7 Roadblocks to Agency Success

Foreign hey, Brent Kelly here of the Agent Leader podcast. Welcome back to another episode. This episode will be back to a solo episode, so not sure if that excites you or you're going to miss the interviews, but I promise you we're going to have more interviews to come. The last three podcast episodes were live from the Pro Fit Net events. We took some clips, the interviews that Roger Sitkins was doing with some of our members and interviews. We had the fabulous Mark Rollins, we had John Miles, the president of EHD Insurance. Fabulous interview there. And we also had the Diebold Agency. We had Kevin Elliott and Pete Elliott on with Rogers. Hopefully you enjoyed those. I've gotten some great feedback from many of the listeners saying really enjoyed the content. And again, they were all a little bit different in perspective, but I think valuable to anybody in agency leadership of any kind. So if you haven't listened to those while they're there on the archives, you can go back and check them out. But welcome back. My name is Brent Kelly. I am the host of this podcast, also the vice president of the Sitkins Group. And today what I want to do in my content today is talk about seven roadblocks that get in the way of true agency success. Now, you can use a lot of different names, roadblocks, obstacles, traps, you know, you name it. But what are those seven things that we see? You know, certainly I see as a coach, as a Sitkins Group, we work with our agencies out there, both current members that we have of our network and those that maybe we're just having conversations with that are struggling with to get the results that they want. Now the first thing I think it's important to note, and I've stated this on other episodes, but regardless of any agency, there's different goals, there's different results that you want, there's different definitions and levels of success. And I know when we work with agencies, one of the first things is what's your definition of success? What's the result you want? What's your vision? And so, you know, not every agency is the same, obviously. But that all being said, I think there are seven things that pop up time in, time out that often get in the way of any agency getting the results that they truly want. So I want to go through these seven and I'll spend a little bit of time on each one of them and then do a quick wrap up. And as always, if you have any questions for me, you can reach me@brentitkins.com is my email. I'd love to hear from you, if you have a question, if you have a comment, something you want to send me, Brenitkins.com, i'd love to hear from you. And also if you're in enjoying this podcast and would like to drop a review or a rating, I'd appreciate that as well. I know again, we're growing this podcast community and I'd love for you to help me out and be part of that. I'd appreciate it very much. So let me go through these seven roadblocks that I see in agency success. The first one sounds simple. In fact, maybe all of these to some degree are simple, but they're not done very often. The first one is lack of vision. There's a lack of vision. There's a roadblock in vision. You know, most agencies really don't have a plan to determine where they want to go and how they get there. There are three very basic questions that I could ask any agency leader, I could ask any agency producer, I could ask really, any insurance professional. And that is, first of all, where are you today? All progress starts by telling the truth. Where are you today? Where are you at in the scope of your business and where you want to be? So where are you at today? Number two is where do you want to go? Where is it you actually you want to head to? What is the result you're looking for? And again, I already mentioned this earlier. Not every agency wants the same thing. We have agencies that have told us, oh, we want to have an office in every state, okay, why? And then all of a sudden they talk through it and go, you know what, maybe I don't want that. So what is it that you really want? Where do you want the agency to go? Where do you want the agency to grow to? What would that look like for you? And then, of course, the last question is, how do we get there? So we're honest with where we are. We have some idea of where it is we want to go. We've actually written this down. If you haven't written down where you want to go, how are you going to get there? But if you have written it down, then it becomes more strategic. Now, how are we going to get there? Now, there's lots of different ways, but the reality of it is is that if you don't have some form of plan to get there, you're probably not going to just guess your way there. That's just not going to happen. I've said it before, I'll say it again. Hopefully not a strategy. And so you Know, when we work with our Sitkins clients, we actually create, you know, form of a roadmap. Where is it you really want to go? Okay, that's where you want to go. Now how do we get there? And here's the thing that I want to stress in this. Most agency leaders, where they get scared in this is, oh, I've got to do all these extra things. Now I even have to do more than what I'm doing. I can tell you the agencies that have a high level of success really realize when they plan their direction of where they want to go. Most are more successful at figuring out what things I need to stop doing, not just the things that I'm going to be doing, but what are the things that I'm going to have to stop doing. For example, if I want to work on higher level relationships, have higher retention, then I've got to stop accepting clients that don't fit my model. So I've got to say no. That's just one basic example. But you've got to sort of figure out not just what you're going to say yes to, but what you're going to say no to. So the first one, again I'm giving overviews of each of these is a lack of vision. And be honest with yourself. In fact, give yourself a rating as an agency leader, 1 through 10. 10, your vision is crystal clear. You know where you're at, you know exactly where you want to go and you've got a plan on how to get there or one, I hope I figured it out. Where are you at in lack of vision? Number two, this one is so important. Lack of accountability. Lack of accountability. I can't tell you how many agencies I talk to that say, well, you know, I'm trying to get my team to do something and you know, they said they're going to do it, but it never really happens. And then I say, well, then what? Well, you know, I don't know. It's, you know, we just hope we get through it. This is a leadership and culture issue now. I could, I could have a whole podcast. I've got many episodes in leadership. It's my passion. I love talking to leaders about leadership. And you know, one of the things with leadership is that there's that idea that we've got to balance care with candor. And this comes a lot from the John Maxwell philosophies. And I think it's so important, in fact, you know, working with some of the best leaders. I just had a great experience just recently with one of our private agencies, great agency. And I can tell you the leader understands how to balance care with candor, meaning that I appreciate you, I love you, I want the best for you, but I also expect some things out of you and you've got to be accountable to it. Right? There's time. I'm going to have to tell you the truth. So when you look at lack of accountability, part of it is there's got to be a clear discussion of what are the expectations, what is it that you want and how as an agency and as a business, can we help you get to what you want, how can we work together? And you're also going to help us get to what we want. We're both going to win, right? It's that win win philosophy. And then you actually document it. Well, here's the things that you're going to need to do and I'm going to hold you accountable to it. And here's the things as an agency we're going to need to help you and you're going to hold us accountable. And one of the things that we use, one of the tools we have is reverse performance management. We actually have accountability sheets that make it real, you know, sign it. Here's what I, here's what I said I was going to do. And I'll tell you as a leader here, two words or two phrases I should say that if you use are really, really powerful. Now of course you got to have some upfront agreement, but if you're working with your team member and they're not doing what they're doing and you have something written down and you've had a clear discussion, you just say, you know, Brent, I thought we agreed. Xyz, I thought we agreed upon this. I put it in their court. Let them explain that. I thought we agreed, I thought we talked about this. And then the second part of it is you'd say, well, help me understand, help me understand where we fell short or what happened so that we can coach you through this. Because here's the reality of it. People want to be coached. The good performers, the great performers. Now those that never want to be coached, those that never want to be held accountable, well, they probably don't belong in your team, at least not with a growth agency. So lack of accountability is so huge and you've got to start setting the standards. What are our non optional behaviors? What as an agency do we stand for and what things do we not stand for? Because if you don't stand for something, you don't stand for anything. Right. And anything goes. And so you've got to have a level of accountability. That's number two. Number three, what's another roadblock that I see with agencies? Well, it's a lack of a sales process or lack of a sales plan. There is no real agency sales strategy. Most agency sales strategies ultimately are, let's wing it and hope we get lucky. Now, luckily for most agencies, you may have a sales producer, account, executive, whatever you want to call it, someone out there that's in the sales world that may be a superstar on their own, whether they work for your agency or anyone else. You just got a good one and they just go out there and they do it. But what about building momentum as a team? If you want to grow, how do you bring on new producers? For example, if you don't have a sales process they can go off of it doesn't have to be a perfect sales process, but there's got to be some model, some way that makes your process unique and compelling to the marketplace. Otherwise it's look, copy, quote, pray. Look at our policy. We're going to copy what you have, we're going to go to markets, we're going to quote and we're going to pray that you don't take it back to your current agent. That is a very common sales process. So what is your agency sales strategy? And going back, I didn't ask the question. On accountability first. On accountability, 1 through 10, where were you? But what about a sales process 1 through 10, where are you? Number one is we have no sales process up to a 10 is. Yeah. We have a defined sales process called the XYZ agency sales plan. We've got some members that have specific name processes and it's really powerful. We have a special program with our members called the Risk Concierge Program. And you can rename it whatever you want, but it allows your agency to walk through a process and you can customize it however you want, depending on who you work with and the type of client. But it's some form of a true executive briefing that we're able to ask the right questions, tell our story, a true discovery process and a presentation at the end of the day that allows your clients to design their insurance program and then buy it from you. And this doesn't mean that price will never be an issue or there's not things that come up. But if we do the right things, if we have a true process and we can define it and explain it to our future ideal clients, the people we really want to work with it changes the conversations from transactions and quoting, which is most insurance consumers think that's what insurance is to saying, wow, there's real risk advice here, there's a real relationship here and it's very, very powerful. So lack of a sales process. Give yourself a rating 1 through 10. Where are you at number 4? Lack of a continuation process or plan. So this is just the second half of this, right? We got our sales process plan and then what about a continuation? Now some of you have heard me talk about continuations because at Sitkins, we don't believe that you should renew accounts. We believe you should continue relationships. And not only is there a philosophical difference, meaning that it's a mindset of, hey, we're not just renewing accounts, we're continuing great relationships. But there's also a strategy behind it. You know, a lot of the agencies that we start working with and this actually we have agencies or producers that come into some of our camps, talk about, you know, that they exceed expectations. Oh, one of our things, we have great service and we exceed expectations. And I'm saying, well, tell me specifically about your great service, which makes you so unique. Well, we're just great service, we have great people. Okay, you haven't defined anything, anybody could say that. And then you look at the other side of it is, well, we exceed expectations. Well, says who? Have you defined the expectations? So one of the most simple things you can do as an agency in a continuation process is that you actually have a clear conversation with a new client or at the time of true renewal, you're going through that process, right, where you're continuing the relationship and you ask some form of a question of what are your expectations of us? And there's a lot of ways to ask that question. But listen, we want to be your risk advisor and we really want to maintain a long term relationship. What are the expectations you have for us as an agency to make sure we continue this relationship moving forward? However you want to ask the question and then define it and document it. And then by the way, what if at six months or maybe even a little bit earlier you came back and said, how are we doing? This is what you said you wanted from us. How are we doing? And you can actually tangibly measure progress, measure that you're meeting expectations and also you can exceed expectations. It's very, very powerful and it turns the renewal into a non event. Most agencies go, okay, the renewal dates, July 1st. Oh my gosh, we've got to have, I mean, we're two weeks away. This is crazy. I hope we keep the account. We have competition. If you do the proper job ahead of time, aligning with your clients, understanding their value system and their expectations, documenting that, sending that to them, reviewing that with them, going out and doing a true annual risk review, going out and actually having a promise or stewardship report where you're defining what it is they said and what you're doing, and you're talking about what's going on in the marketplace. Again, these could be very basic conversations to a certain level, but they go a long way in changing that renewal craziness to a true continuation process or a plan. So number four is lack of a continuation process. Give yourself as an agency Leader A rating 1 through 10. One is that we don't really have a process where the typical 60 days out craziness cycle, or you've got a process from beginning to end that you work with your clients, which would be a 10 number five of the roadblocks that hold agencies back. I think it's a lack of awareness or a lack of understanding of the 8020 rule. And you could also call this the vital few versus the trivial many. Now, I love talking about 8020 because it's real and it's really, really important. And I could use 8020 for a lot of different areas in your agency. I'm willing to bet that if I looked at 80:20, meaning if I looked at your client database in your agency, for most agencies now, it may be a little different, but I guarantee there's some predictable imbalance that for most agencies, 20% of your clients equal 80% of your agency's revenue. I'm willing to bet that 20% of your insurance carriers you work with produce 80% of your revenue. I'm guaranteeing that 20% of your sales team produces 80% of your results. Right? And I could go a lot of different ways. I can guarantee that 20% of how your agency team members allocate their time produces 80% of the actual results. So it's this lack of awareness of saying, wait a second. And it goes back to what I said earlier. Most agencies, when they really start to define their plan, go, I couldn't possibly, I couldn't possibly do this because there's going to be all this extra stuff I have to do. The reality of it is, reality of it is find the 20% that gets you 80% of the results and put your time and energy and your effort there. The vital few versus the trivial many. And we work with our members really, really intensely in this area. And it can be challenging. Don't get me wrong, it can be a very hard thing because we can look at the numbers and go, yeah, that makes sense. But now what do we do? What's the next step? And so there's kind of a coaching and training process through that. But I would challenge you as an agency right now. Have you run 80 20? Have you really looked at your book of business? Have you really looked at your carrier carriers? There is money left on the table. I promise you, if you look at it and take action. And by the way, it requires you doing less of the right things, not more of the wrong thing. So lack of awareness of the vital fee or the 80 20, how are you doing in that area? Give yourself a rating 1 through 10. Number six roadblock for your agency, I believe, is the lack of utilizing technology. The lack of utilizing technology. Now, every agent is different in this. I don't know what agency management system you use. I don't know if you have a certain CRM. Obviously this is going to be in general and generic terms on this podcast, but the reality of it is most agencies we look at are not using the technology to their full potential. We have a few agencies we work with that really upfront, do a great job of this, but most of them, they go, wow, we're only using about 25% of our technology. Now, technology should work for you, not against you. I think we all would agree upon that. But what happens in many agencies, I think, is that they think that technology will replace relationships. I think technology frees you up to have deeper relationships. That's how it should be used. Understanding. Yeah, there are certain things that we can automate and that we can streamline and that will free me up either as an insurance producer or a service person in the office, or certainly even as agency leader or sales manager to spend more time in asking real risk advice and being a true professional. But if we don't utilize the technology that's there, we're obviously not only wasting capital, wasting money that we're not using it, but we're also getting ourselves caught and not spending our time in the right ways. Time in the right ways either. So lack of utilizing technology is a big one. So just think about the technology you have in your office right now. One through ten, where are you at? Ten is your maximizing it all. And one is, yeah, we have it. We should probably check it out sometime. All right, last but not least, number seven. Number seven of roadblocks for agencies, I believe is lack of Team development, lack of team development. You know, it is a really hard thing for agencies, especially as you begin to grow and kind of if you're an agency that started off with just a few people and now you're growing into more, or maybe you've been at a decent sized agency and now you're kind of growing to that next level, that if there is not consistent training, coaching or mentoring to improve your agency, you are wasting a huge opportunity. Huge opportunity. You know, one of the most simple concepts I can share with you, just because numbers are easy to kind of understand, at least the way I'm going to present this to you is what if, right? What if you as an agency leader and as an agency team of leaders which say, listen, if we can just help Our team get 1% better a week, whether it be in communication training, whether it be in the use of technology that I just mentioned, whether it be, you know, again, so many different things, leadership skills, it could be skills, it could be processes, it could be mindset and attitude. There's so many different areas, but true development of your team. And I say, would it be feasible, if you ask the most agency, would it be feasible to get a 1% improvement, not asking for 21% improvement from your team every week? And they go, yeah, it could be. See, most agencies and most people in general in any industry go, well, they're just going to get better. Naturally, it's just going to get better. You know what the reality of it is? It doesn't always work that way. You're going to get a few people that are going to get better because they want to get better and they're committed and they're going to do the things they need to either during work or after work or whatever it is to become a better version of themselves. But let's face it, most people won't. And your job as a leader is to help grow your team, to develop your team. The best coaches make their players better, right? The players still got to put the work in. They still got to, you know, got to be consistent. I agree with all of that. But you can give them instruction, you can give them motivation, you can give them tools, you can give them skills, you can give them resources that they can use and develop at a higher level. So if you could get your team to improve just 1% a week and they take two weeks off, or they decide they don't want to improve that week, that's still 50% improvement. Think of the multiplication factor in your agency. If you do those things Developing your team is one of the most important and impactful things you can possibly do. The reality of it is, and what I find is that most agency leaders have good intentions to do that, but they run into time issues. I just don't have the time. I just don't know what we should do next. Now, this may sound like a shameless plug to our network, and you know what? Maybe it is. But I can tell you one of the things that we help agencies with is to help their leaders become better coaches and help their coaches get better buy in from their team. I think one of the things that strikes me, and I use this example quite a bit, but it's just so real and true. You know, my daughter, she, she's going to be a sophomore this year in high school and played basketball most of her life. And you know, I played basketball most of my life, so I know enough about the game to help her with, you know, basic stuff. And as I would, you know, teaching her kind of how to shoot the basketball and some different things, position her arm and her legs and as she was growing up, she would look at me at some point by the time she was in junior high and go, oh, you know, dad, I know, I know dad, I know. I got it. I know. Yet when my neighbor who's also a basketball coach would come over, she'd say, oh, like that, like that. And so even though we're saying basically the same thing, there's a deeper level of buy in. So it doesn't have to be from Sitkins. I'd prefer it was if you're an agency that really wants to take it to the next level, but from anybody that can help your team get better. If there's coaches and mentors out there, don't waste those opportunities. Right. Make sure you develop your team. So just give yourself a score. 1 through 10 on team development. Where are you 1 through 10? One is we are not really doing anything to develop our team. And 10 is we are all in. We are helping them become their best version possible. So those are the seven traps, seven gaps, seven roadblocks, whatever you want to call them, but seven things that are preventing your agency and many agencies from getting the results they truly want. Lack of vision, not really seeing what it is they want to, where they want to go, and of course creating a plan of how to get there. Lack of accountability. So even if they're doing, they have an idea where they want to go, the people aren't doing it and there's no accountability to it. No true sales process or plan. No true continuation process or plan or renewal, if that's what you want to call it. But a continuation process. No true awareness of the 8020 principle. The vital few not utilizing the technology to their full extreme and then lastly, not developing their team at a high enough level. So those are the seven Roadblocks. Hope you find those helpful. Glad to be back on a solo podcast. A lot of things in my head that I wanted to share, and these were the the seven roadbloc that I started thinking about and writing down in preparing for this podcast. Again, if we can help you at the Sitkins Group, help your agency become its best version possible. And as I always say on my tips that I do on LinkedIn and by the way, if you haven't connected with me on LinkedIn, please do so. I love to connect with you. I do a lot of work on LinkedIn as well. One of the things I always share is we want to help your agency become its best version possible. Whatever that means to you. Really define that and live a life of no regrets that you never look back and go, man, we could have done some really cool stuff, but I just didn't do it. So if that's something that sounds compelling to you, again, reach out to me, Brenitkins.com, leave a note, leave a rating. Love to hear from you. I appreciate your listenership and I wish you truly all the best in your success. Talk to you soon.