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WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH… Agency owners Ron and Sally Rodgers build success out of adversity By Elisabeth Boone, CPCU
When the going gets tough, it’s said, the tough get going. Whoever coined that adage must have known Ron and Sally Rodgers, who, on the way to creating a successful independent agency, encountered just about every obstacle you can imagine. From disappointments to outright disasters, the couple never gave up; and today their agency, Silvermark, Inc., based in Redmond, Washington, is a testament to their persistence, determination, and plain old-fashioned guts. Ron’s involvement in the insurance business goes back to 1974, when he went to work for a general agency in Spokane for a leading northeastern mutual life insurer. Sally signed on as his policyholder service representative. The company then asked them to take over an agency in Missoula, Montana. Subsequently Ron and Sally moved back to Spokane, where Sally joined the personnel department of SAFECO. Five years later, in 1992, “Ron had pretty much talked me into selling property and casualty insurance and starting our own agency,” she says. That was the beginning of Silvermark, Inc. Sounds pretty straightforward, doesn’t it? It’s not. Rewind to Missoula, where the Rodgerses had agreed to take over a struggling agency. Ron found out that he had taken over an agency where the highest paid agent had made only a little over $3,500 and the manager was engaged in illegal practices. Sally worked to clean up that mess and Ron worked on the agency. He turned it around and made the Million Dollar Round Table, at which point the general agent thanked Ron for turning things around and told him he was no longer needed. So it was back to Spokane where the sales unit in the agency that Ron set up was no longer his. Ron had lent money to a friend and allowed his friend to use his (Ron’s) name as collateral to start a business. Ron planned to go into business with that friend. Instead, he went into debt to the IRS and the state revenue department because Ron’s friend hadn’t been paying taxes and, because the business was in Ron’s name, “Guess who the tax people came after?” he says. Ron and Sally sold their house at a loss and their car was repossessed. “We basically lost everything,” he recalls. Back in the business
Ron talked to people he knew at SAFECO, and they gave him a life-only appointment. Being without a car, he says, “For the next five months I sold life insurance from a bus in Seattle, Redmond, Bellevue, and Kirkland, and in that time I made about $35,000.” Commenting on this whole saga, Sally says, “I figure that just about covers any excuses anyone could ever think of as to why they can’t be a success.” Some time later, Ron was offered a position as a company representative with a leading east coast insurer, where he would be a life rep for 29 property/casualty agencies on a commission-only basis. “I’d get a 30% override on everything each agency wrote, plus a liberal expense account.” Still wary because of his experience in Missoula, Ron wasn’t sure he’d take the position, good as it sounded. “Then the manager said the magic words: ‘Ron, you’ll also have a company car.’ We didn’t even have a car! I said, ‘John, I’m interested.’ I was offered the position, I accepted it, and finally I could stop riding the bus,” he says with a laugh. In November 1991, the company Ron represented got a new CEO and let more than 4,000 employees go. “Out of that 4,000, there were more than 250 people in my position throughout the country,” Ron says. “After the big layoff, there were 141 of us left. In January 1992 they flew us all to the home office and said, ‘You people are the cream of the crop. Do not leave us; we will take care of you.’ In August of that year, they let all of us go.” Silvermark is born At that year’s Big I convention, Ron encountered an associate from SAFECO who wanted to know what had happened with the massive layoff at Ron’s former employer. After Ron explained, his friend said, “Let me know if there’s anything I can do for you.” Without missing a beat, Ron responded: “There is something you can do, Bob. Give us an appointment with SAFECO, and we’ll start a P&C agency.” Bob told Ron to come to his office the next Monday and to bring Sally. “On Monday morning, we walked into Bob’s office at eight o’clock, and he said, ‘Come on in; I’ve got your appointment all ready for you.’ Sally and I looked at each other and burst out laughing because we’d just spent three solid days developing a business plan.” With the appointment in hand, they opened Silvermark.
Today Silvermark has a staff of 12, including Ron and Sally, and new Vice President Brad Johansen. In addition to its headquarters in Redmond, the agency has an office in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, that it acquired when it purchased a small agency. In less than 10 years, the Rodgers and their staff built the agency’s premium volume from zero to $6 million. Currently some 80% of their P&C business is personal lines, and they’re now focused on increasing their penetration of the commercial market, offering property, liability, umbrella, and workers compensation coverages. One niche market in which they’ve enjoyed considerable success is restaurants. They also write life insurance through New York Life. Ron says, “Being affiliated with New York Life gives us a lot of prestige because the company has such a great reputation.” The New York Life operation, he says, is located in the Silvermark office but is run separately from the P&C agency. The next level “I was reading the November 2001 issue of Rough Notes, and the cover story was about Matsen Insurance Brokers in northern California,” Ron says. “In the last paragraph, Lynne Wallace, one of the principals, said the agency was tripling its revenue thanks to its membership in the Sitkins Group. I had no idea what the group was, so I found Matsen’s phone number and called Lynne. She explained that it is an agency coaching firm with exclusive territories, and she said, ‘If they are not in your territory, run—do not walk—to get involved.’ I hung up the phone, called Roger Sitkins in Florida, and asked, ‘How do I sign up?’ “I found out that there was an opening in our territory,” Ron continues. “I answered Roger’s questions about our agency and said I wanted to join. He said, ‘We’re having a meeting in Captiva in five days, and you need to be there.’ Later I found out that I’d beaten a large agency in our area into the Sitkins Group by three days!”
When he got back to Redmond after the meeting, Ron says, “I was excited about the things I was learning about how to improve my agency. I called on a commercial prospect and used the Sitkins Risk Reduction Approach™, and the prospect said, ‘I really like what you’re doing. Can you take over my account?’ I said, ‘Sure; just sign this broker of record letter.’ In my head, I was doing back flips, because we’d never written a large commercial account before, and this one had a premium of $65,000. “My next big commercial account was worth $150,000, and then I wrote a $385,000 employee benefits account on a broker of record letter,” Ron says. “The challenge we face in trying to grow our commercial business is that when we land a sizable account using the Risk Reduction Approach, we sometimes have trouble getting companies to give us appointments because we haven’t written such large accounts before.” Adding value “We’re also following Roger’s advice on setting up our agency to meet all the needs of our clients,” Ron says. “With my life insurance background, I understand the importance of financial and retirement planning. To add value for our clients, I decided to bring in a fee-only financial planner. He does a great job.” Silvermark also works with a specialist who does business appraisals and helps negotiate sales. “We also have an estate planning attorney, and our latest initiative is calling on businesses and offering to do exit and perpetuation planning,” Ron says. “This opens the door for us to handle all of their property and casualty insurance as well as their life and benefits needs. Things are really starting to get exciting for us,” Ron declares. * |
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