Context Creates Results

Welcome to the Agent Leader Podcast. This is the podcast for independent insurance agency leaders to raise the bar, to challenge your thinking, and ultimately aspire to become your best version possible. My name is Brent Kelly. I am your host. And today I'm going to talk to you about context, the power of context. How we see things, our paradigm, our view of the world, because I truly believe— and we see this all the time in the opportunity to work with agencies from all over North America— that context creates results. Why? The way that we see things determines the way that we lead. Have you ever noticed there could be two people from almost identical backgrounds in situations that have vastly different outcomes or results. Well, the same is true for insurance agencies. They might have very similar conditions, yet very different results. And oftentimes agencies will say initially, "Yeah, but we're different and we have this." And I'm thinking, this is very similar to another agency. Because oftentimes we can think about the same economy, the same market, the same carrier pressure, maybe they've got similar staffing challenges, and oftentimes very similar competition. Yet one agency will become reactive, emotional, frustrated, exhausted, while another agency becomes more focused, more trusted, more strategic, and ultimately more profitable. Well, why is that? Well, here's my belief, because context. Which, by the way, is a belief. How you see and view things is part of your belief system, but context drives behavior and behavior drives results. One of the greatest leadership lessons that I've learned is this: we do not respond to reality alone. We respond to our interpretation of reality. See, there's a big difference, because how we see things determines how we feel, how we communicate, how we lead, how we execute, and ultimately, the results that we create. Now, in this episode, I'm going to share 3 examples. There could be many more examples than this 3 when it comes to context. But I'm going to talk about 3 areas where I see that context changes everything. Talk about market conditions. I'm gonna talk about people and staffing, and I'm gonna talk about preparation and skill development. So, let's start with market conditions because I think this is one of the clearest examples that I certainly see of how context shapes leadership behavior. You know, the market, you all know this, the market absolutely matters. Hard markets are real. We've just had one of those. And some of you may still be part of that. But most people were moving now to what? A soft market, which is real. Carrier pressure is real. But two agencies can experience the exact same market, or certainly very similar, and create completely different outcomes based on how they interpret— it's how they interpret the market. So let's talk about some hard market examples. And this is an average or maybe below average context. Oftentimes you'll hear things like this in a hard market. Clients are mad, renewals are brutal, carriers are impossible. Everyone's frustrated. And we're constantly reactive and putting out fires. Now, some of that may be true, but the context creates reactive behaviors. And the behaviors often look like this. Defensive conversations, emotional service teams, constant remarketing, fear-based communication, carrier blaming. It's not our fault. Stress internally and transactional relationships, which leads to outcomes like burnout, low morale, and just chaos across the agency. Now, the exact same hard market, if we Flip our context and our paradigm. Elite agencies, elite teams, elite producers see the same market a bit differently. They think of this as an opportunity. This is where trusted advisors now become more valuable because they do. Clients need leadership right now. Communication matters more than ever. This is our opportunity to separate. Ourselves from everybody else. This market rewards top-level professionals, and the behaviors look different, of course, that follow that context, because we see more proactive renewal conversations, better education, better expectation setting, more strategic conversations, better leadership. And of course, the results follow: retention, trust, better relationships, referrals, profitability. Now let's talk about a soft market, which most of the agencies are experiencing right now. When the market softens, the average agencies who were just complaining about the hard market say, "Everyone is shopping! Competitors are all lowering their price. Client— clients only care about cost. It's so hard to retain these accounts." The resulting behaviors we start seeing: discounting, commodity selling, panic quoting, weak position, Desperation marketing. I see a lot of commission breath, reactive prospecting. And of course, the outcomes are lower margins, less differentiation, worse clients, more pressure on producers, more shopping. See, elite agencies see soft markets differently as well. And again, here's the frame. Here's the difference. This is where elite agencies and producers say things like, well, this is where relationships really matter. This is where our process matters. This is where elite communication separates, separates us. This is where the market will expose weak value propositions. And guess what? This is where the best strategy and execution is actually going to win, which of course leads to stronger stewardship, better internal communication, better risk conversations, a better experience. We get more niched and we get really focused on pipeline development and discipline, which of course leads to better results, higher retention, better clients, better margins, stronger relationships, and less price sensitivity. See, here's the phrase I want you to think about: weak agencies— and I say this with respect, but this is what we see— weak agencies blame markets. Elite agencies adapt Leadership. Because there's a good chance that your competitors are going through the same thing you are, whether it's a hard market or soft market. Weak agencies, well, it's the market's fault. Elite agencies, at least elite teams, elite producers adapt leadership and how they show up. Now, if this conversation, this type of conversation, is making you think different about your agency, your leadership, your team, about where capacity in your agency might be leaking, we've created a very simple tool called the Agency Capacity Scorecard. It's designed to be specifically for agency leaders who want to better understand engagement, productivity, alignment, and overall agency capacity. This is not about getting a generic score. It's about creating clarity. And you can check this out right now at sitkins.com. This will be in the show notes. sitkins.com/getmyscore. Again, sitkins.com/getmyscore. Now let's jump back into our conversation on context. The second area I want to talk about is people, staffing. This is a very common frustration. So let's talk about people because this may be the most common leadership complaint in business today. I've done podcasts around this, but I want to talk about this in terms of context. Because the average context around people is, Usually things like this: we can't find or keep good people. Nobody wants to work today. Good employees are impossible to find. Now, what that type of context, if that's how you think and view the world, it creates frustration. It creates lower standards. It often creates desperation hiring, or at least hiring less than the standards we want. We often tolerate. Mediocrity. And oftentimes our great employees are overworked. Now the result is what? Well, culture stinks, burnout, misalignment, turnover, everybody's stressed out. Whereas the elite context, the winning context, they ask different questions. Instead of saying, where do we find more good people? Where are all the good people? They start internally. They ask questions like, how do we better align the people we already have? Are the right people doing the right work? Are the producers staying in the green zone? Which, by the way, the green zone is where the producers are actually doing sales and proactive relationship and pipeline development. Are we actually doing the things that gets results? We're asking these questions. Are service teams buried in low-value activity? Are they just doing things? Are we prioritizing the most important clients? Are our lower-level clients— not that they're bad people, but let's face it, they don't pay the agency much money— are they consuming all the capacity? Do we actually have a staffing problem? Or maybe do we have a focus problem? A lack of alignment often feels like a lack of people. I'm gonna say that again, because it's a very important phrase for you to think about. Now, no agency is perfect here, we get that. But just a question to think about or a statement to think about: a lack of alignment. If we're not aligned, on the same team, going the same direction, same mission, same purpose, same language, same values, A lack of alignment often feels like a lack of people. See, the elite behaviors that we see in terms of people and their context, the behaviors that follow are better role clarity, better accountability, better segmentation and standards based on type of clients, better focus, better leadership development, which of course leads to capacity increases. A culture improves, there's better engagement internally, externally, and we have better performance. These are all how context matters, how you see the world matters. Are people an opportunity for you to show your skill, your development, your opportunity, or are people getting in the way of what you want? Those are very different contexts. Now, I'll take a quick side here to say this. Leadership would be easy if it weren't for the people. But that's why you're leaders. What a great opportunity to grow and develop your number one asset, your people. Last area, my absolute passion. So I saved the best for last. Well, at least in my world. Preparation and practice. This is really about your skills. And there is such different context that we see in skills, getting better at your game. Right? This is where context matters tremendously, because it's really all about our preparation and our development. The average context for many agencies, and I'll be very clear here, way too many agencies, is when it comes to preparation and practice and skill development is this: we'll figure it out. I've done it, or we've done it for years. Hopefully this all goes well. Or if I'm a producer, I'm just gonna wing it. Well, these type of mindsets lead to what? Well, the behaviors are weak preparation, poor discovery. We have inconsistent sales conversations. One's good, one's bad. We get emotional under pressure because we're not prepared and ready for some difficult conversations. And our skills don't improve. The result: inconsistency, low confidence, poor execution. See, elite performers— and this is what I want to stress— they think differently about preparation and practice and skill development. They believe that pressure exposes preparation, that confidence is earned. You don't just be confident because you're confident. Confidence is earned, and preparation creates certainty. Doesn't mean every conversation is gonna go exactly like, like you want it to go. But we know that the right preparation develops confidence, which gives you more certainty in every opportunity that you have. Now, what are the behaviors? This seems pretty obvious, but it's missed. And then it's missed. And then it's missed. Practice. Yep. As Allen Iverson once said, I'm talking about practice. You know, when we grow up, and if we played sports, or we were doing music, gosh, even preparing for tests, we practiced. It was just part of what you did to get ready for the game, the event. The whatever. But somehow, now that we're in this insurance agency world and we're going out doing these high-level things in front of clients that are important products and services, that by the way, there's a lot of money at stake, we just think we'll wing it and be okay. See, practice includes things like getting in front of a camera or actually doing roleplay with people in your office. Because here's my belief: if you can't do things with excellence in your office, in your car, in your home, you're not going to suddenly do it great out there. This is about intentional preparation. This is about rehearsing difficult conversation, sharpening the number one skill that every insurance leader, producer, and service professional must master: the skill of communication. See, data and information is everywhere. We know that. But how you communicate That data, that information is what makes the difference. See, great athletes, they don't rely on emotion. I'm just gonna figure it out. Hopefully it goes well. I'm excited. We're gonna win this game. The more I get excited, the more chance there is to win. They rely on preparation. Average performers hope. Elite performers prepare. Average agencies react. Elite agencies rehearse. Leaders are emotional thermostats. Emotional thermostats. This is an analogy that's used all the time, but it's really good. Right? You can be a thermometer, or you can be a thermostat. Thermometer goes up and down as the weather changes every day and even throughout the day. A thermostat says this is our standard. This is my standard. Leaders are emotional thermostats. Your interpretation becomes your team's interpretation. If you don't have high standards for yourself, don't expect your team to have high standards. This is not fake positivity. This is not pretending problems do not exist. This is choosing the most productive interpretation possible. Elite leaders create context that produces ownership, clarity, discipline, preparation, communication, and execution. So here's what I want to do. I want to spend some time, just a couple minutes here, and ask you, the agency leader, a few questions for you to reflect on this topic of context. So if you're driving, think about it. If you're at your house or your business, maybe take some notes here and answer these questions. They're important. First question I'll ask you is this: what context are you creating right now? What context? How are you viewing the world, your agency, competition, markets, you name it, preparation, practice? What are you teaching your team to believe? Are you creating ownership or victimhood? Scarcity or opportunity, preparation or excuses, leadership or emotional reaction. The best agencies are not always operating in better conditions. They're operating from better context. They see differently, therefore they lead differently, therefore they execute differently, and over time that creates completely different results. And honestly, that's exactly what we do to help agency leaders every single day. We help agencies create alignment, improve productivity, increase capacity, strengthen leadership, and ultimately become the best version possible of their organization. So if today's episode challenged your thinking even a little bit, or exposed ideas where your agency may be stuck in reactive leadership, I'd encourage you to start with the Agency Capacity Scorecard.

Go to sitkins.com/getmyscore.

Again, that's sitkins.com, S-I-T-K-I-N-S.com/getmyscore. Thanks for joining me on this episode of the Agent Leader Podcast. Remember this: your reality Matters. Reality matters. But interpretation will drive your behavior, and behavior is what ultimately creates results. Thanks for listening. 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, Book a call. We'll get to know more about your agency, conduct an agency assessment, 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.