Why It's Time For a Better Way to Teach Insurance Skills

It's very possible this fairly obvious notation is long overdue for a serious solution.

A simple answer could be to start outsourcing more low-impact work.

However, that still doesn't solve the problem of finding quality talent that understands the fragmented systems powering our industry.

If only there was a magical insurance school turning out such highly polished professionals.

Eli Gillespie, Owner of Gillespie Insurance Services, talks about the struggles his agency has had looking for them.

Joey Giangola: Mr. Eli Gillespie, how are you doing today, sir?

Eli Gillespie: I'm doing great. Thank you for asking.

Joey Giangola: Eli, I kind of want to know this, it's a very simple question, before we get into anything too serious, what's something that you've seen or maybe your own personal threshold on when knowing something is enough, like having too much of something?

Eli Gillespie: When knowing something is enough, like just in life in general?

Joey Giangola: Just in general, yeah, like quantities of things, anything that comes to mind that stands out like, "That's excessive. I probably don't need that much of something."

Eli Gillespie: The most immediate thing that comes to mind is my house. I am somewhat of a minimalist, and I like to be really organized. And clutter and just stuff is just distracting for me to be able to think somehow. The visual of stuff nearby makes it hard for me to do anything.

So if there's clutter in the house, that's when I know I've had enough. Or a little storage garage is hard to walk through, that's an indicator that I've had enough, and it's time to purge and get rid of some of my wife's things. But I have to ask her first.

Joey Giangola: Yeah, always ask first. And that's a very healthy and responsible answer, I would say. I was going to go something a little more irresponsible, like a king-size candy bar. Any sort of large quantities of food generally is where things get out of control it. Children, sometimes having too many children, I say four is a lot, five is irresponsible in some cases [inaudible].

Eli Gillespie: I don't know about children yet. I don't know if I've had enough. Because I have three right now, and my wife is pregnant with number four. And just with how busy everything is, it feels like... And she gets morning sick pretty bad. So right now, it definitely feels like enough.

But also, having the three kids, outside of the work it takes, when you just have those moments, it does not feel like enough. I feel like I could just keep going. I'm motivated to keep going with kids. The only thing is there's some point where it will be enough with just house is too small. I don't know. Cars can't fit them all. I'm too old. There's some point. I haven't hit that point, though, with kids.

Joey Giangola:Those are all very practical, logistical challenges that I often contemplate myself. Let's move this over to the insurance side of things. And I don't know that we ever necessarily find ourselves saying that we have too much of something, maybe too much of paper, too much, too many questions, too many things like that. But is there something maybe that stands out to you where we should have more of something that we don't? Or maybe you do have something that you feel like, "Man, listen, this is just too bloated. Let's figure out a better way"?

Eli Gillespie: You know what? There is something, and it does feel like there's enough. I feel like there's enough programs and applications and technology. I feel like there's enough of that right now.

Joey Giangola: Okay.

Eli Gillespie: In fact, and I like it all. Actually I'm bullish on technology. I use it, and I embrace it. Not because I love it, but because I just feel like I have no choice. We constantly have to be more productive and more efficient. And you can't do things the old way because it's too slow, and clients' expectations change, and there's more demand on us. So we have to evolve with technology.

But right now, it feels like there's enough because to train someone is becoming... It's extreme. It feels like there should be an insurance school that is totally comprehensive because the kinds of things you have to train someone, you have a management system, which if you're using that, that's a lot of training right there. And there's no agency management insurance school that I know of. There's just some videos, and you just sit there, and you start to learn.

Phone systems are complex. It's all a soft phone. It's not easy to make a call. You have to learn how to use the phone. You have the whole Microsoft suite. The 365, that takes learning to train people on. And I know because I bought this agency where they were learning these things for the first time, and their minds were blown. It's just a lot to hit it all at once. It's a lot of training.

And then, we have all these other things like quoting, whether it's rating... So you have every company website that has its own unique things. So there's at least 20 of those. We have a rater. We have Appulate, which is kind of like a rater. We have Indio, which is for info gathering back and forth. We have Rocket Referrals. And these are all things that I like, and are very, very useful, but they are complex.

And I'm trying to hire a VA right now, and just creating logins for him, it's a full day project. It's intense. I mean, think about that. When's the last time you had all day... I'm just taking the day off because I'm going to do logins. I'm going to create logins for someone. And then you have to find out, okay, is this a new seat? How do I do a login? Do I need to add a new user? Am I paying for this user?

So you're doing constant contact with all these vendors. And it just makes me wonder how if we keep getting more complex and keep adding more programs and apps... And, I mean, I don't even really use a full-fledged CRM. I have AgencyZoom. I haven't even started to learn that. I have Zywave. I need to do a lot of training on that to really make that effective.

And then, the difficult part is I'm the one that initiates these projects, these programs. So it's kind of incumbent upon me to learn them so I at least know what's going on. But what happens is I'm the answer man all day. So, "Hey, guys, we're using Indio," and I'm getting questions all day from my employees, "Hey, what do we do here? What do we do here?" And I need to delegate that off, and I do, but it's a lot of stuff coming at me, you know?

Joey Giangola: You created your own monster, Eli.

Eli Gillespie: Yeah. It really feels like that.

Joey Giangola: I think that's a very interesting statement because a lot of the sentiment has been more technology, more integration. And maybe that's the piece, I think, it's that it is a bit of the Wild West, right?

Eli Gillespie: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Joey Giangola: We're playing catch up for maybe all these years. I'm not saying that you have a solution, but from your seat, if you had to streamline things a little bit, where do you think there are opportunities to maybe make your day-to-day life maybe a little bit easier to get things done?

Eli Gillespie: Well, I'm starting to use more focused, outsourced help, whether it's for accounting, like I mentioned, the VA. I'm using the VA just really right now for specific backstage tasks that he can do without needing to correspond and talk to clients, and he can really do on his own time and not be interrupted with customer service.

So I'm really trying to separate customer service from work. So our people here are going to talk to clients, and then our VA will do that work and not have to talk to clients.

I'm using HawkSoft to manage accounting services. Which is nice because they know HawkSoft and they can integrate it with QuickBooks. And I see more of that in order to be able to make an agency run efficiently because I don't really have to... I'm going to have to train my VA on a lot of things, but the accounting, I don't have to train them. They told me, "Just log things this way, and we take care of the rest."

So far, we just got started, so I'm still learning how to do things properly with them. But things like that, there has to be more of that.

Joey Giangola: I want to go back, you had mentioned that you bought an agency recently, I was kind of curious what that looked like. Again, outside of just sort of the onboarding of systems and things like that, what you found in that process. Because it seemed like it might've been targeted for a specific line of business that you maybe were kind of doing a lot of already. I don't know. I might be reaching on that.

Eli Gillespie:So you're asking about what led me to consider that agency?

Joey Giangola:Just how's it going? How's it going, Eli?

Eli Gillespie: Yeah. It's going good. As far as numbers, it's profitable. I don't pay myself anything out of that. So if it were my agency and that was it, it wouldn't be enough to pay for me plus employees. But just me managing it absentee and having the employees run it and all the bills, it's making money. And we're really integrating fairly aggressively, but not too much, processes and procedures and technology that a modern agency should be doing.

We've changed a number of things. They were kind of becoming a non-standard auto shop without realizing it that's unfocused. They were writing a lot of non-standard auto, just accepting calls and quotes. And they weren't putting fees, so they were getting more of it, but they were doing these cash transactions. And so, I had to learn a little bit about having to operate non-standard auto. And so, we made changes there.

So we're making changes, and it's working out for the better. There's still a lot of reminding of, "Hey, remember to check the shared email inbox," stuff like that. Because they didn't check any really inbox, shared email, it's a foreign concept. Agency management system is a foreign concept. So it's still a lot of coaching and mentoring on that stuff.

But I feel like it's making progress. I liked the agency because it was in Southern California where I'm at and not too far, so I could drive out there for a day. It was focused on farm, which is historically what we've been focused on, which right now has given me the most pain.

But out there, it's in the desert, so it's not as much wildfire hazard. So we don't have to deal with cancellations to the same degree. So that was what got me interested.

And really, that was just something I wanted to do is grow by acquisition. So I've been just thinking about it and talking to some guys about doing it, [inaudible] going to sell their agency to me. And so, this one came up, and I just went for it, for better or worse. And hopefully, for better, I think it's for better so far.

Joey Giangola:I think you can be upbeat about it, Eli. Why not? Well, so I mean, I guess the interesting part is, I don't know if I want to ask this question, but I'm kind of curious what the answer is. So seeing where, the agency that you're bringing into the fold of all the stuff that you're doing, as you look at other agencies that maybe are on the same or level playing field, maybe slightly advanced, is there something that is your shared inbox that you guys...

Again, we talked about eliminating things, but constantly being conscious of maybe what you can do at the agency, is there something that you've seen out there that like, "Oh, man, we're not doing that. Maybe that does have room here"? Or are you good, you are set, "I think we've got, at least for this time being, everything we need to operate efficiently"?

Eli Gillespie:No, there's more, there's definitely more. I feel like I've been late on a number of things. One is being serious about VAs. And I didn't feel like I had a need for him, and my goal was to just hire people because I could train them. And a lot of that was I wasn't really sure exactly what my process was. And so, I thought, "Well, if I could just have a person in here, and I could talk to them, we can kind of establish how we do things," so that worked for them.

But, getting on the VA train, I wish I would've done that earlier. I'm just getting started. But just cost-wise, it seems like that's something I should have done a while ago. I want to get more to middle market, so I'm learning a lot of things about that. I don't know if that's answering your question. That's something new I need to learn.

But utilizing a CRM, I've never really utilized a CRM. I want to bring in a producer. I don't want HawkSoft to be the main place to store prospect data and for especially communicating with prospects and setting up campaigns and stuff. So I know that's another area that... I've been listening to podcasts and just getting thoughts on it, but I've just never really spent much time even considering much about CRM.

I know you had done... You talked about HubSpot a number of years ago, and I remember thinking, "Well, that sounds great. Email campaigns, whatever, sounds good. I don't need it right now, so I'm not really going to think about it." But I'm getting to the point where I'm starting to think about that and see that if I'm going to hire a producer and really have a team of producers, I need to have them utilizing technology like that. Because it seems like every high level agency with producers is really, really capitalizing on using that technology for communication.

Joey Giangola: Definitely. If you've got a producer that's capable in that area, I think definitely you've got an opportunity there for them to really kind of go after their business in a pretty aggressive sort of efficient kind of way.

Eli Gillespie: Yeah. The only hesitation for me with that is I know that what's going to happen is I'm going to sign up for something. I'm going to have my two or three onboarding calls. They're going to blast me with a bunch of, "Here's what we can do, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." I'm going to go, "That's awesome." I'm going to take a few notes. I'm going to try to remember what they taught me. And then, I'm going to start watching some videos on my own. That'll fade because urgent things will take over. I don't think I'm unique in that sense that that's what happens to everyone.

And then, when I hire someone, and I want them to use it, it's going to be incumbent upon me to train them unless I can get that company to train them. But this is kind of where I'm seeing a concern. Maybe it's not a concern for other people because there's an answer that I haven't considered.

But I would love to have someone come out of some trade school where they know these things. And I'm ready to pay them 50, 60, 70 grand a year and just train them, and just start them. They know insurance because they've taken a CIC equivalent. I mean, forget about all these technology, things, just insurance. It's amazing how many people don't know insurance. They don't even know what they're talking about.

When COVID hit, and they're talking about loss of business income, they're just absolutely stumped, like, "That's a gray area." And that's not really that great of an answer because we should know about business income being contingent upon, contingent coverage, dependent upon a loss of tangible property. We should know about [inaudible].

Anyway, so there's just a whole host of knowledge that could be trained to people in two to four years. And if they graduated from that with their credential, I would hire them, and I could just teach them my unique processes, and we could get up and running.

Joey Giangola: Well, you bring up an interesting point, and I would be curious to hear what is working for other people too. But the really interesting point of at least having some level of ownership over sort of your little world, right?

Eli Gillespie: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Joey Giangola: Your small sort of corner of your world, whether it be in your agency, in someone else's agency. Anyway, I feel like we came up at a time where you just kind of figured those things out, right?

Eli Gillespie: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Joey Giangola: It meant, like you said, it was something that you needed to accelerate your own growth in the business. And do you feel like that's maybe lacking a little bit? Because that, what you said sort of depresses me a little bit. Is there maybe a solution to, like you said, where you don't have to handhold somebody all the way through that process, but it's like, "Hey, here's a blank canvas. Here's your brushes and your paint, go have fun"?

Eli Gillespie: I do wonder, I think that people today... And it's probably, it's human nature hasn't changed. I believe that firmly. I think that there's just a small select group of us that just really like to figure things out and really have, for whatever reason... I didn't own this business. This was family's business, so there was concern how the business fared besides my own paycheck.

So I had incentive to care about the whole agency, and I really personally wanted to do a good job. And I'm a people pleaser enough that it didn't satisfy me if someone was upset after, or I don't like to hear that someone called and I didn't call back.

There's a good portion of us that have these characteristics, but there's a lot of people that don't think that way. And they will do what they're told. They'll do a good job if you teach them how to do a good job, but they don't really think outside the box. And so, when you're a solution, someone like me, who's like, "Well, let's just try to figure it out because that's how I like to figure things out. So why can't you figure things out?" But they don't figure things out. Their unique ability is not figuring things out.

So then, we come up with processes, and you come up with a pretty airtight process, and then there's like, "Well, what about... " Then there's like it's not quite as airtight as you thought. And I think it's just identifying people and their abilities, and when I'm seeing those abilities at hiring time.

Joey Giangola: All right, Eli, I got three more questions for you.

Eli Gillespie: Okay.

Joey Giangola: The first one, very simply, what is one thing you hope you never forget?

Eli Gillespie: Man, I'm trying to narrow it down to one thing. I don't know. Right now, I hope I never forget identifying talents and strengths in people. Since we're talking about, that's something I hope that I learn and never forget. Because I know that this business, it can't grow without people, without a team. You have to have a great team with you. So that's what I hope I never forget.

Joey Giangola: All right, Eli, this could go a bunch of different ways from what we've already talked about, but on the other side of that, what's one thing you still have yet to learn?

Eli Gillespie: As a sales, on the sales side, how to add value and create something that is beyond just having a good price and accurate and good coverage and good customer service. I've been very aware of that concept for years, and I've taken steps to be someone that's not just I get you the best price and we offer great service. I know it's beyond that.

But as I'm getting into middle market, I'm seeing they're really different ways to set myself apart beyond just a good price and good coverage. So that's what I'm learning. What was the question? Don't forget it or learn it? Either way, I hope I learn it and don't forget

Joey Giangola: All right, Eli, yes, that is correct. Last question to you, sir, if I were to hand you a magic wand of sorts to reshape, change, alter, speed up really any part of insurance, what is that thing, where is it going, and what's it doing?

Eli Gillespie: The magic wand, well, like we were talking about, I want to be able to find people that don't require a lot of training with the hard skills that are required for an insurance agency. I want to find people that know insurance, know about agency management systems, know about marketing, understand customer service.

And then, the things that I really need to train them on are just our unique processes and how we do things at this agency. But in terms of teaching them how to set an out of office reply, I don't want to teach that stuff anymore.

Joey Giangola: Eli, this has been fantastic. I going to leave it right there, sir.

Eli Gillespie:Okay.