Planning for Insurance Agency Growth with Harrison Brooks of Reagan Consulting

How did one agency grow from 2 million in revenue to $35 million in revenue in only eight years? What's the significance of nup in your insurance agency? And how can you truly be creative to stand out, to recruit the best talent in today's competitive marketplace? On today's Agent Leader podcast, I have Harrison Brooks, partner and consultant at Ragged Consulting. Enjoy the show. Welcome to the Agent Leader podcast. My name is Brent Kelly. I am your host and thank you for joining me on this very special episode. Why is this a special episode, you may ask? Well, if you're watching on video, you probably already know I have the man, the myth, the legend from Reagan Consulting, Harrison Brooks with me today. And Harrison's going to provide a great perspective from his vantage point in working with independent insurance agencies all over the country. And, and I'll let Harrison give more of a deeper background and bio what they all do at Reagan and some of the things that he does just in a minute or so. Before I get into that and get before the interview, I always want to mention the purpose, the mission of the podcast. To help you, the independent insurance agency leader, to help educate you, to empower you, equip you to become your best version possible. And if you're interested in learning more about working with us at the Sitkins Group, you can go to sitkins.com fast track to learn about our 90 day fast track program to get your agency on the right course, moving into 20, 24 and beyond. So with that, I want to dive into. I mean, Harrison's a busy guy. He's got a lot of things going on, a lot of agencies. So I want to get right to the meat of the podcast. But Harrison, first of all, welcome to the Agent Leader podcast. Great to have you, Brent.

Good to be here, man. We awesome.

Well, what I first want to do is if you could Harrison to share a little of the background of Harrison. I was, you know, kind of joking before we went live that you're a, you're a young guy, you've got, you know, some, some young kiddos. I've been there. I guess I'm still kind of there. It feels like goes on and on for me. But I know you're a husband, you're a dad, you're a partner at Reagan, you're a consultant. So give me the Harrison Brooks bio and maybe a little overview of Reagan as well.

Yeah, happy to. Well, yeah, I'm 34 years old. I've been a Reagan for eight years and I'm partner of the firm. But I'LL rewind the journey, I guess. Coming out of college at Born and raised in North Carolina. So I'm a college basketball season about to start. You know, after our loss in football, the North Carolina Tar Heels to uva last weekend, they busted our perfect season. But we, you know, as any Tar Heel would tell you, we were expecting that to happen. We just didn't know when it was going to happen. So definitely big sports fan. Personally. Yeah, I've got two kids, two boys. He's a three and a one year old. A wonderful wife who've been married for about five years and live here in Atlanta, Georgia. My story is really one of. I graduated business school at North Carolina Chapel Hill and I went to work in finance. So I entered kind of as you think about traditional classic Wall street investment banking. You know, working 100 hours a week. Did that for a couple years and, and, and very quickly learned that that wasn't quite the pace that I wanted to kind of, kind of half of the rest of my career and I went to work on in private equity. So we actually were investors in businesses. So my first kind of four years out of school, two different stops, invested in everything from a trucking, trucking company to a chemical company to a staffing company, you know, all different types of businesses. And, and then I got a friend that called me when I was at my private equity firm. He called me, said hey, I think you need to come down to Atlanta, Georgia and meet these folks at Raven Consulting. Oh and by the way, they specialize in insurance, insurance distribution. And of course your mind goes to what everyone thinks about when you think about insurance, right? It's, it's the commercials on tv. That's kind of a boring industry. I'm not sure I want to be a part of that. But like I did anytime I was looking at any business to it to either sell or help invest in. I started to study the fundamentals of the insurance brokerage industry and, and honestly fell in love with it. And I bet my career on it. Fast forward the clock. I've been here at Reagan for the past eight years. We're truly trusted advisors to agents and brokers all across the company. You know, our target kind of client is an owner of an agency that's looking to grow and take their business to the next level. And we don't push agendas or kind of certain programs truly customized around the client and look forward to kind of unpacking that today. But, but yeah, that's a quick, quick background on myself.

Awesome. I love it. There's some stuff you shared that I didn't ask you for. I didn't. I didn't know some of those things. So it's fascinating. And I will say this, too, you know, from my perspective, obviously, I've had the fortune of getting to know Harrison and your team at Reagan the last couple years with the Agency Leadership Institute that I've been part of with you all. And, you know, listen, I mean, Harrison, you're obviously, you're a bright guy in your background. Yes. You're younger than me, considerably. Uh, but I will say this, too. It's always interesting. I always find it really uplifting when I hear someone who's, you know, in financing or that kind of mind. That's also very entertaining and very engaging. And I mean that truly as a compliment. You know, when you, as a team at Reagan, you are a great consultants with your agency, but you have a good time doing it, too, right? You're real people, you're authentic, you care about others, and it shines through in the work you do and getting to know you. So I know we'll have some fun in this interview, and I also know we're going to tackle some really important stuff that you all do do with agencies. So excited to do that. I want to start off with this. I'm guessing, Harrison, that there's probably a time or two when you have a conversation with an agency leader that they express, express frustrations. I've got a challenge here. I got a frustration here. And obviously we wouldn't have time to hit them all because we'd be here for the rest of the day. And I promise you, not a f5 hour podcast. So we're not going to do that. But if you could, say, maybe take one or two of some of the top challenges or frustrations that you hear from agencies that you work with, and maybe some of the ways you or they have addressed those, I think it would be really fascinating for the audience to hear.

For sure. I think insurance agents, brokers, it's a people business, right? So frustrations, you know, those can kind of. Thematically, we can hit on a few of those, but it's really customized to the agency. So it starts with just listening and. And candidly, it's as easy as a conversation with this. Hey, Brent, what do you do today in your agency that you would love to not have to do anymore? That kind of sucks life out more than it gives life. Right? I was on the phone this morning with an agency owner. He's like, hey, we're $15 million in revenue. We want to go to 30. We want to take it to the next level. But I don't have a team around me to do that. How do we build it? You know, we just started brainstorming about that. So you're, you're looking at what's below the top line. First off, you have to grow revenue, right? And then beneath that, you have to make sure the infrastructure set up to actually do that in a sustainable and thoughtful way. What does your business look like when you double the size of your business? But I'd say right now if we just said, you know, the challenges that agents and brokers are facing, I think it depends on what lens you answer that question. So I'm going to answer that question. From the majority of where our clients sit that are founder owned and operated, privately held, in locally owned agencies that are looking to, you know, go from 5 million revenue to 10 million or 10 million to 100 million. I'd say the biggest single thing right now because of what's happened over the past eight years and the consolidation of our industry, and you read any headlines of mergers and acquisitions, firms are getting bigger. It's a consolidation of the brokerage space and it's this dynamic of scale and the ability that there's 18 firms now, I looked at it the other day, that are over a billion dollars in revenue. A billion. 20 years ago, there were three. In the past year, there's been $5 billion brokers that are created. Now. It's easy to pick one or two of those 18 firms and poke fun at them and say, hey, you know, well, they're, they're a worse organization today than they were when they were 10 times smaller. And I agree with that. I think there's definitely some that you could poke holes in. But the privately held, locally owned agency that's got the founder leading it, he's having to try to figure out and compete with these larger organizations of which many are trying to recruit and take their people, right? You, you, you grow up and you invest in your employees and then all of a sudden XYZ national broker comes in and offers to hire that person at, you know, a 50% raise in compensation. And they can't compete with that, right? So agents and brokers are doing the hard work of taking someone that's green or doesn't know the industry and investing in them, pouring into them. And then there's this little thing called economics that gets in the way, right? So it's, it's, it's helping firms Compete on the ground from a scale perspective, and then it's retaining that talent that's ultimately going to unlock future growth for their firm. And so I think it's that balance of kind of, you know, making sure your firm has the resources you need to compete to win on the street, but then you also have to have the people that do it. And you know, we can talk about, do you partner with other firms to do that? You know, there's a lot of ways which you can do that. You don't have to build it yourself or in. There's some cases where there's not a solution that exists today outside of selling your firm and joining a larger player. You know, how can you do that on your own and kind of compete way in the market? So I think that the pressure that firms are feeling from a scale perspective, the heightening in terms of the battle for talent, is what we're going to see continue to be a challenge and a frustration for leaders. And there's always the anal kind of the age old frustration of many leaders of agents and brokers are terrific producers and sales individuals. Yeah, some of them are not great at running a business. And I meant no offense at that. It's just that's not what, that's not what they get up to do every day and they're passionate about. And so how can you as a leader, if that's truly your goal and your natural empower and equip those people beneath you to take on some of those roles and get back to doing what you love to do. And so those are just some of the most, you know, some recent conversations that I've had with agency principals and some of those challenges.

Yeah, that's fascinating. And I mean, not surprising, but it's interesting in the sense of a couple things and I want to go unpack a couple of those, maybe go a little bit deeper with you. The last thing you said was, was maybe smile. Because, you know, something we kind of joke about is, you know, how many of you ever started off as a great sales producer, end up running an agency? Right. And it's like it's different. Right. I love to go out and sell. I love those. And I don't really want to deal with this, but I guess I have to. And part of what you're saying is maybe not. Right. We talk about that too. Maybe not. There's some different things you could do. So I think that's interesting. And I think the other thing too, because you mentioned college sports, this is my analogy. I don't know if you agree or disagree, but I think, you know, we see in college sports with nil with the transfer portal. I think there are a lot of similarities in the sense of especially think about like mid sized colleges or maybe not the blue blood, so to speak, like how do we compete? Right, because we got people taking, they're transferring away, they're trying to recruit our players away from us, plus we're out trying to bring in new talent and they're recruiting against us there. What do we do? So I know this is a really broad question, Harrison, so I don't want to, but I'm just, I guess you mentioned like, how do we compete? And maybe this will get to the success stories of things. How have you seen agencies being able to compete? They go, we don't have the economics, the resource that some of these people have, but there are a few things that we can do. So what are some things maybe you've seen from that perspective?

Yeah, I think it starts with being really honest in the sense of, you know, your account executives and your producers are getting called on every day. They're getting reached out on a message on LinkedIn and you can either choose not to accept that or you can lean into it and kind of address the issue head on and give them the questions to ask. When that person does reach out from a recruiter perspective and ask them, you know, what is it like to actually work there? Okay, you're going to give me stock in the agency or this incentive plan. Well, tell me about how your company's actually valued, right? If this happened, what would that equity be worth? Equipping those producers is an example that are being promised the world and then you actually start to ask a few questions and the grass is not always greener. And unfortunately a lot of producers, and hopefully a lot of them are listening to this podcast like they're terrific at what they do in terms of selling and producing, insurance brokerage. But when you actually get into the kind of corporate finance behind the kind of corporate structure of a lot of these firms that are taking and poaching that talent buyer beware, be really careful in terms of the organizations you're joining. You know, the grass is not always greener. And then, you know, so that's one equipping your people. So you have to equip them with the questions to ask. Number two, you've got to offer more than just economics. Okay, I pay my people well. Guess what, you're not going to win. That's a zero sum game. So you Know, we work with a lot of our clients in terms of, you know, equity incentive programs. It doesn't mean you have to make every single person in your company an owner. But what type of, you know, is it deferred compensation? Is it phantom equity? Is it for producers and equity, in their book, something more than just the cash you pay them today to get them thinking like an owner, thinking about the top line and the bottom line. So you've got to build. You've got to build something in that they think twice about it. From an economic perspective, there's a pain point there. The third thing is institutionalizing business, like make. Make your agency a place that a producer or an account executive never wants to leave because they wouldn't get the same client service, the same client experience at another firm. People forget that the folks that are working in our industry are highly relational and their clients are their friends. It's in the community, and that's too often overlooked. And the disruption that someone would face in terms of kind of leaving the agency and the impact that would have on their friends and their clients is not insignificant. And so that's where I've seen a lot of the success stories. It's just, you have to. You have to pay people well. You. You have to have a culture that people want to be in, and you have to preach that culture. You have to be willing to face those kind of hard conversations that, you know, exist.

And then.

And then ultimately, you have to be delivering and institutionalizing the business beyond just the individual, because the individual, that's not sustainable over time to really build repeatable programs. So can get into some specific examples of success stories. But. But those are just kind of three quick action items that when we talk to clients, that we're always encouraging them to take as well.

Those are fantastic. Harrison. I. And, you know, one of the things I. I wrote down just kind of overall some, as you said, is you got to be creative. Right? I mean, you know, part of this is, well, we just kind of always do it this way. I don't know why we can't compete. Well, you know, I think one of my things that I would say probably set this podcast, I said, you know, the best part about being independent is you're independent. The biggest challenge of being independent is you're independent. But, you know, the advantage side of things is you can be creative, you can find ways to be unique. Right? The old cliche of thinking outside the box, so to speak, but it's true. So I think that's important. I think you said, harrison, I want to dive deep. And that was just a fantastic response. Is you mentioned, you know, we talk about how many really good insurance producers, great insurance producers, maybe average leaders or feel that way. Right. Or that's not where they want to be doing. But really they're really good at a sales process with a client. A lot of it's very similar with their team. If they could just understand the relationship of that. Right. I mean, you think about a hard market right now and some of the difficult conversations. If you were out with a piece of, of business or account that you write, would you just hope that problem goes away or would you be proactive and educate? Well, you proactive and educate. That's what you're talking about with your team members. You're probably going to get this call. This is what's going to happen. How are we going to react to this versus you got what? And you're surprised you're not your head. You want to comment on that? I mean, you agree with some of those statements as far as being creative. And also, even though you're an insurance producer by heart, you can use some of those skills on your team.

Yeah. Create our the world right now. We all feel it is shifting and moving at a insanely fast pace.

Yeah.

Look at what happened, which is, I mean, take interest rates. If you're looking to buy a home that feels a lot different than it did 12, 16, 20 months ago.

Yeah.

Well, guess what? For a young producer looking to buy stock in an agency, that feels a lot different. The mechanisms that were used two years ago are not the same mechanisms that are used today. Right. I recently wrote an article about this in our Rating View distribution list about solving for, you know, the affordability of stock. And so that's an example of your perpetuation program. Do you need to refresh it? It doesn't mean you have to redo it or put something else completely new in, but it's just, it's. And it starts with a conversation, you know, just like you talked about that producer, working with their staff and educating them. That's it. It's talking to people inside of your organization, hearing the pain points and looking to solve them as opposed to just hoping that they go away. Because that just hoping actually is not a strategy. And so I think especially in the market we're in right now, producers that are finding themselves to be very successful, thematically, I found, are embracing things like team selling. Right. When you go and, you know, you're introducing your service staff, you're introducing Your team you're integrating, you're introducing the resources, you're thinking way far in advance of the policy renewal. And that changes the whole dynamic. It actually creates producers to move from producers to consultants. Right. I actually don't love the term producers because if you're the client, you're like, I just want to be produced. I mean, it really, you know, it's that consultancy nature, you know, that's like an example, like for me or I'm not a producer. I don't have a, you know, a quote over my head on how much business I have to produce. I, I listen to clients problems, we customize solutions and we solve them. And that creates referrals. Right. And that creates, and you do right by someone. And that's replicated outside of the agency for a producer trying to sell a new policy inside of the agency in terms of building teams. And so I think that is, especially right now in this market dynamic, so important to be thinking about just different ways to approach the problem because, you know, everyone's feeling pressure right now and if you're not, you're probably not in the office and you probably aren't working that hard if you're not feeling pressure.

Yeah, no, there's, there's definite pressure out there. I think that's again, fantastic perspective on that. And of course you've heard, you've heard me talk in different sessions too. You know, I'm 100 aligned with, with those things you mentioned. And you know, whether it's joint selling or team selling or different perspective and certainly be involved in niches. I mean, you know, I'm a big believer, like if it's, if it's me versus the world, you're going to have a problem. Right. And there's a reason why there's a team and a lot of, you know, there's the, I always say there's the producer, which by the way, makes a really good. And I'm with you, by the way. I wouldn't go out to a client, go, I'm a producer, so my job is to sell business to you. But, but obviously their job is to bring in business. Right. For the agency. But it's just, just to go out there and to be able to introduce your team and understand this. But there's this rugged individualist that makes producers really good but also limits them. Right. And part of, like, what got you here is probably not going to get you there and, and you know, what's that next step? So let me. And maybe this is part of some success Stories you want to share, Harrison, or whatever it is you want to share. But obviously you as an organization at Reagan, you work with lots of agencies. You've been very successful. You know, obviously you do all kinds of different services. You said earlier a lot of they're customized to what the. What the client's looking for and what they need. But just for the audience, what are some success stories that you've either had personally or Reagan has had in working with clients? And why did it work? Right? What are some things you're doing to go this. This really works. So take notes, everybody at home.

Yeah, it works. If the firm wants to execute, right, we can give ideas or suggestions. But ultimately, there's one common theme that I think a lot of our clients share that are super successful and they have dynamic leaders that are truly passionate about growing the organization, putting in the hard work. Like, full stop, you have to put in the work. But I'll give a story of this will be my kind of organic growth story. And then I'll give a couple other success stories we've seen. When I got to the firm eight years ago, I remember a firm came in our office. It was a son perpetuating the business from his mother and his father and his best friend. And they came in there a couple million dollars of revenue. Today they're $35 million in revenue eight years later. How they do it? Well, we sat around a room and they recognize, hey, I'd rather have a smaller piece of a bigger pie. And so we helped them create and build a producer book equity incentive program. So as producers grew their books of business, they got equity in the agency. By the way, that equity is not voting equity. They didn't give up operational control or they're passionately independent. They don't want to sell the firm. But those producers have the same class of stock and the same economics as the owners. And they hire and consistently invest in new unvalidated producers. So we have a metric at Reagan called nutrition, your net investment and unvalidated producer payroll. You know, how much are you investing in those unvalidated producers? Basically, right? You're floating them salary before they become validated. Their commissions support their actual compensation. They are always two or three times industry average top quartile investment metric, 2.8% of revenue in our best practice study is, is what firms are spending on unvalidated producers. They are constantly 2x that, at least over the history of their firm. Meanwhile, they've also recognized, hey, there's all there's A lot of other ways to grow as well. And so they went into their local market. But some of these agencies that maybe did not have a track record of growth, high profitability, good names in the industry and said, hey, come join us, we're really good at the growth thing, but we don't have the track record in the history and the name that your firm has. And they kind of infused growth and broadened their life. So they've done some opportunistic acquisitions of those firms, use debt capital to do that. They didn't sell their equity in the firm, so they have full control. And then lo and behold, you know, 35, you know, eight, seven, eight years later, they're $35 million in revenue and a top quartile growth performer. So that's one example of, you know, kind of a success story. The other I would say is I was, I was meeting with a firm in the Midwest and this firm is about 5 million bucks in revenue. And we did evaluation for them as part of what we do. We set the stock price of the agency and they had a lot of good stuff going on and they had a lot of great ideas, but they just needed the permission to go for it. They needed the outside perspective to say, yeah, make that investment, go hire that producer. It set up a personalized department with a leader in IT and hire two more service staff. These, this business has great margins in it. Why wouldn't you invest in it? And it's going to be okay. That's going to pay off. It's going to be a short term investment for kind of a long term gain. And so, you know, I think kind of having the courage to make investments in the business, but also making a thoughtful and wise investments in the business is a key thing too. So, so those are a couple success stories I'm happy to give others, but I think organic growth in this market is absolutely vital. And then also running a profitable business is important too. That's a very important dynamic.

Yeah, well, great. Both examples are great. That first one, I mean, I'm sure people are going, they went to what to what in eight years? Pretty substantial. And I'm sure we have agencies, we see great growth. That's incredible to see that. You know, one thing, just a couple comments on, on that. It's interesting the last part that you said, it's, it's again not, not surprising but it's, it's one of those things that, that we miss and heck, I miss this a lot too is just our mind plays funny games. If we're not careful. And one of the things we talk about is, you know, beliefs, behaviors, results. And it really does start with belief, like this idea. Oh, that's easy. It's like the TED la. But truly is what do you believe about your agency, right? I mean, do you believe you're a sales organization? Do you believe you're worth this amount of money? Do you believe in growth? I mean it sounds very simple, but a lot of agencies are like, well, I guess I've never really thought about that or didn't really think we could do it. And I'm with you. It's, you know, the outside voice. It's interesting. It's funny because I'm sure there's times and I want to speak for you, so if I'm wrong here, correct me, but there are times that maybe you make a suggestion or idea or two that's kind of like, kind of obvious and they go, oh Harrison, thank you so much. You know, I was wondering about that and I, you're right, we're gonna go do that. And you're like, I don't think that was anything incredible. But what they're really saying is I kind of knew it all along. I just wasn't able to take the leap. And now I'm going to, right now I'm gonna do that. So I think that's a really powerful thing you shared. And then of course just this idea of the strategy behind some of those things, like thinking long term on that. So fantastic. Harrison, I appreciate you sharing that. Maybe I'll ask one more thing on this just to go deeper because you talked about nup and it is an important thing just in general my curiosity. I mean obviously, you know, you guys put the best practice of study out there with the big eye. And you look at this and some of these things are looked at how many agencies or what percentage maybe and if you don't have an answer, you know, give me an idea how many agencies actually look at that like make that as part of something they consider. No.

Well, most of the agencies we're working with do because that's where their mindset is, right? I think that kind of growth minded they're attracted to like hey, let's, let's invest in our business and hire a consultant. Or call you Brent, right? Or call me and like how do we grow? But I'd say the majority don't. I mean if there's 35000 agents and brokers out there, there's a lot of lifestyle businesses that are out there and you got the average age of agency owners at 58 years old. And lifestyle businesses or businesses that are not growing, they're doing business the same way they did 20, 30 years ago. And they're more focused on how much cash can I take out of the business this year than they are what investments can we make? The conversation is about how much money can I pull out versus the investments I can make. You know, it's a lifestyle business. So those firms I don't think are focused on enough. But that is kind of the. If there's one thing, if you're listening to this podcast, I really encourage folks to say what is our investment Unvalidated producers, Because there's a little staggering statistic here. I think the industry is a little bit asleep with this. When we track organic growth of the industry of agents and brokers, every quarter, it's free to participate in our growth and profitability survey. If people want to do it takes 10 or 15 minutes to complete. Shoot me a note or our team here at Reagan, we can get you hooked up with that. But we are hitting double digit organic growth right now. For an industry historical context, that was around 4 to 6%. A lot of that is being, most of it's being driven by inflation and a hard market. So if inflation slows down and the market slows down, agencies could see black line growth or negative growth. And what's happened is because they're growing at double digits, it's life is better than it's ever been from a metric perspective. But if you actually, I did this, I ran this the other day. If you actually look at the investment in unvalidated producers, even for the best practices agencies in certain size categories, it's actually going down. Over the past three years, it's been going down. So while we've had this incredible run through Covid, everyone's feeling great. We're kind of taking our foot off the gas in terms of investing in unvalidated producers. And we all know it takes a long time to get an unvalidated producer ramped up. So if you take three years off, it's going to be a long time to get the engine kind of restarted. Not to mention the just the muscle that you build internally. And so this, that's just a big encouragement for folks. Don't be satisfied with, you know, just oh, we're double digit organic. I would encourage everyone to benchmark yourselves against the industry and always strive to be a top quartile performer. So it's less about A percentage. And it's more about how do I be a top quartile performer? Because if you're doing that, you're going to be one of the agencies that wins and thrives over the long run.

That's fantastic perspective. I mean, that's. Hopefully everyone was listening and writing some of that down, because first I was going to ask you about lifestyle agencies, and you nailed it. Right? And it's not that even I personally, it's like, hey, I don't begrudge you if you want to be a lifestyle agency, we're just probably not going to work well together because.

No, it's great if you can make a million bucks in cash a year and work 20 hours a week, I don't think follow you for it.

It's just.

Just name it. I mean, that's cool. Like, that's great. Just name it.

Yeah, I don't want to invest anything. I don't want to work harder. We want to grow to X. Like, no, it doesn't quite work that way, but go ahead and enjoy your money. Like, good for you. Like, I'm okay with that. One of my favorite quotes, Harrison, is you said that. And I'm really glad you mentioned that because I was going to bring it up anyway, but, like, you see these, these growth rates and people are like, look at us go, right? And I get it. But the Warren Buffett quote I love, he says, you know, when the tide rolls out, we'll know who's been swimming naked and. Right. I mean, it's one of those where it's like, we're great, but you're right. Not only when. That changes. And it will, it will shift. It's going. It's not. It's not. Oh, I wonder. It's when, right, it will shift. And then, like you said, not only. Which, by the way, I hadn't heard you say that before about, you know, going the other direction, which is pretty scary. But then how long is it going to take to even get momentum back? Because we haven't been doing that today. Really interesting and powerful. So you mentioned a few ways that things you do, you know, some of the agency valuations, the articles that you publish for our audience. Harrison, how can people learn more about Reagan, connect to some of the things that you do? I know you've got some great services. How can they get some free stuff? And how can they pay a lot of money and work with you that way, too?

Yeah, either one. Well, I prefer the latter, you know, of course. No, truly, we're. We we love this industry. We're in it for the long run. Most of our client relationships are 15, 20 year client relationships of which I've significantly benefited from. I have a big thanks to Bobby Reagan and Kevin St. And the work they've done. You know, it's like improper sells. A good, a good name is worth, worth an immense amount of riches. And I've been blessed to be part of the Reagan consulting team. And what we do is really pretty simple. I mean there's, there's a few things we do and we're focused in what we do. We're not all things to all people. We help from a consulting perspective, so strategic planning, industry benchmarking. Hey, how's my firm performing on a metrics perspective, using the facts and figures to chart a strategic pathway. We're not getting into like, you know, I would say like the operational consulting of like what agency management systems. You start to get to that level. That's not what we do. But helping firms say, hey, I want to double the size of my business, how do I do that? And then, and it's not just our opinion, but I'm pulling from the wisdom and the knowledge of those folks that have done it before that I've just been blessed to be able to work with. So that's, that's number one. Number two is valuation. So hey, what's my firm worth? And one, why does it matter? Well, it's, it's all pretty much under the lens of perpetuation. You know, like I said, the average age of an industry owner is 58 years old. They have to sell their stock and get it to the next generation. There's a lot of family businesses that exist. What's the most tax efficient way to do that? You know, if this industry truly were in this transport, transfer, portal world, right, with talent, how do you lock down that talent using your equity as a tool and actually weaponizing it to incentivize and enhance your growth. So we'll help agencies set their stock wise stock price, build perpetuation plans and that's customized to the agency because as you can imagine, you have different corporate structures. You know, there's a lot of dynamics. Some firms are high profit, low growth, high growth, low profit. So there's a lot that goes into that. And then the third piece of what we do that we've actually evolved as a business, we started as a consulting firm and then we've morphed into also a hybrid like investment bank. So it mergers and acquisitions, right. Over the past eight, nine years, We've continually hit record levels of acquisition. There are some firms that don't have that perpetuation plan in place or say, hey, I don't have the energy or I want to join XYZ firm because I can get those resources as opposed to building them myself. And this is their biggest, this is their single biggest asset. And they want to make sure they get the highest price possible. We'll help them do that. The contrary side of that is that firm that's like, man, we see acquisitions as part of our strategy. Like that firm that I said that opportunistic M and A will help them do those deals and make sure they don't stub their toe while they're doing it. We'll help them raise the capital to do it. Debt capital, equity capital, putting a facility in place with a bank to be able to do that. And you know, just recently we just put out a press release on it. I think this speaks to a lot of how we work. Lolly Insurance is a big firm in the Northeast. You know, it's, if you look at the business insurance top 100, it's 100 plus million in revenue. They just took a minority investment from a family office and we helped them raise that capital so they could continue invest in organic growth, do a little bit more or, you know, mergers and acquisitions, but still remain privately held. But they needed a different source of capital to do that. But again, it's not the capital, it's not that, it's the firm's strategy. And then we figure out what tools that firm needs to do it. You know, we're building a producer and, you know, equity incentive plan as an example. And so, you know, all centered around the client. And so how can you engage with us? You know, there's a lot of things we have for free. If you look at our website, we've got a lot of industry research on a lot of these topics that we publish get on our rating view list or we have kind of articles and publications if you follow us on LinkedIn. And then we have that growth and profitability survey which is free and has industry commentary every quarter that we write, talking about the different lines, kind of growth rates, whether it's employee benefits, commercial lines or personal lines, and then always just open for a conversation. So my email address is harrisonragan consulting.com. shoot me a note and be happy to connect.

That's awesome. Yeah, thank you, Harrison. I think again, part of this is like, yeah, I know they're really good. I know lots of stuff. What is It, And I think you encapsulated that really well. And I said this before, I know we were having some fun, but I do mean it. I mean, just, you know, the last couple years, getting the chance to know you, obviously, Harrison, but your team better. You're obviously really good at what you do, which is great, but there's a, there's a value prop of who you are as human beings. And you said it's a relationship business, it's a culture business. It's true. It matters. And I just appreciate and apply what you all do from that perspective as well, because let's face it, not everybody in the business world has that same perspective. So we appreciate that. And again, there's a lot of things, I know that we, you know, we talk about the best practice study. We talk about, you know, some of the stuff that you put out, Harrison and your team on the, you know, the Reagan view all the time, because it's really good stuff. And I will say self serving wise, you know, things that we do is we look at trying to change the culture and behaviors and actions of what people do and accountability. All the things that you talk about, it's like, yeah, that's great. Now how do we do it? Right? And so I think there's a great blend of that as well. So I appreciate you sharing that. I have one more question. Are you ready?

I'm ready.

Ready. This is the big one. This is the big one. All right. And by the way, you don't have to go back very far. I didn't even know how far you need to go back. You said you're 34. You know, you're young when you say your age right away too, by the way, Harrison.

Well, you said it. Everyone's wondering and they're like looking at the video. If they're looking at the video, they're like, man, who's this intern at Reagan? You know, so you got the intern on the podcast.

Hey, I'm going to give you a little perspective here, though. I, you know, it hasn't been that long. Well, maybe a little bit since I was 34, but boy, it does start to change quick. Especially those young kids. Harrison, it'll age you. But all right, anyway, here's my question. If you were having a conversation with the younger version of you, and let's just say getting out of college, Harrison. Right? Kind of that age, maybe early 20s, and that little younger Harrison ran into the current bright, sharp, knowledgeable Harrison at 34, and he said, older Harrison, I need one piece of Advice from you? What would it be? What would you tell your younger self?

Yeah, I think I would more just. I had a thesis back then that was kind of like, hey, do what you like and don't worry too much about, like, the exact path that everyone says you have to go down. And, and I would just, I would just encourage myself to do that and I would focus on kind of, I think the, the biggest thing is, you know, don't. If you're a producer, listening to this or something like, and I've seen this over and over in my career, like, don't focus on the biggest economics in this in the short term. Right? Focus on the place that you're going to be successful and you're going to, like, the environment still has to line up with those things. It has to be close. Right? But if you put yourself in the right environment, then you'll be successful. And that's candidly, that's, that's that my story of Reagan, it's just, it's the right environment and it's a company and it's a culture that wants to see us develop in a professional sense, in a personal sense. And so that would just be my encouragement of, like, I, I know there's so much pressure, especially even with folks coming out of school, you know, and having young kids of like, this is the exact path you have to go down. I remember a lot of people when I came to Reagan said, wait, you're not going about going back and getting your mba? I'm like, no, I want to go and actually work. And that's what I enjoy doing. And by the way, I love to, you know, make money and get paid for it, as opposed to going into debt. And, and, and, and that's been. At the time, it was kind of a. I don't know if I was making the right decision. And now, in hindsight, man, it's been so fun because I just, you know, you get to work with folks you enjoy and doing what you love, but at the same time, that doesn't come at the expense of, I think it needs to be said of hard work. Right. People are always like, do what you love. Like, it's also, it's also a job and it's also work. Right? It's being an insurance producer. That service, that person is not always great, but when you see the end result of how, you know that client or protect that company when they have that issue or that claim that popped up, it's super gratifying. And, and so that's what I would just encourage myself on, you know, follow what you love and not necessarily kind of the initial. Initial price tag.

He's. He's wise. He's young, but he's wise. Listen, I love it. I mean, I always try to take what people say and like, you know, make a quick note of it, but it's like, kind of like, don't fight your gut, right? Like, there's the internal thing we've got in there, and it's like, you should do this or this is the path. This is what everybody does. And some of you're like, again, maybe that's right for you, but you may go, I don't know. Like, I just. There's something different there. And this is what I want. And it is amazing. Certainly as a younger person, you don't know. So you fight some of that. So great advice, Harrison. We can all learn from that. Well, thank you very much. I want to respect your time. I promise we'd be done here. I'm a little later than I said, but I think the audit. I don't think. I know the audience is going to get great insight from what you shared. A lot of great perspective there. And I do mean this, that if. If you know Reagan, Harrison and their team can help you out, reach out to them and use them as a resource and a guide. And we certainly at Sitkins appreciate what you offer to the marketplace. So thanks, Harrison, for being a guest. We appreciate you.

Absolutely. Likewise, brother.

Awesome. Well, again, let my. My final call to action. Me being a producer here, Harrison, somewhere deep in my gut. Listen, if you're an agency and you are looking to get on a great path of success about behaviors and accountability, go check out the Sitkins fast track@sitkins.com fast track. It's a 90 day live, interactive, engaging process. We're going to help your agency install the right behaviors to get you to where you want to be. And of course, talk to Reagan too. All right, so thank you, Harrison, very much to the podcast listeners. I wish you all the best, your success, and guess what? We'll talk to you again soon. Thanks.