Improve Your People to Improve Your Agency with Kevin Charleston

Welcome to the Agent Leader podcast. My name is Brent Kelly, your host. Thanks so much for joining me on this episode. And today we have an incredible guest with us, someone who I, you know, listen, we've had some really great guests on this show. We'll continue to have great guests and people that are just growth, hungry, committed to success. And today we have Kevin Charleston, who's the owner of Specialty Risk Insurance, one of our partner agencies and someone who just is a, is a good guy to talk to and learn from. And I can't wait for Kevin to share his story and some of his thoughts, ideas, tips that he's learned along the way today. So I'm going to give Kevin, you an official introduction here just in a second. I do want to have a reminder for all the agency leaders listening. What's the purpose of this podcast? Well, the purpose is pretty simple. We want to help you as an agency leader gain clarity. We want to help you build consistency, and we want to help you make a commitment to truly be your best version possible. And that really is our theme and it will continue to be our theme of what does the best version possible look like for you as an agency, as an individual? And of course, to promo that, we have our book out for sale now. Best version possible. If you go to sitkins.com bvp for best version possible, you can take a look and order your own copy today. So with that, I want to get into the interview because there's going to be some great stuff here, I know, in the conversation. And so again, Kevin Charleston, president, owner of Specialty Risk Insurance based in the great state of Missouri, or as my, as my grandmother used to say, who lived, I don't think you know this. She was in Marshall, Missouri. Kevin. She'd say Missouri. So I don't know which way to say it properly, but Kevin Charleston, welcome to the Agent Leader podcast.

Thanks for having us. You can pronounce it either way, depending on what part of the state you're in.

That's right. Well, again, I'm going to Kevin, I'd share some of your story, but if you could, maybe just for the listener, you know, give and take as much time as you need, but just share a little bit about just your background, your role. And I was just talking to you before we recorded here live that you're coming up on 10 years on the agency. So could you give some perspective of just the agency and again, you're part of the agency.

Yep, I've been in the business about 27 years. Coming up in March here, but I've been here. It'll be 10 years in July 13th, Friday the 13th. I don't know if we. That same Friday the 13th rolled around, I think, a couple years ago, but we started in July 13th, and it'll be 10 years this year. We've kind of just. We started with three of us, and it's grown to quite a few of us now at this point in time, we're very focused on agribusiness. But that being said, we do a lot of Main street business as well. But basically, one of the things we talk about, we did an interview the other day for RFD TV the other day, and one of the things we talked about was that we basically go from the dirt to the plate. That makes sense. So we ensure the farm and everything in between and transportation all the way to the plate. So that's kind of the piece we touch in the middle. Everything in the middle pretty well. And about 20% of our agency is just Main street business, but that's 80% would be focused in some way or tied to that part of agriculture.

Absolutely. Well, and we could talk more about that because I'm guessing that's going to be obviously part of some of the success that you've had. But you said you started with three and you've grown to some people. How many, many people are part of the team today, Kevin?

About 65.

Yeah, 65. So it's just, you know, again, if you're listening here, Kevin and his team, and I know he'll. He'll certainly credit his team as he should, but, you know, they've had significant, significant growth and not that there hasn't been challenges, and we'll talk about those, too, but significant growth over the last 10 years in the agency and certainly in our relationship, Kevin, and getting to know your agency, there's been some key things that certainly have been impactful in that. So. So I want to start off just by, you know, we're going to get into successes. I think those are going to be fun to talk about. But just in your perspective as someone who's taken an agency and led an agency from 3 to 60 plus. Right. And you're going to continue to grow and expanding and all those great things. What's been, as you can see, your number one challenge, or maybe one of your biggest frustrations you're dealing with, Kevin.

I think as we've kind of evolved in the last to the last two or three years, is we have to pick our opportunities because a lot of them come at you. So whether you're hiring somebody or whether you're trying to buy another book of business or what, whatever those opportunities are, there's only so much time in the day. If you take that opportunity on, you make those people part of your world, and you're responsible for them. And if you don't give them everything you have or your team. I don't think we fully capitalized on a lot of our opportunities that we took on. Now we were getting better at it as we've gotten more mature as an agency. But I think the biggest thing that we struggle with, and I say that from the last three or four years perspective, is when we take on hiring somebody, we're sitting there interviewing somebody, and we make them part of our circle. We have to give them the best version of ourselves. And that. That. That, you know, that goes back to Roger's, when I started with Roger 25 years ago, or whatever it was, that if you take them, you're responsible for them, you're part of your circle, and we got to make sure we give them what they need to be successful. Whichever opportunity, whether you bought an agency or you hired somebody or, you know, whatever that is, you. We struggle. Sometimes we get a little scattered, and we need to make sure that we give them everything we can to make them successful. We don't want. We don't want somebody to walk away and didn't feel like they got their best. Our best effort to make them successful, Whatever path they chose, at that point, it's on them. But that's one of the things we struggle. A lot of opportunities start coming as you grow, and how you pick those is critical.

Well, let me. Let me ask. I'll go a little deeper on that, because I think you hit it right on. I mean, we kind of joke about the fact that there's truth to it. You know, one of the greatest enemies. Success is success, and the fact that it does provide, you know, more opportunities, more people want to talk to you. You know, there's just. Which is great, right? But also then you got to be. You got to be more selective, right? And I think what you're hitting on is being more focused on doing the right things amidst all the stuff that's coming your way, right? Because when you. When you're getting started, like, every opportunity is decent because you're just trying to survive and grow and do that. And then at some point, you got to get choosier. So I'm going to ask you, how do you and your team, Kevin, how do you Stay focused on. Knowing on this is really important. This isn't, or at least it's not at the top of the list. How do you, how do you, how do you pick those battles?

Well, you know, we start every Monday morning, 8:15 or 9:00'. Clock. We have kind of the departments all get together and talk about what's going on, which direction. And it seems like a really tough hour of the day, but it allows me to get a feel for what's going on and how we've started to really handle it. I think it's helped us is we're very departmentalized now and so those teams focus on what they do and they do what they do and that's what they do and they stay in their lane. And that's probably gave us more ability to train people to bring people in, to look at, to really dial in and figure out which piece is working, which piece isn't. You know, we talk. Chance helps me a lot. You work with chance a lot. But you know, if you go three places and it smells bad, it might be you. So we, as we've added new offices, you know, we, we, we kept, we, we thought it worth, you know, as we added staff, other locations, we, we were perplexed and confused and then we figured out it was us. So we figured out to kind of redirect some energy. And it's been a, it's been good though. We, we figured out, we try to, we try and invest in people. This is strictly a people business, period. That's all it is. At the end of the day, we're protecting people's assets, but we're doing it with people in the middle that are. So it's, I think we're about as much as people businesses there is and we just try and pick the right people to invest in and the rest will follow as long as it's in our lane of what we do.

Yeah, yeah, that's. First of all, I love the, the quote there or whatever. And yeah, I was talking to someone was joking to me. He said I got married for the fourth time. I figured the fourth time maybe it was me, you know, and it's kind of what you were saying there with the agency and yeah, listen, I think it's a challenge again whether it's you, any other agency leader, really anybody.

Right.

That's, that's trying to move forward in business. It's a challenge to say, hey, listen, you know what? I got to be honest. One of the problems is me. And I think what you addressed, Kevin, which I appreciate and applaud is the fact that as individuals and you've heard us talk so many times, even back from the Dan Sullivan strategic Coach program that Roger and I have been through, we facilitate, so to speak, at least we discuss the concepts of unique abilities. And I think that's, you know, from a leadership perspective. One of the biggest things we see with agencies is as you grow, when you start off, and there was going back to three of you, I'm sure you did about everything because you had to, and then it becomes, hey, listen, there's only a few things that I've got to focus on and do really well because A, it's what I'm good at, anything I get outside of that, A, I'm not good at B, it sucks me drive, energy and I probably create more messes than I do, you know, growth. And so it's just being honest and finding those places. And then other thing you said, Kevin and I want to get into this because this is going to be. I know it's been one of the strengths for your agency is you truly, it's not just words that we invest in our people, right? Well, we invest in our people, but truly we invest in our people. And I'm going to throw this out there, Kevin, and see what your take on is. But what I do in particular sales leadership. And this is any leadership, One of the things I always ask is, you know, what's the number one job? Let's just use a sales leader. What's the number one job of a sales leader? And most people say, well, geez, Brian, that's probably to get more sales. And that's the end result if you do a good job. But I truly believe, and I want to get your thoughts on this, I think the number one job of a leader, or certainly a sales leader in this case, is to develop and grow your people. If I, if I could, if, if I can develop and help grow you, the other stuff's going to take care of itself. So a, do you agree with that and what have you seen that from your agency? Where does that transpire?

That's one of the number one conversations we had going into this year as you bring that up as I've always been a salesman, so I've been very competitive even with my own salespeople. I'm not the greatest cheerleader because I want to win.

Right.

I've had to switch my role to more of a cheerleader. And that's one of the number one things that my daughter helps a lot Here at Quincy and Chance and Rob and Denise is that I have to be a better cheerleader for my people. You know, obviously, we develop them, but then, you know, we're all going out to sell. I want to win, so. And they follow that lead. They love it, or they would do it, because we love to go out and make a deal with somebody and enjoy talking to someone great. That. That relationship with those people, that's. If we do a good job, that relationship becomes crucial to what we're doing. And I think that's the number one thing for us, is we had to readjust our thinking. We have to be better cheerleaders. And I'm not a great cheerleader. I think my kids will tell you that growing up. I mean, I'm a better coach than cheerleader, and I've got developed people now, so I need to be a better cheerleader. Just push them by, you know, kind of talking about their efforts and what they're doing. That's a hard part for me. I still just drove. I want to go sell and. But I don't get to sell as much anymore. And I've had to learn to kind of accept that in the last two or three years and maybe not accept it, but understand that the direction of that many people is critical. If it gets shifted a little bit left or right, it's very expensive. If you missed that direction with that many people.

Yeah. Yeah, that's great. Points, I think, too. And I'll speak a little bit on your team's behalf. I mean, again, it's growth of team, of putting people around you, too, that can help facilitate some of that cheerleading leadership. Right. It's not just on you.

Right.

You've got a team to do that. And I was actually on a podcast, a different podcast. I don't know. It's been a few weeks ago. But this goes back to a book I read years ago. It says, you know, some people ask the question, how fast? Which is a good question. How fast can I get to that? How fast can I get to that? That's typically the mindset of really successful salespeople. Right. Cause that's what makes them good. They got that engine.

They just drive it.

But it says, you know, as you grow a business, the better question is, how far? And, you know, you know, because it's just like a sprinter. You could sprint fast. Some point you run out of gas. And the other part, too, is if you sprint with a team, sometimes you're two laps ahead of them, and they don't know what you're doing where you're going, and that's hard. I mean, from your perspective, Kevin, and knowing you, it's like. I don't really like the term slow down, you know, but, you know, part of that, from a team perspective, you got to look at doing that. So let me lead into the other side. We, you know, you kind of talked about some of these things, you know, the last couple minutes of things that you're learning and doing. But what have you seen from your agency, Kevin, that's been. It can be more than one, but a success or an area that you guys have done really well, that not only have you done it well, but you need to continue to replicate it to grow in the future. What. What's jumping out at you in that area, Kevin?

It's people. It's 100% people. You know, the people make all the right decisions. We just talked about in a meeting a minute ago where, you know, we no longer can have Everybody bought in. 100%. That's 65 people. 100% bought in is a massive undertaking. But we've always got, you know, we've added 16 people in the last, say, years. Six, eight months. You know, those people are six months to a year before they buy in. So we have to make sure the other 40 are bought in all the time if they're not bought into the process. And by the way, we're still getting the process, right? We're not. I mean, we've had to really go back, and we were growing so fast that we missed a lot of the internal cogs and buttons and things that we can be better at. So now, I mean, I think it's just. It's picking the right people and helping them find that spot. And they, you know, at six months or a year, they really start to buy in and they become part of what we're truly doing. Some of them buy into the people early, but, you know, in some of the people that we've actually terminated, they said, man, you know, we hate to leave. We're going to miss the people. You know, that's the conversation we have at the end of the day. So we hope that's. I mean, it's not always the case, But I'd say 80% of the people that have left through the last 10 years, they're still in contact with part of our team. And, you know, we don't want. It just wasn't fit or whatever that is. But the people are critical to what we do, and we just have to make sure the Mass is bought in and others are following and pick the ones that don't. That don't follow and buy in all the way to some of the processes we have or people are the culture per se.

Yeah, we did a training yesterday. I had Roger on there with me, and we were talking about, oh, 100% of people doing everything we want. Like, that's not going to happen. What if you just got 80% of your people doing 80% of the stuff? Like, that's pretty incredible. Especially as you grow a team. Right. Because I do want to piggyback on what you said, because I know one thing that your agency, you know, if people would ask me, you know, oh, gosh, Brenda, the agencies you work with, you know, especially to risk, and we could talk about some of the. Just a crazy growth that you guys have had. You know, from my perspective, I want to get your thoughts on this. You know, what has been a big cause of this. I would say, well, number one, it's culture. And you keep talking about people, people, people, people, people. And then there's accountability behind the culture. And one thing that we've talked, Kevin, even on just other, you know, conversations we've had in the past, is that, you know, people, people know what you guys are all about quickly. It's not a surprise, like, you know, what you stand for, why you do what you do, the expectations, the roles, responsibilities. At least get correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't, you know, our conversations where nine months later goes, gosh, Kevin, I never expected the agency was going to be like this. Right. They know pretty quick. Can you speak on the culture and the accountability you've built into the agency, Kevin? Because again, it goes back to the growth you've had. It's such a huge part of it. I think it's missed by a lot of agencies.

Well, you know, I love interviewing college kids. That's one of my things that they. I get to interview part of them. And I interviewed a girl that came from Cornell the other day. We just, we talked through some stuff and she was good for me because she nailed me down. Some stuff that I probably typically can get away with not having to be nailed down. But I was telling, we have a simple rule. You work, I pay you, you're part of the team, you're part of our family, and the rest will work out. And they're like, well, we need a package and I need to know how many days off and, you know, blah, blah, blah. And I said, I'm going to tell you about your college professor, he doesn't have a job. You're going to get a job here, be part of a family. He's getting paid to teach you. Don't get me wrong. And they're great professors all over the world, but this is the real world and we're on your team. You come here, you got it, you'll pick it, and if you don't like it, we'll help find a better job. You know, we know enough people we can call somebody. But boy, when you tell people that, they're like, well, that just can't be that way. Well, it can't. I mean, just. I'm not going to tell you not to come to. I mean, how many sick days you have or how many months vacation take. We had some people ask her if I take more vacation. We talked about the end of the year and like, oh, man, I didn't realize that's all that was the deep. How deep that conversation got. I didn't, you know, I mean, I'm not going to tell you what you can and can't do. I'm just going to tell you what you're expected to do. And if you don't find that responsibility on your own here, then you just don't fit anywhere. And it's okay. It's not a big deal. You know, I take it very personal if somebody doesn't make it here, but to me, that's your opportunity to be the best person you are. Nobody likes rules, and you spend half your time trying to fight the rules or work through the rules. So if you take the rules out of it, you just go work and be accountable to the people you work with and help them, then it's no problem. We have our instances where we still have to deal with certain things, but they're very limited. I mean, we just don't have people here don't want to screw it up, you know, they don't want to. They don't want to be counting their vacation days. You know, I don't have anybody at the end of the year worried about taking their last week of vacation. We don't even have that conversation. But don't even think about it like, oh, I already went and did what I wanted to do. Sorry, we're good, you know. You know, and half the people I work with in the insurance industry finding an underwriter last two weeks of the year in the biggest day of the year is January 1st, right? And find an underwriter those two weeks because they're trying to burn vacation and I guess I struggle with insurance companies. Why don't we make your year end? I mean, you know, August, you know, so we're not at the end of the year trying to put some of our biggest days together. So. But. But I mean, that being said, that's just. That's their version. This is ours. And the big thing is we just kind of let people be who they are. We guide them along. They learn accountability around here, but it's real as a team, you know, they. They help each other and hold each other. Like, I'll cover for you, you cover for me. You still gotta let somebody know you're gonna. You got other things to do. But at the end of the day, expectations without 100% clarity, we just got if we have the right people, it doesn't matter. It's irrelevant. So it's fun to watch people grow into that role, but it throws them off at first, like, well, they want this package. They want this of a perfect world. The perfect world is you work and I pay you, and you feel satisfied with what you do when you go home at night. And we want you to be part of a team. And I don't want you to hate to come to work in the morning. You know, if you do, it's not for you. You should do something else. But I do tell them all the first month, this will be some of the most confusing days you'll ever have in the industry. And then. And then pretty soon, about month two, it all starts to kind of come together. Just bear with the process. It'll come together anyway. That's probably a little longer than you.

Really, it's great. I love the way you express that because, I mean, we even talk about definition and we talk about, as culture is the language, behaviors that are normal in your agency. You know, and I say, what are people saying? And what are people doing? You can figure out pretty quickly what the culture is. I mean, you could have a bunch of legalistic rules and this and can I leave at 431 or 429? But to your point, Kevin, like, if we're asking those questions, we're probably asking the wrong questions.

You're right. Exactly. That's what. We work on that all the time. If you show up later on here, the team will have a lot of fun with it.

Well, you know, and I've used your agency as an example because again, we talk about, you know, culture in different places. And I always go to, you know, I'm a big sports fan, so just there's some Good. There's some good analogies, even though they're overused. But, I mean, you think about some. Even just the best organizations in sports and, you know, whether they take a player who maybe didn't fit in other places for a lot of different reasons. The interesting thing is the right organizations that are focused around excellence and accountability, they don't need the coach barking at them. You come into that organization, there's a level of expectation that the team, other people on the team will let you know pretty quickly, like, we don't do that here. That's not. That's not how we work, you know, and so you don't want to be that one person. And you'll find out pretty quickly if you don't fit with that. So I just applaud your. I think the word is just consistency and commitment around that. I think that's been really interesting to see. All right, I'm going to ask you a question. And you've talked about working, going back Roger, 25 years ago, but just in general and working with us because we keep things pretty simple for the most part. We say simple but not easy. What has been a big takeaway you've gotten, Kevin or your team has? Just from our relationship at sitkids, I think it's still.

The basics haven't changed from 25 years ago. When I went to Florida the first time with Roger. I gotta be honest, I've probably never been on a plane before. When I went down there. Yep. Where I went, we had something. We were doing something, or we drove, you know, my whole life growing up. And whenever I went down there with Roger, it, you know, there were simple things. He talked about that still. I mean, I had a salesman yesterday. He was out. He was at a super high point. Just sold a county insurance. It was a 3, $400,000 deal. And he's pretty green, just getting going, you know. And I've been on him pretty hard about being out seeing people, and suddenly he's got all these opportunities. I said, so here's my opportunity today and be a little hard on you because you're so high, it doesn't matter. And so, so. But Roger taught me that early on, from a sales standpoint, if you follow that path. And the thing I was talking about and the point I was getting to was you're going to start finding you got a pretty good trajectory here. You got six, eight really great accounts you're working on, and you're going to be out of work in 90 days. And he looked at me Kind of funny, I go, because you're going to slow down and quit calling on people. And that's been the number one thing that Roger talks about, consistency. You know, from that standpoint. That was just one of the points we talked about yesterday in our office. Day one. First conversation you had with us is, is that. Does that flow up and down and you follow it, you know, can you stay on path?

And I.

And I still do myself, I'm as bad as anybody. I get caught here. I get four or five accounts I'm working on, and I'm not working on the next four and next five. So that part. But. But the number one thing whenever we started with him was he spent a little more time talking about niche marketing, working in a. He went from an inch down to a crevice and really dialing that in. My guys could walk into an account and they already know what the coverages are, what the rates are, which company is going to be competitive. Really, the insurance is almost an irrelevant part of the conversation. It's who they want to buy from, because we know we have everything they need when we walk into that account, right from risk management to all the pieces. But if we stay in our lane and do what we're really, really good at, it's really not that complicated. It really just becomes time management and then having the right people in the right place from an office standpoint. So it goes back to. His original part was like, you know, niche marketing. And that gives you that sense of purpose when you walk in there and you are recognized that somebody knows what you're doing, and then you just, you know, it gives you a clear path. It's very clear. And, you know, we talked to a group of college kids the other day, and one of. One of the things I told them was, I said, you know, you're going to choose your lifestyle based on the job you choose, and you know what they pay when you take it, and, you know, kind of what the path is. And this is one of the greatest opportunities here, is that you. The upside is pretty unlimited if you really fall. But you choose a certain kind of accounts you call on every day. You know how big they are, you know how much revenue goes with them. You're choosing your lifestyle by the actions you take every day with your. With. And that goes back to. I mean, Roger really brought that full circle for me. But, you know, I have, obviously, you can tell by look at me, probably a passion for the livestock industry. I like being around livestock. I like agriculture. So I just followed that and put the two together. I didn't, but Roger gave me the ability to see that clearly and then follow that. And, I mean, it's fun to, you know, when we got to get together a little more when we're down there. I would actually use some of Roger's stuff on him, on him sometimes 20 years later, you know, in the last five years. But it's, it's. We haven't forgot that path. And just do what you're good at. Don't get too far left or right of it. You know what, you know what the account sizes are. You know, you know what the revenue is. You understand what your lifestyle is going to be like if you choose that path. And, and that's. That gave me clarity, I think, at that point in time to kind of move forward. That. Because we have different groups here, we write about 1100 farm policies, and they're $13,000 policies, but we can, we can do them so fast. Those are not big policies, but if you're very efficient at it, my guys, my people do extremely well there. And so our bigger accounts are in a different spot. I mean, so it's, it's finding that clarity in that path, and it's really even followed through the. We actually have everything kind of somewhat segregated, even our office, to follow the same path. We have a farm department, we have agribusiness, we have commercial, and they kind of blend back and forth. We have our benefits team, and then, I mean, then we have racer and safety and our personal lines. But we keep it very, very departmentalized because they're good at what they do. They know the answer when you pick up the phone. They don't have to fumble around and figure it out. Yep, yep.

Well, so many good nuggets there. I'm just kind of going back and I mean, you hit so many things. I just want to. A couple things just for the listeners on here, Kevin, and as you said, the last part I'll start with, because we're talking about. With the efficiency of some of those accounts. People always like, oh, you guys are sickens. You guys just hate small accounts. Like, no, we don't hate small accounts. We don't like unprofitable accounts. There's a difference. Right. And just the awareness on that other thing, too, that you said. I love. I think if I had to just, if I'm listening to what you said, and I'm just trying to kind of summarize this, is that it's about intention and clarity and planning. Like, what is the model that you want to create. And I always joke, Kevin, to independent insurance agency owners, like I said, the best part of this is you're independent. You can create whatever you want. Really, the biggest challenge is you're independent. You can create whatever you want.

Right.

Which gets in your own way. And so I love the fact it's like, this is the model we want to build. And you've heard, I'm sure Roger and I say this all the time now. It's like, well, it's hard to be a million dollar producer writing a thousand dollar account if that's the model you want. Right. Depends on what it is. But you got to find your model that may not be the right model for you or somebody else. So that was jumping out. And the thing about this too, and I love this statement, um, and we started sharing in our training programs the last couple of years. But your current business model is perfectly designed to get you the results you're getting now. I mean, and that's it. It's like, well, I don't like. Well, your, your model is, is leading to that. So what I respect so much about that is the awareness of going, yeah, I guess it is. But you guys just keep evolving and say, okay, what is the model we're going to create? How are we, how are we going to find departments where people are experts and how do we get more efficient with this and make sure we're staying in our game? So anything you wanted to add to that, Kevin? I didn't mean, I didn't mean to on your point there, but it was good stuff.

It's just focus. It's just focus and knowing the details of the focus that you want to do it. We've got a great team here that they can see that focus better than me. And I, I do what I do and then they do what they do and, and I just try and keep the culture in their circle and let them, let them do their parts of it. Because it. We've grown in other areas that I didn't really want to grow in. Yeah, but we started doing it. We got pretty good at it. And it just kept coming. And it's kind of a snowball effect. But we. So we started replicating and just kept coming. I mean, you know, it. And sometimes you got to back away from some business. That's the hard parts. Firing some customers sometimes and backing away because we. I'm an eternal optimist. I think we can fix anything. I love the underdog. I love that account that we got fixed. I mean, I love those things, but it sometimes you got to step away because there's only so many hours a day. So.

That's right. It's exactly right. And that's the hardest part is saying no to some of those things. Can I add again, if this is. If you don't want to answer directly, you don't have to as far as the podcast, but going back to when you started, because. And the reason why I want to ask this question, if you think and if you're willing to answer, I want to talk about kind of where you've grown in revenues. Because the reason why is this, Kevin. We have people who are like, well, like that's that basic stuff. It gets boring. You know, I continue to do the same kind of thing. Of course we're making little iterations and all these kind of things. But we always say it's not boring when you start to have some success. Right. And what you can do with that, would you. Are you willing to share kind of where you've, you've grown from a revenue perspective from the agency? If not, that's fine too.

But typically what we just talk about premium, just.

Okay, sure.

It's a little better for us. We started seven or eight million dollars in premium whenever I came here. When we started 10 years ago or almost nine half years ago, whatever it is, we're at about 65, 68. We've doubled like I think we ended up last year. We had, we had some staffs, staff and changes that kind of hurt us in the last two months of last year. But we still had almost $14 million in new premium last year. So this year, I mean we're trying to work towards, we try and double every two and a half years right in premium. So that's kind of our goal. It's becoming a little more cumbersome as we go. But I say that in other parts have gotten easier. So I, you know, our hardest part is, you know, we have staff and we, so right now we've outgrown our, our sales team again with staff. And then the staff sales team will get back. It's like the egg and chicken constantly. But it's just part of the, it's part of the growth. And then our salespeople really take off and we can't really keeping the two even with each other or one ahead of the other staff ahead of sales, you know, and we're ahead again because we slowed down a little bit. So they're going to speed up and by mid year we're going to Be running off. I just got to make sure I have the proper amount of people coming behind them to do that and salespeople as well. That's probably our biggest struggle at this point is keeping ahead of growth either internally or as a sales team. We just go back and forth. But I don't care what business you're in, that's. You can't ever map that out perfectly. Hopefully you can see the future a year from now. But those are pretty big bets when you add 10 or 15 people at a time. And those are, you know, we try and economy has obviously been great for us and what we've done the last two and a half years, you know, during COVID it was some of our best times. But I mean internally from a sales standpoint, agriculture never slowed down, I suspect. Right, right. But it makes sure we have enough staff and keeping people in those places. But it'll be a constant struggle until it ends. I mean you never, you can never have those four perfect people walk in perfect time. You just have to work with the sales team. But yeah, we, you know, that's our goal is we'd like to be, you know, another. Oh, in another eight years, we would like to double this thing two more times, three more times, maybe two more times. For sure that that's going to get a little harder as we go. It is, I mean staff and people. But you know, people talk about having staffing. We have more people call us on the job than we turn people away pretty consistently. So I don't, you know, and I can't tell you why. I mean, I don't. The one thing that probably the number one thing we probably have learned in that area is that I'm 51 and I'm too old to hire this generation. I have to recruit from within that generation. I have to have them recruiting for me. I have to have that 22 to 30 year old recruiting. I'm the fourth to the oldest person in the office of 65 people. We had that talk to listen to demography talked about a few years ago and you just said you guys don't even speak the same language. You do, but you don't. And you got to make sure if we have some of our really aggressive younger people here out hiring people like them, it's pretty kind of got to get out of the way because they're coming at us pretty hard. Our biggest role is to make sure that they feel like they're fulfilled and have purpose here. And because that generation has a different thought process and it's not. I don't think the same. But they gotta learn to put up with me when they're here because that's part of the job, too. So I tell them that. Day one. Yeah, that's.

Anyway, no, there's so many. Again, if the lister here, I mean, because it's, you know, one of the. One of, if not the number one, top one or two frustrations is how do I find more good people, how they come in. I just, you know, it's, I mean, the great, you know, the great resignation and no one wants to do anything and you're at a spot going and you ask questions. I don't really know. Well, listen, there's probably a multitude of factors, but I do think, Kevin, and this is my opinion, but coming back to what you said earlier is, I think a big part of it is you know exactly who you are, what you stand for and what you don't, you know. Now, is there a different way to communicate that with the younger generation? Sure. But the point of it is, I think there's, there's clarity around that and I think that's what. It speaks volumes. And the other thing, too, last thing I'll add to that is, and you've heard us talk in different trainings before about, you know, culture and process that, you know, there's culture and there's process. A lot of agencies we see are like, well, we want to make some changes. So here's the new process. What, what I'm hearing from you is that, yeah, there's going to be some processes, but we're going to be tried and true on the culture we're representing, so those processes support it.

You know, you better have buying. Exactly.

I mean, Right. And you're never going to get 100%, as you said, but gosh darn, I want to get as much as I can. And people go, even though I don't quite get what we're doing here, like, exactly. I get why we're doing it. Like, there's power in that. I understand what we're about and what we're trying to do here versus, I don't know what he's talking about. I'm not going to do that. You know, and all that resistance that we hear all the time. So hopefully the listeners are taking some notes there because you had some. That are some pearls of wisdom, Kevin, that you shared there. All right, my last question. I know I've gone a little long on my interview. My promise. I appreciate your time. It's usually the most powerful question that I ask, or at least people tell me it is. If you were talking to a younger you, let's just say 20 years ago, right? And you met yourself 20 years ago, as you are today. What piece of advice would you give that younger version of you, Kevin?

You just have to stay focused on what you're good at. You don't even know what you're good at then. So that's the hardest part. You know, I had some opportunities with different agencies earlier on in my career, and, you know, the good Lord didn't let me capitalize on them at the time for whatever reason, and timing ended up being right later on. And so it's interesting to find and focus on what you do and staying with it. And it's not going to be easy. That's the other part that I tell them. Whatever path you choose, you go down. And, you know, the first three or four years are pretty tough. And it's from a sales point, sales standpoint in this industry, they're tough. I don't. I don't care what anybody says that first three years. I don't care. Roger can give you all the tools. I give you all the tools. You're gonna do everything wrong anyway. You're not gonna listen, because good salespeople don't listen very well. I mean, and so you just got to remember to stay the path and be able to see the carrot at the end. And that's the hardest part. If I had to go back, I should have been more focused, a little more precise. And some things I did, and I need to learn my craft a little better. Early on, I didn't really learn insurance as well the first three or four years of my career. In my second part of my second job I took, I worked for a guy that was previously an adjuster, and I learned insurance because an adjuster knows every piece of language in policy. And that's whenever things started changing for me. I learned how to really. I knew how to sell. It just was a natural thing. Nobody taught me that. It just kind of came. Was naturally a pretty quiet person, actually. But in a sales role, I could do that. I had to transition from being. Selling something tangible to intangible. I bought. I grew up buying some cattle, horses, cars. I mean, I bought. Sold everything but to that intangible piece. But I didn't learn it until I actually learned the business. I learned the policies, and I had to learn it the hard way. I mean, and there were some casualties along the way trying to learn that. So. But once I Look, once I became better at that part, it changed my career.

So, yeah, yeah, it's again, some great points there. And I chuckle, Kevin, because I got, you know, I told you, I've got. I got five kiddos and my oldest, my oldest is senior and great kid. I mean, he does some wonderful stuff. But I just, it takes you back when, even when I was younger, it's like people could tell you a thousand times, but sometimes you just gotta, you just gotta live it and feel it, right? Like, you know, here's what not to do. So you don't get punched in the face in sales and you're going, I can tell you a million times, you're still going to do it and you're going to get punched in the face and then you're going to feel it, right? And then when you feel it, you're going to go, I don't like that. I don't want to do that again. But I think what, what I, what I took and I'm trying to take and just summarize because it was so good, was, you know, truly listen to yourself in the sense of what am I uniquely good at? What do I really, you know, what draws my attention and captivates me. Learn as much as I can about it and leverage the heck out of it. Like, stay focused on it and just keep replicating those things because what you think you know, and this is what I, this is what I've Learned. Kevin. I'm 44, so I got, hopefully I got a lot of years left. But it's funny, the older I get, the more I realize that there's less that I know. You know, at 25, like, oh, I got that figured out. 35, I'm like, I'm getting. I got some stuff figured out a lot. I don't know, 45, I'm like, I don't know anything in the sense of like. Because there's so much more that I haven't lived and learned yet, which is exciting, but it's just, you know, I just, I love that advice to younger self. Just listen, learn and leverage and just go deep into it. And by the way, you're going to get kicked and punched in the face a lot. Deal with it. So anything else you want to add, Kevin, again, I so much, thank you for your time. Anything you want to add to the audience or any final words?

We love working with the Siftings group and Roger. That relationship goes back a long ways for me and it's fun to watch you evolve with Roger as Well, and we make this industry too hard. It's not that hard. And you got to simplify it. And my team, they kind of look at me funny. Some of us said, well, you just sit in there and heard that conversation. Were you awake or. I mean, we talk about that all the time. And that's. We have a good time with that. That's the fun part. This industry is a lot of fun. You got to enjoy, be part of it and help people. And the thing that I've always thought that your group does, it also allows you to enjoy what you're doing because you got, you have a playbook. I mean, you're not lost. So those young guys are trying to learn. We got without them. I mean, we all have six or eight in your meeting every month and they're trying to learn this industry. And one of the guys is pretty new to the industry three years in, he's maybe four now, and he's five or six years older than me. And that was a big career change. But he loves your path. You know, he. I wish I started with his wisdom at 50. Yeah, 25. What I could really have leveraged at that point in my careers. Anyway, that's no, I love.

Likewise. I mean, we say this again. This is, this is a relationship business in so many areas. And we appreciate the relationship certainly with you all. And you know, and just, and it's just, again, this is a feather in your cat. But for your agency and your team is there's just, there's such a different feeling and energy when you work and see people who just truly care. I mean about your people, about results, about, like you said the last part, it's not just about the money. It's about the freedom. It's the fact this business should be fun. Why not, right? I mean, we always say every opportunity deserves your very best. Like, go make it happen today and have some fun doing it and live full out. So, Kevin, again, thank you again so much for your time. I appreciate it. For all the listeners, if you didn't take a bunch of notes, what were you doing? And reminder too that our book best version possible, go to sitkins.com bvp wish you all the best in your success. Thanks for listening.

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