The Broker's Voice: Jordan Eckley, Chief Strategy Officer - Apollo Insurance Group

Hey.

Hey. Welcome back to the Broker's Voice. I'm excited to have an individual on today that I met probably about a year ago, a little over a year ago, young, young advisor in the industry. He, his brother, his dad own an agency that is growing insanely fast. So I can't wait to talk about it. But before we get there, I want to make a quick plug for our sponsor Agency Annex. If you are in need of a website, you're an insurance agency and you're feeling like your website is a bit stagnant, aka it still says the same thing it said 10 years ago. It is time for you to upgrade your website and there's no better team to do that for the insurance industry than Agency Annex. Steve Conka built my website, his team. I couldn't say better things about them. So I am going to put a link in the notes. In fact, I am going to share this right now. I'm going to put the banner to Steve's email right there. Here's his email. Steve Solutions. If you're an agency, you need a better website. It's time to take action. Now get a hold of Steve. You won't be disappointed. All right, let's get into today's episode. I'm going to bring on the one and the only Jordan Eckley with Apollo Insurance. Jordan, how you doing man?

I'm doing great. Is the weather here in Kansas City has been pretty fantastic. So looking forward to summer getting here.

Well, I can't tell you, man. I know we are usually a predictor of the weather you're about to get because I'm in Colorado and it's gray, cold and rainy today. So I apologize. I think this might be coming your way anyways. No, no, no. Welcome aboard, Jordan. We're going to talk about what you guys are doing at Apollo because I think it's awesome. But before we get there, I'm excited to share your story with people watching Broker's Voice because you and I have a very similar story. You are a pretty damn good baseball player. Let's start there before you got into the insurance world because you came, let's call it. You are a second generation advisor, right? Your dad's been in the industry for several years. Talk about your baseball career a little bit before you got into insurance.

Yeah, yeah. Well, I started out at Rockhurst University, old D2 here in Kansas City. Ended up transferring to after my freshman year was a first CMAL conference as a redshirt freshman. Ended up transferring to Mid American Nazarene University. Actually Studied pastoral ministry there, which is what kind of, you know, took me to Mid America. But while I was there, I was really fortunate enough, played some, some really good baseball. We made it to first time in school history. Made it to, you know, the postseason collegiately and went down to Georgia and played. Had a phenomenal time there. Was a All American honorable mention my sophomore year in college, Preseason All American my junior year and then my senior year was a first team all in American. Led the nation in doubles my senior year. Hit.500 for most my. My senior year. So did something throughout. I guess I figured it out a little bit my senior year. So it was fun, it was a great time.

And you, if I, if my facts are right, you played in the outfield, right? Yes. Yeah.

When I was at Rockhurst, I was a third baseman and it transitioned me to the outfield because I couldn't field the dang baseball. So.

I was going to ask you what's easier, fielding a ground ball at the hot corner or fielding. Catching a fly ball in center field?

Oh my gosh. Hog corner ate me up, man. I was a. At the very end of the year, I got an award for most likely to have a higher batting average than fielding percentage. So that, that ate me up a little bit my, my freshman year.

That's interesting because I played shortstop in high school along with being a pitcher. And I love, you know, I go out and shake, you know, fly balls and bratting practice. I had such a hard time timing fly balls. I'm like, I. I'm amazed. That's how some center fielders and outfielders in general just make it look so easy.

Actually want to ask you because I didn't know this about you. So you went to Mid America to study pastoral ministry. So did you have a desire at that time to become, to get into the ministry, to become a pastor?

Yeah, my, my kind of goal was to play well enough in college to sign a deal professionally, play a couple years to gain credibility, come back to Kansas City and start a youth sports ministry. That was kind of what my plan was. That did not end up working out my dreams. Kind of got crushed there after I graduated, not landing somewhere professionally, so I kind of just jumped into my family business to be honest. So started there have been kind of serving at our church as like a lay leader and kind of just going from there.

That's awesome, man. You know, I never, I rarely share this story, but after my senior year was over at uwm, I didn't get drafted. I signed as a free Agent and I remember when the draft was finished because I had hopes I was going to get drafted. The draft ends. I remember I went and watched. My dad was a high school baseball coach, so we went and watched the state tournament in Wisconsin after the draft and I was sitting in the stands with the Dodger scout and he was laughing and kind of joking and bragging about the fact they had drafted Brooks Bollinger in the 42nd round. Now Brooks Bollinger was the quarterback at Wisconsin at that time. He didn't even frickin play baseball and they drafted him in the 42nd round. Here I am sitting there just off the heels of a successful college career, not getting drafted. I wanted to punch that guy in the face. Oh yeah, yeah.

I feel you on that one. Because that was a rough week where I didn't get. I thought I was going to get drafted and I didn't.

Yeah, that same situation for me. I watched the draft for the very first time from round one all the way through all three days of it and never once, you know, got a call or anything, was told by scouts and all kinds of stuff that I had an opportunity and was going to get called. But watching names of collegiate football players D2 players get drafted because of their last name or never once played a lick of college baseball was, was disheartening.

Yeah, I agree.

But here I am.

Now that's what we're about to get into. You know, normally I ask brokers like how did you get in the industry? Because nobody, very few of us got in it by design. Now you have a different story because your father has been a pretty successful insurance advisor for quite some time, correct?

Yes. Yeah, since about 2010. He got in the industry in2010.

When did he start Apollo Insurance?

It was about right around the same time he started working with a different agency. Didn't necessarily buy into kind of where they were going as an organization. So he started working on Apollo at about 2011, 2012 timeframe and then really kind of broke away and was full time Apollo about 2012, 2013.

Okay, now here's what I want to just kind of shine the light on. Apollo because what I've been impressed with, and I'd say it's a little observing from afar. Number one, if I have it right, weren't you guys just named to Inc. 5000 fastest growing?

Yep, we earned that last year. That's correct.

Congratulations. I mean that's, that's absolutely phenomenal. Talk a little bit about if you will, and I hope I'm Going down the right path about. I feel like you guys take a different approach. You, you kind of have a niche. I love how you guys use video content and I love, I think you guys, if I were to describe Apollo insurance in an industry that, let's be honest, is typically older, you guys trend younger and more aggressive. Does that sound right?

Absolutely. Yeah, that's, that's definitely been. Been by design and it's been really fun to be a part of. So I would say one of our mission statement really sticks out to us. It's something that we don't just put up on the wall or talk about every now and again. But our mission statement is to positively impact people's lives. So we want to be able to do that through the medium of health insurance. We first want to do that to our agents. Making sure that they're educated as much as possible. They know exactly what's coming in the market, they have the right products to be able to sell and position with clients. And so we really pour our agents, making sure they're good to go and they can have the best impact in the community and our clients lives. So that's where it starts then going from there. From us as agents providing services to our clients. That is first and foremost what we're about. We go the extra mile. We want to make sure that we not only are listening to our clients and making sure that we're putting them in the correct product, but we also want to make sure that it's budget friendly. We're conscious of the money people are going to be spending. We talk about all the time keeping money in our clients pockets versus giving it to an insurance carrier. So we really advocate for our clients. We help them with claim issues. We do things that not a lot of other brokers do, which I think has been a big reason for our success.

You know, I want to, I need to validate whether something's a fact or not. If you don't mind. I was watching one of your promo videos and the video starts out what appears to be the back of your office and you got some guys hitting into a sculpt simulator and then you come in and it's a bunch of young professionals getting after hustling, bustling all over the office. Is that a true depiction of what a day in the life of Apollo looks like? It is.

Yes, it is. I would say our average age in the office is probably like 23 or 24 years old. We get them right out of college and honestly it's a great, It's a great way to build the business that we've found. The reason why is because people come out of college, they're hungry, they want to get to work, they want to learn, they want to help people. Especially with the generation that's coming in now, they want to be a part of something bigger than themselves. So being able to have that is super important for us. And they come in and they're hungry, they're ready to get after it, they're ready to learn. So we mesh really well. We're a great group of individuals. We around the similar season. Most of our, you know, our people are in similar season, hang out outside of work. So we really do feel like a family or family ran business. But every single one of our agents feels like family as well.

Well, and speaking of family, your brother Luke is also a part of the business as well. Yeah. I've got to tell you, man, if I could, if I could take a break and go out the back and play the hit the golf simulator a couple times, sign me up for that job. Yeah. Now we have it. I don't think we've mentioned this. You're in the Kansas City market.

What would you say, Jordan, you specifically, because I know you're a big, big practitioner of habits. What would you say.

Are the habits you have developed in your own life, even maybe from baseball, that you have used to apply in your career to have such success at such a young age?

Great question. Looking back at my college days, I'd say one of the things that really stood out for me was I was not the guy that was.

Like just gifted talent with talent, God given talent. I worked really hard. I think if you would ask any of my teammates that I was always in the tunnel getting extra swings in. I was always in the weight room doing the extra things. I was in the training room making sure I was healthy, stretching, warming up. I was always first one in, last one out kind of guy. And so once I graduated college, I was like, well, what are some of the things that really separated me in college as a baseball player that I could apply in business? And this was one of those things. And so I remember when I started, I never really had any formal training at all. My dad was running the business, so I kind of had to pick some things up as I went. So I spent a ton of time in college. I spent, you know, very little time. I think I maybe read one book in college that includes every assignment that was given to me. Any college professors that are listening to this, I apologize. But I Spark noted most everything after college I started reading and I really started learning, picking up a lot of, a lot of habits, a lot of things that really successful people do. And so I tried to implement that in my life. And as I've been implementing that, my life recognized kind of the magnetism of that. The more I'm implementing things that I'm learning from much older, much wiser, much more capable, more successful people in my life, then I'm beginning to notice there's more things kind of falling in line for me as well. So being able to have the right people come on board has been super crucial for us. So without learning, spending the time really investing, learning whether it's sales, whether it's industry specific information, I need to know whether there's changes in laws coming down the pipeline, there's different health plans we need to be checking out, or different way to structure.

To manage risk. That's essentially what I tried to throw myself into that were my extra hours in the weight room or in the tunnel, so to speak.

In the business world, what's one book that has had a huge impact on your insurance career?

Oh man.

That'S a really, really hard question, I would say one that has really helped me a lot. It was called the Dream Giver. That was something that I cannot remember the artist, the author, off the top of my head, but it's called the Dream Giver. It talks a lot about how.

In.

My insurance career, honestly, thinking big, dreaming big. Before I came on board, we had a group of probably eight agents total in our business that my dad had recruited, brought in, trained and they all worked remote from their houses. Average age probably 50 to 45 to 55 somewhere in there. I came on board and I caught the vision for what this could look like. And when I caught that vision and I began implementing what it would look like to have an office to build something that was going to be outside of just the family being able to operate and run, but we could bring other people into. It was a big dream. It was something that has had some walls we've had to break through and some uncomfortability phases that we've had to manage. And even now trying to figure out if we're continuing to grow and expand, we're going to be essentially doubling our in office agent base this year in June, trying to figure out all right, do we move, do we stay put, you know, where are we going to go? So a lot of really big business decisions that we've had to come up and make, but a Lot of the principles from the dream giver really allowed me to really push through those walls of uncomfortability and stretch myself not only in leadership, but also, you know, in the things that I want to get out of life.

Well, it's so funny because I think of what you went to college for, pastoral ministry, which requires a lot of leadership. You're probably playing a lot of similar roles today that you would have played as a pastor. You just happen to be doing it in insurance, which is really cool. Yeah. Let's wrap this up, Jordan, with a little thought leadership. As we look at the health insurance industry, you know, you guys at Apollo are growing extremely fast, which is so cool to see. Where do you see if you were to pick one area or one topic or one idea where you see the industry making a big shift or evolution as we move forward in the next five years, where do you see the industry heading?

Man, there's definitely a lot we could get into with this, but I would say from the small business market. So any employers out there that own small businesses, it's been tough to really find the right plan that's going to work for your business. And that's really where we specialize. And we think really uniquely, because we do a lot of individual health insurance, we're able to look at a business, especially small businesses, and look to see if there are individual solutions for a group business, but still run through essentially a group chassis. So I would say for a lot of small businesses, as we're kind of making the turn and coming out of the pandemic and trying to figure all that stuff out for small business owners, being able to offer quality benefits at an affordable price is something that has been really tough to manage and do over the, over the last few years. So for us, being able to provide that, I think is going to be, as brokers, extremely crucial for the health of small business owners. So I would say a lot more individual type plans given, I mean, with the new HRA laws that came out just this last year, as far as what you can do on the HRA front and how we can structure those types of plans, I think will really help in the long run for a lot of the small businesses.

I love that you brought that up because I think in our industry there's this trend of you've got to go bigger, go after the big groups, go after those big opportunities, and you guys have built a freaking machine helping the one area of America that still drives most of the business, small business. And so that's what I absolutely love. If anybody out there, Jordan, wants to get ahold of you, another advisor, an industry partner, somebody who saw this and is like, this is just a cool dude that I want to get to know. What are the easiest ways to get.

Ahold of you, man? I'd say my LinkedIn is probably first place to start out, so I would. You can follow me on LinkedIn. I usually stay pretty connected there. That's a great place. Instagram is also a great place. Of course, I'm a millennial, so the social media platforms, I'm pretty EAS to get connected with there. But you can also get connected with us at our website, Apollo-Insurance.com. you can just click the connect button there and email us, and that'll get to the.

You don't mind? I'm actually putting your email right here, too. Here's Jordan's email. Get a hold of him. Apollo's doing some amazing things. Well, Jordan, man, I can't thank you enough for joining. This was really cool. Like I said, I've always been impressed with how wise you are, even though you haven't Quite hit age 30 yet, which blows me away. And I just love the mission your brother Luke and your dad are on, because you guys are about to take on the world, and you're already on your way. So thank you for being on the Broker's Voice.

Yeah, thank you, Andy. I appreciate the time, man.

Awesome. And if you're listening in, guys, you know, when clarity and confidence collide, massive action happens. Go make it happen today.