March 19, 2024 • 22 mins
Welcome to this exciting episode of 'Up to Speed', featuring the vibrant mind of Drake Slaikeu-Lawhead, Head of Growth at ITC Agents Vegas. In today's digital age, this episode delves deep into the value of in-person trade shows and conferences and their immense relevance even in the era of unparalleled technological advancement.
Drake uses his years of experience to shed light on the insatiable desire for in-person events despite the past few years of COVID restrictions and the irreplaceable role of face-to-face networking. We explore how, despite the rise of webinars and podcasts, the essence of in-person interactions remains untouched by digital platforms.
The conversation takes an interesting twist as we discuss the underlying fears of many insurance agents over the potential replacement of their jobs by InsurTech. Contrary to previous predictions, Drake asserts confidently that InsurTech is not here to replace agents but to improve and facilitate their work.
We also explore the forthcoming InsurTech Connect (ITC) event in October. Drake provides an exclusive preview of unique sessions designed to inspire insurance agents to embrace the digital age, covering everything from adding value to businesses in a tough market to customer acquisition strategies.
Finally, Drake offers priceless advice for making the most out of the conference. Highlights include balancing structured networking activities with unstructured time to deliver a well-rounded networking experience. This deep dive into the world of professional events shows that they are not just expenses, but vital investments in one's growth and development.
ITC Vegas | At the frontier of insurance innovation (insuretechconnect.com)
InsureTech Connect (@insuretechconnectofficial) • Instagram photos and videos
ITC Agents | Insurance Independent Agents Conference (insuretechconnect.com)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello, and welcome to Up to Speed. I'm your host, Samantha Tredelius,
and I am joined today with a really fun guest that I can't wait to jump in and
talk about all things conference, all things tech, and all things really helping
build your brand and knowledge.
I've got my buddy, Drake SlyQ Lawhead from the ITC Vegas.
(00:20):
So he's the head of growth at the ITC Agents Vegas, and I'm just so excited.
So thank you for joining us today, Drake.
Let's jump in. Yeah, thanks for having me, Sam.
Yeah, so, you know, for so many years, we were, well, a lot of years,
I shouldn't say so many, but for like the last three, four years,
it's been a lot of stay home, don't go out, you know, these conventions and
these different networking events that a lot of us can jump into,
(00:43):
you know, were something a lot of us were straying away from.
Now we're getting back into it. The question I have for you,
and we're going to jump into,
you know, what's up and coming here in the next few months is,
you know, is there a need for an in-person trade show and conference in this
digital age where we can get so much of the information online? Well, yes.
I'll start with that and I'll qualify it. I should first start by saying that
(01:08):
I'm not an insurance expert. I'm a conference person.
I've been working in here for a few years. But over COVID, a lot of people were
kind of asking the question, is that going to do...
Damage to the in-person events industry are they ever going
to come back right are people going to learn that they can do stuff on zoom and
and and you know we're going to a kind of a terminal decline
(01:28):
and the answer was no and they they did come back
and they came back with a vengeance right there was a really big pent-up demand
actually after covid people desperate to get get into to in person so i would
say you know there's a place for both you might want to do webinars you might
want to do kind of if it's a educational thing or a podcast like we're doing
That's a very good thing to consume by your phone.
(01:51):
But what was lost during COVID with face-to-face has not been replaced by digital, right?
There are things that happen in person, face-to-face. So you do have to be there
to benefit from, and that's not going away.
And so the industry in general, the in-person kind of conference industry,
has seen a big uptick since COVID finished.
(02:11):
Not just people meeting other people, actually people meeting people in the
company, right? Because a lot of people are working remotely.
We'll have people at our conference who might send 60 people from around the
world. And it's the first time in the year that they get to see each other.
So in-person events are not going away. And if anything, they're on the up.
They're coming back in a big way, which is exciting to see someone in your seat
(02:33):
that's actually in charge of making these events kind of come to life.
One of the things I always like to hear is, what is some of the feedback that
you get from sitting in your seat as having people come into these different events?
I mean, are you getting like that they're so excited to have the personal connections
or, you know, is it the leadership? Is it the education?
(02:54):
Is it the networking? Like, what are some of the things that you kind of hear
on your side after the events are done?
It's all of the above, really. We don't always know about what goes on.
And we have 9000 people at our show. Right.
So so there's a lot going on that we don't see.
But, you know, we actually started out, had a hashtag. I think for the first
time we ever had a kind of marketing campaign with a hashtag called hashtag because of ITC.
(03:18):
And we just went, we went and asked everybody, like, did you ever do anything?
Did anything ever come about personally or with your business?
Because you came to our conference that wouldn't have happened otherwise.
So we kind of did our own little kind of experiment with our own,
our own attendees and members.
And we got a huge response and people, things we had no idea were like,
oh, I went, I bought five companies. Some guy said that to me.
(03:40):
He said, we bought five companies based on people we saw last year,
right? Because they sat down and they did 100 meetings. They were investors.
And they wouldn't have done that on a Zoom call, right?
So we got a little bit of an insight about what actually happens on site.
We're just using that campaign that we did. you know
what do i hear as feedback from people i think the days
it used to be that you could just put on a big event like a
(04:02):
like a and have a theme park and just throw people in there and
expect them to kind of figure it all out themselves attendees are a lot more
demanding in the best possible way they're a little bit the bar has been raised
right it's not it's no longer good enough just to just to even have like a happy
hour or drinks reception you kind of what's happening now is more structured
networking right make it easy for people to to meet people because Because not everybody,
(04:25):
even people whose job it is to go to these events and maybe you're in sales
or something, whose job it is to network and meet people, still find it hard,
right? Most people are introverts. I'm an introvert.
I've just had to learn how to do this, you know. But it causes a bit of mental
effort, right? You've got to get out of your zone.
So we try to make it easy for people to do that, right? So we have structured
(04:46):
kind of networking events.
We have kind of affinity groups that we're bringing together.
We're making it easier for people to find their tribe, find their customers,
find the people that they want to do business with and take out the kind of
rather than just kind of leave them alone to their own devices,
which kind of frankly was what a lot of people do now and what was more common
maybe five or six years ago.
Yeah. And so let's, I want to dial back a little bit and really talk about what
(05:10):
the ITC is because I've actually never attended it.
And I was actually, how we got connected is I was interested in,
you know, seeing what you guys are doing, what's going on.
And then the more I was learning about what you're bringing to the table for
independent agents this year, I thought, oh my goodness, we've got to have you
on the show and share it with our, you know, wonderful base.
So tell us a little bit about what the ITC is and then what is up and coming
(05:33):
this year with the the event in October.
Sure, sure. So ITC is InsurTech Connect, right?
And it starts off eight years ago as a meeting place.
A couple of venture capitalists got together and said, there's nowhere that
we know of where we can meet InsurTechs, right? So they made this conference themselves.
And it starts off as a kind of investor meeting between those two groups,
InsurTech startups and investors.
(05:55):
And since then, it's grown to encompass the whole insurance insurance ecosystem.
35% of the people who come now are brokers and they are carriers.
We have almost all of the, we have about 85 of the top hundred carriers,
you know, so it's everybody and vendors, you know, solutions providers.
Brokers, carriers, all of that kind of thing.
So we have 9,000 people last year, over 9,000, and we expect around that or 10,000 this year.
(06:19):
It's just grown and grown and grown, but we haven't ever really done anything for agents.
That was actually the one kind of big part that was missing.
And agents, you know, part of that That is just historically,
although people don't say this anymore, it was common to hear,
I think, six years ago, people say that InsurTech was there to take away the
jobs of the independent agents, right?
(06:41):
There's been a kind of a historical institutional suspicion between the two.
I think people did say that, like, we're here to disintermediate the agents,
right? We're going to take a job.
Everyone's going to buy it through lemonade on their app and they don't need
it. That's what they hear. I mean, it's terrifying to insurance agents.
Right, right. Right. I think you did hear that a few years ago.
I don't think you hear it now.
(07:01):
I think people realize that the old adage that insurance isn't bought, it's sold. Still true.
It's one thing to automate your claims process, but when you've broken down
on the side of the road or your house has been broken into, you want to speak to somebody, right?
So there are things that agents do. Like we were saying about how the physical
has not been replaced by the digital, that's true for agents as well.
(07:22):
And even in hard markets, that job's not going anywhere. And so,
you know, we're doing ITC agents this year.
It's the first time we've ever had a real program.
Dedicated just to agents. Now, we do get agents and agency owners and the networks
and the aggregators and people coming every year to ITC, but they kind of just
come just because we're like the Super Bowl of insurance.
(07:45):
It's just a big event and it attracts lots of people. But this year,
we're being a lot more proactive about it.
We are putting on a one-day kind of master class conference from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
And the message is really, don't be afraid of the digital.
It's It's not purely a conference about what tech to buy.
It's not purely a conference on how to turn yourself into a digital agency.
(08:09):
It's probably about half of it.
Half of it's going to be just, you know, how do I add value to my business in this hard market?
You know, how do I cut costs? How do I increase the valuation of it if I'm thinking
about passing it along, you know, to somebody?
If I'm thinking about selling it, how do I get into new lines of new kind of
personal commercial lines?
How do I grow that? How do I acquire customers for cheaper? So we're going to try to do everything.
(08:31):
And we're doing it in a very kind of punchy, pithy way, like 10 minute,
15 minute TED Talks based around one big idea, kind of mic drop kind of sessions.
And it's going to be one after the other.
There'll be about 400, 500 agents there, plus all the vendors on the outside.
And that'll be Tuesday, right? It'll be Tuesday, the 15th of October.
And then the next two days is the whole of ITC Vegas.
You're buying a ticket for that, and then you come to the whole of ITC Vegas,
(08:53):
the 9,000-plus person show, 500 speakers, 14 tracks, 700 sponsors.
Opening parties, closing.
We counted about 60 different parties happening at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas.
And if you know anything about us insurance people, we do work hard and also
play even harder, right?
So here's the next question because this sounds – I mean, the insurance nerd
(09:17):
in me is like, yes, let's go. Oh, you know, how does one make the most of their
time at these types of events?
Because I just actually went to an event not that long ago, and there was 5,000 people there.
It was super overwhelming, you know, when you walk in a room and there's so much going on.
So what are some of the, you know, fast track moments that we can kind of pass
on to those that are going to join us at the event?
(09:37):
You know, how do they make the best and most of this time?
Well, so I would divide it sort of into two. The one day that I talked about
on the Tuesday, I don't think you need to prepare for that. You just need to
show up at 8 o'clock with coffee and a pen and paper and an open mind and take notes.
Because that's going to be a smaller kind of thing, 400, 500 people.
That takes care of itself.
And we've planned it to be like that, very low lift.
(09:59):
Now, the idea in a leave that day, you know, and on Wednesday,
Thursday mornings, you'll have kind of a roadmap.
Something will have clicked. Something will come in and be like,
okay, I need to meet like these 10 people or whatever.
Now, the thing about ITC is that you're one connection away from anybody you
want to meet in the industry. That's carriers, people like looking for capacity
from carriers, looking for technology partners, whatever you're looking for,
(10:20):
they're going to be there.
And so a little bit of preparation is needed to kind of identify,
well, what are my needs? Who do I want to meet? Who do I want to hang out with?
And things like that. And so a little bit of preparation does go a long way.
We do kind of try to make it easy for you to find your tribe and to fit in.
So I would also say that it's good to have some unstructured times, right?
(10:43):
Because one of the big things about in-person events is serendipity, right?
You need some time just to kind of walk around the expo floor and see what's
hot. What are people gravitating towards?
Or just let your mind wander and join a session on generative AI or something and see what happens.
So don't book yourself 100%. Leave some time in there for the surprise and connect
to happen. And I've seen a couple of different photographs of it almost looks
(11:05):
like a speed dating round with tables with numbers and meetups, if you will.
How does one get involved with those? Is that something you can just sign up
for or you do it on your own and then just meet at different locations?
Like, how does that work? Yeah. Well, we have a meeting zone.
I think what you're talking about is under the tables in the center of the expo floor.
And everybody has the app, right? The app has every single attendee there and
(11:28):
you can message anybody you want.
And so you book these 15, 20 minute meeting sessions. So I'm like,
I want to meet Sam. I want to get some CEs or whatever.
And then I just send you a message, you accept it. And we meet at the table 33 at 12.15.
And some people, they'll do that all conference long. Wow.
So we make it easy to do that. We also do kind of investment office hours.
(11:51):
We do speed dating, even though we don't call it speed dating because we don't know if people like it.
You know, brain trust, brain dating. We do that. We do kind of peer-to-peer
roundtables where you walk in and walk out.
They're kind of unstructured. There's just a ton of different formats that we
do. That's hopefully something for everyone.
Yeah. No, I mean, it feels like a way that you can get in front and connect
(12:13):
with people that you would never really, you know, have access to or be able
to meet in person at that level.
So here's something that I always find interesting. Once you're done going to
a conference or an event, there's a little bit of a problem with many of us
with the follow through, right?
We have all this information, all this stuff that's come at us.
We leave feeling just jazzed and invigorated.
Then we go home and we're like, okay, now what?
(12:35):
So you had mentioned an app and I'm assuming it's probably got some great resources
and different things that people can still connect to post event.
So what are some some of the things that also come along post event
you know post event it's interesting it's it's kind of what as
soon as the the morning of friday morning we kind of i'm
joking but we we kind of we don't completely right there's
(12:55):
always something to be done but we kind of it's it's not something that
a conference producer traditionally sort of is responsible it's
kind of like well i'm sorry you know we did this bit now it's you're gonna
have to to keep it alive you know so so we we
lead a horse to water we can't sort of make you follow up on everybody buddy
but listen like the app does stay live for like 30 days i think after the event
you know make notes find out who you want to you want to meet you can download
(13:18):
that and so you've got your list of contacts who was helpful and there's a ton
of activity that happens in the 30 days you know
You're going to get your badge scanned, you know, by people.
So you're going to be in their books. They're going to email you.
You're going to email them.
And so a ton of that kind of happens. And I would say people's memories start
to fade after about a couple of weeks. You know, everybody gets back to their office job.
Life happens. And then it's very easy to kind of not follow up on things that
(13:42):
were very energizing, inspiring two weeks ago.
And now you're dealing with everything that you were.
So I would strike while the iron is hot. And I would, you know,
make notes about the things that did stand out to you that did inspire you on
the day that, you know, I put them on my desk and I come back from conference.
I've back in the day when we used to have business cards and I put the business
cards on my desk so that I could see every day. I'm like, did I did I reach
(14:03):
out to that person yet? You know, I still like business cards.
I still recommend using them again, like a physical thing that I don't think
has been replaced by digital.
It's easy to get someone's LinkedIn, but it's hard to stack LinkedIn profiles
on your desk so that you see them every day.
So I'm still a fan of physical things like that. Yeah, I am,
too. So I'm also a super big fan of in-person because I do feel like I say it
all the time. You know, you're your best advertisement.
(14:25):
You're your best commercial for, you know, whether you're selling,
trying to obtain markets, obtain knowledge, all those things.
And, you know, I'm also one of those people that learns really well in person
when I hear it and I see it, you know, and I can connect with it versus just
sitting on a computer screen because I do feel like there is such a disconnect there so many times.
I'm going to read the room. I mean, we're social animals, right?
(14:46):
It's practically the defining feature of the human race, the species,
is that we're social animals.
And, you know, a couple of years of COVID and Zoom is wonderful for many things,
but it hasn't undone, you know, the two million year wiring in our brains that
have made us want to connect in person.
And it's one thing to watch a webinar. arts. Another thing to hear to see somebody
(15:06):
in person is if you're an agent,
to be in a room with people who are serial agency founders and who have sold
their business and to have a drink with them and to shake their hand, that's invaluable.
That is worth the price of admission and it doesn't happen if you're just one
of 10,000 people watching a YouTube video.
No. And also just have a seat at the table to be able to even interact and meet
(15:29):
and speak to these these different people that may have some insights for you
to help further your career in any way, shape or form and you theirs.
I mean, what a great opportunity.
So let's talk about the specifics. So when is this event? Where is this event?
How do people get tickets? Where do we go? So we are at the Mandalay Bay on
October the 15th to the 17th, Las Vegas.
(15:51):
So we don't have a full buyout of the Mandalay Bay, but again, 9,000 people.
There's people walking around with the lanyards everywhere. So come to the Mandalay
Bay. You'll be in the right place.
It's three days. The ITC Agents is on the 15th, on Tuesday the 15th.
And then the ITC, the main show with the keynotes.
Everyone who buys a ticket for agents has a ticket to ITC Vegas.
(16:14):
That's on Wednesday and Thursday. So you're looking at taking maybe a little
less than a week out of the office for that.
So recommended to fly in Sunday, fly out Saturday kind of thing or Thursday.
Is that a week? You could fly in Monday.
Monday, okay. But it'd be there on Tuesday morning and you've got to stay for
the closing party on Thursday.
We go to the Mandalay Beach and we had Earth, Wind & Fire last year.
(16:35):
We've had people like Nelly, Billy Idol. It's always fun. It's always something
like that. And it's a big party.
So Monday to Friday is what you're looking at.
Okay. And next question is, do we have a cost for the tickets yet?
Or have you got your pricing out yet?
We do, but our registration is about to go live in a couple of days.
So unfortunately- Oh, good. So we'll wait. Hopefully it'll be live by the time
(16:56):
this episode airs. So we'll make sure to post those links up.
And then the other question I have is, if we buy, is there just one day ticket
or you got to do the whole thing?
You got to do the whole thing. Yeah. And I will say about our ticket prices,
a lot of people don't realize how expensive of food and beverages in a place
in Las Vegas like that. We don't really make a lot of money.
(17:16):
In fact, the ticket price is priced in a way that we're covering our costs,
that it's not prohibitive for people. It's about $1,000.
For three days, and that includes, is that food too? That's for everything.
That's for your opening party, your closing party, three days of happy hours
of lunches, a couple of breakfasts in there.
That's for everything. thing. And plus the, plus the, you know,
(17:38):
the one day masterclasses that we're doing.
Yeah. This is, this is not competitively, you know, for, for compared to like
what people pay just to come to Vegas, if you're on the vendor side,
say, and we did that, we did that for a purpose. You know, we want to, we want to make this big.
We see a lot of potential in this. We want to grow it.
And we don't want to, we want people to think that that's kind of a reasonable
price to pay in an investment in themselves.
(17:59):
Well, and that kind of digs into my next topic is the professional development
and actually spending money on yourself as a professional and attending conferences
and attending masterminds and learning more that, you know, to help better your craft.
I mean, that investment on its own is so worth it. And someone who's in your
seat can see that time and time again.
So, you know, I think it's hard for us, you know, somebody that's maybe,
(18:22):
you know, especially, you know, right now the market's really hard for in California
where I sit, you know, a lot of agents are really struggling.
So to say, you know, here's an opportunity to spend X amount of dollars,
they may be thinking, you know, it's a little bit of a stretch right now.
But, you know, maybe in the long run, if you look at what the return would be
that you could learn, meet, you know, network, develop yourself a whole lot
(18:44):
better, I think, you know, it's a win-win all around.
Well, and yourself is the best investment you can make, right?
I mean, we always say that, right?
If I offered you a stock tip and said, this is $1,000 and it's going to return
$2,000, you would take that every time.
And if I said, well, to do it though, you've got to go to this three-day event
in Vegas and meet people and have a lot of fun, then you would definitely do it, right?
So for $995, are you going to come away with an idea that's going to make you another $1,000?
(19:10):
I would put good money on that. We don't make any guarantees,
but you don't know where that idea is going to come from. You don't know where
inspiration is going to come from.
You do have to be in the room to do that. You don't know who you're going to meet.
You might find somebody who you go into business with. You You might find a
very easy $1,000 savings on
some of your software that you were using that you didn't know you need.
(19:30):
And we've designed this, by the way. The day is not kind of a forward looking
like, oh, what's insurance going to look like in 10 years time?
It's actually practical advice that you can take home and start adding value
to your business from proverbial day one, right? It's a practical conference.
And so it's money well spent. It is an investment. It's time out of the office.
(19:51):
We understand that. like everyone's got targets and and
especially for agents you know where if you're working for a
big company if you're working for chubb you know they're going to pay your
ticket they're going to do all that we know that it's different like it's
coming out of their pockets right so we understand it as a hurdle but
i encourage people to view it as an investment in themselves and hey if you
if you come one year and it wasn't for you you never have to come again but
(20:12):
you do you got to be in there to with the chance you know because you never
know what what what kind of piece of inspiration what kind of piece of knowledge
you're going to go away with that's It's going to bring you the savings.
Well, you don't know until you try.
And you've got to try multiple different things. And as we all develop in our
insurance spaces that we're in, there's so many things that are new, ever-changing.
And to be able to be in a room with the real-time providers of these different
(20:35):
softwares and markets, and I mean, these are conversations our insureds are hearing.
So it's almost our job to be educated ourselves as professionals to be able
to answer those questions.
One of the things, too, you mentioned the trade show floor. So you've got vendors.
I'm assuming you've got the carriers.
You've got them all there showcasing all their different products and things.
How many vendors did you say show up there? We have 700. Wow, that's massive.
(20:59):
Yeah, it will take you a day or two just to walk around the floor.
We make it a fun kind of experience. We have things on the show floor like we
have champagne lounges, tea lounges, coffee lounges, puppy lounges,
games rooms, soccer penalty shootouts.
It's fun, right? We put a lot of time and effort into making it like that.
And there's just a hundred parties and happy hours going on at any given point
(21:22):
or musicians or people walking around. We have a very cool theme this year.
But yeah, to the meat of it, there are 700 people there. And it's everybody
that you're probably already working with if you're an independent agent.
People like the Vertifors and Applieds and Zyways, people making your software.
You can meet them face-to-face, Agency Revolution.
We have a lot of those. They pretty much all come to that. So you will meet
(21:45):
people that you want to meet.
You'll meet new people and go down Innovation Alley and just have a look at
all the new startup insurtechs and see what they're doing.
It's interesting, right? You kind of learn a lot about where the industry is
going by where people are gravitating towards.
Walking around the Expo Hall is actually kind of an interesting way to get a
feel for where the future of insurance is moving. I mean, it's just, it's innovative.
(22:05):
It's great. It's fantastic. For somebody who says they're not an insurance Drake,
I feel like, you know, quite a bit about our industry.
And I do think that what you're doing and opening it up to really focus on that
one day for independent agents is absolutely fantastic this year.
I can't wait to see you in person. I will be there along with,
I know a lot of industry folks that I know are going to be there as well.
(22:27):
So we will see you in Vegas.
We Also, links to connect with you if anybody has any additional questions.
And thank you, Drake, for being up to speed.
Hello, and welcome to Up to Speed. I'm your host, Samantha Tredelius,
and I am joined today with a really fun guest that I can't wait to jump in and
talk about all things conference, all things tech, and all things really helping
build your brand and knowledge.
I've got my buddy, Drake SlyQ Lawhead from the ITC Vegas.
(00:20):
So he's the head of growth at the ITC Agents Vegas, and I'm just so excited.
So thank you for joining us today, Drake.
Let's jump in. Yeah, thanks for having me, Sam.
Yeah, so, you know, for so many years, we were, well, a lot of years,
I shouldn't say so many, but for like the last three, four years,
it's been a lot of stay home, don't go out, you know, these conventions and
these different networking events that a lot of us can jump into,
(00:43):
you know, were something a lot of us were straying away from.
Now we're getting back into it. The question I have for you,
and we're going to jump into,
you know, what's up and coming here in the next few months is,
you know, is there a need for an in-person trade show and conference in this
digital age where we can get so much of the information online? Well, yes.
I'll start with that and I'll qualify it. I should first start by saying that
(01:08):
I'm not an insurance expert. I'm a conference person.
I've been working in here for a few years. But over COVID, a lot of people were
kind of asking the question, is that going to do...
Damage to the in-person events industry are they ever going
to come back right are people going to learn that they can do stuff on zoom and
and and you know we're going to a kind of a terminal decline
(01:28):
and the answer was no and they they did come back
and they came back with a vengeance right there was a really big pent-up demand
actually after covid people desperate to get get into to in person so i would
say you know there's a place for both you might want to do webinars you might
want to do kind of if it's a educational thing or a podcast like we're doing
That's a very good thing to consume by your phone.
(01:51):
But what was lost during COVID with face-to-face has not been replaced by digital, right?
There are things that happen in person, face-to-face. So you do have to be there
to benefit from, and that's not going away.
And so the industry in general, the in-person kind of conference industry,
has seen a big uptick since COVID finished.
(02:11):
Not just people meeting other people, actually people meeting people in the
company, right? Because a lot of people are working remotely.
We'll have people at our conference who might send 60 people from around the
world. And it's the first time in the year that they get to see each other.
So in-person events are not going away. And if anything, they're on the up.
They're coming back in a big way, which is exciting to see someone in your seat
(02:33):
that's actually in charge of making these events kind of come to life.
One of the things I always like to hear is, what is some of the feedback that
you get from sitting in your seat as having people come into these different events?
I mean, are you getting like that they're so excited to have the personal connections
or, you know, is it the leadership? Is it the education?
(02:54):
Is it the networking? Like, what are some of the things that you kind of hear
on your side after the events are done?
It's all of the above, really. We don't always know about what goes on.
And we have 9000 people at our show. Right.
So so there's a lot going on that we don't see.
But, you know, we actually started out, had a hashtag. I think for the first
time we ever had a kind of marketing campaign with a hashtag called hashtag because of ITC.
(03:18):
And we just went, we went and asked everybody, like, did you ever do anything?
Did anything ever come about personally or with your business?
Because you came to our conference that wouldn't have happened otherwise.
So we kind of did our own little kind of experiment with our own,
our own attendees and members.
And we got a huge response and people, things we had no idea were like,
oh, I went, I bought five companies. Some guy said that to me.
(03:40):
He said, we bought five companies based on people we saw last year,
right? Because they sat down and they did 100 meetings. They were investors.
And they wouldn't have done that on a Zoom call, right?
So we got a little bit of an insight about what actually happens on site.
We're just using that campaign that we did. you know
what do i hear as feedback from people i think the days
it used to be that you could just put on a big event like a
(04:02):
like a and have a theme park and just throw people in there and
expect them to kind of figure it all out themselves attendees are a lot more
demanding in the best possible way they're a little bit the bar has been raised
right it's not it's no longer good enough just to just to even have like a happy
hour or drinks reception you kind of what's happening now is more structured
networking right make it easy for people to to meet people because Because not everybody,
(04:25):
even people whose job it is to go to these events and maybe you're in sales
or something, whose job it is to network and meet people, still find it hard,
right? Most people are introverts. I'm an introvert.
I've just had to learn how to do this, you know. But it causes a bit of mental
effort, right? You've got to get out of your zone.
So we try to make it easy for people to do that, right? So we have structured
(04:46):
kind of networking events.
We have kind of affinity groups that we're bringing together.
We're making it easier for people to find their tribe, find their customers,
find the people that they want to do business with and take out the kind of
rather than just kind of leave them alone to their own devices,
which kind of frankly was what a lot of people do now and what was more common
maybe five or six years ago.
Yeah. And so let's, I want to dial back a little bit and really talk about what
(05:10):
the ITC is because I've actually never attended it.
And I was actually, how we got connected is I was interested in,
you know, seeing what you guys are doing, what's going on.
And then the more I was learning about what you're bringing to the table for
independent agents this year, I thought, oh my goodness, we've got to have you
on the show and share it with our, you know, wonderful base.
So tell us a little bit about what the ITC is and then what is up and coming
(05:33):
this year with the the event in October.
Sure, sure. So ITC is InsurTech Connect, right?
And it starts off eight years ago as a meeting place.
A couple of venture capitalists got together and said, there's nowhere that
we know of where we can meet InsurTechs, right? So they made this conference themselves.
And it starts off as a kind of investor meeting between those two groups,
InsurTech startups and investors.
(05:55):
And since then, it's grown to encompass the whole insurance insurance ecosystem.
35% of the people who come now are brokers and they are carriers.
We have almost all of the, we have about 85 of the top hundred carriers,
you know, so it's everybody and vendors, you know, solutions providers.
Brokers, carriers, all of that kind of thing.
So we have 9,000 people last year, over 9,000, and we expect around that or 10,000 this year.
(06:19):
It's just grown and grown and grown, but we haven't ever really done anything for agents.
That was actually the one kind of big part that was missing.
And agents, you know, part of that That is just historically,
although people don't say this anymore, it was common to hear,
I think, six years ago, people say that InsurTech was there to take away the
jobs of the independent agents, right?
(06:41):
There's been a kind of a historical institutional suspicion between the two.
I think people did say that, like, we're here to disintermediate the agents,
right? We're going to take a job.
Everyone's going to buy it through lemonade on their app and they don't need
it. That's what they hear. I mean, it's terrifying to insurance agents.
Right, right. Right. I think you did hear that a few years ago.
I don't think you hear it now.
(07:01):
I think people realize that the old adage that insurance isn't bought, it's sold. Still true.
It's one thing to automate your claims process, but when you've broken down
on the side of the road or your house has been broken into, you want to speak to somebody, right?
So there are things that agents do. Like we were saying about how the physical
has not been replaced by the digital, that's true for agents as well.
(07:22):
And even in hard markets, that job's not going anywhere. And so,
you know, we're doing ITC agents this year.
It's the first time we've ever had a real program.
Dedicated just to agents. Now, we do get agents and agency owners and the networks
and the aggregators and people coming every year to ITC, but they kind of just
come just because we're like the Super Bowl of insurance.
(07:45):
It's just a big event and it attracts lots of people. But this year,
we're being a lot more proactive about it.
We are putting on a one-day kind of master class conference from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
And the message is really, don't be afraid of the digital.
It's It's not purely a conference about what tech to buy.
It's not purely a conference on how to turn yourself into a digital agency.
(08:09):
It's probably about half of it.
Half of it's going to be just, you know, how do I add value to my business in this hard market?
You know, how do I cut costs? How do I increase the valuation of it if I'm thinking
about passing it along, you know, to somebody?
If I'm thinking about selling it, how do I get into new lines of new kind of
personal commercial lines?
How do I grow that? How do I acquire customers for cheaper? So we're going to try to do everything.
(08:31):
And we're doing it in a very kind of punchy, pithy way, like 10 minute,
15 minute TED Talks based around one big idea, kind of mic drop kind of sessions.
And it's going to be one after the other.
There'll be about 400, 500 agents there, plus all the vendors on the outside.
And that'll be Tuesday, right? It'll be Tuesday, the 15th of October.
And then the next two days is the whole of ITC Vegas.
You're buying a ticket for that, and then you come to the whole of ITC Vegas,
(08:53):
the 9,000-plus person show, 500 speakers, 14 tracks, 700 sponsors.
Opening parties, closing.
We counted about 60 different parties happening at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas.
And if you know anything about us insurance people, we do work hard and also
play even harder, right?
So here's the next question because this sounds – I mean, the insurance nerd
(09:17):
in me is like, yes, let's go. Oh, you know, how does one make the most of their
time at these types of events?
Because I just actually went to an event not that long ago, and there was 5,000 people there.
It was super overwhelming, you know, when you walk in a room and there's so much going on.
So what are some of the, you know, fast track moments that we can kind of pass
on to those that are going to join us at the event?
(09:37):
You know, how do they make the best and most of this time?
Well, so I would divide it sort of into two. The one day that I talked about
on the Tuesday, I don't think you need to prepare for that. You just need to
show up at 8 o'clock with coffee and a pen and paper and an open mind and take notes.
Because that's going to be a smaller kind of thing, 400, 500 people.
That takes care of itself.
And we've planned it to be like that, very low lift.
(09:59):
Now, the idea in a leave that day, you know, and on Wednesday,
Thursday mornings, you'll have kind of a roadmap.
Something will have clicked. Something will come in and be like,
okay, I need to meet like these 10 people or whatever.
Now, the thing about ITC is that you're one connection away from anybody you
want to meet in the industry. That's carriers, people like looking for capacity
from carriers, looking for technology partners, whatever you're looking for,
(10:20):
they're going to be there.
And so a little bit of preparation is needed to kind of identify,
well, what are my needs? Who do I want to meet? Who do I want to hang out with?
And things like that. And so a little bit of preparation does go a long way.
We do kind of try to make it easy for you to find your tribe and to fit in.
So I would also say that it's good to have some unstructured times, right?
(10:43):
Because one of the big things about in-person events is serendipity, right?
You need some time just to kind of walk around the expo floor and see what's
hot. What are people gravitating towards?
Or just let your mind wander and join a session on generative AI or something and see what happens.
So don't book yourself 100%. Leave some time in there for the surprise and connect
to happen. And I've seen a couple of different photographs of it almost looks
(11:05):
like a speed dating round with tables with numbers and meetups, if you will.
How does one get involved with those? Is that something you can just sign up
for or you do it on your own and then just meet at different locations?
Like, how does that work? Yeah. Well, we have a meeting zone.
I think what you're talking about is under the tables in the center of the expo floor.
And everybody has the app, right? The app has every single attendee there and
(11:28):
you can message anybody you want.
And so you book these 15, 20 minute meeting sessions. So I'm like,
I want to meet Sam. I want to get some CEs or whatever.
And then I just send you a message, you accept it. And we meet at the table 33 at 12.15.
And some people, they'll do that all conference long. Wow.
So we make it easy to do that. We also do kind of investment office hours.
(11:51):
We do speed dating, even though we don't call it speed dating because we don't know if people like it.
You know, brain trust, brain dating. We do that. We do kind of peer-to-peer
roundtables where you walk in and walk out.
They're kind of unstructured. There's just a ton of different formats that we
do. That's hopefully something for everyone.
Yeah. No, I mean, it feels like a way that you can get in front and connect
(12:13):
with people that you would never really, you know, have access to or be able
to meet in person at that level.
So here's something that I always find interesting. Once you're done going to
a conference or an event, there's a little bit of a problem with many of us
with the follow through, right?
We have all this information, all this stuff that's come at us.
We leave feeling just jazzed and invigorated.
Then we go home and we're like, okay, now what?
(12:35):
So you had mentioned an app and I'm assuming it's probably got some great resources
and different things that people can still connect to post event.
So what are some some of the things that also come along post event
you know post event it's interesting it's it's kind of what as
soon as the the morning of friday morning we kind of i'm
joking but we we kind of we don't completely right there's
(12:55):
always something to be done but we kind of it's it's not something that
a conference producer traditionally sort of is responsible it's
kind of like well i'm sorry you know we did this bit now it's you're gonna
have to to keep it alive you know so so we we
lead a horse to water we can't sort of make you follow up on everybody buddy
but listen like the app does stay live for like 30 days i think after the event
you know make notes find out who you want to you want to meet you can download
(13:18):
that and so you've got your list of contacts who was helpful and there's a ton
of activity that happens in the 30 days you know
You're going to get your badge scanned, you know, by people.
So you're going to be in their books. They're going to email you.
You're going to email them.
And so a ton of that kind of happens. And I would say people's memories start
to fade after about a couple of weeks. You know, everybody gets back to their office job.
Life happens. And then it's very easy to kind of not follow up on things that
(13:42):
were very energizing, inspiring two weeks ago.
And now you're dealing with everything that you were.
So I would strike while the iron is hot. And I would, you know,
make notes about the things that did stand out to you that did inspire you on
the day that, you know, I put them on my desk and I come back from conference.
I've back in the day when we used to have business cards and I put the business
cards on my desk so that I could see every day. I'm like, did I did I reach
(14:03):
out to that person yet? You know, I still like business cards.
I still recommend using them again, like a physical thing that I don't think
has been replaced by digital.
It's easy to get someone's LinkedIn, but it's hard to stack LinkedIn profiles
on your desk so that you see them every day.
So I'm still a fan of physical things like that. Yeah, I am,
too. So I'm also a super big fan of in-person because I do feel like I say it
all the time. You know, you're your best advertisement.
(14:25):
You're your best commercial for, you know, whether you're selling,
trying to obtain markets, obtain knowledge, all those things.
And, you know, I'm also one of those people that learns really well in person
when I hear it and I see it, you know, and I can connect with it versus just
sitting on a computer screen because I do feel like there is such a disconnect there so many times.
I'm going to read the room. I mean, we're social animals, right?
(14:46):
It's practically the defining feature of the human race, the species,
is that we're social animals.
And, you know, a couple of years of COVID and Zoom is wonderful for many things,
but it hasn't undone, you know, the two million year wiring in our brains that
have made us want to connect in person.
And it's one thing to watch a webinar. arts. Another thing to hear to see somebody
(15:06):
in person is if you're an agent,
to be in a room with people who are serial agency founders and who have sold
their business and to have a drink with them and to shake their hand, that's invaluable.
That is worth the price of admission and it doesn't happen if you're just one
of 10,000 people watching a YouTube video.
No. And also just have a seat at the table to be able to even interact and meet
(15:29):
and speak to these these different people that may have some insights for you
to help further your career in any way, shape or form and you theirs.
I mean, what a great opportunity.
So let's talk about the specifics. So when is this event? Where is this event?
How do people get tickets? Where do we go? So we are at the Mandalay Bay on
October the 15th to the 17th, Las Vegas.
(15:51):
So we don't have a full buyout of the Mandalay Bay, but again, 9,000 people.
There's people walking around with the lanyards everywhere. So come to the Mandalay
Bay. You'll be in the right place.
It's three days. The ITC Agents is on the 15th, on Tuesday the 15th.
And then the ITC, the main show with the keynotes.
Everyone who buys a ticket for agents has a ticket to ITC Vegas.
(16:14):
That's on Wednesday and Thursday. So you're looking at taking maybe a little
less than a week out of the office for that.
So recommended to fly in Sunday, fly out Saturday kind of thing or Thursday.
Is that a week? You could fly in Monday.
Monday, okay. But it'd be there on Tuesday morning and you've got to stay for
the closing party on Thursday.
We go to the Mandalay Beach and we had Earth, Wind & Fire last year.
(16:35):
We've had people like Nelly, Billy Idol. It's always fun. It's always something
like that. And it's a big party.
So Monday to Friday is what you're looking at.
Okay. And next question is, do we have a cost for the tickets yet?
Or have you got your pricing out yet?
We do, but our registration is about to go live in a couple of days.
So unfortunately- Oh, good. So we'll wait. Hopefully it'll be live by the time
(16:56):
this episode airs. So we'll make sure to post those links up.
And then the other question I have is, if we buy, is there just one day ticket
or you got to do the whole thing?
You got to do the whole thing. Yeah. And I will say about our ticket prices,
a lot of people don't realize how expensive of food and beverages in a place
in Las Vegas like that. We don't really make a lot of money.
(17:16):
In fact, the ticket price is priced in a way that we're covering our costs,
that it's not prohibitive for people. It's about $1,000.
For three days, and that includes, is that food too? That's for everything.
That's for your opening party, your closing party, three days of happy hours
of lunches, a couple of breakfasts in there.
That's for everything. thing. And plus the, plus the, you know,
(17:38):
the one day masterclasses that we're doing.
Yeah. This is, this is not competitively, you know, for, for compared to like
what people pay just to come to Vegas, if you're on the vendor side,
say, and we did that, we did that for a purpose. You know, we want to, we want to make this big.
We see a lot of potential in this. We want to grow it.
And we don't want to, we want people to think that that's kind of a reasonable
price to pay in an investment in themselves.
(17:59):
Well, and that kind of digs into my next topic is the professional development
and actually spending money on yourself as a professional and attending conferences
and attending masterminds and learning more that, you know, to help better your craft.
I mean, that investment on its own is so worth it. And someone who's in your
seat can see that time and time again.
So, you know, I think it's hard for us, you know, somebody that's maybe,
(18:22):
you know, especially, you know, right now the market's really hard for in California
where I sit, you know, a lot of agents are really struggling.
So to say, you know, here's an opportunity to spend X amount of dollars,
they may be thinking, you know, it's a little bit of a stretch right now.
But, you know, maybe in the long run, if you look at what the return would be
that you could learn, meet, you know, network, develop yourself a whole lot
(18:44):
better, I think, you know, it's a win-win all around.
Well, and yourself is the best investment you can make, right?
I mean, we always say that, right?
If I offered you a stock tip and said, this is $1,000 and it's going to return
$2,000, you would take that every time.
And if I said, well, to do it though, you've got to go to this three-day event
in Vegas and meet people and have a lot of fun, then you would definitely do it, right?
So for $995, are you going to come away with an idea that's going to make you another $1,000?
(19:10):
I would put good money on that. We don't make any guarantees,
but you don't know where that idea is going to come from. You don't know where
inspiration is going to come from.
You do have to be in the room to do that. You don't know who you're going to meet.
You might find somebody who you go into business with. You You might find a
very easy $1,000 savings on
some of your software that you were using that you didn't know you need.
(19:30):
And we've designed this, by the way. The day is not kind of a forward looking
like, oh, what's insurance going to look like in 10 years time?
It's actually practical advice that you can take home and start adding value
to your business from proverbial day one, right? It's a practical conference.
And so it's money well spent. It is an investment. It's time out of the office.
(19:51):
We understand that. like everyone's got targets and and
especially for agents you know where if you're working for a
big company if you're working for chubb you know they're going to pay your
ticket they're going to do all that we know that it's different like it's
coming out of their pockets right so we understand it as a hurdle but
i encourage people to view it as an investment in themselves and hey if you
if you come one year and it wasn't for you you never have to come again but
(20:12):
you do you got to be in there to with the chance you know because you never
know what what what kind of piece of inspiration what kind of piece of knowledge
you're going to go away with that's It's going to bring you the savings.
Well, you don't know until you try.
And you've got to try multiple different things. And as we all develop in our
insurance spaces that we're in, there's so many things that are new, ever-changing.
And to be able to be in a room with the real-time providers of these different
(20:35):
softwares and markets, and I mean, these are conversations our insureds are hearing.
So it's almost our job to be educated ourselves as professionals to be able
to answer those questions.
One of the things, too, you mentioned the trade show floor. So you've got vendors.
I'm assuming you've got the carriers.
You've got them all there showcasing all their different products and things.
How many vendors did you say show up there? We have 700. Wow, that's massive.
(20:59):
Yeah, it will take you a day or two just to walk around the floor.
We make it a fun kind of experience. We have things on the show floor like we
have champagne lounges, tea lounges, coffee lounges, puppy lounges,
games rooms, soccer penalty shootouts.
It's fun, right? We put a lot of time and effort into making it like that.
And there's just a hundred parties and happy hours going on at any given point
(21:22):
or musicians or people walking around. We have a very cool theme this year.
But yeah, to the meat of it, there are 700 people there. And it's everybody
that you're probably already working with if you're an independent agent.
People like the Vertifors and Applieds and Zyways, people making your software.
You can meet them face-to-face, Agency Revolution.
We have a lot of those. They pretty much all come to that. So you will meet
(21:45):
people that you want to meet.
You'll meet new people and go down Innovation Alley and just have a look at
all the new startup insurtechs and see what they're doing.
It's interesting, right? You kind of learn a lot about where the industry is
going by where people are gravitating towards.
Walking around the Expo Hall is actually kind of an interesting way to get a
feel for where the future of insurance is moving. I mean, it's just, it's innovative.
(22:05):
It's great. It's fantastic. For somebody who says they're not an insurance Drake,
I feel like, you know, quite a bit about our industry.
And I do think that what you're doing and opening it up to really focus on that
one day for independent agents is absolutely fantastic this year.
I can't wait to see you in person. I will be there along with,
I know a lot of industry folks that I know are going to be there as well.
(22:27):
So we will see you in Vegas.
We Also, links to connect with you if anybody has any additional questions.
And thank you, Drake, for being up to speed.
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