The 4 Levels of Insurance Influence

The art of influence. Why is it so important to every insurance professional, regardless of your title or position? And how can you begin to start to implement it? Well, today I'm going to cover the four levels of insurance influence on today's Agent Leader Podcast. Well, hello, hello everyone. My name is Brent Kelly and welcome to another episode of the Agent Leader Podcast. I am super excited that you're here with me today and I want to talk about something that I believe is so vitally important, number one, for every insurance professional, regardless of your title, regardless of your position. And also something that I think that gets overlooked to a degree or at least the understanding and application of, of this. Now, I just got back from a really amazing insurance conference in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. A shout out to my friends at Agency Nation and Trusted Choice who put on the Elevate 17 conference. And I had a great chance. I mean, there were some great speakers. I was had the opportunity to present myself on something called the Most Toxic Word in Insurance. I could do a whole nother podcast on that. But what I really loved about this conference is the fact that the people that wanted to be there were leaders. They really, you could tell that out. Tell you why I say they're leaders is because they all understand and want to apply. What I want to talk about today, understanding influence. And that influence isn't about shouting loud, influence isn't about, you know, just trying to make the most noise. But what truly is effective influence, and also that influence truly is leadership. Because I met people from company side, from the organization side, agents, agency owners, and there's that passion for growth and leadership. And you know, I just love that because I truly believe that we need insurance leadership now, right now more than ever in the insurance industry. And you know, at this conference too, they talked a lot about insurance tech. I mean, all the different things that are going on with the marketing and tech mark, you know, all the things with automation and high level technology and those things are vitally important, right? Vitally important. And oftentimes agents and agencies get worried. They get scared for good reason in many cases. But you know, I think if they understand and start to apply some of the things that I love to talk and teach about, which is leadership and influence and communication and connection and consistently growth and stretching out of your comfort zone. Right. If you're able to do those things, these outside forces don't become so much of a distraction or a threat as they become another way for us as insurance professionals to get better, develop our skills. I think competition of any kind pushes us for greatness, right? That's why you always see in sports, if a team is dominated until they get that other team that pushes them, that's the only way, oftentimes they get better. And I believe the same thing is true in the insurance world today. So let me go back to what I said earlier. Why is leadership so vital? Why am I so passionate about leadership? Well, here's the thing. Our clients need us at our best, don't they? Our communities need us at our best. Our organization, it needs us at our best. And to be at our best, we must know how to lead ourselves. Lead ourselves first so that we can then lead others. I often say you can't give what you don't have. You know, my keynote at this event that I just mentioned, Elevate 17, was about complacency. And I didn't do it in this session, but I often will demonstrate with a cup, a cup of water that oftentimes as leaders, people that are trying to gain influence, which I'm going to talk about today, we try to pour out what we don't have. We try to pour an empty cup into someone else's cup. And guess what? It doesn't work. See, leadership is often discussed but rarely understood. And for many years of my own professional career, I didn't fully grasp the importance of leadership, mainly because I just didn't fully understand it. Now, for 15 years, from 2000 to 2015, I worked as a commercial property and casualty producer for two large midwife insurance agencies. I often tell my story of personal growth. And in 2003, I began to understand the importance of personal growth and development. But it wasn't until many years after that that I realized that I was more than just an insurance agent. I used to say that, whether it's out loud or to myself, you know, I'm just an agent. I'm a producer. No, no, no. Anyone who exerts influence. When I talk about influence, positive and ethical influence, is a leader. If you're a parent, you're a leader. If you're a community member, you're a leader, right? If you have influence on someone, people look to you for something, you are a leader. And certainly all of us in the insurance market and insurance professionals are leaders. Now, I believed for a long time that leadership was just someone who pays other people's salary, right? If you put your name on the check, well, you're a leader. You have the stature, the position, the title it was appointed or it was awarded. A leader had power, prestige and lots of money. And As a young insurance agent in particular, I felt that I didn't have any of those things now. Therefore, for many years of my life, I didn't really spend any time devoting myself to leadership understanding, leadership leadership training and looking back. Not that I sit and look back and go, oh, I should have done this and should have done that, but I do realize that it was a mistake. You know, several years ago, I read a description of leadership that I really had never heard before, even though it's been around for a long time. And it really changed my way of thinking as I started not to just hear this phrase, but live into this phrase and in many ways become this phrase. It makes so much sense and it's so important and it's so relevant. And it comes from the number one leadership expert in the world, who happens to also be my mentor, John Maxwell. And you may have heard this before, but John says this. Leadership is influence. Nothing more, nothing less. Leadership is influence, nothing more and nothing less. Now, for sometimes, for some people, if you first hear this, you go, okay, maybe, or yeah, or I don't know. But when you start to unpack it a little bit, it becomes to, you know, it starts to come to life. You know, you could. There are hundreds and thousands of examples of this, and I've probably shared different examples of this, maybe in previous podcast episodes or on my blog. But one of the most influential leaders in modern history is Mother Teresa. Now, whatever your background is, whatever your, whatever you think necessarily about Mother Teresa, I mean, she's generally viewed extremely positive, but she was truly a humble servant. And she didn't have some lofty title or position, but, but she was someone who demonstrated that leadership is truly influenced. Nothing more, nothing less. Why? Same with Martin Luther King, right? He didn't have a title or a position, but guess what? Just like Mother Teresa, when these people speak, guess what? Other people listen. See, they have influence. And there's an art and a skill and a science to influence again, not to manipulate, but to help, to serve. And that's why I love teaching influence. So I want to talk, in fact, because today I'm kicking off and this again, depending on when you're listening to this podcast, I'm kicking off a four week masterclass on becoming a person of influence. In fact, I plan on doing this every month, a four week class that I do each month. So certainly you can go to my website, brentmkelly.com masterclass to learn more about it. But what I'm going to do in this masterclass and What I want to share in this podcast are the four levels of influence. Now, I'm not going to go really deep in each of these, but I do want to give an overview. If you just start to think about ways that you can be more influential in your business, in your life, with others, and when you understand, again, leadership is influence. Nothing more, nothing less. Influence equals leadership. Leadership equals influence, Right? Instead of trying to convince people we can connect with people, when you understand these principles and you start to apply them, it makes a significant difference in your productivity, in your book of business, in your relationships. You can go on and on and on. So let me go through these four levels. Level number one is modeling. Modeling. You know, it's funny, look at modeling. I remember back as a child, I don't want to say I was a child. Maybe I was a teenager, I don't remember. But the famous Charles Barkley commercial, right? And this was marketing. But, you know, Charles just said, you know, I'm not a role model. I'm not a role model, right? And whether he believed that or not, it doesn't matter. We know that our kids and that we, as even adults, we always model ourselves after others. That's just human nature. You know, I have four children, number five, on the way this fall. And there's no doubt that children are influenced by what they see more than by what they hear. Right? And if you're a parent, you've got either young kids or kids that are grown. You know what I mean? Right. You can say anything, but modeling is what they truly believe. And modeling begins by living a life of integrity. Integrity is the quality most needed to succeed in business. My mentor says this. He says integrity commits itself to character over personal gain, to people over things, to service over power. The principle over convenience, and the long view over the immediate. You look at with modeling and this word integrity, it's easy to go, oh, yeah, integrity, you know, integrity, yeah, we gotta have integrity. But I'm telling you, in this world today, integrity is missed a lot. We jump to where we just gotta do things instead of to be a person of influence, right? Before you can influence others, you must be person of influence. Without integrity, there is no trust. And without trust, you have nothing. Nothing. If people don't trust you, you have nothing. Trust is the single most important factor in personal and professional relationships. It's the glue that holds people together and the key to becoming a person of influence. It's very easy to get caught up in looking good or saying the right thing. But if you really want to start to become a person of influence, lead others effectively, lead with authority, then you've got to walk the walk, don't you? That's like telling your sales team guys, you got to be, you know, at it every single day. You got to go, go, go, right? If that's who you are. And yet every day you're out playing golf again, doesn't mean you can't have recreation. The point is you gotta walk the walk, right? You are a model, and that's the number one step in influence. Level two is motivating. Motivating. Being a motivational influencer means that you encourage people and you communicate with them on an emotional level. I think of maybe the most motivating person that you know. Maybe it's a parent, maybe it's your boss, maybe it's someone that works for you, maybe it's someone on tv, I don't know. But someone who motivates you. Motivating is the next step of influence after modeling. Modeling can be done from a distance, but real motivation, right? And you may mention, you may listen to a podcast or watch a TV show, but motivation really is about getting closer. When you're with a team, you're with a client, so you can make a significant impact on the lives of other people. Now, how do you become a motivator? Well, there's a number of things, and in fact, some of my classes, I go through several of these. But it comes through nurturing, understanding. What nurturing is all about listening, the art of listening and understanding the people that you want to influence, right. To really, again, be in their shoes. Sounds simple, sounds old school, but it isn't often done today. Nurturing, listening, understanding. Again, think of those that have motivated you in your life. And there's no doubt that these people have made a long lasting impression. And I've done podcast recordings and blog posts and seminars on communication and listening. I love that, the idea of trying to become a better communicator because it's just so vital in your life. But one of the examples I use is think about a conversation you've had where you did all the talking, right? People were asking you questions, you're like, oh, that was a great conversation. And all the other person did was listen, understand you. That truly is motivating. One of the things that I do is I do coaching. I do some one on one coaching. And one of the things that people love when they're being coached is the fact that someone is truly listening to them. 100%, nothing else going on in that room or on the phone call. And that's very motivating. That's level number two. Level three, next level, mentoring. Mentoring. Now, I've had several mentors in my life. Some have come from books and audio recordings, others that I've worked with and even I had other mentors that I've paid. Right? I've actually had paid coaches and mentors many times because I wanted to have more access to them and their time is very valuable. See, time is our most precious asset, isn't it? Well, beyond money, you can always make more money, but you can't get back time. Can you see, mentoring is pouring your life into other people and helping them reach their potential, helping them reach their potential. When you successfully mentor someone, you can see firsthand the impact that you're making. You can see and help them achieve those results that they want. Now, how do you become a high level mentor again without getting into some of the weeds here? You must learn to enlarge people, make them bigger than where they think they are. Right? We all have self limiting beliefs. Some of the best mentors I've had will say, Brent, you gotta stop saying things about yourself, right? Or you gotta become a navigator. To be a mentor, you gotta help show people the way, right? Here's a course that I think you could take. And then of course, to connect with people, to connect with people, to be their best. So being a mentor is very, very powerful. That's level three. So I talked about modeling, motivating, mentoring. What's the last one? Man, this is the one in the insurance world that really fires me up. In a good way. In a good way because I just think it's one of those things that I see in the profession, especially in the insurance agency world, that if it can be done more effectively, if people can see into this, it's going to alleviate a lot of problems that we're already starting to see. How do we get the next generation, the next level of insurance leaders, ready, prepared, equipped to make changes, to do positive things in the profession? Well, level four, multiplying, this is the highest level of influence and I believe it's the most needed in the insurance industry today. I know a lot of insurance agencies, maybe you know, some, maybe you are one that are being bought out or in that process, or they're just simply stagnant. They're just, I don't know what to do next because they for years have not invested the time or energy into developing other people, developing those people around them. To be a true leader, you Must grow others while you grow yourself. Now, it starts with yourself. You've got to grow yourself to grow others, right? It's the whole example of the oxygen mass in the airplane, right? Before you can give it to someone else, you got to have yourself. Otherwise you can't help people. But the next step is what's missed. See, average organizations, average insurance professionals, average insurance agencies gain followers. You know, maybe they add someone here, add someone here, they're a follower. I'll tell you what to do. Help me do this. Great organizations seek, find and grow leaders, right? Seek, find and grow leaders. Now, everyone has the ability to get to this fourth level of influence, which is the most challenging, right? Multiplying. But you must understand it requires a great deal of unselfishness. You have to give some of yourself away, right? You've got to be generous and you've got to commit to this. You've got to commit to this. Studies have shown that 85% of leaders produce followers. 10% of leaders produce leaders. But only 5% of leaders reproduce leaders. Only 5% of leaders reproduce leaders. See, it's easier to get somewhere first. It's easier to get somewhere first. But more significant when you bring someone along with you, isn't it? Right? I mean, if you were going to run a race, right, and you've worked hard and you become the fastest runner, you can be first. But what if you got to bring a team with you? Are you going to get there first? Maybe not. But when you get there, there'll be more significance and you can leave a legacy, right? Because you have others that you've empowered around you. There is significant power in multiplication. When you reproduce leaders, you raise your influence to a new level. You raise your leaders personal potential. You multiply your resources and you ensure a positive future for your organization. See, it goes on without you. That's multiplication. I don't have to be everything to everyone because I believe in others around me. And I'm going to empower and equip them so that they can do what I do. In fact, maybe they can do what I do even better. You have to leave your ego aside. So here's the bottom line of influence. We influence someone every day of our lives. Every day of our lives. We influence people. The question is your influence positive or is it negative? Because there's no neutral. You're either, as someone tells me, you're either adding emotional deposits into people or you're making withdrawals. And if you make too many withdrawals without making deposits, you overdraft so every day, how are you making these emotional deposits into those people around you? Again, leadership, understanding leadership is one thing. It's influence. And again, this does not matter. If you're influencing your team, your clients, your community, you have the ability, and I would say this too, you have the responsibility to become a person of positive influence in the lives of others. Remember what I said at the beginning of this. Our clients need us at our best. Our communities need us at our best. Our organizations need us at our best. We need you at your best. Hey, thanks again for listening to today's episode of the Agent Leader Podcast. My name is Brent Kelly and you can find more about me and my resources and information@brentmkelly.com that's Brent M. As in Michael Kelly.com. also, if this podcast is adding value to your life and to your business, please go to itunes or Stitcher Radio, one of those two, and leave me a positive review. It helps me get the word out and attract more insurance professionals and help them become better leaders. Until the next episode of the Agent Leader Podcast, thanks again for listening. Go out there and be a leader. Become a person of influence. Add value to yourself and go add value to others around you.