Guides and playbooks for independent agencies
Practical writing on staffing, cost, and growth for owners who want to scale a sharper team.
Written by a former agency owner and the matchmakers who staff agencies every day.
"We can't afford it right now": the trap keeping understaffed agencies understaffed
You need more revenue to justify support, but you need support to generate it. Here's how to break the catch-22.
Dominic Piccirillo8 min read 
OperationsNew Your insurance agency won't scale if everyone does everything
Everyone doing everything gets an agency off the ground, then caps it. How growing agencies give every workflow a lane.
Dominic Piccirillo7 min read 
OperationsNew We analyzed 99 insurance agency discovery calls. Here's what owners are currently struggling with
What agency owners say is eating their week, and the one event that finally gets them to act.
Cari Gelber7 min read 
GrowthNew Brazilians are buying insurance in your town. Can you serve them?
An affluent, concentrated, Portuguese-speaking market that almost no agency is equipped to serve, and how to be the first.
Dominic Piccirillo6 min read 
PeopleNew The life on the other end of the hire
What a remote role with a U.S. agency means for the person who takes it, and why "cheap labor" is the wrong lens.
Cari Gelber9 min read 
Staffing The day your most experienced person retires: insurance's quiet staffing crisis
The talent shortage hits the day a veteran retires and takes decades of knowledge with her. How to get ahead of it.
Dominic Piccirillo5 min read 
Staffing What Florida's rising minimum wage means for your agency's staffing costs
See how Florida's $15 floor raises every CSR salary at your agency, and what an insurance virtual assistant costs instead.
Dominic Piccirillo7 min read 
Operations Your producers aren't slow at quoting. They're doing the parts that don't need them.
Falling behind on quotes looks like a speed problem. Here's what's really slowing producers down, and how to fix it.
Dominic Piccirillo7 min read 
Staffing Why your last virtual assistant didn't work out
Hired a VA and got more work, not less? Why VAs fail agencies, from a former owner who made every mistake.
Dominic Piccirillo8 min read 
Staffing Should your insurance agency hire another CSR or a virtual assistant?
Service team underwater? How to tell whether you need another CSR or a VA, and why most agencies need both.
Dominic Piccirillo7 min read 
Staffing Nearshore or offshore: what changes when your support team is twelve hours away
A former owner on hiring offshore, moving to LATAM, and why the twelve-hour gap is the one problem you can't manage away.
Dominic Piccirillo8 min read 
People Remote work inside insurance agencies: what's working and what isn't
What's working, what's failing, and why the same model thrives in one agency and breaks in another.
Dominic Piccirillo6 min read 
Operations Your agency runs on one person's memory. That's the risk you can't see.
Only one person knows how your agency actually runs. How to find out how exposed you are, and how to fix it.
Dominic Piccirillo8 min read 
Staffing Hiring again after a bad VA experience: what to change the second time
Your first VA didn't work out. What to evaluate differently, and what to set up before day one.
Cari Gelber11 min read 
Growth The Spanish-speaking clients your agency keeps losing without realizing it
Spanish-speaking clients are calling your agency and hanging up. The high-value revenue you're losing, and why.
Dominic Piccirillo6 min read 
People Your clients want to talk to you. A great assistant is how they finally get to.
Worried your clients want you, not a VA? What shapes the client experience, and why the right VA brings you closer to your book.
Dominic Piccirillo5 min read Ready to build a sharper team?
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