The Digital Broker Podcast

After two years and over 100 episodes of The Digital Broker, we find out that the insurance agency space has never been in more promising shape. Ryan Deeds and Indio Technologies CMO Ken Wohl look back on what the show has taught us about data, technology, and the future of insurance agencies.

Being a digital broker is less about an attachment to specific tools and more about a mindset of adaptability. Learn how that mindset works and what to focus on before you decide which tools are worth using. Ryan Deeds hosts.

In-person meetings are essential to the insurance industry, but social distancing and quarantines are limiting the freedom to get together in person. Luckily, virtual meetings are coming to the rescue, providing opportunities to keep learning and meeting people. Time to take virtual meetings more seriously. Ryan Deeds hosts.

Paying producers too high a percentage on new business can discourage them from taking renewals seriously, but neither should you keep producers stuck on renewals. There is no universal formula for producer compensation, but here is what to keep in mind when designing a producer compensation structure that makes sense for your agency. Ryan Deeds hosts.

A podcast can drive a lot of listeners and opportunities your way, but it can also be tough to produce. Learn about which tools exist to take the grind out of podcast production so you can focus on just pressing Record. Ryan Deeds interviews Jason Cass.

Leadership involves making decisions based on the available information, but in times of crisis, information is volatile, if it's available at all. Learn how to lead your team through crisis by becoming flexible, nimble, and agile. Ryan Deeds interviews Brian Comerford, host of the Lead.exe podcast.

Bad days are going to happen, but if you know what you're doing, great days are going to happen too, and they can supercharge employee morale and wipe out the impact of previous bad days. Here are a few, simple things you can do to deliver great days to your employees. Ryan Deeds interviews Azia Hurley and Melissa Wilder.

Insurance agencies have historically been slow to catch up on technology, but COVID-19 is changing everything. Learn how insurance agencies are making important technological adjustments that will benefit them long after the crisis is over. Ryan Deeds interviews Eric Wistrand, CIO of Couch Braunsdorf.

When your house and the office become the same place, it is easy to feel like your career is stuck, too. But there is much you can do at your desk to grow your network. Ryan Deeds interviews Olivia Schmitt, who landed her dream job at Total CSR by posting consistently on LinkedIn.

Insurance is supposed to be a lifeline against tough times, and this is the toughest time that many people have ever known. Here is what you can do to put your agency in a position to keep helping people. Ryan Deeds hosts.

Extraordinary times are pressuring insurance agencies to switch to remote work immediately, but knowing where to start can be disorienting. We get straight to the point and tell you which collaboration tools you can start using right away, without having to sort through hundreds of options. Ryan Deeds hosts.

Bad days are going to happen, but when they *keep* happening, they can destroy agency morale and drive employees away. Here is what you can do to minimize the incidence of bad days and reduce the negative impact of the ones that happen anyway. Ryan Deeds is joined by Azia Hurley and Melissa Wilder.

Onboarding and offboarding are two sides of the same coin, but onboarding gets most of the attention. It's time to get serious about the offboarding process, to keep employee departures from upsetting agency workflows and operations. Ryan Deeds is joined by Azia Hurley and Melissa Wilder.

He has invested in several insurance agencies and retooled them to be more efficient. People are curious about how Billy Williams, Founder of Inspire A Nation Business Mentoring, does this. His response? "I'm not smart, I can just figure stuff out." Learn which rules of thumb he uses to size up agencies and spot problems quickly. Ryan Deeds hosts.

The term "retention" alone is misleading, suggesting that there is a single way of looking at retention. In reality, three different types of retention determine the growth of an insurance agency. Learn what they are, how to measure them, and how to compare them to get the most accurate read on your growth. Ryan Deeds hosts.

Out of all the things that make an agency successful, culture is the most important—and the least understood. Learn how to build a visible and self-perpetuating culture by keeping things simple, rallying people around a goal, and attaching tangible experiences to successful outcomes. Ryan Deeds interviews Heather Smyrl, co-founder of Highpoint Insurance Group.

Many agencies look at booked revenue alone, but without a clear idea of your estimated revenue, you can't grow. Learn how booked and estimated revenue differ as metrics, and how you can get a better read on your agency's estimated revenue. Ryan Deeds hosts.

The definition of value is always changing. Your *values* shouldn't be doing the same. Learn why a consistent set of values is the closest thing you have to a compass to guide you in times of uncertainty and inconsistency. Ryan Deeds interviews Trevor Baldwin, CEO of Baldwin Risk Partners, the first commercial insurance brokerage firm to IPO in over 15 years.

Technology is indispensable to scaling—but people don't want to talk to robots when they're filing a claim. Learn how to use technology to grow your agency without losing your connection to your customers. Ryan Deeds interviews Chris Frankland, Head of InsurTech Partnerships at ReSource Pro.

Insurance agencies sometimes confuse customer service with customer experience. Customer service is only one part of the customer experience. Learn how to deliver amazing customer experiences that make your customers enthusiastic about referring other people to you. Ryan Deeds interviews Jason Cass of Insurance Agency Intelligence.

Carriers and large agencies have invested in technology for years, and independent insurance agencies suddenly have to catch up. Former Intel data chief David Davis offers advice on how to deal with this challenge responsibly, without giving in to fear and doubt. Ryan Deeds hosts.

On this episode, Ryan Deeds talks with Seth Zaremba about tools he developed using data that drove up revenue for his insurance agency. By listening to this episode, you will learn, why so many agencies struggle to figure out how to make more money and how Zaremba and his team took apart every process and reorganized it under a new, coordinated system.

Heading into the holiday season, Ryan celebrates appreciation. People don't do their best work unless they want to, and that requires motivation and appreciation. But there are ways to show appreciation that can backfire. Learn how to design and implement a culture of appreciation that consistently inspires and motivates employees.

Insurance agencies could be connecting with more customers through video but are holding off for fear of lacking resources or know-how. None of those things need to scare you, says Chris Greene of The Flood Insurance Guru. Ryan Deeds hosts.

Following a break from the insurance industry, Ryan Hanley returns, ready to advise insurance agencies who are in the process of their own self-discovery. Ryan Deeds hosts.

Customers are sometimes hesitant to pay a premium if it's too large. Premium financing allows the customer to pay the premium in installments. Bill Wood of Imperial PFS talks to Ryan Deeds about how premium financing works, what the customer can expect, and how the insurance agency receives the money.

On this episode of The Digital Broker, Ryan Deeds interviews Matthew Smith of Rocket Referrals, a company that helps insurance agencies discover and get value from their Net Promoter Score. By listening to this episode, you will learn why a Net Promoter Score is superior to other measurements of customer satisfaction, how to find your Net Promoter Score, and how doing so will transform your business for the better.

On this episode of The Digital Broker, Ryan Deeds and Demetrius Gray talk about preparing an insurance agency to handle weather-related claims. By listening to this episode, you will learn what insurance agencies could do to handle weather-related claims more proactively, how technology can help insurance agencies assess exposure to weather damage and alert the insured before disaster strikes, and how it can help with writing better business.

On this episode of The Digital Broker, Ryan Deeds talks with Jim Gardner about using technology to optimize field inspections. By listening to this episode, you will learn how traditional field inspections cause operational frictions that waste agency resources and frustrates the customer and how technology can streamline this operation by delegating to the operation to the policyholder, guiding everyone through the process, and assembling a report on the go.

On this episode of The Digital Broker, Ryan Deeds interviews Justin Lair of Agency Revolution about the digitization of an insurance agency's marketing process. By listening to this episode, you will learn which outdated habits of classical agencies are their downfall, what sets forward-thinking agencies apart from classical agencies, and how forward-thinking agencies drive retention and close more business thanks to social media, email marketing campaigns, and website design.

On this episode of The Digital Broker, Ryan Deeds interviews Andy Priesman, founder of Cover Desk, about virtual assistants. By listening to this episode, you will learn how an assortment of back-office work can eat into your employees' time, decreasing your agency's output, how virtual assistants are capable of relieving your agency of these tasks, and which of your agency's tasks you should consider outsourcing first.

On this episode of The Digital Broker, Ryan Deeds interviews Justin Goodman, founder of Total CSR. By listening to this episode, you will learn which operational problems forced Justin to develop Total CSR, how the platform grew to help insurance agencies train CSR's, producers, and employees in any position, and how a good onboarding process helps insurance agencies at large attract more employees and keep them in jobs longer.

On this episode of The Digital Broker, Ryan Deeds and Mark Alberto talk about the role of an IT department at an insurance agency. By listening to this episode, you will learn, how the expectations and responsibilities of the average IT department have grown, which challenges, old and new, continue to affect an IT department, and how to mitigate these issues with better hiring, better leadership, and better training.

On this episode of The Digital Broker, Ryan Deeds reflects on leadership and the key responsibilities of a leader. By listening to this episode, you will learn which responsibilities are exclusively a leader's, how employee engagement is a function of leadership, and how favoritism, absenteeism, and hypocrisy tarnish the credibility of a leader.

On this episode of The Digital Broker, Ryan Deeds talks about change management. By listening to this episode, you will learn why change management is essential to operational excellence, why so many change initiatives fall apart, and how to fortify your change management strategy by repeatedly asking yourself these five important questions.

In this episode of The Digital Broker, Ryan Deeds talks to Michael Furlong, CEO and co-founder of Indio Technologies. By listening, you will learn why Indio bet on empowering the insurance agent and broker when everyone else was betting on technology to replace them, which key decisions allowed for Indio's growth, and what the company's plans are for the next 3-5 years.

In this episode of The Digital Broker, Ryan Deeds talks to Ron Glozman, CEO and founder of Chisel AI, about artificial intelligence and its applications in the field of insurance. By listening to this episode, you will learn how AI is already helping people in the insurance industry and how it actually can create employment opportunities by relieving human beings of soul-sucking work.

In this episode of The Digital Broker, Ryan Deeds interviews Ron Glozman, CEO and founder of Chisel AI, about the company's journey from inception to present-day operations. By listening to this episode, you will hear the story of how a textbook-crunching app became an insurance policy checking tool and how the artificial intelligence behind the tool, specifically natural language processing (NLP), can help insurance agencies expedite processes such as policy checking, saving the agency time, energy, and money.

In this episode of The Digital Broker, Ryan Deeds interviews Jay Weintraub, CEO and co-founder of InsureTech Connect, about the brand new Agency Connect event at this year's InsureTech Connect conference.

In this episode of The Digital Broker, Ryan Deeds examines the challenges of implementing technology at insurance agencies. You will learn which biases prohibit insurance agencies from implementing new technology effectively, how to reset your expectations of technology, how your operations team figures in the implementation of any technology, and how to define the problem and the solution in terms of a quantifiable metric.

In this episode of The Digital Broker, Ryan Deeds and Azia Hurley talk about Millennial employees at insurance agencies. You will learn why Millennial and non-Millennial employees sometimes don't get along, how a mentorship program is key to integrating Millennial hires, how career pathing helps Millennial talent develop, and other ways to motivate and incentivize Millennial employees.

In this episode of The Digital Broker, Ryan Deeds and David W. Clausen talk about how growth works at insurance agencies. You will learn how insurance agencies grow in leaps which are preceded by an inflection point that forces leadership to make a decision, what to take into account when making those decisions, how partnerships and technology assist in the growth process, and how to keep your eyes open for growth opportunities.

In this episode of The Digital Broker, Ryan Deeds interviews David W. Clausen about David's successful history of generating leads online. David is the CEO of Coastal Home Insurance Solutions. You will learn how you can grow your own digital presence by sticking to the very basics of online marketing and why you should test your way to success, being on the lookout for what works and what doesn't.

In this episode of The Digital Broker, Ryan Deeds and Melissa Wilder talk about the details that complicate coverages and how to spot them. You will learn, what kind of “little” things can wreck a coverage; where to find them; and how they vary from niche to niche, how to protect yourself against oversights, and what other resources you can consult to make sure you're up-to-date on coverage details

In this episode of The Digital Broker, Ryan Deeds and Melissa Wilder discuss the perfect renewal process of an insurance agency. By listening to this episode, you'll learn what stage(s) in the renewal process typically fall apart, how to prevent it, and what to keep in mind when deciding whether to remarket

In this episode of The Digital Broker, Ryan Deeds talks about what he's learned at the many insurance conferences he's been to in the first half of 2019. By listening to this episode, you will learn, what Ryan heard and saw at three of the biggest insurance conferences this year: Elevate, Accelerate, and Dig|In, and which technologies and products stood out to him at every show.

In this episode of The Digital Broker, Brad Ruben, founder of Archway, talks to Ryan Deeds about IT issues that affect insurance agency operations. By listening to this episode, you will learn about the many IT issues that affect insurance agency operations, including why so many agencies don't get the most out of their agency management systems, how to guard against ransomware and other cyber threats, and how it's crucial to couple technology with Security Awareness Training (SAT) for your team.

In this episode of The Digital Broker, Ryan Deeds and Milan Malkani talk about customer touchpoints, specifically the ones that are often overlooked by insurance agencies. By listening to this episode, you will learn how to cross-sell and upsell more successfully, how to visualize customer touchpoints with the help of a funnel, and how the payment process is a gateway to more customer touchpoints, not the conclusion of them.

In this episode of The Digital Broker, Ryan Deeds and Olivia Schmitt talk about the challenge of finding and maintaining a work-life balance in the insurance industry. Learn how the perception of work-life balance is changing as a result of technology, what agencies can do to assist the work-life balance of its employees, and why it's in the agency's best interest to do so.

In this episode of The Digital Broker, Ryan Deeds and Eric Wistrand list the five questions you should ask to assess the state of an agency's operations. Learn how seemingly small details like compensation structures reveal a lot about an agency's attitude toward standardization, what a change management strategy ought to look like, how you can streamline communication by choosing the right platforms, and more.

In this episode of The Digital Broker, Ryan Deeds and Olivia Schmitt explore how insurance agencies can define and understand value from their customer's point of view. Learn what your customers consider valuable, how you can talk about value with them, and how a stewardship report can help you retain top customers.