Episode #17: Smart Acquisitions & 1% Podcasting with Bradley Flowers

[00:00:00] The joke I made recently was kids are like insurance podcasts, they're really easy to make and not a Russian have one. But the real good, the biggest advice I can give anyone is don't stop. Like with podcasting, the biggest metric to success is volume consistency and not stopping.

[00:00:25] There's so many podcasts like if you do, if you do 50 episodes, you're in the top 1% of podcasts on Apple. Whoa! Welcome to the podcast dedicated to real estate insurance and everything in between.

[00:00:45] Join us as we take you along our own brokerage building journeys with additional wisdom from our network of business experts. Welcome to Bricks and Risk. Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Bricks and Risk. I'm Tim Gardy. And I'm sure, Mooney.

[00:01:08] And today, Sean, we have a great guest on Bradley Flowers from Portland, Shorins out of Mobile, Alabama. How are you doing today, Bradley? I'm great, guys. Thank you for having me. Thanks for coming to the night for an outside right by the way. You did, you did.

[00:01:24] It's kind of about a 60% hit ratio outside of Alabama. About 60% of people get it right. The rest of them say mobile or mobile. Oh, gosh. Well, I appreciate that. So Bradley's insurance company Portland Shorins is nationally recognized.

[00:01:40] It's an 18 person independent agency they founded from less than scratch in 2019 after eight years on the captive side. His company was also named the agency for the future by Safeco. Bradley is the co-hosts of the insurance guys podcast. The most downloaded podcast in the insurance industry.

[00:01:59] And he has interviewed hundreds of influential individuals throughout his podcast career, including Gary Vaynerchuk, Dave Meltzer and Jesse Cole. He's also the co-founder of Top Dog Petting Shorins, an insure tech carrier that makes it possible for agents to sell petting Shorins on autopilot. All right.

[00:02:17] So we know you're big on operations hiring and MNA. But let's specifically talk about mergers and acquisitions and how it relates to portal today. Yeah, so before we get into that, I'd like to think my mom for getting that bio.

[00:02:34] Every you guys, she does a really good job with that. Well done. Oh, Mr. Flowers. We can't thank you enough. That's my go-to opener. Yeah, you know, MNA for us. I'm big on looking at people who are more successful than me and

[00:02:52] not only are you, but also you're a modeling or modifying a bit what they do. I think too many people, especially in the business world, try to reinvent the wheel. And for us, you know, if you look at probably the top 100 largest independent agencies in the country,

[00:03:13] there might not be one that grew just or gankly. Most of them are MNA shops. I'm sure somebody on Twitter is going to correct me on that and be like, no, what about this one? They're number 99. But generally speaking, that's how those guys got so big.

[00:03:32] And, you know, independent agencies, not speaking the ill of independent agencies or anything like that. But one of our determinants is we are independent. We can do it anyway we want to. And because of that, you get a lot of crazy models out there.

[00:03:49] You get a lot of crazy agency structures. You get a lot of, you know, we just bought an agency recently that, you know, it was the equivalent, their operations was the equivalent of Thuron Spaghetti up against the wall and say, what's stuck?

[00:04:00] And so you get a lot of just like, like, wonky structures and business practices. And sometimes they don't have any processes. And so if you, if we can, you know, acquire or you can acquire one of those agencies and

[00:04:13] you have a standard that works and take their customers, their people and plug them into your system. You create spread and arbitrage opportunities and things like that.

[00:04:25] So, so our model, you know, a lot of the, a lot of the larger PNC shops that are roll up M&A shops. They, their model is to just acquire so many agencies get so big that, you know,

[00:04:40] eventually you're going to get so big, you're going to grow organically just because you're so big. You know what I mean? Yes. And so our model has always been, hey, we're really good at organ growth.

[00:04:55] If we can also add some acquisitions to that, we can get the best of both worlds and then grow really, really fast. Because what you don't want is you don't want to be an agency that can only grow by M&A.

[00:05:08] But I also think you don't want to be an agency that can only grow organically. Now that I think there's anything wrong with every either one of those. Both can be very expensive as bottom-self, but our thing is like, hey, let's, let's, let's buy agencies.

[00:05:25] Let's still grow organically, but let's buy agencies. Let's take, there's great people inside of all those agencies. And then we're going to have a big customer, let's plug them into our system, make them more profitable and make ultimately everybody else in the company more money except.

[00:05:40] That might have been a longer answer than what you were expecting but it was fantastic. And that was always the plan. This is something that came out of nowhere. I know there's probably people listening to this that listen to some other stuff that are like,

[00:05:51] I'll send this guys talk about M&A, but I don't talk about stuff that I don't do. I don't want to try her to 2019. I never talked about hiring or managing people, that's because I didn't hire a management.

[00:06:03] And so that's my thing and I just have this weird thing in my personality that I, if something's going on in my world, I can't help but talk about it.

[00:06:15] Well you also, if you go to dinner with me, you're going to know every single problem I'm dealing with. That's great. We got to get to dinner every single good thing.

[00:06:24] You did also say it took you with this acquisition that went through is like two years of looking at agencies, looking at P&Ls doing your homework. So maybe you weren't doing the deals but you were certainly doing the homework to get comfortable with doing a deal.

[00:06:42] Your code is going to like this is just like commercial real estate. The best way to get a commercial real estate is start looking at deals. Would you disagree? No. And commercials all about deals.

[00:06:51] And as an answer to a little bit different, it's more of my focus but we do development and commercial deals and development. It's all about the deal. Yeah. And you look at enough of them. You start spotting trans and start knowing what to look for. Yeah.

[00:07:05] And you always have a conversation with a, with a founder and a church tech and I rego about investing in tech and tech companies.

[00:07:14] Like I've looked at enough and I've done enough and I've turned down enough that I've been able to spot trends in companies that I've turned down investing in.

[00:07:25] That maybe weren't the reason that I turned it down but here's a commonality and now we need to look for that thing. You know what I mean? And so for me, you know, I did one small book of business acquisition when I was captive.

[00:07:39] And I was one of the other small one. In 2019, six months after we started portal and then this was the first one that involved employees and a location which is a totally different thing.

[00:07:52] And because that's where most of your issues are going to come from good and bad. And but I probably looked at 50 deals in the last two years.

[00:08:03] And since we purchased that one, I've got I haven't have an outstanding L.O.I right now and another one that I'm waiting here. We're moving. Wow. So part of the reason we wanted to do a big one.

[00:08:17] And we saw, saw, saw out two years ago to do a big one was because we wanted to get our processes down. Or that when we really push to get some, we knew exactly what we were doing.

[00:08:29] We knew exactly where we were getting into how you do this, this, this, this and even now we're two months in into this one from close date. We're so much more prepared for the next one. Oh yeah. You know what I mean?

[00:08:43] It's like when you sell an insurance policy or you sell a house, like you use the lessons from that first one on the next one. And you're seeing the same thing over and over.

[00:08:55] And eventually you can predict what the issues are going to come up, you can predict what problems you're going to come up, you can predict what things you're going to have to do. You know what mistakes you made so you can do it differently and all that jazz.

[00:09:06] So. All right. Here's a question. So you talked about, you know, the M&A side of growth and why you're doing that. And you also talked about organic growth. Let's focus on growth. You're doing these things obviously to have a bigger company more successful, more systems, more processes.

[00:09:24] Like what's the goal with growth? Like what are you trying to do with portal? That is a we're limited to what that's a loaded question. That's why I asked it. Our our goal is just. I don't really have a number in my head. You know, I look at.

[00:09:47] Like there's a list that comes out every year of like the largest agencies in Alabama. And I look at that not from an ego standpoint. It's it's not and all those numbers are self-apported by the way. So we might even get there and I don't even report it.

[00:10:00] It's not an ego standpoint. It's a hey. We want to be the best. So let's look at the best. And I think people like to say comparisons that the thief of joy. I think comparing your year five to somebody else's year 20 is not a thing you should do.

[00:10:17] But hey, let's compare our year five to their year five. Where are we tracking right? So I think there's good comparison. My thing is like, I want to get as big as I want to build this thing as big as we possibly can build it.

[00:10:33] As responsibly as we can possibly build it. Yeah, would be really easy for us to go raise some VC money or private equity money or something like that and build it up really, really fast.

[00:10:46] It'd be really easy for us to dump a million bucks into marketing and grow really fast. But it's going to be a crash show in the back yet. It's not super responsible. You know what I mean?

[00:10:56] So so I would just say like the ultimate goal is to is to grow as fast as we can as responsibly as we can. And you know, I have to know desire or intentions to ever sell.

[00:11:12] If you ever hear that Bradley flour sold his agency just know that he got paid. I would say that. I would say the reason I say that is I love what I do so much that it would take a lot to pull me away from here.

[00:11:29] That's really cool. I never don't really understand agents that sell at a young age to some degree from a broad sense right now like I have friends who still like understand their situation.

[00:11:40] But in a broad sense, I'm like why wouldn't you just pay somebody 200 grand a year to be like hey don't call me unless you have a $50,000 problem. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like what it will interest cash flowing and it's going well. Why not?

[00:11:54] You know what I mean? And that's sort of how I run my agency.

[00:11:58] I mean, I run my and so I had a guy I was talking to earlier today with that same insure tech and he was like well how many times on an auto policy when you're writing it do you see and I was like.

[00:12:10] Do many policies over it in the last two years. He was like how many I was like four. And that was probably because it was a Monday holiday and I was going for his work and I run my agency more like a whole coat.

[00:12:21] And I do an agency owner who's in the day today. So we're already sort of set up like that. So yeah, that's I love I love running a business at a high level. Let me switch gears. Yeah, I don't know if somebody gave me 50 million bucks tomorrow.

[00:12:38] I don't know what I would do. I'd probably wait two years and start another agency. I know you can do that. If I'm going to do that, I might as well just keep doing this. You know, I know you'd be playing a lot more golf. I know that.

[00:12:50] I don't know, man. I don't know. You know, I was talking to buddy earlier. I played VR golf every night for 20 minutes. There you go. If anybody wants to play me in VR golf at six at seven o'clock on a Friday night.

[00:13:03] Just send me your cash app and we'll go ahead and let's go. So I played VR golf every night and that scratches the golf edge. We'll put the link up in the yeah, in the coming. Absolutely. Bradley, let me get into this a little bit. Yeah, insurance Twitter.

[00:13:20] What was going on this week with insurance Twitter? It was like a battle royale. It was like Hulk Hogan style. Yeah, like 85. It was like lamp or rally zone the top term buckle and then he calls in Bradley from like the runway.

[00:13:37] And he comes in slides in with the chairs. So I was banging out, don't drink on these guys. Did they have them look like the ultimate warrior? I think there was a macho man. Ultimate warrior. He's the worst man. You know,

[00:13:50] well, no, you want to know the truth. Absolutely. I am this. I'm this close to monetization on Twitter. And when you get monetized on a platform. The goal is not to make money from the monetization. And the goal is these platforms push accounts out further.

[00:14:13] Who are monetized because that company's making money on it. I'm disclosed to monetization. And every time you tweet at these lemonade, yeah, who's yep. It's just the replies or I sent another one out this morning. Wait, how did my favorite? I'll give it my favorite.

[00:14:32] My favorite and we'll clue Tim in on this. So there's like a back and forth. There's a technology insurance company that's. It's lemonade. We'll just say it. Okay. And most of the people on there have no clue about insurance. And it is very, very homely hilarious.

[00:14:51] They're replies like their understanding of insurance is like less than 1% of the industry. And I'm not saying mine is a lot either. But it's so painfully obvious. It's like I've never seen somebody that was so sure they knew exactly what they were talking about. There's so wrong.

[00:15:07] And a lot of them are nice guys and most of it was playful banter. You know, you have to. I look at Twitter as Twitter is like LinkedIn and Facebook and Instagram are like the morning coffee hour at a conference. Twitter is the ball. Yeah, it's not.

[00:15:25] Yeah, yeah. So it's it's it. You have to look at that way. Sorry. But so it was kind of a back and forth. It had these guys. But my favorite part was when you posted the picture, I think it was like the king of hell guy

[00:15:42] and he's like, are you all? Are you all the money? Are you all on a cult? Like because all these guys, it's, it's, it's a good show. Yeah, no. And that's my favorite show. And these guys are so like they are dead set on.

[00:15:58] They're so sure of themselves. And so sure about this company and the brand and everything else. And when he posted, I'm sitting there dying. It was even get that out. Even get any traction. But you know, it's funny.

[00:16:12] It's like the whole rhetoric, the DTC rhetoric is like we go direct to consumer because we don't have to pay agents 15% Therefore we pass those savings off to their customers. Okay. So I looked at this this lemonade release. There are fourth quarter results yesterday.

[00:16:27] Which is partly why that stuff was going to go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep. They wrote 80 million in premium last year. New business. Yep. Okay. If they were paying 15% to independent agents, that's going to be like what? That's going to be like 10 million, 9, 10 million, 11 million. Okay.

[00:16:50] They spent a hundred and two million dollars on marketing. There you go. Last year. So that how does that math, math with your example of, Oh, we saved. We saved that. Yeah. You know anyway.

[00:17:04] But now that was, that was more or less just me wanting to get a rise out of people to get some responses and people are like really you woke up on their own set the bed that I was like no when I fired off the first tweet I was still in bed.

[00:17:16] I literally woke up and I was like, let's go at lemonade this morning. But that's I appreciate you asking about it because that's fun. It was it was fun. It was fun for a month. For a month for a month.

[00:17:26] A week and so what's here's what's funny though, is that told one of those guys I was like hey we're recording our podcast next week.

[00:17:33] Let's bring Lampar, really on and let's bring the first person who responds on here and we'll do it debate and me and Scott will moderate. Which when you throw Scott in the mix that makes it even more hilarious.

[00:17:45] That is kind of like a piece of match when you bring Scott in there. The guy who was like yeah I'll do it is now totally dodging me. Totally dodging me and he might end up coming through it. He was actually pretty nice.

[00:18:00] He and I had some nice discussions in private but I'm like, he got to look at it that this was going to be a lines then. But anyway. Yeah.

[00:18:13] So I'm not an insurance so I don't really listen to insurance pockets just like you know money's not listening to the same real estate. You probably go into sleep. Yeah.

[00:18:24] I said anything insurance related just go right to shot just like at least his handless for me because I trust you. Yeah. So insurance guys podcasts talk about that a little bit like what made you get in the podcasting how long have you been doing it?

[00:18:36] Like how is it morphed into where it is today. Yeah.

[00:18:40] So we I've always been sort of like a social media guy like whatever journal clue I was in I always wasn't early adopter and had a little bit of success and I was at a captive company for six and a half years.

[00:18:54] And I always try to go where nobody else is you know in 2013 all of my competitors and counterparts were doing billboards and radio and TV and newspapers nobody was doing such media. Yeah.

[00:19:09] So I started posting a social media coincidentally the company I worked for had no compliance around social media which is funny to think about in 2024 timeframe.

[00:19:19] So I started posting on social heavy and got you know good results on each platform in terms of just like generating business results. And podcasting was sort of the one thing that I hadn't done. And it was back then it was not easy to do a podcast. Yeah.

[00:19:37] Yeah, you know, you had to do it on Skype if you're remote which by the way like nobody fumbled the ball harder than Skype did Skype had a 17 year reel in 2020 yet and. What's his name?

[00:19:47] It just made me it's nothing now straight up dropped the ball in the end zone but that's needed here no there. So Scott was an insurance agent in northern Alabama six hours north to me he was vacationing down here I'm not far for the beach and.

[00:20:03] He came by and he was like hey let's do like a little video on camera we just talk about insurance like all right cool.

[00:20:13] Wait now everybody you didn't think that was weird like some guy was like well I was excited because now I know in his personality I probably should have been concerned but. Now people don't realize that podcast Scott is told down.

[00:20:28] Oh geez, yeah in person Scott is like up here but anyway. Uh he he regularly sends me videos of himself shortlist like chopping wood in his backyard but. Uh he. But you know now like you can.

[00:20:46] I can walk out here in 10 seconds find somebody to like do content with me back then it was like taboo like nobody wanted to like do content like collaborations and stuff.

[00:20:55] And that's why almost almost never turned down a podcast request because I remember you know 10 years ago and I wish somebody would have me on their podcast so. Anyway we appreciate this thing.

[00:21:06] Yeah absolutely we did this thing and we got done and he was like man we should do a podcast and all of like well that's like the one social avenue I have not done so like if you pay for it I'll do it.

[00:21:18] So we we we just we were trying to decide what to do and we looked at maybe consumer facing but that's boring nobody wants no consumer wants to listen to insurance podcast.

[00:21:29] And so we decided to do an industry facing podcast so for us the avenue was we wanted to interview people that we wanted to connect with like if you look at like the first 20 guests they're very strategic. They're people that we wanted to be connected with.

[00:21:46] You know if you reach out to say you know an influential person and you say hey I would like to do a 30 minute phone call with you pick your brain. They may or may not say yes.

[00:22:02] But if you say how I want to interview you on my podcast and give you a platform they're almost always going to say yes especially in 27 to really good point. Yeah so we we were just it was literally selfish.

[00:22:14] You know back then we didn't do zoom or Skype or anything we did it was a phone call so I literally would plug myself on into a device that ran in the studio. And I got there I got their phone numbers. There you go.

[00:22:30] So that was how we started and then from there I mean you interview hitters and people are going to listen. And so it just sort of it just sort of took off from there I mean we hit you know 20 thousand downloads a month very quickly.

[00:22:45] We're approaching a million all time we should hit a million all time it's like the next month.

[00:22:51] And you know for me it's it's less than 2% of what I do I mean I'm a real agency owner it runs multiple businesses so it's got and you know I think that realness is what makes people listen and tune in and it's definitely not boring.

[00:23:08] I'll even know I joke that it is if something ever happens to Scott it will be boring because I'm the boring one but. But yeah that's it for for for for me it's.

[00:23:21] It's kind of like you know if you guys ever know anybody that wrote a book there's really no money in books but people write books to open doors and that's sort of what the podcast is for us.

[00:23:32] You know I have the CEO of a carrier that's coming coming flying in and coming to my office to meet with my team next week. Simply because I'm Bradley from the insurance gas podcast like if I was not that he wouldn't be coming.

[00:23:45] You know so so that it's it for me it's a mechanism and we make money from it. That's a plus but yeah for me it's a mechanism that benefits my company and ultimately my employees and customers.

[00:23:56] And everybody like that's what I said when we started getting going to because our story is kind of similar in that way where we're like.

[00:24:04] I'm like you should do a podcast to Tim about hey this will be great for your business this will be right you know the exposure and he's like well why don't we do it together and that's kind of like.

[00:24:14] Yeah like I've been like a guest on a few and in more or less just just trying to get a platform like I reached out to a few podcasts that I was listening to because I would listen to their guests and be like yeah.

[00:24:24] I got a good story start a business from scratch here in Philly like and then we'd we'd vibe and then next thing I know I'm being interviewed and then that I'm listening to all their podcasts and when Sean and I were talking last year and he said you should do it.

[00:24:36] I was like correction we should do it and here you go and here we are man. I love the name I understand the name now. Yeah, yeah, no it's just guy right here I can't take credit for that.

[00:24:49] It's nothing else if nothing else you get content from it that you can post. Yeah, even if nobody even if nobody listens to it you get content that you can post your your articulation gets better.

[00:25:02] But if you look at Joe Rogan like Joe Rogan makes it look so easy Joe Rogan is a phenomenal articulator question asker.

[00:25:10] Yep and and that sort of thing and can make anything interesting and it improves your your day to day life and your your the situations you deal with in business and all that sort of stuff.

[00:25:25] You know the biggest advice I give anybody it seems now like everybody's starting a podcast. Yeah, um. The the joke I made recently was kids are like insurance podcasts they're really easy to make and not a Russian have one. But. But.

[00:25:42] It's really good big it's it the biggest advice I can give anyone is don't stop. Yeah, like with podcasting. The biggest metric to success is volume consistency and not stopping. There's so many like if you do if you do 50 episodes you're in the top 1% of podcasts on Apple.

[00:26:06] Whoa. Faith. I saw that we're just looking at this the other day I was like oh, I got to check out this because I was shit. I wanted to get with you and I was like, oh, check out this podcast and I was like wait.

[00:26:17] What happened to it? Like it stopped like two years ago. Like you get into one and be like wait, like yeah and then I started looking at a couple more I'm like me and the thing already 20 deep. Yeah. Good thing we've already got to put your head down.

[00:26:31] You got to put your head down. Yep. And you just got to say hey we're going to we're going to do this. We're going to commit to doing this and you know there was another insurance podcast that I sort of helped get started.

[00:26:42] And the guy reached out to me was a month in. And he was freaking out because he only got 200 downloads. Yeah. And I gave him I gave him for all you listening most podcast platforms. They don't give you subscribers. They don't give you any metrics other than downloads.

[00:26:59] Yeah. And and the download can be multiple listens. It can be no listens, right? Yeah. And so he was freaking out. Now, I gave him all my like usual advice like hey, if I put 200 people in this ran that'd be a lot of people.

[00:27:15] You know, I got all like enough stuff and they just went have it. I was like, I want a second. So I log into Lipsen and I pull up our first month. Yeah. And I was like. Do you know how many people listen downloaded the first month?

[00:27:28] And he said, I don't know like it's thousand. And I said it was eight. You're like and I was ecstatic. Yeah. One, no, I didn't even look at it. Yeah. Was it that? Yeah. I probably would have been discouraged too. But one was me. One was Skype.

[00:27:45] My mom got my my grandmother's Scott's grandmother. Like that's it. That's all right. We got it. You know. And so it's like dude, just if you're doing it to get the downloads, you're doing it for the wrong reason. Okay.

[00:27:59] If I scrape a lot of bottom line, especially now with the just the the market being so satisfied. Yeah. It's not noise. It's not okay. Everybody everybody's going to podcast and then you have other people who are doing a podcast,

[00:28:13] but they're really just doing it to get content. It's not an actual podcast. So it's just we're inundated with that. But that's my advice man. I'll appreciate it. It's just make it good and do it as long as you can. They can't promise that it'll be good.

[00:28:27] What will promise that will keep doing it though? It's going to be banging. And you got to be yourself too. Yeah. I'm working on a presentation that I'm going to give whenever I speak again, on just like being yourself on social media.

[00:28:42] Like I've got a buddy who literally live tweeted his colonoscopy. Oh my god. And got like crazy engagement from it. Not pit not pictures just for you. But just just just making it, making it funny like he was on a date just the sale.

[00:29:01] But you got to be yourself online. Like you can't be a fake version of yourself. Like an example that I'm going to give. So I was I was recently on the cover of Independent Agent magazine, which is a magazine

[00:29:16] that goes to basically every independent agency in the country. It was a very humbling thing for it. It was really cool. And they asked me it wasn't like I was trying to play. And I was actually completely shocked when they asked me to.

[00:29:30] I was the first person ever to be on that magazine. It wasn't wearing a suit and the tweet. Were you wearing cats? I was not. No, I was wearing jeans. Gings in a flannel.

[00:29:45] But the tweet that got the attention of the editor of the magazine that led to that happening. He told me this was a tweet that I tweeted that said,

[00:29:57] Hey, it was just a funny tweet and it said, hey, just so you know when you buy a book of business. And there's a person when you buy a progressive insurance book of business. When the policies are sent into your system, progressive calls that an initial dump.

[00:30:15] That was it. How would that seal the deal? The initial dump. He saw that and he was like this guy's real and hilarious. And he's talking about him and a they were doing an article about him and a that's how that happened.

[00:30:33] The catch is if you're an asshole in real life. It'll be an asshole online and people are going to control you very true. That's the catch you've got to be yourself either one of those is better than being a fake version,

[00:30:47] but you've got to be real and you've got to show you. Otherwise people are going to read right, especially now in so many people are inundated with content and inundated everything. You know everybody's trying to be a freaking influence. Someone's right. So yeah.

[00:31:05] Hey everyone, this is Tim your favorite bricks and risk co-hosts, but don't tell Sean. I hope you're enjoying this episode and I'll get right back to it in a moment. Our audience grows through word of mouth.

[00:31:18] So if you would please take a moment of your time and give us a review on the platform you're on, that would be fantastic. Please also help spread the BNR word by sharing your favorite episode with a friend.

[00:31:30] We greatly appreciate your time and trust now back to the show. Got it. Well really appreciate that. So here's another one for you. So you complete a soft launch of mind your agency. So why that seemed like a good subsidiary business opportunity for you.

[00:31:52] What was it about that deal that made sense? Yeah, so most agencies don't have standard operating procedures and then when you, when you, And to that most agencies don't have a centralized hub where everything lives. Operationaly agency wise and that sort of thing.

[00:32:12] So in COVID hit, you know, and if you go to work for like a big company like a state farm or a goose head or an all state, You know they have internal internet.

[00:32:22] It's their own internal system when you log in and you go to the home screen, everything, Everything you could want to know about the agency for HR to processes and boy handbook, Tech they use resources and mental health stuff, all that kind of jazz.

[00:32:40] They have it there. Well, a lot of independent agencies don't have that. And so in COVID hit we worked from home for two months during COVID. I'm in Alabama, so we didn't have to work from home if we didn't want to.

[00:32:53] But we did and and so I needed a project. So I was like, why don't I start putting together this internet? And so we I started it and then I quickly handed it off to my director of operations. And it's like a whiz with this stuff.

[00:33:09] And so it's been a I guess now four year process, we built this like awesome agency internet. It's got everything on there. We hired somebody to do code to code certain things.

[00:33:22] You know, everything from our if our team, you know, we're at the point now we're in like 20 states. We have probably a couple hundred carriers or MGAs. And we a risk will come in. I'm like, I don't know who we have that could write this.

[00:33:37] So we we can literally go to the internet pick the state pick the class of business boom. Here's all the carriers here's their underwriting guidelines. Did they you know how did they do their building? How did they you know what exclusions add that sort of thing?

[00:33:51] If people want to take time off there's a time off thing is people have a question about. And boy, handbook if they have a question about.

[00:34:01] What's our holiday schedule like literally everything is on there's the central hub when people go people log in our computers as the first thing it comes up. And then we added in all of our processes in there.

[00:34:13] We built a search function it looks and is a Google search but it's a Google search for our processes. So the idea was is I want to be able to take a homeless person off the streets.

[00:34:24] And then we said I'm going to desk somebody calls into file claim they can type claim and it's got the exact process right here. So it allows you to spin up new employees faster.

[00:34:34] So if you look at companies that build internet there's one or two if not both problems one is their really expensive most companies that build internet for you require you to have like 200 employees and they're going to charge you 20 bucks a month per employee.

[00:34:51] And then it takes forever to build it and our whole thing is like hey yeah you can build it yourself.

[00:34:57] But it's going to take you four years just like it took us so essentially what we're doing that was almost like that was me years ago I tried to do it on a SharePoint site really.

[00:35:07] So if you could like build it out on a SharePoint site because we're already hooked into. Like a soft and all that and so like you would we would have dedicated pages for carriers but.

[00:35:20] It's um, I did it know that you have a droid and not on my phone. That was of my first question yeah it's it's an Android recognition app that you plug into it's like we can't work with you money so yeah.

[00:35:32] Next couple of more but super hard and you know it's just constantly updating new carriers new running online I mean it just it's to a point where you get to a to a certain point and then you just have to like.

[00:35:45] Walk away almost and like because it's too much the amount of time that you're. Um updating right and then if one thing's off and it's like what's the point you know then it's like what's the point is system because or something changes exactly something changes with the care.

[00:36:01] Yeah, and literally in the last year with these underwriting guidelines I mean we were getting like email email I mean it was like a weekly thing where carriers. We're changing everything about their products from week to week so it's like yeah. I suppose to keep it.

[00:36:17] Yeah, it's a time position.

[00:36:19] I do that but yeah, so the idea was like basically you know you go to like a website vendor right you get a pre built site that you plug your stuff in and it's updated over time by you and by the website vendor as they add features so it's essentially a website vendor but it's for internal website.

[00:36:38] So kind of like like a more interest is for like a consumer facing website is that what this is for like your internal internet that kind of thing essentially. Yeah, so hours are built on SharePoint or Google site you can be on either.

[00:36:50] And the idea is we just take this beast of an internet that we built and offer that to other agencies. So essentially yeah so I. We've got two offerings right and we're soft launching it's a Kenneth is in charge of it he's the operating partner of that company.

[00:37:07] He's the one that essentially took my shell that I built and ran where that it made it every time I log into it I'm like oh I didn't know we had this.

[00:37:14] And so the idea is we have like basically one of two packages we have one and this is not me selling by the way because to be honest with you like we've had a good amount of interest with our soft launch that I don't know if we can take anybody else yet but if you're interested let me know we can figure it out.

[00:37:30] One plan is a little bit more expensive upfront but cheaper recurring and that is a three month build out process where we build it out with your processes.

[00:37:40] Wow, and then the other is a is a plug and play where you basically get our processes and then there's a monthly call there's a monthly call with our team where we updated for you and teach you how to do it.

[00:37:54] And you can maintain it as well and tweak things and that sort of thing so that's that's the idea.

[00:38:00] So you're basically giving like a skeleton framework option this is like we've done a lot of the infrastructure and you put your stuff in or if you need back office policies procedures advice information will give you what we've done and you can just use that.

[00:38:20] And copy what we're doing kind of but pay up. And so that's that's more for newer agencies or agencies that don't have processes. That's what I have to help those guys too and.

[00:38:29] Is it matter like captive independent in a standardized is it matter, is it so generic in nature just from process. So captive might be a problem from the captive standpoint.

[00:38:47] Like you know what I'm saying from our in like no we can definitely in fact from our end to to be way easier to do it for a captive agent. Oh yeah, it's got to be compliant because then and then. From ENS thing I mean, I think it's.

[00:39:04] It's more of an advantage for ENS people because we're heavy in S. Yeah, you know what I mean and then we're working on to deal with a payroll company.

[00:39:12] We're going to payroll built in there too so I've like you know you're getting to the point where you're hiring people and you need a payroll company we're going to offer that as well. Nice. So nice. Yeah it's a project it's a project I'm excited about.

[00:39:25] I think it fits. It's you know. I think it's like how how do we help people how do we help agents what's a need in the market. You know what I mean and and I think it.

[00:39:38] I don't know if anybody else that does it and it's something that people need. I mean it completely changed the game for us it makes us look more professional to new hire. So sure it makes us look and feel more like a corporation in a good way.

[00:39:52] Yeah, then just a mom and pop shop that you know. Yeah, I think we're going to do that. We're going to do that. We're going to do that. We're going to do that. We're going to do that. Oh, yes. I do it.

[00:40:06] Here's the accordion file with all the payrolls. Yeah. Like George Costance in that's I felt episodes with the wallet. What you've been doing here. I'll never forget I. I had a conversation. Sean's probably heard the story before I had a conversation. I was like, I'm sorry.

[00:40:22] We had a like an official. They do and that was like why the hell do you have an insurance. Yeah. Department and what is your job? And so his job is to talk to.

[00:40:34] This is going to like rub you Mr. Android the wrong way but his job is to talk to insurance agents, carriers and vendors and convince them to have their products work on Apple. Yeah.

[00:40:47] Obviously the reason is so they can sell more product but the thesis behind it is. You've got this generation that the majority of them have never been on an Apple ecosystem. I've never been on anything but an Apple ecosystem.

[00:41:00] And you're going to put them in front of a legacy computer or a legacy tech on an old PC that you're using Microsoft Excel and expect them to be happy and expect that to at scale not to have a negative impact on the perpetuation of the insurance industry.

[00:41:16] And when he said that I was like you literally just explained why UI UX is important to me. Why want my systems to look as our average age is 28 at our company. Now I have a 65 year old and a 45 year old that worked for me.

[00:41:29] Our average age is 28 so that's how young people were hiring. I can't put them in front of the dinosaur system and expect them to know how to use it.

[00:41:38] And so that kind of plays into the mind your agency stuff like like if you're trying to hire somebody and convince them to make your company to make your company to do it.

[00:41:45] And make your company their lifelong career and you don't have something as simple as like a central hub where everything lives. Not customer data but internal stuff that's that's going to have a negative impact because you know like.

[00:42:00] Like, guys like us like we're entrepreneurs like we're okay with things not being normal you know we're okay with. Yeah, but but people who want a job and want to work at a company which is a large percentage of this younger generation.

[00:42:14] They don't want that like they want structure. Yeah, you know so that's the that's the ethos behind that that deal.

[00:42:20] I got to believe that that one of the biggest advantages of having that system or the implementation of that system is tied to acquisition when you acquire an agency.

[00:42:35] Yeah, right. So you're quite an agency it's like yeah it's like chocolate and vanilla it's not it's two different two different ways of doing business here it is I mean like now you just brought on 10 employees right so it's not that they have to like learn your systems or how did you do this it's like no right here just log in.

[00:42:56] Our biggest our biggest struggle right now with this acquisition we just did we had five employees that came over. Our biggest struggle is getting them up to speed and getting them.

[00:43:06] Mesh then and use to the processes and that sort of thing and it's been hard I cannot imagine how much harder would be if they have a resource to research their question before they ask it.

[00:43:18] It's taking time away from you it's taking time away from you know other team members that need to be doing their job that now are doing their job and that other person's job.

[00:43:30] Absolutely yeah I got one more for you really so absolutely you go to quote that you gave us is successes like a slingshot the further you get pull back the further you are propelled forward why does that one resonate with you what what being you put that down.

[00:43:47] So I'm going to tell you. You guys back to hiring younger people. Not that we're intentionally looking for just younger people. I would I would love some more right here's on my team.

[00:44:03] The so don't say me but just because of the nature of us being a new company you know like. We were skinny jeans like like a younger folks are attracted to us. I've run into some situations where.

[00:44:21] I think a lot of kids go to college man and they expect to be making 150 out of the gate and they expect their next job to be 160 and they expect their next job to be 200 and careers don't work that way.

[00:44:36] You've got to be willing to take risks and sometimes take a step back to go forward. Your careers are not linear. Life is not linear you can't go from here to here to here to here to here is the people that always try to take a step up.

[00:44:56] The end up getting stuck. The first thing that took the risk that maybe took a step back and income but because they saw an opportunity. Or the ones that end up ahead of everybody else.

[00:45:08] So I think I've been looking for a college to let me give that speech.

[00:45:13] But I think it's just all about like setting expectations and being willing to take a risk or better off it's so it's so easy to take the the dead end job that's going to pay you.

[00:45:26] 20% of market rate but guess what you're not getting many raises they're going to treat you like crap. You know what I mean? Yeah. And there's a good version of that out there but that's just something that's been heavy on my mind.

[00:45:38] And that's not to say like we underpair people or anything like that at all in fact we overpair people not overpaid for them but overpaid in terms of like industry. So the market. Yeah.

[00:45:48] But I just kept seeing these kids over and over and they're like oh well I want to be a producer and I want to make $150 dollars and I'm like we've never sold a freaking insurance policy. Yeah.

[00:45:59] Like you have to prove yourself you know when I left the captive company to start this I was making 160. And I didn't tell anybody that because all my buddies would have told me I was crazy but I went from 160 to.

[00:46:12] And then I got a negative zero or less than negative less than zero for two years. Yeah.

[00:46:18] But was way happier and was then able to propel myself forward so you just got a and then that quote also goes in a buddy of mine Chris may actually said it to me but that also goes into like. You know sit back some stuff.

[00:46:31] You know what what oh, you know if if you're religious like what's God trying to teach you in this setback not religious what's the universe trying to teach you in this setback like there's opportunity and every.

[00:46:41] And every problem or so so good man. So before we close it out why don't you tell the listeners where they can find you and learn more about what you got going on. Just go to any social platform and just type my name in.

[00:47:00] I'll come up and reach out to me. I'm pretty active everywhere and probably there's active on Instagram Instagram and Twitter probably the two I'm more likely to answer to the. I'm sure the M on Instagram that I am Twitter, because there's some crazy people on Twitter.

[00:47:14] But the are peloton. The are a they want to play VR. Get your their practice. I get your ask. I made it up to number two in the world and VR. Wow.

[00:47:30] And the the I started when I first started new that was ranking that was 150 and I'm super competitive so became a thing.

[00:47:39] And I went from 150 to number two and the different and it's based on points the difference between number two and number one 50 was less than a point. Yeah, the difference between number two and number one was like six points. Yeah.

[00:47:53] So I was like I'm not I'm going to have to like quit my job and like you know do this all the time and so I stopped doing that but now just it's it's literally it's like my escape for 20 minutes there.

[00:48:03] I literally I get on there every night and I play 20 minutes 18 holes of VR golf. And they had this cool thing now. I have a partnership with a PGA tour where they have a lot of PGA tour courses on there.

[00:48:16] So whatever course the PGA is a minute that week you play it under the same conditions. Yeah, and stuff and and you can play against the pros and they have their own tournament and stuff.

[00:48:28] Like the other day I was playing the VR waste management open nice shots 60 and the opening round which I think was was lower than any of the pros. So I was like oh that's that's how I get my that's how I get my golf things.

[00:48:44] I miss this is me off that I like it so much because I'm not a gamer. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I like I can't trust you. I don't play anything else. I don't know what else the Oculus does that's the only thing I do.

[00:48:56] Oh, man. Well, let me say we really appreciate your time today Bradley so so that's all we have for this one folks. Thank you for tuning in again to another episode of bricks and risk. See you soon.

[00:49:09] Thank you for joining us on another episode of bricks and risk. Our goal is that you walk away with one or two valuable nuggets and we greatly appreciate you sharing your time with us today.

[00:49:21] You can find all B&R episodes on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and anywhere else you get your podcast content. Until next time keep learning and keep growing.