Adam Mitchell: “Don’t get stuck on a hamster wheel going nowhere”

It’s not easy trying to scale a very small business while bootstrapping, says president

Adam Mitchell: “Don’t get stuck on a hamster wheel going nowhere”

People

By Bethan Moorcraft

Scaling a brokerage without huge amounts of capital and expertise is no easy task. Yet that was the feat of 33-year-old Adam Mitchell, president of Mitchell & Whale Insurance Brokers, based in Whitby, Ontario.

So far, he seems to have done a good job. The business has grown from nine people in April 2015, to 45 – and it’s expected to expand further when the brokerage moves into a new 25,000-square-foot office in Whitby.

Mitchell & Whale Insurance Brokers was founded in 1948 by Harold J. Mitchell and has since been run by three generations of the Mitchell family. It ranked second place in Insurance Business Canada’s Top Brokerages 2017.

We caught up with Mitchell to find out what drew him into the industry and what challenges he’s had to overcome while trying to scale his brokerage.

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How did you get started in the insurance industry?

In 2008, I was travelling between North Carolina and the Caribbean teaching kite boarding. I came back to Canada when my father became unwell. I started to travel with my father to appointments and then in 2009, I became licensed and started looking after the family brokerage. At that point, we had one broker and one receptionist – it wasn’t a big operation at all.

My father passed away in 2009 and the brokerage was put up for sale. I was helping with the sale process when, at the eleventh hour, I decided I was going to buy it. There were three of us (a broker, receptionist and me) – and we slowly tried to dig our way out of being a tiny, small town broker.

Was it your long-term plan to get into the industry?

Not at all. Back in 2008, I would have bet my left arm that there was no chance I would be doing this. But things change, and I’m happy with my decision to take the brokerage on. There are lots of really cool things happening at Mitchell & Whale. We’re really trying to get out ahead of the competition and be on point with some of the digital changes that are happening in the industry.

What are the best parts of your job?

The best part of my job is our team at Mitchell & Whale. Our team is what allows me to continue to daydream and strategize on where we want the business to go and what needs tinkering with. They’re an awesome group of people.

Success doesn’t always come easily. What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced in your role?

The challenges are all wrapped up in the bundle of trying to scale a very small business while bootstrapping – so trying to do everything without lots of capital resources or training. It’s a process of learning from your mistakes and accepting that if you make a wrong move, it could set you back quite a long way. It took us a few years to really get going and start growing quickly.

We still face some of those problems in the forms of access to working capital and talent, and the growing pains that come with a team that has gone from four to 40 people. You need leadership, mentorship and management, which requires organizational structure changes and title changes. I’m continuously wearing a different hat and also figuring out the next hat I’m going to have to wear and what the business needs from me. It’s tough.

You’re only 33 years old. Has your youth been a challenge?

I think it’s a blessing and a curse. Younger generations can bring a fresh perspective to a business, new approaches to problems and solutions, and a charge for innovation without prior awareness or baggage of what came before. But on the flipside, if you don’t have experience or relationships, almost every decision requires time with the drawing board and research, whereas if you’ve had 30 years at the helm of a business, you can often make decisions on the fly.

What advice do you have for other millennials in the industry?

Insurance is an awesome thing because everyone needs it. It can be a very rewarding career if you apply yourself and take on challenges. If you’re looking to be upwardly mobile, you should align yourself with a brokerage that is upwardly mobile. Being the all-star player on a dud team without ambition will be a waste of resources and you’ll be at risk of getting stuck on a hamster wheel going nowhere. If you’re a contributing member of a winning team, there will be lots of opportunities for you as the industry changes and adapts.

If you weren’t working in insurance, what would you be doing?

I would probably be kite surfing or doing something like that. I studied outdoor adventure and guiding at school, so I like being with people, leading groups and being outdoors.


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