The Key Difference Between Growing and Dying Insurance Agencies

How important is leadership for your insurance agency? Well, leadership expert John Maxwell says that everything, everything rises and falls on leadership. In today's podcast, I'm going to discuss three ways that you can increase your effectiveness as an agency leader. The Agent Leader podcast is brought to you by the Sitkins Network. Transcend commoditization and defy comparison. Become a category of one in your marketplace. Visit sitkins.com, s I t k I n s.com to Lear more hi there friends. Brent Kelly with another episode of the Agent Leader Podcast. Now, several years ago I heard a quote from leadership expert and now my mentor, John C. Maxwell, that caused me to stop and pause. And here's what he said. He said, everything rises and falls on leadership. Now, as you can tell with my emphasis there, I think the word that caused me to really stop and think and pause was the word everything. You know, there's no doubt that leadership is important. I knew that. I've seen that when it comes to business growth and development. But everything does everything rise and fall in leadership. It almost seemed like kind of a bit much. I can tell you. I questioned that for a while. But over the past few years in my own coaching business and now as a full time executive coach with the Sitkins Group and working with agencies across the country on the phone in person, I can confidently say that John Maxwell is 100% correct. Everything rises and falls on leadership. Everything. Now I'll have a different podcast on this. I've talked about this in other episodes. You know, what is leadership? I think part of the issue is we don't understand what leadership really is. And I believe that leadership is influence and that every member of the agency, regardless of your title position, has influence and should be, should be an act like a leader, especially certainly at the top. Now, recently our entire team at the Sitkins Group, we started to make a list of some of the scariest trends that were facing insurance agencies today. Now, after internal discussion and conversation and then plus getting feedback from numerous agency leaders across the country, we really have discovered eight common scary trends. Now some of these aren't really surprising, but they're very, very real and they include several different things. Things like this, low organic growth, no surprise there, anemic pipelines, lack of processes, agencies starting to stray away from some of the basic fundamentals. Certainly this was a huge one. Attracting training and retaining good talent. Client retention was a big one, especially with the digital disruption and technology issues, insurance carrier issues, how to form those relationships. And lastly, scary trends in the realm of profit and agency value that a lot of agencies are very vulnerable in their agency valuation. Now I think there are multiple causes for these eight scary trends and certainly there is even more than eight. But every single trend can be traced back to one common issue. All of these growth pipelines, basic attracting training staff, all of these come back to a lack of leadership. Now for many insurance agencies and if you're an agency principal or manager or leader of some sort that's listening to this, that may sound a bit harsh, right, that all of this can be traced back to leadership. But here's what I tell agencies all the time. And Roger Sitkins, my mentor, tells me, you know, all progress begins by telling the truth. You know, for many insurance agency principals and managers and other leaders, they didn't often start off to dream about leading or running an insurance agency. Many cases agency leaders, they were the best producer. So over a period of time they therefore became the de facto leader or manager of the agency. Or maybe they were next in line to lead the agency as a second or third generation owner. You know, like any skill, leadership can be developed, but you've got to be intentional. And let's face is a skill that not just can be, it should be and must be developed. You know, just because you're a great sales producer, which certainly is very important. And we talk about, you know, the importance of sales, production, nothing happens until you make a sale. There are some different skill sets certainly in selling insurance policies and lead an agency team see leadership, more importantly effective leadership. It's a huge challenge. And there are no perfect leaders. Let's be real on that. There are no perfect leaders. But it is imperative that every insurance agency leader takes accountability for their own behaviors and actions. Your agency's ability to face these scary trends, to face them head on and to spur growth is ultimately limited or accomplished by your ability to lead effectively. So let's start with a basic question. You're listening to this. If you had to rate yourself as a leader today, and again, I know people have different definitions of a leader. My definition is that leadership is influence. So let's rate your level of influence. But As a leader 1 through 10, what number would you give yourself? Are people just would run through walls to follow you or they have to follow you because you've got an executive VP or agency principal title. What is your current level of leadership effectiveness? Be honest, 1 through 10, what is that? Now here's why this is so important. There is something called a leadership lid that everyone runs into. And if you rate yourself, let's just say, for example, you rate yourself, you know, I'm probably a 6 out of 10. Now, I know that's subjective, but here's the thing. If you're a 6 out of 10 when it comes to leadership, you will never attract or keep people in your agency, at least for a long period of time, that are above a 5. People do not and will not follow leaders who they have leaped ahead of. As John Maxwell also states, the higher that you want to climb, the more you need leadership the greatest. The greater the impact that you want to make. The greater your influence needs to be if you want your agency to grow and to be effective. Yes, there's lots of things that you need to do, but the first thing you have to do is you've got to increase your leadership effectiveness because people won't follow a weak leader. The lid on your agency's success. The level of success is ultimately determined by you. The lid on your agency's level of success is you. Now, that may seem like a great deal of pressure, I get that. But you can increase your leadership lid if you say, hey, I'm only a 3 out of 10. Okay, so be it. Let's get to work. Let's work on yourself. Let's work on your leadership so that therefore you can have more influence and grow and develop your people and ultimately grow and develop your agency. So I want to talk about three ways to increase your leadership effectiveness. What are some ways that you can do to increase your own leadership effectiveness? Number one, you've got to up level your your team. Your main responsibility as a leader is to maximize everyone around you. To uplevel your team. You must make some difficult decisions. Right? First of all, just think about this. One of the problems is from a lot of agency leaders, and I say this lovingly, is ego and not a malice ego. I don't mean it in that terms, but the sense that I have to control and do everything. Listen, the head coach of a great basketball team doesn't go on the floor and shoot free throws, right? They empower their team to be better and utilize their skills to develop and make them better. Does that make sense? Hopefully that makes sense, but often we miss that very important point that your job as a leader is not to go out and be the Lone Ranger, but to up level your team. So here are some questions you need to ask yourself at your agency currently. Does anyone on your agency team need to be repositioned or transitioned? Do you have people that just aren't doing their jobs? Important things I Had a conversation recently with an agency owner about that. What about this question? Who on your team needs additional training and mentoring? Who are the people that you're willing to pour into that have earned that right of your time and attention to develop them? Who are the people you need on your team moving forward that will spur growth? So again, the first thing you have to do is you have to up level your team by asking yourself some questions. Are there people that we need to move or transition or maybe you need to let go. Are there certain people that we're missing out in training and mentoring? And who are those key performers that will help push your team forward and spur growth? Okay, number one, up level your team. Number two is you've got to up level your mentors. Every great leader learns through mentors and coaches. They find people who've had prior experiences and situations that you may have not yet experienced, experienced and they find others to help them, to help them stay accountable and also to challenge their thinking. I truly believe that you are who you surround yourself with. And one of the problems I often see with agency leaders and again, because they're busy, because they have a lot of pressure, I get there's a lot of stuff going on, but who are you surrounding yourself with? There's often a feeling of loneliness with agency leaders. And when I coach and work with agency leaders, they go, man, you know, sometimes it's great just to, just to talk these things out and that's wonderful. But you also as a leader have to find respected people in your community, respected people in the industry or really anyone who you believe can take you to the next level. You know, the best athletes, the best athletes in the world have trainers and coaches and they surround themselves with people that will help maximize their performance for a reason, because they want to be the best. Even though they're really good, they want to be even better. Alright, so number one is you got to up level your team. Number two, you have to up level your own mentors. Number three, this is a big one. You've got to up level your thinking. I believe that most agency owners allow scarcity and fear to cloud their thinking. They're often so preoccupied working in the business, right, and putting out fires every day. I got to put this fire out and this fire out that they forget to work on the business to raise your leadership lid. It requires abundant thinking, not scarcity thinking, not oh my gosh, I hope we can survive, hope we can get a piece of the pie. It requires abundant thinking that starts by asking yourself questions. You Know a lot of agency leaders, and this goes to producers or anyone as well, says ask themselves the question, can I, Can I accomplish this? You've got to ask yourself the question, how can I? There's power in that difference. The difference between can I and how can I. Also, some of the greatest business leaders of all time, they credit part of their success by scheduling thinking time. There certainly is a lot of time for action and you need to take action. And I talk about that in some of the other podcasts. But you've also got to schedule or at least be purposeful with thinking time. How can you begin to think bigger? How can you improve your agency culture? How can you empower those around you? How can you inspire your team? How can you maximize agency processes? It's been said, I love this quote. It's been said that only 2% of people truly think, 3% think that they think. And 95% of people would rather die than have to think. So I challenge you to become a 2% thinker. Be one of those people that really think. And again, think abundance, not scarcity. All right, here's the bottom line. The bottom line as an agency leader, regardless of your official title or position, those are just names. You, you are the difference between agency growth and success. Being like most other average independent insurance agencies or being a true category of 1. The difference between high level of success and achievement and average success is you and your leadership ability. And here's the thing with the power of leadership, it has a multiplying effect. So you have two choices. This is what great agency leaders do. They understand that average agencies add and build followers, great insurance agencies add and build leaders and emerging leaders. So you have two choices. You can work really hard and you can work really long for the same results or maybe slightly better. Or you can level up your leadership right? You can make it stronger and bigger and badder and you can multiply your efforts. And here's the best part, the best news of all is that you are in full control of increasing your leadership effectiveness. You control your lid. It is a skill. It is an opportunity. And if you want to take your agent to the next level, invest in yourself. Invest in your leadership. Thanks for listening to another episode of the Agent Leader podcast. My name is Brent Kelly. I'm an executive coach with the Sitkins Network. And if you want your agency to become part of a high performing group of non competing insurance agencies directed by a unique selling system and an entire experience to enhance the performance of your entire insurance agencies, check out the Sitkins network. Go to sitkins.coms I t k I n s.comt s n sitkins.comtsn.