477. AI Just Ate Your Prospecting (And That's a Good Thing)

One agency office went from a 7% close rate to 23% in two 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. 

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Watch the full episode on YouTube: HERE

What's in this episode:
Insurance agencies are falling behind on AI faster than their own customers are catching up. In this episode, Michael and Courtney Weaver sit down with Matthew Black, owner and CEO of mav.ai, to break down how agentic AI is already qualifying leads, running SDR conversations, and changing the way consumers shop for insurance before an agent ever picks up the phone.

Matthew explains how AI voice and text agents are replacing the manual prospecting grind for insurance agents and agencies, why team members who refuse to adopt AI won't have a job in three years, and what it actually takes to compete once ChatGPT starts serving ads to insurance shoppers. Michael and Courtney get real about the AI tools every insurance agency owner needs to be using right now to stay ahead.

[00:00] Why the agency force is falling behind on AI adoption
[01:00] Meet Matthew Black, owner and CEO of mav.ai
[02:00] How Matthew personally uses AI to run his business day to day
[04:00] Chat or Claude: how the AI models are picking their lane
[06:00] What agentic AI actually means versus a chatbot conversation
[08:00] Using AI to scrape support emails and surface trends for Agency Coach AI
[09:00] The top of funnel tasks agentic AI can take off an agency's plate
[11:00] Why humans still win the conversation and the close
[13:00] The line between efficient AI outreach and spammy AI texts
[14:00] Memory, context, and the future of AI matched insurance shopping
[17:00] Free training: how AI saves agencies 12 to 15 hours a week
[19:00] What happens to team members who refuse to use AI
[20:00] ChatGPT ads are here and what it means for agency marketing
[22:00] Why over 90 percent of Agency Coach AI customers are top 2 percent 
[24:00] The one thing top talent actually wants out of their job
[26:00] What Mav does for insurance agencies buying third party leads
[30:00] AI voice SDRs versus AI text SDRs: what is converting
[34:00] What makes Mav different from a CRM text cadence
[37:00] Why Matthew built Mav for the insurance industry
[38:00] How to connect with Matthew Black and Mav

Connect with Matthew Black:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/madebyblack/
Website: https://hiremav.com/

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I'm seeing a uh an entirely new thing where folks are sharing their bank statements to Claude and being like, help me create a budget. They see the line item for Allstate or Geico or State Farm. And then they're like, wait a minute. I know the cars you have. I know that price. I know your geographic location. That's a little high for what I know. Step one, let's go shopping for auto insurance. And you see how it's just, it's just, it's just active life cycle that once you're ingrained in that, um, I think the opportunity is so mega. And uh it's gonna change the way people shop for insurance forever.

SPEAKER_02 0:51

AI that does the prospecting for you. In today's episode, we sit down with Matthew Black, owner and CEO of Mav.ai. And we're gonna get into not only the AI SDRs and prospecting, and removing that off team's plate, but how AI is changing and what you as a business owner need to do to capitalize on it. We're gonna talk about now how you can advertise on Chat GPT and more. So, with that being said, let's get into the show. And today we are going to get fired up. You are going to know exactly where Courtney and I stand on AI, your business, the future of AI, and what it can do right now for you to make you more efficient and more profitable as an agency and business owner. Welcome to the insurance buzz. We are your host, Michael and Courtney Weaver. And today on the show, we have the owner and CEO of Mav.ai, Matthew Black, in the house. Matthew, what's going on, my man?

SPEAKER_00 1:50

What is up? Man, I love you guys. You guys have great energy right now. Is exactly how I want to start my day.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

I wore a sparkly shirt. It is podcast day. We are here to talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 2:01

I love it. I love it. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 2:03

We're gonna get into it today.

SPEAKER_02 2:05

I'm pumped. So before we get into like MAV and how you help agents and things like that, I always like to know how, as a fellow business owner and entrepreneur, you are currently using AI right now in your life from business to help you grow, scale, expand operations, all that good stuff.

SPEAKER_00 2:23

Yeah, I mean, that that's a great question. Um, and you know, there's there's a couple ways to look at this, right? Um I always I always get the examples of folks who are using AI. And I think there's like the first version of using AI is opening up ChatGPT and using it almost like a Google replacement, right? Uh and then you start to realize, oh, this is actually pretty cool. It remembers things about me, it's uh its predictions about me are actually pretty good. But there's like this gap where I feel like a lot of folks just stop there, right? It's like a Google replacement and then they stop. They don't actually do what I call operating with AI. And for me, um, you know, the the way that I oper the way I operate with AI is I every day I kind of come in and I say, what are the problems that I'm trying to solve with my business? Right? They could be small, they could be large, but they're just problems and I and I need to solve them, right? Three, four years ago, I would solve them with code. Now I actually solve them with AI, right? So I have a lot of agenic agents that are running in parallel, looking at things like my calendar, looking at meetings like this, doing research about you guys, coming back so I can feel a little bit more prepped. Um, and you know, I think this mentality of like, how can I use AI to solve my problems is the first step to realizing how to operate with AI. And when you adopt that and you you it's almost like muscle memory. It's like going to the gym, right? Today, I'm gonna get a little bit better at running my business a little bit more efficient because I'm trying to solve real problems. Um, and that's what I'm obsessed with, right? I I love when folks take that leap because now you're actually in a new territory.

SPEAKER_02 4:18

Agreed. All right, so I gotta ask chat or Claude? Or Neil?

SPEAKER_00 4:22

Um, so I mean, it depends, right? You know, like we used to we used to be very, very big on um on open AI and and GPT models, then the entire company switched to Claude, but now some of the GPT models are better for things like coding, right? And I think I think the world of which certain models are better at certain things is just beginning, right? Um, so I hate to I hate to paint myself in a corner with just one.

SPEAKER_02 4:49

No, no, no. Court says that all the time.

SPEAKER_01 4:51

I nerd out on this because I feel I I'm in the same camp of I I'm not as much a chat GPT. I like it more for images, which was interesting because we went through like Gemini's nano banana and we went through all of that, which was insane. But I think what's happening to your point is I think all the language models are really trying to figure out what am I doing here? Like, what do I really want to own? Like, what is anthropic really owning? What is open AI really owning? What is Google owning? And I think they're they're really starting to kind of pick their lane. So you know, okay, I'm going to Claude for this, I go to chat for this, I go to Gemini for this. So I'm curious, with all of those, and you do so much coding, you still picked chat. I'm not trying to shame you here, but you picked Chat GPT over Claude code for real.

SPEAKER_00 5:39

No, no, so I personally used uh Claude for most of my day-to-day.

SPEAKER_01 5:43

I thought we weren't gonna be friends for a second.

SPEAKER_00 5:45

But but for the narrow use case of coding, in particular, the newer, the newer Codex model, um, which is OpenAI as well, I heard is extraordinarily awesome. And they actually uh uh they just came up with a keyboard last week. It's uh it's like a four-key keyboard where you control the coding agent. And like that stuff's blowing my mind. It's it's it's one of the first hardware products from Johnny Ive who left Apple to start working at OpenAI. And you know, uh to your point, Courtney. Well, yeah, right. I mean, that's a whole conversation, right? But but but but to to to Courtney's point, they're picking their lane, right? And they're going super, super deep and they're trying to separate from from Claude. Um, but for the day-to-day stuff, I mean, Claude and co-work, it's just so easy.

SPEAKER_01 6:36

Okay, so uh you brought up agentic AI, and I want you to kind of like jam on that for a second, because if we have listeners right now and they're like, I don't even know what you're talking about here. If you could jam on what agentic AI is versus what we're using ChatGPT, which is the number one chat bot in the world right now. Um, talk a little bit about the difference between agentic AI and versus going and having a prompt response in the case.

SPEAKER_00 7:01

It's it's actually quite simple. Um uh in practice, of course. Uh so when you open up something like ChatGPT or Claude, it's it's turn-based, right? I ask a question, it gives a response, and you can get really good at prompting and you can kind of steer it in in in certain aspects. But you sit down and you interact, and it's just turn-based, right? Um, one of the things that's really special about agentic AI is it uses logic and reasoning to decide the next steps. So um it could, you know, connect to something like your calendar, connect to, you know, some sort of external activity, and it can do things start to finish, and it could ask itself how it's doing, right? And that way you actually have like a, you know, almost like an autonomous employee, something or something working in the background that doesn't require a lot of human intervention. Whereas if you were to do the work inside of Chat GT, Chat GPT or a Claude, um, it's gonna require kind of that two-way back and forth.

SPEAKER_01 8:05

Okay, so I one of my favorite things that I'm using Agentic AI for right now is it's actually scraping our support email for agency coach AI and it's surfacing up trends. Like what are the same common questions that you're running into? And then for me as the founder, I'm looking at that going, okay, do I need to build a system? Is this a person? Is there is there a resource that I can create? So when you think about insurance agents, I want to get into this seat. What when you're looking at, okay, I'm an insurance agent, I'm playing whack-a-mole. Michael, I want you on this too. If you could think about a few things that insurance agents right now could adopt that you're like, oh my gosh, this would take you as the owner founder to the next level. Are there any like tasks or anything that you're like, agency, I can solve this right away?

SPEAKER_00 8:52

Yeah, I mean, I think I think we're seeing quite a few examples on the top of funnel. So if you're an agency that's focused on growing your book and you're doing through through volume, you know, whether you're purchasing third-party leads or you're you're somehow lucky enough to be producing a lot of first party, there's a lot of work that happens between, hey, we're gonna go and start acquiring leads for folks that are shopping for insurance, to, hey, these are bindable folks, right? Um, so for Mav at least, you know, and there's plenty of other folks in the space, we help use AI to trim a lot of that off the human's plate. Um, so folks can spend the majority of their time, what, doing the licensed activity, right? Um, not figuring out who's interested, who's qualified. Maybe they haven't had insurance the last six months. They're not good for captive. They're actually looking for an SR22. It's a non-standard insurance uh uh lead. You know, there's all sorts of nuance there. And at scale, um, it's pretty systematic. You know, you're gonna you're gonna ask a couple questions, you're gonna bucket people, uh, you're gonna bucket bucket folks into certain scenarios. Um, and you know, spending 40 minutes on a phone phone call to get to the end scenario isn't the best use of time. So there's a lot of top-of-funnel use cases there. But I also noticed there's a lot of back office scenarios too. There's a lot of claims efficiency that folks are really starting to sink their teeth into. Um, and you know, I think the I think the humans are best reserved for the nuance, right? The where real decision and logic is needed, um, that requires licensed activity. That's where humans belong. And if we can make them as efficient as possible, um, where they're just using their time to do that, the the the amount of volume and scale that you can drive through these things is is pretty astonishing.

SPEAKER_02 12:37

Yeah. I would I mean, I would agree with what he said. And also, I mean, you've got AI should be doing all of your data for you anymore. Like you shouldn't be putting that together. It should be scraping your CRMs, your phone calls, all that good stuff. It should be scrape just like we've built, it should be scraping all of your emails, figuring out what responses are most common, what questions are most common. AI should be creating that for you. The person should make sure, confirm it, correct, and then send um processes. I mean, I just had it create a brand new handbook for us. Uh your servicing of customers, um, like the claims and things of that nature. I think I think with in an insurance office in the direction that we're headed, I mean your training and coaching, like agency coach AI, streamlining all of that. Um, so I think um I think where where humans are going to be best is the actual conversation piece with customers, because without a doubt, there's early data already showing that customers are gonna want to work with real people. And so, how can you make yourself as efficient as possible to do what only you do best? And that is the education, that's the storytelling, that's the conversation around getting customers to actually understand what insurance does for them, the problems it needs to solve, and then continuing that ongoing relationship uh to where you continue to build that relationship, become their go-to person. Like that's that's where I see the the insurance space going and being able to help AI make you as efficient as possible. Uh, that means that some roles are going to change, like service roles, you're you're gonna have to change, like because AI is gonna be able to do better, faster, more efficient, things of that nature. But um, anyways.

SPEAKER_01 14:14

I'm a huge champion of AI. I mean, obviously, we have an AI company. Matthew, you're in the same boat because I my core of who I am as a person is really about growth and making humans better. And if I help make humans better selfishly, I I become better in that process too. And I think when we're looking at AI, it's really where is our our time and energy best spent? And it really is having these high-value conversations with customers, like uncovering needs. But I think as much information as we can get to really decide, like you're talking about being able to temp check a lead and go, this person, you don't even contact them, like they're not even your ideal customer.

SPEAKER_00 14:55

100%.

SPEAKER_01 14:56

So I my question is how do we get them? We go through this, and you're doing this with Mav. How are you making it to where somebody is actually interested? Because for me, like the potential spam, the like spam-y AI text messages, like I I have a bullshit radar, and I'm like, uh-uh. No, I've seen you.

SPEAKER_00 15:16

As you should, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:17

Right. And I know and I'm not alone. Like, I I know that as the consumer, as insurance agents, we're like, I'm trying to be more efficient, but I also want to make sure that I'm still having quality customers in my book of business. So, how are you bridging that gap? Talk a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

Yeah. So that that's a that's like 100% the right way to be looking at this. And one of the things that I think is so special with um where we're where we're at now in particular, but also as um as these models just get more and more proficient is the ability to store more and more about you. That's the context window, right? So, Courtney, I'm I'm sure the more you're you've been using AI for many, many years now, whether it's GPT or Claude, it it has a memory store and it remembers as much as humanly possible. And I think there's there's this underlying magic when you can connect that memory store to another experience that understands it, right? So imagine if, you know, uh your Claude understands everything about your vehicles, your home. Um, maybe, you know, you're growing your family or your your grandma's moving in, or something to do with, hey, this is probably a good time to go shopping for insurance. Instead of having to start from the ground up every single time, populate a new lead form, maybe go to some someplace like uh uh Everquote and take it from the ground up. Claw can just connect that memory store into the world of possibilities and sort order the agencies that are best for you. And Michael, to your point, that could be an agency that understands fine level of nuance, right? Where a human-based producer can plug in and say, hey, I see your whole file here. I understand your scenario. Let's talk through these ad hoc scenarios, right? And that to me, the ability for a consumer's AI to plug into a world of commercial AIs, and all the intake and qualification and quoting and you know, top of the funnel is outsourced, and you could get to the nitty-gritty of what makes this deal personal, um, uh where humans shine. I think we're just now starting to see the ability of people doing that. Um, and I think the adoption of AI from a consumer perspective is off the charts. And furthermore, the last thing I'll say is the expectation of the consumer going into shopping for financial services, it's already there. So if you're if you're, you know, hey, let's start with your vehicles. Oh, forget this. Like, I'm I'm way past this, right? So I think there's just this ratcheting expectation of the agencies um because they're using GPT every single day and they see that value there. They expect that value when they shop for financial services now.

SPEAKER_02 18:22

I I think they expect it for everything. And quite frankly, this is where I see that the agency force is actually falling behind. Like consumers and carriers are actually adopting to a technology faster than the freaking agency forces. And it it is um it's surprising as hell to me to be just super transparent right now because agents know where they need to go. Agents' businesses, they they understand like this is it, but there are team members literally like straight up, I'm not doing that. I'm not using it, I'm not going to do that. And I'm here to tell you right now, if you're in it's probably not you listening to this, but you probably have teammates that do this. You better put them on caution, like they will be unemployed in the next three years if they continue to fight this what is happening in the world, um, or agents not wanting to hold their team accountable to using the AI that makes them more efficient and better, uh, what I would say, of just creating a better overall experience for the customer. Um, like that's that's the where the world is going, just not in the future, but like it's happening at a very rapid pace. And it is um what you just said, like consumers are already using this information to be able to get quotes to them in a faster. Like they want to work with people that are smarter than what they can find out via chat right now. And so if you're unwilling to do that, you need to start looking for a different industry or different career. Like that's just how it is.

SPEAKER_01 19:44

Well, and I I I think there's valid cases. There's a lot of different um things that have been brought up, especially around an energy crisis when we're talking about AI. But I I wouldn't make that the culprit. I hear that a lot.

SPEAKER_02 19:55

Well, shit, that's like an excuse of well, I don't want to learn something new, so I'm gonna blame it on a political view. It's like, well, who gives a shit what your view is? Like, this is the way of the world, this is what's happening. Like, you're either going to jump on the side.

SPEAKER_00 20:05

It's always gonna be friction. Change is always gonna provide friction. And that, you know, I think there's there's fair arguments on both sides of the table there. Um, but for the sake of innovation, if the if the value is is greater than the cost, it will always push through. And I think that's what we're seeing right now is like, you know, how much we're gonna subsidize AI at the cost of you know, data centers opening up around the country, TBD, right? That's a that's a much larger discussion for for for a much longer time.

SPEAKER_02 20:41

I mean the I hear it every day. Like, I didn't mean to cut you off, but I like I hear literally agents are having to fight with producers right now because producers will bring this shit up. And it's like, yo, you just need to fire them. Like, this isn't a conversation. This is a you are in charge of the ship and the crewmates are gonna do what you want them to do, or you're gonna find a new crew. And as an agency owner, you have to understand that. Like, if you have somebody that is blatantly trying to tell your office, hey, this isn't, we're not doing this because this is not good for the environment. This is like it is what it is. You can have that opinion, you can have whatever belief system you want, but as the owner, you always have to make the best decision that's in in the best for the business. And if you have producers that are literally saying, I'm not going to do this, you have to fire them. Like, this is not a this is not a a negotiation.

SPEAKER_01 21:28

I mean, you don't have to fire them, but you're essentially saying this person is using a typewriter and the rest of the world is using the world wide web.

SPEAKER_00 21:35

Like that's I was just gonna give that analogy. Yeah, this reminds me so much of the internet days.

SPEAKER_01 21:41

Yeah, yeah, and it's like you can continue to do that, and your ideology can be whatever it is. Like, I'm not here to argue your belief system, but I'm also I I am of the belief that history takes us where it wants to go, and you're not putting this genie back in the bottle, it's out, like like technology is is moving forward. The crazy thing, Matthew, I was watching my parents just jam on Chat GPT. It became their go-to. Like, they do not Google things now, they're putting them on Chat GPT.

SPEAKER_00 22:12

And it was my mother-in-law too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:14

I'm looking at this and I'm like, oh my God, there are ads on here. So I have the paid version, so I don't know that there's already ads. So in my marketing brain, I literally am now like, okay, so how do I optimize not only for ads that can now go on chat GPT? So if you're listening to this, you can now put ads on Chat GPT, but also how how do I improve what my website looks like, my landing pages, my social media, so that when somebody says, I need insurance, that they're the you're the one that's being served. Like this is what we have to start thinking about.

SPEAKER_00 22:46

100%. And I mean, the the example that I gave earlier where it's like, you know, your personal contacts window of everything that matters to you, and available insurance agencies that can help you with a policy, that is an ad. That's a brand new type of ad that we're going to see. And that's the opportunity. And it's so amazing that you guys are like right there, but that's the opportunity we're playing for, right? And I think, I think, you know, you you it doesn't, you don't have to be that old to look back at the early days of the internet. The early movers, there's an extraordinary outsized advantage to being an early mover there. Um, it doesn't mean that being the only mover is the only option. Of course not, right? But there is something amazing happening there. Uh, there is very real value for consumers. And I think, you know, the first batch of insurance agencies that meet the consumers where they're at are gonna just reap benefits. And we're all for that. You know, it's the literally the mission and the purpose of our company to find those early insurance agencies that want to be first in that race and help them get there.

SPEAKER_02 23:56

I and I want to get into MAV too, but I would agree with 100% of what you're saying. Like we we've looked at the data, and I can tell you out of agency coach AI customers, over 90% of our agents that work with us are top 2% or higher in their carriers that they work with. Like it is the best of the best that always make the fastest moves because they see, hey, this is good for my business. I'm making the move, which helps them pull even further ahead of the rest of their peers and competitors. And so like the point you're making is like, yes, like the faster you adopt to this, the faster you get in the business, the faster you're going to see the benefits of this. And so that's um so far, like that's been the trend. Like top three, definitely top five percent of agents with their carrier. That's who's like that's our ideal customer, that's who's working with us. Um, but anyways, you have one more thing to say about it.

SPEAKER_01 24:46

Yeah, because I I there's an indecision that happens there where you're dragging your feet and you're trying to decide, do I do this, do I not do this? And I would condense time as much as you can and actually experiment with whatever you're willing to invest, but try all of these different things and try them out and be like, yeah, this actually doesn't work for my business, or this doesn't work for my model, or it doesn't work for, or it really, really does. Because Matthew, you just said go where your customers are. It's like in business, there are so many things where we cling to our belief system and I don't want to change and I don't want to grow. And it's like, don't swim upstream. Like if your customers are on Chat GPT asking these questions, go to Chat GPT, be the person that they're you're being served up. If you are selling ice cream, go somewhere hot on a beach, and I guarantee you you're gonna be selling ice cream. It's like go where your customers are for real, because it's it always cracks me up when we're doing interviews and we're interviewing top talent, and we're really trying to decide what motivates you, what do you not want? The thing that they don't want is repetitive tasks, and it's like we now have something that can outsource that we can say all of this day to day to where you are focused on high value activities, which is keeping our customers happy, growing our customer base, and making sure that we are doing the best we can to serve our customers, right?

SPEAKER_00 26:09

100%, 100%. And I'll I'll just add a little bit to that just to illustrate maybe how how big I think this opportunity is is it isn't just, you know, uh there's that saying competition is for losers, which is a great saying, by the way. And I and I and I really like it. Um, but it's also not just, you know, folks that are in market are proactively looking for insurance. I'm seeing a uh an entirely new thing where folks are sharing their bank statements to Claude and being like, help me create a budget. They see the line item for Allstate or Geico or State Farm, and then they're like, wait a minute, I know the cars you have, I know that price, I know your geographic location. That's a little high for what I know. Step one, let's go shopping for auto insurance. And and you see how it's just it's just it's just an active life cycle that once you're ingrained in that, um, I think the opportunity is so mega, and uh it's gonna change the way people shop for insurance forever.

unknown 27:13

Agree.

SPEAKER_01 27:14

Okay, so we're talking about shopping for insurance. Again, you talked about top of funnel. Tell me what MAV does. How can insurance agents be? We've gone on this. Uh you I mean, all three of us are champions of AI, but let's talk about really how does this make them more money, save them more time? That's what they're asking.

SPEAKER_02 27:28

Here's what I'm a champion of not sucking. I'm a champion of not sucking. I am a champion. I like that too. I'm the champion of doing things the best I can do it in the most efficient way so that I can hone in on my skill sets and do what only I can do. That's what I'm a champion of, and that's what AI allows me to do. That's what AI allows our business to do, that's what AI allows our employees and our team members to do. 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.

SPEAKER_01 29:13

All right, let's take a moment here. Matthew, what are you a champion of since we're doing this?

SPEAKER_00 29:17

What am I a champion of?

SPEAKER_01 29:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:19

Oh man, it does have to be AI because I didn't spend a little too much time out of AI. It doesn't have to be AI. No, I'm I'm I'm I'm a huge champion of just being unique, right? Like, and I think that might be a very similar way of what Michael's saying. Like, I I there's just too much folks doing the same shit, right? And I think like there's so much value in just being a little bit unique, having your own spin on things, uh, whether it's going deep into a niche or wherever it's gonna be, um, go deep, go deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, and go even deeper than you think. And I promise you, uh, there is more there for you, and there's less that have gone down that journey. Um, and the value will be that much more impactful. Amen.

SPEAKER_01 30:03

God, how about you? I I I think that's incredible because there's actually a term called millennial gray, and it's this whole wave that as a millennial, we went through this whole phase where everything looked the same. Our houses were gray, our furniture was really monotone, all of everything had to look aesthetically pleasing, and we all started to look and sound the same. And now it's like, what is your freak flag? Like, let that thing out because it's getting really noisy on the internet. If you sound and you look like everyone else, to your point, Matthew, how how are you going to stand? How are you any different?

SPEAKER_00 30:41

We we're we're consuming so much right now, right? Like it's it's we're literally at war for people's attention. So yeah, unless unless you got that freak flag flying, like, how are people gonna know, right?

SPEAKER_01 30:54

Right, put it in the ground. I I'm a champion of uh making humans better. Literally, I think we're here to grow and evolve and to pour belief into each other, pour belief into ourselves of really what am what am I capable of? What can I expand to? What's my potential? Like, if I get all of these mundane things that are just on autopilot out, and my brain is allowed to go into different nooks and crannies, what door will I open? Like, what idea do I have? What can I breathe fire and life into? That's what I'm a champion of. So I I think all of us here are in the same boat of like human beings are at the core of what we're building. So I love when you have a champion sesh. Correct.

SPEAKER_00 31:36

Yeah, and my vision for AI is very similar too, right? Like, I hope that you know, when all this is said and done, it allows humans to be humans. And I think if we can get there, it's gonna be a much more enjoyable place to be.

SPEAKER_01 31:50

Oh my gosh, yes. All right, Matthew, let's let's jam on math. Like, what do we have here that really I'm an insurance agent? I'm listening. I we're we're all banging our chest now. We're like, we're champions, we're all champions. All right, how are we doing this?

SPEAKER_00 32:04

Yeah, yeah. So um, we really help folks that are in growth mode, first and foremost. So if uh folks are in growth mode, they're looking to grow their book and primarily buying third-party leads, think of Everquote, um, Smart Financial, all your typical guys up there. Traditionally, you would be buying that lead flow. And what you don't realize is you're signing your team up to do eight dials over the next 10 days, 53 text messages, you know, email cadence, right? You don't understand that there's a real handle cost to doing that with humans. Um, so we've created essentially a call center replacement that uses AI, handles texting, uh uh voice, um, and pretty soon some other channels that I can't quite talk through. Um, and it handles all of the top funnel qualification process. So intake, qualification, soon-to-be RC1 quoting, and delivers the highest intent folks who are qualified for the lines that you sell uh to be transferred into a human producer to go and um, you know, essentially bind the policy. And the secret sauce there is that when you when you take all of that human cost out of the top of the funnel, you can repurpose that back on the top of the funnel. And that's where we see the magic. The folks who don't just pocket the savings costs, but take that savings, pour it back on the top, become exponentially more efficient, and they grow. Um, and those are the folks that we we spend a lot of time with. Um, and you know, every every insurance agency is a little bit different, whether it's captive, independent, standard, or non-standard, but that formula um is pretty consistent across all of our customers.

SPEAKER_02 33:48

Okay, so now we're talking, okay, now I can get into this. So I'd be I'd be curious. There he is. Are you seeing the we're talking insurance? Here he comes. Are you seeing the most success with I'm I'm just curious right now with the AI like text SDR or the AI voice SDR?

SPEAKER_00 34:06

It depends, man. That's a great question. I think there's a certain subset, and like we we look at this data a lot. There's a certain segment that I could even go another dimension. There's a certain segment that just wants RCS messages, a certain set segment that responds very well to just SMS, a certain segment that's uh responds extraordinarily well over voice, but only on the weekends, right? And that's the that's the magic of what we're doing here is that we have so much data that we're training our model to dynamically adjust its cadence based off the consumer and what we know about them. And that's the that's the part where unless you're literally working millions and millions and millions of leads across all different types of carriers and insurance, you don't have that aggregate information. Um, but until they're ready to purchase, you should be figuring it out because it's extraordinarily expensive for you to figure that out.

SPEAKER_01 35:03

Yeah, those are multiple different jobs. That's those are data scientists, those are human dialers, that that's literally making founder level decisions, and they're all that's all one cycle that you're not even touching.

SPEAKER_02 35:14

Yeah, you're well, and you're trying to eliminate the prospecting piece, which is the hardest part of a sales organization. Like most salespeople do not want to prospect, they just want to get on the phone, have conversations, and close business. And that's what your position, that's your that's your company's whole position, right? Like let us qualify the lead, get the right lead in, then you your sales team can do what they do best, correct?

SPEAKER_00 35:33

Spot on, spot on. Um, and there's always going to be some nuance. There's always gonna be some gray uh uh that we we we provide good human intervention to to come in and pick that up. But for 95% of the scenarios, um, a well-trained cadence that is dynamically updating and learning from itself um based off of your career, the products you're selling, your geographical location, and the the data on the consumer, um, it it is pretty systematic at this point.

SPEAKER_02 36:09

Okay. So now I gotta ask the question Um what makes you different? So obviously there's not a lot of AI voice SDRs out there right now, at least in my experience, because I've been looking, because I get asked this all the time from customers. Uh, so there's not a ton of AI SDR voice um options out there right now. So I know you're different there, at least for the insurance industry. But I would be curious, because if I'm an agent owner right now, I'm like, okay, how is your AI text system any different than like what the cadence I could populate maybe in like my CRM or even there's phone companies out there that offer some text uh shit too. So like what makes you uniquely different compared to like some of the options the agents may already be paying for with like a CRM or phone system?

SPEAKER_00 36:56

Two things. Um, so the first thing, remember when I said you got to go deep, deep, deep, deep, deep. So we we have so much data. We have so much data. We have millions and millions and millions and millions of conversations over the last four years just on insurance that we are using to train on all the ad hoc scenarios, right? So the dynamic decisions that we can make just based off of our model um is smarter than any individual agency could ever make. Um, so we have a lot of data that we're leaning on to, and that's part of the benefit of why you use Mav. And then the other, the other use case is that we are vertically integrated with insurance. So there's a lot of horizontal um kind of generic solutions out there that are just focused on call center tech. Um we are, yeah, we and I I love that you yeah, I'm gonna be able to do that. You're saying you're you're doing it for me.

SPEAKER_02 37:51

If you weren't gonna say it, I was gonna say it too. Yep is okay. It sounds like to me, what I'm hearing is you've niched down to the insurance hunter to be the go-to insurance expert to help insurance professionals talk to get insurance customers on the phone to close the business. Whereas CRMs and phone companies are not specializing in shit besides what they do, and the tech that they offer is high level at best and not good enough to get down into your niche to see the results that you produce customers. And maybe not that.

SPEAKER_00 38:17

That's literally our website text right there. I'm just gonna take that and that's that's it right there. Yeah, no, spot on, man. That's that's 100%. And we and we knew the two were connected. So um, you know, if we had the data, then great. Go vertical um and stay in our lane and and enjoy our lane and learn our lane. And, you know, that's that's the one thing that makes us different is you know, we're we're we're not in mortgage, we're not in home services, we're not in, you know, uh Medicare and and all these other verticals. Like we're here and we're gonna go, we're gonna go to the the depths of the earth to figure out the best use case.

SPEAKER_01 38:53

Dude, we get it. We totally, totally get it. Okay, so why did you pick insurance? Do you have an insurance background?

SPEAKER_00 39:01

Um, no, I actually so we many years ago we were kind of uh agnostic and and horizontal. Um, and we we actually got a pilot with a really uh special, I'm not gonna name him on this podcast, but a really special independent agency out of Florida. And this this team spent so much time with us over the course of three months on a pilot. And uh I just I loved working with this insurance agency. I loved the way he thought. I loved how much he was in growth mode that and and I started building product just for him. And I was like, wait a minute, these guys think differently. There's something special here. Um, and I also love how you know, geographically, no one really competes with each other. So, what I can do here, I can go to California, I can go to another carrier, I can go to a standard or non-standard, and the events you guys throw and the word of mouth, it just was such a great pocket for us. So um, I like to say that one of our one of our insurance uh customers pulled us in and we just kind of we never left.

SPEAKER_02 40:12

Heck yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:12

I love that.

SPEAKER_00 40:13

I love that too.

SPEAKER_01 40:14

Okay, so this has been a phenomenal conversation, Matthew. I would have you back on the bus anytime you want to jam on AI and what's happening. If somebody wanted to work with you, connect with you, follow along, maybe sign up for Mav, what's the easiest way for them to do that?

SPEAKER_00 40:27

Yeah, so we're all on LinkedIn. You can you can follow our page there, me, uh Greg Spano, who's very well known in the industry too. He's our EVP. You can uh follow him. Otherwise, you can go to hire Mav, H I-R-E-M-A-V.com. Uh you could just click the the button up top to get started.

SPEAKER_01 40:44

Hell yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:45

That's all I got, man. So, Matthew, this has been great, as Courtney said. Um obviously for all of you. And this is well, this is great. So, for all of you guys that tuned in today, uh, obviously we talked a lot about AI today. We threw some zingers out. You definitely know my stance of where I'm at right now. I never hold back. And that's that's why I like what we love you guys. Like, we love your support, and we hope you know that anything that we're ever putting out, we're gonna give you our opinion, we're gonna give you our brutal honesty, transparency around what we believe is not only happening now, but what is happening in the future. Matthew, you're a great conversation and knowledge base to even have that with today. So thank you. Appreciate you. And again, guys, uh, as always, time and attention are by far, without a doubt, your most important assets. So we appreciate you spending some time with us over the last 45 minutes. Go out, make it great, and we'll see you soon. Matthew, thanks again, man.

SPEAKER_00 41:39

Thank you. Appreciate you guys.