Q&A – Phillip Wright
State Director, South Carolina
Give us some background on your role in South Carolina—how long you’ve been there, the group, and your time with Smart Choice.
I just celebrated 21 years with Smart Choice, and my focus for the past two decades has been developing independent agencies.When I first started working with South Carolina, we had somewhere between 250 and 275 agencies partnered with Smart Choice. Today, that number has grown to about 530. While the scale has changed significantly, my core role really hasn’t—it’s always been about helping agents succeed.
What has changed is technology. Over the last 10 years especially, learning how to communicate more effectively and efficiently has been a major focus for me. If you look at the evolution of Smart Choice over the past decade, you can clearly see the impact technology has had on agency growth and efficiency.
To put things in perspective, on my very first day on the job, I carried a folder full of floppy disks to agencies to manually update their rates. That was literally my job—driving from agency to agency with disks.
You’ve said your job is to make agencies successful. How do you define success for an agency?
We let the agency define success for themselves from the very beginning. In our first meeting we ask a simple but important question: What does success look like to you?
For one agency, success might mean building a 20-person agency over 10 years. If that’s the goal, then we break it down into manageable, bite-sized steps. From there, we focus on milestones: the first policy, the 10th policy, the 100th policy. Progress matters.
At its core, though, we define agency success as positive, profitable production. Positive commission is critical, which is why we focus on breakeven early on. We ask: How much are you spending to run your agency, and when does positive cash flow start?
Our goal is to help agency owners exceed a standard living wage. If you own multiple businesses, that benchmark may not apply the same way, but for most new agency owners, it’s a very real measuring stick.
If an agency isn’t reaching their goals after a couple of years, we dig deeper. It’s usually not the marketplace—we bring the marketplace. With Smart Start, agencies have access, tools, and support that rival anyone else. Sometimes the issue is a limited circle of influence or not treating the agency as a full-time business.
Bottom line: we’re willing to do whatever it takes—within reason—to help agencies reach their version of success. That might mean refining their strategy, consolidating markets, or even helping them think bigger than they initially imagined. Our job isn’t just to meet them where they are, it’s to help take them where they actually need to be.
What makes the Smart Choice approach so successful, and why does that matter for agencies?
This really comes down to tenure—how long people stay in their roles. That consistency is the foundation of our success. When teams are constantly changing, no one has enough time to build real rapport. Relationships take time, and consistency is what allows them to grow.
In this role, you’ll meet producers at large agencies, and five years later, those same producers have often moved on—many of them starting their own agencies. Because our team has been here for so long, those relationships continue. The Smart Choice team is deeply rooted, and everyone knows us.
That longevity builds trust—and trust is everything.
The next most important factor is dependability. It’s about answering the phone and finding a way to help. But first, agents have to know you’re there. And once they do call, something has to happen. Being reliable and following through is what keeps agencies coming back.
That consistency—knowing who to call, knowing they’ll answer, and knowing they’ll help—is why Smart Choice continues to perform at such a high level.
How does South Carolina have more leadership agents than any other state?
Quite honestly, we get there first. We’re proactive and reach agencies early in the process.
We hear it directly from carrier reps all the time. They’ll say, “You’re my biggest competitor. By the time I hear about an agency, you’ve already got them up and running.” In many cases, we’ve been working with an agency for months before anyone else even realizes they’re considering a move.
We often work with producers who are leaving captive or restrictive models. While some initially pursue direct appointments, carrier reps frequently see that Smart Choice is the better long-term fit. In more than one case, we’ve even had carrier reps tell an agent, “You need to stay with Phillip and work through his process. Direct probably isn’t the right fit for you.”
One reason South Carolina has so many leadership agencies is that we stay engaged and help agencies protect their leadership status. If an agency faces profitability challenges or past losses, we don’t walk away. Instead, we put structure in place to help them strengthen performance, keep key appointments, and remain viable long term.
This is a regular focus for our team. Every Friday we have a call where we discuss strategy, especially how to push production to core markets. While agencies can grow through niche opportunities, long-term stability comes from maintaining the right balance—typically around a 70/30 mix. Maintaining that balance serves several important purposes. It protects leadership status, strengthens relationships with key carriers, and helps prevent those carriers from working directly with other agencies.
We’re also very intentional about developing markets within agencies. If an agency is sitting on dead or underperforming codes, we don’t let them linger. We’ll go to the carrier and say, “Let’s clean this up. Can we replace ten inactive codes with five new, productive ones?” That constant evaluation and negotiation keeps things moving and allows us to deploy carrier access where it actually makes sense.
That combination—early engagement, strategic structure, and active code management—is why South Carolina continues to excel in leadership agencies.
For agents focused on growth, leadership status is critical because it allows them to keep what they write. How important is that when building a profitable agency?
It’s extremely important—absolutely critical. At the leadership level agents can continue to grow without commission splits. And that’s intentional. We never want to be a line item on an agent’s spreadsheet titled “Reasons I’m not successful.”
Are we worth a commission split forever? No one is. But we are worth that initial $20,000 to $30,000 because of what we provide—access, support, guidance, and growth opportunities. And yes, that number has evolved over time, just like everything else. But we’re confident in the value we bring.
When agents struggle to grow or reach leadership status, we don’t just point out the problem—we look for opportunities. In my annual email to our agencies, I told them plainly: If you feel stuck, come to me.
Agents often limit themselves—not because of lack of opportunity, but because they don’t always know what’s possible. If we have the product, it’s our responsibility to teach them how to sell it. That education and support is a huge part of how we help agencies grow—and ultimately reach leadership status.
Where do you want to see South Carolina heading in the future? What’s the next big focus for you?
Our biggest priority is intentional growth. We’ve done well in South Carolina’s coastal regions, and there’s opportunity to expand—especially in personal lines as more carriers become available. At the same time, we want more agencies writing commercial business, ideally moving toward a balanced split between commercial and personal lines to create stability and long-term growth.
Consumer behavior is also shaping strategy. Many clients now complete transactions online, so agencies need to focus on established homeowners and retirees—clients who value personalized service and help build a durable book of business.
One of the biggest challenges agencies face is scale. Many agencies are one-person operations, and the question becomes: How do we help them evolve?
That’s where Smart Start plays a huge role. Scale—through niche products, niche systems, and smarter processes. Moving forward, our focus will be on helping every agency increase scale, protect commission levels, and build sustainable growth for the long term.