[00:00:00.00] [MUSIC PLAYING]
[00:00:05.15] REID HOLZWORTH: Welcome to The Insurance Technology Podcast. I'm your host, Reid Holzworth. Joining me today is Leticia Trevino, COO of Heffernan. Welcome, Leticia.
[00:00:13.40] LETICIA TREVINO: Thank you so much. I appreciate you having me on.
[00:00:15.83] REID HOLZWORTH: We are here in beautiful Nashville, Tennessee, the last day of Applied Net. Thank god. It's been a grind, but awesome. Awesome. How have you been enjoying it? Is your first time to Nashville for Applied Net?
[00:00:27.32] LETICIA TREVINO: No, it's my first time for the Applied Net, yes. I've been to Nashville before. But it's an amazing conference and it's been great.
[00:00:33.12] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah.
[00:00:33.42] LETICIA TREVINO: But I'm ready to head home tomorrow.
[00:00:35.37] REID HOLZWORTH: All right, are you going to the Opry tonight?
[00:00:37.95] LETICIA TREVINO: I am.
[00:00:38.42] REID HOLZWORTH: Oh, nice. It's going to be fun.
[00:00:38.90] LETICIA TREVINO: Yes.
[00:00:39.34] REID HOLZWORTH: Lady A, it's going to be good.
[00:00:40.32] LETICIA TREVINO: Can't wait.
[00:00:41.60] REID HOLZWORTH: All right, so before we get into as the COO of Heffernan, I'd love to get to know you a little bit.
[00:00:47.56] LETICIA TREVINO: Sure.
[00:00:47.84] REID HOLZWORTH: So tell me a little about yourself. Where did you grow up? What did you do? What did you want to be when you grew up?
[00:00:52.49] LETICIA TREVINO: All the good stuff.
[00:00:53.43] REID HOLZWORTH: [LAUGHS]
[00:00:54.10] LETICIA TREVINO: Well, it all started-- so I grew up in the San Francisco Bay area in a town called Pittsburg, Pittsburg, California, no H. And that's where I spent most of my-- and I actually never really moved beyond 10 miles radius of my--
[00:01:10.35] REID HOLZWORTH: Whereabouts is that?
[00:01:11.74] LETICIA TREVINO: It's 30 miles East of San Francisco, so East Bay.
[00:01:15.33] REID HOLZWORTH: Gotcha. That's awesome.
[00:01:16.53] LETICIA TREVINO: Grew up there. Oldest of five kids.
[00:01:18.35] REID HOLZWORTH: Oh, wow.
[00:01:19.98] LETICIA TREVINO: So I think I was a born leader. A born delegator. Big sister. Yep.
[00:01:24.58] REID HOLZWORTH: I can see it. Yep.
[00:01:26.34] LETICIA TREVINO: My dad emigrated from Mexico at 18.
[00:01:29.31] REID HOLZWORTH: Wow.
[00:01:29.68] LETICIA TREVINO: And he met my mom at a Bible study class, actually. A little bit of his story, which I think will kind of dovetail into who I am and how I came to be, he contracted polio as an infant in Mexico.
[00:01:43.83] REID HOLZWORTH: Wow.
[00:01:44.20] LETICIA TREVINO: And he was actually raised in a convent by nuns. And they prayed over him and said, my god, you're never going to walk. You're the curvature of your spine is so severe. And by the grace of God, he walked by the age of six and came to the States at 18. Didn't know the language, was disabled. And his work ethic and the kind of person that he was just kind of really has been always been very inspiring to me.
[00:02:09.33] My mom is a homemaker, a no-nonsense homemaker with five kids at home. My dad really wanted her to be at home taking care of all of us. And we grew up in a very modest home. And I think I just always wanted to do something beyond what I was living in.
[00:02:22.84] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah.
[00:02:23.49] LETICIA TREVINO: I did not play sports. We didn't have the means to participate in any of that. I don't know that I would have done it, actually. But I'm very proud of my culture, my Hispanic culture, and I love the music and love the food and mariachi music. I always get tearful when I'm hearing that kind of music. So I'm really, really tied to those roots there.
[00:02:43.96] But at the same time, wanted to experience something beyond that. And so, didn't really what that was. And so I moved out of my home at 17.
[00:02:52.71] REID HOLZWORTH: Wow. Yeah, same. Well, I was kind of kicked out, but--
[00:02:55.63] [LAUGHTER]
[00:02:56.77] But yeah, we moved out at 17 as well. Yeah.
[00:02:59.26] LETICIA TREVINO: Graduated high school. I really didn't have anybody talking to me about college. Growing up in that-- it was more of that, you're going to move out of your father's house into your husband's. I was taught to be a good cook and a good homemaker and I could clean, and I could do all that stuff, but there was never any discussion about it. And I even think it was for me, that that would even be on the horizon for me at all.
[00:03:21.93] So I moved out at 17 with a girlfriend of mine, and in order for me to cover rent, I cleaned houses at night and did a couple of different side hustles just to make ends meet.
[00:03:32.89] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah.
[00:03:33.27] LETICIA TREVINO: And as chance would have it, I ended up getting a job in insurance at 20, as a workers' comp claims adjuster.
[00:03:42.13] REID HOLZWORTH: Wow.
[00:03:42.63] LETICIA TREVINO: So I started my insurance career in the claims side.
[00:03:46.60] REID HOLZWORTH: Wow. So then did you go to college?
[00:03:48.49] LETICIA TREVINO: I did not.
[00:03:49.21] REID HOLZWORTH: That's awesome.
[00:03:49.93] LETICIA TREVINO: Yeah, I took a couple of junior community courses--
[00:03:54.93] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah, same.
[00:03:55.86] LETICIA TREVINO: And that was it. I needed to work to pay rent, so I had to prioritize that.
[00:04:01.05] REID HOLZWORTH: That's so awesome. Now you're a COO. That's so great.
[00:04:03.55] LETICIA TREVINO: Yeah.
[00:04:03.93] REID HOLZWORTH: Freaking America.
[00:04:04.87] LETICIA TREVINO: Yeah, exactly. America.
[00:04:06.12] REID HOLZWORTH: Right? [LAUGHS] It's awesome. So yeah, tell me more. What was your favorite hobby? What did you like to do for fun back then?
[00:04:14.85] LETICIA TREVINO: Oh my gosh. I don't know if maybe all kids did this, we did dance routines. I loved music. I always do. I mentioned that a couple of times now. But just listening to music, hanging out with friends.
[00:04:26.87] REID HOLZWORTH: Dance routines like what?
[00:04:27.82] LETICIA TREVINO: I mean, we have a choreographed the whole thing. Like, Janet Jackson was a big thing.
[00:04:31.30] REID HOLZWORTH: Oh, yes.
[00:04:32.13] LETICIA TREVINO: We would do all those dance routines in the backyard, spend hours, eight hours dressing up all my siblings, and we had a great time doing that.
[00:04:39.69] REID HOLZWORTH: That's awesome.
[00:04:40.74] LETICIA TREVINO: Any spare time I had, I was doing that.
[00:04:42.94] REID HOLZWORTH: All right, so--
[00:04:43.44] LETICIA TREVINO: Choreographing.
[00:04:44.11] REID HOLZWORTH: --so claims adjuster at 20. Then what happened?
[00:04:47.61] LETICIA TREVINO: Yeah, so because I'm bilingual in Spanish, I ended up getting more of the higher profile accounts, even at that age, because a lot of the accounts that they had that were more hairy were bilingual. And so I ended up kind of getting on these bigger accounts and getting more visibility, and kind of moved up fairly quickly on the claims side. But then I got married at 21 and had my first daughter at 23, second one at 26. And commuting to the city, I kind of wanted to just maybe be a little bit closer to home and had an opportunity to work at Heffernan, and I kind of got recruited at Heffernan.
[00:05:23.14] REID HOLZWORTH: Wow.
[00:05:23.51] LETICIA TREVINO: So 26-- 25 is when I actually joined Heffernan. And I joined them as a claims consultant, because at that point, I had five years experience of handling claims. And the way that they explained the role, which I had no idea even what a broker did at the time, because I was purely into the insurance claims administration, they said, well, we have high risk clients and we want to do some analysis and provide oversight of these larger claims. And you know to do the claims lingo, and you can help us negotiate that.
[00:05:52.96] I came on board and within three weeks, my supervisor quit. And I was like, well, I don't really know what I'm doing yet. And they go, well, congratulations, you've been promoted.
[00:06:02.33] [LAUGHTER]
[00:06:03.73] Jump in. The water's warm. And I think that's my entire career at Heffernan, has been one of those. I mean, I've been really afforded a lot of opportunity. And I think, really, it's kind of even goes back to my original workers' comp days. I just kind of just dug in and always believed in myself. I don't know how or why, but I just said, I may not know what I'm doing, but I'm going to dive in and I'm going to learn.
[00:06:25.70] REID HOLZWORTH: What was that role? I'm trying to figure that out. So what did you do?
[00:06:28.24] LETICIA TREVINO: I was a claims consultant, so basically, it meant that I was-- we had clients like Burger King restaurants, and so we would do analysis of how many claims do they have and where are they having these claims and how can we help mitigate those claims. I would potentially call claims adjusters to try and accelerate closure of those claims.
[00:06:46.63] REID HOLZWORTH: OK, I got you.
[00:06:47.14] LETICIA TREVINO: So it was kind of more of those, hey, I speak the lingo. This claim is open too long, or have you considered a deposition, or have you offered settlement, or what can we do from the employer's perspective to get this person back to work? Kind of be that intermediary. So helping reduce claims that were occurring, but trying to minimize exposures.
[00:07:05.22] REID HOLZWORTH: Wow. That's awesome.
[00:07:06.77] LETICIA TREVINO: Yeah. So joined as claims. And then Mike Heffernan decided he wanted to set up a claims, like a TPA. And so I joined that TPA division, and I was overseeing operations for that TPA division for a couple of years, and decided I felt a little bit isolated in this kind off the shelf here little office. It wasn't part of the corporate office. And so I said, I think I want to get my broker license.
[00:07:32.50] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah.
[00:07:33.31] LETICIA TREVINO: I don't know why. Sales is terrible. [LAUGHS] But I got my broker license and came back to work for Heffernan corporate as a producer, and I wanted to target Latino markets.
[00:07:44.59] REID HOLZWORTH: Oh, yeah.
[00:07:45.26] LETICIA TREVINO: Like, what is Latino markets? It could be anything. It was restaurant, hospitality, nonprofits.
[00:07:50.62] REID HOLZWORTH: How do you even target that?
[00:07:52.01] LETICIA TREVINO: I know. Well, I just kind of feel like people, culturally, might want to buy from somebody that maybe looks like them.
[00:07:57.08] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah.
[00:07:58.30] LETICIA TREVINO: And I didn't give it enough of a chance. I was only in the role for probably about a year and a half, and at the time, I ended up getting divorced. And my kids were three and six by that point.
[00:08:07.88] REID HOLZWORTH: Oh no, oof.
[00:08:08.47] LETICIA TREVINO: And I really couldn't devote the time required to be doing the long hours, doing the traveling.
[00:08:13.43] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah.
[00:08:14.14] LETICIA TREVINO: So I had to pivot a little bit and get back into an operational role.
[00:08:19.46] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah.
[00:08:19.69] LETICIA TREVINO: So I, I think, took a step back in my career for that time until I kind of got the home life stabilized.
[00:08:24.97] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah. That was tough.
[00:08:26.28] LETICIA TREVINO: Yeah, it was. Being a single mom. But I had my family's support and my company was very, very supportive of that as well and allowed me to be nimble in my career and change what I was doing and kind of rebuild my career from there.
[00:08:42.30] REID HOLZWORTH: It all works out in the end.
[00:08:43.53] LETICIA TREVINO: It does.
[00:08:44.16] REID HOLZWORTH: It does. It's tough, though.
[00:08:45.27] LETICIA TREVINO: Yeah.
[00:08:45.35] REID HOLZWORTH: Those are tough times. Been there. [LAUGHS] That's for sure. So tell us about what you're doing now.
[00:08:50.90] LETICIA TREVINO: I am now chief operating officer, and I often refer to myself as cook and bottle washer. I get involved in some of the strategic things as well as down to the nitty gritty stuff. Under my purview, I have compliance-related items, licensing surplus lines, I have learning and development, the applied relationship technology. I work very closely with our IT department, but primarily, kind of all things applied and all the applied products, general operations, efficiency data, process improvement.
[00:09:25.04] REID HOLZWORTH: Wow.
[00:09:25.52] LETICIA TREVINO: So those are the key things that I work on.
[00:09:27.87] REID HOLZWORTH: What do you really like to get into? When you wake up in the morning, you're like, oh, yeah, that sounds fun?
[00:09:34.35] LETICIA TREVINO: I think now that I'm at this point in my career, I've been with Heffernan and the Heffernan family now for 24 years, I think, right now, the most joy I get in the job satisfaction is the team building. The work is going to be there. We can constantly be looking at projects, we can constantly be doing process improvement, but really, it's the team building and it's bringing up the next generation.
[00:09:59.25] REID HOLZWORTH: What does that mean to you?
[00:10:01.31] LETICIA TREVINO: It means that-- I didn't feel often that I had-- I mean, I worked really hard, but there wasn't anybody, in my opinion, that was kind of reaching out their arm and pulling me up. And so I want to be able to pay that forward and say like, hey, I didn't have that, but I want you to have an opportunity. And let me invest in you, or let me introduce you to some of these other folks, and speaking their names and rooms they're not in. And making sure-- for somebody that's deserving of that.
[00:10:27.71] REID HOLZWORTH: Totally.
[00:10:28.23] LETICIA TREVINO: I want to invest in those folks that have a desire to grow in the organization, or a desire to grow, personally, in whatever way. I really enjoy that team building aspect.
[00:10:37.40] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah, no, same. I love it. It's cool, too, even when people-- you bring them up within your organization and they start from, sometimes, very entry level and then become something. And it's even cool when they go and they leave and they go do something else and bigger things, out there within our industry or even outside. And it's neat to bring those people up and watch them grow, even though it's not necessarily to your benefit or your company's benefit. That's at least how I feel about it.
[00:11:04.20] LETICIA TREVINO: I agree. I think it's a mark of a good leader. I can't tell you how many folks that I've poured into and really spent a lot of time with them and then they get snatched up, because somebody like, wow, this is a superstar. And they may not have seen them in that capacity. And so, of course, it hurts, but it is to your point, there's no greater pride to see that investment paid off and that those folks are going to elevate in their career.
[00:11:28.28] REID HOLZWORTH: Some leaders-- I've talked to people where they will like hold people down and not let them get certain certificates and things and do certain classes and things, where they become more coachable in that way. And I don't think it's right. I think you just let them do everything and just let them grow and do their thing. It's a small world, sometimes people come back. Sometimes they go up real fast somewhere else to one of your competitors or a partner, and then you're working with them again later on in life. And it's cool. It's a small world. Our industry is a very small world.
[00:11:59.46] LETICIA TREVINO: It is. Just walking around here, I kept getting like, hey, hey, hey.
[00:12:02.93] REID HOLZWORTH: I know.
[00:12:03.63] LETICIA TREVINO: So yeah, you have to be kind to everybody. You never know who will be your boss.
[00:12:06.57] REID HOLZWORTH: That's so true. That's so true. So what do you guys got going on at Heffernan? What's a big priority? What are some of the big things you guys are getting after right now? It's OK if I ask.
[00:12:16.17] LETICIA TREVINO: Sure, absolutely. Obviously, sales. We're focusing on how do we continue to drive sales, how do we proactively work on cross-sell opportunities, mining our existing clients. Dara is a big thing, data quality. I think probably a lot of agencies experience that, we don't have the best data quality, and we've been working on ways around that. How do we-- do we implement more of a carrot stick situation? We always have carrots, but maybe not as many sticks.
[00:12:39.81] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah.
[00:12:40.40] LETICIA TREVINO: But we really pride ourselves in our company culture. And so there's this kind of, how do we address establishing rules and regulations while still being a fun place to work? That's been kind of a big topic of discussion.
[00:12:54.24] REID HOLZWORTH: How do you keep-- how do you put in process procedures for data cleanliness within an agency? Because it's tough, like the end users-- it's hard to audit, I guess, a lot of it. And maybe you do. I don't know. You tell me.
[00:13:08.47] LETICIA TREVINO: Well, we have what we call an "exceptions dashboard." And so employees can go daily, weekly, monthly to go look and see, on their accounts, what things may not have been detailed properly. So it's like 21 data points. It could be the commission line, the premium line, the carrier, the parent company, any of those items that are going to be-- that we're going to be reporting on, we highlight those key areas and say, if you're 50 accounts or whatever that number is, 28 of them are missing this code. So it's easy for them to see.
[00:13:40.62] REID HOLZWORTH: Got it.
[00:13:41.25] LETICIA TREVINO: If they're not doing it, we've implemented some off shore cleanup where the things that can be cleaned up that don't require a licensed person or they're just maybe just a code cleanup, offshore, we're doing that for them, so we can keep that data quality and be able to run reports.
[00:13:57.49] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah, no, that's awesome. It's a big problem in our industry, just the data cleanse. Do you download on the commercial line side?
[00:14:04.16] LETICIA TREVINO: We don't.
[00:14:04.89] REID HOLZWORTH: Why?
[00:14:04.99] LETICIA TREVINO: Right now. The hesitancy, I think. I was in a couple of meetings this week, I think there's kind of like, well, it's going to override my information. And oftentimes, the information we have in there is not correct anyway.
[00:14:15.53] REID HOLZWORTH: Right.
[00:14:16.91] LETICIA TREVINO: So we are working on, at least, our small commercial team to at least open that up for that. Personal lines, of course, we do take the downloads. That's a no-brainer there. But commercial-- part of that data cleanup is having that producer code, so we, just like many large agencies, we've been on acquisition mode. And so when you acquire an agency, you get their producer codes and their stuff and you're trying to meld them into yours. That part of it, if we don't have it organized, it makes it difficult for us to do any kind of the interfaces with epic products.
[00:14:48.78] REID HOLZWORTH: Oh, absolutely.
[00:14:50.36] LETICIA TREVINO: It's a major task.
[00:14:52.31] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah.
[00:14:53.05] LETICIA TREVINO: And it's not fun. It's not glamorous. Someone's got to figure it out.
[00:14:56.41] REID HOLZWORTH: No, not at all. But it's important. It's important. It's funny, we hear that all the time, especially on the commercial line side. It's, we don't download because it overrides the stuff. I've talked to 10 agencies at this thing, saying that same thing, but all of them are kind of like, yeah, but we know that's how it used to be. And they say what you said, but a lot of it is kind of wrong. And so it is probably time to start doing that.
[00:15:21.76] We're getting a lot more people that are turning it on, but a lot of people don't realize that a lot of that overwrite stuff and whatnot, over many years, a lot of that stuff's been fixed. The bigger systems, anyways. But anyways, yeah, so--
[00:15:34.42] LETICIA TREVINO: I think part of it, too, is we have-- you talked about the change management might be the most difficult part of it, but I think we've done a pretty decent job in getting our employees engaged in the decision-making process. Sincerely bringing them in, not just to patronize them, but to say, what do you guys think? Here's a problem, here's what we're thinking about and how we think we're going to approach it. Maybe for instance, downloads for commercial. What do you guys think?
[00:15:58.94] We'll get them to get all the kinks out. They'll give us all their fears and why they don't think it should happen. And then we hear them out and we say, OK, but what if we could figure this out? Wouldn't this make your job easier? Because I think we're in a time, right now, where the market's hard, our account managers are getting their butts kicked by having to continuously deliver bad news in terms of rate increases to customers. And if we can somehow figure out ways to automate their job and make their job a little bit easier in some ways, you would think they'd be more receptive to it. But for whatever reason, they're holding out. I think some of it could be job security.
[00:16:36.34] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah, probably. Yeah. Yeah. What technology do you see making a really big impact coming about in your agency or in the industry, broadly?
[00:16:48.55] LETICIA TREVINO: Well, we talked about this a little bit yesterday. I think claims and kind of being able to analyze some of that data is important. But one of the things that we've been working on over the last year and a half has been automating our proposals. Proposals for large commercial can take anywhere from-- what we're told from our team-- six to eight hours.
[00:17:07.37] REID HOLZWORTH: Wow.
[00:17:07.73] LETICIA TREVINO: You're getting multi-lines, you're getting various carriers, sending the quotes in the format of a PDF, and then we use the embedded proposal in the system, which is a Word document, and it ends up looking what I refer to as a ransom note, because they will-- different fonts and they cut and paste a PDF, and it doesn't look polished at the end. But these account managers want to protect our ENO, so they want to make sure all the proper endorsements were included. And so instead of-- they'll retype everything, and if you mistype something, it's an ENO for us.
[00:17:40.34] And so we've been trying to figure out what is the magic bullet for that. How can we automate that and make it look more polished, keep it compliant?
[00:17:48.47] REID HOLZWORTH: Yup.
[00:17:48.83] LETICIA TREVINO: We find that some people operate exclusively out of the system. They build their own proposals in a PowerPoint with no company branding or disclosures.
[00:17:57.56] REID HOLZWORTH: Wow.
[00:17:59.09] LETICIA TREVINO: And so how do we make it so that everybody wants to use it and it's easy and efficient for everybody? And so we've been on that journey to find what's out there. And we've, I think, and you probably hear the same, like machine learning and AI has really evolved significantly in the last 18 months.
[00:18:13.72] REID HOLZWORTH: Oh, big time, yeah.
[00:18:14.51] LETICIA TREVINO: And so things that kind of just seem so far fetched before are nearing to reality. It's an exciting time, I think, for us.
[00:18:23.21] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah.
[00:18:23.72] LETICIA TREVINO: So yeah, that's one of the big projects we're working on, is this automation of proposals. And then similarly, the loss analysis. You get that loss and you want to be able to either share it with your underwriter or you want to share it with your client. It's painstaking to go through that. And we have offshored a lot of that stuff to try and automate that, but then someone still has to double check it. They have to eyeball it, manipulate it. So we're looking at ways that we can automate that process as well.
[00:18:50.00] REID HOLZWORTH: I feel like there's some apps or something. There's got to be some things where you can connect in and just grab the data and just pull it all together. I know on the Salesforce world, I forget all the solutions that were out there now that you could do that, but like Conga and some of those kinds of things from back in the day, where you just feed it the data and it just does its thing. But you have to hook it up to the API, I guess, through the API to bring it in.
[00:19:14.21] LETICIA TREVINO: We've been piloting something now with a newer kind of up and coming tech and--
[00:19:18.53] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah.
[00:19:19.07] LETICIA TREVINO: Basically, you send your-- you can do it a couple of different ways. You send your carrier quote to a designated email address and in four minutes your editable proposal comes back to you.
[00:19:29.54] REID HOLZWORTH: Oh, that's cool.
[00:19:30.54] LETICIA TREVINO: So we're seeing an average of time savings of going from that six to eight hours to 20 to 30 minutes.
[00:19:36.15] REID HOLZWORTH: That's really cool.
[00:19:36.96] LETICIA TREVINO: Yeah.
[00:19:37.76] REID HOLZWORTH: That's awesome. Actually, I was just thinking, maybe for the listeners, it might be good if we talk about the meeting yesterday that we had. Yesterday, we had a meeting with our top agencies out there, top agencies in the world, let's say.
[00:19:54.21] LETICIA TREVINO: Well, thank you.
[00:19:56.33] REID HOLZWORTH: And then as well as some of the biggest carriers in the world, sitting in a room, talking about real people, like yourself. You were there. Talking about real stuff we can fix in the industry. I thought it was really good. It's like three hours and I'm like, really? Come on, like three hours? But I mean, we went right up to the end. It was some really great discussion.
[00:20:21.08] And it was just interesting how we broke off into two groups. We both said, hey, let's go talk about real problems that are impacting both of us. And they kind of-- when we came back, it was some of the same stuff. So I don't know. I don't know if you want to give me feedback on it, what you thought.
[00:20:38.16] LETICIA TREVINO: I would agree. It's interesting you could separate us and yet we come back and we all have the same opinions, the same thought process. I don't know if it's going to be solved any time soon. I think we talked about having-- what is it called? A golden--
[00:20:51.11] REID HOLZWORTH: Golden record.
[00:20:51.97] LETICIA TREVINO: Golden record, of having it where everyone's going and retrieving data and we have third party enrichment services. And if we just had one area where everybody could get that information and it could all be approved and you're not having to go in separately bear costs and time and all that kind of stuff.
[00:21:11.70] REID HOLZWORTH: It's basically like having one record of a risk-- we'll call it a "commercial lines risk--" that parties are able to update. And so that golden record-- it's golden when a carrier, it's got bound business, here's policy. And so it allows other systems to go in and tap that, right, live. But then when a change occurs, the golden record is updated.
[00:21:34.16] LETICIA TREVINO: Yes.
[00:21:34.71] REID HOLZWORTH: And so--
[00:21:35.55] LETICIA TREVINO: It's always going to be the source of truth.
[00:21:37.21] REID HOLZWORTH: Always the source of truth. And so there's so much time and effort in this industry in going out and getting all of this information from that risk. You go to remarket, I mean, all this stuff, it's just over and over and over and over again. And what was really interesting is the carriers and how they-- and it's funny, I've never heard this before, but maybe it's just-- I don't know, the day-- but the carriers really wanted to push download to the agencies, and that's a cost on them. [LAUGHS] Because they wanted a cleaner data set in the agency's agency management system, because of the data they get back at submission isn't as clean as they'd like it.
[00:22:18.22] LETICIA TREVINO: Yeah, so they're like, let me push it to you so when you give it back to me, it's correct.
[00:22:21.64] REID HOLZWORTH: Exactly. Right?
[00:22:23.05] LETICIA TREVINO: Yeah.
[00:22:23.69] REID HOLZWORTH: [LAUGHS] You know?
[00:22:24.56] LETICIA TREVINO: Yeah.
[00:22:26.43] REID HOLZWORTH: So then, that's kind of where it started. But it's like, hey, what if we just had that one record that's out there? But so then we went down this whole rabbit hole around it and it's like, well, who's going to share what? Are you OK sharing that?
[00:22:39.70] LETICIA TREVINO: Well, agency wouldn't like that, and this, that, and the other. And then the carriers opinion, which I thought was also interesting and I appreciated the candor. They don't want to give you the information because they're thinking, well, you might remarket the account.
[00:22:51.53] REID HOLZWORTH: Right.
[00:22:51.83] LETICIA TREVINO: So there's hesitancy. What is the benefit for them? And so coming up with those case studies on why they should share it was interesting.
[00:22:59.22] REID HOLZWORTH: It was. And so then we kind of-- so then we started to-- OK, OK, carrier, so what are some of the things that are of painful but you don't mind sharing? And we started to get in that whole loss run thing and claims information and all of that. Yeah, I think we can get there. I think we just need to start small.
[00:23:18.11] LETICIA TREVINO: Yeah.
[00:23:18.83] REID HOLZWORTH: And maybe it is on the claims side, maybe it is on loss runs, where there's one golden record for that stuff. It's easier to get over the fence, where people aren't as afraid of it. And then you kind of build it as time goes on. But I mean, I don't know, as a carrier or an agency, personally, I would do the golden record thing. There's just so much wasted time and effort in our industry. Like, why not?
[00:23:42.26] And it's funny. Donna I'm not going to say where she's from--
[00:23:45.75] LETICIA TREVINO: Yes, yes.
[00:23:46.01] REID HOLZWORTH: She kept going on and on and on about, why is it any different than personal lines? You can just go get-- run the reports. What's the difference? And she wasn't wrong.
[00:23:56.74] LETICIA TREVINO: Yes.
[00:23:57.00] REID HOLZWORTH: But it is different. [LAUGHS]
[00:23:58.94] LETICIA TREVINO: Just a little bit. Yeah, I know. She's pretty passionate about it. I think that group-- I think probably you picked them by design, the attendees, you want that passion for it. But yes, that was quite hammered that topic. Yeah.
[00:24:09.51] REID HOLZWORTH: [LAUGHS] But I mean, I don't know. I thought it was interesting. But it's cool, since then I've had, well, a bunch of conversations last night with carriers, and I had a couple meetings this morning. And they really want to do something. They want to really start to solve some of these bigger, meatier things for the betterment of the industry. Which is pretty cool. I mean, it's really cool.
[00:24:35.01] LETICIA TREVINO: You hope that's the case, right?
[00:24:36.24] REID HOLZWORTH: Right? Yeah. And so, I think it's exciting times in our industry, that said. And it's just really neat for us to be able to get those level of people in the room, and just having a good conversation. I mean, I almost took a photo. I'm not going to name the carriers-- of the two carriers sitting next to each other--
[00:24:56.25] LETICIA TREVINO: In harmony.
[00:24:56.82] REID HOLZWORTH: In harmony. Like, that has never happened. [LAUGHS]
[00:25:01.24] LETICIA TREVINO: Yeah.
[00:25:01.99] REID HOLZWORTH: It was pretty interesting. I know, right?
[00:25:03.97] [LAUGHTER]
[00:25:05.59] So it was pretty good.
[00:25:06.94] LETICIA TREVINO: Yeah. No, it's good that they get to hear what our pain points are. I think so much of the interactions we have, depending on the level within the organization you are, you're talking about account-specific stuff. They've got underwriting targets and goals. They're like sales folks.
[00:25:21.55] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah, totally.
[00:25:22.00] LETICIA TREVINO: So they're trying to get their numbers, and we're trying to retain and grow our business. Everyone has their own agenda. But I think yesterday was an opportunity to take all that aside and talk about how we can work together.
[00:25:31.42] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah, exactly, exactly. And after the fact, the conversations later with some of the carriers, were like, well, yeah, but hey, listen, if the agencies tell me what to do, we'll do it. But it'd be really be great if there was some sort of upside and some sort of competitive edge for us by doing this stuff first to market and things like that.
[00:25:51.46] LETICIA TREVINO: Yeah.
[00:25:51.54] REID HOLZWORTH: So more to come there. I mean, I think we're going to debrief this whole thing on this and come up with a list, but it's freaking cool to be able to really start to build some of these things. I was talking to Taylor earlier, I was meeting with him, and he's like, yeah, we just need to go and build that stuff and just come be like, OK, here it is. Let's do this.
[00:26:09.60] Because I think a lot of time, there's a lot of talk and a lot of conversations in this industry, but there's not a lot of action. And it's pretty neat to be involved in a business where our global CEO is just like, yeah, go build that shit. And we can.
[00:26:25.23] LETICIA TREVINO: Yeah.
[00:26:25.47] REID HOLZWORTH: Right? And so that's pretty cool. It's pretty exciting to me.
[00:26:28.78] LETICIA TREVINO: Yeah, I think the thing that was brought up as well is, let's do it together.
[00:26:32.08] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah, exactly.
[00:26:32.65] LETICIA TREVINO: Because there's no sense in you doing it by yourself. You're going to need some carriers, you're going to need the brokers. And if we all have our same vision and we're willing to support it, I think going to get more traction that way.
[00:26:41.99] REID HOLZWORTH: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
[00:26:43.14] LETICIA TREVINO: Yeah
[00:26:43.41] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah.
[00:26:44.11] LETICIA TREVINO: Let's do it together.
[00:26:45.10] REID HOLZWORTH: [LAUGHS] Question.
[00:26:47.03] LETICIA TREVINO: Yes.
[00:26:47.85] REID HOLZWORTH: Any advice you give to entrepreneurs coming into the insurance industry? I know you talked to a lot-- you probably talked to a lot of companies that are hitting you up. A lot of startups probably hit you up. Buy my thing, buy my thing, I got the coolest next thing. So what do you think? Any advice you give to those guys?
[00:27:03.22] LETICIA TREVINO: It's funny. I had a coffee meeting yesterday with somebody that's up and coming, and it's so great to see them like fresh-eyed into this industry. Because a lot of folks are-- they're not coming in from the insurance space. They're coming in from just out of college or they're technology-driven, like how do I get into this cash cow that is insurance? And I think what I'm enjoying is seeing their naivety, because they're not looking at things the way that we look at things.
[00:27:29.80] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah.
[00:27:30.06] LETICIA TREVINO: And I think because of that, we're going to be able to get more efficiencies that way. And I guess what I'm meaning is that, we talked about this yesterday, too, everyone has their-- the same way we've done it for 30 years, we've always done it this way and maybe we're willing to change a tad, but we need somebody that comes in and just keeps asking questions. But why? Why?
[00:27:49.60] REID HOLZWORTH: Were you the one that was saying just blow it all up?
[00:27:51.55] LETICIA TREVINO: Yes.
[00:27:51.98] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
[00:27:52.69] LETICIA TREVINO: Yeah.
[00:27:53.02] REID HOLZWORTH: Tell the listeners, what are you saying about that?
[00:27:54.59] LETICIA TREVINO: Yeah, I'm saying like, let's not think about how it should be. This is something my colleague, our CIO, Kate she talks about all the time. If not for like-- let's take out of the equation how we do things today. What is the end goal? What do we want to get accomplished? And then back into it from there.
[00:28:10.78] REID HOLZWORTH: 100%
[00:28:11.51] LETICIA TREVINO: So proposals, we were talking about that. OK, well, we can't do this, we can't do that. Well, let's not talk-- let's take the "can't" out. In a perfect world, what would we do? What is the end goal? What is the time savings we're trying to achieve? What does the end product look like?
[00:28:24.38] And I think people that are coming into the industry, if they can maintain that approach and not try and appease brokers and say, well, how do you it? How can we make it easier?
[00:28:34.25] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah, totally.
[00:28:35.37] LETICIA TREVINO: They're going to get subtleties in terms of efficiency gains. But if they came in with a, tell me what your problem is and what your end goal is, and design to that--
[00:28:45.71] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah.
[00:28:47.32] LETICIA TREVINO: Just like this vendor that I was talking to. I was like, I see your fresh perspective. You have no clue of a basis of what it should look like. And so because of that, they have better ideas.
[00:28:55.67] REID HOLZWORTH: [LAUGHS]
[00:28:56.52] LETICIA TREVINO: You know?
[00:28:56.95] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah.
[00:28:57.41] LETICIA TREVINO: Because we're kind of like, oh, well, we tried this and we tried that. Well, yeah, but that doesn't work. So how about if we try something completely different? And it's things we would have no idea or not even thinking about. They're not even on the radar.
[00:29:08.06] REID HOLZWORTH: That's so true. Yeah. No, that's so smart. I love that. I totally love that. Just blow it up.
[00:29:13.70] LETICIA TREVINO: Blow it up.
[00:29:14.21] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah, back into it. Here's where we want to go and then just back into it. Figure it out.
[00:29:18.92] LETICIA TREVINO: Yeah.
[00:29:19.63] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah.
[00:29:20.02] LETICIA TREVINO: I mean, it is. It seems simple to say, like, well, we'll figure it out. It can happen, though. I've seen some of these things happening, as of late. I'm very encouraged by the technology that's out there.
[00:29:31.28] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah. That's awesome.
[00:29:32.57] LETICIA TREVINO: Yeah.
[00:29:32.75] REID HOLZWORTH: Thank you for that. Let's pivot to leadership, if that's OK?
[00:29:35.75] LETICIA TREVINO: Sure.
[00:29:35.92] REID HOLZWORTH: Unless you want to talk more insurance stuff.
[00:29:37.41] LETICIA TREVINO: Nah.
[00:29:38.13] [LAUGHTER]
[00:29:38.60] REID HOLZWORTH: Been here all week talking about--
[00:29:40.06] LETICIA TREVINO: Yeah, I've been talking insurance for two days.
[00:29:41.80] REID HOLZWORTH: It's nonstop. I'm kind of over it myself, at this point. What does being a leader mean to you?
[00:29:49.07] LETICIA TREVINO: Oh my gosh, that's a hard question. I'm proud to have the opportunity to be a leader. And I think I touched upon it earlier--
[00:29:55.71] REID HOLZWORTH: You are a leader. You consider yourself a leader?
[00:29:57.30] LETICIA TREVINO: I consider myself a leader.
[00:29:58.71] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah.
[00:29:59.24] LETICIA TREVINO: I think some of that goes back to what I was mentioning, my childhood. Being the oldest.
[00:30:03.51] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah.
[00:30:04.91] LETICIA TREVINO: Facilitating, even now as an adult, still kind of being that older sibling. But I think people are looking at me, they're watching what I'm doing. And that's not just colleagues or competitors, it's the people that I work on my team.
[00:30:22.55] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah.
[00:30:22.93] LETICIA TREVINO: And so I got to lead by example.
[00:30:24.94] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah.
[00:30:25.33] LETICIA TREVINO: And I try and be kind and do the right thing. And I just-- yeah, so I see myself as a leader. And I want to continue to bring that next generation up. And so for me, I'm always like, OK, what can I do better? I'm a constant student. I mentioned early on I didn't go to college, but because of that, I think I have this thirst for learning.
[00:30:45.50] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah.
[00:30:45.82] LETICIA TREVINO: And so wherever I have an opportunity to take a course, and whether-- I read some self-help books and ways I can be a better leader. Some of it's just listening. More listening and less talking.
[00:30:57.11] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah, totally.
[00:30:58.37] LETICIA TREVINO: Because leaders tend to just be like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I try to just shut up and listen. You learn so much more.
[00:31:04.82] REID HOLZWORTH: I kind of just-- yeah, a lot of times I have my team tell me what to do. [LAUGHS]
[00:31:09.25] LETICIA TREVINO: True. What do you think we should do? OK, that's a great idea. Go do it.
[00:31:13.28] REID HOLZWORTH: You guys are the experts. I don't know. [LAUGHS] I think a lot of people think that as a leader, you have to dictate. And you do. You got to make the hard decisions.
[00:31:21.42] LETICIA TREVINO: Yes.
[00:31:22.16] REID HOLZWORTH: And you got to be there, driving the vision and whatnot. There's a balance. But I think that, to your point, when I visualize a leader, standing there, telling people what to do, but a lot of times, it's your team being like, here's what we are doing kind of thing. And it's like, are you good with that? It's kind of sign off, check off, things like that, at least in my environment.
[00:31:43.97] LETICIA TREVINO: I think my team feels like, if you asked anybody that works with me, that I'm in it with them. There isn't any-- I mean, yes, of course, to your point, I have to be the heavy sometimes. I have to have that--
[00:31:54.59] REID HOLZWORTH: But yeah, totally, yeah.
[00:31:56.14] LETICIA TREVINO: But it's me in it with them. I'm like, how can we do this? I had an employee last week, she's like, you asked me to do this project and I'm having some challenges. It's taking me weeks to get it done. I said, well, let's talk about it. We talked about it, and I said, oh, you just don't know how to do this part of the-- let's bring in somebody else on the team that knows how to do this. Something she worked on for three weeks was addressed in 45 minutes.
[00:32:14.69] I'm like, don't do that. Raise the white flag early, and let's bring it in and let's tap into the resources if we don't know. And then I want you to spend some time learning. But that was the leadership experience that-- don't be afraid of raising your hand and saying you don't know what you're doing. Let's bring in the people that do know how to do that.
[00:32:30.09] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah.
[00:32:30.83] LETICIA TREVINO: So yeah, I do enjoy it.
[00:32:33.72] REID HOLZWORTH: You know what's interesting, as I just thought of something, I met one of our carrier customers last night, we were hanging out, and he was telling me how data and leadership can be so powerful. And he told me this story. It's kind of like off the wall kind of story, but it's really cool, is that he has all these underwriters under him, tons of them. And one of the underwriters was way underperforming on premium. And so he's got these data scientists, and so he says, hey, I want you to go analyze and see what's going on with Sally over there.
[00:33:06.33] So normally, no data. Sally, what the heck, you suck at this. Why is your premium-- you're so underperforming. Everybody's way over here, and you're way over here. And so with the data, they found that she is way more profitable, the business she's putting on the books, than everyone else. So even though it's a lot less, it's actually a lot better for the business. And so, really, his whole point to this was, if I wouldn't have had that data and had my data scientists-- we were geeking out about data and it's just kind of came up and out of it-- but he's like, if I would have had my data scientists, I would have just been like, heavy. Like, what's going on? What are you doing wrong? This, that, and the other.
[00:33:45.11] It was more like, hey, you're doing great. This is amazing. And look at what you're doing. How can we take some of this and bring this into the other teams? But also, how can we start to ramp up your number a little bit more? It's more of a constructive conversation, as opposed to--
[00:34:03.24] LETICIA TREVINO: Coming down on someone.
[00:34:04.26] REID HOLZWORTH: Coming down on somebody. But it's like, I don't know. For me, it was kind of cool because it's so true. If you start to think of it in that way, and when you're analyzing your people, because everybody has measurable, KPIs, all this kind of stuff, and I think it's like if you see somebody underperforming in ways, maybe it's not because lack of effort, maybe it's not because they're slacking or whatever it is. Maybe they are doing something right, and by digging in and understanding it prior to the conversation of being like, what is happening here? It was pretty neat. Anyways, it's kind of a tangent--
[00:34:36.98] LETICIA TREVINO: No, I agree with that. We, for our service teams, we have workforce management tools that at least will tell a little bit about that to say, we've got Nancy over here who's really killing it. What are the things that Nancy doing that we can emulate?
[00:34:52.41] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
[00:34:53.76] LETICIA TREVINO: There's that part of it. Or Nancy is working 12 to 14 hours a day and that's not sustainable.
[00:34:58.95] REID HOLZWORTH: Right. Exactly.
[00:35:00.12] LETICIA TREVINO: And we don't want her to work--
[00:35:01.02] REID HOLZWORTH: No.
[00:35:02.06] LETICIA TREVINO: Who wants to burn out your staff? We tend to reward good employees with more work. They're victims of success.
[00:35:09.00] REID HOLZWORTH: It's so true.
[00:35:09.78] LETICIA TREVINO: So that's one of the things I look at to see. Those folks that are really good that keep getting tapped into, hey, do you mind sitting on this task force? Do you mind doing this testing a pilot? Do you mind-- it's like, do you have a day job? We have to figure this out. We had to temper it a little bit. Yeah, it's just being more of an empathetic and being cognizant of all the things going on.
[00:35:28.49] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah, that's good. I think that's just good leadership.
[00:35:30.66] LETICIA TREVINO: Yeah.
[00:35:30.92] REID HOLZWORTH: When did you realize you were a leader? I say this-- and the reason why I ask this because for me, personally, I've always been a leader. Even as a kid, I just was. I've just always led people and people-- and it's a thing. But I didn't realize that I was an actual leader until not that long ago. And I'm like, holy shit. I've always been the boss and this kind of stuff, but truly, knowing in myself, like, oh wait, I am an actual leader and I have a responsibility in that leader.
[00:36:01.53] Although, I still was responsible and I've always been good to my people and all of that, but for me, it was almost like a mindset change, in a way. Yes, this is who I actually am. It's like really accepting that title. Have you always accepted the title? I mean, you've been big sister.
[00:36:17.64] LETICIA TREVINO: Yeah--
[00:36:17.77] REID HOLZWORTH: Well, I was a little brother, so it's a little bit different, you know?
[00:36:20.85] LETICIA TREVINO: Yeah. I think I would say-- so during my career, which I didn't mention early on, I had a six and a half year stint overseeing US operations for Poitras--
[00:36:29.18] REID HOLZWORTH: Oh, wow. No kidding.
[00:36:32.71] LETICIA TREVINO: And that was several hundred employees. I think when I left there, it was probably just under 400 employees I had across the US.
[00:36:40.76] REID HOLZWORTH: Wow.
[00:36:41.10] LETICIA TREVINO: And when I started, it was probably 40. And so the job evolved and I got to learn so much about offshoring and international kind of employees. And I think that role was pivotal in terms of, wow, I'm a leader.
[00:36:58.24] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah.
[00:36:59.05] LETICIA TREVINO: I had been a supervisor, I had been a manager, I had led teams before, but not at that scale.
[00:37:04.42] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah.
[00:37:04.65] LETICIA TREVINO: And the impact that we were able to have on so many.
[00:37:08.64] REID HOLZWORTH: So many people, yeah. I know.
[00:37:10.27] LETICIA TREVINO: That, for me was-- that kept me up at night.
[00:37:13.48] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah.
[00:37:13.77] LETICIA TREVINO: When you talk about, hey, how do I--
[00:37:15.28] REID HOLZWORTH: Now I have goosebumps. Yeah, for real.
[00:37:16.17] LETICIA TREVINO: How do you motivate a team? Especially, that was an entirely remote environment. So rarely we would maybe meet with everybody once a year and you'd see these people and it was just like, oh my gosh, I get to see you in person. I interviewed you like four years ago.
[00:37:29.98] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah.
[00:37:30.39] LETICIA TREVINO: So it's a very unique experience. But I really wanted to-- I spent probably 50% of my day on personnel related things in that role. And a lot of it was glad handling, and I always say shaking hands and kissing babies. I wanted to make sure that I had an opportunity to personally connect, because I wouldn't have an opportunity at an event like this to see them. And I would be earmarking future leaders through those conversations.
[00:37:56.29] REID HOLZWORTH: Totally. Yeah.
[00:37:58.06] LETICIA TREVINO: But I would spend-- like, my weeks would be, oh my gosh, I'm having eight meetings this day. But I really-- that was the moment for me, that I'm like, you're a leader.
[00:38:07.54] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah. That's awesome.
[00:38:08.95] LETICIA TREVINO: Yeah. Making changes, making boss moves.
[00:38:11.75] [LAUGHTER]
[00:38:14.31] And being the only female in that C-suite.
[00:38:16.27] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah, wow.
[00:38:16.77] LETICIA TREVINO: That was also another-- a proud moment, when we look and we take executive team photos and I'd be the only girl in the group. And I felt like I had a really important thing to do, as a result of that.
[00:38:27.76] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah.
[00:38:27.99] LETICIA TREVINO: Yeah.
[00:38:28.89] REID HOLZWORTH: That's awesome.
[00:38:29.71] LETICIA TREVINO: Yeah.
[00:38:30.99] REID HOLZWORTH: Another question. What is the most important trait a leader should have? We've kind of touched on this, but to sum it up, what do you think? What's the most important thing a leader should have?
[00:38:42.96] LETICIA TREVINO: Gosh, I would say for sure, leading with empathy, but not being afraid to give feedback.
[00:38:48.11] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah.
[00:38:48.83] LETICIA TREVINO: I think people-- a lot of leaders I see, they want to be friends with their employees.
[00:38:53.75] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah.
[00:38:54.97] LETICIA TREVINO: They're like, oh, I don't want to tell them they're not doing a good job because we're friendly or we're-- I think you have to-- people can only improve if you're prepared to give them that feedback.
[00:39:05.86] REID HOLZWORTH: I always say friends are free. We work together. [LAUGHS] You're costing me money.
[00:39:13.03] LETICIA TREVINO: We're not a non-profit organization.
[00:39:14.36] REID HOLZWORTH: [LAUGHS] And even if we were, you got to pull your weight.
[00:39:17.77] LETICIA TREVINO: Yes.
[00:39:18.22] REID HOLZWORTH: And so you got it. You're right. You got to have the hard conversations. I've had friends, family, everybody work for me. And like, yeah, I mean, I fired my ex father-in-law. And so, I mean, it is what it is sometimes. But yeah, I think you're so right. A lot of people, especially young leaders--
[00:39:33.49] LETICIA TREVINO: Yeah. "I want to be liked." And I think that's part of that maturity, that you think, oh, I can't tell them because they're not going to me anymore. Well, we're not here-- yes, of course, I think innately everybody wants to be liked, but you want to also help them grow. And they may be completely unaware of their behavior or their commentary or their actions.
[00:39:52.94] And I think if you can give them that, I think you can also create such a loyalty, because they appreciate that.
[00:39:58.95] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah.
[00:39:59.40] LETICIA TREVINO: Most generally. Anybody that's really cares about their job when you give them feedback, hey, I noticed you've been doing this and you may not be aware of how it comes across, but if I were you-- I mean, if someone was talking to you that way, how would you receive it? Oh gosh.
[00:40:11.84] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah, totally.
[00:40:12.54] LETICIA TREVINO: I had somebody that sent a-- I call them nasty gram email, and they sent it and they carbon copied everybody. And so she was someone on my team, and she reached out to me afterwards. What'd you think of that email? I said, I didn't really like it. You didn't really like it? What do you mean? I said, well, you could have picked up the phone.
[00:40:27.41] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah.
[00:40:27.96] LETICIA TREVINO: Let's do that next time before. And if you need to bring in people, then you do that. But that shouldn't be your first bullet out of the gun.
[00:40:34.08] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah.
[00:40:35.29] LETICIA TREVINO: Try a different approach. And she was appreciative of that. She hasn't done that, at least to my knowledge. But I think those are the learning lessons. And if you're not prepared to have them, you shouldn't be in a leadership role.
[00:40:46.08] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah, I think that, too, people want to be led. And when being led is you have to give them feedback and you have to be like, hey, that was really great. And it's not just negative, it's positive.
[00:40:58.44] LETICIA TREVINO: Of course. Yes. I do a lot of--
[00:40:59.82] REID HOLZWORTH: You did an awesome job on that. Personally, people that know me on my team, I don't kiss ass. I don't just like, hey good job, pat on the back--
[00:41:11.21] LETICIA TREVINO: Patronizing people.
[00:41:12.06] REID HOLZWORTH: --just for nothing. It's like, you do a good job, I'll tell you that. Awesome job. That was so good. You're crushing it. The positive stuff. And then the negative stuff. Hey, that was good, but ba, ba, ba, ba, ba. And I think people, that's what makes them better, that's what helps them excel. I mean, it's just sharpening the knife, if you will, for them.
[00:41:32.79] And I think when people don't, it doesn't end well, overall. So anyways, I think a lesson that I learned a long time ago is people really like to be led. And a lot of people like to be told what to do, in a nice way. I mean, it sounds like--
[00:41:48.58] LETICIA TREVINO: Just give me the structure. They don't want to have to design the process.
[00:41:51.26] REID HOLZWORTH: Right.
[00:41:51.68] LETICIA TREVINO: Yeah. No, I definitely want-- I do give a lot of positive accolades. I don't patronize people. If they're not deserving, I don't. But I sincerely I have a great team around me, and so I let them regularly.
[00:42:04.82] REID HOLZWORTH: I feel, too, that as a leader, if you have to micromanage people, any person on your team, they shouldn't be on your team.
[00:42:10.73] LETICIA TREVINO: I agree.
[00:42:11.29] REID HOLZWORTH: 100%. I mean, it depends on what level you're at, or I guess you could argue it depends on the job and-- but yeah, if you have to micromanage. No.
[00:42:20.51] LETICIA TREVINO: No.
[00:42:20.96] REID HOLZWORTH: At least if you have a downline leadership team.
[00:42:24.23] LETICIA TREVINO: Yes.
[00:42:24.79] REID HOLZWORTH: But I mean, yeah.
[00:42:25.69] LETICIA TREVINO: Yeah. Entry level positions, maybe, because they're learning, but not at the level that we're at. There's certainly-- no, you can't.
[00:42:31.64] REID HOLZWORTH: No.
[00:42:31.93] LETICIA TREVINO: You're spending more of your time micromanaging somebody, no. It's not good for either-- anybody, really.
[00:42:36.98] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah. How do you define success?
[00:42:40.55] LETICIA TREVINO: Well, that's changed throughout the years. I would say early on, success was having that BMW.
[00:42:45.41] REID HOLZWORTH: Totally.
[00:42:45.74] LETICIA TREVINO: Success was having money in the bank.
[00:42:47.50] REID HOLZWORTH: Yep.
[00:42:47.72] LETICIA TREVINO: Not living paycheck to paycheck.
[00:42:49.47] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah.
[00:42:50.30] LETICIA TREVINO: I think success now is having a body of work you're proud of.
[00:42:55.08] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah, yeah.
[00:42:56.21] LETICIA TREVINO: Looking back at your career and saying, wow, I really. I made a lot of positive impacts to my company, positive impacts to people.
[00:43:03.06] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah.
[00:43:03.51] LETICIA TREVINO: I think that's what success means to me now. But if you'd asked me that question 10 years ago, it would be different.
[00:43:08.12] REID HOLZWORTH: Right?
[00:43:08.54] LETICIA TREVINO: Yeah.
[00:43:08.90] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah. Big house, nice car.
[00:43:10.89] LETICIA TREVINO: Big house, fancy car. I mean, that was partially why I wanted to be a producer, because I thought, well, I see them coming in there with these fancy cars and fancy watches. Well, I got a fancy watch like you.
[00:43:20.61] REID HOLZWORTH: [LAUGHS]
[00:43:21.68] LETICIA TREVINO: So yeah, maybe that is success, a Panerai. But yeah, I think--
[00:43:26.71] REID HOLZWORTH: This one was actually a gift from-- my employees gave this to me.
[00:43:30.65] LETICIA TREVINO: Oh my gosh. You got some good employees.
[00:43:32.76] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah.
[00:43:33.23] LETICIA TREVINO: I'm trying to think what I got. I think I got some Lululemon hoodie, I think.
[00:43:35.87] REID HOLZWORTH: [LAUGHS]
[00:43:36.20] LETICIA TREVINO: I don't know if I got--
[00:43:36.95] REID HOLZWORTH: Well, we sold the business, we made a lot of money, so yeah.
[00:43:40.16] LETICIA TREVINO: There you go.
[00:43:40.77] REID HOLZWORTH: [LAUGHS]
[00:43:41.37] LETICIA TREVINO: I need to--
[00:43:43.49] REID HOLZWORTH: But yeah.
[00:43:44.07] LETICIA TREVINO: I have ways to go then--
[00:43:45.00] REID HOLZWORTH: But to that point, we all achieve something. And I mean, cheap success for so many people. I mean, that's awesome. That's how I define success. It's other people defining success in their own way.
[00:43:57.36] LETICIA TREVINO: It is. I mean, we spend so much time at work, and I was talking to somebody just yesterday about this, and it's like, you want to-- what is the mark I'm going to leave on this world? And if somebody could say, I learned a lot from her, she was a kind person, she was funny, she was sincere, then I did my job.
[00:44:14.94] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah.
[00:44:15.29] LETICIA TREVINO: And that's success.
[00:44:16.40] REID HOLZWORTH: Totally. Yeah. All right. A few more questions and we're going to close out.
[00:44:20.16] LETICIA TREVINO: OK.
[00:44:20.36] REID HOLZWORTH: How do you give back?
[00:44:22.94] LETICIA TREVINO: Well, our company is very philanthropic. And I think talking about my childhood and kind of where I came grew up from, I've been, over the years, thinking like, how do I give back to my community? And being led by Mike Heffernan, our CEO, just seeing the things he's done-- every year for Christmas, I get a gift from him. And it's a monetary gift that I can give to somebody. And it can be an individual or it can be a non-profit organization.
[00:44:48.81] And I remember the first year I got, I've been getting it from him for the last, probably, 15 years, I just was tearful. Oh my gosh. So kind that somebody would do that, that they would, out of their own kindness and say, here, do this. I'm going to donate this in your name, in your honor.
[00:45:02.85] REID HOLZWORTH: Wow.
[00:45:03.17] LETICIA TREVINO: And so, for me, I'm thinking, how do I do that? Actually, I'm in the midst now of setting up a scholarship fund.
[00:45:08.01] REID HOLZWORTH: Wow. No kidding.
[00:45:09.15] LETICIA TREVINO: And I'm calling it the Poder scholarship fund. Poder meaning, you can. Poder means-- yo puedo, I can do. Tu puedes, you can. Podemos, we can together.
[00:45:18.68] REID HOLZWORTH: Wow.
[00:45:18.93] LETICIA TREVINO: And so, I'm actually going to be targeting someone that looks like me, so female, Latina, going back to my high school, I think, had I had that opportunity-- now, I've had an incredible career and a great life. But I think back, what would it have been had somebody invested in me at that time and said, hey, just because you're a homemaker and your mom's taught you how to cook tortillas and clean up a house, you can still go to college and you can still be something special.
[00:45:44.04] And I didn't have anybody, at that time, that did that. And so now that I'm at a point in my career and in my life where I can give back, I'm doing that. So I've been networking with some of my colleagues here to donate to that scholarship fund, and I hope to be able to positively impact several little girls just like me.
[00:46:01.39] REID HOLZWORTH: That's so awesome.
[00:46:02.50] LETICIA TREVINO: Yeah.
[00:46:02.70] REID HOLZWORTH: Congrats on that.
[00:46:03.31] LETICIA TREVINO: Thank you so much.
[00:46:03.96] REID HOLZWORTH: Super cool. Outside of family, outside of kids, and I always say this because everybody's got family and all kinds of stuff going on, what do you do for fun?
[00:46:13.03] LETICIA TREVINO: Oh, I love to read.
[00:46:14.40] REID HOLZWORTH: Oh, yeah?
[00:46:15.10] LETICIA TREVINO: Yes, I have, a year to date, almost 30 books.
[00:46:18.94] REID HOLZWORTH: Wow. 30 books?
[00:46:20.35] LETICIA TREVINO: Yeah.
[00:46:20.82] REID HOLZWORTH: [EXHALES] Like, maybe two.
[00:46:23.08] [LAUGHTER]
[00:46:24.78] LETICIA TREVINO: Any opportunity. Sunday afternoons, my husband walk in, are you still reading? OK, yeah. I'll get into one of those good books. I just picked up reading, probably, three years ago. And I just love it. All kinds of different-- thriller and mystery and--
[00:46:38.95] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah.
[00:46:39.81] LETICIA TREVINO: Not just work stuff. I mean, the fun stuff. I like doing that.
[00:46:42.66] REID HOLZWORTH: I've been trying to get into-- because I'm so tired of TV, I don't even watch it anymore. I'm so over it. The same with Netflix, I'm just like, ugh. It's just like I can't get into it anymore. I don't know why. Maybe my brain just is over it. But I think it's hard for me to find good books, though. Because I want to start reading stuff like that. Instead of watching a movie, why don't you just start reading a book?
[00:47:02.22] LETICIA TREVINO: Book clubs. I've joined-- we have a work book club at work.
[00:47:05.34] REID HOLZWORTH: Oh, yeah? I think we have one at Applied. I don't even know.
[00:47:07.78] LETICIA TREVINO: Yeah, you might find out. But there's a couple of other-- Reese Witherspoon has a book club and--
[00:47:12.27] REID HOLZWORTH: Oh, OK. So there's-- OK.
[00:47:14.17] LETICIA TREVINO: So you can go and follow them and see what are the top books that they're reading, and what's new and exciting.
[00:47:19.45] REID HOLZWORTH: Oh, I got you. So certain people will have book club-- collection of books.
[00:47:22.53] LETICIA TREVINO: Yes.
[00:47:22.86] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah.
[00:47:23.19] LETICIA TREVINO: Every month they kind of tout them. And then I'm on this Goodreads app, which is--
[00:47:27.16] REID HOLZWORTH: OK.
[00:47:27.78] LETICIA TREVINO: I love it, because it's like bragging rights. The second I finish a book, I need to go and mark my book as read, and then people that are connected-- it's a social media, so your friends are following you and they're seeing--
[00:47:36.51] REID HOLZWORTH: It's like a gamification, a little bit, to reading, as well.
[00:47:38.72] LETICIA TREVINO: I'm like, oh my god, I finished the book, I finished the book.
[00:47:40.30] REID HOLZWORTH: [LAUGHS] That's awesome.
[00:47:42.06] LETICIA TREVINO: So there's that. But the other thing that I do for fun is I box. I'm a boxer.
[00:47:46.10] REID HOLZWORTH: What? That's badass.
[00:47:47.83] LETICIA TREVINO: I have purple knuckles, I don't know if you can tell. But yeah, my trainer is-- he's right at the edge of getting into the UFC.
[00:47:55.21] REID HOLZWORTH: Oh, yeah?
[00:47:56.12] LETICIA TREVINO: So he's a legit.
[00:47:57.00] REID HOLZWORTH: No kidding.
[00:47:57.57] LETICIA TREVINO: Legit trainer. He comes to my house two mornings a week and--
[00:48:02.10] REID HOLZWORTH: You have a bag or like--
[00:48:04.26] LETICIA TREVINO: I have a bag, but he's hold pads, and we're hitting-- and he's hitting me and I'm hitting him, and yeah. So it's legit stuff. Yeah. I'm a--
[00:48:10.05] REID HOLZWORTH: That's so badass.
[00:48:11.56] LETICIA TREVINO: Yeah. And I think if I can do 10 rounds before starting my day in the morning, there's nothing at work is going to be more challenging.
[00:48:20.62] REID HOLZWORTH: Oh, yeah.
[00:48:20.85] LETICIA TREVINO: So jump roping in the morning, get my jump rope in, warm up and--
[00:48:24.63] REID HOLZWORTH: Boxing is so hard.
[00:48:26.38] LETICIA TREVINO: It is so hard.
[00:48:26.90] REID HOLZWORTH: It really is so hard. Like, yeah. I've been in many fights, and like-- but with my friends, I've put on gloves and stuff, and I last like 30 seconds.
[00:48:34.09] LETICIA TREVINO: Oh, yeah. And we're doing 10 three-minute rounds.
[00:48:36.28] REID HOLZWORTH: [EXHALES]
[00:48:36.94] LETICIA TREVINO: Yeah, we're really doing it. Yeah. And it's not the-- people go, are you boxing? No, I'm not kickboxing. I'm literally getting my butt kicked.
[00:48:44.79] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah.
[00:48:45.33] LETICIA TREVINO: And I'm really-- I have some moves. I have names for certain-- people that I don't like. I'm like, this is the such and such move.
[00:48:51.25] REID HOLZWORTH: [LAUGHS]
[00:48:52.86] LETICIA TREVINO: I think about them like, ooh. But it is a great stress reliever. It's been great for our mental health.
[00:48:58.73] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah.
[00:48:59.43] LETICIA TREVINO: Having some activity daily, but certainly, I look forward to that. My two days a week. And my trainer who's been with me for four years, he's part of our family now.
[00:49:08.78] REID HOLZWORTH: Oh, yeah.
[00:49:09.37] LETICIA TREVINO: Yeah. He's got a big fight coming up in December--
[00:49:11.25] REID HOLZWORTH: Oh, that's awesome.
[00:49:12.45] LETICIA TREVINO: He's like one of
[00:49:12.96] Our kids. I see him, I'm like, [GASPS]. Yeah, yeah.
[00:49:16.29] REID HOLZWORTH: In Milwaukee, they have this gym, it's called Roufusport. And it's a legit UFC gym. And I had a buddy who was training over there. And I went there, I took my son. I'm like, let's go. They had a local fight. That was the first time I've been to a UFC fight. It was so badass It is so ridiculous, and even everything-- kids, women, all of it. It is so crazy.
[00:49:39.28] LETICIA TREVINO: And it's so rare. It's just like, they're like, you like UFC? I'm like, I love it.
[00:49:42.89] REID HOLZWORTH: It's so good.
[00:49:44.36] LETICIA TREVINO: It is. It's kind of brutal.
[00:49:45.50] REID HOLZWORTH: It is. It's a little primal. It's primal.
[00:49:47.39] LETICIA TREVINO: Yes.
[00:49:48.51] REID HOLZWORTH: But--
[00:49:49.15] LETICIA TREVINO: I don't know what--
[00:49:49.63] REID HOLZWORTH: But it's wild. Yeah. I mean, that's awesome.
[00:49:53.09] LETICIA TREVINO: When I've had a rough day, I'm like, get out there and hit some pads. Yeah.
[00:49:57.79] REID HOLZWORTH: All right. Two more questions. If you had unlimited time, what would you do?
[00:50:04.06] LETICIA TREVINO: I go on vacation.
[00:50:05.33] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah?
[00:50:06.34] LETICIA TREVINO: I don't take enough vacation. I would just sit on a beach somewhere.
[00:50:09.71] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah.
[00:50:10.06] LETICIA TREVINO: And just maybe read a book.
[00:50:11.80] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah. Sit on the beach and read.
[00:50:13.07] LETICIA TREVINO: Sit around the beach and read. Something about the ocean, I just love being there, and I just don't make it a priority. I think I've been-- in grind mode for the last 25 years.
[00:50:23.34] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah.
[00:50:23.57] LETICIA TREVINO: And so, I feel like I've got a good 15 plus years left to be grinding.
[00:50:28.39] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah.
[00:50:28.82] LETICIA TREVINO: But I hope that, in the next few years, I can try and enjoy a little bit of that too.
[00:50:33.15] REID HOLZWORTH: Did you go in the ocean when you were a child?
[00:50:34.68] LETICIA TREVINO: No.
[00:50:35.16] REID HOLZWORTH: No?
[00:50:35.55] LETICIA TREVINO: Mm-mm. Not until I was an adult. I had never been on a plane till I was like 18.
[00:50:39.28] REID HOLZWORTH: Wow. Yeah.
[00:50:40.58] LETICIA TREVINO: I didn't get to see it. Even though we were here in the Bay Area. I don't even think I remember even-- you can see the ocean in San Francisco. I don't think I remember, like, touching sand until I was an adult.
[00:50:51.35] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah. Wow.
[00:50:52.44] LETICIA TREVINO: Yeah.
[00:50:52.79] REID HOLZWORTH: Wow.
[00:50:53.22] LETICIA TREVINO: But it was like one of those things like, ugh, I like this. I'd love to retire in San Diego and be by the ocean if I could.
[00:51:00.42] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah. San Diego is nice.
[00:51:02.01] LETICIA TREVINO: Yeah.
[00:51:02.49] REID HOLZWORTH: Beautiful.
[00:51:02.89] LETICIA TREVINO: But that's what I would do. I would spend time just relaxing, spending time with family. I love my family. I love being with them, and uninterrupted time would be amazing, if I could just spend time with them and laugh, and we listen to music and we have good times.
[00:51:20.02] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah. All right. Last question. What's your drink of choice? And I know you drink.
[00:51:25.12] LETICIA TREVINO: Yes.
[00:51:25.78] REID HOLZWORTH: Because you were hanging out with DeBoer last night.
[00:51:27.31] LETICIA TREVINO: Yes.
[00:51:27.46] REID HOLZWORTH: You have to drink. If you hang out with DeBoer.
[00:51:29.00] LETICIA TREVINO: Yeah, a prerequisite. I would say champagne, Veuve Cliquot, but we had some Dom--
[00:51:35.29] [INTERPOSING VOICES]
[00:51:36.52] REID HOLZWORTH: Couldn't be without the Dom.
[00:51:37.10] LETICIA TREVINO: Only when it's DeBoer. That's probably my go to drink, I would say.
[00:51:40.99] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah.
[00:51:41.68] LETICIA TREVINO: I like lemon drops and espresso martinis as well.
[00:51:44.54] REID HOLZWORTH: All right.
[00:51:44.90] LETICIA TREVINO: When I'm feeling frisky.
[00:51:45.91] REID HOLZWORTH: [LAUGHS]
[00:51:47.80] LETICIA TREVINO: And my typical drink in the morning would be an americano.
[00:51:53.14] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah.
[00:51:53.83] LETICIA TREVINO: I do decaf, really.
[00:51:54.88] REID HOLZWORTH: Oh, yeah?
[00:51:55.52] LETICIA TREVINO: Because you could tell I'm a fast talker.
[00:51:57.32] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah, yeah.
[00:51:57.73] LETICIA TREVINO: Could you imagine caffeine with this?
[00:51:59.53] REID HOLZWORTH: Oh, yeah.
[00:52:00.08] LETICIA TREVINO: I'd be talking like Rosie Perez.
[00:52:01.45] REID HOLZWORTH: Oh, I hear you.
[00:52:02.39] LETICIA TREVINO: [TRILLS] Yeah. So decaf is good for me.
[00:52:05.48] REID HOLZWORTH: I go through decafs sprints, stints. Sprints, stints, I don't know. Same. But right now, with all this going on, no way.
[00:52:14.19] LETICIA TREVINO: You need a little caffeine?
[00:52:14.94] REID HOLZWORTH: I'm like nine cups deep already. Not really, but it's too much.
[00:52:18.90] LETICIA TREVINO: Trying to stay--
[00:52:19.53] REID HOLZWORTH: But generally speaking, I'm with you. I have so much energy. And when I'm not doing this stuff to the wee hours of the morning all the time, I'll drink a cup of coffee. And I'm like blah.
[00:52:27.94] LETICIA TREVINO: Yeah, yeah. I almost get too much.
[00:52:29.43] REID HOLZWORTH: And it's like, what is wrong with you?
[00:52:31.08] LETICIA TREVINO: Yeah. I like the taste of coffee, but not the after effects.
[00:52:34.50] REID HOLZWORTH: Totally. For me, I like a warm beverage in the morning. It's kind of just like a ritual thing.
[00:52:39.07] LETICIA TREVINO: Mm-hmm. Go down there and see all the folks at the coffee shop. Say good morning, all the retirees just sitting there.
[00:52:43.98] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah, right? Like, must be nice.
[00:52:45.84] LETICIA TREVINO: Yeah.
[00:52:46.19] REID HOLZWORTH: [LAUGHS]
[00:52:46.61] LETICIA TREVINO: Let me go grind for the next 12 hours.
[00:52:48.50] REID HOLZWORTH: [LAUGHS]
[00:52:49.64] LETICIA TREVINO: Yeah.
[00:52:50.30] REID HOLZWORTH: Well, this was great. Thank you so much for joining me. This was awesome.
[00:52:53.30] LETICIA TREVINO: Thank you for having me. I really enjoyed our conversation.