How to Dominate a National Market (The Drone Insurance Secret) | Vaughn Tolbert

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the hardest call you'll ever have to make is not when you lose business, it's when you have to call the wife of the insured that, not that that incident happened, but how to move forward with their life after that

Key Takeaways

◆Vaughn opened VT Insurance Agency in 2021 betting on the DJI T30 launch and ag drone adoption, tripling or doubling revenue every year since by focusing exclusively on a niche no established broker wanted to touch.
◆He controls 70% of all legally flying ag drones in the U.S. by educating pilots first and selling insurance second, ensuring FAA compliance through U-PASS and Farmitude programs that let pilots fly under contract while waiting months for their own exemptions.
◆The platform auto-quotes the top three policies instantly and feeds data via API to underwriters, distributors, and flight-tracking systems, making compliance reporting and same-day binding trivial compared to manual forms.
◆Wild West operators skip FAA Part 137 certifications and exemptions to spray immediately, so Vaughn partnered with Alex Ryan's lobbying firm Atlas and went to Capitol Hill to push data-sharing agreements that let the FAA police rogue actors.
◆The December 2025 FCC foreign drone ban froze U.S. technology at 40-gallon, 30-minute flight capacity while China and India stay five years ahead, forcing Vaughn to pivot toward domestic hybrid gas-electric models to compete with helicopters.
◆He launched American Drone Network as an Uber-for-ag-drones app where member pilots lease equipment and accept jobs from farmers and co-ops through a single platform, avoiding the $100,000 startup cost and eight-month FAA wait.
◆Wholesalers and local farm-and-ranch agents now access his markets through the platform so their customers keep one point of contact, preventing competitors from undercutting him while he remains the easy button for instant quotes and full market access.

Full transcript

Show

Chad

Hey, Vaughn are you? Doing well. How are you doing today? I'm good. I can't complain. Let's see if I get some lights off here. Make it not as, not as bright in my face. How was your week? How's your last week or so been? It's been decent. Yeah. No, uh, just staying busy. Uh, yeah. And honestly, we just had a, uh, uh, we just put out a promotion out there about adding a new market and I'm getting blown up all over the place right now. Like, what is this? What is this? What do we, can we get these pricing? So, yeah, it's been a pretty decent so far. No, that's, that's great. I mean, that's, that should be making you smile. yeah. Giving you more to do, right? You're not wrong, but, honestly, it's, my producers were. crying because they only get like one lead a day right now. So was like, all right, let me do some, let me do some promoting and we'll see about getting something out there and generating those leads for them. here's Oh, that's great. That's awesome. Well, again, thank you. It's good to finally make this official. know we've kind of had a little preliminary and so this is good to kind of start and I've got some questions and I'll just kind of, it's just going to be like it was at the beginning. We'll just kind of flow through it. And, and at the end I'll, you know, we'll kind of wrap up and I can answer questions and kind of talk about, you know, anything there to go from there. But if you're ready, we'll, we'll, we'll knock this out. the last time I was with you, said, Hey, look, I've only about scratched it about 10 % of this. So, so here we go. We, we, we got 30 minutes. Let's see what we got here. Right. cover quite a bit. There is some stuff we'll probably not be able to dive into because once you get real deep in the weeds, it gets pretty technical. But that's exactly what we're here for is to be technical and make sure that we write insurance policies that actually pay out and make a difference for our customers. Good. Now, that's great. That's great. All right. So kind of start off here. So I've got some questions here. I'm just kind of going through.

Chad

You know, when, when we met last time, you kind of gave me the trailer last time for your audience. Take us back to, I believe you said 2021. What was the actual moment you decided to go all in and open VT insurance? Yeah. So, and like we were saying, I came from an underwriting background, transferred over to a broker side. I did that for quite a few years until that. Old brokerage got purchased out by a large conglomerate, which tried to put me in a position that I really wasn't suited for. At the same time during that period, drone technology was really starting to make some big waves. And one of the big industry disruptors of the DJI T30 was coming out that year of 2021. And so, With the approval of my wife, of course, I told her, I think this is gonna be a good idea to try to make a go of this and be the drone guy in the insurance space. And lo and behold, it was right time, right place. And so, yeah, we've basically either tripled or doubled every single year since we got started and have helped underwriters. mold policies together from manned application with UAV policies in place for non-AG. And so we kind of merged those together. I gave a lot of instruction on what that should look like and they took my advice on it. Big manufacturers like DJI also reached out asking about ag drone insurance and you can actually see an article I wrote on their website back then. And yeah, it's really just kind of tip. took off from there because technology has just expanded exponentially, not only on the DJI side, but I believe today we have over, gosh, I want to say 10 to 12 manufacturers all around the country, or the world. And then now we're starting to see some domestic manufacturing come in, which we're helping get them set up on the not only regulation side, but also with their insurance compliances as well. So, you know, you talk a lot about

Chad

or it sounds like you've got some clout, some people trust what you have to say, your opinion. How did that come about? did you get to a place where, obviously, when you write articles or you speak about something, especially with the drone technology and insurance policies for those, how did you get to that place where people are like, hey, we need to listen to Vaughn? You know, cause if I look at it, know, 70 % of all legally flying AG drones in the U S they're insured by you. so that says a lot about you. So, so I know you may not like to brag, but tell me a little bit about like why they go to you. Why you Vaughn. No, in your head, I don't like to gloat too often, but in certain cases, I guess it is appropriate. Honestly, in this situation, it was like I said, right place, right time. past experience of over a decade of aerial application insurance experience, both on both sides, the underwriter side and the broker side, really, I feel like gave me a step up in the competition. And to be quite honest, no one else really wanted to do it at the time. These are small policies, not a lot of drones out there doing it at that time. To give you a comparison, an air tractor AT-802 policy valued at a $2 million whole value with 300,000 chemical limits is anywhere between $60,000 to $70,000. For a single drone, we're looking at $3,000 $6,000. And so for the established brokerages who deal in the aerial application space, it just wasn't worth their time. I was literally the only experienced insurance provider who wanted to make this their primary focus. And I'm not saying I'm the only one at this time, but I am the most seasoned one at this time. And it was from the very beginning of when these things really started making a push.

Chad

So, you know, it's a, I've done some research and looking like it's really just a, know, you think about the technology, you kind of mentioned the technology and it's amazing at how advanced. And so when you look at these drones and spraying chemicals, you know, on fields and things like that, what is, you you've seen them, like I have not. So maybe walk us through a little bit of like. what this looks like and what is it doing and just the the because for somebody who doesn't know like you know I'll be honest I didn't know this existed I think there's a lot of people that don't know that this exists and so you know if I'm a small farmer or a farmer and I'm I'm doing this give us a little like what this looks like. Sure so and I can take you as far back as you want to go but let's just kind of taper it into a nice little segment here. Basically for the last hundred years, tractors and ground spraying units have been the primary source for personal use farmers or even commercial in some instances. it was basically back in the 1950s when crop nesting really started taking effect and it pumped out a bunch of acres in a fraction of the time that some of this other stuff was going on. So that really started taking a hold and it was fixed wing, piston engine at the time. Then it transitioned to a turbine engine, which made even faster progress. You can put out a lot more, carry heavier loads. And then helicopters really started becoming prominent and they were able to handle some of those more awkward shaped fields, wide open, straight and narrow rows. But then technology kept getting better and drones started coming into play. And when that happened, yes, we did take a step backwards on how much could be sprayed, but the lack or the safety that goes into this, meaning there's no longer a pilot flying eight to 10 feet off the ground, really has been.

Chad

a big selling point for the drones coming into the market and getting those pilots out of those dangerous situations. mean, you even have pilots flying under power lines on some instances. on average in the last decade, we've seen anywhere between 10 to 30 deaths per year on the main application side. So that's what really drove me to get into the drones because man, the hardest call you'll ever have to make is not when you lose business, it's when you have to call the wife of the insured that, not that that incident happened, but how to move forward with their life after that. And needless to say, I've had zero of those calls since I opened VT. And thank goodness that's been one of those cases. But yeah, to get back to your original question, which is, How has this technology evolved? Well, when we first started, we were talking about five liter, 10 liter, and a couple of gallon hopper size on these drones, which are basically nothing. And the battery life on this stuff is anywhere between five minutes to 20 minutes. And so at the very beginning, now it's evolved to 20 to 30 minute flights. with up to 40 gallons of chemical that you can haul. And it's just getting bigger, especially now that we're domestically manufacturing these in certain instances. We're actually seeing guys move away from the pure 100 % electric versions where we just use batteries. And we're going to more of a hybrid system, which allows for longer flight times, heavier capacity. And now it's actually competing against helicopters. We're not in the fixed wing 800 gallon hopper section yet where we're competing against airplanes, but helicopters is one of those segments that a lot of our manned applicators are strongly looking at these things as an alternative source. Furthermore, guys who do use the ground rigs, you're spending anywhere between a quarter million to a half million dollars on one of these

Chad

big haggies or big tractors. These drum kits are starting anywhere between 20 to $50,000. So the return on investment, just hearing that pure, tangible equity that you have in those pieces of equipment, is leaps and bounds better than what you're getting on those tractors. And that doesn't even account for what you run over on the tractors, which is anywhere between three to 5 % of the crop yield. Yeah, no, that's that's so amazing. I was actually in going back to talking about the helicopter. I was actually in Montana. I love to fly fish and, and I was out there and saw a you know, some of the fields out there's a lot of fields, obviously a lot of agriculture there. But one of the one of the crop dusters flying and I was I was amazed at how close to the ground they were and just thinking, man, one little wrong turn or move and it's over and they were I mean, obviously they were seasoned and professional at doing it, but man, was just, I didn't grow up seeing that. it was, when you said that, resonated like, man, yeah, that's one little strong wrong move and it's bad. yeah, I think it's, another thing that you mentioned that that's really interesting is, at the cost of these, a farmer who has a large field or a large crop. could have multiple of these probably working at the same time. so, you know, where maybe you're filling up a tractor and going out and spending a few hours doing it. This could be a lot cleaner, less dusty, less flying around, moving around. So very interesting there. So, so I want to move into kind of the industry trends. You you talked about taking this from the wild, wild west. You had mentioned that last time we were together. professional industry. What does the Wild West version actually look like? What are the bad actors doing that are out there? Because you mentioned there are some that's just kind of the Wild West. So maybe what is it they're doing that's that let's bring spotlight to that. And by the way, one key note that

Chad

I mentioned where we said 70%, it's 70 % of all legally flying drugs. Which I do wanna make sure I preface that, because anything that we do here at our agency, we are educators first and we are insurance agents second. We're going to make sure that you're legal and compliant or going through one of our programs to become legal in the transition period of getting your FAA documentation. and to make sure that your insurance policies will pay out in that event. with that, the FAA is, they don't know what to do with drones. They've been living in the world of manned application for over a hundred years. And so when you go in a drone, There are certain rules and I'll just kind of dive into the 137, which is the crop testing section of the FARAIM and it's basically allows aircraft to spray economic poisons onto that will affect the environment is the official definition. Well, in that 137, you have rules like, hey, pilots are required to wear a seatbelt. Pilots are also required to have your registration in your glove box, things like that. so when drones, that's just not practical. And so what the FAA had to do was make exemptions to the 137 to do legal flight operations. Not only that, they have to prove any of these drones through an exemption process to be legal to fly in federal airspace, even in an uncontrolled class G airspace, they need that. And so what we're finding is this process is taking quite a long time from I bought a drone to I am now legal to fly. And whenever we're talking about ag, you're talking about a very seasonal industry. You're talking in some cases up in like North Dakota, Montana, you might have two months out of the year that you're actually spraying. Whereas in Florida, you might be spraying eight to eight months to 12 months out of the year. So.

Chad

What that means though is if I bought a drone, I am expecting to fly that season and it's a very limited time that I can do it. But the FAA is saying, hey, we didn't issue your 44807 exemptions or you don't have your part 137 certifications. In you might not even have your part 107 license. That's where it becomes a wild, west. We'll just have guys just say, I got a drone, I'm using it. Come get me if you think you can. So what we're doing to take it from the Wild West to the professional industry like they have with MAND is to do, well, quite a few things. First off is the education aspect of it. inform people. We built a U-PASS which stands for the Unmanned Pilot Association for Safety and Standards so they can go in there and check out all the rules and regs to get ready to go there. We also have program called, yep, we also have a program called Pharmatude which allows Pilots who are waiting on their paperwork from the FAA to legally fly as a contract pilot under the Farmitude Part 137 and 44807 exemptions while they're waiting on their paperwork come in basically acts as a stop gap so that they can start making money right away while also educating them on how to be a professional pilot. And then lastly, technology. Technology has been a huge boom in our industry. One of the things that we did is we partnered with multiple industry partners to go out and connect via API from our technology system into their technology systems. And so what we can do with this is not only report exactly the type of flight conditions that are flying in, what exact chemical they were spraying on what day.

Chad

but we can actually have reporting forms that can go to the FAA or to just their underwriters in my instance and help give discounts and insurance or compliance checks for those rogue actors. Now, part of that though is data sharing agreements. Obviously you need to make sure everyone's in agreement to use whatever systems you're using, but. One of the things we're working on, and there's a guy, Alex Ryan, just formed his new lobbying firm called Atlas. And we just went to Washington, DC to talk about a few of these things on Capitol Hill to help potentially move us in the right direction so that the FAA can start policing these guys and making those rogue actors go away so that we can have a more standardized industry. That's really, really cool. what do you see the next wave of aerial ag growth coming from? New drone models, new chemicals, new geographies. Where do you see kind of like as we are sitting today, what's the new wave? Sure. So this industry is limited by with James, obviously. with any emerging technology, that means that we are in our infancy, because we just basically really started ramping up about five years ago. And this is only getting bigger, better, faster. The problem right now is other countries such as China, India, there's also Hungary, they're about five years ahead in technology than the US, which is kind of wild to think about. You always think the USA is number one in everything. unfortunately, when it comes to drones, we've really taken a step backwards. And so what we are doing right now, well, actually, let me go ahead and preface by saying with the foreign actors of other countries being such a high priority for this administration and honestly other administrations that come down the line,

Chad

The FCC actually did a foreign drone ban as of December 23rd of 2025. And so what that entails is that no new models of foreign-made drones can come into the US and be sold or operated. Now, past models can be sold and operated here in the US. So what that basically means is that we are stuck in December, 2025 technology for the foreseeable future until domestic products start catching up to that technology that is being sourced by these foreign countries. Now at this point, yes, we're still behind, but it looks like America is going to do what America does and do it their own way. And so this is where I say the hybrid models and larger drones are going to start really coming into play because, The things that are so far ahead in technology are batteries, motors, and computer chips, which computer chips are actually, catching up pretty quickly. But those other two, those are the big ones. And if we can use, replace the batteries with gas and we can replace the electric motors with fuel powered motors, yeah, then I think we can catch up pretty quickly. Kind of move into a little bit of some, you as a company and a business and some things that you deal with. so, you know, your platform today, kind of your current state where you are, your platform handles drone quotes automatically. What does the rest of the operation look like? it, you know, the stuff and that still runs on people and stuff, technology? What is that? What does that look like for you today? So I apologize. of a what a like, how do we as an agency handle incoming? Yeah, because I think you told me before, like you're you're you know, a lot like your platform handles like the drone quotes, like you kind of have those kind of set up automatically. So kind of, know, how big is your operation today? And then what, you know, is it just you or you got a few people?

Chad

And then what does the rest of the, you know, what does it look like? What is it? What is it's handled by, I guess, humans today? So yes, as VT Insurance Agency, we are made up of about 14 people and about six producers. Each of those producers have a certain region across the country that they handle business out of, as well as distribution partners that they are partnered with. Whenever we do get a drone lead from either a distributor or a wholesaler, which we'll talk about that in a second, then that'll get fed directly into our system and be assigned to one of our agents who will then do their pre-underwriting, even though we're not underwriters and we're not an MGA, we do have the trust of our underwriters to make sure that we are checking those boxes before requesting any kind of bind request that issues policies. So. What our platform does is it's automatically set up that so that a person go fill out the form, it'll automatically send it to our system and spit out the best three quotes that the industry can provide. And those can be filtered either by best cost, best bang for your buck on higher limits, what meets certain contract requirements, anything under the sun from that end. Furthermore, Like I said, not only are we getting these leads from distributors who basically have a package deal now that they can sell a drone and then they can now partner with us to get their insurance for their customer same day before they leave that facility. some guys just want to use one local agent who also does their farm and ranch policies with. What we've also done is not excluded those types of insurance agents and we've actually partnered with them, allowing them to use our system to access those markets who we're bringing in every single month or every single year and allow them to quote through our system so that their customers can still have that one access point for their insurance needs. they can keep their calm, know, they're people that they maybe have

Chad

been with for years or whatever. Exactly. So, and again, my goal here at VT Insurance is not so much to make as much money as you can. mean, that's, mean, money's great and all, but really my mission statement as an owner of this business and as a technology platform business is to grow this industry and make it as professional as possible and have it as healthy as possible. One thing we don't want to see is a bunch of bad actors trying to write policies willy-nilly just so that they can make a quick buck. That's not going to, that's going to sustain this industry. It's a, we're, we're still in our infancy, which also means we're still kind of vulnerable to bad things happening. enough bad people do it too many times. So my, we would like to do is be the insurance professional that everyone uses because a, we have all the markets. And B, we make it easy and we will make sure that you will get paid out to have a claim on what happened. Yeah. One bad actor is all it takes to put a bad taste, right? Then people all of sudden don't want to do it. So true. It happens, especially, especially when you're like you are. It's new, right? This is a new thing. So you want to do it right. And you're right. And there's a lot of people come in and say, oh, we do that too. We can do that too. And then next thing you know, you know, they're, they're not, they're cutting corners. just to try to make a dollar and they're not really, know, set. One thing I can tell by talking to you, you're passionate about educating and making sure people do it right. And I think that's great because, you know, that's the way I am too. And what I love, I love to help people and I love to make sure they are educated and understand, you know, what rather do it the right way than just trying to make a dollar. agree with that. So, so one of things we talked about last time, you know, you, you were, you, you've got a lot on your plate. You wear many hats. I think so, uh, you know, you've scaled 14 to 15 people pretty fast and probably could, could scale even faster. I mean, it's just a matter of, of making about 20 of you. Um, what's the, what, what is generally the, uh, hard about running the team right now? What do you struggle with right now? And, and not just your workload, but the management side, what are, what are, what is it that you would say is kind of a challenge for you? Well, that's the million dollar question.

Chad

At the end of the day, I'm just one man. do as much as I can and time though, there's just literally not enough hours in the day for as much as I need to do. And that's why I've hired on a bunch of agents this year to help offload some of my books so that I can do some more of that high level things that I do to keep this industry and this agency running efficiently. So. Time management is really for me has been spent on the technology side, tried to make our system more efficient, more streamlined, more automated so that whenever someone requests a binder, we can then use our system to API into the underwriter system so that we can have all the policy documents instantaneously and that includes binders, certificates, policies, everything. And that way they can go to their pesticide board that same day and be able to get their pesticide license to start operating legally on their state level and be ready to rock and roll. Now, another part of it is I did mention those, we got the agency hat, we got the technology hat, but the other part that we haven't really mentioned is the American drone net. which has just started launched, which just launched this year. And what this is is a brand new way of thinking about how to do this, to do this industry without going all in as a full entrepreneur with all the expense costs that are involved with it. And the reason I'm bringing this up is I am an equity partner in this network. I truly believe in what they are trying to do right now. And what this is is the Uber experience for AdDrones. And so what the American Drill Network will do is have an app where they can reach out to their member pilots who have equity shares in the network as well. And they can go out to farmers and co-ops and chemical companies who might have test plots

Chad

to go out and say, hey, we need a job done April 11th at 10 a.m. to do 50 acres. And that'll pop up on the app in the member pilots will be able to click on that job, accept it, and then go do that job. The beauty of this network is it has the same kind of things that I'm talking about where everyone talks to each other. The chemical companies talk through the app insurance companies talk through the app, the manufacturing companies talk through the app. And so how it works is member pilots who don't want to spend $100,000 on truck, trailer, drone set up, and they just want to kind of get started fairly quickly. under the supervision of U-Pass and Pharmitude, which are the educational wings of this industry, They can sign up and do through a lease program and have lease drones from the network to use for those jobs that are provided also by the network by those same chemical companies, co-ops and farmers that are all partnered into this. And so what we're going to see is you're going to have chemical discounts, insurance discounts, and leasing discounts due to the partnerships to all those industry leaders. And that's going to pave the way for a new way of doing these types of drone operations versus where every farmer needs to go through the FAA process, wait eight months, get a drone, and just to do their own fields. Well, now they're going to be able to do what they do on the manned application side. call in a man applicator to do it, but now it's on an app for their phone and do that. So that's the other hat that I wear because again, I'm going to be high in part equity owner in that. And we're trying to push that out. And that should help with a lot of the getting out of the wild west into a more professional industry. It's kind of almost making it like a, not a club, a, but a group that's professionals that can come out and do it. You know, if I'm a farmer,

Chad

Maybe I'm a little older and I don't want to do it, but I can just pick up that out, perhaps someone and let them come do it, pay them to do that. Spray my fields for me. Done. Right. don't have to marry, don't have to keep just to have a bunch of tractors sitting there that I've been paying, you know, gas and maintenance and all those things for. So, um, yeah, it's really, really, really interesting. It's amazing that the technology and where we're going. And I think that's what makes this is so cool is like, it's, you know, I don't think there's a lot of people that know about this. you know, probably in the farming world, they do, but I would even say maybe even in the farming world, they don't know a lot about this, that you'd be shocked that, you know, farming is a vital part of our economy and what we do. And it always has been. And so I think it's, you know, always really cool to hear what's going on and kind of, you know, how we make it better. So, you know, as we kind of end here, and one of the things I want to ask you is, you know, you had mentioned that You know, you were looking at possibly, you could probably double what you did last year if things would go right. And, and so what, what are, what are, I guess, when you say go right, what are the roadblocks that you're facing today? What is it that's that's you struggling that's keeping you from doing that? What's, what's the, you know, is it time of the day? Is it, is it what, you know, what is that? Yeah. So, the, the things that will set us back is. we're no longer the only game of town. As much as I hate to say it, people are starting to wisen up and they're saying, hey, we can start to ensure this stuff. And so we are starting to see other brokers use wholesalers to get to those markets that we have. What we're trying to do is be that wholesaler for those local brokers who are trying to place their business for their person. And the way we're gonna be able to... double or hopefully maybe even triple is by having those people go through our system outside of their typical wholesale network because we are officially the easy button for providing quotes because you get it instantaneously same day and you can, and it has a lot of instructional information in the system. The other big factor is regulations and partnerships. So regulations, if.

Chad

There is, if the government comes out tomorrow and says, we're not gonna let drones fly if they're foreign made. Well, that's a big problem. That's basically everything out there right now. And then other insurance agencies who might have partnerships with different distributors. might be a hindrance as well, but hopefully with us being able to bring in all the markets and give the absolute best pricing in the industry. I do foresee that this automated system is going to eventually take over and be able to provide that for anyone that's asking for it. So that's how I'm hoping that we can continue to grow our business. That's great. Well, Vaughn, thank you so much for, you know, spending some time with me and kind of going through this. It's a fascinating, it really, really is. I could probably talk to you for hours. And you got a lot of things you got to do, but I could really, I think it's just so, so interesting. And, so I really appreciate this and kind of talking with me a little bit about this, making an awareness. think it's really cool. So, I would like to, if it's okay, I would like to tell you a little bit about myself and what I do and, and, and not, necessarily for any other reason that, you know, there's a lot of things that you talked about that, that. It aligns very much with me and what I, and who I am. And so, just, just kind of wanted to tell you that and, and, and kind of offer, not, not a sales pitch, not, not going to do that, but just kind of tell you what I do. if there's ever a need or a man, you know what I could, I could, I could bounce this off of somebody because I've had over 15 years in executive leadership and sales processes and with companies. And I think I told you that a little bit before and I walked away from that because it just becomes such a, man, this is like a, like everybody's out for whatever they can make. They're not really out to help. Like that's not the focus. It's like, how do we help? It's no, it's like, what are we doing today? And tomorrow it's not really about helping. You know what I'm saying? And so it just got, it just got old for me and got away from that. And so, you know, what I, what I do and Vaughn is it.

Chad

it just kind of give you a heads up and talking through this. I am a, solution fixer. I help, I help listen to people's problems and come up with what, what is it this, this roadblocks to help, whether that be through, you know, AI is a huge thing right now in our world. Josh, it's every, just like the drones, right? Everything's imagine part of the AI world. We've worked in, the drones. And so If there's, if there's ever a time when you've got some like workflows and automations and, and man, how do we make this go smoother with, with AI changing and stuff like that? I do that. I do that stuff. I can, I help with that. also just as you bring on people coaching and training them and, and, and, and trying to hire the right people. I give insight on that. I don't, I don't work for a, a fee. work for. Hey, if you got a problem and we can fix it, I'll give you some solutions. And you go, yeah, I'd like this one. don't like that one. Okay. If you don't, you don't, I kind of changed the way I, after 15 years in the executive world, I had so many people call me all the time, trying to sell me stuff. And, I just like, I can say, time for it. So that's kind of what I do too, just so you have a clear understanding. I don't know if you, if I ever shared a little bit about that, doing this information and getting Getting this information out, think is important. It's part of my mantra of helping companies and get stuff out. So that's what I do. I don't know if you have anything today that's in a bind for you that could help with automation stuff with AI. Happy to hop on a call again with you or kind of give you some ideas. But yeah, just to give you a little idea of what I do. full transparency, I don't want to... I want to make sure you know that if you say that service and you can something, but man, we could use some help here and here. Can you give us an idea? to do that. Well, I'll officially tell you, we got just over 50 % of everything we're doing covered in this podcast today. So there's still a little bit more to talk about. One of those things that we're doing that I didn't mention today is we are using AI to help build our platform.

Chad

on just the coding side, but also one of the projects that is being actively written up right now is a program that we're affectionately calling the wizard. And so right now it's the way we fill out forms is all done manually. And so what the wizard is going to be doing is going to basically have more of a conversation with the customer. versus, I'm filling out a form. And AI is helping with those types of questioning, pointing certain answers of those questions and filling out certain parts of the forms that are going to make not only a more enjoyable process, but hopefully a lot quicker as well. Instead of spending 15, 20 minutes filling out something that you may not know about. we're going to have this wizard to basically decode what you're saying and place it into our forum. So we're also using some AI in other ways, but at the end of the day, if you are an AI expert, I'd love to get you potentially to help out with some of our IT team, because they're also very heavily using that as well. Yeah, no, I'm happy to. Just what you just, the wizard you just talked about. Uh, there's amazing that I too, it's just like on a website, but literally they think they're talking to a human being, even in a call phone call where they come in and they're, they're taking their information and scheduling calls for like the field reps and taking that and putting into forms. Uh, I've done quite a bit of those are really, really advanced. Beginning times was, was not as great, but they've really gotten better. I mean, they're almost like, you think you're talking to a human now. But yeah, any, anything like that stuff. don't know if you already currently have somebody working on it, but all I, all I would need to do is just hear what you're, what you're, what you're trying to do. and then I could put together a little proposal and just shoot it to you you can look at it go, man, this is, it's, it's really in doubt of, of kind of this is, we'll do this, this, this, this. I try to break it down like that. I, I, again, I put on my former hat to say,

Chad

I don't know all the stuff, so you got to explain it to me in elementary terms so that I can understand it because I want to know what I'm doing. and the worst thing you can do is get a bunch of stuff and then it's like, it never works. And then it's a pain and you're like, you know, it's like a CRM, right? People get a CRM and then it's like, we can't work in it because it needs this. You got to do this and then you got to add this onto it. I don't like that. I've been stuck in those situations. So yeah, if you got things like that, that man, I'd be happy to, again, it's just a phone call. And then I, I typically do is, um, after the phone call, I just find out what it is you're trying to do. Just like you just said, we're wanting to do this, this, this, this, and I need this, this, this. That's really all I need. And, I can kind of give you some idea. Again, it's the second look at it. If you already got somebody you say, Hey, just want to get another peek on it. Happy to happy to do that. And, uh, again, no obligation. don't, I don't put you into a. A fee. just say, here's what, here's what I can do. And here's the steps to it. And this is, this is the cause for it. And, it's. Yeah. You mentioned CRMs. Um, I, think, don't know if I mentioned this to you or not, but our platform is evolving into our CRM. Uh, we're moving away from the applied Epic system. I don't know if you've dealt with it that before. That's pretty. big common CRM, the system that we're building due to the automation and all the inputs that are already in it, it just made sense to build a CRM. So one of the things that we haven't built in there yet is endorsements for midterm changes. And so if there could be a way to potentially get something like that to use AI and incorporate certain things. And I'd be more than happy to see what you might be able to provide. An example would be, hey, midterm, we're adding a drone. How much would it cost with the ad short rate and the pro rate calculations? And throw out a quote as soon as they hit the button due to the carrier that they're with and the limits that they're requesting, stuff like that.

Chad

Uh, that would be super helpful and, um, might, might be some synergy on that one. Yeah. No, I'd be happy to, to throw a little few things and then I can always email it. We hop on a quick, we don't have to do a video call. can do the quick call or whatever, whatever works and say, you know, is this, is this in line with what you're looking for? And then you go, nah, we want a little bit more here, a little bit more here. Cause it takes a couple of times to make sure we get it right. Uh, cause I want to, I want to, you know, again, to the day it's gotta work. It's gotta, it's gotta, we want, we want, we want it to take. I look at it this way. I love AI only if it takes the stress and load off me. It's automated and we won't, we won't customers to have a great experience. We want them to feel like, man, they are easy. At the end of the day, you want them to say they're the easiest people to work with. Cause that's what's going to make them come back. Like they're easy to work with. get what I want quick. I don't have any headaches. Like very simple. Um, that that's the goal, right? We it to be simple and make them like, Oh, I love this. And then they don't go looking at other people because Really and truly you mentioned it. A lot of people are to come in the market and try to be the cheaper or ro. Then it all comes down to their experience. Who is it's easy to work with? Who does what they said they're going to do? Who, who takes care of me? That that's what's going to make the kind of the standout. So, um, yeah, that's great. And, uh, again, I I'm happy to, to, to kind of work through some of that with you and, and, uh, you know, anything like that. It's CRM, AI, that's kind of what I do. so again, enjoy the conversation and learning about you and hope we can continue the conversation. And if there's a place for us to do some things together, great. If not, then that's fine too. This has been great. So I love the information you've given me. Well, no, it's been on mine. And I guess my last question for you is, What is the plan for the podcast? What are you planning on posting it? what, yeah, what's this, what's your plans on that? So what I'll do is I'll cut the video. I'll make it where you have a video of the podcast. We'll cut out all this stuff, but I'll make a little podcast. I'll shoot you the video and then you can play that on your website. You do whatever you want to do on that. We'll, we'll push it out, but you, but you'll have it. Cause that this is great content. Like, Hey, I want to know a little bit about.

Chad

you know, Vaughn and what he does, and then take clips to do other things like that, that you want to do. You'll have, it'll be yours. It's not, it's not hiding it. It's not, know, I want you, I want you to use it because some of the questions that I asked would be great for your platform to push out there for people to, Hey, I want to know more about this. So that's why I do this. It's a, it's a freak to you free to me. I get to use it, but, you get it as well. And you can, you can hopefully help educate people. That's the goal. And that's exactly what I want to do. I, yeah, and I'll definitely, uh, uh, whenever I do post it on the socials, I'll, uh, I'll post you and your company and all that. I'll give a thank you for having me and call that good stuff. yeah, when do you think, uh, it'll be ready next week or month? I would say probably, uh, 10 to 12 days is what it usually takes to get it down and then I'll have it over. I'll just shoot you. Like I said, I'll shoot you an email with a video and all that. So takes about that to, you know, to clean it up. want to, I want to make sure we get it edited good. So, no. And that's honestly, that's quicker than I was expecting. I love it. Yeah. No, it's not too, too bad. Again, they got so much technology today. That's pretty, pretty easy to do, but it takes a little just man hours to read through it, make sure it's good. So, all right. Well, we'll stay, I hope we stay in touch and, again, if there's some things like that, that you're puzzling your mind, workflows, automation, let's, let's, let's reconvene. I'll shoot you an email time, time check in. And one of the things you mentioned, I'll kind of put some thoughts on it and send you a few things. Fantastic. Well, I appreciate your time and yeah, we'll, we'll definitely connect here in the future. All right, Vaughn. Thanks. Have a great week. You do the same.

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