Podcast Episode 85 with Travis Sartain
This is a great episode for anyone interested in what it is like to succeed within the largest insurance brokerage in the United States.
Travis is EVP at Marsh McLennan Agency (MMA)
Travis was an exceptional wrestler in high school but hung up his wrestling singlet in college, where he studied general business at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri.
Like quite a few of my guests in the past, Travis has a thrill-seeking side, being an avid skydiver AND scuba diver, where he jokingly says to me, "I guess I am just not comfortable on the ground"!
Travis said that he didn't start skydiving until 2001, and since then is nearing 500 jumps in total. He did it initially to conquer a fear of heights and eventually fell in love with the sport, turning it into a real passion.
Heading under sea level, Travis picked up scuba diving while traveling with his wife, realizing that this was an activity he could share with her and bond over.
Travis began his benefits career working for a PPO Network in Atlanta, Georgia. Early on, his role was to review massive amounts of PPO contracts where he uncovered over $1,000,000 of missing revenue. Because that company was going through due diligence to be acquired, Travis unknowingly assisted in increasing the valuation of his company. This helped him personally as well, receiving an offer to join a startup in Athens, GA with one of his mentors.
Travis found himself down in Dallas next with MHBT, where he ultimately joined his current firm through an acquisition of MHBT by the Marsh McLennan Agency, also known as "MMA", a subsidiary of the largest insurance brokerage in the United States.
Travis started gravitating toward self-funding as he started to get exposed to larger prospects and clients. He found that through the vehicle of self-funding, these employers were seeking more control over their healthcare spend, and self-funding offered a mechanism in which to do that.
Travis taught himself self-funding in about two weeks by picking the brains of his mentors and peers at MHBT, as well as reaching out to trusted stop-loss vendors.
Travis is also a very astute salesman, understanding body language, behavioral psychology, and being able to read a prospect's openness to the ideas he's presenting. Being in the industry for 20 years, he has also built up a great referral network, something he calls a "Center of Influence", which allows him to be more choosy about who he works with, and the ability to sit down with an audience more receptive to his strategies.
Chapters:
0:00 Sartain vs SarTAIN
2:00 Intro to Travis
9:20 Sky & Scubadiving
17:00 Enter the Benefits World
28:14 MHBT to Marsh & McLennan
35:00 Self-Funding
48:43 The CAA
54:45 Incentivized Healthcare
57:53 The Big Picture
1:02:39 Closing Thoughts
