The King of Real Estate Investors with James Jenkins, Episode #62

In this episode of The Power Producers Podcast, David Carothers and co-host Kyle Houck interview James Jenkins, CIC, CRM, CRIS, Chief Risk Officer at RiskWell. James talks about how he started in the insurance industry and his knowledge and expertise in the insurance business.

Episode Highlights:

• David introduces James Jenkins. (1:32)
• James mentions that starting an insurance agency from scratch with no industry experience is completely irresponsible. (7:43)
• James mentions that from a technology and client experience perspective, everything that the carrier did was intentional. (12:16)
• James thinks that a lot of independent agents struggle with technology’s evolution. (12:50)
• James shares one of the hardest transitions for him was going from being a good insurance agent and a good salesman to being a good business owner. (16:24)
• In James’ opinion, the transition has not been the easiest. Not until almost a year into running the independent agency did he have a great relationship with his CPA and bookkeeper. (16:37)
• James shares that everything he does in his business is 100% P&C insurance and it has given him a big advantage in how he works. It has allowed him to have channel partners that are life only and health only agents. (17:29)
• James mentions that there’s a lot of benefit to being able to focus and do a small number of tasks at a high level. (17:52)
• James mentions that he was fortunate enough to be able to sell the previous agency. Therefore, he had an infusion of capital at the beginning. (22:53)
• James shares the most insane 8 months of his life. (24:28)

Tweetable Quotes:

• “One of the biggest advantages in the captive world is they take so many things off of your plate that allows you to focus on what really matters such as prospecting and closing deals.” – James Jenkins
• “Having that foresight on the front end to say, who are we going to be and what are we going to focus our effort on. In the captive world, everybody’s trying to do everything. Nobody turns away any prospect they quote because they don’t know any better.” – James Jenkins
• “I encourage you to figure out what you want your focus to be. Who do you want to be? You can’t be everything to everybody. So if you’re going to be great at anything, you have to stop doing some things.” – James Jenkins

Resources Mentioned:

• David Carothers LinkedIn
• Kyle Houck LinkedIn
• Florida Risk Partners
• The Extra 2 Minutes
• James Jenkins LinkedIn
• RiskWell