ENT 600 Blanton-Flack Insurance Agency
Interviewee: Tripp Flack
Interviewer: Cas Snethen
Tell me a little about your background, family, and education.
I graduated from UNC Chapel Hill with BSBA. My wife and I had a child all through college. I got married in March of my freshman year. I moved back to Forest City in 1983 after I graduated. I joined my dad's insurance firm when I came home. It was started by my grandfather in 1923.
What drew you to the field you are currently in?
An insurance agency really, is a small business that just happens to sell insurance without inventory overhead. All the business principles still apply. I got interested in it because of my father. At the end of my freshman year I knew I wanted to get involved.
How much experience did you have before you ventured out on your own?
I always said when I came back my dad left. My dad was focused in on other activities outside of the business; politics and being on the board of governors at 16 universities. I had freedom to make a lot of mistakes. When I came back to business it was struggling a little bit because of my dads' outside involvements. I had lots of challenges and opportunities early on. In some ways it accelerated my development because it's like learning to swim for the first time by jumping in the water, you either sink or swim. I really focused on the business in 1986 when my wife graduated from pharmacy school.
How much time was involved when starting your venture?
You know, I don't know how to quantify in terms of hours in a day, I guess the best way would be just as long as it took to get the job done. There is no 8 hour days, when its time to go home sometimes you take the work with you. You have to buckle down and get the job done. Time was never a factor. It's never about what time it is, it's about is the job done.
What were your beginning market strategies in the industry? Did you do anything different than your competition?
I think you have to change your market strategy. If you're not changing you're falling behind. In 1986 my attempt was just to stay in business. Interestingly enough I think we had a loan coming up at the bank and one of the services that the state of NC offered was the SBTDC. There was a student there that I dealt with that helped me with my market strategy on a spreadsheet. It was actually quite helpful. In school you learn theory and when you get out in practice it's hard to apply the theory you learned on your own. When I went to school we had punch cards as computers. At that time the SBTDC had great experience with computers and helped me put together a marketing plan and a business plan. Although it didn't help me at the bank it helped me determine where we needed to go and what we needed to do to get there. So that was one thing that helped me get started and get a concrete idea of what I needed to do. The second thing I did was formed an informal group of agents across the state of NC. There we were able to challenge each other and get to the next level. It was a group of 4 of us; we met routinely for four or five years. In the course of that time you're always changing and always evolving. It helps to have outside folks to push you. This group helped us number one stay in business and number two grow the business.
Do you have partners? Why or why not?
I sure do have partners. We had a local agency by the name of Blanton agency. We decided it was better to be together than apart. I think that was really a growth spurt for our business. It always helps to have a partner. It's really easy to fool yourself. If you have a partner it allows you to be more honest. In times that you don't make great decisions it's nice to have a partner there to point it out. Four or five years later we merged with a business in Tryon, NC. The owner there was about to retire and his son had just graduated from college. We basically bought out his father and brought his son on to our team.
From that point forward we had been working with my brother to build a group health and group benefits division, which we had never had before. My brother was working with Cojin a McNair owned company who sold out to Enron. He worked at Enron for two months and saw that was not where he wanted to be. He was attending Penn State's masters program, he used our agency as a case study on how to set up a benefit department with in a property agency. He came back here and applied that knowledge to help build that department. He earned his right to purchase into the ownership. So we currently have five partners including myself.
To you, what is the most important part of your business?
Without being esoteric, our business is all about protecting assets and securing future. No matter if you're talking about any of our five departments. That is what we do. There are too many folks out there that sell insurance as a commodity and our job is not to sell insurance. It is to identify risks for clients and then purchase on their behalf what they choose to protect. It's more of an advisor role than anything else and we're actually evolving into more of that as, everything from risk management to wellness. Our business comes down to developing relationships. I think that's what our clients value is our relationships. We don't peddle policies we secure futures. Giving people a big sleeping pill at night.
What have you learned from the beginning that you would do differently?
There are lots of things I could have done differently that would have put me ahead of where I am today. I would not change though because I am sure those things I had gone through have prepared me for where I am today. In the long run I would probably say no. We have made mistakes along the way but we have learned from them so its hard to say that you don't want to have them. I truly think those lessons were important to get us where we are today. I don't think you can gather wisdom without having some of those experiences. Certainly not to say that we are wise we have a lot of wisdom left to learn. That's just part of taking chances.
What do you like most about being an entrepreneur?
What I like most about being an entrepreneur is the freedom to make those mistakes. I deal with a lot of people who work in corporate cultures and I think that one of the differences is that they are given all the responsibility and no authority to see that it gets done. Everyone works out of fear, fear of losing their job, fear of getting in trouble. All those things drive the business down to the lowest common denominator so no one is able to be all that they can be. Where you can also hit a home run is setting up your business so that your employees feel that same way when they go home. Every employee wants to make a difference and go home knowing that they helped someone. And that's our goal we want to create an atmosphere where they are not afraid make mistakes.
We have hired 3 new college graduates in the last year and a half. Two of them are from Appalachian State, in the insurance investing program. Out of their whole program only two of them wanted to go in to business for themselves. I found that interesting. It's those graduates that want to make a difference. We want to have direct control of being able to do that.
Would you say you embrace entrepreneurial spirit with in your employees?
Absolutely, we try very hard to do that. Employees that rise to the top are the ones who use their own initiative. Not only do they take a project and put their stamp on it, they come up with their own projects. They keep the blood pumping in the organization. You cannot be in every spot every time, you have to have people who are real thinkers or you will go out of business very quickly.
Is it difficult to find a balance between work and family given your hours are not constrained to 8 hour days?
Interesting you should say that, my son has come back to the county recently graduating from UNC Chapel Hill. He spent a lot of time coaching at the collegiate level after playing. He loved the coaching aspect of it. He saw his fellow coaches at that level he wanted to coach, division 1 top 25 team in the country, they were spending 28 days away from home recruiting, missing birthdays literally working 18 hour days. When he started thinking about life's bigger picture, starting a family, he realized how tough it would be. He felt like he wanted to come back here and work so that made his decision a little easier. All the owners in this business understand that you bring your family problems to work with you. What gets you to work everyday is your family. Striking that balance is critical, if you don't your business will suffer. A smart entrepreneur will make sure that his family time is his top priority. This has certainly been my experience. I have thoroughly enjoyed watching my kids play sports, all of them, going to ball games, dance recitals, whatever they were interested in I enjoyed being there. Having control of your work environment you can set the philosophy and the atmosphere of the company that can foster that. We fell like family time adds to the bottom line of the company.
What is your definition of success?
I've never thought of it as a sentence. If you can add value everyday and that value is not necessarily all financial. If you make the value better everyday, whether it's your family or your work you can be a success.
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