Mike Crowley on the Agent-Carrier Relationship in Insurance

hello everyone and welcome back to the ryan hanley show you won't know this because i've deleted them all but this is like the seventh time i've tried to start the show and just kept like either burping or stumbling over my words and when you podcast this stuff just happens sometimes all right guys so let's get into the show it is this is a tremendous episode this is a insurance nerdy deep dive conversation with one of my absolute favorite people in the industry mike crowley um fellow upstate new yorker syracuse guy and what i love about talking to mike is that there are many aspects of the insurance business that um i'm not going to say that we don't agree on but just how he's building his agency is not how i will build rogue like we have different opinions or just different vantage points or are interested in building our agencies different ways but the core of what we believe an insurance agency should be the core of what we believe an insurance agency should be is exactly the same and i and that's just why i love spending time with him i love talking to him about the business he's very insightful very thoughtful he is a true pro in our space and uh i love the opportunity to have him on the show okay so uh before we get there got to pay the bills my friends and we're going to do that by talking just a little bit about the inside the inside documents my journey building rogue risk it is also a wide open transparent authentic just collaborative effort uh collaborative community of insurance pros talking about what it takes to be successful in this space so we really use uh documenting my journey of building rogue risk as a construct but it's not what we're talking about every day and we have more than 25 members in the community now it is a paid community so you do have to have some skin in the game to be part of it to kind of get this inside look at what's going on but i feel like the name is almost a little misnomer i feel like the name and i and i've gotten this feedback like oh you know these are the insiders and everyone else on the outside it's not like that when i came up with the name the inside what i was really talking about is let's talk about the guts of an agency let's talk about the inside about what's actually going on like i wanted the i wanted it to speak more to um the material to we're we're getting our hands into the inside of of an insurance business and and the struggles and the and the and the wins and the losses and all the things that just don't make sense in the mornings that that you wake up and you're stressed as hell because you this thing doesn't plug into that thing and how the heck am i gonna sell this customer and you know oh my god where'd all the money go you know all these different things that you that you have to deal with and um as i'm experiencing them for the first time you know starting my very first uh scratch agency so even though i've been in the space for 15 years i'm experiencing a lot of these feelings for the very first time and uh and i'm kind of sharing that unique you know been in the space for a long time but going through starting an agency for the first time and and uh and it's a wonderful community and and uh we do one-on-ones and we and we do all kinds of good stuff and uh and if you want to be part of that community go to ryanhanley.com forward slash insider ryanhanley.com forward slash insider or just go to my website ryanhanley.com and you'll see a button for the inside click that button you get 14 days free so there's no reason to not check it out you can cancel at any time um 14 days free come in check it out watch the videos be part of the conversations join the facebook group you know download some of the the stuff that you have access to download and um you know that that that community helps make this podcast possible as well so we have great sponsors sometimes we do sponsor episodes sometimes we talk about the inside and uh and today we're talking about the inside if you love this show please subscribe this promo has been way too long i apologize for that i'll cut these down in the future i love you guys for watching this sorry for the long promo but the inside is important to me and i think it's important to everyone that's in there and i love you for listening to this let's get on to mike riley here we go the good news is you know there are founders and and leaders and and agency owners in particular and carrier people and technologists who are really tremendous people and you know uh even if it's from afar to be able to apprentice for people like jeff roy and and chris paradiso and and uh seth who are probably the three that i watch i watch i try to watch what they do as closely as i can yeah the way they connect the way they interact um you know i think i think that what what the internet has really given us is the ability to not be so hamstrung by our geographic circumstances right i mean one of those guys lives in outside of toronto one lives in connecticut and the other lives in ohio yet i watch what they do i listen to them i connect with them i text with them and i learn from them every single day and uh i think that's the beauty of where we're at in our industry today is that we get to learn from such a broader swath of people do you know what one thing that those three people specifically do and they do it differently than most others is they don't shove things down your throat in a way that like i need to hurry up and get that shiny object or i need to do business a whole different way because that's what he's doing where it's like you don't know some of the if you don't really pay attention and really dive into their specific agencies or whatever you don't see every little thing that they're doing but you still want to like it's like they're still like that epitome up here where it's like all right i want to run the agency this way i want to have the tech this way i want to have all these things but then i'm not sitting there going oh like they just signed up for this i need to sign up for it and it's like it just makes that nice i don't know it's different and then when you see all this other noise going on it's kind of like oh man you feel like you're behind because you're not doing this or you have this and it's it's it's almost like it's just way too much fluff you know um so i completely i completely understand and and uh you know i don't know if you saw it or not but i wrote a linkedin post the other day which was basically like i'm sorry to the industry for not fully appreciating the technology struggle you know like i've been talking about it for so long and watching and listening and um and then now that i'm living it you know it's really difficult to not feel like if you don't have this tool or you don't have that tool that somehow you're not going to be able to provide um this type of service and then i had this agent on facebook reach out to me uh who i'm is going to remain anonymous because he actually uses an anonymous facebook thing like he's whatever just because he likes to you know he likes to talk about politics and stuff but he doesn't want to shove that down anyone's throat you know like that's in his ecosystem or whatever it doesn't matter but he he sent me an email and he's like he's like i love all these conversations about technology but he's like i he's like you know how i get google reviews on sunday nights uh after i put the kids to bed i open up my email and i copy and paste in uh emails to every account that i wrote that week about sending me a google review he was like that's my automation is i have a google doc and i go copy paste copy paste copy paste and i do that for as many accounts as i wrote that week and that's how i get google reviews he's like so he's like you know so automations are cool but let's not pretend like they're in any like they're necessary and it's just an interesting vantage point you know because it's really hard it's really hard to defend the opposite you know when we talk about it so much well and it was one of your posts recently and it was about data and i didn't jump in on this it was a couple days ago and literally the comments between cas nick and all sorts of other ones just i mean it it turned into a big and everyone was like agreeing but saying it differently and fighting in this and it's like wait guys like and and what nick said like i forgot what the phrase he used but it was like yeah but if people don't change their behavior it doesn't matter like what kind of information we have or what kind of business or whatever else it i i couldn't i was just so shocked to see it just explode into 50 comment thing but it's so true is that like you can implement all these things but if your clientele and you know this with your with your wife's agency their their their clients 75 of their clients might not adapt to having a mobile app or having this or that and like so it's great that you can put these things in place but it doesn't mean that like that agency or those customers are going to use this stuff dude that that post so uh for those listening at home that post is uh that was newsletter number seven and it was titled uh insurance has always been a data business now it matters and essentially um the argument i was trying to make that i think was lost uh or got morphed in the comments a little bit is what i was saying it was actually i was building off a conversation that cass had had with chris burrand and chris burrand is brilliant um in the way and what basically what he was saying is is that the ownership of expert and what's funny is like like matt wood who i who i adore too was like you know the ownership of expirations is a contractual term based on between agents and carriers which i 100 agree yep but the core idea of the ownership of expirations is that you know when someone renews because that's the most important point at which you can retain that business right at a high level if we're backing it out there are there are other reasons why the ownership of expirations is important and and we don't have to get into all those nuances but at like a 30 000 foot view it's because for a very long time that was the trigger point at which you could resell that policy and sustain your business and actually grow your business that's why it was important for the agent to own it and not the carrier because the carrier could then take that from you market it let allow someone else to market it and and it defined where that data stopped okay yep anyone who's super geeky on this feel free to hit me up or comment on or whatever but like at a high level that's what it was and what chris burran was saying was that because of the access to life moment data that now exists in various different pools and lakes and streams and whatever else you want to reference to data um other water reference you want to use um for collections of data um that companies can now go essentially in in the in the analogy i was using was hop hop a dry moat so you know we always want to build moats or lines of defense around our clients in terms of value and and some of that is some of that is value to us some of that is value to them but they're things that keep others from taking our clients from us or from our clients from leaving and um essentially what i was saying is the ownership of expirations is becoming a less effective method of defending your client base as your competitors are able to define life moments in your clients daily activities and market to them in moments of need outside of their expirations that's what i was trying to get to and i think i probably talked i think i i think i went around it a little too much and um and i said in there there may be a time when the total pool of data that you have is of equal or more value than the actual revenue you generate okay that is a bold statement i'm aware of that i was being slightly provocative in that i wanted to see where it went but i do but i think the point is our ability to mine and use data and this was what i was really our ability to utilize data is what's valuable right not just i'm gonna sell my data as a batch you know thing but more can you take your data and and and sell that second life insurance policy to the spouse because you know that they're about to have another kid or you know i mean something like that like can you peel that information out can you add additional services through partnerships that keep that really build a trusted advisor relationship with your i mean whatever value structure you want to do but can you do that or is it just oh sally's renewing in a month might want to remarket her you know i mean like there's those are different things so that's what i was saying and that conversation just went so squirrely it was pretty fun to watch though well in in the whole point about the expirations is there's a great i mean i i look at i'm at least on the personal line sales side and that's over 50 of our business i don't care when somebody renews when as a new business prospect i never ask them because i'm not waiting till their renewal yeah like and and i don't think most of the industry cares like the mindset of like oh you're gonna renew in july okay and we're gonna read quote this in june and we're gonna try and move your home and your auto and your umbrella over to our agency no if i if i have all their information i'm writing it in the next week or actually probably eight to 12 days depending on the carrier because you get the best pricing that way but the thing is it's like when you look at that nobody nobody's waiting to the renewal nobody even pays attention as as much as they used to of okay my renewal came out what's my renewal what's my bill no they're looking at a month-to-month basis they're seeing that eft withdrawal they're seeing i mean to the point where they they're clueless of what's really going on when it comes to an annual policy period scope they're looking they're looking at their day okay this just got withdrawn from our charge on my credit card why does that seem high oh it was the same as it was last month and the six months prior to that but because of whatever their circumstances are in life they're they're assuming it's high they're assuming it because their buddy or their neighbor just said hey i only pay 100 bucks a month why are you paying 125 yeah and so that's i mean to me that's like and i was listening to that that podcast with with cass and you're sitting there and it's like yeah they used to go based off expirations but i mean expirations on personal lines in my eyes mean nothing yeah i think one thing that's important for you know so we're having this conversation and um just so you know and the audience is going to hear me say this to you like i've already introduced you so we don't have to do that whole part um but like i don't even know where we're recording for a while yeah i just it's i just i just start from the beginning because that's when a lot of times we get really interesting nuggets that i hate to lose and if you do like all right man are you ready to start then you get kind of like buttoned up and it changes the whole mood and i'd rather just like get right into it so um any any any any trash talking at the beginning i normally lop off but uh um unless it's about cass or or nick airs and then i leave it in uh so good you know i think for someone like you someone like myself some of the a lot of the people that we kind of talk to on a regular basis i think some the idea that you just referenced is like a duh yeah of course you know what i mean like yeah of course i when someone comes in i help them and we rewrite the policy you know two weeks out or whatever and bam we're off to the races i don't i think some i think it's easy to i think it's easy to lose sight of the fact that there's 36 000 independent agencies in the united states and that number could be and that's like a with a standard deviation of about 5 000 one way or the other right and not to mention all the captives not to mention all the quasi captives not to mention all the mgas not to you know and so i think that there's i think that it's easy or i shouldn't say easy i think that sometimes because of the level and the and the frequency of conversations of the people that we tend to hang out with have and and i and i don't mean that as a knock to anyone who doesn't or engage as much i'm just saying you know i know the groups that you're in i know the people that you you go to conferences as much as you can like you're engaged you're trying stuff like i think that that ups the bar for what is considered average in your mind right like your average like what's average in your mind i think is much higher than what the average activity would be for most agencies that operate we just don't ever hear from them so so we tend to not get that perspective as often that is a hundred percent true and a good testament to that is probably what you're going through right now when you're meeting with carrier reps i heard you talk on your podcast with bradley flowers the other day i listened to it i don't know yesterday or whenever it launched i actually listened to it and i one of the first things you said was that carrier carriers are coming in and they're questioning like am i in this am i in this 50 am i in this 100 like the fact that they're even questioning you shows that those carrier people don't pay attention they don't pay attention to what's going on in the industry i mean to me they should have jumped at the chance that okay he wants an appointment with us we're going to give it to him whether he's in it 70 or not and it's because of of what your mindset is what your experience is what you're doing and what your goals are going to be it's only going to make things easier for the carriers i mean they they come in and they meet with me whether it's on a quarterly or an annual basis and they leave and they're just sitting there like i haven't heard any of this stuff before and i'm looking like i'm so behind the curve because i'm comparing myself against the other people that we've been mentioning yeah and and i put myself down at the bottom with them up top but then when these carrier reps come in there they have no clue and they're like wow you're doing this and i'm like and yeah but i want to do this this is in this and i'm not really happy with this but they're because they're comparing it against those 36 000 agents that don't have websites they don't have email they don't if they're they have an email it's at aol.com it's not even at their agency's name or whatever the case may be so it's like it's tough to always keep yourself into that we're gonna i'm gonna say the upper half or the upper tenth or that three percent that are actually trying to make the waves and changes for the future and then when you get brought down whether it's on a local level or state level and they sit there and they're like huh wow like this is what you're doing so when i heard that yesterday and i'm thinking are you kidding me like and being another new yorker i want to be like who are these carrier reps questioning this let me call them and yell at them like yeah because i might because i might know them somehow through the through the channel so yeah it was it was crazy to to hear that but i can like i mean yeah sure i can see why they're doing it but that shouldn't stop them from wanting to give you an appointment yeah anybody anybody can get appointments through mgas or groups or whatever else is so it's like why are you going to limit what you can potentially get when he launches this and puts his foot on the gas and starts running business to okay well yeah i missed out the first six months well guess what he's got a nice rhythm going and now he might not throw you into the mix or you're going to be that last choice and you're you're done yeah so so i want to be um so i want to be fair uh and say that so i've had two two two i have like a i have like a three week span here where i have basically six or seven appointment meetings um and i have i've had two since since uh that episode with bradley dropped or since i had since i recorded the episode with bradley i've had two of the meetings so far and and here's what i would say to be fair to at least those two carriers was though focus was a concern going in i will say that both were very receptive to the business plan that i have which is essentially my business plan in a nutshell well i have a there's a lot there's different different moving parts an enormous piece of my business plan is the carrier service center i am going to leverage carrier service centers it's part of my business plan i will take on other agents and vas before a a in-house service rep and push business to service centers which means i want to keep a small pool of of carrier of appointed carriers and just use you only use wholesaler um which will be indium um says zaremba is is part of that and chad eddie runs it great great people um you know that will be that will be my wholesale option um but you know i will say that when i when i when i walk through the business plan with them and they and and this is just an interesting thing about agents too so when i told them like an enormous part of my business plan is the quality of your service center and regardless of what you call it they all call it something a little different yeah i i need to know that i can that it has some integration capabilities that you're going to be able to cross sell upsell you know that you're going to be able to handle the business you know like i need i i want to work with the best in class and that i can tell that is a hot button item because that immediately changed the conversation and for the positive and i don't mean that in a negative way at all like that immediately changed the conversation because they're like wow no but like i we struggle so hard like we put so much time and effort into our service center and it has such great numbers and we can't get agents to use it or at least not as many as we would like and i think the idea that i was going to build an agency around like built into my business model is carrier service centers um was it was a game changer for me and uh and i didn't get any no's yet i have one basically maybe or basically yes you know i got to go through the process still and then i have one we're not saying no which i thought was a win for for that particular carrier for them not to say you know come back and talk to us in two years i thought was a big victory as well so i'm i feel like i'm in a good spot but it was interesting to see like they were worried about focus but then you know when i could kind of say look like yeah i get that here's how i'm going to address that part of it yeah and um but then here's where i want to go and when it started to align with what i think carriers see the future is which is leveraging those service centers more it took down a lot of the obstacles between us and we started having what i thought were very productive conversations well that's that's the the benefit and the reason that you're the carriers that you met with are not seeing the adaption from the independent agent is because you're reversing it you're building it based off of that versus hey i'm going to switch my x book into a carrier service center yeah problem is i can't switch in my my a b and c book because they don't have one what they have isn't worth it and then all of a sudden it's like i'm i'm 25 in and 75 out that confuses so much stuff so it's either all or nothing and it's too hard for any agency let alone established agencies for a long time to say okay well hold on we're gonna just we're gonna just move everything into carriers that have service centers and then cut the ties and do that it's almost impossible to do that and that's why you use any do you use any carrier service no none and i i've told carriers because they come and they push and they push hard and i said listen you gotta stop pushing i will be the last agent on earth using carrier service center and just break walk me through besides what you said are there other reasons that's the main reason yeah is because i see it as a hindrance to the the flow that we have because i don't want somebody on my staff to have to be like okay well yeah you need to call this 800 number for a change on your auto policy not but we'll handle your home because it's still in one of these mutual companies that like we still handle the service for that that mindset is in my if i bring myself into a customer's mind that is a terrible customer experience like if they don't know exactly where to go like i don't like when the carriers came in and said we want you guys to stop calling and sending in claims we want to hear from the client and we said no like we're still calling in claims like because we want every claim unless the person can't wait because it's midnight and the person can call an 800 number i want i want our staff calling in claims because i want to talk to them first because i want to stop the claim from happening when it's something that is just ridiculous and not going to be covered yeah because it's under their deductible so like that is one of our value added processes for our agency and that's why i'm like i the way this industry moves the way these carriers are the way where my carriers and the and where my business is kind of separated through none of them are all they're never all going to have that solution that's going to satisfy us so i'm not going to even entertain the possibility that hey this one book with a million dollars can get service there and that's going to free up so much time i'd rather pay for more service people i'd rather do that yeah and still those processes that makes us better than the service center yeah like so there that's that's where but again that's taking the stuff i'm learning and implementing it and making the experience better because that's the whole focus where 35 100 of those agents in the world aren't doing that yet and so we're still in this this this long-term game that is like we need to make these changes because of all this stuff around us but nobody else besides the few hundred or maybe a few thousand are actually looking at doing yeah but then again how many of those 36 000 independent agents are going to be retiring in five years and selling out to somebody else yeah and somebody mentioned there's gonna be a lot less agents um in the future servicing this stuff because of all these different tech stuff coming in i don't even think it has the tech stuff i literally think there's gonna be that much less agents because everybody's gonna retire yeah and everyone's gonna consolidate and now my my local town that had five within uh a mile is gonna have one and then the local town i mean so you're gonna have you're gonna have maybe a couple small ones you're gonna have a couple medium ones and you're gonna have a whole bunch of large ones like and the only small and medium ones that are gonna last are the ones that have those relationships and have the customer experience that they still want to come in and talk to that same agent and then work as their advisor and do all that kind of stuff so yeah that's really where i see that and that's where i kind of am shifting our focus is to make sure we're there and that's why it's like all right service centers are never going to get to that point in the state of new york with the carriers that we have some of the small ones you got a lot of domestics and stuff yeah i mean i mean you know you know the carriers the new york's the new york central mutuals of the world the adirondex the dryden mutuals the nice small carriers that you love doing business with because they write a good product they they take care of claims they do all these things we have nice books with them that are always profitable these carriers aren't going to switch their focus and try and create service centers to offset these things they're not big enough and and nor is all the agents going to use them so we're not if half or a quarter of our book is in these handful of five carriers that are never going to do that we're never going to we're never going to sway that and we're going to still be that local hometown agency that you can walk in and and hate to say it still pay cash and and and pay for your premium because i'm not going to tell the the lady that's been here for 55 years hey i know you've been paying annually every year with with cash for your home and auto and you come in and your hundred dollar bills are starting to fade but we're not going to do that anymore you can't you can't come in anymore like that's not the experience we want to give her or the experience we want to give any new customer if that's what is convenient for them we're not going to force them to do it but obviously yeah we're still going to be here to allow it i think that um and i mean this in the most positive sense i think that is a very noble way to go about handling this what's what's going on and i mean that in a very in the in the most positive sense not in a patronizing way i think that i think there's only a couple ways that you can go man um you know what i'm i think i think what's going to happen is i think peak independent agency influence i think independent agency influence in the marketplace is on the rise i'm bullish on independent agency influence i am bearish on independent agencies in terms of their scale i think the number of agencies is going to go down i think you're going to see consolidation um and i think what's going to happen is everyone it's going to be you're going to get a barbell effect you're going to get agencies like what i'm trying to build which is going to be more um more uh sales focus a smaller force more you know very sales heavy like you know i mean like i i want to keep i want you know a service person to be towards the end a true service person to be towards the end of of of my hires to not you know the first couple hires i want to be other individuals who are going to be out producing business um and and kind of lean mean fighting machine i guess you could say if i were to if i were to put it that way i think that you're then also going to have a lot of big consolidated you know agencies owned by either pe's or just you know agencies that have scooped up all over the place um i think what's going to be really difficult is that middle-sized agency um to exist now i think in towns like where you are i think there are pockets where they'll survive i think new england they'll be able they'll do better in new england because there's so many there's so many highly populated pocket towns where you can do tremendous work for a community make a great living employ people and be perfectly fine i think as you spread out west and the towns become farther away from each other uh sparser i think it becomes much more difficult to have that middle-sized agency where you have all the payroll um but you're also competing as as some of the big guys push down into the smaller markets and the little guys are able to extend up a little bit i think the middle-sized agencies are the ones that are really they're gonna have to do the most work um to survive that's i don't know that's if i'm if i'm spitball you know or kind of prognosticating that's what i'm seeing and and why i made the decisions that i made um and how i'm constructing rope well and and that's that's absolutely the way it's going to be and and i see that middle that middle agent if if you're not already making changes it's either going to hurt the future of your specific agency or i think it hurts the value of the sale of your agency yeah and i look at that as somebody that will go buy up those small people that will still take those those uh long-time clients that that person had that still wants a a local person but what i'm willing to pay and what i want to pay in my local community for these things is gonna is gonna be tied really close to what you've done the last five years okay is your book slowly going like this upward is it staying even or is it slowly dying and there's a lot of those agencies that i think are just slowly dying and barely hanging on here because i see and i hear them and i i network with them and it's like you guys at 65 70 73 years old whatever the case may be you're just riding this out and you look and feel it looks like you're miserable like because you have to grind to make ends meet to reach what you did last year because expenses just go up where it's like try and do something if you're not going to bring somebody in to try and like help grow the agency that way get out of it now like take top dollar if you can and hang out for a little while and then just and then just retire and then so there's too many that still have a nice comfortable life that they don't think that they need to do anything like okay yeah i made this amount last year and i'm gonna make uh four percent less this year and then four percent five percent the next year and just slowly grow but it's still very comfortable to them and so they're like well i'm not ready to just sit home and there's so many of those still here that either the large big ones the multiple hundred employed agencies that have their hand all over the place are going to buy them up and those clients are just going to get thrown in or you're actually going to like you're going to have people like myself or any other middle ground ones that are starting to establish a culture and an experience for clients that literally they are people are going to want to come there and that's but there's so many i mean there's a reason captives are going independent like that that train is not going to stop like nationwide started it other ones are going to follow suit i mean all state just sent out that letter that's very ominous right i mean 2021 who the hell knows what's going to happen i had a i had i had a question that somebody called and they're like you want to talk to all state i'm thinking you know i get i get enough emails or or linkedin messages or whatever from carrier people all the time hey you want to have a meeting to talk about adding another carrier listen i don't need any more carriers like if one carrier starts to slack in the state of new york and i need to make some changes and i have a way to look in like i will definitely look or if you're starting to kick butt and you've been kicking butt for a few years and you're still on that train okay maybe i gotta look at you because hey listen i'm not like i'm not gonna miss out the opportunity to grow a book we added one a few few months ago and and i'd say 50 of our new business has been going going to them because they have the products they have the pricing they have all the serve back-end service stuff that is excellent i did a bunch of research before adding them and i said you know what i'm losing not losing business to it but i'm losing prospects because of what you have and i don't want that i have the prospect and like i and like i've said and i'll continue to say the customer isn't a customer of the carriers yeah this is this is a huge i i will shout this from a rooftop if i say if i have another product and i tell somebody to jump we're moving here they're gonna jump and to me that means we own the customer and and so i want to make sure that i have the right products so that my customers will keep listening to me and we can move them to what we need to move them based on what their needs are in their in their life so um it's going to be interesting but i think that the train of this is going to take a little bit longer than some of the people that we communicate with on a regular basis is thinking yeah like oh man look it's going to be it's already started and it's going to be next year and it's going to be in the next no there's going to be still so many agents that aren't doing anything five to seven years from now the only way is if there becomes a bigger shift in the gap between us and carriers yeah if us and carriers don't figure a way to improve the partnership and it keeps dividing in certain ways that's when we start to see some things change yeah can i ask you um i'd love to know what the carrier is that you took on but you don't have to share that information unless you want to i'm interested in your research process for choosing them beyond just seeing them in the market or whatever it is just when you when you're considering that new carrier that you just took on a couple months ago like what is that research process for you where are you going what are you looking at like how are you formulating okay we're ready to take on another carrier claims claims is a hundred percent the only thing that i care about when it comes to the carrier obviously pricing stability makes a nice difference the problem is over half my carriers don't have pricing stability we're great for two years we have a 12 increase i mean it's this roller coaster uh of pricing that that you can't control you can't say i'm only going to keep these four carriers because their pricing stability is good and it's going to keep my my overhead down because i'm not going to have to remarket and do any of this stuff so for me is okay once i give you a customer of mine what problems am i going to have that you cause and my number the number one the number two and the number three in my eyes are claims if i file a claim for my client that has the coverage are you fast are you uh reasonable are i mean like i'm not expecting lemonade type claims but i'm i'm expecting do i have to get involved and start like following up on your adjusters to make them make a phone call and and i have and and i've tweeted this before and i tag him all the time every claims person needs the john bachman attitude of claims and there's i i told him before i'm like you need to go train claims people all across the country because people are not doing a good enough job training them to the point where the experience that the client is going through they need to massage that half of that job is bedside manner like you need to make sure that the person feels comfortable they're walking them through letting them know this is the process this is the step they can't ghost them they can't just like not recall return their phone call because then we get the phone call and then we have to get involved and then oh wait i gotta stop everything i'm doing to take care of this because this is a big client of mine and i want to make sure their claim gets handled appropriately so if the least the least amount of work that i have to do after a claim is filed like i want to follow up with a customer and be like hey i just want to make sure everything's going smooth and them to say everything's great we got our check yesterday okay awesome like i i don't want to have to get so much involved so if if i talked to other agents and i was finding other things like all right how's the claim service oh claim savers is great okay great okay next next agent and and i think there's where me being so involved in some of the local insurance agency association type stuff has allowed the relationships with other agency owners that i can say how long have you had this company um bad experience good experience and so i can get their true opinion off the record opinions about a certain carrier before i jump on and it worked and this one and and i mean i probably had about three more since we added that one to reach out and they're like hey we're looking to add you or we're looking to do this and and again it's because if their territory is central new york area and they're looking at me like who are we going to add i got my job this year is to add five new agents and get them to grow who are you going to add that you don't already have you're i mean the state of new york probably jumped when they said oh my god there's another person that wants to start an agency like people aren't starting agencies in in new york and it's like there's where it's like these guys are stuck trying to figure out how they're going to get more business because that's their job on the line and so they're they're reaching out to the people that are actually trying to do something and growing versus because they're like we're already in the big shops because the big shops have everybody and when you look at the small shops well these ones are not growing or not doing anything and then there's maybe three in the middle so it's like there's not many things that can separate i mean there's so many things that are separating yourself from this that the carriers are like they're like they're throwing themselves at you like when they when they when they've called i've said listen like you know that hey you need five hundred thousand in three years or you need this you need this all these old school guidelines of like we need volume or we need that i'm thinking i don't i don't i don't do that like i i don't go buy any of those like you'll get opportunities it's up to you to have the product that that allows yeah we're growing x number of percent a year you can see that that's why you're here but if your product stinks in syracuse new york it might be great 15 miles this way or 20 miles that way but like we're the bulk of our businesses if you're not competitive you're not going to get any get any product and so for you to expect us to say okay yeah we're gonna we want we'll get you 500 in three years well no that's not going to happen and so they they they might hem and haw but they're like just quote us that's all we care about we just we just got to show that you're giving us the opportunities yeah i got one of the carriers that i talked to um they were very interested in adding me on commercial lines which is awesome because i that they were a high target they were one of the carriers that i was that was high on my target list so that was very fun but then when the conversation switched to personal lines they're like wow you know we're 500,000 in three years i'm just like really like what if i give you 325 what if i do 250 and it's all good profitable business like is that a bad thing i don't know like and and that's where you get that old mindset like and and that's it's like the mindset i talked about of like oh should we add ryan as a as a person or as an agency here because you know is he doing this full-time or is he still consulting on the set like are you kidding me if you're gonna write 250,000 in good business that's good for the the carrier and that's only going to grow like why wouldn't you take that on i'm sorry besides some paperwork and maybe a few other little things there's no expense to add an agent like at all and if you can't and i i understand you don't want to be on every street corner and there's all these other things but it's like that means you should pick the people you should pick the people that are doing the things that's going to help your company grow but like i mean i've had a few conversations with uh uh the commercial rating platform that you're signing up yeah tarmica awesome guys and the fact that every carrier isn't throwing themselves at them to get on that just shows you again like their mindset and where things are yeah like i even asked them okay where's the big expense on this they're like well it just depends on their technology but we can help them and they're gonna we'll give it back to them and i'm thinking like why wouldn't any carrier do this like to me it should be one phone call and every single person should just jump on it but they don't they don't care dude from my trusted choice.com days and bold penguin days i can just tell you that it is it's a that decision doesn't happen because of a thousand like you never hear like a death by a thousand cuts or whatever it's death by a thousand decisions like that's why that doesn't happen it's not that intrinsically any one person isn't like we should be there yeah it's or you know or you know pick the tool you know pick the tool it's that and some of it just comes down to straight no i'm not gonna get my bonus this year because i killed myself to integrate with that tool so you know whatever you know because because even though you look at it and you're like like uh take take travelers right like travelers isn't yet on tarmica now hopefully they will be soon and if there's someone listening to this who works for travelers please email whoever possible and say this is a tool you need to be on because i can tell you firsthand excluding myself some of the best agents in the entire country are are either going to be signing up with tarnica or are circling around tarmica right now as a potential resource for them it is worth your time and effort now for you and i to sit here we're like why isn't travelers on this platform yet like this is silly like just take your technology plug it in go but you're not dealing with travelers you're dealing with john and harry and tammy and sally who have to all make sure that this doesn't get them fired right because because adding a new tool doesn't get anyone to raise all it does is create risk in their life to get them fired now when you deal with some of the this is why i've always really and and it's something it's travelers there's great people that work there it's just very legitimately and you and i if we work there would operate the exact same way does putting your neck out on the line to integrate with a tool that could yes help your agents for sure how much risk am i creating in my career by doing that because you are expending social and political capital internally in order to say hey i think we should be on that tool so and that's that's like that's human survival instinct right in a company that big and it's one of the reasons i've always really enjoyed operating with the super regional carriers um because even though in some cases yeah they're still behind still slow but it's sean or it's kevin or it's steven and if you can get that person or it's sally or whoever you know cindy if you can get that person to to believe in what you're doing they can execute on it and make it happen and though sometimes that's a harder sell um at the same time you know they know that making that decision isn't what they're usually operating in what they believe is best for agents versus their ability to allocate resources which is a much different equation than if i say yes to this project will i get fired those are two you know both have challenges when trying to get someone to make an integration but i feel like they're they're just very they're also very different so um that that's that has been the challenge for me man i i you know i started this by saying i wrote this post about about uh about saying apologizing and i do i apologize i apologize profusely i am i am i'm epically sorry for ever for not fully empathizing with the stress and strain that comes with choosing the right technology but i love the way that you approach the game man it's not i'll be honest with you some of the things you're saying i don't 100 percent uh i wouldn't build my business that way and won't build my business that way but i don't think that you're wrong and i think that and when i said i think it's noble i mean it in the truest and most positive sense i love that you are going that way because i do believe it is one of the paths to success i believe you know i think there are many many many paths i absolutely positively believe that you are on the right path because you also and we didn't really touch about this very much so far and it's kind of where i'd like to go you do so much like as much as you're taking cash from the 87 year old woman who's been there for 50 years you're also crushing the content game you're working on automations you're you're having conversations with different tools to help you automate your business so what i'd love to know is is how does an agency like yours who is on a path that you just described which is much more high touch much more in-house which is amazing how do you marry that philosophy with all the new tools like when you're looking at them how are you evaluating them how are you thinking about integrating them while maintaining the virtues that make uh your business special slowly um so it's um there's there's and this is the nerd insurance nerd of me that like okay i see these things i see what's event like what's very valuable i see how it's going to intertwine into whether it's the the sales process or the service process within our agency not necessarily what i think the what the industry is definitely going to do like i mean i i think it's awesome that some people are able to automate their agencies like almost to nothing or any of that kind of stuff there's i mean there is and i had this conversation and i got no problem telling the company's name rocket referrals okay rocket referrals is a great software program okay i signed up for it years ago and but after about 18 months two years i stopped it why because the garbage that we had in our management system at the time basically produced garbage as cast says garbage in garbage out yeah okay and so i i got off of the software and when i talked to them again and i say okay yeah this is the reason i did this and this is the reason i laughed and all this other stuff has nothing to do with their program it had has to go with with ours so i couldn't set their program which is meant to be fully automated that you basically set it and forget it and all of a sudden you start getting different things in i couldn't set it up on automation i had to manually go in every single day to see what happened was going on and sent personally send out okay we're going to send these out we're going to send this out we're going to send that out and after a while i just got tired of it didn't do it did it work sure but that was just one thing that it's like so when you're doing these things it's like as much as like all these systems and things look awesome and everybody's watching it and it's like it's almost like that shiny object you really got to bring it back to saying okay how is this going to affect your clients how is it going to affect your sales process or how is it going to affect this and if it's not going to make your life easier your staff's life easier your clients life easier it's not worth it right now and let's put that in and let's put that in the list of maybe next year or maybe two years around so where for me a lot of the stuff that i tried to implement and put in was really initially to help my process okay um i still handle 90 of our sales so being still the new business sales like i focus a lot of stuff on some of the marketing aspects to make sure that okay this is going to help me now and it's also going to help me down the road it's going to help build a personal brand along with an agency brand it's going to allow me to do all these different things that's going to help grow the agency without potentially knocking on doors or cold call and as that started to work and some things started to happen there then it's like all right what tools can i implement in my staffs day-to-day that's going to help offset some things and clean up some things and make things easier how and it's like the guy you mentioned earlier how am i going to get google reviews without having something like rocket referrals or something set up on automation okay well why don't you build in your own so i built in five different layers of where we ask for google reviews some of it's automated some of it's manual but everybody knows and everyone's on those systems but it's taken a while obviously because you you test it and see what's working if it's not working you stop it and fix it and and relaunch it um and it's worked out really well it's just in my eyes and somebody that is a is a constant um studier of the industry and the studier of others in the industry especially the ones that i respect really highly i always feel i'm 10 steps behind so it motivates me to to to try and catch up so at least that way i can always be testing and thinking about new things but i'm not driving my staff crazy i'm not tearing down all our processes and having to rebuild them and tear them down again and rebuild them up again like the goal is to do that once maybe do some tweaks and then we're done and and we just had this conversation in our agency over the last few weeks at the end of the year it was basically like we're doing this project that we're doing so we never have to do it again like this isn't it like hey we're going to do this every year and between christmas and new year's when it's a little slow i don't know we're doing some of this stuff now because we're never going to have to do it again because the process now prevents us from having to do this again but it's just one little aspect of one little layer and it's like we just keep making those steps and moving them forward but you got to go somewhere you got to do something you can't just keep jotting these stuff down and hope that you're going to eventually get there you got to pick a thing and and a perfect example is and and it's it's it's great that you're going to be at the conference next week and and all that kind of stuff and and seeing some of the questions you probably see within that facebook community group but one of the questions and one of the topics all the time is like when you go to a conference what are you looking to get like you can't sit there and drink from a fire hose and go back to your agency and let some nothing's going to get done yeah like you really have to go and say okay i'm thinking of two or three things that i want to take out of here and i'm going to go implement them before the end of and when that works hey then maybe i'll touch base and reach out to a couple of the speakers or people that maybe are doing some other things but that's not on my list i remember the first conference i ever went to about three four years ago i came back with all sorts of ideas and i was jacked up and ready to roll nothing got done nothing for for 10 months i'd have my i'd have 15 different projects started nothing got finished nothing moved forward and finally i had to sit there and i was like wow like that's not good like so the next conference i go to i'm going to start over and this is what i'm going to look to do and i'm going to learn how to do this where i'm going to figure out this person that i can always reach out to as as a contact that's a specialty in this their area or whatever and uh that's kind of been my my mindset and it's it's worked so far and we keep making those steps forward so that at someday whether it's three years from now or five years from now i feel a lot more comfortable where what where our tech is and where our marketing is and where our processes are that maybe you look back and you're like wow okay that was that was good but i didn't do a full overhaul within 18 months and um it's it's it's been a fun ride and a fun process and i i look forward to learning new things the problem is everything you learn and change three years from now it's going to change again and and and that's you always got to stay on your toes but i like to be on my toes there's too many people in this industry that just sat back and and got comfortable and just coasted and and i don't want that like i want to be able to always have my foot on the gas pedal driving forward just because it's going to motivate me to keep going and hopefully someday maybe my kids will want to come into the the business like turn that third generation into a fourth generation so it lets you own your future too you know what i mean that's that's the part for me you know man i i've i've lived the opposite life right like i've worked for other people and you know i've had some tremendous experiences and all that but you know when you're when you're driving forward you own your destiny and and sometimes you you know people are able to knock you down but you get back up when you when you start to relax and you start to take it easy you know now you're kind of it's much easier to push you around and and i don't mean like literally push you around i mean like you know just have life knock you down and and throw things at you that you can't navigate um you know i i want to be respectful of your time i'm going to wrap it up but i want to share this with you as well uh so uh you know dave idonzo right from dried mutual yes yeah so um you know i talked to him every once in a while and he reached out to me and was just talking to me about the domestic market and stuff and you know pitching me on dry in a little bit uh because he's a good salesman and all that and uh and and i say that like in jess he's a super good guy and mostly we're just talking about business and i said to him and i'm taking this back to what you were saying about chasing tools and chasing things and i have this like martyr syndrome where the decisions that i make i feel like i'm making a decision for the industry like along with the decisions that i make because i know i'm going to talk about the things that i choose or the tools that i use or or whatever and i've like had this pressure building inside me the last few weeks where it's like you know of course i choose to like document my journey because i'm a freaking a-hole and uh and i just can't help myself right so so some of it is self-imposed i i that's fair criticism i guess uh but you know i i've had this pressure because there are certain tools that i would love to consider that i know like in our crew of peeps would be considered like oh why would you even think about them right like oh you know they're part of the evil empire why would you join that or why would you be part of that because they're this or that and i'm like and i was talking to dave and i mean i think because dave doesn't you know dave is a you know he you know he he don't care so i just was sharing this frustration with him and he's like he looks he goes he's he's got this in and i don't know how often you've spoken to him but he's got this way where he like even though we were talking on the phone i felt like he like swiveled in his chair and made eye contact with me and was like son he called me young man he goes he was young man it's time you start making decisions for yourself and i just was like what it was like i was like i had a bug bucket of cold water dumped over my head and um and the reason i share that is because uh through this process of starting to map out you know you know first the vision for the agency then the actual business plan slash battle plan for launching and then getting into the actual nuts and bolts of how i implement that um it is so incredibly easy to want to chase the new hot fresh just off the presses tool that you know if it hits is the big thing and you were on the wave you know at the very beginning and um and it's very very difficult to not get sucked into that into that mentality um when there are tried and true established tools products that aren't as sexy like no one's writing insure tech exposes on them but but they get the job done and um and i've i've had to like it's like weird to say this out loud but i've had to do like soul searching around that idea of like like how do i not convince myself that how do i make sure that i'm making a decision for the right reasons right which which the right reasons are establishing an agency that takes care of my family for the next decade and a half which is why i started this agency in the first place like that's why i started it and um and that's like a thing it's like something i've had to deal with it's been weird well because because well and tried and mutual is a company that is that they're not the sexy new tool yeah that is there but they are so consistent yeah they are so good at their niche products yeah and we grew 25 with them this year last year and we've had them for years and it's just because they're that good that it's like you get the thing that crosses your desk like you're not going to load it into tarmica there and say okay where is this going to go no no no you call and just either go to their online rater or you you know the rates off the top of your head and you're like no this is going to dryden like that is who they are and that's like that is great for the agency yeah like and and and it's and it's tough because i can see how you would have the mindset of being like all right this is what i'm this is where i'm building this is where i'm going but man that is just so consistent over there yeah like yeah and you know and the truth is like you know i look at what dryden does and i used to write dryden products when i worked at the murray group and i know exactly who they are and and i just think to myself like is it make headline presses for anybody if i take an appointment with dryden no no one can give two flying shits is it going to help my most don't even know who they are yeah most yeah it's a single state domestic in new york that mostly writes in upstate right so like uh but at the same time having worked with them before and knowing exactly who they are and what they do i feel like i would be an a-hole if i didn't have them as part of my product mix considering the niches that they have are i don't want to say easy to market to but you can create targeted market at those things drive them in provide good service there's plenty of opportunity to cross sell those people into other products you know i mean it's like and and i just think to myself like you know and and i and i'm i'm talking through personal experience but i know other people struggle with these things like i i think it's so easy to want to do that that thing that feels like what you should be doing when really all all we should ever be thinking about um i think it's good to think about the industry as a whole considerate and support the projects that help the industry grow but at the end of the day like we got to do what's best for the business that puts food on our table like we have to do that and i'm as much i mean you know that better than i do probably i'm as much speaking to myself as i am to anybody but uh well in a lesson a great example of this is is i tried to partner with uh the state association to uh because it's it's so much easier at least you think it is that to have associations be the voice of the agent to the carriers and it goes back to that comment you had well we're not hearing this from our agents yeah like well that's because the agents aren't going to be able to call you steve or tammy and sue in this department at this one carrier especially on a national level that says the agents in uh upstate new york have an issue with this in in one of the projects i was working on was basically like you guys need to improve your online picture okay all right some of these carriers that we represent that we love as carriers when you go to the general public they have no clue who they are and they're like oh wait this isn't uh geico and state farm and all state like i gotta go search them and when they go search them you find every negative thing possible because that's what you find with every carrier online and i basically said like the fact that i have to present your product and then when the customer actually looks at things and then i have to defend your product and potentially like like you need to like take that focus of whatever all these projects that you're on and say you know what for the next three months we're gonna put a little focus and we're gonna do with that guy that emailed you and says on sunday nights we're gonna ask all the people that had claims how well the claim process went or or or whatever the case is to build up our online presence they can't even do that this was like 18 months ago that i started to try and push this product and like when the association goes and talks they hear the same thing oh well our our agents aren't complaining about this well it's because one they're too afraid to say anything to you because they think it's like you guys are the big bad uh people that control their destiny and for me it's like all right no no like your online presence sucks and mine is great and i'm not gonna let you ruin mine and me to potentially get and grow my book of business because i want to i want to present your product to them so like either either improve or i'm not going to present your product anymore yeah like that is going back to like all right is the claim experience good for me so it's less work for me well how's the the the new business process well the new business process sucks because when they go and search your your carrier nobody's ever heard of they have issues and some people have never heard of travelers some people have never heard of uh other insurance carriers that we represent because they don't pay attention to insurance carriers if you don't spend billions on advertising they don't know who you are yeah so if you're using us to advertise your product you at least need to improve what your online presence looks like yeah you know uh that was the case so one of my favorite carriers that i've used in the example forever is new york central mutual right i love them great carrier so steady at least i don't know maybe very very recently but i'd say for for i'd say consistency is a is a hallmark of theirs they do a good job on claims well-run company um when you push a proposal for new york central mutual with that old ass look and train logo across the table to someone they're like what kind of podunk country insurance bullshit are you trying to sell me and and like and in your mind you're like holy like these guys qualified for for new york central's preferred program like they don't realize they just hit the freaking jackpot like they're never gonna have to switch their insurance again for like a decade like they're good and then and then that's your mind and the client's mind is like this paper ain't worth to wipe my ass with it i mean they have no idea and and it's like that that second sale um you know in new york is a new york central music is a tough it's a tough example because um uh one they have been in the state for so long that anyone westchester north there's a good chance that they've bumped into him at some point or at least a lot of you know people who have been established and maybe people in their 40s or 50s but um and the other part is they're a single state domestic so they're or they're a domestic carrier so so they're only in new york and they don't have the marketing budget to run the campaigns but but to your point the idea that they would and they have done some branding and i and i think it's a good thing but for if they just got out ahead of that sale a little bit or gave you a little bit more in terms of a frontline branding when you push that across the table new yorkers could go whoa i qualify for new york central mutual i've seen them wow this is pretty cool like thanks man like i'm excited for this like that to me is it's a ways off but it's if that mentality could be just grabbed onto a little bit more and and for everyone working in new york central mutual i love you guys like don't don't get me wrong i'm using you as an example out of love um uh but you know that that's where i think to myself like there's so much opportunity there there's so much opportunity if the agent doesn't have to do the second sale that uh to write more business because it tears down a whole obstacle a whole additional obstacle for the agent that that's writing that business and and they're definitely making strides yeah and i echo everything you said about them like i mean that's where i have all my insurance personal insurance yeah like i mean it's it's and and but the thing is and there's something that i don't even know if you know this they are the seventh largest auto insurance writer in the state of new york i did i knew they were high i didn't know seven yeah yeah and if you look at the six there are six that you would think that would be huh geico or steak farm like i mean this isn't like they're probably the second when it comes to independent size yeah travelers and so you look at that and it's like wow like they write and they're bigger than you think and it's like and and they are doing a good job starting to brand and they got there's tv commercials there's radio ads the problem is again and they're doing some social media pushing which is which is great i mean they got the jd power award like two years in a row for customer satisfaction who knows what that really is but whatever they're still pushing all those things the problem is okay what is the the 28 year old buying this first house doing after you present hey here's your new auto and home for your new house here's all your coverages you're sitting there thinking this is a great preferred product you're you're good when you buy this new house you got all the bells and whistles that you need and he goes and goes i've never heard of these people i'm buying a house i'm nervous i'm gonna go search them and then there's there's negative reviews online yeah i mean i had a personal injury attorney once tell me that he did not want to do business with them because they give him a hard time when he's trying to get money from them from other personal injury cases i go i go i go you mean because they're actually defending their clients and he's like yeah and i'm like well you just gave me the best uh uh referral for a review of them that anybody could ever want is because they're actually they're not just paying people to pay them they're actually have people defending their their claims and doing the claim process it's just not good for your bottom line pocket and that's why you're angry about it and and i love that like so i'm like thank you i won't give you this product but guess what everybody else can get it and be completely satisfied and it's it's just things like that where it's like if they if and it's not that they don't want to do that it's the problem is they got a list of 35 things that they want to do and like every other business yeah they put that at number 30 and it's like all right well these are the truth is man you already said it like i would rather be working with a carrier with stable prices a great product and good claims handling than a product like i'd rather have to do the second sale for a carrier and have those other three things be dialed in as much as it is for them so yeah you know it's all about levers again and you know it's easy to two dudes pontificating on a podcast but um you know i do think that trying to like you said like you've like you've done with your agency step by step time and and uh and again i use new york central mutual as an example because i know they're working hard um and getting their brand out into the space um while maintaining you know i mean so many other carriers fly into new york state they got these really rock bottom prices they're there for a year maybe two and then all of a sudden 15 20 40 increases on renewal and you're like oh my god and then they're gone and um you know that's that's the hard part but dude this has been tremendous i mean we went so many different places um i didn't give you an agenda i just said yo bro let's jump on the podcast and uh this has been awesome i i think everyone listening at home will have enjoyed it hopefully as much as uh as much as i just enjoyed having this rap with you and uh good so so dude people just want to check you out connect with you i mean you're you're one of the guys in the industry that i think is is doing things the absolute right way i love your mentality like i said i don't i'm not going to build my agency the same way but i respect the hell out of the way that you're that you're building yours because i know you're doing it from from the way you want to build it and with intention and i think that's what's important and i love that and there's so many places where we do cross too so um i just where where can people just connect with you and get to know you better where's the best place to find more you know i mean any social media channel works really well i'm active on all of them depending on the situation uh linkedin right now is definitely getting most of my attention because anything you push on there you're you're getting huge uh return on your time yeah and and that goes for anyone that wants to create content i mean there's posts that i put on there that i i i don't think twice now like i used to of being like is this valuable to anybody like no this was valuable to me so if it was valuable to me then maybe it'll be valuable to somebody and where you post it on facebook you post it on another social media platform 25 people might see it or 57 people might see it where all of a sudden you post it on linkedin you could have thousands yeah within within a day get get this and and there's people connecting from all over the place and so that's probably my my go-to right now um where i can kind of connect with people but definitely um any social media platform works definitely awesome well dude i appreciate your time i appreciate you sharing so much of what you have going on uh with the audience and i look forward to seeing you out in san diego i mean we only live two hours from each other and we have to take eight hour plane rides to see each other in person but um but we'll remedy that here in upstate new york uh pretty soon once we get established what uh when are you flying in uh i get in thursday at 10 30. what flight where are you connecting i don't know delta i'm delta so maybe detroit yeah all right we might be on the same plane out of detroit oh booyah i mean i'm not flying first class like you bro i'm back in steerage but uh you know come on you got the delta miles still i used them all up the end of the end of the the major speaking career you're like no i'm flying first class everywhere i got to use up this my these miles exactly all right dude i'll catch you man later everyone listening at home thank you for watching thank you for listening i love you for listening we're out of here you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you