Toby Hedges: The Specific Tactics That Scale an Insurance Agency (Part 2)

Part 1 of our conversation with Toby Hedges established the mindset and beliefs that underpin his agency's success. Now it's time to get specific. What does Toby actually do differently, day in and day out, that produces results worth talking about?

The answer won't surprise you if you've been paying attention: it's fundamentals, executed with unusual consistency. But the details matter, and Toby has the details figured out.

The Operational Reality Behind Toby's Results

Toby's agency runs on documented processes. Every role has a written playbook. Every client interaction has a defined flow. New agent onboarding follows a structured 60-day curriculum that includes product knowledge, scripting practice, and monitored call reviews. None of this is revolutionary, but almost none of it is standard practice in most agencies.

The call review process deserves special attention because it's where most of Toby's agent development actually happens. Reviewing calls isn't just about catching mistakes, it's about accelerating learning. An agent who gets specific, actionable feedback on three recorded calls per week develops faster than one who works for six months without structured coaching. Toby budgets this time because he's done the math on what it costs when agents don't develop.

His retention process is equally structured. Every client has defined touchpoints, a 30-day welcome call, a 90-day check-in, an annual review scheduled at policy inception. These aren't aspirational; they're tracked in the CRM and assigned to specific team members with completion deadlines. The result is a retention rate that makes his book genuinely valuable and makes the economics of every new client look completely different.

Toby's Key Tactical Insights

The 30-day welcome call is the most underused retention tool in the industry. Toby's team calls every new client 30 days after policy issuance, not to sell anything, but to confirm everything went smoothly, answer any questions, and start building a relationship that extends beyond the sale. The data on policies that receive this call versus those that don't is stark: the ones that get the call stay at significantly higher rates.

Role clarity reduces friction and increases output. In Toby's agency, everyone knows exactly what they're responsible for and exactly what "good" looks like in their role. This sounds basic, but the number of agencies where roles are fuzzy, expectations are implicit, and accountability is inconsistent is enormous. When everyone knows their number and owns their function, the whole machine runs cleaner.

Training is an ongoing process, not an onboarding event. Most agencies front-load training: two weeks of orientation, then the new agent is on their own. Toby treats the first 90 days as a structured apprenticeship with decreasing supervision and increasing autonomy. The outcome is agents who hit their stride faster and stay longer because they feel genuinely supported rather than thrown into the deep end.

The best cross-sell conversations happen during service calls. When a client calls in to make a change, report a claim, or ask a question, they're already engaged. Toby's team is trained to listen for life events and coverage gaps during these conversations and make natural, relevant offers. A client calling to add a car to their policy is often the right moment to ask about umbrella coverage. Done well, this doesn't feel like selling, it feels like service.

Recognize performance publicly and address underperformance privately. Toby's culture is explicit about this. Public recognition creates the aspirational standard. Private performance conversations preserve dignity and keep agents coachable. Getting this backwards, criticizing publicly and praising quietly, destroys team morale faster than almost anything else an agency owner can do.

What This Means for Your Agency

If you have more than two agents, you need written role documentation. Not because of bureaucracy, because clarity is a form of respect. People perform better when they know what's expected. Take one role in your agency this week and write out what "excellent performance" actually looks like in that seat: what activities they do daily, what metrics they own, what success looks like at 30, 60, and 90 days.

Then schedule your own version of Toby's 30-day welcome call for every new client going forward. Assign it to someone on your team, create the CRM trigger, and write a simple script. It takes less than five minutes per call and the retention impact is real. Start next week with the clients you wrote in the last 30 days who haven't received one yet.

Finally, do one call review with one agent this week. Listen to a recorded call together, identify two things they did well and one thing to improve, and make the whole conversation about growth rather than evaluation. That's the cadence, two positives, one improvement, every time, that keeps agents open to feedback instead of defensive.

The Bottom Line

Toby Hedges built a remarkable agency by being remarkably consistent with unremarkable fundamentals. There's nothing in his playbook that requires a special market, a huge budget, or an extraordinary talent. It requires discipline, documentation, and the willingness to invest in your team before you feel like you can afford to. That investment always pays off.

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