We’ve reached our fifth episode! Woohoo! This week, we discuss all things insurance for your business, as well as our fun tool and trivia segments.
- Our tool of the episode is Ripl, an easy way to enhance your social media game. Create gifs, memes, and other animations to keep your social media accounts on fleek, yo.
- In our trivia segment, we compete for the crown. Who knows more when it comes to business insurance? David fangirls over Aaron Rodgers, we decide that the Mona Lisa is definitely worth more than J.Lo’s tush, and Craig tries to cheat his way to victory.
- In this episode’s Deep Dive, we discuss the importance of protecting yourself and your business from risk. “Lawsuit-proof” your business, impress your customers, and protect yo’ stuff before your business gets too established.
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Episode Transcript
Craig: Welcome back to IWantBusiness, the Small Business Podcast. This is a milestone. The fifth episode. Mom? Just mom, ‘cause Dad doesn’t listen. Mom, thanks for listening. My name’s Craig Brooks, I’m here with with David Forman.
David: Hey, everybody.
Craig: We’ve got our producer extraordinaire in the building. Brian Fritz is here with us. He may or may not say anything.
Brian: I am here with you.
Craig: (laughs) We are gonna get things rocking and rolling on episode five, all about insurance. So we’re gonna talk about insurance, but first we’re gonna give you a tool, play a little trivia, and then take our Deep Dive into some business insurance. Our tool of the week, David’s gonna tell us all about Ripl.
David: Yeah, Craig. Ripl is this awesome tool that helps your social media. Now, let me spell it for you. It’s R-I-P-L…
Craig: Ripl.
David: Ripl. Because vowels are no good, which is great because…
Craig: Vowels are out, bro.
David: …I’m not an English major so it works out perfect for me.
Craig: Vowels are out.
David: Okay, so what Ripl does is it takes a photo or multiple photos that you have and turns them into little gifs or videos that you can upload to Instagram, to Facebook, to X and allows for a little bit more creativity in what you’re posting on social media. It’s a free tool to get started.
There’s other additional things you can add to have more templates to work with, but they give you a basic set up front. You download the app, you upload some photos into it, you then go ahead and make them into the animations that you want to use and you are good to go on having some exciting, new ways to feature some of your stuff.
Craig: It’s interesting, because there’s a lot of facts coming out, a lot of numbers about engagement. Engagement is key on social media. What are people clicking on? What are people commenting? What are they sharing?
There’s a…David, you’re gonna have to back me up on the percentages because we read a lot of articles and I’m sure a lot of you do, too, as you’re trying to grow your business…there’s a 90% increase in engagement if it’s a photo versus text. And then video takes a jump into the triple figures of engagement.
David: Up to 300%.
Craig: It’s obscene. So what that tells you is that, any time you’re doing your Facebook jam, you’re doing your thing, if you’re only writing text and you’re not attaching images and videos, you’re missing a huge amount of reach to your marketplace.
And as it is with Facebook, if you’re marketing your business with a Facebook page, you’re already up against the wall because they’re not giving you extreme reach, because they want you to pay for the boosting. So you wanna make sure you’ve got images in there, you’ve got videos in there and Ripl is a really cool way to set some of your images to a very cool background, to music, that move.
They have a free version that we’re talking about that’s limited in what it can do. And for about $10 a month, you can have the full capabilities that I’m currently using on one of my Instagram and Facebook pages. I really think it’s fun. We’re getting views out of it. And we’re seeing what can happen.
Again, this is a new thing that I’m using on my social media. There’s a reason SnapChat is so popular: it’s video. It’s instant, 15 seconds of video and Ripl allows you to do some of that and get it on your Facebook and Instagram.
David: Well, yeah. It goes beyond having a boring picture. Or if you have multiple photos, it’s about turning them into something that’s a little bit more interactive. I think gone are the days of having a basic photo up there. With people having that attention span for 15 seconds, hold onto it, show ‘em a couple things, and then they can move on and maybe you could even share a little bit more than you can with just an image.
Craig: We don’t own any stake in Ripl, we’re just trying to give you opportunities for how to get your content out there. Because content is the thing that keeps the engine going. It’s what people are gonna come back to your site for, back to your Facebook page for. Why are they gonna put you in their Instagram feed? Why are they gonna follow you?
You need to have engaging content. And even making images go through a fun slideshow, maybe a little music, some fun flair to it, that’s a difference between a still image. Again, we use the term “boring” and we use the term “engagement.” You need to make sure people are interacting with content. And Ripl does that in a very fun way.
David: And it makes it easy. Making it easy is the key for most small business owners, at this point. You don’t need to be a graphic designer to create these. You don’t need to know how to use InDesign or any of the high-end video editing products. You can do on an app on your cell phone with the photos you already took. You don’t need a DSLR camera—
Craig: Absolutely, it attaches right to your phone. It’s so simple. You can fill in two fields of text. It’ll give you a nice, little header. It lets you put your business logo in there. It’s really fun and easy to get started. Again, it is free to use right out of the gate, but if you want that full suite of capabilities, it’s gonna come in at about $10 a month.
So our tool of the episode, getting things started so you can share some content, Ripl. We’re gonna jump into our trivia segment. We’ve been moving that around a little bit, changing the format. We’re working with it so that I can win. That’s really the end result at this point.
David: Is that the plan? We’ll see about it.
Craig: We Battle Royale-d last time and I did win. I won 2-1, if you remember. I had two correct answers, you had one. So I believe the rankings are now Craig infinity wins, David one? Two?
David: We’re on episode 5 and you have infinity wins?
Craig: I have infinity wins. Brian Fritz of Podcasting Done Right, one victory.
Brian: Yeah.
Craig: One victory. You will have no more.
David: Does that mean I’m not in last place?
Craig: You’re not.
David: Yeah!
Craig: Brian’s in last place and we’ve changed the rules so that he will remain there.
Brian: And the only reason Craig’s in first place is because he’s manipulated the rules.
Craig: 100%. That’s is accurate.
Brian: Okay.
Craig: I did almost go 3 for 3 last week, I’m gonna try it today. But I’m gonna get to go first. I’m gonna hit David with three trivia questions, we are gonna be talking about insurance. Business insurance, what it means, so all these questions relate in some regard to the insurance industry.
So again, David gets first crack. It trickles down to Brian Fritz if David is unable to answer. I think you’re gonna do well here, David. Number one, Travelers Insurance is one of the largest insurance companies in the world. What is their logo? It’s in a specific shape.
David: It’s an umbrella.
Craig: That is correct.
David: Yes!
Craig: One for one right now. David, looking good.
David: Not putting up a goose egg this week.
Craig: You didn’t goose egg last week, you one-d it.
David: No, but it’s a worry of mine.
Craig: Number two, I think you’ll do well with this. “You’re in good hands” is the slogan for which insurance company? “You’re in good hands.”
David: Allstate?
Craig: Allstate, that is correct. Two for two. We’re gonna take it to a little bit more challenging on the third question.
I think you’ll see a role reversal here. I’m giving questions to David people have heard of. He’s gonna hit me with some obscure stuff. Number three, with nearly 10% of the market share, according to III, the Insurance Information Institute, which is the largest insurance company in the USA in terms of property and casualty insurance? So that’s your car, your home, your auto. They do 60 billion a year roughly in premiums.
David: That’s a good question. I’m gonna do it just based on the amount of commercials I see, and I’m gonna go with Geico.
Craig: Ooh, that is a very good guess. They are huge in auto. They must miss the mark elsewhere. I did put this question together, I think, for you again, just like last week, you missed Apple. Cupertino. Our guests don’t know you, but who’s your favorite person on earth? Other than your wife and child?
David: Oh no! Don’t State Farm me on this one!
Craig: It’s State Farm. Aaron Rodgers, the discount double-check. Again, I know you guys don’t know us well yet. Hopefully we’ll make it through many episodes and you’ll learn more. David is a fan of Aaron Rodgers. He’s a Packers fan. And Aaron is a State Farm sponsor or whatever you call that, a—
David: Spokesperson?
Craig: Spokesperson’s probably the better one. They sponsor him. He’s the spokesperson. I loaded these questions in for you, I set you up for success. Two out of three …
David: (frustrated sigh)
Brian: Aaron must be distraught. He just broke up with his girlfriend…
Craig: What?!
David: Wha?
Brian: … And now number one fan can’t even get a question right about his favorite—
Craig: Breaking news! We did not know he broke up with Olivia Munn.
David: That’s news.
Craig: He broke up with her, you’re confirmed?
Brian: It is confirmed that they have broken up.
Craig: I want to think that he broke up with her.
David: It’s to go out with me.
Craig: Wow. He would take it. David would take that. Hand holding. Big deal.
David: Wife has already approved it. So we’re good to go. (Editor note: This is true.)
Craig: Two points for David, so I will be trying to go three for three. Let’s do this.
David: So I got all mine from the wonderful site of the Guinness Book of World Records.
Craig: Hate it. Terrible resource.
David: Well, it’s some interesting facts, so I thought I would throw ‘em out there.
Craig: Hate it.
David: So according to the Guiness Book of World Records, what is the largest life insurance policy taken out on an individual? I’ll give you three options.
Craig: Terrible.
David: $101 million, $201 million, $301 million?
Craig: Now, it’s funny, I know, only learning from a friend of ours, who runs an insurance agency, that that “1” is to get it into that different level, a different cap of insurance, because they cap ‘em at, like, 99’s and 0’s. 101, 201, or 301 million. I got nothing on this. I’m gonna go…on a person? A life insurance policy?
David: Yeah.
Craig: $101 million.
David: Actually, the largest amount is $201 million.
Craig: Right in the middle. Brutal. Who’s it on?
David: They have yet to ever announce who it is, but it’s a Silicon Valley billionaire, obviously.
Craig: I bet the premium on that one is expensive.
David: Well, I think the guy has the money, or girl, whoever it is.
Craig: It’s probably Elon Musk and he pays in Teslas.
David: Nobody knows.
Craig: It’s a Tesla a month he sends to who? The Hartford or something?
David: Yeah, it was another company I hadn’t heard. But they’re obviously hoping that he sticks around for a little bit.
Craig: You set me up for failure with Guinness Records.
David: What? All right, this famous painting has the highest insurance valuation for a painting. Traveled from Paris to Washington, D.C., then New York in the 1960’s and it was insured during its travels.
Craig: For a lot of money? It traveled from where to where?
David: Paris. Kinda gives it away.
Craig: A lot of things come from Paris.
David: There’s a really famous painting there.
Craig: Yeah, at the Louvre. The Mona Lisa is the one I’m thinking of that’s there. I’m gonna go with that.
David: That’s a great, great answer, because that’s correct.
Craig: Boom, I’ll take it. Did you catch what it was insured for or no?
David: No, I don’t remember. It never said what it was, just it was the highest….
Craig: I know that Jennifer Lopez insured her tush and leg region for, like, $8 million, that was pretty cool.
David: Pretty sure it was more than that.
Craig: No, no, no!
David: No, I’m just saying the painting….
Craig: Oh!
David: It was probably more than that.
Craig: Probably. Probably, yes.
Brian: It’s up to you to decide what’s more valuable, though.
David: Yeah. The painting or the tush?
Craig: Tush and legs.
Brian: (laughing)
David: Okay. Question number three…
Craig: I can only tie on this. This is not good.
David: This insurance company got the most Facebook likes in 24 hours. Was it Allstate, Geico, or Farmer’s? It was a grassroots promotion back in 2011 to really promote them.
Craig: You won’t tell me the name of the campaign? You won’t tell me…was J.K. Simmons in it?
David: I don’t know who’s in the campaign.
Craig: That’s tough. Because there were some successful campaigns for all of those.
David: But it was the most Facebook likes in 24 hours and it was done by an insurance company.
Craig: Oh! Record for all time! So you said Allstate—
David: In 24 hours.
Craig: Ugh. I need to just gamble it out there.
David: Geico or Farmer’s.
Craig: I wouldn’t go Geico. I don’t even know why. It’s just that Geico doesn’t … I don’t know.
David: Allstate or Farmer’s?
Craig: I’m gonna go Allstate, they’re big. I don’t love it but I’ll lock it in. Allstate.
David: Allstate? Should have gone with Farmer’s.
Craig: Dammit! J.K. Simmons, it was probably him.
David: Sure! So I guess they teamed up with Zynga and tried to do something to get their name out there and a big promotion, big push, and they ended up breaking records, which was pretty…
Craig: I talked myself out of that. I was literally on Farmer’s. I looked at your face and it wasn’t looking good. You duped me.
David: I went with “grassroots,” I was hoping that…
Craig: You duped me!
David: …The term “grassroots” was somebody that was trying to get their name out there.
Craig: Today, the scoring cycle a little bit different, it is Master’s weekend so we’re going golf scoring. I do have 1, David has 2. I have won the day.
David: I don’t think we agreed to that.
Craig: (laughing) I wish people could see the face you just made. Producer extraordinaire Brian Fritz does not agree. (laughing)
Brian: No! No.
David: I agree with the producer.
Craig: Well, we’re about to jump into our Deep Dive, but first, IWantBusiness, the Small Business Podcast is brought to you by Clarity Creative Group. Clarity Creative Group is a company that handles all things online. Don’t we, David?
David: We love digital marketing: helping businesses grow from startup websites to sites that got out there and want some more traffic. That’s what we do.
Craig: A big thing these days is SEO. People talk a lot about SEO. David’s got tips on tips on tips. In fact, he’s going to be doing a speaking engagement on SEO tips. David, throw two SEO tips, just two.
David: Just give ‘em out there.
Craig: Two. Just give ‘em out for free.
David: Oh my goodness. All right, we’ll go simple. Content is king.
Craig: Love it.
David: Gotta love the content. And you’re failing yourself if you’re not optimizing your images, making sure they have the right name and making sure you have those alt tags while you’re putting those images on that page.
Craig: And if you don’t want to do that, you can pay Clarity Creative to do it (laughs), our sponsor for the IWantBusiness Small Business Podcast. We’re gonna hit our Deep Dive all about business insurance. David, you wanna kick things off?
David: Yeah. We’ll open up this with a ‘obviously, we’re not insurance providers, nor are we insurance experts.’
Craig: But we have insurance.
David: We do have insurance.
Craig: We’re purchasers of insurance.
David: And a handful of our clients are in the insurance business.
Craig: That’s true.
David: So I feel that this was a topic that, after talking with them and learning all about it, made me realize that a lot of people don’t realize about insurance, about how it affects them or what they might need. And this is kind of a good, general run-down of what’s out there and what they should be looking to get tailored for their business.
Craig: I think some people have a negative connotation of insurance, and it took time for me to come on the other side of it. I was one of those, years ago. I was like, “Why do I need to pay for this? Literally, I’m paying for paper!”
It’s all about risk. “Risk” is the magic word in insurance. Are you a risk-taker, are you gambler? And are you willing to gamble with your business and your livelihood? That’s the big key. So David’s gonna break down the types of insurance.
David: Yeah, I’ll get started with General Liability insurance. This is what all businesses need. I guess they call it “lawsuit-proof” insurance. It helps your business out if accidents happen for you, within your property, medical payments for minor injuries that might happen to visitors of your company, liability to damages of other people’s property (maybe you broke something), as well as everything from accusations of slander/libel, and then other events that might occur because of fire or rental or anything like that. It helps in a general case scenario. So General Liability is kind of the starting point for what you’re probably gonna need as a basic business.
Craig: You can start there and it’s kind of important that you have it. Again, I learned this a couple different ways through the various businesses we’ve got. Some of the clients have actually asked for the Proof of Insurance and that kinda floored me. Luckily we had it. But they said they wanted to see the Certificate of Liability.
And taking that a step further, some of these clients in terms of the live entertainment business, they can be added as an additional insured to the policy. If I’m doing an event at a specific hotel, for example, they may actually want to see that certificate. It’s not unheard of that companies want to know that you have this protection. They want to be protected. Lawsuits, unfortunately, abound, they’re everywhere. Somebody gets hurt, something happens, somebody gets offended, these days and it could result in a lawsuit.
Now, there’s a lot of add-ons to general liability insurance, we’re not gonna break all those down for you. There are literally hundreds of options and things like that and that’s why we’re gonna have some referrals and references for you when we post this on Facebook. Of course, some of our friends over at Harry Levine Insurance can definitely help you with all the different add-ons. But what we’re trying to put forth to you as a business owner, when you’re putting things together, getting this done in the beginning, getting it done early is gonna help you, it means you’re protected from start to finish.
David: Yeah. What I find, from the general liability insurance phase, is it’s all about the coverage for your needs, anticipating what to expect, so making sure you have the right coverage for what you’re doing and how you’re doing things, and then making sure your insurance provider is really addressing what you’re doing and how you do things. So, if you’re a digital marketing company like us, we definitely have our cyber and our media insurance.
Craig: Intellectual property.
David: Yeah, because we deal with it on such a different level than maybe a trivia company or other forms of business. So the whole idea of having that media protection really helps us in terms of being able to be ready in case of a data breach or maybe dealing with a lot of people’s personal information.
Craig: Personal information is such a hot-button topic right now, with Facebook and what they’re doing with information, the new ones Snap Chat, Instagram…it’s always tied to social media. But you don’t necessarily think about it with your business, but every credit card transaction.
Every time you take someone’s email address and name on your website, you’ve got information about a person. And you want to be protected, because if something happens to them and they attempt to sue you, there’s that word, that dark cloud hanging over this insurance talk is lawsuits and being sued. You need someone in your corner. It can bring your business down. And that’s the situation that you just don’t want to be in.
Just having an LLC alone doesn’t protect you from everything. We did talk about LLCs in episode three, I believe, is where we covered that. And it does limit your liability, however, if you accidentally break intellectual property laws, or you’re sued by an employee of your own company, it can go for you [personally]. It can go direct to you and your personal assets could be at risk.
So you really want to think about these things early on when you’re developing your business, because business insurance is actually incredibly affordable and scaleable as you grow.
David: The other aspect of that business insurance, if you have a product, is product liability insurance as well. So when you go into creating an item, a widget, whatever it might be that you do, if there’s any sort of possibility that it could ever be recalled, having that product liability insurance is gonna cover you. Because you never know.
Craig: You don’t!
David: Because in the manufacturing process, you’re usually outsourcing it. Or, even so, you never know what the paint that you’re getting is, or who’s it coming from, or the wood or how it’s treated…there’s so many different steps to that product process that you can’t control at all.
And things happen, things happen to huge companies and to small companies. But also having that product liability insurance if you have a physical product that you sell protects you when something can happen with that product. That way, at least they’re not coming after your personal assets, hopefully.
Craig: So you’ve got your general liability, which is kind of a blanket protection for your business, your employees, from all damages occurred as a result of injury, libel, slander, lawsuits. We just covered the product insurance, if you make a product if you’re doing something like that. There’s also property insurance that can get lumped in under this business umbrella, because if you have a physical location to your business, you may need property insurance to insure the actual facility itself.
David: Right, so in order for us to lease this beautiful office, they required us to get property insurance on it. So they wouldn’t even lease us this property. But the important part is that they’re well aware of your surroundings, what’s going on in your building, and so that way they can properly cover you for fire or smoke or wind or whatever it is, so that way your business is covered. So that way, even if something shuts down your office or shuts down your facility because of a natural disaster, that property insurance really helps your location be able to have that backup that you might need.
So you got your property, your general liability, help me understand a little bit more about the worker’s comp.
Craig: Worker’s comp is kind of a beast in the industry. It is something that, I think, as you’re starting your business, you have to know about, but it isn’t one that you have to pull the trigger on immediately. In the State of Florida, I think you need to have a minimum of four employees in order to be required to have it. So if you’re just getting started and you’re working for yourself, it’s really not gonna be an issue for you, but as you’re growing, keep it in the back of your mind.
Worker’s comp is the protection for you and your team, from injury, essentially, as well as lawsuits can be coming down as a result of that as well. But the biggest key there, and again, there are add-ons here. There are all kinds of options, but the essence of it…I’ll give you the essence for the live entertainment business we have here in Central Florida.
Our people are covered, so if anything happens to them when they’re on-site at a location, they drop a speaker on their foot, they trip and fall, something happens, they’re covered, the company’s covered, and that insurance would be paying for those damages and anything that needs to happen.
So again, there are add-ons, there’s things that can be added to make sure that it takes it beyond. But once you have a certain number of employees here in the State of Florida, it’s a requirement. So worker’s comp protecting you and your team from those damages.
David: Right. I guess that’s a necessary step maybe as you grow, maybe not something that you need right out of the gate, depending on what you’re doing, how you’re doing it, and who’s working with you. But definitely something that…those relationships that you would have with your insurance agent really matters, because they’re able to counsel you and help you out through your growth process as you hit those next levels.
Craig: I think we can attest to that better that most. I mean, again, we’re about 10 years in here on the online marketing and website development and I think six years in on the entertainment business. Having a person that has this knowledge, having an insurance agent that you can trust is huge.
And again, we’ll put some information of some good people you can contact on our Facebook. You can also find them on our website also. But it’s key because we don’t have expertise in insurance like these people do. They go to school for it, they learn about it, they’re constantly tested for it through these insurance companies. So when you’re thinking, “What do I need?” go to these professionals, tell ‘em what you do, and let them give you a quote.
The cool thing about the insurance industry is, you can get quotes from multiple different agents. There’s no requirement to buy. Getting a quote for what you do, specifically, will also get you to know that agent. Are they listening to you? Did they factor in the business practices you’re actually going to do? And are they getting you the right price and premium?
David: Yeah, so making sure that insurance provider’s asking you poignant questions about your business would be an important, “Ahh, this person is giving me the best possible quote.” I think the more they understand you, the better the quote would be for your needs.
I think one fear would be getting that general liability or product liability or property insurance but it’s not enough. It doesn’t cover what you actually do and you miss the boat that way, you know what I mean? I think that’s a huge understand and a huge need that if they miss it, you might only get $100 per day that your business is closed, but it’s like, “Wait, I made a thousand dollars every day of my business.” Because they didn’t listen or they didn’t ask questions.
I think a lot of times, people are scared of giving out that information to insurance companies, but I think they have to understand that’s really to help them in giving them the best quote.
Craig: They’re there to protect you. I mean, insurance is a big business, some of the wealthiest people in the world dabble in this business. It’s a good business, it’s been around for a long time. And it supports the growth of your business. The insurance will keep you growing in the right direction. Any final thoughts on insurance before we wrap up episode five?
David: I just think it’s a great topic and it’s the protection that you pay into but the one time you do need it, I think it would pay for itself. Knock on wood, you don’t ever have to use it but, if it does come up, it’s good to have there.
Craig: Well, that’s it for us on our insurance episode on IWantBusiness. Hopefully, you know a little bit about Ripl. You like the fact that Craig won the under, golf scoring, took the under, won the trivia, somehow. I came from behind. And you now feel confident… (laughs) Again, we need video, I think. We need video to see the faces David and Brian are making. Well worth the price of admission.
David: Episode six will have a new host.
Craig: Yeah. That’s it.
David: (laughing)
Craig: That’s it. I’m out. I’ve been terminated. Hopefully you got all your insurance questions answered. And again, follow us on Facebook, check us out on the iTunes podcast app, give us a review. Tell us what you might want to hear about. We got more stuff coming at ya.
David: Have a good one.
