Empowering Teams for Lasting Agency Growth with Matt Fairbanks

If you're going to truly grow your insurance agency, you must be committed to growing your agency's number one asset. It's people. On today's Agent Leader podcast, I have a fantastic interview with Matt Fairbanks, Vice president of sales and Producer development at EHD Insurance in Pennsylvania. This is a best practice agency that is continuing to invest in its number one asset, its people, and building internal and external relationships to have growth now and well into future. Enjoy the show. Welcome to the Agent Leader podcast. This is the podcast for agency leaders across the country and quite frankly the globe. We have international listeners to learn more about how to grow, develop their team and their book of business and ultimately to become their best version possible. I am your host. My name is Brent Kelly. I'm the president of the Sitkins Group. It's a pleasure to be with you today and I am honored, honored on this specific podcast to have a long time. Matt, can I call you a friend? We're friends, right?

Absolutely.

Long time friend and client. Someone who I respect at a super high level. I just have attained a new position with his firm EHD which is located in the great state of Pennsylvania. I have Matt Fairbanks, which his new official title. Make sure I get this right. Matt, vice president of sales and and producer development at EHD Insurance in Pennsylvania. Matt, did I, did I do okay on that?

You did. Brent, thanks so much for having me on the podcast today. I really appreciate it.

Yeah, I, I'm again, I'm super stoked to talk to Matt just because there's going to be a lot of great content we can get into. Also, knowing Matt for a long period of time, I always tell anybody that comes on this podcast that hey, it's just imagine we're having a cup of coffee and we're gonna, we're gonna talk shop. And Matt and I have had many conversations off podcast airwaves that I think would be super beneficial. And now we can record it and share it with you because he's got some great perspective on things and it always, we always go in some pretty interesting directions. So Matt, before we get into. I really want to spend a lot of time on this podcast about your new role, producer development. Right. Things in that area. But before we go there, you've got a pretty long track history and record a good track record of success in production. So if you would, you know, share with the audience your backstory and also a little bit about EHD as an agency scope size of ehd.

Yeah, that's probably, probably a great place to start. I've been with EHD almost 15 years to be 15 years in November. Came to them really as my first foray into production and, and did, did okay, moved, moved up the ladder there. Focus on benefits. My, my concentration through my career has been on the employee benefits side of things. EHD is an agency. We're greater than $30 million privately held independent agency, something we're super, super proud of. Like many agencies that fall into our size, we probably have 65 to 70% of our business in the property and casualty space and the remainder in employee benefits. And you know, over my time at ehd, I've had the opportunity to progress, move up, move into more player coach roles, sales managers, helping my team to, to continue to grow their individual blocks of business. Really proud of the fact, Brent, you know, I think when I started with you, I guess our relationship now is about what, six years old? Yeah, six years. So in that time when I, when I met you, I, I was, I was that guy searching for the million dollar book of business with about an 800, $800,000 book of business. I'm, I'm, as I transitioned to this new role and, and crested out last year having passed that $2 million mark, which was one of my, one of my goals, one of the things I wanted to do. But as I continue to take on more responsibilities, I am transitioning some of those clients to other real qualified professionals and, and then assisting and coaching them through that. But it's what I love to do and helping them grow their block as well. Part of why I've progressed into this new role.

Yeah, it's, that's why I'm so fascinated to have this conversation because you know, we talk a lot about player coaches and you really are making a big transition. Right. And I'm not going to say a leap of faith, maybe that's not the right terminology, but a big jump right into a new role. But prior to that success as a producer, to be a $2 million produce, million dollar producer isn't anything to sneeze at to say the least. And it does remind me, as you said, that you know, six year old relationship. So I guess what, we're in kindergarten now, Something like that. Maybe first grade. Yeah. Somewhere in there. Well, we started the relationship. I remember some of our side conversations. We came in and did our producer training with your group and I don't know if it happened right away or somewhere in the middle of that, but it was basically like I'm at about 800k and I think I'm kind of about tapped out. Like I want to get to that million. I got to figure a way to sneak across that million dollar line at some point. And now you're at 2 million. And of course there's a lot of concepts and strategies and things about giving up and trade downs and all of that. But Matt really lived and breathed so much of the philosophies. And by the way, you would have grown with or without Sitkins. Right. But I think hopefully to accelerate some of these things in different ways of thinking is, is critical. So before we get into the producer development side, anything just from your own experience, I know we've got a ton of agency leaders listening, but also sales leaders and producers. Just maybe what you've learned to get from 800 like. And I'm going to say one thing, but to get from 800 to 2 million, that's a, that's a big jump. Why? How did you do that?

Yeah, it's kind of a, a conflict on what I'm going to say. There's, there's, there's two pieces that, that I think helped me with that. One is to make sure I trusted myself enough to specialize where I could focus. And when I say that, it led me down the path of identifying larger clients. You know, you don't get to $2 million by writing 25 life employee benefits groups. Nothing against those companies, you know, they're, they're the breadbasket of what we do. But having that confidence to do that and to specialize and become an expert in particular areas, you know, such as self funding, such as pharmacy benefit management and be able to have those conversations. When you talk about specialization, in my mind, it leads you to a series of complexities. You know, you're, you're the ability to handle the complex. These are more complicated groups. But ultimately where I've tried to place my focus, and this goes back to God, probably middle school, early high school, when a wise person told me about, you know, keeping it simple, stupid. And, and that's something that I've really tried to focus on with my clients. To take the things that are complicated like that and, and really make it simple. And it's, it's not that easy. You know, we, we joke about it, about, ah, you know, it's just, it's easy. You know, it's not rocket science. I mean how many times do we say that? But being able to take the complex, I mean these are tremendous spends from our employers. Whether you're looking at health insurance or commercial property and casualty insurance, such tremendous Line item. And that's something where you have to make it simple because when you do that and you can talk to it on the appropriate level. And that's what I say. I'm not saying dumb it down. I'm saying on the appropriate level, what is the conversation with the human resources professional, a risk manager, a cfo, a president, and being able to put it in the terms of how it impacts their job rent, that's really part of my process that I learned and I do credit sickens to some of that because it, it gave me the time to sit there and focus on how am I going to do this, how am I going to attack each of these future ideal clients.

Yeah, it's, we, we can spend more time here and I'll spend a little bit, but it's. Because it's so interesting. But I, I think, Matt, as you said that I wrote down on my notepad here, you know, that wiifm and we talk about all the time, what's in it for me and Right. It is, it is fun because the more that you specialize, yes, it's more complicated, there's more things. But it's not even so much how much you know about your product and services and deliverables, which is certainly important. It's how they think about those things. Right. Like the impact that to me, the power of specialization isn't so much about, well, now I know more about the products and yes, that's important. It's now I know more about them and how they think and want from those things. And that's what changes the conversation. And people often take that for granted. And the other thing they'll say, and if you want to comment on this, please do. But I always joke with producers in our producer camp. I said, hey, are you going to be a better producer one year from now, two years from three years from now than you are today? And of course, every one of them. And I said, well, shouldn't your clients be better clients?

Exactly. And you know, that's a, that's a, that's an incredibly, incredibly important statement and, and very fair. You know, one of the, one of the things that I always say to my clients when I'm having that conversation, I think, I think we've talked about it in some of our trainings. Brent, what are, what are, what is EHD going to do with their clients to move their business forward? You know, it's a, it's a line I use all the time. What am I doing to move you forward? Forward. And it gets Back to that trusted advisor piece. You know, if we always talk about, you want to be the guy at the table with the attorney, with the accountant, maybe with the banker, depending on their financial situation, I want to be there. And I learned this with a. I was with a prospect, and he said that to me. And he goes. He actually said. He goes, the only. The only guy who's helping move my business forward is my accountant, because he's the one who's coming up with solutions to help me minimize my tax exposure, my tax risk as a business. So of course I stole it, because all good ideas are stolen. And I said, what am I going to do to move this guy's business forward so that he hires me? What am I going to do with all of my clients to retain them to move their business forward? And it's. And you have to keep thinking like that because I don't think there's many businesses out there that just want to stay exactly where they are.

Right.

You know, so. So we're trying to move them forward, too. I mean, maybe there's some out there, you know, the what, whatever it might be a little mom and pop shop who's like, we're happy doing this and we're going to do it till we. But most of the businesses we're calling on, where we're looking for 50, 60, 100, $200,000 in revenue, they're looking for what's next for their business as well.

Yeah, yeah. And let's face it, you mentioned the accountants, maybe an attorney. Right. They may be giving advice and ideas of how to help them, but it doesn't happen that often, or at least enough in the insurance space. Right. And when you're able to do that, they're like, say what? I haven't thought about that. Oh, what would that mean for me? How would that impact me? Right. I mean, and we were talking, you know, we've talked about this many times. It just comes back to what's in it for me? And, and to be able to stop you there.

I need to stop you there one second. Because I wouldn't. I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't call out the fact that. That WI FM that when we first went through training, I had to get clarity on what that was. And I had to call out Roger, because I was like, roger, nobody listens to the radio anymore. We got to come up with something new. But I mean, but I'm all about the what's in it for me. I get it. But I. I Did call Roger out for, for that. Nobody listens to the rad. That's a good podcast. We got to come up with a podcast.

Yeah, I have to. I don't. That's a great point. That'll be one of my side tests after this. And by the way, for all the listeners, if you could come up with something that would better acronym of, you know what's in it based on podcast today. Yeah, I hear you. I don't listen to radio too much, but yes, I get you. That's funny. That's funny. All right, here's where I want to go. And Matt, again, you can take this obviously wherever you want to take it, because I think there's like a, there's a production side. And then as you move into your new role, right, and producer development. Right. And VP of sales, like the words I use. And maybe you agree, maybe you don't. But I said moving from addition, like how big can I grow my business, my book of business to how much can I help others grow theirs? I mean, that's about as basic as it gets. And kind of in translating that. And you mentioned, you know, EHD being 30 million plus in revenue, privately held. Right. Really important. And even back to the best practice study. A few years ago, they asked a question to 45 CEOs of privately held firms. What are the three things that are most important to help you remain private and prosper? And it was people, culture, leadership. Right? I mean, that was it. And you go, and now here's your role of, hey, now you've got a huge impact in all three of those things, right? People, culture, and leadership. And the first thing is that's not easy, right? That's not easy when you've gotten it. By the way, how many, how many people approximately currently in your firm today, Matt?

So we have about 130 individuals in our firm, and about 30 of those would be considered producers now, various levels of production. But, but 30 would, would fall into that category. Yeah.

So I mean, and you know, 30 producers, but obviously they interrelate with the rest of the hundred in some different way. Right? I mean, it's, it' effort on this. And I would say your leadership would be super easy if it just weren't for the darn people. And you've got, you got 30 people and then 100, you know, else in the agency. Different backgrounds, different experiences, different thoughts. Right? I mean, different levels of education, different passions. How do you mold that together to like, start moving this ship, so to speak, forward in the culture? So we're going to start with this. And again, you can take this wherever you want. I like to talk about wins and successes first. You know what's worked. And again, you could take this from an individual side, a team side, production side, whatever it is you want to do. But I just want you to think about what have been some of the successes that you or your team have experienced and why. And again, you can take this wherever you want.

Matt. Yeah, and I think this is where we're kind of going. So the producer development side of my new job title, as you went through it and looking, we did take a step back and look at some of the successes of where our next generation of production is going to come from. You know, it's no secret in the independent agency space that it's, it's grow or die. And we're committed to our independence. We work very hard to remain independent, to, to have a true succession plan for our organization. And in order to make that work, we need to continue to grow as a, as a business and, and be competitive in the markets where we compete. And when we took a step back at who were some of those successes and they were some, some individuals that ultimately, and it comes, comes through Bren and some of the things people that were willing to agree and adopt to our culture really understand the way that EHD works, why we're independent, what we want to do to continue to grow our business. They had to have a certain passion, passion for sales, a passion for their, for their own growth. But the successes really came from throwing them fully into our culture, giving them that opportunity to shadow our employees, giving them, I mean, I hate to use the word safe space because it's way overused these days, but giving them that opportunity to come in, in an environment where they can learn without that, that immediate pressure of if I don't sell something in the first month, I'm going to be let go. Because there is a lot to learn in this business. You know, here I am, I'm contradicting myself again. I talk about making everything simple, but there is a lot of knowledge that needs to be obtained and garnered to be as, to be a successful insurance producer. So really we, we looked at that and that's what we're trying to replicate at this point. Those individuals that we were able to bring in and see their success and growth over year, over the years by really mirroring our successful producers. And one of the other things that we're looking to tap into now, and this is systemic across the, across the industry Brent, there's a lot of us retiring. You know there's, there's been a many, many years of non growth in the industry, people coming in and now you're looking at it and you've got 30, 40 years of experience, relationships and you can't just let that go. So we're trying to tap into that now and we're seeing some of that success by saying you know what, yeah it's different, the technology is different, whatever it is but ultimately you have something that you can share with our younger producers and we're going to tap into that as you look at the other side of your career and sail off into the sunset and good for you that you've earned that and you can do that. But this is what we need from you as you look at your last three to five years towards retirement. Share that knowledge and do it. That's where we're seeing success sharing that.