World Class Leadership Produces World Class Results with Chet Rhoads of HUB

What is the correlation between vulnerability and world class leadership and world class results? Well, on today's Agent Leader podcast, I interviewed Chet Rhodes, president of Hub Three Rivers. Chet not only is an exceptional leader in terms of encouraging and challenging his people to get great results, but he talks about caring about people and showing vulnerability. Now, Chet was ranked number 18 in the world in 2022 of the world CEO rankings. So you want to make sure you got a pen and paper, take notes for this exceptional podcast today. Enjoy. Welcome to the Agent Leader podcast. My name is Brent Kelly. I am your host. Excited to be with you on this episode and I have a fantastic guest. My guest today is Chet Rhodes from Hub Three Rivers. And as you'll learn from Chet today, we're going to talk a lot about the agency and the successes, some of the challenges they're facing. I certainly want to talk about also a chat about some of the leadership challenges that he faces in running an organization of this size. So we're excited to have Chet on today. And Chet, I will, if you're watching on video, you'll see Chet in the box there. We'll make sure you get a formal introduction and I get to do that here in a minute. But I also want to remind the audience, as always, the purpose of the Agent Leader podcast is to help you, the agency leader, to help educate, empower and equip you to become your best version possible and the best version possible. Fast track, a 90 day success plan for agencies is available and our next program starts in January. So go to sitkins.com fast track to learn more about how to get started with Sitkins. So with that, let's dive into the interview again. Chet Rhodes, President and CEO of Hub3Rivers. Chet, welcome to the Agent Leader podcast.

Good to be here. Thanks.

Awesome. Well, I'd like as we start off, Chet, get just give a general overview. I'd like to, if you could share a little bit about how you became where you or where you, you know, how you got to where you are today and certainly a little bit about your Hub branch that you are running there in Pittsburgh. Sure.

So I basically started right out of college. I didn't go to college to be in insurance. I think insurance found me because when I graduated in 88 from Duquesne, there were no jobs in Pittsburgh except for being a life insurance salesman. So unless I wanted to move, which I did not, I embarked upon an insurance career and did the carrier side for five years and then came on the broker side. And I've been on the broker side for 30 years now. I was 10 years old when I started, so don't start doing the math there. When I came to the broker side, I came on as a producer, and through the years I took over some leadership positions. I ran the employee benefits department at one time, I ran sales at one time. And then January of 21, became president.

You know, Chad, I've known you for a few years now. Obviously, in working and being part of the Sitkins Group, you've known Roger and some of our team for a long period of time. And I'll just say this. You know, I'll speak on behalf of what our team says about you, and certainly what I've gotten to know in meeting with you in different events and obviously phone calls and these kind of things is that, you know, Chet is not only a great business mind and committed to growth and excellence, but just an all around good guy. And I know that's a bit cliche, but I think it's so important as we talk today about, you know, your agency chat and again, some of the challenges, successes that, you know, the, the, the idea that you can be a, a human being that cares about other human beings at a high level. In fact, you know, from my experience in watching you, the more that we do that, the better leaders we become. And so I, I'd love to kind of tap into that a little bit in our conversations today. I want to start off with this, and I don't mean to go into a negative thing, but every agency that certainly we work with and talk to has challenges. And so, Chad, you know, I'm curious. And here we are in 2023, near the end of it. There's just a few things going on in the world. There's a few things going on in the marketplace. From your perspective, what are some of the key challenges that you're all facing? Certainly maybe as a leader or as an organization. And what are some of the ways you're addressing these challenges that you're facing today, Chad?

Well, I think not. I think I know every industry, it's not just the insurance industry, is facing this talent war. And I believe through our own actions, and I would suggest to anyone else that's in my position, that when you're dealing with this talent war, that you should be transparent to your existing employees and your prospective future employees. Because I, I truly believe when you're transparent, these employees will trust you more. And it's, it's a real big situation. We deal with it every single day. We have employees that are being Offered wheelbarrows full of money from competitors. We have prospective employees that we make offers to, and then all of a sudden their current employer thinks they're worth 30 grand more. Not sure why they didn't think they were worth that because before they resigned. Right. And so we, we play that out with these prospective employees and say, hey, you know, it's kind of like back when I was in boot camp with Roger. He would say, hey, you know, have your prospect rehearse with you how they're going to terminate their relationship with their incumbent broker. We're doing that same thing, but it's with the prospective employee and role playing out. How are you going to handle it when your employer says, your current employer, you, hey, listen, susie, you're worth 30 grand more now that Hub International is going to take you away. How's that going to make you feel? So we're getting out in front of it being transparent and seems to be working for us, but we certainly haven't solved the issue. We're going to continue to forge through that. So I think that's a huge challenge for me is just making sure we have the best talent that stays.

Yeah, Chad. I mean, that's something obviously that, you know, I mean, so many insurance agency leaders out there facing right now. We talked about some of that. You know, we were at a private mastermind summit in Tampa a month or so ago. That was a big topic, the conversation with the agency leaders. And I know chat. One of the things. And I want to go just a little bit deeper in this. You can take this where you want, but you mentioned, you know, transparency. And I think looking at my notes, that was a big thing that you talked about. And you also mentioned a bit about vulnerability. And, and again, everybody, that word could mean a lot of things for a lot of people. You know, to me, it's not about, you know, vulnerability. It's just. Let me tell you about all my words, and that's all we're going to talk about. But I think what I wrote down, and you can either agree with this or disagree with this, is being able to define reality of what it really is and what it means and having those open, as you said, transparent conversations. And so. And again, maybe this is a bit. I, I don't want to make it go somewhere too specific if there isn't a specific example you want to give, but just is there's been observations and areas when it deals, when you're dealing with people that you've been able to be. You said transparent more Vulnerable, more realistic in certain situations versus, you know, trying to do the smoke and mirrors game and where that's worked out well for you. Is there an example or some way you've seen that in your agency? Sure.

So I'm not smoking Mirrors. I'll never be smoking mirrors straight up. And I'm not afraid to be vulnerable. I actually. I think being vulnerable was pretty natural for me. But actually, you suggested I read a book several years ago, Getting Naked, and it really made me be intentional about how I'm naturally vulnerable. And so I do that with prospects. I do it with clients, I do it with our producers prospects. I do it with our producers, clients. I do it with our employees, and I do with our prospective employees. And it has never backfired on me because at the end of the day, people want to feel valued, and they will feel valued when you let them in through your vulnerabilities, and they will feel valued when you are honest and transparent with them. So I guess an example of that might be hitting on, you know, hitting on a couple of points where we talk about getting that talent. We have a. A top gun producer that we hired two years ago, and he is just absolutely killing it. The business that he is bringing in, we can't keep up, hiring enough client managers. It's a great problem to have. But I wake up several times through the night, you know, thinking about that, because I need, you know, I'm a man of my word. I need to deliver on making sure this gentleman has a. And one day he came in my office and he said, you know what? I'm gonna have to go somewhere else where I can get the support that you promised me that you would give me that you didn't. He said, you know, I'm. I'm at that impasse. I said, well, you know, let me tell you something. Do you look at the news? He said, yeah, where are we going with this? I said, well, there's this talent war out there. Have you heard about it yet? And he's like, well. Well, yeah. I said, so do you think the insurance industry is exempt from that? I said, do you think I'm exempt from that? So we played it out. And I said, so you can go ahead and resign and go to a competitor, whether it be an independent firm or, you know, a public firm, it doesn't matter. We're all. We all have these issues, and you're going to go from one frying pan into the next. But what I can tell you will be different is you will never have A president that cares like I do. That was a year ago. He's still here today, has written over $2 million of business and we still have the issues of getting enough client managers. But I was vulnerable and I was honest and I played it up for him and he respected it and he's obviously staying around and writing more business and we're going to solve this. It's just, you know, that old adage, nothing good is easy.

Yeah, yeah. What a great. It's just a great example, Chad. And I just thinking, I mean, as you're saying that, I mean the, the natural thing, I think for a lot of leaders and again, you know, just go getters and you want to succeed. I don't think this comes from delicious place, but it's like, well, you know, we are going to do this and this and this and this and versus saying here's the reality of where it is. Right. And you know, I know we've had these conversations. I love the way you express that chat because, you know, I shared this. I think you were. Might have been at this event. And I heard this years ago from a leadership mentor of mine. He said there are three questions that every person is asking about you. And I think this is true in general. But certainly they're asking their leaders. They're asking three questions. Number one is, can you help me? Is there things that you can do to help me? Number two is do I trust you? And number three, Chad, is the one that you emphasize, which is sometimes just take it for granted, is do you truly care for me? Do you truly care for me? And I think when you care for people, that's where it comes from. Chad loved it. To hear that, is that I care enough to tell you the truth that we're not perfect. We have things, but, you know, here's the vision. And obviously as you said, Chad, it comes from a place of meaning. So I love that. I appreciate you sharing that. I think any listener should get a great abundance of value from that. I know talking about the challenges and of course this kind of leads into successes. But I'd love for you to share, Chad. I know there's been many. I also know you're a humble guy when it comes to success, but just from agency leaders listening out there, what would be a success or a series of successes or just something that's. That's gone really well for your agency that you go, you know, we've done a pretty good job at this and we've been able to replicate it for a while. I think it's one thing that's important, too, is that we can all have success, but sustainable success is the challenge. So I'm curious if you think about, you know, in your role in your agency, what's been some sustainable success you've been really proud of and how did you go about doing that?

So I have been in this presidency position. It'll be three years, the end of December. And each year since I was president, I think what I'm most proud of is our organic growth and.