The Michigan Miracle: Top 5 Business Lessons from PCIA's Founding Principal
A conversation with Kim Fricky Minnis, Founding Principal of PCIA
For our fourth episode of the Pro Concepts podcast, I had the honor of sitting down with someone I know better than just about anyone: Kim Fricky Minnis, the founding principal of PCIA. She is also my mother. In professional settings, she is Kim. In every other setting, she is Mom.
Kim started PCIA in 1988, and what she built over the decades that followed is something I am genuinely proud to be a part of. This episode is called the Michigan Miracle, and by the time you hear the story behind that name, you will understand why it fits.
The Road to PCIA
Kim did not grow up in insurance. She found her way into the industry while living in Louisville, Kentucky, working at agencies there in the mid-1980s. She quickly discovered that the architecture and engineering space was where the real opportunity lived, and she threw herself into learning everything she could. She was inside-only at the time, handling applications, building carrier relationships, and absorbing as much as possible, but she had bigger plans.
When it became clear that the agency she was at was not going to let her move into sales, she made a move. She reached out to a trusted contact and said, simply, that she needed a different opportunity. That connection led her to Al Voren, an agency owner in Illinois who had the rights to represent DPIC, a leading professional liability carrier for design professionals, in the Michigan market. Al Voren had met Kim at a training event in Monterey and knew what she was capable of.
He brought her to Michigan, paid her way, and gave her the chance to build something. She arrived before the rest of us, spent time getting her footing, and then brought her family up. At the time, she was a single mother. She was around 30 years old. And she did not know how big this move was going to turn out to be.
That is the kind of clarity that only comes in hindsight. You make the best decision you can with what you know, and you go.
The Michigan Miracle
In their first full year of business, Kim and her partner Gene Thompson had a single day that put PCIA on the map permanently. A competing insurance company had gone under, leaving a large number of design firms in Michigan suddenly without coverage. Those firms all shared a common renewal date of September 1st.
On that day, Kim and Gene wrote over one million dollars in new premium. In one day.
Their mentor, Tom O'Carmer, coined it the Michigan Miracle. And it set the tone for everything that followed. From that point, the agency grew every year.
Lesson 1: Find a Coach and Mentor Who Believes in You
Al Voren and Tom O'Carmer were not just business contacts. They were the people who gave Kim real, honest feedback at a time when she needed it most. Tom came out to Michigan early on, went into the field with her, watched her meet with prospects, and came back with pages of notes about what she needed to improve.
That kind of honest mentorship is rare, and it is invaluable. Kim kept every one of those training notes for years. She did not take the feedback personally. She took it seriously, and she got better because of it.
Finding someone who will tell you the truth, who has done what you are trying to do, and who actually wants to see you succeed is one of the most important things anyone can do early in their career. I believe that so strongly that I recently connected my youngest daughter with a coach of her own. She is 12 years old. There is no wrong time to start.
Lesson 2: Determination and Grit Will Outlast Almost Any Obstacle
After buying out her partner in 1994, Kim had a meeting with the new CEO of DPIC. He wanted her to merge with another agency. He did not think a single woman, without a partner, could sustain and grow what she had built. He gave her six months and set goals he expected her to fall short of.
She did not fall short. In the months that followed, Kim outperformed every agency in the national network, including agencies with multiple producers. She never had a second meeting with that CEO. Instead, she was invited to speak at their next event and share how she had done it.
The short version: hard work, long hours, determination, and grit. Failure was not an option she entertained.
Lesson 3: Go Where Others Are Not
When Kim entered the Michigan market, there was already an established agency working the design professional space. Rather than try to compete by doing the same things the same way, she did something different.
She got in the car and drove to her clients. Not once a year, but two and three times a year. She put over 40,000 miles annually on her car, year after year, going into the offices of firms across the state, running loss prevention seminars, sitting down with principals, and building actual relationships. Phone and fax were the norm for the competition. Presence was her competitive advantage.
You cannot build a lasting relationship from a distance. That was true then, and it is still true now.
Lesson 4: Expect More, and You Will Get More
Kim has always been a deeply positive person, and that is not a passive quality. It is intentional. She talks about always wanting more for the family, always wanting to give more to clients, always pushing toward something bigger than where she was.
One of the ways that showed up practically was through the associations. We have always invested significant time and energy participating in the professional associations our clients belong to. For design firms, that means ACEC and AIA. For CPAs, it is the state society. For law firms, the Association of Legal Administrators. Rolling up your sleeves and showing up for the communities your clients are part of is not marketing. It is relationship-building, and it is how trust gets built over decades.
Lesson 5: Read. Constantly.
Kim reads at least 25 books a year, and she has done so for most of her career. Her all-time recommendation for business is Good to Great by Jim Collins. She has always prioritized books that make her better, books on strategy, leadership, negotiation, time management, all of it.
She instilled that in me. I read constantly, and it is one of the habits I am most grateful to have developed. The book I was working through at the time of this episode was The 12-Week Year, which is all about breaking your annual goals into 12-week cycles so you actually accomplish them rather than procrastinating across 365 days.
When I am interviewing anyone, one of my first questions is always what book they have read recently. If they stall, that tells me something. Not everyone needs to be a 25-books-a-year reader, but anyone who is serious about getting better will always have an answer to that question.
One More Thing: Pick Up the Phone
Kim built this agency on relationships, and relationships are built through real conversation. She used to put small mirrors on the desks of her staff with a simple instruction: when you pick up that phone, look at yourself and put a smile on your face. Because when a client calls, they are the most important person in the room at that moment, and they should feel it.
Email is a confirmation tool. It documents what has already been agreed to. It is not where the real work of a relationship happens. Kim used to say she could cut to the chase in a five-minute phone call that would have taken 20 emails back and forth to sort out. That is as true today as it was in 1988.
When someone calls PCIA, they reach a person. That has always been part of the promise, and it started with Kim.
Kim Fricky Minnis built something that has lasted, grown, and served thousands of design professionals, law firms, and CPA firms across Michigan and beyond. It did not happen because of luck or timing, though both played a role. It happened because she outworked, out-showed, and out-cared everyone else in the room. I am proud to carry that forward.
To reach PCIA, visit pciaonline.com or call 800-969-4041. We answer our phones.