The Agent Leader Podcast

What's the secret to building powerful relationships with CFOs?

Unlock the key to establishing meaningful connections with CFOs by understanding their priorities, challenges, and strategic goals with this episode of The Agent Leader.

Brent Kelly and Kari Glennon dive into what makes a CFO tick, from the nuances of their day-to-day responsibilities to the overarching strategies that drive their decisions. Learn why empathy, strategic alignment, and thorough preparation are your best tools for engaging with these top executives.

Whatever your role in an insurance agency, this conversation offers valuable insights into the CFO's world. Discover the importance of differentiating between tactical and strategic roles within an organization and why knowing the psychographics of a CFO can be just as crucial as understanding their demographics.

Don't miss out on learning how to communicate effectively with one of the most pivotal roles in any organization.

Begin transforming your interactions with CFOs today.

Resources mentioned:

Brent Kelly discusses the parallels between dunking a basketball and achieving success as an independent insurance agency in this episode of The Agent Leader.

Brent explains how training applies to both basketball and insurance agencies. Much like our producer program, ProducerFit, which focuses on building foundational blocks for success, you can't build success with weak links.

So how can you avoid weak links in order to achieve long-term success with your agency? Brent urges leaders to understand the importance of mindset, alignment, retention, performance, and productivity in the insurance industry.

Whether you're looking to build a lasting legacy or seeking strategies for immediate improvement, this episode offers invaluable insights and practical advice for agencies aiming to achieve their Best Version Possible.

What are three reasons why agencies and their teams often avoid one of the most powerful areas of agency growth?

Brent Kelly introduces the concept of the Ultimate Growth Strategy in this episode of The Agent Leader, along with the three reasons for avoiding this strategy:

• Complacency (6:30)
• Lack of capacity (7:40)
• Lack of confidence (9:43)

Is what you're thinking stopping you from achieving? In this episode of the Agent Leader podcast, Brent Kelly and Roger Sitkins discuss the importance of beliefs and thinking in achieving success.

Listen in for tips on how to turn internal convictions into external actions and desired outcomes. Our coaches are big believers in positive thinking as a driving force for desirable results. Learn how to adopt this same positive approach that is crucial for insurance agencies intent on improvement.

Brent and Roger touch on strategies like targeted referrals and the reverse referral process, offering innovative methods for business growth through high-quality lead generation. Coupled with the emphasis on delivering an exceptional client experience and focusing on Green Zone activities, agencies are provided with a strategy for transformation.

Get inspired by best practices that prioritize efficiency and client satisfaction to position agencies for sustained growth and success.

This episode will have you set to align your beliefs with behaviors and results.

In this podcast episode, Brent discusses the easy, normal, and comfortable things that insurance agencies often do that can hinder their long-term growth and success.

Listen as Brent highlights four specific areas where taking the easy way currently could be making your future harder:

• Accountability (6:20)
• Productivity (11:30)
• Agency profitability (13:50)
• Having a defined selling system (17:17)

Isn't it time you step out of your comfort zones and start doing the harder things upfront, to achieve better results in the long run?

What's the secret to transforming your independent insurance agency into a high-performing powerhouse?

Discover the undeniable power of a structured selling process in our latest episode. Brent Kelly delves deep into why relying solely on talent isn't enough and how a systematic approach can significantly elevate your agency's success.

Learn the critical difference between talent and the ability to teach, and understand why preparation goes beyond mere planning to become your ultimate competitive version.

We highlight the value of a sales playbook, likening it to a 'set offense' in sports, and explore how continuous skill development and self-awareness can set you apart in the competitive insurance market. Whether you're looking to refine your sales strategy or seeking ways to stay ahead, this episode is packed with insights aimed at driving your agency toward operational excellence.

Join Brent as he breaks down key components, offering actionable advice and strategies to not just survive, but thrive in today's fast-paced market.

In this podcast episode, Brent Kelly discusses three important questions that people are asking about you as an agency leader:

• "Can you help me?" (3:00)
• "Do I trust you?" (8:43)
• "Do you really care about me?" (15:00)

Brent emphasizes the importance of these questions in determining a leader's impact, influence, and results. Listen in for practical examples and suggestions for improving your status in each of these areas.

Learn how to make your agency soar with seven characteristics of eagles that can be applied to independent insurance agencies in this episode of The Agent Leader.

The characteristics include:

• Vision (5:20)
• Fearlessness (9:30)
• Tenacity (16:30)
• Hunting (19:40)
• Vitality (23:15)
• Flying high (27:00)
• Nurturing (29:10)

Listen in for highlights on the importance of having a clear vision for your agency, being proactive and fearless in pursuing goals, staying committed and persistent, actively seeking out ideal clients and talent, surrounding oneself with growth-minded individuals, and prioritizing the growth and development of your team members.

Get ready for an action-packed episode learning how to soar above your competition from eagles.

In this podcast episode, Brent Kelly discusses the importance of asking questions in order to improve communication, engagement, and connection with others. Brent emphasizes that asking questions is the number one skill to learn for agency leaders, sales professionals, and insurance service professionals.

Listen in for four reasons why asking questions is important:

(5:36) #1- It allows you to truly control the conversation.

(8:23) #2 - It creates pain and opens new files

(11:03) #3 - Questions provide buy-in

(12:29) #4 - Asking questions creates action

Brent also highlights the difference between closed-ended questions (which should be avoided) and open-ended questions (which are more effective).

Get inspired to practice asking better questions and to seek out opportunities for low-risk practice.

In this episode of the Agent Leader Podcast, Brent Kelly discusses the importance of aligning all aspects of your insurance agency - sales, service, leadership, and marketing.

Brent emphasizes the need for three areas to align your agency and improve overall performance:

• Commitment (8:15)
• Culture (11:00)
• Communication (12:40)

Listen in for examples of how sales and service, leadership, and marketing should work together to create a high-performance team.

Brent Kelly dives into three reasons why Practice Quoting is Stupid in this episode of The Agent Leader.

What is practice quoting? We define it as "the art of providing a quotation to an unqualified prospect in order to force the incumbent agency to lower their renewal price while retaining the account."

Practice quoting is a waste of time, energy, and money for insurance agencies. Need more reasons why practice quoting is a bad idea?:

#1 - It undermines your professionalism as an insurance agent. (6:48)

#2 - It eliminates the opportunity for proper diagnosis and analysis of the clients' needs. (10:55)

#3 - It makes you look and sound generic. (16:04)

Brent encourages insurance agencies to establish rules of the game upfront, focus on providing value and expertise rather than just quoting, and differentiate themselves in the marketplace.

Join us as we dive deep into the inspiring journey of insurance industry veteran, Kari Glennon. Brent and Kari discuss her background and experiences in the insurance industry, as well as some of the key challenges and successes she has witnessed.

Kari emphasizes the importance of accountability in agency leadership and suggests using cohort management to tailor support and resources to individual producers based on their needs and goals.

With highlights on perpetuation, the 80/20 rule and the value of going with your gut instinct in decision-making, Kari's insights provide valuable advice for agency leaders looking to improve their operations and achieve success.

Tune in for a dose of inspiration and professional wisdom from the inspiring Kari Glennon.

In this episode, host Brent Kelly interviews Jim Koster, the Vice President of Sales for Property & Casualty at TRICOR Insurance to discuss the challenges and successes of building a growth-oriented agency culture.

Jim emphasizes the importance of finding quality producer candidates, and investing in training and development to ensure their success. He also highlights TRICOR's success in implementing high-performance teams and the Green Zone approach, which has led to improved relationships, high retention rates, and organic growth.

In the end, Jim advises listeners not to be afraid to be great and to focus on mastering the basics consistently and exceptionally well.

In this episode of the Agent Leader podcast, host Brent Kelly interviews Chet Rhoads, president and CEO of HUB Three Rivers. Chet discusses how his leadership tactics have helped double the size of their agency while maintaining a great culture.

Listen in for highlights on organic growth, the significance of role-playing, and executing the right behaviors to further your career in the insurance industry.

In this episode Brent Kelly interviews Harrison Brooks, a partner and consultant at Reagan Consulting, to discuss the growth and challenges faced by independent insurance agencies.

Harrison shares success stories of agencies that have grown their revenue and offers advice on how to compete in the current marketplace.

Harrison emphasizes the importance of being creative, equipping employees with the right questions to ask, offering more than just economics to retain talent, and institutionalizing the business to create a unique client experience.

Harrison concludes by highlighting the significance of investing in unvalidated producers, and encourages agencies to benchmark themselves against top performers in the industry.

To learn more about Reagan Consulting, reach out to Harrison Brooks at harrison@reaganconsulting.com

In this episode of the Agent Leader podcast, Brent Kelly interviews Mike Malinowski, the president and CEO of EHD Insurance. Mike and Brent dive into the challenges and successes of running a successful insurance agency, with highlights including:

• the importance of developing a sales culture within the agency
• the benefits of creating a separate business unit for smaller accounts.
• the value of continuous learning and personal development for insurance professionals.

Listen in for tips on the importance of leadership, culture, and ongoing education in the insurance industry.

In this episode of the Agent Leader podcast, Brent Kelly interviews Jim Welsh, the CFO of Winton-Ireland, Strom & Green (WIS&G), a California-based insurance agency.

Jim Welsh shares his experience so far working with the Sitkins Group to improve their agency's performance, especially finding value in the holistic approach of our training programs.

Get ready to hear how identifying and leveraging their points of differentiation and deepening their relationships with clients through community-oriented events has become part of the culture at their agency.

Jim doles out advice for younger professionals on taking risks, exploring opportunities, and finding enjoyment in their work.

In this episode of the Agent Leader podcast, Brent discusses the issue of treating everything as an emergency in your insurance agency.

He emphasizes that not everything is an emergency, and treating everything as such can cost the agency time, money, and create culture issues.

Brent shares insights from conversations with agency leaders in our coaching programs, highlighting the importance of defining what constitutes an emergency and empowering and trusting the team to handle non-emergencies.

In this episode of The Agent Leader, Brent Kelly discusses the importance of becoming more interesting in order to be more successful as a leader or professional in the insurance industry.

So how do you become a more compelling and engaging communicator in order to connect with others and build relationships? As Dale Carnegie said "to be interesting, be interested."

With that in mind, what is your communication growth plan? It's worth crafting one so you don't look back at a year or three years or five years and realize you haven't grown.

Brent offers ideas such as open-ended questions, actively listening, and preparing for meetings and conversations to improve your interest levels.

The purpose of this episode of The Agent Leader is to challenge you and to encourage you to think bigger than you've ever thought before.

As an individual, as a department, or as an entire agency,  so often we don't realize how limited our thinking really is. In fact, our limited thinking creates limited results. But, if we can think bigger, we have better behaviors, and our behaviors drive our results.

Get ready to expand your thinking and realize what your "Unless" is as Brent challenges you on this episode.

Referenced resources in this episode:

Brent shares areas of impact from his recent three-day Agency Leadership Institute hosted by Cincinnati Insurance and led by Reagan Consulting.

Listen in for what great agencies from around the country discussed as their top areas of impact.

Get ready to take notes and learn more on:

Recruiting and training producers, having a culture of accountability, green zone focus, leading with excellence, and having a sales process or plan that can be reinforced.

Brent is joined by one of our awesome members, Ben Zimmer, CEO and founder of Ethos Insurance and Risk Management.

Ben is an excellent example of the growth-minded leaders we like to work with at Sitkins Group, and when you listen you'll know why.

Get ready for an impactful discussion with Ben on what is working in his agency - that's been growing 20-25% YOY.

As the episode title implies, Ben's agency is a true believer in the organization of meaningful meetings. Learn how Ben's agency has grown from Vulnerability with Accountability, and many more clues to success, in this episode of The Agent Leader podcast.

What would you do if someone on your team made a mistake 80% of the time?
Reprimand them? Possibly.
Train them? It better be a lot of training!
Release them? Hard to argue.
When you ask agency service team members how many times a producer gets a service request or change 100% accurate and 100% complete, the first time, the answer is usually about 2 out of 10.
In other words, producers make mistakes on service duties about 80% of the time.
In this podcast, Brent shares the Three Reasons You Need to Fire Your Producers From Service.

How can you make meaningful change in your insurance agency? Brent talks over four ways agency leaders can create greater buy-in with their agency teams.

7:30 - Having a Clear Vision vs. Confusion

11:08 - Having a Culture to support the Change

14:30 - Having Consistency vs Intensity

16:50 - Commitment vs Complacency

Are you simply making the easy choices in your insurance agency, that are actually making your life harder in the end?

As we always say, if you make easy choices today, it'll make your life harder long-term. Brent challenges independent insurance agency leaders to think through five choices that can impact your business long-term.

4:30 - Choice #1, Does your agency have a Team Training and Development Plan?

9:08 - Choice #2, Having High-Performance Teams, which means having clear and consistent communication between your sales and service teams.

12:42 - Choice #3, Producer Accountability to Results

16:28 - Choice #4, Leveraging the Power of the 80/20 Rule

21:15 - Choice #5, 3P's - Playbook, Preparation, and Practice

Are you willing to make some of the hard choices now that are going to make the long-term success of the agency easier?

Have you ever wondered what you could gain from producer training program? You're not alone, producers keep asking if our programs are right for them. Brent Kelly goes over the core strategies from our #1 program, ProducerFit, to help develop insurance producers.

Brent highlights three shifts that insurance agencies can make to truly become indispensable in their marketplace.

As an agency leader, or within your agency, your agency culture, what needs to change to get you to the next place?

Follow along as Brent goes over three shifts you can make to transform into indispensable, along with some deep questions to ask yourself as a leader.

Shift 1: Shifting from quotes to risk advice

Shift 2: Shifting from transaction to relationships

Shift 3: Shifting from a vendor to a risk partner

Roger Sitkins and Brent Kelly finish their discussion on Service Capacity in Part Two of our Two-Part Series on Sales & Service Capacity. 

Listen in as Roger shares how simply knowing your numbers can increase your service capacity, how to use technology to enhance client relationships, and KPI's to help you measure capacity in your agency.

Roger Sitkins comes back as Brent's guest for a 2-Part series about Sales and Service Capacity.

In this first part, our coaches tackle the topics that can help you increase, and improve, your sales capacity.

Get ready to take notes on agency valuation, how to invest in your agency, and examples of what independent insurance agencies have done, can do, and should do to help improve their sales capacity.

Stay tuned next week for Part Two of this series, focused on Service Capacity.

This is the first in a series about agency capacity. There's a lot that goes into that, and a lot to discuss, from leadership capacity, sales capacity, service capacity, and what all that means for your agency in terms of results, processes, systems, and pretty much everything you can think of.

How can you gain clarity on your leadership capacity? Start by asking yourself these three questions:

1. What must I change to stop trying to have it all?
2. What "good" things can I stop doing, in order to do the best things?
3. What must I do to become more proactive, and less reactive?

Let's talk about five reasons why your agency doesn't need a coach in this episode of The Agent Leader podcast.

Now obviously this title shouldn't be taken seriously, and be taken as more of a challenge to you as an insurance agency leader. Are you willing to work with others to develop and improve yourself and your team? After all, no one ever accomplished something great, alone.

So let's dive into these five reasons why you wouldn't need to be striving for the best version possible of you or your agency.  

1. You’re immune to the outside forces in the world
2. You’re waiting to sell out
3. You believe that your team is not worth investing in
4. You are the competition that is feared in your marketplace
5. You’re getting incredible results

What are the two vital questions that every sales leader should be able to ask, and of course, get answers to?

As an agency leader or as a producer, it's important to hear this message so you can develop your own personal accountability in becoming a great sales professional.

It’s all about how you can Define, Document, and Deliver within your agency. As Brent says, it’s really hard to manage air – if nothing has been defined or documented, it cant be delivered.

Get ready to add these two simple but powerful questions to your leadership repertoire:

“I thought we agreed on.”

“Help me understand…”

Brent Kelly starts this episode off with a challenge to insurance professionals - how many of the things that you can control are you truly in control of?

How much of your time, energy, and effort is lived with intention, intentionality, versus accidental and reactive?

With that in mind, Brent goes through three areas where you can be more intentional to become your best version possible.

• Be Intentional with your communication
• Be intentional with your calendar
• Be intentional with your commitments

Listen in for specific examples for each of these three areas of intentionality and some impressive stats from our member agencies – including an 80% growth rate!

Brent talks you, the agency leader, through beliefs that are holding you or your agency back in this episode of The Agent Leader podcast.

Get ready to discuss seven beliefs that could be holding you back from the true results you want in your agency:

1. Your past is better than your future
2. Fitting in is better than becoming world class
3. We replicate vs. revise
4. We can’t write larger accounts
5. We can’t work on referrals only
6. We can’t really differentiate
7.  We’re done learning, expanding, and growing.

Brent shares some solo thoughts on a really important topic today - your agency's culture.  What is a culture of excellence? What does a culture of excellence mean to you as an agent leader, to your agency, your team, your clients, and your community? You name it. It's all about a culture of excellence.

So let's go deeper in this idea of what excellence means to you and having the ultimate competitive advantage. 

Listen as Brent shares some heartfelt clues to success on becoming the competition that is feared, never losing to someone who is more prepared than you, and personal accountability in this episode of The Agent Leader podcast. 

Brent Kelly gives an overview of our producer improvement program, ProducerFit by sharing the 10 Foundational Blocks of Producer Success. 

As Brent goes through this list, ask yourself how well you as a producer, or your sales team, are doing in this area. Get ready to rate yourself on these 10 foundational blocks of insurance producer success:

1. Having a high performance team
2. Having your producers in the game
3. Continuations, not renewals
4. Relationship Management
5. Pipelines that are comprised of Future Ideal Clients
6. Having a unique Selling System
7. Relentless Preparation
8. Ultimate marketing strategy
9. Having a sales playbook
10. Personal Accountability

Allison Hammons of Knight Insurance Group joins Brent on this episode to share tips to her success in independent insurance. 

Listen to gain clever tips on:

• Recruiting talent, both internally and externally 
• Creating a solid culture that includes praise within the agency
• The importance of having mentors

There's plenty of Wisdom in the Room with Dan Mickells of UNICO Group joining Brent as a guest on The Agent Leader for this episode.

Dan shares stories of success, and stories of failure, that will help anyone in insurance sales learn some important lessons along the way - including why it's important to not be afraid to fail.

Get ready to take notes, Dan's agency has the success to support their strategies like:

• Going deep in conversations with clients
• Meeting expectations
• Meeting people to make good things happen 
• Sunday planning sessions
• Perfect schedules
• Getting your team all on the same page 
• The importance of stepping out of your comfort zone to grow

Plus more great conversation and ideas from a great independent insurance agency leader.

Our coaches, Roger Sitkins and Brent Kelly, talk over a Christmas Wish List for independent insurance agencies in this episode of The Agent Leader. Get ready to imagine your agency accomplishing the following things in 2023 and beyond:

• Having your entire team 100% aligned around a common goal.
• Have all of your team members in ongoing personal development programs
• Sales and Service teams working together as High Performance Teams
• Improve your Sales and Service Capacity
• Weekly sales Improvement Meetings
• 90%+ of your producers meet or exceed their sales goals every year
• Achieve a 99% effective retention rate on the clients you want to keep
• The 80/20 Rule
• Having Future Ideal Client only pipelines
• Have a unique, repeatable sales process
• Have Points of Differentiation that give you an Unfair Advantage against the competition
• Relentlessly Prepared for every opportunity
• Have organic Growth rates that are twice the Best      Practices numbers
• Earn an operating profit of over 30%

Art Betancourt of AEBetancourt joins Brent today to share his expertise on how to attract, find, select, and hire great talent for your agency.

By far the biggest challenge we hear from agency leaders is finding agency talent, because there simply isn't enough right now. 

Art shares tips on how to:

• Go find and develop talent - because once you need to fill the position, it's too late. 
• Using performance-based hiring metrics
• Create a total talent pipeline
• And more great clues to success in your independent agency

Is your agency committed to being a true sales organization? Without weekly (not weakly) held sales improvement meetings, you aren't efficiently developing your sales team. 

Brent talks agency leaders through three important parts of a sales meeting, what to include, what to leave out, and how to keep the impact going all week long so you can unleash the collaborative genius within your team. 

How do you get your people to buy-in to new ideas or strategies in your agency? 

No matter how good your idea is, if you can't get your team to buy into it, it's a failed idea. Let's talk about this and your agency. "How can you get more people to buy in?" It takes consistency, communication and collaboration. Because again, without it, no idea matters.

Kevin Stipe from Reagan Consulting joins Brent to discuss main Challenges and Opportunities for independent insurance agencies. 

Listen in as Kevin gives great advice on what he sees the Best Practices agencies doing. From building effective teams, heading into a recession, and the importance of getting people working together, Kevin covers it all on this episode of The Agent Leader.