New York State of Mind with Shawn Fitzgerald

Power Producers Podcast

In this episode of The Power Producers Podcast, David Carothers and co-host Kyle Houck interview Shawn Fitzgerald, Agency Owner at LAF Advisers. Shawn discusses his cold calling strategy and shares what he has learned since starting his agency from scratch.

Episode Highlights:

• Shawn discusses how he and Stephen Turnbull met and how they came up with the idea to launch a podcast about starting a new agency from scratch. (1:53)
• Shawn shares his background story from 2008 and how he got into the insurance industry. (4:56)
• Shawn mentions that he keeps himself to 10 cold calls each day because when you call on a very targeted list, you begin to gain some decent traction. (8:42)
• Shawn estimates that he can make an appointment for every 50 cold calls. (11:27)
• David explains that his goal for the end of the year is to outsource everything non-revenue bearing and non-client facing to Savvital's virtual professionals. (16:15)
• David shares his strategy for getting smaller businesses with a certain level of revenue to pay attention. (22:34)
• David mentions that he wants to empower people throughout the whole agency to be a generalist agency filled with specialists. (28:36)
• Shawn believes that sometimes agencies make simple things complicated. (35:20)
• David discusses what differentiates the producers of Killing Commercial from other producers. (38:22)
• Shawn shares his finest piece of advice for new producers, as well as the importance of new agents being good listeners. (50:19)
• David explains that the Killing Commercial was never intended to be seen by the general public; rather, it is a training program for new producers at his agency. (54:43)
• David mentions that they started The Power Producers Podcast to be a lead magnet for Killing Commercials. (57:31)

Tweetable Quotes:

• “I'm sticking to my 10 cold calls a day, that I tell everyone about and that I've been having. You would think 10 is not a lot, but when you're calling on a very specific list, you start picking up some good traction. And as long as you stay consistent calling that list, things start to add up and a lot of things start coming down the pipeline. So I've just been enjoying the journey.” - Shawn Fitzgerald
• “You got to know what you're going to target...you know, instead of wasting five hours trying to figure out what markets to go to…you could have made 200 cold calls in that time, which could have opened up the door to a more niche specific account that you're trying to go after.” - Shawn Fitzgerald
• “Go in with the mindset that you're going to do the right thing. And I think everything else is going to fall into place...don't do something else that you didn't say you're going to do. People already have a bad taste in their mouth about the insurance space and agents so do what you say you're going to do. It's not that complicated.” - Shawn Fitzgerald

Resources Mentioned:

• Shawn Fitzgerald LinkedIn
• LAF Advisers
• David Carothers
• Kyle Houck
• Florida Risk Partners
• The Extra 2 Minutes