When I joined InsurTech Hub, it was a whirlwind. We had a great problem to have: leads were pouring in, referrals were coming from everywhere, and the business was growing quickly.
We recruit insurance agents across the country, support them with everything from contracting to training, and act as the bridge between agents and carriers. Today, we support more than 2,000 active agents nationwide, but when I first joined, it was just Todd, our CEO and founder, and me trying to keep up with it all.
At first, we were making it work. But as the business kept growing, it became obvious that the way we'd always done things wasn't going to get us where we wanted to go. The little workarounds that had served us well were starting to slow us down.
Looking back, that's one of the biggest lessons I've learned about scaling a business. Growth doesn't just mean more customers or more opportunities — it also means rethinking the way you work.
The systems, processes, and habits that get you to one stage of growth aren't always the ones that will get you to the next.
Here are the five biggest lessons I've learned along the way.
1. Stop relying on notebooks and spreadsheets
I'll be the first to admit it: I love writing things down. I still carry a notebook everywhere I go, and I probably always will.
But notebooks are for ideas… and not for running a growing business.
When I first joined InsurTech Hub, I think I went through three notebooks in no time. Every meeting ended with another page of notes. Every conversation created another reminder to follow up with someone. We also had spreadsheets, email threads, and sticky notes. They all served a purpose, but they weren't designed for a growing team.
As our business grew, we realized information was scattered everywhere. Some conversations lived in email, others were written in notebooks, and some only existed in someone's memory. It became harder to answer simple questions like, "Who spoke to this agent last?" or "What's the next step?"
That's when we realized we needed a CRM (Customer Relationship Management).
More importantly, we needed one place where everyone could access the same information, see the history of every relationship, and pick up where someone else left off.
That realization led us to Copper.
Looking back, implementing a CRM wasn't just about getting organized. It was about creating a single source of truth for our business. As your team grows, having everyone work from the same information becomes just as important as the information itself.
2. Choose technology your team will actually use
I'm not a technology person. In our house, we have a running joke that if something has a cord attached to it, I'm not allowed to touch it.
That's why I knew we couldn't choose a CRM that required a technical expert every time we wanted to make a change.
I've worked in Salesforce, HubSpot, Velocity, and several other systems throughout my career. They all had plenty of features, but too often, simple changes became complicated. If we wanted to customize something to fit the way our business worked, we'd have to submit a ticket and wait weeks—or even months—for someone else to make the change.
As a growing business, we didn't have time for that.
What stood out to me about Copper was how intuitive it felt. The onboarding team handled the heavy lifting, but once we were up and running, I was able to make changes myself. We created custom fields to track the products our agents sell, built different views for different team members, and tailored the system around our workflows instead of changing our processes to fit the software.
Automation also became a game changer. We use it to streamline onboarding, send welcome emails and newsletters, and assign follow-up tasks so nothing falls through the cracks. Instead of spending time on repetitive administrative work, our team can focus on building relationships with agents.
One feature I especially love is tasks. Our Director of Contracting starts every morning by working through his task list, so he always knows exactly who needs attention that day. It's a simple feature, but it's made a huge difference in keeping our team organized and accountable.
Whenever we wanted to do something new, the support team was there to help. My advice has always been, "When in doubt, ask." More often than not, the functionality already existed, we just needed someone to show us how to use it.
After about nine months, I joked that I finally felt like an IT professional because I could build the things I needed without waiting on someone else.
To me, that's what the right technology should do. It should adapt to your business, empower your team, and quietly remove friction from your day so you can focus on what matters most: serving your customers and growing your business.
3. Great follow-up doesn't happen by accident
I've had a lot of conversations recently with insurance agents who don't use a CRM at all. The thing that surprises me isn't that they're bad at sales. Most of them are great at what they do.
The problem is the follow-up.
Nine times out of ten, when an agent isn't successful, it's because the follow-up wasn't there. Maybe they got busy. Maybe they had too many leads. Maybe they thought they'd remember to call someone back tomorrow. Whatever the reason, life happens, and opportunities get missed.
That's why I believe follow-up has to become part of your process instead of something you rely on memory for.
Every morning, our Director of Contracting starts his day the same way. Before he jumps into anything else, he works through his task list and follows up with the people who need attention first. It creates consistency, and consistency builds trust.
One of the biggest mistakes I see businesses make is assuming they'll remember everything. You won't — and that's okay!
The goal isn't to have a better memory.
The goal is to build a process that supports you.
Even something as simple as leaving yourself a note to ask an agent whether they've had a chance to talk to their spouse about moving forward changes the conversation. You're not making another cold call. You're picking up exactly where you left off because you already have the context in front of you.
The businesses that grow aren't always the ones with the most leads. They're the ones that consistently follow up on the leads they already have.
4. Work smarter, not harder
If you spend enough time around me, you'll hear me say one thing over and over again: work smarter, not harder.
Whenever I notice our team doing something repetitive, I immediately start asking questions. Is there a better way? Does someone really need to do this manually every single time?
That's how we started thinking about automation.
Our Director of Contracting has a role that's incredibly repetitive. Every new agent goes through many of the same steps: emails, reminders, onboarding, follow-ups, and recurring tasks. We kept looking at those processes and asking ourselves what could happen automatically so our team could spend more time helping people instead of managing paperwork.
Today, thanks to Copper, welcome emails, monthly communication, and reminders all happen automatically.
That doesn't make our service less personal. If anything, it makes it more consistent because every agent receives the same great experience regardless of who's helping them.
One thing I've learned is that automation isn't about replacing people. It's about removing bottlenecks.
Every business has them. In insurance, an agent might start the contracting process but never finish it. Someone else might complete contracting but never write their first enrollment. Those are the moments where businesses lose momentum. And it’s not because people don't care, but because life gets busy.
The more you can identify those bottlenecks and build processes around them, the easier it becomes to move people forward.
That's not just good for your business. It's better for your customers, too.
5. Organize your data before you need it
One of the biggest mindset shifts I've had is realizing that a CRM isn't just about managing leads. It's about using the information you already have to grow your business.
When we first started, a lot of information lived in the notes. We'd write something like, "This agent sells health, life, and a little Medicare."
The problem is, you can't really build a business from information that's buried inside notes.
Instead, we started thinking differently about the data we were collecting.
One of the questions we ask every new agent during onboarding is, "What are the top three products you sell?" Rather than typing the answer into a note, we created custom fields in Copper and simply checked a box for health, life, Medicare, and other specialties. It only took a few minutes to set up, but it completely changed how we could use that information later.
For example, we're rolling out a new program at InsurTech Hub. Because we've consistently tracked which products our agents sell, we can instantly pull a list of every health insurance agent and send them information that's actually relevant to them.
We're not digging through spreadsheets, we're not reading old notes, and we're not trying to remember who specializes in what.
The information is already there because we took the time to organize it from the beginning.
The same idea applies across our business. Our recruiter, who works out of Florida, wanted an easier way to prioritize her calls based on time zones. Instead of manually sorting through hundreds of leads every morning, we customized her view so she could filter by state and start with the right people at the right time. It sounds like a small change, but when you're making calls all day, little efficiencies add up quickly.
That's the thing about good data. It's not about collecting more information. It's about collecting the right information so you can make better decisions faster.
What I’d tell any growing business
If there's one thing this experience has taught me, it's that growth has a funny way of exposing the gaps in your business. What works when you're a team of two won't necessarily work when you're supporting more than 2,000 agents.
Looking back, I'm grateful we invested in our processes as early as we did. Copper became an important part of that journey — and not because it's just a CRM, but because it gave us the flexibility to build a business that could grow without everything becoming more complicated.
I've joked before that Copper feels like adding another employee...actually, another five. Not because technology replaces people, but because it gives your team the tools to spend less time searching for information and more time building relationships, supporting customers, and moving the business forward.
If you're growing, my advice is simple: don't wait until your systems start breaking before you improve them. The right technology is important, but even more important is building processes your team can rely on every single day.
At the end of the day, growth isn't just about getting bigger. It's about creating a business that's ready for whatever comes next!
