Episode 295: Building an AI-First Agency with Erik Jensen

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, and welcome to the next episode of the Unstoppable Profit podcast. Specifics for the independent insurance agency industry, specifically helping agents grow their business, create wealth, so they can have more freedom to live life on their own terms. And we're in an incredible, incredible time in the history of the industry. And Eric and I were just talking about it, and. And we decided, let's just pause the conversation and jump back into it to start the podcast. So I am privileged and honored. You know, this year the theme has been, you know, all things automation, technology, AI and so forth. And Eric has incredible depth in that area. But we were just talking about the industry. Hey, Eric.

Yeah, yeah, we were. And part of what we do here at insurecore is to help people move from one source system to the next. A lot of acquisitions happening, and that's exactly what we were talking about a little bit earlier is saying, listen, this is an incredible time. We've seen the acquisitions definitely go on an upward trajectory, a little bit quiet, towards last fall, late fall, into the early winter months. And then about February or so, March, we saw that uptick. Our phones have been ringing saying, hey, we're buying another agency. Let's get this. In the last week alone to give you an idea, literally between Monday and Tuesday last week, we got eight data conversions in to do. So that gives you an idea as to these acquisitions that are going on. And that's with just two of our partners that we do this with, provide these services for.

Wow, that's awesome. And so with everything going on in the world around us, a lot of people, we talked about the fact that the markets are. They're going to tank, et cetera, et cetera. Well, my observation has been they're not doing that. They're going the other direction. They're continuing to go up. I. I guess the. The synopsis of the whole thing is be careful who you listen to and what you're paying attention to.

Right. I was just going to say, that is, I think we all have our own little opinion. Right, sure. But when. When. When you really take a look at it. Absolutely. Upward trajectory. We're Seeing that, I think this is, like I said before, perfect time to get in, into acquisitions. When you see what, what has kind of happened over time. It, now's the time to do it. The pre, after Covid, all that stuff, it's settled. I think people took maybe six or eight, nine months realign, take a look at what they were doing, assess what they've already purchased and now they're saying, hey listen, now that we've got all this stuff figured out, so to speak, let's hit it again. And that, that's what we, we believe is happening and what we're seeing happen out there.

Super, super excited. I mean, what a blessing this industry has been. I know for me personally for 40 years. This August is my license anniversary. So great, great stuff. But what I really want to dig in today, I mean Eric has such a span of expertise. A big piece of his span is data, technology, automation. That's what I want to dive into. But before we go there, Eric, for anybody who may not have heard of you or doesn't know you, give everybody a, you know, brief introduction. Who is Eric Jensen?

Yeah, I'll give you the elevator pitch. I bring about 20 years of experience to the table across sales, operations, executive leadership. I held C suite title, currently do with my own companies here. But I tend to be a little bit more humble on that front. With a lot of expertise in helping companies scale through technology strategy and automation. I think that that's really what we're in today is taking our. I think you and I and a bunch of other people come from the fortunate experience, as I call it, paper, you know, learning how to do that. And now we get the joy of leveraging all of the beautiful tech that we have now. So with that I exited kind of the M and A workspace a few years ago, jumped out, started holistic business consulting and DBA of Insure Corp. Which really focuses on the insurance space. Insurance, independent insurance agents, MGA's, those folks that are out there as an M and A hub and they're really looking to say I've got all these disparate tech stacks. Or if we're speaking specifically to M and A, you purchase a company, they tend to have a totally different tech stack than you and you want to get that in to your system. Think of it like a bank. When a bank acquires another bank, they go in and they put them, let's say they're using fiserv, they're going to bring them on to fiserv because they want to know their Numbers. That's what we're doing here at Insure Corp. Really helping people bring all of that disparate technology together so they can actually see what's going on with their, their business. Now, with that being said, how do we do it? I have Hatteras Insurance, which is my own independent insurance agency that we test our theories and our methods on first. So that does give us that real world experience that we can bring to the table. Very, very different. We have a lead gen system, a small management system that we also test our workflows and processes on. So I think that gives a pretty brief overview of what we do here and where I come from.

Yeah, and that's one thing I wanted to point out for sure. Is an independent insurance agency entrepreneur as well. So he is one of us's, if you will, and he brings that to the space along with all of his other expert. But, you know, so if you're looking at acquiring an agency, I mean, just to be clear here, and that agency has a completely different tech stack than you do and you know, you should only be doing the things that only you can do as a leader and an owner. Yeah. And everybody's got three personal talents, gifts and superpowers. So if it's not in your lane, you know, the forward thinking, fast acting, entrepreneurial realm, find somebody who knows more than they do about that and hires them and invest in them to do it while you stay in your lane doing what you, you do. And that's where Eric comes into play, among many, many other things. So I want to dive into the deeper levels of that data and technology, AI and so forth and so on. So I doubt. I have a couple questions for you, Eric, if you're game, I love it.

Yes, I am game. I am ready.

Yeah. So you built an entire AI powered ecosystem. Okay.

Yes, sir.

Across, you know, multiple businesses on my list, I've got at least four that I can see, maybe more. Okay, what's the first step an agency owner or leader should take if they want to start integrating automation without overwhelming the team? And, you know, not as many people are as advanced yet, but a lot of people that, you know, watch or listen to this podcast, they're on the cusp and they want to get going. They want to get going, or they've already started, but sometimes they run into roadblocks. What's your advice for them?

Call us. That's the easy answer. But.

In all seriousness, it really comes down to listening to your staff and finding out what is the true bottlenecks and listen, my bottleneck I could be. Customer service is going to be so much different than my salesperson, than my executive leadership. If you're in a larger agency accounting, we're working on a lot of undoing bottlenecks for folks in accounting. So listening to your staff and really giving them the opportunity to have an open forum without the fear of being judged for whatever they say. Because sometimes, listen.

I might be a little bit nervous to bring that up because maybe it's going to, quote, eliminate my job. So having that discussion and letting your folks know, we're not here to take your job away, we're here to enhance that helps break down those barriers. So you can even start to think about what to automate, and then we can worry about how to automate it, because first we need to know what we're doing. If we don't know what we're doing, we can't create the plan and we can't execute that successfully for you. So that's really step one. Get your people into a room, get them into an open forum. Have them feel comfortable that they can come to you. Maybe it's going to hr. Maybe you have a team lead. Those are the things that we help put in place for you. So you can get that staff. We will even come into your agency and help you do that. If you are having kind of the qualms about doing that. Because sometimes that is an uncomfortable conversation to have and you're going to hear the things you might not want to hear.

Yeah, well, it's really all about, hopefully for most of the people out there that are watching or listening to this, having that culture of trust.

Yeah. Yes.

And if that culture of trust does not exist or collaboration or confidence in each other, I mean, you know, I've done a ton of study in teams lately, and the agencies and any other businesses out there that win and win, the biggest are those that have those kind of teammates who have each other's back and everything else and are willing to have those maybe difficult conversations.

Absolutely. And that. That's exactly what AI and RPA can bring to the table for you. It can help build that trust because you have one immediate information at your fingertips, but you've worked with your teammates to help put that together. So you're saying, oh, you really do know what you're talking about. I really do trust you. Oh, that's a great idea. Let's build this. And it really creates that sense of family and trust and bringing that back together. It's almost like you're Reinvigorating your culture. Right. You're saying, okay, let's, let's refigure out who we are and what we're doing here. And it's kind of something that's an unwritten side effect, if you will, of coming from this whole technology implementation that we're trying to do today.

Yeah, that's great stuff. Great stuff. And so we're growing and building this together. The definition of team together, everybody achieves more, right?

You bet.

Yeah. Yeah, we want to build that together. So in that realm, I mean, you're inside of agencies and those that maybe don't have that trust and collaboration yet. I mean, you know, what are you advising the leadership to say to start the conversation with their teams? Any thoughts on that?

I could give a couple, I'm sure.

I think it's really about being real with them. And if you haven't been, you really have to take a look at yourself and think about that because it's a big piece. As a leader in. I have 30 books to my right hand side. If you could see that. I could name off the titles, pick up a book, start reading some of these books to help inspire yourself to go out there and, and understand maybe it's just you're not, you're not a leader yet. You are a boss. And when you change and convert from the boss to the leader side, people really start to follow. They follow leaders. Right. So I think asking the right questions is definitely important. I could probably come up with a couple of those off the top of my head. Geez, I'm drawing a blank right now. So I probably.

Let's just give everybody something they can use here. I mean, I don't know. Have you read the. Or gone through the Audible of the Florence Prescription by Joe Tai?

Not yet, but I will.

That is a great, great study. I've been through it at least four times myself. That's all about culture and the invisible architecture inside of a business. It happens to be a hospital model. Same principles as an independent insurance agency. So, you know, I don't know if I've had the opportunity to give you one of these yet, but there's only one person that stands between you and success. To your point, right?

Yes.

Right there in the mirror of truth. Oh, there he is right there. That guy right there.

Love it. Yes. Pick up the books. Yeah. Just a quick sidebar. Is Patrick Lencioni is another phenomenal, phenomenal writer.

100%.

I've done his table group courses. I've had the pleasure of doing a Full in person in week course with the Table Group and the Lencioni Group. Phenomenal. Have to say, go back to some of our old school books that were written back, you know, 20, 30, 50, 60 years ago. Geez, we could go back to there. But I digress.

Yeah, no, 100% agree. Lancione is phenomenal. So back to technology and AI. Get into the conversations with your team is the synopsis and build that environment of trust, lead them and let them know, hey, we don't have any right or wrong answers yet, but we want to open a clear conversation about the opportunities that are before us. Because like Will Rogers said, if we just sit there, we're going to get run over. And we don't want that for anybody. And that's why we do this. We want to help them with that. So Zo insurer heard of the company?

Sure I have.

No one else is going to have.

Back to the Mirror of Truth founder. Right. So is being described as an AMS or CRM of the future. Okay. Which is in the technology automation realm. So how does it use native AI? And I'm going to start with that. What is native AI to start and how does that actually save time and money for agents on a day to day basis, not just in theory. So let's jump back for a minute and maybe we'll build in agentic AI if you want to jump into that. But what is native AI?

Yeah, I mean native AI is this thing's all built in. You open up the software, it's there. You're not having to go in and bolt things on and figure it out, make your own GPT, go to a third party company such as myself to create an AI agent or an AI bot.

Or rpa. So what we bring to the table with Zoensure is not only the over 40 different applications that's natively built into this, it also comes with AI built right in. So you click the generate summary button, you're getting a summary of everything that's going on with that account. You don't have to read all the notes, you're not having to scour through that and that's through every single module down to policy comparison. You don't have to leave the system, you click the button, load up your policies, whether it's at quote stage to whether you're already at binding stage, prospective stage. Every piece of the software is AI first. So what we're doing here is building it in that fashion versus trying to think about how we want to build Bolt. All of that on. So with, with what you're seeing in the industry, everything is we're acquiring, we're acquiring, we're acquiring. And then that comes with six months, a year, maybe even two years before you really see the full results of that. So, and now they have to say, okay, now how are we going to put all these pieces into the software versus when you open up our software, it's there natively built in for you. So the learning curve goes way down because as you're learning, you're already learning with these workflows and processes in place. Simple things like you have a quote. When you set that quote up in our system, you click the button. It automatically creates the entire policy and brings all that data over. There's not a thing you have to do, you don't have to lift a finger. I've used easy links, AMS, 360 Hawks, you name it. They're not built this way first.

Wow.

So back to, you know, find somebody who knows more than you do about anything and invest in them and move back to your lane.

So that was probably the best advice I got when I was honestly, I started my first company in 2001 called JX2 Productions. I'm still a co founder of it. Built that up to a large company. My brother bought me out in 2005, 2006, and our mentor when we were building that in 2001, 2002 said exactly that. He goes, the only way you'll ever be truly successful in the world that we're going is to find people who are smarter than you that don't want to do the work of an owner. And I was like, that is, that is gold right there. And I've taken that with me through my, through my whole career thus far.

So yeah, built four or five companies in different realms. But back to the agency business. So native AI, agentic AI. Do you want to comment on agentic AI?

Yeah, I could definitely get into agentic, what is it? And all of that. You know what? Agentic AI is so awesome because we're building it native into our system and I'm going to talk about how that is. So our agents that we're building custom will be able to answer the phone for you. We'll be able to go through and do all of that process decision making. So agentic AI is going to truly take that autonomy. It operates without true human input. You're setting goals for the actual AI system behind the scenes. It's providing instant discipline, decision making, contextual awareness that we wouldn't be able to do oftentimes until after we get off the call. So having that be able to do real time. Now we're not saying we're having that on our first rollout, but it'll be coming when you see like those pop up scripts and suggestions, these are things that agentic AI that this, this is what's built in behind the scenes that's giving all of this intelligence. And not to kind of go off topic, but you also have RPA that plays into some of these workflows. In order for all of this to happen, you know, you have, you have AI that, that's going to be your logic and your decision making. Right. It's going to be a little thick like a human. You have your RPA which is going to do the if thens and a lot of this stuff works together. And that's what we're creating on our back end is our AI agents, our agentic agents are going in for from day one, able to answer the phone and shoot them across. Now we've just developed in the last Couple of weeks 150 different intake scripts for just the personal commercial lines of insurance, property casualty that our AI agents are going in and now we're training them on. So that's really a big difference maker.

With our software versus some of the other ones out there. So.

I'm all for it. I think you should have multiple AI agents and with that you're going to have, they've now created the MCs which are going to come up and you're going to aggregate multiple AI agents together that are going to have specialties in certain avenues, if you will. So you may have an AI agent that's great at billing and great at customer service, or great at doing a specific task and then that speaks to your main brain and will do the work of your actual system inputs. So that's, that's a big thing that came out about a month or two ago where now you're having your individual brains that are going to be talking into your main brain. So that's really neat.

Your main AI brain.

You got it. Yeah.

Or tech brain or whatever.

Yep. It'll all filter up. So you have your master AI agent and you're going to have multiple other agents that specialize in voice and chat. That's really where their strength is.

This brings to mind another question completely out of left field. But in getting to know you the last couple of months, I feel I know you're good with it. So if I were to completely Take my agency that I built over the last 10 years, turn it upside down and dump everything on the table and reconfigure the puzzle pieces of my agency operations and start with AI and bots over here. Everything that happens. And by the way, just to confirm, you said 150 scripts in the last two weeks. You help build independent insurance agents in the PNC side of the industry, and.

That'S going through underwriting questions, et cetera. So if you're like, hey, I have a question on how to intake. We'll just use homeowners. It's going to have all these specific questions in there. Another good one is farm and crop. You know, there's. We have in there certain things based off of your March date versus your September. It depends on when your crops are happening. You know, for those of us that are in the Midwest, I'm not there, but we have agencies there. We broke it down by state and by time. So when you're pulling those scripts, not only is the bot gonna know that, but if you happen to have to take a call, you can pull that script and read it yourself through our knowledge base. Yep. Wow.

Okay, back to what I was saying. So if I'm going to re put all the puzzle pieces of my agency operations on the table and completely reinvent it, I've heard this multiple times in the last couple of months. So I want to get your take on this right. So I'm going to rebuild it. Every activity. I'm going to start with an rpa. Repetitive process automation, or a bot. Right.

Okay.

So I'm going to start with the bot. And maybe you have specific bots that are designed for specific things, which you just said.

My mind is like, whoa, all right, I got a billing bot. I've got a cert bot. I've got evidence of insurance bot. I've got this bot, I got that bot. But they're all playing up to the head bot. All right, so we're going to start every activity with AI and bots and automation. And if it doesn't, if it can't get done there, and am I wrong that in a growing way, they're able to do more and more and more all the time because of the advancements.

Yeah, because we're, as you're feeding it, ingesting information into these tools, it's getting more intelligent. Now I want to break down that you would have your agentic agents, your AI agents. Those are the ones that would have the separate. You will have another separate that has rpa. So RPA is separate from AI. Okay. Your robotic. Yeah, so you have your robotic process automation. Which why we go in, and we're going to go in through and do an assessment is we're going to determine which ones should be RPA and which ones should be AI. Because not everything needs both. And some of them do. Where you tend to find needing the RPA is when your API keys and your AI limits out. And now you need a physical. So going to a carrier that has very limited API calls because everybody can give restrictions around what you can give and take from each system. That's where you tend to need to flip to something like an RPA as an example. Because you need to do physical clicks of a mouse and AI isn't going to do so well with that. Right. They're not designed to do that. Neither is API. But that's where RPA comes in. So you can resolve some of those technical glitches that you may get this far in a process. And now we're going to institute RPA to take it to that.

And you find that too. And I'm thinking there's all love and respect for our partners, I mean carriers and vendor partners or have a limited mindset and maybe archaic from time to time.

Never ever.

Yeah, exactly. Thank you for the clarification. And that's why, hey, if you're unclear in any of this. Skull Eric. Anyway, so I've got the AI and the bots and the RPAs however comes together and if they can't handle that, then it goes to maybe a processor level person in the agency, which is step two, non licensed trained capable and all of that. And if they can't figure, if they can't figure it out at that point only does it go to a licensed person?

Yeah. And that's on.

Does that model make sense?

Yeah, that's what we're doing every day at Hatteras. We leverage a back, back office service that we're both familiar with. They're fantastic. They, they take care of all of those type of requests.

So we do it exactly that way. It comes in, if we need a quote request, it's going to kick over, it's going to do everything that it possibly can, automated. And then based off of the guardrails that we've set up, if it goes outside of that guardrail, it's going to send an email or a task or both, however you wish to have that designed to either that group of people, if you have a group setting, or an individual, if you have an individual, if you have it div up by alpha split. You can do it that way. Revenue split, tagging. You give us the, the, the, your idea and we generate it around that. But in our system, those are the, those are some of the examples of how we can do routing properly.

Wow. And just for clarification, he mentioned Hatteras again. Hatteras Insurance is Eric's own Florida based independent insurance agency who just happens to operate as a living case study for everything that we're talking about.

So it's a symptom of, of starting this. I wasn't going to start an agency. Listen, it was absolute insanity doing this in 2022 thinking I'm going to start an independent agency right at hurricane season in Florida. But you know what? It was so necessary in order to really.

Not only walk the walk, not only talk, to talk, but walk the walk, right? Say no, we're doing this every single day. And by the way, if we need access to a carrier, we need information. Now we're able to do that and we're able to actually program appropriately so we're not behind the eight ball like some of the other companies that are, you know, they're, they're tech forward and now they're, they're hoping to ask questions or try to dive into that carrier information, etc.

I, I have a feeling we'll be talking more. I think that's fantastic stuff that you have a living agency laboratory as I like to call it. So yeah, yeah, it's not a big.

Agency, not meant to be, just there. We keep our minimum.

It's operating.

Yeah.

So perfect. Segue to the next question. I wasn't even planning this. So you built and run your own agency, Hatteras, as a living case study, what are three tangible results? Based on everything that we've talked about for the independent insurance agents who are watching or listening, what are three tangible results you've seen and experienced by leveraging your tech stack that the average agency might not be seeing today and shall we say yet?

Yet, because it's coming and more and more folks are implementing this with great people like, you know, Francisco over at Sonnet with his programs, etc. The three tangible things that we've seen at least a 30% uptick in our quote, intake. And I'll tell you, the data accuracy is bar none, because we're getting it in and we're getting it in quickly. So the turnaround time and the results, not having to take up time with other.

Service folks just to do something simple like an intake has been astronomical for us. So then when they call in for service work, that ROI is so much higher because something simple, I used to get the phone calls and I was so happy when I kicked it over to agency VA and now we're even kicking it over to virtual AI agents, now those folks are getting happier. So now the next tangible result you see is your happiness level of your employees go up. Because agentic AI is really good at doing things like de escalating calls or kind of taking that initial brunt. So you have happier people. Happier people are going to do more for your agency and they're going to in turn your sales are going to go up. Your close ratio. They're not going to feel pressured.

To have to really get that. So that's two really tangible results. Because it comes back to what we spoke about in the very beginning when you want to implement all this is your team has to have that trust. So now you're building that trust value. When they're seeing this real time, real life come in and they're like, wow, this really is impacting me. Not only am I building trust in my leadership that they're pointing us in the right direction, but I'm building trust in the software and the systems that are being implemented so much of. So that in the last several years we've got a little bit of disdain and hurt from trying all these different ones. The third I think is a gimme is your revenue, your revenue is going to go up and your revenue per employee. This is something that I really like to try to hit home. Recently, probably about the last 60 or 90 days, I jumped on some podcast or some something that came up and when the slides was revenue per head. Now we've always kind of gone off of revenue per head around to 250,000 in the service industry. That's H Vac, those type of things to this type of industry. 400 to 500k per head is a good goal. When we were doing M&As, I wanted every person to have 500k revenue for servicing if they weren't doing at least.

500K revenue per employee in an insurance.

Agency business, every four people when we were doing M and A could easily handle 20 million in premium in servicing because of the automation. So that brings us.

Let me slow you down for just a minute. I want to make sure that that brick sits in everybody's lap for just a minute because that number is.

Much higher than the average. Way higher, way higher, way higher. But to back up to what you Just said let's repeat that one. These numbers, 200,000 revenue per employee or more.

Yep.

We were looking and the highest performing agencies because of what?

Because of, because of the automation and technology and leveraging it correctly. We've more than doubled it. We've come up to five to 600. Most, most agencies are going to settle in between four and five. But that if, if you're doing easy numbers and you want to use a 10% margin because we're slowly drifting as we know in this world down. Listen, when I was started in this industry 20 years ago, everything was 20% new. 15, 18 renewal on the occasion you'd have the 10 to 12 on the average I use 12.5% now when I look at an agency, you know, I say 13.

But so we're on the same page.

We're on the same page. I think we're. So if you take those numbers and you start doing the math out then you say okay, my, my guy should be able to do six and a half million or five million. That should be easy with automation because a lot of it is that they're getting caught up in the day to day minutia of doing an ID card, doing a simple mortgage change which an agent can intake that from the mortgage person and send a note over and you have a back office. So now what we're seeing with AI and an AI first company so this is assuming that you're brand new, you're starting, the only thing you're doing is putting AI in from the very beginning the average tech forward startup that's purely tech is seeing revenue and it's insane. Two and a half million per head plus two and a half million per head. Because what you're doing is now the average AI startup is 10 employees or less and that employee count is your developers, your C suite people and your marketing people. That's what you're having on staff. As they grow, you're going to add some people in there for servicing and your technical stuff. But that revenue per head just keeps going up, up, up, up, up. So that's really the wave of the future is you know, obviously in our industry we're not going to completely eliminate human. We have to have that insurance is just you want to buy from people you know like and trust relationships going to be tough to really generate that. Especially in commercial, right? Especially small commercial. They really like to know.

Commercial. They like to know you but they're kind of like we understand, we trust you and you're going to go do your Thing. But the small commercial man, they really want to. They want to be like your neighbor having a cocktail with you on a Friday night. So we're not going to get away from that, but let's leverage that and enhance it with what we have and get that revenue up.

I saw a conversation with some agents within the last week or two, and it was. The summation of. It was simply. It was a small commercial account. And the guy says, I need to make sure that this investment in insurance with you is going to reap benefits for me. While the middle market account leader said, hey, this is what I need. Just take care of it. It's a different mindset.

I say that, and I literally just went through this, wrapping it up. Actually, it's taken us almost eight weeks on an account that should have taken about eight minutes. Okay. We identified all the coverage gaps right away. We're like, whoever wrote this, yada, yada, it went through the whole thing. Similar conversation to the point where we had to have them sign a waiver about all the things they weren't taking.

And this is a small account. Not, you know, in our eyes, you know, it's smaller for them. It's a lot of money.

But to your point, when that person comes back and says, where's my roi? I'm going to be like, you're going to know that when you have a claim.

That's right.

And that's when you're going to be saying, how come I didn't pick up all these coverages? You're going to say, remember the waiver we signed?

Yeah, that's right here.

Yeah.

The signature and the date. So.

Stuff and so go ahead. I'm sorry.

No, I. I'm in agreements with you, Mike, on that. It's like, you know, if you want the medium large businesses, that's where. Where you get more of the. I understand. I just. I'm gonna pay the bill. I know my brother, he spends. He doesn't care that I talk about his account. He spends 50 grand a year with us. He doesn't care what it. He's like, I don't care if I have to spend 70. You know what I care about? That my millions of dollars in equipment that I've invested in is covered. That my employees have the right workers comp. That my trucks are covered. Should I get in an accident, whatever the case is, then you have the other businesses that are complete opposite from that. You know that. I digress.

I do, I do. So as we begin to wrap this up, I could go on for hours about this. This is fantastic stuff. I just want to revisit that brick that I tried to leave in people's lap. You know, people. And I talk to lots of agents out there and they're going, well, I'm thinking about the technology opportunities, etc. But you know, I, I have to spend X amount of money and I quickly try to move them to abundance mindset, which is invest, not spend. And then I, I try to say, all right, your revenue is a million dollars. And look, I'm involved in a lot of M and A conversations just like you are. And of course they're all starting with X times revenue. And it's real right now. I mean, it's 3 to 4x revenue for a good agency just to start the conversation right. So if you got that million dollars in revenue and you look at the end game, which we'll just say conservatively 3 million bucks, why wouldn't you invest to multiply that investment?

Heck yeah. Put your agency on autopilot. I call it advertising. Your agency do. If you can step away from your business and run it like you would hire a property manager for your, for your homes, your rental properties. We, if we have that mindset and we free the principal up, if, if that's what the principal really wants, if they want to be like an M and A and go out there and build, free that time up. Don't be involved in quoting. Listen, I, I don't even want to be involved that much in quoting, but I have to be because I'm building software. So if I'm not involved in that day to day, I'm not going to understand how to help you, the, the agent at the, at the end of the day. So absolutely, abundance is what, it's, what it's about. Think about, if I take this dollar, can I make it five? So what I try to tell my folks in the agency is when you sell a policy, let's just use 10% commission for 1,000 bucks, get 100. I pay you 40% of that 100, you're going to get the 40 bucks at the end of the day. That $40.

Is negligible. But the hundred bucks to me as the agency owner, I look at as 300. Because if I keep that company or that client, whatever, on the books for the time until I sell it, that client is worth three to four hundred dollars on day one. So don't look at the, oh, I'm caught up. It's only 80 bucks in commission. Yeah, okay, I get it. We Don't. We might not want to write those smaller, but sometimes when we flip the mindset to it's really worth 250 bucks when I go to sell this thing. Where else are you getting that much return? You're only going to get 1412 percent in the market and you own it.

You own the future of it.

Yes. So abundance. I think of everything that I go into and what is it gonna. Where's. What is it in five years from now going to be?

Well, those of us who are still thinking like that will be around to share what happened.

I.

Yes, I will see you there.

Absolutely. Yes, sir. Yeah, I have no plan to exit.

You know, I think we just answered my last question. Where do you think AI will replace people and agencies or. Well, where will it enhance them? You just described the answer to that. It will enhance them if they will invest in what's happening right now, the technology and all its pieces to its highest and best use and believe and work together as a team to move it up the ladder versus starting with somebody chained to their desk, including the owners and leaders. If that's what you like. If you like to be chained to your desk and don't have any other time to do what you want, live life on your terms, that's your choice. Right Eric?

Absolutely.

Or you can make the choice to think differently and maybe have a conversation with somebody like Eric to, shall we say, see the light a little bit. So.

I know that you have a meeting coming up with Patrick. You mentioned that before we got started today. So let's go ahead and wrap this up. But if there's somebody out there who wants to have a conversation with you, how can they find you or get a hold of you?

Yep, pretty easily. You can go to Insurecor IO you can go there anytime. You can also email Eric surecore IO Eric, my name's over there. There it is.

Ericore IO there's no E in sure Core, but it's right there on your screen, Eric. E R I K at insur C O R I E C O R E. Correct.

You got it. And then when you go there you'll see everything that we offer. RPA etc and then of course you can give us a call. Our phone number is right on the site. Give me a call anytime. Happy we we do free 30 minute chats all day. Just what are you thinking? Where have you been? Where do you want to go?

Well, I think I know I'm going to have a follow up conversation with you for a lot of reasons. But you know, and to point, Eric and I met at an insurtech event in the. We didn't know each other. We got together at the barbecue and got to know each other a little bit. And here we are talking about the next great opportunities in front of us.

And here's my million bucks from that barbecue.

I now I know what you're seeing. You're seeing 10 of those.

Yes, yes. I keep looking at this and I go, all right, all right. And you know what? One of the most wonderful people I worked with and we had our parting of ways. But this particular CEO, one of the things that stuck with me when I went to go work for them was he said, you know what, you got to print something out. You have to put something in front of you every single day that's going to make you remember and work your tail off for that day. And I said, oh. And he goes, eric, you're really into boats and I know you have a dream boat. So print that boat out, put it on your wall, and if I come in here tomorrow, it's not up there, we're going to have another conversation. It's the only way he goes. See this model of a plane over here? I want a private jet. That's why I have that there. So I did that and within two and a half years I had my dream boat. 53 foot yacht. Never thought in my wildest dreams at the age of 32 I'd be buying a 53 foot boat, but I put that as my goal. So I think having like this million dollars, I leave it on my desk and I leave the two dollar bill I got from Capital Premium Finance on there too because it reminds me, work my butt off.

Why not you? We have an infinite opportunity in front of us every single day.

Work your butt off. Put something in front of you that motivates you. If it's a trip to wherever, print it out, put it on there, put the cost right below it. Because that when you see the number, you go, that's I can do it.

Yeah, of course you can. I mean I learned from Mermaid Nightingale years ago, the only competition that we have is that we make for ourselves. The only limit. And I added on to that thought process. The only limitation that we have is that that we make for ourselves. So our, our message out. I think we're on the same page. To everybody out there watching or listening, don't make any limitations. Don't limit your thinking. Just go do it or make the call.

Yeah.

Eric Jensen, this has been flipping awesome. Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast and we will definitely be in touch. I can't wait to continue the conversations.

Absolutely. This has been fantastic. Really appreciate it. Mike. Loved getting to know you over these last couple of months. Hope to see you a little bit later this year. Thank you so much.

Fantastic. We're going to pick up on that just a second. So let me go ahead and wrap this up for everybody. Hey, if this is your first time on the podcast, welcome. My name is Mike Stromso. I am widely recognized as a leading author, speaker and coach for the independent insurance agency industry. You can learn more about myself and what we do to serve independent insurance agents@upplife.com that's umbrella.

Paul.

Paul lif like Frank E.

If you're interested in attending one of our live events or anything that we do, please reach out to us. In fact, we have one coming up.

At the end of July in Charlotte, North Carolina. Collaborating with the top 3% of agents nationwide and growing their business. They all have the abundance mindset, so we're excited about that. Everything that we do is designed to share with you everything that we've learned in our own independent insurance agencies to help you grow, grow your business, create wealth so you too can have more freedom if that's what you choose to live your life on your terms. And if you got great value out of this podcast, please share the link Unstoppable Profit podcast with anybody else that you know so they can get great value out of this podcast as well. Make sure you go up to the top. Click subscribe so you don't miss one valuable episode to continue your growing learning and expand that unlimited mindset, the infinite mindset that you have before you. And of course we're out there on all the channels. Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, our YouTube channel. It's everywhere. So please join us as we continue to speak with and learn from incredible industry entrepreneurs like Eric Jensen. And we have no limits. So Eric, thanks again buddy.

Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you Mike everybody.

I will see you on the next episode. Until then, just take action. It will lead to your next win or your next lesson. You never lose. See you the next episode everybody.

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