Power Women in Insurance with Teresa Kitchens And Denisse Bravo, Episode #36

In this episode of The Power Producers Podcast, David Carothers and co-host Kyle Houck interviews Teresa Kitchens, Owner and Agent at Sterling Insurance Group and host of the Power Women In Insurance podcast, and Denisse Bravo, Owner and Vice President at Bravo Insurance Solutions. Teresa and Denisse discuss how they got into the insurance business and how they built their insurance agency. They also share their knowledge and expertise in the insurance world and the IAOA subgroup they have created.

Episode Highlights:

• David introduces Teresa Kitchens and Denisse Bravo. (1:33)
• Denisse shares her background and her career in the insurance industry. (2:25)
• Denisse shares that her best explanation about the Portuguese language is that the cadence of how they speak is almost like a song. (3:57)
• Kyle shares one thing that he finds interesting is that not only do people not intend on getting into the industry that we’ve been interviewing, but most of them have come from captive agencies. (4:25)
• In David’s opinion, it’s easier to execute when all of the boundaries, rules, and everything are in place, rather than creating all of the boundaries and all of the rules. (5:32)
• Teresa shares her background and her career in the insurance industry. (8:57)
• Teresa mentions that her dream is more on the business side than becoming an agent in a CSR platform type of model. (11:03)
• Teresa shares that as an advisor, they’re educating, teaching, and they’re capable of connecting with everyone, wherever they are. (11:47)
• David mentions his theory on things related to insurance and sales. (13:04)
• What does Denisse’s agency look like, and what kind of business does she write? (14:33)
• David thinks that if you’re a P&C agent and calling on business owners, you should have the buy-sell agreement conversation with them, immediately. (19:55)
• David hopes that this year, people will step back and make educated decisions, instead of looking at the price. (21:58)
• Denisse believes that they have some kind of a mass exodus, on the life and health side. (23:09)
• What does Teresa’s agency look like? (23:51)
• Teresa thinks that every agency owner gets to a point where they get into the business, bring in the revenue, and make it work. (25:56)
• Teresa shares that at this point, they’re in the growth process, they moved back, stopped, resituated for a bit, and now they’re at the point where they’re ready to escalate and move forward. (27:17)
• Teresa mentions that her biggest fear in life is letting people down. (29:35)
• Denisse shares a story about a client prospect that she fired yesterday. (29:54)
• David shares the conversation he had with a BMW car dealer. (30:43)
• What are Teresa and Denisse doing with their subgroup of IAOA? (34:15)
• Teresa explains how she met Denisse. (34:24)
• Teresa shares that she started a podcast called Power Women In Insurance. (35:38)
• What were the biggest challenges that Teresa and Denisse faced, and no holds barred? (38:09)
• Has David ever been asked to smile more? (48:04)
• David shares a story about a client/prospect who sent an utterly inappropriate attachment, to one of the ladies who worked with him. (49:02)
• Denisse mentions that women are exposed to certain pressures, that their counterparts are not. (53:03)
• Teresa mentions that sometimes, people take different advantages of a woman than they do, from a man. (54:14)
• Teresa shares a short background about their group. (57:30)
• Teresa thinks that positivity is one of the overall resounding things that their group is bringing to the table. (58:14)
• At this moment, how many members do Teresa and Denisse have in their group? (58:30)
• Denisse shares one thing that she loves about the women of IAOA is that they’re not pulling punches. (1:00:07)
• David thinks that collaboration is very significant. (1:01:11)
• Teresa shares that they need to make sure that everybody feels like they have a voice, and make everybody feel that their contribution is essential. (1:04:05)

Tweetable Quotes:

• “I loved being a teacher, I loved being a stay at home mom, and I love insurance. It’s really weird, but I got in on the back door and you know, I’ve been able to have a lot of fun in the process.” – Teresa Kitchens
• “Watching these women take off that have found their own careers in industry is inspiring. Hearing how they manage their families, hearing how they manage their teams, hearing how they have acquired their positions, and how they deal with the other people that worked for them and with them is something that I think a lot of women could benefit from.” – Teresa Kitchens
• “I’m going to hit that first question that you asked, what is the biggest problem? Okay, women are expected to work like they don’t have children, and mothers are supposed to act like they don’t work. In a nutshell, that’s what the difference is.” – Denisse Bravo
• “Women even sometimes think of women not necessarily as their boss, they think they can go on and talk about all their problems, your bestie, buddy, you know, we have to keep a little bit more of a distance because women are nurturing, women are caring, and sometimes people take that for granted, and people sometimes take different advantage of a woman than they do, from a man.” – Teresa Kitchens

Resources Mentioned:

• David Carothers LinkedIn
• Kyle Houck LinkedIn
• Florida Risk Partners
• The Extra 2 Minutes
• Teresa Kitchens LinkedIn
• Sterling Insurance Group
• Denisse Bravo LinkedIn
• Bravo Insurance Solutions
• Power Women In Insurance Podcast
• The Women Of IAOA Facebook Group
• Insurance Agency Owners Alliance