Click #8 - Leadership
Brent Kelly:
Welcome to the Agent Leader Podcast. My name is Brent Kelly, your host. Thanks so much for joining me on this episode. This is a very special episode because it is the finale of our eight Clicks series that we've been doing on the Agent Leader Podcast. And if you have been following along, and thank you if you have been, we have gone through a series of eight Clicks, this being the final Click, of different breakthroughs that agency leaders and their teams can have that are obviously hugely impactful.
Brent Kelly:
And I've had a very special guest with me for all seven, now number eight of these special sessions, and Roger Sitkins. So, at this point, if you haven't listened to the sessions... you would know this if you have, but if you haven't, Roger Sitkins is with me. He's the CEO of Sitkins Group. And Roger, I'm going to, first of all, before I do some more formal introductions on this episode and some other things, want to say hello. Hello and thank you for being part of the eight Clicks series.
Roger Sitkins:
Well, Brent, as always, it's great to be with you and it's great to share some of the strategies that we know work and some of the proven processes. So, I'm excited about this one because you've said this so many times, everything rises and falls on leadership.
Brent Kelly:
That's right. Yeah. And we're going to talk about leadership today. Then, the Click itself is going to be, how do you move from a manager to a leader? How do you move from a manager to a leader? And Roger, you said everything rises and falls on leadership. That's a statement that I initially heard from John Maxwell, who's very well-known in the leadership space.
Brent Kelly:
And I will tell you, when I heard that from John Maxwell, everything rises and falls on leadership, my brain was, "Okay, everything? Does everything really rise and fall on leadership?" And I'll tell you and that's why I want to get your feedback today, Roger, because you've worked with literally hundreds and hundreds of agency leaders over the many years. And I've had the opportunity to work with many, many, many agency leaders as well and certainly currently do today.
Brent Kelly:
And that idea that everything rises and falls seems like a lot of pressure and weight, but it's true. I mean, at the end of the day, it all starts with leadership and how good of a leader are you. And by the way, I talk about transitioning from manager to a leader. This doesn't mean that we don't need good management or managers in an agency. Of course, we do. There's things that need to be managed.
Brent Kelly:
But the best agencies have leaders who have people that follow them, not because of a title or a position or just because they get paid, which is important by the way, but because people wants to follow them because they're great leaders. And by the way, and we'll get to it in today's discussion, the best leaders perpetuate by finding the next level of leaders. They're finding more leaders and developing more leaders who develop more leaders. And so, that's a big part of what we're going to be talking about today.
Brent Kelly:
Now, I do want to mention that the purpose of this podcast, as always, is to help agencies gain clarity, build consistency, and to make a commitment to become your best version possible. And so, obviously, the best agencies that become the best version possible have leaders who themselves strive to be their best version possible. And to use the term one more time, the best version possible, our Best Version Possible book is available.
Brent Kelly:
Go to Sitkins.com/bvp to get a copy of your book. We love for you to get this in your hands and share it with other agency leaders around the country that are also striving to become their best version possible. So, Roger, are you ready to dive in to-
Roger Sitkins:
Absolutely.
Brent Kelly:
... Click 8 on leadership? I want to ask you what you see obviously in qualities of leadership. And I don't want to steal any of your thunder, but it's something that we do share. I want to make sure I say this upfront, and maybe you can help me answer this question, even though it wasn't a list of some of the questions that I sent over to you, is this, what's the number one job of a leader?
Brent Kelly:
Above all things, what's the number one job of a leader? And I'll tell you, typically, when I ask that question, you might get some different responses. I'll just ask you, Roger, when you ask that question, and we ask that question certainly in our CEO boot camp that we run for our Sitkins programs. What kind of answers do we typically hear when we ask that?
Roger Sitkins:
Well, they start talking about results right away. It's to get better results. So, it's the classic cliché of, "I'm going to improve my top line. I'm going to improve my bottom line. I'm going to sell more, I'm going to earn more." And that's not it. That's not it. The real job, as you and I have preached all the time, it's to develop your people. So, whether it's a CEO with the agency overall or the CRO, chief revenue officer sales leader, especially with the sales leaders, what's your job? Improve sales.
Roger Sitkins:
No, improve your sales people. So, the real goal here is the improvement, the development of your team members. That's the leader's job. And then, they go out and they get the results you want.
Brent Kelly:
Amen, amen, amen.
Roger Sitkins:
Hallelujah. That's right.
Brent Kelly:
Hallelujah, hallelujah. We all rejoice. And obviously, there's a challenge to that. And I always joke with agency leaders, I said, "Leadership would be really easy if it wasn't for the darn people." And everyone kind of chuckles because it's true. And so, the idea that the number one job of an agency leader and whatever, whether it's sales leader or agency leader or you're running a department, you've got influence in your agency.
Brent Kelly:
And say my number one role, my number one job, as Roger just alluded to, is I've got to develop my people. I've got to be a people developer. And if I can do that at a high capacity, guess what happens, results, because my people are doing the right thing. So, I want to ask you, Roger, obviously we can talk about a number of things today, but just overall, what do you see as the best qualities, the top qualities of agency leaders that you've worked with?
Roger Sitkins:
They define, they represent, and they constantly reinforce culture, the language and behaviors that are normal because they're the cultural leaders. And I don't want to say cult like cult, but they are the cultural leaders. And I look at this, I was thinking a lot this morning about this in preparation, I was thinking about the best leaders we know, the ones we work with, the ones that get absolute great results.
Roger Sitkins:
But they personally aren't getting great results. Their team is getting great results. I guess it's like a head coach of a football team. He's not in the game, but he's got his players ready to play the game. So, I look at this and there are a bunch of things that jump to my mind around culture. And again, culture is the language and behaviors that are normal. And we've talked about this before that if you want to know what's going on in your agency, just walk around and listen to what people are talking about.
Roger Sitkins:
What are they focused on? All right. You mentioned the three C's, clarity, consistency, and commitment. And I think sometimes that gets overlooked because we talk about it a lot and I guess we go through it pretty fast. But clarity, where am I today? Where do I want to go? How will I get there? Well, we've had some deeper thoughts on that too, clarity. Where am I today? And what is my agency's business model?
Roger Sitkins:
And we've talked about this several time on the Clicks. Your current business model is perfectly designed for you to achieve the results you're currently achieving. So, where's my agency today? And what's the business model we're following? Even though it may be unintentional, that's getting us to where we are. Where do we really want to go in the next three, five, 10 years? And then, what's the path for us to follow?
Roger Sitkins:
In other words, what's the new, in many cases, refined business model we're following? Because if they just keep doing the same business model, it's pretty predictable they're going to get the same results. So, the clarity, the consistency, and we talk about this so much, it's the guardrails again, it's the agency's way of doing business. That there's absolute clarity on the agency's way. This is the way we do things and it comes back to what we talk about, so much knowledge.
Roger Sitkins:
What are the simplified and proven processes? And then, people have got to follow the process. So the consistency. And then, when we look at the absolute best ones, if there were one phrase, one word we would use, it's pretty simple. It's what? It's accountability. It's accountability. So, that's a huge one to me. I think the other one, I think, that ties them all together is something we were talking about yesterday in a workshop we were doing with our team, it's the whole concept of congruency.
Roger Sitkins:
Are you congruent? And I guess we could define that, again, as the agency's way. But the best leaders are very congruent. And by the way, they're great role models. They do what they said they're going to do. It's not like your kids going, "Wait a minute, your bike is in the driveway, too. Your room is messy, too." So, those would be my starting ones. And of course, I have 97 others, but those would jump to the top list.
Brent Kelly:
Yeah. Well, I appreciate you sharing that because I do, obviously, and if you listen to this podcast regularly, I say I think on every episode, the purpose is clarity, consistency, and commitment. And I do go through it pretty quickly. oh, that sounds nice. But when you really get into it, Roger, there's such importance to it and there's a lot of weight.
Brent Kelly:
And to go back, if you haven't heard the story before is, I was sitting with Roger, gosh, four, five years ago. It might have been five years ago. And we were just talking about stuff. And I was asking Roger questions just like this, what has he seen in agencies? What has he seen in leadership? What has he seen in getting results?
Brent Kelly:
And it always came back to the fact that the best agencies and of course their leaders and their leadership was that they were very clear on what they wanted, why they wanted it, and how they were going to get there. It doesn't mean it was perfect, but it means they were clear. And by the way, I'm going to be doing an article later today, and we both do, Roger, for Rough Notes. And that's part of what I'll be talking about, but it's a big thing here is, how do I find, how do I attract?
Brent Kelly:
How do I keep the best talent? Well, a big part of this is, if you don't have great clarity or a vision that's compelling that people are interested in and want to be part of, there's challenges there. A lot of it, "Well, why should I be? Well, because it's job and it's good. You make really good money, and it's a good opportunity." And people, they don't feel it and see it.
Brent Kelly:
And one thing that I say often in our agency leadership discussions is that leaders see more and leaders see before others. That leaders can see oftentimes the good leaders, the great leaders, a bigger picture that people want and are excited to be part of. And that may seem, oh, that's... no, there's an emotional connection to that. So, I'm glad you shared that, Roger. I want to ask you more on a personal level.
Brent Kelly:
I think one of the greatest things that we can learn as humans of how to do something well is to figure out who did stuff well for us. So, I think there's so many lessons in that. I say, "Well, if you want to be a great leader, think about leaders that have been great leaders for you and emulate them." So, what leaders, Roger, have impacted you most in your life in business and why?
Roger Sitkins:
I have three that immediately jump out. And I actually get pretty emotional thinking about them here. The first one is my savior, it's Jesus. I have pretty darn good faith. I constantly work on it. I mentioned Andy Stanley quite a bit in our session. So, the lessons there, to me, are irrefutable. Next was my dad who came to this country at age four through Ellis Island.
Roger Sitkins:
I often referred to my Polish heritage that I'm very proud of and kid around saying my dad changed it from Sitkiewicz to Sitkins because it wouldn't fit in the back of a jersey. Back then, they didn't put them on jerseys. But he had a tough life. He's here at age four. Age 10, his mother dies of the influenza, the Spanish flu. He's a great athlete. He goes off to Michigan State to play football.
Roger Sitkins:
He and his brother have their dad. There's not a second mom that comes in or anything. And he's up there his freshman year, he's 19 years old, at Michigan State to play football. And his father was murdered. So, he's got to come home. And you look at that and you go, "How did he get through all of that? And then, how did he get into the life insurance business and became very successful at it?"
Roger Sitkins:
That was the core of starting the property and casualty agency literally in the basement of our house with my mom being the property and casualty person. Then, at age 57, he becomes a quadriplegic due to doctor's malpractice. And one of my favorite sayings that I say all the time, you hear me say, is there but for the grace of God go I. And I still looked at... I get emotional here.
Roger Sitkins:
I still always think about the respect he had for others, even in the 18 years he lived in a wheelchair, two years in the hospital, 16 years back home. And the respect he had for others, especially the love for my mom, it was pretty amazing. I guess I told you I get emotional here. The next one, my high school football coach. In three of the four years I played in college, he was there.
Roger Sitkins:
I talked about him a lot, Coach Dick Mosley, "Mose," and the absolute commitment to be the best. One of the things he does, and my wife Stephanie, every time we talk about Mose, she'll always bring this up to one degree or another. When you talk to him, there might have been 200 people in the room, but you were the only person in the room. He was so good at the personal relationships, and again went on to the pros and everything as a coach.
Roger Sitkins:
And I think other than the discipline and the purposeful bombardment of repetition and the importance of visualization and everything, it's the fact that he simplified things. He got things down, and I've used analogy before and we had eight plays. We ran to the right, we ran into the left, but that's all we had. And so, I would say those three.
Roger Sitkins:
And if there's a word or a phrase that would cover those three, to me, it's integrity. They did what they said they were going to do. And realize that even though, other than Jesus, I don't think my dad and Mose knew they were role models. But all of us are role models, whether we want to admit it or not. Although the best leaders I think are much more intentional because they're congruent in their message to themselves and to the message to others.
Roger Sitkins:
And they never get caught doing something against what they wanted. So, I could probably go 16 more hours on this. I'm going to stop, but those would be my three, Brent.
Brent Kelly:
Well, first of all, thank you for sharing that. And I know emotional talking about your dad in particular, understandably so. I think part of this is, I love you sharing your heart and your story on that because obviously I say success leaves clues. And for me, even writing this down, again, I'll just take my takeaways from what you just said there because I think we all internalize things a bit differently.
Brent Kelly:
But you talk about Jesus. To me, the theme there is, it's bigger than you. I think that's a big part. I think one of the things, and again we won't go down a biblical journey here, but just for a moment, one thing that's just always impressed me, obviously more than the fact that he's Jesus, but the fact that he was a humble servant and it's the fact that there's humility within that. I think there's so many leadership lessons in that.
Brent Kelly:
With your dad, I mean, what you said there, Roger, you said lots of things, but respect people, respect those you love, with respect. Wow, there's a lesson. That would be really nice to be more in leaders in today's world. And then, with your Coach Mose, again, a few things that jumped out there, but that first thing you said really struck me. Be present where you are and be a 100% present with the people you're with.
Brent Kelly:
And I'll just share this because it's something that I truly believe in. And you said that it really... it hit me again is I tell people all the time, and part of this is because it's real and it's true and you see it, is that I believe the number one gift you can give another human being, especially in today's distracted, crazy, noisy world, is giving people your full time and your full attention. And when you do that, it's like, "Oh, someone's actually speaking with me. They're with me."
Brent Kelly:
And so, I just think there's so many great takeaways, Roger. So, thank you for sharing that. All right, we'll move past that. We'll move away from you personally a little bit, but just again going back to the agency leader side. We said at the beginning of this, the number one job of an agency leader is to develop their people. That's what great agency leaders do. And again, those stories you share, that help develop you.
Brent Kelly:
I mean, you think about that is they help develop me that now guess what? You're developing others and the chain continues. But just in general, how can agency leaders do a better job at developing people? Because I think if I told agency leader, "Hey, agency leader, go develop your people," they may go, "Okay, how do I do that?" So, what's your response?
Roger Sitkins:
Well, the people development I think starts with one of our favorite sayings, do not complain about that which you tolerate. Well, this person not doing this and they're not doing that, or why are they doing this and why are they doing that? And I'm thinking, "Why are you wasting your time asking those questions to me? Why don't you go to them? Why don't you go to them and talk to them about their development, rather than saying, "Hey, you need to get better. You need results."
Roger Sitkins:
So, talk to them about their development. So, I think number one is an absolute awareness of where the individuals are and what's their role on the team is something we talk about all the time, that the best agencies are totally in alignment. It's foundational to everything we do within the best version possible. And what we see as far as alignment is we have a common goal, an acknowledgement and appreciation of the different roles.
Roger Sitkins:
We've probably already said that 15 times in this series. Okay? So, same goal, different roles, and appreciate, respect each other's role. But at the end of the day, what do we want to do? We want to retain and obtain ideal clients. So, if we can set that as our foundation, and then everything we do, we say, "What we're doing right now is that in alignment with our common goal," and it's a singular goal. Most agencies have way too many goals. I could do this. I could do that. I could do this. I could do that.
Roger Sitkins:
We've talked about this before, trying to chase the gimmick of the month or the week or the day doesn't give you alignment. It just gives you stuff you're chasing. And because most of us have, I've kind of refer to at times, the microwave thinking. They put a bag of popcorn in the microwave and after 10 seconds, they're going, "Come on."
Brent Kelly:
Let's go.
Roger Sitkins:
It's three minutes. It's three minutes. Okay. And none of us can get something to be like the one magic thing that changes everything overnight. So, I look at this and I say, "Well, the first thing you have to do is invest in your people. Invest in your people." We've used the statistic in our documentary movie, too, based upon the best practices study. And every year I look at it, this number is very consistent.
Roger Sitkins:
The best practices agencies, which are good agencies, but they wouldn't even be in there. Reagan Consulting does a great job on this. The average best practices agencies spends 0.04% of their revenues on training and education, in other words, development of their people. And too often, they think that maintaining the license, the continuing education credits they have to have, will really change things. Well, we want them to have their license.
Roger Sitkins:
Obviously, if they have a certificate, CIC, whatever, yes, you want to continue that because that's your professional, technical knowledge. All right. But when you look at what are the skills, what are the processes, and what are the attitudes you need to do as an individual, that your team needs to do, that the whole agency needs to do, that's where we develop them. That's where we say, "Okay, what are the skills?"
Roger Sitkins:
And the skills for an account manager, an account executive, a producer, a leader, an admin, everybody has different skill sets they should have. And we've got to develop their skills just like the selling skills. It's always amazing to us when we say to producers, "Okay, you've been practicing asking questions. The most important skill you have is asking questions. When's the last time you practice that?" "A couple years ago."
Roger Sitkins:
What about referrals? I mean, that's not important, is it? We've talked about that before. Yeah, ask me for a referral right now. Anybody wants to buy insurance. No. What about your phone skills? What about anything? So skills. Next, we have to develop, we have to get absolute clarity in what are the process, what are the simplified and proven processes we have.
Roger Sitkins:
And there's a core set of processes that should be in place, whether it's new business, whether it's continuation, whether it's claims advocacy, whether it's promise-making, promise-keeping. Okay, use of technology. What are the processes there? And then, so much of it and we've talked about this several times already, the attitudes, the mindset. It's how you think about things. It's how you think about things.
Roger Sitkins:
So, I look at this and I say, "Number one, are we investing enough in our people?" And everybody will give the lip service, "Our people are our most important asset." Really? Okay. What are you doing to develop them if they're such an important asset?
Brent Kelly:
That's right.
Roger Sitkins:
Well, they're pretty busy. And this is one that-
Brent Kelly:
They want to be left alone, Roger. No, they don't.
Roger Sitkins:
Yeah, yeah. They're doing pretty good and it just drives me crazy. We're too busy to get better. Well, the sad news is, you still do "okay" compared to the world. You'll do okay, but you'll get into that semi-successful trap we talk about. Ultimately, to me, Brent, it comes down to the leaders saying, "The only way my team gets better is if the individuals get better. And what am I investing in them?" We've shared the statistic before. I already talked about the 0.4.
Roger Sitkins:
But the bigger thing here is that if you look at professional services firms across all professional services firms, the best ones, the studies I've seen say that the average firm spends 2% with their people getting better. Think about that. Hey, I haven't thought about this until just now. If I invested 2%, let's just say just sales and service and leadership, and there are many other areas, and getting the right skills, processes, attitudes in place, could I improve my results, my net new revenue by 4%, 5%, 6% over what I was doing before because I invested 2%?
Roger Sitkins:
That's a hell of a return. Okay. I never thought of it that way before. All right. So then, ultimately, what it comes down to is the leaders will buy-in from their team developing their guardrails. This is the way we do things. So, a lot of feedback on that one, but again, that hit me there. If I can spend 2% and get 4%, 6%, 8% more than I would've got without doing anything, what a great return.
Brent Kelly:
Well, it's fantastic answer and so many takeaways there. You know, Roger, that my brain always thinks in pictures or stories or analogies, especially when I just get to sit and listen. And so, all of a sudden, I had this image, I think you'll relate to this. I'm always careful with my analogies because they literally just come in my brain. I'm like, "This may work, this may not." So, you get the live version of this.
Brent Kelly:
Many people right now, as we're recording this, their kids, if you have school-aged kids, are back in school. So, we're recording this at the end of August. And my kids, they're actually going back a little later this year, but they're going to go back. The analogy to me, it's like sending your kids to school. And they show up and they say, "Here's a desk, here's some pens and here's a book. And for the next year, I want you to come to this desk and then do some pens and read through the book.
Brent Kelly:
And hey, if you keep your nose in the grindstone there, you're going to figure some stuff out." And never giving them a path, never understanding that every kid in that room is a bit different, so the teacher needs to understand where to affect people, impact and change in the right way, not taking some of those things in the book and applying the skills that they can practice and work on. Can you imagine reading a math book, but never doing math problems?
Brent Kelly:
There's skills that are involved there. So, that's what hit me is the fact that we have a lot of agency leaders I'm not trying to pick on because there's a lot of great ones that do these things as well. But many times we see in the marketplace where it's in essence, and people joke about this. You've heard this too, Roger, especially for producers. They gave me a desk and a phone, and said, "Good luck. Ha-ha-ha." Well, it's really not that funny.
Brent Kelly:
The truth of it is, is that we've got to educate, we've got to equip, and we've got to empower. And it comes back to, if you're not developing your people, how are they going to get better? And of course, Roger, to your point, how are we going to get the return? You've invested a lot, even just in capital, to your people, but that's just the hard cost in there. But what if we invested more, as you said, the skills, the processes, the attitudes, to truly maximize that return? So, anyway, I had-
Roger Sitkins:
I want to jump on something you said there. It hit me when you were talking about the kids going back to school. And there's your desk, there's your books. Okay. That's what happened to kids that had to stay home and use Zoom for school. I know my daughter with the now seven-and-a-half-year-old, almost going on eight-year-old twins that are in second grade. Well, I remember she set up literally a classroom in her family room where they had their desk.
Roger Sitkins:
And she bought these posters like you would have in school because she tried to make the environment as much like school as possible. But it wasn't and we've talked about that. And maybe that's the analogy to many of your employees where you say, "Well, just go do your work." That's the problem with remote work, which we've talked about before. And we could do 97 hours on that, but the analogy I think is really true.
Roger Sitkins:
Are we just saying, "Hey, sit at home, do this. Don't worry about it. We won't check up on you," because the kids certainly didn't get the... tell them. Dana and her family were very fortunate that the teacher they had literally once a week would come by the house, and just the homework and just to make a connection. But anyway, it's a great analogy, Brent.
Brent Kelly:
Part of this is agency leaders that are listening, too. And again, it's not to beat anybody up, but hoping to get you thinking and go, "Wait a second, where am I selling my team? Sure. Where am I not providing some of the things that they need?" And I know there's a lot of work in that, but just again, as Roger said, A, there's the return in the investment of the people that you've already made obviously.
Brent Kelly:
But to me, it's other thing that's kind of called, I don't know, the right thing to do. There's that aspect of it as well. So, all right, moving on. And this is a huge issue that I wanted to ask you about because listen, you always say this, Roger, you're going to leave your business sometime. We're all going to leave our business. And in fact, I just had a podcast that'll be coming up out after this.
Brent Kelly:
I had a conversation with a tech leader and he talked about this. He's like, "Well, you're going to exit your business and it's either going to be by perpetuation internally or you're going to get acquired." I mean, at some point, you're going to perpetuate somewhere or you're going to be acquired. So, leaders find the next leaders, but why do so many agencies struggle with this, Roger? I mean, what's next?
Brent Kelly:
How do I perpetuate? And I know it's a very broad question, but just what are some of your thoughts on perpetuation for agencies today?
Roger Sitkins:
Well, agencies overall, when you look at perpetuation, you hit it a little bit on the head there. There's two types of perpetuation. There's financial perpetuation and there's leadership perpetuation. Well, the financial perpetuation is if you're going to do an internal perpetuation plan, if you wanted to get it done this year, this should have started five years ago.
Roger Sitkins:
And what happens is, because there's no structure around it, it's like, "Well, we'll sell internally and you guys will do this and you'll get that." And they haven't started... in the old days, they had Christmas clubs. Okay. You'd put money in the bank every week, $10 or $5. You'd have your Christmas money. Well, it's the same thing here. What are they setting aside, working with their financial advisors, working with their CPA, working with their attorney?
Roger Sitkins:
Their trusted advisor team is saying, "What are we going to put together so that when it gets to be time to perpetuate it internally, the dollars are there? And how do we provide the discipline, literally, the discipline for the internal people that want to buy it?" Because if they're not managing their own money, then they don't have money to do it. You remember the story I told you, I don't think we ever talk about it here.
Roger Sitkins:
I'll take the adult beverages out of this when it happened. But Walt Gdowski and I were at the last Big I convention that was held under the old format. And we're at the Downtown Marriott and we're there with our wives. And we go up to the bar to get a drink. And this guy, I see, goes over and he talks to Stephanie and Sharon, and then he comes over to us. And he's had a few pops, let's just put it that way.
Brent Kelly:
Yeah, sure.
Roger Sitkins:
And he said, "Hey, hey, hey, I hear you guys are with one of the big brokers. Are you with Brown & Brown or somebody like that?" And I said, "No, we're with Pollock & Pollock." Okay. And he didn't get it. And he said, "Let me tell you what I've learned." He used to like the old Foster Brooks guy, the comedian.
Brent Kelly:
Oh, I got it.
Roger Sitkins:
This was how this guy when he was having a religious experience speaking in tongues.
Brent Kelly:
That's great.
Roger Sitkins:
But he said, "Let me tell you, when I sold my agency to so and so and let me tell you what. Let me tell you what." "What?" He said, "They buy you with your own money." And I said, "I'm glad you figured that out, Sparky." But it's just, yeah, they will. They don't buy you because they're going to take all of their money and give it to you. Although they will up front. The reality is, it's cash flow game.
Roger Sitkins:
I don't care what anybody else says. It's a cash flow game and how you turn it around. That's why so much of the private equity moneys come in because it's such a great business, even if you do a crappy job. Okay. So, getting the financial part of it ready to "do an internal perpetuation," but then at least you've got options. And something we talk about all the time with our leaders, something that hit me probably 10 years ago, and I've shared it with so many of my clients and friends that at the end of the day, you have to have options. Okay.
Roger Sitkins:
And you work really hard now, do the hard stuff now. It'll be easy later because you'll have options. I could do this or I could do this, because most agencies don't think that far ahead. The great leaders do. The great leaders aren't thinking about next quarter. They're thinking about three years, five years from now. But if you can get to the point where you say, "Okay, let's say five years from now, I'm going, what are the options I want?"
Roger Sitkins:
Will I be able to do it internally because my people have continued to develop and they're really getting better themselves? They're better leaders. They're driving their departments, their areas. Or I could sell it externally, but at least I have an option. The reality is that most agency principals don't have options.
Brent Kelly:
That's right.
Roger Sitkins:
And even though they say they want to do an internal perpetuation, that's one of the things too is we say it, but we don't do it. Well, I want to do an internal perpetuation. Where is your plan? Well, we're working on it. I'm always kidding around saying, "Here in the south, we're fixing too. We're fixing to do." Okay. So, the financial part of it is huge.
Roger Sitkins:
And then, the next part is the fact that, if we get the financial model in place where we've got options, then the bigger thing is what's the leadership model. Well, guess what, your agency is going to be worth a lot more money, whether it's internal or external, if you've got a leadership perpetuation plan in place.
Brent Kelly:
There you go.
Roger Sitkins:
Okay. Because now that next level of leaders, that next level of partners, owners, whatever, they've been getting developed. They're doing better. If I'm buying your company, and I know that part of what I get is a leadership team that is in place, that's really been running the place already, guess what? You're worth more money to me. If I get this hodgepodge of stuff that I've got to fix, you're not going to get a very good multiple, or you're going to try to do it internally.
Roger Sitkins:
And one of the fears I see for people that are not prepared is when they do it internally, they're the bank because they didn't have the plan in place to say, "Okay, here's where we go. Let's go get the financing shape or whatever it may be." So, to me, it's so much of just that decision. What options do you want three years, five years, 10 years from now?
Roger Sitkins:
And then, the next part is don't fall into the trap of saying, "Okay, my next leader, the next owner is my best producer. And now, I'm trying to take he or she out of production and get them into leadership." No, get them in production. Get them out there doing the stuff. And then, when you decide they're going to do it, how do you hand it off? I know you and I have talked about this before.
Roger Sitkins:
I'm not sure we've done it in a podcast, but one of the best internal perpetuations we had is with an agency that I consulted with, did private consulting, private annual planning. They're part of our network for 20 years. Twenty years we got together. And about eight or 10 years into it, the son came in. And a lot of times, the next generation hasn't been led well or maybe they just show up and stuff. But this young man was really sharp, great education.
Roger Sitkins:
And he got into one area, he started in the benefits area. Really grew that and kept growing. You could just tell that he was committed to the legacy because he was the third generation. And when we decided in one of our plans that it was time now to move him into the president's role, we sat with the dad and said, "Okay, for one month starting in the 15th of the month, I want you to list everything you do. Just start a big list."
Roger Sitkins:
"It doesn't matter anything. Just write everything you do. And then, what we'll do is we'll put it into buckets, if you will. And we'll put together a training plan, starting with the easiest thing to the hardest saying, okay, here's what "junior" needs to learn." And we had it spread out over 36 months. We said, "Okay, for the next 36 months, here are the things we're going to teach him."
Roger Sitkins:
"Here are the things we're going to hold him accountable to, so that we would be transferring the wisdom, not just the knowledge, but the wisdom from the dad who was a very successful businessman to the son, in this case in a very logical manner step by step." What was interesting is it worked so well that 18 months into it, we had already gone through the 36-month plan, and we made him the president.
Roger Sitkins:
And today, he's the CEO. And the agency, it's a phenomenal agency, really a great agency. But it was the very purposeful, not just, "Hey, you're going to be the leader." What are the roles of that leader? Let's identify them. Let's put them on a training plan.
Brent Kelly:
I mean, boy, lots of nuggets there for agency leaders. Oh, yeah. I mean, there's some great wisdom there, Roger. There's one word that just jump to my mind, intentional. I'm just being intentional with it. And as you said that, again, one of my many analogies, and actually this came from a conversation I mentioned previously of analogy of agency leaders running the track of business, so to speak.
Brent Kelly:
I did a video on this recently, but it's this idea that you're an agency leader and you're going around the track, so to speak. And maybe you're coming to the final leg, that you're coming around the last curve. And for you, maybe that's one year, maybe that's two years, maybe that's three years, I don't know. But you're kind of coming on that last stretch and it's so many agency leaders, instead of accelerating through the line.
Brent Kelly:
And this, by the way, is a relay race because you're going to hand the baton off and it's either going to go to, again, could be an external source, but it could be internal. But either way, are you building momentum through that finish line to hand the baton off? Or are you stumbling, bumbling, falling over, rolling and just going, "I just hope I get to the end?"
Brent Kelly:
And you said it right, if you want to comment on this, there are millions of dollars left on the table when you're stumbling and bumbling. So, all right, you got your finger up. You want to comment on this.
Roger Sitkins:
Well, yeah, because a lot of times what I see is, okay, three years from today, it's done. So, now we're in the last lap. We're in the last quarter. And we got the baton in your hand. Here it is. Here's the keys to the kingdom. And they get there and they go," I'm not ready yet." And they pull the baton.
Brent Kelly:
That's the dollar one. I like that. Yeah, I like that. They go-
Roger Sitkins:
No, let's run another lap. Even though I'm tired, I'm exhausted, let's run another lap. So, I love the-
Brent Kelly:
I'll be back around again later. I got to add that piece to my story because it is true. It's like the next generation, whoever, is leaning their hand back to grab that baton and pulling away and say, "Just move to the side. I'm going to go one more lap around the track," even though they might need some help to get around. I'm going to wait.
Roger Sitkins:
The younger leaders are grasping air.
Brent Kelly:
That's good. That's good. Well, hey, Roger, I want to get some final comments. And again, thank you for participating in these eight Clicks. A lot of value there. And again, if you haven't listened to them, go back. These are eight breakthroughs that we see. And this last one... I love them all. They're all my favorite, as I always joke. But I am truly passionate about leadership and I think there's just so much here.
Brent Kelly:
And we go back to the beginning, we said that everything rise and falls on leadership. It really does. And I know there's a lot of pressure and weight in that, but the opportunity and what you can provide to others with some of these things that Roger talked about today is absolutely powerful. And I'm just going to wrap up this. And by the way, Roger, I know this series is over. You've done a pretty good job, so maybe at some point, I'll invite you back on the podcast.
Roger Sitkins:
Appreciate that.
Brent Kelly:
We'll see what happens. I'm just being funny here. But go ahead, Roger. You're going to ask-
Roger Sitkins:
I've got one more list. I'm going to give you my closing thought on.
Brent Kelly:
Okay. All right, go ahead, please.
Roger Sitkins:
And we talked about this yesterday in our two-day team session, I said the highways and roadways are littered with indecisive squirrels. In other words, they run onto the middle of the road and they freeze. And if you've seen this... I had this happen. My wife and I were going into Athens, Georgia, the other day and the squirrel ran out. We were in the back roads. And the squirrel ran out and he froze and I started laughing.
Roger Sitkins:
I said, the roads were cluttered with indecisive squirrels. So, here's my thing to you as a leader, don't be an indecisive squirrel. Don't sit in the middle of the road and go, "Should I go this way or should I go this way," because that's when you get run over. That's when you get run over, versus saying, "No, I'm going to make a decision. I'm going to be clear. I'm going to figure out why I'm not going to kneejerk it and then I'm going to run."
Brent Kelly:
Yeah, yeah. Absolutely, absolutely. So great, Roger.
Brent Kelly:
We are wrapping up, but I'm going to give one final thought to everybody who's listening out there on this. And we talked about developing people. Our whole best version possible is about people development. And the best version possible experience that we've hinted at a few different times that we're going to be releasing here and talking more about the end of 2022 and certainly into 2023 as we started a new year is all about people development.
Brent Kelly:
If you're asking yourself, "How can I best develop my people," we want to be the solution, the answer to that question. And we do that through alignment. We do that through getting producers in the right spots to win. We do that through the idea that there is a predictable imbalance in the universe, and we want you to take control of that. We want to do that by helping you separate from everyone else in the marketplace to truly have that unique selling process.
Brent Kelly:
And so, this is all part of, as Roger mentioned earlier, there is absolutely a process and a plan. There's also skill development. There's also a different and deeper level of thinking, a bigger level of thinking that's all part of the experience. So, continue to be on the lookout for what the best version possible experience is all about because it really is designed to answer that question. "Hey Brent, how can I best develop my people to go out and get the results that I want?" That's what the best version possible experience is all about.
Brent Kelly:
I can't wait to share more about it because we want to help empower agencies to do just that. So, Roger, thank you again for being a part of the podcast. Again, we may get you back at some point. We'll see. All right, we'll see. But as a listener, thanks for listening. Again, the Best Version Possible book is available. Go to Sitkins.com/bvp. And thanks for listening.
Other "Clicks" in this Series:
Click #3 - Activity vs. Results
Click #4 - Renewals to Referrals
Click #5 - Trivial Many to Vital Few
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