He Shoots and Scores Every Day with Mike Fusco, Episode #43

In this episode of The Power Producers Podcast, David Carothers and co-host Kyle Houck interview Michael Fusco, President of Fusco & Orsini Insurance Services. Mike talks about his strategies on charging fees and turning it into a revenue center. He also shares his knowledge and expertise in the insurance business and the systems that he’s using in his agency.

Episode Highlights:

• David introduces Mike Fusco. (1:30)
• Mike shares his background. (3:21)
• Mike mentions that he was 23 years old when he worked at Geico. (4:38)
• Mike shares that working at an independent agency taught him a lot about the industry and construction markets. (5:46)
• Mike mentions that when you work strictly on commission, you need to learn how to keep your customers satisfied. (6:08)
• Mike shares that his agency is a heavy fee-based agency. (6:49)
• David shares that for leasing, one of the biggest issues that you have is you go through all the time, energy, and paperwork to put somebody into a leasing company. (8:07)
• Mike mentions that since he started this agency in 2010, they changed the way they disclose fees in California. (9:09)
• Is Mike still in that construction industry? (9:40)
• What is Mike’s strategy around the fees? (11:33)
• Mike mentions that in the My Wave Connect, they charge as much as $1,300 a year, to have access to the portal. (13:18)
• David shares that small businesses are the less sophisticated ones, and need access to the portal. (16:06)
• Mike shares that most of the big shops have risk management services as part of their offering, and they don’t give it for free. They’re finding ways to generate revenue by providing risk management. (18:03)
• Mike thinks that insurance agents need to feel less guilty about charging clients for value-added services. (18:50)
• David thinks that it will never get fixed until we make a stand as an industry, that we’re not going to settle for anything less than what we’re worth. (23:29)
• Mike mentions that Trust Layer is an AI system that enables them to manage certificates and subcontractor certificates for our general contractors. (23:53)
• Mike shares that when you have higher sales and higher payrolls, your rates are going to be better. (34:45)
• What are the other systems that Mike’s agency is using, from automation? (38:10)
• Mike shares that he has eight pipelines for sales, five pipelines for service, and he has a couple of pipelines for renewal. (38:45)
• How much does Infusionsoft integrate with salesforce, at present? (45:44)
• Mike mentions that Epic is huge for accounting, downloading, and putting policies in tracking. (46:53)
• Mike shares that he’s starting a podcast, Team Business, which will have a team-based theme. (49:25)

Key Quotes:

• “You know, we’re still growing. Our month over month is looking good, we’re trending in the right direction in terms of our annual revenue.” – Mike Fusco
• “I look at it this way. If a customer doesn’t want to pay us for our services, then they don’t need to be our customers. You know, we put the fee right in front of them. They know exactly how much they’re paying us for their services. Sometimes I think they even value the services more when they know what they’re paying us, on an annual basis.” – Mike Fusco
• “We shoot ourselves in the foot as an industry because we’re professionals. We’re just like a CPA, we’re just like an attorney, we bring a value proposition that people need to have and we might not be a fit for everybody. But why are we so afraid to charge what we deserve to charge?” – Mike Fusco
• “We don’t have to earn every customer, but they need to know who we are and what we’re charging. They need to know what they’re gonna pay us and we’re not going to falter on that. I mean, that’s what we do.” – Mike Fusco
• “Clients are still in the lifecycle and still in the opportunity cycle of us landing on their desk and then buying policies from us. If we educate them properly, if we show them the value of using an independent broker, someone who they have to pay for their service, it might be more expensive. But this is what we’re going to do for you that buying online is not going to do for you.” – Mike Fusco
• “I love talking to anyone in our industry. I love the people that are involved in this business. There’s some really good stuff out there.” – Mike Fusco

Resources Mentioned:

• David Carothers LinkedIn
• Kyle Houck LinkedIn
• Florida Risk Partners
• The Extra 2 Minutes
• Michael Fusco LinkedIn
• Fusco & Orsini Insurance Services