The Ryan Hanley Show - RHS 022 - How to Build the Insurance Agency You Want to Be a Part Of

Episode Date: January 5, 2020

Became a Master of the Close: https://masteroftheclose.comIn this solo episode, we examine how the industry can support and help build insurance agencies you want to be a part of. Isn't that what everyone wants? https://ryanhanley.comLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello everyone and welcome back to the Ryan Hanley show. I don't know if I really am supposed to say that when I say the Ryan Hanley Show. It kind of feels weird because I am Ryan Hanley and I'm kind of saying it like I'm an announcer and not actually who I am. So I think I'm going to stop doing that. But so you guys are aware, this is going to be a just me and you episode because I feel like there's a few things that I need to clear up with the podcast that just, I just need to kind of set straight.

I've made so many changes and talked about so many different things. And if you've been following along with the newsletter, which I hope you have been because I really enjoy doing those. They're like basically 15 minute videos that I put out once a week that talk about usually some kind of housekeeping things or different tools or resources that I found that week. And then usually one segment is a little more tactical, something that I learned during the week or a resource I came across that I really want to dive into and share with you how you can apply it to your business or your life. And I've very much been enjoying doing the newsletter. And it seems like everyone who subscribed to the newsletter list has been

enjoying that as well. So if you've been following along with the newsletter, oh, and you can get at that newsletter by going to ryanhanley.com forward slash subscribe or forward slash newsletter. I think both of them take you to the same spot. Or if you just go to ryanhanley.com, you'll see a box somewhere that you can get on the list. It's free. And I only send out one email a week usually, unless I have something super cool to share. But there's been so many changes in what I've done, so many changes in what the future holds for me and my relationship to you, the audience. And I just felt that it made sense to jump on here, spend a few minutes, talk through some of the things that have been going on. And not just like, hey, let me barf my life on you. But I want to talk through some of the thought process that has gone into some of the decisions I've made moving forward.

And I think at least some of that may provide some value to you in different decisions that you have to make and just how you set up your business, how you set up your life. And we all come across different things, both large and small, that we have to kind of make decisions, right? We have to choose, you know, the path to the right or the path to the left. And how we go about making those decisions, everybody approaches that in different ways. So I often enjoy hearing occasionally, not every day, but occasionally how people approached making certain decisions, why they chose one path over another. And I thought that right now at the beginning of 2020, 2020 is going to be a big year. It's going to be a year that I approach much differently than probably any other year in my entire life. And I just thought that it

made sense to take a few minutes and share that with you. But that is a lot of preamble to the actual content of the show. Good thing we're only, we're less than four minutes in. Before we get there though, before we get there, I want to share with you a new development to the show, and that is we have our very first sponsor of The Ryan Hanley Show, and that is Advisor Evolve, the fine people at Advisor Evolve, the New Jersey native, Chris Langell, who I called Langelly for most of our time together. I've known for almost a decade. I've watched him evolve from Hawking Home and Autos to developing the premier insurance

website technology. I don't want to say he's a website designer because even though Advisory Evolved does create some of the most beautiful and well-designed from just a customer experience, a user experience standpoint. Everything that goes into an Advisory Evolved site from its power pack to all the tools that come along with it, it's much more than just a pretty web address. It is a tool to help you grow your business, to help you retain insurance business. And the Rogue Risk, which we'll get to in a couple minutes, Rogue Risk, my insurance agency that I'm developing, I'm kind of destroying the lead here, but Rogue Risk

will be built on the Advisor Evolved platform, and we are incredibly proud to also have Advisor Evolved and the fine people who work for Advisor Evolved as sponsors of this show. As we move forward, as we try to expand the platform, as we try to deliver more value to you, the listeners, it will be the sponsors of this show that allow that to happen. And if you are looking to take your online property to the next level, Advisor Evolved is the place to start. Go to AdvisorEvolved.com and reach out to them. Check out what they have.

You will not go wrong with the advisor evolved. So getting back into our content for today. So some big things. I've talked about a bunch of different stuff. I talked about starting this company called Daily Material, which was going to be a tool, and maybe that'll become a thing someday, but I've kind of had to set that aside.

And I talked about starting a marketing agency at one point. And I do have a couple consulting clients that I work with. They're fairly scaled down, but the whole point of that is it's strategic consulting. It's strategy consulting. I'm not actually doing the work for anybody. I'm not making Instagram bangers for anybody. That's just not what I do. But I am providing some strategic consulting for people. And as it makes sense, I take on those clients. Though my primary effort moving forward is going to be something that I should have done

three years ago. I should have done two years ago. I should have done two years ago. I should have done last year and was inches away. Inches. I'm making a gesture with my finger, though. This is a podcast. You can't see me. But I literally registered the LLC for and didn't move forward. I got scared.

I got nervous. I got shook. I wasn't emotionally ready for it. At least that's what I tell myself. I am starting my own insurance agency. It's going to be a human optimized agency. And what I mean by that, by human optimized, that's my way of describing what I believe is the brackish water. It's that space in between a fully traditional kind of manual agency and the fully digital, fully automated agency that everyone talks about. I believe neither one of those extremes is the answer. Neither one provides the best experience for insurance consumers, for the people that we're actually supposed to be serving. It certainly doesn't provide a good experience for our staff and our teams, and it does not provide a good experience for our vendors because neither one of those

fully answers the question of what an insurance consumer actually needs to be successful throughout an insurance transaction initially, and then the relationship that they have with their insurance provider moving forward? The answer is in the middle, in that dirty, grimy place where automation's mashed up with humans and technology is talking to each other and not talking to each other. And sometimes we got to copy and paste something into another field. And even though we hate doing that because we should be able to automate it, those two systems don't talk to each other and that grimy place that everyone is trying to figure out, it's in that brackish water that the optimal customer experience exists and I want

to build an agency that efforts to find that place and is adaptable and malleable enough to maneuver with customers and with the marketplace as it changes because it's not going to stay the same. Even if at one given moment, I'm able to find that spot, it's not going to stay the same. It's not going to just rest in that singular location and I'll have it figured out for all of time. That's absolutely not going to be the case. That hasn't ever been the case. Therefore, why would we ever expect that to be the case moving forward? So the name of that agency is Rogue Risk, Rogue Risk LLC. We're going to work in both the personal lines and commercial line space, though commercial lines is where I see the most opportunity and where the most of our effort will

be focused. And it's going to be predominantly a digital agency. We'll be using tools to humanize that connection and build relationships. But we're very much going to try to not waste time or resources in places where customers don't appreciate those time and resources being applied. And I'll be honest with you, I don't go into this thinking in any regard that I have all the answers because I know that I don't. Like I absolutely positively am going into this knowing that I do not have all the answers to this. And it's been funny. Some of the feedback that I've gotten, most of which has been incredibly positive from people, almost to the extent of being sarcastic and like, you know, it's about time and stuff like that, which is great and tons of fun. And I love

that. But I have gotten some people who've kind of pushed back and, you know, what do you know? And, you know, what gives you the, you know, what in your background gives you the right to start an agency? And maybe some of these people don't know me as well, but the idea is that somehow you need to know like what the end game is before you step into the arena. And I just absolutely positively don't agree with that one, nor do I think that that's even possible to know what the outcome is going to be. Like maybe we tap into something in personal lines or life insurance or workers comp or something that I don't even, I'm not even considering right now. And it just

goes bananas. And we find out that that's what we're really good at. And that's what I'm really passionate about. And I can bring team members on and make connections and who the heck knows? You know, I want this agency to be like the Bruce Lee of insurance agencies. Like no style is the best style, right? Like we, we, we, we work to do what's right for the customers that we're bringing in and we are adaptable enough to the market to make sure that we never believe so strongly in an ideology that we allow ourselves to be dashed across the rocks because of it. And I also just believe that I know I'm willing to work hard. I'm married to an incredible insurance professional. I was taught by one of the best salesmen and classic agency principals in the history of our industry. And I know just about everyone that I could possibly need to know who's already solved all the problems that I could possibly run up against.

So a couple phone calls to friends will help me solve a lot of the things that I may not know initially. And to be honest with you, if I've learned anything since announcing that I was starting this agency, it's that the people of the insurance industry are so incredibly giving and thoughtful with their time. It just completely validated all my reasons for rededicating myself to this industry. It was like an outpouring of people who are like, Hey, if you need a connection here, I know someone over here, this woman would be a great contact for you. Or Hey, if you, if you just want to hear what I, you know, I started a scratch agency three years ago. And if, if you, if you just want to run past

me, the things that I learned, I'd love to give you some of my time. I mean, people just so, so kind and thoughtful and willing to share their experiences in a completely selfless way in order to make sure that I don't make the same mistakes they did. And though I won't be able to take every single person up on their offer, because otherwise I'd never actually have the time to launch this agency. And, you know, as I'm learning, not that I didn't expect this, but as I'm learning firsthand, it is just time consuming. There's a lot of things you have to do. Some of it is very monotonous, kind of mundane things like registering an LLC, getting that LLC licensed with your state, all that kind of stuff, to making the connections for potential appointments, starting to have

calls. I had my very first call with a carrier today about getting appointed with that carrier. So I'm sure it's going to take another half dozen to a dozen of those meetings and calls to find the right carrier mix to launch the agency with. And I'll just be honest with you, it feels good to be doing the work again. Like I've been teaching people for so long and I love teaching people. Don't get, don't, don't, don't misunderstand that in any regard. I absolutely positively love teaching people and helping them do better. And I think for so long, my own path has been meandering to a sense, in a sense, because I never put my own personal like I never had a personal goal like I just

wanted other people to win and and if I could help them facilitate that that was my win so I never I was always just being kind of guided towards the next person who needed help or the next organization that needed help without a real clear path and um it took a lot of reading, a lot of soul searching, a lot of talking to friends, just going through my process to figure out that, you know, it was time that I kind of served myself first to a certain extent. Certainly not only myself, but served myself first. And that was building a business that was mine that, that couldn't be taken away from me because, you know, this person or that person didn't like some blog post I wrote, like that. I just will never put myself in that situation again. And, um, and it just feels good. And I haven't even launched the stupid thing. I mean, the days, the, the, the, the true struggle

hasn't even begun. I got to attract business and sell that business, retain that business and make the systems work. And all that is going to be difficult to say the least. And I kind of am looking forward to it because I've watched so many of my friends who own insurance agencies struggle through this life for so long. And I've never, even though I was an agent for eight years, being an agent is very difficult and meaningful work. But there's just different challenges that you have to face as an agency owner. And it's time that I face those challenges if I'm really going to consider myself to be a part of this industry, at least at the level that I would like to be considered part of the

industry because it's done so much for me and given me a life that I could have never, I could have never thought possible. And coming back and being part of this ecosystem, again, has been absolutely tremendous. So I guess, you know, that's a very big announcement. You could go to roguerisk.com right now. I think there's just like a placeholder website there. There's nothing there right now. This website won't be launched for a couple of weeks. Hopefully by the time IOA's Innovation 2020 happens down in San Diego, I'll be at that event. And I want to have Rogue Risk like launched and ready to go the following week, like that next week where we're ramping everything up and doing business. So that's my target date.

So we've got a couple weeks until then. So I guess in that regard, it's worth saying I'm completely back in the insurance industry. This is going to be my life. I'm very, very happy about that. Just connecting with some of my, some of my, they're just, to call them friends even is, is feels like doing disservice to the relationship that I have with them in this space. And, but, but, you know, and my brothers and sisters in arms and, and arms and walking through and talking through the business again has felt very good. And that's why I rebranded.

If you've noticed, the podcast has a rebranded tile or whatever, a cover image. It's purple now. It's still called The Ryan Hanley Show, but it's purple. I just wanted to completely whitewash and bring back something new to kind of constitute this next iteration. We'll still have thought leaders from outside the insurance industry. Probably we'll have a lot more thought leaders from inside the insurance industry as well. I like bringing people like Anne Hanley, the last episode. If you're listening to this episode and you did not listen to the previous episode with Anne Hanley, go back and listen to that episode too, because that episode is just absolutely out of this world. She is amazing. And to be able to

bring her in and share her expertise with the insurance industry is one of the things I love, just the cross-pollination of ideas from different spaces. And we'll do a lot of that. But this podcast is an insurance industry podcast moving forward, and I'm just happy to do that. It feels right. It just feels like what it should have always been, and I just wanted to let you know that. So if you're in the insurance industry, amazing. If you're not, that's cool too. Hopefully you'll stick around and listen to this because most of the stuff we talk about

isn't just insurance, but if you're not into that and you don't want to listen to this because most of the stuff we talk about isn't just insurance. But if you're not into that and you don't want to listen anymore, I completely get it. I felt it was right to share that with you than just kind of like slowly drag you along into a deeper, darker hole of insurance if it's what you're not really interested in. All right. So I have one more big announcement I want to make, but before we get to that announcement, before we get there, I want to share with you our second sponsor for the show, the second sponsor, and it blows me away that the amount of sponsorship interest that we've gotten in this podcast already, just kind of a week into kind of transforming it into an insurance-facing podcast.

But our second sponsor of this show is Ask Kodiak, a technology platform dedicated to risk placement and insurance product selection. Are you having trouble writing that donut shop with a fryer? Ask Kodiak. Need to place an accountant with five employees in Georgia with a mid-sized payroll? Ask Kodiak. Find the best insurance for your customers and your prospects. Know your options at Ask Kodiak. Oh, and just so you know,

I mean, this is what makes Ask Kodiak just absolutely amazing to me. It is free for agents. Go to askkodiak.com and sign up. And here's what I'm going to say. That's the ad read and it's very, very good. But here is what I'm going to say about Ask Kodiak, Alan and Mike, the founders of Ask Kodiak, are two of the best guys in our space. They care about the independent agency system as much as anyone. They are true indie tech technologists. They believe in the independent agency space. Now, regardless if you're listening to this and you're a captive agent or you're a carrier or you're an independent agent, it doesn't matter. To me, it's all good. Insurance is insurance and we all need to work together. We all come at it from different angles. I'm not a captive hater or whatever. I think we

all play different roles, right? And it's all good. Regardless, using AskKodiak.com, like going to AskKodiak.com and using the Ask Kodiak platform is a no-brainer. I have it up on my menu bar and I just click the button and I go check stuff out. I mean, for someone like me who's coming in as a scratch agency, like it has been an absolutely invaluable tool looking at different markets and knowing kind of where I'm starting to go with some of the carriers that I'm thinking about and what other carriers write those lines of business and just knowing some of the early accounts that I want to go after, like who are good partners to consider as early appointments or who do I need to find a wholesaler to get to, askkodiak.com is the place to do it. I am honored to have Ask Kodiak as one of our sponsors of this show.

Thank you, Alan. Thank you, Mike. All you listening, go to askkodiak.com. Sign up for your free account today. You just go in, you sign up, and you can use the whole service as an agent. It's amazing. So do that. All right. So the second announcement that I want to make is that the daily material, which was, like I said, a tool that I've been talking about, that is put on the back burner for a while, mostly because as much as I think it does solve a problem in the industry, I just don't have the bandwidth to launch it. Although if anyone's looking to run a technology company

and wants to take that idea and run with it, and I'd be interested in partnering with somebody, it's just not something I personally can do. We'll see about that. The second thing, and this goes to the education part of who I am as a person. The second thing that I'm launching, so I'm launching two businesses. One is Rogue Risk. That's the primary thing.

But the second piece is the inside. And this is the part of the last few weeks that has been the most interesting to me. The inside is a paid community. You have to pay to be part of the inside. It is member-only content on ryanhanley.com. And it's a Facebook group and also some downloadable resources. You also get a free copy of my book, stuff like that. Like this is a community for people who want to pay like next to nothing. I mean, we're talking 75 bucks a month. If you're

part of Jason Cass's AI mastermind, you get a slight discount for being part of that group. And I'm doing that for Cass specifically because one, he's been the, just absolutely gone out of his way to help me get going. And two, I've been a part of his group for a very long time and it has just been, it's been invaluable to me. So I can only hope to be as valuable to the members of the inside as Cass has been to his members. And if they want both, if they want to be part of both groups, then I want them to have that. So if you're a member of Cass's AI Mastermind, you also, you get a discounted rate on the inside. And here's the deal, my friends, like I've gotten quite a bit of negative feedback about the inside.

Not about the actual content and the feedback, but how could I be charging? How could I be charging for content? How could I be doing that? What do I know? What right do I have to charge for content? I've given out a decade and a half's worth of free content. The only times I've ever made anyone ever pay for anything I've ever created are my book, which is 10 bucks if you want on Amazon, or you can get the ebook for $3. And I keep it, those are literally the baseline prices for me to make a dollar on each. Those are the lowest prices you can have. And so I make a dollar on each one of those things because I don't care about the money. I'm basically paying to have Amazon facilitate the distribution of those tools

or of the book. And then the paid speaking gigs that I do, those are the only two places where any of my content is paid. Everything else I've ever created ever has been free. And I love that. I have no problem with that. But what I built at Agency Nation, that was a community of people who came together to help each other and support each other. And the inside is not going to be Agency Nation, but it is certainly going to be built with the same zest, the same vigor, the same unapologetic insights into building the type of agency that you want to be part of. That's what it was always about. It was about insurance being cool and you being cool for working in insurance regardless of what place you have, what role you play.

And it's going to be done so through the context of me building Rogue Risk. So I'm going to be documenting everything that I do building rogue risk. The good stuff, the mistakes, the decision points, the things that I'm uncomfortable about, the mentors and experts in our field that I reach out to to help me, the tools I use, the tools I use that don't work, that I don't have to get rid of and get a new tool. All of this is going to be part of the inside. And it's going to be meant to document this process so that people who either start scratch agencies or are interested in how I ramped up different growth in my business, it's going to be my journey from zero to a million.

And I don't know how long a million takes. I don't even know what a million means. Million dollars, million policies, million dollars in premium, million dollars in revenue, doesn't matter. Zero to a million, zero to one, let's say. Who cares? Zero to whatever. I'm certainly at zero today. And every week, twice a week, I am documenting in a video to members of this community what I'm doing. And then also we do one-on-one onboarding calls for everyone to get to know each other. I just did one with Dan Smith today that was tremendous. It was awesome. We ended up just chatting about all kinds of stuff in the industry. It was just tremendous to get to know him so I can help him tailor his experience better. We do once a month, we do a live video

kind of Q&As. And then I'm just constantly peppering the community with the different things that I find, the tools I use, and then some of my own resources, methodology, thought process to create content, to tell stories. I mean, those are the kind of things that I'm the best at in terms of, I'm not the best at them, but they're what I know the best and can help add value to specifically. So the inside, I think, is a community unlike any other because yes, it's a mastermind to a certain extent. Yes, it is a community for conversations. And yes, you can go onto Facebook and find dozens of other communities for free. That's perfectly fine. And I think you should do that if that's what you want to do. But if you want to be surrounded by a group of people who've put just a small amount of skin in the game,

right? For me, the skin is my time, my effort, my thought, making sure that this thing is valuable for you. It's 75 bucks a month and you get to just be in this group. And I don't think that that's like some great honor. I feel honored that you would be part of this. And I don't think that that's like some great honor. I feel honored that you would be part of this. And I want you to add value as well. And we all just grow together. I mean, that's what this is about. And I just need like, this also is not about making a ton of money. Like it's just, I feel like it's a fairly nominal fee in exchange for the things that I need to buy to run the community. And eventually I'm going to have to hire someone to help me.

The inside is not something I'm trying to get rich on. It's something that I think is vitally important to our industry because over the course of three months, six months, a year, 18 months, 24 months, we'll have a documented journey of going from zero to one, from scratch to an operating agency. And I feel like at some point that I can deliver that in a more condensed fashion to the industry to help captives become independents, to help independent agents launch their own agencies, to help people come into our industry, to use as a recruiting tool for kids coming out of college who want to start their own agencies or just want to be part of something, want to be part of this industry that we all know and love. And so the inside and rogue risk are what I'm going to be doing moving forward. I'm so incredibly, I'm just excited.

I wake up every day, I got a big smile on my face because I'm back to doing what I love. And that's not important to your life. It just feels good to be back in insurance and talking to the people that I just find to be so freaking interesting. And if you're listening to this and you want to be part of the inside, you can go to ryanhanley.com slash insider or there's a button right up on top of the screen that says the inside. You can get two weeks free.

So just come in two weeks. You don't like it. Even if you get in and you can cancel whenever you want. Like I said, I'm not trying to make money on this thing and hold your feet to the fire. People want to be in. I want you to be in, and I want it to be fun and valuable and want people to be able to share stuff.

I don't know. I feel like I'm not asking too much. I feel like there's a lot of really good people out there, and there's already a bunch in the community already, and it's tremendous, and I'm just really digging it. And actually tomorrow's video, just to give you an idea, tomorrow's video is going to be called how to have your first carrier appointment meeting. And I'm going to dissect everything I think I did right and wrong in my first carrier appointment meeting, which I had today. And by right and

wrong, I just mean like there were some questions that I wish I asked that I didn't and when I got the contract, there were some things that I didn't understand and just kind of walking through that so that the next person who comes along can watch that video and think to themselves like, oh, maybe I should have said this or asked that. And for those of you who've done 40 carrier appointment meetings and this is old hat to you, I'm hoping they can watch it and add value as well. Hey, I would have said this, or maybe I could have asked this question. That's how I would approach, that's, that's what it's about. And, you know, we're going to flail a little bit, but I think ultimately, I think ultimately, like with everything, if we work together, you know,

I mean, IAOA, it's got the best slogan, right? Better together. That's what it is, you know? And that's why I'm going to IAOA's Innovation 2020 because I think that they do some of the best work in the industry. And it's just a pleasure to be part of that community. And it's just a pleasure to have you listening to this show.

I'm so glad that you're here. And if you've made it this long, you probably are ready to punch yourself in the face and you just want me to shut up, which I completely get because this probably sounded a little like a sales pitch for a while and I apologize for that. I guess I just wanted to talk through it. I guess I just wanted to talk through it. And I wanted you guys to know what this podcast was going to be going forward. It's going to be interviews.

It's going to be breakdowns. It's going to be bringing thought leaders from outside the industry, inside the industry to try to cross-pollinate some ideas. But everything is going to be framed to independent insurance professionals. But my captive brothers and sisters, obviously, this is all applicable to you too, and you're completely welcome. And if you ever want to become independent, let me know. I know some people that can help you do that. So thank you for listening to this show. Thank you. I've done a lot of asks so far, and I've done a lot of asks, so I won't ask for anything else other than I just want to say thank you. I hope you absolutely crush 2020. If there's anything I can do, you know how to get at me. I hope you keep listening, and I wish you absolutely, positively, nothing but the best.

Thank you for listening. I love you for listening. I'm out of here. សូវាប់បានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបា Thank you. Close twice as many deals by this time next week. Sound impossible? It's not. With the OneCall 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

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