Suzilla: Family Business Podcast

Handling budget freezes

Who was surprised by the Federal Freeze? It was a quick flash that highlighted more than I expected as a small business owner. Funding is critically important. It’s why our Founding Fathers selected Congress for that power. The Spending Clause is Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1.

We have seen it before, have conversations about it, and inventory our resources. 

Now is the time to prepare.

Uniform, Unique and You

If you ever been to our office, you will see that we don't use the traditional uniform of an Insurance Agency. It can make a lot of people uncomfortable so we put in markers that were friendlier to more people. Uniform is important as it is a visual marker to identify if something is a friend or foe. A green flag or a red flag. You might have to wear something for a job or to fit in. Uniqueness is the personal touch the pledge pin. It is how you hold a conversation and the thoughts behind it. We are talking about the big U’s today on Suzilla.

We need to end set it and forget it as a concept.

We are seeing time and time again people getting burned because they are running an expectation that it is business as usual. It is strange because it is an attempt to defy the one universal constant that is change. We have had to work with it firsthand this year as we had a local Medicare Advantage plan leave our area with thousands of clients. Some quickly found assistance, some did it themselves and some are still finding out months later that their Medicare plan left. We saw it with Covid and the businesses that failed to adapt quick enough. We saw it when the real estate market collapsed. We saw it when the savings and loan's collapsed. Today's Suzilla, we talk about ending the Set it and Forget it lifestyle. 

Consent is important in everything.

Have you ever wondered why you hated the person who talked poorly to the receptionist? Had your car in the repair shop and got a upcharge of a couple of hundred dollars. Watched someone cut in line. Didn't use someone's correct Pronouns,. It is all about consent. Suzie and Matt have been running their business on consent for years and it creates referrals like no other. 

The importance of flow.

There are people that treat insurance and other services as a transactional model. Pull a lever and coverage comes out. Suzie and I have always treated it as a wild river process. Where clients move from pool to pool, lingering where they need more and moving quickly to the next process when needed. Today, we are looking at flow and how quickly things can jam up if we were just focused on a single transaction.

The world is on Fyre with bad events, let's work on creating better ones.

After seeing that Fyre 2 is being worked on, Bridgerton Ball, the Wonka experience. It is time to talk about events. We love events from working on theatre to hosting festivals. We are getting into constructing an event to what to look for to avoid being scammed. Events are not a cash cow banking experience and we need to stop treating them as such.

The prepared mindset

Do you have a long term mindset or short term mindset. We work with Insurance which involves long term planning. There are little steps that you can do that a little bit of planning smooths out problems before they occur. This week we get into little steps that we have done over the year that have allowed us to do better this year despite financial disaster. 

Old reliable verses new innovation

How do you stay in business for years in the insurance industry that is ripe with change? We are going to talk about the myth of the old reliable. As businesses, we hear managers use the phrase find out what works and do that. Well what happens when it get’s old? I read another story of a church that has been around for years closing it’s doors same issue. The reliance on the old reliable does not promote growth and relevance. So how do you do it. We are going talk about how we continue to refresh and prevent from getting stale.

All business is political

We have done insurance for years and to ignore the politics of it then we would be doing a disservice to our clients. Yes, they can lose their insurance at a politicians whim so we better speak up.

We fight day in and day out to put food on our table and if we are good our coworkers and employees. We talk about enrichment of our customer’s experience and yes that means we do our best to promote good policies that will continue prosperity for our community. When a business person says that they stay clear of politics then it just means they are concealing what they are doing. Let’s get into our woke experience.   

Why flexibility is better than strength.

After all these years of working insurance in Washington State. I can say without a doubt, I will pick flexibility over strength. It has lead to creativity, connecting with our community, growth, and duration. There are moments in the year that are natural flexibility points personally and for our business. We are going to talk about the small business superpower of flexibility.