Building Brand Recognition Through LinkedIn Newsletters with Madison Urtso

Hey. Hey. Welcome back to the Broker's Voice. I am excited this week because I have Madison Erzo joining with. Joining me. Madison's coming from the dfw. She is the vice president of Risk Management consulting with Marsh. Marsh, mma. I'm gonna say Marsh McLennan, mma. We'll just call you mma Madison. Welcome to the Broker's Voice.

Thank you, Andy. I'm so excited to be here. I've been an avid watcher of your previous.

Episode, so I'm. I'm honored to be here with you.

Well, anytime we can highlight somebody doing good work, that is what this show is about. So I'm excited to have you on because that is what you're doing. But before we get into that, you have a cool story to share about how insurance became.

Something you wanted to actually get into, because you're one of about five people I might know that actually went to college for risk management. But talk about your first experience with this thing we call business insurance.

Well, you know, Amy, it's so funny because taking you back a little bit further on how I decided to major in risk management, I went to the University of Georgia, so any Bulldogs?

Bulldogs. Two time national champs.

So I went there and I remember sitting down with my dad and I knew I wanted to go into business. And there were probably five majors that were offered. It was like finance, accounting, risk management, business management and marketing. And my dad was like, risk management looks really cool. I didn't know this was a major, but what he thought risk management was, was actually like, you know, hedging utilities, prices and commodities and like interest rate risk and these really sexy financial mechanisms that he actually did as a management consultant for Accenture. And so then I realized after my first week of school when I took all my intro classes, that it was actually an insurance degree. And my dad wanted me to change my major. But there were 30 people in my intro to Insurance class and there were 300 into my intro to Finance class. And I was like, the opportunity is here. And I'm really glad I stuck with it because only a few years later, I had a really interesting first experience into the agent broker world. I was interning for my stepdad and he had a consulting firm on the HR side and I was a summer intern, and he was actually a July renewal for his business insurance. And he was like, I know you're an insurance meter. Do you want to see sit in on this meeting with my agent? And I was like, sure. At the time, I didn't know if I wanted to go on the underwriting side or the broker side or what I wanted to do. And so I sat in on that meeting, and I will never forget.

How bad it went. You know, my. My stepdad. It was the week of his renewal, by the way. So it was the. The agent came in five days before his renewal delivered an insane increase. My stepdad's face was, you know, beat red. He was. His fists were both clenched. He was so, so, so angry. And I remember thinking, you know, is this. Is this what it's like? Like, is this what agents do for their clients? You know, is it always this bad? Does it. There was no line of sight, no budget certainty, no consultative approach. And even as a young college student, I was like, this is not it. You know, if this is what agents do, I don't want to be a part of that. But then I debriefed with my stepdad after the meeting, and he was like, you can do so much better than that. He's like, let that be a learning experience that, you know, the status quo, if that's what the status quo is, rise above that and do something different. And so that's why I chose to go on the broker side was because I saw an opportunity to make it a better experience for insurance buyers and really flip that script and, you know, hopefully not make insurance something that everyone is abhorrent to. So that's how I. That's how I got here and became an advisor, was because I saw firsthand what a bad advisor looked like.

Well, it's. Your story's not uncommon, unfortunately. You know, it's funny to hear your. Your biological father, when he heard that it's actually an insurance major, not risk financing. Was the. It's the famous old, oh, it's insurance. And you could. He wanted you to change your majors. Fast forward to your experience with your stepfather. You know, you and I talked about this offline one of our coaching sessions about unexpected surprises. And unfortunately, in this industry, you know, that's what we experience far too often, is delivering the unexpected surprise. And what you witness sitting. Sitting at the conference room table there that day was not only was this broker delivering an unexpected surprise the week of the renewal, which is already a problem, but he had. He had no concept of what that increase was doing to your stepfather's business.

Exactly.

He had no concept of what was going on in here as your. As he was thinking about what he was going to have to do with his budget because of this increase. He was given days before he had to make a decision.

Yep.

And I hear this so often from people who come from the outside into the industry. Maybe they were an Aflac rapper, colonial rapper, something. Now they're on the retail side as an advisor. It comes from an experience they watched when they watch brokers who quite frankly are making good money, not doing anything.

Yeah.

Or giving any good advice. And they're like, I can do this.

And so that, that's so, so interesting. Now let's talk about. You know, your tagline is you're here to make insurance fun again. And, and for many people, that word insurance just makes them cringe, especially when you think about the, the people who buy it. What's your concept of that? What's, what's your theory about making insurance fun again? Because again, most businesses who had to have had to use it before because of a claim.

Often have a negative experience.

Yeah.

And so how, how can we make insurance something more businesses have fun with?

Yep. And you know, it's funny, Andy, I get this question a lot because the people that read my bio on LinkedIn, they'll see my tagline at the end, make insurance fun again. And of course, it's a play on words. If, you know, you know, I think everyone realizes what I was doing there. But, you know, I'm not going to put on rose colored glasses and assume that I can make insurance a fun experience. But what I can do is I can make it a better experience. Because to your point, it's the one thing you have to buy that you get punished for using. So if you have a claim, a bad claim, you'll see in your renewal the next year that you're going to get an increase, usually in line with whatever the carrier paid out the previous year. And so most people have a negative experience. So while, while I don't think that people are going to list insurance on their hobby section of Facebook, you know, assuming that it's something they have fun with, I do think that I can make it a positive experience. Right. And that comes with truly having a vested interest in the business of the people that you're working with. So understanding their business.

You know, trying to be a part of and understand what's their culture, what, what are their goals, what are their roadblocks? Because while insurance may not necessarily be a solve on the front end for any of those things, it plays an integral part in those things. And so if you as the broker or the advisor, doesn't understand what they're trying to accomplish and doesn't understand what stands in the way of them accomplishing that you're never going to be able to deliver for them. And so by simply being a true partner for people, it automatically coincides with a more positive experience because they know they're working with someone that cares. They know they're working with someone that understands where they're trying to get. And also, you know, having someone that doesn't necessarily, you know, paint over the fact that insurance has been a negative experience. I mean, I'm, I'm very transparent with my clients and that transparency leads to trust. And trust ultimately, you know, forms lifelong relationships where, where you end up having a relationship rather than this out, you know, conduit to the insurance marketplace that a lot of advisors become inevitably.

Yeah, no, I think, you know, and let's not just crap on insurance. There's, there's businesses out there who's, who've been saved.

Yeah.

Because of insurance as well. But at the, at your point, you said it so well, you know, it's, it's one of the things we buy in life. We get punished for using. And that's true whether you're buying commercial insurance or health insurance. Right. A company is using the health insurance or you're using the health insurance individually, guess what? You're going to see a fairly significant increase the following year. And so let's talk about, you know, one thing where you're at in your business. You're, you're still fairly, I'd call you fairly early in your career. You're a younger advisor having a lot of success. I want you, I want to talk about, about something I think a lot of young advisors go through and that is imposter syndrome. And you're going after big business. Like you're in the DFW market. You're going after big accounts, talking to big, big, big time CFO CEOs executives. Talk about when you walk in that room, that conference room with the executive at a company that represents, you know, a couple hundred, maybe on a thousand employees.

Talk about that imposter syndrome that you, that, that can creep up and what you do to make sure that you are still walking confidence that yes, I understand this is a big company, but I'm here to do a job.

Yeah, I've struggled with imposter syndrome my entire career.

Welcome to the club.

I've shared that with you quite a bit. Even in my first role as an advisor several years ago.

I would have success, Andy, and I would explain it away. I'd be like, oh, you know, it was really good timing. They just, they were pissed at their broker And I called at the right time, right. Or you know, oh, you know, maybe it was just one of those things that they just wanted to change. And I was the first person that came to mind. And so I always explained away my success because I never believed that I deserved it. I was like, oh, I'm, I'm, you know, I've only been in the industry 5 years. Why would a CFO of XYZ company want to partner with me? Right. And so then I realized that the more success I had, I couldn't continue to explain it away. Right. There had to be something that I was doing, a value that I was bringing, something that I was doing differently that was resonating and was something that they were looking for. And I had to find a way to internalize that and build that self confidence. I think a lot of times too. And not to play the female card, but this is a very male dominated industry. And so for decades and decades previously, the people that were building multi million dollar books of business were all men. And so there's also that facet of it that's like these people are going to doubt me. They're not going to, they're going to probably explain away my success as well. And so the seeds of doubt that would kind of plant internally and externally and how I really got over that was you're working on daily affirmations, just looking in the mirror at myself. You've accomplished xyz, this is your goal, you're going to get there, you bring a ton of value. And just realizing that it's okay to pat yourself on the back sometimes and be like, okay, I did this, I've been working towards this and I finally achieved it and am I done working? No, I'm only going to get better. And so I think if I could give any piece of advice to young advisors, to female advisors, maybe to advisors that are in a lull because there are highs and lows in this business.

It would be to take a moment to step back at a 30,000 foot view and look at all the work that you've put in over the course, whether it's seven years, whether it's one year, whether it's 20 years, look at all the work that you've done, where you started and where you are now and celebrate that and realize that if you put in the work and you worked on yourself and you've had success in your career, you have the ability to build upon that. You just have to allow yourself to have some grace and recognize that you're here for a reason and that the grind never stops. You got to keep going and just pick up and have that confidence to walk into that boardroom.

Yeah. I mean, there's several lessons in there in what you just said. I think we're an industry that prides itself on knowledge. And that's where a lot of the imposter syndrome comes in, is you're comparing your knowledge to your peers and your competition. But what people fail to realize is when you walk in the room with a prospect, it doesn't matter what your competition thinks or their level of knowledge. You have to go in understanding confidently that I have more knowledge than the person I'm about to speak to. I don't care if it's a CFO of a thousand, you know, life group with, with a, with a $2 billion revenue stream. Like, I know more about my, my product, my area of expertise than the person I'm about to talk to.

Yeah.

And you bring up a very good point, part two of this. And by the way, this goes for men too. Because when you're a good looking individual, there's that argument that that's what opens doors. You're good looking. Again, I know young, I know male advisors, good looking guys that get in the door with a female decision maker.

Yeah.

And there's this thing in the business of likability and credibility. Right. Likeability can get you in the doors, which includes looks.

Yeah.

But when you, when that door closes, you got to establish credibility. And I think that's what's important for people to realize is when you have that ability to open doors like that, now is your opportunity to step in confidently to establish the credibility that you're here, you know what you're talking about. You have a legit process and I'm here to earn your business 100. I think a lot of people need to hear that.

I agree. And you brought up an excellent point about the technical side of the business. I think a lot of people early on in their career hold themselves back from taking action because they're like, oh, let me just take one more insurance exam and get one more designation and, and learn one more line of coverage because they're so fearful that if they get in front of a buyer that they're going to squander the opportunity or that they're going to ask them a question about the E modification factor that they're not going to know and then it's, you know, it's going to completely just blow the opportunity. But in reality.

You, when you're walking into that boardroom with the CFO or the business owner of a business. And while insurance is a line item on the balance sheet that is quite large, it's not something usually that that they are experts in. And so having the confidence that.

You may.