RHS 121 - Will Shaw on How to Build Technology for Independent Agents

Ryan Hanley: In a crude laboratory in the basement of his home. Hello everyone and welcome back to the show. Today we have an absolutely tremendous episode for you. A conversation with Will Shaw, CEO and co-founder of Better Agency, the only sales-driven AMS and CRM in the insurance industry. I'm an enormous fan of Will's and what he does, and I think that will come through in this conversation.

Ryan Hanley: We go all over the place talking about entrepreneurship, growing in InsurTech, things that Will has learned about the business coming at it from the vendor side, and a bunch of other valuable insights. I think you'll take a ton away from this show. I'm just so happy to have Will on. I enjoy every conversation I get to have with him, so I think that'll come through in the episode. I think you're going to like this one.

Ryan Hanley: Before we get there, I want to give a big shout out to Propeller Bonds. Propeller Bonds is changing the game for how bonds are done. They're making bonds accessible and easy, giving you another income stream. Think about it: how often do we write a contractor and never ask about their bonding needs because we look at bonds as difficult, time-consuming, or not profitable? Propeller Bonds is changing that.

Ryan Hanley: They make it so you should be asking every client if they have bonding needs. Do you work in a municipality and need a municipal bond? Are you a notary? Do you know how many of your clients are notaries? If you ask every one of them, and they can now get their notary bonds through you, that's another touch point. It's another product you're selling. It's continuing to build that moat.

Ryan Hanley: What Propeller does is give you a simple, easy, almost no-touch way. There are certain bonds you'll have to get involved in, but 90-plus percent of the bonds you sell through Propeller Bonds are zero-touch. You send the link to the client. The client fills it out. They pay for the bond, and they get their bond certificate in their email in about five minutes. We use it all the time. Absolutely love it. Changing the game, bonds. Go to propellerbonds.com. That's propellerbonds.com. Go there today and start making surety bonds part of your product mix. Do it today.

Ryan Hanley: All right. With that, let's get on to Will Shaw.

Will Shaw: Ryan, what's up?

Ryan Hanley: Yo, what's up, dude? How we doing?

Will Shaw: We're having a good talk here. I'm excited. Trying to figure out what the heck we decided we were going to talk about. I'm scrolling through my socials to figure out what particular topic we were discussing when I said, "Come on the podcast," and you said, "Let's do it now." I was like, "Super exciting," but I didn't save it because I'm an idiot. So now I'm trying to figure out what the hell we were talking about.

Ryan Hanley: I'm trying to remember too, man. I feel like you and I are always going back and forth on Twitter and LinkedIn. It's got to be one of those two.

Will Shaw: That's how it is. I'm literally scrolling through Twitter as I was bringing you into the conversation to figure out exactly what it was. But let me hit my LinkedIn, because I feel like you shared something I posted, and that might have been part of it.

Ryan Hanley: Oh, that is what it was. Yeah, because I've been trying to get active on LinkedIn.

Will Shaw: LinkedIn's good. I like LinkedIn.

Ryan Hanley: Yeah, it's good. Here it is. All right, so this is the post. I'm going to read it so everyone listening knows what we're talking about.

Ryan Hanley: For those of you listening, Will and I have gotten to know each other better and better over the last 18 to 24 months, which is great. When we do have time to chat, we have very good conversations. I've been meaning to have you on for a while, but then you posted something that I reshared. I'll recap it quickly here.

Ryan Hanley: You said, "Today I spent time listening to industry experts and leaders from Zebra, Lemonade, and others speaking about InsurTech and firms trying to come into insurance. A few things I found really interesting. InsurTech has received $2 billion in four consecutive quarters. That's a massive amount. Why this is happening and what it means is below. Personal Alliance hit $350 billion in premium, accounting for more than 50% of the P&C market. InsurTech companies like Lemonade haven't hit a billion in written premium yet. What does all this mean for independent agents?"

Ryan Hanley: "InsurTech isn't slowing down, and they're bringing in more and more experience from the travel sector—think Kayak and Expedia—to try and allow carriers to be direct to consumers. Investments are probably not slowing down either based on current market conditions." Which is true, although I have heard multiple times that we have about an 18-month window and things are going to start drying up. I've heard that.

Ryan Hanley: So your biggest takeaway: these companies are almost solely going after personal auto and basic commercial lines, and it's getting as much attention as home, which you found surprising—not CyberGL. Other takeaways: independent agents need to be focused on digitizing their agency. Customer against Smarno—I think we all agree with that. We can talk a little bit about what that means. The importance of cross-selling your clients, personal and commercial, and the digital companies that are coming after auto. Keep your relationships, getting home, cross-selling auto, things like that. I think we'd also agree with that. We can talk about how we do that.

Ryan Hanley: Quote-bind issue has to be something that we figure out. We need to be able to quote, bind, and issue, particularly personal lines, without expending too much personal capital. I think the topic that I'd really like to talk to you about—and we can go as many places as you want—is that at face value, all these things make sense. InsurTech made a big push. It was like when the little brother tries to come at the big brother, thinks they're going to get a little froggy, and they get bucked back. I think that's what happened with InsurTech. Obviously, pushing the industry forward, obviously a net positive—I think we all 100% agree with that. But certainly not taking over the game, even those who have been so lucky as to IPO.

Ryan Hanley: However, it does not feel like as an industry we have yet come to even basic best practices on how to digitize. There are people starting to figure it out. There are certainly tools pushing the envelope. What you guys are doing at Better Agency is a big part of it. But it still doesn't feel like we really have our hands around this digitization process.

Will Shaw: I would agree with that. There's a lot to unpack with all of it. The reality is the writing is on the wall. I don't think—and this is where I even said it in the post—I think this is a five-year play for InsurTech. I get really involved in the investment market because I want to know what's happening: M&A activity, insurance companies acquiring insurance companies, private equity. I'm curious about all of it. But I also ask the questions: when people write $2 billion worth of checks in four consecutive quarters, I want to know what's going on.

Will Shaw: They don't have to take over the industry to make a lot of money. But when you start listening to the heads of those companies—and there's more than just Lemonade and Zebra, a lot more coming in—they are trying to go IPO. They're trying to become a unicorn. To become a billion-dollar valued company, you have to figure out how to produce a hundred million dollars in revenue. The reality is there are a lot of independent agencies—more than I originally thought—that actually do that today.

Will Shaw: At some point, they're going to get some traction. I don't think it's today. I don't think it's next year. I don't think it's two years from now. But there's a five-year window right now between the enough money coming in and figuring out where the market's going, where InsurTech is going to have a better grasp. I don't think they ever overtake independence. I can get into why I believe that, and that might be more of a fairytale belief instead of actual hard numbers. But the decisions made right now as an industry whole—in terms of standardizing workflows and technology and those kinds of mindsets—are going to make the difference in what this looks like in five years.

Will Shaw: Old school agencies do a great job of thinking two to five to ten years ahead, even though they might not be thinking that in terms of technology. But I don't think as a whole people really take the amount of time and effort needed to say, "What is my agency going to look like in two years, four years?" Going through a traditional SWOT analysis—it's so played out, but what's going on? I just posted last week about M&A activity. The reason there's so much is the potential threat of looming capital gains tax changes that are affecting people's decisions to potentially exit and inject out of their companies right now.

Ryan Hanley: Yeah. So I don't—five years feels long to me. I know you have recently been through a fundraising round. I am in the middle, hopefully towards the end, of a fundraising round. I've talked to 22 VC firms, some of which we knew right away weren't a great fit, but it's good to have these relationships and know people. One really interesting thing I found—and this is a complete side note—is that even though they did not decide to invest in Rogue yet—most of them are more interested in a Series A, it was kind of like a teaser—they're still completely willing to make connections. I've actually made quite a few connections with people who just said flat out, "No, we're not interested." Building your network is always important, and I think having those conversations is worthwhile if you can have them.

Ryan Hanley: That all being said, I think we're looking at more of an 18 to 24 month window where there is really a land grab left. That doesn't mean you can't grow. It doesn't mean everyone goes out of business. It doesn't mean we're all going to be disrupted. What it means is it feels to me like in personal lines, this may just be over. But in commercial, in the cross-sell of commercial and personal, in some of these places like cyber—from the disposition I get and the conversations I've been having with some of these guys—there's an 18 to 24 month window for distribution partners. Think retail agencies being a distribution partner for distribution partners to grab land.

Ryan Hanley: Like you said, there are a lot of entities that have received a lot of money, and that money hasn't gone anywhere. They just haven't gotten around to close. There's $8 billion floating out there by some of the most powerful firms that haven't made a dime on that money. That money will be put to good use at some point.

Will Shaw: Yeah. And again, I think it's coming at places like small commercial. I think they're going to push up into middle market tools. I don't think they're going to be middle market agencies, but I think there's going to be a lot of—think Zywave buying up all this stuff, Vertafore buying up all these tools. There's going to be more tools injected into the marketplace. The one thing from my perspective that if I were building a local or more traditional or standard agency—which Rogue is simply not at this point—the thing that would concern me is that the business isn't even going to get to my level.

Will Shaw: What I mean by that is everything that's happening is happening inside of other platforms. When someone starts a business, they're looking for a lender. They're looking for a bank account. They're looking for an attorney to do an LLC. They're looking for some service. Insurance is never the first service that a new business goes out and gets. No one goes, "I'm going to go get general liability on this entity that doesn't exist." The only reason we did it with Better Agency was we were working with insurance agencies, and they said, "Hey, you gotta have this."

Ryan Hanley: Yes.

Will Shaw: So that being said, if you go to Gusto for your payroll, or you go to American Express for your credit card account, or just about any of these major platforms, a lot of them are starting to develop major business relationships with either direct carriers like Next or all your friendly nationals that have their own agencies. Think about Gusto. When you go to Gusto and you start having employees, they're going to start offering a relationship for health insurance. So if you're a primarily health insurance agency, you have to compete against that.

Ryan Hanley: I think there's two things I wanted to touch on. You mentioned earlier the 18 months. I've heard 18 months. I come from the real estate industry previously in a former life—I like to call it. I've been hearing 18 months on a real estate pullback since 2013. It hasn't happened. Arizona is a bit of a unique market with how many people were coming from California. In that specific regard, I am hearing from enough people that I trust, from an investment perspective, that everybody's kind of cautious about 2022 right now. They're not not being aggressive, but they're not at full throttle aggression like it has been.

Will Shaw: Yeah. And I'm hearing the same thing from the investment side of things, both PE firms. The PE firms in insurance right now are killing their ROIs, but I'm hearing the same thing. Everybody's really aggressive and bullish on funding companies right now. If you're following that at all, it's a frothy, frothy market. I think that's going to continue, but I think people are going to start latching down a little bit going into next year. I don't think it's going to be quite the same as it is now. I think people are just kind of assuming, "Hey, we've had a course and it's well overdue." There's some cautiousness going on. That doesn't mean things aren't still going to be aggressive, but there's a little bit more cautiousness coming into play.

Will Shaw: There's also some major undeniable macro trends that have changed with the new administration. There are more ships circling the United States that can't get in. Try to buy an air conditioner right now. Try to buy a second car key for my car right now. It exists, it's just on a ship somewhere out in the middle of the ocean and it can't dock. Not to get political, although I could easily—that's a real macro trend that can drastically impact our economy. If it starts to slow down, you don't want to be throwing overvalued money, really cheap money, at companies. If you're a VC or a PE company, you do not want to be throwing really cheap money at people when you see this coming, because you have no idea how long it's going to last.

Will Shaw: You've got all this stuff with taxes. You've got Janet Yellen saying she's going to tax unrealized capital gains as income, which is bananas. You want to know—we've been having some Twitter threads on that. That's a real good way to start destroying the investment community. So I look at all this stuff, and like you said, maybe some of our sources are different. But I'm hearing that there's a slowdown coming. What I think that means is there are people that are more connected and way smarter than the two of us who've already been given a boatload of money that know that's coming. If they want their next round—which they have to live and die by—they are going to push hard. That's where a lot of my 18 to 24 months comes from.

Ryan Hanley: So I agree. And what I found interesting is—and you know this—we can get into this if you want. The nice part about what we did at Better Agency is we bootstrapped this from the start. We don't have to live and die by our fundraise. We may never raise another dollar again because we just don't need to or want to. If the opportunity presents itself and it makes sense, then maybe we will. But the interesting part is my realization that the InsurTech community is going after small, small market commercial—that general liability, that cyber policy, things that they feel, right, wrong, or indifferent, they can get in.

Will Shaw: We were at ThinkBrans and I got a crash course in cyber liability for about 45 minutes.

Ryan Hanley: Yeah, that was good. That was a good conversation. It was great for the first 15 minutes, and then you guys blew my mind and I had to check out for a little bit. But they think they can do that, and that's where they're going. They're going after the personal lines and the small commercial. The reason is, I dug into the numbers. It makes sense. Auto compared to home is a three-to-one ratio. There's three times the money to be made in personal lines auto compared to home. I had no idea. Same thing with general liability and cyber liability. Any company that gets over about a quarter million dollars on average is actually getting those policies at some regard. They feel like they can standardize that for a company under a couple million dollars in revenue because it's basically the same as long as you're not doing anything vastly different.

Will Shaw: I think that leads into, as an independent agency, the saying has been, at least since I've been in the industry, "Standardize your personal lines, figure that out, and then move into small market commercial." I think what we're going to have to continue to shift is how can you create processes and utilize and leverage technology to sell more personal lines and small market commercial so that you can become more of an advisor for your high net worth clients, whether that's mid-market commercial or doing some non-standard stuff on the personal lines.

Will Shaw: I think it gets blown out of proportion—"Oh, independents are going to go away." They said the same thing with realtors. If you follow OfferPad and some of that new real estate tech coming to play—it's really heavy in Arizona—the reality is real estate agents have been having the best years of their lives since they entered because it's more competition. People get better. You have to change your game. I believe this to be true in insurance. I may be wrong here, but I don't believe that just like in real estate—the largest purchase of people's lives—they're going to use technology. I don't believe in insurance they'd rather call somebody and talk to them and make sure they're making the right decision. That might not always be the case, but I feel like I have enough backing in what's going on in the economy overall.

Will Shaw: Look at barbershops. Barbershops are on a 10% increase year over year since 2014. Why? Because people don't want to go to Supercuts. They want to go to a barbershop. They want that one-on-one connection. You can call me and tell me I'm reaching with that comparison, but I don't think I am. I think it has to do with the mindset and culture of a younger generation. They want that personal relationship, but they want things done efficiently. That's where we've got to catch up.

Ryan Hanley: Yeah. Barbershops with an app that you get to schedule when you can walk in. The days of walking into a barbershop and sitting there for three hours—people don't have the time for that. You're not doing that anymore. But to know that you're going to get that personalized service, that they know what your cut is—I go to a hairstylist. She knows when I sit down in the chair, we literally pick up our conversation from the last time I was there. She knows exactly what to do. I don't have to say anything unless I want something different, which I never do. The process takes a half hour. I'm out the door, perfect.

Will Shaw: I've had the same guy cut my hair for ten years. I've lived in Philly, I've lived in Ohio, I've lived in a couple different places. I got a little shaggy sometimes, but the same person's cut my hair for ten years.

Ryan Hanley: Yeah. And so I agree with that part. What I will say is I don't think everybody—there is something to—I'm going to take my own experience. I'm going very broad in small commercial. We write—niches are in the riches? We write freaking everything. When I say everything, I mean 95-plus percent of the class codes, we write them. It's not easy. It's freaking brutal some days. But it's our mission. That's the problem we're trying to solve.

Ryan Hanley: Taking some of the lessons I've learned from that, I would always reckon the riches are in the niches. I don't know that a local agency should be personal, small commercial, and middle market. I don't think that's the right path. Because here's what I'm telling you: if you're in all three of those things, I'm going to take your small commercial business. I'm going to take it from you. I'm going to drop in your back door. I'm going to take your customer. I'm going to give them better service on their terms, and they're going to talk to somebody. But I couldn't handle your middle market account the way you can. And I certainly can't handle your personal lines the way you can.

Ryan Hanley: My point in saying that is if you're going to be small commercial, I think you might be able to be small commercial and some personal. I think you might be able to be personal and some small commercial. But if we're going to try to be all three of those things, I think you're going to get torched. The reason is everybody's attacking. There are billions of dollars—and I'm not part of that billions, but I'm just smarter than those people. There are billions. That's my show. I get to say that. This is my fantasy land. No, I'm kidding.

Ryan Hanley: But there are billions of dollars, like you said, that have already been deployed in the marketplace with people attacking all of these spots. Small commercial is a skillset. The going thing has always been, "It's unprofitable. Stay away from it. It's unprofitable. You can't write it." I don't believe that.

Will Shaw: No, it is. If you aren't properly set up to do it, if you're not using tools like Tarmika, if you're not using automation tools like Better Agency, if you're not giving them the quality they can get from Next—go take a look at Next's user experience. Outside the fact that you can't talk to a human, Next is brilliant. If they could figure that part out, I would be worried as shit about them.

Ryan Hanley: Right. And I think that's the thing. I agree with you. I think you do need to niche down. You need to know what you're doing. What surprised me most was just that the InsurTech community is going after that small market. In my mind, I hadn't assumed that. I don't think most people know that.

Will Shaw: Yeah. And I agree with you. Next, what they do is great. They just can't figure out the human interaction. That's what my argument is—or I guess my point from my post, what I've been talking about online—is if you're an independent insurance agency and your niche or where you play is either personal lines or small market commercial, you need to have the tech stack in place so you can compete on an efficiency level with the InsurTech space, but offer that local community expert, that independence, that advisor role that independents are known for being great at. You've got to figure out how to do both, because I don't think the InsurTech space is going to figure that out.

Will Shaw: You want to know why I feel that way? They're going to figure out the tech side of this. I believe that they will. They already have, for the most part.

Ryan Hanley: Yeah.

Will Shaw: It's because they're bringing in all the money from Hotels.com and Kayak and all those guys that did the travel industry and blew that up in the early 2000s. They're now all in InsurTech. There's a reason for that. You want to know what they are all terrible at? They all run call centers.

Ryan Hanley: Yes.

Will Shaw: They have no ability to actually have a high level of customer support. So they're going to figure out the technology piece—most of them already have. They're going to have that piece down. They are not going to figure out the human interaction piece. Because what do you and I know about insurance? It's not easy. It takes time, and you've got to be good to people. You've got to genuinely care about them to provide a high level of service. That is not what the InsurTech is going to bring to the space.

Will Shaw: The problem is where the industry is headed, what consumers are going to want—is that insurance piece of it or that technology piece of it? You've got to figure out how to wrap the insurance piece and still provide that high level customer service. I don't think that's what InsurTech is going to get.

Ryan Hanley: See, and this is where I think we have to—one, most of the people listening to this show are going to be nodding their head at what you say and agreeing with you. A lot of the peers of the people listening to this show are just simply not going to do it. They're just not going to. Dude, I've been banging my head off the wall since 2009. My first keynote on content marketing was in 2010. Think about that. I have been preaching this digitization message for 11 years now. Think about how many people are actually doing it. That's 377 keynotes the last time I checked.

Ryan Hanley: That's ridiculous. Still isn't happening. So my point in saying, well, maybe I just suck at it, but I would like to believe that. And there's many others, not like I'm the only one. My point in saying that is I think a lot of people are just not going to do it. So there are a lot of people that are. The ones that do are going to be able to reap more faster than their predecessors. I think that's the win is that they get more faster. So the agency that took 10 years to get to a certain number is only going to take three years to get to that same number if you digitize. That's, I think, a big part of it.

Ryan Hanley: The other side of it is I think there's some agencies are going to have to reimagine who they are. I think they think about themselves. There are agencies that think about themselves as sales oriented today that are doing things in a way that you're not going to be able to produce sales at the same level that you were able to. And there is a major opportunity for independent agency-minded individuals to create that service arm that the insure techs need. And what I mean by that is stop being a sales entity and start being a service entity and partner with people who are really good at acquisition and be the service arm to their acquisition arm. And that is a major, major opportunity in the space.

Will Shaw: I think, I think, you know, and I would agree. I think, you know, I was actually talking to David Carruthers about this. And I think he said it really well. It's like, at the end of the day, like an independent agency, it's a sales organization. And it doesn't matter if you're focused on actual front-end sales, servicing, retention, or cross-selling. Like at the end of the day, what you need to be doing is selling. And that includes the service part. Like if you don't have a great service arm to your agency, like to your point, you need to partner with somebody, but you need to figure that out. You need to figure out how to, for your clients, supply a great experience of service. Because if they're just going back to the carrier, you know what happens every time? I love love boxes. They talk about this. Every time, like if let's say it's with State Auto and they go to State Auto, you know what they're going to say on State Auto's website? Bundle your insurance. Call us now. Like they're literally going to try to take your customer. Like if you don't have a good service arm, you're going to lose business. We see it all the time. People come to Better Agency and they're like, yeah, I have a 95% renewal rate. And we look at their data, I'm like, it's like 84% at best. At best, it's mid-80s. And the reality is, if you're really intentional about the service side and the renewal side, we can get that up into the mid-90s. But most people don't put in as much effort on the service side and what that actually means from cross-selling and the actual numbers behind what it means towards your client retention. Actually cross-sell them and bring in so that they're not just monoline, they have two or three or four policies with you. It's a massive difference.

Will Shaw: It's why Amazon is so successful. Nobody knows this, but they had a monopoly on the one-click upsell. Most people don't know that. They created a certain technology to do that that wasn't released to the public. Amazon owned that until literally like 2016. Some part of that technology. And I don't, you might know better than I, what that actually was, but that one-click upsell, it just changed the game. And they owned that until like 2016. One of the most brilliant things that Amazon ever did was "people who buy this also buy this and this." So think about this. They didn't just say when Will Shaw and people like Will Shaw buy a new football jersey, they also buy the matching socks and the matching football. Or just the matching socks. They said they buy the mat, the jersey, and they get the socks and they get the belt. So now you're going, well, I don't really need the belt, but those socks look dope. I'll keep the socks. So now you went to get a jersey and you just bought a $30 pair of socks instead. And maybe you buy all three, but you're probably going to buy at least one because the cheapo takes both things off, but you're not a cheapo, Will Shaw. You want the jersey, and because you're a true fan, you're also going to get the socks, but you don't really need the belt, and now they just got the upsell.

Will Shaw: When you think about that thing and how we're almost at this point where we've been brainwashed to think, what are the other things that people buy when they buy this thing? It's insane. It's just part of your consciousness. When you go to Amazon now, you're like, oh, today. So today I wanted to get my kid. We're really deep into little league. And I wanted to get him those Pio, Pio, Pio, Piro, Pilo, whatever they're called, a squishy balls, the heavy balls. So you toss them and they hit them and they're heavy and it teaches them to hit through the ball. Okay, great. So I went to Amazon because that's where you go. And I didn't actually end up buying the ones on Amazon and bought them someplace else. But I put them in my thing. And then I scrolled down and it was like, you also get the T and the special net that comes with it. So now you got the full set of stuff. And for a split second, my finger hovered over at all three to cart. And then I was like, no, no, no, I don't want these ones. I want to go someplace else. But it's funny.

Ryan Hanley: Yeah. That's brilliant. It's brilliant. First of all, I tell my wife this, I have a 16 month old daughter now. Like if I ever start another business again, it's for sure going after parents. I'm selling stuff to kids and babies and stuff, because there's not a dollar amount that parents won't spend on their kids. And I now know that firsthand. So it's like anything to do with kids. It's like, that's the business to be in.

[Host interjection begins]

Ryan Hanley: What's up guys. Sorry to take you away from the episode, but as you know, we do not run ads on this show. In exchange for that, I need your help. If you're loving this episode, if you enjoy this podcast, whether you're watching on YouTube or you're listening on your favorite podcast platform, I would love for you to subscribe, share, comment if you're on YouTube, leave a rating review if you're on Spotify or 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 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.

[Host interjection ends]

Will Shaw: Oh dude. Yeah. I've bought him this bat. It's a training bat called Camwood bats. Anyone who's into baseball might know about Camwood bats. Tony Gwynn recommends them and a bunch of other hitters, obviously when he was still with us. And what's funny is, so this is like straight out of ClickFunnels stuff, right? And the bats are great. They sell them at Dick's. They sell them at sporting goods stores. So it's not like the bats are a scam, but the way these guys have built their sales operation. Again, this is coming back to insurance, right? It's like a ClickFunnels. I think they literally use ClickFunnels. It looked very familiar. So it was like, I bought the regular size bat for his age. And then it's, well, for, you know, would be 97 today, 47, you can also get the one handed bat. And then the 30 day training program. But understand, if you click off this page, you're not getting the one handed bat and the training program. You have to come back and buy it for full price. And ultimately, I didn't do that, because I probably, at this point, am turned off by ClickFunnels.

Will Shaw: But I think this is the idea and I think this is what we're trying to say to people if they haven't already stopped listening. We don't do that at all. Zero. As an industry. For us, it's, "Oh, you need auto? Okay, I'll write your auto. Hey, maybe someday, please, if you're thinking about us, would you like give us a shot?" I hate "give us a shot." I hate "give us a shot at your whatever." It's like, no. You did your auto with us. Let us do your home. You obviously made that decision. Come work with us. And hey, have you even thought about an umbrella? Because 17 people in the last month who look just like you bought umbrellas from us too. And this is the type of way that we need to think about having everything. We can't survive on one thing. Every client you have should have every single policy with you. And the problem is, we think that's ideal. And that's not the baseline. It needs to be the baseline. Every client should have everything with you.

Will Shaw: And don't get me wrong. If you're like, "Hey, I don't touch commercial and one of my clients needs this." Well, then you need to be the liaison to refer that out and have some kind of partnership with somebody. But you need to own that. The expectation has been set that that's the ideal. That's the pinnacle. That's where we need to be. "We can't actually get there." That's what everybody says is the pipe dream. No, that needs to be the baseline. In my opinion, you need to own your client relationship from start to finish. And if you're not an expert in what they need, then you need to own that too and refer that out. Don't get me wrong. But the baseline needs to be, you write everything for a household.

Ryan Hanley: Yes.

Will Shaw: I would say you need to write everything that you can write with that person and that relationship.

Ryan Hanley: I wholeheartedly agree. This is something at Rogue that we've really worked on and we still work on it every day. We use a Billy Williams style declination sheet. And what we're working on is building that into our actual automation process. How do we tag and all that kind of stuff. We have cross-sell set up specific to certain industries for things like bonding and cyber and EPLI. And I'm actually talking to a Berkley company right now about EPLI auto, automatic cross-sells and quote bond and that kind of stuff. How do we do these kinds of things? People listen to me on the show talk about Propeller Bonds and ProWriters. And I'm not lazy. I'm not advocating for some of these companies because we're lazy. People are like, "Well, you should be talking to your customers." If my customer can ask six questions and get a cyber quote from nine different companies, I'm doing them a service. And if that comes through an automated text message or email that's dripped out at a certain number of days after they become a client, and now we can actually, if seven days after with one reminder, they don't actually purchase, we can then send them a declination form and say, "Hey, we just want to let you know, you did not purchase cyber from us. We sent you some things. We talked about it. We just want you to sign this declination form." We're doing a service to them. That's helping your client. And I just feel like we let that stuff go into the ether and forget that it even exists. And I know in large part, this is part of what you guys are helping solve is make it so that doesn't happen. But we too easily forget that someone is a client once they've become a client.

Will Shaw: Yeah, I agree. I mean, it just falls through. And it's so cliche, but at least to me and you probably, it's cliche. Maybe it is the industry, maybe it's not. But as a whole, I just don't know if the industry understands how much easier it is to sell something to an existing client. That is business 101. We know that somebody is 70% more likely to purchase from us if they've already purchased from us in the past. So why, why do you come and say, "You know what, my book of business is 80% monoline and I have a thousand households." Listen, in two months, three months, you should be able to increase your revenue by 50%. That's just the reality. I think some people just don't want to do it because they're kind of checking it in. I see that sometimes probably more than I care to in the industry, which is a little bit frustrating to me. But I think some people just don't know because it's not like I said, I don't think that's been the baseline. The standard set. I think that's like the pipe dream that's been set from an expectation perspective.

Ryan Hanley: Yeah, I think to be fair to people as well, depending on where you are in the maturation or the season of your business plays a large role in this as well. When you first get started, and I know you've seen this from some of the clients you've had and all the people that you've talked to, and it's what I lived for a little while. Thankfully, it feels like we're starting to move into a new season, but you are just surviving for a while.

Will Shaw: Survival mode.

Ryan Hanley: Yeah. And the unfortunate part is, I think for some of us, we never, whether we actually like financially get out of survival mode or not, I feel like mentally, we never trigger out of survival mode. I was talking to a guy today briefly about something who had a question. And he said, you know, he was asking me about VAs. And we were on the phone for 10 minutes. So I'm not gonna say this is a super long call, but he just, he was like, you know, he was asking me about Agency VA cause that's who we use. And I was giving him my feedback, which is obviously very positive. My longest tenured employees are at Agency VA. And he was like, "Wow." And I said to him, I said the key to any VAs, whether you use Agency VA or someone else, although I highly recommend Agency VA, agencyva.com, is you have to have process in place. You have to be willing to manage the person. Like they're an employee. I said, this isn't a robot that you're hiring. You have to have process and procedures and you have to track and do some auditing. But if you can get those things in line, man, you can get a really high functioning process driven employee for a price that will not break your budget. That was my feedback.

Ryan Hanley: And so Ryan, geez, you know, we just struggle with that because, you know, we're doing this and this, and I'm responsible for this. And I got to do this and we got to do this and this. And I go, "How long have you been in business?" "15 years." I was like, my head almost hit the table. I was like, you're 15 years in. You have, I think you had like 13 or 14 people and you, as the CEO, are still doing like eight or nine different functions in the agency. Like give up 30 grand and get yourself an assistant or something. I'm not trying to be judgmental because we're all in different situations. But if you have that large of a business and you are still doing nine functions as a leader, you're actually doing a disservice to your business. Regardless if it's insurance, you're doing a disservice to your business. You gotta get out of survival mode and get into a different mindset.

Will Shaw: Yeah, and I agree. And honestly, I would say to your community too, because that's why I'm passionate about independent agencies. It's the true local small business. And I love how that affects the communities. Especially when you talk to some of the Better Agency users and people like where they're at in the States location wise. And like those communities aren't necessarily thriving communities. It's really cool what they're able to do. And I get really fired up about that stuff.

Will Shaw: But, you know, I hate recommending this book because I think it's so played out, but there's a reason I think it's good. It's just this idea behind *The E-Myth*. You probably, I mean everybody's read that book I feel like. But it's that idea of when you start a business, you're the technician. You're essentially the producer, a one-man band. And then eventually you get another producer and you kind of do more of a CSR work. Then eventually you get a CSR and you kind of become the manager. And then eventually you get enough producers and CSRs, you get a manager. And I don't know that people always know how to make that transition as their agency is growing.

Will Shaw: Like I was actually talking to somebody about this, I think yesterday. Better Agency, when we started, I did sales. I did onboarding. I was a product manager. I worked with our tech team. I did literally everything. Now I think we're around 20-ish or 21 or 22 employees. I'm rarely in a product meeting. I am rarely in a sales meeting. And I'm never in a customer success meeting. I'm still involved in a lot of that. And there's other things I do. But we've built a rockstar team. And the things I'm working on today are the things people are going to see in three or four months. And I don't know that, as I feel like some of those agencies have struggled to make that transition. As your company grows, you've got to start working on what's coming out in three months instead of operating on that day-to-day. It's that classic line of working in your business versus working on your business.

Ryan Hanley: Don't get me wrong, I struggle. What was I doing before this? I was sitting on hold with the Marriott because I needed a reservation for our team going up to Iowa in the next month because I need to adjust something. Couldn't do it online. At the end of the day, I'm a glorified admin assistant to our own team because that's the way it is. We're still a very small company in terms of staff and technology. So it's all good fun.

Ryan Hanley: What I'm going to give you is the reason why most people do not make this leap that you have made. It is the little throwaway caveat that you just added on to the end. When you said, "There are still a lot of things that I do." Right. So you said, "I used to be part of this, but I'm not. I used to be part of this, but I'm not. I used to be part of this. But there's still a lot of things that I do." And I know what you meant. But that little mental trigger is why. And this isn't a knock on you because I would have probably said the same exact thing. But it's this idea of stepping out of those processes. Not you specifically, but the broader, all of us. Us stepping out of these processes as leaders or managers, whether it's departmentally or organizationally, because we stepped out of a process and gave autonomy to someone inside our business. There's this sense of, "Well, what am I doing now?" That was my role. Now I'm not doing that role anymore. And it's hard to say, "I'm going to add more value to less things" when you were all the things at one point. That is a very difficult thing to do.

Ryan Hanley: And it's one of the reasons why when I'm talking to someone in InsurTech in particular, and especially someone who's coming from the technology side or the business side, not the insurance side. One of the pieces that I vet very hard on when I'm trying to figure out how I feel about somebody or whether or not they're going to be successful is how much respect they have for what it takes to get an independent agency off the ground and where this industry came from. Those two things to me are cornerstones to InsurTech success. Insurance technology success. I don't want to say InsurTech because it feels so hard. Insurance technology success is like, if you can't respect the fact that even the three-person agency in the 7,000-person town, it was incredibly difficult to get that up off the ground and keep going. And those are incredibly hardworking people. And you can't understand and you have no respect for the fact that we've been doing this for as a collective 463 years or whatever it is at this point. If you don't have respect for those two things, you're really going to struggle in this marketplace. And even if you're not pitching into the independent space, just working in the industry, you're going to struggle.

Ryan Hanley: I look at Lemonade and then I'll be quiet here for a second. I look at Lemonade and it's as big as it gets. And the way he came into the industry, the way he's handled himself, the way he's talked about independent agents, the way he's talked about legacy carriers, zero respect. And while I am positive that he has made a tremendous amount of personal wealth from growing that company, IPO-ing and all that, that company will never even scratch the potential success that they could have had if he had come in respectfully, gained relationships, built bridges. That company would be 10x where it is today if he had come in in the right way and had respect for the people that came before him. He did not need to do the things he did. What he did was burn bridges, isolate that company. And granted, today he's probably on his second yacht somewhere after the... yeah, I mean that's fine for him.

Will Shaw: I want to touch on one thing and then I'll stop on the whole agency success thing. Cause I think this will resonate with you too. Cause just like, I feel like we connect on the sports level too. My life is a walking sports cliche. I try to avoid it. And now I just own it because my team loves it. And that's kind of how we operate. I think the coolest thing about independence is like, you hear a lot of people on their core values is like, "Hey, we're a family." We actually intentionally left that off at Better Agency. We're like, "Hey, we're a sports team. We're a team." And so one of the things when you talk about, "Hey, as you're growing your company, how do you feel like you're still involved in what you're doing and helping? And now that you're not producing anymore, doing this or that." I look at it as I ask a lot of questions, but I hire people that are better than me in every way.

Will Shaw: Our VP of Products, the guy, he built the campaign builder before automation was even a term. He built that before anybody had a visual. Our UX designer is way better. Our sales rep is better than me. Everybody on our team is better than what I did in that individual role. And so I think as a culture, what we've created is this idea of performance. And we have a lot of fun. And we treat it just like a sports team. Your family and your friends, and this might sound wrong to some people, but we're going to put the best person in that position. When I played college football, I was a safety. I was recruited as a safety and I moved to tight end. Why did that move happen? Because as a team, the coaches decided, "Hey, we have an athlete that's a better linebacker, better safety than Will, but he is still good enough to be on the field. Where can we put him?" They literally moved me all the way to tight end. And I was able to make that a profession. And I look at the same way at Better Agency. When we're bringing talent, we hire the best people, regardless of position.

Will Shaw: I think this will really resonate. When you talk about the Bills and why you think the Bills are good right now. And I'm reaching all over the place, but I'll get to my point here in a second.

Ryan Hanley: You're about to make my day.

Will Shaw: You talk about the Bills. You talk about the Steelers having a down year, but why I think they're always good. You talk about the Patriots, the Ravens, like these staple franchises. And I'm putting the Bills in that category because I think that's where they're at now with McDermott.

Ryan Hanley: They are. Bills.

Will Shaw: Right. And I think that's probably one of the first people to say that. But the reason I say that is they don't draft for need. They draft best player available. It does not matter. You don't draft for need. You draft best player available. I don't know an organization that does it better than the Steelers or the Ravens or the Pats. And I think that's what the Bills are doing and why they're having success. You take the best player available and you move people around and you figure it out. The Ravens this past year drafted a corner and they said, "You're never going to play corner for us. We have the best corners in the league. You're going to play safety." They draft best player available and they figure it out. And I think that's how we look at Better Agency. We get the best person in the door and we put them in that position. We move people around. And I think that's why we've had success in our team and our culture.

Will Shaw: And I think going back to what do you do as a company as you're trying to grow, where do you find that? You try to go and hire people that are better than you and ask questions and learn from them. Because getting better is so limited in your growth as your company. If I get my IQ better by one point or 10 points or whatever, or if I can get a little bit better, that's so limited. Can I get 15 or 20 people a little bit better? That's going to be way better growth as a company for our community and for clients.

Ryan Hanley: Yeah. And I think, you know, unfortunately ego still plays a tremendously large role in our industry. Just look at how many last names are the names of agencies. Not knocking any of you who have them, but to pretend as if that's not an ego play would be bananas, basically opposite the definition. And my point in saying that is, it is difficult for a lot of people to do this. You and I are saying this. I think it's one of the reasons that we connect. We're cut from the same mold. I purposely did not name this the Hanley Agency or anything even remotely close to that because I didn't want it to be about me. I can't wait for the day that I'm the 20th best player on that team. And we've never, we don't really refer to our, we don't go full sports analogy, but we don't think of ourselves as a family. We're more like a crew, I guess you could say right now. Plus we're small. So it's tough for us to be a team. We're kind of a crew. But that same thought process. And my point in saying that is, if you want this kind of culture, you have to also live that culture.

Ryan Hanley: There is this authoritarian aspect to the way some agencies are run. And I can say this because since I started hiring producers, I get calls almost daily from producers who are like, "Oh my God, I'm suffocating" or "I have to do this and this doesn't work." So I'm getting a lot of these insights and it is insane. The "I built this, be happy you're getting a paycheck" mentality still exists in our industry. Now I love that it does because I am going to poach every one of those agents and bring them over to Rogue. And I'm going to dominate. That's fine with me. And I'm okay saying that out loud, because I know you're not going to change. If you're living that today, it's not going to change. And if you're in that environment, call me. But that has to go. If you want this type of culture and you really want people to shine... I was literally just talking to my client success person. She lives in Florida. I've never met her in person. She's an absolute rock star. And I said to her today, I said, "How long have you worked here?"

Ryan Hanley: And she was like, "Well, nine weeks, 10 weeks." And I was like, "Holy shit, look at how much you have done in 10 weeks." Things I didn't even tell her to do. Like adding a whole tagging system based on how many days it's going to take to get a quote back, so that the producer knows in a finger snap when they should be expecting that quote back versus not.

Ryan Hanley: These are the little things, like you said with your campaign manager builder. These are the things that if you give people respect, and some space, and then hold them accountable for the things they say they're going to do, and you live and breathe just those three simple things... there's a lot more to it, but even with those three simple things, you will get brilliance that you didn't even know you needed. I didn't know that we needed that tagging system. I had no idea, but my producer loves it and it's working. Those are the kinds of things that if you try to have your hand in everything, you're just never going to get out of your business.

Will Shaw: Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Let's talk about how awesome the Bills are more. That would be an awesome way. I think the Bills are great. I'm biased towards the Bills.

Ryan Hanley: Now I got you on my Twitter feed. My brother-in-law who lives down the road from me, he's like a fantasy football expert, all into sports, but he's from Buffalo. He's a massive Bills fan. So I've got both of you guys constantly in my feed on the Bills. I feel like at this point in my life, I'm a Bills fan. I'm not playing like the Eagles where I have some loyalty still, or the Ravens just because I'm from Baltimore, or the Cardinals because I live here in Arizona. Minus those three teams, and probably even then, I still probably root for the Bills.

Ryan Hanley: First of all, I'm a Josh Allen stan. I stand by Josh Allen. When they went and got what's his face from Minnesota... Stefan Diggs. I was like, "That's the move." I thought he was the best quarterback coming out that year, followed by Lamar Jackson. I feel like I'm validated in that. I feel like those two are the best. I love Josh Allen. I love the gunslinger mentality. But between you and my brother-in-law, I feel like an honorary Bills man.

Will Shaw: I got family. I think you and I have talked about this. I grew up in Baltimore, but all my family, my mom's side, they all came from Italy and they all migrated to Rochester, New York. So I was in Buffalo all the time. I was never a Buffalo fan, but half of my mom's family, they're all Buffalo fans. Everybody in my family except the ones from Baltimore are either a Ravens fan or a Bills fan. So I feel like an honorary member.

Ryan Hanley: Hey, we'll take all that we can get. That's the best part of being a Bills fan is that we'll take everybody. It doesn't matter. They don't get enough credit for how they travel throughout the country. Bills fans are everywhere.

Will Shaw: Yes. It depends on how crazy you want to get, but there are Instagram feeds and Twitter feeds that you can follow of the random places that you'll see hashtag Bills Mafia spray painted on things.

Will Shaw: This goes to leadership, I guess, and just talking about Josh Allen. I really like the Josh Allen pick. I won't say that I was sold on it. I liked him the best out of all the options, but I wasn't like, "He's a shoo-in." Then before he even threw a pass, I saw the way he immediately embraced the culture of the town that he was coming to. It was uncanny. He finished it. Anytime he talks to the media, every single time he finishes by saying, "Go Bills." Every time. There's no "Geaux Tigers." It's every interview, every time, even if it's a three-second interview. Stefan Diggs caught the ball, he's the best, I love him to death, "Go Bills." Out he goes.

Will Shaw: You think about how prima donna a quarterback could be if they wanted to be. Here's this guy, he just got this enormous contract, and what's he doing? He takes the linebacker who's tackling him on a long run, reaches his hand around the back of the helmet, and as the guy's tackling him, he pile drives the linebacker's head into the turf just to say, "If you're gonna tackle me, you're coming down too." Then he jumps up and flexes and points, and you can watch his mouth yell, "Go Bills." You're like, "Is there someone who has just completely embraced the culture of a town?"

Will Shaw: My point in saying all that is not to go super Bills, obviously I love them and we're lucky. It's been so bad for so long, to have him is amazing. But you really have to live this stuff. You gotta be ride or die. That's why I'm a Josh Allen guy. You see it. It's why I'll ride with a guy like Baker or Lamar too, because you see it in those teams. Those organizations and those cities are ride or die behind them because they're ride or die for those cities. You've got to have that mentality, and I think you've got to have the same in our company. I'll ride or die with the people on my team.

Will Shaw: We talk about it. When we didn't make easy decisions, and you know this journey a little bit better than most because we've had some candid conversations. What we decided to do, we went to the team and we said, "We're going to plant a flag on the hill and this is ride or die. We're going to die on this hill. This is where we make the stand." We planted a flag and said, "This idea of a sales-driven AMS, we will die on this hill because this is what needs to be done." We'll see if we survive it or if we die. But it's so cool, bringing that type of ride or die mentality that you talk about in sports. What makes those players great and why people, as fans, can be so behind them is because they have this feeling of, "They're ride or die." I'll ride or die with Josh Allen because Josh Allen will put it all on the line.

Will Shaw: I think that's why I get so enamored. I can tell whether a quarterback is going to be good right away because of that and how they throw the ball. I can tell you that if Zach Wilson was on any other franchise except the Jets, he'd probably be a Pro Bowler. God, I hate Zach Wilson and the Jets. I do think he's going to be good. I think he's going to be great. I just can't wait till he's going to survive that organization.

Ryan Hanley: He's also not going to survive the Bills because we're coming for him.

Will Shaw: Here's to the point of planting a flag, and I want to be respectful of your time and of our audience. I could not agree more with that point.

Ryan Hanley: When we took on our team, when I started building the team, it was me for a very long time. Then I hired a VA and I was terrible to him because I gave him no process. I finally started to figure that out, but then I started to hire the broader team. Now there's five of us, including our VA. We made a decision about two weeks after we hired our most recent employee, Leslie in Florida. So this is probably first week of August. We got together as a team and I said, "Fuck personal lines. We're not going to be a personal lines agency." I'm not saying it'll never be part of our business, but we are not going to be a personal lines agency. We are wasting time and effort. It's not that I don't want to help people who need help, and we do get some referrals and we do help agents who have clients that move here, and I love doing that. But I'm talking about pushing into the market, marketing, driving, trying to be a personal lines agency. We're not going to be that. We are going to be small commercial. That's what we do. That's who we are everywhere we think about it.

Ryan Hanley: To your point about being a sales-driven AMS, when you give your team a target, they find ways to hit that target. It might not be how you thought to hit that target, and that's the brilliance of giving your team space and respect and accountability, but ultimately giving them that target. Does your team, everyone listening, does your team know what your target is? Do they know for a fact what your target is? If they don't, there's a reason you're not hitting your target. It's because they don't know where to aim.

Will Shaw: I can say this. One of the targets we have, the sales-driven AMS, this is the hill we're going to die on. Our people love it. One of the things we throw out there is we have this purpose. Our purpose as a company is to help independent agencies succeed. Our mission is to help issue a billion dollars of new written business premium. We track that through downloads from the carriers. We're trying to do it by our stretch goals, to do it by the end of next year, actually downloaded premium. We'll see if we hit that. The point is, everything we do happens to align to that.

Will Shaw: It was so funny. We were working on a project, talking about some product stuff, and one of our engineers stood up in the meeting. He was like, "Is this going to help an independent agent issue more premium?" And it's like, "Well, I don't know, is it?" All the way to our lowest engineer, to our customer success people, to whomever, it's like if we're going to make a decision, is this going to help independents issue new premium? Our whole company is aligned to that. Before we decide on anything, whether that could be a product feature, a marketing agenda that Nick does, or a customer success process or onboarding, is this going to help independents issue new premium?

Will Shaw: What blew my mind is me and our VP of product, we're local here to Arizona. About half our team's remote, the other half is here in the Phoenix metropolitan area. We went on site to a client. We were like, "Take us through your process." Even on personal lines, it is obnoxious how many steps you've got to go through. Let's say you get notified of a lead. What do you got to do to work that lead? You got to get this information. How do you get that information? You got to put it in a rater. You got to get that information. You got to put it into another system. You got to deliver a proposal. Do you want to call them? Do you want to schedule an appointment? Okay, now they've accepted it. Now you got to go back to the carrier. You got to reenter all of it. It is an obnoxious process.

Will Shaw: That's when the light bulb went off a couple months ago. We're like, "We got to solve that problem. We have to solve that. That's the hill." That's where this all came from. In that meeting, we're like, "We have to solve that problem because it shouldn't take two or three hours of manual effort to sell a personal lines policy." Branch, Clear Cover, Hippo, Openly, they'll all integrate with you. You guys are priority on it.

Ryan Hanley: I love Openly. I actually tweeted this the other day. I only want to work with carriers that are supportive of the independent space and will be tech forward. The problem is everybody says, "Well, carriers won't let you do that." Well, they're letting them do it with the InsurTech space. They're like, "Oh, we're not InsurTech. Better agents are not Broker Tech." InsurTech, they're letting all these APIs happen for InsurTech, but they're not letting it happen for Broker Tech. Then I don't want to work with you.

Will Shaw: That's the haves and have-nots. They look at some $10 million funded NBA-run dick organization and they go, "Well, these guys are going to generate a lot of leads, so we're going to give them whatever they want." Then, "Oh, hey, Mr. Independent Agent who's willing to pay for the same connection. Sorry, not worth our time." That's where I live. Openly.

Ryan Hanley: Yeah. I'm with you, man. I guess this is the last thing that I say on this show. We can always do another one. But to me, there is a reckoning coming with carrier tech. There is a reckoning coming with carrier tech. Today we are very broad in the number of carriers we have. That will not always be the case. Today it has to be the case for different reasons, but we are going to start selecting and paring down the carriers that we write business with. I refuse to believe that that carrier is doing me a favor by giving me an appointment. I am doing them a favor by selling their product. Granted, maybe our agency isn't moving their needle enough, so they don't really care. But that doesn't mean that that doesn't matter to me. You don't have to believe that I'm doing you a favor. I believe I'm doing you a favor. If you change that mentality, even if the carrier doesn't share it, it changes the way you view that relationship.

Ryan Hanley: I do think that there is a reckoning coming because I look at what Branch is doing. I think it's brilliant. When a company like Branch gets national, why would you put your business? I can have an appointment in every state that I'm licensed in a finger snap. I couldn't write my best friend's insurance in Vermont the other day. In order for me to get a personal lines appointment with any of my carriers, I have to talk to the regional manager and the vice president of this and the underwriter. I'm like, "Screw it. I don't care." And I just figured it out. It's changing. Those companies are driving, and we're trying to drive it too. I think independents have to drive it.

Will Shaw: I think now, and it might not be today, but to your point, it's going to be very soon. Independents are going to have the decision of saying, "You know what? I'm just not going to work with this carrier anymore because they make it too difficult to sell this insurance, and I can go somewhere else that's more integrated in my tech stack for my agency." That's kind of what we're trying to push the agenda on as well.

Ryan Hanley: Will Shaw, President, CEO, Founder of Better Agency. What do you call yourself?

Will Shaw: Co-founder, CEO. Really glorified executive assistant at this point.

Ryan Hanley: Glorified executive assistant of Better Agency. That's betteragency.io. Guys, you can go. No more dollar demo, but you can still get a demo, right?

Will Shaw: Yes, you can still get a demo.

Ryan Hanley: Still get a demo. Check it out. I've seen the back end of Better Agency many times. Guys, you couldn't find a better tech if it fits what you're doing. Everyone knows I don't use Better Agency, but that doesn't mean I don't believe in it and what you guys are doing. Enormous fans of you, Nick, and a lot of people over there. I wish you nothing but success, and I hope you keep pushing the envelope, man.

Will Shaw: Appreciate it. Cheers.

Ryan Hanley: Cheers.

[End of interview. Podcast outro begins.]

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