hi i'm mandy pryor and welcome to spotlight on pittsburgh spotlight on pittsburgh is a program about pittsburgh most fascinating people and what they do to make our city an amazing place to live and work when we come back i'll introduce you to the fabulous lynn during a bridge insurance break i and thank you so much lynn for coming on today thank you mandy for having me so we've known each other a little bit so i thought you'd be a perfect fit to come on the show today but i want you to tell your story to our audience and let them know just a little bit about you so i guess the first thing i'd ask is tell me a little bit about yourself well thank you for asking i know little girl grows up and says i want to be an insurance agent but my life has brought me to that and about thirty five years ago i started in the insurance business but during those times what i did is i raised a family i have four beautiful children i have two grandchildren and one on the way but the insurance world has turned into something that i absolutely love and passion about so our tagline is we make insurance fun and that's a little bit of what we're going to talk about today i think yeah and so can you tell me about you know maybe the early stuff that you did and how you kind of got to where you are today i started in the business when i was eighteen years old and i started working for one company and for three years i kind of learned that particular product but i decided that that really wasn't a good niche it's our difference that makes us really valuable and what i felt like is i needed to find a niche market that served what i consider to be an under served population so i chose to go into the individual market mostly health insurance so we did health insurance medicare life insurance to people who had to purchase it on their own and so you know i don't know that much about insurance and i'm sure there are some people out there so what is the individual market the individual market is anyone who has to choose their own plan many people on health insurance of course are covered by a group plan at their work or through their spouse what we found is there were contractors painters people that owned their own businesses they didn't have time to do the research and they were in improper plans that work covering them well or they were paying way too much money so we took on the burden of choosing those plans for them and helping them navigate the changes year to here and still do so today and so tell me a little bit about bridge insurance group and what you're what you're doing now bridge insurance group came and it was the fruition of all of my dreams of what an insurance agency should be i was twenty five years in a partner relationship with another agency we had six hundred eighty agents in twenty eight states so we had a pretty large impact but we were pretty single focused and what i decided is when people are looking for insurance they want someone that can help them with everything auto home life medicare health and we decided to fill that role by establishing good partner relationships contracting with all the best companies and having a staff that is very accessible we are available by phone we're available with tax on weekends and holidays off and we're very engaged with our clients to a personal level and i think that makes a difference we're very relational and so what makes this different from say going to a particular insurance agency that has you know some of the big names out there if you're your local i don't know how far you stretch maybe you can answer that too but how does it differ while we are in ten states and we do contract with all the same companies but many of the larger insurance agencies focus on either a single product line or they're more interested in those bigger groups we're here to help the individual the person who really does need to sort through things and now with the internet which we didn't have when i first started people can go on line do a search and before they know it their mailboxes are full their inbox is are full and their phone is full with voice mails from people they don't know trying to sell them a product we take all of that off of them and we do the research for them and so  in terms of who you're looking for obviously an individual and seems like more contractors were entrepreneurs anybody else or is there an age range looking for who can who can be helped by you well we have several product lines on our big ones our health medicare and life insurance let me just give you a couple of examples for something innovative life insurance has evolved when our parents bought life insurance it was whole life it was a standard policy it was a certain amount and that was all they had then then we started to add term life while that became something that was for a specific term whether it was to raise your kids pay off a mortgage whatever now we have products that are so innovative that they combine both and they will actually allow you to drop policy or cash out of the policy for things like a critical illness cancer or heart attack stroke so they have living benefits in your life insurance if you never use those then the life insurance pays out in full if not it's simply decreased by the amount of money you took out while you were living for health insurance we don't just do the big names we have alternative approaches that are thirty percent less than the major medical plans that are being offered today and we're also all fully certified to help you with the exchanges and we're on we're also in ten states now and so you know what people look at whenever they're trying to find insurance for themselves i think the best thing is to contact us because we are going to set you up with an agent that might be a specialist in that area we do have specific agents that are certified and trained in particular areas but most likely when you get a premium rate increase when you have a claim and it wasn't paid the way you thought it was going to be or if for any reason you have a change in your life you're divorced you moved you came off of your parents plan those are all opportunities for us or you're facing retirement and looking at medicare which is one of the most confusing times for most people we were able to walk them through all of the  and simplify it for them and can you tell me a little bit about your team my team is also me and we had our big staff meeting because we're preparing for open enrollment which is a specific time of year where people can change their plans but my team is really if you look at them they're perfectly fit together we have people that are great at paperwork people that are great at customer service we have agents that are phenomenal at medicare those that love the under age market for the health insurance those  on life insurance so it's such a well oiled machine and we all complement each other and they're fun too they are so much fun and we have so much fun we are always looking to make insurance fun and in terms of what people are out there and they come to you what can they expect when they come through your door our biggest point in establishing this agent agency is we wanted to be relational not transactional we do want to make a sale that's how we make our money however we also want to be able to see you at the grocery store or at church and feel good about the relationship we have feel good about the business we did together you'll have access to us and we stay in the mix often say once the last time you heard from your auto agent or your life insurance agent we contact our clients on a regular basis and they always have access to call us and you know what are kind of the first steps for somebody once they bear starting an insurance policy or you know that you're working on the first steps is we want to make it as easy as possible we take all the pressure off applying trying to figure out where to go how to go through the underwriting process if it's a life insurance policy we collect information on the phone and we will do it either way we will meet you face to face if that's your comfort level we also can do everything over the phone you never have to meet with us there's no high pressure we're going to provide you with all the information that you need and in terms of all of the different areas in which you choose do you get people that come in and just do one or day always do all of them or how does that work well it's interesting you should ask we say pull out your financial junk drawer if you pull out your auto your home your life your medicare your health whatever policies you have we're not looking to get new premium dollars we're looking to take the premium dollars you're already spending and allocate them better we want to fish n c we want proper products and again we are very innovative i myself and most of my staff does one to two hundred hours annually of additional training so that we can be ahead of the curve we're not stagnant we're always looking for new products and new ways to solve those insurance risks and what can you tell the individual and what are some of the hard through some of the things you've seen along the way when it's it comes to you know an individual getting their own health insurance that maybe i mean aside from just making it easier that you know who's struggling and what are they struggling with heartbreaking situations and today most people are suffering with high deductibles and high premiums usually we can find an end around we can find a solution for that and often we're saving them fifty to seventy percent over what they were paying by just doing it the proper way having someone that knows the systems that knows the opportunities available and that is a passion of ours is to try to fix those situations either right on the spot or if we have to wait to open enrollment we're very diligent about following up and how long do you work with your clients it's a continual relationship but typically if it's a health insurance policy whenever they need it we're going to make sure that's triggered we like to have a couple of days or weeks headline on that you know if you're coming up on renewal in your you need to change we can do it overnight in most cases where that efficient and we can get most of those policies issued right away and i'm sure you keep them up to date on stuff that's new and add up to the beneficial for them in the future and june what age what can you do for for seniors and retirement or something like that that there may be not covered do you work with them as well i'm extremely passionate about seniors because the medicare choices are overwhelming there's a lot of marketing and very little information so what we do and i've seen it i always say it's the shoulder test they come in their shoulders are up here they're very up tight they have a stack of information and by the end of our meeting usually i see their shoulders relax them say i understand it now and they feel like they have a grasp on it i want to empower all my clients those people that want to be the only resource i don't want to be that person i want my clients to understand what they're choosing good well thank you so much lynn for coming on we'll bring you back out here in just a little bit thank you thank you to find out more lynn go to bridge i and as group dot com when we get back we will meet james protein of the protein group by very nice to have you on the show this afternoon great to be here thank you so what can you tell me tell me a little bit about you in the protein group well a little bit about me i have been in the engineering business for thirty five years i work for american engineering company out of pittsburgh and if you think insurance might be a little boring i'm not even going to get into engineering because it's all you know put pipe in the ground for water and sewage and things like that but i've been doing that for a long time and out of that came a i came to understand a need for more what comes next it's more than just business because as lynn alluded to everything in business is relationship driven right so to go beyond the actual technical aspect of engineering and develop those relationships that's where i get into things and i worked through the technical side of things and became vice president of business development marketing nationally for a for a local engineering firm and then i get to the point where i get older i've five children and twelve grandchildren so it was you know everybody was local our youngest is in the air force so he's the only one that's really not here so one of the really stay closer to home so i scaled back to a smaller more local family owned firm and it's been a great decision but where the protein group came from was i do a lot of giving you know i was raised where living is giving right that's what you do is you take what you need and you leave the rest you give so i needed a vehicle to do inspirational speaking public speaking and i have a blog and different things that i do like that around that space so i created the program and then i got approached by a few people it developed into a business opportunity as people there are a lot of non profits in particular but even businesses that were created kind of a with great intentions but not necessarily with the technical processes that are needed to to succeed so writing business plans developing strategies market entry and different things like that so it kind of morphed into that although the focus of it is still that public speaking and writing this piece let's get your kind of public speaking right now yes this is a great you're doing great thank you and so your group does it focus on engineers only or is that you know we work across market sectors and one of the great things is that we do very little with engineering because i'm still involved in that space i've met up with an old friend of mine mike malone who owns malone advertising and i don't want county and we were at a seminar that was given by the small business development center of the university of pittsburgh and just talking we hadn't planned on being there together but just talking through it we decided well let's get together and collaborate and see if we can help our respective businesses grow so we did that in it didn't take long for us to realize that there was an opportunity here beyond just business development or marketing there was an opportunity to give back to make some money generate revenue but also give back to the community is one thing that was missing in the communities especially at the the eastern end of washington county ok where you have the urban river communities along the monongahela river you know they've lost their economy their economic base rate the steel industry left coal was struggling the glass industry is struggling all the things that had them thriving twenty thirty forty years ago are now gone so they've been kind of groping in the dark as to where how are we going to buy all that back and really it's one of those things at the state level it's unintentional but it's an out of sight out of mind thing so you've got to have a vehicle to get your message out there to basically market yourself as a community so when we were thinking through that i have another friend michael core posher is the president of energy or consulting and their business is toward the public sector units apologies again  providing solutions to issues related to legal policy and financial ok so we brought michael into the mix another three of us were strategizing and we're seeing these opportunities expand ok's to how we can offer a once thought they ought hind of intermingled with white rabbits or you've got the marketing strategy you've got the creative the really high end creative from malone advertising in the policy analysis and in government affairs type thing from n p r consultant so at that point we decided you know let's create a company so right now we're in the process of building a company we've got it registered it's going to be called innovative media group and it's going to be a multimedia business where the intent is although we will work with businesses corporations to provide marketing and things like that but the intent of the coeur mission is going to be to help minas apologies grow and get their message out not only within the region but also in harrisburg we're really meant well and i mean my other job my side life is that i i ran one of the chambers and you can definitely tell some of the municipalities in the area how strong they are and some are just a little more quiet so it just depends on what their focus is and how much they want to grow and some are fine being quiet they're doing quite well that ways so that's probably a great job is most of the most of the rural communities i was in i think you know i was present in the mon valley regional chamber of commerce and that's right in the heart of those communities and you're in there's a there's a really nice mix there although they don't really mesh a lot because you have those small urban communities which you know are struggling a bit now you know economically and they're losing population and so on but then you have the townships that in that case or a little bit more rural suburban if you will and those populations are growing a little bit but they don't have that commercial space right so if you live in a f to regionalize and get these communities there's forty of them just in that small area on either side of the molehill river ok that's the modern valley you probably have heard that term so at the end of the day if those forty communities that have a combined population of a little over a hundred thousand people ok come together and collaborate and look at their operations in their needs collaboratively as a whole they have a much larger louder voice and so that's of what this whole thing is all about to give them a vehicle to get that voice out there and have it be heard and so you know down the road five years from now where do you see the group going i see the group really  going heavily into that creative space ok i think that the technical side of things the nuts and bolts that's there that's that's accessible and attainable for these communities because there's grant monies out there and so on at the state level that can help them you know so i think where we are looking our niche is going to be in providing that kind of one stop shop where they can go at a very manageable cost that you're going to have a creative that is competitive with the best agencies in in the state in the region then you're going to have the strategic experience on the marketing side of my personally thirty five years and then michael core posh on the policy and legal side with forty years of experience so you have all of this the three of us combined have nearly a hundred fifty years experience in doing this type of work so providing that at a cost that these communities can then put back into their own community to their residents in our constituents is really where i think  going to be so it's kind of like a fantastic meeting of the minds yeah and it's a it's really this might not make sense to some but it's a for profit nonprofit if that you know if you can get your head around to being in the chamber of commerce space it's you know even with the chamber you have to run it like a business you do ok so if you get into that mindset well we're a nonprofit we're not here to make money we're here to do good well see i think that the change for the better not just locally but globally is going to come from the business community that's where it's at business has the power to change lives you just you just saw firsthand i mean she's amazing in the business that she's the end literally every day changes lives and we try to do that as well that's kind of our focus is if we can make a difference in one person's life that's how we measure we're going to miss success we do and how we will ok it's not how much money we make but how we impact the lives of well an expression if you're doing it within municipalities it still has a ripple the ripples go up they expand as they go up writing concentric circles so the size of the pebble the stone the rock the boat or is not as important as the fact that you're doing that ripple will then impact a lot more people than that initial splash so little splash big splash it doesn't really matter the ripple that support it's just putting in the time and effort in the beginning to see how well it can help right is there anything else that i haven't touched on that you'd like to share with us today no this is i  think that it's been a great opportunity to get a message out and this is another vehicle to do that my appreciate you having us here just spreading the word and you know there's no reason to not be positive in life and that's the message that we're trying to get out it's been an absolute pleasure having you on we will bring you back out in a few moments as lynn is well thank you thank you thank you much james for joining us today learn more about his services at the protein group dot com we will return s been a wonderful afternoon thank you for remembering what time it is so tell me a little bit then you seem to know how you two met and maybe you can share that with us well interestingly enough  of all the business side jamie and i met through actually a facebook relationship and the unique thing about both of our stories is that we had both gone through some pretty traumatic personal life altering changes and we began to share our journey raw honest vulnerable on facebook and we immediately had a connection because of that we were very open about our journey and many of the things that we were sharing were exactly what he just said in the last segment which is being positive you can take those rough times in life the things that you don't plan on or intice a pate and become a person who claims the victim looks for an excuse and gives up any number of things jamie and i both did the opposite we took it we embraced it we own our part of it we we owned up to our mistakes but then we made the decision to turn that into something beautiful that's great and so do you do you help each other with each other's business is now and how how do you think you guys work that well they're both together but i think i think i think we do not intentionally you know but subconsciously really because of the relationship we have you know we are we're in contact with each other and we talk and i think that just when you look at social media is an incredibly powerful tool that's managed properly you know i write a blog every morning and i facebook on my facebook page for no other reason than just to put a positive thought out there to start my own day you know and i see whenever she puts something in vice versa and a lot of times we're on the same page you  know the content and the kind of the the thing for lack of a better word of what i might put out in the morning i see come from her at the same time so it's we're really on the same page without even really trying to do that and you know when you think of a friendship like that that really came out of you know you look at somebody pop up on facebook right and you realize that you've got one hundred or two hundred mutual friends why i went out talking to this person you know and then you reach out and then all of a sudden you realize that and they you know their day to day and then there's people who are really trying to reach out and influence each other as well as influence and self so you know it's really nice to see positive notes during the day i mean some of them stick out me like that's my you know today's sound it's wonderful that you guys  together and figure out a way to get to know one another and work in the same region and write it's a pleasure getting to know you and you for some time so thank you both today for coming on the show and you know hopefully everybody out there gets to know both of you a little bit better