Beyond the Policy: Transforming Insurance from Commodity to Connection

So is insurance a commodity? Well, that probably depends on who you ask. On today's Agent Leader Podcast, I am going to tackle this subject, this question and help you, the insurance professional, find ways, in fact, three specific areas that you can go deeper and have more meaningful connections with your clients, future clients and centers of influence. Enjoy the episode. Welcome in to the Agent Leader Podcast. This is the podcast for insurance agency leaders, for insurance professionals to learn to grow, to develop and ultimately aspire to become your best version possible. My name is Brent Kelly. I am your host. I am delighted to be with you today and I'm super excited to share some content that might rattle a few cages today. Now, I'm going to share this content, certainly based on my heart. I don't have a ton of notes, so it's going to be coming from my heart. But more importantly, it is certainly coming from experience. I've been in the industry now for 25 years in different ways. And also as an organization, we have been working with agencies for over 40 years. So we see and hear lots of things in the marketplace. And one of the things that we see and hear in the marketplace, and here's where I'm going to rattle your cage, is that we often hear this insurance is a commodity. Now, they may use different words or phrases, but in essence it's some form of insurance is a commodity. And I'm going to take a moment to rattle your cage and say, yeah, I think for the most part, insurance is a commodity. What did you just say? Don't you know about all the factors and nuances that go into insurance and the people and the processes, the products and the conversation? Yes. I personally, from the depth of my heart, do not think or believe that insurance is a commodity. However, here's what I do know, that if you say something is true or believe it's true, it might be true. But if somebody else says that it's true, it is true. They say what? Well, because it doesn't matter about our perspective even if we're right. What matters is someone else's perspective and viewpoint. And if you ask most average insurance buyers, the general public, what they think of insurance outside of some negative terms, you'll often hear things like, well, it's basically the same. Insurance is basically a commodity. You can get it from different people, but it's about the same thing. There's different companies. It's about the same thing. And what I want to express today of why this is true, well, it's true because most people think it's true. Whether we like it or not. Now, let me also state this. I know certainly for all my independent insurance agency friends and partners that are listening to my words right now that we have a big challenge on our hands, don't we? Why? Well, because some of the big companies, I'm not going to name them, but you know who I'm talking about, they market, they speak, they communicate very much that insurance is a commodity. Cheaper, lower, faster. And by the way, kudos to any company for making something work in their business model. I don't hold any grudges, but I do think it does certainly take away from the impact of what you do and your team does every single day, the true difference that you make. Now, here's why I think insurance is a commodity too often is because as professionals, we do often a very poor job of communicating why it's not. Now, I'm not here to say that you have the ability or should need the ability to go out and quote, unquote, change the world, right? Get on your, you know, get on your, your megaphone and start screaming from the rafters that it's not a commodity. Let me tell you why, because you're not going to be able to compete with the millions and millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars that have been advertised that it is a commodity. However, you 100% have the opportunity to change the narrative, to change perspective, to change the conversation with those in your circles, even if they think right now that insurance is a commodity. One of the reasons why I think insurance continues to be a commodity even in some of the inner circles is because, quite frankly, we do a poor job of communicating anything different. Anyway, you know, one of the, the factors that I talk about in our producer camp, we talk about this, about points of differentiation being different and unique in the marketplace. This doesn't mean you just make a bunch of stuff up. But when I talk to most insurance agencies, talk to insurance producers that are out there selling the product, right? They're, they're talking about risk plans and benefit plans and they're placing insurance, insurance as a whole. And I'll ask them what makes you different? What sets you apart. We'll often hear some form of what we now coin the generic five. Well, what are the generic five? Well, it's probably more than these five, but we've got really great service, like some of the best service we've been around for a billion years, right? We can save you money on your insurance, by the way, don't the big guys say that? Right? We represent all these different markets. So we're independent and we've got the best people. Let me tell you about our people. Now. I've talked about this in other podcasts, if you're an avid listener, but I'm not going to go through the details. The generic 5. What I want to say is none of those things are inherently wrong. It's that they're generic and it very much sounds like everybody else, and it begins to position ourselves as a commodity. So what I want to share in the podcast, if insurance is indeed perceived as a commodity for the majority of the general public, and I think it's safe to say maybe they don't use that exact word, but some form or fashion that it is, then we have to be very intentional on how we communicate. In fact, one of my favorite books ever is from John Maxwell. Everyone communicates, but few connect. We've got to move from general generic conversation in our communication. Say all the things that everyone else says. Well, this is what this insurance agency says. So this is what I have to say. Here's another example. You want to quote, we give quotes. You want to quote, we'll give a quote. That's generic. That's what everyone else does. It's a commodity. Just a quote. It's all the same. You just want to quote. And think about how many independent insurance agencies actively give quotes every day without ever really engaging the future client in a conversation that really serves them well. One of our favorite phrases at the Sitkins Group is that prescription without proper diagnosis is malpractice. How often do we give prescriptions without proper diagnosis? Not only does this open us up for E and O issues, certainly, but simply just doing the right thing for our clients and also understanding that if a client or future client doesn't want to go to this approach because everyone tells me I should just get a quote. That's what I've always done. And you say, well, I guess if everyone else is doing it that way, then I guess we should too. This is why we continue to fall into a commodity trap. Because we play the game that other people are playing that we shouldn't be playing, versus slowing down and asking some questions, having a deeper conversation. And please note, not every person you talk to is going to want to have that conversation. In some cases, you're going to have to be very diligent and very efficient in saying the right things or asking the right questions to get people to consider information differently. The term that we often share with our network members that go through our programs and we go through coaching, is that we have to get very effective of opening new files. Opening new files. Well, what does that mean? It means that every human being has files in their brain just like a computer, right? There are things that you go back and you access, okay, what does this mean? What does this mean? How do I remember that? What happened here? And you go back and you access these files and you pull them back out. And there's a sense of, oh, this is the expectation when I pull this file out. And when most people, because of their prior experiences and of course, how they're marketed to in different ways, as I've already mentioned, when they think about insurance or insurance agents or insurance agencies or getting a quote or whatever it is, those type of phrases, they typically pull out the file of. This is the way I've always done it. This is the way it's done. This is the way that everyone does it. We have got to get super intentional on changing that conversation. And I'm going to share with you, and again, there's a lot more than this, but I want to share with you three areas, three ways that you can begin to move. And this is a conversation to have with your team. This is a conversation as leaders to have to talk about how to move from basic generic communication, which positions insurance too often as a commodity, to connection, to change the conversation from quotes and transactions to risk advice and benefit advice and true relationships that we want to help you, your family, your business move forward. And we're not doing this to manipulate you or play games or we're doing this why? Because we're actually doing our job the way it should be done. And that if you want to be like everybody else and play the commodity game, hey, I get it, it's loud and noisy out there with it. But here's how we do things. Here's why we do things this way. And here. Here's the most important part, why this matters so much to you. Remember, if you say it's true, it might be. If they say it, it is. We have to begin to communicate. And if we're going to connect with people on their terms, not ours. So let's start with this. What is one thing that jumps out to me when I think about communicating on other people's terms to truly build connections and move away from the commodity trap, number one, is no way more about them than you know about the thing that you do. Now, this does not mean you shouldn't know about the thing that you do. Should you know, insurance should, you know, coverages should you know, definitions, should you know, terms, should you know, exclusions, should you know, endorsements, should you understand how the forms apply to things? Yes. And there is learning and work that goes into that 100%. But let me tell you something very quickly and simply here, especially with technology and AI, that stuff happens fast. Now, it doesn't mean you shouldn't know, it doesn't mean you shouldn't learn. It doesn't mean you don't be able to communicate that in certain terms. But you've got to know more about them. Let's just talk in terms of business owners. Now, I know some of you might do individual life and health, some of you might do personal. Right. Just put this in a different context. But it's the same thing. I've got to know more about them and what they want to do. Some of the best conversations I've ever had with any of our top producers is they simply say this. My goal is to be a business consultant and help that business move their business forward. That's my goal. That's what great consultants do. I have got to know so much about their business and what they want and why they want it and the challenges they face, that I've got to know this information to help them move their business forward. It could be things from, I don't know, corporate structure, how they're set up. What does that look like? Why does that matter? Certainly they're going to care about what they're going to care about their clients, right? Their customers, who they work with, they're going to care about their. Not just their cost, that's part of it. Their profit. Right. Moving forward, what is the profit? How can we help with profitability? What about dealing with their employees for talking to business owners? In fact, I would say these three things stand at the top of the list. They, they care about clients, they care about profit, they care about employees. So are we engaging in conversations to truly understand what they care about most? Now, are there going to be aspects when we get into our product and our discussions on how insurance fits into that? Of course. But some things that we want to talk about may be really important to them and some things may not be. But our job as a consultant, as an advisor, is to help them move their business forward. Also, when you think about communicating on their terms, certainly I mentioned clients, employees, profits, but also just understanding the psychology. In fact, oftentimes we look at future ideal clients, or if you're prospecting, whatever term you want to use, we think about demographics, right? The size of the Company or the size of whatever it is, the amount of money, the revenue, the employee number, the employee count down the list, right? Locations, all those things matter when it comes to demographic. But what about psychographics? Now you can use psychographics to market, but also just to connect with people at a deeper level. Our senior consultant at the Sitkins Group, Carrie Glennon, has a great conversation around this. So Carrie, I'm going to steal this because I think it's so powerful, but you think about this from a connection standpoint. And she phrases it in terms of the head, the. The heart and the hands. The head, the heart and the hands. So what do people in their head, what are they thinking about? You go in before a meeting, before a conversation, start to think about all the things that might be on their mind. What are things they thinking about? Now, you may know some, you may not know some. That's why you prepare with questions, but start to come up with questions of, I wonder how they think or what they think about this particular situation, this process, this issue, how do they think? I want to know how they think. So that's the head. The heart is what they care about or what they want. Like what do you care about? What do you really want? What does it look like, right, to really explore questions that tap into their heart, which by the way is great because people buy emotionally and they justify intellectually. I want to know what they really care about. We've all had experiences where we've bought something and emotionally because it made us feel cool or we like whatever it is, it was a feeling of some, some case that we justified, maybe with good justification, but intellectually it made sense. It was financially responsible, you know, whatever it was. So the head think, the heart the one. And then the last part is the hands that she talks about. What people do, what do they do every day? What are the processes look like? What does an average day look like within that? What are you doing? What is your team doing? What a leadership team doing? What are your key employees doing? So again, starting with this is just having that conversation. If you want to avoid being a commodity, be really present with people. I mean, Stephen Covey says it so well. Seek first to understand, then to be under stood. And I can tell you when you begin to find ways to understand businesses, and again, it could be individuals as well, but understand what they really think about and care about and want and the things that they do. And we ask questions around profits and clients and employees. We really want to engage to understand what matters to them. I can tell you right away you are having conversations that most people never have right? It is a certainly a game changer. Hey there agent leader Brent Kelly here want to take just a few seconds to remind you that now is the time to create your true best version possible agency. If you go to sitkins.com bookacall sitkins.com bookacall we'll get to know more about your agency, conduct an agency assessment and and provide your agency with a customized plan to help you avoid some of the pitfalls, frustrations, challenges and roadblocks to get your agency to true ultimate freedom and become its best version possible. It all starts by going to sitkins.com bookacall. The first thing if you want to move from communication to connection, if you want to move from a commodity to to something that truly has power and meaning for people deeper than what they think of it as of today that it starts with knowing more about them than you know about your own stuff. So think about that before your next conversation. Which leads me into my second area and I've talked about this on many podcasts but I can't say it enough and it certainly relates to insurance. Being a commodity is that we as professionals can you can't control what some of the big box, the big boys and girls out there are communicating to around commodity. But you can individually and as a team sharpen your skills when it comes to how to be a high level communicator. I have mentioned it before, I will say it again. There is not a more important skill that insurance professionals should be mastering than the skill of communication. It is the skill. Now what goes into communication? Well, lots of things. Obviously asking great questions, being an engaged active listener, being able to present or have conversations where you look people in the eye, you look in the camera and you your body language as well, your tone of voice is good and there's so many things that we could get into communication. But to me it all starts with your level of preparation and your commitment to practice. If you want to be this high level communicator, you've got to prepare before every meeting and conversation and you've got to practice and practice and practice and practice. I have still challenge me here but I've still not seen any team sport, high level team sport that had a big game coming up that didn't practice. None. Nope. Or throughout the season, didn't practice before the season, didn't practice. Why? Well, because it's how you get better. Yet we get in this business and we just go through the motions Year after year. Well, I did this and I got this accreditation and I got this and I did this and I had this conversation and I learned this and I did this and I had a, Again, it doesn't mean you're not going to have some level of growth, but are you preparing and practicing at the level that truly takes you to the next level? I think experience is a very good teacher, but I think evaluated experience, I think the experience where we learn from which I'm going to talk about next is the most important experience. So what are some things, ways that you as professionals, and this is certainly true from an entire agency perspective, but from leaders and certainly with producers of things you should be preparing and practicing for? Well, certainly preparation is, and I've already alluded to it in the first bullet that I had of this conversation about knowing more about them. Right. So you're doing the preparation to know what's important to them, why it's important. What questions should I be asking? Right. What are the underwriting concerns this, this company might be dealing with? Right. Doing my research, doing my homework, understanding. Right. Everything from, you know, the, the, the coverage aspects, potentially the questions that create emotion to just about them. So preparation, which I've talked about that the second is the actual practice. What are some things that you could or should be practicing? Well, one of the things that we work on all the time and part of it isn't that this is the end all, be all, but it is a first step to a vital skill that most people skip and that is being able to deliver a high level 30 second commercial or an elevator pitch or a statement of value. I don't care what you call it. But when someone says, hey, tell me about yourself, tell me what you do. This is the first thing that insurance agents, producers become commoditized immediately. My name is Brent Kelly and I'm with Sitkins Risk and I work with businesses on their insurance insurance programs. Huh? I mean that was pretty bad. But that is not far off times. What we hear, we, we mumble, we stumble, we don't know. Oh, I don't really know what I do, I, I, I sell insurance. So we've got to get really clear on being able to tell a compelling story. Now we go through and work with our, our members and our attendees of programs on this, but just very high level. Right? What is the frustrations you solve? What is a unique process you take them through through? What is the outcome that your future client receives? Right. Be able to tell that story that highlights both emotion and Process and outcome together is powerful. And when you get that right, the people that identify it are going to go, wow, that's unique. That's different. And if they don't, it isn't a good fit anyway. What about a first appointment or we call an executive briefing the first meeting that you have, Are you able to articulate this is the purpose of this meeting? This is our process that we take people through, that we're going to go through together. And this is the payoff, the thing that you can expect at the end of this meeting. Many producers, many agencies struggle with this. So we talk and sound like everyone else instead of saying something like, you know, Mr. Jones, the purpose of this meeting today is so that I can better understand how you and your company view and manage risk. I'm also going to share with you our unique process that we walk companies like you through. And at the end of this conversation, as I get to learn more about you and share a bit about our process, we can determine if it makes sense for us to move forward together. Is that fair? Now, that is my approach to that. And obviously it's an imaginary conversation. But to be able to say something like that versus Mr. Jones, I'm so excited to be here today. I am. I just, I know you're a busy guy. I know you got lots of people. I know you've got three or four other other agents coming in quoting your insurance. We're just excited to come in and give you a quote because we are really, really excited to be here. And we've got a lot of companies. We've been in business a long time. Our service is great, and boy, do we have the best people. So let me take a look at your policies and I, I will get some copies of those and then I will, I'll go back and look at it and see if there's gaps, even though I haven't really asked you about the most, are important to you. But let me just look, maybe there's a gap or two, and then I'll come back and get you a price on your. On my quote. And then at the end of that, you could determine if you want to be nice to me and still go with someone else. Or maybe I was super low enough, or maybe I get a chance to earn your business this year, which then you'll probably leave me again next year. All right, for some of you, maybe that was way out there. For some of you, you might go that, that hit a little too close to home, right? So being able to have that Initial conversation, obviously being able to see, speak and communicate on the phone or zoom or again, going back to body language and tone of voice. You know, I often ask producers in particular, I said, if you had to record yourself, either if you're doing a zoom or teams or online, or certainly if you were in person with someone and you recorded yourself and you watched your body language and you watched you listen to your tone of voice and all the things that you do and the nuances, would you be excited to share that with other people? And 99% of the people go, heck, no, I don't want to do that. That's embarrassing. That would be awful. I can't believe all the things that I do and I say, that's fair. But how do you think the person you're actually talking to feels? Now think about this for a second. I mean, this, I know this seems maybe obvious, but producers in particular, and this is true for anybody, insurance agents, this is true for anybody that's working on the scale, this is true for me. We would rather be embarrassed on an appointment, one on one where we could lose credibility and money than we would be in front of our peers or someone who could help or a coach or an accountability partner in many cases. I know this isn't everybody, but the most part is true. Why? Well, because I may lose money and I may lose credibility, but at least I don't feel stupid. No one knows how stupid I was or how silly I was or the things that I didn't say that I should have said, like that if you really get to the bottom of, like why we don't do as much practice and role playing things, it's, well, I'm just so busy doing stuff, which, okay, maybe too busy to get better. Got it. Or it's simply the fact that we let our ego and our pride get in the way of improvement and excellence. And I think this is important. Too often our ego impedes our excellence. Oh, I don't have an ego. Well, then why aren't you willing to practice in front of your peers? Because if you really get to the reason why, you can give me a bunch of justifications. I'm busy and it doesn't really do much and I don't know, whatever, I don't want to do this. And the truth of it is when you really get to it, it requires work and you become vulnerable. That, I mean, that's the truth. And so I'm talking about moving away from a commodity. And I am definitely challenging you right now. I want to Challenge you, because that's how we get better. That if you're not willing to get out there and challenge yourself and do practice and preparation and record yourself and have people you know work with you on role plays and one on ones, then what are you actually doing? In fact, I will say this to sales leaders right now, and this is true for all leaders, but when you have a sales. Sales meeting with your producers, the first thing that you should be doing in your sales meeting, or certainly right up there at the beginning is some form of low risk practice. Right? There's not a high risk. It's front of our team. We're doing a practice. Let's practice our initial conversation. Let's practice objections. Let's practice our 32nd commercial. Let's practice asking for referrals. Because what you'll find every time is like, oh my gosh, they're struggling with this. Well, that's what we do. That's what you would do if you were coaching a basketball team. You'd have them work on drills, work on things they're going to experience in the game so they can go through those lumps, those problems, those difficulties in private. So that when you get out in the public and the lights are actually on and the crowd is in the stadium, in this case, it might just be one person who could be your buyer. It could be a board of directors, I don't know. But when the lights come on, you've been there, done that, got the t shirt. Now, it doesn't guarantee success, but it certainly, certainly is a higher level predictor of it. Right. So these are all things. When I talk about why is insurance a commodity? Because we don't work on our communication skills, so we look and sound and talk like everybody else. Well, that's what they said on the commercial and tv, so I guess I should say that too. Or that's what the agency down the street says. And we are kind of all the same. I mean, we're not, but I mean. Right, you get the point. All right, last thing I want to share. I feel like I'm a little bit of a soapbox here on this podcast, but it's important. If you can't tell, I'm slightly passionate about this, and I am, because I and our team, we care about agencies and we care about your success and your next level and getting better and moving away from some of the frustrations, because hopefully you already know this. But when we move away from being a commodity, not only can we be way more successful financially, we have a Lot more fun and fulfillment in this business. We have way higher level conversations, higher level discussions, higher level interactions, higher level clients, higher level purpose, higher level meaning. So this is important. All right, last thing I want to share of how you can move away from commodity and just basic communication to being a true advocate, being a partner and building connections. And this goes along with the last one, but it's another step is that we need to debrief or learn from our experiences, learn from our losses. I said it earlier, experience is a good teacher. Evaluated experience is the best teacher. And too often we go through situations where maybe we got punched in the gut. And by the way, if you've been in the business longer than, I don't know, 10, 12 minutes, you've probably been punched in the gut or kicked somewhere. Where it doesn't feel good is that we like to just go, oh, I don't want to feel that again. And I understand where that comes from. I'm not saying you have to sit and live in it, but what did you learn from that experience? Debrief your week, Debrief your appointments. I think I had Roger on here recently and he said on the podcast he asked me, we debrief every single one of our sessions. Every single one. And we are on for hours and hours and hours. And we do them, you know, several times a week, we debrief. Why? Just to beat each other up? No, because there's always a nugget of something that you gather out of that. Imagine after every appointment, after every day, after every week, you took just a few minutes, hey, what did I learn from that? Where could I improve? How do I get better? Right. These are important questions. And whether it's watching or listening, if you're doing things when you're recording or certainly just looking and taking a look back. Right. And journaling or getting, just writing things out. Because here's what I believe. This is a long term journey. It is a process. It is not one event, one bad appointment, one bad experience does not define you. And if you're human, you've had one. If you're human, you're going to have another one. The difference is how you react and move forward from that. I really blew that. Okay. Instead of just not looking at it again, let's take a few minutes and go, why? What happened? Well, I didn't prepare early enough. I didn't ask the right questions. I didn't do this, I didn't come, whatever. We could go down the line, but you're going to debrief that in fact, we have a form that is our debrief sales form for wins and losses. And there are a number of questions to consider. Most of them are yes or no. A few are thought provoking. But the point of it is this. Every time a producer goes through and they, let's say they lose a sale, didn't win the sale, it's very easy to go, well, that happened and that wasn't fair. And that person did that and she's a jerk, or he's a jerk, whatever it is. But when you go through the form and you really debrief it, you go, wow, there are a few things that I that I missed. Guess what? Next time you get better, and then you get a bit better, and then you get better, and then you get better. So we often talk about living in the zip code 894-10-8940 that we want to get our skill level to an 8 or 9 out of 10. Always looking for that next level of 10 and 8 or 9 looking for your next level of 10. Best example I can give that I can visually see. Hopefully you can you follow along with me on this regardless where you live. I live in the Midwest. It's very flat, so you can see a long ways. But even in the Midwest that I can look out and I might see a wind turbine that's like five miles out in the horizon. What's amazing is there's more that I can't see yet. Now, if I were to get in my car or even walk and you start proceeding forward, there are things outside of your visual perspective right now that you can't see. But the minute you move forward, and I'm talking about this, that you get from a six to a seven, now you're an eight, you're a nine, you keep improving. All of a sudden you get to eight or nine, you go, oh my gosh, there's more. There's more I can learn here. There's more I can do here. There's better ways I can improve. I didn't even consider this before. And that's what we see with the highest level achievers. They never stop. And it's not because they just, they have no fulfillment or they don't appreciate things. It's because as you move forward in your life and in your journey and in your, you have higher levels of awareness for things that you never even knew existed, but you'll never find them until you start the process. And here's the deal. If you don't start the process or you stay where you are. It is so comfortable. So comfortable. It's comfortable. In fact, the reason. Let me wrap this up with a final bow. The reason why insurance is thought of as a commodity. Now, again, there's multiple reasons we talked about. I've already mentioned some things. And the reason why most insurance agencies and producers can still survive and even in some cases do pretty well as a commodity is because the bar is pretty darn low. The bar is pretty darn low. And it's a great business. You can, you can sit pretty comfortably and go, yeah, it kind of is what it is. And people are going to think what they want. And if I just, you know, talk to enough people and I'll have a few enough at bats and I'll win some and I'll lose some, and I built a decent book and, you know, now I have an okay life and life's okay, and I'm good, hey, that's where you'll be. But the best are always looking to improve, to get better. What's my next level? What's my next step? And I already said this is not because they don't have appreciation or fulfillment. It's because there is a best version possible of them waiting to arrive. And you can only step into that if you continue to move forward. And the last step here, again is you've got to take time to learn from things that have hurt you. Own them, acknowledge them, take them the next step. And if you win, learn from those two. How do I replicate that? How do I continue that momentum? How do I continue to grow and expand? All right, so is insurance a commodity? No, not technically. It is not. It is fact. It is super complex. Right? There are so many variables and nuances. That's the truth. We know that you know that as insurance professional. Does the general public know that? Not really. So here's my challenge to you. Find a few things I talked about today and in your next conversation, whether it's with a future client, whether it's with a current client, whether it was with an influencer, begin to go deeper, understand more about them, right? What they want, what they think or how they think, what they do. Continue to work on your skills, certainly when it comes to communication, to build better connection and look at your experiences and debrief them, learn from them as you move forward. Listen, if you can't tell, I'm passionate about this business. I'm passionate about agency success. I'm passionate about your success. It's why I do this podcast. I wish that they would pay me a whole bunch of money to do this podcast. Maybe someday I'll get a bunch of ad sponsors and we'll do it. But for now I do it because I want to bring on get great guests that add value to you. I want to have conversations from my heart based on experience that add value to you. And I'll just make this recommendation to any of you agency leaders that are listening if you truly want to take the next level in your business. In fact, maybe you're doing pretty well. Like you're doing pretty well. Profits are okay, revenue's okay, but you want to take the next level with yourself and your people. Which by the way, we continue to find, not surprisingly, that profits aren't the problem. People aren't just the problem because they're the solution, right? We want to help pour into our people and help them grow and see things differently and expand what we're doing. We are extremely selective in who we work with as agency partners and members of the Sitkins Network. But if you're interested in learning more, our process is simple. We'll have a very quick initial conversation to get to know you better to see if there is some form of a fit. We do our pre qualification. If it makes sense, we will go deeper with you and take a look at your agency holistically, provide an assessment and then give you a proposal and plan based on what we heard. And at that point you can determine if you want to execute this plan and become part of one of our exclusive partners and members of the Sitkins Network. It's not for everybody, but if you're a high level agency, high level thinker, you want to take the next step in your agency. Again, the first step simply is to schedule that phone call. If you go to sitkins.com bookacall you can learn more about us, we'll learn more about you and we'd love to have that conversation with that Don't Allow Insurance to be a Commodity Is this not the Agent Leader Podcast is brought to you by the fine folks of the Rough Notes Company. They are publishers of the insurance industry's leading magazine and technical insurance content. RoughNotes magazine profile successful agencies plus keen insights from respected experts on a host of must know topics. RoughNotes Advantage plus provides the tools to help your agency grow, providing authoritative information on complex coverage issues. Visit them and learn more@roughnotes.com Wait, you're still here? Hey Agent Leader Podcast listeners. Brent Kelly again I want to first of all thank you for listening to the Agent Leader Podcast and your continued support if you would like to have more content come your way, please help us by sharing the podcast, subscribing to the podcast, telling people about the podcast, and if you, as an agent leader, are truly ready to take that next step in your agency, you're committed and want to be that best version possible agency. Don't wait. Go to sitkins.com bookacall sitkins.com bookacall we want to provide the blueprint for your agency to help you create more impact with less effort. And it all starts by going to sitkins.com bookacall all right, now you can actually go. Thanks.