--:-- Ryan Hanley: Hello everyone, welcome back to the show. Today we have an absolutely tremendous episode for you. I'm going to be talking with Ciara Gravier, the founder of The Bunker Insurance down in Florida, doing tremendous stuff, commercial lines agency. Loves Ciara. She's an absolute killer, great at branding, great insurance agent, great agency owner, and someone I've wanted to have on the show for a long time. I'm glad we finally got a chance to spend some time. I just think the world of the way she thinks. I have tremendous respect for what she's doing, and I'm very happy to share her thoughts, her experience, and her story with you guys. You're going to love this episode.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Before we get there, I want to give a quick shout out to our newest sponsor here on The Ryan Hanley Show, Pathpoint. Pathpoint is a technology platform, a digital E&S wholesaler, enabling agents to get instant, bindable E&S quotes in minutes up front. It's easy. This is one of the platforms making it possible for Rogue Risk to dominate small business because we've partnered with platforms like Pathpoint that just make E&S change the game from being something you struggle with to something that becomes a simple part of your business. You can serve these customers and it really takes all the awfulness out of E&S. Pathpoint is a big part of our program here at Rogue Risk. So I encourage you to go to pathpoint.com. That's pathpoint.com. Guys, if you write E&S business for commercial, if you're writing E&S business, go to pathpoint.com today. Check it out. You're not going to be disappointed.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Also want to give a big shout out to Propeller Bonds. Wrote three more bonds last week with Propeller Bonds. Guys, for simple, straightforward bonds, for getting your clients what they need quickly. A lot of our clients have bonding issues in a pinch, right? They're not even aware that they need a bond and all of a sudden a requirement comes across the desk. Hey, to get on this job or to do this work, you need a bond. And they're scrambling. The traditional bond process is just terrible. It takes so long and there's stamps involved and all this crazy stuff. Propeller Bonds has completely changed the game. We use Propeller Bonds every day. Go to propellerbonds.com. Change your bonding game. E&S and bonding. Who thought this would be the next phase of the independent insurance agency world domination plan? I did. That's why they're sponsors. Here we go.
--:-- [The interview begins]
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Hey. Hey, what's up? How are you?
--:-- Ciara Gravier: I'm good. How's it going?
--:-- Ryan Hanley: It's Monday. Trying to solve all the problems that came up from Friday at five o'clock till this morning.
--:-- Ciara Gravier: Same, yeah.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I can't believe we weren't connected on LinkedIn. I always pull up someone's LinkedIn and I saw and I was like, oh shoot, I gotta fix that problem.
--:-- Ciara Gravier: Immediately.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: No, I'm excited to have you on the show. I've been a fan from afar for a while. Every time I talk to Caruthers, he's like, "Oh, see what CR's doing. Oh, see what CR's doing." And I was like, "I follow on social." So I'm just excited. Why I said except LinkedIn, apparently. Except LinkedIn.
--:-- Ciara Gravier: Yeah, because it's funny how... This is just a funny thing about the internet. If you follow someone in one place, which I think the place is probably LinkedIn and Facebook, I know we're connected in those two places, you just kind of assume that you're connected in all the places everywhere, right?
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Yeah, because in my mind, if someone had... I mean, not that anyone goes around and like, "Hey, insurance agent, are you connected to this other insurance?" Now that's like a video or a game show or whatever. But yeah, I would have said 100%. Yeah, absolutely. But all good. I appreciate you taking some time. I know you're busy running the agency and everything. I think you have a super cool story. I know you've told it on David's podcast, but no one listens to that podcast. I want to get it out to the broader market. I just wanted to ask a whole bunch of questions. So I have some questions for you.
--:-- Ciara Gravier: Hey, you can fire away too. I got a couple. This is a conversation. It is not an inquisition. So you can flip the script whenever you feel you want to.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I guess my first question is always, in scenarios like yours, why start your own agency? It's so hard. We started around the same time. I guess I started a couple months before you.
--:-- Ciara Gravier: Yeah. I think you were just like six months before. November-ish. We had started a little on paper. We started it earlier, but we weren't really doing anything.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Yeah. So that's not even six months. I was like five months, maybe four or five. I was the very beginning of March of 2020 when we launched. So you were like November 2019.
--:-- Ciara Gravier: Yeah. You know, we've had several agencies in my family. My dad had Allstate before. My parents always worked for corporate America and they were tired of being abused really in that and being overworked. At 49, my dad was like, "I've had enough. I'm going to open an Allstate." So I was with him during those long, hard days. We started from scratch. Zero. We didn't buy a book. And we built it up. Then we figured out that every Allstate agent has an independent on the side. So I opened up my independent. I was upstairs. He was downstairs. He would just walk people upstairs. At that time, people still came into the office, right? There was way more money to be made on this side. So we got rid of the Allstates. We had two locations. Got rid of those. Kept the independent. He ended up taking that over and he sold and now he's retired. Then I was like, "Well, what am I going to do?" I'm still young.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Right.
--:-- Ciara Gravier: So he always made it a point to tell me, "Listen, if you're going to stay in this industry, make it your career." He was always after me, "Get your designations. You're going to have to set yourself apart because you're young and you're a woman." It is what it is.
--:-- Ciara Gravier: So that's why I have a couple of designations. He was like, "You just have to show that you're invested in this as your career. It's not like you're trying it out." So that's what I did. And then what am I going to do? I liked the agency side. I hadn't really worked for anyone ever outside of high school. I had a job in high school at a veterinarian office, which I loved because I love dogs. But from working for my dad and responding to him as a boss to going... I've never done it. I've been very fortunate with that. So he was just like, "Just be your own boss. You can do it. We've done it twice." And he gave me the platform to try it again. He always pushes me to just try it again. I was like, "Well, yeah, I think I should." And here I am doing commercial only.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Okay. So this might be trivial, but did you ever regret letting the Allstate brands go? Was that a good lead gen or not?
--:-- Ciara Gravier: No. Never regret it ever. We learned a lot with Allstate as far as underwriting. I think that it's very good training for someone that has no knowledge of insurance. Very good training because, at least at that time, I'm talking 20 years ago, they were very hands-on, almost too hands-on. Once you got the hang of it and they still were hands-on, it's like, "All right, I got it. I know how to do it now." But we learned a lot. We've been very successful with being underwriters up front. We don't write bad business. Even at our independent, we never wrote non-standard business ever. We don't do that now ever. It does teach you some of the initial underwriting, how to make a complete submission, how to just do things right. So we were very appreciative of our time with Allstate.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Why do you think a couple is five in South Florida? Is it a South Florida thing? Because you said a couple designations and you have at least five designations. So I'm wondering, is that a South Florida thing where you say a couple and...
--:-- Ciara Gravier: No, I just want to brag. Okay, let's be real. The CIC and the CRM, you can get both together.
--:-- Ciara Gravier: So I was like, "Well, I mean, I have the time. I might as well do that." So that was a two for one.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: The only one, if you threw the CPCU on the end of it, one, you'd run out of C's. I don't think you can use any more C's on LinkedIn.
--:-- Ciara Gravier: I'm going to get rid of the last one. That's the one that I got first. It's nothing. It's not like real. I passed the first one. When we had sold, I was like, "Well, if I'm going to become an underwriter, maybe that one is good for that." I passed the first course. The second one was actuarial stuff. I'm like, "I'm out."
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Yeah, I'm out. And it's self-taught. So it's difficult.
--:-- Ciara Gravier: Yeah, that one's very hard.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: At my wife's agency, one of the women who has her CPCU, it took her like a decade. That's not because she's not brilliant. She's awesome at her job. If I could hire her away from my wife, I would. But it was just that hard and time consuming and the self-study. It was a huge deal when she got it. You buy the books, and if you don't do it within that window, they could update the material. You got to rebuy it. So I was like, "It's enough."
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I will say, and I'm going to develop some haters out there, I don't mean this in a negative sense, it is just an observation. People with the CPCU, I think tend to struggle if they're not of the right disposition in sales only because they're taught underwriting, which is say no. Here's all the reasons why you need to say no. Where sales is, here's all the reasons why I think you should say yes. I'm going to get ten freaking LinkedIn DMs. "I sell a million dollars in revenue every year, Ryan, on my CPCU." I'm just saying in general, broad sweeping stroke. I feel like it is a designation unlike the CIC, which I found incredibly helpful for sales. To a certain extent, I wish I still had it. I'm a dumb ass. When I went to Trusted Choice, I let it lapse. I'm an idiot. I wish I could have kept it going. But I've just found the CPCU sometimes is a little no-based because we're a little underwriting heavy.
--:-- Ciara Gravier: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: So I only did the first one, but I can understand how it's useful in that space more than on the sales side for sure.
--:-- Ciara Gravier: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Cool. So another thing I want to talk about is the brand. But the decision to go... Allstate is obviously highly... I mean, you have some commercial, but I'm sure you were writing tons of personal.
--:-- Ciara Gravier: Personal.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Right. Then you get the independent. I'm sure you picked up a little bit of commercial, but probably still did a lot of personal. When you started The Bunker, you went fully commercial. Do you do any personal at all?
--:-- Ciara Gravier: We did. We started doing some commercial because that's what we know. We did some commercial at our last agency. We bought a book. It had a couple of large accounts. So we know how to do commercial, but not like... That's why we joined Killing Commercial. Not the middle market stuff of trying to get in there. That's a whole other thing that we did not do. But I did start with some homeowners. It's impossible to get appointments here.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Almost nearly impossible.
--:-- Ciara Gravier: So I had some relationships with some of the homeowners carriers that had been with us in Allstate and they came through for me real big.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: That's great.
--:-- Ciara Gravier: But as soon as COVID came, they shut down. Everything is going to Citizens, which is the state. I do not write with Citizens. I don't want to. It's a hassle and they pay you nothing. So I was like, "I'm not going to open this agency to be a Citizens agency." So I checked this morning. I have 4% of my book is personal. I have about nine policies. That's it.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: That's pretty similar to us. I have this guy. He's a nice enough guy, but he has a $900 auto policy and a $481 homeowners policy with us. He wants to talk to me specifically. I said, "Hey Robert, can you talk to Leslie on my team? She has the answers that you're looking for." Which is basically like, "Dude, you're paying nothing for your insurance. Stay where you are." Especially because rates in New York, we just got an announcement, we're probably going to see 15 to 20% increases in rates, which we're going to see around the country. So it's just like, "Stay right where you are. You're perfect." And she says it. Then he writes me this whole big email about how he's concerned about his relationship with our agency. I emailed my wife and I'm like, "Do you want this guy? I will be aware of this account right now. You can have him. He's perfect. You will crush this guy and he'll be happy with you. He's not gonna be happy with me." So it's like, I'm with you. I feel like it's so difficult. The deeper I get into doing commercial and doing it better... I'm not going to say I do it right yet, because there's a lot of things I'd like to tweak, but certainly doing it better every day. The less I am, zero interest in personal. The premiums are big. I mean, the homeowner's policy is five grand, right? But dealing with the mortgage brokers and the realtors and the closings, and I don't have the staff to keep up with it and the service behind it. And the competition. I feel like there's not much extra value that you can add in that space.
--:-- Ciara Gravier: Personally, I feel like in the commercial space, especially because we are in South Florida, there's a lot of people that come from other countries that have money and are coming here to open businesses. They have no idea how anything works here. So I feel like we have... I mean, we speak Spanish, all of us here speak Spanish. So we're able to help these people find an attorney, find an accountant, set up their businesses from the ground up. They can trust us. That's the problem. They come here and they don't know who to trust. So I feel like... and it just makes me feel good because I feel like I'm actually helping someone. I'm not just slinging a homeowner's policy. "Here's your deductibles." I like it way more.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Have you gotten into the startup scene at all? I know Miami is one of the fastest growing startup and tech scenes in the entire country. Have you been able to tap into that at all?
--:-- Ciara Gravier: I haven't yet, but it is on my list. I've been noticing that and seeing the influx. I just saw last week, I think it was, there's about 16 companies coming in.
--:-- Ciara Gravier: I know that that's picking up. I probably know a little bit too much about not the specific companies. Just a couple of the podcasts that I listen to that are in the crypto space, not necessarily about crypto in particular, but they're just startup related. These guys are talking about how there are so many companies that are either opening up large offices here or moving offices here, or founders that would have normally started up in Silicon Valley are now founding in South Florida for a whole bunch of reasons. One, if you start your company there, you're not having to deal with California taxes and regulation. The other side is it's just such a budding new scene. It's cool. And you're right there, Fort Lauderdale. You're basically right there.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: That's cool. It's not far.
--:-- Ciara Gravier: Yeah. It's definitely on my list. I follow a couple of hashtags on Instagram of like women in tech, Miami tech and stuff. I'm seeing some of the events, which I'm going to go to.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: That's cool. Pop up.
--:-- Ciara Gravier: Yeah. I find that tech stuff is really interesting. We don't have a ton of accounts. I say all this to you and then, obviously I'm not drinking my own Kool-Aid. We have New York. It was only two and a half hours from here. I've gotten a few accounts from New York City that are startup tech related and they are really fun to work on. I find it a very interesting class. Who do you write them with? We've written Chubb and Hartford have been the majority. Chubb has a tech product. That's actually pretty good. I like it. But they tend to be fairly selective in who they'll write it with. So I've pretty much written all the rest of the tech with Beasley. Beasley has been the tech for us.
--:-- Ciara Gravier: I don't have any direct appointments like that. So I have to go through brokers. It's a challenge for me to even get familiar. I asked for specimens of the policies and stuff, but I live in the excess and surplus world.
--:-- Ciara Gravier: So that's been a challenge for me. Then you have these underwriters and these brokers that say that they do it all. Yes, they can do it. But that's why I started working with ProWriters and they've been very, very helpful. They're reliable. My underwriter there will take the time, explain things to me. I've really enjoyed my relationship so far with them because they're the specialists. I really like ProWriters. I use RT Specialty to get the Beasley because ProWriters doesn't have Beasley yet. Other than that Beasley relationship, I've gone to ProWriters quite a bit. ProWriters has been the big one.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I agree with you. I think Brian Thornton and what is her name? Our direct underwriters have just been very good, very professional. I liked that they have multiple carriers that they can walk you through. I think that's tremendous. So I don't know. I feel bad that you don't have any direct appointments. There's got to be a way, right? What is the... Why would they say no? What are they saying no to?
--:-- Ciara Gravier: Well, Progressive. I had a book with Progressive at my other agency for 12 years on their specialty commission. They won't give me an appointment because I don't have three years of... because I'm not an agency owner for three years.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Progressive is the worst though.
--:-- Ciara Gravier: But I grew business, good business with you. I'm on a higher tier commission for 12 years. So you're going to take someone that will show you that, "Okay, I've owned an agency for three years," but you've never seen me produce. That doesn't make any sense.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Is it the South Florida thing?
--:-- Ciara Gravier: Yeah, that's what it is. None of these people write property here either. So even I have access to The Hartford through Halcyon, which is also owned through Brown and Brown. So I don't like to use them. I feel like I can't trust them with my stuff.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: What might be a good fit for you is the Simon Agency, which is just a straight wholesaler out of New York City. They have Next, they have Hartford, they have AmTrust. For small liability policies, Next is great. Did you hook up Coterie?
--:-- Ciara Gravier: I did. Yeah, Coterie is great too. I'm very happy that they added hired and non-owned. Now I will use them.
--:-- Ciara Gravier: That was the other thing that I wanted them to add. I think they're coming out with it in early 2022, a sublimit for sexual abuse for some of their professional and sports and camp lines, like sports camps. I wrote a tennis instructor the other day who does events, and it was perfect. You get your GL, your PL. It's all together. It's super clean, super easy. But then we had to write the sexual abuse on a separate form, which sucked. Because then it's just another thing. But I'm very happy though. I have them and I haven't used them because I need that hired and non-owned. But I'm glad that they came out with it. It is very difficult to write a general liability policy today and not have a hired and non-owned endorsement on it. Unless they have that separate auto policy. I feel like it's going to be like so down here with the BOPs. It's a challenge because any of those BOP carriers, which there's not many still doing it, they won't do the wind.
--:-- Ciara Gravier: So I can't move them there and then not have the hired and non-owned. I have to give them at least that and then I do the separate property.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. I'm very happy that they came out with that though. That was a good one. Well, I think Simon would be a good one. I'll send you some other recommendations offline. These are not tried and set in stone, they're just some...
--:-- Ciara Gravier: I do have an AmTrust appointment for the comp. I have some direct. I have an AmTrust and ICW. AmTrust is good.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I wish they didn't do anything else. AmTrust is...
--:-- Ciara Gravier: Oh, they haven't opened up the rest. Just beat them over the head. Pound them over the head.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Pound them over the daycare.
--:-- Ciara Gravier: Right. Daycare. I have a direct appointment with AmTrust only for workers comp. I got a quote through Wesco for the daycare through Halcyon. I can't do it direct.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Here's my method for marketing reps. I will literally email them every... I'll just make their life hell. I'll just email, email, email. "Here's another account you lost. Here's another account you lost. Here's another account you lost." Finally they're just like, "What?"
--:-- Ciara Gravier: I gotta get more aggressive with that. It's a button push for them. The guy goes into a system and goes, "The Bunker open." It's not like... In their mind they're like, "Oh, we need to make sure that she's gonna write enough comp with us." I don't get it.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Well, here's what I said to him. I said, "Bro, if you open up your stupid comp restrictions and you make it so I can actually write accounts, I'll write accounts. But if you say..." The first nine things I sent to AmTrust, they declined. I was like, "Guys, this is not how you start a relationship." But they're like, "Well, you're new, so we got a heavier pen." I'm like, "Wait, just think about that. You want me to get rolling with you. You just sent me an email that said, 'Hey, let's get rolling.' Like some stupid marketing email. And you decline the first nine things because I'm new and you're unsure about my submissions. Where's the logic here?" Now I will say, once we had these talks, we've been writing more and more with AmTrust. But I just don't know. I have no problem talking smack about how these carriers operate at our level. Because this is why... It's a big game. If you were swinging some $3 million book, they would do anything that you wanted. They would do anything. "What do you want us to do? We'll do it."
--:-- Ciara Gravier: I had it though. You know, they can record like you have it. It should not be that way. It shouldn't matter.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Yeah, it really should.
--:-- Ciara Gravier: But AmTrust did come through. Our rep is super nice, very helpful. So I'm glad that I have them on my side. But that has been a challenge for me, putting business on the books because my arms are tied.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: That extended relationship is tough. That's one of the reasons. I will only work with excess lines brokers now who have quote-bind-issue platforms. So we're really developing relationships with Pathpoint and RT Specialty's version of that, which is RT Connector. I love these two platforms. I won't say that I have a winner or loser yet. They both have advantages and disadvantages. I'm perfectly fine using both of them. I like both of them. I think both are doing a good job. I'm very happy and excited about this movement to where some of these smaller excess lines accounts and property accounts in particular... I had a guy, he needed $50,000 in property coverage for chemicals that he stored that weren't necessarily hazardous, but they were chemicals. Who the heck is going to write that? So it's excess lines. Normally I got to put together a 125, I got to put together a 140 or whatever it is. That's so much time. With Connector, you just jump in. 10 seconds later, you're like, "Oh, $700. Perfect. Let's go." That's a game changer.
--:-- Ciara Gravier: It is, especially for someone like me. Everything I do has to wait. I have to wait. I got this one really good underwriter now. He's young. I have his cell phone. I can text him. I call him and he turns things around for me same day. That has had a substantial change in our agency because now he's my first choice. Even the prior relationships that I have, I can't wait two days for a quote anymore. I just can't.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I really struggle with... I had a carrier give me the franchise value talk the other day. "Do you understand the franchise value of having an appointment with us?" I was like, "No, what am I getting? What does that get me? How much are you increasing the multiple on my agency when someone buys me because I have an appointment with you? I don't know." They were responding to my beef. They were like, "Well, how come we're not getting as many submissions as we did earlier when you first were starting?" I said, "Well, I've taken on a couple more carriers and they respond to me quicker. I could care less if I write them with them or you." They were blown away. They were like, "What? What do you mean you don't care?" I'm like, "I don't care if I place the business with you or them. Whoever gets back to me first is who gets the paper. The words on the pieces of paper in your contract are almost verbatim to the words on the paper in their contract. So I don't care if it's with you or with them. It's whoever gets back to me first. If I got to wait three days for you and they're getting back to me in a day, they're getting the business. I don't care about franchise value. It doesn't mean anything to me."
--:-- Ciara Gravier: This morning, I just got a declination for a workers comp account that had an effective date of 10/22. We sent that to them in September. This morning, I sent it to Guillermo. I said, "Just in case you were waiting. Here it is. Here's your declination."
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Well, here's the worst part. Someone was working on that. That's the crazy part. There was someone at a carrier who was working on that account at six o'clock in the morning. They're like, "Oh, I got to get this out declined." And they're wasting... You're like, "I didn't even know that this was still out there." They had already declined it. It's baffling.
--:-- Ciara Gravier: It's baffling.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: And then you get the... Again, we're just trashing carriers right now, but I think they need general ribbing. We're all partners. I get it. We all need each other. But like the same point... I got this from my Chubb guy the other day. "Ryan, you don't understand. We're having a hard time staffing because of COVID." I'm like, "Bro, we're almost 24 months into this thing. You need to figure it out."
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Like, come on, you're Chubbed. Throw a freaking Indeed, ZipRecruiter, LinkedIn, LinkedIn Recruiting. Like, there you go. Go get some. I mean, that's not an excuse at that level. I just was like, bro, this is taking way too long.
--:-- Ciara Gravier: Right.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: He's the nicest guy too. He's the nicest guy. I have no beef with him. I just like, man, because I know it's not him doing the staffing or making any decisions. He's just the messenger. But I'm like, dude, I don't care. Everyone's having the same issues. You're not special. We're having the issues of finding people. So, I mean, we can't tell that to our customers.
--:-- Ciara Gravier: Yeah.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: So, what stuff is working for you? You've had this very unique career where you haven't had to go work for it. You've been able to craft and have a lot of autonomy and insight into running the business. You've seen personal lines, you've seen captive, you've seen independent, and now you're fully commercial, essentially your own agency. What is the stuff that's really hitting home for you? What do you get excited about?
--:-- Ciara Gravier: Yeah, we joined Killing Commercial and what we're doing there has really been the best thing we've done. I did some commercial before, but it was either bought in the book or it was a referral. We never went and got it ourselves, those large, middle market accounts. So learning how to do that has been very good. I think if COVID wouldn't have happened, I don't know that I would have made the investment into Killing Commercial because I would have been busy doing homeowner's policies. So for our agency, we used that time to really learn how to get our foot in the door, the process, and the lingo to speak.
--:-- We just had our first target from Killing Commercial that we went after. We didn't get the account, but it was us versus Brown and Brown, which was the incumbent. We asked all the right questions. She had a mod above a one, we did everything textbook. Then we asked the question, "Listen, you don't have an insurance problem. You need risk management. They're going to close your doors if you don't get this under control," because she had a lot of auto losses too. She said she was not going to sign the BOR, and we were like, okay, we did it anyway. We felt like we needed to get that experience at that level, especially going up against Brown and Brown and another really large agency down here in South Florida. So we went through the process and learned. At least it gives us the confidence to ask the questions.
--:-- She was helpful. She gave us all the information we needed. We even asked her what her connection was to her Brown and Brown person, because she had just gotten to them last year, so this was her first renewal with them. We're like, okay, she's not connected. There's not a relationship there. She ended up staying with them, and when we were presenting what we had, she's like, "Oh, you know, I do a lot of work for them. You're electricians." We're like, "Why did you waste our time?" But that experience has already given us the knowledge of how to ask the questions and how to get our foot in the door. It was necessary. We learned a lot. It was a win for us anyway.
--:-- Right after that, we realized the way we used to do commercial—someone would call and say, "I need a GL," and we'd say, "Here's some supplementals, fill it out, we'll talk"—that's torture. Now, we got a phone call from a referral, a lady from an elevator company. She got hit with an audit because her agent misrepresented the sales. We said, "We can't help you until you hire us." Before, I would have tried to fix it and then hoped she gave me the policies. Doing business this way is way more fun and obviously profitable. I'm not going to work for you until you hire me. That's the biggest piece.
--:-- I got a call last week. I sent an email saying, "Hey, I know you probably already got your renewal, but you're paying 40% more on your comp. Did you know that? What has your agent told you?" The lady called me crying on the phone. "My agent is not helping me. I'm getting non-renewed. We need help. Can you help us?" I got her non-renewal lifted because I wrote a narrative about them. I ran the loss runs, the mod report, everything. A submission this tall. And I got her non-renewal lifted, and her agent couldn't do that.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: That's awesome.
--:-- Ciara Gravier: That makes me feel like I saved these people's business. That warms my heart. I was like, this is what I love to do.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: [To audience] 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 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. 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 before they come on. So as I reach out to more people and want to bring them in, I need your help. Share the show, subscribe if you're not subscribed, and I'd love for you to leave a comment because I read all the comments. If you're on Apple or Spotify, leave a rating review. I love you for listening to this show, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do creating it. All right, I'm out of here. Peace. Let's get back to the episode.
--:-- I think that's awesome. I love that part too. I think that's probably why most of the people listening love what we do—when you get to be a true value provider, a problem solver. It's great. What I struggle with as a business owner is that I want to help both types of people. I also get off on building the systems and processes around helping that person who's calling you, buying their first truck or their car. And man, can some of those be a pain in the ass? It can be such a pain in the ass. But I wrote down really early in Rogue's history this concept of "no customer left behind." I'd been in so many rooms where agents would say things like, "Those small accounts, I don't want them," or "Excess lines, we don't do that." I completely get why they say that. It can be a hassle. People who have $500 BOPs, you're making $50 or $60 total. You have to remind them for their payments, and they still call you. I get all that.
--:-- But there's another part of me. Maybe it's a personality thing, but the fact that other agents look at that stuff and don't want it makes me want it. I see opportunity. We're getting into excess lines big time, writing a lot of it, mostly because other agents don't want to deal with it. We don't have a threshold. We've even scaled down the people we were going after because we feel like we can't provide value. For example, if they have a board that decides, I don't feel like I'm useful.
--:-- Ciara Gravier: You probably would be.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I probably would be, but I just don't. I like to help. We have a manufacturer here from South America, a hundred thousand dollar account with him and his partner. They call us for everything because they need help. That is what I love. That business owner who has the money to do it but really needs some guidance. I'm not making $25,000 in revenue on those accounts, but I'm okay with that.
--:-- Ciara Gravier: I'm with you. I think there's a lot of that in small commercial. For our agency, we define anything under $150,000 in premium as small commercial. That's our space. Anything over $150,000, we call middle market. That's probably still small for some true middle market shops, but for us, that's the thing.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Mine's probably lower. We have what we call "Select Business" which is $25,000 in premium and under. That is very transactional. It's, "What's the problem? Here's the solution. Do you want it or not?" We have a very defined process, a very defined funnel. It's step by step by step. Get through it fast. Anything over $25,000 in premium we call "Rogue Premiere." That's true small business. Anything under $25,000 is probably micro. But over that $150,000, we would have to put some thought into it. We only have one account at that level right now. We would have to put real thought into whether we were willing to take that on, because I would be nervous that we're not set up to handle that kind of account today.
--:-- Ciara Gravier: That's how I feel. I'm not set up for it. Not saying one day, the goal is to be set up for it, but right now I'm not. The service is heavy, especially if they're contractors or manufacturers. We have one that we charge a policy fee on because they do so many COIs.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I have such mixed emotions on fees. I've come around to them, but I just told someone last week, "Maybe I'm not meant to make money," because I feel bad. I feel like it's my job to do that.
--:-- Ciara Gravier: I used to a hundred percent agree with you. Policy fees are for scoundrels. Like, why are you feeing this? We get paid a commission.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Agency Zoom released this service pipeline feature which tracks time per task. Now I can actually see how long it takes to go through a task, how many touches. It's pretty cool. Two things I saw were COI requests and billing were our two biggest time sucks. We solved a lot of the billing issues by moving over to Ascend, a payment tool. But for the COIs, we're working on streamlining. Some of these accounts, we're talking three or four COIs a day for one account. I did the math on that. It's comp, so we're only making like 9%. I'm like, we're getting killed. You don't have a portal or a self-service portal?
--:-- Ciara Gravier: We're on NowCerts now.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I've been getting a lot of crap for trashing NowCerts lately, so I don't want to have any. I have Hawksoft as my management system. They have a portal, I guess, but I haven't used it. I'm hoping something like Glovebox is awesome, but I assume it's going to take a while. So basically, our VA through Agency VA, his number one, two, and three responsibility is COIs. When one comes in, he drops whatever else he's doing unless he's also doing a COI. That's a full human body task dedicated to one thing. He backfills smaller tasks when he has time. So we policy-feed that account, and they didn't even blink. They said, "Oh, that makes sense. I was actually waiting for that because we send so many requests." So am I on the dark side now, or am I an idiot?
--:-- Ciara Gravier: I don't know. I'm struggling with it. I feel like I could use that against the agency that does charge them. The difference is you did the math. I've thought about this because it's a tough topic. There are people listening who policy-fee everything, and there are people who would never do it. If one of my competitors took this account and didn't charge a policy fee, I'd be fine with it because I'd know they were losing money. I've done the math. The reason I did it—and I don't think the policy fee was outrageous—is because I did the math on the amount of time versus how much we were making, and we were losing money without it. For a rewrite, I'm down with the policy fee because if you cancel, you deserve it. But I'm struggling with it.
--:-- The podcast you did with James Jenkins was so good—the one about "Are you running a business or are you running an insurance agency?" Ever since I heard that, it's been a struggle. I am an insurance agent first, trying to do this side better. Now at renewal time, I sit with my list and think, "What am I making on this account? Is it worth it?" I'm thinking in revenue now, which has been a shift. It multiplies quickly with policy fees. So I'm trying to think... I think you just set a poll. If you can get a close calculation on revenue for a specific account, it's just a calculation. I would not have policy-feed this account if the math didn't make it unprofitable. The commission on the policy versus the time it was taking with the number of COIs made it unprofitable. And with the VA, it's not like we're paying a full-time client success person who's licensed in the U.S. If this was someone here in the States at States rates, we would have been slaughtered.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I think the hardest part of our business is the self-awareness of, "Am I a producer, an agency owner, or an agency owner who sometimes has to produce?" That's a very tough question for a lot of people. I recently had to let a producer go. Thankfully, I hired another one on the same day who just started today. Shout out to Will. The last two weeks have been all hands on deck. This is the first time I had to look through a producer's email inbox who I had to let go. It's like knifing yourself in the chest every 30 seconds. You see a bind order he never forwarded to the service team. So many things undone. You're like, "How is this person existing?"
--:-- Ciara Gravier: That's why I just finished reading Traction. There's two of us here, so I'm trying to scale it down to what I can implement right now. That's one of the things about firing quickly. If you were back and forth about letting this person go, how much did you miss of what they didn't do?
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Here's the crazy part. I'm candid about numbers. His goal was $65,000 in premium, which to me felt like a layup. We have 215 leads a month that come into our agency inbound. This is like Michael Jordan putting a perfect pass right on your hands as you're going up. This doesn't get any easier. He was not hitting that number, not even close. No big deal. I'm training, I'm trying, and I'm not the best trainer, so some of this is on me. To Traction's point, I think it was more of a "right butt, wrong seat" situation. I think he's going to have a tremendous career in the insurance industry. I would give him a very positive review. It just wasn't right for us.
--:-- In two weeks of me producing on these leads, we had our first $100,000 premium month in our history. Seventeen months in, six figures in premium in just two weeks of me working. I'm having panic attacks because I'm like, "We could have been doing this for months and months. I probably could have had another two or three producers by now." Now I'm questioning life decisions.
--:-- Ciara Gravier: What do you do? What is the solution?
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I think I made a couple of mistakes. One, you need to have a true sales manager. That would have had to be me. Someone in your agency has to be a sales manager. "How many calls did you make today? How did they go? What do you have?" That annoying stuff that sales managers do is important because it forces people to stay on it. I was a poor mentor. I take full credit for that. I'm doing a few other things that not every agency owner does, and I didn't slow down and be a real mentor. I should have been that, and I wasn't. I take full responsibility. If I had done those two things differently, I would have caught it or moved in a different direction earlier. It was a really good lesson as a leader. I'm glad it happened early. It does make me want to run headfirst into a wall thinking about it, but whatever.
--:-- You said you had questions for me. I want to be respectful of your time. Fire away.
--:-- Ciara Gravier: I need to book time on your calendar. You told me a while back about SEO, and I haven't. Do you have a crypto calendar where I could ask you questions about that? Is it too late for me to get into it? My brother-in-law constantly tells me, "What are you waiting for?"
--:-- Ryan Hanley: If you want to get into crypto, it's never too late. The cool thing about crypto is it's never too late. Do you like to go to the casino?
--:-- Ciara Gravier: No, I don't.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Do you bet on sports?
--:-- Ciara Gravier: I don't do any of that.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: All right. The good news is you're not a degenerate gambler. The bad news is you won't be attracted to the 24-hour nature of the gambling that is cryptocurrency. That being said, the cool thing about crypto is that no one really has any idea what it's going to be. I think we're in the top of the first inning if this were a baseball analogy. We are just getting started. People will say, "In 2017, all these things were a hundredth of what the value is today." But in 2017, this was such a long shot. You had to be a crazy person to put any substantial amount of money in. The people you see on TV who changed their whole life—they were living in a gutter and now they have their own yacht—those are crazy people. They cashed a one-in-a-trillion lottery ticket.
--:-- Today, I think it's a little more stable. I don't think the technology and the networks being built are going away. What they're going to be valued at, which ones are going to be winners and losers—you can have opinions, and I certainly do. I just don't know that anyone knows for sure. Bitcoin seems like it's not going away. Ethereum, a couple others feel like they're not going away. What they're ultimately valued at—do they go to a million? Do they go down to $10? I don't know that anyone knows. But it does feel like they're going to be here. The technology itself, which I've really nerded out on, is incredibly interesting.
--:-- I had a guy from Steady State DeFi Insurance on the podcast. His episode is maybe four or five weeks ago. He said some really cool stuff on the air. The stuff he said off the air was even more incredible. I can't really share exactly what it was, but he's 25 years old, who the hell knows, but he seemed pretty brilliant to me. He's like, "We are literally just getting started." I would say take some small amount of money, very small, whatever that is for you. Get a Coinbase account and buy some Bitcoin, some Ethereum, some Cardano. Just buy four or five of the blue chip cryptocurrencies and watch them. Naturally, you'll do a little research, and that will turn you on to something else. If something fun happens and one of them goes crazy, you win. I have my bets on the table. I haven't bought in in a while. I've just been letting it ride. It's interesting.
--:-- Ciara Gravier: I know it's a whole thing. I don't feel like I have the time to dedicate to it. You're up at all hours doing stuff if you're really heavily investing.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I started reading about it about this time last year. It's been slow. I listen to a couple of podcasts when I'm in the car, catch 20 minutes of a show talking about something. I have a really hard time when something catches my interest—I can't stop reading about it because I think, "What if that next piece of knowledge is the piece that changes everything for me?" It's a crazy way to think, but I don't know.
--:-- Ciara Gravier: I get that. Just one more nugget and it could set it off.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: XRP army for life. If anyone listening knows what that means, I still believe in XRP big time. What other questions do you have?
--:-- Ciara Gravier: Give me your best piece of advice for the protégé. I'm one of the coaches. What do I do?
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I would say, and I mean this not negatively towards anyone in particular, figure out who's there to win early. That doesn't mean you can't help everybody. But I found that there were a couple of people I invested substantial amounts of time in who then all of a sudden were like, "Eh, I don't feel like doing this," and just bailed. You're like, "That was three or four hours of my life, and you just pulled the parachute." The time spent with Keating, because he took it very seriously from the very beginning, was wholly bought in. He didn't end up winning, but Carothers was awesome and gave all three of the final memberships. I really enjoyed being part of his journey. Just the questions and watching him work through things.
--:-- Ciara Gravier: Who's your co-coach? We don't know yet.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Ricky Hader was the co-coach for our team. I found it very valuable listening to the way Ryan would ask us a question, and Ricky would have a different spin. I learned a ton from Ricky as well. The whole experience was a pleasure. David's great. The community is great. I think it is well worth investing time into the process.
--:-- Ciara Gravier: I'm definitely going to learn from anyone I'm paired with. I'm excited to learn because I love to learn. That's what's great about this industry. Everyone can achieve success however they want, and everyone has a different roadmap to it. There's always things you can learn from anyone else. Are you going to IOA?
--:-- Ciara Gravier: I wish I was. I am not.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Oh, no.
--:-- Ciara Gravier: I know. I know.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: It is. It is nothing to do with IOA. I will be there in spirit. I promise. I have to go to Arkansas on the fifth for a speaking gig that was supposed to happen in the spring of 2020. They rescheduled it for this week on the fifth, so that was my primary obligation. I'm looking forward to it. I don't want anyone to think I'm not. But that, and then I've been on the road the last two weeks as well. This will be three weeks in a row. The idea of going two weeks ago, last week, and then going to IOA this week, and then parlaying IOA into this speaking gig at the end, it was more than I can handle with bringing on a new producer and everything. But there was this little part of me last night where I was like, "Wonder how much plane tickets are."
--:-- Ciara Gravier: You can at least come to the bootcamp, right?
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I'm going to miss the boot camp, yeah. It's a bummer, but I am not going to be there. That should be a tremendous time. I'm excited.
--:-- Ciara Gravier: Yeah, it's about a three-hour drive for us, so we're leaving tomorrow.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: What now? Okay, so you're in Fort Lauderdale, so you're going north and west. I'm actually going to be right across Alligator Alley from you in Naples on the 9th. My wife's family has a house in Naples, her dad. Once or twice a year, we go down there. It's a golf community set away from the ocean. I love the ocean, but it gets noisier closer to the coast. It's very quiet. You can just woosah and let the stress fall off you. We usually don't go for a full week. It's hard because my wife owns an agency too. I own agencies. It's two separate entities. It's tough to be away from it that long. So we try to get the woosah, spend some time, and then come home and get back after it.
--:-- Ciara Gravier: Yeah, Naples. We went there this year for our anniversary. Our brother-in-law and our friends rented us an Airbnb. It's really nice and very relaxing. The sunsets are beautiful and you can see dolphins in the ocean. Marco Island is beautiful.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Yeah. What do you drink? Wine?
--:-- Ciara Gravier: I do a little. I'm not really a wine drinker.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Okay, well there's a really good wine shop there in Naples. If you're into natural wines, there's a little boutique wine shop that we drive to from here.
--:-- Ciara Gravier: Oh really?
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Yeah, the guy drinks mine, so maybe I'll take her there. It's funky wines though. I don't know if she likes conventional wines or sulfate-free, low intervention.
--:-- Ciara Gravier: I have never referred to my wife as funky before.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Your wife is a beast.
--:-- Ciara Gravier: Okay. I have referred to her as that before. She is fit.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Yes. She has figured out the optimal way to relieve the stress of her day-to-day life and she enjoys it. No matter how hard I work out, it doesn't matter. I look like a slug next to her. She texted me today, "I'm going to work out for the second time today." I worked out this morning and so did she. Then she texted me, "You want to go to Orange Theory?" She has Orange Theory for the cardio part. She said, "You want to go to Orange Theory, Stephanie?" I said, "No." She said, "Well, I'm going at four and I think you should go because I think it'd be fun." Then she said, "I signed you up. You're going. I'll see you there at four." I was like, "Oh shoot, now I gotta go."
--:-- Ciara Gravier: Her asking you was just her being polite, I guess.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Yeah, that's awesome. Well, I want to be respectful of your time. I appreciate you so much. I'm glad we did this. As your agency evolves and things go on, we've got to have you back on again. I have a whole series of questions I wanted to ask you about your branding and the marketing and all that. We never got to any of that stuff. That's a great reason to have you back on the show, which we'll do in a few months. It'll be fun. I just appreciate you coming on. I love what you're doing. Thank you for sharing.
--:-- Ciara Gravier: Thank you. I had met you at Elevate. I think that convention really did such a good job there. You've done so much for our industry and agents. You and Paradiso, the GNN guys, Carruthers, Jason Kass, you guys have really made an impact. I've been here since I graduated high school. The industry is shifting in the right direction. I think you guys have been working hard to make ripples and it's happened. It helps people like us that are young and coming in with not a lot of support. I do have that platform, but for other agency owners that don't, you guys have been a really good asset to our industry. Thank you. I'm glad that we've kind of become friends.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Yeah, me too. I hope you enjoy your trip in Naples. The next convention we'll see you at then.
--:-- Ciara Gravier: Yes, for sure. And again, I'm not not going for any other reason than that I can't go. Sometimes people read into things. Please do not. This is only because I want to remain married to my very fit wife. If I travel that much, she will not be happy. Also, you're coming here and then by the night you have to be back in Naples. That's a lot. You're right.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: All right. Thank you. Have a great day. Take care.
--:-- [End of interview. Advertisement begins.]
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