David 0:00

What happens when the traditional agency model meets today's gig economy? We'll find out on this episode of Shift Shapers.

SPEAKER_02 0:11

This is the Shift Shapers Podcast, connecting benefits advisors with thought leaders and entrepreneurs who are shaping the shifts in the industry. And now, here's your host, David Saltzman.

David 0:24

And we have asked Adam Michaels, who is founder and CEO at Enrolify, who has studied such things to help us answer that question. Adam, great to have you on the podcast. Great to be here, especially after that awesome intro music. Well, you know, we've got to get you kind of in the mood, you know. It's it's a swing and place. It's like You succeeded. You succeeded. Well, that's all I can ask for then. We're done. So tell us a little bit about your journey because nobody that I interview ever started doing what they're doing today. So how do you get to be doing what you're doing?

SPEAKER_00 0:52

You know, I think in terms of things I was going to be in life, what I'm doing today probably ranks on the list near Catholic priest. It's like nowhere on the list at all. I I stumbled into the insurance industry in my early 20s and got stuck. And like most people, the economics were really good. And so I spent 25 years building agencies, independent agencies across the United States inside of the AFLAC ecosystem, pioneered several markets for them and ultimately had a role as a vice president where I let a team of 5,000 salespeople do a quarter of a billion dollars in sales, left that opportunity in 2017. And after a few years of consulting and writing a book, I decided to launch Enrolify. And so the rest is history, I guess.

David 1:33

What is the problem that Enrolify is trying to solve?

SPEAKER_00 1:36

Yeah, so I mean, I think universally, benefits in general, employee benefits just failing to meet its primary objective, which is building loyalty to the organization. You know, if you ask anyone when it gets down to the basic reason why does someone offer benefits, that's it. And yet 80% of employees are in the wrong coverage, 27% of them point to benefits as the reason they're leaving, 50% are dissatisfied. By every measure and every data point possible, it's an abject failure. And so we sought to solve that instead of what most Silicon Valley firms are trying to do is displace legacy distribution with AI, bots, and machine learning. We thought the answer was empathetic subject matter experts delivering those people at scale. And so that was really the premise and the basis of what we started with. We thought that when you need Geek Squad to help you install your $25,000 worth of appliances and such, why wouldn't you get Geek Squad for benefits to install $25,000 worth of insurance every single year? And so that's what we're doing.

David 2:36

Can you give us a real life example?

SPEAKER_00 2:38

Yeah. So we're a platform as a service, we're a software solution that is installed into an agency. And with that solution, we're democratizing access to the tools and the recipe and the people that they need to deliver decision support at scale. So an agency would use our software, they would work with their client to capture a narrative of caring. So maybe it's something like we love you, we appreciate you, we wouldn't be where we are without you today. And so we want you to know before anything else, you know, you're really important to us. And so we've been listening, and that's why we put together this great benefits package. But we know that you need help. And so we're going the extra mile this year to deliver decision support. So a big part of our platform is helping a hand a CEO or a mayor of a city or the head of an organization a megaphone to tell a story of appreciation and gratitude to their employees, and then within that embed a call to action for the consumer to become a more active, engaged consumer. And I think that's one of the big problems. There's a tremendous amount of apathy and disenfranchisement around benefits, whether it's because of institutional mistrust or confusion or the fact that we have a million acronyms for really simple things. Bottom line is most consumers today think of employee benefits as like a gym membership that they pay a lot of money for. And then when they show up at the gym, they have to pay even more. And so it's really, really frustrating. They just want somebody to help them navigate it. And it's confusing. 17 single point solutions on average, it's just a mess all around. And so, what we do then, once that communication is created, is we deploy one of our more than 4,000, what we call benefit gurus that have built credentialed profiles on our system, taking advantage of the first gig economy opportunity in the insurance space. They're mobilized to help those consumers and in and just be an empathetic subject matter expert and agnostically guide them through that process.

David 4:36

So is this kind of like Uber meets Geek Squad?

SPEAKER_00 4:39

Yeah, I mean, I we've said that. So I think Uber has done a really bad job of delivering value to their internal stakeholders. The gig economy has kind of failed to deliver upon its promise of flexibility and financial freedom and in the same way that corporate America has. And so I always say we're creating a new category of opportunity. But to the layperson, the idea of Uber meaning independent contractors that are mobilized and geek squad meaning experts that help you install really complicated things and then hand you remote control. Yeah, I think that's a it's a good explanation.

David 5:13

So if I'm a solopreneur, does this make it seem as though I've got a huge organization behind me?

SPEAKER_00 5:19

Yeah. I mean, instantly an agency that uses our software becomes the largest, most dynamic decision support provider in the United States, right? You're mobilizing a national footprint of credentialed experts that speak, you know, 17 different languages and have more than 35,000 years of collective experience in the industry. And it was really boring. It's funny, we haven't done any recruiting yet for our platform at all. Insurance agents saw their economics get completely destroyed during COVID, right? COVID saw this, I think, in some measures, as much as a 65% decrease in income. So their residuals got depleted, their access to consumers was evaporated completely. And so, you know, one of the things that's really cool about our software is it recreates the intimacy of face-to-face, but in a virtual setting. So just like what we're doing today. And so they can do it from anywhere. So I've got gurus that live in Panama and they surf in the morning and they do some education. And we've got some that are driving vans across the United States. But those people found their way to the platform to monetize their expertise and build credentials so that they can market themselves outside of a geographic area, which is one of the real challenges of our industry, right? It's very fragmented. There's a lot of friction. So you may really have a great reputation and a specific geography, but outside of that geography, you don't know anybody. So if I need somebody in that geography to talk to somebody, it's everything. And so, yeah, so someone sitting behind our platform can mobilize all of those people, but it works on both sides. And I think one of the keys, you know, that I've always lived by is to deliver value to every one of your stakeholders. And so the minute that we stop delivering value to any one of our stakeholders, they abandon, you know, the relationship. And so, you know, we have gurus that are earning seven, eight, ten thousand dollars a month on our platform just to augment their income, and some people that are probably doing it almost full-time now. But it's the the idea was the first gig economy play in the insurance space.

David 7:16

I think you said that the idea came to you around the time we got quarantined and we were COVID, what we call the before times. Has this hybrid economy that we're in and this hybrid workforce, has that kind of put air underneath your wings?

SPEAKER_00 7:31

The idea came to me before that, but it really massively accelerated during COVID because the consumer is now uh familiarity with Zoom and Callendly and those types of utilities, right? So with whether you're seven to 70, COVID forced you to know how to do a Zoom meeting because that was the only C way you saw your grandchildren or the way you went to school or the way you went to church. And so we had already kind of thought about distributed populations and remote workforce and you know, the handful of salespeople that couldn't be on site for a benefits open enrollment meeting, but all of a sudden it was like a grenade went off, and now nobody was going like the idea of a lunch and learn or you know, receiving benefits at a, you know, in a meeting in the conference room is kind of passe. I don't think we ever go back to it. And I think the dynamics of the workforce are completely changing. You know, you know, we're facing a situation where there's five generations in the workforce, and we're facing a situation where you're seeing this, the workforce dynamics change, right? So it's no longer work site marketing, it's workforce, right? It's and you have to have something that reaches everybody that's so that nobody's left behind. So it was born prior to that. It was about removing that friction and fragmentation and creating new category of opportunity for agents and giving agencies and enrollment firms access to those people, you know, at scale and solving for the broken benefits ecosystem. But COVID just like massively accelerated the need. And the alternatives is to Frankenstein a bunch of disparate utilities together and try to make some semblance of it and troll a Facebook page to find, you know, a few benefit counselors or insurance agents.

David 9:07

One of the things that the industry has always suffered from, I've been at this now 43 years, is bringing younger people into the business. Do you think that this kind of business model we're we're at the point now where Gen Xers are hitting middle age, believe it or not, but that everything from Gen X down, you use the word friction. They want frictionless relationships. They want everything instantly and on demand, and they want it wherever they are, whenever they are. Is this maybe a way to get younger people into the business? Are you seeing any of that?

SPEAKER_00 9:36

Yeah, I mean, I certainly think it's a way to get people into the industry. I don't know that it's just youth. I think it's people that have mobility issues, right? Disabled veterans. I think it's retirees that still have a lot left in the tank, right? They, you know, a teacher who retires at 55 but says, you know, I'm not ready to like retire. Like, what are their options? What do they do at that point? Well, take the same skills that you learned as a teacher, and now all of a sudden you can come in here and be a benefit counselor. And I think what's unique about our value proposition, this isn't like salesy. This is like sharing your wisdom and really guiding. And I think probably you would agree with this, having the tenure you have. If you focus on helping a lot of people, you'll make a lot of money, right? If you try to make a lot of money, you may help a lot of people, but you're also going to run a lot of people off. And so people don't want to be sold. In today's environment, there's so much information out there, they just want someone to help them navigate through it. And so to be a navigator, right, is a much more appealing thing to go out and schlep insurance to your list of all of your relationships and everybody you know. And so I think we're an attractive destination for all sorts of segments of the population, whether it's youth that are trying to find their way and want something a little bit more professional than delivering pizzas or driving an Uber, you know, turning their car into a taxi, but they want the freedom and flexibility and self-determination that the gig economy promised. I think it's great for single moms that need to put their kids to bed and have something to do in the evenings after, you know, so someone on the East Coast can have a California license and work, you know, into the evening after their kids are asleep. And so I think it avails opportunity to a much broader spectrum of the population that would have never considered insurance as a pathway. I also don't think it's a the final destination. I think it's a place for people to come and spend some time. And maybe they stay here forever, but we don't measure ourselves that way. We measure ourselves not by how long people stay, but rather by what they say when they leave. That was a thing that helped me. I know we had a benefit guru that spent during COVID, she spent, you know, better part of two years working with us very actively. And then that allowed her to go to law school. And now she's a lawyer, which is awesome. Like I'm I couldn't be more excited for her. She's probably not being a benefit guru anymore unless law starts, you know, giving her a headache. So, but anyway, I think that's the answer to the question.

David 11:57

You know, it's interesting. One of the things that you mentioned early on was being able to communicate with the employees and have the employee have a way to get information. If I'm a benefit advisor, what's the pitch that I make to an employer for using this service? Or do I? Do I just keep it behind my private label, my paywall?

SPEAKER_00 12:13

I think the biggest answer is that I think the industry as a whole has been very product-centric for a long time. We sell products, we sell products, we sell products. And when we no longer had products to sell, we sold value add services that to sell more products. It really is kind of very transparent. Like everybody knows what's happening. You know what's going on when it's going on. And so I think our industry needs to do a better job of being consultitative. And so in the employee benefit space, the question that you should ask is what's your biggest challenge? What are the biggest challenges you're facing? And a lot of times in the employee benefits, you're talking to human resources or the in the Fortune 5 million, maybe the founder or the owner, the CEO, right? What are the biggest challenges you're facing with regard to not just benefits, but human resources? And they'll tell you all about the challenges of disconnected population and you know, the five generations in the workforce and the inability to fill roles, and they'll talk to you about, you know, remote workers and productivity. They have a litany of things, but you know, cancer insurance or accident policies or disability probably doesn't make the top 100 on the list, you know, of priorities. And so if you follow up that question with, you know, what have you done, you know, since COVID began to adjust your strategy to address those issues? And most of the time, there's nobody bringing them answers, right? There's nobody giving them guidance. And so, you know, being a CEO or being ahead of human resources is a lonely place. And so the ability to then say to them, you know, listen, and then from that understand that the answer to all of their challenges is increasing employee engagement and helping them feel cared for and supported. Like if you understand that those are the essential things that help you address all of the issues, the remote workforce, the five generations, right? The need for hyperpersonalization, the inability to feel like that's where culture starts. And so the core of our solution really is about helping them amplify that narrative, right? Like and address those issues. And that's it's about driving engagement and you know, delivering that care. And so it's care and coverage.

David 14:18

So as an advisor, I don't even get into the fact that I've got this wonderful platform and blah, blah. I just say, look, we can do these things.

SPEAKER_00 14:24

Yeah, I think that's exactly it. And our, I mean, this isn't a plug for our platform, but it's white label ready. So you can have it totally branded. They can think you've spent the millions of dollars and the thousands of hours of development and you've built this tool that you have yourself. And that's, you know, that's how most of our users do it. But I think also enough employers out there understand that we're using technology to meet the market where it is, so that no employee is stranded. So no one's left behind. And so this is an important step for everyone to understand that you have to meet people where they are, right? By age, by you talk about diversity, you know, the big buzz now is diversity and inclusion. Like, how inclusive is our strategy if all we're doing is a lunch and learn, like, you know, in an office building, how are we inclusive to everybody if we have a one-size-fits-all strategy or we're just sending out a handbook and a web portal for enrollment? You need to really think of all of the different things. And so the number of times people will confide in a benefit guru about, you know, IVF or about, you know, some health issue that they're dealing with that they're afraid to share with their employer. I can't tell you the number of times that we get anonymous feedback that says, gosh, it was so amazing to be able to share what my medical issues are and have somebody that can help be an advocate for me at the point of purchase as opposed to at the point of claim. And so I think it's huge. It's huge.

David 15:50

So we've got about a minute and a half left. Where do you see this in the next five, 10 years? Where do you see this part of the industry or these kinds of platform as a service things being as a part of the industry as a whole?

SPEAKER_00 16:01

I think the entire uh ecosystem is ready for like kind of a reset. And the last several years in, you know, everything out of insure tech has been disruption, disruption, disruption, disruption. Right. And when they say disruption, what they mean is eliminate legacy people. And, you know, there are a number of insured tech companies that kind of tried that approach and got punched in the face and, you know, and failed miserably because what it really comes down to is relationships, relationships, relationships, relationships. And so I think there's an equilibrium that has to take place between the people that are still actively trying to deliver value to their clients, looking at these technologies and thinking about the bigger picture and not just product. And so I think it's about how do you solve for payments? How do you solve for billing and administrative headaches? How do you solve for the fact that there's 17 different disparate single point solutions? How do we hyper-personalize benefits so that they're really more aligned with how you're going to live your life? And then how do you get people to understand, you know, that recipe? I'll just leave this in the last minute. It's kind of like going to the cheesecake factory, right? When you go to the cheesecake, the biggest challenge that the insurance industry has to solve for is that when employees sit down at the restaurant to look at their benefits, they get a cheesecake factory menu that is so big and so full of choices that they just get the chicken Caesar salad because they had it last time and they know what's in it, and that's good. This is in essence what's happening 92% of the time. People default to what they did previously. So strategies fail, cost containment fails, employee satisfaction stays where it is, or dissatisfaction. And really what they need is a better menu. They need to have someone say, What would you like to eat, and be able to have the world as their oyster and have a waiter to say, Let me ask you about your dietary concerns and let me help you find what's what's going to be and know that at the end all you really want is the Oreo cheesecake.

David 18:02

So now we've had a great interview, and I'm hungry, and we're out of time. So I'm going to Cheesecake Factory. Adam Michaels, founder and CEO of Enrolify. Thanks for sharing your wisdom with us today. Thanks, David.

SPEAKER_00 18:13

Great to meet you. It was awesome. Hopefully, we'll do it again.

SPEAKER_01 18:19

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