Insurance, You Indemnify Me: Season 3 Ep.10 Ray Huang, Sr. Director of Marketing at Canopy Connect

Speaker A: Foreign,

Speaker B: Everybody, My name is Sean Michael Walker and this is the insurance you Indemnify me podcast. And this morning we have Ray Hong on the, on the podcast with us. Ray, thank you very much for joining us.

Speaker A: Yeah, thank you for having me. Appreciate that.

Speaker B: Yeah. I must say, uh, for everybody watching this podcast episode specifically, they're going, what is going on here? Why is Sean doing a, uh, you know, a, uh, a, uh, teams meeting or a, uh, or a WebEx meeting? I don't normally do this. Uh, Ray and I have tried this once before in person and it didn't work out. The audio didn't work out. Our, our production team must have done something to screw up. No, I was just kidding.

Speaker A: Don't blame him.

Speaker B: This is round number two. So thank you very much for trying to do this with me a second time, Ray. And, uh, and, and getting, uh, we're gonna. Today we're gonna dispel what it is that canopy is and what it is not and everything. I just can't wait to get into this topic because I should start out by saying, uh, every single podcast episode I do with an agent, and most of my podcast episodes are with agents, insurance agency owners, and when I ask them about their tech stack, every single time canopy comes up and it's, and it turns into an absolute love fest. They're just. It's the best tool. It's the most amazing thing. I can't live without it. I didn't know that there was a better life, you know, post canopy, not post canopy, but with the use of canopy. And uh, and, and so I thought it's time we do a canopy episode where we talk about what it is, what it isn't, what it's going to be, what it said, what it currently is, the roadmap, Everything, everything. We're going to dispel all of the. Everything that it is, and we're going to get it out there in this one single episode. So thank you very much for joining me.

Speaker A: Yeah, thank you for having me. Let's do it. Let's do it. It's funny you mentioned the, the, you know, your, your guests loving it. We've got a, uh, uh, slack, uh, channel in, you know, that we all follow in, in our internal slack called Canopy Love. And, and you know, like whenever we have sales calls or demo calls or onboarding calls or any, any kind of calls like that, like, we'll put little clips in there, little quotes in there, things we find on, on social. When I, you know, I've definitely put that in there when, Right, Um, you know, some of your, your podcast clips come out, um, because it helps us, I think, as a company, feel that love. Right? Like it's happening, it's out there, it's happening in conversations. But like, to let like, our engineers, who are amazing, like, to let them know, like, hey, you're, you're making an impact on like, not just like, um, you know, we're helping your, your conversion, but like.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: People like, love this and that's kind of the holy grail of software.

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker A: Any business. Right?

Speaker B: So let's start out with who you are. Ray.

Speaker A: Yes, sir.

Speaker B: Who the heck are you? We'll, uh, get into who Canopy is, but, uh, how long have you been with Canopy? How long have you been in, in insurance? Uh, I don't think you're an insurance guy, so give us who you are and you're gonna have to explain that guitar on your back wall as well. So.

Speaker A: All right, uh, who, who are you?

Speaker B: But weave in that guitar in your response. Okay?

Speaker A: All right. So I'm the head of marketing here at Canopy Connect. I've been here for two years. Was not in insurance before I had been. I've been in like business to business software marketing for well over 20 years now. Um, so I come from that world. Um, I've worked in a bunch of different industries from, you know, accounting, accounts receivable, automation, the education space, selling professional development software. Um, a lot of you guys in college probably use a software called Turnitin, which is a plagiarism checking software a lot of people use. Um, so I came up through, through those ranks. Um, and then even like way, like going way back, like right out of college, um, I, um, was doing real estate sales, right. And I loved it. Um, um, it was fun, it was exciting. I was, I felt like I was super knowledgeable about it. But, um, at the time I was 21 and I looked like I was 16 years old, um, um, driving a little, ah, 96 Honda Prelude. Um, um, not, not the, not like the trusted professional that you would probably expect, but it was one of those things where it's like I knew the business, uh, pretty well. I, um, just wasn't at a place where I think I could have been effective. But now I look back at it, I'm like, man, I could have been doing this for. I could have been in like the seasoned 25 year real estate vet. Like what a fricking business I could have built, just sticking through it from 2001 to, through the ups and downs. But like in Orange county, in no less. In Southern California where real estate is, is crazy. You were just recently in, in down there in like San Diego or something?

Speaker B: Yeah, my dad lives in San Diego. So I took my son down there and uh, just for a guy's weekend. And we had a great weekend. Uh, we rented a BMW convertible and surfed and uh, and we got my favorite tacos in the entire United States that, ah, El Gordos. And uh, we just had a great time. It was a really great time.

Speaker A: Awesome. But as far as the stuff on

Speaker B: the wall guitar, really the important.

Speaker A: What's important? I, I dabbled in a lot of instruments growing up. Um, like any Asian kid. I had to play the, the violin and the piano. Um, but that was very boring to me. Uh, so then I started playing. Playing the guitar a little bit. Um, no, I'm not good by any means. I, I think this one right here is the acoustic guitar. I've had that one for years. Um, I just recently, I think over the holidays I got this electric, uh, eveners, I think. But I'm just trying to shred a little bit on there. But uh, not. I'm not shredding in a good way. It sounds terrible. But, um, it's fun. It's a nice little escape. Um, yeah, I've got, I've got a set up with the headphones so like my kids go to bed and I'm right. And you can shred m. I'm shredding. I'm trying to play. Yeah, I've got this post, uh, it right here. Um, my goal for the year is to play Metallica one.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: Um. It's a hard song. It's. Yeah, it's ambitious. But there's my goal.

Speaker B: Um, uh, so we started, our family started when Covid started. Uh, we kind of asked ourselves a philosophical question like when this whole, uh, when this whole thing is over, what do we want to have done with all of this time that we've been given?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And um, so I owned a guitar back in college. It was like a hundred dollar piece of crap acoustic guitar. And um, and so we all kind of decided let's, let's all learn the guitar. Well, we quickly learned that three people, me and my son and my daughter, couldn't all share one guitar. So now we have exactly what you have behind you. A guitar wall. Except there are, there are six guitars on the guitar wall now.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker B: And uh, and. And we went out and we just went crazy in Guitar Land, uh, during COVID and just. We bought Guitars and we bought amps and the whole family just jammed out for. For, you know, 18 months or however long Covid went. And. And we just, like. The only thing we ever youtubed or Googled or. Or anything that we watched was like, YouTube how to play Metallica one. And we just went straight for it and went for it. And now I would say I don't know how long it's been since, uh, Covid. Let's just say three years or whatever. Yeah, we've been, uh, we've been a guitar family for like, the last three years now.

Speaker A: Nice, nice, nice. You guys have little jam sessions.

Speaker B: We've got ourselves a guitar wall as well. So.

Speaker A: Yeah, my wife's always like, I want to play the drums. Like, I want to go get a drum kit. I was like, I don't know if you want to commit to a drum kit. My son's taking, uh, he's 11. He's in band, and he joined. He's doing percussion, but I was thinking, percussion, you're going to be doing drums, but they're doing like, xylophone, uh, stuff. But, um, you get around to it. He likes it.

Speaker B: Very cool.

Speaker A: Very sort of band.

Speaker B: Well, uh, I love your shirt. I, uh, love the marketing at Canopy Connect. I know we'll get into a whole bunch of different stuff, but, uh, you guys do all this fun, creative stuff, and I, I just absolutely love it. And, And I. I guess we should start there. I. I just. I absolutely giggle at almost everything that you guys create. And, uh, and the shirt is amazing. The. For anybody who doesn't know, there's the Canopy Connect logo all over that shirt. And, uh, and it's just really fun stuff that you guys are doing over there.

Speaker A: Yeah, thanks. Yeah, we try to, you know, I. For me, we did a. We did like a. A light rebrand, uh, about a year ago, new website, and cranked that out and kind of updated our logo. Stayed the same, but we updated our colors and fonts and all that stuff. We brought a little bit more purple, um, into the mix. Um, and it, you know, we've been just trying to have a little bit of fun. It's more like, hey, I know I'm trying to be in your social feeds and you're not going to stop at like, here's a screen share of a demo of Canopy Connect, but it's more about like, hey, how can I add value? How can I, like, brighten your day? You know, I'm really big on. On memes and doing other. I'm sure you've you guys have seen plenty of stuff that we've put out. Um, it's light, it's fun, it's relevant to an extent. We try to, like, you know, they're. They're usually around. The quoting process sucks. There's a ton of friction, things like that, that all hit sort of, you know, loosely hit some of our relevancy points within the insurance space. But, you know, um, yeah, we just want to have some fun with it and get out there. The Hawaiian shirts were my idea, and we used to go to conferences.

Speaker B: Somebody in the organization right now is like, it wasn't his idea.

Speaker A: That was my idea. Well, I'm about to give credit to Casey. A lot of folks know Casey Armstrong. He does all of our demos and he shows up for, uh, the conferences, and he always wears these awesome Hawaiian shirts. Hawaiian shirts. Um, so I kind of leaned into it. I was like, hey, we're going to this conference next month. So I bought these Hawaiian. You know, there's these Hawaiian shirts you can buy where you can put your face on, like, they'll print your face on it. So I was like, okay, I just uploaded my logo and it was not this version. It was like a, you know, just like a really audacious, like, bright shirt. And I was like, hey, we'll stand out at the conference. Uh, and. And so that was a hit. And I was like, okay, let's go make some good ones, right? So I, I ordered a bunch of fresh ones, and now it's like, you know, now I give out lays and stuff at our Hawaiian at our, at our booths, and people have a good time with it.

Speaker B: You know what's funny is, uh, you gave me one of those shirts, and, uh, I wasn't wearing it, but, uh, I forget where it was. Maybe it was in one of the, uh, snippets that I shared online. And somebody, somebody was like, that's an amazing shirt. I love Canopy Connect shirts. And it, like, people start. Maybe it was on Reddit or something, that platform, but they were all going crazy for Canopy Connects Swag. And I was like, well, that's interesting. So, uh, yeah, you got something going on.

Speaker A: We. Oh, well, I'm not going to give it away, but we've got some conferences coming up. You know, we'll be at. At Hawksoft's, uh, Hug Conference and Net View. I don't know when you'll publish this, but, um, those are coming up. We've got some. We got some fun, fun things, uh, that you will have never seen at. Ah, Insurance conference.

Speaker B: All right, let's get into this.

Speaker A: Let's do it.

Speaker B: Let's start out with, uh, the most basic question is I. On all of my interviews, agents talk about hawk. Excuse me, I was gonna say Hawksoft. Agents talk about Canopy, uh, connect. And they go, yeah, it's this amazing thing, it's a portal. I send it off to my customer. Uh, uh, they get into it, they fill it out, and then I get all the deck pages and they kind of explain it to me real fast on the, on the, on the podcast. And I go, okay, I get that, but, but then from my perspective, I'm also always going, like, what else is it? Like, it's gotta be more than just that. So maybe let's just start with what is it? And then, and then for me, um, what else is it that I'm not getting or that hasn't been explained to me yet that the agents that I'm interviewing with on the podcast, uh, have yet to like, expound on and go, well, it's also this, you know, so what is it?

Speaker A: Yeah, so Canopy Connect. You know, I always say it's the fastest way to collect verified insurance information. And there's a couple keywords in there. There's fast, the insurance information and then verified, which is kind of maybe a key differentiator than whatever you're doing now. Uh, so for an insurance agent, you have to collect insurance information upfront and that can come through a lot of different ways. Asking questions on a phone, long forms, maybe you want to pre fill that stuff through some other source. Um, but you need that information in order to send over, uh, a quote. So what we enable is, hey, instead of doing a lot of that other nonsense, uh, just say, hey, you got them on the phone. Hey, I'm going to text you a link, find your carrier, sign in to that carrier, and we're going to, it's going to authorize kind of sharing all of their pertinent policy information and more to me, your insurance agent, that's going to show up in a nice dashboard and, um, and then you can send that on to your rating system or CRM system, um, wherever you want to go with it. So at a crux, you're right, this is what we do is, is we collect that insurance data and that comes in structured data, deck pages, renewal docs, things like that. Um, and there's sort of that, hey, do one thing and do one thing really well. Um, and I think we've nailed that. And then now we're kind of broadening out into like, okay, what other data can we pull that's adjacent that is still relevant? So now where, um, if you're getting property information, if we're getting property insurance, we can pull in and enrich a lot of that property data from county records and other places. So you'll know how many square feet, how many bedrooms, what's the current like market valuations, land value, things like that. Um, obviously the, the VIN numbers um, that come with the vehicles is always there. And like that's one of the big pain points, right? It's like, oh, I got to type in uh, this, I don't know, 16 digit VIN number letters and numbers. And like that's cool when you got one or two cars, but every once in a while you get that guy with six cars.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Um, have fun with that. Right. You're, you're bound to make a mistake somewhere, ah, along that line. Um, and then you know, it pulls

Speaker B: back property, auto, the boat, it pulls back the, the rental property. I mean, does it pull back like it basically like brings back like everything that they have with wherever their other insurance is with State Farm or whoever. It doesn't matter who it's with. It brings it all to the agent and puts it in their hands.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So they got six property. You know, they're a six property investor. Like we'll pull all that information and enrich it all. Boats, RVs, motorcycles, we'll get all that stuff as well. Um, life insurance, if it's with that same carrier, we'll pull that too. Works across personal lines as well as uh, commercial. Um, commercial is a newer four way. We've been doing it for about a year. Um, so we're able to get that multi peril bop, um, commercial auto obviously and any property information associated um, with those as well. And then we don't have those connected into raiders yet, um, but we will and uh, that's been taken off. Um, we're getting some really good feedback on that. Yeah.

Speaker B: Uh, so, so I just want to drive this home. So, um, a lot of agents think that this is a personal lines product. A lot of agents are going, this is the greatest thing for personal lines agents to collect documents. But you are emphatically saying stop thinking of it as strictly a personal lines product. It can also help you with your commercial lines, uh, information gathering process.

Speaker A: That's right, all PNC and I should say on the commercial product, you know, we're also be able to pull in loss run information. So we know all the losses. Those come structured as well, as in a PDF for each policy. Like have you ever tried to get loss runs, um, from a carrier or from another agent? Like I'm sure that's a fun experience, um, and takes days, if not weeks and hopefully you're not blocked at the end of it. Right, right. Um, so we're able to get that, let's say relatively discreetly, the other agent's not really notified. Um, so you can kind of get the ball rolling and not lose any momentum off of that. Um, and run your quotes, get stuff back there. And then like you're, you're, you're moving versus like we got the information now. We're like, we're waiting days to get, just to get the loss runs, which you've already told me, but I need to verify it. Um, yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: Okay. I have two questions. Uh, I'm gonna put them together. You answer em in whatever order you want. But my biggest question, when, when I have agents talk to me about Canopy and they're like, it's the greatest thing. I, I, I love it, I love it, I love it. Um, and, and by the way, some of your biggest naysayers have, have fallen in love with Canopy. Uh, they're like, I thought I could live without it, but I see it turns out I can't. It's the most amazing thing on earth. But, uh, two questions.

Speaker A: Yes sir.

Speaker B: Um, and address them how you want. Um, one is what percent of clients actually, actually use this link? So I, I personally have a hard time believing that. I'm going to say to a client, I'm going to send you a link and 95% of the time the client's gonna go, sure, I'll fill out that link and get it back to you. Uh, probably because I'm the kind of guy who goes, I have no idea how to sign into the farmer's platform. I've never done it before. I don't know what I'm doing. Ray, can't we just go through the process of you collecting the information that you need from me? Because I don't want to go in there and fill out this link. So that's question number one. What percent of clients actually use, uh, the link that's sent to them? And then the next question is, is, um, kind of in tandem with this, is what do you say to an agent who says, I don't struggle to get my client's information already. So I have a really good process. It, um, you know, my clients don't fight with me. The way I ask is witty. And charming and uh, and I get it. So I don't need you guys because I have a really good way of asking for the things that I need in order to quote, ah, a risk.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: How would you answer those two questions?

Speaker A: So the first one, as far as you know, what percentage of clients are actually filling it out, is this a bit of like one of those Tale of Two cities or tale of two agents? Right. On one hand, um, we've got our rating fans that love us and use us and are committed to the process, trust the process sort of deal. And when they do that, you know, they're seeing 70, 80, 90% hit rate on getting that back. Um, and I think that comes from a matter of like how you are presenting it, how you talk about it, how you operate your business and your processes. Um, and look, it's about saying this is ah, uh, this is, this is how I do business. I'm a modern insurance agent, um, agency and, and this is how we roll. Like here's the link, fill it out. Right. I'm not, I don't wanna say I'm not giving you a choice, but I'm saying this is the way that I, we, we wanna move forward.

Speaker B: This is how you, in this process

Speaker A: and for most people, like, look, it's fine because you know, you don't shop for insurance, you know, hopefully more than once a year or, or every three, five years, you know, so like they don't, they don't know the process. Right. It's rarely uh. Oh well, my old insurance agent didn't ask me right for this five years ago. I was like, well, canopy connect, you know, we didn't exist five years ago. Right. Um, so like they don't, they don't know better if. So they, they see a ton of success with it and again, it's built into their process. And I know, um, some folks are like, hey, if they're not willing to do it, I'm not willing to do business with them.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I've heard agents say that before. They just say look, if, if they're not going to obey my process, then I let them walk because they're not my ideal client anyway.

Speaker A: Yeah, so it's a, it's a level of commitment and process and technique. Um, the other group might see m something that's more akin to like a 30 to 50% hit rate on it. And it's because this is one of four options of how you can send me information. Um, you know, or they like overly hedge and they need to feel the need to, like, talk about, oh, this is a very secure solution, and. Which we are. But the more you have to explain, like, the more you have to say, trust me, the less they trust you. Right. And so it's one of those, like, how you're presenting it, um, if they're not committed to it being part of your process, like, you just see less success from it, um, over time. Um, and what was your other question? Your other question was, I don't struggle

Speaker B: to get the information from my clients. I have a process that's amazing and gorgeous and. And I ask in just the right witty way that gets them to send me their deck pages just every single time. So.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: So why do I have to pay canopy connect to help me do this?

Speaker A: Yeah. So my view on that is, look, just because you're doing something and it is working does not mean it's working the best way that it could be.

Speaker B: Yeah, better best.

Speaker A: Right. You thought your gas car was great until some, you know, until you had to go up that Colorado mountain, and, uh, you're realizing, oh, I don't have all wheel drive, or, I knew a little bit more torque. Oh, hey, there's electric cars now. And, you know, like, um, I'm sure when you rented that, that BMW in. In San Diego, there are some bells and whistles in there that you're like, oh, nice.

Speaker B: I might.

Speaker A: I didn't know this existed. And now, like, life's not the same when I go back to my, uh, you know, whatever you're driving. So it's a bit of that. Right. Like, um, there. Just because you're doing it one way doesn't mean that there's not a better way to do it. And if you're in a biz in the business of, like, hey, I want to, um, make my business processes better. Like, everyone's got a process. Like, stuff can work, but, like, you want things moving smoothly, humming along. You want to remove a lot of friction from your process. Um, and to the point of, like, oh, I don't mind talking to my customer, uh, my client and asking these questions, you know, having a. Having a conversation. Yeah, I think it's great. And I don't want our product, um, to eliminate that. Having conversations with. With your. With your prospect. But it shouldn't be an interrogation. Right? And I. And I. I famously have this. This meme that I love, which is the. The Batman Joker interrogation scene, where the guy's like, you know, where are the deck pages? And slamming the Joker's head on the table, trying to like, get this information out of him and like, like your, your client, the joker, like, has no idea what you're talking about or at least is pretending not to know. Um, that's one of my favorite memes. And, and um, that one made me

Speaker B: laugh a long time.

Speaker A: Um, yeah. So, like, it may feel like it's a conversation to you, but depend, you know, the, the client might feel like, hey, why are you asking me, grilling me on all these questions? I don't know the answer. I don't know what my wind and hail sure deductible is. Like, why is that different? I don't. Right, right. So if you can instead have a conversation that is a more informed conversation. Right. Um, so that when we jump on the phone, you already know. I, uh, I already know as the, as the agent, your policy information, what do you currently have? And I can talk to you about recommendations and I can talk to you about what are some of your potential risks, what do you have to lose? Right. And, and change the framing of that. Well, now I'm being positioned as a, as a trusted advisor without saying trust me. Right, right. Um, but actually doing that. So I think that's, that's something to, to think about, just like better processes. How's that experience coming along? How do we remove that friction?

Speaker B: Yeah, you, you make two good points. And uh, you know, I, I think that, um, one point is, is, um, is what Chris, uh, long. I mean, Chris Long more than anybody was like, this is amazing. Let me tell you exactly why. And his point was no longer do I lose on rate? Before I used to quote a policy and somebody would say, yeah, I'm going to stay where I'm at because, or I'm going to go somewhere else because I'm saving, you know, 450. And when he finds out that the agent that quoted him was quoting a minimum limits or rejecting coverages, uh, or, or you know, it was not an apples to apples thing. And so he was sitting there going, you know, no longer does that ever occur. You know, that can't happen to me anymore because once I have their deck pages in front of me, once I have all of the information in front of me, um, I can make sure that I'm quoting an Apples to apples situation. And if I lose, then I lose, and if I lose by thousands of dollars, that's okay. But, uh, but at least I know I did this apples to Apples comparison. And uh, and I think there's, there's a lot of power in that. A lot of power in that. Because I can't. I imagine agents listening to this are going, yeah, that's happened to me. I've lost a policy. Not because, um, I should have lost a policy. I lost a policy because, because I wasn't even playing in the same, I wasn't even playing the same game. Um, the other one that I think is really important that you bring up is, um, uh, the other one that you bring up is, is the um, what was it? Oh, the interrogation. So yeah, you know, I think it's real. Uh, you know, I haven't stopped thinking about this, uh, from the last time we recorded. But you know, an agent who goes, yeah, I get the information and I like the way I get the information. I ask the customer 30 minutes worth of questions and when I'm done with the 30 minutes worth of questions and I have this delightful conversation with the customer, I can then quote the, the, the, the, the customer and take it to market and do all this stuff. And, and you said, yeah, that, that may feel like a good thing for you, the agent or the agency owner, but the customer interprets that as a 30 minute interrogation.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And uh, and interprets it that way. And so, you know, I think our agents have to, not just our agents, agents in general across the universe have to go, you know, what does my process currently look like? And how does the, how does the customer interpret the current process? Yeah, and if the customer interprets the current process as being a bumpy, uh, herky jerky kind of uncomfortable, uh, process, then suddenly you got to go, is there a tool that can fix that and smooth that out? And from what I understand, Canopy is the tool that does that better than anybody else. So it's pretty neat.

Speaker A: Yeah, you definitely think you hit on something. Right? There's the business process and you want that to be as efficient and well oiled as possible, but not also at the cost of the customer experience, which are uh, two parallel but very separate things. Um, and sometimes we get over efficient. And I've seen this in the like in the corporate software, business marketing world as well. Like you know, when you request a demo or something on a form.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: We have enough technology out there where I can just ask uh, your, just your email frankly, but your name and your email and I can go enrich that and pull all that information. Right, right. Or I can ask you 25 questions. Right. And what happens there is you get four questions in and you go, you know, I don't think I was that interested. Right. Um, and there, and so that's the whole conversion, conversion optimization thing. But you're like, but I need this information in order to route this to the right rep in the right territory, you know, because of however it's set up. So um, things like that where you're like, well we're adding these layers and asking these information and doing these certain things for the sake of my business process.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: At the cost of the customer experience.

Speaker B: Right. So um, I just want to hammer home what you said earlier because it might have gone in one ear and out the another ear. But um, and so I'll ask it in the form of a question. Once an, once a client fills out the link and I have access to all of the information, does it automatically pre fill in my comparative radar in my management system or do I click a button with uh, Canopy Connect and say please, please pre fill my other technological tools that I use in my agency? What happens there?

Speaker A: Yeah, you can set it up either way. Um, some people want to see it and be like, do I even want to send it, send it to my radar? Or maybe I don't want to send every single thing through my radar. So you can either set it up so you click it and it pushes it over at that time or you can set it up where as soon as they fill it out, right, um, it sends over to easylinks or PL Rating or Quote Rush and um, it's already, it's already there and then you go, and then you log into Quote Rush and you send it out in those circumstances, like you don't even need to come into your Canopy Connect dashboard outside of like having your link which you probably have bookmarked somewhere else anyway. Um, right. And it's just. So then your, your workflow is a little bit different, a little bit more efficient where you can come in and depending on like where your integration points are, um, operate kind of the way you've always done it except like all the data is there. All the data is accurate and verified. So um, um, it's, it's up to you. We're, we're, we try to be flexible enough like to work with any system and we're, we're very famously and, and want to stay platform agnostic. We are our own tool. We are the best in breed of what we do. Um, and we want to take that data and send it where you want it to be sent. Right?

Speaker B: So okay, so if I want to send it to the travelers rating platform platform or the Safeco rating platform or wherever, can I send it there as well? Or Is that not, not yet.

Speaker A: Um, that's something where we're working on um, building out more relationships with these different carriers, um, to get that level of access, um, and integration. It's just, it's a whole different like arm of, of the business for us to, to operate and do that technical integration with on a one to one basis. I mean that's kind of what Raiders do. Right. Um, but I know not everyone operates off of Raiders. Um, but yeah, we're working on some export processes and things like that where we can, we can export things in certain formats that are friendly, you know how fragmented the insurance tech space is. So um, it's a challenge but I think it's a direction that we're headed toward.

Speaker B: Okay, next question. What uh, does the roadmap of development look like? What's coming next? Uh, what's, what's happening?

Speaker A: Yeah, we've got um, on, on the heels of doing more integrations, we have already integrated with the Raiders. We're starting to integrate more with different AMS and CRM systems. So Agency Zoom is a long ask for long um, wanted thing. Um, so we're going to be announcing that very soon as well as um, integrating into the new Hawksoft I think version six, the one that's actually in the cloud. So those are, those are coming soon. Um, we are doing integrations in with um, Salesforce as well. A lot of agencies are working on the Salesforce CRM so we're integrating into there soon. Um, that might be a few months out still. Um, but trying to build more within, within that ecosystem. We're doing other things on the side where there's some you know, aspects of policy servicing. Um, maybe less relevant for the, the insurance agency specific space. But like our technology on the back end is also powering a lot of like consumer apps, um, those like digital wallet type things. The one, the systems that are where you can plug in all your different bank accounts and they'll, they'll help you monitor and get you the best deal. Those types of deals. Um, um, we're working with like auto dealerships. I know some, there's some insurance arms that are embedded within auto dealerships but we're working directly with auto dealerships as well. Um, mortgage, banking, finance, those types of apps. So we're, we're definitely doing more even like still in the insurance kind of vertical but slightly different applications.

Speaker B: Sure.

Speaker A: Um, that is really interesting. Yeah.

Speaker B: Okay. Um, think about your customer at Canopy Connect. They use Canopy Connect, they pay for Canopy Connect and uh, they're kind of like the golden child. They use the product better than anybody else uses the product where whatever agency that is in the United States, wherever they are, uh, we don't have to talk about their name per se, but, um, how are they using it? Why are they like the most effective user of Canopy Connect? How are they using it?

Speaker A: Yeah, so the most effective, they've got it plugged into there. They've got probably our link or their custom Canopy Connect link put into some different automation sequences that are in their CRM. Um, so it's going out at the right time, right. Quote comes in, uh, instead of a generic autoresponder, hey, we'll get back to you in whatever 24 hours. Whatever your, your you say in that, that literally that that email has no value aside from like, got it. Thanks.

Speaker B: We heard you.

Speaker A: Right. Um, instead of that, like, hey, let's fire off an email that has a Canopy Connect link and says, hey, let's get to the next step two, the process. Right. Um, so then they fill that out, that comes back into their CRM ties into that record. They can send it off to their. When the agent comes back in in the morning and I've got one agent that comes in that, that says, hey, I come in in the morning and there's five leads in, ready to quote. Canopy Connect's already been done.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Uh, and they're ready to go. Right. Um, so, so they build that in, they get the quote, then they turn around and they're able to deliver the quote. I see the best ones kind of doing, starting to do more video proposals, things like that. Um, if they want to do it at a certain scale, um, or they're setting up meetings to, to do it, that's not, that's, that's your business how, how you want to go after that. But really from that automation standpoint, right. Um, inbound quote request, send out the Canopy Connect link. They're prompted to fill that out and if they're not, yeah, you can send the reminders and things like that to get that all done. You come in, in the morning, it's ready to go, um, push it to

Speaker B: the comparative rate and you're, you're moving.

Speaker A: That's right. That's right. Um, we've got folks that are using it on, like, from more of a marketing aspect. I see people using QR codes, um, for different events. If you're sponsoring a local thing and you got your little booth, tent, table, whatever, um, and you want to just say, hey, we're, we're doing this Giveaway for, in exchange for a free policy review, something like that. Right. Let's make it really easy. I don't need you to fill out a long form. I just need you to do, click on this link and fill it out when I get it. Like here's your, your Yeti mug or whatever you're, you're giving out, um, for that. Um, so it's a win, win situation. They get a policy review, you get a lead or Stanley mug. Sorry, that's the, gotta be a Stanley at this point. That's the hot new thing. I don't.

Speaker B: Okay, cool. Um, APIs. I uh, could have sworn somebody reached out to me and said, I swear some other company reached out to me and said something like, hey, we're doing this really cool thing in the industry and we have this really neat thing. And after 10 or 15 questions it came down to, yeah, we're doing this really cool thing through Canopy Connect, please buy our product or something like that. And I was like, okay, but is anybody using APIs? Is anybody using Canopy, uh, connect to like the nth degree? And it's like, wow, Sean, these people have really cracked some amazing code with Canopy Connects tech, uh, with Canopy Connect, uh, you know, being the main engine for what they're doing.

Speaker A: Yeah. Again like we, we've got a lot of these integrations into the different Raiders and those are all powered through our APIs connecting to theirs. Um, that's the main sort of technical use case. Your insurance agents, like you don't need to deal with any of that. You shouldn't have to. Right, that's, you're, you're not the uh, you're not the software developer. No, I know there's certainly plenty of, of tech guys that are also listening to your podcast. Um, right. We can connect with them and, and we've got clear documentation, all that stuff on how to do it. And like I said, we're, we've got all these other applications for, you know, any. At any point in whatever business you're running, you need to verify insurance information. You need to intake insurance information. Mhm. We can do that. There's a lot of use cases out there outside of the insurance agency space. You think of like when you go rent a car and you go rent that BMW in San Diego. Right. You got offered. Do you want our extended insurance? Of course not. Because it's probably covered through your credit card or it is extended through your auto policy. How does Avis or budget or you know, Hertz, how do they know it's Covered in one of those other scenarios, like, maybe they know on the credit card, but, like, they definitely don't know your own insurance if you know whether that's covered or not. So maybe they can set up a process when you're renting the car to plug in Canopy connect, um, to confirm that. Right. And. And if they don't, well, now you've got a stronger sell on.

Speaker B: Same, um, with an auto dealership. Uh, let's confirm before you drive this car off the lot that you have insurance.

Speaker A: You may not have that grace period that you think you have. Um, and if you're getting it financed, like, you definitely want to make sure the lien holders on there. I did hear on one call, you know, there's a guy that bought a car, drove off the lot and wrecked it. Wasn't. You know, and. And I think the same guy was like, guy wrecked it, wrecked a car on a test drive. Who's. Who pays for that? Like, I don't. And I don't know what the resolution was on that. But, like, they called us the next day.

Speaker B: Hey.

Speaker A: And they're like, well, hey, maybe we do want to check, uh, if they do that. Yeah. Like, before, you, you know, they, you know, they. They take your license, they might take a photocopy of it. Sure. Which is just. That's just like, so you don't run away with the car. Sure. But, like, maybe you want to see if they're insured. Maybe you want to see if they've got, like, six claims accident, you know, accidents on their record, or they're led

Speaker B: like, uh, and said, let's go driving.

Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker B: Uh, okay. Uh, I got a couple more questions, and then we'll wrap it up. But, uh, uh, what would you say about the competition? So the more I've been talking about canopy, or the more I hear about Canopy, uh, the more I hear agents go, oh, I like this one. Or, um. So I guess the question is, what is Canopy's? Like, um, what. What makes you different? What makes you better than the competition?

Speaker A: Yeah. Um, and I love this question because a lot of it depends. I think competition always depends on how you frame competition. If you frame it in the sense of, like, hey, we're solving the problem of insurance agents needing to get insurance, get data that's part of their process, then who are we competing with? We're competing with, like, a bunch of form fill solutions and people that's as, you know, sophisticated as, like, gravity forms or jot forms or something like that, where they're kind of home building it and there's a lot of other like solutions that have um, more of a guided purpose built insurance form. Yeah, still a form. It's still a long form. It's still a ton of conversion points. It's just a virtual for me, it's just a virtual nicely formatted way of that interrogation. Yeah. Um, and then, and then on the other side like there's pre fill. You know a lot of the raiders just have like, oh, you can just pay like 20 cents or whatever it is to get pre fill and ah, you know, cost. Yeah. I don't know. But then you ask anyone like how accurate is that? How well do you trust that information?

Speaker B: Sure.

Speaker A: I um, mean how many Sean Walkers are there in Denver alone? Right. Sean Michael Walkers maybe a fear, but, but still. Right. There's always like data errors and all that. That happens when, if there's policy information attached to it. When was that policy last updated? Um, it's just not verified. It comes from like a multitude of sources. Um, and if any point in that something's wrong, that whole trust is eroded. Right. If I took the assumption that this is all accurate and it's not, then I have, I've taken a couple steps back on in, in building the trust.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Um, we've got some direct competitors that do something similar to what we do. Um, to those like we're, we're faster, we've got deeper coverage. So we cover 95, 96% of the auto insurance market, 90% of the homeowners market and 60% of the commercial side as well. So like those numbers are not even close um, to what the others are doing. Sure. If you look at, you'll, you'll see oh, they have all got farmers and state farm. Right. And you can cover that, that covers 50% of the market with like 30 carriers.

Speaker B: Sure.

Speaker A: Um, but there's a long tail. Right. And if you want to send this link out and be confident that when you send this out you get a response, um, like you need to know that those carriers are on there and nine and a half times out of ten like they are for us, whereas it might be seven, you know, 70% of the time or 60% of the time.

Speaker B: Do they enrich their data as well like you guys do?

Speaker A: They don't. A lot of them are just pulling straight deck pages which is fine. But then you get in that situation, what do you do next with it? Right. We've built all the out a lot of the integrations, um, which streamlines the rest of the Process. Because the data sitting in a silo doesn't help anyone really. It helps a little bit, but not if you got to still then take 20 minutes and like, re. Key all that.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Um, good luck with that. And they're slow and they're, you know, there's security aspects I'm not going to, like, I haven't done, like, deep security reviews with them. Um, you know, I do have one competitor that like, straight rip sections of our website out. And like, for us, trust is a big deal. We deal in. In. We deal in data, people's data. And it's. It's not just like the insurance agency's data. It's like your client's data. So there's two levels of trust that need to be there. So we try to operate with. With a large, um, you know, leaning towards building trust and not doing things that are. That are not trustworthy. And that's something that I think is not there with every company.

Speaker B: I'll just say, sure, okay. Um, and then I don't know how you want to get into this, but, um, like, I know the cost. Every time I hear an agent go, this is what it costs. And they've even said it on my podcast where, you know, an agent will be like, yeah, it's, it's, it's. It's X. And I'm like, that's really affordable. Like, how.

Speaker A: How.

Speaker B: Why is it so affordable? And maybe it's because it's. Maybe it's because you guys realize it's so affordable because it's one small sliver of the whole. Of the whole process. And so we don't want to charge too much for that small sliver of the process. Um, and those are my words, obviously not yours. But, uh, but, like, what can you say about cost of, of what canopy is?

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So we've got just.

Speaker B: Just to build on that. I think there's a couple tiers there too. So maybe like, talk to me about costs and then talk to me about tiers.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, and I'll try not to. I'll try to keep it simple. Um, um, we have plans that start at a hundred bucks. Um, um, that gives you that core functionality of. Right. Uh, it solves the problem of I need to get insurance information. I want to send out the link, pull all the information. You've got all the same carriers. Um, and pull that information just as fast. Um, 100 bucks. You get like 50 bull. 50 of those personal. This is just personal lines only. This is kind of your entry level. You Know, we call it the starter package.

Speaker B: Um, and you get 50 of those a month or something. Is that what you.

Speaker A: 50 of those a month? You get five seats, um, within it. Um, and then if you need a little bit more with it, uh, we have like a $250 plan called agency plus. That's still mostly personal lines, um, more pools, more seats, uh, 125, I think. Um, but you also get access to the integrations. And that's kind of the key point. Right. You want to operationalize this, you're going to need that. So you can send it to your rater, you can send it to your CRM. Um, you get access to our API if you want to do some real fancy stuff.

Speaker B: Um, data is always enriched on both of those plans.

Speaker A: Data is enriched. Sorry, data is enriched on the property information on that Agency plus plan as well. And then we've got, we've got a couple of other plans. We've got a commercial plan that's, uh, 0.350. Um, a little bit more expensive per pool.

Speaker B: 3500, everybody.

Speaker A: $350. Oh, wow. Oh, per month. Um, but yeah, so it. And then we've got permutations of those where if you need personal and commercial, um, we've got little bundle packages that you can look there. So, um, pricing is all on our website. We're very open about what it is. Um, I think the, the agents that you're talking about, the ones that are getting the most out of it and operationalizing it, those are used. They're mostly using that agency, uh, Plus Plan on the personal line side, um, because they, they connect it into their systems because they're, they're really thinking about operationalizing it and growth and all that stuff. Yeah.

Speaker B: Uh, just, just to add on to that question, what if I'm an agent who's, who's not thinking about operationalizing and, and I'm not, you know, a genius when it comes to technology. Is somebody on the Canopy Connect team going, hey, I know you're paying the hundred dollar package, but let me help you figure this out a little bit better. And, uh, and maybe come into your agency and say, you know, for an extra 150 bucks, I can help you build this thing out a little bit better so it flows a little bit easier. And I know it feels like an upsell, but really all I'm here to do is help you figure out the technological aspect of.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: How others are doing this and getting it flowing better as a more effective tool in your, in your Office or, or would you guys go, hey, Sean's never gonna get it. He's just, he's just not a smart technological guy. Let's just sell him the hundred dollar thing. He's never gonna figure out the, the supercharged version of this just because of his lack of ability to understand technology. Let's just walk away and let him figure out that piece. Are you guys helping people figure out the, the higher version or the, you know, the, the better version through technology?

Speaker A: Yeah, uh, I'll say like our stuff

Speaker B: horribly, but I think that's okay.

Speaker A: Our stuff is not, it's not that complicated.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: Right. Obviously there's, there's like agency operations stuff when you're getting systems to talk to other systems. Like, yeah, yeah, things get messy there. Um, but at a basic level, like can be connect is super simple to use. You want to integrate it to your radar. We've got a, you know, you, you click a couple buttons and it's. And maybe add your, your radar credentials and you're connected.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: Um, there may be some downstream effects on like. Okay, well that changes a little bit of other, other processes usually in other systems. So, um, we don't get into that too much. We do have like a really great support team that can help you through those integration points and those little friction points and we can get you a couple steps down. Right. Um, but like, we're not supporting other products at the same time.

Speaker B: Sure, sure, sure.

Speaker A: Um, we do like these, have somebody

Speaker B: on the team going, hey, think about it this way. I mean, you could take this two steps farther and it could become, um, you know, five times cooler than it currently is.

Speaker A: Yeah. So we do, you know, when anyone signs up, we do free onboarding and um, walk them through. Not just the technical setup, not just where to click, but just like how to use it, how to sell it. Yeah. How, you know, give you some seed, seize you with some ideas. Some of the ones that I talked about here. Right. Um, of ways you could be using this from a inbound response to a, you know, more of a lead gen type methodology. And then all, you know, we talk about the different integration points and, and why those are important. Same stuff. I've already talked to you. It's, it's, it's operationalizing it. How do we make it easier? How do we remove friction, make it less steps? What usually gets people is like, oh, I don't need to, like we can say, we can eliminate data entry from. Even if you interrogated them. Right. Or you had them fill out A form. Now getting that into another system, if you're still typing that in somewhere, like that gets people's thing go. Like, if you already have access to like, how much is that worth? Is that worth an extra, like a hundred bucks to get these systems talking to each other and getting more pools? Because you're going to get more use out of it. Like super, it's super easy. So I think it's pretty compelling to a lot of people. When we hit, I want to, I'd want to do something with this data. Right. It's, it's, it's kind of a no brainer.

Speaker B: Yeah. Okay, well, that's all I got. Uh, those are all my questions. So, um, I'll just wrap up by saying kind of what I've already said, which is I hear from agents, I would almost use the word relentlessly, like I hear from agents constantly that Canopy Connect is, is the new bee's knees and is kind of the thing that needs to be plugged into any agency's process. And so, um, I'm not a part of the daily transaction of insurance policies anymore as it relates to my career, but, but I interact with insurance agency owners all day, day long, every day all across the United States. And every single one of them is saying Canopy Connect is the thing that every agent should be using. And so, um, and so I can't thank you enough for spending the time with me and, and kind of helping me understand it better and, and uh, lift this cloud of confusion and, and uh, I guess I'll just leave it there. Thank you so much, Ray.

Speaker A: Yeah, thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Yeah.

Speaker B: All right, we'll see you all later. Have a good day.

Speaker A: Bye. Bye.