Building an Insurance Brokerage Business from Scratch, with Steve Aleksandrowicz, Medicare and Other Red Tape

John Ray: [00:00:00] And hello, everyone. I’m John Ray on the Price and Value Journey. I’m joined today by Steve Aleksandrowicz. Steve is an insurance broker with Medicare and Other Red Tape. This show is going to be a little different today because it’s not really the kind of guest maybe you would expect on this series that we’re doing here.

But here’s the origins of why I thought Steve would be a great guest. I was sitting next to him one time and he was telling me he’d received a call from someone who said, hey, so-and-so told me to call you, that you were the Medicare expert. And he said, John, I didn’t even know who so-and-so was, much less the guy that was calling.

And so it immediately occurred to me when he said that that here’s someone that’s built a brand around his business, his expertise of Medicare, which is an extraordinarily hard thing to do given the kind of competition that exists in that business. So I thought it would be great.

And, you know, Steve and I talked a little bit more about his practice and how he built it, and I thought it would be great to share some of those thoughts and conversation with you. So I turned to Steve Aleksandrowicz, AKA, also known to his clients and those that know him as the Medicare man. Steve, welcome.

Steve Aleksandrowicz: [00:01:37] Good morning, John. Welcome and thank you for welcoming me here today. It’s privilege.

John Ray: [00:01:41] Yeah. Thank you so much. And thank you for letting us kind of look under the hood of how you’ve built your practice over the years. Let’s give a better introduction than I did to what you do for folks. Medicare and Other Red Tape is the name of your company. Say more.

Steve Aleksandrowicz: [00:01:59] So, John, Medicare and Other Red Tape is actually part of a greater entity than I. I’m part of Bonnie Dobbs Agency. She branded it, Medicare and Other Red Tape because Medicare has a lot of red tape. And I’m one of her 14 agents, been her number one agent for three years running. And I proudly serve under her because of all the great things that we do in our industry.

John Ray: [00:02:34] Got it. So talk about your journey and what led you to the Medicare field?

Steve Aleksandrowicz: [00:02:44] Well, by accident, John. Starting in a life insurance job back over a decade ago, I was having a really good time doing it. It was actually a fraternal order. It was kind of unique, captive audience and so forth. But I was serving my brother knights and their families, and I really felt strongly about what I did in taking care of families, but it wasn’t going to pay the bills.

So I decided to regroup and just happened to be talking to a relative who was selling Medicare health insurance and the new Medicare Advantage products were just come about on the market. That was the new hot thing. And I was like, well, how about me? But I really didn’t like Medicare. Very complex. They don’t pay big commission, so it’s not a big moneymaker. No gold. No gold. So but I said, you know what, I’m going to take my experience. I’m not going to throw it away from life insurance. I’m going to journey on in and give it give a try over to Medicare.

And what I found was, I found I had the passion that was always there to help people. And being our seniors are more vulnerable population, they seem to be preyed upon. You know, when it comes to Medicare, these marketers are out there. They’ve got their information. They’re constantly mailing out material. Sometimes they’re getting — people were getting unsolicited phone calls, emails, even knocks on the door from somebody, hey, I heard you just turned 65. Welcome to Medicare. Can I sell you a product? So I feel very passionate that I’m trying to be the good guy. And that’s what I do.

John Ray: [00:04:42] That’s tremendous. So you had a — and for those that don’t completely get how this works, maybe they haven’t gotten to that age or stage or what have you. Your commission is inside the premium that someone pays so they don’t pay extra if they go direct to a government website. They’ll pay the same premium as they would if you help them get that same coverage, correct?

Steve Aleksandrowicz: [00:05:22] Correct. The government body centers on Medicare, Medicaid, CMS. They regulate how much commission is paid out on a particular Medicare product. And whether an individual buys it online, direct to the carrier, or through a person like myself, they’re going to pay the same amount of money, but they can get a whole lot more for their money if they’re utilizing a local guy that brings a lot of knowledge and experience to the table because that is the added value service I bring to the table for my clients each and every day.

John Ray: [00:06:01] Got it. And so you — therefore, and this is another reason why folks may be surprised I would have you on the show, is that you don’t control your pricing. I mean, the pricing is what it is. You don’t have any control over it. You’re not able to raise it or even lower it or whatever but it is what it is. And you have no influence over that at all?

Steve Aleksandrowicz: [00:06:23] That is correct, yeah.

John Ray: [00:06:24] So you’re really in a situation where you’re in a highly competitive industry, no ability to control your price, in an industry where there’s a lot of not just a lot bigger companies, a lot of competition, but a lot of shady characters that are out there really hoodwinking people in a lot of ways, or at least misleading them.

So the question is like, how do you build a brand of trust in that kind of environment, right? And so did you see your industry that way when you got into it that that’s really what you were up against?

Steve Aleksandrowicz: [00:07:09] No, not at all. I thought that the insurance brokers were held to a higher level. We were like the upper echelon, and I found out differently.

John Ray: [00:07:20] Right, right. That not everybody plays by the rules.

Steve Aleksandrowicz: [00:07:24] That’s correct.

John Ray: [00:07:25] Okay. so what was the — So as you went along, you really figured out that you had to work a lot harder on engendering trust among your potential clients than you thought might be the case otherwise, right? I mean, because really, what I would — this is a question. I would think when you got into it, you’re thinking, well, people have to get Medicare at some point, right? And generally, when they turn 65 and or take Social Security, whenever that is, and so that’s a natural client for me. Right. And as it turns out, that’s not always the case because of the circumstances out there in the industry, right?

Steve Aleksandrowicz: [00:08:11] Well, over 10,000 people a day in the United States turn Medicare eligible. And I want to be one of those people to serve those folks. And there’s a lot of us out there. And then there’s a lot of big marketing companies and brokerages and so forth. And then the insurance carriers themselves, they have in-house telesales. People could call in. People can go in on the web.

So Medicare beneficiaries have a lot of access. It’s just going through the sea of finding what’s going to work for them as far as figuring all this out. And on a local level, I’m bringing the solutions to the table and trying to make it easy for my clients and really trying to share all and then some that they need to know so that their journey going forward, they’re going to have proper coverage. And they’re also going to know they have a guide they can trust and know when they have a question or have a concern, they got somebody to lean on, not just an 800 number.

John Ray: [00:09:21] So, Steve, as you figured out the industry, you learned the reality of this industry. And you figured out, hey, I’m going to have to work harder to develop that trust among people because people are jaded. What did you do?

Steve Aleksandrowicz: [00:09:38] Well, you work harder and you work smarter. And first off, surround yourself with good people. Stay compliant. Stick to the rules. And don’t worry about what the other guy is doing right or wrong, but focus on taking care of each and every one of the people you serve. If you do them right and you take care of them right, then what’s going to happen is you’re going to have free advertising.

And it doesn’t happen overnight. You have to build it. You have to work it. But if you continue to work it and do really what should be done right to begin with, you’re going to naturally grow your business.

John Ray: [00:10:24] Okay. That said, you have — you’re part of a bigger agency. It’s not just you. You’re part of a bigger agency. You are not — we talked about this before we came on. You don’t have a big social media presence. You don’t have your own website. And with all the SEO bells and whistles, you don’t have billboards. You don’t have, you know, all the things that other people spend a lot of money on. You have built your practice basically one at a time.

Steve Aleksandrowicz: [00:11:07] Exactly.

John Ray: [00:11:08] So talk about how that happened and how you — number one. And number two is how you were able to maintain the patience to do that.

Steve Aleksandrowicz: [00:11:18] Yeah. Patience for sure. One person at a time, because it requires a lot of patience when you’re working with seniors. You have to have that compassion. But building the business, which doesn’t happen overnight, I’ve actually been in the recruiting end of people looking to do what I do. And they all think it’s easy because they just look at Steve and say, Oh, hey, he has a large clientele. Must be easy to do. He can do it, I can do it.

Well, yes, if I can do it, you can do it, but you have to you have to put in your time. And that starts with going out and marketing yourself. Since we’re limited in the industry and we really can’t, we could, it just wouldn’t be cost effective to advertise in the newspaper or run billboards or mass mailers. And by the way, they do sell mailing lists for people turning 65. And I tried that a couple of times and I found out that there were 1000 people that were buying the same list I was buying. So that was pretty much as good as toilet paper.

John Ray: [00:12:31] Sure.

Steve Aleksandrowicz: [00:12:32] So at the end of the day, I had to work on me, and I had to work around the people around me. So whether it was networking at the Greater North Fulton Chamber Pro Alliance or going to, you know, talking to people at church, at social events, family members, friends, neighbors, you know, when you’re having a conversation, you better have the word of what you do.

In my case, I sell Medicare health insurance products. And if it’s a subliminal message, but I put that in everybody’s head and let them know. I also let them know about how passionate I am about it. I think if you can bring the power of the message that you’re passionate about taking care of people, then the rest of it will happen naturally, but you’ve got to give it time to build and you’ve got to utilize your resources. And that’s really all the people around you, any which way you can. So you can’t go just down, somebody’s walking down the street and tackle them and say, hey, you know what? I do?

John Ray: [00:13:39] But oh, come on, that doesn’t work?

Steve Aleksandrowicz: [00:13:43] Oh, it’s actually prohibited by law. And again –.

John Ray: [00:13:46] Really? Okay.

Steve Aleksandrowicz: [00:13:47] Yeah. Although you wouldn’t know it sometimes.

John Ray: [00:13:49] All right.

Steve Aleksandrowicz: [00:13:50] So I always — I feel if you stay on the right side of the rules that were set forth, you’re not going to have a problem.

John Ray: [00:14:00] Yeah. Well, but let’s set the context here. So you started in 2011. You started with how many clients?

Steve Aleksandrowicz: [00:14:13] Twelve.

John Ray: [00:14:14] You have how many clients today?

Steve Aleksandrowicz: [00:14:16] Approximately 500.

John Ray: [00:14:18] So that’s over. Congratulations on that success, by the way. So we’re about 12 years into it, right? And you’ve gone from 12 clients to over 500. So I’m sure that was not a straight line, though, that it took a lot of time and shoe leather and relationship building in the early years to get some momentum going in your practice, right?

Steve Aleksandrowicz: [00:14:48] Oh, absolutely.

John Ray: [00:14:49] Yeah, talk about that.

Steve Aleksandrowicz: [00:14:50] So, yeah, it’s an investment of time. You know, I always tell new agents coming on, you know, you’re in a business that doesn’t take a lot of working capital. You’re not a brick and mortar. You’re not financing $2 million. But what you have to do is you have to go out there and utilize your time and effectively reach out to people, let them know what you’re doing.

And like my situation, what we do at the Bonnie Dobbs Medicare and Other Red Tape organizations, we get involved in the community. So Bonnie is a proud sponsor of North Fulton Senior Services, and we’ll go around to do Medicare presentations at their various locations. We get involved in the community and it might be a church, might be the Pearl Alliance or Greater North Fulton. Wherever it may be, we like to go out and teach Medicare.

And if you can show that you have knowledge about what you do, then people will gravitate to you because, oh, obviously, if they can teach it, they must know a thing or two. And of course, we have to be careful when we are out doing Medicare presentations, we have to be compliant. There are certain rules in place. There’s no advertising. There’s no brand recognition other than Medicare and Other Red Tape and Steve Aleksandrowicz. That’s the brand I’m pushing.

John Ray: [00:16:17] Right. Gotcha. And one of the things that we’ve talked about in another context is, unlike what people may think, there’s a real local aspect to Medicare, right? Explain that.

Steve Aleksandrowicz: [00:16:32] So, you know, great question, because Medicare is a federal government program, but its insurance offerings are unique, not just state to state, but from county to county. And it has a lot of variations. And when people are Medicare eligible, they’re talking to their friends and their relatives. And one person will say how great their plan is and they call me up and say, hey, I want to be on what they’re on. I say, it’s not available in your area. You know, what’s your zip code? Yeah, but you know what, here is what’s available and is probably just as good, in some cases better.

But it’s all about doing the research for each and every one of these people and finding out what option is going to be best for them. And it’s doing your homework, doing your research, knowing your products and knowing Medicare rules and regulations. There’s so much to Medicare. That’s why we call the business Medicare and Other Red Tape, because there is an awful lot of red tape involved and you have to know what you’re doing and what you’re talking about.

John Ray: [00:17:40] Yeah. Yeah. So, Steve, you — I mean I led this episode off with relating that story of hearing you say, you know, I got a call from someone who said so-and-so said to call you and you didn’t even know who so-and-so was, the original person who was referring that individual. That says something about the brand that you have established in your market. So talk about what has gone into that. And why do you think that person, and the people that make those calls, why do they make those calls? What it is that that they know about Steve that makes them want to make that call?

Steve Aleksandrowicz: [00:18:34] John, first off, when you get a call from somebody you don’t know and the person they referred to you or referred me, I don’t know, I call that priceless. You can’t put a price on that. That’s just huge. And it doesn’t happen, obviously, just overnight. You have to build on that.

And that’s why you have to do your homework and work with your clients and everybody around you. Let them know what you do. Let them know you are passionate about taking care of them and doing it right. Let them know that you’re the guy in town locally that’s going to be there for them. And I think when you emphasize on that, you’re putting out a message and you’re letting people know that you’re really serious about what you do and that’s taking care of people. And they’ll relay that message to others who are seeking.

Because when you have 10,000 plus people a day turning Medicare eligible, there are a lot of fish in the sea. And they’re they’re lost. They’re lost. They’re not in the school. They’re lost. Nemo is out there trying to, you know, go home. And my job is to find Nemo, bring him in and give them first off.

There’s such a huge anxiety level when these people are new to Medicare because it’s a completely new way to receive their health insurance. They have been told, you know, their employer said, here’s your choice for next year or here’s the only option for next year, and this is how much it’s going to cost. And this is the plan you have. All of a sudden now you’re turning Medicare eligible.

Many people, they’re forced to have to go to Medicare. What do they do and what options are they going to get? How do they do it? And Steve’s job is to, you know, bring that all to the table, educate them and find the solutions to their situation. And, you know, when you can get people to refer your name, you know you’re doing something right. So I feel I’ve been doing it right by trying to go ahead and just, you know, work in the streets and working with my clients and working with my contacts and building a rapport.

It’s kind of a formula that takes time to develop. But once you find that people are paying attention, you make sure you work hard to, number one, take care of the people that have been referring. You give them a big thanks, number one.

And number two, turn around and make sure you take good care of the person that they sent, because that referral shines not just on me, but on my referral source. That person, I need to make them look good. I always take great value out of a referral as somebody has sent me somebody and they put a great deal of trust in me. And I never take that lightly. So it’s all about just doing a good job every day.

John Ray: [00:21:52] Yeah. We were again talking offline and you talked about developing, I guess the mousetrap. You call it the mousetrap.

Steve Aleksandrowicz: [00:22:05] Yeah.

John Ray: [00:22:05] Yeah. So, I mean, dig a little deeper on what that mousetrap looks like.

Steve Aleksandrowicz: [00:22:11] So, you know, I had to find out how my mousetrap was going to be built because I was like, okay, here I am. I have all the knowledge about Medicare and I have the array of products to sell. Now, what do I do? I got to find people. And you can’t just tackle them off on the street. So you have to work it.

And, you know, everybody has their place. Our agency, for instance, we not only do a lot of educational events, which there is no cost for, but that’s one of them. People just, you know, learning about Medicare and learning that you’re a credible source. But, you know, we might have a table at an event. There’s a lot of health events, health expos. Matter of fact, I’m going to be, April 20th, I’ll be in Forsyth County at the Lanier Tech. They’ll have over 100 vendors. I’ll be one of them.

And when I’m at that networking event, I always have a partner at the table because it’s not just standing and manning the table and greeting people going by. That’s all good. But you also have to walk the room, go talk to the other vendors, go meet the other people out there, because a lot of those can be your referral sources or maybe somebody they know will be your referral source.

You always have to remember when you’re in the world of building a business and networking, it’s not the immediate person that you’re talking to. It’s probably going to be somebody they know. So you have to look at the fact that, okay, okay, if I’m looking for people 65 and older, why would I talk to a 45-year-old? Because that 45-year-old might have a parent and they might have a relative, a friend, a neighbor who is. And if they know about me, that’s how it all works. It’s kind of like spreading the word.

John Ray: [00:24:14] Right. Right. So, Steve, you mentioned too, again we were talking about this offline. You mentioned that as you develop this mousetrap, which it sounds like involves you’re talking to a lot of people every day. You said you doubled down when COVID came. The pandemic changed how you’re able to do what you do. So talk about what you doubled down on.

Steve Aleksandrowicz: [00:24:42] Yeah, great question, because I thought the world was going to end. I had a lot riding on me because at the time of the pandemic, I went from part time to full time just 18 months prior. And now how am I going to be reaching out to people when there’s all these restrictions? So I had to kind of rethink the mousetrap and figure out what needed to be done.

Well, Zoom was a big thing coming on board. And immediately anybody that was doing a network event via Zoom, I was there. Also, working with my clients 90 percent. Prior to COVID, 90 percent of my client meetings were one-on-one in person. And now, that completely flipped around to 90 percent had to be done virtual on the phone, over Zoom. And I was even teaching some of my clients, you know, technology.

And so you had to have some patience and compassion for these people because they were thrown into it, too, and they didn’t have any choices.

John Ray: [00:26:02] Absolutely.

Steve Aleksandrowicz: [00:26:02] But we made it work. And it just — so I had to get tech savvy and, you know, an old dog learning new tricks while I had to do it. And so what happened post-COVID is a lot of that technology that I learned with Zoom and all these different ways of working with technology kept going. And so now in our new post-COVID world, now I’m kind of about probably 70 percent virtual and 30 percent one-on-one.

What I have to say is if you can work with your clients via Zoom, not just for convenience, but in fact, I’m licensed in four states. I’m not down in Florida every week, but I am any day of the week, they want to talk to me on Zoom. And I’m in Alabama. I’m in South Carolina. As well as the state of Georgia.

And all of that that I learned during COVID and kind of reconstructing the mouse trap worked. It paid off. And those are challenges that we get, all of us in business, get thrown at situations because, you know, if there’s an ice storm and you got a brick and mortar, you’re not going to have clients coming in. How are you going to reach out and serve those people? That’s kind of the analogy I look at. You know, how do you put out a fire? So I try to play fire man as the best way I could, and I utilized every tool I can learn about.

John Ray: [00:27:41] All right. Yeah. And it strikes me that the senior population, I’m making a broad generalization and broad generalizations are dangerous. I understand that. But the senior population has traditionally been a pretty trusting generation, right?

Steve Aleksandrowicz: [00:28:05] Very much so.

John Ray: [00:28:05] Yeah. And also, a very loyal generation. So once most seniors figure out the provider, they work with, whether it’s Medicare or anything else, they’re pretty loyal. Right. And so talk about how you’ve kind of leaned into that, those characteristics to build your business.

Steve Aleksandrowicz: [00:28:34] John, first off, when I meet with a client, it’s not a quick 45 minutes. I’m going to go ahead and go over a plan, take an application, be done, drive away or zoom away. I take time out to learn about my clients, develop a relationship and a rapport. I have a great capability of memorizing a lot of my clients and right down to the names of their dogs and cats. But you know what? If you don’t have that ability, get a notepad, write it down, put together an Excel sheet, put a little note place there.

I can’t tell you how much value that brings to the conversation. I’ve had people call me up two years after I’ve last spoken with them and asked them about whatever, maybe their cat, their dog, their grandchild that was living with them. And I’ll tell you what, you can see them smile on the other end of the phone.

It’s really huge. But it’s getting to know your clients and being a little human. Take the salesperson away, set your salesperson aside for a few minutes. Sit down. Just have a nice conversation. You don’t have to spend an hour talking to people about things outside the scope of business, but just take 5 or 10 minutes out and become human.

John Ray: [00:30:05] Great advice from Steve Aleksandrowicz, Medicare and Other Red tape. He’s an insurance broker at that firm, also known as the Bonnie Dobbs Agency. So, Steve, this has been great. And you’ve, I think, given a lot of advice that’s helpful to all professional services providers.

But let’s kind of tie a bow on it here and and talk about two things. One is how your business — you see your business continuing to grow and how you will maintain that personal touch as you grow, because 500 clients, that’s a lot to work with. So talk about how you intend to keep that personal touch as you grow.

Steve Aleksandrowicz: [00:30:59] So that is definitely a challenge as you’re growing. So you don’t want to lose. You don’t want to lose the relationship with your clients. And you just got to turn around and look at tools, for instance, because the type of business I have, my limitations, things like maybe send out cards is a good opportunity. You could send out a card for somebody’s birthday, anniversary, or whatever it may be. Sometimes a phone call, even for five minutes or just, you know, an email, even.

We have so many different ways that we can utilize technology and other businesses that do kind of off sales marketing, like send out cards, for instance. I think that’s a great option for a lot of people. But you have to, as you grow, you have to have resources like right down to an Excel spreadsheet that you can look back and see who your clients, where they are, and anything you wrote down, any notes you made about them.

And try and make a daily or a weekly habit to take ten minutes out a day or half an hour or an hour a week and just reach out. Just reach out because you always want to grow. If you want to move forward, and you want to grow, you also have to look back and make sure you’re reaching out to the people that have helped build you on your path to success.

John Ray: [00:32:41] Yeah, great advice. Great advice. So any other pieces of wisdom as we wrap up here that you can offer our listeners?

Steve Aleksandrowicz: [00:32:52] Well, I just always tell people that in business and trying to grow, don’t give yourself, you know, expectations that you can’t fulfill because business has its ups and downs and roller coaster rides. And part of success is sometimes failure. And I’ve never had a failure, but I’ve had some down times and you just got turned around, regroup, reevaluate for those down times and figure out how you’re going to make it better.

And COVID was one of those. I had to figure out how I was going to work those obstacles. So you’ve just got to have a positive in mind and think about how you can take on those situations, because regardless, they’re going to happen. So you’ve just got to figure out how to keep the mousetrap going.

John Ray: [00:33:47] Yeah. Great words from Steve Aleksandrowicz, Medicare and Other Red Tape. He’s an insurance broker there. Steve, this has been great. And I would love if you could share your contact information for those that would like to be in touch with you and learn more about how you do what you do and maybe they’re interested in Medicare somewhere along the way. Let’s tell them how they can find you.

Steve Aleksandrowicz: [00:34:17] Absolutely, John. So I can be reached by telephone or text. My direct line is 404-642-5188. And then if somebody wishes to email me, they can go to Steve, S-T-E-V-E-A-Zinsurance@gmail.com. And I made the email Steve AZ because Aleksandrowicz is a lot of letters to fill in. So my last name starts with A, ends with Z. So Steveazinsurance@gmail.com. Feel free to reach out to me anytime. I love to talk and work and help people pay it forward.

John Ray: [00:35:01] That’s terrific. Steve Aleksandrowicz, thank you so much for stopping by and letting us peer under the hood of your practice. We appreciate you.

Steve Aleksandrowicz: [00:35:10] Thank you, John.

John Ray: [00:35:12] Hey, just a reminder of folks as we close, go to pricevaluejourney.com to find a link to the show archive of this series. You can also, of course, find it on your favorite podcast app. Just search the term Price Value Journey and you’ll find the show. We’d be honored if you’d subscribe if you’re not already a subscriber.

When you go to pricevaluejourney.com, you can also sign up to receive updates on my book that’s coming out later this year called The Price and Value Journey Raising Your Confidence, Your Value and Your Prices Using the Generosity Mindset Method. If you want more information on that, would like to get updates, you can sign up there and we promise you we won’t spam you or sell your email address to anyone else. So there’s that.

If you’d like to contact me directly, please feel free. John@johnray.co is my email address. I’d love to hear from you. Thank you so much again to Steve Aleksandrowicz for joining us and thank you listeners for stopping by on the Price and Value Journey.