The Great Debate with Andy Mathisen and Jerry Conrey, Episode #203

In this episode of The Power Producers Podcast, David Carothers sits down with Andy Mathisen from Glovebox and Jerry Conrey, CEO of Conrey Insurance Brokers & Risk Managers. Andy and Jerry share their insights on one of the lively discussions on LinkedIn regarding the classification and operation of agencies.

Episode Highlights:

• Jerry and Andy share their insights from a recent LinkedIn discussion about agencies and how they are classified. (2:52)
• Jerry shares his background and how he got his own company back in 2002. (8:20)
• Andy explains that it is impossible to grow in a culture that is built on wanting to talk to every client. (13:24)
• Jerry shares his motivation to achieve and focus on EBITA as well as maximizing the numbers at his agency. (23:58)
• Jerry and Andy discuss why they think insurance careers are great. (30:27)
• Jerry explains that, at his agency, every producer has an account manager, and people are associated with producers through a team approach. (36:15)
• Jerry and Andy discuss people, operations, and how they impact an organization’s culture. (41:03)
• Jerry explains that you differentiate your agency by defining what differentiates you from everyone else. (46:55)
• Andy shares that different companies entail different mentalities, which require different operations, systems, processes, and staff. (49:54)
• Jerry shares that there are people in the industry that really share useful information, and you just have to find the right platform in order to be successful. (56:09) 
• Andy explains the new category that they have in the company called “client experience.” (58:40)

Tweetable Quotes:

• “I recognized in this business that you have to build and maintain, if I only focused on sales, too much would be going off at some point in time.” -Jerry Conrey
• “Who your people are is your culture, and how they communicate and how they work together and how they work within processes is what defines what your culture is.” – Jerry Conrey
• “Growth is different from retention. In order to grow, you have to retain, obviously, but you have to make sales to keep that growth.” – Andy Mathisen

Resources Mentioned:

• Jerry Conrey LinkedIn
• Andy Mathisen LinkedIn
• Conrey Insurance Brokers & Risk Managers
• Glovebox
• David Carothers
• Kyle Houck
• Florida Risk Partners
• The Extra 2 Minutes