In this episode of Default Profitable, host Matt Nettleton sits down with Jenna Romens, owner and agent at Martin & Martin Insurance in downtown Noblesville. Jenna spent 16 years at Erie Insurance, moving through customer service, marketing, and agent roles before being promoted to district sales manager over agents across Hamilton, Marion, and Tipton counties. Then one of the agents she supported asked her to come to the agency side as part of a perpetuation plan. It took three asks before she and her husband Andy sat down and weighed the company car, the health insurance, and the steady paycheck against the chance to own something. Nine years of working side by side with the owners later, they retired, and last July she took over an agency that had been in business 37 years.

The insurance part she had down. What she didn’t expect was everything else: payroll, the bills, hiring decisions, and a line of people asking her to sponsor things she now had to fit inside a marketing budget. The thing she got right early was the team. Before the purchase closed, she and Andy sat down with every employee to make sure they were on board and staying, then found ways to pay them better once they owned it. Matt runs his usual question about whether there was an actual business plan, and this time the answer is yes. Jenna and Matt also get into why the agency competes on coverage instead of price, what she tells people thinking about leaving a steady paycheck to run their own shop, and the one thing she’d tell herself on day one as an owner.

Learn more about Jenna Romens and Martin & Martin Insurance at https://martinandmartin.biz. Listen to more Indianapolis Business Leaders at https://defaultprofitable.com or subscribe to Default Profitable on your favorite podcast platform.