[00:00:27] Jay: Hi, everyone. Welcome to The First Customer podcast. My name is Jay Aigner. Today, I am lucky enough to be joined. It's a rivalry edition of the
first customer podcast.a big Cowboys fan down Texas, Caden Braly, CEO, founder of Innovative Risk. Hello, my friend. How are you, buddy?
[00:00:44] Braly: doing well, man. Can't complain.
[00:00:46] Jay: All right. so, tell me a little bit about Texas.
You grew up there.
[00:00:51] Braly: Yep.
[00:00:52] Jay: and did that, you know, did where you grew up have any impact on you being an entrepreneur later in life? I see a lot of Entrepreneurial stuff in your background, where'd it come from?
[00:01:01] Braly: Yeah, so I grew up in a little town called Prosper, Texas. It's, north of Dallas. Straight north, about 45 minutes, give or take. town I grew up in was really filled with entrepreneurs, to be honest with you. There were, business owners. There were people that took over as CEOs of large brand name companies.
Deon Sanders actually used to live there. baseball player, Torrey Hunter, and now the famous man himself, Dak Prescott, lives in Prosper, about three, three miles from the house I grew up in. just being in that environment, I really had a ton of people, like, creating businesses around me.
my dad also, started a company, called Brawley Insurance Group, which is a,now a nationally, a national insurance brokerage based. It's still based in Dallas, but we have offices all over the US. So kind of grew up being around, you know, my dad being an entrepreneur. And then also my grandpa was a, life insurance agent for MetLife.
And he also, started a small company as well and kind of just. That's all I've really known. It's so funny, you were, I just got off the phone with my mom a couple of minutes ago. We were talking about, you know, corporate culture, corporate world. A lot of people that I graduated college with went obviously straight into the corporate world.
For me, I was like, I can't do it. I cannot, you know, just be a slave to some corporation and make them a bunch of money and may not see, you know, any return off that. So I'm a cynic at heart, but yeah, that's kind of just how I grew up and that's pretty much it.
[00:02:38] Jay: how on earth do you get excited about insurance?
Right. I mean, I know it's in your blood and it's in your background. How, and let me ask you a better question. Maybe, how do you get anybody else excited about it? Cause you got to sell the stuff. So how are you, how the hell do you get anybody excited about insurance?
[00:02:56] Braly: I did not actually, I thought I would never go into insurance. When I was in, when I was in high school, or even in middle school, I, you know, my dad was kind of gauging my interest like, Hey, do you want to come, you know, join the family business? And, I told him I'd never do it. Just because I've seen him come home really stressed, you know, not very, he was happy with what he did and he's actually enjoyed it, but just certain situations with customers that were just not good, people pissed because their insurance premiums went up 5 a month, you know, effing them off, tell them to eff off or all this stuff.
I'm just like, yeah, I don't think that's for me. but I got, as I graduated, I had an internship lined up in Chicago of all places with a company called Medline Industries. They're a very, largest privately owned medical supplies company in the world. And COVID cut that off. They basically said, sorry, we have no position for you.
and I said, okay, well, I'm a senior in college and, by that time I was a junior in college and I had zero ideas of what I'm going to do. And, you know, the job market at that time was really bad. No one was really hiring. So, my, my dad said, why don't you come work for me part time, you can do marketing stuff and got into it.
And I realized, there's this whole other side of insurance that is not marketed on the Super Bowl commercials. You know, you're watching the, Eagles play the Cowboys here in however many weeks. And how many State Farm commercials are you gonna see? How many Farmers commercials, or Travelers, or Nationwide, or Peyton Manning, you know, doing the jingle, whatever it is.
And I realized, I was like, okay, that is literally maybe of my job, that's maybe 20 30%. The rest is large scale business insurance that actually is an asset to those businesses. Meaning, let's just say, and this is, I didn't even realize this until I got into it. So say you have a large company, say they're a biomedical, a biotech company, right?
They're making some sort of thing that surgeons use,in surgery. Well, let's just say that company's a startup company, right? So they don't have a lot of capital on hand, but they're starting to grow. Well, imagine they have, they use their product in, someone during a surgery and the person dies because of that product.
Well, they could easily get sued for 6, 7 million dollars. Well, what happens if they don't have that on hand and their insurance doesn't have the right coverages in place to cover that? They go bankrupt, they go out of business, they're out. that was the thing that really interested me was like, you are The final line of defense for these middle, you know, small companies too, but middle and large scale companies.
And if you don't do your job right, those companies could go out of business. Now, it's pretty stressful sometimes, but it's, you're reading contracts, and that's not very fun. But when you realize that you are A major asset of a company, like I have some people where like some of my customers that consider me like a part of their team.
Like I am a risk manager, which kind of goes along with innovative risk, which we'll talk about later. But that was really how I got excited about it was you can make a lot of money. You get paid commissions larger than real estate agents for deals that are larger than most homes And you really become an asset to those companies.
[00:06:20] Jay: So let's talk about innovative risk. where did that come from?
[00:06:25] Braly: Yeah, that came from a couple things when I was working for still do work for the family agency as you can see on my shirt right here I would lose deals not too often, but every now and then And to people that were just saying, Hey, I need to find the cheapest policy possible or Hey, I'm a pretty decent sized company and they would always just shop on price, which that's what state pharma nationwide and all these things that you hear on TV.
You're literally, your brain is trained to think, Oh, you just shop insurance on price, it's all the same. That's literally the furthest thing from the truth. There are different, carriers are not made the same. You know, you go to a carrier like, Nationwide or Travelers, that has really good coverage. and then there's other carriers that you can probably think of that don't have good coverage, but they are the cheapest option.
So, but when you have everyone telling you got to shop on price. That bleeds over into the business insurance world. So you have a guy that's you know His insurance premiums are five six seven hundred eight hundred thousand dollars, and he says oh, you know I got to shop on price And you know what?
You could probably find a cheaper policy than say if you're paying 800, 000, you could probably find one for 650, 000 or 500, 000. But you're risking the livelihood of your company hoping that those coverages that you need when they really count are there. And they're probably not. So I would lose deals to people because our company has like a, we feel like we have a moral obligation to give them the correct quote.
The one that is the most honest and upfront, rather than the one that's just the cheapest price. So I would tell them, you know, tell these company owners, Hey, you don't have this, or this. And they said, Eh, I don't think that's that big of a deal. But they had no one to instruct them on it other than me, but they didn't trust me because I'm a Insurance broker, you know, no one really trusts insurance broker So I started at innovative risk to act as a buyer's agent on behalf of the companies to help go to different brokers different markets And someone that knows the insurance industry inside and out how the renewal process goes how the quoting process goes And is a like a line of defense for the customer to say, Hey, this quote that we got from this guy is terrible.
This next one is actually pretty good. This third one, this is the one we should go with. And then in doing that, we help negotiate down the premiums because we know we're creating competition between brokers. So you're able to get a lower premium than if you were just going to do it yourself. That's in short, that's what it is.
It's a lot more difficult than just that, but that's kind of the. The summary of it.
[00:09:02] Jay: and what are the of businesses you serve with that? Like, how did you, and how did you find out who to go after? I mean, it's like, I mean, insurance can cover anybody in any type of
business. Like, how are you specialized in to kind of differentiate?
[00:09:18] Braly: Yeah. So it all has to do really with my background. at the agency level with the current company that I work for, we do a lot of artisan residential and commercial contractors. So I think the main three we work on are plumbers, electricians and HVAC contractors. So we know how those work inside and out.
that's like our bread and butter for our agency, for innovative risk that we also do that as well because I know that industry. the other ones are, IT, so things like IT software, anything that has to do with like the cyber world, we can, help them with that. that just become, that is because I also own a, like a side company that does technology consulting for insurance brokers.
that is another whole story, but so I have a background in, technology and software and then the medical background, I do have a medical background with the company that I was going to go work for and thought I wanted to be a doctor for a very long time, but was not smart enough to get through chemistry.
So we are, still love to love the medical world, love doctors, love nurses. so that's kind of how I figured out and we can do anything outside of that, but those. those three different kind of industries are the ones that we, focus on.
[00:10:37] Jay: Who was your first customer for innovative risk? We don't have to name the name, but how'd you get them? Who, where'd they come from?
[00:10:42] Braly: Yeah, so, it was a, an HVAC contractor that was actually referred to by, a buddy of mine who was talking to this guy and basically said he got really screwed over on a, on a claim that wasn't paid out because the coverage wasn't there. This guy was talking to one of his buddies.
buddy's at a bar, I think it was a bar or a restaurant or something like that. And he said, Hey, one of my friends just started this company. They're basically a consultant that works for you, not for the carrier and they help you try to find the best deal. And so I talked to him, got him on board.
And, I, the first thing I do when I go through any customer is read over their policies. I take like probably like a two or three days and just read word for word. What does this say? Because a lot of people will say, Oh yeah, you got coverage for this. You got coverage for this, but there's wording on there that makes everything completely different than what the agent said.
But the agents don't know because they don't want to read through 150 pages. Now you can kind of go through and the insurance industry is fairly well regulated. So you can have like. A coverage number that is pretty much the same throughout. but that's what I'll do and I looked at this guy's policies and it was bad.
Like this guy was, basically had no coverage for if he damaged anyone's personal property. There was a personal property exclusion while he was working on it. So, and this is his whole entire thing is, alright, so he's an HVAC contractor. He goes to work on people's HVAC units. Technically the HVAC unit is part of their personal property.
And he had an exclusion on his policy that said exclusion of personal property while in the care, custody, and control of the, the insured. And so he had no coverage, which was why nothing got paid out. And it turns out he was with a really bad carrier. He was with the low, like I said, the low budget of carriers because he just wanted to save on price and he had to pay, I think it was a commercial HVAC unit, so he had to pay probably about, 80, 000 to 100, 000 out of pocket, that was not covered.
So, that's how we got the first customer and he's still on board right now and we're going through, he doesn't renew until December, but usually people should start quoting their insurance, depending on how large of anywhere from three to four months before they were new, and not a lot of people know that, so that's what we're doing right now.
[00:13:01] Jay: And how do you monetize? Are you charging the people you're doing the consulting for, or do you make it on the other side from the. The insurance sale itself.
[00:13:11] Braly: Yeah, so we don't actually sell any insurance at all. We charge our customers a consulting fee and that fee is paid by them. We have no allegiance to any insurance carrier. We aren't paid on the back end by any insurance broker that we refer to. It is solely an independent relationship where, you know, we are at the beck and call of the business that we're working with.
Now the fees that we charge scale based off of size of premium. It's not a percentage. It is just like, Hey, if you're above this premium, this is the. If you're above this is the fee. and people like that because they know, okay, say if I want to use this guy for the next five years and my premium goes from 100, 000 to 400, 000, I'm not going to be charging, you know, a percentage like insurance brokers get from their commission.
people like that. And, we wanted to make sure that they know that we work for them. So we have it in a written in our contract that we don't do any sort of back in compensation from brokers that we refer to. We don't get any commissions from carriers. We do. It's in your best interest. So. that's pretty much it's, very straightforward, very open about our pre or about our fees that we charge.
We usually talk about that within like the first five to 10 minutes of the call and just set everything out on the table for them.
[00:14:25] Jay: how are you doing marketing today? What's your kind of main methods of bringing a new business?
[00:14:30] Braly: Yeah, we have a, the main one that I'm working on right now is becoming a part of different like subcontractor associations or. you know, different medical associations, throughout Texas, but also, throughout the United States. It's a little bit more difficult when you're based in Texas, but try to get a association in a different state.
So we're still working on that, but, I have a, an application in to help some people out within the, Central Texas Subcontractors Association, which is basically encompassing all of Austin. Bastrop, Waco, all around that area. And then I'm working on the one for Dallas as well. And it's just to kind of help those guys out because the desire for what I do is to keep insurance agents accountable, but also make them be honest.
Because you can keep an insurance agent accountable by making sure that they get their premiums, you know, within a certain range, but if they're not honest about the coverages that are there, the insurance, the the insurance, the insured, the business is going to pay for it and I don't like that.
It's kind of, it's dishonest and it's a very, sleazy industry that I want to try to make right.
[00:15:35] Jay: What about your personal brand? Are it's an interesting topic. I always like to ask people about,
get lots of different answers on. how do you kind of see your personal brand? How are you trying or not trying to kind of establish that and grow that. And then how do you think that kind of ties in with your business brand and any of the business you're associated with?
[00:15:58] Braly: Yeah, so, I, you know, when you're trying to create your company, you have two, two options basically. It's, the first option is do you want the brand to be the brand? Do you want to be marketed as Innovative Risk or do you want to be marketed as Caden Brawley? The CEO of Innovative Risk, and all your marketing flows through either one of those channels.
I'm still trying to see, kind of through A B testing, which one's gonna work best. at the moment, it's based off of my individual self, marketing myself as doing this, but I also have this company that I do business under. that seems to work the best. there's a couple other guys that do what I do that's how they do it.
as you get larger, then you can try to market under your brand name. Because you may have other employees, that also help you out and want to make sure that they get their fair share of business too. So, that's kind of the marketing thing. I'm also, I've been on a few other podcasts as well talking about this.
And, The other thing is those, subcontractor associations, just by knowing being in close proximity to them. And this is a very large referral based industry. Insurance is referral based, but this is referral based, because what you're explaining to people, so we did, a cold call, dry run, just to see, you know, could we take a script, read it to someone, read that script, and could the CEO or the decision maker, could they actually understand what we did?
It didn't go well because people are so trained to think. Oh, you're just an insurance agent. It's no, we're not an insurance agent. We are partnering on your behalf to try to help you find insurance As a buyer's agent we actually go to other brokers To and it's hard for them to process that because you're cold calling right?
So if you can get in front of people either person to person or like in a webinar and explain what you do in about You know five to ten minute webinar kind of thing then people really get it There's been a few people that I've talked to they're like, oh, yeah, that makes a lot of sense and get it But it's very rare.
So the cold call route is not going too well, but the other things it's just all based about your visual marketing getting in front of people Explaining what you can do
[00:18:08] Jay: Yeah. It sounds like you, you've got a good handle at least that the education piece. Of your marketing has to be kind of 1st, you know, at the forefront, right? Like,
people have to understand it's not like you sell hamburgers, like, and people knows what that is. Like, you have to kind of explain what it is.
And it's a, an interesting. Uh, it's an interesting problem to have in marketing. Like the, that education piece has always interested me. We're like, you have to like convince somebody or like. You know, let them know that what you're providing is value instead of just leading with the value to provide and everybody understands what it is. I got quite a time for one more question,
[00:18:46] Braly: Yeah.
[00:18:47] Jay: non business related.
[00:18:49] Braly: Okay,
[00:18:49] Jay: if you could do anything on earth and he knew you couldn't fail, what would it be?
[00:18:56] Braly: man. I would, I think I would just honestly keep doing what I'm doing. Like, I, people, you know, there could be an answer like, oh, I want to go do this great thing. But, like, if I could just keep doing what I'm doing, they could, enough money to survive and be able to employ other people and Help train them up to, to work hard.
I think that's a pretty satisfying and a pretty noble thing. that would be great. I'm doing exactly what I desire and love to do. I couldn't see myself doing anything else at the moment. So, I think that's probably it.
[00:19:27] Jay: I love it. It's a great answer. I thought you were going to say, go watch the Eagles win a Super Bowl, but
I didn't think you were going to say it out loud. I don't think you were born the last time the Cowboys won one. all right, brother,where can people find, Caden Braly or Innovative Risk if they want to reach out to you guys?
[00:19:44] Braly: yeah, so you can, go on my LinkedIn, just type in Caden, C A D E N, Braly, B R A L Y, and reach out to me there. Or you can go to our website, which is www. innovativerisk. io, and, either email me there or submit a scheduled consultation.
[00:20:02] Jay: Beautiful. All right, man. Well, I love it. Hope people check you out and, appreciate your time today. Appreciate it have a good one, man. See ya.
[00:20:07] Braly: Thanks.