Providing Searchable SOPs And Self-Sufficient Onboarding

They built in 2021. Trailstone's operations are still running in 2026.

Most customer stories highlight where a company is today. This one's different.

We first spoke with Trailstone in 2021, when they were ditching scattered Google Drive folders for a real training system. Five years later, we checked back in to see if the foundation held up.

Spoiler: it did.

Let's start where it began.

2021: From scattered docs to structure

Trailstone Insurance is an independent agency that connects clients to the best insurance companies. They operate across multiple states, with steady expansion over the years. And they're endorsed by financial guru Dave Ramsey for putting client needs before carriers — so yeah, they take trust seriously.

Mark Rodgers is the owner and main agent at Trailstone. To grow the business, he needs to onboard new agents and get them following the same playbook — fast.

"Because we operate remotely across 4 states, we really need to have processes identified and then followed."

In the early days, Trailstone was onboarding agents manually and managing company knowledge across Google Drive and Dropbox. Which worked great — until it didn't.

Docs were literally disappearing

The biggest problem with Drive and Dropbox? No real access controls. Documents kept getting modified. And sometimes they vanished entirely.

"Those tools have no admin or dashboard, where you can go in and say this person is a contributor, admin, or just a user. And if we weren't paying close attention, all of a sudden, things would disappear."

When your processes are disappearing into the void, consistency becomes a fantasy.

Mark's temporary fix? A duplicate folder to house master copies. Change the backup first, then update the published version.

It was… a system. Technically. But keeping track of two copies of everything — and remembering what changed when — ate up a ton of time.

He needed something better. He wasn't sure where to find it.

Then he found Trainual

Mark discovered Trainual while researching knowledge management systems. And the first impression? Refreshingly simple.

"It seemed pretty simple to start putting stuff in, so I signed up and started uploading my existing documentation."

Migrating from Drive and Dropbox turned out to be painless. Copy, paste, polish, publish. The plan was to use Trainual for onboarding, process documentation, and storing sales meeting recordings — but search and quick-embed videos are what hooked him first.

Searchable SOPs (a.k.a. no more treasure hunts)

Trailstone agents work remotely. They have questions at all hours. And "dig through Drive and hope the doc is still there" isn't exactly a support strategy.

Mark started recording 2–3 minute Loom and RingCentral videos for the processes agents ask about most — then embedded them in the relevant Trainual subjects. Now, agents can see exactly how to execute each process. No guesswork. No pinging Mark at 9 PM.

"Anytime they want to know how to do something, they can search for it on Trainual."

Before Trainual, agents were lucky to find an unmodified doc — and sometimes couldn't find documentation at all. Now? A few keystrokes and they've got the answer. Searchable SOPs keep things consistent, and consistency is what drives sustainable growth across states.

Oh, and only managers, admins, and subject owners can edit content. So the surprise-edit-and-vanish era is officially over.

Self-sufficient onboarding (Mark's ops team says thank you)

Once Trailstone's knowledge was documented in Trainual, Mark turned the platform into his onboarding engine. New agents spend their first 30 to 90 days working through Trainual daily.

The results? Mark nearly doubled his team — bringing on 15 new employees, mostly agents. And they ramp up faster than ever.

"Before, it took 3 to 5 days. With Trainual, it takes one and a half days at the most!"

That's a 60% reduction in onboarding time. For an 18-tool tech stack. Let that sink in.

And because onboarding is now self-guided, Mark's ops team isn't babysitting new hires through every click. They're focused on bigger problems instead.

"Trainual has been a time saver for my operations team and me."

At the time, Mark's growth plan was to onboard 25 more agents in the next 15 months, plus a sales director — a plan he said wouldn't have been possible without Trainual.

So… did it happen?

2026: Five years later, Trainual's still the backbone

When we last talked to Trailstone in 2021, they were a team of about 10 across four states.

Fast forward to 2026: 68 employees across seven states — with plans to keep going.

Their hiring approach has evolved, too. In 2021–2022, Trailstone was bringing on 3–5 independent (1099) agents per month. More recently, they shifted to a traditional sales model with W-2 producers, hiring 13 since January 2024.

The model changed. The system didn't.

New hires still start with HR for payroll and setup, then move straight into Trainual — following a structured, step-by-step path covering tools, systems, culture, and role expectations.

"I planted a lot of the seeds in Trainual years ago, and my team has perpetuated it."

That's the whole point, right? Build it once. Let it compound.

Still the searchable home base

Trainual continues to be where Trailstone goes for policies, procedures, and internal standards. Need a refresher on a process you haven't touched in months? Forgot how to set up a tool? Search, find, done.

Mark noted the search experience has improved significantly over the years — making it easier for the team to find answers without overthinking tags or keywords.

Keeping it clean

Here's something a lot of companies skip: Trailstone treats content maintenance as an ongoing priority. They periodically review what's current, what's outdated, and what should be archived.

"If it's not accurate, it creates confusion."

A dusty, outdated playbook isn't a playbook. It's a liability. Trailstone keeps Trainual clean so the team can keep trusting it.

The results: Five years of compounding consistency

Since replacing Google Drive and Dropbox chaos with Trainual, Trailstone hasn't looked back. Here's the scoreboard:

• 60% faster onboarding — new agents ramp up in 1.5 days instead of 3–5
• Scaled from 10 employees to 68
• Expanded from 4 states to 7 (with more on the way)
• 18 tools documented in one searchable playbook
• Zero lost documents thanks to clear permissions and version control
• Ongoing content audits keep training accurate and trustworthy

Trainual isn't an onboarding tool at Trailstone. It's the operational backbone — and it has been for half a decade.

TL;DR

Trailstone Insurance swapped scattered Google Drive and Dropbox docs for Trainual — cutting onboarding time by 60% and creating a single source of truth. Five years later, they've grown from 10 to 68 employees, expanded from four to seven states, and still rely on Trainual to keep onboarding, processes, and policies consistent as they scale.

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