In today’s episode, Chip is joined by Mac Wesson, the President of Swingle Collins. Mac serves on the agency’s Executive and Finance Committees where he develops and implements long-term business plans.
Swingle Collins & Associates is the largest privately owned Insurance agency in Texas, with both national and global reach. They deliver the highest quality commercial and personal insurance and risk management solutions to businesses.
Tune in for a fantastic talk from the president of an A-list Insurance agency in Texas.
In a nutshell, Chip and Mac shed light on:
- The firm’s primal objective is to serve the entrepreneurial community that is now unequaled
- How they are maintaining a good financial standing amidst the economic recession
- As a dominant firm in Texas, why they opted to partner with Riskpronet
- How they are using technological advancements to promote growth and drive efficiencies
- Their liberal approach toward staff turnover and account management
- Insightful reflections on risk advisors and how they are doing it… and so much more!
Community Outreach, Recession, and Technology Transcript
00;00;02;01 – 00;00;18;29
Chip Arenchild
Welcome to Know Your Risk and Insurance Coverage with Risk Pro Net, where we will discuss all things insurance for you and your company. Risk Coronet is a network of independent agencies who offer specialized insurance across business sectors.
00;00;19;01 – 00;00;43;12
Chip Arenchild
Regardless of where you are in your insurance journey. We want to invite you to join us to think about insurance differently. Know your risk and insurance coverage with risk Pro Net provides answers to all your insurance questions. Welcome everybody to know your risk and insurance coverage with risk Pro net. I’m Chip Aaron Child and today we’re talking to Mac Weston or Weston.
00;00;43;12 – 00;00;51;05
Chip Arenchild
Excuse me. Mac who’s part of Swingle and Collins which is our newest member of Risk Pro Net Mac. How are you doing today?
00;00;51;07 – 00;00;53;12
Mac Wesson
I’m doing great. Thank you. How are you?
00;00;53;13 – 00;01;09;15
Chip Arenchild
Well, I’m doing wonderful, too. I really hope things are well from you. Hey, Mac. Tell us a little bit about about your firm, where you’re located. I know you were established in 1982. You’ve been doing it for 40 years. But give us just a little background on your firm, please.
00;01;09;17 – 00;01;35;24
Mac Wesson
Yeah, sure. Well, headquartered in Dallas, Texas. We have a branch office in Fort Worth, Texas, 32 miles away. We’re about to open another branch in San Antonio. About 280 miles away. And that will be the sum total of smuggled Collins for the time being. We have about 130 people altogether. About 50 of those are producers.
00;01;35;27 – 00;01;50;20
Mac Wesson
The remaining or, support staff, account managers and accounting team and so forth. As you say, we were established in, 1982. So we’ve just celebrated our 40th anniversary today. As a matter of fact, November the 1st.
00;01;50;20 – 00;01;53;17
Chip Arenchild
Really today, today, November 1st was.
00;01;53;19 – 00;02;15;24
Mac Wesson
Yeah, literally today. Interesting background. I don’t know if you want to hear all this or not. Just stop me if you don’t. But, Frank Swingle is the founder. He and I actually got in business together many, many years ago with a retail operation in Dallas known as J. Frank Holt and Company, J. Frank Holt and Company was purchased by Gallagher about the time that we joined.
00;02;15;26 – 00;02;39;05
Mac Wesson
I stayed there through about 1988. Frank decided to leave in 1982 and start was announcing Collins because he saw a need to serve the entrepreneurial community, both business and personal lines, communities. And, that has turned out to be, a very insightful kind of, prediction.
00;02;39;08 – 00;02;58;16
Chip Arenchild
Well, when you say the entrepreneurial section, that couldn’t be more true from what we hear today, right, with North Texas, is that the fair description to talk about your region? And I you know, we’re in California. So we all we hear about is the exodus of our business community to Texas. And I also understand that’s going on throughout the United States.
00;02;58;16 – 00;03;14;06
Chip Arenchild
And so maybe that’s a good segue into what the economy is going to do when you guys look into your crystal ball. We’re hearing about recession in other parts of the country with all the movement into North Texas. How is that going to affect you? Are you what are you seeing out there right now?
00;03;14;08 – 00;03;42;00
Mac Wesson
Well, we’re not immune from the economic conditions that prevailed throughout the country in terms of inflation and so forth. But we also are very fortunate to have a very vibrant, business friendly economic climate in North Texas, where almost all of our businesses, although we have businesses all over the place, the attraction of companies from other parts of the country to Texas, I think is in large part because, we don’t have an income tax here.
00;03;42;01 – 00;04;00;25
Mac Wesson
We have, very open, mindset toward business. And, you know, we feel like the community supports the growth that we are experiencing, which, I wouldn’t say it’s explosive, but it’s on the high side. And, it’s really a great business climate to be in.
00;04;00;27 – 00;04;31;01
Chip Arenchild
It sure sounds like it. Just that brief description right there. I think we’ll have most of us wondering why we’re not moving to work out of your office. I think it’s interesting when you say today’s your 40th anniversary, when we think about how we used to do business 40 years ago and fax machines or pagers or whatever the case may be, and and where we are today, what is your attitude on technology and how are you using technology in the firm today to promote growth or drive efficiencies?
00;04;31;04 – 00;05;01;28
Mac Wesson
Well, it saved us going back about two and a half years. We not in anticipation of the pandemic, but in order to upgrade our technology, we went to a system of computers that were easily adaptable to working from home. So we were the beneficiaries of good fortune there because we had everything we needed to continue operating without really missing a beat.
00;05;02;01 – 00;05;38;29
Mac Wesson
That’s one example. There are several others examples of of technological improvements that we have made and have taken advantage of over the years, to improve our prospecting. And, our, you know, identification of likely business partners, both commercial personal lines and employee benefits and we continue to look at ways to improve. Matter of fact, I’m looking at something right now to help us with our small business challenges, which are not looking like anybody else is experiencing that.
00;05;39;01 – 00;05;43;12
Mac Wesson
So technology has has been a huge part of our success.
00;05;43;14 – 00;06;02;17
Chip Arenchild
I was curious because I had attended the CIB ILF meetings and earlier in October and and we had not been there since 19 because of the shutdown, but to to hear the conversations from what they were in 19 around technology and what people are doing with data and the disruptions and where we’re headed and to what the conversation was today.
00;06;02;20 – 00;06;24;07
Chip Arenchild
It just seemed like it’s going to continue to accelerate in the firms and figuring out how to use that to make it efficient. Sharing that information went through other risk Pro net members is one of the benefits about being part of the group. Maybe you can tell us what attracted you to want to join Risk Pro Net as an independent firm in North Texas where you’re you’re doing great and you and you’re kind of dominating your area?
00;06;24;10 – 00;06;48;13
Mac Wesson
Well, quite simply, we viewed it as a group of like minded, partners, really that, that, you know, want independence to be a part of their fabric geographically spread so that there’s not any competition amongst the members. And the fact that it’s an open forum for the exchange of ideas. All of that appealed to us. You know, our experience here to four is somewhat limited.
00;06;48;13 – 00;06;55;08
Mac Wesson
I mean, we’ve only been to the one meeting, but it was everything we hoped it would be. And then so, for those three reasons.
00;06;55;10 – 00;07;12;22
Chip Arenchild
Good. Yeah. We like to think that’s, the primary benefit of being part of is just a really good network to share ideas with. And how do we make our agencies better. And so I think that’s great. You know, when I look at your website in preparation of talking to you today, Mac, I was I was super impressed by what you’ve built out.
00;07;12;22 – 00;07;33;07
Chip Arenchild
But I really like the emphasis you have that you employ risk advisors. And so can you talk a little bit about your philosophy on risk advisors versus how other firms look at brokers and what their risk advisors expected to do and interface with their clients? Because it looked a little I like to say we all try to do it, but it looks like you guys are doing it.
00;07;33;07 – 00;07;35;28
Chip Arenchild
So I’d like to hear how you got to that point, please.
00;07;36;01 – 00;08;05;20
Mac Wesson
Yeah, it’s really twofold, Chip. The first is, we put very, very heavy emphasis on educating our producers, not just at the onset, but constantly educating our people so that they really know what they’re selling. I mean, an insurance policy is a contract, obviously. And there are pieces of that contract that can be very difficult to understand. And so we insist that our folks are very well schooled in what they sell.
00;08;05;23 – 00;08;31;16
Mac Wesson
And because of that, we view our role in the marketplace to be advisors. And we put that to practice in the following way. We we will, typically not respond well when somebody says, yeah, I’ll let you quote my business. You know, our approach is, you know, appreciate that. But, we’d like to spend a little bit of time with you first to understand what you have.
00;08;31;19 – 00;08;58;04
Mac Wesson
We may very well tell you that you are in a very good spot. And our advice to you as an advisor is stay put. Most of the time, however, we discovered that there are some, some deficiencies and we point out those deficiencies and, basically say to our prospects, we can do one of two things. We can either, make you aware of these deficiencies.
00;08;58;04 – 00;09;30;23
Mac Wesson
You can go back to your current broker and, and, and deal with them that way, or we’ll be happy to take this to the next step, which is to give you our advice on what you think you should do until you how we would go about doing it. It’s a whole lot more than just price. It’s it’s advising our folks on, the depth of coverage they have, what they need, ways to manage the total cost of risk through the implementation of, of deductibles or, you know, assumption of risks.
00;09;30;23 – 00;09;42;22
Mac Wesson
Sometimes it’s much more effective to, to do things other than transfer the risk to an insurance company. That is to do that. So we try to advise our folks based on what makes the most sense for them.
00;09;42;24 – 00;10;08;28
Chip Arenchild
Well, I think it’s super interesting, right. As we as we continue to transition this industry with older, older generations and long term people leaving and younger people getting in, one thing we talk about is is always going to be a relationship business. But the days of selling on charm are kind of coming to an end, right? There used to be you could join rotary and be embedded in a community, and you still may need to do that to grow your business, but you need to be bringing value to the transaction.
00;10;08;28 – 00;10;15;21
Chip Arenchild
And that’s why I like that risk advisor approach and how you promote that on your website. I thought that was well done.
00;10;15;23 – 00;10;27;23
Mac Wesson
Well thank you. Well, I agree with you 100%. It’s it is a relationship business. It always will be in my opinion, but there needs to be value to the relationship. And that’s that’s really I think that’s where we shine the brightest.
00;10;27;26 – 00;10;54;29
Chip Arenchild
Well, I think that’s important and explains why you’re doing so well. You also talked a little bit about a concept that I know we’re trying to bring into the industry, this total cost to risk idea. And it sounds like from our previous discussions that your producers are very well versed in being able to have a good business discussion with your clients around insurance and around risk in general, and talking to them about exposures in the impacts on their business.
00;10;55;01 – 00;11;11;00
Chip Arenchild
How do you make sure that you’re producers are being, whether it’s held accountable, or that they are delivering that message that sets them apart as more of a business partner than just someone out looking to turn something over. Do you have a formalized process for making sure that gets done?
00;11;11;02 – 00;11;39;12
Mac Wesson
We do. Yeah. There’s a certain element of trust that goes into those that have been here a while and have demonstrated success in their technique, but for the younger folks, we have a very vigorous professional development program where we teach them not only the guts of an insurance policy, but also the concept of total cost of risk, which is analyzing losses, identifying areas where we can eliminate or control the losses, making it part of a pie chart, if you will.
00;11;39;12 – 00;12;10;19
Mac Wesson
Our insurance premium is only a part of it. We also have a very strong mentorship program where until a producer is validated, even in some cases afterwards, they, are accompanied by a mentor in virtually every meeting where, you know, a buying decision is made, but really, any presentation for that matter. So combination of, education, professional development and mentorship, I think I think those are the three keys that answer your question.
00;12;10;21 – 00;12;28;28
Chip Arenchild
Well, I think it’s nice to hear that you’re able to do those things, and you have a discipline and a culture established that sounds like that’s a successful platform just to continue to build and grow the agency on it. Now, you also talk about being involved in some specialties, and when people think about Texas, they always think about oil and gas.
00;12;28;28 – 00;12;45;20
Chip Arenchild
But I kind of get the impression that that’s no longer the only thing as part of the Texas economy, obviously. What areas would you feel like you’re you’re well versed in and you have a strong specialty? And why do people seek out because of that specialty?
00;12;45;23 – 00;13;14;27
Mac Wesson
Really good question. I you know, the answer is going to be different from commercial lines to personal lines to employee benefits. I’ll I’ll start with commercial, our largest segment, industry vertical, if you will, is real estate, which is a combination of commercial buildings, industrial buildings and residential habitation buildings. That’s, you know, I think it’s probably something like 20, 25% of our overall book.
00;13;15;00 – 00;13;47;27
Mac Wesson
I wouldn’t say that we have specialties in the sense that we have programs, but our producers do tend to find verticals that they have success in and stick in those verticals. Manufacturing is one, construction is another, technology is one, life sciences is one. Retail entertainment, is and hospitality is another one. And I would say that those are specialties in the sense that our producers really have a very solid knowledge base when it comes to the verticals where they specialize in.
00;13;48;00 – 00;14;01;07
Chip Arenchild
How about community outreach? What what are you doing at Swingle and Collins for? Are you involved in the community in terms of philanthropic efforts? Are your producers encouraged to be part of something like that? What’s your philosophy around that?
00;14;01;10 – 00;14;32;04
Mac Wesson
Yeah. Big time. We think it’s vitally important. As a matter of fact, one of our strategic objectives, as a part of a plan that was adopted about a year ago, is to, to maintain a high level of corporate citizenship. Several of us are involved in an organization that puts on a PGA tour event here in Dallas called the Byron Nelson, the AT&T Byron Nelson, which is a significant fundraiser that, finds a charity that helps kids and families in need to attend, you know, over 100 years old.
00;14;32;04 – 00;15;10;25
Mac Wesson
Fantastic history there. One of our shareholders, founded something called the Breathe Easy Invitational in concert, which is a fundraiser for cystic fibrosis. His wife has dealt with, cystic fibrosis for pretty much all of her adult life. So we we rally behind him in that cause to, to a great extent, every producer that wants to participate in something that is, an example of good corporate membership, we a current of our standard practices, you know, you want to buy a sponsorship, you pay half of it, we’ll pay the other half of it.
00;15;10;29 – 00;15;16;18
Mac Wesson
And there are countless numbers of those in a in a meaningful piece of our, expense budget.
00;15;16;20 – 00;15;30;24
Chip Arenchild
I like to hear that. That’s great to hear. Right. You were hearing that younger, younger generation wants to work at places where they have a say in the giving, and that there’s more that going on than just work. So it sounds like you’ve adopted that philosophy as well.
00;15;30;27 – 00;15;34;06
Mac Wesson
Yeah, can always be better at it. But I’m pretty proud of what we do.
00;15;34;08 – 00;15;48;07
Chip Arenchild
Well, good. So as you, as you look forward into 23 maybe 24, what do you see coming up? What are you any any plans that you have for whether it’s growth or any initiatives you have internally that you, that you’re really excited about?
00;15;48;09 – 00;16;10;09
Mac Wesson
Yeah. Well our primary growth fuel is is set to acquire more production talent. We’ve done a really good job of bringing new people in, putting them through the process I described earlier. Our growth goals are fairly ambitious, and we know that in order to do that, we have to continue with our recruiting, production talent and support talent.
00;16;10;12 – 00;16;40;08
Mac Wesson
So, 2012, 2023, 2024 and through, you know, years beyond that, that’s what we’re going to have to do. There’s always the prospect of maybe acquiring somebody or some group of somebodies that typically has not been the path we followed, but it’s not something that we would necessarily shy away from. So growth through organic growth and through a robust recruiting effort is, absolutely in our immediate and distant future, we have to do that.
00;16;40;10 – 00;17;05;02
Chip Arenchild
You know, I know we we all share that. Right. And I think that the M&A situation is such that sometimes the price tag doesn’t allow us all to be good players in it. So you never know. But the organic growth needs to be consistent. I think that’s something most of us share on the big turnover of staff that a lot of us experienced in the insurance industry, with account managers being solicited and poached and trying to find new producers.
00;17;05;05 – 00;17;19;19
Chip Arenchild
I want to take them both separately. Do you think the account management situation is stabilized for your firm, or were you ever having a problem with it? I know many of us were. It was a revolving door there for many months through the last, 22.
00;17;19;22 – 00;17;53;26
Mac Wesson
Yeah. I would not say it’s stable for us. I think it’s more stable for us than it is some of our peer group in the area. But we’re constantly looking to add to our account management staff. We have adopted what I think is probably a, a more liberal than most approach on working from home. We give all of our people the ability to choose from working remotely full time, working in the office full time, or doing a hybrid where they come and go and we provide the proper accommodations for whatever they choose.
00;17;53;26 – 00;18;13;28
Mac Wesson
And so people that come here all the time have a dedicated workspace. Those that come here part of the time operate in hotel environments and those that work from home. Obviously the years. So that’s worked really well for us. I mean, you know, we have ways to measure productivity and it’s slipped a little bit honestly, but it’s not a meaningful amount.
00;18;13;28 – 00;18;26;29
Mac Wesson
So we’ll probably continue on with that same pattern going forward that helps us retain people. And it’s actually helped us get new people from companies that are insisting that people come back.
00;18;27;01 – 00;18;41;01
Chip Arenchild
I can imagine, right. It’s it’s a sure is an interesting situation to try and navigate right now. Have you felt like you’ve hit a ceiling in terms of salaries for support staff, or do you think that’s still moving up the food chain?
00;18;41;03 – 00;19;11;26
Mac Wesson
We made some pretty significant adjustments, throughout the year and beginning actually toward the latter part of last year, to try to bring all of our compensation metrics up to market and perhaps a little bit beyond, you know, the inflation that’s occurring, the rate at which it is occurring now is a challenge for us and everybody else because, you know, it’s, it’s it’s it’s sort of an added burden trying to keep things in proper balance.
00;19;11;26 – 00;19;30;01
Mac Wesson
But, we’ve done a pretty good job of that. I would say that we are with our just salary compensation plus our bonus packages. I would say that we are at or above market. And, I think we can say that that’s been a success because we haven’t lost any meaningful number of people.
00;19;30;03 – 00;19;42;17
Chip Arenchild
That’s great to hear. That’s, Kudos. Well done. Right. That place everyone like to be. How about finding new production talent? Do you have the secret sauce figured out for that yet?
00;19;42;20 – 00;20;07;12
Mac Wesson
You know, it. It comes from all different kinds of places and, you know, all different shapes and sizes. All of our shareholders, are, very active in trying to identify people that they think would be a good fit. So so we have luckily, we have kind of a constant flow of prospective talent coming through. We put them through a rather rigorous exercise.
00;20;07;12 – 00;20;28;09
Mac Wesson
They first have to be interviewed by our outside sales consultant. If he thinks that they are worth pursuing, then they go through a series of interviews with about 8 or 9 people that make up our recruiting committee. They have to all give a thumbs up unanimously, for the person to come see, frankly. And then we give it our blessing.
00;20;28;09 – 00;20;51;23
Mac Wesson
More often than not, we’re not batting a thousand. We made a couple of, hires that we probably shouldn’t have, but we’re doing pretty well. The sources of all these people are all over the place. We get some right out of college. That doesn’t work more times than it does. Our kind of perfect prospective producer is somebody that’s had, some success in business to business sales.
00;20;51;26 – 00;21;07;06
Mac Wesson
Not necessarily in the insurance industry, but elsewhere. You know, we feel like if they are excel, if they excel at sales, who don’t know insurance, we can teach them that if they are good at insurance but can’t sell, it’s a it’s a no go for us.
00;21;07;08 – 00;21;32;28
Chip Arenchild
Well, it sounds very similar, but I would just say I’ve enjoyed hearing what you’re doing and knowing those are all such positive steps for running a successful agency. And I think it it’s reflective of a lot of the risk prone members that you’ll continue to meet, interact with and that, a lot of people doing the same things with the same ideas and just continually trying to figure out how can we learn from one another to sharpen ourselves and run better agencies and maintain our independence?
00;21;32;28 – 00;21;40;28
Chip Arenchild
So it’s been wonderful talking to you today. Is there anything else you’d like to talk about today, or tell us about the firm or yourself?
00;21;41;01 – 00;21;56;11
Mac Wesson
Well, you probably picked up on the fact I can talk about us for hours and hours and hours on end. But no, I think I’ve said what I feel comfortable saying. I’m happy to answer any more questions, but, this has been great fun. I appreciate the, the time to do this.
00;21;56;14 – 00;22;14;26
Chip Arenchild
Well, I it’s nice to hear from a new member, and it’s nice to hear from somebody doing so well. And I like to hear that and that we’re represented in Texas now, as well as hearing about that Texas economy. I mean, based in California, there is not a day that doesn’t go by that we don’t hear about businesses leaving to Texas or our clients moving to Texas.
00;22;14;26 – 00;22;23;06
Chip Arenchild
Right. So, people are anxious to do something different in a more favorable environment. And I encourage you to hear what you have to say.
00;22;23;09 – 00;22;35;05
Mac Wesson
Well, thank you for that. And, you know, hopefully we don’t take any of this for granted. You know, the history seems to be cyclical. And so, you know, things could change, but so far, so good.
00;22;35;07 – 00;22;53;12
Chip Arenchild
So far, so good. Well, I like it. Well, Mac, thanks for being part of the podcast today with us. Everybody join us on LinkedIn. You can follow us at risk Pro Net. Just do a search and you’ll find it. And you can join the podcast as well. Just follow the what we’re doing. If you’re interested in Risk Pro Net, please reach out to us on LinkedIn.
00;22;53;15 – 00;23;03;25
Chip Arenchild
And our Executive Director, Patty Reid will get in touch with you. So, Mac, listen, have a nice day. I hope you had a good Halloween. Thank you very much for all your time, and we’ll look forward to seeing you soon.
00;23;03;27 – 00;23;06;16
Mac Wesson
You bet. Same to you, Chip. Thanks for the time.
00;23;06;19 – 00;23;29;00
Chip Arenchild
Okay, we’ll see you later. Bye now. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Know Your Risk in insurance Coverage with Risk Pro Net. For more information about Risk Pro, please visit our website. You can follow us on Facebook and Twitter for insurance insights from everyone at risk. Pro net. We want to say thank you for tuning in and see you next time.
