Ep 122 - "Agent Relationships"

0:00 Wow. How many of you have listened to the Head Heart and Boots podcast? I can't tell you that reaction, how much that means to us. Welcome back to the Head Heart and Boots podcast. I'm Chris. And I'm Brennan. Join us as we wrestle with what it takes to transform ourselves and the businesses we lead. This new camera angle makes my arms look smaller than yours. I'm noticing that and I really appreciate it. I thought you did that on purpose. No, I don't. I didn't. And I am not happy with it. Hey, y'all. Thanks so much for listening to the show. Hey, if you're not already following, please do so. And ultimately share, right? The coolest currency that we have in terms of supporting this is share it with a friend, share it with somebody, a colleague, a peer, one of your downline team members.

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1:25 And at the end, it'll assign you a health score to let you know exactly where your business stands right now. So go check it out, floodlightgrp.com forward slash audit and take the BOA. It's a great way to get a pulse on your business. What's up, man? Dude, how are you? I know. I opened the show. I feel like it's a bit of a game that you've been playing recently. It never ends. Get this flannel on camera. This old school flannel, this guy. This is some true Pacific Northwest. I was just going to say, that's some lumber sexual right there. It is. Lumber sexual. I wonder how many people are aware of that. That doesn't... That's a thing. If you don't live in the Pacific Northwest, if they know that this whole movement went through Portland, the whole lumber... Mustaches, beard.

2:07 Yeah. Lumber sexual. Flads. Yeah. There you go. Dark denim. And there's our episode. Thanks for watching. Yeah. Thanks for listening. Yeah, this is a fashion show we're going to dig into. It's head, heart, and boots. We're going to talk about whatever. That's so funny. Derailed from the beginning. Yeah. Where are we going today, dude? Well, you know, I wanted to mull over something because every now and then, not every now and then, it feels like more on the regular these days. You and I, with as many different kinds of companies as we work with, it's like it really runs the gamut. from the really big ones to the really small ones. And all the markets are different. We have a lot of companies that operate in the storm-prone regions and then others that are like Oregon, where it's like rain, dishwasher supply lines, just like the normie stuff.

2:56 I feel like we stumble on strategies that people are inadvertently doing that we're like, whoa, that's actually really good. You know, like, wow, that makes a lot of sense. Let's double down on that. Let's try more of that. Let's, let's try that over here with our other clients, see how that works. So there's, it's, it's been kind of a fun part of, of being in the, in the consulting business. Honestly, dude, and I don't know if we've talked about this at all, but I mean, in just full transparency, I would say that I have personally learned 10x, right? from having these working relationships with teams all over the US that range in scope and size from a few million to 60 plus million.

3:39 We've learned the whole way. Because there are certain elements, like there was times where we were able to deploy, let's say 90% of the things that we work with teams to do. I mean, a lot of it came from our own battle scars and experiences. But, you know, part of what our clients also get is they're actually leveraging these other relationships where we're experimenting often. You know, as the industry has shifted, we're often trying things with clients that haven't been done before. So we're experimenting right alongside of them. And it's been such a, I think, a fun journey. But anyways, I kind of derailed. Yeah, no. So I've just been in that headspace of innovation and what are the things that are starting to emerge within the industry?

4:20 And I think everybody's had to get creative. It's like we're not the only creative minds out there. And like you say, I feel like we've learned so much more about that exposure to what I guess probably amounts to. I haven't done the math, but probably hundreds of restorers that you and I are interacting with on some level every week. And so... So the collective wisdom is really interesting. So this conversation is on the heels of a really great conversation with Kevin Dooley. Shout out at Cahi. Man, that guy's an innovative figure. He is a very strategic business guy. We can get him on the show pretty good. Oh, 100%. Yeah, yeah. He's got some... Yeah, he's just fascinating, of course, the creator of The Big Flood, which was a runaway success by all accounts. Mike McCabe, consultant on our team, was there for that. We just had rave reviews of the experience.

5:02 I mean, it's pretty rare that you have version one of an event. Yeah. And it practically comes off without a hitch. And that's what kind of we heard from everybody who's attended. It's like, oh my gosh, the sponsors were on point. The structure of it, everything was just really great. So anyways, congratulations to Kevin Dooley and co. I know there's a lot of people involved in that. It was fantastic. But, you know, he and I had this really just conversation about just how many things are changing within the industry and where we see some of the air gaps and some of the things that are getting... fixed kind of generationally in our industry right now that are getting attention. And then Wednesday, was it Wednesday? No, it was Monday. It was right at the beginning of the week. I had a sales meeting with one of our clients on the East Coast.

5:45 And this particular gal that gave me this bit has only been in the industry like three months. Oh, wow. And she's primarily focused on agent relationships. She came from banking. So she was a personal banker, really great personality. Yeah. Really easygoing and approachable, very just kind of the profile you look for, right? Yeah. Anyway, we get on the sales call and one of my first questions is always, hey, what are you seeing out there? What are you hearing? You know, like what kinds of conversations are we getting into? What are you hearing from agents? And she said, Chris, are you familiar with agent draft authority? And I said, absolutely, I am. Because I had it. Like when I was at State Farm.

6:26 So for those of you who don't understand or you're not familiar with the term agent draft authority, agent draft authority is basically, and it's not exclusive to State Farm, although it may be called by a different name with some of these other companies. Yeah. But an insurance, a licensed insurance agent is always going to be associated with an insurance carrier, right? They're selling products for an insurance carrier. Well, in State Farm's case, State Farm agents only sell State Farm products. And one of the tools on the claims side that State Farm gives their agents is a checkbook, a physical check register that essentially that agent is a proxy for State Farm's claims organization. Right. So it's a tool designed to facilitate expedited claims handling.

7:10 And here's an example of why. And I think even State Farm would endorse this example or explanation. So I had a client who had an ice cream parlor, and they have those display coolers, you know, like Baskin-Robbins. Yeah. Well, if one of those display coolers goes out, like the compressor or whatever dies, you're screwed. You're out of business for that day, right? Especially if you have, if more than one goes out, right? And so I had a client who had an ice cream parlor, and they needed to get one of these specialized HVAC people in there to fix it same day. They couldn't wait. They didn't want to close their doors for the whole week, right? Right. And, but it was expensive. Long story short, they called me and I was able to use my agent draft authority to literally get the bid from the repair guy.

7:55 Same day, I, as a state farm agent, like a good neighbor, I went out to their shop. I handed them a check for, I think it was like $950. Okay. And the guy repaired the machine and they were back in business by the very next morning. That's the purpose of ADA is to expedite claim service when there is very little question about coverage. Okay. But what that means is that agents are kind of warranting coverage and you can get your hands slapped pretty hard if you make a poor judgment. And at the time, agent draft authority was limited to $5,000. And I think that may have actually changed over the years since State Farm has been consolidating claims. And this is where my ideation is going. So anyway, she says she met this State Farm guy there on the East Coast that uses ADA all the time was his words.

8:42 Interesting. Which is the agent's words. This is the agent's words. Okay. And he was talking with her about how he uses ADA because they don't have as many State Farm adjusters. Newsflash. All of us have been experiencing that. I had my own water loss that I've talked about previously where I had three independent adjusters. on my State Farm claim. Yeah. For a simple kitchen water loss, right? It's wild. It never would have happened 10 years ago. So I got out of State Farm in 2012. So it was 12 years ago. And at the time, we still had all in-house adjusters, but far and away, mostly, right? Yeah. And of course, now it's the exact opposite. It's mostly independent adjuster partnerships from what I've experienced and heard about.

9:23 So anyway, this State Farm guy's like, yeah, I use Agent Draft Authority all the time. I can write... This is what he said. Now, I haven't verified this. If any State Farm agents are listening, please correct us and give us the latest. But he said he can routinely write agent draft checks up to $10,000. Interesting. And under certain circumstances can write up to $30,000 agent draft checks. 30 grand. Okay. So why does this matter? Yeah. Why do I think this potentially matters? And why is it something potentially for all of us to explore in our various markets with our agent conversations? Here's where I took the team. I saw the opportunity. When I have an agent that is, let's just call it strategically or liberally using their agent draft authority, and they appear to be doing it over time, which means that State Farm must be okay with how they're using their draft authority to one degree or another.

10:12 And I think the reason why State Farm might be okay with it is because they are desperate for claims handling support. Yeah. And if they've got a trustworthy agent who's pulled the trigger on the right kind of situations, why bother him? Yeah. Let him keep writing checks and closing these claims like this. Right. And then all they have to do is just review the file, make sure nothing was, you know, screwed up, and then they can move on. They don't have this whole desk adjusting process when you can have your field adjuster, which is your agent. Yeah. Do some of these smaller claims for you anyway. So I think- Just a quick disclaimer for everybody. Yes. And actually this is like one part question and one part disclaimer. So first off, we're having a live conversation about something that we are proposing, thinking through.

10:55 This is not a best practice. This is not a guidance for your restoration company. This is not insurance advice, although I am a licensed insurance agent still. Which is why you can't give it. Which is why I'm not giving advice. This is called bullshitting. Yeah, this is exploring. So we're doing some transparent exploring. And here's the other thing. If you guys like this kind of stuff, we're happy to do more of it. I think you and I just kind of get sometimes in our head of trying to be maybe more careful than necessary that people don't, you know, anyways... Yeah. So this is not insurance advice, not legal advice. This isn't even necessarily go do this, you know, sales advice, although you might. Okay. So hear me out.

11:37 We'll tell the rest of the story. Okay. So here's where my head went as an agent, as a former agent and somebody who still has their licenses, whatever. My friends are agents. What I heard when I hear about an agent that is regularly using ADA is an agent that cares specifically about his policyholders slash clients' claim experience. Yeah, exactly. Wow. Big surprise, right? Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. This was the thing that made me want to be an agent. I wanted to be the superhero guy, the State Farm. And it made me think in the moment about Jerry Latimer. Jerry, shout out to Jerry. Sweet. Yeah, Jerry's retired now.

12:17 But Jerry was an agent. He was one of the, quote, old timer agents. I mean that affectionately, Jerry. When I started as an agent, when I was 27 years old, he was one of those guys in our market out of 25 agents in our Mid-Valley area that he was known to keep a chainsaw in the trunk of his Cadillac. Yeah, he drove it from what I recall. He drove a Cadillac. So that if his clients had a tree fall after a storm, he would go out there. I love that. He's like, don't worry about the client. I can handle this for you. And he would get out there, cut up the tree and have a stack of logs for them to use for firewood. I mean, it was just the classic, like how State Farm didn't go send a video crew out there to like do a spotlight on this guy, whatever.

12:58 I wanted to be that guy. And there are a lot of agents that that's a part of their identity, why they got into that business or why they became a state farm or farmer's agent or whatever. Okay. So when I hear about somebody using draft authority to expedite claims and help their clients more efficiently, I'm like, hell yeah. Like, why didn't I do that more? Well, one thing was back in the day, it was frowned upon. Yeah. ADA was exactly for the scenario I described of that refrigerator unit in an ice cream shop going down. It was for that kind of stuff. Yeah. It was never designed as a routine claims handling process. But I think now the industry is in such a weird flux where it's so hard for them to hire adjusters, almost like it is for us to hire technicians.

13:42 Yeah. That challenging landscape. Day Farm is having to modulate their behaviors a bit. Yeah. Right? And I see opportunity in that. And so now it turns out, as I dug into this conversation, she's like, actually, I had five of these conversations over the last two weeks with other agents who are also using draft authority. Interesting. Exactly. That's a lot. That's a lot. Yeah. Like, I can count on my zero hands how many agent draft authority conversations I had with agents over the... years of being in restoration. Yeah, it's on my zero hand. It's like that, you know? And so that to me feels very new and emergent. And maybe it's nothing. Maybe it's in small town, East Coast, you know, USA.

14:25 But to me, there's potentially an opportunity that we can suss out. So what I told her, I said, look, I would act on that theme this next week. And here's what I suggest. I'm hearing a little testing. Yeah, a little testing the waters here. Yeah. And so I said, look, as you go out with your, and I would focus starting out on state farm agents because this guy's a state farm agent that was most communicative on the whole thing and was most kind of enthusiastic about it. Yeah. I said, obviously don't name drop the agent. Right. I said, but just, I would go to your other state farm agents and very intentionally approach this and say, hey, I was talking with another agent in this general area that uses draft authority a lot for the purpose of creating faster claim processing for their clients on little stuff like $10,000 and under.

15:10 And his clients really, really appreciate that. And from what he explained to me, it's because they have less adjusters and the claims process taking longer these days in many cases. And so that's how he handles it to try to create a great claim experience for his clients. And ask him, what do you make of that? Is that something more and more state farm agents are doing? Like kind of assumptive. Is that something you're hearing people do too? Have you done any of that? And using that as a lead-in to identify, to essentially color code these prospects as these ones are more claims-focused or more service-oriented. If they latch on to that conversation and or they also do agent draft authority more commonly, well, that's a really awesome signal.

15:56 This is a more likely partner for us. It's going to want to partner on those claims. And by the way... if they're routinely using draft authority, we're going to get paid a lot faster. Yeah. You know? And potentially stay out of the TPA. Stay out of all that garbage. All the things, right? So, you know, I don't want to get anybody's hopes up. And at the same time, I want to give everybody who's listening the opportunity to maybe test that. Test the waters with their team. And what harm is there? Again, you're going to use a third party. You're not going to say, hey, we heard all state farm agents are doing draft. No, no, no, no, no, no. Be curious about it. Yeah. And just be like, hey, we've been hearing about this in the market. Yep. And it makes sense to us because there's such a shortage of adjusters.

16:38 I'm kind of spelling out the scripting here. Right. There's such a shortage of adjusters that... that it's possible that maybe State Farm has kind of changed their tune and is utilizing agents in this way on smaller claims, allowing a little more latitude on the draft authority to create better claim experience. Have you heard anything about this? Is this something you guys are doing more often? Yep. And if they are, well, that's really interesting. I mean, there's such an opportunity here for us to potentially partner on creating great claim outcomes. And then it opens the door for us to talk about what partnership can look like with a restoration company. Because you and I have been ringing this bell for a long time. And I think it's something we were actually able to have some success building structure and operating framework around this.

17:25 When I came from insurance into restoration, I think one of the things that excited me fairly early on was the fact that as a restoration company, we are totally unencumbered by any kind of industry regulation. From the sense of... Yeah, well, we still have laws. We have environmental regulations and stuff that we abide by, of course, like asbestos and all... We've got certifications and standards. We have safety standards. Yes, no doubt. But here's what I mean. As an agent, when I was a State Farm agent, I was also mortgage licensed. Yeah. A lot of people don't realize that State Farm, and I'm sure a lot of the other companies now are playing this game where they're all expanding to financial services.

18:05 Very common. But with that, insurance agents have taken on higher and higher levels of licensing. Oh, sure. Which then requires them to submit to a lot more constraints. There's a lot of things... More agencies, basically. Can't do, you know? Yeah. And that's true of any licensed insurance person... even just for in Oregon, for property and casualty insurance, homeowners and auto, I really... I can't spend anything on my clients apart from nominal gifts, gifts of nominal value, which is imprinted items, classically, like swag-oriented, really not even supposed to give away gift cards.

18:47 Of course, a lot of people play in the gray here. But the bottom line is that there's a lot of compliance. Yeah. that an insurance agent and or financial services person, which is one and the same in many agencies now, has to submit to. Or they potentially can get fined, have their license revoked, all kinds of things. Not to mention the fact that they can get their hands seriously slapped or lose their contract with their carrier, whether it's State Farm or even independent brokers are subject to these same things. So my point being, if it's true that agents live and die by their sales and their claim satisfaction, Claim satisfaction, meaning that's what closes the door and keeps people from leaving. If it's true that they live and die by that, agents are utterly helpless when it comes to their claim experience.

19:32 Now, do some agents get involved in claims to try to protect their book? Absolutely. But they always are at the risk of running afoul of compliance internally with their company or getting fined by the state for gifting or doing inappropriate things for their clients and policyholders. Meaning, I had a client who had a fire loss, a total fire loss. middle of the night. Red Cross actually beat me to their house that night. They were already on site. Their house was literally burnt down by the time I got there two hours later. It was a hot fire. It burned really fast. It was barely... The external walls were maybe four feet high by the time I got there. The whole top had burnt down.

20:13 It was crazy. My client, a single mom with three kids. This was manufactured home to add insult to injury. Actual cash value policy, terrible Red Cross is there. I roll up and I'm like, oh my God, is there anyone I can help? Of course, Red Cross had already given her blankets and kind of an emergency overnight kit. I ended up running to the grocery store and buying a bag of groceries and snacks, food and stuff like that for her to take back to a hotel that Red Cross had set them up with. Technically speaking, I'm not even supposed to do that for my client. Spend a hundred bucks on groceries. Not supposed to. Would I ever change my behavior on that? Probably not. And probably many agents would sympathize with that. But again, I have very little latitudes and agent to do that kind of stuff to help my client in the moment.

20:56 Yeah. Well, when I came to restoration, I was like, the only thing that I'm really constrained by is my margin on my job and the law as a restoration company. I have nothing else to consider except my client's experience. Yeah. Right. We have to be profitable. And of course, we don't have to be profitable on every single job. We make choices around that. But the point is, is that we have a tremendous amount of power and influence over claim experience. For sure. Huge. Yeah. That is our partnership offer to virtually everybody we work with. And you and I have run this bellow a lot where it's like, hey, anybody can go start a restoration company.

21:38 You see it all the time. Get some money from your uncle, go get an SBA loan, put your house up as collateral. You can go start a restoration company, go buy 100 pieces of equipment, buy two trucks, take an IICRC course, go out to REITs for a few thousand bucks and boom, you're in business. But what we're really selling is how we make people feel. And I think we don't talk about that enough. We talk about helping people a lot in our industry, but we often still revert to putting things back together, drying things out as the way we help people. And it's actually not that. Yeah. Right? Yeah. It's actually not that. It's like you can put two experiences side by side and you've got one restore that technically speaking, maybe it took him an extra day or two to dry things out than it needed to.

22:25 Maybe they didn't put as many pieces of equipment on there as they could have or should have, blah, blah, blah. They didn't do their calculations right, etc. And then you've got this other technical restorer that just did a kick-ass job, finished their dry times faster, got in and out. And customer was ultimately way more happy with the experience with the less experienced technical restorer than the technical restorer. That happens all the time. Yeah. It was just based how they managed that relationship. Communication probably is a major factor. factor. Major factor. Now, is it important for the restorer that created a better experience to also increase their technical competency? Of course, that's their opportunity. Yeah. That's their opportunity. But the service we do is how we make people feel through this experience.

23:09 Yeah. The technical shit, it is just the technical shit that anybody, anybody can check all the boxes and perform the technical shit. Not everybody can or will develop the competency to really master how they're making people feel in the process. You know what this reminds me of? It's like zooming back out, right? Kind of where you started or launched this with this idea around... The draft authority. Yeah. Kind of just trying a different lead into a conversation with an agent. It's funny because I think, yes, the conversation lead itself is very nuanced and maybe a different approach, which is fun. And maybe an anomaly. Again, we're just saying, hey, this could be just a... You don't have anything to lose.

23:49 Nobody's going to get mad at you for having a peer, end quote, related conversation. So here's a couple of things that stuck out to me as you were walking through that. One is, this is just nothing more than us finding ways to understand our target market. Yes. And approach them as a peer. In fact, it's part of the reason I actually like what you're talking about. And I like the fact that we actually don't know if this is a thing and yet we're still talking about it because to me, that's part of what makes that peer relationship valuable is for us as restorers to go in and still be learning. Like we don't know and those markets are shifting just like ours. I mean, if we look at our industry over the last several years, we know big shifts have happened and it's changing our behavior as a group, right?

24:37 Well, obviously the same thing's happening to our peer partners, our clients like that. And so zoom back out and I would remind people, these are great conversations to try because it's just putting you on the same side of the table as your target, which is the whole point. Liftify.com forward slash bloodlight. You've heard Brandon and I talk a bunch of times about the importance of Google reviews. Maybe you even heard our episode with Zach Garrett, the CEO and founder. Recency, consistency, two of the most important things when it comes to maximizing the benefit from your Google reviews. Why not use an outside partner? Liftify is targeting 20 to 25% conversion, right?

25:17 So if you do a thousand jobs a year, you ought to be adding right now, 200 to 250 reviews a year, every single year. If you're not doing that, you owe it to yourself to get a free demo from liftify.com. See their system, see how it works, see how affordable it is. I promise you, you'll thank us. Liftify.com forward slash blood light. You know, we spend a lot of money and a lot of attention trying to get that first call. And one of the things that we do once it happens is sometimes we leave it to chance, right? Who picks up the phone? How do they respond? How do they walk that client into a relationship with us? Well, one of the benefits of partnering with a team like AnswerForce.com is we can systemize that. We can make it more consistent.

25:59 We can also have backup for when our teams need that help, right? Somebody goes on vacation. Somebody's out sick. We get a storm surge. We get a cat event. All sorts of things can have an impact on how we receive that client. But the most important thing is they need to know that they've chosen the right team. And so AnswerForce.com can support you, be a bolt-on partner to help you consistently produce an awesome onboarding experience with that first call with your client. So AnswerForce.com forward slash answerforce.com. blood light. That's great. CNR Magazine, we're friends with all the folks at CNR. Michelle and her team, they do a great job of keeping their ear to the ground and reporting all the important information from our industry.

26:39 Right? You want to stay up on all the M&A activity and what the latest best practices are for selling your company successfully. Right? She's got that. Great articles about all the four quadrants of our business. Right? CNR is constantly pushing out great material and leveraging great writers and subject matter experts in our industry. It is the water cooler of our industry. So if you're not subscribed, go to cnrmagazine.com. Follow them on LinkedIn. Follow Michelle on LinkedIn. Trust us. If you're trying to stay on top of everything happening in the industry, your best destination is cnrmagazine.com. You guys, many of you have already heard about actionable insights and the training and the technical expertise that they bring to the industry.

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28:09 I think the other thing that stood out to me, and I'm going to reference kind of a process or a system that we've began to develop and leverage over the last many years, is how to differentiate what agents are worth the energy. And this sounds, I'm not saying that lighthearted. I'm not saying that flippant, like they owe us something. I'm saying that based on, again, the realities of that industry. Yeah. There is a scenario where, and you've said this a lot of times, where, again, understanding our target market, those agents, the leverage, the pressure points for them to grow their business, to get commission, to get paid, is very driven around new business development. And so claims service experience has been less prioritized and more consolidated.

28:54 Yeah. Well, as part of that, then, not every agent like it used to be is worth our time. And I'm not saying that about them as a person. I'm saying that based on how much they're going to give a shit in the claim process. What their focus and priority is. What is their focus and priority? And one of the things that we've talked about in the form of every job sales activities is we've talked about this idea is how can we in scale... Yeah. collect agent information, do a very quick kind of check-in profile call. And when we do so, it's going to tell us whether or not this is an agent that we should invest more time and energy in, right? Agent, and we... It's really important we qualify this because it's funny.

29:36 One of my discovery questions with all of our new clients around these sales, every job sales activities and what... Okay, what's the current state? What are you guys doing? When I say, hey, do we do agent job update calls? Mm-hmm. The answer is about 50-50, yes. But often when I dig into what those job update calls consist of, there's less intentionality behind it than you and I are generally pointing people towards. Meaning, it's one thing to call an agent and just say, hey, we want to let you know the Joneses had a loss. Here's the latest job notes. Anyway, just wanted to let you know. Yeah. This is XYZ restoration. Just want to let you know we have a job for the Joneses, da-da-da-da-da, and that's it. Yeah. Yeah. When we advocate for an agent job update call, it sounds a little bit different.

30:18 Yeah. Because words matter. Yeah. And we're testing the water. And we're testing the water. So there's a purpose to this call from a long-term sales perspective. So as an example, one of the key phrases that we use in our agent job update call is, Hello, agency person. My name is Chris from XYZ Restoration. The reason I'm calling is we have a mutual customer, the Joneses. Were you aware that they had a loss over the weekend or last night or whatever? right? That opening phrase is different than, hey, this is Chris from XYZ Restoration. Just wanted to call about the Joneses lost, da, da, da. One is I have a vendor on the line.

30:59 Somebody is calling or some restoration guy is calling or gal is calling about this or that. Okay. We had a claim. All right. And they're thinking through and they're pulling up their screen. Whereas, hey, we have a mutual customer. We're together in this. All this is subconscious shit, right? I mean, it's not that they're, oh. Yeah, yeah. It's a partner on the other end. Right. But we're setting stage, right? Or the relationship we want. And then we give them the note. We ask them to pull up the client's profile. We give them the notes that we have from Dash or from WorkCenter, from whatever job management software. And then we say, Hey, real quick, before I let you go, do you have another moment? I just want to explain why we do these update calls. And there's the ship. That's the key.

31:40 And then it's us referencing our experience, what we've found over the years, working with our agent partners, and with adjusters and our carrier connections. is that if an outcome of the claim is generally positive, statistically speaking, you're going to have a customer for life at the end of this claim process with the Joneses. What we've also found and had reaffirmed by all the adjusters and agent partners we work with is the opposite is true. If the claim goes poorly for any reason, they're shopping. Statistically, you're going to have a shopper at the end of this renewal. Now, you may keep them. Yeah. Right? But statistically, there's a high likelihood of them shopping and them defecting from your book.

32:21 After we've spent money on a claim. And the last piece of our language that's very intentional is, and our team takes that very seriously. Yeah. which is why we take the time to make these calls. But it's not all we want to do to help you on claim outcomes. Mr. and Mrs. Service Person, promise me, if the Joneses call in and there's any kind of frustration, disappointment, irritation, any kind of negativity in this claim, promise me you'll let me know so that we can mastermind together on a way to create a great claim outcome, to engineer a good outcome. Yeah, I love that. That is the kind of language and conversation we want to establish with agents.

33:02 And so I think now we're kind of coming full circle back to this ADA thing. If you've got a guy, if you've got a state farm agent in a market that likes to use ADA, there is a very good likelihood that he's going to really appreciate and gravitate towards that partnership language of look. Yeah. you know this as well as I do. A claim goes bad. All of a sudden, the value of them having, quote, State Farm and their good neighbor agent is bullshit. That's what people think. Yeah. I mean, having come out of the business now, people are much more cavalier about their comments about insurance around me, right? And State Farm and everything. And listen, State Farm is still a great company from what I understand. I still have State Farm.

33:43 There you go. And... I think agents are starting to realize that across the industry, claims experience is starting to slip and they potentially, this is a trend that's happening, they recognize or they're starting to recognize the need for them to be a little bit more miserly and controlling of their client's claim experience. Sure. What I'm saying, guys, is there may be an opening, folks. It's like we talked about the pendulum swinging. In 2012, 2011, 2011 is when State Farm rolled out the voiceover IP, the warm transfer system. Yeah. Yep. The warm transfer protocol where they started centralizing everything. In Salem, Oregon, where we were at, they had a field claim center.

34:26 In 2011, they started phasing out that claim center and now it's all administrative. Yep. They do have like field adjusters, but their whole call center, their desk adjusters all went away and they consolidated down to what used to be a 200 person claim center there in Salem, Oregon is like 15 or 20 people now that are all administrative and leadership staff and whatnot for the region. All of the claims handlers, the loss processors, everything went... When I used to submit a loss report in this DOSH software that I can't even remember what it is, that would get ported to Salem, Oregon. Well, now it's all been centralized in Dallas, Texas, Bloomington, Illinois, Austin, all these centralized call centers.

35:06 And I'm sure farmers, all state, everybody else is exactly the same. Similar. Right? Yeah. Yeah. And so I think agents potentially, that pendulum is starting to swing back and agents are driving the ADA and just through a heightened focus on, man, here's one other story. One other connection point before we wrap this up. You and I, you pointed me towards an Alex Hormozzi video about sales. It was really, really cool. It was like the title of it's like the best sales training ever or something like that. And it really is good. It is very good. It's very good. I don't know what best is. There's millions, but it was very good. And one of the comments that Alex makes in this is that... When good sales reps stop selling.

35:48 So people have had success selling. And then all of a sudden, they find themselves in a funk. And I've experienced this. I think every single salesperson, no matter how good you are, you've had a season of this. He said, nine times out of 10, it has nothing to do with their skill or talent. They've lost confidence in their product or their service. For sure. Yep. And I've seen this on damn near every single sales team that I've had and led and every sales team now that we've seen, we've worked with very closely, we see now. And it happens to us. Oh, it happens to... Oh, absolutely. It happens everywhere. It's a universal principle. Is that generally speaking, when salespeople struggle to sell, it is not their personality.

36:29 It's not that they're not charismatic enough or driven enough. Although that is... It's that 10%. You have lazy people. Yeah. Yes, there are lazy people who just aren't making enough calls, cold calls, whatever, right? Sitting at home, watching YouTube while they're supposedly making sales calls. Yes, there are those people, but it's 10%. 90% of the time, that sales rep has lost confidence in what they're selling, some aspect of it. And I think, restoration friends, this may be our opening. that I think this whole ADA conversation could be a window into agents are starting to doubt their claims organizations. and this isn't a judgment against carriers because there's plenty of that out there.

37:11 I think carriers are struggling with recruiting adjusters into those roles. Just like I mentioned earlier, we are struggling to recruit technicians. They are being forced like we are. And I was talking with Kevin Dooley about this because this is where Kevin's heart and his strategic brain is oriented around. We have to figure out a way to pay our techs more. Yeah. Yeah. We have to figure out a way like plumbers have done, like electricians have done everything else. And yeah, there's a whole like lobbying component to the labor industries and all this that we should be skilled tradespeople. But who gives a shit about that? We need to be able to pay our people more in our business models. And Kevin's got some very interesting ideas, as do other people in the industry.

37:52 So I think there's an opportunity there. But the insurance industry is having to figure out the same thing. You can't freaking go pay it. You can't find good people to adjust claims for 55 grand a year anymore, or whatever it is. And they're just having a hard damn time filling those adjuster roles. And I think that potentially is our opening. Yeah, that's interesting. I think another way too to consider this is, you know, it's like maybe going back into this confidence thing is... This is kind of why we also promote this idea of in an every job sales activity kind of mode. Is there a way for us to systemize or give ourselves an opportunity to filter these fairly quickly without a lot of like, let's call it maybe pride or reputation on the line?

38:35 is that I think then what it does is it consolidates our effort onto the kinds of relationships that may are more likely to reciprocate that connection that then in turn helps our route people's confidence. So if you think about if I just make 12, 16 stops a day because I'm just doing my route activity, and 90% of those agent offices are completely spun into the whole hands-off not really highly engaged in the claims experience, really issuing out the 1-800 number like... Because they're being hammered on to do so, right? There's definitely steering, right? All the things. If that's happening and I'm selling to that body and I'm over and over office after office, I'm really seen as kind of a nuisance, an irritation.

39:24 I'm not sure how people can sustain confidence in that. But if we're doing a more systematic approach, meaning that we're gathering that agent of record on every loss, we're doing that call, that check-in to test the waters using a script and nothing's on the line. If they cold shoulder you a statement of that office's focus and now you know, move on. So what you could ultimately end up doing is cultivating a very nice route that's actually made up predominantly of the offices that do care about claim experience. And now when you're stopping in, having those invitational conversations, it's about shit they care about.

40:05 It's the Pareto principle, right? It's 80% of our profit and our growth and our revenue comes from 20% of people we're talking to, right? And I think that's really true. And we try to remind our teams of that all the time. Look, with any procedure or process that we recommend as kind of our floodlight framework, it's look, none of this is a panacea. None of it's a silver bullet. This is still a number of layers. Every target we have from chief engineers to insurance agents has different priorities and principles. We're looking for the 20% that want what we're offering. That's right. Here's a phrase. Maybe we can wrap up on this. I'm going to leave people with a conversation thread here.

40:47 I think a really great question that we can ask agents that seem to be engaged to keep that conversation moving is... Jim Kuhlman, he was my mentor, still a State Farm agent, a very, very successful one. If I went to Jim and I was a marketer or sales rep, restoration sales rep to Jim Kuhlman, I would say, Jim, what kind of claim experience do you want Jim Kuhlman State Farm clients to have? That's good. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. State Farm's the best. Yeah. But you understand what's happening on the claim side of the organization. It's a struggle. Yeah. It's a struggle. It's real. And it's not just State Farm's everybody else. So the question is, Jim, what kind of claims experience do you want for your clients?

41:29 And how can our team help you engineer that? That's awesome. Right? And then we frame all of our follow-on conversations around that. Like seriously, when I was having this conversation with the sales team yesterday earlier this week, I said, wouldn't we be willing to do anything that they ask for reasonably. Within reasonable. Right. Right. So what are they going to ask for? So listen, hypothetically, right? Yeah. Let's say Jim Kuhlman State Farm, Jim, the owner said, you know what? Since you ask, I'd really like for you guys to show up with a bouquet of flowers and sign it from your restoration company and my agency. Every single loss that you handled for us. Would we be willing to do that as a restoration company? Hey, we pay for plumber leads.

42:10 I mean, come on. I bet you they're more expensive than flowers. Come on, right? Or who even cares? I mean, we could brainstorm ad nauseum about what agents would want. But seriously, if it's us having a stack of these pre-signed little notes from the agent or the agent team that we deliver in our very first meet and greet when we show up to their... Whatever. Whatever. But again, how can we partner with agents to create the kind of claim outcomes that they want to be known for? That was one of the things that drove me out of the industry, to be honest. And it was not necessarily front and center, but one of the things that always nagged on me is, I was putting myself out there as Chris Nordyke State Farm.

42:50 Yeah. It was me. I had a picture of me and my family on our billboards. Yeah. Like I... This is common. This is very common. This is the gig. It's like, you know, eventually you have a membership at the country club and everybody knows you and you're the State Farm guy. And that is the gig. And I think generally speaking, agents are very sensitive to what the reputation is and what they're known for in the community. And it's like, look... Do you care about your claims experience? Some don't. And some feel cornered. Yeah. Because when I was explaining this to these other sales teams, look, my heavy part of my compensation when I was an agent, this was 12 years ago, and I think it's only continued to move in this direction, was tied to financial services sales.

43:32 Yeah. It's like... Yeah. Client retention. Yeah. It's a piece of it, but a much bigger, my scorecard bonus, like, like a lot of these agents have six figure scorecard bonuses that are primarily tied to life insurance sales. If they do banking investments, that kind of stuff, that's where a lot of their additional compensation is tied to auto and homeowners. It's gotten so competitive and commoditized. most payment models are starting to shrink down those P&C commissions, which forces them to be more focused on cross-selling, having the... Anyway. Yeah. So you guys get the point, but what kind of claim experience do you want? Yeah. And then how can we creatively partner with them?

44:12 Yes. To do it. Such an opportunity. I think that was a great way to close. Because again, it's not even getting super caught up in the specific. And it's more about what are these core principles coming from a conversation like this that we can leverage in our favor regardless. Well, again, I think you hit it, dude. This is a pure conversation. Curiosity, right? It gives us an opportunity to learn more and create something special with them. And I think you crushed it, dude, from the perspective of What kind of claims experience do you want to create? And what can you and I do together to make sure that happens? For your agency. Rad. Yeah. For your client. Who cares what State Farm says about themselves?

44:52 What experience do you want your clients to have? Because it is consequential. It's like, you can go back to that. It's like, hey, statistically, customer for life or shopper, how do you want to engineer your claims experience for your clients here in Corvallis, Oregon, your agency? Let's talk about that. I love that. That's good, man. Oh, hey. Hey, by the way. Right? So Wayne has been encouraging. He's like, dude, you guys never... Wayne's our business manager, executive. Like he's the guy that helps facilitate everything. You know how some people have an executive assistant? I look at it as an executive asset. Anyway, Wayne's a force multiplier. He's our resident force multiplier.

45:33 One of them. We have several. But Wayne was just talking about, he's like, man, you guys don't ever pitch or promote anything. Look, if this kind of stuff holds value for you, number one, This is the kind of material that you can have access to ad nauseum. Your team can have permanent access to either through a one-on-one consulting relationship. So if you've been looking for a battle partner, a growth partner to journey with you and scale your company, develop systems and processes, help develop and equip your team for the next stage of growth, right? That's one very specific and holistic way to partner with Floodlight. So just go to floodlightgrp.com and it's pretty obvious, you know, where to go in terms of our services.

46:15 Also on the sales front, while we've been talking about agents, We have the Commercial Sales Master Course, which just dives deep. Yeah. You know, it's 11 hours of content, of video, of me and Brandon, you and I. Yeah. I'm like starting to talk in the third person here. Of you and I really educating on how did we do what we did? We built a regional company from very small to quite big in multiple locations. And really on the heels of those commercial sales practices, which the Commercial Sales Master Course, the funny thing about it, we had to give it a name. And it is mostly sales training and best practices and case examples and stuff like that. But B2B.

46:56 It's all of it. It's just how do we sell, service, develop, hire for, internally manage commercial sales? It's a completely different animal. And those of you that are in it, you know that. And it's difficult to figure out. And it was difficult for us to figure out. So this is kind of like all of our battle scars and best practices we picked up along the way. So you can go there. It's under... services, I think, it's easy to find. Commercial Sales MasterCourse, you can check that out. And then if you want to hire us to come do a workshop, we... Actually, you and I really love doing those. I love it. It's my favorite. It's a lot of fun. And people that are kind of curious about one-on-one consulting, it's funny. We always come out of those workshops with having usually one or two one-on-one consulting clients because they see what we do and what we cover.

47:41 And it's kind of like they get to interview us. I think so. I think too, you know, we kick the tires or whatever. I think so. I think they're kicking the tires. And I think also they, they finally get affirmed in the fact that it can be different. It can look different. I think so many of us as restorers in the, in the moment, in our current status there. Yes. We're seeing wins, right? It's why we keep doing it. But, There's just this level of frustration or maybe extensive chaos and or just a lack of being able to balance. It just feels like you're just grinding or it's 24-7 or it's just consuming. And that's not necessary. There's actually a way for us to professionalize and systemize our organizations where we can still be heroes.

48:23 We can feed people. We can help families. And make money. And make money and actually feel good in the process. So anyways... Well, that feel good thing's important, isn't it? The older we get. It's becoming more and more of a priority. For sure. So important. Okay. All right. That's it. Till next time. Share, like, subscribe, follow. You know what to do. You know how to help us. Love y'all. We'll see you. Bye. All right, everybody. Heath, thanks for joining us for another episode of Head, Heart, and Boots. And if you're enjoying the show, but you love this episode, please hit follow, formerly known as subscribe, write us a review, or share this episode with a friend. Share it on LinkedIn, share it via text, whatever.

49:05 It all helps. Thanks for listening.