How to Sell Benefit Changes Without Losing the Client with Lisa Gallagher

Hey, hey, welcome back to the Accelerate Your Insurance Sales podcast. Andy Neary, CEO and founder of Complete Game Consulting, where we help you sell more insurance with confidence and conviction. Today I am joined by Lisa Gallagher. Lisa is the employee benefits large group practice leader at Kappnick Insurance, bringing over 3 decades of combined experience in insurance consulting employer-side human resources and benefits leadership. In her current role, Lisa leads Capnick's large group employee benefits practice, overseeing a high-performing team dedicated to delivering tailored, high-impact benefits solutions. Lisa, welcome to the show.

Thanks, Andy. Happy to be here.

I'm excited to, to have a, a good conversation with you today about all things healthcare, health insurance for the mid-sized employer.

Mm-hmm.

I don't think that gets enough attention. I'm being absolutely sarcastic on that. Well, let's start here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I did not get in this business by design, and I know most people I know did not get in the insurance industry by design. What does your path into the industry look like?

Path came out of college, right? And I was HR-focused. And really looking for that entry-level job right out of school. And I'm old enough to where I responded to an ad in a newspaper for a benefits assistant at a Fortune company.

We need to describe to the youngsters what a newspaper is. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I sent in my resume via snail mail and waited for the phone call. All of those things, right? So yeah, I started, uh, with a Tier 1 automotive supplier in their benefits department, entry-level position. Didn't know what a deductible was. We still— like, our big initiative that year was to put in this brand new thing called a PPO plan. I'm really making myself a dinosaur.

Oh yeah.

Yeah. But I spent the first 15 years of my career actually on the employer side. You know, two companies. One, you know, tier one automotive global. The other one, office furniture manufacturing, but also global. Big, big self-funded plans. And spent 15 years doing that. And so when I moved to the agency side, I actually had a really interesting awakening because, you know, you spend 15 years doing large group self-funded employee benefits management and you think, you know, you're, you know it all. I knew nothing about how to service a fully insured client. I knew nothing about the nuances of non- manufacturing clients, you know, particularly specialty like law firms, accounting firms, physician groups, right, and the needs that they have, which in some regards are simpler, in some regards more sophisticated. So, you know, understanding different markets, understanding different kinds of employers, understanding the needs of different kinds of professions even, it was a little bit like starting over again. So that was back in 2011 when I started working for, you know, the, my first agent.

Yeah. Did when you made the jump from running one program for your employer to working for an agency, did you go right into a production role or were you more in a service account management role?

Yeah, I've never been directly in a production role. Interestingly, I've always supported production in one way, shape or form. Okay. So I was in a servicing role and I was with a boutique independent agency. So that's where I started. And, you know, this particular agent— I'm in West Michigan— this particular agent had a niche of just, you know, some really interesting, unique and large, large cases. And, you know, what I found that she was able to bring to those really large employers, she was definitely hitting above her weight class from that perspective. But it was that independent thought and creativity and the ability to, you know, make decisions quickly, pivot, be responsive to what that client needed at that particular moment really stood out to me.

Yeah, I think one of the advantages you probably had, you know, one, you're in a different space now where you're working with a lot of employers, not just one. But I always tell our clients, If you can ever put yourself in a position where you are serving the person you once were, you are in a very— you have a very good competitive advantage there. And what I mean by that is we've had HR professionals, right, make the jump to benefits advising. Well, guess what? You're serving the person you once were. You're serving HR professionals.

Exactly.

You running a benefits program for a private employer now advising them had to give you a little bit of a competitive advantage because you could look them in the face and say, I was you at one time.

Well, that's exactly correct. And that's something that, again, in that support of production, I was always very open about when I would look a prospective client in the eye and say, I understand what you're going through. I understand that even if you're a benefits professional, not just an HR professional, even if you're a benefits professional, the health and welfare component of what you do is just one very small slice of what you do and what you have to deal with. And, you know, I did always try to be the consultant that I wished that I'd had when I was on the employer side. And I do think it's a competitive advantage if you've sat in those shoes.

I love that story because it resonates with me. I mean, when I built Complete Game Consulting, My whole mission was I wanted to provide sales training, consulting to the industry I wish I had. And that's exactly what you've done here. You're able to go in and provide the kind of consulting and guidance you wished you had when you were the benefits manager. I probably didn't position your role correctly, but when you were managing the automotive company's benefits. Yeah, I love that. Well, let's talk about mid-sized. You know, I'll say, correct me if I'm wrong, I always feel Michigan's kind of a unique market, correct? A lot of—

we are—

a lot of union, you know, unions still very much drive the market there, correct?

I think there's a lot of union influence in the market for sure. You know, and even I think the market's changing, but we are one of the least competitive states when it comes to options and solutions for insured plans. We're definitely behind some other states within even the Great Lakes region with regards to self-funding for smaller employers, with regard to the ability to embrace things like reference-based pricing and some of those alternative solutions. You know, when we look to, you know, our clients and our partners that are in Indiana or Ohio, for example, one state over, right, they're light years ahead of the Michigan market with regards to the maturity of those kinds of things.

Yeah, I mean, I was sorry, I was just gonna say to your point, I don't— I haven't really actively sold in the Great Lakes market, but To your point, what I do know is you look at Indiana and Ohio, for example, I would say they are very self-funded savvy states, where you, to your point, just one border north, Michigan is not that way.

Yeah, but I think one of the big misnomers, so we can talk about Michigan being, you know, one of the least competitive states with regards to the availability in the market. We can talk about the, the the lack of, you know, self-funding for smaller employers or, you know, reference-based pricing. But, you know, I'll give props too to, to the carrier partners that we have out there because, you know, we typically aren't paying 600% of Medicare under a PPO network, right? So, you know, we're seeing, you know, 200 to 300% of Medicare as more of a normal state under a PPO plan, potentially even better for a tiered network or for a, you know, direct contract solution or something along those lines. So some of the need isn't there, right? So, and I'm not an expert in the Ohio market by any means, but you know, it's, if you're a small employer in the Ohio market, you're almost forced to go self-funded because the ACA plans are so uncompetitive. And so, you know, does so so expensive. And we don't necessarily have that same pressure. So it's all of those things, the union component, you know, the presence really of one dominant carrier with a few regional solutions, the, you know, where we are from a pricing perspective that's really created the place that Michigan sits right now.

Well, it's funny you say that because a couple things come to mind. You know, I see a lot of industry peers in the industry who grab a hold of a solution And then it becomes the hammer and everything looks like a nail. And they don't take into account the market they're trying to sell it in. They just preach, everybody needs this, whatever this is— reference-based pricing. I remember selling, uh, I represented a captive in 2017, and my job was to go find agency partners around the country. And I can remember we found one in Detroit And one of the caveats of the captive is you had to have an HSA, high deductible health plan. And he's like, bro, you are not stepping into this state line selling an HDHP. I can tell you that right now. And it was that lack of understanding the market.

Yeah, yeah.

And to your point, you have to know, even though Michigan's next door to Indiana and Ohio, it might be different, very different market conditions.

Agreed. Great. And, you know, all these things evolve, right? And, and you find pockets within different regions, right? Northern Michigan doesn't look like Southeast Michigan, which doesn't look like Southwest Michigan. And, you know, we have hospital consolidation happening just like every other state, but it's happening in its own kind of, you know, way and pattern as well. And so, you know, it's It's an exciting time if you are not afraid of change.

Ah, good.

And if you can be open-minded to the opportunities that those changes bring.

And then say that again. It's an exciting time if you're not afraid of change.

It's an exciting time if you're not afraid of change. You know, unfortunately, I've learned over the last 30 years that my crystal ball doesn't work very well.

I think that's a good message for us all though, even my own business. It's exciting if you're willing to change.

Yeah.

Well, let's dive into it. When it comes to healthcare right now and benefits strategy, where do you see a lot of large employers struggling right now?

So, I think there's that push-pull that this isn't a new thing, right? There's this push-pull between the, the needs of the business. So you've got this, this thing out there that is for some organizations their second largest expense, and they can't control it the way that they control other expenses within their business. And then you have an aging population, um, you have a healthcare ecosystem that is becoming more expensive for lots of reasons, right? And so, and, and the competition for talent is changing too, right? So during COVID it was get a warm body into the building, and that's not the problem anymore, but the competition for the right talent is probably, you know, more intense than it's ever been. So you've got this economic problem that an organization has where their second, third, you know, definitely top 5 expense is escalating in a way that can't be controlled, can't always be predicted, can't always be managed when you think about risk management. In traditional ways. But then you have this really important HR and people need to provide something that meets the needs of 5 generations in the workforce.

Is it 5 now?

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah. And so the solutions to bring forward, it's It's complex.

Yeah.

And then I think our role as agents is to simplify the complex for our clients. But to what degree can that be simplified?

Mm-hmm.

You know, in order— how do you, how do you bend when medical trend was 5, 6, 7%? We were saying this is unsustainable. This is greater than inflation. Et cetera, et cetera. You know, you're hoping to bend trend and beat trend by a couple of points to keep it somewhere like 2 to 3% or flat if you can. How do you, how do you take a 12 to 15% trend and create a meaningful bend without disruption?

Well, and I think you're—

that's tough.

Yeah, your point's well made, and I want people to hear this because I want your opinion on it. I think as an advisor you can take two paths in this industry. The easy path, in my opinion, is continuing to sell the carriers everybody knows, right? And, you know, renew, work on the account, renew it, maybe shop some of the other big carriers, switch the client back and forth, you know, between whoever wants to buy the business that year. And you can make a great living doing that. But for those that are truly wanting to create change, as you said, it's exciting times if you're open to change. By the way, that's true for advisors as much as it is employers.

Correct.

One of the things you have to be able to do, and I think this is a skillset we don't talk about enough, you have to be able to simplify what you're doing for them. I think one area consultants, advisors, whatever we wanna call 'em, screw up is you are selling a complex idea. If you can't simplify it in their mind, they're not going to do it. If they hear complexity or can they have confusion, they're not making a change.

Correct. And I think the other component to this is you can't boil the ocean. So if we're reacting to a bad renewal with, okay, here's a Frankenstein health plan with an independent PPA and 15-point solutions and the pharmacy is going to be carved out and this, that, and the other, right? There's not enough time for an organization to absorb that. So what we have to shift our thinking from is bad renewal, what do we do? We actually have to start thinking in the good years, this is the opportunity to make change. What are we looking to do 2 to 5 years from now? Not just this year. What are the actionable items this year? What are the actionable items 3, 4, 5 years from now, what do you want this to look like? Because then it gives you and your client time. Because at the end of the day, this is, you know, my clients, I'm not running their business. And benefits is one very small piece of a complex business that they're running and a complex cost structure and a complex workforce management strategy. And this is one very small piece of it. And so we have to take them on a journey where they have time to make incremental changes to get to something that they're willing to, to manage. And sometimes it's even how do you coach your client into thinking beyond what are we going to do this year. Okay, this is what we're gonna do this year. Let's think about next year. Wait a minute, I don't want to think about next year yet. But no, we need to think about next year because this year you didn't want to change carriers because of disruption to your workforce. But next year when that renewal comes in again and it's just as bad or it's worse, now you need to be prepared for what's the disruption in the network, what's the disruption on the pharmacy side, what's the disruption in the customer service side, what are the places where where there's improvements, what are those opportunities? And then you, you could apply that, that same journey to a funding mechanism change, right? Going from fully insured to being self-funded, going from fully insured to being part of a captive, going from a, you know, a pooled captive to a risk-reward captive. You could apply that same journey to anything that we do. So it's about patience and partnership.

Well, and to your point, I think that's a great strategy. You talked about the boiling the ocean, right? I think a lot of advisors come in and I'll just be honest, I think they want to be the hero. So what they do is they throw the kitchen sink at it, right? And let's implement 5 different things right now, which is extremely disruptive. Lisa, I can't tell you how many peers I've watched come in, throw the kitchen sink at something. It actually works when it— from the standpoint of saving money. It's so disruptive they get fired a year later. Instead, take everything you just did in a matter of weeks and turn that into a 3 to 5 year strategy. You can only boil one part of the ocean at a time.

And I think, you know, saving money is easy, right? And again, so it comes—

I wanted your opinion on this. Talk about this.

I mean, every business is different and every business and their tolerance for disrupting their workforce. It's, it's an equation between, you know, the financial pressures and the, the personnel pressures, right? So if the financial pressures are so great, like, we're going to go out of business if we don't cut 20% out of our, you know, our benefit spend, along with probably other things, right? Well, guess what? We, we can save money. And there's cost shifting and employee contribution increases and things like that too. But like, you know, you can really dismantle and put in place some really aggressive programs that will save that 20%, but at what cost? At what cost to access? At what cost to the employee experience? At what cost to, you know, just even people being able to understand how to access care? And the communications and the education and all of those things that ideally you would do over time because, you know, just like companies having lots of other things besides benefits to worry about, all of the employees have a lot of other things to worry about besides, you know, how am I going to figure out where my doctor is, you know. So just because it's open enrollment, we put out a benefit guide that's not where it stops.

Yeah, let's actually dive into that a little bit. 'Cause I think what you said earlier is spot on. Saving money is the easy part, right? There's a lot of ways to save a company money from just switching one fully insured carrier to the next, to introducing a very innovative health plan. There's a lot of ways to save money. And I think the battle cry for years has been, well, HR's resistance to change. That's why nobody's making changes. Listen, you were on that side of the table at one time. In your opinion, if you're a producer, an advisor trying to make change for a client, whether that is a new funding mechanism or a cost containment strategy, how do you help the client, especially the HR team, navigate that change?

Sometimes it's just about a little bit of role play, right? Is the juice worth the squeeze? Because You can, can do things that 90% of the population is going to perceive as good. Someone is going to perceive that as bad. And are there someones within your organization that if they perceive this as bad, it's going to derail your change management effort? You know, so let's just say, let's take something easy. We're going to change carriers. You know, we're not even talking about Creative Point Solutions or, you know, third, you know, independent TPAs and care management and all of those things. We're just going to change carriers. And gosh, we've got a 99% provider match. They were in-network here, 99 out of 100 are going to be in-network over there. Pharmacy, like, you know, we're just gonna grandfather everybody and then we'll communicate over the next 6 the places where we have disruption, and we'll do it really gently, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, so the, the 1 out of 100 carriers that is disrupted is the CEO's wife's chiropractor.

Of course, right?

Like, that's how it works. It is that disruption tolerable by your organization, right? And these are at heart fiduciary conversations. And the fun thing about a fiduciary conversation and, you know, in kind of the foundation of ERISA is it's not cut and dry, right? It's a process of evaluation. This is what is best for our organization. This is what's best for, you know, our plan participants. And it's not always what's the cheapest for our plan participants. What's the cheapest for the plan? It's kind of more of that holistic conversation.

Yeah, I think one of the mistakes I see producers and agencies make when they're rolling out or trying to sell a new solution, whether it be a funding mechanism like level funding or a captive or some cost containment point solution, I think they oversell it. And what happens is when you oversell it, it comes with expectations. And if those expectations—

this is gonna be easy. Exactly.

If those expectations aren't met, no matter how, no matter what kind of result it created, they don't like it. I actually urge, I would urge people to undersell that solution. Not that you're trying to sell them away from it, but undersell it so that you set the appropriate expectation. I love that you just add, how much disruption are you willing to take? So that when the disruption occurs, there's that, oh, that's right, we were told this is going to happen. I just see too many, too many consultants and advisors right now overselling a solution, and because they're so adamant about the result it's going to create, but they're not taking a look at the expectation being set in the buyer. And unfortunately, a lot of times those expectations aren't being met.

Right. And, and, you know, ultimately, health insurance is this thing that our clients provide to their employees, and there's a subset— set 80/20. It might even be less than 80/20 at this point. It might be 90/10 or 95/5. But there's really only a small subset of the population that gets dollar-for-dollar value out of that, right? So your average person, and this number has probably changed a lot over the last few years since I've looked at it, right? But how much of your population hits even a $5,000 deductible? 20%, maybe?

Maybe. Right?

Right. And, you know, we're paying $20,000, $25,000 per employee per year for a good fully insured plan now. Self-funded plans should be able to outperform that. Right. For a family. Families aren't getting $25,000 worth of value from this.

Yeah.

Right. But those people who need it, they're getting that plus. Right. So, so it's, it's an underappreciated program for the vast majority of the people that, that are employed by your clients. But for those who need it, for, you know, the disruption hurts. So if you kind of go on just the, oh, you know, most of your people will be fine with this change, we're only disrupting a few people. Well, which few people are we disrupting? Like, let's talk about that. Yeah. Let's be really upfront about that. Let's be really honest about that.

Yeah, isn't it interesting that it wasn't all that long ago that $25,000 got you a house? Yeah, and $25,000 today gets you access, ticket to entry to the healthcare system.

I know, I know.

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Yeah.

What mistakes do you see employers making when they're rolling out benefit changes to the workforce?

I think it's really— and this is where we have to change as agents. We have to be ready to not just advise on the efficiency of a self-funded health plan versus a fully insured plan, or the financial mechanics of how we're going to prove ROI. We have to be ready to consult with our clients about change management. Because if we sell them something on the basis that this will be easy, there's no disruption, 95% of your people will see the same doctor that they saw, you know. Yeah, we're going to carve out specialty drugs, but everybody's going to have access to their specialty drug through these manufacturer programs. And then if they don't, we're going to come back and we're going to cover it under this HRA solution that's behind the scenes. And, you know, it'll, it'll all be fine. It's all going to work great. It's not. It doesn't always work great. Yeah. You know, it works great when you take the time to prepare. What does this look like? Today, I don't think about it. I go to my local pharmacy, I pick up my prescription, it's like, okay, no-brainer, right? Tomorrow, I'm going to pick up my prescription at a pharmacy, but then I'm going to get a phone call from the PBM to say, hey, the next time you go fill this, it's not going to be covered. You have to now go through this process for manufacturer's assistance, and yeah, we'll help you, but you still have to do it. That's different. That's disruptive. I'm a busy person. I don't want to do that anymore, you know. So again, you can get there, and you can get to the positive, and you can get to the, the, those things. But if you're not prepared for the noise, if you're not really ready to say, I'm ready to get a call from my CEO that his wife can't see his chiropractor anymore, then you got to rethink it. You got to think about, again, is the juice worth the squeeze? And then you have to be ready to measure. And that's again where we come in. We have to be able to measure it and show it.

Well, and I think you're almost referring to role-playing in a way, right? I think good benefits education includes role-playing. To your point, it's one thing to tell a room full of the workforce about the changes and, you know, now that you got this logo on your card, here's what will happen. But actually walking through scenarios like you just did, when you walk into the doctor's office and you give them the card, here's how they might respond. And here's what that means. When you go to the pharmacy and they give you this that you're not used to, here's how you respond. Those role— that role-playing is really important because if you just gloss over it, and employees then have that scenario play out in real time and they're not, they don't know how to react, within seconds they now have a terrible health plan. And they're— and guess, and guess who they tell when they feel they have a terrible health plan? All their colleagues, right?

And they're probably already complaining about the health plan, to be honest with you, right? But this is, this is a, a new way to complain about it. You know, there's a lot of good material out there on change management. And, you know, so it becomes for us as consultants and agents, right? It's our duty now to educate ourselves on how do we walk our clients through this because there is a tipping point happening even in states like Michigan, right? Where the trajectory is finally at that, or it's no longer sustainable point. And, you know, it doesn't have to be hard, but change management always starts with a— like, you have to create some community around why a change is necessary. So that's another cultural shift for some employers. They might not be used to talking to their people about, you know, this is how much this costs us. And, you know, when I was at the office furniture manufacturing company, we even talked about like, can we represent how many chairs do you have to build in order to cover somebody's health insurance? Right. And I think those are valuable things.

Very valuable. It's no different than how I would train a producer today to sell what they're selling. You have to be able to equate what you do to their world. And I love how you just said that. If an employer could equate what health insurance means to these employees based on what they produce, in this case, furniture, guys, every employee we provide benefits to requires us to manufacture X number of pieces of furniture.

Yeah.

Getting employees to understand that, I think, would go miles in getting them to understand how important it is that they understand what's going on.

Right.

I love that.

And that's the cool thing though about being part of, you know, the consulting world versus the individual employer space, right? So, I'm kind of half and half with my career, half employer, half consulting. And every— this is going to look different for every client that you work with. What is that equation? How do you engage your people? How do you get them to to be invested in the change with you.

100%.

This is important. We have to change, right? There's a book out there called The Company That Solved Healthcare. Yep.

And 20 miles from where I live.

Yeah. And, you know, they did a lot of that. They invested people in that. And then they brought kind of, you know, a dividend to people who were invested and engaged. In, you know, finding better care solutions, right? Better value providers, billing issues, things of that nature. So you have to get your people engaged and, you know, that's hard to do.

I'd love your opinion then. Let's wrap here and then we're gonna get to know Lisa a little bit. In Michigan, are you seeing more employers open to some of these alternative funding solutions like a level funding, partial self-funding captives?

Yes. Yes.

What's your answer? Here's what I'd love your take. What's your answer to the employer who says, Lisa, we need savings, but we don't want disruption? Is that even a realistic expectation?

Then your opportunities for savings are limited to the places where you have inefficiency. Versus savings in the disruptive components of delivering care to an individual employee.

Okay.

So it limits it, but it doesn't take savings off the table. And, you know, having real open and honest conversations with your clients about their businesses and getting to know their business is important here too. Can we create efficiency in the way that we administer things? Right? Is your BEN Admin being done with your payroll system? Are you using, you know, Employee Navigator? Like many agencies, we offer Employee Navigator as, you know, a low-cost benefits administration platform. Is that the best fit for your organization? Do you have a third-party BEN Admin platform? Like, what do those things look like? Can we create efficiency? Can we, you know, look for those opportunities? Can we create efficiency in your process? Can we— there's different things that you can start to look at. Yep. Even, you know, can we educate employees on the high-value providers within your network? So within your existing Blue Cross Network or Aetna Network or United Network, or, you know, we have two regional providers, Health Alliance Plan and Priority Health. And, you know, we do business in, in Ohio and Indiana and Wisconsin, and we have clients that are all over the country. So we'd go through the same exercise regardless of, you know, the carrier selections there. But are there providers that, that have value so that, that we can drive people to? And, you know, So here's, here's an idea. This is not my idea. I'm not going to take credit for it, but I think it's a great idea. Two hospital systems in the same city, and one has the big fancy NICU. And so delivering a baby, just even if it's an uncomplicated pregnancy, uncomplicated delivery, delivering a baby is probably $10,000 more than going down the street to the other. Chances are your physician has admitting rights in both places. So, okay, we don't have a narrow network, we're not restricting access, but if you, you know, deliver your baby here, you know, you'll get a gift card for, you know, Amazon or for Buy Buy Baby or for something along those lines where we'll, you know, support diapers for 6 months or something along, you know, like Can you do things like that to engage people within the confines of the program that you have? Those are opportunities too.

Well, and I think incentives have to be a part of the equation. You know, a phrase that has been in my mind for years, I forget who said it, and an author wrote it in their book, doctors will get off their pedestals when we get off our knees. You know, when patients get off their knees, I think we take everything the doctor says as gospel to your point. Same doctor, two facilities, $10,000 difference in price. No difference in quality, no difference in the outcome, but literally based on where that doctor performs that procedure. And having the willingness to say, hey, do you have admitting rights or opportunities in any other facility? Unfortunately, I think we still have to incentivize people, employees to do that.

We have to make it easy for them to know where to get that information. And I don't know that that's been really solved. Yet. You know, and I think that's an emerging opportunity, especially with AI, with technology. You know, the— I have this utopian dream that one day these machine-readable files that are all out there, that they're going to be accurate and they're going to be complete and somebody's going to read them and use AI and say, here's where you should go for this procedure and here's where you should go for this procedure and here's where you should go for this procedure. And it's all easy and at my fingertips, you know, on an app. And I've seen some early versions of that, but a lot of that is dealing with really kind of incomplete source data and then extract, you know, using AI to make extrapolations. And, and, you know, the, the, the big piece here is though is that still might not be the right place for me. I might have a complication or I might have something going on where that's not right for me. And that's where the independent primary care physician would come in. So there, there's a lot of pieces to this ecosystem, but none of it will work if you can't make it simple.

None of it will work if you can't make it simple, and it won't even be available if you can't be open to change. Right? Last thing, last question I wanna ask you before we dive into you a little bit. So what would be your advice to an employer right now? I mean, there are, the good news is there is a lot of cost containment point solutions out there, right? Whether it is the funding mechanism or some form of cost containment that addresses pharmacy, surgery, primary care, you name it. Knowing that there's so much out there, I think employers are being hit with it more and more every day. What would be your advice to that mid-sized employer right now who's going, okay, I have so much flying at me with this benefit stuff, I don't know where to start?

So the first thing that I would say is actually be willing to be uncomfortable. It doesn't mean that you have to adopt an uncomfortable solution today, but be curious about the solutions that make you uncomfortable. And with some of our strategy sessions with clients, we actually go in sort of purposefully and transparently, like our goal here is actually to find that place where you're a little uncomfortable with the ideas being presented because we kind of know that's the edge culturally for you. It's awesome, right?

I love that.

And let's explore that. Yep. Um, because that's where you have to find that magic because I'm not in— and I've had this conversation with lots of clients too. I'm not here to tell you that you should be self-funded. I'm not here to tell you that you should be fully insured. I'm not here to tell you you should be with a captive. I'm here to bring you ideas. Yep. And solutions that we feel confident are solid solutions. And now this is your business. So let's decide together. Let's guide you through making a decision for your business. If you make a decision that doesn't align with me philosophically, I'm going to support that because it's That's my duty. Yeah, right, because you got to do what's right for your business.

Resonates with me because I always told my clients, my job is to, to, to show you what's around the corner, and you're not, you're not going to like it all, you're not going to want to take advantage of it, but that's my job, is to constantly show you what's next. I even told them, I'm going to share ideas with you that I think work today, and I'm going to share them until I think there's something better. And I think too many advisors sit on the sidelines not sharing anything because they it has to be perfect before, or there has to be a guarantee of some sort before they're willing to promote or share it. Our job, we're human, we make mistakes. Our job is to share ideas.

Well, and I promise you, the fear of making a mistake, every agency, every business, mistakes happen. Yeah. Right? So partnerships, mistakes become, opportunities. Yep. If you have a, if you, if you have a partnership with your, with your client. Um, so I, I'm not afraid of that part of it. It's more about how can we be transparent, how can we be, um, in that spot where, where the partner that's cutting edge and wants to, is ready and, and, and, and can take on some of that risk, right? That have that risk tolerance. Let's go do cutting-edge things with them, right? The client that's really conservative, let's respect that space. But that doesn't mean we don't open the window and show them what's going on over here.

Yeah, don't pound them on the head. Don't pound them on the head with the hammer of cost containment.

Right. And so it's okay that you're in this conservative space and you have, unions that, you know, are a little more conservative and all of those pieces, that's okay. Let's show you what's available to you and what other employers are experiencing from a success and from a failure perspective too. Because to me, you can't be on that leading edge if you're not willing to try things that don't work. Yep. Sometimes. I love that.

That's a good lesson for advisors too. If you're going to help your clients make change, you have to be able to get uncomfortable too.

Exactly.

Well, Lisa, it's been an honor. Um, I really have enjoyed this conversation. I do want to wrap, uh, with, with a little get to know Lisa. Uh, something you wrote in the notes before the, the show that really actually resonated with me was, uh, 2019. Yeah, you actually stepped away from the industry. Um, that hit home. I actually almost stepped away in 2011. What, uh, what led to that decision?

Combination of personal stuff and burnout. So my husband's a small business owner. His business was booming. We were at a space where, you know, the kids were all really active. None of them were driving yet. We couldn't— we weren't doing life well. We couldn't get kids to the dentist, right?

Yeah.

And so, you know, we had the financial stability for me to to step back, but the burnout piece kind of, it came from, it wasn't immediate, but maybe 2 years before that, I'm sitting in a client meeting and we're with a carrier and the carrier's going through the annual results and, you know, kind of waving away like the, the, oh yeah, it's okay that your diabetics are costing you 10% more than they did last year because we have these drugs that they're taking that are much more expensive, but that's keeping them out of the hospital. And like, so it's, it's, it was that story, right? Yep. And I'm like, I had this like, and I'm looking around the room, and, and this carrier was my carrier when I was at one of my employers, and one of my consultants is now on the carrier side. Like, it's the same people. Telling the same story that I was told when I was early career on the employer side. Like, it's okay that this is more expensive because, you know, we're— we have less complex care, we have less high-cost claims, we have less admissions, we have less this, we have less that. And like, we're making more money.

We're making more money.

Yeah, it's like, what am I even doing? Like, what's the impact that we're having?

Yeah.

So, you know, it was good to take a step back. And then, you know, kind of find myself accidentally back in the business, which was never the plan.

Yeah. What led you to come back in?

Necessity. I'm not gonna lie. COVID hit my— our business pretty hard. And so we like paying the mortgage. And, but I was, you know, I was definitely not coming back to agency world. I found an opportunity though for a compliance position at a national agency. This was my first and only foray into the big nationals. The rest of my agency life has spent with privately held, um, and independent. And I was like, okay, I could do this. I'm a little bit of a compliance nerd, and, and being part of those smaller independent agencies, right, you, you kind of get opportunities to specialize in different things. So I was the compliance director for this region of a big national agency for 2 years, and then I was promoted into an EB operations leadership role. And what I found was a newfound joy and inspiration in leading people, getting them to think a little bit differently about how they were servicing clients. Yep. Really partnering with my producers on how do we find that sweet spot of what this employer needs versus what we can uniquely bring to the table. And so, you know, I don't do the direct client work anymore, but I've kind of found a new love for the, the business again.

I love that you said that because I, yeah, I don't tell people this a lot. In 2011, when I stepped— I almost stepped away, I actually technically did because I quit where I was, and it was a very short time off compared to you. Uh, it was just a few weeks, but I quit. And a few weeks later, I got a call from an agency, another local agency that was specifically large group self-funding, something I'd always want to get into. And, uh, I don't know if I would have taken it had I, had I been in the position, not been in the position I was in. And that decision to join that firm changed my career. But I think stepping away even for weeks was one of the best things I could have ever done.

Yeah. Yeah. It's good sometimes from that fresh perspective. And I would also say like as a leader now, it does help me. Like my team goes through burnout fourth quarter every year. Somebody, you know, and I do think it's possible to go through fourth quarter without being burned out, right? You have to have some strong boundaries. You have to know when like when you need to step away because the quality of what you're doing is going to suffer if you don't step away. And, and, you know, you have to plan in and you have to plan for it. So I think it's possible to go through a fourth quarter, but every year has its own sort of unique hell when we, we get into, to fourth quarter.

Yeah.

And so, you know, I do have conversations with people who are feeling that burnout, and I can, you know, kind of going back to As a consultant, I feel like I was a better consultant because I was on the employer side. I feel like having been in that role, having experienced the burnout, having walked away, right? I'm in a better position too to coach people through those times of burnout. Yep. And try to keep them encouraged. Now, my team.

I'll say it again, Lisa. Yeah, they're everything. You are best positioned to serve the person you once were. And in your case, that has multiple layers. Advising a company that you used to be at, right? You used to be the grunt running the benefits for the private firm, but even today, helping your team through Q4 and helping them avoid burnout. Well, guess what?

That was you.

You're still helping the person you once were.

And sometimes the only advice that I have for them is, you know, you need to remember that You still have a family, you still have, you know, you still have a life and you need to honor that and rebalance accordingly.

Lisa Gallagher, everybody. Lisa, this was awesome. Thank you for taking the time to do this.

Thanks, Andy.

If somebody was inspired and wanted to reach out to you, what would be the easiest way to get in touch?

You know, LinkedIn is great. So yeah, I kind of keep tabs on that. I don't ignore it. And so I take LinkedIn messages all the time.

Awesome. Well, catch Lisa Gallagher, Capnick Insurance, on LinkedIn. Hit her a note, connect with her, shoot her a DM, tell her you love the episode. Uh, be good, everybody.