This is probably why plenty of smart people have said, "if it's not broke, don't fix it."
But how do you know when it's time to build or buy the next thing you hope is indestructible?
It all might come down to having a little extra patience and avoiding shiny objects that float by.
Angela Trimble, Owner of TrustPoint Insurance, talks about how her agency stays true to what works while keeping an eye on the future.
Joey Giangola: Angela Trimble. How are you doing today?
Angela Trimble: Hey, I'm good, Joey, how are you?
Joey Giangola: Angela, I'm doing good. I'm doing good. I want to know this before we get into anything too serious. Is there anything that you do that goes against the grain of traditional patterns that you maybe enjoy?
Angela Trimble: Go against the grain? I think maybe sometimes a lot of stuff that I do maybe goes against the grain, but I don't know anything in particular.
Joey Giangola: For me, it's really anything that involves less people. Right? So grocery store in the middle of the work day, movie theaters in the afternoon. Anything that I can do to avoid people, I enjoy that. You know? Well, so now when it comes to insurance and moving things over to where things are in agency, what do you think has maybe been something that has helped you stand out or something that maybe felt like you were going against the grain when you got started or came into the business because-
Angela Trimble: Okay.
Joey Giangola: There's an oftentimes a legacy feel to the whole thing and you come in with these fresh ideas. What really made you feel like, boy, this is backwards and I got to do it this way?
Angela Trimble: I think that we do go against the grain a little bit. When it talks about customer service and automation, I know the whole world is going towards automation and that's a really big deal. And we are, too. Don't get me wrong. I would say our success, our retention rate success, is actually building on the relationships. So we don't buy leads. We all do it by word of mouth and actually asking our people for referrals. So we've been pretty successful in that. It's all old school pretty much, on getting involved in the communities, getting involved in clubs, organizations, just being with that person that you're going to see at the grocery store or whatever. We truly just build that relationship. It's all on relationships for us.
Joey Giangola: How have you balanced the feeling of ... again because keeping up with the trends in the industry, knowing what works for you, how have you balanced keeping that, fending it off, basically, to say, we're good, we know what we do. But still taking that information in, and I guess maybe what seeps through and how you protect sanctity of the way of doing business.
Angela Trimble: It's hard because there's a lot of things that something shiny goes by and you're like, wow, that would work great for us. But then we have to set back and we try to once a month, the management team sits down and says, okay, is this really going to work for us? How does this work for us? Would this benefit us? And so we give it a little bit of a litmus test and say, all right, who, what, where, and why, and is this going to be cost effective? And a lot of times you can buy all the different gadgets or technology and everything and if your staff doesn't use them and that they don't find it worth it, we don't waste our time.
Joey Giangola: Once a month, that's pretty frequent to actually get together and communicate, especially in an insurance agency. Was there a different time period? Were you guys going once a quarter? Or has once a month always been the best fit for you guys with that?
Angela Trimble: We tried doing like once a quarter, but then those meetings got so long. That book that I've read before, Death by Meeting. It's just meeting after meeting. And so, we wanted to just be proactive and if we didn't have anything at that time, then we would just move on. Make it a rather quick short meeting and touch base on our own technology that we're using. Like, are we using it to its full potential? Should we be using a different, maybe a different add-on or something else that maybe the technology that we're using has a different feature that we may not be utilizing? So we would look at that. But there's a lot of technology out there anymore. And it seems like there's something new every time you turn around. So it's always just something that we know that you've got to be involved with the newer generation and how they do business and how the world does business, not just the newer generation, just how the world does business. So we always try keep our eye on that.
Joey Giangola: Bring me inside, maybe the last thing that made it through that gauntlet of trial by fire in one of those meetings. What does something have to do to make it into the agency permanently?
Angela Trimble: So we need to see the life expectancy of it, right? So if it's something like, oh, this will help you only do one certain part of your business. It takes a lot longer for us to decide that's going to work for us. But if it's something that, oh, this will affect all the lines of your business. Because we sell personal lines, we sell commercial lines, which is common. We do life, but we also do farm. We're from Kansas. So even though we write in seven different states, farm is huge for us. And so how is this going to help our farmers? How is this going to help our industry and where we're at? And so we make sure that it's something that's going to be long-term. We make sure that it's user friendly, not only for us, but our end users for. Is our client, are our clients going to benefit from this? Can we promote this? And is it going to be cost effective? What's our ROI on it?
Joey Giangola: This might be as silly question, but what's your definition of long-term?
Angela Trimble: I would say that it's at least going to last us a couple of years. And I know back in the day, I would say a couple of years, that's not very long. But now as technology keeps on advancing, a couple of years to me would be long-term for us.
Joey Giangola:I wanted to go back to the whole conversation about asking for renewals as it's one of the simplest and traditional ways. But I feel it is something that gets maybe looked down upon or maybe neglected more so than it probably should, especially with the people coming into the business.
Angela Trimble: Sure.
Joey Giangola: What is the secret to actually doing it well and not making your clients feel obligated when you're having that conversation? I'm sure you've picked up a thing or two along the way.
Angela Trimble: Yeah, absolutely. It's the belief, we try not to call ourselves insurance agents. We try to be insurance counselors. So we want to say, hey, how can we help you? Let's look at your risk and what you have and then we'll look at a program that best fits you. Not us telling them what they need. We want to talk to them. We want to do an onsite visit. We want to look around and see what they have because nine times out of 10, they're going to forget that they have something that you look at and say, whoa, how do you have that insured? Or do you have that insured? Or how does that work for you? So a lot of times when you're doing an onsite visit and you do that, you find some loopholes that maybe their current agent hasn't seen because they haven't taken the time to be out there.
But when ultimately afterwards, when you look at your insurance plan and you give them coverage, they're like, wow, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Our other agent didn't do X or our other agent didn't tell us about this. And that's not always the case, but sometimes when you go in there and you have a plan of action for them, especially their work comp an you talk to them about simple things like deductibles or how they need report or what you will help them with, when you help them at the end, when you're like, I appreciate that you like what we've done for you, but do you think there's anybody else that could use our services? So it's not, hey, will you give me a referral? Hey, do you think, who can I talk to? It's like, hey, who else do you feel could use our services? So we spin it like that. We'd like to help anybody else that you may know in our arena that may be looking for the same kind of service that we've given to you.
Joey Giangola:Is it just that one conversation and it's over? Is there any, maybe more fancy automations into the mix where after you've closed an account, maybe an email goes out or something like, hey, by the way, so to speak, or is it just left in that moment of like pure satisfaction of you've done your job and hoping that that provides a good environment for a referral?
Angela Trimble: So ultimately, I want my staff to have that relationship, that one-on-one. If you can't ask a person face to face, then you're not going to get more of that response. A lot of times, if you've helped someone and you ask them, "Would anybody else benefit from our services?" Nine times out of 10, they're not going to be like yeah, "No, I can't think of anybody." A lot of times they'll be like, "You know what? Absolutely. Can I have some of your cards?" Or, I do have a friend, or whatever. But in that case, if they're like, "Nobody I can think of at this time, but if I do, I'll let you know," we do then send out the notifications through via Facebook and/or text about leaving us a review. Is there anybody else? That follow-up. And then, as they are our client, we also do other touches. We do electronic newsletters that go out. We might do some benefit that we just invite our customers to. Situations like that.
Joey Giangola: I want to go back real quick, keeping with the against the grain theme of we're going to go out, we're going to do something that maybe somebody else hasn't done.
Angela Trimble: Right.
Joey Giangola: How do you fight against the expectation of having a more hands-off approach in a lot of cases? Because that's more work on their part of saying, you got to come out, like again, people and all this stuff. And how do you get around the expectations that they have of it's going to maybe be easier than it was and telling them, oh, this is necessary to ultimately get a better result?
Angela Trimble: My staff laughs at me because oh, "Angela, she's all about change." "Oh, we're going to change it. Oh, we're going to change it." Because I don't want to be in a situation where we're always doing it the same way and never looking at any other different way of doing things. So if they don't like the idea of having the blend of, oh, I'm not going to do it the old school way or, oh, I'm not going to build the relationship or oh, I'm going to try it this way. I'm not against somebody trying to find their own way. So maybe that doesn't work for them. Maybe a producer comes up to me and says, this works better for me. And I'm actually getting clients and doing that. I'm not going to tell them they have to do it my way. I'm just going to encourage them that this is what's worked for us. But as times change, maybe something else will work for them. Or maybe it's something that we need to look at to do it differently, too.
Joey Giangola: Well, it's interesting. I was curious, how often did you find people questioning the methods or whatever, and then ultimately when again, at the end, it's like, oh, they're so happy that they actually ended up doing it. And it's just, again, a lack of education, back to that impatience of other agents just slamming through to the next sale.
Angela Trimble: Right.
Joey Giangola: It really doesn't take a whole lot of time to provide that extra layer of education.
Angela Trimble: Right.
Joey Giangola: And just bring them along for the journey.
Angela Trimble: Yeah. My staff is amazing. So when we have someone new coming in, you can hear them ... giving them tips or tricks or whatever you want to call it, education of saying hey, if you would try it this way or that's unfortunate you didn't get that account, maybe in the future, you would do it this way. So I would say it's attitude in our agency of how maybe that doesn't work for you now, but you could try it way. So it's gentle. It's not, you have to do it this way or you didn't succeed because you didn't do it this way or you should have done it, A, B, and C. So I think staff is they believe in the process, I guess, and that has worked for them. But we do have some younger generation that they are a lot more driven, doing different avenues of referrals too.
Joey Giangola: How much of it is, I guess, understanding, like you said, your client, dealing with a lot of farmers, they do business a certain way and they have certain expectations that might be different than another small business. How much of that do you think is discounted throughout the process where maybe you need to listen to the different segments of your business and maybe it's not the same all the time.
Angela Trimble: You're absolutely right, Joey, a hundred percent. Because you're going to have those clients that are going to come in and they want the best deal, the best rate. I just want to ensure my house. I don't ever want to come back into your office again and I'm done. You also have those farmers that, and by any means, I think that people need to realize that farmers are very, very intelligent, smart businessmen and women. And so they are dealing with futures and they're dealing with stock markets. The world, the economy, can put their business ... change it on a dime.
And so when farmers come in and they want to talk about what they have and the policies that they have, they want to talk in detail. They want to look over everything they have. They're ensuring so many different things. That person in the personal lines that comes in and they just want the best deal or whatever, they're looking for to be in and out. Farmers aren't looking to be in and out. When they come in, they want to sit down, they want to go over their policies. And then again, when you talk about the commercial lines and the commercial side, we do a lot of municipalities. And so we do a lot of education with them. We do a lot of board meetings with them. We are very involved with what they do and where they're at. So you're absolutely right. Different areas work for different lines of business. So you have to adapt/
Joey Giangola: All right. This will be fun. I wanted your best tip for getting your foot in the door with a farmer. But then let's also give the best tip for getting your foot in the door in the municipality, see how they differ, what the approach is, would be for somebody that would like to do maybe more of those types of businesses?
Angela Trimble: With farmers, they are extremely loyal, extremely loyal. We talk about it in our industry, that a lot of people are like, I'm looking for the best rate. I'm going to quote it online. Hey, my policy maybe only went up $15 a month. "Can you requote?" Farmers are very loyal. They see you as part of their business. And so, you have to be very proactive and engaging with your farmers. So a lot of our producers that have farm accounts or we have farm accounts with is because you have a family history or we'll go to a livestock sales or we'll be at sale barns. And I know I'm talking a little bit of Kansas, but it's the Midwest. So Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, Nebraska, Iowa. It's what you do. So they need to see you other than just in the office.
So that's huge for a farmer. And especially when you're talking about their livelihood, they need to know that they have a person to call. They're not going to want to set and wait on hold or whatever. They want to know that they have a person to call. With municipality, it's a whole different story because lot of times that involves boards. And so those boards may rotate every three years, every four years. It depends on how long that board member stays active on that board. And you may have five or seven different people. So a lot of that, again, is finding out who your board members are. What their ultimate goals are, what they are looking to do while they are on the board and seeing if you can relate and engage with them. Engage with them on-one-on one. But there's a lot of them. There's a lot of factors when you're working for a municipality.
Joey Giangola: All right. Angela, we've got three more questions for you.
Angela Trimble: Okay.
Joey Giangola: And the first one is very simply, what's one thing you hope you never forget?
Angela Trimble: I never want to forget that I used to be on the other side of the table. I think in our industry, we use a lot of terminology like, oh, your BOP, or your liability or deductible, or where are your limits? They don't know what that is. And nor should they. They shouldn't have to know what that is. That's our job to educate them. So I always want to tell myself that, remember that was you. You're supposed to be the specialist in it. And you're supposed to not make them feel insecure or not knowing what those things are. I need to make sure that I'm explaining to them. So I always tell my staff, remember when you first started. Remember when you first started. And to be humble about it. It's not an easy industry.
Joey Giangola: Now on the other side of that, what is one thing you still have yet to learn?
Angela Trimble: Wow, Joey, the that's a lot. I have a lot to learn. I think this is the one industry that is so ever changing. Oh, we used to do this, but we don't do that anymore. Oh, we would never in a million years ensure this, but now we do. Or ... Just even, we've had this pandemic. How that ... with work comp, everything is ever evolving. And so that's the one thing that I love is that it's never going to be stagnant, but also it's the other thing that I feel like I'll never learn enough.
Joey Giangola: All right. Angela, last question to you. If I were to hand you a magic wand of sorts to reshape, change, alter, speed up, really any part of insurance, what's that thing? Where is it going and what's it doing?
Angela Trimble: Magic wand, I think it would be to see the value in people. Sometimes salespeople get a really bad rep. Oh, they're just a salesman or oh, they're going to sell to me. Or no solicitation allowed. Those are common stickers on the door. And so I would think that just for everyone to realize that we're all human in that just because we're salespeople doesn't necessarily mean that we're out to just get in another sale or just get another dollar. I think it would just be that we view each other more as who that person is, not actually what their intentions or assumed intentions are. It's pretty tough out there. There are some, just like there's good and bad in every kind of occupation. It's a tough business.
And I think a lot of those that are younger that get involved in it, get a little frustrated because it is hard and people are like, oh, you're just trying to sell me. No, I'm actually trying to educate you. And so I think there are people that are just trying to sell. I think there are that are just trying to educate. And it's hard, like I said, with any occupation. So I think it would just be to maybe take out the stigmatism of oh, I'm a salesperson.
Joey Giangola: Angela, this has been fantastic. I'm going to leave it right there.
Angela Trimble: Hey, Joey. Thanks. I appreciate it.