The Ryan Hanley Show - INS 001 - 9 Things I Learned After 9 Months Away from the Insurance Industry

Episode Date: October 23, 2019

Became a Master of the Close: https://masteroftheclose.comAfter a 9 month hiatus from the insurance industry, I've learned some valuable lessons about leadership, marketing and where I see opportunities in the insurance industry moving forward.Get more here: https://ryanhanley.comLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello and welcome back to the Ryan Hanley show. If this is your first time listening to the show, then welcome, welcome. We'd love to have you. My friends, the insurance industry has been an enormous part of my life. For the last decade and a half, basically I've learned everything that I am as a professional working through the insurance industry. The good, the bad, the ups, the downs, the successes, the failures, everything has been carved out of my work in the insurance industry. And I truly do not believe that my, you know, quote unquote career began until I joined my father-in-law's

independent insurance agency here in upstate New York, the Murray Group. And that's why in this podcast, I'm going to carve out a series of episodes, which will focus specifically on the insurance industry and matters related to the insurance industry, which is what today's episode is. So anyone who's listening to this or subscribed who's just not particularly interested in insurance industry related matters, I'm going to title the episodes capital I-N-S and the number of the episodes so that you know that's an insurance related episode. Everything that's not insurance will be RHS, so Ryan Hanley Show, or insurance, just makes sense. And that gives you an idea of what type of episode it is. But there is no doubt that I have a deep love and

just enjoyment for the people of the insurance industry and being part of their lives and helping them deliver their product, do their job in a more productive, fruitful, and meaningful way is something that I just enjoy. And I want to continue to do that. So today's episode, I recorded it via a live broadcast. I did that on YouTube. If you want to watch the live broadcast, go to youtube.com forward slash Ryan M as in Mary Hanley, Ryan M Hanley on YouTube. Find my YouTube channel. You can watch the show. But I recorded it live. And the title is nine things I learned after nine months away from the insurance industry. And those nine months were spent as the chief executive officer, the CEO of a fitness

enterprise called Metabolic. After nine months, it was time for me to move on. And I finally have set into what I believe will be my future, which is Hanley Media, which is a consulting and strategy firm offering leadership and fractional CMO work, helping organizations really get to that next level from a strategic standpoint. In addition, I'm going to be doing a lot more speaking and workshops around leadership topics and marketing and sales topics in particular. If you're interested in those services, just Ryan at RyanHanley.com. Happy to talk through what you need and see if my work can be useful to your team or your organization. But it's time for me to control my own destiny and I'm

very happy to be on this path I feel energized you probably noticed that by the volume of content I've been putting out I have so many ideas and and beliefs and just processes that I think are going to help businesses navigate these next years that are coming, right? It very much feels like there's a downturn in our economy coming. There's a shift in the way people want to engage with their employer. Customers are buying differently and thinking through that process in a different way. There are a lot of very systemic and intrinsic changes happening to the way business gets done. And to a certain extent, I'd like to believe that I've been able to tap into a few of those in the various organizations that I've been a part of and consulted with. And I want to share more of that

with you. So if any of that sounds interesting, I hope you'll subscribe to this show. I hope you'll subscribe to my YouTube channel. And if you think that the work that I do could help your organization, reach out, ryan at ryanhanley.com, and I'm happy to start to talk through that with you. But without further ado, let's get on to today's episode. This is our first episode in our insurance series titled nine things I learned after nine months away from the insurance industry.

Welcome to this live stream here. As we get going, I'm not going to go into too much detail about why I'm back in the insurance industry. I'll touch on that very briefly. And then I really want to get into these topics because there's things that I've been noodling on for quite a while as I've taken, you know, I was probably in the insurance industry for 15 years from being an agent to working for Trusted Choice and Bold Penguin. So both as a boots on the ground agent and doing a lot of speaking and consulting, and then ultimately being a service provider to the industry for a couple different companies. You know, I was in it, obviously, every single day, just like you guys. And when I stepped away

and joined Metabolic for the nine months that I was there, all of a sudden, it was very odd, because I was still connected through my wife, I was there, all of a sudden, it was very odd, because I was still connected through my wife, I was still connected through everyone in the 5am club, and all my friends and colleagues and that I had made and still kept in contact with, but it wasn't doing insurance every day. And it gave me a different perspective. I also was supremely and 100% focused on solving the problems of a growing fitness enterprise, and taking a lot of what I had learned during my time in the insurance industry and seeing if it applied and just those, that mix of experiences and, and situation, I came up with a list of topics that I think are relevant and potentially

interesting for you guys. And they're things that I'm going to be talking a lot more about in the future because they're places where I see tremendous opportunity for the insurance industry in general. I put a list of nine topics out. If you saw the email that came out this morning, if you're on my email list, you saw the nine topics. I'm going to work through as many of them as I can. I think that, and we may bounce around a little, but I have a whole series of notes that I took in kind of preparation for this and things that I want to make sure I say. Some of them will go through a lot quicker than others, but I'll just but I'll just kind of blow through the list real quick for you so you can get an idea of what we're actually going to talk about, and then we'll start to get right into the first topic.

Again, last time I'll say this, if you have any questions, thoughts, things you want me to kind of dive deeper on, leave them in the chat. I'll be watching that the whole time. There's a slight delay, so if I don't catch it right away, I will and we'll go back and I'll make sure that I answer those questions or address any thoughts that you have. So the nine topics, nine things that I learned or observations that I made while being away for nine months are as followed. Number one, everything is a commodity except for creative. We're going to talk about what exactly that means. But if being away from the insurance industry taught me anything,

it's the value of creative and not just the quantity or quality, but the mashup of the two and the real what industrial creative actually means and how that works in a business and why I think that almost no one is doing it in the insurance space right now. It's a tremendous opportunity. Number two, we must solve the principal agent dilemma that we continue to deal with every day.

This has been an issue for a very long time. And what I'm talking about are the two sides of that, the agency owner-producer dilemma and the agency carrier dilemma. And we'll talk about those two aspects and how they're slightly different, but ultimately the same problem. And it's a problem we have to solve. Number three, we need to hire people, not the position. I think that's fairly self-explanatory, but we're going to dive into the details of what I mean there. We rely way too heavily on our safety nets. Our safety nets being renewal commissions, carriers, associations, these large enterprise, these systemic pieces of our business, of our industry, I think particularly agencies are leaning way too hard on these safety nets and it's creating opportunity and gaps in our

serviceability and in our product delivery that just continue. I think it was a big part of the rise of the insure tech movement. What was it, maybe three or four years ago. And these these gaps continue. I just don't see very many organizations that are closing them yet. We're still relying way too heavily on our safety net. Number five, we allow producers, we need to allow producers to build a body of work. I'm going to dive into that one a little bit. I think there's a big opportunity in that idea. Number six, we need to focus more on what our clients care about. Again, that one at face value, I think makes a lot of sense, but I have some ideas for how that actually works. We're still not producing, number seven, we're still not producing enough content in general. I mean, I've literally been saying this for more than a decade now, people still look at

me like I'm crazy. Yet, every business that engages in a full in full time content production starts to excel and separate itself from the marketplace. So I just, I struggle with why we haven't grabbed onto this. I mean, I know the deep-seated reasons why we haven't, but it remains to be a tremendous opportunity and it has to be on every list. Number eight, insurance is incredibly insulated. And I think that's a major problem, but ultimately problems yield opportunities.

And in this case, those of us who start to expand our vision out past the insurance industry, and bring ideas from other spaces back into the insurance industry, I think there's incredible opportunities there. And then the last one, my concern, and this is in particular number nine, is that, and I brought this up a little bit before I had left, and some of the conversations that I was having, was that we need to be careful not to chase efficiency at the expense of effectiveness. And what I mean is, if we're, we can over automate our business, we can over implement technology, we can go too far and lose the human touch that makes our business special. And as I've watched,

I haven't seen anyone pick up that message. And I just want to reiterate that point, I still feel the same today that automations are great. Technology is tremendous. It's an important part of every business, but that there is a point where more technology doesn't yield more long-term return. And so we'll talk about that. Okay. So those are our nine. Let's see what we got here. Oh, we got it. We got a great crew. Yeah. Go bills. Love it. Five and one. Awesome. We got an awesome crew here. So I'm just excited, very excited to have all of you here. So let's dive into our very first topic. And that is everything is a commodity except creative. Now I had been thinking, I think about the idea of commoditization quite a bit. In insurance, it's a word that's thrown around all the time. We're always talking

about, you know, are we a commodity? We're not a commodity. Why do people think we're a commodity? How do we not be a commodity? Well, if we are a commodity, how do we then differentiate ourselves? It's an enormous issue. It has a lot of moving parts, a lot of different vantage points, depending on where you are, how long you've been in the industry, what you're trying to achieve. This whole concept of commoditization comes up quite often. That being said, that is not an idea isolated in the insurance industry. When I moved over to the fitness space, it's the exact same thing, right? A workout is a workout is a workout is a workout. So how do you how do you get people excited about your workout versus someone else's workout when really a workouts? Yes, they have varying degrees of difficulty. Yes, they have varying degrees of, you know, you performance that you can get out of them. Right. But ultimately, if you work really hard and you match diet to exercise, you're going to be fit.

So it really is just what fits your flavor. case, then the only defining difference continues to be creative and how good you are at creating a feeling and experience, an emotional response, something that people want to share and be part of and build a community around. And all of that comes from the creative. It comes from the images, the way you talk about it, the swag that you buy, how you introduce yourself, the way your office looks, this idea of building a community around your business. Yes, in businesses like a fitness studio, it might come slightly more naturally to that type of business where people are collecting on a regular basis. But that doesn't mean that we can't do it in our space. And it certainly doesn't mean that we can't be more

creative with the way that we talk about our product and we talk about ourselves. You know, some of the people that are actually on here live watching this right now do a tremendous job with this. But as a broad sweeping stroke, and I think particularly I'm speaking to any of the carrier professionals who are listening to this either live or in the future, our carrier branding, marketing, creative is just boring for the most part. It's at best kind of all American and at worst completely forgettable. And if all we can really do is occasionally pull out that like all American down home vibe, if that's really the best we can do from a creative standpoint, that means there is enormous opportunity for creative out there. And I'm not just talking about big budget, like

you don't need an enormous budget to do good creative work that draws people into your brand. And I know some of the mutuals and stuff are trying this. I think we can go even further. Like, why not give our businesses a personality? Why not really allow people to sink their teeth into what we mean or into what we stand for it to me it is it is unbelievable that in almost 2020 we still have this we're still tossing vanilla boxes out into the world and wondering why people don't care um and and i i just that hasn't changed i know it's only been nine months. It's not like I've been going for that long. But I think we need to be bolder and we need to be more poignant in our communication, more clear. We need to, I'm not talking about, when I say take a stance,

I don't mean take a political stance. I mean, like stand for something, a value structure, share that value structure. And you can share it in funny, interesting, dynamic ways. And then test those messages, test them, test them, test them, test them, see what works. And this stuff is not hard to do today. And it's not as expensive as it used to be if you're going to bring in an outside agency to do that work for you. So I, I look at the space in general, and I know it's just insurance. It's not beautiful, sweaty people lifting heavy weights, right? That, you know, guys in suits with briefcases isn't exactly the most interesting visual. That's not what it has to be. And it's not exactly what I mean by creative. It just means there's so much that can be done. And the bar for creativity in the insurance industry is so low right now that there's just tremendous opportunity. It still exists.

And I think we need to stop worrying about our product because the products are good for the most part. We've kind of figured that part out. Now it's who can draw more people into those products. And I just don't mean digital. There's a lot more to it than just digital. So I think creativity in general, we can dial in on that and really push forward. Okay.

So number two, number two, number two is something that's been a problem in our industry. Not a problem. It's been a point of friction for a very long time. We must solve the principal agent dilemma. So the principal agent dilemma, I'm going to read a couple quotes or definitions for you just so we're kind of all on the same page. This is the dilemma that exists in circumstances where agents, and don't think of agents as just insurance agents, although the word is actually is the same in this standpoint in terms of it's the same word and we're talking about the same entity though they mean an individual not not an actual insurance agent this dilemma exists in circumstances

where agents are motivated to act in their own best interest which is contrary to those of their principles so there's two principal agent dynamics that we deal with most often in our space. And that is producers and agency owners, and agencies, in particular, independent agencies, and the carriers that they represent. So the first one, in the first instance, I want to talk about the producer agency owner dilemma. And I think that because I think that this one is should be easier to fix. So I think that there has been a general stance among insurance professionals, particularly those of a of a more old school nature.

Again, that's not a more old school nature, again, that's not a negative depiction, just the stance tends to be more traditional, that producers should be lucky that they have a job, that they're in a profession which allows them to provide for their family, and they need to just kind of take what they get and be happy and work hard and show up and and be quiet and that to me is one way to play the game i think what we're starting to see is more people uh they're more producer level people, individuals are not willing to accept that offer. And what happens is producers get very fidgety might be the right word. And they start seeking out, I'm going to be an expert in this, and I'm going to try this, and they go after digital and, and they become very scattered, because they don't, they feel like they're being

shoved into the path that the agency owner took, even if that isn't the same path that they want to take. And I feel like that's where a lot of the friction is created. I think another part of it is handshake deals. I actually was just talking to a good of the friction is created. I think another part of it is handshake deals. I actually was just talking to a good friend the other day about this. A lesson I have learned the hard way multiple times now is that if it's not written in paper, if it's not in black and white ink, how your relationship proceeds, then you do not have an agreement. Handshake deals do not exist. And this someday you'll take

this over or someday you'll be able to buy this agency or don't worry, I'm always going to take care of you. Those type of statements that I think from agency owners, they feel like they're doing the right thing. Hey, I'm letting them know I'm always going to be here to take it. That is not that I think those days need that needs to be gone. I think this conversation needs to realign to clear, you know, very discernible, very understandable set of a set path that producers in particular can walk in order to get to a certain place in the agency written out very early in their career. So as soon as that agency owner determines that this producer could potentially be a long term participant in this agency, there needs to be a clear path. And if that path is you will never own this agency,

then that needs to be spelled out too. Because what happens is, is you get into an agency and you start to feel like, geez, I'm grinding. And, you know, 50%, 70% of the business that I create is being taken from me. And as an agency owner, you're going, well, you should be happy with that. Look at all these services I provide. It just, that doesn't matter. There's a huge disconnect there. And when we understand what that path is, then we can make a clear decision and commit to it. And that, I think, would help solve a lot of the friction between agency owners and principals is we just simply get rid of handshake deals. We create clear, concise contracts that outline the path for producers getting to whatever level is possible for them to get to. And if their performance never allows them to achieve that level, well, then that's on them

and that's perfectly fine. But there's so much like, I'll take care of you. Don't worry, you always have a place here. I will tell you from firsthand experience, nobody who is talented and driven wants to hear that we just don't, we don't want to hear those things. Those things are meaningless. I think there needs to be a clear path. And I think that that, you know, getting rid of these handshake deals is a big part of it. So the next part of the principal agent dilemma is something that is carriers and agencies. And this one is much harder to solve from my perspective, much, much, much harder to solve. I want to read another definition

from and you can find these definitions. I went to Wikipedia, it's where I found the best one. There are a bunch of them. These just seem to be the most clear. So these are the definitions of the agency are the principal agent dilemma per Wikipedia. But the problem of the, you know, in kind of quotes, the principal agent dilemma, the problem arises where the two parties have different interests and asymmetrical insert information, the agent having more information, such that the principal cannot directly ensure that the agent is always acting in their, and again, in parens, the principal's best interest, particularly when activities that are useful to

the principal are costly to the agent and where elements of what the agent does are costly for the principal to observe. Does that not define almost like to a T any disagreement that an agency and a carrier has, that the agent has more information at a boots on the ground level than a carrier does. But the carrier controls pricing, controls product, and the agent has to maneuver and manipulate at their level to make sure that their business is taken care of, which is not always in the best interest of the carrier, who is thinking product and pricing and those kind of things at a much more macro level. But so so the carrier has more data at a macro level, but the producer and or, or if the producer is also the agency owner, or there's multiple, they have much more data at a micro level. And oftentimes, this data does not

necessarily work together. Sometimes it does. Sometimes you find a great relationship, great product, and it's, you know, everyone's pointing in the same direction. That is not always the case. And often when there's friction, it's because of this conflict of interest that exists where the agent or the agency is operating on micro data in a smaller ecosystem and is trying to obviously operate a profitable business and take care of their staff and other clients and a carrier operating at a macro level over a much broader spread geographically and line of business wise, it is very easy to see why those two entities start to diverge in terms of working in each other's interest. And I don't know that I necessarily have a clear answer for this. I think that one answer from an agency level is to be more

discerning in the carrier appointments that you have. I don't think anyone needs 30 carrier appointments unless you're, you know, some super regional or, or national agency, then obviously, that's different. If you're in that's also assuming that you're coming from a broad spectrum of or a diverse spectrum of clients, and not just working in a niche scenario. But if you're standard, you know, regional independent agency, you don't need 30 carriers. You need a solid MGA and five to seven carriers. I think that will help you better align with the carriers that you do business with is not having these odd carriers that you just occasionally throw business with it. They're, they're distracting at, at, at best and a pain in the ass at worst. And then I think being very

clear with, you know, I think what Seth Zaremba and Neon are doing are, are one way to fix this principal agent dilemma. You know, we'll see what Sid and Seth and that whole team is able to do. I have faith that if anyone can do it, it's them. And I'm obviously a strong supporter and will continue to be. But, you know, they have to do the work just like anybody else.

And I would encourage anyone that's interested in them to reach out and learn more about their organization. But this problem, I think from the carrier standpoint, that's the harder nut to crack because one, in general, carriers are much more bureaucratic. You have people who this is a job, they show up, taking chances is not in their best interest

in terms of job security. That inside of particularly mutual companies, you know, in some cases, say, Cincinnati or Westfield or a central or an acuity, you start to see you see players in those organizations, because they're of a particular size that have weight that are also willing to take a chance. And you see some really good things out of coming in. Those are just four examples. Those are not all of them. But I think in general, this is a major, major issue that we have to keep thinking about.

That when a carrier comes to you with an issue, understand that their interest is different than yours. And we just have to keep working on that. Like I said, I don't know that I have a clear answer, but I do think that it continues to be a problem and something that we have to continue to work on in general as an industry. All right, so let's keep moving on.

A couple of these will be a little quicker. If I've learned anything in business at all over the last six years, as it pertains to hiring, it's hire people, not positions. I still read a lot of articles about the talent gap and issues with hiring. Guys, we don't need more insurance people in insurance. Insurance people are going to find insurance and find their place. What we need are talented, enthusiastic troublemakers who are willing to find insurance and find their place. What we need are talented, enthusiastic troublemakers who are willing to come in and question the way things are done so that we can

adjust and move forward as the world, as society, as the ecosystems that we operate in change. Dani Kimball was a dance instructor, and now she's one of the most dynamic agency marketers in the entire industry. So, you know, you wouldn't say that dance instructor would be a great fit as a chief marketing officer for an agency, but it works really well because she's coming at it from a completely different vantage point. and all that. But these are the type of people that we need to find not more insurance people, insurance people are great, don't get me wrong. But we have plenty of those, we need more good ones for sure. But I think where the opportunity lies is finding people who do not have any persuasion towards insurance, but are just interested in being part of something and have that enthusiasm and maybe just a little bit of troublemaker in them because that's where the magic happens. So hire people, not positions. You don't need a producer. You need someone who's really interested in getting to know people

and solving problems and is motivated. And then you can teach them to sell and you can teach them insurance. The issue here with this particular idea for hiring is it puts more responsibility on leaders and managers to be mentors. And I get that many leaders and managers don't want to be mentors. And that's where the problem comes from, is that you find someone who's enthusiastic, and, and engaging, and talented, and a little bit of a troublemaker. And then no one wants to mentor that person. So they become, you know, a nuisance. And then they kind of get jaded and then and then pushed around, or pushed out completely. And that's not what we want to see. We want to see individuals be brought in and assimilated and let them bump into things and help

solve problems. Obviously, always done in a respectful way, but hire people, not positions. The industry will always have enough insurance people and we need that. And that's great. But we need more. We need more troublemakers. And I think you find that by hiring people in that position. So okay. Moving on. Take a quick look. No one. Yeah, Danny Kimball shout out always always good to shout out Dan. She's killing it. So okay, number four, we rely too heavily on our safety net. And what I mean by that is, and this particularly this one is geared towards agencies, agents, producers, that kind of thing. We rely too heavily on carriers, we rely too heavily on associations, and we rely too heavily on our renewals. And we ask for permission, way, way, way too much. Go solve problems, right? Like no one has the answers. No one has this thing completely figured out. The way that your dad or your uncle or your mom or your aunt built the agency that you worked for 30 years ago, you cannot build that agency that way today. You can't. Before I took the job at Metabolic, I spent six months researching how to

start my own agency and ultimately decided that I would rather have a donkey kick me in the nuts than do that because it is not an easy process. The idea of just throwing up your shingle and going out and starting to sell policies, that does not happen today. It doesn't work. Carriers are not going to support you at those levels. And it's gonna be very, very difficult. There are people who have done it, God bless them. But I'm telling you, they are more the exceptions to the rule. And my point in saying to you is this is that we have to start solving the problems that exist in our industry without waiting for carriers to push down information to us, out waiting for our associations to push down information, start figuring out the problems for

yourselves. Because what an association puts down is obviously their best guess at what could help you. But it doesn't mean it's actually what's best for your agency. It doesn't mean you shouldn't consider what they share with you or carrier shares with you or, or someone like me or someone else who, who likes to just spread ideas in the industry. Like it doesn't mean you shouldn't try it. You should, or at least give it a look. But, but waiting is, is not the, is not the answer because things are moved. The world, the business in general is just moving so fast these days. We have to figure out the solutions that work for us. It's why there isn't an all in one kind of utility knife solution for anything for for agency management, for agency marketing, for client engagement for sales. It's because every situation is different. Every agency

is set up different. And, you know, every agency has its own personality, its own dynamics. And it's almost like we have to pick from the buffet of options that work for us and create our own solution. So I implore you to not wait, to not rely on some larger entity to figure out a solution and pass it down for you or to give you permission to do something. Just go out and a solution and pass it down for you or to give you permission to do something. Just go out and do it and figure it out. I think there's tremendous opportunity in

that. And I think there's a lot of agencies that are doing it and we know about them. I want to know about more. I think there are more agencies out there capable of figuring things out themselves. And I just, I want to start to hear those stories. So cool. If you guys, if you guys know anybody who's doing tremendous stuff, I mean, love to hear about it, leave it in the comments, leave it in the chat, shout them out. That's what this is all about. All right, we are on number five. So technically past halfway, and we're about a half hour into the show. So I guess I'm, I'm doing all right from a time management standpoint. How's everyone doing out there? I appreciate all the comments. Let's see who we got. I already mentioned Tim, Tim Heil. We got, let's see, Brett's here. Jeff from Forge3.

Narcisco from Effective Coverage is here. Bellman. Awesome. Alex DePazzo. I see Beatomic. I'm assuming that's Sid because I don't know that Seth knows how to use the internet. So awesome. I appreciate everyone for being here. All right, number five. Let's keep going. Let's keep pushing. Number five, allow producers to build a body of work. this is an idea that i've thought a lot about for a long time and i i'm going to be completely honest in in delivering this to you i don't have it worked out a hundred percent in my head but it's an idea that i want to start to share with you and that i think over the coming months or years or however long it takes um i'm going to continue to flesh this out because i think it's very important this is an an EQ issue, emotional intelligence issue. This is a tough one because ego plays such an enormous role in running a

business, in every business. And it's particularly true when you're the one that founded the business and grew the business and your name is on the door. And as much as I don't mean you're egotistical, I just mean that it is tough to share when you have been the guy, the woman for, you know, X number of years, it's a difficult thing to do. So kind of similar to what I talked about before. You know, when we were talking about the principal agent problem between producers and agency owners, this idea of allowing producers to build a body of work. And what I mean by that is, I think for a very long time, we've said, you have to operate under the umbrella of our brand producer. You're him to be very much himself

in conjunction with the all choice insurance brand who I'm who I'm rocking right here. Right? Like, that's a great example of allowing Jared, you know, Jack, allowing Jared to kind of build his own body of work, allowing him to be his own man, his own person out in the world and be part of the brand, right? Where partners in the brand, partners doesn't necessarily mean ownership. It means allowing that producer to really fly the flags that make them who they are and spread their wings and have a personal brand, which could match or even in some cases, overshadow the agency brand in the ecosystems that that individual producer operates in. So I'm going to just back up on that a little bit. Like, you know, I think the days of employee

unquestioned employee loyalty are over. And I think that that's a good thing. I, I, I actually think that it's, it's, it is good for everyone that employees don't get a job feel so thankful that you, the benevolent business owner, was willing to provide them with employment, that they are unquestionably loyal for the remainder of their career until they retire or they're put in the ground. I think that's a good thing for everyone that that is no longer the case and that individuals, particularly those say 45 and under are very willing to move to another opportunity if their current opportunity doesn't work for them. I think that is ultimately a good thing because it allows the chips to continually shuffle and optimize, allows the employment ecosystem to

optimize. And who I see being the bellwether winners in this game are those that allow their staff, now I use producers a lot just because they oftentimes oftentimes they're very client facing, but entire staff to build their body of work. If someone wants to be if someone is very invested, let's take a CSR, for example, someone in the service department, let's say they love your agency, but their passion is the humane society, they just love animals, and they want to make sure animals are taken care of, and they're not abused and that on all that kind of amazing stuff. Well, allow that. It's okay if that person, if that individual is better known for being a member of the humane society than a member of your agency, that's a perfectly fine thing. And I think in that instance, oftentimes we're like, oh, okay, that makes sense.

But then when it comes to, say, a producer who maybe gets super involved with a chamber or maybe with an association or with some other organization, we want to rein them back in because we're worried they're going to give away client information or trade secrets or be recruited away from our agency. Or we just don't want anyone to think that that's the person that runs this business when really it's me. And that to me is a major, major malfunction in today's business environment and my where I see opportunity. And so this is again, you can probably tell that I'm kind of working this out in the ecosystems that they live in, be the rock stars with your agency brand being secondary to them in their ecosystems, in the, in the ecosystem that they love, whether it's, you know, little league soft, you know, or little, little league softball or, or, or humane society or some chamber of commerce or National Association,

whatever it is, let them be those rock stars in that ecosystem. Let your brand be secondary, because that gives them some ownership in their own life. And they don't feel like they're constantly under your thumb, whether you are a dictator or not. And I also think that that type of relationship and giving them that freedom, why would they ever leave? Because most people aren't going to have the security to do that. And if they did leave, what's the big deal, really? I mean, I just, you know, that would mean that they weren't really bought in to begin with. And so that's the idea, this idea of a body of work. I'm really interested in what people think about it. And Landon actually makes a great point here in the chat for the video.

He said, I think it's time that we put the term producer in the ground. I agree with you to a certain extent. I would just be super interested in what your alternative is. I think it's time that we put the term producer in the ground. I agree with you to a certain extent. I would just be super interested in like what your alternative is. It's a really embedded piece of vernacular in our industry. I don't, I would never refer to myself as a producer to someone who isn't in the insurance industry if I was one, because that doesn't make any sense to them. But I think inside our industry, referring to someone as a producer, it, it does qualify, and it is very clearly understood your role. So I don't necessarily have a problem with

it when you're speaking inside the industry, I wouldn't use it on outward facing materials that went to that went to any type of clients or organizations or, or, uh, or prospects or anything like that to me that, you know, it means nothing. What do you make movies? Like it doesn't, it doesn't mean anything. It's, it's a, it's, um, so yeah, I don't, I don't particularly have a problem with it, but sales agent. Yeah, that's fine. Um, producer actually sounds cooler than sales agent to me, but that's just me. Uh, I think everyone, that's a problem. I don't really care to solve.

So I'll let you guys figure that one out. Um, all right. All right. All right. So let's keep moving on. Um, spend some time on that one. Um, definitely we'll spend more time on it. Interested in your guys' thoughts, feedback.

Let me know, hit the comments, whatever. You can hit me up later, emails, ryan at ryanhanley.com. If you ever want to email me, we'll keep rolling on here. So number six, focus more on what our clients care about. I'm going to tell you just a really, I'm gonna give you a case study basically from, from Metabolic. So when I first got there, our revenue per client was spending a lot of time listening, watching, and actually surveying our clients and getting their feedback about both our product, our main product, which is obviously memberships, but also the apparel that we created, the the macronutrient coaching program that we did, all you know, the different products that we

that we had branded our branded products, as well as our supplement line, we spent a lot of time watching, listening and actually surveying them. So what I mean by watching and listening was I would actually sit sometimes in the morning in the foyer where where clients would come in, members would come in and they'd register for class or sign themselves in or look at the different stuff that we had spread out. I would actually just watch them and listen to the way they interacted with our trainers and with the merchandise that we had. And what happens is when you actually slow down and listen, you get you, you, you, you get a feel for what people actually want. And you get a feel for, for where there may be gaps in what you're providing. And, you know,

I think net promoter score is a great way to track this on an automated basis. But you're just not going to get everything you need out of net promoter score. And I think my advice for, for the, for the insurance industry and taking this back is going out to our clients and actually sitting down with them and talking to them. Like, like not just here's your policies, have a nice day, but like scheduling a time with them, whether you're buying them lunch or you're buying them coffee or whatever, um, dinner, you know, make it obviously worth their while to give you feedback. But spend time with them, and ask them and provide them with a forum that allows them to be very open and honest and real. And if you can do it in a way where you don't, they don't actually, you know,

they feel very comfortable, what you get out of that is tremendous. So over the period of the nine months that I was there, we were able to increase the revenue per member from x to x plus seven. So $7, we increase the revenue per client $7 per client over that time period, which was a nice, substantial, significant increase in revenue per client. And what it also shows is when they're not just buying a membership, and what we didn't do, important to note, we didn't increase the cost of membership. So this was people buying additional services, buying merchandise. And that to me shows we were providing them with supporting products, supporting materials, supporting

programs that only enhanced, that enhanced their experience working with that business. Now from straightforward, this could be, you know, you know, making sure we're, we're adding umbrellas, cost selling life insurance, things like that. I think, you know, people have talked about that for a long time, but maybe there are other programs that people would be interested in or other ideas that people were interested or things that people just don't simply understand. And if we can spend time with those clients and learn more about where there's gaps in their knowledge, their understanding, or gaps that they actually see in the service that you're providing, we can solve those problems. Instead of just shoving things at them and hoping it's what they want. We can actually create the things or provide

the things that they're asking for. And that to me is a ubiquitous idea. I think it's universal. It's in every industry. But in particular, it's something that I think we can continue to focus on in our space. So, all right, let's keep rolling. Hopefully you guys are enjoying this. This is a lot of fun for me. I like these kind of brain dump things. It helps me think through my ideas on different topics. Nine is a lot.

I'm starting to get tired, but we have about 15 minutes left. We got three more topics to go. So let's keep crushing. I appreciate you guys for being here. We have like, just looking at the stats here. We have over 30 people watching live. That's pretty sick. Really appreciate you guys. All right. Let's see here. Number seven, we're still not producing enough content. We're still not producing enough content. Like just in general, we're not producing enough content. If you are growth focused, you have to produce more content. Now, I did have a conversation this morning with a fairly old school agent who was like, Hanley, you're crazy. Don't come back to the industry and start preaching, you know, all this BS about marketing

and leads and advertising that, and, and none of that works. And, you know, a million dollar account is never going to buy from you online. And, um, not that I'm going to say that that's impossible, but it's probably unlikely. I would agree with that. If your goal is million dollar accounts, then digital content in its purest form is probably not a space that you need to spend the majority of your time, but you do need to have a nice digital footprint to make that happen. But when I say create more content, I don't, I'm not just talking about blog posts or social media posts. I'm talking about taking in all the spaces that someone could,

could find your business and spending time in that space. So I'll give you just a little example. I was doing an audit of the Murray Group's Google My Business page. And I noticed that like the photos hadn't been updated in a long time, actually, since the day that I left. So what I did was I went in and I found a that the photos are being are being looked at and click through as people find the business and then search to see who the people are. And you can get all that from the Google My Business analytics. And that's just one small little microcosm. Like, are you consistently updating the photos in your Google My Business account?

You most likely are not. Maybe the people who are live on this video are because most of you I just know are more active than others. But if you're not, that's one place that you need content because anybody, a CEO of any company, a purchasing agent, a procurement agent, whoever's handling the insurance, chief risk officer, if you're dealing with businesses that big that would have that person, you know, these individuals are going to check you out. Now they're also going to take into account, you know, who else in the space is using you, you know, what type of reputation do you have, you've probably, you know, you've probably quoted them before, like, they're going to take all that into account. But they're also going to make sure that your website looks legit. Like just, they're going to go give it that smell test and they're

going to go, you know, they're going to take a quick look at your Facebook page maybe. And, and in general, this activity in the content space is so easy today. It's so easy and we're just not doing it. And for the carriers out there, I'm going to go back all the way to number one with the creative piece. Like you guys should be crushing it. Carriers should be absolutely crushing this game. There is no reason that, that every carrier out there doesn't have someone who is just crushing content. This is not a major investment. This is, this is actually a relatively small investment and you can be starting to connect with, with, with your brand, with customers. Now, most of the independent agency carriers don't write direct and that's why they don't

make that investment because they, there is this assumption that somehow all of the marketing and sales responsibility is still exists on the agent. I just think that's a very myopic way of viewing the relationship and just your future in general. And if again, if I were part of a carrier, or if I were advising a carrier, my recommendation would be let's get out in front of our agency force and put our brand into consumers hands so that then when they sit down with one of our agents, they know our brand there, maybe they're even asking for our brand. But when when one of our agents pushes our paper across the desk in a proposal, and our logo is recommended that that that insurance consumer is not questioning for a heartbeat that agent's recommendation. And we're just not creating enough content. It's continues. I'm going to

bang this drum probably until forever until I'm either in the ground or retired. Because it just doesn't seem like we're taking to it. I mean, in the fitness game, my friends, you have to produce content like a maniac, like a maniac, you are competing against these fitfluencers who are producing 15 posts a day that are beautiful and scripted and, and perfectly positioned. And, and it's, you're pretty, you have to produce an insane amount of content in the fitness industry, right? And we and I come and you look at insurance. And it's like, if we were doing if anyone was doing one 10th of what we were doing in metabolic, they would be dominating the game dominating. I mean, just the work that I did when I was with the Murray group all those years ago, we still sit on the top of Google searches, we still come up, we're still getting 1000s of hits a month on our Google My Business page for different things that

I did there and all the reviews we got on the review program we put up. I mean, it's there for the taking. You can believe that it doesn't work or you can question it, but it absolutely works every time for every business. This is not something that you question. If you don't believe in it, that's fine. Or if you don't want to do it, also completely fine. But don't tell me that it doesn't work. It does. And we are in very, very, very, very, very few of us are creating enough content to actually make a difference. So create more content. All right, I got eight minutes for two. I think we can do this. Insurance is very insulated. And what I mean by that is, like, you know, if you don't currently operate in the insurance space, if you don't sell insurance, if you haven't worked for a carrier, whatever, literally, in general, our industry just doesn't even listen to that person. or someone will come in and hit a bunch of gigs and work through work through the industry. And that's great. But we're not reaching out into other spaces enough and drawing in the ideas and

the things that they're already doing. Right? Like, like, today, I have 15 more tools in my tool belt that I can implement into an insurance agency or into an insurance carrier, because I spent that time in the fitness industry. Because I learned all these things that you had to do to be successful in the fitness industry that no one's doing in the insurance space that I can now flip, draw into insurance and just take that brand or that agency and push them light years ahead. Because I've taken experience from another industry and you don't have to work in another space to do that. There are thought leaders in every industry sharing insights, tips, you know, best practices from these other spaces, and we can draw them in. Now, I think some of that happens with real estate and mortgages, because we work so closely with those people. So there

is a little simulation there. Zach and Matt from GNN have done a lot of good work kind of pulling in some tactics from other industries. And that's great. But in general, we have to not be so insulated. Just because someone hasn't sold an insurance policy was sitting in a brainstorming meeting on at metabolic, we were literally talking about things that we had seen in any space, YouTube videos, social media posts, and we're like, Oh, can we do this here? And how do we push it? It was there was no barrier. And I think too often, we're playing follow the leader in our space, and just looking at what other insurance people are doing and listening to other insurance people. And not that that's bad. That just needs to be one part of what we do. And then some part of our brain, even if 80% of our attention is on other insurance professionals, if we could take 10, 15, 20% of our brain or our attention and just let it leak out into some other spaces and pull in the tidbits that we think could work

in ours. I think there's opportunity there. I think there's a tremendous amount of opportunity there. And I'm going to try to do more of that moving forward, pulling in ideas and, you know, best practice, whatever, from other spaces that I think could could help insurance professionals move forward, carriers, agents, etc. All right. Five minutes left. You guys have been tremendous. We have pushed we have pushed almost 40 live viewers at a given time. And we're still rocking plus 30, which is just which is just I just thank you so much for being here. This is a lot of fun for me. I hope you guys are getting a lot out of it. The replay is going to be on YouTube. So you can come back and watch it over again. I'll probably

push it out as a podcast in a couple days too. So you can listen to it if you listen to the podcast. If you're not subscribed to this channel, I just want to say that if you're not subscribed to my channel, please do. I have tons more video content coming out. I have a lot of stuff planned. I'm working on it. And we're gonna be pumping out some weird, I'm gonna be pumping out. I don't know why I always want to say weird. Makes me sound makes it sound bigger right now. It's just me sitting on my kitchen table. I'm gonna be punching pumping out a lot more video content. I did a survey of my email subscribers. And almost unanimously, they want to see more video content. People like video.

There are the people who don't like videos, they can't watch it at work, et cetera. I get that. I'm going to keep writing articles, but there was an overwhelming push for more video. So we're going to do that. So it'd be fun. Okay.

Last one, number nine. Number nine, our last thing that I learned in the last nine months away from the insurance industry is that we need to be focused more on automation and technology and streamlining processes. And like I said, net, this is a victory. InsurTech, I think, has been a victory for our industry as a whole, for independent agents, for independent carriers, for everyone. And the InsurTech movement has been a net positive. What I caution us, what I caution all of you at home of is to sacrifice the human connection that makes independent agencies and carriers special to sacrifice that at the altar of automation and efficiency.

Automation and efficiency, those are short-term wins because yes, they move people through process faster. Yes, they allow us to track conversions and things like that more easily, but they don't create the long-term connections and bonds that are necessary for longevity. And I think kind of taking a quote from Seth Godin and Gary Vaynerchuk, you know, we need to do things that don't scale or continue to do things that don't scale. I used to sell a lot of personal lines, policies, packages at people's

kitchen table. Like I would literally drive at night to people's homes. Now, no one at the Merger does that anymore. A lot of that is because, you know, just it has, it's kind of, people don't want you in their home as much. So it's not necessarily the best example. But the idea is creating those touch points where you didn't have to do that, but you did. And it shows me the consumer, the client that you care. And now I'm starting to care about you. We don't want to lose that mentality in automation, because I think that if we do, that is sacrificing the longevity of our businesses and of our industry in exchange for quicker turnaround or whatever. Technology is important. Automation is important. Being efficient is important. Too much leakage and you can't run a profitable business. Roger that. I get it. I just think this is where art meets science. And it takes thoughtful, intentional leadership, up and down an organization in order to execute this. And if you can do it, that to me, that to me, you know, where I was headed with metabolic before that got derailed. You know, whatever the next iteration of my career is, you know, I want to continue to speak and create and

help agents. I have other ambitions as well. I'm going to be doing some some consulting work at some point. You know, maybe some fractional CMO work, helping agencies, helping carriers define their strategy, put many of these things into practice. You know, that's where I hope to go. And a big part of that I would like to implement into our industry. A big part of that work is helping organizations marry the art with the science of growing their business, of knowing how to automate, how to create efficiencies while still creating, while still maintaining and building brand and trust and respect and relationship. And if you can do that with a little bit of empathy, I think that's how everyone wins.

So guys, those are my nine things that I learned throughout the last nine months away from the insurance industry. If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments right now. I think this has been, it's been a lot of fun for me. I mean, I just spoke nonstop for an hour. So my voice is starting to hurt. Um, but I hope you guys got some value out of this. I'm going to go through the comments later. Maybe I'll do a recap video and just talk through some of those, see what everyone was

saying. Um, I think that, uh, your being here definitely provided me with a lot of energy to push through this. So I appreciate you. I'll say one more time. Uh, thank you for being here definitely provided me with a lot of energy to push through this. So I appreciate you. I'll say one more time. Thank you for being here. Many of you I know very well who are here live, I see you commenting, just want to say thank you for being willing to accept me back into the industry and whatever shape that takes. So easily after being gone for nine months, um, that's meant a lot to me. And I just promise that I will consider, continue to add value as much as I possibly can to,

to our space and to your businesses. And, uh, if you ever have a question for me, you can hit me up. Ryan at ryanhanley.com. I spend a lot of time on Twitter. That's ryanhanley underscore C O M is, or just search Ryan Hanley on Twitter. That, that tends to be where I'm spending a lot of my time. And, um,

otherwise please subscribe. Um, please like share, tell your friends about the show because I want more people to know what you know. I appreciate you. I love you. Thank you.

I'm out of here. Thank you. I'll see time next week. Sound impossible? It's not. With the one-call-close 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 in under three years during the pandemic. No fluff, no endless follow-ups, just results fast. Based in behavioral psychology and battle-tested, the one-call-close system eliminates excuses and gets the prospect saying yes

more than you ever thought possible. If you're ready to stop losing opportunities and start winning, visit masteroftheclose.com. That's masteroftheclose.com. Do it today.