have so many power players. But I think we're going to talk about something that as a former agency owner of a small agency coming up, I want to talk about just the importance of the accounting function in general. I want to talk about some of the mistakes that we're making and seeing. And then I want to get into as we go, like, what? what the impetus was of pulling all this together. So in all, before we get in, I just want to be clear for everyone.

Starting point is 00:06:47 I've actually used Aaron's company, PFS. We use them at Rogue Risk. So we are a former client. Some people will see on the agency point website that there's a testimonial for us. So we've worked directly with these guys and we have firsthand experience or had first-hand experience with Rogue Risk. And that's why I was excited for pulling this all together. But Carrie, I'd like to start with you and just talk a little bit about like, where did, where did agency point come from?

Starting point is 00:07:17 Like, why was now a time? And then, you know, we'll jump around to everybody. Not everyone has to answer the same question. But like, why now? Like, why pull something like this together? Why create an offering and a company of this nature? Like, what was the timing here? And why did you think it was important?

Starting point is 00:07:37 Yeah, it's a great question, Ryan. I mean, as you know, I work with lots of independent insurance agencies, and one of the first questions I asked them in order to do the work that they're engaging with me, I have to have clean financials. I need to understand their business from a dollars and cents standpoint. And so very often it is a pain point. It's an area where agencies struggle. Either they're using someone that they think is fantastic. And once they send me the financials, I am the fortunate person that needs to point out otherwise, sadly. So there is such a huge, huge need for quality people that understand independent insurance agencies, businesses enough to provide accounting services. So they can run their businesses and make strong choices. Just because you go to an accountant that's down the road does not mean they understand your business.

Starting point is 00:08:37 Even a CPA down the road may not understand your business. So why now it came up so often in my work that this is such a need. I actually explored building it myself. But as you know, as a person who's worked in several startups, building everything your own is not necessarily the smartest thing in the world to do. And as I explored and talked and thought about it, I think partnering made a ton of sense in order to help agents and continue to stay focused in my own business. So that's why now for me it was I found someone. I found Aaron. I found Chris.

Starting point is 00:09:19 And Mick all were around this organization that's been serving so many independent agents very, very well. and it made a lot of sense to partner together in order to bring these services. Aaron, so Kerry just used the term clean financials. And I think that what is clean financials? Like what does that actually look like? What does that mean? Because, you know, I would have thought, you know, and I'll say firsthand experience, and I feel bad for your team when they first started working.

Starting point is 00:09:52 It's obviously we got things together after a couple months. but I remember at the beginning, like, I would, I was, you know, you guys were like, hey, you know, we're going to get you into, you know, we're going to take over your quick books and whatever. And I was like, okay, guys, like go. You know what I mean? I kind of just like through that, you know, and they're, they had 10,000 questions as they rightly should because we, you know, hadn't processed things or tagged things properly. So like, I think a lot of agency owners probably feel like their, their financials are good enough or they don't see a, problem or probably it's one of these like unknown unknowns kind of things what what do clean financials actually look like what are you what is the the goal of actually getting to clean financials what does that output actually look like for you guys when you're when you're working with a with a new client it's a good question sorry it's a good question uh it could so it's going to vary depending on the size of the agency on what clean financials means right but uh for a typical agency, the clean financials would have everything classified correctly on the income statement

Starting point is 00:10:56 and balance sheet, right? So one of the biggest things that people miss, which we'll probably get into later, is having their trust account reconciled correctly, where they're breaking up the fiduciary, non-fiduciary funds, picking up the non-fudiciary funds as income, whether that be retained commission or fees, right, and then properly classifying the rest of the income and expenses. So that's the typical clean financials, what I would say for clean financials in a small to mid-sized agency. As they get larger, that could change, right? They might have gap standards they have to comply with or things like that, but that'd be a short answer.

Starting point is 00:11:30 Can I, I want to ask about the gap standard stuff because I had an experience where we'd always run off a cash accounting basis for the obvious reason. I shouldn't say the obvious reasons. Maybe it's worth explaining. We can do that in a second. Why most agencies, especially agencies when they first begin, but most agencies even as they as they grow, stay on a cash accounting basis. But then if you take certain levels of investment,

Starting point is 00:11:56 if you join certain organizations, et cetera, that have to be held to a gap standard, then that kind of changes. And maybe this is a very personal question, just because I had to experience this head on and had a very strong opinion on it, was when you do have to comply with, say, gap standards, do you need to go?

Starting point is 00:12:19 Do you need to keep two, sets of books because my opinion was in order to accurately understand where the agency is, we always have to be on cash and that if we need to, we could add an accrual, a set of books that are run off on a cruel basis in order to hit gap standards, but that in order to just know exactly where we are at any given moment, we need to stay on cash. And is this something agencies need to be thinking about? And at what point do they need to think about this? Because they could be, you could see very different snapshots at very different times using the two different methods. methods and because our product is earned over time and not necessarily something you can book at the moment.

Starting point is 00:13:00 You know, I know accrual accounting becomes very difficult in a standard retail agency. So, you know, is this, this might be getting super nerdy, but I obviously, this was something I dealt with head on. And I'm just very interested in your take being a pro. Like, you know, I'm kind of an armchair accountant. I worked for an accounting firm for a time, but I don't actually know what I'm doing. you know, not just a member, I'm also a client. What also, how does that work for people? When do they need to start thinking deeper about this?

Starting point is 00:13:30 Yeah, most agencies will probably never have to think about it unless they're acquired or take on a large amount of investment where there is a covenant, either from a bank or a private equity firm or just lenders in general that require a gap standard or an annual review or audit. So most agencies can stay in what we call income tax cash or income tax. accrual basis where it's relatively simple accounting and it's the most cost effective. When you get into GAP, you have FASB, the Financial Accounting Standards Board, which regulates all the standards that you have to comply with.

Starting point is 00:14:03 That could be ASC 606, ASC 842, and when you get into those things, it's very costly because you have to analyze things a lot deeper than cash comes in or cash goes out. To get to your point of do you have to run two separate books if you move over to Gap to know your cash inflows or outflows. The answer is no. You can run other reports like the statement of cash flows or even convert your gap financials into cash or accrual in order to get the numbers that you're seeking on a cash basis. And that has to be done anyway because people don't typically file taxes in a gap basis. That's not like a basis that's checked on the tax return. It's either cash or accrual. So you already have to do some type of conversion, at least on an annual basis,

Starting point is 00:14:44 from gap to cash or accrual. Nice. Okay, cool. I know. I know. I know. know that was kind of nerdy, but so I was just thinking about when I fought this battle, I was probably like 60% right and 40% wrong in my take on that particular issue. So I'll take, uh, I'm going to take the W just because it's my podcast and no one will ever call me on it, but I think I was at least partially wrong. So I appreciate that answer. You know, I think, you know, Mick, looking at the agencies that you've worked with, so obviously been an agency owner, uh, but have done a substantial.

Starting point is 00:15:18 amount of work in, I'd say, the segment of the market that the making sure, I mean, having your books be accurate is important all the time, no matter what stage or season of your agency that you're in. But there's definitely a heightened level of importance as you start to grow to a particular size because you're starting to deal, you know, there was a period of time at Rogue where it was just like, as long as I had more money in the bank account at the end of the month than expenses, like we were winning, which didn't always happen, but it was a victory. Like, there wasn't really even any accounting happening. It was just like, okay, the credit cards is $2,200, and we have $2,300 in the bank account, victory, like on to the next month.

Starting point is 00:16:01 But obviously, we all, we grow out of that at certain point. So how do you actually see this, you know, with a lot of the agencies that you're working with at Premier Strategy Box or Patty, et cetera. Like how does this, to me, this feels like something we don't talk about enough. Like, how does this impact? How should agency owners be thinking about their accounting? How does it impact how they lead? Like, where does having these accurate financials, understanding your numbers, like where does that come into from a leadership perspective? And how can you actually leverage that information to run your agency more efficiently, et cetera? Yeah, that's a good point.

Starting point is 00:16:42 And to piggyback on some things that Carrie was saying, right? Like, and I know Carrie and I've had this conversation, a lot of agency owners are just afraid to actually know their numbers, right? And you can't make real decisions on where your agency is going. Where do I spend money? Where do I take money out? How do I prepare my taxes? And for me, that was the biggest thing for me as an agency owner was having everything categorized so that at the end of the year or the beginning of the following year, I could have real-life conversations with whoever's doing my taxes who isn't in the insurance world, right?

Starting point is 00:17:18 Because everyone, most accountants, most tax accountants aren't in the insurance business. So we have to explain a lot. And if we don't know the categorizations of what our P&L is saying, other than just the summed up totals, we're at a lot. And so for me, I think that was the biggest thing that was important for me. and that was what, you know, partnering with BFS meant for me was just the ability to help agency owners be owners, right? Because there is information that are must knows. And so, again, to me, that's the biggest impact that I see.

Starting point is 00:17:54 Yeah. Chris, this comes to something that I've always been, I've always been envious of your ability to stay focused working on the business instead of getting too deep in the business. And I know this has been something that you've worked through and it's been a period of time and it's not like it just happened overnight for you. But I think you do a very good job of being both involved in your agency, not not separated from it, but also continuing to manage and work on your business. And to me, like coming off of what Mick just said, that's kind of what I heard is, is this, you know, using these numbers, using financials, understanding what your numbers are, it allows you to focus your time working on the business. Is that, is that an accurate, like, is that an accurate

Starting point is 00:18:46 representation? And, you know, how do you actually implement this in your own agency? Well, I think just to back up to answer that a little bit is first is, I used to do it in-house. come to a conclusion that the in-house person wasn't working out. We decided to depart from each other, and it was quick. It was within two weeks. So then I was kind of in a jam, right? Where did you go? Where do you find somebody?

Starting point is 00:19:15 Finding somebody in the insurance space that actually understands the financial aspects is not that easy. You can find people in other industries, but it doesn't transfer over well. I end up outsourcing to a company and that company ended up, did I lose you guys? Nope, you're still there. I just made you the primary person. That's all. No worries.

Starting point is 00:19:43 So what ended up happening was the books got so screwed up, Ryan, that I was I was fortunate enough to know enough people in the industry and I started calling some friends. And a good friend of mine says to me, call Aaron Stocks. So I picked up the phone. I called Aaron and we started in PFS and we started dissecting. And one of the key aspects that I realized, unfortunately, it was 10 years in, more than that. We weren't reconciling our commissions on a monthly basis per carrier. And yes, I hired a company to do that, but it wasn't getting done. PFS found over $66,000 in one year of unpaid commissions.

Starting point is 00:20:27 Am I accurate about that, Aaron? 67 if you round up, but yeah. It was a lot of money. How many years did I lose commissions? And we chose to only go back. I think it was, what, 24 months, Aaron? Two years, yeah, we didn't go back years, which we should have. It was just too costly and, you know, that's a tall task.

Starting point is 00:20:56 But in order to be able to run a business in the work outside of my agency, you really have to know the numbers. So how does this play a role every single month? I'm fortunate enough to have PFS be able to do the back numbers. And then my front numbers are being done by Kerry as a fractional CFO. And the key aspect behind that is that allows me to be able to do what I need to do, which really is, you know, is to try to make it rain for the agency. So I'm fortunate to partner with the right people in the right organization. And that's how this all came about. So I feel other agencies need this just as I needed this in order to get to that next level. And do you find,

Starting point is 00:21:48 and this is one of the things that blew my mind. So Chris has shared the story, the reconciliation story with me before. And it blew my mind when he was telling me because I was always under the opinion, under the impression before owning rogue risk. And actually, we found us a small, I mean, we were brand new, but I think we found like maybe two or three accounts that we owed. 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 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

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Starting point is 00:23:26 All right, I'm out of here. Peace. Let's get back to the episode. After we started working with you, or we were owed commissions on, I mean, it wasn't anything like Chris's number just because we're not nearly been in business or have as many clients. But I was always under this impression. And I've heard this said at conferences and stuff that just like carriers don't miss commissions, right?

Starting point is 00:23:45 Like, this is what they do. You know, you always get paid. Like, you know, when's the last time you didn't get a check from travelers or whatever? Right? And not to knock travelers. Just just, you know, when, you know, these are the kind of things that you'll hear thrown around different conferences and these kind of ideas get perpetuated to the industry. And then all of a sudden you find a situation like Chris where you, you don't realize that you're down $66,000 that you haven't been paid in a 24 month period just because you haven't been reconciling poverty. So is this something that, you know, agencies need to be worried about? Is this something that you find fairly common when you first dig in with a client and you start to do some of this reconciliation for them?

Starting point is 00:24:23 Like, is this a common thing that you find? Like, we'll call it lost revenue that just you're owed but haven't been paid? There's probably always a percentage, right? Probably not as large as Chris's. It was probably a more unusual example of how large something could get if you're not reconciling it. It's a tough balance because new agents. They don't have necessarily producers they have to pay. So reconciling their commissions isn't a huge priority, right?

Starting point is 00:24:53 And it also isn't cheap, right? I mean, it could not double, but it could, you know, maybe 30, 40 percent times your normal bookkeeping fee. That's what it costs to reconcile. So it's not cheap. So either find balance between, okay, is it worth reconciling to find misrevenue, or am I going to start paying producers that I have to reconcile anyway? But as soon as we start reconciling, there is typically always some commission that is missed.

Starting point is 00:25:15 that could be for a number of reasons, just, you know, user error, maybe the carrier, you know, did something incorrectly. But when we reconcile, there's usually always, you know, and I can get into a little bit of how we find it, but there's usually always something that is missing. Before you get into how we find it, because I do want to know that, do you see any, like, do you see more of this issue in agency bill stuff that's premium financed or direct bill or is it, it doesn't correlate direct bill, agency bill, It just depends on the agency and the state and the carriers that they're using. It could be in both. Definitely obviously agency bill can have more user error because a lot of times there's retained commission that never got retained or something. But there's same issues that exist in direct bill. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:26:00 So I would love for you to just dive a little bit deeper into how do you actually go find this stuff? Like what does that process look like? So there's really two steps to verify that you're paid what you're owed. Obviously the main point of commission reconciliation that most agencies use it for is to pay producers. right. But, you know, to verify that the commission income is coming into correctly from, let's say, direct bill, it's twofold. One is you need a list of all your carriers to ensure that you're receiving a deposit from those carriers each month. If you don't receive a deposit that month, whether it's a check or ACH, then you need to go to the carrier side or get the commission statement to see if you were negative

Starting point is 00:26:36 or something that, you know, had chargebacks where you're not going to receive commissions. So having a list of all your carriers and commission statements actually reviewed to see if you should have received the check that you never did is step one. And that would be checking your general ledger and making sure you have a deposit from every carrier. So after you do that, you would then reconcile your commissions in your agency management system. So whatever system you're using, you would reconcile the commissions, which would then mark off what you've been paid by policy, right? After that, you can produce what's called a leftover report. That's what we call it, which is every policy that was unpaid. And usually we'll say, you know, give us a 30, 60 day

Starting point is 00:27:10 leeway because the carriers take a while to pay. But if it's over 60 days, then we should find out why it wasn't paid. Most of the time on those reports, it was a cancellation that didn't get updated in the AMS or something like that. But sometimes you'll find out, hey, this didn't get paid on. Let's find out why from the carrier. And then you get paid on it. So that's the process that you take. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:27:32 That, I know the first time that Chris told me the story about his particular situation, I was just blown away. I just, completely naive, you know, just. something, I just didn't think that that didn't, you know, you think of all the things you have to think about as an agency owner, right? Like how much it takes to actually bring the revenue in, make sure everything's operating properly. And then you're like, and now I have to worry about getting paid too, like actually getting the check. Like, ah! You know, like it just starts to get overwhelming. So, you know, Carrie, when you're, when you're sitting down with an agency owner and you're, you know, and obviously they're maybe interested in evaluation or they're interested

Starting point is 00:28:13 and, you know, whatever their particular reason is they started to sit down with you. What are some of the, what are some of the first aspects of the financial statements that you start to dig into, that you, that we really want to make sure are accurate. So we have a good understanding of what's going on in that agency. I mean, obviously, we want to make sure all the numbers are accurate. But what are some of those first numbers that you dig into to go, man, if these are good, then we have a good feel for where we're at. So let's talk about valuation. That is a very common thing, and that's one of the ways that I get to know agencies really, really well. I ask for five years of financials, and I'm looking for a trend over that five years of their growth rate and revenue, their expense highs or lows.

Starting point is 00:28:59 But what I'm trying to get to is what is a reasonable expectation of the ongoing operation of this agency? what does it take to run this agency? And to piggyback off of what Mick said, if it's not classified the same way year over year, that's going to be a mess. I'm going to have a really hard time seeing trends. So number one, are there trends and can we actually explain the trends? If we can't, we need to dig in and get it consistent.

Starting point is 00:29:34 The second is, you know, agencies have, a tax strategy and an operating strategy. So sometimes there are expenses that are being run through an agency to minimize taxes. And we totally get that. It depends on your tax structure, how much you run those expenses through. But we've got to get to what does it really take to run this agency? And that is something that every agency owner should know. What is a tax strategy in your P&L and what is your true profitability? Because, At the end of the day, that cash flow and that profitability is what drives the value of your business and should be the thing that drives decisions you're making.

Starting point is 00:30:17 So that is a huge part of what we do is how do we pull out the discretionary funds that you might be running through your business and get to that true north? Because the reality is you might make different decisions about how you spend those discretionary funds in order to grow your business and maximize your values. So those are the two main things that I do when I look at people's financials. And by discretionary funds, and I'm sorry, just once a second, you mean like maybe instead of having a vehicle under your personal name, you're running your car through your business, your business owns your car, et cetera, your cigar club membership. Like Chris has got all those go-go clubs that he is part of, you know, that kind of stuff. Another American flag for the office, that kind of expense.

Starting point is 00:31:03 All those things, yes. Yeah, okay, gotcha. So I was just going to give a real example, Carrie, of what you said, hey, Chris, I'm looking through your numbers. Why is this $10,000 here? What is this for? I said, oh, this was one of the agents made an error. Our deductible for our errors and emissions was $25,000. So it was a $43, $4,500 claim.

Starting point is 00:31:30 So we had an attorney draw up an agreement. We paid the gentleman to keep everybody. happy. We couldn't declare who's real fault it was. It was miscommunication either way. And Carrie says, why do you have it under errors and emissions? And I was like, well, it's part of errors and emissions. And she says, no, because your errors and emissions, if it cost you $50,000, and let's just say you covered another $30,000 of these small, you know, avoiding eras and emission claims. It shows 80,000. Well, it should show 80,000 every year or a little bit higher because your E&O doesn't usually go down. And I was like, great example, Carrie. So we had to

Starting point is 00:32:15 start a separate funnel for that because that should not be classified under errors and emissions. And that was a real learning experience that happened to me. And, you know, my accountant says, hey, I didn't realize that. And that's why, you know, my accountant's 85 and I'm moving over to PFS because this would have been caught earlier if we utilize somebody who specifically new insurance agencies, like agency point and PFS. And Chris, how does catching that, like, what, when you say, like, how does that help you? Like, what does that then allow you to do now that you have that broken out properly and you can

Starting point is 00:32:57 look at it. Like, is it allowing you to budget better? Is it allowing you to better? Like, what is that allowing you to better understand? Just a lot of things. But I'm going to let carry answer that because I know. Yeah, yeah. Please go. Let's just say, let's just say if I didn't dig in and I didn't understand that. And I also, let's say I'm a valuation person that values all kinds of different businesses. So to me, 80,000 in an insurance, business insurance account makes sense. And I say, okay, it's a reasonable expectation that is going to cost $80,000 to ensure this business. And I don't correct it. Well, he's now, that's $50,000 that did not drop to the bottom line and did not get multiplied by the, by the appropriate multiplier to determine the

Starting point is 00:33:43 value of Chris's agency. So if I didn't take those one-time expenses out and right size his P&L, he is going to have a skewed impression of what the potential value of his agency is. And let's not like, that's a unique one. But what about someone who's branding, who's changed their name or has decided to change their logo, a one-time thing you do that will not repeat. And it's in a fund that's pretty large, which is marketing, and can vary greatly. We've got to get to what is an ongoing expense makes sense. And you have to do that in every single account to make sure.

Starting point is 00:34:22 sure that you get to what's reasonable because that's what a potential buyer is going to do. And if you don't know it yourself as the seller and you don't catch it, guess who's going to benefit from dropping that to the bottom line in the sale? It's going to be the buyer and you just left major money on the table. So that's in a buying and selling situation. But the other part is, what if you don't discern that and you plan for next year and say, I can't hire a producer? Well, you can because what you actually are going to budget will be far less if you take those one-time expenses out. Gotcha. So, again, I'm kind of the layman here.

Starting point is 00:35:05 If I'm looking at it and I take the one-time expenses can skew the valuation because what we're doing is taking what we see in these buckets and projecting them into the future to get a better understanding of what the value should be. And if all those one-time expenses are included in there, then what it looks like is it costs more to run the business than it really does, which ultimately hurts your valuation. So by pulling, by doing the work of properly categorizing things and putting them in their proper buckets, even if it means creating a couple more, what it allows you to show is here's the actual baseline amount that it takes to run this business, which gives you the maximum valuation, the ability to project out. into the future accurately, which will give you the maximum evaluation. Does that sound right? That is correct. That is correct. Yes.

Starting point is 00:35:58 That's very interesting. That wasn't so layments, by the way. Yeah, that was pretty good. Yeah, that wasn't so laymen to say, you know. Well, it was just, it's in, you know, I'm kind of like, you guys are the smarties. I'm just the every man here. So I'm just trying to put it down into the language that we can understand. So, Brian, if there's an agent out there that's listening to this and they're like,

Starting point is 00:36:17 but I'm not selling. I'm not buying. I don't, why does this matter to me? There's also the reality that if you want to use the industry benchmarks that are out there and you're not classifying your expenses the same way, you could actually be led down a path to think that I'm doing fantastic or I'm not doing so well if you're comparing yourself to benchmarks that have expenses classified differently than your own. It's important if you want to use the information in our industry the right way to make sure that you're actually aligned. with the way that they're classifying the expenses. And again, that's another part. Like, that's how I actually determine which accounts to dig into.

Starting point is 00:37:00 If you're way outside the benchmark, most likely you're classifying your expenses differently than the benchmark. We've got to figure it out. So in this case, it would actually make sense to really align with the industry. So then everyone's speaking the same accounting language, essentially. You don't want to have to try to translate your version of accounting buckets and classifications because it'll just confuse people and possibly make them, you know, a little more hesitant. Correct. Ah, very, very interesting. But think, think about today if your books aren't accurate,

Starting point is 00:37:31 Ryan, you get 22, 25. I mean, the rate increases are tremendous. How many people at the end of the year are going to say, well, I made a million last year. I grossed a million. I grossed 1.25, I grew by 250,000. I grew by 25%. That's simply not true. Because of, unfortunately, the increases is so big, what is the real truth of your growth? How many clients did you lose? How much premium did you really increase put on the books versus just taking the carrier increases? So what is your true health of that agency? And what is the true health of you, you know, moving forward?

Starting point is 00:38:12 What kind of year did you really have? Yeah. Well, not to go off topic, but that's also why I think these hard market situations should be full throttle growth because so many agencies sit on their numbers because they see revenue increasing just because of rate increase and they're not necessarily pushing into their accounts where there's so many people who's antenna up from a customer perspective right now that if you're not tracking both revenue and like you said Chris total accounts gained you know net net net net net net net net the increases in premium then you could actually have a

Starting point is 00:38:49 down year where you technically make more on the top line growth. And that's a scary thought because for the agencies that are, say, you know, working with Mick or and Patty or doing some of these other high, you know, high in training and really pushing hard and really investing in this time, they're just capturing, capturing, capturing. And it's, you know, when everything starts to settle, it's going to be a like a trampoline effect for those who have put in the work right now. So I know we didn't, we're not on here to talk sales, but I can't help.

Starting point is 00:39:19 but bang the drum of now is the time. There's so much opportunity out there. So, you know, I guess, you know, one of the things that I get asked about a lot just because of my time at Rogue and the fact that I have been open about trying a whole bunch of different commission structures and stuff like that. Like when we one of the, I get asked a lot of questions about how to compensate people. I am not a compensation expert when I go in the industry. I just got asked this question quite a bit. Happy to share what I did and what I found worked. But to me, it seems like if you have a good feel for your numbers again,

Starting point is 00:39:57 and Mick, I'm going to toss this one to you because I'm interested in your take on this. Like, how can we use an accurate and clean understanding of our numbers to want to properly incentivize our team to grow these numbers, to grow our agency? Because you and I have even talked about this, Mick, before. Like this idea, how we, I feel like there's so many misunderstandings, so many different philosophies and so many agencies incentive structure on compensation, particularly for producers, is so misaligned to growth. Like, how do we start to use this stuff to build compensation programs that are actually going to help our agencies grow? Yeah, that's a great, great question. And yeah, we had a ton of conversation about that, right?

Starting point is 00:40:44 And so let's go to the producer model first. if you don't have your commissions reconciled, you really don't know what you're paying your producers. I don't care what model you have. You could say 35 new, 45 new, 50 new, whatever. If you're not reconciling, you have no idea because odds are you're leaving money on the table or you're throwing money away, one of the two, right? So, you know, you and I had this conversation about,

Starting point is 00:41:12 and then I'll just throw it right under the bus. Yeah, yeah. Mick, why should I put my commission percentages for every line of business with every carrier in my management system? And I said, because if I'm a producer for you, I want to be able to know what I'm getting paid and how I'm getting paid. So for me, having that structure is critically important. And then when we talk about staff incentives, right, if you put out a 5% growth target or even a 5% profitability target, how do you know? Like if you're not truly looking at your accounting structure, how do you know where that money's coming from? Because maybe leaders aren't incentivized on percentage of revenue, right?

Starting point is 00:41:51 Which they shouldn't be, to be honest with you, because you have operational leaders where, you know, growth from a revenue perspective or new cell perspective might not be a target for them. But cleaning up or shoring up some of your expenses could be. So if you don't really understand that and if you don't have a classified right, what are you doing? Yeah, I'll tell you, the other thing you can do, and this is just personal experience going through this, and I'm sure, Nick and Chris and whatever, and Kerry, you've dealt with this too. Like, I would get all these questions for my producers because they constantly would have problems with how much they're being paid. Because they're like gorilla math on their notebook would be, you know, like, I'm due, you know, I'm due, you know, all this money. And you're like, wait a minute, I don't even have that much money in my bank account.

Starting point is 00:42:38 I don't understand. And if you don't have your commissions properly reconciled, you know, once we started doing it the proper way and with the proper percentages, we go, well, here's how much we've been paid. And here's your percentage of that. And here's how much you get. And that's why you're getting it. And, you know, because it never lines up appropriately. And, you know, and then you get people paying you commissions on a monthly basis versus an annual or, you know, if it's a six month term. And there's all these different structures that I found we were, you know, and just for the agency

Starting point is 00:43:10 owners out there that are listening that may not have had this experience yet, I found we were overpaying our producers every single month until we started reconciling. And they were even unhappy with how much they're getting. And then when we started properly reconciling, they were even more unhappy, except they didn't have an argument because I literally was like, here, I can show you exactly what came in for your accounts. You get paid when we get paid. Like, here it is.

Starting point is 00:43:33 And I didn't have that defense before. And it ended up saving me cash flow every month because I was overpaying them all. I mean, ultimately, it would get squared over the course of a year. But on a month-a-month basis, it was really impacting our cash flow because we were overpaying everybody every month because we were just kind of like guessing at, you know, which is crazy to say. We're kind of guessing at what we should send them. And it's, you know, scary to think back to that time. I mean, I'm glad we eventually fixed it. But I can't be the only doing this.

Starting point is 00:44:03 What? Can I sell for you? I like to be overpay. This is why everyone loves working for me. I just overpay everybody. Chris, here's literally what I saw with Ryan. I said,

Starting point is 00:44:14 Ryan, you do know you don't get commission on taxes and fees, right? He's like, what do you mean? I'm like, dude, you're paying your producers

Starting point is 00:44:21 on money that you don't actually collect revenue. Oh, Lord. Oh, hold on. I want to be, let's be fair.

Starting point is 00:44:28 Some of this. Uh-oh, right. I, there are certain tasks, which my brain, has a hard time slowing down to do. So what I was doing, I know, just for the record, I do know you don't get paid commission on

Starting point is 00:44:42 those. However, what I was not doing to Mix Point, he's 100% right about this, I was not slowing down long enough to pull out the taxes and fees. And I was just paying based on the top line number because, well, this is just the way that I am. And you're not the only one. I promise you. Yeah. There's probably 30% of the people listening.

Starting point is 00:45:03 if they're being honest, they're like, holy crap. You need to go back and look because I promise you're giving it away. It adds up. I mean, especially, and this is, I think this is why Mick used to bang me over the head with this. We were like a 45 to 47% agency bill agency. So the taxes and fees on that stuff really adds up over time. So you're taking that percentage. I'm paying commission on that over time.

Starting point is 00:45:29 And that was when I had to, I had to bite the bullet. and we, I basically, I didn't pull all that commission out and I didn't want to not pay them. So I think we did like a, we, I figured out a percentage where I just kind of ate a percentage of what I had overpaid them just to make everybody happy. But like, think about that. I mean, that's a real expense to our bottom line that I had to eat because I wasn't properly reconciling and paying commissions in the right way. And it's scary to think that I did that for a long time. I mean. So, Ryan, you're sitting here talking about this, and all I can think is, it's Ryan Hanley that's doing this.

Starting point is 00:46:07 So let's just think about this for a moment, okay? You are a natural born salesperson. There's no two ways around. You're a marketing genius, and you sell. And that's the true for a lot of people that run agencies. They are salespeople, relation people. They are not financial people. It's actually uncomfortable for them to actually look at a spreadsheet, be in numbers, and have to slow their brains down enough to actually think about the crazy details that we're talking about on this podcast.

Starting point is 00:46:40 So the reality is you're one of the most valuable people as the owner inside the agency. If you spend your time thinking about debits and credits and commissions and all of these things, you are not serving your agency well. You're not at your highest and best, right? And so, but it's always the owner that does it. They are the ones that hold payroll. There are the ones that actually look at the financials. It's not often that you delegate that until you get to a certain size. Not outsourcing it is one of the most largest expenses inside an agency because of the opportunity cost loss.

Starting point is 00:47:23 There's no two ways around that. I think that this is an incredible point. I think this point transcends so many activities in the agency, but this one in particular. And it's why, and, and, you know,

Starting point is 00:47:34 it's why when I think, I think both Chris and Mick referred me to PFS originally. I think I asked both of you and you both said PFS. And I was like, if these two guys say yes, then that's where I'm going. But like, um,

Starting point is 00:47:46 it was one of the biggest, uh, uh, awakenings for me as an agency owner because, one, I wasn't doing it to begin with. I was passing it off to someone else that needs because, you know, we had a fairly transparent and open system for the most part. I mean, obviously we had some HR stuff that you couldn't share, but like, you know,

Starting point is 00:48:04 our system was fairly open and would probably make most agency owners like hurl at the level of transparency that we had. But when that ultimately got outsourced and we just got financial sent to us every month by Aaron's team, it was like, it literally was a game changer because it's not just the time, it's the brain cycles. It's literally the brain power that you have to spend that isn't going towards training a producer or working with an account manager on renewals or whatever true revenue generating activity you could be doing.

Starting point is 00:48:41 You're wasting brain power on this stuff versus when you get it in the email at a month end and you comb through it and you go, okay, this looks good. Okay, this is up. Okay, what's up with that? Maybe ask a few questions. Boom. And now you know where you are and off you. go, it is a game changer.

Starting point is 00:48:55 And I think that there's so many activities like this, but, but this is one of the key ones. One other three more concept that was heard on this podcast is you're a genius, Ryan Hanley. Yeah. I blushed a little bit. I got for those in our watching the video. I was like, oh, that feels kind of good. I don't. Stood up a little bit.

Starting point is 00:49:16 Yeah. Yeah. He paid me. It's all good, right? That's nice. That felt really good. So, okay. So we've talked a lot about this whole thing.

Starting point is 00:49:27 So kind of the four horsemen of the accounting apocalypse here that I have on the call. Like you guys all form like Voltron and agency point comes out. So what is the idea behind agency point? I know it's as powered by PFS Global. Like what is the, how does it all work? And what is the offering that you guys have that people should know about? Aaron, you want to toss that up to whoever wants to take it. I'll take it.

Starting point is 00:49:56 Yeah. So we decided that, you know, PFS wanted to make a big push into the insurance space. We were already primarily insurance. And I think it's super under-service in that industry specifically, right? And so we wanted to do that. We wanted to come out with a brand for the insurance base. So we decided at agency point. So agency point is PFS.

Starting point is 00:50:17 PFS is agency point. Gotcha. And but it's how we're going. to market to the insurance space because it's very underserviced. PFS already, you know, has similar names in the industry, so we didn't want to get confused. So we chose agency point as our way to market to these independent agents. Awesome.

Starting point is 00:50:33 Okay. So you're getting, you're getting PFS in all the services and people and expertise. Just this is like a branding and sculpting place so that people can get a very clear. This is for insurance agencies, this division, these individuals focus on it. It just, it gives, it's just a more focused. department inside of PFS as a whole. Is that essentially? That is correct.

Starting point is 00:50:56 Exactly. Yeah. I do like the name too. That's cool. So how do people, you know, so obviously we've talked a lot about it. You know, for anyone listening at home, I wanted to talk about this topic in general, but I also having been a user and believe in, and obviously, you know, I have not just deep friendships, but also believe in the four individuals that are on the call as well and

Starting point is 00:51:19 and have been a client of PFS, so I wanted to get this out there. How do people get a hold of you, Aaron? How do they work with you? And maybe just break down real quickly what the sweet spot is for an agency to come work with you. Because I know, even though we were a client, we were on the smaller side. And you guys were kind and you brought us in and you helped us at a time when we really had a need. And it seemed more like charity than anything because we were probably a pain in your butt. But I know you do have a sweet spot client.

Starting point is 00:51:49 or segment of the market that you can really, you know, do your best work for, maybe describe that and then and share a little bit about how people can get a hold of you. Sure, absolutely. So, you know, we don't say this to discourage people like your agency. You were looking to grow. And that's really what we're honing it on. If you're a smaller agency looking to grow to the next level, we would absolutely love to do your accounting.

Starting point is 00:52:11 So it's not charity. It's a mutual relationship that will be beneficial for both of us. Our sweet spot is revenue of $750,000 or greater is our sweet spot. Again, if you're smaller than that, but you're looking to grow, you know, please reach out to us for sure. We could help and get you to $750 and above using accounting. To get a hold of us very simply, you can go to my agency point.com and get all of our contact information. You can call us at 909-29-49-7372 or email us at info, info, at pfsglobal.com. Yeah, awesome.

Starting point is 00:52:45 Sorry. PFS online.com. Yeah, and I will, I'll have all the links and stuff in the show notes as well. So if you're listening in audio and missed it, you can just go to the show notes page and get linked over and connect with everybody. I love everyone who's on the calls, LinkedIn and there as well. Guys, I appreciate you coming on. I think, you know, we could talk about this topic all day. I think that this is one of those things that people gloss over because it's like not sexy and fun like sales and marketing.

Starting point is 00:53:13 Although, you know, and I'll be honest for you. I didn't even respect the accounting enough until I started rogue and really, you know, even as an executive in companies, you know, you're just handed financials from the accounting department and you look at them. But until you're the one that's actually responsible for putting them together, responsible, ultimately, I think you don't have a true appreciation for what this can do. And if you haven't worked with someone like Agency Point and seen what clean financials look like, the work that has to be done, properly categorized expenses, properly categorized income, right?

Starting point is 00:53:48 When you start to see it all sudden like this, you kind of discount it, discount it, and then you see it, and the light goes on, you're like, wait a minute, I wish I had had this for years. So, you know, I just, I think this is wonderful. I'm glad that you are focused on the insurance industry. I have always been an advocate for what you've done. And, you know, I've referred some people over to you over the years. So appreciate it and appreciate all your time and everybody sharing their experience. Thank you so much.

Starting point is 00:54:12 Thanks for having us. Thanks, Ryan. Yeah, thanks, Ryan. We appreciate you, but this was not free, by the way. I don't know what the free stuff was you were talking about at the beginning of the call. That's what I. Wait, is my check in the mail? Hold on.

Starting point is 00:54:26 But I don't understand. You said this was like a friend thing. I don't understand. All right, we're out of here. 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.

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Starting point is 00:58:06 Want to give your host a gift? Consider subscribing, rating, and reviewing the show this holiday season. It really helps the show grow. From all of us at Believe, have a Merry Christmas, everyone, and a happy holiday. If you like the show, please take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe. It really does help the show to grow. Thank you for listening.

Finding Peak w/ Ryan Hanley - Stop Being Afraid of Your Numbers

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