Lipscomb & Pitts Insurance coverage honored

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Johnny Pitts serves as co-CEO of Lipscomb and Pitts insurance coverage. Pitts’ father cofounded the corporate in 1954. Photographed Thursday, Nov. 7, 2019, within the Founders Room at Lipscomb and Pitts Insurance coverage Firm in Memphis. (Picture: Max Gersh / The Business Enchantment)

In 1954, Mathew Lipscomb II and John Pitts met for the primary time to share 10-cent cups of espresso at a restaurant on Cooper Avenue. They wanted to speak enterprise.

The 2 World Struggle II veterans got here residence to Memphis after serving and began jobs at Liberty Mutual. They rapidly turned the highest two insurance coverage salesmen within the Southeast for the corporate. They met that day to speak about the potential of placing out on their very own.

In October that 12 months they launched Lipscomb & Pitts Insurance coverage, providing private insurance coverage providers like residence and auto protection. Now, 65 years later, it’s nonetheless in enterprise. The corporate led by their sons Johnny Pitts and Mathew Lipscomb III has grown to change into the biggest privately-held insurance coverage firm within the Mid-South, providing a spread of rather more advanced kinds of insurance coverage merchandise for firms massive and small. It has 132 workers unfold throughout 4 places of work in Memphis, Nashville Chattanooga and Jonesboro, Arkansas.

Lipscomb & Pitts was named the High Office amongst Memphis’ midsize firms for 2019.

“All of it begins with a few issues: Stating a transparent imaginative and prescient of the place your organization needs to go, speaking together with your workers after which hiring one of the best individuals,” Johnny Pitts mentioned, including that the corporate’s selective hiring course of led to a median annual turnover fee round 2%. “It is all the time the little issues … What actually retains individuals is that they will see that you simply care about them.”

Pitts mentioned Lipscomb & Pitts provides aggressive advantages and salaries that rival the largest employers on the town, however the firm additionally seeks out suggestions from workers to see what they should do their jobs higher. On sizzling summer time days they may order ice cream for all the workers, and Pitts spent one 12 months having lunch with each worker in teams of three with one rule: Speaking about work was off limits.

“Let’s discuss your trip,” Pitts mentioned for instance of the type of subjects he and his workers mentioned over lunch. “How’s your loved ones? How are your pets? What are your points in life? You wish to know these sorts of issues. That, to me, makes it extra private.”

As a part of the High Workplaces survey, practically two dozen workers submitted nameless feedback about why they love the corporate and responses ranged from pay to advantages to a piece tradition that does not require them to verify their private lives on the door.

“They offer me the pliability to be a mother and knowledgeable,” one worker wrote. “Whereas I’m inspired to work and do my finest, I do not really feel pressured to place work over my household.”

One other worker mentioned the achievement they really feel every day makes them really feel appreciated.

“All day, every single day, I get to assist individuals,” that worker wrote. “That is a present. I’ve realized an incredible quantity from my friends and my higher degree administration. They share their very own challenges and resolutions, which, in flip, helps me to develop as nicely. I am so grateful for this place.”

Others nonetheless shared how they felt empowered to make selections and felt that after coaching, higher administration trusts workers to do their jobs the easiest way they see match.

That autonomy has been a part of the DNA of the corporate since Pitts and Lipscomb III took over from their dads.

“I will always remember, I used to be 28. My dad got here in and mentioned, ‘Alright, it is time so that you can begin operating issues,'” Pitts mentioned, including that Lipscomb’s father gave him the identical speech and the 2 agreed provided that they may run the corporate the best way they needed. “On occasion as we have been studying administration … they’d watch us make these errors and by no means say something, after which after they’d say, ‘Effectively I noticed you strolling proper into it … You would not bear in mind. You wanted to study it the onerous means.'”

In these circumstances remembering the lesson was definitely worth the missteps alongside the best way, a message that’s nonetheless embedded in how the corporate operates.

Desiree Stennett covers financial growth and enterprise at The Business Enchantment. She could be reached at [email protected], 901-529-2738 or on Twitter: @desi_stennett.

Learn or Share this story: https://www.commercialappeal.com/story/cash/enterprise/2019/12/15/memphis-top-workplaces-2019-lipscomb-pitts-insurance/4072187002/