The Agent Leader is Back!

Foreign. Hey there. Brent Kelly of the Sitkins Group and host of the Agent Leader Podcast. And I'm back. I'm back doing podcasts. It's been a long time since I've released a new episode of the Agent Leader Podcast. I know that I've had conversations over the past several months with people who had asked, you know, I've been listening to your podcast. I enjoy the episodes. But you stopped doing them. What happened? And I said, well, I just got focused in other areas and I've been working really hard in 2018 as Vice President of the Sitkins Group and with our entire team with our private clients, the Sitkins Network, coaching and training, and been speaking in a lot of events last year. And I just couldn't commit the time and effort to do it. So I stopped doing it for a while and again had a lot of nice comments. I wanted to go back and do it again. I love releasing podcasts. I love being able to share ideas that I'm learning, things that I'm struggling with, situations and stories from our clients that we have that I think will be valuable to you. So if you're an agency leader, if you're an agency producer, really any insurance professional in the independent world of insurance agencies, I really want to provide value to you in this podcast. And that's my entire focus. In fact, at the Sidkins Group, that's all we work with, that's all we help as independent insurance agencies. Our entire focus is to help independent insurance agencies become their best version possible. And, you know, that term best version possible may be a bit cliche or maybe you've heard it in different ways. But last year, in fact, about the time when I stopped releasing podcasts, April or May, we had a private CEO program, a leadership program for our private clients, and, you know, just kind of came to us and as we were talking to our. To our leaders of, you know, what makes the best insurance agencies. You know, why are some insurance agencies having success and growth and doesn't mean they don't have struggles, but they're. They're having more successes than others and why others continue to struggle. And, you know, I think one of the greatest things about this industry, especially the independent insurance agency industry, is the fact that it's a really, really good business model. Right? I mean, it's a great business model. You know, we have a lot of agencies and, you know, that. That are doing okay, that, you know, might be struggling in certain areas, but financially are still doing better than many other businesses out there in the world. Today, Right. It's just a great model. I mean, think about it. You've got, even if you're doing average at retention, let's say you're at the upper 80s, you know, of retention. That means that, you know, 85 to 90% of your clients are continue to do business with you, even if it's just okay. Right. And the reason why we stress best version possible is that for many agency leaders we talk with, it isn't just about financial growth and profitability. Certainly that's very important. And we talk a lot about financial growth and profitability, how to help your agency increase what you're doing. In fact, our model that we share with our Sitkins network members is called vertical acceleration. How to grow up and then grow faster. Right. Vertical acceleration. Put those two words together. But ultimately that's the outcome. Right. When they do some of the things, that's what happens is financially, they become stronger, they become more profitable. They allow them to free themselves and have more time to do some of the things that they want to do and love to do. But it's really because they are focused agency leaders that we see that are focused on growth. It's because they're never complacent. They're always looking for better ways to do things. How can I become a better version of myself as an agency leader? How can we become a better version of ourselves as an insurance agency? And it's not out of ego or greed necessarily. It's out of just wanting to become their best version possible. Not to have any regrets, not to look back and say, you know, I wish I did this, I should have done this. I could have done this. And so ultimately, that's the, you know, the heartbeat of what I believe that, you know, you as an agency leader or producer or whatever your role is, you should be asking yourself, you should be asking yourself that every day. I ask myself that every day. In fact, when I do my daily journaling and reflection every day, which has become a habit of mine over the past several years, it's asking myself, was I my best version today? And if not, we're all going to fall short. But if I wasn't my best version, why? What were the things that I did that held me back? What were the bad habits? What were the mistakes I made? What were the bumps in the road so I can learn from that? And at the same time, what were the things that I did well? What worked? You know, how can I replicate that? And so as I re release the Agent Leader podcast this year, that's going to be the theme. The other part of why I'm going to be I'm more confident that I'm going to be consistent with this podcast in 2019 is I'm not as worried about necessarily the perfect audio quality or everything. I'm using my Apple AirPods right now in my office, walking around, just talking, just sharing ideas. And that's what I'm going to do on this podcast is whether I'm traveling or I'm in the airport, I'm in my car. I want to be able just to release a podcast and not worry about that. I'm in my studio at my, you know, blue YETI microphone with the perfect audio quality. I think it's going to be good enough. You know, certainly from that aspect where you're going to get value out of it. Because the fact is, you know, I travel quite a bit and do different things and I have thoughts in my mind and as I have conversation with our members or I'm at one of our private events and I'm and I'm learning from our members just as much as they learn from us. We learn from them of things that are working. I want to be able to share that on this podcast. So here's what I'll tell you in 2019 as I released this. I'm not going to say that it's going to come out every Wednesday morning at 9:00am or, or something like that. But I am making a commitment with my team, which, by the way, is another reason I can do this, is we have a great team. Every agency should have a great team. We have a great team at Sipkins, and I'm able to record these and send this to our team and they can help, you know, produce them and get them out to the world. So I don't have to worry about that part as much as I used to. But, you know, we all need teams to help us do this. And so that's a big part for me and the same thing for you this year. But this podcast, again, I'm going to be releasing hopefully about every week, no promises. I'm sure I'll fall short time to time. So I just know that ahead of time, it's not about perfection, it's about progress. And I want to add value to you. So if this podcast, as I move forward, adds value to you and your agency and you gain a new idea or a thought, let me know or let my team know. It's one of those things where I love to have an impact on your Life, whatever it be, whether it's on this podcast or we get the chance to have a conversation in person, or you hear me speak, or you're. You're part of our network or you're with our team, whatever the case may be, that's my ultimate goal and passion is I just want to add value to you so that you can go out and add value to other people. Right. And obviously the title of this podcast, the Agent Leader Podcast Leadership, is an absolute passion of mine as well. I've been fortunate enough to be trained and certified along my journey with the John Maxwell team. So learning from John Maxwell and his team and just understanding the true purpose of leadership and what is it all about? And, you know, I'm sure I've said this before on previous podcast episodes, but just a couple of things to point out when it comes to leadership, right, being the Agent Leader podcast. And what does this mean to you? Well, first of all, whether you are, again, an agency principal, whether you are a insurance producer, whether you work on the service side as account manager, whether you do claims, I don't care. You're a leader, right? You're a leader. It's not a title. It's not position. I know for many years as an insurance producer, I thought, well, you know, I'm just an insurance producer. I'm just an insurance agent or whatever the case may be, whether I said it out loud or in my head. But that's not how you're defined. You're defined by leadership, by your influence, by your impact on other people. And you can impact anyone. You know, you can impact, obviously your family. You can impact your community. Of course, you impact your clients, your team members, your insurance carrier partners, whoever it may be, be. That's leadership. And so I hope and I strive throughout this podcast this year to always make that the, you know, kind of foundation, I guess, being your best version possible by being a great leader. But understanding that leadership is not just I've got to be the president, could be, but you may be another position in the agency as well, right? So that's first about leadership. Secondly is that the purpose of leadership overall is to add value to people. I already mentioned that. So every day, if you wake up with a purpose of how am I going to add value to people today? What can I do to add value to someone today? You know, it may sound cliche, you may say, okay, Brent, that sounds nice, warm and fuzzy. But truthfully, think about that with your team members, with your clients, with your community, say, how can I add value to you today, because I promise you it'll get returned to you. It always does. And as I state every time in our live trainings, and I look at insurance producers or CEOs or whoever we have in that room, I said, even with all of technology today, technology will continue to rapidly accelerate, and we've got to be able to use it. That this is a relationship, business first. And to develop relationships, that requires human beings talking to other human beings and relating to other human beings and adding value to other human beings. So understand that leadership is about adding value. And the last thing I want to share is that the greatest challenge of leadership, right, the greatest challenge of leadership is leading yourself. And that's why I'm going to go back to the best version possible. Why that is so powerful. Because, see, I asked this question, the best version concept, which again, is not ours, it's been out there, you hear it on the mainstream. Be your best version. But we were getting prepared to do one of our sessions, and I was sitting to have a conversation, preparing for our session, as we always do with Roger Sitkins, my mentor, CEO of the Sitkins Group. And we were having a, you know, deep dive into preparing for, you know, the people at this camp. And I said, you know, Roger, if someone came to you and said, what does a best version agency look like? Or what do we need to do to be the best version possible? What would you tell them? And he listed several things. And, you know, we have core strategies and philosophies that we believe in that work for agencies. In fact, we call them the Sitkin 7. Right? The Sitkin 7 is our core philosophies. But we shared. So he shared some of those with me and should be doing this. They should be doing this. And I said, roger, let me ask you a question, because we challenge them. What's the best version of you? What's the best version of you? And it's the same thing I ask myself, what's the best version of me? And although it may be cliche, when you really honestly ask yourself that, it becomes a really powerful question, right? Because again, the greatest challenge of leadership is to lead yourself and to lead yourself. You need to ask yourself the tough questions. What am I doing well? What am I not doing well? What have I been facing? What have I been fearing that I have not been able to face? That's a big one. Those things that you know, that are in your gut, that are. That are churning, that you just go, I'll get to that tomorrow. I'll get that next week. So that's my hope and wish for you, is that you truly become your best version possible. Your agency becomes the best version possible, and that you understand that leadership is influence and impact and that you focus on adding value to other people. And so I'm excited to get this started. I'm going to try to keep these fairly short every time I do them. My guess is the podcast will probably be each week 10 to 15 minutes, but I don't know. Depends how I'm feeling that week as I share stories and whatnot. But I'm going to start off with the next few podcasts focusing really on our core philosophies and strategies and talking about those and how we see those working well with our, our private network members and all of our coaching clients that we work with across the country. Because it's very powerful, Very powerful. And so last thing I'll share is this. And I'm going to have this on every episode. Always ask because we want to help you. And if you're, you know, if you're an agency or an agency leader that goes, you know, I'm looking to get more to maximize who I am, to take the next step, you know, because trial and error takes a really long time, doesn't it? I've done many things in my life where I eventually figured it out, but have you ever had that situation where it takes a really long time to figure something out and you finally get there and you talk to someone and says, well, I could have told you that like two years ago and help you simplify the process? It doesn't mean it wasn't going to be hard. It just means you could have done it a little bit easier. It's the whole philosophy of working smarter and not harder. And if we can help you as an agency work smarter, not harder, we'd love to have a conversation with you. And you know, our top program that we focus the most around is the Sitkins Network. It's our private client group. It's not for everybody, but we just launched last year founding membership. We have 20 members, private members across the country work with, and we'll continue to grow this year to expand our network. So if that's something you're interested in, just reach out. Go to sitkins.com you can learn about all of our programs. Connect with me. My email is Brent at sitkins. Com. So just email me if you want to connect. Brent at sidkins. Com. I'd love to chat with you and just learn about what you're doing. What's working, what's not working. So with that, I'll sign off this week, and I look forward to more episodes of the Agent leader podcast in 2019and beyond. Thanks.