Episode 247: Job Descriptions and Leading Your Team

Welcome to the Unstoppable Profit Podcast. This podcast will give independent insurance agents all of the tools to grow your business and live life on your terms. Wherever you are today, if you're starting with nothing or well on your way to the success you desire, with the right people, processes and promotions in place, you will be unstoppable. And now I'd like to introduce your host, Mike Stromsol.

Greetings and welcome to the next episode of the Unstoppable Profit Podcast. I'm bringing you something today that's vitally important from the first p and it's a subject that continually has been coming up in our UPP coaching circles with our members, and outside of our coaching circles, in our industry and beyond, in all business industries, and through observation, discussions with agency leaders and many others, we're finding that people who are waiting to be led are not being led. So I'm going to start off with this thought process and I strongly encourage you to write this down. People are silently waiting to be led. They're waiting for somebody to lead them, but nobody's leading them. And bigger than that, there are no written goals and expectations. Therefore they have.

I. I don't want to go as far as saying no clue, but they don't have a solid idea of what the heck to do on a daily basis. Yeah, somebody verbally lets them know what to do.

But if you know anything about personality profiling assessments and the such, that takes a super deep dive into the human characteristic. You know, some people like documentation. Some people want to see the goals and expectations that are expected of them in writing in addition to the verbal aspect. So as a leader in a business organization, and to our point, the people that we are privileged to serve in the independent insurance agency industry.

Please make sure that you have current, relevant job descriptions. Or in some situations we call them role descriptions. And in essence, it's the same thing, just a different word. Just like the words.

Manager versus leader.

Think about that one for a minute. Do you like to be managed? The answer is likely, no, I don't like to be managed. Nobody does per se. But people do like to be led. And if they're a member of a team, they are looking for the leader to lead them. Like I said in the beginning, people are silently waiting to be led. So give them the tools that they need, the resources they need, train them, set the vision for the organization, and get the heck out of the way. But an absolute key component is a rock solid, current, relevant job description that matches up to that person. You also Want to have right person, right seat. So make sure that you are clear. There's absolute clarity. I'm going to give you a couple things to think about in today's podcast concerning this particular matter. But before I do that, I'm going to go way back, way back in my own independent insurance agency business. I'll suggest 20 to 25 years ago or more. And I had learned about this concept. I had learned about how vitally important everything that I just said is to the success and achievement of, of our independent insurance agency business. And frankly, I didn't know where to start. I heard somebody with a great idea. That idea was, why don't you to start to see what the team member truly feels about their position in the agency and what they're expected to do, why don't you have them write out their own job description? And I thought, wow, that's a great idea. So I had them do it. And to this day, I still have those job descriptions in my hand. The one that I'm looking at right now and super happy with this team member. Because this team member put, I'm a personal protection coach. Now back up for just a second. Our agency was unique. Our agency was different. And we intentionally intentionality, very, very important. Be intentional with every decision you make. The intentional position of our organization, we had protection coaches. That's who our team members were. They were protection coaches. This particular agent was a personal lines protection coach or a personal protection coach. We have personal protection coaches, business protection coaches, leadership coaches, but we were coaches. We were coaching people on how to best protect themselves. Okay. And then they had a support position as well in the department that they operated within. This particular agent had 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 items on their essential job functions. And that's how we intentionally worded it. They're essential job functions. And then we put in parentheses listing most important first. And they did. And it was fantastic. So I had all the job descriptions and I knew where the team members were in their head and their heart as to what they were supposed to be doing. And then we refined from there. We refined their position. If they were spot on, we praised and recognized and we, we continue to encourage them through leadership. Hey, if things change, we may want to tweak this. We're going to revisit it once a year to make sure that it's always on port, on point. And there's another very, very, shall I say, extremely important aspect. You must have one person within your organization. I recommend one so you don't have any confusion. You have complete clarity, certainty, clarity and consistency. The three Cs certainty, clarity and consistency. Your team wants to be certain about what the expectations are. They want to have clarity. And you must be consistent as far as your ongoing ability to update and provide that ongoing clarity in the leadership chair. So with that being said, make sure one person in the organization owns, is responsible for, we call it owning the that particular duty to make sure that those are updated once a year. So make sure that's on the docket as well. So let me take you into a couple of areas concerning job descriptions. Why are they important anyway? And again, this came up recently because we had multiple agents that we communicate with within the industry that did not, that did not have current relevant job descriptions in place for their team members. And my first question when I hear that kind of comment is how in the heck can you expect your team members to absolutely know with clarity what they're expected to do to serve the vision of the organization? Because if you've ever seen me speak, and if you're on this podcast watching it on YouTube, which you can watch every one of our podcasts on YouTube, by the way, just go to YouTube, YouTube, search Unstoppable Profit Producer. Click on Unstoppable Profit Producer, go to the video tab. And all of our podcasts are there. And our money making strategy series, which comes out on Tuesday there for your benefit, for your ongoing learning and education. Back to why, why are these important? So we heard them from a lot of agents that they don't have them. And I'm like, why? So it's vitally, vitally important. And then I was on a coaching session with an agent actually yesterday, and this agent has a brand new.

Young person, we'll say in their organization, very young, early 20s. And not only because of the generational gap, sometimes did this person need to be led in a bigger way. I said to that agency leader, I said, does this person have a documented job description?

And all too often I hear that exact response, which is nothing. And so then the agent came on to say, well, you know, the one that I had so and so working within 10 months ago, and that person didn't make it would be a good job description. I said, has this new team member seen that job description been explained the job description, and bigger than that, so that we can teach them proper business practices?

Has that person read it, understood it with certainty and clarity, and have they signed and dated it?

Again, that was the answer. Nothing. So that, to me, that's a no. Right? So vitally vitally important because again, to reiterate, you want to set the vision for the organization, have people completely understand what they're supposed to be doing, give them the resources they need, the training they need, and get the heck out of their way.

Why are job descriptions also called role descriptions? Same thing in my mind. Important or shall we say essentially one, to ensure the expectations are met. You got to make sure the expectations are met based on the vision of the organization and its desire, destiny, its desired destination or achievement, accomplishment of its goals. Number two, recruiting. By the way, you should always be recruiting. Always be recruiting. Shall I say that for the third time? Always be recruiting. But it's incredible. It's critically important that you have current, relevant, accurate job or role descriptions for your recruiting efforts. Because when you find that, you know, blue chip a player, you better be able to pop out a job description saying, hey, this is the the goal and the expectations for this particular chair. Because if you don't have it, they're probably going to go somewhere else. They want an organization where they can see the path of their future career growth. You've got to have it all together. Next, your performance reviews, your accountability and everything else is based in part on these job descriptions. So they've got to be in place. Current, relevant, accurate. Right person, right seat. Next. It helps you attract the right team members. You attract exactly what you are and who you've become. So become the very best organization to attract the very best team members. You attract exactly what you are and who you have become as an organization. Because you've got to always be answering the question, why should a this a player join your agency, organization over and above any and all other options available to them? It's because of everything that you've become and who you are, including job descriptions.

Next, you're able to match the skills, abilities, tal talents, competencies, personal gifts, talents, vital functions, all of that to that right person. So by lining up all of those items, the skills, abilities, personal talents, gifts, vital functions, competencies, with a job description that includes skills and abilities, or excuse me, what that person needs to be doing, you're able to match that person to that seat. That way they are happier, they're more productive, and they get more shiitake done.

Next, support, training and development. When you have an accurate, current, relevant job description, you're able to better provide the right kind of training and support on an ongoing basis for that position. In other words, just a simple example, if you've got a service position which is keeping clients versus a sales position which is Getting clients. You, you don't want to be training a service person with sales attributes all of the time. Listen, I get there's cross sell opportunities and I also am aware that there is a large contingent of hybrid positions in the independent insurance agency business, in other words, where they're doing both sales and service. I get it, but you want to primarily train on primarily what that person is doing. Next. Establish. It helps you establish hiring criteria for your job postings and many, many other aspects of establishing hiring criteria. Next. It does provide that detailed list of responsibilities for that particular position within your agency and it provides great clarity for all of your team members. And here's a quick exercise for you. We had team meetings once a week, always on Thursday, first thing in the morning. And we from time to time would do an around the horn session. And around the horn session is where you know, we had a big conference table. Everybody's sitting the conference table, collaborating, working on the business, looking to grow the business. And once in a while we just do it around the horn. Everybody gets to participate. But you know what that does that keeps your team engaged. Engagement is absolutely critical in your team meetings. Okay, we would have everybody bring their job description to the meeting and we just have each person go around the horn, around the table and read their job description. That way every single team member knew what everybody was doing and they have an opportunity to collaborate. They'd have an opportunity to discuss and sometimes an opportunity to debate on who should be doing what next. It improves the employee accountability and we talked about accountability a couple minutes ago. But accountability, accountability, accountability breeds responsibility and the support mechanism for the accountability for our team members in our independent insurance agency business. PX3. PX3, we use the PX3 program. We use that for a number of years and it is a proprietary operating accountability support book that we still help agents with today. And ultimately it's an summary and an overview of exactly what a job entails. So through job descriptions, your team members understand what's expected of them, allowing them to work more effectively. Additionally, it provides structure to ensure that the duties are being handled by a team member. By the team member, which establishes objective criteria by which leadership and the employer can measure the team members performance. What gets measured and what gets inspected gets done. So that's another reason they're essential. So what is the main purpose of a job description? The job description documents the essential job functions and the skills, knowledge and abilities and other characteristics needed for satisfactory performance of a job or role. Again, it should be updated regularly. Somebody must own the updates one person to make sure that they all get done to ensure that it reflects the team members current assigned responsibilities. And from time to time you'll find RP WS RPWS not RP rs RP Right person, Right Seat. RP is Right Person RS is Right seat RP is Right Person WS is Wrong Seat. From time to time through this exercise you'll find you got a person in the wrong seat. From an attitude standpoint, from a character standpoint, from a true hard working talent ethics standpoint, they're a great person. They just might be. They just might be in the wrong seat. And we've had that happen time and time again in our independent insurance agency business. We simply shifted them to a different seat in a different role and they flourished. So what's the benefit of providing team members with access to job descriptions? You see a documented, written, communicated with clarity, Job description gives a team member a clear and concise guide.

For their job performance. Team members know exactly what their leadership expects from them, which allows them to improve their skills and increase productivity. You want to have a culture which is by the way, set by your core values. Check out the last podcast I did on that, the last episode. Vitally, vitally important. Your culture must be a culture of growth and advancement every single day. So one of the things that we have done for all the member agents we work with, we have created job descriptions for every position in the independent insurance agency business. We can't. Well, we can, but we generally don't include going into their agency and doing it for them. However, we give them in Microsoft Word the job descriptions. All they need to do is confirm that it's the right duties and responsibilities for their agency. So I'm going to share with you just some quick hit points as we wrap up today's podcast on job descriptions for a customer service representative, also known as a csr, also known as account manager, and in our agency, also known as a personal protection coach. By the way, that's all the same chair. Okay, so our job descriptions have a position title. What they're called next at the top of the form it says which department they're in. So this if it's a personal line csr, it would be personal line service department they report to. In other words, who their direct report is. They report up to a person. And in our particular agency we had a personal lines leadership position. So their direct report would be the personalized leadership person. Which by the way, I was super happy when all of this went down because that Direct report was not me. I was working on the business, working on the vision for the organization. Okay. Their status in the business organization, non exempt full time. So it could be, that's non exempt as a W2 employee. And if it was exempt, it would be a 1099. By the way, check your state laws on that. That I could go down a long trail for an hour on that one. But anyway, status was non exempt full time. You could have, you could have non exempt part time too. But this is full time and we're, you know what we're doing here Also we're setting the expectations for the position and then on the job description we have a salary range. Now we have the salary range on this job description because this, this might be part of the recruiting. Right. So we put X amount of money per hour depend. Doe. Doe DOE is depending on experience. Right. And then next paragraph down we have a position summary is the title for the paragraph and I'm going to read verbatim. To serve and grow the book of clients assigned to you. By providing extraordinary service, educating the customer, identifying revenue growth opportunities and generating referrals, account managers focus on growth within their current book of business while also backing up their teammates. That's the position summary. Not ever intended to be all encompassing, but a core statement as to what their role.

Is. Looks like. Okay, so then we have a long list of job functions. And I got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 4, 11, 12, 13 job functions listed here by bullet point. Okay, Everything from establish working relationship with the clients, companies and reps on the phone, supporting your team, research and resolve promptly respond, maintain client files, review and prioritize all customer requests, process transactions, review and order all necessary review and process underwriting, account remarketing, perform this electronically or via the Internet and other optional items. So you can put on that list whatever you desire. Next we have additional duties which are we're talking about retention. And then we have another bullet and it's got multiple bullet points below that. And then the next bullet point is generating additional revenue on the book of business in the form of increased coverage, account rounding, and we have additional bullet points below that. The next topic bullet point is conducting account reviews, which was a requirement. And by the way, small tip here for you on that. If you don't have the people resources or the time resources available, make sure your clients are segmented. Client segmentation. I'm sure there's a podcast out there on client segmentation. Get your book segmented. It's a great way to divvy up what can actually be done because you'll find that the Pareto Principle is in effect, the 8020 rule. You'll find that up to 20 to 30% of your revenue is generated by 70 to 80% of your clients.

So those are the ones you do it for first. Next topic. Provide outstanding inbound service on claims, billing questions and endorsements. Then we have a number of bullets below that Positive attitude and efficient work ethic. Attitude is everything. And I just was reading something in my morning daily reading yesterday that I'll likely have a podcast on concerning attitude in the future. Absolutely critical. And if you watch the most recent podcast on core values, you can't be great if you're content being good and that involves attitude and leadership. Next. Next topic. Conduct new file business. New business file audits. And then we got some bullet points below that. Next bullet point topic. Work to support the marketing and branding team in the following ways and then we give them ways they can do that and other responsibilities as directed by your leadership. Next we have topically requirements and skills. We have five different requirements and skills that this particular seat must have, must have. And the expectation is that we're continually improving in these areas from tech to quick to efficiencies to communication to organization, just to basic characteristics of the person and individual for that particular chair. We talk a little bit about their educational background. We talk a little bit about their experience background about what the expectations are. The fact that we're continually growing. This particular all of our job descriptions have limitations and disclaimers because these were all built in combination with our hired outside HR council and that person was absolutely phenomenal. We had an outside so a 1099 contractor outside the organization. This was our HR professional, our consultant. And anytime that we needed something we just went to the consultant was on a flat fee retainer per month. One of the best decisions we ever made. There was no confusion. Hr go to this person. Hr go to this person. Oh, is it HR go to this person. Phenomenal. Then we have an A team member acknowledgement at the bottom and I'll read that to you. Because this is so vitally important, I've had the opportunity to view this job description. I understand that I will receive further instructions from my immediate leadership and have the opportunity to make further inquiries regarding my duties. There's a place for it to be signed by all parties and a place for it to be dated. And there's also a place for approval and comments, any comments that need to be made. And there's another Disclaimer at the bottom Everything contained in this document is for informational purposes only. Nothing should be construed as legal advice. You should always check with your attorney and make sure you're asking questions that will not violate laws of the state. That is the formality of the job descriptions that we had in place in our independent insurance agency business. And it's the formality of all the job descriptions for every one of our UPP members. And if you're interested in learning more or talking more about becoming a member or just want to know more about our programs, let's set up an Agency Growth Session. Let's set up an agency Grow Session. Let me make it easy for you. Just send an email to vipplife.com VIP very important person which is you VIP@upp life.com and just put in the subject line Agency Grow Session and my team will get that set up for you post haste right away so we can answer all your questions and help you in any way possible.

My goal, my hope, my desire in this podcast and everything that we do to try to help independent insurance agents everywhere is that when, if we ever have a conversation and I say tell me about your current, upto, date, documented, relevant job descriptions for every position in your organization, that your response to me is going to say be Mike. They're in place, they're constantly being reviewed and updated and we are rocking and rolling because that's all we want to hear. That's all we want to hear and all we want is your higher achievement and success because our core purpose at upping is impacting people's lives personally and professionally. Thanks for joining us on this podcast and if this is your first time on the podcast, welcome. My name is Mike Stromso. I'm likely rec widely recognized as a leading author, speaker and coach for the independent insurance agency industry. You can learn more about everything that we do @unstoppable profit producer.com if you're interested in joining us in one of our virtual events, which are the upcoming events, you can go to uppfast start.com that's up.

Fast start.com and you can sign up for our next UPB fast start session which is a session where we share with you all the details of everything concerning the three Ps, people, processes and promotion in an online training to best help you and get you going right away on everything that we teach and everything that we provide for agents is all designed to provide you our best money making strategies developed over 36 years of research and operating As a proud independent insurance agency business, we want to give to you and for you and to help you in every way possible so you can grow your business, create wealth and have more freedom to live life on your own terms. It's a wonderful place to be and I want everybody to be able to operating to be able to operate within that environment. If you got great value out of today's podcast, do me a favor. Go to unstoppable profit podcast.com go up to the top, click subscribe so you don't miss one valuable episode and share unstoppable profit podcast.com with somebody else you care about. Might be another agent, a team member, another business owner. Because a lot of things we teach apply to any business, please do so. And also remember, we're out there on all the channels. Spotify, Stitcher, our YouTube channel, Apple Podcast, Amazon and more. It is our privilege, it is our honor to help independent insurance agency everywhere grow their business, create wealth and have more freedom. And as we wrap up today, remember, people are silently waiting to be led. And if you are an owner or a leader in an independent insurance agency business, you have a duty and a responsibility to provide great leadership to your team. People are silently waiting to be led. And remember, you can't be great if you're content being good. Be unstoppable and be the best. I'll see you in the next episode.

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