The Ryan Hanley Show - RHS 092- James Jenkins on Niche Business World Domination

Episode Date: March 11, 2021

Became a Master of the Close: https://masteroftheclose.comIn this episode of The Ryan Hanley Show, James Jenkins, the founder of RiskWell Insurance, joins the podcast to discuss insurance technology decision-making, how to pick a niche market, and the best way to choose your carrier mix. This is an episode you don't want to miss…Episode Highlights: James shares why he likes doing feature requests. (17:09) James mentions his responsibility as the business owner. (18:16) James shares how he came up with the happy hour announcements. (22:28) James mentions a platform called High Level. (24:53) What could happen to the small commercial, five years from now? (32:13) James shares why the gap between the generalist and the specialist will grow. (32:36) James shares the other niches that he has lined up. (41:18) James mentions his philosophy on carrier experts. (47:10) Key Quotes: “I am your best client and the biggest thorn in your side. Because when you do something cool, man, I think that's really cool. And I'm going to talk about it a lot. I'm going to post about it, I'm going to share about it. I'm a great brand ambassador.” - James Jenkins “I think we just need to keep banging the drum. The reality is when they climb up on their hilltop and wave their flag, they're not gonna back down from that. Because then it seems like a defeat or a failure, and no business owner wants to do that.” - James Jenkins “I think the important thing is having those behind the scenes conversations where you can influence the decision-makers before they decide to climb a hill and wave a flag.” - James Jenkins Resources Mentioned: James Jenkins LinkedIn RiskWell Insurance Reach out to Ryan Hanley Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In a crude laboratory in the basement of his home. Hello everyone and welcome back to the show. Today we have a guest who I've gotten to know fairly well over the last, I'd say, six months or so. He's about a year ahead of me in his journey building RiskWell Insurance. Our guest is James Jenkins. Now, if you spend any time in IAOA or the NowCerts users group or the Better Agency users group, you are well aware of James because I like to bust his chops because James submits more user feature requests to service providers than anyone I've ever met in my life. But that's a good thing. I mean that with full sincerity, because as I say to him, I will always be chasing him,

but a solid number two on that list. I like to submit feature requests as well. But it's all in good fun. I really want to talk to James because one of the things that he's been able to do and how he's reached escape velocity in his agency, been able to add some staff and really start to deliver the product that he kind of, I think, had in his mind when he became an independent agent, is he really dialed into some niches. And while at the beginning, we talk a lot about the technology challenges that agencies have, as we work through that conversation, we get into what I believe is some incredibly valuable ideas, thoughts, concepts around how agencies are going to dial into niches moving into the future, the importance of that, and the hard decisions that we're going to have to make as agency owners and insurance producers and sales professionals in the coming years as things become

more compartmentalized. It becomes easier for people to dip into our backyard. We really have to become experts and dig deep into our expertise. So this is an incredible conversation. I think you're really going to enjoy it. We definitely go all over the map, but that's what you've come to expect from this show. So hopefully it's right on par with a lot of the other conversations we have. Valuable, no doubt. Before we get to James, though, I want to give a big shout out to Agency VA. I can't give Agency VA enough accolades. And the reason is that I now have two Agency VAs. I now have two of them. I have a guy by the name of Nat who lives in the Philippines, and he's doing a lot of my backend data work. He's helping me clean up my systems. He does my COIs. He will make billing changes in my systems and he's great. And I really like Nat. He's coming along quick. He's learning. He asks questions when he needs it and a big fan there. And then I also now have someone who's doing

outbound dialing for me and helping me reach out to more potential prospects. And we have a whole process that we work through there. And she's been with me for going on two or three weeks, depending on when this is published. And at least the first, I'd say 10 days have been tremendous. And just how enthusiastic she is. And I'm listening to the phone calls. And you know, we have some things we got to work out. I'm trying to make my words work for her. You know, we have to do some massaging there. And I think I tend to be a little wordy and, you know, we're trying to get it down to where it's cleaner and simpler and we can just kind of real punchy, deliver our value proposition and get meetings. And the whole time, you know, so all that is great. But what the reason, you know reason I choose Agency VA is not just Wes and Ben, who obviously I'm friends with and I love those guys.

I also have Lally, who's the manager. So I can go to Lally and say, hey, I need this, or this is going on, or I'm struggling to get Nat to look at this. Can you help him? And she's tremendous, and just the whole team over there has been phenomenal. So if you're looking for horsepower in your agency, Agency VA is the way to do it. Go to agencyva.com, agencyva.com. That's agencyva.com. Here we go.

What's up, man? Hey, Sexy. How you doing? Good. Since you're late for the podcast, you have to watch me finish this handwritten contractors form that I am. Handwritten. That's gross. Well, you know, only the best. What carrier are you doing that requires handwritten apps?

Leather stocking cooperative insurance company. Never heard of them well they only operate in upstate new york they're actually a phenomenal company and in 99 of their classes uh that they write with you can get a rate online they just um for their for contractors they they don't have online rating for contractors. So there, yeah. So I basically I use them Liberty mutual and dry mutual, which is another upstate only insurance company, domestic to New York for like contractors who are just starting, you know, because first year contractors are never something anyone really wants. So these guys will all write them and,

and they do a good job, you know, for, for the handyman carpenter renovations guy, you know, they're, they're perfectly fine. They just, you know, it takes an extra step, but so that's the deal, but they're good companies. They're really, they're really good companies. New York is weird. We have, if you take Westchester, like the Northern border of Westchester County, and you go South and then out towards the Island, that almost should be a separate state. And a lot of carriers operate as if it is a separate state. It's just so much different. You go from, you know, where I live could be Iowa and down there is like Hong Kong. You know what I mean? Like when you think about the difference

in densities of people. So, I mean, I imagine if I were in New York, there's city and not city. Yeah. I mean, the rest of New York is kind of homogeneous. But then you get within half an hour of the edge of the city and everything changes. Yeah. We also New York in general. I can understand why a lot of the best companies in the country do not come into New York in general, I can understand why a lot of the best companies in the country do not come into New York. Because not only is upstate, so upstate is homogeneous for a certain extent,

but we also have some of the oldest cities in the entire country. So Albany was the first incorporated city in the country, 1664. So yeah, the average age of a downtown building in Albany is like 1840 something. So you go, so yeah, you have these suburbs that are like any other suburbs, you know, 1980s houses, 1950s houses, you know, that, that, you know, during these waves of building. But then you have these cities that are kind of tightly packed, uh, in terms of the, where the buildings are. Not a lot of people live there and they're old as shit. So people don't want them.

It's, it's a really weird, it's a weird dynamic up here. I mean, I, this, this is not the easiest state to do business in, but it's all good. I mean, there, it's not by accident that I've avoided the Northeast because I mean you guys have so many small uh regionals and mutuals that someone from texas will never get access to no and those companies are almost always more competitive than the nationals yes so like the so the difference is so like uh you're saying you know why would you be handwriting out an application for leather stocking cooperative insurance company? And the deal is incredible claims handling. Yeah.

I know my underwriter, first name basis, you know, talk on the phone. I know exactly who she is. If I say to her, look, I know you guys don't want X, but it never happens. It's one job a year. She'll go, oh, okay. You know, or, or not, but I mean, you know what I mean? She'll talk me through it. And like you said, usually better priced and for certain risks, they're just really good and drives the same way.

And that's why when people do the, um, like the, like, uh, uh, Moika Salas, who's, who's down there in Texas, right? He does the, I don't know. He's been on cast as podcasts. I don't know if you're familiar with him. He's a, he's a Marsh guy. Real good dude. Um, he always talks about BORs, like 90% of his business comes from BORs and it's like the BOR game here. I mean, you'd have to have like 750 appointments to be like, uh, to be, you know, to, to be yeah i mean it's it's like when

we go down the coast i don't like riding business south of houston because it's a bunch of carriers that i don't have and don't want to have you know with lighthouse and upc and mason and Mason and Sage sure. And conifer and like all of these little tiny companies that only write coastal X wind or only right. You know, monoline property and their, their appetite is this big. Yeah. It's like, yeah, it's Texas, but I mean, kind of like you were saying with New York, Texas really is three states we are coastal Texas which is its own thing totally different and then north Texas like the DFW area and like draw a rectangle around that part of the state and then the rest of Texas because DFW and north Texas is freaking hail central man yeah you go from starting like an hour west of Fort Worth,

which is like two hours west of Dallas. There's like this line where on the west side, no big deal. You have thunderstorms, but you don't have like crazy hail. And then just magically a line drawn in the map. And it's, oh, well well you're going to get a bunch of hail now yeah it's it's like literally flipping a switch it's crazy yeah it's beginning about a month from now you know third week of march is almost the official beginning of storm season well we could be going fine and you have from third week second or third week of March until the second or third week of June.

And you could have the clearest day ever. I mean, sun is shining, not a cloud in the sky. 30 minutes passes and boom, the world is ending. It is like biblical thunderstorm just comes out of literally nowhere. The only time I've ever been scared on an airplane was actually on the tarmac at DFW. It's the only time i've ever been scared on an airplane was actually on the tarmac at dfw it's the only time i've ever been nervous i we come down just like you said we're we're coming down out of the sky no big deal it's like a couple clouds no big deal we we hit the ground and from the time it took us to get from the time we touched down to taxiing over to our gate this storm rolls in and i shit you not

it was like a we get like maybe i don't know 20 30 feet right we can we're you could reach out and touch the freaking uh arm thing whatever that is thing that comes out the the gateway thing um and the whole plane lights up like a nuke went off i mean whack so everyone goes and we look out the window and another lightning strike hits 50 yards from the plane hits the ground and now people are like whoa and the pilot comes on and they're happening like it's like whack whack whack and uh the pilot comes on and goes, everyone be calm. If a lightning strike hits the plane, everyone's going to be fine. But we can't have you out on the jet.

The jet bridge was the term I was looking for before. The jet bridge. Because if the jet bridge gets hit and you're on it, you're toast. So we just sat there and watched this ridiculous thing. But there was like a moment where I was like, oh, shit. Like, that's shit, like that. That's a badass lightning strike. And that's real close.

Now, man, I saw this meme yesterday because it's you guys are used to cold up there. Texas, like it's literally going to be maybe zero degrees in DFW on Monday. It's definitely going to be in single digits. And we're going to get probably seven or eight inches of snow overnight sunday into monday but the meme yesterday it was just i laughed a lot harder than i probably should have the the first box of the meme was like north texans in storm season and then just like like whoopty freaking do it's a bad storm whatever i don't care but then the second thing was like north texans in winter and they're like it was like a normal random snowstorm and everyone was just like oh my god we're gonna die yeah it's so funny how people is i mean obviously unless it's you know the major car accident that probably i think it

made the national news it was like 120 vehicle pile up on i-35 yesterday outside of people that don't know how to drive when it ices i mean you're not going to die in cold weather but some of these some of these storms man just like tornadoes and hailstones, literally the size of a softball just come out of nowhere. I was like, yeah, you might actually die in a, in a storm, but you're probably not going to die when it gets cold outside. No, no, I'm with you. Tornadoes scare the crap out of me. So I don't, I'm glad I definitely if, if tornadoes are a regular occurrence in that area, I will never live there.

Yeah. I mean, I will never live there. Yeah. I mean, I don't want to say they're regular. It's not like a once a week thing. And Oklahoma City, like that, like there to Wichita, Kansas is what they call Tornado Alley. Technically DFW is in Tornado Alley, but we're like the very southern edge of it. But I mean, we'll get, you know, two, three, four tornadoes a year that come through the area. Most of them are little little baby tornadoes, you know, an F1 or, you know,

which is I mean, it's still a tornado, but you know, a little tiny thing that hits the ground for 15 seconds and then leaves. But I mean, yeah, it's there's a lot more wind activity here than in most other places in the country. That's for sure. Yeah. Yeah. No, thank you. So, all right. We've, we've talked about the weather for long enough. All right. It's kind of a thing right now. It's been cold. I mean, yeah, you say the cold, it, it hasn't gotten above 20 in six weeks and there's been snow on the ground since like December. So I'm kind of sick of, I'm kind of sick of it. I can use some vitamin D, but, um, Emperor Cuomo will not allow us to leave without, without, uh,

being microchipped. So I'm not going to do that. Um, all right. So let's talk about something that people listening actually want to hear, which is, you know, you. By the way, I'm sorry. I just realized that you started recording a few minutes ago. I wouldn't have been talking that much about the weather if I'd have known. Hey, we're already on the podcast. Well, that's all right. Screw them. They're there. They got to listen. They can. This is my show. I can I can talk about whatever I want and they got to listen to it. So there you go. Whatever. I interrupted you. Go for it. I love you guys though. Thanks for listening.

You're the best. Um, all right. So, uh, you have kind of carved out your space in the industry really around, um, one being, being relatively new, but hard charging. I think that's a good way to describe you, right? Two years in the biz approximately. And also one of the most epic feature suggestors of all technology that you use, that wouldn't be another feather in your cap. And I do want to talk about that a little bit. And lastly, I'd say your focus on your dedication to certain niches of business and how that's really driven your agency forward, which I think is another important topic. But let's start with the most fun one, which is why do you pepper the shit out of every technology tools Facebook post with feature requests like you do. I mean, you have to have some sort of feature request record in some of these Facebook groups.

Hey man, you know, and to my friends at better agency and now certs, um, I make no apologies whatsoever. Um, here's the thing, man, I am your best client and the biggest thorn in your side, because when you do something cool, man, I think that's really work. Cause I mean, there's, there's a thousand different varieties of agencies, obviously. Um, but when something doesn't work for my team and really it's, I'm the filter for my team. I have three young ladies that work in my office full time and they're, they're, uh, what most offices would call a CSR. We call them relationship managers. Um, when they complain about something more than twice, I pay close attention. And when they are saying, hey, this isn't working, or something broke, or why doesn't it do blank? Why can't it do blank? I feel like it's my responsibility as the business owner to be their voice to our vendor

partners. So I mean, feature requests. Yeah, man. I mean, you have not because you ask not right. It's in the Bible for crying out loud. I don't mind being the guy who's waving the flag. You know, there's been a couple of things with better agency, where generally speaking, VA is a great platform. I'm really impressed with a lot of what they do over there. I know there's a lot of good options, you know, agency zoom and insured mine and etc, etc. There's a lot CTO was employee number six at Infusionsoft. I mean, Will Shaw is, you know, former NFL player. So, you know, he's know what their deal was, but they bought into the company in, in some big equity position. And we all know those guys. I mean, anybody listening to this podcast knows who Preston Schmidly and Nick Ayers are. Uh, that's the main reason why I did the BA thing. Uh, and really why I'm still doing it because, uh, there've been times last year when

my team was like, can we fire them? I want to go somewhere else. I don't like better agency. Just real talk. But I see where they're going. I see the vision. And the things that stink about the platform don't stink for very long. They stink for a few months maybe. And then, I mean, what is it?

Twice a month, they roll out a major update. I think every platform should be like that. Having the communication that they do of, we get emails twice a month with very specific updates of, hey guys, here's what we changed. Here's how you need to be aware of it. Here's how you do stuff with the new thing. It's like teaching us how to play with the toys they give us. Let's talk about the flip side of that. The flip side of that. Now certs hour long happy hours where they don't get into what's actually changing until 35 minutes in and they're doing it at 7 PM Eastern time. And I'm like, guys, they're like big announcement in the happy hour. And, and, and I'm super interested because i like now sorts i'm becoming a power

user of now sorts i think it's a good tool i'm like how about you just tell me what you're doing where's the announcement i shouldn't have to listen to you guys ramble on about your weekends for 30 minutes to figure out what the update is yeah no i mean real real talk, man. Jonathan and Richard and Caden and Vlad and Peter and the team, they deserve to get a little slap across the face, just a little bit. Yeah. Because I mean, real talk, the fact that they even have the happy hours to begin with, the fact that that's even a thing, I think is really cool. I think it is cool.

Most other vendors don't have anything like that. They don't engage with their customers on a ground floor level and with any kind of regularity, but yeah, I mean, holy crap, man. That was, so I was, I was causing, so I, I bring up this topic first only because I'm probably one of the, I'm probably, I'm never going to ascend to your level of feature requestness, but I ride your coattails. I'm like a, I'm like a solid number two or number three of feature requests. I'll never be at your level, but I'm right there. So I, so I, you know, I'm in, I see this thing, you know, all for the last two weeks, big announcement at the happy hour, big announcement at the happy hour. I'm like, okay, you know, whatever. And 35 minutes in.

And finally, I'm just like, guys, how about this? How about we do the happy hours, which are really cool. And you do like a one page PDF that says what the, what the heck the update is in case I don't have an hour to spend in the video, like doing 10 seconds forward. 10. When did they get the update? 10 seconds? Yeah. No, I mean, the the 7pm thing is awful. It is truly just terrible timing, because anybody with a family, like exactly my wife and my kids are in, you know, with her, her parents, my in laws for this week, just given me some, I get like

once a quarter, I get a week where they go hang out with the in-laws and I get to work 80 hours if I want to, and just knock out my project list. And it's glorious. I love it. Those weeks are great. It just so happens that this is one of those weeks. Most of the time, if my family's in town, I'm not going to be on a freaking webinar for work stuff Thursday at 7. Do you want me to commit suicide in my marriage? My wife would be like, what are you doing? Honey, I'm watching a- I'm on a happy hour where guys are talking about their weekend.

She's like, you're doing what? Why are you not putting the kids to bed? Happy hour Facebook Live for one of the tools in my insurance agency i'm gonna knife you when you fall asleep just so you know it's bad enough i i mean i know you and i are the same with this one man i i nerd out and get excited about dumb stuff the things that the general public would be like really seriously like you care about stupid things yeah like yeah i mean i'm a risk manager by trade like i dig this stuff and we'll talk about stuff at the house and i'm like babe you'll never guess what happened insert insurance or risk management story here

and she's just like struggling to stay focused in the conversation. So she already has to deal with that kind of stuff in general. But if I told her I'm on a happy hour at Thursday at seven, I'm not putting the kids to bed tonight. So I can watch a bunch of guys jibber jabber about their software platform. To your point, she would probably threaten to smother me in my sleep. The worst part is, and I'm only, and hopefully if they listen to this or this gets back to them, I want you, this is out of love. I was super interested in the announcement. Like I wanted to know what it was. And to be honest with you, I don't even have the full announcement yet because I was told in the comment section, go to minute 32. And I'm just

like, as soon as I saw that,'m like i'm just gonna wait until someone tells me what it is or it or the platform changes you want you want the cribs i would love the crib yeah yeah here's the thing there is a platform called high level yep i know a high level it's a crm yep a lot of really big companies, high level, and put something out that's flavored for their vertical. Now certs bought a license of high level, and they're building out a whole bunch of crap to complement what now certs is doing. Because there's some features that are glaringly absent in now certs. They don't really have a sales pipeline at all uh it's they're it's kind of weird for me because i see now certs kind of inching closer to a crm type

of features and then you got crms like better agency and and even agency zoom i think they have certain features that kind of look like an ams and i don't know what your take is on this but i don't believe in the one killer app platform i don't i don't want one thing to try to be everything you know microsoft has i mean i'm on the microsoft ecosystem we use teams we use one drive we use OneDrive. We use SharePoint extensively. Travis Gensler, thank you for that. Shout out to Travis and his group. They've been amazing for Microsoft.

He's like the Oracle evangelist for Microsoft. But Dynamics with Microsoft is a perfect example. Just awful for my needs. Like I got into it. I'm just like, this is crap. This is, it's their version of a CRM and it's terrible in my needs. Like I got into it. I'm just like, this is crap. This is the, it's their version of a CRM and it's terrible. In my opinion, it's, it's just bad. So it's, that's kind of what you get when one platform tries to be everything, the whole concept of one killer app to do whatever the insurance agent needs. I don't believe in that.

Yeah. I have a very clear take on this and it is, I think that's a bad idea. I think this is a bad idea by now. So it's, I think that there's too many other places that they could drastically improve their product. So I I'm on now. So it's not because I don't think it's a good product. I really like now. So it's, and I said this to, I was talking to, um, I was talking to somebody that maybe it was Paradiso and he was asking me cause Paradiso is on Hawk soft. And right now Hawksoft actually integrates with every tool that I use right now that I want to use. But I'm like, Hawksoft doesn't have a writable API. They're very slow to make improvements. I think some of that is cultural.

I also know Hawksoft is a good product that a lot of really great agencies run on, not a knock on Hawksoft. You know, no one's perfect. But I look at NowSerts and I say to myself, this platform could take over the AMS space. Yeah. It could. But things like the, they just seem to have a very casual attitude

towards things like growth and things like you know improvements to the product and stuff like that but server downtime server down well the fact that like 11 o'clock every day we just get a hey guys just so you know wwe is down today uh you know it'll be up as soon as we can i'm like no here's here's the problem in defense, they have like 24 servers. But the problem is you and I are both on their test server. Yeah. So we get features before everybody else does because WW8 is their test server. That's where they drop out the new things

and beta them for a week or two. But WW8 is also the one that goes down more than any other server because it's the test server. Yeah. But here's my point. I think now certs is awesome. I really, I, I don't really have a beef in general. Their UI is a little tough and you know, there's some different things that are a little wonky. I really wish, you know, but, but then I, I look at it and I'm like, okay, don't add some third party white label licensed CRM tool. Just be really awesome at AMSing and connecting to other tools like Insured Mind, Agency Zoom, Better Agency, HubSpot, pick the top 15 CRMs and be ridiculously easy and fully integrated

with those tools. And you will become the default AMS for the middle and smaller agency. Like this is a no brainer win. I don't understand why these platforms don't get it. QQ doesn't get this from Vertifor. Well, that kind of makes sense. But all these small guys, I don't cause, cause granted, I'm not trying to call now search or Hawks off small, but versus applied or Vertifor you know they are I don't understand the thought process and I think this goes this is larger than I'm not trying to just not not talk about now search but like

I just look at now search and I'm like oh my god they could be the default tool from everyone in the middle market down to startup. They have that potential. It's that good of a tool. And to waste, for me, to waste dev time and brain cycles on a CRM, when you could just plug into BA, InsuredMind, or AgencyZoom, whichever you choose, and have it work seamlessly. I don't understand that decision it doesn't make any sense to me well why don't you tell them that and i will tell them that and then if enough people tell them that they may you know realize that this is not a long-term solution because you know when i'm in a weird spot because i've got better agency going out and getting ivan's integration which they've been working on that behind the scenes for like six months, I heard from Will. And then my AMS is trying to act like a CRM. So

my CRM is trying to act like an AMS. My AMS is trying to act like a CRM. Eventually, you're going to have to make a decision where you have a product that doesn't do everything that you want on either side. That's ultimately what these tools are forcing us to do, which is what bothers me so much. And I think, and this may segue into other things we talk about on this recording episode, sorry. As I sit here at my desk, I keep on forgetting that people are listening to this

on their phones or they're driving in their car right now. So let's stay focused, James, stay on message. It's the whole thing of being a generalist versus a specialist of being the do everything the state farms and farmers of the world versus the carrier, like your small regional mutual the leather stocking, the leather stocking community, something or other. Shout out to Dryden Mutual too. I love you both. Shout out to Dryden. Yeah. I mean the upstate mutuals and regionals, like those carriers have no interest in being everything to everybody. They want to do a very small number of things at an extremely high level of performance. And if you're not in their target market, they don't

care a thing about you. You're not discussed in their meetings. They don't care what you want because they are not interested in that. They're staying really focused on their message. And I think that as we move into 2021 and beyond, the more that the direct channel becomes commoditized for a small commercial now with insure techs like, you know, pie and next and etc. Like, small commercial five years from now is going to be exactly like personal lines is now where it's highly commoditized. It's, you know, very low barrier to entry. The typical run of the mill insured isn't even going to talk to an agent. I'm talking like the lowest common denominator person, not the people that you and I want to work with. But the gap between the generalist

and the specialist, I think is going to get just massive within the next couple of years, where the people that are trying to be the everything to everybody, you know, the ones that are offering seven different product lines and they've got, you know, 14,000 links on their website. Those people I think are going to be in a really hard place before too long. What's up guys. Sorry to take you away from the episode, but as you know, we do not run ads on this show. And 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 on YouTube, leave a rating review if you're on Spotify or

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And I hope you enjoy it listening as much as I do creating the show for you. All right, I'm out of here. Peace. Let's get back to the episode. Yeah, I agree with you. I think you have to pick a thing, right? If you're going to be a generalist,

then you need to be the generalist of the 10 mile radius from where you live. Right. If you're going to be, you know, if you're going to be industry specific, you, you, you know, that's what you gotta be. If you're going to be product specific, right? Like I'm trying really hard to be product specific. And even that I'm finding is, is, is a little broad for where I'm at in my development. So, so I'm making some changes there. And I think, you know, this, this, you know, this, this works in tech. It certainly

works in insurance agencies. You know, this, you know, what bothers me is this is what bothers me in general about the, and I kind of knew about, I heard about the high level thing. I just didn't know the details, but the, what bothers me is I want to be able to pick the tools that are right for what I'm trying to do, right? I like a very simple CRM. I personally, the way I work, the way I manage my, I have a team now, everyone, I can say that. It's official. I've hired people. It's not just me. And these aren't alter personalities. They're real other humans. You know, I like very, very simple. Give me simple and works. That's all I want. I don't need 10,000 triggers for my agency management system. I need to be able to connect into that. I can hate duplicate entry. So, you

know, so, and now all of a sudden what I find is every tool I start to use, and I, and this is going to come back to our insurance example, because I do want to ask you about, I want to finish the podcast talking about your work in certain niches, is that I get a shitty version. My, I pick a tool and then it evolves into a shittier version of itself because it wants to be this big, broad, huge thing. And I'm just like, God, I picked you originally because you did the thing that I needed really well. And every time you do an update, it becomes a bigger monster. And again, some people like that, the complexity and overarchingness. I mean, look at people who

live in the appliedlied Network, right? If you're an Applied Network, you go there, one, because it is the best agency management system that exists. I have to give, Applied Epic is the best. It's just expensive as shit. And you got to debit yourself and build out exactly as you want it and spend a hundred grand on it. But yeah, it's a big thing.

For the Josh Gurley's and Brad Rosenkeels of the world, like there's a reason why of the top hundred agencies in the country, like 90 of them are on Applied Epic. Yeah. So I mean, for sure. Yeah, for sure. So there are people that like that ecosystem thing, a hundred percent, but I just think for, for, for people who are starting to work for agencies that are starting to work target markets, I really think that our technology providers are doing us a disservice by not just being A plus pluses at the thing that they do best. So then I can cherry pick the tools and say, I want this, and I want to plug it into this. And then I want this to plug into this. And holy

crap, this really works. Now I can deliver my workers compensation program and Rogris 365 and, and plug in the, the, the self-managed certificate program from something like Certificial, which is a tool that needs to be on your radar, by the way, Certificial. Oh yeah, dude. Dope. This is a game changer for anybody that works for contractors that produce lots of certs. Game changer. That's an absolute game changer. I'm telling you, it is. It's it's so baller. I'm going to have him on the podcast as soon as I can. His name's Peter. He did 18 years as a CTO at Applied and not like the dopey part of not Applied Accord, not the dopey part of Accord, but like he was really one of the people that were pushing them forward and um it's just that's a really cool tool but like i'm just saying like i want

to be able to say okay cert official um uh zywave client portal um you know this tool this tool and if you guys were just all awesome at what you did, I could plug you all together. And now I have the perfect agency tech platform. But instead, they all go, hey, you know, I do certs. And I think we're going to get download. And I'm really thinking about building out a chat bot feature. And you're like, mother. Well, I mean, the whole the whole idea of staying your lane and i think it really just comes down to people get get delusions of grandeur and they allow tribalism and the whole like my club your

club thing like oh our club is the best we can do it better than that other vendor over there. Well, why don't you have an open API and allow other companies to just integrate directly? Well, because we're better than them. It's like, okay, well, I disagree fundamentally with your premise, but I digress. Oh, well, it creates a situation where guys like you and me are spinning our wheels because you take a great platform like an outsource or a better agency and would i prefer that they not do the downloads and do something else with their dev time yeah i definitely would there's there are a lot of features that i'm basically like arms outreached begging for at this point. Yeah, definitely. But the same goes for a lot of platforms. I think we just need to keep banging the drum. The reality is when they, you know, climb up on their hilltop and wave their flag, they're not going to back down from that,

because then it seems like a defeat or a failure. And no business owner wants to do that. I think the important thing is having those behind the scenes conversations where you can influence the decision makers before they decide to climb a hill and wave a flag. Yeah. I think the decision comes down to, and this is, I promise is the last thing I'm going to say about this. And we're going to talk about, we're going to talk about the questions I have about your agency and what you're doing is you're basically managing, I think you're basically, all these companies come to a decision point. And that decision point is maximize enterprise value or build a customer base that is ravenously in love with us. Because I

don't think you can do both of those. I think the companies that can do both of those things are the unicorns. Those are the unicorn companies. I don't mean in valuation. I just mean in general. You have to either maximize features and things that someone else would want to buy to make the most money, or you could stay tight and amazing and awesome and have people who would literally tattoo your brand on their arm. And I think that's a very hard decision. And when you're talking about the dollars in terms of valuation dollars that a lot of these companies are getting and that better agency is most likely worth and a lot of the tools that we talked about are worth, right? I mean, I can't imagine they're not already fielding calls for at least eight, if you know, eight digit offers. I don't know if they're a nine digit company yet, but I'm sure they're getting eight digit offers. And, you know, that's a really tough decision to make. And if now you have something, you know, just, I'm not, I have my own feelings about the download thing as well. But, but I think if you're looking at them from an enterprise value standpoint

and they have download, you're going, Ooh, Ooh. I mean, you know, there's something there. Yeah, man. I mean, we can talk about the difference between driving EBITDA and going after shareholder value and starting to think like a larger company versus keeping the mission, you know, front and center. We could say the very same thing about every agency and every owner listening. Are you pushing for a multiple? Are you trying to sell

in five years or are you on mission? Do you wake up in the morning excited about advancing the cause? Yeah. So this takes me into where i see valuations going and why i think you're on a great path so you've chosen so you have you have uh habitational right that's one of them contractors what what are the other niches that you that you've lined up the we made and i'm honestly i'm trying to figure out what to do with Personal Lines right now. I mean, flip a coin on if I sell my Personal Lines book and just go all in on commercial and real estate investors. I stumbled into the real estate investor world about four years ago because I had one client who had nine rentals.

And at that point, I was still an agent with a captive company. And I was able to write that account. It was like, oh, crap, that's good money. That was pretty easy. I want to do more of this. And so over the next two years, when we were at the captive agency, um, we did that extensively. And that's part of the reason why I left that company is they're not very good at serving real estate investors. Um, and that's the kind of the, how we got to where we are now, where it morphed into, well, it's not just single family. It's, it's the kind of the how we got to where we are now where it morphed into well it's not just single family it's it's the people doing flips and renovations and oh the people doing

you know small commercial and oh apartment buildings and condo associations which I don't like nearly as much as apartments because boards and gosh the the certificate request for refinances on condo unit owners. It just like put a gun in my mouth. Certificial, I'm going to change your life for you. I promise you. You and I are going to talk later about that because I've seen it a couple of times. I don't know anything about it to answer your question. Um, roofers and general contractors in particular, I mean, the contractor world is just massive. There's literally hundreds of trades. I'm not really interested in the small trade contractor, the drywall guy or whatever. I want the GC. I want the hard stuff, you know, the concrete, the masonry, the roofing, the general,

the stuff that has a lot of premium and it's hard to place. I find the harder something is to work in, the less competition there is. And the easier it is to point it out when posers try to come in and act like they know what they're doing. Yeah. If a generalist tries to play in my space, I'm going to bury them in knowledge of forms and exclusions, endorsements, and just all that CIC and CRM stuff, you know, and those, the designation programs and stuff that most agents don't even know about or care about. That's the difference between an okay program and a great program in that world. The other two really are the tech space and then healthcare medical, doctor's offices, healthcare technology companies, durable medical equipment manufacturers, if it's healthcare

medical, or if it's in technology, it, you know, the geek squad kind of contractor who comes to your house and fixes your computer. Those kind of folks own vehicles, they have a lot of employees, they need, you know, like, those are just great accounts, because you can rack up a lot of premium pretty quickly, if you know how to cross sell. Yeah. I have never, I have purposefully not involved myself in the healthcare space. I just don't know that much about it. Even though the carrier plant I have, much to their chagrin, they would love it if I did. I get, every time I talk to my reps, they're like, oh, you're going to start soliciting healthcare stuff? And I'm like, I don't know. I do really like, oh, you're going to start soliciting healthcare stuff. And I'm like, I don't know. I do really like, I like technology. I like media. You know, anyone with big cyber exposure,

I mean, which most companies today actually have big cyber exposure, but you know, anyone who, I really like that because I feel like, you know, I took a nice size account away from an agent the other day because solely on cyber, I took the whole package on cyber. They, they, they put basically first party only, you know, data breach cyber coverage on this account. And I'm like, do you understand what you have to know? We have cyber. I'm like, okay, let's talk about that. And you know, by the time we got to, to, to, I was explaining, have you ever got an email that looked like it was from your mom, but really it was from somebody in a different country

and like, yes. I'm like, yeah, that's not covered on this policy. Well, how do we fix that? You ever hear of a BOR? So it's like, you know, that I think I think i like um and this is coming back to your point why where i think you we have to start making decisions if this is 100 true in commercial and i think a lot of commercial agents i shouldn't say a lot i think more commercial agents in general get this idea i think personal lines agents who are thinking about commercial do not. And I've seen that a lot. And that to me, there is tremendous opportunity in saying, I write real estate investors. Yeah.

Because what, because just like you said, man, then you start to get the branches. Well, oh, this carrier also writes HOAs. This carrier also writes condo associates. Okay, I can get into there. And now you're playing in a really interesting space. I have a question for you around association. Okay. I can get into there. And now, um, you're playing in a really interesting space. I have a question for you around carriers. Yeah. Now I know we already said, you know, the Northeast has way too many carriers and you guys have less. Um, but I, I, I recently just purposefully dropped two personal lines appointments. And in general, I've been thinking about the carriers that I use.

And I said to myself, I know there's a philosophy of have as many carriers you can get and write as much business as you can write. And then the other philosophy is have carriers that you know, and have deep relationship with and work inside of their appetite and be experts in the carrier as well. Where do you fall on that and why? You know, I love this topic because I think this is the kind of meat and potato agency owner conversation. Why people listen to podcasts like this, this stuff just lights me up. I love this topic. It only took us 47 minutes to get there, bro. I mean, this is why I end the podcast. If you and I were face to face in Tampa in November, we'd be sipping something talking about this right here. A hundred percent. I'm the, I'm the second one. And I I'm like that

for a variety of reasons, because it plays right into my general business philosophy of do a small number of things and do them incredibly well. The captive agent doesn't understand market management. Had no idea. When I first got in, I didn't understand it. Two years ago, I had no idea. And I said some really stupid things early on that now, looking back, I didn't understand it two years ago. I had no idea. And I said some really stupid things early on that now I looking back, I'm just like, that is not a good idea. And I mean, I was greedy for

appointments at the beginning. And then I realized about six months in, I'm like, oh, crap, every appointment I take, expects to get fed. And when you're a small agency, you don't have enough submissions to go around. And like where we're at right now, I have six direct commercial appointments. And I don't mind saying it openly because I mean, if you want to come at me, let's go. If you think you're going to be a wire my account. Come on, bro. Let's do this. It's Chubb Hart Hartford, Nationwide, Liberty, State Auto, and crap, I can't even think of the other one. They're last place. Anyways, I have six carriers, and Mercury has Monoline Commercial Auto. And then BHHC, I just picked up, but that's mostly for outside of Texas, because their property market in Texas is crap.

But their auto product, especially fleet auto with BHHC is really, really strong. But the whole philosophy of, I want to do a very small number of things with this carrier that absolutely loves it. Like Chubb, for instance, their cyber program is phenomenal. It's great form, good insuring agreement. The exclusions and endorsements are really favorable. I like the language on their documents. And it's really easy to navigate. And it's really well priced. I mean, there's like three or four things that Chubb does extremely well.

You know, almost a year ago, they got into food and beverage. And they were sending a bunch of emails about, hey, give us your your restaurant submissions. And I'm like, bro, you're never going to get a restaurant submission for me. That's not what you guys are. Stop trying to be that. It's they them in Hartford. I see them as clones of each other. Travelers is like in the middle. You got Liberty and State Auto and Nationwide are blue collar companies. They want to write the manufacturing, the contractors, the lessors risk only. They want to write that blue collar, get it done, middle of the economy sort of stuff.

They don't have good cyber options. They don't have good E&O options. They're just not that kind of carrier. And then Travelers and Hanover and some others that are kind of in the middle between blue collar and white collar. And then you got Chubb and Hartford and CNA, which are like super white collar where they've got excellent cyber and E&O and their management liability, their EPL, their coverage options are really, really strong, but in certain areas. You're not going to take a contractor to Hartford. That's just not a good fit. But Hartford loves writing consultants, like management and business consultants. You don't even need to submit to anybody else. If someone calls you up and they're a work from home, white collar consulting company, straight to Hartford, you don't even need to

submit anywhere else because Hartford is going to be gangbusters. So did that answer your question? No, a hundred percent. It did. I mean, it's the exact same way that I feel. I, I, yeah, I have no, I never have any problem talking about the carriers. Cause like you said, if someone's going to, I mean, this, it's just interesting that you brought that up. Cause that is still like a thing. Like, I remember when I first got in the business 15 years ago, my, my father-in-law, and it's not a knock on him. This was the prevailing idea was like, you don't tell anybody who you have appointments

with because, you know, they'll come after you. And I think that is, that has really changed. And I'm glad that it's changed because I think what it does is it allows us, just like with our technology providers, to put more combined voices to a carrier about a thing like Hanover. I love Hanover. If anyone from Hanover is listening, you have to know that when I get to place a piece of business with you, I really enjoy it. I've never had a bad claims experience. I've never had a cost.

I had a customer have an $8,000 homeowner's claim a month ago, five star claims review. They said, no, handled perfectly, perfectly. So I love Hanover. Their technology is grossly inadequate considering the quality of the company. Probably the worst in my entire shop. And I handwrite accounts to leather stocking. So just understand that, you know, just to put it in perspective by the company with handwritten. Yes. And it's, it is that bad. That being said, it's a tough position because their product is tremendous. Their pricing is tremendous.

Their claims are tremendous and their people are tremendous. So, so this is kind of the thing you fight. I'm with you on Chubb. I adore Chubb. They're my number one carrier. I absolutely think that Chubb's small business unit, what they've done to improve it, their quoting, their handling of, of customer accounts, their billing needs work, but outside of that feature, I think they are tremendous. You know, I also have guard Cincinnati, Liberty, and then some select. So I basically have five main carriers that I work. And then I have, I have some like workers comp only like Amtrust pie and employers. And and then I have a couple of mutuals that I write with for, for, for some stuff here in the Northeast. Like none of those guys are taking on an 1840s four unit in downtown

Albany. That, you know what I mean? That's, that's a leather stocking, dried in account. So my point in saying all this to you is I made that same mistake early, right? I was like, gobble, gobble, you know, Oh, you'll, you'll give me an appointment. Give it to me, give it to me, give it to me. Oh, you want 30,000, a hundred thousand who care? You know what I mean? Like say yes to everything. And, um, the deeper I get into this business, the more I say to myself, I'd almost rather give a piece of business to somebody else that I, you know what I mean? Like if an account comes in and it doesn't fit my markets, I'd almost rather hand that to someone else and say, here, you take this and do a good job for them

versus I'm going to go out and find some carrier that this is going to be the only piece of business I have. Bro, perfect example yesterday. I don't know how well you know Joe Campert in Austin with Redwood. I know him and we've talked online, but he hasn't been on the show yet. I mean, the kid is doing something special, him and we've talked online, but we haven't, he hasn't been on the show yet. I mean, the kid is, is doing something special, him and his dad. I think of him as my little brother in insurance because we just, we hit it off and he's got a great story. Perfect example with him.

He is a trucking insurance God. I mean, him and Cameron patchy over in Washington state, I think is where Cameron's located. Cameron and Joe and his shop are like the only two people in trucking that I think of, except maybe Francis Nunez in Texas, but, but you know what I mean? Yeah, I got I got a trucking inbound request. Somebody hit my office was like, Hey, I've got a couple of trucks. I do OTR. We haul just general freight. And I'm like, bro, I'm not even going to touch this. I said, I'm going to connect you with my friend and colleague, Joe. He's in Austin. Him and his shop will take great care of you. I'm not qualified to do this account. And he's like, that's awesome. Thank you for telling me. I'm just like, dude, it's so much better. Is there a lot of premium there? It's probably a 35, $40,000 premium account, probably, you know, five grand in revenue plus or minus. I have no business taking that account. So I handed it straight over to Joe and texted Joe was like, Hey, this dude,

here's his information. I told him you'd be calling him. It's just washed my hands of the whole thing. But the flip side of that, Joe sent me a large condo association in Missouri in January. It's probably 150,000 in premium. Joe's like, I have no business trying to write this. I probably could write it, but it would take me way longer. And you're better at this than I am. Just perfect example. Like that flow of experts sending over here to a different expert, someone who's got enough self-awareness to realize I probably shouldn't try to do this. And I think that's one thing that your listeners, our listeners for this episode would really serve themselves well is figuring out where do I draw

the line? At what point do I say, I'm not going to try to do that. And then you just establish this network of subject matter experts for various verticals within the insurance world and stay in your lane and kick some serious tail in your lane. I couldn't agree with you more. I, this trucking thing, I actually, so a good one for Ohio is Seth Zaremba, Jay Muller and Camargo insurance is another good resource for, for different people. If you're on the East coast, it's tough to find people that focus on trucking on the East coast, but, um, it, uh, I give out probably a dozen trucking leads a week at this point because I just get them in and I'm, I send them to, I didn't know Joe did trucking. I sent a lot to cam. I sent

some, I sent them all over the place. Um, because I because I just can't, I don't want to go down that path. It's so much and the trucking path, but I completely agree with you. I think early on what the vast majority of people do, myself included is whatever you can get. I think you have to do that, right? You got to survive. You have to survive. I think if you have a natural niche and connections do it, but to a certain extent, survive. Once you're past survival mode, and I think this is where I've seen some other agencies really struggle. And I was actually talking to my Liberty rep who I've known for like almost since like my first week in the business 15 years ago at the Murray Group.

And he said he had three, he appointed three agents in January and February of last year that didn't make it through COVID. And he said a big part of it was just like you at a certain point, like you have to know, you have to recognize I'm out of survival mode. Maybe I'm not thriving, but I'm out of survival mode. I now need to pivot from everything I can get to what's going to get me to the next level. And like for me, I'm trying to focus on contractors, comp and technology businesses. I'm interested in them. I can speak the language and I like helping them. I have the markets to help them. That's where I'm going. So if you send me, like I'll write some hab if it falls into Cincinnati or whatever, but there's really big

stuff. If I had a really big hab come in, I would have no idea what to do with it. I'd waste, I'd waste three months trying to figure that out, you know, or, or some of these other healthcare. If, if I had, if a non, you know, I had a medical transport company call me, sorry, can't do it. I just, I have no idea where to put medical transport. I just don't. So I think this is one of the most, and I want to be respectful of your time and I actually have to go to, but I think that this topic is one of the most important topics for companies as they evolve.

And look at you getting your coffee delivered. You slacked that to her. Didn't you bring me a coffee or a cappuccino. Is it a cappuccino or a coffee? That's Brecklin. She's my right hand. Literally, as we're doing this, I see it come up on here. She goes, hot cocoa? Oh, you son of a gun.

I'll look at you. Right there, yeah. If I could share my screen with you, all you see is a smiley face. I didn't even say yes. I just said. Teamwork. Teamwork makes the dream work. So just to wrap up, man, one. I didn't even say yes. I just said. Teamwork. Teamwork makes the dream work. So just to wrap up, man, I want I appreciate your time and thoughts. And we went a lot of

places here that I didn't expect. But I think that's a good thing. This this idea, to your point, this is one of the most important topics is it's almost like you got at some point you got to grow up. And maybe maybe if growing up for is, I am going to dominate everything inside of 10 miles. I think that's a tougher road to play today. I don, whatever that thing is. So dude, where can people get at you? Where's the best Facebook, LinkedIn, the gram you tick talking, well, you know, what's the best place for people to connect with you if they just want to. I'm kind of old school. It's probably Facebook. I've never gotten on TikTok or Twitter. LinkedIn is nothing but spam.

It's, it's kind of Instagram for family stuff and Facebook for work stuff. LinkedIn is my number one, is my number four source of new business at Rogue Risk. No kidding. Shit, you're not. Dude, we need to talk about LinkedIn because I mean, it's basically a non-existent platform for me. Yeah. My wife says the same thing. It's a completely opposite for me. It is the most valuable social platform outside of blasting the technology platforms that I pay to help me service my customers on Facebook. LinkedIn is the most valuable platform to me. It just doesn't even come close. Well, I think we've got a great opportunity for a second episode in a few months. We need to be more focused on our topic. We'll be more focused. I can't always

promise Friday afternoon recordings could go anywhere. So that's kind of what happened today. But I'll say absolutely gives us a reason to come back in a couple months. I appreciate your time. I appreciate you. Riskwell.com if you want to check out James' agency. Let me just say, so we can save people from messaging me going, hey, I really liked that idea. I was like, okay, here's the thing. And if I'm going to ask for one thing, go to YouTube and subscribe to my channel.

I'm putting a lot of effort into putting good content on there. It's one, it's for insurance agents and also for other business owners. But don't ask if you can borrow or adapt or adopt something you see from me. I give it freely. Take it. Make it your own. Don't message me and say, hey, can I use this? Because that happens all the time.

I just want to be like, dude, of course you can. Go. Do your thing. But yeah, Riskwell's YouTube channel. If you're going to connect with me, I'd love for you to connect there. Shameless plug. And while you're there, if you haven't already subscribed

to Hanley's Rogue Risk channel, he's got some good stuff there too. Hell yeah. Unless you're going to do what someone did the other day and downvote every one of my videos. She's not actually on camera. She can come in.

I don't produce the video. Oh, you don't? Okay. Well, she just threw a snowball on my desk. So maybe I should put her on video. That's a good way to end it. Hey, man. Appreciate you. Be Okay. Well, she just threw a snowball on my desk, so maybe I should put her on video. That's a good way to end it. Hey, man, appreciate you. Be good.

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