Deep Learning Experience

Welcome to the Agent Leader podcast. My name is Brent Kelly, your host. Thanks so much for joining me on today's episode. Excited we have a very, very special guest. He's been a repeat guest now, which hopefully he'll continue to repeat more often. Roger Sitkins, CEO of the Sitkins Group, is with me here today. Roger, welcome.

Thanks Brent. It's great to be with you again.

Well, wonderful. It's always great to have Roger's expertise and thought process on this podcast. I know a lot of you have reached out to me and have appreciate having Roger on other guests as well. We'll continue to do that. Before I get into today's topic which is going to be around deep learning and just kind of going deeper in your agency, I just want to reference a couple things. We had just returned back and admits all this craziness as you all are dealing with out there with the coronavirus right now, but had a couple events prior to when it really took hold. One was our elite 50 group, which is our mastermind of high level achieving insurance producers. We had a day and a half with them and then also had our profit networking event which I mentioned on this podcast podcast a few different times. We bring our agency leaders in and also again do some more speaking and coaching and most importantly, network and mastermind. I think one of the greatest takeaways, if not the greatest takeaway, it was my greatest takeaway was this idea, this concept of how can we go deeper. That deep learning experience with producers, with agencies where we're not just touching a bunch of things just because we should and because we're busy and because they're, they're visual even. It's because we're finding the right things to go deeper in and really make that commitment to go deeper. And so Roger introduced a topic at the elite 50 group DLX for the first time. Deep learning experience. And I think I'll say it, Roger may not say it, but it was a home run. The attendees loved it. We really got into some areas where we thought again, not just oh, here's some things that we could do, but what are the things that we will do and how deep will they go and what will be the impact be? And just really went deeper. So Roger, again, it's great to have you on the podcast and I just wanted to kind of tee that topic up because again, you hit it out of the park in introducing it at our live events and I want the podcast audience to kind of get a taste of some of this dlx. So I've Kind of explained a little bit. But what does DLX mean and what does it mean to you, Roger?

Well, it was one of those blinding flashes of the obvious as I, as I've looked at things in an agency and, you know, what works, what doesn't work, how do we take what works and replicate it? And the thing that's not working, why doesn't it work? And we're out there creating so much intellectual capital, intellectual property, we're sharing lessons with agencies. And one of my blinding flashes of the obvious is that there are always more great ideas than there is time and capacity to implement them. And if we have some of the quick start, those of you that know about quick starts and the Colby profile, we have this idea, we have that idea. It's another bright and shiny. It's a squirrel we can chase. And it just dawned on me that most of us chase way too many things and we're not going deep. And as you recall, we wound up using the analogy of an iceberg, which we've used on a lot of things through the years. But with an iceberg, 10% of it's above the waterline, 90% is below the waterline. And so as I drew that with the Elite 50, I said, you know, this, above the waterline, 10%. It's all the ideas that we talk about, we chase and we do them pretty shallow and we never really have to get too deep. So I realized that if we could do fewer things but go deeper on them, then we're not only going to have the deep learning experience, more importantly, we're going to have deep learning execution. And the people that have bought into this already are just. You talk about hitting home runs. The feedback we're getting has been phenomenal.

Yeah. Again, there was obviously a lot of heads nodding at the event and thinking about this. And I mentioned to you, Roger, even in my own journaling for 2000, for 2020, I always have a theme every year. And this year it was go deeper. And so, you know, I was already kind of thinking through that and we had talked about it, but we took it to the agency perspective of how are they going to go deeper. Again, I think the first level was awareness. Oh, my gosh, we haven't been been going deep enough. So I guess a follow up question I want to ask you because again, it was a lot of nodding in the room, but for the listeners and for insurance agency leaders, right now, we why is it so important just to understand this deep learning model, this deep learning experience and then begin to Implement some aspects of deeper work.

Well, it's not for everybody, let's face it. Some people can do really well going shallow on a lot of things and it's a great business. I know we'll talk about that a little bit more, but it's crucial because if you're going to defeat commoditization, if you're going to differentiate in your marketplace, you've got to do things that other people aren't doing. And so, so many times just they talk a good idea like, okay, we're going to do a great job of relationship management. We're going to do a great job of differentiating in the marketplace. You know, we're out of five points of differentiation. We're going to earn and in fact generate referrals and introductions. We talk about all these things we're going to do and we just do them at such a shallow, shallow level and we never really master them. And mastery is what this is all about. As you know, within our elite 50 mastermind program, the producers are taking the strategies and behaviors we talk about and not surprisingly, the ones that go really deep, they understand it, they learn it, but then more importantly, they execute at a high level. They're the ones that are just getting phenomenal growth rates.

Yeah, that word execute, obviously Roger, we talk a lot about that and that was my keynote at Profit Net. And I just think, as you were saying that it just hits me again that how many times whether for us, we, we see it at a producer camp, not as much elite 50 because these are higher level producers, but you know, with agencies across, across the country that will say, well, I know that, Brent. Roger, I've heard that, I know that. And my question always is, well, how well are you actually doing it? And that's the execution part. And for many of it you mentioned quick start, you know, we're shiny object people in general, whether we're producers or agency leaders. And so it's so easy to go, you know, this is a really good idea on Monday and by Tuesday we go now what was that idea again? And so we never gained, gain traction on it. I want you to share, Roger, if you could, because you again, you've worked with agencies for a long period of time and I think we can reference some of the agencies that we, that we coach today on our private network. But what are some examples that you've seen of agencies that have actually implemented and executed deep learning, this deep learning experience and what impacted have you seen with their results?

Well, that's going to be a Deep. Talk about a deep question. The great examples, the concepts of again, five points of differentiation. That's easy. People do it, they write it down, but then how deep do they take it? And as you know, our best members are the ones that have taken. They know the five points of differentiation. They know exactly what's in it for the future ideal client. They have a piece of evidence. And then of course, they also know the two or three questions they're going to ask those peer to peer questions that will absolutely open new files in the prospect of future ideal clients brain. And so we talk about it and people do a partial job and then they come back to the next live session and we ambush them. Or we talk with the sales leaders at an agency and we get them to ambush their producers saying, okay, share with me right now what our five points of differentiation are. And not surprisingly, the ones that are getting the great results literally have gone so deep on this and have practiced it so much, they have an eyelid tattoo, they can do it in a very comfortable and conversational manner. So great example of it. Another one. And I love this one. And this is going to sound so basic and yeah, I've heard it before, but have you done it? You know the thing you always talk about, Brent, the performance gap between what we know and what we do. The greatest gap out there. But it's the agencies that are out there managing relationships, doing the things they know they should do to earn and in fact generate a referral. We've got a group right now that they're just kicking butt. We've got one of our members, they have four, almost five, but at this point, four producers that have a major, major problem. And the problem is they have more referrals than they can ever follow up on. And what they're doing is they're taking the concept of managing the relationships, going deep, doing the things that will earn, directly earn a referral, but then they're actually asking for one, getting one and following up on it. And they're following our whole reverse referral process of identifying future ideal clients, getting a specific list. So when they go to see a client, they have a customized list of the people they're asking to be referred to. And this sounds basic, but what percent of the people listening right now have heard that most? But have they done it? Have they done it? So it's about doing what you said you were going to do and just taking it deep. One of the best agencies we've ever worked with took the idea of specialization and they said you know what? We're going to only have five classes of business. We work on only five. And they were the first agency I ever had that got to 200,000 of revenue per employee. Then they got to 250. Then they got to $275,000 of revenue per employee. What was the big difference? They were specialists, not general practitioners. So those are just a few examples of people saying, we're not going to chase everything. Because I think one of the big problems we have now, Brent, is everybody thinks there is that magic wand or that pill that we take that automatically gets us better. And we say, let's try this idea. Let's try this idea. Let's try this idea. Nothing works that quickly. This is not a get rich quick scheme. This is about doing what you said you were going to do and going very, very deep and staying with it long term. That's the difference.

Yeah. One thing I see, Roger all the time, and I am guilty of this in many areas of my own life. And so I become more aware when I talk to agencies and talk to you about things, is I'm a really good starter. I mean, I get a gold medal in starting like, hey, Roger, I got a new idea today. But then it's to filter down and say, you know, is that a good idea? Does that make sense? And then when you decide that it is, and it does make sense, and am I willing to put the time and effort, energy into actually executing that idea? Which, by the way, is going to suck some days, and I hate to use that term, but it's true. Right? It's just you have to embrace it. You know, some days it's not going to be fun. But you know what? We've realized that it is important for me, for the agency, for our clients, for our community, whatever it may be. So we're going to stick with it. We're not going to just veer off when things get hard. And if I could just for a second, and I will, because I have the microphone right now, brag on a couple agencies that I work with because they've taken just a couple areas, like you said, Rob, and it hit me as you were, you're talking about that just last year. And we always joke, one of our top members, we call them the poster child because they've done so many things in implementing ehd. And Jim Lewis has been on this podcast. But, you know, one of the things they did last year was just really dive deep on the differentiation which you just talked about. And being able to tell Your story at a better way that ask better questions. And last year they had 69 broker of record accounts that they wrote average of 14,000 revenue per account. Right. That's pretty good.

And that adds up to just a little bit over a million dollars of revenue.

They did a million dollars in new revenue just on broker of records. And by the way, you know, just for those that don't know us that well, we don't teach our selling process around broker of records. However, it often is the outcome because we're able to tell our story, position ourself in such a way that it becomes more part of the natural outcome in many of these cases. And that's what EHD did. And a million dollars new business revenue just on that. Another agency I work with really focused and maintained laser focused on a top 100 board saying, Listen, we're going to put our top 100 clients on a board and we're going to make it visual and we're going to continue to reinforce and talk about it. And last year they wrote $480,000 in new revenue just by having something visual and being consistent and going to the finish line. And what happens with most agencies is they go, oh, differentiation, yeah, you know, we should do that. And then they talk about it and then it's gone. Or, hey, we should really get focused on our Dream 100 or top 20 list for all of our producers. Yeah, are you doing that ad? Don't worry about it. We'll do something else now. And they lose focus and they go, well, this isn't working well, it's because you haven't executed. So I just had to, had to jump in there and do some bragging because it just shows proof that when you do dive deep and it doesn't take that many areas, it's the right areas, great results happen. So now that I just said that, kind of got my soapbox a little bit. Roger, you can, you can pull me down.

What?

I mean, I guess the question, maybe we already answered this to a degree, but why do most agencies stay shallow? Because I can talk about, you can talk about your results with clients. I could talk about results with some of the clients that I'm working with. And people go, oh, wow, we should do that. But here's what we both know. Most won't.

Why they don't have to. It's pretty simple. They don't have to. This is such a great business that they don't have to go deep. They can go shallow and do really, really well, as you know. And A lot of the people that are listening have been through our programs. We always kid around at our producer programs. We say, how many of you are making more money than you thought you'd make? How many of you are making more money than your siblings or your parents or your best friends? Most hands go up. Then I say, well, how many of you are making more money than you'd make if you had a real job? Of course they start laughing, and I say, how many of us would be fired if we had a real job? And of course people are, you know, they don't even want to make eye contact at that point. This is a great business to be in as far as getting great results. Now, you can do way better than the rest just by staying shallow, just because it is such a good business. I mean, how many other stuff. Sales jobs, if we're just talking about producers, have a situation where they start the year with at least 90% of what they made last year. Pretty much guaranteed. Pretty much guaranteed. And then they go out and sell some new business. And if they've got a decent book of business and they can get a 5, 6, 7, 8% raise every year because they just do the normal organic growth rate, they're doing okay. The agencies themselves, the owners, you know what, they're doing fine. And it's a great, great return on their investment. And every hundred thousand dollars of increased profit is worth a million and a half dollars more in their personal asset, you know, so it's just a great, great business to do. Now, again, why don't they. Well, for all the reasons I just said, plus there's just not the discipline. There's, there's. They're just doing okay. They start the day or the week with good intentions. But at the end of it all, and something you and I both talk about, at the end of it all, they're going to have some regrets. And rather than having regrets, one of the things we've coined recently is you have regrets or regrets. And regrets are, I wish I would have and could have. I could have been so much better. And regrets are doing the stuff. And now thinking, how do we go deep to get great results and then replicate them on a regular basis?

That's. That's fantastic, Roger. I mean, I think you hit the nail on the head there as far as you don't have to. I mean, that's the simple answer. You don't have to. And we say that, you know, quite a bit. I was just going to throw in as well that something we talk about all the time with our clients. And I've talked about this podcast before and you've talked about it and things that you've written in and been part of is this idea that we've got to have a culture and now a cadence of accountability.

Yeah, that.

Right. The culture is here's who we are, here's why we do things. This is, this is, this is us and this is non optional. Some of these things are non optional versus, you know, well, you know, this is what we're thinking of. And yeah, maybe you should do it. And by the way, we're going to check up on it, follow up on it, never and it should be fine. And you know, but that's really what happens oftentimes. And I joke and Roger, you've heard me say this before. You know, there's a lot of lessons you can learn from kids and I have that many times, my own kids where I have to slap myself on the head. It's like, you know, I expect them to do some of this stuff, but I haven't talked about it that much and there's been no accountability behind it. So why would I expect their behavior to change? And that happens so often in the insurance world as well.

Absolutely.

So final question here. Well, maybe I'll put a couple here together and I want to get some of your final thoughts because we've talked about some areas already. You mentioned differentiation, specialization. I talked about a few things of where to go deeper. But what would be a piece of advice or maybe an action step? So someone listening right now saying, Roger, you've got, you know, a lot of years of experience, a lot of agencies have had success. What would be an area? What's a piece of advice? You could help me to help me go deeper and get better results.

About 97 things. But if I had to boil it down to one right now, and understanding the importance of relationships and everything that's going on with the coronavirus and reaching out to our best clients, best future, ideal clients, best centers of influence. But if it's just about pure implementation, right now it's about differentiation because it's so noisy out there and there's so much digital disruption going on and every time you turn around looks like somebody's trying to replace the agent with something that's online. And I firmly believe that the transactions and all these other things that we can digitize, we should do. But on those accounts you're pursuing that are much more the future ideal client. What's your selling system? What's your set Offense, how are you going to go out there and score points? And so we see this as one of the biggest challenges is to get people away from that old way of selling, which we kiddingly call look, copy, quote and pray and the show up, throw up and blow up syndrome versus saying we have a unique process that we take people through. And even in large agencies, when they reach out to us and they say, hey, we'd like to apply to be part of your network. And one of the first questions we ask them, other than some basics about size and revenue, per employee, et cetera, is just, what's your selling system? What's your process? What differentiates you most? Don't have it. When I ask agency owners, can you share with me a copy of the executive briefing? You share with your future ideal clients in your first meeting. And for so many of them, the first meeting is nothing more than, hi, nice to meet you. Let's look at your policies versus let's talk about how we're different. I want to learn more about your company and what you do to control your total cost of risk or total cost of benefits. And really opening those new files. And this comes back to the pots. So how deep does an agency go on a selling system other than show up, take copious notes and give quotes? So the best agencies have a selling process that's unique to them. Like in our case, our members, as you know, have the risk concierge approach. It's a different approach. It's branded differently. The whole process is different. It looks different. Because what we have to do moving forward is we have to. You've used the term on here before. We have to open new files. Because when the prospect thinks insurance, they immediately think of every experience they've had. They've got a file in their brain labeled insurance. And everything that they've ever heard or seen is in there. And that's why too many agencies still hear all you insurance people are all the same. So we have to do is ask questions and have a unique enough process that the prospect, again, future ideal client, literally says, no one's ever asked me that before. No one ever brought up. Brought that up before. I never realized that before. That's where they're differentiating. But that takes a really deep dive.

You reminded me there, as you're saying that, of several things. I took a few notes as you were, as you were talking through that, but I, and I don't know if baseball season will ever even take place this year with all that's going on. But it Just, you know, got me thinking of a lot of, you know, a lot of agencies out there and producers in particular. You know, I step up to the plate, and they never look at ways of having a, you know, a plan in place. I'll just get up there and swing at it if it, you know, if I hit, I'll hit a few and I'll miss some, and so be it. But the great ones really fine tune and analyze, you know, what can I do differently? Because, as you know, Roger, just a few points and batting, you know, in your batting percentage, your average is a difference between single A to the pros, you know, all the way to the top. And so that's what we see with agencies. You can. You can play small ball or you can kind of play with the big boys. And a lot of that doesn't take, you know, this. This whole crazy thing. It's just being really intentional. And I think you mentioned our network, and I just want to share with everybody out there that, you know, people ask, you know, what is it all about? And I want to simplify because it really can be. It's diving deep in the right areas, is that we really want to help agencies gain clarity, to give you a plan, to help you prioritize the right things to do. Because so many of us want to do a hundred things and we can't do them all. Find a few things that do exceptionally well. And then, Rod, you were talking about, you know, the risk concierge, which is part of our playbook. So how can we be more consistent? Well, we got to have a playbook that everyone can get on the same page. And, okay, this is the plays that we're running. It can always be modified for your agency, but got to have a playbook. And as you alluded to, Roger, I don't know the exact number, but I would guess 95, 96, 97% of agencies don't really have one. I don't know if you'd agree with that, but it's got to be somewhere in that range. Yeah, maybe 98. You know, it's not many. And just by having that differentiate you, as you were talking to then lastly, I always talk about a commitment, and I mentioned culture and cadence of accountability, but really it's about production. If we don't make a commitment of having coaching and being surrounded by other peers and, you know, committing to the fact that These are our KPIs that we're going to look at and we're going to measure right around our right behaviors and Strategies, we're just guessing. And as Roger said earlier, luckily, because the business is so good, you're probably gonna be okay. But if you're an agency out there that says, you know, I'm not okay with being okay or just good, I wanna be great or excellent or my best version, then we'd love to have a conversation with you. So you can reach us@sitkins.com, s I t k I n s.com and if you wanna learn more about our network, our private client group, it's sitkins.com TSN, which is the Sitkins network. So, Roger, thanks again for hopping on. It's always get your feedback, advice and learning.

Brad, it's really been great being on here. I want to share one final thought. When we were at the networking meeting last week and we were talking about going deep and everybody was buying in and there were so many great comments about it, I had one of those blinding flashes of the obvious, as we always call them, the BFOs. And I said to the group, let me ask you guys a question. If everyone in your agency did everything they said they were going to do, how great would your agency be? How great would your results be? And boy, you talk about some people just lighting up. And I said it again. Let's just think about this. If everyone in your agency did everything they said they were going to do, how great would your agency be? Well, of course the answer is best of the best, world class. But then I have to challenge, challenge the owners and I'll challenge the people listening. If you personally did everything you said you were going to do, if you went deep, if you had our whole concept of DLX, well, it's DLX2, the deep learning experience. Deep learning execution. Okay, so if, if you as a leader did everything you said you were going to do, or you as a producer did everything you said you were going to do, even if you just got to 90%, how great would your results be? So the big challenge now is not to chase a hundred things. It's to boil it down to three things you're going to do. Then boil it down to two, Then boil it down to one. What's the one most important thing you should do? And get that in place with a culture and cadence of accountability so that it becomes your new norm. Then implement the next thing. Do one at a time. Go deep. That's where the great results are.

Roger couldn't say any better. I'm going to leave it at that. Good stuff. I appreciate having you on And I think a lot of things for agency leaders and producers and myself to think about. Right. It's always that commitment to being your best version possible. Thanks again, Roger, for being on.

You're welcome.

All right. We will be on again soon, the Agent Leader podcast. If this podcast provided value to you, your agency, please review or share. Looking to communicate with more agency leaders out there again, to help give you clarity, consistency and to make a commitment. We'll talk to you soon. Thanks.