How Customers Really Find an Insurance Agent

Everyone knows how to find Flo, the Geico Gecko, or Jake from State Farm. But how do customers actually find an independent insurance agent?

One of the biggest challenges (and greatest opportunities) for independent agencies is visibility. We discuss online reviews, referrals, community involvement, referrals, social media, authentic relationship-building, and the real ways customers discover and choose independent agents.

T If you've ever wondered why some agencies seem to attract customers effortlessly while others struggle to get noticed, this episode offers practical ideas you can implement right away.

Learn more at IntegraPartnerNetwork.com.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

This is IA Forward, your playbook for success as an independent insurance agent. Now, here to help you knock it out of the ballpark are your hosts, Jane Tatum, Mike Basil, and Tanya Leed. Welcome to IA Forward.

SPEAKER_00 0:16

I just want to let you know this is an episode sponsored by a tremendous number of distractions. So Shane is trying to change a tire remotely. Mike has something going on outside his window that has to do with skid marks. And Shane made me cry like 10 minutes ago because of these messages he was sending out about being this really amazing dad and trying to work to get a flat tire change, which reminded me of my dad. So um there we go.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

Okay, let's back up. I didn't hear skid marks. A little bit. I did not hear skid marks, by the way, but okay, let's go there first.

SPEAKER_03 1:01

What I've got going on over here is you know the progressive commercials where you know you're turning into your dad, and so I'm sitting here, like, I see there's two dump trucks and a skid loader.

SPEAKER_00 1:15

Oh, a skid loader. That's not what I heard.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

Just hey, what do you got going out over here? Absolutely. I think that's I think that's completely fair and probably worth skipping the podcast for. Like in my book, like there's way more interesting things going on outside your window right now.

SPEAKER_00 1:38

Just or or you could like take the phone outside and talk to the guys.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

Yeah, yeah. You could do that.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

Because with our topic today, we could find out all sorts of things from the guys creating the skid marks across the street.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

Yeah. Well, I don't I don't know how amazing I'm being, you know, thanks for the credit, but uh you could my now it's my wife's flat tire, so it's really husband, right? For for for all, let's clear the air a little bit. And um we've got uh, you know, we've got some roadside assistance going on, but I'm getting the text because I'm the I guess the account owner, even though Julie's a member, right? And so I don't know why they're not texting her because she did the chat call-in thing. They're texting me, and so now I'm in the position of relaying uh text for the driver or the uh the the tire changer roadside assistance guy. Uh anyway, so we've got we we've got a lot. I mean, I I don't know if we're gonna see if we can make some kind of sense today, but it's okay if there's it it's okay if we're a little distracted, maybe.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

Very good. It's okay. That's good.

SPEAKER_01 3:00

It's okay, it shows the human side of us.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

There we go.

SPEAKER_03 3:05

So speaking of that, okay, real quick before we start, we're I know our topic is you know, where do you find clients? Okay, fine, but this is important to me.

SPEAKER_00 3:16

And that's not even our topic, but go ahead, it's not even our topic, man.

SPEAKER_03 3:20

You didn't even read the memo. I need to have some cathartic, I need to have a cathartic baby time tantrum right now about customer service. So this weekend, I I placed two phone calls that both went disastrously. So if if this is what your agency looks like when someone calls in, you you need to make some modifications. The first time, first in the weekend, earlier in the weekend, I called a hotel to change a reservation for this ball. So, you know, I go through the nonsense of finally getting to the extension that gets you to reservation because, of course, that isn't always uncomplicated. Person picks up, this is in the south. Uh, person picks up the phone, I can I put you on hold. Of course, sure, no problem. Puts the phone down, never puts me on hold. Then I hear, girl, and she goes into 15-minute conversation with someone that has nothing to do with work, then proceeds to come back and say, Oh, sugar, I can't really even help you with this. A manager needs to do this. I'll leave your phone number with them and they'll call you back.

SPEAKER_01 4:51

That's fine.

SPEAKER_03 4:52

And then, of course, no one called me back. Yeah, that's number one. Number two was yesterday, my little guy wasn't feeling great. Of course, the doctor's office isn't open, so we just went to one of the quick care, media care places, you know. And uh at the end, they're like, Yeah, you need some antibiotics. Uh, not a lot of choices here for pharmacies that are open, but they gave me a list of like five. I said, I really don't care. I just pick the top one. So I go over there, and of course, the pharmacy is sealed tight. So I go back to my car, I sit down in the car, I call back the place that we had gone to, and it starts with an AI assistant. Good, fun. So I answer the I'm trying to answer the questions, but this isn't like a pretty this is not a typical situation that the AI assistant would understand. So finally I'm getting to the point where it's talking, and I'm just saying person, person, send me to a person, person, person, person, and it's still doing its thing. Finally, I get to a person. Oh, hi, please hold. Sure, no problem. Puts me on hold. At least I'm on hold this time. So I'm sitting on hold for about seven minutes, eight minutes. Yes, I did just stop myself because I was gonna say two different numbers. And then I'm like, okay, you know what? I'm still on hold, and I'm less than five minutes away from this place. So I drive there, still on hold, park my car, still on hold, walk in the front door. I'm still on hold. The person is just sitting there that had answered the phone. Good time. Oh, fun. So I hang it up. I say, Oh hi, I was in about 30 minutes ago, and uh the pharmacy you sent me to his clothes.

SPEAKER_01 6:59

Well, come on now. We do better, yeah. Do better now. Here's the thing that I want to point out, real quick, is you had two incidents, but you made a very clear statement that incident number one started in the south, but you did not make clear reference that incident number two happened in the north.

SPEAKER_03 7:26

Well, so the only reason I pointed that out was because of the verbiage that was used, and no one's gonna call me sugar.

SPEAKER_01 7:35

Yeah, this is true. A bone of Mason Dick line. Fair enough. Fair enough. I just wanted to get it.

SPEAKER_00 7:41

I just have to ask is this in Texas?

SPEAKER_01 7:44

No.

SPEAKER_00 7:44

Is this a hotel? Okay, because there's a hotel in Texas that um we have some events at that one time I called to make a reservation and that happened, and the guy was having a flirty conversation with a female and thought he had put me on hold and had not. And then when he realized that he was slightly mortified that you know, that he said that to a customer as opposed to the girl he thought he was having a conversation with. So that was fun.

SPEAKER_01 8:22

That's fun.

SPEAKER_00 8:23

Yeah, yeah. That one's in East Texas.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

Yeah. Well, he was talking to his cousin.

SPEAKER_00 8:33

Oh, well, there you go. There you go. Speaking of talking to your cousin, I'm gonna use that as our lead-in to our topic, which Mike is not how to get customers, but instead how to find an independent insurance agent. So we know that people see the British Lizard on TV, they see flow, the progressive chick, all of the things. If they are watching a state farm commercial, they know how easy it is to find a state farm agent. If they are watching an all-state commercial, it's pretty easy to find an all-state agent. But there are not a lot of TV commercials, radio commercials, whatever, to tell people how to find an independent agent. So, how do people find us?

SPEAKER_01 9:30

Yeah, this is um I saw this topic and I was like, uh, uh-oh. This is not a good, I mean, this is not a good topic. Like, it's a great topic, but it's not a good topic for like we have the answer. And I thought you were gonna say you were gonna run out of words. No, no, no, no, not gonna run out of words. Yeah, I'm not running out of words.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

Oh y'all, I I'm sorry to interrupt. So last week I worked remotely, more remotely. I was at the uh I was in Orlando at the Gay Ward and met with one of my husband's co-workers at a dinner. Y'all, when I tell you the number of words, this person made shame sound mute, very shy, very quiet, like I have never heard that many words in a two-hour conversation before, ever in my life. I mean, I had to like decompress for an hour and a half after dinner.

SPEAKER_01 10:36

Well, I I I accept the challenge. Um and and and we'll see what I can do uh from here on out to make sure I don't lose that that comparable uh well you're gonna have to speed it up.

SPEAKER_00 10:50

Let me just tell you.

SPEAKER_01 10:52

Yeah, like I'm not speeding anything up. That's not gonna happen. I'm yeah, yeah, you gotta go teenage girl speed if you're gonna beat that. It sounds like I can't do it. Um, but I think this topic is is is hard. Like this is uh the one area of weakness of the independent agency system if if we look through it, we look at it through the same lens that we look at the big brands, okay. Um I think we have to change the lens that we look at. We can get into that. I think I think how we find an independent agent is is just different, right? And and there's some reasons for that. Um and we can dive into that. Uh, but the the number one, not a single independent agency on the planet is going to spend on the ad level at at the same rate, the same size as the the large direct riders, exclusive riders, etc. Right? It's just it's never gonna happen. There's not enough um there's not enough pie. There's not enough money in the pie. The pie is not big enough for an independent agency of a single single org uh to spend that much money, right? Now we could do it collectively. We've we've been down that road for 50 years. We failed at it miserably. We can't all agree on a on a path forward. And so I think it's it's it's at the place where the carriers have said, you know what, we're not gonna fund that anymore. And I think that's why trusted choice has kind of gone a different place. I think that's why ad spending as an association has dissolved pretty much, um, because it just isn't a a good step forward on how we find independent agencies.

SPEAKER_03 12:59

Well, I think the I mean, I all I can do is speak for myself, right? Um before I purchase anything, one of the first things I always do is ask people that I trust what they use or what they've bought in the past. If it's a product, did you buy this? Did it work well for you? You know, if it's something like this, hey, is your agent someone that you trust with with this, or would I want to go in a different direction? And that's the easiest thing because that costs zero dollars, and all that requires is you doing a good job for the existing client base that you have.

SPEAKER_00 13:40

Okay, I think that's how we should get back into it, Mike. I think you should ask the question.

SPEAKER_01 13:44

I can't promise that that won't happen again. Oh no, that's fine. So you want me to start over with no, I think that was good. What you did, what you said.

SPEAKER_00 13:54

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Okay, so Mike, you want to do what you just said with the with the beeping so we can go back to that distraction.

SPEAKER_03 14:07

Can it can anybody hear the beeping outside? Because like this is a this is a true test of me right now. Like my attention span is not good to begin with. And now it's like this is this is a big time test. So the I feel like I need the you know those things they put on horse. I don't really watch horse racing, but I know they put those blinders on them, so they're like there.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

Yeah, yeah, that's what you need. Like it, what you need because you really want to go out there, you really want to find out what's going on. Well, if it helped you, every man on the planet would want to go out there and find out what's going on.

SPEAKER_00 14:51

And my thought is just I don't want to get dirty. Yeah. So, you know. So, where do consumers find independent insurance agents? That's where we are. That's where we are. And you know, Google searches are one, right? We we we we hop on Google, we search. Um, I think that the when I looked this up a while back, and it was uh insurance near me, cheap car insurance was number two, homeowners insurance plus your town, and business insurance near me were the four top Google searches looking for insurance.

SPEAKER_01 15:33

Yeah, and I I think um, you know, and I'll go ahead and throw it out there. I think there's information that's come out about Google search is up, you know, search revenues up, even in the age, uh the early stages of AI. And um people talk about I don't even use Google anymore, or I don't even use search anymore. I just go to my my AI tool.

SPEAKER_00 15:56

Your AI tool is using Google.

SPEAKER_01 15:58

Exactly, exactly. So AI is just going to enhance search. And so I I really I go back to you know, independent agencies, and I think our audience is I'll I'll define that a little further. We know that we're talking to the 85%, maybe even higher, of independent agencies across the country that are under a million in revenue, right? And so we know that this really large percentage of agencies are local, right? There it's about it's about your your your local community, it's about um you know, we had a podcast about you know multi-state non-resident license things uh a little while back, and uh we we kind of landed with this, you know, insurance is local, this is still important. I think that's why uh what's it called, Tanya? You know, correct me, geo search, like the whole map, uh Google map. Um uh, you know, maybe I don't I don't necessarily want to go here with insurance, but like Yelp, I mean I that's like a restaurant thing, but I don't really like the insurance play there. But I like I like your Google business listing.

SPEAKER_00 17:17

Yes, right?

SPEAKER_01 17:19

I I think that's really, really important here. Um, I think that where I you know I get I get information, I get a copy of that, I get information about our locations in East Texas, and it's you know, it's pretty amazing how many people are finding us through that resource. Um and you know, I think number one, that's a really great place to start. And it's free for yeah, it's free. And and and and for the purpose of those that have an office, have a location, and pretty much everyone is gonna have some kind of business location, right? I mean, you have to do that for things like Lexus Nexus, where you know, carriers are using that on the personal line side for reporting. And so you've got to have um, you've got to have this address. So you might as well use that to make it so much easier for you to be found. And you can fill out that information. I mean, look, it's it's kind of like um it's it's kind of like technology for dummies, in my opinion, because like when I look at that and fill that out, like it's not that difficult to complete you know, your hours of operation to you know set that up. Now, I'm not saying it's that simple to create the thing.

SPEAKER_00 18:44

I'm just saying that's why I'm smirking over here because Shane hasn't had to do this recently.

SPEAKER_01 18:49

No, Tanya did this, and and and look, it's not necessarily just like easy to to create, but it's super is easy to edit. My experience comes from editing, changing holiday hours, whatever, right? Um, and I've even done that, some of that myself. Just, you know, oh well, I'm not gonna send this to Tanya or send this somewhere else to Melissa. I'm gonna, I'm just gonna do it. I'm right here on my phone. Why not? And so I just think that's a huge starting place, though. Um, you know, your web developer, your website manager can probably do this if you don't feel comfortable with it.

SPEAKER_00 19:30

Sometimes they're very easy to create. Sometimes it's a little bit of a pain in the booty, honey. You may have to create a video, you may have to send in a copy of your business license. There's usually something that's gonna make it just a little wonky, and it usually takes two to three weeks um if there's something odd that pops up. And and I am totally convinced that has to do with what mood the person on the other end of the Google is having that day, because I've done it where it was really easy, and I've done it where it's really a pain. But there are things out there that are worth it, and making sure that Google Business Profile is set up is worth it, and that is because of reviews, yeah. And people are looking at those online Google reviews. To me, that's more important than the profile itself.

SPEAKER_01 20:34

Yeah, yeah, I agree.

SPEAKER_00 20:37

Plus, if you want to show up in a Google search ever, you've got to have those reviews, right?

SPEAKER_03 20:43

Right. Now, when we talk about this one to me, it's interesting. This is a spot that I do find myself being influenced. And this should be right in Tanya's wheelhouse. So I'm interested to get your take on this. When you listen to the radio often, like for me, it's sports talk, okay? So you get accustomed to hearing this group of people talk, and some you you kind of start to feel like you know these people, right?

SPEAKER_00 21:15

They're supposed to be your best friend in the car, that's their goal, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:18

Yes, so and then you know, based on the things they say over time, you start to you will either respect that person or say that that person isn't as good as the other person that's on that show with them, and then you kind of get to a point where you think to yourself, they're doing a spot for something, and you're like, okay, yeah. Good example of this was uh I was in the process of selling my parents' home uh last year, and there was a storm, and some trees blew over into the street that that they were responsible for, and it was getting close to closing. And the first thing I thought of was the one of the radio spots that this person did. For a tree service, and I feel like that is a reputable person. So I called the company that he was doing the spot for.

SPEAKER_00 22:08

Radio was basically influencer. Radio is basically influencer marketing. The way I look at that though is you have a business that is creating enough revenue that can pay the influencer, can pay the personality to do that. So it is probably more likely to be more reputable because they do have an advertising budget.

SPEAKER_01 22:38

I think the local market is is important, right? I mean, I'm not going to say that I I'm not an expert on advertising and radio at all. And I I think that, you know, like I'm thinking about our local East Texas market here, our counties, about 80,000. You know, our our market area across multiple counties, Texas forest country. I would say radio listening, um, you know, local radio listening area, probably 300,000. So it's enough of a population that you're gonna have a pretty decent reach, even though it's this large collection of small towns, right? And so um I would say radio could be still very, very effective here. And I think that it it also depends on like obviously certain aspects, like where's your target market? Do you want to hit um do you want to hit men? Right, sports radio, not that women don't listen to that, they just don't listen at the same percentage. Or where do you want, you know, what's your target demographic? Who do you want to actually uh target when it comes to that spend? And I I think there's still a place for that, even though it's not something we do, right? It's not it's not our approach. Uh our approach is more community relations, which we can get into as well about how do you find an independent agent. I think the combination for us is um Google Business Profile, GeoSearch, um, and combine that with a local school event community relations sponsorship. Like that's where we spend our ad, you know, quote, ad dollars, right? Is we're putting it there. And that's been successful for us. We're in a small enough market that we can get a lot of bang for our buck around community relations. Uh, maybe a little more difficult in a suburban or metro area to do what we do. And you may need to get, you know, you may have a better um uh penetration there through radio or some other venue.

SPEAKER_00 24:59

So just fun fact for you, Shane, you guys are in the Tyler Longview Luffin, Nacados DMA, which is a household that which is which sorry, which has 297,000 households.

SPEAKER_01 25:18

Yeah. I don't see us in Tyler. I I understand that they include that there um because of some acquisitions of TV stations and radio stations, but Tyler's two hours away, right? Like I just don't see that as our market. Um, but yeah, I mean that's that's a fair number of households. I see us more, I'd be curious to know what that Lufkin Nacadocha's uh size is. I would say probably about 35 to 40 percent of that figure would be closer to uh closer to our households.

SPEAKER_03 25:56

But now the one thing you were sort of alluding to it though, you know, as you get into markets that are a little more saturated, you know, there could be competition just to do those community relations things. You know, there could be three other agencies that want to sponsor something at the school, you know, you it that can get more complicated the bigger metro you're in. Uh but just to tie a bow on the radio part, one interesting thing I found uh in trips to mostly in trips to come down and see you because of the two-hour car ride from the airport. Um when you listen to the radio through an app, which that percentage is going up and up, the ads actually change. So if I'm in Texas and I'm listening to my local radio station, I get a car dealership in Texas. Yeah, which I think is interesting.

SPEAKER_01 26:51

Yeah. Yeah, it goes by uh, I don't know, um, goes by G geography, uh, some kind of geo, I don't know, location, location services, right? On your phone. It has to, yeah, it has to be tied to your phones, location services.

SPEAKER_00 27:07

And it also has to do, fun fact, with the talent and where the talent's voice can be used. So, same reason if you're watching a ball game on um ESPN on the app versus on your television, the the commercials are going to be different on the app. And it's because talent expects different amounts of money based on where their voice is being heard.

SPEAKER_03 27:39

Can we start referring to ourselves as talent? I kind of like that.

SPEAKER_01 27:47

Yeah, we're you know, we would be called the talent. The talent, yeah. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 27:53

We have a producer, we have talent.

SPEAKER_01 27:56

I just never really thought of our us as talent, but um, you know, I guess we're gonna go ahead and and and earn that that badge, wear that badge of honor, you know.

SPEAKER_00 28:07

We are oh we'll get a ribbon for that one.

SPEAKER_01 28:09

We get a ribbon, we get a ribbon at top cost. There you go. There you go. Just says the talent.

SPEAKER_00 28:18

The talent. We'll have to add that to Julie's list. She will love it.

SPEAKER_01 28:24

She's gonna need to be so excited. I'm gonna we're gonna need to sign us up with uh an agent and negotiate our terms with ourselves, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 28:34

Oh my goodness. Okay, so back to back to how do people find us as an independent agent. I still believe that referrals and word of mouth are kingslash queen. I mean, making sure that we empower our customers to tell others about us is the the greatest source that we have for new customers. And for some reason, we are scared to ask for that. And I will never understand why, because if we have just done a really great job for somebody, when we look at them or we're on the phone and we say, Hey, I would really love to have more customers that are just like you. That's how it happens because you've made them feel special, you've said just like you, you're who I'm looking for. Please send people to me. Then they know there are so many times that I have seen clients on, you know, I've seen clients going, Hey, I'm looking for XYZ. And I'm sitting here going, I'm here, I'm here, and they're like, Well, oh, I didn't, you know, like I knew that's what you did, but I didn't you have to ask for that business, you have to ask for those.

SPEAKER_01 30:06

So I I think this is kind of grounded in us always being in a hurry and worried about our clients always being in a hurry. Uh, this is something that um I agree uh uh wholeheartedly with. Like we don't ask for the referral enough. Like we we we do something that people are pleased with, like they're pleased with our service, they're pleased with our customer experience, our process. And I I don't mean like we ask for a referral in the email signature, yeah, we should do that, you know, or ask the the ask for the referral on, you know, a follow-up survey or whatever, a rating, you know, rate my service, anything that you would use that you see all the time, that's of course ask for the referral digitally, okay? Um, but I think that we should ask for the referral verbally. Uh we should ask for the referral in a um not an automated email, but you know, a personal email if it's gotta be that, if you're handling the business uh with without verbal communication in in any way. I I just think we get so busy personally. I'm just speaking from experience of our people, uh, me personally, and thinking about you know not imposing all more time on our on our customer, our new customer. And I think if we would just if we would just slow down, like it doesn't take us 30 seconds. It doesn't take us a minute. Like when you really when you really break it down, it's like, okay, how much time would it take me to really embed this in my in my mindset and in the process to personally ask for this new customer to refer someone like them to me. It would not take that long. Um, but we're in such a hurry to hurry up and get it wrapped up. Okay, you know, you'll get the docu sign, you'll get the e-signature, whatever. And you just you're trying to get away to the next thing when the opportunity loss is not actually slowing down. And you might get four referrals out of that one person. You don't know, like you, you, you, you may not just get one referral, you may get a lot of referrals from that one person. And so I think that's part of the society that where we're at is we just got to slow down and breathe a little bit and ask that question.

SPEAKER_00 32:53

You can also ask from ref for referrals from people that don't buy a policy from you. It a lot of times you do a really great job for somebody, but for whatever reason, you're not able to get them what they want, right? Or what they need. It happens. It's okay to ask those people too, because a lot of times people will have enjoyed working with you, even if they didn't buy from you. And those people will send their mama, their grandmama, their aunt, and their sister because of the relationship that you built.

SPEAKER_01 33:32

Yeah, I call those individuals blabbers, uh, in a in a and I mean that in the most flattering, ultimate way. Um, like I really do. Like I I love I love customers that are blabbers, like they're gonna tell everybody, right? And then when you identify that person, you know, you you want that person, you you want to leverage that, right? Um you don't and not in a fake way, but you you want to leverage it. You want to figure out, oh, this person's gonna tell a lot of people, right? And and you want to take care of them, etc.

SPEAKER_03 34:09

Yeah, you don't know who is, you know, the the quote unquote mayor of their town. Right. Right. You know, they're the first that they have a 50-person supper club that they're a part of. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 34:22

Listen to you using the word supper. I'm proud of you.

SPEAKER_01 34:27

I said supper again the other night. Yep, I did.

SPEAKER_00 34:33

Um, talking about that, and I want to go back to something that Mike said when he was talking about radio and the and that he felt like he got to know that person as a friend, right? And he trusted them. That is how to use social media for insurance. That is how to use social media for your agency. Uh, Facebook recommendations are a thing, especially for younger buyers. But use your Instagram, use your TikTok, use your Facebook, use local community page posts. People are gonna buy from people they feel like they know. And strangely enough, people identify and feel like they know influencers. Become an influencer in your space. And I don't necessarily even mean that you have to get on there and do video about insurance all the time, right? But create things, share things that are going on in your life, share tips and tricks and all of the things. Explain the difference in collision insurance and comprehensive insurance and liability insurance, because that is the thing that you understand that 99.9% of your customers don't understand. You know, if you explain little things like that more than once, do it once a month. I'm telling you, if you explain that once a month, you would be shocked how many customers that you're gonna get.

SPEAKER_03 36:14

And I would say it's important to not just do insurance in these little spots. Like be authentic. Yeah, don't be afraid that you're going to exclude a certain segment of the population. Just be thinking about including the people that you are going to include when you do one about gardening, if that's what you're into, you know, or baseball, if you have a kid in baseball or whatever. Yeah, you know, just be authentic to who you are, and that can be a real icebreaker for someone who's watching or listening.

SPEAKER_00 36:48

One of my favorite videos that Shane did several years ago now, when we were first starting to talk about doing video, is he was getting towed. I believe you were getting a toe, and it was outside in the rain, and he was like, Hey, look, this is my my roadside assistance. You know, do you have roadside assistance? Talk with your insurance. I mean, it was just really authentic because he was standard air right, car was getting towed.

SPEAKER_01 37:18

Yeah. Yeah, I remember that video actually. Um, didn't know what I was doing, but it still worked, right? It was still, it was, it was, you know, I I think that's also um we struggle with just putting ourselves out there. Um, and and hey, naturally so, like that's it's really hard. Like people are gonna people are gonna think I'm stupid, or people are gonna think as I'm an idiot. Like, here's the really interesting um, I don't know if you'd call this a hot take or what, but insurance agents, right? Uh, I think uh we are afraid to put out the very basic simple things like the difference between collision and uh you know in a physical damage coverage area, the difference between collision and and comprehensive coverage, or technically other than collision, as it is in most states. Um we are afraid to talk about that because we're afraid about our, we're afraid what our peers are gonna think, not our customers. Like our our customers do not know, but our peers know, right? And we're afraid that we're gonna get called out by one of our peers for being too simple or um you know not being risk manager enough or sophisticated enough. And you know, here's the hot take. Your customers don't know. Like, be simple. Be be simple, like dumb it down because insurance is a contract, and insurance is hard, and language, the language of insurance is hard, and we you know, regulatory bodies have made it even more complicated, attorneys have made it more complicated, and plain language movement, dumb it down, speak, um, you know, think about your audience, not your peer group. And that's something that I struggle with at times. Even talking with aid about agency management and agency ownership things, like, you know, oh, what is the consultant over here gonna think about me saying, you know, that policy per customer ratio is really important, KPI in your agency or revenue per employee still matters. Like, what are they gonna think? And I know way back before we started podcasting, before we started doing more video, before I talk to people in bigger groups, that was a little bit of uh, hmm, what are people gonna think? Right. And so I think once we get past that and understand that, you know what, the people that I'm actually trying to talk to, they don't know. Like, I'm gonna sound like a rocket scientist. You know, simply explaining um physical damage coverage and personal auto policy will make you sound like a rocket scientist, even if your insurance peers think, well, that's dumb. You know, everybody knows that. No, they don't. They don't know that. And and we have that opportunity as independent agencies and the freedom to do it.

SPEAKER_00 40:39

So there are 10 triggers that make customers shop for insurance. There are 10. In order, like these are the top 10, and it's a rate increase or renewal shock, you know, that whole thing buying a car, buying a house, starting a business, getting married, adding a teen driver, a frustration with a claim, a bad service experience, moving, changing states, and divorce. Those are the top 10 triggers that make people shop for insurance. Rewind this podcast, write those things down, and those are your 10 things to talk about. Your first 10 things to discuss for 60 seconds of your video. Somebody's getting a rate, everybody's getting a rate increase, right? So talk about when you get a rate increase, I'm an independent agent. I can look at this totally different for for you than anybody else can. When you're looking for a car. So I never knew that people, when they're shopping for cars, don't call their insurance agent to find out how much insurance is gonna be on that car before they buy the car. Because it really made uh Amy laugh in the Huntington office. I'm like, hey, I'm looking at buying this car. This is all these are all the specs on it. How much is the insurance gonna be? And she's like, You haven't bought it yet? And I'm like, Well, no, because I need to know if I can afford the insurance on it before I buy it. Like, that's a whole topic. Yeah. You know, I mean, how many people buy this car and then they have sticker shock on how much the insurance is, right?

SPEAKER_01 42:28

What the heck were you shopping for, Maserati? But that's the behavior, right? Like the assumptive behavior from us as insurance professionals is people just call it, they just call and add it to their insurance after they bought the vehicle, right? That is normal consumer behavior in our mind, right? But that isn't always normal consumer behavior, right? Um, anyway, that's just yeah, that I I think there's some truth in that. By the way, by the way, my number 11, uh uh number 11 that's that's that's not on her list is uh people who call their agent and get hung up in an AI uh uh phone tree. Yeah, and and and they end up in a circular phone tree, and it's it's you know, that's number 11 on it.

SPEAKER_00 43:19

Yeah, there we go. That's when you just tell people, hey, when you call my office, somebody's gonna pick up the phone. Do you know how many people are gonna call specifically because of that, right? Or when they call, you know, you're gonna get two options. If you talk to me, you can talk to my assistant. I mean, like, make it easy for them, right? Those are those are that's a fantastic topic to do a video on. Make it about you, make it authentic. Just sit down and talk.

SPEAKER_03 43:52

Maybe it's my age, but I'm actually getting to the point where I don't even want options. I just want someone to pick if I have gone. As far as the call, I just want someone to answer the phone. Yep. I don't want to pick two. I don't want to pick seven. I don't want to listen through for two through seven. I just give me a person that will tell me, please hold, and I will transfer you to the person you need to talk to.

SPEAKER_01 44:18

And that is why, that is why when you call Integra, uh, we have you get a person unless we're in some type of you know busy moment. You might get into a temporary uh temporary wait, but that is why you our goal is that you get a person when you call, that you don't get stuck in a phone tree. Um, and our phone tree that we do have as a backup has three options. Three options. If you are an existing customer, press one. If you want to become a customer, press two, or if you're an agent, press three. Boom, done. So free information for everyone today. Make your phone tree simple if you have to do a phone tree and and speak plain English in your phone tree.

SPEAKER_00 45:15

Yes. And I think insurance agents are starting to try to be fancy. And I and it comes from this thought of Ned Ryerson from Groundhog Day, and this idea of the insurance agent is equivalent to the used car salesman. And when I see the signs or I hear people say things like, I'm a full risk, I'm a full service risk management solution for you. People don't know what that means. They don't. Like, I get what you're trying to do. Tell people that you can help them find options for their insurance. You can help them compare options for their insurance, you can help them find what they need, right? But this whole risk management solution, goal service, all of this stuff, that sounds really good to you.

SPEAKER_01 46:19

People have no idea what's we really overthink it a lot. Um, I do think our topic of how do people find us, how does how do people find an independent agent? I I would I do want to kind of spend, I know we don't have a ton of time left today, but I do want to kind of interject a little bit, because you know I have to, a little bit of the history here, right? Don't don't don't like glossy eye over on me for but just just except for Mike, who's looking at the skids. Stay with me, Mike. Stay, stay off the no, no, no, I'm here. All right, all right. Um, so look, you know, I I think it matters so that we understand there's no Calvary coming, right? I I think I've been speaking a lot over the last several months to a couple of different groups. Um I've been finding myself talking in even in in certain uh uh conference sessions and things like that, and and I've kind of circled full circled back around to the story of David and Goliath. And I think I think it matters here. And we cannot look through the lens of what the big brand carrier, direct to consumer carriers, the big brand um uh exclusive company carriers, even the the independent agent channel big brand carriers, right? Um Liberty Mutual has retired Safeco as a brand, and they're all in on Liberty Mutual, and they're still doing their their LEMU, emu, and all that, and and it it's great, like it's great brand recognition for that particular carrier, progressive, etc., Geico, etc. And so we're never going to compete toe-to-toe with that. Those are the Goliaths, right? We have to be David. We have to be David in this. And we uh if you're not familiar with the story of uh David and Goliath uh in the Bible, uh it's in Samuel, I think it's uh 1 Samuel. Anyway, not not the best uh Bible scholar, but it's uh you can Google David and Goliath and it'll show you the scripture. Um I I just think that we too many times, and this is what triggered this, is something Tanya said, uh, the Ned Ryerson had triggered it. Like we so much try to look through that same lens and and and go compete with Goliath like toe-to-toe. Like we're not that's not gonna happen. The industry associations around the I channel could not figure this out for 50 or 60 years, been working on it. It's not it's not gonna happen, right? Nobody's coming, but it can be our strength. Like, I don't want you to hear that and go, oh, well, that's a huge weakness. And no, the captive channel is reducing compensation to pay for this, right? They're they're putting less emphasis on their distribution channel, their agents, because of how much emphasis they're putting on their their ad spend, um, because of their AI implementation, supposedly, right? Supposedly, we can have another debate about another another uh probably a good session of is AI a just a good excuse for all these layoffs, or is it real, right? And so that's that's something that's kind of creeping into society as well. I think we can win, I think we are winning, by being David, by approaching Goliath with with not in a toe-to-toe battle, uh, but in something different, right? In in in we live in an age where anything's possible. Really is like technology is in is so much better, and we can influencer, uh, local community, everything that we've been talking about on this podcast. And I think we have to be David's. And so don't look at don't look at I think it's a weakness if we look at it and try to beat Goliath at his game, but I think it's a huge strength if we look at it through the lens of David.

SPEAKER_00 50:45

I mean, and nobody wants to buy insurance, they don't like we don't have a product that you get to go to the TJ Maxx and you walk out with cute new shoes, right? I mean, like we don't have we don't have a product that people want to pay for, and presenting it in that way is great. I mean, like, look, you have to buy it, you don't want to buy it. Why not buy it from somebody local? Because I'm gonna be the person that is sponsoring your kids' ball team. I'm gonna be the person that uh sponsors this event at church, like presenting yourself as that live local person versus the British lizard. Be as Mike said, being your authentic self. That's key. Because if you're not visible, people can't find you. So figure out where you want to be visible and do it. Um, I know that that's happened for me locally, even in the last week. I was accepted to the Leadership Pensacola program through the Pensacola Area Chamber, and they made that announcement last week very, very publicly. And I've had more people come to me and ask, okay, so what is the Integra Porter Network here locally than I probably have in the eight years since I've been here, right? Or what is this? What do you do? People that just really have never even had those kind of interactions with me have seen that announcement from the chamber, right? So, yes, you know, the the chamber is old-fashioned and all such things, and in a lot of places they're very politically forward, and some of the some of the initial reasons that a chamber exists have evolved. I hear a lot of people say, Well, I go to I went to that networking thing from the chamber and didn't get anything out of it. Well, you went to one, what did you do? All of those things, but that visibility after some time really does matter, and it's a very old school way of doing it. But if you do it, people will start to talk to you, people will start to ask.

SPEAKER_03 53:20

That's a great point. Nothing we talked about today, and nothing that we forgot to cover is a silver bullet. There is nothing you can do that is just I'm gonna do this one thing and I'm gonna get 50 prospects out of this. It's always a slow burn. So you have to go into anything you do with that understanding. I've just got to do it, I have to be consistent with whatever it is, and I have to let six months, a year go by, and then assess where I am.

SPEAKER_01 53:55

I I I love chamber and I love community relations, and I think that uh obviously we're invested in that heavily. We have a community relations uh director, and that's something that made the decision to invest in. You can do it yourself, right? But if you're not that person, okay. I I believe that every agency owner in this country or any producer who wants to step out, start their own agency, and become an agency owner, you have a circle, right? Like, and I'm gonna go back on something Mike brought up, and I think Mike and I have had this conversation. I feel like I've had this conversation with others as well from time to time. There is on personal lines this idea of like a niche personalized marketing effort around a certain occupation of people or a um, I don't know, like what's coming in my mind is the Hoosman brothers with their classic car marketing, right? They're car guys and they got a YouTube channel and they've they they love everything about cars. Um if you're a fisherman, I'm thinking about our local market here in East Texas. If you are a fisherman and you have invested in a bass boat, a bass fisherman, um, and you have one of these bass boats and you go fish in you know Saturday morning club tournaments. Uh, these are real things, and you have the ability to become the insurance agent for all of those people. That is an influencer opportunity, right? Doesn't have just because it's not on social media, doesn't mean that it's not influencing in some way. Uh I was a travel ball, travel softball dad for a while, uh, for well, for a long while. I became the insurance guy, right? I I didn't actually have to do a whole lot to become the insurance guy because to Tanya's point, once people figured out that I was in the insurance business, I would get these random insurance questions at an 8 a.m. pool game on Saturday morning after getting up at five o'clock to drive for an hour and a half to get to the ball field, and I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm literally about to answer a question about insurance. It's 8 a.m. I'm just I'm just drinking coffee, right? I'm just trying to wake up. And and so, you know, I did not catch that. I didn't understand it. But if there is something that you're involved with, and I love the chamber, I love the community relations, but if that's not you, there's something that you are involved with, that your kids are involved with, there's something that you spend a lot of time doing or going to, and there are a group of people right there, right? Uh, if it's not like a specific occupation that you want to target uh for personal lines, then you target the place, target where your feet are, right? Think about it that way. Where do I spend most of my weekends? Where do I spend my evenings? And you probably are the influencer, the best potential influencer for that segment, and you don't even know it.

SPEAKER_00 57:29

I'm gonna leave us today with this quote from one of my favorites, Seth Godin. Marketing is no longer about the stuff you make, but about the stories you tell.

SPEAKER_01 57:41

Attitudes of choice.

SPEAKER_02 57:43

Make a great one. At the Integra Partner Network, we understand that carrier access is the key to your agency's success. That's why Integra offers direct access to top-rated personal and commercial carriers, ensuring your agency thrives in today's challenging market. And with our comprehensive resources, profit sharing, and bonus opportunities, technology, and peer support, all of you retain 100% of your books with no families to exit. Integra is ready to empower you and your agency to find sustained growth. Find your way to Integra. Visit IntegraPartner Network.com today. That's IntegraPartnerNetwork.com.