S3E4 - Agency Influence With Austin Moorehead

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/aYjhEFptPjg

On this episode of the Agency Navigators podcast, Roe and Don spotlight the power of ‘find a way to say ‘yes!’’ 

As a fellow resource to independent insurance agencies, Austin Morehead of LAVA Automation also understands never-ending entrepreneurial needs and the loneliness that comes with agency ownership. 

Join Roe, Don, and Austin as they talk about their strengths, weaknesses, and the opportunities made possible with discipline (& a little tough love) from the AgencyCFO Team.

This episode concludes Season 3 of the Agency Navigators podcast. See you soon!

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YouTube: www.youtube.com/@AgencyCFOAgencyNavigators 

Transcript

Roe Polczynski: [00:00:00] Hey everyone, thank you so much for joining us for the Agency Navigators podcast. I'm Ro. I'm Don. We are partners at Agency CFO, but today we have a dear friend of ours, Austin from Lava Automation. Welcome Austin. 

Austin Moorehead: Thanks for having me on today 

Roe Polczynski: guys. Oh, well, we didn't give you much of a choice, but we tried.

Roe Polczynski: So we want to talk about the industry influence. And how, how independent insurance, how we've helped as CFOs, how we've integrated with you and just kind of give a little bit of a back story. 

Austin Moorehead: Well I think, you know, I met you guys through one of mutual calamars and I saw the, the impact that you made to them, the structures you provided their organization and a lot of customers of mine, they come to me and they go, Hey, cause you work with so many agencies, like what do you see working outside of what you offer?

Austin Moorehead: And I go, well, if you don't have a [00:01:00] CFO, you need to talk to FCO. And I, I was, I think I was sitting at Ryan's office at the time and I was like, bro, you definitely, you know, need to talk, talk to these guys. And anyways, and so you know, I, I definitely see you guys helping this industry. I don't know if you guys want to get into that story.

Austin Moorehead: Oh, I'm 

Roe Polczynski: going to tell this story because it's so much fun. 

Austin Moorehead: We, we were 

Roe Polczynski: doing this, I think the, just our normal introductory calls with, with Ryan. And obviously Mark. We're in his beautiful studio here. He's been he was first with us, and Don and I were doing the intro, and then all of a sudden he comes in my office and he says, Ro, Austin just reached out.

Roe Polczynski: He said he liked everything so much he wants to be a part of it. Now, where everybody, 

Don Polczynski: Austin is not an intern agency owner. 

Roe Polczynski: And 

Don Polczynski: essentially, we generally work with We only work, not 

Roe Polczynski: exclusively, not generally, exclusively I 

Austin Moorehead: had to beg, I think, a little bit [00:02:00] 

Roe Polczynski: Well, we also had a great mentor who once told us, find a way to say yes And actually, that's really good advice to any entrepreneur Find a way to say yes And so when we did the talk, after we got over the initial, huh, this is definitely different 

Don Polczynski: Two things about your business that Yeah let's work together.

Don Polczynski: One to the independent insura know it inside of products insurance agencies. Just 

Roe Polczynski: influence. 

Don Polczynski: Secondly, when

Don Polczynski: Yeah, from a financial aspect, it runs very similar to an insurance agency. With current revenue 

Roe Polczynski: and annual terms. 

Don Polczynski: Absolutely. So it's extremely similar, so I said absolutely. 

Roe Polczynski: And so agency CFO, we always say we run like an independent insurance agency. We don't have the benefit of profit sharing or contingencies.

Roe Polczynski: Yeah, lots of contingencies. [00:03:00] But we do understand, you know, the same, the same sales process, the same relationship driven. Yes, the, the annual revenue, the renewals, all of it. Yeah, I 

Austin Moorehead: think I talked to you guys with three or four of my accounts, and I'm just like listening to the sales pitch going, God, I need, I need this in my life.

Austin Moorehead: And I was like, I don't, you know, I don't have anyone in my corner that's, you know, a sounding board to like measure best practices against. I didn't have anybody in my corner to, you know, be that accountability. I didn't have anybody in my corner to, you know, partner with me in some of my crazy, you know, business ventures.

Austin Moorehead: And it's like, how do I? How do I get that in my company? It was at the time when we had a lot of problems. 

Don Polczynski: The good news is, you're the typical owner. 

Austin Moorehead: Yeah. 

Don Polczynski: We get that feedback all the time. And you are just like the independent insurance agency owner. The vast majority say, they're on an island. It's lonely.

Don Polczynski: I don't have somebody to talk to on these issues. Yeah. We hear that all the time. And when we met you, [00:04:00] What are your finances? You and one of the reasons why we were excited to work with you is we believed in what you're doing. 

Roe Polczynski: The opportunity. Yeah. For the growth. You had a business, 

Don Polczynski: you had a lot of great pieces in place.

Don Polczynski: And really it's been a great ride, you know, how the growth that you've experienced in our continued experience. You actually had a really growing business. But it wasn't. 

Austin Moorehead: perfect. A lot of problems. God, my gosh, the problems you can probably speak a lot better to 'em from a financial perspective, but you know, we definitely had, you know, opportunity coming through, but the stability, and I think we were talking earlier, the cash flow and 

Roe Polczynski: financial security, the path of financial security was 

Austin Moorehead: missing.

Austin Moorehead: Yeah. And so obviously that was the reason I couldn't wait to, you know, join you guys. 

Don Polczynski: Yeah. And it's so common. that we all want to grow. We, you know, we all want to grow our agencies, grow our businesses, and it's great when we have top line growth. It's great when we [00:05:00] have profitability. But at the end of the day, when it's time to fund the next payroll, all that matters is, do I have enough cash in the bank that I can pay everybody?

Don Polczynski: Life 

Roe Polczynski: as an entrepreneur. And 

Don Polczynski: that's stressful. Yeah. When you're not certain, or we're cutting it real close, do I have enough? To make my next payroll. 

Austin Moorehead: Yeah, yeah, so that's where you guys caught me. I think it was over about two years ago or something like that. It was like we were just kind of You know hoping or praying every month, you know

Austin Moorehead: Thankfully here we're a few years later, so let's, oh my gosh. Things are stable. 

Roe Polczynski: Absolutely. Now we're in this, you know, we've had to develop this path. Yeah. And there were some hard conversations. Yeah. And there are times where, you know, we felt bad that, oh, we're really, really, really pushing Austin. Mm-hmm

Roe Polczynski: But now look at you, you have this financial discipline. 

Austin Moorehead: Yeah. I do remember, don's always a little more, you know, call them in rows, always very emotional. 

Roe Polczynski: Yeah. Roe [00:06:00] comes 

Austin Moorehead: in and, you know, she's just, Hey, you need to do these things. 

Roe Polczynski: If I get called in, you're literally one of the calls. You're like, Oh, You're on the call.

Roe Polczynski: I'm in trouble today. Yeah, 

Austin Moorehead: I know I'm in trouble. When I remember going back, I was telling my wife, I was like, Oh man, they told me what I needed to hear. I guess I gotta do it because I, I signed up for it, you know. And so yeah. Have 

Roe Polczynski: you met him? He won't let you not do it. Yeah. You know, he wants you to succeed.

Austin Moorehead: Yeah and then I think today the picture looks a little bit different, you know. Oh, it's hugely different. Than what it did back then. Yeah. I, I was telling somebody, I think, yesterday that you guys are my work consiglieres. I think a lot of people might have apprehension about, you know, hiring a CFO because, you know, the CFO is going to try and get you to save your growth.

Austin Moorehead: And I don't think that's ever been our relationship. You guys, you know, value my aggressive spending behavior where I'm trying to constantly put money to, you know, new initiatives to, you know, constantly kind of bend what we think is the expectation, you know, to meet the [00:07:00] need for our customers. I think that's been a big relief for me.

Austin Moorehead: We're not fighting you on some of these initiatives, but you guys are keeping me kind of, you know, in a controlled path in these things and making sure I don't see these. They're, you know, tertiary things that are going to hit me when I do them. We've called it the guardrails. Yeah, and 

Roe Polczynski: actually, one of our CFLs, Kayla's, one of her clients said, You are my north star, and you give me guardrails.

Don Polczynski: Yeah. 

Roe Polczynski: And, yeah, we don't ever want to tell you not to grow or not to do something. We 

Don Polczynski: are pro growth. Absolutely. Yeah, growing the business is always the best way to increase valuation. Yeah. 

Roe Polczynski: Absolutely. But it's also It's okay. Your quick star let's do it much more mea way. 

Don Polczynski: I like the guardrail I'm a big Indy car fan.

Don Polczynski: W from hitting the wall. Yo come up close to it. But the wall, something that really happened. 

Roe Polczynski: It's a r because we are huge Indy car fans and [00:08:00] it it Indy. Well in qualifying 230 range. We love speed. Love speed. So we want fast growth. We love it. We love 

Don Polczynski: fast growth, but we can't allow anybody to hit the wall.

Austin Moorehead: Yeah, I think you've said it to me once before like Austin, you know, your company's growing like a rocket ship But if you were to hit a you know an asteroid or something you're losing a wing and so like how do you you know? Anticipate these things and protect yourself from You know, destroying the airplane in the process if you're just going so quick.

Don Polczynski: The faster you are moving, the faster your business is growing, there's a little bit more of an inherent risk. Speed. It's all about speed. Things are happening faster. And in your business, things are happening at a very fast pace. So that means business model people, you know infrastructure, sales team.

Roe Polczynski: He's balancing his travel because you're at all the conferences and we understand, we know [00:09:00] the, the heavy burden going to all the conferences are, which is why we balance not going to them. Your, your business changes more 

Don Polczynski: in a year than many typical agencies or other businesses will change over five years.

Don Polczynski: Your, your speed is phenomenal. But it also. From a financial aspect means you must have clarity because the danger can, can come and leap out, jump out in front of you like, you know, and you're running, moving so fast. You got to keep you from, you know, you're going to avoid that. 

Austin Moorehead: That's why I think that, you know, the discipline that you guys, you know, give me and, you know, the consistency of the meetings.

Austin Moorehead: We 

Roe Polczynski: don't let you, we don't let you escape, do we? I try, I, well, I don't know, maybe not, 

Austin Moorehead: maybe not try to, you know, get out of it, but I'm just busy right now. You're 

Roe Polczynski: busy, and you're on the road, and you're moving, and it's like, no Austin, we have to have this conversation. I'll be gone for, 

Austin Moorehead: you know, three straight weeks, right?

Austin Moorehead: Yeah. But, you know, I'm grateful that you allowed me to kind of reschedule a few meetings. Ha 

Roe Polczynski: ha ha [00:10:00] ha ha! If this was a high school, Austin, most likely to reschedule. 

Don Polczynski: What we've learned, one of the key aspects agency CFO has learned over the years is what we call the cadence, or as you put it, that discipline.

Roe Polczynski: Yeah. 

Don Polczynski: It is essential. 

Roe Polczynski: And as 

Don Polczynski: much as, Hey, yeah, we'll give you the day off. It's not good for either of us. It's not good for your business. And I know you, you fill the time. You have plenty of things going on. But if we take our eye. Or you allow you to take your eye off of the finances and that wall gets too close to you.

Don Polczynski: Yeah, 

Austin Moorehead: I think in the more recent call, you know, the sales were down a month or two ago and I know I need to be tough on my team, but sometimes I go do it and Don's in there going, Hey, what's up with producer, you know, number one, and we need to have a conversation. Where's his numbers at? And I think internally I knew I needed to say it, but it was because of the call that I, you know, Okay, I'm going to go [00:11:00] into 

Roe Polczynski: our previous conversation with Merrick.

Roe Polczynski: It's being on an island and it's having someone else to talk to. And we learn as much from our agency partners and our industry partners as we try to teach them. Sure. It really does go both ways. It's been wild. The other part of watching a lot of just, you know, Explode, sorry, here too. It's understanding how you change your destination.

Roe Polczynski: It's like, oh yeah, I did this, let's go. Let's do the next initiative. It's the destination. 

Austin Moorehead: Yeah, so I think, you know, the insurance agencies, you know, they have the same things. You know, they're looking to hire, you know, marketing staff. They're looking to hire or spend money in their marketing budget.

Austin Moorehead: They're looking to bring on new software. You know, they've got a team of producers and CSRs and, you know, kind of managing that chaos. Awesome. What I really liked about you guys is, I think you're, do we call it a bookend in your industry? You know, your portfolio of customers? No, it's 

Roe Polczynski: our book of business.

Roe Polczynski: Your book of 

Austin Moorehead: business. And, you know, and, and so your [00:12:00] experience beyond, you know, just, you know, one or two agencies you guys have got some mega accounts that really kind of helps, you know, me feel secure in the information I'm getting. It's not, it didn't start yesterday. No. No. No. 

Roe Polczynski: No. Now, has Austin received his dashboard intelligence suite?

Roe Polczynski: Absolutely. Yeah. 

Don Polczynski: Yeah. The story is always consistent. When I first saw, you know, we call it standing up the dashboard and then I take five minutes and I go through it myself and say, well, what can I learn from it? And there were some real things that jumped out and I was excited. We spin them differently.

Don Polczynski: I was 

Roe Polczynski: excited to share that. That was a fun call to be 

Don Polczynski: on. Because I understood some of the dynamics of your business model that said, Oh, there's some opportunities or, I don't know, the culprit problem called opportunities. It was a great conversation. 

Austin Moorehead: Yeah, maybe some problems, but I, you know, I like to, I'm definitely a glass half full kind of guy.

Austin Moorehead: Yeah. [00:13:00] And so, you know, I think we can turn issues into opportunities if you can see them. And so, if I, if I'm being honest, and I probably should be ashamed of this, I don't think I had some of that data about my book. 

Don Polczynski: You didn't. Yeah. You do now. We created a system to collect it, to organize it, so that it would be reusable.

Don Polczynski: Yeah. Key data points. 

Austin Moorehead: Yeah, and so, you know, I've been talking with my team, you know, over the last few weeks about some of that data, and we're coming up to our fall planning, and then. Actually, that dashboard is going to probably take up a quarter of the day, if not half of the day, just so we can kind of go, Hey, how do we, how do we look at this and how do we create a plan for the next 12 months to go in and kind of course correct some of these opportunities, you know but it's the dashboard that's going to give us that conversation.

Roe Polczynski: It's so worth it. It creates 

Don Polczynski: a level of understanding, not only for us at agency CFO, It creates, you, you learn some things that were immediate, like, oh, I didn't realize. I had no idea. And that's the same [00:14:00] experience every agency owner, as we deliver for the first time, when they first see their dashboard, that's the exact same reaction.

Don Polczynski: There'll be elements, oh, I did not realize, I did not know. 

Austin Moorehead: Yeah, 

Don Polczynski: so 

Austin Moorehead: that's a blessing, I'm looking forward to, you know, fall planning here in a few 

Roe Polczynski: See, look at you go, Austin, you have financial discipline, you've got your planning in place, and you are just crushing your goals. 

Don Polczynski: You've come a long way. You know, we've watched you come, you know, there's no separation for a business owner between the business and the personal life.

Don Polczynski: When something bad or good happens in the business, it's good or bad, you know. And we've watched how you've grown. That some of the business changes that we now that you know, you're not worried about making payroll Hopefully you sleep a little better at night 

Austin Moorehead: I've spent more time with the family than I have, you know, there was a big deal.

Austin Moorehead: Yeah, it was a big deal for me You know 12 15 hour days, you know, five six days a week and 

Roe Polczynski: we've all been there [00:15:00] Yeah, 

Austin Moorehead: and so getting that getting that time back has been good because you know I've got a kid that wants to spend time with her dad and You And so I think, you know, you guys were a big, you know, part of, you know, me getting my, my time back, you know, which is important to 

Don Polczynski: me.

Don Polczynski: Right, for, you may be, right, look, from a CFO perspective, you may think we're all about the bottom line, but success isn't just about improving the bottom line, if it doesn't improve your life. 

Roe Polczynski: Yeah, and that was, you were out of balance. You and I had some deep conversations about finding balance. 

Austin Moorehead: Yeah, I mean, it's still, you know, a work in progress, but the definite improvement over the last 

Don Polczynski: few years, for sure.

Don Polczynski: And it always will be, and that's the journey, that's why it is. The 

Roe Polczynski: destination will always change. Yeah, and it's 

Don Polczynski: never stale. You know, we also get the question is, well how long do I work with my CFO? Because when I reach a point where it's just the same thing. No, because the dynamics of life and business change.

Don Polczynski: If you're fast 

Roe Polczynski: growth, if you have, if you have goals, and you know where you're going. We're we're on board. 

Don Polczynski: The dynamics are changing and [00:16:00] we continue to talk about the changing dynamics of your business. 

Austin Moorehead: Yeah, the evolutions continue to produce, you know, I think problems or opportunities. What's, what's the next plan and you know, almost every month or quarters.

Austin Moorehead: There's some new challenge I think we're kind of addressing or or old things are resurfacing that, you know, have been maybe forgotten a bit. It's like, you know, having that accountability, you know, partnering you guys has been really nice because You know, as we start these new initiatives, I do forget some of the basics sometimes, you know, it's like, oh God, we gotta get back to that.

Roe Polczynski: Well, we're in it together. 

Austin Moorehead: Yeah, 

Roe Polczynski: we are in it together. Thank you so much for joining us. 

Don Polczynski: Thank you for your 

Roe Polczynski: Absolutely. We love your friendship, we love your partnership, and hey, it's one industry. We're all together. Thank you have so much. 

Don Polczynski: Thank you. 

Roe Polczynski: Absolutely. All right, so agency CFO, please reach out to us.

Don Polczynski: I'm Don. Reach out to me at Don at agency CFO. 

Roe Polczynski: And 

Don Polczynski: be financially [00:17:00] well.