Welcome everyone to our webinar. We’re just gonna give it about thirty seconds for people to continue joining. Okay. We’re gonna get started. If we can go to our housekeeping screen, we’re going to go over a couple of housekeeping items. We aim to have this webinar finished in about an hour and a half with time reserved at the end for q and a. As you can see, we’ve got an incredible group of experts on our panel, so I anticipate that we will have lots of questions coming in. So don’t worry, we will have time at the end. So if you have those questions, drop them in the Q and A box. We will try to get to as many of them as we possibly can. There’s also some interactive polls towards the beginning of the webinar. We’re going to ask a couple of questions. We encourage you to participate. It helps our panelists understand who we’re talking to today, but all of the answers are anonymous, so we don’t know we don’t know what you’re answering. There is a there will be a recording of today’s session. Likely next week, you’ll receive a link to it, and it will also be available on our Encircle website. Last thing, when the webinar is finished and you exit, you will be taken to a post webinar survey. We would love to hear your feedback so that we can continue to grow and improve our educational topics at Encircle and bring you content and webinars that are relevant to you. So we would definitely encourage you to complete that survey. Alright. So now that the chores are all out of the way, let’s have some fun and meet our panelists. So my name is Leah. I am the director of product marketing at Encircle, and I’m your moderator for today’s session. Now there is a lot of chatter on on forums and in the industry around TPA work. And for some people, that three those three letters are actually a four letter word that can’t be said on television. And so we want to dive into that a little bit. And you’re not going to hear me talk. You’re not going to hear my terrible jokes all day. But we’ve got this great panel of industry pros, industry veterans who are going to talk to us about how you can make the most of vendor programs to grow your business. So I’m not gonna introduce them. I’m gonna let them introduce yourselves. But guys, we’re gonna do this a bit like speed dating. Okay? So you have about ninety seconds to tell us who you are and your experience, with program work in yeah. Like I said, ninety seconds or less. So we’re gonna go, and I’m I’m just kidding. I’m not gonna buzz you out. I’m not gonna play the, like, Oscar’s music or anything to get you off the stage. But, yeah. Phil, we’ll go over to you first. Alright. Well, from the West Coast, good morning. Thank you for putting this together. This is an exciting topic. So I’ve been in the restoration industry since nineteen eighty eight. Started out as a family restoration company, spent ten years in the trenches. And in in nineteen ninety eight, my father started ninety seven, my father started Business Mentors, hopped on board with him in ninety eight, and spent the last twenty five years, nearly twenty five years traveling around North America working with restoration companies. And, so my my, experience with with, vendor programs and TPAs is from an outside observer mostly. We did a little bit, back in the eighties and nineties. It’s changed some since then. But anyhow so most of my experience on the vendor work is from an outside observer standpoint. I’ve worked with hundreds of restoration companies over the last twenty five years and either helping them get onto vendor programs or get off of vendor programs, whichever whichever was necessary at the time, and then being successful in that and helping a lot of companies get up into the top performers in each of their respective territories. And so I from from a thousand foot perspective, I have tons of experience with vendor programs and a few opinions as well. Maybe we’ll render some of those today and maybe not. Depends. But, anyhow, so that’s my experience, and, you know, I’ve been a leader in the industry for for quite some time, and and it’s nice that I get to be an observer mostly of all of this stuff. So thank you for having us. Awesome. Thanks, Phil. Johnny, we’re gonna go over to you next if you wanna introduce yourself. Hey, guys. What’s going on? This is Johnny Mackey from Shamrock Restoration. We are down in South Florida. For those that are familiar with the area, we are located in Delray Beach. I have been in the restoration industry since two thousand and thirteen. I am owner operator of Shamrock Restoration, since two thousand and seventeen, and we just got involved with the vendor programs three years ago. Prior to that, we got our business through contractors, insurance agents, just homeowners, Google, and we still do, get a lot of business through those avenues. But what happened three years ago is we started talking to a lot of the insurance agents in our area. And what happened through those conversations is we found out that a lot of the carriers that represent homeowners down here through the insurance, they were all gonna start going to vendor programs. So what we did was we saw the writing on the wall, and and we got involved. We’ve had our ups, and we’ve had our downs, and I’m still very much, hands on. I’ll be going to a a dry out later today to meet an adjuster. So I can tell you the good things we’ve done, and I can tell you the terrible things that we’ve done. And, it’s been trial by fire, but very happy to be here. I’m very happy to answer any questions anybody has and and give my hands on perspective of of these vendor programs. So thank you for having me. That’s great. Thanks, Johnny. I’m sure that will there will be a lot of questions from our from our guests today, specifically because you are, as you’ve said in the past, you’re you’re living in the trenches, every day. And I am just gonna ask you, I know you you you’re modest and you don’t wanna, like, pat yourself on the back or toot your own horn, but because I know the answer to this, can you share some of your success your recent success, with your vendor program and, you know, where you started and where you’re at today? Yeah. For sure. When we started, we, for those that are not familiar with the vendor programs, you get monthly scores. I mean, actually, you get scores on every single job you do, but then they put them out on a monthly basis, on an annual basis. And when we first started, I mean, I’d say we would be lucky to have been considered, like, middle of the row. And then in our second year, we started figuring things out a little bit. And, last year, we actually ended up being ranked second in our region and eighth in the country for water mitigation and mold remediation services. So that was that was fun to see. Yeah. That’s awesome. I think you can you can pat yourself on the back, and I think the people who’ve joined us today can definitely learn a lot from from the things that you’ve learned over the last three years. Josh, I’m going go over to you next. Hey, everybody. I’m Josh Bachman. I’m coming from you currently in Chicago. My background in restoration starts back in two thousand one with a smaller company, in San Antonio, Texas. And then ten years ago, almost to the date right now, I made the move twelve hundred miles north and ended up here in Chicago working for a large regional company here in Chicago and did that primarily in the operation side of things through, just about a year ago right now. So I’ve been now at a year with Violin, so a similar background to what Phil has done and and now get the opportunity to step back from doing being in the trenches like Johnny and watching it from, you know, ten thousand feet and seeing what’s going on. But but my experience with the TPAs goes way, way back to to Prism days back in two thousand one and two thousand two. Our office in San Antonio was four miles from USAA’s world headquarters. And so my first exposure to the TPA programs was and I’m gonna date myself here, not just the gray beard, but but other things here. I I I took pictures that we got from Walgreens and taped them on the, you know, binders and drove them over to USAA and dropped them off, and that was the beginning of the vendor program. Right? So, that’s kinda where things started, and I’ve watched it kinda go through and and change and and morph into what it is now. And and now I get a chance, Bill said, to step back and kind of watch other folks go through it like my friend Johnny here. So, glad to be here and and give a little bit of my perspective on where I work up from too. Great. Thanks, Josh. Last but not not least, certainly, Anthony. Awesome. Thank you for having me. And I’ll I’ll see your, photos, and I’ll raise you one better. When I started in the industry as a technician, we had printed MapQuest directions, and then you were given a disposable camera to document the job with. You know, the the ones where you have to move the thumb. Anthony Nelson, started in restoration in two thousand one in Southeast Michigan. Two thousand nine, did whatever good Midwest person should do and get the hell out of the winter and moved to Hawaii, where I helped build Premier Restoration Hawaii over the past thirteen years. Four locations, hundred and sixty employees, and I’ve learned a lot. Always had proximity to programs and always have been I don’t wanna say I wanna say, like, lukewarm perspective on programs. I think they do provide an insane amount of value for those that are on them. They can be problematic if your business is not ready for it. And, but it’s it’s always a conversation is if the shoe fits. And so happy to be here, happy to share some expertise and be a part of the conversation. Excellent. Thanks so much, Anthony. Okay. If we can just take a look at today’s agenda, what we’re going to cover today, since tPA work, like Anthony just said, it seems to be hot and cold. It’s a bit divisive as to whether or not you should or shouldn’t be on it. It’s a bit like, should you should you put pineapple on pizza? And I have learned since I’m I’m up in Canada right now, Hawaiian pizza was actually invented in Canada and not Hawaii. Fun fact. But today, we’re actually gonna look at the origins of the the friction that exists and whether why it’s so hot and cold, how we can ease some of that tension, how we can start to build really great relationships in the amongst restoration contractors, reviewers, adjusters, and TPAs, and that sort of thing, and how ultimately we can set businesses up for success with TPAs and vendor programs. The last point on here is at the end, we’ll wrap up. And like I said at the beginning, we will have a Q and A session where you can ask these experts your burning questions. If we don’t get to them all, we will follow-up and make sure that we get your questions answered in a timely fashion. Before we dive in, I we want to find out the makeup of our audience today and with regards to program work. So you’re gonna see a poll come up asking you what percentage of your current business is vendor work. A, none. Haven’t done it before. B, up to twenty five percent. C, twenty six to fifty percent. Or d, more than fifty percent. So we’re gonna launch that poll, and we’ll keep it open for a couple of minutes so we can get everybody a chance to to respond. But while people are responding, Phil, I’m gonna go over to you. What do you think is the the perfect mix of program and non program work? It certainly depends on the company. I don’t think there’s a perfect fit for for for a global answer to that. But I I the one thing I would say is that one of my philosophies is to, in your business, have no more than twenty percent of your work coming from a single work source. And, you know, a healthy company would be no more than ten. But so so we’ll start with that as kind of a template, and you could say, okay. Within that, perhaps we can break it out and say, okay. With you know, maybe we’re with one of the TPAs, and they’ve got four different insurance insurance companies they work with. I don’t care how you treat that and say that’s four different clients or one work source. Whatever it is, I think that it’s important that as a business operator, you’re in control of your business. And and that that means that if if you’re overly dependent on somebody for your work, whether it’s a TPA or, or State Farm insurance or whatever insure ABC insurance company, then you’re beholden to them. And if they start making demands on you, you’re you’re you’re not in control of what your decisions ultimately are because you’re always running at a risk of if they go away, my business is destroyed. And so I’ll start by saying, yeah, if if you if you had that around twenty percent metric, what that gives you is the opportunity to be in control of your business and that if the if those insurance companies, TPAs, programs, whatever it is, change, you still can manage your business. They’re not managing your business for you. So, again, not a perfect answer. It’s an answer. And then each company just take a look at that and say, where does that fit for them? And So we have looks like over a third have never done TPA work before, and a quarter have more than fifty percent. It looks like another quarter is up to twenty five percent. So it’s a good mix. We have some folks who are very familiar with perhaps the challenges and benefits of TPA work and some who are it would seem to me, are exploring getting into into vendor programs. So this should be an interesting conversation, really great for you guys to know, so you can sort of frame your answers knowing knowing who is listening.
