Plateau or Progress? Why Agencies Get Stuck at the Next Level

Welcome to the Agent Leader Podcast. This is the podcast for independent insurance agency leaders to challenge their thinking, to raise the bar, and to ultimately aspire to become their best version possible. Hi, my name is Brent Kelly. I am your host, and today's topic should probably hit you right square in the face, especially if you're an agency leader, you're an agency team that's having some levels of growth, but yet You feel like something might be missing. In fact, some of the most successful agencies that I work with, they feel more stuck than struggling ones. So the theme, the question today that we're going to dive into is why do even the best agencies get stuck? And maybe the better question is where even the best agencies get stuck. Because success that we find from agencies doesn't prevent these agencies from getting stuck. And I've mentioned this before. I work with agencies. I've seen agencies that get stuck at $1 million in revenue, $3 million in revenue, $5, $10, $15, $50, $75, $100 million plus revenue agencies still get stuck. Well, why is that? Well, because successful agencies can often hide the fact that they are stuck in different areas because the results are pretty good for the most part. In fact, these aren't broken agencies. They're profitable. They're respected. They're filled with really good people. But the common thread is this: growth feels harder than it should. Or maybe I'll say it this way, the next level of growth. And that's not just revenue. That's not just profitability. That's not just agency value. Oh, those are important. I'm talking about personal, professional, culture growth. Feels harder than it should. So here's what today's episode's about. I'm going to help you as the agent leader identify where your agency might be stuck or where it may be stuck and why clarity, not effort, is the real unlock button. Why clarity, not effort, is the real unlock button. So let's just start with this. Why does getting stuck or agencies getting stuck? Why does that happen often at higher levels? Well, here's a few things that I want to share with you. And again, this may not be true for you, but certainly it's been true for many agencies that we see and we work with is that early growth for an agency, especially talking about agencies that are maybe were startups 3, 5, 10 years ago, but this is true for other growth agencies as well. That early growth or the next level of growth is often fueled by hustle, by urgency and sheer effort. We are just gonna outwork and out-hustle everybody else, which by the way, is a pretty darn good characteristic. There's nothing wrong with that. But at a certain size, effort alone, just working harder, it stops working. Well, why? Well, because complexity increases. We have more people, we have more roles, we have more producers, we have more departments. There's just more stuff happening at the agency. And again, this could be whether you're scaling from 10 people next to the next to 15 people. 50 people to 75 people over a period of time, 75 to 100. Got agencies we're starting to work with that have 300, 400, 500 people plus. Whatever that next level is, old habits or what got you there often doesn't scale to the next level. What we find is that leadership, leadership clarity in particular, becomes the constraint, right? More people, more things. There's more opportunities for that clarity to be diluted. It's kind of like the game of telephone, right? You add more people down, you go the line, all of a sudden, wait, wait a second. What is the message? So here's the key area I want to identify and share with you as a listener. Most agencies don't slow down because people stop trying. Like, we certainly could see some level of disengagement, but most agencies slow down because the clarity fades. We're not as clear. We're not as articulate as we need to be on the things that matter the most. I want to share with you 3 sticking points that we see for agencies that are in growth mode, but still feel and oftentimes are stuck in different areas. So the first sticking point I want to talk about is this idea of management versus leadership. Now, you may have heard this principle before, by the way, both are important. Both management and leadership are essential to agency growth and development, but they are certainly not the same. And sometimes you think about about this? Well, it's management's leadership. It's just, you know, I'm the boss. We just talk about stuff. They are dynamically important and dynamically different. So what's management? Well, a lot of things that could factor into, but typically it's about numbers. It's about processes. It's about scoreboards, right? Trying to make sure people are doing the right things at the right time. And they can, that is really important for an agency. But leadership is much different. Leadership is about the behaviors. Leadership is about the beliefs. Leadership is about setting and maintaining standards for your agency. In fact, one thing that we share all the time at Sitkins is that you can't manage numbers or certainly can't lead numbers. It's only the behaviors. And maybe another way I would say this is that you can manage results, but you must lead behaviors. I mean, you could, and typically what happens with managing numbers is they're after the behavior has already occurred. Give you one example of this. Very simple and basic example. We see this oftentimes in sales leadership with producers is that a producer doesn't hit their goal, for example, and the conversation goes something like this. Well, Joe, you didn't hit your goal this year. Yeah, I didn't, boss. Need to make sure I hit that next year. Well, you were a little short in your number here and a little short in your number here. So next year, here's your number. Let's go hit it. You got it, boss. Break. Let's go win the game. Now, what has changed in terms of behaviors? Nothing. So this is the idea that you can manage results, but you've gotta lead behavior. So what are some symptoms that we see? Well, I think oftentimes we'll find that leaders spend most of their time reviewing reports or talking about data. I'll give another example of this. Sales meetings. Oftentimes sales meetings are filled with reports. Or discussion of things that have happened already, where we stand in the leaderboard or certain areas that we're progressing to. Not the end of the world, but most likely something that could have been discussed in an email. Whereas the best agencies, the best version possible agencies, are doing some form of low-risk practice, skill behavior, sales, pre-brief and debriefs that we're getting better at our craft. Right? Because leaders that spend all their time reviewing reports aren't really leading, they're managing. Often we find that accountability feels more personal than it does purposeful. You know, I believe, and we've talked about this on this podcast before, that accountability is certainly not a dirty or bad word. In fact, the best agencies, the best performers, the best leaders want and seek accountability. And so oftentimes if accountability is reactive, it feels more personal. Well, blah, blah, blah, you didn't do this, and so get better at it. And we get emotions tied into it versus purposeful. What is it you want to accomplish? How are you going to accomplish it? What standards do we have? And how can I help coach and manage you up to make sure you attain those things that we've agreed to? And so that is really important. Is accountability in your agency personal or is it purposeful? There's a vast difference there. I often think this, we see this too, of symptoms we see of agencies that are struggling in this area of management or leadership is that we have inconsistent expectations across leaders. We've got one leader that kind of believes and thinks this, this leader kind of believes and thinks this, this leader kind of believes and thinks this. Now, don't get me wrong, right? There are different personalities. You're going to be experiencing different things as an individual, but we have got to be aligned on some of the key areas because if we're not, our team will pick us apart. They will find weak links. They will find gaps. Of course, they will find the personality that suits them the most, whatever it is. But that is a symptom of when we just manage things versus truly lead things. So here's my reflection question for you, the agent listener. Are you living in the scoreboard or are you leading the behaviors that change the score? Are you living in the scoreboard or are you leading the behaviors that change the score? All right. Number 4, or sorry, number 2. Excuse me. I got my numbers out of whack here. My number 2 sticking point, trying to jump from number 1 to number 4. My number 2 sticking The sticking point is this. We see that activities rule the roost versus results. So some of the things that we find is that high-performing agencies, right, are often activity-rich environments. Again, work harder, do more, right? Put more effort in. And those are all good things in nature. In fact, I'd rather have an agency at least that works hard, even if they're not as strategic as they should be, than an agency that's just completely complacent, obviously. But motion often starts to feel productive, but motion isn't progress. And when leaders reward busyness, then we begin to say, how busy were you? Well, I'm busier than you. In fact, if you ask many agencies, how are you doing today? What's going on? I'm busy. And busy becomes this badge of honor. But when leaders reward busyness, well, who's doing more stuff? Now, if that stuff leads to results, okay, but oftentimes it doesn't. It's just stuff. When leaders reward busyness, clarity disappears. Now, give you an example of this. And again, I'm going to kind of go a little bit of a side tangent here, but we talk so much about the power of 80/20. We've done the Sitkin's principle analysis. We look at 4 tiers of an agency. This is an example that if we don't take a step back and realize, are we talking about results or talking about being busy? We often miss the mark. We're really busy being busy, but our results aren't so good or not nearly as good as they should be. If you're a producer and you are just working on every single account that comes your way, and we haven't identified future ideal client, and we don't have a process around it, and we're not thinking about a minimum account size or standard and all these things that we talk about that go into it, you're just working on a bunch of stuff. And one of the first things that goes away is your capacity, which is your time. And time is our only diminishing asset. And so if we're rewarding being busy versus results, clarity will disappear. And we were like, wait a second, what are we doing this? For the first place, because I believe that ultimately an agency should aspire to some form of freedom, freedom of time, freedom of relationships, freedom of the financial freedom that we're looking for. So we've got to shift the language from effort, effort's good, to outcomes. Give you a very simple example. If an agency leader says, well, what did you do? That's an okay question. The better question is, hey, what did it produce? Right? What did it produce? That's, we're talking about results language in our agency, which becomes the form of our culture. Now, I'm guessing for you as an agency leader, would you care that a producer had 100 appointments or generated twice the revenue goal for the year? Now you might say, well, 100 appointments generates that. Well, maybe it does, but let's look to make sure those things actually match, that we're not just measuring stuff, we're measuring results. So then we can work on the key behaviors, back to the leadership conversation I just had, to install, to incentivize those type of results. So what are some common symptoms? And these are things maybe your agency is dealing with. We have full calendars, but unclear priorities, or at least the calendar seems full. We have really busy producers with very inconsistent growth, up and down and up and down and all around we go. And we have leadership meetings that are focused on motion, instead of momentum. Leadership meetings that are focused on motion instead of momentum. In fact, one of the most basic things you can ask yourself as an agency, if you're not already doing this, is, hey, what's working and why? What's not working and why not? So that is another sticking point, which leads me to sticking point number 3. I have mentioned this on other podcasts, but I want to go back into it because this is an area where agencies absolutely get stuck. Goals versus standards. Goals versus standards. Now, there is some data out there, whether it's 80, 85, 90% of people do not hit their goals. I'm gonna, I'm gonna frame it this way. You may or may not hit your goals as an agency, as a department, as an individual. You may or may not hit your goals, but you will always rise or fall to the level of your standards., and there are so many great examples of that. Again, I'm a, I'm a Big Ten football fan. I went to University of Illinois, so this is kind of hard for me to talk about, but you know, whether you like or loathe Kirk Signetti at Indiana, they just won the national championship. That's all he talks about is standards. Nick Saban, Alabama standards. That's why whether the score is tied at 10 or the score is 40 to 10, they play each play based on a standard, not simply the goal. Because if you played on the goal, you could say, well, we're already up 30 points. Who cares? If you play to a standard is this is how we show up. This is how we play. This is our identity. See, most agencies are very comfortable talking about goals. Here's our 2026 goal. Here's our 90-day goal. Here's our 3-year goal. But goals themselves are aspirational. Goals are aspirational. It feels good. It's great talking about goals. And by the way, I think you should have goals, but standards are operational. Goals describe what we want. Standards define how we operate every day. I said it before. I'm going to say it again because it's that important. Not everyone will hit their goals. But everyone will rise or fall to the level of their standards. And one of the first things I talk to the agency, especially agencies that are saying, we're doing pretty good, but we're stuck. What are your core standards? What do you mean? What are your core standards? In fact, we talk about this in terms of producers of critical success factors. What are the things that must be done every single week?, and by the way, this doesn't need to be 15 of them. That's probably too many, but there are basic few things that we must do exceptionally well, and that's what we rise and fall to. It allows us to be accountable, allows us to be coachable, allows us to improve skills in that area. It allows us to be focused. It allows us to go back to what I said earlier, to gain greater clarity. Because if we're going on goals and not standards, here's some things that we see. Maybe this is true in your agency. We have inconsistent accountability. We have leadership that says, well, it depends. So do we do this or do that? How do we do this? Oh, it depends. Depends who you talk to. Depends where we're at. Depends what you're doing versus no, this is our standard. This is our identity. And culture will drift up, down. Here we go again, all around. So let's talk a little bit why, why these aren't problems necessarily. They're signals. And so every agency gets stuck. When I say this and I talk about this, every agency gets stuck. Every person gets stuck, but the best agencies choose to address address it early. The level of awareness versus trying to hide it, throw it under the rug, whatever you wanna say, it's not a big deal. It's, hey, a sec, wait, wait a sec. We're stuck here. So what can we do to address it? Because sticking points doesn't mean failure. The only way you fail is you just stop trying. They signal the next stage of growth. I mean, most agencies, they have a level of growth, whatever that revenue number is or wherever they're at, and then they kind of plateau. And then we go, okay, let's address this. What's the next level? What does it look like? What does it mean? What is our standards? All those things I talked about. But strong agencies, they will eventually outgrow that. Well, we're just going to work harder. What do we need to be clear on? Where do we need to gain clarity? And the difference between plateau and progress is intentional leadership. The difference between plateau and progress is intentional leadership. So let me just ask you this or share some of these ideas with you. If, if any of the things that I've talked about have felt familiar, right? The next step that I would ask you is not a program necessarily. It's simple clarity. We have introduced something. I want to introduce something to you that is brand new. It's a leadership clarity self-assessment. It only takes a few minutes. One of the things that I want to provide on this podcast is practical application for you as the agency leader. You can take the next step, and I know that if the next step is too complicated, too much overwhelming, you're just going to avoid it and not do it. This is super simple. Leadership Clarity Self-Assessment. It's short, it's private, it's designed specifically for independent insurance agencies, and it's going to help you identify which sticking points are most likely holding you back. Again, to give you clarity on, oh, I didn't even think about that, or I didn't realize that was an area that was holding us back. So if you want a clear picture of where your agency may be stuck, take our short leadership clarity self-assessment. You go to www.sitkins.com/stuck. So sitkins.com, that's S-I-T-K-I-N-S.com/stuck. I'll make sure it's on the show notes as well. It only takes a few minutes and it'll give you real insight to where you need to focus next. So here's how I want to close and wrap this session up today, this episode up today. Getting stuck is normal. It's not unusual. It doesn't make you a bad agency, a good agency. It makes you quite frankly normal, but here's the difference. Staying stuck is optional. Staying stuck is optional. Listen, if you've been stuck somewhere for 1 year, 3 years, 5 years, 10 years, it's your choice to stay there or say, okay, this is optional because clarity in this is always a leadership choice. If growth feels harder than it should, then don't assume effort. Don't just assume effort is the issue. Start by getting clear. Hope this podcast and all the podcast episodes are providing value to you and your agency. That is my goal for you. I appreciate your time and staying with me on this really important topic. I wish you and I wish your agency all the best in your success. Thanks for listening. 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, 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.