Intro: Welcome to Uniquely Small Biz, a podcast where small business owners share their real stories of success, failure and everything in between.
Carolyn: Hi, I’m Carolyn McArdle and I am so excited to kickoff Uniquely Small Biz, a new podcast from Selective Insurance for small business owners to tell their unique stories. In this episode, we're focusing on something called the “pandemic pivot”, where business owners were able to make innovative changes during these unprecedented times. Join me to discuss these changes with actor, director and pretzel connoisseur, Adam Shapiro.
Carolyn: You’ve probably been watching Adam Shapiro on the big screen for many years. He was in Now You See Me and The Affair and most notably, Steve Jobs in 2015, and during the pandemic, Adam had to figure out a way to fill his time number one, and how to contribute financially to his household. It can't all be your wife, Adam. So it was during the pandemic that you launched what we now know as Shappy Pretzel. Hi, Adam.
Adam: Hi. Hi. Thanks for having me!
Carolyn: I'm so happy to talk to you. Your story is incredible.
Adam: Oh, wow. Thank you for saying that. It's been the coolest, it's a lot of pretzels.
Carolyn: It is lot of pretzels.
Adam: It's a whole lot of pretzels, which is like a dream come true for me.
Carolyn: Now, your obsession started when you were a young kid, of course, growing up in Philadelphia, you were obsessed with Philly pretzels. Yes. The soft pretzels.
Adam: Obsessed. Everybody is. I mean, it's like a way of life in Philly. It's rude to show up at somebody's house without like 12 Philly pretzels.
Carolyn: You know, it's like in the Midwest, when you go door to door with dinners for your neighbors; in Philly, you guys are doing it with soft pretzels.
Adam: It's always soft pretzels. And it's funny cause I never realized, I thought, you know, that was as famous outside of Philly as cheesesteaks and Rocky and Eagles fans booing and you know, but I didn't realize until I started a Philly soft pretzel company in LA that most people had never heard of the concept of a Philadelphia-specific soft pretzel.
Carolyn: No we're all familiar with Annie's pretzels at the Oakland International Airport or whatever airport, or pretzels at a basketball game.
Adam: Sure.
Carolyn: But to know that there is a specific pretzel in the Philadelphia soft pretzel that you have now mastered that kicks pretzels up to all new level.
Adam: Oh yeah. And it’s the OG pretzel, you know, the Dutch came over, they moved to Pennsylvania with these soft pretzels. Then they needed to figure out a way to get these soft pretzels down to Philly without them going bad. So they ended up creating the hard pretzel, which became America's pretzel. Slowly but surely over the course of the last couple of hundred years, soft pretzels are back in a big way is especially with Shappy Pretzel. Yeah, exactly.
Carolyn: And you have brought them back single-handedly.
Adam: Never had the idea, never once had an idea about doing this.
Carolyn: But I mean, from when it popped in your head, during the pandemic, when you're not working and this idea pops in your head that, “Hey, I love these pretzels. Why am I not doing something along the lines that I love so much?” How did this go from this idea during the pandemic to bringing it to fruition?
Adam: It's kind of unbelievable. I mean, I've been an actor my whole life, my whole adult life. I've never really held any other jobs before in the last 20 years. And then the pandemic happens. We were, Katie was shooting a show for Netflix in Brooklyn and we moved back to LA. And I was doing what everybody else was doing, which was just basically eating our-
Carolyn: Eating your feelings.
Adam: anxiety, and baking! And, my feelings were specifically anxiety. And everybody was baking and everybody was making sourdough bread and putting them on Instagram and stuff. And I was like, wow, this might be, if this thing lasts for a few more months, this is gonna be the longest I've ever gone without a Philly pretzel. And my son at the time was two. Now he's three. And I'm like, I gotta get this guy a Philly pretzel. So I started trying to make one in my kitchen and it turns out there's no recipes for Philly pretzels online because there's only a few companies that do it. And those are like family secrets. And so I just did a bunch of trial and error and then one day came up, you know, opened up the oven and was like, “Oh my God, this is a feeling Katie, Katie. I am the most powerful man in the world.” I figured it out. And so I started making it and for a few months I was just making them for fun, dropping them off at friend's houses, stuff like that. And she co-hosts with Ryan Seacrest. So whenever Kelly Ripa goes out for like a week. And so she was hosting the show from our house and Seacrest, said, “What have you guys been snacking on during your quarantine?” And she goes, “Oh my husband's obsessed with making soft pretzels. He's literally making dough right now.” And then I just jump on TV as one does, when there's a national live broadcast filming in your living room. And I was like, “Seacrest, baby, I'm bringing you pretzels!” And so the next day he was eating on air and he was talking about them and I was like, wow, I really should like coin these pretzels, you know, make a website.
Carolyn: Yeah.
Adam: And, and that's kind of when the idea came into my head, I was like, Oh, it would also be really fun to have a food-specific Instagram, because I had been posting so much food on my own Instagram. I was like, man, it'd be cool if I had an Instagram that I could just kind of like, without any sort of second thought, post every single soft pretzel that I make. And so I made an Instagram for Shappy Pretzel and a little website.
Carolyn: I saw that. Yep.
Adam: And all of a sudden people started showing up to my driveway to buy soft pretzels. And I started to take it a little bit more seriously. And when it became 200, 300, 500 pretzels out of my oven every day. And then it just became a business, but it all kind of came together through Instagram and word of mouth. And just generally speaking my passion for Philly food and for soft pretzels. And it just started to spread.
Carolyn: The biggest surprise to me here in this whole thing is that Seacrest ate a carb.
Adam: Yeah, it's a shocking revelation. I'm surprised that wasn't this big story. Somehow the story became about me and the pretzels, but it should have been the fact that Seacrest is eating these.
Carolyn: He was raving about it. Like didn't he go on the next day and talk about it again with your wife? Like he couldn't stop.
Adam: Yeah. And then we've talked about it several times. So, I mean, I think that that is scientific proof that these are good soft pretzels because anybody out there that knows that they don't really eat carbs often knows they don't want to waste it. Yeah. Like the moment you bite into a blueberry muffin that's not great, good, you're like, “I'm not even gonna eat this because I'm not going to waste my like carb day on this crappy muffin”. So, if Seacrest is eating these pretzels, I actually think that’s scientific evidence.
Carolyn: How did you feel when you went from, “Yeah, I'm kind of doing this out of my kitchen and there's a pandemic and it was sort of a hobby”, to when Seacrest talked about it with your wife on live with Kelly and Ryan, it went to another level where you're sort of forced to have to keep up with the demand. Right. So were you happy about that or were you like, “Whoa”?
Adam: Really stressed about it. And I really wanted to make sure that the pretzels were good and I had never made more than like 12. And now all of a sudden I'm making 100, 200, and 300. I was psyched about it. And honestly, there's something incredibly fulfilling about making a piece of food - anybody who's ever cooked for their family - and you know, you serve it and everyone's like, this is delicious. There's, it's just a very fulfilling moment. It's a type of fulfillment that I don't always get as an actor in film and TV. You do your work. You go in there, you shoot it. Then the movie gets made in posts with editors and sound and the special effects. And then it gets marketed and it gets put out there. And by the time anybody is seeing the TV show that I'm on, it's light years from what I did. You know what I mean? That's kind of why I love being on stage the best. Cause it's very much the actor's medium. It's probably the closest to cooking food and giving it to people that acting gets.
Carolyn: You can see those reactions right away.
Adam: Yeah. You hear the crowd, applause, the laughter, stuff like that. So there's just something about giving somebody a soft pretzel, especially those Philadelphians who hadn't been to Philadelphia in eight months because of the pandemic.
Carolyn: Right.
Adam: Eating the pretzel and immediately crying. Because of how much it reminded them of home. And most Philadelphians are just, they've kind of resigned to the fact that we’re not going to be able to get this outside of Philadelphia. Yeah.
Carolyn: Because it's the real deal. So to find it in any other state, let alone California, that's bringing the Philly to California. Southern California is pretty crazy.
Adam: But it was a huge learning curve in terms of everything business-related. I mean, my career - it couldn't be further from running a business. And so I remember calling my brother, who's a small business marketing consultant that works with Salesforce and I'm telling him these things. Like, I don't know how to save people's emails, and I don't know how to take orders. And he's like, “Well, where are you writing down who’s coming tomorrow to pick up pretzels?” I'm like, “On like a yellow pad”. And he's like, “What's the yellow pad? I don't have that app”. And I'm like, “Oh no, it's not an actual, it's a yellow piece of paper”. And he's like, “Adam Adam? No, no, no”. I mean, he works in data management and he's like, “You're not running anything out that”, so he made me a bunch of Google spreadsheets and things like that. And that kind of took it to the next level. And and now, I mean, it's like a business. It’s insane.
Carolyn: It's crazy because I think a lot of people don't realize the business aspect of it. It's great that you love those pretzels and that you started baking them at home and then you eventually wound up with pop-ups and all that stuff that people don't think about the business side for you, like you've said as an actor that you're used to being on stage and then having people do post-production for you. The fact that you're having to learn about business apps and balancing spreadsheets and those sorts of things, insurance and all these things.
Adam: Insurance and getting your license and getting all your LLC, and payroll and taxes. It's been a huge learning experience but in a cool way, it's kind of demystified it for me a little bit. I mean, I've always been just so like, “Oh, I don't do that. I don't work with numbers. I don't look under the hood”. You know, I think with acting there's a certain amount of, in order to be a successful actor in Hollywood, you have to have a certain amount of denial. Right? If you actually look at the numbers before going into an audition and say, okay, well, what are the chances I'm going to get this? How many other people are auditioning for this? If you actually ran the numbers, you could never in a million years put yourself into that audition because there is a 0% chance of you booking that role, right, on any given day. And so you kind of have to teach yourself to not look at the realistic numbers and the money and all that kind of stuff. You kind of have to live in a world above that or to the side of that. And it's the opposite of what you need to be doing when you're running a small business where you really need to keep an eye on how much money is going out and how much money's coming in and how to keep growing the amount of money coming in and controlling the amount of money going out. So that was the biggest learning curve for me in running my own small business was actually looking under the hood and looking at those numbers and being real.
Carolyn: It's crazy because there is something to be said that ignorance is bliss. Not knowing and whether it's acting or baking or whatever, you're starting your own business. There is something to be said for keep your head down and just do what you love doing. And the rest will fall into place. And I kind of feel like you almost by default didn't have a choice. Yes, you had to find out about the business side of it and figure it out as you went along, but a lot of that was just your passion for your product.
Adam: Yeah. There was a couple of things that led to that. One was, I couldn't just make a bunch of pretzels and hope that people were going to come buy them, because it was my house. It's not like there was any walking, you know, foot traffic. It's not a store. So everything was pre-ordered and because I was taking pre-orders, I never had a moment to quit because I had orders going two weeks ahead of time. So either I was going to have to embarrassingly email a few hundred people that I'm not doing this anymore, and then I'm going to return their money or I'm going to fulfill these orders. And it has now been six months and I have yet to have that opportunity to be like, you know what, I'm going to cut this off. It's been a fun run, I got to get back to my other job. I also noticed that there's been these humps. These like growing pain humps of like, all right, I'm to this place right now. And I'm handling production and I've got the right amount of staff and the right amount of marketing, and I'm good right now. And then a few weeks goes by and you're like, “Oh, interesting. I've grown a little bit. I need to hire another staff person”. And it just, as you grow, you keep getting to these places where things aren't working and then things are working really great. And then they're back to not working. And then they're back to working really great.
Carolyn: Welcome to running a business by the way. Huh?
Adam: It's insane!
Carolyn: It’s like jumping in the deep end.
Adam: What are you guys doing? What are you people? I know, but it is, I honestly- it’s so much fun and I'm really excited about having it. I remember having dinner with Henry Winkler after shooting a movie with him a few years ago and he's become just an awesome friend and mentor and, I mean, he's the greatest. And he told me, he said, “There’s good news and bad news about your career”. He said, “The bad news is you're really good at acting. So you're going to work in this town forever. And why that's bad news is you're also going to have these big chunks of not working. You're gonna do something that's really famous”. He's like “When I played the Fonz, it was like 20 years before anybody hired me to planning thing else. And you have to find something else that you can do with your creativity and your passion that can bring in some money during those really lean years, because that's what it is for actors who do this, their whole lives. There's going to be lean years”. And he has this amazing children's book series called “Hank” and he's written 20 children's books and he goes on book tours and he has this amazing separate career that he’s really proud of and that's really fulfilling. And so I've always wondered what that might be for me, whether it's graphic design or social media management, the stuff that I'm into. And when the pretzels happened, he came to my driveway to pick up the pretzels and he said, “Adam, this is it for you. The pretzels, the pretzels are your thing, stick with the pretzels”. And it's so true. I mean, I just love it and it takes the pressure off of the acting thing. But I also can consider them both part of the same career. Like I just have a corporation and there's a wing in my corporation that handles acting. There's a wing that handles pretzels. Is it the weirdest corporation ever? Yes, but it's all marketed the same way, the customer base is strangely the same. It's just a very. The pretzels are the play.
Carolyn: It’s all part of your journey, right?
Adam: A hundred percent.
Carolyn: Not everybody's journey is the same. And pretzels are your gap. They're your gap filler. It's your side hustle, who would have ever thought.
Adam: And now it's starting to feel like the other way around. I was on set the other day - I shoot this comedy for Netflix called Never Have I Ever, and we're doing Season Two. And the camera operator was setting up his shot and I was in the shot and then he leans over to me and I'm getting ready to, you know, they're about to call action. And he goes, “Hey Adam I ordered pretzels, uh, for Saturday at 11:30, can I come at 12:15?” And I'm like, “Yeah, you're good, man, you're good. I'll write it down”. Yeah. It's very much becoming the main hustle in that way. It's pretty great. I mean, I got to say, it's funny because Philly pretzels are such a street food and in Philly you literally buy them on the street. A lot of times you're buying these pretzels from guys that are at a red light. And they have a shopping cart. And they've got about a thousand of these pretzels stacked up in between cardboard boxes on a shopping cart. And that's who you buy the pretzels from. You know, they're like the great common denominator, these pretzels, there's no high end. There's no low end. It's just like, there's something about Philly pretzels. And even the fact that they're attached to each other and that you rip them apart. It's a very blue collar Philadelphia thing, because the only reason these pretzels are attached to each other is that you can fit more on a pan, fit more in the oven and fit more on that damn shopping cart that you're selling them off of.
Carolyn: So true.
Adam: And it's easier to sell them in batches and people buy them in batches because you share them. You don't, nobody just buys one Philly pretzel for themselves. And what I've been noticing is I love writing all my customer's names on the bags, right? So, you know, Sarah's going to order pretzels. I write “Yo Sarah” on the bag or “Yo Jen” or whatever. And now on the website, when you order the pretzels, you can say what you want me to write on the bag. There's a little box. And what I've noticed is about 75% of the orders that come in, they're asking me to write somebody else's name on the bag, which for me feels like I'm doing my job in spreading what Philly pretzels are really all about, which is about community. They're about sharing. They're about family. They're about hanging out with friends. And I think during this COVID time, it's been a really fun thing for people to pick up some pretzels for a friend and kind of safely drop them off with their name on the bag and put them outside their door. And it's been a real point of connection for a lot of people, especially for me.
Carolyn: I think because it's different and they're delicious. I mean, it's a win-win with these, you know.
Adam: You can't lose.
Carolyn: No. And your merch that you've got with the hoodies and the aprons –
Adam: It’s really fun.
Carolyn: It's so fun. And so well done.
Adam: I can’t keep the merch in stock because I can't ship the pretzels yet. I don't have any sort of like shipping facility to like start shipping pretzels. So, Shappy Pretzel fans around the country, that's what they buy. They buy the merch and soft pretzels, so that I can ship you and, I'm happy to ship you.
Carolyn: Well what’s your plan then going forward? I mean, what are you thinking? I jokingly ask, are you ever going to act again, but I know you kind of alluded to that earlier, but this has taken off to a level that I know you weren't expecting, so I hope you start delivering. I went on your website to order. I mean, what's next?
Adam: Oh, we're going to take over the soft pretzel world. I can't wait to. I have a lot of really awesome plans and partners in the works and things. People who want to come on board, we're going to get these pretzels all over the country. We're going to have a whole menu of them. And right now, it's just about, you know, we've got a really fun thing with weddings, with live weddings coming back. We have this side business that's part of Shappy Pretzel called “Tie the Knot”. And it's going to be all about those post-reception soft pretzels for your guests.
Carolyn: Yeah. I liked the idea of that.
Adam: Oh, your car gets valeted and pulled up and there's a soft pretzel waiting for you.
Carolyn: I mean, the creativity – endless!
Adam: As a little sendoff! I want to, I'm going to have a TV show. I'm going to have a sitcom based around this. There's a kid's book where Shappy keeps getting into all these mishaps and the pretzels keep rescuing them and they sing - it's a musical. There's a lot of directions this company is going to go in and I just can't wait. Ultimately, I'm just trying to get as many of these soft pretzels into people's hands as possible.
Carolyn: The creativity though, for real, when I hear you talk about your ideas, you have a gift in the sense that you're already an actor, you already have contacts, your possibilities with this are literally endless.
Adam: It's exciting. I'm glad that you think that as well. I'm really excited about where it can go. I mean, it's more than just a soft pretzel company for me. It's kind of, it's a fun thing to be involved in. One of the things I love about this so much is not just the fact that somebody gets the soft pretzels, but that I'm at the pop-up; that I get to talk to them and learn about them and take pictures and go to Instagram. And like that, that whole thing has just been such a fun idea. Idea to not just, like you said, in the beginning to take up some of my time during this pandemic and also figure out how to make some money, but ultimately I just find it to be another wing of what it is that I do and my brand, and, you know, I've run social media and branding for my theater company for so many years helping my wife with her career and my career. So, to do it to something like pretzels, I keep joking around that I've been selling my little black box theater performances for 20 years, and nobody wants to buy a ticket to a small black box theater. And then with the pretzels, it's like all of a sudden, you know, people walk by and they go, “Hey, what do you got here?” And I'm like, “Oh, they're Philly soft pretzels”. And they're already reaching for their wallets.
Carolyn: Right. You’re like, this is what it took.
Adam: Yeah. I never sold something that was so easy to sell. And so now - the pretzels are delicious, and I love the company and it's really fun. And now it’s just going to be about expanding it as much as I possibly can and keeping the pretzels as delicious as can be. And I just can't wait for it to be enormous and I want to be on “Uniquely Giant Business” podcast at some point.
Carolyn: That’s awesome. Yeah. I mean, and there will be a “Uniquely Giant” podcast. We'll be hosting that as well. So I'll see you again in about 30 days while we launch it. No, that's cool. This is kind of a big question, but I really am curious. I know we've touched on so many things today about what, you know, all these great things that have come along with this venture for you, but what do you think you've enjoyed the most about this experience? What has been the biggest gift of it all for you?
Adam: The creative outlet. I really think that it's infinitely creative. Every day, I can think of something and then just make it happen. Oh, it’d be really cool to do like a Shappy Pretzel little documentary where I kind of tell my story and show all the photos and videos that I've taken over the past six months. And I'm like, alright, I'm just going to shoot that, you know, let's get a camera, let's go. And so for me, that's been the most fun. And then also, you know, I'm obsessed with Oreos, so I'm going to, of course, I'm going to try to infuse a pretzel with an Oreo, and then I start, and then I'm talking to some bakers and friends and all of a sudden I've got a product that people are crazy about. I mean, I can't stop selling these Oreo stuffed pretzels and it was just something that popped into my head, and I've had things that probably have not worked. And that's just one of the ones that has, and there is something about the business being really small right now and all in my hands that is very creatively freeing that, you know, anything can happen on any given day. And, you know, in my world, in my other work world, nobody has that sort of creative freedom in Hollywood. I mean, you would have to run us, you would have to run a huge studio to be able to just like wake up every day and just be like, this is what I want to add to the company, and I'm going to add it today.
Carolyn: You know, when you were a kid, you probably never thought, “I'm going to take a soft pretzel and I'm going to take an Oreo someday and I'm going to gather, and I'm going to sell them and make a bunch of money”. But what I like most about your story though, is that you are a fantastic example of having an idea that you could immediately dismiss because you think, “Oh, that'll never happen, you know. Hey, it's in my brain. It'll never happen”. But you took steps like little by little, you know, I remember seeing a video of people lined up on your street. I think you called it, referred to it as like an In and Out Burger line, which everybody can picture what that looks like and your neighbors going, “What is happening at house number 952” or whatever. To see that idea come to life physically, when you look out your window and there was a line of cars, people wanting to buy pretzels, like you are proof that anything is possible. If you dream it, it can become a reality.
Adam: That's really cool of you to say. I mean, you know, or if Seacrest dreams it, it can become a reality.
Carolyn: Of course. Seacrest and the magic touch. Yes.
Adam: No but really it's been an incredible thing and I'm really grateful for it. And I just love the idea of being able to do something that's so, just positive. The whole company is just about love and family and pretzels. And then every month, we now partner with a different charitable organization and we just make everything about them for one month. It's the coolest, I mean, one day I was just like, Oh, we should do a “collab with a cause”. And then I was like, “That's it: #collabwithacause”. And so now every month we do a collab with a cause. And it's the coolest, and our stamp becomes a kind of uniquely a specific stamp to that sort of collaboration with that organization. And we've raised a bunch of money and it’s awesome.
Carolyn: I'm excited to see where you end up. I'm excited to see where you go because in just the short time that we've been talking, I really do feel like you're going to do big things with this.
Adam: Wow thank you.
Carolyn: I think this is just the beginning for you. And I'm so excited to have had the opportunity to talk to you early on in your pretzel career and who would have ever thought somebody would say you have a pretzel career, but you legitimately do Adam.
Adam: And I gotta get them up there to San Francisco.
Carolyn: Oh yes, you do. You know, I was on that website.
Adam: I'm flying up there this week actually.
Carolyn: You are? You're going to have some Oreos under your…
Adam: I’m not going to have any pretzels on me. I'm flying up there to film the other side of the biz, the filming part.
Carolyn: Are you in San Francisco specifically, or suburbs?
Adam: I’m actually going to be in Petaluma. That's where we film NBA 2K is a video game I do.
Carolyn: Oh that's in Petaluma. I did not know that. Nice!
Adam: Yeah. 2K!
Carolyn: Well it was so nice having you on our podcast. Congratulations to the success that you already have. And again, we can't wait to see where you end up. You're going big places.
Adam: I can't wait either. Thank you so much.
Carolyn: Shappy Pretzels. Find them on Instagram, on Twitter, on Facebook as well. Thank you, Adam.
Adam: Thank you!
Carolyn: And now we're going to talk to Mike MacMullin. He is the VP of Small Business for Selective Insurance. Explain this to me. I had a really nice conversation with Adam at Shappy Pretzels, and I wanted to ask you, as Adam was talking about his business expanding so rapidly and new locations coming at a fairly quick pace, what role do you see an insurance agent playing with a new business like Shappy?
Mike: Yeah. Well, that's a great question. And, you know, I love the way in which Adam spoke about Henry Winkler, and Henry Winkler, you know, talking about the fact that the entertainment business will ebb and flow and that there are times you just need something else that's your passion and your creative outlets, and basically a source of income as well for some of the really lean years, and Henry Winkler told Adam that Shappy Pretzels is his thing. And so as Adam describes the business of his wing of his corporation is the wing that makes pretzels. And so if this is truly his thing outside of his acting career and his entertainment portion of his corporation, he's going to want to protect his investments. And so his journey is unique, but every small business owner’s journey is unique, but that does create some unique exposures for him. So things like the concept of pop-ups, where he's selling pretzels in separate locations, that might present to him some potential risks and exposures to his business that might be different than say a retail operation. And so working with an independent agent to understand those risks will help better protect his overall organization. A couple of things come to mind, things like the drive-through that he has in his neighborhood. That's a bit unique. Not every neighborhood has a lineup of cars coming through their neighborhood to pick up pretzels.
Carolyn: Right.
Mike: Some of those vehicles, right, also include some celebrities. And so I love his story around being able to tap into his network of celebrities and his network of peers in the acting business. To me, I could see an exposure for Adam that he should be thinking about is something relative to, how does he protect his data, his information, and his, I'll call it cyber risk.
Carolyn: A lot of people think insurance companies and they think, well, they just do insurance. But when you're talking about protecting from cyber risk, that is not something that typically you would think an insurance agent could help with and our insurance company could help with. So the fact that you do beyond quote “just insurance” is a big deal.
Mike: We have done a survey recently where we polled some small business owners across the country and we asked them, you know, how concerned are you about these types of exposures relative to cyber, especially coming out of the pandemic, where that presented a whole new realm of risks and exposures for individuals and for business owners who now have their employees and they're working from their homes and they may be using personal devices and things of that nature. And our poll revealed that about 44% of small business owners indicate that they are more concerned about a cyber threat now than they had been previously, but only 20% of those small business owners are saying that they actually have cyber insurance. So clearly an opportunity on that front for folks to be thinking about with their independent agents as to do I have a cyber exposure? And do I have the coverage in place to protect my financial assets to protect my small business?
Carolyn: Cyber threats are so common these days. I didn't even realize that was an option when it comes to insurance. I had no idea until talking to you.
Mike: Well, insurance, it sort of gets a bad rep, right? And that nobody wakes up and says, “Hey, I can't wait to buy insurance today”. It's just one of those things as a small business owner, you're thinking that, “Okay, here's another company or another professional that's looking for my money”. Well, what resonated with me was the story that Adam told relative to stage acting versus screen acting where, with stage acting you get that immediate response, that immediate reward, right? Kind of like eating a pretzel, you know, where that you eat that pretzel, you buy it, you eat it. You'll love it. And then there's the screen acting scenario as well. And I think insurance is a little bit more like the screen acting, in that you don't always need to have that insurance available for you right at the day one, as you open up your business. I mean, you obviously need the insurance coverage in the event that something happens, but typically a small business owner doesn't necessarily have a claim for a period of time. So you're glad you have it when you need it, but it can be one of those things that the reward comes a little bit later, similar to screen acting.
Carolyn: What would you say that Selective Insurance does that differentiates you from other insurance companies?
Mike: You know, Carolyn, I think that's similar to you asking Shappy as to whether or not every pretzel is the same.
Carolyn: Fair enough. Fair enough.
Mike: So, as I indicated, before we partner with some of the best independent agents in the business. So if you're working with Selective, you're working with some of the best and Selective’s financially stable, we’re a publicly traded organization, and Fortune 1000, so you don't necessarily have to worry about “Is my insurance company going to be around in the event that I need a claim?”, but some of the services we offer exceptional coverages and products for small businesses. We're in 27 States across the U.S., we've got some great mobile apps and other services available for small businesses to be able to manage their insurance online. We are recognized as an employer of choice as well, a great place to work. But my point is that we look at each business in a unique way and are able to treat that business and provide the unique coverages and unique experiences that that a small business owner needs.
Carolyn: It was really nice talking to you today. You guys do great work. It's so nice to have you on our podcast. It's Mike MacMullin. Thank you with Selective Insurance. Thanks for being on our show.
Mike: Alright, Carolyn. Thanks very much. Really appreciate it. Thanks.
Carolyn: Thank you everyone for listening to Uniquely Small Biz by Selective Insurance. Selective Insurance believes successful small businesses keep our community strong. To find out how you can Be Uniquely Insured with Selective, talk to your independent agent or visit selective.com.