Optimizing Your Results: The Discipline of Continuous Improvement

Let me start this podcast with a fundamental truth. Most agencies want to improve. I'm guessing you're listening to this podcast because you want to improve. But there is another side to this. I think very few agencies have actually built improvement into the way they operate. All right, maybe you attend a conference, you hold a great meeting. Launch a new initiative. You could introduce a new process. And guess what? For a few weeks, maybe more, there's energy, there's excitement, there's momentum. And then what happens? Well, this thing called real life, emails, phone, challenging renewal, a carrier problem. And then slowly but predictably, the agency returns to its old Habits. Now, this isn't because people don't care, and it's not because the original idea wasn't any good, but it's because improvement was treated like an event instead of a discipline. See, exceptional agencies don't occasionally improve. They build continuous improvement into their operating rhythm. And that's what today's episode is all about. Welcome back to the Agent Leader Podcast. My name is Brent Kelly. I'm your host. Thanks for being with me today. And today we're gonna wrap up the 4-part series on these 4 disciplines that help an agency become its best version possible. A reminder of those 4 disciplines: Clarify, align, execute, And optimize. Clarify creates awareness. Align creates momentum. Execute creates results. As we're going to talk about today, optimize creates continuous improvement. Now, to go back a few episodes ago and clarify, we discussed the importance of confronting the current reality. Where are we today? Where are we trying to go? What's standing in our way? And what matters right now. In Align, we focused on getting leaders, producers, and service professionals all moving in the same direction with one philosophy, one language, one culture, one set of priorities. And then recently when I talked about Execute, we focused on turning strategy into behaviors, doing fewer things better, creating greater value for our best clients. Rounding out those key relationships, retaining and deepening those relationships, and of course replicating more clients just like them. But here's the point. Execution is not the finish line. Even a good strategy, a successful strategy, it needs to be reevaluated because even a successful process can improve and even a great agency has another level. So that brings us today to the 4th discipline. I'll be honest, you know, when I first started thinking about this podcast, I'm like, well, how much can I talk about optimize? And I realized this might be the most important episode because let's start by talking about what optimization really is and what it's not. Let me start with what it's not. Optimization is not Perfection. It's not changing your strategy every month. It's not adding more meetings. It's not creating another spreadsheet, and it's certainly not squeezing more activity out of people who are already overwhelmed, right? That's not what optimization is. That's not what I'm talking about today. I am gonna talk about this. Optimization is the intentional process Of learning, adjusting, and continually improving. It's a simple but challenging rhythm. Review, measure, learn, adjust, improve, and then guess what? Repeat. See, execution asks, are we doing what we said we would do? Very important question. That's why we had a whole podcast episode. It's one, one of our phases of our Sitkins Network is about execution. Optimization asks, what are we learning and how can we do it better? That distinction matters. Activity alone does not create improvement. Just because you show up and breathe air and exist and go through the motion does not create improvement. Evaluated experience creates improvement. So here's the one thing that agency leaders and teams really struggle with, and I get it. But here's something to think about. We have to, as leaders, slow down long enough to ask, what happened? Why did it happen? And what is the next improvement we need to make? Slow down to really understand where you're at. You know, one of the, uh, the greatest dangers that I often see for an agency that's struggling Is really obvious. Like they come to me and go, well, we have problems. 99 problems, right? They have problems that must be solved. But one of the greatest dangers for successful agencies is less obvious. And again, we talk to agencies of all shapes and sizes, but most agencies we talk to are pretty darn successful, right? Many, most of them are best practices agencies that are at the top of the list. And one of the greatest dangers for successful agencies and successful agency leaders Is comfort. It's comfort. The agency has grown. It's profitable. The owners are doing pretty well. Clients for the most part are pretty happy. People are pretty busy and doing things. And from the outside, everything looks pretty successful. And that success can often cause a false sense of security. Yeah. Maybe we talk about, well, we're, we're doing pretty well. We, we've always done it this way. Our clients aren't complaining. We'll address that later. But the marketplace is not standing still. The client expectations are changing. Technology, of course, is changing. The insurance industry is changing. You get the idea. You know who else is changing? Your competition. So what created success 10 years ago, a year ago, does not guarantee or sustain success over the next year, 2, 3, 5, or 10. So the question is not simply, are we successful today? I hope you are. The better question is, and this is why most agencies come to us, is they're saying, are we becoming better prepared for tomorrow? Are we becoming better prepared for tomorrow? Current success does not guarantee future relevance. I didn't even say success. I said relevance. Your best version possible today should not be your best version possible 3 years from now. In fact, as you keep moving forward, you're going to see and think of new things that you didn't even know existed because you weren't there yet. Right? As you keep moving forward, new opportunities, bigger picture items, different ways of looking at things will begin to come up for you. You know, one reason that agencies, I believe, often stop improving, or at least they stagnate a bit, is that activity Begins to replace reflection. We're just busy being busy. And so we never stop to go, wait a second, why are we doing this? And oftentimes, well, that's just because of what we do. But if you're really honest with yourself and you go, why do we do that? You might realize maybe that's not the best thing to be doing. Because in agencies, everyone's moving, everyone's working, everyone's busy, but very few people are stepping back long enough To learn. The agency often will be solving immediate problems without examining why the same problem keeps returning. A very simple analogy, get really good at putting out fires, but never really ask, why is this fire starting? It often will celebrate a win. Like agencies will have wins all the time and I'll talk to them, oh, we did this and we did this, but they won't actually identify what created the win. Replicate victories. It often, uh, we'll see agencies that get stuck. They'll accept recurring frustration as normal. That's just the way it is. It's like, uh, it's like for me and my physical fitness right now, it's like, well, I guess my back just hurts. Well, it didn't used to. What's the underlying problem there? Right? So just take a moment to think about your agency. What problem have you solved 5 different times? Without ever permanently solving it? That's a powerful question. What problem have you solved without ever permanently solving it? Here's a question for you. What frustration keeps showing up in your leadership meetings? You know, uh, being able to have coaching calls with, with agencies, I'm able to see this from the outside. And, you know, we'll have monthly calls. We do quarterly strategic discussions, and I'll look at an agency in 3 months, 6 months, they're talking about the same thing. And like, I thought we already talked about that. And here's a phrase that I have to tell myself. I also tell our agency partners, do not complain about that which you tolerate. Well, it's just what it is. What frustration keeps showing up in your leadership meetings? And more importantly, what are you doing about it? Right? What do you continue to tolerate? Because addressing it would require a difficult decision. And the last one, which is Pretty common. What are you doing simply because that's how your agency has always done it? Right? Well, that's the way we've done it. Maybe that's a good thing. You know, and my belief is this: principles, guiding principles that work, they should not change. Areas of execution might. Optimization might. Because if not, we just live in this world of busyness and it could become a hiding place. Busyness allows us to avoid confronting often the real issue. We kind of know what it is. We just stay busy enough and good enough to avoid it. And optimization, and why this conversation is so important, because optimization requires us to pause, evaluate, and learn. And by the way, this is not for hours every day. I'm not asking you, okay, Brent, so you're telling me just to sit in my office and think every day? Not for hours. No, but consistently enough that we stop repeating the same mistakes and calling it experience. So let's talk about metrics for a second, because metrics matter. What am I optimizing? We look at all of those metrics. In fact, at Sitkins, we use the 3-4-5, I've done podcasts on this, performance standard as one benchmark for an exceptional agency. And as a reminder, that's 15% organic growth, 30% operating profit, and $300K Of revenue per employee. You put those together, it's 345. Those numbers are important, but a metric should not be used only as a scoreboard. A metric should become a teacher. The number tells us what happened. Here's a key distinction. Leadership must determine why it happened. If organic growth is below your standard, the answer is not simply to demand more sales. Well, we need to sell more. Well, duh. Where is the actual constraint? Is it lack of opportunities, wrong opportunities? It could be inconsistent behavior from producers. Maybe it's a poor or weak pipeline. Maybe our closing or process isn't good. Maybe they're overloaded in service. Maybe there's a lack of accountability. We can look at all of those, but what's the why behind the what? If revenue per employee, which is a key metric, is low in your agency or lower than you want it to be, Well, one answer could be our employees need to work harder. Maybe the problem is poor workflow or unclear roles. Too many clients receiving the same service model. Maybe it's too much low-value work. Again, you've got to identify this. We help agencies do that, but you've gotta begin to identify deeper than, well, our revenue per employee, for example, is low, so we need to bump that up. But let's get to the actual constraint. What does that look like? Metrics create awareness, but leadership must turn that awareness into improvement. Measurement should help you and agency teams identify the gap, understand the constraint, and make a better decision. Now, we can't confuse optimization with constant change. I had a little hesitancy as I was going through this podcast outline because I don't want this to be, we'll just keep changing because some agencies don't change enough, but they never change anything. Others change everything all the time, right? That's not optimization. That's organizational whiplash. Okay? I mean, we talk all the time about the gimmick of the month club because we get away from things that are working. Not saying getting away from a key strategy. I'm saying to optimize it, right? Optimization does not mean abandoning the strategy every time the results are imperfect, or at least not giving them enough time to foster. More often the strategy has not been executed consistently enough to be evaluated honestly. So again, the idea of optimization, just do this new thing and this new thing. No, here's some things to think about. If you're working on a project or a process or a strategy, ask yourself questions around it before you make a change. Did the strategy actually fail or was our execution inconsistent? We've had that. We've had people that come to us and say, hey, listen, Brent, like the strategy's right. We're just not doing it. That's honesty. That's how you improve it. Were your expectations clear? Did everyone understand the role? We see that too. Like, well, we, we had this, uh, this idea, this new strategy, and well, a handful of our leaders knew it and we had a couple producers, but no one else, and it didn't work. Well, there you go. Right? Did you measure the right behaviors? Did you stay with it long enough? Right? Because optimization requires enough patience to learn. And here's a big part. It also requires enough courage to change. Because without patience, you continually chase the next idea. Without courage, you keep defending something that no longer works. That's a hard thing. So let me give you some practical application of optimization. What does it look like? Well, first, review. Sounds simple, but easy to skip. What did we say we were actually going to do? And then what actually happened? What results did we produce? Now, don't begin with excuses. Begin with reality. I often see this like, well, this happened because excuses don't help you optimize. They help you avoid. So begin with reality. Secondly, you gotta learn. What worked? What didn't? Where did the process break down? What surprised us? What feedback? What did our clients tell us? What did our team experience? Ask questions. And then thirdly, you need to adjust. Okay? So you've taken the feedback and you understand, you're asking yourself these questions. What should we continue doing? What should we stop doing? That's a big one, by the way. Lemme just take a moment here. Uh, all of our leadership conversations is what's the one thing that you need to optimize or work on or continue doing? And here's a big part. What's one thing you should stop doing? So what's the one adjustment that would create the greatest improvement? And then lastly, you gotta reinforce. Say it again and again and again and again. So who owns it? What behavior must change? When is it gonna happen? When are you gonna review it again? Because a lesson without ownership becomes an observation. A lesson with ownership and action and accountability becomes improvement. See, without a rhythm, without this optimization rhythm, improvement depends on memory or maybe motivation or urgency. And none of these create a reliable operating system. You know, one thing that I just keep banging the drum on, and I say it again and again, is that consistency beats intensity every single time. You know, one great leadership meeting will not transform your agency. One sales meeting will not transform producer performance. One coaching call is not gonna change behavior. One client or pipeline blitz is not gonna create suddenly a growth culture forever. And one conference, although they can be great, will not build an exceptional organization. These are events that create energy, and they can also create awareness. In fact, they could even give you the steps to create a breakthrough. But transformation happens when the right behaviors are reinforced consistently over time. Intensity isn't a bad thing. Intensity may create a breakthrough, which is awesome, but consistency Creates a standard. There's a big difference. Big difference. See, this is where a lot of agencies fall short. They want a breakthrough without committing to the rhythm. I want the breakthrough, but I don't wanna commit long-term. They want the result without repeating the behavior. They want transformation without the discipline required to sustain it. I had a conversation, um, with a personal coach. I have a couple coaches in my life that help me, that guide me, that challenge me. And this was a fitness coach. And he said, you know, Brent, this is where most people stop, not because it's not working, because they get bored. It's not fun or sexy anymore. The excitement's worn out. The newbie gains have worn off. This new nutrition plan starts to get monotonous. He's like, But this is where the real excellence and transformation happens. See, exceptional agencies do not need to make one massive improvement every quarter. They need to continue making the next important improvement. In fact, in our coaching call protocol that we're gonna be outlining for 2027 with our private clients, we have quarterly strategic calls that build on each other. There might be shifts and adjustments, But we're not going to change the playbook every quarter. That's not how it works. That's not how it works. Because over time, when you continue to reinforce improvements, it creates a significant competitive advantage for you and your agency. And the advantage isn't that your agency, any agency discovered one revolutionary idea. The advantage is that it became better at becoming better. Now, here's one final thing I wanna share. You've got to begin to understand this optimization and creating a, a, an improved agency is about a culture of improvement. It becomes part of our culture. We are a culture. We are an agency that constantly improves and evolves. That's who we are. It's our identity. Because optimization cannot belong only to the owner or the executive team. That's a really hard weight to carry. And it's not effective. It's gotta become part of the culture. Everyone should understand what the agency is trying to accomplish. Everyone should be able to identify friction. Everyone should be able to be encouraged to ask questions, to challenge things. What's working? What's not working? What are we learning? How can we make this better? Guess what? They're in the game. And by the way, when you're able to have input, On an agency team, not only does it create much better ideas and ways of thinking, it creates buy-in. But leaders have to create the right environment because if every problem produces blame, people will hide problems. If every number becomes a weapon, people will manipulate the numbers. We see this all the time. Well, I'm just not gonna say anything. I'm gonna hide it. I'm gonna lie. I'm gonna manipulate. Why? Because I would rather avoid this short-term friction Even if it prevents long-term gain. Why? Because I don't want people to be mad at me. Now, by the way, as leaders, we need to have honest conversations. That's not what I'm saying. In fact, I think back, uh, one of a mentor I had in my life, great guy, super successful. He talked about looking back on one of his companies that he started, that one of the biggest bottlenecks was him. Why? Because people were scared to share ideas and certainly failures because he would go, why are you doing that? Now, again, we're not here to foster mistakes, but if we can build a culture that because we're willing to push things and challenge the status quo, mistakes are okay as long as you don't repeat them. Now we can optimize. As leaders, we must be curious without becoming passive, honest without becoming destructive, accountable without creating blame. And here's the big one. Dissatisfied with current performance. That's okay. But without becoming ungrateful for progress that we've already achieved, we can celebrate how far we've come while remaining committed to where we need to go next. Here's a big part, and I've struggled with this. Gratitude and ambition, they can coexist. So let me give you a practical challenge. This is my call out to you, the agency leader. At the end of your next 90-day period, bring your leadership team together and, and answer these 5 questions. What did we say that mattered most? What did we consistently execute? What measurable progress did we make? What did we learn? And lastly, what is the one adjustment that would make the next 90 days better? I said adjustment, not new initiatives. What is the one adjustment over the next 90 days that could make things Better. Identify the most important improvement and then assign an owner or owners. Translate that to observable, actionable behavior. Put things on the calendar and establish when you're gonna review it again. Optimization is not about making everything better at once. It's refusing to stop making the most important things better. So let me put this entire series These four areas together. The best version possible of your agency is not a fixed destination; it is a disciplined pursuit. Exceptional agencies clarify. They confront current reality. They define the destination. They identify what matters most. Exceptional agencies align. They create common priorities, common language, clear roles, clear expectations, and shared accountability. Exceptional agencies execute. They focus on the vital few. They translate strategy into behavior, and they consistently do the work required to produce results. And lastly, exceptional agencies optimize. They review, they measure, they learn, they adjust, they improve, and they repeat. That's what the best agencies do. And when these disciplines become part of the way an agency operates, improvement is no longer dependent on one leader, one meeting, one initiative, or one moment of inspiration. It becomes part of the culture. Now, my invite to you, and I've said this on every podcast, I'll continue to, we help independent insurance agencies intentionally build towards their best version possible, not through random ideas, not through a flavor of the month program, but through discipline and disciplined processes of creating clarity, alignment, execution, and optimizing what matters most. If you lead a growth-focused independent insurance agency and this series, maybe this episode has challenged your thinking, that's really what I wanna do with this podcast. Get you to think a little different, like maybe There's a higher level, not just of money, which is awesome, but of relationships and time and freedom, improved effectiveness and efficiency. Well, if you're interested and you want to have a conversation, you can go to our website, sitkins.com. If you want to schedule a call, initial 15-minute call, just kind of let us know about your agency. We can talk about what we do, see if there is a fit. There may or may not be. Just go to sitkins.com/book. book a call to schedule a conversation. We wanna understand your vision, your goals, your challenges, opportunities that you see ahead, and then determine, does it make sense for us to continue that conversation? Now, let me wrap up with this. Your agency will change. The marketplace alone will make sure of that. The question is whether change will simply happen to you or happen When you intentionally lead it. Don't wait for a crisis to force improvement. Don't confuse current success with future readiness, and don't allow good, good enough to quietly become your permanent standard. Review what you're doing, measure what matters, learn from experience, make the next version better, and then repeat. Until next time, thank you for listening. Continue to pursue That best version of your agency. Wish you all the best in your success. Thanks for listening. Today's episode is brought to you by Rough Notes Magazine. Since 1878, Rough Notes has helped independent insurance professionals stay informed, sharpen their leadership, and grow their agencies. From industry trends and technology to marketing and specialty lines, Rough Notes delivers practical insights that you can put to work. They also offer Rough Notes. Notes Advantage, giving agencies additional tools and resources to help them compete and grow. Visit them at roughnotes.com. Hey there, agent leader. Brent Kelly here. Want to take just a few seconds to remind you that now is the time to create your true best version possible agency. If you go to sitkins.com/bookacall, sitkins.com/bookacall, Sitkins.com/bookacall. We'll get to know more about your agency, conduct an agency assessment, and provide your agency with a customized plan to help you avoid some of the pitfalls, frustrations, challenges, and roadblocks to get your agency to true ultimate freedom and become its best version possible. It all starts by going to sitkins.com/bookacall.