InsurePodcast #1: Kelly Bishop
Published May 8, 2026

Machine-generated transcript supplied by the podcast host. It may contain errors.
speaker-0: I'm Ben Chore, and this is the Insure Podcast. The show is one one of a kind conversation, an hour with the owner of a small independent insurance agency, the people who built something and kept it independent. And I spent the last several years working in commercial insurance on the carry-on broker side. I'm not an agent. I never run an agency. And I actually started the show because I wanted to hear more from the people who are actually doing, you know, the broking themselves. So I'm joined by Kelly. And then I I would love to kick it off by just asking you a little bit about yours.

speaker-1: Okay. No, I that's fine. I'm I'm Kelly Bishop and I have been doing insurance literally since I was between my junior year and senior year in high school. I actually started working for my insurance agent and took my licensing exam on my eighteenth birthday and was with farmers for ⁓ over twenty years and then kind of retired from farmers and kept my outside book of business that was an independent book that I kept for probably another ten years after that. And then when that kind of dwindled down, I sold that and then Just kind of focused more on my real estate for a few years. And then I made a move to Las Vegas for a few years and actually was a shelter insurance agent in Las Vegas for a couple of years, in addition to our real estate brokerages down there. And then shelter pulled out of the state of Nevada. And I just had a lot of family and friends back here in Montana just always saying, ⁓ my gosh, we miss you. Nobody will help us. We have no choices. And so I about a year, almost a year and a half ago. started working on trying to become independent again. Cause I thought if I'm going to do this in Montana, I'm not going to be a captive agent. I want to be, you know, independent again. And so another young gal that works with me had approached me as well. She says, I want to learn. I I want to do this as well. So undoubtedly she's out of town today. Otherwise I would have had her come on too. But we started ⁓ the brokerage again just a little over a year ago. And as independent and it's was a little bit of a a learning curve because we had to get all of our appointment agreements and then trying to learn all the companies and then starting marketing and but and then we moved office spaces right after the first of the year, right in February. But it since we moved into our new office space, we have been slammed crazy busy and it's been awesome.

speaker-0: That's always great to hear. What you said between your junior and senior year, what was the impetus back then? What was the reason that you started getting into insurance?

speaker-1: I just you know, I had been working I had worked for the soil conservation service, which is a government job which I did not like. And then I had also worked at our local bank as a bookkeeper, you know, down in the down in the basement when they used to file checks by hand.

speaker-0: No, no way.

speaker-1: ⁓ and I just didn't like it. I wanted something that was more challenging, something that was a little bit more different. And insurance is definitely that. It has its daily challenges, whether it's your clients, the companies, you know, claims. I mean, it's just there's just a variety. And I I'm somebody that like I don't like monotonous things. I like, you know, the change and, you know, keeping track of things. So I think that's probably what more attracted me to it. And then I knew that Carl, my agent that I worked for, I knew he was gonna be retiring and just knew that there was a a great opportunity there and it ended up being one. So yes, definitely.

speaker-0: Interesting. And you've done it for now or you've become independent for the last eighteen years.

speaker-1: Sorry? Yeah, it's been a hot minute, so yeah.

speaker-0: Sure. Can you walk me through sort of what the typical day to day looks like for you? ⁓ and sort of not what you would like it to look like, but rather, you know, in details of what it really looks like, exactly.

speaker-1: Really look. Well, I I could show you what my desk looks like and that would probably scare anybody. No, I try to keep it pretty organized. I have to. I I typically I'll check emails first thing in the morning. I I try to I'm very, you know, time blocking, time organized. ⁓ I teach a lot of coaching classes on business things like that for other people. So that's one of my biggest things because everybody's always like, How do you do what you do? I'm like, you time block and you just have to. And so I do a lot of, you know, the time blocking where I just I check all my emails. And then I'll go back through and prioritize. I keep I I mean, my husband laughs at me because he's Mr. Electronic Calendars, a lot electronic tasks. I'm I'm a write-it down kind of girl still. It just my brain keeps it better. And I mean I can recall things so much quicker and better when I'm writing things down versus just putting them on an electronic calendar. So I have a day planner, you know, my appointment book that I keep every day. So I I look over that, look over who my priorities are, you know, work back through those people. respond to those emails that need responded to and then just start going down through my list of of my priorities of who I need to work on for the day. Of course the phone rings like yesterday I had all three phone lines ringing at once and only me here to answer them. So it's kinda like, okay, you're all going to voicemail and then I'll I'll go back to your story turning phone. And you get walk in the door and then you have some of your clients that you that you love because you know that they're just going to be in and out. And then you have other ones that take an hour of your time and you're like, we got nothing accomplished but thank you for visiting.

speaker-0: Yeah.

speaker-1: So you you have those interruptions. And because I don't really have an assistant right now, which I would love. ⁓ I was here till eight o'clock last night, but you know, that's okay. Because again, there was people in front of me during the day and those people take priority. So then I just stay later or come in earlier to get caught up on the work because I can plow through a lot of things when there's obviously no one around and the phone's not ringing and whatnot. And again, that's part of the reason I time block. There are times I will just let the phones go to voicemail. So I can get a lot of things done 'cause I know I can do a better job when I've got all that work off my plate for the day. So

speaker-0: Very interesting. If if you look at your existing book, where do you think or do you have a feel for like what type of insurance you place the most?

speaker-1: We we focus more on doing the commercial insurance. It's not the easiest by any means. It's more time consuming. And then we do a lot of farm and ranch because there's, you know, a huge need for that in our area. And we have multiple companies that we can write through. So just trying to save, you know, our our business owners and our farm and ranch community a lot of money. We know the autos and homes just come naturally and they do. So that's been kind of fun. You know, th those people are gonna call. And then again, your business owners always have their personal, you know, insurance as well. So there's a lot of really big households that we end up quoting. And and I'm, you know, I I won't even sugarcoat it. There's days that I can only do one household. I mean, that's how long it takes just to get through all of their stuff, analyze it, put it through our rating systems and you know, and and again, we farm it out to more than one company on every account. So we do at least two to three auto quotes. We do at least two homeowners' quotes, depending on where the ha home is located, our commercial lines, depending on what kind of business it is. We've sometimes farmed that out to at least eight companies just to see who can and can't write it, who can get us the best rates for things. You know, our farm and ranch companies, we actually have four companies that we write our farm and ranch through. So again, we've got a really good base of of companies to, you know, farm it out to to see who we can do the the best for. And that's that's my goal is I don't care that it takes me more time if my clients are patient. I want to save them the most money that I can. And that's that's my point.

speaker-0: And then you I mean, you just alluded to the fact that somet a a complex quote process can take a really long time. What is the biggest time spent on in that?

speaker-1: A lot of times it's just like it depends on how organized the client is and how organized their materials are. If they if they can get me their existing policies, it's a lot easier to extract things off of them. But there's times like I've got one client where they have like a farm and ranch policy, they've got four rental properties, they have a trucking company, so it's got like 50 you know, vehicles, trailers, and trucks on there plu and equipment, and then they've got like, you know, 16 to 20 drivers. So you have to compile all that information. You've got to organize sometimes I pull it into spreadsheets because every company that we submit it to, a lot of times we'll ask for different forms. They'll ask for publications. And then you're having to cut and paste or say, Hey, can you at least just take my spreadsheet and, you know, take some pressure off me? Or hey, if we pull these into the accord forms, which are not my friend, ⁓ you know, can you extract off of those? So there is there is a lot of that, you know. And like I say, that's probably the most time consuming is just. breaking down all of their stuff and then seeing who what companies are gonna fit the best for them. So yeah.

speaker-0: Does it happen that you sometimes try and market it or like submit it to a carrier? You put all the information in, you've gone through this whole lengthy process and it comes back with, actually, we're not gonna write this.

speaker-1: What happens all the time. Yeah, we've actually one account this last fall that I think we literally submitted it, I want to say to like almost twelve companies. And we were I I think I don't in fact we didn't even end up writing it because we it was a different place one. And I mean and I'm the type of agent like you know, because we have wildfires here in Montana and everything's so remote and rural and our fire departments and everything else, they have these wildfire squares, which I hate. It's the stupidest thing I've ever seen. But Not my rules, obviously. ⁓ I had a lady that came in with her home insurance the other day and she won and I quoted it and I was less, but I told her, I said, you know, realistically, I said the policy you have, I said, with the wildfire scoring and everything going on, I said, you need to hang on to what you have. I said, I would love to write your business. I said, but I don't want you to lose your policy that you've got because the companies that I was writing were were comparable in coverages, but I knew the company that she was with. is probably a better company at the end of the day from what I was able to quote with her because of the wildfire scoring. So I told her I said I said we'll check we'll check next year. But yeah, I said right now, I said don't mess with it, especially with no rain this year.

speaker-0: How many carriers overall do you work with?

speaker-1: We have about sixty appointments that we work with. So we can Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And and our next phase, probably within this next year, we're gonna do the licensing so that we can write in all fifty states is our goal. So that we can, you know, branch out more. So that that's one of the things that we're looking at wanting to do. And I'm sure we will probably get that accomplished because we have several I again, I have people back in Nevada asking me if I can do insurance there again. And then Brie Brie that works with us.

speaker-0: All in Montana?

speaker-1: She live her farm is on like the Montana ⁓ North Dakota border. So she's got a lot of North Dakota things and people there. And then she also has a lot of family in Minnesota. And then we both have a lot of contacts in Arizona. And I also we have a lot of clients that go from Montana to Arizona. So it'd be nice to bridge that for our clients too and say, Hey, we can assure you in Arizona and in Montana or Nevada and Montana because there's a lot of those connections. So that is one of our goals to to have you know some of those other states that we can write in.

speaker-0: You have a feeling for for certain lines of business already, sort of what carriers you would tend to go to. Are there any carriers in particular that that come to mind that you tend to write with

speaker-1: I would say for the you know, the mainstream markets, you know, we write through, you know, from Travelers Nationwide, Main Street America, Liberty Mutual, ⁓ Hartford, like all all the big names like that, you know. Yeah. So we have all of those appointment agreements. And then we've got a lot of, you know, surplus lines companies that we write through as well and other smaller standard companies that we write through for a lot of things too. So yeah, like I say, we we can do everything. We have we can ensure your pets, you know, your to your motorcycles, to your yachts, to I mean, like there just almost isn't anything we can't insure as long as it's, you know, fairly normal. I mean, like I say, every once in a while we run across these bizarre things, but

speaker-0: So when you enlisted all these carrier names, that means that your agency has a direct appointment. Do you ever also work through like a broker's broker? We

speaker-1: We do. So we actually are members with what's called Montana Agency Alliance, which is part of the SIAA Alliance too, which I can't remember what all that stands for. So that's part of to join. And then we actually have direct appointments as well with a lot of these other companies too. So and I think that has been, you know, an asset because coming into the independent market, we were at first Brie and I, we spent like probably three or four months and I was really struggling to just reach out to companies, getting appointment agreements, like all those kinds of things. And even companies that I'd written with before and not realizing that they'd had kind of like a a hold on giving appointments. So that's where we ended up joining, you know, the insurance alliance. And it and it actually is it's been good. They they definitely, you know, have a lot of pull on getting your appointments, you know, and then getting you in with your carriers. In fact, one of my carriers was just here this morning out of North Dakota in Minnesota is where they're based out of. And so they actually stopped in, they were doing a little drive-through Montana. So that was, you know, fun to get to meet an underwriter and, you know, producer lady that I'd been working with for, you know, twenty plus years and got to actually finally meet her in person. So that was really nice. So yeah, like I it's a variety, you know, of those appointments, but for the most part, most of them, you know, we were able to obtain by being members of the agency alliance, which I think that does help, you know, and they've got a a great program where like if you're writing business, you get like kind of like profit share off of it too. So yeah.

speaker-0: Can you walk me through the typical placement process? So let's say a customer calls and they say, Hey, I really want a quote for commercial general liability. What would be the sort of the typical steps that you would take to be able to produce that quote?

speaker-1: I have a whole list of questionnaires depending on the type of business. So yeah, everything from, you know, their name of their business, their tax ID numbers, emails, phone numbers, the type of business, you know, if they, you know, hired contractors, subcontractors, if they have employees. I mean, every business has a little bit of a list of different questions, you know, to some degree. So it kind of depends on what the business is. So, you know, obviously learning more about their business because sometimes it's based off a payroll, sometimes it's based off receipts. It's based off of, you know, how many subcontractors they hire, things like that. Or like, you know, sometimes habitationals based off of square footage. Restaurants a lot of times are based off of square footage, you know, and and gross receipts. They'll kind of break some of those down on your liability and property quotes, that type of thing. So it kind of, you know, it just depends a little bit. I mean, there's always some basic information that everybody, you know, has and needs to know. But then, you know, there again, then there's like some of the little niche, you know, market areas. And classification codes through, you know, the NIC codes and the SIC codes and all those fun things we have to look at. So yeah, we used to have

speaker-0: Do you use any do you use any tools for intake?

speaker-1: Right now we don't have any specific intake form. I mean, like just what ones we've created ourselves. That's one that I have ⁓ Jesse kind of helping us work on is is more of an automated form. I I will say it's it's kind of hard. Autos and homes, your personalized, those are pretty basic. You know, you have to ask the same questions over and over again. So I kind of memorize them. But when it does come to Commercial, I mean, and farm and ranch, it's it's usually fairly basic, you know, as far as equipment and cows or sheep or pigs, whatever they've got, type of thing. But like on the commercial side, like if I've got a guy that's a fencing contractor, I've got to ask him a whole nother list of questions versus if I've got a a housing, you know, specialty contractor that does drywall, sheetrock, painting, you know, those types of things. So those those things Yeah. It just they're everybody's a little bit different on some of those things, definitely.

speaker-0: Sure. And then I I guess because some of the other independent agents I've spoken to, they do a lot in personal. But then in commercial, some some of these carriers don't really have portals. So how do you procure the the quote? Do you do you email them? Okay, guys. But but you could also some some some also have portals.

speaker-1: Yes, I do. Some have portals, not very many. The one company that just came in today to visit with me, they've updated and upgraded their system and they've got a whole new portal system. So I'm like, Yay, it's always So is what I've been doing, sadly, is I I I said some days I I wish we were back when we had to fill out everything by hand on these accord forms and we literally faxed them in, you know, I don't know how old you were, but we had the old fax machines. And you would like do a cover sheet, fax it to one company, cover sheet, next company, cover sheet, next company. I mean, like that's and the files could be this thick, but now we try to email them and so that helps a lot. And then I just create email file folders within my email. You know, so that's pr about what I do is about the easiest. And then I just keep track of the submissions through there. And then we create like a a sheet here in the office so we we actually hand write like who all we've sent it to, what the responses are, so that we can keep track of it that way too. Because I mean, I'll get a hundred emails a day. you know, on average. And it's like, okay, y I mean, if you're working on multiple accounts, you're like, okay, which one went where? So I try and keep everybody labeled and organized and set follow up things and stuff like that for people. But yeah, there's it's it's not an easy process. I wish there was an easier process. I haven't found a a software company yet that I feel is really that great on setting up those tasks, those reminders, you know, things like that. I've looked at a lot of softwares and I I have I I think I should design my own. Just like today. I was like, wait a second, I haven't heard back on so and so's file. So here I am emailing the underwriter going, Hey, were you missing something or did you need something from me? I'm like, What what's the hold up here? You it's been like weeks. And of course then I've got my clients that, you know, you run into or they're like, ⁓ hey, have you heard anything? And I'm like, No, I haven't. So then I'm back on where you're sending another email to my underwriters going, Hey, my clients kinda need this coverage yesterday. So yeah, definitely.

speaker-0: You have a sort of like what what type of tools do you use to store policies? Do you have like an agency management system of some sort?

speaker-1: We have been using what's called easy links, which has n Yeah, I I'm not a big fan. It they've actually I think been more of a hindrance than a help this last few months. So I'm in desperate need of trying to find something that's better. I mean, they have a rating system they have like the the rater that you put everything in and it sends it out to the companies on the personal line side and you're supposed to be able to download people's policies and information and then their commercial stuff is just highly inadequate in my opinion. I started using assembly these last couple months for their commercial side of things. Night and day difference from trying to boggle my way through Easy Links. ⁓ their stuff uses some AI where so it extracts things and it fills in your accord forms, it sets up your client for you. I've been able to send out signatures in minutes rather than hours that it was taking me through Easy Links. It fills the accord forms, sends the accord forms way more accurate. Just it's a way smoother process. So that's that's probably one of the biggest hiccups I feel like has has been for us is finding a good commercial company that is in the school. I feel like assembly's been, you know, definitely my go to at the moment. ⁓ for that they've really been helpful as far as that goes. And plus they'll create like they'll take the supplemental applications if we need to and they'll make them PDF fillable for us, which is really nice. So that we're not having to print them off. Fill them out, scan them back in, email them up. ⁓ yeah, very time consuming. So so that that part has been helpful having them do that. I again, you know, trying to find a a company that could meld everything together would be amazing. I don't know that that exists from all of my research that I've been doing on on software companies. So

speaker-0: How do you handle renewals? How do you keep on top of ⁓ renewal?

speaker-1: Right now, because we don't have a crazy huge book of business, I I make myself notes. I set up, you know, little reminders on things for people right now. And a lot of times it's just going in and like, you know, we have to go in and log into each one of the companies. So again, eventually, like I say, I'd I I need a virtual assistant that can just, you know, make that daily, weekly, you know, who who's coming up for renewal, you know, so we can check on their stuff. And again, Easy Links is supposed to be doing that for us. It's it's not real accurate. So either that or I've got the clients calling me screaming, going, Why did my rates go up? What did what happened? Okay, let me check. I'll go in there and you know, see what we can do.

speaker-0: What is the biggest thing that changed for you in

speaker-1: In insurance, I would say the internet, the the automation, the quoting. And it you know, and I will be honest, we all think, you know, ⁓ this technology and ⁓ being online with everything is supposed to be a time saver. It's not, not in my opinion. And I will say we were just at our insurance conference about a week ago, and a lot of us that have been in the business over the years, we all feel like even though everybody's online and you have all this automation, it it takes longer. I I feel like it takes longer. ⁓

speaker-0: Interesting. Like what exactly takes longer?

speaker-1: I think the quoting process takes longer because you're sitting online, you're waiting for screens to change, you're waiting for and then you're waiting for responses back. You can't call your underwriter direct like you used to be able to. You never know who you're gonna get. So one underwriter might give you this answer today. You could call back with the same question tomorrow and you're gonna get a different answer, which is a little hard. And so I I just think that and then just the process of everything. It just seems so much more time consuming because I used to write an average of like fifty to a hundred policies a month when I was with farmers and I I can't even imagine with doing all the independent things of even attempting to try to write fifty to a hundred policies a month right now until we get some more, you know, streamlined processes going. So yeah. I mean, eventually we will get to that. But no, it it does. It takes way longer. I it took me a couple of weeks ago. I had two large commercial accounts and it had some personalized stuff into it too. But I literally spent an entire day on two accounts. And I'm like, this is not okay. This should have taken a couple of hours. You know, I I wish I had a better explanation of it because I've I I feel like again, and I'm spending way more hours in the office than I thought I would be. Just to stay ahead of things, you know? And And again, thank goodness clients are understanding and, you know, patient about things. You know, because like yesterday I had some clients that came in. We decided which policies they're gonna write and how we're gonna do some things. I have sent them to get me more information. And then we're gonna meet back again next week. And this will be the third time I will have met with them going over stuff, you know. I mean, they've got a lot of stuff going on. But at the same time, now I'm gonna have to go back in to all of those companies, see who's gonna write this one, make sure we secure the premium on this one. Get the effective dates ready on this one. And so I'll spend that much more time again. I just feel like it's way more time consuming. I I really do. I think I and where that hiccup has come over time, like I say, I know it's not just me, but it is. It's interesting. You would think with being with the internet and supposedly these softwares that bridge everything over, I I just don't think it's time saving. What

speaker-0: There's something about the insurance industry in general and your your work that you do that you you wish more people understood better.

speaker-1: Probably the value of knowing that insurance isn't a a catch-all. And I think people are realizing that it's not a maintenance policy, it's a catastrophic policy. And so one thing that I try to educate my clients on is going with those higher deductibles, saving your premium, especially if they've never had a claim or they know they can afford $1,000 or $2,500 if They do have a claim because they're not gonna file a claim if it's small anyway, because the premiums will kill you and then you risk losing your insurance. And I think that's probably one of the biggest things I work on educating my clients on is, you know, reaching out to those higher deductibles and saving saving the money in your pocket. You know, because like I did a comparison for a lady yesterday. I said, I said if you go with a thousand dollar deductibles, I said, within one year you've saved enough premium to make up the other five hundred dollars. And she's like, ⁓ my God, you're so right. And I'm like, Yeah, I don't know why people don't do that, but yeah. So that that's one thing I feel like people, you know, need to understand more is it's not you don't want to make a claim unless you absolutely have to. So yeah.

speaker-0: You have such an unusual profile given that you're also doing real estate. Can you can you walk me through that a little bit? Sort of what is the how how how do you see those two worlds work together?

speaker-1: It actually works out great for me. If I've got, you know, insurance clients, they they they know I do real estate and like these last couple listings that I have, they're like, ⁓ hey, will you list our house for us too? I'm like, Of course. So, you know, that it's a it's a great best sell for me. And then a lot of times if I'm, you know, if somebody's called me randomly to list their house or whatever, then they're like, ⁓ well, we don't have anybody that does insurance. I'm like, let me get you quote. So it works out really well. And that's one and I mean, and I've had the the combination of those things since like two thousand. Yeah. So Yeah, but having the insurance and the real estate together. I'm the only insurance agent in my family. So yeah. My dad everybody's self employed pretty much in my family though. My dad had a logging and road construction business, had a sawmill. You know, my my grandpa had another you know, my my dad's dad, they also had construction and road building business. And then my grandpa, my mom's side, he owned a grocery store and owned a a meat packing plant. So yeah, lots of entrepreneurial things in my family. And my sister owns a store. Yeah. Also here in Montana. Yeah. She has a oil and vinegar store, Sumo. Yeah.

speaker-0: That's amazing. Very inspiring. Love to look forward with you. When you when you think of your business as you know, like sort of the real estate and the insurance world and and how that's moving forward in the next five to ten years, what do you think success would look like? Like where where are you trying to take your your independent agency work?

speaker-1: Well, eventually is w I I'd like to get this built back up, you know, to where I kinda before I retired, you know, well, however many years it's been that I kind of ret first retired the first time. I think I would like to get it, you know, built up and then like someone like Bree, you know, that works, you know, with me for me, you know, have them kind of take maybe over more of the reins of the business and I could maybe semi retire. Don't see myself ever fully retiring 'cause I think I would be bored. Of course I'd love to I do a lot of, you know volunteering and like do you know sit on several boards of things and just because I like to give back to the community. I'm also like a court appointed advocate and, you know, I'm involved with our chamber and all those types of things too. So so things like that I, you know, I mean I'll always keep busy, you know, with those types of things. But, you know, I I think, you know, in the next, you know, ten to fifteen years I'd I'd like to cut back, you know. Yeah. So we'll we'll see where our crazy world goes. I don't know. Sometimes I think I'd like to travel and there's other days I'm like, no, gas prices just went up to almost five dollars a gallon and it

speaker-0: Yeah.

speaker-1: You know, two hundred and fifty dollars a night for a hotel. I'm like, I think I'm good at home.

speaker-0: It's interesting. I think it sounds like on the road for you to Hambrie more responsibility, you would hire a an an assistant, right? There's like a few more steps you could do to really streamline some of these processes, right? Yes.

speaker-1: Yeah, and I'm always open for some suggestions. So if you find anybody out there that's got some, you know, like, hey, really, really grasp onto this whole VA thing. The VA thing I ⁓ I'm I'm just not a hundred percent sold on it yet. We tried to do some of it with our real estate company a couple of years ago and did not have a good experience. But I know insurance and real estate, you know, for VAs is is a lot different. So I'm thinking I might actually venture in and and see if I can handle trying to hire a a VA for the insurance.

speaker-0: If if you don't mind going down that rabbit hole for a second, what was the main reason that VAs for the real estate space didn't work for you?

speaker-1: Basically because they didn't have enough knowledge of the real estate industry. And and for them to really help us you know, because you're writing, you know, a contract law, basically. I mean, even though some of it's fillable, you know, as being a broker, I mean I'm the one responsible for my, you know, two hundred agents that were working for me. And so it's like I've gotta make sure that all the verbiage is correct and that type of thing too. And if you have a new agent and they hire what's called a transaction coordinator and the transaction coordinator doesn't you know, put the proper verbiage in, it can, you know, kill a deal. It can, you know, put a buyer at risk. It can put the seller at risk. It can leave the the brokerage at a risk. So there's just a lot of, you know, things like that that I feel like the VA that people were using their VAs for and that we tried to as well. And just trying to like the compliance, you know, to make sure people have all their paperwork and files in order and that type of thing. ⁓ because Nevada was really big sticklers on all of that kind of stuff. I mean, there's there's there's no mercy there if you mess up something. And so it Very important that, you know, we had everything, you know, done properly and correctly. And so I think the VAs just weren't able to I mean if it was just paper shuffling and task managing, th they're great. And and even like some of the social media posting, if we needed them to do things like that, which, you know, that's pretty simple, basic. Anybody can do those things for you. So I d it just didn't seem like it was as worth it for us, you know, as far as a VA goes in the real estate, you know, area. But I think I think in the insurance it could be more beneficial. I There was an older gentleman that I spoke to at our meetings last week and he he was even like, No, he goes, I have a VA, it's been a game changer. I'm thinking, okay, if this man is in his seventies and he can do this, I can do it. So I'm I'm a I'm a little bit more, you know, inclined to see and and the other thing I was thinking of too is if that it might actually Justin and I were just talking about this earlier this morning is maybe hiring that VA. So like we were saying with the bottleneck of of where we're kind of slow down, of doing the intake, you know, on over the phone or in person with those people and then handing that off to the VA and having her manually go in and get those quotes for us, you know, rather than paying the Easy Link software, which is completely inaccurate anyway, because by the time it comes back with the quotes and then we have to bridge over, there's a a two to five hundred dollar difference in the premium. So we're like, this just didn't do us any good anyway. We might as well have just gone in directly to the company website and just quoted it. So we're we're kind of, you know, leaning more towards possibly doing that I think in the next, you know, maybe even this month of trying to assume

speaker-0: Cool. That's that's exciting. Yeah, 'cause yeah, I think from the get go you would also assume that in insurance there's a lot of domain expertise that VAs might not have. So if if it if that if that doesn't turn out to be true, then that that would be great.

speaker-1: Well, and I think one of the things with trying to do the VAs, if they, you know, can input a lot of the information so that you're not sitting there doing all the general inputting of everything, if we could have them set up those tasks, you know, and those reminders on things and then being able to teach them how to do the quotes, at least on the front side of things. I mean, obviously I'll go in and check everything before I'm gonna call a client back. But if they could at least get that bulk of information put in for us, I think that's gonna be very helpful. Yeah.

speaker-0: Definitely sounds like it. D w where do you think in the next sort of three to five years your main you will get your main new clients from? Like what what what channel?

speaker-1: I'm gonna say at that point it's usually all referrals. Yeah. Yeah. It is. I that that's how I, you know, really built the bulk of my business before was off of, you know, word of mouth referrals. You know. Right now, like I say, we've got this call system thing that Jesse has and it drops I drop a voicemail to people. That's what's actually my voice talking to people. And it's funny because it it's working. And it's funny because I'll run into people and go, Was that you that left me a message the other day? And I'll be like, Yes, it is. Give me a call. So that's working. Jesse, we work a lot of of stuff on Facebook. We, you know, look for people looking for things in Facebook groups. We do posts and different things. So that works a lot for us. Like I say, right now, ⁓ other than the calling system, you know, we it's a small fee for what we pay. And and that has helped us get our name out. And then I've, you know, been getting involved back in the community things. I helped work on a couple of political campaigns. So you're out. You're like, ⁓ are you doing cards again? Yes, here's my card. So, you know. I I think, you know, just being visible and you know, and being out in front of people does make a difference, definitely.

speaker-0: Yeah. Was th was there any topic in particular where you're like, you know, this is something that you feel passionate about or you you would have expected me to talk about more?

speaker-1: Not specifically. I didn't know really what you're wanting to learn. I I just I have a phone call with a young guy that is wanting to, you know, pick my brain tomorrow about doing captive versus being independent tomorrow. And so I I am gonna have a conversation with you about that. I mean and and I will say sometimes the captive market isn't always bad, obviously. And it's got its you know, because I know certain companies like Shelter Farmers, I'm not sure what State Farms program is, but I know that there's certain companies that Like they actually pay you to be an agent for so long. And then you do so much business, you, you know, you know, get that amount taken back off. But like as you're going into independent, you're not getting paid. You're paying to be an agent, basically. And so, you know, that that is a big difference, you know. So and one thing I always tell anybody, whether if I'm recruiting them to be an agent with me or recruiting them to be a realtor with me, I always say, Don't quit your day job if you're brand new, unless you've got A huge database of people that you know are gonna write business with you. Or if you again, if you even for real estate, if you know you've got a huge, you know, list of people that are all, you know, getting ready to move and sell or they're dying and you need to list a bunch of houses. Because this market is hard. It's time consuming. And even with my being in the business as long as I have, I mean, we got appointed, I think it was back in March of April last year, and we didn't get to write our first policy till July. And so, yeah. And and that was like just that appointment time, that learning curve, getting things going. And then and then we kind of had a little lull in August, even into September a little bit, and then October finally started kicking off. So you're talking a good six months, even just with insurance. And even when I was started with shelter down there in Nevada, it took me, I'm gonna say nine months before I really started writing policies. And since we're in our new office here, it's been a game changer of, you know, just the foot traffic. People knowing that we're here now, you know, we've got a nice big sign out front. But it it takes time, you know, it just does. And I think anybody thinking that, ⁓ I'm gonna make all this money, yeah, it's great, but it takes time and it takes time to build it up. So yeah.

speaker-0: And you need to be patient. It's just like you just need to keep keep pushing. Yeah. Kelly, I really appreciate it. That that was really the bulk of the the questions I wanted to put to you and thank you so much for for, you know, walking through them with me because it's definitely always adds. So I I love learning about these things.