A Winning Second Half / The List You Need To Finish 2023 Strong - ITB InsuRant with Rick Fox

It's the second half of 2023! What can you do right now to prepare your agency for a strong run down the stretch? In today's Insurance The Brightway (ITB) “InsuRant,” Rick Fox helps you prioritize the keys to a big win in the last two quarters of the year.

See the list you can't afford to miss in this special ITB “InsuRant.”

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ITB is a weekly podcast brought to you by Brightway Insurance, the insurance franchising leader coast-to-coast.

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Transcript

Rick:
Welcome back to another episode of the ITB Insurance, the Brightway podcast. I'm the host Rick Fox. And today it's another insurer rant. Buckle up. Here we go. So, uh, the thing that I like to do, and you all know this, any of you that have listened before is I like to rant about things that are top of mind for me. So. I came up with an idea here actually just over the last two days. For those of you that don't know, I live in the Sarasota area and our headquarters is in the Jacksonville area. So anyone who lives in Florida knows that traveling by plane from Florida to Florida, different places, is miserable. It's awful. It's hard to do. It's super expensive. So while I don't love it, I end up making the commute to the office. in a car. I rent a car, I take my own car, but it's a four plus hour drive on Florida freeways and I at some point will absolutely rant about Florida freeways. But this time I wanted to, the thing I did this time was I listened to Sirius Radio, both up and back. And those again that know me know I'm a basketball junkie, so I listen to NBA radio a lot. Well, it's August. right now and there is not a lot going on in the NBA. So they're filling, they're using content to fill. And so what they're going around doing is having all of these, you know, pundits and people that know about the game or ex players do their top 10 lists, top 10 players of all time, top five defensive players of all time. And everybody's list is different and they talk about it for hours and blah, blah. And I just kind of was like watching or listening in and thinking, okay, here's what I'm gonna rant about. I'm gonna give you a top five list of my own. 

So it is mid August. We are halfway through the third quarter of the year, and which means we're a long way through the year, but there's still a lot of time left. And so what I want you to do, because this is what they did on the show, everybody that came on, every guest, every caller, everybody that was on. had to give their list. I want you to make a list. I'm gonna give you mine. Let me give you the topic in a minute. I'm gonna give you my top five list. But I want, and I want you to, if you wanna pull some off that list, great. If you wanna come up with your own. But the goal of today is to reset or recalibrate the rest of your year with the top five things you wanna focus on. We get stuck so much and this is an insurance. obviously we're an insurance agency, I bet insurance forever, so this is going to be a very insurance-centric podcast as it normally is, but this fits for anybody in life. It is a good time of the year right now to make sure that you're dotting your I's, crossing your T's, and moving forward and finishing up whatever it is you need to finish up or move forward in the rest of the year. 

So I'm gonna give you my top five things to focus on that I believe are the top five things you should focus on. And similar to all of those different people that gave their lists on the best NBA players of all time, you don't have to agree with the five. What I hope it'll do is maybe you'll find one, maybe you'll find five that do fit into your focus and what you need to be thinking about and working toward this year. But it jogs you and starts to get you thinking put together your own top five list. So take out a piece of paper, start jotting down on your computer, and make your own top five list, and then go attack that list for the rest of the year. 

Okay. So top five. Number one, you've heard me say this before. I'm going to say it again. I'm going to continue to say it. We are in a hard market, so the number one focus point is retention. So think about it in terms of how much... More is happening in the market with rate increases, non-renewals, everything that's happening. It is of the utmost importance right now that you are focused on the customers that are already customers. You are doing everything in your power to make sure they feel the value, make sure that you are giving them the service that they not only need. But now, 2023 and beyond, that they demand. So think about the campaigns you're working on. Are you marketing to them in an automated fashion? Are you reaching out to them in ways that's adding value, that's reminding them that you're there for them? Are you looking at ways to get more of their insurance, which obviously benefits you, but it also benefits them? So from an agency level, Retention is number one on my focus list. So I look at that and I think, if I did nothing else but number one, and this in my basketball list would be Michael Jordan, even though I'm a Lakers guy, but my Michael Jordan of focus for the rest of the year is retention. And everybody says, and a lot of you pay lip service to it, I am telling you that in this market, you must, it is a requirement that you are, very locked in on keeping the customers on the books that you already have. Now there's plenty of opportunities here to go out and get new business and find those agencies that are not focused on retention at number one or even on top five and go steal business in it. I mean that I don't mean that negatively. I mean go get business, but you've got customers in house. Keep them. Keep them happy. give them what they deserve, which is professional guidance and added value with what you bring as an agent and as an agency and as a part of the community. So number one is retention. And that easily, in fact, my original list, like I wrote down a bunch of things and every time I went to order them, retention was one. Number two is culture. And I want to add onto that with an asterisk, staff. So how is your agency doing culturally? This is a real difficult time. Your agents and your staff is working harder than ever to keep that business, to help continue to retain business because of the markets. Again, the rate increases, the... the non renewals or cancellations or the companies that are going out of business and you're having to move books and things like that. We're at an all time high with the amount of work it takes. That is still what you need to do to answer focus number one which is retention. 

But focus number two is your culture and the staff around you. Is there an environment where they feel like they're not just buried on a daily basis. Is there a culture where they feel supported not only by leadership, but by peers, and even by people that might report into them if they're in some kind of a leadership position? Is that the culture that you have in your office? And you don't have to be an agency principal to have an impact on culture. You can take this to leadership or be a leader and say, here's how we need to be changing the way we look at being better at being a family and being a business that people want to come work here, that people want to come to work every day that do work here and creating a culture of empowerment and inclusivity and all of the things that you want out of your daily work that give you, and here, this is part of culture too, why do we do what we do and building around your why? will build a lot of your culture. It will help your staff feel like they're part of something, even on those days. And it doesn't matter what kind of market we're in. We all have those days where there's just so much work and so much that needs to be done that you can affect that. So if, are you taking, whether again, you own the agency or you work in the agency, are you taking time out to have a positive impact on the environment? that you and the other people that you work with live in, sit in, wake up to do the job and go home. People are going to spend more time with the people they work with nowadays, not as much as maybe a few years ago when we were all in the office, but still you spend more time working than most of us do with our families. So that culture needs to be there and that staff needs to feel all of those things that I mentioned. So number two, Most definitely to me is culture. 

And number three to me could be to A, but there's many more ways it's not just about culture. So I wanna have it be its own number. Number three is efficiency. We have so many ways that we could be doing things better. Obviously, you all know me, you've all listened to podcasts of mine before, especially in my past life where I lived in a technology world. That hasn't changed. The way I look at the world hasn't changed. Technology is here to help you be more efficient. But are you focused? Again, this is our top five things to focus on. Are you spending time not pushing paper? not moving through a day and hoping to get through and starting over in the morning, but finding ways, whether you again are the principal at that agency or you work in that agency, to be more efficient, to cut out 20% of the busy work, to do things in a way, maybe you've never done them before, but that would change your ability to get more done or would pull you back, and this is true for a lot of agencies. pull you back to a place where if I was more efficient, I could actually get my work done. Because one of the killers of culture is people always feeling like they're underwater. And the way to solve that is efficiency. The easy solve or the way we've always kind of done it is we're busy hire someone. And I'm not saying that's not an answer. But I want to make sure if we are focusing on five things this year, number three is just the word efficiency. I need you to take a look at all aspects of your business, all aspects of your workflows, all aspects of the way you communicate with your carriers, your customers, your vendors, your community in general. And think of ways, maybe they're even outside the box, that you could be more efficient in what you do. And what will happen if you were to say, save 20% of the time of the people that work in the office with efficiency gains. You would affect your culture, back to number two, one of your focal points, and you would have the ability to get more done or get everything that needs to be done, done. Worst, worst agencies that I know, and I know a lot of agencies from my years in the business, are the ones that leave Friday afternoon. knowing they're coming back Monday morning to a pile of work. It's already there. They're already gonna be underwater when they walk in the door Monday morning. What does that do to a psyche? What does that do to your motivation to be excited to be at the office, to be at your desk in your home office, wherever you work? But efficiency, it has to be addressed. This is almost... Like if you're writing down my five in pencil, obviously retention, I would hope you'd put in pen, and efficiency would be in pen too. Because if you think about it, how much you can affect retention, how much you can affect culture and the way that people in the office feel, efficiency is top of that list. It could be one on this list, but I have retention at number one. So efficiency is like to me, gold standard efficiency means your people are able to handle more work. You are able to get more done as an organization because you are, whether it's leveraging technology, updating your best practices in the way you use workflows, looking at different opportunities and ways to get things done faster, not to lose anything in the way of, quality, but just more efficient. Have you looked at having a portal attached to your agency so people can self-serve? Think about the amount of work that would take off. Is your website informational enough that sometimes they can get an answer from your website and not have to call you or email you? Does that give more time back? Okay. Soapbox, efficiency, I think you number three with a bullet because it could again be higher than that but it impacts one and two immeasurably. All right these are other ones and these are ones I wanted to put in there to kind of give you other things to think about they might not be on your list but maybe it'll spark your interest on something else you want to put on your top five list. Again this is the top five list things we're going to focus on between now and the end of the year and be just be as good as we can be. And it takes energy, it takes effort, but if you focus on things and you don't just try to boil the ocean and get through a day, you can really, really affect change in an office. You can really affect actual quantitative numbers, retention, new business, overall profitability of the agency. Those are things that can be impacted by putting a little energy and effort into some of these things. 

All right, number four. I'm putting and I'm titling, if you're writing these down, carrier relations. What do I mean? I mean two things. Number one is looking at your carrier mix and deciding if you have the right mix. So having a lot of carriers doesn't always mean you have the right mix. Sometimes agencies have too many carriers and they have carriers that they think, oh, we wrote these three customers that did this thing once and now we still have them. And they come in every quarter and they talk to us and they want business, but we don't really do it. Or you're broadening and you're affecting your ability to maybe qualify for other bonuses or better commission rates or things like that by not looking at your mix. Or in this hard market, do you have the right? Is there someone out there you don't have that you should be talking to that is still interested in writing homes in this particular state and has rates that are good or auto in this other state that still actually even writing businesses, some of the carriers have pulled back. So that's the first part of care relations is do you have the right mix? So you need to... even if it's a spreadsheet, write down all your carriers and say, what am I missing? What am I not using that I have where I could, gotta do a book roll, could I take these seven customers and manually look to place them elsewhere because I'm not really a good partner, which leads to the second part is, do you have a good relationship at the carrier level? Do you have a, I'll help you, you help me relationship. I'm gonna keep this carrier. Nameless, they probably know who they are if they listen to this, but I met with them yesterday Spent a couple hours And we understand each other they are trying their best to do what they're trying to do And I am trying my best to help my company do what we want to do And those things are meeting And we are building a very strong relationship. I have not been at brightway for a year yet But I am starting to from my old days as an agency principal I understand what carrier's goals are, and I understand what my goals are. Those goals don't always match up. That doesn't make the carrier wrong. That doesn't make us right as agents. There's a happy medium where everybody wins and everybody gets to a point where profitable business stays on the books longer, makes you more money. and inevitably makes your agency's long-term value higher. So the two parts of carrier relations, do I have the right mix and do I have good relationships? Take a pause, look at that list you made about your mix and then think what your relationship is with that carrier. Do you have carriers that you're just literally slapping business on and hoping that it sticks? Who does that do good for? No one. Carriers hate it. Those customers probably aren't long-term for you anyway. And if you're just looking for a wham-bam quick buck, you will burn a bridge that is un, or is impossible to ever rebuild. So it is important that you are energetically putting, or putting energy toward the relationships that you have with your carriers. So do I have the right mix, and do I have good relationships? That's number four, carry relations. 

And the fifth one, which I just put in here as someone who looks at the independent channel and looks at the principles and this obviously doesn't speak to everybody, but there are a lot of you out there who have been insurance folks for a very long time and might not understand the value of being business folks. So number five is expense analysis. So you make money, you spend money, And whatever's left over is profit, simple profit and loss. We bring in this much commission, we spend this much to keep the lights on, service it, pay for E&O, blah, on and on, advertising, and whatever's left over at the bottom is what you make. You can impact the top by what, selling more new business, getting your retention numbers up, just being good at... being an insurance agent. That's how you make money. That's your top line. That's your revenue. Awesome. Everybody focuses there. The expense portion of your profit and loss statement is where sometimes we don't put enough energy into. And so what I'm asking you, number five on your list, is an expense analysis. Are you in a... I'm just going to throw out some examples. Are you in a position where the... office that you rent is more expensive than you should be spending? When is that lease up? Could you move locations? Like all of those pieces, that's one example. Do I have the right number of staff? Am I thinking of adding more staff? Do I have the right technologies? Am I spending money on technology or am I spending money on something else that no one's even using? So doing an expense analysis and looking at your profit and loss and saying, okay, we make, I'll make this up, we make a million bucks and we spend 1.2 million bucks. A million dollar agency is a good agency. But if you're spending more than you're making... That's not good. I don't need to be a rocket scientist or an MBA to know that's not good. And are you taking a hard look at that? I know that on a daily basis, most agents focus on business, new business and retention. They're insurance customers, business. But the business that you run is just as important. So doing an expense analysis and holding yourself to a consistency within that budget helps you make more money at the end of the year. So if you have any position of leadership, now obviously this list, it isn't completely focused on principles of agencies because anybody can use some of these things and anybody can change their list. Like I said, there was not one person that I listened to for our drive up, for our drive back. They talked about little else. I was on calls in between, but every minute I listened to they were talking about somebody's list and critiquing it. So you can critique mine, please critique away. 

But at the end of the day, you're talking about all I'm asking of you is top five focus list. Go do your list. I'll repeat mine. If any of them resonate, please take them, use them, benefit from them. Number one, retention. Number two, your culture with your staff or the staff. Number three, efficiency and efficiency gains. Number four, carrier relations. Again, two topics, right mix, good relationship with the carrier. And number five, expense analysis. I could do 10, I had 10. I don't wanna just keep going because you'll stop, you're probably already bored. But if you're not, and this makes sense, you still have... four plus months this year, and now you have a foundational thing that you can focus on that should help drive positive, not only revenue and expense analysis to your bottom line, but the way people feel about it, the way you get business done, and they're all tied together. Use mine, find your own. I'm just imploring you right now to Do a top five list. Stay consistent with that list. Spend time and energy and focus on the things that need to be focused on that are on your list. Do that and I promise you, as you get toward Thanksgiving and Christmas, you will feel the differences if you put the energy into it and it is well worth it. So anyway, that was all drummed up by me listening to these NBA lists and these guys talking about what was right and what was wrong. And I'm not saying my list is perfect, but it's hopefully a good jumping off point for you to write your list. So good luck with your list. I am hopeful, I am staying positive that you'll take this energy. You will stay consistent with that and you will make a difference in your business or the business that you work in over the next few months. and crush the rest of 23. Thank you everybody who listens to this. If you could do me the solid of going and subscribing to the podcast, wherever you get your podcasts, if you like it, give us a review there, add a comment on Apple or Spotify or wherever you get that. Make sure you're connected with me on LinkedIn. I'm getting tons of love and tons of direct messages with, hey, we love the show, or how about this person as a guest? or here's a great topic for a rant, keep that coming. Let's keep that, let's build this community around this podcast. Love all the feedback, love what we're doing here. Appreciate you all out there. Get your top five list, your top five focus list, get to work. Thanks for tuning in and we'll see you next time.