Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Live yet. So let's get it going. Oh, we are live.
So anybody that's tuning in right now with Steve and I, I put out earlier in the week that this is my first podcast, forever changing and evolving, and Steve Ladd is my first guest. So thanks. Thanks, Steve.
And the reason that I asked Steve and I've always asked Steve is, for one, the comfortability. I think that's between the two of us when we're talking.
I was joking before we went live that it's because we're both Capricorns. Right. And approximately the same age, but similar sense of humor. I was going to go humor, but then I didn't want to explain the humor that we have, so I didn't want to go. Yeah, but. So this podcast is new for me because I've done community updates. I've focused on real estates, and obviously you're part of the Baldwinsville community, and then the real estate. You know, your background. You have background in real estate, and you also have now your current background, which is insurance.
So we have a lot to talk about in that regards, mainly the fact that you still continue to insure me after all the crazy things that I do, right?
[00:01:02] Speaker B: Absolutely. 100% for sure.
[00:01:04] Speaker A: So. So for anybody that's not seen any of my previous ones, can you give us a little bit of background about you so they know who you are if they come across you in the street?
[00:01:11] Speaker B: Oh, yes, if they've bumped into me or seen my face around. Right. So, yeah. So Steve Ladd with Haran Insurance or Haran Companies, the insurance plate place. We go by either, so whichever you prefer to call us. But our specialties are personal lines, commercial lines, insurance, that kind of stuff. I'm sure we'll talk a little bit more about some of the intricacies there. And my background other than that is, like Shelley said, real estate prior. And really, I've been a part of Baldwinsville since maybe I was in, I think, seventh grade.
A little bit before that, too. We moved around a little bit when my family was younger stuff.
[00:01:57] Speaker A: But maybe that's why we get along, too, because I do. I bounce around a lot.
[00:01:59] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:02:00] Speaker A: Taylor can relate. She's always talking about the moods.
[00:02:03] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:02:03] Speaker A: So I never actually asked you, how old were you when you got into real estate?
[00:02:08] Speaker B: So I was, I think about 25 when I first started in real estate business. Yeah.
[00:02:15] Speaker A: And so, you know, real estate's my passion, but if it was another industry, I'd ask you the same question. But what made you get into real estate at 25?
[00:02:23] Speaker B: Yeah. So it was interesting. I, I was living in Massachusetts at the time. I had spent about five years working in the movie theater industry. Oddly enough, it just, it just sort of happened. And as, as one does, you, you sort of get these weird little promotions and then next thing I know, I'm like a manager of a movie theater.
And the theater, the movie theater chain that I was working for moved over or purchased theaters in New Jersey.
And so my manager at the time was transferred down there when I was like 21 or something. And he was like, do you want to go and move to the Jersey Shore for a while and manage movie theaters with me? And I was like, sure. Okay.
So I did. And I spent the next four or five years, I guess, just sort of doing that job, moving around from one, like we went from New Jersey to Massachusetts and stuff. And I sort of reached a point doing that where I was like, okay, like I, like I went from managing little small movie theaters to these 15 screen sized behemoths or whatever.
And that got to a point where I was like, there's no, there's no upward movement anymore here. You know, my boss wasn't going, he was recently promoted a few years, right. So I was like. And it's a, it's a grind of a job. You know, this was back before things were digital. So things would get crazy and people would come out and be like, you know, the movie would be like burning on the big screen because the camera, like the lens hit the movie, the strip of film and it's all, that's all digital.
[00:04:03] Speaker A: I'm like envisioning like now it's the previews, right? When they like reenact that kind of thing, when they're going in something.
[00:04:09] Speaker B: Yes, exactly.
[00:04:09] Speaker A: Yeah. I was going to ask you why you left, but if it was the lack of growth, right, because some, some industries like you get here and then there's not a whole or there's a long wait period before there's that next level.
[00:04:19] Speaker B: It is. And it's a grind of it. I mean, it's, you know, you're open Christmas Day, you're open, you know, New Year's Eve, you're open. Like you're, you're running shows the whole time. So, so I reached, you know, sort of a point where I was like, I'm kind of, I'm kind of over this kind of idea now. So I moved to Florida and I was young enough to say, all right, I can, I can start over again and sort of reinvent not really knowing, 100% sure what I was going to do. So like I said, I was like 25, 26ish, I guess now, thinking about it. And I moved to Florida and I wasn't sure what, quite, quite what I was going to do. And all I did one day was I was reading, I was flipping through a paper and it was like, get your real estate license. And I thought, all right, sure.
So I did.
And you know, as a goes, a few months later, I'm, I'm, I'm licensed and a complete idiot. I don't know what it means. I don't. You know.
[00:05:11] Speaker A: What year was that? I'm just curious because of the real estate market. Different years.
[00:05:14] Speaker B: Yeah.
So that would have been, let's see, 2001.
[00:05:25] Speaker A: So before any crash in 2008.
[00:05:27] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, well before that.
So I was. Yeah, I think it was. So let's see. I recall I had, I had moved down looking for a place to live, like right around the time of 9, 11, actually, because that's, that's always like what I remember. I'm like, oh, I know right where I was, because I can remember I was at my cousin's apartment at the time and when I was all unfolding. But then, so I got my license later in that year and so officially, I guess it would have been O2, that I was like 100%, like, licensed and like I said, not knowing anything, really.
[00:06:03] Speaker A: So I just tricked you into also telling us your age, Steve, because.
[00:06:07] Speaker B: Yes, correct. Yeah. So for those of you doing the math at home, I'll make it easy. So I, I'll turn 50 in January. So there you go.
[00:06:14] Speaker A: I, I just wanted, I Knew it was 50, so I wanted to throw that out.
[00:06:16] Speaker B: We're getting there. We're not quite there yet.
[00:06:18] Speaker A: I'm there, I'm there.
[00:06:19] Speaker B: Yeah, I know you're. I send you in front of me to check it all out first, see what it's.
Turn back, you know, it's just there.
[00:06:27] Speaker A: So, so, but you, you hit the nail on the head when you said you dove right into real estate. Because I tell people you get your license and then boom, your boots on the ground, running you are.
[00:06:36] Speaker B: Yeah. And I, I kind of. It's Florida. So my first gig was timeshare. And, and you know, I thought the movie theater situation was an absolute grind. I had no idea how bad timeshare was.
So they, they throw you into like a sort of a training little thing for two weeks where you're just nine to five Every day learning what they do. Not really learning anything about real estate, mind you. It's just like this is how you're gonna, you're gonna sell week 22 to this poor person who wants to save money on getting some free tickets to Disney or something, right? And they're super happy to be here. And we told them it's an hour and a half. And what they don't know is that the hour and a half starts after they're done eating breakfast with you.
So once they realize that as the salesperson and you told them like, you know, the clock starts when we're done with breakfast, they hurry through the rest of their meal.
But as the salesperson, we would have to eat like four times a morning because we'd have multiple tours.
[00:07:32] Speaker A: Oh yeah, I didn't think about that.
[00:07:34] Speaker B: Yeah, it's real fun at the end.
[00:07:36] Speaker A: I've been on those tours. I know what you're talking about.
[00:07:38] Speaker B: Yeah, they're brutal. They are brutal. And they are, they are not real. Real estate.
[00:07:44] Speaker A: No. But you probably learned a lot about sales and stuff through it and people and expectations and.
[00:07:49] Speaker B: Yes, I learned. And I also learned I'd never ever want to be in that world again. And if anyone asked if I thought timeshare was a good idea, I would immediately say, not a chance.
[00:08:00] Speaker A: No way.
[00:08:01] Speaker B: Don't do it. Right. I don't care what week number it is in the year, just don't do it. It's not a good idea.
[00:08:07] Speaker A: And again, I don't know anything about timeshares. I know my mother in law had one and she loved it. But sometimes it's also time and place and where you are and what you want to do.
So how did you transfer out of shares into.
[00:08:19] Speaker B: Yeah, so once I, I got through sort of some of the, like just kind of the anxiety of what I then believe real estate to be and realized it wasn't. So I got away from timeshare and moved into a. I was referred to a broker who was just opening a new Coldwell Banker office. Actually they hadn't quite opened yet, but were. And so we're operating under a different name as they were waiting for the building to be completed that they were going to move into. So it was this guy from IRE who was opening up a Coldwell Banker office. And in the area in Florida that I was in, it was a vacation home market primarily. So, Right. Not that far away from Disney, Lake Buena Vista area, Davenport, Claremont, this little section of like three sort of three areas of like towns and stuff. To sort of intersect. They call it the four corners area. But. And it's not, it's not widely known as that if you lived in that area you would know it. But otherwise it's not a big deal. But anyhow, it was dominated specifically by commercial or, excuse me, by vacation homes. And so what that meant was you, let's say you wanted to buy a vacation home. So you, you buy this house and your intention is, I'm going to use it when I come down to this Florida, you know, any time of the year, let's say. But when I'm not using it, I want it to generate income for me. So I will put it into this short term rental management system. And there's lots of different short term rental manager area. And their job was to rent your home out when you weren't using it. So these houses would be purchased like with full, you know, fully furnished, like completely. It's funny around here when you talk about it, like I'll read marketing remarks, it's like it's fully turnkey. I'm like, no, it's not. I'll tell you what turnkey is. Turnkey means that you turn the key and literally the dishes, the cutlery, the linens, everything's already in there and it's fully furnished. And it's all part of the whole process. So, so what would happen is these, you know, obviously like, there was a whole sort of like nuance to this. The people would, you know, buy these houses and the management companies would have their little Excel spreadsheet that basically told them, listen, if you rent this thing 26 weeks a year, you're going to break even, right? And it was arguable that that was in fact the case. But anyhow, that was a big part of the market that we were in. So we were doing new construction sales through, through just different builders and stuff who are in the area selling these houses and then resale properties who, you know. So folks would say, yeah, I've had my fill of this, let's just turn this thing back around, sell it. It was always sold fully furnished, the whole bit.
And so that was a big part of how I entered the market. Now I did general real estate to an extent more traditional stuff because there was still, there were still communities in the area that were just basic residential neighborhoods. So we got into all of that too. But I learned a lot about different things that I had never even known anything about, like homeowners associations. They're really, really big in Florida, like tons of HOAs and and that would sort of vary in terms of like how involved they were versus how little they were involved and what you got with the, with the dues and stuff. So that was a big part of the sales process because we want to know, like, hey, this is part of your, what you're going to pay every month. So this is going to eat into your ability to turn a profit.
But to be honest, most people who bought those things weren't necessarily into it for like quick profit. It was really just like, I have a spot in Florida and when I'm not using it, people come and rent it out by the week.
[00:11:59] Speaker A: So again, and learning a little bit more about your real estate background, like starting with timeshares, going to vacation homes, you'd almost see like we're one hindsight. Right. Looking at one could lead to the other. And you kind of were building on that.
[00:12:11] Speaker B: Yeah, it's kind of connected in that way. Right. Sort of vacation aspect to things still, you know. So I did that for a couple of years with Coldwell Banker and, and we did quite well. And, and then at that point we, I opened up my own spot on my own.
Well, I went into business with my cousin at the time who lived down there. He got his real estate license after I did. And then we sort of said. And he worked with me at Coldwell. We had a little team. You know how agencies like to have little teams inside of themselves. So we did that and then we, we opened up on our own.
And so we, I think we did that in 2004. Ish. Somewhere around, I think 03 04. I'm fuzzy now on the time frame, but it was called Central Florida Home Sales. We opened that up and that's right around when the market went nuts.
I, I like it was consistent prior to that, you know, but then things got crazy and really kind of took off like, like on fire around 05.
So 05.06 and much of 07 we didn't. I don't, we. I don't even know if we even put signs in the ground anymore. It was just like this is going to sell in like five minutes.
[00:13:28] Speaker A: So just to kind of relate back to that because now you're in insurance. So the reason we talk about real estate is that similar to like here, you know, I mean, where it's just gone in five days.
[00:13:37] Speaker B: Yeah. Right now. Yeah, it's very, very similar.
Yeah. I mean the, I would say the only difference really would be just the amount of new construction down there was still really was, was ramping up so much. So just one I would say difference from this current market compared to that was you would contract like you would go into a builder and the builder would say, I've got, you know, we're going to do 100 lots and we're going to build on 100 lots in this new neighborhood. So we're going to, we're going to pre release six at a time.
So how this would work, it would be so chaotic that you'd have people lining up outside of the development hours upon hours before and there would be 40 people in line for six lots that were going to be opened in hopes that somebody would walk in there and just suddenly have like pre buyers remorse and not do it. Yeah. So then they would contract on those completely to be built sort of deals here.
[00:14:41] Speaker A: And then visualizing the malls at Destiny when the new shoes come out or the new iPhone comes out.
[00:14:45] Speaker B: Yeah. Yes.
[00:14:46] Speaker A: Right.
[00:14:46] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah, it's very much like that.
Yeah. And then, so they would sell those and then, and then they would, two weeks later they would release six more. But the price that's just gone up significantly. And so people were, people were closing and, and the market was, was, was, was going so quickly in terms of like appreciation so to speak, that by the time like if, so if you were in phase one of this release, you purchased, you purchased this house and agreed to this price. By the time it was built and closed, your equity was incredible. 40, 50% equity all of a sudden. So a lot of these folks were just like, well, let's just turn it right back around again, you know, so again, if you were in the real estate world at that time, like you, you didn't have to try hard to get houses to, to sell for you because it was that simple. And a lot of times like they were savvy so they could, they could undercut the builder because the builder was now selling at a much higher price at this point for any other remaining lots of, or other phases. But the person who sold in those first cut, who bought in those first couple of phases has so much equity that they can.
Two things. One, it's cheaper than the builder and it's done and ready. You don't have to wait for the.
[00:15:58] Speaker A: Build without the furniture in the, in the place.
[00:16:00] Speaker B: Well, they were furnished, so they would sell the furnace. Yes, yes. Imagine that. Getting appraisal on a furnished property.
[00:16:05] Speaker A: On a furnished property, not the bill itself. Wow. So, so you're obviously not in real estate anymore. And you know, and the purpose of this podcast is talking about like taking what you've learned, right? And pivoting and changing. But, but so for me, my change was like, as you know, it was like I started going through a divorce and stuff and I had to make changes and figuring it out. When you got out of real estate, was it because the market crashed, because you were done with real estate, because you moved? Like, what was the pivot that said I'm changing?
[00:16:34] Speaker B: Thank you. Great question. So around. So I remember 07, late 07 into 08, I listed a property for sale. I walked out of that. I took pictures and everything and I come out and I'm heading to my car and I, even though we weren't using signs, I tended to always have a sign in the car.
And I, and I look down the street and I see that there are two other houses for sale that I, that I noticed because there's signs in the yard. And I go, wow, that's. It's been a while since I've seen that. So I grabbed my sign out and I put it in.
And while that wasn't the moment that everything felt fully shifted, it was the beginning of it. So 07, we still wrote out 07, beginning of 08 is when things started to get really, really nasty because we started to have conversations with folks who had purchased, who had pre. Pre. Who had agreed to buy new construction to put 20% down.
The market was starting to fade and we started to have conversations with our buyers and even suggested to them, you may just want to give up on the deposit and not close.
[00:17:37] Speaker A: Oh, really?
[00:17:37] Speaker B: Yeah. Because at that point we were concerned that if they closed that they were now not going to be able to turn this thing back around. Because again, this wasn't residential real estate. These folks weren't moving into it. This wasn't their forever home. This was. I bought this because I intended to make money on it. And at this point, because the market had been so feverish for so long, you started to pull people in from places that really from, from, I should say, income levels of people who maybe were not positioned to hold a piece of property like this that was now starting to go underwater. They could not maintain the payments, stuff like that. These were, you know, just folks who, who, you know, had a normal W2 paying regular job that they put some money together for to buy this to spin and make money. They weren't in position to hold these properties for any length of time.
And, and many did not give up and, and did not. Could not fathom losing that 20% and ended up that Was right then is when the market started to shift to foreclosures.
This whole new concept of short sales was a thing at the time.
[00:18:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:45] Speaker B: And at that stage, because I had kind of always, at my heart of it, been a listing agent.
And so moving into a market where you couldn't really work as a listing agent because while, yes, plenty of people wanted to sell their properties, there was no equity there. They were all underwater, all of them. Even at times we would have somebody call us and say, hey, I want to sell my house. And you'd look at public records and you'd be like, oh, great, you've been there since 03 or 02.
Awesome. And then you'd show up at the listing appointment, they'd be like, oh, I refied, you know, during the height of it. So they basically rebought their house, you know, during the time where everything was at its peak. And now even you couldn't even help them either. So, you know, it was. It was a bit of a. Of a challenge. And so having now spent at that point, which would have been about six, seven years in the business around 2000, so I stayed with. It continued to just sort of. But it was getting more and more challenging when I know people are like, oh, you poor thing. You had to actually become a real. Real estate person. You didn't have to flip houses all the time.
[00:19:51] Speaker A: But it's not. And this is what I as listening to, I want to point out. So, you know, we're friends and we talk a lot about, like, our sarcasm and we like to give each other a hard time. When you were talking about timeshares and you were talking about the vacation home, you know, you're like, in listening to your, like, you know, it's almost like if people didn't know you, it. It's like I'm taking advantage. Taking you. The. The system takes advantage. System takes advantage. And you probably know this about yourself, but if you don't, you actually struggle when you feel like someone's getting. Part of my language was screwed. Right. So that's why I see that as you getting out of timeshares, you getting out of that vacation. And now I'm listening. You talk about this foreclosure and you're saying, yeah, the poor realtor. But at the end of the day, see, the first thing you said was, how do you. How do you help people get underwater? Like, it's a.
It's a hard struggle to say, hey, I need to make a living and I'm going to make a Living by impacting you financially.
[00:20:42] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:20:42] Speaker A: Right, yes. So all joking aside, which we do a lot pick on each other, in the core of it, you really don't like to see people being taken advantage of and for you to profit off of that. Right?
[00:20:54] Speaker B: I don't. And, and I think more importantly, I guess it's when there's a lack of understanding or awareness or a lack of just not being informed about the options. Like, it's what I hate seeing is someone continue through a process of something without knowing truly all of the variables at hand. And so it, the more we can. Or, and this, you know, goes through my entire career, whether it's been through, you know, insurance or real estate into insurance or whatever. It's, it's. Listen, here, here is the information that I think would be helpful for you to know before you, before you make this final decision. Right. If people pulled out of that 20 deposit, we didn't get paid.
[00:21:36] Speaker A: Right.
[00:21:37] Speaker B: I mean, the transaction did not go through.
And that was, and that was that.
But it was better for us to do that than to give them false hope because again, once they close, they were going to look to us to sell it. I, I knew I was, I could look, I'll put it on the market and it's not going to go anywhere. At that point, you know, we were at the height of like these conversations with people there. There were arguably two plus years of houses on the market. That was the inventory. Yeah. And it was. And it had no signs of slowing down ever. You know, at least it didn't appear that way.
And so I got to about 2010 and that's when. So I got married in 08. And my wife and I, Sarah, who's actually from here, we were in Atlanta or we were in Florida, but she had spent some time in Atlanta. And so she said, hey, I, you know, I think she could see that I was burnt out on it as well and said, let's, you know, let's go back, let's go up to Atlanta and see what's going on up there. Right. So I got my.
So Georgia has reciprocity with Florida, so that means I didn't have to go through the licensing again and went to Georgia and got my real estate license and was a regular residential real estate agent at a Keller Williams office in Decatur, Georgia, which is just this little small suburb outside of Atlanta.
And that was a whole different world. You know, I didn't, I mean, it's a big metropolitan area. I did not know it well. And I was dealing with Properties that. And. And transactions and people who were. They weren't there to buy investment homes. They weren't trying to rent stuff out. It was like just standard, regular, you know, residential market. You know, I'm gonna buy here, I'm gonna live here, and I care about the schools. And you think I looked at anything that had to do with the schools in Florida, it was a running joke. Like, the schools are crap. Like, you know, I mean, like, it. Even though most of them really kind of weren't that way. I mean, there are a lot of good school systems and. And schools themselves in the area. But it had always been this assumption that, like, there's just.
That's not why people are moving here. Right, right. So with no emphasis was put on us really understanding, like, kind of the things that you should know or at least be pretty well versed in if you're selling property in an area that people are going to move to and live there.
[00:24:00] Speaker A: Right. Because you got. Every market's a little bit different. You got to know the market.
[00:24:03] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:24:04] Speaker A: So. And I know obviously you're now back in New York, where you and Sarah are both. Both from. When you left Georgia, was it because you just wanted to come back to the bottom of your area? Did you need a complete change of scenery?
[00:24:15] Speaker B: Yeah, so we.
We had no family in. In the Atlanta area, and so.
Or I think this. So this would have been two. That we weren't in Georgia long. So around 2011, so Sarah was pregnant with our first child.
And at that point we were like, okay, what are we gonna do? You know, we don't. We have no, like, we have no family support here. Again, the real estate market for me was like. I was. I was just sort of fledgling along. It was not. It was not like, robust by any. By any means, despite my best efforts.
And so we. We decided, you know what, why don't we. Why don't we just go back up to, you know, to be. You know, Sarah's family is. Is in the area and stuff. So. So we came back up to Baldwinsville, and my family is scattered around, but some of them are still here. My mom and stuff is still here. So. So we came back up and said, all right, let's. Let's try to plant. Plant roots here.
And so it was sort of decided for me in a way that I would come out of real estate because. So this is. This is kind of funny. So New York has reciprocity with Georgia. However, if your Georgia license came by way of reciprocity with Florida, New York wanted nothing to do with you.
[00:25:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:43] Speaker B: So my license was essentially useless and I could not, I could, I'd have to sit through again licensing, all that stuff. And I was like, I just don't have it in me to go through that. I lost a lot of the fire for it. And I was like, there's just, there's no way I want to do this. Plus, to be fair, at the time I really felt like I needed to lean into something that was steady, that was like more W2 based, that wasn't like just such a commission grind and that kind of stuff.
[00:26:11] Speaker A: So I have this theory that if you don't make the change willingly, the, the universe, God, whomever, you know, whatever you believe, they will force that change upon you.
[00:26:21] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:26:21] Speaker A: Right. So had you been able to actually get your New York State as easily as you got your one down in Georgia, you and I probably wouldn't be having this. We probably wouldn't even have met.
[00:26:31] Speaker B: Might not have. Right.
[00:26:33] Speaker A: You'd probably be this grumpy man out on the streets mumbling under your breath.
[00:26:36] Speaker B: About, yes, yep, my association dues are up again. What am I getting for this money?
[00:26:47] Speaker A: I gotta take 22 and a half hours of education.
Right. So in essence, like you chose to make the change, but you were kind of forced to. But you were probably teating on wanting to make the change anyway. And it was just the last piece that said.
[00:27:01] Speaker B: Yeah, right, yeah, I was, I was. And even then I didn't go right into insurance. I spent a minute or two and I was selling magazine ads, I think.
Not ads like. Yeah, like what was like Clipper magazine.
So I was, I was doing ad sales and, and that was.
Listen, I give full credit to everybody out there who's, whose function and job it is to go out and cold knock on doors.
Particularly businesses where, you know, you don't just get to like walk in and see the business owner standing up front. Typically there there are 14 gatekeepers protecting them from you as you come in. And those that can do it and are, are, and do it well, hats off because that is, that is a challenging and difficult position to be in. And it was definitely not for me.
So my, my mother in law was in a, was in a tip club type of plane. Like a.
I forget what it was called, but it's, it's a tip club essentially, where they, you know, pass out referrals to each other and stuff. And so she was in this club and she received a, or there was a insurance person in that club and my Mother in law was like, talking to her about me and, you know, just about how we had just moved back and that kind of stuff. Just what was going on in her world. And we were a part of her world. So she was about talking about us. And this agent that was in the tip club said, you should have them apply at. It was Liberty Mutual. Yeah, should have him apply Liberty Mutual.
And I remember.
So she came back and she's like, oh, I was talking to my friend. I was like, I don't get insurance.
I. What? I don't sell insurance. Terrible. I don't do that.
I couldn't have been more turned off by the idea of. Of doing that. Right. Like, I had just was like, no way.
[00:29:04] Speaker A: Is it a perception in your mind of what it would be like?
[00:29:07] Speaker B: I think so. Like, and you know, it's funny because, like, even though I was in real estate for so long, I didn't. I. I never thought much about the insurance aspect of it. You know, I had like an Allstate guy that I had on like, speed dial down there just sort of like, oh, you're gonna buy this house and all right, you're gonna need insurance. Call him. And I don't have to think about it. Right.
[00:29:26] Speaker A: It just.
[00:29:27] Speaker B: Just did not. And I didn't even care about my own stuff, really. I was like, whatever. I, you know, I was as naive as anybody about what it. What my policies meant or anything like that. And I was naive because I just. It wasn't interesting. And now I was like, being asked like, hey, why don't you get a job where, like, that's what you're going to do. You can deal with something that's completely uninteresting to you and you own these insurance policies. Right? So the idea of it just seemed like, oh, like, God awful at the time.
But as things go, you know, it was brought up to me two, three, maybe four more times that I should. I should consider this. So finally I was like, I sort of. I think at the time, I was like, I'll acquiesce to. I'll do it. Fine. Like, I'll go interview or whatever, like, kick tires on the whole thing or whatever.
And.
And I'll give it to Liberty. At the time, they had a very effective district manager who came in for. I think by this time that they put you through like a million interviews or whatever. I don't know, it was like, you think it was like a government job or something? You know, I was like, all right, third interview. Really?
But. But it's it's serious. Like, I remember the second interview, they were like, all right, we're gonna put you on the phone.
Put me on the phone.
[00:30:39] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:30:39] Speaker B: Who moved me out to the. The whole area where all the agents are. So here's. People all work there. It's already intimidating enough. So you go sit down next to the people needs cubicles or whatever, and it's. There's people across from you, behind you, whatever. And they give you a list. They use cold call list. They call a sales genie list. They give this list filled with phone numbers, and they say, just start making calls and ask them when their insurance policies expire.
All right? And they're listening to the calls, right? So they're listening to you. And so for about 20 minutes or so, I start running down this list just like, I can't even believe I'm doing this. Like, this is sign of things to come.
So I'm going down, and most of the time, no answer, no answer, no answer. Obviously, a couple people hang up on you.
[00:31:20] Speaker A: Great.
[00:31:22] Speaker B: So it's like, this is the clipper equivalent of, like, of the phone part of it. Instead of walking in and just being told to get lost. Right. So I'm like, yeah, now here's where I'm at. And they said. I said, well, what if I get somebody on the phone and they're like, just give it to one of these people. Yeah, all right.
And they themselves, having all gone through this during their interview process, magically, they're all off the phones because they can't not listen.
[00:31:47] Speaker A: It's a silence.
[00:31:48] Speaker B: It's silence. And I'm just like, God, this is so. This is nerve wracking. So I get through that. Like, I don't know. I think I got like two people on the phone and I got like one. Or I think maybe I got both of them to give me probably the nicest people who would. Who give anything to anyone who called. So it's not like I was magical or anything. So they give me these things on these cards that I write down and give them to the other two people. And then they come and usher me out of there and bring me back into the room and say, all right, okay, we'd like to have you come in and be with us another time. I'm like, what's next here? So I come in and they had this district manager who was really effective at selling the concept of what one could.
What one could earn in this business. Right, right. And so he had all these drawn out what I consider to Be looking back on it were like hieroglyphics written down on this piece of paper that somehow pointed to like an outcome that was like very financially favorable for me if all of these things should come true. Right. And so it became very evident, however, after a short period of time, because, yes, I did take the position. I was offered to take the position.
And they send you to insurance licensing, right?
[00:32:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:32:59] Speaker B: So I, I cut my teeth with Liberty Mutual.
But the thing about Liberty was they were more focused on you being a salesperson and selling policies and not quite as focused on learning about what insurance actually means. Does the whole bit.
[00:33:20] Speaker A: And again, this is, that comes back to your core, right? Like it's the education, like why should people get the policy that they have? Or what does it mean to them? And listening to you, like insurance, Insurance, whatever.
It's an investment. Like you're protecting people. You help people buy and sell investments. Now you're helping them protect their investments.
[00:33:38] Speaker B: Right?
[00:33:38] Speaker A: Right.
[00:33:39] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:33:39] Speaker A: So it's a spin on the way that you think about things.
[00:33:42] Speaker B: It is. And I, and I feel like there were times where, you know, because when you're new in anything, right, you have that sort of, you know, they talk about imposter syndrome and stuff. Right. Like when you're new in something, it's very easy to sort of fall into that, into that feeling because you're the, you're the quote, unquote expert, right. So people are looking at you to like give them advice and to help determine where, what they should do or where they should be.
And every, every step along the way, whether it was, you know, working in the movie theater business. I, you know, I was the manager. I was a kid, right. I was a kid and I felt like I had that imposter sort of feeling. Like people would come out, they'd be like, you're the manager. And he'd be like, sorry, this point, you know, yes, I am.
And then real estate, the same thing. You know, you write those, you probably remember, you write your first couple of deals and you're like looking at all these like blank spaces on these like eight page contracts and you're like, I don't know, I'm supposed to fill this part in. So insurance, same thing, you know, except the difference was with a movie theater thing, people were excited to go to see a movie, right?
[00:34:48] Speaker A: Right.
[00:34:49] Speaker B: With buying a house, people are excited to buy a house. With insurance, nobody was excited. No one wants to see I, to get off the phone with you as fast as possible because you're making Me sad. Right. Like that's now that still happens sometimes, don't get me wrong.
But at least now or compared to then, like I have a better understanding than I did when I first started about what a lot of this stuff means. And look like there's so much of it that the understanding continues to develop all the time. But it took a while to break out of that feeling that I was, I was perhaps in a situation or in a position to lead somebody in the wrong direction inadvertently because I didn't know any better.
[00:35:32] Speaker A: Well, and this I just want to throw out there. You had mentioned about the education piece of. It is if anybody does follow you or pay attention to the website of Haran companies, there's always education pieces in there. I remember it's been years now, but you did the hundred questions in 100 days and that was on LinkedIn and you put on other social media sites. It's that education that and your snippets like you're smart enough to know nobody wants you to go on and on and on and no offense, Steve, on and on and on about it.
[00:35:59] Speaker B: So I get myself.
[00:36:01] Speaker A: But, but it's the snippets of the. And that's where the value is to know. Know what policy you have is. You're always going to get the people to say, just tell me what I need, I'll sign and send the check.
[00:36:10] Speaker B: Right.
[00:36:10] Speaker A: But, but I also have the faith in you that if I do have a problem, you have the, the skill set, the knowledge base and can answer my questions or get me the information that I need. Right. So I think that's why you actually have a little bit more of a like for insurance than you did whenever you heard about it.
[00:36:29] Speaker B: But I think so. And, and it became honestly like, it became like sort of compelling after a while because I would get into these policies and I'd be like, that's what that means.
[00:36:39] Speaker A: You're learning.
[00:36:40] Speaker B: I need to check my own policy. Right, right.
[00:36:42] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:36:42] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, you become, you go back to your own as like your, your sort of benchmark and you'd be like, that's terrible. Thank God I didn't get in an accident. You know, and, and so you go and you like button all that stuff up and everything. And, and then you're. And then, and then I will tell you this, you know, and I'm sure if anybody who's listening to this is either knows an insurance person like, like in terms of their family or they are one. They will experience, they will appreciate this. But like the, the longer it goes, the, the more, the more your family or your friends look at you and they're like, look, man, it's, that's probably not gonna happen. Right? But instead I'm always, I'm always like, yeah, listen, this is a liability issue now. Like, you don't understand. Like, like, if he comes over here and he, and he gets on that bike and he takes it, like, you know, I play on every, every single possible.
[00:37:36] Speaker A: I, I, I've been in those situations, conversations with you. I think in one podcast I called you Mr. Gloom. Right?
[00:37:43] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:37:43] Speaker A: Gloom and doom is what Steve brings us.
[00:37:45] Speaker B: We're known as. Yeah, yeah, we're known as the black cloud that came over to the event. Right. Like, look at how great this is. And I'm like, well, let me tell you what could, here's how, here's what could go wrong.
[00:37:55] Speaker A: Yeah, you're the life of the party.
[00:37:58] Speaker B: People love that the line at the, at the drink table gets a lot shorter whenever, you know, things available.
[00:38:08] Speaker A: So, so if you don't mind me asking, in that, in that period right where you left real estate, and I'll say a little bit grudgingly, but, but it was the known, right. And you went into the unknown, you went to like the Clipper sales piece of it and then the insurance, like, at the core of it, what were you feeling like? Do you know what I mean? Like, where were you either emotionally, mentally, in trying to figure out. Because now you at least had one son, if not two at that point. Yeah, well, now I know three.
[00:38:33] Speaker B: Yeah.
So, yeah, I mean, yeah, new father at the time, new career again. You know, I was like, I felt like, like, like worried really. I mean, like a lot of pressure and, and right, rightly so I should feel pressure at the time because, you know, you're, you're beginning a family and you want to have security, you know, you want a foundation and all this stuff and, you know, starting something new. And I'm getting older now at this point. You know, I, I was, you know, now getting to the stage where I was, where was I? Mid, about 35 ish now at that point, you know, so it's, you know, and in your mind as a 35 year old, you're like, the reinvention needs to stop now.
[00:39:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:39:16] Speaker B: You know, even though, like, really Now I'm at 50 almost and I feel like I could have probably had another one in here too. And then, fine.
But you, you start to like, you feel like, all right, now I need to, I need to settle in and I need to. Yeah. Plant roots. I need to. That things need to start taking shape here now or time's running out or whatever.
So yeah, I felt like, and honestly even two years. So I was only with Liberty for two and a half years and I wasn't looking. I don't know how long I would have stayed absent where I am if, if what happened for me when I that caused me to leave Liberty hadn't happened. I don't know really looking back on it, what would have become of it.
So. And I can I just kind of get into how that changed at that time or for, for.
[00:40:06] Speaker A: Well, I will say depending on that company policy or whatever. Because really the, it's more about like what makes you make that decision. So if it was something that was like uncomfortable for you or some, a direction you didn't want to go with your life. Like I think part of the problem our society has is people stay where they stay because their fear of change, like Right. Like they stay in the uncomfortable that they know rather than going into the uncomfortable that they, they don't know. Right. So rather than maybe focus on that like what was it about haran companies or you know, whatever it was called at the time that made you pivot to it.
[00:40:39] Speaker B: Yeah, and that's it really. It was. So when I was in licensing class, you know, learning to become, you know, like, like with real estate, they give you a license, you have a license, you take the class, you pass the test and you are, you are, you are a licensed idiot. And there I was again for a second time in my life, a licensed city, not just driver, but now like first real estate, now insurance. So I have this license and I'm like great, I passed the test. Awesome. And so, and so I, I, but I knew nothing really to speak of.
I knew enough to pass the state test. That was it. So in class, in licensing class, I met a number of people. One of the people that I met was this guy named Sean. And so you talk to people in between breaks or whatever, you know, just kind of, you know, chit chat, whatever. And so Sean and I are having a conversation out in the hall one day and really think much of it and get done, go back, we go on our ways. He's, he's getting licensed because he's adding insurance to, to the sort of arm of wealth management that he's doing where he is.
And I'm going to Liberty Mutual. Right. That was sort of the idea and so around.
So I would think, I think it was somewhere around May of 2013, I get a call and it's Sean. Now it's been over two years since I've seen Sean, talked to Sean, whatever, and he's like, I don't know if you remember me, I was in your licensing class with you and you know, I remember having a conversation with you.
I'm looking to bring somebody on and because I, I'm doing wealth management and now I have this insurance arm that I, I think he kind of got to a point where he realized like there needs to be somebody pretty full time focused on this and he was already full time focused on the other part of things and he wanted it to, he wanted to, to thrive, you know, he wanted to get it off the ground. And so, you know, I was like, I don't know, maybe. So we start having conversations and it wasn't for sure right away. It was exploratory, you know, I think both for him and for me and because it was a new, it was, it was a scratch agency, it's brand new thing that had very little beneath it from, from, from the standpoint of business and stuff. So we started having conversations and, and I think what it was, was, it was, it was that I liked Sean. I, the more I talked to him, the more I like kind of connected with him and felt at ease with him and.
But there were some reservations for me. This was going to be if I, if I, if I came over.
It was an insurance agency and it wasn't just this captive carrier who, and for those of you who are out listening, you're like glazing over about captive carriers or whatever.
You're not alone. But no, know this.
Certain, certain insurance companies, it's just their policy and only their policy. You can only sell what they offer. Not. And so you only know as an agent, you only know their underwriting, their rules, their criteria, their market appetite, let's say, because that's all you can sell.
So when you go to an agency it's different because you can sell lots of things that that agency is appointed to sell from a carrier perspective.
So I was going to move into an area where I was going to have more carriers that I didn't know.
And realistically I was going to be the, probably the, the most educated person in the office because Sean was doing wealth management stuff and this was a very new thing that he had started. So he wasn't going to be like my, my primary resource for information.
[00:44:25] Speaker A: You are the primary source.
[00:44:27] Speaker B: I had to be.
[00:44:28] Speaker A: So I'm going to inject Here when he just said he was probably the smartest person in the office, because anybody in Facebook and podcast land want to know who else was working at that office at the time that would be.
[00:44:38] Speaker B: That would be you.
[00:44:39] Speaker A: And I had no knowledge. So I'm just picking on Steve. I was brought in because I was friends with Sean, and I was brought in to kind of help do some organizations and stuff. But. But I will say this is at the moment that Steve and I actually are paths crossed, because you did come into that. That company, and I was. I was helping with some organization and stuff, and they asked me to just kind of stick by and help you, you know, get started and see where you could basically take that arm of. Of that agency.
And this is also the moment, just for full disclosure, that my divorce and my pivoting started. So when I say Steve was at the very beginning of my pivot and my change and my forcing of redirecting my life, and I'm not lying. Right. You were, like, right in the heat of that with me, like, through the tears and the frustrations and the struggle. And.
And the only reason I knew you were in real estate is because I said, I think I'm getting my real estate license. Or you said, well, let me tell you. Right, yes. Right, yes. So. So it's funny, I didn't know if this would come up or not, but that's. That was the core of the beginning of our. Our friendship, pretty much that moment in your. Your story.
[00:45:44] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah, yeah, right. During that time, I remember there were. I think you were doing like, some sort of mailers or something like that to, like, hair salons and florists or something like that.
[00:45:53] Speaker A: Yeah. He was trying to get me to cold call. And I learned in that moment I was not a cold caller either.
[00:45:57] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:45:57] Speaker A: Yeah, so he. So he had said, well, that's not gonna work. And then I actually, I blocked that out, Steve. That's how much I enjoyed it.
Totally forgot. But. But then I. Then he brought me in because I had it truck and to bring that office up to a little bit more of the techie world, because it was very much a paper world at the time, and we're talking about the wealth management side, not the insurance side of it. Yeah, right. Yeah, so. So that. But that's funny. Like, you know, you just as soon as you said you were. And you were by far an insurance. The smartest person in the office, but when you said that, I'm like, well.
[00:46:30] Speaker B: But that wasn't saying much. Right.
[00:46:33] Speaker A: But it did but that's that imposter syndrome.
[00:46:35] Speaker B: Right.
[00:46:35] Speaker A: Because when you came in because. Because no one else had any really real idea of it. The other women that I worked with in the office, they were wealth management.
[00:46:42] Speaker B: Right?
[00:46:42] Speaker A: Right.
You did. You were well up here in the level and knowledge of insurance, whether you felt it or not.
So it goes to the perception. Right. Like the. What we feel about ourselves and what people perceive about us. I would have. I would have never known that. You just pretty much stepped out of the.
Where you were and how you were feeling because you walked into that office and thought I got to figure this out. And that's what you sat down and you did in the. In the preservation and the willing to educate yourself. And by educating yourself, you were educating others. And I think that was the other draw in and us working together so well in that. Because there was like that side office for a little while that we. That Sean said, hey, let's move the insurance out. Remember we went to on the corner by Timeless Tattoo.
[00:47:27] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:47:28] Speaker A: And came back as you were educating me on insurance because you needed me to know things to help you out. But it was never. I can't believe you haven't learned that yet. Or isn't this the 10th time I'm telling you something. It's that patience of. And that's what you know, whether it's a real estate client or a insurance client or somebody. It's that the patience that you have and explaining. Because the education piece is. Is huge to you.
[00:47:51] Speaker B: It's super huge to me. And, and the challenge is it's again, I go back to where I was when I wasn't in insurance and I remember like the pre insurance me not caring at all about my insurance. Right. And now I'm the post insurance me and I have all of this like, like, like think I have all of these things I want to share. Right. And yet the topic and is. Is so mundane that people don't want list.
I mean people listen. I mean they have. It's not to say that no one cares at all. That's not true.
But I think it. You reach a point where you're like, you. You start and you're like. You can tell by somebody's kind of like reaction and stuff or like you're like, all right, this is it. This is gonna have to be like just a little. Little tidbit and not the full Steve explanation and about what we're trying to get after here.
[00:48:47] Speaker A: Because I do that with real estate. When you're passionate about something and you think it's important. You just go like, so much information. I always tell people, you get me talking about real estate and the rest of your day is done. Because I'm just, absolutely, I'm just going, yeah, yeah.
[00:48:59] Speaker B: Because it's fascinating. I mean, there's so many things about it and, and what gets me, you know, and this is, I think in some ways I'm trying to, you know, I've sort of come up through this now. Now I've kind of morphed into this thing where I'm trying to protect, I'm trying to protect the identity of the industry a little bit, right. Because I now, I now see things differently and know that like we'll get, for example, we'll get somebody who will call us, right? And they were with another office or they had a different policy or whatever, and they're shopping now their insurance, right? And they tell us why. Because we always ask like, what's got you out looking for insurance right now? And yes, you hear almost all the time that's, you know, price, price, price. It's a huge, you know, indication of, of why somebody is looking. But the second, the second most popular thing is I had a bad experience with my current agent, my current agency. Most of the time it's not even the agent of the agency. It's usually what they're really referring to is the carrier, right? The insurance company that that agency had them through or that they were with.
And the problem oftentimes is they denied me, I had a claim and this wasn't covered, right? And then we hear about it and I can almost assure you that the care. It wouldn't have been covered in any other carrier either.
And it's not because the carrier was trying to not take care of that claim. It was because that policy wasn't endorsed to have coverage for what happened. Just about anything can be insured. Particularly like in most of the times, it's, it's usually because of a property loss of some sort, auto insurance, not, it's, there's not that much of a nuance there where people get caught up in like, you know, one carrier covered it one different, but another one didn't.
It's usually a property loss of some kind, home insurance, that sort of stuff. And so the, the biggest thing is trying to take that person at that time and not over promise on that situation and make it seem as if like, oh, well, you know, I, that, oh man, I can't believe they didn't cover that. Right? Because it's, it's Typical, you know, for just random example, but like you could have like say water back up into your basement, right. And it comes up through the sump pump or whatever, maybe you have a finished basement, damages the whole thing, right. It can be tens of thousands of dollars of damage. But a homeowner's insurance policy does not have coverage on there for that unless it's endorsed and you have to add that particular coverage.
And most carriers cap it at a limit, you know, $10,000, $15,000, as much as they'll go. Some will say however much you want, you're willing to pay for it, we'll give it to you.
[00:51:46] Speaker A: Right.
[00:51:46] Speaker B: But it varies by carrier.
But at the end of the day, it's not on the policy unless it's been purposefully put on a policy.
And yet somebody has a loss and this isn't covered. And what I can say is, and this is for anyone who's not in the business, the idea of full coverage is not a thing.
There is no full coverage. Right. But you'll hear a lot of times like, oh, I thought I had full coverage or isn't this what insurance is for?
And so you have. And they, and it's the right thing for them to say.
It's what is believed. And I think the biggest thing that I run into when it comes to this sort of scenario is that you realize that, you know, insurance is probably the most frequently purchased thing for adults in this country and equally at the same time the most misunderstood thing that gets purchased. You know, and I think like those two things intersecting when they do they. They tend to intersect at the worst possible time, which is I had. This terrible thing has happened. I was in a car accident. My, my house like had all this water like that backed up from, like I said, from the sump pump or the drains overflowed or there was a kitchen fire or whatever it is and, or a tree fell on my in ground pool. And now what's going to happen? Like you begin to learn about what you purchased at a time where it's not the best time to learn, right? You need, you should have, or it would have been nice for you to have learned before. But our industry does not put a lot of emphasis on the informational part of it. It's all the price, right? Every ad you see is price, price, price, price, say 15%, call this number, save more, save, save, save. And meanwhile, nothing really at all is about like what this thing is that you're actually purchasing in the first place. And then, and then we get the phone call, right? At that point we're like, okay.
And then it just comes down to like how motivated or how interested the person that you're talking to is to provide that information to you. And then for you, how willing you are to consider how deep you want to go on it. Right. But my feeling usually is like, listen, we're going to have this conversation, I'm going to tell you all this stuff.
A year from now, you're not going to remember any of it or maybe a small part of it. But what I want the takeaway to be is you will at least remember that at the end of this conversation you felt good, better, comfortable, whatever that is. Remember that feeling. And then don't worry about remembering all this stuff. That's my job, I'll remember it. And then when you come back around because something happened, we'll talk about it again. All good? Yeah.
[00:54:36] Speaker A: So in listening, you talk about insurance, like I said, it's very similar how you talk about real estate.
What, what's the biggest difference in the way you feel about when you were selling real estate and now as you're issuing insurance policies and stuff like in internally for you?
[00:54:50] Speaker B: Yeah, I, I mean the biggest difference I think between the two is like kind of what I mentioned earlier, like there's a, there's an emotional connection to a real estate sale.
And whether it's the person who's purchasing the property or the agent, those two people have spent time together, right. And so you develop a relationship, you get to know these people, right. You have conversations that are about things beyond just like, well, all right, this house came up on the market and match what you're looking for. I'll meet you there too, to see it. Right? Like there are lots of things that you learn about each other along the way and you develop this relationship. And I know a lot of real estate agents and people involved in the real estate world become sometimes friends with their clients because of the length of time.
Insurance lacks that because it's much more transactional. Particularly with personal lines insurance, you're, you're in by personal lines. Again, this is, this is industry jargon. Now even that is, that's just like what you own personally, your own personal auto, your homeowner's insurance, umbrella, snowmobile, ATV versus commercial insurance, which would be for business related endeavors.
So for personal stuff, you know, you get auto insurance, theoretically you could call our office or any office really, and, and have a conversation with somebody, give them the information, they'll run it through, come back to you With a quote. And within two hours you could have had everything completely finished from start to start to conclusion. And you may not talk to that person ever again. Perhaps if there wasn't an issue and there were no.
[00:56:33] Speaker A: Keep renewing and renewing.
[00:56:34] Speaker B: Yeah, keep renewing or whatever it might be.
So there's a lack of development of relationships in that way.
[00:56:43] Speaker A: So can I ask, how do you like. Because it seems like you missed it a little bit. If that's the biggest piece, how do you fulfill that now? Is it through the family, through community, through the people you work with?
[00:56:52] Speaker B: Yeah, I guess, I guess it's probably through all of those things, really.
You know, it's, it obviously starts, you know, at home, you know, with, with the family. It goes then from, from that to, you know, we have younger kids, you know, they're all, they're involved in stuff, so you, you kind of become involved in what they're involved in. So you sort of talk to people there. You're sitting at a back to, back to back soccer game or something, let's say, and you talk to the other parents and you pass the time in that way.
And it's nice, obviously, because it's not all based on a business transaction that sort of spawned this relationship to begin with. So, in fact, I would say the majority of people that I talk to probably don't even know what I do for a living, really.
You know, sometimes it does, it gets out, you know, they. But I'm not, I'm not one to sort of lead with, hey, I'm Steven, I sell insurance. You know, like, I, I.
[00:57:53] Speaker A: Are you happy with your current insurance?
[00:57:55] Speaker B: Yeah. Right? Yeah. Let me tell you all about it while you glaze over and look for somewhere else to be. Yeah, no.
[00:58:03] Speaker A: So, so just kind of, you know, wrapping this up. I always say it's the decisions that we make that get us to where we are. Right. So the decision for insurance, really, that wasn't a quick one, right? It was, hey, do you want to do it? Hey, do you want to do it? Hey, do you want to do it? Is there any regret in taking that, or do you feel you're kind of like where you're supposed to be or.
[00:58:20] Speaker B: I totally feel like where I'm supposed to be. Yeah, I really do, I think, you know, and it's, it's evolved in the sense because, you know, we've grown as an office, we've grown as an organization, and we've, we've become, you know, we have core values. Right. Most many businesses do, but one of ours is called staying ahead of the curve, for example. And so what that means is we. We don't want to be just this old sort of crusty insurance office type of thing where it's like, oh, you know, like he's got his cup of coffee on his desk that's probably three days old and very cold, and I'll bet he drinks it, you know, like.
[00:58:56] Speaker A: Don'T walk into my other office, you know, so.
[00:59:00] Speaker B: So we don't want to be that. So we try to be. While. While insurance can be sort of mundane and boring in. In sort of some ways in terms of how people look at. We don't look at it that way, but a lot of people can.
But we're. We're constantly looking at ways that we can make what we do more cutting edge, even as a small local office, you know, what can we do with the technology and the other things that are out there that are available to us, but still keep that personal touch very, very much connected to it.
So one of the things we do, for example, and have for a number of years now, really, is something called video quotes. So when somebody reaches out to us for an insurance quote, most of the time the delivery coming back to the person isn't just an attachment in an email. Instead, our agents are getting on camera and they are recording themselves talking about the policy and talking about the coverages that they landed on for this proposal. And that gets recorded and it gets sent out, and it gives. What it allows for people to do at that time is, you know, if, let's say, for example, you were tasked with getting insurance quotes that day, but you have to go back to, let's say, like someone else in the family to talk about, like, what you learned, right? You're not the insurance expert in this situation, but instead of having to do that, the video just gets shared with that other person who can consume it themselves. Right? So again, it may not seem like this major big deal, but in the insurance space, I have to tell you, the bar is so low for anything that's beyond. Just like, here's your quote, you know, it's 1250 for the year. Do you want to do that monthly or in full? Like, there's so much more to it, and yet people don't have a lot of time. So if we can record this, send this out to them, and then they can consume it at their. At their leisure when it works for them. Great. Awesome.
And that's better now than sending an attachment that they're flipping through while they're standing in line at target and there's 22 pages of PDF and really all they're scrolling for is, what's the price? When am I going to get to the premium? Right? And this allows us to, of course we get to the price, but it allows us to at least talk about some of these things that are really impactful and hopefully keep you from having an experience where you call some other agent in three years and go, I'm shopping. Because I learned the hard way that X wasn't covered. We want to try to prevent that from happening, but we need to do it in a, in a way that's timely.
[01:01:42] Speaker A: Well, and it also makes you guys stand out, right? So people get stuck in where they are and they're like, we've always done it this way, we're always going to do it this way. And this way is going to be how we continue to do it. So the name of this podcast is ever changing and evolving because that's kind of how I see myself, like based on 2015, when I was like the stay at home mom working at the insurance, you know, haran companies with you and Sean. And then I had to pivot, right? That wasn't going kind of like you at the movie theater. Like, that was great. I enjoyed it. It was, I liked the people I was with, but there wasn't growth for me unless I got my insurance license or unless I did something like that. There was no, no growth. So I had to pivot, right? And I just find myself constantly pivoting and changing and growing because I find it exciting. I like to learn new things. And when I call you and I say, hey, what's going on?
You always have something like whether you just read a book or you're, you're listening to a podcast or you guys are incorporating something new into the business, right? So even though we talk about insurance because, you know, I have policies with you and I, I definitely a gloss over when you're telling me the gloom and doom stuff of it, but it, but it's what you do in your business and the education that you provide that I really think helps you get to the point that where you are and makes it a little bit more exciting than just, oh, I sell and I sell. Insurance is what, you know, is what I do. So you, you keep it changing and growing for yourself and you're, you put yourself in an environment where that's welcomed as opposed to somebody, a company that's afraid of changing. You know, like, well, if we do that, what's going to be the return on investment of that. Are we going to lose people on earth? You know, there's no, like, people don't change because of fear of change and what people are going to think. And I know that you do a lot of research before you do something, you know, and you look at statistics, things like that, but you're always like, you know, the company itself is always taking a chance and. And growing.
[01:03:29] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, yeah. And there's things that we. We tried and didn't go like.
[01:03:35] Speaker A: But you can smile about it.
[01:03:36] Speaker B: Right? That was a waste of time and money, wasn't it? Yep. Okay.
[01:03:40] Speaker A: But, yeah, so I don't want to take, you know, take up your entire day, because I could talk to you forever. But I guess the one thing I would say is if somebody is stuck, because whether you knew it at the time or not, like, Sarah probably thought you were stuck in. Stuck in real estate. You know what I mean? If you. Again, if you could have gotten your license here in New York, you probably would have. But somebody that's like, stuck, but they're like, I'm just going to keep doing what I do because it's always what I have done.
[01:04:02] Speaker B: Right.
[01:04:02] Speaker A: Is there anything you could share or a piece of advice or something to say to them that just, like, life.
[01:04:07] Speaker B: Could be more so? I think what I. Look, everybody's in a different position at different times in their lives, right? Like, whether or not you have kids or you don't have kids or you're. You're, you know, you're financially responsible. Whatever. Whatever it is that you. You have to do, if you're interested in something or something seems at least intriguing enough to investigate, investigate it.
Take it all the way to the edge where you lead yourself to that point where you now probably do need to make a decision. Either I'm gonna. Now I'm gonna go with this thing, or I'm gonna. I'm gonna put. Pull back.
There's no harm in really learning as much about something as you can and pursuing it up to the point where now the decision does have to be made. So do that. You know, do that in a way that isn't going to, you know, like, sacrifice what you're already doing, because you never know what could be at the end of that road. And as you go through it, things that you assumed to be true, you may learn aren't that way. And perhaps there is an opening for you to be able to pull this thing off that you wouldn't have ever given the light of day. And would have shut it down in your mind well in advance of this had you not. Had you not done that.
[01:05:17] Speaker A: And the decision is the huge piece of it, that people don't always make that decision and then that motion towards it, Right?
[01:05:24] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. That's awesome. Yeah. You don't have to say yes during your first inquiry with a place or what, really, whatever it is. Right. Like, yeah, you know, I don't know.
[01:05:33] Speaker A: Say no. No, no. How many times you say no to insurance before you said yes?
[01:05:39] Speaker B: I lost track.
The hammer on my head, though, is.
[01:05:42] Speaker A: You know, it was pretty good.
Yeah. Well, thank you, Steve, again, for helping me kick off this podcast. I'm excited. I do have a couple other guests that are coming, but the same thing, like where they start. Started in their life and where they ended up, for whatever reason, winds up in different pieces. So I think those stories are important for people to hear. So.
[01:06:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:06:00] Speaker A: Thank you.
[01:06:01] Speaker B: Thank you.
[01:06:03] Speaker A: And that's a wrap.
[01:06:04] Speaker B: Yay.
