Chief Executive Officer Jim Schubert and Chief Operating Officer Jon Hall.
Learning from Dad and Rough Notes cover agents
has helped Jim Schubert innovate Southern States
By Dennis H. Pillsbury
Just a little over 30 years ago, John Schubert decided to strike out on his own after the regional broker where he served as state president was purchased by one of the international brokers—part of the brokerage community’s continuation of its seemingly endless game of Pac-Man.
“Dad had been dreaming about starting his own agency one day,” Jim Schubert remembers, “but once the national broker took over, he quickly implemented a plan he had in mind and started Southern States Insurance (SSI) in Metro Atlanta. That was in 1992. I can still remember him taking our family to Johnny Rockets to tell us he’d quit his job.
“We had some idea that Dad was planning something, because he had a map in our basement with locations of satellite profit centers and the location of the central service center for the agency he envisioned,” Jim recalls. “So, it wasn’t a complete shock.
“It also wasn’t surprising that acquisitions played a role in his growth plans, since that was part of what he did at the regional broker,” he adds. “They [the Southern States acquisitions] were primarily small acquisitions that enabled him to open profit centers in the locations sited on his map, and also to bring in talent to help him develop organic growth and the geographic spread he was looking for.”
Enticed by warmth
Meanwhile, Jim was determined not to enter the insurance business. After one year at the University of Tennessee, he transferred to Boston College and received a secondary education degree. “I was practice teaching and doing a fifth-year master’s program so I could become a college administrator.
“I did an internship at MIT and was offered a position at Dartmouth to run the student center,” Jim adds. “I was dating the person who would become my wife, and the thought of spending years in New England winters had both of us rethinking this opportunity.
“Dad offered me a job at the agency, to which I responded: ‘Heck no!’ and then said (after considering the warmer winters) ‘I’ll give it a year.’ (Jim clearly learns much quicker than this author. I didn’t leave for southern and warmer climes until I hit 70 and had suffered through one Midwestern winter where we had a week of negative 20-degree weather.)
“I joined in 2001 and, obviously, stayed much longer than that one year,” Jim adds with a smile. “Like many others starting out, I worked personal lines first. And I watched Dad.
“It was cool to see him build the agency through relationships with clients, prospects, and other agents—some of whom were acquisition targets who needed his help with perpetuation and others who were friendly competitors who willingly shared their success secrets with him; of course, he reciprocated by sharing what he had learned over the years.”
“It was cool to see [my Dad] build the agency through relationships with clients, prospects, and other agents—some
of whom were … friendly competitors who willingly shared their success secrets with him; of course, he reciprocated by sharing what he had learned over the years.”
—Jim Schubert
Chief Executive Officer
No place like home
It was in the fourth year of Jim’s one-year commitment that an opportunity came along to make Southern States seem even more like his future home. A lifelong friend, Jon Hall, whom Jim had known since the age of three when they were in preschool together, was home on leave from Iraq.
“My father invited Jon to a producer meeting so he could get a better picture of what was involved in the agency business and see what I hoped would be a fit with his experience in the Army,” Jim explains.
Jon loved the Army, where he worked in logistics. However, he recognized that an Army career was hard on his family, so he decided that joining the agency made sense because “I was happily married and wanted to stay that way,” he says with a grin. “I’m still married, so I guess joining the agency in 2005 was the right decision.
“What was most surprising was how well my experience in the Army translated to my work at the agency,” Jon adds. “Just like in the agency business, relationship building was equally important in the Army.
“If I needed a tank part quickly, I had to have a strong relationship with the person in charge of deciding to send it to me rather than someone else who was in the queue to receive that same part,” he explains. “At the agency, we need to establish trusted relationships with clients and with insurance company partners.
“I came up through the commercial marketing side,” Jon says. “Jim recognized that my Army experience meshed well with the need to solve complex logistical problems for the client, and also for insurance companies that would partner with us to offer risk management solutions to those clients.”
Jim points out that he clearly had made the right decision: “Jon not only has the leadership to get things done the right way the first time, but he also is our top producer with the largest book of business.”
Jim takes the reins
In 2016, “I celebrated a great 15 years with the agency,” Jim remembers, “but also experienced a bittersweet milestone when Dad decided to retire and offered me the reins. During those 15 years, we had expanded through acquisition and were spread out geographically with six locations, including one in Destin, Florida, that we acquired in 2006.
“What was most surprising was how well my experience in the Army translated to my work at the agency. Just like in the agency business, relationship building was equally important in the Army.”
—Jon Hall
Chief Operating Officer
“We later sold that office to a Rough Notes cover agent that we knew and respected,” he adds. “It was a better fit for them than for us, as I was working on learning how to communicate effectively with our staff so that no one felt left out on an island.
“Jon and I had begun working on linking the multiple offices together with Dad and Applied Systems,” Jim continues. “In fact, we were one of the first agencies in the country Applied worked with to link dispersed offices through a single server.
“I became chief executive officer, and Jon, who was our marketing manager, soon moved up to chief operating officer.”
The focus on communication proved especially propitious when the tools designed to link offices together—as well as keeping clients better connected and informed through VoIP, instant messaging, and other tools that were used when requested by clients—became essential when COVID hit and face-to-face communication was curtailed. “GoToMyPC® had been with us for about 10 years when COVID hit, so we had some experience working remotely,” Jim recalls.
“Once things returned to a semblance of normality, we realized that a number of our employees had enjoyed the opportunity to work remotely,” he adds. “And Jon, in typical fashion, said: ‘Let’s find out what everyone wants and implement it. Do it once and get it done.’
“So, we sent out a survey to all our employees to see who wanted to come into the office and who wanted to continue to work off-site,” Jim says. “Today, 65% of our employees work remotely full-time.”
Members of the Southern States Insurance team, from left:
Front: Jon Hall, Jim Schubert. Back: Dan Merkel; Elizabeth Zelenka, Finance & Admin Assistant; George Hall, Commercial Producer; John Caffrey, Commercial Producer; Rex Williams, Commercial Producer; Laura Daigle, Commercial Account Manager; Pam Fox, Commercial Producer; Don Daughtry, Benefits Manager; Elizabeth Lamb, Commercial Account Manager; Dan Britain, Commercial Producer.
As an avid art and antique collector, John Schubert loved this painting of ships in battle, which previously hung in the agency’s conference room, because it reminded him of the origins of the word “underwriting,” which comes from insuring 17th century shipping vessels.
A little help from friends
“Two of our close friends are Clay Snellings and Billy Potter of [2023 Rough Notes Agency of the Year] Snellings Walters Insurance Agency in Atlanta, a collaborator with us in SecureRisk and a friendly competitor.” SecureRisk is a cooperate venture of nearly 100 partner insurance agencies with more than 750 licensed agents in over 100 office locations across numerous states.
“In fact, we adopted Snellings Walters’ charity, Insure the Cure, which was formed in honor of Clay’s daughter, Emily, who has Cystic Fibrosis (CF), as one of ours. I’m also on the board of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, Georgia Chapter,” Jim says. “Our efforts, combined with the efforts of others in the Atlanta insurance community, have had positive results. The median life expectancy for people with CF was 30 a few years ago; today we’ve pushed it to 56. And Emily is working at her first job. It’s all thanks to the power of relationships.
“Billy Potter was instrumental in getting us on the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) when he recommended the book Traction: Get A Grip on Your Business by Gino Wickman, creator of EOS,” Jim adds. “I read it for the third time on an incentive trip to Mexico and then turned to Jon and said: ‘We need to do this.’ Today, we run our agency on EOS.”
Left : With 65% of its team working remotely full-time, each agency department has bi-monthly meetings via Zoom to discuss what’s working and what isn’t. Quarterly State of the Company meetings are also held with the entire team involved to provide updates on the organization.
Another Rough Notes cover agent who provided help to Southern States is Grant Botma, a partner with Stewardship Insurance in Gilbert, Arizona, who spoke about goal planning at one of the SSI Speaker Series presentations. Grant, whose agency was the 2021 Rough Notes Agency of the Year, should know something about successful goal planning (and implementing) since, in addition to our recognition, the agency received back-to-back honors as an Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Privately Held Company, with three-year growth topping 200% each year.
Remote, but not
“One of the most valuable things that I got out of ‘Traction’ was an exercise to identify our core values,” Jim says. “We did this by looking at the top five people within the agency, people that we would clone if that was possible. And we then wrote down why we picked those people and what about them made them so special.
“Doing that uncovered our core values of: Passionate advocate for others, Creative problem solver, Grow or die, Get stuff done, and Great attitude,” he continues. “With these five core values as guideposts, we looked at what we could do together to foster these underpinnings of our culture, even though we have 40 people in nine states, who can’t always get together in person.
“One advantage of fostering a remote workplace is that we are not limited when we look for talent to join our agency. And we have a lot to offer beyond just the regular benefits package. All our producers have an opportunity to qualify for our annual incentive trip. And everyone at the agency has different iterations of bonus plans they can reach.”
Rough Notes is proud to recognize Southern States Insurance as our Agency of the Month. The agency is providing risk management services to more than 6,000 clients and is on target to double that number within the next 10 years, Jim says.
The author
Dennis Pillsbury is a Virginia-based freelance insurance writer.
