Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Welcome to Align for Impact. I'm your host, Matthew Naylor. I started this podcast because healthcare and leadership both come down to the same thing, alignment. When people, purpose and performance connect, real impact happens.
On this show, we'll talk with entrepreneurs, brokers and change makers who are challenging what is broken in healthcare and in business and find new ways to make a difference for companies, communities and the people they serve.
This is where I really try to interview people and speak to people that are subject matter experts in the self insured employer health space, that have a unique perspective around self insured employers and also really have a passion and purpose in life, that want to live a life of impact, that have an entrepreneurial spirit, that are looking to make a difference.
And Crumbdale sits at a really interesting intersection where you have risk financing, you have healthcare services, TPAs, PBMs, you have cost containment and point solutions and then you have healthcare technology. And today we'll talk about a little about each one of those things and how Chromedale sits at the intersection of that And Jeremy, what you and your firm are doing to have a positive impact in all those areas and where you're being disruptive.
You know, I like to start Jeremy with just like really truly welcoming to the show. You know, you're the director of employee benefits at finc. You know, you, you made a transition to the best of my knowledge, to Colorado as part of your origin story here. And I like just to begin by, you know, tell us about yourself, you know, where, where are you from? Yep. How'd you get into the insurance business? How'd you end up in Colorado?
[00:01:59] Speaker B: So I am a die hard through and through New Jersey. So born and raised in North Jersey, little town called Hackettstown.
So for those of you that are not familiar, Hackettstown's got one big famous and it's Eminem Mars. So it's one of two Eminem Mars plants. So depending on the temperature and the wind, it's either smells real good or it smells like burnt chocolate and burnt butter. So that's half my family worked, worked there, kind of a super blue collar area. Grew up with single mom, worked two jobs, just kind of got a work ethic when I was, when I was young, graduated high school, went to Westmore Central and Chester, started attending County College of Morris classes at Rutgers.
Decided a year in that work was a whole lot more fun. So I worked for Trend Motors, Volkswagen which was the largest east coast Volkswagen dealer.
Got my ropes in the sales world, started cranking with that and said you know what I want To. I want to do this.
Went out to visit my brother in Colorado. So I spent a week between Breckenridge and Fort Collins and it was, it was awesome.
So in BRECKENRIDGE, There was 10 of us in a ski in ski out for four days. And I'm like, this is so much better than getting, you know, the F bomb dropped and horn honked at me. Driving up and down 80, you know, trying to go to college.
[00:03:31] Speaker A: So different than New Jersey.
[00:03:32] Speaker B: It was, it was crazy. So much. And then Fort Collins. For anyone that's ever been to Fort Collins, it is spectacular.
So I got, I got an invite from friends of my brother who moved out before I did and said, we're getting a place in the summer. I said, you call me not thinking anything of it. This is December. I got a call in May that said we're getting a three bedroom place. You got a room, it's 275amonth. That was 2001. And I made the move from, from New Jersey to Colorado and it fell in love with Colorado quickly.
I got drawn back for a very short period of time to New Jersey. So my wife, now wife I knew from eighth grade, didn't, didn't speak to her for probably five years. She went to school at Wilkes Barre in PA.
I got a random MySpace message. This is going way back, MySpace.
And my wife said, I heard you were back home. You never saw me.
And I said, you never, you never called me. And I'm like, crazy.
I haven't talked to you in six years. Who are you? Right? Just kind of joking around. And phone rang, we chatted. I flew home five times to New Jersey in three months. Ended up moving back for 10 months for her and then was like in a clinical state of depression. I was like, colorado, so nice. I miss the sun. These people are nasty to me. I don't remember what this is like. And I said, I love you, but I'm going back to Colorado with or without you. And she said, I'll try it. That was 2007.
So we moved back to Colorado in 2007 and we've been back in Colorado ever since.
So that was my New Jersey to Colorado lineage. But been in the sales world for a long period of time. And actually it took that, that move back to New Jersey to get me out of the car dealership motorsports world. So that's what I loved. I loved, still do to this day, and we'll get into that too, about how I still connected in that world. But Saturdays, nights all the time. I didn't have it right. So when you work in the car business, you're the, you're the last one in the, in the dealership. Could be a 10 o', clock, you're there on Saturdays, you're grinding it out, right? You're trying to make the deal and it's, it's every day is a new day.
So when I moved back to New Jersey, I was interviewing car dealerships, knew that I didn't really want to do that back east again. So ended up working for a company called ADP Automatic Data Process, which you're probably familiar with, largest payroll company.
And I, I, I had many roles inside of adp and my last role was, was, was managing part of their BPO and PEO division. And that's where I got into a taste of the benefits world. So I got the understanding of, of that, you know, the HR side of it, the benefits side of it, the client side of it, the payroll side of it. I had all aspects of it. So I ended up dipping my toes back in 2007, even selling some, some benefits plans back then, which then transitioned into speed up.
Had a bunch of COIs that I was referring business to. They said well why don't you just come sell insurance for a living? And I said no way. You guys are sleazy. This is not the world I want to be in. And I said I don't want that reputation. I said well have you ever heard of residual income? And I said what's that? And they said well, you don't have to start over every year. And I said when do I, when do I start? That was it, that was, that was my, that was my job straight into in benefits in 2010. Yeah.
[00:07:02] Speaker A: And you've been at FNIC for fifth.
[00:07:05] Speaker B: So now actually we, so a couple agencies before FNIC, but myself and a partner of mine were contemplating after being a different agencies and kind of seeing the right way to do it, the wrong way to do it. PNC driven agencies, not.
We were contemplating actually going out on our own and starting our own thing.
You know, I was of the belief, hey, I'm making a lot of people a lot of money, but I'm having to fall in line, right? I'm having to just quote what the agency's persistency bonus. It was right. So quote in the United's quoting the signals, quoting the, you know, just the, the incentive aspect of it versus what was right for the client which then prompted me to want to really go out on my own and do it. So I Actually approached a good friend of mine who worked for FNBO Bank. So phenomenal. Family owned bank, 160 years out of the Midwest.
Omaha, Nebraska, First National bank of Omaha.
And he said, yeah, instantly within 30 seconds, craziest conversation. I said, I need about 2 to 3 million bucks. I want to start this, go buy my book, start this on my own. He goes, yeah, so sounds good. Like that was easy. This. Should have asked earlier. And he said, but before you do that, we've been trying to get into Colorado, we have an insurance arm and trying to get into Colorado for a long time either. Other agencies don't want to sell. We haven't found the right people.
Would you be interested in listening? I'm like working for somebody else again. I don't, I don't know, but I'll listen, right? If you're willing to give me a couple million, I'll listen at least.
And I got a text about four or five days later that says the president of the agency wants to talk to you. Said, okay, sounds good. Given my cell phone, less than 60 seconds, my phone, I remember it vividly because we have terrible cell phone reception on our street. Main road going up and down, busiest road in Fort Collins, but terrible, terrible phone reception. So I pull into a Walmart parking lot. The only way I knew in the Walmart parking lot I'd have good phone reception.
An hour and a half later, after speaking with the head of, head of sales at the time and the Scott Hill, the agency president, we hit it off.
But I knew, I'm like, well, it's exciting, right? I'm selling him, he's selling me. We're selling each other on each other.
Let's slow play this. And it was about a four or five month timeframe.
Feeling it out, still grinding nose to the ground, making sure I was hitting my numbers still, you know, finished that year at the previous agency, you know, as the top broker.
But it really took the meeting with the ownership group of FNBO Bank.
The family aspect of it is what sold me because they said we clearly tried to do this our way and buy our way into the state.
It didn't work.
And he said, and I'm a big man of faith.
He said to me, he goes, whether you believe in God or not, we were going to be talking in the next.
Said, what do you mean? He said, we have a list and you were top of the list from multiple carriers as to, well, if we can't buy our way in, who should we go get?
Which was super flattering. At the time. Right. And I say that out loud just more for my own ego than anything, but that was it. It was started maybe August, September culminated December 15th of 2022. And first time that the company had gone from scratch without buying their way into a different market.
And we started Fnic Colorado December 15, 2022.
[00:10:49] Speaker A: Wow.
It's a really cool story because like I didn't know this part of your story. You know, you got a lot in there around like grit and determination and self belief and just a lot of awesome things when I think about leadership and how to build great businesses.
Tell us about FNIC today. Like how big is the business? What do you guys focus on?
[00:11:14] Speaker B: So it's a super unique.
I'm sure there'll be several people that say that it's unique in the fact that it is bank owned.
We're the second largest bank owned insurance agency in the country. Really we are.
But it's even crazier that that bank is owned by one family.
[00:11:34] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:11:35] Speaker B: So technically if you, if you look, we're one of the largest family owned agencies if you look at that aspect of it. So Clark Lawrence and The Lawrence and family. 167 years, sixth generation. Clark is mid-40s, one of the most phenomenal humans I've ever, ever met.
He's of the belief if we're going to bank and we're going to be in the community, we might as well have an insurance arm to ensure the same thing we're lending.
Their goal isn't to just go gobble up California and Idaho and everywhere around the world just because an agency is for sale is if we have banking in that market. We want the insurance arm to be side by side because we want to make sure the community has all aspects of what we can offer.
So FNBO as a whole again, 160 plus years banking. They are Omaha through and through. So you have crop, ton of crop, you have agricultural, you have property casualty, you have benefits, you have personal lines, so on and so forth. So we are a true independent agency that has all aspects of it.
But I would say that one of our technically our fastest growing because of an acquisition sector is crop. Our second would be employee benefits. Our employee benefits, I think our agency as a whole is about 75 million.
We are on pace by 2030 to be $100 million agency which is, which is great.
And our benefits arm is probably somewhere between 15 to 20 million.
And if I have anything to do with it, I think we're going to make that the fastest Growing sector.
It's just, it's a, a hard industry to get into in the Midwest or in a preconceived state of Blue Cross has just always been here. Kind of boring. Don't want to get into it. So I think the hardest part for us to get to that next level is finding the right talent to believe in next wave of thinking and then also find the right clients that are willing to step out of that traditional buka box and start thinking alternative strategy.
[00:13:46] Speaker A: And Jeremy, let's talk about that for a second. You know, you and your firm around being innovative, creative and disruptive. What, what, what are some of the things that you're doing that allow you to stand out in a pretty crowded space?
[00:13:59] Speaker B: Yeah.
So I can tell you. Colorado, a unique part of our agency is market demographics change big time. So Illinois, Omaha, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Colorado, none of those markets are the same. Maybe Iowa and maybe Omaha. Right. They're very close.
North Dakota, South Dakota are even completely different. Illinois, drastically different. Right. So Illinois is a very Blue Cross Blue Shield, which is great. We have phenomenal relationships, ton of business work, real well.
Some of our brokers in Illinois are of the belief of these no one, no one wants to listen to anything because they're so used to Blue Cross.
So when I came on board, my goal, through trial and error. Right. Through other agencies and through touting. Again, nothing against our other partners in the Bucha's world, we need them greatly. Right. And they serve a great role.
But getting the demographic, sorry, your group's running well, but the demographics change slightly. So that'll be an 18% or. Sorry, they're not, they're not big enough. So, you know, we're going to go on manual and it'll be 23% without any, any, you know, any chance of negotiation. So I think that was part of the reason even going back to me wanting to start my own thing is I didn't want to fall in line. I just felt like I was a me too. And I'm not a me too type of person. So I hunkered down back in probably 2017, 18, 19 and vowed to learn everything that is not normal about this.
Crazy enough and we talked about it previously, but Buzz's second month on the job in Tampa, Florida. Buzz was out on a road show with Jake down at a Insight. So Ignite was the name of the conference. Insight. Larry Lenny. Shout out to Larry Lenny, great mentor of mine was, was teaching things back in 2018 about having more of a consultative conversation versus just quote and pray, right? So I didn't want to be a quote and pray broker. So I learned what does self funding mean? Because back then it was level funded, maybe graded funded if you're slightly intelligent in the world. And I'm like, I don't want anything to do with that. Tell me about carve outs, tell me about Captives, right? Let's learn about every aspect and start having different conversations, right? So Larry taught me to not just ask for a spreadsheet and ask for a budget, but to dive deeper and find out what are you trying to accomplish with this benefit. What are you trying to accomplish not only today, but five years from now, ten years from now? And are you trying to do it for the business or you're trying to do it for the employees? Or do your employees drive your business so that the employees are most important and if they are affected positively, the business wins? And that's just, I guess, the background of, of the why. And that came with everything under the sun, from diving into specific Rx carve out, to diving into Captives, to diving into, I mean even giving up some control and using off site, telephonic, in person enrollment firms to boost education, right? So you can put out a product, you can put out an idea, you can put out a culture driving change, but if you don't educate to the hilt, none of it will matter.
[00:17:42] Speaker A: It's interesting because as a broker and as an agency, I'm sure you get a lot of point solution and maybe point solution fatigue.
How do you go about finding really good partners that are aligned with, you know, you, your agency, your mission, your vision, your values? How do you, how do you, how do you do that?
[00:18:06] Speaker B: Phenomenal question. You, you, you couldn't be more right. I, I would say even, even being here today, I can probably go in my inbox and find five that I just swipe and delete and there could be some good information in there. And it's just at some point and it takes work, I mean it takes a ton of work to identify what type of market, industry, product, culture you want to be focused on. And then the interview process begins, right? So the interview process, meaning who's, who's the players in the game? How are they operating? Let me get some references, let me do some checks. And then to me, and again, not, not a plug. Even though we're, we're here with Crumbdale, to me it's all about the people inside, right? So you could have the best possible product solution in the world, but if you have the Wrong people delivering it, it won't matter.
I am a huge believer of give before you shall receive. So what I mean by that is, is I like to, whether it be with my clients, whether it be with my COI partners, like, I'm going to, I'm going to give you everything that I have, and then in return, I know you know the karma word, it's going to come back tenfold, right? So when I trust in a partner, trust in a solution, I'm like, okay, I'm going to give you. Here you go. Here's 3, 4, 5, 6 opportunities. Show me what you got.
Where, you know, I see a lot of people playing hardball. It's like, well, you give me everything you have, maybe, maybe I'll give you a little bit. I'm like, here's what I have to offer. Here's what my, you know, because, because if you got it, my clients are going to win, right?
And when I threw Crumbdale back in 2018, 19, a wicked idea at a previous agency I was at, they clung onto it. Wasn't, wasn't common to them, but it was like, we like it.
Give us a little bit of time, we'll figure out a solution. Ninety days later, the solution was there. Rolled out a product exclusive to our marketplace, right? So when I evaluate it, I evaluate, not only does it fit what I'm trying to accomplish and what my clients need, but are the people there. And one of the biggest questions I ask, and I ask it through and through, and at the end of the day, right, everyone's gonna either sell at some point, they're gonna, you know, management's gonna turn over, ownership might turn over, but.
And I get asked this question too, is how long are you gonna be here, right? Like, how long are you gonna be in this marketplace? Because if I put my clients at risk, if I put my reputation at risk, five years down the road, I'm 43, 10 years down the road, are you still gonna be here helping me fight this battle that we built a long term strategy for? So all that comes into play and, and I can tell you while evaluating these things, so many ideas, so many companies.
The same person that I started with is not the same person.
Maybe even the third or fourth person. That's even.
[00:21:04] Speaker A: Jeremy, I love your.
You know, I can think back when I think we engaged as a, as a firm with you and your firm.
And when I speak to the lack of alignment, the lack of transparency, the lack of really good fiduciary duty, lack of really great data I'm now thinking about this opportunity that you just mentioned where you know, it sits in the right spot of the intersection. So you know, you have risk financing which is, you know, reinsurance or program management, you know, captives the sun lifes of the world. You have this healthcare services, the TPA PBMs. Then you have this cost containment networks, narrow networks, high performing networks, reference based pricing, case management, disease management and then this healthcare technology.
I think I recall this correctly. But you brought us an opportunity that was unique to your innovation.
Your idea around how to bring a network, a high performing network and bring some administrative services, not all of them, but two pieces that you thought were going to be very high performing but you wanted them to be integrated in a way that would allow you to bring something to the market that would reduce costs, produce a better outcome and create a better experience.
And I think it's probably like three, four, five years ago.
[00:22:37] Speaker B: Yeah. It would have been, it would have been 19, 20.
[00:22:40] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. How's that perform for you and your firm?
[00:22:42] Speaker B: So luckily enough for them. So it was actually at a previous where. Where this all started was at a previous agency.
[00:22:48] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:22:48] Speaker B: And it's going well. Right. They are creative.
Nothing bad to say about what they're doing.
Happen to be a highly PNC driven.
So to me, my eager willingness to spread the wings.
[00:23:04] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:23:05] Speaker B: Spread the wealth. Yeah. Was not the. That vision wasn't there. What they have and what they're doing with it is awesome.
[00:23:11] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:23:12] Speaker B: What we decided to do with Crumbdale and that our new agency, the Wings are as wide open as it gets. Y and the creativity, I think it increases on a regular basis. Right. So you, you were spot on though. Right. The market by us had none of that.
Had, had no employee engagement, had no cost containment parameters outside of maybe a telemedicine app. Right. That was the most innovative thing for a long period of time is, you know, we have healthiest you you can call when you're home. Wow. Crazy.
And nothing else came along with it. Right. There was no follow up. So it was the how do we build in direct primary care? How do we build in, you know, at home visits? How do we build in pharmaceutical rebates? You can actually keep that. Like those are pieces, you know, when you start investigating what the market has to offer, you're like, I can actually put all those puzzle pieces together and it doesn't have to be under one big box with a giant logo everybody's seen before.
That is, that's the fun part, the challenging part is to get the, the, the clients in the community to believe that, you know, the puzzle pieces that isn't, you know, the Pepsi, Coke, sprite of the world to believe that that is truly the best solution. So it comes with a ton of education where again, going back to, if you have the right people that can help you tell the story with the right answers and the right data behind it, people will buy it.
[00:24:44] Speaker A: You know, it's interesting to me, Jeremy, that, you know, you have lots of, you and your firm have lots of choices, you know, to pick from in a, in a very large, highly fragmented market.
You know, you've, you know, we're one of your partners, not 100% of your business, but you, you picked Crumbdale for, you know, some of your level funded business. You've picked us for some of your captive business. You've leaned on us and picked us for some of you, maybe your PBM business.
You know why?
[00:25:22] Speaker B: Yeah, so a lot of reasons.
And again, it's tough as a broker to claim friendship alliance allegiance with another specific carrier because LinkedIn, everybody, everybody's best friend professionally. You know, you post something that says, you know, hey, great event, great success with this company and then you get the bookers of the world, then you get the other captives of the world. It's like, whoa. Well, he's, he's a, that guy, right?
And I do it proudly because I do it with going to market with those other players. I do it with going side by side and not being exclusive.
And I love the fact that when I give an opportunity to Crumbdale, it's an honest opportunity with transparency. This is, by the way, X, Y and Z is coming to play as well.
And Crumbdale doesn't even blank. They're like, that's fine because we're going to put our best foot forward. We're not going to change it because you told us somebody else is in there. This is what we have. This is the best case scenario.
And eight out of 10 times, right? To your point, it's not 100% whether, whether the group's health, whether the network just doesn't make sense, whether, you know, there's a need that is not available.
But 8 out of 10 times with confidence, and I can tell you that to this day, not a single one of those groups that I've placed has left. That's huge. I can't say that with any one of my other carriers, right? So we have, we have a good amount of business on three different, four different types of funding. Whether it be stop Loss only, whether it be RX only integrated health solutions, multiple captive groups now and they're all performing well. And I think the biggest part, and John's going to love me internally is the fact that from Dale has an advocacy team that will handhold every single one of the most important parts of every one of my groups which is the employees will hold their hand through from start to finish on any scenario that they get into with the data. For us behind the scenes to back it up that says we contacted the problem was here's who was involved, here's the solution and here's the result. Here's even the survey that the employee took afterwards it said were satisfied everything was completed. So that doesn't happen.
There might be other vendors, you know in my inbox after this might might say hey we got that too great, I'll welcome it. Because if the end of the day, if, if you know there's other solutions out there that help my client, that's what matters. But to this point I haven't found something as consistent that checks those boxes and gets the you know, clients calling saying hey thanks so much. They took care of my situation. They, they got my script filled, they eliminated cost for me, they got the, the, the provider to key in my name. Right. Whatever it may be. They identified the problem, they solved it in a very short period of time. And you know, and we're moving forward. So for that that's the reason I think I of the crowd and market why we continue to put business.
[00:28:46] Speaker A: Is there anything that you're working on that you're thinking of not where the market is but where the market's going that you see that's evolving that you're excited about?
[00:28:55] Speaker B: Yeah, actually had a meeting yesterday, a group probably 600 employees, 1300 members, they're in a specific agriculture industry and they asked hey well we've got a lot of other folks in the same industry.
What if we compile all of these like minded businesses together?
Can we form our own captain? Right? Can we.
We're already meeting in, in meetings regarding seed water rights.
Hay you, you name it, right.
Why not get us all on the same page, get the heads that are already communicating together and why don't we tackle this health care thing as a whole. So if I can make a, find a niche, multiple niches and take a large population of folks, bring them a solution.
Because when one good gets spread. Gets spread. Gets spread it impacts a whole lot more people. And specific to certain industries you have hesitance inside the employee aspect of it because they're not educated and they just say, yeah, I'm not interested. I know I have it, but I'm not going to use it because no one teaches me how to use it. So not only get inside and make an impact, but also educate the workforce on how to properly use it.
I tell this and everyone. I still do open enrollment meetings. I get criticized all the time of like, why are you wasting your time? Get somebody else to do that. Because my belief is if I build your program, if I build your solution, if I tell you this is what's going to work, but I'm not willing to educate your employees on how to make it work, I don't think there's no reason to do it.
Down the road as we grow, you know, I'd like to find somebody that can, can educate alongside of me so I, you know, can continue doing other things. But if we can get that those industries moving in the right direction and we can get the education spread, you know, more widespread, I think that's, that's the future is creating more niche areas to not just impact one organization, but maybe make a bigger impact in an entire industry.
[00:31:05] Speaker A: Jeremy, we, you know, on the risk financing side, there's lots of captive solutions out there that focus on risk financing. But I find it interesting that those vehicles allow for employers to make lots and lots of point solution choices around TPAs and PBMs and networks and cost containment, care, navigation.
What's your perspective on, like, does that, does that work when you have like, you know, you used your agriculture example and you've got a bunch of employers in the room. I can, I guess I could understand a little bit if someone wants the Aetna network versus the Anthem network.
But I really, it's confusing to me when you're all trying to have real integration and operating leverage to drive to better outcomes and lower cost. How do you do that if you have a whole bunch of different disparate providers all in the same risk financing vehicle? What's your perspective on that?
[00:32:15] Speaker B: Yeah, so there's a couple ways, I mean, to look at it, right? So I think there's a convenience factor to have everything under one little box, right. So whether that's, you know, a cigna, Aetna United, doesn't matter box, right? Everything's under there. But when you're in that box, you don't like a bit or a piece of that box.
You're in it, you're in the box. There's no ladder out, right? This you got to deal with this or if there isn't a lever to pull to educate or there isn't a level to pull to find a script outside of the country, or there isn't a lever to pull to find to get a rebate for, you know, a drug that's 80 grand, that could be eight.
So, so it's a, it's a, it's a double edged sword to where you want the convenience of having it all wrapped up, but when it's all wrapped up and it's easy, it doesn't mean it's the most efficient. So I challenge and Naisha, who's my account manager, best account manager in the world, she laughs at me all the time. It's funny because we're, we're, we're here. There's a book that we were given in the book, you know, it said something along the lines of, you know, the optimal broker challenges the status quo, you know, looks for, looks for the complicated way to go around things.
That's me, right. So I don't mind having five puzzle pieces inside because if it's the best in class data analytics that's going to deliver my client the information that will then pull the lever to get the best stop loss result. And if the stop loss carrier has a, you know, a better payment strategy with, with Anthem, which might be the best network in rural America. Right. I just named five different, I didn't name Anthem on all of it. There was five different puzzle pieces that will all work together. The key though is having proper management of all of them. Because of all five can't talk to each other. Again, you're back to square one. So having a program manager that oversees those puzzle pieces and finding best in class and knowing that each year each one of those jobs are on the line. Right. So if you're not performing network, we're going to find one that's performing better. If you're not performing, you know, pharmacy, we're going to, we're going to find somebody that can actually take the Humiras, the AstraZeneca and we're going to go get it cheaper and we're going to eliminate the cost of the employee. So I like, and I'm not scared by any means of having multiple aspects of it and actually bringing that to a larger group of folks and saying, hey, if we can control instead of just buying all of your hay from Jim's hay, right. What if, what if Sally's in, in, in Nebraska was more dense, more nutrient rich and at 10, 10 cents less, you know, per Per. Would that be more valuable? But then also sourcing this in Iowa and doing you well. Yeah. And. But if we buy it as a whole, as a conglomerate, we can get it cheaper for everybody else, and we can consistently update everybody as to where, why, and how it's working.
So these. This. This group is educating this group, and everybody wins as a whole.
So for some, they might get scared. For me, I might give me as many vendors as possible that we can vet, and let's find the best group. But I think most importantly is finding that true program manager that can keep the puzzle pieces together. Because us, our job as a broker is to go find those puzzle pieces, but then to get out there and educate in the world for multiple. We just need to make sure that, you know, whether that's the TPA side, that's the premdo, you know, captive layer, whatever that may be, that's the most important part. The puzzle pieces can interchange because they're. They're, you know, their jobs on the line. Every year, they got to perform.
[00:36:00] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, Jeremy, I really appreciate the time. Today was awesome conversation, a lot of fun, and you and your firm have a really, really bright future going forward. You guys are doing great stuff.
[00:36:10] Speaker B: We. We hope so. And if. If we can make an impact every day, that's all that matters.
[00:36:14] Speaker A: Thanks.
[00:36:15] Speaker B: Yeah. Appreciate it.
[00:36:18] Speaker A: This is Matthew Naylor. You've been listening to Aligned for Impact, sa.
