Dan Mickells, a risk advisor at UNICO Group in Nebraska, spent 30+ years in insurance across operations, recruiting, and claims before joining the agency six years ago. UNICO has grown to 135 employees and $32M revenue, recently breaking into the top 100 U.S. agencies.
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Welcome to the Agent Leader podcast. The podcast to help you, the agency leader, gain clarity, build consistency and to make a commitment to become your best version possible. I have a great guest today that I'll talk a little more about this guy in a minute. But I will tell you there are some people that when you talk to like you get off a conversation, you're fired up, you ready to go? This is a guy that's going to going to get you fired up. I know he gets me fired up because he's passionate about the business and the industry. So can't wait to introduce him here in a second. Before I get into our guest and our great conversation, I always want to mention that we are continuing to look for growth minded partners as we get into 2023 and moving forward. In fact, partners like affirm this guy who I'm going to be talking to works with but those that are really committed to growth, those are committed to being that best version possible. If you're interested in learning more about what we do and how we work with Agen Agencies, our private client group, go to sitkins.com experience sitkins.com experience learn more about our process, what we do. More importantly, you can schedule a strategy call, talk to one of our coaches to see if it would be a fit for your agency. So with that I want to get into our guest without further ado. I built this guy up a little bit. Now I'm going to build him up a little bit more. He's someone who fires me up. Dan Michaels, who's a risk advisor, also sales leader at Unico Group in Nebraska, the great state of Nebraska. Are you in Lincoln or Omaha today? Are you in Lincoln today, Dan?
I'm in Lincoln today. Yeah. I kind of share my time.
All right, so the capital city there in Nebraska. I've had the pleasure. I was just thinking about like, gosh, how many different ways have I connected or do I know Dan? Obviously Unico is one of our private client group members and we've had a number of years of relationship with Unico. Love working with that company and the leadership and their team. Dan also is part of our sales mastery group that we had going on. So got to know Dan even better then. Dan was also part of the agency Leadership Institute. So I got to see Dan there. We run into each other a little bit but Dan's just a super energetic guy and he's passionate about getting better. He's passionate about helping others get better. So I know you as an agency leader are going to take Some great nuggets from today. So, Dan, I can't build you up anymore. Well, I could, but I'm not going to. Dan, welcome to the podcast.
Bryant, you're too kind, very appreciative to be on here. I, you know, like you mentioned, I love to learn, and I find all kinds of opportunities to do that in your podcast and other podcasts really inspire me. And I think the work you're doing is tremendous. And hopefully I can offer, you know, maybe a nugget or two for your listeners, because I think there's always something we can think about and maybe refine. I've been in the business, Brent, a little bit about me for 30 years. Over 30 years. I started with the national carrier, and I was really lucky because it allowed me to wear a variety of hats. I was in operations, I was in recruiting, but I was also in claims. And it really allowed me a really good foundation to see and understand really what happens when you have a loss. I did that work for over 25 years. But one of the guys I met along the way was a good mentor of mine, Rick Stokes. Rick is a principal here at Unico, and we constantly stayed in communication with each other and stars aligned. Six years ago, I joined Unico Group, based in Lincoln, Nebraska. We got about 135 to 140 employees right now, 32 million in revenue. We just closed, cracked the top 100 agencies in the United States, and something we're super proud of and something that we are continuing to strive to push, push that number upward. Married, three kids, Love, love, insurance, and really appreciative of the chance to be here with you today.
Yeah, well, thanks, Dan. You know, I won't give too many clues at the national carrier, but I live in central Illinois, and there's a big one and they have red as a color. I don't know, you just go.
Right.
But, you know, we've talked about that before. You know, I think it's really interesting, though, because there is, you know, when I talk to people, this is the advantage of what I do for a living. And just doing this podcast is I get to learn so much from people. And, you know, one of the things that I continue to see is that that wealth of. Of background, even in the insurance industry, just seeing different things and different perspectives. Certainly. I'm sure Dan has made you a better risk advisor and at the point now, a better sales leader. I want to start off. I got a list of questions. I'm sure I'll take off track somewhere because, you know, it's sometimes fun for me to do, but I want to start off not in a negative light. But you know, I always want to address frustrations. You know, you guys at unico, I know, Dan, you personally had some great success and we'll talk about that certainly, and some things you're doing. But obviously there's challenges, there's frustrations too. And you know, the agency leaders that, that listen to podcast, they're dealing with stuff too. And there's probably some crossover. So I like to get your perspective, whether it's individually, sales team, agency wise, whatever direction you want to take it. What do you see as one of the biggest frustrations or challenges that you're dealing with right now and what are you doing to address it?
Yeah, good question. When I was thinking a little bit about challenges, one is, as you mentioned, I'm moving from a risk consultant to.
