We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Alec Taylor a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Alec thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

Over all my years as a Training Consultant and Manager of Training Consultants in the Insurtech industry, there was a common theme that carried a negative effect for numerous clients. From the perspective of the industry leading software company, the simplest way to deliver products and educational content was to keep things generic and broad. Doing this allowed for quicker and easier project implementations. Very early on in my career, I picked up on the disapproval for generic solutions and worked tirelessly to provide my clients with a much more tailored experience. This simple fact led to my being the most requested consultant by the company’s largest clients.

Fast forward a few more years and you will find that I was tasked with a lot of our learning curriculum development. Many newly hired Training Consultants were brought on using my Train the Trainer methodology. I was also tasked with heading up the revival of the company’s proprietary learning management system, consisting of thousands of training videos and additional supporting materials.

Through all of this, my methods towards adult education remained consistent – adapt to the needs of clients & learners and keep it simple. Although it may sound cliche and seem rudimentary, this is the most significant item setting Taylored Insights Consulting apart from the industry standard ‘canned’ approach.

This is the same mentality I embody for my clients while running Taylored Insights. Everything we do at Taylored Insights is built around the clients’ own needs, starting with in depth reviews of systems configurations, procedural consulting, precision training, and continued support post go-live. We strive to continue building strong relationships with clients, understanding them and their goals in a way that other consulting firms in the industry do not consider to be standard practice.

Alec, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Alec Taylor, and all throughout my life I have always been able to connect with people in a way many others do not. This is a trait I’ve had socially and professionally, and it’s just a part of my personality. Combine that with some of my unconventional creative problem solving and it becomes a mixture for success in most career paths.

I was recruited before graduating from The University of Colorado Denver for a Training Consultant position at the largest software company in the Insurtech industry. I quickly excelled in this position with my effective mixture of skills, providing simple yet effective training expertise. My curiosity kept me on a pathway of learning more about the systems I worked with. I’ve always been a big proponent of attempting to understand more than you need to and this consulting role was no different.

On many occasions when a client ran into a problem that stopped them from moving forward efficiently, I have been able to provide creative solutions that allow them to accomplish the same goals. I am proud to be able to provide unique solutions to clients they would not have previously thought of. The problem solving abilities have led to something so much more impactful than simply solving problems; it has led to providing clients with a way to more easily and effectively complete their daily tasks. It has always been highly gratifying to be able to help people in this way. I invest myself in each and every project and the end results reflect that.

Taylored Insights will always remain true to these core principles. I hope to continue building it into a brand that is synonymous with success through client-centric focus, creative solutions, and precision delivery of services.

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

The best source of new clients for Taylored Insights has been word of mouth stemming from the large network of satisfied clients I’ve built over many years spent as a highly effective Training Consultant. The first handful of projects after going out on my own were with some of those satisfied past clients. They were happy to hear I was now able to work with them outside the bounds of projects while I was still with the old software company. Now that Taylored Insights is further along, numerous projects have began and been completed successfully, all stemming from the valuable feedback the clients in my network have provided to potential customers.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

When you factor in my lifelong goals of always striving to attain more knowledge than needed, my earliest time as a Training Consultant was spent trying to give learners every bit of information that I could. It’s the way my mind works, so why wouldn’t it be what works best for everyone else? This is not to say that it did not work well because it was still very positively impactful for the clients I was working with. The lesson I had to learn associated with this was a mix of time management and being more accessible to the broadest audience.

With more and more projects under my belt, I found that simplicity was what reached the broadest audience in the most effective way. For a trainee that is brand new to a system we’re covering, it can be daunting needing to learn how to use it for their day to day tasks. My approach changed with respect to this, gradually getting deeper and deeper into more complex topics. This is reflected in my tiered approach to mastering new systems, both for myself and for the learners I am administering training sessions to. I find myself telling learners a certain phrase fairly often – “we have to get our roots and foundations set before we can branch out and grow as system experts”.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.tayloredinsights.com/