BIS Benefits: Revolutionizing Group Health & Business Insurance through people, core values, and an award-winning workplace

Andre Sindate: 00:00:01

Welcome, everybody, to another edition of ATL alts.

Andre Sindate: 00:00:04

This is your host, Andre Sindate.

Andre Sindate: 00:00:07

I am joined today by Drew Holley with BIS Benefits.

Andre Sindate: 00:00:12

Drew, we're going to jump into a lot today, but I'd like to welcome you first and foremost to ATL Alts.

Drew Holley: 00:00:18

Thank you for having me.

Andre Sindate: 00:00:20

Yeah, it's glad to have you.

Andre Sindate: 00:00:22

I know we got introduced a few weeks ago and I hope you've been well since then.

Andre Sindate: 00:00:27

You know, I wanted to have you on ATL Alts because I thought, you know, the conversation around employee benefits and health insurance and the cost of insurance is clearly top of mind for a lot of business owners.

Andre Sindate: 00:00:39

You know, we all are in renewal season.

Andre Sindate: 00:00:43

It's a busy time for you.

Andre Sindate: 00:00:44

So I appreciate you taking half an hour, 45 minutes to talk to us.

Andre Sindate: 00:00:49

But I always like to start these conversations with my guests by asking them the same question, and that is tell us about your backstory.

Drew Holley: 00:00:59

Sure.

Drew Holley: 00:00:59

Yeah.

Drew Holley: 00:01:00

Great question.

Drew Holley: 00:01:00

Loaded question.

Drew Holley: 00:01:01

Yeah.

Drew Holley: 00:01:03

You know, to use the Seinfeld quote, how quickly do you want to go through, you know, someone's life with a yada, yada, yada?

Andre Sindate: 00:01:09

Yeah, yeah.

Drew Holley: 00:01:10

You know, give them the context.

Drew Holley: 00:01:11

We have, you know, more than five minutes.

Drew Holley: 00:01:14

I'll just share.

Drew Holley: 00:01:15

I was the baby of five.

Drew Holley: 00:01:16

We called them the original five from my mom and dad, born in Champaign, Illinois.

Drew Holley: 00:01:22

And then we moved to Burlington, kind of Burlington, North Carolina, suburb area.

Drew Holley: 00:01:28

You know, lived there until I was nine years old.

Drew Holley: 00:01:31

My dad was a small town Protestant preacher.

Drew Holley: 00:01:35

He was also a chaplain in the military.

Drew Holley: 00:01:38

So he traveled probably every four to five years with a work stop.

Drew Holley: 00:01:45

But given that I was the fifth in line later they had my baby sister, so there's actually six of us, but she was 13, 13 years younger than me.

Drew Holley: 00:01:55

They had a kind of in the later years, so it was a blessing.

Andre Sindate: 00:02:01

Sure.

Drew Holley: 00:02:01

That kind of kicked me out of the baby order.

Andre Sindate: 00:02:04

Yeah, yeah.

Drew Holley: 00:02:04

But so we ended up settling in a small town called Flintstone, Georgia.

Drew Holley: 00:02:10

And that's where my parents retired.

Drew Holley: 00:02:12

It's as small as it sounds, but it's with the growth of Chattanooga, Tennessee, northwest Georgia, you know, Flintstones been put a little more on the map.

Drew Holley: 00:02:21

If you're listening and you're in the Georgia area, you've probably heard of Ringgold.

Drew Holley: 00:02:24

So my parents retired on a small farm.

Drew Holley: 00:02:28

I was raised homeschooled.

Drew Holley: 00:02:31

u know, my parents started in: 1981

Drew Holley: 00:02:34

We were kind of the weirdo families doing homeschool.

Drew Holley: 00:02:37

But what that gave me, I found later in my life and career is outside the box thinking, which I think is Very important, especially in insurance, because insurance tends to be a stale industry and not embracing technology or change.

Drew Holley: 00:02:54

But I was always a kid who loved competition, loved sports, was pretty much in sports year round.

Drew Holley: 00:03:01

Basketball, soccer, baseball were my kind of three main sports on a team.

Drew Holley: 00:03:05

And.

Drew Holley: 00:03:06

But if I had a ball, I was doing it.

Drew Holley: 00:03:07

Ping pong.

Drew Holley: 00:03:08

Yeah.

Drew Holley: 00:03:09

You know, badminton with the kids, whatever.

Drew Holley: 00:03:12

And, you know, we didn't have a lot of money growing up, but we had all our needs.

Drew Holley: 00:03:17

So how I got into the insurance industry or sales probably predates.

Drew Holley: 00:03:22

We used to sell Vidalia onions to pay for basketball shoes.

Drew Holley: 00:03:26

And I found out, I guess I was fearless and would knock on doors and, you know, sell the most onions.

Drew Holley: 00:03:31

Why?

Drew Holley: 00:03:31

Because it was competition and that would pay for our Nike shoes.

Drew Holley: 00:03:36

And that would start in middle school, because that was the first time I went to public school.

Drew Holley: 00:03:39

So quite a transition from going homeschool to middle school in seventh grade.

Drew Holley: 00:03:44

But I adapted and survived, thankfully.

Drew Holley: 00:03:47

And about the time when I got to high school, knowing I was going to have to pay my way through school, teachers were big on, hey, you got to have the HOPE scholarship.

Drew Holley: 00:03:55

Got to have the HOPE scholarship.

Drew Holley: 00:03:56

And for the HOPE to pay your tuition, you got to go to a Georgia school.

Drew Holley: 00:04:00

And we grew up Braves fans, but we were not big college football fans.

Drew Holley: 00:04:05

So I kind of had no.

Drew Holley: 00:04:06

I love watching college football now, but we had no, you know, flag of UGA or Alabama or Tennessee.

Drew Holley: 00:04:15

All my buddies in Northwest Georgia were that way.

Drew Holley: 00:04:19

So I kind of learned to love to watch college football.

Drew Holley: 00:04:22

Just wasn't something my mom and dad or their parents were big into.

Drew Holley: 00:04:25

Um, but yeah, from.

Drew Holley: 00:04:29

From there I said, okay, I gotta go to college.

Drew Holley: 00:04:32

You know, what.

Drew Holley: 00:04:33

What's going to be my next step?

Drew Holley: 00:04:35

And, you know, Sinatra is a Georgia school.

Drew Holley: 00:04:39

But I didn't want to stay around town, so I set on Kennesaw State.

Drew Holley: 00:04:43

It's grown into, I believe it's the second largest school now in the whole state.

Andre Sindate: 00:04:47

Yeah, it's huge.

Andre Sindate: 00:04:48

Yeah.

Drew Holley: 00:04:49

Yeah, they got a football team, you know, back when I went there.

Drew Holley: 00:04:52

But 20 years ago, I think it was the second year to live on campus and there was only like 800 of us.

Andre Sindate: 00:04:57

Wow.

Drew Holley: 00:04:58

And, you know, I thought about maybe doing pre law, thought about marketing.

Drew Holley: 00:05:03

Just joined business school.

Drew Holley: 00:05:05

And how I got into sales and insurance is Kennesaw State.

Drew Holley: 00:05:09

A lot of people know this.

Drew Holley: 00:05:10

Even it's advanced in the last 20 years.

Drew Holley: 00:05:14

A lot of people get into sales, but they didn't have a degree in sales.

Drew Holley: 00:05:19

You know, they had a marketing.

Drew Holley: 00:05:20

They had a business management and they go into corporate America and find out, hey, you might want to try sales.

Drew Holley: 00:05:26

Well, Kennesaw State had a sales degree, but they hosted a national collegiate sales competition.

Drew Holley: 00:05:33

And I was one of those just kids that if there was a low hanging fruit opportunity to get an easier grade, I would do it.

Drew Holley: 00:05:41

So one of my teachers said, hey, you can get 10 extra credit points on your final grade if you go volunteer for this competition.

Drew Holley: 00:05:48

I'm like, I don't.

Andre Sindate: 00:05:49

Well, there you go.

Andre Sindate: 00:05:50

I mean, come on, right?

Drew Holley: 00:05:51

Yeah, that's right.

Andre Sindate: 00:05:53

Speaking of insurance, I mean, speaking of insurance, that's your first insurance lesson right there.

Drew Holley: 00:05:58

Yeah, it was, it was a risk of reward, right?

Drew Holley: 00:06:01

Pretty, pretty low risk.

Andre Sindate: 00:06:04

Yeah.

Drew Holley: 00:06:04

A little bit of time, one day, 10 extra credit.

Drew Holley: 00:06:07

I could bomb a final, but get extra point.

Drew Holley: 00:06:10

Oh, sure, sign me up.

Drew Holley: 00:06:11

And back then it was VHS tapes.

Drew Holley: 00:06:13

But the competition, again, I wasn't in it.

Drew Holley: 00:06:16

I was volunteering.

Drew Holley: 00:06:17

Was just kids.

Drew Holley: 00:06:18

Were kids.

Drew Holley: 00:06:20

I say kids now where I'm at.

Drew Holley: 00:06:21

But college age students were, you know, trying to sell at the time a CRM software to business owners.

Drew Holley: 00:06:27

And the business owners were the classmates.

Drew Holley: 00:06:30

The competition format, though, were employment, employers, interviewing.

Drew Holley: 00:06:34

But it was somewhat scripted, somewhat based off of what's called spin, selling situation, problem identification, need.

Drew Holley: 00:06:41

And from that point there were points awarded how well you followed building relationship, handling objections.

Drew Holley: 00:06:48

And I fell in love with that.

Drew Holley: 00:06:50

I was the guy.

Drew Holley: 00:06:50

My volunteer job was doing the recording.

Drew Holley: 00:06:52

And I'm listening to employers grading people.

Drew Holley: 00:06:57

I'm like, oh, I think I can do that.

Drew Holley: 00:06:59

So I immediately changed my major to sales.

Drew Holley: 00:07:02

Competed in that competition, won the local, competed in the national.

Drew Holley: 00:07:07

Did not win the national by any means.

Drew Holley: 00:07:09

There was way more talented people than I was at that time.

Drew Holley: 00:07:12

But, you know, made it to the quarterfinals.

Drew Holley: 00:07:15

And then, and at that point it's like, okay, I want to be in sales, but what do I want to sell?

Drew Holley: 00:07:21

So didn't quite narrow it down.

Drew Holley: 00:07:24

I would equate it to, I want to be a lawyer, but there's lots of law to practice, right?

Andre Sindate: 00:07:28

Yeah.

Drew Holley: 00:07:28

Yeah.

Drew Holley: 00:07:29

So about that time, I was a senior and you know, no kid in America wakes up and says, I can't wait to get in the insurance industry.

Andre Sindate: 00:07:38

Right?

Drew Holley: 00:07:38

And, you know, career fair and counselors.

Drew Holley: 00:07:41

In high school, there was no one saying, hey, you should look at becoming a state farm agent.

Drew Holley: 00:07:45

It might be boring, but everyone needs it.

Drew Holley: 00:07:47

I mean, there's not much of that, or at least in my experience.

Drew Holley: 00:07:50

So I didn't really know a lot about insurance other than the, you know, the local state farm guy.

Drew Holley: 00:07:55

Probably had 75% market share in our county because we were a rural county.

Drew Holley: 00:08:00

But Liberty Mutual was hiring, and they were paying $18 an hour, and I was paying my way through school, So I said, 18 bucks an hour?

Drew Holley: 00:08:09

Sure.

Drew Holley: 00:08:10

What do you guys do?

Drew Holley: 00:08:11

And so got that job and kind of learned the basics of auto home life for personal lines and turns out I was pretty good at it.

Drew Holley: 00:08:18

I just kind of understood contracts.

Drew Holley: 00:08:21

I grew up in a rural area with a lot of people that were really good at, you know, fixing cars and working with their hands.

Drew Holley: 00:08:29

I was not.

Drew Holley: 00:08:31

And, you know, I wish I was, especially now being married.

Drew Holley: 00:08:35

I wish I was a better fixer on the house.

Andre Sindate: 00:08:37

You and I both.

Drew Holley: 00:08:38

That's right.

Drew Holley: 00:08:39

Yeah.

Drew Holley: 00:08:40

But I just kind of don't have the brain for it.

Drew Holley: 00:08:41

I can do it.

Drew Holley: 00:08:42

It might take me four hours and take someone handy 10 minutes, but, yeah, from there, Liberty Mutual was a great fit for me.

Drew Holley: 00:08:51

And I just, you know, I'm a big believer.

Drew Holley: 00:08:53

And now that I have kids, I want.

Drew Holley: 00:08:56

I want people to enjoy the work.

Drew Holley: 00:08:58

And if your interests are aligned with your work, it feels a little bit less like work and you enjoy it.

Andre Sindate: 00:09:02

Yeah.

Drew Holley: 00:09:03

And, you know, just reading contracts, helping people, understanding numbers, that, that was.

Drew Holley: 00:09:09

That just kind of came natural to me.

Drew Holley: 00:09:11

So did well there, but I just kind of had a.

Drew Holley: 00:09:14

I really didn't want to work for corporate America.

Drew Holley: 00:09:16

So did that intern for a year graduated, but I had a family friend, and his name was Ray Bachman, and it was a family friend of my girlfriend at the time, now my wife.

Drew Holley: 00:09:30

And he's the B in the bis, Ray Bachmann.

Drew Holley: 00:09:32

He was the founder of this agency.

Drew Holley: 00:09:34

So I was interviewing, but this was right around the financial crash, which I had no idea what was even going on.

Drew Holley: 00:09:40

Senior in college and the housing crisis and was interviewing for quite a bit of jobs, but you know what industry I go to.

Drew Holley: 00:09:49

So had a little dapple of insurance, but Ray owned bis and he was giving me some counsel that insurance, if you think you'd be good at it, working for an agency may not seem like the sexiest job coming out of college, but over time, it can give you extra time and extra money to really help others.

Drew Holley: 00:10:12

And that's really what I wanted.

Drew Holley: 00:10:14

I wasn't just looking for a career to make the most money just for myself to, you know, die with the most toys that I can't take with me anyways.

Drew Holley: 00:10:21

It was really, you know, I wanted a family.

Drew Holley: 00:10:24

I wanted to be home for ball games.

Drew Holley: 00:10:26

And insurance seemed to be a path that allowed me to do that.

Drew Holley: 00:10:30

Work really hard while you're at work, but be able to go home, you know, nights and weekends.

Drew Holley: 00:10:34

And so through Ray's kind of council, we had an opportunity and I went to go work for.

Drew Holley: 00:10:41

I knew a friend in college who went to go work for an agency.

Drew Holley: 00:10:44

He was a couple years ahead of me.

Drew Holley: 00:10:45

It was a small agency, five, six employees in Marietta.

Drew Holley: 00:10:49

And I was probably a little arrogant thinking I was going to get a lot of job offers.

Drew Holley: 00:10:54

And I'm like, oh, man, which one am I going to choose?

Drew Holley: 00:10:57

And sure enough, there was only one on the table.

Drew Holley: 00:11:01

And so I took it and was at that agency for six and a half years.

Drew Holley: 00:11:07

We did just employee benefits.

Drew Holley: 00:11:09

en I came over here to BIS in: 2015

Drew Holley: 00:11:12

Ray finally recruited me.

Drew Holley: 00:11:14

IS has been in business since: 1997

Drew Holley: 00:11:19

On the benefits side, we did start a commercial insurance like workers Comp liability auto cyber Bonds.

Drew Holley: 00:11:26

We got into that about three and a half years ago.

Drew Holley: 00:11:28

So the benefits is much bigger.

Drew Holley: 00:11:29

But that the group insurance business insurance is rapidly growing.

Andre Sindate: 00:11:34

Yeah, that's a wonderful backstory.

Andre Sindate: 00:11:37

And there's a lot of areas I feel like I could pull on and would love to ask you about.

Andre Sindate: 00:11:43

I mean, we have listeners that are, you know, managing teams in terms of leadership.

Andre Sindate: 00:11:49

We have.

Andre Sindate: 00:11:50

We have a lot of listeners who are managing practices, you know, financial advisors, wealth advisors, and a whole host of just business professionals across, you know, areas of finance, insurance, asset management.

Andre Sindate: 00:12:02

I'd love to ask you one or two questions just about that backstory.

Andre Sindate: 00:12:05

You know, you talked about growing up in a rural area and now finding yourself, you know, leadership team, big agency.

Andre Sindate: 00:12:14

A lot of employees probably come from a lot of different backgrounds.

Andre Sindate: 00:12:19

Love to ask you more of a leadership question here.

Andre Sindate: 00:12:21

You know, when thinking about identifying folks for your organization and your team, how does that background and how you grew up, you know, you talked about being homeschooled, one of six children, not having, you know, a lot of money, but having your needs met and then, you know, being around in more of a rural setting versus growing up in a big city.

Drew Holley: 00:12:43

Yeah.

Andre Sindate: 00:12:43

You know, when you're meeting new people and they're sort of on their journey, whether it's a career change or it's their first role.

Andre Sindate: 00:12:52

What are some of the things that are, you know, that are going to stick out to you, given some of your background and now the firm?

Drew Holley: 00:12:59

Yeah, it's a great question.

Drew Holley: 00:13:01

Well, there is no business without people.

Drew Holley: 00:13:04

And if you're a business leader, you're really in the people business.

Drew Holley: 00:13:07

I'M blessed enough to have Ray again.

Drew Holley: 00:13:12

The founder of the agency is still an owner, but he's really delegated a lot of the responsibilities because he sold internally to me and my other business partner, Brian.

Drew Holley: 00:13:21

Brian's wonderful.

Drew Holley: 00:13:24

That's a lot of effort.

Drew Holley: 00:13:25

But when I think of my rural background, I'm very grateful for it.

Drew Holley: 00:13:31

I tend to do well with blue collar groups because I kind of know their language a little bit more than in the city.

Drew Holley: 00:13:38

But when I think about the staff that we want to bring in, we really are about culture.

Drew Holley: 00:13:42

If we don't have great staff, I can't deliver on our promise of being the best in serving.

Drew Holley: 00:13:49

And you know, so for me.

Drew Holley: 00:13:53

But I talked to a lot of business owners.

Drew Holley: 00:13:54

Experience is super helpful.

Drew Holley: 00:13:56

But if you don't have our core values.

Drew Holley: 00:14:00

Our core values are everything.

Drew Holley: 00:14:02

Sure.

Drew Holley: 00:14:03

Because, you know, so we look for people that have the values and are teachable and are hungry and want to come in first.

Drew Holley: 00:14:13

And then we also look at.

Drew Holley: 00:14:15

I'm a big believer in personality assessments.

Drew Holley: 00:14:17

You know, as a kid who again, not many people would get on the phone and cold call 300 dials in a day.

Drew Holley: 00:14:24

And that's what I did to build my book of business.

Drew Holley: 00:14:25

You know, I was just wired.

Drew Holley: 00:14:26

But I've learned through multiple personality assessments.

Drew Holley: 00:14:30

You know, if you have a few listeners are familiar with disc or if you've done the colors test or red, I'm one of those guys off the chart there.

Drew Holley: 00:14:39

So I'm a big believer in, you know, finding the right people to have the value system.

Drew Holley: 00:14:43

But where would they be happy?

Drew Holley: 00:14:45

Where are their interests?

Andre Sindate: 00:14:46

Yeah.

Drew Holley: 00:14:46

You know, if you're a detail oriented person and you prefer to more or less work alone, you're probably not going to be in sales.

Drew Holley: 00:14:53

If you're sales and not a detailer in person and you don't want to spend hours on spreadsheet, you're probably not going to be in accounting.

Drew Holley: 00:14:59

And that's a very softball example.

Drew Holley: 00:15:01

But those are the things that we really look for.

Drew Holley: 00:15:04

And we don't always get it right with our hiring.

Drew Holley: 00:15:06

But you know, our values are following through, humble, hard to serve, integrity, hard to learn.

Drew Holley: 00:15:13

And perspective is a unique thing for us which is just always balancing that work life balance.

Drew Holley: 00:15:18

You can always have another career.

Drew Holley: 00:15:20

It's hard to have another first family or first spouse.

Drew Holley: 00:15:23

And so I really want people here that buy into that.

Drew Holley: 00:15:27

And so our interview process is about that.

Drew Holley: 00:15:29

So I have no problem hiring people with no industry experience that can meet those values because we can teach you the industry and in fact, sometimes if you have industry experience that really can hurt you, I've found, because you might have learned the bad habits or again, can't think outside the box.

Drew Holley: 00:15:45

Well, this is the way the insurance, insurance always done it.

Drew Holley: 00:15:47

And I'm like, well, that doesn't make it right.

Drew Holley: 00:15:49

So yeah, we're really looking for that.

Drew Holley: 00:15:52

And now I wouldn't say I discriminate.

Drew Holley: 00:15:54

You grew up in urban or, or, you know, rural, rural America or even outside of America.

Drew Holley: 00:16:00

But it's nice for me to connect with people that kind of, you know.

Andre Sindate: 00:16:04

Yeah.

Drew Holley: 00:16:05

Get, get what it was like to, to, to grow up maybe in the country or in the farm, which I did.

Andre Sindate: 00:16:11

Yeah, I, I asked you that.

Andre Sindate: 00:16:12

A little bit biased in a way because I grew up in a smaller town in the middle of America from Kansas, you know, and I meet people and they see me and they hear my name and they think, oh, it must be a foreigner or I've never heard that name before.

Andre Sindate: 00:16:24

And I, you know, being in our industry, in, in wealth management and asset management, you know, I, I've, I've always somewhat felt like an outsider.

Andre Sindate: 00:16:33

You know, I still feel like I can contribute and I spent a lot of time on my education and a lot of resources at the benefit of a great spouse too.

Andre Sindate: 00:16:42

And I've moved in and out of the, of the industry, I guess, in different facets.

Andre Sindate: 00:16:46

You brought up the legal area.

Andre Sindate: 00:16:49

You know, I started out in banking and worked in capital markets and now I'm working in wealth management.

Andre Sindate: 00:16:54

Because I've found over the years through my journey that I really found I was most fulfilled when I was helping people.

Andre Sindate: 00:17:02

You know, I, I enjoyed working with institutions and calling on real interesting endowments and, and, and these big organizations.

Andre Sindate: 00:17:11

But I also found like within my industry that was over not overly corporate, but it was more of a corporate hierarchy.

Andre Sindate: 00:17:19

Right.

Andre Sindate: 00:17:19

To get a decision made.

Andre Sindate: 00:17:20

And I, I found over the years and I guess it's just, you know, maybe comes with time and knowing yourself and knowing what you enjoy doing that working into, you know, working with individuals and families and small businesses who are, you know, really grinding away day to day and finding ways to help them, whether it's secure their future or, you know, we want to talk about benefits, you know, securing their workforce.

Andre Sindate: 00:17:46

Right.

Andre Sindate: 00:17:47

So I think we have a kindred spirit in that regard because I find myself here in a big city of Atlanta and I'm always drawn to and connected to people who have somewhat of a similar story, you know.

Drew Holley: 00:17:59

Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's, it is unique and now that I have kids who are growing up, city kids, I.

Andre Sindate: 00:18:05

Right.

Drew Holley: 00:18:05

I do enjoy getting them up to my mom and dad who did retire on a farm.

Andre Sindate: 00:18:09

Sure.

Drew Holley: 00:18:09

Just to get some of that, that work ethic and different lifestyle.

Drew Holley: 00:18:14

Yeah.

Drew Holley: 00:18:14

But yeah, I agree.

Andre Sindate: 00:18:16

Yeah, we go back every year, you know, not solely for this reason.

Andre Sindate: 00:18:19

Obviously we love to see the family.

Andre Sindate: 00:18:21

But yeah, both, both my in laws who are in Iowa and, and spend most of the summer in rural Missouri at their lake home and then you know, my folks who are still, you know, in Kansas.

Andre Sindate: 00:18:34

It's, it's important, you know, for us to, you know, make sure the kids know their roots and kind of where it all started.

Andre Sindate: 00:18:40

But for sure it's a slower, a little slower pace and there's a lot of, there's a lot of good in that I found.

Andre Sindate: 00:18:47

So I want to talk about, you know, bis benefits.

Andre Sindate: 00:18:50

You know, you, you gave this great backstory of how you matriculated to you and Brian purchasing the firm.

Andre Sindate: 00:18:59

Talk to us and maybe give us sort of A high level, 10,000 foot view of the industry.

Andre Sindate: 00:19:03

You know, we want to talk about benefits.

Andre Sindate: 00:19:05

You talked about health insurance.

Andre Sindate: 00:19:06

But now you guys are into a whole bunch of other lines of business and other areas.

Andre Sindate: 00:19:11

And I know you work with a lot of different carriers to use the industry terminology.

Andre Sindate: 00:19:16

So maybe give us a perspective.

Andre Sindate: 00:19:18

I always like to ask people, why should we care?

Andre Sindate: 00:19:20

You know, why should business owners, financial advisors and financial professionals really take a minute from their busy day of serving clients and growing their practices to really stop and think about insurance?

Andre Sindate: 00:19:34

Because we all know what it is.

Andre Sindate: 00:19:35

But I don't know that many of us appreciate obviously all the ins and outs and all the dynamics of the industry and there's more and more risks and more and more costs.

Andre Sindate: 00:19:45

It seems like that people have to think about every day.

Drew Holley: 00:19:49

Yeah, yeah, it's.

Drew Holley: 00:19:51

So I'm gonna, I'm gonna.

Drew Holley: 00:19:52

There's two different needs on the benefit side and the business insurance side.

Drew Holley: 00:19:57

Why should you care?

Drew Holley: 00:19:59

Well, from the benefit side tends to have a much.

Drew Holley: 00:20:03

Just naturally it's more of a hybrid.

Drew Holley: 00:20:05

It's not such a business to business sale because it's affecting your staff, which should be your number one asset if you're a business owner.

Drew Holley: 00:20:13

Because again, without your staff, you know, again, you don't have a company for most people unless you're a sole proprietor working on your own.

Drew Holley: 00:20:24

So the number one is, you know, it's taking care of your best asset on the benefit side.

Drew Holley: 00:20:30

Number two, it's very expensive.

Drew Holley: 00:20:31

So if you don't pay attention to it.

Drew Holley: 00:20:34

You know, costs can creep up.

Drew Holley: 00:20:36

Number three, it can be, to use a tennis term, an unforced error.

Drew Holley: 00:20:41

Yeah.

Drew Holley: 00:20:42

So if you have a January 1st effective date and you move from Blue Cross to Aetna or vice versa, and the broker you've hired, because again, you know, there's the insurance carriers, the Aetna, the United, the Travelers, the Hartford.

Drew Holley: 00:20:55

But really my competition isn't the carriers, it's the broker.

Drew Holley: 00:20:58

And on the benefit side, we really have to be in the logistic business.

Drew Holley: 00:21:02

And that has really become evident in the last four to five years with payroll deductions, software, enrollment.

Drew Holley: 00:21:09

I remember the days of paper going to do open enrollment meetings in McDonough and South, handing out printouts and then the printouts, you know, the HR manager would email the people and say how much to come out of your paycheck.

Drew Holley: 00:21:23

That has become more centralized, a part of, you know, the ecosystem of enrollment and deductions.

Drew Holley: 00:21:29

So the third reason would be the unforced error if you switch from one carrier to another, but you do it late.

Drew Holley: 00:21:35

If you're submitting paperwork for a January 1 group, after December 10, you're toast.

Drew Holley: 00:21:42

You're probably not going to have ID cards.

Drew Holley: 00:21:44

And the last thing a business owner needs is their top performing staff member, or lowest performing for that matter, wanting their kids to get prescriptions on January 3rd and they can't because you're not live in the system.

Drew Holley: 00:21:57

You're not live in the system because you didn't start early enough, you weren't proactive.

Drew Holley: 00:22:01

So that's, that's a why.

Drew Holley: 00:22:02

So who you pick as your advisor, I'm seeing it really evolve over the years.

Drew Holley: 00:22:07

Used to be, well, how low of rates can you get me on the health insurance?

Drew Holley: 00:22:10

Obviously that's important.

Drew Holley: 00:22:12

I want low rates.

Drew Holley: 00:22:13

I'm a business owner.

Andre Sindate: 00:22:14

Right.

Drew Holley: 00:22:14

But, but also, you know, have to live on planet Earth and I can't find a rate that's 50 bucks a month.

Drew Holley: 00:22:19

And that might have been the case in the 80s.

Drew Holley: 00:22:21

It just doesn't exist anymore.

Drew Holley: 00:22:23

So, but, but hiring a broker who understands payroll logistics, working proactive is very important and I see it as segmented.

Drew Holley: 00:22:34

So I'm a big believer.

Drew Holley: 00:22:35

I'm not a fan, if you're listening.

Drew Holley: 00:22:37

I don't mean to offend.

Drew Holley: 00:22:38

I don't like the term fake it till you make it.

Drew Holley: 00:22:42

I have no problem saying I don't know that answer, but I'm going to find out.

Drew Holley: 00:22:46

No problem with that.

Drew Holley: 00:22:47

I think sometimes as professionals, whether you're a doctor, lawyer, White collar, even blue collar.

Drew Holley: 00:22:51

You put too much pressure on you that if someone asks you a question and you don't know the answer, that you have to know it and you're somehow dumb if you don't.

Drew Holley: 00:22:58

Not at all.

Drew Holley: 00:22:59

Not at all.

Drew Holley: 00:22:59

And I bring that up because we're not bis our competitive advantage.

Drew Holley: 00:23:04

We're not going after 5,000 person groups or you know, 500 even.

Drew Holley: 00:23:09

We really like that 10 to 100, 125 employee range because it's so underserved.

Drew Holley: 00:23:17

And especially in the last decade there's been so much private equity gobbling up small businesses.

Drew Holley: 00:23:25

But also my competition, independent owned brokers.

Drew Holley: 00:23:28

And so when they buy up the independent broker, typically the top talent goes up market to the much larger organizations.

Drew Holley: 00:23:35

150, 250, 300 employees.

Drew Holley: 00:23:39

And unfortunately the unexperienced or the team that maybe don't even really like their job.

Drew Holley: 00:23:44

That's why I really like hiring people that like their job.

Drew Holley: 00:23:47

So they want to stay here and do a good job for our clients.

Drew Holley: 00:23:51

They're not expertise on the groups under 100.

Drew Holley: 00:23:54

And so the care, the why is if you don't have a broker who really knows what they're doing, has a really good team and understand it, you're probably going to have some problems.

Drew Holley: 00:24:03

Whether you have the problems today, it's going to come later.

Drew Holley: 00:24:06

So that's the why.

Drew Holley: 00:24:07

On the business insurance side, it's a lot easier I have found for the business owner to ignore it.

Drew Holley: 00:24:12

They may have a broker who's a really assigned a1,800 number with a huge agency assigned to Travelers or Hartford or one of these other carriers and they haven't had a claim in three years and they're like there's no problem if the rates go up.

Drew Holley: 00:24:27

It doesn't affect my staff again on the benefits.

Drew Holley: 00:24:30

If the rates go up and if you don't eat the cost as an employer, it's like giving your employees a, you know, a demotion.

Drew Holley: 00:24:37

They're getting a pay decrease if their health insurance costs go up 500, 500amonth.

Drew Holley: 00:24:41

Did their salary go up 500amonth?

Drew Holley: 00:24:45

So that has to tends to be paid attention on the business insurance insurance of the whole building.

Drew Holley: 00:24:51

They may say I can afford a 10% because the increase because of time and it's not going to affect the rest of the staff.

Drew Holley: 00:24:57

But when a claim happens, you know, a year down the road, three years down the road, do you really know who your broker is?

Drew Holley: 00:25:04

Is it assigned to one, you know, one contact at a billion dollar insurance agency that has no idea what you're going through as a business owner, will they care?

Drew Holley: 00:25:14

Will they follow through?

Drew Holley: 00:25:15

So that's, that's the why.

Drew Holley: 00:25:18

And if someone pitched it to me that I'd be like, I want to know who my agent is.

Drew Holley: 00:25:21

Not because I need a need now, but it, if you have a claim and it's, you know, you can't get access to your computers if you don't know who your agent is to hold the carrier accountable and filing the claim, right.

Drew Holley: 00:25:35

Doing it and executing, you might be in a bad position.

Drew Holley: 00:25:38

So those are the why.

Drew Holley: 00:25:40

Hopefully that answers.

Andre Sindate: 00:25:41

It does.

Andre Sindate: 00:25:42

Well, it does because I, you know, I probably like you.

Andre Sindate: 00:25:45

I'm in sales, you know, I'm out networking, I'm meeting with people, I'm on the phone.

Andre Sindate: 00:25:52

And when you meet somebody that's maybe from the traditional insurance side, they'll talk about, well, just give us a call.

Andre Sindate: 00:26:03

We can, you know, just check your rates and kind of give you a quick proposal and no obligation.

Andre Sindate: 00:26:08

Right.

Andre Sindate: 00:26:08

But very rarely do you hear that second side which you just described, which is, hey, in the event something happens, you want to have a relationship with the broker.

Andre Sindate: 00:26:18

You want to actually know, especially if you're a business owner who, who's going to help me through this process because it's not going to be quick, particularly if it's, you know, involves an injury or involves, you know, property loss.

Andre Sindate: 00:26:35

So I love that you talked about both sides of it.

Andre Sindate: 00:26:39

I want to focus on the business side a little bit here.

Andre Sindate: 00:26:44

What are some of the, what are some of the things that you're, you're seeing in the last four or five years?

Andre Sindate: 00:26:49

Because you said this private equity, right.

Andre Sindate: 00:26:52

And this is a show atls, we talk about alternative investments, you talk about consolidation.

Andre Sindate: 00:26:58

More and more small and medium sized businesses are being rolled up into these platforms.

Andre Sindate: 00:27:04

There was a great article last week in the Journal about, you know, private equities coming for blue collar.

Andre Sindate: 00:27:10

I read it.

Drew Holley: 00:27:11

Right, yeah.

Andre Sindate: 00:27:12

Plumbing, the H vac, the, the lawn maintenance.

Andre Sindate: 00:27:15

Right.

Drew Holley: 00:27:15

And it's true.

Drew Holley: 00:27:16

I literally have a client going through that right now.

Andre Sindate: 00:27:19

Exactly.

Andre Sindate: 00:27:19

So I'd love to talk about with, you know, what, what other trends are you seeing over the last four or five years with respect to the business side?

Andre Sindate: 00:27:29

And then maybe we can dive into, you know, what happens when there's a sale or there's a transaction and how does that impact the, your role?

Andre Sindate: 00:27:39

Right.

Andre Sindate: 00:27:40

Are you now dealing with a private equity firm or platform or are you dealing still with a business owner?

Andre Sindate: 00:27:45

But let's focus first on the business side?

Drew Holley: 00:27:47

Yeah.

Drew Holley: 00:27:49

Well, the first thing I've seen on the business insurance, they use the word hard market, which essentially means the rates are going up.

Andre Sindate: 00:27:55

Okay.

Drew Holley: 00:27:56

Unfortunately, on the healthcare rates, rates have been going up for 25 years.

Drew Holley: 00:27:59

So my tolerance for a hard market coming, starting my career on the benefits side.

Drew Holley: 00:28:04

And actually it really did start on the, what we call property and casualty, the auto home, sure.

Drew Holley: 00:28:10

And then I kind of went on the business and I'm licensed on both business insurance and benefits, but it's just been inflationary the last couple of years.

Drew Holley: 00:28:19

Whereas, you know, they probably had a good run, the insurance carriers and business insurance, where, you know, there weren't substantial increases, at least increases enough to disrupt the business owner to wanting to move all of that, you know.

Drew Holley: 00:28:33

So for us, it's been, it's been positive because, you know, when you start a company from zero on the business insurance, that division hard market just gave us opportunity to have advanced.

Drew Holley: 00:28:44

That's what we've seen.

Drew Holley: 00:28:46

But what I found with the private equity buying insurance agencies is that the agent is not even going to send an email, let alone pick up the phone to tell you about it unless you call them.

Drew Holley: 00:29:01

And that's just foreign to me because of the benefit side.

Drew Holley: 00:29:05

But that is, that's what I'm seeing in the marketplace on the business insurance, if you're exploring a sale.

Drew Holley: 00:29:12

So every deal is different.

Drew Holley: 00:29:13

I've probably, I don't know, I've had probably 35, 40 clients just in the last, you know, six, seven years that got acquired.

Drew Holley: 00:29:22

And every private equity or family wealth office that bought the client, whether they bought a majority or minority, is different.

Drew Holley: 00:29:28

Sometimes they're like, hey, you can still use the same vendors you want to, whether it be insurance broker or technology companies or anything else.

Drew Holley: 00:29:37

Sometimes, yeah, I know my client gets bought out.

Drew Holley: 00:29:40

I got immediate competition.

Drew Holley: 00:29:42

Sometimes it doesn't matter how great of a job we do, you know, the new company.

Drew Holley: 00:29:47

And that's, that's the downside of selling if you're a business owner, is you might lose control.

Drew Holley: 00:29:51

And I'm sure all those are talked about, discussed on the upfront.

Drew Holley: 00:29:56

So, you know, we're always respectful.

Drew Holley: 00:29:59

You know, we always see ourselves as just a steward of the client.

Drew Holley: 00:30:03

We're not, we don't own you as a vendor.

Drew Holley: 00:30:06

We have to earn it every year.

Drew Holley: 00:30:07

So, yeah, if I've got a client that gets bought out, I want to try to earn it and keep it if I can.

Drew Holley: 00:30:11

But I'm not afraid to say, hey, does this mean you got bought out?

Drew Holley: 00:30:15

Are we going to be getting kicked out soon?

Drew Holley: 00:30:17

Are they giving you a chance to pick your vendor?

Drew Holley: 00:30:19

Hopefully you want to advocate for us.

Drew Holley: 00:30:21

So I just, I just think it's a better approach to just have an honest discussion about it right when it happens.

Drew Holley: 00:30:28

You know, sometimes a client gets bought out not by private equity.

Drew Holley: 00:30:30

They get bought out by still a small business that's in our target market.

Drew Holley: 00:30:35

So rightfully so.

Drew Holley: 00:30:36

I, you know, want to say, hey, we want to continue to do a good job with the division that you just bought, but is there an opportunity for, you know, looking at yours and if you sell a portion of your business or if you have growth business insurance, again, something might need to be updated.

Andre Sindate: 00:30:53

Yeah.

Drew Holley: 00:30:54

If you go advance into another location, if you buy a new building, that's an opportunity for your coverages to be reviewed and see if it's accurate.

Drew Holley: 00:31:03

So you might be on the purchasing side and so letting I find an error that a business owner might make.

Drew Holley: 00:31:12

You know, you should let your benefits broker and your business insurance broker know if you have expansion, you know, again, new division, new states, there's just some things that we need to know to protect you.

Drew Holley: 00:31:24

Not that has got to usually be done that second, but that's why we want relationships with our clients.

Drew Holley: 00:31:31

We want to know what's going on so we can protect them.

Andre Sindate: 00:31:34

Yeah, I'd love to take minute and walk through the customer's buying journey.

Andre Sindate: 00:31:41

You talked about where you focus at BIS benefits in that 10 to 100, 150 employee firm, clearly a sole proprietor that's got one or two or three employees, there's a lot of those businesses out there.

Andre Sindate: 00:31:57

But that individual that started a company and now finds themselves with 10, 20, 30, 50 employees, they're facing a range of different issues.

Andre Sindate: 00:32:05

And then you just brought up like if we buy physical real estate, if we, if we expand, you know, so when, when that customer, that business owner or their advisor, right, they have a wealth advisor that's seeing this and they say, you know what, there's probably some additional risks and I'm earning my CFP right now.

Andre Sindate: 00:32:28

I'm in the process of going through that.

Andre Sindate: 00:32:29

And you know, a lot of times insurance things in this particular round, they're usually outside the area of competence within the typical advisor.

Andre Sindate: 00:32:40

So you're going to go to an outside party, right, you're going to call somebody like you in to say, hey, I've got a client, they're growing, they want to talk to an expert, talk about that customer's that the options they have and the journey they go through and the importance of selecting if you will, the right broker or yeah, I call you more of an advisor than I, than I would a broker.

Andre Sindate: 00:33:05

But talk about what that, that owner that, that family need to be thinking about and what are they generally going to see in the market, who's going to approach them and say, hey, we can help you.

Drew Holley: 00:33:17

Broker, advisor, insurance man.

Drew Holley: 00:33:19

I've been called worse.

Drew Holley: 00:33:21

You know, it's just so funny when I'm sitting in a waiting room and getting ready to go on an appointment appointment and they say the insurance man is here.

Drew Holley: 00:33:28

I always scratch my head saying, high school career fair.

Drew Holley: 00:33:32

I never would have thought that, but here I am.

Drew Holley: 00:33:38

Well, yeah, if you're, if you're a financial advisor, we probably have a lot of clients.

Drew Holley: 00:33:42

In fact, we do these things called benefit booklets where we talk about, hey, what are your medical plan, how much does cost, dental, vision, how do I look at the doctor?

Drew Holley: 00:33:49

Maybe you make an offer letter.

Drew Holley: 00:33:50

A lot of our clients say, do you mind putting the 401k on there?

Andre Sindate: 00:33:53

Right.

Drew Holley: 00:33:53

We do it a lot.

Drew Holley: 00:33:55

So like I have, you know, financial advisors that, you know, we're talking about an employee benefit, what a 401k is.

Drew Holley: 00:34:02

We just not 401k experts.

Drew Holley: 00:34:04

So we don't do that part.

Andre Sindate: 00:34:05

Right.

Drew Holley: 00:34:05

But yeah, I mean if I'm a, if I'm a personal advisor to a business owner and you're saying, well look, how do we increase your retirement contribution?

Drew Holley: 00:34:12

The easiest thing is saying, well, what's your insurance?

Drew Holley: 00:34:15

You know, golly, you got 30 employees, you haven't shopped out your building insurance in six years.

Drew Holley: 00:34:20

Yeah, why not?

Drew Holley: 00:34:20

Well, I hate insurance.

Drew Holley: 00:34:22

That's usually the reason.

Drew Holley: 00:34:23

Sure, and I get that.

Drew Holley: 00:34:24

But it may be a low hanging fruit opportunity.

Drew Holley: 00:34:26

The same thing on the benefits, you know, our number one competition against the broker.

Drew Holley: 00:34:32

And if the broker is the brother in law, second cousin, former roommate, next door neighbor, they've been with them 10 plus years.

Drew Holley: 00:34:38

I'm usually kind enough to say, well, here's some things that you could look to do.

Drew Holley: 00:34:43

But I usually can't help them because breakups are hard.

Drew Holley: 00:34:48

So that's the number one thing is what is your relationship like with your current agent or broker?

Drew Holley: 00:34:54

That's my number one question because I need to know where I stand and you know, I'm happy to help people.

Drew Holley: 00:34:59

I don't really like to be used though.

Drew Holley: 00:35:01

No one likes to be used.

Drew Holley: 00:35:02

Yeah, I want you to go through all this work to run my retirement portfolio and all we're doing is just Keeping existent honest.

Andre Sindate: 00:35:10

Right.

Drew Holley: 00:35:11

Thanks, but no thanks.

Drew Holley: 00:35:12

I really want to say, hey, can I help you?

Drew Holley: 00:35:15

You know, let me ask you some questions.

Drew Holley: 00:35:17

And it's really about four or five things.

Drew Holley: 00:35:19

That's really.

Drew Holley: 00:35:19

It is.

Drew Holley: 00:35:20

I go back to that spin, selling.

Drew Holley: 00:35:22

I'm just pre wired, pre programmed to just ask questions.

Drew Holley: 00:35:26

I don't lead with.

Drew Holley: 00:35:27

Here's how great BIS is.

Drew Holley: 00:35:29

There are a lot of good brokers in metro Atlanta, both on the business insurance and benefits.

Drew Holley: 00:35:34

And I know some of them, they do a really good job.

Drew Holley: 00:35:37

So if, if they, if someone were to say, drew, talk this business owner, I'm asking questions, really saying your broker could be doing a great job.

Drew Holley: 00:35:45

I got nothing else.

Drew Holley: 00:35:46

Maybe consider this.

Drew Holley: 00:35:47

Here you go.

Drew Holley: 00:35:47

And then I've helped them, you know, so that's how I approach it and that's how our sales team approach things.

Drew Holley: 00:35:54

We're really looking for the people that aren't getting helped, aren't getting served.

Drew Holley: 00:35:58

And usually just a few questions will tell us the areas where they're not.

Drew Holley: 00:36:02

Now a lot of times it still means we need to shop it out and that's the expectation.

Drew Holley: 00:36:07

We shop it out because we, you know, whether it's business or the benefits.

Drew Holley: 00:36:11

But yeah, I mean, that's the number one thing if you're talking to a business owner.

Drew Holley: 00:36:17

Obviously growing top line revenue will cover a multitude of sins.

Drew Holley: 00:36:21

But if you don't review a big overhead cost from time to time, yeah, you're going to get rate creep and then you might not have the adequate coverages and you could be missing out.

Andre Sindate: 00:36:34

Yeah, you have a, and you have a sizable team.

Andre Sindate: 00:36:39

You know, I'd love to maybe drill into how you've built the team from, you know, as I'm looking through your materials and preparation for the interview.

Andre Sindate: 00:36:48

You have an operations team, you have a risk services team.

Andre Sindate: 00:36:51

You talked about having a sales team.

Andre Sindate: 00:36:52

You've got a leadership team.

Andre Sindate: 00:36:55

You know, can you talk about how all those members and how the different pieces of your team kind of come together for the benefit of that business owner?

Andre Sindate: 00:37:07

Because it jumps out at me when I see this.

Andre Sindate: 00:37:10

It's like I could look at you and say you're a big organization.

Andre Sindate: 00:37:14

You have a whole bunch of producing agents all in sales and somebody offshore or somebody in some central office handles everything else.

Andre Sindate: 00:37:22

But you've kind of got a different architecture and you're all together, you're all basically here in the metro Atlanta area.

Andre Sindate: 00:37:32

And your materials show that.

Andre Sindate: 00:37:36

So I'd love for you to maybe help us see that.

Andre Sindate: 00:37:39

How does that come together?

Andre Sindate: 00:37:41

Why have you guys at BIS Benefits built the team in that way?

Andre Sindate: 00:37:45

Because the perception is I have my insurance person, I have my insurance guy and he handles everything.

Andre Sindate: 00:37:54

Generally it is a he.

Andre Sindate: 00:37:56

And you don't know what's going on behind the scenes.

Andre Sindate: 00:37:59

You don't know how the, the sausage is made, as they say.

Andre Sindate: 00:38:02

And I'd love to maybe get into that a little bit with you at Bis Benefits, how you built it differently.

Drew Holley: 00:38:10

Well, I didn't build it.

Drew Holley: 00:38:11

It was a collective effort how you're.

Andre Sindate: 00:38:13

Managing it and leading differently.

Drew Holley: 00:38:15

Yeah, yeah, there's, there's no I in team and, you know, no one person does it all.

Drew Holley: 00:38:20

know, from when he started in: 1997

Drew Holley: 00:38:38

And the core of it was he cared and he wanted to serve and he wanted to help people.

Drew Holley: 00:38:43

And, you know, big believer, the more people you help, the more customers you get, the more you grow.

Drew Holley: 00:38:48

Our model, I am not 100% motivated by, I want to grow to get the most toys to.

Drew Holley: 00:38:57

Then, you know, on my deathbed I say, wow, I'm so glad I grew the agency to a hundred million revenue.

Drew Holley: 00:39:04

So I, you know, had all this extra stuff I can't take with me.

Drew Holley: 00:39:07

Ray doesn't think that way.

Drew Holley: 00:39:09

Brian doesn't think that way.

Drew Holley: 00:39:10

My other business partner.

Drew Holley: 00:39:11

And we generally just try to hire people that think that will think that way.

Drew Holley: 00:39:15

It's just, you know, we again, just think that there's something more than just, you know, I need to get everything on my own.

Drew Holley: 00:39:25

If you have that mindset and you got good processes in place and you have a good game plan, kind of our, if I'd say there's any niche is I've just learned to say no.

Drew Holley: 00:39:34

The next best thing in sales to a yes is a very quick no.

Drew Holley: 00:39:37

So qualifying again.

Drew Holley: 00:39:39

Even if I think I could help the small business, if it's your next door neighbor and your cousin who you're eating Thanksgiving with dinner, sorry, I'm probably not going to get the deal.

Drew Holley: 00:39:49

Even if I think I can help you, it's just hard.

Drew Holley: 00:39:52

So that's been my niche.

Drew Holley: 00:39:55

And then we just, you know, train salespeople to say, hey, you really want to go out and help people that aren't getting helped.

Drew Holley: 00:40:02

Here's the couple reasons.

Drew Holley: 00:40:03

But stay disciplined, know when you're being used and know when there's a strong personal relationship.

Drew Holley: 00:40:09

Yeah, that's that model and then having again really good processes.

Drew Holley: 00:40:14

We use CRMs.

Drew Holley: 00:40:17

What we do is too important to write it on a sticky note and then put on your desk.

Drew Holley: 00:40:22

Everything is organized.

Drew Holley: 00:40:23

If I have a meeting with a client or I do a webinar, we write everything down, we log in on our CRM, we create tasks and we execute.

Drew Holley: 00:40:31

And we actually this year signed up for EOs.

Drew Holley: 00:40:34

Some of your listeners might know what that is.

Drew Holley: 00:40:36

Entrepreneur Operating system.

Drew Holley: 00:40:37

And that's helped us to take it to a whole nother level.

Drew Holley: 00:40:39

A lot of those things we were doing, I would just say it gave us more of a language and there's a little software component to really help us grow.

Drew Holley: 00:40:48

Because it's difficult if you're a business owner to go from 8 employees to 27.

Drew Holley: 00:40:53

I feel like it's been a huge mountain and where we might be in five, 10 years.

Drew Holley: 00:40:57

We've got some goals, we'll see if we get there.

Drew Holley: 00:41:00

But I think it really just takes having really good team members meet those values that I talked about, follow through, you're humble, hard to serve, integrity, hard to learn.

Drew Holley: 00:41:11

Perspective, those.

Drew Holley: 00:41:12

We have to have people that think like that here.

Andre Sindate: 00:41:15

Yeah.

Drew Holley: 00:41:16

And then we have to again the personalities again.

Drew Holley: 00:41:20

You know, we have a 24 hour response time or less.

Drew Holley: 00:41:22

That doesn't mean we solve everyone's problems.

Drew Holley: 00:41:24

But you know, we live in a ghosting world, especially post pandemic where you email or you call someone and they just feel like they can ignore you even if they're a client.

Drew Holley: 00:41:34

That can be frustrating.

Drew Holley: 00:41:35

We are leaning in the opposite direction.

Drew Holley: 00:41:37

I always say think Comcast and do the opposite.

Drew Holley: 00:41:40

So that that's how we've been able to grow is we've been, we've got a marketing process to try to reach out to businesses because we're, we want a lot of bats, we want to talk to a lot of people, see if we can help.

Drew Holley: 00:41:54

But going back to, I'm not afraid to say I can't help you or your broker's doing a good job.

Drew Holley: 00:41:58

And as long as you have a good prospecting process, you're naturally going to get some clients.

Drew Holley: 00:42:05

And then if you execute on doing a good job for your clients, you know you're going to retain a big portion of them.

Drew Holley: 00:42:11

Our number one reason why we wouldn't retain a client is they get acquired going back to the private equity and usually it's the ones that get acquired to where they want them to use that vendor.

Drew Holley: 00:42:22

So that's how we've kept it up is just, you know, Understanding our values, our proposition.

Drew Holley: 00:42:27

We really want to help people.

Drew Holley: 00:42:28

We really want to do a good job.

Drew Holley: 00:42:29

We want to be innovative.

Drew Holley: 00:42:31

But it's those people that weren't getting it before, and that's why they picked us.

Drew Holley: 00:42:35

And we work really hard to keep doing it.

Drew Holley: 00:42:38

We're not perfect.

Drew Holley: 00:42:39

We'll make mistakes.

Drew Holley: 00:42:41

We just tend to own them when.

Andre Sindate: 00:42:43

We do so well.

Andre Sindate: 00:42:45

There's two, there's two areas.

Andre Sindate: 00:42:47

Two final areas I'd love, I'd love to ask you about and you know, for backstory, I think it's helpful to understand how you and I got connected.

Andre Sindate: 00:42:55

Right.

Andre Sindate: 00:42:55

I think this brings the whole point home.

Andre Sindate: 00:42:58

I, as an advisor, was referred to a very large agency, had a great call with, with one of the folks that oversees the southeast region.

Andre Sindate: 00:43:08

He's not based here.

Andre Sindate: 00:43:09

I think he's based in maybe Wichita.

Andre Sindate: 00:43:13

And I think it came through my sister actually, who's the CEO of a pretty good sized employer there.

Andre Sindate: 00:43:19

And I said, who do you guys use for employee benefits and health care?

Andre Sindate: 00:43:23

You know, these types of things?

Andre Sindate: 00:43:24

Because I'm calling and cultivating those relationships, right.

Andre Sindate: 00:43:27

And she gave me the referral.

Andre Sindate: 00:43:29

But they, they, they did the work over a week or so, and they said, ultimately, you know, Drew Holly is a better fit, made the referral to you, and here we are.

Andre Sindate: 00:43:38

Right.

Andre Sindate: 00:43:39

So I think that says a lot about those relationships and folks being able to say, like, maybe not the best fit for our organization, but we've got somebody in mind.

Andre Sindate: 00:43:49

And I think we align real well because the size of companies that you're supporting, that 10 to 100, 150 employee, it's generally in my sweet spot too, in terms of the business owner that I'm looking to go in and help.

Andre Sindate: 00:44:01

So there's two areas I'd love to finish on in the next few minutes.

Andre Sindate: 00:44:04

One is human resources.

Andre Sindate: 00:44:06

You know, human resources at a small company can sometimes fall to.

Andre Sindate: 00:44:11

And I say fall to because it sometimes is in addition to being the office manager and in addition to doing payroll, you're also hr.

Andre Sindate: 00:44:19

Do you see that?

Andre Sindate: 00:44:20

Or is that just a kind of a misnomer?

Andre Sindate: 00:44:24

Because I've worked at a lot of small firms and a lot of times, you know, it's usually my wife who says, can you go talk to hr because we didn't get our cards.

Andre Sindate: 00:44:34

And I said, there's not an hr.

Andre Sindate: 00:44:36

It's like the person's the accountant.

Andre Sindate: 00:44:38

They're also doing benefits and payroll.

Andre Sindate: 00:44:41

Can you help inform us?

Andre Sindate: 00:44:44

Do you guys have an HR offering?

Andre Sindate: 00:44:46

Are there solutions or tools that you can use as a business owner to sort of help address that.

Andre Sindate: 00:44:53

Those issues and those matters that come up.

Drew Holley: 00:44:56

HR is one of the most loaded words.

Drew Holley: 00:45:00

What one person means, someone else means something else.

Drew Holley: 00:45:03

So you know.

Drew Holley: 00:45:04

Right.

Drew Holley: 00:45:05

It's so funny because I remember taking an HR class in college.

Drew Holley: 00:45:09

It's hr.

Drew Holley: 00:45:10

And then the office came out, if you remember the movie.

Andre Sindate: 00:45:12

Yeah.

Andre Sindate: 00:45:12

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Drew Holley: 00:45:13

And all that.

Drew Holley: 00:45:13

There's all sorts of jokes and means.

Drew Holley: 00:45:16

I love a good HR manager with a really good sense of humor because it's really true what they go through.

Andre Sindate: 00:45:21

Oh, yeah.

Drew Holley: 00:45:22

So appreciate them what they go through.

Drew Holley: 00:45:24

So one of the things HR might be is again, I go back to the payroll and deductions on the benefits side, which affects 401k.

Drew Holley: 00:45:31

Because I've been in those opportunities.

Drew Holley: 00:45:33

They're like, hey, when some new employee comes into my office, they got to sign a W2, they got to sign an i9, they got to elect their benefits for the 401k.

Drew Holley: 00:45:42

How does it magically make it to payroll?

Drew Holley: 00:45:44

That's where software enrollment, deductions, payroll.

Drew Holley: 00:45:47

And you know, I know a lot of good people who are sales reps for payroll and.

Drew Holley: 00:45:52

But there's a lot of misinformation.

Drew Holley: 00:45:55

Let's call it tunnel vision.

Drew Holley: 00:45:58

Only their perspective.

Drew Holley: 00:45:59

I feel like we've got the perspective, the quarterback perspective of the total ecosystem.

Drew Holley: 00:46:04

So a lot of HR needs is how do I onboard people, how do I terminate and how do I, you know, get away from the manual stuff?

Drew Holley: 00:46:10

There's lots of solutions.

Drew Holley: 00:46:12

And if you're benefit broker, it doesn't seem like they have a handle on that or they're kind of, you know, being too salesy and telling you what you think you need to hear instead of really what the truth is.

Drew Holley: 00:46:22

I'd say that's alarm.

Drew Holley: 00:46:23

Yeah, that's one side of the hr.

Drew Holley: 00:46:25

The other is, you know, handbook questions.

Drew Holley: 00:46:28

I have an employee that's, you know, went on a workers comp claim, but I'm not sure if they should still be on the benefits.

Drew Holley: 00:46:34

That's a common question.

Drew Holley: 00:46:36

They're disabled.

Drew Holley: 00:46:37

How long do I keep them full time?

Drew Holley: 00:46:39

How long do I keep them on the company?

Drew Holley: 00:46:42

Some of those stuff just years of experience as an employee benefit advisor.

Drew Holley: 00:46:46

We can give good counsel and advice and depending on the master contract, sometimes.

Drew Holley: 00:46:51

So we offer our client.

Drew Holley: 00:46:52

There's another vendor that we have and partnered with which we'll partner with others.

Drew Holley: 00:46:56

One of them we give allocated hours to a company called Innovative Outsourcing where we'll team up.

Drew Holley: 00:47:01

A good example is, hey, I'm thinking of changing my PTO policy.

Drew Holley: 00:47:05

You know, going from, you know, a traditional to an unlimited pto.

Drew Holley: 00:47:09

I'd love some counsel so we can get the HR person on there.

Drew Holley: 00:47:12

We even have allocated hours just based off the client size to a benefits attorney.

Drew Holley: 00:47:18

Those are sticky situations.

Drew Holley: 00:47:19

Hopefully they don't have a lot of that.

Andre Sindate: 00:47:21

Sure.

Drew Holley: 00:47:21

But you know, I don't have any of those in house.

Drew Holley: 00:47:23

As a W2 full time employee, very few brokers do and would allocate those sources for a company with, you know, 30 employees.

Drew Holley: 00:47:32

Last thing we have is we're a member of the United Benefit advisors and imagine 130 roughly independently owned agencies like BIS all across the country.

Drew Holley: 00:47:43

We go to three conferences a year.

Drew Holley: 00:47:45

We pay dues to be in there, we're peer reviewed to be accepted.

Drew Holley: 00:47:50

But it really keeps us innovative.

Drew Holley: 00:47:52

And one of the things we collectively as dues, we pay a corporate attorney to keep an eye out on federal laws that affect employee benefits hr.

Drew Holley: 00:48:00

They send us compliance notices, we curate it.

Drew Holley: 00:48:03

We don't bombard our clients with 25 emails a day.

Drew Holley: 00:48:06

We say this one might be prevalent.

Drew Holley: 00:48:08

This has to do with Affordable Care Acts raised a minimum affordability pricing which is usually indexed to inflation once a year.

Drew Holley: 00:48:18

So we think that's relevant, we'll send it to a client.

Drew Holley: 00:48:20

So I'd call that as an HR resource.

Drew Holley: 00:48:23

Hopefully that answers.

Andre Sindate: 00:48:24

Yeah, it does, absolutely.

Andre Sindate: 00:48:26

That's great.

Andre Sindate: 00:48:28

I can even think of a number of conversations I've had either on this show or outside of this show with you know, attorneys who say oftentimes these employee matters that come up, they don't come up often, but when they do, oh man, that can be a huge, it's, it's not, not necessarily a huge problem.

Andre Sindate: 00:48:46

It's just that it, it can take a lot of mental energy, can cost a lot of money and you got to get it right.

Andre Sindate: 00:48:51

Right.

Andre Sindate: 00:48:51

Because there's a lot of compliance and regulatory and legal ramifications with, with these matters.

Andre Sindate: 00:48:57

They're highly sensitive.

Andre Sindate: 00:48:59

Last, I want to talk about the Benchmarking Trends report.

Andre Sindate: 00:49:02

You brought this up when we, when we met.

Andre Sindate: 00:49:04

So if you'll, if you'll give me a couple more minutes of your time, I'd love to sort of understand some of the regional trends that you're seeing.

Andre Sindate: 00:49:12

You know, we can focus in the southeast here.

Andre Sindate: 00:49:15

I'm going to quote from the report that, that, that you shared with me from the UBA.

Andre Sindate: 00:49:21

sed employee contributions in: 2023

Andre Sindate: 00:49:26

Most employers increased their percentage of premium contributions by just 3% on average across plan tiers.

Andre Sindate: 00:49:35

And so those average monthly premium contributions obviously vary depending on the situation.

Andre Sindate: 00:49:41

The employees could be single, they could be employee plus spouse, they could be employee plus children, they could be a family.

Andre Sindate: 00:49:47

You pointed to the fact that rates have gone up over the last, you know, 25 years.

Andre Sindate: 00:49:52

But talk to us a little bit about some of the findings from the survey and how do you utilize this information and this data from the survey in talking to, you know, your prospects and your clients?

Drew Holley: 00:50:06

Yeah, great question.

Drew Holley: 00:50:07

So I would call this a competitive advantage that we do have over most brokers.

Drew Holley: 00:50:12

Again, to the great agencies in Georgia that are part of the uba, there's only a few.

Drew Holley: 00:50:18

We all kind of share that, but it's a lot.

Drew Holley: 00:50:22

A common question a business owner, HR manager ask is, what are my clients paying?

Drew Holley: 00:50:26

Or what's the average cost of healthcare?

Andre Sindate: 00:50:27

Right.

Drew Holley: 00:50:28

I can't really Google what small businesses are doing.

Drew Holley: 00:50:30

So it's a very hard, they're not publicly traded like Google and Apple.

Drew Holley: 00:50:34

So part of our charter, being in the United Benefit Advisor, without revealing a client's names, once a year we have to submit our clients, you know, average copay and pricing and what do they contribute.

Drew Holley: 00:50:45

And then every agency across the country is doing it and we organize it.

Drew Holley: 00:50:49

It's not perfect, but it's about as good as it gets.

Drew Holley: 00:50:52

Where we can draw clues, conclusions, and ultimately, as you said, employee benefit advice, you know, that's what you look at as advisors.

Andre Sindate: 00:50:59

Yeah.

Drew Holley: 00:51:00

And so one of the biggest thing I always try to get people to understand is affordability.

Drew Holley: 00:51:04

And I'll probably say it twice.

Drew Holley: 00:51:05

Affordability for the staff of your health care plan is attention.

Drew Holley: 00:51:09

It has just as much to do with what you contribute as it has to do with your rate.

Drew Holley: 00:51:14

So a business owner that's grown and they have 401k, they never offer benefits.

Drew Holley: 00:51:19

They call me and say, drew, I need healthcare, run me a quote.

Drew Holley: 00:51:21

And I say, slow down, let's talk about right now how much it's going to cost you.

Andre Sindate: 00:51:25

Yeah.

Drew Holley: 00:51:26

And you almost like have a gun to their face saying, how much are you going to contribute per full time employee?

Drew Holley: 00:51:32

That's your overhead.

Drew Holley: 00:51:33

I can tell you the stats.

Drew Holley: 00:51:34

The average employer contributes just under $500 a month per employee.

Drew Holley: 00:51:40

So simple math, 10 employees, if all 10 take coverage times 500, it's going to cost you 5,000amonth, 60,000 a year.

Drew Holley: 00:51:50

Now let me do my job and run some quotes and try to, you know, make that $500 go as far as possible.

Drew Holley: 00:51:57

But you Know, a lot of times I have to be the bearer of bad news, but it's the truth.

Drew Holley: 00:52:01

And sometimes the truth hurts.

Drew Holley: 00:52:03

And I can say, look, your employees are complaining about the price of healthcare, but the average price of healthcare is roughly 650 bucks.

Drew Holley: 00:52:11

So that means we need to at least find one plan where it's costing your staff about 150, 160amonth.

Drew Holley: 00:52:18

We need one plan.

Drew Holley: 00:52:19

At least.

Drew Holley: 00:52:19

That does it.

Drew Holley: 00:52:20

But if I'm staring at a business owner and they have rates that are far below the average, but they're contributing very small, I got to be like, they're complaining because you're not contributing enough.

Andre Sindate: 00:52:30

Yeah.

Drew Holley: 00:52:30

You know, yeah.

Drew Holley: 00:52:31

And they may take my advice, may not, and I don't get offended if they don't.

Drew Holley: 00:52:35

I just, that's my job to say they're complaining.

Drew Holley: 00:52:38

Now, there's some sometimes simple solutions and that offer your staff more than one health insurance plan.

Drew Holley: 00:52:43

Here's a bucket of money.

Drew Holley: 00:52:46

A single male is going to have different needs than a married couple with young kids.

Drew Holley: 00:52:49

And then they're going to have a different need than an empty nester.

Drew Holley: 00:52:52

So give them two, three plans to choose from.

Drew Holley: 00:52:54

Here's a bucket of money.

Drew Holley: 00:52:55

So that, that benefit, you know, benchmarking.

Drew Holley: 00:53:00

Yeah, that's a big talking point.

Drew Holley: 00:53:01

Once a year, usually saying, and, and I always use my example.

Drew Holley: 00:53:05

I have clients that have much lower rates than me and they complain about the renewal and I'm like, I'll sign up for your rates right now compared to my company, for sure.

Drew Holley: 00:53:14

Yeah, yeah.

Drew Holley: 00:53:16

But, yeah, it gets clues and it gets some clues.

Andre Sindate: 00:53:19

Yeah.

Drew Holley: 00:53:19

And once a year it's updated and so we can say, look, I know it's expensive, I'm probably going to get there one day.

Drew Holley: 00:53:25

I remember the price I paid for a car when I was 16.

Drew Holley: 00:53:28

And I'm sure, you know, my youngest is about to turn 13 and what he pays for that car, I'm like, how can you do that?

Drew Holley: 00:53:34

Well, that's inflation, you know, so, you know, we can, as business owners, if you stay in the industry long enough or in your business, it's going to get probably discouraging to find out you're contributing 600amonth or seven or 800.

Drew Holley: 00:53:49

But again, the way our inflationary monetary policy works, it's only going to continue.

Drew Holley: 00:53:55

So just get ahead of it and budget and increase if you want to have really good staff.

Drew Holley: 00:53:59

And in a tight labor market, if your benefit plans are not strong, you're probably going to lose people.

Andre Sindate: 00:54:04

Yeah, no doubt about it.

Andre Sindate: 00:54:06

And you know, to bring it full circle.

Andre Sindate: 00:54:07

You talked about employees are the number one asset.

Andre Sindate: 00:54:09

You know, I think any savvy, smart business owner that's got a company that's, that's growing, right, you want to be growing.

Andre Sindate: 00:54:17

It's going to come down to the people and retention.

Andre Sindate: 00:54:20

So lastly, how do we get a hold of you?

Andre Sindate: 00:54:23

How can people learn more about you?

Andre Sindate: 00:54:25

I'd love to give you the last word, Drew.

Andre Sindate: 00:54:27

We appreciate you coming on ATL alts and whether that's an email, website, phone number.

Andre Sindate: 00:54:33

If people want to learn more about bis benefits, how would they do that?

Drew Holley: 00:54:37

Yeah, I mean, there's a couple different ways.

Drew Holley: 00:54:39

I don't mind sharing my cell phone just because in sales, you know, oh.

Andre Sindate: 00:54:42

You don't have to do that.

Andre Sindate: 00:54:43

You don't have to go that far.

Drew Holley: 00:54:44

But, you know, website's the easiest way.

Drew Holley: 00:54:46

BisBenefits.com BisYou can Google us.

Drew Holley: 00:54:50

You know, my email is Dholly D as in Delta Holly.

Drew Holley: 00:54:54

s benefits.com a phone number: 678992

Drew Holley: 00:55:04

But just google bis benefits.

Drew Holley: 00:55:06

You'll come to our site, you'll see our contact information.

Drew Holley: 00:55:09

We've got a chat feature, live number.

Drew Holley: 00:55:12

If you reach out, you'll find me.

Drew Holley: 00:55:14

And, yeah, I'm happy to have an honest discussion to say, hey, you're doing all the right things.

Drew Holley: 00:55:19

I think your broker's doing a good job.

Drew Holley: 00:55:20

I have no problem saying that.

Drew Holley: 00:55:21

So I welcome conversations to, if nothing else, reaffirm.

Drew Holley: 00:55:26

And I've done that myself where I've talked to other people and I appreciate it.

Drew Holley: 00:55:30

I think there's always a line of, okay, but I still want you to work on it.

Drew Holley: 00:55:34

I'm like, okay, yeah, but if I save you money, will you make a switch?

Drew Holley: 00:55:38

And they're like, well, how much money?

Drew Holley: 00:55:39

Well, I can't cut.

Drew Holley: 00:55:40

I can't get your insurance to zero.

Drew Holley: 00:55:42

So if that's your expectation, maybe, maybe it's not worth the time, but I'd love to talk to some of your listeners, see if I can help and be a resource.

Andre Sindate: 00:55:52

Well, I have no doubt that you could.

Andre Sindate: 00:55:54

There was a lot of great sales nuggets in here and information, but I think there was also a lot of real practical advice for folks that are thinking through these issues, particularly at this time of year.

Andre Sindate: 00:56:08

You know, it's something that I think it's easy to overlook when it comes to insurance or like you said, you just have your friend or your buddy, your neighbor that's kind of handling it.

Andre Sindate: 00:56:18

And, and sometimes those folks are doing a great job.

Andre Sindate: 00:56:21

But, but I think today you sort of enlightened us around a lot of the issues and opportunities.

Andre Sindate: 00:56:26

So I want to thank you, Drew Holly Bis Benefits managing partner, for joining us today on ATL Alts.

Andre Sindate: 00:56:31

I look forward to checking in with you, and I encourage our listeners to listen to the show.

Andre Sindate: 00:56:37

Please leave us comments.

Andre Sindate: 00:56:38

I'll put the show notes and Drew's contact information out there for you to, to reach out to him and his team.

Andre Sindate: 00:56:45

And with that, Drew, thank you for joining us today on ATL Alts.

Drew Holley: 00:56:49

Thank you for having me.

Andre Sindate: 00:56:50

All the best.