What Are You Willing to Give Up?

Welcome, welcome, welcome to the Agent Leader podcast. My name is Brent Kelly, your host. Thanks so much for joining me for another episode. So glad to have you with me today and excited to share some really powerful content that was based in fact, as I was, I was thinking through this podcast and I was going to record this today, I had a few different ideas and concepts I wanted to talk about from my recent experiences and coaching calls and some of the trainings we did. And then the one that we did yesterday in our sales training, this is our producer program. We just wrapped up session number three of our live interactive training. By the way, if you want to be part of the next one, this was the largest one we've ever done and we have 160 producers registered. The next one starts the first week of May. Still time to get in. You go to sitkins.com profit p r o f I t sitkins.com profit to get registered before this one. It's going to be, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to sell this one out as well. So if you're interested, if you want to get your salespeople involved as an agency leader, please check that out and get them in. We love to have them on the next program, but the content today on the podcast was based around an aspect of what we teach in the third session, which is the principle and the power of the 8020 rule. And I've done a few different podcasts so you can go back and listen to podcasts on 8020 principle or the vital few. I think a few of the titles are out there in the podcast description to talk about 80 20, because 80 20, I mentioned it before, I'll say it again, it's misunderstood and it's not utilized as nearly as much as it can and should be for, for agencies and for producers in particular. And quite honestly, because of it, agencies and producers never hit their full potential what they could really be, because it comes down to a lack of capacity, energy and time. Right. That they run out of. Because the idea is that 20% of something leads to 80% of something else. But you got to focus on the right 20% and within that, and particularly with producers, but this is true with agencies, is that you've got to be willing to make some trade offs. What trade offs are you willing to make in your business, and I'm going to add in your personal life here today and talk about a few of those things that will ultimately help you get to where most producers or agencies want to go if you really want to be your best version possible, if you want to live that life that you want, well, you've got to be willing to make some trade offs. And the thing about trade offs is the higher you go up, the harder they are to make. Right? Because you have more to lose, so to speak. Speak now. Many of you know that I've been trained and certified to the John Maxwell team. And John Maxwell talks about trade offs quite a bit. You know, you got to give up to go up is one of the principles that he says. But I want to share something with all of you before I get into some things that I shared with the group yesterday and just talking about what trade offs really mean. And I want to find this page. I've got his book here. This is from the 15 invaluable laws of Growth. And he just talks about trade offs and what it means. And he says this, he says, unsuccessful people make bad trade offs, average people make a few trade offs, successful people make good trade offs. It's not like every trade off is great, but unsuccessful people make bad trade offs, average people make a few. They just do a couple things. And successful people really think about this and they say, what do I have to give up to ultimately go up? And I want to talk about this from a couple different perspectives. First, more of a business and really more of a sales perspective, because that's what's top of my mind right now. I don't know any agency, agency leader, a producer who doesn't want more sales. And so I just want to give a few examples of each of these areas. And you know, one of the first things I would say on this, and I've done some different conversations around this, but it holds true here when it comes to trade offs because the challenge of trade offs is why I don't want to give up what I already have. And that could be giving up accounts, which I'll talk about in a minute. Giving up a thought process or mindset. It could be giving up control, right? In different ways. And so one of the first things, the fact that are you willing to give up the notion of being Saku? And Saku is one of our many Sitkins acronyms, which stands for source of all knowledge in the universe. You know, producers say this all the time. If you need anything, I mean anything at any time, for any reason, you contact me, right? I'm your guy, I'm your gal. That's a Saku mindset. I'll do everything for anybody at any time. And we see agency Leaders do this in different capacities. Hey, anything you need, you need me. And guess what happens very quickly. Oh my gosh. I can't get to everyone at any time for any reason because I've run out of my own diminishing asset, which is called my time. So the difference is, are you willing to trade off Saku to invest in your team? Right? The fact that we need to have a team concept for sales and service, it's a high performance team. Are you willing to invest into having these real conversations of hey, we've got the same goal as an organization, but we have different roles and here's how we need to fulfill them. Here's how we need to prepare this week. Here's what it looks like. Here's what I need from you. Here's what you may need from me, right? We have these real conversations and most importantly, that I'm willing to trust and delegate some of these things to you. It's not always an easy thing, right? Trust takes time. But we've got to start that process of trade offs. If we don't, you're going to be overwhelmed and trapped. Maybe you felt that way before. I know I've had that in different areas of my life in business because I wanted to keep control and be Saku for everything. It gets a why can't I feel like there's any room or any level of margin? Because there isn't. Because you've created a model of Saku, you haven't been willing to trade off different areas of that and move from me to we. Right? So that's the first thing to think about. The second, these next two kind of go together and this is really more sales and producer, but certainly for the entire agency is that are you willing to trade off working on all accounts, every account's a good account versus really getting focused on working on the right accounts. What are the right accounts? What's the model you want? Is there a minimum account size or a minimum account standard? Is there a certain way? Are you willing to write just one line of business or are you going to look at this differently? Do you have a target? Do you have a strategy plan? Do you have a niche? But what are the right accounts versus well, if they breathe and they can write a check, they may just be a fit, right? That's a trade off you have to make. Because if you're not willing or you haven't practiced on how to say no, you will say yes to everything. If you're not willing and not prepared to say no, you Will say yes to everything. This certainly we see it for producers in the sales game. Well, you know, I know it wasn't a great fit, but I just couldn't really say no. I know I could help. It won't take much time and guess what? It does right in many cases. So you have to be very focused on that. And in conjunction with that same philosophy, different side of the equation, not new accounts, but current accounts. The best producers, the best sales teams, the best agencies as a whole are willing to trade down some of their accounts that they currently have. And this is usually where producers, when we talk about this in our programs go, what do you mean I'm going to give up some of my revenue? Well, listen, if you want to break this down again, I've talked about this a little bit in 80 20, but if you look at the bottom section of your book of business, Even the bottom 15, 20%, it in general is between about 3 to 5% of your revenue. It's not a lot. You could go write one if you want to call it a B or certainly an A. And you could trade down a lot of accounts and not lose any revenue. So you could do that first. But you have to understand that I've got to be willing to give up to go up. This isn't an annuity project. At some point you've got to be able to trade down some of these to another producer. Or it could be you have a small business team. Whatever it is, every agent is different. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this podcast talking about specifics there, but more of the mindset that I gotta be willing to let go. And guess what? When it comes to producers, this is just producers, sales producers we have never seen at Sitkins and Roger's been doing this a very long time. But as a company, we have never seen, at least we haven't heard from any producers who have ever traded down the bottom part of their book of business at some point and lost money doing it. They've all realized that, wait, what this really does is it creates freedom, more opportunity. I can work on better, deeper relationships and get rid of some of the craziness that happens that doesn't fulfill me anyway. Right. And just getting focused on the right things. But you got to be willing to make some of those trade offs. Here's the next one. I want to transition a little bit from sales, so to speak, in business to just personal life, personal development, personal leadership. And here's just a few things to think about. Okay? And this applies to everybody, right? Not just insurance, but certainly I want to focus to you as the insurance leader. Your personal. You have a couple things. You could spend a lot of time outside of work just focused on entertainment. And by the way, I'm not anti entertainment. I love some good entertainment. But at what level, right? Because I am. I used to be amazed. I'm not anymore. But when we do different programs and we ask people how many have read this book or read this or watch this specific thing on learning and some of these are like, you know, really popular books and really popular things that most people have seen or at least I would think a lot of people have seen. They go, I haven't read that yet, I don't know what that is. And that's because they haven't been willing to trade off. That's the word you want to use. Taking some of that entertainment time or wasted time or social media time. Right. We all do it, I do it. But to say, listen, I'm going to be willing to make this trade off that I'm going to invest in myself, I'm going to learn more about marketing, I'm going to learn more about sales, I'm going to learn more about leadership, I'm going to learn more about business acumen, I'm going to learn more about, more about personal productivity, whatever it is, I'm willing to do that. And that's a trade off you have to make. You can't watch TV and learn and develop yourself personally at the same time. Now can there be both? Yeah, but what trade offs are you willing to make? So think about your own life right now. How are you doing in the area? Are you willing to trade off or make some trades for some of your instant gratification of entertainment in some cases, right. To a long term development and happiness in your own personal growth, whatever that may be. So that's one of the things to think about. Another one is this really comes down to a, I guess we'll call it a calendar issue. But are you willing to trade off not preparing the week, for example, Right. Versus whatever comes, comes and I'll deal with it. That's a trade off, right? I mean, I'll tell you one of the things that I don't necessarily love to do and I hate to say this if my wife's listening, I'm sorry honey, we've talked about this, but I don't love to sit and have conversations about our money and our calendar every week and I've not been perfect at this, but I don't love to have those conversations. I don't like to invest 30 minutes or an hour sometimes. And I got stuff going on, which is Sunday, and I just want to relax or do whatever. And it's like we got to have our weekly meeting to talk about what's upcoming this week, where you're going to be, where I'm going to be. Hey, what are some things we need to think about for our money and our budget? Those things aren't fun for me, but I'm willing to trade preparing for repairing right where we get to the week and go, oh, my gosh, I thought you were going to do this. You didn't tell me that. I didn't know that. You know, whatever it may be. And we have this both in our personal life and professional life all the time, right? You got to be willing. Are you willing to make that trade off to prepare to do a review of the week ahead or the day ahead, or are you going to just kind of waltz through it and hope that it turns out okay? Remember, hope is not a great strategy. And here's the last thing I want to share of a trade off. And this is very high level and it's more of an emotional thing, but boy, it is so powerful. And it was one of the biggest trade offs that I intentionally, that's the right word I could use, intentionally made, gosh, probably 17, 18 years ago. So it's been a while. But this idea, the fact of, am I going to wake up every day and say, what do I need to do for me versus waking up and saying, what can I do today to value others? That's a trade off because in many cases, in some cases they align, right? That's what we want. In some cases they don't. Some aspects of maturity is doing things that are uncomfortable for somebody else. Long term it works out fantastic, but short term, it may not always be comfortable. Am I willing to trade off the fact that I want to do this for me right now, or, hey, what would this person, what would this business, what would this situation really want or need from me right now that would really provide great value to them? And it goes back to one of the most basic principles and quotes from the late, great Zig Ziglar. If I could do his Southern accent, I would. But he said, you know, if you help enough people get what they want, you can have anything you want. If you just help enough people get what they want, you can have anything you want. But that's a trade off. You got to be willing to make that trade. So I'm going to leave it at that. Just some thoughts here from Brent about trade offs because I can tell you it's one of the hardest things. I go into behavioral patterns and there are some strategies and specific things that we share with agency leaders and producers that we know. Work that we know will help you get financial and relationship freedom, freedom of time in many areas at least. Certainly an improvement of that. But to do it, you've got to be willing to make some trade offs, some changes in habits, changes in behaviors, changes in mindset. People don't resist change. People resist being changed. Heard that a while back and I love that people don't resist change. If it's a good change, hey, would you want more freedom? Would you want more money? Yep, I'll take that change. But we resist being changed. Why? Because some of these aspects have trade offs. Are you willing to give up certain things in your life and your business to ultimately go up? And that's a question you have to ask yourself in different areas and then a commitment that you need to make to be that best version possible. If this podcast and other podcasts like it have helped you and your agency in any way, please leave a review or subscribe to this podcast. We're looking to reach more agencies like yourself. Also, if you're interested to get our upcoming programs, learn more about Sitkins and what we do please visit our website. We have a lot of really important things and cool things going on. Certainly next month a number of programs kicking off. I mentioned Producer Fit. In May our most popular program producer fit go to sidkins.com profit but also go to sitkins.com aim to learn about our all inclusive model and all the programs that as an agency leader you would have access to. You and your team. Moving forward with that, I wish you all the best in your success. Thanks for listening.