It's Not the Chicken: The Chick-fil-A Model for Agency Success

What can an insurance agency learn from Chick-fil-A? From the owner-operator mindset to servant leadership, we'll discuss how agency owners can build a business that earns loyalty, empowers employees, and creates clients who never want to leave. If you're looking to grow an agency that stands out in a crowded marketplace, this conversation will challenge you to think beyond insurance products and focus on what truly builds lasting relationships.

Because in the end, it's not the chicken - it's the experience.

Learn more at IntegraPartnerNetwork.com.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

This is IA Forward, your playbook for sixth sense as an insurance agent. Now, here to help you not get out of the ballpark are your hosts, Jay Datum, Mike Basil, and Tony Lee.

SPEAKER_00 0:14

Welcome to IA Forward. And today we have a very pressing topic. I want to talk about why you can pull up at Chick-fil-A and there can be 40 cars ahead of you, right? And you're gonna have your chicken or your gallon of diet lemonade in like five minutes. How is that even possible? Like if you pulled up at McDonald's and there are 40 cars ahead of you, you go somewhere else, right?

SPEAKER_02 0:51

Pretty much. Yeah, like did they pioneer the the like drive-thru person standing in the lane? Or was that did they borrow that? Do we know? Do we know if they pioneered that?

SPEAKER_00 1:03

I think Sonic probably pioneered that.

SPEAKER_02 1:06

No, that's different. That's gotta be different, right? That's like pull up and like order through the loudspeaker.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

Like no, no, they're out there, they're out there, and there's like drive order.

SPEAKER_02 1:21

Who does Sonic take your order in y'all's part of the country? Like, like the physical person comes out and takes the order? No, no, that's what I'm talking about. Like, Chick-fil-A has kids standing in the drive-thru. Like, you'll run over them if they don't get out of your way. Like, they're out there, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:40

They are maybe COVID, maybe it was a COVID thing. That's where I'm just a little confused. Like, we just like went right into this. Like, you guys got somewhere to be. We got a lot to talk about, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

We do, we do. We're talking about Chick-fil-A, which we're you know, I I can't eat Chick-fil-A because they use peanut oil, but I am obsessed with their diet lemonade, and I get a gallon of diet lemonade every Monday, and then I get another one every either Thursday or Friday, depending on how much of it Danielle has drunk throughout the week. So I go to Chick-fil-A twice a week, but I never get to eat their chicken, which is a traps.

SPEAKER_03 2:21

I'm not even gonna lie, we didn't have Chick-fil-A in my area until about two years ago.

SPEAKER_02 2:27

Yeah, I I would expect that. They haven't made it into every northern state. Um, you know, they it's that southern hospitality, they gotta take the temperature, see if they're gonna get run out of run out of town or they're gonna they're gonna get embraced with their warm, you know, my pleasure southern hospitality.

SPEAKER_03 2:51

So I was at the what airport was it? I want to say Baltimore Airport, and there was a Chick-fil-A, and I did not get what I would consider Southern comfort in my experience, but you know, I also wasn't in the South.

SPEAKER_02 3:13

I I think the I think the uh the airports, the airport's the risky venture for them, right? Like there was the airport, and then um, I don't know, I think maybe they did the some of the ballparks that they've done. I I maybe I'm blurrying that with the airports, but you know that they close on Sunday, right? So they don't waver, they don't waver from that. And so if you're on the air, if you're at the airport on a Sunday, you're not getting Chick-fil-A.

SPEAKER_00 3:44

I don't think or if you're watching the Atlanta Falcons at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, you're not getting Chick-fil-A. Gonna get Chick-fil-A, you know, they have a whole lot of them with us.

SPEAKER_02 3:54

What's really awesome about that, like, number one, I appreciate the values and sticking to their core values, but also like take that aside. The quiet marketing that it does, like, I I know that's a weird way to think about it, but like Chick-fil-A's dark in the airport on Sunday, like and everybody notices Chick-fil-A is dark. On it's like, and it's almost like the scarcity marketing thing. You're like, you that's when you really want Chick-fil-A. You really, really want Chick-fil-A on Sunday, and you because you can't have it, because you can't have it.

SPEAKER_00 4:35

There's a John Chris skit where he's like standing outside the Chick-fil-A with this with this trench coat on, and he's like, Hey, I've got the yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:45

But they've created something different, right? There's a buzz about that. I think you can easily make a direct correlation between them and Southwest. I yeah, they both had that thing that was different, that buzzy thing. And look, Southwest decided that was a bad idea and went in the other direction. I mean, how has that suited them? Yeah, jacked it up, is what it did. Didn't right. So I think it stands to reason if they did away with that, part of their culture would change, something would be different, and I think it would be adverse as adversely affecting them.

SPEAKER_02 5:20

Well, this I I agree with you wholeheartedly, and this is taking our original thought of the topic a little bit to a different place, but that's okay because that's how we roll here. Um, you know, Cracker Barrel's CEO just stepped down, was quietly fired, whatever the true story behind the scenes. And that was, you know, it's just it's just been a year since Cracker Barrel, you know, decided to rebrand and then a week later reverse course and is now fully going back to their roots and embracing their uh country, you know, the old country store.

SPEAKER_00 6:01

Umcle Herschel.

SPEAKER_02 6:02

Uncle Herschel, they they got rid of their shedding. They shedded, uh, they did some um uh got rid of Maple Street. I didn't even know that was a thing, I guess in some areas. There was like some cafes or something they had called Maple Street Cafe or something like that. Uh they've they've been getting rid of things, selling them, right? Letting them go, um, and re-im re-in uh embracing their original model, right? And I wish Southwest would do that as a customer right now, but that's the thing. Oh, you were more than a customer. Oh, yeah. I was definitely, I'm definitely a little more than a customer these days. Um, but you know, that is the one thing Chick-fil-A has not done. Uh, of course, you know, private company versus public companies, uh, in in some, you know, in these two comparables, uh, they can kind of do what they want long as their customers are, you know, long as they're legal and do it and their customers, you know, like them, they can kind of do what they want. And um they don't have to worry about getting canceled because they don't care. Uh, you know, it's like, whatever, like you're not our customer anyway. And so, you know, it's just an interesting thing to kind of look through these lenses and as a customer and from a business standpoint, marketing standpoint, and just do these comparables.

SPEAKER_00 7:36

You know, Chick-fil-A decided to change their fridge fries a year ago, and they added pea protein to them to make them crunchier. And people came unglued about it, people hated it, and they switched back very quickly. They listened to social media, they listened to the response of their customers. And I love that they did that in a in a really positive way. Talking about Southwest, I was a huge Southwest Airlines fan. I flew Southwest all the time. And since they have actually implemented their changes, I can no longer afford to fly Southwest. It is cheaper for me to fly round trip on Delta American or United than it is for me to fly one way out of anywhere I've tried to fly out of and into. So I mean, I think it's fantastic. They're that they say that they're more profitable than ever, yada yada. But they've lost, I and I can't be the only really loyal customer that they've lost.

SPEAKER_02 8:44

I can't be. Well, no, absolutely not. And I I have not met a fellow customer in a boarding line or in the terminal at the gate who said who has said, wow, I love these changes. This is so much better. Like I have yet, yet to meet that person. They may be out there, but in my travels, uh, which, you know, for four or five months uh in in the first part of this year was uh every week multiple times. And so um, you know, I just haven't met that person. They may be out there, but but I don't I don't know where they are.

SPEAKER_03 9:30

I literally, literally yesterday had this conversation with my wife. We have a the Southwest credit card. And I said, You might as well cancel that because there's no product differentiation anymore.

SPEAKER_00 9:40

Yeah, right. Right. That let's go back to Chick-fil-A, though. And what what does Chick-fil-A have to do with an insurance agency? And looking at it from the insurance perspective, it's not about selling chicken, it's not about selling insurance, right? Because everybody offers insurance. There's three insurance agencies on every corner, right? There's lots of chicken places, there's lots of fast food places. So it's not the chicken, it is the lemonade. But Chick-fil-A is selling consistency, they're selling trust, they're they're selling experience, and and insurance agencies are this are the same way. We're selling relationships, we're selling confidence, advice, protection, peace of mind. And people may buy a product elsewhere, but they're going to return because of the experience, right? So if you're providing a great experience and somebody leaves, people are gonna come back to you. Or if you provide a great experience, they're not gonna leave.

SPEAKER_03 10:55

Yeah. I the first thing that I always think of, again, as someone who hasn't had access or been exposed to Chip Chick-fil-A as long. Really, it is that it really comes down to that Sunday for me, like because that is them sticking to some standard that they set for themselves. There's some in this case, I'm sure it's a moral standard of not being open on this particular day of the week, right? And I that just resonates with me. Like, okay, you decided six days, not seven days. Obviously, you're going to make less money in six days than you could make in seven days, right? Unless you're a tire fire and you're losing money, and then you're not losing as much. Good for you. So just the fact that you're morally sticking to your guns, uh, I think goes a really long way.

SPEAKER_02 11:52

Yeah, and what's really interesting about that is that is the assumption is that they're going to make less money, but they're um consistently at the top of per store, what they would call per store sales in the industry, right? In their in their comparable peers, um, you know, compared to McDonald's, compared to Taco Bell, uh, etc., they are consistently at the top of uh per store sales, uh unit, unit sales uh for the franchise. And I think, you know, I'm gonna throw a few things out there. I think the Sunday, uh the closing on Sundays, them sticking, that's a core value. That's just their their beliefs, their founder, and they have not wavered from that. Um I think the other really, really closely aligned thing to that has been the way they select their franchisees. Um I know for for us at the Integra Partner Network, and my belief is, you know, um, this was kind of something that I've tried to emulate in a way, right? Not it's not a direct comparable, but it's the underlying tone. And that is that uh while we're not a franchise organization, um, just trying to kind of uh closely align ourselves with this concept, they only allow their franchises to own one store, and their franchisees must be owner operators. In other words, they can't be investors. So you can't have money, um, like many other franchise organizations, like a lot of franchise organizations like McDonald's, um, I think probably Taco Bell, most of them, they they actually crave what they call area developers or people who will buy a territory and do a multi-unit investment. Well, if you're gonna build um uh Huntington, Texas just got its first McDonald's, it opens, you know, it's about to open in the next few days. And so right by the stoplight. This is a big deal, right by the second stoplight, right? Uh, so that's just funny to say out loud. Uh, and so, you know, I'm very, you know, if you're gonna build 10 McDonald's, you gotta have some dough, like you gotta have some deep pockets, right? And that's what that that organization, that's what they look at for franchises. Um, Chick-fil-A takes preference, they take a lot of applications for franchises every year. And people who have worked in a Chick-fil-A in college, in high school, get preferential consideration, right? Um, oh, really? Yeah, absolutely. Uh, their franchise fee, I'm probably gonna get called out. I may be wrong on this. Their franchise fee used to be five thousand dollars, it may be more, I don't know. Um, but their structure today is that uh they require you to be an owner operator. I think that in and of itself is one of the most important things that allows Chick-fil-A to keep its culture and be consistent. What's really crazy is just being consistent all across their locations throughout the country. I mean, it is phenomenal how you can go from you know Texas to Alabama and get a really, really close experience. And what's really funny is in my family, we compare everything to this Chick-fil-A in Lufkin, Texas. Uh, the the owner operator is Julie Walker. She's a legend here in Angelina County. Uh, she's been running the Chick-fil-A for 25 plus years. And um, like there's people in our chamber of commerce that are like, well, we need to get Julie over here to sort the logistics out on this. Like, if we're if if our if we're having some big event, like everyone's convinced that she's uh an engineer at heart, right? Like her Chick-fil-A is so precise and so consistent. And we now compare other Chick-fil-As across the country on travel um to Julie's Chick-fil-a, Julie Walker's Chick-fil-A. And so um, well, it it's good, it's still Chick-fil-A, but it's not, you know, they were slower than the Lufkin Chick-fil-A. Like, come on, like slower by 14 seconds? Like, what are you talking about? What are we doing? And so um, I don't know. I just think that owner operator keeps, you know, that model keeps them so in tune with their business and their customers that the consistency just naturally happens.

SPEAKER_00 17:21

You know, the um the question that Chick-fil-A asks is will you dedicate your life to leading this business? That is one of the questions because it it is 10,000 now, by the way.

SPEAKER_04 17:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:35

But when you think about the fact, yeah, that Chick-fil-A pays for the land, the building, the equipment, the restaurant build-out, that's millions of dollars that that Chick-fil-A is is investing with a $10,000 franchise fee, right? I mean, that's that's huge. And but that is actually what they expect. I mean, they expect their owners to be in the store, hopping behind a register when they need to, picking up trash, greeting customers, all of those things. And they don't they don't bring people in because of their skills. They they hire for attitude, right? And and talking about their employees and that their employees, their high school and and college employees get those um the preference for those franchises, those kids get fantastic college scholarships from Chick-fil-A as well. I mean, people want to work at Chick-fil-A for those college scholarships and they keep them. And that's culture. And that goes back to how we lead our our agencies. You know, how are we taking care of our people? Do we see that our owner is engaged? Do we see that the the leadership is visible? We see that decisions are happening quickly and that and they're listening to their people and and they see that that people are people care, right? And and those are the things that that we need to be doing as agency owners to make sure that we're creating a culture that our employees are going to take care of our customers. And that's one of the things that that Simon Sinek uh talks about a lot. And he'll he'll be talking to a CEO and and he'll ask a CEO, one of the first questions that he always asks is, you know, what is your what is your number one priority, you know, as a CEO? And and the CEOs will usually respond to take care of our customers. And he'll say, as a CEO, you haven't seen a customer in five to ten years. Your number one thing you need to be doing as a CEO is taking care of your people, and then your people will take care of your customers.

SPEAKER_02 20:02

Yeah. Which, which, you know, that was originally coined by Richard Branson Virgin. Uh, I think um, you know, a lot of times we try to attribute, attribute the Southwest uh CEO, Herb Kelleher, to that, but it was actually Richard Branson that that initiated some take care of your people, your people will take care of your customers, right? And um, you know, I think when you when you look at that, it's from an agency owner perspective. We get a little bit of that comparison is the thief of joy. We get to look in it, maybe a larger broker, um, and we start talking about, you know, how can I how can I get myself out of this place of selling policies, of handling the client directly to this place of, you know, managing people. And I'm not sure that's the best, that's the best insurance agency owner model. Like I'm not really convinced of that. There's a lot more successful agency owners that I would classify as owner operators, uh, their lifestyles that are incredible, right? They that they make they make a lot of money, right? They have very valuable agencies, but they're not absent. Like the ones that I feel like are the most disconnected are the ones where the owners are truly absent. You know, um, they don't really know what's going on in the operations of the day to day. That's my concern about maybe where things are headed a little bit, uh, where things have been headed for quite some time. Within the agency model is this investor mentality versus owner operator mentality. Uh, I just the the most successful agents inside our our agency network are really and truly owner operators. Like even the larger ones are owner operator mindsets where they're they're in the trenches, like they have a really good pulse on what's going on in their business. Um, and and I have a few examples we that I want to get into for us that are some examples of things where the pulse is not there.

SPEAKER_03 22:45

So, well, here's the deal, kind of going back to what Tanya had mentioned. So earlier, Shane, you said, okay, we had we'd gone to Chick-fil-A, and it was, hey, it's six days instead of seven, but they're still all the way up here on what they're making. Oh gosh. Hey, you did it. Yeah. It was six days instead of seven days, but they're still up here in terms of what they're making. I think it's really easy to once you get past solopreneur, that you're gonna start hiring people to say, okay, I'm just I'm gonna, I'm gonna just maybe not pay top tier. I'm just gonna, I'm gonna pay a little less to my employees uh because of this, that, or the other reason. It doesn't, whatever your reason is, it is. If you start getting into this situation where you're on the lower end of pay and you're having turnover, churning, churning, that you are gonna end up making less money than if you got someone good, paid them well, and then had that same person there for 20 years. That I'm sure Shane probably wouldn't say this, but that is the integra model. There are people that are there for 20 years, there's several people that have been there for more than 20 years. That is just the way you guys have always operated in that building, and that has worked fantastically. Sure.

SPEAKER_02 24:23

Well, and and it wasn't always that way, okay. So, you know, for clarity, this is another one of those maybe mistakes and and and failures. And it's not, I mean, we're not the highest paying place in in in the world. I mean, unfortunately, you two know that, right? Like, we're not like no everybody's not making gazillions of dollars, right? But at the same time, we're not at the low end, right, in in in our markets, and we've gotten into this situation where we have people in different parts of the country and you know, dealing with all that, and that that makes things a little complicated. What I can tell you about Angelina County is while we may not be at the highest end of the scale, we're we're certainly at not at the low end of the scale. And at one time I would think we probably were. Like we had that mindset early on in my career. Um it wasn't like I know I'm not throwing my dad under the bus with this statement. It was just the culture of that time, that generation, right? It wasn't necessarily anything he did wrong, but the culture of maybe the 90s was what can we, you know, what can we afford to do and what can we get this person that we need to hire to agree to, right? Um, it there was no pay scale, there was no formality to it. And the mistake that that brought us to was this area where we ended up at the low end of the pay scale, um, to Mike's point, and we had a lot of turnover, like we truly had a lot of turnover, and uh it became very apparent that turnover is extremely expensive. Like, what is the cost of losing this person, finding a new comparable person, and training and training that person and getting that person to the same level that the person that left was at, right? In in most cases, that's extremely expensive. And so when you're like, well, I'm not I'm gonna I'm gonna pay at the low end because I need a new boat. I don't know. I'm making that up. That's probably you know a little sassy, but um, I'm gonna pay at the low end, right? Um I don't think I've ever heard you use the word sassy. Go on.

SPEAKER_00 26:57

Sassy?

SPEAKER_02 26:58

Well, I'm a girl dad, so sassy, you know, I get that a lot. Dad, why are you being so sassy, right? Um, anyway, that's a little sarcasmic.

SPEAKER_00 27:06

My husband says that on a daily basis about me, but I just never well, you know, it probably came out a little bit that way.

SPEAKER_02 27:14

But anyway, okay here's the deal. You know, if if you're if you're going to do that, what you're not recognizing or you haven't been to yet is the loss of that person, and then the replacement of that person and how much it costs you to get that done.

SPEAKER_03 27:34

The hidden cost. Yeah, yeah. Also, there's the customer perspective. Okay, I've been into the office or I've contacted the office three times over the last two years, and I've spoken to someone different every single time. That is a red flag. Yeah, and I'm having to re-explain everything from the beginning.

SPEAKER_02 27:58

Yeah. Where's Joe? Uh, Joe's not here. Oh, okay. Well, what about Susan? Oh, yeah, she's gone too. Like, you know, what's going on, right?

SPEAKER_00 28:09

And I mean, then Uncle Mike walks into Integra Insurance Services, and everybody in the front office greets Uncle Mike as Uncle Mike, which just so y'all know, when I go into Huntington, sometimes I sit in different areas, and I'm sitting in the front area of a retail office one day, and that literally happened. Like this dime came in, and everybody starts greeting Uncle Mike. And finally, when he left, I was like, Okay, whose uncle is that? And the answer was, well, nobody's.

SPEAKER_02 28:46

Somebody's. Somebody's somebody's, yeah. But everybody knew Uncle Mike, so yeah, no, yeah, that's just what you go by, you know, it's just that's their name. So, but no, I mean, that's that's right. Like, you know, I don't know that that's that is the that's what you're paying above market or you know, at the higher end of the market for, right? Or you're you're you're you're putting yourself in a position to be successful, and it really doesn't cost you. And I think that's kind of that Chick-fil-A comparable, like, okay, we're only going to be open six days a week. We're gonna always keep Sunday closed, and you're gonna miss that revenue, but you're not really missing anything. Like you're you're actually creating desire for your product because people didn't get to, you know, come by on Sunday. And so, you know, it's just a really interesting model to think about and and a marketing concept to really try to emulate. And I think our agency world can learn from it um a lot. I think I think if we think about Chick-fil-A and then think about the comparables in our insurance agencies, we will be better if we follow similarities to that Chick-fil-A model.

SPEAKER_03 30:10

Here one thing I wanted to touch on real quick. I think it would be easy for someone to fall into this trap. Um, they keep talking on this podcast about something like Uncle Mike, but that's a small town. That's that happens there. Yes. Okay, that that doesn't have to just happen there. But the customer experience is just important in Dallas, Texas, as it is in Lufkin, Texas.

SPEAKER_02 30:38

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 30:39

So let's not think that just because you're in a big city, you can't have those types of relationships with your client base. That's that's false.

SPEAKER_02 30:48

It may be that it's not in in-person, you know, you may not have a storefront where retail customers walk in. You might not be main street, right? Uh like we literally are main street in our retail operation. We have two of our three locations uh in Deep East, Texas that are literally Main Street addresses. Like it literally says Main Street. And so uh it's not just a phrase. Sometimes I've learned in different parts of the country, it's like, oh, you're a Main Street business. So, oh no, you really are on Main Street. Like, yes, it's a real street in this town. Um, and so uh, no, that's that's true. But we have agents that are more successful uh than our retail location here in the country in uh suburban areas, in metro areas. Uh they may not have physical storefronts in terms of retail uh walk-in, right? People may not come into their office physically. You can still have this culture, you can still have that Uncle Mike kind of feel. If uh it's about customer experience, right? And and I'm convinced it's about that Chick-fil-A owner-operator mentality. If that agency ownership is truly owner-operator mindset, where you're not just this investor and you're, you know, if you're trying really, really hard to get to a place where you don't have to work, then your culture's gonna feel that way. It's gonna feel your absence. And the business of owning an insurance agency, uh, my view is uh, and statistically, 86 or 7% of them right in that range, um across the country fit this size dynamic that is the owner operator, right? It's a really, really small percentage that have you know big executive teams. Um the ownership doesn't really write insurance anymore. Uh the there's there's all these different people leading the organization that haven't sold a policy in 20 years. Like that is a severe minority, like under 10% of agencies across the country. 85 to 90 percent are truly owner operators. The question is, are you in tune with your business? It doesn't matter where your business is located, it's it's it's what's the customer experience going to be. And that's what you know I see as the comparable to Chick-fil-A.

SPEAKER_03 33:48

So, yeah, here's a tip because I remember this from the agency that I worked at when I first got out of college. Do not have your golf clubs sitting right next to the door to your office and have a glass pane there so people can see if the golf clubs are there or not there, and then they can base their day around the location of the golf clubs.

SPEAKER_02 34:20

There's an old commercial. Uh man, Tanya, what was the commercial with the all the office where the receptionist answers the phone and it's like, oh, you're not gonna be in today? And everybody picks up their golf clubs from their desk, and then it's oh, you are coming in, and everybody sets them back down. It's like a FedEx. I don't know. It's probably a FedEx commercial, but probably 1980s. Agree, agree, totally agree.

SPEAKER_03 34:50

I wonder how many episodes in a row we can talk about golf when two of the what wait, Tiny, you play golf?

SPEAKER_00 34:55

I play at golf.

SPEAKER_03 34:58

When when you have one person that does not care at all about golf and two that are marginally interested. Yeah, I like to hack.

SPEAKER_00 35:10

I like to enjoy like I I really enjoy going like to the driving range more than playing nine or eighteen holes. And the reason for that is like first of all, I get hot, but second of all, I I get annoyed when people in front of me are slow. And so if Daniel and I go out to play nine holes, we may only play six because we just go around people and skip holes so we don't have to wait.

SPEAKER_03 35:37

Here's a funny story totally, totally off topic. But I actually worked at a I go, I worked at a golf course in college, and one of my buddies put his foot in his mouth, and I almost good thing I wasn't drinking anything at the time because I would have spit it across the room. So two ladies walk in. He didn't realize that it was ladies' nine whole day, which is different than ladies' 18 whole day. Okay, so they walk up and they're gonna register their scores with him. He's at the desk, and she's like, Oh, didn't do great today. I shot, I remember it like it was yesterday. I shot an 89, and he's like, 89? That is awesome, and she goes, Um, that's for nine holes. And he goes, Let me write that down. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:37

That's fantastic. That is fantastic. Love it, love it, love it.

SPEAKER_02 36:42

So I don't keep score, it's too stressful. Most of the time, I just I go out and hit, you know. I just don't just, I mean, what are we doing? Like, I'm not a participation trophy guy, y'all know that, but right, right.

SPEAKER_00 36:56

I was going through all of that in my head.

SPEAKER_02 36:58

I know, but in my mind, when I'm by myself or when I'm just me and a buddy, like I'm like, hey, you keep your score. I don't care. I don't need that stress in my life. I'm out here to de-stress my life. I'm not out here to increase my stress. So that's the way I handle that.

SPEAKER_00 37:15

So do you walk a course or do you drive the golf the golf cart?

SPEAKER_02 37:18

I most of the time are am in a cart. I have walked it, but we have some really hilly golf courses around here. So if I'm gonna play locally, it's a it's a really it's a booger to to walk, actually. It's pretty, pretty tough.

SPEAKER_03 37:34

So who's the source of all those stresses you're trying to relieve?

SPEAKER_00 37:38

Um, you know Robbie. It's Robbie, right? It's totally Robbie.

SPEAKER_02 37:44

Tanya, Mike, like these I know it's not me. It's just all the all of those people in my life, you know.

SPEAKER_00 37:56

Okay, so we have covered Chick-fil-A, McDonald's, Gall. What are we missing for a good insurance podcast, right?

SPEAKER_02 38:07

So now we're gonna talk about banking.

SPEAKER_00 38:10

Oh, oh, we did we did Southwest.

SPEAKER_02 38:12

We covered something. We did some airline stuff. Well, now let's get into banking and okay, and let's do it. And here's here's my very recent experience um of why I'm concerned about agencies that try to move away from the owner-operator model. Uh, recently had uh a bank, one of the banks that we deal with, and uh it just so happens that this bank is being sold, merged for the third time in 10 years. Okay. Uh the bigger just keep getting bigger, and uh I will say the previous two were okay. Like the merger, the the transition was okay. Like it wasn't terrible. Like I um there was a local, let's just call it owner-operator banker that I knew um in the organization, even though uh the organization was based in another state. Um their local banker was a banker that I knew from a long time ago. Uh, he was very much in tune with his market, with what was going on. Uh and and so, much like that Chick-fil-A owner operator, it was good. It was always good. He retired. Um, and now it after his retirement, a few years after his retirement, the bank has sold again. And my experience in this situation, in this one, and and what I related to was just the largeness of everything. Like everything is so corporate, everything is so stale and generic, there's nowhere close to that owner-operator culture feel to it, like in the local market. Uh, and just getting through to someone on a phone call is really difficult. Okay. And when I do talk to this person, um, this person does not sound like they're from anywhere in any region of the United States. Okay. Um, and so that is a little problematic to me when they're asking me for things like, you know, well, why can't you see your what is the account number you're looking for? Like that's a little problematic for me, right? And so I've just had this recent experience where this large organization is just okay losing customers because their experience is terrible. Like they don't, you know, it's just a numbers game for them, right? There's no real relationship building, there's no personal uh relationship at all. There's no uh certainly no owner-operator culture to it. And that's what we've seen from private equity coming into the agency world. That's what we've seen from some of the really large roll-up uh brokers across the country is um all of that local culture has uh been eliminated. And when that happened, they lost people. And when they lost people, they started losing customers because again, back to our Chick-fil-A, uh, you know, Richard Branson, um, you know, Simon Sinek point of the people were no longer being taken care of.

SPEAKER_00 42:15

Now, your father was a banker, y'all owned, your family owned the local bank. So what is what are you seeing really as you know, what would your dad have done differently if if if you're if he was selling, if he was in this merger, what would um Huntington State Bank have done differently under your dad?

SPEAKER_02 42:39

Uh I'm not sure they would have sold to this bank, number one. Um, I think he would have he would have been a little more uh money or or not, right? Like it this feels like this feels like the highest bidder situation, which is hey, it it happens out there, right? Like at some point the number gets so big that you know it becomes multi-generational wealth for some family, and people have to say yes. Like, I'm not I'm not saying that that's not real. I think specifically, though, to your question, that would not have been the decision, right? Number one. Uh number two, I think there would have been this kind of back to the previous uh merger where there was that type of person in the bank. Uh, this is not the bank that we uh had ownership in, by the way, our family. This is different bank. Um and you know, in in those cases, we there would have been some negotiation to take care of the people. There would have been some negotiation to probably stay on board and see the transition happen locally. Um, I think that would have been a lot different. So you wouldn't have you wouldn't have gotten that feeling, right? And we actually have uh some cousins uh who were in uh way up the way up the uh the generational line uh where the bank split uh in our family a few generations ahead of me. Uh there were uh these cousins that are the heirs to that bank, they're still in the banking business and they have been sold and they have stayed, and that bank doesn't feel like it's corporate, even though they're owned by a much larger bank holding company today. Um, my dad's peer, his cousin, my cousins that are in the banking business, they're still locally in the banking business. And that banking organization has taken care of their people, right? And while they may not be that Chick-fil-A model, they're very much that's that old Southwest model, right? Where it feels like a great relationship.

SPEAKER_00 45:09

So from a an agency perspective, um, I know this is something that your family does. You guys are very um, you y'all are out in the community, whether it is at um a rodeo, which is very, you know, very prominent in that area. You guys are out in public, right? This is one of those things that Brian Poole at Lone Star down in Deer Park, Texas, does very well. He has a fantastic team in-house that take care of most of the day-to-day calls. He's always a call transfer away, but he tries to let his team do that. But that gives him time to be out in that community, out, you know, meeting with realtors, um, going to the livestock auction, being at every single University of Houston basketball and football game, no matter where it is, right? So, so he is the face of the agency, and he can do that because he has people in place in the agency that can take care of business while he is out.

SPEAKER_02 46:27

Yeah, I and he enjoys it, right? Like he he's the master tailgator, right? At the football games. Like it's a part of his persona, and uh and yes, it's a part of his agency culture, but it it's it's still owner-operator mentality. And and I think about like you know, that Chick-fil-A franchisee can jump behind the register on a busy on and they do on a busy lunch day. Um Brian can quote and write business if he had to, because he's done it and he stays a little bit in tune. Now, does he do it every day? Uh not as much, probably very a lot less today. Does that mean that our agency owners have to stay in the sales and and agents, you know, quoting and sales uh part of the business? No, it doesn't mean that. Don't misunderstand, I guess, the the mindset of what an owner operator might look like in the agency business. It's not that you have to stay there, it's that you have to be at a place where you could jump back in, right? Um, I could fumble my way through a quote, I could sell and present a proposed thing, right? Today, I can still do it. I'd like to watch it. Yeah, I can still do it.

SPEAKER_00 48:02

Actually, Mike and I had the conversation on Teams about this during the podcast recording.

SPEAKER_02 48:08

Yeah, no, I I I can still do this. Like I'm in I'm in our system every day. I see it, right? Um just because you don't do it doesn't mean you can't do it, right? And and I think that's the piece that you know um that that that we miss when we start having this investor mindset. Like, I'm not gonna show up at the office for a month. Like those exist.

SPEAKER_03 48:39

Like those agencies exist, especially when you get into ownership that's in there, you know, mid to late 60s or older. I worked at an agency where the owner was 80 years old. Obviously, he wasn't there every day.

SPEAKER_02 48:55

Yeah, and I think the mistake there, um, because I feel like I feel like that's gonna be me one day. Um, and and so I'm thinking, like, how do I not be this person that I talked about for all these years? I think the thing there is you can stay ownership, but you gotta have either another generation coming, you gotta have this willingness to say no, but I'm I'm going to have you know a new CEO, a president, an agency operator, right? And that agency operator that I'm selecting is someone who's gonna carry on what has made us successful. Even if there's some tweaks to that, there's still a focus on agency, I mean customer experience. And so yes, I think that's right, Mike. Like you could be the 80-year-old that never shows up, that owns it, that controls it, and it just kind of is retired in place. That is not what I'm talking about at all, just for clarity. I don't advocate that type of model at all.

SPEAKER_00 50:09

Yeah, I the agencies that I see thriving are the agencies that who have leaders that are that are present. I mean, and I don't necessarily mean every minute of every day, but they're invested in their people, they're invested in their customers, they're in their culture. And my thought process is always like if if one of your customers spent one day inside your agency, what would they learn about your leadership? Like, we're not talking about your mission statement, your core values, your website, the awards on the wall, but like, would they see a culture of service? Would they would they see your team is empowered to to make decisions? Would they see people who genuinely care about the clients they serve? And to me, that is the the job of the owner is to invest in your people, to to coach your people to have those interactions that um create success by shaping culture. And that's one of the things that Shane has done, and Shane and his family have done with Integra that I see members of our Integra Partner Network emulating because they see the success of the model.

SPEAKER_02 51:46

Yeah, I I think we have 44, 45 employees today. Um and you know, um I I'll say this, and this isn't to two to horn or anything like that. This is just like an example. No, I don't quote and sell today. Um I can re-emphasize that, Mike. I can. No, I know. Um, and I know Mike doesn't believe me. I may have to do a quote for you and show you um that I can still do that.

SPEAKER_00 52:18

So Shane, I need some homeowner's insurance down in Florida.

SPEAKER_02 52:22

I got you. I'll take care of it. You know, I'll turn over every rock and you will get you will get a price.

SPEAKER_00 52:29

And then Amy's gonna have to fix it, but right.

SPEAKER_02 52:32

I got a guy.

SPEAKER_03 52:33

You will get a price, you will get a price.

SPEAKER_02 52:35

I got a guy.

SPEAKER_03 52:36

You will it might be higher than the cost of your home.

SPEAKER_02 52:39

That's right. That's right. So um, but you know, it could be as simple as the water in the coffee pot needs to be refilled, right? And yes, there's a person, there is a person today that does that, right? There is a literal person who's it's hard.

SPEAKER_03 53:01

Is that Robbie?

SPEAKER_02 53:02

No, it's not Robbie. This is Robbie's the assistant maintenance director, he's not the maintenance director. Um, you know, change the trash out in the trash can in the kitchen, or if you have a reception, you know, kitchen area, you know. Um just you know, things that you do at home. Like, I just think about it that way. Like that business is an extension of of you personally as an owner. And I think that's a a mindset. And I think what happens is when agents start to grow, agency owners, they start to grow, they get a little bit larger to use a little bit of uh East Texas slang, they get a little bit on their high horse, right? They're they're up on their high horse a little bit. Had to get you some cliches in here today, Mike.

SPEAKER_03 53:55

Um, actually, I don't know if we had any.

SPEAKER_02 53:58

I know, so I can't go without it, right? And they just, you know, it's like, well, I hired that person to do to work for me. They work for me. I mean, servant leadership is all over the Chick-fil-A model. That franchisee jumping in behind the register, you know, directing, helping the the kids in the drive-thru lane, take the orders, you know, going and just whatever. Like I was literally in a conversation, my mistake, I should have never done this with Julie Walker, our local Chick-fil-A franchisee during the lunch hour. For whatever reason, I decided to go to Chick-fil-A that day, which was probably would never do in a typical work day. And Julie's like, hey, can I call you back? Like, can I call you later? I need to go check on our drive-thru right now. I think it's backing up. And like, I mean, yes, Julie, please go run your business. But like, literally was in the middle of a conversation. Um you showed up there at lunchtime and you went full Shane Tatum on her. And I went full Shane Tatum on her and started talking to her. Like, you know, that was kind of dumb. I'm sorry, Julie. I'm sorry. Sorry, I did this to you, right? Like funny.

SPEAKER_00 55:27

I'm gonna leave us today with this quote from John Wooden, who did not coach in the SEC, Mike, so therefore I can watch this one.

SPEAKER_03 55:35

Perfect.

SPEAKER_00 55:36

The most powerful leadership tool you have is your own personal example.

SPEAKER_02 55:42

Attitudes of choice make a great one.

SPEAKER_00 55:44

Bye, y'all.

SPEAKER_01 55:45

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