It's normal to be afraid to lose a sale if you add too much coverage. It's another thing to dedicate yourself – and your agency – to a certain standard. The truth is, there is no magical amount of experience required to do business this way. Instead, having the conviction of wanting to do what's best for your clients regardless of their response is what makes the difference.
In this podcast, Kimi Donahue, CEO of Stratton Everything Insurance, talks about how she finally got the confidence needed to do business her way.
Joey Giangola: Insurance sounds different when you start to change it. Come listen for yourself. This is the RPS Podcast dedicated to helping you make the impossible possible. Kimi Donahue, how are you doing today?
Kimi Donahue: I am doing awesome. It is Friday.
Joey Giangola: Kimi, I want to know this before we get into anything too serious, is there a skill that some might deem useless that you feel very proud of that you maybe excel at more than others?
Kimi Donahue: Ooh, a skill that may seem useless.
Joey Giangola: Or maybe underappreciated. They're not useless, maybe it's just not as appreciated as it should be.
Kimi Donahue: I'm really good at origami. I can make a paper crane in less than a minute with my eyes closed for that matter. I don't know.
Joey Giangola: I think definitely that last part counts to me and I'm sure people don't appreciate the overall skill it takes in general. I'm sure they probably don't treasure the thing when it's finished as much or maybe as long as they should, because it is fairly destructible, is it not?
Kimi Donahue: Some do, yeah. I do a lot of things, but I would say that's probably the most useless one.
Joey Giangola: For me, Kimi, I would say it's picking up takeout and having it back in a very efficient amount of time, when it's still hot. That's a skill I don't think people... I feel like people always order the food and they just wait around and I'm getting anxious. You need to be going now. This needs to be hot.
Kimi Donahue: I feel like the only place that knows how to do that is Jimmy John's, because that's literally what they market is-
Joey Giangola: Yeah.
Kimi Donahue: Being quick.
Joey Giangola: [inaudible] food I take seriously. It's like we're paying for this, what are we doing? Let's get to it.
Kimi Donahue: Maybe there's your next business idea is a super speedy, like an Uber Eats but extra quick, a transporter but for food. [crosstalk].
Joey Giangola: Don't get me started on Uber Eats and Grubhub because I still have yet to trust them to take the same level of seriousness to delivering my food in a matter where I might want to eat it. So anyways, that's a whole other conversation. But I guess I wanted to move this over in a couple of areas. One, let's talk about insurance and something that maybe you might see as your time in the business as being, well we'll call it underappreciated, right? Or maybe people deem useless coverage that you often have to have a conversation about. And there are people that they might enjoy their insurance. They don't necessarily have a disdain for the overall process. But is there something that you find yourself repeatedly talking about that people don't seem to grasp as much as they should?
Kimi Donahue: Yes. I would say it's always those couple of endorsements that we just automatically add but feel like we need to explain ourselves about is definitely on homeowners policies, equipment breakdown coverage is huge. Especially here in Arizona, people's AC units go out like crazy, especially in the summer times in just gets so hot here. So having that coverage is super important so we just automatically include it. But I feel like it usually comes with an explanation because it's an added cost and we explain it. Oh, this is included in the premium, but people, they're smart. They want to know what that is.
And probably service line coverage too has been a really hot topic for a lot of people, also because we've seen some people need it recently too and fortunately had the coverage. So I'd say those two endorsements have been a hot topic on the homeowners. And then on auto, I think rental car's just another one that we talk about a lot because people think, "Oh, I can just borrow my friend's car," or something like that. But yeah, if your car's in the shop for a month, are you really going to Uber everywhere?
Joey Giangola: All right, so that leads me to something even more interesting. And that's that it was doing what's best for the client without necessarily getting permission, that's an aggressive way of saying it. But people are saying, "Listen, we're just going to do business this way because we believe in it and think that it's something that is a benefit to you." How long did it take to get to that place where you're saying, "Listen, we're just going to do this because we're tired of talking about it and we're going to talk to you about it after it's already done and explain to you that..." Because I think there's a lack of confidence in a way with other agents that maybe don't necessarily have that ability to go that far.
Kimi Donahue: Yeah, absolutely. And I was one of those agents. Especially for starting, you get worried as soon as you get push back, like, "Oh, I'm going to lose the sale," or you want to write everybody and everything, especially when you're growing. So you just tack on whatever you can. So let's see, our brokerage is almost four-years-old and this is year 13 for me in the industry. So it's taken me that long. We actually just recently implemented that probably maybe a few months ago after we did have some claims or things coming up that just made sense to do that and said, "Okay, from every review here on out, this is what we're talking about." We sent out email blasts, we sent out text blasts, that's all we're talking about.
Joey Giangola: Really? So you gave a blanket heads up across the board to everybody this is how it's going to be?
Kimi Donahue: Yeah. That way, it also forced us to talk about it too.
Joey Giangola: That's smart. And so all right, two things then. Probably you had conversations obviously within the staff, I'm assuming there might have been some feedback. I don't know if pushback is being far enough. And then two, what did you hear from the clients? Obviously, I'm sure you had a wide range of responses on that or maybe it wasn't, I don't know, maybe I'm giving them too much credit.
Kimi Donahue: Yeah. So there was a little bit of pushback from a couple producers. The same mentality of when I first became an agent, you want to write everybody. You get scared of losing a sale because you're recommending a coverage. One of the things we talk about is well why are we in insurance? Why are we an agent? We're looking out for a client's best interest. This is what we recommend because we've seen this happen. So I think as soon as we start talking about that, they realize, "Oh, okay, that does make sense to talk about." And typically, the people that don't want those coverages are typically price shoppers, which any insurance agent listening to this knows that with that comes added service work in other areas. So it was one of those things that it's saving us time because it's going to end up being a re-shop or somebody that maybe ended up needing that coverage and it becomes a headache later.
Joey Giangola: And I mean as far as the client's concerned, I mean did you get a lot of objections from them? Or is it something like, "Oh, thank you?" Was there more of a gratitude approach to it saying, "Oh, thanks for bringing this to our attention?"
Kimi Donahue: Yeah. I think a little bit of both. We actually had an amazing amount of people that were like, "I didn't even know that existed, so shame on us for not offering that in the first place." So whether they chose to accept it or not, at least they know that it's an option. So that also helps you on an errors and emissions situation errors. Hey, we offered it, you declined it, end of story there. But the fact is that we offered it. So that's been another topic of no matter what we're writing, personal lines or commercial is offering... I mean that's the whole point of being a broker, right, is we have options. So if we're not actually presenting options and showing people that there's other stuff out there. But we did have a couple of clients that maybe they just don't want to pay extra. So that was their immediate objection on that.
Joey Giangola: And I mean again too, the faster you can get to identifying the people you really want to do business with, probably the better, the more effective you guys are going to be in the agency as well.
Kimi Donahue: Exactly.
Joey Giangola: Since it's a new thing, I don't know if I want to go this far, but let's go for it anyways, how far do you think you could go up the ladder in terms of... I mean because these coverages are relatively, I don't want to say small or insignificant, but I mean overall premium impact is not a huge thing. But as you work your way up into the commercial side of business and things like that do, is this something that you want to look to implement in other areas?
Kimi Donahue: I think so. Gosh, I'm sure you interview a lot of commercial coaches, but a lot of them will also talk about you don't always want to be the cheapest anyway. You want to poke holes in their existing policy and show them, "Hey, Mr. Client, if this happens, wouldn't you want to be covered for this?" I mean there's a lot of good policies out there. A lot of people have the policies with the bells and whistles. But specifically what I'm thinking of is contractors policies. Contractors I mean. I feel like a lot of them just get general liability and think they're good to go and maybe their equipment's not covered or they've got supplies in transit or something like that. And so there's all those little things that they... Well they're not little, but there's the things that they don't think about. And if you're an agent that's new to commercial and didn't know that there's those other coverages out there, you can run into big doo-doo when they have a claim.
Joey Giangola: And contractors is a great example because like you said, just even knowing that they need general liability a lot of times is half the battle, right? So from somebody that's obviously had a ton of experience in the industry, but I mean as an agency owner relatively still fresh in the game, I would say, right? I mean four years is a long time to be established, but ultimately, there's agencies out there that have been there in business for 1,500 years. What would you say to somebody that maybe doesn't feel like they have enough experience to start dictating how things should go, they think there's some magic number that they need to eclipse to when they can start being in a real insurance agent?
Kimi Donahue: Yeah. I say hire a coach. I have coaches for everything in my life, whether it's at the gym, insurance, coaches are really good people to lean on. And then also just stay on top of your continuing education. Go get a designation. I know some people poo-poo on that because they're like, "Oh, it's just letters after your name." But if you actually listen to the material and learn from it, that's how I learned about the different contractors coverages is I didn't know that before taking my CIC classes and digging into the commercial lines and going, "Oh my gosh, there's so much that I didn't even know existed." And I'd been doing this for such a long time.
Joey Giangola: So you hinted at something that I wanted to maybe get to. And that is your varied interest. We talked about nonsense interest in the beginning, but it does appear from my perspective that you are interested in quite a different amount of things at its fairly intense level. How do you apply that approach? Because you don't talk about insurance a lot. I guess a question really is how do you find the confidence, I guess maybe to continue this theme, to be who you are across the board and also use that to your advantage to just create awareness to your business and who you are and what you do?
Kimi Donahue: I think that's just turned into itself over the years too. Embracing your strengths and then delegating your... I call them areas of improvement instead of weaknesses. I think that's why I said rely on coaches too is to help you with those things and hire people to fill in those gaps. But as far as confidence goes, I would say probably my number one thing is I'm not afraid to fail. So I just go for it, whether it's my hobbies that I do, whether it's even in business. I don't know too many people that are fans of cold calls. I know I'm definitely not. But if you have a hard phone call to make or something that you don't really want to do, you do it. And if you screw it up, you embrace that and get better at it. So that's what makes me tick is I'm not afraid to look like an ass.
Joey Giangola: I definitely think that's part of it, but also the idea of the intensity level, right, of performing at somewhat of a higher level than just beginning a hobby, right? Is there something there that I feel like... Because again, from what I can observe, like you said, in the gym, I think we briefly mentioned music before we started recording here, I think motorcycles is another interest, again, everything out of relatively more than a beginner or immediate level, if I'm guessing, right? Is there something that at one point in time in your life you said, "You know what? If I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it right."
Kimi Donahue: Yeah. I think it just comes from the competitive spirit in general. You want to win at everything and you don't want to be sucky at it. But the whole point of that is not being afraid to suck at it when you're a beginner. You're going to biff it quite a bit, whether it is sports or whether it is business, things like that. And then once you dive into it like that, then that's when they catch traction.
Joey Giangola: All right. Well then I'm going to have to ask, is there a moment where that failure was all encompassing and you weren't quite sure if you were going to move past it, or I guess maybe to a lesser extent, the most valuable failure that you really encountered that led you to I guess the most beneficial place?
Kimi Donahue: Oh gosh. Well I'm sure any insurance agent has had the day where they sit there and wonder, "Am I in the right place?" I've stayed in the industry for this long, but I've definitely made career changes as far as companies or positions. I was a captive agent for a little bit. And sometimes you wonder, "Oh, if I would've stayed there, what would it look like now?" But between captive agency, corporate role and independent agency, I wouldn't have changed a thing. I think there's a lot of lessons to be learned in there. So I wouldn't call them failures, but definitely felt like I had a hard time finding home. So that's why I went into independent agency and made it my own.
Joey Giangola: I was hearing these stories. What was the day like where you made that decision to walk into the independent space and say, "I think I can do this on my own?" Because that's not an easy leap to take coming from a more structured or corporate environment.
Kimi Donahue: Yeah. I mean it's definitely something that I wanted to do. So I was at American Family from 2012, '13, '14, '15-ish or so, and dabbled as a producer in the independent world, but wasn't quite ready to open my own. I think because in my brain I thought, "Oh, I have to have a bunch of capital and need more experience." So I did that for a little bit and then was offered a corporate role, which was recruiting and leadership. And I knew that was an area of improvement for me. So I leaned into that. But found that at least that particular environment corporate was not for me. What gave me the confidence to start my own was one of my peers at this corporate job walked into my office, closes the door, sits in front of me and says, "Kimi, why are you here?" I'm like, "Oh gosh, is it that obvious? Am I that disappointing? What's going on?"
And he's like, "You look unhappy. Why'd you take this job?" And I said, "Oh, I thought it'd be a good resume builder. I could learn a lot from here and I can use it to whatever's next." And he slams his hand on the desk and says, "Why the F do you need a resume when we all know you're going to open up your own agency?" I was like, "Oh, okay." That must have been the green light for me and that's what I did next. And it worked out really well. Financial advisors would kick my ass for saying this, but I cashed out my 401k from that job and that's what I used to start the agency and literally scratched nothing. It was an even bigger hurdle because I'd been in corporate for almost two years, I didn't stay in contact with a lot of my networks or any of my lead flows. So I had to start all that over as well.
Joey Giangola: They don't make too many insurance movies, but I'm pretty sure you just wrote the first two opening scenes of... Very rarely does that moment open up so bluntly I guess, because [crosstalk]. That had to have been a bit of a surreal or wild experience to have it thrown back at you. I'm assuming you had been thinking about that for some time for somebody else to pick up on it like that.
Kimi Donahue: Yeah. And he's an extremely good leader. He actually got out of the insured space completely as well and is now a CEO of a construction company, I believe. So he's definitely someone to keep close and has been a mentor in my life. So that was a big moment for sure.
Joey Giangola: I mean having had that I guess eye opening experience, now, again, four years in, do you see what's next? What's the thing that somebody would slam their hand on the desk and say, "What are you still doing this for, Kimi?" What is the thing that you need to shake things up with next? I mean I would imagine it's still in the agency, but is there something that you're just not really happy with, I mean in addition to mandating equipment breakdown and line coverage on policies?
Kimi Donahue: Yeah. I think the next step is really leaning into commercial more. I look at our reports every day and we are a primarily personalized agency, which is great because that's our bread and butter. But we have several talented producers that are good at commercial. And I think if we focus more on that, we're still going to write personal lines, but finding an industry that we just dominate the commercial space, which again, includes hiring a coach, listening to said coach and doing our homework. So that's what's next is that.
Joey Giangola: Yeah. And you definitely have a lot of agencies that if they don't openly say that, that's something that they at least think about in the back of their mind that somebody might openly say to them in an evaluation meeting like, "Why aren't you doing this more?" What is that thing that you would say to maybe other agencies that are in a similar crossroads that you've gone through to get to this point? Is there anything that you've learned that they should pay attention to as well?
Kimi Donahue: Yeah, I think lead generation, just the two words that any agency should focus on. Regardless of what the market does, the good news is we're in an industry that everyone needs insurance. It's just a matter of talking to enough people. So if your pipeline dries up your SOL, so really focusing on your database and cross-selling. And the reason I say bringing up a coach is while some of us can be really great business owners or really great producers or great leaders, not everybody's good at creating systems and processes like me. So I hire help for that. And I think once you get that down, everything runs like a well oiled machine with systems.
Joey Giangola: I'm going to sneak this last one. I want to get to that, because you've mentioned it quite a few times and I'm going to go out on a limb here. But I think that there is maybe still a little bit of a... Stigma's a strong word, but people maybe don't necessarily think to formalize that coach, mentee scenario as much as maybe you probably do. Why do you think there's that hesitation to get formalized official help in certain areas?
Kimi Donahue: I think people are scared of accountability. I think once you get a coach, they're going to tell you what you need to change. And sometimes, it's quite an ego check, especially if you're the business owner. You've built this thing with your sweat and blood and tears and your identity is attached so much to what you've built. And I'm saying this from experience, because this is literally what I'm going through. And if somebody tells you that your baby's ugly, it hurts. So I think lot of people are scared of that. And same thing with the accountability piece, you're literally paying someone to tell you what to do.
And some people poo-poo on that, but if that's what's going to hold you accountable, it pays for itself and then some. Same thing with a trainer at the gym. I use this as an example. I know how to work out, I know how to lift, I can get my butt in the gym. But there's something about a trainer that you know you have to check in with every week and it feels yucky to tell them if you didn't do what you said you're going to do. And if someone's a good coach, they're going to push you out of your comfort zone and make you do things that you wouldn't have normally done on your own.
Joey Giangola: Kimi, I've got three more questions for you. And the first one is what's one thing you hope you never forget?
Kimi Donahue: That everyone has different perspectives. So I think especially as a leader and coaching and leading your team is asking enough questions. Actually, I'm going to change my answer. Something not to forget is to ask more questions. It's easy to assume something on your own from your perspective. But if you ask enough questions, you're going to learn something and it's going to make you that much better of a leader.
Joey Giangola: All right. Well speaking of learning something on the other side of that, what is one thing you still have yet to learn?
Kimi Donahue: Oh gosh, everything. I think that's what makes me keep going is just knowing that there's always room for improvement and just be a student of the industry and then a student of yourself. One of the things I really want to get better at is leadership. I think I'm good at getting people excited about things, but the accountability piece I can get better at. So as far as here I am talking about I want a coach that holds me accountable, I need to be doing the same thing for my team.
Joey Giangola: All right, Kimi. Last question, if I were to hand you a magic wand of sorts to reshape, change, alter, speed up perhaps any part of the industry, what is it? Where is it going? And what is it doing?
Kimi Donahue: Oh, this is such a rabbit hole. Let's see here. Expedited wholesaler underwriting. I think right now, I think so many places are just understaffed that customer service and getting things done in a, "Timely manner," has been tough for everybody. But I would really like to see more of the insurance space get involved in the crypto stuff. I'm still learning about it myself. But I think there's going to be some insurance companies pretty soon that allow payments with crypto, maybe insurance for companies that do such things. So we'll see. I'm sure someone's working on it, but it'll be exciting to watch that grow.
Joey Giangola: Kimi, this has been fantastic. I'm going to leave it right there.
Kimi Donahue: Awesome. Thank you.
Joey Giangola: Okay.