Episode 256: Connecting the Dots in Your Agency with Agency Pointe

Welcome to the Unstoppable Profit Podcast. This podcast will give independent insurance agents all of the tools to grow your business and live life on your terms. Wherever you are today, if you're starting with nothing or well on your way to the success you desire, with the right people, processes and promotions in place, you will be unstoppable. And now I'd like to introduce your host, Mike Stromsol.

Greetings, everybody. Welcome to the next episode of the Unstoppable Profit Podcast. I'm pumped and excited to have most of the team for Agency Point with us today. And we'll get to the team member that couldn't join us. But I'm excited about this because in my 35 plus years in business, I remember before I started in the insurance agency business, my dad, who was my greatest mentor, encouraged me when I was still in school to take a class in accounting in business. And like many situations in my own life, I didn't listen right away. And because of that, I ultimately met Mr. Aaron Stocks. And we're going to dive in today to find out more about the incredible company that's been formed to help independent insurance agents out there in that aspect. Bookkeeping, tax technology, law, human capital management, payroll advisory, and so much more. The company is Agency Point and we're going to get right to the point and find out more about how they're helping agents everywhere. Super pumped, super excited to have the three of the four of you on the podcast today. And we'll start. Ladies first. Carrie.

Yeah, Mike, thanks so much for having us. For those of you that don't know me, my name is Carrie Wallace. I am a partner in Agency Point and also the founder of Agency Focus. I too agree that knowing your numbers is a pretty important thing, right?

Yeah, numbers don't lie.

That's right.

Exactly, Aaron.

Awesome. My name's Aaron Stocks. I am a partner in Agency point and the CEO of PFS Global. And happy to be on.

Fantastic. Mr. Paradiso.

Chris Paradiso, insurance agent out of Stafford Springs, Connecticut and proud partner with these wonderful people at Agency Point.

Fantastic. And speaking of wonderful people again, Mick Hunt couldn't be with us. Mick is also a partner in Agency Point. And shout out to you, Mick, Great job. Keep it up, buddy. Let's get started. You ready?

Ready.

So again, really bookkeeping. I remember I had a relationship for bookkeeping, for tax, etc. Etc. That went back many, many years until something happened within that particular business. And I was looking and I was introduced to Mr. Aaron Stocks through a relationship within the Industry got to know Aaron and his team better, ultimately ended up start working with them for our bookkeeping services, etc. And you guys just took care of business is the bottom line. So over a number of years, still working with Aaron and his team today in the bookkeeping aspect. Great stuff. So how does PFS and Agency Point blend to help independent insurance agents with this thing called bookkeeping? Because agents at the core are there to serve people and to protect people. And bookkeeping, like a lot of other aspects, is a second item that they don't pay enough attention to and don't really like to do because it's not in the area of their personal gifts, vital functions. So Aaron and, and team, how did that, how did this all come together and why did you form Agency Point?

Yeah, I can start for us. So, you know, we've had PFS Global, which has helped insurance agents and independent agents in the industry for about 14 years now. And we've always had a love and a deep focus on independent agents. So I reached out to Chris and Carrie and Mick and I really wanted to do a deeper dive into the insurance space to really help out the independent agent where I feel like there's a big void in the industry. So we launched Agency Point as the name to help insurance agents. But PFS Global is Agency Point. Agency Point is PFS Global. And Carrie, Mick and Chris are great partners to have on to help with that. And so that's why we launched it, you know, in the aspect of bookkeeping, I think that, you know, if you don't have someone that specializes in insurance doing your books, there's a, you know, a lot of things can happen, but there's just a lack of understanding. So, so that's why we launch it and that's how it works.

You mean Agency Bill is different than Direct Bill?

Sometimes.

Yeah, exactly. So Chris, since you spoke up, why did you, why do you support and why is Agency Point so important for the independent insurance agent and most importantly their business?

I think it's eye opening, even just having our own mastermind that we have and just. Kerry was in Hartford. Right. That was about two years ago and it was jaw dropping when we, I asked the question to a group of about 50 agency owners who reconciles their commissions. Gary, can you answer how many of those 50 actually raised their hand?

I think it was less than five. Right.

Including my agency, there was four, so there was three plus me out of a, out of a group that's very, very, very, I mean, progressive thinkers. Right. They're really Cutting edge in so many aspects when it comes to technology, communication and all this other wonderful stuff. But the numbers just don't seem to be that important, not only to the group, but to the average independent agent. And I'm not, not sure why, but it's an issue.

Yeah. And if I can interject here and then I'm going to go to Kerry as well. Independent insurance agents and, you know, it's the life that I've lived for over 35 years. And we love what we do. Right. But we protect people and we serve people with whatever the need is. And we'll get around to the bookkeeping and the numbers when we get around to it. Right. And because things keep changing in our industry, we don't. Because other things keep happening and all of a sudden we're behind and we're behind. Right.

So, Carrie, why isn't that standard? Mike, you know, my father, been an attorney for 60 plus years, unfortunately went home to be with the good Lord. And it's amazing on how many things were undone because he always worried about other people. Isn't that what independent agents kind of do? I think it's not just agents. I think it's every industry. Barry can.

Yeah.

You know, it's funny, there's a statistic that says that over 73% of small business owners claim that they have absolutely no training in financials, accounting, or even running a business. They're entrepreneurs, they have a passion about what they do, but they don't have a core understanding of some of the skill set needed in order to run your books appropriately. So I guess my point is you should never feel bad about that, but you should surround yourself with people that do have the skill set. The reality is if somebody needs coverage, they shouldn't. Call Kerry Wallace. I have zero background in understanding coverage. I would be a horrible resource. But you should call someone who has that. And if you are someone who understands coverage and protecting people, you shouldn't feel bad that you don't have a deep understanding of finance and accounting. Right. I mean, I think we shouldn't feel like we should have all skill sets.

Right. 100%. And you know, that's, that's kind of what I found. I mean, I'm grateful personally. I've been on the road for a number of days, but Aaron's teammate Justin keeps pinging me because he needs information to get the end of the month done. And I love that because I can't tell you how many agents I run into and agents that I begin working with. I'll say to what month is your p. L. Reconciled? And I'll look at the calendar and I'll say end of January and they'll say no. End of December and they'll say no. And I'm going. You've got to keep your numbers in order and you can't hit unidentified targets. Right, team?

That's right.

Hey, Mike. How many times do they have to hear it before they actually do it?

That's at least seven times.

Okay.

Right.

So did.

Did we get to the question? Thank you, team. This is just great stuff. Is how PFS and Agency point were blended to help agents. Let's get clarity on that. Sometimes they need to hear it more than once. Right, Aaron? So how did this blend happen and why is it important to you and your team?

Let's give it to them. Less than seven so that they don't, you know, get bored here. But yeah, so if you think about, you know, a service provider like us that specializes in insurance, we, we understand what you're going through. We understand how everything works versus the guy down the street or a family member doing the bookkeeping or taxes. Right. There's a big difference. So one thing is industry specific. Knowing the difference between fiduciary and non fiduciary funds, how to reconcile a trust account, how to reconcile commissions. What is agency bill versus direct bill? And a lot of people think you can just have any accountant do that. Well, one, the bookkeeping is obviously way different, but two, the taxes are different. Right. We look at tax returns that come from someone that doesn't know insurance and we can tell pretty much right away that's different than what the industry does and that's costing the. The business owner money. Other than that, bringing together multiple services for the independent agent is also important. You could have PFS or you could have six different vendors that have to service you. Right. And six vendors don't all have the same goals in mind for you. But at pfs, we have one goal for you, right, which is to grow your business. And we can all coordinate together. So whether that's bookkeeping, tax or payroll, legal, HR or it, it's all one goal. And we can really surround ourselves with that and allow you to grow versus Having six different vendors trying to do that for you.

So, so you are an a comparison as an example of what an independent insurance agency is. Right? We are an independent insurance agent. We provide you all the options and place you with, you know, in the program with the carrier that best meets your needs. We're not beholden to any one company, we represent you, the client first, and that's what you do. And based on the need and, and the challenge that needs to be overcome, you're able to help with that.

Well, I think a good parallel too, from what you just said is, right, like if you're writing someone's business insurance policy, right, and then they're like, hey, I also have this auto insurance and you have to go send them to another agent. There's no continuity there. Right. That agent's going to do what they think is best and you're going to do what you think is best. So, you know, packaging it together again to have continuity is, is a huge advantage.

So.

Yeah, go ahead.

Yeah, Mike, I would, I would also say this. You know, I reach out to a lot of agents because they need my services in order to buy or sell their agency. And that process can sometimes look like I go one place to get evaluation, I go another place to get tax advice, I go another place to get legal advice, I go another place for a lender.

Agency. Point can actually connect a lot of that. So if your financials aren't solid, we can have, have them help you put your financials in the order that they need to be. Now we're not starting again with someone else and again with the lawyer and again with the tax. It's it. It allowed me to be able to help serve my clients and not have to stop and start a million times. It really is important to have continuity. No question around that.

You connect the dots.

Talked about. Mike. A huge topic that's not talked about is what Carrie does. What we agencies do, right? We, we. Most agency owners started off by selling insurance. They did really well and they became an agency owner. But what they do not realize is the more your books aren't in order, the harder it is. Banks don't understand. Unless if you're going to specific insurance banks, even going to specific insurance banks. Harry, how many go to you and say, hey, I can help you purchase, but we have to clean up your books first so that the bank can see the real story of about you. Because they can't tell the story because your books aren't clean. It's just not a topic that's talked about. And Carrie, I wonder what the percentage is of the books that just you touch that you say, wow, I'm amazed that the majority. 80%, 70%. I don't know what the number is, Gary, but maybe you do. And how many books that you've gotten in an order of an agency purchasing Somebody, but you had to clean their books up so that the bank could understand the true story behind that agency.

Yeah, I would tell you that, Chris, the percentage is pretty high because a lot of times an agency has a tax strategy with their financials, not necessarily a strategy to maximize their profitability and get lending. And so you have to know, you have to know that about yourself in order to be able to present accurate information and be able to not have someone discount your agency and your potential profitability because the con, your financials are so inconsistent. So having consistency over year over year, it's okay to have a tax strategy, but be able to identify what's inside your financials is so critically important. And to Aaron's point, if you're having someone do your books that doesn't understand the, the accounting rules for independent insurance agents, with trust accounting, with holding money on behalf of someone else, that becomes super convoluted very quickly. And no bank wants to touch that. They just don't.

And, and, and a point. Here's a challenge for everybody, either watching or listening. Is your basis for your accounting cash or accrual? I mean, I remember in the very beginning Aaron and I and his team had a conversation about that because again, that's, that was a situation that we were dealing with. You got to be clear on that because that affects a lot of things into the future. So yeah, great stuff. Anything to add on that, Aaron?

Yeah, one point on it too is, you know, when we go review tax returns, they can be marked cash or accrual. Right. And you can have Gap books. But let's leave that aside for a second. You know, we will get. This is the inexperience I'm talking about from accountants that just don't understand insurance. So, you know, there might be agency bill receivables on your balance sheet. Right. Getting a little into the weeds here. And they might be premium payables. They need to be paid out if you're a heavy agency bill type of independent agent. And so when, when we look at a tax return, we'll see that the accountant marked accrual basis because they see this agency bill receivable and premium payables, they think that they have to go that way. The accountant does, but, but that's not the case. And a cash basis a lot of times isn't beneficial to an independent agent because again, you might not have received the money yet on an agency bill, but you're paying it. So they don't understand that that receivable has a bunch of fiduciary funds in it and that the payable does too. And so you might be paying more tax than you need to just because they don't understand that they could still mark cash to make adjustments for the non fiduciary or for the non fiduciary amounts that need to be picked up as income. But that's just a key distinction that came up 100%.

Go ahead, Carrie.

So I get that we're all like or. Well, Aaron and I are kind of like number geeks here a little bit. But I want to he said something super important. If you don't have people doing your books the right way, you might not be able to position yourself well to acquire number one, you might not be able to, you might be paying too much tax and they might just be inaccurate, period. Like when, when I ask an agency owner tell me the size of your agency, oftentimes, what number do you think they give me, Mike?

Premium. In a lot of cases they do.

Do you know that I've actually seen premium show up on an income statement which is not your money. So then they put the money that they pay to their, to their carrier as cost of goods sold. There are no cost of goods sold in an independent insurance agent. That is a perfect example of having an accountant that really does not understand the flow of how an independent agency works. So my point is it could be super misleading.

You mean you can't deposit premium?

Well, you shouldn't be paying it, you shouldn't be spending it. I'll tell you that.

Back to fiduciary, right, Aaron?

To Carrie's point, you know, we run into two scenarios a lot that are incorrect. And the trust accounting is what causes this not understanding how that works. So one is like Carrie said, they pick up income all premium and then they cost a goods sold all premium, which really inflates your numbers. And so if you send your P and L or income statement to someone, it makes no sense. So that's one. That's because the accountant doesn't know how to break up fiduciary non fiduciary funds flowing through the balance sheet income statement. The next though that we see very often is that way they don't have to pick up the income but still don't have to really reconcile. The trust account correctly is of two sets of books, one just for the trust account and then one for all the other accounts. So that way they can pick up the income and expenses on the premium incorrectly in one set of books. That doesn't upset their financials but that's also incorrect because the timing of income would be incorrect only when they transfer from the trust to operating into picking up the income. So those are two very common things that we see when we're taking on new client.

Again, the reason we've got this incredible team working together for you with the entire platform to serve you so literally you don't have any gaps. And what I wrote down a couple minutes ago to something that I think Carrie was saying, they help connect the dots on a single platform to meet your desired outcome without gaps. And isn't that what we do as agents to make sure that we identify every potential gap so you don't get hurt financially? Chris, you got a story that you wanted to share. Do you remember what it was?

Yeah, I, you know, all this whole thing formed, I think formed out of, you know, which a lot of us have gone through and maybe some don't want to share it. But I, I had an in house person that unfortunately we had some issues so we had to move on from there and we hired in another firm to then take care of it. So we outsourced it. And during that outsourcing, Aaron can attest, I mean it was a mess, a bigger mess than what I was left prior to the in house person.

So it took about, what do you say, about 18, 19 months to clean up. Aaron.

It was, it was, it was a lengthy cleanup. We had to go back more than just the year. We had to go back not only that same year, but also another whole year. We could have gone back another year prior. We didn't. But some of the other issues, not only in the cleanup and the cost of the cleanup, Mike, but the reconciling of the commissions, Aaron can attest, I think it was between 67 and $69,000 of errors of unpaid commissions from a carrier to our agency. So I think, agencies think, oh, that's my commissions. And it's accurate in a lot of cases it is accurate, but it's not accurate all the time, that I can assure you. And maybe it's not to the size of what Aaron had found. And Aaron can, can talk about that, but they're inaccuracies and it's on a regular basis. So why you're not reconciling your commissions, it blows my mind. But Aaron, maybe you can share a little bit about that.

Yeah, I mean, obviously, you know, your example is an extreme example of what was caught. But you know, it. There's always a fine line between like, should I reconcile my commissions or not right. And a lot of people only do it when they get producers because they have a need at that point or a must to do it. But once you reach a certain size, you do need to reconcile your commissions to also verify what your carriers are paying. You are correct. That way you don't run into what Mr. Paradisa ran into, which is, you know, he had about $68,000 of unpaid commissions over a two year period. So again, it doesn't mean everyone's going to go find 68,000. His was a rare example. But there is a fine line between like, do I pay to have my commissions reconciled before I have producers or not. And that's a conversation that we have with a lot of agents when we're bidding. Their bookkeeping is at what point should we start reconciling these commissions? And it's usually sooner than you think because again, you want to verify what you're being paid is correct by the carriers. But definitely once you get a producer, you should be doing it.

And I'll attest as well. I feel a lot better now. Chris, thanks so much. I think our investment with Aaron and his team was in the 20s range. Once I knew, I knew because I paid close attention to my numbers. I look at bank accounts every single day, etc. Etc. So I knew where things should be and I knew something was off. I didn't know was off that much until I brought his team in. But the cleanup costs were in excess of 20k, I can tell you that. So super grateful that we were able to get you in before it became even worse. So for everybody out there, that's why the encouragement is here. Make sure you have a team that's working for you, for your desired outcome, so you can get to your goals, whatever they might be. So I want to jump into something else because I want to make sure we cover in the time that we have together. You guys have a lot to offer. So if any one of you want to touch on any point, fantastic. I mean, bookkeeping to tax to payroll to law. And tell us a little bit about that. What does that look like? And does anybody here have any experience with the law portion as well?

Me. Carrie, why don't you share my story that you just did for me in the last 75 days?

Yeah, so I've actually utilized the law portion of this a significant amount. Mike, I talked about it a little bit. You know, certainly in mergers and acquisitions, buying an agency, selling an agency, being part of a company, exiting as a partner, all of those things you need a lawyer that a understands your business. They understand the language around independent agencies, and they need to understand the areas of risk that they need to protect you with. So oftentimes there's multiple partners inside an agency, and coming together is a point where you need great advice. Also coming apart, you need great advice, and you need a lot of people who understand your business. Sadly, there are contracts that are written that, again, do not understand our business or they're cobbled together because you actually don't get the right language. And then if you have a problem that is not enforceable. So the, the, the situation we had was a partnership coming apart and actually writing an agreement that makes sense, that trails enough time, and everybody's protected in that situation. So, you know, the law department I will tell you in as agencies are coming together or they're transitioning to the next generation, or they're buying other agencies. The two areas that I struggle the most to help agents is tax and law. Like, I can value your agency all day long, but your local tax person and your local lawyer that handles your normal business transactions may have never seen a merger or an acquisition deal. And they definitely might not be an expert in independent agents. It is not an area that you want to have someone who doesn't understand your business writing your agreement. And you also want people to be really responsive. And I will tell you, thankfully, I've been able to find them and help agents all across the country work through that problem, even though they're located in a different state. I would rather the contract be written appropriately and then reviewed by your local lawyer to make sure that it is. Has everything it needs for your state laws as well. It's just been an incredible asset to me and my clients for multiple reasons, but certainly for coming together as partners and also exiting as partners.

Yeah, go ahead, Chris, for me. And I apologize for interrupting, but working with Carrie. And Carrie just says, hey, I'm sending everything over to Dave. Are you okay with it? Yes. I mean, it's hands off when it comes back to me. Yes, I have to go through it, but I, I don't think it could have been an easier situation.

So as the person who, you know, was selling the piece, it was just so, so seamless, so easy. It was in Kerry's hands. Carrie handed off. Carrie says, hey, it's ready for your review. And I was like, wow, that's. I mean, just. It couldn't get any easier.

And during all that time, you were doing the things that only you can do to drive the business in the direction that you wanted to go. And the other thing about the partners coming apart car. I mean, you got the law of familiarity in effect here. Right. Is somebody from the outside.

A, a professional, experienced expert in a particular subject that's coming in, lending their expertise to a situation and getting to the desired outcome or the unexpected outcome in some situations. Right?

Yeah.

That arm's length, there's a lot of beauty to that arm's length. A little bit where there, there's really not a lot of motion that this is really about making a win, win, win situation. And you hit the nail on the head. You know, independent agents are willing to outsource things, but very unwilling sometimes to outsource what the owner has responsible for. And if you are not well versed in law and you're not well versed in accounting, and you're not well versed in payroll, for goodness sakes, like why still keep that? Because you're so much more valuable to your business and doing the things you are able to do, which is grow, build relationships, you know, find referral partners, all those things, you know, build carrier relationships. Nobody else can do those things either. Taking off one hat allows you far more ability in the other hats that you have to wear as an owner as well. So it's a, it's a really missed point here. But it, I will tell you that mastermind that Chris referenced. We talked about outsourcing and the one that made the biggest impact on the profitability of your agency was accounting. Outsourcing accounting. Because the person doing it is the owner. Super interesting.

Yeah. And I remember that lesson that I learned because I didn't listen to my dad in the beginning. I had a little post it note below my computer monitor that said debit equals credit.

Because I just couldn't get my mind around it. I mean, a credit in the bank accounts are credit in the bank account, right? I want to see money. What do you mean you're taking it out? Yeah, that's what those owners do. You know that, Aaron, right?

Michael. Dad. Dad knows best, doesn't he?

Yes, we.

Why didn't I meet you when I was like two?

Chris?

Hey, I did the same thing. Did I always listen to me? I mean, he gave me very wise advice. I did the same thing. You did?

Yeah.

So let me jump back to. Do you have something to add, Aaron?

No, it's on the debits and credits. We have a whole seven week class. We put our internal staff through on debits and credits. So it's not something that you'll easily, you know, pick up.

Oh, good. I feel better.

By the way, one thing to add. I remember when I first met Kerry Wallace, one of the greatest days ever. Thank you, Carrie. I remember you telling me, because my question to you was, if somebody's thinking about selling in the future, I don't know if you remember your answer or not. If you don't, I'll help you with it. You gave me a certain period of time. If you gave them this much time, you could maximize their return.

So if you are thinking about selling and you give yourself three to five years to get your financials in order, you will sell at a different multiple, guaranteed, than someone who says, I want to sell in six months. Just by looking at your business in a different way, getting things cleaned up, knowing what your potential profitability is, maybe reallocating some of your resources to drive growth, can really position you and make a very big difference. Because the reality is the average agency owner never, ever tells me what their EBITDA is. Nobody walks around saying, my profitability is this. But if you work with someone who actually understands the value of that and, and knows that and is helping you manage that, it's a. It's a game changer. It truly is.

Ebitda.

What?

Anyway, I remember Carrie was teaching a class for our Unstoppable Nation agents late last year, and I will never forget, she was in the room talking about an agency that she works with. Their EBITDA was like 48.9%, and it was a mic drop moment, but because they were in alignment and working towards that goal. Incredible. Incredible. We'll save this rest of the story for another time. But another thing that Carrie mentioned, and I want to ping back to the entire suite of office, entire suite that Agency Point offers. Carrie, you told me that there's one thing that must be in place to maximize the value of any business, including the agency business. It was predictability. Right?

That's right. That's right.

And. And so that's what Agency Point brings together. They put all the predictability pieces inside of one single platform for everybody out there. I mean, we talked about it. Bookkeeping, tax payroll law. We didn't get to technology. But a couple things I want to dive into is human capital management and advisory. And this really solves the big issue. And Aaron, I'll let you start on this. The core challenges that Agency Point helps agency owners with.

Yeah, I mean, the core challenges are really the services that we offer. So if we're, you know, we're talking about accounting and we've kind of, kind of beat that. Dead horse, et cetera. But the, the key to coming to someone like Agency Point compared to having six vendors that maybe even specialize in insurance is every one of our departments.

Or they say they do, right?

Or they say they do, which, you know, maybe we do, asking, you know, the key is, right, let's say you go to our technology department, they specialize in insurance, they know your AMs, right. They know what needs to be done there. They know the integrations that you need, they know if you need a server with it, etc. Right. If you go to our legal team, they know how to draft producer agreements, they know how to buy and sell agencies. Right. You go to our accounting and our tax. It's the same thing with all of them. We know how it works. And so we're not going to, you know, offer something to our clients that we don't think is a good product for the independent insurance agency. And that's honestly one of the keys. Right. You might have the guy down the street doing your IT who doesn't know insurance, but you might have an accountant that does know insurance. Just imagine having everyone speak the same language and they're all on the same page with the continuity that you need. Aha.

Imagine. Imagine everybody speaks the same language and everybody's on the same page. The entire team.

Yep.

Of all the things that we talked about, you don't have that in place right now. It brings to light a question in my mind as we kind of begin to move to wrap up here. If somebody has heard something that they like today and you know, it's concerning bookkeeping, tax payroll law, technology, human capital management, or even advisor or anything else, what should they do to learn more? Just to see if it might be.

A good fit, they should go to myagencypoint.com if they would like to learn more about us, you can call us and I'm sure Mike will put links in the descriptions. But call us at 909-294-7372 or drop us an email at info@pfsonline.com okay, fantastic.

So my agency point.com would be the best place to start. Just jump on and you can learn more about what Agency Point offers. There's a little bit about the story about Agency Point on the website. I'm looking at it right now. They put together a nice platform where you can learn more and just see if it's a good idea. And a lot of people, they have relationships in their local areas with certain Sectors of the platform that Agency Point offers, but maybe not all the others. So check it out. You know, it's like anything else in life. It doesn't hurt to ask some great pointed questions and find out what's best for you and your desired goals and outcome based on the destination. And agency owners, ladies and gentlemen, you.

Know.

It'S our blood, it's our sweat, it's our tears, it's our nights, it's our weekends. It's everything that we've worked for our entire lives that we want to make sure that we put it in the nice box, put a nice bow on it when that day comes, or to. To maximize it. I mean, I think there's a huge missing opportunity out there for agents not only to maximize their net income, but other aspects of their business.

Right, Mike? What. What did everybody learn from the 40 minutes we've been on? There's two agents here. Right? Both of us decided to take action when there was issues or when things weren't right after the fact. It cost both of us, both of our agencies. We've had many hours of conversation, Mike, you and I, if. If you do it right, you win or you learn. And the learning example in our case is please don't wait till there's an issue that's a mistake Paradiso Insurance made. Right. That's a mistake Stromso Insurance made, advising and helping other agents to realize that don't wait till there is a mistake, then it's costly to fix. Do it from the beginning and do it right.

That's right. And I had a shirt on. I don't have that shirt on today, but I had it on over last weekend. And I was traveling in San Francisco with my grandson, and it says, I never lose.

I either win or I learn. And what Chris just said, we're trying to help you prevent those painful lessons. Right. And by the way, that shirt, I don't know if you got the message, Chris. No less than eight people said to me at one point on a given day, I love that shirt.

I love that.

Why? Because they identified there's lessons in life. So we're here to make sure you don't experience those painful lessons so you can win more.

Yes.

And that's our goal. Yeah, we. We've. We've learned a ton. We've learned a ton. And we're so thankful and grateful that now, today, we don't have to learn those painful lessons. We've got Aaron, we've got Carrie. We've got Mick. Mick, you're Looking great today, by the way.

Every day he is looking great wherever.

He'S at, trust me, I'm sure he is.

Exactly to help you so that those lessons don't become reality and your world and and team. So grateful and thankful that we could get on here today and share just a little bit about what's happening at Agency Point. Again, my agency point.com check it out, call, send an email as mentioned by Aaron and you can just have a quick conversation because what I was also thinking when you were talking, Chris, my response would have been what the Ben, the great Ben Franklin said, right? If you're failing to plan, you're planning to fail. So don't fail to plan. Get the planning in place with the ex people that have expertise in any facet and just to make sure that we drive it home. Bookkeeping, tax payroll law, technology, human capital management, advisory. And I'll suggest so much more. And we've got experience with that as well. So we're grateful to share it with the rest of the world as we wrap up today. Team. Anything else to add?

I think that covers it. Mike, that was great.

Thanks for having us.

You're welcome.

Thank you for having us.

My pleasure, my honor. And everybody out there, I hope this has made a difference for you because that's our goal. And if this is the first time for you on the podcast, welcome. My name is Mike Strom, so I'm widely recognized as a leading author, speaker and coach for the independent insurance agency industry. You can learn more about what we do atunstoppable profit producer.com and again, if this is your first time on the podcast, please make sure that you go to unstoppable profit podcast.com go up to the top, click subscribe so you don't miss one valuable episode because that's what happens here. We drop gold nuggets out of left field, out of right field, out of the sky, all the time. That will help you because big doors swing on little hinges and we don't want you ever to get left behind because like the great Will R. Rogers said, if you just sit there, you're going to get run over. We don't want you to get run over. We want you on the winning end, not on the losing end. Right, Chris?

Absolutely.

All right. And you can find our podcast out there on all the channels, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, our YouTube channel, Amazon, and so much more. Team Agency Point Team. Thank you.

Thanks for having us.

Thank you for all you're doing for independent insurance agency agencies everywhere. To protect us, to help us to grow, to flourish, to thrive in every way possible. And everybody else out there, until the next episode. Remember, you got this. We believe in you. We'll see you on the next episode.

You love the podcast, but don't know where or how to get started. Come join our next virtual training. While seats are still available. Register now@uppfaststart.com that's uppfaststart.com.