Understanding what improving systems and processes means can be a little difficult since it can be applied to individual areas of a business or an entire business itself.
Chad Boyer talks more specifically about what improved processes can look like as he shares how working with JMG Systems helped The Boyer Agency improve how they bring a personal touch to the process of purchasing insurance.
TWO WORDS that rush to the top of my mind when I think about working with JMG are “Streamlining” and “Efficiency.” It fundamentally bothers me to do things inefficiently. Before JMG got involved in helping me with my business, I was spending too much time fixing things I shouldn’t have been involved in fixing.
Now that JMG Systems is in the mix, my typical day looks very different than it did 2 years ago. MUCH different than 4 years ago.
Because of all these ongoing technical problems, my staff and I were constantly maxed out with what we could do any given day. It was physically impossible for me or them to do any more work. I would’ve needed to hire more people to get more done, but that wouldn’t have solved our growth problem. Adding more people to the mix would have just compounded my problems because that would have meant also adding more tech to the mix, which is what was causing the problems.
So the ultimate goal from the beginning of my partnership with JMG was to just get my people back to what they were supposed to be doing and reduce the regular interruptions that were happening during the day.
There was a series of little problems piling up that lead me to say “enough” and start looking for ways to get us back on track to selling insurance instead of wasting our time fiddling with problematic tech.
Normally, I would’ve been looking to vendors and shopping around for someone who could get me better prices for some of my “problematic tech.” But then JMG Systems stepped in.
Matt Paonessa was already consulting with us on a few other things, so I asked him to take a look at what this one company was proposing to do to “help” me with my issues. This vendor I had talked to told me their solution for just one of my problems would’ve cost me something in the neighborhood of $1500 per month. Matt took one look at what they were proposing and said “NO!”
And that was that. Matt then came up with a more comprehensive solution to this and several other related problems. After that, he was investigating several other areas of my business that clearly needed help. But if Matt hadn’t been in the picture, I would’ve defaulted to relying on a vendor to solve my problem.
And just to be clear, I don’t think vendors are bad. I still use vendors and appreciate what they do. But vendors typically aren’t advocates. They can’t or don’t help make decisions on how to improve things or look for ways to prevent problems from happening in the first place.
The time savings for me to be able to just call Matt whenever I have a problem is immense. Without Matt, I’d be the one trying to figure out what’s wrong or how I can get more value and productivity out of my equipment. That’s the way things used to be. And that in and of itself was a problem.
I only have a limited amount of time I can spend each day. Small businesses like mine can’t expand without relying on others. As we try to grow and do better, we either partner with someone or try to take on more responsibilities ourselves.
Often, out of necessity, we end up doing a lot of essential tasks ourselves at first. However, the better small business owners can get at recognizing and building partnerships, the better they will be able to use their time.
For example, I could work with a client for four hours to get their insurance needs squared away, which is what I like doing and I’m good at it. Or I could work on my taxes for four hours, which is something I have no interest in or skill at doing. Both of those tasks are necessary, but there’s no doubt which one would be a better use of my time.
Matt is extraordinary at breaking things down for non-tech people like myself. I’m a gamer, and that’s the extent of my tech expertise. But in all that we’ve done together, I’ve had zero trouble understanding what Matt is talking about when introducing me to new technology or processes. At first, yes, I was a little resistant to learning some of the things that Matt wanted to incorporate into our office, but now my own blinders to tech are completely off.
With these new systems, tools, and training that Matt has introduced into my business, life in the office is better. The staff and managers are able to share work and communicate much more easily with each other, and because of that, there has emerged a noticeable increase in the quality of service to our customers.
Without broken systems or ignorance about a piece of tech that’s holding my people back, we have no lapse in helping our customers. Every single call to our office is logged and someone is reaching out immediately. We can all see who called and when and what the call was about. Everything is so integrated and transparent, I’m even able to hop in and take customer calls myself from time to time.
Several years ago, when I first got into the business, there weren’t many small insurance companies who had multiple offices. I didn’t even know this business model was possible. With JMG Systems on our team, we’re stronger than ever and in a good place to grow even more.
My staff has solid support, my managers are actively involved, and I can run my office from anywhere. I’m no longer constrained by my limited knowledge of hardware and software to grow my business. JMG has allowed me to jump ahead several years very quickly.
