It's OK To Be Challenged with Jeff Kirk

Welcome to the Agent Leader podcast. My name is Brent Kelly, your host. Thanks so much for joining me on another episode. So glad to have you with me. I've got a great guest today and we'll get to my great guest in just a couple minutes here. But I do want to share, as always, the purpose, the mission of the Agent Leader podcast. My goal, our goal, even with the all the guests that we have on the podcast is, is to help you as an agency leader gain clarity, build consistency and make a commitment to becoming your best version possible, which is a topic that we speak about all the time. In fact, if you're watching the video version of my podcast, you'll see behind me our copy of our book, which by the way, I owe my guest his own personal copy. I'm finally getting more shipments in and I will tell you I will speak on this. Hopefully by the time our audience listens to this, all the pre ship books are finally in the hands of people. We have had some shipping delays and we're aware of that, but want to get books to you if you go to sitkins.com bvp sitkins.com bvp we'll put a link here on the show notes. You can go to our site there to order a book for your agency. Order as many as you'd like, give them to your team. But we're getting some great feedback. I'm really proud of what we put together for agencies out there. Also, if you want the movie version of best version possible, we have that as well. We've got the book in the movie. We want to make sure that we're multifaceted here at Sitkins. You go to sitkins.com/vip for VIP Very Important Person. So sickens.com BVP for the book or VIP if you want to watch the movie or hey, you know what, do both. So with that, I want to get into the podcast interview today and I mentioned I've got a great guest. The person I have with me today is one of our Sitkins network members. So I get to know Jeff and his team really well over the past year or so. And I'll say this and Jeff, I want you to intro yourself and talk about what you want with your family and business and all of that good stuff. But I know this Jeff is a committed growth professional but he's also just a great human being. So and I'll say that I didn't, I didn't preface this Jeff, but just a great human being. I tell you it's One of the things that makes this business fun. I know when working with clients, there are certain clients that you have that you just go, hey, listen, they're, they're a great client, but they're just a great person. And I really mean that. Jeff, you're just a quality individual. You're a, you're a husband, you're a father, you're a grandpa, and you're leading your agency. So I've got Jeff Kirk from the great state of Ohio. The agency is Dosto and Kirk. Jeff, if you could just say hello to the audience and then if you'd like to just share your background, family insurance, whatever it comes to your heart and mind that our audience can get to know you better. Sure.

Well, first of all, thanks for having me on, Brad. It's great to be with you as always and appreciate all the things that Sitkins does for our organization and us personally. So. So I. Probably a little grayer than most people that you have on here typically. So this is. I began my 41st year in the business just, just this year. I started out small town, from a small town in Ohio, but I don't know, Columbus, Ohio. And I started out with a small insurance company, a little regional, domestic, Ohio based only company, a little mutual company right out of college and went to work there as a personalized underwriter. Didn't know what I didn't know and it was a great place to start, great culture, great people. Ended up from there, moving on to a couple of other insurance companies over the next few years and spent 20 years of my life on the company side. Got into marketing right away, found out that the underwriting desk was not the case place for me to be. I really needed to be outside where I could be developing more personal, one on one relationships with people. So got lucky, got up with a great company and a regional company again, did business in about 25, 30 states, was with them, ended up with a national carrier, then ultimately worked with a company that was an international carrier. So got to see a lot of different things over that 20 year period. My family and I lived in Ohio. We lived in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Nashville, Tennessee, Indianapolis, Indiana. So we moved around quite a bit during that process and which was great because we got to meet so many really cool people in different parts of the country. And they all, many of those folks remain really close personal friends today and some of business associates. And so that exposure was something, you know, we've always felt really grateful that we had an opportunity to do that and the company put us in that Position. I've been a student of the business, I think pretty much my whole career. I got involved in CIC program and picked up my designation there in 1989 and 93, picked up my CPC designation. I have numerous financial designations. Just feel like you got to be a student of the business. And I tried to do that, you know, throughout my career. I returned kind of home, so to speak, about 21 years ago, opened up a scratch agency in my hometown of Galleon, Ohio and was a one man shop doing a little bit of everything for about eight and a half years. And then I ended up merging with my current business partner and his father and then ultimately brought, we brought my son in as a business partner as well. So it's a organization with four offices in central and north central Ohio, one in the greater Columbus area and three in real small communities up fairly close to where my partner and myself are from. So it's a, it's a, it's a great opportunity for us. We're holistic planners so we provide services, advice and counsel and all things insurance, but also financial services as well. My individual expertise is more in the commercial lines, production area, but also I'm very involved in all things retirement. So qualified plans, non qualified plans, pension plans. I advise corporations, clients on nonprofits on those plans. And that's something probably I really enjoy probably the most of what I do. But yeah, it's been a great ride. The business has been so good to me, my family and our associates and I couldn't imagine doing anything else for 41 years.

Yeah, well, thanks for the recap. It's always interesting to see people's experience and how they got to where they are today and what you're doing. And by the way, the gray thing, you said grayer. I don't know, I'm catching you pretty quickly here. People remind me of that often too. And my first boss said to me, Jeff, this is, well, let's see, 21 years ago now, something, something like that, 21, 22 years ago. He's like, when you get some more gray, you'll be able to speak at a higher level. So I'm hoping it's working. I don't know, but I'm doing my best.

I was told the same thing and I got gray really early. So I think my mind to it that that's where I was to go.

Yeah. So at this point I can't stop it. It's just a runaway freight train. So, you know, I want to, I want to get to some of your challenges. But we talked even before I hit record and I hope I want to ask you this, I think it's important. And we mentioned, you know, the agencies that we personally work with, they vary in size and sc. And you know this, we've talked about this. You're one of the smaller revenue agencies from that aspect that we work with. But as I was talking to you before and I loved your perspective on this, it's not just to me there's, you know, large, medium, small revenue, however you want to define it, but there's also different types of thinking. You could be a, you could be a medium or large agency and have small thinking. You could be a smaller agency in revenue but begin to have larger thinking. I think that's been something that you've addressed. So just, I don't know if this is a question or more of just your thoughts, Jeff, but what does that mean to you as far as being a big thinker or small thinker and what does that meant for your agency?

Great question and one I'm happy to take on because I think it's important to our agency. In fact, I've always viewed myself based on my experiences in the past of being more of a larger thinker or someone who doesn't have, you know, a lot of limitations in terms of what their thought process is. And, and so you kind of get yourself into a bit of a comfort level there. And, and I was attending The Sitkins Elite 50, the first program back in the fall and I had a chance to talk to Roger at a break and, and Roger challenged me a little bit on that and said, you know, some of the things you sometimes might mention about the size or location of your agency and some of the account sizes that you work. He goes, I would define those as more of self limiting beliefs. And I really took that to heart and I really, that resonated with me. It wasn't really fun to listen to or hear at the time, but I think he really did catch something there that I think might be gotten a little bit complacent over the years and really haven't thought about. You know, just because we're in a small area doesn't mean we have to be small. It doesn't mean we need to think small. We want to think big. We want to make sure that we are providing solutions to our clients that anyone in any major metro area could do. And, and while we kind of thought that way over time, I think we got away from it. And I think that was really great advice. And now my team will hold me accountable as well in group settings, if I might mention. Well, I'm not sure we can really do that. And I go, wait a minute. Self limiting belief, you know, you mentioned that that's not the road we're going to go down. So anyone who, and I would just speak to anyone in any agency or size, but even those, especially that may be in communities, you know, that are 10, 15,000, 25,000, whatever it might be, there's. There's no limit to what you can do. And I think that was just really great to hear from Roger. It was stung a little bit. We're working hard to make sure that we don't fall back into that trap again, but when it's easy to do. And so I appreciate you asking about it and I'm happy to share.

Yeah, well, one thing too, Jeff. I mean, this is, this sounds obvious, but I do think it's missed. I mean, to, you know, to, to your point of what you just said. You know, the, the most successful people have one major thing in common. They're coachable. And part of that is that you don't as you like the things that you hear with that. I've had coaches that have challenged me in ways that, you know, I told my daughter when she was freshman and sophomore in basketball, and the coach was kind of getting on her. I said, listen, I said, if, if the coach didn't see great potential and value and what you could do, he wouldn't get on you because it wouldn't be worth it. So, you know, part of that is just seeing more greatness than what we see in ourselves. And you're right. That thing between our ears is, well, you know, I don't. That's. That's what other people do. You know, we probably really couldn't do that. And we think sometimes and I'm, you know, I'm part of that where we think we're like, oh, I'm a big thinker. And then someone comes and goes, okay, are you. And we find ourselves with that. So I just, as a listener, just think about that again.

A.

Who's coaching you? And it doesn't have to be a Sitkins thing. Right. Obviously, we love what we do, but just someone there to say, hey, listen, are you really challenging and thinking yourself at the highest level? Because it is easy to get complacent. It just really, really is. All right, I'm going to, I'm going to ask a question about challenges. I'm sure you've had more than one. I know you share with me. But what do you believe? And this could be maybe something in the past, Jeff, that you have, you and your team maybe have, have overcome or worked on or maybe something right now you're dealing with. But what do you feel is number one challenge and how are you working or what did you do to overcome that?

I would say that, you know, obviously we all go through, you know, daily challenges, right. But I think if you just go. Try to go up to just somewhat of a higher level. If you look at what's happening and we do as an agency in the, in the industry right now and we all the M and A activity and all the things that are being driven by private equity and what's happening with agencies, and it's caused us a few years ago to sit back and look and say, you know, okay, who are we? Where do we want to go? What are we trying to get accomplished? And one of the major things we set out was we said we want to strive to be an excess successful enterprise for years to come, that both our associates and our clients can count on over time. And in order to do that, we felt like the best way to do that would be to remain independent. And so that will continue to become a bigger and bigger challenge, I think, going forward, because you're either going to acquire or you're going to be acquired. And we did acquire an agency about five years ago. I think it was a tremendous learning opportunity for us. It was a smaller agency in a smaller community. But I think what it did is it allowed us to go through the process of integrating another agency into ours. The challenges that creates in terms of culture, human aspects of everything, training, what, how we both saw the. The way the client should be serviced and align ourselves to make sure that, that we had a. Now a new shared version going forward. It wasn't version or our version, it was our shared version. So I think we're kind of going through that and kind of looked at, you know, what do we need to do going forward? Yes, we need to grow organically. And that's our biggest challenge. I think that's, I would imagine talk to most people. That's going to be the biggest challenge. How do we grow organically in a challenging market? Right. And it's always going to be a challenging market. So that's our biggest challenge. How do we retain our best clients and how do we attract our new future best clients? And when an opportunity presents itself, is agency in a good, healthy financial position to look at other acquisitions, merger that might serve us and our clients the best. So I think that's kind of our number one challenge is how do we get to the next 10 years? What needs to happen now and then for us to be able to realize that goal? Right. So we're, you know, we're engaged all the time and talking with great agencies that we know and respect and trying to get their input on what's happening with their agencies. And maybe there's a potential alignment there, maybe not, but it's always a good conversation to have. So I think we need keeping our ear to the ground for that going forward. And then also, you know, what do we need to do in terms of our own internal processes to make sure we're going to be successful and growing our business? You know, great execution of our, you know, high performance teams with our account managers and our producers, making sure our producers are, you know, focused on allocating enough face to face time with their best clients and our best, you know, potential clients and all those circles of influence that we like to work with and help each other's clients, you know, are we spending the proper time there? So, you know, those are kinds of things we're really trying to focus and work on right now because it's, it's. Everything that we do tactically goes back to support that one strategic goal to grow, grow profitably, stay independent and be locally owned.

Yeah, well said. So many good takeaways there, Jeff. I think what hits me too, and there's, there's a lot of layers to this and what you guys are trying to do, and it's always more than one thing. But, you know, one of the first things you talked about there was, was culture. And, you know, it's, it's the buzzword. Culture, culture, culture, culture. But, you know, I think this comes back to something I learned years ago. And again, there's more than just this. But it was the law of magnetism which said that we don't attract what we want, we attract who we are. And I, I, I, you know, I love that because it's kind of like, well, who are we like, right? Like, who are we and who do we want to be? What are we going to be when we grow up? And you're really defining that and owning it because this goes back to the small thinking. It's really hard to go, well, we just kind of do this and this. I can't figure out why we're not attracting more of these clients we really want. Well, because you're not living in that world, right? So I think a Lot of that is a culture of who are we and what internally do we need to be and discuss and talk about to make sure that we're doing the things externally to the clients that we truly want to keep at the highest level. So love what you said there. Now, we all have successes. Although I will say this with agency leaders in particular, Jeff, and I'm sure you're not going to be immune to this, is that the best leaders I talk to don't like to brag. And that's okay. They're humble, humble leaders, humble servants. But success does leave clues. And you guys have had some levels of success in different areas. What has been, would you say, the greatest success that you've seen or done? Again, this could be recent or not, that you've got to continue to replicate at the highest level.

I'll tell you, for me personally, this is maybe a little bit off the track, but for me personally, my biggest success, I feel like, and it's a struggle every day for me anyway, is to really create a true life balance. And I really feel like that's just really critical. I mean, you know, we're imperfect, we're human. You know, from time to time, we think we might be in balance and kind of fall out of that. And for me, you know, way I would define that, and I have, over the years, I've always really tried to make sure that I kept things in check so that, you know, I wasn't spending. You know, there's times when you have to spend so many hours at work, right? I mean, you just do. And it's just building an organization and a business and that type of thing. And my family's always been understanding about that. But it was always really important for me never to miss anything. So I never missed a science fair. I never missed a ball game. I never missed a cheerleading competition or a training or cross country. I mean, just always banned competition, anything that our family was involved in. I really tried to make sure that is my life's priority. I think the fact for me also, personally, is just where I'm at in my whole spiritual life and making sure that I keep a balance there and trying to be, you know, the. The kind of person that I was put on this earth to be then. I think also the people that I work with, you know, I think they count on me to be a good, steady influence and make sure that I'm supportive and helpful and balanced and making sure that I'm considering their needs and their perspectives and everything. And first thing I look at is I look at our team are all of our folks at work at Dawson Kirk. I know we just have an unbelievable group of people, and my role there is just to be as supportive and helpful and providing any kind of direction I can. So to me, it is just balance overall. Right. Your health and fitness and all those things fit into that. But I think sometimes we can get out of whack and we can go a little bit too heavy in one area or not take ourselves a little bit too seriously. And I think just having a good, healthy balance and making sure we are happy people, you know, that you're a good friend, good neighbor, doing all the right kinds of things. I know that kind of sounds like mom and apple pie and Chevrolet, but I think, you know, to me that that's kind of what drives me. That's my. Why is sure that I have that. And at the end of the day, you know, I mean, most of my earning years obviously are behind me. You know, my dad used to say, the hay's in the barn. So, you know, it's. It's. Now it's just about, you know, how can I make other better, how can I make better for others and not only my clients, but our people. And if I'm doing that, you know, the insurance is great, but at the end of the day, it's. It's a piece of who I am and not who I am.

Well, well said. I mean, I just words I wrote down as you were saying, there was freedom and fulfillment, you know, and I'm sure I'm not the only one here. But, you know, you don't. You don't hear people at the end of life, you know, going, gosh, Brent, of all the things, I just really wish I would have put more time in the office. I mean, that was the thing I really missed out on. I mean, you know, I mean, and we kind of laugh and joke about it, but it's true. And I mean, you know, it's just one of those things. It's a tough deal, right? Because there's so many. When we have ambitions and things we want to accomplish, you know, how do you balance that? What does that mean? What does that look like? And so I highly respect the fact that I'm not going to miss that. I'm not going to miss that. You know, I believe a lot in priorities. And I'll just tell you a quick. Just a real quick story, Jeff. I think you'll appreciate it. So again, I try to surround myself with mentors and coaches. I was On a mentorship call, it's probably been, I don't know, four or five, six years ago. I don't remember now, but just talking about my business model and what I want to do and want to create, and a big part of this was scheduling your calendar. I talk about this all the time. I was just being proactive, proactive. And so I was talking about the blocks and how I'm going to do this this way. It's going to be great, and all this. And he said, hey, can I ask you a question? He goes, what's. What's most important to you? And I said. I said, of everything? And he goes, yeah, I have everything. And I said, well, you know, I mean, obviously, there's my spiritual life. I said, but my wife, my kids, I mean. And he goes, now, are they on the calendar first, or would you just add them when it's convenient? About fell out of my chair, you know, and it's true. It's very, very true. And so it's just. I think it's one of those things that we all need to take some time to think about. And. And, you know, again, there's. There's struggles, there's the. There's the wheel where you got, you know, physical, spiritual work, financial, you name it. And there's. Sometimes we always get out of whack, but it's just being cognizant of what do I really want and what does it mean. So I appreciate your vulnerability there, Jeff, and sharing that.

The big thing is, and my wife and I have talked about this several times, is there's always somebody watching you. Either you're either your team's watching you to see your reaction, your kids are watching you to see what kind of. Of, you know, example you're going to set. Your grandkids are watching you to see if you have rules for them and rules for yourself different. And I think that I always try to really be thoughtful about, you know, there's always somebody watching you. And just in terms of be yourself, be true to yourself. You know, hold yourself to high standards, be ethical and all those great things that we all want to do. But, you know, you do matter to people, and what you do matters to them. And if you're not out there thinking proactively about that kind of example you're setting, you're setting yourself up to have problems down the line, I think.

Yeah, I love that. That might be a good theme or title for this podcast. I like that because it's so, so true. All right, so this Isn't a plug just on Sitkins, but maybe it is. We've worked together for a while, obviously in working with our group and I just, I'm always curious too and sometimes I have an idea of the answer, but I sometimes I don't. Just in working with us because there's a lot of different strategies and principles and things we talk about and people identify and implement things differently and we talk about that. Right. You're not going to agree with everything that we say. You're not going to implement everything that we say. It's not possible. But trying to find the right pieces for you and your agency. So the question is this, what's the biggest thing that you feel that you and your agency have received from just our relationship, our coaching, our training over the past few years?

Sure. I would start with going through a healthy self analysis and recognizing that we couldn't do it by ourselves, where we wanted to go. We knew we weren't getting where we wanted to go. So we had to sit back and think thoughtfully about what do you think we need to do? And so we started thinking about who might we align ourselves with. And we actually reached out to a firm that we thought might be a good fit for us. They were more of a. They worked with financial services advisors more than PNC advisors. And we found out about a month into that, you know, beginning of that relationship that that was not the way for us to go. That we needed someone who was more holistic and could handle much more breadth but also mainly more focused on P and C. Timing was. I was actually looking at a, looking at a program when we, we attended one of the Agency Nation events up in Cleveland and I participated in one of your breakout sessions and you were there representing Sitkins at the time. And my partners and I had a conversation and said, well, maybe we got to reach out to the folks at Sitkins and just, you know, spit awesome ideas on the wall and find out if they might be a good fit for us. And that's really how that whole thing started. And you know, from us initially understanding that we needed some help and guidance and then we talked with you all and Brad Keller was the first person we talked to there, your brother. And also then had a little bit of a conversation with Roger that he put together and then ultimately started working with you. I think what you guys have done for us is you've introduced a process and you have introduced a better way of approaching life's business problems. Right. That an agency faces. And I think what we've what we've done as a result is we've slowed down. It's not the flavor of the month. I think the principles that you have tried to instill in us is to plan better, get back to executing the basics. Like, you know, you mentioned a comment and in a meeting we were in, you know, a few weeks back that, you know, execute the basics so well that you become cutting edge and it's so obvious, it's so out there in front of you is just do the basic stuff and do it right and do what you tell a client you're going to do something, do it and make sure that you do it really, really well, the best of your ability. So I think just improving personal organization, both personal and organizational accountability has been something that you guys really instilled in us. We like the coaching. The best coach I ever had in high school or college athletics was my high school football coach. And he was the ornerious demanding, you know, you thought there's no way you could take one more step in August in a two day practice and somehow, you know, he came over and got your face and you did take that step. And later on in life turned out to be one of the best mentors I've ever had. And, and he was able to change roles and not be the guy that was trying to drive us, you know, down the field. And now he wants to drive you through life. You know, it's okay to be challenged. And that's something you all have done in a meaningful and respectful way to us and our business because sometimes it does get personal, right? And I think that you guys have done that in a way, found a great balance to say, you know, these are great ideas. This is what other agencies, the best in class agencies are doing. This is what we've seen over the last 30, 40 years. And oh, by the way, if it doesn't work for you, you don't have to do it. But this is what we're going to tell you and you can implement it or not, but this is our best advice. That's all we can ask for. It's up to us then to determine what fits our culture and cadence, what fits the way we do things, to put our brand on it, to be able to use what you're telling us and, and make it real for our clients. But they, they see our brand only so that helps elevate us in the minds of our customers, which is what we want. And we just feel like, you know, from, from a multitude of perspectives. A lot of the consulting and coaching world focuses on people like me. But what you guys have been able to do for us is you've been able to drill through the different layers of an organization and go into that line account manager who's working on the day to day stuff with the client and servicing them and making sure all the things get done right. And you programs that are specifically designed for them and our producers the same way. So I think we've been able to. What we have didn't know about at the very beginning with you and what we know now is that there's something for everyone in our office through your organization that will ultimately benefit our clients and elevate our people. And I think that to me that's just the simplest part. It's not any more complex than that. You know, it's Woody Hayes say, people helping people, right?

Yeah.

And you can't be in Columbus, Ohio without remembering, you know, Coach Hayes. So incorporate at least one thing that he says and what we do once in a while.

I love it. Well, hey, thanks for sharing that. And I mean, again, I don't need to add much to it, but the thing that you said that's it's even a challenge as a coach is that, you know, so many times you want to get on like, hey, what's the new cool thing we're going to do? Nothing. We're going to do the thing that you haven't really done yet. Right. Or, or improve it or go a little deep or all those kind of things. And you know, magically, it's like, wow, we actually focused on something long enough to start to push the ball down the field. Use another sports analogy. Right? So I appreciate you sharing that, Jeff. All right, here's my last, my last question, final question. And maybe you've addressed this in different ways, but you take it however you want to. And we were talking about our gray hair here. So here's maybe a better way that we could address it. If we could go back. If you could go back and I don't know how long you want to go back, I'll let you think about that. I always say 20 years. But talk to the younger version of you. You've got young Jeff Kirk sitting there looking up at current Jeff Kirk and he says, hey, future me, if you got something to give me advice, what would you tell me? What would you, what would you tell your younger self?

I think from, from a work perspective, I would probably say that find out what you do really, really well, what you really enjoy doing the most and what Seems to fulfill you the most. Do that and delegate everything else. One of my first job, my first promotion on the insurance company side when I had been a field representative calling on independent INS agencies in Minnesota and Ohio and Tennessee, and I got brought back into the home office and at the time, the company, you know, they wanted to advance me in a role of manager so I could have some people management responsibilities. But there was also a small local territory that they wanted me to continue to serve agents. They thought that would be a really good way for me to stay current with the agencies, but also develop the managerial skills. And what it ultimately turned out into was a complete fiasco because it was like, okay, well, do I service agents or do I go out and help people? And these people are counting me and they're calling me, I'm in an agency call. So what they ultimately did was, I think quickly in that role, I think the company found out that that probably wasn't the best way to go about it. So you're either going to need to be in the sales and field or you need to be a manager. And so they ultimately decided that, at least at that time, they felt like I would be better suited for management. They put me in that. And then I ultimately became better in that role and I was able to focus on it. I was able to really try to do the things that I needed to do to help facilitate the people that reported through me. And I think that was really, really a good thing. Then when you fast forward and I become an agent, especially when you start an agency from scratch, I mean, you're doing it all. You're the chief cook and bottle washer, you're entering the applications at night at home, you're meeting with the clients in the evening or the day of the Saturday, or what do you have to do to put food on your family's table? And it didn't take me too long to figure out that there was a better way to do that. And so, you know, I hired my first employee before I could afford them because I knew where we needed to go and where I wanted to go. And then my next hire, and then my next hire, and I still fall back into that. I guess I would call it a rut today, once in a while. So obviously we know as business owners and, you know, we have responsibilities, managerial responsibilities, whether they be, you know, the finances of the business or the people aspects of it, or the core operations, the real estate, all the other things you get involved with training. And then there's also, you know, the other side of it, which is you're a producer. If you are a producer, and I mean, if I would have had to do that all over to do again maybe 10 years ago, I would have found someone to say, you're going to handle all the administration, you're going to handle the operations. And I believe that my personal book of business, my. My personal enjoyment and probably the results of just being an advisor and a producer, which is what I love to do and meet and counsel and coach clients, and that's the heart of what I do. That's what I would do. So if I could kind of rewind that back, tell somebody younger, you know, find out what you're good at and just go do the heck out of it and let everybody else take care of everything else, you'll be fine and happy.

Yeah. Hopefully the audience is writing some of that down because there's such good advice there, Jeff. And, I mean, I'm. I'm taking some notes that you said. It reminded me too, you know, back when you said, you know, I was starting from scratch, like, I had to do everything because I was the only one that could do it. And, you know, I remember even having conversations with myself, but also with people like you in that situation, saying, you know, listen, this is not. You can't give all that up. Like, today. That's not feasible. But I want to start you to think about how can you become a quitter. It's like, what are you talking about? You're my coach. But it's like, no, no. I mean, as soon as you can think about, if you've got 10, you know, it's probably more than that, but 10 responsibilities that are, you know, that are making the agency in this case, move. Like, again, like you said, identify the things that are most impactful and that you love to do and start thinking about, how do I begin quickly to quit that and quit that and quit that.

Right.

By finding people to delegate it to. And Roger said something at the elite 50 that hit me, and I said this in different ways, but he said in a way that really hit me. He said, the things that we often won't let go are the same things that are keeping us back. And I was like, wow, it's true. It's like, well, I got to do. No, no, you don't. Like, there are people that are better at that than you, that like to do that job more than you. I mean, we've all been there. We're doing things well. I just have to. And we're Miserable. We're not good at it. We're so slow. It's frustrating, but gosh darn it, I'm a hard worker, so I'm going to do it well, have fun with that. Right. And you're going to get stuck pretty quick. So really good advice. And then you want to add to that.

Jeff, it's hard to let go. Just human nature. And we almost, I think as humans, we view letting go of something as failure. And what you're doing by letting it go is you're actually creating a successful opportunity for someone else to do it better. And then it sets you up to be able to go back to your, you know, those clear building blocks of what you are the best at and so perfectly normal. I think I have had those feelings in the past when I've, you know, tried to do that, and I probably have unsuccessfully delegated more than I have successfully. But it's just. It's a. The nice thing about it is it's a constant learning opportunity and a process to go through. And as long as you've got yourself surrounded by great people that have your back and understand that you're imperfect, that you're going to make mistakes and you have to acknowledge those, it's healthy for. Healthier for everyone. Yeah, yeah.

And usually we find out is that when you tell people around you that you're going to give up some of that thing because you need to focus on that, they usually go, thank you, not time. Right. But you're right. There's the human condition. I mean, I'm raising my own hand where it's like, yeah, but if I give that up, it means that I didn't do a very good job at it, you know? Yeah, probably. So. We say success leaves clues and so does failure, so. Well, Jeff, thanks so much for your time and coming on. And again, I enjoy speaking with you for so many reasons. And I said you're a great leader and a producer and you're out there trying to get better, but you're just a great human being, and I mean that. So I appreciate you being part of our. Our network, part of our team, and continue to wish you success as you move forward.

Well, I appreciate you having me on and your nice comments. Our team loves working with you all, and hopefully we can continue to learn from each other. I enjoy your podcast. I enjoy listening to my contemporaries out there, and I learned something every time. So if someone's picked up something today, it's beneficial for them, then that's a good use of your. In my time as well.

Yeah. No, thank you. Well, last reminder again, the book, the movies out there, promo it again. Sitkins.com BVP to get a copy of the best version possible book. And we talk about a lot of these things that Jeff had mentioned today in the book. And so just kind of give you the roadmap. And again, how do you get greater profits and more freedom with less stress? Right. In different ways. We want to help agencies do that. And then the movie. Sitkins.com VIP, you can take a look at something that Raj and I and our team put together this year to help you and your agency be your best version possible. So, Jeff, thanks again to the audience out there. All the best, your success. Thanks for being a listener.