Proactive vs Reactive

Hi, Brent Kelly here with my Pro Fit tip, helping your insurance agency become its best version possible. As you can see on my chalkboard here, I want to talk about the concept, the ideas, and the execution of you as an insurance professional, as an insurance agency becoming more proactive versus simply reacting to things that happen. And I want to talk about three specific areas that every agency should consider when they go. Are we being proactive? Are we being intentional, or are we, are we being reactive? The first one is our time. Time is our only diminishing asset. We can get back money, we can get back things, but we can never get back our time. So how we spend it, better said, how we invest it, is vitally important to our success. I think it's really important for you as an insurance agency leader or professional to consider, am I spending time, even 20 minutes, 30 minutes over the weekend, looking at my week ahead, saying, is what I have on my calendar this week, the most important thing? Is what I have my calendar today, the most important things, are they going to help me get to where I want to go? Because most of us wake up and go, what's on the calendar today? Or if it's empty, I'll fill it with something, which is usually junk. The late, great. Stephen Covey said it so well. He said we can either prioritize our schedule, meaning that we're just moving stuff around, or we can take the time to schedule our priorities. What are the absolute must that you have this week or when you look each day and are you spending just a few minutes in reflection, in preparation, going, is this the right thing? Because remember, you can never get your time back. And those that do understand this power of being proactive, being very intentional with each and every day, each and every week. Number two is, are we being proactive with our clients? You know, the clients, the ones that pay the bills, the ones that pay your future, the ones that you build relationships with. Are we being proactive with our clients or are we simply waiting for them to contact us? You know, oh, they called in. So we're giving great service. No, it's so easy to fall into this rut. But at a minimum, at absolute minimum, the top 20% of your clients, which, by the way, averages show that your top 20% of your clients produce about 80% of your revenue for an agency, your top 20% of your clients, do you have a proactive service calendar? Do you have a true continuation process that you look at? And by the way, if you don't have anything, start with one or two Things that you could do, which by the way, could be a true annual risk survey. It could be a true pre renewal meeting where you're doing market analysis. You know, it could be a lot of different things, but just start with the basics. And by the way, it's okay to build really good relationships with your clients. You know, like thank you cards, birthday cards. Just thinking about you picking up the phone saying thank you, whatever it may be to be proactive. You may be surprised at how powerful picking up the phone just to say thank you really is in today's world. And lastly, the last thing I want to talk about being proactive is how we invest our relationships with our team members. Are you being proactive with your team members? Whether you're an insurance producer working with your service team, whether you're an insurance agency leader working with your entire agency team, Are you being proactive? Because here's something to consider. A problem left unattended becomes a crisis. How do we know there's a red flag in a relationship? How do we know there's a red flag in a client experience? How do we know there's a red flag in really anything if we're not addressing it up front? And at a minimum, sales and service should be meeting weekly to have conversations about what's upcoming, our client experiences, who's doing what and why. 30 minutes of prevention goes a long way in a course of a week. Same thing with an agency leader. Are you spending some time to go out and talk with your people? Right, those people. That most important asset that you have is your people and being upfront and building relationships and being proactive with them before problems occur. The great John Maxwell has a great saying that I want to leave you with today. He says we're either preparing or we're repairing. We can prepare ourselves in this case, being proactive with our time, with our clients, with our team relationships. Or, or we could repair. We can try to last minute try to fix renewals. We can try to last minute try to figure out why this entire week was hysterical activity. We can try last minute to figure out why our best producer, why our best service person, why whoever left our agency, you're either preparing or you're repairing. And that comes with the idea of I've got to be proactive versus reactive. So my challenge to you, go be proactive this week and every day moving forward. All the best in your success.