The 7 P's to Agency Success

Foreign. Welcome to the Agent Leader Podcast. My name is Brent Kelly, your host. Thanks so much for joining me for another episode. And as always, the purpose of the Agent Leader podcast is to help you as an agency leader. Again, whether you the you're the agency principal, you're a producer, you're a sales leader, you're a service team professional, it doesn't matter. Agency leaders are those that have influence around others. But to help you, the agency leader, gain clarity, to build consistency in the right habits and behaviors and ultimately make that commitment to become your best version possible. I know that if you're listening to this, you are a professional wanting and desiring to get better. I appreciate you and applaud you for that. And as always, I would ask this. The only thing we ask in this podcast is that this is providing value to you and your agency, whether it's itunes or stitcher, wherever you're listening to, leave a rating review would be much appreciative so that we can provide more value to others. Now, my topic today, I will be flying solo, but I have a very, very important topic that has been kind of percolated in my mind for a period of time. And I've said different things around this on various previous episodes, but I want to put it together because I think it's so easy in the insurance world, it's going to sound funny. It's easy in the insurance world to make things complicated. We allow things that are very core and simple to spiral, in many cases out of control. And all of a sudden what we could do really, really well, we aren't executing because we've kind of lost our way, right? We've gotten caught up in crazy shiny, all those kind of, you know, crazy shiny object world out there. And I think, you know, one of the things, there's a lot of very challenging things, best way I can say it, that agency leaders are dealing with in 2020, there's no doubt we've talked about it on this podcast and it'll continue. It'll continue to evolve with some of the economic downturn, so to speak, and some of the difficulties that your clients are facing. I get all of that. I appreciate and respect all of that. But I do think one of the good things that will come out of this, and we've already seen it, is the fact that it will cause many people, many agency leaders to stop and think and reflect and go, ok, how can I kind of reorganize this thing to do it better? Because the way it was going was okay, but I know, there's a lot of. There's a better version out there waiting for me if I just can get my mind and, you know, our team and whatever it may be right back on the right track. And so what I want to do in this podcast is share the principles, the core, the key, I don't care what you call it, but there's seven things that I believe are absolutely paramount to your agency and success. There are things, again, that I have talked about in this podcast, but I want to just try to simplify them. I'm going to go through seven of them that may seem like a lot. They're very basic things that I say to them that most of them are going to. Yeah, okay. I know that, as I said before, the goal of anything isn't just to know something, it's how well are you doing it. And so these seven P's that I'm going to go through today are absolutely critical to what we teach and coach around at Sitkins. So it's just, you know, it's one of those things that's kind of second nature, the things that we talk about. But I wanted to organize them in a way because we haven't really presented in this way before. You're kind of the first audience to hear it like this, but to be able to take all the things that we talk around and say, okay, here are seven things, by the way, that all start with the same letter P. We have a lot of acronyms at Sitkins, and acronyms are fun and help us remember things. I'm an alliteration guy, which I like words to start with the same letter. So I'm hoping for you as I go through this, because they're all starting with the same letter P. You can go, Yep, I remember that. I remember that. I remember that. So then you can say, am I applying it? That's why I like it, because it helps me remember. So hopefully it'll help you remember. And they really all focus around those same three areas that I talked about on every podcast. Clarity, consistency, commitment. So I'm gonna. I'm gonna. There's. There's one P that goes to clarity, there's one P that attaches to commitment, and there's five that are all things that you, as an agency leader, need to be more consistent around. Right. And these are things, again, that we. That are second nature does at Sidkins and how we coach and train our clients. So let's dive in to the content. So the first thing that we talk about is clarity. Right? Clarity. Consistency, commitment, and clarity. There's one P that I want to start off with, and it's a word that you've probably heard before. And maybe when I say it, you're gonna go, oh, yeah, yeah. Okay. I don't even know what I do with that. Here's the word. Are you ready? Purpose. Purpose. And if you would, if you're driving, please don't do this. But if you are, you know, sitting at home or you've got a piece of paper in front of you, I think a way to model this is to help you. And we're gonna come out with an infographic, actually, to put this together to make it easier. People say this is really what it is. But draw a circle on the middle of your page. If you get a piece of paper or an extra scratch sheet of paper, just draw a circle. Not to make it very big, a smaller circle. And write purpose in the middle. Because everything that I'm going to share, the other six Ps really don't work well without this first one. This is the center, this is the heartbeat. Whatever you want to call it. The core is purpose. And although you've probably heard it before, what's your purpose? What's your why? Why do you do what you do? The Simon Sinek stuff, all that stuff that's been around for quite a. We kind of know it, but do we really live it? Do we feel it? And the basic question is this. What do you really want? Whether you're an agency leader running your team? So what does your agency really want? If you're an individual, what do you. What do you really want? I heard a. I was reading a book recently called Coach to Coach. Great, great. I'm not done with it yet. I'm about halfway through Coach to Coach by Martin Rooney, and one of the stories in there was talking about the core is enthusiasm. And you hear that word enthusiasm, enthusiasm, and enthused. The core part of that word is Greek, which comes from inspired by God or inspiration. Right? So enthused. I'm inspired. Which, by the way, inspiration is an internal thing. Motivation is external, but inspirational is internal. And then the end of the word enthusiasm, I, A S M is an acronym. I know. Now I'm giving you an acronym alliteration now. Acronyms. But IASM stands for I am sold myself. I am sold myself. And I was just thinking about this. I heard this too, on a podcast that blended together in my mind that sales. And sales, by the way, is transfer of things. Right? I mean, if it's a Good. A product, obviously, insurance, sales, if you're selling an idea to your team member, that sales is simply a transfer of enthusiasm. It's a transfer of enthusiasm. So if you or your agency, either you personally or agency, you want to have purpose, the question I'd ask is, are you sold yourself? I asm I am sold myself. Are you sold on where it is you want to go, what you really want? Do you have a crucial, a powerful mission and vision, and is that aligned with what you do, your strengths? So that's that purpose. I mean, I'm one of those people that believe that, you know, we can talk about behaviors and outcomes, but it's really hard to align the behaviors if we don't really understand and feel the outcome that we want. It's just true. Otherwise we start going through the motions. So I think from an agency perspective, people want to not just work for an agency. They want to be part of something that matters. They want to know what the agency stands for and where the agency is going. You individually, one of the biggest problems I see specifically with insurance producers is they're not sold themselves. They don't really believe in them and what they do and what they provide. So purpose is the heartbeat. It is the first P. And it is extremely important. So now that we got the first P out of the way, let's go to. There's five. So if you have a piece of paper, you get the circle in the middle. You could draw another circle around the first circle. I don't care how big you make it, leave yourself some room. And there's going to be five areas around this. So you could put dashes, whatever. I'm probably confusing you, but there's going to be five things that would surround purpose that I believe that every agency's got to be consistent on. That's why we talk about consistency. Well, what am I consistent on? What does that mean? Consistent on what? Well, consistent number one, the first P of consistency. Second P overall is productivity. Productivity, time is our only diminishing asset. You can't get it back. You can earn back money and things, but you can't get back your time. And oftentimes we see people out there trying to. Well, here's productivity tips on how to manage your time. Well, we all have 168. You can't do that. The idea is how do we manage energy? How do we manage situations? Because when we figure that out, and productivity is okay, my role, my responsibility is this. Here are the results that I need to generate, whether it's for the agency, whether it's individual book of business with your clients, you know, here's how I get. Here's my scorecard. Here's how I win. Am I investing? Not spending, but investing my most precious and only diminishing asset, which is that time that I have my energy. Am I doing it in a way that's going to maximize my results? Very basic. Very basic. But most agencies and insurance professionals miss it. They don't think about where they're really productive. We always say, even with insurance producers, when we teach in our programs about productivity in the sense of managing your time and energy and putting together a week that's valuable and just starting with that and being proactive in your calendar. If you looked at your calendar right now, would it say this week my calendar was filled with stuff that was focused on results? I hope it is. In many cases, two things happen. Either it's not or it's blank. I can tell you if it's blank what you're filling it with. It's probably not the most important stuff. It's not the productive stuff. With our insurance producers, we always say, listen, if you can just get that right, you'll increase your production, your productivity by 25% just by. Just by understanding that. So the first p inconsistency is productivity. Am I being productive? Number two is priority. And these two go align. So we got productivity and priority, similar but different. Now, priority to me is really understanding and applying the principle of the 8020 rule. And I've talked about in this podcast before, but it's amazing to me, with our clients and talking to people, they go, yeah, I kind of know it. What are you doing about it? Nothing. Wait a second. So do you agree that 20% of the input of. And I'll talk about different aspects. 20% of input leads to 80% of output. So you put in 20% in one area, you get 80% of the result. Yeah, yeah, I get it. I've done it. That's true. Then why are you not hyper focused on that 20%? That's prioritizing. It's no different. And again, from a personal level for me, and I'm guilty of this, it's like, well, what priorities for you, Brent? Well, in my whole life, I mean, obviously my kids and my wife, are they first? Are you putting time there back to, oh, geez, you know, maybe now you think of 8020 for agencies. And again, if you've been a listener, I appreciate you. You've probably heard this before, but there's just certain Areas that are obvious in the insurance agency. 20% of our clients produce 80% of our revenue. It's always really close to that for agencies. Are there some discrepancies? Yeah, a little bit, but it's still, you know, the predictable imbalance is there. 20 leads to a lot more of something else. How about insurance carriers? I'm always amazed about prioritizing. You know, we'll have, oh, we've got 87 insurance carriers. Great. 20% of those give you 80% of your results. Are you investing more of your resources with those carriers? Are you sitting down with them? Are you talking through game plans? I mean just contingency alone. I mean going to that world is incredible when you get focused and prioritize the right areas. It's not that we need more carriers, we just need to do better with the ones that we have that are already producing and then thinking of producing producers. If you're running an agency, if you're a sales leader, you're going to be nodding your head right now and it depends on the size of your team. But if you've got multiple producers and I can guarantee that 20% of those producers, just 20% produce 80% of your results. What does that mean? Well that means maybe you don't have some good ones. That's normal. Number two, it means that maybe you could spend more time, energy with those 20%. You could prioritize those 20% because they will continue to grow instead. Well, we always trying to fix the problems versus investing in where we actually can get the best return. Right, return on your investments. So priority is number two, productivity priority and consistency. Number three thing to be consistent around is pipelines. Pipelines, pipelines, pipelines. We could talk about these all day but consistency is like, well, do you have a pipeline? No, we're struggling with it. Well, do you have a plan for pipelines? Yeah, our plan for pipelines is to have better pipelines. Okay, well that's not a plan, that's hope. And hope's not a strategy. So just some things to think about from an agency perspective or if you're a producer, an individual book. Have you truly identified future ideal clients? Who you work the best with? Looking back at 80, 20, what that looks like a specialization, a niche, a key area, component coverage that you're really good at, whatever it is. I could do lots of, I could do a whole podcast on that and I've done some. But have you really defined future ideal clients? Are you still saying eh, suspects prospects got a lot of people if they breathe Air and they can fog a mirror and they have a dollar. They're, they're a suspect or a prospect. I truly believe you market to all, you market to none. I just believe that especially in today's world, we're getting more and more specialized. And you can be part of the noise, right? There's noise and there's signal. You want to be the signal, right? You want to stand out in that. So have you identified future ideal clients? Do you have a targeted strategy? Do you have a plan? Why? You have a competitive advantage. What makes you different? And then here's the last thing. It's obvious. 90% on average of clients renew with your agency. That's cool. 90% of your clients continue to do business with you, yet less than 10% refer. Why? Well, when it comes to pipelines, number one, we don't earn them. In many cases or subconsciously, we feel we haven't. And what does that mean? Well, it means we don't ask. We don't ask. Your best clients want to help you. Your best clients want to help you. We just have to let them help us. We have to position ourselves, we have to understand, to build pipelines, yes, we earn them. Lots of things to do there. But also we have to be able to ask. We have to ask. So pipelines, how consistently are you talking and working on your pipelines? Number four and consistency is pods, points of differentiation. Pods, pods, points of differentiation. Most agencies, and I've done podcasts on this, so you've probably heard this before if you've been a listener, but it's generic. Best, you know, best people, great service, been in business, local competitive pricing, you name it. Just generic stuff that anybody else can say. It doesn't really have any meaning. You have got to be considered. You have got to identify where you actually have differences. And you may have an agency that has really cool stuff that makes it easier for you. You may be a smaller agency. You've got to put a little creative input in this. But sometimes it's just doing the basic things that anybody could do better. Like if you're going to be a risk advisor, are you doing a true annual risk survey? I mean, a real one, not just a fake one, but a real one that could be a competitive advantage. That could be a point of differentiation. And more importantly, with pods, going back to future ideal clients too, what does that mean to them? What's the impact for them? Their life, their business? How do they win? That's what they want to know. They don't care about your Pod they care about how they win. And do you have evidence to support that? The last thing I'll say around pods is are you asking questions that unlock doors? And as we say at Sitkins, open new files. Open new files means that we're asking questions that get your future ideal clients to think, do different. Because most clients think that every insurance agency and producer is the same. We just heard that this week. One of our said, you know, I started talking about these pods and I had someone came, you know, I really thought that you guys were, I mean, honest, I thought you were all the same. And I realized by some of the questions you asked me that there, there are some distinct differences. I just didn't know they existed. Right. So points of differentiation is something that you should be consistent. You should always be thinking and working on how we can improve that. And lastly is process. The final P in consistency is process. And I can keep this really short and sweet. Do you as an individual or does your agency have a defined and here's the most important word and effective sales process? Do you have a defined and effective sales process? Do you have a plan of how you walk your clients through your unique process? Most agencies don't. Most agencies just kind of hope they get by and they get a talented producer or two that are really good on their feet and can tell the story. Okay, great. But if you brought in a new producer to your agency, could you teach them or show them the process that you have? Give them flexibility, use their individual strengths, but give them a process that they can go on. I mean, how powerful is that? Most don't. Do you have a defined and effective continuation process? We don't believe in renewing accounts at Sipkins. We always talk about continuing relationships, proactive thinking. Well, there's a lot of things and I don't have time on this to go through the whole continuation process or an example of one but very basic level. Have you defined client expectations, not guessed. I think this is what they want. This is really cool that we have. So I'm sure they'll find that valuable. Now, have you asked what do you expect from this relationship? Now that can obviously be discussed during the sales process, but to continue this relationship, not just to renew the account but to continue our long term relationship. Our goal is to be your trusted risk advisor, to be a member of your trusted advisor team and to earn a long term relationship with you. What do you expect from us? Define what that means to them and then document it. Listen and document and then be able to deliver upon it. Here's what you said. Let me remind you of what it was we've documented because you probably forgot. And here's the things we've done to deliver. How are we doing? You're doing great. Let's talk about our continuation strategy, right. As we move forward. Think long term. And then is this process, whether it's sales or continuation, is it continually refined and reinforced? Well, if you don't have one, that's not a problem. The answer is no. But even if you had one, oh yeah, we forgot about that. So those are the areas of consistency, Productivity, your time priority, 80, 20 pipelines, future, ideal clients, pods, your points of differentiation, asking questions around those, and a sales and continuation process. Productivity, priority, pipelines, pods, process. If you were just consistent in those five areas. I know it seems like a lot, but how often ask yourself, have I gotten away from those basic things right there, those five things to chase other things or got busy on whatever it is? And if I just realized, man, am I investing my most precious asset, my time in the right areas? Am I prioritizing my best clients and carriers? Am I focused and consistently building my pipeline through referrals and through consistent prospecting activity? Am I consistently discussing pods and asking questions? Am I reinforcing or making sure I have a sales and continuation process? Be honest with yourself. Where are you at? Hopefully you're doing a great job, but those are things that many agencies miss. And by the way, back at the center of all this is purpose. Because I'm not going to spend time doing all this stuff consistently if I don't even know where this is taking me. What do you want? What's the vision? What's the mission? Which leads us to the last P. So if you're doing your diagram, you've got purpose in the middle, around the purpose, you've got productivity priority, pipelines, pods, and process number seven. And around the very outside because it's consistent. This is the commitment part. This is the commitment part. The last P may surprise you, may not. Last P is professional development professional, maybe professional growth. The key word is professional. Are you going to act and perform like a professional or an amateur? Are you going to be a professional or an amateur? Professionals are always seeking a higher level. They want to continue to master and grow and develop. They're not done, they're not settled. They want more. So what are some basic things around professional development, professional growth? Well, number one is preparation. Are you preparing for your next great opportunity? Like it's your next great opportunity? You know that preparation, it just Seems so obvious and key, but we don't often do it. Well. Why? Well, sometimes you don't have to, but get away with it. But I mean, right now, even in 2020, you're going to have less opportunities in many cases. That's real, right? To get in front of future ideal clients, for example, or have these important conversations with centers of influence or anybody. Why would you not be as prepared as you possibly could be? And with preparation comes practice. Are you practicing your key skills? If you want to be a professional, you're going to practice, right? Athletes practice, musicians practice, insurance professionals sometimes, many times don't practice. They wing it. And I just can't imagine with a key skill being asking questions, communications and practice, presentation rehearsals and phone conversations and video. Why would you not be practicing your core function that makes you a professional? And which kind of leads to the last question or something to think about when it comes to professional growth and development. Are you committing to weekly appointments to do this with yourself, with your team? Because if you're not putting on your calendar, right, to do some of these preparation and practice, when are you going to do it? I mean, honestly, when would you do it if you didn't say, hey, listen, I'm going to spend an hour, 30 minutes, an hour and a half. I don't care what the time period is. You can grow on this. But I'm going to spend some time either in a team meeting or individually, myself. I'm going to commit to put time on my calendar to practice and prepare for this appointment. If you don't do it, I will tell you. And I'm sure you've lived it. I have, too. It'll be filled with something else. Typically, it's nothing that's really worth doing, but it does fill up time. So are you committing weekly appointments with yourself and your team to be a professional, to prepare, to practice, to perform? There's a few more P's for you, right? So that's my seven P's to, you know, core principles, to agency success, agency growth, you can name it, lots of different things. Everything that we teach and train at Sitkins, we don't really stray from any of those. And sometimes. Oh, well, that's just the basic stuff. That's the basic stuff of those things that I just talked about. None of it is complicated, right? In the sense that you probably don't get it. I don't think there's anything here I talked about that you wouldn't understand. It's the execution. That's what my goal for You. And what we do with our clients is the fact that it's not just the idea, well, here's some new stuff to go try. Okay, I may or may do it. I may or may not do it. And it may or may not work. My goal is, hey, listen, I know these seven things work. And I also know it's going to take a while to continue to get better and better and better at them. We're going to master it. And you know what? When you master and you execute, you get the results. And so just to reinforce the seven P's at the center is purpose. Do you have that defined purpose, that heartbeat that makes you go, man, I'm living for this. I want that. And when I have that, then I can say, am I being productive with my time? Am I prioritizing clients and carriers? Am I focused on pipelines, the right people in the pipeline, the right businesses, the future ideal clients? Am I really identifying my points of differentiation and asking the right questions and do I have a true unique sales and continuation process or am I like everybody else? And if you just did five things, by the way, those are a lot of things, don't get me wrong. Oh my goodness. And then the final circle around it is professional development. I'm going to reinforce and work on all of those things weekly and make it a priority. Back to that word on my calendar. So those are the seven P's to agency success. Thanks for being a listener. I appreciate it. And I went through a lot of information, as I said on the beginning, if this has helped you in some way or provide a value or think another agency could use some benefit for it, please share and also leave a rating and review and much appreciate it. And also if you're looking to go to a higher level at your agency, I have to ask. We at Sitkins, we've got some online programs that we've now delivered. We are delivering, we'll continue to deliver for producers and sales leaders and agency leaders, kind of get you started. So go to sitkins.com programs and we're going to go deeper in all these areas that I just talked about today. And you know, also if you're an agency looking to be connected to other high level agencies to get individual coaching, to go to our actual on site live events, which we're going to be doing those again soon and just again be able to be surrounded by people and programs that are going to take you to the next level. We love you. To learn more about our private network, the Sidkins Network, our private client group go to sitkins.comtsn so with that, I want to thank you all for being a listener, and I wish you all the best in your success.