Connect
To Top

Meet Stephanie Beninati

Avatar photo

Today we’d like to introduce you to Stephanie Beninati

Hi Stephanie, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I lived in Los Angeles California my entire life before moving to Denver Colorado in 2004. Like most Los Angelans I had my sights set on the movie industry. I worked in production, did a little acting, and found my niche in Stand-up Comedy. What most of that means is I waited tables for a long time. In my late 20’s I got my real estate license and before I even sold a piece of real estate, I was offered a job to sell warranties to real estate agents. This was an outside sales position and my first real grown-up job. I loved it. I loved the freedom it gave me, and I loved making commission. After several years of working in this outside sales position, I came to Denver Colorado to visit family. I had never had an interest in moving here, but after some conversations with people my own age who lived here and owned houses and had families, it seemed like a place that I could grow up in. For those of you who don’t know much about Los Angeles it’s a little bit like Peter Pan never never land. I moved to Colorado in Jan of 2004, bought my first property and met my husband Dec 30, 2004.

For the next several years I tried to find my passion, but it was only after my husband reminded me how much I loved my job in California, I decided to go back to selling warranties to Real Estate Agents. Colorado unlike California is not a huge warranty state. Which means the money is not as lucrative and it is a product that you have to convince people to buy. In 2007, we were invited to a holiday party on a night when there was a terrible snowstorm. We almost did not go. I’m glad we did because I met the owner of a company named StrucSure Home Warranty. Unlike resale warranties these warranties were sold to home builders on brand new construction. We took a liking to each other, and he literally spent the next month convincing me to come work for him… which I am glad I did because that one decision changed my life. I started with StrucSure in January of 2008, just when the housing market was crumbling. Although it was a very challenging time, it gave way to a lot of opportunity for me. Many of my competitors were let go, which allowed me to be the only person in the industry selling this product. I immersed myself in the Home Builders Association of Metro Denver and became a vital member over the next several years, holding many boards of director positions. The real accomplishment was starting the Construction Resource Group with Brian Workman, the owner of Blind Corners & Curves. This has become the premier Resource group for the home building industry over the last 12 years.

As the years went on, I was introduced to the insurance side of the construction industry. A Structural warranty is one component of risk management; however, it is not a requirement and again, if a builder doesn’t already understand the importance of using a third-party warranty, it can take some convincing to get them to buy. Insurance however is something that is required. Trust me, that did not go unnoticed, and it was clear to me that was the industry that was going to provide the most financially rewarding opportunity. Also, I knew if I could specialize in one or two industries and become an expert, I would hold a level of respect within the industry ultimately having people seek me out and not the other way around. It turned out, that StrucSure had a small insurance company in California that was not doing very well. I was able to convince my boss to bring the company back to Colorado, let me get my insurance license, and start selling an insurance/warranty combo. In theory, it was a great idea. In reality, nobody at my current company knew how to sell insurance and it was very challenging to get it off the ground. I never worked in an insurance agency, I had no mentors for anybody to train me except the occasional wholesale broker who would help me fill out applications, so it was really trial by error.

After a couple of years of struggling day in and day out with the insurance and often crying myself to sleep, my boss suggested that I focus my time on the warranty and let the insurance piece go. They hired somebody they thought would be able to manage the insurance business and believed could really turn it around. To me it seemed clear that this person did not know what they were doing and had little interest in bringing me into the fold and working as a team to build the agency I had spent the last two years trying to build. At that time, I asked my boss if they were 100% sure they wanted to go down this path and I was met with a resounding yes! It was with that resounding yes that it was clear to me if I wanted any success in this business I needed to move on to another opportunity. Even though I never started a business before and knew very little about insurance. In January 2013, I started Strategic Insurance Services, LLC I figured I would try it on my own, and if I failed, I could always be absorbed by a larger agency and find success as an employee. However, if I succeeded, the sky would be the limit. The first two years of my business I signed up with an aggregator. This is a larger agency that allows you to write insurance underneath them, so you have access to markets, training, education and a support person. Within these two years I learned a lot about the insurance industry, and I was ready to go on my own. I went to the managers of the aggregator with my checkbook, very excited to buy my business back and start my own independent agency. I can’t believe how naïve I was. Even though I had told them my plans of being 100% independent when I signed the contract some two years earlier, I was met with so much hostility and threats of lawsuit and non-competes. The reaction really shook me to my core. This was a very trying time as I had never navigated anything to this degree.

Luckily, I did have an attorney and let him handle the situation. Finally, a few months later there was a settlement, and I wrote a check and bought my business back from the aggregator. In July 2015 and I left my basement office and moved into a 400 square-foot commercial space and couldn’t have been more thrilled. I hired my first of many employees; not many because I have so many employees, but many because many have come and gone; and I started off on my journey of being and entrepreneur. Over the past 5 ½ years it has been my main priority to create and build processes; processes that will create a foundation for the business to grow. It is now January of 2021, and I have most of my processes in place. We should be finished with the Process Bible by the end of the first-quarter. The other thing I’ve been trying to teach myself is how to hire and retain staff. Employees will make or break. It’s a cliché but it’s true higher slowly, fire quickly. After so much trial and error I finally have an amazing staff in place. I don’t know if I’ve mastered hiring, but after eight years and some very painful situations when it comes to hiring employees, I feel I finally have the most amazing staff. It also feels like other people think that as well, because I get tremendous compliments on them. What I’ve come to learn, is that I really love working on the business I am very pleased with the choices I have made. I’ve chosen to be a specialist not a generalist. I’ve chosen to become an agent that provides ongoing education and value to my clients all year long and not just show up at renewal and I’ve chosen to look towards the future and not be afraid of the changes but find out how I can be a part of the changes. Over the last eight years, we have created several new products that are unique to our agency. We went back and partnered with StrucSure Home Warranty, to sell their structural warranty as to provide a comprehensive risk management plan. Ultimately, this industry is changing very quickly. Technology in a non-technological industry is creating a lot of disruption. We see a lot of opportunity over the next few years… and selling insurance is just one piece of it.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
There is no glory in a smooth road. In the beginning, it is a rocky uphill kick in the gut almost every single day. The ability to keep going in the face of so much adversity is what tells you that you really really want it. And only really really wanting it is going to give you the ability to keep going and ultimately the opportunity for true success. Some of the struggles, are in the previous answer. Not to sound like a whiny little girl, but I work in a mostly male dominated industry. Not only am I selling commercial insurance, but I’m selling it in the construction industry. It Felt like a lot of people were against me being successful in the beginning. Part of it was because I left StrucSure Home Warranty, which was a very popular company. Part of it was because I left the aggregator and tried to branch out on my own. I had a Wholesale brokers bully me and pull my contract And I had to move almost $1 million worth of business in 90 days.

It literally almost bankrupt me, which is what his person was trying to do. I had employees try to take advantage of my generosity and it ended in me losing a lot of money. You know, people who come on for the paycheck and you invest all all this time training them and getting them ready and then six months later they leave. Every time that happens it cost a small fortune. Fortunately, that is how you learn that is how you get better that is how you get stronger and that is how you prevail. But it is not easy for small business owners, if you don’t have the money to sustain yourself through all of these learning curves, it can be very painful and it can Bankrupt the company. Luckily in my industry every January I started out with revenue because insurance compounds and builds on itself.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
Some of the challenges I faced in the past, or instrumental in helping me create the business I have now. Because I was blocked from buying insurance, I never wanted to be in that situation again. Therefore I started getting licenses and other parts of the country. This process is taking me a couple years, but we are now licensed in 17 states. I took it a step further and started a new business entity in the Midwest called Strategic Midwest Insurance Services. The goal is to create opportunities in other parts of the country so I can have more leverage more movability. Challenges with employees, has created the need for automation and embracing technology. I feel like this is something that I’ve done, and I think that it will continue to grow and help us be really successful. It is also brought to light that I am not alone in this situation. Many other insurance agencies are dealing with the same problems. It is so hard to staff insurance agencies as we are losing more people than the industry is bringing on. This has given me an opportunity to think about how I could solve this problem. I think I will solve his problem and this business will help fund that business. Finally, I spent so much time and energy focused on creating processes, that my processes are pristine these processes can be sold we can be taught they can be transferred. And therefore, consulting is going to be the next natural step for me. Because I train any agency on how to write commercial business. What I learned in the last three years I taught myself and I can save an agency years and years and years of pain and suffering in. 100’s of thousands of dollars.

Where we are in life is often partly because of others. Who/what else deserves credit for how your story turned out?
I am 100% blessed for my husband. I know that many people who start out on this entrepreneurial path does not have a spouse or significant other that understands the need to take that journey. It’s not anybody’s fault, it’s just two different ways of looking at life. Some people like the safety of working for a company that provides benefits and some level of security. That is very important, and those people are needed in our society. There are other people like myself and my husband who love the process of figuring it out on our own. Being the master of our universe. Creating our own destiny. Succeeding and failing because of the decisions we made. I recognize and appreciate every day how lucky and I’m blessed I am to have a husband who 100% supports me and trust me and believes in me and who is constantly cheering for my success.

Contact Info:


Suggest a Story: VoyageDenver is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
Related Items

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

More in