It's Time to Go Deeper

Welcome to the Agent Leader podcast and welcome to 2020. I know it's kind of weird, isn't? I'm not the first person to say it, and I'm certainly won't be the last, but it's pretty weird to think that it is 2020. I read something or saw something last week that said that we are now as close to 2050 as we are to 1990. And that struck me a little bit strange. I mean, the math is pretty easy, right? We're 30 years away from 1990, and 30 years until 2050, but 1990 doesn't seem that long ago. I know for many of my listeners, you probably feel the same way. And just to think about how far, personally and in the world, things have changed since 1990 in my own life, like I said, in the outside world, and then what's going to happen in the next 30 years? It's both maybe a little bit exciting, a little bit scary all at the same time, but I am honored and excited you're with me on, on this podcast, first podcast of 2020. My name is Brent Kelly, your host and the vice president of the Sitkins Group. And the purpose of this podcast, the Agent Leader podcast, is to help you gain clarity, consistency, and to make a commitment in your agency to become your best version possible. Very excited to share the content on this first episode of the year with you. And it's something, an idea that has been kind of bubbling inside of me for a while. It's something that I've kind of looked at in different ways and really spent a lot of time over the past year thinking and trying to move at a level that'll help me become a better professional. And over the holiday season, I read a book that I've been on my book reading list. Probably like many of you as agency leaders, I sometimes buy more books than I can actually read, both on my Kindle and hardback or paperback books. And I finally got to a book that I've been wanting to read. So I just got on my Kindle and just started diving through it. And the book is called Deep Work by Cal Newport. And maybe you're familiar with the book, maybe you're not. So let me just give you just a quick overview. The idea, and this is trying to take a, you know, couple hundred page book and simplify it in a few sentences. But the idea is that most of us as professionals do things at a very shallow level, right? We get distracted by everything. We just hit the highlights of things, but we don't really do the important, meaningful, deep work that's necessary to really stand out today. And you know, it's kind of one of those things you say, well, that probably makes sense. And I highly, highly recommend the book if you're someone who is certainly as an agency leader, leader of any kind, that feels like you get distracted or lose focus or you're doing a million different things. But you know, what are the things I should be doing at a deeper level? This book will you, in many different ways and just give you some ideas to think about. And certainly from my own personal life, that's something I've been working on. I mean, there's so many things that any of us can do. I know me personally, it's like, well, should I do this or this or this or a little of this and go over here and do this and do this. But what are the things that are really going to move the needle that if I do at exceptionally high level, is going to create more momentum, allow me and our company to stand out better in the marketplace, provide better results for our clients, do all the things that we really want to do? That's a very important question to ask. And I look at insurance agencies, obviously it's who I work with every single day in coaching and consulting and live training and online training. I would say this, and I'm going to make a very broad blanket statement here and I'm going to dive deep into some areas. I think that I would guess that 95%, and this is a little bit of a made up stat, but if I just had a look at it, I would say about 95% of agencies swim or perform very shallow. Very shallow. And I said it on previous podcasts. I'll say it again, the insurance industry is an incredible business to be in because if you just churn enough stuff out and you work pretty hard, you could swim, you could perform shallow and still be okay. But I would say that 95% of agencies are really focused like every other agency. They act like every agency, its price, its product. If we can just do enough quotes, if we can turn enough transactions actions, we can be successful. And I've coined this before, this actually goes back from Seth Godin, who wrote years ago about this race to the bottom. And I think that's what I see a lot of agencies do is they're running really, really, really fast. They're running really, really hard. But they get to what they think may be a finish line or at least the results they want to get, and they end up being frustrated and Tired, and they're doing okay, but not nearly as good or as great as they should be doing. And then I see the other type of agencies, and certainly agencies that we work with very closely. This is where we want to continue to help them and push them, is to work deeper, is to not be quotes and transactions, but risk advice. Getting back to the heart of what we should be doing in this business, being a risk advisor, but doing it in a way that actually is true, not just saying, oh, we're a risk advisor now. What are you doing? What questions are you asking? To be a risk advisor, to understand that this is still a relationship business. And although we're going to use technology to leverage our time and the way that we can build relationships, we also know there's a lot of physical relationships that mean a lot in this business that I think too many agencies have gotten away from or maybe gotten complacent to, that we need to really understand there's an underwriting component that we should be doing risk surveys that we should be asking questions around true cost of risk and true cost of benefits. And I'm not going to spend the podcast talking about that. We dive into that in some of our live programs. But just to let you understand from the outset and the question I want to ask you on the top of this podcast is, is your agency, or as. Or are you, as a leader, are you performing shallow, meaning you're just surface level, hitting a lot of things at a surface level, or are you really going deep, taking a deep dive in the right areas? So what I want to do today, and there's a lot of areas, I think, of agencies we could look at, of where you can go deeper, where you can have greater depth to make a greater impact both internally and externally. And one of the things that we certainly, as a coach, that I do with our private client members, is that we try to really help them walk, you know, walk them through that, what's most important to them, and to get clarity. But there are three things I think that really any agency should be going deeper in, and most of them probably aren't. I said 95% of agencies swim shallow. And I think when I talk about these three areas, it's true in these areas as well, as part of that. So the three areas I want to talk about in going deep, first of all, is something that you've probably heard many times before. But again, the question I'd ask you is, are you shallow? Are you deep in this area? And that is understanding, identifying, and executing your Points of differentiation as an agency. And certainly if you're a producer listening to this, what truly makes you unique, what makes you different, what makes your story compelling? What do you do that impacts the client, your client in a way that truly affects and impacts their life? What are the stories? What are the examples? What are the questions that you ask around that? And so I just throw some of these things out to think about it because I can tell you that when I travel, whether it's a, you know, an agency or association event or some other type of event, and I'm with a group of insurance agency leaders or insurance agency producers, and I talk about what truly makes you unique and different. Most of them can't provide a response outside of the typical things. Price. And, you know, we've got competitive quotes and you know, we, we represent all the carriers and we've got really good service, but they don't. It doesn't mean anything. And so one of the things that we work really hard with our private clients on is creating an actual form. Now, this can be agency wide, this could be department wide. So it depends on your agency and what you do. Certainly for individual producers and production teams, service team, sales, service teams, we should have these. But what would be your five key points of differentiation to not just say, well, let's think of a couple and then forget about it and never talk about it. But how do we go deeper, right, Actually have depth in this that it becomes, we call an eyelid tattoo, that, you know, it like, this is who we are, this is why we're different. These are the questions that we ask around. Here's the evidence we provide to prove it. Here's the stories we can share that when we're talking to our future ideal clients and our current clients, they know why we're different, why we're unique, why it would be really hard for them to. To leave us or work with another agency? I've shared this, I'm sure on previous podcasts. The law of compensation was taught to me years ago. It's very simple to understand. But most agencies don't execute. The law of compensation basically says this. The level of what you get paid, and this could be individual or certainly by an agency, is in direct proportion to a. Is there a need in the marketplace for what you do? Well, we could say yes for sure, right? Are you capable of doing it? Well, most of you listen to this. I think probably all of you, yes, we're capable of doing it. The last part is, what is the difficulty in replacing you? That is a really hard question. What is the difficulty in replacing you as an insurance agent or agency to your clients or future clients? And if you can't give a compelling answer, and that's a hard question, don't get me wrong. But if you don't spend time as a team or to think about that, you are missing a huge opportunity for depth to really change the conversation, to truly be unique. But most times what happens, and this is truly certainly true in the book, and I find this in my own personal life, so I can kind of relate back to an agency overall and even just a personal perspective, is that when we ask ourselves hard questions, when we have to think deeper, when we can do things that would make a larger impact, it's hard work. And when we have hard work, what happens is we find something else to do. Yeah, we'll get back to it. We'll talk about that next week. I got something else to do. I've got emails to check. I've got this to do. Whatever the case may be right versus saying no, this is important because if we can figure this out and we can do it at a high level, we're going to be long term in such much a better place than where we are today. So again, understanding, going deeper in your points of differentiation, that would be one of the top things I'd see with agencies. Here's another thing that this is true for, really any agency, going deeper in preparation and making preparation in your agency, whether it's your production team, your service team, leadership team, certainly are you truly practicing and executing and following up on being prepared? I use this example all the time, but it seems silly when you think about it. I mean, could you imagine a sports team of any kind, especially a professional sports team or college sports team or a professional musical production or Broadway, whatever it is. And they don't prepare. They don't prepare for an event, they don't prepare for a show, they don't prepare for a game, and they think we're going to wing it. See, the agencies that have depth, they unleash their greatest competitive advantage. And we teach this with producers individually all the time in our producer fit programs is that your greatest competitive advantage is your ability to prepare. You know, other agencies may have some more tools. They might, they may have different carers that you don't have. They may be in a location that technically could be better than where your location is. And we could do a number of things. But one thing you as an agency, an agency team can control, you have 100% control, Liv, is that we will never have another agency out prepare us. We will be professionally fit. We will be professionals, not amateurs. And so here's just some questions, I think, about preparation. It's one thing to go, yeah, we're going to be prepared. We need to be prepared. Rah, rah, Brent, go get it. We're going to prepare this week. Is it in your calendar, in your sales meetings or team meetings? Are we consistently talking about, are we setting up time to do that? How are we going to prepare, where are we going to prepare, who are we going to prepare with, what are we going to prepare for? I mean, these are all questions that we need to ask and then be able to execute. Because when we do that, we will go deeper. We will go deeper. And by the way, back to what I said earlier, could you and do many agencies wing it, so to speak? Well, I've done it before, I'll be fine. And we can just go out there and we'll just hammer things away and we'll be okay and still be alright. Yeah, you can be God bless this industry, but if you want to go deeper and be the top 5%, top 3%, top 2% of the industry, not just financially, that's the outcome, but just in the level of your ability. Right. I think the great agency understand it's not just about money, it's about being that best version. That's why we talk about it at Sitkins all the time. It's not just about the money. That's the outcome, it's the idea, the challenge, the goal of I need to be my best version possible. And can you possibly be your best version possible if you show up for an appointment, a meeting, whatever it may be, and you're half prepared or not prepared? No. And just that hard work up front, the minutes that you spend up front preparing for things, it's hard work. Make the results easier. I'm not going to say easy, but easier. So how do you want to go deeper? Well, points of differentiation, number one, number two, preparation. The last one. This kind of goes along with really the first two. And it could be a number of other things, but certainly the preparation. But I just want to spend some time talking about it. Are we going deeper in our performance like the actual thing that we're supposed to do? And part of going deeper certainly is preparation. But the question I would ask you as an agency, and this is something to ask your agency departments and your agency teams and your agency individuals, whatever they may be, is what skills must I get? Laser Focused on this year and beyond, what are the skills that I need to develop, nurture, build practice upon so that I can be my best version possible. And this is one of the areas, and I say performance, this can go a number of different ways. But this is one of the things I see with agencies and agency personnel where they can really get off the rails. And I've been guilty of this, and I still struggle this in my own business, is that we start doing things that technically get us a little bit better, but we don't count the opportunity cost of spending time on the wrong or, you know, the better things. I should say that would get us even better results. So let me just give you some examples on this. And this actually goes from the book Deep Work personally as well, is the idea of if I just consistently checked my email throughout the day, would that provide some good stuff? Well, maybe at a micro level, yes. Right. At some point I'll be able to get back to people quickly and a few people would appreciate that. Right. If I spent my time saying, well, you know, I need to make sure I continue to do update my Facebook posts. Are some people going to read that? Yeah, probably. Yeah. So it's better than nothing. But what is the opportunity cost of doing some of these things just sporadically, without intention and not really building the skills you need to be doing versus saying what are things that I could do? Well, what if I worked on my communication skill? I talk about this a lot with insurance producers. I often will ask the room and I see, you know, how many of you feel that communication is one of the most important skills you should develop as an insurance producer. And every single hand goes up. And then when I ask how many are actively or proactively intentionally working on becoming a better communicator, which means asking better questions, practicing on asking better questions, how to become a better listener, reading around things, practicing on video, on, on your audio, on with rul, play with people, how many are you actually doing that to improve your performance? And I rarely get a hand in the air. So the fact that as an agency or agency producer, we talk about the fact that one of the most important things we could possibly do is communication, which is our performance, yet we don't work on it. We don't practice it because we're doing, I don't know, Facebook updates, checking sporadic email, doing busy stuff because it's busy. One of the concepts in the book Deep Work that I love, and I don't remember the actual title of it, I should have in front of Me, but it was just the idea of most people, again, just kind of do things that very micro, in very small amounts, improve things, but they're not true craftsmen. I love that word. Being a craftsman. Are you a craftsman? Right. Are you world class at your craft? Which again, I know on this podcast we have agency leaders of all kinds. We have some people involved in management and service side insurance producers. But are you a master craftsman at what you need to do? What are the two or three skills that I've got to be a plus in this area and am I doing it? And then the question to ask of any of these things, to go deeper, to have greater depth, is always analyzing and reviewing. Because you may be trying things and doing things that are good, but take the time to go, is this the best thing for me to do? You may think it is up front. I've had that in my life, my experiences. I think this is where I need to focus on. And if I look back in three months ago, honestly, that's probably not the best place to spend my time. I need to kind of pivot a little bit. That's okay. One of my favorite quotes is from John Maxwell. He says, evaluation turns experience into insight. I love that. Think about that. Evaluation turns experience into insight. So when you're looking about your performance, you need to evaluate your performance. Is it good or is it bad if you lose an account or the agency loses account? Why did we lose the account? What happened? What could we do better? How do you gain greater insight? And then the last part of all that, and this is performance and everything that I've talked about are what are the things that we're going to be consistent around? Because if we can begin to go deeper. And again, the areas that I mentioned today, points of differentiation, understanding what really does make us different, not just surface level, but let's dive deeper. Let's really talk about what makes us different. If there's things that we're not doing, what should we be doing and how can we do them better and how can we improve it? Ask our clients. Go deep in preparation. Do we have true preparation as the culture of accountability in our agency, are we true professionals? Is it scheduled? Go deep. When it comes to performance, we look at our skills, the actual skills we need to develop. Are we going deep in those skills? And when we identify that, then it's okay, let's get consistent. This is true for society and we all know this is that you can look at physical fitness as such a great example. January, the gyms are packed Right. This is the new year of me. I'm going to get in shape finally. And maybe you've experienced this. And then what? By February, where'd everybody go? Because it was consistency, we did not truly. Part of depth is to be consistent within that depth. And we thought that for a brief moment, this would be a good idea. And then it became hard or it became uncomfortable or it became inconvenient, and we lost the focus of why are we doing this in the first place? And it goes back to what I said at the beginning. If you are an agency, if you are a producer, if you are a service person, if you're an insurance professional that's tired of being surface level, tired of looking and talking like every other insurance agency out there. And we try the gadgets and the gizmos and this new piece of technology and that new piece of technology. And by the way, I love technology, but still, so often we waste more time on technology than we ever gain from the usefulness of it. And that's a fact. And I've been part of that, too. I was just talking last night to a good friend of mine, and we were talking about he's going to be running a marathon this spring, which is a pretty cool thing. And we were just talking about different stuff and the app that he's using and the watch, and I said, you know, it's funny. I've come to the conclusion, and this is, you know, the honesty coming out is I spend more time preparing my Apple Phone or my watch to get the stuff set up than just getting out there and putting the shoes on and running. And I think that's true. A lot of agencies, a lot of insurance professionals, we spend more time, wouldn't this be cool? We could do that. And that's so awesome. And we could try this, and we should do this. And, you know, and we go, wait a second. How about we just do the things that we know that work? Because oftentimes what we're really doing is we're making excuses. We make excuses for not going deep. And I've certainly done it in my own life. I see agencies that do it all the time. And when we call them out, they go, yeah, you're right, we are. We're making excuses because we have a desire to be better. We talk a good game, but we're not walking it. So that's my goal. My podcast, hopefully this wasn't. I'm not trying to, you know, be the teacher and wag my finger at you, because I honestly, I'm pointing at myself and every one of these areas that I talked about, it just, it's an awakening for me. And as I read that book, it would be, you know, it became real life to me. I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm doing those things too. In certain areas I become better. But boy, in many areas I'm like, well, I got to go back and revisit this. I got to think about this. I'm being, I'm copping out in certain areas as well. Then I started thinking about the agencies that I work with and agencies that I talk to and I go, you know, in certain areas they're not getting enough depth. And if they would, if they put the work in to go deep, their work will be meaningful, the work will be impactful, the work will generate results that you could never imagine. If we're just willing to put the time and the effort in and then we begin build consistency around it, it actually becomes easier just like anything else that we do in life. So wish you all the best in this upcoming year. As I mentioned before, if this podcast has added value to you and your life and your agency, I would appreciate a rating and review. It means a lot to me as I'm trying to continue to grow this podcast. I've got some exciting things coming up this year. My focus too. I've had last year if you've been a listener, brought in some of our Sickens network members. Also this year going to be looking at bringing some of our producer attendees a part of our elite 50, the high level group that we have just so they can share some things that they're doing in their business to help you as a listener perform at a higher level. Also going to be bringing on Roger Sitkins time to time on this podcast. Roger's been in the business for 35 plus years. The smartest guy I know in the insurance world and so kind of get his thoughts on what's going on. Hopefully have Roger on at least every month this year. But just want to continue to add value to you and also if we can help you as an agency. You know, we work very closely with agencies. We don't work with all agencies as part of our private network group and we have some spots open for 2020. If you'd like to have a Discover call just to learn more about how we work with agencies. What's unique, if your agency would be a fit and reach out to us, go to sitkins.com all of our information is out there. S I T k I n s.com love to have a discovery conversation with you, see if there's things that we can do to help you to really become your best version possible and get you the results that you've never thought possible. Talk to you again soon. Thanks so much.