The Two Attributes of Dynamic Leaders

Welcome to the Agent Leader podcast. My name is Brent Kelly, your host. Thanks so much for joining me on another episode. I hope all is well in your world and your 2021 is still going strong. It's still early in the year as I record this, but yet the first quarter is beginning to wrap up. And the content on today's show really is me taking some time to reflect over the past couple months in particular. And we started 2021 at Sitkins off and running and we launched our leadership program, our sales management and sales leadership program, our popular producer program, our account manager program. We've hosted a number of mastery level sessions. I've had a number of private coaching calls. So all these things kind of taken in. As much as I love to share like I do on this podcast, you know, I also love to learn and I've learned so much from our members and our attendees at these programs over the last couple months. And I want to share today the two attributes that I see all the time in Dynamic Leaders. The two attributes that really have stood out to me as I look back and there's always more than two or three or five or whatever number that you share. But if I had to take everything and looking back into 2020, right this that challenging year and still challenges today as we know and as we move forward into 2021, these two attributes. And again, when I say leader, we're talking certainly from an agency leadership perspective, the principal, but also all insurance professionals who have influence. If you're an insurance producer, if you're a sales leader, if you're a service professional, whatever your specific role, and it doesn't matter this episode, the content that I'm going to share today is going to be really impactful to you as you move forward into 2021. Now, before I get into these two specific attributes of Dynamic Leaders for agencies, I do want to share, we can. We've been running really hard at Sidkins the last couple months. We're wrapping up our eighth session and final session of our Producer F program next week as I'm recording this. And then at the end of the month we're going to be relaunching all of our programs again. So really about every quarter we continue to, to teach and to train and to coach agencies. So if you've been kind of sitting on the fence or kind of going, you know, this might make sense. Maybe I should be part of Producer Fit, which we produce more million dollar producers than any other program. I mean it's been a huge success. Love doing this program, we're getting great feedback from the group. Now we have 80 some producers going through our program right now. If you're interested in that, go to sitkins.com profit P R O F I T and you're gonna need to sign up quick because we're gonna have a cutoff date as the next program starts on March 30th. If you're an agency leader and say what is this all inclusive membership? What is this all inclusive model that they've been talking about? Again, go to sidkins.com aim to learn and every one of our programs is available for every single member of your agency as often as they want to experience it. And it also includes monthly forums and monthly sales meetings that we ongoing basis for your agency team. And it's a huge value. Now as I record this, it's March 3rd. This will drop sometime this week, probably on the 4th of the month or somewhere in there. So now depending on when you're listening, I will tell you that on March 10, at the end of March 10, our pricing is going up. We launched our AIM model, the all inclusive model, the all inclusive membership. The start of 2021, knowing that it's been a really difficult year for many agencies in 2020, wanted to give every agency an that we've never given before to access to all of our programs, all of your professionals at a very, very, very low price. That's going to change on March 10th. We need to get the price to where it really should be and it's still an incredible value. So if you miss March 10, don't worry. I still would highly take advantage of this. It's still going to be incredible opportunity. But as March 10th it's going up. So if you've been thinking about it, that's why I'm sharing this. Make sure you go to sitkins.com aim to learn more about it. Reach out to me or my team if you have questions. We'd be happy to help you and get you started as we launch all of these programs and continue our coaching sessions on a monthly basis in late March and into April. Okay, so let's get into the content for today. As I mentioned, the two attributes of dynamic leaders and this is again based on my experience and opportunity to work with agencies across the country. Again, whether it's a coaching session, whether it's a mastery level program, whether it's one of our training programs, it's such a great opportunity to learn and there are so many different things that I could put on this of things that are characteristics or attributes of high level leaders that we see. But as I was going through all of my notes and going, what really jumps out at me, why are some agencies, why are some professionals taking that next step and continue to grow and not just survive, but thrive and thrive at a really high level? And many others are again, just maybe dapps or struggling or just, you know, they're plateaued, whatever the case may be. Why is that? Two things absolutely jump out at me. Okay, so if you got your pen and paper, here are the two things and I'm going to ask some questions and provide some examples maybe of each of these as I go through this on today's podcast. But number one, the first attribute of dynamic leaders as an agency is they are insanely curious. They're insanely curious. They always want to learn more. Now, part of this goes back. I did a podcast a while back on abundance versus scarcity. So there's a part of that, of just this abundance mindset. But I always find it interesting. In fact, I don't really find it interesting anymore. I expect it. But for a long period of time, as I was beginning to do more teaching and training and speaking, I always noticed in the crowd, back when I used to see real crowds, but now virtually in many cases, at the people that take the most notes, the people that stay on the end of the session and ask specific questions that we work with, the people that engage and lean in, right. That idea of leaning in further are already the most successful professionals in their agency. The people that, that need, so to speak, and I'm putting air quotes on this podcast, but people that need some of the teaching and training that we deliver the least because they already make the most money, right? In that capacity, they're the most successful. They have the largest books of business, are the ones that ask the most questions, that are ones that are most curious to get better. And success leaves clues. Said this before, success leaves clues. And so I would just ask you as a listener, how insanely curious are you? Why does this work? Why doesn't this work? Why does he or she do that? How can I improve in this area? How can I learn from a past experience? What do I need? Or what do we need? Who is the person that I should contact? Who is a person that would be great for this role? When am I going to do this? These basic questions of why, how, what, who, when, where, right? All those are also known as Emerson's friends from Ralph Waldo Emerson, who's all about asking questions. So it's about being insanely curious in your business. So I want to provide you three template questions, right? Three questions that you can ask yourself. Certainly I say template because you can modify these questions a little bit, But a great question cannot be ignored. And some of the greatest questions that you can ask are those questions that you ask yourself. So I want to provide you just three basic questions that I really know. And I believe that if you ask yourself these questions and you spend time in the morning or over lunch or in the evening, whenever you can really think, right. Think about these questions, I think it'll have a great impact for you, and it'll help you become more and more curious and develop yourself. The first question is this. How can I add more value to myself? Now, that may seem like a selfish question. Well, how can I add value to myself? But, you know, I really believe in the philosophy, certainly in leadership, whether you're trying to serve your agency team, whether you're trying to serve a number of clients, that you cannot give what you do not have. You can't give somebody what you don't have. And so one of those things we talk about in the analogies is, how are you filling your cup so you can pour? And to others. And so the question of how can I add more value to myself Is such an important question. One of the things that we see in our programs that we recommend a ton of books. Anybody that's gone through our program, if you're listening to this, you're going, yeah, you guys do talk about a lot of books, because I think, you know, leaders are readers. And one of the ways you can invest in yourself and add value to yourself is to read books, listen to podcasts like this and other podcasts, right? I mean, watch videos, whether it's TED Talks or something else, that will give you a new idea, a new thought, new inspiration, new skills to think about, right? Whatever it may be, that first question is so impactful. How can I add more value to myself? Which goes to. The second question is, how can I add more value to my team? How can I add more value to my team? What. What does that look like? And again, depending on your role, it may look a little bit different. But I think so often we take for granted people that are closest to us. I do this in my own life, which I am not proud to admit, right. In many cases. And whether it's certainly people closest to me, my family, but sometimes because they're always around, like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, they know I appreciate them. But I've said this before silent gratitude is no gratitude at all. All. So how can you add more value to people around you? And we see this with producers. How can they add more value to the service team? How can they give their service team a little more time and proactive attention versus just always chaos? How can you, as an agency leader, if you're running a team, how can you add more value to your team? By really being a coach, by leaning in, by listening. Right. And I'm just giving some examples. You've got to answer this question for yourself. But how can I add more value to my team? As a really great, great question, it's going to help you be curious. I wonder how I could add more value to my team. And this doesn't have to be 15 different things. Maybe it's just one thing you could do at a higher level. And the last part, certainly with all the clients that you serve and future ideal clients that you desire, or maybe the centers of influence, but I'll just keep this simple. How can I, or how can we as a team add more value to our clients? How can we add more value to our clients? And you know, one of the exercises that I did with a mastery group just a week or so ago was a concept called one level above. How can we just go one level above? And doesn't always mean doing more things. Maybe it's just doing something that we've been doing sporadically, more consistently, more systematically. But you've got to find that. Go. How can I. How can we add more value to our clients? Certainly our best clients. So those are just three questions to help maybe spark your curiosity. How do you add more value to yourself? How do you add more value to your team? How can I add more value to our clients? And this will just allow you to think. Which leads to the second attribute of dynamic leaders. The first is they're insanely curious. The second is that they are actively creative. And I was trying to find a good word to proceed. Creative and active was the one that came to me. They're actively creative, meaning that they're always looking for a new idea or a new way to do something. Now, I want to preface this by saying this doesn't mean that it's every shiny object, right? Because you have to be careful of that. And any type of leader or entrepreneur, certain of the producers we work with, is that if you're not careful, you can begin to mistake creativity with chaos or mistake creativity with distraction or creativity with busy stuff. So I want to make sure that's known that Being creative doesn't mean that every good idea needs to be implemented, doesn't mean that everything that we've done in the past needs to be changed. I don't mean that there are certain key principles and strategies. I mean, we look at Sitkins, there are some core foundational things that will never change. Why? Because they always work. But it's how we implement those maybe or how we look at things that is really a leg up. And this is what I see the dynamic leaders do is they look at ways of seeing things a little bit differently. And it goes back to what I said earlier and I said on previous podcasts. Some of that is an abundance mindset. How can we look at certain challenges, roadblocks, whatever you want to call them and say, you know what, maybe there's a different way or a better way or an improved way that we could do things. And if anybody's heard me speak much before, they know that the words that I hate, the phrase that I hate more than anything is, that's the way we've always done it. Well, that's the way we've always done it. Well, why are you doing it this way? Well, that's the way we've always done it. Okay, right. Again, there's certain principles that we shouldn't change. But just because we've always done it that way, maybe there's a modified and improved way of looking at things. And this is what I see with agencies all the time. So let me just provide some examples of creativity, things that I've seen and we've talked about the last couple months in some of our programs. Let's start just with producers because we work a lot with insurance producers and salespeople. But typically, you know, one thing we'll hear, and this is the most obvious one, in 2020 as well, the way that we've always done it, which is, you know, hang out at social functions and rub elbows, shake hands. Well, that we can't do that anymore. So I guess, I don't know, we're gonna wait it out. Yet the best producers look at it and go, wait a second. If I'm really able to leverage how I'm using virtual technology and how I speak and have conversations on video and on the phone and everything else, and improve my email game and right, all these things we could do, if I do this right, I could expand my geography, I could certainly free up more time, right, to do preparation, have more appointments, I can look at things differently. So that's how an abundant minded person thinks and you know, whether it's, you know, how to leave a voicemail, which, by the way, one of our recent programs, this comes from my mentor and our CEO, Roger Sitkins, who's on this podcast frequently. He came up with something, and this is years ago through some studies of the world's greatest voicemail. And the idea behind this, like lots of creative ideas, is just find a way to capture people's attention. We need to be professionals, and we talk all the time about risk advice and being that risk advisor and the questions you need to ask, but we also need to capture their attention, right in today's world. And so the world's greatest voicemail is kind of fun and it's a different way of doing things. So it would be something like this, right? You would get ready to leave your voicemail and instead of saying, hey, hey, this is Brent Kelly of Sidkins Risk Services. Please call me back when you get a chance. My number is blank, blank, blank, blank, blank, blank, blank, blank, blank, blank, blank. Right. It would be something like this. Hi, this is Brent Kelly of Sidkins Risk Services. You're probably not going to call me back. And then you wait just like this. You pause and then you say, which is a shame because businesses like yours, which fit our target market, in fact, 71% of those businesses that have heard our unique process have left their current agent and come with us. If you'd like to learn more about it and see if there is a fit for us to work together in the future, please call me back at. The end again, Brent Kelly, Sitkins Risk Services. You get the point, right? Leave your number slowly. So that's just for fun. That may or may not be for you, right? You got to find what's right for you. But in some cases, this is an idea of being creative. We've had producers who've done really unique things. There's kind of two sides to this. And again, it's got to fit your profile and your personality. But years ago, I actually used a few times the pre crumpled sales letter, which basically is a letter that you deliver, right? It goes to your future ideal client, and it's crumpled, crumpled up. And then you fold it back in and it actually, it says on the envelope enclosed is a pre crumpled sales letter. It's got a little texture to it, right? And people open it up and it basically says, hey, listen, I saved you the time to crumple up the sales letter. And then you give your big fat claim, your positioning statement. It may not be right for you. Is it gimmicky I don't know. Right. Depends on who you're talking to. But the idea is, and I always tell producers is if you believe in what you do, you owe them an opportunity to have a conversation. And part of that is being creative and opening some of those doors. So those are just some of the ways that we see producers doing it. Certainly in today's world, with digital technology, there are a lot of things that producers are doing. In particular, I mean, I already talked about utilizing zoom in a professional way. We have a lot of our members now really stepping up their game, realizing that I've got to be a great communicator using virtual presentations. Whatever platform you use, it doesn't really matter, but we've got to up our game and be able to understand how to communicate to a camera and be visually appealing. People say, well, you know, everyone's got Zoom fatigue. I would say they don't have zoom fatigue. They have crappy presentation fatigue, crappy conversation fatigue. People will sit and watch Netflix for two, three straight days. So it's not. They're not fatigued from the screen. They're from fatigue from being bored and uninterested. In fact, something that I just did in a monthly sales meeting was asked the question is, are you or are your clients or future ideal clients uninterested? Are you not interesting? There's a difference, right? So this is part of the creative process. How do we become interesting? Maybe like we at Sitkins use a service called Bombbomb, and there's other services out there like that being able to present something using some video that's more compelling. And also this idea that I mentioned earlier of just going one level above, I so agree with this phrase that I've heard before, is it doesn't take a lot more. It just takes more. It doesn't take a lot more. It just takes more. And so what would be a particular area, certainly if you're a producer that you could look at a current process that you have or something that you're doing and go, what would be just one tweak I could make to this to make it more interesting, to be more creative, to be more compelling. Certainly for agency leaders that are running a team, you know, one of the challenges we get is why don't they listen? Why don't they buy in? Well, there could be a number of things, right? And I don't think that any agency leader has to become a motivational or inspirational speaker, but I do think you need to figure out how to engage people Better. It's no different than when I talk to producers and I say, on a scale of 1 to 10, how important is the skill of communication? And they all say 10. Same thing is true for agency leaders. I just had a sales leader meeting yesterday and they said the same thing. It's really important that we can communicate in a high level, that we ask good questions, that we lean in and listen, that we can communicate and present our message that is compelling. So when you're having a sales meeting with your sales team, are people interested or are they not interested? Well, why not? Well, maybe it's boring. Maybe it's the same thing. Maybe you can do something to shake things up. Maybe you can share a funny video to open things up. Maybe you can ask a really powerful opening question. But you've got to think, right? It's just one little thing to be more creative. If you're working with your entire agency team, why aren't they buying in? Well, be more creative in sharing the vision and the mission of the agency, right? Get people to really understand that. Am I saying all this is easy? Well, heck, no, it's not easy. If it was easy, everybody would do it. But I'm sharing this with you because I look at this and I look at agencies and producers and insurance professionals that are having dynamic success because they're dynamic leaders. And two of these attributes that they get is they're always asking questions of how to get better, always asking questions of how to improve things. They're insanely curious. I want to know more. Even though I'm doing really, really well in most cases, I want to know more. And the second part is, how can I be more interesting? How can I be more creative? What are some things that I can do that would put a little spark into something? Okay, so those are the two attributes, curiosity and creativity. You know, people that are curious and I mentioned that, you know, the why, how, what, who, when, but they always ask the question, why? You know, I got five kids and, you know, most of them are older now, but certainly the younger ones, they love to ask the question, why? Why, dad? Why do we do this, dad? Why do they do that, dad? Why is that, dad? And at some point, as human beings, we lose that. We lose that natural curiosity because, well, we have enough of it figured out. The best always seek more, not out of ego, because that's how we're designed as human beings, right? To strive to be at best version possible. And curious people understand that. And then, of course, again, secondly is, how can you be more creative. Shake things up a little bit. Find some new ways of doing things. Approach your clients and future ideal clients a little differently. Approach your team maybe a little differently. You know, take a different route to work. Listen to some different music. I don't know what it is, but tap into the self. Don't get so stuck into your ways. It's easy to do that and find ways just to be a little more creative. Okay, one final reminder again, I mentioned the beginning of this podcast. Our pricing for all inclusive membership is going up after March 10, so it's getting about a week away. Now. We're going to be bumping the pricing up for good reason because it's underpriced right now, quite honestly. And so if you want to take advantage of that and experience what we have to offer at Sidkins and all of our programs with your entire team at a pace that you want, right. We'll allow you create the road map along with us. Check that out. Sitkins.com aim and also, if you're a producer and you just want to attend the producer camp, most popular producer camp out there, go to sitkins.com profit we love to chat with you and see you on our next camp, which starts on March 30th. If this podcast has added value to you personally, professionally, really would appreciate a review and rating on whatever platform that you listen on. And lastly, I wish you all the best in your success. Go make it happen. Thanks.