Brent Kelly of the Sitkins Group tells insurance producers to think beyond annual goals. Instead of asking how long something takes, ask how far you can go. Focus on improving three things: Skills, Processes, and Attitude.
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Hi, Brent Kelly here of the Sitkins Group with my Pro Fit tip, Professional Fitness to help your agency gain clarity, build consistency and make a commitment to become your best version possible. So my tip for you today is this idea of wanting to think about 2020, but I also want you to think beyond 2020. I know that seems kind of crazy and most of us begin to prepare for 2020. I'm sure many of you watching this are doing that right now and your goals and what are the plans and all the things that you want to achieve, things to do, things to stop doing right for 2020. But I want you to begin to start to think not just short term, which really one year is short term, but long term. I think oftentimes we ask ourselves a question, something like this. We come up with goals and ideas for the next year and we say, how long will it take? Hopefully we can get it done this year, next year. How long will it take to get to the place that I want to get to? And I think that's a good question, but I don't think it's a great question. A better question instead of how long will it take? Is this, how far can I go? Right? How far can I actually go? This is an idea of again, long term thinking versus more of a short term thinking. I think oftentimes we overestimate what we can get done in one year, but we vastly underestimate what we can accomplish in a long period of time, 3, 5, 6, 10 years. This question of how far can I go? Makes us think about things in different areas of our well, again, for an insurance producer and how we're doing things day in, day out with our clients. As an insurance agency leader, what we're doing day in, day out with our team and our community. And I've got an acronym here that we often share at Sitkins called spa. And when you think about how far can I go? There's three areas that I want you to focus on, right? How far can you go? The first is this. What skills 2020 and beyond are you going to commit to mastering? What skills in 2020 and beyond are you going to commit to mastering? Because I think obviously we've got to build and increase our skills to get to a higher level of achievement. You could probably get by weaning some things and still hit some of your goals in 2020. But long term, long term, what are the skills you're going to master? Quick example, if you're an insurance producer, I think being able to ask, great, listen. Is an amazing skill that you should be able to continue to improve upon and master. So what skills are you going to focus on in 2020 and beyond? What about processes? Processes allow us to make everything else a little bit easier. What are the things that you could begin to do now that will make things much easier for you both in 2020 and 21 and 22 and 23 and beyond, to think about the process that you're going to install and that you're going to monitor in your agency. And the last part of this, the a is a question of the heart and also the head, the attitude. What is your attitude going to be? I think oftentimes when we look at attitude, we let outside circumstances dictate our attitude. Give you a quick example. People say, have a great week. Well, that means that the week is just going to hopefully be great. That it doesn't rain and that our client says yes and that the person picks up the phone and that someone's nice to me. And how about making it a great week? How about making it a great year? How about making it a great career? Right? Your attitude that we understand that we're not going to look at just the problems, but the solutions behind those problems. And again, that's a head and a heart issue for your attitude. But that's a long term commitment. Now, none of these things are you going to get done or do great in a day or week or even a year. But consistently, if you can continue to work on your skills, the processes, the attitude, the question of how far can I go? It's going to be a pretty powerful question. So I wish you all the best in 2020 and beyond. If we can help you at Sitkins in any way, whether you're an insurance producer, an agency leader, Visit our website sitkins.com we'd love a chance to talk to you. All the best in your success.
