The Most Important Insurance Skill You Can Develop

There is one skill that stands above all the rest, that every single insurance professional can and must develop to be successful in life and in business. And I'm going to talk about that skill that, by the way, is 100% learnable on today's Agent Leader podcast. Hello there friends. This is Brent Kelly with another Agent Leader podcast. I'm so glad that you're joining me today. You know, I think it's safe to say that we all want to improve the results that we're getting in our lives now. For some people, that may mean more money. For others, it may mean more time, maybe for some better relationships or others, maybe even better health. And however that you define success right, no one can define it for you. I have come to fully realize, and by the way, this has taken me longer than I care to admit, that if you want to get better results, and if you want to get better results, regardless of what that means to you, one thing is for sure, you've got to get better at getting along with people. Leadership is influence. I talk about that all the time. My podcast and connecting. The ability to connect with people increases your influence every situation. I mean, think about it. If you could increase your influence in every situation, at home, at work, in your community, wherever it is you are, would that be a positive benefit? Would that help your results? Of course you would. It doesn't matter if you want to get influence as a mother or father or an agency owner, or if you're a producer or if you're a service rep, you can improve your results by improving your ability to connect and influence people. And an ethical way. When I say influence, I don't mean manipulation, I mean ethical influence. So you want to find and keep better employees. Connecting will make a huge difference. Do you want to produce more commission dollars? Guess what, Connecting will make a huge difference. Do you want to retain more of your key clients? Connecting will make a huge difference. We need people. And even with all the technology and high speed communication that we have today, and we certainly have a lot of it, you can't do everything on your own. In today's world, the friction you experience in your day to day life comes down to leadership. Comes down to connecting. It comes down to influence. Now back in 2001, I was a brand new agent with a reputable Midwest insurance agency. I was one year out of college and I was ready to take on the world. A wide eyed 22 year old. However, I had one major problem. I didn't really know how to communicate with people. Now here's the thing I thought I was a decent communicator. I mean, I had been talking for almost my whole life that I could recall, but I was learning some very important lessons on business and personal communication. That year I went on my very first real life, I say in quotes, prospect appointment. And it was with a small commercial printer in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I'll never forget this. I walk into the commercial print shop and I was so pleasantly greeted by the nice lady at the front desk who said to me, who are you and what do you want? I realized that standing there holding my shiny portfolio, with a level of nervousness on my face, shouted out, hey, I'm a sales guy. I'm a sales guy. And I politely muttered, with doubt streaming down my face, that I was here to see Mr. Jones. Mr. Jones was the owner, and then I had scheduled an appointment with him. The very kind receptionist looked down the hall at who I figured was Mr. Jones and said, did you have some insurance sales guy that you were seeing today? Mr. Jones looked back down the hall at me. He saw back a baby faced, nervous young insurance producer who was me. And I'll never forget, he just simply shook his head, rolled his eyes, and with a semi dejected voice said, follow me. Walking down the hall, following Mr. Jones, I quickly went from nervous to panicked because not only was I obviously not wanted there, but I wasn't very well prepared. As I sat down, Mr. Jones looked up at me and he said, okay, what do you got? I thought to myself, I don't know that I really got anything. But I was thinking, okay, all right, say something clever, Brent, say something clever. And I started thinking of questions that I could ask so I could get things started. And I brilliantly muttered, Mr. Jones, what is it that you guys do here now? For an owner of a small commercial printing shop who didn't want to see me, that may have been about the dumbest question that you could possibly ask. And yours truly here asked it. Now, the next 10 minutes felt like some of the longest minutes in my life. I mumbled, I stuttered, I stumbled, and I sweated. I sweated a lot. Maybe that's too much detail, but I wanted to share. Now, Mr. Jones. When I got done, Mr. Jones shook my sweaty hand and I left his office. I immediately started looking for rocks that I could go hide under. Now, the best that I could find was my car that was outside in the park parking lot. And I remember getting in my car and closing the door and turning the air conditioning on and sitting there just thinking for several moments, okay, I'm really going to have to get better at this communication thing or this is going to be a really short career. Now, I tell you that story to tell you this one thing. Communication and connection is a 100%, 100% learnable skill. It is a learnable skill. Now that event that happened with Mr. Jones was 16 years ago. Yet just a few months ago, Just a few months ago, I shared the stage with some of the top known speakers in the world, including John Maxwell, Paul Martinelli and Seth Godin. And this was in front of 2,500 people. Now, some people see me communicating today and whether that's one on one with a client, or maybe I'm delivering training in a workshop or to a small group, or maybe I am standing up on stage and they think, you know, they come to me and go, man, you're just a, you're a natural communicator. And in the back of my mind I chuckle because when someone tells me I'm a natural communicator, I think back to my old friend Mr. Jones. And I thought, you know, Mr. Jones would probably disagree that I'm a natural communicator. See, communication, connecting and the ability to positively influence someone else is again, a 100% learnable skill. In fact, I will go as far as to say this. I believe that outside of your attitude, your mindset, right every single day, outside of that, I believe the ability to communicate and to communicate effectively is the most important thing you will ever do. The question is whether or not you're going to invest enough in yourself to develop your communication and leadership skills. Effective leadership, communication, influence. Right? To have effective leadership with your team, your clients or your company partners, it doesn't matter anybody that you want to ethically influence, get this, it's 87% people knowledge and only 13% product knowledge. Effective leadership communication is 87% people knowledge and only 13 percent product knowledge. That came from a recent study from a large university. Now think about that. 87% of our success is based upon people knowledge, not product knowledge. Yet insurance organizations spend the majority of their time doing what? Training? Only the technical side of the business. And again, I'm not here to say that technical training isn't important. Of course it's important, it's vital. But when you understand leadership and that leadership is influence and that 87% of our success is based upon not product knowledge, but people knowledge, you have to ask yourself, where are we spending our time? Developing high level communication skills is really hard work. See, it's considered a soft skill, but that doesn't mean it's easy. In fact, I would say soft skills are some of the hardest things to develop because it takes time and effort and work and it's a process. But I will tell you this, the hard work and communication training creates a huge return on investment. I can tell you that firsthand. Max Dupree, author of a book called Leadership as an Art, states this he says there may be no single thing more important in our efforts to achieve meaningful work and fulfilling relationships than to learn to practice the art of communication. I love that. The art of communication. Something you can work on. And now today, as a full time keynote speaker and the leader of communication for a new group called Agents of Growth, my singular focus is to help every insurance agent, every insurance professional become a world class communicator. Why? Because being a world class communicator will help you grow your business, improve all of your relationships and become a personal then person of influence. Right? Remember back when I said at the beginning of this podcast, could you imagine if your influence was increased in every single situation because you're a better communicator? Think about the results that would give your life. Now being a high level connector requires confidence, authenticity, preparation, humor and many more things. And most importantly, a complete focus on the understanding the needs and wants of others. Complete Other Focused Let me wrap up with this. There are no natural successes. How do you ever talk to someone and goes, well, you know, it's just successful just kind of happen. Now there's no natural successes, just as there's no natural communicators. Now you may have some strengths in those areas, but there are no simple natural communicators. I can tell you, the highest level speakers I have ever met started off as not nearly as good speakers as they are today, and that holds true in all forms of communication. However, those willing to invest in themselves will achieve a significant result in their lives. Every episode of the Agent Leader Podcast is brought to you by Agents of Growth, providing purposeful and inspiring business growth for insurance professionals. You can visit them at agents of growth.net thanks so much for listening to today's Agent Leader Podcast again. My name is Brent Kelly and I'm so glad that you join me. If you find this podcast, this content valuable to you and your business, please do me a big favor. Go to itunes or Stitcher Radio and leave me a kind review that would much appreciate it and allow me to kind of share the word again. My passion, as you can tell, is to help insurance professionals, insurance agents, maximize their potential. Thanks again for listening. My name is Brent Kelly with the Agent Leader Podcast. If you'd like to connect with me, please reach out to me and visit my website at Brent M. Kelly.com that's Brent Mkelly.com learn more about my training and my speaking and how I can help you and your organization. All the best to your success.