Why The Smartest Way to Start is With Large Commercial

Speaker A: Insurance sounds different when you start to change it. Come listen for yourself. This is the RPS podcast dedicated to helping you make the impossible possible. Mr. Ryan Anderson. How you doing today, sir?

Speaker B: I'm, um, good, brother. How you been, Ryan?

Speaker A: I'm doing all right. I'm doing all right. Um, I kind of want to know this first. Uh, is there one thing that you didn't know existed until far too late in life that you really had no excuse for not knowing of its existence?

Speaker B: Ooh, that's a good one. And there is something and I'm missing what it was. It was pretty recent. Oh boy. And I felt like, you know, you just get that feeling that you're an idiot. Like, how did I not know that I'll have to rethink because I got one for you. Let me get the juices flowing and I'll come back to it.

Speaker A: That's right. We can definitely come back to it. I'll give you mine real quick. Uh, for me, kettle corn didn't know was a thing until I was a full on adult. And uh, no idea. That's maybe my parents fault probably. Um, but uh, just had no idea that you could put sugar on popcorn.

Speaker B: That's slightly terrifying. So you never had like Cracker Jacks as a kid? That's kind of like. That's more.

Speaker A: I'll say. I didn't know that those were in the same family. Like understood what Cracker Jacks was, but I didn't know kettle corn was its own like, pure thing.

Speaker B: If you want to stick to the topic of food, I didn't know I knew they existed, but I never tried one until about last year. Uncrustables. Oh, I know it's just peanut butter and jelly, but it's the best peanut butter and jelly you'll ever have in your life. And it's just all the fake filler stuff that's terrible for you, all that goodness, but you never had one. I'll say that that's one thing that I regret that I never tried until recently. And also regret trying.

Speaker A: As interesting and possibly concerning as both of our answers might be. Um, moving over to the world of insurance. I want to talk about sort of where you exist in the industry and your sort of experience in it. And I guess what hasn't really caught its way on your radar maybe sooner than it should have. What's something that you came a little late to the party when it came to the business? What. What's something that you wish you maybe learn learn sooner? Um, just anything that you maybe regret,

Speaker B: you know, where I'm at now is second year here in sales. And I think, um, because I've kind of bounced around. I started in small commercial, personal lines, and then went kind of the back, uh, end of things. And honestly, just getting straight large commercial from the beginning, sales, starting out early. I see a lot of these younger kids that are starting at 21, 22, they don't have the background knowledge, which is neat, but they've got all this time to build a nice book. And I would. I'd say, you know, it's a great business to get into early sales, go after the big stuff. That would be something that I forget. You know, sticking to the small stuff, you do learn a lot in the middle, you know, learning that stuff. There's things that you just have to learn in the biz, but you can learn it on the big stuff, too.

Speaker A: Well, I'm glad you've laid out a giant launching pad for the rest of this conversation, because I have plenty of questions for that. Um, I guess I will say one. I don't know if. I don't know if you want to talk about this or not, but one thing that I did find interesting about sort of your journey and maybe where you're at now is you did walk away from the industry for a few years, which is something that typically many people don't do, especially in your area. Like, how was that? Like, explain getting out, like, start, like you said, where you started, maybe, and what that was like, and then trying to get back in.

Speaker B: Um, well, I've been in it since I could hold a job, basically. Um, and my family's been in it for. Since I was a kid. My stepdad started to scratch Allstate, sold that, uh, started a nationwide book. And that's kind of where I got into it about 21. So. So getting out of it, it wasn't. It really. I mean, it was a choice. But when all the madness hit, I was out. I got out in 2020. It was kind of a choice. The kids were going to be home, and they were going to be home 24, 7 because schools were closed. And it was discussion with me and my wife who was going to stay and who's going to work. And at the time, she was the breadwinner, so it was a financial obligation decision. Right. I stayed in contact with a lot of people, but I kind of went off the radar at. I think when you get out of insurance, you think, I'll never be back. I'm going to find something new. I'm going to write a book, I'm going to do this. But, uh, anyone knows that when you're in insurance, it's tough to get out. So I was out two years. Definitely know that I'm not the best stay at home father. It's not my, I'm good, but I'm not that good. I'm definitely what I call a grinder. So it wasn't hard after two years of not working to get back in. Um, it was pretty easy at that point. I love the time with the kids, but man, I'm a worker. That's just how I do. So.

Speaker A: Yeah. Well, I find it interesting that you say, you know, one of your biggest things of what you wish you would have known is, you know, going after that big stuff right away. And ah, so what was that journey back in. And when did you was. I mean, I'm assuming there was maybe a mild level of intimidation, but when did you say to yourself, this is just like anything else? Or like, I'm assuming there was a moment where you said, oh, okay, I understand what this is.

Speaker B: I mean, you're always kind of intimidated, right? But it's a time thing. You, you learn being in this industry, sometimes the small stuff takes way more time than the big stuff. It's just that, uh, and it's all insurance, right? So as long as you kind of stick to what you know, your niche, your vertical, whatever they want to call it, and you know enough to be dangerous, you just start scaling up because time is pretty precious in this industry and you can get sucked into your emails quick. Most of the time the larger stuff takes less time and they're more, I would say those, the larger clients are more savvy, right? They understand the business and they're, they're more, uh, consultative with you. You know, you're not just in the weeds talking 1 million, 2 million liability and nonsense. You're talking, you're trying to help the business out, right? You're having high level conversations. And those conversations, they're willing to set some time to the side for you, whereas kind of the smaller stuff is more transactional. You know, hey, you didn't reply to my email two hours ago. And that stuff becomes a drain. So if you can grow your book but shrink your clients, you can provide them a lot more focused attention and provide a lot more value. So I think in the end it's better to just go after larger stuff. And there's a whole special, you know, especially technology now you can really crank out the small business Stuff if you're really set up right to do it. But it's, it's, it's a grind if you're still on paper files or still, you know, doing ENS filing for this little stuff. And I'm not knocking on it because I love small business. It's where I learned everything.

Speaker A: Yeah, well, I mean the, the one thing that I'd be curious to know is how long did it take you to get there from when you got back into it, like when you got your feet wet again? Uh, is this something that was encouraged from the new landing spot in the business? Um, is this something that you sort of slowly figured out on your own?

Speaker B: Yeah. So my two years prior to leaving I was in marketing. Not your marketing, insurance marketing. Our office was built on senior living. So I was responsible for marketing our large senior living accounts. That got me really used to large scene, big numbers which coming from a small business, you walk in here and see a million dollar premium and you about half a stroke. But, but then when that becomes normal and you get used to marketing it and that's just the regular, it just seems regular. Right. So getting back, when I came back it was to grow the large commercial side of things, which we call in this office non senior living. And so, you know, you come back as a producer and you've got revenue thresholds, right. So you can't do anything below X or you don't get paid. I still do a lot of things that may not get paid because uh, I just like to help so I can get distracted and I'm man curious is uh, you know, curious as a cat. So if it's a neat funky business, it, if it gets piques my curiosity, I'm on it just because I like to figure that out. It's like I said the verticals earlier, my vertical being commercial real estate and hospitality, large property. But I can start off on a tangent to help somebody that's doing some funky widget making and whatnot real quick because it's just fun to learn about it.

Speaker A: So the word, I guess revenue threshold would be something that might be slightly uncommon for maybe I would say a lot of most Main street agencies. Have you found that to be something that could possibly be explored a little bit more just to put a little hard number to something, even if it may be smaller than what you would expect, just having even any sort of number at the floor there. How, how much of a worthwhile benchmark is that for you to sort of shoot for what you're, what you're trying to bring in the door.

Speaker B: It narrows your focus, right? So you kind of provide structure and strategy to what you're going after. It took a while when I first got over here to talk revenue, not premium. Everyone, you know, it's. And then once you start talking revenue, you never talk premium. It's just how it is. And yeah, coming from the small side, it was all premium, premium, premium, premium. You know, I was nationwide. That was nationwide before it went broker side. It was captive. But getting that, uh, revenue threshold, say it's five grand, right? Average things out, let's say you get 10%. So anything below 50, you're kind of like, especially now with the market, how it is, these increases, or if you're in a place like Florida, you know, but you, it's probably dang near 50 grand to insure your house. Not really, but it's in those markets where the property skyrockets, you can hit 50 grand real quick. And then when you're, when you start thinking that, oh, I have to hit this number, things just start opening up. And then you realize that even something that's at your revenue threshold that somebody would look at and go, wait, 5,000 revenue, it's not even that big. And it's the same problems, the same things that you work through. Just going back to that. It's. It's still insurance and it's still risk management. You're still talking with these people. But it's revenue, not, not premiums, man.

Speaker A: Uh, I might be going a little too far in the weeds in this, but I'm a little curious to know how far exactly you guys take it. When you talk revenue thresholds, is there any calculations to, like, the different types of accounts or industries that might take more or less time to, to write and like the, the, just the overall process to the ultimate profitability of it? Is that, is that, is that being factored in at all or is it just. No, we're going to. We're pretty, we feel pretty confident if we just have this, this, this number that we'll be okay.

Speaker B: Um, we focus heavily on verticals, right? So we have a real estate vertical, a construction vertical. And then once you get the system, or like I said earlier, senior living, once you have a process built around that type of business, it gets pretty streamlined, right? It is focusing on vertical and saying, you can't just be going and writing these random widget manufacturers, but, you know, you have a manufacturing vertical. This is a process we follow. Um, these are the carriers we work with. Ideally, you know, you Want to keep it with a carrier that can direct bill and kind of help even on the back end with services. But when you get to the ENS side, that is that back end work. But if you've got a good process set up and you are focused on a specific type of business, you can get it pretty streamlined. And with the larger agencies, right, you have a lot of resources, sometimes too much. So you have to really know which resources to utilize when. So it can be an overwhelm when you're sitting there, we can do this, we can do that. But, but this place does a good job of letting you know the resources when you utilize them. And that's, it's, it is pretty key. Like you said, you can waste your time on stuff you have no, nothing about, and then all of a sudden it's a big count. But you're relearning insurance practically trying to ride it. And it's just this whole process and you're not doing the client any justice if you're trying to figure it out for them. Um, just trying to save them a buck when really, you know, trying to save a buck nowadays is hard to do. It used to be I, uh, have this market and this is my underwriter, and he's great. I can, you know what? Uh, they didn't go there. I'm going to hit it. The carriers have dialed in their appetite so much that even a good story, you know, we call it, you know, top of stack submission. You got to get all the information they need and more and tell a great story. And even then they're going, well, it doesn't check this box. So see you later. And, and that's getting kind of rough. Uh, that could put us on a whole new tangent about underwriting and box checking and kind of the old school people getting out and just the new ones coming in and checking a box where you used to have those people that had some autonomy and got to get creative, creative. You know, I'm young, but I've been in it long enough to know that things change and they're changing.

Speaker A: I, I think I will have to know at some point before we're done talk, I would like to know your best checkbox sort of technique and what, what is, what is your sort of secret weapon. But before we get to that, I, I do want to kind of go back to that. I can just hear the. Well, you know, Ryan, this sounds great and all, but how do you keep these larger clients, like, where are they coming from? Like, because I know they're not just falling out of the sky in my neighborhood. Um, I mean, what's like, where are you going to get these guys? Like, what's the secret to get into this mix and start building sor that flow?

Speaker B: Yeah, they, these aren't the ones that are inbound calling from your non inbound marketing campaign that you don't have. You know, if you're sitting there picking up the phone, whoever calls, you're gonna. Then you will be wasting your time. But this comes from being in the associations that they are. But honestly, I mean it comes from what one will call the grind. But cold calling and cold outreach, man, that's, it's really. If you're dialing that phone and you're sending emails that are informative or just asking for the business to get some time with them to just have a conversation, it's that uh, cold outreach that gets to them because they're inundated with stuff. But if you can get them on the phone for a minute and kind of tell them your story and just say you're looking for conversation, that's how you get the, the larger ones and staying on their radar. Because that sales cycle is, if you're lucky, one year, but it's usually 2, 3, 4. Because once you get on the radar and you become next best friend, then you can start developing that relationship on the larger one. There's more relationship. And then, you know, everybody wants that big guy. Everybody wants that big guy, you know, that big shiny. Yes. If I just get this account, man, that'll uh, put me at my, at my goal for the year. But everybody's calling that because it's, it's just what it is.

Speaker A: And the next thing I think is do you have like you said, like if you're going after the top top, like the tippity top. Right. That might be a little more challenging. Have you found sort of a sweet spot as to where like, you know, they're not quite.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Bottom of the threshold, but they're not, you know, but they're gonna, they're gonna get the job done.

Speaker B: And I'm still, you know, setting up processes on how to be the most efficient. We use salesforce, so you got tasks to kind of keep it, uh, but like on the large, large one, like those elephants, you want to get a little creative. You have like we call creative drops. Right. You know, you do something kind of gimmicky, but maybe not send it to them to get their attention. Right. And you can have that elephant list that you can be more what word am I unique with? Right. You can specialize them because, you know, if you get one of those, that's a good one. So you can kind of do the slow drip with them and really know them well and approach it from a different angle. Whereas these, where you're looking at is that sweet spot, um, I'm finding is there's Marsh, right. Who's number one, and then the next three, four combined are as big as them. And they've written a lot of stuff in the past. And I'm finding that once, uh, you get to that mid to large market, if you've been there a while, then they go up. Right? And so these nice, sweet. I guess we can talk premium just to keep the normies in here, but you know, 75 to 200 grand in premium or 100 to 200, that's kind of 250. Those are the people that have maybe been on these books for five to ten years. And as that person, that producer, that agency's grown, they've kind of gotten that, oh, okay, a little less attention. And that's a good number. Right? And if you give them the attention that they probably once received, or they're just, they've grown and been part of a small agency, then you can provide resources to help them out. Right. It's harder to find the guys with the mom and pops that just aren't so as sophisticated as you are because everybody's getting bought up. That's the thing. You used to be able to go, oh, they're with so and so agency or, or like a state farm, like, and that. And that's just about getting pumped out. You can provide resources and really start helping them grow their business even more. That helps. But now you go after those guys and they're with the Marsh and they've seen all that stuff. So you gotta be a little bit more unique and give them the attention. Right.

Speaker A: Well, I promise and I have to deliver on the promise. So I want to go back to, like you said, sort of the secret of standing out in the stack. Uh, the checking of the box. Like, what's the thing that you find really sets you apart, like what's, what's, what's one thing that's going to get the attention and going to get the grease the wheels on it, on that,

Speaker B: um, simple thing, is having everything that you know that they want on that submission, just everything in one email that is going to give them the ammo. Um, because these underwriters, like I said, they're box checking you have to provide these newer underwriters that don't have the autonomy, the ammo. If you're getting something, trying to get something tricky in there, you have to give them the ammo to run it up the ladder. Because if you give them that then they feel comfortable going up and saying hey, this may have a little hair on it, but look at X, Y and Z that they pointed out and it's all there. And these enterprise are so busy because the market's hard. So they're just getting inundated with submissions. So if it's not in one email and everything they need next, you know, they don't want to sit there just like you don't, you don't want five emails, you want one email and you can answer it done. They, if they, they're like, oh, okay, now I have to send, here's your submission, now I have to send 20 questions back to you. They don't want to do that. They're so busy they can pick and choose these nice accounts that they want. Everything's being marketed so they, they've got the pick of the litter. And um, if so to your point, hey, knowing what you're going for. So if you commercial real estate, you know what they're asking, you've got the right supplemental for that, you know, multi family risk, you've got what are the pains of that industry. You address how they are a risk manager, not just someone looking for a piece of paper that says they have insurance. Right. You know, they've got the right safety concern controls in, they've got, you know, people that do safety meetings for X, Y and Z. Um, you provide those loss runs. That seems to be the thing, not just saying loss runs. You can do an analysis on the loss runs which we're trying to do now. You know, they're trying to mess with deductibles. So you do a, uh, history of the losses, what they've paid and if you put your deductible here, you're actually this much more profitable. So you're trying to reframe everything because these underwriters have the AI now to just spout out numbers. So if you're not combating that with your own, which we have, you know, analytics here and giving them the reasons to say yes. It seems like they are looking for all the reasons to say no first. Right. So if you're not giving them the yes answers up front, it's you're just firing it off into the ether and you're sitting there with their fingers Crossed.

Speaker A: All right, Ryan, I've got three more questions for you. The first one is, what's one thing you hope you never forget?

Speaker B: I cheated. And I did listen to your podcast, and my first three answers were definitely nothing to do with insurance. But I know that's not the case, so I would say I don't want to forget that. It always works out. If you're doing what you're supposed to do and you're doing it to the best abilities, it always works out. Sometimes not the way you'd like it or not the way you planned, but it does. Um, just kind of give an example. With this market being hard, non renewals coming out, you know, you can get into a real frenzy, panicking about, am I going to be able to find it? I've never not been able to find somebody insurance. It's not maybe sometimes the best, but you can get caught up real quick just panicking every day, worried, you know, two months out, what am I going to do with this account? But if you're doing what you're supposed to be doing and you're informing the clients and keeping them updated, it. It always works out if, you know. So I don't want to forget that it always works out.

Speaker A: All right, Ryan, there are no rules here, so feel free to take these in any direction you want. But, uh, on the other side of that, what's one thing you still have yet to learn?

Speaker B: When to ask for help, Man, I guess I, I learned that I stink at it, but more like delegation. That's one thing. You know, you can't do it all, especially at this level, because my background, I've done it all right? I've done account management, marketing. So I have the skill set to do it all. And when sometimes it gets down to the wire, you want to do that. But my number one job is to sell. I actually heard a good, a good quote because I'll try and help out service team or, you know, I try and keep a great relationship with people here and my service team especially. Right. You know, they're the ones that make the magic happen. In the background, Weinstein talking about his mentor. And he said, your job isn't to care about the service team. Your job is to bury the bastards. And I was like, oh, man. Um, you know, because it does work out. But yeah, once you start thinking outside of sales and not bringing it in, you know, that's. That's our job. That's our job to do. So one thing, you have to learn how to delegate properly and, and and trust that they're going to do the job right. That's one thing. I do trust them. But especially on, you know, putting that top of stack submission together, like I know how to do this as opposed to saying, hey, this is how I would do it. Take this as please and then let them run with it. Sometimes that's. I know the markets and you know, when you know something, you want to do it your way. Just maybe the stubbornness. But yeah, when asked for help and wouldn't love people, just stay in your lane.

Speaker A: All right, Ryan, last question to you, sir. If I were to hand you a magic wand of sorts to reshape, change, alter, speed up, really any part of insurance, what's that thing? Where is it going and what's it doing?

Speaker B: Like I say speed it up. I'm like the opposite. I want to slow it down. I'd say slow it down. You know, the email is flying in and everybody expects you to answer an email within 45 minutes. And the technology has sped things up in a good way and a bad way. Right. You're, I mean my phone, I don't have a work phone in here. There's not even a phone in here. This is this. So it's text message, it's, it's constant. So I would say slowing it down really and just giving people a realistic expectation. Uh, but to your point, another thing to quote speed things up, uh, is, is kind of changing the perception of the industry. Right. As I mentioned, the underwriters that were, had autonomy and could get creative are retiring. And not just underwriters, right. People, the agents are getting older and they're retiring. There's not a lot of younger. I would say I'm, I do see more coming in on the sales side, but on that back end side, because those people bring in the processes to speed things up on the back end. Right. So they know how to use the technology to their advantage. To someone that may be doing some data entry the old school way and saving it in a file on the desktop and, and then maybe not recreate that process. Process, the, the younger generation is more savvy and they can bring in just simple little things, you know, on Excel, doing a pivot table or something, you know, that's don't get me started in Excel. But those skills they have to bring in and speed up the industry. So changing the perception of it for the younger people to think it's not just boring insurance really, I mean it's, it's a good business, everybody needs it and you learn a lot, man. You know, I say insurance is. The more you know, the less you know in this business. Because there is so much. It really works your brain. I'm not. I don't have a college degree. I've m. Been doing this a long time. It's hard to keep up with those high IQ brains doing this stuff, right? I'm. I'm a dummy, man. I'm an EQ brain. So when you get. I just say, uh, yeah, getting the. Maybe getting a different perception to have them come in and speed things up on. On that.

Speaker A: Ryan, this has been fantastic, sir. I'm going to leave it right there, my man.

Speaker B: It's always a pleasure.