You've read about successful InsurTech start-ups, but when was the last time you read about a highly successful insurance agency start-up?
There are many insurance agency owners under 40, but most are family legacies, notes Zack Gould, co-founder of G&N Insurance. Along with his business partner, Matt Naimoli, the pair built their agency from the ground up. While G&N is only seven years old, as Naimoli explains, if the number of their speaking engagements is any indication, they're already viewed as thought leaders.
Gould and Naimoli were captive agents at a large carrier when they decided at age 26 to branch out on their own. They started from scratch in 2010 with no clients, one carrier and a shoe-box-size office. "We had a burning desire to be the best and the vision to transform a historically slow-moving, reactive industry," says Naimoli.
The agency, which focuses mainly on attracting clients who are purchasing real estate, has grown 35% to 40% year-over-year in policy count, premium and revenue, which he ascribes to their effective and consistent networking efforts, the personal lines referral business they get from networking, and the influential nature of social media to brand and broadcast within a vertical market.
G&N writes $150,000 in new business premium weekly, and generates more than 500 referrals a month. They're confident of reaching their 10-year goal of becoming one of the largest independent agencies nationally, insuring more than 100,000 clients.
Social media experts
Gould and Naimoli have learned how to leverage social media and video to broadcast their brand effectively and efficiently. "You can use social media to push sales or branding, but not both," says Gould. "We get better results from using it strictly for branding." By focusing on making G&N well known to their referral partners, he adds, "I don't have to explain who I am or what I do when I meet someone for the first time."
So how do they stay top of mind? The agency has 4,000 Facebook followers, an active Instagram account, and a weekly creative YouTube presence. They've recently released a 52-week series video blog (vlog) highlighting their favorite topics: entrepreneurship, partnership and a growth mindset. Taking this "show, don't tell," approach, G&N leverages video daily to highlight their referral partners, clients and employees.
The G&N Insurance Team
'It had better be fun'
"We believe that work had better be fun, or it's just a salary," says Gould. He and Naimoli want people to enjoy being around them and working with them, lessening what Naimoli calls the "Sunday Scaries" — that feeling of dread so many employees have on Sunday night when they realize they have to go work on Monday.
To celebrate G&N's first anniversary, Naimoli and Gould were given personalized bobblehead dolls by their significant others. Visitors to their office were 
fascinated by the bobbleheads, and began asking where they could get one.
In 2013, Gould explains, he and Naimoli had the idea of giving their referral partners their own bobbleheads to say "thank you" and celebrate their becoming part of the "G&N Bobblehead Family" on Facebook and Instagram. To date, they've delivered more than 600 custom bobbleheads to loan officers, realtors, financial advisers and attorneys, growing in this narrow niche as industry experts, appearing on radio real estate programs in Boston and in real-estate-focused publications. Employees get their own personalized bobblehead on their one-year anniversary with the agency.
G&N also hosts Champagne Fridays. Each week from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., any employee can go into the lounge area, have a glass and hang out with fellow employees. It's fun, the agency principals say, and it encourages camaraderie and the exchange of new ideas in an informal setting.
Retaining clients
Gould and Naimoli are proud that their agency retention is more than 96%, due to their "best-in-class" people and process, Naimoli says. They hire, promote and reward based on the agency's core values of doing whatever it takes, finding ways to help the client and having fun together. "Our best ideas come from our team in weekly meetings," Gould says. He and Naimoli have refined their business process monthly since inception to maximize customer satisfaction, retention and referral generation.
"We leverage every tool available to us," Naimoli says, "including shared integrated calendar software, policy upload portals, CRM software, video proposals, mobile application software, video integration e-mails and text messages during the client lifecycle, online surveys, renewal report auditing by outsourced resource companies, timely personal education videos, custom portfolio review templates and various marketing automation strategies.
When G&N started, about half of its employees had insurance industry experience, primarily in Personal Lines. Now, they don't look for insurance experience at all. Two of their most successful recent hires were restaurant servers. "They're good at setting priorities and executing," Naimoli points out. "They'll learn the insurance business."
When asked about the challenge of recruiting into what he knows can be perceived as "a boring industry," Gould says it's more about the company that you work for rather than the industry. For example, he explains, "Search engines aren't cool; Google is cool."
"We trust our gut to help us do the right thing," he adds. Taking a stab at something, a calculated risk to try something new, says Gould, isn't failure: "We're not afraid to fail — but we're not going to."
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