How Seth Zaremba Took Retention from 87 to 94% at ZINC Insurance

Seth [0:00:00]: The input cost for an agency are going up, The input revenue from carriers is going down, and you've got this organization that's gonna stay the same.

Seth [0:00:09]: Impossible.

Seth [0:00:10]: The realities now of the world we live in no longer support that mindset of, like, well, we've done it this way.

Seth [0:00:17]: We're gonna do it that way.

Seth [0:00:18]: You can't.

Seth [0:00:19]: You'll be broke in five years or less.

Callan [0:00:23]: Welcome to the Insurance Growth Lab.

Callan [0:00:25]: Where we go deep on the growth campaigns and strategies driving real results in the insurance industry.

Callan [0:00:31]: 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, whether it's how they at a product, scale a channel, or solve a specific growth challenge.

Callan [0:00:49]: It's no fluff, just tactical insights you can apply in your own company.

Callan [0:00:53]: Seth, I'm excited for this I don't say this lightly.

Callan [0:01:01]: You're one of my favorite entrepreneurs in this space.

Callan [0:01:05]: I think you're one of the most resilient entrepreneurs in this space.

Callan [0:01:08]: And so I thought it was fitting to start this here.

Callan [0:01:12]: And can you tell us what does it mean to hold your breath as an entrepreneur?

Seth [0:01:17]: I think most entrepreneurs myself included, we all have those days where it...

Seth [0:01:22]: We're gonna die.

Seth [0:01:22]: I've probably died a hundred times in the last couple years, and probably everybody who's done it We don't wanna go home and talk to our spouses and the worst thing a spouse can I ask is, like, how is your day or even worse, like, what did you sell today?

Callan [0:01:35]: Just

Seth [0:01:35]: die inside, your team, you're letting your team down.

Seth [0:01:39]: You're letting your investors down.

Seth [0:01:40]: You're letting your customers down.

Seth [0:01:41]: You've stake your reputation on whatever it is that you're promoting and building, and it's just in very few if anybody people understand it.

Seth [0:01:48]: And who the heck do you even talk to about it.

Seth [0:01:50]: And so I think there's these moments where we think we can't win because we're fighting some insurmountable task and I've just decided in life that you don't have to slay a giant.

Seth [0:02:01]: If it's a hold your breath contest of me and you in a pool, I just have to hold my breath one second longer than you to win.

Seth [0:02:09]: And I think when you think about challenges that way, it allows you...

Seth [0:02:13]: If I told you had to hold your breath for another ten minutes, you probably couldn't it.

Seth [0:02:17]: But if I just said, hold your breath one more second than me, that makes it doable.

Seth [0:02:22]: And I think as entrepreneurs when we're having those moments, we lose perspective.

Seth [0:02:26]: And so I always tell myself, I don't have to beat this industry.

Seth [0:02:29]: I don't have to be a world beater.

Seth [0:02:31]: I just gotta hold my breath one more second than the competition.

Seth [0:02:34]: If I do, I win.

Seth [0:02:36]: That's how I get through the hard times, and there's there's a lot of if you're gonna be taken on an entrepreneurial role.

Callan [0:02:43]: You brought up something in there that I think is it's pretty funny where when I first started founded in the company, and my own company, you know, I'd always heard everyone's like, well, you're not gonna realize You can't just go and make these business decisions you'll have to run those pastor your spouse.

Callan [0:02:56]: And I was like, I don't know.

Callan [0:02:58]: Like, the business is separate from...

Callan [0:03:00]: And I've done a lot of startups ups.

Callan [0:03:01]: Boy was I wrong on that one.

Callan [0:03:03]: Oh, man was I wrong.

Callan [0:03:06]: It's one and the same.

Callan [0:03:08]: If you're the founder, it's one in the same.

Callan [0:03:09]: You can't separate those.

Callan [0:03:11]: So I'm curious if that has been your experience.

Seth [0:03:13]: Yeah.

Seth [0:03:13]: And if you're married, you can't find a business without them being...

Seth [0:03:16]: I mean, they're your largest a shareholder.

Seth [0:03:17]: Right?

Seth [0:03:18]: I mean, they're the ones...

Seth [0:03:19]: I'm remember when I started, on my insurance saying she's saying.

Seth [0:03:21]: I quit my agency.

Seth [0:03:22]: I was driving home.

Seth [0:03:23]: I called my wife, and I was like, I quit my job.

Seth [0:03:26]: We have three kids a house.

Seth [0:03:27]: She's a teacher making sixty most dollars a year, and she's like, okay.

Seth [0:03:32]: What do what are you gonna do?

Seth [0:03:35]: And I said, we're gonna start an agency and she's like, great.

Seth [0:03:38]: How many customers are coming with us, and I was like, nah.

Seth [0:03:41]: And there was silent, and she's, like, can we do this?

Seth [0:03:45]: And I'm like, we can do this, and she's like, well, then let's do it.

Seth [0:03:48]: And at that moment, and it I realized like, I can't...

Seth [0:03:52]: She has to agree and support me to do this.

Seth [0:03:56]: And so we're eating ham sandwiches for the next five years.

Callan [0:03:58]: Yeah.

Seth [0:03:59]: So she better be in for that.

Seth [0:04:00]: And that's what I'm saying.

Seth [0:04:02]: I remember one day.

Seth [0:04:03]: I was...

Seth [0:04:03]: I hadn't sold anything, like, a two months.

Seth [0:04:05]: And Cal...

Seth [0:04:05]: I mean, it's was like, I felt like a dog because every time I came home so like, what did you sell?

Seth [0:04:09]: What'd you saw today?

Seth [0:04:10]: And so I got halfway home and I went to a movie theater before in the afternoon and I sat there because I couldn't go home.

Seth [0:04:17]: I couldn't bear the thought of that question.

Seth [0:04:18]: It was, like, a sad movie.

Seth [0:04:19]: And I was like, I'm just sitting there because I couldn't tell her that I didn't sell anything that day.

Seth [0:04:23]: And I just think like, your spouse if you're an entrepreneur, and you're lucky enough to have a spouse.

Seth [0:04:28]: They have to support them because they're are the ones who get you through the hard times.

Callan [0:04:31]: A hundred percent.

Callan [0:04:32]: Also, just more of a note to self, Don't go see Marley at me at four Pm.

Callan [0:04:36]: I think that's just that's you can't do it.

Seth [0:04:39]: It's gonna wreck your day.

Seth [0:04:40]: This gonna wreck your day.

Callan [0:04:43]: Well, you know, it's funny.

Callan [0:04:43]: You know, I know you say this ingest in that how you've died a hundred times.

Callan [0:04:47]: But the reality is, you've had a ton of success.

Callan [0:04:49]: You were a cofounder of Indian, which a lot of people know has been a very successful agency network that sold to a Sure global in twenty twenty three.

Callan [0:04:56]: You c founded zinc, which this is where I'm really excited to dive into here today, which was a an insurance agency What of more impressive steps that I've heard on this is that you took retention from eighty seven to ninety four percent.

Callan [0:05:10]: You ultimately sold that to T cor in twenty twenty two, and then you went on to found be atomic in in twenty twenty one.

Callan [0:05:18]: We'll talk a little bit about that today, But one of the stories that I...

Callan [0:05:22]: One of the things that and why I I specifically and I had told you this on why I I really wanted to get you on the show is you probably have the efficiency numbers down better than anybody I've heard within the space.

Callan [0:05:34]: And I think it's really, really interesting, and it's a really, really interesting time to talk about this.

Callan [0:05:39]: And so what I think of zinc, and what I wanna dive into is how you drove These are my words extreme efficiency into that agency.

Callan [0:05:49]: And to kick that off, as I understand it, there was a moment that you brought your team into the conference room And you essentially wanted to get some ideas on what to do at that time, and everybody said hire more people, and you said no.

Callan [0:06:05]: That's not the answer.

Callan [0:06:07]: A couple questions.

Callan [0:06:08]: What led to that conversation?

Callan [0:06:10]: And two, why was no, not the right answer.

Seth [0:06:15]: Well, I think everybody who builds a team relies on that team.

Seth [0:06:18]: But as a founder, I think we can rely on them too much because they have their head on a very specific view of the business.

Seth [0:06:24]: And I think it's a mistake they make his founders too.

Seth [0:06:26]: Not to say that everyone doesn't have value.

Seth [0:06:29]: But when you're thinking strategically going to tactical people for solutions, oftentimes we'll give you a cloud answer.

Seth [0:06:36]: And so here I was in one of those moments, probably, when it was, like, what am I gonna do, there's these people I love that are dying for me in the business every day.

Seth [0:06:44]: Let's go ask them.

Seth [0:06:46]: And I probably didn't have the vision of strategy and tactics quite in my head at that moment.

Seth [0:06:50]: And they all meaningfully thought about it and said, we just need to I more people.

Seth [0:06:53]: And I'm like, that can't be the answer that nothing supports that.

Seth [0:06:57]: One the businesses isn't in a position where it can afford that two carrier compensation going down.

Seth [0:07:03]: All the expenses are going up, adding people to a problem just means we scale the same problem in the same expense layer.

Seth [0:07:09]: There has to be a change in the business.

Seth [0:07:11]: And so the answer was absolutely no.

Seth [0:07:13]: We're not gonna solve it this time with people.

Seth [0:07:16]: We're gonna start to pull apart the process and let's look at the metrics and start to understand it.

Seth [0:07:22]: And account, this is where I think probably most agents have been when you go to dive into the industry metrics, it's depressing.

Seth [0:07:28]: Call the best consultants, talk to your Associations so what's your retention?

Seth [0:07:32]: What's your Eb?

Seth [0:07:33]: And it's, like, great.

Seth [0:07:35]: All outcome data, But outcomes are based on behaviors and what are the behaviors that go into it.

Seth [0:07:42]: And so it became clear to me that in order to understand how to control the outcomes, I had to understand what the behaviors were, meaning what did we work on?

Seth [0:07:50]: How many times did it happened, what did it cost?

Seth [0:07:53]: And when I asked the industry experts like those type of things there were no answers.

Seth [0:07:59]: Literally, hey, what are the processes that we should be measuring?

Seth [0:08:02]: Well, there's limitless processes in an agency because we're independent.

Seth [0:08:06]: Turns out there's only twenty nine.

Seth [0:08:07]: Seven or five on sales, eighteen on service and seven tasks.

Seth [0:08:11]: That's what happens at scale inside of.

Seth [0:08:12]: Okay.

Seth [0:08:13]: And it turns out that they do have a pretty notable ingredients list.

Seth [0:08:17]: It's the phone calls.

Seth [0:08:18]: It's the emails.

Seth [0:08:19]: It's the humans involved.

Seth [0:08:20]: It's the web portals.

Seth [0:08:21]: It's the data and the Ams.

Seth [0:08:22]: It's the movement, the documents.

Seth [0:08:23]: And so that was measurable.

Seth [0:08:25]: And then there was the cost it was like, well, why don't we just break down the cost by person by task and assign some time to this.

Seth [0:08:31]: And so we began to focus on the unit increment types, Yeah.

Seth [0:08:36]: Unit increment cost and the unit increment volume, which at the time and probably to this day most people weren't thinking about.

Seth [0:08:43]: But if you understood every teaspoon then you could make the gallons way you wanted.

Seth [0:08:47]: But if you're trying to dip a gallon jug and get a teaspoon in it, it's very hard to know how much you have.

Seth [0:08:53]: And so by reducing insurance to its smallest processes and figuring out how many times it happens and what they cost, then we could begin to break them apart and say, well, don't do that anymore.

Seth [0:09:02]: We can figure out automation for that one thing.

Seth [0:09:04]: Well, it's just one thing.

Seth [0:09:06]: Yeah, but it happens eight thousand times a year.

Seth [0:09:09]: So if we can save twenty percent on that.

Seth [0:09:12]: Now we're getting somewhere.

Seth [0:09:13]: And so it was that kind of process that I started going through and started getting man about the measurements and the what I deemed ultimately the cost per transaction for everything that happens in an insurance agency.

Callan [0:09:25]: So you broke this all the way down to the unit or transaction level.

Callan [0:09:29]: And one of the things I'm curious about is because what I hear that, I think that'll all...

Callan [0:09:35]: You mean, that all sounds great.

Callan [0:09:36]: And then Sas, you know, a lot of times it does get down to the unit, but you've took it a level further in my opinion.

Callan [0:09:41]: One of the things that I'm curious about is How did you figure that out?

Callan [0:09:46]: How did you actually measure that within the agency?

Callan [0:09:49]: Getting into the weeds a little bit, What does that look like?

Seth [0:09:53]: Why I had to build my own system?

Seth [0:09:53]: Because if you do this inside of a traditional software stack inside of an agency that wasn't built to measure this stuff.

Seth [0:10:00]: You won't get it.

Seth [0:10:01]: And if you go to your people, they don't value that or see that as anything, so they can't give it to you.

Seth [0:10:05]: And so for me, I had to stop running in traditional workflows and build out my own workflows.

Seth [0:10:11]: So I build a Crm and customize it hey.

Seth [0:10:14]: When you do this process, I wanted to all go through this process this case.

Seth [0:10:18]: And so I wanna see the phone call come in, I wanna see how long that phone call is.

Seth [0:10:21]: I wanna see how many emails are associated with it.

Seth [0:10:23]: I wanna see which carriers you go to.

Seth [0:10:25]: Wanna see how long it takes in the carrier wide portal.

Seth [0:10:27]: I wanna see how many documents are in there.

Seth [0:10:29]: I wanna see where they get it attached, and I wanna see you call back the customer and close that case.

Seth [0:10:33]: So I architect those things out, which means you had to know what was happening.

Seth [0:10:36]: And then I just started watching.

Seth [0:10:38]: Them And it turns out my agency did twenty two thousand four hundred and seventy a year.

Seth [0:10:41]: And it was like, oh, and now I could begin to understand how on average how long each one took, who was underperforming, who was over performing which ones were the big cost generators and which ones could be automated and which ones would still need to be handled by humans.

Seth [0:10:56]: But now they could be broken up and moved to different solutions or I could introduce solutions into that workflow and all of a sudden the unit cost started coming down consistently on it.

Seth [0:11:07]: And so it was a painful process and a expensive one, but it yielded some pretty incredible fruit.

Callan [0:11:13]: Okay.

Callan [0:11:13]: So you've got this...

Callan [0:11:14]: You're tracking this.

Callan [0:11:15]: What were some of those ones that first went?

Callan [0:11:17]: What were the ones that were, like, this is ridiculous.

Callan [0:11:19]: We're spending way too much on this.

Callan [0:11:21]: What were some of those early couple changes.

Callan [0:11:23]: Can you remember some of those?

Seth [0:11:25]: Yeah.

Seth [0:11:25]: And I'll tell you what?

Seth [0:11:25]: You don't need to buy a single piece of software for these.

Seth [0:11:28]: So think about this.

Seth [0:11:29]: If somebody if employee a is making ninety thousand dollars a year doing a process?

Seth [0:11:34]: And it doesn't require any special expertise, but it's their job or it's part of that account or something like that.

Seth [0:11:40]: And in the next cubicle or next office, employee b is making fifty thousand dollars a year and can do the same task.

Seth [0:11:46]: You should just very easily say, hey, if that task comes up, it actually...

Seth [0:11:51]: They all go over to employee b and employee b, if you perform well here, you can actually make more money because I've got margin there.

Seth [0:11:57]: And so the very first thing was getting rid of the traditional roles of personal lines commercial lines or you have these customers, we said, hey, if this customer needs this particular thing a certificate end of insurance, you no longer do in certificate, it's create a case send it down the hall or send it to someone else and let them do it.

Seth [0:12:15]: And literally, in that particular case, employee, it costs twelve dollars and ninety six cents for a certificate, employee b at costs three dollars and six cents.

Seth [0:12:24]: Well they...

Seth [0:12:25]: She did roughly two thousand certificates a year.

Seth [0:12:27]: A ten dollars a piece savings by just moving it.

Seth [0:12:31]: So when you start to think this way in the very first solution is there...

Seth [0:12:34]: If I can get that work if it happens at volume, is there somebody else inside the agency that is better positioned to do it?

Seth [0:12:41]: Chances are, this person will do more productive things on employee and employee will actually be much more diligent and increase their value, but still maintain margin on it.

Seth [0:12:50]: But then, like, the second thing is rating.

Seth [0:12:52]: It became very clear that rating process for commercial and and personal was just knowledge workers, which are very expensive, typing keys and moving and cutting pasting data from one system to another system to another system.

Seth [0:13:04]: And that became a really easy solution.

Seth [0:13:07]: There's a lot of forms...

Seth [0:13:08]: This is back in the day.

Seth [0:13:10]: There's a lot of form solution.

Seth [0:13:11]: Wait a saying.

Seth [0:13:11]: If we didn't have to put that data in.

Seth [0:13:13]: If I literally didn't have to pay somebody ninety dollars to input data, and I just sent the form to the customer, Could I create an experience where I couldn't inc the customer to put that information in.

Seth [0:13:24]: And so what we did is we took all the data in our system.

Seth [0:13:27]: We filled the format and said, hey, Cal.

Seth [0:13:29]: We're working on your renewal.

Seth [0:13:30]: We're missing some information would you mind completing it.

Seth [0:13:33]: What we sent that to you, and you wanted to complete because it was almost all complete.

Seth [0:13:37]: You sent it back complete and I saved ninety dollars.

Seth [0:13:40]: And that happened thousands of times inside of our agency.

Seth [0:13:44]: And so there's a lot of ways to go at or think about this, but we're just not thinking about it like a manufacturing line.

Seth [0:13:51]: We think of professional services as an expertise, which it is when it comes to knowledge relationship, but it's not when it comes to processing and processing is where most of your expenses inside of an agency.

Callan [0:14:04]: So when you started to get some of these savings as you mentioned, where did that money go?

Seth [0:14:09]: It's funny thing you mentioned that.

Seth [0:14:10]: Employees actually made thirteen point eight percent more.

Seth [0:14:13]: So get that.

Seth [0:14:14]: So when they were processing, when their job was just processing, and I did...

Seth [0:14:19]: I couldn't see their value because that's what they were doing.

Seth [0:14:21]: Everybody capped out.

Seth [0:14:23]: When processing went away, and now what do you do if you're not doing that hour?

Seth [0:14:27]: Well, you're actually talking to the customer.

Seth [0:14:29]: You're reviewing the policy.

Seth [0:14:30]: You're following up with customers, all of a sudden retention starts to go up, meaning I'm making more.

Seth [0:14:36]: And now if those people are to leave or asked for a raise, I can't let them because they're actually talking to the customer, they have relationships in place.

Seth [0:14:43]: They're making recommendations.

Seth [0:14:44]: And so the shift means I had more net cash inside of my agency, our people were now more valuable.

Seth [0:14:50]: So I had to distribute that.

Seth [0:14:52]: And therefore the customers felt our people more, which meant retention would go up and the whole cycle started to change and and all of the economics started to change around the agency.

Callan [0:15:04]: Okay.

Callan [0:15:04]: When you say that retention went up, was it because you were able to respond to these requests faster?

Callan [0:15:12]: Was it that they had more time to build relationships?

Callan [0:15:15]: What specifically drew or that they could get better coverage?

Callan [0:15:19]: Because they had more knowledge looking at specific gaps and things like that?

Callan [0:15:23]: What was it specifically that had that impact on overall retention that brought that to ninety four percent.

Seth [0:15:30]: So that was especially around the pandemic.

Seth [0:15:32]: So I don't know if there's any other agencies or brokers out there listening, but that one caught me off guard.

Seth [0:15:36]: I didn't have a global pandemic where our customers decided not to drive cars, and therefore, why do I need to renew my insurance.

Seth [0:15:41]: Right?

Seth [0:15:42]: So I was like, all of the sudden I was like, hey, I got two cars.

Seth [0:15:45]: We're not going anywhere.

Seth [0:15:46]: Why don't I just cancel my insurance.

Seth [0:15:47]: So all of a sudden, we got hit broad side by that thing.

Seth [0:15:50]: And for the first time, we were double digit growth like we were typically doing.

Seth [0:15:54]: So it was a really disheartening time.

Seth [0:15:56]: So we were N ups scoring at the time that promoter scoring at the time, and this is true then, and I've guarantee I haven't done it recently.

Seth [0:16:03]: It's true now.

Seth [0:16:04]: Customers value two things, speed and accuracy.

Seth [0:16:07]: I want it fast, and I wanna write.

Seth [0:16:10]: If you just do speed and accuracy you're there.

Seth [0:16:12]: Well, speed and accuracy is not something that independent agents are really great at.

Seth [0:16:16]: We say things like, well, give me a couple of days or I'll see what I can do And so once we realized that we realized that if we could turn it around faster speed.

Seth [0:16:27]: And if they didn't have to get back to us, they were satisfied more.

Seth [0:16:31]: And so we focused on quick turnaround and accuracy to get that net promoter score jumped on that.

Seth [0:16:36]: So they got the gift that they were looking for, and that means they would retain more.

Seth [0:16:41]: Our people got the gift of time.

Seth [0:16:43]: So if I didn't have to spend that hour refill something out or if I didn't have to redo something because it was done right the first time.

Seth [0:16:49]: Or if Cow was willing to do it himself, and I didn't have to do it, All of a sudden, I have some time that I didn't have in my day, and the very good people in every agency will use that time well.

Seth [0:16:59]: What will they do?

Seth [0:17:00]: They'll work Harder on particular coverage.

Seth [0:17:03]: They'll call back customers faster.

Seth [0:17:05]: They'll talk the customers on the phone longer.

Seth [0:17:07]: They're not being rushed off the phone, and all of those things I swear with that time showed up in how customers felt when they interacted with the people.

Seth [0:17:15]: And them with the time and them with the net outcome meant had more people stayed, more people renewed and the revenue started to to fly in.

Seth [0:17:24]: And we literally during the pandemic, we went...

Seth [0:17:27]: We got hit with an eighty eight percent potential, which I never had before.

Seth [0:17:30]: And by this shift, we came out of that by the time I sold the agency we were at ninety four percent.

Callan [0:17:37]: As I understand it, when you had your initial valuation, there were a number of question marks around the initial valuation.

Callan [0:17:44]: When you were first kinda growing the agency.

Callan [0:17:46]: But then at towards the end, you had another valuation and it totally changed.

Callan [0:17:51]: What were those big things that changed in that valuation.

Seth [0:17:56]: You, when you're doing valuations, they're they're typically looking at your balance sheet, and they're looking at all the big expense lines, sixty percent of an agencies expenses is typically associated with the service piece of it.

Seth [0:18:05]: And then there's usually a little bit of marketing producers and then owner executive comp in there.

Seth [0:18:09]: They're pretty simple structures, even in large ones.

Seth [0:18:11]: They're pretty simple from a P and L standpoint.

Seth [0:18:13]: Mh.

Seth [0:18:14]: When they looked at mine, it was, like, what you're spending, two hundred and sixty thousand dollars on marketing, Like, what?

Seth [0:18:22]: For an agency your size, that's crazy.

Seth [0:18:24]: And you're spending, hundred thousand dollars on technology, that's crazy.

Seth [0:18:28]: That's so far out of the norm, you need to cut those expenses, and it was like, well, I disagree, we may not be getting the results, but let's go after the results.

Seth [0:18:38]: And so what we started to do is say, hey.

Seth [0:18:40]: We're at our core, insurance agencies need to grow.

Seth [0:18:43]: So we're gonna market it, and we're gonna have marketing automation.

Seth [0:18:46]: We're gonna have campaigns out there.

Seth [0:18:47]: We're gonna have events.

Seth [0:18:48]: We are going to be a marketing firm because we believe that's how we generate new business on that piece of it.

Seth [0:18:53]: And we are going to drive them into a technology stack that we can see the unit increments and the measurements on that.

Seth [0:18:59]: And if it costs more than a standard Ams subscription, I don't care because the data is more valuable than the software in that point because now I can do something with it.

Seth [0:19:08]: So if you're an accountant evaluation person, you looked at us and compare us against a hundred agency as you just said Seth is crazy, and they did.

Seth [0:19:16]: But come out of that now get that thing rolling and running, start getting double digit growth and start getting Eb that's into industry best on that and all of a sudden you come out the other side and said, whoa, how are you generating industry best Eb?

Seth [0:19:29]: And that really becomes the story of how we were able to leverage the marketing, the technology, our understanding of where the performance was or value was or wasn't.

Seth [0:19:38]: And drive that into net cash and ultimately when we sold it, That's what we were selling.

Seth [0:19:43]: It's what everyone selling and they sell is net cash to the buyer.

Callan [0:19:46]: So right now, it sounds like it feels like almost everything went to plan.

Callan [0:19:50]: What were the road bumps in this?

Callan [0:19:52]: What were the snags that you hit because I'm assuming you went through some pain when you started making these transitions, what did that look like?

Seth [0:20:01]: Entrepreneurs were amazing.

Seth [0:20:02]: I mean I swear we're the last Cowboy and Cal girls out there.

Seth [0:20:05]: I I...

Seth [0:20:05]: It's, like, we're amazing.

Seth [0:20:06]: And and a lot of times, we're really amazing in our heads.

Seth [0:20:10]: I don't know that we take leadership as seriously as we should and that we start to bring in that type of layer into our businesses as well as we should.

Seth [0:20:21]: We kinda of become the charismatic founder or the leader of the organization, Who needs a management layer, who needs all the support around me.

Seth [0:20:27]: Right?

Seth [0:20:28]: So I don't think I had a great sense of leadership early on, which means I wasn't driving the best culture.

Seth [0:20:33]: Right?

Seth [0:20:34]: And so I our culture needed, we did not have a change management culture that took us years to be able to for our people to get excited about change.

Seth [0:20:40]: And listen, if now more than ever, if you're an agent or broker, and your people aren't excited to embrace change, You are you know, screw gluten and tattooed.

Callan [0:20:50]: You mentioned that you didn't have a good culture to be able to manage this change and you were making some pretty drastic changes with how you're organizing and the things that were taken on, which we had just went through.

Callan [0:20:59]: What did you do?

Callan [0:21:01]: And what would you do differently?

Seth [0:21:03]: I threw too much too fast.

Seth [0:21:04]: I...

Seth [0:21:04]: I'm like, hey, everyone you guys are insurance professionals you worked on Life.

Seth [0:21:07]: I'm gonna build my own system, and you're gonna love it.

Seth [0:21:10]: And it may or may not work.

Seth [0:21:11]: And know, by the way, if it doesn't work, that's your performance too, which is also how you feed your family.

Seth [0:21:15]: That's a pretty bone headed thing to do.

Seth [0:21:17]: And so I don't think I did change management communication very well.

Seth [0:21:22]: And as a result, all the changes I was making in, in a many ways caused change fatigue.

Seth [0:21:28]: They were with me on the first one.

Seth [0:21:29]: They were with me on the second one.

Seth [0:21:31]: On I'm the third iteration, it was, like, I was streak the quad by myself, and on a lot of projects, and that's not...

Seth [0:21:37]: That's not where you wanna be with your team.

Seth [0:21:41]: And so I think me trying to be a better leader, and we started to commit to regular conversations on a weekly basis with people, me being patient with the progress of people and the amount of change at one team can handle.

Seth [0:21:54]: And then being orderly and communicating the future better.

Seth [0:21:58]: I think is where I grew up a lot, and I...

Seth [0:22:00]: If any former teammates here with me, I apologize for those bad ears.

Seth [0:22:03]: I I was learning to.

Callan [0:22:05]: What does that look like in practice?

Callan [0:22:06]: What I'm hearing you say is, more conversations, getting it better at being articulate the vision and what the benefit to you is in order if we're able to be successful within this vision, slowing down on the different things that you're throwing at them.

Callan [0:22:22]: So moving incrementally, moving a little bit slower on that to get to that ultimate vision?

Callan [0:22:26]: Because I'm assuming a lot of these people's jobs that are gonna be changed quite a bit from what you had described.

Callan [0:22:31]: How would you have that conversation?

Seth [0:22:35]: I did it wrong a lot because I didn't give them the big picture, and I didn't show them how the value that they would play and have in that.

Seth [0:22:42]: Yeah.

Seth [0:22:43]: I just assumed they would figure that out.

Seth [0:22:45]: So I think you have...

Seth [0:22:45]: As a founder, especially in the insurance if you're pushing change through.

Seth [0:22:48]: You have to communicate the future, and you have to show them the road roadmap of how they get there and how they win for going to it to...

Seth [0:22:55]: It's not enough to say, hey, We're gonna save money as an agency.

Seth [0:22:57]: Or, hey, we're gonna make more money as an agency, hey, we're gonna grow.

Seth [0:23:00]: That doesn't trickle down to them.

Seth [0:23:02]: We need to show them how it benefits them and how it makes them work valuable to the organization and how they went on it.

Seth [0:23:10]: And I don't think I did a a very good job at that.

Seth [0:23:13]: However, it is not a negotiation.

Seth [0:23:15]: And if you're an agency, I just think like, this is not a negotiation, we live in a world that demands change.

Seth [0:23:22]: We live in an industry, that's okay with not changing.

Seth [0:23:24]: If we want to be a best performer, our organization is going to embrace change.

Seth [0:23:30]: That's not negotiable.

Seth [0:23:32]: But I'll be better and we'll do it together so that we both benefit from it.

Seth [0:23:38]: Here's how you'll benefit from it, and here's how I'll benefit, But.

Seth [0:23:41]: But this is not a negotiation.

Seth [0:23:42]: We have to have a change culture.

Callan [0:23:45]: They prompted a question on this that I'm curious about is because you probably see this quite a bit.

Callan [0:23:49]: And I've seen this many, many, many, many times over the years, especially because I've spent a good portion of my career on the insured tech side.

Callan [0:23:57]: And oftentimes, the principal or one of the owners of the agency or if it's a much much larger agency, the Cio or somebody will be all on board to implement a piece of technology that is gonna be what would be called a discontinuous solution.

Callan [0:24:17]: Something that's going to force a big change in how people operate and how what their processes is.

Callan [0:24:24]: What I'm curious about is in this space always, even at the biggest agencies.

Callan [0:24:28]: If the account managers or the Csr are used to doing it one way oftentimes, and I'm not...

Callan [0:24:36]: They they often do a very good job.

Callan [0:24:38]: So I'm...

Callan [0:24:38]: This is by no means a a knock on them.

Callan [0:24:40]: But oftentimes, that will hold the organization captive to making a big change.

Callan [0:24:48]: How do you recommend getting over that inertia?

Callan [0:24:53]: Or can you it's probably the actually, it might be a better question.

Seth [0:24:57]: I think you can.

Seth [0:24:58]: The way I think about it is you can accommodate somebody without adjusting the plan.

Seth [0:25:03]: And I don't think we do a very good job of that.

Seth [0:25:05]: It's okay.

Seth [0:25:06]: If, Colin, if you say, hey, this is disruptive to me whatever, I I think we can accommodate and say, okay.

Seth [0:25:12]: Well, then for you, let's figure out how we can more slowly or better adopt it.

Seth [0:25:16]: But we are not adjusting the plan for the organization because the organization demands at.

Seth [0:25:20]: And so I think, you know, an accommodation adjustment or two different things.

Seth [0:25:23]: And I think we when we force change on people we say, we're making an adjustment, and I want everybody on the bus and the bus is going that way today.

Seth [0:25:30]: And that's just not a very good...

Seth [0:25:32]: And we wouldn't do that for our children.

Seth [0:25:33]: We wouldn't do it our spouses.

Seth [0:25:34]: Heck.

Seth [0:25:35]: I wouldn't do that to my neighbor.

Seth [0:25:36]: But, yet, sometimes somehow we would do that to our people.

Seth [0:25:39]: So I think it's okay to say, hey.

Seth [0:25:41]: This is a beneficial technology for everyone.

Seth [0:25:43]: We're not adjusting that.

Seth [0:25:44]: But if you're having a particular issue with it, let's look at the targets, let's look at the volumes.

Seth [0:25:48]: Let's look at the use case and figure out how we can make this work, but we we are going to make it work because we need to.

Seth [0:25:56]: Here.

Seth [0:25:57]: The macros no longer support an agency running the way it was running two years ago?

Seth [0:26:03]: It just doesn't.

Callan [0:26:04]: I mean, what do you mean by that?

Callan [0:26:05]: Can you get into details on that?

Seth [0:26:06]: A hundred percent.

Seth [0:26:07]: So employee costs are going?

Seth [0:26:09]: Cost the benefits are going up.

Seth [0:26:11]: Compensation is typically going down or flat or being tilted to a hundred percent growth, not profitability, not book size or any of that.

Seth [0:26:19]: So think about it.

Seth [0:26:20]: The input cost for an agency are going the input revenue from carriers is going down, and you've got this organization that's gonna stay the same impossible.

Seth [0:26:31]: Impossible.

Seth [0:26:32]: And so the realities now of the world we live in no longer support that mindset of, like, well, we've done it this way.

Seth [0:26:39]: We're gonna do it that way.

Seth [0:26:40]: You can't.

Seth [0:26:41]: You'll be broke in five years or less.

Seth [0:26:43]: And so the amount of pressure that's being put on the independent agent and broker is tremendous.

Seth [0:26:49]: And we're the last people to become automated in the chain.

Seth [0:26:53]: The customer automated when they when they got an iphone an Android, the carrier automated when they spent three hundred million on guide wire in Duck Creek.

Seth [0:27:00]: But we just have a bull pen of human running manual processes in manual, and we're gonna stay the same, there's no way.

Seth [0:27:07]: And so the macros are done and we're cooked as agents if we don't realize and acknowledge that that's the reality that we live in.

Callan [0:27:14]: So if that's the reality, what's the solution?

Seth [0:27:17]: Well, I have an opinion about that.

Seth [0:27:18]: But think I think we have to start looking at things in different ways.

Seth [0:27:23]: And so one of the things that I'm focus on a be atomic is, like, in order for this to work for us to having really good relationships with people and to drive value as independent operations like we do, we have to start looking at roles differently.

Seth [0:27:35]: And one of the biggest things we have to do is separate service from process.

Seth [0:27:39]: If you think about it now, sixty percent of an agency's expenses in their operations, operations are just people in departments and they're doing everything in their book that they manage.

Seth [0:27:49]: Right?

Seth [0:27:50]: Well, that means that there's some really expensive things they're doing, and there's some really valuable things they're not doing as a result of that.

Seth [0:27:56]: So one of the things technology can do.

Seth [0:27:58]: And automations can do is it can separate what someone's gonna do and say, hey, you have value here.

Seth [0:28:04]: Cal actually wants to talk to, but automation can process that ten minutes you were spend processing.

Seth [0:28:09]: That can all be done with a push of a button.

Seth [0:28:11]: And so as you understand what people are doing, the cost that they have, we're at a place now where automation can start to separate process, which can be done really, really cheap now.

Seth [0:28:22]: And now allow service to grow revenue to grow value and to grow the value that the employee has inside of it.

Seth [0:28:30]: And so these are things that we are gonna have to do.

Seth [0:28:32]: We're gonna have to pull producers and service people apart.

Seth [0:28:35]: And give them the tools to be able to take the thing that's taking their time, knowledge workers cannot and the economy does not support knowledge workers processing period.

Seth [0:28:44]: So where can we bring in those things to take that away and allow knowledge workers to focus on the places that they do drive value.

Seth [0:28:51]: That has to happen today.

Callan [0:28:53]: So I actually wanna talk a little bit about the service center product.

Callan [0:28:56]: But before I get there...

Callan [0:28:58]: So you sold you sold zinc as we mentioned.

Seth [0:29:02]: Yep.

Callan [0:29:02]: And then in the process, you founded be a topic, which you've touched on a little bit.

Callan [0:29:06]: I would like to dive into the Be atomic story here because when you said earlier, you said, you know, I died a hundred times.

Callan [0:29:12]: I just gotta hold my breath longer.

Callan [0:29:14]: I think this journey of the atomic to where you got it today, and I'm super excited for you on the traction that you're getting especially on the service center product specifically.

Callan [0:29:24]: But I think it's probably an interesting thing to talk about the journey of the atomic because I think it also...

Callan [0:29:31]: It's pretty indicative of what ensure tech looked like over the past seven, eight years.

Callan [0:29:37]: And I think that's pretty interesting.

Callan [0:29:39]: So if you don't mind taking us through that journey, You had made this comment before that you said, you were trying to make Nestle Toll house cookies and you just couldn't get the recipe right.

Callan [0:29:48]: Walk us through to that.

Callan [0:29:49]: What does that mean?

Callan [0:29:50]: How's does that apply to be atomic?

Seth [0:29:52]: So coming from a network background coming from an agency opera I know insurance.

Seth [0:29:57]: It's like I know insurance process.

Seth [0:29:58]: I know all that stuff.

Seth [0:29:59]: I know the industry and know the carriers I know all people, the players.

Seth [0:30:01]: I know that pretty well.

Seth [0:30:03]: So I had a really good sense of where the value of what I wanted to build was.

Seth [0:30:08]: And I knew it was in three primary places.

Seth [0:30:09]: It was one in the data, if I could understand and see like I told the Z store I could see it.

Seth [0:30:13]: If I had a vehicle or a something where I could move process off and if I could get it done at the carrier side, cheaper, there's something there, and that's something that every agent would be struggling with.

Seth [0:30:24]: So there's definitely a product there, especially because there's pain there, and the macros now are feeding that pain.

Seth [0:30:30]: So I had the right ingredients, but built in many ways on the wrong platforms have built it the wrong way.

Seth [0:30:37]: And I think, you know, I used to beat myself up about that, Cow.

Seth [0:30:40]: But an insure tech, or any founder on a technology side, you have to fail.

Seth [0:30:45]: I know that Mark Zuckerberg came out of school and bill Facebook.

Seth [0:30:49]: And that there's always that person who just saw it did it and whatever, but that is very rare,

Callan [0:30:53]: so.

Seth [0:30:54]: There's a kernel of an idea.

Seth [0:30:55]: It's probably good, but the execution, the clarity, it's never there with a founder or rarely there.

Seth [0:31:01]: And so you know, as an investor, you've got to let that founder find it.

Seth [0:31:06]: And finding it as hard and many don't, What is it two percent or one percent ever make it.

Seth [0:31:12]: So it's...

Seth [0:31:12]: But without that time to find it, you're not gonna make it.

Seth [0:31:16]: And so I think, you know, I struggled.

Seth [0:31:18]: We we had so many heartbreak.

Seth [0:31:20]: I mean, we started and then a pandemic came.

Seth [0:31:22]: We went out and no Ams would connect with us.

Seth [0:31:25]: The one Ams we had left turn.

Seth [0:31:27]: I left I lost nineteen people in my prospect chain that would have been my whole year I mean in two thousand twenty two, I almost went out of business, and so it's like, again.

Seth [0:31:34]: And so it's, like...

Seth [0:31:35]: But if I could just hold my breath just, like, one second longer.

Seth [0:31:40]: If if I still believe in the foundation.

Seth [0:31:42]: Then if I if I've got my chocolate chip cookies, if I got the brown sugar, if I've got the flour.

Seth [0:31:46]: If I've got the vanilla.

Seth [0:31:47]: If I've got the baking powder, this could be something, and that's ultimately what we found in two thousand twenty three was we found the ingredients that how to bring them together.

Seth [0:31:55]: And what we thought was the product wasn't the product and what we thought would help the product actually became the product, which is service a.

Callan [0:32:03]: Let's talk about that specifically.

Callan [0:32:04]: What did you think was the product and what ultimately became the product?

Callan [0:32:07]: And what was that moment there like?

Callan [0:32:09]: Yep.

Callan [0:32:09]: This isn't the product.

Seth [0:32:11]: Yeah.

Seth [0:32:11]: I thought the product would be a Crm.

Seth [0:32:14]: So there's no...

Seth [0:32:15]: At the time there were no workflows or automations inside of Ams.

Seth [0:32:18]: So I thought you if I could get the data out of an Ams and into Crm, I could start moving stuff around it.

Seth [0:32:23]: So we've built to Crm to be able to do that.

Seth [0:32:25]: The problem no Ams wanted to connect with us.

Seth [0:32:28]: And frankly, I didn't do a very good job messaging it either.

Seth [0:32:30]: So, ams partners.

Seth [0:32:31]: Thank you for your forgiveness.

Seth [0:32:32]: Whoa.

Seth [0:32:34]: I should be dead.

Seth [0:32:39]: And and now we have a great relationship with all the Ams, and they actually call us and we do it great, But, like, I probably pissed them off, and I I just didn't handle myself the right way.

Seth [0:32:49]: I apologize for that.

Seth [0:32:50]: The industry.

Seth [0:32:51]: But we knew that that's where the data was.

Seth [0:32:54]: And so we knew that we had to play with Ams is.

Seth [0:32:57]: So the Crm wasn't the answer.

Seth [0:32:58]: So we we went proprietary.

Seth [0:32:59]: We built it and just went back and said, hey, we are not a competitor.

Seth [0:33:02]: We're not a Crm, we're something that can leverage your data move it into portable cases and get it done at the carrier side.

Seth [0:33:09]: And all of a sudden, technology caught up, Ams have have got a really good sense of their value prop and how they're, monetizing clients and stuff like that.

Seth [0:33:17]: And also Ai and all of those things that didn't exist back in two thousand twenty two or twenty one at scale.

Seth [0:33:23]: They all happen now.

Seth [0:33:24]: And so you take all of that together, and it's like, all a sudden you pull them out of the oven and You're like, well, that's a pretty darn good cookie.

Seth [0:33:30]: I I...

Seth [0:33:32]: It's gotta be a little bit superior in the middle and I want a little more crisp on the edge, but Dogg on it, like, that's the ingredients and that's how long you cook it, and that's how thick it is, and that's that's a pretty good cookie, and that's where we're at today, and it's only getting bad.

Seth [0:33:44]: We're the worst will ever be today.

Seth [0:33:46]: And every day it just keeps getting better and better.

Callan [0:33:49]: So let's talk about that.

Callan [0:33:50]: What is the product itself?

Seth [0:33:52]: Yeah.

Seth [0:33:52]: So service center, as far as I know, I like to say because I'm...

Seth [0:33:55]: I I...

Seth [0:33:55]: There could be someone out there doing something I don't know about.

Seth [0:33:57]: But I'm, we're the first service automation platform technology.

Seth [0:34:00]: Like, literally, there's never been a platform for operations and service.

Seth [0:34:04]: It's always been producers and marketing and and policies and stuff like that, but there's these thousands of hundreds of thousands of people that have never had anything.

Seth [0:34:12]: But an Ams, like, three screens in a chair that swivel.

Seth [0:34:16]: That was their big automation improvement.

Seth [0:34:17]: And so service center plugs into your Ams, your phones in your email.

Seth [0:34:21]: It allows you to push button process endorsements and changes.

Seth [0:34:24]: Literally, what takes an account manager fifteen minutes can be done in fifteen seconds.

Seth [0:34:28]: So now they can triple their workflow without a beta sweat coming off their brow.

Seth [0:34:32]: And then we can automate because we have access to the policy data through the Ams Apis.

Seth [0:34:37]: We can automate processes is, like, markets and renewal and proposals and all those things.

Seth [0:34:41]: So it's like, instead of paying a knowledge worker to move all this stuff around.

Seth [0:34:45]: Literally, just talk to someone, just click button in your email.

Seth [0:34:48]: Just click button your Ams, choose a prompt.

Seth [0:34:50]: It'll all be done.

Seth [0:34:52]: It'll all be back, and you can now turn that fifteen minutes into a conversation with the client or but an under writer or something like that.

Seth [0:34:58]: And so we fundamentally change the workflow, the head count, the value of service people, and we completely flip the economic scale.

Seth [0:35:07]: We are cheaper than any onshore or offshore processor of that because we're a technology platform.

Callan [0:35:13]: What changed that made this possible?

Callan [0:35:14]: Why can you do this now and you couldn't do this before?

Seth [0:35:18]: Well, I have taken a lot of blame on this for my failing, So I wanna be humble there, but Ams have actually changed too?

Seth [0:35:24]: If you think about it Ams is weren't open with Apis before or it weren't willing to have that conversation with vendors before that was kind of, like their secret sauce and it was like, nobody's getting in or out of here alive life.

Seth [0:35:35]: The the world has changed and and customers need to move data, and so that change.

Seth [0:35:40]: And so that environment changed for us.

Seth [0:35:41]: Carriers have changed to, and and frankly, the technology is forcing them to change, it used to be you had to go to a carrier for Apis.

Seth [0:35:48]: Well, now it's like, you know what?

Seth [0:35:49]: If you don't give me an Api, then I have Ai, and I can do a lot of stuff.

Seth [0:35:53]: And so I think they have...

Seth [0:35:55]: They have to change now where they didn't in the past because it'll either be done by them or to them and buy them is better.

Seth [0:36:03]: And so everybody has come up and again gotten their reality.

Seth [0:36:06]: And I think both sides now know that we need these dogg on independent agents and brokers in the middle.

Seth [0:36:12]: And if they don't get the right economy mix inside of their operations.

Seth [0:36:15]: Neither of these joker are gonna exist.

Seth [0:36:17]: And so I think we're all working together as a team.

Seth [0:36:20]: Ams are open and cooperative.

Seth [0:36:22]: Agents understand this is a moment they half to leverage technology and carriers can no longer just stick it in their ears and be like la la la, they know that they're gonna have to progress quickly on this.

Seth [0:36:32]: Otherwise, they have all sorts of risks at hand.

Seth [0:36:34]: So everything is coming together in the moment, and because we've been able to hold our breath just one more second longer, we find ourselves in the optimal time.

Seth [0:36:43]: Where all a sudden, we look like geniuses where before people said we were crazy.

Callan [0:36:47]: A lot of the the audience that listen to or and I've mentioned this before those elite agencies.

Callan [0:36:52]: Elite agencies can be a couple of different things.

Callan [0:36:53]: It could be somebody that is a digital agency, a large digital agency or somebody just operates a small agency operates really, really, really efficiently.

Callan [0:37:03]: And is growing at a pretty high clip, or it could be in those big top one hundred agencies.

Callan [0:37:09]: You know, I think a lot of the digital agencies will understand a lot of this already.

Callan [0:37:12]: They're they're probably doing a number of this some way shape or form.

Callan [0:37:16]: Not to say by any stretch I'm saying they're doing it exactly how you're delivering you.

Callan [0:37:19]: But I'm curious when you think of a top one hundred, a very large agency, most many of them, I should say are very distributed.

Callan [0:37:27]: You know, one of the things I'm trying to find out is there's more than I realized that actually are not and are truly kind of independent.

Callan [0:37:35]: And I don't mean I actually don't...

Callan [0:37:36]: For me personally, whether your Pe backed or not totally inc.

Callan [0:37:39]: Yeah.

Callan [0:37:40]: That being said, especially their pb backed, a lot of those can be pretty distributed because you're acquiring a lot of agencies, but all agencies, back not back doesn't matter.

Callan [0:37:51]: The pressure is through the roof on an organic growth.

Callan [0:37:54]: And so I say all this, if one of those agencies is coming to you and they're saying, seth, this all sounds great.

Callan [0:38:01]: I have a very large organization, I've got a complex organization.

Callan [0:38:05]: Where would I even start with something like this?

Callan [0:38:09]: What would that invite...

Callan [0:38:10]: What advice would you give them?

Seth [0:38:12]: Well, we're talking to a bunch of them.

Seth [0:38:14]: So high, top one hundreds.

Seth [0:38:16]: No matter your size, there's only two levers to pool in a business.

Seth [0:38:20]: Right?

Seth [0:38:21]: More revenue or less expense.

Seth [0:38:23]: Right?

Seth [0:38:23]: So the more revenue, if you're a large agency has been tough.

Seth [0:38:27]: A lot of the macros haven't fit it.

Seth [0:38:29]: There's a lot of composition in the space.

Seth [0:38:30]: And frankly, some of the expectations of the funding entities are unrealistic now.

Seth [0:38:35]: And so you're seeing a lot of the the bigger guys are struggling to get the the pro form a growth that they were hoping to get or we're hoping to achieve through aggregation and and acquisition.

Seth [0:38:45]: And so many of them now are coming to us and say, what about that other level?

Seth [0:38:49]: Like, how do we get better Eb?

Seth [0:38:51]: Because if I can't get double digit growth, But if I could get six percent to eight percent growth, but I could significantly reduce my cost of operations, that's just as valuable on net cash talk to me about that.

Seth [0:39:03]: And so I think now more than ever, the Eb conversations coming out, which was made for me.

Seth [0:39:08]: I mean, come in my way because I'm the guy who figured out that economy of how to to change that.

Seth [0:39:13]: So for most of them, they've already chosen their core systems, You're not gonna change that.

Seth [0:39:17]: So if you're an insure tech out there getting them to change your core systems as next to impossible because they've already leveraged that is a big part of what they're gonna do.

Seth [0:39:25]: Most of them have a a leader that's fighting one conversation inside of it.

Seth [0:39:29]: It's either buy or build it.

Seth [0:39:31]: And and who can say which is right or wrong.

Seth [0:39:33]: You're gonna talk to some Cios and Cto that say, we're gonna build.

Seth [0:39:36]: And we're gonna build everything we did fine.

Seth [0:39:38]: Go ahead.

Seth [0:39:38]: And then you're gonna find those that say, no.

Seth [0:39:40]: We can't build everything, who do we partner with on that side.

Seth [0:39:44]: And and if you're lucky enough to be in that position as we are trying to be for those guys, then it becomes about how do we not dis interrupt your your business process So how do we work with your core systems, how do we integrate thoughtfully into that into your core systems and your experience so that your people get the benefit of it, but they don't have any of the change fatigue or change management in that piece of it And that's what the conversations that we're having with those folks starts to to sound like.

Callan [0:40:08]: Where would they start?

Callan [0:40:09]: Is it within the internal because a lot of them do have centralized either personal lines or commercial, not all, and some are very much still in the field.

Callan [0:40:17]: But where do they start?

Seth [0:40:19]: I'll say it now because I'm there.

Seth [0:40:20]: I wouldn't have said it four years ago because I wasn't, but At least start your Ams marketplace.

Seth [0:40:24]: Like, think about that.

Seth [0:40:25]: You're...

Seth [0:40:25]: You can push a button in that Ams marketplace, and your core vendors are all there.

Seth [0:40:30]: It's already been vetted by the Ams it already matches up your data model.

Seth [0:40:33]: It already integrates with your Ui and Ux.

Seth [0:40:35]: So now you can look at and say, hey.

Seth [0:40:37]: This is amazing.

Seth [0:40:39]: Like, I can put it right into my core system and integrates it meets my security, and now I have to roll it out to my team.

Seth [0:40:45]: To your point, large organizations have struggle to roll stuff out.

Seth [0:40:48]: And that's where I think most of the prep should be put in is how do we roll this out and how do we demonstrate the value of it to the people.

Seth [0:40:54]: But I would say that's where I would start to kinda a large organization because they've already been vetted.

Seth [0:40:58]: They're already plugged.

Seth [0:40:59]: They're already ready to go.

Callan [0:41:01]: Are there specific areas of the organization that work better.

Callan [0:41:04]: And I mean that, like, should they be looking at a group of people that are likely to maybe they're more of an early adopter mindset or a line of business that's maybe easier to be able to do some of these things that another or something totally different.

Seth [0:41:21]: Yeah.

Seth [0:41:21]: No I think you can distribute it.

Seth [0:41:22]: I think you have to find super users or believers in there.

Seth [0:41:24]: We work with a lot of organizations where He just know any walk in town.

Seth [0:41:28]: It's just, like, I believe this and another one could can tell me, otherwise, I don't care what the boss.

Seth [0:41:32]: Says, well, I know I'm cook goose when when I run that person because...

Seth [0:41:35]: Yep.

Seth [0:41:35]: If they're the person who's responsible for messaging it, and they don't believe in it.

Seth [0:41:38]: I'm done.

Seth [0:41:39]: And I would just zoom walk away on that one because, like, there's no point putting in a square packet in around hole, Just not gonna work.

Seth [0:41:45]: But I think the successful ones start to get...

Seth [0:41:49]: They aren't...

Seth [0:41:50]: They clearly identify the problem.

Seth [0:41:52]: They get consensus across a core user group.

Seth [0:41:55]: They come up with a use case that's very well defined that they know we'll deliver value.

Seth [0:41:59]: And then they thoughtfully roll it out.

Seth [0:42:01]: And then I think the land and expand is a better thing than just, like, dump it out of a helicopter on them.

Seth [0:42:06]: It's like, so To me, it's like, going into that organization, do just that and say, listen, this happens a hundred thousand times, and it's a pain point for us.

Seth [0:42:14]: So we have a tool that can solve it all one hundred thousand time.

Seth [0:42:17]: Here's the benefit of the customer.

Seth [0:42:18]: Here's the benefit for you as the user, and here's the benefit to us and as the business.

Seth [0:42:22]: And then as you get that use case done, start adding to it and growing, and and I think that's a very thoughtful way to do it and a realistically way to do it.

Callan [0:42:30]: Well, get back to that change management like you said.

Callan [0:42:32]: It's...

Callan [0:42:33]: If you've got a motivated group of users and you have a real pain that happens at a high frequency that makes it an easy place to kinda test out.

Callan [0:42:44]: So I think those are great things to look for for sure.

Seth [0:42:46]: But you what, though...

Seth [0:42:47]: Like, here's the thing.

Seth [0:42:48]: People aren't coming for these jobs anymore.

Seth [0:42:50]: So what I would tell anybody whether you're bigger or small.

Seth [0:42:52]: If you have good knowledge workers keep them.

Seth [0:42:55]: Like knowledge workers are gonna be the new black.

Seth [0:42:57]: I mean, relationships and knowledge workers are the new black keep them.

Seth [0:43:01]: If you have people retiring, you not gonna need to replace it them.

Seth [0:43:04]: If you have non performers, get rid of them because they don't belong in your organization, but you now can layer in so many tools to be able to take that task or that process away if you understand how many times it happens, how much it cost and the impact it has on the three stakeholders, the customer, the user and the business.

Seth [0:43:21]: And so I would just say, now more than ever knowledge workers inside of a professional operation are really valuable.

Seth [0:43:29]: But we need to surround them with the right tool so that they can be working on the right things.

Seth [0:43:34]: And I think that's the right way to think about it.

Seth [0:43:36]: Because once this set of humans are gone, I'm not convinced.

Seth [0:43:39]: I have a twenty three, a twenty one and nineteen year old, and nobody wakes up every day and tells me they wanna be an insurance agency.

Seth [0:43:44]: Yeah For sure.

Seth [0:43:48]: Not do.

Seth [0:43:49]: For sure.

Seth [0:43:49]: Yeah.

Callan [0:43:50]: Seth, if we're having this conversation in ten years time, everything goes to plan, what does that look like?

Seth [0:43:58]: Well, obviously, jet because we were prominent Yep.

Seth [0:44:01]: The.

Seth [0:44:01]: I

Callan [0:44:02]: mean that was a fore on conclusion.

Callan [0:44:04]: You didn't even need to bring it up.

Seth [0:44:06]: I actually believe that as hard as the macros are, and as polarized as carriers and customers are right now and set in that at as much tension is being put on the independent distribution channel.

Seth [0:44:16]: We actually have always had the thing that mattered the most, but we couldn't weapon, which is relationship.

Seth [0:44:22]: I think in this world of Ai and Apis and Mc and all of this stuff.

Seth [0:44:27]: That actually good old fashioned, human relationships and conversations are gonna be extremely valuable in ten years.

Seth [0:44:33]: Well, independent agents own that.

Seth [0:44:35]: A lizard doesn't own it.

Seth [0:44:36]: A float doesn't own it.

Seth [0:44:38]: A Jake doesn't own it.

Seth [0:44:39]: Like, that is something that we've had all along.

Seth [0:44:41]: The problem is we haven't valued it.

Seth [0:44:44]: We've let process and all of this stuff and all this back and forth become what makes us really good or experts at what we do.

Seth [0:44:51]: We're gonna strip that stuff away, and we're gonna lower our cost.

Seth [0:44:54]: We're gonna have industry best margins, and the agents who lean into relationships on the sales side on the marketing side on the customer experience sign, those are the people that are going to win big and small.

Seth [0:45:07]: And so ten years out, I'm buying stock in relationship, and I think independent agents are holding all the cards.

Callan [0:45:15]: I tend to agree with that when Ai automate more things

Seth [0:45:20]: and it will.

Callan [0:45:21]: What's left?

Callan [0:45:21]: The only thing really that's going to be ultimately left is relationships, I think those are just gonna be cut...

Callan [0:45:28]: And this is...

Callan [0:45:28]: You know, I think a lot of people think this.

Callan [0:45:30]: I think this is something I personally leaned into.

Callan [0:45:32]: So I tend to agree with you on that for sure.

Seth [0:45:36]: Well, I I mean here, I haven't driven in two years.

Seth [0:45:39]: Like, my...

Seth [0:45:39]: I have a cyber shock And I get in the morning, it takes me to work.

Seth [0:45:43]: When I leave tonight, it'll just say, I'm taking you home.

Seth [0:45:46]: It's doing the stuff that I once thought was my job.

Seth [0:45:49]: But what's happening is now I have this quiet cabin, where the world isn't in, and I get this awesome opportunity to just think and to enjoy and to learn and stuff and and so these automations, the robots that we deploy in here are going to create opportunities for us.

Seth [0:46:06]: It's also making me think of new businesses a new way to stuff, which I'm opening up new exposure.

Seth [0:46:10]: So I think insurance is gonna be more relevant.

Seth [0:46:12]: The products that we sell may be different in ten years, but our value is still gonna be there.

Seth [0:46:17]: And I think a lot of these automations are gonna make us more human.

Seth [0:46:20]: In the more human we are.

Seth [0:46:21]: We're gonna do human things and we do bad things as humans and we cause all sorts of problems and accidents, and that's what independent are really good at selling the risk for.

Seth [0:46:28]: So I'm in for independent nations.

Callan [0:46:31]: I love it.

Callan [0:46:31]: So thanks for coming on today, man.

Callan [0:46:34]: This was awesome.

Seth [0:46:35]: I appreciate.

Seth [0:46:35]: Thanks ten count

Callan [0:46:37]: hundred percent.