The Ryan Hanley Show - RHS 143 - Nick Ayers on What it Takes to be a World-Class Marketer

Episode Date: May 19, 2022

Became a Master of the Close: https://masteroftheclose.comIn this episode of The Ryan Hanley Show, Nick Ayers, Chief Marketing Officer at Better Agency, joins the podcast to talk about insurance marketing, building technology, and putting on rockstar conferences. There's always a tremendous conversation when Nick's on the show.Don't miss this episode.Episode Highlights: Nick shares some ideas to take into consideration before starting a company. (7:06) Nick mentions that the cornerstone of marketing is being able to understand how people feel and being able to articulate the voices already in their heads. (12:36) Nick explains that a lot of companies will soon realize that they need to hire real marketing motions in their company. (19:38) Nick shares that their strategy has been to always commit to being genuine to their brand. (25:12) Nick talks about how the industry has changed and in some ways relaxed in the last few years. (31:05) Nick shares their journey to making their first acquisition and the questions they were asked by most people. (42:10) Nick explains that he believes that independent agents are the best channel for insurance distribution. (45:10) Nick and Ryan discuss the best insurance events. (48:37) Nick explains that they learned lessons from these past conferences which they will apply in their future conferences. (54:06) Key Quotes: "We're going to continue to be who we are, and that's a major part of our overall brand, and that we're going to try to be relentless truth-tellers." - Nick Ayers "We believe that independent agents are the best channel for insurance distribution. There isn't anything stronger or better than when companies work directly with independent agents." - Nick Ayers “If we want to compete with everybody else in the AMS or the CRM, we're going to constantly be playing that comparison game. We want to do something that nobody's done before." - Nick Ayers Resources Mentioned: Nick Ayers LinkedIn Better Agency 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. We have Nick Ayers on the podcast today, which means you know we're going to be talking some shh. No, Nick is one of the best marketers, if not the best marketer, in the independent insurance game. Absolutely love having him on the show because just the way he attacks our market, his methodology, his mindset is exactly where you need to be. I'm a huge fan of Nick, his work, and what they're doing over at Better Agency. And we talked a little bit about their new conference,

which they've had a conference, the Better Conference, but they're morphing it into something larger, hopefully something that provides meaning beyond just maybe like CRM sales, but kind of expands into the entire ecosystem of being an independent insurance agent. And the name of that conference is the Agency Success Conference. You're going to see a lot coming out about that from Nick, from the team at Better, and just everyone involved with this Agency Success Conference. And I couldn't be more excited to talk about that and better and CRMs and marketing and mindset and all sorts of awesome stuff. Nick is a tremendous person to have on the guest and just a tremendous professional in

our industry. So it was wonderful to have him on the show. Before we get to Nick, quick shout out to today's sponsor and that is Tarmica, T-A-R-M-I-K-A.com, T-A-R-M-I-K-A.com. Guys, you hear me talk about Tarmaka all the time and there's a reason. It's the best in breed. It's the best in the business at small business commercial rating. They're adding E&S business. They're adding surety. Guys, there's no better place to be than T-A-R-M-I-K-A to grow your small business book as you're able to quote multiple carriers in one place, you know, bridge over accurate quotes, buying that business.

You know, I used to tell a story. I've bound accounts using Tarmaca. One call closes in like under 20 minutes before. It's just insane. And that's what makes small business profitable. So T-A-R-M-I-K-A.com today. All right. Let's get on to Nick Ayers. Yo. Dude. Congratulations. Thanks, man. Does this mean, are you going to be like a master agency or?

No, we're a new division. Explain it to me like i'm three years old so um sia does not have a an offering today or they do now or didn't before for like individual producers who maybe weren't ready or didn't have the capability to launch a full-blown agency um or maybe didn't have a book or were starting or brand new relatively new or coming from exclusive weren't ready for the ia channel maybe didn't have a book or were starting or brand new, relatively new or coming from exclusive weren't ready for the IA channel, they didn't have a great offering or really any offering for them. So what Rogue is doing is a dual purpose of both create giving them a digital brand and digital and playground to kind of test out what a true kind of quote unquote digital

agency looks like, as well as giving producers that come to them who aren't ready for a full blown agency, essentially an incubator system to launch them into having their own agency. So. Gotcha. So they come work for you. They get trained. They, they learn how to, how to, how to do this. Something like an internship. Yes. And then they go launch their agency under SIA.

Yes. National. Yep. Awesome, man. Bro. I SIA. Yes. National? Yep. Awesome, man. Bro, I'm so fucking pumped. It's unbelievable. So it's funny. Don't ever tell, no one can ever tell you

that drunken world domination conversations in a bar don't go anywhere. So how this happened um was matt and i are both at si arizona's event back in late i was there with you yeah yeah you were there yeah you were there so i do my thing you do yeah or he does his thing i go sit at the bar and have a beer and dinner you were there for for a sec. And then, you know, you left, he comes over and sits down and we just start rapping about, you know, whatever insurance industry stuff. And, you know, he starts talking about different things they have going on. And then he mentions, you know, they're thinking about this, this model. And I said, well, you know,

now I got, I'm like four or five IPs deep in here. So I got liquid, you know, I got liquid lips at this point. You know, I said, well, what if that thing already existed and we just plugged it into, into SIA? And he goes, well, what do you mean? So, so I pitch him essentially this idea in, in sorts, not exactly what it's going to be, but close. And you know, I don't know if we go our separate ways. I mean, how many of those conversations have, you know, you had in your life and they just, you know, it's a talk and nothing happens. And then he emailed me like that next week. And I kind of forgot about it, to be honest with you, just whatever. That week he emailed me and he said, hey, I've thought a lot about that conversation.

I'd like to have that conversation in a more professional setting, which we then did. And, you know, it took six or seven months to kind of piece it all together. But, you know, it came down to math for me. And what I mean by that is not math in terms of like upside for me or whatever. It came down to math to how long till I get to realize my vision for what I want rogue to be? If I do this myself, continue to bootstrap, continue to take, you know, a small amount of funding from, you know, and five different individuals were investors in rogue and I am incredibly grateful and will always be for them. But if I kept kind of taking these small chunks over my math on our projections was we're looking five to seven years before we really start to realize this no ceiling insurance career dream. Like this program is where we've always been going.

But for me to do it myself, it would take forever. And now I'm looking at five to seven months to have it up and running the way that I want. And obviously, it would continue to tweak. And that math just. Resources help a lot, though. Oh, my gosh. And just their experience, their network, the, the, the, you know, we had a call with HR today with their HR team. Right. So now my person, my operations manager, we now have a full blown resource set and, you know, HR pro who we can talk to and, you know, it's just, um just um you know and plus they seem they're they're

really good people i've known matt for a long time and um you know he's making a lot of changes there uh i think for the better and it's just it's fun to be part of something have some resources behind you and now it's like we can go i i hate feeling anchored down. I hate it. It kills my soul. It's the, it's the thing like in somewhat similar fashion, when you, when you think about running the company, like, like in the tech space, you know, the, the, the thing is, do you bootstrap or do you take money? Do you raise money? And for us, it's like, we want to go fast and far. And if we try to do that on our own bootstrapping it, that's going to take forever. Like we want to go fast and far. And if we try to do that on our own, bootstrapping it, that's going to take forever. Like we're going to be hot soft and we don't want that. So it's take,

you know, get it. And let's like, let's chuck the ball down and fill it as far as we, as many times as we can. Yeah. You know, I think there's, there's a, there's something what's, and everybody's been very, everyone that I've told and now the release is live. So it's public knowledge, but on the people I told everyone's been, been great, you know, but some people had some questions and not, not to be, they weren't being jerks. They were just asking questions. They had some questions around like, well, how do you feel about, you know, you're not the head of the organization anymore. You know, I'm still, I still own a small part of Rogan. I'm still the president and will continue to be.

And, and all that, but you know, a bigger pie or a big piece of a small pie, like what's better dude, 100%. Like that to me, to me, that question is, is, and I don't think this is the way anyone asked it meant it to be, but essentially what they're saying is, is your ego going to be okay with this move? And, and I think a lot of, I think a lot of technology companies, I think a lot of agencies, a lot of small businesses in general, the owner's ego gets in the way. And I just, dude, this vision that I have for a no-ceiling insurance career, right? Like, it doesn't matter what the name on, like, Your last name is never going to keep you from, from going as far as you want. And you may hit a certain point and say, I'm good. I love right where I'm at.

I'm gonna stay here. That's great too. But if you want to own 10 locations someday and you're 22 years old, we legitimately have a process to get you there. And there's no obstacles other than you just need to perform. And if you can perform and do the work, then there is a, there is no, no obstacle to you having as big and bad agency as you want to have someday. And that to me, one, it's never been built in our industry before. And two, um, it feels like

worth work worth doing. So that's great, man. That's awesome. Congratulations. I'm assuming you had to pull out of the Indium stuff. Had to pull out of Indium. Yup. Love Indium. No, no, uh, no disrespect to them, but you know, had to, uh, had to pull out of there. You know, there's a couple of different things like that. You know, there's a couple of things where, you know, there, there are, I can't just unilaterally make large decisions anymore. You know what I mean?

Like there needs to be a little bit of conversation, small decisions, no big deal, but like, you know, larger stuff, you know, I can't just go, you know, my, my way is probably obvious to everyone who listened to this show for any period of time is to be slightly half cocked at all times, ready to fire. And, and, you know, I gotta be a little more thoughtful which is a good thing and um yeah i have i'm blessed in that somehow i have been able to um surround myself with a

really solid team like the eight people that we have in rogue today uh more coming now that we have some resources but the eight people that I have that are coming over from kind of the prior version of Rogue to this new version, completely blessed by them, like just awesome, awesome people. And that has helped me get this done. I mean, dude, I mean, I mean, you know, for the last, literally for the last eight weeks, basically all of, all of the second half of February, March and half of April, all I did was acquisition stuff.

And I was able to basically let the other seven members of our team do their thing. And they operated the agency and continued to grow it. And I mean, I must've wrote them a message every day, just how I was like, thank you. Like the fact that I can think about this stuff over here and get this done and not have to think about every little thing that you guys are doing or feel like I need to be part of it.

It's a blessing. It's an absolute blessing. It is, man. That's awesome. Congratulations again. It's really cool. Yeah. So, so dude, I wanted to just catch up.

I mean, obviously I'm always interested in your thought process and um you know we don't we don't always agree on everything but our conversations are always don't we agree on I don't know you you know that's probably not true I think I do well I do think you're I think you think you're crazy but I do but at the same time I think it's probably good crazy so it's fun it is fun it is what i love here's my favorite part of like your whole online shtick and i mean shtick in a positive way is when you'll say something and like it's so obvious that all you're trying to do is get a reaction out of people and people take it so seriously i'll be like blah and i'll be like oh my god are we living through an idiot test like do these people not

know that he's completely fucking with them oh it is my absolute favorite like you feel like you're in on this little like inside joke even though it's my favorite too by the way i'm just watching this like like oh my gosh it's like sitting in a uh a ping pong ball in a box full of mousetraps it just is like is this part gonna make it in the podcast yeah the whole thing's gonna be all right so i'll leave names out of it so i'm in uh i'm in another town a couple weeks ago we're throwing a party at an event that we're not invited to we weren't allowed to go to and uh i ran into somebody there um who uh works for that company they came to the event and i said i don't quite understand like this is where i get confused i don't understand

um i don't understand why this other company isn't doing anything bad but they're not they're not throwing any bars like i would totally welcome let's let's let's talk let's go let's yeah and um and they go they have no idea how to respond to you like they they don't know they go they go they're pretty flustered and and and they just don't and i didn't have the heart to tell this person i said look that company's like worth many billions of dollars and we're not like, the fact that they don't know how to respond is, A, it feels good, but yeah, it's entertainment. And it's just fun.

But yeah, it's the people, they can't see the obvious sometimes. Now, sometimes I'm not like, sometimes there's like 95% truth to what I'm saying. Like, sometimes I'm just like ranting and raving. Sometimes I'm like, no, this is like purely me trying to get you those are the best ones and you do such a good job of it too of like you'll mix in you know I don't know if you have like an actual cadence or whatever but like it'll be like very legitimate maybe provocative maybe not but very legitimate very and then there'll be one that you'll mix in that like there's just enough like of reality and truth

in it to like to like light somebody up but at the same time it'll be like off you know the actual take will be like i don't know if you really thought about it like off the wall like what is wrong with you don't you wonder you know you get these reactions and i'm just like god i just love it i just love what i love is the people that don't comment on that stuff. But then like, I hear, I hear the scuttlebutt, like people talking, someone will say someone so said this, and I'm like, yeah, they get really lathered up about it. Yeah, about it. I'm like, you know, the interesting part, going back to what you said about the larger company, not knowing how to respond to your, we'll call them just to give it a term kind of more guerrilla ish tactics. Right. Like it's not, I think today it's, it's not necessary.

That's probably doing, I don't want to do it this justice. It's probably, it's much more what you're doing. The branding. Yeah. Sophisticated. It's much more sophisticated than that, but to them, it probably feels that way, you know, versus like, you know, it's almost like the the american revolution like you're in the trees like taking these strategic shots and they're like lined up in the middle i'm william wallace over here i'm the dude from the patriot i'm no kitchen from the patriot over here yeah they may take our wives but yeah um they may lock down our data and steal all our money, but no.

Yeah. No. Part of it is I might say it in a more brash or louder way, but you and I both know, I mean, it doesn't take much when you listen to agents and you just get a feel for the industry. This is by and large, have a lot of people, like, they think like they know there's a problem. There's a problem. They don't quite know how to articulate it. Maybe they don't have the desire to, you know, go at it with like a sharp as a sword, as I might try to sometimes,

but this is what they feel. And I can't, this is how by and large the industry feels. This goes back to a point that you and I had in a discussion a long time ago, when we first launched the AMS side, we didn't want to call it an AMS, did not want to call it an AMS because nobody likes an AMS. They'll hate it. And so we try to get cute with it. We try to be a little more clever and not call it an AMS. And it was actually you, you, you said, guys, if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck it's a duck yeah and um we said yeah and every time we would have a conversation with somebody they go like an ams and we'd say oh it's not like an ams because in our minds we're thinking you hate your ams so we don't want to be compared to the thing that you hate yeah um but then you just start to embrace

and say okay this is how you have to reframe it but um it's, it's how people feel. And that's the cornerstone of marketing is understanding how people feel and being able to articulate the voices already going on inside the brain, what they're saying. And you know, if it hurts, it hurts. I, I don't know. I don't want to tell people. Yeah. I think that, well, one, back up a little bit part of the issue that, that, well, one back up a little bit, part of the issue that, that, that you run into definitely that I do sometimes that others who really understand get and, and, and kind of live and breathe marketing stuff, right? Like, and, and, and brand and the most people in our space are so

bad at it. The bar is so low that when someone who like actually knows what they're doing or actually researches and develops and does some sort of testing or whatever, like that puts that in the market, it's like people don't, it like breaks their brain. Right. They're like, wait a minute, this can't. And you're like, no, no, this is how every other industry markets against each other, except there's a thousand companies doing this way. And they're all really smart. The difference is there's just not the case in our industry. Like the way everyone markets here now, I do think

it's starting to change and it is, it is much better. I think, I think, you know, although I want to be very, very careful with what I'm about to say. So please don't take this out of context. I do think the, the, the, the fact that there has been a little bit of, of like an influencer market develop, I think has helped get the word out. I think that is also, it also drives me nuts to a certain extent. Cause I don't want to be included. I'm not that I don't want to be included in that space. I just talk on a podcast and my friends and talk shit. That's what this is. But like, you know, the, I think that has helped because it's given people a vessel outside of the just email blast corporate newsletter marketing piece to understand what's happening in the space. So I do think that has helped, but what surprised me, and this is my question, my next question for you, is that

seeing the success that you guys have had by focusing on brand, by leading with your message, by all the different veins of content that you've got culture veins, you have sales veins, you have marketing veins, you have customer veins. Like, again, coming back to Gorilla was an unsophisticated way, just kind of juxtapositioning against some of the larger. I know. It surprises me that more people haven't copycatted you. They will. Yeah, but why haven't they already? It's, like, crazy to me that one of these, and I'm not saying even the big ones, some of the middle companies,

like look at what you guys are doing and go, hey, we need to hire like a real marketer who understands copy and bring them in. Like it surprises me there hasn't been more copycats. To your point, the fact that it hasn't happened yet is somewhat surprising, but I do think it's something that's going to happen. I think companies are going to, and this is a biased position, but I feel like a lot of companies

are going to see the importance of hiring true marketing motions in their company. We're a marketing led organization. I talked to other companies and they're very sales led. It's very much get salespeople in there to have them calling lists, have them doing that. And that's, we're, we're not leading from that angle right now. We're leading from a very marketing-led directive of brand, messaging, copy, content, all of the above to try to generate inbound response. And that's how we think about it. So when I think about our marketing org chart, I think about who we're hiring for that

and how we're bringing stuff in and our cadence for that and getting people even to the idea. I talk to companies and they go, we only spend maybe like $1,500 a month in paid advertising. And I go, we're trying to figure out how to spend a hundred grand. That's a different mindset.

It's just a way different mindset. I do think there will be people who will start to come in. And as I told our team even even in style because I always have to sometimes sometimes you have to talk people off the ledge a little bit in the organization you have to give them the the what for you have to give them the heads up like this is the strategy to your point there's we we think about this much more than just me rolling off the rails there is strategy to, but I have to tell them,

look right now. And as we started, we're, we're, we're still by and large, we were a challenger brand and we got to punch up a weight class. That's just part of it. And I think that's a lesson for us, for anybody in business, like you got to figure out the weight class that you can punch above. And because if you're punching down, that's no, that's, that's, you're going to stay there. You're going to punch lateral. It's going to stay there. So there's going to come a point even where it's like a teeter totter effect where we're going to kind of level off in probably, I don't want to say overall. So like, we're going to continue to be,

we are, and that's a major part of our, of our overall brand. And that we're going to try to be relentless truth tellers, according to our point of view, we're going to do those things. Am I, am I going to feel the necessity to make a boogeyman? And I don't know if that's the right word, but if I, am I going to feel the necessity to go at somebody as hard as maybe we do today? Probably not like that's going to evolve over time and there'll be a little bit more nuance to it. And, and as I tell people, I was at, I was, you mentioned the SIA event in Arizona yesterday. I was actually there working, working our booth and I had a number of people come by the booth and they would,

they, and I hear this in conversation quite a bit, Nick, you know, you're pretty abrasive sometimes and either they really like it or they, they don't know how to think about it or they don't like it at all. And that's, you get all that. And I tell people, you know, that's fine. You can, you have that opinion. And yes, that, that is me. But I also say those who know me also know that I'm, I'm, I'm not shy from getting on a one hour conversation with you where, and where I don't ever publicize or blast it. And we talk about your, you know, we talk about stuff and trying to be helpful in that regard, because I truly do believe in that regard because i truly do believe in our industry i truly do believe in our channel and the people in it and trying to help them improve and be better i can so you get all of that what i do online i'm very upfront with it if i was to

you know take take the the classic pro wrestling term kayfabe if i was to break kayfabe and let you in uh behind the curtain a little bit a lot of it is for my own entertainment, but a lot of it is also for a very clear point of view that we believe that industry technology has been broken. It has broken the way that business in the insurance world from a vendor standpoint is broken. And not that we yet have all the answers, but we do think we're going in that direction and we want to take as many people along with us. And so we're going to be very clear about that point of view and that perspective. Yeah. I think what I've always respected about your style is that is the like unapologetic nature by which you approach it. Not so much as like unapologetic. Like, I don't think you're ever meaningfully trying to offend someone to be hurtful, but maybe not an individual.

Yeah. Not an individual. That's what I mean. Not an individual, but, but you know, when you get, when, when people push back on you, you don't do the apology thing or the, Oh, it didn't mean to say it that way thing or whatever. It's just like, look, like this is, this is, this is the way, this is what I thought. It's certainly what I thought at the time. And, you know, I think that,

I think that breaks people a little bit. I think it, I think it really messes with people because what they're used to is, Oh, Hey Nick, you offended me with that thing. Oh, I'm so sorry. Hey, I apologize. Timmy Jones was offended. I didn't mean to offend Timmy. Timmy's the bat, you know, like, you know, that's what they're used to getting. And I think, I think the way, and this is kind of where, where, what I'm interested in is I think that strategy works almost every time over the long run,

but the pro but in the, but in between, and especially at the middle, there's a lot of ups and downs as people kind of get calibrated to, to the, to the style. And you have to have, um, a level of internal perseverance, both as an individual and as an organization to kind of ride that wave. So I'm interested, like, have you had conversations ever where you're like, ah, maybe we pushed it too far. Oh, I don't know. Like, or has, have you guys had a strong commitment to this strategy, been able to stick with it? It's funny you mentioned that. So I think going back to the original point, why people don't do a lot of this is because there's a big risk associated with it. If you don't do it right. And I don't pretend that I do it right

every single time. I don't. And I don't pretend that I am always 100% correct and right. There are certainly things that I could have in hindsight go, maybe put a comma there or be a little bit more, no, that's a comma, not a period. Let's nuance this a little bit. So I definitely think there's those opportunities and you learn from them and you iterate and you get better at it the more you do it. There's a big risk associated to it. You're putting your brand on the line. You don't know how people are going to respond to that sort of style. And I also say like the style has to be real and genuine and whether that style is maybe a little bit more provocative naturally, that's just my natural idea. Like that's kind of me in a nutshell, but that's not everybody's idea. Like, I think being genuine to the brand is, is, is important,

but we have conversations internally quite a bit where we go. Is that, is that really what we should say? Like should, should like, I'll put something out there. And I've gotten a lot better where I'll give you an example. There there's another player. So the counterpart to the other big company, they have something on their website. And I'm not going to name the company by name, but if you guys go on a hunt, a treasure hunt, you'll find it. They have something on their website where they say, we spent the last 35 years tinkering.

And I saw that and I go, tinkering? After 35 years, you should have this figured out a little bit more like experiment, experimentation stops at this point. And I wanted to call that out. I wanted to come out and say something about that. Not in the effort to say like, Hey, we have this figured out, but something saying like, again, guys, this is, this is broken. 35 years tinkering and how many dead bodies in the wake of that yeah um

there's some should be some tinkering since 1984 yeah there should be some accountability to that so i ran that by my team and i said hey i think this would be um because i don't just want to i have the ability to move unilaterally but i just don't believe that's being a good teammate you know when i have other people tied to what we do. Certainly not. Also, if it's something slightly provocative. Right now there's other things I've done where I was like, that's not provocative at all. And my team's like, Nick, we can't do that. I'll give you an example here in a moment, but I took this to the team. I said, you know, I'd like to, I think this is maybe not, not even,

I think like maybe we should do something around this. And the response was yeah maybe but let's let's like let's let's think about it first let's flush it out a little bit more before we just like just go you know throw stuff against the wall i had a post that i wanted to do and um again thinking about other people trying to think beyond just myself yeah um whether you like him or dislike him is not the point but donald trump as an example has has people on that side of the fence and so i found a clip where this was before he was ever in politics he was in pro wrestling and he slaps vince mcmahon which is an awesome scene it was that's like one of the heyday moments at

the no it's in the press conference like yeah and he just slaps me man and i and i made a video meme out of it and my team and so i at first i submitted it i was gonna run an ad out of it and facebook declined it they declined it so i'm like well let's just go with this organically and then uh our team was like we know what you're doing, Nick, but you gotta understand how this might, like, you gotta think about the other side of it. And I was, part of me was like, I don't really care. Obviously it's, it's, I'm not endorsing or it's, this is a funny video. I mean, it's just funny. And, but we, you know, we gotta, I try to act a little bit more and we have these

conversations internally. And even with people externally, sometimes we get conversations from agents and they don't quite know. And so I don't give them the whole secret sauce or the Colonel Sanders recipe, but I'm also – I want to take that feedback in because I realize that there do have to be some swim lanes. You just can't have Wild Wild West all the time. It would be fun, though, if you could. I think it's called the Babylon Bee. I think you think you listen that's the world i want to live in i want to live in the world where we all just equally praise each other encourage each other but also just bust each other's balls all day long yeah i grew up with five brothers and four sisters like this is how i grew up like we just broke broke balls all day long And so I realized that doesn't translate

into grownup life all the time, but that is the utopia that I wish to live in. 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

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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. I do think one of the really, one of the things that has been very, I'll just use the word fun over the sense, say like since like 2014, 2015, 2016, since that time period has been i feel like the industry in general takes itself less seriously not that our jobs aren't serious but in general the the the professional thing we take ourselves less seriously than we did you know seven years eight years ago that to me i think part of it is the podcasting scene. I think that has been a plus. I think part of it is, uh, you know, so a lot of these legacy

organizations have not been able to hold control and they've, they've had things like IAO way and, and, you know, all these startup insure tech companies who've developed their own brand and stuff. And, and I think, I think all that has definitely helped the conversation because you don't have to be stuffy. It's not, I don't think people come to conversations as much expecting stuffy. It's still stuffier than like, like a marketing conference, but although marketing conferences have gone woke. So I, those are more stuffy actually than anything in the world. Yeah. Bro, I used to show up to events and on calls and I would wear my hat backwards and people would lose their freaking mind. I know.

Like this was like, again, five, six, seven years ago. So to your point, I think it's been conditioned a little bit more. I also think the industry, as I see it, my perception of it a little bit is that it is getting a little bit younger. Yep. And I do think the advent of more technology and I think overall brand in the world, you're seeing a lot more of that in brands across the globe where they're becoming, there's the woke stuff, but there's also the brands I think are starting to fill that sort of uh and i think it's i think it's a tactic more than anything but they're starting to fill that that granular authentic um way of life and they're incorporating that into the brand so we're getting conditioned

on all sides from it i i definitely agree with you though that what was very taboo just a couple years ago is now almost commonplace. I see insurance agents with their own Air Force Ones. It's pretty cool. It is cool. I think it's awesome. I think it's really cool. I think it's cool.

But go back seven, 10 years ago. I know. Imagine somebody showing up to a Rough Notes conference or a state big icon or whatever, rocking those. It's probably not happening. Yeah. Now people do it with pride. Yeah, dude. It's, I mean, I just look at the, I mean, now obviously I haven't done that much speaking lately, but, you know, just the evolution of my wardrobe in speaking.

When I first started, it was full suit and tie on stage and now it's like if i if i put a jacket on that's like super formal most of the time it's like a polo or some like in jeans and like it's it just is it's you know and again like cursing on stage now again i think part of the reason i don't get as many speaking gigs as i used to is because i refuse not to curse on stage but like you know you want to come speak at the better conference next year it's not the better conference anymore let's do it let's do that let's put this let's make this deal happen right now I love it I'm in it's not the better conference anymore but yeah whatever it is I'm in um cost as much as you want yeah it uh it it I just think that you know and what's funny is

um you know like I was saying this I went to to, um, I did two conferences back to back, uh, Nebraska and Arkansas. So I went to Nebraska first and I did this basically the same presentation in both. You know, I don't really use slides and I kind of do a little Gary V style where I kind of, it's like, what's on my brain I'm talking about, but I do have a through thread and narrative that I worked through the whole thing. Um, so every presentation is different, although slightly the same, the Nebraska conference, a lot of dudes in suits, a lot of, you know,

sitting straight up and they're great. Don't get me wrong. I mean, I love the people in Nebraska and I go back there in a heartbeat, but like, I could tell they didn't appreciate the F bombs and the sexual innuendo and the conservative jokes. You know, I always liked the bust on the libs because the sexual innuendo and the conservative jokes. You know, I always like the bust on the libs because I think they're bananas. And like, so like, you know, I weave in, you know, and I, you know, give like I do my why the Buffalo Bills are America's team and all this kind of stuff. You know, I bake in all this like non-insurance stuff because otherwise

we're talking about getting insurance for an hour. Tell me how to properly read an ISO form and make sure. Yeah, that's. Yeah. So, you know, now granted, there were a ton of people in the audience that were laughing too, but it was a very, I could tell there were, and then we left her. And then I go to Arkansas and you know, it's just a different crowd. I love going to Arkansas. It's my favorite date. One, they just do a great job. And two, I mean,

it is just belly laughs and they're hooting and hollering and yelling from the crowd. And yeah, I want to go to the one where they have like hecklers. I want to go to that one. Oh, dude, I've been heckled. I was heckled in Connecticut.

This is one of my all time favorites. I'm going to butcher this story. So I go to Connecticut. This is a long time ago. This is probably like 2015, 2016. Young agents event. There's maybe a hundred people in the room. and it's, but it's big round tops. It's a, so like eight, you know, the big round tables.

It's called high boys. Yeah. Whatever it is. I, I hate that format for a, for an audience. Cause there's always somebody who's kind of cockeyed and you know, it's like, it's very tough. Doesn't matter. So front table sitting straight on to me is this dude in like, probably got a $20,000 suit, $20,000 in clothes, easy days wearing. And he's sitting back probably late fifties, early sixties, but you know, good looking dude, but he's got his, from the beginning, he is, and people can't see me, but he's in the chair, legs out, crossed, leaning back, arms folded, head back.

Like, like everything about this from a body posture is like, I hate you. I don't believe you. And I think you're an a-hole. Like that was basically his body posture. So I get 10 minutes in and I'm talking about content marketing. I mean, this isn't like right up his alley. Yeah. So, so he's shaking.

He starts by shaking his head. No. Right. I can just see him. No, no he's shaking. He starts by shaking his head. No. Right. I can just see him. No, no, no, no. And I go, so the good, what unfortunately for him, I had reached a point in my career where I was completely willing to address him and his head shaking. So I, I stopped and I, and I go, what's your name, man? Any bill or Bob or whatever the fuck it was. Something with a B.

And I said, why you keep shaking your head? No, what's up? And he's just like, you called him out. He didn't even heckle you. You just called him out. Yeah. Yeah. At first.

Yeah. So I said, why are you shaking your head? No. He said, I said, I'm interested on honest question. Honest question. Why are you shaking your head? No, not my clients. My clients will not do insert whatever digital clients don't read.

And I said, okay, I appreciate that. I said, you keep shaking your head. No. And anything else you disagree with, let me know. Went back to doing my thing. Right. So I, well, no, here's the thing. So now this is like a fucking wet dream for me it was like i just

this is like perfect it was like i now dial it all the way up it is the future is only i'm like i am way out into you know the the another, just everything is absolutes and guarantees and digital this and customer experience. And I can just tell his face is getting red. He's fucking hating it. He's about to explode. Yeah. And I said, I go, so then I stopped because now my, to be honest with you, when I started seeing this dude shaking his head, I told myself the rest of my presentation, I am only talking to this guy. Like I won't speak to another human.

So I just dialed in on this guy. And just to wrap this up, you know, now he's starting to say like, right. So now he feels like he knows me, Ryan, no way he's going, no way. It's not going to work. My clients are high end. You know, my clients don't read, they don't watch any video. His clients were high end or they were, you know, whatever they were, you know, they, you know, they're, they're rich muckety mucks. He deals with muckety mucks, I guess. And I said, so what you're saying is rich people don't have the internet. And he goes, well, what do you mean? I said, well, you seem like a rich guy. You're wearing $20,000 suit. Well, it's not that much. I go, you have, you have a text message before. Sure. I have, what are we talking about?

I just shut up. He didn't have a word to say, right? He has nothing. He literally has nothing. Cause I just trapped him on purpose. And I got him to like, the way it came off was just like, he literally had nothing to say. Now, 99 other people are staring at this guy. So, uh, long story short, by the end of the presentation, comes up to me shakes my hand he goes fuck you got me i guess i gotta do this he goes i guess i gotta do this digital thing damn you and then he turned around and walked out that was the whole thing and i just that's great this is one of my best speaking gigs ever you gotta get a testimonial i live for the day where i have somebody like try to heckle me on stage just so I can verbally eviscerate them. I had a Hanover rep one time tell me, because I told a kid, a kid asked me, hey, Ryan, what do I do if my agency principal won't let me do this stuff that you're saying?

I said, well, find a new agency or start one your own. That was my answer. Moved on. I didn't think twice about it. This Hanover rep, nothing against Hanover. I love Hanover. But this guy was a Hanover rep. He comes after the presentation. He comes flying up. I mean, I can see he's like on a mission. Now, I unfortunately originally thought that he was going to say something nice to me. He then starts berating me on how I don't understand. And you got to make a $300,000 year one commitment to be part of our company.

And I said, well, maybe then you're not the right carrier for him. Maybe he should go find someone who's actually going to support him like that. You know, and this guy's, it's like, what do these fucking hecklers think? Like, what do they think they're going to get? Like, you're going to come up and change my mind. Like I just did an hour and a half on content marketing, bro. You think you're gonna come up here and tell me that like somehow your stupid comments can make it. So I don't, it doesn't work. I wish somebody would, I wish, I wish wish that would happen you know what you got i always want to put a plant like you just like tell someone to do it you got no because then they'll

know that what you we got to do is you got to slow play them so you have to be kind of reasonable at the beginning and make them feel like they can push you around. And then as soon as you figure out who your, who your Huckleberry is, you just lock in on them. You're just whack, whack, whack, whack. It's amazing. It's so amazing. Yeah. Yeah. I also like picking, you know, young kids in the audience, dialing in on them really good. If you can find a CSR,

then you can rip on agency owners because you can be like you know how these fat old white bastards just beat the shit out of you all day and they'll like get all red face this is why no one invites me to speak anymore you come to the you come to our conference actually you can do all this you heard it here folks all your people are going to be super cool yeah they will be oh my gosh so um all right so let's let's we'll put this back on track um so let's talk a little bit about better and what you guys are up to. I know you're making a bunch of power moves. Um, and, and it's awesome. I mean, obviously I'm a huge fan of what you guys are doing. And I think that, uh, you're just, you are absolutely pushing everybody else to do things that make them uncomfortable, which is a great thing for our space. So, so what's happening. I know

what things can you talk about? So I don't want to bring anything up because I don't always know what things I'm not supposed to say or supposed to say. So I'm going to let you guide what things can you talk about? So I don't want to bring anything up because I don't always know what things I'm not supposed to say or supposed to say. So I'm going to let you guide what things are happening that we can talk about today or that you can talk about in the future. When does this podcast come out? Sometime in the future from today. I have no idea.

You're making an assumption that this is a professionally organized thing. A couple of weeks probably probably i'd say two or three weeks at a minimum fantastic then by the time this has already happened i can i can say this stuff so um by the time you're hearing this uh so we announced just a couple weeks ago that we just recently we made our first acquisition which i think was really uh it was great for us one of the things we get asked quite a bit is uh people just assume we're going to sell to you know the empire and uh we tell people when they ask us you know what are you guys going to sell we always go yes of course one day we will just like you will you're going to sell your agency one day do we know when where who no we

don't but i'm not going to die in this chair. That's, I think that's a fair and reasonable and practical answer. Yes. And, but one of the things that I always kind of, it always kind of bothered me is when people would just always kind of start with that. They just assume, and for good reason, a lot of, that's not like that hasn't happened.

Yeah, a lot of bad history. A lot of bad history, right? But when we were able to then make an acquisition, like it felt somewhat validating to us. And we were able to confidently say, look, you know, one day, one day, someone's gonna buy Better Agency, because that's how all business works. I mean, all the players, you know, today have been bought and sold multiple times but to be able to say now we're acquiring it just felt really strong and so we acquired neoteric agent we've rebranded that to proposals by better agency you're going to see a lot of uh cool stuff happening with that you know we're very there's a lot of reasons why why we purchased that um by the time you're listening to this we will have announced that we have closed on our series A. And so there's, you can go find the press releases of that. We believe we're trying to create a category called agency success.

For us, we want everything that we do and focus on, how is it going to help agents have greater agency success? That's not always with just the one component of technology, but there's got to be a more holistic approach to that. And so we're going to be investing heavily into that mantra of agency success from technology, making the technology, everything that you have, we want it to be one platform and one browser. If I could put everybody in one Chrome browser for the entirety of their day, that would be a huge win for us. So that's how we think about technology. That's

how we think about product, deep integrations, not just surface level integrations, but deep integrations where they matter the most so that people can be more efficient. We're going to invest heavily into that platform. We're going to invest heavily into community. So things like our event next year and other things that we're doing, things that are going to cost us a lot of money, but again, we are going to invest in agency success, community, education, platform. Those are the things that we think about as we think about this overall category. If we want to compete with everybody else in the AMS world or the CRM world, we're going to constantly be playing that comparison game. We don't want to play that comparison game. We want to do something that

nobody's done before, much like what you've done with the news today. You're trying to do something that nobody has done before. So you've got to go through the brick wall. And that's what we're trying to do. We believe that independent agents are the best channel for insurance distribution. There isn't anything stronger, better than when companies work directly with independent agents. So we want to facilitate that as much as possible. We want to strengthen the channel. We want to be an asset to the channel. We don't just, we want to, we want to get out of this mode of just thinking about CRM or just AMS. Those, that sort of fragmented thinking is why our industry is in the mess that it's in. We want to think about things in a more, I guess, more progressive way for lack of a better term.

We want to think about where, where the industry needs to be and how do we get there? So that's, that's, that's what's in the news for us. In the next probably 60 or 90 days, you'll start to hear news of other stuff that we're doing, that we're coming out with. Things that we're going to try to do to, again, make this vision possible with one platform, one browser, so that agents can do everything they need to do inside of one cohesive ecosystem. What's the name of the new conference? The Agency Success Conference. I like it.

Yeah, we don't want to be just the better agency conference. We weren't this last year, but that branding still tripped people up quite a bit. People would think, well, I'm not a better agency user. And we said, we're not putting on a business or a company event. I heard that from a couple of different people that thought that same thing. And I said, I'm sure you'll get a lot out of it, even if you're not a better agency user, but that's definitely. We didn't talk about better agency at all. Yeah. And to some people,

some people were like, well, when are you guys going to talk about better agency? And I would tell people, we can have those one-on-one conversations, but we didn't want anybody to feel like this was a timeshare of it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're grownups. You can make decisions and you know, there's half the people there were not customers. This is, this is a completely whatever comment,

but the only bad part about that is the better conference is actually a gangster name for a conference. So it kind of, it's kind of a bummer because it's such a great name for a conference, but agency success is too. I mean, sometimes, sometimes like on the nose is the way to go, right? Because it sticks in people's mind. It tells them exactly what it is. You know, I, I, I struggle with that sometimes in my own marketing,

you know, trials and tribulations, because you want to be so creative and at the same time, you're like, sometimes just naming the thing exactly what it is, is the right thing. We totally stole from hubspot to be honest with you um if i'm being completely honest that's fine you know they they created a category for inbound marketing their their their their conference is called inbound which i'll be going to um and so it's nothing new under the sun but we wanted it we wanted to be an industry conference not a company conference yeah we're we'll have stuff off to the side for people who really want to know

about better agency, but we're, we're going to be pouring and we're bringing in some global headline speakers we're excited about. And we're going to, we're going to try to do some stuff that hasn't been done in the conference space in a long time, because we believe that there's a lot of value there. Probably since elevate 2018, the greatest conference in the history of the insurance industry was that milwaukee no that was uh that was cleveland milwaukee was better you think so i was better i i'll be honest with you i'm gonna do a little not i'm just gonna straight brag

i think the fact that i kicked off milwaukee with 47 Star Wars gifts is like an all-time fucking I want to see that beat I want to see someone I want to see someone beat that I'll tell you why that conference was better than Cleveland yeah tell me why I'm super interested in that so I'm always me personally this this part's subjective but I really enjoy the first of its kind type stuff yeah yep yep I get and it was the first one for you guys and it was unique i think you guys try to do a different spin on other conferences that were out there so i liked the uniqueness of it i thought the venue was phenomenal i thought the venue was phenomenal but the the best thing about that event is there was and you can see this in hindsight there was such a culture around the people that came there

and there was such a uh a family-like feel you have you have these little sub pockets of groups of people that were doing stuff and this that stuff is that is that is the goal that is that is the the x factor the the mojo of of an event is when you can do that because anybody can put out content and have cool av and that stuff's all well and good you just pay money for that stuff you get that stuff but there was there was culture and and and what's what's sprung out of that yeah those careers um all that so even at the time maybe it wasn't it was just a conference at the that let me walk that back it wasn't just a conference but it was it was a conference at the time but when you look back on it now with some time what was that five years ago that was 2017 yeah so five years ago now you look at it and you're like okay

where where are these people now and where where can you go back in time and say where was a pivotal part where a lot of this kind of this seed was kind of planted a little bit yeah and you look at people's careers you look at things that are being done in the industry things that still haven't been done to this day that to me is why on top of the all the aesthetics and the location and all that stuff that is why i think milwaukee was was the best one yeah i i i don't uh to be honest with you it would be like picking which one of my children i like better for me because you don't have a favorite i have a favorite i don't actually my kids are different they're both different and i like them in different because one is

type a very cool but also kind of a prick and the other one is just funny and silly and i like them both but it would be harder if i had a girl it would probably just be her because both of them are dudes and whatever but um long story short or uh i keep fucking saying that jesus um it would be hard because there were things about 2018 like 2017 was amazing because it was the first for me but but 2018, the process of planning it, the, the, the thought, the challenges that we overcame, um, some of the nuanced stuff that maybe people did or didn't pick up on. Um, it was, it was much, it was much, uh, much bigger lift to pull off 2018 because now we had expectations. i thought we're 2017 there

were zero expectations they're like who are these idiots that are putting on a conference let's go check it out right 2018 people are like oh shit that first one was actually not bad what can they do and i thought we did a good job of it was good meeting the expectations you know because we could dude there were so many opportunities and so many battles and and look i mean in large part part of the reason that i had that i left trusted choice right after it were because of the battles and the stances i took on that conference i rubbed a lot of people the wrong way to get that pulled off and not be another boring freaking drivel fest you know event where we just you know we all just get in a circle and and um shake each other's hands um you know it uh so i that part you know not allowing that

that thing because all of a sudden all these people who could have given two craps and didn't even show up to 2017 were like oh oh, we got to be there now. So now they show up and there was a lot of pressure on that one. And to get it off was fun. It was good. It was a good conference. I just remember Milwaukee being one of my favorite conferences ever in the space. I have favorite, like even with past innovation conferences, there are ones where I'm like, no, that one was way better than this one.

Oh, for sure. Yeah. You guys, you guys, before you, this, before you left, you did seven, six. How many did you guys do? So if I take Anaheim out of it, it was like the 35 people we did San Antonio, Orlando, Phoenix, Las Vegas, San Diego, Tampa. So I was, I was a part of six. Six. Dude, that's awesome. I mean, and how big that thing got. I mean, it's freaking

tremendous. And the thing I liked about the work that you did there was you could have, again, I think the hard part about that is when you get into year two year three year four it is easy to start to let the event get corrupted in different ways and you it does not i mean i i went to san diego and i thought it was a tremendous event i loved it uh it was a i mean that some of the connections i made there were big launching pad pieces for me with rogue. And, you know, I enjoyed every minute of that conference and, and I was impressed by how you did not allow, again, like the stuff that kills conferences, you didn't allow it to creep in. You, you kind of stayed true to the mission and, and, and to have success. I mean, that's a very difficult thing to do. And I'm excited for what you can

do for this agency. I love conferences. I just, I just, I really, I'm a sucker for them. And I want, you know, we learned a lot of mistakes. Mistake is the shoe strong word. We learned a lot of, there's a lot of little lessons that were learned from certain stances that we took, you know, but we took stances. We had, we had, even if they maybe were like stances where you could have said, well, maybe do something a little bit different. So kind of learning from that and iterating, creating something different. There's a part of it where like you create a template and then there's part of it where you're saying, okay, what can we do

to this template to kind of iterate and do things and all that stuff? Like let's create SOPs that make things simple. Like this is a traditional business lesson in and of itself, but like, let's create like a framework. we know what goes in the framework but can we make some of the aesthetics different yeah and so like this one you know we're going to make it a it's an industry conference so it can be open to people i get this last one over 95 of them were agency owners but we told people if you have people on your team that you want to come that want to come and do that if there's if there's media that wants to come if there's uh press and i tell like exhibitors,

like one of the things that we did differently is I tell exhibitors, I want you to compete with our event. Compete with it, please. Take people out. Go wine and dine them. Go like, that's what people remember. Yeah. And so go create those experiences for attendees

that they want to be on the content sessions. I'll be on the content sessions. I think that is a tremendous, I think you're absolutely dialed in with that mentality because if people know, this is one thing I never understood. I mean, it is people like, oh, well, I paid all this money

for all these people to have dinner. It's like, that's the cost of doing business, bro. If they want to go out with a vendor, they're going to remember that they come to the event, that they then get to network with all their people. And if what you're telling them is they then can't network with, now they got to choose another event to network with that group. They're going to go to the event, that they then get to network with all their people. And if what you're telling them is they then can't network with, now they got to choose another event

to network with that group. They're going to go to the other event if that group is important to network with. That doesn't, it doesn't make, it's, it's again, that's the scarcity mindset that I believe wrecks a lot of events. You, you, you, you got to let people do their thing. They're going to find ways.

Cass is always going to buy a suite and take your people he's always gonna what's the uh like the two biggest events that i think of and this is like you talk about punching above a weight class this is these events are different stratospheres but you look at like the super bowl and you look at even like wrestlemania which is i know people could laugh at that but those are extravaganzas where it's not hardly anything to do with what goes on in the field as much at or in the ring as much as what's going on around it yeah and that's you're creating an experience for people and that's what it should be about i remember going back to milwaukee at

elevate i i quite honestly i don't remember a single thing that was just from sage not one thing i think i remember you had some dude from insuring on there i do remember ted divine yelling at people and honestly people being scared but i wasn't even in on those like i wasn't even there what i remember is hanging out with chris langelton josh lipstone erinetti like i remember going and paddle boarding on the lake i remember going to eat i remember that stuff yeah uh and and that's that that's so that's how i want to think about it too from the attending experience like we want to put out great content we're going to have stuff there but we know that you come and this insurance world is interconnected in ways that are way different than just it's it's about the relationship side of things yeah it's awesome

dude where uh if someone's, you know, been hearing about Better Agency, they want to check it out. Where do they that? And the conference is, is there, is there a link up? Is there a place people can go to at least get on a mailing list for the agency success conference? Depending on when you put this out, there might be at the time, I don't have that stuff up yet, but I can, if it's up, I'll give it to you. And you can, when you, when you push this out to find out more about better agency, the best thing I would tell you to do, honestly, there's really two sources. So two of the best things is you can go to our YouTube channel, uh, hit that subscribe button, but, uh, you can go, you can watch a lot of the

content that we put out. We put out content every single week. We do a live show every single Wednesday night where we have a live audience coming in. It's our spin of a podcast, but we want a live audience. Um, and then you can go to betteragency.io. You can schedule a discovery call with our team. They're not going to hard sell you anything, but they are going to try to figure out the pain points, problems that you have in your agency and see if there's a fit there.

And then, you know, take you into the application, show you the demo, all that good stuff. So I would say YouTube, Better Agency, online, and on our website. Guys, I highly recommend, you know, if you're looking for an agency success tool, a platform for agency success, I highly recommend Better Agency.

I think, I believe in what Nick and Will and the entire team is doing. And you guys have shown that you have staying power. I think it's absolutely tremendous. And dude, as always, I wish you nothing but maximum success. Thanks, man. I appreciate it. Cheers. Close twice as many deals by this time next week. Sound impossible? It's not.

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