By Rick Gilman, APR, CMP

Adam DeGraide, CEO and co-founder of Astonish Results, is aself-described rock-and-roller whose firm is committed to shakingup independent agency marketing and customer service.

He and his colleagues accomplish this through a combination ofleveraging the latest technology, fully engaging social media,marketing his clients as full-fledged business advisors rather thanmerely policy peddlers, and by recruiting "Raving Fan Managers" topromote the Astonish approach wherever he goes.
Astonish Results bases its approach on two core beliefs.

The first is that agencies must shift from a service-orientedemphasis to an aggressive sales and marketing-focused culture. Thisdoesn't mean that one supersedes the other, according to DeGraide.Instead, he noted, the key is "you must never forget that everyservice encounter is a sales opportunity."

The second belief is that by implementing the right technologyand embedding social media as a key touch point for clients, agentswill not only grow their book of business with a major influx ofnew prospects, but improve retention levels with existing accountsas well.

By DeGraide's measure, "the biggest thing we've done is givenlocal agents the ability to compete and win against national directwriters."

The principal problem agencies typically have is they don't knowwhat's working and what's not. After we come into an agency, theywill never do business the same way again," said Tim Sawyer, thefirm's president and co-founder.

The third co-founder of Astonish, chief operating officer JohnBoudreau, said that "the tools, technology and training we provideagencies have literally changed their lives by changing theirbusinesses."
He added that his system is "built to encompass all aspects of anagency's operation, allowing them to find, sell and keep morecustomers."

"We're changing the insurance industry one agency at a time," hesaid. "Agencies are excited about their businesses again."

Related: Read "A new game in town."

Astonish begins by meeting with the agency team, assigning apersonal "Raving Fan Manager" (RFM), whose responsibility is tomake sure everything is on track, that the unique needs of theagency are integrated into the plan, and to oversee all mediadevelopment. Once the RFM is assigned, work begins on the newwebsite.

Concurrent to that is the implementation of what Astonish callsthe Virtual Profit Center (VPC). The VPC includes a "customerrelationship management tool on crack," as DeGraide describes it,along with a lead generation tool. The VPC becomes the "heartbeatof the agency," he explained.

Rex Caton of Daytona Beach, Fla.-based Caton-Hosey Insurance, explainedhow his agency operation had to change once he realized that"whenever I needed anything from a garden hose to a new drill, Iwould go online." While he appreciated the realities of Web growth,he didn't know how to make it happen at his agency.

Established in 1948, the midsize agency was facing strongercompetition from direct writers, and there "wasn't a lot of helpfor independent agents," he recalled. "I tried going online to geta quote and found it complex and too long a process. I knew therehad to be a better way, and that was when I came across AstonishResults."

His expectations from Astonish were to "create an onlinepresence to bring the agency into the modern world."

Caton wasn't just going after the youth market, either,recognizing that most middle-aged and senior buyers were using theWeb to do research before shopping or just to stay in touch.

Related: Read "HootSuite reaches the mobile generation."

Since his installation of the Astonish tools, Caton-Hosey'spersonal lines department has grown by 10 percent, and with thenewest version Caton expects growth to be even greater.

Kenneth Petersen, CEO of the Massachusetts-based EncharterInsurance, came to Astonish through a different impetus.Regulatory changes in the state resulted in an onrush of directwriters into his backyard, requiring Encharter to become moresales-oriented, he explained.

A small-to-midsize business, Encharter is made up of sevendifferent agencies operating in five locations. Leveraging socialmedia to coordinate brand, service and provide a platform forgrowth, Astonish signed with the agency in August 2009 and bySeptember had a new website, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Animoto(video and slideshow) accounts--all of which is bringing traffic,renewed interest and excitement to the agency.

Petersen explained that until Astonish got involved, the agencywas doing about 70to 80 new deals each month, while "now I'mlooking at 150 new deals this month, and it's not going to stopthere. We're growing 6 to 7 percent currently and expect it toimprove upon that."

He described Astonish as a "life line" for his agency. "You haveto work really hard, but it's a whole lot of fun," he said--echoingthe same observation and enthusiasm expressed by many Astonishclients.

For example, Tony Alessandra, president of Mission Viejo,Calif.-based Insurance Solutions, said that"after 43 years, I've fallen back in love with my agencyagain."

Before Alessandra signed up with Astonish, Insurance Solutions'marketing activities were like those of his competitors--a lot ofreliance on the traditional referral approach. Since Astonish cameon board, that number has dropped to 85 percent, with the balanceof lead generation being augmented by a very aggressive onlinemarketing strategy.

Related: Read "There's gold in them thar hills."

As a result of Astonish's efforts, search engine optimizationnumbers have pushed Insurance Solutions to the top of the list whensomeone is searching for insurance in Mission Viejo, Calif. Indeed,Alessandra reported a 1,700 percent increase in Web traffic sinceimplementing the Astonish system.

Those numbers would certainly resonate with Nathan Dagley,president and CEO of the Katy, Texas-based Dagley Insurance. Dagley realized thatpeople were no longer using the Yellow Pages and had long sincegone to the Internet when it came time to shop for products orservices, but the persistent question was, "how do we access themthere," he recalled.

For Dagley Insurance, the entire implementation process tookabout two months. "Having personnel that understood and enjoyedsocial networking helped speed things up," he said.
Prior to Astonish coming on board, Dagley estimated that 95 percentof the agency's new business was coming through traditionalmarketing methods. Now that number has dropped to 66 percent, withthe balance coming through online efforts.

"These social networking tools have allowed us to buildstronger, deeper and faster relationships with our prospects aswell as our existing client base," he said. "We are super excitedabout what we're doing with Astonish Results, but we haven't evenscratched the surface. Wait until this fall."

For Krystle McEachron, chief operating officer ofCalifornia-based ISU Insurance Services--ARMAC Agency, the decision tosign up with Astonish was just a matter of convincing herfather.
As a family-run agency with 25 employees and $34 million inpremiums, ISU was a prime candidate for the services of Astonish.McEachron, a vocal advocate of social media, just didn't have thetime to implement her ideas.

Related: Read "Connect and evolve with new agency technology."

It was when McEachron's father read an article that "supportedall I wanted to do [online] that we decided to bring in some help."They had already decided to drop their Yellow Pages ad, and soapplying those substantial marketing dollars to a comprehensive,online marketing strategy was easy.

As a result of working with Astonish, McEachron said, "websiteleads have grown about 200 percent, and our [search engineoptimization] position is much higher than it was with the previoussite."

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