How to Take Control and Lead Your Clients With Confidence

Joey Giangola: Niki Henley, how are you doing today?

Niki Henley: I'm doing good. How about you?

Joey Giangola: Niki, I'm doing all right. I'm doing all right. I want to know this before we really jump into anything too worthwhile here. What's something that you think might seem extravagant but really isn't when you think about it?

Niki Henley: That's a good question. I don't know. I think people make too big a deal about getting coffee out. This is not super extravagant, but people always saying, cut your one cup of coffee a day and you can be a millionaire, or make your coffee at home instead of walking in with your Starbucks. It's not a big deal at this point in life. There's plenty of coffee everywhere that's not that expensive. And get your coffee if that makes you happy. Go drive through Starbucks or your little coffee shop. It's not that extravagant. It's just a cup of coffee.

Joey Giangola: I like that. You can embrace it. For me, it's ordering pizza from two different places at the same time. I don't feel like if somebody has slightly less taste than pizza, go ahead, get yourself the pizza you want. Just go ahead and make two trips if they're down the street. I don't know. That's something that I feel like it seems like it's outrageous, but when you think about it's really not that bad. I don't know.

Joey Giangola: Well, Niki, I wanted to move that over to the world of insurance and I think the same sensibilities. I'm curious if there is an approach to insurance that maybe we feel might be a little too extravagant that we don't really take the time to do. Like is there maybe a little extra step that we overlook that maybe isn't that big of a deal that we maybe tend to make bigger, make more of it out of it than it is, I guess?

Niki Henley: People try to get things exactly right initially, especially on the sales side when you're having the sales conversation. It's like they want to put together this perfect package and have every single answer correct, and really it's about build the relationship with the person. Let them know you know what you're talking about. It's okay to let them know that you don't on something and to get some questions, but get them to the yes. Once they are on board with going with you, everything else will fall in place and I think people spend way too much time in the details. And that's really on everything. Making video calls or doing a social media post, it's not going to be perfect. You just got to get over it and jump in and work your way there to where you need to be.

Joey Giangola: You said something that's interesting. I don't know if I've ever asked anybody this question before, but you'd said let them know that you know what you're talking about. Do you have a favorite or specific way that you do that, casually or subtly to let them know, "Hey, listen, I know what's up?"

Niki Henley: A lot of it is just taking control of the conversation. If you let them take control, it gets out of control a lot of the times. You want to ask them guided questions to get them to where you need to be. And a lot of people like to gripe about all things and then you're chasing that trying to answer every gripe they have to get them to go with you. And you can cut that off in the beginning and this is how it goes, this is where you are now, this is where we're going to get and guide that conversation that way. They'll know you're in charge. You're the authority. You're the one that knows what they're talking about. And they'll listen once they get that.

Joey Giangola: Yeah. So I guess, what's your threshold for allowing it to be like an insurance therapy session? How much will you allow before you-

Niki Henley: Zero.

Joey Giangola: Zero? Okay.

Niki Henley: I'm very cold-hearted when it comes to my conversations. I'm not a real small talk person. I mean, I need to work on that, I know. But I'm very busy as everybody is. I don't have a lot of time. So no, my threshold is very little. I try to find out what their pain points are without getting into a drama session about their other agent or a claim that had nothing to do with what we're talking about or something like that.

Joey Giangola: That's interesting. Is that maybe even a qualifier that you maybe possibly use to filter clients sometimes? Like, "Yeah, this person's a little bit too much." Is that something that you maybe think through?

Niki Henley: Oh yeah, definitely. If I hear them start going off, it's almost like when you're interviewing people for the job. If they're sitting there talking about their old employer horribly for so long, at some point they probably have a little bit to do with what they're talking about. Same thing if someone comes in and they're just, they messed up my billing, their claims were messed up, their other agent just could not do anything right, I definitely put my radar up. Depending on the level that they're going to, sometimes I have to school them a little bit and be like, "Actually, it sounds like they did exactly what they're supposed to do and you missed some things." And they'll either be impressed by that and carry on or they'll be angry and go away, which is what I'm okay with.

Joey Giangola: So, I guess, what do you look for in a good client then? What are some of the things that you, as you're going through these conversations, how do you know when like, "Oh man, we really got something going here?"

Niki Henley: They ask good questions. The ones that ask a lot of questions, sometimes they can seem annoying, but if they're asking the right questions, I can tell that they're really interested in building out the right policy that's going to protect them, if they listen to you and can take your suggestions. And then I like the ones that actually will push back a little bit, push me a little and ask the hard questions. Those are the clients I really like. Between their hard questions and our expertise, we can really get their problem solved that way.

Joey Giangola: I feel like the questions can also be a red flag too. Is that something that you're ever like, "Ah man, listen, I don't want to be answering this dude's question once a week." They're a little, we'll say, high maintenance. We could say that. Is that lean in that direction for you?

Niki Henley: Yeah. Especially when it comes in after the policy and they're just asking or calling every week. I had a lady last week email me asking me questions about the laws on getting her tag, which we don't have anything to do with them getting their tag here in our office, or the laws about her being on the loan. And I basically just had to tell her, "You need to go consult a lawyer about these contract questions. You need to go to the tag office." But I try to be pretty upfront with people when they're asking questions. This is what I'm here for and you're asking things that are wasting my time. Yeah, I'm definitely pretty upfront about sending them in the right direction. I will point them where to go.

Joey Giangola: Yeah, it's interesting. You could take it as a compliment because they feel like you're knowledgeable. They think, again, like you know what you're talking about, but it does seem interesting how easy insurance becomes a one-stop shop for all those ancillary things that float around it and how people ask you the questions.

Niki Henley: Yeah. I've capitalized on that because if you get a lot of referral partners, people start asking you questions, then you can use that to your advantage. People are asking about realtors, lenders, financial advisors, contractors, if we have a connection there. It's good to have a good referral base.

Joey Giangola: So what is your favorite type of business to talk about? What's the favorite conversation to have with what type of client? What's your bread and butter? Where do you feel really good?

Niki Henley: Well, we do a lot in the new home purchase, a lot in the mortgage and real estate world. I'm a realtor as well. I've been licensed for, oh, it's got to be six years now, six or seven years, actually longer than that, maybe eight years. I stopped doing it whenever I opened the agency, but it has given me a lot of knowledge that other agents do not have on the sales process and really what makes realtors want to work with insurance. And so I feel very comfortable working in the real estate world, whether it be with a lender, realtor or somebody purchasing a house and that's really where we excel here.

Joey Giangola: It's been a while since we've talked and the agency was relatively new last time we had a conversation. How has things grown and changed? What have you learned? What's been the journey? What's just looking back on the whole process been like and how do you feel about where you've come to this point?

Niki Henley: Yeah. I think I talked to you probably within the first six months of opening. I didn't really know what was happening at that point and then at my year one mark, COVID hit. So that really made it interesting. It changed the direction of where I thought I was going. I was out doing a ton of marketing and gearing up to start hiring people when COVID hits, and then, no, we're not doing any of that. But it also forced me to find new ways to go, new directions. Okay, how can I keep this going through COVID and then through all the crazy hiring stuff that's been going on the last couple of years. And it's definitely been tough. It's been exciting, too, because I have grown in the way I manage people and the way I've been marketing, and right now I feel like we're doing pretty well. We'll be at our five-year mark in January.

Joey Giangola: Well, yeah, I think I just saw, did you not get some type of award? I feel like I saw a picture of you holding something.

Niki Henley: Yeah, it's pretty exciting. For Tulsa, the main newspaper, it's the Tulsa World and they do the Best in the World of pretty much every industry. I think a lot of publications do that locally. And we are in a suburb about 20 minutes outside of Tulsa and it includes Tulsa and all the suburbs, and our agency has won the last three years the Best in the World Insurance Agency for all of Tulsa and surrounding areas. So it's a pretty big deal for us. We always laugh because I'm like, "Do they know there's just like two of us and three VAs? No, they have no idea that we're this tiny little agency up in Owasso that has definitely been making waves in the community.

Joey Giangola: I would say. Three years in a row, that means that people are gunning for you now. They're-

Niki Henley: Yeah, definitely. Even the lady running it, she's like, "You have quite a fan base." It's been pretty cool to watch that.

Joey Giangola: Obviously, yeah. I would say, like you said, you feel like you're doing something right. You said you made some adjustments, but I'm curious to know what has been working? Like you said, you feel like you have a good handle on the marketing. What are you doing to bring in the business? What do you feel confident that you're really good at?

Niki Henley: So I think one thing is early on I invested my time in looking at the technology that was coming out and the insurance outside of Oklahoma. Oklahoma is very behind on the times on that stuff. I had a virtual assistant early on year one. I have three now. I've invested in a lot of technology as far as CRMs and my website and automation, and that's just not happening a lot here. And then I did video quoting very early too, pretty much since I opened and so that has pushed me out ahead of everybody else. Also social media, growing that part of it has grown our reach a lot faster than I would've been able to on the traditional ways, going to mortgage companies, bringing them donuts. I don't do that. I don't pay for leads. I don't do any of that just because that just doesn't work for me. I know it works for some agents, but being out there and being active.

Niki Henley: And I opened the agency inside a mortgage company for the first three months before I was able to get my own space. And so that on top of being a realtor already really helped me in that space be able to figure out what are they really wanting from us? Is it the EOI the same day? That's nice, but that's not really what's driving them to pick an insurance agent.

Niki Henley: I've been able to get with the right lenders who also in turn... The lenders need the realtors right for them to get loans. The realtors are selling the houses to send them the clients. So I figured out if I could get in with a lender, then I'm going to also get in with the realtor. If I can find the little triangle of people who are referring to the same every time, that really has worked. And then figuring out how I can actually help them close and actually what matters to them. And it's different for every lender. That's the trick. It's not one magic thing. Every lender has something different that they like from us that helps them close the deal. And if you can figure that out, then you're gold, and they'll keep sending them to you over and over and over.

Joey Giangola: Yeah, I mean, you mentioned video quoting early on, and probably one of the biggest advantages of starting fresh is that you don't have anything to change from.

Niki Henley: Right.

Joey Giangola: With that in mind and not having any legacy to hold you down, what's next? What's the thing that you're chasing right now? Where do you want to get to that you feel like maybe it's a little quite out of reach?

Niki Henley: Right now I'm really interested in all the automation things that are happening between the AI and the chat GPT. And to me we're small, but I feel like the only way I can compete with the really big agencies is to bring on some of this technology that makes me bigger than I am, faster. Because I've had a lot of problems with finding staffing. I was able to substitute that with the VA, which has been a game changer. So I just want to keep growing with technology and getting my employees on board with that.

Niki Henley: I just hired a retention specialist, which I never even thought in my head I would ever have someone only working on renewals. It seems crazy, but the market we're in... I went ahead, I was looking for a producer and then I just changed my mind after the last nine months of how the market has been going, and it was probably the best thing I did because that's really helping on a backend with the current customers, keeping them on the books and happy even though this has been very crazy the last three, four, five months.

Joey Giangola: I'm curious to know what your answer might be for this. If you had one automation, whether you think it's possible or not, what's one thing if you could just completely just push one button and make happen or even not push a button, just have something happen and it automatically happens, what's one thing that's sitting up there that you wish you could do

Niki Henley: I think on the service side, maybe policy changes. I'm not sure. There are so many. Pretty much any workflow that doesn't require a conversation with the agent, I feel like those could all be automated very easily and it would save me not only on staffing but time and keep our employees here a lot happier. Because nobody wants to do those little tasks. They don't want to be sending ID cards or answering questions about, "Is my rental car covered or not," over and over and over.

Joey Giangola: I'm also curious about this answer, similar to the last question, but looking back on, again, just the whole agency journey, is there something that if you had somebody in a similar position where you were starting out, what's one thing that you think that you got right or that you think you could help somebody else get right to help them be successful in starting their own agency? Is there anything that you feel that you really did better than somebody else?

Niki Henley: I really don't have one thing. For me, the thing that helped a lot was reaching out to people that knew more than me and that were already doing it and seeing what they were doing and then adapting it, and then getting in with other agencies, not just here locally but nationally, that are around my same size and networking in that way, and then finding a mentor of somebody that's successful.

Niki Henley: Because really for me it was a lot of trial and error. I'm one that I'll try anything once. So I just kept trying. Don't be scared to try to new things, I guess, is what I did. I jumped right into the technology, tried some things. Some of it didn't work, some of it did work. And it has put me ahead, I guess, for being able to jump right in.

Joey Giangola: All right, Niki. I've got three more questions for you, and the first one is, what's one thing you hope you never forget?

Niki Henley: Oh man. Definitely the struggle in the beginning. Going into year five, even though the insurance market's crazy, I'm feeling comfortable, can breathe a little bit. And it's easy to lose that passion that you have in the beginning when you open and you're just trying to hustle. I definitely don't want to go back to that hustle mentality, working the long hours, and I know you have to do some of that always when you own your own business. But I don't want to forget that feeling in the beginning when everything was new and exciting and really that I could make change for the customers and really change the way they look at insurance. I don't want to forget that and get bogged down in the day to day.

Joey Giangola: Now on the other side of that, what's one thing you still have yet to learn?

Niki Henley: There's a lot. There's a lot I need to learn. The biggest struggle is on the employee side, leadership, management. I feel like I'm always trying to learn and grow on that side. What is going to make employees happy? What's going to make them fulfilled in their job? And it's a moving target depending on their age and experience. So that's definitely something I'm looking forward to learning more and growing in.

Joey Giangola: All right, Niki, last question to you. If I were to hand you a magic wand of sorts to reshape, change, alter speed up any part of insurance, what's that thing, where's it going and what's it doing?

Niki Henley: I definitely would say let's speed up this getting out of this hard market. I want to go back to the way we were before where you're not worried about carrier appointments or the company's going away and pulling out. And so, yeah, I definitely would go back to where they were a little bit more stable.

Joey Giangola: All right, Niki. This has been fantastic. I'm going to leave it right there.

Niki Henley: Thanks for reaching out. It was fun.