Why Over-communication Is the Best Way to Grow Your Agency

Joey Giangola: Mr. Andy Tomlinson. How are you doing today, sir?

Andy Tomlinson: I'm good. How about you?

Joey Giangola: Andy, I'm good. I'm good. I want to know this before we really go too far and that is there something in your life that you feel should have already happened by now? And if so, how have you dealt with that?

Andy Tomlinson: Wow, that's a strange question to start off, but makes you think. Something that should have happened, but hasn't? Really no, I'm pretty blessed with work and life and kids. And no, I don't have any. Besides, well, there's one, I guess the Cincinnati Bengals win in the Super Bowl. That should have happened.

Joey Giangola: Yeah. I mean, I would like to agree, but I don't know if I can.

Andy Tomlinson: You're a Browns fan.

Joey Giangola: Unfortunately, yes. Guilty as charged. Andy, for me, and I'm glad that you are a well-balanced, adjusted and content human being. That's great. I appreciate that. For me though, I think it's got to be this conversation because for as long as I think I've known you, I don't think we've ever had a conversation that has been recorded. And I feel that is entirely my fault and I'm not sure what to do about that. We'll see how we proceed.

But I want to move that over into the world of insurance, because I think there's a lot of the... I feel like this should have already happened now, in terms of the insurance buying process. How do you deal with setting expectations? I guess when it comes to your clients and managing what can be sometimes a more delayed process than necessary?

Andy Tomlinson: I guess, always follow up is always the best. If you can't make the deadline that you have told the client, it's always good. Hey, you know what? Call before the end of the day, everyone. And say, "Hey, something popped up. You are still on my list. I'll get you first thing in the morning." All it is, is communication. And all that people care about is being communicated. I mean really, because everyone's human. We can't get everything done at the same time.

Joey Giangola: Wow. You make it a point, if you are working with somebody, just to make sure you check in and let them know that, "Hey, listen, it's not maybe happening today, but it's still happening."

Andy Tomlinson: Right. Yeah. I mean, and that's not just me, just my whole staff. It's part of the thing. Before you leave at five o'clock, you follow up with the people that you've been dealing with in a daily basis and say, "Hey." Communication is key. And if you tell them, "Hey, I couldn't get to you today. Some things popped up," most people are understandable.

Joey Giangola: Andy, I don't want you to take this the wrong way, but you've always had this unassuming nature about you. And I've always wondered what the secret was. And maybe that's it. I don't know. I guess how long have you been doing that? And if there was a point in time where maybe when you started doing that, that you noticed a big difference.

Andy Tomlinson: Probably doing it, geez, I don't even how long. Quite some time. Because early years I was like, "Oh my gosh. I can't get to everything." And people are demanding and it stressed me out. I don't know, probably 10, 15 years ago I made the switch. I feel like everyone is calmer too. They're not as fired up. I think over-communication is definitely the key. Thank goodness we've instilled it in the office.

Joey Giangola: I'm going to say this is hard to believe, but was there a point in time in your career where you weren't calm? I would like to see the version of Andy that was running around haphazardly.

Andy Tomlinson: I mean we're all stressed. But yeah, when I first started out, God, I had no idea what I was doing. And I didn't really have a good teacher either. My dad was at the end of his career. I'm one of the million people that took over from a dad. And he was, gosh, during the day, he'd go to the Elks and play cards. And I'd ask him questions and he'd say, "Call the underwriter." I learned on my own and figured it out. You had to. Which is probably, maybe I'll do the same for my kids, but I doubt it.

Joey Giangola: Wow. That's probably one of the... I mean, not for you. This isn't great for you, but that's a great story in terms of coming into the agency. I've never heard anything quite like it. How long did that relationship exist like that?

Andy Tomlinson: How I came into the agency was Dad was sick and I was actually in Colorado being a ski bum for a bit. Dad called me on, I don't know, let's just say a Monday. And I said no to him at first. And then five days later I thought about it and said, "You know what? I'm going to come back to town, the small town of Chillicothe, Ohio. I really want to know my dad more."

I didn't really care about the insurance business. I was actually in the hospitality industry. And there's a lot of similarities. I mean, you're servicing a client in hospitality and you're serving a client in insurance, but the best part of insurance is it kind of ends, kind of, at five o'clock. And weekends are, are your own. Wherein the hospitality industry is every weekend, every holiday.

But for that first year, when I came back, I was like, "Oh, I'm off for the holiday and I'm off for the weekend? This is awesome." There is some similarities of also helping the client, but the advantages are you don't have to work late. Well, you do work late hours if you're the owner, but not as strenuous on holidays either.

Joey Giangola: Well, and there's that built in expectation, I mean, good or bad that you're going to get ahold of your insurance agent on said holiday. Now, I'm sure there are guys that are doing it that way. But again, sticking with this theme of being cool, I guess, collected and calm and just going about it at a steady pace. I guess the thing that I'm curious about is how you were able to manage that trial by fire, I guess. Coming up with your dad and being able to then not have such a panicked and stressed state in the agency, but yet, still find your way through it and thrive to where you're today.

Andy Tomlinson: I mean, it probably goes back to the process. You have to start with a process and then, because we didn't have one when I first got there. It was very archaic. When I first got there, everyone had a typewriter on their desk and they had one computer. The one computer, everyone was around. And I'm like, "Why don't we all have a computer at our desk?" That next week I got everyone computers.

And then we started the process of how to write new business, how to do endorsements. Back then, we didn't even have agency management system. We had the old file system, which was awful. We grew and the process made everything less stressful.

Joey Giangola: I don't want to date you, Andy, but I'm going to ask you to date yourself. In terms of timeframe, where was the technology in the competition at that time? Were computers... I mean, what year were we dealing with here in terms of the technology? And how far behind were you?

Andy Tomlinson: I think it was '01 is when I got into it.

Joey Giangola: Oh. Oh, wow. Okay. A typewriter in '01 is pretty severe I would say.

Andy Tomlinson: It was. It was unbelievable. I mean, of course the company's systems were pretty archaic, but they were online. It was just a different world. I think Dad didn't want to get caught up in the new technology at the time. It was time for new blood.

Joey Giangola: Having been around long enough now to see a few things, do you have a version of a typewriter somewhere in the agency right now that might be bothering you?

Andy Tomlinson: No. We got rid of the typewriters. Well, I say that. We also, we had one lady that kept it forever.

Joey Giangola: Well, so not a real, more a metaphorical typewriter. And is there something that you're doing now that you feel is getting closely to being outdated?

Andy Tomlinson: Oh, I mean, of course, the fax machine. Why do we still even allow them to come in? But that has changed too. We do everything. It's almost like an email with our faxes. Just comes to our email now. But it's archaic. The worst thing is the banks that send these thousand faxes to you every day to... It's like, you got this information. I mean, we see it on the deck page that they have the same mortgage company, the same loan amount and loan. Do you not get our stuff? It's frustrating.

Joey Giangola: In terms of the agency, I guess, where you've taking it. Besides the process, did you bring any focus to the business side of things in terms of what you would go after, which you wouldn't? Because I know you have your hands in quite a bit in terms of just overall insurance, but is there something that you keyed in on that helped define the agency a little bit?

Andy Tomlinson: Well, I've separated the agency a little bit. We are a generalist. I would say we are a generalist. But we have a commercial side, we have a personal side, which we didn't have that before. And then we also have a health side, which most agents run away from health. Where I was like, "You know what? Let's try it."

And I got into health when everyone was running away from health. When Obamacare came in, everyone's like, "I'm out." I'm like, "I'm in. Why not? Let's try it." Try everything people aren't wanting to do. And we've grown a pretty good book on that. More, not on the health side. We have grown on that, but it's more, hey, they get the service of our agency. And they're like, "You know what? Let's do the home and auto here."

That's grown. And then also I've done, I have another division for large group health. And so that's really grown. I've learned a lot in that arena. I had someone that was in that industry for a long time. And we're driving to Columbus an hour away. And we're tired of the drive and wanted to do it locally. And so, we combined forces and learned a lot.

Joey Giangola: Back to the service and just the over-communication of things. Is there any intention around driving people to other areas of the agency? Or is that something that has just happened naturally and organic over the years?

Andy Tomlinson: You mean how the clients going to different parts?

Joey Giangola: Yeah. Again, like you said, seeing the service and seeing how you do business. Was there any intention around that or is that something that has just been a happy accident?

Andy Tomlinson: I guess it's a happy accident. Most agents pride theirselves on insurance around service. We really feel like we are service oriented. And then, of course, we do our marketing. If we don't have their whole lines, we drip market and things of that nature. We also do things a little differently and have the renewal calls and those type of things.

Joey Giangola: The other thing I think I could hear agents possibly screaming at me saying, or screaming at you, I guess would be, "Andy, I can't possibly have the time to check in with everybody and to make sure they're okay."

Andy Tomlinson: Right. [inaudible].

Joey Giangola: I'm assuming at some point you told yourself that.

Andy Tomlinson: Well, I'm sure there was, but they're paying you a premium, so you got to do something. You can't just say, "Oh, you know what? I don't have the time for them." Well, they're the ones that keep us fed. You have to make a process. And it's just a list and it's incredible how easy it is. When I say incredible, I mean, it was a big task to start, but now it's become second nature.

Joey Giangola: Break that down a little bit for me. Because like you said, it's incredibly easy and it seems to provide disproportionate amount of results in terms of keeping everybody satisfied and calm, but it feels maybe more difficult than necessary. And is it as simple as just picking up the phone? And you're just keeping a list of everybody that's in the queue and hopper. And then just making a phone call and crossing their name. It's nothing complex, right?

Andy Tomlinson: You pull a report round on that week. And then, you divvy it up by the people that are working there. And no rhyme or reason. You take the first 20, you take the second 20 and just go down the line. It's every week, start it on Monday.

Joey Giangola: I want to be a fly on the wall for this. I'm assuming there's, again, benefits to that. Again, you're always saying increase the touch points. What other things do you hear in those conversations that you probably would've never had the opportunity had you not made that call?

Andy Tomlinson: Oh. Like, "We added a sunroom." Or, "We bought a motorcycle." Just things that aren't top of mind for them, because they're like, "Oh yeah, I'll get to that." Well, they don't ever get to it. In Ohio lately, a lot of heavy rains. A lot of coverage issues on the homes. People are adding. We always add 5,000 water back up, regardless even when they... We just put it on there. But we've been upping the coverage as we talk to clients. And they realize, "Oh, you know what? I forgot to tell you, we finished that basement." And it's better at claim time when those things arise.

Joey Giangola: You might have alluded this to me before we hit the record button, but has there been a point where you felt that you couldn't keep up with that level of attention just based on volume and just again, feeling too busy. Is there a point where your system or your process starts to crack or break?

Andy Tomlinson: Oh, yeah. But then we just put it onto the next week. I mean, at some point you are going to get a break. It's not always insanely busy. The phones aren't always ringing off the hook. There are going to be a day that's like, "Oh. Hey, all right. We can catch up." And those days are nice. I mean, right now...

And there's lulls in this industry. There's weeks, you're like, "Holy cow. What's going on? Why aren't we not getting the calls?" And then, the next week your phones are off the hook and your scratching your head. Like, "How are we going to keep up?" Yeah, definitely, some cracks. But you just put it to the next week, just over-communicating with the clients that, "We'll get it to you the next day."

Joey Giangola: If you had to leave agents with one thing to reduce anxiety and to maybe find a way to be more of an unassuming success as I would like to say that I've picked up from you. Is there something that stands out that if you were just to reflect on this moment to say, "You know what? I never thought about it until now, but I think this might be important."

Andy Tomlinson: It's not a big deal if you don't hit every deadline. It's like, it'll be fine. The next day is going to come. You can get to it then. I don't know. It's you're putting too much pressure if you can't hit to that. Then you stop doing it. Because you know what? "Oh, I can't get to it." No, you just keep on going down the line. You'll be fine. It'll all work out. It just, there's going to be good days and bad days. I swear there'll be a day that's not as busy.

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

Andy Tomlinson: Yep.

Joey Giangola: And the first one is what is one thing that you hope you never forget?

Andy Tomlinson: Boy. Never forget. To be humble. Just, yeah.

Joey Giangola: All right, Andy. I have a hard time believing that one, but I'll take your word for it right now. On the other side of that one, Andy, what's one thing you still have yet to learn?

Andy Tomlinson: Oh, geez. Right now I'm in the midst of a hiring frenzy because of the great resignation and retirements. I want to learn how to be a better hire. I go through these things and I'm like, "Am I doing this thing right?" That's what it's on top of mind right now. I'm going through 53 applications right now or resumes. This is the part that I hate. I mean, I would love to push this off to someone else, but I can't. You got to do it.

Joey Giangola: All right, Andy, 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? Or is it going and what's it doing?

Andy Tomlinson: Of course, it's the technology. I mean, it's starting to come, on the personal lines. They're still clunky. A lot of carriers are really clunky. Just keep on pushing along on that. It just, it's not where it should be. Especially on there's some companies that are better than others. It's just, and it would be great if we all talked. Found one a better way to do it. But we all have our own little battles, but the carriers have come a long way since '01, but it needs to get better.

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

Andy Tomlinson: Yeah, it has.