--:-- Ryan Hanley: In a crude laboratory in the basement of his home... Hello everyone, and welcome back to the show. Today we have a solo episode for you, something we haven't done in a long time. I wanted to update you on what's going on with Rogue. I wanted to make sure that I connected with you guys in general.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I feel like lately I haven't been as motivated to help, to be, to share. Not that I don't want to, or that anything has changed with my desire to help you guys do better. It's probably worth sharing this with you guys now just because I've had some people reach out to me. Some people know, some people don't. But I'm no longer married.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: That has been a personal struggle for me that I've been going through since December. For a whole bunch of reasons, it hasn't really impacted my work at Rogue, because I've just kind of doubled into that work and really put my mind to making sure that Rogue Risk is everything that I dreamed it could be. I want to make good on the promises that I made in my deal with SIAA. Obviously, anything I've committed to with them, my actual dreams and personal goals for Rogue are probably 3x, 10x, who knows, just bigger for the most part.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: So I haven't really impacted that too much, but I haven't felt inspired. "Inspired" is such a bad word because you get inspiration through doing work. Maybe this is step one of doing that. But inspired, motivated, whatever, the creative side of me has been kind of dead lately. I've been trying to coax it back into existence.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: If you follow me on Instagram, I've been posting a lot about just working out. I've used lifting weights in particular, also added some yoga, some hot yoga recently, which has been awesome. I do that twice a week to mix in between lifting weights and just always being active. I hate running, so I don't run very often, but I go for walks and listen to podcasts or just think. I'm trying to use physical activity and Rogue to take my mind off some of the stuff that's going on in my personal life.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: All of it, coming back to the reason I started this little contextual diatribe, has been to say that I realize I haven't been as good with you guys. I haven't shared as much lately. I haven't been as open. I haven't been as willing to make phone calls with people. I always prided myself on taking phone calls, even if they're 15 or 20 minutes, just talking through and helping someone with their problems. I scheduled a lot of those on Fridays, and I've done that for years.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I've been public in the space for 10, 12 years now. I guess 2009, so what's that, 13 years? I've been in insurance for 17 years, or 16 years. 16 years in the business, been sharing online for 12 years, helping you guys, doing speaking gigs. Frankly, I haven't taken as many speaking gigs. Right now, I have zero speaking gigs booked. Some of that is I just wasn't taking any, and some of that is I haven't been as active in the space, creating and helping, which is something that I absolutely love to do. It's cathartic for me.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I also feel a sense of obligation to this industry for everything that it's given me. I've said that a bunch of times. Not obligation in a negative way. I feel like I owe, in the most positive sense, you guys, you listeners, the industry, the people of our space, everything that I have in my life. It has all come from the obstacles, challenges, amazing experiences, friends, colleagues, competitors, people who've called me at two o'clock in the afternoon on a Tuesday to yell at me. Most of those were board members of the National Big I.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: But all those battles have turned me into the professional that I am today, the leader I am today, hopefully the person that I am today. Someone that I just enjoy. I enjoy who I am, and I owe that so much in large part to the people of our industry, you guys. So when I hit a spell where I don't feel creative or I feel like I'm not adding value to you guys, that impacts me too.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: This isn't an excuse, but just being authentic and transparent with you guys as much as I can be, the last few years have been really tough. Getting fired, let go, whatever, from TrustedChoice.com, having that kind of fall apart. I loved working there. I loved what we were doing, and having that kind of fall apart was tough. Bold Penguin was never a good fit. I took the job at the fitness company and thought that was going to be a good thing, though different and not what I expected. Then that came to a screeching halt when that a-hole fired me for no reason. Ego is a mother.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Then starting Rogue, having COVID hit, and feeling like I was never going to get it off the ground. I put $30,000, $40,000 of my own money into this startup agency that felt dead on arrival much of the time. Getting through that, and then having everything happen between my ex-wife and I, has just been tough. Some of it is I just got to shake it off and get through it. Some of it is surrounding myself with good people, which I've tried to do. And some of it is just life. I have to look at all of it as an obstacle to be overcome, to learn from. Those things are far from the worst things that could possibly happen to me, and keeping that in perspective is very important.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: My kids are doing amazing. My relationship with them is amazing. Just restarting my life in a new apartment and all that kind of stuff has been tough, but so many things are good too. That's really what I want to talk about. So we're six or seven minutes in. I apologize for being so negative. I just wanted you to know that I'm aware that I feel like I haven't been living up to my end of the bargain and sharing with you. I'm going to try to be better about that because I love delivering value to you guys.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: In return, I do get a lot out of it. I get a lot of joy out of helping other people and seeing that light bulb come on over someone's head. Especially when I am doing speaking gigs and I'm out in the world, you say something and you see somebody sitting at a table or in a chair and their eyes change because something hit them. Or you get a message from somebody on socials or email that they listened to the show and one episode just caught them and turned a switch for them. That stuff just turns me on so much. It's what I live for.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I don't know how to be selfish, to a fault probably in many ways. I don't get very much joy from my own wins. I just don't. I get joy from helping other people have wins and watching them grow and evolve. It's always been the case. That's why I'm not a great negotiator in my own contracts and stuff like that. I just don't care about my own success as much as I care about the people around me. That's been something that I've really seen at Rogue. I love my team and I want them all to be so incredibly successful.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I tell them every day that I am in my job as the president of Rogue Risk to be in service of you guys. That's my job. What do you need to be successful? How do we get you there? What do we need to do? You need training. You need a tool. You need time. You need freedom. We need to have a tough conversation with another teammate. Do we need to have a tough conversation with a carrier? Do you and I need to have a tough conversation to get through something? My job is to be in service of other people. It's become very clear to me that why I was put on this earth is to be of service to other people and help them go as far as they can go. In turn, I get to have a great life.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I just felt very much like I wasn't holding up my end of the bargain to you guys, the listeners of this show. Maybe you don't always realize it, but I absolutely love you guys. The fact that you spend 30, 45, 60 minutes in some cases with me or my guest, you could spend that time with anybody and you spend it with me. That is never lost on me. I want you to know that.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: With that, we'll stop all this mushy stuff. I love you guys, but let's talk some stuff. I said I'm going to add some value. I'm not going to spend the entire episode belaboring the obstacles that I face in my life. Let's talk about some of the things that I've learned in the first 120 days of Rogue being part of the SIAA ecosystem. That's how I'm going to refer to it because we're not a master agency and we're not an agency underneath a master agency. We're a new vertical inside of the SIAA ecosystem. They're essentially a holding company ecosystem. There's master agencies, member agencies, some owned agencies. There's all different stuff that SIAA is doing, and it's really exciting and fun.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: A lot of it is just that they're starting to push boundaries and to look out two, three, five years to where they're going. Matt Masiello and the entire team have been absolutely incredible to us. I want that publicly on the record. I obviously had a very good feel for Matt before we started talking about the Rogue deal. Throughout the entire negotiation process and all the due diligence, he was very good. His entire team was very good. Shout out to Kristen Collins, to Sean Kenny. Both of them in particular, from both a legal and finance perspective, have been amazing. Christy Jarvis in accounting. There's a lot of great people inside SIAA. If I missed any of you, please don't take that offensively. I just wanted to name a few people.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: In general, the entire team has been amazing to us. You never know what you're going to get. It all seemed good, and then you sign that contract and it's like, "Okay, you're part of the family now. Here we go." They could press all kinds of crap upon us and slow us down. It has never been like that. It has been absolutely amazing. I just wanted to go on record and say that if SIAA comes calling on an acquisition, at least from my experience, it has been absolutely tremendous. A one plus one equals five kind of scenario. I couldn't be happier. I felt like part of the family day one.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I look after my employees like they're family. Even the ones where we don't always get along, which is always going to happen, I think of them as family. They've been great to everybody. So that's a really good thing. Broad 40,000 feet view, SIAA has been tremendous. I'm very, very happy with them and excited because seeing many of the things that they're doing, and in small part, Rogue is going to be part of testing different things, trying different things, sharing. I'm on the executive leadership team, being part of some other projects and helping deliver more value to member agencies who are part of the SIAA ecosystem.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I haven't dug too much into that yet, but there's been some initial conversations on different projects. That's exciting too, because thinking about similar thoughts to what I used to think about when I was at TrustedChoice.com. You think about all these agencies and you're like, "Man, if we could just get some of these ideas, some of these concepts, some of these tools into some percentage of these agencies who are looking to grow, who want to push the envelope, we can do some real damage. We can really put some premium on the books. We can help clients. We can help change people's lives by improving their career, not just financially, but being happier, more fulfilled, more engaged, finding more meaning in what they do in the insurance industry." It excites me on so many levels.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Tons of really great stuff to come. It's still very early days. We're only four months, 120 days into our acquisition by SIAA. Lots to come. We got so much work to do at Rogue too. It's not like I'm dipping out of there all the time. I don't always have the time for that, but it's been really good. I wanted to share that with you.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I want to talk about the HubSpot thing. I mentioned a long time ago, I've been talking about it since probably December. We made the decision, I made the decision, to try to make HubSpot essentially the AMS. I wanted to do everything we could to see if the fully integrated system from website to marketing to advertising to sales to service to retention to renewals could all be in one place utilizing 2022 technology. I saw what was possible: the tracking, the communications, the collaboration potential inside. I went for it.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I've said this on air before: if you're using the same tools as everybody else, then you have the same limitations as everybody else. I didn't like that. I knew what we were doing from a marketing perspective was different and bigger and bolder than many agencies of similar ilk. It's not like we got some $50 million VC bucket dumped on us. We still have budgetary constraints and we need to think through a level of reasonableness.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: We were on NowCerts as our agency management system and HubSpot. I can tell you unequivocally, our HubSpot experiment as an insurance, particularly service tool, was a fail. It was a hard fail. To build back into a system like HubSpot the insurance lingo, fields, functionality, the way our particular business works that is unique, it just was too much. I am positive that someone who is smarter than me, who understands HubSpot better, who understands development better, and who has a bigger budget and more time could absolutely positively turn HubSpot into something that would be electrifying. I think it's possible, just not us. It's not me. I'm not willing to do that.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: In the words of both my head of service and my head of sales, who said almost the exact same thing in different meetings, "Why are we reinventing the insurance part of our business?" As much as I hate to admit it, they're right. Right now, growth is what's most important to Rogue. We need to grow. We want to grow. We can grow. We have everything in place and we're starting to grow, which is great. But the systems were holding us back. The lack of clear insurance functionality was holding us back.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: About three months ago, two months ago, I made the decision that we needed to get off of HubSpot from an insurance perspective. We are currently in the process of carving out all of our insurance operations out of HubSpot. HubSpot will continue to host our website. It will continue to be where we track all our marketing, run all our marketing, social. We have all our ads accounts connected so we can see attribution. We don't do a ton of ads. We're mostly just doing remarketing stuff for website visitors right now. We can track it all. We can see it all. I can tell you which posts are doing what, how they're doing. From a marketing perspective, it is an unbelievable and undeniable tool.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: We keep our marketing, our website, our recruiting function, and our channel partnership, business-to-business development, sales process. That will all be done through HubSpot. We're going to use HubSpot, we're just going to dial back the insurance functionality and dial back our overall seats. From an internal insurance operations standpoint, it is a tremendous tool. Your ability to track and communicate is really... I love HubSpot. To be honest with you, I love it. The work it takes to turn it into an AMS is daunting, and I am not willing to continue to feel the pain of trying to build that out in exchange for growing.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: We went out into the market and started doing demos with all kinds of agency management systems again. We had done this about a year ago, so I knew kind of what was out there. We looked at Applied, we looked at Better Agency, and we looked at NowCerts. Those are the three systems that we looked at. I threw out Applied almost immediately. Mostly because I wanted to see the functionality and what it was all about, but I'm not interested in paying that price. Even though I like a lot of the stuff that Taylor Rhodes is saying, and I don't knock him, and it does feel like Applied is on a better path, I still don't trust them.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I'm hoping over time Taylor can change that. He seems like potentially the guy that could, but he's also got bosses, and those bosses need returns. To get those returns, you need to do things like lock your clients in, overcharge them, nickel and dime them. When you look at the total, when you get all the things you need to buy to really run your insurance agency operation out of an Applied system, it's a lot. So we didn't go with Applied.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I'd like to carve out for purposes of conversation that I think a lot of the things that Reed Holdsworth is doing at Ivans are actually pretty fantastic. I know Applied owns Ivans. Technically, they're two different organizations, but I do think that Reed and what he's doing at Ivans is wonderful. I got to see Reed and chat and catch up with him a little bit at InsureTech Boston, which was awesome. That was a month or so ago. I do think the stuff that's going on at Ivans is good, which kind of says to me maybe stuff with Applied is starting to change too, which would be awesome, but I'm just not willing to go down that road with them. Not at this time.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: That's still my perception, and I think this is not just them. This is certainly what's going on at Vertafore still. Although the QQ Agency Zoom setup is not bad. It's not bad. I still think you have a lot of people who don't understand, have never worked in, nor have never really sunk their teeth into what it means to be a next generation agency, the digital hybrid model that you need to have. I don't think any of them really understand what we're trying to do. We're kind of pioneering this. The way we think about geography, the way we think about carrier appointments, the way we think about sales, it still does not fit the general mindset of the standard agency management system and the standard technologist's vision of what our agency should be.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: That's where we get this yin and yang of the insurtech. The insurtech people who come in and make bold claims and don't necessarily understand our business, but are trying to push the boundaries. Then you have the other side of the coin where you have these old school people who understand the old school way of doing business really well, but aren't willing to change. This is completely anecdotal, but it kind of makes my point. I talked to this carrier the other day and I was like, "Do you have this?" And his response was, "Well, not a lot of agencies are asking for that." I was like, "I feel like you're talking to the wrong agencies then, because this is absolutely something that every agency is going to need."
--:-- Ryan Hanley: It's killing me that I can't remember what it was. I think it was a Zapier connection for something. We're looking for a Zapier connection for something. I get that you got to go out to West Podunk and talk to the agent who still sends in paper files because they've been with you for 30 years. But if you're making your business decisions based on that agent, you're toast. You're absolutely toast. You can see it in the way the market is trending. I don't know, maybe I shouldn't say "toast." That's probably too bold. You guys will all be like, "Hyperbole." But I just can't imagine that.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: All that being said, the final decision came down to two agency management systems: Better Agency and Nexsure. We gave a super hard look to Better Agency. I love Better Agency. I love what they're doing. I think this is a serious, serious platform for the future. I recommend Better Agency all the time now. I really, really like where they're at. I've been back and forth on them at different points just as they grow. That's normal for a company that's growing as fast as they are. I think they're going to be a player.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I don't know how long it's going to take or how much damage they'll actually do to the big guys. You got to remember, Vertafore and Applied don't care about a 10-person agency. It just doesn't make them any money. That's not a knock on them. If you have 25 of the top 50 agencies in the country using your platform and they're paying you millions upon millions of dollars a year, why would you waste any time on someone that's spending $20,000 a year?
--:-- Ryan Hanley: If I'm a 20-person agency or below and I have a 60/40 or 70/30 personal/commercial split, I'm looking at Better Agency going, "Holy shit, this is the platform for me." Basically everything is there. The accounting piece is almost there. I think it's in beta right now. I don't want to overstep my bounds on where they're at, but that was really the last piece. There's some more configuration on commercial, some of the more sophisticated commercial you may struggle with. I think the benefits drastically outweigh any type of drawbacks, especially if you are like a 60/40, 70/30, 80/20 personal/commercial type agency with 20 or less people. You're going to be able to dig into this thing. It's going to make sense and you can fly. I really like it.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: That being said, for some of the things that we needed to do, for some of the more sophisticated accounting that we need to do because we have a lot of referral partners that we have different deals with and joint venture stuff that we're doing, and with the No Ceiling Insurance Career being able to split out and subcode all the different things that we need to do, it just wasn't there yet. We need a solution now. Better Agency continues to be on our radar, but we did not go to them. I just wanted to make sure everyone didn't think it was because I think the platform is crap. I don't, not at all. The exact opposite actually.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: We went with Nexsure. We're going to be in the process over the next month of making the move to Nexsure from NowCerts and HubSpot. We're taking everything out of HubSpot that was insurance related and everything that was in NowCerts and we're putting it into Nexsure. Our entire insurance function will be run out of Nexsure. Our marketing, our operations, our recruiting, our channel partnerships will be run out of HubSpot. Everything else will be run out of Nexsure.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I'm not going to say Nexsure is a perfect platform. It's not. However, I like a lot of what they do. I think they have a solid system. Their pricing is right on par with where I think it should be. They have all the functionality that you can need and more. I think a lot of people don't consider Nexsure because Nexsure traditionally has been kind of the agency management system of networks to a certain extent, and MGAs and wholesalers. But their retail option is tremendous. To be honest with you, I was shocked.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Nexsure was referred to me by Michael Blake, who's a good friend of mine and the show. He's a great technologist, a great agent. He recommended in some talks with him that I look at them. They weren't even on my radar. About a year ago, I took a look at them, really liked it. We weren't ready at the time, and now we are.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I firmly believe that your sales and service operation have to be run out of the same system. This is the drawback of many of the traditional agency management systems because they, for some reason, have not figured out basic sales functionality. They certainly do not prioritize digital sales functionality. I found that Nexsure didn't inhibit any of those things. I was pleasantly surprised there. They actually have some really cool functionality that we can use in some of our marketing stuff. The service team is fully robust. I just cannot stress enough: sales and service have to work in the same system. That's my belief. I'm sure there are cases out there where that's not true, but sales and service need to be in the same system, and we went with Nexsure.
--:-- [Ryan Hanley addresses the audience directly]
--:-- 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. This helps the show grow. It helps me bring more guests in.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: 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. They all check out comments, ratings, reviews. They check out all this information before they come on. 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. I'd love for you to leave a comment about the show 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 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.
--:-- [Episode continues]
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I'm excited about it. I'll have more updates as we go. I just wanted to kind of put that out there, put some of that thought process out there, why we were thinking the way we were. I also just wanted to be candid. I'm fully capable of admitting when I make mistakes. Bringing our entire insurance operation and trying to shove our insurance operation into HubSpot was a mistake. It just was.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: For us, Carothers always talks about HubSpot and Chris Green talks about HubSpot. I think both of them, for what they do, it's a wonderful tool. If you're doing huge B2B middle market accounts, the functionality of HubSpot actually works really well for those type of accounts. Where we were struggling in particular, if I'm just being candid, it's the small business stuff. It just wasn't capable. It didn't have the right setup. The UX just wasn't set up right for high volume, fast paced small business sales. It just wasn't.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Large B2B middle market enterprise type accounts? Oh my gosh, it's the holy grail for that stuff. If you're doing David Carothers' middle market stuff, I still to this day recommend HubSpot. But if you're going to get into personal lines or small business, it is not the tool. Not unless someone builds it out for you. It's just not ready. It doesn't have downloads. All that kind of stuff just made it not work.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I just wanted to talk through some of that stuff. Rogue's vision, the vision for Rogue, the process for Rogue, it only continues to solidify in my mind that we are absolutely on the right path. We're just seeing the results. More leads, better leads, routing leads. There's some work we need to do. If you go back and listen to the Alan Ringwald episode that I did, he's the founder of Relativity 6. I talk a little bit about this front end tool that I want to build. We still need to build that. That doesn't exist in the world. But outside of that, where does the business go? Answering that question. Where does the business go in real time?
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Because remember, carriers' appetites are a guess. They don't really know what they're going to write and what they don't. There's no marketing rep in the industry who can tell you unequivocally what they write consistently. And it's not Mark and Reff's fault. There's algorithms and underwriters and all kinds of stuff. And then once you break out of any kind of geographic constraints, meaning you work nationwide, there's just no way. Because you could have, you know, if my underwriter at Hartford paints me a picture of what Hartford will write in New York or even just in the Northeast, as soon as you go to the Midwest or the West Coast or the Southeast, that all changes. And that's not her fault. She has no way of knowing.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: So my point saying all that is that when you get into small business, high volume, small business, and if you start to break traditional geographic boundaries, state lines, you immediately have a "where does the business go" problem. That needs to be solved still. But outside of that, I think we're dialed in, in many ways. Some more process, both in service and retention and renewals, and just solidifying that and tracking it, just like every other agency. But our kind of human-optimized vision for our agency, every day I just feel stronger about the model. Every day I feel stronger about the model. It's working. It's working. It just is.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: And it's not finished. I'm not ready to stand on a TED stage and give a "this is the be all end all way" speech. Not that. But it is working. And we've learned so many things. So that's kind of how I want to finish this episode. What are a few of the things that I believe have been absolutely solidified over these first 120 days in my mind? And why those 120 days? Because one of the things SIA has been great about is we got to offload some of the internal operations functionality that was really bogging my time down and my operations manager, Sarah's time. It was really just crushing our time. SIA has been able to, kind of economy of scale, take some of that, flow it through them, and take that off our shoulders. So I've been able to get right back into the business with both hands, which is where I want to be.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: And three things are absolutely, positively clear to me. You could not push me off of these three things. Okay. First, content is the greatest weapon that we have for generating new business leads in 2022. We create a lot of content. In the last 365 days, our YouTube channel has had over 100,000 views. An insurance agency's YouTube channel done on a zero budget. I now make most of the videos with my iPhone 47 or whatever the hell I have here. It's got the three cameras on the back and it's got cinematic video mode. With that and a little three-leg $100 Gobi tripod that I bought off Amazon like five years ago, I am creating almost all the content that goes on our website now. You couldn't tell the difference between the quality of the video. And we just continue to crank, and our little channel has done 100,000 views.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Now you may be saying, "Ryan, views aren't revenue." That's like the classic bitch that I would get. "Views aren't revenue. What's the sales?" Well, over the course of the year, I actually don't have that number. But right now we're averaging 12... nope, that's not true. That was last month. This month we're currently averaging nine and a half form fills a day, Monday through Friday. And that's down, which is normal because it's July, and then in August it'll be down too. That's the natural cycle. So if you're seeing your numbers go down right now, don't worry about it. That happens every year across the board. Second half of June, early June, July, August are always down for everything. And then towards the end of August, September, you're going to see a ramp up. September, October, beginning of November should be big months from a content, new lead perspective. And then you'll see that ramp down a little bit. And then January really through to May and June, that's the prime time season. That's the go season. So we're down a little bit, but nine form fills a day. That is an incredible number.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Our biggest issue has always been we didn't have enough producers to write all that business. We're starting to change that. And we saw a 5x jump in premium written last month. And that's huge for us. Absolutely huge.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: And my second thing is you need producers to sell. You need producers to sell. I know that Coterie's got this thing, and there's another carrier's got this thing, this widget that you can put on and the people go in and buy it themselves. And if you can set up a marketing campaign that consistently drives profitable revenue off of those buy-it-yourself tools... And I love Coterie. Don't get me wrong. I'm not knocking Coterie. I'm just saying they have a toy. I like Coterie. They're not a knock on Coterie. Just a bunch of people have tried this tool. If you can create consistent traffic that leads to binds that sticks long-term off of those do-it-yourself tools, God bless you. Please, I will pay you to teach me how to do that.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: But here's the thing. It has to be profitable and it has to stick. I believe you can drive shit tons of unprofitable business. And by unprofitable, I mean you're paying more for leads and marketing than you are actually getting back in revenue. Not just unprofitable in terms of class of business like the traditional insurance way. I'm talking about actual revenue in your agency. I don't think long term that you can write profitable business that way, that you can be profitable paying for and driving people in to buy themselves. And I also don't believe you can retain the business that way.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: So while I think that from a snapshot new business perspective, these do-it-yourself, buy-it-yourself tools can be successful, from an actual business sense—am I making more money than I'm spending? And then long term, is the business retaining? I just haven't seen it work. I've seen plenty of people use that methodology to drive their new business numbers up to look awesome, but I haven't seen them be profitable doing it. And even in our own, we've tested this shit. We've tested it. I test everything. I have not seen it be profitable.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Now, there is some stuff you can do with niches. So if you have a specific pet thing or a special program, that can work. But general personal lines, general small business, I just don't see it. I haven't seen the case. I'm waiting for the business case because I would love to be wrong about this, but I just haven't seen it.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: So you need producers to sell. Because what a producer does is create the emotional trust, relationship, connection during the sale. Even if it's a tiny sale, during that sale, so that the person renews the business on the back end. That's why the human is important. Because without the connection, there's not the renewal. Without the connection, the renewal doesn't happen. So you need that human connection. You have to have it. It's why Geico is starting all these agencies. It's why these franchise models are taking off. You have to have boots on the ground. You have to have someone talking. You have to have video connection or whatever. There needs to be that emotional human connection. This person has me. He, she, whatever. It has me. See how I went woke there for a second? I'm learning. The consumer has to know that. They have to know that you have them.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: And it doesn't have to be an hour-long conversation. It can be just an email that says, "Hey, I got you. You're good. This is the right coverage, best price I have, shopped you on 17 people." Maybe a little Vidyard video or Loom video, something like that. That stuff builds the connection, locks in the retention. Without it, you're not going to have the retention number. So you need producers to sell.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: That being said, you do not need producers to be in your town or walk into your agency to sell. I have a producer here in Albany. I have a producer in Florida. I have a producer in Arizona. And I have three producers in California. I have another person who may be joining us that's in the Midwest. And we're talking to someone who's in Michigan. I have a CSR in Michigan. I have two in Florida. So my point in telling you this is you need producers to sell, but those producers don't have to be doing hand-to-hand combat. You can find a great producer who doesn't live in your town but can write in your town. There's no reason that person can't write in your town or in your state. They don't need to come into the office. That is 100% true.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: If you believe today that your people, your producers, still have to come into your office, understand that is a you decision, not a reality. That's not an absolute truth of the universe. That is your personal opinion slash preference. So if you're struggling to find producers, expand your search. That's really my point. You need producers. You need humans. Those humans do not have to be geographically located in an area to do a massive amount of sales in that area. They just have to be good at what they do, which is building relationships, understanding coverage, and helping people feel good about the decision they make to purchase insurance from them. If they can do those things, it doesn't matter where they live. It just matters that they give a shit. They care about your agency. They care about your clients, and they're going to show up and do the work. They don't have to be in your same area. They just don't have to be.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I am so sick of hearing, "It's so hard to find producers." It's not hard to find producers. It's only hard to find producers if you are geographically pigeonholing yourself. There are amazing people out there who want to help clients, who want to grow, who want to be successful, who want to make money, who want to help your agency. They're just not always going to be in your backyard. That's the reality.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Okay. But you need producers to sell. So the last thing I want to talk about today—I hope this has been valuable to you guys, just giving you some insights. Guys, you have thoughts, questions about any of this stuff, LinkedIn DMs. I'm on all the socials. Just DM me on one of the socials. I check them all because I'm a neurotic, crazy person, which probably leads to some of the anxiety that I live with day to day. But I still do it and will be for the foreseeable future. So whichever your favorite social is, feel free to hit me there, DM, or just email me or whatever.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: The last thing I want to talk about is answering inbound leads. Because I get a lot of questions around, "Well, Ryan, we heard you get a lot of leads, but those people are just price shopping." Which some of them are, for sure. Guys, when you get an inbound lead, it is different than an outbound lead or a referral. You cannot treat someone who picks up the phone or emails you or fills out a form on your website the same way you treat that person who was referred to you by your cousin or your golf buddy. You can't treat those two people. There are two completely different scenarios.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: A person who is referred into you is starting with some modicum of trust, some level of trust. They were referred to you. They may not trust you enough to purchase from you yet. You may still have some work to do if it's a referral, but they're coming in with something. They trust John, your golf buddy, and John said that you were the right person. So they're coming in with a little bit of that. You cannot talk to inbound leads that way because inbound leads don't know you from Adam or Eve. Their base assumptions are you're a call center, that you don't give a shit, that you have limited options, and that you're going to do everything you can to hose them. Those are their assumptions when they fill out the form. They chose you, and they still believe you're going to hose them, you don't give a shit, you're going to overcharge them, and that you're somewhere in some big faceless enterprise. Even if they fill out a form on your little agency website. That's the mentality that they're coming in with. For good reason. Because most of the people who do digital marketing and have the money and create content are not independent insurance agencies. It's Progressive or it's Geico or whatever. Insert other well-funded large organization that is looking for volume. That's what they're assuming they're getting.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Somehow they found their way onto your website or your YouTube channel, and they filled out some form or they called some phone number and they got you. You cannot go into this thinking that they already trust you. They don't. They don't trust you. So what you have to do—and Carruthers does a great job of talking about this, Mick Hunt does a great job of talking about this, Billy Williams does a great job of talking about this, Kelly Donovan Puro does a great job of talking about this, Kelly Downey does a great job of talking about this—you have to build trust. You have to then validate them through that process.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: So what does that look like? You have to ask them questions. When someone calls me—so I'm going to walk through how I do it. I'm not a great cold-caller, middle-market guy. I'm never going to go into killing commercial and be a trainer on the shit that Josh Gurley talks about or Carruthers talks about. I'm just never going to be that guy. I'm not a great outbound guy. I'm just not. For whatever reason, it doesn't work for me. I own that. It's a thing. I have successfully executed it, but in no way am I a C-minus player at best. Just put that out there. Referrals are easy. That's why I give very little credence to—or I don't want to say respect because that sounds disrespectful—but I don't hold in high regard people who work only on referrals. It's like, who cares? If you get referred business and you can't sell it, you shouldn't be in this business to begin with. Referrals are easy. Outbound is incredibly difficult, a different skill set.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: So with inbound, I'm pretty freaking good on inbound. I can spin an inbound lead and get them to buy shit from me like it's no one's business. First, you have to give a shit about them. You have to care about the person calling you. You can't immediately think there's some asshole who's just price shopping. You have to care about them. Maybe you got to psych yourself up. Maybe you got to write yourself a note. Maybe you got to listen to some love music or whatever, Marvin Gaye, before you get on there, before you start taking inbound calls. But you got to care about the person. Because if you don't, it's going to come through the phone. Now, this isn't like some of that crappy "smile when you talk" advice. Maybe that works. Maybe it doesn't. I don't know. But I do know that you need to actually care about the person you're talking to. Even if they're an idiot, you have to care about them.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: So when someone calls, or let's say it's a form fill. If a form fill comes in, I'll pick up the phone, give them a call, and say, "Hey, Sally, Ryan Hanley here from Rogue Risk. I saw you filled out an interest form on our site. It looks like you need some help with your workers' comp. What's going on?" That's all. Shut up. "What's going on?" And I'll let Sally talk.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Sally's going to say, "Well, we've had this business for a while, and it's always just been me and my husband, and we both own the business, and we didn't need workers' comp, but we just decided to hire our first employee, and now the state requires workers' comp." And I'll say, "That's amazing. Wow, I'm so happy to hear your business is growing. That's great." "Oh, yeah, we had a great year." "Okay, Sally, just tell me a little bit about what you do." And then she'll tell me what you do. Let's say it's something relatively easy, like a janitorial business. So I know I have PI, we have Guard, we have Nationwide. All three of those guys will write janitorial workers comp. So now I know I got markets.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: So by understanding what she does and what's going on, I now know one, she has a real issue. She's hiring her first employee. So there's urgency, and she's not 100% sure what she's doing. So it's not like someone who's had comp for a while. So I understand the level of detail that I'm going to have to go into with her. And I understand that she's got an urgent need, so she's kind of checked a couple boxes there. And now I know the industry she's in and that I have markets for it, assuming she's in a state that those work. Florida and California would be the only real problems with that class. So let's say she's in New York where I live. Those three carriers all write janitorial businesses, so I know I got three markets. I'm in good shape.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: So we've gotten to there. Now I'm going to say, "So tell me a little bit about your insurance. Do you have general liability?" And she's probably going to hesitate a little bit because she's going to wonder why I'm asking that question. I'm going to say, "I'm only asking because—and I'd love to do business with you—I'm just surprised that you didn't call whoever had your general liability insurance." And she'll say something. She'll either say two things. One, she'll say, "I don't think my agent does workers comp," which is awesome because that means the agent wasn't doing their job and probably stinks at their job. If one of your general liability clients doesn't know that you do workers comp, then awesome. I'm going to capitalize on that.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Maybe she'll say, "Hey, I'm with Next," or insert some other D2C player. The person who she talked to originally, whether she bought the policy herself or she talked to someone who could give two flying craps about her, she has no real connection. Let's assume, because we do get a lot of these, especially for a janitorial class, she went to someone like Next and purchased the policy herself all the way. So I now know she's got probably not the right general liability coverage. She has absolutely no connection or loyalty to the carrier that she's doing business with, and she has an urgent need for her workers' comp. So I'm kind of taking this in.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Regardless of what she says—she could say it's her cousin or something—and assuming it's not, which it rarely is on inbound form fills. That's much more of a myth that that happens all the time than is reality. We just almost never hear that. So much more often, someone who comes to us is either with some crappy agent who isn't really doing their job or doesn't understand commercial insurance, or they're with some DTC player. And that's almost a home run because, God, you give me someone who does business with Next, and I'll just cash that register all day long. Even though we write Next, we do write some Next policies. It's just that there's no connection. The initial sale has zero relationship. So I can take that.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Regardless of what she says, no matter what she says, I'm going to say to her, "Hey, Sally, I just want to let you know, we're workers comp specialists, and we're going to get you squared away. If you can make a commitment to me, I'm going to make this commitment to you. Whatever your timeline is, I'm going to turn my proposal around inside that timetable, get it to you. I'm going to explain everything about the policy that I can so that you know all the information I know about it. I never want to have a discussion with you where I have the power because I have the information. I am going to offer you, out of the 42 carriers that we have, the best coverage and price combination that I can find."
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Now, truthfully, there's only three carriers that are going to write your business. That's Guard, Pi, and Nationwide. So there's only three. I said 42, there's only three. But what I'm telling you is we have access to all the companies. There's only three that write, and we're going to quote those three. But I'm going to come back to you with the best pricing and coverage that I have in the timetable that you need, and I'm going to explain everything you need to know. If I do that and it makes sense to you, are you willing to do business with me?" And if she says yes, I got her 89% of the time. That's how you handle an inbound lead.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: You got to do a little bit of qualifying that isn't negative. Here's the high levels. And I'm going to get to the 89% in a second. The keys are qualify without being an asshole. Because look, I used to work for TrustedChoice.com and listen to thousands of phone calls that independent agents take from inbound leads from a platform like TrustedChoice.com. And what happens is we pre-qualify like the decision is to send this person to jail or not. We pre-qualify like the person is a complete jerk and we're just trying to get rid of them. We need to pre-qualify with caring. Just simple questions. "Hey, why'd you call us? What's going on?" I love that first question. Or just "How can I help?" That's another version of my first question. "Hey, Sally, thanks for reaching out. It really means a lot to me. How can we help?" And just let them talk. And then dissect a little. But always with the, "Hey, we're going to get you there." I always try to reinforce with, "Oh, that's great. No problem. Seen it before. Seen it a thousand times. It's all good. We're going to get you squared, Sally. No worries." I say that all the time. "We're going to get you squared." That's like my line to them. "We're going to get you squared. Don't worry about it. We'll get you squared up. Sally, if it's possible, we're going to get you squared. Don't worry."
--:-- Ryan Hanley: What I'm reinforcing to them is, "We got you." Because that's what they want. That's what they want to hear. All they want to hear is "We got you." They want to know that when the shit hits the fan, you're going to be there for them. And I completely understand that.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: So after we've done our pre-qualifying, and she says yes, I'll say, "Okay, here's the next steps." And this is the key to the 89% close ratio on this stuff. Let me dissect the 89% a little bit more because it's not 89% of all leads that we get in. I'm working a situation where all the tumblers lined up. She could have said, "Hey, we do excavation, 10 feet below the surface of the earth." I'd be like, "Yeah, you're going to stay funded." Or she could say, "We're a dynamite factory." Or "We clean asbestos out of walls." Stuff like that where there's just not a market. In this case, there was a market. She did have a need. That need was urgent. If her need is not urgent, we will pause them. We will not quote them now.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: So if she says, "Yeah, I'm just kind of figuring out what pricing will be. I'm thinking of starting a business in January." "Hey, Sally, I really appreciate you reaching out. I'm going to give you a ballpark off the top of my head. That ballpark is not bindable guaranteed in any way. I'm just going to give you a ballpark, but then I'm going to call you back in three months. I'll pick whatever three months is. So in this case, I'd say October, November. I'm going to give you a call back and then we can rate it up because I can't lock in any pricing for you right now." So that would be one that wouldn't happen.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: So let's say we're going all the way through. She's committed. If I can deliver on her timetable, I'm willing to explain everything to her, and she believes that I'm going to give her the best coverage and pricing combination that I have, that she'll do business with me. If she agrees to that, then this is the key. This is the absolute key to inbound leads, really the key to all sales, but particularly inbound leads. And then we'll be done with this episode. I set expectations for her about what's going to happen next. I don't want Sally to be surprised by anything.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: So what I say to her is, "Okay, Sally, the next step is I'm going to get some information from you. There's some information that I need to run this quote." She goes, "Oh, okay." "Once I have that information, I'm going to take it and I'm going to go to my carriers and I'm going to shop your insurance and figure out who's the best fit for you. There may be some follow-up questions. In this case, I'm assuming there really won't be, but there may be. If there are, I'll hit you up with them. Is it okay if I text you?" "Yeah, great." I always go for texts because people respond to text. So I get her cell phone number. And I always ask, "Is this, can I text this cell phone number?" "Yes." "Okay, great."
--:-- Ryan Hanley: So I say, "Okay, I'm going to get that back. If I have any follow-up questions, I'm going to text you. Once I have all the info I need and the quotes back, the next thing that's going to happen is I'm going to send you a video proposal. Very simple. It's going to have a copy of the carrier's proposal and it's going to have a video from me breaking down why I chose that company, why I chose those coverages, and why I think that pricing is the right pricing for you to purchase for this policy. I'm going to send this to you before we get back on the phone. The reason is I want you to know everything I know. Because if you know everything I know, then when we have our next conversation, we're operating as equals. And that's what I want. How's that sound?"
--:-- Ryan Hanley: "That sounds great, Ryan." Some people will even say, "I've never heard that before." They fucking love it. Because one, it's genius. But setting that expectation and telling them exactly what they're going to get, they're locked in now. They're pot committed. They're part of the process. They have a schedule. It's on their mental calendar. This is happening. I've described a deliverable that they're going to get. It's real. I just made insurance tangible in a video and proposal.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Once they get that video proposal, 89% of the time... So this is how we get to the 89%. So then I got to go shop it. Sometimes my understanding of the market doesn't work. In New York, we're not ready for janitorial anymore. All carriers lie about their appetite. So assuming I get a competitively priced, good coverage I need at a price that is reasonable, I get that back from one of the carriers. If I do that video proposal for them, they close 89% of the time. 89% of the time. That is how you sell inbound business. And if you can do that at scale, you will make a shit ton of money, my friends.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I absolutely love you for listening to this podcast. I hope you know that. If you enjoyed this episode, share it with a friend. Share it with someone who needs to hear this stuff. Leave me a rating, review, whatever you want to do. You don't have to do anything. Either way, it's all good. I just love you for listening to the show. I appreciate you guys. I hope you absolutely crush the remainder of the summer. Have some fun. And it'll be football season soon. So go Bills. I'm out of here, bitches. Peace!
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