here. These are local economies we want to raise families in … it’ s our turn to step up and carry the torch for these areas. And it’ s really humbling how much support we’ ve been given.”
The agency’ s philosophy,“ A new perspective on an old industry,” isn’ t just something that appears on the website or business card, Green said, but reflects their abilities to serve their clients.
“ I think you’ ve got to have a mixture of old-school mentality and new-school technology,” he said.“ But you still need to see your people. Technology has come so far, and you can do so much, but we still believe in doing things like taking clients to lunch. I think if you combine the two, you have a new perspective on an old industry. It’ s really just taking care of your clients.”
“ We believe there are some old-school things about the industry that should never change, but there are some things we should change as soon as possible,” Dickey said.“ With technology, you can really help service an account. You have more tools at your fingertips.”
Early on, Dickey and Green said they relied on services and resources offered by the Kansas Association of Insurance Agents, which helped them get started.
“ We obviously had a million questions,” Zac said.“ We really can’ t say enough about the KAIA- not only their advocacy for us- their support, their willingness to help, the time they spent with us. It’ s really, pretty unbelievable. We’ re still leaning on them, and we’ ll be leaning on them a lot for the foreseeable future. We just really can’ t say enough about them.”
“ They helped us with the licensing, and all the insurance we needed as an agency,” Brannon said.“ They were very excited for us, and that’ s really reassuring to have them on our side. They really helped us get going. I attribute a lot of our success to them because they helped us get off and running because we couldn’ t run before we crawled.”
With so many details involved in starting a business, one of the more special ones was the development of their agency logo – the white buffalo. While the logo was intended to
“ We obviously had a million questions,” Zac said.“ We really can’ t say enough about the KAIA- not only their advocacy for us- their support, their willingness to help, the time they spent with us. It’ s really, pretty unbelievable. We’ re still leaning on them, and we’ ll be leaning on them a lot for the foreseeable future. We just really can’ t say enough about them.”
symbolize change, it took on a different meaning Dickey and Green never anticipated.
“ In Native American culture, the white buffalo symbolizes a new age, and with a high( number) of white buffaloes being born today, some could say that change is happening right now. It’ s a symbol for a new way of doing things,” Dickey said.
While developing the logo, Dickey and Green met with a young graphic artist who worked at a local marketing company. But shortly after finishing the logo, the designer and web developer, Brittney Feuerborn, a Greeley native, died in an ATV accident in late-April.
“ Right before she died, she told us it was her favorite project to work on because she was able to create it all on her own,” Zac said.“ Now it means a little more.”
Dickey admits that starting a business from scratch does take commitment and countless hours of work. But even with the challenges, his advice is to never let anything interfere with long-term goals.
“ You will have a lot of people that will not want to see you succeed,” he said.“ That should be more motivating for you. As an independent agent, you have to be able to best provide for your clients … We’ ve been fortunate enough to have companies step up and want to go to work with us. And for that, we’ ll have strict loyalties to those companies because they took the leap and helped us get started. We’ re never going to forget that.
“ We want to spur economic development, and create better lives for the people who live here. We have support from the community, and we want to give back in a big way … We want our business to stand for something. We want the people who live here to be positively affected, and we want this agency to be a positive influence on the future of southeast Kansas. Because frankly, if that wasn’ t our goal, we wouldn’ t live here.”
Next Generation Insurance, which serves commercial property and casualty insurance clients, is located at 104 W. Sixth St. in Pittsburg. For more information, go to www. nextgeninsfam. com.
18 KANSAS INSURANCE AGENT & BROKER | May- June 2017 |