--:-- Ryan Hanley: In a crude laboratory in the basement of his home... Hello everyone, and welcome back to the show. Today we have what will hopefully be a tremendous episode. When I do these solo episodes, I never actually know if they're going to be good or bad, but I'd like to think it's going to be tremendous.
--:-- We're going to talk about a couple of experiences I've had, a little bit about Rogue, what's going on in terms of how it relates to those experiences, a quick story of how it all relates back to Blockbuster and Netflix, and what we as an independent insurance industry need to be thinking about as we move into the future.
--:-- Lately, I've been asked to talk about where the puck is going. What does the agency of the future look like? It's a common topic, I guess you could say. Not so common for me, in that it is not often what I am asked to speak about. Most people just want to hear about inbound lead generation. But building out Rogue has kind of given me a PhD in building the agency of the future, and I want to talk a little bit about how all these stories relate to that.
--:-- This is going to be a quick, punchy episode, mostly because it's 11:40 a.m. on a Friday and I have a noon call. So we're going to be fast and furious today. I think that's fine because everything I want to share is fairly tightly packed. I just want to get this out, get it in front of you, because these are thoughts that have been on my mind and I want to share them with you.
--:-- Before we get there, I just want to talk a little bit about Rogue in particular. The key thing I want to talk to you about is we are hiring. We are hiring a lot. We are moving into Rogue 2.5, you could say. Rogue 1.0 was really just me and a couple of my core employees that have been with me for a while. Rogue 2.0 is the immediate post-acquisition version, where we ramped up our producer force, hired a couple more CSAs and supporting people, and started to prove out the model—our Select and Premier model and what that looks like.
--:-- We just had a month where we did almost $2 million in premium production. I don't think every month will be that big right now. We'll probably be a little choppy, with some volatility as we bounce around in that range. But there is no doubt that the Rogue model is proving to be effective, efficient, and something that can be duplicated by those with the vision and guts to do so.
--:-- Much of my mission beyond my role as CEO of Rogue in the larger SIA ecosystem is to help SIA members and independent agencies see what we're doing, understand what we're doing, and potentially implement that through different technology solutions, processes, cultural aspects of company culture, strategy—all that kind of stuff. One of the things that keeps coming back to my mind is this idea that efficiency isn't always the answer. Efficiency isn't always the answer. It's a big part of the human-optimized concept. You need humans for your business to retain.
--:-- Now, granted, you can listen to every D2C VC-backed insurtech a-hole who tells you that you don't need humans to sell insurance. Frankly, outside of maybe more robust middle market, I think that's probably true. You do not need humans to sell small business and personal lines. You just don't. However, you need humans to retain that business. And if you want to retain that business, it starts by having humans involved in the sale.
--:-- If you're just looking to build a company and spin it off to some large enterprise like what Travelers did with Simply Business, then go get some VC money, hammer out a process where you spend a whole bunch on paid ads and lead flow, and then have a non-human-based sales process where you just pound that business through. Regardless of how efficient or inefficient it is, you're just ringing that cash register for new business. The best part is you won't have to prove out any of your retention numbers by the time some unsuspecting middle executive at some large company who's looking to make a name for themselves comes in, makes you an offer, and buys you. Everything's great.
--:-- Except that's not the business that any of us are running, nor is it the business that any of you listening to this podcast want to run. You care about your customers. But you do need to grow, because carriers are putting more pressure on agencies that aren't growing. There's a whole cultural conversation happening in the ecosystem right now around growth versus lifestyle agencies—the amount of resources you put into growth-based agencies versus lifestyle-based agencies, what that means, and how you trigger them. You may not have even heard that terminology, but I'm telling you, it's happening behind the scenes with carriers and all kinds of organizations.
--:-- If you're a lifestyle agency, as much as it is absolutely your prerogative and right as an American to do that, you're not going to get the attention and resources that you may have gotten, because you're not adding value back to the ecosystem in terms of growth. It doesn't mean you should do anything different. Just be aware that that's coming.
--:-- In order to get business on the books that sticks—that allows you to grow, to get that exponential growth that's possible by marrying streamlined new business opportunities with real humans who build real connections with your customers that ultimately get that business retained—you need to build a human-optimized business.
--:-- We are hiring at Rogue because that is our mission. I like to believe I coined the phrase in our industry of "human optimized," and that's what we're doing every single day. So we're hiring, and we're hiring a lot. If you're out there listening and you're looking for the next big challenge in your career, you want to come into a fast-growing business that's trying to do big things. I've said this before, I'll say it again: I operate every day with a chip on my shoulder. There are a bunch of people in this industry who gave me a whole lot of shit early on for things I said, for things I supported, for concepts I spread and talked about, because they said it couldn't be done. They said I didn't know what I was talking about. Trust me, I know every a-hole in the industry who wrote "What has he done?" as a comment next to some piece of content I shared. I carry that chip every day because I know there is a way, and I'm seeing it in Rogue day in and day out—to build a human-based business that can also grow at scale and has incredible service and incredible relationships with its customers.
--:-- Are we perfect today? Absolutely not. But we're getting better every day, and that's the key. I'm not afraid to fail, and the company culture we built is that we're not afraid to fail. We try things, we go down paths, and sometimes we have to back out. And you know what? I don't care. In order to get there, to try more paths, to bring more insights into our company, we need great people to do that. That's what we're looking to hire.
--:-- A couple of positions. I need a Chief Revenue Officer. This is going to be an experienced person. I don't need another visionary in this company. I need someone who can look at what we have going on and be a true integrator—get their hands into every revenue-generating opportunity we have in this business, manage that process, manage the people, and grow top-line revenue across the entire spectrum of revenue streams at Rogue Risk. This is a big position. It's one of the most important positions in the company in terms of long-term growth and success. We're looking for that position today. If you think that's you, reach out. I would love to talk to you. If you haven't done the work before, if you're a visionary type, if you don't like to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty, if you don't want to get into reports, if you don't want to get into nitty-gritty process, this position is not for you. Please do not contact me if you're a visionary. I don't need another visionary. We have more ideas than we know what to do with. We have more opportunities than we know what to do with. I need someone who can take those ideas and opportunities that we select and turn them into streams of gold. That's what we're looking for.
--:-- The other big position we need is a Head of Insurance Sales. Specifically, someone who can sit over the top of our Premier and Inbound Sales teams and manage those teams. Carriers, underwriters, questioning, lead flow—just what it takes to be a manager. I don't need a good producer. I don't need someone who knows how to produce in that position. I need someone who's good at managing producers. Someone who, again, I don't need a visionary in this position. I need someone who likes to get shit done, who looks at processes and building culture and supporting producers and beating the crap out of underwriters and carriers who don't give a shit. I need that person to sit over the top of our insurance sales. They'll report into the Chief Revenue Officer and also be part of the leadership team. If you think that's you, reach out.
--:-- We are also hiring a ton of producers, and we call them CSAs—Client Success Associates. If you're a CSA, if you're a producer looking for a new opportunity, if you're willing to buy into the way we do business and you're looking to grow your career and be part of something special, we would love to talk to you. This is not for everybody. If you are a traditional agent, this is not a position for you, because you will most likely come in, not understand what we're doing, and not like the way we do it. However, if you like to sell, if you like to build relationships, if you like to solve problems, if you have an open mind to a slightly different way—a more virtual way, a more streamlined way of doing business while still providing the same insights and expertise that classically independent agents are valued for—then we absolutely positively would love to talk to you. Whether you're focused on service or focused on sales, please reach out.
--:-- We have a few other positions that we'll be posting, but for now, those are the big ones. I just wanted to get those opportunities in front of you because we're always looking for amazing people. We tend to recruit amazing people and find out where they fit best in the organization, versus just finding someone who checks a bunch of boxes but maybe doesn't fit culturally or doesn't fit into what we're trying to do. Our culture is very, very important to us here at Rogue, and we don't like to mess with it. If you mess with our culture, you don't last very long. I don't mean to be so draconian, but it's just the way it is. I've realized very quickly over the last two and a half years that culture is one of the key pillars to your business. If you're not focused on culture, then none of the other stuff matters, because it ends up creating more problems, more issues, and lack of efficiency in your business.
--:-- I called this episode "Efficiency Isn't the Answer" because I want to tell you a quick story with the remaining time about an experience I recently had purchasing a vehicle with Carvana.
--:-- For the last three years, I drove a Ford F-150, a 2016. It's an XLT, so fairly straightforward, slightly better than base model, but nothing fancy. Ford F-150, silver, nice truck, great in snow. I've always enjoyed it. With everything that happened in my personal life—signing my divorce papers, my new lease papers, and my acquisition papers for Rogue to be sold to SIA all on the same day—I never really got myself anything. I didn't really celebrate it. I've been looking for something. I didn't really know what I was looking for, but lately I've been looking for something.
--:-- About a month and a half ago, I got a call from the dealership that sold me my F-150. The woman called and said, "Hey, my name's Sarah. Did you buy a 2016 F-150 from us three years ago?" I said, "I did." She said, "Do you still have it?" I said, "Yes, I do." She said, "How many miles do you think it has?" It had about 70,000 at the time. She said, "Would you be interested in coming in and letting us give you a trade-in value? We can't find enough used trucks, and we're looking for used trucks." I had an hour in the afternoon free, so I said sure. I said I'd come over right now because I had a little time between calls. I needed a break.
--:-- I drove over there, and they threw what I believed for a fairly beat-up 2016 F-150 a fairly ridiculous number at me. They threw $22,000 for that truck. I was like, "Holy crap, this truck has some value. It's falling apart. If they're going to give me that kind of money for it, I need to make a move now."
--:-- I started working with the salespeople at the dealership. What I realized very quickly was that they weren't particularly interested in what I wanted and were really trying to sell me something. They had a specific set of inventory—call it 30 to 50 vehicles—and that's what they wanted to get me into. First, they wanted to give me another Ford F-150, which I wasn't against. There was this GMC Denali version of a Ram, which I thought was a really cool truck. I didn't love the color white, but I liked it. I've always wanted a Jeep Wrangler. My buddy Matt Namoli has a Rubicon, and my boss Matt Maciello has a Rubicon. I've hung out with them and seen their trucks and some of the things they've done, and I've always kind of wanted that. Hanging out with those guys a lot recently, it really got the bug in me.
--:-- At this Ford dealership, they had the new Ford Bronco, and they were trying to get me into this thing. It had this weak-ass I-4 engine in it, and I hated that. I'm sitting there, and the guy's talking me through it. There were parts of it that I liked, but I didn't like the engine. You hit the gas pedal and you feel like you're being propelled by a wet fart. There's just nothing to it. If you're going to get something like that, you want a little punch. You don't want to feel like you're just dragging along.
--:-- I said, "What's with this I-4 engine?" Obviously I knew a little bit about it, but I always play dumb with these guys. I feel like you get more done when you act like a dummy than when you act like you know what you're doing. So I'm kind of playing country dumb with this guy, which I learned from all my friends down in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana who always try to play country dumb on me because I'm from the north—even though I know none of them are dumb. So I'm doing that with this guy.
--:-- He's going, "No, the I-4 is a great engine. It's a great engine. You're going to love this engine." He's telling me all this stuff. I'm looking at this guy going, he's not listening to me. He just wants me to get into this thing. He's got limited inventory. Instead of trying to work with me to figure out exactly what I want, he just wants to sell me what he has access to. He's not really listening to the way I want to do business.
--:-- I started to get like, "Guys, I really appreciate the trade-in and I'm interested in the trade-in, but I don't really love anything that you have here right now." And he goes, "No, no, what about this Bronco? It's going to go fast." I'm like, "Ah." It was this fire engine red. If it were a big truck, the fire engine red would have looked cool to me. But on the Bronco, I thought it looked like something a teenager would get. It wasn't what I wanted.
--:-- He's trying to force me into this thing. I go, "Hey man, can you just give me five minutes? I want to text a couple friends and see what they think." Really I'm just stalling, but I did want him to get the hell away from me for a minute. He says, "Oh yeah, yeah, no problem." Sure as shit—and I set a timer—no more than 97 seconds later, this guy comes back. He's futzing around with some paperwork on his desk and going, "Yeah, you need some more time?" I'm like, "I fucking told you five minutes, and here we are a minute and a half later, and you can't get away. Now I know that you're desperate. Now I can smell it. I can smell that desperation coming through. Complete turnoff."
--:-- I basically said, "Dude, I need time. I need to think about it overnight." I gave him the classic brush-off. He goes, "Well, I know what that means." I said, "Yeah. I don't want to tell you I'm not buying the car right now. I'm going to stand up and I'm going to leave. We can either have a good whatever, and maybe I reach back out to you, or you can give me crap. You have to make that decision, but I'm leaving." He's like, "Well, no, it's not like that. It's all good. Just text me tomorrow what you think. This car is going to go quick."
--:-- Long story short, that Bronco was on the lot for at least two more weeks. As much as he was telling me any minute someone could walk in and buy it—I have to drive by the dealership to get to my gym, so I saw it there for at least two more weeks. I stopped looking.
--:-- I get home. I had seen Carvana license plates around town, so I just went online and started checking it out. I'm looking at these cars, and they have 37,000 cars all over the country. You have this massive inventory. You can basically sort and fix and figure out exactly what you want. Sure enough, I find a black with red highlight trim Jeep Rubicon, 2019, 14,000 miles. It's got all the tricked-out features, which I was kind of looking for. I'm a single guy now, so I wanted something cool. I wanted something fun. I wanted something I could get in and have some fun with, put the top down, and bomb around. I've loved doing that all fall. My kids love it. That's what I wanted.
--:-- I looked at it. The price was right on point. It looked great. Passed all the inspection stuff. They gave me about $20,500 for the trade, so it was about a $1,500 difference. Versus the convenience of getting exactly what I wanted on my own terms compared to the in-person experience of being forced into something I didn't really like because it's what they had—the experience was way better.
--:-- I started looking into the process. They dropped the car off right at my house. I don't have to deal with the dealership. I don't have to deal with some sales guy who's up my butt about this feature and that feature and "You want this warranty?" and all this nonsense. Car buying is a terrible experience. The Carvana experience was much better. Now, it's not all roses. Nothing is perfect. This is an analogy or metaphor for me. It's not exactly saying independent insurance agents and blah blah blah. There's a little bit of that in there, and I'll get to that in a second.
--:-- [Interjection - Ad Break]
--:-- 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 listening on your favorite podcast platform—I would love for you to subscribe, share, comment if you're on YouTube, leave a rating or 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. They all check out comments, ratings, reviews. They check out all this information before they come on. So as I reach out to more and more people and want to bring them in and share their stories with you, I need your help. Share the show. Subscribe if you're not subscribed. I'd love for you to leave a comment about the show because I read all the comments. Or if you're on Apple or Spotify, leave a rating and review. I love you for listening to this show, and I hope you enjoy listening as much as I enjoy creating the show for you. All right, I'm out of here. Peace. Let's get back to the episode.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: So we get into the process. Some parts are super easy. Financing—right in line with what I get at a local bank. Finance through Carvana's thing. That's easy. Take pictures of the truck, validate the trade-in. That's nice. Upload a bunch of documents. That's all great. But then there were two hiccups.
--:-- One was in verifying whether or not I was transferring my plates or replacing them. And I had to figure out the lien. I had paid off the loan on my former truck, the F-150. I didn't have any payments on it. I had the title, but I didn't have the lien release. Most likely my ex-wife has it, which is fine. I just didn't want to bother her. So I went to the bank. It takes two seconds. Drive over to the bank. "Hey, can I get my lien release?" No problem. They hand me a document. I come back. I scan it. I send it in. "We don't accept this."
--:-- I'm talking—everything is done. I haven't talked to a human on the phone. Everything is via text message. They have a cool text message feature, which I thought was really cool. And then there was web chat and email. I'm going back and forth with all these people. I'm starting to get frustrated because there's no other version of the lien release at my bank. There's nothing else for me to show you. This is what it is. I could go back 20 times. This is the way it comes. I'm going back and forth. Finally, I'm like, "Can someone call me? How do I get a hold of somebody?" I'm starting to get frustrated.
--:-- Finally, I get a human on the phone. That human gives me the party line at first. I can't remember what her name was. She was being pleasant, doing her job. I'm like, "Ah." Finally, I said, "I'm getting very frustrated. I don't understand how to move forward here." This is the way this bank—now granted, it's a local credit union. Unfortunately, with interest rates being what they are, there's no real advantage to being there anymore. So I was like, "This is what it is. It says right here I've paid the truck off." Going back and forth with her.
--:-- Finally, she says, "You know what, Mr. Hanley? Let me look at this. Give me a day. I'll call you back." A little bit frustrated, maybe a little more than frustrated, because every day this went on pushed my delivery date back. The truck had to come from somewhere in the Midwest or Southwest. It wasn't right here in Albany. She calls me back the next day. There's back and forth—she called and I missed it. Finally, I get her on the phone. She goes, "Look, I understand the problem. I've checked it out. I've talked to our manager. You're all set. Your delivery date is here. Thank you very much."
--:-- I went from being really frustrated—feeling like maybe I made a mistake working with these guys because I'm not getting stuff done, I'm not getting the answers I need, the self-service functionality had run its course, escalating to a human was a pain in the butt—to when I finally got a human involved and I could tell that she cared about the outcome. Not that she cared about me personally, but she definitely cared about the outcome. I could tell by the tone of her voice and the way she approached me that she didn't want me to be frustrated. When she finally gave me the answer, I liked that the answer was actually what it was. I'm glad she didn't say no. Maybe my feelings would be different if she had just come back and said, "I don't know what to tell you. We won't accept it." But she got it approved, and everything was good. I was like, "This is great."
--:-- I had one little hiccup where they told me it was going to be this date, and then the delivery date got pushed back a week. That was frustrating because I set my day up to receive the car. But also, we have a labor shortage for all the reasons I won't get into. They just don't have enough drivers. So okay. Date gets pushed back.
--:-- We get to the delivery date for the vehicle. The guy texts me: "Hey, it's looking like 3 p.m." Great. At 2:45, he texts me: "Hey, I'm 15 minutes out." Awesome. I walk downstairs. It's on a Carvana truck. I don't know if you've ever bought a car from Carvana, but literally they pull up in a flatbed. He takes the Jeep off, hands me the key, says, "Hey, take it for a spin." I bomb around. He takes my truck, pulls it up onto the bed of the truck. I come back around. He says, "How was it?" I said, "Great. Love it." He was awesome. I signed two pieces of paper in person. He takes my truck away. I now have this awesome, new-to-me but still at 14,000 miles, basically brand new, six-speed manual transmission, black Jeep Rubicon tricked out. I feel like a pimp when I drive it. I've driven trucks for so long, it's kind of different being in a Jeep, but I'm really enjoying it.
--:-- I was like, "Oh my god, why would I ever go to a fucking dealership again? Why would I ever do that?" I got exactly what I wanted. Was there a little bit of time? Yeah. But I think could Carvana set expectations a little better?
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I think they definitely could set expectations a little better. I think they can make the process of getting from the self-service text message kind of automated processes and kind of text-based processes to a human faster when a situation needs to be escalated, but I'll never go to a car dealership again.
--:-- Maybe if I'm buying a super sports car or something someday, which I kind of have this bug in me that I kind of someday, not today, would love a certain sports car, but that's down the road. That's play down the road 10, 15 years from now. But if I need to get my next vehicle after this Jeep or whatever, if I want another vehicle, I'm going to buy it through a service like Carvana. I got exactly what I wanted. Exactly what I wanted.
--:-- Now, let's just spin this real quick over to the independent insurance industry, right? Because I'm going a little bit longer here with this story. This, to me, was complete validation in the human-optimized model for the agency of the future. If your traditional, local independent agency still dictates the way business will be done, I don't believe that you have a future in the industry. Now, you can maintain for sure, but you're not growing.
--:-- Because to me, I don't care about lifestyle agents. I don't care. I think lifestyle agents are amazing, but I don't even consider them when I think about the future of the industry. A lifestyle agent has earned the right to do whatever they want to maintain their business so that they can live the lifestyle that they've built. And they have every right to do that. And I applaud them. And I think it's wonderful.
--:-- And if I had built a traditional agency over the last 20 or 30 years and was in a place today where I was in my late 50s, early 60s, and I was looking at retiring or selling or whatever, would I want to implement massive growth solutions and take on new technology? No, I would not want to do that. I would do exactly what 60-ish percent of the industry is doing, which is what we've always done with minimal changes and hold on and wait for someone to come in and offer to buy me that I can actually feel like I can tolerate. That's exactly what I would do.
--:-- But for the growth-focused agencies, for the growth-focused organizations that are looking at our industry, that are looking at the future and thinking not just about what makes you successful today, but about where the puck is going. This concept of a human-optimized business, a business that does not rely on local—not that it can't be. Carvana has local shops or local dealerships that you can go and walk around and touch and feel and see the cars. They have that, but they also have this very robust online process that provides various layers of interaction escalating to a human as the customer needs and desires.
--:-- Do I think the Carvana experience is perfect? No, I do not. Do I think it's pretty freaking good? Yes, I do. And I believe we can replicate models like this in the independent insurance industry where we're allowing the customer to escalate to the human as they desire, not going right to the human because that's the most expensive way to go. It's also not what every customer wanted.
--:-- I had that experience at the dealership with this desperate guy. He stunk of used car salesman desperation and all he wanted to do was shove me into this vehicle that I had basically told him I didn't want. And it became like a psychology experiment for me. I mean, being that I do this for a living and I've been in sales my entire life, I could see it. I could feel it. I could taste it. I could smell it. It was dirty and disgusting and I hated it.
--:-- And I hated that he wasn't listening to me when I said I didn't want that thing or that I didn't want to communicate with him in that way or when I explained to him how I wanted to communicate, how he made it about what was best for him, about his timetable. It's not about him. It wasn't about him and it's certainly not about you and it's not about me. It's about the customer. What do they want?
--:-- And I feel like if we push them right to what we want, then we're not doing them. We are not setting our business up for exponential growth. What we're doing is setting our business up to grow in a sub-segment that is going to pigeonhole us, that's going to handcuff us from true growth.
--:-- So what does that look like for an independent insurance industry? No problem with local locations. I think you should have local locations at Rogue. Our long-term plan is to have Rogue locations owned in partnership with our producer force throughout the entire country. I want Rogues all over the country owned in conjunction with our producer force, our producers that validate and earn the right to launch their own locations out into the space. And that's a very important part of the model.
--:-- But another incredibly important part, the human-optimized part of the model, is this step-up process from self-service to automation to outsourced virtual assistants, VAs, and outsourced workforce to finally an inside force of licensed professionals who care, who give a shit, who will take the time to solve problems, who will do the right thing by the customer. But that process must escalate because you're going from least expensive to most expensive and let the customers decide where they need to go in that process.
--:-- And if you find that customers are jumping certain parts or pushing right to your most expensive options, maybe there's a branding issue. Maybe there's a marketing issue. Maybe there's a technology issue. Maybe there's a product issue. There are ways to solve those things. And I think all of it comes back to properly setting expectations through internal comms, through marketing and prospecting comms, through initial sales calls, through initial messaging after a lead form is filled. Properly setting expectations by explaining the process, by allowing customers to choose their own adventure throughout your organization, you're able to create the most efficient and effective business.
--:-- Pure efficiency isn't always the answer. I was just at ITC in Vegas and while I thought it was probably one of the best insurance conferences I have ever been to, some of the biggest power players in the industry were there. I had never seen so many major influencers, not just from a social media standpoint, but people doing real shit in the industry. I'd never seen so many in one place bumping into each other, having amazing conversations.
--:-- I also saw a lot of people that still believe that humans are not the answer. Humans are still an incredibly vital part of our business, still the most important part of our business. However, if we push all our customers directly to our humans, always the way we want it to be done, we are limiting our ability to be efficient, we're limiting the margins we're able to create inside our business, and we're ultimately limiting our ability to grow.
--:-- And just as a kind of fourth piece to that, I feel like it's not actually always what our customers actually want. I wanted to shop the 37,000 plus vehicles that Carvana had on my own without some sweaty, four-eyed, stinky, desperate freaking used car salesman over my shoulder trying to push me into something that I didn't want. I wanted to be able to shop for what I wanted and that's the experience that I wanted and I think a lot of our customers in the insurance industry are slowly—I think that's where the puck is going.
--:-- Let me put that a better way. I think that is where the puck is going, is this human-optimized idea, this idea that while efficiency is incredibly important, it is not the answer, and that by marrying those two ideas, the effectiveness of a human with the efficiency of technology and automation and self-service, and marrying those two concepts and building a step-up process that allows our customers to choose their own adventure, that is the agency of the future, my friends. That is where we need to be going if we truly care about growth.
--:-- My lifestyle agency friends, God bless you. I love you. I'll slap you up forever and I think you're amazing. But this is not the advice for you. You do you. You do what you've always done. Don't spend money on these things. Don't. I wouldn't. Put more business with the carriers. They're going to pay you more money. That might be late stage of your business. Moving to a model like SIA. Moving to an aggregator of some sort who's going to allow you to maximize your revenue and finding a way to do that. Or maybe it is just selling. Or maybe it is looking at your carrier partnerships and consolidating your book of business. Those are the things I'd be looking at if I were a lifestyle agent. I'd be looking at maximizing the revenue I already have internally.
--:-- But that's not the future of the industry. You are on the way out. God bless you. Thank you. I think that you've paid your dues and it's amazing and I'm very thankful for the work that our lifestyle agents in this industry have done. But I'm 40 years old. I got 20 more years in this industry at a minimum, 41 years old. So I still got 20 more years in the industry. So for me, I want to focus on the growth agencies, the agencies that are going to push their business to where the puck is going. And my friends, this is where I think the puck is going.
--:-- I hope that this was valuable to you. I'm going to save the Blockbuster story because we've kind of run long and I just, at this point, I think it's unnecessary. So we'll save that for another episode. But I hope this was valuable to you. This is where I think the business is going. This is where I think our industry is going. I'm so bullish on the independent insurance industry. I just feel like this move to a human-optimized model is the best way. And it's how we're building Rogue.
--:-- I mean, look, I'm putting my money, I'm putting my legacy, I'm putting my reputation where my mouth is. This is what we're building every day. This isn't just theory. This is what I do. And I share it with you on this podcast because I love you guys. And I know that so many of you listening to this actually do take in some of this. And you do take some pieces from the things that I share or say or the ideas. And it does help your business. And so many of you give it back. And I'm so incredibly grateful for that. And I learn from so many of you too as you find things and learn things and experience things and by us sharing and communicating and working as a community, we all get better. We all have a lot more fun and we can do awesome things.
--:-- So I hope you enjoyed this. If you are interested in joining Rogue, if one of those positions that I mentioned is something that kind of lights you up a little bit that you think you might be a good fit for or you know someone who would be a good fit for one of those positions, I'd love for you to reach out. You can hit me up, DM me on any of the socials. You can always email me at ryan at roguerist.com. Don't tell anybody that email address, but it's ryan at roguerist.com is my email. You can always hit me up, share a name, or put your own name in. I'd love to talk to you if you're interested.
--:-- Guys, we're growing fast, and we're doing interesting things, and I need more people who can help make that happen. We're starting to reach the point where I'm getting a little spread too thin, and I need to focus on the things that I can add the most value, and all the people in this business need to focus on the things where they add the most value, where they're responsible areas. We can't have people wearing 20 hats. It's just not how you grow a business. We're past that stage, and that's why we're looking for more great team members to come in and do awesome stuff. So if you think that's you, reach out.
--:-- As always, I love you for listening to this show. I appreciate you for listening to this show. You can always get at me and if you liked it, share with a friend. That's the best way to support this show, to support what we do here, to support these ideas, is just share the show with a friend. Tell somebody. Share it on social. Text it. If you got a Facebook group, share it in there or whatever. If you disagree and you hate these ideas, share it even more and tell me all the reasons why I'm a jerk and don't know what I talk about. That's just as interesting to me as everyone who agrees.
--:-- So I hope you guys absolutely crush today. I'm out of here. Peace. Peace. Peace.
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