Infrastructure and Connected Budgeting

At 7:30 this morning, I attended my first committee meeting for the city of San Diego. It regarded Infrastructure, housing, and transportation. The elevator to the floor was packed with suits and ties, men in their 40's talking about Padres and vacations. They seemed like friends, and in the boardroom, only a few seats of the 50 were vacant. The coffee was astringent, but the members were warm and professional. I could get used to the atmosphere. I was obviously the only attendee under the age of 30. The verbiage, organization of the literature, and presenters' preparedness were all exceptional. No flaws in appearance (I even saw a few french cuffs) and the discussion was proactive.
A few things I learned:

• 2 more high rises were proposed recently to be constructed as affordable housing (Atmosphere on 4th and beech, and a Reconstruction of the Hotel Churchill)
• A total of 6 more (and growing) living communities will be installed within a year from today in Downtown alone
• Information on Linkage Fees
• Benefit underprivileged
• Inhibit new construction and new employment opportunities with adverse cost structures.
• Costs will be: $2.12/ft^2 for Medical and office space,
• $1.60/ft^2 for Education space
• $1.28/ft^2 for Mfg, retail, and Hotel space
• The money raised (projected at greater than $400M) is highly probable to be misappropriated into the city's budget
• These fees may increase 50% in a year, and may also apply to venue's change of use.
• An 11 mile extension of the trolley from Old Town to UTC will probably pass and cost the city $1.8B
• Clean Water Act and its ramifications
• The city of SD's official Infrastructure committee (Kersey)
• Created in Dec/2012 to create a 5 year plan
• Facility assessments of 1600 Buildings to prepare allocation of funds
• 5000 miles of sidewalk assessment to allocate funds 
• Primarily to mitigate lawsuits
• Plan to subsidize a percentage, and have owners pay the rest for improvements
• Take inventories of city park assets and City assets
• Appropriation of funding to committees 
• Staffing concerns to implement upgrades and fixes (most important factor of the budget)
• City wide workshops for citizen infrastructure education over the next 5 years.
• *75% of infrastructure budget is water and wastewater, which is against the law to allocate elsewhere
• Creating city-issued bonds of more than $1B to fund improvements (have $35M since Dec.)
• The boundaries of communities are being restructured (i.e. 'Uptown' includes Golden Hills, University Heights, and North Park
• Urban design is the least important issue for planners at this moment.

This committee meets once per month (next meeting July 16, 7:30am), but Sandag has meetings frequently (typically 3-5 times per week).

Commercial Insurance: Come to Onyx!

In my experience thus far, I see that there are many many risks in the world and we can protect most people from those risks. We at Onyx specialize in a certain type of insurance so we can more easily meet the needs of our clients. We ask: "do you have any objections and would you recommend Onyx over the current carrier?" This brings up any hurdles that you foresee.

• General Liability, 
• Worker's Compensation, 
• Property Floaters
• Course of Construction/Builder's risk 
• Small Business policies
• Commercial Auto
• Errors and Omissions
• License and Performance Bonds

Networking in 30 seconds or less!

Dave Sabon delivered an inspiring message earlier today as a keynote speaker in Mission Valley: In order to network effectively person to person you need to understand how your business takes away others' pain. After his address, I quickly found him and eagerly waited for my turn to speak with him. My original was:
Hi, I'm James with Onyx. I sell insurance to small business owners and contractors. I can typically save up to 20% on a year's coverage, and can provide high quality coverage. When I speak with clients, they do not usually realize how many options they have, and with our carriers, we can provide coverage to meet their needs in under an hour for some cases. Also, we have a customer service department that maintains relationships post-sale.

Dave guffawed...

"It's too wordy."
"Never bring up money"
"Say your title and be concise about your company"
"Every company provides coverage, how are you specifically alleviating pain?"
"Use words tethered to emotions, like 'fed-up' or 'nightmare' to describe those pains"
"Make sure you speak about your clients in past-tense as though you have already helped them achieve goals. And make sure you insert 'achieved their goals' in the speech."
"If they say, 'insurance? I already have that and I'm not interested.' you tell them, 'you may be right, and perhaps my company may not suit your needs, especially if you aren't concerned with making sure you have the correct options tailored to your needs, and more so if you don't think your current broker's customer service department is a nightmarish game of hide-and-seek. However, if you'd like to reconsider, we can get you options and have a customer service team ready to help you satisfy your company's exact needs.'"

So, with those tips, I developed a 30 second speech to help me succinctly express my company's aims:

Hi! I'm James with Onyx Insurance Services. I am a broker specializing in commercial accounts for contractors and small business owners. My clients were fed up with not knowing whether their insurance was meeting their needs and even more complained that customer service departments were nightmarish games of hide-and-seek. We helped those clients meet their goals and they have since gotten tailor-made coverage for the right price with our quick and easy quoting and efficient customer service.

Worker's Compensation: A brief Summary

Worker's Compensation AKA Workman's Comp AKA The dread of many business owners. What bothers my clients most? Not understanding the options available. In order to save money and reinvest savings back into your business, let's analyze briefly the 3 options any American company has:

State Fund (AKA WCIRB in CA or WCC in all other states)

• $1.2 B Premiums, $20 B assets, so 0% default (best possible rating)
•  Higher premiums, typically insure companies with the most risk
• No bundling with other commercial coverages
• MP is Minimum $900
• GC can use multiple class codes. Each code may be allocated differently to get a lower rate.
• Can issue refunds, and perform audits within 30 days of x-date

Private Carriers: Save money by bundling (commercial Package Policy)

• Liberty Mutual
• American International
• Travelers
• The Hartford
• Zurich
• State Ins. Fund
• State Compensation Ins. Fund
• Ace Limited
• Berkshire Hathaway (#15 in receipts)

PEO's:

• A secondary company acts as payroll and/or human resources for a client company.
• Inexpensive bundling of services (distribution of benefits, payroll, Worker's Comp, staffing and training), a seperate tax ID, and skilled workers make PEO's attractive
• Ultimately the best option to small clients, typically can save 10% by bundling.