Say No Without Going Broke

You've heard people say "you can’t write everything for everyone," but you also still have to pay the light bill. We break down how to focus on profitability, how agents “drift” into lines they never planned to write, and why saying yes to the wrong business can cost you way more than it earns.

We share practical ways to build guardrails (through carrier strategy, marketing focus, and referral boundaries) so you can grow profitably without getting trapped in a book you hate servicing.

Learn more at IntegraPartnerNetwork.com.

Transcript

Announcer: [00:00:00] This is IA forward, your Playbook for Success as an independent insurance agent. Now here to help you knock it outta the ballpark or your host, Shane Tatum, Tonya Lied, Mike Boesl, and Robby Jabbour. 

Tonya: Welcome to the 299th episode of the IA Forward Podcast. Woo. 

Mike: That's a lot. 

Shane: Those a lot of words. That's a lot of talking.

Tonya: That's a lot of talking and And I had to say that just in case, like something happened between this week and next week. We didn't get to celebrate 300 next week. 'cause 2 99 is huge. 

Shane: That's a big number. What's the average podcast like seven episodes? Seven or something like that? 

Tonya: Yeah. Yeah. 

Shane: They don't make it past seven.

That's the average podcast. We're not really sure anybody's listening, but we just keep talking. 

Tonya: We, we do. We do. And, and, and welcome back to the fourth member of the Quad Squad. We are [00:01:00] so happy to have Robbie Jabor with us today. 

Shane: Well 

Mike: then hiatus for a, a few weeks. 

Shane: I feel like maybe we need to reintroduce you, like maybe give your background again.

Mike: Right. 

Shane: It's almost been a month, man. 

Mike: It's been a minute. It's been a minute. You know, between 

Tonya: we introduced him and he went away. 

Robbie: Yeah, 

Mike: yeah, yeah. 

Robbie: It was a full IR stint. He, he served four weeks and now he, he's back. He's back. 

Mike: I wanted y'all to miss me, so I decided to take some time off. So you guys will realize that my few words on this podcast mean something.

Shane: Hey. It's like EF Hutton. We're aging. I'm aging myself when I say that. Robbie's the new EF Hutton when, when Robbie talks, people listen. Right? Something like that. 

Tonya: We had this fabulous intern last summer, uh, and, and I made that comment to Campbell and she, she kind of just looked [00:02:00] at me like, 

Shane: what are you talking about?

Tonya: What are you talking about? Who is, who is EF? And I was like, oh no, that's, that's, that's not good. Not good. 

Robbie: No. And you know, she was thinking in her head. Old people. Old people. For sure. Like an old 

Mike: person. 

Robbie: That's who we are. We're the old people. 

Tonya: We are 

Robbie: for sure. 

Tonya: We are.

So what are we talking about today, guys? 

Robbie: What are we right into it? Like this is uncommon for us. I know. 

Mike: I thought I was gonna get to talk about my famous football championship that I wrapped up a couple weeks ago before we jump. 

Tonya: We can do that. We can do that. Go ahead. 

Robbie: Hey. I also won one and we both, I think we both won on the back of the same dude, 

Mike: Chris McCaffrey?

Robbie: No. Who had the MO points that Drake May. Drake. May. 

Mike: Drake. May. Drake. Drake. May. May. 

Robbie: Drake. Drake. Drake May, yeah. [00:03:00] Playing against the JV team that we, I believe it was thankfully. 

Mike: Yeah, the Jets, I think that's you are referring to. 

Robbie: Yeah, 

Mike: that was, that was fantastic. Yeah. 

Shane: Man, the poor jets. 

Robbie: They are, they are. They are far from, I mean if this was European soccer, they would've been relegated by now.

Shane: Yeah. I think those guys in the Titans, right? Like they're just both not very good right now, but the Jets haven't been very good for a long time. 

Mike: For a long time. Yeah. Remember Aaron Rogers was supposed to be the savior two years ago, and unfortunately. Injured on the first drop back. 

Shane: Yeah. 

Robbie: Oh my gosh. I, that was against the bills.

Uh, I remember. Was it, uh, Mike Greenberg on ESPN when the whole thing with Rogers going there went down and he was like, partying it up. Uh Oh, 

Mike: yeah. Then beside himself. Yeah. 

Robbie: That did not work out. 

Mike: It 

did 

Shane: not. [00:04:00] No. Well, I'm ha I'm, I'm happy. I'm not a huge Rogers fan, but I'm happy for Rogers. I mean, he's had a good year.

Steelers are, Steelers are in the playoffs. Unfortunately. That's a tough draw. The Texans, my, my Texans, um, tough draw. They get the Steelers in the first round, so that's, that's not good. Not good at all. 

Mike: That'll be a, I don't think it's good for Rogers. I mean, that defense is Yeah. Elite on the D side, so I don't, I think it's a pretty easy game for the Texans personally.

Shane: Yeah. We're 

Robbie: picking later. Right. That'll be a fun game to watch the old 12 to nine game. 

Shane: It only, it only, the only problem is it's at NRG, I think, and so it's domed and so it would be much better if it was about 34 degrees. That'll be in entrance park. 

Mike: Yeah, Pittsburgh. 

Shane: Oh, okay. 

Mike: Yeah, Houston got the, the five seed, which is a 

Shane: Oh, okay.

Had 'em flipped, [00:05:00] Adam flipped. I thought, I thought Juan was sorry. Okay. Stand correct. 

Tonya: Speaking of energy, I have to give a shout out to their incredible security team. We went to the Texas old two weeks ago, and when we got there, everyone was tailgating and when we went to leave, no one was tailgating and therefore we could not find our vehicle.

Because nothing looked the same. And we had three different security officers in their golf carts driving around looking for my car. And what was really funny is one of the guys had said, here, just give us your keys. And we didn't think about it randomly gave this guy our keys. And so when we found our car, then we had to go back and find the person that actually had our keys.

But huge shout out to them. They spent 45 minutes with us after the LSU [00:06:00] Houston game, and they did a really great job for us. So thanks to those guys at, um, and ladies at Energy Stadium. And I do have to tell you, Shane, I have never been accused before of being even keel. And that happened to me at the Sugar Bowl.

So Daniel and I are, are sitting there, we're watching the sugar bowl, and uh, the third quarter, a, a man looked over at us and said, who are y'all here cheering for? Because y'all are really even killed. You're not getting really excited over, over anything. And I just really wanted to call Shane Tatum up and say, here, I'm gonna hold the phone up and I'm gonna let you tell our CEO this, that it is totally possible for me to be even cute.

Shane: It's 'cause the Tigers, the tigers were playing. That's, that's why, that's 'cause it 

Tonya: was, but it was a great game. That was a really 

Shane: fantastic game. Especially a great fourth quarter. That was the [00:07:00] best game of all the games, right? Like hundred. Yeah. I mean 

Tonya: it was, it 

Shane: was, I that it 

Tonya: was fun to be in New Orleans for that.

Shane: I was, I was not even killed in the living room watching the last few minutes of that game. I was actually pretty pumped. So I don't know. Yeah. Got under my skin a little bit. I'm, I'm excited for the Ole Miss kids. So that's pretty cool. 

Tonya: But it was hysterical to watch the end of that game and all of the a hundred people that it was taking to push the stage on and off three different times, right?

As the, they kept thinking the game was over and not, and over and not, and over and not, so, yeah. 

Shane: Yep. Yep. That's right. What are we talking about today? 

Tonya: I think we're, Mike, this one's your topic. I, 

Robbie: this one's mine. 

Tonya: Yeah, this one's yours. 

Robbie: I surprised myself with how much great stuff I come up with. [00:08:00] Um, 

Tonya: you surprised us too.

Robbie: Um, I think our topic for today was going to be how broad do we want to get with what we're doing? Our agency. And I think that there's factors that play into that answer, right? That's not gonna be the same answer for everyone. If we're starting out, I think we stay real narrow and, and we keep a nice focus and get really proficient at what we are doing, and then we can deviate from that narrow path.

But what we'll get into here is there's, of course, even once you're in it, 20 years, there's still gonna be some limitations to how, how vast you wanna get, how, how much you wanna move away from your core competencies. Um, so I think, you [00:09:00] know, for the purposes of this conversation, maybe we start out talking about just what, what do you do when you're first starting out?

Shane: Yeah, I, I think we, you do what you. What you want to do, what you probably should do as a best practice is not what most agents do. I would say 90% of the time what, you know, what what we do is we go, we go too wide or too broad. We try to do everything for everyone. We, we don't wanna let somebody walk away.

We, you know, we, we almost feel like, especially if we're coming from the captive side of things, we, we generally are afraid to let somebody walk out of our proverbial door, right? Our office, we, we we're like, well, we gotta, we gotta have a hundred percent close ratio, which is, it's not realistic, but when [00:10:00] you've been running, say, a 10% close ratio, we seem to swing that pendulum.

Too far in the other direction. Right. Uh, and I think, think discipline around that is really, really important. 

Robbie: Yeah. I mean, go ahead, Romy. 

Mike: It's hard to say no, right? Especially when you're first starting off, when you've got clients asking you for quotes, it's really hard to turn down certain things, even if you're not super familiar with it.

But keeping it simple, keeping it disciplined, staying in your lane, especially as you get started, knowing what you like, doing, what you know, you know, like understand if you're a, if you're a personal lines person, like getting into commercial, probably not a great idea upfront. Maybe something you can expand into later, but staying disciplined, staying simple, and keeping your focus, especially as you start up your agency.

Robbie: Yeah, I think a decent way to look at it. Is if, [00:11:00] let's say you're starting a business that's a storefront business, a goods and services business, doesn't matter. Come in and, um, you know, what are you gonna do? What makes the most sense is having everything and trying to compete with Walmart your best option.

Or is it to do something really narrow and focused to start out with, to gain some traction. So, you know, if you're gonna do hunting and fishing, okay, are you gonna then also have a section for food and, and knitting and all the other things and try to compete with Walmart? Or are you gonna to start, go right down that narrow path of the thing you know well and go after that, and then maybe you expand from that in a controlled way.

I, 

Shane: I don't think I've ever heard anyone go from hunting and fishing to knitting in one paragraph like that was 

Mike: without hesitation. 

Shane: That was, that was freaking impressive. Just showing up. I, I just got [00:12:00] pause and energetic. I mean, we got some hunting and fishing going on in east Texas, but I, I, I've never known hunting, fishing, knitting, all to come together.

So that, and 

Robbie: there's a reason for that. 

Shane: Yeah, so good analogy, right? I mean, it's pretty good. Pretty good. 

Tonya: We went to a concert while we were in New Orleans and there was actually someone knitting in. The row in front of us, by the way. Mm. She mid twenties. And I would, I was just shocked that that happened.

But as Mike was going through hunting, fishing, and knitting, I was waiting for him to add the tanning salon and video rental in there just for fun. 

Shane: Yeah. 

Robbie: That's, he'd getting those s is that 

Shane: classic, you know, I, Tanya always, uh, through the years of podcasting, you know, has asked, like, as we would talk and we would kind of go through, you know, what not [00:13:00] to do or what we should do or best practices.

It's like, um, she's like, okay, so what are some practical ways that someone can do this? You know? So I'm gonna ask the Tanya question. You know, let's get in the weeds a little bit. Let's ask the prac practical, uh, ways to do this. You know, we had a podcast a few weeks ago on carrier portfolio and you know, I think one of the reasons that.

When an agent starts day one, right? Uh, getting markets, you know, a accessing markets and what they can get and what they can't get. And did they join an agency network or did they try to, you know, go, go on their own and, and get direct contracts? I mean, all of these things play into this, this question to me, one way to create discipline around, you know, how, how wide or broad do you go or how narrow do you [00:14:00] go has to do with, you know, what do you want your book to look like five to eight years down the road?

Because what you do in that first 12 to 18 months, to Robbie's point, it's hard to say no. So if we build some guardrails in our carrier portfolio to kind of bring that topic back, front and center. Then that guides us, right? Like if we're going to, um, just do personal lines, just, you know, just start there.

We're gonna be a personal lines agent to start out with. We'll probably get into dabbling in just a minute, but, you know, we're gonna get to, we're gonna do personal lines. Well, you know, you get 4, 5, 6, um, you know, preferred carriers, a couple of specialty carriers, and really, you know, I would say unless you're coastal, unless you're in some area that requires something [00:15:00] more, uh, you, you probably don't wanna be in the ENS, uh, excess and surplus business in personal lines, unless of course you're coastal or you're, you're in a, a special geographic area that requires that.

But even that, I would not necessarily say you need, you know. 10 ENS brokers, you know, you need a couple, right? You need, you need a couple of ENS brokers if you're in those coastal areas. Everything that, what happens at that point is the things that you're saying no to are the things that fall outside of that, that discipline that you've set up for yourself, right?

And it doesn't mean you're at a 10% close ratio, but it doesn't mean you're at a hundred either. So you're somewhere in that 30, 40, 50% close ratio range. I would say, uh, once you mix in the competitive [00:16:00] competitiveness of those carriers. And so I think we have to put guardrails on ourself of, around that.

'cause we're never, salespeople are never gonna be able to be so disciplined that we say no. 

Tonya: I feel like we've spent the last few episodes telling people. To say no. That's been kind of a focus for us. Um, what about these guys that are trying to pay the light bill? Trying to, to, to build their business from the beginning?

It is really hard to say no when you're trying to start a business and pay your bills. So at what point in time can we say it's okay to say yes? Because people get tired of saying no. 'cause not everything's gonna always fit in the perfect little box. It's a great theory, but it's not always real life.[00:17:00] 

Robbie: Yeah. I think part of it is proper planning beforehand. Financially, you, you have to go into that first year with an understanding. A, a realistic understanding of where you're gonna be financially at the end. And that will give you the opportunity to say no to the things that you know, you shouldn't say yes to.

Mike: Yeah, I think that's key. I have the same thought, Mike. Um, 'cause you know, it takes two to three years to really start seeing the fruits of your labor in your agency with your residuals building, uh, on top of the new business that you're riding. It's gonna be a little while before you really see the revenue that you want to see.

So proper planning up front, the right amount of liquid capital 

Shane: to, 

Mike: to eat, feed the family, uh, to get to the point where you want to get to ultimately, [00:18:00] uh, you know, which is two, three years down the road. 

Shane: Yeah. It, you know, I think sometimes agents come in to starting their agency from. A certain level of income, right?

Either captive agent starting over, producer at a captive agent that had to leave their book of business, start over, build a book, someone coming in from outside the industry that's maybe been in a sales role or some type of role where they are now moving from this, this salary, this fixed income, so to speak, in a way, guaranteed in a way, to this variable thing over the first 12 to 24 months.

And it, it is, it's not that we want you to say no over and over again. I think the underlying problem to [00:19:00] that is, and I'll add to from the lack of maybe financial planning and preparation, the lack of marketing, planning and preparation before you, you're ready to go and. And really where I would go with that is what a lot of what, what happens when, when people are having to say yes to things that are gonna be a pain in the rear later.

Right? Uh, or peta, you know? Right. If it's gonna be a peta, that's not good. Right. And you do it because you need the income. Now you need, you need to write the business. But in the back of your mind, you know, this piece of business may jump up and bite you down the line. Most agents that find themselves in that spot aren't actually looking for their ideal prospect.

They're not marketing their ideal prospect. They're responding or reacting [00:20:00] to the low hanging fruit that once they hung out their shingle, once they announced it on social media, the. The people that tend to run at us first are either family and friends or problem children, right? As as clients. Sometimes those are the same things.

Family and friends and problem children sometimes can be the same thing. And so what you find yourself in is you're like trying to make a name quickly and it's like these are the people that are running at you versus the people that you really are targeting. And if you were, if you were targeting the people that fit your goal, the, you know, personalized standard, preferred, let's just stay there for a minute.

You're not trying to get the guy that went out and bought a couple of dump trucks and needs a commercial auto policy, but it's [00:21:00] never been in the dump truck business, right? Or the sand and gravel business. But that's what tends to run at you because every other agent in town. Has said no. That's right.

Right. And so now you're the, you know, throw it at the newbie and he, you know, he or she will say yes because, you know, they don't want to say no. And so I think there's always that cause causation piece. And I, I think we have to add the marketing or lack of marketing planning to it. 

Robbie: So to get a little more granular on this, let's say we're talking about someone that's just starting out, again, I think we would all agree the right way to start is to pick a line and go with that.

Probably personal lines if, unless you have something that is really pulled you to per, uh, commercial lines, that you have some relationship or something, or you [00:22:00] something that would draw you to that, maybe you don't do that. You stay with personal lines, you stay focused within there. And then maybe you have reduce commercial lines later.

So what is our thought if, if we all agree on that, what is our thought on when is the right time to introduce the other line, the commercial line? 

Tonya: I think that most agencies don't really choose that they drift into it. Um, I usually it has to do, from what I've seen with they've got some really great personal lines, customers, maybe a little bit of a higher end customer that owns a business or two or six, and that customer comes to them and says, Hey, you've done a great job for me.

I want you to look at my commercial business. They're afraid to send them to someone down the street by, they don't wanna say, I don't do that, because [00:23:00] there's this fear that they're gonna lose them at the personal lines client by sending them to someone else. So they drift. Into doing commercial because they don't wanna say no, 

Shane: it, it's not real.

But that's exactly what happens. And, and I, my word for drift is dabble. And I think drift is really good because they don't intentionally do it. It just happens to 'em. That fear of losing a good customer makes you quote Tanya, drift into it. Um, or I would say dabble in it. You don't really know what you're doing yet, but you stick your toe in the water.

Well, I'll just, I'll just stick my toe in the water. Right? Well, that's how an e and o claim happens, right? And the e and o claim is the gift that keeps on giving, you know, it just really does. So you wanna watch out for that. Uh, I, I, you know, here's, here's the interesting thing, and this is [00:24:00] kind of maybe a little bit of my heel to die on, uh, in the industry and, and, and just continue to preach this.

So the independent agency space owns commercial lines for the most part, like upwards of 80 plus percent of market share in commercial lines is in the independent agency channel. And for years and years, uh, the exclusive captive channel has owned personal lines, and we've seen and talked about on this podcast how independent agencies channel continues to gain market share year over year.

And now we're sitting at around 39%, I think I, between independents and direct channels, which really doesn't play into here. I would say direct and exclusive, right? That means direct and exclusive is 60%, 60% of personalized [00:25:00] market share. I, I think the really interesting thing is the panic. That independent agents have about, they're afraid they're gonna lose their customer to the guy down the street.

When that customer comes to them and says, Hey, I've got these businesses. Could do you do that? Can you take care of that? Like the average customer truly doesn't know because if that was State Farm agent or an Allstate agent and they went down there, state, those carriers have given those agents a bucket the size of a thimble in commercial lines.

Like that's, they could, their commercial lines offerings are minute compared to their personal lines offerings. And so you have tens of thousands of exclusive agents around the country saying no, basically to pers to commercial lines and continuing to do really, really well [00:26:00] in their personal lines, you know.

I, I believe that agents, independent agents have to kind of take on that understanding. Like it may happen to you. I, I get it. Like you might lose a personalized client because you decided to be disciplined and not do commercial yet, but the percentage chances that that happens to you is really, really small because the market share says the opposite of that.

Unless you're in like Massachusetts, I think. 

Robbie: But there's workarounds available anyway, even if you don't wanna get into commercial yet. Sure. Right. Like safe coat offering. There's things you can do that would still keep that business with you, but you are not really servicing it. 

Shane: There is, and there's also could be a commercial lines agency focused [00:27:00] specialist.

That you could partner with, right? Mm-hmm. Um, that there, there's that, you know, depending on your, your area, um, maybe not in a smaller rural area, but in a lot of the metro suburban areas, you, you can find that as well. Um, I, I don't wanna forget the question you ask is, when's the right time? Right. Uh, you know, I, I think that to back up just a little bit, you can decide to start off in commercial and focus on commercial, but you need, to Mike's point, you need something like, you need an understanding of that industry.

Like let's say you have been in a certain type of business, um, for a long time you owned a business and it was a certain industry and you decided to, um, sell that business. [00:28:00] And you thought, you know, I, I think I want to get into the end of, I think I wanna start an insurance agency, that understanding and expertise about that class of business and becoming the expert there and you having enough capital to understand that, okay, I may not write hardly anything year one, but by the end of year three, if I have the capital to sustain myself, I could become the expert in the commercial lines arena for that class of business.

I think those are areas where you can start out from scratch and actually be commercial lines focused, right? Um, and so I think that's a reality. The other side of this is when, when can the personal lines agent open up a commercial lines operation? My short answer, and I'll let y'all. Talk for a little while.

Um, my short answer is [00:29:00] when you have enough margin in your personal lines book to legitimately invest in a commercial lines team or department, even if it's just one account manager that's gonna be focused on commercial lines.

Robbie: Yeah, that makes sense to me. But the most important thing is to go in with a plan. You know, just, just to expand on what Shane just said, you know, if you're, if you're looking for an example of what may be something that would work for someone coming into insurance and wanting to go directly to commercial lines, I don't know.

Like, uh, let's say you were a, you worked at a service center for fleet trucks. Okay. You were the manager there, so you got to meet all the people that came in for work that was being done on these fleets or maybe going into commercial lines and doing fleet insurance. Maybe that would [00:30:00] work for you. Uh, but again, you would still have to have everything Shane said.

You'd have to have that plan. You'd have to have the capital to get there because it is very narrow and you're going to have hardship up front. 

Shane: I, I'm hugely bullish on personal lines, like I believe that independent agents can and will be successful being personal lines focused. And this is not a statement that is intended to dumb down personal lines at all.

'cause I don't, I don't think that's real. I, I just, I do think the reality of it is, is the availability of markets, especially with an agency network like the Integra partner network, right? The availability of markets. Uh, combined with the fact that, you know, there's not as many moving parts in personal lines as there is in commercial makes, it [00:31:00] makes it an area where you can build a foundational book of business.

You could build foundational profit, you can regain, you know, get a return on your initial investment faster, and then at some point you can expand. You can do something more if, if you want to. You don't have to. I just think it's really harder to start in commercial without some super niche concept and the capital to sustain how long it's gonna take you to become subject matter expert on that class of business.

Mike: Yeah, so much time invested. And understanding the commercial world, industry codes and just knowing what each industry needs. You know, there's so much more information that you have to understand and know [00:32:00] versus, to your point, Shane, personal lines is pretty cut and dry. You got different product levels, but for the most part it's, you're, it's the same item, uh, versus commercial.

So, you know, you kind of plugged our Integra partner network. I mean, if you choose the right network, that network may have referral partnerships within the network. I know we kind of touched on it before, but we actually have a carrier that allows you to refer commercial clients to them. So if you do want to drift or dabble, we, you know, a group like us has some opportunities and options for you.

Tonya: I wanna talk about the flip side in that. Can you be too narrow? We have, uh, an agent, an agency within our Integra partner network that has a niche of classic cars. And a few weeks ago we were talking with him and he was talking about the [00:33:00] fact that somehow people didn't know that they did anything besides writing classic cars.

People didn't realize that they could write their home. And I was at a, at a conference and speaking with a lady who specialized in cannabis out in California. And when there were some challenges in the California market and she was trying, she was, she was online and she was seeing. Great customers of hers that were putting in their social media, Hey, I am looking for somebody to write my car insurance.

Yeah. Who would you suggest? And she was hopping on and saying, Hey, you know, I, I can do that for you. And people didn't know she did anything besides her, the niche market that she had clean, marketed. So where do you find the balance of having a niche, having this narrow focus, [00:34:00] but still letting people know that you do other things as well?

Shane: Yeah. Your brand, right. Your brand becomes aligned with that, that, that arena. Um, and, and I think that, you know, I'm, I'm more familiar with the classic car scenario and I thought that was shocking to me, um, that, that that was the interpretation. That. Oh, I didn't know. And so, you know, I'm gonna go back and say there's, there's the causation there, right?

Like, cause and effect. Why? Why, why is that? Well, I think, you know, the guys there would say, well, I'm not sure we had our, I'm not sure we had our systems in place at the time to help our classic car marketing clients once they became clients. I think it's the onboarding of it. Like you onboard that client, [00:35:00] the customer experience, and then it's the ongoing marketing of we also do these other things.

Otherwise you just find yourself riding nothing but classic cars all day, or classic boats all day. Um, or cannabis accounts, right? Um, such an insurance industry thing. You know, we, we can't just call it weed, right? We gotta, we gotta make it professional. Make it proper. You know, it's, that's the most insurance, you know, professional thing ever, by the way is that, you know, we can't just call it what it is.

You know, we gotta, we gotta get the a we gotta get the professional term thrown out there. Um, but again, I, I remember you telling me that story, Tanya, and again, shocking. Like really, like that's what the consumer really thought. And we have to figure out ways as agency owners to stay [00:36:00] out of the ivory tower and into the understanding of how are the consumers actually, how are they actually seeing us?

Are they seeing us, the way they seeing us, the way we think they should see us? Are they seeing us some totally different way? 

Announcer: Yeah. I 

Tonya: think insurance is insurance to 99.9% of the people. In our country, uh, at Christmas, at our Christmas party, uh, my mother was talking about insurance to someone and she said, oh, Tanya can fix you up with that.

She can help you with that. And I'm going, I know nothing about health insurance. Like the only thing I know about health insurance is that sometimes my health insurance pays for stuff and sometimes it doesn't. Like that's, that's all I know. It's not what I do. Right. But people don't understand that until I joined this industry eight years ago, I had insurance agencies as clients, but I didn't [00:37:00] fully understand the difference in what they did.

Mm-hmm. And that is, that is the opportunity that we have, uh, from an education perspective with clients. However, clients don't care. They don't care about insurance until they need help. Right. 

Robbie: Yeah. I think for me, niche. You guys ruined that word for me in the very first episode, by the way that we all did together.

Niche and narrow are very different things for me. So narrow is you're gonna stay within a path, but there's, there's a fair amount within that path. And niche is more like, I am just doing this one thing. And I think you have to be super careful with that. And a lot of that comes down to math. What is your, what are you getting in return?

Announcer: Hmm. 

Robbie: So if, if you're, if you can figure out what it is you will make on the average policy that then you've got some base to work off of, then you gotta figure out what a realistic amount [00:38:00] of customers in your area or in the area you're going to market to is. And then you need to see if that can work for you or not.

Shane: Hmm. 

Robbie: And then you have to decide, okay, so does that work? If no, then how much wider do I have to go? And if it's, so, if it's so specialized that you have to do this national thing, you really need to make sure you can get what you need, because that feels like a pretty tall order. 

Tonya: Mike, I'm sure whatever you just said was brilliant.

I'm sure that it was however, I was distracted by your chair and that it looks like you have a big bow behind your head. 

Robbie: Um, but I don't know this personally, but I'm told bows are in, but 

Tonya: they are in, absolutely. Bows are in right now. So I'm liking the bow chair. 

Robbie: And in case I didn't 

Tonya: know CEO in waiting of you, 

Robbie: in case I didn't know, like everything under the tree at [00:39:00] Christmas that my daughter got, had bows on it.

So now I know. 

Tonya: Yes, 

Robbie: now you know. 

Tonya: Now you know. 

Shane: Now I, there's a, something that you said there about the, the, just the whole niche concept, and we've talked about that here in rural East Texas. And we're basically generalist in commercial lines. We do have a couple of niches, right. Uh, school districts that, that would be a niche or, or niche as, as, as our, uh, lady on the call says.

Um, and in both work, right? Both work both will take you to the same place. It's okay. Um, there, but, you know, we were, we've talked about that internally, like what would that look like for us? And honestly, it, what it looks like is it's okay to have 3, 4, 5 of those, right? It doesn't ha doesn't, you know, there's, there's a limit like [00:40:00] for you to become the expert on public K through 12 school districts.

You gotta kind of immerse yourself into that. But does that mean you can't write plumbing contractors? Does that mean you can't become a plumbing contractor expert? No. It doesn't mean that like there's enough capacity in the human brain and the insurance producers mind in order to do that. And, and we see these, like, you know, I, I always tell people, you know, just look, don't, don't take everything that everyone says as you know, the a hundred percent gospel.

Like, you gotta kind of understand the dynamic. If you've got an agent trying to teach other agents that they can be anything, they want to be in this one singular class of business. Right. [00:41:00] Well. I want you to dig down a little bit and say, well, okay, where is that agent's success? Like where are they? If they're located in Chicago and they operate in the greater Chicago market and there is a billion dollars worth of, uh, plumbing contractor premium, and they can just do nothing but residential plumbing contractors and they can grow a $15 million premium book of business on plumbing, residential plumbing contractors in Chicago, and you're gonna go and you're gonna say, I'm gonna learn how to do this.

But you're located in Tyler, Texas. [00:42:00] Population 150,000 and the marketplace for plumbing contractors is totals about 2 million in premium, maybe. Maybe. So you gotta write a hundred percent of the plumbing contractors in Tyler, Texas in order to, and that's still not enough. So you've gotta have other classes of business.

Right. And so I think there's a lot of mis, I don't know that I would call it misinformation 'cause those guys doing that, they're not necessarily wrong. I think it's this idea though, that the people that are consuming that on social media and consuming those concept, they're not understanding their own marketplace.

To Mike's point, like they don't even understand. They're not looking at it and going well. I can't just pick one niche because if I don't have enough business to write, [00:43:00] right? But I can pick three or four and now I can make, I can gain 30 to 40% market share in my area on those classes of business because I become the expert on those classes in business.

Robbie: Yeah. Now to the point, I have a great example to your point. Uh, the very first agency I ever worked in here, just outside of Buffalo, was a good size agency. They did all the things. They did personal lines, commercial lines, all the, but the other thing they did was they had one person in the office that was completely dedicated to nothing but places of worship.

So they did, you know, churches and mosques and all. Yeah, that's all that person did. Now they had to travel a lot because they were statewide in order to make enough. Even just for that one person to get the commissions they needed. So they were New York City a lot. They were, um, [00:44:00] you know, upstate a lot.

But the point is they be, they became the New York State leader in that niche, but it wasn't an agency's worth of things that they were doing. 

Shane: Right. And they had to, they went narrow on class, but wide on geography. 

Robbie: Right. Exactly. 

Shane: I think that's the other missing piece too. Right. I had a agency mentor, um, who's since retired insurance mentor way back that did, uh, propane dealers, um, based here in East Texas.

And he, he did propane dealers, but he did 'em all over the state of Texas. Well, we know that Amarillo is eight hours away from us, right? Like, that's not close. But he had accounts in Amarillo. He had, he's East Texas based. He had accounts in Lubbock, like he had to go geographically wide to [00:45:00] go class narrow or class niche.

That's another way to do it, right. To, to Mike's point. And so I, I, I think it's just, you can't take this just broad stroking kind of approach. You've gotta actually understand what it is that you're doing. 

Mike: Yeah. I think it's important. Like you, you guys mentioned diversifying and not being in one specific industry.

I think on the back end of that is, you know, carrier availability for those specific industries like we've seen in the past where carriers have exited a state or they've exited that program and it's kind of put agents kind of in a tough position, not being able to maybe remarket those accounts.

Because there's no other carriers taking that. So having a different diversification of different industries that you do will help offset, uh, that potentially in the future if that were to come up. 

Tonya: There's one other way that [00:46:00] I see agencies drift and that has to do with referrals. We, we love referrals that, that tell most of, uh, most of our agencies grow is by, by referrals.

And when we get one of those referrals and it comes in, we wanna keep that customer happy and we wanna be able to make sure that we can offer whatever it is that, that that person is asking for. Right. And we can very easily drift when that happens. 

Shane: Yeah. I have a really weird example here that keeps popping in my mind on this and, um.

We kinda let the tail wag the dog with our referral sources. And I'm with you. I, we, referral is king. Still is. It will always be king. Uh, someone coming to you as a referral is very, they've almost made their decision already. Like it. I mean, you gotta, [00:47:00] if your competitive, if your price is in reason, then you probably get in the business.

And so we, we have this tendency to, we have this tendency to do whatever the referral source, especially if it's a repeating, repetitive referral source that we maybe are referring each other business, maybe a mortgage broker, maybe a real estate agent, et cetera. What we tend to do though, is we forget about one critical thing.

We forget to set some boundaries. Like we, we just, whatever, whatever comes at us, we feel like we've got to kind of serve the master, so to speak, because we don't want that to dry up. And, um, you know, I think we, you know, coming out of, uh, the holidays over the last few, few weeks, like it's kind of front and center like we set, you know, we have to set boundaries in our families.

We have to set boundaries within friendships, um, parenting boundaries. [00:48:00] There's all kinds of areas where if we don't, then we have generally have problems if we haven't set some level of boundaries around that. And that was kind of the weird example that came into my brain, brain is when we have these referral partnerships, I wanna strongly encourage, you know, agents to find a way to set some boundaries.

Like come to some kind of agreement like, Hey, you send me some crazy thing. I, I don't know if I'm always gonna be able to, to handle it. And so I don't wanna ruin, I don't wanna cause my, my people problems or myself problem. Trying to just do everything and anything that you send me. 

Robbie: Well, here's the thing.

Let's say Sammy is the referrer. Okay? How are we doing right by them? The first way is they come to you and they say, Hey, my friend, uh, is a general contractor. They need insurance. [00:49:00] What, what's better? What are you doing right by that person? By going out and writing your very first policy for a general contractor or saying to Sammy, Hey, listen, I really appreciate the fact that you brought this to me.

That makes me feel really good about the, the job I'm doing for you. But I don't, I'm not in a position right now to write that because I'm not well educated in that at the moment. 

Mike: No, mean, that's 

Tonya: what admit that we don't know how to do something. 

Mike: I know. I mean, it, that's what they should do. But that's not what's gonna happen.

Robbie: I know, but, but which way are you doing Right. By your client? 

Mike: No, you're a hundred percent right. I just, it's hard, I think for a salesperson to, like Tanya said, admit that they can't do it or that they shouldn't do it. So, but, you know, listen, if they stay disciplined and they keep it simple and they stay in their lane, then that's, that's exactly what they should do.[00:50:00] 

Tonya: It's, you know, your agency doesn't have D two B everything to everyone. Right? Right. It just needs to be excellent at what you choose for it to be. 

Shane: I think it, it affects your customer experience, um, to try to, you know, to get too far out and, and to not honor that relationship by telling that referral source that you're not necessarily the expert in that, in that area.

I, I also think this is, you know, I agree with Robbie that, you know, that's not what most people do. It's not what most agents do, but it is what we should do. Um, and it's, it's this, it's this transition from salesperson, producer only to agency owner. And this is one of those areas where you need to be able to, you know, just really quickly take the hat off of the producer and put the hat on of agency owner and say, Hey, this is not gonna be good [00:51:00] for you.

It's not gonna be good for the client you're referring and it's actually going to, uh, send me down a rabbit hole that is gonna make me actually potentially lose other opportunities that you send me. Right? I'm gonna be over here working on this. I'm not gonna be able to create the right customer experience.

And then, then things are gonna start snowballing. 

Tonya: This is where you have the opportunity to be a connector. Brian Besh in Austin, Texas is the master at, at this. And if I need to know anything about Austin, then I am gonna reach out to Brian and ask, because he's gonna be able to tell you what CPA you need.

He's gonna tell you what attorney you need, where the best restaurants are. And if you are the agent that can say, Hey, it's not what I do, but X, y, Z agent at this [00:52:00] agency is who you need, then you still keep control of that client by sending him where you want it to be sent, knowing you're sending it to where it's not going to try to, that they don't, your, your account's not gonna try to get stolen, right?

So that's how you stay. The expert is knowing where to send those people. 

Shane: Yeah, that's right. Agree.

Are we doing picks this week? 

Robbie: Uh, 

Tonya: we can't, we get 

Robbie: quick here. 

Tonya: Well, since I think I lost every single one of '

em 

Tonya: in the quarter finals, um, the college football playoff, then I think we should absolutely do things this week. 

Shane: And you got a chance to totally redeem, redeem yourself here. 

Tonya: I know. I was, I was thinking maybe I, you know, because my dream, my dream, yeah.

I don't know if y'all know this about me, but like, [00:53:00] there's nothing in the world that I can imagine that would be better than getting to be a guest picker. Um, on college game day, on Saturday morning, on esp, like, like that would be the ultimate moment I could die happy. And then I had this week in football and it was so bad and I'm like, yeah, I'm kind of grateful that I've never had that opport.

Shane: That's awesome. You don't wanna be on that board forever is the worst. The worst, the worst corrected, right? Yeah. And Pat McAfee would have a field day with you. 

Tonya: I know. And it would break my heart, 

Robbie: so. All right, well let's do it. I got a screen up here with all the games. I'll just start at the top. You guys tell me, uh, first one, we'll, we'll start out with the easy one.

We got Rams, Panthers. Is anybody on the Panthers? 

Tonya: I have. I have a from Carolina, so I'm just gonna like refuse to not [00:54:00] pick. I think that would, I think I should just stay neutral on this. 

Shane: Are 

Mike: they eight? Did beat the Rams earlier this year. 

Shane: Yeah. A 

Mike: after Carolina, but it's really hard to beat the same thing twice.

So I'm definitely going with the Rams. 

Shane: Are they eight and nine? Yes. Is Carolina eight and nine? Like I think they, are they under 500 or are they over 500? 

Mike: Pretty sure they're eight and nine. 

Shane: Okay. 

Mike: Because they were a game behind Tampa. No, they have the same record, obviously after 

Shane: that one. Alright, well I'm, I'm gonna obviously go with, uh, with, with the Rams.

Robbie: Yeah, that's, uh, Rams. I mean, you've got the best quarterback in the NFC. He's not losing to the Panthers. 

Shane: No. Otherwise known as la The Rams la Yeah. 

Robbie: Los Angeles Rams. 

Tonya: Well, I'm gonna go with the Rams, but don't tell my husband 

Mike: there. 

Shane: Your secret is safe with us. 

Robbie: Uh, next one we've got is Packers, [00:55:00] bears. 

Mike: Dude, 

Robbie: Robbie, who you got?

Mike: Man, this one's a tough one for me because man, the Bears can be very explosive on offense, but the Packers should have beat the Bears twice this year and they gave that last game away. And Green Bay's fully healthy. Well, they don't have a defense, but man, I'm gonna go with Green Bay on this one. I think the bears are a year away.

Robbie: Tanya, what you got? I like the bears. Okay. Shane, 

Shane: I'm going with the Packers. I'm going with the couple of years experienced quarterback over the basically rookie quarterback. Right. You know? 

Robbie: Yeah. Theirs had a really nice season. 

Shane: Mm-hmm. 

Robbie: Uh, playing a really soft schedule. 

Shane: Yeah. 

Robbie: And I think that will probably come back around here.

I think there'll be a good team in the future, but this is not the future. I'll go packers. 

Announcer: Mm-hmm. [00:56:00] 

Mike: It just goes to show how important coaching is to say we're terrible last year, and they get a great coach and now they're number two seed. 

Robbie: Yep. Yeah. Agreed. But not, not ready yet, I don't think. 

Mike: Correct. 

Robbie: Okay.

Next one we got is Bears Jags. 

Mike: Bill's Jags. 

Shane: Bill's Jags. 

Robbie: Or Bill's Jags. Yeah. Sorry. 

Shane: Hmm. It's gonna be a good game. Where are they at? Are they in Jacksonville or Buffalo? Yeah, 

Mike: they're in Jacksonville. 

Shane: Mm. It gives them, it gives less advantage to the Bills. Uh, it's getting cold there, Mike. What's going on? Uh, you know, so I'm going, I'm going Bills, I'm going with, uh, the experience of Alan.

So, 

Robbie: I mean, I'm not even, 

Mike: I'm sorry. Yeah, you don't have to say anything, Mike. 

Robbie: I'm not speaking to this 

Mike: Mike. You know how much I love Josh Allen. I'm a huge bill. I mean, I'm a huge [00:57:00] Allen fan. I really am. He's the best player on the planet. Mm. 

Robbie: Be careful now. There is a mute button. 

Mike: I know, bro. I know. And I, and, and I really hate to say this, but the Jags are the hottest team in the NFL and I I think that momentum carries, and they, and they beat, they beat Alan.

Shane: Mm. Well, for those of you guys not watching on YouTube and listening, uh, Mike has just put on the most ridiculous bill's jacket that obviously is only passed around along a among Bill's mafia. 

Mike: Looks like I'm gonna crochet that together. 

Shane: Wait a minute, I'm about to one up. You bro. This is not a jacket. Oh, 

Mike: this 

Shane: is a one.

Mike: A 

Shane: onesy. 

Mike: They're a onesy. 

Shane: It's a onesie. Oh my gosh. That's the most buffalo thing ever. 

Mike: Everybody's gonna jump to YouTube and, 

Shane: wow. Podcast, go follow us. [00:58:00] Uh, on YouTube and find out 

Robbie: what you just missed. Unfortunately, Robbie won't be on next week. 

Mike: Sorry. Yeah, I Listen dude, I'm sorry. I love Josh Ellen. 

Robbie: I thought we were friends.

Time. Save us, please. 

Tonya: Yeah, I'm going with the bills on this and you know, I live in Pensacola. I had no idea that the Bills mafia has like a satellite office. We have an entire Mardi Gras crew of Bills fans. I mean, like, everywhere you got it's, it's unreal. So, yes, I I, I am gonna go with Bills 

Robbie: Sha 

Shane: I'm Bills.

Absolutely. 

Robbie: Now, this is the one right here for me. This is something 49 ERs Eagles. 

Mike: Hmm. 

Robbie: This is gonna be a street fight. 

Mike: Oh. What about the 29 ERs defense? Personally, I [00:59:00] think the offensively they can score on anybody, but I just think their defense comes up short. So I go, I hate to pick the Eagles 'cause I don't like them, but I'm going with the Eagles.

Robbie: Tanya, what do you got? 

Tonya: I'm going with the Eagles. I've been an Eagles fan since, since birth, so I can't, I can't go, can't go there. 

Shane: Shane can't, can't pick the Eagles. Uh, but on top of that, I think that, uh, I'm, I'm a Brock pretty fan. I think he's just gritty. Yeah. Um, you know, I, I'm not really sure where the thumb is after the little thing last week, but, um, you know, I'm gonna go with the 49 ERs.

It's really a terrible Texas Dallas cowboy growing up. It's really a terrible pick because we don't want the 49 ERs or the Eagles to win. Right. And so, um, but I'm going with Brock Purdy as the Midwestern. Gritty kid, so [01:00:00] 

Mike: hope you're 

Robbie: right. Yeah. It's a coin flip to me, depending on which Jalen Hertz shows up.

Shane: Yeah. 

Robbie: So I'll take the 49 ERs because I just don't, Hertz has not been great this year. 

Shane: Yeah. 

Robbie: All right. Next we got Patriots, chargers. Tanya, what do you got? 

Tonya: None of the A above.

I'll go with Patriots. 

Robbie: Yeah. All right, Robbie. 

Mike: Uh, I, man, this is a tough one 'cause Chargers have a good defense. They got a really good offense. But just the way the Patriots have been playing, I know that they've been, their schedules haven't been great, but I think this is a home game advantage. So I'm going with the Patriots.

Shane: Yeah. 

Robbie: Patriots for me. Patriots, I. I know West Coast, going East coast, 

Mike: it's tough, 

Robbie: [01:01:00] statistically is a problem. But boy, that is an almost all time low winning percentage of teams that the Patriots played this year. And I think it was something like 365. 

Mike: Yeah, they, they beat one team with a winning record, unfortunately.

Robbie: So I can't recall that game, but I'm gonna go with the Chargers on that one. And then the last one we have is Steelers. Texans. Uh, I, I'll start on this one. I just don't think there's any way on earth that the Steelers can beat the Texans. I'm not sure they can score on the Texans though. Yeah, 

Mike: I agree. 

Shane: We, I like, I like your preaching on this one, man.

Texans. Let's go. 

Tonya: We got Texans for me. 

Mike: Yeah, I think that's the easiest one of 'em all. 

Robbie: Yeah. 

Shane: All right. There. It's, there are two more games. Games 

Tonya: this week, week that are in my world. 

Shane: There are two games we can talk [01:02:00] about, 

Mike: which is what, I mean, we were picking originally, I didn't 

Tonya: realize 

Mike: we were talking NFLI thought it was CFP.

Shane: Yeah. 

Tonya: Yeah. So CFP this week we have the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl, Oregon and Indiana. Does anybody think that Oregon can beat Indiana? 

Shane: I, I think they can, but I'm, I'm sticking with the Indiana. Um, I just think they got something special this year. So 

Robbie: if we were picking based off of uniforms, I would take the ducks.

Tonya: Actually, I was shocked last week. There are uniforms when they, they were the most boring uniforms I have ever seen last week. 

Shane: Well, Phil, if that's true. Then watch out because Phil won't have that. They'll be coming out in some, they'll be coming out in some neon this week. Just wait. 

Tonya: They like black, white, and [01:03:00] gray.

It was really boring to watch. 

Shane: Yeah. Yeah. 

Tonya: Turn 

Mike: the lights out. 

Shane: They'll be there.

Mike: Yeah. Indiana for me, they beat Oregon at Oregon earlier this year. 30 to 20. So feel like that'll be a repeat. 

Robbie: Yeah. 

Tonya: And then the VRBO Fiesta Bowl. Now this to me is the game of the week, and that is Ole Miss in Miami. I, 

Robbie: yeah. I've fired up to see another manning in the NFL.

Mike: I'm stepping on the Trinidad Chala bandwagon. Dude. He, he won my FANSHIP last week and that performance against Georgia. That was unreal. 

Shane: Yep. Yep. 

Mike: So if he continues that magic. I got them winning the whole thing. So I gotta 'em winning this game. Elise, 

Shane: I'm staying with Ole Miss. I, I, uh, I don't need them to win.

I need Miami to win so the [01:04:00] Aggies look better, but, um, I just think this is the one I think, I think Ole Miss is gonna show up again. I think Georgia was good and we know Georgia was good. And so to see what Ole Miss did and, and you know, they played on really well in the regular season and then come back and win the way they did.

And I'm with you on shambles, like his ability to throw lasers down the field on the run move. Yeah. Wow. That, that, how that kid got missed or, or whatever his development has been from division two to this level. Like he's, he's gonna be special. 

Mike: Yeah, I agree. 

Robbie: No, I'm, I'm going with Manning, you know.

Mike: Eli Neil Ole. Miss 

Shane: Ole 

Robbie: You Ole Miss. I'm sorry. Yeah. Ole Miss. Damn. Well, where'd I go with that? 

Shane: Manning University. Manning, Manning University. And we know what you meant. Yeah, I went old school there. 

Tonya: Manning, [01:05:00] 

Shane: Mississippi. It's all the same, right? 

Tonya: It's all the same. Uh, no. I'm gonna go with Miami on this one. I mean, you know, I, I had a, I had a terrible week last week, so maybe I'll have a breakthrough.

Shane: That's awesome. Awesome. Very well, 

Tonya: well, fantastic. Well, I cannot wait to see everybody back next week for our 300th episode of I four. That's just, that's absolutely incredible. Thank you guys for listening to us and letting us be part of your business. So incredibly grateful for that. I'm gonna leave us today with this quote from Justin Thomas.

There's a lot of noise out there. You gotta trust what you're doing and stick to it. 

Shane: Attitude to choice. Make a great one. 

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