What Brokers Need to Know After ITC 2026 with Callan Harrington

Callan [0:00:01]: Welcome to the insurance growth lab, where we go deep on the growth campaigns and strategies driving real results in the insurance industry.

Callan [0:00:09]: I´m Callan Harrington founder Flashgrowth and in each episode, I sit down with marketing and leaders from carriers and shirt tech and top brokers to break down one specific initiative, whether it's how they marketed a product, scale a channel or solve a specific growth challenge.

Callan [0:00:26]: It's no fluff, just tactical insights you can apply in your own company.

Callan [0:00:36]: Welcome back everyone.

Callan [0:00:37]: For today it's just gonna be me.

Callan [0:00:39]: And one of the things I really actually wanna start doing is I'm gonna start doing one of these solo episodes every month.

Callan [0:00:48]: And what I wanna go through is a couple of different things.

Callan [0:00:50]: What am I seeing over the past month, What are those big themes that are out there that are going on?

Callan [0:00:57]: And what is my opinion on those things?

Callan [0:01:00]: Because one of the things with the show that I think it's really important to me in particular is, I am very curious and I get very interested in a lot of different things.

Callan [0:01:10]: A lot of things, once they catch my answer, I'd like to go really deep on that.

Callan [0:01:13]: And then I'd like to share pretty much anything that I find out.

Callan [0:01:17]: Some of those, you know, make sense for your business.

Callan [0:01:20]: Some of those are not gonna make sense for your business.

Callan [0:01:22]: My goal is to give you the information, so you can make whatever the best decision is.

Callan [0:01:26]: And so these episodes are just some of those things that I'm picking up on I'm hearing.

Callan [0:01:31]: This is could be throughout the conferences, the conversations that we're having, the dinners that we put on, it could be any of those different things.

Callan [0:01:39]: And so for today, this is a fun one.

Callan [0:01:42]: And I usually do this after wrapping up any of the big conferences.

Callan [0:01:45]: And today, I wanna talk about It c.

Callan [0:01:50]: I don't know why in insurance, they put every single one of the biggest conferences within a two week period.

Callan [0:01:57]: You've got It, which is Insure tech Connect.

Callan [0:02:00]: If you've never heard of it.

Callan [0:02:01]: You've got CIA B, the leadership summit, so pretty much every carrier CEO, every top one hundred CEO, and broker that's out there are all at that summit.

Callan [0:02:10]: And you've got Applied.net.

Callan [0:02:13]: You've got NA in the life insurance side.

Callan [0:02:16]: You've got lim.

Callan [0:02:16]: You have all of these ones that are just bunched up together.

Callan [0:02:20]: And it's tough because you want to be at as many of those as you possibly can.

Callan [0:02:25]: And on the flip side of that, it's great because you get all of this information when you catch up with everybody.

Callan [0:02:32]: And so you probably seen.

Callan [0:02:34]: There's been so many of those just got back from CIA B post, just got back from It post.

Callan [0:02:40]: And I think a lot of them are really interesting.

Callan [0:02:42]: Admittedly, I always tried to avoid reading those, so I'm not as influenced them by the time that I do this episode.

Callan [0:02:50]: But, of course, I couldn't help myself and went through a number of those.

Callan [0:02:54]: But what you're gonna hear today is these are some of the things that from It that I personally noticed.

Callan [0:02:59]: And in addition to that, I tried to do some of these that are maybe a little bit different than the big themes.

Callan [0:03:08]: These came from the conversations I directly had with vendors, carriers, brokers at the conference.

Callan [0:03:14]: This came from conversations that I had with brokers and vendors and carriers after the conference and some themes that I think that are maybe a little bit different than some of the things that I've seen before.

Callan [0:03:27]: You know, at a high level, of course, there are things like the overwhelm of all of the AI vendors that are out there, and everybody's kinda trying to figure this stuff out.

Callan [0:03:39]: And everybody's trying to be everything to everybody.

Callan [0:03:43]: I'm not gonna go into that.

Callan [0:03:45]: These are some a little bit more obscure things that I I found to be really interesting, And especially when I'm thinking about from a broker perspective, what are those things that stood out to me specifically?

Callan [0:03:56]: Because I think Brokers are in a such an interesting place, and I'll talk about that and there's something things I'm really excited to share on that front, which I think are really cool.

Callan [0:04:05]: Alright.

Callan [0:04:06]: So I'm gonna go ahead and cut to this.

Callan [0:04:09]: The first theme that jumped out to me was that vendors are have been more aggressive than I'd ever seen at It c.

Callan [0:04:21]: And let me get one caveat out of the way really quick.

Callan [0:04:25]: I totally respect that.

Callan [0:04:27]: I respect the hustle.

Callan [0:04:29]: I was a broker on both the Life health side, the PC side, licensed and all those and had my securities licenses and all that as well.

Callan [0:04:37]: But I spent the majority of my career on the vendor side, in particular on the insured tech side.

Callan [0:04:43]: And so I have so much empathy for that role.

Callan [0:04:49]: It's extremely difficult.

Callan [0:04:50]: And I respect the hustle that's going on.

Callan [0:04:53]: And I'll tell you a little story that maybe helps set the tone on this and on what I saw an experience at It c.

Callan [0:05:00]: Years ago, elevate this was when trusted choice put on the elevate conference and Ryan Han was really leading the show on that, which was still one of my favorite conferences.

Callan [0:05:11]: This was the first one the one they had in Milwaukee.

Callan [0:05:13]: And I was working for Smart Harbor at the time and the big fish.

Callan [0:05:20]: Of course, our product was all geared towards agencies, and the big fish were the carriers, and the CMO of travelers was gonna be speaking at this event.

Callan [0:05:32]: So for me, I don't.

Callan [0:05:33]: I probably read some book that was, like, you need to put all of your eggs in one basket to go after the biggest fish.

Callan [0:05:38]: Because I always tried to do this at every single conference.

Callan [0:05:40]: I had two or three named people that I would go after.

Callan [0:05:44]: And I've coached this to many of my sales reps since then.

Callan [0:05:47]: Now that being said, I had this target.

Callan [0:05:50]: And I camped out of the speaker's loud while he's in there before I, you, I knew when he was gonna be going on, and so he was in the speaker's lounge, and I camped out of that thing for, like, at least a half an hour, and hiding just off to the side, like a total creep.

Callan [0:06:07]: And he...

Callan [0:06:09]: I'm waiting for him to get up because I know at some point he had to get out of there and he had to take the path to get to his speaking engagement.

Callan [0:06:16]: And so the second he gets up, I start walking filing suit as if, like, I was just going to check out the next program.

Callan [0:06:24]: And I said, oh, hey, and pretended that I knew him set his name exactly as it if I knew him and he's was like, oh, it pretended he knew me.

Callan [0:06:33]: I knew he was, there's was absolutely zero chance that he knew who I was.

Callan [0:06:37]: I can tell you that with certainty.

Callan [0:06:39]: But anyway.

Callan [0:06:41]: I totally ambushed him and, you know, got his business card to schedule call when we got back.

Callan [0:06:47]: That alone put me on Cloud dime for the rest of the conference.

Callan [0:06:51]: Did matter.

Callan [0:06:51]: Anything else that happened after that, it legit didn't matter.

Callan [0:06:54]: Okay.

Callan [0:06:55]: So why am I telling you the story?

Callan [0:06:56]: How does this have anything to do with what I'm saying?

Callan [0:06:58]: I was doing that for sea level person at travelers.

Callan [0:07:04]: Huge company, that company could have made a huge difference in any what company that size is becoming a client for us would have made an absolute huge difference.

Callan [0:07:16]: And he's probably gotten that five million times.

Callan [0:07:19]: I'm not saying this.

Callan [0:07:20]: Right.

Callan [0:07:20]: I'm just telling you what probably is.

Callan [0:07:22]: He's probably got that situation to them five million times.

Callan [0:07:26]: At It c this year, one of the things that I always do is I'll have the conversation for whatever conversation of the person I'm meeting with Usually, will walk out and kind of in the main area where people are shuffling back and forth from either a meeting or the exhibit hall or whatever that might be.

Callan [0:07:45]: I'll put my notes into Claude, Quad integrated with Hubspot.

Callan [0:07:48]: It'll put all that on Hubspot.

Callan [0:07:50]: And it'll automatically put them into the next sequence.

Callan [0:07:54]: By the way, that might be the best thing that ever happen to an outside sales rep.

Callan [0:08:00]: The number one issue always when you're outside in the field is as the leader of the business, you always want people to enter in that information.

Callan [0:08:09]: Now that is the easiest thing that you can possibly do.

Callan [0:08:12]: And there's really no excuse for that at this point in time.

Callan [0:08:15]: Iterate rate, that's a total changer.

Callan [0:08:16]: So back to my back to my original point here.

Callan [0:08:20]: The point is while I was doing that three separate times, somebody came up to me and started pitching me cold.

Callan [0:08:29]: Now I don't care.

Callan [0:08:30]: I...

Callan [0:08:30]: Again, like I said, I respect that every once in a while, I'll pick up cold calls still.

Callan [0:08:35]: Because I was in that seat for so long.

Callan [0:08:37]: The point of this is I have never in my life had that happen because I'm always on the...

Callan [0:08:46]: What I call the other side of the booth.

Callan [0:08:48]: I am never the one that's going up to boost to be pitched.

Callan [0:08:51]: I'm always doing the pitching.

Callan [0:08:52]: So what I mean by that is, they're going after anybody right now who they think that they can potentially do business with.

Callan [0:09:02]: I don't know.

Callan [0:09:03]: Maybe it's because I dressed like a VC, and I'm not saying that that's good or bad.

Callan [0:09:06]: It's just that it could have something to do with it, but let's say it didn't.

Callan [0:09:10]: A couple things that I think are happening right now and why that's the case.

Callan [0:09:15]: So many startups are getting into the market.

Callan [0:09:20]: And it's cheaper to build.

Callan [0:09:23]: It's easier for somebody that's got either some technical chops or that doesn't, but can vibe code and put some effort into figuring out how to do that to pull a product together.

Callan [0:09:35]: That's both cool and that I love the idea that other people can scratch itch there or go after a dream that they've ever always wanted to do.

Callan [0:09:45]: But on the flip side of that is, it's creating a lot a lot of competition.

Callan [0:09:51]: And on top of that, and I said this a little bit at the top, but everybody's still largely sounding the same.

Callan [0:09:58]: Now, I will say this for the people that...

Callan [0:10:01]: And I'll give it an example here.

Callan [0:10:03]: Is Sd ai, and that's a platform.

Callan [0:10:05]: Here's what I'll say.

Callan [0:10:07]: What I really loved about their booth in particular is They had one of those big video background boost.

Callan [0:10:12]: And within that, they had a a video going on loop of a drone looking at a roof.

Callan [0:10:20]: Now if you're if you're outside of insurance, you're probably wondering what is this If you're at insurance, you know that's for roof inspections, and that's a really crystal clear thing on what they do, which is very different than what we saw the past couple years at It c where it just said, where the AI for insurance.

Callan [0:10:37]: Where the chat GP of insurance.

Callan [0:10:38]: If everybody saying that, nobody's saying that.

Callan [0:10:42]: And so you're getting all these companies in here that are saying a similar message.

Callan [0:10:46]: And so I will say this as a vendor.

Callan [0:10:47]: It's easier never that to stand out.

Callan [0:10:51]: I know that's...

Callan [0:10:51]: Very tight.

Callan [0:10:52]: I know that's an easy thing for me to say sitting on my side, but it's easier than ever to stand out, but you gotta put real time and effort into figuring out what is that differentiation, What is that positioning?

Callan [0:11:03]: And how can you clearly articulate what it is that you do?

Callan [0:11:05]: The last reason for this, I believe is that contact info is easier than it's ever been to get.

Callan [0:11:12]: Now, this isn't gonna necessarily make...

Callan [0:11:14]: I don't think they're doing facial recognition and then putting that with contact info saying go, you know, go pitch this guy.

Callan [0:11:20]: But my point is, I I...

Callan [0:11:22]: Like, when I was reaching out for my own for It c.

Callan [0:11:25]: And I'm just using Apollo, and you can use Apollo Zoom, you pick your poison on on whatever it is that you might be using, Clay, everybody's information is there.

Callan [0:11:33]: There's no executive whose information, I could not get prior to this show.

Callan [0:11:39]: And so I say all this in there.

Callan [0:11:41]: So what does that mean?

Callan [0:11:42]: If for you, those elite agencies, those elite brokers, carriers that are going, you are getting what I got times a million.

Callan [0:11:52]: And I know this because every one of these conferences, and I I've talked about this before.

Callan [0:11:57]: We do this in Columbus.

Callan [0:11:58]: We do this in other cities, and we do it for every single one of the conferences, we host an executive dinner.

Callan [0:12:04]: And typically to people at that table are that's gonna be brokers that could be digital broker, could be a large broker, could be maybe a mid sized high growth broker, carriers, vendors, and shirt text.

Callan [0:12:17]: It's all executive level, all decision makers.

Callan [0:12:19]: And I could tell you For a fact, if you were on the broker side or the carrier sign, you were getting destroyed with outbound emails, calls, Linkedin messages, app invites whatever that might be.

Callan [0:12:34]: Because the truth is this is just easy.

Callan [0:12:36]: It's easy to pull this information.

Callan [0:12:38]: It's easy to set automations to to reach out.

Callan [0:12:41]: So as somebody who led teams that called on thousands of brokers a day, I feel for you.

Callan [0:12:49]: Like, I really feel for you.

Callan [0:12:50]: I knew it was like back then, I can't even imagine what it's like right now.

Callan [0:12:54]: And so that led to the second big theme that I heard and saw and that's...

Callan [0:13:03]: We talked about...

Callan [0:13:04]: I said this in the one year ago to the date and the It c recap that I did last year.

Callan [0:13:09]: Relationships are even bigger than I thought.

Callan [0:13:14]: I thought, and again, this wasn't a Callan Harrington prediction in a box.

Callan [0:13:19]: A lot of people thought that AI would drive humans to wanna work more with humans into focus on relationships.

Callan [0:13:25]: That happened in an absolute major way.

Callan [0:13:29]: And we saw that.

Callan [0:13:30]: I'll I'll go back to that dinner specifically, because there's so much noise because it's so hard to sift through.

Callan [0:13:36]: People are asking other people What are they using?

Callan [0:13:41]: What are they seeing?

Callan [0:13:42]: Where should they go take a look?

Callan [0:13:44]: Because are anybody that they should check out?

Callan [0:13:46]: Because they're tuning out the noise, especially if you're a broker or a carrier?

Callan [0:13:51]: You almost have to tune out the noise because There's so much of it from the same reason that we talked about before.

Callan [0:13:58]: I said that vendors aggressive.

Callan [0:13:59]: They're aggressive because they have to be because there's so much competition makes total sense if they didn't, they wouldn't have a business.

Callan [0:14:05]: Is why I respected so much.

Callan [0:14:07]: But the reality is Carriers and brokers are tuning this out, and they're leaning on trust, which is why those curated rooms, those dinners, mastermind, small vents, things like that are where people are gathering a lot of their information.

Callan [0:14:26]: So I think about that if you're a carrier broker, look for those curated rooms.

Callan [0:14:31]: You know, find those, build your own on those things.

Callan [0:14:34]: If you're a vendor, help create those curated rooms, help create run those dinners, do those different types of things.

Callan [0:14:40]: I think those things are provide more value for all parties than pretty much just anything there.

Callan [0:14:47]: One of the things that I thought, Jason Cass Ryan Han put on...

Callan [0:14:51]: I'm calling a town Hall.

Callan [0:14:52]: If you guys listen to this.

Callan [0:14:53]: Please correct me on this.

Callan [0:14:54]: But and Jason Cast was the one that was running it.

Callan [0:14:58]: And essentially, it was Honestly, more just like an idea radiation going into the crowd, asking people what they're doing.

Callan [0:15:06]: And one of the things I liked about this particular is Jason Cast Ryan Hand are really sharp and they're doing a lot of these things.

Callan [0:15:12]: But what I like is they don't necessarily agree on everything, and I think that's really important because right now, there's just there is no one right way in order to do this.

Callan [0:15:23]: Everyone's gonna have an opinion on how to do it myself included, but there is no one right way to do it.

Callan [0:15:30]: But one of the things that I just thought was excellent was they were going to the room and people were giving all sorts of really good, thoughtful answers, and and this was at the It agents day, which I thought was fantastic.

Callan [0:15:45]: And it's crazy how much that has grown from the first one a couple years ago.

Callan [0:15:51]: It's only like in the third year, but that has grown so much.

Callan [0:15:55]: Like, the traffic at everybody's boost.

Callan [0:15:57]: I saw was really good.

Callan [0:15:59]: And I saw people that I know that are large top one hundred brokers to main street agencies, it covered the whole gamut, and I thought it was really, really, really solid.

Callan [0:16:09]: And here's the thing that's stuck out to me.

Callan [0:16:13]: That I thought was really interesting than it stemmed from that town hall.

Callan [0:16:18]: And that was agents are not behind on Ai.

Callan [0:16:23]: Insurance agents just to be clear.

Callan [0:16:25]: That's the hardest probably one of the most difficult things in this industry is deli between AI agents and insurance agents.

Callan [0:16:32]: Maybe it's just a personal problem, but either way, agents are not behind on Ai.

Callan [0:16:38]: What the stories that I heard on this, they're just as up to speed as anybody.

Callan [0:16:43]: No.

Callan [0:16:43]: They did not raise fifty hundred million of dollars to implement all this.

Callan [0:16:47]: Or are they gonna be able to do the same thing that these AI native insurance companies are due?

Callan [0:16:51]: No.

Callan [0:16:52]: But I wouldn't say that there's so far behind that it's a huge problem that could change.

Callan [0:16:57]: But I would say this.

Callan [0:16:58]: I think that And this is even just talking about just main street agencies that are thinking progressively, they are adopting AI as fast as any carrier that I've seen out there.

Callan [0:17:12]: One of the things I thought was interesting.

Callan [0:17:14]: I heard this story, and I wish I could remember who told me this.

Callan [0:17:16]: This is not me, so I can't take credit for this, but I thought this was really interesting.

Callan [0:17:21]: They were talking about how a few years ago, and I remember this When a lot of the insured tech carriers came out, and I got lot of respect for those insured tech carriers.

Callan [0:17:28]: But when they first came out and you I think we probably all remember this.

Callan [0:17:33]: Hundreds of millions of dollars was getting put into these insured tech carriers.

Callan [0:17:36]: And the whole thought was These carriers are going to dis the agencies.

Callan [0:17:42]: And the brokers not needed they're a middleman man, all of these different things.

Callan [0:17:46]: I've always been pro broker, but I can't sit here and deny that I wasn't thinking was like, oof.

Callan [0:17:52]: Maybe this will have an impact.

Callan [0:17:54]: I think we all probably remember when Google came onto this scene at that time.

Callan [0:17:58]: Sorry I remember because, my...

Callan [0:17:59]: All the insure text I worked for were broker tech.

Callan [0:18:02]: It was always tech that was for the broker.

Callan [0:18:03]: So I always think about these things a lot because that would have had a vast impact on my business, or I should say our business.

Callan [0:18:10]: I was not the founder of those businesses.

Callan [0:18:11]: That said, I remember when Google came in, and everybody thought, man.

Callan [0:18:16]: Google's the most innovative.

Callan [0:18:18]: They own all of the search traffic If Google becomes an agency that's a problem.

Callan [0:18:23]: That's gonna be a real problem.

Callan [0:18:25]: Well, I think we know that ended, that was not a problem.

Callan [0:18:28]: Google came in, it was a disaster and they came out.

Callan [0:18:32]: And there's all sorts of theories as to why that happened, you know, carriers were some of their biggest money makers.

Callan [0:18:39]: So if you're gonna...

Callan [0:18:40]: Why would progressive or Geico spend all of this money, if all of this is just gonna go through Google.

Callan [0:18:46]: I don't know, maybe.

Callan [0:18:48]: It's possible that that was a reason, but I just don't think it ever really drove adoption.

Callan [0:18:53]: And so what he would said was that we thought all that was going to happen.

Callan [0:18:58]: And we thought the market share for direct to consumer was going to just keep trickling up until the majority of it came direct to consumer.

Callan [0:19:06]: Well, the reality is as many of us know, that never came to fruition.

Callan [0:19:11]: And one of the things that he said is, like, I don't...

Callan [0:19:14]: I think people underestimated the speed at which agencies adopted the technology.

Callan [0:19:21]: And I thought that was a pretty astute observation.

Callan [0:19:24]: And, you know, it's anecdotal.

Callan [0:19:27]: I don't think I have the studies that somebody does. That'd be great be pretty very interested. Good to say objectively that that was highly correlated to keeping the market share where it is with agencies.

Callan [0:19:38]: It probably not.

Callan [0:19:39]: I think it probably leaned on some other things, you know, relationships and things like that.

Callan [0:19:42]: But it was an interesting point.

Callan [0:19:43]: Why I think that's an interesting point is, I've made this joke a million times.

Callan [0:19:46]: I've said, look, agents and brokers are the twinkies after the apocalypse.

Callan [0:19:51]: You can't kill them.

Callan [0:19:53]: They will be the only thing that survives apocalypse because people have tried to kill the agent or the broker and pushed them out of business a million times.

Callan [0:20:03]: And I think we're at this point right now and this was a a topic that came up over and over and over again because it was...

Callan [0:20:09]: It happened.

Callan [0:20:10]: All these things happened right before It, but Muse was launched and became number one in the app store, and you started to see all these examples on Linkedin of Muse going out shopping for insurance, communicating with their insurance agent, and then switching.

Callan [0:20:25]: In doing this all on its own.

Callan [0:20:28]: And you saw something very interesting.

Callan [0:20:30]: Zebra says we welcome these personal AI chatbot bot or AI agents and AI bots.

Callan [0:20:37]: And, you know, the examples of this would be muse, instinct rock.

Callan [0:20:41]: Those are the big ones right now.

Callan [0:20:42]: Chat to release dots.

Callan [0:20:44]: All of them will have this at some point.

Callan [0:20:46]: But the point of that is, that's interesting.

Callan [0:20:49]: So Zebra said, we'll will allow you come on here, shop through us, we're going to create an experience for you.

Callan [0:20:55]: Sure, at the time, and this could be changed.

Callan [0:20:58]: But sure I said, we're not, we are going to block these bots from coming on here and shopping for insurance.

Callan [0:21:05]: I thought that was very, very interesting.

Callan [0:21:09]: And I think as an agent, you gotta think about how do I want to play on this?

Callan [0:21:16]: Do I want to create an experience for my customers to be able to use these tools and shop or work with us?

Callan [0:21:26]: I'm not even saying that technology technologies out there to help you do that yet.

Callan [0:21:29]: But if I think that it's something to be thinking about?

Callan [0:21:31]: Or do we wanna say, do we wanna take the stance of don't ever use that.

Callan [0:21:36]: We are going to be your adviser throughout all this.

Callan [0:21:39]: I'm not saying one way right.

Callan [0:21:41]: One way wrong, but I think it's probably makes sense to start to have a stance and and how do you want to react and work through that.

Callan [0:21:51]: Because I think that is only going to grow.

Callan [0:21:53]: Now, I will say the counter argument to all of this is, look at Meta, look at Google, all of them have made their money off of ads.

Callan [0:22:04]: And I saw this.

Callan [0:22:05]: I can't remember this was a comment on linkedin.

Callan [0:22:07]: I wish I could give credit to all of these people.

Callan [0:22:09]: So if you see this, please feel free to call it out.

Callan [0:22:11]: I am happy to mention all that.

Callan [0:22:13]: But I think this was a comment on Linkedin that was really good.

Callan [0:22:15]: It said, Chat is already messing or starting to put out ads or messing around with them, It'll get serious.

Callan [0:22:21]: All these players will probably do that because you can make an absolute fortune off of the ad revenue that comes through these tools.

Callan [0:22:29]: What if x carrier pays more for that placement than y carrier, What if on one of these tools that they're paying them to give x quote, whatever that might be.

Callan [0:22:43]: Is that going to change?

Callan [0:22:45]: Is the...

Callan [0:22:46]: Is that going to remove the objectivity of these AI bots?

Callan [0:22:52]: And then what happens there?

Callan [0:22:53]: That to me is a very interesting question.

Callan [0:22:57]: Now, the counter argument to the counter argument is if the product or if the insured product is still better and cheaper, does it matter to that person that's shopping.

Callan [0:23:07]: To somebody that's really looking at their stuff, I think they're still gonna want an adviser.

Callan [0:23:11]: And, no.

Callan [0:23:12]: I'm talking about really small, talking about personal lines, very un complicated personal lines and things like that.

Callan [0:23:18]: So could that change it?

Callan [0:23:20]: I don't know.

Callan [0:23:21]: But I do know this.

Callan [0:23:22]: One of the themes that came out, this was with across the board, brokers, vendors, carriers is for their internal resources.

Callan [0:23:32]: For their internal people, they have them focused on that core competency.

Callan [0:23:38]: They haven't focused on what makes their business different.

Callan [0:23:43]: And for the rest, they're all automating a lot more.

Callan [0:23:46]: They're outsourcing a lot more of that.

Callan [0:23:48]: And I think that's pretty interesting.

Callan [0:23:51]: I think that is a great way to think about it in doubling down really building, making our competitive...

Callan [0:24:01]: Turning a strength into a superpower.

Callan [0:24:03]: And not worrying as much about everything because I...

Callan [0:24:07]: It's gonna be tough because so many of these tools are gonna do this probably better than you can.

Callan [0:24:13]: So focusing in on that differentiator, I think it's gonna be really, really, really, really important as we move forward.

Callan [0:24:20]: And the reality is just like relationships.

Callan [0:24:22]: That is very much of what's old is new.

Callan [0:24:25]: Relationships are always super important.

Callan [0:24:27]: They're clearly showing to be critical now.

Callan [0:24:30]: Probably even more important, having a differentiated offering from your competition was super important then.

Callan [0:24:38]: It's super important now.

Callan [0:24:40]: I don't think that those things have changed.

Callan [0:24:42]: It's just maybe that there's a little bit greater emphasis.

Callan [0:24:46]: On those particular things.

Callan [0:24:49]: You know, having that moat in this world is pretty critical, and it's probably gonna evolve as more of this progresses and people start to adopt this into their businesses more.

Callan [0:25:00]: So To tie this up, you know, I'm talking a lot about It c.

Callan [0:25:04]: Those were really the three big ones.

Callan [0:25:07]: There's a lot of vendors out there.

Callan [0:25:09]: They're getting more aggressive.

Callan [0:25:10]: Relationships are absolutely critical.

Callan [0:25:12]: And agents are right there with everybody else when it comes to adopting Ai.

Callan [0:25:18]: And I can tell you that from the people that I talked to, that went to CIA B that went to Applied, same things.

Callan [0:25:27]: The themes really weren't that much different.

Callan [0:25:30]: And an example I'll give is, you know, I was talking with a top one hundred broker, and I was at CIA B, and I was talking to a main street agency.

Callan [0:25:38]: They're both thinking how can I figure out how to use this more, and they're all talking to other peers that are using this?

Callan [0:25:50]: So it's kind of everything that we're just saying in a nutshell, absolutely no different across the different conferences.

Callan [0:25:56]: But again, I give a lot of opinions on this.

Callan [0:25:59]: Those are the themes that I saw.

Callan [0:26:01]: You talk to their people.

Callan [0:26:01]: They could saw a totally different scenario.

Callan [0:26:03]: But for me, it's always about...

Callan [0:26:06]: I wanna give you the information that I'm seeing, not necessarily the answer.

Callan [0:26:10]: Always happy to share the opinion But I think it's an interesting time in what's going on within the insurance landscape, especially in the agent and broker landscape.

Callan [0:26:19]: And as always, I'm rooting for the agent and the broker.

Callan [0:26:24]: And the more examples that I can provide and and bring on to the show for me the better.

Callan [0:26:29]: I'm always excited to dive into those things.

Callan [0:26:32]: And as I said, as we move forward, I'm gonna try to start doing these on a monthly cadence.

Callan [0:26:37]: And talk about those biggest things.

Callan [0:26:40]: Those things that are really interesting.

Callan [0:26:42]: Those things that could potentially change the business in a material way and keep that up.

Callan [0:26:48]: Always open to feedback on the episode on anything that we discussed If you wanna fact check me on anything, I am all for it, I'm don't care about getting to the right answer, not me personally being right.

Callan [0:27:01]: And as always, if you can find me on Linkedin to pass any of that along.

Callan [0:27:06]: And also, always looking to continue to grow our Youtube Spotify Apple channels, give us a subscribe, give us a like on any of those.

Callan [0:27:14]: Anytime you do it, it is very, very much appreciated.

Callan [0:27:18]: And for now, I will circle back in about a month until then, we'll have a couple of the guest up episodes and always want feedback on that as well.

Callan [0:27:26]: Cool.

Callan [0:27:27]: Thanks everybody.