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Empowering Teams for Lasting Agency Growth with Matt Fairbanks

00:01 - Brent Kelly

If you're going to truly grow your insurance agency, you must be committed to growing your agency's number one asset its people. On today's Agent Leader Podcast, I have a fantastic interview with Matt Fairbanks, Vice President of Sales and Producer Development at EHD Insurance in Pennsylvania. This is a best practice agency that is continuing to invest in its number one asset its people and building internal and external relationships to have growth now and well into the future. Enjoy the show.

00:39

Welcome to the Agent Leader Podcast. This is the podcast for agency leaders across the country and, quite frankly, the globe. We have international listeners to learn more about how to grow, develop their team and their book of business and, ultimately, to become their best version possible.

00:57

I am your host. My name is Brent Kelly. I'm the president of the Sitkins Group. It's a pleasure to be with you today and I am honored, on this specific podcast, to have a longtime. Matt, can I call you a friend we're friends right. Longtime friend and a client, someone who I respect at a super high level. I just have attained a new position with his firm, EHD, which is located in the great state of Pennsylvania. I have Matt Fairbanks, which his new official title. Make sure I get this right, Matt. Vice President of Sales and Producer Development at EHD Insurance in Pennsylvania. Matt, did I do okay on that.

01:37 - Matt Fairbanks

You did, Brent. Thanks so much for having me on the podcast today. I really appreciate it.

01:42 - Brent Kelly

Yeah, again, I'm super stoked to talk to Matt just because there's going to be a lot of great content we can get into. Also, knowing Matt for a long period of time, I always tell anybody that comes on this podcast that, hey, it's just imagine we're having a cup of coffee and we're going to, we're going to talk shop, and Matt and I have had many conversations off podcast airwaves that I think would be super beneficial, and now we can record it and share it with you because he's got some great perspective on things and it always we always go in some pretty interesting directions. So, Matt, before we get into, I really want to spend a lot of time on this podcast about your new role, producer development, things in that area. But before we go there, you've got a pretty long track history and record a good track record of success in production. So, if you would, you know, share with the audience your backstory and also a little bit about EHD as an agency.

02:34 - Matt Fairbanks

Scope, size of EHD yeah, that's probably a great place to start. I've been with EHD almost 15 years. It'll be 15 years in November. Came to them really as my first foray into production and did okay, moved up the ladder there. Focus on benefits. My concentration through my career has been on the employee benefits side of things. EHD is an agency. We're greater than $30 million privately held independent agency something we're super, super proud of, like many agencies that fall into our size. We probably have 65 to 70% of our business in the property and casualty space and the remainder in employee benefits.

03:19

And you know, over my time at EHD I've had the opportunity to progress, move up, move into more player coach roles, sales managers, helping my team to continue to grow their individual blocks of business. Really proud of the fact, Brent, you know I think when I started with you, I guess our relationship now is about what? Six years old, yeah, six years. Now is about what? Six years old, yeah, yeah, six years.

03:44

So in that time when I, when I met you, I, I was, uh, I was that guy searching for the million dollar book of business with about an 800 800 thousand dollar book of business. I'm, I'm, uh, as I transitioned to this new role and and crested out last year, uh, having passed that two million dollar mark, which was one of my goals, one of the things I wanted to do. But as I continue to take on more responsibilities, I am transitioning some of those clients to other real qualified professionals and then assisting and coaching them through that. But it's what I love to do and helping them grow their block as well, part of why I've progressed into this new role.

04:25 - Brent Kelly

Yeah, that's why I'm so fascinated to have this conversation, because we talk a lot about player coaches and you really are making a big transition right, and I'm not going to say a leap of faith Maybe that's not the right terminology but a big jump right into a new role. But prior to that, success as a producer, to be a $2 million producer isn't anything to sneeze at, to say the least. And it does remind me, as you said, that you know six-year-old relationship. So I guess what, we're in kindergarten now, something like that, maybe first grade, yeah, somewhere in there.

04:55

When we started the relationship, I remember some of our side conversations. We came in and did our producer training with your group and I don't know if it happened right away or somewhere in the middle of that with your group and I don't know if it happened right away or somewhere in the middle of that, but it was basically like I'm at about 800K and I think I'm kind of about tapped out, like I want to get to that million. I got to figure a way to sneak across that million dollar line at some point and now you're at 2 million. And of course, there's a lot of concepts and strategies and things about giving up and trade downs and all of that. But Matt really lived and breathed so much of the philosophies and, by the way, you would have grown with or without Sitkins, right.

05:28

But I think you know hopefully to accelerate some of these things in different ways of thinking is critical. So before we get into the producer development side, anything just from your own experience I know we've got a ton of agency leaders listening, but also sales leaders and producers Just maybe what you've learned to get from 800, and I'm going to say one thing but to get from $800,000 to $2 million, that's a big jump. Why, how did you do that?

05:55 - Matt Fairbanks

Yeah, it's kind of a conflict on what I'm going to say. There's two pieces that I think helped me with that. One is to make sure I trusted myself enough to specialize where I could focus and when I say that it led me down the path of identifying larger clients. You know you don't get to $2 million by writing 25 life employee benefits groups. Nothing against those companies. You know they're the breadbasket of what we do. Nothing against those companies. You know they're the breadbasket of what we do.

06:40

But having that confidence to do that and to specialize and become an expert in particular areas, you know, such as self-funding, such as pharmacy, it leads you to a series of complexities. You know you're the ability to handle the complex. These are more complicated groups. But ultimately, where I've tried to place my focus and this goes back to probably middle school, early high school, when a wise person told me about, you know, keeping it simple, stupid and and that's something that I've really tried to focus on with my clients to take the things that are complicated like that and and really make it simple. And it's it's not that easy, you know we, we joke about it, about. Oh, you know, it's just, it's easy. You know it's not rocket science I mean, how many times do we say that?

07:21

But being able to take the complex I mean these are tremendous spends from our employers, whether you're looking at health insurance or commercial property and casual insurance it's a tremendous line item and that's something where you have to make it simple, because when you do that and you can talk to it on the appropriate level, then that's what I say. I'm not saying dumb it down, I'm saying on the appropriate level, what is the conversation with a human resource or professional, a risk manager, a CFO, a president, and being able to put it in the terms of how it impacts their job right? That's really part of my process that I learned, and I do credit Sitkins to some of that because it gave me the time to sit there and focus on how am I going to do this? How am I going to attack each of these future ideal clients?

08:07 - Brent Kelly

Yeah, we can spend more time here and I'll spend a little bit because it's so interesting. But I think, Matt, as you said, that I wrote down on my notepad here. You know that WIIFM and we talk about all the time what's in it for me? And it is. It is fun because the more that you specialize yes, it's more complicated, there's more things, but it's not even so much how much you know about your product and services and deliverables, which is certainly important, it's how they think about those things. Right, the impact.

08:34

That, to me, is the power of specialization. It isn't so much about well, now I know more about the products and, yes, that's important, it's now I know more about them and how they think and want from those things. And that's what changes the conversation and people often take that for granted. And the other thing they'll say and if you want to comment on this, please do. But I always joke with producers and our producer camp. I said hey, are you going to be a better producer one year from now, two years, three years from now than you are today? And of course, everyone and I said well, shouldn't your clients be better clients?

09:10 - Matt Fairbanks

Exactly and you know that's an incredibly, incredibly important statement and very fair. You know, one of the things that I always say to my clients when I'm having that conversation I think I think we've talked about it in some of our training what are, what are, what is EHD going to do with their clients to move their business forward? You know it's a, it's a line I use all the time what am I doing to move you forward? And it gets back to a trusted advisor piece. You know, if we always talk about you want to be the guy at the table with the attorney, with the accountant, maybe with the banker, depending on their financial situation. I want to be there. And I learned this. I was with a prospect and he said that to me and he goes.

“The only guy who's helping move my business forward is my accountant, because he's the one who's coming up with solutions to help me minimize my tax exposure, my tax risk as a business.”

10:06

So of course I stole it, because all good ideas are stolen, and I said what am I going to do to move this guy's business forward so that he hires me? What am I going to do with all of my clients to retain them, to move their business forward. And you have to keep thinking like that, because I don't think there's many businesses out there that just want to stay exactly where they are. So we thinking like that because I don't think there's many businesses out there that just want to stay exactly where they are. Right, you know so. So we're trying to move them forward too. I mean, maybe there's some out there, you know the what, whatever it might be, a little mom and pop shop is like we're happy doing this, we're going to do it till we retire. But most of the businesses we're calling on where we're looking for 50, 60, 100, 200 000 in revenue, they're looking for what's next for their business as well.

10:43 - Brent Kelly

Yeah, yeah, and let's face it, you mentioned the accountants. Maybe an attorney, right, they may be given advice and ideas of how to help them, but it doesn't happen that often, or at least enough, in the insurance space, right, and when you're able to do that, they're like say what, I haven't thought about that. Oh, what would that mean for me? How would that impact me? Right, I mean, and we were talking, you know, we've talked about this many times, but it just comes back to what's in it for me, and to be able to.

11:08 - Matt Fairbanks

I need to stop you there. I need to stop you there. One second because I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't call out the fact that that WII FM, that when we first went through training I had to get clarity on what that was and I had to call out Roger because I was like Roger, nobody listens to the radio anymore. We got to come up with something new, but I mean, I'm all about the what's in it for me. I get it, but I did call Roger out for that. Nobody listens to the radio anymore. We got to come up with a podcast.

11:36 - Brent Kelly

Yeah, I don't know. That's a great point. That'll be one of my side tests after this. And, by the way, for all the listeners, if you could come up with something that would be a better acronym of you know what's in it, based on podcast today. Yeah, I hear you. I don't listen to the radio too much, but, yes, I get you. That's funny. That's funny. All right.

12:05

And, Matt, again, you, maybe you agree, maybe you don't, but I said, moving from addition like how big can I grow my book of business to how much can I help others grow theirs I mean, that's about as basic as it gets. And translating that, and you mentioned EHD being 30 million plus in revenue, privately held really important. And even back to the best practice study a few years ago, they asked a question to 45 CEOs of privately held firms what are the three things that are most important to help you remain private and prosper? And it was people, culture, leadership. I mean that was it, and you go. And now here's your role of okay now, and you go, and now here's your role of okay, now you've got a huge impact in all three of those things, right People, culture and leadership. And the first thing is that's not easy, right, that's not easy when you've got it. By the way, how many people approximately currently in your firm today, Matt yeah?

13:01 - Matt Fairbanks

So we have about 130 individuals in our firm and about 30 of those would be considered producers, now various levels of production, but 30 would fall into that category.

13:17 - Brent Kelly

So I mean and 30 producers, but obviously they interrelate with the rest of the hundred in some different way, right, I mean, it's a team effort on this, and I would say your leadership would be super easy if it just weren't for the darn people and you've got 30 people and then a hundred. You know else in the agency different backgrounds, different experiences, different thoughts, right, I mean different levels of education, different passions how do you mold that together to like start moving the ship, so to speak, forward in the culture? So we're going to start with this, and again, you can take this wherever you want. I like to talk about wins and successes. First, you know what's worked, and again, you can take this from an individual side, a team side, production side, whatever it is you want to do. But I just want you to think about what have been some of the successes that you or your team have experienced and why and again, you can take this wherever you want, Matt, yeah, and I I think this is where we're kind of going.

14:11 - Matt Fairbanks

So the producer development side of my new job title as you went through it and looking, we did take a step back and look at some of the successes of where our next generation of production is going to come from. You know it's no secret in the independent agency space that it's grow or die and we're committed to our independence. We work very hard to remain independent, to have a true succession plan for our organization and in order to make that work, we need to continue to grow as a business and be competitive in the markets where we compete. And when we took a step back at who were some of those successes and they were some individuals that ultimately and it comes through Brent, in some of the things people that were willing to agree and adopt to our culture really understand the way that EHD works, why we're independent, what we want to do to continue to grow our business. They had to have a certain passion, passion for sales, a passion for their own growth, but the successes really came from throwing them fully into our culture, giving them that opportunity to shadow our employees, giving them I mean I hate to use the word safe space because it's way overused these days but giving them that opportunity to come in in an environment where they can learn without that immediate pressure of if I don't sell something in the first month, I'm going to be let go, because there is a lot to learn in this business. You know, here I am, I'm contradicting myself again. I talk about making everything simple, but there is a lot of knowledge that needs to be obtained and garnered to be, to be, a successful insurance producer. So really, we we looked at that and that's what we're trying to replicate at this point those individuals that we were able to bring in and see their success and growth over the years, by really mirroring our successful producers and this is systemic across the industry.

16:23

Brent, there's a lot of us retiring. You know there's been many, many years of non-growth in the industry, people coming in, and now you're looking at it and you've got 30, 40 years of experience, relationships, and you can't just let that go. So we're trying to tap into that now and we're seeing some of that success by saying you know what? Yeah, it's different, the technology is different, whatever it is, but ultimately you have something that you can share with our younger producers and we're going to tap into that. As you look at the other side of your career, you know and sail off into the sunset and good for you that you've earned that and you can do that. But this is what we need from you as you look at your last three to five years towards retirement Share that knowledge and do it.

17:08

That's where we're seeing success. Sharing that knowledge and that's kind of what excites me about this opportunity with my position to grow our company. Because if I can take one of those individuals, you talk about that growth moving from addition to multiplication. So it's not just me taking what I was able to do and multiply that out across the agency, but look at all of our successful producers because we do have a lot and take them and if I can turn that one successful producer into three younger producers and it's going to take a little time for them to build there that's how we're going to hit our growth strategy. Yeah.

17:42 - Brent Kelly

A lot of really good nuggets there. I mean the biggest one, Matt. Again, just so any other feedback you have on this, as I give you my thoughts on this because it's important.

17:50

You know, we always say success leaves clues, and that's true. We always talk about that in terms of, you know, production right or out in the marketplace. There's truth to this, but it reminded me a little bit, or at least I thought of it and you'll appreciate this because I think you'll remember this and for the audience, I don't want to make this complex, but we often see with producers is that when they write a really good account, instead of saying gosh, how do I replicate that? They go well, I got lucky, right, oh, I got. You know, I kind of just even, even, even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while oh, good, I got something.

18:27

Versus the idea of huh, how did that work and how do I replicate that? And I think it's true a lot with insurance agencies, with producers, like we just hope we're going to hit this home run like well, once in a while, you know, you get enough of there one of them's going to hit right and that can happen. Uh, saying, well, maybe we'll just get lucky versus what is a way that we can look from clues that have worked from others, combine those clues together in a puzzle piece and going maybe there's a way we can better replicate success of what the best producers have done? And I know that's a big part of what your new role is and what you're looking and you're exploring and things. And I think one thing that you hit too, Matt that was really powerful I don't know if the audience heard this I did in my ears is not only having a plan for people to come in and, by the way, not give them the sphincter complex.

19:13

I'll go ahead, and I said that, which means you know they can not pucker up too much, like oh my gosh, like you said, like I got all this pressure on me, but to say, hey, there is a tangible plan, we're going to help you walk through. Now they've got to do the behaviors right, but they've got an outline of what it looks like. That's the front side. The back side is what happens with those and the term that we use and Kerry Glenn, and our senior consultant talks about this the gliders, the ones that are gliding out those last three, four, five, six years. What is their responsibility other than just to kind of disappear Because they've got a ton of knowledge, a ton of relationship, a ton of wisdom that we can share. But we got to have a plan around that. So I ask you zero questions there, Matt. I just went on a semi monologue, but any response to those things that I brought up there.

20:05 - Matt Fairbanks

No, I mean it's the one thing. Right, what is the one thing? And you know, we know one thing is a series of one things, but bringing it together in that one thing of you know it is a little bit of a cradle to grave approach. You know, when we're looking at our organization and what are the needs of that new producer that we're bringing in, what can they bring to the team? Because they also have things beyond insurance that they can bring to us the idea of how to better use technology.

20:35

How do you interact with the next generation of business leaders that we want to talk to? What are those connections that they have? How do we make sure that we're embracing that? And that's really part of it. It's like, okay, you don't know insurance, but you know the son of the business owner who is the heir apparent. He's had a relationship with somebody for years. We know that it's been a terrible insurance program. You're going to give me that opportunity to do that.

21:01

So how do we tap into that side of it? How do we continue to grow the producers that are in, you know, the best years of their production? Yeah, looking at them and again, having them play that middle ground helping out the younger producers, assisting our more veteran producers, as you say, as they glide to make sure that all of those transitions occur appropriately, and then again, making sure that our veteran producers know that you know we still have a place here for you. I understand it gets tiring. You've been selling for 40 years and you're like I got a great book and I'm doing okay. Yeah, that's great, you earned that. But here's what you're going to give to our culture organization as we, as we, continue to move you through the rest of your process. So bringing that all into that one thing, that one piece, that's really. That's the, that's the challenge. I mean that. That's where my focus is right now.

21:59 - Brent Kelly

It's, it's a huge challenge. And you know, Matt, a question that we ask agencies and we have initial conversations with them, some form of this question is, you know well, first of all, back up and we'll say, you know is are your people your number one asset? And you know, yes, of course. Right, okay, agreed. So question what is your growth and development plan for your number one asset your people? And I'm not going to say it's an easy question, because it's not, but it's an important, like vitally important, question.

22:30

And for all the agency listeners, again, you don't have to answer this. You're driving in your car or whatever like to me, but to yourself, if you'd say, okay, as an agency leader, what is the growth and development plan that we have for our number one asset are people? And if you go, I don't really know. It's a really good question to explore and begin to figure out. And you know, Matt, to your point, is that that plan? By the way, regardless of your age and experience, everybody, even the ones on the way out, do desire some formal plan. Right, they absolutely do, you know.

23:07 - Matt Fairbanks

Yeah, go ahead, man no, no, I mean I on that piece, um and I, I do think about this often as we look at individuals that you know, yeah, migrate out of, out of the industry when you've worked so hard to build these relationships over the years and and you know, joke, um, it's a relationship business and it does sound cliche but it is, and you've worked so hard and these people become your friends, you know, your colleagues, all of those things they don't want to see that I just walked away and that was it, and these people were, were left out to dry.

23:40

You know they don't want to do that.

23:42

There's too much pride in this industry, those that are successful, I, that's part of what makes them successful, the pride and the ability to do that, to maintain relationships. I mean it's you joked about how we're in kindergarten now, but I mean, think about how hard it is over time to maintain relationships, even with people that you're friends with. How many friends are you still friends with from high school, from college, from grade school? You know, when you look at that and when you're maintaining relationships and you're trying to have 20, 30, 40 year business relationships, the amount of effort and time that goes into that and then you don't want to just see it all go away. So those are things that we continue to talk about in again in our culture and we want to assure those that are moving the other way that's part of that transition, of that process. You're going to help us bring in the new individual who's going to continue to maintain that relationship at the next generation level, to show that we can still provide that top level of service.

24:35 - Brent Kelly

Yeah, there's so much in there because I just, you know relationships take work, but they're worth it, but they do take work. Oh, yeah, it takes work. And I think the other thing. And one final comment I have on this, and it's interesting in my brain, like thinking through this, because you do think about, oftentimes, the producers near the end of their career and like, oh, you know, they're just kind of gliding out. They just want to kind of coach the finish line and to some degree, maybe financially they might.

25:00

But here's the thing, what is important to them. And you just hit it Like I've spent years and years building, developing, improving these relationships right and different aspects of their business, for example, the last thing that any dedicated producer would want is that all just falls apart and it's all over, like that. And so to tap into that and say, how can we help you as a leader to continue have continuity in that relationship, make it more of a legacy relationship than just totally based on you? And people go, oh, let's talk about that, right. So it's to me it's finding the areas that are most important right for the people you're trying to serve and tap into those.

25:42

So I think that's incredibly impactful, Matt, that you shared that. All right, we could probably spend a lot of time here and I know you probably have a hard cutoff here at some point. But I want to talk about the challenges, because I mentioned this isn't easy, right the things that you're trying to do and the things that EHD is doing. So, again, very open-ended question, Matt, but if you had a list through and think about what are the top challenges that you believe that you're going to face in growth from the agency, growth from your department, what's jumping out at you?

26:12 - Matt Fairbanks

Yeah, and these are challenges that are you know there's nothing earth shattering in my first comments here obviously, finding the appropriate talent, and I think part of the challenge in that is being confident in your decisions, and that's the good and the bad of those decisions. So, as we continue to develop our process in producer development to identify those that we feel can be committed to this work as we talked about Brent, it's a lot of work committed to it, committed to the process, because we're clearly identifying for them. This is what we need you to accomplish in three, six, 12 months before we're really setting you off to go sell. But finding those people, and the challenge is having that confidence in yourself that you're picking the right person, but also admitting defeat when you realize I did not pick the right person. And I think that's one thing I've seen with a lot of agencies and I know that we've had some struggles with it here where we will hire someone and you want to consistently convince yourself they just need another month, they just need another two months. Right, they told me they got this one that's coming down the pike and they're going to sell that one and then it doesn't go. But they got another one.

27:28

And in the real, the real problem with that is you're talking yourself out of your process. So, going back to being a part of our conversation, we know what works, we've seen what's successful. We've seen that consistent approach to developing your relationships, developing your pipeline, all of those things. And if you're not doing that consistently building your network, finding those opportunities, building your own brand and being out there in public so that people know who you are If those things aren't happening, I can't sit back and say well, you know, we gave them a shot. I really think they're going to work out two, three months from now. They got this one opportunity. They're not doing all the pieces right. It's not going to work and that's hard.

28:13

That's a challenge because it's really a self-reflection. You know nobody likes to fail and you're like and every time you bring someone in and if they don't work out in that short time, I mean you made the decision to hire them, you've got to make the decision to part ways with them. That's a huge, huge challenge. So you know, finding the people out of the talent pool that are willing to work, but then also being willing to cut your losses, that's a huge piece. It sounds a little cold, but it's not. It's better for you, it's better for them. You know, in the long run, not everybody's cut out to do this and in my time of doing this I've, unfortunately, seen the people who come in. They see success, you know. They've seen the people who have been successful and can't understand why they're not there like that, you know, and quickly, and that's a struggle for them. You know who who's going to bring them along, but ultimately it comes down to putting a lot of time in.

29:14 - Brent Kelly

I just wrote something down about. I've got a few other follow-ups on this, but it hit me so obviously we're doing a podcast here. And I said I feel like from a leadership dilemma is you're trying to sell a two or three hour Joe Rogan podcast, right? Or a long form podcast in a TikTok world, right? I mean it's like, oh, I just want it now. I want this thing and it's going to be quick and it's going to be great and it's like you know, to be able to recruit people in with the idea of, hey, listen, this is an incredible, fulfilling career, personally, financially, you name it, but it's a certainly up front and oh well, you know. So it's like it's it's true, and again it is.

29:54

It's challenging and I'm not trying to blame the younger generation not going there, uh, but it's this idea of there is a different mindset and culture, like there's a lot more instant, quick. Give it to me now. I want to get it done. I don't want to deal with it versus I can see a long-term way. This will be a life changer. Why don't? I don't have time for all that man, you know, but so I mean, is there a way? And I again, I don't know. If there's a question, is there a way you try to balance that? Have you found some ways to communicate with people as you're trying to bring people in, to be able to show them the big picture and why it's worth it?

30:30 - Matt Fairbanks

Yeah, so that that is one of our major challenges right now, one of the challenges in my new position, as we're talking to some of these recruits from maybe a year or two of B2B experience and it is. We talk about freedoms a lot right and earned freedoms, and that's part of that. But getting them to understand your freedoms are earned, like you don't just get them, but also then to look at the opportunities that exist within this business and what you should identify as freedoms. You know that one of the things that we keep pushing on here is you know what is your place in your community, where you live, work, sell, whatever it might be. That is one of the great freedoms of their job.

31:21

And when I talk to my successful producers, that fact that I'm not sitting here with a cold call phone list all day, eight hours a day, hours a day, like my job, gives me the freedom to, with my success, go out and meet people a different way, build those relationships in a different way. So I'm kind of going around answering your question, but it's showing them that there is the opportunity. And, again, time. We talked about time. You know our only diminishing asset, Brent. We talk you and I talk about it all the time. I have the way to choose how to use my time, and so you're trying to sell something beyond the hey, I just need $80,000 and I can come work and start selling for you, or a hundred thousand dollars or $120,000. I mean, I know your podcast is all over and there's different, there's different amounts on that and kind of boggles my mind.

32:09

When I talk to a young person, I'm like you want that for not proving me that you can, proving to me that you can really accomplish anything and that's like you know, winning the starting quarterback position, but you've never thrown the ball, like you know, and so when you're having those conversations, these are all the things that we're giving you.

So you get to that point and and that's really the conversation we've had to move to these are you're getting freedoms right away, because we're allowing you to develop your sales process, to find your sales process. Now we've got guardrails on what you're going to do, but these are the things you need to accomplish. We're going to give you the freedom to go do it, as opposed to, say, sit at your desk and I'm only going to judge you based on the fact that you're making 25 calls a day, 125 calls a week, and just pounding your head against the, you know, against your desk, because when you're doing that, all you're trying to do is make the appointment, but you haven't learned anything about insurance.

33:07

Yeah you know and you haven't learned anything about the culture of the company and you haven't learned anything about the people you're going to be working with, all the things that make this job great yeah so it's a challenge to communicate that to people and get them to take that leap and understand that there's so many great things, but then also show them the picture of what does it look like for the people who successfully do this. What does that look like in year two? What does that look like in year three? And what's it look like in year two? What does that look like in year three and what's it look like? You know, all of those, all of those things. So, um, that's really the picture, and then really trying to map out that strategy to show them that it's a long game, like we talked about earlier.

33:45 - Brent Kelly

Yeah, that's again. Those are. Those are challenging conversations and I mean I think you said the idea of like we say is it a birthright or earned right? Well, you know. Well, you know. And I think about my daughter, who's going to be starting to get her permit to drive and, like you know, right or privilege. Well, I mean, you know all these things, but it's like, well, you don't just get it, yeah, you have to earn it right you do.

34:08 - Matt Fairbanks

I mean that's funny. You bring that up because my twins just got their license, so they went there and I took them for their test on the same day and one passed and one did not. But when you talk about it, it was a real definition of earning. Not everybody just gets this. Here we are two people. It was an interesting ride home, by the way.

34:26 - Brent Kelly

Yeah, I would have a whole separate podcast on how you deal with that situation. I bet that was a fun ride home.

34:34 - Matt Fairbanks

It was, yeah, one twin trying to kind of limit her exuberance and the other trying to limit her disappointment. So it was an interesting ride home. But anyway, we digress. I apologize.

34:48 - Brent Kelly

I do want to hit one more thing. And do you have a hard cutoff? I need to ask you. I should have asked you before we started here. In the next couple of minutes I want to hit one more thing and do you have a hard cut out? I need to ask you. I should have asked you before we started here. The next couple minutes, I have another. I can go for another 10, 15. All right, we'll try to do another five-ish minutes here, just audience. So hang in, this is important stuff. I mean I, love this conversation and again, we could go all over here, but I just it hit me.

35:06

One of the things that I heard, kind of between the lines, Matt, that you were talking about from a sales leadership perspective, is like this idea we talk about this you can't manage numbers, you manage behaviors, and so to give newer producers, for example, to go back to their list of specific behaviors that we know that work, and knowing that outcomes are not guaranteed they're not. You can't just say if you do this, you automatically get that. It does make it more predictable for sure. Get that, it does make it more predictable for sure. And so oftentimes I see, with leadership and sales leadership is that, you know, it's like, well, by the time I look at the numbers or whatever that is, or we don't have anything to check, and all of a sudden we're like I don't really know if they're doing all the right things, and then on the leader go I don't know if I did all the right things, and that's a hard thing. Like is this the wrong person? Or am I not a good leader? And maybe they don't say that out loud, but like these are these internal conflicts because, like I really hope for this person, I really thought this person was going to work out and maybe I failed them or maybe they're not right or I don't know.

36:02

And then we live in this weird arbitrage of like I will just let it go a little longer and see what happens versus saying there are very few specific things that we know that work behaviorwise, saying there are a very few specific things that we know that work behavior-wise right and we want to see you model those behaviors. It's just like in sports, right, because you go practice your brains out all week doesn't guarantee you win the game. Does it give you a better chance to win? Yes. Will you win more often? Yes, so part of it is if you just put enough time. It's like the coach is always like you know what. All of a sudden, this person explodes in a game and you go. We've seen that last three weeks in practice. It hasn't come to fruition, but it finally did and we knew it would. So you're nodding your head, is that, does that align with some of your thinking?

36:42 - Matt Fairbanks

Well it is. It kind of goes back to one of the points I, or a couple of points I was making. So you know the behaviors we can control and define for a new producer, and you know you're talking about it. If you put someone out on the practice field, using your analogy, and you just you know, you give them a pair of cleats and a ball and you say, go, practice, what's going to happen? There's not going to make them better for the game. No, they're not learning the right plays. They're not doing that.