Blending Tradition with Modern Business Tactics in Insurance Agencies

So what do you want your insurance agency to look like when it grows up? On today's Agent Leader Podcast, I interview Tom Krug, who's the president of J. Krug and Associates, located in the Chicagoland area. And we talk about that very question as they transition from a traditional family type of agency into an agency that's going into more sophisticated accounts and more savvy insurance buyers. We also talk about their approach to recruiting young talent out of college. Some unusual approaches they take to not only find talent, but to develop talent along the way. You don't want to miss this episode of the Agent Leader Podcast. Enjoy. Welcome to the Agent Leader Podcast. This is the podcast for agency leaders to learn, to grow, to develop and ultimately become their best version possible and leading best version possible insurance agencies. My name is Brent Kelly. I am your host. Honored to be with you on this episode. I have a fantastic guest, someone I'm super excited to have on interview today. I've got Tom Krug, who is the president of J. Krug in the great state, and I can say my state of Illinois. So, Tom, welcome into the Agent Leader Podcast.

Thanks, Brian. Thanks for having me. Really happy to be here with you.

Yeah, we're excited to have a great conversation today. And Tom and his team have done some work and continue to work with our organization. And I just want to hear more about his background and some of the successes and challenge they've had. And they also do some really interesting things in the space as far as recruiting and also education development. So a lot of things that we're going to get to. But my first question to you, Tom, is tell us about yourself. Who are you? Where did you come from? And tell us about the agency. So give us some background on you and the agency.

Okay, well, my. I'm an insurance nerd at heart. I grew up in the business with my dad and my grandfather. My grandfather was a. A third owner of an agency, downtown Chicago. And then my dad also went into the insurance business and joined my grandfather. And then in 1982, they left that agency and went out and started their own shop, which is now today. You know, what we have here is Jay Krug. So I, Ben, I grew up in the business. I remember reading proposals that my dad was going out on when I was a young kid and just kind of learned from him. Throughout high school, I did some internships at some insurance companies around the Chicagoland area. And then in college, I did a few other internships. One out in New Jersey with the benefits shop out there on the Jersey store, which is a great learning experience and a lot of fun for that summer. And then I did my last internship with my father and kind of shadowed him throughout the summer. And then when I graduated from Illinois State University from the Key School of Insurance, I just basically slipped right into the agency and started day one, you know, working with my dad and then the team that we had here.

Yeah.

So I've been in the business formally for 16 years, but really my whole life, so.

16 years.

Right? 16 years post college. But yeah, I grew up, you know, remember in high school, filing, you know, back when we had T files, filing, faxing, you know, mailing certificates out, all that, the fun stuff that goes along with running an insurance agency back in the days before email.

Yeah. So you are a true insurance. You were an insurance baby and toddler and free teen and teenager. Right. It's, it's truly in your blood. Yeah. I'm curious. We work with so many family agencies and I love to see the different generations and how it grows and expands. Just generally curious, what are some of the, the challenges maybe of, of, you know, growing up in a family agency or would you step into that? I mean, because there's a lot of agencies, obviously there's so many family agencies, and this industry allows that and provides a great opportunity. But what are some of the challenges or maybe opportunities, I guess both sides of that, Tom. And being in a family type of agency.

Yeah, so we have historically been family, family owned. My dad, my grandfather, like I mentioned, I bought my dad out. I think it was January of 2017. He was kind of like, you know, nearing the end of his career and we decided on a, you know, a buyout arrangement that works well for him and I. And then I, you know, executed on that. I believe it was 2017. And then I took the reins for a year by myself. And I spent that year kind of reflecting on whether or not, you know, what I wanted to be when I grew up or what I wanted the company to be when we grew up. So I took that whole year, you know, kind of running the shop by myself. By myself, figuring out what we wanted, how we were going to make it work. We had two long time employees, one of, one of whom you know pretty well, Jeff Scholes. And then my other long, long standing relationship on our benefit side, Logan Simios, which I wanted, you know, I wanted to keep them around and I, I thought they were great candidates for the direction we wanted to go in and continue to grow our organization organically. So I made the decision to Offer them, to offer them, make an offer for them to buy stock in the company, which they both did so in 2018. 11 of 2018, they both bought into the, the firm as owners and we, we ventured along the path of, you know, not really being a family run agency anymore and going the route of growing organically, you know. And so we, we've set out that path and we have successfully executed on that over the last few years. And then also this past year we had another owner buy in our, our longtime benefits account manager and like director of our benefits division, Colleen Tesnow. She bought some stock earlier this year. So we've, we've kind of gone along that path of not, you know, growing out of the family agency more toward employee owned stock, you know, employee stock ownership.

Yeah.

So it's been fun. It's been a, it was, it was challenging at first because, you know, you, you kind of something different and I had to think a little differently about it. But it's been very rewarding and the growth that we've seen I think has really paid off.

Yeah, thanks for sharing that because it's, it's always fascinating to me. And you know, I think this is one of the challenges a lot of a family type of agencies struggle with is in the legacy of the past and honoring a lot of that, but obviously having a vision for your future. Right. And what that looks like and, and kind of the marriage of those. So I, I love the direction you're going. If you would two times share a little more about J. Krug as an organization. I know you kind of mentioned how you got there, but just the scope and size and what you guys focus on in your firm today.

Yeah, we're just pretty much like every many of our friends, friendly competitors out there. We do about 65% property and casualty. We have a nice benefits division which does about 30 to 35%. And we do a little bit of home and auto. Not, you know, not a lot, but mostly for our business owner clients. So the typical makeup of many of our competitors. And so yeah, we, we've, we've grown out of the family and we're getting into larger opportunities, which is great for us. You know, more, more sophisticated risk management programs for commercial lines clients and benefits clients. So that's been fun to see and learn and grow and become more specialized in those areas as well.

Yeah, yeah. You said it earlier, Tom and I, I asked this to all kinds of agency leaders. I ask it to myself. And I said, what do you want to be when you grow up, you know, it's always one of those things. It's a, it's a challenging question, right? Like, well, I could do this.

You almost ask yourself every day, you know, yeah, yeah.

I mean, because the business is constantly evolving and like entrepreneurs at heart, there's always a new idea, a new thought. What if we did this? What if we didn't do this? And those questions that come in, I and I phrase, you probably heard me say before, is, you know, the best part of an independent insurance agency is that you're independent, you do whatever you want. So one of the biggest challenges of being independent insurance agency is you're independent, you can do what you want. It's like, what do you want to do? So I want to start by talking about some successes because you guys have done some really good things. There's a few things that I know you do that come to mind, so I may bring them up as well. But just in a general sense, you know, I like to talk about victories and we can learn from victories. We want to replicate success. What would you say is something, or it could be multiple things that as an organization, you guys have done well either in the past or you're doing now, or some combination of the both.

One of the biggest things that comes to mind is our recruitment efforts from Illinois State, specifically Illinois State University and the Katy School of Insurance on there. When Jeff and Logan and I got together, you know, as the three of us, when we, we set out on this vision to grow organically, you know, how were we going to do that? Were we going to do what you guys referred, you know, Roger referred to as the lift outs, the producer lift outs, or, you know, how are we going to find people to help us move this organization forward? And the three of us actually all graduated from Illinois State University. They've got a great insurance school, which Jeff and I both attended. So we committed to being very targeted in what we were going to do and how we were going to recruit from the Katy School of Insurance. So that has really worked out for us, just basically being involved, being involved with the school, the administrators at the school, speaking in many of the classes. It seems like every month we're down at isu, you know, giving some sort of presentation to a group of students and, you know, trying to convince them that this is a great career and there's many opportunities within the carrier broker agency side. So that has really paid off well for us. A lot of our, you know, there's an ongoing joke here. Every time we add a Add a new person to the team. It's like, well, let me guess, another insurance ISU grad. And it's like, yeah, well the thing is working, so why, why mess it, mess, mess it up, you know?

Yeah, yeah.

So many of our, yeah, many of our employees come from isu, whether it be producer, account management, benefits, commercial lines, they kind of get a basic understanding of insurance and how the business works at the school and then we kind of fill in the day to day and how to be successful either side of either side that you're on.

Yeah, it's, it's a great program to have at Illinois State. I can now say that a good chunk of my money goes there as well as I have a daughter. I told you before, I might have a second daughter going there. She's a senior in high school and. Yeah, and you know, there's not that many universe. I mean universities have risk management programs, but they have a really high level what they do. And it's interesting because, you know, it's from a recruiting standpoint, obviously lots of different places an agency can recruit from or recruit, you know, the type of people they want. But if you can get someone right, that's got the right mindset and background out of college and be able to train them up, it's great. Have you found any characteristics, you know, that, that are, I say, common characteristics or traits of those that have come from the college area that have worked best for your firm or the agency? Like just commonalities that jump out?

Yeah, two in particular. One, you know, one for this, the production side and being a full time commercial lines or benefits producer. Those that have like a double major in professional sales and insurance really is a sweet spot because they get kind of the, the sales aspect and then they have the insurance kind of background to go into it. So those producers have been the most successful and the fastest validating. And then secondly graduates who maybe go to work at an insurance company for a few years and then decide it's not for them, get that kind of experience and they want to flip to the broker side. So we actually just hired a young gentleman from the claims side. You know, he got the, he was at insurance company on the claim side for three years and it seems like he can really pick up stepping into the agency role much faster than any other candidate that we've seen. Yeah, so those are the two that come to mind.

Yeah, it makes perfect sense. I was gonna say we've. And even back to the family agency. I mean every situation is different, but seen A lot of that where someone was. Yeah, I think I'm interested. The agency side, it's like, I don't know, it's like they go work on the company side for a while and then when they come back there's just, I don't know if it's a deeper level of appreciation or understanding, but they just seem to, they just seem to click better when they get back into that side of things. And the other thing I know that you got. Oh, go ahead, Tom, please.

Yeah, I was just going to mention, yeah, I think they just, it's my mantle that I carry because now that we've been appointed to the Katie School of Insurance as a board member, you know, back when I was going to school, a lot the students get a lot of education on how the company side works and they, it feels like to me, it feels like they get a lot of push to go to look at an insurance company. And yeah, I'm trying to convince them, hey, you know, there's a whole other word out here that is called an insurance broker or an agent that, you know, is, brings a lot of benefits to the, the career other than just a cushy salary at an insurance company. So that's kind of the mantle I've been carrying. When I go down to speak to the kids, I'm like, hey, you know, there's, you should check this out because a lot of the, a lot of times I see, I meet people that are, hey, I think to myself, oh, this would be a great producer. And I find out they're going to intern or going to accept a job as an underwriter. I'm like, yeah, you can spot them right away. You are not an audio. I know you're going to be calling, calling me in about three years when you realize you're not an underwriter. And I could tell you right now you're not an underwriter. So maybe you, we should, maybe we should talk now and skip the whole three year stint at the insurance company. So that's kind of my mantle I carry at isu.

I, I love it. It's a different perspective. And you're right. I mean, for those of you who don't know, there's this tiny little company in the backyard of Illinois State called State Farm Insurance. Right. As well as, as others. And yeah, I think there's a, there's a perception of that you think of insurance. You know, even my, my own daughter, personal experience, she's always like, well, I don't want to do insurance. I'm like, well, that's fine, but like, what do you think that means? And you start to talk about all the different areas because I think there's these perceptions of it's this or this and you know, maybe you're 20, 21, 22 years old and you see a carrier and you know, they got a nice desk or whatever and nice lunches and maybe, you know, some benefits that are there. Like this is pretty cool. But this other side, the broker side, has got so much opportunity and there's a reason why many people make that shift. So I applaud your effort to get them to shift quicker because we need good people.

Yeah, I think it's, I think the ties are starting to turn because, yeah, I think the more kids are kind of coming, you know, coming out to the broker side.

Yeah, yeah, I, I, I'd agree with that. Another thing that you guys do great, a great job of is through some of your, whether social media, but education. You have a podcast and I want to make sure you get a chance to highlight the name of the podcast you guys run and then just educational video. So tell me what you do there and maybe impact that's had on the, on the agency as well.

Yeah. So our podcast is called Whiskey and Risk. It's, I can't take credit for it. It was born out of two of our younger producers that got the idea to start it and they've been following through with it. And similar to your podcast, they like to bring a lot of our clients on a lot of, maybe some of the underwriters that they work with different, different individuals within the industry that, you know, people can learn, learn tips and tricks from. So that, that's kind of fun. Plus they have a glass of whiskey while they're doing it, which a lot of clients like are seem to open up a little bit more after some whiskey. But so that's been fun and it's garnered us some fanfare from our industry partners. And then we are also doing quite a bit of educational videos, you know, quick, the quick tick tock, I guess, if you will, or Instagram videos or, and we post them on LinkedIn as well. Just educational videos for current events that are going on within this, within our industry, you know, that we can point our clients to a lot of our questions that a lot of our clients ask. We answer in a simple one minute video. And as they're scrolling through their LinkedIn or Instagram, they can pick up on something that maybe they didn't know. And they can, and also reaching out to prospects of ours via those channels as well.

Yeah, there's, there's so many different. Again, you can utilize these in different ways. But first of all, before I forget, I just, you got me thinking here, Tom. Like, you know, you got whiskey and Risk and they have a glass of whiskey and I need to change a title. Maybe it's like Beer with the agent leader or something like that. I don't know what I need to do, but make it much more interesting maybe. So I'll keep that in mind. But you know, as part, as far as the podcast goes again, everyone uses them in different ways. But you know, think about that. Whether you're an individual producer or an agency department, you bring on clients or have conversations, allows them to share their stories, allows them to share that content. And by the way, it just helps you learn more about people and situations. I mean there's, I tell people, obviously as I release these podcasts and I have many interviews, I learn a ton, just a different perspective. So there's such, there's wisdom gained from a marketing side if you do it right, but just from an educational side that's very, very powerful. And I was going to ask you too on the, on the educational videos and you mentioned, we talked about, you know, some of the newer people coming from college or younger, younger talent you have in a firm. I noticed a lot of them are doing those videos. A. It's, they're, they're more familiar with TikTok than I would be. For example, you do Linked as well. But I would have to imagine being able to stand up and talk about a subject that's insurance related is skill building, right?

Yeah, definitely. I, I've been on a few too and I, it helps me, you know, I try to lead by example. So I think I started off with the first couple of videos. So yeah, definitely skill building. Even, even in my, you know, at my, my career path, you know, helping me get out there and practice. Like Roger always says, practice what you preach. So, yeah, so yeah, it definitely helps the presentation aspect of presenting in front of a live audience or what have you. A couple takes and you're ready to go.

Yeah, I mean, if you get supplies on. Yeah, if you're presenting something live, you're going to prepare for it and be ready. If you're going to put a video out there, you may do several takes, but guess what? You get better every time. And obviously it goes into things we talk about even outside of that of practicing your presentations, rehearsals, introductions, refer, asking for referrals, executive briefings, whatever. It is, it's just working on your craft. So I love the fact that you're doing that. A, there's some marketing, but the other part of that is, gosh, they're probably getting a lot better every time they do that, understanding products and services, how to communicate that. So I love that.

Right. So it's been fun and we try to keep it consistent so that we're putting something out every week that something somebody can learn from.

Yeah. So make sure you go and follow J. Krug and watch their videos and then go, go download or check out the Whiskey and Risk. It's some good, have some fun with that. So. All right. We talked about some of the, the good things and we can talk about more good things. I love good things, but I also like to have the real talk on this podcast. Real challenges, real frustrations. So from your perspective, Tom, maybe a frustration or challenge you guys have dealt with and overcome it, or at least you're making progress or maybe specific challenges and frustrations you're dealing with today. What are some things that jump out at you? And again, how have you or how are you responding to those challenges?

Yeah, the biggest thing that comes to mind right now and you know, we've been sick KINS members over the years for many years and you know, learned a lot from Roger and now learning with you, Brent. Roger always referred to the, you know, the, the life cycle of an agency. You got the, like, we talked about the smaller family owned operated agencies, which is great. And then you got the large agencies, 10 million and over. And where we now fall is in what Roger would always refer to as a terrible middle. You know, we're kind of, we're growing at a nice clip organically. We're, we're doing the right things. But it seems like a lot of times we beat our head against the wall with our carrier partners to try to grow out of the terrible middle into like a larger agency. So that's kind of what we've been dealing with over the last, I'd say year, year and a half and then give it, given the hard market, it seems to be a little bit more challenging than it should be. So that's one of the frustrations and something that we're working through as a team altogether. You know, just specifically like, and I understand, you know, our carrier partners, they, you know, you've been with them for so long, you've had so many relationships and they, they, they kind of view you as a small family owned agency. But then you have to, I have to Gently remind them, hey, you know, we're kind of a little bit bigger now and we are doing more sophisticated things for our clients. Whether it be with you or without you, I'd like it to be with you. So you need to help us, you know, on, on this side, you know, help, help us help you so we can kind of both grow together. So it's been one of the challenges that that has been. Yeah, I'd say over the last year and a half.

Yeah.

But we're how we're dealing with it. Just keep, keep trying to do the right things, develop the right, right relationships. I know a lot of your guests talk about the relationship aspect of our business, which I know firsthand is, you know, I know it's cliche, but it is what it is. It's people. People do favors for people that they like and people that they have a relationship with and they are willing to do and go the extra for those relationships. So we keep trying to do the right things, do what we say we're going to do, and always do what's in our clients best interest.

So yeah, it's interesting you said that time and again. We were kind of joking earlier. What do you want to be when you grow up? And it is, you know, it's a challenge for a lot of agencies. I'm sure there's many listeners right now that like, yeah, I feel like we've kind of been stuck in this place or we're pigeonholed in this place or there's a perception of us as this and we want to be here. And for some agencies, like, we're here and we're good, we're good, we like it. It's those agencies that really desire growth right at the next level. And I guess here's my question I'm curious about because when I think about making transformation right the next leap in your agency, to me, there's internal communication as far as getting people on your own team. And of course you got younger people. The most part you have a pretty young staff and people on your team. But, you know, so it's not like you have a bunch of people have been there for 40 years and they're like, we only know one thing, but there is internal communication of how do we share a vision of we're going to do things at higher standards because we owe it to ourself and our clients and all that. And then of course there's the other side that you talked about, your carriers and externally even maybe some of your clients or influencers in the network that go, well, I thought you guys were just this. So I. My question around, what I'm trying to get into is how do you or how have you shared a vision, whether it's internal, external, to let people know there's a higher level of J. Crew that's evolving.

Yeah, I would say internally, I think we start basically every meeting with the vision, you know, 3, 5, 10 year vision of what we want to do, who we want to be. So that, that is kind of throughout, you know, through and through, every meeting that we start with, you know, here's where we've been, here's where we're going. And then for our carrier partners and other vested interests, you know, we kind of show them the track record here. Here's where we were three years ago and here's where we're at today. And we plan to continue that and whether, you know, hopefully you can be a part of it and help us get to the, the next, you know, the next level. Otherwise maybe we need to part ways and cut ties.

Yeah, well, and this may lead into kind of my next question or thought, but as, you know, being part of sickens for a while and working with Roger and now, you know, working with us as a partner, we love the 8020 principle just a little bit because it's real. And, you know, I think about that, that's true, you know, and this is for all agencies, if you haven't heard this podcast before, but I mean, there is a predictable imbalance. The 20% of your agency clients likely produce 80% of your revenue. There's a good chance that 20% of your care partners provide 80% of the volume in your book. There's a good chance that 20% of your team members produce 80%. There's all these, right, these imbalances and to be able to leverage them in the right way as you think about these different things. And so to me, it comes back, Tom, like building the business model that you want to replicate. And you know, sometimes that means, okay, we've got to grow and adapt to more sophisticated higher level accounts, deeper ways of thinking, higher standards. And the other part is there's certain things that we used to do that we can't do anymore. And that to me is probably the harder of the two. It's okay, we can do this, but that means we can't do that. So curious what, what things are. Either you have said, okay, we can't do that anymore, or we need to stop doing these things.

Yeah, I think it was a month or two ago, I was working with you and Roger, and something stuck out to me. It's like, not that we can't do those things that we used to do, but we need to make them profitable. So I've been changing my thinking around those. Those things that we used to do. The C accounts or the, The. The. The industries that we serve that we really have kind of grown out of, we can still do them, and we can still do them well. We just need to do them in a profitable way for the agency. So that is something I've been working on over the last couple months and, you know, putting a strategy together of how we're gonna. How we're gonna make those things profitable still and be able to offer them and not, you know, turn anybody away, but still focus upstream at the. The 20. The 20%. The A's. Replicating the A's.

Yeah, and. Yeah. And I. I'm not sure exactly what it was we talked about in one of those sessions or coaching calls or whatever, but you're right. And a lot of times people are like, oh, well, you guys don't like small accounts or C accounts?

Like.

No, what we don't like is unprofitable accounts and.

Right, exactly.

That. That's the difference. Right. It's not like they're. They're inherently bad. It's just that oftentimes we have the same amount of touches or technology for an account that pays us 1/30 of another one. And, like, that doesn't make logical sense if you just think about it. Right. I mean, the simple thing I could say is, like, if I go buy a $500 beater at a used car lot or a $70,000 or whatever, $80,000 vehicle, I might have different expectations and.

Absolutely.

We don't.

We don't.

I cut you off there, Tom. Go ahead.

No, I just. Yeah, I totally agree. So we just changing our thinking around those, and I, you know, I started with me when I picked that up from you or Ro, the sessions that we were in, and I've kind of been relaying it to our team, and we've been moving in that direction. Hopefully, we're going to be more. Well, my plan is, you know, to start next year with a robust plan of how we can be more profitable in those areas and then replicate our A's and be better, you know, and bigger.

Yeah. Yeah. Fantastic. Well, obviously, you. You've known Roger for a long period of time. You've known me for less, so I'm just curious, just from the stuff that you've taken from our relationship, we just mentioned 8020. Maybe that's one of them. What has been maybe your agency or your personally your biggest takeaway. And whether it's a principle or strategy, a process, maybe just a different way of thinking and working with Sitkins over the years.

You know, I think when I was young I got the benefit of being, you know, learning from Roger at a very young age. You know, when I came out of, out of college and I remember going down to Fort Myers and sitting in the sessions, you know, in person of the producer fit trainings and the things that he talked about 16, 17 years ago are things that I still use to this day, like the producer's perfect schedule. Even though I'm kind of out of the producer role, I still look at those, you know, the schedule. My Mondays are the same like that we, that you talk about with every, all of your members. You know, the meeting days, the high performance team meetings, those are all been the same for the last 16 years. Fridays for me have been the same. You know, a big, a big client or prospect event usually surround, you know, our office is a big golfing office. So those usually revive Fridays, no one's here and everyone's out golfing with their clients or prospects or centers of influence. That's kind of a staple in our organization. And then, you know, Tuesday through Thursday are the lunch meetings, the business meetings with clients, prospects, renewal check, ins, stewardship report check inside. So that a lot of stuff that I learned back then we've implemented company wide here and it's been fun to see. And now that we're, you know, having our younger producers come in and younger account managers come in with you and your team now with, again, I'm still with Roger, but they're learning the same things that we've been preaching on from, you know, preaching on them and trying to teach them. So now it's good to hear, it's good to see that, see us, you know, them to see us how we operate and then also hear from you what they should be doing as, you know, as their consultants. And so yeah, a lot of the stuff is the same but you know, like the saying goes, look, old is new again and things that we've been preaching on from, you know, preaching on them and trying to teach them. So now it's good to hear, it's good to see that, see us, you know, them to see us how we operate and then also hear from you what they should be doing as, you know, as their Consultant. And so, yeah, a lot of the stuff is the same, but, you know, like the saying goes, look, old is new again.

You're right. Right. Yeah. I mean, you always say the, the, the basics, that some of the key principles aren't going to go away. I mean, there's different levels and variations. And I don't, I don't, I don't think Roger was doing zoom stuff like this back in, you know, when you were in Fort Myers. And actually we're going to be getting back to some more of those things as well. So it's always a hybrid of that. But, yeah, I always find it. I always find it funny, too. Tom. I talked to, and this has happened to me. If you're on my side of things, I'll either meet with an agency or I'll be at a speaking event or whatever. I never forget one of our longtime members we've been working with. We went out to Pennsylvania, did an event with them, and one of the producers right away, he's like, I gotta show you something. Like, but he's like, look at this. And it was like the, the playbook from 1997 or whatever. And he's like, oh, I still have it today. And the, the cool thing, the cool thing about it is I always use analogy. It's like this idea of my daughter playing basketball, and I would try to help tell her what to do or show her some things.

Right.

Yeah, Right, right, right. And then someone else says the same thing and she's like, ah, I know that probably you probably had some similar experiences of that.

Yeah, it's the same thing with, yeah. Kids in sports. Like, if you, if you tell them to do something, they won't do it. But then the minute their coach says something like, oh, hey, guess what I learned new today? Yeah. Yeah. The same thing I've been telling you for two years. Well, it's the same with, you know, our industry producers or account managers. Hey, maybe you should do something differently this way. But, you know, if we say it once, okay, fine, it maybe goes in one year, out the other. But if, if you guys also say the same thing, it's just the, the nature of, I guess, human nature. It's frustrating, but it's good that we have a solution for it.

It's frustrating, but it becomes more expected. Right. So you're like, okay, all right, here we go again. I have one final question, but actually, if you got an extra minute or two, I have a bonus question because, yeah, absolutely, you've got, you've got a role in the agency. And this is not uncommon. You know, one of the things we say at Sidkins is how many of you started off selling insurance and now you're running an agency, you know, and. And, you know, to some degree, certain that's been a bit of your path, but, like, this is a general question or broad question, but how. How do you balance those multiple roles of, you know, agency leadership? And there's the carrier relationships, and obviously you've got, you know, you're trying to help with sales and book and all those kind of things, and mentorship and who knows, you know, you got a mess on the floor sometimes. Agency leaders are cleaning that up, you know, whatever it is. How do you find your way balancing all of these different roles?

Personally, myself, I kind of use your. Your guys's analogy of the red zone and green zone activity. You know, I think of, you know, what am I doing today that, you know, my. My role, you know, green zone is moving the agency forward, adding more producers, adding more account managers, developing certain relationships, you know, with other. Other outside interests to help us move forward. So that, what I look at, green Zone, you know, not so much production anymore or not so many centers, centers of influence, but those types of things. So I. I use that same analogy, but I just use it in a different way, you know, and then red zone is kind of not necessarily dealing with clients, but managing those relationships that I still have, and I still will, you know, have clients to, you know, well, have forever.

So, yeah, I was jotting that down because I'll tell you, personally, I. I've done that, right? I mean, like, what's. What's my green zone? You know, what. What's the thing that actually moves things forward that's. Needs the highest use of my time, energy, and effort? And am I scheduling those things first or I do, I just kind of hope they appear or does the other stuff sabotage that? And I think, you know, every agency leader can ask himself that question. We actually, I don't know if, you know, this time we created for sales leaders, we created a different zone. It's kind of unofficial, but the platinum zone. What's that zone look like? And it's. It's some hybrid. But I would just say for. For anyone listening going, gosh, am I allowing things to happen to me too often, or am I making things happen? And we know there's no perfect world. You know, you got to have some. Some boundaries in there. But, like, what are the three, four, five things that when you do them every week or consistently they actually move things forward. And to be able to take some time to think about that and then put those on the schedule first, where you can is. Is super important. So I appreciate you sharing that. You have time for one more question. My favorite question.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right. You know, it's coming because you listen to the podcast and I mentioned it on my. On my notes. But, you know, my favorite question to ask any leader is what advice you would give to your younger self. And, you know, you come face to face with the younger version of you, or maybe you're starting off your. Your career. Although, by the way, I meant to mention this earlier, Tom just got 40, the top 40 under 40 for the. The state association here in Illinois. So congratulations. So we know that he's not that.

Thank you. Yes.

He's not that old. But anyway, so you go back to. You're coming out of isu, right? Or you're starting your professional career knowing you've been in insurance your whole life, and you come face to face with that younger version of you. And that younger version says, tom, I need one piece of advice. If anything, you could tell me, what would it be?

I would say to read everything. Reading is, like, the key to our industry, along with the relationships. Reading everything is the key. I mean, I remember in college I had a great professor, and he would always joke about the insurance. The insurance industry only reads half the page down. Everyone in the insurance industry only reads the top half of the page. You got to read the whole thing and everything else around it. You know, like, you got to read the whole entire policy in its entirety. And the same goes for anything, like emails. You can only. You can't just stop at the first paragraph. You got to read the whole email, get the full context of what you're trying to understand. And then even for my younger days, t. Like I mentioned, t. Filing going out into the files, you know, I was exposed to a lot of paper files I kind of read a lot. And that really helped advance, you know, the learning quickly. So I would just. Yeah, I continued to preach that to our younger producers and account managers that come from ISU or wherever they might come from is just reading everything and getting. Getting as. Getting as much information as you can through reading.

I. I could 100% use that advice. I'm. I'm chuckling because it wasn't I don't know, a couple weeks ago or whatever. I mean, I'll get emails and I'm guilty of, like, there's two questions in the email even Me, I answer the first one, right? Like, what about the second one? I'm like, I answer the first one. What else do you want from me? But, you know, I, I joke about it, but I shouldn't because it is, it is an important skill. And I would just say this too. And I'm not, I am not saying this to pick on the younger generation or any of that, but, like, we do live in a sound clip world. Like, there's a reason that Tick Tock is popular and my kids scroll every 15 seconds. So to get people to actually slow down and take in an entire document or the entire context of information is important anywhere. But certainly the insurance industry.

Yeah, totally. That's what. Yeah, I still use it to this day. I mean, that same professor, you know, he would always teach you, you can't just stop at the exclusion because there's actually coverage in the exclusion. You know, if you stop and just saw the word, you know, the exclusion for what? Whatever, some property thing, ordinance and law, you would think, oh, it's excluded, but there's actually coverage in the exclusion. So, you know, leave it up to the insurance industry to make it challenging. But, oh, you can't stop working.

I'm starting to get flashbacks now. Like, here's, here's the term or the definition or the coverage, and there's the exclusion. But then they buy them back here and then. But then that part's excluded then. But you get that back. But you're right. I mean, it's, it's. And I would say this too, and I'm just, this is my take on it. But we're big believers in business acumen. Certainly there's insurance acumen, but understanding insurance, understanding business, understand how things work. And I think the younger you can start that process of being a sponge. And Tom, you just hit this, the better. It's so, so important. And yeah, one of the things I always tell. I just love books in general in terms of business acumen. I wish I would have done more of that younger and how people like you don't understand. Brent, I don't read. And so now I'm like, well, good news, they have this thing called audible. You just have to listen sometimes. Oh, I can do that.

So anyway, anything take away your podcast followers up.

Well, you know, that's. Sorry. It's way to go. So, final words, Tom, before we depart, thanks so much for being part final words from you that you'd like to share with the agent leader podcast audience.

Listeners, thanks for having me happy, you know, happy and thankful to be a part of the Sitkins Network and the concierge service you guys offer. I mean, every time I talk to you and Roger, I get something really great and something a green zone moving the agency forward. So I really appreciate all the work that you guys do and the time you spend helping us get better.

Yeah, well, thank you. We appreciate the partnership too and just love that you guys continue to lean in. And you know, for anybody listening out there in the podcast land here, if this podcast, other podcasts have added value to you and your life as always, do the podcast thing like share, subscribe, whatever platform you have, love for you to connect with people just like Tom out there. And that's all I have to say, as Forrest Gump would say about that. So, Tom, thanks so much. We appreciate you being on the podcast today. We'll talk to you all very, very.