What does it take to leave the stability of a corporate career and become a successful business owner? Alpha Kappa Psi alumnus Michael Chambers Heer shares his experience taking over a struggling insurance agency, navigating the challenges of entrepreneurship, and building a business rooted in trust and integrity. Along the way, he discusses the importance of ethical decision-making, professional relationships, and the lifelong value of Alpha Kappa Psi membership.
Michael Heer [00:00:00] My like two cents to anybody who's thinking about doing something like that. Keep the end goal in mind because it's going to be tough for a couple of years but if you work hard and you have a plan of how you're gonna get to success and profitability it will come and can be so much more fruitful than where you were before.
Intro/Outro [00:00:19] You're listening to Business Edge, the podcast for professionals looking to excel in the workforce. In each episode, our guests take a deep dive into their personal and professional experiences to give you an edge in the marketplace. This podcast is brought to you by the Commonwealth Leadership Alliance.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:00:33] Hi, everybody. Welcome back to the Business Edge. We are recording live from the 60 Second Live! Thank you. The 60 Second Convention in Indianapolis with us is Michael here. Hi, Michael, how are you?
Michael Heer [00:00:46] Oh, you don't have to applaud for me.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:00:48] The crowd is going wild.
Michael Heer [00:00:49] The crowd is wild. We are here in Indy.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:00:53] Welcome back. So you used to work for the fraternity as an expansion coordinator, opening new chapters, you actually met your wife. You did not get married until many years later. But that's how you met your life. Right? When was the last time you were in Indy?
Michael Heer [00:01:06] Actually funny story, I think it was like 2013 was the last time I came here. So my wife Tana and I met as you well know because we were both on staff as expansion coordinators for AKSI and we were roommates, which I think was the first time they ever had a male and a female. Male, female, together and roommates. And they were like, are you okay with this? And we're both like, yeah, it's fine. And we became like instant friends, two peas in a pod, I guess you could say. And Then I ended up back in D.C. Where I'm from, she ended up in New York where she's from and then like four years go by and then we saw each other at a PBLI or what used to be known as PBL.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:01:53] Elevate now for those listeners.
Michael Heer [00:01:55] In Philly and I don't know there was like this connection that I just couldn't shake. I was like, I think I'm supposed to be with you
Chrissy Vasquez [00:02:02] That's crazy.
Michael Heer [00:02:04] In a relationship and So we started dating and that was like the beginning of 2013, but it was very like hush hush
Chrissy Vasquez [00:02:13] You weren't really telling anyone. I do remember that, yes.
Michael Heer [00:02:15] Because we we had a lot of friends that were in common, right? We worked together On staff at the fraternity and we're like, you know if this doesn't work out or something like you know, whatever Yeah, so we planned this trip to Indy in the spring after dating for a couple of months and our plan was like we're gonna go To the headquarters and we were gonna like tell everybody on staff that we're dating I don't know why we thought this would be like fun for people So we arrive and I remember going into Brian Parker's office and we're like, Brian, we have something very important to tell you, because he hired us both. And he's like, what is it? And we go, we are dating. And he was like, oh yeah, I could have seen that. And it was like such a let down that we thought we were like surprising everyone. And the reaction was like oh, it's about time.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:03:07] At that time, yeah.
Michael Heer [00:03:08] Didn't you see this happen like coming and we didn't but anyways now here we are a couple years later And we've got three kids, and you know that's how life happens sometimes, right?
Chrissy Vasquez [00:03:20] Yeah, three kids in a house, which we're gonna jump around a little bit. So you were on HGTV with your wife. That's right. House hunters.
Michael Heer [00:03:28] We were on House Hunters about three years ago.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:03:31] Curious what even inspired you guys?
Michael Heer [00:03:34] Well, um, we're both kind of boisterous personalities, like
Chrissy Vasquez [00:03:38] I hadn't noticed at all.
Michael Heer [00:03:40] I used to do a lot of theater, Tana was a dancer, and actually when we worked at AK Sci we would make YouTube videos. Videos.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:03:47] I remember those.
Michael Heer [00:03:49] And they were like really kind of silly videos trying to recruit and she has a YouTube page as well It's called boardroom to bounce house if anybody wants to check it out It's kind of based around like being at the office in the boardroom and then coming home to a bounce house of children And what that's like for a working mom But yeah, so she I don't I don't know how she got the idea exactly. Maybe somebody suggested Hey, you should be on house hunters. That would be funny And so she just went on HGTV's website, applied, they called her and then they scheduled an interview with us. We did a Zoom and they were, I mean, the producer was instantly like, oh my God, I love you guys.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:04:32] You see the two of them together and you're just like...
Michael Heer [00:04:34] This is going to be hilarious. So yeah, they came to DC, filmed us in our old house. And the whole concept was like, we're in this small townhouse, it's the summer of 2021, everybody's working remotely, and we don't have enough space. And we want to be closer to family, so we moved to upstate New York and live in the same neighborhood as her parents. So we're close by to family. But yeah, they painted this story. They like to create some sort of conflict because like it's TV, right?
Chrissy Vasquez [00:05:07] Sure, you need something.
Michael Heer [00:05:09] I mean, it's reality, but all reality TV has some sort of exaggerations, right? The producers are trying to make it interesting. So in the interview, they picked up on me saying something about how I liked antiques, and I liked that our house in D.C. Was historic and had this architectural charm. So they were like, all right, we're going to go with that story of like, you want the old house. And she wants the like family-friendly open concept. So they filmed for six days and then they cut it down to 20 minutes, right?
Chrissy Vasquez [00:05:48] So after watching that episode, I was like, I had no idea Michael liked the antiques that much.
Michael Heer [00:05:53] Yeah, I don't really they just the producers enter like they interview you but you don't hear their questions, right? Right. So They would always come back to that in their you know, one-on-one questions well, what about your antiques like do you see your antics in this house and And then after them like pushing a little bit you get really passionate in your answer and they're like great. We got the take
Chrissy Vasquez [00:06:16] I'm sorry.
Michael Heer [00:06:17] Like, of course.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:06:18] What was it like filming that with, you had two kids at that time, right?
Michael Heer [00:06:21] We had two kids at that time Yeah, like a one and a half year old and a just three year old. I think They weren't in much of it they they needed to show that but um It was I mean, it was a lot of fun. We had to take off work Like you don't get paid to be on the house hunters
Chrissy Vasquez [00:06:40] It is purely just for fun.
Michael Heer [00:06:41] They give you a small stipend that basically pays for all of my wife's new clothes, well, some of her clothes.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:06:49] I do like her taste.
Michael Heer [00:06:51] But yeah, I mean, people do it because they want to be on TV.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:06:55] Okay, that's good to know. I figured you got something or got to keep.
Michael Heer [00:06:58] No, it's not like the Kardashians were making big money.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:07:02] Obama.
Michael Heer [00:07:03] But no, it was a lot of fun.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:07:05] Okay, I have a question. The woman that narrates what's going on, did you get to meet her at all or did she do that after the fact? No.
Michael Heer [00:07:11] No, that's some we never met that person that must be an interesting job like
Chrissy Vasquez [00:07:15] I can hear her voice in my head right now.
Michael Heer [00:07:18] Yeah, you like watch this episode and then you've got to come up with all this stuff. I think they write a lot of that maybe even before they film, because you have to tell a story with the show. Right. So they they generally know like where they're going to go with it. And then. There's there's a little bit of direction in. OK, you're going to approach this house now and talk, you know, talk about what you think of it.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:07:46] Yeah, they give you kind of high level directions that is saying you're going to walk through this door, and Tina's going to go through this door and you guys are going to clash over where to put your antiques.
Michael Heer [00:07:54] Right. Yeah, things like that will come up. But it was a lot of fun to do. Occasionally, I will get a call from a client that'll say, hey, I saw you on House Hunters the other night on a rerun. And I'm just watching and I'm like, oh my gosh, that's my insurance agent on TV. And it sparks up a conversation. But yeah, it was lot of fun. I would do it again.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:08:20] That's nice. Thanks for letting us dig into that. Cause just you get so curious watching it. So fun. It was fun to watch your episode. I know somebody on HDTV and fun fact, good bones is filmed here in Indianapolis, which is also another show. Um, they do a lot of work down in fountain square. So it's fun to drive by those houses and you're like, Oh yeah, I saw that on TV. Um, so moving into your career. So in case you couldn't tell listening to Michael's intro, He is very animated. Lots of fun. I think of insurance, no fences, insurance, agers, boring, dry.
Speaker 4 [00:08:56] It's not always so fun in insurance down here and we write the policies.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:09:04] Right. And that reminded me of office space. I need my stapler.
Speaker 4 [00:09:07] Right, right, right.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:09:08] So talk to us a little bit about how you got aligned to that career. And you're a small business owner with your, your agency. So talk us a bit because it's not what I would write for you.
Michael Heer [00:09:18] Yeah, my career kind of meandered a little bit. I came out of AKSci where I was doing campus recruiting and I thought, okay, well, I could take this into recruiting in an agency setting and I did that for a while. And then I ended up selling commercial real estate software for about five years, which I worked for a publicly traded company. It was good benefits and whatnot. And so like leaving that to go build a book of business selling insurance seemed kind of like a bit of a dive or a leap, I guess, a jump.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:09:59] You're going up, right? Yeah.
Michael Heer [00:10:01] Up or down, you're going down to go back up, but it was definitely like a step backwards and then be able to take two step forward. And I started selling insurance shortly after Tana and I got married. We'd bought a house, but we didn't have any kids yet. And I had this opportunity to take over this agency who had been established since 1948.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:10:23] Okay, so you didn't start it from scratch.
Michael Heer [00:10:25] But it was, it was an agency that was like on the brink of dying.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:10:29] I was going to say, not saying that it's easy, but.
Michael Heer [00:10:32] It was an agency on the brink of dying, basically, and it was not really profitable.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:10:39] So it's a house that needed to be restored down to like the studs.
Michael Heer [00:10:42] Right. And I've done a lot of that. I've renovated houses. So I saw this opportunity. I wanted to be a business owner. And, I didn't like being in a corporate environment where you have very little control over what your sales territory might be, or who your manager is, or all these different things that we all deal with when we're in these large organizations. So my wife and I about it and we both decided like if this if there's gonna be a time to take a risk like this now would be a time before we have kids and we've already put some big expenses of buying a house and having a wedding behind us. And I came into this starting from scratch. Like I didn't have a salary, I didn t have any benefits.
Speaker 5 [00:11:29] Right.
Michael Heer [00:11:29] And the first couple of years it was tough and I was doing other things other side projects to to make additional income but it's it's been I'd say probably the best decision that that I've made in my career is making that leap so my like two cents to anybody who's thinking about doing something like that keep the end goal in mind because it's going to be off. For a couple of years, but if you work hard and you have a plan of how you're gonna get to success and profitability, it will come and within a couple years, I think it can be so much more fruitful than where you were before. Now how insurance, insurance has been in my family. I have two uncles on my dad's side, two uncles of my mom's side who've been in the insurance industry. I have two cousins that are in insurance, so there's a lot of insurance in the family.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:12:31] Are like holiday gatherings, who can get to what family members first to sign a policy.
Michael Heer [00:12:35] No, not really. I do have some family members that are clients, and then like my dad is not a client of mine. One of my brothers is, one isn't. And I have, I think, like two cousins and an uncle that are client. But it's like, I don't really care. And in fact, I really don't even try to sell to friends and family members because if they come to me, fine, but I don't really prospect people like that because it's It reminds me of the person trying to sell you cosmetics or a weight loss system.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:13:13] Marketing triangle schemes right those types of things even though insurance
Michael Heer [00:13:17] Even though insurance is not and everybody can use it. So a couple things I like about insurance Everybody needs it. In fact, I have one client who he says I Hate that. I have to buy insurance like I'm Forced by my mortgage company to have homeowners insurance and I'm forced by the state to have auto insurance So I have no choice here. I Have to buy it and I was like well that that's keeps me in business
Chrissy Vasquez [00:13:43] I'm happy for that because it does help.
Michael Heer [00:13:46] Other than that, when I was a kid, my grandparents' house burned down, and that's kind of like an inspiring thing for me as to the importance of insurance. I also personally know people who've lost parents.
Speaker 5 [00:14:04] Mm-hmm.
Michael Heer [00:14:04] That didn't have life insurance and have seen like how that changed their life or you know they had to move out of their house or they had to move somewhere else and with grandparents or whatnot so I've seen some of these events in my life that have affected me um and then of course working in it and seeing what clients go through to have more appreciation for the importance of of having insurance and the right insurance and having trusted advisor who can who can lead you on that especially when it comes to small business insurance
Speaker 5 [00:14:38] Mm-hmm.
Michael Heer [00:14:39] That's so much more complex. There's so many different types of policies and based on what type of business you need different types insurance. You can go online and you can buy almost any type of policy for anything but what you're buying online, most people don't even know what they have and they'll buy something based on price rather than their needs. So I find a lot of joy out of taking a client who thinks that they have that their insurance is fine. They're like, I'm good, I've covered. And then I'm like, let's look at this and review this. And then, I walk them through what they actually have and a lot of times they're shocked at where their gaps are.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:15:19] Wait, I don't have coverage for this, so what do I need that for?
Michael Heer [00:15:21] Yeah, or I could have added this on for not very much money, just those little types of things. The other thing I like about it from a business standpoint is it's a recurring stream of revenue. Sure. So I work with a lot of realtors and mortgage brokers and how they make their money is by selling a house and getting a commission or by closing mortgage and getting a commission after that house sells. You've got to sell it again to make any more money off of that house. So in the insurance business, every time our client's policy is renewed, we get paid a small commission. It's much smaller than you're going to make off of selling a house. But you can... It's steady. Yeah. It takes a long time to build a good book of business. But once you do, as long as most of your clients renew and you keep bringing on more clients, like you'll continue to grow your income and you're not as affected by. Say like a down market in real estate where a realtor might have a really bad year.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:16:25] So on that point, you know, I'm sure it's not lost on listeners that obviously insurance rights have hiked I think I read somewhere Annual across the board is about 26 percent Increase crazy. What do you do to proactively because then that's I've seen so many people post all I went up I'm going to go shop which you can probably encourage people like go compare But let's compare the policies to see apples to apples, but what do you proactively to keep people? With your business, knowing that that's something you're working against.
Michael Heer [00:16:56] Sure, so, and I've written about this, like you can look me up on LinkedIn or go to our company website, it's cbchambers.com. And I have a blog where I'vewritten some posts about what's happening in the industry over the last couple of years. And, There's this one graph I shared that was based off of 2022 numbers. I think that was the year that the insurance industry had their hardest year in maybe decades. Out of the 20 largest personal insurance companies in the country, 19 of them lost money, which kind of never happens. I think State Farm Insurance, which is the largest insurance company in the country paid out 127% of the premiums that they took in in claims. So you don't have to know much about accounting or insurance or anything to know that you can't pay out 127 percent of the of the Premiums you took in. So because and this is all caused by a lot of different things and we don't have to get into all the nuts and bolts of that. It. In a nutshell, it's We're seeing more powerful storms because of climate change, and we're seeing rising costs in everything from new cars to repairing vehicles. The price of building materials and labor has gone way up, especially because of the pandemic. We saw a lot of those rates go up. And some have come down, but they've still stayed elevated. So there's this complex situation that's affecting. The insurance industry more heavily than say grocery store prices or gas prices.
Speaker 5 [00:18:48] Mm-hmm.
Michael Heer [00:18:49] And in order for insurance companies to remain solvent, they have to raise their rates. So we've seen the last couple of years where people are getting hit with 20, 30% renewal increases on home and auto insurance. I have some clients that are getting 60, 70% without a claim. Wow. And so to answer your question, what we're doing is, we represent a number of different insurance carriers. We're a broker. Mm-hmm, so I have the opportunity to take clients to a different company if we're seeing, you know, company A is being really unreasonable with their increases, we'll move you to company B or C. And that can usually help. And there's other things that we can do to help people out, seeing where they might be able to trim some coverages that they might not need or, you now, raise your deductible or other things you could do. And if you are personally wondering. Some of this for yourself, like, I'm happy to help you. We're licensed in like 10 different states and even if I'm not licensed where you are, I am happy to talk to you. I just like helping people understand insurance. It's kind of a dry topic that most people don't want to talk about.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:20:02] And I think I would enjoy, like, you would make it fun, I can tell.
Michael Heer [00:20:06] Right. I try to make it fun and tell and tell things with a story of like, you know, why this is happening, what you can do. But yeah, I mean, it's been it's been tough. And even even when I and most of our clients, we we'll do a review and we'll come back to them and say, even though you got a big increase, it makes sense for you to stay where you are. And then like I pay close attention to our renewal rates and we have about a 92% renewal rate, which is really high in our industry. So I know that some of our clients are going out and shopping with other agents and they're not leaving most of them. So... I think that's just a testament to the industry as a whole.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:20:59] I mean, I think it really, I would say that if your agent is not walking through your policy with you or at least willing to, then you probably need to find a new agent, would be my guess. But it's been really interesting talking to you. I appreciate we've moved across a lot of different topics. So I want to bring it back to our signature question here at the Business Edge podcast. So tell us about a time your values were challenged, personal or professional, what happened and what did you do?
Michael Heer [00:21:29] Sure, so I think I credit Alpha Kappa Psi a lot to helping me build my values as a business person.
Speaker 5 [00:21:39] Mm-hmm.
Michael Heer [00:21:39] And integrity being like that key core value. In the type of industry that I'm in, there's a lot of checks and balances to make sure that we're trying to prevent insurance fraud and we're making sure that underwriting is done properly. So there's lot of red tape that we have to pay attention to. And I can recall maybe about a year or two ago, I got a referral from a realtor for a client who was buying a new home And... As part of that, you have to give the address where you currently live so we can run like your claims history. And she had a lot of claims at her old house. And she was moving out of this, I don't know if mansion's the right word, but it was a very nice, very large house. She told me she was getting a divorce and she's buying a home in not a super great part of town. It's a small home. It's a fixer upper and. She was buying it with another person who was unrelated to her and like there were kind of these red flags going off. I was like, what's going on here? And I asked her, is this going to be your primary residence? She said, yes. And the other question I have to ask is, are you moving in within 30 days? Cause if not, that would be considered a vacant home and it has to have a vacant home policy, not a homeowner's policy.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:23:09] Who knew that existed? Thanks for educating. This is what she was trying.
Michael Heer [00:23:12] So I'm trying to make sure that we have this underwritten properly and she assures me, no, I'm going to move in right away. This is going to be my primary home. And I even called the agent afterwards and like, is this just seems kind of weird to me. Is this all right? And he's like, that's what she's told me too. So. Couple of months go by, maybe like eight months, and I get a claim that comes in from this woman. By the way, she's a lawyer. She has her own practice. It makes it a little more interesting when I finish the story. So she puts in this claim for a water leak, insurance adjuster comes out, and then she gets a letter, and she's furious, and she calls me. I get this letter that they're denying my claim, And um then she gets another letter that says they're canceling the policy because it's a vacant home. And they took pictures when they went there. And she tries to tell me this story about how she had to move everything out because it was, you know, because of the water damage. And I'm like, look, if you can provide me a driver's license with this address, car registration, like utility bills, some other like documentation that can show you're living there, we can probably fix this situation. But it's like I don't know, it's one of those situations where my gut was telling me something, but she's telling me that she's going to live there, so I write the policy and I mean the insurance company still doesn't have to pay you if their policy says you have to live there and they think you're not living there. So I think it all worked out in the end, but yeah, it just reminded me that if there's Something that seems like it's a red flag, it probably is.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:24:55] Mm-hmm that little ting in the back of your neck where the hairs raise up, right? Yeah, something doesn't feel your guts are very strong intuition and absolutely the value of integrity. That's right really drives
Michael Heer [00:25:07] And I just heard somebody the other day that said like, as they get older, they listen to their gut more because gut is really your experience that's recognizing patterns. And when somebody says something that's off, like you're used to things being a certain way and when they're not, it's really the experience more than it is like your instinct.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:25:29] Sure, no, I definitely agree with that. I, you know, there's times where my gut instinct at work is like, this is not the right path forward. And so I need to make sure that we talk about it before we go forward and nine times out of 10, like sure enough.
Michael Heer [00:25:44] And I guess the last thought I have for you if we have time is Alpha Kappa Psi has been such an amazing organization to me and I always thought about it in kind of a student way and then in a way for me to give back as an alum. Mm-hmm, but It wasn't until I came into the insurance industry where I've, I saw more of the value come back to me. And some of like my top referral partners, um, are people through the fraternity, actually my absolute top referral partner, I'll give him a shout out his name's Gustavo Ponton. He's a realtor in Baltimore. If you need a house in Maryland, he's the guy to call, but I did the math. More of my business has come from that one person who's a case I brought amazing and the people he's introduced me to I also started working with him early. I've been in insurance for seven years So I started working him shortly after I got into the industry. So just that time of him referring people and then them referring friends and colleagues and other Agencies connected me to mortgage brokers lawyers. I mean It's the power of the fraternity and I have multiple brothers who are clients, so I think I definitely wouldn't be where I am now without this organization from a professional standpoint, from a personal standpoint. I mean, I met my wife and we have a family because of this fraternity. So it's like, it's putting into words how much this organization means to me. It's it's I'm at a loss for. Expressing it to the full extent that it deserves without a doubt, like the best decision I ever made joining AKSai.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:27:44] I love that. Thank you for kind of pulling that together, because I think that everybody stops to really look at and take inventory of all the different ways, right? And it's not always just face value. Like you said, it's a referral that now is a referral, referral, right? So it's linkage back to it.
Michael Heer [00:28:00] And it's what you make of it. It's like, you know, I, I talk with, um, I talked with a guy who just finished his freshman year of college and he's like not loving it. And I was like, You need to join an organization. Like your campus has AK side. You should check it out. Cause I think you'd feel so different about your college based on the people that you've surrounded yourself with, because the school you go to is great and I know that it is. Um, so it's just, it's all about, you.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:28:28] Connection, like our lunch speaker was saying. Well, thank you so much. It's been great to chat with you. Always good to see you. And we're so glad that you are continuing to give back as alumni.
Michael Heer [00:28:39] It was a pleasure.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:28:40] Alright, thank you listeners, have a great day!
Intro/Outro [00:28:44] Thanks for listening to Business Edge. If you have questions, comments, or topic suggestions for us, contact us at mail at businessedge.org.