In this episode of Business Refocused, Carey and Lindsay explore how agency benchmarking is helping independent insurance agencies gain deeper financial visibility and make more informed business decisions. As more agency owners look beyond valuation and focus on long-term performance, health checks have become a powerful tool for measuring growth, profitability, book health, staffing efficiency, and operational risk. Carey and Lindsay discuss how agencies can use benchmarking data to underst...
Jun 9
26 min
In this episode of Business Refocused, Carey and Lindsay sit down with Patrick McClure of Impact Performance Team to talk about one of the biggest challenges agency owners face: creating a true sales culture. Patrick shares his journey from commercial insurance producer to sales leader and entrepreneur, helping independent agencies improve sales performance, develop producers, recruit talent, and build accountability across their organizations. What started as sales coaching has evolved into ...
May 26
33 min
In this episode of The Insurance Refocused Podcast, Lindsay and Carey Wallace welcome Beth DeLaForest back to the show to talk about Launchpad, a new webinar series designed to help the next generation of insurance professionals learn, grow, and build meaningful industry connections. Beth and Carey share why knowledge transfer matters more than ever as experienced leaders prepare to exit the industry and younger professionals step into bigger roles. They discuss the value of mentorship, outsi...
May 19
30 min
In this special re-release, we’re sharing an episode originally featured on Nina Shepard's Insurance Leaders Lab Podcast. Carey joins Nina to talk about financial clarity for independent insurance agency owners. They discuss why waiting until you're ready to sell is a mistake, how your compensation structure could secretly be tanking your agency's value, and the three key drivers that determine what your business is really worth—growth, profitability, and transferability. Originally fea...
May 12
41 min
In this episode of Business Refocused, Carey and Lindsay break down what they’re seeing from real agency benchmarking data and how top-performing insurance agencies are driving growth and profitability. They walk through the key metrics that matter most, including organic growth, profitability, staffing, technology spend, and revenue per employee. More importantly, they explain how these metrics work together and what actually drives performance inside an agency. One of the biggest takeaways ...
May 5
18 min
In this episode of Business Refocused, Todd Hufford interviews Carey and Lindsay Wallace on the story behind AgencyFocus, how they each found their way into insurance, and what it took to grow the business beyond agency valuation. Carey shares how a role with the PIA of Ohio led her into valuation, perpetuation planning, and data analytics, eventually becoming the foundation for AgencyFocus. Lindsay shares her own path into the industry and how her experience helped shape the company’s next s...
Apr 28
45 min
In this episode of Business Refocused, Lindsay and Carey sit down with Todd Hufford, CEO of Conner Insurance, to talk about on a topic that’s shaping the future of agencies: bringing in young talent. The conversation starts light but quickly gets into something more meaningful. Todd shares how his perspective on time, shaped early in life, led him to think long-term about building an agency. Not just for today’s revenue, but for the next generation of leaders. Todd shares how Conner Ins...
Apr 21
21 min
In this episode of Business Refocused, Carey and Lindsay sit down with Nicole Malachowski, retired U.S. Air Force Colonel and the first female Thunderbird pilot, to talk about transition. Not just planning for it. Actually going through it. Nicole’s career ended unexpectedly after a serious illness forced her out of the role she had built her identity around. What followed wasn’t a clean next step. It was the messy middle that most people don’t talk about. Her perspective is simple and practi...
Apr 14
39 min
The agency owners who walk away from a sale feeling good aren't the ones who got lucky — they're the ones who prepared. In the final episode of this series, Carey and Matt talk about fixing problems before they become deal killers, how to know what kind of seller you are, and why the question of what comes next matters just as much as the closing number. In this episode: How to fix valuation issues before you go to marketThe three seller personas — and why knowing yours changes everythingWhat...
Apr 7
22 min
Your agency might be worth less than you think — and the reasons probably have nothing to do with your revenue. In part three, Carey and Matt dig into the valuation drivers most owners never see coming: producer-owned books, aggregator contracts, leadership concentration, and the transferability issues that quietly discount an otherwise strong agency. In this episode: Why a multiple of EBITDA is just the starting pointProducer-owned books: what they are and what they cost you at exitAggregato...
Mar 31
20 min
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