Points of Differentiation

Foreign welcome to the Agent Leader podcast. My name is Brent Kelly, your host. I'm glad you're joining me on today's episode. Excited to share another key strategy, a Pro Fit professional fitness strategy today, if you've been tuned in and listening over the past several episodes, I have been sharing some of the profit professional fitness core strategies that we teach and preach at Sitkins. I'm the VP at Sitkins and honored and proud to always share these strategies and work with agencies or private client group and producers individually. But wanted to make sure that I was able to share some of these strategies on the podcast as well and just hit some of the main points to help you as an agency owner really always do three things. I want to help you as an agency leader work on clarity to help you gain clarity on where is it that you really want to go and why that's important to you. Talk about consistency. What are those few things that we need to do consistently well? And that's why I'm going through these core strategies. And then lastly is a commitment. It's a commitment to yourself, it's a commitment to your team team. It's a commitment to your clients, commitment to your community, but understanding what it means to make these commitments so that you can be your best version possible. So before I dive into today's core strategy, profit strategy, I want to make reference to our Profit Net event. Obviously I'm doing these professional fitness tips, these professional fitness core strategies. And our premier event is March 11th through the 13th at the Sidkins Group. It's going to be in Cape Coral, Florida. Beautiful Cape Coral, Florida. And it's two full days. We have an opening reception on the 11th, but two full days of high level networking with our top agencies. We've got some outside speakers, some great outside speakers coming in. So just go to sitkins.com profitnet to learn more about the event and we're going to give you actionable strategies. You know, I've been to a lot of, you know, conferences and events and I love going and sharing and learning. I think what's really unique about ours is that the fact that yes, it's high level networking, which is extremely powerful to have to be in room. I always say, you know, if you're the smartest person in the room, it's probably time to find a new room. But really just to simplify all the complexity that's out there, all the noise that's out there and to really focus on a few key strategies that you can actually implement and execute in your Agency. Right. To get started on that. And so really want to give you actionable takeaways at this event. So Again, profit net, March 11th to 13th, Cape Coral, Florida if you haven't registered, the hotel is getting very full. It may be almost sold out. If it isn't sold out, it will be soon whenever this podcast is released. So make sure you check it out if you want to get there. It is certainly an event that you don't want to miss in 2020. So with that, let me share get into our content today, which is again, one of our other core fit or Pro Fit strategies at the Sitkins Group. And it's around the idea of pods, P O D S and also going to talk about new files. Now, PODS is an acronym. We talk about a lot of acronyms at Sidkins just to help you remember things. But POD stands for points of of differentiation. So points of differentiation. And then I'm going to talk more about new files, what that really means. You know, one of the things when you think about points of differentiation, I think, you know, if you talk to most agency leaders, agency producers, and you say, you know, are you different from your competitors? They're going to typically say, well, yeah, I'm different. Which is the good answer. Right. Hopefully we are different. We don't want to look and talk and sound like everybody else. It really becomes difficult to separate ourselves in the marketplace and not to slam other agencies out in the world world. But this probably will maybe come across a bit like that. But let's face it, most agencies and producers are pretty average. I mean, they really are. They just do average stuff and it's okay. And they go out and they look at policies and then they copy those policies and then they quote policies with all their carriers, the independent agents with their carriers, and then they come back and they just pray that they don't take that information back to their current agent. And we win some and we lose some. And you know, the great thing about this business, this industry, and I spoke about this before, is that, you know, you can be average and still make a pretty decent living in insurance. You know, look up the sky and say thank you. Right? So, you know, that's the good part. But why would you want to settle for that? Because there's such great opportunity. And the agencies that we work with in our private client group, when they really begin to understand not just how to differentiate, but to start why it's so important, and they begin to really dig in to figure out the questions they can ask how they can position themselves. It is an absolute game changer. And not only do they make more money, they're more successful, they get better results, but it's more fun, right, because they actually get to do insurance stuff. They get to be a risk professional or a risk advisor, while all at the same, all at the same time building deeper and wider relationships with their future ideal clients and their current clients. So that's why this is so important. And we think of pods. The other concept that I'm going to share today is this idea of opening new files, which really goes hand in hand with pods. So, you know, first of all, to have a differentiated sales process, you have to know how you're different. We have a lot of agencies that we work with at the Sidkins Network, our private client group, and they say, well, I really want access into your selling system, which we have the risk concierge program, and give me all this stuff. Well, it doesn't matter what stuff, so to speak, we can provide you with. I mean, it's great stuff, it'll change the game. But if you don't understand how you're different or start thinking about ways that you can do things differently, the sales process doesn't have near the effect that it can and it should. And so the first part is to have a differentiated sales process, you really gotta look and think of how are we actually different? And you've probably heard this before, I'm sure I'm not the first person to say, boy, you've gotta look and act different. But that's where most agencies stop. They go, yeah, we have to look and act different and we do different things. But what the concept I want to get to is we have to open new files to be different. We have to position ourselves and ask questions to where the average insurance buyer says, I don't know that I've ever heard that before or been presented something in that form before or been asked that question before. This is unique. When I do live training, whether it's with agency leaders or a group of producers, I often ask them to just position themselves, put themselves in the minds of the average insurance consumer, right? So not the top end, not the best client you have, but just your average insurance buyer, right, that has an average amount of knowledge. And when I have them do that. So I said, now you're not who you are. You are now the insurance buyer. I'm going to say one word and I want you to think of the first word. If you are the average insurance buyer that comes to your mind and the word I say is insurance. And it's always funny because immediately I have two or three people that just blurt out, you know, yuck or expensive or challenge, you know, whatever it may be, they're never fun words. And I oftentimes go around the room and say, okay, what word did you come up with? You know, and you'll hear, you know, necessary evil. And I say, well, that's actually two words, but okay, we'll go with it. You know, expensive, complicated. I have some attendees who just say yuck or make noises, right? And we all have a good laugh about it. But the point is this, is that when you say the word insurance or insurance type of words to an average insurance buyer, the file, right, the file that they pull from their brain, we all have these files, these responses that we hear something or see something from our past experience. We have these files that we gravitate to. And so most people, when they hear insurance, the file that they're opening in their brain is not a positive experience. It's not something desirable. It's not even something, in many cases that has value, which is really important because if you're trying to position yourself as a person of value and that you're different from the competition, if you're not able to open new files or rearrange some files in their head, you're going to be fighting an uphill battle. And so, you know, the challenge. As I go through some of the content today, we think about what truly makes you different. We have to begin to position ourselves not just to know what makes us different, but to be able to ask questions, show proof the impact that it means to the client, so that they see things in a different light. And that's what separates oftentimes the average producers or average agencies from the best, because they're willing to spend some time and energy to perfect this craft, right? We're not going to be, look, copy, quote, pray. We're going to change the conversation from quotes and transactions to becoming a true risk advisor and building deeper relationships. So let's talk about pods for a second, because when I think of points of differentiation, again, I have the opportunity to travel across the country. I'll do public events, whether it's a state association or a company group. And then certainly I do private training with our Sitkins network, but certainly when I do public training, and to some degree, when I first do a training with our private client group, depending if there are new producers coming into the room, typically when I say what makes you different, they really struggle with this. In fact, I'll just ask. I said, what makes you different? Oftentimes the room is silent. And then maybe a few people will say, well, you know, we've got a few things that we do differently. And I said, well, great, explain them to me now when I go around. And again, there are some of you listening right now that you probably know specifically 1, 2, 3 or more things that you do do differently, which is great, kudos to you. But in my experience, I would say just looking at numbers of the many people I've talked to in the rooms I've been in, that well over 90%, if not more agencies and producers don't really know what makes them different outside of what I call the generic 5. And the generic 5 was a term that I coined because as I was going around asking and talking about points of differentiation, when people say, well, yeah, we are different. Let me explain why I would always hear these five things. There's probably a sixth, a bonus, but typically five things. Here's what I would hear. Well, Brent, we have really good service. Really good service. And I said, wow, good service. It's interesting because the other agencies that you're competing against always talk about how bad their service is. And of course, you know, we have a chuckle about that, but it's good service. The next part that we often hear is the fact that we represent all the carriers or all the companies. So we're independent, right? Is what they're saying. We're independent, which makes us different. We can shop you out to all of our companies. Well, okay, maybe you've got some carriers that are unique in the marketplace, but if I just say we represent a bunch of carriers, does that really mean much today for our client? Does it open a new file? No, not really. We're local, Brent. We're local. We've been in town for a long time and, you know, we know our community. Now let me say this. And this is true for all of these, from a high level, this could be true, right? Being local might have an impact for you and your business to make you different. But what specifically do you do, right? If you're local, what type of community outreach? What does that, again, what does that mean for me as the client? Why do I care? Is there something that because you're local, we're going to get a higher level of service? Because we all know in the world today, certainly in the world of Amazon, that, you know, Amazon has gobbled up some of the local stores and I could do a whole separate conversation on this, but Just think about that for a second. Why has that worked? Well, because even though Amazon is not local, they're still able to provide many cases the services and get products delivered that we want on time with convenience. So again, you know, we could have a separate conversation, but just one aspect we see in the insurance world quite a bit is that being local can be an advantage if you use it, but if not, it's just kind of a talking point. So we've got people represent all the carriers. Being local, one of my favorites is we've been in business like 100 years. This is kind of like local. So it's this credibility issue. And again, if your agency's been around for a long time, good for you. But is that really a point of differentiation? Yeah, probably not in most cases, depending on how you leverage it. And then lastly, one of my all time favorites is that we have the best people, right? We've got the best people. All the best people have been sucked into our insurance agency and we have the best people. Again, is that true? Could be. Right? You may have really great people, you got a great team. Again, what do those people do that matters to me? The client or future ideal client. And then lastly, this is kind of 5.5 or number six, we have very competitive pricing. So again, all of those things, what I typically hear out there in the marketplace of what makes you different as an agency are pretty generic. Now maybe there's some other ones out there, but they don't really separate you from all the other me too competitors. Every other agency could say that whether they're doing it or not. And so you really talk and sound like everybody else. And so we think is different is really much of the same. And so I want to challenge you again on this podcast today to think a little bit deeper. What would go beyond just the generic 5 or anything else that other agencies could say that really would differentiate you in the marketplace. Now, some of the agencies listening to this right now, if you're an agency leader, you probably have some inherent things that you do as an agency that might make you different. Maybe you have a, a certain specialty or a niche where you do deeper level or higher level things in a certain area. Maybe you focus on experience modification, right? You've got some tools and resources for that. We have agencies that do that. Maybe you're working with a certain carrier or carriers that do have very specific things that many other agencies don't have access to. So there are certain things that because of the agency that you are. Right? And maybe what you've done in the past and some of the relationships you have, some of the tools you have, you might be able to come up with a few a little bit easier. But there are several things that really any insurance agency, because we have agencies, go, well, you know, we don't have all the tools and resources, some of the big guys. And that certainly can be true, don't get me wrong. But there are certain things that you could do for your clients that are different, that just take some effort and forethought. Right, effort and forethought, you know, and part of it is positioning and just mindset. But I can tell you in going out about again in the world and the insurance marketplace that most agencies don't do a true annual risk review with their best clients. Maybe they have some discussions, but do they have an actual risk survey or risk review that they can diagnose with their clients? Well, if you do that, you're probably different. I already mentioned if you were specialized, that would be different. If you have a unique process in how you work with clients, that would be different. If you had a proactive service calendar, that would be different. If you did some type of disaster recovery for your clients, that could be different. There's a lot of things I could go on and on. I mean, one of the things that we speak in great depth about at our camps is the fact that most agencies, and therefore most clients, don't even understand true or total cost of risk. That we always talk about coverage and price and we never really ask questions about the cost of risk, whether it's self retained earnings or administrative costs or the losses, what the cost would be if we're not covered for something. Right? And just really being that risk advisor, I could spend a whole podcast just on that. But being able to do that. So let me just provide an example. Just to give one example. We always challenge agencies and I would challenge you listening to this. Can you come up with five true points of differentiation that really separate you from the me too competitors? So one example of a POD that you could use is a promise report. This is one example. Now, you may call this a stewardship report, whatever it may be, but a promise report is just some way that we can keep score and say, here are the things that we agreed to that we would do and then here's what we actually did. Right? It's a promise report. And I think it's safe to say, and I can tell you from my experience that if you are doing some form of stewardship or promise report, Meaning that you are checking back in with your clients, talking about the things you discussed, what you've actually done. That's going to be a differentiator for 98% of agencies out there. Right. Because most other agencies aren't doing it. What I would challenge you to do is come up with at least five of these points of differentiation. Again, I just want to give you an example on Promise reports so I can, I can put some substance behind it. But you'd want to do this for. I would challenge you to do five. You know, start with one, get to two, get to three, but ultimately get to five. And the idea. And we've got a tool that we use with our agencies, but really it's just to identify what is that point of differentiation. So in this case, it would be a Promise report. That's the actual point of differentiation. Then we have to determine, this is so crucial, what is the impact? Or we use the acronym wiifm, what's in it for me? Meaning what's in it for the client. So if we do a Promise report, and this is one of our points of differentiation, we better be able to explain and ask questions and clarify of what that means to the client. Why do they win? Why is their life and or business improved? Because we have this point of differentiation, this tool called a Promise report. And that's going to be their value system, not ours. And I'll talk more about that in a minute. By the way, though, quick aside, I can tell you this. When you're trying to figure out the impact, what's in it for me, certainly for business owners, it's usually around three things. Profitability, clients and employees. Right. If you can talk about the impact, what's in it for them? Well, here's how it's going to help. Profitability, this is how it helps you acquire, keep more of your clients or relationship with your clients. And here's how it best helps serve your employees, right? Your crucial, most crucial asset to your business as your employees. So profitability, clients and employees. So all this is really important. So we think about what is the impact. That's a pretty darn good place to start. Then we want to be able to have evidence. Every agency, every producer should have some form of an evidence binder where you've got tactical proof of the things that you said you did. Right? The impact of them. And then here's actually how we do it. This is what it looks like. So you've got the pod, the impact, and then of course, the evidence. So those three are the Kind of the core cogs to being able to really dive deep at a point of differentiation. Now, here's where we get to probably the most crucial part. We understand the pod, which can take a while for agencies. We understand the impact. We understand, and we have the evidence to support and prove that. Well, now how do we begin to open new files around that pod? That point of differentiation, meaning that if you go in and just say, hey, sometimes this happens all the time. We learn something new or about a new coverage, or we've got a different type of process or system with a carrier, and we come into our clients and we're like our future ideal clients and say, oh my gosh, you won't believe this new cyber thing or this new whatever thing that we have. And the client's like, okay, great. Obviously you're pretty excited about it, but why should I care? And so we can't just shove pods down our client's throat because again, it's got to be their value system, not ours. So let's just go back to Promise Report, just to give you one example, right? So let's say I'm going in with a future ideal client. Again, I've identified a future ideal client. We had the first appointment. We obviously built some replacement rapport. Always talk about just kind of how our process is unique. And then I would just say something like this at some point, right? I'm curious, Mr. Future Ideal Client, how are you currently determining the success of your current risk management insurance program today? So the question is, how are you currently determining the success of your current risk management and insurance program today? Now, again, I don't know what they're going to say. I can tell you if you set these up well and you've really thought about it. Most, most times the best questions are those that make the future ideal client stop, pause, analyze the question that you just asked and answer in terms of you. That's a great question. That's a power question. That's a great POD question. And so they may say something like, well, you know, we measure it because if the premiums stay consistent or if we do this or whatever, and therefore you have an opportunity then to explain a little bit about a Promise report, how our process is a little bit different. Here's what we do, and then, of course, here's what this means to the majority of our clients when we work with clients, here's what the impact of the Promise Report is. And then we can ask questions around the importance and value to them, right? Dive deeper and let them Explain either this or this is not important to them. We've now determined the point of differentiation. We've now asked a really good question to open a new file to get them to think. Now we're going to determine their level of interest within that. We also can support it with evidence and say, you know, in fact, Mr. Future Ideal Client or Mrs. Future Ideal Client, here is actually an example of a promise report that we use with our clients. Here's what it looks like. Now they can visually see it. So that would be an example of one point of differentiation that what you've done is you've identified it. You've been able to ask questions and explain the impact to the client. You're able to show proof of evidence, and you open all of that with a POD question, a question that opens new files. So you could do this for as many as you want. But the idea that I want to explain today is most agencies look, copy, quote and pray say, you know, here's our stuff. Can I. Can we give you a quote? You know, we'll go back and we'll look at it, but we've never really gotten to any differentiation. You're just competing against other agencies, either the incumbent or more versus really going, huh? You know, no one's ever asked me that before. I haven't heard that before. What does that mean to me? Well, let me explain that. And all of a sudden, guess what? You're providing value and you're doing your diligence and you're going deeper with the client than they ever have before. Let me make one last note. On pods, I could spend, as you can imagine, a lot of time on this. We spend at our producer camp. We spend several hours really identifying. We roundtable, we go deep into it, then we talk about, you know, specifically the impact, and then we go into the questions and we get up and practice asking questions. Because of course, you got to practice, practice all of this stuff. But is this going to work for every future ideal client? Well, not necessarily. Especially if you really haven't identified future ideal clients, which, by the way, is going to be my next podcast, Understanding Pipelines of Future ideal Clients. Because if you're out there just doing stuff with suspects and prospects, you've never really identified a. It's really hard to find enough time to prepare because you're just shooting from the hip, right? And number two, you're probably mix and matching the wrong type of clientele that you really want for your agency. And so you've got to identify future ideal clients, which Again, I'm going to dive deeper in my next podcast, which will be our sixth Sitkins Profit Strategy. So I'm hoping this, this episode gave you some, gave you some ideas and light about points of differentiation. I know I've talked about this in different ways before, but I want to share this because again, this is one of our absolute core strategies. We spend a lot of time around this. And then once we get these new files open, once we really identify the points of differentiation, then we can execute a set offense where we can take all of these and go, here's really where we can be in a position to win. Now think about this. Does doing some of the things that I talked about today, especially if you had five and you're doing your homework with future ideal clients, does it take more time, effort, energy than just showing up and going, hey, you know, boy, that's a nice picture on your wall, by the way. Thanks for the opportunity to come out and see you today. Just want to learn a little more about your business and see if we can offer you a quote. And that's typically, you know, what happens. A lot of agencies and producers out there. So does this take more time, effort and energy? Yes, the answer is yes. Does it make the process, especially with profitable clients, easier? You betcha it does, right? You betcha it does. So, points of differentiation, opening new files. I'd love to get feedback from you. You can email me brentidkins.com and just kind of maybe send me some of the pods and some of the pod questions. Opening new files that you're working on. I'd be happy to give you some feedback if you'd like, or just again, hear from you would be great. So Brentitkins.com also want to mention again, March 11th through the 13th, our profit net. One of the things we're going to be talking about will be pods, and we'll spend some time on that in cape Coral, Florida, March 11th to the 13th. And also, if this podcast is adding value to you and your life and your agency, I'd love to hear from you. I'd love to have a review on whatever platform you're listening from. So with that, we're all done for today and I wish you all the best in your success. Thanks.