Are You Swimming Naked?

Foreign.

So I have a question for all the agency leaders out there. Are you or is your agency swimming naked? We're going to talk about that question on today's Agent Leader Podcast. I want to welcome everybody to the Agent Leader Podcast. My name is Brent Kelly, your host. Thanks so much for joining me on today's episode. And I've got my very special guest, which I totally told Roger before we started, that I may bump him up, I'm not sure yet, to the co host title, but Roger Sitkins with me today. Roger, welcome.

Well, it's exciting to get a promotion here to the co host and really welcome everybody. We've got a great topic today, one that's going to challenge your thinking. I guarantee you.

Yeah, it will definitely challenge your thinking. And obviously, you know, Roger being the CEO of Sitkins Group, I think if he really wanted to bump himself to co host, he probably could. But. But I still want to make that offer to him just in case. But the purpose. I want to talk about the purpose of the Agent Leader podcast. I do, in every episode, really want to challenge you. And Roger mentioned this is going to be a challenging podcast. Some of the topics we're going to talk about today are going to challenge you, but what we want to help you with is to gain clarity in your agency. You know, where do you want to go? Why do you want to go? Why do you want to go there? How are you going to get there? We want to help you with consistency. What are those few things you need to do exceptionally well? And then about making a commitment. A commitment to yourself and to your team and to your clients, to your community, whoever. Just be being very clear on making a commitment. And that's our purpose. I want to share before we get into this really fun and challenging topic of are you and your agency swimming naked? Just a couple announcements. Number one, the fact that our Producer Fit program, Producer Fit Program. Number two, is going to sell out. We had our first Producer Fit. It's already up and running. We're going to be going on session three, actually, as I'm recording this next week. Hey, Roger, why I've got you here? What are your thoughts? What do you. How are you seeing the Producer Fit program, this virtual Producer Fit program going from your perspective?

Well, you know, it's really hard to replace the live experience. It's something that we've always felt very strongly about. Let's get really smart people together, share some ideas, challenge them, inspire them. And the face to face is so good. As we move forward with the Problems around Covid and the fact that people could not travel, didn't want to, but could not. Also, we realized, as you've mentioned in previous podcasts, that we needed to accelerate the development of a virtual program. As you know, we always have very, very high standards. And I've got to tell you, this thing has blown me away. It's actually exceeded the expectations I had for it. And it doesn't really matter how I feel. It's how the people attending feel. And the feedback I'm getting from the producers and the agency leaders already is really over the top. So it's a great experience. It's easy to attend because you're attending from your laptop, your tablet. You can attend from your smartphone if you want to. But most importantly, it's the consistency of working on your book of business, working on your ME Inc. And it's really been phenomenal. We're just so happy that we can bring this to the industry.

Hey, Roger, you bring up a great point. I mean, I know going into it, we did as much preparation and our team worked crazy. I mean, they did an incredible job of getting everything ready from their end. And, and you know, it's one of those where I look at it and go, I know I've seen it in my own eyes and heard, you know, from so many different attendees that the content and the experience is incredible. And like, we know we could replicate that. But it's not until you get the feedback, you know, you're like, we feel good about it, but as you said, how does everyone else feel about it? And so far, the response has been great. And so we're so excited. And what really is exciting about is that if it's working, let's continue to do it and do it even better at a higher level. So getting my two announcements. Number one, our second camp will sell out. We're over half sold out right now. So go to sitkins.com this is my second announcement. Action item. Sidkins.com profit p r o p r o f I t sidkins.com profit to register if you or your team members want to be on the next one. And I don't know, Roger, if we're going to do a third one off right off the bat or not. But certainly if, if there is a need, we'll do our best to serve as many agencies and producers as we can. So I just wanted to. To throw that out there. So with that, I want to get into our podcast topic, which, again, I don't know, this will be controversial, but Certainly, I think it'll be challenging. I think that's a fair statement. And to open it up, as I shared right at the beginning of this episode, is the question is, are you swimming naked? What does that mean? So I got an email from someone by the name of Roger Sitkins just a few days ago, and it said some aspect about when the tide goes out. And I wasn't exactly sure what he meant until I did some research. So, Roger, I'm going to give you the floor here to talk about what does the swimming naked thing mean? And then we'll just go from there.

Well, it's a great quote from Warren Buffett, and he says it's not until the tide goes out that you learn who's been swimming naked. And that just hit me in the situation we're at now, because all the challenges to the agencies and to the producers, to everybody, all of a sudden we're realizing that people have been. A lot of them have been swimming naked and got away with it, and it was okay. And now we're seeing that there are some major flaws that are happening in the industry. They were able to get masked for years because it's such a great industry. So the question becomes, all right, the tide's out. Maybe I'm swimming naked. And, you know, we have tides here in southwest Florida, but this is a big difference. This tide is going to stay out for a long time. We don't know when it's all going to come back, and it's certainly not going to be, you know, a rushing high tide coming in. It's going to take a long time. So I just want people to be aware of where they really are today. You mentioned clarity already, Brent. Where am I today? Where do I need to go, want to go? And how in the heck am I going to get there? Well, it's about execution. That's how you get there.

Yeah. And we're going to talk more about execution here just in a minute. But I think that's, you know, when I, when I read that quote and I'd heard it before, but I just been a while, and I'm like, oh, my gosh, you're right. You know, you know, it's only when the tide is out that you learn who's been swimming naked. And. And I do want to share this. I know we know that, that there's many agency leaders right now that are hurting. We know that. We hear that, we see that, or fearful or anxious. And, you know, our goal on this podcast, and Roger and I talked about this before we hit record is not to pour salt in your wounds necessarily, although we might, you know, But I think part of it is the fact that I think it's just being honest with ourselves. And, you know, oftentimes in difficult situations, our flaws, our weaknesses become more exposed. And that's just what that quote means, is it's like, you know, the tide goes out and you're standing there and you're going, oops, I forgot to wear pants. And now I'm a little uncomfortable. And so we're going to talk about some things today that might make you a little uncomfortable. And the goal again, isn't just to hit you over the head necessarily to hurt you. The goal is to say, you know what, there might be something here that maybe I should begin to pay attention to more and better yet, begin to execute upon. Right in my business. So that when the tide goes out again, I know right now you're thinking, well, it's already out now, Brent. Well, it'll go out again at some point. The idea is, what will you do right now? Right, to prepare. And so those are some things we're going to talk about. And within the concept and staying with the swimming Naked theme, so to speak, is Roger and I have been talking a lot over the past few weeks. It's continued to evolve and go deeper. I'm putting this in air quotes, Roger. You can't see me, but air quotes of going deeper. But this idea of, you know, agencies for a long period of time and producers have been kind of swimming shallow. So part of the problem is we're in the shallow in any way. How do we go deep? And you know, Rod, you've kind of taken the idea of deep and you've molded it and you've put more into it. It's become an acronym. So share with the listeners your philosophies, your thoughts on this idea of deep.

Well, yeah, it's surprising that it became an acronym, isn't it? You know, we've talked before about the deep learning. The iceberg is as we refer to DLX2, deep learning experience and Execution. And with an ICEBERG, of course, 10% of it's above the waterline and 90% of it's below the waterline. And where most agencies play and I'm repeating what we've talked about before, but it's worth remind, where most agencies play or swim is pretty shallow. They're kind of just hanging around, around the waterline and they can do okay, but when that tide goes out and you're in shallow water, you have no water left to play in. So deep. The acronym is Delivering Excellence in every Process. I'm going to say it again. Delivering Excellence in every Process. How do I as an agency principal, a leader, or how do I as an individual producer deliver excellence in every process within my agency? Because, you know, we all remember the book, and I don't even know how many years ago it was In Search of Excellence. And it was the number one best selling business book ever at the time. And it just basically said, you know, there, there are certain people that are excellent at what they do. And you don't just, you know, wake up, fall out of bed and become excellent. You know, one of my, one of my favorite sayings is the, the man at the top of the mountain and the person at the top of the mountain didn't fall there. Well, the same thing here. You don't become excellent just by saying, yeah, that's a good idea, let's see if we can make it happen. So how do you actually deliver excellence in every process? That's a question I would challenge everybody to start asking themselves in their agencies that question.

I don't know, it was on a recent, recent live call that, that we were on together, Roger, and you kind of asked that question to the group. You know, am I delivering excellence in this particular area or process? And I'll tell you, when you ask it to the group, like many of our teachings that hit me, I'm like, boy, I'm asking myself, am I delivering excellence in the certain areas that I need to be delivering excellence in? Because it is easy and easier to play shallow and just to do a little bit here and dabble here and dabble there and dabble over there, and it feels good. At least I'm doing something. But we never get deep, we never really get excellent. And I know, I've seen in my experiences those agencies with agency leaders, those producers that go, I am going to be excellent. I'm going to deliver excellence in this. And what does excellence look like? They just perform at a different level. So it's such a powerful acronym and thought. But just ask yourself, as Roger indicated, am I delivering excellence in this process? And if the answer is no or not, where it needs to be, well, why not? And what do you need to do? It's just some things to think about, which again, right now is so important because many of us have been exposed in certain areas. So with that, I think one of the things that hits me, Roger, and I hear you talk about this quite A bit, I think it'll be powerful for the listeners is that, you know, why in many cases have we not been going as deep or not, you know, trying to pursue this idea, this model of excellence? And you know, one of the things you say all the time is because it's a pretty darn good business. That's why.

Yeah.

And I've heard you talk about this semi successful trap. Tell the audience, what is that? What does it mean? Why is it so important to agencies today?

Well, because it is such a great business. And as you know, at our live events, we always challenge the agency owners and the producers if it's the first time they're with us. And we did it on the virtual event also. But let's just say, you know, how many of you are making more money than your siblings? Almost all the hands will go up. How many of you making more than your parents made? Well, almost all the hands go up. How many of you are making more money than you'd make if you had a real job? Of course, now they start laughing and then I say, how many of you would be fired if you have a real. Had a real job? And now they're, you know, the eyes don't even want to make contact because they realize that we don't really have to do the things that most people have to do. And because it is a great business where you can make a lot of money in a hurry and then kind of wake up and float along, they've allowed themselves to never really get to that excellence level. But semi successful again, semi successful playing shallow. But it's still a lot of money compared to everybody else. So they, you know, they have a nice house, they live in a good neighborhood, their kids are in a good school, they're on all the right events, they help their community out, they help their church, whatever's important to them and to the outside world, they look pretty darn good, but the reality is they're not at financial freedom, the thing we talk about all the time, and it's certainly not our quote, but it's not what you make, it's what you keep. And so getting to the point of financial freedom, where you can do what you want to do, when you want to do it, how you want to do it. And the COVID has caused one heck of a lot of people to realize, you know what? I don't have financial freedom. I don't have it. I was listening. I participated in a video conference with my friend David Bak, the author. We talk about all the Time. And he said that only a little bit less than 50% of Americans have $500 in an emergency fund and 70% do not have $1,000 in an emergency fund. So because we were not managing the numbers properly, these people not managing their numbers, they don't know their numbers. They don't treat their personal career as a company, a ME Inc. Like we talk about. All of a sudden they just realize they're naked and they're in trouble and they better make some changes because it's not going to come back in a hurry.

Yeah, I did a keynote address, I don't know, probably three some years ago, which was titled the Most Toxic Word in Insurance. And it was funny, I had that on a PowerPoint slide, you know, when they came in and I tried to keep it, you know, kind of a secret to build suspense. And people came in, Roger, and they were sitting down, you know, coming into the room and, and I just had him start guessing, you know, like processes, you know, is it risk? You know, you know, just naming all these different words of what it might be and they're all decent answers. And, and the word that I had was complacency. That to me is the most toxic word in insurance is complacency. And you know, it's like, and then the question is, well, why, why, what breeds complacency? Why are many agencies complacent? And by the way, it doesn't matter what I want or what you want, it's what they want. So, you know, you know, it's not just a judge, but it's just from observational standpoint of there's so much more opportunity. I know the word that you hate, Roger, is potential.

Terrible.

Yeah. Actually just for a moment, why do you hate that word?

Well, it goes back to my days of, you know, football and college and stuff. And you'd see these people that would, they go, ah, this guy has so much potential. This guy has so much potential. And you see it in the sales game, the insurance game over overall, boy, they have so much potential. To me, when you use the word potential, that means it's, it's unrealized yet, you know, and then of course, when they, when they go south or they, they start coasting, they're retired in place and forgot to tell anybody. The, you're sitting around going, God, I really thought that person had a lot more potential than that. So it's unrealized potential. It's unrealized use of assets, resources. You're not using your God given skills and Talents. It's pretty simple. So I don't want the word potential. I want the word execution that that person had or what that agency had. They absolutely executed at the highest level, and they have no regret. See the people where they say, well, they really had a lot of potential at the end of their career. They're full of regrets. And, you know, you and I talk about this all the time in our events. You have regrets or you have regrets. And regrets are you get great results, you do great things, and you replicate them. So what do you want? So I think it's crucial that we, you know, again, great example. With what's happening in the industry now, there has always been a ton of potential. In fact, it's. It's untapped potential. There's no limit to it. Now, do you realize that when you come out of this, you better be prepared to swim deep?

I had a coach years ago, as you're saying that, all of a sudden, it came flashing back in my mind. He said, don't tell me about what you're going to do or how you're going to do it. He goes, show me what you did. I was like, oh, right. Because any of us can talk. Oh, I'm gonna. We're gonna do this next year. We're gonna do this, and this is how we're gonna do it. And, you know, we kind of jokingly say, you know, we're gonna grow this much in our agency. Roger, how are you gonna do it? We're gonna sell more insurance.

Oh, yeah, right.

But then they get back at the end of the year, and the results are the same.

Yep, yep. You know, doing the same thing repeatedly expecting a different result, as we know. You know, when you talked about that, I thought of a salesperson we had here once at our company, and overall, he was doing okay, but he was one of those guys that just said, you're going to be. So we'd have our Monday morning meeting. You're going to be so proud of me this week. You're going to see what I'm going to do. And he believed it, unfortunately. And unfortunately, I believed it for a couple of months, too. And then pretty soon it was like, wait a minute. You know those things you told me I was going to be proud about? I'm not too proud of you. And I. I don't believe you can look in the mirror and be very proud of yourself. That got his attention. And quite frankly, he turned into a pretty good salesperson. Once I challenged him, once we put accountability on him, What a surprise.

Yeah, surprise. We have, you know, we're accountable to the results. We're actually being accountable. Things that we say that we're going to do. It makes a big difference. And last thought on just on semi successful and Roger, if anything you want to add, you know, obviously go for it. But, you know, one of the things that we, we've talked about on this podcast and certainly in our trainings, this idea of best version possible. And, you know, it's not about, hey, what's Roger's goal for you? What's Brent's goal for you? What's your, you know, agency manager's goal for you? Whatever it may be. It's, what's your best version? That's a different question. And it's a powerful question. I know it's a question when I ask you about that. It kind of kept you up for a while and, you know, it takes you back to. It's just the analogy in my head all the time, because I grew up in a very small town, is that you don't have to be that good to still be better than most other people. And sometimes you don't realize that again until maybe the tide goes out, as you said at the beginning, or you get around experiences and situations and new people who go, oh, wow, there's a different world out there. And I do see it a lot with agencies. Yeah, we're fine. We know there's a way better version. We know there's better, you know, higher levels of excellence that we could do things, whether it's a process or how we deal with our people or, you know, with our clients. But you know what, we're still better than a lot of other people. So we're good. And that's the semi successful trap. It's good enough. And anything you want to add to that, Roger, I know we're kind of going on a rant here, but it's important.

Well, it's, it's just, you know, in the past, you could accept good enough, and again, because it's semi successful, you'd be fine. And compared to everybody else, you were fine. But now the reality is coming in. What's really going to happen to, as an individual producer, your accounts are most likely going to go south versus north as far as revenue per account. And if your pipelines were dripping, at best, you're probably, you said, don't put salt in the wounds. And I feel like I am, but I.

That's all right.

But I want people to face reality. This is real. This didn't go away in a week or two. So if your pipelines were dripping in the past, I think maybe even more now, you're thinking, God, I better get them filled up in the future. And if your pipeline's not ready for the third and fourth quarter, you're in trouble. What are you going to do to get out there? And yet what I see is our best producers are having, quite frankly, great year so far because their pipelines were full. And, and what I think is really interesting, like we had a couple people on the virtual program mentioned this the other day, that they're getting referrals because they're doing such a great job with their current clients. And the clients are going, wow, that's fantastic. You know, who are, one of your, one of your friends or associates that's mentioned, maybe they've had some frustrations in their business with their risk management plan or their benefits plan going through this. Who's the one person I should call? And they're getting referrals. So, I mean, get back to the basics. Do a great job. Earn referrals. Well, first of all, earn your retention, do everything to help the client, and then, doggone it, ask for a referral. They're going to help you.

Well, and I think, you know, just go on the subject of the podcast, Roger, if you are shallow, if you're shallow in your points of differentiation, if you're shallow in your value proposition, if you're shallow in your future ideal client, clients and pipeline, and, you know, having a targeted strategy for those, when this happens and as it's happened, you don't have a lot of options. You're talking a game that no one wants to hear. And what you just said was, if I'm prepared, if I have gone deeper in these areas, I can still have these conversations. And in many case, many cases, they're actually more meaningful, impactful than they were pre COVID 19. But there's not a lot of agencies and agency leaders and producers who are talking like this and delivering this. And so maybe it is salt in the wound a little bit, but it is a level of awareness. And, you know, I don't know about you, Roger, but in my life, when people have spoken truth to me, I sometimes didn't like it. That's how I got better. And that's what we want for you.

Yeah, well, it's the old saying that, you know, the truth will make you uncomfortable. Okay, but it'll set you free. You know, it shall set you free, but it'll make you uncomfortable. First that's the reality. That's how you get better. If everything's fine and you're just floating along, you know, in real shallow water, just maybe wading along a little bit, you're in trouble. And remember, the concept of shallow is that we're chasing a whole bunch of things not very deep versus and those are the trivial many things we can do. It's another bright and shiny squirrel we can chase, which we talked about before. But the reality is that the best are going to say, okay, what are the vital few things I have to do? And using our new terminology, I have to go really deep in just a few areas. Just a few areas. So how do I deliver excellence in every process? This is every process I choose to focus on. I can tell you you triggered in my mind every one of the coaching calls I've had in the last couple of weeks with the members of the Sipkins network, our private client group, and the producers that we're working with closely, such as in our mastery program. Every one of them have said they're having deeper and better conversations with their clients and, and their centers of influence than they've ever had before. Well, that's the way it should be. Let's take that forward. Now we're going to come out of this. What are the lessons we're learning that we're going to take forward? That's the key to it.

Well, you mentioned sales mastery. Just one other thought on this I think is really important to this conversation. In is one of our sales mastery programs. And these are again, high level achievers. These are really good producers. I mean top notch and one of the best in the room. You know, million dollar plus book of business continues to grow. Sharp Gu and Roger, I'm sure you remember this. We got to the end and we always have our big one thing takeaway. And you know, throughout the program we kept mentioning, stop lying to yourself. Stop lying to yourself. Stop lying to yourself. Because we all do it. I do it and I need people to call me on it sometimes. But you know, he basically stood up at the end and you know, what was your one big takeaway and that was his big takeaway was the fact that I've got to stop lying to myself in certain areas. Do you remember that, Roger?

Oh, yeah. Well, what he said was anytime you, anytime you tell yourself that you're being 100% honest with yourself, that's your first lie. Right?

Right. That's right. Yeah. And it's true. And so that's just, it's a just dose of reality because it's all an aspect of, hey, if I'm honest with myself, if I realize that I'm always, you know, our, our, our minds want to tell us what feels good. That's a natural instinct. We have to be very aware of that and be honest. So it's just a very powerful concept. Roger, I want to transition a little bit. Some things that we've talked about with agencies you've mentioned a few different times is this idea, through this process of awareness that maybe it's time to right size the agency. And when you hear right size the agency, it's like, what does that mean? What does that mean? But there are a lot of different things. You say right size agencies, things that we've taught and talked about for a long period of time. What are some things that stand out to you when you say right size? First of all, what does that mean, Roger? Can you give some examples?

Well, this is going to be challenging for a lot of people. All too often when we, either we're out speaking, which we don't do as much certainly anymore right now, or people inquire and they want to learn more about what we do and see if there's an opening in their, in their territory for our network. And I'll just, I just ask a few basic questions and one of the first things that always comes out, just say, well, you know, how many employees? What's your total revenue and how many full time equivalent employees do you have? So I real quickly calculate, you know, a rough number on their revenue per employee. And so many times I see that these agencies are at the, you know, 125, $150,000 level and I'll just challenge them. I said, boy, you know, that seems a little bit low to me based upon high performance numbers, based upon best practices numbers. And I'll always hear, well, yeah, I know that, but we're overstaffed for growth. And I'll say, what was your growth rate last year? You know, 3%. Okay, so it sounds like you're really overstaffed for your growth. And right sizing says okay, looking forward over the next three years with the reality of what's going to happen, what revenue per employee do I need to hit? What revenue per employee is going to match up with the business model I have for the profitability and the value of my agency. And so whatever that is, you know, you've got to just do the math and say, okay, am I right sized? Most agencies are overstepped for their workload and for their rate. Okay. So I'm challenging agencies right now and saying, just take a look. It doesn't mean you are, you know, oversized now, but I'd sure start taking a hard look and say, what's the right size? And right size means size of the agency revenue per employee, and even more importantly, spread per employee. So when they start looking at those numbers, it's a reality checkup. But doggone it, that's just such a critical indicator, a truly a key performance indicator for any agency. So for me, that's a starting point. Yeah.

And it goes back to the idea of depth, you know, And I think you look at agencies, like I said, it doesn't mean you necessarily are. You need to take immediate action. But, boy, it's a great time to look and basically say, is my team, are my processes deep enough or are we playing shallow? And that's why we're a little bit fluffy. We use the term professional fitness, the pro fit experience in our programs, and it goes around clarity, consistency, commitment, as we've mentioned. But it's obviously a great analogy to physical fitness. And, you know, it's the same thing as deep and shallow is that, you know, physically you can get a little fluffy and get out, you know, those kind of things and get away with it most times. But all of a sudden, when, you know, you start to have issues, you go, I gotta tighten this up a little bit. And. And that's really what we're talking about in. Right. Sizing agencies. It's just, are there some areas that maybe you need to tighten up a little bit, Tighten the process? You've got personnel things you need to tighten up. Am I. Am I working with the wrong clients? That's something we see all the time. Roger that. You know, who do you work with? Well, everybody. What do you do with them? Everything. Okay. Which means we do nothing for nobody in many cases. Right. We're like everybody else.

I want to.

Again, for the sake of time, I want to keep this around 30 minutes. One of the phrases that you use quite a bit. Roger that. I love, and it's this idea of being proactive versus reactive. But the way that you talk about is that we can either have our agency run by design or by default. And at least from what I've seen, I'm sure you'll echo this, is that, you know, a lot of the agencies that have run by default are the ones that maybe they're a little shallow right now. They've been exposed with the tide going out. Those that have been more Design focused are going, we're okay, this isn't great, no one loves this, but we're okay, and we're going to be able to come out of the stronger. So when I say design, and when you say, I guess, Roger, design versus default, what does that really mean? What are some things you could share with the listeners about that?

Well, default is the agency that when you ask them about anything they're doing, say, why do you do this? Why do you do that? The answer, and everybody knows what it's going to be, is, well, that's just the way we've always done it. Well, the way you've always done it, if you're average or less, is pretty shallow. But again, great business for a long time. But by default means you do. You just kind of show up in the morning, you're not intentional at all. You don't really have the most important issues to work on, your wildly important goals, your processes holding people accountable. You just kind of show up and you have that hysterical activity on the way to the grave. And at the end of the day, if your spouse or a buddy says to you, hey, what'd you do today? How was today? Oh, man, I was busy. I was really busy. What'd you get done? I was busy. What did you get done? I don't know. And a lot of us feel like that at times. Whereas design says, okay, coming back to deep now, design says, if I'm going to deliver excellence in every process, what does that look like? So what is excellence in our new business process, in our pipeline development, in our continuation process? As I hope everybody knows, we don't like the term renewal. You don't renew an account, you continue a relationship. So in our continuation process, in our overall relationship management process, we design. That's the first part, but then we actually execute, and that's the tough part. And so just going from writing it down to doing it is a huge difference. But coming out of this, I would hope that every one of our listeners says, okay, when we come out of this, I just can't be a totally reactive agency, you know, kind of floating along the default agency. Their main strategy is hopefully, and we know, and we've talked about this before, hope's not a strategy unless you just kind of hope. And you used to be able to do it and be fine, but dog gone it. Come on, this is a new world. The new norms are out there. It is time to be very intentional about designing your agency, going deep, delivering excellence in every area, holding your team accountable to do what they said they're going to do. We mentioned this, the other podcast that at our recent networking meeting for the Sipkins Network, I just had that blinding flash of the obvious that if everybody in the agency did everything they said they were going to do, how great would your agency be? Well, I think you better revisit with everybody in the agency what they're going to do moving forward as we come out of this. That's my challenge to you.

Yeah, it's a great challenge. I mean, it is. And I hope throughout this podcast, like I said, I'm sure there's a few things that we said that may have touched a nerve a little bit. And that's okay. I hope we did to a degree. Right. Not, not just if we're trying to again, beat you up, but just there's some things that just make you more aware of certain things. Wow, maybe I am being shallow in this area, you know, and I'm hurting now. Maybe I could have prepared a little bit better or maybe I can start to think about how I can prepare better moving forward. And I do want to put a plug in, and we've referenced a few times, but I say put a plug in. It's because we believe in what we do about going deep. And you know, the idea of our private client network, the Sitkins network, is about going deep. We go very deep with agencies and we don't work with all agencies because we know we can't be everything to everyone. But if you are interested in being an agency that really wants to go deep and deliver excellence in every process that you go through and the vital few versus the trivial many, and you're looking for a process around a selling system. If you're looking for not just a one time training event or a one time conversation, but ongoing, ongoing training and coaching for your entire agency. And then the last thing that Roger just mentioned is why it struck me is accountability. Who will you be accountable to if you really want and desire great results? The best performers, they don't just say, well, maybe I should be accountable. It's who will I be accountable to and how will I, you know, how will I be accountable? I mean, there's a, there's a thought process around that. So if you're interested in that, if you want to be a deep agency, and like I said before, this is not for every agency. If you want to be elite, you can visit, visit our website@sitkins.com TSN stands for the Sitkins Network. So sitkins.com TSN with that I want to wrap up. Roger, any final words you want to share before we sign off here?

We threw a lot of things at the listeners today and I first of all applaud you for taking the time in the middle of this craziness to listen to this. And I would just ask that you find two, three things that you're willing to go deep on. Because the people that understand this, the people that go deep, yeah, you're going to struggle for a while, there's no question about it. But you're going to come out of this. You're going to come out of it the other side a much better agent and agency. You're going to be working towards that best version possible. That semi successful person lives above the waterline, shallow. The best version possible goes exceedingly deep. My hope and prayer for you is that's you.

Thank you, Roger. Always great to have you on. And like I said, if you continue to deliver excellence like this, I may officially make you a co host post. We'll see what happens. All right, thanks everybody for listening. Wish you all the best in your success.