Clinton Houck's Framework for Driving Non-Core Product Adoption

Clinton [0:00:00]: Talking to somebody about death, talking to somebody about family planning it's very different than talking to somebody about what their liability limits and deductibles should be on auto insurance.

Callan [0:00:10]: Welcome to The Insurance Growth Lab.

Callan [0:00:12]: Talking who we go deep on the growth campaigns and strategies driving real results in the insurance industry.

Callan [0:00:18]: I'm Callan Harrington founder Flashgrowth and in each episode, I sit down with marketing and growth leaders from carriers and shirt tech and top brokers to break down one specific initiative.

Callan [0:00:30]: Whether it's how they marketed a product, scale a channel or solve a specific growth challenge.

Callan [0:00:35]: It's no fluff, just tactical insights you can apply in your own compact buddy.

Callan [0:00:40]: Welcome back everyone to The Insurance Growth Lab.

Callan [0:00:47]: I'm Callan Harrington and today, I'm joined by Clinton Houck.

Callan [0:00:51]: Clint is the Vp of Insurance and distribution at Fair, and Clint has serious insurance experience.

Callan [0:00:58]: He's been on the carrier side, He's been on the agent side, He's been on the venture side in literally everything in between.

Callan [0:01:04]: To say that Clint knows his stuff would be a massive understatement.

Callan [0:01:08]: I was really excited to bring them on and go deep on driving adoption of non core products within a P and C insurance agency.

Callan [0:01:18]: So what do I mean by that?

Callan [0:01:19]: P and C agencies will typically offer home insurance, auto insurance and umbrella as their core offerings.

Callan [0:01:26]: But often the oftentimes, even if you have a great product outside of that, it's really tough to drive adoption.

Callan [0:01:33]: And They are having a ton of success at Fair doing exactly that.

Callan [0:01:38]: And I learned a ton getting into the weeds with Clint on how they're pulling this off.

Callan [0:01:44]: This is a great lesson for anyone who has a non core product that they wanna to distribute through insurance agencies.

Callan [0:01:51]: So with that, let's get to the show.

Callan [0:01:53]: Clint, I'm excited to have you on the show.

Callan [0:02:02]: Know, we've known each other for now pretty long time within the industry.

Clinton [0:02:07]: Yeah.

Clinton [0:02:07]: Going back to two thousand sixteen, seventeen, something like that.

Callan [0:02:11]: So state Auto days when you joined state Auto, and, you one of the things that I I would love to kick this off with is your careers like mine and we were just talking about this?

Callan [0:02:20]: We've only done insurance.

Callan [0:02:21]: What was your first rude awakening when you got into the insurance space.

Clinton [0:02:28]: Yeah.

Clinton [0:02:28]: Yeah.

Clinton [0:02:29]: So I graduated college in December of two thousand and eight, and then January of o nine was my my first day on the job, and it was as a commercial fire under underwriting for State Farm.

Clinton [0:02:39]: And so I had come from a world where hey, we were now taking exams online in college and you're bringing laptops to class and and everything was digitally published.

Clinton [0:02:50]: And then I walk into the largest personalized property and casualty carrier in the country.

Clinton [0:02:57]: And they said, here's your half dozen physical rating manuals.

Clinton [0:03:01]: And here's the paper applications that have the duplicate carbon copies behind them that got mailed in from from the agencies.

Clinton [0:03:10]: Your job is to do some Google research to make sure that these businesses, these commercial applications.

Clinton [0:03:17]: These businesses are what they say they are, and then look inside the rating manual, find the class codes, find the cost of coverage per thousand dollars of of gross receipts.

Clinton [0:03:27]: And manually calculate the rates to make sure that you're actually issuing the policy with the with the correct premiums.

Clinton [0:03:34]: And nothing in college.

Clinton [0:03:37]: Nothing in school.

Clinton [0:03:38]: Nothing in my education had prepared me to go back in time in that way.

Clinton [0:03:42]: And I thought to me, that was going back in time.

Clinton [0:03:45]: I had a trainer under writer, a mentor ultimately.

Clinton [0:03:50]: This guy named John, forty years in the business always with state farm.

Clinton [0:03:54]: As much as I would complain about things being antiquated.

Clinton [0:03:57]: He would complain about things being too fast paced.

Clinton [0:04:00]: And so he would tell me these stories about...

Clinton [0:04:03]: Man, I really wish we'd go back to the micro fish days.

Clinton [0:04:06]: And I had no idea what micro fish was it's almost like film, Apparently that you can, like, put in and and and scroll through to read with light behind it.

Clinton [0:04:15]: And and he would complain about...

Clinton [0:04:17]: We used to be able to smoke in the offices back in the day.

Clinton [0:04:19]: I don't...

Clinton [0:04:20]: Well, I don't know why we can't smoke anymore in the offices.

Clinton [0:04:22]: And so it's Here here I am.

Clinton [0:04:24]: This fresh out of college, all, like, hey, let's do tech and and we can do everything with the Internet, working with a guy that goes, I wish we could go back to the days where we could smoke in the offices.

Clinton [0:04:34]: But he became one of my most influential.

Clinton [0:04:37]: Mentors of my career because he taught me the fundamentals of insurance.

Clinton [0:04:42]: He gave me that foundation that really everything else has been built on.

Callan [0:04:46]: I love that.

Callan [0:04:46]: You you know it actually a small world.

Callan [0:04:48]: I started my first internship I ever had in college.

Callan [0:04:52]: Was at Gates Mcdonald, which was a large work cop that nationwide had owned.

Callan [0:04:58]: And our job was to come in and sort through all of their claims paperwork.

Callan [0:05:06]: We're talking...

Callan [0:05:07]: Like, similar to what you're saying.

Callan [0:05:08]: Just re in re and re in in boxes and boxes and boxes of all this.

Callan [0:05:13]: And we had to alphabet digitize it, so it can get input into...

Callan [0:05:17]: It can be digitized.

Callan [0:05:18]: So that was what our job was to do And I was just like, well, I got this internship at nationwide.

Callan [0:05:25]: This is really cool.

Callan [0:05:26]: So I hear you on that.

Callan [0:05:28]: I could empathize with that to the team.

Clinton [0:05:31]: I've done most roles in this in this industry the one place that I haven't sat in is the claims department.

Clinton [0:05:36]: I intern in the claims department when I was in college similar to you.

Clinton [0:05:40]: And I just realized just how thankful that job can be and yet how absolutely necessary claims are because ultimately, that's...

Clinton [0:05:49]: The delivery of of the promise of of everything else that we do in this industry.

Clinton [0:05:53]: So I think those are some of the the greatest on song heroes of our space is those folks that build their career in claims because that that is the product and yet, you're dealing with people that they're most stressful and and sometimes not the most clear headed states of mind and and trying to manage that.

Callan [0:06:10]: Yeah.

Callan [0:06:10]: Yeah.

Callan [0:06:10]: I I can take no credit for having worked in claims Mine was as surface and back office as you could possibly be...

Callan [0:06:19]: You brought up a point and that was something I wanted to ask.

Callan [0:06:22]: You are an under writer.

Callan [0:06:24]: You owned your own agency for three years in a field agency at that.

Callan [0:06:28]: One of the things I'm curious about is, you've had a number of great insured tech positions.

Callan [0:06:34]: How much did your time as an under writer and your time as an agent early in your career impact your career and your success that you've had when you moved over to the insure tech side?

Clinton [0:06:49]: Yeah.

Clinton [0:06:49]: Absolutely.

Clinton [0:06:49]: So when I get these questions of how did you make decisions on where you went with your career and and it looks kind of random.

Clinton [0:06:56]: If you looked at my Linkedin profile of of seeing my history.

Clinton [0:06:59]: And really, my career is a series of, I hit a roadblock in my current role or current seat where I don't understand why something doesn't work, kind and a lot of folks in our industry will just, let's say they'll have complaints about.

Clinton [0:07:14]: Oh, the carrier doesn't do this or the tech doesn't do this.

Clinton [0:07:16]: I don't wanna understand why they just don't make x y z change.

Clinton [0:07:20]: My philosophy has always been to truly understand something you have to sit in that seat.

Clinton [0:07:25]: And so going from as an under underwear, I wouldn't understand why agents would fill out these applications and not complete them.

Clinton [0:07:32]: And then I go, and so I I become a state farm agency owner, then I realized all these Pdf applications have these extra boxes in them that are about questions that I don't make any sense, and there's no clear deli of what I need to fill out and what I don't.

Clinton [0:07:45]: So I'm gonna fill in the bare minimum as an agency owner.

Clinton [0:07:47]: And I go, oh, light bulb moment.

Clinton [0:07:49]: Okay, that that didn't connect.

Clinton [0:07:51]: And then I went, why doesn't technology just automatically do that for me.

Clinton [0:07:55]: And so that led me down the path of going from a captive agent to an independent where I go, I can pick my own technology?

Clinton [0:08:00]: I can build my own tech stack, and I can streamline my agency, experience, and it's gonna be beautiful and simple and easy, and I'm gonna build this national digital agency, then I realized that the insurance industry at that time didn't know what an Api was, let alone how to spell it.

Clinton [0:08:15]: So no tech communicated, no tech connected And then all of a sudden, I stop being an agency owner, and I started being a technologist trying to get the technology to work in my business, but the carriers and the technology platforms at that time, they wouldn't communicate with each other, and they weren't interested in communicating with each other.

Clinton [0:08:30]: So...

Clinton [0:08:31]: That led me to state auto who is trying to become a digital carrier.

Clinton [0:08:34]: And they wanted to become digital and connect.

Clinton [0:08:37]: So it just lend on that.

Clinton [0:08:39]: My my entire career path has just been, hey, I hit this rub.

Clinton [0:08:43]: I hit this hurdle that I can't surpass in my current role.

Clinton [0:08:45]: Let me go do that job and figure out why that can't be solved and see if we can't solve it.

Callan [0:08:52]: Yeah.

Callan [0:08:52]: Yeah.

Callan [0:08:53]: I made that captive independent switch as well, and I think that was...

Callan [0:08:56]: So for me, that had such an impact later down the road.

Callan [0:09:00]: Having said in that seats, especially as an agent.

Callan [0:09:02]: And I can't...

Callan [0:09:03]: Now in Fairness, I can't speak to.

Callan [0:09:05]: I never outside of that short stint on the carrier side, I didn't spend a lot of time in the carrier side.

Callan [0:09:10]: But as an agent, man, as I may put things in a perspective what's possible what's not.

Callan [0:09:15]: Why would you care about this?

Callan [0:09:16]: Why wouldn't they?

Callan [0:09:17]: It's having lived that that helped a ton.

Callan [0:09:20]: But so an area that I wanna dive deep on here is you're at Fair now.

Callan [0:09:26]: And you're in the auto warranty space, and you distribute through agencies, insurance agencies.

Callan [0:09:33]: And one of the reasons that I wanted to have you on the show was to talk through driving adoption of that product with an insurance agency.

Callan [0:09:46]: And I and I mentioned this to you before.

Callan [0:09:48]: I was like, normally, I don't wanna dive into.

Callan [0:09:50]: I don't want this necessarily to be...

Callan [0:09:52]: Yes.

Callan [0:09:52]: Let's talk about Fair.

Callan [0:09:53]: Let's talk about the the highlights and all that.

Callan [0:09:55]: That's great.

Callan [0:09:56]: But normally, it's not a sales pitch on that.

Callan [0:09:58]: But in this, I think this is really really interesting.

Callan [0:10:01]: And I think there's a lot of companies that are out there, whether if they're on the the warranty side if they're on the home security side or a lot

Clinton [0:10:11]: of

Callan [0:10:11]: people want to work with an insurance agency because they've got the trust.

Callan [0:10:17]: They have the access to the customer.

Callan [0:10:19]: They're already being a risk adviser in there depending on the agency.

Callan [0:10:23]: I guess that could be a little debatable.

Callan [0:10:24]: But for the most part, that is the kinda the the key role, and you're going in there and you're doing this.

Callan [0:10:29]: You're you're able to break through the mold of the standard and the P and C market, Home umbrella offering.

Callan [0:10:35]: So I wanna start there how did you start to crack through that?

Callan [0:10:40]: And what was it that made agencies say, okay.

Callan [0:10:45]: This is worth Mike.

Callan [0:10:45]: This is worth my time?

Callan [0:10:46]: Because it's ultimately What comes down to?

Clinton [0:10:49]: Yeah.

Clinton [0:10:49]: Absolutely.

Clinton [0:10:49]: So I'll start by saying is it It's not about Fair.

Clinton [0:10:53]: It didn't start with saying, hey, we have this product to sell.

Clinton [0:10:56]: Let's get agencies to sell it.

Clinton [0:10:58]: It's not about us as a as a carrier.

Clinton [0:11:00]: The starting point and how we approach that is what is the needs of the agency?

Clinton [0:11:05]: What is the pain points what drives them to generate revenue, what drives them to generate cost and what leads to success or failure.

Clinton [0:11:16]: And so regardless of product, rather rather you're a new P and c carrier, whether you're an Mg, whether you're a warranty company, whether you're an Ai company or a Saas solution.

Clinton [0:11:26]: Right?

Clinton [0:11:27]: The the framework to how to approach this is the same.

Clinton [0:11:31]: And it starts with really understanding what your partner or your customer really needs.

Clinton [0:11:37]: And so, again, kind my cheat coat to that is is I have been that agency owner.

Clinton [0:11:42]: I've been that agency owner as a captive.

Clinton [0:11:44]: I've been that agency owner as a digital agency.

Clinton [0:11:46]: I've been that agency owner inside of a larger enterprise organization that has another component to it.

Clinton [0:11:54]: And so our approach was really around if I was an agency owner, and I was gonna bring in a new product or service, what are the things right off the bat that would either turn me off or turn me on to that.

Clinton [0:12:07]: And so some of the things that we we talk about that is first off the bat, money always speaks.

Clinton [0:12:12]: How do I make money with whatever this thing is?

Clinton [0:12:15]: And so don't tell me how much it costs.

Clinton [0:12:19]: Tell me how much it's going to earn me.

Clinton [0:12:21]: And what is my Roi for taking the time and investment because even...

Clinton [0:12:27]: You can make a product as simple as possible and and I believe we've made it extremely simple and easy to adopt Fair into your agency as a new line of business, but they're still learning curve.

Clinton [0:12:38]: Right?

Clinton [0:12:38]: There's still time that their producers that the agency principal has to take out of their day to be able to learn this new line of business to learn a new carrier to adopt a new system.

Clinton [0:12:49]: And so that's their cost.

Clinton [0:12:50]: So what's the benefit and upside?

Callan [0:12:53]: Real quick on that.

Callan [0:12:53]: Just to go maybe a a step deeper on that is totally Fair.

Callan [0:12:58]: Right?

Callan [0:12:58]: What's in it for me?

Callan [0:12:59]: What's the Roi?

Callan [0:12:59]: Why is this worth me even doing it.

Callan [0:13:01]: But you're also competing against oftentimes at the P c agency life insurance.

Callan [0:13:05]: Right?

Callan [0:13:06]: That's usually a pretty...

Callan [0:13:07]: That's...

Callan [0:13:08]: That comes with a high commission security systems usually come with a high high commission.

Callan [0:13:14]: And then you can look at some of the the smaller ancillary coverage like flood or quake or wind or something like that that that you can tack on.

Callan [0:13:23]: How are you breaking through that?

Callan [0:13:25]: Because those could be just...

Callan [0:13:26]: They could pay you just as much as I'm assuming.

Callan [0:13:29]: I just just guessing by how much the product cost and what the margins you probably can offer on this, but how do you break through that?

Clinton [0:13:35]: Yeah.

Clinton [0:13:35]: Yeah.

Clinton [0:13:36]: So I was starting with the easy one, make sure that you're paying them enough or that they're generating enough revenue to make it easy, but you're going into the deeper part, which is actually the fun stuff.

Clinton [0:13:45]: Because now you're getting into the the hidden obstacles that aren't brought up by the agency principle.

Clinton [0:13:50]: That aren't brought up by the team because if they bring these things up, the agency principle may...

Clinton [0:13:56]: It gets frustrated with them, or they don't wanna us wanted it to sound like they're they're not willing to adopt.

Clinton [0:14:01]: And I actually learned this lesson from progressive.

Clinton [0:14:04]: So during my time, helping agents become more digital and even building my own digital agency and I'm watching my producers.

Clinton [0:14:13]: At the time, there were carriers paying higher commission rates than progressive was inside my agency.

Clinton [0:14:21]: In fact, paying fifty percent more in commission rates than than what progress was paying?

Clinton [0:14:25]: Do you wanna know what the largest percentage of my book.

Clinton [0:14:28]: What carrier was with?

Clinton [0:14:29]: It was with progressive.

Clinton [0:14:30]: It wasn't because they had better rates.

Clinton [0:14:32]: Wasn't because they had different coverage wasn't because I was trying to get them to self progressive when you actually watched the behavior.

Clinton [0:14:40]: In fact, Progressive wasn't even comp at that time.

Clinton [0:14:43]: And they were still downloading through T.

Clinton [0:14:45]: So from that standpoint, it made it seem like progressive there'd be no reason for progressive to win out over others.

Clinton [0:14:52]: But the reason they won was because their user experience for my producers was simpler and faster than than any other carrier at the time.

Clinton [0:15:02]: So every page you would go to on on progressive quote experience.

Clinton [0:15:08]: All the buttons were in the same place.

Clinton [0:15:10]: All the data would pull automatically and present seamlessly to my producers.

Clinton [0:15:16]: And when they got a rate quote, the rate quote was actually the rate quote.

Clinton [0:15:20]: It was counterintuitive because at that time, the comparative raiders that were out there in the market and the integrations they had with carriers, the rates would fluctuate fifteen to twenty percent difference when you would bridge over from the comp operator to the carrier.

Clinton [0:15:34]: And so my producers would say, I'm gonna lose this sale because I'm gonna give that customer an initial price indication, and then I'm gonna jump over and the price is gonna jump by twenty percent.

Clinton [0:15:42]: When I go to that carrier.

Clinton [0:15:43]: I don't wanna deal with that.

Clinton [0:15:44]: I'll start with progressive.

Clinton [0:15:46]: And then if progressive is competitive,

Callan [0:15:48]: which they almost always are gonna be.

Clinton [0:15:50]: Yeah.

Clinton [0:15:50]: Always are gonna be.

Clinton [0:15:51]: Because their system was so easy and seamless.

Clinton [0:15:54]: It supported the success of the producer of closing the sale.

Clinton [0:15:58]: And they were willing to sell a product that would generate them lower commission because it meant actually getting the sale.

Clinton [0:16:05]: And so...

Clinton [0:16:06]: But that's not something that is communicated either because the producers don't really know how to communicate that or the agency principles aren't want...

Clinton [0:16:12]: The behaviors inside their office to understand what's driving that behavior.

Clinton [0:16:17]: And other carriers aren't understanding this territory managers aren't uncovering these pain points or these these hidden obstacles in that way.

Clinton [0:16:25]: But user experience drove adoption inside the agencies.

Clinton [0:16:31]: And so that is a court tenant that has stuck with me, and I have watched play over and over again.

Clinton [0:16:37]: And during my time at State Auto when I would go talk to agencies, and they would start sharing about where their books were, you would talk to the agency principal and they go.

Clinton [0:16:45]: We never sell progressive because they don't pay good commissions.

Clinton [0:16:47]: There our carrier of lash choice.

Clinton [0:16:49]: And then you would go to the agency producers.

Clinton [0:16:53]: And they go, yeah, we don't sell progressive because there there are agency of last choice.

Clinton [0:16:57]: And that our carrier of last choice.

Clinton [0:16:59]: And then you would look at their book of business and they go, oh I'll progressive thirty percent of my book.

Clinton [0:17:03]: Progressive forty percent of my book.

Clinton [0:17:04]: Right?

Clinton [0:17:05]: You know, wait a second.

Clinton [0:17:06]: This is...

Clinton [0:17:07]: But you would watch behavior.

Clinton [0:17:08]: And behavior was you made it easy to do business with you.

Clinton [0:17:11]: And so therefore, we're gonna do business with you.

Callan [0:17:13]: So ease of use, you could make the argument though that they could use ethos, for example, next day commissions very simple to use.

Callan [0:17:24]: How do you break through something like that?

Clinton [0:17:27]: Yeah.

Clinton [0:17:27]: Yeah.

Clinton [0:17:28]: So you've had experience working in in Saas companies for insurance and working inside of a digital insurance agency.

Clinton [0:17:37]: We...

Clinton [0:17:38]: There's a...

Clinton [0:17:39]: Trend where if I've gotta learn something new, and it feels really different.

Clinton [0:17:43]: I don't wanna do that because it distract me from doing what I'm doing, day in and day out.

Clinton [0:17:48]: And your average producer and Csr inside of an agency, they get paid the clock in, They do their job at five o'clock, they clock out and they go home and they don't think about work until the next day.

Clinton [0:17:59]: And they wanna be able to just rinse and repeat that day in and day out without having major disruptions to their world.

Clinton [0:18:07]: And when you bring in a new product or a new system, Now they've gotta do their day job and then learn these additional things.

Clinton [0:18:13]: And so where that becomes important and why I made the decision to join Fair over and and an auto warranty carrier over another line of business, is because it is a simple product to learn and sell.

Clinton [0:18:27]: I don't have to train you as a producer or Csr, how to understand a completely different discovery conversation.

Clinton [0:18:35]: How to cross sell into a line that's completely unrelated to anything you've ever sold before.

Clinton [0:18:40]: Because talking to somebody about their finances, talking to somebody about death, talking to somebody about family planning it's very different than talking to somebody about what their liability limits and deductibles should be on auto insurance.

Clinton [0:18:52]: And so that's a really hard switch for a lot of producers in the independent channel where we have built a a industry generational here where I'm a P and c agency only.

Clinton [0:19:05]: I'm a life and health agency only.

Clinton [0:19:07]: And and we don't cross over.

Clinton [0:19:09]: And so warranty is kind of that that cheat code for that piece of it because we're not saying you have a separate sales conversation.

Clinton [0:19:18]: We don't present it at that as that for for these agency producers.

Clinton [0:19:21]: We present warranty almost as a an endorsement conversation.

Clinton [0:19:26]: So if I'm selling you auto insurance, or and it's it's Cal, hey, our next steps right now, we're gonna talk about your comprehensive and collision coverage.

Clinton [0:19:34]: This pays to fix your vehicle if gets damaged in an accident.

Clinton [0:19:37]: You have a deductible for that.

Clinton [0:19:39]: What, would you like your deductible be?

Clinton [0:19:40]: Great.

Clinton [0:19:41]: By the way, if your vehicle breaks down, there's no coverage for that under your auto insurance because it wasn't caused by an accident.

Clinton [0:19:49]: The average gender repair is about thirty five hundred dollars.

Clinton [0:19:52]: Would you wanna pay for that out of pocket or would you want somebody else to pay for that?

Clinton [0:19:55]: Great.

Clinton [0:19:56]: I'll add the vehicle breakdown protection for you?

Clinton [0:19:58]: That's the sales conversation.

Callan [0:20:00]: And so playing that back.

Callan [0:20:01]: Life insurance different.

Callan [0:20:03]: I gotta learn something different, Can I get different license have to even?

Callan [0:20:06]: I have to think about this differently.

Callan [0:20:07]: For auto warranty, it fits right in.

Callan [0:20:11]: If I'm selling this, I should be selling this essentially.

Callan [0:20:13]: Is that correct?

Clinton [0:20:15]: It's complementary.

Clinton [0:20:15]: I don't have to talk about a different topic.

Clinton [0:20:17]: I'm still just talking about protecting your car against risk and and against potential loss that you as a consumer having related to driving your vehicle.

Callan [0:20:28]: Have you found?

Callan [0:20:29]: Now, I'm gonna state this first?

Callan [0:20:32]: And you know, they...

Callan [0:20:33]: We've done a good amount of work within the the warranty space.

Callan [0:20:36]: So I've got a lot of respect for warranty companies and what they do.

Callan [0:20:39]: But not everybody does.

Clinton [0:20:41]: Most people know.

Clinton [0:20:42]: Yeah.

Callan [0:20:44]: Warranty, the word warranty has a stigma to it.

Callan [0:20:47]: How do you get around that?

Clinton [0:20:49]: Just like what we talked about is, it's...

Clinton [0:20:51]: You're not leading with.

Clinton [0:20:52]: Oh, hey, by the way, we've got an auto warranty product that can protect your car if it breaks down separate from your auto insurance conversation.

Clinton [0:20:59]: Right?

Clinton [0:20:59]: You're not having two separate conversations.

Clinton [0:21:01]: You're weaving in, hey, if your vehicle breaks down, would you want down protection?

Clinton [0:21:05]: You're talking about covering an actual need and exposure for the consumer and and helping them solve a problem that they would have, which is that out of pocket cost of fixing their car versus trying to just sell them another product.

Clinton [0:21:21]: In a awkward transition of, hey, now that we've taken care of your car insurance.

Clinton [0:21:26]: Let me talk to you about these ten other products we have.

Clinton [0:21:28]: We've got financial planning.

Clinton [0:21:29]: We've got life insurance.

Clinton [0:21:30]: We've got warranty.

Clinton [0:21:31]: We've got hospital income policies.

Clinton [0:21:33]: Right?

Clinton [0:21:34]: We've got this whole menu of things.

Clinton [0:21:35]: What we do like to talk about that doesn't work from a cross sell standpoint.

Clinton [0:21:39]: You've gotta find products that are complementary to each other.

Clinton [0:21:43]: And and as you're having that needs based conversation, you're you're uncovering those needs in a natural organic way through the conversation of protecting your client.

Clinton [0:21:52]: And and that's where auto warranties is a really nice complement to auto insurance without competing with your existing book and with your existing partners.

Callan [0:22:02]: You brought this up a few times.

Callan [0:22:03]: You brought up producers, brought up principles.

Callan [0:22:04]: Brought up Csr.

Callan [0:22:05]: Who do you have to win?

Callan [0:22:07]: Dia win them mall.

Callan [0:22:09]: Do you have to win the principal?

Callan [0:22:10]: This goes top down?

Callan [0:22:11]: Do you have to win the producers?

Callan [0:22:12]: Because at the end of the day, it's...

Callan [0:22:14]: The producer doesn't find it.

Callan [0:22:16]: If the producer doesn't want to write it?

Callan [0:22:18]: They just won't for the most part.

Clinton [0:22:21]: Correct.

Clinton [0:22:21]: So it depends on the the stage of the relationship.

Clinton [0:22:25]: So if you're coming in as a brand new carrier, winning the producer in the Csr, usually doesn't doesn't mean anything at that stage.

Clinton [0:22:33]: Because if the principal doesn't say yes, and doesn't sign the appointment contract, or the partnership agreement, they're they're not gonna sell the sell the product.

Clinton [0:22:41]: Regardless of if the the producer Csr wants to.

Clinton [0:22:44]: So it starts with the principal.

Clinton [0:22:46]: It starts with helping put their mind at ease of saying you're not going to disrupt their business in fact you're going to enhance it.

Clinton [0:22:52]: And we're gonna do that through our tech.

Clinton [0:22:55]: We're gonna do that through our training.

Clinton [0:22:56]: We're gonna do that through our compensation model.

Clinton [0:22:58]: And we're gonna take care of that for you end to end.

Clinton [0:23:01]: We're not going to just hang you up to drive throughout the process at a certain step.

Clinton [0:23:05]: So it's it's showing them how you're coming to them as a true partner through your product through your training and through your technology.

Clinton [0:23:12]: And then that wins the principles mind.

Clinton [0:23:14]: Now after that, most agencies, they don't have strong implementation for new products or new carriers.

Clinton [0:23:22]: It's usually the principal introduces you to the team or they send an email to the team, hey, we can now sell this product or this carrier.

Clinton [0:23:28]: They're in the comp operator go.

Clinton [0:23:30]: Right?

Clinton [0:23:30]: So the next stage then becomes how do you win the the producers and Csr.

Clinton [0:23:35]: And one of the things that we did a little bit differently at Fair compared to what you would see with our traditional P c carrier, That a traditional P and C carrier when you get appointed with them.

Clinton [0:23:44]: They give you the product guide.

Clinton [0:23:46]: They give you the agency portal.

Clinton [0:23:47]: Here's the login.

Clinton [0:23:48]: Here's the here's the underwriting guidelines for all of our lines of business that we offer you.

Clinton [0:23:52]: Technical guidelines, technical language.

Clinton [0:23:55]: Here's our rating factors, now go sell the product.

Clinton [0:23:58]: Well, I don't sell insurance using technical language.

Clinton [0:24:02]: I sell insurance using layman's terms to help our our clients and consumers understand how the insurance will work for them.

Clinton [0:24:08]: Same idea from the warranty side.

Clinton [0:24:10]: We've got the technical product guides that offer that that technical language, but we also built a learning management system that has the layman's sales conversations built in.

Clinton [0:24:20]: So we actually have a small in house sales team that works with our credit union channel And so we've recorded all of those calls.

Clinton [0:24:26]: And so we've translated those all engine sales training guides.

Clinton [0:24:30]: So agents and producers and Csr, They can listen to those live sales recordings.

Clinton [0:24:36]: And here the cadence and rhythm.

Clinton [0:24:38]: What type of questions come up from that detail oriented customer.

Clinton [0:24:41]: What type of questions come up from that customer that is very cost conscious.

Clinton [0:24:48]: What questions come up from that customer that's really savvy about products and coverage is.

Clinton [0:24:54]: And how do you explain and how do the conversations adapt based off of that that consumer segment or that that persona?

Clinton [0:25:00]: And they can hear live examples of it, and then they see the the sales conversations written out with the...

Clinton [0:25:07]: Here's how you open.

Clinton [0:25:08]: Here's how you transition.

Clinton [0:25:09]: Here's how you overcome this objection.

Clinton [0:25:11]: And so they can hear it, and they can read it, and they can match that up to the technical product guides.

Clinton [0:25:16]: And that to me is one of the biggest missing pieces I saw from my time as an agency owner from when carriers would come out to us and say, hey, here's all this information about us.

Clinton [0:25:26]: Everything was there except how to actually sell the product.

Clinton [0:25:29]: And so that's something that we have found has then overcome that next hurdle of we get the principal to buy in.

Clinton [0:25:36]: Now we get the team to buy in because we're getting them past that fear of picking up the phone.

Clinton [0:25:41]: Or having that cross sell conversation because they have the tools given to them and the support given to them to know how to do that.

Callan [0:25:50]: Love that.

Callan [0:25:50]: That's an absolutely fantastic idea.

Callan [0:25:52]: And I've seen very similar.

Callan [0:25:54]: Right?

Callan [0:25:54]: The...

Callan [0:25:54]: Principles worried about disruption?

Callan [0:25:56]: Yes.

Callan [0:25:57]: That's what's in for the agency, but the principal is ultimately worried about disrupting the days of the their producers and and things like that.

Callan [0:26:04]: But...

Callan [0:26:04]: And it's like, how...

Callan [0:26:05]: Well, how's the training?

Callan [0:26:06]: Am I doing all the training Or how is that going to go about?

Callan [0:26:09]: It's a great idea.

Callan [0:26:10]: I love that.

Callan [0:26:10]: What's in it for the producer?

Clinton [0:26:13]: So what in it for the producer is a couple of things.

Clinton [0:26:17]: One, we've designed our commission structure to be really really beneficial to to agencies.

Clinton [0:26:23]: In fact, the commission rates they earn with Fair.

Clinton [0:26:25]: Are significantly higher than the commission rates they would earn in the traditional P and c for selling a personal lines auto or small commercial auto policy.

Clinton [0:26:32]: So you're adding an additional to the agency, anywhere from five hundred to seven hundred dollars of revenue per policy that you sell and when you cross sell this into your your auto insurance sales conversation.

Clinton [0:26:47]: And we see about a twelve percent close rate right now when they bring this up.

Clinton [0:26:52]: So if you think, hey, take twelve percent of your book and add an additional seven hundred dollars to twelve percent of your autos, that number number becomes really, really meaningful, really, really fast.

Clinton [0:27:02]: And so it creates a lot of opportunity to generate additional revenue for the agency and then also for the producer.

Clinton [0:27:08]: On the front end.

Clinton [0:27:09]: On the back end is warranty works different than auto insurance, which removes every six months, and the rates change and you gotta deal with those, hey, I have this headache that in six months, I don't know if the...

Clinton [0:27:20]: Those rates go up.

Clinton [0:27:21]: I've gotta do a lot of work just to save business.

Clinton [0:27:23]: I'm not generating any new income, I'm just trying to keep income.

Clinton [0:27:27]: And because of that, those ebb and tides of those six month cyclical cycles.

Clinton [0:27:32]: With auto warranty, these get locked in, you brought up life.

Clinton [0:27:36]: Insurance earlier in the conversation.

Clinton [0:27:38]: Auto warranties are a lot like term life insurance.

Clinton [0:27:40]: It's never cheaper than the day you buy the coverage because next month, your vehicle gets a month older.

Clinton [0:27:47]: It gets a hundred miles more on it.

Clinton [0:27:49]: And therefore if they were to buy coverage a month later, coverage is now more expensive.

Clinton [0:27:54]: And you can lock in this warranty coverage for anywhere from twelve months to ten years depending upon the age of the vehicle.

Clinton [0:28:02]: So now you've got a really, really sticky product that's got a up to a ten year rate guarantee that the price is never gonna go up or change.

Clinton [0:28:10]: And that even if the customer would go shop it.

Clinton [0:28:15]: They're not going to find less expensive coverage out there in the marketplace because their vehicle is now older whenever they would go shop it.

Clinton [0:28:21]: So it becomes a really sticky, strong retention tool for agents and producers that says, hey, even if they do leave you to go, place their auto insurance with a a competitor down the road, they're not gonna leave you from the auto warranty side of things.

Clinton [0:28:35]: So you still have a reason to reach out to provide service and to show your value.

Clinton [0:28:41]: So when rates do change on the insurance side of the house, you've got that connection point to win that client back.

Clinton [0:28:47]: We're better yet because they have that warranty product with you, and they can't go get that warranty product from the agency down the street or they can't get a more competitive warranty product online.

Clinton [0:28:59]: They're just gonna keep their business with you because they don't wanna have to deal with multiple agencies and multiple partners.

Clinton [0:29:04]: And so it becomes a really, really strong retention tool to build a profitable book for for you as an agent and as a producer.

Callan [0:29:11]: I wanna talk a little bit about the different types of agencies, Main street, digital, digital kinda of call center type model, large broker, are you finding one channel to be more successful with a product like this than another.

Callan [0:29:25]: And a great the way that I kinda think about this is, and or maybe it's a persona.

Callan [0:29:30]: Is it more of an advisory an an agent that sees himself more as a risk adviser as opposed to a transactional insurance agent or when you look at these different segments, what does that look like?

Clinton [0:29:42]: Yeah.

Clinton [0:29:42]: Yeah.

Clinton [0:29:43]: So generally speaking, your digital agencies are traditionally going to...

Clinton [0:29:49]: If they're if they're selling auto insurance, they're going to traditionally skewed more towards the non standard or the mono line standard auto customer.

Clinton [0:29:58]: And so that means a really high churning book of business for these digital agencies and becomes almost In some of these shops.

Clinton [0:30:07]: It looks like a Glen, Glen ross, you know, boiler room style, call center environment.

Clinton [0:30:11]: Right?

Clinton [0:30:12]: And so it's really expensive from a cost of acquisition standpoint as well to acquire business digitally.

Clinton [0:30:18]: Either generating your own leads or buying leads through through digital channels.

Clinton [0:30:22]: And so any opportunity to be able to cross sell into an additional product that helps drive retention or helps drive total revenue for that account, becomes really, really beneficial for these digital agencies.

Clinton [0:30:37]: And so...

Clinton [0:30:38]: But the the lin pin there is speed to business.

Clinton [0:30:41]: They wanna do a one call close.

Clinton [0:30:43]: It can't be...

Clinton [0:30:44]: I gotta jump into fifteen different systems.

Clinton [0:30:46]: It can't take forty five minutes to sell an auto insurance policy and a warranty.

Clinton [0:30:50]: You can't add any additional time to the sales cycle to be able to close that client, that client or that lead in that one call closed.

Clinton [0:30:58]: And so we've designed a quote bind Api.

Clinton [0:31:01]: That can be stood up in twenty four hours and integrated into their systems.

Clinton [0:31:05]: And we don't require any additional information than what you're already collecting for the auto insurance quote.

Clinton [0:31:10]: And so it creates a seamless ability to quote Fair and to bind Fair without having to go outside of your pre established workflows.

Clinton [0:31:19]: Additionally, the other piece of of unlocking those digital agencies is cost.

Clinton [0:31:25]: So one of the biggest hidden costs of running a digital agency is report fees from carriers.

Clinton [0:31:31]: Because every time you quote an auto insurance policy and you get to a rate call too.

Clinton [0:31:35]: You're running an Mb, you're running a clue report.

Clinton [0:31:37]: And if you don't have a certain close rate with a carrier, they're gonna charge you for those those reports.

Clinton [0:31:43]: And those reports can be anywhere from five to twenty bucks a pop, one of my digital agencies, we had a carrier partner where we actually ended up paying them every month because we were spending more in reports than we're placing with them in business.

Clinton [0:31:54]: That becomes a really big issue.

Clinton [0:31:56]: So one of the nice things for us as a product is we don't have those costs.

Clinton [0:32:00]: So you can hit our Api and quote every single time, you're never gonna have to worry about the cost of quoting or the cost of binding.

Clinton [0:32:09]: We've removed that hurdle, and which...

Clinton [0:32:12]: Just which then creates a workflow experience that says, hey, even if the agent isn't going to bring that in conversation or isn't thinking about bringing warranty as a cross sell and the auto sale conversation, they're still gonna see the quote there.

Clinton [0:32:26]: It's still gonna be presented to them, which makes them more likely to have the conversation because they didn't have to do any additional work to run the quote, and it it leads to better adoption.

Clinton [0:32:35]: So that's how we designed for those those digital agencies.

Clinton [0:32:38]: It's it's a speed and business.

Clinton [0:32:40]: And and solving for them to generate additional revenue.

Callan [0:32:43]: On the...

Callan [0:32:43]: So on the on the main Street side, I'm assuming there has to be more...

Callan [0:32:47]: They have to look at this more as an adviser than they do transaction.

Clinton [0:32:51]: Yep.

Clinton [0:32:51]: It's a very different experience.

Clinton [0:32:53]: So On the main street side of things, we actually...

Clinton [0:32:56]: Those agencies, Apis aren't near as attractive to them.

Clinton [0:33:00]: It's not about a a speed of business.

Clinton [0:33:01]: It's about a value proposition.

Clinton [0:33:03]: And so running insurance agency is one of the most interesting businesses out there because you don't control your product.

Clinton [0:33:08]: You don't control your pricing.

Clinton [0:33:10]: You don't control your claims.

Clinton [0:33:11]: And so you're selling something that, ultimately you have very limited control over, and your reputation with the client is tied to how your partners deliver.

Clinton [0:33:22]: And that can make a very precarious environment.

Clinton [0:33:25]: Right?

Clinton [0:33:25]: And and so you've gotta build trust.

Clinton [0:33:27]: And those main street agencies, they're in their communities, and their reputation is tied, how well their business is done is tied to their reputation.

Clinton [0:33:35]: And so One of the things is that the warranty space has traditionally been sold through car dealerships with a lot of predatory pricing and massive markup ups.

Clinton [0:33:46]: We're talking four hundred six hundred percent markup ups on the actual cost of coverage.

Clinton [0:33:50]: And so we're able to come in and charge a little bit more than the true cost of coverage but come in thirty to, forty percent lower than than what you can purchase a warranty from for from a dealership.

Clinton [0:34:03]: But yet, still be charging more than we need to for the cost of coverage what that allows for us to do is to truly deliver on behalf of that agency.

Clinton [0:34:14]: So what's important to the mainstream agencies is, how are you going to make sure you don't hurt my reputation?

Clinton [0:34:19]: In fact, how are you going to help support the success of it.

Clinton [0:34:22]: And so it's less about the technology?

Clinton [0:34:23]: It's more about the product?

Clinton [0:34:24]: We still make it really easy to quote and bind with us through through our embedded quoting links.

Clinton [0:34:29]: But the value there is that we have an Sla to settle claims in twenty four hours.

Clinton [0:34:34]: Right now, we're settling claims in less than an hour.

Clinton [0:34:36]: You can't drop

Callan [0:34:38]: the ball on anything service related or you lose it in a second.

Clinton [0:34:41]: Yep.

Clinton [0:34:41]: And we pay out posted labor rates.

Clinton [0:34:43]: A lot of the market in the warranty space And this is part of our training that we help agents understand the value proposition here.

Clinton [0:34:49]: A lot of warranty companies will have negotiated warranty rates where they'll negotiate back and forth at the garages and and garages then don't like working with that warranty provider.

Clinton [0:34:57]: Where it's slows down the claim settlement.

Clinton [0:34:58]: We've made the the conscious decision to say, nope.

Clinton [0:35:02]: We're gonna pay the posted labor rates.

Clinton [0:35:03]: We're gonna pay the sales tax.

Clinton [0:35:04]: We're gonna pay the fluid fees.

Clinton [0:35:05]: We're going to take care of the client.

Clinton [0:35:07]: Let's build the the book of business with you as an agency partner.

Clinton [0:35:12]: And our opportunity and and where we win comes at scale.

Clinton [0:35:16]: And our delivery on that really resonates and it puts agents those main street agents it puts their minds at ease, and gives them something that's a competitive advantage that actually supports their their business and doesn't put it at risk.

Callan [0:35:31]: You know, we were talking about this little bit before the call, but have you worked with any carriers to make this an endorsement yet?

Callan [0:35:37]: Do you have any...

Callan [0:35:38]: Is this an official endorsement on anybody's forms

Clinton [0:35:41]: We're in conversations, we're under a number of Nda.

Clinton [0:35:43]: Yeah.

Clinton [0:35:44]: But that's where a future state is going.

Clinton [0:35:47]: In fact, a lot of the interest is coming from the Mg.

Clinton [0:35:50]: I would say we are in the season of Mg for the insurance industry.

Clinton [0:35:54]: Right now, there's a lot of those jumping up, especially in those tougher markets.

Clinton [0:35:58]: You talk about the coasts or down in Florida out in California where risk exposures are are hard under rate.

Clinton [0:36:05]: And those Mg, though, they're they're going into a heavily comm market of auto insurance.

Clinton [0:36:09]: There's only so much you can do in in coverage options based off of the the state regulation.

Clinton [0:36:16]: Mg are really interested in working with us because we provide a unique coverage option that sets them apart from the well established players in the market.

Callan [0:36:24]: So that makes total sense.

Callan [0:36:26]: You know, here's what I'm curious about.

Callan [0:36:28]: Everyone's trying to break into this.

Callan [0:36:30]: I guess two questions.

Callan [0:36:31]: One, where do most people screw this up?

Callan [0:36:35]: If they've got an ancillary product did wanna become part of that core stack where do most people screw this up.

Callan [0:36:40]: And are there any things that you did when you when you got into this?

Callan [0:36:45]: You're like, oh, that...

Callan [0:36:46]: Yeah.

Callan [0:36:47]: That was bit...

Callan [0:36:48]: I thought that would work, but that definitely did not work?

Clinton [0:36:51]: Yeah.

Clinton [0:36:51]: Yeah.

Clinton [0:36:52]: Implementation, the the largest screw up, the biggest miss step is thinking that once the paperwork is signed, the work is over.

Clinton [0:37:01]: And that...

Clinton [0:37:02]: And that the partner's gonna go and just be successful.

Clinton [0:37:05]: So we have put a ton of time into our learning management system.

Clinton [0:37:08]: We...

Clinton [0:37:09]: When I appoint a new agency partner, every week we check in for the first two months.

Clinton [0:37:14]: And it's not just check of how much business have be written for me today.

Clinton [0:37:18]: The check in is...

Clinton [0:37:19]: Hey, where your agent successful?

Clinton [0:37:21]: Where are they struggling?

Clinton [0:37:22]: Why are they bringing it not bringing it up or why are they bringing it up?

Clinton [0:37:26]: Why are they bringing up, but the sales aren't getting closed?

Clinton [0:37:29]: Is it a technology issue?

Clinton [0:37:30]: Is it a coverage issue?

Clinton [0:37:31]: Is it a, comfort issue, you know, what's what's the challenges there?

Clinton [0:37:35]: And because warranty hasn't regulated the same as insurance, were able to adjust really, really rapidly.

Clinton [0:37:42]: Perfect example of this, I thought my first off the bat and where one of my early misses was I wanna make the product as simple as possible to sell.

Clinton [0:37:50]: We wanna cut down on coverage selections.

Clinton [0:37:52]: We wanna cut down on options.

Clinton [0:37:54]: We just wanna make it super simple as a a thirty second single line cross sell.

Clinton [0:38:00]: And so we can remove any as much learning curve as as possible from this.

Clinton [0:38:07]: We got feedback from one of our early agency partners that said, hey, we actually need more coverage options, in particular around the deductibles.

Clinton [0:38:15]: So we have a standard hundred dollar deductible on our warranty product, and that was our only deductible choice.

Clinton [0:38:20]: They came back to us and said, look, when we sell comp and collision coverage, we sell two hundred and fifty or five hundred dollar deductibles.

Clinton [0:38:27]: We don't have a hundred dollar deductible option.

Clinton [0:38:29]: It's confusing for the customer to think, wait.

Clinton [0:38:31]: I've got a different deductible for breakdown protection, but I do for comp collision because I'm seeing this as a, covering and protecting my car, not as I'm looking at two different products.

Clinton [0:38:42]: And so one of the things we did then went back to is it said, alright.

Clinton [0:38:46]: Let's go add the two fifty and five hundred dollar deductible options, not...

Clinton [0:38:50]: And and primarily for the reason of it, just makes it for a more seamless conversation for the agents to be able to have control over that coverage selection to align with their comp collision.

Clinton [0:39:00]: And so that was an early learning miss for for me to think, oh, I simplified it, but I made it too simple for the need of the market.

Callan [0:39:08]: Did you find that that was the case more with mainstream agencies for digital?

Clinton [0:39:12]: This feedback came from a digital agency.

Clinton [0:39:14]: Interesting, in particular.

Clinton [0:39:15]: Yeah.

Clinton [0:39:16]: Because they were doing high volume of sales.

Clinton [0:39:18]: And so they just wanted to be able to make their sales conversation standardized Hey, If we ask for deductible, we ask for...

Clinton [0:39:26]: What do you want your deductible to be?

Clinton [0:39:27]: Not deductible for comp, deductible for collision deductible for breakdown, we just ask what you want your deductible to be?

Clinton [0:39:33]: Because we wanna make it simple to be able to close that customer on the phone.

Callan [0:39:38]: I would have thought exactly what you thought.

Callan [0:39:39]: Yeah.

Callan [0:39:40]: For, like, the digital agency...

Callan [0:39:42]: There's one option make it as simple as possible.

Callan [0:39:43]: And I want people to think.

Callan [0:39:45]: But that makes a lot of sense.

Callan [0:39:46]: If late, what do you want your deductible to be two fifty, that'll be across whether that's...

Callan [0:39:51]: The warranty product, the the actual insurance product whatever that might be.

Callan [0:39:54]: Yep.

Callan [0:39:55]: Interesting.

Callan [0:39:55]: That definitely makes sense in hindsight, but I wouldn't have thought any different than what you thought for sure.

Clinton [0:40:01]: Another thing that we learned that that really helped build tangible trust to close for we're a brand new carrier.

Clinton [0:40:09]: Right?

Clinton [0:40:10]: So as a brand new carrier, if you're an agent, owner, you're, like, how do you pay out in claims?

Clinton [0:40:15]: Or, you know, what's what's the claims experience?

Clinton [0:40:17]: Because, ultimately, that's what we're selling is is the is the claims settlement.

Clinton [0:40:20]: One of the biggest frustrations in the P and c industry around claims is the lack of transparency.

Clinton [0:40:26]: So if you're an agency owner, and then I'm the claim rep in the carrier, I don't share my claim notes with you.

Clinton [0:40:32]: You don't get to see that.

Clinton [0:40:33]: The customer talks to me the claim rep.

Clinton [0:40:36]: The customer talks to you the agent.

Clinton [0:40:38]: The customer is the only one that sees the full picture.

Clinton [0:40:40]: So you have one set of information.

Clinton [0:40:42]: I have another set of information, but we're not sharing information back and forth.

Clinton [0:40:46]: And therefore, you're supposed to be taking care of that client, but you can't really take care of that client from a claims experience because you have no idea truly what's going on.

Clinton [0:40:55]: You're sometimes and and more often then it should be the last one to know what's going on with the claim.

Clinton [0:41:00]: So one of the things we did we designed in our platform is all of our claim notes are visible inside the of portal.

Clinton [0:41:06]: As soon as the claim note gets put in, the agent and the producer of the Csr can see that claim note.

Clinton [0:41:12]: If you as an agent or as a Csr, get more information from the customer, you can actually add to the claim notes, and we'll see that claim that come in from from you from the agency side.

Clinton [0:41:22]: So there's a complete picture where we you and I are truly partners on carrier an agent to be able to help take care of that customer when they do have that claim a event because ultimately, that's what they're paying for, and that's what drives that positive experience and that route retention of your book.

Callan [0:41:39]: Yeah.

Callan [0:41:39]: It gives you a good opportunity to be able to reach out and show that you're all over it.

Callan [0:41:43]: That's interesting.

Callan [0:41:43]: Clint, if you were to start at Fair from day one.

Callan [0:41:48]: Anything you do differently?

Clinton [0:41:51]: I mean, I started at year one and a half and have known them for a year.

Clinton [0:41:55]: So I got to start pretty early with them in in that sense.

Clinton [0:42:00]: I would say, day one, early when Fair first launched and started going after the agency channel.

Clinton [0:42:09]: We made a hire for an account executive to basically cold call agencies to ask if they'd be interested in an appointment.

Clinton [0:42:16]: Hundreds of calls, hundreds of agencies, zero appointments.

Clinton [0:42:20]: Agencies don't answer cold calls.

Clinton [0:42:22]: We didn't show up where agents were showing no.

Clinton [0:42:25]: In the environments when those agents were ready or those agency principles were ready to have that hip discovery conversation.

Clinton [0:42:31]: We made a miss there.

Clinton [0:42:32]: We spent resources, salary.

Clinton [0:42:34]: We hired somebody and then had to let that person go.

Clinton [0:42:37]: Because we made a step about how to approach the channel.

Clinton [0:42:42]: We are in an interesting industry that is becoming more and more digital and how we serve clients, but still like to do business face to face.

Clinton [0:42:52]: One designing partnerships.

Clinton [0:42:54]: So one of the things I think we...

Clinton [0:42:57]: I would have adjusted from day one was the only way we would have recruited agents from the very beginning was through conferences through events through places where we can be face to face with them, shake their hand, talk to them for five, ten, fifteen minutes, generate that initial interest and then be able to schedule that follow up call to dive in deeply.

Clinton [0:43:17]: And that would have sped our go to market.

Clinton [0:43:20]: A whole lot faster and would have been able to build a lot stronger relationships with those partners a lot earlier.

Callan [0:43:29]: You know, that's interesting.

Callan [0:43:30]: I'm curious if that had something to do with you're calling about a product.

Callan [0:43:34]: Like an actual product that you want them to distribute versus on the Saas side.

Callan [0:43:39]: So the Saas side, cold calling is still Fairly effective.

Callan [0:43:42]: It is not as effective as it was five to ten years ago, like, no question about it.

Callan [0:43:47]: That being said, even though it is still effective, I would still do exactly what you just said.

Callan [0:43:53]: You have to tap out the conferences in this space first before you start to branch out.

Callan [0:44:00]: And, you know, the reality is you are cold...

Callan [0:44:02]: You're cold calling for this conference, but you have a reason to call...

Callan [0:44:06]: Like, you have a better reason, and then I'm just cold calling you to sell something, even though it's ultimately what you're gonna do, but you can cold call to meet to schedule a meeting at that conference

Clinton [0:44:15]: branch And, you know, those folks are in the mindset where they're there to learn about new things versus you're trying to interrupt their day when you're calling them versus enhancing their day and validating the purpose that they're they're at that conference in the first place.

Clinton [0:44:31]: And so our largest partnerships, the networks, the the national brokers, All of those relationships have come from conferences.

Clinton [0:44:38]: They have not come from the cold calling approach.

Callan [0:44:41]: Yep.

Callan [0:44:41]: No question.

Callan [0:44:42]: You got it back...

Callan [0:44:43]: In this world, yeah...

Callan [0:44:44]: And actually, I think it's only gonna be become more important.

Callan [0:44:46]: Everything's just getting more and more pushed back to in person.

Callan [0:44:50]: Has never left in this space, but just across all go to market.

Callan [0:44:54]: Go to mark micro events, conferences, all of those things are are just only becoming stronger and bigger, Clint, this was great.

Callan [0:45:03]: This went exactly how I anticipated it was gonna go.

Callan [0:45:05]: I knew we're gonna get in the weeds.

Callan [0:45:07]: Ever since the first time we met it at state Auto.

Callan [0:45:09]: I remember when that happened, and and we're were like, oh, man.

Callan [0:45:13]: This guy really knows this stuff.

Callan [0:45:14]: So I've got a ton of respect for yourself and your knowledge and beat an expert in this world.

Callan [0:45:19]: So thanks for coming on today.

Clinton [0:45:22]: Hey.

Clinton [0:45:22]: Really appreciate you having me and appreciate what you're doing for the industry of of running this podcast.

Clinton [0:45:27]: And helping share this knowledge across the board.

Clinton [0:45:30]: It's only moving faster.

Callan [0:45:32]: Well, I appreciate that.

Callan [0:45:33]: I think twenty six is gonna be a fun year.

Clinton [0:45:35]: Yeah.

Clinton [0:45:35]: Yeah.

Clinton [0:45:36]: Absolutely.

Callan [0:45:37]: Alright, Clint.

Callan [0:45:38]: Thanks, Brother.

Callan [0:45:38]: Hey.

Callan [0:45:39]: Thanks, Colin.

Callan [0:45:39]: I hope you enjoy Clinton nice conversation, I love getting Clint perspective because it's so clear.

Callan [0:45:53]: He's sat in a seat and his done the at rome himself.

Clinton [0:45:56]: If you

Callan [0:45:56]: wanna learn more about Clint, you could find him on Linkedin in the show notes.

Callan [0:46:00]: Also, if you like this episode, you could find me on Linkedin to let me know.

Callan [0:46:04]: And if you really wanna support the show, subscribe to us on Youtube, give us a review on Apple podcast or Spotify.

Callan [0:46:10]: Every time you do, it is very much appreciated.

Callan [0:46:13]: In Thank you all for listening, and I'll see you next week.