Captives Uncovered with Warren Cleveland

Welcome to the Agent Leader Podcast. This is the podcast for insurance agency leaders to learn, to grow, to develop, and ultimately become their best version possible. My name is Brent Kelly. I am your host. Super excited to be with you today. And today I will be interviewing a guest who I will give a. Hopefully a fairly proper introduction here in a second, but a guest who's going to speak on something that we've never really talked about on this podcast before. We're going to talk about captives and all different things about captives, because I have Warren Cleveland and make sure I got this right. Warren, I've got you as the founder and CEO of Captive Coalition, Is that correct? Very good. And I'm stealing this directly from your LinkedIn. So if you don't like it, you got to blame your own LinkedIn. All right? But I loved your. I loved your little subtitle there. It said, I partner with independent agents. Great audience, by the way, through exclusive captives and sales strategies. And I'm just gonna hype, I'm gonna do my little take on this, but to retain and obtain the best clients. Did I get that right, too? Warren?

100 couldn't be any better, Brian, So.

Far I can read. Okay, so we're on it. We're on a good path here. But all seriousness, I've had a cool opportunity of getting to know Warren a little bit through some previous conversations. And as we found, we've got obviously a lot of mutual interest, including independent insurance agents. So that's the big one. But had some great conversations and I wanted to bring Warren on this podcast because he keeps injecting information in my brain. I thought, well, this would be great to get this out to the audience as well. So, so excited to have Warren here. Warren, I'm going to start off with this. Tell us who the heck you are. Tell us about your company, tell us about your purpose. No pressure, but I'll turn it right over to you.

Well, thanks for having, Brent, of course. And, and to the Sitkins Organization. You know what you guys do for independent agents? Them get better and agency leaders get better. Their businesses is sorely needed, without a doubt. Well, I, I'll. I'll give you a quick origin story type thing, right? 29 years old, right? Seat of a 767 Boeing. If it ain't Boeing, I ain't going for continental airlines on September 11, 2001, when that tragic day, uh, you know, was pretty awful for a lot of people, and I lost my. The only job I thought I was ever going to have that was flying Airplanes for a living. You know, I had to go do something else. So I became an entrepreneur and realized I had a calling and a passion for it and eventually gave up aviation as a career and moved into, you know, a couple, couple different businesses. Insurance being the one that has shepherded me here. You know, started 10 years ago as an independent agent. Opened an agency from scratch, built a team, built a, what I think is a heck of a business. Pretty proud of that. You know, had some really big clients. You know, most agencies have between 6 and 20 accounts that represent 50 to 80% of the revenue. And I had one, I had one of those juicy ones, this $300,000 revenue client, until I didn't. So, you know, one day we were struggling to get this thing renewed and this is four or five years ago, and all of a sudden I was like, okay, this is a problem because this is a $300,000 revenue client. And all of a sudden we were, we were getting circled by the big brokers and, and my mentor is like, you need to go look at a captive. And I'm like, okay. Like I had no idea what that was. And I had an idea, but okay. So I went to the usual suspects. Nobody could help me fast forward the day of the renewal. I have a captive option, but it's too, it's too little too late and we can't get somebody to write a $5 million check. That, that set this whole thing in motion of understanding what captives are all about and, and how, you know, independent agents are. In my opinion, the captive industry is not set up to help them in any way, shape or form, having been in that experience myself. So I built captive coalition around that, that whole idea of how do we help the independent agent get smarter about other alternative risk transfer captives and how they can use it to secure their best clients and go get more. So there you go.

Now that's a great, great start, Warren. I've got already few questions in my mind. Again I'm going to ask on behalf of myself and my audience. So hopefully I get some good hybrid of stuff there. But you know, one of the things that you hit on. We'll just, maybe I'll just start with this because you talked about like the, the, you know, the leverage of the book of business and how much. Again, there's so much we're top heavy, right? I mean that's true for producers and we've had conversations. Some of the studies that we're doing is, you know, lot of the agencies, 25% of their top clients represent about 88% of revenue. Well, there's some big accounts in there. You know, back to what you said. To retain and obtain those is. Is. Is critical. And you. There's one side of it which is opportunity to write those accounts. And then there's in your story, Warren, like, how do I retain those? Because that hurts. I know when we first talked, you brought that up. And I guess what I would lead into this is, you know, I think every great entrepreneur that I've talked with, they founded something based on a missing link or there's a need in the marketplace, like why didn't someone else do that? Or where is that, where's that resource? Oh, it doesn't exist. Well, I'll create one. So I want to get, I want to go down that path a little bit about what you've learned in this. But I'm going to start with the most basic question in the world. Warren. Ready? What in the heck's a captive? And why should anybody care? Because I know in the audience, I know in the audience we have some that go, come on, I know what that is. But there's many that are still maybe like you were, like, I heard it. I, I know the term. I don't really get it. So could you share with the audience what is this thing and why does it matter?

Yeah, well, have you ever had a business owner ask you, hey, I never had a claim, you know, in X number of years, why am I paying more in premium? Like why is that? That, that doesn't make sense to a business owner.

Right?

They think they should be getting a better deal. Well, the only way the industry gives you a better deal is the insurance industry is if you take on more risk. So what a captive insurance company does is, is we, we create an insurance company for the business owner. And you know, typically they're 250,000 comp. Go auto combined. And we put, put them together, right? So they, they don't have enough mass do it on their own. Some of them do that, that are 2 and 3 million in premium. But for the most part, they come together as a group. We form a group captive. So we form an insurance company and we buy reinsurance. So now because we're an insurance company, we can buy. So we're not buying retail anymore. And then that gives us some, some, you know, a shiny label on the policy that everybody recognizes. And then it allows the business owners in that captive to retain underwriting profit and it allows them to have renewal premiums that are only based on their losses, not the industry. So it gives them a ton of control, ton of transparency, and a whole lot of stability. Does that answer your question?

Oh, I mean, well, you, you use some great words there at the end. I'm like, oh, I want those things. But, but, yeah, I, I think you explain it really, really well on this. And we're going to get into two part of this. How can people reach out to Warren? And hey, tell me more about this and how you do this and give some specific examples on it. But you also mentioned too, I mean, we've had some other conversations, obviously, outside this podcast, and, you know, when you start to look for certain resources out there in this area, what you've done. Warren's a bit different. I mean, obviously it is, but it is different than what you see out there. And I think one of the things and we've talked about this is our audience is the same. We focus exclusively on insurance agencies, independent insurance agencies. So maybe kind of share. Again, this isn't about just to compare contrast against other services so much, although it can be, but really just with what you do, Warren, why is it unique and different? Right. As independent insurance agencies, they're out there walking this walk. What makes, you know, you all different, how you approach things?

So I built captive coalition 100% on the experience I had as an independent agent. So, you know, I learned about Captives as an independent agent myself and pivoted my agency to try and go get that business. And I realized that, okay, this is not made for me, right? It's. It's made for the people who are providing that service and potentially the client. But not. It was essentially to exclude the agent, in my opinion. That's the experience I've received. That's the experience of fellow agents. And I said, you know, I'm a big believer in, in, you know, you give a man a fish, feed him for a day, teach man to fish, feed him for life. And I said, you know, we could really do something here because we had all the knowledge. Well, I'm saying all the knowledge. I think we learned something every day. But we, we, we knew how Captives work. So my team, I went to my team and I said, look, let's, let's do, let's go do this. Let's, let's go take what we captives and let's go teach independent insurance agents. And, and while, you know, and that's who we see as our client, we don't see the business owners as our client. Right? That's. That's the agent's client, right? So we're here as the gateway to capital insurance, and it's their client, it's their relationship. So we're going to do everything we can to foster that relationship. So I built a built coalition on five tenants, right? So, number one, we only work with independent insurance agents, right. Number two, we don't do the BoR thing. I've been on the good and the bad side of that. I just. I think it's a tired practice. And. And obviously there's a few exceptions, right? You can't. Can't get accused of fraud or misrepresentation or whatnot. Number three, we don't let business owners come in without an agent. So if a business owner calls me today and says, hey, I'm interested in your captive, I want to join, we're like, great, let's talk to your agent. And if your agent's not an independent, then we'll introduce that business owner to one of our independent agents in our network. But under no certain terms will we allow a business owner to come in without an agent. And then, number four, this is important. That agent isn't me, so there isn't some inside producer in coalition saying, hey, we'll take you in as the broker. That does not work. I sold my insurance agency for this particular purpose, so we could never be the broker, ever. And then, number five, and I think this is probably the most important rule that we have at Captain Coalition. That is, it's always your client. It's never my client. So I always see the agents as our clients, right? So what can we do to help them build that relationship with their clients and be more valuable? Right. Every. Every day, whether it's captives, whether it's traditional business, like, if we can help teach sales, because that's what you. I mean, that's something you guys do really, really well at Sickens is, you know, the numbers and the sales piece. But if we can. If we can bring any more resources to help an agent give more value to their client, that's what we're going to do.

Yeah. Yeah. I love those five areas. And do you call those. Are those like your principles, your terms, your core values? What rules?

Your rules.

Okay, maybe I should. Yeah. I just love the Five. Yeah. This is who we're about. And I love that. And what. What hit me too, Warren, again, I think this is why we've had some really great conversations, is we're very similar. Not only do we work in the same audience, you know, certainly. But, you know, at least the term that I've always Used is that, hey, we're not a replacement for X, whatever that is, we're catalyst for it. And, you know, like, we want to help that. And, and these are a bit of buzzwords, but I think they're true and I love them is I just think about how do we educate, how do we empower, how do we equip, right? What do they need to know that they don't know? How can we help build them up in certain areas where they need it, and what tools and resources can we provide them that are going to help them achieve that? And if we can do that, they're going to go out and be successful in the marketplace. And, you know, like I said, Warren, other conversations we've had is the Zig Zigger quote, if you help enough people get what they want, you can have anything you want. And it's just about, hey, let's be focused, you know, be focused on the independent agents. So let me ask you this. I want to get to some success stories that maybe you've had with, with agencies or in your experiences. But we know there's also problems. So when you're having conversations with. And this could be maybe, I don't know, an agency that approaches you or a professional that approaches you, or maybe as you're having conversations, what do you see as some of the top challenges? You shared your challenge. You had a $300,000 account that went. But what challenges do you see on a daily or weekly or monthly basis from agencies that you go, okay, are some problems here.

It's funny. I talked to. I actually talked to an agent yesterday who's on a board of the. One of the Big Eye association. And he, you know, he said, look, you know, we asked him, hey, what do you know about Captives? And he goes, I know the word, but that's about it. And, and he writes some really decent accounts. Right. Here's the thing he said that really struck me and that was. I know, I know this is a thing, and it's emerging. He goes, but I. And he says, I've got friends that they're sticking their head in the sand. They're like, I'm never going to have to go up against that. It's never going to be an issue for me. And I was just like, my eyes got really big and I was like, so I think, I think a lot of agents, either, they either think it's too hard to understand.

Yeah.

They don't have the time to understand it. Right. And they're. And, but, but the, the big Renewal every year keeps them up at night so they're, they're kind of caught. And that's what, that's one of the things that I, I said to our members is, hey, you don't have to be the expert. Like, you don't need to know, you know, what aggregate attachment points are, whatever, you know, cool, fancy insurance words. But you have to at least have an understanding of this. And that's what we're here for. Like, we're here to teach you that. And I think like our 30 day quick start guide, you know, a couple of the things that we give to our members for free is that you can still, you can still learn this in chunks and not have it take over your life. Right? Because you may, some agents may only do one of these in their career. They only, they may only one client while other agencies do this full time.

Right?

So they'll send submissions to us every week. So it's, it's, it's really, it's being, it's being that person who can do like that organization if you're dedicated to the success of the agent, similar to what you guys are, and, and giving them tools and resources to do it, you know, you make it easy for them. I think, I think people will reciprocate.

Yeah, it's always one of those, like, I didn't imagine you said that like covered in here. No, no, I don't want to hear about, I, I don't want to talk about it. And, and you know, maybe this is a bad analogy, but it's like if you're sitting, sitting out by the, the, the ocean, like eventually the tide's going to find you, right? Like, you can't just avoid it. It's like it's going to come and it's like, it's kind of what it is. Like, okay, you're going to need to be aware of these kind of things. And I think the other thing you said, Warren, that hit me and I actually had this conversation with a group of producers a week or two ago. I said like we had younger producers and I said, you don't have to know everything. In fact, you're not going to know everything. But we are at a world now where you need to realize how to access it, right? Or at least to be able to provide channels to that. Like, that's the thing. Oh, I got to know. No, you don't have to know everything. You've got to be able to know the connections, the resources, the tools and how to access it and find people to support you in these areas. It's critically important.

It's interesting. You just, you triggered a thought, Brent. And that is. I had a business owner call me, right? This is a GC out of Atlanta. And he called me, he just found. Found us on Google. And he said, tell me about captives. Sure, I'll get, I'll have a conversation with you. And so we have a quick idea of what it is. And he goes, and they're spending about a million in premium. And he said, And I, he said, you know, my agent told me we weren't big enough. And I, I kind of said, you know, we were, we were on Zoom. And like I said, well, I'm not sure what, what he's talking about. You're more than big enough, you know, given what you just told me. And he said, you know, I knew something was wrong when the guy said, when his, his, his agent said, oh.

You'Re not big enough.

You want anything, you don't want any. You don't want any part of that. So what did that business owner do? He went right on the computer, found us, found what he wanted, and made a phone call. And that agent is, you know, that agent's at risk of losing that account because they just, they just said, oh, I, I, you don't want that. That, that's just people too smart, they're too savvy for something that just can't. You can't just pawn them off, right, and expect them never to go find what they're looking for.

Well, and, you know, part of this, Warren, I don't want to get to speculate, which I say I don't want to speculate or assume. And now here I go. But, you know, part of that is there's a fear factor in some of those things of, you know, I don't want to know it, I don't care about it. So I just kind of say something that whatever sounds okay. And, you know, I mean, listen, we're in a world where you don't just have Google, you got chat GPT, and every AI, you could write that in there and very quickly realize, oh, well, maybe you're. Maybe you are big enough. Like, it's just not right. So obviously, talking to someone like you is the best place to be, but information is everywhere. You have, you've already sort of answered this question, but maybe you'll go a bit further in this, because I want to get to the heart of it. Why do you believe that? Not again, not all, but some agencies and professionals avoid captives and Again, we kind of maybe dance around this a little bit, but what is that jumps out to you? Like, why do people resist it, avoid it, push it away? What are some things that jump out to you, Warren?

Well, frankly, I think some people think they're not going to make any money or they don't know how the compensation works. I think that's a big deal, right? An agent. Some agents, when, when I explain the transparency of what captives bring to their client, that they were going to see where every dollar comes out of, including your fee. Right? So this is where this is, this is, you know, this is the big boy stuff that you need to be able to add value to your client to, to have a fee. And I'm not saying I don't like, we don't require, you know, we're not setting fees, you know, anything like that. It's up to you, right? But, and, but part of our training, and I'm sure at your organization, you guys teach agents how to add value to your client, right? I mean, that's what this is about. So don't be, don't be the policy talking policies, right? Go be an advisor. Go, go be a strategic person. Go be a strategic advisor to, to your client and have it, it's not a customer, it's a client. Have a fiduciary kind of responsibility to the success. And I think that's when, again, when you're that person to your client, not only will they know, love and trust you, but they'll bring friends that are just as big or bigger, and you'll get, you'll get the benefit of that. And so that's the first thing is that I think agents don't understand how they get paid. I think, I think agents have, there's a lot of misunderstandings about what can go right and what can go wrong. Like, I'm a big believer in telling business owners, hey, this is the bad stuff. This is, this is how this goes south. Here's, here's the, here's what bad looks like and then here's what good looks like. And I think agents have a lot of different misconceptions about how the whole mechanism of it works. Right? And, and it's really, it's not that complicated, I promise you. And then, and then, as we said before the time, well, it's going to take me years to understand this. I can teach this. I, I run webinars all the time for our members on what it is, you know, the pros and cons and then the claims piece and the claims piece is the hardest part. Right. Because it's, it's, it's, it's, it's how the money flows. And I think that's important. But look, you're. You're an insurance professional. You understand coverage, and, and there are some really great technicians in our industry who are, I mean, heads and shoulders above me when it comes to that stuff. If you can do that and you can explain a genome policy or a DNO policy to that, to that level, this is nothing, in my opinion.

Yeah, really well said. It's funny. Run on your 1, 2, 3. And a little different than this, but it's funny. You want to keep it super simple. I'm like, Tiffany comes back to time, money, and people and kind of what you indicated. I mean, there's a money question there. And again, the people is more of what go right and wrong. And then, of course, the time issue. And, you know, you're right, Warren. I think, you know, we certainly teach and preach and part of our selling system about, you know, you know, everybody talks about differentiation, but just a unique way of thinking, a unique process. And I, you know, I know you've seen this, too, but I talked to most producers in particular, and I've been in rooms with 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 producers. And I'll say, hey, what is your number one point of differentiation that really jumps out at you? That. And they sit there and they're kind of like, we're really nice. We've got good service. We're competitive in the marketplace, we're independent. Okay, well, every one of you can.

100 years.

There it is. Yeah. I've been in business forever, and again, I mean, it's like, none of that is bad inherently, but it, it doesn't do anything to change the conversation. And I know that's why I love talking to you, because a big part we talk about is we got to change that conversation. There's a level of expectation that most insurance buyers have because that's how they've been trained and taught. Until in your example, someone discusses something different and they go, what's that? Oh, why does my current agent talk about it? I don't know. All right, so now all of a sudden is where you get in. You're very, very vulnerable on those things. So I appreciate you sharing that. All right, let's talk about the other aspect. I know you've had people you've worked with where they've, they've had some wins. Right. Where they've been working with you or talking about captives and they go, this happened, this changed. So, you know, for all my audience out here, what are some success stories? And give as many as you want that you've seen, that really has jumped out at you.

Yeah. You know, I think helping an agent from zero. Right. So agents who have never, never understood, captive and, and watching them consume our, our, our resources and, and get it and then decide, they call me up, his name's Craig, a great guy, and he says, you know, I only want to do this. And I know that. Right, because that's, that was what I was like. I had the same epiphany. I'm like, well, this is all I want to do. Like this, this makes sense. And to see agents giving them information. So, you know, and look, I've been on phone calls with agents where they're not a fit, but the client needed to hear from somebody else that they're not fit and they retain the account, you know, four million dollar premium account. And, and you know, that, that they needed that support and nobody would help them. And that was, that was the other part that I've seen is that agents, they're, they're looking, a lot of them are looking for a resource. And so being that kind of, you know, right hand for, for this strategy, you know, I think that's where agents are winning every day, is that they know they can call us, they, they can go onto our website, they can get in our membership site and get all kinds of resources, our calculators and all these things that they never had before. I know I didn't have them. That's why we created them and that's why, and so, so having agents being empowered, because that's a word I heard you use, empowered to go after this and, and not be in the dark or let some big broker try and take them, take their best accounts because they didn't know.

Yeah, yeah.

So, like, I want to stand on the hilltops and yell this from the top, you know, hey, man, come check this out. Whether you do it or not, you know, it is going to be in your backyard soon.

Yeah, well, I mean, the belief you have behind that and obviously successes follow is incredible. And I just, I, I, I think in terms of sports analogies, Warren, far too often, and I know they're overused. I don't care. I like them anyway. They're mine. But I just think about pod, it's my podcast. I do what I want. Right? So, so do what I want. So the, you know, I just think about, like, different times, even in, you Know, youth sports or high school sports, that's about as far as I got. But you'd be doing something and struggling and you're competing. All of a sudden you learn a new way of doing something, and all of a sudden you're like, oh, now I have this advantage. Ah. And that's a big part of what you do, right? You're equipping and resourcing people with new advantages. And I also think that this. This struck me. I don't know if this will hit you or not, Warren. I don't want to use terms that I'm just throwing out here, but I read a book years ago, and it talked about the difference between improvement offers and opportunities. New opportunities. Right. You're not. Yeah. I mean, improvement offer is, this goes back, we'll save a little money, we'll do a little of this, which the new opportunity is a whole new vehicle of. There's a totally different way of thinking about this. And I know this is an overturning, overused term, but paradigm shift. Oh, I've never thought about it that way before. And that's what I really hear you, equipping and empowering agencies to do. It's provide this complete new opportunity which gives them that competitive advantage. So there was no question there, Warren. But I want to get your thoughts anyway. Agree.

Well, no, I could. Couldn't agree more. And including the model itself, right. Everybody thinks if you've been in the captive industry, in, in inside the industry, there's an adage that says if you've seen one captive, you've seen one captive because they're all different. Right. But if you go in the group captive space and you go as an agent and you've had a submission into, you know, one or two or three providers, they all look the same.

Yeah, right.

They all look the same. Well, I hate to tell you this, but there's another way to do this. In fact, there's a million ways to do this, and you're only seeing the very small pieces. That's the only thing that the industry has given you. And I think agents, so they're like, they get shot down from a particular provider, and they're like, oh, I guess that didn't work well, did it? You know, is there another option? And. And I think that's teaching agents how this works is part of that. Right? So once they get an idea, they're like, yeah, I get that. Like, I could do something with that. Like, I. I totally understand now. And, and so, you know, to your point, paradigm shift Empowerment, you know, knowledge, power.

Yep, 100. 100. And it's just, yeah, it's just, I, I love that. Again, the idea of, and so much of yours is resource and education and get people to start to understand this. And there's, there is, there's extreme power in that. So let me ask this, and again, share whatever you want or can on this. But so if I'm a, I'm an agency and I'm saying I'm here hearing this conversation or want to learn more about what you do, like, where do I start? Because I know you've got a number of tools and resources and things on your site. So go ahead and promo your site and then what are the first steps that an agency might want to take?

So, well, first, a very first step, obviously, check out the site, see some of the free tools and resources. We have calculator assessment. So we, we built a calculator because I, I didn't want to have to get on the phone and talk to, you know, some business sales guy to then get an idea of what the numbers would look like. Right? I wanted, I wanted something I could give to, I wanted something I could give to a client that showed, okay, here's how much the collateral would cost, here's how much the underwriting problem would be, and here's your worst case scenario. Here's how much it would cost you if you had the worst possible year in claims. So what? So we built it, we built it for quota share captive, and we built it for the typical AB model captive. So you can now take that, print it off, put your logo on it, do whatever you want with it, and give it to your client as a, as a conversation starter. Like, hey, this is what it could look like in very generics, right? All we need are the premiums, compute auto and the average claims per year and it comes right to you. There's, there's no, we don't need your client's name, we don't need any of that stuff. But it'll give you a starting point for a conversation. And then I think that's what agents need, right? If you're, if you're just going and saying, well, we can put you in a captive and well, Clint is in it, they don't even know how their geo policy responds. They're not going to understand captive from that. When you show them the money and you say, hey, look, this could be an opportunity for you to, to take a little risk but get a little reward. Do you want to learn more? Okay. And Then, and really, if, if, if we have. I had a call with an agency leader the other day and he unders. He's placed plenty of captive clients together and he wanted to, you know, what are you different? Like, we went through kind of our training resources. We said, look, why don't you apply for membership? So on our site, you can apply for membership, ask a few questions. We want to make sure it's a fit for you and for us. Right. Because not everybody's a fit. This isn't, this strategy doesn't work for everybody does not. So we want to make sure there's, there's, there's mutual, like, like you've said. I know, because we've talked about this. Like, who's, who's your perfect client? Like, what, what does that look like? And we all haven't. And, and agents should understand that. Right? Producers should get that too. Not everybody is your perfect client. So finding what that is is super important, in my opinion. I, I think it's, I think I got this from you guys and maybe one of your LinkedIn posts, whatever the, the niches are the riches or the riches are in the niches or something like that, it's just understanding that a little better.

So, yeah, it's. Well, and we, we do, we talk. I mean, I love what you shared there, Warren. And we, you know, we talk at length. In fact, next week we've got another camp and our entire sessions around future ideal clients and understanding the difference. And I read this in a book recently. I feel like I might mess it up, but it always says an unaimed arrow never misses. And, and I love it because it's true. It's like, I mean, you hear, oh, we could do anything for anybody at any time. It's like, not very well, you can't. And obviously when you get to know what a future ideal client profile looks like, and we talk about demographics and psychographics, but like, really getting in there, then you're truly able to start to ask questions that start to change that conversation. That's really all the things you're talking about, is you got to change the conversation. And I also love, I appreciate the fact that, like, so often we talk to producers. I'm sure you have this. You're right. Like, we have a captive. Here you go. And it's like, huh? Versus. And it just hit me, my bad analogy in my head. So my, My older. My second daughter, she's getting ready to go to college. She was last night in our kitchen with her boyfriend baking brownies and it just all sudden hit me, like, can you imagine if I didn't know what was going on out of nowhere and someone shoved a brownie in my face? Like, maybe eventually I'd be like, all right, versus sitting there and you kind of start to smell it and you're like, oh, I want those. What is that? Yeah, it just hit me in my head, like so often producers are just shoving stuff and it's like, hey, ask the right questions, right? Be. Be very clear and careful and conversational how you're asking things that people go, oh, well, tell me more about that. What would that look like? What would that mean? So I love that approach. And sorry for my very silly brownie analogy. It just, it just, it just came out. Lauren, I appreciate you sharing. Go ahead, Go ahead, please.

No, I was going to say one of the other parts of this that I found, you know, as, as we were putting coalition together was, look, I've sat through the captive 101 with different providers, and if you're expecting. This is why I think this is part of the other problem is that agents are not informed on how this works. So they, so let's get them educated, right? And then they can educate their clients a little better. But putting them on a call with somebody to explain captives for an hour, hour and a half with sample data, not even their actual numbers, in my opinion, huge waste of time, right? They're. They're not going to get that. Like, again, they don't. They're relying on, on their agent 100 who most of the time, this stuff is going right over their head. So, because I've been there, you know, getting, getting the agent resources to then educate their client without having to go write it and create it themselves. That's. That's one of the things I felt like, okay, look, take this, give it to your clients so they can understand and have an intelligent conversation about a huge financial decision for their business. Because the last thing you want to do is put them into something. They're trusting you and it goes wrong for whatever reason. And now you're going to have egg in your face. So, like, let's all get on the same page by, by educating. So huge. Educate.

Educate allows a part of the experience warrant. Another overused analogy. But it's one of those things where I could give you a billion car specs, but there's a difference of a billion car specs on stuff, which is true. These would be factual specs versus when you sit in the car and you smell it and you feel it. You're like, oh, I get it now, because it's applicable to you. You know, I explain about finding the right fit. We're the same thing as an organization, right, with the agencies. Like, we're not a fit for everybody. We're very selective and intentional who we work with, and there's reasons behind it, because we're not going to help you. Well, but the other thing that we, is that we want to give you kind of smell the brownies a little bit. So allowing people to kind of analyze some of the stuff and go, does this make sense for me? So I love, I love that approach that you have here. Are you ready to take a little bit of a. I don't know if it's a left or right turn, but we're taking a turn, Warren, and this is going to be all about you. So I have, I have one official question, and then we can, we can just talk about whatever your heart desires as needed. But here's my question. I ask this to every person that comes on the podcast. I'll make sure we have enough time for this. So this isn't necessarily about agencies or what you do. This is just about you and your experience. And I loved your journey, going from aviation to insurance. Now what you do, it's pretty cool. But let's just say that you, later today, Warren, you're walking down the street or something and you bump into somebody and you, you turn around and you go, oh, my gosh, that's. That's me when I started my career. And the younger version of you looks at you today and says, wow, not only are you handsome and good looking as you grew older, Warren, but if you could give me one piece of advice for the younger version of me, what would it be? What would you share with your younger self?

Share with my younger self?

Wow.

I guess my, I mean, I did learn this along the way. Don't be afraid to fail. You know, it's not always going to work out the way you think. And, and I think that picking yourself up off the ground, you know, losing that $300,000 client was an absolute kick in the gut.

Yeah.

If that happened today, I wouldn't, I wouldn't. I mean, it's never pleasant, but I wouldn't sweat that. Right. I think you have to be afraid to fail. Once you're, once you let that go from your power, somebody had something else has power over you, you let that.

Go.

You can have a little faith and, and keep moving.

Yeah, really good advice. I mean, it's it. I just want to be careful of commenting on people's one thing because it's your one thing. But we just. When I think about being afraid to fail, I mean I see it every day and every one of us have our own self limiting beliefs. Oh, I don't know if I want to do that. What if it doesn't work? But yeah, at some point you're like, who cares? You know, I had a great mentor of mine and again, you always want to be intentional with stuff. But I love when he said this, he said, you know, jump and build your wings on the way down. And I'm like, well, thank goodness because I've done that a few times. I think a few times I forgot the wings, but I jumped. But I think there's just such practical advice there. And I think about, and again, just go take this from the insurance agency and producer perspective in general. I think I've shared this on the podcast before, but one of the things that we do, Warren, is that we ask our attendees, our members to send us, send us stuff. And one of the things that we ask them to do is create your 30 second commercial. What's your pitch? What's your talking point? Oh, do I need. And you can, you can argue, is this good or not? The point of it is it gets you to get conversational how you want to communicate. And every time in our programs we get about 50% of the producers that actually submit it. And every time I'm always like, why is that? Because, you know, this is something that we call low risk practice. When we do training. Low risk practice means you're going to screw up, but no one really gets hurt. And so what is it? Is it I just don't believe it matters or there's something in there was we typically see is I don't want to look stupid, I don't want to say something wrong. I don't want to make a mistake. And as we always tell people, you're going to look stupid someplace, where do you want to look stupid? So look stupid here so you don't go look stupid out there. And I guess to tie all this back, I think a lot of that with the agency you work with is that, you know, like, well, someone's going to ask about a captive. So you might want to be prepared to have that conversation.

So yeah, don't practice on your clients, don't practice on your prospects. Practice. Could not agree more. And, and literally, if you, if you, I, I 30 second commercial, I had one with an agent when I was an agent. I so support what you guys are doing on that sales training. Because if you're not prepared to talk and, and just. And you can't, like you, like you said at the beginning, you can't say, well, we've been in business 100 years. We. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Nobody cares. Right? Nobody cares. It has to be about them. Has to be about who you're, who you're talking to, who your audience is.

Right.

So what's that business owner? What, what, what's their issue? Right? Oh, they're fed up because they're paying. Every time they write a check, they just feel it goes into a black hole. They're frustrated because every time they have a claim, they're just. They're aggravated because it never goes their way, and they're just sick and tired of, like, no reward for every time they have to pay for an insurance premium. Like, they don't see the value.

Yeah, yeah, there's.

There's 30 cent commercial for.

And I give you credit because even we first talked and you got on your site, like, you've got your 30, you know, you got your story. And. But what I love about it, and I think. And you hit it right on, is that who's the story really about? Who's the hero of the story? Well, client. The client's the hero. That's the hero. Not you. You're a guide. You help navigate. But, yeah, we always say, funny, I had a guy that said, you know, we are in the podcast stage, Brent, so I don't know if you can use this, but we always talk about wiifm, the most important radio station. What's in it for me? Like, that's what every person you're talking to cares about.

Great.

Thanks for. Okay, so how do I win? I mean, that's what they're thinking. Well, they say it or not, so you better be able to reflect that in your. In your conversation. All right, Warren, how can.

You're training that? You're coaching that.

Yeah, and it's. I mean, listen, it's. I'm going on a soapbox here. But you talk about soft skills. I don't think there's anything harder than soft skills. And people, we all talk. I'm like, yeah, everybody talks. Just most of us are really crappy at it. And. And, you know, part of it is, you know, part of it is you've got to be able to communicate or create influence, and that is a skill. And it can be worked on and it can be developed. And I think you know, again, what so much of what you do gives them resources and tools to communicate at higher levels. So, so, so relish that. So, Warren, before we go here, and again, I want to respect your time. I know we're getting to about 45 minutes here. How do people find you? Where do they find you? Give us the website. We'll put in our links here as well. And any final, final words before we officially depart here today.

You know, I, and I, again, I appreciate you having me on your podcast, Brent. It, it's always great to collaborate with people like you who are at the forefront of independent agents. I mean, simply for us, go to captivecoalition.com you'll put that link. I appreciate you doing that. Check it out, peek around, find something that you know looks good. Get educated, right? Whether it's through us, you do it on your own. Doesn't matter. Get educated, right? You have to know how this works. At least have that conversation when they do ask, because they will ask.

Yeah, yeah, it's, that's not the place you want to be. And you know, I, I don't want to get too much of our stuff, but we, we talk so much about asking these points of differentiation, these questions that go around. We call them peer to peer questions that you ask, questions that you just kind of assume they're doing. As a consultant, as an advisor. Cuz share with me about this. And if you're like, I don't know anything about that. Now, now you're, now, now you're playing defense, right? Oh, I was just, I was just getting ready to talk to you about that. I'm glad you brought that up. No, you weren't. So, Warren, hey, it was an absolute pleasure to have you on here. I'd love to have you back on again. And we can maybe take this some other ways around captives, because I know the agencies you work with. We've got some that go, we know them, we love them, we use them, and we've got others that listen to this. They're like, wow, this is something I need to think about. And I think you've definitely opened some eyes and ears here today in our conversation. So Warren, thanks so much for being part of this podcast today. And if you're an independent insurance agent and you're looking to grow and develop in different ways, we'd love for you to have a conversation as well. As I mentioned on this podcast, we're not a fit for everybody either. But if you are a growth minded agency that's looking to take that next step, we'd love to have initial conversation with you. So Warren, thanks so much. We appreciate you all the best and your success. Thanks for listening. The Agent Leader Podcast is brought to you by the fine folks of the Rough Notes Company. They are publishers of the insurance industry's leading magazine and technical insurance content, Roughness Magazine Profile, successful agencies plus keen insights from respected experts on a host of must know topics. Rough Notes Advantage plus provides the tools to help your agency grow, providing authoritative information on complex coverage issues. Visit them and learn more@roughnotes.com wait, you're still here? Hey Agent Leader Podcast listeners. Brent Kelly Again, I want to first of all, thank you for listening to the Agent Leader Podcast and your continued support. If you would like to have more content come your way, please help us by sharing the podcast, subscribing to the podcast, telling people about the podcast and if you as an Agent Leader are truly ready to take that next step in your agency, you're committed and want to be that best version possible. Agency don't wait. Go to sitkins.com bookacall sitkins.com bookacall we want to provide the blueprint for your agency to help you create more impact with less effort. And it all starts by going to sitkins.com bookacall all right, now you can actually go. Thanks.