Good Neighbor Podcast: Tri-Cities
Bringing together local businesses and neighbor of the Tri-Cities region. Good Neighbor Podcast hosted by Skip Mauney helps residents discover and connect with your local business owners in and around The Tri-Cities.
Is your business serving the residents of Tri-Cities? Then, we need to talk! Visit gnpTri-Cities.com to schedule your free interview.
Good Neighbor Podcast: Tri-Cities
EP# 147: Safeguarding Your Future: Timothy Walters' Journey with Brightway Insurance, The Walters Agency
What makes Timothy Walters with Brightway Insurance, The Walters Agency a good neighbor?
Uncover the secrets to safeguarding your financial future with insights from Timothy Walters of Brightway Insurance, the Walters Agency. Timothy shares his transformative journey from budding educator to successful insurance agency owner, demonstrating how his passion for teaching and helping others led him to this fulfilling career. Through his compelling narrative, you’ll gain a deeper understanding of the true essence of insurance beyond the common misconceptions. Timothy dismantles myths, emphasizing its role as a vital shield against financial disaster rather than just another product.
Our conversation goes beyond insurance, touching on the profound connection between local businesses and their communities. Timothy openly discusses the autonomy and sense of responsibility he cherishes in running his own business, freeing him from the relentless pressure of sales quotas and allowing him to focus on client well-being. We also celebrate the spirit of community support, encouraging you to nominate your beloved local businesses for future features on the Good Neighbor Podcast. Timothy’s story is a powerful testament to the rewards of entrepreneurship and the lasting impact of community-driven initiatives. Join us for this inspiring episode, and discover how small business owners like Timothy are making a difference, one policy at a time.
To learn more about Brightway Insurance, The Walters Agency go to:
https://www.brightway.com/agencies/tn/knoxville/0237
Brightway Insurance, The Walters Agency
423-417-2070
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Skip Monty.
Speaker 2:Hello everyone and welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast of the Tri-Cities. We've got a very special guest with us here today whom I'm excited to learn more about him and his company, and I'm sure you will be too, because today I have the pleasure of introducing your good neighbor, mr Timothy Walters of Brightway Insurance, the Walters Agency. Timothy, welcome to the show. Hello, thank you for having me Skip. Absolutely we're thrilled to have you and, like I said, I'm really interested to learn more about you and what you do. So, if you don't mind, why don't you kick us off by telling us about your business?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So we're pretty simple. We're a property and casualty specialty agency. We specialize in personal lines, which is you know your homes, your autos, your mobile homes, your boats, you know your toys, all that kind of thing, liability packages for vacant land and life insurance. We also do a small commercial in business, so we do business liability. We do business property, mainly specializing in small businesses right now because we are a small shop. So maybe as we step out we'll, we'll do some more larger commercial risks, but right now, uh, kind of keeping it, you know, with the small, with small guys like us. So that's that's basically what we do yeah.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. Like to support small businesses. That's what we're. That's what we're all about too. Yeah, um, we all need to uh businesses. That's what we're all about too. Yeah, we all need to know.
Speaker 3:Absolutely Amen, brother. So, timothy, how did you get into this business? Well, it's kind of funny. My original career track when I was a kid I always wanted to be a teacher. My mom was a teacher, many people in my family were teachers. I had a lot of respect for teachers. I went to school for it. I went all the way through student teaching, got my certificate, was doing student teaching. One of my mentor teachers at Jefferson County High School in Jefferson County, tennessee, this gentleman by the name of Todd Mounts and got on really well with him Excellent teacher Finished up that program and because I'm a history guy history and civics I discovered that history and civics teachers do not retire.
Speaker 3:They die at their desks and fortunately or unfortunately, I don't know nobody had died recently. So I was having a hard time finding a job. I was working at Coca-Cola in Knoxville on the docks loading trucks much skinnier man at the time and Todd called me and asked me if I might want to come work for him. He was starting a state farm agency in Jefferson City and I asked him. I said well, this involved me sitting in air conditioning. He said it would.
Speaker 3:So I said I'd it a try, did not expect it to become a career, but liked it. It's about people, it's about helping people and there's an educational component involved. So generally speaking, I really enjoyed it. And after about five and a half years I got to the point where I wanted to kind of try see if I could make it work on my own my own shingle and got hooked up with the Broadway people. They're based out of Florida, they're wanting to expand into the Mid-South, so I took the opportunity to purchase a franchise with that company and I've been doing that for seven years, coming up in May.
Speaker 2:Oh wow, Seven years. Congratulations.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, it's been a trip.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, as you're headed in the right direction, you make it seven years, man. So, in the insurance business, timothy, what are some myths or misconceptions?
Speaker 3:Well, there's a lot of them. You know insurance. I think people kind of think of us like used car salesmen. You know, you know I hear it all the time Insurance is a scam, you know. You know insurance is not. You know, an awesome looking car or a delicious hamburger or you know whatever, something you can get throughout some immediate enjoyment and use out of. Uh, it's a contract, it's a promise.
Speaker 3:Uh and basically what it is. It is relieving, uh the you know, you, the insured uh from the risk of ruinous, uh financial catastrophe If something happens where you're on the hook for major damages to your property, or if you cause damage to somebody else or somebody else's property we all know I mean you could accidentally run a red light, hit another vehicle and medical bills mean what they are. That could be hundreds of thousands of dollars very easily and that can ruin people's lives if they're not covered properly. So you know we really try we don't sell on price here we try to educate people about the risks and get them taken care of in a way that's economical, you know. But again, we're not just slinging minimum policies out there just to hit some sales goals. That's one of the reasons I like being my own boss. You know nobody's breathing. I'm breathing down my neck. You know you got to hit this number, so Awesome and that means a lot.
Speaker 2:That means a lot to to consumers, knowing that you. It's kind of like at the end of the month when everybody says, oh yeah, just slow down because the cops have a quota to hit by the end of the month and, and you know so it's. It's good to know when you're you're running your own business, you know if you got a quota you're setting it yourself.
Speaker 3:It's not coming from somebody else, if I don't sell enough policies, I guess you know the only thing that happens is I go out of business. But so far that hasn't happened and you know we are trying to take awesome.
Speaker 2:Awesome, awesome. Well, let's change gears for a second. Timothy. What outside of work? What do you do for fun?
Speaker 3:Oh, you know, I run my own business, man.
Speaker 1:You got it.
Speaker 3:You know how it goes, man, what do you do for fun? Well, I hang out at the office and I do more business. No, no, I like hiking. I enjoy doing things outdoors. You know, just getting out away from you know the screens, just getting out away from you, know the screens. If, when at all possible, my dad and I are trying to get some property that he owns, maybe operational, to run, maybe some livestock on sometime in the future. So we like to peck on that little project. I'm not mechanically inclined at all, so all I can do is really brute labor. You know, haul things from A to B and you B and tear things down. Do not ask me to fix something, I will tear it up. But that's I like. When I have time I like to go out and practice my marksmanship. I enjoy shooting rifles and pistols, that kind of thing, and I enjoy reading actual books, know actual books. So I got a little addiction to used bookstores, which I have to control.
Speaker 2:So I understand. I understand Well, timothy. Can you describe a hardship or a life challenge that you've overcome, either professionally or personally, and how it made you stronger?
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, I'm not sure. I mean this is something I think everybody goes through. You know, of course, I'll be 43 this spring, so you know I've gone through. You know watching family members, you know, get old, pass away or, you know, suffer through various, you know long-term illnesses and you know, I think maybe we all go through it, so nobody really thinks about it. But that is a challenge, you know. You know, when you love people and you see them going through that and you have no power to actually affect that outcome, that is challenging and that can really eat at you. That is challenging and that can really eat at you. And I found going through those times, facing up to the anger or the grief or whatever those emotions were, and dealing with it and something hopefully in a positive way, was a challenge.
Speaker 3:And I think at this point in my life I think it has made me better and I hope to be a little bit more empathetic and understanding of people going through tough situations and realizing that everybody's going through something most likely and you know, you don't know what they're going through, and sometimes people will act in a certain way towards you in stressful situations and just realizing it's not about you, it's, there's something going on there usually and trying to be understanding, you know, not 100 percent success rate. I'm here, I'm here to tell you, but you know I do, I think, try to be a little bit more proactive in keeping that at the front of my mind at this point Also in this career, you know we, if you're an insurance agent for very long, your vocabulary expands.
Speaker 3:Probably not in the best way, because people teach you new words and you know, but you, you know, you do learn to deal with those kinds of situations.
Speaker 2:So absolutely I couldn't. I couldn't agree more. It helps you going through everybody, like you said, everybody's going through something and you just don't know and to be. I think it's important Empathy is much more important than a lot of people realize, I think. But good thing, good thing to remember. No-transcript.
Speaker 3:I would say we're here to try to help. We encounter all kinds of different situations. If people call us and need us to try to help them with their insurance, we try to help. Sometimes maybe we're not the best fit and maybe the markets that we have access to we have access to a lot of markets but we don't have access to all the markets. Nobody does so. If I run into a situation where I've got someone who's needing help and maybe I can't provide it to them, or you know I can't provide it to them in a way that's, you know, meets their, meets them where they're at economically, then you know I'm happy to refer them out to other agents. You know I've been doing this a long time. I know a lot of great agents.
Speaker 3:And again going back to that thing about misconceptions, you know most people who are in insurance at some level they're there to try to help people and they're like everybody else. They're human. You know they're stressed. They're also trying to make a living. There's a lot of pressures but you know we can all do a lot of different things professionally and make money.
Speaker 3:You don't stay in this business for very long unless you want to try to help people, and that's what we're here for. We're trying to help people, you know, take care of their, you know their personal protection through their personal lives. We're trying to help them take care of their businesses. We're trying to help them take care of their families with you products, education, that kind of thing. That's what we're here for. We're a small team right now, but one thing I do like about the Bratway Network is most of the agents that I've talked to within the network have a very similar mindset about hey, we're here to try to help people, and if that means we write them awesome business, great. If that means we refer them out to someone else, you know, else, we know who can help them, hey, that's a win too. You know we're here to try to help people.
Speaker 2:Awesome, awesome. That's a great thing to remember. All right, and if any of our listeners are interested in learning more about your services, where can they go?
Speaker 3:about your services. Where can they go? Well, you know on. Google usually knows where to find me. Of course you know Bratway Insurance, the Walters Agency. There's not very many Bratway franchises in Tennessee right now, so probably won't give you a whole lot of options if you search for us.
Speaker 3:We're the Walters Agency. We're on Asheville Highway on the east side of Knoxville, but you know. But we operate all over the state. I'm licensed for the entire state of Tennessee. I have clients from Kingsport to Memphis and, like I said, I'm always happy to talk to people anywhere in the state. You can also call us. Our main office number is 417-2070. And that'll get you over to our team. Right now is me, my dad, mike, who's a partner in the business, and our office assistant, ann. We're hoping to have one of our other team members who has been ill, unfortunately in the hospital. We're going to have her back soon. And we also have the Broadway team backing us up if necessary, and they're a good bunch of people, I think so just give us a call, shoot me an email, find us online.
Speaker 3:Google will tell you where to go, and we're pretty easy to find.
Speaker 2:All right Sounds great. Well, Timothy, I know you're a busy guy and I really appreciate you taking time out of your schedule to spend some time with us and our listeners to tell us more about your company, and I wish you and your family and your company all the best moving forward.
Speaker 3:Hey, Skip, I really appreciate you taking the time to bring me on and really enjoyed it. And yeah, thank you so much.
Speaker 2:All right, Hopefully we can. We can have you back one day. I'd love to. I'd love to come back. All right, Sounds great.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the good neighbor podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to GNP, try dashitiescom. That's gnptry-citiescom, or call 423-719-5873.