476. Insurance Agents You're Not Overspending, You're Underinvesting

One agency office went from a 7% close rate to 23% in 2 weeks. Same team. Same leads. We are showing you exactly what changed, live. This is a one time webinar, no replay and no recording, so you have to show up. 

Thursday, August 6th at noon CST, capped at 100 seats.

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Watch the full episode on YouTube: HERE

What's in this episode:
Michael Weaver flies solo this episode, fresh off a conference where carriers are no longer talking about $10 million books of business. They are talking about $100 million books, and insurance agency owners are being asked to run their offices like enterprises, not small shops.

Michael breaks down what separates the agents built for the future: bigger teams, multiple marketing channels, and technology like Agency Coach AI that automates training and coaching instead of eating up a manager's day. He also makes the case for why small mom and pop agencies will get starved out, and what every insurance agency owner needs to invest in right now to stay ahead.

[00:00] Growth is messy, know exactly when you're about to breakthrough 
[01:00] Michael flies solo with fresh takeaways on the agent of the future
[02:00] Why carriers are talking $100 million books instead of $10 million
[03:00] The three stages of an agency owner: sales agent, manager, CEO
[04:00] What separates the best agents in the country, and it is not a secret
[05:00] The mom and pop agencies carriers are about to starve out
[06:00] Investing in people and tech instead of cutting corners
[07:00] Where AI is headed next for insurance agencies
[08:00] Why one or two marketing channels is a recipe for disaster
[09:00] Turning scale into revenue and thinking like an enterprise
[10:00] The agencies already making these investments right now
[11:00] Why investing money is the fastest way to scale efficiently
[12:00] The mindset shift from $10 million books to $100 million books
[13:00] Growth is messy, but you have what it takes
[14:00] Michael's parting reminder to go make it happen

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Transcript

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Growth is messy. It is. It's going to challenge you. It's going to be scary. It's going to be frustrating. It's going to be stressful. Sometimes it's going to be nasty. Some days you're going to ask yourself, is this really worth it? Is this what I'm supposed to be doing? And that is right when you're on the edge of breaking through. Hey, welcome to the insurance buzz. I'm Michael Weaver and I'm your host, Flying Solo today. Courtney is actually out today, headed to a conference, and I wanted to talk a little bit about the agent of the future. I just got back from a conference myself, and there was a few key takeaways that I took away, uh, not just from the conference itself, but also by visiting with peers in the uh at the conference, by visiting with corporate leaders and where they're going. And then obviously uh a lot of the headlines that have been uh hitting uh the news here recently um with carriers changing how they're doing things. Comp plan changes more production, uh pricing some agents out of the uh agency force and more. So most importantly, and I don't say that to to joke or laugh. Look, right now we are in a uh a time, um, times are changing. They're changing fast. Um, and the agent of last year will not be the agent of the future. Um, and what I mean by that is there's going to be carriers are going to force you to change. Uh a carrier I recently had a had a conversation with, um, they're no longer talking about $10 million book sizes. They're talking and telling their agents about, hey, how can you get to $10 million in revenue? Not a $10 million book. Now we're talking about a $100 million book of business. That's what's being discussed. That's what's being discussed not only behind closed doors, but now openly at conferences. The agent of the future is the agent that you've been hearing about for the last five, ten, fifteen years. But now the time has come. Are you the CEO? Because there's really a few different stages of of a uh of an agency owner's career, in my opinion. So you have when you open, you're the sales agent, then you become an agency manager, and then you become the CEO. And what's going to be requested or required of you is to become the CEO, to lead an organization, or as a carrier has called it, an enterprise. Because if you have a hundred million dollar book of business, you are an enterprise. You're not just an organization. And so I want you to start thinking right now, because more pressure is going to be put on you to scale with people, to market differently, to produce more, to have an incredible tech stack, and they're going to ask you to invest in it. And it's going to seem like an expense at first, but it is an investment. To automate the things that are not revenue generating. These are just to name a few. And there are agents out there doing this right now as we speak. The best of the best agents in the country. This is how they're running their office. I work with multiple top agents across the country from different carriers. Their office setups are very, very similar. It is not a secret. There is no secret sauce. There is no magic bullet to success. It's making sure that you do what is necessary to not only survive but thrive in the future. The writing is on the wall. The small mom and pop offices, they're out. Unfortunately, they're out. There will not be a place for them. Carriers are going to starve them. They are, they're going to starve you. You're going to be forced to grow. You are going to be forced to develop yourself. You are going to be forced to be a leader, a CEO, make some serious investments back to the office that will pay you dividends in the future if you're willing to do it. To take a step back financially for three months, six months, nine months, twelve months, to take a giant step forward financially in 18, 24, 36 months. That is going to be asked of you. You are going to be asked to hire and scale your organization with more people, specifically with more producers, is what you're going to be asked. AI. AI is not only the future, AI is now. And you don't have to be worried about AI replacing you or your job or your career, but you do have to be worried about your peers that utilize AI to get ahead of you. If you're interested in learning more about how AI can make you more efficient and effective in everything you do at the agency level, meaning saving you time 12 to 15 hours a week, increasing agency performance by 18 to 22%, increasing retention of current customers on call in to cancels of 34% of saved business. That's a retention increase of 34%. If you're interested at all in helping your agency understand how AI can help them get to the next level without devoting more time to get there, I would encourage you and I would invite you to join me on a free training I'm doing around AI and how you can use it as an agency owner to get back your time, to help your agency scale efficiently and effectively, to help you hit those big production numbers without having to dedicate more time or resources to them. Again, I'm covering all of this and more in this upcoming training. I would encourage and invite you to join me. Click the link below in the show notes, and I look forward to seeing you there. That's the only way that you are going to be able to hit expectations that are going to be thrown your way. You're going to have to invest in the people. You're going to have to have a larger team. You're going to have to invest in tech stacks that help you. For example, with agency coach AI, we take that training off your plate. It's going to provide ongoing development training to your team. It's going to give feedback on every single call that comes into the office. The role play technology has over 250 role plays that your team can practice with on sales and service. It doesn't matter that grades them, gives them feedback, provide the coach at their fingertips. We're allowing you to then streamline training, like your new hire training, to where you can have literally recorded calls and agency coach AI that a new hire can listen to, learn how to do it, then go practice with the role play and have to hit a certain score before you let them on the phone with a customer. This is just one example of one tech product. That is not even a tech stack. That is just a product. That's a product that we own, that's software we own. But how about investing in tech that's going to automate the things that are not revenue generating? Or investing in something that's going to help your office thrive into the future. Without a doubt, you're going to have the ability to have more AI at your fingertips. Think about AI SDRs that are coming in the near future. Think about the AI systems that will allow your like to answer the phone and take care of the service work. How about the CRMs and phone systems that are going to be able to provide AI to do the work that you're probably paying someone to do right now? How about AI that's going to be able to generate emails for you and you just hit send? You'll eventually be able to let they can actually send it right now. I personally don't have that much trust yet, if we're just being honest. So they create my email, I make sure it's correct, and then I hit send. Or my team does that. This is just another thing, a tech stack automating the things that are not revenue generating, that are a time suck. How about multiple marketing channels? Not just internet leads, but making sure that you are doing everything you can to get in front of as many people in as many places as you can. So internet leads, paid ads, Google, SEO. There's gonna be something to do with AI. How about making calls? How about shooting texts? How about emails? How about direct mail? How about getting involved in your community or multiple communities? Maybe door knocking. I have no idea what your marketing is going to be, but you are going to have to make sure you are marketing across a ton of channels. Only having one marketing or two marketing strategies is a recipe for disaster. For example, if you're if you only do internet leads right now, and I think internet leads are a great opportunity for a lot of you in your business, but if that's the only thing you do, and then we have a regulation change or something to do with spam risk, they shut internet lead down or slows internet lead providers. What are you gonna do? You have to be marketing across multiple channels. And you're gonna have to turn scale into revenue. You just are. You have to turn scale into revenue. You have to start thinking bigger. You have to challenge yourself, you have to challenge your mindset, you have to challenge what you thought this opportunity looked like. You're gonna have to challenge yourself as to what you thought your agency was going to look like. Now, for some of you right now listening to this, you're already well on that path. You're investing in team leads, you're investing in a business operations manager so that they run the business. You're investing in producers. Yes, you still have CSRs and inside cells. You're investing in more marketing, you're investing in AI. You're investing in AI, you're investing in training and coaching for your team. You understand that you are going to have to run the business like an enterprise, that you are going to have to invest money to make money back. That investing money is the easiest way to scale in an efficient, quick manner. The faster you get there, the more money you will make over time. You cannot, you are not going to be able to penny pinch your way to having success in your agency in the future. There's just no way. You're not going to be able to hit production numbers. Your carrier's going to be breathing down your throat. They're going to make changes to your comp plans consistently. So you have to make the decision right now. This is being talked about openly at conferences. This is not behind closed doors anymore. And this is across the industry. Multiple carriers doing the exact same thing, telling their agents the exact same thing. You are going to have to be production machines. You are going to have to have larger teams. You are going to have to be the CEO of your business. Or the CEO of your enterprise. We are not talking about $10 million books of businesses anymore. Shoot, just 20 years ago they were talking about $3 million books of businesses and sitting on an annuity till the day you died. Now we're not even talking about $10 million. We're talking about $100 million books of businesses. That is the mindset shift you are going to have to make. It is going to force you to think bigger. It is going to force you to think different. And here's the best part is you have the ability. You do. If you're listening to this right now, you care about yourself. You care about your future. You're investing in yourself right now by listening to this. You have what it takes. You do. Is it going to be scary at times? Hell yes, it's going to be scary. Is there going to be fear that pops up? Yes. Maybe a little stress? Yes. Are you still going to make some bad hires? Yes. Are you potentially going to struggle financially? Maybe. Are you going to have to go get some loans? Maybe. Are you going to have to change the way that you do things today? Yes. It's going to be scary, but growth always is. Learning new skill sets is always hard. As my wife would say, you can't get better and you can't get better and look good at the same time. And that is okay. Growth is messy. It is. It's going to challenge you. It's going to be scary. It's going to be frustrating. It's going to be stressful. Sometimes it's going to be nasty. Some days you're going to ask yourself, is this really worth it? Is this what I'm supposed to be doing? And that is right when you're on the edge of breaking through. So this is just your reminder that you got this. But you are going to be asked to do more. You are going to be asked to change. You are going to be asked to develop. That is the agent of the future. That is the agencies of the future. With that being said, as always, time and attention are by far your most important asset. I appreciate you hanging out with me for the last 10 to 12 minutes. I appreciate the heck out of you. I would love to know what your thoughts are. Feel free to shoot me a text, 816-727-7610. And if you haven't already, give us a five star rating and review, whatever platform you're listening to this on. If you enjoy the buzz, make sure you let other people know. As always, I love you. Take care and go make it happen.