If there’s one lesson I’ve learned from building businesses across insurance, marketing, and real estate, it’s this: the world doesn’t need more narrow experts. It needs more adaptable thinkers. In a time when industries are blending, customers are more informed, and problems are more complex, the future doesn’t just belong to specialists. It belongs to generalists who have real depth in at least one vertical—and know how to connect the dots across others.
This has become especially clear to me through my consulting work at MAIS and in launching Iyer CRSI, where we advise companies on growth strategies that cut across marketing, insurance, real estate, and operations. The most impactful solutions don’t always come from staying in one lane. They come from seeing how different lanes connect—and how a principle from one field can unlock opportunity in another.
From Insurance to Insight
I started my career in health insurance. During my early years, I worked as a benefits consultant while still in college. That work taught me the mechanics of risk, regulation, and customer service. But more importantly, it taught me how decisions in one area—like billing structure or enrollment flow—could have ripple effects across the entire client experience.
That understanding came in handy later when I helped build and lead a 25-person call center at IHS Insurance Services. It wasn’t just about selling policies. It was about optimizing systems, managing people, streamlining operations, and tracking performance. All of that required more than just insurance knowledge—it required broader business skills.
Eventually, I used that experience to found Name My Premium (NMP), where I managed marketing and lead generation in-house. That’s when I started to realize how valuable cross-industry thinking really was. We weren’t just selling insurance—we were designing digital funnels, negotiating ad contracts, managing data, and tracking conversion metrics. We were doing the work of a marketing agency, a tech company, and an insurance firm all at once.
When Specialization Falls Short
For most of the last century, the business world encouraged specialization. You had insurance experts, real estate developers, marketing firms, and operations consultants—each focused on their narrow vertical. That model worked when industries were siloed, and the pace of change was slower.
But today, specialization by itself isn’t enough. I’ve seen highly talented specialists struggle to solve problems because they couldn’t see beyond their area of expertise. A marketing expert might suggest a campaign that sounds great on paper—but doesn’t align with the client’s operational reality. A real estate developer might overbuild because they don’t understand local demographic shifts or insurance costs.
In contrast, someone with experience across sectors can ask better questions, spot patterns, and build more practical solutions. They know enough to collaborate with subject-matter experts but also understand how it all fits together. That kind of thinking is invaluable in today’s fast-moving, interconnected business environment.
The Power of Pattern Recognition
One of the biggest benefits of working across industries is pattern recognition. When you’ve seen how a successful fulfillment system works in an insurance call center, you can spot operational inefficiencies in a completely different field—like real estate management or nonprofit logistics.
When I started investing in multi-family developments in Visalia and later Reedley, my background in customer experience and operational workflows gave me a huge advantage. I looked at tenant experience the way I used to look at policyholder journeys. I asked how we could simplify communication, improve service touchpoints, and make billing clearer—all things I originally learned in health insurance.
That ability to apply insights from one industry to another is what makes a generalist with deep vertical insight so powerful. You’re not just problem-solving in a vacuum. You’re bringing tested solutions into new contexts—and often finding that they work even better when applied creatively.
Consulting in the Age of Complexity
This is exactly why I believe cross-industry consulting is the future. Businesses aren’t looking for cookie-cutter answers anymore. They’re looking for customized strategies that work across functions, teams, and industries. They want someone who can help with branding and operations, who understands both contracts and customer experience.
That’s the value I try to bring with Iyer CRSI. We don’t come in with a rigid playbook. We come in with experience—across insurance, real estate, marketing, fulfillment, and team management—and we adapt it to whatever challenge the client is facing. Sometimes that means optimizing workflows. Sometimes it means launching a new service line. Other times, it means improving lead generation or reshaping how the company communicates with its customers.
The goal is always the same: help the business grow in a sustainable, intelligent way. And to do that, you need both range and depth.
Why It’s Personal
On a personal level, I’ve always loved learning new industries and figuring out how things work. That curiosity is what drove me to get involved in different ventures over the years—and what ultimately led me to start MAIS and later 4-Humans.org, our nonprofit aimed at giving back through strategic consulting and community support.
I don’t think of myself as someone who left insurance for other industries. I think of myself as someone who added tools to the toolbox—and found better ways to use them. That’s what I want to help others do too.
If you’re building a business today—whether in insurance, real estate, marketing, or any other service-based space—don’t limit yourself to one lane. Get deep in your vertical, but stay open to learning from others. The best ideas often come from outside your industry. And the biggest opportunities come from connecting dots that others don’t even see.
In this era of cross-pollination and rapid change, generalists with deep expertise are the ones who can lead, innovate, and build the future.