Cultivating An Environment of Growth in Your Insurance Agency

All right, well, hey, I want to make sure that we start as much as we can on time. Welcome to this live workshop, cultivating an environment of growth. My name is Brent Kelly. If you didn't know that I am the president of the Sitkins Group. I do have Roger Sitkins with me. He is kind of standing and leaning in. He will be at the end of the workshop and answer some questions and say hello to everybody as well. But I want to welcome all of you. Just a couple of things as we get started. This workshop itself will run about a half hour. Okay. Just so you know, we will do some Q and A at the end if you have some questions on things, things we can help you with and answer for you. So we'll allow some time for that, but expect about a half hour of the workshop. Also, if you don't have a pen and paper handy or pencil and paper handy, do so. I'll probably be saying things like write this down or make a note of this. So make sure you stay interactive. And again, we're going to be using the chat box so I can get some feedback from you. So with that, again, official welcome. Cultivate an environment of growth. This is how to move your agency. The purpose of this, to move your agency from high maintenance to high performance. So let's talk about each of those areas as we get started. What does that really mean and what does that look like? Let's start with high maintenance. High maintenance is a lot of upkeep. It's a lot of activities, but maybe not the great results. Maybe there's a lack of clarity, some confusion, some chaos. Maybe high maintenance means we've got a level of complacency right in the agency. So you want to move from high maintenance to high performance, like this race car here, where we have the right people doing the right things, the right time with the right clients. We're focused on results. We have clear objectives in mind. We're moving from confusion right to clarity as we go forward. So that's going to be what we're going to be talking about today. And of course, it's cultivating an environment of growth. So you know, Matt Hughes, I know you mentioned you're there in Iowa. You know all about this. I'm in the Midwest as well. You know, cultivating is what we're going to talk about is how can you place your team, your agency, in the best position to win. Cultivating is developing, nurturing, right. Empowering your team and your whole agency to be that best aversion possible, that's what we're going to be again, talking about today. Now, I'm born and raised in Illinois and not Chicago, Illinois, downstate Illinois, which means it looks like this. And if you've driven through central Illinois or somewhere like this, you, you know what I'm talking about. It's flat, Pancake flat. In fact, one of the speakers I was doing an event with, he had made a great statement. He said, it's so flat in central Illinois that you can watch your dog run away for three whole days. Right? Hey, bye, Fido. They just keep going and going. Now, as much as I joke about the fact that it's flat, the topography there are some really good things, certainly about the fact the environment that I live in and where we're at, where I'm at when it comes to crops. And one of the things that we do really well in this part of the world is we grow great corn and beans, great crops. And why is that? Well, we have an environment of growth. We have great soil, plentiful water most years, and we have fresh air. Right. That surrounds us. And so a big part of that we are going to be talking about today is what does that mean for your insurance agency? What is the environment of growth that you need to focus on? And today I am going to talk about three specific areas. In fact, we'll call them the three keys. So these are going to be the three keys I'm going to share today about having that cultivating the environment of growth, moving from high maintenance to high performance. So first I'm going to talk about mindset. What is the mindset culture of your agency? And we're going to have some good discussion around that. And then I'm going to talk about skill set. That's the next key. What are the skills that we need to acquire and develop in our agency? And last is going to be about the tool set. What are the tools, the resources, the people that we need to be surrounded with to be our best version possible to grow those plentiful crops, so to speak, that I talked about. So I want to start off by sharing a really powerful quote. I love all things Jim Rohn. Jim Rohn, great business philosopher, passed away years ago, has so many great sayings. It's one of my favorites. He says, attitude drives actions. Actions drive results, results drive lifestyles. Let's flip it. If you don't like your lifestyle, look at your results. Duh. If you don't like your results, look at your actions. What are we doing? If you don't like Your actions, look at your attitude. And I think what Jim is saying here, and I think he's right on, is that everything starts with our business philosophy, which then goes into our attitude. It's about mindset. Again, this is the first key I'm going to talk about is mindset. Here's something I want you to write down. Maybe not the first time you've heard it, but write it down anyway. Beliefs drive behavior. Beliefs drive behavior. And these could be good beliefs, and these could be not as good beliefs. You know, one of the things I see with insurance agencies, insurance professionals, is that we look at all the things that can hold us back and market conditions and pricing, hard market, soft market, competitors, carriers, clients, not, you know, understanding all those things. But the biggest hindrance is our own belief system, our own head trash. And I can tell you one of the things that we really want to help agencies with and want to help you with is how can you think bigger than you are right now and eliminate some of the negative things that are echoing in your. In our head, we all have them, right? But the first part is mindset. And again, this is not new, but it is important. It's really all about culture. Agencies that I get the opportunity to work with and hear from and talk to and see them have great results. And the ones I start to, why are they struggling? It really starts with culture, this mindset. And we look at culture at Sitkins and we define it as this. The language and behaviors that are normal at your insurance agency. That's culture, the language and behaviors that are normal in your insurance agency. And I'm going to ask you, this is the first interactive session here. I know some of you, I see the video, some of you are just on the phone, but hopefully you can all type in. I want you to think about your agency culture today. And if your agency could talk, if it could give one word to describe itself, what word would it be? And I don't care. All progress starts by telling the truth. It might be great, maybe not so great, maybe somewhere in the middle. But I just want to hear from you. And I'm going to look at the comments here, the chat box here. Yawn. All right, Lisa, so we're tired, maybe, right? Changing. Nancy.

Busy.

Yeah, we're going to talk about that. Evolving. Helpful. Very good. Progressive. Crazy. Consultive. I like that. Any more coming in? So what's getting one word? I know it's hard to define in one word, but be honest. I'm not going to ask you to talk here on the Camera or share.

Why?

I just want you to write here on the. On the chat box. Stable, Preparing. Growth. Active. Unorganized. Very interesting. Okay, now I'm going to have you put your thinking caps on again. Here's some more coming. Energetic. No teamwork. Let's look at a different direction. What would you want the culture of your agents to be? The normal language of behaviors. If you could think about vision here, if you could wave your magic wand and say, if this was the one word that I wish we could describe our agency's culture with, it would be this. This is the agency with the culture of blank. What is it? So I want to see this. So this is the next thing to write in.

Growth.

Nimble, Energetic. Kim. Thriving. Yeah, I love that.

Growth.

That's a positive one. Proactive. Proactive. Awesome. Love that, Brad. Results. Halftime. Locker room. Interesting. I wonder what that. I have to ask you what that means. Proactive, Sales driven. Results. Engaged. Right. A lot of different. My guess is these are mainly different from what I can tell than what you had before. Growth, productive. They're still coming in. Quick, accurate and kind. Yeah, Jeff, I've heard that before. I love that. Love that. So here's my next question with it, with you on this. So you talked about what it is, normal language, behaviors, and now what you would like it to be. The obvious question is how. Right? I mean, that's right. How do you go from here to here? What does that look like and mean for your agency? Well, I can tell you this. There's a lot of things we're going to talk about today, but this is where it all starts. Starts with leadership. I want you to write something down now. Leaders lead. Leaders lead. Those things that you wrote down. There's something to think about of what you want your agency to become. If you could describe it in one word, does that describe you? And maybe it does. And that's great. I hope it does. But I want you to think about that, that you are the leader. You are the model of your agency. I got five kiddos at home. It's not what I say, it's what they see me do. Right? The same thing for leadership. Leaders lead. That's gonna be a big part of that we're gonna be talking about. Now. Many of you can see here, this is John C. Maxwell. Many of you know him, some may not. John's known as the leadership expert across the world and he's written many, many books on leadership. This is one of my absolute favorite ones. It's a best selling book. The 21 irrefutable laws of leadership. And I've had the opportunity to work on John's team in different capacities and from other leaders. And when you look at this book, there's the very first chapter of this book that's called the Law of the lid, right? The very first chapter of his most popular book is the Law of the Lid. And within that law, he says this. Personal and organizational effectiveness is proportionate to the strength of leadership. I would suggest you make a note of that. Personal and organizational effectiveness is proportionate to the strength of leadership. Now, in this book, I just wanted to share an excerpt with all of you. He has two examples of success with leadership and success without leadership. So let's start, I guess, with the negative side, success without leadership. Now, listen, most independent insurance agency owners, this isn't all, but many, right? At least many became a leader of their agency not because they desired to be leaders, but because they were really effective at what they did. Typically in sales, they were a high achiever. And because you were a higher achiever, now you're a leader. Well, what we see here, what John points out in the book, is that our success, dedication, AKA hard work, is probably not hard for most leaders. If you're on this right now, you're a hard worker, you're dedicated to your success. And even if you're eight or nine, as it shows here, you look at your overall effectiveness, it's not that great. And as John talks about, when we begin to raise our lid of leadership and what that means as an agency, we can work hard and work smarter, right? More effective in leadership and our effectiveness multiplies. But most leaders don't think about that. So here's my question to you. And you don't have to put this in the chat box, but something for you to think about. What is a lid or what is the lid that is holding you back from being the best leader you could be? Because people are wanting to be led, People are wanting to be part of something that matters. And one thing that I see with leaders, and this is a hard thing to do, we have to admit we have blind spots and typically effective people. That's a hard thing to do, but we have to be honest with ourselves. So I just ask you, what's the lid, right, that's ultimately holding you back. This comes from a book, the Leadership Challenge, another great leadership book, said it is the capacity to develop and improve their skills that distinguishes leaders from followers. Think about that. It is the capacity to develop and improve their skills that distinguish Leaders from followers. And you can see here, I've got our eagle. I want to share a story with you. I shared this with a group last week and I want to share it on this workshop today. This is the parable of the eagle and the crowd. And if you can see above my head here on our Sitkins logo, our designer is really cool. If you look at it, it's got an S for Sitkins, but it also is the shape of an eagle. So we believe in eagle principles and what that means. And I want to share this parable with all of you. And here's the parable of the eagle and the crow. The only bird that dares to peck an eagle is a crow. The crow sits on the eagle's back and bites its neck. The eagle does not respond nor fight with the crow. It does not spend time or energy on the crow. Instead, he just opens its wings and begins to rise higher in the heavens. The higher the flight, the harder it is for the crow to breathe. And eventually the crow falls off due to a lack of oxygen. Learn from the eagle and don't fight the crows. Just keep ascending. They might be along for the ride, but soon they'll fall off. Do not allow yourself to succumb to the distractions. Keep your focus on the things above and continue rising. So I just ask you as a leader, what are the distractions that are holding you back from having that mindset, the attitude that I mentioned that's going to help your agency get to the best level, the highest version possible. It starts with mindset and attitude for the agency and leaders lead. And by the way, this requires a process, right? You don't wake up one day, unfortunately, go, you know, today I'm going to become the leader and everyone's going to just jump on board and our culture is going to change today. Never going to work that way. It is a process. So often we want this thing right over here, the magic pill, right? The idea that, hey, just. We get that all the time. Could you just fix our people real quick? Could you just. Could you just make everything better tomorrow? You know, I am dealing with these frustrations. And as much as we like the magic pill and our society is used to some form of the magic pill, it doesn't exist for true success, right? It doesn't exist. Going back to the example I used earlier, you know, where I'm at, these tall crops don't appear in a week or a month. It takes a season. It takes a season to grow to their full potential. In fact, could you imagine you planted crops, at least corn, and sometime maybe in May, early June, like, okay, let's harvest it wouldn't turn out well. And often agencies get started at things and then they stop. Many agency leaders, many insurance professionals are really great starters, but not very good finishers, at least not good continuers. So that's key number one, your mindset. So think about your mindset. Key number two is your skill set. What are the skills that are most important for insurance agencies to be that best version possible to transform to where you want to go? I always ask agency leaders, I'll ask you, and you can just answer internally if you want. How are you currently developing the most important skills for your team right now? Would you even know what they are? Right. How often do you do that? So let's talk about this for a second. Could you imagine if you're a sports fan like me, maybe you're not, but could you imagine a basketball team never practicing, dribbling, passing or shooting? Could you imagine coming up on spring training, baseball, never taking that in practice? Could you imagine a musician never practicing scales or notes or working on their instrument? Of course not.

Right?

It's ridiculous. Here's one for you. Could you imagine a surgeon that decided, I'm going to go to maybe a couple years of school, not the full thing, and then I don't really want to keep up with technology and trends and learn new stuff, so I'm going to work on your heart today. I'm good, right? We want to be professionals. We need to be professionals. One of the mantras of Sitkins, and many of you know this, is that we believe in professional fitness. Being pro fit, being professionally fit, not acting and behaving like an amateur, but being a true professional. Right? And what that looks, what it looks like and what it feels like. And I am going to share just three skills of professional fitness that you can think about and consider. I love this cartoon. Now, I know it is going to be hard for some of you to see. I am going to move out of the way a little bit. This is from the Family Circus I mentioned. I have five kiddos, so I can relate to this in many ways. But here is the point of this cartoon. Billy little kid is asked to go get firewood from his mom. When did you go grab some firewood? Okay, Mommy. And he heads off in a hurry. The next thing you know, he starts climbing rocks and then he chases a rabbit and then he finds a waterfall. And then he cools off and then he goes over into the forest. And gets lost and eats berries and does this and does something else and gets distracted and he comes back at the end and he's got two sticks. Is this enough firewood? Mommy and I show this to you because when it comes to productivity, that is the number one skill that we see insurance agencies struggle with. They have good intention. Today's gonna be a productive day. Today it's gonna happen. And specifically with insurance producers, they're the most notorious of this.

Right?

We're gonna do all these things well, we're gonna be really more focused on pipeline and sales. But what happens at the end of the day in hysterical activity? Some of you wrote that some of the frustrations that you had or your current agency. It's busy right now. Here's something I want you to think about right now for your own insurance team. I wanna ask you a question right in the chat box. We look at Sitkins that too many times we have part time producers trying to play a full time role. It's like trying to score as many points in a game and you're only playing half the game or a quarter or two. We see on average in the industry that most sales producers only spend five to ten hours a week in true sales and sales related activity. We define that as pipeline building, relationship management, proactive continuations and of course sales. Right. Actual sales conversations. Right. And so five to 10 hours a week and we wonder why aren't we getting the results we want? Well, because we're not even in the game. We've got to be really intentional with our sales and service to get in the game. So out of 40 hours a week, I'm just going to ask you. All progress starts by telling the truth. How many hours a week on average? Now some of you have a few salespeople, some of you have many. But on average, how many hours a week would you say your sales team, your producer, and by the way, the definition of a producer. This is great to write down. Definition of a producer, one who actually produces. It's kind of important. Okay, one who actually produces. But on a scale of one scale for 40 hours a week, how many hours a week do your producers spend in true proactive sales and sales related activity? Be honest, I'm not going to call anybody out. I just want to see here one to two. One to two. Anybody else have some answers? How many hours they get? You don't have to be exact. Just give me an idea. A week do your producers really spend? Ryan, you win the award at 18. Congratulations man. That's good for your team. John Gibson. 3 to 5, 2 less than 10. 10. 3 to 5, 10 to 12. On average, 10 to 12 again. So there's kind of a balance there. But I, I think all of you could admit from what I just said that are our producers in this particular case truly full time producers? In most cases, the answer is no. And this has already been said. Why is that? Because sometimes as human beings, we wear this badge as an honor. Busy is not a badge of honor. So busy. Just ask people, how are you doing? I'm so busy. How are you doing? I'm busy too. I'm busy than you. Oh, no, I'm so busy. No, I'm so. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You don't know. You don't know how crazy it's been today. It's been so busy. And then they get to the end of the day and all that. We're busy. Did we get results? But are we doing the right things, the right time with the right people? Write this down. Activity does not equal accomplishment. And there's been a lot of quotes around on that one. Activity does not equal accomplishment. So what are you doing to be more proactive in that skill set? Because guess what, everybody, Time is our only diminishing asset. You can restore relationships, you can get back money, you can get back things. In many cases, you can never get back your time. The biggest thing we see to have a culture, an environment of growth, to be high performance, is we got to get our producers in the game. We got to get our service people doing the right things. We got to have communication proactively with our team every single week. And some of you have heard this before, some of you may be like, wow, we got to think about that. All right, skill number two. How do we stand out? How do we truly differentiate most agencies? If I said, what makes you different in the marketplace now, this isn't all. And some of you may have some great points of differentiation or ways that you position yourself differently. But when I ask most agencies, and I get the opportunity to work with a lot of agencies, a lot of producers, I used to be able to travel more and do it now always ask this question, and I asked the question, what makes you different? I would typically always hear some form of these five things. We have really good service, we have the best people, we're local, we represent all the markets, and we're really competitive in pricing, something like that. What makes us different is we've got good service, really great people, represent all the markets, we're local and we have the most competitive pricing, which now is the generic five that we call it. Sitkins. Right, the generic five. So I want to share something with you that is really powerful and I want you to think about this. This is one of the most powerful exercises and things that I heard a few years ago from a mentor of mine. I got a chance to be with a mentor, very successful multimillion dollar company owner in several businesses. And it was teaching something called the law of compensation. The law of compensation, which basically says, why do some people make more money than others? Why are some people compensated here and other people compensated here, whatever that is. And he said there's three things that must exist together. Number one, is there a need in the marketplace for what it is that you do? Do people need insurance advice, risk advice and placement of insurance products? Yes, we got that one. So need is number one. Number two is the ability to do it. And I know you wouldn't be on here if you, your team didn't have the ability to again, place, transfer, risk, have conversations, all those things. Now here's the thing, this is where most insurance agencies stop. There's a need for what we have and we have the ability to do it. So we'll just do it frequently and we'll be okay. And this is the trap of semi successful agencies. They're semi successful, they're doing okay, but not what they need to be doing. Why? Because they missed the most important part. The most important part of the law of compensation is what is the difficulty in replacing you? What is the difficulty in replacing you? Meaning this. If in some of your relationships, even some of your best relationships with your clients right now, if you were to disappear, would they say oh no or oh well, oh well, we'll find someone else that can do that. It's not a big deal. Or would they say oh no, who's going to be that indispensable risk partner?

Right.

This law of compensation, again, if you're not writing it down, I see many of you doing that. Take heed of that because it's really, really important. The last skill I want to mention is this, the skill of communication. It seems pretty obvious we all need to communicate. But here's something that I asked in every one of our trainings that we do, we've done a lot of trainings over the last year, whether it's producers, service teams, sales leaders, agency leaders. I say this, on a scale of 1 to 10, how important is communication for your success? Individual or as an agency? How well, how Important is this skill. And some of you are right in the chat. So go ahead, write in the chat box how important. It's funny, I'm already. So I'm seeing 10, 10, 12, 11, 10, 10, 10. Yeah. We all know how important it is to be able to ask really good questions, to be able to be an active listener, to be able to present, to be engaging, to be interesting. All these things are vitally important. Yet then I ask the next question, okay, if it's a 10 out of 10 or more, how often are you deliberately practicing this vital skill? Recording yourself, video yourself doing peer reviews, Right? What is it? How often are you doing it? Well, I don't know. I haven't thought about that. I asked agents, I asked producers, I said, how often is your leadership team holding you accountable? Could you imagine showing up at the practice field, for example, in sports? And they go, yeah, I know you're here. We're not really going to practice today, so just hang out. You guys will play. You always play. You'll be fine. Right? It's ridiculous. But we have to understand we've got to work on this skill. So this is a March 2021 calendar. As you can see, it's blank. And I don't know, some of you have some practice calendars. That's great. But I remember back in my day we had a practice calendar.

Right.

Now, if you had a practice calendar, whether it's asking great questions, referrals, 30 second commercials, all the different things that. And we could go through these things that you would want to have as skills and communication. Where is that listed on your calendar for March? You know, March 2nd, I can tell you, and I'll be the first to admit, if I have a blank spot on March 2, I'm probably not going to wake up and then get to the office. You know what I should do, thinking I'm gonna do some practice right now. No, no, no. We're gonna be putting out fires and doing email. So proactively are we scheduling practice time? So number one was mindset. Number two, skillset. If you want to have a culture environment of growth, we've got to have the mindset. We've got to understand what are the skills that we as leaders and teams need to do that. Derek, I see on there March Madness. Absolutely. You can get on there too. I love that. But, but lastly, what is the tool set? Who and what are the tools and resources you need to surround yourself with to be a great agency? I've got a contractor right now doing some work at my house he has a tool belt and a tool set.

Why?

So we can get the job done at the right time and be efficient and make me happy as a client. Same thing we need as agency leaders and as agencies as a whole. Now there's been some studies out there that are kind of alarming, quite honestly. There was a study first of all talked about professional service industries. And this is as a whole, this is not just insurance, but professional service industries, on average invest about 2% of their budget on training and development. 2%, as you can see here, independent insurance agencies, and this is a best practice study. 0.4% of their budget spent on training and development. Giving our team tools and resources and equipping them to go out and win in the marketplace. And then we go. I don't know why we're not doing as well. Our people aren't succeeding. Well, what have we equipped them with? Right? I know some of you on this are doing a great job, but I tell you what, it's something to think about. Now I'm going to take you back a lot of years ago. It doesn't really matter to you, but the story has a point, I promise is the fact that about, I don't know, let's just say 30ish years ago, I was a pretty good junior high basketball player, OK? I was the guy on my team. I scored the most points, I played all the games, all that kind of stuff. One summer I was asked to go to a travel league. Play in a travel league, very first game, never forget. I get the ball, get ready to shoot the ball, release it off my hands. And I saw something I'd never seen before. It was called an elite athlete who jumped up, blocked my shot, tipped the ball down, took three or four dribbles in the court and two hand tomahawk dunked it. As an eighth grader, I thought, oh, I remember I came to the bench very quickly. My coach pulled me out and he said, hey Brent, this isn't small town basketball anymore. I said, no, coach, it's not. And then he said something to me that I'll never forget. Because just like, you know, all of you, all of us, we have sometimes this untapped potential. I don't like the word potential because it's just potential, unrealized potential. But he put his arm around me. I'll never forget this. And he said, Brent, I'm going to tell you something right now. A lesson you can learn right now. The only way you're ever going to be the best basketball player. Now I'll transition to the best, whatever is by surrounding yourself with peers and competitors and coaches and people who, who are going to encourage and challenge you to be your best version possible. Because you've got to put yourself in a situation that's going to challenge you or you'll never grow. You'll be really good in a small town. But you know, that's not what you really could be. And deep down I knew it, right? Oftentimes, as insurance professionals and agencies, the bar is really low. We go, well, at least we're better than they are. But we know deep down in our heart there's so much more we could accomplish. One of my favorite things that I love the benefits of what people ask me, why do you love what you do? And hopefully you can see my passion in this is because on our training programs or a coaching call or whatever it is I'm having with an agency or an insurance professional, sometimes there's that click, the light bulb goes on. They've been kind of living in the darkness somewhere because of their own head trash or lack of beliefs, or maybe they weren't developing skill. I don't know. It could be a number of things. And suddenly they go, now I get it. I've been playing small. I'm ready to do something different. You know, we had one of our programs last week and it just reminded me I got to share this. The gentleman sat on here and again, very successful producer. He says, you know what? I never learned to swim by looking at the pool, right? Sometimes you got to get in. And that's when these light bulbs go off. I've talked today about this environment of growth, right? This culture and the environment of growth and what it means for you and your insurance agency. And I just want to share some things. Again, it was about the mindset, the skill set and the tool set. And I want to share some examples of some agencies that we've had the privilege of working with. Just to give you an idea of what it looks and feels like, so to speak, in the real world, right? To a degree. This agency right here. And by the way, these are all have all been featured on Rough Notes. If you're a rough night subscriber, you've probably seen them before. Really proud of these agencies. In fact, we have another agency that's going to be on Rough Notes next month, I believe. And again, it's because of their hard work and we're obviously providing some resources and equipping them in many different ways and coaching, but they're Doing all the hard stuff. And I want to share what they're doing. This agency here, this is Atlantic Shield Insurance Agency in South Carolina. Fantastic agency, like many agencies on hard work, was growing pretty good, but then hit that plateau. They were stuck a little bit writing capacity. And one of the things that we help them with is that you've got to have a clear one page business plan. Because what they realize is that at some point it becomes about the team and how do we get everyone on the same page. And so we talked a lot about that and they got really clear on their vision and their mission and their KPIs and the critical success factors and what's the one thing we're going to talk about. And the results are pretty awesome. Just over a couple years they went from 5.5% to 13.9% organic growth rate. Right? Cool stuff.

Why?

Because they had clarity of vision. There's a mindset. This agency here, EHD Insurance in Pennsylvania, one of our favorite agencies of implementers. Just great leadership team here. This is a large agency. This is about a $25 million agency. To give you an idea, this agency entirely focused, right again and again and again on telling a compelling story. They did a lot of other things, but how do we differentiate? I mentioned earlier, how do we position ourselves in a way that's really interesting and unusual? And we don't teach broker of record letters. Just so you all know, at Sitkins, we believe that a broker of record or agent of record is a natural outcome of a great sales process. At that point people go, well, just let's go. And this agency in 2019, 1.14 million in revenue just on Bors alone. And they were on pace in 2020, did the same even in a Covid year. Why? Because they're able to tell a compelling story up front to change the conversation from quotes and transactions to risk advice and relationships. This agency here, Specialty Risk Insurance in Missouri, just under a $5 million agency. A fantastic agency. They're specialists in AG, so they know their thing. You can probably tell there with the cowboy hat, this is their leadership team. One of the things that they have done and continue to do is they're accountable to doing what they said they were going to do. How many times have we said something to ourself or our team that we thought was a good idea and then we're like, and your team's looking around, they're going, don't worry, this too shall pass. They know you're going to forget, right? We always have good Ideas. This agent said, no, this is who we are, this is what we're going to do. And they implemented a practice schedule and they went on and they continued to get better and improve about performance. And pretty incredible. This is November of 19th to November of 20, so one year over 63% increase in sales. Because guess what? In a Covid year, most other agencies are like, we'll just get through it. We're like, we're going to make something special happen. Right? That's the mentality that we talk about now. We run programs all the time and a big part of this is getting you on a process of consistency, right? Of consistency. I mentioned some of the tools and I talked about who you surround yourself and what you surround yourself with. Listen, I just want you to surround yourself with people that are going to challenge you and grow you. And I'll share some things that we have that we do. You may have seen some of the things you may have not, but things that I mentioned. Again, this is just an example of some of the tools and resources. A one page business plan, a producer's perfect schedule, Producers account, our producers performance agreement, right? All these kind of things that are so important to give agencies tools and resources so you can do the things you want to do, right? We've got online portals and videos and video libraries, all kinds of things to help you as an agency that be that best version possible. Now last year, let's see, you all know, we ran all these programs in different capacities. All right, I'm not going to go through the specifics that I'll bore you to death to some degree. But I'll tell you this. We've done stuff in sales and sales leadership and agency leadership, right? We've done stuff in sales, sales leadership, agency leadership and service training. We have the better way agency. We have tools and resources. We're running monthly sales meetings. We're doing all these things that have all been very successful in their own right. But one of the things that people ask is, well, how do we put all this together? What's a roadmap? And I want to talk just for a second. First of all, of what most agencies know us for, the obvious thing is our Producer FIT program, our sales training program. And some of you have been through our producer sales training program. Our next program for producer fit starts March 30. It is our most popular, most successful program by far. It allows the producers to be in a culture, an environment of growth, right, for their business. And just last year, just so you know, one year we're finishing up our fourth virtual live sessions right now. We've had over 200 producers go through this program very successfully. Now, it's not about our rating, but I'll tell you, we take getting ratings and feedback from every single producer that wants to give us a rating. Our rating last year is 9.31. We love this program because we know it changes producers, it transforms them. And we have producers that sign up all the time. 1197 is the program. Right. And that starts the next one, starts March 30th. And Bethany, if you could put the link on there. So people want to learn more about the Producer fit program, if it's right for their agency. Want to make sure you're aware of that. Again, with virtual, we can extend our capacity, but I just want to make sure that you all have access to that get a very successful program in so many different ways. But as I mentioned, we had all these a la carte programs and it all starts with Virtual Producer Fit. And people will say, well, what about some of the other stuff that you do? Is this something that I can be part of or what does it look like? And we designed and created something last year and starting this year that has never been done before. That's part of what I want to share with you today is the fact that we know that 2020 was a tough year. There's no doubt, right? And so I shared agencies that have killed it and very, very successful. But it's still been a huge challenge. And so we thought, what can we do to give agencies the absolute best chance to succeed? A complete roadmap at their level, at their speed, of what they want, to make sure meet them where they're at to get the results they truly want. And so we looked at, well, what if we take our virtual Producer Fit that so many people have had success with, and we add the monthly sales meeting, the virtual account Manager fit, our CEO program, our bootcamp, our CEO fit program, our CRO. And again, not just throw out names. It's our sales leadership, our better way model and take all of these things and all agencies to ask them on a monthly basis. Now you can see here, we're asking 497amonth, which is absolutely insane, to be quite honest, of what we're providing. As you can see, the Producer fit program is 1197. It's worth 10x that. Beyond that, it's a great return on investment for producers. We see it all the time, 497amonth, and it lasts till March 10 after March 10, it is going to go up $500. We've talked about it before and for this first quarter, our producer camp starts March 30th. We've got to get enough time to get all our producers in, get them the workbooks, the resources, everything they need to get ready to get started, put our team in a great position. And by the way, 497amonth is what it's going to be up till 310. After that it's going to jump to 997. And I will say this is for agencies that are $3 million and less. If you're more than 3 million, if you're 3 million to 500 or 3 million to 5 million, it jumps at 500 bucks. If you're 5 million to 10 million, it's 500. So obviously one more capacity, more producers, more professionals. We wanted to give you a simplified sales plan, an agency roadmap that everybody could use when you want, how you want. You don't have to attend every program. You can go when you want. But we're going to help you with that roadmap. I'm going to wrap up with this and I think, Bethany, you put the chat on there for the all inclusive model. It's our all inclusive membership again. It's only been done. This is the only time it's ever been done and we're excited to share it with you. But I want to go back and just ask you a question. Are you going to be the eagle or the crow? I talked about eagles flying high and think about what crows do, what crows represent. We have a lot of acronyms at Sitkins. Some of you know this. I've been through our programs in the past, a lot of acronyms. Here's one for a crow. Write this down. Can't resist old ways. Can't resist old ways. We're going to keep doing what we've done because it's okay. And by the way, this is not right. The all inclusive membership and even the producer fit, it's not right for everybody. I get that. That's okay, right? I understand that. But for agencies that really want to be eagles, that want to have that clarity with vision, that really looking to be fearless, to be tenacious, to protect their clients and work with their team, to be high flyers, to do things other agencies aren't doing and of course nurture the young that I talked about today. Really want to invite you to engage in a process with us as you move forward for all inclusive membership. And of course, our producer FIT program. Now again, I'm going to stay on and answer some questions. Again, if this is not a fit for you for all inclusive membership, we understand and we thank you and I hope that you are able to take some notes today, share some ideas about leadership and mindset, skill set and of course the tool set that are going to help you be your best version possible to cultivate that environment of growth. And I appreciate that. If you want to hang on, I'm going to answer some frequently asked questions. If you have some questions, we're going to do our best to answer them as well. I'm actually going to bring on Roger. He may want to be adding some things here. So I'm going to close this down for a second and stop share. Roger, are you with us?

I am here, absolutely.

The Grand Poohbah, Roger Sitkins is with us. So Roger, see if you want to add some things.

Well, I get to see Jeff Jones again and he's in our elite 50 sales mastery program and he's here taking more notes. Jeff, one day you're going to figure out how to get that 3 million of revenue on your own book to 4. So it's good to have you here, my friend. So many great pictures. You know, there's my buddy Matt Hughes leaning in. Just have some. Any questions you have, you can virtually raise your hand and we've got a bigger group you can't do wave, we won't see you. But just go down to participant, click on raise your hand and any question you have or whatever. What Brent had to share something we can share. We'd love to do it with you. So let's see Brent, if we get some hand coming up here, I'll look.

For some questions here and just a couple of things that I want for this group that's on here wants to.

Hear a little more.

Just some things to think about and questions that we often hear. You know, one of those is is there a guarantee? Yeah, we have a guarantee in everything that we do. So at any point you don't think you're getting value for what we provide. You know, we're guaranteed to give you what we can and as long as you're doing the work, you're going to get results. But we have everything that's absolutely guaranteed. So I want to make sure that was. No, I didn't mention that before, but I would say this too. It's guaranteed. But I mentioned a process like any agency that goes, well, we're going to do one month and we'll have it all figured out. I think you're probably not going to be a good fit. Okay. We're looking for agencies that really want to commit for extended months to really change the game in their agency. And we all know that we're not going to put anything, you know, we're not going to have some crazy contract or make it difficult for you. But I just want to know, going in, we have our guarantee. We would ask from you, if you're an agency that wants to be part of this, is make sure that you engage this in a long term process. Rod, you want to add to that?

Well, we got a question that came and said, what's the success rate on the producer fit program? Well, the way we measured a whole bunch of different ways. First of all, the 100% guarantee. We've, in all the years I've been doing this, we've only had one producer. They never asked for the money back. One agency, and it just wasn't for them. That's fine. Okay. The success rate overall in our mastery programs as we've managed them, we normally see that the closing ratio for the average attendee basically goes from a starting point of roughly 42%. But then when they really commit, they're up in that 70 to 80% that we strive for. Our best producers, our sales mastery people, they're at 85% closing ratio. The other part then is just what's the growth rate for the agency overall? Well, the growth last year for the national brokers, if you read Reagan studies, was only 4.6%. Well, that's pretty low. What do we believe it should be? Well, what we see with our best agencies, the ones that commit, the producers that commit, it's normally 3x that. So we're looking at 12 to 15%. And of course, we've always got the great ones like specialty risk. And again, they're not a small agency. They're $5 million income agency. They grew by 63% improved sales, and just because of the fact that they committed. And a huge part of this is not just our role as the coaches and to challenge the thinking, but it's the fact that they do have a commitment. They have a culture of accountability. It's that the leadership that Brent talked about. So it's crucial in all of this. No doubt about it. Any of the questions that have come up, Brent, that you see, let me.

See here, there might have been some earlier. Okay. Chrissy answered the generic five questions.

So thank you, Chrissy.

I did go through that pretty quickly. I know it Was a lot of information in a short amount of time.

Let's see here.

Any other questions anybody has?

Just in general, let's call out one of our friends here. I'm going to have to go to Dr. Jeff Jones because he's such a good friend. Bethany, if you could highlight. Dr. Jones. Was called Dr. Jones. Kidding around. Jeff Jones. Is he still there? Bethany?

I'm here.

Jeff. You and I worked together for a long, long time. I'm kind of ambushing you here. What would you tell somebody that's considered. By the way, did we set this up? No, I should have. I should have. I should have called you, but go ahead, Jeff, what would you say?

Oh, so, Roger, I think our first official training session was in 1997 or 98.

I think I had hair then. Yeah.

No, I'm not sure that I met you way before then. And it's interesting. I like to refer to what you and Brent do to weight loss. So weight loss is really easy. All you have to do is eat less, exercise more, write down what you eat, weigh yourself once a week. You'll lose weight. Well, including myself, there's a lot of overweight people. You know, what are the techniques you do to try to change? We've seen terrific results. Even our company IOA, we had about 30 producers go through a producer fit program. I would say 80% of those have completely changed the way they do things and have seen extraordinary results. Roger, myself, even though still bordering with a smallish book at 3.5 million, I'm continuing to attend because I get something every meeting. I really do.

Thank you. Thank you. You know, you brought up a good thing about the weight loss. And one of the things that I talk about to group, I said, you know, I'm not overweight because of my gym membership. Okay? I've got to use it better. I'm really trying. And, Jeff, you're a motivator for me. Brent, what else has come up?

I think you answered both the questions that came up. I'm just looking through here if there's anything else that I meant. Oh, what was the first point under professional fitness? I'm trying to remember exactly where I was in the presentation there. I know a professional. This may not answer your question, Christine, but it's what we talk about if I didn't mention it. But we look at professional fitness in three areas. Clarity, consistency, and commitment. I don't know that I've referenced that directly on this live workshop, but we see with the best agencies. And I've talked to Roger So many times and learning from his experience and just working with agencies. How do you tie all this together? And I see in the best agencies are very clear on who they are, right? Where they are, where they want to go, how they're going to get there. They're very consistent on just a few basic things. You know, they don't. It's not rocket science. And number three is they make a commitment. And so those are all the points of professional fitness that we often talk about. I think so. So often we make things harder than they have to be. Not to say this is easy, but we make it harder than it has to be. And a big part of that is we, you know, we focus on too many things and you can't focus on too many things. So I don't answer your question, but that's what came to my mind.

So thank you. And one of the things to keep in mind here, it's about keeping it simple. You know, I just think that too many people are sitting out there, not you, because you're here and preaching to the choir. But people are sitting there listening to the clicks, pings, dings and rings, thinking it's going to answer their problems. It's the magic pill, if you will. It takes work. It takes work to get this done. And it's hard work. But one of the things I learned a long time ago, in business and in life, you can do the easy things now if you want to take the easy way out. And in our business, you can take the easy way out, you can be semi successful. To the world, you look pretty good, but at the end of your career, you're not going to be successful. You're not going to have financial freedom. So if you take the easy way now, life will be later, will be hard later. If you'll do the tougher things now, it gets way easier later. And so the tougher things are just committing to do the things we've talked about. And we could give you hundreds of strategies. But guess what? No, what you need is a few basic things that in our acronyms we say we go very, very deep, delivering excellence in every single process. And a thought that that's really about the last year, Brent, I think as I've been using this, and our sales master, people and our agencies around here that know us have heard this more than once is that when you look at your. Your business, when you look at your life, when you look at your agency overall, your own book of business, whatever, the two things to be aware of, number one, what's your current direction. And then number two, what's your desired destination? Please write those two words down. Direction and destination. So if you were to go back and say, where was I five years ago? Where was I three years ago? Where am I today? And let's say we're charting that and you connect those lines, that's your trend, that's your direction. And if you continue to do that for the next five to 10 years, where do you wind up? But then you take another trend line and you say, okay, but where do I want to be? So let's say your Energy is at $5 million now, but you continue the current trend. You might be at 7, but your desired destination is 10. So if you do the trend line and then the desired destination line, you see a gap. In this case, the gap is 3 million revenue. Well, 3 million of revenue at a 30% profit is a lot of money times 15 or 16 times millions and millions of dollars of value that are lost. So I would just challenge all of you whether you work with us, okay. Or whether you work with someone else or you don't work with anybody but yourself. Just consider that direction and destination. And when you see a gap. Acronyms Again, when you see a gap, what are your goals and plans for growth and profit? Just something I would challenge you to think about. What are my goals and plans for growth and profit? Gap. Gap. Okay. And when you can get a handle on that and say, what's the easiest way to do it? Well, it's to commit to a program. It's to commit to do the things that again, it's 100% guaranteed. You have absolutely nothing to lose. And as Brent said, there's no other firm in the country that doing an all inclusive model like this. We could have never done this a year ago. We could have never done it a year ago, but it's something we're offering today. So, Brett, back to you.

Yeah. One of the questions that came up and Chris, the answer in the chat, but it's a fair question, is what's the pricing model look like? Is it per person? No, it's the revenue of the agency after you get that. You know, for example, if you're a $2.5 million revenue agency, it's 497 for as many people, as often as you want, as long as you want. That's the beauty of the model. In fact, we've got our first group of all inclusive that started this year. The first time we mentioned it, one of our agency partners, I don't know how many people they have on our programs. But it's pretty incredible. I think, you know, I'm talking about they're in our leadership program. They've been part of our sales management. They've got put all the producers through it. And I mean, it's incredible value. And they're the first to say that. And that's why I've said we want to give agencies an opportunity to do this. We know we can't sustain that price model for capacity for that long. So if it is an interest, make sure by March 10th you do something because it will be $500 more per month. And again, I believe we don't do this if we don't believe in what we do and the results and transformation for agencies. So that's really what it's all about. And I can tell you it's a great investment at a higher price point, but certainly at this one. So let me see, any other questions here? I don't see any. Everybody, a question. Just again, whether it's on the content I shared. Any questions to do with the program itself that I mentioned. Anything that's coming up, Roger, I must. We must have answered them all. We mustn't just. They got it all figured out.

I have to read one quote from Jason Barton. Jason, it's good to see you again. This sounds like a setup here. It's just I've been learning from Roger since 1999. Again, Days of hair. And there's no organization better suited to train producers, engaged people than Sitkins Group. They are my secret weapon. Well, we'll keep it just between us. With that, Brent, I think we can sign off and if anybody has anything else, they can drop us a note. We'd love to see you join us in this all inclusive model.

Pleasure. Hey, thanks so much for your time. Appreciate it. Again, we'd love to be part of our all inclusive model and be an eagle. We look forward to talking to you soon. So have a great rest of the week. Talk to you soon.

You weigh yourself once a week, you lose weight. Well, including myself, there's a lot of overweight people. You know, what are the techniques you do to try to change? We've seen terrific results. Even our company, IOA, we had about 30 producers go through a producer fit program. I would say 80% of those have completely changed the way they do things and have seen extraordinary results. Roger, myself, even though still bordering with a smallish book at 3.5 million, I'm continuing to attend because I get something every meeting I really do.

Thank you. Thank you. You know, you brought up a good thing about the weight loss. And one of the things that I talk about to group, I said, you know, I'm not overweight because of my gym membership. Okay. I've got to use it better. I'm really trying. And Jeff, you're a motivator for me. Brent, what else has come up?

I think you answered both the questions that came up. I'm just looking through here if there's anything else that I meant. Oh, what was the first point under professional fitness? I'm trying to remember exactly where I was in that. In the presentation there. I know a professional. This may not answer your question, Christine, but it's what we talk about if I didn't mention it. But we look at professional fitness in three areas. Clarity, consistency, and commitment. I don't know that I've referenced that directly on this live workshop, but we see with the best agencies, and I've talked to Roger so many times and learning from his experience and just working with agencies, how do you tie all this together? And I see the best agencies are very clear on who they are, where they are, where they want to go, how they're going to get there. They're very consistent on just a few basic things. You know, they don't. It's not rocket science. And number three is they make a commitment. And so those are all the points of professional fitness that we often talk about. I think so often we make things harder than they have to be. Not to say this is easy, but we make it harder than it has to be. And a big part of that is we, you know, we focus on too many things, and you can't focus on too many things. So I don't know if that answered your question, but that's what came to my mind.

So thank you. And one of the things to keep in mind here, it's about keeping it simple. You know, I just think that too many people are sitting out there, not you, because you're here and preaching to the choir. But people are sitting there listening to the clicks, pings, dings, and rings, thinking it's going to answer their problems. It's the magic pill, if you will. It takes work. It takes work to get this done, and it's hard work. But one of the things I learned a long time ago, in business and in life, you can do the easy things. Now if you want to take the easy way out. And in our business, you can take the easy way out, you can be semi successful into the world. You look pretty good, but at the end of your career, you're not going to be successful. You're not going to have financial freedom. So if you take the easy way now, life will be later, will be hard later. If you'll do the tougher things now, it gets way easier later. And so the tougher things are just committing to do the things we've talked about. And we could give you hundreds of strategies. But guess what? No, what you need is a few basic things that in our acronym, as we say, we go very, very deep, delivering excellence in every single process. And a thought that that's really about the last year, Brent. I think, as I've been using this and our sales master people and our agencies that are on here that know us, have heard this more than once, is that when you look at your business, when you look at your life, when you look at your agency overall, your own book of business, whatever, the two things to be aware of, number one, what's your current direction? And then number two, what's your desired destination? Please write those two words down, direction and destination. So if you were to go back and say, where was I five years ago? Where was I three years ago? Where am I today? And let's say we're charting that and you connect those lines, that's your trend, that's your direction. And if you continue to do that for the next five to 10 years, where do you wind up? But then you take another trend line and you say, okay, but where do I want to be? So let's say your age is at $5 million now, but you continue the current trend. You might be at 7, but your desired destination is 10. So if you do the trend line and then the desired destination line, you see a gap. In this case, the gap's 3 million of revenue. Well, 3 million of revenue at a 30% profit is a lot of money times 15 or 16 times millions and millions of dollars of value that are lost. So I would just challenge all of you whether you work with us, okay. Or whether you work with someone else or you don't work with anybody but yourself. Just consider that direction and destination. And when you see a gap, Acronyms. Again, when you see a gap, what are your goals and plans for growth and profit? Just something I would challenge you to think about. What are my goals and plans for growth and profit? Gap. Gap. Okay. And when you can get a handle on that and say, what's the easiest way to do it? Well, it's to commit to a program. It's to commit to do the things that again, it's 100% guaranteed. You have absolutely nothing to lose. And as Brent said, there's no other firm in the country doing an all inclusive model like this. We could have never done this again.