As a small child I remember a Dunkin' Donuts TV commercialin which a portly man would get out of bed and shuffle out of hishouse, repeating, “Time to make the doughnuts.” This memory istimely in that for our new company, it's time to make thedoughnuts.

In 1996, I began buying my father's family-owned insuranceagency. I was 25, he was 55 and he simply walked in andretired. Although I had no idea what I was doing, I was successfulin spite of myself and over the next 15 years, built a smallbut profitable agency.

In late 2010, I began working with another agency, helping withsome sales training. It seemed like my skill set might fit theirmanagement team's needs. We structured a deal and on Sept. 6,2011, I traded in my shares of my company for shares in the newcompany. My new role was that of producer, sales manager, andmarketing manager.

After three months of our new partnership, we all decided thatthis might have been the worst mistake in the business worldsince the release of New Coke. Because one of the other owners and I operatedin a very similar manner, we decided that two of the owners ofthe “new company” would start another agency, using the assets andbooks of business developed over the years by these two agencylocations.

As we began thinking about starting our “new agency,” we becamerather excited. No more are we tied to our old systems,procedures or habits; everything is on the table, everything can bechanged.

On Aug. 18, 2012, our dream of our new agency was born whenSomeday is Today, LLC (dba The Thompson Group) started operations. In a sense, we'regoing back to the future, since my original agency was named TheThompson Group. Our new Indianapolis office will be rebrandedfrom the old name to The Thompson Group and our existing ParkerCity office clients will experience no change.

Jenny Dils Durr, our CEO, has said for years that people alwayssay they're going to do something, “someday.” In creating thiscompany, her main focus was that our someday is today. I've led mycompany for 15 years and am now looking forward to following who Ithink might just be one of the greatest CEOs this industry has everseen.

Our first steps have been to sign new contracts with ourpartners, thus allowing our $12 million in premium volume to flowinto these new agency codes. We are working very hard totransition our data from an old AMS system and an old AppliedSystems program into Applied'snew EPIC system. The functionality of this new system andthe ability of our agency to use iPads in the files seems to be agreat fit for our “technology platform agency.”

Moving to a VoIP phone system is another major item on ourchecklist. We ordered Bluetooth headsets and we should be livein 30 days, giving us one phone system for both offices, theability to record every phone call in and out of the office,and–believe it or not–our telephony costs are being reduced byabout $5,000 a year.

Over the coming weeks, I'll be taking this blog in a newdirection–sharing not just insurance changes, updatesand advice, but I'll also be sharing the successes andfailures of our new company.

Here come the doughnuts!