Good Is Not Good Enough for Your Insurance Agency

Welcome to the Agent Leader podcast. My name is Brent Kelly, your host. Thanks so much for joining me on this episode. Excited to be with you. It's a privilege and honor to be sharing some ideas and information with you today. In fact, I don't know if this will be the title of the podcast. It probably won't be. But really what I want to share today is called Short Sweet Meat. Short Sweet Meat. I actually got that from Jeffrey Gittermer years ago. I was at a seminar with him and he said, you know, let's just give him Short sweet meat. So, so I'm going to keep this to the point. It's just me on this podcast and over the past few weeks had the opportunity. We had our Profit Net event that we ran with our agency members and in fact, in the recent podcast we shared the panel discussion there with some of the great agency leaders. Just traveled recently to another event and spoke in front of a group of agencies. And so, you know, part of what I want to do in this podcast is I'm able to connect and meet lots of agencies, lots of leaders, different subjects, different topics, different philosophies, different backgrounds, different experiences, is to take some of the key learnings that I'm hearing and I'm taking and I'm sharing and bring them to you, the podcast listener. So that's going to be the focus of today's podcast. As always, I want to share the mission. The purpose of the podcast is to help you, the agency leader, to help you gain clarity on what is most important, build consistency in the right habits, the right actions, the right behaviors, and to make a commitment to yourself, to your team, to your clients to become the best version possible. And reminder, again, best version possible. Book and movie are available. We'll have the links in the show notes here, but if you go to sitkins.com bvp you can order the book and audio is going to be available here very soon. We're waiting on the final production of the audiobook. Finally, the paperback books are ready to go so you can get those as well as a digital version. So go to sitkins.com bvp and our movie that explains the BVP story, the process and how it affects you. The agency leader is@sitkins.com VIP also want to share with you a really exciting announcement. We have a new sponsor, a longtime friend of Sitkins. We had a long term relationship with the Rough Notes company. They're one of our sponsors and we are excited. I want to just share a little bit about Rough Notes and what they do, why they're so important. But the Rough Notes company, they're publishers of the insurance industry's leading magazine and technical insurance content. Rough Notes magazine profile successful agencies. I'm sure you've seen them. If you read Rough Notes, it always has a great profile. Plus they have keen insights from respected experts. We happen to be one of the experts that writes in the magazine of must know topics. So really great topics. And they also have Rough Notes Advantage. This is Rough Notes Advantage Plus. It's a great tool. It provides your agency a platform to give you more authoritative information on complex coverage issues. So again, go check out Rough Notes. So excited to have them as a sponsor on the Agent Leader podcast. And so with that, I want to get into the short sweet meat. I said short sweet meat, so I better live up to the billing. You know, this recently came from, if you listen to the panel discussion that we put on the recent podcast, I talked about this idea of challenging your comfort zone and that in fact, the statement that I made was that the only thing that grows in your comfort zone, the only thing that grows in your comfort zone is complacency. Right? We just get settled for that. This isn't so bad. This is okay. And we find all the different reasons that we justify it. Roger Sitkins, mentor and CEO of the Sitkins Network and the Sitkins Company, said this. He said that, you know, talk about justify. He said justify is just a lie, right? To justify is just a lie. In fact, I got that from Andy Stanley. And it's an important statement because it's true. We can often find ways to justify why we're not doing some of the things that deep down in our soul, in our gut, in our heart, this isn't just a brain issue. It's a heart and a gut issue. Deep down within us, we know as human beings that we are created to do extraordinary things. We've been equipped and resourced by, I believe, from the man upstairs. You may have your own beliefs, but you know that we have these opportunities and that at our core, being when we're not doing the things and living up to some of those things that we know we should do, there's frustration, there's regrets. And so that's what I believe, that the only thing that really grows in the comfort zone, when we just get comfortable, is complacency. And with complacency, you know, breeds you just average. And, you know, the fact that you can be average in this industry and the independent insurance agency system and still do okay. And I think that's why it's such a toxic thing in the independent insurance agency system, is that we can some ways get away. And by the way, I don't begrudge anybody, if you're happy with where you're at and what you're doing, great for you. But I just, I believe that there's more in people than they often know and see. And part of my job and role as a coach is to help express that. Right. It may be through an engagement, a speaking engagement, to turn on a light bulb. It may be in a small group or mastermind that we're leading to get people to challenge each other deeper, encourage each other at higher levels. Could be a one on one when I just ask basic questions to get people to think of why, you know what, there is more within me. So I want to challenge you, the podcast listener, what's deeper inside of you that you're not expressing and why are you holding yourself back in those areas? Because, you know, the last thing that any of us want, I've already used this term, is regret. So we get to the end of our life and we go, oh my gosh, I thought that I would have accomplished more. I thought that we would have done more. I thought that I would have done xyz, whatever that is for you. Right? You've got to determine what that is, not me. And I can tell you in my own life to be very transparent. There are several areas that I think about that all the time, Right. And I don't expect perfection. I don't think that, you know, we're going to achieve perfection. But I do believe we should desire that best version possible. We should try to grow to that person that we know that we can become. Right? Anything else is just settling, right? And leads back to complacency. And we think about insurance agencies and just use our best version possible process. And as a reminder, the best version possible, we talk about the book. Yes, it's a mindset, yes, it's a philosophy, but it is a process. It is a true process based around simplicity, but going deep in the focused areas that we need to go deep in. And I'll just, I want to go through these four areas and take about a minute, get short sweet meat, take a minute and share where I believe that agencies can get complacent in these areas and what happens and these aren't going to be, you know, oh my gosh, I never would have thought of this. But I think what will happen is you go, you know what he's right. And what I want to do, and I want to challenge you. If you're listening to me right now and you hear my voice, challenge you to say, why am in this area, potentially, whatever it is for you, why am I settling? Why am I saying good is good enough? Why am I holding myself back, my team back, my clients back from a greater opportunity, a greater expression of many things. Right. But a greater expression of whatever it is that you're trying to accomplish. So, number one, the first phase that we talk about in our process is alignment. This is internal conversations. I've said this on earlier podcasts. I'll say it again. That so often insurance agencies completely overlook the step of alignment that do we have the same goal as an agency, but truly different roles and understanding and respect for what those are. This is one of the hardest things to do. And I think that's why it's often missed or avoided. I don't want to have that conversation. This is going to require our culture shifting in a slightly different direction, or maybe not just slightly, but a larger. I mean, a big direction. Right. There's a pretty big shift that we're going to have to have. Well, I don't want to deal with that. But we know that if we don't ever have these conversations or really figure out the why behind what we're doing, really don't have alignment, that our leadership is on the same page, that our team is on the same page, that our salespeople and our service people are communicating at higher levels we call high performance teams. If we're not doing those things, we. We're never gonna get to the level that we could get to. And so we speak all the time about alignment, and we help agencies try to move towards that. Right. And how do we do that? So I would just ask you, when you think about your agency today, where are you misaligned? And by the way, if you say, well, a lot of areas, you're not the only one. One of the advantages I have of speaking to so many agency leaders, which is such an awesome opportunity for me, is that I would get agency leaders to go. I know we're probably the only one. Like, no, you're not. But the fact that you are having the conversation that you're having some awareness of this means you're ready to make some of these improvements which, you know, you need to make to get to where you want to go. Now, again, if you just say, hey, you know what? Now we're not really aligned. We don't really get along, but we're making enough money to survive and things are okay and I don't want to deal with it. Well, that's your choice. And as I said, I'm not going to begrudge anybody other than if you want to be part of the best version possible in the process, alignment is critical to your success. So phase one is alignment. Phase two, this is where I'm going to ask you where you can place it is the green zone. And we have talked to Sitkins about green zone, green zone, green zone. In fact, it was really just a thought process to supplement the fact of what this is really about. The green zone is what it's getting producers, your salespeople to get in the best position to win, which is to do sales stuff. And we started looking at this saying, listen, there's two zones ultimately, I mean you could add a yellow zone, but really there's a green zone which is I'm doing pay activities, pay stuff. And there's red zone, which is I'm doing all the stuff that doesn't pay, but I'm doing it anyway. And so, so often the agencies will see, well, there's complacency. Well, I know that our producers really only spend maybe 20, 30, 40% of the week in sales stuff, but you know, I mean, they're sort of doing all right. And I know that all of them hit their sales goals, but you know, that's kind of normal what happens. And I mean there's this service stuff and they do have to do it and they've got other things going on and to get them to shift to more of a results focused producer. Well, I don't know if they're going to like that. They're kind of used to doing it this way. Again, your agency may look different, but certainly we hear these things all the time. But the simple but true analogy is this is that if your sales team, your producers are not investing, not spending the majority of their week in pipeline activity and sales conversations and relationship management and continuations, proactive continuations, and they're instead spending the majority of their time checking emails, having conversations about who knows what, following up on things that they're not very good at anyway, all those things that a better person would be served to doing, and guess what, you're going to lose the game. At least you're certainly not going to win at a high level. Right? The analogy is that you're out there playing two quarters of a four quarter game. Maybe you're playing one quarter and you wonder, I Don't know why we're not scoring as many points. I mean, our agency doesn't seem to be growing as much as we. We'd like to. Well, guess what? Your producers may be having only 20, 30, 40% of their ultimate sales capacity. And then it's, well, we need to go find more producers, right? We got to recruit more producers. Well, maybe. Maybe you do, maybe you do. But most likely it would be, why don't you get the producers you have on your team to be doing more of the things they should be doing in the first place? Right? Let's start with that, because the last thing we want to do is put another new producer in our agency and have them produce at 30 or 20, 30, 40% of their sales capacity. We always think, well, maybe I'll get lucky. Maybe I'll get that superstar, maybe. But that's not likely, right? And that's not your best version. So again, the complacency there is. Well, at least I've got salespeople, right? At least they're doing something. So we'll just take it, right? And that's where complacency digs in. Number three is retention and referrals. Phase three is retention and referrals. Again, this is going back. We've got previous podcasts talking about the process, but phase one is alignment. Phase two is green zone. Phase three is retention and referrals. And, you know, if I were to ask you and you could answer me back, and I say, well, is retention important? Yes. Are referrals important? Yes. In fact, I would say, are referrals the best way to grow your business, done the right way? And most people, not all, would say, yes, they are right. Our best clients want to help us, but what happens is we get complacent in this area because this business is so good, Right. Hopefully some of you are laughing with me as I say this. This business is so good is that you could do not much at all. Maybe you give some level of reactive service, right? I mean, at some point we call you back or we answer the phone or return an email, right? Which is fine. And you will generally, in agencies have somewhere around 90% of those clients that will continue to do business with you. Now, I know it may be more complicated than that in some areas, but just in general terms, by doing very little, 90% of clients renew with you. What a great business. But here's the big thing. Here's the. Here is the litmus test on how great the experience really is. If 90%, on average, of Clients renew. Why is it that for most agencies, less than 10% of those clients refer someone else to your agency? Why is that? Well, I mean, you know, Brent, I mean, we're doing all right. We get a few referrals here and there. Yeah, but like, if you're really providing exceptional experience, if you're really being proactive in the right areas, if you're really understanding what your clients want and you're putting that in writing and you're delivering upon that and you're having proactive conversations about what's next, wouldn't certainly your top clients want to tell other top clients? Wouldn't you want to ask your top clients specifically and intentionally about how you can help them do what you've done for them? Right. That that would make sense, but we don't. And part of it is, well, it's uncomfortable, it's awkward. I don't want to make my producers practice that. I'm not sure what it's going to look like. What if they say no? And that's complacency. That's where we get complacency. So think about that. Are you getting complacent in the retention or renewal process? We don't call it renewal process at Sitkins. We call it a continuation process. We want to continue relationships, and by continuing relationships, we earn and proactively ask for referrals because we have a targeted strategy around that. Well, that's pretty simple, Brian. Most people know that it is simple, but it's not easy. That's why most agencies don't do it. Right. But when you do it, it's incredible. It's always funny because, well, people that will be part of our programs and they'll be like, well, you're right, I haven't really done it. It would make sense. You know, our best clients do want to help us, and I mean, there's opportunities there. And then they actually follow the process that we share and they go. You won't believe this, Brent. Like, what? What happened? Oh, you won't believe this. What? Well, I did some of the stuff that you said, and I didn't do it perfectly, but I did some of the stuff that you said. And then I actually came with a proactive list of clients that I've identified, and I cross referenced to them and I was. I practice how I was going to present this and ask for that, and they gave me a referral. In fact, they gave me two. Oh, my gosh. What happened? Well, I already wrote a piece of business on one of them. Right. And you get where I'm going, but it's just being intentional. So phase three is retention referrals. And just ask us, are we being complacent in our renewal process? Are we being complacent in how we earn? And ask for referrals. Which leads to phase number four. Right. The four phases is the fourth phase, obtain. This is about having a set offense. Now, again, I'm talking to myself in this podcast, but you can answer in your head or you want to write this down or whatever you need to do is this. Does your agency have a true set offense where someone, whether it's the agency principal, the sales leader, a producer who's kind of taken that role, there is some set offense that there's a play or plays being called versus asking your producers, in this case, hey, what's your process of. And this is true for the service team as well in many cases. But what's your process of. Blank. Right. What is the sales process? What's the agency sales process, the agency's way of doing business when it comes to obtaining clients? Well, it depends on who you talk to right now. There's always going to be flexibility. There's individuals, there's specialties, there's different experiences, backgrounds, type of personalities. I get all that. But is there a true agency way of doing business or a set offense? Do we know as a producer and as an agency, specifically who we want and why we want them and how we work best with them and where we're different, truly different? Right. This is all part of the obtain process of just really getting intentional with your set offense, with your points of differentiation, with identifying future ideal clients. And what often happens in this area is, again, very similar to what I've said before. We're still writing some business. We're doing all right. We've got some stuff coming in the front door here and there. Right. We've got a producer that's had some success in a few areas here, but it's nowhere near the level that you could achieve by going deeper in this one phase that I just mentioned, of obtaining clients, having a true plan or set offense around it. Right. So those are the four phases. And sorry if this is a bit of a sermon. It really was a conversation from my heart because I love independent insurance agencies. I want to see independent insurance agencies succeed. I know my team, our team at Sitkins, we want agencies to succeed at the highest level. We want you to live a life of no regrets. We want you to increase your organic growth considerably. 2, 3, times the average out there. We want you to have profitability at an agency of 25% plus without contingency. We want you to increase the value of your agency to give you more freedom and opportunity to do the things that you want to do. But the biggest problem to get in there for many agencies is, is just looking at themselves, looking at the agency and saying, where has good been good enough too long? Where have we been complacent? Where have we gotten too comfortable? That because we've gotten so comfortable and things have gotten in some ways too easy, we have missed out on opportunities for that best version possible for ultimate growth and for freedoms. Right? The freedom of time and relationships and financial freedom and the freedom of purpose of doing the things that you really want to do and love do every single day. Right? So my challenge encouragement to you is find those complacency traps in your agency and acknowledge them. Now, if you ever want to have a discussion with us at Sitkins and how our process or if our process would work with you and your agency, just go to sitkins.com bookacall sitkins.com bookacall One of our coaches will have a short conversation with you. Learn more about your agency, see if there's a fit potential with what we do and how it can help accelerate your agency's growth and development. There may be a fit, there may not be a fit. Right? That's okay. But just go to sitkins.com bookacall and we would love to have a conversation. Well, thank you for being an agent, leader, podcast listener. Wish you all the best in your success. Thanks again.