How's Your EnthusIASM?

Welcome to the Agent Leader Podcast. My name is Brent Kelly, your host. Thanks so much for joining me on another episode. Glad to have you with me and if you are a avid agent leader podcast listener, first of all, thank you. You may have noticed that I did miss a week, so to speak, and dropping a podcast. So we're back on it. Our goal is to bring a new podcast every single week. But things do happen and I will tell you in the future, not only am I going to be getting continue to sharing ideas and tips and strategies around agen leadership and production and productivity. I'll also be bringing back Roger Sitkins, who I know many people love when I have Roger on and kind of get his insights, as well as some of our elite producers. I've already been in conversation one of our elite producers, he's going to be joining me on a podcast very soon and some of our other agency leaders that we work very closely with. So stay tuned for that. But the purpose always of the Agent Leader podcast is to help you, an agency leader and whatever your specific role is, if you have influence in the agency world, you are a leader, to help you gain clarity, to build consistency and ultimately to make a commitment to become your best version possible. Before I get into the content today, which is around the subject, the idea, the execution of enthusiasm, and there's a special little caveat as I'll be talking about today with enthusiasm, I do want to share just a few exciting things. We are just getting ready this next week as I record this to launch our second producer camp that is going on at the same time as our other one. So we're actually running two producer camps at once and we have over 200 producers between these two camps going through the programs and continuing to get great response, great feedback and most importantly, great results. And speaking of that, I want to give a quick shout out. We had a group coaching call this morning from our first producer camp this year in 2021. We have an individual app that we use to kind of track some things and gamify some of the experience, make it fun and have chat and interaction, which is a really cool thing. But we have a leaderboard and we our winners from the first camp come on. And I just did a kind of a mastermind group coaching call as a thank you and just to add some value to them and see how they're doing. And one of the people that qualified is also an avid agent leader listener. So Brittany, thanks for tuning in and also I'll give you kudos here because I talked about great results. Brittany has already hit her entire year goal basically shortly after the first quarter. So pretty impressive stuff when you're able to hit your goal and you've got like the rest of the year left now what can I do? Well, even bigger and better things. And it's just really neat to see Brittany and then of course, other producers in particular and people that go through our camps, whether it's our CEO, our leadership camp, or sales leadership camp, our service, our AM FIT camp, and of course the producer camp, to go through those camps and just have a different mindset and build skill set, understand the power of being around the right people and processes and just dive deeper into their purpose and ultimately live bigger, better, brighter lives. And that's what it's all about. I mean, it's a big part of the mission that we have here at Sitkin. So just an honor to see that. And if you are interested in future programs that we have or being part of our all inclusive model or our private client model where we get to work with agencies holistically, it's just a really powerful concept when we get team alignment and buy in and have these conversations and that teams speak a common language and there's a common culture. Go to sitkins.com and check out programs. Sitkins.com and then just go to programs and you'll see those models on there. We'd love to talk to you, see if there's a fit for you and your agency moving forward. Now with that, I want to get into today's content. I kind of gave a little hint to it. It's about enthusiasm. My question is this. How's your enthusiasm? And when I ask that question, you're like, well, I don't know, Brent, My enthusiasm is pretty good. I'm enthusiastic, right? Isn't that what you want me to say? Well, enthusiasm. If you look at the word and I actually do this in one of our producer camps, I put the word up there and we, we highlight the last four letters in the word enthusiasm. And I heard this a couple years ago and I love the concept. I'm kind of taking it into the agency world a little bit. But you think about enthusiasm. I think people want enthusiasm. I want enthusiasm. And people are enthusiastic, right? They're excited for what they're doing and they bring a higher level of energy and all that good stuff. But if you take the word enthusiasm, the last four letters are I, A iasm. If you look at the word enthusiasm. So you can write that down on a piece of paper. If you're not driving and say, oh, yeah, I ASM and like all good things that we look at at Sidkins, IASM must become an acronym. And here's the acronym. I am Sold Myself. I am Sold Myself. If you want to be enthusiastic, right to me. Can you fake enthusiasm? Yeah, probably temporarily. You can, you can fake anything for a little while. But is it genuine? Is it honest? Is it long term? No, it's not. And so when I think of enthusiasm and this concept of the last four letters, I am sold myself. That's my question to you as an agent leader. Are you sold yourself? Now, you may be running an agency and your team, you may be working as a salesperson with your clients. You may be a claim or service professional, but the bottom line is this. Do you really believe in what you do at the highest level? Are you sold yourself? We talk to producers in particular and anyone who's in sales in the insurance world and say, you know, we used to always say there's two sales in every transaction in insurance. There's a sale to the underwriter and then there's a sale to the client. Well, I would actually say there's three sales and the first sale is really to yourself. Because if you don't really truly believe in what you're doing at the highest level, and I'm going to talk about three different areas here in a second, and you're faking enthusiasm, eventually people are going to see through you. We've all been around someone. I know I have, I'm sure you have. That you can just tell has a passion and a gusto. And they really are sold themselves. They love and believe in what they do at the highest level. And yes, they may be talking about a process and be talking about what makes them different. And they've got good competitive pricing. Right. That's all the things when you're actually making a sale, so to speak. But the thing that really shines through is I believe this person because I can tell they're sold themselves. Like, you know, they're not at a car dealership selling Fords, driving a Chevy. Right? That's, that's, that's the example I would share. So if there are three sales in every transaction, again, whether you're running a team or leading your client, to me it just comes back that sales is simply transferring an idea, a product, a service, whatever it is, it's a transfer. I think sales, if I think of enthusiasm, enthusiasm is when you think of sales. Sales is a transfer of enthusiasm. I am transferring my enthusiasm for what I do and the things that we accomplish to you. Right. That you believe in it as well. So there are three questions that I want to ask you around this area of enthusiasm. And again, you can take notes and ask yourself these questions. And I really would challenge you to take some time to think about them. And how sold are you on yourself, on your team, on your clients, whatever it is in these particular areas. And to keep things simple, you can remember these by three different P's that I'm going to give you. And the first one is purpose. Right? Your actual purpose. Are you really sold on your mission or your purpose? In fact, I would challenge you. This is something that I've been working on for a while. I've done different ways and have different iterations of. But do you have your own personal mission statement? Now, we teach agencies to have an agency mission statement. Not just something on the wall that sounds good, but a true understanding of why do we do what we do? Why? The things that we do, why do they matter so much? And so I really would challenge you again, whether you're leading your team or you're leading your clients, do you have a personal mission statement that's your purpose? This is my purpose or my compass, if you want to use that. Right. Because if you don't really aren't really sold on what it is that you do, why should anybody else be? And I think oftentimes, you know, I talk to you, and this particular is true with sales professionals and producers, because one of the biggest things, when you get to the root of inaction or you get to the root of why aren't they doing the things they know they should do? Again, it's not because they don't know it. It's because somewhere they have a hesitation, a doubt or a fear, or they're not really sold themselves. And so they're doing it because they are told to, or they think they should, or it's the right thing, but they don't really believe it in their gut. You talk to the best agency leaders, the best producers. It's like, I'm on a mission. I've got a purpose. I've got a place that we're going, and it ain't going to be perfect. I'm going to make mistakes, going to have bad weeks, but ultimately I'm going to get there because I believe in the purpose. I am sold on my purpose. So I would just ask yourself that question. Are you really sold on your purpose or your mission? I've used this quote on a Previous podcast, but it applies to here as well. Comes from John C. Maxwell, leadership expert. It's just so true and so powerful and it's sometimes missed. And he said this. If you don't place a high price on yourself or a high value on yourself, rest assured the world will not raise the price. If you don't place a high value or price on yourself, rest assured the world will not raise the price. So are you really sold yourself? So that's the first question I want to ask you around. Enthusiasm. Are you really sold on your purpose? So number two is this. Are you really sold on your partners? That's a broad term when I say that. Are you really sold on your partners? Now, this could be a number of different people. Certainly it's a variety of people. I think everything that I believe in, that we teach in working with agencies at Sidkins is that it is a team game. And not a surprise even on my call today, but all calls I've had this week, it's like, guess what? Agencies and performers are doing the best. Those that have a team approach, that have goals and objectives, and they're accountable to each other. Not because we're spiteful, but because we know we want to bring the best out of each other and our team. So when you think about an agency, right, the partners, well, certainly our people on our team, our colleagues, sales and service and leadership and claims professionals, our partners as our carriers. Are you really sold on the carriers you're working with or are you putting business with them just because, well, I guess they're good on this account. There's a difference, right? And I think the majority of agencies, we certainly find those carrier partners, that we have a high level of trust and respect and we know that we've got each other's back the best that we can. But that goes with their team as well, with their leadership and underwriters and marketing team. But are you really sold on those partners? And maybe it's partners in the community or centers of influence, right? Are you really sold on the people that you're talking to to build brand and awareness out in the community? So that's just a question to ask yourself. And I think sometimes we overlook that as well. Am I not as enthusiastic because, okay, I believe in myself, but I don't know if I really believe in my partners. I mean, people on my team, some of the companies I work with at the deepest level. Right. It's a true, heartfelt question that you need to ask yourself. And then the last one is this. Are you really sold on your performance. What do I mean by that? Well, performance could, could mean a number of different things, specifically depending on your role. Right. You could have how is my team's performance? Do I really believe in the performance if I'm in the sales role as an agent, I certainly want to know, do I really believe that my client is better off after doing business with me and us? Right. That's part of performance. Are we helping them in different areas? Whether it's understanding and monitoring and controlling their true cost of risk and being an advocate in different areas. Right. We could go down the line in those things. But are you really sold on your performance, the value that you provide as an agency leader? Are you really sold the fact that if someone comes to work at your agency that six months and one year and three years and five years and maybe 10 years and beyond that they're going to be in a much better place, much better opportunities? Because if you believe that as an agency leader, just like I tell this is true in a sales role, certainly true in agency leadership role, it's a transfer of enthusiasm. If I really believe that person on my team that joins my team is going to be in a much better situation long term by being part of our team, if I really truly believe that a client that we bring on is going to be a much better situation financially, relationship, profitability, I don't care what it is after doing business with us, then certainly is not my communication at a deeper, stronger, more personal level than if it's, we really need to find someone for the agency. We lost someone, so let's just get someone in or gosh darn it, I need to get a client. I've had a bad month and I can tell you that your future clients, AKA prospects, can smell commission breath like a mile away. Right? This person just wants some commission. I think the key word in this area of, you know, do you really believe in your performance in whatever area or the value provide? I mean, you could use a number of terms. I think the key word is confidence. I mean, certainly it's true for all three of these, but. But this one really rings true of confidence is that if I know that someone's going to be in a better place after doing something with me and my team, whatever the case may be, I'm much more confident, not arrogant confident. Right? We can be much more selective in the right fit. We can be much more personalized. We can really be heartfelt and conversational. And so to me, this is this idea of enthusiasm. And I just I've seen this over the last few weeks and it just reason why I wanted to show this podcast today because I was thinking about things that are patterns that I noticed with all the agencies and all the training programs that I'm part of and get a chance to hear from so many different insurance professionals and always begs the question is why do some people and some agencies have more success than others? What are some of those things? And I've shared a number of those on these podcasts, but one that I haven't really addressed yet is this idea of enthusiasm. They're just enthusiastic, passionate, right? Their belief system is at a deeper level and that goes back to enthusiasm. Those last four letters I am sold myself. The first sale in any transaction. And by the way, when I say transaction, I'm talking about a transfer again, an idea, a product, a service, whatever it may be. The most important and most challenging sale is yourself. Am I sold myself? Do I really believe in my purpose, my mission? Do I really believe in the partners, the people that surround me, that support me because no one does it by themselves? And do I really believe? Am I really sold on the fact of what I do increases performance and value to those around me? So I would just challenge you, Take some time and answer those questions. Go how deeply do I really believe? How deep am I really sold? Because I think you'll find if there's areas that you're not really sold, you'll never get the results that you're truly capable of, right? You'll never get the success, the best version possible without this enthusiasm. The IASM hey, thanks for being a listener to the Agent Leader podcast. Certainly appreciate having you. If this podcast or any others have provided value to you and your insurance agency or your own personal book of business, please leave a review. Subscribe to the podcast. We'd love to help more agencies, more insurance professionals like yourself, become that best version possible to gain clarity, to build consistency, to make a commitment. And as I mentioned earlier, if you're looking to be part of something and see if there's a fit with some of the Sitkins programs that we offer, whether it's in sales or leadership or service, and that holistic approach to agency development, we'd love a chance to talk to you, see if there's a fit for you and the agency moving forward. You can Visit us@sitkins.com and with that, I wish you all the best in your success. Thanks for listening. Sam.