Hey Mr. Jason. Oh little happy bell. Oh, the belt is happy. Bell is a happy bell. Should I tell ya? I will ask you right now. Who does have Mr.
SPEAKER_01Craig? Oh, I'm gonna tell you who we have. Oh we got Dave Davis doing the digital dance. Does the insurance tech deep dive? Doing the deep dive. So you can't don't go do that. Don't don't go do that. Wait, do go do that. We're gonna go do that. Let's do do that. Let's do that. Do it. What is what is up?
SPEAKER_04What is up? I'm doing great. It's uh I've got a I've got a fleece on in Florida, so you know it's can't be all that bad.
SPEAKER_01It's chili, it's chili 60.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it's like a it's a balmy uh I don't know, 65 or so out there.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04It's a strong beard.
unknownThank you.
SPEAKER_04I I like that. It's a good story behind this this this beard, but yes, I it's it's it's been described as strong. That's true.
SPEAKER_03Let's let's hear that story with the with a beard story.
SPEAKER_04Okay. Jump right into the beard story, man. No, the beard story the beard story is that uh uh Dave uh took a year off work, period, uh and uh lived on the road in a in an RV with his family, uh traveling the country, and during that time uh did not shave. And so what's what you're seeing now is sort of the uh I mean the the a bit more groomed version of uh of that year.
SPEAKER_03So dude, that is so cool. Okay, I gotta hear the story. So I I want to do the same. Yep. So I got A, what kind of R V?
SPEAKER_04Uh it is a it it is, it still exists. It is a 30-foot um uh class C got a couple slide-outs, uh, got a bunk bed for bunk bed for the oldest, uh, for the 13-year-old, and uh pull-out bed or a fold-out bed, what you're gonna call it, for the little guy, the nine-year-old, and then one bedroom out uh in the back for for the parents. And so um yeah, it was dude, I I got it it was honestly the best thing I've ever done. I mean I really it was absolutely amazing. And if you have any if you have any uh uh idea, you know, to go do it, I would advise just just go do it. Cause it uh just go do it. You gotta do it. You gotta kind of get over that hump, like, am I really gonna do this? Am I really gonna walk away from everything and all my friends and my career and my life and I'm gonna go live on the road? Yes, you are. If you can, if you can do it, do it. Yeah, do it. That's awesome.
SPEAKER_03What did you do for Wi-Fi?
SPEAKER_04We signed up for uh so not much. So I'll be honest with you. Part of the goals, one of the goals of the trip was also to disconnect a little bit. And so uh we had yeah, we had uh we had Wi-Fi where we had Wi-Fi, uh and uh we just didn't where we didn't, and there was uh a few places where we didn't, but if we needed to go do something, if we need to upload a video to YouTube, for instance, right? Uh we got very proficient at rolling up alongside a McDonald's and leeching off their Wi-Fi or you know, uh uploading something got awful slow overnight with with Google Fi. Uh and so it's kind of what we did. On the first, we've done a couple trips, not not quite, we've only done one year long trip. We did some some amazing big size trips as well. And we did, we made made a mistake on the one trip of getting one of those Verizon uh little Mi Phi deilies. Oh yeah, and uh and racked up a horrendous bill. So I I'm not gonna go that way again. Is that a striper poster on the back wall? A striper poster.
SPEAKER_03Dang, two in a row.
SPEAKER_04No one's ever knows who striper is. Dude, striper actually just I think they're playing in Orlando this week. It's I saw a thing on my bands in town. Anyway, sorry. Yeah, but no, but this is amazing.
SPEAKER_01This is amazing. We've we have done now. This would be, I don't know, a hundred we issued a number or issued, published uh a hundred of five episodes. See, we're insurance dudes. Yeah. Um we've issued episodes. And not once did anybody ever say striper. Jason had explained, no, it's striper, and then they don't even know who it is. The guest before you said, Oh, it's striper, and then you come on and say, It's striper.
SPEAKER_04I gotta meet that guest before me, then I guess, huh? He's up in uh New Jersey, yeah.
SPEAKER_01So right up the road. But you'll probably be driving through there.
SPEAKER_04I'm real close, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so wow.
SPEAKER_03How old are your kids?
SPEAKER_04Our daughter uh is about to turn 14 in like a month. And so going on 20. Right, exactly. You oh, dude. And the little guy is uh nine years old, he'll be 10 mid midway through the year.
SPEAKER_03So crazy. Yeah, that's cool. And they had to have loved that trip. I know I'm harping on, I know this is the insurance dudes, and this is the last thing.
SPEAKER_04But I mean, it's part of the reason why I ended up insurance, honestly, is that is that trip. But um, the nine-year-old, he would tell you, like if he was here on this podcast right now, he would tell you, man, I loved, I love the trip, uh Jason. It was awesome. And my daughter would tell you uh she's been practicing her honesty, right? And so she she was not, I mean, she had a great time, okay. I'll preface it with that. But she'll tell you, I missed my friends, I missed my social stuff, I missed all this. Um and uh she said if I had what what's her famous saying is if I had a dollar for every adult that told me I was gonna appreciate this later in life, I would be, I would be rich, right? And so she got kind of tired of people going, Oh, you're gonna love me later in life. This is gonna be such an important thing to you. So whether it is or not, we'll save funny.
SPEAKER_01They both have to I think it will be, and I think that she's already rich because she got to do that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, she I mean, I got to be like to dispense with the funneless, the the the uh the cultures that I got to expose the kids to, um, you know, different different cultures, uh, different places, different people. Uh just the fact that they got to see all the different ways people in this world can earn a living. I'm doing air quotes, the podcast can't see it, but you know, earn a earn a living and and uh and that none of those um magically were what I was doing, which was you know a 10 hour, 14 hour a day office job in corporate America. And so it was we all learned, I think, a lot um on that trip, and and the kids did get some really awesome exposure and some some culture and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_03So that's cool. I went when I I dropped out of high school and uh so so a girl, a girl I was with broke up with me, and within one week of it was my first girlfriend, within one week I found a band to go on tour with and play drums for for three months when I was 17. Okay, half in a van, toured around the the US and Canada. And man, prior to that, I would, you know, I said, you know, California, Orange County, blah, blah, blah. Like I was, you know, that angst angsty youth. And once I saw the rest of the the the country and and the way people were, I could not believe how much I appreciated what I have.
SPEAKER_04Not to say one's better than the other, no, right, but right perspective, right? Yes, yes, yes. And I think they they did, you know, they did get a lot of that. And uh it was very important to me, right? Because the kids, we grew up when I when I left for the trip, we were up in Northern California and we were in sort of you know Yuppie Town Central, uh working for a huge Silicon Valley technology company. And so a lot of what they said, what they saw in the experience is very homogeneous, very higher end income, very you know what I'm talking about, right? Kind of Edward Scissor hands or you know, Truman show kind of look, right? Um and so for them to get to see that that is literally like the tiniest slice of how people live, you know, when you when you look at it all, was I think very important to my wife and I.
SPEAKER_01Sure. Thanks.
SPEAKER_04Rolling through a tiny town in Oklahoma or Arkansas, and it's just like wow, like real people and really nice and and awesome and authentic, and but but a different pace, you know, it's like bam, bam, bam, gotta get there, gotta get, you know, just yeah, well, and they they got to learn as well, you know, that um I think, and I'm not gonna, I don't want to get too uh too philosophical, I guess, right off the bat here, but you know, there's a lot of systems that are that are established, I think, in the in the media that assaults us that are that are that are intending to try and convince us that you and I can't get along because we have some weird ideological difference, right? When you get out in a campground and you start talking to every random person you meet, no matter what they look like or what age they are, guess what? 90% of the time we're getting down. We're gonna have a beer at a picnic table, we're gonna play cards, and whatever BS is coming at us through social media or airwaves kind of goes by the wayside. And so when you start talking to people, guess what, man? We we get along.
SPEAKER_01It's it's remarkable. Like on TV, and I mean I don't even we don't even have cable, I don't watch the news. Me neither. Um, but you know, when you see blips of it, it's it's it paints the picture of of a world where there's two sides and they hate each other, absolutely right. And you're so right, like anywhere you go, and I love to camp and I love to you know go out and meet people. You very rarely run into somebody who you don't like. Absolutely. It's very difficult.
SPEAKER_04You gotta try hard, right? You gotta try hard to find the the person you've been conditioned to think is out there. So yeah, right.
SPEAKER_01It's amazing.
SPEAKER_03I don't mind the philosophy. So, Dave, what the fudge, man? Tell us. Oh man, what I've been holding that back. And I and I held that back from Craig too.
SPEAKER_04That's real good. That's how much that's real good. Uh so let me let me explain, right? So I I will give you guys the condensed version of yeah, exactly how how I ended up here. Uh because it is a bit of kind of a random right turn for me, it would seem. Um, you know, I was saying we can go way back, right? When I graduated college, I graduated college with a degree in computer engineering. And uh I went I went from University of Florida. So uh my my father worked for the space shuttle program. So we moved when I was very young. We moved. Yeah, so we moved from Southern Cal to Florida so that he could continue working on the space shuttle program. And I grew up kind of ish here, uh came of age here, I guess. Um, and then uh where in SoCal? Uh little town called Lompok, it's kind of south of South Africa.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's where Napoleon Kaufman is from. Okay. He was a big football player back in the uh I think he was first round draft pick, but but and not to take the story, but but my high school played against the guy from Lompok in the in the state championship, and Napoleon Kaufman was on that team. I think he was ended up going to Notre Dame, but I may be wrong.
SPEAKER_04I should know that.
SPEAKER_01He racked up so many touchdowns, like it looked like our team was just standing there, and he was just like, shut up, gone, touchdown. Anytime they it was like in Forest Gump, like hand the ball to him, down the middle, done. And it was over and over.
SPEAKER_04I should I'm I'm I'm I'm delinquent on my sports references. I'm a I'm a music guy at heart, and so, but but no, that's so you guys have heard of it, so that's great. Um, but I grew up there, uh, I I guess kind of, and then moved to to Florida, uh, ended up going to school in Florida, graduating with a degree in computer engineering, and not by design, uh ended up back in California working for Intel um and uh stayed there for 19 years, um in you know, kind of the the the technology industry. And where where in California? Uh up near Sacramento in a town called Folsom, like the Johnny Cass song.
SPEAKER_03So yeah, yeah, actually. The big insurance company that um we're a part of, they have their main area right around the company.
SPEAKER_04All right, so that's yeah, the company. Until a year ago or a year and a half ago, I guess now that was that was our stomping ground. And um crazy, you know, uh that's where that's where sort of I cut my teeth in the tech industry and sort of worked my way up uh in the company to where, you know, right before I decided that I wanted to take this extended sabbatical, I um I was uh acting vice president over a team of you know 650 people managing our uh cloud and data center customer enabling and support team, right? So these are my customers are the guys like the Googles, the Apples, the Amazons, Microsoft's, you name it, uh Baidu, Tencent, uh, so kind of small companies. Just yeah, you know, just the little guys, right? Um But it was a great job. And I, you know, the the the point yeah, the I didn't leave. I didn't leave because the the the job was bad. I left uh because uh man, I just found myself on the road so much and um traveling so much and working long hours, and I decided that um you know for my sanity, I wasn't hearing complaints from my family, but for my own sanity, they were like yeah, I had to I had to get some I had to get some balance for out. Yeah, right. I mean, the the family wasn't complaining, uh but no, I uh I I needed to get some balance, and so um I ended up I ended up going in and saying, I remember this conversation with my boss, and I said, Hey, I've decided that I'm gonna take a year and I'm gonna go travel in the RV with my family. But boss kind of looking at me like, so what like what are you telling me, Dave? Like, are you telling me that you're quitting? And I didn't even I hadn't thought it through well enough, and I don't know what I'm telling you. I'm just telling you that I'm going on the road for a year. Uh so anyway, Intel was was super awesome, and they let me have a year off and just go travel, right? And then I screwed them in the end and didn't come back. But that's that's because uh I I I found insurance uh on on the road, which is a funny thing to say, but it's kind of not too far from what happened.
SPEAKER_03You know what? Did you crash? Is that what happened? Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_01I I think it's ironic though, you you wanted to break away and take a year off because of you were traveling so much, and then you went and traveled.
SPEAKER_04You traveled. Well, here's I'll I'll tell you, I'll tell you, I'll tell you the difference. So for me, man, my my family, and I don't know, I don't know what point this happened in my life, but my family became my respite, right? Like I when I was when I was coming back from two weeks in China or whatever, all I wanted to do was just hunker down in the house with the family, you know, order a pizza and watch a movie and just kind of just be together, right? Have that togetherness. And so there was this really um strong attraction to the idea of locking us in a box for a year and and and going on the road in very close quarters. And so um part of this was about seeing the country and experiencing different culture, but a lot of it was like, I just want to steep with my family, um and and you know, further those connections. And and my kids are growing fast. I mean, they grow fast, right? And so I wanted to make sure that we had that time together. So um that's what we did.
SPEAKER_01How did how did your family respond to the idea of being steeped together?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, right. Uh well, I think I got I gotta give my right my wife credit actually because I think it was her who finally said, you know, um you got to make a decision. Are we gonna do this or are we not gonna do this? You know, even talking about it as something we might do. And we were out on a walk around the the block after dinner one evening, and and she just kind of looked at me and said, Hey, let's just do it, right? Let's let's do it. Nice. And uh once I sort of had that sanction, I guess, it was it was on, and we just started making plans from there. And so uh my wife was amazing about it. Uh, in fact, probably was more gung-ho about doing it than I was because I had, I mean, you guys would too. I had reservations about walking away from a career, right? Like, what am I doing? I'm not gonna be making I'm not gonna be making money for a year. We're we're gonna live off savings for a year. This is crazy, people don't do this, you know. Um, and so I had those reservations. So my my wife was probably more you know energetic about it than I was. Um my son, he kind of wakes up every day with a like like he he's brand new to the world. Uh everything is new and exciting to him every single day. And so an R V trip was, you know, every day was like, cool, what are you gonna do today, Dad? Just kind of happy go lucky. And my daughter went up to her room, cried, went up to her room, came back down with a a Google Doc, three-page Google doc that she had written and printed that was her essay on why we shouldn't go on an RV trip for a year. Oh that is awesome. Which by the way was very well written for a then 12-year-old. Um and was you know, nice cogent arguments and you know, sort of like three-point format with an open and a close. Um wow. Yeah, so I was very impressed. Uh needless to say, we totally disregarded it and went on the road anyway.
SPEAKER_01Uh newly noted.
SPEAKER_04Right, right. Um yeah, they they I think for a while, I think all of us were thinking, you know, are we really gonna do this? And of course, you then you gotta tell your friends, and your friends think you're crazy, right? Of course, yeah. It's not inside the box, right? It not at all. And so um, but anyway, uh we we ended up we ended up doing it, and I think like I said, uh I can I we didn't really have for being in that close quarters uh and being on the road in in in a vehicle for a year, there are innumerable things that could have gone wrong, but I gotta say nothing really did, right? I mean we ended up having knock on wood, it was the w nothing that I couldn't fix broke. And um really any we didn't have a lot of you know challenges or rough times together, uh other than maybe some of the homeschooling with the oldest, but other than that, it was it was great. How many states? Wow, all of the states except for Alaska. So we did not make it to Alaska and we cheated by we flew to Hawaii in the middle of the trip, uh just so we could cross that one off the list. But we had a we had a rule, and the rule said that you know we had to uh we had to sleep overnight in a state in order to claim that we had been to the state. We couldn't just you know drive to the state.
SPEAKER_01So is there a big map up and you're there?
SPEAKER_04Is actually on my on my living room wall, my wife put a huge map and did this fancy like Pinteresty thing where she's got little strings and pins and pictures that she rotates in and out. It's uh that's so cool. That's pretty cool. It is pretty cool.
SPEAKER_03So then, so you do this trip, and I mean, obviously, it's kind of a game changer for for you guys. At what point did you think, hey, I'm gonna try a new field? Yeah, and it's gonna be insurance.
SPEAKER_04And it's gonna be insurance. I and it's funny because I've been now I've been doing this insurance thing for six months, and everybody I talked to is like, well, I never planned to get into it. It seems like everybody's here by accident, uh, which I know that's not true, but uh it is kind of funny to hear that. So I'm I'm I think I can count myself uh among one of those. So what I did, what I did on the trip is I I knew I was gonna do something different when I got back, whether it was continue to do something different within my current company, which is what I thought was gonna happen, go to a different company or or whatever. And I had a a coach, uh a woman who's just like a mentor to me, who said, instead of trying to write down what you want your next job to be, write down the ideal environmental criteria that you want to work in. So don't say I want to make this kind of widget. Say what you want your day to be like or your week to be like. And so I wrote down these ideal environmental criteria and I said, whatever my next job's gonna be, I'm gonna make sure that it meets these criteria. And they were pretty simple, and you probably could have guessed based on what I said before about traveling too much, but it was basically I didn't want to be on call any longer. My job was basically 24 hours a day. You could call me up if a data center went down, the Tokyo stock exchange goes down. Guess what? Somebody's got to work, right? So um and that that did happen. I didn't want to be on call anymore. I didn't want I didn't want there to be an expectation of being available on email, text, cell phone, outside of working hours. Um, I wanted less meetings because I didn't even have any time to work or think. I just was in meetings all the time. And I wanted a hell a healthier work-life balance, right? I wanted a a place that respected the the the prioritization and the sanctity of family time. So I wrote those three things down. I shared them. Um and uh my brother-in-law, who owns an insurance agency, um, this insurance agency, said, Dude, my my company meets these criteria, right? Why don't you come work for the insurance agency? And I said, Come on, man, insurance, no, you know, there's no technology in insurance, and I I, you know, my what I've built uh as a career, you know, this far won't translate well to insurance. And I said, No. Um and then he invited me to uh a technology conference for insurance in New Orleans that the the big eye folks put on, right? And he's like, uh, you're not doing anything, you live in an RV, you don't work. Why don't you you know I'll pay for your tickets? Fly here, yeah, fly here and check it out. And so why not? I get to go to New Orleans with my brother-in-law, who I enjoy. Uh, and uh I went there and I spent three days there in that hotel listening to those keynotes from from people doing technology in the insurance space, and it was kind of like a head smack moment where I was like, I I know this stuff. These guys are facing, you know, like literally the same challenges that I've seen other industries face over the past 19 years. Uh, and what's more, you know, they're they're they're not as far along as some of these other industries are.
SPEAKER_01They're facing the things that people were facing 19 years ago, right? Exactly, exactly.
SPEAKER_04And so, well, I don't know about 19, I should be careful. I don't want to dog on them too bad. But, you know, to I mean, I guess uh the the industry is a little risk averse, right? I mean, that's what that's what it is, right? And so I think uh I got to hear some things from Stage about what um you know the IA channel, what what they were afraid of, what questions they had, uh, you know, how to do these things. And I remember turning my brother in law and being like, hey, dude, I can do this. Like I know this stuff. Um, I'm familiar with it. Um there's there might be opportunity here. And so um I'm also lazy. You guys should know that about me, I think lazy by heart. And so he said, Again, well, come to work from my agency. And as I went. Back on as I went back on the road and kind of thought about man, what do I want to do? And and I knew I had this, like you could go to this agency bird in the one hand, and maybe there was a bushful of other birds out there somewhere else, but I was probably too lazy to go pursue. And uh, and I don't mean to say that I ended up here because I'm lazy, but it really, you know, there was a lot ticked a lot of buttons for us. And uh my wife's family is all from Florida, right? And so coming here, we we got the benefit of being around uncles and cousins and nephews and grandparents, and so you know, we had kind of developed that family thing on the trip, and it's like, let's go do that for real, let's, you know, move to Florida, which is kind of hard from California, but you know, here we are. Uh, and anyway, so that's that's what that's what brought me here. And I gotta say, man, it was a good decision uh for for all the philosophical reasons that I talked about earlier, but also because there is some cool technology and opportunity here uh in the insurance space. Tons of opportunity.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So so talk about that. Talk about talk about tech and the two worlds and what um tell us some stuff that insurance dudes probably don't know that should.
SPEAKER_04Well, so I mean, I guess, you know, coming in, I made myself a promise that um instead of trying to form ideas and opinions right away, I would shut up, which as you guys can hear is against my my default nature, right? Um but I told myself, like, hey, let's just shut up and let's try to listen for at least six weeks, maybe ten weeks if you can, listen to you know, the producers in the office, go to a bunch of I hit the conference circuit, you know. We went to ITC, we went to LVA, we went to this, that, and the other, um, which was actually really great because I got to a feel for how the industry works. And um, we went to different, you know, sort of agency, local agency events here um in the Central Florida area, and I just talked to people and I just tried to listen uh and understand sort of what's going on in this space. Um, and I think now, maybe six months into the actual job, um, there's a couple things that have sort of popped up, you know, to me as aha's, right? Um one is that it's just independent agency owners are overwhelmed, man. Um I feel like uh every day there's a new email or phone call, cold call coming in trying to sell the next technology, the next best technology since sliced bread, right? Right. Um and you know, nine people have got your best uh, you know, uh uh AI solution for marketing or whatever, you know. Totally. Um and there's a lot of there's a lot of FOMO, there's a lot of fear of missing out, I think, in the IA space. There's a lot of um just sort of deer in the headlights, like what the heck? I I feel like I should be doing something. Like, you know, Joe's agency over there, they told me that they're using Salesforce. I don't even know what the hell Salesforce is. How am I gonna, you know, and so there's a lot of that going on, that frothiness, I guess, going on in the IA space. And I get it because I kind of know where the industry is in its evolution, and that's we're in that sort of wild west phase, right? Um, but that's one thing I've picked up is that agency owners are are overwhelmed, right? Um and to make matters worse, I think the tools that that that the IA channel is is using today, the must-have, again, I'm doing a podcast air quotes, but must-have tools that that uh agencies are using today are super lacking, man, and they're they're behind the times, right? And so you've got people who are running their entire businesses on these uh agency management systems that are super clunky with you know nasty looking interfaces and and and no real insights that they're able to give you. They're just basically a digital Rolodex that was designed, you know, 40 years ago on Microsoft Access or something like that. And so um there's a lot of opportunity. So, yes, you're feeling overwhelmed on the one hand, but there is actually a lot of opportunity to you know sort of uh uh employ some new tools um and make a real difference, I think. And so though that that kind of thing was one opportunity that I picked up on so uh pretty quickly, right? Uh and then there's more sort of in the in the rest of the industry space that uh I could go into as well. But those were the the IA pieces that I think living inside this environment came to the fore for me, you know.
SPEAKER_01Any interaction with captives?
SPEAKER_04You know, not just to hire just to hire away a captive into into this agency. Uh and so I guess when I say so so, yes, um, in that we got very lucky and we had uh a woman join us who had spent a lot of years uh in the captive space uh just recently, and so I've gotten to pick her brain a little bit about um how that space works and the tools. Uh I don't even know if I remember the name. Um I'd have to go, I'd have to go ask her. Is it anyway? I'm not gonna speculate. All state farmers? No, not one of those, not one of those. Um I would have known if it was one of those. It was an acronym. So um, but anyway, I've got I've got an opportunity to ask her a lot of questions about how they did business, right? And how it's different. So, what how did you guys do your business internally? How did you do this piece, this piece, this piece? What tools did you use? What methodologies and practices did you use? Um, and then we can kind of compare those to you know what we do in the agency today. But I would answer that probably not a whole bunch of experience with captives, somewhere I could use more exposure to as I start to form these ideas and opinions, right?
SPEAKER_01Sure. Well, you're six months in, which is remarkable. And and you know, the independence space to the captive is light years ahead technology wise. Okay. So then, you know, um, I mean, I've seen I've seen the systems like, yeah, for the agents. Um, for the you know, I've I've peered into state farm office before. I have no, you know, don't have anything to do with them, but I they're still running on DOS systems.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And so I uh the last time I was there, and I think that it likely is because I've heard that. Um, but it's just remarkable because I think there is that there's they're so risk averse, the carriers are so risk averse that they don't want to make a change that's gonna have some kind of impact and you know screw everything up. And maybe I don't have knowledge of legacy um database systems, but some of these systems are so old and so huge. Yes, you know, what do you do?
SPEAKER_04You can't take it offline because well, and then when a system like that has evolved over the scope of the you know the the time span of like 15 years, I mean you can imagine, right? It's like you build a wooden bridge, you you never fix the wooden bridge part, but you're propping it up with you know this and that and the yeah, exactly. And in the end, you got something that looks like a Dr. Seuss bridge, right? And and that's what it looks like behind the scenes. And I mean it may look okay in the front, but if you if you pop the hood of those bad boys, um, and I've done that with with one of the AMSs and just kind of looked underneath there, and it's like, whoo, man. I mean, it would it works, but wow, uh, you know, it could be could be really brought into the modern age.
SPEAKER_03That's awesome. Hey, what what what advice would you give to some some new people coming into the industry? I mean, since you've had that fresh perspective recently.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. You mean for people coming into the insurance space?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, or or starting an agency or just yeah.
SPEAKER_04So, okay, a couple things. Um here's here's what I learned to appreciate. I remember I told you guys I was looking for these ideal environmental conditions coming to insurance. And and lo and behold, at this independent agency here, I've found them, right? There is a great deal of flexibility in terms of work-life balance. There is uh a good uh sense of time management and not overusing time, you know, not not being overbooked. There's actually time to think and do work, you know, which is amazing. I would if if there are people coming into insurance who've never been in an industry before, they've not worked before, let's say they're new to insurance, um, it's hard not having experienced the antithesis of that to understand how cool that is to have. But you know, my advice to people coming into to to the insurance space is to really sort of try your best to value the fact that it is a pretty cool working environment, at least most that most agencies I've talked to, right? There's a good balance there, and it's not it's not run a hundred miles an hour until you pass out corporate, right? Um and uh that is something to really to really sort of I think appreciate and be be proud of and make sure it doesn't die. Um for people, let's say somebody's gonna start an agency, right? Um there's there's a lot of options out there in terms of so I you know I have this notion that most people are gonna run the business, the day-to-day business of their agency out of some sort of AMS or CRM tool. Maybe it's a combo of the of the two, right? Um, you got to do your research, right? There are, I think, some of those tools out there today that are super legacy old, Craig, not much better than the DOS stuff you saw when you peeked into the captive space, right? Um and there are some tools I think that are getting there in terms of, you know, where you've got the 2,000-pound gorillas, of course, right, in that market space. Um, but I think there's some some cool tools that are that are out there that um are probably more functional and better suited. It's gonna be one of those ROI things, those cost versus return things. Um, but I think there's some tools to stay away from and there's some tools to to go with. Um just just walking into this office, and this is the last thing I said, walking into this office, some of the things I've seen that I got here, you know, this this office I think is already pretty pretty forward-leaning in terms of technology, but you know, I already want to I already want to overhaul AMS, our AMS. I want to get us off these legacy landline phones, I want to get us on the VoIP, you know, there's I mean basic what I think of as as basic stuff, um, but is not necessarily the case. You know, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_03Right. Right. And and okay, so for for some older agents that are on those systems, because I think that that's the majority, um, what would be the benefit to these new things that you're talking about?
SPEAKER_04Sure. So I think when we say older agents, these are my these are my elder respected agents, right? I I don't want to say these are the you know dinosaur. I meant older in the industry, but of course. I know that means that that's true. Um I should be careful. But but here's what happens, right? So and it's it's not it's not uh it's not a surprise, right? You you're in an industry and you have a way of doing business, and then you know technology comes along, and what you start to do is you actually just replicate the way you did pre-tech work with tech, right? And so I I I would bet that a lot of people today, even if they've got a system that they're using uh in the agency, they're using it much like they used much like they did their work pre-system. You know what I mean? So they got a digital Rolodex, right? Not much better than that, right? So they they've got a database in their system that tracks their client info, but they're not really getting anything out of it more than they would that big filing cabinet that used to be in the back of the office, uh, because they're not looking at how they can exploit some of the stuff that you can get out of a true, I'm gonna call it a CRM or some kind of sales management or or or deals management tool, right? So how are you looking at your prospects? Uh, how are your closure times on your prospects? How are you doing your outbound marketing? Um, is all that set up automated and fancy, right? Are you talking to people in the ways people communicate now, right? Are you texting with people? Are you is your online set up to do self-service portal? The the same kind of stuff that you're gonna hear at all these other conferences is is if you're talking about an agency that hasn't made those moves yet, those are some of the things that I think you're gonna want to do because A, that's how people communicate today, right? I mean, it's just the reality of how people communicate today, right? And B, you're gonna be able theoretically, once you implement some of these systems, you're gonna be able to actually fine-tune your business in ways you weren't gonna be able to do because you didn't have that insight previously, right? So you're gonna be able to see that holy crap, man, I'm converting, you know, uh X percent of my prospects, uh, which maybe that's good for me, or maybe I want more, but it's taken me two weeks to do this, or my renewal events are taking this long, and why is it taking that long? And uh how can I shorten that pipe? And so if you get, you know, you can get super forensic with it, but even if you just look at it on a surface level, I think there's insights to be had there that can make an agency run better, right? Um and and even something as simple as uh uh you know going off a landline to a voice system, right? You have a record of you have a record of your calls. May they get logged automatically into your system? You can see who called when, about what, for how long, who talked to them. Um it may sound like data overload, and I guess it could be if it was you know not managed well, but man, there's tons of insight that you can gain there to kind of fine-tune your business or your uh you know, your callback procedures or your marketing procedures, so on and so forth.
SPEAKER_01Right. Well, and the analytics is so important as a business owner because you're you're you're in a time where that's available. So if if you aren't using analytics to make decisions on whether this lead source outperforms this lead source, yes, but the guy down the street is, you're way behind. I mean, what are you doing? So you can bury your head in the sand and pretend it doesn't exist, but there's no way you're beating the person down the street that is using the analytics.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that that is a wonderful point. And you know, um, just to give it a like a live example to maybe make it pop, right? One of the questions I I asked when I walked in here is uh who's our who's our best referral uh source, right? Where's our best referral source? And how much percentage of this particular niche of personal business do we do with this big company? And then how much percentage of that is shared across the other agency space? And it's kind of questions where it's like we really had to dig into the data deeply in order to understand the answers to those questions. They were important answers because they informed decisions about what we're gonna do next. That data should really be at our fingertips. In fact, before I realize that I need to ask that question, yeah, I should have a dashboard up here that I look at and go, oh, dude, I'm, you know, it's this is taking me this long, or I'm doing this, and this guy's sending me this much business. I should be able to predictively almost act on some of that data, right?
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_04Yep.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. It's uh it's like um Mike Moneyball, right? They broke down the science of baseball and said, Well, you could pay A-rod 50 million or 100 million dollars to be here, or you could pay all of these guys who percentage-wise have a better likelihood of of winning, right, getting to home plate, why not do it that way, right? Exactly. Break down the science of the game.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and I think what happens when you do that, when you when you, you know, and that's Moneyball's a great example because you sometimes you'll see stuff that you didn't see before. You you would you would it's it's almost counterintuitive, yeah. And you go, but I wouldn't I wouldn't really ever think of doing that because that sounds insane. But you know what? Hey, statistically, gosh, that could work, you know.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, we look at we look at leads and and I think that that both Jason and I run our agencies a lot different than the than than some of the people in our captive space. And when we're looking at the analytics and looking at this lead source, this lead source, and this lead source, and and I tell you, the one that I gut think would be the one that's gonna perform is is usually almost never the one that is that is the right one. And so you take the emotion out of it. Absolutely you gotta remove the emotion.
SPEAKER_04Well, and sometimes I I love that point, and um I'm just you know, sometimes what happens is you the strength of your relationship biases your feel for the for the lead source, right? So if I'm super buddies with with this property manager and they send me a bunch of business, I'm I'm gonna naturally feel like that is the strongest partner I have, right? Right. But if you look at the data, you might go, oh crap, I better start having beer with this other person because she's sending me, you know, 1.3x what this guy's sending me, right? And so you can tailor your, you can even tailor then your your in real life IRL relationships with people based on that data.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I wonder if maybe maybe the the insurance space is is slower to move into technology out of fear of eliminating the the agents or eliminating these people that are going to create these relationships and drive more distribution, or yeah, I mean, uh or is it a logical fear, not just you know, I just riff it here, but is it a logical fear right now to think that the agent is going away? Or you know, where are we? Because you just jumped in. I mean, is the agent going away?
SPEAKER_04Well, so I mean, I I did jump in, I did jump in, but you know, um I sort of looking at the way different industries work with different pieces of the industries that act as, you know, let's say a contracted sales force in the case of uh the IA channel for carriers, or you know, it's it's very similar, actually, I think, across different industries in terms of you know what the big uh data center manufacturers are doing by outsourcing a portion of their work to these small uh what we call ODMs, design manufacturers. So there's some similarities, I think, in business model across the space. I do think uh that there is some fear in the agent space. I actually think it's unfounded fear uh that says um, you know, if I go gung-ho on technology, it's just gonna be robots doing my job. And, you know, independent agents are are are very agency owners and agents, I think, are very relationship oriented. We want to we want to talk to people, we want to do right by people. And so that also stings us too, because we're like, well, you know, thing robots gonna do a better job than I could do, right? They're not gonna have a better relationship with human beings. And um, so I think there is some fear, but um I think that fear is largely unfounded.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_04My impression, six months in, so take it for whatever grains of salt that is, is that there may be some programs, some portions of the business that are low enough complexity that you can automate those entirely through direct channels, and you won't need an agent intermediary, whether they're captive or independent. Uh, there's probably some low complexity products that would fit that mold and be able to, you know, zap it on your phone in 15 seconds and now, you know, I've got I've got auto insurance or something like that. Yeah, exactly something like that, yeah, something that's no-brainers, right? Right. Um there are not, however, I don't think, and I don't I do not think it will happen. I don't think the IA space is going to be displaced or the agent space, regardless, you know, is going to be displaced for most of the you know PNC or even specially commercial stuff, right?
SPEAKER_01You know, there's an and and I you read you see a lot of chat or read a lot of things. I mean, isn't aren't some of the younger folks, millennials, and maybe whoever's before you know that that grew up with an iPad in their hand. Yeah, I mean, aren't they like almost relationship averse? Like they they don't care. Like, do they not care or do they? I don't know.
SPEAKER_04I mean, you know, that's a great that's a great question. I guess that two old guys like us can can can sit around and pretend we can talk about it. But I, you know, um, well, I I do think I do think part of that is true. I think part of that is there is there is a there is a segment of people who would rather get everything done without personal interaction. Sure. Uh, and I think those people are real. We used to hire those people and it was fun working with them. Um you know, uh, but but I do think that with a product, a product like this, um, where there is uh knowledge that there's knowledge work that has to happen, as Peter Drucker would say back from you know 50s management theory, right? There's knowledge work that has to happen on the part of the agent if that agent is gonna do a good job for you. Um, I think that there's value there that will attract even the the interaction uh averse people over time. The question is, how do we how do we demonstrate that that value exists, right? So how do I how do I show that that value is out there as opposed to just going to the app and maybe you're not gonna get the coverage that's right for you, right? And maybe you're gonna get a place that's that sucks, right? And they're their their loss ratio is you know 90% and they're not gonna pay on, you know, and so they're gonna go bankrupt or whatever, right? And I think that um this is where this is, I guess I'm biased, right? Because I'm in this space today, but this is part of the reason why I say I do not think the uh the IA channel is is going away, despite the fact that yes, I think there's a class of people that want to interact with less humans. So the the way the way I think we approach that, right, is again, we have we have the capability to interact digitally. It's a it's a it is not an option. You must, right? You must have a thing online that says, I oh, the the the mortgage-y, you know, the the the lender from my house changed. I don't want to call anybody, I don't want to talk to a human being. I'm gonna do this at 11 30 p.m. in bed while Netflix is on, right? And so I need a website that says boom by this, boom, by this, and I want to be able to do that super quick. And then if I get a text message or a phone call follow-up, that's great. But you have to be able to, I think, cater to the you know, Uber Eats mentality.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_04Um, but I don't think that means you do that solely, right? I don't think that means that you you only have that capability, um, but you must have it as table stakes, you know, the price of entry.
SPEAKER_01The the perception though, and that we have to constantly unwind, and especially in the captive space, is that insurance is a commodity, right? The the lizards of the world have painted the picture that it doesn't matter, it has to be cheap, and you better just only spend 15 minutes on it. And and we're over here saying, well, spend 15 minutes, but then when you have a claim, there you're gonna have a situation on your hands, right? And so there's this duality of uh you know understanding about what it is. Like we we know that there's value. I I know that that my people out here provide a tremendous amount of value with their expertise and their licenses, right? But they don't care, right? Right, they don't care.
SPEAKER_04Well, and uh so here's where I'm probably not the best guy because just if I tell you guys the honest truth, you know, um it I'm I I was six months ago, I was a consumer, right? And I wasn't an insurance guy. And to be perfectly honest with you, like I didn't there was nothing in my head that said I should go to an independent agent instead of just buy insurance from whatever Google result is, number one. Yeah, right. And and there was there was nothing there. There was no notion of that in my head. Now, what's interesting is I did have that notion for some reason with a local real estate agent or a local mortgage broker. Why? Why why did I think it's My head that oh, instead of you know, uh, you know, going to uh some you know 21st century office and finding whoever's serving this locality for real estate, I want to find someone who knows my area. Or why did I say if I'm gonna go get a loan, instead of calling up Wells Fargo, I'm gonna go see you know who my local mortgage broker is and see what kind of deal they could get me. So somehow I was conditioned as a consumer to think that you know locally owned, independent was good in some aspects of my financial life, but not in the insurance part of my life.
SPEAKER_01That's yeah, that's fascinating. But you don't see Zillow and you know these, you don't see those commercials. You see uh the realtor right in front of the house, the lender, you see the the person at the bank that helps you with that thing, but you don't see as much or or where the marketing dollars are coming from in this industry are is progressive, geico, and you know, those guys. That's where the big spend is.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, because but you all you can't buy a house through Zillow. You know what I mean? You can't press the button. I think you can now, I think, actually. I think you can. Open more and Zillow, I think there's I'm really becoming an insurance dude.
SPEAKER_04I think I think you can. But here's the deal. I wish I had a I wish I had a point there. Um, you know, I wish I I wish I I wish I could then say, so we should do this. I I don't. I'm it's actually just dawning on me now as I talk about this, that until I got into this insurance game, I really didn't even think about the fact that you know um there could be a benefit to going with an independent local independent agent as opposed to going with some national chain. And so uh it's an interesting conundrum. Um I guess now that I'm here, man, I I see the value. Right. Uh it was it was it's plain as day, uh-huh, right? Uh, and and in talking to other agencies, we just got back from the San Diego conference with the independent agency owner association, and I talked to a bunch of different agency owners, right? And um everybody's got their customers' best interests in mind. They're all looking out for their stuff that we don't do, right? And so as a consumer, I think I also had this sort of like skepticism about insurance, right? I'm I don't know if you guys have seen that Chris Rock routine. Chris Rock says in his stand-up, he said, uh I gotta censor it, but but you know, insurance is something that I pay people money for in case stuff happens. And if stuff doesn't happen, I should get my money back, right? Right. And so there is this cons right stuff. You got it, you heard you heard the censor. Um right. And so uh, you know, but there's this perception, right? Of like a you you mentioned, Craig, it's it's a commodity, and maybe in some cases, even it's forced on me as a condition of borrowing money for purchasing something, right? Yeah. Um and so uh I'm familiar with those those misgivings as a consumer, and I think that's kind of some of the perception that that we are working to overcome, right?
SPEAKER_01Right. Well, they don't have the understanding that, well, to pay this, you know, million-dollar claim over here, I mean it has to come from somewhere. Well, or microtransactions pay for it.
SPEAKER_04Right, or nor do they nor do they have any clue, which I was actually shocked as well, is just to how much fraud influences you know what carriers are willing to do in terms of taking risk and or where they put their boundaries from an actuarial standpoint on that risk, right? And so that was a big learning for exactly right, right yeah.
SPEAKER_01It's well, because everybody wants to screw over the insurance company is the reason why it costs this much. It's like stop doing that, and maybe it'll go it won't.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, no, I'm I'm with you. I'm with you.
SPEAKER_03It's like a cat, it's like a dog chasing its tail. Uh the justification of everyone trying to screw over the insurance industry, right? And also the reason. Crazy people.
SPEAKER_01Well, so so fud uh so fudge. Yeah, tell us about fudge.
SPEAKER_04Okay, uh, let's see. Uh Fudge is my brother-in-law's agency. Uh, it is sort of your classic uh, you know, true-to-form, uh father-to-son, perpetuated agency that started about 14 years ago here in Central Florida by uh my my brother-in-law's dad, who's a really cool guy, and you know, pops his head into the office uh every now and again still, but basically my brother-in-law's uh, you know, running the show. Um, and they've they have built a really cool thing. I mean, there's about uh 16 people here today. Uh, not all of those are producers, um, let's call it a little more than half are producers today. Uh, and um there are you know, I was I was uh again, I came from a corporate company with a hundred thousand people. And so a company with 16 people to me was like, oh, it's gonna be it's gonna be like going to see Cletus out back in the sticks, right? Like I this is my sort of preconceived notion before walking in, but guess what? I mean, it's a legit business with a profitable, you know, PL and and a and a fancy conference room and uh you know stand-up desks and everything that we had in in the corporate world. Um and they've done a really good job, you know, to be honest, building something that they can be proud of. Uh and um when I when I kind of walked in and asked any questions that you would walk into when you're gonna try to you know become a part of of a new business, um, I was very happy to see that the corporate practices they have in place are are legit. You know, the population of the office is is super diverse and productive, you know, uh they're active in the community and philanthropy. Uh and uh first and foremost, they take care of the customers. And so and and they have a really cool niche that they've carved out. I say they they, we, right? I'm now I'm now here, but really a really cool niche that that they work with in these uh some of the foreign nationals that buy a short-term rental property here, uh, or property that they then use as a short-term rental here in Central Florida, which there's a ton of it, right? Uh and they've made a name for themselves in that space. And so there was just a lot of cool stuff um about the agency, and uh they had done a really good job, I think, putting together a solid outfit. Um and uh yeah, it's so far it's been a great place, you know.
SPEAKER_03That's cool, man. So you're enjoying you're enjoying Florida.
SPEAKER_04I am, yeah. I mean, right now, like I said, it's not uh it's not you know devil's front porch hot. Um we got here in August and it was it was pretty bad, but you know, I figure I did it once in my life, I can do it again. You know, it's not a huge deal, right? Not a huge deal.
SPEAKER_03What excites you about the insurance? Well, like what do you foresee that that's exciting?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so that's a great question, right? So uh I have this I can I can frame it in in the in the um space of this agency. Uh so when I was in sort of uh you know Silicon Valley tech space, um we had I'm gonna go back to analytics again because it's what I excites me, right? We had uh we had a we had data on everything we did, right? Like any customer thing that came into our office, we had you know data from inception, the moment it crossed the door, till when we put it to bed. Uh and uh I mean fancy data, you know, moving things through steps and pipelines and all that good stuff, and how long it took and what we said and who did what and how it resolved, and then we could go back and map that data knowledge base style to other problems that had come in, because you know I'm dealing with problems across thousands of different spaces, right? Uh, and we could get predictive about it. And so I just we ran the business in a very data-centric way. Um, and uh I'm excited about the day when that kind of stuff comes to the IA space. Um, it is not, at least for me, I'm there maybe there's maybe some agencies out there that are just blowing this up today and they're killing it, right? And they've got their data, you know, nine ways from Sunday. Um, but we are making that move. And I would bet that there's others who are in that space who are either thinking about it or or not there yet. Uh, and it excites me to get to that space where I can show these guys what I'm and by the way, they're they're all in, they're ready, but I can show them on a dashboard, you know, the kind of data that I'm talking about and saying, guys, it's taking us um, you know, why? So uh this this policy uh you know is up for renewal, and we've got a campaign that sends out an email 90 days beforehand or whatever, and we do a phone call at 30 days, and what's the efficacy on these things? And are we following up on leads that said no here? Or that you know, how are we looking at to fill out our book? There's just tons of data that's it we have it actually, it's here, it's in the agency, but we're not doing anything with it, right? Because we have no way to look at it in aggregate. I am really excited, as nerdy as that sounds. Um, I love that. That is exciting. I I'm really excited for for us to really like grab hold of that data and make it work for us, you know.
SPEAKER_01Then execute on the make decisions. Absolutely, right? Yeah, right. Yeah. I mean, we have some clunky versions of those type of things, but then you know, you have this, you're like, oh well, we missed the call, whatever. Right. And then it's just sort of fizzles up.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_04Right. Well, and I I think I think sometimes what happens is, at least me, I'm going to these conferences and they're talking about data, but they're talking about it in ways, honestly, I'm not as sure some of these people know what they're talking about, right? They talk about AI and machine learning on your insurance agency data, and I'm sitting here scratching my head going, what I mean, that's great. Don't get me wrong. There are applications, okay? But the thing is, I think 90% of the people who talk about quote unquote AI have no idea what in the world they're they're talking about. And they don't, they're talking about a chat bot, dude, that that answers your questions predictively based on the questions you're you're free. That's not AI as I as I like to think about it, right? And so I think there's a lot of confusion about people say, oh, data can work for you, and and then you get you get hit with these buzzwords, you know, like AI and machine learning, and you're like, man, I'm an insurance agent. I'm just trying to sell insurance, right? Well, you know, right. Uh and and that's what that's what that's what we're trying to do. So let's not come at people pretending like you know you're you're you're missing out on the terminator phase of the insurance industry. Right.
SPEAKER_03Um, you know, not artificial intelligence intelligence, actual intelligence.
SPEAKER_04Real intelligence, right, exactly. So yeah, I'm excited. I'm excited about that, right? That's what I'm excited about.
SPEAKER_03Are there anything uh do you see anything on the horizon that might be able to produce those kind of results?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I mean, I think what I in talking to some different agencies, I it's interesting to me to hear what people are doing, right? So uh some people I heard a guy uh tell me that he uses his AMS only for an Ivans inbox, right? Just to get the data back and forth through the one channel that the dang industry lets us get it, pay for the access to our own data through, right? Uh, and that the rest of the agency is run out of a CRM, right? I forget the one he told me right now, but you know, a traditional uh CRM or sales management tool, which has a pipeline, and this has sort of become um, I mean, if people listening to this don't know what I'm talking about, that's totally fine. I'm not dogging on you by saying this, but a sales pipeline in a CRM has become you know uh very familiar to most people where you've got your prospects that and they ate they turn into leads, and then you follow up with through your own definite pipeline, and then you do this, and you you can dispatch at you dispatch everything through this very um structured pipeline at which points you know through that whole pipe and process you can gather analytics and data. And really, I mean, honestly, it is it is it has turned anybody into a great salesman because the the the old guys we we used to do this too, right? When we sold stuff, we had a stack of papers on our desk that said we had to follow up with Susan and Joe seven days from when we last talked to them, you know, and then we would send a postcard or whatever. You this is just good salesmanship 101, but it's been codified, right? It's been captured and it's been put into you know your CRMs, and you can any person can now, if they follow the the the steps in the pipeline, can be a pretty dang good salesperson. And so I hear people in their agencies that are that are running their agency out of the CRM more than they are out of um out of the uh an AMS, which really hasn't evolved, in my opinion, uh, to do some of that that more um salesy kind of kind of work. And uh I think that that's that's a big step forward, right? And so I think, and I'm not saying go run your agency on a CRM and use your AMS as an Ivan's inbox. That's not what I'm saying, but I'm saying that the more we can infect the thinking of the independent agency space with the tools that have already revolutionized other types of businesses, the better, right? And is there a solution out there today that I think does all this? I I don't I don't think so. Not the way I would like it to do, but there are hybrid solutions that people are using, I think, effectively.
SPEAKER_01It's it's just I mean, it's astounding that there isn't one thing that you can manage all your leads, manage your clients, have the phones ring into and and email like have what I mean, it's 2020. It should all be one thing, not and so we especially us like we have I probably I mean what 15 different systems, right? Jason, like and they're all duct taped together and like don't talk and just it's it's like zapping them, you're zapping this stuff into that stuff, and it's it's the bridge you described, right? It has toothpicks and it's the duct.
SPEAKER_04Yes, exactly. Well, and it is so so it's it's frustrating, but it's also I think um what's really cool is that you know there's a way forward, right? Because we can we can look at other industries that have made let's look at commerce, for instance, right? And when when when the cloud, when the when the economics of cloud um which at the time right, so that's the thing, is right think about that. Remember, remember back in the day though when the cloud was just another buzzword and you didn't know what it meant and it kind of felt like no one knew what it was, right? You didn't know what the hell it was, and you didn't you it was gonna revolutionized everything, but you're like, what the hell is it, right? And so you know, you look at like commerce or or even finance has gone through a little bit of this more than than even insurance has, even though you could call insurance maybe a baby of finance. But um look at look at the way commerce or even the way uh other um uh industries have adopted to use cloud economics to get services or apps or software delivered through the cloud, and now everything's tied together, and you know, you've got you know seamless APIs that are open source so you can exchange data and you can stack value along that data path, right? It's coming. It's we the roadmap is before us, guys. It's just someone's gonna capitalize on it. Um, and uh and there's people out there I think that are doing that are trying to do some cool stuff now, uh, from what I can see. Um maybe a year or two before we get, you know, sort of the first viable products that are contending in that space. I says my guy.
SPEAKER_01There's an arms race right now.
SPEAKER_04I I I agree.
SPEAKER_01But the once they can figure out once the carriers will allow the plugging in of these things, which why wouldn't you?
SPEAKER_04Well, so go back to you're you're right. No, sorry, go ahead, go ahead.
SPEAKER_01No, but the first carrier that says, guess what? We're gonna plug right in, and then I mean, who's gonna use that carrier?
SPEAKER_04Everyone, right? So that and that, and that's the thing. And I think so. This is what I ask myself like, why are carriers are so maybe I should ask it this way, are carriers just disinterested in like enabling of the solution space? You know, it's or is it is it and I part of me wonders, part of me actually wonders if if there are carriers out there who are going, like, man, yeah, I would would love to do that, but I I don't know how, or I don't have the resources to go do it. You know, I just duck creaked my whole ops, you know, on the inside anyway. I you know you now you're asking me to you know open source all my APIs so you guys can pass this, that, and for me, you know. But I think that couple couple things come into my mind. I bet you the carriers are also looking at the IA channel and going, I wonder how it's gonna play out, right? What is the balance gonna be that's struck eventually between sort of direct and independent, and where how do I split my bets, right? Because as a carrier, to be to be honest, even as an IA guy, as a carrier, if I'm not looking at direct, I I'm I'm probably dumb, right?
SPEAKER_01Uh in the in those boardrooms, right?
SPEAKER_04You got it. In those boardroom meetings, um, I better be looking at direct because it's high margin and I don't have to deal with this, you know, uh weaponized sales force of of agents out on the out on the ground, right? Um so maybe maybe there's some hesitation there because they they want to see how that bet plays out, or maybe there's maybe there's a lack of ROI in the carrier's eyes, right? Maybe maybe they don't really know what better enabling the IA space would get for them. I mean, the IA space is already pretty productive for them today, so maybe they're just not thinking that way, or maybe maybe there's no this and this is kind of where I'm leaning, right? There's no one ring to rule them all here. There's no one standard uh that uh everybody can lock to, right, that says, well, I'm gonna create this set of, and I'll call it APIs for lack of a better word, but this set of infrastructure on the carrier side and the agency side that allows us to all you know talk to each other. And and I know that the industry is no stranger to standards, but it feels like we're kind of we're coming to that, coming to that time again.
SPEAKER_01It's like the scarcity mentality, though. It's back to scarcity mentality. Elon built a car that that outperforms everything else, and he said, Here you go, here, figure it out, let's save the world, right? I mean, why not do the same thing and make it better for everybody? We we all become more profitable.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, it's it's a great question. And maybe, hey, maybe someone listening to this right now is sitting in a carrier going, gosh, I should do that, man. There's money to be made. And I tell you, there is. There is money to be made. And and uh, you know, the first one of the things we learned back in in the industry um previously is that as counterintuitive, let's go back and money ball for a minute, as counterintuitive as it may seem, um, let me give you an anecdote, actually, it'll do better. Um back in the back in the back in the uh late 90s, early 2000s, as data centers were really becoming a thing, these massive Facebook, Amazon, Google data centers, everybody had their own secret sauce. The computers that they built that went into those data centers were very specific to whoever was deploying it. It was an Amazon-specific thing, and it had special tweaks and this and that and the other, so it could get this many microseconds more performance or run this much cooler and not require this much power. And they all had very proprietary, very dialed-in designs to make their data center have an edge over the other guys' data centers, right? Somewhere in the gosh, late, let's around 2010, somewhere after there, uh a few of these guys got together and said, you know what we're gonna do, let's open source that computer, like the fundamental building block of the data center, like the the rack. Let's open source that bad boy, and let's just publish the schematics and the CAD database online, and then any company in the world who has proficiency at building something can build one of those things, right? And you're like, well, why are you why are you commoditizing your secret sauce? Why are you giving it away, right? So what they did is they all contributed their secret sauce, they came up with a spec for an open data center thing, and then guess what happens, right? The market builds that thing, and the price of that ingredient comes down for everybody, right? And that rising tide then floats all boats. Everybody has great systems, and now you can focus on differentiating differentiating yourself uh above the stack, right? And so I think what needs to happen is that uh there's gotta be a a realization at some point as we march through this evolution of technology in the insurance industry that yes, we are gonna have to at some point get a common intermediary communication layer, right, between the bit the big carriers over here on the this side of the channel and the distribution over here on this side of the channel. Uh, and then all these this space of tools can come in and just unlock all kinds of extra value. You know what I mean? Um we're not we're not there yet. Uh I don't feel like uh we're we're not there yet. And I I don't know why that is. Maybe it's just not a vision that's clear at this point.
SPEAKER_03I just don't think that I mean I think the fat cats, you know, all the all the big agencies, I there's no there's no real benefit to them. Like if they if they help out all the agents by making it easier for them, where are they gonna see their return? And that's a hundred percent how they're gonna look at it. They're not gonna say, hey, let's take a loss for five years. I'm sure that they you know that the that the board members are gonna love that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and you know, I I do not disagree with you. I actually think you probably are right, right on the head there. Um it's an ROI question. And I I think that we should probably I don't want to bash the carriers because look, you know, these guys, some of these guys are are are their internal IT operations are probably also you know 50 years old or whatever. And they had they and so it's not an we're not asking an easy thing, I guess. You know, when we talk about this, if I'm a carrier listening, I'm going, yeah, I mean, easy for you to say, right? You're talking of you know hundreds of millions of dollars in my budget and a year of overhauling my systems that already work today. And so we're not really asking something super easy when we when we trivialize it like that. Uh so again, what is the how do we get everybody to the table? First of all, who do we invite to the table, right? Right. Who's invited, who's invited to the table? Once we're at the table, how do I make sure that what we agree upon gives you value and you value and you value, and everybody walks away with some value and some investment um such that we get something that will sort of kick that into high gear? I don't I don't know the answer, um, but you know, that's kind of where we are.
SPEAKER_01Well, I was hoping that we would solve all these challenges right here on this guy. Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_04I know we were quick. If we did, we're signing an NDA, we're never publishing it, and we're going into business.
SPEAKER_01Well, Dave, I mean, we've taken up more than an hour of your time and and uh and really, really appreciate it. Um piece of advice to somebody jumping in and you just did, you know, what what would it be? Because you've predicted that the that the job of the uh insurance salesman is safe.
SPEAKER_04I do. I do think the job of the insurance salesman is is is safe. Um one thing that somebody yeah, right. Says some random dude who knows nothing about insurance. Um One piece of advice jumping in again. Um use your technology, but don't use it because your neighbors are using it and because it's technology. Use it to augment the people stuff that you're already doing, right? I am not preaching to give up the people stuff and the relationship stuff. The technology should be here. So um just don't fall victim to that idea that you know I can I can technology myself without having to be in a relationship. What is essentially a relationship isn't it?
SPEAKER_03Not a system. We'd love to check in with you since this has been the six-month mark. We'd love to check in maybe next year or six months later and see some epiphanies that you probably have by then.
SPEAKER_04Well, we'll we'll see. First of all, yes, I would love to do that as well. I think that would be great. And uh I am learning stuff every day to be honest with you. I'm sure there will be someone who emails me from this podcast and says, Man, you got that all wrong, or you know, this, that, and that's great because bring it on, right? And that's what it is. That's what I want to hear. So yeah, love to.
SPEAKER_01We'll put your personal cell phone right there. Uh perfect right there in the venue address. Right, absolutely.
SPEAKER_04You can have to drive by the house, no problem. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, thank you so much, Dave. It's just a pleasure to have you on, and we really appreciate your time.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, thanks, guys. I appreciate it. All right, take care, boys. Thanks, my man. Yeah, uh, you too.
SPEAKER_03So, Craig, not only are we both agents, but we talked to a ton of agents out there, and I feel like a bunch of agents have been talking about the aggressive growth goals this year. Yeah, but you know what the problem is? What? Everyone's running into shifting their focus from service to sales, and they're trying to do this quickly. But where do you find the growth and how do you do this quickly? They all ask, right? Ask any agent.
SPEAKER_01It's not an easy task. Well, right now there's thousands of consumers shopping online for insurance. In fact, Jason, according to a JD Power study, 74% of insurance shoppers start their search online. Dang! I know, right? And you need a way to connect with them, but it's tough to do on your own. That's where a trusted partner can really make a difference. Connecting you with insurance shoppers in real time and helping drive some serious growth.
SPEAKER_03Well, you know, Everquote is the nation's largest online insurance marketplace with millions of consumers visiting their online sites every month. They're able to connect you with people who are actually shopping for insurance. Not just submitting their info. Yeah, not just submitting their info to win a free iPad. We all seen that one, right? Yeah, I've seen it. And Everquote's leads are delivered to you within seconds from the time they complete that form.
SPEAKER_01And one of the best things about Everquote is that they're nothing like your typical lead vendor. They become a true partner in your business. You get your own dedicated support, recommendations, and insights to help optimize your results. Plus, uh, right? Plus, tons of best practices. And guess what? What? A great blog. And guess what else? You laid on me, Craig. A resource center to help you with everything from hiring to dealing with common objections. How awesome is that? That is awesome. And I don't think anyone should go at it alone with an average lead vendor.
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SPEAKER_02Oh, let's do. Hey, you've got to check out the insurance dudes inner circle coming soon, where you get extended interviews as well as live coffee talks in our private Facebook group. Join the mailing list today at the Insurance Dudes Podcast.com. Hey, thanks for checking out the insurance dudes. Hey, please subscribe. We got some really great stuff coming out.