Building An Insurance Agency – Ep168

Enjoy!

[00:00:06]
You have found
Authentic Business Adventures,

[00:00:08]
the business program that brings you
the struggle

[00:00:10]
stories and triumphs successes
of business owners across the land.

[00:00:14]
Past episodes
of the Authentic Business Adventures

[00:00:16]
program can be fun on the podcast
link at DrawInCustomers.com.

[00:00:20]
My name is James Kademan, entrepreneur,

[00:00:22]
author, speaker and helpful coach to small
business owners across the country.

[00:00:26]
And today we’re welcoming/
preparing to learn from Robert Zabbia.

[00:00:31]
Robert has had his own insurance
agency for looks like over 25 years.

[00:00:36]
Is that right, Robert?
Yeah, I can’t believe it’s that long.

[00:00:39]
That’s a long time to do anything.

[00:00:41]
Yeah.
So.

[00:00:42]
And it looks like you.
Do you I guess what interested me most

[00:00:46]
about you is that you have
a lot of other stuff going on.

[00:00:49]
Yeah, too much.

[00:00:50]
Besides just the insurance agency.

[00:00:52]
So let’s start.
Let’s start.

[00:00:54]
Twenty five years or so ago when you got

[00:00:56]
into the insurance business,
is typically this not something where

[00:01:00]
people are 10 years old dreaming
of being an insurance agent?

[00:01:03]
No, especially when your
dad’s an insurance agent

[00:01:05]
and he comes home cursing every day.

[00:01:06]
Oh, yeah that’s even worse.

[00:01:09]
So how did you end up in this industry?

[00:01:11]
Well, when I graduated college,

[00:01:13]
I was in the automotive business
and I graduated college.

[00:01:16]
So I went I stayed in the automotive
business because I’m into cars.

[00:01:19]
And

[00:01:20]
so I was selling computer systems to auto

[00:01:23]
parts stores and inventory management,
that kind of stuff.

[00:01:27]
And, you know, I was a senior
guy there after five years.

[00:01:30]
It’s one of those kind of companies,
a nice revolving door.

[00:01:32]
So, yeah.
So most most of my friends went on to work

[00:01:35]
for Microsoft, IBM, you know,
all kinds of companies.

[00:01:39]
It was like a launching point
for a lot a lot of people.

[00:01:42]
And, you know, so I was talking to my dad
about,

[00:01:45]
you know, the opportunity that I was
looking at to make a move because I’ve

[00:01:48]
been there for a while and it
was kind of getting old.

[00:01:51]
And he said, well, Allstate has this new
thing where I can sell you the agency.

[00:01:57]
So I never really wanted to get

[00:01:58]
into insurance because I didn’t want
to be an insurance agent, you know?

[00:02:02]
So,

[00:02:03]
you know, and again,
listening to the complaints that he had,

[00:02:06]
you know, being a one man band,
you know, the idea of running an agency is

[00:02:10]
what kind of drew me,
drew my attention to it.

[00:02:13]
All right.
So that’s why I you know, I made the move.

[00:02:17]
I ended up going to work for him.

[00:02:19]
And after a year, actually,
Allstate hired me to become my own agent.

[00:02:24]
So I stopped working for my dad.

[00:02:25]
I open up my own agency
and eventually I bought my dad out.

[00:02:29]
You know, he continued to run his we ran.

[00:02:31]
We ran them together.
He ran his agency.

[00:02:34]
I ran mine.
And then he was ready to get out.

[00:02:36]
So I bought him out.

[00:02:37]
Wow.

[00:02:38]
So initially,
not only were you in the insurance world,

[00:02:41]
which you were not a big fan of,
but you also had to work with.

[00:02:44]
Well, for your dad.

[00:02:46]
Yeah, I worked my dad for a year.
Yeah.

[00:02:48]
So that alone had to be a challenge.
Yeah.

[00:02:50]
It was good though.
I mean, you know, being out,

[00:02:51]
I think if I went right out of college
to work for him, I think it would have

[00:02:55]
been different than me going out
and being successful on my own.

[00:02:59]
I own my own house.
At that point, I was doing really well.

[00:03:03]
Yeah.
You know, so I think I kind of earned his

[00:03:05]
respect that he wasn’t just you know,
I had the marketing and sales background.

[00:03:10]
You know, he was an entrepreneur.

[00:03:12]
You owned a Coca-Cola route.

[00:03:13]
You know, he was yeah.

[00:03:14]
He he sold that and then he came

[00:03:16]
into Allstate, you know, so he was always,
you know, but he was self-taught,

[00:03:20]
you know, he didn’t he
didn’t get a college degree,

[00:03:24]
you know, and he just knew
insurance really well.

[00:03:26]
So it was a good mix because he knew

[00:03:28]
the insurance side and and I
knew sales and marketing.

[00:03:30]
So it was a good fit
for us to work together.

[00:03:33]
And I think by being on my own,
I kind of respected him more,

[00:03:36]
knowing everything that he had to do
on his own without a formal education.

[00:03:40]
All right.
Very cool.

[00:03:42]
So when you had your own thing

[00:03:45]
and I guess for a few years, it sounds
like you guys competitors to a point?

[00:03:48]
No, well, we shared an office, so.

[00:03:51]
Yeah, so I had my own agency,
but we shared an office.

[00:03:53]
I mean, he had you know,

[00:03:55]
when I went to work for him,
my job was to bring in new business.

[00:03:58]
You know, I only worked on,

[00:04:02]
you know, on working on the new people

[00:04:04]
coming in, whereas he worked
on his existing clients,

[00:04:08]
you know, in a lot of his
business was referral.

[00:04:10]
You know, he was doing it
for twenty years himself.

[00:04:14]
So, you know, so basically I was out

[00:04:17]
networking and telemarketing
and doing all those things.

[00:04:20]
And he was just out writing me,
just doing referrals.

[00:04:23]
So

[00:04:26]
so it was good.

[00:04:27]
And, you know, and then,
you know, we hired staff.

[00:04:30]
We continue to grow,

[00:04:33]
you know, so we we just
kept going on from there.

[00:04:35]
And so we went from basically
it was three of us.

[00:04:38]
When we opened up the office,
it was my dad, myself, and we hired

[00:04:41]
like an office manager,
customer service person.

[00:04:44]
And now I’ve got thirteen
people working here.

[00:04:47]
Wow.
Yeah.

[00:04:49]
It’s a big size for an agency.
Yeah.

[00:04:51]
Yeah we yeah.

[00:04:52]
We grew up quick.
That’s cool.

[00:04:54]
And my dad had a good size agency on his

[00:04:56]
own and then when we merged the two
we really

[00:05:00]
accelerated that.
All right, nice.

[00:05:02]
So in 25 years, what has
changed in the insurance world?

[00:05:06]
Oh, everything. Everything?

[00:05:08]
Everything, yeah. Back then,
people would walk in,

[00:05:11]
they’d have their copies of their
policies and say, hey, can you beat this?

[00:05:15]
You know, it was it was very much more
personal, whereas now people are just

[00:05:19]
going online, getting quotes and having
no idea of what they’re doing.

[00:05:23]
It’s so much easier for people
to change insurance.

[00:05:27]
So the relationship part
of it is much more important.

[00:05:30]
All right.
Three of my people, their only job is just

[00:05:32]
to reach out to our current customers
and make sure they’re happy.

[00:05:35]
You know, three of them.
Yeah, three of them.

[00:05:38]
Well, that’s all they call our customers.

[00:05:41]
The policies come up for renewal.

[00:05:44]
They you know, they do all those kind

[00:05:45]
of things, which is not common
in the insurance business.

[00:05:47]
But that’s why our retention is so high,

[00:05:51]
because people don’t know
what their insurance is like.

[00:05:53]
They think it’s just a matter of,
say, 15 percent or more.

[00:05:56]
But it’s not it’s know.

[00:05:58]
Yeah, you say 15 percent or more

[00:05:59]
by cutting your coverage,
20 percent or more.

[00:06:03]
That’s interesting.

[00:06:05]
Yeah, I would say that I don’t know how
many businesses, let alone industries,

[00:06:10]
where follow up is a routine,
a routine thing just to make sure.

[00:06:14]
Hey, are you doing OK?
Yeah.

[00:06:16]
You know, I know a lot
of it’s electronic now.

[00:06:18]
I mean, we have the email drips that go

[00:06:21]
out, so it’s not as much
dialing out as it used to be.

[00:06:24]
So it’s a lot of emails,

[00:06:26]
a lot of you know, even texting
is becoming a big part of it now.

[00:06:30]
So we’re using it.

[00:06:31]
We’re leveraging the technology.

[00:06:33]
And we only call the people
that we we feel are the highest.

[00:06:37]
You know, like if we see somebody rate
goes up a high percentage,

[00:06:40]
we’ll reach out to them because
usually something changed.

[00:06:42]
So we’ll reach out to see
what changed that that drove.

[00:06:45]
That sometimes is just a rate increase
and we have to work through it.

[00:06:49]
But rates have been pretty stable
over the past couple of years.

[00:06:51]
We haven’t seen many rate increases.

[00:06:53]
So some of these rate does change.

[00:06:54]
Something changed so we can
kind of work them through it.

[00:06:57]
I think that’s why people stay with us
and they they do refer us all right.

[00:07:02]
So and then networking is becoming
like we’re doing the opposite.

[00:07:06]
Nobody’s going to Internet and, you know,
in Facebook and all that stuff.

[00:07:09]
And we’re spending most of our
time networking with people.

[00:07:12]
Actually talking with them one on one

[00:07:16]
with realtors, mortgage people,
the people that could refer us business or

[00:07:21]
spending a lot more time, you know,
with those in person, because, I mean,

[00:07:25]
obviously, this past year our
business totally changed.

[00:07:28]
Yeah, right.
Is that a little bit?

[00:07:30]
Yeah.

[00:07:30]
I mean I mean, now Zoome has
become a verb, you know.

[00:07:34]
Yeah.

[00:07:36]
Here we are already zooming out and so

[00:07:38]
we’re like we started doing
like we started teaching

[00:07:42]
classes to to Realtor.

[00:07:43]
Now we’re doing them on Zoome.
Oh.

[00:07:46]
So we’re doing a lot of stuff to kind

[00:07:48]
of support our network, but like now we’re
finally getting to do in-person stuff.

[00:07:51]
So we just two weeks ago we had our first

[00:07:53]
in-person Realtor event
that we helped sponsor.

[00:07:57]
Oh so it’s.

[00:07:58]
Yeah, so that’s really where it comes when

[00:07:59]
you start doing these in-person
events and people get to meet you.

[00:08:03]
And, you know,
the realtors don’t really think about

[00:08:06]
the insurance because here in New York,
it’s months before you go to closing.

[00:08:10]
So usually it’s the mortgage people.

[00:08:12]
But we find that if we stay in front
of the realtors, they you know,

[00:08:16]
they just realize that it’s a good
thing to have us as a partner.

[00:08:20]
Right.

[00:08:21]
Yeah, I think that that’s a street

[00:08:23]
that goes both directions,
so it’s easy to refer.

[00:08:27]
You guys are both chasing
after the same crowd.

[00:08:29]
So exactly where split forces,
you can join them.

[00:08:32]
Let’s go.

[00:08:33]
So I did a little homework on you, and it
looks like you were the man of the year.

[00:08:38]
You’re a model citizen magazine.

[00:08:40]
Yeah, yeah.

[00:08:42]
Can you I guess I don’t know much
about model citizen magazines.

[00:08:45]
I don’t know if that’s more
of an East Coast thing or.

[00:08:47]
I think it’s.
Yeah, I mean, it’s pretty much I think

[00:08:49]
they have a little like that was
the Long Island version of it.

[00:08:52]
So yeah, it’s a magazine.

[00:08:55]
It’s been around for a while and they kind

[00:08:57]
of focus on people that
work in the community.

[00:09:00]
OK, so I met the I met
the editor years ago.

[00:09:04]
I won leukemia and lymphoma
Man of the Year.

[00:09:07]
Oh, nice.
OK, yeah.

[00:09:08]
So I ran for that.

[00:09:09]
We raised like one hundred ninety
thousand dollars in ten weeks.

[00:09:12]
Wow.
Yeah.

[00:09:14]
It was pretty wild.

[00:09:16]
So I and I met John that way and then you

[00:09:20]
know, he would always be in a lot
of the fundraising events that I’d be at.

[00:09:23]
So I worked with a lot of different

[00:09:25]
charities and you know, not no,
I just saw him as a photographer.

[00:09:28]
I didn’t realize that the
entity affiliation and,

[00:09:32]
you know, and he’d be always
taking pictures of me at events.

[00:09:35]
And then he asked me to do a photo shoot

[00:09:37]
and he interviewed me and he said,
oh, you’re up for a model citizen.

[00:09:40]
You’re going to be you’re
nominated for model citizens.

[00:09:43]
We’re going to do a spread
on you this month.

[00:09:45]
So it was pretty cool.

[00:09:46]
I didn’t I guess they have a committee
that kind of picks, you know,

[00:09:50]
the people that are going to be
the model citizen of the year.

[00:09:52]
And it goes to people
that work in the community.

[00:09:54]
There was a woman of the year.

[00:09:55]
There was also a couple of the year.

[00:09:57]
And, you know, all of us kind of know each

[00:09:59]
other just because we’re all in the same
fund raising and charity circuit fund.

[00:10:05]
That’d be kind of cool.
Yeah.

[00:10:07]
Yeah.
Said Right.

[00:10:08]
We’re talking to you.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:10:10]
I was just last year.
Yeah.

[00:10:11]
Wow.
That’s kind of give given.

[00:10:14]
Yeah.
I was, I was surprised.

[00:10:15]
I never, never expected it.
Nice.

[00:10:18]
And then you have a shoe business it

[00:10:21]
sounds like now it’s something
that was there a foot thing going on.

[00:10:25]
There’s a mention in the in the
Man of the Year article

[00:10:31]
that it sounds like there are other
businesses that you have besides.

[00:10:34]
Well, I’m doing the C classes.
I started that.

[00:10:37]
No, I’m not doing anything with shoes.
Oh, no.

[00:10:39]
There was a guy, the other guy
who was up for Man of the Year.

[00:10:42]
He has a shoe business.
Yeah.

[00:10:44]
Mistake.
Yeah.

[00:10:44]
Yep.

[00:10:46]
But you it looks like you do
something with houses as well.

[00:10:48]
Is that right or with real estate?

[00:10:50]
Well, I’m working with the realtors

[00:10:51]
and teaching them the classes C classes,
and I’m doing training for them.

[00:10:57]
And so that’s like our big thing is we’re
kind of we support the board of realtors.

[00:11:03]
It’s our local MLS and Realtor board,
and we do a lot of work with them

[00:11:07]
and helping them like we did a whole thing
on open house safety because they were

[00:11:13]
nationally.

[00:11:14]
It’s been a big problem where realtors
had open houses are being attacked.

[00:11:19]
Yeah.
Because they’re they’re seeing these

[00:11:21]
realtors and they see their pictures
all over town dressed up all night.

[00:11:25]
So they think they have a ton of money.

[00:11:26]
So they’ve been you know,
they’ve been problems.

[00:11:28]
So we you know,
we’ve been raising awareness

[00:11:30]
for that and teaching them different ways
that they can help protect themselves.

[00:11:35]
I had no idea that was the thing.

[00:11:37]
Yeah, neither did I.

[00:11:39]
Not until I got involved with them.

[00:11:41]
I had no idea.

[00:11:42]
So the idea that some bad person comes in
there and says, give me all your money.

[00:11:48]
Yeah, well, yeah.

[00:11:49]
I mean, there are people
have been seriously hurt.

[00:11:52]
Yeah.
Yeah.

[00:11:53]
One woman I found out about it because I
was involved with a an event that I

[00:11:57]
sponsored and and it was
a class that they did on this.

[00:12:01]
And it was basically put together

[00:12:04]
by a foundation for a woman
who was unfortunately killed.

[00:12:08]
They kidnaped her

[00:12:10]
and they ended up killing her,
thinking that she was worth millions.

[00:12:14]
So, yeah.
So shall we teach, like,

[00:12:16]
different things to the realtors that they
need to do to protect themselves?

[00:12:20]
Requested for everybody.

[00:12:21]
Don’t be in the house alone.

[00:12:23]
You know, things like that.

[00:12:25]
We talk about you always arrange
to have somebody else there.

[00:12:27]
Or if you can’t have somebody there,
you have somebody like a phone call away

[00:12:31]
and know that you’re going
to be there all alone.

[00:12:34]
Right.

[00:12:34]
So all different things
that we try to help them with.

[00:12:37]
Interesting.

[00:12:39]
So these continuing education credits,

[00:12:41]
did you have to get
certified or how does that.

[00:12:43]
Yeah, I went to

[00:12:46]
a friend of mine.

[00:12:47]
She is a title insurance person.

[00:12:49]
And so I’ve actually sponsored a couple
of Hersi classes and I saw how she would

[00:12:55]
have all these people in the room and how
they treated her differently because she’s

[00:12:59]
teaching a class, not trying to sell
them on, using her for title insurance.

[00:13:04]
And I looked and there weren’t anybody

[00:13:07]
teaching classes on see
for insurance related type topics.

[00:13:12]
So,
yeah, I hooked up with a school

[00:13:15]
and the school got me certified and they
they helped me.

[00:13:19]
I put together the classes and then
they kind of got them approved.

[00:13:22]
So they had to manipulate them to make
them a class for continuing ed.

[00:13:27]
And so, yeah, as a matter of fact,

[00:13:29]
my next one I have is tomorrow
morning I’m teaching.

[00:13:32]
I do them like every Tuesdays,

[00:13:34]
Tuesdays and Thursdays.

[00:13:36]
I try to do them like once once I’m on.

[00:13:38]
So I’ll do one Tuesday,
one Thursday a month that I do them.

[00:13:40]
And then also I’m having like some
of the really like the local Realtor down

[00:13:44]
the block, asked me to do
one just for their office.

[00:13:47]
So we started doing stuff like that.

[00:13:49]
So yeah, it’s really cool.
All right.

[00:13:51]
So you come up with the curriculum or is
this something that in this case I did I

[00:13:55]
came up with it, gave it to the school
and the school got it approved.

[00:13:58]
Nice in the schools, I imagine.

[00:14:00]
Affiliated with the Realtor Association.
Yeah, I don’t know.

[00:14:03]
All know this one is like a school.

[00:14:05]
They just teach all different types

[00:14:06]
of continuing and real estate is
one of the ones that they teach.

[00:14:10]
And it’s cool because they have a really

[00:14:11]
nice platform that, you know,
when I hold the zoom class,

[00:14:15]
it logs them in, logs them out,
sends them out to see certificate’s.

[00:14:19]
Yeah.
So the school does all that.

[00:14:21]
All I got to do is show you get people to
show up and I show up and teach a class.

[00:14:24]
All right.
Well that’s cool.

[00:14:26]
Yeah.

[00:14:26]
And people say, hey by the way,
what do you do.

[00:14:29]
And I suppose it’s an
easy way to side market.

[00:14:32]
Well yeah, because we’re we’re talking
about what they need,

[00:14:35]
what they need to know about insurance,
whether it’s flautre home or whatever.

[00:14:39]
So eventually somebody comes they come
across somebody who ends up needing help.

[00:14:43]
So then they’re like,
oh yeah, I remember them.

[00:14:45]
They they taught that class.

[00:14:46]
Let me give them a call so
that it’s been working out.

[00:14:48]
It’s it’s been a good mix.
That’s cool.

[00:14:51]
And I imagine even though you’re

[00:14:52]
in New York, which everybody
like, it’s a big place.

[00:14:55]
Yeah.
Imagine in a little silo of real estate

[00:14:58]
agents, the strings,
the place awfully fast.

[00:15:00]
So, yeah.

[00:15:01]
Well, this just in my area, there’s
like twenty five thousand realtors.

[00:15:05]
Is there really.
Yeah.

[00:15:06]
Just in the association that I’m in.
Wow.

[00:15:09]
Yeah.
Know a lot of them aren’t active,

[00:15:12]
you know it’s probably a third of them
are actually active selling homes.

[00:15:15]
A lot of them just carry a license.

[00:15:16]
Sure.
But yeah.

[00:15:18]
But still even that you know,
five thousand, six thousand realtors.

[00:15:21]
That’s a lot of people.
There’s still quite a bit.

[00:15:23]
Yeah.
Oh are you having a typical class.

[00:15:26]
Usually we’ve had anywhere from 15

[00:15:29]
to my my biggest one I’ve had so far
online with Zoome has been fifty.

[00:15:34]
All right.

[00:15:35]
When we’ve done them in person we had like
we would have like ninety to one hundred

[00:15:38]
but then you’re feeding them so
more people show up for that

[00:15:44]
so.
I imagine after a year or two of doing

[00:15:47]
that, you have at least
the movers and shakers.

[00:15:51]
Yeah, what’s good is yeah,

[00:15:53]
and then you develop a following and then
they come and they bring their friends

[00:15:56]
and they’re like, oh yeah,
he’s helped me out with this deal.

[00:15:58]
Or, you know, my team is really good.

[00:16:01]
You know, we really focus
on the needs of the Realtor.

[00:16:04]
So we don’t when we get a referral,
we’re not hard selling them.

[00:16:07]
We’re teaching them what they need to know
if they want to get a cheaper price

[00:16:10]
because, you know, with X, Y, Z company,
we just tell them what they need to do if

[00:16:13]
they’re going to do
that and what to look out for.

[00:16:16]
The beautiful thing about our business
is the policies renew every year.

[00:16:19]
Mm hmm.
So, you know, that’s

[00:16:23]
so if I don’t get them now,
eventually we can get them down the road.

[00:16:26]
Sure.
That’s fair.

[00:16:28]
I want to talk about employees

[00:16:30]
as you and your dad and then you alone
essentially had to expand your business.

[00:16:35]
That had to be tough,

[00:16:35]
finding people to work as its
agents and all that kind of stuff.

[00:16:39]
That’s the hardest part, I think,

[00:16:40]
of any business is managing
and hiring and retaining employees.

[00:16:45]
Yeah, we’ve had some
doozies over the years,

[00:16:49]
you know, and it’s funny because when I
first got in, I never had an employee.

[00:16:51]
I worked for a computer company.

[00:16:53]
You know, I was it was just me, you know.

[00:16:55]
So when I had a fire, my first person,

[00:16:56]
it was like my dad was like, ha, you know,
you’re going to do it like he made me,

[00:17:00]
you know, he made me go through
the process of getting rid of them.

[00:17:03]
So it was good, though.

[00:17:04]
I mean, and now after doing it
for a while, you kind of realize that,

[00:17:10]
you know, sometimes you’re doing them

[00:17:11]
a favor by letting them go, you know,
because if you have somebody and they’re

[00:17:14]
really not doing well,
they’re probably not happy anyway.

[00:17:17]
Right.

[00:17:17]
And I’ve had people that, you know,
we’re we’re a much larger agency than most

[00:17:22]
and I’ve had people that it
just doesn’t work for them.

[00:17:24]
It’s higher intensity here.

[00:17:26]
It’s more pressure.

[00:17:28]
And I had one woman that just like,

[00:17:29]
you know, she had a lot
of personal stuff going on and

[00:17:33]
mentally, she just broke down and I just

[00:17:35]
had to let her go because
she was just not a good fit.

[00:17:38]
Now she works at a smaller agency.

[00:17:39]
She’s like pretty much like

[00:17:41]
running the place like her,
the agent and one other person.

[00:17:44]
And she’s doing really well there.

[00:17:45]
So I know sometimes,
you know, it’s better,

[00:17:49]
but it’s better to let people go
than really to hold on to them.

[00:17:52]
I think that’s the biggest the biggest
problem I’ve always had is, you know,

[00:17:58]
hiring too quick and firing too slow, you
know, and now we’ve kind of reversed it.

[00:18:03]
My my hiring process.

[00:18:04]
It’s it’s now several interviews.

[00:18:06]
They meet with me, they meet with my team.

[00:18:08]
I have a I have an outsourced sales

[00:18:10]
manager that I, I, I bring him
in for training once a month.

[00:18:14]
So I he’ll interview them as well.

[00:18:17]
I think that’s really a big part.
That’s the other part.

[00:18:20]
I think that a lot of business owners

[00:18:22]
have a problem with is none
of us have really ever done it.

[00:18:26]
So it’s not I’m a sales guy, you know,

[00:18:29]
I’ve sold from the candy bars when I was
a Boy Scout, you know, insurance now and

[00:18:35]
one hundred thousand dollar
computer systems in between.

[00:18:37]
You know, I was always a sales guy,
but I never had a manager be like.

[00:18:40]
To me, sales comes naturally.

[00:18:42]
It’s part of my personality.

[00:18:44]
I’ve been through so many videotape

[00:18:46]
trainings and in-person Brian Tracy
and all those all those guys.

[00:18:50]
Oh, yeah.

[00:18:51]
You know, so for me,

[00:18:52]
a lot of it comes natural and I’ve
had a hard time teaching that.

[00:18:56]
So for me, it was I found I was

[00:18:58]
in a training class and, you know,
and I’m like, I know all this stuff.

[00:19:02]
I just don’t know how to teach it.

[00:19:03]
So I’m gonna hire this
guy to teach my people.

[00:19:06]
And it’s made a world of difference

[00:19:07]
because they’ve really helped me
identify what I need to be doing.

[00:19:11]
Like I had one guy who was
just not working out.

[00:19:13]
I hired him during covid.

[00:19:14]
I was kind of giving them
a little benefit of the doubt.

[00:19:16]
He wasn’t selling anything.

[00:19:18]
And and I was like, you know what?

[00:19:21]
You know, let me just see how he does.

[00:19:22]
And the guy was like,

[00:19:24]
he goes, Rob, if this guy sells a policy
this week, are you going to keep him?

[00:19:27]
Like, No, he goes and just get rid
of them, you know, and and that, you know,

[00:19:31]
and it’s like, you know, sometimes
you need that, like, little push.

[00:19:34]
So I think having, you know,
a coach like I it’s funny.

[00:19:37]
I always said hired weakness.
I’m a sales guy.

[00:19:40]
I’m not very detail oriented.

[00:19:42]
So my first hire was
a detail oriented person.

[00:19:45]
All right.

[00:19:45]
You know, so I think you need to hire your
weaknesses first and then you need to get

[00:19:49]
coaching for those things
that you’re not good at.

[00:19:52]
And I think too many people are too proud

[00:19:54]
and they’re too cheap
to to spend the money.

[00:19:57]
And,
you know, I mean, I paid a pretty penny

[00:20:00]
to this guy over the past year
to come in and help me out.

[00:20:03]
And you know what?

[00:20:04]
It was definitely worth
that my sales were up.

[00:20:06]
You know, I’ve identified
what works and what does.

[00:20:09]
And I got rid of the stuff,
like some of the things that you just it’s

[00:20:11]
good to have that outside
source to help you.

[00:20:14]
So, I mean, I would definitely recommend,

[00:20:16]
you know, there’s plenty of sales
training companies out there.

[00:20:19]
We all know them.
You know, if you’re having even the sale,

[00:20:23]
like if you if you’re a good salesperson,
if you’re going to bring in people,

[00:20:25]
then you might need a sales
manager to help you with that.

[00:20:28]
So you can hire these companies

[00:20:29]
and they’ll do the training and do
the one on one meetings with the staff.

[00:20:34]
Like I didn’t know how to hold.
Like I’ve been through plenty of pipeline

[00:20:36]
management things with my sales manager,
but I didn’t know how to really run it.

[00:20:40]
So those are the kind
of things I really learned.

[00:20:42]
Like I took advantage of the shut.

[00:20:44]
Out in the slowdown in business over
the past year to kind of re tool

[00:20:49]
and I brought in Pete and he’s
helped me with a lot of these.

[00:20:53]
And it was funny because he was like,
you know what, you don’t need me anymore.

[00:20:56]
And then I decide.
I’m like, you know what?

[00:20:57]
I’m hiring somebody.
I want you to through this process.

[00:20:59]
So let me extend it, you know,

[00:21:01]
for a couple of more months and then
we’ll see how we’re doing then, you know.

[00:21:05]
So it’s been really good.

[00:21:06]
Like our calls now are not as like I’m not

[00:21:09]
learning as much,
but it’s more validation.

[00:21:12]
And I think having that outside person is

[00:21:14]
really a big help to have
an outside coach.

[00:21:17]
Yeah, absolutely.

[00:21:19]
I can tell you and I see people all
the time when I’m coaching people,

[00:21:23]
I’m telling them
90 percent of the time I’m not telling you

[00:21:26]
something that you’re like,
well, that’s mind blowing.

[00:21:28]
You know what to do,
right? Sometimes you just need another

[00:21:32]
voice, another person that’s maybe not
your spouse or your coworker to tell you.

[00:21:37]
Exactly.
So even there’s little bracelet.

[00:21:39]
It’s the what would I do that I
give to people like this?

[00:21:43]
Ask yourself for advice.

[00:21:44]
And most of the time it’s
probably pretty good advice.

[00:21:47]
Exactly.
Exactly.

[00:21:49]
We’ve all been through this stuff,

[00:21:50]
but sometimes, you know, like sometimes
you could just be too nice of a person.

[00:21:54]
You don’t want to totally
you don’t want to do it.

[00:21:56]
Like, I had a guy.
I told him I just hired the guy.

[00:21:59]
I’m like, get licensed.

[00:22:00]
You know, you’ll start you know,
you get licensed and you’ll start.

[00:22:03]
I’m like, I want you to come in Thursday
so we could follow the paperwork and put

[00:22:07]
together a game plan
that really comes and goes.

[00:22:09]
I email him, no response, no nothing.

[00:22:10]
He sends me an email
ten o’clock last night.

[00:22:12]
I’m almost done with the licensing class.

[00:22:14]
I’m like, where were you Thursday?

[00:22:15]
No, you know, and it’s like,
you know, no office manager.

[00:22:19]
Like, I’m not training this kid.

[00:22:21]
You know, if you can’t show up and listen
to directions, we don’t want them.

[00:22:24]
Right.
You know, and he’s a young kid, right?

[00:22:27]
I mean, I was like, come in on Thursday so
we can, like, put together a game plan.

[00:22:30]
That was the hurdle
that he didn’t overcome.

[00:22:32]
Yeah.
Was like, no, exactly.

[00:22:35]
You know, Phil, I come in on a Thursday,

[00:22:36]
fill out paperwork and let’s figure
out where you are with the licensing.

[00:22:40]
You don’t need any, you know,

[00:22:41]
and it’s just like if that’s
going to be like the first thing.

[00:22:43]
And he’s like, oh, I apologize.
Miscommunication.

[00:22:45]
I thought you wanted you know, it’s like,

[00:22:46]
no, you were supposed
coming Thursday, right.

[00:22:48]
And you said, yes, I can come
in Thursday and Thursday came.

[00:22:50]
And when you weren’t here.

[00:22:51]
Yeah, there was no no miscommunication.

[00:22:54]
Yeah, exactly.

[00:22:55]
That goes it was a younger kid.
Older.

[00:22:57]
Yeah.
Well he’s like in his twenties, you know.

[00:23:00]
OK, no you wouldn’t.

[00:23:01]
You went into nursing and you know,

[00:23:03]
I saw a lot of potential like
this was going to be a project.

[00:23:05]
That’s the other thing.
He’s going to be a project.

[00:23:07]
He’s not going to come
in and and contribute right away.

[00:23:10]
This is going to be a guy that’s going

[00:23:11]
to be like a six month to a year,
teach him the insurance business,

[00:23:14]
teach him how to sell,
spend a lot of money on him.

[00:23:17]
And, you know, and I can’t be spending

[00:23:19]
money on stuff like I got
another guy who I hired.

[00:23:21]
I was hiring two at once.

[00:23:23]
And that’s my other thing,
is now I hire two people at once because,

[00:23:25]
you know, one of them’s
not going to work out.

[00:23:27]
Oh, sure.
I can see that.

[00:23:29]
Yeah, I did that.

[00:23:30]
I hired this guy,
that guy Jacob and carry it.

[00:23:32]
I hired Jacob and then Pete,
the sales trainer that I work with is

[00:23:36]
like, hey, I got this person,
Carrie, she’s a friend.

[00:23:39]
I helped her get a job
at this insurance agency.

[00:23:41]
And because of covid, they let her go and
he goes, she’s a really good salesperson.

[00:23:45]
I’m like, if you’re telling me she’s

[00:23:46]
a good salesperson, I don’t care if I can
afford it and I’m going to bring her in.

[00:23:49]
Right.

[00:23:50]
So I’m like one of them
are going to work out.

[00:23:52]
So and if they both hit their numbers,
they’ll both pay for themselves.

[00:23:54]
So who cares?
Right.

[00:23:56]
So, yeah, Jacob was gone and carries like
my number one salesperson right now.

[00:24:00]
So not that fast.
Yeah.

[00:24:02]
Yeah.
Wow, that’s cool.

[00:24:04]
So love when you hire someone and they
just knock it out of the park and then.

[00:24:07]
Yeah.

[00:24:08]
You know, it took her six months but you
know, she didn’t really know it,

[00:24:11]
she just got license when they let it go,
you know.

[00:24:13]
So I guess they didn’t want
a project through the pandemic and

[00:24:18]
you know, but we just hit it off
like she just had that personality.

[00:24:21]
My office manager is like, yeah,
we got to get her and we brought her in.

[00:24:24]
And it’s been great.

[00:24:24]
You know, it’s a family when
you have a small I mean.

[00:24:27]
Yeah, twelve, thirteen people.

[00:24:28]
Sounds like a lot, but it’s
still a small family, you know.

[00:24:31]
So, you know, having that that
chemistry is a big thing.

[00:24:36]
You know, she just fit in.
Yeah.

[00:24:38]
Are you all in the office now?

[00:24:40]
Are you guys remote.

[00:24:41]
I have two people remote.

[00:24:42]
The rest of us are in now.

[00:24:44]
During the pandemic we had
three to five people in at once.

[00:24:49]
That the most

[00:24:52]
my salespeople, I force them
to come in as soon as it was safe.

[00:24:56]
The salespeople I found just
didn’t really do as well.

[00:24:59]
Remote.
Oh, yes.

[00:25:00]
Service people.
Yeah.

[00:25:01]
All right.

[00:25:01]
I think the camaraderie thing is a big
thing with sales totally helping each

[00:25:06]
other, especially people that are new
and being able to just poke over your

[00:25:08]
cubicle and say, I had
this problem, you know.

[00:25:11]
Yeah.
So I did that.

[00:25:13]
Yeah.
You know, so where’s my service?

[00:25:16]
People did well, but still even with them.

[00:25:18]
No, we’re doing a great job of servicing,
but there was no cross-selling.

[00:25:20]
There was no referrals coming in.

[00:25:22]
So as soon as you know,

[00:25:24]
as soon as they opened it up, you know,
we did this, so I made my desk.

[00:25:27]
Everybody’s got their own cubicles.

[00:25:28]
So they’re not sitting
on top of each other.

[00:25:30]
Right.
You know, we’re in a business where when

[00:25:32]
people sit at your desk,
you having conversations.

[00:25:34]
So I couldn’t have an open floor.

[00:25:36]
So I set up cubicles which ended up and we
moved during this, which was a Realtor.

[00:25:41]
Oh, yeah.
And November my lease was up.

[00:25:44]
And the landlord was just not like,
you know,

[00:25:47]
I’m like, you’re not even close to what
the market was before the pandemic, right?

[00:25:51]
And this this one building I was looking
at, he dropped the he dropped the rent.

[00:25:56]
Once the pandemic hit, he goes,
yeah, I really want you in here.

[00:25:58]
I’m going to drop it to this.

[00:26:00]
And I’m like, OK, I’m going to save all
that money and get a better layout.

[00:26:03]
Yeah, I’m in.
So we ended up moving in November.

[00:26:06]
Wow.

[00:26:06]
And, you know, so it’s a nice this is
a better layout for a pandemic, too.

[00:26:11]
So we have everybody’s got a cubicle.

[00:26:12]
So they could be separate.

[00:26:14]
Yeah, they can have we have plastic

[00:26:15]
shields from when a customer
sitting at their desk.

[00:26:19]
So we did all the things to make
sure that they were safe.

[00:26:21]
But I do have two people that.

[00:26:23]
One is recovering from

[00:26:26]
being sick, so she you know,

[00:26:28]
she’s high risk, so, you know,
she’s she’s working from home.

[00:26:31]
And then I have a telemarketer
who actually just works better at home.

[00:26:34]
So I just think.
Yeah.

[00:26:35]
All right. Was it a challenge or has it
been a challenge to communicate

[00:26:40]
with people were somewhere
in the office and somewhere remote?

[00:26:42]
Well, we were doing just like,
you know, like crazy.

[00:26:44]
But now I have a couple of moms, you know,

[00:26:47]
so there’s days where they, you know,
so even when I have a sales meeting,

[00:26:50]
sometimes they’ll zoom in
if they don’t happen to be in.

[00:26:53]
So the Xoom thing is really helped out.

[00:26:54]
So I set up our meeting area.

[00:26:57]
I set up with the with a camera and a TV.

[00:26:59]
So when we do meetings,
we zoom the people in

[00:27:03]
that aren’t that can’t be here live.
When we were going,

[00:27:07]
we were like pretty much except for like
the three or four of us in the office.

[00:27:11]
Then we just would do a daily zoom meeting
just to touch base and be like 15 minutes,

[00:27:15]
you know, just to touch
base as to what’s going on.

[00:27:19]
This is where we’re at is what we need.

[00:27:21]
And we really only had one bad month.

[00:27:23]
And that was April.
All right.

[00:27:26]
Know we were down last year, but I mean,

[00:27:29]
it was really only one month where
it was like really, really bad.

[00:27:32]
And that was nobody was doing anything.

[00:27:35]
You know, nobody wanted
to switch their insurance.

[00:27:37]
Nobody wanted to do, you know,

[00:27:38]
we were saving people money and they
were just like not having it right.

[00:27:41]
They just wanted to stay
where they were until things.

[00:27:43]
And then June we, like, killed it.

[00:27:45]
So nice.
Yeah.

[00:27:47]
And then but it was still like June,

[00:27:48]
I think it was the pent up from the two
months, but then it kind of slowed down.

[00:27:51]
So we were down last year overall as far
as new business,

[00:27:55]
but our retention actually crept
up because nobody was leaving.

[00:27:58]
You know, the big thing we have now is

[00:28:00]
people are moving out in New York
and going down to Florida.

[00:28:02]
That’s like that’s like
our biggest problem.

[00:28:04]
All right.
And is that because of weather or is it?

[00:28:08]
It’s I think it’s more

[00:28:09]
the the the political and taxing
environment we’re in now to live here.

[00:28:15]
My parents moved years ago.

[00:28:16]
They were just my dad was like,
I’m not paying these taxes anymore.

[00:28:19]
So they.
All right.

[00:28:20]
So I think that’s a big part.

[00:28:21]
Property taxes here or not.

[00:28:24]
You know, the income tax here is high.
So.

[00:28:27]
All right, people just get to that point

[00:28:29]
and they’re like, you know what?
And I don’t have to deal with the winters,

[00:28:32]
you know? So something
to be said for that.

[00:28:34]
Yeah, I lived in Wisconsin.
Exactly.

[00:28:37]
My wife’s from Minnesota, so I.

[00:28:38]
Oh, yeah, yeah, I get it.
You know the story.

[00:28:41]
Yep.
You know the story.

[00:28:42]
You guys East Coast gets it as well.
So yeah.

[00:28:45]
Hit that home I guess with the insurance
industry changing with employees and all

[00:28:51]
that kind of stuff would have been some
of the other challenges that you didn’t

[00:28:54]
necessarily anticipate even from your dad,
that you’ve had to work through.

[00:29:00]
Well, the like you know,

[00:29:02]
you’re always looking at new competitors
coming in, you know,

[00:29:05]
Amazon is talking about doing insurance,
Teslas talking about doing insurance,

[00:29:10]
allow technology like Allstate now has
a thing where they plug plug a device

[00:29:15]
in the car and you get a better, better
rate depending on your driving habit.

[00:29:18]
Now you have the car companies are now
starting to come out with their own

[00:29:22]
insurance like they’re partnering
with companies and creating their own.

[00:29:26]
Like there was a big scare that people
weren’t going to because now

[00:29:29]
the millennials, they’re not going to buy
houses, they’re not going to own cars.

[00:29:32]
They’re not going to do any of that.

[00:29:33]
And so, yeah, we’ve heard all this before.

[00:29:35]
So that was a big scare in the industry.
And it all, obviously,

[00:29:38]
now the millennials are buying houses like
crazy and there’s no houses to be found.

[00:29:43]
So with the house obviously comes to cars

[00:29:45]
because, you know, there’s only
so much you can do with Uber.

[00:29:48]
Right.

[00:29:49]
So, you know, that kind of was a scare.

[00:29:53]
But the competition is changing.

[00:29:57]
People are a little bit more
willing to do self-service now.

[00:30:01]
So we have to compete with that.

[00:30:02]
But the thing the good thing is, is that,

[00:30:04]
you know, they leave us and six months
later they have a problem and they realize

[00:30:08]
that they realize they
relied on us for the advice.

[00:30:11]
Yeah.
That it isn’t insurance is not really

[00:30:15]
a self-serving thing because you’re
putting all your assets at risk.

[00:30:18]
Right.
We had a client.

[00:30:20]
His daughter wasn’t paying attention.

[00:30:21]
We rented a Ferrari one hundred eight

[00:30:22]
thousand dollars and she
didn’t even hit it that hard.

[00:30:25]
It was one hundred and eight
thousand dollars worth of damage.

[00:30:28]
Oops.

[00:30:28]
So if you go to one of these 800 numbers
and you take the standard coverage

[00:30:32]
that they offer, which is fifty thousand
more, you coming up with that extra fifty

[00:30:35]
eight thousand dollars worth of coverage
right now and people like, oh,

[00:30:38]
I’ll never hit a Ferrari, OK,
change it to a test that’s 80 grand.

[00:30:42]
Where are you coming up
with the extra thirty thousand.

[00:30:44]
And people don’t they
just don’t understand it.

[00:30:46]
They you know, they say, oh, yeah,

[00:30:47]
I want full coverage, but,
you know, what does that mean?

[00:30:50]
So it’s a it’s still a business that,

[00:30:53]
yeah, people are willing
to do more self serve.

[00:30:56]
And we find that,

[00:30:58]
which is why I like work on the Realtor
is a lot of these first time home buyers.

[00:31:01]
Yeah.

[00:31:01]
When you don’t own a house and you just
are going out to the dealership to pick up

[00:31:05]
a car, you’ll take the cheapest insurance
because you don’t own anything.

[00:31:07]
The car is the most
expensive thing you own.

[00:31:10]
Oh, now you’re buying a house and you call
that 800 number and they don’t know how

[00:31:13]
to pronounce your town,
much less where it is.

[00:31:15]
You know, especially I’m
in Massapequa, looked at,

[00:31:20]
you know, so and there’s
different home insurance.

[00:31:23]
Wisconsin’s got totally different
risks involved in Long Island.

[00:31:26]
Does you know, our thing is we don’t get

[00:31:28]
the big winter storms,
but we have the big hurricanes.

[00:31:31]
So with us, it’s like a once in ten
year type thing with you guys.

[00:31:34]
You can freeze every year,
you know, if you don’t take care of it.

[00:31:37]
Right.
So,

[00:31:39]
you know, so, you know,
insurance is a Nichi business.

[00:31:42]
You need to really kind
of specialize in something.

[00:31:46]
So I think they’ll always be
a place for an insurance agent.

[00:31:49]
But we need to keep up
with the technology.

[00:31:50]
The texting platform has been huge.

[00:31:53]
You know, it’s like our phones
used to ring off the hook.

[00:31:56]
And I’ve been on this.

[00:31:57]
My phone’s hardly rang
because everything is email and texting.

[00:32:01]
Now,

[00:32:02]
you know, they still want that person
on the other end,

[00:32:04]
but it doesn’t necessarily have
to be on the other end of the phone.

[00:32:06]
It needs to be on the other
end of the email or the text.

[00:32:08]
Yeah, yeah.
I totally understand that.

[00:32:11]
Have with Calls On Call my answering
service, we are

[00:32:15]
we always say we’re a communication
service because there’s a lot of people

[00:32:18]
that are just afraid to pick up
the phone, even order a pizza.

[00:32:21]
Yeah.

[00:32:22]
Let alone get insurance
or something like that.

[00:32:24]
Yeah.
It’s different world.

[00:32:26]
Yeah.
There’s more channels to communicate and

[00:32:29]
you have to be prepared
with all of them so.

[00:32:31]
Right.
I totally understand that.

[00:32:32]
Yeah.
Yeah.

[00:32:34]
It’s challenging because
it used to be easy.

[00:32:36]
Yeah.
Just we got email and phone.

[00:32:38]
Which one do you want.
Right.

[00:32:39]
Well I mean I remember back in the day

[00:32:41]
when my dad was in the insurance business,
everything was on paper.

[00:32:44]
Oh.
You know, so like he would actually go

[00:32:46]
to people’s houses and sit with them
at their dinner table and like right

[00:32:50]
there, auto and home insurance
applications right at their houses.

[00:32:53]
Wow.
You know, but that doesn’t happen anymore.

[00:32:55]
I mean, everything’s now
done over the phone.

[00:32:57]
You know, people used to have to come
in like I remember when somebody was

[00:33:00]
buying a house,
they would have to actually come

[00:33:01]
in and get the original paperwork
to bring to the closing.

[00:33:04]
And they wouldn’t show the faxes
or emails or anything back then.

[00:33:08]
So so, you know, yeah.

[00:33:11]
You need to make sure that you’re keeping

[00:33:13]
up with the changes
and evolving with it and.

[00:33:17]
Yeah.
And keeping a keep a tab.

[00:33:18]
You know, I pay a lot of attention to,

[00:33:21]
you know, different sources,
like was it at all.

[00:33:24]
I think there’s a thing owl that has a lot

[00:33:26]
of industry type stuff on there, you know,
like email things where you get like

[00:33:29]
different things are
going in the industry.

[00:33:31]
So you can see what the competition’s
doing, what’s going on.

[00:33:34]
You really need to keep tabs on those kind

[00:33:36]
of things just to figure out
what’s happening out there.

[00:33:38]
Sure.
I mean, I hired two of my great people.

[00:33:42]
They both work for Liberty Mutual.

[00:33:44]
And the reason I hired them is because I

[00:33:46]
heard through the grapevine
that Liberty Mutual was going to lay off

[00:33:48]
all the customer service people
and go to a call center in Texas.

[00:33:51]
You know, I went on LinkedIn and started

[00:33:53]
reaching out saying, hey, listen,
I hear this is what’s going on.

[00:33:56]
When you’re ready, give me.

[00:33:57]
Karl and I ended up hiring one and she
came in, she worked out real well and I’m

[00:34:02]
like, I had somebody who’s going out
on maternity leave, so I went to her.

[00:34:04]
I’m like, hey, any of your
I know the Liberty Mutual Money is going

[00:34:07]
to be running out in the
next couple of months.

[00:34:08]
You have any of your friends are looking
to introduce one of her friends and we

[00:34:12]
hired her and the two of them have
been here for several years now.

[00:34:15]
Well, so, yeah.

[00:34:17]
So if I didn’t keep tabs on what was
going on, I would have never knew.

[00:34:20]
So I had the groundwork laid
before they even were laid off.

[00:34:24]
Well, that’s clever.
Yeah.

[00:34:26]
So things like that are really important

[00:34:27]
keeping up on what’s going on in the
industry, in whatever industry you’re in.

[00:34:30]
Yeah, that’s awesome.

[00:34:32]
Does Allstate help you keep
tabs on stuff for the.

[00:34:36]
Well, a little bit.
I mean, they keep us.

[00:34:39]
It’s weird all she just went through
a big, you know, big change.

[00:34:42]
We used to have thirteen regions.

[00:34:44]
Now we have four zones.

[00:34:46]
So we used to get a lot more personal

[00:34:47]
attention because New York
was its own region.

[00:34:50]
And our our regional vice president was

[00:34:52]
like he lived five blocks
from me, you know?

[00:34:54]
I mean,

[00:34:57]
whereas now they’re now
the zone leader or whatever.

[00:34:59]
I don’t know what his title is,

[00:35:00]
but he’s down in the Carolinas,
you know, running from down there.

[00:35:04]
And so we don’t have you know,

[00:35:06]
we used to have like there was
one manager for every 20 agents.

[00:35:09]
Now it’s like 50 agents.

[00:35:11]
And there was like four layers between us

[00:35:13]
and them. And they flatten that out
because, you know,

[00:35:15]
there are a lot of the companies are
starting to realize they can cut costs,

[00:35:18]
you know, and flatten out a lot
of the management levels, which is good,

[00:35:21]
because a lot of times we’re looking
at like, what are these guys actually do?

[00:35:24]
You know, I’m a people person, so,
you know, so Nilla now it’s like,

[00:35:29]
you know, it used to be the regional vice
president, the the regional sales manager,

[00:35:33]
the territory sales manager,
and then my sales manager.

[00:35:36]
Now it’s the zone guy,
the territory and my manager.

[00:35:39]
So, all right.
You know, it flattens it out.

[00:35:42]
But we don’t also get that personal
attention that you used to get.

[00:35:46]
So kind of a little bit
a little bit on your own.

[00:35:49]
But you have a if you have a good manager

[00:35:51]
that keeps you up to date on what’s going
on, guys, you

[00:35:54]
know, so we have a Facebook group
of all state agents, and that is huge.

[00:35:58]
Yeah.
OK, so a sort of information is shared.

[00:36:01]
Yeah.

[00:36:01]
There’s a lot of stuff going
on that we all help each other out.

[00:36:04]
All right.

[00:36:05]
And his all state, in your opinion,
been able to adapt with

[00:36:09]
the geckos and whatever that short
version is or whatever.

[00:36:13]
Yeah, I know it’s tough because.

[00:36:17]
There, you know, there’s a big thing,
do you really want to try and, you know,

[00:36:20]
like I go past it, you know, as as the the
number one company or number two company.

[00:36:25]
Now, we used to be two
and now Geico passed us.

[00:36:28]
But they are because they’re right
in the stuff that we don’t like,

[00:36:30]
we wouldn’t even consider they really
Irish stuff for high risk drivers.

[00:36:35]
And, you know, so, you know,

[00:36:38]
we need to I mean,
all states got to do a better job

[00:36:40]
with the technology to make
it easier for customers.

[00:36:43]
But it still comes down to the advice.

[00:36:45]
And, you know, people are not going
to get that from Geico or progressive.

[00:36:49]
You know, you still need

[00:36:51]
somebody who’s in a call center who’s
never going to talk to you again.

[00:36:54]
You know, they don’t care.

[00:36:56]
They’re going to sell you whatever
you need to to get you off.

[00:36:58]
And I even see it with an Allstate
that all state agents have sold people

[00:37:01]
policies that didn’t meet their needs,
you know, so I mean,

[00:37:04]
it’s just the in general,
it’s it’s not just a company thing.

[00:37:07]
It’s just, you know,
just what happens in sales.

[00:37:10]
And my type of business, the way I

[00:37:13]
run things is I want to be
able to sleep at night.

[00:37:15]
So I’m not going to sell.

[00:37:17]
I’m not going to sell or tell anybody

[00:37:18]
whatever they need to hear
just to make a sale.

[00:37:20]
We’re going to explain things.

[00:37:21]
If they don’t want to pay the extra money

[00:37:22]
and they want to cut coverages,
well, that’s fine.

[00:37:25]
But that’s not going to be our game.
If they want to cut coverages.

[00:37:28]
Yeah, I’ll go with higher deductibles,
lower coverages, if that’s what you want.

[00:37:31]
But you’re going to sign the application
acknowledging that that’s what you want.

[00:37:34]
Whereas a lot of these companies,

[00:37:36]
they’ll say, oh, no, no,
it’s the same exact thing.

[00:37:38]
And I’ll get people like, oh yeah,

[00:37:39]
I saved a thousand dollars
by going to this other company.

[00:37:42]
And I go, OK, send me the new policy
and they send me the new policy.

[00:37:44]
It’s like, this is different.
This is different.

[00:37:46]
You don’t even have this anymore.

[00:37:48]
Like, I had no idea.

[00:37:49]
And that’s the thing is they don’t people
the companies know what people look at.

[00:37:52]
They look at the deductibles
and they look at their liability.

[00:37:55]
They don’t look at anything else.

[00:37:56]
They don’t know what any
of the rest of this stuff means.

[00:37:58]
Right.

[00:37:59]
So that’s really where we come in to make
sure that that’s what we teach people.

[00:38:04]
And like I said, when we get a referral

[00:38:05]
from a Realtor, it’s like, yeah,
you can buy a home policy from company X,

[00:38:09]
Y, Z that’s not even know
financially rated by and best.

[00:38:13]
Or you can go with an rating
company that we represent,

[00:38:17]
like Allstate or some of the other
companies that we write off.

[00:38:19]
Allstate won’t write it,

[00:38:20]
but I’m not going to write through these
substandard carriers because

[00:38:23]
in California, two of them went out of
business when they had those wildfires.

[00:38:26]
Oh,

[00:38:27]
during Sandy, when we had that years ago,
there was a company that if it wasn’t

[00:38:30]
bailed out by a hedge fund,
they were going under,

[00:38:33]
you know, so we only deal with the
companies that we know we’re going to.

[00:38:36]
After going through with Sandy, you kind
of realize how important this stuff is.

[00:38:41]
Kind of solidifies.

[00:38:42]
You know what we do.

[00:38:45]
Interesting,
can you talk just for the people

[00:38:47]
that don’t know about the embassy
and the rating for insurance companies?

[00:38:50]
Well, yeah, at best rates, bonds,
they rate all different things and they

[00:38:54]
rate insurance companies based
on their claims paying ability.

[00:38:58]
So there’s a lot of companies that sell

[00:38:59]
really cheap insurance, like there’s
one company I won’t mention the name.

[00:39:03]
There was one company they would like
and I would just like.

[00:39:05]
Yeah, well, that’s
that company, of course.

[00:39:07]
It’s nine hundred dollars
a year, one way or two.

[00:39:09]
You know, that’s just that’s what they do.

[00:39:11]
And they don’t write business anymore.

[00:39:13]
Or they just they got so financially

[00:39:16]
strapped that if there was a major storm
they wouldn’t be able to pay the claims.

[00:39:20]
So they had to shut down
writing new business.

[00:39:22]
So that’s the game is, you know,
there’s there’s a certain yeah.

[00:39:25]
There’s overhead and all that.

[00:39:27]
But there’s like there’s risk and reward.

[00:39:29]
So, you know,

[00:39:31]
like Geico writes,
all these high risk drivers,

[00:39:33]
they lose money on that and they’re
OK with losing money.

[00:39:36]
For every dollar that an insurance company

[00:39:38]
takes in, most companies pay
out like ninety ninety five.

[00:39:42]
Ninety six cents.
Guy who’s paying like a dollar ten.

[00:39:45]
So they’re losing money
on every dollar they take in.

[00:39:47]
It seems like one direction.
Yeah.

[00:39:50]
And there’s always going to be
able to do that, you know.

[00:39:53]
Right.

[00:39:53]
So and that’s what we see is a lot
of these companies that come

[00:39:56]
in with a real low price and then boom, 30
percent increase in the next year or two.

[00:40:01]
All right.

[00:40:02]
So ambitious, just like looks
at the financial stability of a company.

[00:40:05]
And what if a major thing,
are they going to be able to pay claims?

[00:40:10]
So like we had a company that we were

[00:40:12]
writing a ton of business for, if Allstate
wouldn’t do it right, it’s for them.

[00:40:15]
And they just took on so much
business, they got downgraded.

[00:40:17]
So we had to stop doing
business with them.

[00:40:19]
All right.

[00:40:20]
So that’s really what it is,
is the banks will require in a rated

[00:40:24]
company if you’re going
to have a mortgage.

[00:40:27]
So that’s you know, that’s one of the
reasons why we only deal with those.

[00:40:30]
So some of them will we’ll overlook it
because there’s other companies out there

[00:40:34]
besides Abess that will
rate insurance companies.

[00:40:37]
But OK, they’ll give almost
any company AAA rating.

[00:40:40]
It gets crazy.
Yeah.

[00:40:42]
So so, yeah, that’s what I invest is it’s
just it’s a rating, it’s a rating thing.

[00:40:47]
And they just look at it all states

[00:40:49]
and any State Farm travelers,
they’re all AAA rated carriers.

[00:40:52]
OK, imagine me

[00:40:55]
some government insurance regulation,
something or other that says in order

[00:40:59]
to be insurance company,
you have to be able to afford.

[00:41:02]
Yeah.
X percentage of claims I imagine.

[00:41:05]
Yeah.
Like it was a thing.

[00:41:07]
Yeah.

[00:41:08]
Well in New York it’s like
the worse like they are so crazy.

[00:41:12]
Ridiculous with the you know
with the regulations as well.

[00:41:15]
OK, what’s the other way.
Yeah.

[00:41:17]
New York is so regulated they don’t look
at the financial rating but they,

[00:41:21]
they will like they,
they will force a company to stop doing

[00:41:25]
business if they feel the company is going
to be insolvent because the state has

[00:41:28]
a fund if a company goes insolvent
to take care of the claims.

[00:41:33]
So so there is a point.

[00:41:35]
But the you know, a lot of these companies

[00:41:37]
that,
you know, like this company that got shut

[00:41:40]
down, I don’t know if
that’s why they shut down.

[00:41:42]
I don’t know if the state shut them down,
but they just stopped running a business.

[00:41:47]
So the state does have some say in it,

[00:41:49]
especially in New York,
like you can’t get anything done

[00:41:52]
in New York without like you have to if
you want to do a rate increase

[00:41:55]
while they were been rate decreases,
that all state file that the state

[00:41:59]
wouldn’t let them do because they thought
it was too much of a decrease

[00:42:02]
and the company would be financially
strapped so they wouldn’t do it.

[00:42:06]
So, yeah, you have to justify everything.

[00:42:08]
And insurance is probably one of the most

[00:42:10]
heavily that in banking or
extremely heavily regulated.

[00:42:14]
OK, all right.

[00:42:16]
I just think if I wanted to start

[00:42:17]
an insurance company,
that’d be tough because then if you have

[00:42:21]
a huge knot in the bank,
then go out and sell from day one.

[00:42:25]
Right.
Insured person number one,

[00:42:28]
they get in the car accident when
I’m still trying to rate policies.

[00:42:31]
Exactly.
Yeah.

[00:42:31]
You need to have a huge reserve.

[00:42:33]
And that’s really like what Geico does is

[00:42:35]
the reason they’re it’s
an underwriting profit.

[00:42:38]
They’re making an underwriting loss,
but they’re making the money up

[00:42:41]
on the investments because Warren Buffett
is going out and buying railroads and,

[00:42:44]
you know, Goldman Sachs stock and
he’s doing stuff like that,

[00:42:48]
whereas most insurance companies are
buying, you know, shopping malls.

[00:42:51]
And I mean, the companies are starting
to get a little bit more

[00:42:54]
sophisticated in their investments because
they you know, they realize they got

[00:42:57]
to make because you can’t make money in
fixed instruments anymore.

[00:43:01]
Right.

[00:43:02]
But there’s a lot of consolidation
because of what’s going on with that.

[00:43:05]
You know, like.

[00:43:07]
20 percent market share
is like unheard of.

[00:43:09]
And, yeah, and that’s what
Allstate has in New York.

[00:43:12]
It’s like

[00:43:13]
one in five cars in New York
and insured by Allstate.

[00:43:17]
Oh, so that’s really so that whereas

[00:43:20]
in like in Wisconsin, you’ll have
20 carriers I’ve never even heard of.

[00:43:24]
You know, there’s no way you know, I mean,
he has State Farm,

[00:43:26]
Allstate or big companies out there,
but you’ll have American family and like

[00:43:30]
all these, like farm family and companies
that we never hear of when I’m out

[00:43:34]
in the Midwest, I see all these little
companies and never heard of before.

[00:43:38]
Yeah, because out there there’s not as I
guess it’s not as strict as it is here

[00:43:43]
in New York as far as what
the regulators require.

[00:43:46]
All right.
Yeah, interesting.

[00:43:47]
In Madison, romance,
American family headquarters, QVC,

[00:43:53]
a headquarters that is
the headquarters of a huge campus.

[00:43:57]
It’s progressive and I think
a few others to the north of us.

[00:44:01]
There’sa century.

[00:44:03]
There’s a bunch of them.
Yeah.

[00:44:05]
It seems like a little unlike the Chicago,

[00:44:06]
Wisconsin, a lot of them
are based out there.

[00:44:09]
Yeah.
I always wondered why,

[00:44:11]
especially about this area is a lot of
snow wrecks that they’re chasing,

[00:44:17]
whatever it is.
I’m going to talk really quick on a ton

[00:44:20]
of time, but I always like to ask people
about their family, how you balance

[00:44:25]
being a good father and all that jazz
husbands and running the business,

[00:44:30]
dealing with employees
and clients and all that jazz.

[00:44:32]
Well, I think

[00:44:34]
one of the reasons I did this is
because my dad was always at my games.

[00:44:38]
Oh, nice.

[00:44:39]
So it was always a you know,
you created your own schedule.

[00:44:41]
So I like that idea.

[00:44:44]
What you know, when you become an owner,
though, versus a sale, you know,

[00:44:47]
when you’re a sales rep, you hit
your number and you take your time.

[00:44:49]
When you when you’re responsible
for training and managing staff,

[00:44:54]
then it makes it a little bit different.

[00:44:55]
So having the right
people in place is huge.

[00:44:59]
Like right now my son plays lacrosse,
so there’s two or three games a week.

[00:45:03]
I’m at every game, you know,
I’m cutting out three thirty.

[00:45:06]
And I as a matter of fact,

[00:45:08]
they had AP exams,
so I had to go pick them up from school

[00:45:11]
because he missed the bus,
because the AP exam ended before the bus

[00:45:15]
left, you know, picked him up from school,
him and his friends, and drove to the game

[00:45:19]
and got them there just
in time for the game to start.

[00:45:22]
So that’s what’s cool about being,

[00:45:24]
you know, if you have the right people
that you can do stuff like that now.

[00:45:27]
Yeah.

[00:45:28]
And it’s funny because my wife’s like, why
are you working eight o’clock at night?

[00:45:30]
Well, so that way I could
take days like that.

[00:45:32]
Right.
So that’s the nice thing.

[00:45:36]
You know, unfortunately,

[00:45:37]
I’ll be down in Florida visiting
my parents and I’m on my email and stuff

[00:45:40]
like that, but I have the flexibility that
I can pick up and go whenever I want.

[00:45:45]
And I think technology has made it a lot

[00:45:47]
easier to do stuff like that because,
you know, now we have ways to track

[00:45:54]
we can track our sales and I can see

[00:45:57]
what’s going on and you emailing
back and forth like, you know.

[00:46:00]
So we’ve done a lot more digital than the
in-person sit down around a table type.

[00:46:07]
Like even when I set up this new office,

[00:46:08]
I put a couch in some swag
and have sales meetings.

[00:46:11]
It’s still good to do that,

[00:46:14]
you know, but still we now we’re able
to do things a little bit more virtually.

[00:46:17]
So I think being able to let go,
you know, my dad was a total hands on.

[00:46:21]
You know, we would get in a fight.

[00:46:23]
She goes, whoa, what’s going on with,
you know, with so-and-so?

[00:46:25]
And I’m like, I don’t know.

[00:46:26]
As Vicky is like, well,
why don’t you know what I’m like?

[00:46:28]
Because I pay Vicky to worry about that.

[00:46:29]
You know, I
was going to say that was the thing is,

[00:46:32]
he was a solo opener and we
came in and changed it.

[00:46:36]
So I think that’s the that’s
the advantage of scale.

[00:46:39]
And building a larger business is,
you know, if you hire the right people,

[00:46:42]
then you don’t have to you know,
you can balance that time,

[00:46:48]
you know, get your hands and everything.
Right.

[00:46:49]
Right, exactly.
So and there’s you know, I’m not that guy.

[00:46:53]
I mean, there’s like I like
to do the things I have.

[00:46:56]
I mean, they have

[00:46:57]
my staff got me a squirrel on my desk
because I’m a constantly off on a tangent.

[00:47:01]
So that’s awesome.

[00:47:03]
You know, so, you know,

[00:47:04]
and that’s where you really got
to kind of know what your thing is.

[00:47:07]
And that’s, you know, so I have people
that can worry about the detailed stuff.

[00:47:10]
And I am I focus more on that bigger

[00:47:12]
picture type stuff
and the sales and relations.

[00:47:15]
I’m good at the building relationship,

[00:47:17]
so I’m out meeting with the realtors
and meeting with the mortgage people.

[00:47:20]
And I had breakfast with with a real
estate attorney this morning trying to put

[00:47:24]
together game plans on how we can both
feed each other,

[00:47:27]
you know, introduce people like
we all we each have a network.

[00:47:30]
Let’s introduce our each other
to the other network,

[00:47:34]
you know, so that’s the kind of stuff
that I do instead of sitting down.

[00:47:37]
I don’t like if you called me

[00:47:38]
for an insurance quote,
I wouldn’t be quoting your insurance.

[00:47:41]
I’d give it to Carey or Shannon or
one of my other people.

[00:47:44]
And they would be doing that for you.

[00:47:45]
I would just get you in the door, right?
Yeah.

[00:47:48]
I think too many business
owners try to do it all.

[00:47:51]
Oh, to a fault.
Yeah, absolutely.

[00:47:53]
It’s a difference between owning
a job and owning a business.

[00:47:56]
Is that the myth?
Right.

[00:47:58]
That’s what that all.
Yeah.

[00:47:59]
Yeah.

[00:48:00]
I think the myth was a big you know,
for me it was like I’m reading it and I’m

[00:48:03]
like, yeah, OK, I know
this already but I know.

[00:48:06]
But that was me, like I came in here when
I came in to open up with my dad and it

[00:48:11]
was the three of us,
the location we even opened up with,

[00:48:14]
I had it in my head what it was going
to look like with 10 people there.

[00:48:17]
Nice.
You know, so.

[00:48:19]
Yeah.

[00:48:19]
So, I mean, that’s really I think that was
where I knew I was going to I mean,

[00:48:23]
that’s why I came into this,
because this is the kind of business

[00:48:26]
that if you build it the right way,
you know,

[00:48:30]
a lot of my friends at this point in their
career, they’re out playing golf.

[00:48:32]
I’m not done yet.
You know, I got to I got twins.

[00:48:35]
You know, they’re going
to college in the fall.

[00:48:36]
So I got a lot of money to be laying
out over the next four years.

[00:48:40]
So I’m not ready to go and spend
half my time on a golf course.

[00:48:43]
I’m not a golfer to begin with, but but,

[00:48:46]
you know, so I’m still
in that building mode.

[00:48:49]
So that’s why I’m still like,
I didn’t need to hire somebody.

[00:48:52]
And much less to what I know.

[00:48:54]
I mean, there’s so much now that I’ve got

[00:48:56]
these relationships coming in and I
know how to duplicate that.

[00:48:59]
You know, I want to keep doing it until
I’m ready to the point where I’m going

[00:49:03]
to be like, OK, now I’m going to hire
somebody to manage that whole thing

[00:49:05]
and I’m going to become an investor,
you know?

[00:49:07]
And I think that’s where, you know,
the phases of business are.

[00:49:11]
You know, when you start out,

[00:49:12]
you’re doing it all and then you just keep
placing one task at a time until you

[00:49:15]
basically replace everything
and you’re now just an investor.

[00:49:18]
I got a friend of mine who, you know,
he’s always putting up pictures of him.

[00:49:22]
He’s an Allstate agent, Alabama,

[00:49:24]
and he’s got pictures of him
at his farm up in Ohio.

[00:49:27]
You know, I mean, you know,

[00:49:28]
the guy is all over the place and he’s
at that point in his career where he’s you

[00:49:32]
know, he’s got you know,
he’s got a coaching program, too.

[00:49:35]
He coaches insurance agents
as well as running an agency.

[00:49:39]
And he doesn’t even do
the coaching anymore.

[00:49:41]
You know, he’s got somebody doing

[00:49:42]
the coaching for him,
you know, so, you know,

[00:49:45]
so now he’s not done it only as an al
Qaeda agent like you replace himself

[00:49:49]
in the agency, become a coach,
and now he’s replaced himself as a coach.

[00:49:52]
You know, so I mean, that’s really,

[00:49:55]
you know, where
you know and I’m still learning

[00:49:58]
the skills, like he was
way ahead of me on that.

[00:50:01]
And I’m still learning
the skills on how to do that.

[00:50:03]
But that’s really what I’m constantly

[00:50:05]
investing in myself and,
you know, hiring a coach.

[00:50:07]
Because, you know, I always said,

[00:50:09]
you know, when you think you know
at all that you’re on your way down.

[00:50:12]
Yes.
Because everything’s constantly changing.

[00:50:14]
You constantly need to update yourself

[00:50:16]
and you need that outside voice
to kind of tell you do what you need.

[00:50:20]
And, you know, and I’ve worked with a lot

[00:50:22]
of different coaches and all different
types of coaches

[00:50:25]
and and I’ve never regretted
a penny of that money that I spent.

[00:50:29]
Mm hmm.
It’s interesting.

[00:50:31]
I was at my son’s baseball practice
yesterday and he’s like, oh,

[00:50:35]
baseball practice is so boring
because I already know this stuff.

[00:50:39]
Right.
This is a seven year old kid like, well,

[00:50:43]
Major League hasn’t called yet,
but it’s really

[00:50:46]
just because it’s boring doesn’t mean
you don’t have to practice, right?

[00:50:50]
Yeah.
It’s just kind of funny.

[00:50:52]
And he’s he’s on top of his
game for a seven year old.

[00:50:54]
Right.
But not.

[00:50:56]
Yeah.

[00:50:56]
There’s room for improvement,
I guess, with it.

[00:50:58]
Start playing with a nine year
old and then see where you are.

[00:51:00]
He’s.
Yes, man.

[00:51:01]
Twenty five years.

[00:51:03]
I feel like the way that you’re growing
now, you’re probably get one in three or I

[00:51:07]
guess to be one in three
if my ratios are right.

[00:51:09]
You’re one in five now.
All states got around New York area.

[00:51:13]
What do you mean?
Oh, that you guys have insured.

[00:51:16]
Oh yeah.
All states got one two five.

[00:51:17]
Oh yeah.
Yeah, you’re facing it.

[00:51:19]
One, two, three.
Let’s go.

[00:51:20]
Yeah, hopefully.
Nice.

[00:51:23]
Oh this has been

[00:51:24]
Authentic Business Adventures the business
program that brings you the struggles

[00:51:27]
stories and triumphant successes
of business owners across the land.

[00:51:31]
We are underwritten locally
by the Bank of Sun Prairie.

[00:51:33]
If you’re listening to this on the web,
which you probably are, please give a thumbs

[00:51:37]
up, subscribe and of course share it
with all your entrepreneurial friends.

[00:51:40]
My name is James Kademan

[00:51:42]
and Authentic Business Adventures is
brought to you by Calls On Call offering call

[00:51:46]
answering and receptionist services
for service businesses across the country

[00:51:50]
on the web at callsoncall.com. As
well as Draw In Customers Business

[00:51:54]
Coaching offering business coaching
services for entrepreneurs looking

[00:51:57]
for growth on the web
at DrawInCustomers.com.

[00:52:01]
And of course The BOLD Business Book

[00:52:03]
a book for the entrepreneur in all of us
available wherever fine books are sold.

[00:52:07]
We’d like to think you are wonderful
listeners as well as our guest,

[00:52:10]
Robert Zabbia of the
Zabbia Insurance Agency.

[00:52:13]
Robert, where can people find you?

[00:52:16]
ZabbiaAgency.com and Zabbia is Z-A-B-B-I-A. Yeah.

[00:52:21]
I made the mistake emailing you earlier, only one B.

[00:52:26]
So, Z-A-B-B-I-A. Awesome.
Past episodes can be found

[00:52:28]
morning, noon, and night.
Found at the podcast

[00:52:30]
link at DrawInCustomers.com.
Thank you for listening.

[00:52:33]
We’ll see you next week.
I want you to stay awesome.

[00:52:36]
And if you do nothing else,
enjoy your business.