Fireworks Show Accident

**Scott Howell** (0:01)
What do you feel like insurance agents need to do in terms of branding themselves, their agencies, the carriers they represent?

**Bradley Flowers** (0:08)
When you are marketing something you're not in control of, you're not in control.

**Scott Howell** (0:13)
The very last thing I do, I get agreement from them, and then I end the call with making damn sure whatever I say I'm going to do gets done.

**Bradley Flowers** (0:25)
How many hours did your team spend last week on policy reviews, quote comparisons, lost run extractions? Now multiply that by what your producers cost per hour. That's the number that OutMarket eliminates. The reason that I love Ascend is they are the only vendor focused on helping agents automate all of their manual finances and accounting practices, which is really the boring stuff, but that's really where the rubber meets the road in terms of profitability to your agency.

**Scott Howell** (0:51)
You know, we're going to write business with the carrier that make it easy for us to write business with.

**Bradley Flowers** (0:57)
If the conditions have to be right for you to succeed, your success is conditional. It's not real success.

**Scott Howell** (1:03)
Play like champions, man. Here we go.
Insurance agents from around the world, welcome to The Insurance Guys Podcast. My name is Scott Howell, your fearless host and leader, insurance agency owner and insurance evangelist and I protect insurance and financial services based out of Huntsville, Alabama. And before we get started in today's episode, please help me welcome, he is a six foot three sophomore from Mobile, Alabama. Parade first team, all American rivals, five star recruit. He is a fantastic insurance agent and a great American. Ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together and welcome the incomparable Mr. Bradley Flowers. How are you Bradley?

**Bradley Flowers** (1:48)
Fantastic, Scott. What about you?

**Scott Howell** (1:49)
Best I've ever been. I am in Mobile, Alabama, folks, and it is 832 degrees outside. I want to make a big announcement this morning.

**Bradley Flowers** (1:59)
You have to chew the air. It's so hot here.

**Scott Howell** (2:02)
Absolutely. It is like getting in your shower with it turned on about, you know, 110 degrees.

**Bradley Flowers** (2:07)
Is it more humid here than it is where you live?

**Scott Howell** (2:10)
I'd say July, August is.

**Bradley Flowers** (2:12)
About 10% more humid, something like that.

**Clinton Orr** (2:14)
Yeah. Yeah.

**Scott Howell** (2:15)
Guys, I got a big announcement to make today. My podcast co-host, Bradley Flowers, has hired me to come on board and start the new, brand new, spanking new Portal Real Estate Downtown Mobile Edition.
We're going to be selling commercial real estate. So what we've done is Bradley has asked me to come on board. He has leased out the other half of the building here downstairs. I'm going to have the Portal Real Estate office in there.

**Bradley Flowers** (2:47)
It's a division of Death Machine Insurance.

**Scott Howell** (2:51)
This side will just be insurance. That side will be real estate. Gotcha. And, you know, I'm looking forward to it. I appreciate all of your guidance and help in getting it set up. We are going to move the podcast studio my side of the real estate office.
So, we'll probably have that up and running by September.

**Bradley Flowers** (3:11)
That will be about the time we get the permit.

**Scott Howell** (3:13)
About the time we get the permit. How long have you been working on that permit?

**Bradley Flowers** (3:17)
I have paid three rent payments on a vacant building because the city of Mobile cannot issue a permit. And all I'm literally doing is putting up three walls. That's it. Three walls. In a building I don't own. Interior. No exterior.

**Scott Howell** (3:31)
They just won't come over here and even look at it.

**Bradley Flowers** (3:35)
It's bureaucracy, man. I was actually talking with Cam Marston about it last night and he was like, why don't you call the mayor? Both of us are friends with the mayor. I was like, I'm not going to ask for a favor six months into a mayorship, but I'm definitely going to tell him after the fact.
It's so bureaucracy frustrates the crap out of me and lack of efficiency.

**Scott Howell** (3:54)
Is it just your paper sitting on the desk somewhere waiting to get processed?

**Bradley Flowers** (3:59)
Yeah, it's that. Every time we do, we had to get a mechanical survey done on the HVAC, even though we're not touching the HVAC.
Basically, what that does is it says that the HVAC can service the building based on the average amount of people that are going to be in there. Well, the building used to be a gym, and an office is rated for less people than a gym. So, if you just look at it objectively, you're like, okay, there's not going to be any issues here, but we still had to pay $2,500 to get that done. And my contractor was like, dude, I could have been done a month ago. Three walls. So, I paid three rent payments on a vacant building. And I just go in there every day and just kind of hang out. Like, just one day.