The Ryan Hanley Show - RHS 173 - You’ll Be OK, but Your Kids Are F@cked

Episode Date: March 16, 2023

Became a Master of the Close: https://masteroftheclose.comIn this episode of The Ryan Hanley Show, Ryan Hanley sits down with Billy Van Jura."Billy Van Jura is an unabashed slayer/supporter of innovation, agency model advocate and is intolerable of weak stuff. He has multiple length sticks to poke into the Hornet's nest."Bill Van Jura founded Birchyard LLC and is one of the most prophetic and antagonistic voices in the independent insurance industry.He's also among the most thought-provoking people I've ever met, and I relish every time we chat.Don't miss this episode… Episode Highlights: Billy and Ryan discuss content production quality. (4:42) Billy mentions that people should take the time to search for existing information before asking questions. (10:33) Ryan shares how COVID forced him to solve problems that he never had to solve before. (13:12) Ryan and Billy discuss Propeller Bonds and how it is a value add to the industry. (26:23) Billy mentions that he has met with basic insurance agents in New York who have been in business for 35 to 65 years, but are barely known and don't have a Google profile or a website. (46:55) Billy explains why he believes that the sooner we kill the romance of the independent agent, the better. (51:40) Billy discusses the potential of a large aggregator that could develop their own carrier if they were successful in developing an MGA program. (59:22) Key Quotes: “I believe the sooner we kill the romance of the independent agent, the better. You distribute insurance, get past anybody giving a s*it about you being local, because it's not important.” - Billy Van Jura “Where I get stuck is when the what happens next? Iroquois or any of these big aggregators, the sooner they really develop an MGA program, the sooner they really develop their own carrier, the more interesting it gets.” - Billy Van Jura Resources Mentioned: Billy Van Jura LinkedIn Birchyard LLC Reach out to Ryan Hanley Rogue Risk Finding Peak Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In a crude laboratory in the basement of his home. episode for you a wonderful wonderful conversation conversation that's going to be ear candy like really good ear sex filled with multiple ear explosions for you uh on this thursday and that is going to be a wonderful conversation with billy vanjura billy is known for hot takes on linkedin and twitter uh being a tremendous agency owner, a wonderful professional of our space, and someone who challenges both the new thinking and the old think of the industry. And I don't know too many people who are willing to take shots at both the kind of more progressive, tech-forwarded, sure-tech-focused aspect of our industry, as well as the way the industry

has always been done. And he's finding that middle ground. Just absolutely respect the hell out of Billy. Love every conversation I have with him because he always makes me think. And this one is no different. Before we get there, if you enjoy the podcast, you'll love the blog. Go to FindingPeak.com. Subscribe today.

It's an email a week. You get a thought-provoking article. I'm writing all kinds of stuff about peak performance, about running your agency, stuff I've learned at Rogue Risk. I think you'll love that. And a big shout out to our friends at Tivoli, T-I-V-L-O-I.com. Tivoli creates that foundational, consistent growth in your business when it comes to small commercial and middle market.

I mean, we get some accounts through Tivoli that are occasionally $50,000 to $100,000 in premium. The key is Tivoli is delivering warm phone call transfers to business owners so that your team or yourself can take those leads and write them quick. They're consistent. You can really dial in all the triggers. You know who's calling from where. Love Tivoli. Love that they're a part of this podcast, but also we've been a paying client of Tivoli's at Rogue Risk for more than two years. So

not only a client or not only the spokesman, but also a client, I guess you could say. All right. So let's get past all this, get onto what is one of my favorite conversations I've had in 2023 by far. This conversation that you're about to hear with Billy Van Journal. I'm going to Shaboos! Yeah, I don't produce the video anymore because, one, it's just too much work. And, you know, I hate asking people to like, people get kind of like, which I get, like when you know you're gonna be on video,

people kind of like wanna look a certain way and they're worried about the way they look. And so I use the video just for the conversation so we can see each other and see our expressions. And I feel like the conversation goes a lot smoother when you can see the person, but I don't produce the video. I know some people do. I get it. I know that I know. And I, and what's crazy is, and I have never enjoyed this, but like personally, but there's a lot of people that like watching like podcast conversations.

They like watching it on YouTube. Like you get probably, if you produce, if you produce your podcast and publish like this, like this zoom video on, on YouTube as well, you can add like another 30 or 40% in some cases. And you know, that, that could be a lot of extra views, but, you know, I still, you know, as much as I do this and I, you know, lucky to have Tivoli as a sponsor and that, but basically pays me to pay Cass and, you know, whatever. It's like, I don't really make that much money. I basically, basically affords me like a few dinners. You know what I mean? It's not like

it's a huge thing, but, but, but it's appreciated. And, uh, really, you know, it's still just fun. Like I just, I like bringing people on that I like that I want to talk to and sharing the ideas and stuff. And it's still just something that I do mostly for fun, uh, you know, for fun. Um, then it is like trying to make a business out of it you know like uh bradley and scott and the things they do you know i think it's amazing and i think it's awesome

how they've grown their audience but you know they have like a full-blown studio with a production i'm not interested in that you know i think it's awesome i just you know it's the whole content that koreans I'm a capitalist. I appreciate you earning money. However you choose to earn money. Good for you. You're not harming anybody. God bless.

But I just got other things I want to do. Yeah. And I've recorded and haven't recorded something in a while, but it's like, if the quality is good enough, the audio sound, you can hear it. It's good. Like, man, all the other stuff is just fluff. You know the audio sound you can hear it it's good like man all the other stuff is just fluff you know i like your intro music like i enjoy it it kind of leads into things it's nice it sounds good but like and all the other stuff like uh i was listening to one

last night and the credit roll was almost like it was on tv like the amount of people contributing to doing it i was like yeah. But it doesn't sound any better than the business pockets I heard with two dudes just with basic setups in their house. Yeah. That's, that's the tough part today is like, you know, you, you, you know, you, you even think about the Joe Rogan show. This guy has what 30 million people downloading his podcast every month.'s basically three people he's got him he's got his guy who does the the pull-ups whose name is escaping even those listening jamie yeah jamie and then he's got one other guy that does like the production stuff like it's

basically a three-man show and then he's got people that like run the building and some other stuff but like the actual podcast is like a three or four person production crew including joe rogan 30 million downloads and then you have like these other shows like like somebody sent me one like you gotta listen to this show on npr and first i i fucking hate npr but um but you know like you said it was like in production with this and this media company and this and I'm like, Oh my God, like the amount of money that this show, which was, you know, I mean, interesting, but they could have done it sitting on a park bench, holding an iPhone between them. And I put them in just as happy. And like, I just, to me,

there's no way for that to be successful long-term. That is an absolute loss leader forever if you do it that way. There's just no way for that to be successful. And I don't, and that's because we're both in the insurance realm. There was a thread the other day, and Nick Ayers and some other anonymous person was in there, and it's about seo and websites and stuff and you know this and i've got data that can back this up there are plenty my website is dog shit i have four websites they're all equal levels of dog shit but i don't need them i i sit in that camp of like craigslist is amazing you can bang on craigslist all you want he's sitting on his pile of cash and doesn't worry about your opinion yeah and then you go to some of these websites and I'm like man I've been into your office like

I know where you are and who you are that website's just a front like that is just like it looks amazing you spent a lot of money putting that thing up there but it's like useless and like you said like the Joe Rook and stuff like before you go all in on all this production all this all just just be good yeah just just be worth listening to yeah you know cal newport uh wrote a book back in i think 2013 called be so good they can't ignore you and it was based off of the um uh wow my brain is not functioning today um shit from the tonight Show from the 70s and 80s. Or not the Tonight Show, the Saturday Night Live.

Martin. Oh, Martin Sheen? No, not Martin Sheen. Steve Martin. Steve Martin. Steve Martin is, he in an interview said, you know, someone asked him,

what's your secret to success? And he said, be so good they can't ignore you. And basically then Cal Newport took that, pulled that quote out and wrote this really cool book. I mean, you kind of get the gist of the book from the title, but it is a good, you know, kind of airplane read book and I enjoyed it. Um, but like, that's really the key. And I think, um, you know, I, I don't anymore seemingly, and I'm so glad that there's a new class of insurance talking heads who are willing to answer all these kind of what I call seemingly think of as seemingly trivial questions about what kind of microphone you have. I used to get asked those questions incessantly. I don't seemingly anymore. I feel like those questions go to other people now, which I'm happy about, because not not because I don't want to answer the questions, but because my answers are this microphone, which I have just

off camera, which you can't see this microphone is 11 years old. I bought this for 80 bucks on Amazon back in like 2012. And I've had the same, I've, I've, the only thing I've had to replace is I had to replace the arm one time that holds it because the arm springs just atrophied from being so old that I had to replace the arm. Other than that, the microphone, I've had the same microphone for more than a decade. Uh, I use a $40 Logitech camera to do these calls and zoom, which calls me, it costs me 14 bucks a month. And then I've switched from, I used to use all the Adobe products and truthfully now, like they've gotten so difficult

and so time consuming and all that. I just use the free Apple shit that comes on the Mac computer. Now the iMovie and garage band. So like you think about like the the setup costs you know that i do the cost of the podcast you know for cast helps me put it all put all the show notes together and all the publishing and that is well worth what that what i pay for that but like um but just it's it's like you don't need all that stuff to to have a show and you know know, and whatever. And, and it, I feel like people get too caught up in the stuff and not in the substance. And that's probably a life thing, but certainly in a content production thing. You said this a minute ago and it parlays to so much stuff is the, they don't ask me anymore, I guess,

because you're a person that's asked a lot more than me, right? You are known entity out there. You did a post on this somewhere there's a blog post there's a video there's like yeah you already answered these questions and then they come ask them of you right and now i get it they're having a dialogue it's the same reason i don't engage in any of the facebook message stuff because the new people are, yeah, they're lazy. Yeah. Don't look for the information. Now, if you find Ryan's post and you have a question about his post, by all means, you should send him a note.

But the answer is already existing. And now you're going to waste my time by asking it. You know, like you said about the substance part, I'm like, man, like I started putting some stuff out and I had a bunch of stuff backlog. And I said to somebody, it's like, ah, you know, I, I didn't share all this. I spent two years putting all this information together. Like this is handpicked hand curated, but no one's going to execute on it. So what the hell's the point of keeping it on my computer? Here you go.

Like, like I said to a bunch of people and it was like, you're not going to do anything with it. So who cares? It's, you know, I don't, I don't know if you listened to the episode that I put out recently. It was the full keynote that I did from the one city world tour. It was so spot on the second half hour. I was sitting here.

We've, we've interacted a bunch before. I knew the first 25 minutes of the yeah yeah the second half hour is so and it's embarrassing that i get frustrated by it but it's like i think i wrote it it's 880 million dollars in funding yet they can't complete leads yeah like you're still i i I did this and I keep a separate email address. If I see a new service, I sign up just to see, hey, I left your call flow. How's it work? I think it was next. I ended up in some shop in Missouri.

They couldn't help. And then they passed me off to somebody else. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. How is that possible? Like you're not, you're not even a broker. You're just a lead generator. Could you imagine in your world getting leads and passing them off? Like we do it as brokers, right? Like if you just don't have the right fit,

if it's just a big commercial thing, I am just not the right guy. Here's some suggestions, but could you imagine just that's your business model? I'm going to generate traffic and then I'm just going to farm it out. So it, so I have, I have a bunch of feelings on this. Cause in, cause at Rogue, I've had to solve a bunch of problems that I never had to solve before. And then I didn't necessarily see coming in. Looking back, I probably should have, but you know, I, and one of those issues was because of COVID and I talk a little bit about this on other shows, like because of COVID I kind of had to survive, right? Like I put like 40 K into this business, no idea COVID's coming. It's going to be a middle market, you know,

high touch white glove shop. I'm doing all the killing commercial stuff. I'm working with Mick Hunt and basically I'm using Mick's stuff and David's stuff and my own stuff and all the other people and I'm mashing together. And what I believe is like going to be this awesome best in class, New York, you know, New York only middle market shop, right? This is what I wanted Rogue to be the original vision of Rogue. That's what it was, right? And it's like me and like a couple, you know, a couple other service people. And like, we're writing accounts and being world-class boutique. That was Rogue. That was the original vision of Rogue. 40K, all the systems, everything I needed. I am ready to go. I'm excited, jacked out of my mind. One weekend, COVID happens. It all just, it's like I lit the whole thing on fire. Every plan, every piece of marketing material,

half the tools that I had purchased to service middle market accounts, just light them on fire. They're useless. Okay. So when I pivoted to the small commercial and I started doing all the content on YouTube, the unfortunate thing about that is it is incredibly difficult to target geographically. And also, no matter what you do, it is very, very hard to target industry. So one of our biggest problems up until very recently, which I'm happy to talk about how we at least we're trying to solve it today, is was, dude, I don't get to choose who contacts us, right? I don't get to choose who contacts us. Right. So it's like, I got plastics manufacturers from Southern Louisiana and, you know, shotgun retailers from East Montana and, you know,

and all these, and also shit that's kind of down the middle and stuff we really want to work with, but like, what do you do with them? And to be honest with you, you know, I can see how like, so I did an interview a few weeks back with the CEO of Tivoli. And, you know, basically what happened to them is what happened to us, basically he just started to get frustrated with the insurance sales part and said, screw it. We're going to sell the insurance sales part and just distribute the leads. And so I can see, I agree with you. That's a really tough decision to make. And I obviously chose to go a different way, but I will say that there is such a large amount of frustration around where does the business go? You know, yes. You know, a perfect example is Hartford loves landscapers in about 35 States. Love them. Well, probably one of the best carriers in the country for landscapers is Hartford in 35 States and the other 15 States, they either won't write them at all, or they're not even close. How the hell do you know which

States are the ones that they will and which ones they won't? It's like these kinds of – these are like the crazy, silly challenges that you come up against that like – and by the way, anyone who knows how to code that wants to help me solve that problem, I will – I have the solution mapped out. I just don't know how to make ones and zeros, make things happen in the magic box. But like, you know, these are the kinds of things. So I can see it. It's not, I agree with you. It's not the business model I would want, but I can see how people get frustrated with that and go that way. Um, because especially

in commercial personal lines, completely different. But in commercial, holy shit, it's just so dynamic. It's overwhelming. So, and even, and it's, I think it's good that other people hear you say this because it's like, you are, you've crossed that hurdle where you've got your 50 states license. You've got a market in every state. Not necessarily for every risk. Yep. Technically speaking, you have carrier representation in every state, right necessarily for every risk. Technically speaking, you have carrier representation in every state, right?

I continue and I go back to something and I paraphrase this because I don't know when it was, but you had said who the heck am I to tell some billion dollar operation what to do? It was you and Cash just going off on a rant sometime and that stuck with me because I fell into that trap last Tuesday, I think it was. I snapped on, you know, at my level,

I'm talking to the underwriter who did a field thing and they changed the rate. And I'm like, you know, you're just following corporate policy. It's crap. It hurts me. I'm going to bear the brunt of this, but it's crap. Like, what would you do differently? I'm like, I'm not paid to do things differently. I'm paid to fill in the boxes you give me. I'm paid to produce business. You pay consultants for ideas that don't work. If you want my ideas, we're going to have to figure out a way to do this. And it's, but I fall into that trap of making suggestions because what I don't get is,

I remember talking with a large brokerage, not too far away. Yeah, I said, I want to get to a billion dollars of premium. And I was like, well, that's pretty easy. Your size, like you've got this and this, everything's already solved. And they didn't get there. And they're not there yet. At least publicly, right? Like at least the numbers that go up in the rankings.

Yeah. How does that happen? Like you have all the resources and you're just not putting it together like there's always this dispatch where like a guy like you has figured out so many pieces and then the guy with the other pieces just isn't interested in solving those problems yeah just like dude this is i'll tell you i i think i think you just i mean you just nailed a major problem, right? So I sit here every day, and even though SIA has been amazing, and I want to give them credit because they really have. And I know they get banged on a lot, and I know they're not perfect, and I completely understand all that.

None of them are. None of them are, and I get that people will write me messages, Ryan, they did that. I completely get it. I also know that the Matt Massiello version of SIA is a completely different organization than his father, right? It's just different, different, different philosophies. Again, not saying right or wrong, saying different philosophies. That being said, you know, they've helped us a lot, but they're also not, it's also not, it's not like I got a $20 million check to grow Rogue, right? We still have an operating budget that is reasonable.

It's much bigger than when I was putting the entire payroll on my credit card and then trying to find ways to pay it off, you know? So it's a little different than that scenario, what it was beforehand. But, you know, it's not like we have mega money. We're growing and doing great and all that, but it's not like mega money. I look at these carriers that are trying to go direct. I look at insure techs that raise five, 10, you know, I just had a call with an insure tech that was launched in 2016 that some people would know the name of, if I told you that is now that I'm,

that we're considering acquiring, um, cause I want the tech dude, the, the, they raised $12 million. And if you saw the amount of premium and what they actually had for 12 million, I think about what I could do with $12 million. I mean, I could turn $12 million into two, one hundred million a year. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the things that I could, I mean, I could turn $12 million into two, one hundred million a year. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the things that I could, I mean, I think about just, just the simple shit that could just, I mean, just absolutely explode in the arbitrage that's available in the market, just a crush. And, and, and like, and just the money that's been wasted. And like, I did 57 VC meetings back in 2021 and went over 57.

And these jackasses gave this guy 12 million bucks and they got about $250,000 in premium and a platform that is pretty slick, but no idea how to use it. And now they're wholesale. And now they're like fire sailing. And I look at that and I'm like, oh my God, like the people with money, they don't want to either don't want to take chances

or they want to, they want to give the money to these MIT Silicon Valley dicks or, you know, or the people that have solved the actual problems. They can't get any money because they're not building proprietary tech. And I'm like, it's so wacky how this works. That's what I heard. 0 for 57 for one reason. No proprietary tech. Across the board, every email, every response. No proprietary tech.

Sorry, can't help you. I'm like, that's silly. That's crazy. I don't, I've got a bunch of versions. I've sat in the offices. I've said, listen, I appreciate what you're doing, but here's what you're going to run into. Now it's three, four, five years later. And you're like, oh, I told you.

Like, you know, I went through kind of like a self audit and I deleted. So, I mean, literally a thousand emails, either with no replies or sort of polite replies. And I'm like, look at where you are now but at the same time they probably cashed out okay yeah they didn't put any capital in they didn't put their blood sweat like to really get things going so they probably ended up okay but seeing that continue to occur yeah it's just baffling and even on even on your side i'd wager like if you were like a next and and and it's an ongoing thing in insurance you would struggle to find people because you you talk about this with like trusted choice you're actually in a probably a very similar

scenario like states the dynamite manufacturer in missouri like maybe you shouldn't be touching that. There's 10 agents in Missouri who have the markets and depending on the premium, can't be bothered. I'm like, oh my gosh, you make me want to vomit. But I respect you. I respect you making your money, you doing your thing, but holy cow, it's a layup. It's not even a sale. It's a help this guy buy and they're going to ignore it. Dude, our industry is, is so, I mean, this is what I find so dynamic and interesting in the, you know, these frustrations that we're discussing are also what make this so interesting, a place to work, right? Like, like, you know, people come in and into the space and you meet

them and they're, they're fresh and they're doing things and they have these opinions. And I love it because we always need fresh perspectives. You know, as long as people come in, my perspective, my first filter is always, do you have respect for the fact that this is a 440 year old industry that is not broken? Like, do you operate from that mind frame? Yes. Okay. Now I'll hear all your crazy ideas, you know, because, because, because if you come in and your first thought is this is broken or you're, you only understand like three to five years of history, or you think that it's, you know, it's, it's, you know, I know I can, I can, that filter alone, if you don't pass that first filter, you are, and that is so many of the 2015, 2016 insure techs that came in and told us all that we're toast.

They're the ones who had no respect for the industry, no respect for where we came from and the people that are in it and how it works. The people that do, or the ones that spent even a small amount of time in agencies, those are the ones that you look at their products and whether the product works for you or you agree with the product, they're sticking around, they're doing good stuff. I think about like, here's a perfect example. I actually just liked this post on LinkedIn, Aaron Steffi from Propeller Bonds, right? Some people like the model, some people don't like the model. I think it's brilliant. We use Propeller Bonds for a lot of stuff because especially for the smaller shipment, they're so easy. They're great to work with.

But Aaron came from a family agency outside of Philadelphia. He got a taste for the business, found this thing that he was interested in, that he thought there was a gap in the market. He had the expertise and the guy took a shot and here they are. You know, he, the post that I liked was a cameo from the guy that played Shooter McGavin. Like one of those cameos. Yeah, it was pretty cool. But I'm like, you know, and the announcement was that they have 2,500 agencies on propeller bonds now.

And I'm like, you know what? That's an idea that if he attacks the market, the Silicon Valley dick takes that idea and goes, I'm going to cut agents out and write all the bonds myself. Right. Instead, they never went direct. They every bond they've ever sold has been through through an agent or through, you know, a licensed person. And here they are, twenty five hundred agents growing like crazy. Great business. And I'm like these like he passed that first filter, understood the business, had respect. And here they are.

It's just that kind of stuff to me is, you know, that that's what excites me is that for every five, 10 companies that are just garbage that will never actually make it as loud as they get. You get a propeller bonds, which is really a value add to our industry as a whole, in my opinion. See, you've covered like two things there at once where it's the, they see the size or size potential. Like, eh, I don't know. Instead of realizing what insurance is, is that you take that bond and that bond is probably in place for three to 10 years. Yep. No service, just write a check every year, done, finished, whatever. And they look at the 2,,500 and they poo-poo that. I'm like, you know, all right, good.

That's your economics. Except had you invested in that, you're looking at a conservative five times return on your investment. If you could just be patient. If you just give it a couple of years to get those A's on board and get that there, all of a sudden you're going to look and be like, huh, I got this drip in recurring revenue. All right, what else can we do? And that's where I think if you take that model, I can't understand what's next. I told it to a guy, I'll tell you offline,

it's probably not fair to say it out loud, but like $500 million in premium, all sorts of locations. And he said something interesting and i've known this but then to hear it from his side a guy who's acquiring agencies doing things it kind of like punched me in the face he's like yeah but what is an accuracy you're going to do now you've half acquired a bunch of operations you fully acquired a bunch of others what are you actually doing this is where i've personally maybe sabotaged myself on a few occasions where I said, I respect your role,

but it's not enough for me because it's actually not that challenging. You have money, you have a process. You just got to apply effort to that and be a little patient and you're going to roll up businesses. It's, it's wonderful. It's good for you. You're going to make your money, but what next? That's where I think the propeller bonds in the world that's where i think the mgas program kind of business becomes really super interesting because at some point carriers have to push back like they have to and at some point somebody smart is going to

get ahead of it and say you know what i bought up all these operations i've got 50 000 customers they weren't cross-sold. If I've got the best bond setup in the world, I probably got 1,000 bonds in my book. I just don't even know they're there. That's where I think those things get really interesting is when the people with the existing books. I've tried this for a number of years. Everybody wants to sell you a social media setup. Everybody wants to say, I'm going to get you more traffic.

And I come back with, cool. I've got 6,000 prospects already in my system. I've got 3,000 of them that will respond to my email or my phone call without even a question. Make me money off that. Go find me 6,000 strangers. Take the data I have and drip new products to them. Now you'll get my attention and I'll split the revenue with you. If you're so good, you shouldn't be worried about it because your system works.

And it's always a no. It's always a no. I want you to pay me to set this up and this up. And I'm sitting here saying, you make this platform and there's 2,500 agents that will sign up for that platform because you showed it works. I don't know. You know, you're completely right. Book optimization and revenue per client max maximization is the key. And this is one of my major beefs

with the agency management systems in general and why, you know, I don't, we can't, you know, they've just so missed the mark and there's so much friction. And bitching about agency management systems is tired and I don't need to do it. But like, these are some of the things that they completely miss on, right? Is like, it's today, how do you build a system that allows me to know who has a bond, who doesn't and send automated messages to those people and then get a response from them? Why can't I send an email that says, hey, do you have a bond, who doesn't, and send automated messages to those people and then get a response from them.

Why can't I send an email that says, hey, do you have a bond need? Yes or no? If you say no, I'll never send you another issue about bonds again. But if you say yes, one of our team members can reach out and show you the examples. Or, hey, you want to do it yourself? We have this do it yourself option through one of our partners that allow you to buy the bond yourself. So we're, we're testing, you know, one of the things I believe is a major mistake. Most, most, uh, I shouldn't say mistake. I have a theory that a missed opportunity for many, especially larger, I don't want to say a smaller, maybe single location shops, but like larger shops with it, with a with a decent amount of clients, you know, thousand plus three, you know, 2000 plus clients is do it yourself options for quoting. And people go, no, no, you need insurance agent.

I hear that. But there are there are products and small bonds are one of those products. I'm not talking five million dollar performance bonds and stuff. Yeah, You probably, you need, you know, you need a surety specialist involved for a lot of that, but like these little $200, $250 municipal bonds and janitorial bonds. And you know, why can't that person? Semitone is the bonds. Semitone is the basic bond. Like done, finished. What's up guys. Sorry to take you away from the episode, but as you know, we do not run ads on Yeah, I'm finished. I would love for you to subscribe, share, comment if you're on YouTube, leave a rating

review if you're on Spotify or Apple iTunes, et cetera. This helps the show grow. It helps me bring more guests in. We have a tremendous lineup of people coming in, men and women who've done incredible things, sharing their stories around peak performance, leadership, growth, sales, the things that are going to help you grow as a person and grow your business. But they all check out comments, ratings, reviews. They check out all this information before they come on.

So as I reach out to more and more people and want to bring them in and share their stories with you, I need your help. Share the show. Subscribe if you're not subscribed. And I'd love for you to leave a comment about the show because I read all the comments. Or if you're on Apple or Spotify, leave a rating review of this show. I love you for listening to this show 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.

Real estate agents oftentimes need bonds in many states. There's all these little bonds that people have to buy that should just be bang, bang, bang, bang. And then they auto renew every year. And you take a company like Cincinnati, their sure you're essentially, you're building like a zero loss, you know, zero loss ratio product, essentially, you know, unless something really terrible happens into your book and you build a substantial amount. Think about how much that pushes your loss ratio down. Like these are the types of agency optimization techniques that as we continue to grow at Rogue and I look at how easy new business acquisition is, you know, that's one of the biggest jokes to me is how new business acquisition is hard. If new business acquisition is hard for you, honestly, this may not be the business.

Like this new business acquisition is not hard. It's work, but it's not hard. It's just work. Would you agree it's easier today than when you started? The forgetting your knowledge part, I believe it's actually easier. Exponentially easily. Exponentially easier. Not even close.

Because with social and branding and email and cold drip and, dude, I was doing, you know, because, you know, I get a little crazy. There's this tool that I was looking at here. Let me look up the name real quick so people can check it. Actually, part of me wants to not tell you guys, but I'm going to anyways. I just want to tell you the name of the tool. It's, yeah, no one will actually do it. Windsor.io. So what this tool allows you to do is you record a video one time. Okay. So let's say I was on here and the video was like, hey, Billy, just want to say thank you for purchasing insurance through Rogue Risk. I am the founder and CEO. And it means even though we may never actually interact, I just want to tell you, it means a lot to me that you're here. Our team is going to take care of you, our proprietary, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? 45 second welcome video. Well, all my team needs to do is plug in the person's first name and I never have to record that video again. The AI takes it and makes it so it looks like I am saying the same video, but AI generated voice and mouth movements so that it looks like a personalized video every time to every customer. And then you can scale

that out to every customer every time they purchase. And now it feels like they're getting this incredibly personalized thing, but you literally did it one time. Like that kind of stuff to me, that's solid gold. That's our business, right? That's like, you want to grow huge and have people love you. These are the kinds of tools that do that. Not, you know, I mean, not the Facebook ads or whatever, but like pay somebody to do your Facebook ads for you. If that's what you want to do, like, don't, this is the kind of shit that like takes our game to another level and helps you optimize your book. Cause it makes people feel the warm and want to do. Like, don't, this is the kind of shit that like takes our game to another level and helps you optimize your book because it makes people feel the warm and fuzzies. And it's like, this stuff is coming. Like, if you're not thinking about this, can you

survive today? Yes, you can. Can your kids survive? No, I'm going to fuck on your kids. I'm going to eat your kids lunch and put your kids out of business. You will be fine. Right. But like, that's the way that I think, you know, not just me, there are other people, other rogues out there. There's guys like you, there's people out there that are like, I'm coming for you. I'm going to do what's necessary. You'll survive. Your kids will not. Sorry. I'm just going to chip away at you. And even like you said, personalize that, you know, and gosh, I just,

I need the self-control to stop asking the carriers for these things yeah we've acquired four businesses yeah through these businesses i now have five american modern codes five now average premium is like $100 a policy, right? So I'm not a big hitter with them. But nobody will allow me to consolidate it to one code that I can manage with one login. Guy says, can you do $250,000 in business this year with me? And I says, you can't even make it so I want to do business with you. And did you look at my average policy cost? It's $100. It's classic cars and my average policy cost? It's a hundred dollars.

It's classic cars and it's jet skis or snowmobiles. Like I can't even tell from the policy I'm looking at. Well then, you know, we can't help you. So I talked to the companies that have the codes. You're like, well, it takes a year. You need to sign a broker record. I'm like, dang, you're paying me $7 and 50 cents. I'm not going through the effort of signing a broker record just to consolidate that stuff. But if they're not willing to do that and then I charge for them I say you know if I could pull the data by your name and your address there's ways to pull stuff up we can bang on the management systems all we want between PL Raider and Google I could get a pretty darn good profile on 90% of the households i know you can look up who has a car older than 1980 registered why don't i just give you my 6 000 addresses you run it across there for two

bucks a pop or whatever find the classic cars and then we will literally send them a quote we'll get a massive well you know that'll us a couple of dollars each and we're not sure. But the information is available and you want more business from me. You know, I can't prospect for classic cars because you don't pay enough for me to prospect for classic cars and you do nothing with it. What am I supposed to do with that? You know, what are we supposed to do here? And that's where to your point,

at a big shop that what's next part, a friend of mine, he says, smoke now. I've researched the state of New York. I can show you maps. I can show you everywhere I've driven. I can show you the agencies I've seen. And I feel bad saying it, but I don't need you to sell me your business for me to take your business. I can run it off zip codes i know who your carriers are it would take a little longer but i can put you out of business and like you said it may not be you but your kids not taking over when i chip away half the revenue you know and it's it's doable i don't know it's interesting stuff but the the ai stuff you said uh and I'm sure you've had your own version of these conversations. I've seen stuff that scares me. Like there's a company in Europe.

I've met with them a few times. They were in Manhattan. We met and they showed me, they said, well, give us a list. We're not going to do anything with it. We're going to show you what our product does. And the stuff they can pull on you just on your Google address, just on your email rather you know just in your email rather it's freaky it's just downright scary but i get it and and the challenge i told them is probably the same thing you know but carriers aren't ready for your data same as a hazard hub

right they've been bought by guidewire their biggest challenge is not that they've got the right information it's that the carriers aren't ready for the information. I mean, I'm still picking protection classes with billion dollar companies. How is that possible? The data exists, the correct data exists, and you're still making me guess based on who has a well and who has public water. And dude, this is our industry, unfortunately, just like our government, is run by bureaucrats, not by leaders. And if you're a middle manager and someone comes to you and brings you this project, hey, let's make sure the protection class is right for every property across the country. So when one of our agents pops it in, they don't have to put in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. It just pulls automatically. It's not even a question, right? We just know the only thing that can

happen to that bureaucrat is that that project costs too much, gets screwed up or doesn't work well. And now they're in trouble. So they go, I'm good. No, thanks. So we just kind of keep moving along. Like, um, so I'm a big fan of Michael Lebor and what he's doing at insurance gig. He's got an enormous, enormous project ahead of him, but the things that he's trying to do, I think are worth our effort. And basically, uh, the, the core concept is, I know it's much bigger than this. And Michael, if you listen to this, please don't think I'm trying to diminish what you do. I'm just trying to give a broad stroke. It's kind of a Zapier for insurance products for agents, uh, or, or for agencies and carriers. So we're talking about, hey, and he's got

Hazard Hub linked up. He's got Fenris linked up. He's got Relativity 6 linked up and a couple other databases. And I was like, I'm talking to some carriers and similar projects, right? I mean, you and I think very similar on how do we create these opportunities at scale with the data we have and all this kind of stuff. And I was like, okay, can we, can we pull, you know, small businesses in this state of this class and then in, you know, and then just rip in Fenris, rip in property data from hazard hub and rip in the relativity six data, pull it all together, and then just batch, batch quote all these guys. And then what I'll do is freaking cold email them with, you know, essentially, you know, call them like, like introductory quotes, like, hey, you know, we need to,

we need to clarify a few things. But based on the data I have, we could potentially get you like, let's say a workers comp policy for X amount, right? And there are certain carriers right now that have LCMs that are like literally 1.01, right? Like literally you're basically playing flat rate or in some cases, even less than that. It's crazy what workers' comp rates are with some carriers right now in certain class codes. So it's like, this is a way to absolutely scale and dominate. And it's like, the carriers can't put it all together. And then they're like, well, we're not sure about that data source. And I'm like, who do you believe more? Me, who I will lie to you in 10 seconds, if it gets a policy written, right? Or the data that comes off of these big, huge databases,

it's a freaking job to be accurate. Like, it's just crazy to me where our mentality is and our lack of willingness to take risks on some of these things. It just, you know, and then you look at a coterie and like, I don't think coterie is perfect, but, and I don't love that they went direct. I really don't love that they went direct, but, but their product, the ease of their product is so crazy. It's so easy. And the policy forms are good. Again, not perfect, but good. And I just say to myself, Coterie is probably, it'll be decades

before they're ever able to actually make a dent into some of the big carriers. And the scale is the problem. But the things they're doing are so far out ahead of these companies that that seemingly should be just leading it just boggles the mind but do you get i'm just fatigued by the whole thing i've got all my own stuff i got to work on and i'm just like you said it with the data um frist is the company that bought him and i can't even think of pish's company this guy pish showed me that everything you just described i saw this years ago yeah and

i said kind of what you just said is like the problem is what are you gonna do with the data and the hazard hub i remember meeting those guys in hartford and like i've seen their demos like this is amazing well like nobody's up to it i still, I don't know why I'm so long on view inspection. This guy out in Arizona, he owns a property inspection company. Like he's correct. He's been correct for years. Yet I still have companies spending four or $500 to send a human being out to a property to take pictures of a house.

And I'm done. Like I just, are you going to pay me for my time or some other arrangement? Like I just have other stuff i need to be working on right now and it's just so fatiguing when you know the answer is available and but back to your original point and it really is like this is how unbroken insurance is they're making so much money we don't need to make these changes because we're we're good where we are and listen i'm 100 certain the best thing any national or even super regional company can do is audit their books right now shrink the overall

premium size probably lose some pif count and profitability will fall like like but they don't need it because they're already profitable but come on and i know maybe you're not like writing the weeds with the quotes necessarily today. But like the stuff I'm replacing. And then you look at the, like I kind of stopped looking at debt pages. Because if it's been in books for four, five, ten years, whatever it is, there's nothing accurate about what was written four, five, ten years ago. And nobody's correcting this stuff. And even I've gotten pushback when i said i i lost a little over

12 grand like a month ago on a profit sharing thing the book shrank well i raised deductibles a couple of accounts went to another agent it's from an acquisition idea so you didn't actually lose the premium. And you saw the dozens of policies I rewrote correctly to correct premium. And then you did the profit sharing. The profit sharing number, like I went down from 40 cents to 28 cents or something like that. So we went down like 20 cents. And you know it's better because you saw all the paperwork, all the adjustments, and you're going to screw me out of profit sharing? That's his contract, right? Because that's the dirty little secret. The dirty little secret is quality of coverage only matters in presentations.

It does not matter in truth. It's premium, premium, premium, premium, premium. That is 1, 2, premium, premium, premium. That is one, two, three, four, five, you know, a loss ratio then comes in at some point in there. But like all that really matters is top level premium because, because that's what most of these people are getting bonus done. And then loss ratio is a conversation that uses a tool against us, but like quality coverage, raising deductibles. I mean, like you said, you could go into a book, let's say you had a hundred clients, right? Just for purposes of easy numbers, you had

a hundred clients and their deductibles are all super low and out of whack and their coverage sucks. And you go in and you raise their liability limits. You push their deductibles up on property. So they're not going to pay out nickel and dime claims, you know, and ultimately the premiums come down in aggregate, right? What you just did was create a highly profitable, much, you know, much more sticky, much more retained book of business. That's going to be, that's going to be great long-term for you. And you're going to get screwed in terms of revenue to you and to your agency. And, you know, I guess that's part of just the way the world works, but I get it. And I think you said it.

There is a point where like, I have saved a lot of these types of conversations for just the podcast because I am fatigued. I like having them like here in these venues because it's fun and you get to talk and whatever, but like all the Facebook posts and the LinkedIn threads. And I just, I'm fatigued by it. It's like, there is a reality of the way the LinkedIn threads. And I just, I'm fatigued by it. It's like, there is a reality of

the way the world works. I have a business model that I'm going to execute because I think it's the way that I can leverage that world to do right by customers and make money. And that's what I'm going to do. But the days of like trying to convince people that the shit that you and I believe in and seemingly I think is the way it's done convincing done. You either believe it or you don't, um, or figure it out on your own, but, um, the convincing days are over. Yeah. Yeah. No, it really, it's even, and even like you had said before, like when agents and leads and stuff, like I've driven around this state a couple of times all my focus is new york i've met dozens of amazing agents who like you don't even know they exist they barely have a

they don't have a google profile they don't have a website but they own their building they've been in business for 35 to 65 years maybe they took over a a parent. They've been betting a hundred grand a year in some rural village for decades, writing everything off through the business or even as garbage. Yep. But yet they're better than you and your new company, you know, not you, but you know what I mean? And I'm just like, they're actually some of my biggest challenges because the math is just not there.

Like they are correct. Their business doesn't go anywhere. And by our standards, they treat their customers like shit. They're overpriced. They haven't remarketed a piece of business in years. Nobody questions them. And if they leave, they've already done the math in their head. They don't really care if Sally leaves because they've already made money on Sally. And it's beautiful and disgusting all at once.

Really, that's been my biggest challenge for years now. It's the lifestyle agent. The thing, you know, I say this. Yeah. Whenever someone, whenever, you know, every once in a while I'll get pulled in by a carrier and they'll ask me some questions about this or that or whatever. Like, I fucking know what I'm talking about. And, um, you know, I'll say to them, like, are you building this for growth agents or lifestyle agents? That's the question I started asking. Like, I hear everything you just said. You're like, don't pitch me something. We're

going to do this whole thing. Okay. Is this for growth agents or lifestyle agents? And they'll kind of look at you. Some people will get it. And then a lot of them will look at you like, what do you mean? And I'd be like, cause if you're looking at your agency plan and you haven't carved out lifestyle and growth agencies, then this is screwed day one because lifestyle agencies will could give two shits. If their spouse has a new seven series, if they have a house in some place that they like to go other than their hometown and their, and their lights are on every day, they run every expense to their business. As you said, they could care less about losing a client. They know Tammy's going to refer her niece in and they'll get that back over the court,

net over the year. And they don't care. They don't run their agency to be great insurance agencies. They run their agency to finance their lifestyle. And like that agent could give two craps about this new thing, even if they quote unquote need it, they don't, they don't want it. So like most of these new things that we talk about are actually only for a very small subset of agencies versus the larger ecosystem who are growth focused, who are like, I'm pedal to the floor going as hard as I can. Everyone else could care less. They could care less. So two things along that, because I'm just your choir at the moment, right? So there's a guy closer to you than to me. Three locations. I'll send it to you afterwards like i finally got

him on the phone uh i said all right well if you were interested in selling which of them he says 900 i said all right give me a few minutes i've got a private finance i got a phone call so what's the look like is okay we're in call the guy back it's okay what do you like when could we be wait we did you got to show me some numbers this is's like, no, no, we'll hold on a second here. I've got Derek who's been with me for a while. And this is because if you're not, you're not changing anything until I got my money. I said, well, that's not exactly how it's going to work. But, but if you want 900, which is really like stupidity is that it's really like one time's revenue. Right. So that like that, that's giving it away. Okay, fine. He said, well, I don't know.

Let me think about this because exactly what you just said. Kids are older and don't need his money. Owns two or three buildings that he's in. And he started calculating. Like he knew at that moment, like, oh, wait a second. I'm 80 something years old and I'm so good. But now a business person is offering me this much money he's probably starting to do tax calculations and what is all the crap that

i'm not showing anybody that i'm writing off and i admire him i really do at the same time bridge it around to your lifestyle agent versus growth agent so carry your kind of questions of stuff and they're looking to maybe appoint some agents and do some clusters. And I've done this before. I pick up some of our URB companies. I don't know what they call them in other states, like little co-ops, right?

I've never heard URB anywhere other than New York State. Really? Okay. So, if you're in another state, you're under $50 million in premium. Some're under $50 million in premium. Some cases under $10 million in premium. Tend to operate in one to six counties, even though you got a statewide license. But you go on their websites, you pick out a grid of zip codes. I got a couple of guys on Fiverr that have done some stuff for me.

They pull down all the agents. And you look at it and you can identify pretty quickly who's the lifestyle versus who's the growth yeah but then i realized those aren't even accurate because what would happen is a brown and brown or you know out the middle of the state there's a couple of bigger operations they just relabel it so like there'll be nine entries for the same agency with nine different addresses and like well what are you actually doing there? And the answer is nobody cares. Really, the guy that said he wanted his information, and it was cool to see because I put it on the map

and you could see just how clustered they are in one area. I think it's a huge opportunity to get me four hours away to buy one of those agencies because now you've got some spread. You're already geographically screwed at this point. But they don't care. Because honestly, some of these corporations, and I can show you through like their lifestyle companies, like actual insurance companies that are lifestyle. And it's, I believe the sooner we kill the romance of the independent agent, the better.

You distribute insurance. Get past anybody giving a shit about you being local because it's just not important. You said earlier, listen, I appreciate that you have a job running a state association or running a national association, but the reality is you're a lobbyist. And in New York, I hate you because you couldn't even get the photo inspection thing passed after 10 years and millions of lobbying. So don't talk to me anymore. Don't ask me for more money because more money didn't solve your problem. But there are actually lifestyle companies at this point that you and I probably work with. And you're like, gosh, like, how can you tell me you want this? But you're not even optimizing your company because you're making so much money.

Have you ever driven by community mutual? Oh, wait, when you say community, I don't know. Community mutual barely has an office because they're really in Vermont. Right. Is that a community? It's part of an aggregate of mutuals that was created with a shit. What's the one in Vermont? You know who it is?

Cause I know. Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. But community mutual is literally a raised ranch yes it's a raised ranch you could go look up franklin fire cherry valley uh wall unfiring cooperative you look at the addresses like uh otsego but then there's a chart out there and i got rid of it because i kind of felt like i'd get some trouble if i had it it shows their profitability. They're making 50 cents on the dollar. Like they're destroying profitability numbers, but they're run by a board of 8 to 20 people.

God bless them. I am not, this is not a criticism. No, no. At the same time, oh my gosh, what I could do with your customer base. And I'll say them out loud because we don't do business with them. They came via an acquisition. Full-on mutual. They're what you described. They sold their building because things are kind of tight.

Now they rent the space. Actually, they're really cool old converted building. It's out 90 just before Amsterdam. Fulton or something like that. But they did something really cool like 30 years ago when I was looking up prospects, they made websites for older agents.

Now, if you go look up agents now, you're finding Safeco, you're finding Travelers, you're finding Progressive, right? Those are your big three that you see them. And let's not even talk about how the agents aren't even using that tool. They're not even filling out the sheet completely. You've got this really, their search is better than your search and you're not even

bothering to fill out the profile like it wants but full bump mutual made websites for their agents i think it was in 2000 it's like before you and i even did the business yeah yeah yet the search is still beating progressive and travelers. It's like, it's, it's insanity. And, and, and it's, and I, I'd have to look at my notes, but like some of the pictures, like the humans are actually dead. Like they're not even physically alive anymore, but the website exists. And it's like, how do I shit on you? I can't, what you did 23 years ago still works today.

And you're making your money and it's that's the thing man i mean that's that's you know like there's just new york is so odd with the mute i mean the history of new york and mutuals hey do you know dave ayadanza from dryden he used to be like the number two number three guy dry and they recently kind of i don't want to say pushed him out but uh it's one of those bigger like we think we're bigger than they actually are they show up on that general's like partner side and it's kind of weird but people like dryden yeah i like john i think they're a good company but like you know dave date so dave is a buddy of mine i i think he's he he is new

york insurance like you and him what you would love having coffee with him. He just, it's New York insurance. He knows the mutuals. He knows the games. He knows the numbers. He knows all this stuff. And because he's been in the mutual game for so long. And he sent me some stuff.

He sent me some, he probably sent me a similar chart to what you saw on like profitability and stuff. And these mutuals, you know, I, again, I don't want to, it sounded like I was knocking community mutual. I'm not community mutual is a highly profitable company. It's just insane that there is this company with probably 20 million in premium tops sitting in Skodak, New York in a, in a raised ranch that's making, that's just making ungodly amounts of profit because they

have this niche market. They write just property in the Eastern half of New York and non-flood zones. And the rates are great on those particular properties, but they don't do anything else. And their loss ratio is nothing. And it's like, you look at this and you're just like, oh my God, these people print money. Like we're going to bang on them. And you know, all all these, you know, young kids are going to say, ah, you know why they don't do this. They don't have tech integrated and download. I'm like, yeah, except they print money. They absolutely print money.

Like there's just, you know, New York mutual, not New York central, New York mutual, New York mutual is right over here in a strip plaza. It's in a freaking strip plaza. It's right over here in a strip plaza. It's in a freaking strip plaza. It's like, what? And the comical, just because there's a tie, I'll kind of wrap three things in here. The first time I met them, you know who it was across the hall from.

How is this amazing technology, modern company, directly across the call from this company that I have to fill out a pdf yeah and email it to them and hope i get a call back this afternoon if cindy's not busy right yeah so when you say community mutual i guess i say them out loud because who knows who's going to listen because i would love other examples so they can't figure this part out uh kim is down in florida yeah we're a direct property. Eventually, they're going to pivot. We know what's going to come. You know, Hippo did it. Opelese started that way.

You don't have to pivot eventually. Saquit Valley. S-A-U-Q-U-O-I-T. If you just head out 90, you'll run into them. You get like four employees. There are direct property insurance and like farms, right? It's amazing. Simple website. They probably, it's probably like you said, it's just in a simple ranch building somewhere.

They know who they serve and they do it amazing. They don't give a darn about any of the web stuff, but, but what, what, where I get stuck is when, when the, what happens next? Yeah. I think, I think a Sands or Iroquois or any of these big aggregators, the sooner they really develop an MGA program, the sooner they really develop their own carrier, the more interesting it gets. Yeah.

But then they get stuck. So when I was out prospecting, inevitably down the street from so many of them, it was a community bank. You've got some community banks around where you are. Yep. But they're an insurance operation. They have an insurance brokerage. They're probably doing $100 million a year in premium.

But they don't, like, who are they? Like, they're nothing. They're just, they bought little operations. They run it efficiently. It's just another line item on their stuff. And you're saying, nobody cares. They're just turning profits over on top of each other. And I looked, I was annoyed and shame on me for not having the courage to do it.

Generations back on an operation, they're a public company. So they have to file and somehow they're losing money on their acquisition. Right. They have to file this stuff. Cause they're publicly traded operation and you read through the reports. Like how is it possible with all that infrastructure, you're losing money? Like, how does that happen?

Now they sold their operation to Northwoods. You know Northwoods out in Buffalo? I've heard of it, yeah, yeah. It's, I look at that and I'm like, how could you not figure this out? You have this infrastructure in place. Banks, I think, are the future. Like if you're a bank, a bank should be, banking is not the right word, banks should be knocking down the door of regional SIA in similar situations and saying,

how do we work together? Because I think there's just such a huge crossover and it's just- Yeah. You know, there's been Sheffy and Avi over at Coverage have been writing a lot lately about embedded insurance. And, you know, I said on a, somewhere the other, who the fuck knows where I said it, but I said, I said sometime recently, I was like, um, I never believed that the shit that was going on in 2015, 2016, 2017 was going to disrupt our market. I do honestly believe that if there is a, I don't want to call it a technology, but if there is something that can truly disintermediate the independent insurance and not everybody, but, but make a major impact, it's embedded insurance. And I see it because we,

we are doing it. Like we are, we have partners that we're getting in front of, and we're the insurance provider before that company even sniffs insurance, right? Before they even think about insurance, they're buying something else. And then Rogue is being presented to them as, do you want an insurance quote or whatever? And then that person is being sent to us on a, on a warm referral plate. Here's this company. I just did a bunch of research on and bought shit from, and they're telling me to use these guys and it's being handed to us. And it's like, that's never going to get down to the, to the, to the baseline local agents. That business will never get there. Like, and, and I'm not even the best at this. I'm a C player at best right now. You know what I mean? Obviously we're trying to improve, but like there are companies now, most of them right now are still run by the Silicon Valley dicks. But as soon as we get some insurance people in some of these embedded companies, dude, that's the stuff that scares the crap out of me. Because think about how many people use Venmo. Think about how many people use PayPal and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. And now every single one of those tools is saying, hey, if you need insurance, we have

a provider. Every time, every time they use a function, they're being hit with it. Every time it's being thrown in their face. And then Sally on your team has one bad day. She's in a bad mood. Her husband gave her a ton of shit issues walking out the door. She shows up, kind of bags it, does something shitty. That person looks at their Venmos, get a quote, and they go, you know what?

Fuck these guys. Beep. They get a quote and now they're gone. And you're like, what do we do? And it's because they just got hammered over the head 17 times in every platform that they're in that to buy insurance. And they decided to give it a try. And then the purists among us, and this is

why I love your perspective on this. The purists among us are like, ah, all our expertise. Yes, there are some very complicated, larger accounts that need our expertise. I get that. But more and more as the products become more and more commoditized, and guys, I have 57 markets. I have a pretty good feel for how commoditized our industry is even at the small business level, right? Like there's only, there's a certain level where we need that expertise. There is, I'd say 10,000 under in premium. You don't need a human. You certainly don't need a experienced 30 year vet with all this expertise.

I just don't think you do. There's just not enough there. There's not enough risk there. You can package it up. It's all, you know, mashed across the, you know, 100,000 accounts. It's easy for the carrier to distribute the risk. They boilerplate it and off you go. I just. So you're human optimized. You're probably one of the first places I've heard, right? You need to be able to do that. You need to reduce the options. A million dollars is a million dollars. New York State sets the rules.

I don't care what policy header has on there. You have a million dollars of liability. You have a million dollars of liability. Stop offering $300,000. They can be choose. It's a million. Take the numbers. It is what it is.

So you're embedded see here's i don't i can't understand why it continues to be ignored munich re has harford steam boiler i know you're not looking at your water back it should be your service line endorsement but let me break the news to you it's not coming from safeco or the other carrier whoever that just safeco because it came to mind right it's It's coming from Hartford Steedmoor there. They've already shown you how embedded works and white-labeled works. Take another one, not far from you, and it didn't pan out because the guy sold his business, which is fine, good for him. Sharon Springs Garage.

You don't know it. I don't know it. When I say Sharon Springs Garage, like, what is it? It's a hardware store. Three locations, very successful hardware stores in Troy, Sharon Springs, and one other location. Kubota tractors. I don't own one. I don't expect to ever own one.

But they're financed just like cars. If you buy a Kubota tractor and it's financed, guess what? You need insurance. Do you know what a pain in the ass it is to add your Kubota tractor to your homeowner's insurance policy? Colossal. Come on, everybody. If you're listening, you know it's's not necessarily the easiest thing and it's also not super quick. So if you work with Kubota, who has Allianz, I believe it's Allianz behind the

scenes. You have Allianz paper insuring that tractor. Dang, the guy just bought a tractor worth more than your car. You think he's a good prospect? You don't think we could sell more into that? Allianz partnered up with a, and I just don't get why the brokerages are still spending so much money on advertising. You just need to partner with Allian odds and say this guy's got 13 000 customers emails mailing list everything's in place what are we doing so you take the embedded and you leverage it already exists so don't tell me it's not going to work because it already is working yeah you know it's it's dude it's beautiful though it's exciting i i love all this stuff dude i could talk to you about this shit forever.

I want to be able to talk to you time. My time, we're way over. You know, this is, I love these conversations. We'll have to do this more often. I'm glad you took the time. We went all over the place. Hopefully somebody likes it. Oh, no, they will. And if they don't, they can, you know, screw off because I loved it.

I appreciate the hell out of you, man. If people want to just connect with you, is LinkedIn the best place? Where's the best place if someone just wants to connect with you? Pretty much. Most of you don't like me on Twitter. So it's like, I tell you, there's a couple of us that like talk and avoid. And you're in there, like we have, we have dialogues, but like, and I said this, I caught some flack over something a few months ago and I really kind of recoiled a bit.

And I was like, gosh, like you just attacked attacked me personally like it wasn't attacking my idea it was like they came at me personally and i got it it was like one message and it was one comment it was one message but i was like you didn't attack the idea like you came after me as a human being yeah i'm out like i'm just not gonna bother like i'm not questioning anybody i don't root i don't have time to root against you nor would i give a shit to root against you like we're just asking questions we're just two people that like to think bigger and now i'm gonna listen i'm gonna put my head down and go do some freaking paper applications and just point a bunch of business i i know what i'm talking about because i've done years of work you've done years of work on this stuff i get frustrated with like you said chef

before dang like she's been around for seven years where have you been like like you were aware of her you were aware of like the accelerators and stuff like this stuff's been happening like yeah you don't have to pay attention but it's been there yeah you know i the thing i love about avi and chefy is that um i know they think about what they say they They do not say anything on a whim, right? And they have proven over time and they both come with pedigree even before they start a coverager.

And what I love about their perspective is they're always pushing the bounds, but I think they do it in a respectful way. And also you can disagree with them and they will have an engaging conversation with you. And there are things that I have disagreed with both of them on. And we have awesome conversations. And and then you move on.

And that's what it should be. I think both of them are wonderful. I'm a huge supporter. And I think that but people will dismiss them. And I'm like, oh, yeah. Yeah. At your peril. Dismiss.

Dismiss their perspective at your peril for sure so hey man it's good stuff appreciate you yeah be good buddy later We'll see you next time. closed 1,200 clients in under three years during the pandemic. No fluff, no endless follow-ups, just results fast. Based in behavioral psychology and battle-tested, the one-call closed system eliminates excuses and gets the prospect saying yes more than you ever thought possible. If you're ready to stop losing opportunities and start winning, visit MasterOfTheClothes.com. That's MasterOfTheClothes.com.

Do it today.