How Can Independent Insurance Agents Break Into the Global Market?

**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?

**Chris Ball** (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? Loss 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're 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 carriers 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 for I Protect Insurance and Financial Services based out of Huntsville, Alabama. And before we get started on 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)
I'm great Scott, how are you?

**Scott Howell** (1:49)
Best I've ever been Bradley, I've never been more excited for a podcast in the history of this show. And I've done 478 freaking episodes. I've interviewed everybody. But ladies and gentlemen, today on this podcast, I have the coolest guy in insurance on this show.
And I don't say that lightly because I know a whole lot of people in the insurance industry.

**Bradley Flowers** (2:14)
That is a big statement.

**Scott Howell** (2:15)
That is a huge step out. The guy I have on this show today is the coolest guy in insurance.
I was somewhere last week and I looked at my phone and he had sent me a, hey Scott, I love you. I'm headed over to the World Cup today.
And I looked at somebody and I said, do you see this guy right here on my phone?
That is, this is the coolest guy in insurance right here. He does all the cool shit. Now, let me say this.
Our mission on this podcast never changes. We are laser beam focused. It is to help you insurance agents any way we can. Today's episode needs to be entitled. You, agency owner in air parentheses, don't know shit about insurance because you think you do until you run across this guy. And he deals in global insurance. He deals in a realm or area of insurance that most local state farm agents in Evansville, Indiana. If you are a local state farm agent in Evansville, Indiana, and you've been in that same office for 25 years, you don't know shit about insurance. Get that in your head today, okay? If you thought you knew about insurance, I'm going to teach you today that you don't. So without further ado, I want to bring on the coolest guy in insurance. Ladies and gentlemen, he was originally from Cleveland, Ohio, and he currently resides in Vancouver, British Columbia. He is a graduate of St. John's University with a degree in risk management. He is unfortunately a hopeless Cleveland Browns fan. At Bradley and I being an Auburn fan, we understand that it is awful. We get that. Here comes a very unknown little factoid about him that everybody's ears are going to perk up about. The man was in the World Trade Center the day it got bombed. We're going to talk about that today. So several, several, well, excuse me, two years in the Canadian Army. He's been the CEO of five brands, three brokerages, two MGA's. He is currently the chairman of Wing WING, Worldwide Insurance Networking Group, which is a Switzerland domiciled organization comprised of 74 brokers with boots on the ground across 200 countries that collectively transacts $6.8 billion in Euros and annual, excuse me, I said dollars, billion Euros and annual premium on a global basis.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is my profound honor today to introduce to you my friend and the coolest guy in insurance, Mr. Chris Ball. How are you, Chris?