We were lucky to catch up with Alexander Brown recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alexander, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Almost every entrepreneur we know has considered donating a portion of their sales to an organization or cause – how did you make the decision of whether to donate? We’d love to hear the backstory if you’re open to sharing the details.

We don’t use an exact percentage but we do donate based on the agencies success. We have a minimum amount that we will always donate. Depending on the prior year we will increase that amount. The causes are places that are close to me or my team. Most are causes that are important to my team and I. The others are actual causes and non profits that impact close friends and family.

Alexander, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I got into insurance by my manager when I worked for a newspaper when i was 12 years old. While I worked for the newspaper I was awarded top salesman and carrier of the year awards. My manager stayed in contact with me and when I was old enough to work in insurance he reached out and the rest is history. I started working with State Farm as a agent team member for the next 8 1/2 years and opened up my own agency in 2016 and 2nd location in 2020.

I always believe that if you are going to do something you should do it the best it’s ever been done. No matter what it is. Growing up i never missed a day of school K-12. I was one of two people that did that the year i graduated. I took that with me though as when i entered the work force I never called out and always showed up everyday to get the job done.

What’s unique about being a State Farm agent is we are able to assist people with so many needs. Not just your auto and home insurance but life and health insurance. Plus banking and investments and even pet insurance.

We like to say we handle things a bit differently in our agency. Most people just want to get their insurance and be done with it. They get the quote and they buy it and they hate that they had to just spend the money on it. We take a different approach. We take the time to make sure that our customers understand what they have and how it can be used. When customers understand what they have and see how important it is they aren’t as angry about spending the money. So we make our customers take their time with us. We don’t rush through the process. Insurance protects the most important things in your life. Your family, your income and of course your belongings.

Our agency really prides ourselves on working with other small business owners like myself. So many people are experts in their craft but need help when it comes to running a business associated with it. Its hard. Really hard! So that’s why i make sure I spend time with those small business owners. Not that they don’t know what they are doing at all but simply what they dont know. There is so much out there that can benefit small business owners and their teams and they just dont know about it. So I work with them and their teams to help provide a service that is priceless and in most cases doesn’t cost the business owner a thing. When we are done they are saving money and their team is so happy that they aren’t going to leave and respect the business where they work.

It all comes back to the community. If i am taking care of the people of the community and the small businesses of the community it will allow me to give back to that community. I am for sure a small business. However this small business has allowed me to employee 17 people and give them a living and just last year alone donate over $25,000 back to the community through non profits. We also don’t beleive in being quite about this. I don’t do it for the Thank you or the spotlight. We do it to inspire. We give to inspire. I want others to see me and what we are doing and want to do the same. If we can accomplish that our legacy will live on forever.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Being a small business owner is not always easy. I opened in 2016. By the middle of 2017 the market was shifting for my business in Maryland. The belief was that it wouldn’t last long. So we kept hiring and training. Unfortunately it did last long and we were now into the end of 2018 and it still wasn’t back. I had to let some team go and was just getting by financially. My move was to focus on my core team. Work on making them as best as they could be and getting the most out of them. We did this and it worked. By mid 2019 things started to shift back in our favor. The extra work we put in our team was better than ever. We were able to hire more and the new hires were trained better and we haven’t looked back.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

I believe that you have to diversify. You can’t just do one thing in my industry. So we grow from center of influences, referrals from customers, social media, seo and paid leads. If one area is slow another is always going to be working. This allows us to have consistency all year long.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.alexbrownsf.com
• Instagram: @alexbrown_statefarm
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/alexbrownagency