The Digital Broker Podcast

In this episode of The Digital Broker, Steve and Ryan talk about the challenge of holding producers accountable to a process. By listening to this episode, you will learn, why producers are inclined to resist any process, where the interests of producers clash with those of everyone else at the agency, how to get producers on the same page as everyone else, and when it’s wise to let producers do their own thing.

In this episode of The Digital Broker, Steve and Ryan talk about sales and marketing as an operational process. By listening to this episode, you will learn how the sales and marketing processes differ, and where they intertwine, how the processes tend to fall apart in the absence of operational oversight, and how an operational makeover of sales and marketing makes the processes sustainable, repeatable, and scalable.

In this episode of The Digital Broker, Steve and Ryan talk about goals and strategic planning. By listening to this episode, you will learn why setting goals and hoping for the best is not enough. Learn how strategic planning for insurance agencies works and how it helps you achieve your goals, even in the face of unexpected change.

In this episode of The Digital Broker, Steve and Ryan talk to tech entrepreneur Duke Williams about chatbot technology and how it applies to insurance operations. By listening to this episode, you will learn how chatbots work, why they’re useful inside an agency, why some chatbots are popular and others aren’t, what areas chatbots may threaten an agent's job, and what areas they'll help.

In this episode of The Digital Broker, Steve and Ryan talk with Eric Wistrand, IT Director at the Couch Braunsdorf Insurance Group, and learn how his agency successfully implemented an electronic payment solution.

In this episode, Steve and Ryan talk to Adam Bratt, co-founder and CTO of Indio Technologies, to learn how insurance agencies are keeping up with data technology, where they have made progress, where there’s still work to be done, and how Indio is helping the industry as a whole by saving agents and brokers time with collecting data while making the customer experience of doing so an exceptional one.

On this episode of The Digital Broker, Steve and Ryan are joined by Duke Williams, founder of Simply Easier Payments, to discuss how electronic payments remain a challenge for many agencies, and how they can overcome those challenges to provide customers the modern, digital experience they desire.

In this episode of The Digital Broker, Steve and Ryan examine insurance agency checklists. They explain how checklists are the basis of standardization and therefore a path to operational excellence, how to focus on the essential and keep everything else out, and how to foster adoption amongst your agency staff.

In this episode of The Digital Broker, Steve and Ryan analyze operational teams. They explain why operations are inseparable from growth, what an operational team ought to look like depending on your agency’s size, what to expect from every member of your operational team, and how to choose the most qualified or appropriate members for your agency.

In this episode of The Digital Broker, Steve and Ryan confront the challenge of profiting from small commercial accounts at insurance agencies. They explain why small commercial lines are so hard to profit from, why you shouldn’t leave that money on the table just because the profit margins are low, and how you can automate, reduce, eliminate, and outsource your way to profitability in this niche.

In this episode of The Digital Broker, Steve and Ryan discuss workplace optimization with an emphasis on the desk. By listening to this episode, you will learn how the workstation has evolved to accommodate different preferences, the ins and outs of all these variations, and how to give your employees a choice without slowing down their work.

In this episode of The Digital Broker, Steve and Ryan discuss how physical space reflects and supports an insurance agency's culture. They explain how practically everything inside your office says something about your company and how this affects your employees and visitors.

In this episode of The Digital Broker podcast, Steve and Ryan discuss document management and what accounts for so much of its complexities. They provide solutions for your agency, including what you should and shouldn't store, how long to store documents, and how carriers can even take off some of the load for you.

In this episode of The Digital Broker podcast, Steve and Ryan interview Melissa Wilder, an experienced account manager. They seek her advice on operational excellence and how to keep the peace between account managers and producers within an insurance agency.

In this episode of The Digital Broker podcast, Steve and Ryan explain how insurance agencies can have a nightmare-free document management operation. They discuss the issues of document management systems, including how to compare a DMS software to your AMS offering and how to overcome operational challenges of implementation.