Jason Ridley is a born salesman. And it’s not just because he can read people well and genuinely wants to help them. He’s had experience selling in many different industries. 

“I’ve sold almost everything you can imagine,” Ridley said. “I sold home siding before I was in college. After college, I got into the car business and did that for six years.” 

Ridley did well selling cars—he got promoted to sales manager after a couple of years—he was looking for a career that better suited his desire to own his own business. 

“I got into selling reprographics, you know selling copiers and fax machines for a while, but then that became a beatdown on a daily basis,” said Ridley. He had always had a strong faith—he accepted Jesus Christ as his Savior at nine years old—so he combined that with his interest in music to sell Christian music. 

“The company was based in Tennessee and had customers in multiple states,” Ridley recalled. “It was my job to sell new and backlist albums to locally owned bookstores and to service Mardel, the big Christian bookstore chain.”

While Ridley liked the fact that had merged the two passions in his life, the church and being in sales, traveling wore on him. He and his wife Sheila had just purchased a home in Corinth, and he didn’t want to travel anymore. “I was gone five out of six weeks, four out of every five days in six-week cycles,” Ridley said. Fortunately, sitting down to read his new home insurance policy became the starting point of a new career.

“After purchasing a policy from an agent friend of mine, I read the entire policy,” Ridley said. “I called to discuss it, and I was asking him questions he couldn’t answer. He believed I would make a great insurance agent, so that phone call turned into him recruiting me to join him.”

Ridley became an agent with Allstate and chose to locate his office in Grapevine. “I always wanted to be in the Grapevine/Southlake/Colleyville area, so I opened my office on the corner of Hall Johnson Road and Heritage Avenue,” Ridley said. 

After working with Allstate for a few years, he realized that it would be more beneficial to his customers if he had access to all the insurance carriers. “Even if the market changes, I could have relationships with multiple carriers and shop different policies, so I could help my clients change when their policies negatively affect them,” said Ridley. “But education is the key. 

Sometimes the policy is better at another agency, so I would advise them to change to that new agent. Or, they might have had a policy with an agent they liked. So, why would you change?” 

As an independent broker, Ridley likes where he sits now. He has access to many carriers and is able to pick the best solution alongside the homeowner.  He and his team have a multitude of products to insure their customers’ needs, whether it’s for a boat, motorcycle, RV, or for a business. “I find that I’m in an ethical place when it comes to my business,” he said. “If someone chooses not to do business with me, it’s not the end of the world. I want their business, but I want them to be educated on the better product. Our job is to tell customers about various products, so they can compare them and do the right thing for them.”

Ridley has 15 employees that come from all different faiths and walks of life that he considers a family. Having that familial environment helps ensure that his clients walk away with a great experience, not just a good one. One of the ways that they ensure everyone feels supported is by looking out for each other when needs arise. 

“I’ve missed stuff in my life before because I would have been penalized at work if I wasn’t at the office,” Ridley said. “But we realize here that events happen, life happens. For us, it’s faith, family, work. If we put our faith first, something that’s greater than us first, then everything else just kind of falls in line. We serve our families better. We serve our clients better. We’ve realized that system has to be in order, or we lose our effectiveness.”

“When I was a car salesman, there was more than a few times when I would show someone a car several times and then, just because I wasn’t there when they came back to sign the papers, someone else got the commission,” he recalled. “Here, everyone knows we’re a team. We struggle together, and we succeed together.” Perhaps the biggest reason why Ridley is so zeroed in on his style of servant leadership is because he experienced first-hand what can happen to people and their morale when employees are just out for themselves. But, that just doesn’t happen with this successful, caring team.