Insurtech Building Blocs Podcast: BlocBuilder Unpacked: 2025 Highlights & Lessons Learned

In this episode of the Insurtech Building Blocs podcast, host Cory Schmidt welcomes fellow AgencyBloc members Kelsey Rosauer, Director of Marketing, and Savannah Clemons, Director of Client Experience. They explore AgencyBloc's Annual Event, BlocBuilder, sharing their experience from BlocBuilder 2025 and how AgencyBloc is preparing to raise the bar even higher for 2026.

Insurtech Building Blocs is presented by AgencyBloc, the #1 Recommended Insurance Industry Growth Platform serving the benefits and senior market space with 6,500+ customers across multiple solutions within the platform. With a range of insurance-specific solutions for sales enablement, client and policy management, compliance management, quoting and proposals, and commissions management — all with highly recommended customer support — we've got you covered.

---

Transcript for the Episode

Note: CS denotes Cory Schmidt, KR denotes Kelsey Rosauer, and, SC denotes Savannah Clemons.

CS: Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of the InsurTech Building Blocs podcast. My name is Corey Schmidt, co-founder and CTO of AgencyBloc and I'll be your host for today. We're doing a little bit of a different show today. We normally talk about trends and happenings within the insurance space, but we're going to spend today talking about hoop dancers and puppies or a, I guess, debrief of what happened at BlocBuilder 2025, all the amazing things and really give you a bit of a sneak peek into what happened so that you can understand what we do at our annual conference and share a little bit more about it and see if it's something that might be of interest to you in the future. So I'm really excited to be joined by two awesome people from the AgencyBloc team, Kelsey Rozier and Savannah Clemens. Thank you guys for joining me today.

KR: Yeah, excited to be here.

CS: All right. Well, I promise not to ask too many hard questions, but maybe to start off with, ⁓ let's maybe Kelsey give the listeners some sense of like, what is BlocBuilder and who goes to BlocBuilder and why is it maybe my most favorite event of the year?

KR: Yes, it's a lot of people's favorite event. When you ask what BlocBuilder is, I think it's different today than what we would have said, you know, maybe three years ago, but to its form and its nature, it really is where most a lot of our clients get together really just to share best practices. And it gives our team a chance to get together with our clients. So we call it the AgencyBloc Annual Conference today. We used to call it more of a user meetup.

KR: That's how it started way back in 2018. I know I was just looking at this the other day. We had 50 attendees at that first one. We kind of tacked onto an event we were already going to. And the 2025 event in Phoenix, we had over 300 attendees and we have a hundred registrants already for our 2026 event. This initiative is definitely growing and gaining momentum, but at its core, it’s simply a time for us to come together, share best practices, discuss new and upcoming product features, and talk about the ways people are using AgencyBloc solutions.

KR: And Savannah, I'm sure she's going to share a lot more, but we also give people a very unique time and place to get deeper into the products and learn more through certifications and live training and things like that. ⁓ annual conferences is an easy way to say it, but really it's just, time for the Bloc to get together all in one space.

CS: Awesome. Yeah. And I know we had, again, you missed it. You missed the part about the hoop dancers and the puppies, but we do a lot of fun things as well to keep it interesting and keep people energized. So, and we had a little bit of a, ⁓ we had definitely a new venue this year. We were at the Sheraton ⁓ Wild Horse Pass in Phoenix. ⁓ Tell us maybe a little bit about the venue and why it works so well.

KR: Yes. It was, it's just, it was such a unique property and I have to give a shout out to, ⁓ my team members. They're not here, but they're the ones doing a lot of the work behind the scenes. So Amber Petkosik on our team who is field marketing lead. ⁓ she does everything that you see with the venue and the food, which was incredible. ⁓ Alison Babrel on our team. ⁓ she's on the ⁓ content lead side of things, but she does all the marketing for the event.

KR: Sarah Rosonke, who’s also on her team, does all of the— you know— what one of our clients was pointing out, or several of them really, was just how cool all of the visuals at the event were. We always do a theme, and we’ve got colors. It’s so fun. She really took that up a notch this year. So Sarah on our team does all of that. There are a lot of people behind the scenes that make all of this happen. But the venue this year—it was a resort.

KR: So we were kind of out on our own little space and it was ⁓ on tribal lands, which was very cool. And I think what made the venue ⁓ this year so special was the people. We even had our team members and our clients just saying that the people who work at that resort and at that venue are just incredible people. And we had an amazing time. So I think that was a big part of it. And that's just so.

KR: Even our culture here, which is our people and how we work together. So yeah, that's what I would say about the venue. I think it was just a great, unique space.

CS: Cool. And all this time here, I thought you and Savannah were the mastermind and did all the things. I didn't realize you had a team behind you guys that were actually, you know, okay, doing, doing all the important things. ⁓ so I know that certifications are really interesting part of this. So maybe Savannah help people understand like, what do we do as it relates to certifications? What are they? Why do they matter? How do they benefit, ⁓ agencies, maybe who attends them and what's the plan, ⁓ you know, for the future of certifications as it relates to BlocBuilder.

SC: Yeah, definitely. So certifications are a really interesting offering that we're really excited about how it's growing. So we started certifications based on agency feedback, in-agent feedback. We had our first certification course in BlocBuilder 2024, and we had around 30 participants. One certification, 30 participants, was one full day course the day before BlocBuilder and it was a hit.

 SC: And a lot of people ask what is a certification. So we have, if you're not familiar, we have a really robust offering of free educational tools and resources at AgencyBloc. So with your usage of AgencyBloc tools, you also get all of these free educational tools and resources in addition to them. 

 SC: But, a lot of users wanted to take it a step deeper and get guided direct insight into some really deep best practices that both they can really dig into real world application, focus on enhancing their operational efficiency or optimizing workflows, driving better outcomes and getting feedback from live subject matter experts on our teams. But also we heard that agents and AgencyBloc users wanted to be able to highlight their usage of AgencyBloc. They wanted to highlight these qualifications on their resumes or on LinkedIn and share it with their network. And so we developed certifications. And this is where we really dive into a specific topic. 

 SC: We give you a test account with AgencyBloc for the course. you can dig in to real world application without worrying about, you can play around without worrying about messing up your data within your own AgencyBloc account. And ⁓ they've been really successful. We've been really excited at the reception of those. So we started in 2024, had about 30 participants there. We were offering two certification courses at this last BlocBuilder 2025. We had one in commissions, which is always a really popular topic. And then we had one in communications and outreach.

SC: And there was so much interest in the communications and outreach course that we ended up opening a separate room and doing an additional communications and outreach course. So we ended up having about 90 participants total for 2025. ⁓ And we're really excited to see what comes in 2026. I know we'll talk about that a little bit later and some of the things we have planned there. ⁓ But yeah, we have some really awesome certification track offerings as it relates to BlocBuilder.

CS: Yeah, that's great. And I think it also underscores like the, what I perceive as the profile of the folks that come to BlocBuilder. Like these are very serious, well, serious at most times, they like that one, but very serious ⁓ agency owners and operators and folks that make the inner workings of agencies, you know, operate. And they're really very interested in learning.

CS: Not only from us about, you know, best practices and how to use the various parts of the platform that we offer, but also connecting like with their peers and ⁓ learning from them and sharing, you know, some of their challenges, obviously as a company that focuses in building software for a specific industry, our word only carries so much weight, but when you can hear it from a peer and really talk to them about not only like, you know, challenges that you're having in terms of maybe how to implement certain things from our platform, but even more broadly, like the challenges and opportunities that they're having within their business. It really brings together what I perceive as a very sophisticated, high performing group of folks, which ⁓ I just love spending time with and learning from. I learned so much from lunch chats and ⁓ hallway conversations. We did do a session this year, called State of the Industry.

CS: We invited some really great folks to that panel as well. I mean, I'm sure it went really well because they had an amazing moderator. I won't say his name out loud, but no, we had some really awesome people on that panel. Bob Harding, Bill Hepsher, Janet Troutwine, John Green, like bringing together industry as well as like folks that are in the distribution working to help agencies be more successful. And so I thought that was really good as well. Like we were able to cover a lot of ground. think we could have spent, I could have spent a lot of hours asking them questions, but we had to keep it pretty narrow. We got a lot of ground to cover, but I thought that was also ⁓ a great way to bring more broad exposure to the folks that are at BlocBuilder.

KR: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think real quick too, I mean, something that made this BlocBuilder stand out and you were talking about the state of the industry panel. This is definitely the event that we had the most industry speakers at. And so as we've grown this event, we're trying to couple what Savannah's describing, which is, and I think I heard one client, I can't remember who it was, but he was describing BlocBuilder as kind of like going to camp. He's like, we all use the same technology. So there's not that piece of competition rather it's very collaborative and everybody wants to pick each other's brains on how they're doing certain things. ⁓ and so I thought that was kind of funny, but it's very cool to see this event grow in being both. How do we use the products, but then couple that with what's happening in the industry. So that was something I also really appreciated.

CS: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I know we talked a lot about the product roadmap as well. What's coming. Like we spend a lot of time. had breakout sessions on that topic as well. Maybe one of those, we did launch a new product at BlocBuilder called Engage Plus. There was a lot of interest in that. In fact, I think my favorite story is that there was a customer sitting at a table with one of our team members.

CS: And she said, can you hold my seat? I need to go sign up for the early adopter program. Like she didn't even wait until the session was over to go out because we launched an early adopter program. You had to sign up for it. We only had so many seats because we wanted to make sure we could, you know, take good care and attention of the folks that, that wanted to sign up. And so she, she literally said, save my seat. I need to go sign up before everybody leaves this room. So, that was awesome.

CS: But maybe Kelsey, just for awareness, what is Engage Plus and why do you think that resonated with our customers?

KR: Yeah, we were really excited. We kind of went back and forth. Do we launch this thing ⁓ on stage? We haven't done that before. We've talked at past BlocBuilders about new features or things in the AMS coming, but as far as a whole new solution, we haven't done that before. And so I'll spare you the details of all of the internal meetings that happened before we were able to do that. But it was super cool to see it all come to light. I noted that we had at least 22 clients who signed up.

KR: on that day, which was, think, mostly filled the early adopter program. We were trying to keep those lean so we can get the right feedback, right? I just think all the work that went into that with the team was incredible to make that happen. The sentiment in the room, if you've ever met Deonni, who's our product director of Engage Plus, she's a very energetic woman. And so I think she brought a lot of the energy to the room and about Engage Plus.

KR: she has a lot of insights to share. It's a digital marketing platform. so it's, know, Savannah could probably go into even more detail than I can, but it brings together, I think, ⁓ one of our marketing team members says it really well. You know, she'll ask in a room, how many of you got into the insurance industry to be a marketer? Nobody raises their hand, right? It's, it's a tool that we, ⁓ brought to the solution, ⁓ the, platforms to help.

insurance agents do those things that they know they need to be doing, having a good website presence, social media, all of the marketing automation that they know they need to be doing. But we make it easy for them to do that and it's connected to their AMS. So ⁓ it was very exciting to be in the room and watch that kind of launch in real time.

CS: Yeah, definitely a lot of energy around that idea. was like, like you said, and Diani definitely brought the energy. was like a, get a car, you get a car, you get a car, it's a working moment, but that's fun, right? And obviously we love launching new products and solving problems for our customers and giving them ways to do things that maybe aren't part of their core business, right? Or they don't think as part of like...

KR: Yes.

SC: Yes!

CS: The reason they got into the business of being an agency wasn't to do marketing. And so let's find ways that we can help them be better marketers or give them the tools that they need to be successful. I do think though, we spent a lot of time, the vast majority of the time talking about, you know, our core products and what we're doing with them to continue to make customers more successful, make them more effective with their sales and operations.

CS: Savannah, what was the, from your perspective, like what do you think was like the biggest theme, you know, or takeaway that we, ⁓ you know, that we focused on at BlocBuilder as it relates to like the core products.

SC: Yeah. It's hard to pick just one, I would say, one core theme. There were a lot of sessions, but also there was so much excitement from attendees about all of the different roadmap and product pieces that we discussed. think the key overarching topic about all of those is really our drive for continuous improvement and ensuring that we are incorporating ⁓ customer feedback.

CS: There were a lot of sessions.

SC: Regularly and that we don't ever do anything that is not in response to feedback that we're getting from our clients. And that when you tell us something, it matters and it doesn't just fall on deaf ears. I think that was kind of a sentiment throughout all of our sessions. One of the, besides Engage Plus, I think one of the big things that people were really excited to hear about was commissions. 

SC: Talking about commissions and learning more about commissions and how they can optimize their commissions. So that's always a really key, maybe a less flashy topic, but one that people really care about. And then ⁓ our VoIP phone system and hearing about some of the planned improvements there and some of those pieces. ⁓ yeah, those were some of the really big ones from my perspective that people were really excited about.

KR: Yeah, I think I was in the room with the product director who was talking about the ⁓ mobile app that's coming for the phone system to be clear, but that wasn't the only session. There was another one, think Engage Plus is one of them, where somebody on stage would say something and people in the room would clap and you could hear the excitement. that was just, it was like, this is awesome. This is great to be here and just to get that immediate real-time feedback. So clients were definitely excited about the things that you're talking about.

SC: Yeah, and just to piggyback off of that, think in addition, something that makes BlocBuilder extra special is not only are, as a participant and as an attendee, you're hearing this information in sessions, but Corey, to your example, you're able to talk to AgencyBloc team members throughout your experience during breaks, during lunches, in between sessions.

CS: Yeah.

SC: During happy hours in the evening, during these additional extracurricular activities like certifications. You get such insight into how you can optimize AgencyBloc, but also things about the industry. You can network with peers. There's just all these touch points where you're learning more and more, which clients and attendees really appreciate.

CS: Yeah, I really wish, ⁓ you know, we could have our whole entire team, ⁓ participate in a 10 BlocBuilder. We do have a, we do have some customers that don't attend BocBuilder though, and they still expect us to run the business and answer the phone and, and do all the things that we do to support them day to day. So maybe that's a nudge that if everybody would attend BlocBuilder, then our entire team could attend BlocBuilder as well, because we wouldn't need to staff that. So just to, yeah, just, just a nudge.

KR: I know. Yes. Help us out.

SC: Yeah, good point.

CS: I think Savannah, to your point, just the informal connections that folks are having, know we focused a lot on different ways to get people connected. We had, I think, lunch table topics. We had various forms of networking. We always host our annual Bloc party during BlocBuilder as well. And I think that maybe is where the hoop dancers come in on this part of the equation. ⁓ And then also sponsors are a big part of that as well. So obviously we couldn't do this without sponsors, but we also want to make sure those are folks that our customers are interested in speaking with and have a high relevancy to their businesses. Kelsey, how has that evolved and what was your, I guess, perspective on those activities and how they went at BlocBuilder 25?

KR: Yeah, I'll touch on the sponsors first. So we set a record this year of number of sponsors that were interested in actually have had some early conversations with Amber. mentioned on my team about 2026 and she said, ⁓ she hasn't heard of a single sponsor yet that doesn't want to come back. So that is awesome. ⁓ I think that has just grown as the event has grown and as they've been able to see the buzz around, ⁓ our clients wanting to be at this event.

CS: Good to know.

KR: I think that's grown organically and we're really excited to see it continue. ⁓ On the networking side, that has always been a very core piece of this event because we know it's important for us to deliver information. We know it's important for them to have these learning experiences, but we also know the importance of just having space to have conversations that come up.

KR: We always try to do something new. I don't know what we're going to do for 2026 for the Bloc parties. And we also always try to lean in to the venue and the location when we're doing these things. so, like I said, this resort and the venue we were at was on Tribal Lands. had ⁓ from the local tribes hoop dancers. ⁓ One of them was, we didn't know we were getting a comedian, but he was quite funny. He was the announcer of the hoop dancers. I think you guys probably remember him.

CS: Indeed.

KR: That was great. ⁓ local musicians, ⁓ and actually I think my favorite thing about the Bloc party this year is, ⁓ every year we get a whole group photo. So everyone that's there, we try to, it sounds like a logistical nightmare and it'll, it is for about two minutes, but we get everyone in the same space and we take a picture. This year we had to use our, ⁓ onsite photography's drone to get back far enough to fit all of us in. So, ⁓ that was awesome.

SC: Pretty cool. One of my other favorite things about Bloc party that I don't know that you've mentioned yet is we also had local artisans on site as well. So you got to buy art pieces, jewelry, you get to support local artisans, which was really cool.

CS: Very cool.

KR: Yes, they were amazing.

CS: I heard so many good comments about, you know, the, way we intertwined the local culture and the location, like into the, ⁓ into the event itself. It was just, it was really neat. You know, it's like a, cultural experience inside of a conference inside of a meetup inside of a connection that, ⁓ that's hard to, hard to replicate in any other way. So lots of good feedback in that realm. I will be interested to see how the team ups the bar on that one next year. And we'll talk about what next year maybe looks like. ⁓ I'm sure you do. ⁓ Let's maybe ⁓ Savannah for the folks listening that, ⁓ you know, that maybe weren't able to attend BlocBuilder. There was so much content, so many good things that we share, but not everybody can make it to BlocBuilder for whatever reason. And so I'm curious, like from your perspective and in client experience and making sure customers feel supported.

KR: Got some ideas.

CS: What are the ways that customers can stay dialed into this type of content if they're not able to make the conference?

SC: Yeah, that's a really good question. there are some standard ways that we've kind of, we've always had these where you can stay connected and I'll walk through those, but we also got quite a bit of feedback from this last BlocBuilder conference and we are adding in some additional pieces as well. So ⁓ one of the standard ways that you can keep track of things that are coming, we have a client newsletter that I'm sure Kelsey can probably talk about a little bit more, but we have a monthly client newsletter that comes out toward the end of every month. And then the first Monday of every month, we also have a training email that our educational team creates, ⁓ targets every month around courses that we've updated, resources that we have available, what's new and what's important, but also like, what should you be paying attention to this time of year?

SC: What are some key things that you might not have known that you have access to? So we highlight those every month. We also, this year after BlocBuilder, we had some post-BlocBuilder webinars that we offered. And these were, we haven't ever done this before, but we had three webinars that were really focused around the roadmap, ⁓ some updates that we're making, the product roadmap, some updates that we're making to our user experience within AMS Plus and then we had one about Engage Plus. And so those product updates, you weren't able to make it to BlocBuilder, you can still get some of that information. Granted, you'd want to go to BlocBuilder so that you're getting as fresh as possible and then you could still sign up for that early adopter program for Engage Plus and things like that that you don't necessarily have immediate access to if you don't come.

KR: Thank you.

SC: but having those webinars and then incorporating that after each BlocBuilder opportunity. We also started doing, we're testing out these new building Blocs meetups, which are really, really interesting. And Kelsey, I'm gonna hand it off to you to talk more about those, but those have been really really cool experience as well.

KR: Yeah. Yes, we have some regional meetups. We just did one in Dallas-Fort Worth area. We're trying to hit areas of high concentration of our clients. We're headed to Atlanta area in a couple of weeks. And then there might be a third ⁓ coming in the fall. But this is, ⁓ again, as Savannah alluded to earlier in this discussion, from direct feedback of our clients that we know BlocBuilder is the big event. It's never going to not be that, but we know that there are clients who, you know, maybe prefer a smaller setting or want to just get a taste of what BlocBuilder is, right? And so we want to try to meet our clients where they are. And I think that we, you know, have all learned in the past few years that there's really nothing that beats just being in the same room with each other sometimes. And so these events have been really ⁓ great for that.  We're excited to see how they continue to go.

CS: Yeah, that's awesome. I will say, you know, back to some of the things that Savannah, you were describing and also the events themselves, but you know, the one thing I'm really proud of as a company is how much we invest in trying to make our customers successful. Like Savannah, you have an entire team that's strictly just focused on that. It's, know, how do we educate, empower, ⁓ you know, train. 

CS: Obviously then we have an entire separate team that's like support, right? So that when I run into a problem, I can call someone and I don't have to chat with an AI bots or whatever in order to get that help. And so I'm just really proud how much we've invested in supporting our customers. And it's nice to be in a vertical where we can really do that well. Like we actually understand what AEP is. understand.

CS: You know, the challenges of AEP for agents. know that they have to get through a lot of beneficiaries during that Q4 timeframe. And what are the tools that we can build and deliver to them to just make them more efficient? So I think that, ⁓ yeah, you talking through kind of all the things we've invested in on the academy and education front just makes me, makes me really proud. ⁓ let's, ⁓ maybe one thing I wanted to mention, ⁓ around, you know, favorite parts of BlocBuilder. actually had two standouts for me. One.

CS: I was at a ⁓ lunch table speaking to an agency owner and it's in the realm of kind what I just described. He was commenting on like, I don't know how you did it, but like the team that you have at this company is absolutely phenomenal. And I think that people just recognize the really ⁓ incredible team that we have at AgencyBloc and how much they care about our customers being successful. And it's not, you know, we don't, have a lot of, um, really, um, smart, hungry, humble, kind people on our team and like exposing our customers to that in person is just next level. And so, uh, I'm really proud of, know, how those comments that, and he, that was not the only comment in that realm, but it was definitely one that, uh, that really struck home for me. So, um, and probably my other favorite part of BlocBuilder is, um, is maybe part of my traveling to the BlocBuilder Conference. I got to spend a little bit of time with a celebrity, Mr. Charles Barkley, and fortunately he was willing to let me snap a picture of him at the Phoenix airport. So ⁓ this would definitely be in the highlight reel, and I'm a fan of Chuck and the work he does now, and also a big fan and watched him obviously as a kid playing ball. So those were definitely highlights for me.

KR: That's awesome.

SC: That's so cool.

CS: Any other highlights or key takeaways that you either would share before we maybe talk a little bit about what's coming next year.

SC: Yeah, I think that there's one that we haven't discussed just yet that I think attendees sometimes don't even know is available to them at BlocBuilder and that's our success labs. So we have this really unique offering at BlocBuilder where you can schedule time with a CSM, a client success manager, and it's in 30 minute increments, but you can come and just meet with a CSM about whatever you want to talk about.

KR: Yes.

SC: We'll talk about this a little bit when we talk about 2026, but this is such a unique and special and really appreciated offering that we have at BlocBuilder ⁓ that we are looking at ways that we can even increase and optimize ⁓ it. a lot of what I did at BlocBuilder was the check-in desk at the success labs and hearing how excited our clients were when they were both before they got to talk to their CSM, they were excited that we had that opportunity, but then afterwards they had learned so much and having that human in-person connection is just, it's irreplaceable. And that's free, you don't have to pay extra for that, that's included. ⁓ And we had some ⁓ clients who came multiple times, ⁓ which was really cool. So yeah, that is probably one of my favorite hidden gems of BlocBuilder.

CS: it's a great one. And I don't know. I didn't have that on my outline and remember that because, you know, the other thing is like, it becomes pretty apparent that all of our customers, their CSM is like their favorite person, you know, inside of AgencyBloc. And I'm really jealous. I'm really jealous of the relationships they get to build.

KR: Yes.

SC: Right.

SC: yeah, yeah. They always ask about their kids. And I think we had a couple of CSMs that arrived a little bit early. Again, speaking to how awesome the location was on the resort. Like a lot of people really wanted to take advantage of that. And we had ⁓ clients for meeting with their CSMs for dinner just to like chat and meet their families, which is so unique. And I don't, I don't feel like I've seen that in a lot of other, a lot of other companies like ours.

KR: I was totally going to point that out as probably my favorite thing about this BlocBuilder, but all of them is that when you start to see some of the same clients and you're starting to recognize them and it is such a true testament to what we call the Bloc or the community. That's what it is to be a Member of The Bloc is when we get together. It's not all just about the products and business and the industry and all that. It's we all feel like we're in this together. So that's one of my favorite things is just. Seeing a client running down the hallway yelling, Brittany, to one of our CSMs, you know?

CS: I think Brittany's everybody's favorite. I'm pretty sure Brittany, big shout out to Brittany. ⁓ so Kelsey, like obviously by this point in the podcast, everybody's like, how can I get to BlocBuilder and where is it going to be? What's coming in 2026 so that people can start to prepare now.

KR: Yes. And I will say, so I had mentioned one favorite thing. My second favorite part was when we, at the end of the conference, we try to announce where we're going to be next. We had, like I said, the, the team on site at the venue, including it's a team called Encore. So they help us do all of our stage stuff. Those guys helped me turn the stage into all of the colors for BB 26. And it was such a huge thing. We had a announcement video and that was one of the times where the whole crowd was just cheering. 

KR: So it was so cool. So we will be in Fort Lauderdale, Florida at the Marriott Harbor Beach Resort and Spa, April 7th through 9th, 2026. just because it's been tripping up a lot of us, we are not on a Sunday to Tuesday schedule in 2026. We'll be on a, what is that, Tuesday to Thursday schedule for the seventh tonight. So we're super excited about the venue again.

KR: We are really excited that I think we opened up ticket sales on site. So those that were there got a special. Quite a good deal on 2026 tickets. I think we sold 80 on site or close to that number. And we are over a hundred tickets sold at this point. I'm not sure of the exact count, but so momentum is definitely kicking up. We just announced certs, which kicks into another realm of momentum. People are definitely excited about 2026 already and we are too. We're in the full swing of planning.

CS: That hype video was killer. So I, I really appreciate the hype video. In fact, if like, if there's a way to cue the hype video at the end of this podcast, if the producer can somehow make that magic happen, that would be amazing. ⁓ but obviously we'll be, we'll be at four Lauderdale. I'm already looking forward to it. There's so much goodness. I'm frankly, the biggest concern I have, Kelsey and Savannah is like, how in the world will we outdo ourselves next year?

KR: Yeah

SC: Yeah.

KR: Yes, I know.

SC: We have some really exciting things coming and I feel like the bar was set really high in Phoenix with BlocBuilder 2025, but it is shaping up to be a really awesome BlocBuilder 2026 too. And just to hit back on what Kelsey said about we're doing a Tuesday through Thursday schedule in 2026, that is directly because of feedback that we got from attendees that they wanted to be able to take advantage of the space or, you know, come a little earlier, stay a little later and spend the weekend with their families. And that's also really exciting that we're going to be in such a cool place. ⁓ I believe our hotel is on the beach too. So you really get that opportunity to take advantage of the location.

CS: Thank you.

KR: Mm-hmm. On the beach. It's nostalgic of back to, think our first official standalone user meetup, which was in Jacksonville, Florida. And we were right on the beach and we got some very cool pics of our drinks at happy hour with the glowing cube on the beach. It'll be great. So we get to do that again.

CS: Very cool. Yeah. Already looking forward to it. Obviously if we're on the beach, we're still going to do work though, right? Just to be clear, we're not just going to spend time on the beach.

SC: yeah. yeah.

KR: Yes, but I was also going to point out if you play pickleball, get excited for that as well. There is a large pickleball complex there.

CS: Okay, all right. Well, obviously, 2025 is in the books. It was amazing. Yeah, appreciate you guys and your teams and all the work they did and all the others at the AgencyBloc team that that brought so much to the table. And again, feel like the high jumper that like just set the set my like personal best and now I have to try to figure out how to go out and beat it even though I've never been a high jumper but

CS: you know, go out and beat it next time. I imagine that's what happens, you know, in their brain. So, yeah.

KR: Hahaha!

SC: Right.

KR: Yes, but we, know, this team, we're just like challenge accepted. So here we go.

SC: Yeah.

CS: All right. Love it.

SC: Yeah, yeah, there is one last thing related to 2026 that I want to call out real quick while we have everybody here. ⁓ We are amping up certifications pretty significantly based on feedback that we received and we just announced those this week. So really excited about what we're offering, some highlights. Instead of doing full day certifications, we're doing half day certifications. 

SC: So you now can choose multiples if you want. That was feedback that we received was that, you know, I really love this topic, but I don't want to have to choose between topics. And we also are incorporating a beginner track and an advanced track for commissions, which was a really big topic as well that, you know, we have some beginners, but we also have those users who really want to dig into commissions a lot more and see how they can optimize it even better. ⁓ But just a quick shout out. In addition to the commissions, also have, we'll be having a digital marketing essentials certification course that is brand new. We haven't done that before, but with a lot of our learnings within GaugePlus and the early adopter program, we're seeing a lot from ⁓ our users that digital marketing is something that they don't necessarily feel as comfortable with. 

SC: And so we'll be talking about tools that you can leverage with AgencyBloc, but we'll also be talking about digital marketing in general. And then we also will have a data management fundamental certification. If you've attended like any of our educational resources or live events, you'll know, you might hear us say like garbage in, garbage out. Data cleanliness and data integrity is like the key to ensuring that you can leverage AMS plus features really well. So if you're doing automated workflows or things like that, they don't work as well if your data is not clean. And so we'll walk through in a four hour session.

KR: Hehehehe

SC: all of the key things that you need. You'll have a test account you can play around in and kind of learn all of those things in a really deep dive ⁓ with our education team. So really excited about that as well.

KR: That's awesome.

CS: All right, now I'm not as worried about us upping the bar. It sounds like we're already working on it. So yes. I also feel like this, this two, three day conference may become a week long by the time we jam all of the content and that we'd like to cover. Okay. All right. All right. Well, it's been a pleasure having Kelsey and Savannah on the podcast. Thank you guys so much for sharing all the feedback on BlocBuilder and also a little bit of a preview of what's coming. ⁓ You guys are awesome.

SC: Right, the bar is already like, yeah, we're already on the way.

KR: Things are happening. We might need more time.

SC: It would be really cool.

CS: Appreciate having you guys on the podcast. ⁓ so for the AgencyBloc team, we're going to close it out. Thanks so much for tuning in and we will include a link to BlocBuilder 2026 in the description. Until next time. Thanks all.

KR: Yeah, thanks guys. See you in Florida.

SC: Thanks, bye.

CS: Okay. And now we'll just cue the hype video.

KR: Go!

Posted on Friday, August 15, 2025 in BlocBuilder

1. industry news