The Four R's

Welcome to the Agent Leader Podcast. My name is Brent Kelly, your host. Thanks so much for joining me on another episode. And as always, the purpose of the Agent Leader podcast is to help you, the insurance agency leader, to help you gain clarity, to build consistency, and to make a commitment to become your best version possible. And first of all, I appreciate all the feedback and response I continue to get on the Agent Leader podcast. I know now that I've had some ability to do a little bit of, of traveling and of course, all the virtual events that we'll talk more about today that we've been able to do that. I continue to get some great responses. And as much as you, the podcast listener, has said, hey, this is really, really great stuff, Brent, we appreciate it. Many people have said, hey, what about Roger? Are you going to have Roger Sitkins, the Roger Sitkins, back on to have him share some of his lessons and learning? And I said, yes. In fact, today's your lucky day. I've got with me Roger Sitkins, CEO of the Sitkins Group. Roger, welcome to the Agent Leader podcast again.

Well, it's really fun, Brent, being here and being the Roger Sitkin. Not that impressive really, but I really appreciate this opportunity to just share some additional thoughts, some lessons that we've learned here since COVID hit us and just help people get more focused on doing the right things.

And so when Roger and I were talking about the podcast, we said, you know, what are some things that we can share that would bring the most value to agency leaders? And you know, there's a variety of topics and things and we just started thinking, it's like, how much have we learned together as a team and with agencies since COVID I mean, going back, I mean, at this point, as I'm recording this, what, 14 months, you know, we were at an in person event in March of 2020 and got back and the world had changed and we had all, you know, began this, this transformation, whether we wanted to or not, of doing things a little bit differently. And we just began talking about, wow, all the changes we've seen and of course, more importantly to you, what changes, improvements, transformations we've seen insurance agencies make and really what some agencies are doing really, really well and what some agencies aren't doing as well. And so with that, I'm going to bring in Roger, not just for this episode, we're going to do a four part series and it really is going to be based around the lessons that we've learned that we want to share with you, the agency leader. And so Today's episode is going to be a bit of an over kind of high level things that we've seen and the impact has had an agencies in the last year or so. And then we're going to dive into specific topics for the next three episodes that I'll talk about. But Roger, I'm just going to kind of open it up and start just to get to you. People want to hear from you and your thoughts on it. But as you think back, I mean there's been a lot of things that have transpired and I can tell you from our perspective, as you know, we have, we have started and run 38 virtual programs, not sessions, but programs since last spring. So there's just been so much learning. But I want to get your perspective, Roger. What are some things that jump out to you and all the changes that have happened in the past year or so?

Well, probably the biggest thing to me is something that we focus on all the time and that's keep it simple. And we get criticized in the industry, as you know about. Well, it's just that simple stuff. And I always say, look, when you master it, let me know and we'll move on. In fact, one of our new acronyms, which we love acronyms I guess to a fault, but it certainly helps people remember things, is MBA earning your MBA Master. The basic activities and what we're seeing now is that by constantly reinforcing through the virtual world some of the key strategies and behaviors people are starting to master. Some of the basics, the blocking and tackling, if you will, that make a huge difference. And we've talked about this in the past, that most people, when they go to the one time webinar or the one time event or they read a book or whatever, they get so many things that they look at, but it's like drinking from a fire hose. And what we're seeing in the virtual world is we can take that fire hose of information and bring it down much more to a garden hose. And that manageable chunks of information that can be taught and then constantly reinforced. So the bottom line is a focus that's very nar. We've talked about the concept of deep, the delivering excellence in every process. And what we're seeing is that in the virtual world with committed learners that we can go very, very deep in the key processes that wind up getting great results, creating great results. And not just the bright and shiny, the trivial many, let's get down to the vital few. Let's get very focused and let's make those things Real in our organization. Let's get everybody in the agency on the same page. So it's really been exciting to see what's happening with our members.

Roger, as you said that, I mean, I wrote down that acronym that you'd created a few weeks ago, actually. Right. The mba, Mastering the Basic Activities. And I think it's already been very sticky because agencies, certainly, from my vantage point, as you just said, you know, well, I attended this event or I went to this one program. Well, what's been really neat about the virtual world, although there are some things. Well, you know, it's. Is it ever the same as in person? Well, no, of course not. But done the right way. There's such value because we really can engage agencies in a process, a true transformational process where it's introduced and then reinforced and then reinforced and then reinforced. And even then they go, you know what? Have you mastered the basic activities? No. Right. But I am getting better. We are getting better, and we're starting to get results from that. So I think it really comes back from what I've seen is, and I've shared on this podcast several times, is, do you want information or do you want an agency transformation? You know, information is power. It's potential power. But transformation is where we actually get results, and it really is all about results. So, Roger, I want to just ask you to, you know, the things that we have worked on and of course are the many acronyms that we have is. If I said, well, what's it really about, you know, for agencies and, you know, amidst this pandemic and all things that have gone on and what agencies have. Have been going through and trying to change and evolve to, is it still about what it's always been about? Have things changed? So I'll just ask you this basic question. I guess it's not basic, but it's important. What's it all about for agencies today?

First of all, you said, have things changed? Yes. The world has changed dramatically. And what we see is not. Not enough. People are really jumping on the bandwagon and catching up with change. So many people are going, God, I can't wait to go back to the old ways. The old ways are old. They're not going to. They're not. They're not going to come back. Okay, but the basics in saying, what's the focus? How narrow is our focus? All right. And focus is one of those acronyms. This one's not ours. But, you know, follow one course until successful. So I still say that at the end of the day an agency and the individual high performance teams need a central focus. And ours of course is the four Rs. It's all about results, relationships, retention and referrals. And when you look at this, say, well, I guess that is what it's all about. Results. Are we getting results? Are we still hung up in that activity and hysterical activity? And of course now we're a separated team versus a joint team and how do we all get together? So too many times it's still activity based versus saying this thing I'm working on right now and this is a mindset, as you know, this thing I'm working on right now. Does this have anything to do with the generation of result or am I just being busy? Am I hiding behind activities? Am I focused on transactions versus relationships? So it's getting a result, a positive result and making sure that the result you get this month was better than what you got last month and the result you're going to get the coming month is better than this month. So everything's about a positive result. So that's number one.

Yeah, I just want to, I want to go through those four things because you mentioned them pretty quickly. I've heard them before, but it's more relevant than ever, I mean in this changed world, as you just mentioned. But results, relationships, retention and referrals. And so you went through results. And I just kind of add my own notes here and I, I said this on a recent program that we were delivering, Roger, is that it really comes down with results to two main things that I see with agencies that are winning. It's about simplicity and it's about focus. And you know, you mentioned deep, but it's so often I see agencies that try to take the simple things and because as they get deeper it becomes more challenging, they then find distractions and so they lose the simplicity. In fact, they add complexity. It's more stuff, it's cool stuff, it's shiny stuff, it's neat stuff, but it's not result stuff because it's become complex and with that they lose the focus. I mean, would you agree with that or anything you want to add to those comments?

Absolutely. This again comes back to the mba. Mastering basic activities. Are you doing the things that get you results? Are you hiding behind activities? Are you staying within your unique abilities and making sure that everybody in your team is in their unique abilities? And together we have this common focus of results, relationship, retention, referrals. But at the end of the day, whether you're looking at your P and L Whether you're looking at your own sales report, whatever it may be, did I generate the things I did, did they get me my desired result? And then something we've talked about in our programs, we've talked about it on the podcast, too. That's exceedingly sticky. Is direction and destination the current direction your agency's on or your individual book of business is on, Is that going to take you, that trend, going to take you to your desired destination? And what we find all too often is that when people look back five years from now, three years from now, today, and that's their trend line, and then they go out 10 years and they say, oh, well, if I just keep doing what I'm doing, that's where I'll be. But then if you say, well, where do you really want to be at the end of 10 years or five years? And it's rare. We see it match and as you know, we look at this and then say, okay, there's a gap between your current trend, in other words, your direction, and your desired destination. So what are the goals and plans for growth and profit that are going to fill that gap? Well, those are all things that create results. It's that simple. Now, it's simple to say, you know, but it's. It's tough to implement. The execution, of course, is part of this. But at the end of the day, are you getting a result? Yes or no?

Yeah, it does. I mean, it comes back to, are you willing to remain focused long enough in true areas that get results, or are you going to get fatigued or distracted or whatever the case is and go back to the other stuff that doesn't really work? But, boy, you sure are busy. So, you know, which direction do you want to go there? I love that the next one you mentioned on, on the Rs was relationships. And obviously this is top of mind for me because just yesterday in our producer program, we talked about relationships and relationship management. And just quickly, my thoughts before I want to get yours, Roger, is that, you know, a lot of people would say, well, you know, in the virtual world that we've been in, it's going to be much harder. Our relationships aren't going to be as important or, you know, all those kind of things. And I think what we've seen, certainly from our experience with the people that have gone through our programs, is relationships can be enhanced and even go deeper because you have more opportunity to have some of these impactful conversations if, if you're willing to be proactive in making the relationship happen. I guess I'll add that caveat to it. So when you think of relationships in today's world, this changed world, what does that mean to you, Roger?

Well, number one is you've got to pivot away from transactions and those day to day activities and get absolutely focused on relationships. Be a relationship based agency, because so many of the relationships right now really are still in the commodity box. And the commodity transactions we know are going away, all right, they're going to be totally digitized. So then we focus on it. Right. So if it's truly about relationships, which most of us still love having relationships, then you say, okay, what are the key relationships we manage well, clients, future ideal clients, our carriers, our team members and our centers of influence. And when we look at this just within the clients themselves, you say, all right, who are my vital few clients? And we talk about this with agencies all the time and the 80:20. And of course everybody goes, oh yeah, 80:20. But they don't even look at their own numbers. And it's always eye opening when we challenge people and say, look, do your 8020 analysis either in your agency or your book of business. And the average agency Today, absolutely, top 5% of their accounts are 50% of their revenue. The top 2% of their accounts are 33% of their revenue. So if they lost 2% of their customers, they basically would be out of business. But they don't get focused on that. So they wind up having their best. Customers are quite frankly getting under serviced because they're not focused on them. They're not taking, they're not, I say take advantage. They're not taking the opportunity to say what can I do to enhance that relationship with those best customers? In our producer program yesterday, it was amazing how the light bulbs came on and we said, look, average producers book a business. The top 50% of your customers generate 90% of your revenue, and the bottom 50% generate the 10% of the revenue. So you've got 50% at 90%, the other 50% at 10%. Where are you spending your time? And just getting them to understand the importance of the clients. Next thing, of course, is something we've talked about for quite a while now. No suspects, no prospects, future ideal clients only. And then you have a pipeline of future ideal clients that's overflowing with more opportunities than time. Okay, that sounds really good, but what focus do you have? How many hours a day do you as a producer or does your agency overall spend working on pipelines? And when you challenge the average producer or average Agency, it's like, oh yeah, we'll get to that whenever we can. And yet when we see people, it's pretty simple. If you had great results this quarter, probably because you did a great job prospecting last quarter. So getting the pipelines filled with future ideal clients only, it's crucial. So those are the first two clients, the vital few versus the trivial many pipelines, future ideal clients only.

Yeah, it's. You were saying that, Roger, Just something that comes to mind, and I share this in many of the programs that we deliver, is that, you know, when you say yes to something, you're automatically saying no to something else. And you think about that in relationships, I mean, I think what people can grasp, and I had this, you know, my own life, is that if I say yes to, I don't know, something trivial in my life, I may be saying no to my child. In essence of giving them time and attention. You can't, you just can't serve both at the same time. So you got to make decisions. And I think for agencies is, hey, which relationships are most important and impactful and are we investing enough energy and capacity in those or are we just doing whatever comes our way? Which as you said then our best clients are often underserved.

Yeah. Rather than reacting to the clicks, pings, rings and dings, get intentional. Get very intentional about the relationships that you're managing. Be very intentional about prospecting all the time. I always use this analogy because my father was in the life insurance business. That's how our family agency got started. My mom and dad together. And one of the things I knew with him and something he taught me at a very, very young age was the best life insurance producers prospect every single day. Every day. And you know what, what if you just added one, at least a solid prospect every day that you then turned into a future ideal client because you learn more about them. Just one a day or what if you just did three a week? And why is it that so many producers at the end of their career, or let's just say 10 years into it, they have empty pipelines. Then 15 years into it, empty pipelines. It's crazy. It's just they're not being intentional. Again, the first two clients, future ideal clients. Third one, carriers. The all important relationship with the carriers. And we see that producers and many times agencies or the people in charge of placing, marketing, don't really manage the relationship with the carriers, with the underwriters. And yet it's, you know, we all know there are two sales to be made, one to the future ideal client and one to the carrier. Now, I'm not talking about order taking accounts or just quoting online and getting them. And that works for some agencies. I'm not a fan of it. Okay. But it works for some agencies. I understand. That's not my focus. But getting to the point where you realize. In fact, we shared this recently at a chief revenue officer program, and I think it was pretty shocking for them. We learned this lesson from one of our friends at the carriers. He was a regional president, whatever his title was, with a major carrier. He shared with me that his middle market underwriters, on an average get 50 submissions a month. They reject 45 of them because they just didn't match or they were incomplete. They give five quotes and they write two on the average. One they write is about $100,000 premium. Okay, now when you think about that, what's going on that they would get 50 quotes and 45 of them get rejected right away. By the way, those ones that get rejected right away are the same agencies and the same producers. And we know the underwriters make a decision based upon the name of the agency and the name of the producer. What are you doing as an agency to manage your brand in the submission process? Well, most don't do it. Most of them don't thank their underwriters. The other day you brought this up and you said, by the way, when's the last time you. You sent a thank you note to an underwriter? It was like people had never heard of that in their life. Oh, where'd you get out of this? Last hour in the session. Oh, man, I'm going to send some thank you notes. I'm going. It's not new technology, guys. It's crazy.

Brent. Well, I think a lot of that, Roger. Just the behaviors that many of us know we should do. And I'm certainly guilty of certain things that even sometimes when I say things, I'm like, oh, gosh, you know, that's a good point. Right? Maybe I should do some of that. But certainly we hear that with agencies and producers. It's like we, we know, but sometimes we just need those reminders. Like, you know what, you're right. I've taken for granted some of these important relationships, either because I'm too busy or I've gotten a bit complacent. And oftentimes it just takes those reminders.

Yeah. And so again, clients, future idea clients, carriers. Next one is our team members. Our team members. Look, as an agency, overall, I hope you've got A great team, and I hope you're truly committed to the same things. And one of the things we work on with our clients is getting your business plan down to one page. Because we say somewhat tongue in cheek, but it's true. The only way you can get everybody on the same page in an organization is if the business plan is on one page. Now, it's not the total plan, but it's the one page summary that everybody can rally around. We've talked about this before, but just think as an individual, either agency owner or producer, that we're talking here today. You've got a great saying that I want you to share about gratitude. Unexpressed gratitude.

Yeah, it's something that I share on when we talk about relationships in our programs. And it's always a big eye opener. I think, and I say this, that silent gratitude is no gratitude at all. And silent gratitude is no gratitude at all. The meaning behind this, how many times do you think of someone go, I'm really glad they did that. I really appreciate that they did that. That's really nice of them or whatever it may be, but we never actually share it. So in our mind, oh, yeah, they know, but they don't. Silent gratitude is no gratitude at all.

And even if they know, they appreciate a lot more when you just go say, you know, I really appreciate, thank you so much, or producers, you know, what's so tough about going to Starbucks and getting a $10 or $20 Starbucks card and giving it to your team members or something like that? To say, hey, thanks a lot, I really appreciate it. Okay, but just what can you do to make deposits with your team? And then finally, well, this is something brand new, Brent. Have centers of influence. So clients, future ideal clients, the carriers, the team members and your centers of influence. And what we see is the best producers and best agencies overall. But the best producers, they understand exactly the power of centers of influence and who they are, and they're very purposeful about doing something with them. And when we look at especially people in the Mastery program or Elite 50 program, where the producers are going, yeah, I understand this now we talk about who are your centers of influence and what are you doing with them. And it's pretty simple. We all know that when we do something with the center of influence, whether it's breakfast, lunch, dinner, sporting event, fishing, hunting, theater, musical event, whatever, as things open up, okay, but in the past, you'll always remember that when you did something with a center of influence, normally within three or four months, you get a great referral from them. Okay, so what if you had 10 center. In fact, Brent, let's just cut it down. What if you just had five centers of influence and once a quarter, you did something with them and that was part of your marketing plan and you held yourself accountable. You actually did what you said you were going to do. You couldn't handle all the referrals you'd get. But no, I just want to sit around and I'm aggressively waiting for the phone to ring and the computer to ping. No, get out there and do the right stuff. So it's so much about the relationships.

Yeah, well, there's so many powerful things in there. I hope if you're not driving, of course, that you're taking some notes on this and just thinking to yourself, I mean, the first one of results is, hey, what am I doing? Is what I'm doing right now or this week, whatever it is an agency is that generating a result or are we just busy? And the second part is, I was just thinking is you went through all five of those relationships. Clients, future ideal clients, the centers of influence at the end, the team members and our carriers, is what deposits am I making in these areas? Am I making deposits? Am I actually putting something into these relationships just for time here? Roger, again, I want to respect your time certainly is. The last two Rs that you'd mentioned initially were retention and referrals. So if you don't mind, I'm going to kind of put these two together. Because you know something that's, that's. I think most agencies know, but then it's like, well, why is. This is a question that you often ask is why do you, about 90% of clients renew that retention part, but less than 10% refer? And so if you don't mind, from these four hours, just kind of put the retention and referrals together. If you could kind of package that maybe, or just share some of your thoughts at what we've seen in this area.

Well, if you're, if you're truly focused on relationships, what happens is with our retention program, we go through, we call the continuation process. It's pretty simple. You don't renew accounts, you continue relationships. And that's based upon knowing exactly what the client expectations are. Delivering those. And on our A and B customers, we deliver a promise report, which some people call stewardship report, but it's very simple. We know exactly what their expectations are. We then meet and exceed them. Because let's say you can't exceed that, which you don't know which is not documented. Find out the client expectations, and I hope their expectation is, hey, I expect you guys to do exactly what our service plan or our risk management plan said you were going to do. And when you do that, and you're consistently making deposits with your best clients when you ask them for a referral, which is missing a little bit. Asking. Yeah, ask, ask. When you ask for a referral and you've been trained and you understand it, you're conversational, comfortable doing it. What percent of your customers would actually give you a referral, Especially if you showed them a list, say, here's some people I'm thinking about calling on. Who do you know? What can you tell me about? And that list, of course, are future ideal clients you've already identified. Because there's two things here. Number one, mindset. Do you believe that your best customers want to help you? They want you to succeed? The answer is absolutely yes. Okay. Second mindset or second thought, your. The next new client, you add the next future ideal client, you turn into a client. How do you think they want to meet you? How do you think they want to meet you? They would prefer to meet you through a referral or an introduction. Why don't we let that happen? So it's just a matter, Brent, of keeping it simple, getting down to the basics, doing what you said you were going to do. And again, a laser focus around results, relationship retention, referrals. That's what it's all about. And, and it's not something we say once at an event we go to. It's something that gets reinforced every week in the high performance team meetings and every month in the state of the agency meeting.

Yeah, absolutely. I've got to share just a quick story. And Rod, you haven't heard this because this actually came from one of my coaching calls that I had yesterday, one of our private client members of the Sitkins network. And they were just talking about referrals. And you know, we have, obviously in our programs and our coaching, we give templates and ideas about reverse referral. And we don't call them scripts. Right? Because I don't think there's any script. But it's just being conversational and comfortable. I think a big part of it is being confident that should be at a. Confident, conversational and comfortable to be able to execute on some of these things. And it was funny. They go, I got to tell you, like, we actually went out and we, we really practiced it and just ways that we were going to do it, we made sure it was going to be just a priority that we were going to, we've earned this referral. We're going to ask for it. And we did and we used your advice and it worked. We didn't even know what to do. You know, it's like you're like, well, sure, I can help you with that. And they were like, really? And it was funny, but just almost surprised. But it comes back to we all know, right. If you ask any agency or producer, is it a really successful way to grow your business is through referrals? Yes. How much are you really working on that? How much is a part of an agenda, part of your practice, part of part of your agency DNA? Well, not really. We've been so busy. You know, it goes back to the first thing. So it's just interesting. It's like, you know, if you do some of this stuff, it actually works. I just want to share a couple things as we close here and just a couple different things. And Roger had mentioned, you know, this overall, what we've Learned in these four Rs of results, relationships, retention and referrals. And as I mentioned earlier in this podcast, we're going to continue this really as a series because there's so much more depth that we can share with you. I know Roger can dive into in the area of sales, how do we go deeper into how you as an agency can sell more? And so we're going to do our next podcast around sales, things that we've learned in sales process. And then we're going to be talking about retention at a deeper level. We kind of gave a high level today, but what is a continuation process? How does that apply to your agency? And then lastly, what about profitability, earning more for your agency and what is the culture and what is the accountability of your agents today? So we're going to take each of those individually and continue to go deeper in that. Roger, is that okay with you if we do that?

Absolutely.

Okay, well make sure, make sure you're on board and we talked about it, but. Good. I also want to mention this and I just want to kind of. I'm going to give some of my thoughts and then Roger, you can close us out here with any final thoughts that you want to add. But of all the different learnings that we've had, and I've mentioned this a little bit before, but we introduced last year, starting this year, officially our all inclusive model. And a part of that came out of our learning, I mean, when the pandemic hit, as many of you know that are listeners you know, a big part of our business model is in person events and we love doing them, we're passionate about them, and quite frankly, we do a really, really good job at them. People, people love them, but that wasn't in the cards. We couldn't do that. And so we pivoted like many agencies to some of the virtual world. And you know, the feedback that we continue to get was, wow, this is really impactful. And I think beyond just the events and the programs and the sessions that at the exact same level of energy and conversation that we have in person, but as Roger mentioned earlier, it allows agency to be part of a process to be reinforced again and again and it's more convenient for agencies, quite frankly, and it's much more cost effective for agencies, as you probably know. Right. And then the thing that really stands out and then I would ask you as an agency leader is, is your entire team buying into the same language and culture? Are you getting buy in? Because one of the things that we continue to hear, which is so exciting and one of the big reasons why we introduced the all inclusive model is that we now can get producers, we can get the service team members, we can get the sales leaders, we can get the agency leaders to all rally around a message and they can unify and they can, they can work together at a common goal versus everyone's pulling different directions. And there's not clear communication, there isn't a culture of accountability around things. And we see that, we see agencies going, thank you. And so we really want, if you're an agency that's looking for that, this is an opportunity that we definitely would love to chat with you and see if there's a fit for that of is the all inclusive membership or all inclusive model that we have something your agency can benefit from? My guess would be yes, but that's something that again, we can have further conversations to find a fit. So go to sitkins.com to learn about all the different programs we have, but specifically the all inclusive model. So I just want to share that because it's been really neat to see because maybe Roger, you can add to this. But when we started that, we're like, we think this is going to be a really good idea, but we haven't proven it yet and now we've been doing it for a while. I think we can say very confidently that yes, it works. So anything you want to add to that or anything else from today's discussion, Roger?

Well, number one, it does work. And it's not just us saying the average rating in the producer camp now is 9.1. So they're getting great results. The virtual is working way better than any of us, quite frankly, thought it would. But at the end of the day, it's pretty simple. Professional teams train. Professional teams have a playbook, okay? And if we can't get everybody in the same playbook and then on the same page, it's pretty sporadic activities. You still get okay results and you'll be semi successful. But those that really want transformation and financial freedom, it's about ongoing training. And so please take a look at it, because we know it works and we know it can impact you if you and your agency are committed to growth. And so I look forward to sharing more in our next part of this series.

Yeah, and by the way, our series here, the mission at the Sidkins Group is to help agencies sell more, retain more, and earn more than they ever thought possible. That's our mission. That's why we do what we do. And over the next three podcast sessions, we are going to talk about each of those individually. So I look forward to future conversations with you. Roger, thank you for the listener, for being part of that. We appreciate you and wish you all the best in your success. Thanks.