Unbankable with Alex Shvarts

Welcome to Unbankable, the podcast for entrepreneurs who won't take no for an answer. I'm Alex Schwarz and today we're talking about protection. Not just any protection, but smart insurance that serves your business instead of draining your cash flow. Very important for all entrepreneurs because here's the truth. You can't build an empire if one lawsuit can destroy everything you work for. Let's dive in. Today I'm joined by Ryan Bronner, hospitality insurance consultant at Plastridge Insurance. Ryan specializes in protecting restaurants, bars, breweries, hotels, entertainment. Basically, the businesses that keep our communities alive. What makes Ryan different? He doesn't just sell policies. He helps business owners understand the real risk they face every day. And here's why this matters to our unbankable audience. Hospitality businesses are often considered high risk by traditional insurers. Just like banks say no to funding, insurance companies often say no to proper coverage. Ryan's here to share how you can protect your business without breaking the bank. Welcome, Ryan. Thank you for joining me today. Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure. It's great. We're going to talk about insurance. We're talking about we're going to talk about sales because you're you're a salesman at the end of the day also, right? Yes. Um, but let's start with something really, really important. I know that you hear no a lot, right? No, this policy is too expensive. No, I don't need insurance. No, I'm going to go shop around. What's the last no you heard? Uh, every day I I hear a no. So, last no I heard was no, it's too expensive. No, it's too expensive. And how do you overcome no, it's too expensive. I think in sales, uh, every no you hear, closer to a yes, you'll get. So, um, you're going to, you got to understand, become numb to the word no. And just know that it's going to lead you to a yes. I like that. I like that. So, look, this is not this is very rare, right? Because you're from Hawaii. I'd say raised, but we moved when I was a little kid, but frequent Hawaii. I've I've never met too many people from besides you and Obama, I've never met too many people from Hawaii. But um like and I've never met a salesman from Hawaii. Right. Okay. Like you know when I think about people from Hawaii, I think about happy people that are just enjoy life. They have those things around their neck. What are they called? The puka shells. Maybe the puka shells. Right. And um Don Ho. Do you have a Don Ho record? I don't. My father love Don. I want a Don Ho record from you. All right. Very cool. So, and a little bit more about Ryan. I was in a golf tournament, right? And um we needed a fill in so we could ensure we would win. And uh my buddy Justin brought in Ryan. And Ryan is an incredible golfer. He saved our butt and we did take second. He was I mean he promised me first, but we wound up taking second spot. But I I really enjoyed the day with with Ryan and we got to talk about, you know, business, right? And that's what we're here for. So, look, I do this to help entrepreneurs, business owners succeed, avoid the mistakes that we might have made and and guide them and and maybe give them a shortcut. All right. So, Ryan, what is the biggest insurance mistake you see hospitality business owners make and how much does it typically cost them? Big question. So um taking a step back. So biggest mistake most hospitality operators do when it comes to insurance is cut corners um not have a big enough budget or have an understanding on what that means uh in terms of their overall risk management. So what we want to try to do up front is educate them on all the exposures for their business and then we talk and try to backfill that in with a discussion on coverages and how to protect them so they can sleep at night not have to worry about the risk. Um so when they come in leading with price typically that's where they fall short right away. So, they have a budget in their head, probably from a buddy that's in the business or someone they've talked to. So, they come in with a fixed number, not really understanding what their business needs. Um, so they're coming in backwards. And it's probably with a lot of businesses. That's a really good point. Um, yeah. And and it's it's not just for insurance. You're either selling a product or you're on sale. Okay. Very very simple, right? So people are either going to buy something because they want it and you're selling a product they want and the value behind it and the importance or you're selling something that's on sale, right? If it's on sale, not a good thing. So insurance can't be on sale. I know from firsthand. I've I've experienced losses in my life and in business fires. We had a fire in one business many many years ago and and we didn't have the right coverage. Actually a couple of months before we said, you know, we're paying for insurance. Let's cut back. And then we had a fire. A guy that worked for us left a cigarette. And you know, it's crazy. When the firemen came and the marshalss, they said, "Oh, it started here." And they they could just like tell like where it started, how it went up. And uh we knew that the guy smoked a cigarette. I think it was legal to smoke back then in offices when this happened. But and we we end up taking a loss, right? So I think it is important. So let's go let's go to it's a fundamental especially in hospitality restaurants and hotels and bars and venues like you got to have good insurance right so what do you tell right away a business owner when they're ready to open up their establishment what what do they need to make as a checklist to make sure they have the right insurance sure Um, so we start typically with their lease. Their lease is going to require certain coverages that they have to have. If they have any lending requirements as well on their assets or equipment, a loss payee, we have to look at that as well. So, we review a lot of the stuff that they're told what to have. Um, but their most important one is probably their operational liability and that'll cover them for what they do. So, could be a strip club, could be a restaurant, could be an entertainment venue like food poisoning. It's going to cover them for food poisoning depending on their exposure for their operations. Uh, we'll tell them, okay, your general liability is going to be your most important because it's going to cover your overall business risk. Um, right? And that's probably going to be your more frequent type of claims that you're going to get. And as business owners, they say, "Well, we won't have claims cuz we do business the right way." Yeah, I hope so. And in Florida especially, you just know that it's a very frivolous state, so you get a lot of unwarranted claims thrown at you. It doesn't defend you from any claims from third party or even employees. You can be doing all the right things. You want to have coverage to defend you just to make sure they have your back. Um, but overall the risk management needs to start with the liability exposures of that business. It should be a b part of their budget plan when they're opening a business or operating a business. What is insurance? It's just as important as paying your rent. I don't know if people really like insurance agents. People don't really like insurance until they have to collect the payment from the insurance company. That that's the reality, right? Everybody feels like, "Oh, my insurance is too much. I'm paying too much." until [ __ ] happens, right? And you're very articulate and you know, you you present yourself really well and with confidence and and an insurance broker should do that, right? Um, how do you get past the money issue? Okay, this this policy is not going to be cheap. Sure. And that's not what they want to hear, right? So, how do you get past that to get them to see the value of it and that you're the right fit, that you're the right insurance agent, that you're the right salesperson that they need to deal with? Good question. So, this morning I had a call with a guy that not a client of mine, someone that he's actually reached out to me for for years, for two years. He owns a number of hospitality establishments down here in Miami. uh he's loved his broker, had a great relationship. So I said, "Just leave it there." You know, I don't want to break up a good home there, right? So he calls me and he hates insurance. And he tells me that every time he calls me, but I'm like, "Why are you calling me all the time?" And he goes, "Cuz I trust you." I'm like, "Okay." I'm like, "Well, that's that's a win for me." Okay. I keep that in my back pocket. But he again this morning says, "I hate insurance. You know, I hate insurance. for me to call you means that's important. I said I appreciate it and of course you know it gives me an opportunity to try to sell myself a little bit. So I said at the end of the day I said let's do this. It's been a couple years for us to take the next step together like a relationship. I said we need to get this moving along and for me to take the next step and keep on giving you advice is for us to start working together. You need to look at me as a trusted partner, which I feel like you've you have during these last few years. Where else are you call you call me for advice. I don't charge by the hour. I make commissions like any salesperson does. So I I make money in commissions. And in order for me to do that, we really I need to service your accounts. And so we're now at a point where he's like, Ryan, let's go. It's been a couple years. I've built trust with this guy from zero to wherever it's at. enough for him to to switch over. So, it allows me a close the deal today. I I think so. Right. So, it was a phone call, but I'm going to meet with him and and uh that's the next step. You should meet with him today. You dressed right. You're looking good. I think Yeah, I I feel good. So, do you dress up to meet your clients? I try. Yeah. For guys, I try to dress a little bit nicer. For girls, I you know, got to look a little I don't know. Like, I think I think sex sells in in sales. insurance in insurance and any sales. Interesting. Yeah. So, sometimes that's in the back of your head. I think every salesperson has that. Um, I sense a little middleage crisis going on here. A lot of middle age crisis. A lot of middle-aged crisis. Okay. All right. Let's be honest. Well, good luck to you. I hope that um you do um uh sign up with this client today because it does sound like for years he's been calling you for some reason, right? Yeah. Yeah. And and this is with any conversation in sales. I I heard this I stole this line, but it it it it makes sense in sales because I've lost a lot of deals where they said this broker or this presentation's cheaper than yours. And at the end of the day, you always want to get the last look, but sometimes it does come down to price. The question you want to throw back to them is, why do you think it's cheaper? And then they start validating why it's cheaper. And it kind of disvalues why they're choosing the cheaper option. And then they start saying, "Okay, maybe you are more expensive because you're giving us better coverage, right? Better quality, better service." And so then they start validating why maybe you are a little bit higher. Um, so then they start Yeah. So, it goes back to sales where sometimes you need to just shut up and let the customer talk and listen and hear what they have to say, right? And insurance is a hard sell. It's not an easy sell, right? No. It's like a dentist trying to sell you to come in more frequently during the day. Exactly. Let's go to the worst case scenario, right? You got a restaurant calls you up. They just had a kitchen fire. Walk us through what should happen in the first 24 hours. You know, sometimes people are even afraid to call their insurance company when they have a loss. Like, oh, if I call my insurance company, my my rates are going to go up, right? Like, but that's what you have insurance for in the first place. Yeah, they might go up, but So, what should if somebody experiences a loss in their business that's covered by insurance? What should the 24 hours uh look like? The first 24 hours. First, try to mitigate the loss, right? So, if something's happening, try to protect your assets or anything from further damage. Um, document, record what caused the incident. Um, and then reach out and and connect with either your insurance representative or sometimes directly to the carrier. Um, so if it's like a employee that gets hurt, a lot of workers comp carriers want wants the employer to report that directly to them right away so they can jump on it and try to mitigate further injury. uh or or kind of direct them on on where to go just to make sure that they get seen right away. But and if they don't know, they can also call you and say, "Hey, what do I what do I do here? I just they're probably due anyway, right? They reach out to All my clients have my cell phone number. Um text me, call me, you know, uh that's the quickest way to at least for you to guide them. You need to call this." Yeah. We're not going to be able to to pay them money out of pocket, you know, but we're going to help uh get them to the most efficient way to get uh their loss. um handled uh and that and that's really what they need to do. I know that you work with a lot of businesses that um banks often won't touch. Right. Uh yes. Right. How do you evaluate risk differently than traditional insurers? So as a broker we we have multiple sources on where to go. Uh carriers work differently. Sometimes they look at P&Ls, uh, which which traditional lending will will look at as well and review. Some of these restaurants, to be honest with you, just work, uh, cash only or there's a lot of money off the books, right? Uh, we can probably think about some of these hospitality exposures that run businesses like that. Um, so we need to have some sort your liability exposure. Is your are your policies tied to revenue? So that's what I'll say. So the liability just so you know most businesses not just hospitality but most businesses the liability is tied to the volume or the number of sales. Okay? Because that lets the carrier know how big is this risk or exposure and then how can we price it and then most of those policies are audited every year. um even more so since CO so prior to CO a lot of the numbers were kind of in line and and um a lot of revenues were kind of flat but CO kind of disrupted our industry a little bit uh because sales were dropped and then all of a sudden spiked especially here in Florida. Sure. Um so carriers move to almost a mandatory audit after each year just to make sure that those sales numbers being uh reported or projected are actually uh in line. Okay, let's talk about liability. We hear that word thrown around a lot, right? What does that actually mean for a bar bar owner when someone gets hurt on their property? Like give me a real scenario like a life scenario. I'm sure you had some of them. So you don't have to name any names. No. Yeah. So leave the innocent liability is is like a uh a huge broad um exposure. So it can be anything from assault and battery. So, a fight. So, patrons at a bar, someone's fighting over a girl or what have you. Maybe you stepped on his foot wrong, a fight, bar owner kicks the patrons out and they continue that fight in the parking lot. It's on their space still. And so, they can get named in a lawsuit if someone gets sent in the hospital and they attorney up and then they get a suit brought against them because they they're claiming the bar owner overs served this patron and led to their activity of getting into a fight. So that's a pretty common exposure for bar owners. Restaurants are over serving alcohol and that's why people got into a fight. So it's it's an exposure on the I sue them for over serving our alcohol and putting me to sleep. Um like I think they served me too many drinks and I went right to sleep and didn't enjoy the night. So here's the thing. So somebody's always at fault for our own actions, right? And you don't even have to be at fault. You can just be accused for it. So the liability gives you protection against preolless lawsuits and that's the biggest exposure honestly down here is is a lot of these lawsuits might not stick. They're claiming because they think it's cheaper to get a early payout than go to court and they'll get that from these these carriers a lot of times. So it's a problem. It's drove up insurance costs down here. It's impacted our our business owners. They're paying higher premiums. Sure. But everywhere I mean everywhere people it's not just down here I think and insurance expenses is a lot everywhere. Let me ask you this question like so people get a policy let's say for $3 million for um somebody getting hurt and then they wind up getting sued for $5 million. So I also know that lawyers before taking on a lawsuit they're going to read the policy to see how much they going to go after. They look at which carrier you have. Are they more more likely to settle out of court? Because, you know, lawyers want to settle quick because they get a contingency, right? Right. So, it's a whole game, right? Um, but so, have you ever seen when somebody didn't have enough of coverage and wound up losing personal assets because of a lawsuit? So, it happens. Um, typically, um, typically you're going to have an entity that protects the business, right? And that's the reason for and and I'm not a lawyer lawyer, but I think that's a big reason why you try to create an LLC or a a corporation is to protect the business aside from your personal assets. Now, on the liability side, what we try to do up front is recommend coverage that meets or exceeds their revenues for the business. Um, so if your if your business is turning out 5 million a year, we want to see your liability at least meet those uh revenue thresholds. Yeah. Sometimes sometimes you might have a tenant like a Publix in a shopping plaza and because Publix is in that plaza and you have a small restaurant, Publix is demanding that all the tenants in that plaza carries 5 to10 million. Wow. Um why? Because um Publix will get thrown in um a lot of lawsuits because they're in the Yeah. Yeah. A big brain. and they might own the shopping plaza, you know, so they they're in the real estate game, too. So, there might be times where they're overinsured and they don't feel comfortable because if there is a lawsuit, you're right, the attorneys will say, "Oh, they got a $10 million policy. They're only doing $2 million a year in business. Maybe we can get more." Dude, you're like the happiest insurance broker I've ever met. I I got to tell you something. They're not all very happy, you know? like the pretty like the last car insurance guy we had was miserable miserable overcharged us miserable I'm not going to big brand he works for and then when we found insurance a lot cheaper he was angry at me I says I I did all this work shopping for you I'm like and you double the price right Ryan all right let's talk about business interruption insurance a lot of folks don't understand what that means and how important it is right so could you give us like a little 30 second crash course on business. I'll be quick. I don't want to put you to sleep. So, business interruption also important for business owners. Um, so if their business is shut down, it could be, let's say, maybe a hurricane came through and wiped out um and they're not able to keep um paying their rent or their employees or obviously a loss of revenue. The business interruption is going to help reimburse for typically either higher of expenses or their net revenue uh for their business. So helps keep um keeps money coming through the business so they can keep either paying their rent, employees expenses um or just keep that. Is it usually an expensive uh piece overall? No. So the property exposure and the business interruption is is typically not not the most expensive. Um down here it can be a little bit higher cost if you do want it to cover for exposures like hurricane or wind. So, I just want to say if you're getting value from this conversation, hit that subscribe button or leave a few comments or maybe you just want to know more about Hawaii and how to chase uh volcanoes. Um Ryan will give us some really really good input there, Ryan. That's good stuff. I mean, I'm going to keep going um with the insurance stuff and then I really want to get into the sales stuff cuz I I know you're an incredible salesman, but again, we'll get to that in a minute. So, let's talk cost. How should a small hospitality business budget for insurance and what's the difference between being cheap and being smart? I know you covered it a little bit, but I want a little more details. Okay. So, as as a rule of thumb for hospitality markets specifically, we say try to account for around two to two and a half% of of your sales to go towards insurance costs. Now, things can dictate that. It can be a little bit cheaper, can be a little bit more expensive. If I'm doing $5 million a year gross, my insurance is going to be 100 to$125,000 a month. A year, about 10,000 a month. If if you have all the right coverages, um you can I'm calling Geico, man. What's going on here? Yeah. So, there's a lot of risk that uh that percentage would be lower, but for hospitality risks, if you specialize in hospitality, that's your specialty. Yeah. And and really the hospitality costs start driving up. Once the liquor sales crosses over 30 to 50% of total sales, that's when you're going to see those numbers uh creep. And just a quick question, that's in dollars, right? 30 to 50% in gross sales of dollars. It's really weird because that's not really accurate. Uh because like you know in Miami if you go to a a restaurant and you know you order a bottle of champagne it's going to cost more than the actual dinner but you had one bottle. Is that really fair? That's pretty unfair. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. What's one bottle for six people? But the bottle costs more than your dinner cost, right? Cuz they rip you off on the bottles here in Miami. Probably everywhere. Um All right. So what's the difference between being cheap and being smart? So being cheap versus smart is being cheap is you're cutting costs, okay? Or you're cutting coverages to fit it into a cost. So when you're being cheap, uh you're sacrificing a lot of your coverages. That's going to protect you as a business owner. So being smart is is looking at coverage first, uh in my opinion. So the business owners that have been in business uh are expanding in building an empire. um they look at protection and coverage first. They know cost will follow and there's always a cost of doing business. They understand that. Um so they're willing to pay to make sure that they're able to uh stay in business. Is being an insurance broker an agent like a dying career? Like I don't hear young people say, "Oh, I'm going to be an insurance broker and agent." Um, in fact, every insurance, everybody I met in insurance is probably over the age of 40. Like, I don't meet 20 year olds in insurance anymore. Why is that? Like, is it is it's a good career, right? You make a good living, I'm sure. I mean, I mean, just watching how you think of insurance, it's not a sexy it's not a sexy career that you think of, but you can make money in insurance, right? You can make a good living. Uh, for sure, but it still involves hard work ethic, of course, being uh a people person. You got to be able to talk, communicate. Um, and then not not being afraid of hearing the word no. What's your closing ratio? Um, out of every hundred people you talk to. If if I meet someone, I would say I'm going to close them 50% of the time. 50% of the time. Wow. And you usually meet them or most of the time you meet your your potential customers? this point, you know, early on I it was people that I am trying to just call, cold call on the phone, but at this point it's it's referrals. So people call you just Yeah. knowing that I'm getting introduced in a warm manner. And you have time to go meet them? I try to make time. I think I mean you're at the golf course. I I Well, maybe I'll meet them at the golf course. Oh, yeah. Very cool. Yeah, it's a Yeah. How was my golf by the way? Uh from I heard a rumor that you were horrible, but it was way better than that. Well, thank you. That's very kind of you cuz I am horrible. You know, um your putting is amazing. Well, yeah. Amazing. What do you call when you first have to hit the ball far? When you just get to a hole, what do you call it? Teeing off, driving the ball. Yeah. The I must have missed 70 times of the time. I couldn't even hit the ball. I mean, I I just kept missing it. But it was a lot of fun. Were you Were you nervous? No, not nervous. Okay. I just um there's technique. I mean, golf is like sales. It needs a lot of training and patience and intuitiveness and paying attention and you have to keep your the ball your eyes on the ball before you hit it. Like, you can't take your eyes off the ball. It's just not going to go anywhere. But anyway, Ryan, so let me ask you this. A lot of people make a mistake and they're like, "Things are okay or money's really tight and they cancel insurance." Happens all the time and then they got to go get it back. What happens? Like people really need to pay attention to what Ryan is going to say now. You cancel your insurance or you let your insurance This isn't like your car insurance. What happens when you try to go get your insurance back? Yeah. So, well, the problem is uh and this is almost uh it's almost like bad luck or karma. So, clients are always trying to cut costs. A lot of times uh it results in them eliminating coverages. Um, and there's examples where a client might have dropped their property policy and then they had a fire. Okay? Uh, and I can, you know, use a a current client of mine right now that um, without that coverage, there's there's nothing that they're getting reimbursed for. Okay? So, that that loss is fully now self-insured. And a lot of times that risk becomes too big for that business to even stay in business. So, not they they're not repairing and rebuilding, they're closing and they're eating that loss and they probably still have a lease uh and payments uh to pay on their lease. And so now they're really upside down. So before you lapse coverage or cancel it, really understand the impact. Um I hate um seeing when someone electively declines coverage that I know that they will probably need to use. Okay. So, we have them sign waiverss because that conversation is always lost in translation at the time of a claim. They say, "I never wanted this this canled or I thought I had coverage." Well, unfortunately, no. Here's the email. Here's the text message. And here's the letter that you signed because otherwise, you know, that you waved or declined coverage. So, then I'm off the hook for it. Um, so it's it's almost when you decline coverage that you think you might need for for business, it it almost it almost is followed with bad karma. So if I'm shopping for hospitality insurance, right, what questions should I ask a broker or an agent? So I would ask um are do you have any special markets that are niche for my industry or company? Okay. So, it might be, let's say you're a bar owner, uh, and you you don't do a lot of food sales and it's all high liquor or or, uh, alcohol sales. What carriers do you have access to that will cater to my business? I'm high liquor. I know a lot of carriers probably won't insure me. Sounds like you really need to explain to the agent what your business is about, right? It needs to start there, right? Okay. I'm opening a a restaurant. Don't hide it because you want to have the right insurance so that you know you don't get screwed later. So it sounds like you got to first thing is when you're speaking about insurance explain what you're going to do in your business. Correct. Yeah. Right. Okay. So be yeah be transparent. Um be prepared to discuss financials. Okay. What I mean by that is if it's a new business projected sales. So um let's look at a proforma. I'm assuming if you you've done that as a good business owner you should have some sort of proforma. just looking at a three, fiveyear projection. Let's see where you see yourself from year one to year five. Okay, let's match you then with a carrier that wants to grow with you, understand your business and your exposures, and let's get you insured the right way. And having said that, what's the difference going to you or just going into these online website forms and just filling them out and getting, you know, roocalls? Like what? Cuz a lot of times doing that online, you might get a a cheaper, better quote. Well, cheaper quote, not necessarily better. Um, what's that? What would you say to that person? So, um, at the end of the day, I'm a broker, so we'll we'll shop out. What that means is we'll shop out carriers for you, multip multiple carriers. Uh we try to think that we have all markets, access to every market and opportunity out there. So, we'll do a lot of the work for you. Um you just have to deal with one person versus multiple companies, representatives calling you. No one has time to allocate for insurance uh multiple hours a day, let alone multiple times during the year. So find the right business partner that you want to partner up with to handle all your risk management. Um trust them to do their job and then let them do all the hard work. Shop for the right carriers, underwrite you the right way. Um just be transparent. Trust your trust your partner. Look at them as a true business partner. When should a business walk away from an insurance carrier? What are the red flags? When should I, you know, what do I need to look for? Say, you know what? Maybe this isn't a good insurance company for and nothing happened. I don't have a claim. Yeah. My toilet didn't get clogged. Like when should like people say, you know what, maybe I should walk away and and get a new insurance carrier. Yeah. Carriers. Do you do that? Do you call your customers and say, "Hey, I think we need to switch carriers." A lot of times we try to get in front of that. So, it's usually the financial strength. So, we want to look at the carrier. Are they financially solvent to pay a claim? Mhm. Uh if they are, are they how's the reviews? Do they pay claims well or do they fight and try not to pay? Mhm. Of course, insurance is is a business and so they look at their bottom line, too, but do they really fight every claim? Are they able to try to support my business? So, you can look at reviews. Um everything's online now. It's very accessible and easy. Um but these are things that you want to look at before you flags is are they paying are they paying quick? Are they fighting claims and the reviews? Right. Reviews and financial strength. So, will they be around? How does average business owner understand financial strength of an insurance company? Yeah. So, there's rating agencies out there that provide um a financial strength rating. Typically, it's like a it's like a grading scale. A is good, D is bad. Okay. So, it's on most contracts right away. If not, what do you mean on most contracts? So the contract when you get your policy you'll you'll have it or even on the quote when you review the quote from say we are rated it'll it'll show a financial strength rating on there and if it's not it's a very simple question just ask and then your agent or or um broker should be able to tell you right away. Very simple. We in my agency uh we only deal with highly rated financial strength companies. Um we don't market substandard carriers mostly because a lot of lenders require a certain minimum threshold for our financial strength. Um so we just we we tend not to and stay away from from companies that are substandard. How did you get into this? How did you become an insurance broker? I wanted to be a stock broker. Okay. In college you don't count too well or what? No. So my my senior year in college 911 happened. Where'd you go to school? Illinois State back in up in Illinois. Um, wow. You and Obama, you guys both went to both from Hawaii and both went to school in Illinois, right? Yeah. Yeah. Followed followed his footsteps. You did, huh? You going to run for politics one day? No. My my my past prevents me from doing that. Uh, so arson.

So, my senior year 911 happened. um really crushed the financial markets and so I just I just thought it was an uphill battle. I I really wanted to go work on Wall Street New York and it was not a very inviting time to try to start a career in New York. Uh when 9/11 happened, the towers just came down and the markets were up in a frenzy. So naturally, I wanted to stay in some sort of financial background in sales. I interned with a life and health company. Um had some success, made some money. Um brought into a like a multi-lane carrier kind of like a State Farm. Um and so I did that for the next 10 years and and when I moved to Florida, it was it was an opportunity to work with a broker and try to focus and and have a niche market. Um and that's where I'm at today and and I love it. It's it's it's a good career. It's It sounds like you have some time on your hands to enjoy life, right? Balance balance is is very important. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And so as a So even though you work for a big agency, right? It is a big agency and successfully and you're pretty successful. word has it. But the the question is um you're still in sales and there's a lot especially I mean now you have a book of clients and you have a reputation but at some point um you didn't and how did you were you able to find were we always about balance work life balance not always I think you have to you have to find time to focus on your business and grow it um I think every successful business person still needs to revisit that balance and find and make time to focus on their business. Um, recently I've I've looked in the mirror and said, "You need to do this better." And, uh, and there's nothing wrong with that. You need to sharpen your pencil and go back to work at times. Um, but you need to focus on growing your business. If it's sales, um, my industry, it means make sure that you allocate time for prospecting, um, meeting new people, staying involved in the community. Um, I think the natural meetings with with people and not just cold calling and sales calls, it it it creates um an easier transition to working with Been to motivational seminars. Been to motivational seminars. Yeah, those are great. I think those give you a spark of energy and focus. Um, do you need that sometimes? You need somebody else to motivate you? Uh, I think it helps. Uh, I don't know if I need it, but I I welcome it. Yeah. Who's your favorite speaker? I listen to So, I listen to podcasts. I It's It's lately it's been a lot of You have to check if you're subscribed to mine, by the way. You know, I need to Yeah, I'm going to have to check tomorrow. Check tomorrow. Um, all right. So, who's your favorite? Um, I I like listening to Rogan, you know. um people with experiences that's not just business for me and they have more of a uh overall life experience and can talk and and just relate. Um that that motivates me. Um you know there's times would you go to a Tony Robbins seminar? I haven't. I would. You would? Yeah. I don't say no a lot. No. No. Okay. I just said it but I don't say no. That's good. How quick into the conversation with a potential client do you know this is going to close. You're gonna get the deal. Pretty quick. Probably. Yeah. Couple minutes. Couple of minutes. Yeah. They have to like me. I have to like them. If there's tension in in the room uh and I know that they don't want me there, I don't want to be there. You feel that, too? I'm not going to I'm not going to sell, you know, ice to an Eskimo there, you know. So, yeah. If they if they don't find a need, want want me to be there, I'm out. Okay. The funniest insurance claim you had from a hospitality business. The funniest one. Like something happened that like you never would have thought happened and people are getting sued. There's got to be some stories. Okay. So, this this didn't happen here in Florida. It happened in my previous insurance life in Illinois. Um customer [ __ ] the floor. Okay. And somebody slipped and fell into it. Another customer came in and and it was dark in in the restroom. Yes. Hit hit their head not only on the wall on the toilet got knocked out. So employee comes in. Okay. This is all on the uh the loss report. Employee comes in, thinks someone passed out, [ __ ] themselves, and it wasn't their [ __ ] How do they know it wasn't their [ __ ] Well, that they DNAed the [ __ ] I don't understand. When the guy woke up, he he remembered what happened. He says, "I I saw shit." Uh I stepped in it, slipped and hit my head and and got knocked out. And then and he was actually he stayed he stayed unconscious with all the smell of [ __ ] around his face. I don't understand how he hit his head pretty hard. That's worse than ammonia. So he got knocked out. Um so anyway, it came back on the restaurant cafe owner at the time. It wasn't even a It was a cafe. Um, cafe owner has to report it to the insurance carrier. We go through the incident report. I'm like, "So, the guy [ __ ] his pants and not and passed out?" He goes, "No, he's he slipped in someone else's [ __ ] It wasn't cleaned up." I'm like, "So, they're coming after you because your employees did not clean up the [ __ ] quick enough." He goes, "Well, we didn't know about it." So, I'm like unfort I'm definitely paying attention right now to floors when I walk into a restroom in any place now cuz man, that's slippery as [ __ ] I don't want to wake up with [ __ ] on my head. I'm just telling you right now. Oh, that's that's that's a story. That's definitely a story. Yeah. Um Okay. I don't think you can do any better than that one, right? Yeah. Yeah. Any other like Okay, that's a just a I mean, it's a bad story. The guy hit his head, but Yeah. But um yeah, that's got to be the shittiest story I've ever heard about situation. A horror story in insurance company cuz you're a broker, you work for an agency and you are living from client to client and your reputation and a book and you you've got to maintain it, right? And um can you get huge doing what you're doing? I mean can I mean how many client? Well, actually you probably sign them up and if everything's good and you just reach out to them, they're going to stay your client. So, you could have a huge book, right? Yeah, you you you definitely can. Uh you need a team to help support the service for that book. Uh once you reach a certain threshold, you're going to want to make sure that you have the support behind just myself. I can't talk to every client. Um so, our hospitality division, we have five um five employees working. Um and our support staff is busy. Um I think they're overworked. they they'll be the first ones to tell you that. Um, but without the service, the key to any sales, especially those that you um get paid on annually, is to retain those clients. And so retention is is key. It's key, right? It costs so much. Like for Christmas, do you send them those things like happy holidays? What do you call those things again from Hawaii? Lays. It's called Lays. Yeah, Lays. The Lays. The little flowery thing. Lays, right? Yeah. You get laid when you get to Hawaii. Was Treasure Island. You remember Treasure Island? Fantasy Island. You remember Fantasy Island? The show. Was that Hawaii or not? I think it was shot probably in Hawaii. I don't know cuz they they look like they had Lays. Could be. Yeah. Yeah. Let's just go out there and say yes. Just Fantasy Island wasn't Hawaii. I've never been to Hawaii. It's got to be beautiful, right? Alex, you go back to Hawaii a lot. I was just there. You were there. You were telling me that you were going to go there. I was just there. It was uh we it Maui is one of my favorite places to go. It takes forever to get to. Sure. But when you're there uh it's it's I think it's faster to get to the moon now than get to Hawaii from here. Right. Yeah. Just the last question like if you had to give one piece of advice that you would give a hospitality owner most important piece of advice um to protect their business. Um trust trust your business partners. Okay. So, your business partner being your one one of them is your insurance broker. Um, fully be transparent on your business and exposures. Um, and be willing to just listen to advice. Doesn't mean you need to buy all the coverages. Sure. But hear it out. There's probably something you don't know. You might be enlightened by the coverage and you might actually um learn something from it. So, can you be overinsured? I think I think you can be overinsured in terms of paying too much. Okay. So, but there's never enough insurance, right? The coverage is there's there's so much coverage out there and everything is almost itemized, but there's a thing called being insurance poor. You don't want to be insurance poor. You don't want to be overbudgeting for insurance. It'll kill you. It's uh it's a fixed fixed expense. And uh at the end of the day, you're you're in business to make business. you need to have a a good margin. Uh insurance, that's why I say, you know, it shouldn't be more than two two and a half% of your overall revenues. Um know that that's kind of where uh you need to budget should come in less, but um you know, just make sure that best time to call a business owner about a a new prospect. Best time of the day to call a a new prospect. For me, hospitality is the morning, afternoon, and and evenings. They're busy. once their day gets going. A lot of the hospitality business owners um they're not great at managing their schedules. Um they're good at operations. Um but managing their schedules is tough. Get them in the morning when they're focused uh before they're distracted. Got it. Ryan, this has been a pleasure. I I thank you for coming on. I hope uh Thanks, Alex. Yeah. people listen. And uh look, I'm not an insurance, but I know it's super super important not being insurance poor and having the right coverage and having the right agent and having an agent that you know, look, they're going to make money on you. There's nothing wrong with that, right? But it's just making sure they get you the right deal, the right coverage, the right information. They're like Ryan. And I'm not endorsing Ryan in any way. I'm just saying that you want to someone like Ryan that can break things down, that can explain things and give you the options so you can make the right decision. Insurance is key in all types of businesses, hospitality or not. Thank you so much for coming on. It was a real pleasure. I can't wait to meet you on the golf course again. All right, my man. Let's go. Thank you. Thank you.