ITB with Dean Giem - Engaging and Educating, Evolving Your Agency This Fall

On this week's Insurance The Brightway (ITB) podcast, Paradox Insurance Founder and CEO Dean Giem shows you how engaging your customers and educating them on what's best can take your business to the next level!

ITB host Rick Fox shares the mic with Dean as they help you find the results that will benefit everyone. From policyholder to agent, Dean provides you with game changing ideas that will help evolve you and your agency.

New episodes are available every Thursday at noon EDT.

Listen and subscribe to the ITB podcast at www.brightwaydifference.com/podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts today!

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

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Transcript

Rick (00:12.076)
Welcome back to another episode of the ITB Insurance, the Brightway podcast. I'm the host Rick Fox and today, man, one of the best dudes in the industry. One of my favorites, Dean Giem here today. Dean, thanks for being on the show, man.

Dean Giem (00:29.926)
Thanks Rick, very kind words, appreciate it.

Rick (00:32.292)
So Dean is a lifer of insurance, or pretty much so. We'll get to his journey, but I want to just shout out that, I've said this before, I'm gonna say it again, and Dean is the poster child for what I'm about to say. I love having people on the show that love to help others in this industry, and Dean is at the very top of that list. He is the president, currently president of Paradox Insurance. He's on the executive council at Augie. He was... five years on the NetView board chairman, past chairman. Like this guy's all over the place helping the industry. And I think what he's done now is kind of dialed some of that back so we can focus on his business. But in the meantime, never a minute where he's not willing to jump in and help somebody in this industry. So, uh, Dean, again, thank you for being here. And thank you for being you. We appreciate you. This industry appreciates you. And I thought it would be good for us to get your perspective.

Uh, cause I believe, you know, from our days working together when I was at Vertifor, you have a very good understanding of the functional use of technology in today's agencies. So I want to get to that, but before we do, I'd love for the, for the listeners to kind of just get a sense for your journey, like how, how did we get here, how did you end up, you know, in insurance and all the way through to where you are now?

Dean Giem (01:55.046)
Yeah, it's a journey I really appreciate and I love the industry. I love the business and that's why I've been in as long as I have. Originally, I was going to be an engineer. I was going to go to school for civil engineering and ended up in retail of all things. Got tired of missing out on the kids and the holidays and long hours, time for change. My wife at the time, she wanted to go back to work, so she was headed that direction. I was going to be a stay at home dad.

Rick (02:04.796)
Okay.

Dean Giem (02:24.11)
that lasted about two months. And so I lost a little bit of hair, she was ready to come home and I started looking for a new career. And it really was a coin toss between car sales of all things and insurance. I had opportunities in both. I love cars, I love things that go fast. But when you get down to it from a financial perspective, the annuity aspect of insurance really was appealing long-term. So got in with a captive direct rider and then spent some time there. Really had no idea that the independent channel even existed. And I kind of head down in a hole for a long time and got into the independent channel seven years later with a small agency in Littleton, Colorado. Again, just kind of head down, not realizing all this great stuff that's out there. Got involved with the Vertifor product and user groups and things a little bit after that. And ended up in...

Rick (03:00.087)
Mm-hmm.

Dean Giem (03:23.798)
...late 2019, mid 19, late 19 spinning up paradox insurance agency and not even really spinning it up. I shook my life box upside down, moved out of Denver, Colorado and went to Calispell, Montana by Glacier National Park. I knew two other people. And so I call it a step back from scratch agency.

Rick (03:47.312)
I love that. I love that. Hey Dean, so, and you and I spent a lot of time working together at Vertifor, especially because I was on the board as well when you were a nephew. And so we got to spend a lot of time just not only just working on the tech side of things, but just on getting to know each other. And I just, I do really appreciate you as an individual in this industry. And I know you do a lot of these podcasts, but I do have to flex here just for a moment.

Rick (04:17.572)
first ever podcast was. Do you mind? Do you mind just, let's just, just humor me with your very first ever podcast.

Dean Giem (04:24.342)
Yeah, the first ever podcast was recorded, I believe in Atlanta, 2018, with a gentleman by the name of Rick Fox, the VIP podcast. Yeah, the very first one.

Rick (04:32.664)
Yes, there it is. They're the VIP. I think it was Cincinnati. I think it was Accelerate, right? Yeah. And I think it might've been, I don't know where it was, but I do remember you and I sitting, that's right. That's right. That's exactly right. So I think we're probably now both numbers are quite larger than one and have probably gotten better. I'd love to listen back to that one and cringe together at how.

Dean Giem (04:42.102)
It was Accelerate....

Dean Giem (04:46.476)
It was a hotel room somewhere.

Rick (05:00.956)
...we probably were at podcasting at that point. Okay. Let's jump in. So, um, for me, no one has ever heard me talk and not talk about the power of technology and insurance. Um, but, but I think where you can give this even some more kind of oomph is, is that you're, you're in an agency, you're in a small to midsize agency. Now...You're running it, so you're making the decisions. And technology, your journey is what I'd kind of like to talk about. So if we're, if we're going to like frame this up as preparing for future technology, I would love for you to kind of tell your story of your tech journey. And why, like to me, the why is almost the most, not the, the components or the, but why technology started to play such a big role in the success of what you were doing and the growth of what you were trying to build. So start with the past and then we'll go from there.

Dean Giem (06:03.318)
Yeah, I think when we think about technology as a whole, it's something that's out there. It needs to be something that you can use and function with. It's gotta be adaptable and really embraced from an organizational standpoint. And when I was in my early part of the career, we had a system, it was kind of locked down. It did a lot of things for us, but it was punching numbers and spreadsheets.

I've always had a fascination with technology. I've never worked in the industry, but I love what it does and how it can be used to make things easier. And I think I'm, I say sometimes I'm too dumb to do it otherwise. Some people just say I'm too lazy to do it otherwise. And either way, I don't care. I'm going to find a better way to do it. I'm going to challenge the status quo. And so when I got into the independent channel, the AMS was everything. And we really put a lot of focus on the AMS utilizing it, trying to get the carriers to use it, you know, making sure staff was being consistent. But as time has progressed, the AMS is becoming less of the focal point for us as an agency. You know, we started looking at some CRM components, some client relationship management pieces, and how we can be better communicators with our clients and really being proactive, and what tools could we do there. And

Rick (07:29.552)
Let me stop you there, because I want to dig in there. Just, I don't want to go too far down, but I want to just... You said communicate with your customers. Like, aren't we doing that anyway? Aren't we picking up the phone and calling them? Or are like...

Dean Giem (07:29.822)
I'm always, yeah.

Rick (07:47.348)
...saying that sort of facetiously because we don't have time anymore to pick up the phone and call everybody. And there's an expectation set by customers and clients and prospects today of what they believe is value. And a lot of that is through the way you communicate and not only how often you communicate, but the value in the communications. Is that the way you're looking at it?

Dean Giem (08:10.582)
Yeah, I think, you know, it's trying to meet the client where they are when they're there. And it's, you know, it's not necessarily a phone call, but it's also got to be a value add and time is of essence, especially in today's market. I won't get into that too deep. I think we all know where we're at in today's market, but I can go back to one of the pivot points in the CRM communication. We had a discussion, a very heated discussion in our agency at the time about proactively calling personalised renewals.

Rick (08:14.008)
That's it. There it is.

Rick (08:24.097)
Yes.

Dean Giem (08:40.826)
...just picking up the phone saying, hey, this is what's going on. This is where it's at. And that way it wasn't reactive and those clients calling in because they had a rate increase and being upset. So we were really, you know, chicken in the egg on, do we call them ahead of time, let them know what's going on? This is how we handle our process. And there was no way we could pick up the phone and call 2400 clients. No matter what the staff is, we had other services to take care of. So we needed a more economical and easier way to do that. And that's where technology stepped in.

So that was really the first piece of technology that I started to introduce to the agency outside of the AMS, outside of the core email systems and phone systems and stuff like that. But it was something that as a small agency, at the time we were 15 people, we needed that resource, but we also needed to be able to communicate in disaster situations or renewal situations, claim situations, all those different pieces that those clients have grown to expect us to be there for them and be there when they're there, how they want it and what they're looking for. So that was really the first piece that was a little bit of an aha to step outside that box.

Rick (09:54.604)
Yeah. Well, and I think what's happened too, I mean, you know this, you've talked to thousands of agents with your time in NetView and all the stuff that you do, but there's this pushback that's been happening and it's less and less, which is great, but it's the, we don't want to lose the personal touch. So we don't wanna put things in an automated process.

That to me, and I'd love you to comment on what I'm about to say, that to me is the exact opposite of the way you should be thinking about this. Because what this should do, and use the word, we wanted to be more efficient, if you're more efficient with your time and you're able to make more touch points and more great communications, you should have more ample time to build a deeper relationship the way you want to, when you want to, and not just on the things that are like...

You know, I would say just ID cards or endorsements, like real talking about insurance, like things that are important. Is that, is that the kind of the, the part that where people are, are not, and I don't want to say still struggling, but that's the, that's the, the inflection point, right? Is when you're like, okay, by doing that, which is taking some of the you know, called you during dinner off the table, because nobody wants that anymore, but you did send an automated email or an automated text or to your point like, hey, the wildfires are spreading, I'm using that for you, ours would be hurricanes. And here's a note, here's some numbers if something goes wrong, here's like, like doing that behind the scenes, but having it still feel personal, you've given yourself more time to then do the real relationship building. Am I looking at that right?

Dean Giem (11:41.438)
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, my general philosophy is technology is used to enhance the relationship, not replace it. So that's the key. But then, you know, the other piece of our core foundation at our agency is education. We want to provide the information for our clients to make educated decisions in that process, whatever that process is. And I'll just use a claim scenario, for example. You know, we contact, you know, the claims that come in.

Rick (11:46.872)
There it is.

Dean Giem (12:09.278)
But if we were to dial the phone, pick up the call and say, hey, how did that claim happen? You know, how was things? The client might be thrilled and happy. Oh, it went great. And then you go off on some tangent talking about the dog, which is great. That's relationship building, but that's not wise, effective use of our time for our staff. So if we can send a text message or we can send an email out to say, hey, we want to check in with you, see how this claim is going. Have you been contacted by an adjuster?

And they say, yes, but also include in that communication, if there's a no, please let us know so that we can step in and do this, and this. And then we also sprinkle in those personal phone calls. We sprinkle in some other aspects. So it's not just all technology by text or email, but we're actually being very deliberate in our communications on who we talk to and when we talk to them by phone. And just making it also kind of putting the ball in their court to have that communication. So when they're...

Rick (13:05.449)
Yeah.

Dean Giem (13:06.578)
...is a disaster or what that client perceives as an issue, we can really dive in deep at that time.

Rick (13:13.1)
And I did a rant the other day about a race to the bottom, meaning like those agents that are just out there selling on price and trying to win on price alone. And how that was going to, it was either going to bite you today or it was going to bite you tomorrow. And one of the things that I said, and I asked this question and I said, if the answer to this question is yes, then you need to get to work. And the question was, when you get a rate increase, when your customer gets a rate increase...is the first call they're going to make to you, or is it to your competitor? And to me, that right there is the simplest way to say, do I have a relationship with my customers? So what you're saying is you're using these tools to build a relationship that should then become the foundation for everything growing off of that. Is that fair to say? Yeah. Okay. That makes sense.

Dean Giem (14:05.266)
Absolutely. And I think to dive a little deeper into that statement, it's also the content in which you're communicating to them. So I, I don't use a lot of the roundout tools. Uh, uh, you know, what are right, wrong and different. I don't do a lot of, Hey, you have a home, but you don't have an umbrella. Hey, we have your auto. We don't have your home because that becomes spammy. You know, if, if I'm having the right conversations, I feel it becomes spam.

Rick (14:12.046)
Yes.

Dean Giem (14:32.278)
So if I'm having the right conversations at the right time and my clients think insurance as a general topic, now they're gonna think of me for even the stuff that I don't do. And I have resources for that, but it's the right content at the same time. So making sure it's valuable so that when it does come across, it's read or it's received or they pick up the phone. So I think that is really important.

Rick (14:54.044)
Yeah. Okay. So we talked about the past, talked about your journey. You're in a really good place. Love the what you, I love the energy that you have around the relationship because a lot of agencies make this very transactional. And that is just the race to the bottom that I've talked about. So I love your energy. So let me, let me say the three words that I wrote down and they sort of, I guess, probably cause you meant it, but let me, let me see...

The three words I wrote down are embrace technology, efficiency, and education. Ironically or not ironically, they all start with the letter E. So the three E's of Dean Gehme's approach to today, to where we, to get to here is embrace technology, which you need all of your people to do, to use the technology to be more efficient and educate your customers to build deeper relationships. So if you, if you're not using that as your three E's, I just gave you the cheat code to write those down. And now you can, when you, on your next podcast. And, don't forget to give credit where credit's due. Okay, always give credit where credit's due, Dean. But okay, and I will say for those listening in, I know Dean's agency from my days at Vertifor and they get it done. This is a very, like this is the gold standard agency that you wanna think about how you look at being a successful, built into your community, long-term success is to look at an agency like Paradox. So...

Dean Giem (15:51.351)
I got it.

Dean Giem (15:56.323)
Absolutely.

Rick (16:20.3)
And we'll get to later how you can connect with Dean. And like I mentioned before, Dean's more than happy to share his journey and things like that. But I want to shift gears just a little. So we talked about where you were. We talked about where you are. So then the other thing is how should people be thinking about technology and into the future? Like, so what's, how are we like, because people are like, some are out there going, oh my God, what Dean just said is a lot. Others are like, yeah, I'm pretty much doing the same stuff close. Others are like, man, I did that three years ago. But so we're all on our own journey. Like we're, everybody's doing their own thing, but in your mind, you got to keep evolving, right? I guess there's your, there's your fourth E evolve. We're built, we're built, we're built like a book here. We can write a book on this. Uh, but yeah, the four E's of, of greatness. Uh, okay. So moving forward into the future, how are you looking at that?

Dean Giem (17:07.947)
...book on ease.

Dean Giem (17:17.506)
It's a great question. You just really touched on it. We're all in such a different space. And I think a common friend of ours, Doug Moore, once told me, once you've seen one independent agency, you've seen one independent agency. And I've heard a revision of that. And it's really, we all spell insurance the same, but we're using different fonts and different colors. So we're all kind of in this different place, but we have a common space in that process. So first things first, make sure you use them what you have. That's ultimately it.

Rick (17:28.092)
One, one.

Rick (17:35.269)
Oh, I like that.

Rick (17:44.449)
Yes.

Dean Giem (17:46.414)
If you're not using it, you need to figure out why. Because that's a big lack of efficiency. It's a big spend. Technology is not cheap, especially if you're not using it. So that's first and foremost. The other thing is look for low-hanging fruit. What is it that's biggest pain point that you can tackle with a piece of technology? Does technology have now, is it able to do that, or do you need to supplement that with something else? And I think the other piece is there's so many shiny objects out there.

Rick (18:14.613)
Yes.

Dean Giem (18:15.178)
It's easy to get distracted. It's easy to go chasing something, spend dollars that you really don't have, disrupt your team, your workflows. And it's really easy to disrupt them if you don't have a culture of flexibility in technology. So I think that's the other piece is making sure your staff, your team and your business understands we're going to be sandboxing some technology to make sure we are where we need to be in two years, three years, five years from now.

Rick (18:43.812)
And what I've said, Dean, is that I've always said this, and I say it in any business, but it's very true at the agency level, which is stop saying we've always done it that way. Like that phrase to me needs to be, like I literally have, at my office, have put up that phrase with the red circle and the line through it. We don't get a say we've always done it that way anymore. Because that could get you in trouble. Because to your point, we have to start looking at the evolution of what's next. Doesn't mean that we're gonna change it today, but we have to start testing and iterating, figuring out what's next, because that's the way of the world, right?

Dean Giem (19:23.486)
Yeah, in our philosophy is how can we do it different? So we've really gotten away from the, this is how we've done it. It's now, how can we do it different? How can we be better? And looking at technology, the stuff that we have today, we were working on three, four years ago, two years ago, at least. The stuff that we're working on moving forward, that's, we're already...

Rick (19:27.789)
Yeah.

Dean Giem (19:48.118)
down the road two years, what do we need to be doing? So we're talking about the AI stuff. We're talking about how we can possibly integrate blockchain into some communications, whether that's internal, external. So we're having conversations about our technology stack two years, three years now, that it's going to take us time to get there so that our team is well-versed, they're capable, and they're ready to move forward. Of course, we're small enough, I call us a micro-botique agency. So we're small enough we can pivot quickly.

Rick (19:56.034)
Yes.

Dean Giem (20:16.498)
if something goes completely off the rails, or if we need to really introduce something quick, we have that flexibility and capacity. But it's again, part of our culture that we built into.

Rick (20:24.78)
That's it. That's what I was thinking as you're saying that I'm like, the great part about where you're at is the culture. And that is, that is hard. That part is, that is not an easy challenge. I mean, that is a challenge that all are facing because you've got, you know, the 30 year veteran who, like I said, has always done it this way. And, but they have all the relationships maybe with the cus, like you've got all these insurance specific, maybe not specific, but very insurance-y kind of roadblocks you're going to hit along the way. But what clears all debris out of the road is culture. And Dean, you've done a great job of setting the culture and people are following that because it's exciting, right? I mean, this doesn't have to be, even you mentioned it, we're not going to get into it. The market is brutal right now. Even with the brutal market, if you're moving in the right direction and you're doing the right things, this should feel fun. It should be exciting. There shouldn't be... debris in the road for you. And so one, kudos to the way you look at that. And I wholeheartedly support the idea of culture in this. But I don't know that you can get to where we need to get without having a culture that's ready and willing to try new things, ready and willing to evolve and understands that this is not 1998 and we're going to have to stay relevant, to stay growing, and like I said, to stay fun because that old way, I mean, I was there when we had paper files and they'd start in the in-pile and they'd end up in the out-pile, and that was a lot of work, but you can use technology to make it not as, not feel as heavy, right?

Dean Giem (22:12.854)
Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I'll just comment on the paper piece, you know, just as an example, when we started this agency, it was really built to be driven by technology. And we have not gone through one full case of paper in four years. So proposals are done video proposals. Again, meet them where they are when they are. If they can't meet us in person. It's a video proposal so they can watch it PDFs are sent afterwards. We're using

Rick (22:24.302)
Yeah.

Rick (22:29.937)
That's amazing. That's fantastic.

Dean Giem (22:42.778)
...all the typical technologies in addition to that. And just again, streamlining it, trying to use the appropriate APIs and bringing everything together. So it's a centralized system that really communicates within itself as well.

Rick (22:57.432)
So I think if you're listening here, you're hearing somebody who is doing it the right way. And I wanna say to put the bow on this. Number one is, I think you're hearing some very consistent themes out of, if you've listened to a few of these podcasts in a row, from the Race to the Bottom rant to the Prospecting podcast with Charles Speck, to now what Dean's talking about at the agency level, you're seeing a theme here... there's a way to do this that's going to set you up for success. And these are kind of some of those, you know, those key ingredients or cheat codes to moving that direction. The way Dean runs his agency is built to be successful today. And it is ready to evolve into whatever success looks like tomorrow, which is very impressive, Dean. And then the other part, I just want to go back and put a highlight on the four, the four E's that you mentioned. So, if you take nothing else away from this than Dean's four E's, they're his now. I'm giving, I'm gifting them to him, but it's embrace technology, efficiency gain, education, and then evolution. And, and evolution could simply be shampoo, rinse, or paint there as well. Because if you go back and change it again, you go back and you change it again. That's the way you look at this and, and getting that culture in place. And then all of the E's.

Roll up to the big C, which is culture. So Dean, um, I've always been impressed. I love the way you think about this. Um, I know that you run an agency that others should be sort of gearing themselves to look like in the future today and in the future. Uh, let me wrap this thing up to thing. Oh, wait, hold on, hold on a minute. Sound like you interrupted me. Is it? I guess it's your pot. I guess because you were, I was your first podcast. Now you get to interrupt me. Go ahead, Dean. No, seriously.

Dean Giem (24:41.242)
Hey, actually, can I step in? This is really important. I did. Yeah.

Dean Giem (24:51.91)
Yeah, I've got a little entitlement going on here. But no, it's important for me to say this, because I think the common misconception too, is to put things like this in place is, you know, it takes a large bankroll. I said at the beginning, I am a step back from scratch agency, I am bootstrapped, I mean, finances are everything for me. So looking at these things from a cost basis, it doesn't have to take a lot of money and energy to really develop.

Rick (24:55.318)
Go.

Dean Giem (25:21.094)
...a process and a system like this, it can be done for a small agency as well as a medium agency. You don't have to have what the resources of in-house programmers and stuff the large organization has. So I just really also want to put that out there for anybody who's in that small to medium size space. I think it's important.

Rick (25:36.716)
It's, it's, it's okay. All right. You're forgiven for interrupting me. Cause that's a really good point. That's a really good point. So I like that. Um, all right, Dean. So a couple of things I want to finish with the question that I always ask at the end, but before we do, how do people get in touch with you? Like, is it LinkedIn? Like what's the best way to kind of connect if they want to be connected.

Dean Giem (25:54.35)
LinkedIn is great. You know, I think we've all experienced some spam there. So, you know, if you really want to get in touch, pick up the phone, call me, shoot me an email. All that information is out there. Happy to send you an account link, jump in. But my name is out there. You can find me if you want to get.

Rick (26:08.728)
Dean Giem, Paradox Insurance. Love it. Dean, thanks again. Let me ask you the final question. It's our time capsule question. We're going to record this next little part. We're going to bury it somewhere. Somebody's going to dig it up, and they're going to hear the recording of Dean Giehm's one big piece of advice for the insurance industry.

Dean Giem (26:29.434)
You know, I know this question's coming from you, but it's always hard. You know, at the end of the day, things are gonna change and you have to change with it. Cause if you don't, you're not gonna go anywhere further.

Rick (26:32.289)
Yes.

Rick (26:42.416)
I'm gonna have to love it. Simple, perfect, Dean, I appreciate you, man. Make sure to connect with Dean on LinkedIn, or like he said, just pick up the phone and call him. I mean, he will help you in your journey. Because I know a lot of you out there now are, especially with the place we're at in this market right now, are thinking, what do I do? And Dean has kind of laid out a very simple, potentially not too expensive approach to evolving your agency. I think the key E for me on all of that was the education piece. I think that is so important today because that is how you, if you educate, there's so much value in that, that this is such an important thing. Dean will probably be writing a book starting later today called The Four E's of Insurance. I wanna write the forward for that, Dean. Let me write the forward. Love having you again. I appreciate everything you do.

Thanks for being on the show, man. I appreciate it.

Dean Giem (27:39.279)
Thank you, Rick. It's always a pleasure. Thank you.

Rick (27:41.432)
And thanks to everybody for listening in. As always, make sure you are subscribed wherever you get your podcasts. Give us a review if you like what you're hearing, and make sure you connect with me on LinkedIn. And I'm getting a ton of direct messages about questions that people have, comments about the show, which we'll always try to get better every single week, guests that we should have on, and all of the good stuff. So keep the community going. Make sure, like I mentioned, to subscribe wherever you get it.

Thanks again to Dean Giem, Paradox Insurance, one of the good ones, and we will see you next time.