From $10 Million to $140 Million & Beyond with Trent Tillman of TrueNorth

00:01 - Brent Kelly

What lessons can you learn from an agency that started 23 years ago at roughly under $10 million in revenue and now today will exceed $140 million in revenue? On today's Agent Leader Podcast, I have the privilege of interviewing Trent Tillman, president and Chief Revenue Officer of TrueNorth, and Trent's going to talk about many components to his agency's growth, but ultimately that it comes down to three things people, culture and leadership. So many lessons to be learned in this podcast. Get your pen and paper ready. Enjoy the episode. Welcome to the Agent Leader Podcast. This is the podcast for agency leaders to learn, to grow, to develop and ultimately become their best version possible. Excited today to have a fantastic guest. This is the president and CRO of TrueNorth, which is a top 100 agency. We'll talk about that. I've got Trent Tillman with me today. Trent, welcome to the Agent Leader Podcast.

 

01:06 - Trent Tillman

Thanks, Brent, glad to be here.

 

01:08 - Brent Kelly

Awesome. Well, I did my homework, although I know you all pretty well and some of the things. This was brag on your webpage and you can take this further wherever you want, but I see you've got top workplaces in the US and Iowa most giving companies in Iowa, coolest place to work. That's pretty awesome and, as I mentioned, you're currently I know there's different publications out there but #36 of all the top 100 insurance agencies all over. So, again, part of what you've done in your role and what TrueNorth continues to do is quite impressive. And so if you would, Trent, just start with an overall background, maybe a little bit about yourself, your experience and getting into the industry, and then, of course, an overview of TrueNorth as a company.

 

01:51 - Trent Tillman

Yeah, no, that sounds great. I appreciate it and yeah, thanks for the shout out. We're certainly proud of our culture and our people and all those accolades are really a testament to our people, so we're very blessed. Yeah, I'll give you a little bit of background on myself and I can talk a little bit about TrueNorth. So I started off at TrueNorth right out of college in 2003. My background I grew up in the Des Moines area. My dad actually owned an MGA, so I grew up in and around the insurance business. My first job was working for him, issuing certificates of insurance and binders and working with the agents that they worked with, and so I had a lot of kind of administrative background experience in my early, early years. And he also did retain an element of a retail business as well, so I got to see him working with clients.

 

02:43

So I had a lot of exposure. Enough, where I went to college and majored in finance and real estate because I figured I would try a different path. But there's never any good summer jobs in commercial real estate unless you want to get coffee for a broker. So I ended up doing summer jobs for him. I had an internship at Holmes Murphy, one summer internship with a life insurance in Des Moines life insurance company, Ameris Life Insurance company, which is now it's been rolled up into a few different things. So but anyway. So I had a lot of experience. The folks at TrueNorth had gotten ahold of my resume from the head of the finance department at UNI and saw I had a bunch of insurance experience and they reached out to me and I was in my final couple of months of school. I was really kind of trying to narrow down which of the commercial real estate brokers in Des Moines I wanted to go work for and I got a phone call from them.

 

03:32 - Brent Kelly

At that point in time, I didn't know who TrueNorth was. I'd never heard the name, I'd grown up in the business. I thought I knew most of the names of insurance brokers in the state of Iowa, and the reason being they were really 18 months old at that point in time. So it was pretty young. Again, I'll share a little bit about that in a second. Anyway, I came down to Cedar Rapids and met with who was our COO at the time, as well as a guy named Jason Smith who's now our CEO, and Jason’s a couple years older than I. He was in the transportation practice as a young producer looking to bring in a college grad to run alongside him and look, really evolve into production and and go sell and grow the business. And they laid out a plan at that point in time.

 

04:17

So TrueNorth in 2001, when it first came together, was roughly $9 million of revenue, maybe $10 million and probably 80 employees. By the time I was there it was rushing against 100 employees and maybe 12 million of revenue. One of the key focus areas that was really kind of our first big niche as a firm was transportation. So, and Jason had really been the first to really specialize in any type of a niche, and he wanted me to come in and join him in building really the transportation practice at TrueNorth, and so they laid out. We used to have these roadmaps, literally like fold out roadmap looking things, and it was a 10 year business plan that said you know, here's where we're at today, here's where we're going, we're going to foster the development of our young people. We're going to help you learn the business. We're going to teach you insurance sales, the trucking world, etc. When the time's right, we'll let you loose to go Produce. May earn the invitation to become a partner in the firm, and so one of the things that TrueNorth did when they founded the firm in 2001 is they put rules in place that at age 62, equity needed to begin to transition, which you could then start to see. It was a young guy coming out of college, but I knew that there would be buying opportunities coming up. You had some folks in their 50s, some are rushing against 60 already, and so you there was a lot of you could just sense the opportunity in that, and so my background being my dad and being in an MGA I understood the value of a niche. I understood the unique culture that TrueNorth had. From my different exposures I understood the development and investment they were going to make in me. So the kind of the rest is history.

 

06:06

I ended up pivoting my path and put the real estate idea on the shelf and moved to Cedar Rapids. I started the Tuesday after Memorial Day of 2003. So I've been at TrueNorth my entire career. So 21 years and some change later. You know my path through the firm was carry the briefcase, became a producer, worked really hard and built my book and earned the opportunity to become a partner. With that, became some responsibility for team and then that evolved to responsibility for the entire transportation division and that evolved to responsibility for the whole firm. So as we sit today Jason's CEO, I'm president, we co-lead the organization. I spend most of my time focused with our EVPs of the divisions of TrueNorth on how are we growing our business, how are we developing producers, what innovation should we be making, et cetera. So TrueNorth I'll give you a little background on TrueNorth as a firm Again, I mentioned formed in 2001 as a merger of three local Cedar Rapids shops.

 

So Insurance Services. Corp. Davis Jones, Lamb and Verhille Associates, all of which were 25 to 50 year old Cedar Rapids based firms. All of them had hit really kind of a ceiling of complexity. So they each hit really a size where they were, they were bumping up against their ability to continue to scale and grow, because the presidents and the principals of those agencies were the number one salespeople, but also they were the head of HR, the janitor and the CFO all in one and they all shared the same pain and actually they all shared a fractional COO that helped bring them around a table and say you know, you guys each have unique focuses and areas. You have a little bit of overlap from a competitor standpoint, but not a lot, and if you pooled it all together, you could address your customers' needs more holistically and provide really integrated solutions with a team of specialists and you would have enough extra resource where you could hire a professional management team to run the business and you can focus on what your unique abilities are, which is growing the business.

 

08:14

And so that was the nexus of TrueNorth and again founded in 2001. They pulled it together that fall so we're right at roughly the 23-year anniversary of TrueNorth. As we sit today, we are sitting at roughly 625 employees throughout the entire platform. We'll do about $141, $142 million of revenue this year is what it's looking at and that's really broken into some key chunks.

 

08:45

So we have TrueNorth as a brand which really has four main divisions. There's our transportation focus, a risk management focus, which is basically P&C that's everything other than trucking employee benefits and then we have a risk and workforce solutions group that is really non-brokerage services such as safety and loss control or HR consulting, et cetera. So those are really the four main divisions of TrueNorth and that's roughly 95 million of that revenue. We have another group called First MainStreet, which is under the TrueNorth umbrella, which is really where we've gone out and we've actually aggregated up a lot of small town agencies across the state of Iowa and now into Minnesota, South Dakota, looking at Nebraska, looking at some in Wisconsin, and that's been really a kind of fun business to see evolve from the standpoint of you've got a lot of small town agencies out there that don't have great succession plans. We're able to provide that and typically there's a local owner that stays in place. You know, we might buy 75% of the agency but we retain some level of local operation.

 

09:54

But then we're able to help them automate the backroom you know HR systems, our Epic agency management system, our shared contracts with the insurance companies, et cetera. So we can really help bring the value of that agency up and keep that agency, which is part of that core of the community, particularly these small towns across the Midwest keep that in place and keep that in that town as kind of really a rock in that community. And then we have what we call strategically related organizations where we've invested in things that are non-retail insurance brokerage. So we have an MGA that we've bought, we've got a claims management firm we've bought, we've got a professional safety consulting firm that we've bought. So all of those are really firms that are associated with the value proposition that we might bring but they're not retail insurance brokerage like First MainStreet and TrueNorth as brands are. So that rounds out the balance of our portfolio.

 

10:55

So we've done acquisitions in that First MainStreet and then that strategically related organizations world, the TrueNorth core. We've done some acquisitions over the years but most of that growth has been organic growth. So we spend a lot of effort on trying to grow that organic machine. It's a lot cheaper to grow that than it is to buy businesses. So if we can retain that balance. That's good. Our overall goal has been to try to grow at 15% or a year over year, with a mix of the organic growth being, you know, 10% of that and maybe 5% being the acquisition component. So that's.

 

11:35

That's kind of a quick overview, maybe the one thing I forgot to mention we do have a financial strategies team where we're doing 401ks and some funky life insurance type stuff, and that sits really inside of our employee benefits group, is where that's housed, inside of our our firm as well. So that's kind of TrueNorth, a little bit of my background, a little bit of the firm background.

 

11:56 - Brent Kelly

It's amazing, it's a great. I mean it really is. I know it's a consistent process, but what a what a success story you've had. I mean, going back, I wrote down, you know, you put out the map or whatever, and you know years ago, and here's what we're going to try to be, and here you are sitting. You know I said 142 million in revenue and all the different things and the operations, and I think the big thing I want to ask a follow up question on is, of course, is to grow.

 

12:19

That it requires people, and you know, one of the things that I believe in, I know you and your organization believe in because you have an exceptional culture, I mean some of those things I read earlier they don't just come. These awards don't just come just because they come. Like you've earned the right to that, but it's about growing your people, to grow the agency and you know what I really appreciate about what you all foster is the idea that we are an agency of people growth. And the other thing you said there, too, was just getting people in their unique ability or doing the things they do best. So maybe I'll just start with this. I mean, how is it? I know this is a very broad question, so take it wherever you want, Trent, but how has TrueNorth been able to truly invest and help grow people? Because that's really what it's all about. What's something or some things that TrueNorth has done in that regard?

 

13:06 - Trent Tillman

Sure, yeah, that's a great question and a great call out. You know, I had this conversation here recently with some of our team. I can remember back when in my early career when people would come to TrueNorth and they'd comment like you guys have something special here, you know, you're going to have to work hard to protect it as you continue to grow, and at that point we were just roughly over 100 employees.

 

13:28

That's always stuck with us. I think maybe what I'm getting at is we've been either realizing it or not. We've been very intentional about trying to protect that environment. You know, forever and a day, since we really were small, we truly do believe in our, you know, people. Determining wins is actually one of the taglines for what that we use inside of TrueNorth and outside.

 

13:54

That is the core of of what makes us successful, you know, as a service related organization or service focused industry organization. I mean we don't have a tangible product, right? I mean, yeah, certainly there's insurance policies and whatnot. I mean we don't have a tangible product, right? I mean, yeah, certainly there's insurance policies and whatnot, but what is for sale is the knowledge of our people and the service of our people and the experience that they bring to our customers. And so what I will tell our people is, at the end of the day, when our producers are out selling, they're selling you, they're selling our firm, which is the collection of our people and the unique abilities they all bring to the plate we have. As we've continued to grow. We've been able to invest in things like really our talent development group.

 

14:37

We have folks that are you know they really are focused, with all of our operational leaders, on how are we going to develop and grow our people everything from technical skill to business acumen, to leadership. We've partnered with, you know. Obviously, on the producer side of Sitkins, we've partnered with, we work with, a group called the Table Group, which is Patrick Lencioni's group. That really is more of how do you think as a leader and how do you, you know, how can you effectively manage and run your business. And it's not specific to insurance, it's just, you know, in general.

 

15:10

But we've done a lot of things like that. We've got some professional coaches that we'll tap into from time to time depending on the role and position. But we're big believers in how do we grow our people and you know we aspire that every person we bring on we want TrueNorth to be a career company for them and we want to help them grow. You know, my story is, you know, even though I'm in the role I'm in, that's not unique to TrueNorth. There's a lot of folks that came out of college and have spent their entire career at TrueNorth and they're senior account managers or they're operational leaders or senior producers.

 

15:46

You know, that's it's really. There's a lot of opportunity in our firm and, as we continue to grow, one of the things we've started to really embrace is the fact that there's career ladders, you know, and what really is we've. We now have multiple divisions and multiple teams, multiple practices, et cetera. We've come up with this, it's career lattice, you know. Somebody might start as a, as an account manager in our construction group and move into our transportation division when there's an opportunity for more of a senior account manager role or, you know, a broker role or something else, and so there's the opportunity to really kind of move around and find your place inside of TrueNorth and find the opportunities to continue to grow as an individual, because you know everybody wants, you know, some level of individual growth. We're able to provide that to them and we want to embrace it and support it versus stifle it or be selfish with it amongst team members. So that's been, that's been really effective for us.

 

16:45

You know there's probably other things. I mean we, we're very passionate about, you know we'll talk about your culture is basically what you expect minus what you'll tolerate, and we take that to heart. I, you know, I believe that starts with leadership and it's it also transcends to producers. You know producers and I am one, so I can I feel I can say this safely. I mean, producers can be alpha personalities and they can be difficult to work with.

 

17:18

So I spend a lot of time with the producers, helping them understand how to more effectively work with the team and what's expected and what we'll tolerate, and that's we've been very blessed because we've got really good producers and partners inside of the firm. That really check your ego at the door is again another saying of ours. And they do, and we, we expect that, and so that all of that, then, I think, transcends into our culture, where our people feel empowered, they feel part of the team. Jason and I will talk. Boss is a four-letter word. I hate it if I get introduced and say this is my boss. We work with 600 and some odd people. We don't have 600 and some odd people working for us. I've never been wired that way, nor has he, so I think that kind of starts up top and we really live that on a daily basis.

 

18:09

We just we're blessed to work with and support all of our people, you know our job at the end of the day is to set our people up so that they can do their best work and clear the roadblocks for them wow, a super powerful trend again.

 

18:22 - Brent Kelly

It just goes back to success of the organization and um, could you share with me? I I wrote it down. I think it's important for the audience too. You talk about culture, the way that you define it. Well, say that again. I'd love for you to share that.

 

18:34 - Trent Tillman

Yeah, and it's not all right, we we lifted this from someone, but it just resonated with us. It was something along the lines of culture is what you expect minus what you tolerate. So think of a math equation. Right, so everybody talks about I this is what is expected, but really what you tolerate diminishes that and that's what you're left with so yeah, that's fantastic yeah go ahead and sorry no, that's my fault.

 

19:00 - Brent Kelly

I I didn't mean to cut you off there, I just it was interesting. We we've talked about this before, you know, in different trainings that we've done. But this idea of do not complain about that, what you tolerate and there's a lot of truth to that you know how many organizations are like, well, there's this, they're doing this, and it's like, well, do you allow it? You tolerate it? I guess we do Right, yeah, yeah. So your culture really hits home with that.

 

19:23 - Trent Tillman

Yeah, yes.

 

19:25 - Brent Kelly

It's really good. I want to kind of follow up on some of that too, because again, there's so much, so much success here. I know we've got, you know we'll have forever, so there's only so many questions. But what hit me when you said this, Trent, was like if, if you are an individual in our organization this is what I heard and tell me, if I'm off here that's committed to growth and development, we in our organization this is what I heard and tell me, if I'm off here that's committed to growth and development, we'll find a place to deploy you. Yeah, right, I mean to a degree.

 

19:54

And you know, I think that sets the foundation, because it is unusual in today's world to have people work multiple years in organization. But we can look at studies of how many people switch job for job, job, job, and what you're really fostering is that culture of it is a career path. It doesn't mean it's guaranteed, but if you do the things that you're capable of, we will do our best to help you evolve and grow and develop in the organization. You know what I mean? This may sound like an obvious question or maybe there's an obvious answer to it, but like, what has that done? Because you got, you know best place to work and all these things, but tell me what that's fostered in the organization from like a, you know, an emotional standpoint, because that's powerful stuff.

 

20:31 - Trent Tillman

Yeah, well, you know, one of the things that I remember was on one of the, you know, I explained that roadmap, that we used years ago and the final year on that roadmap, I think was 2011 right? Because it's a 10-year roadmap from 2001 and we wanted to be a destination company was where that roadmap kind of ended up at.

 

20:48

And a destination company was defined. As for clients or insurance companies want to partner with us and our colleagues are wanting to be here, and so, you know, I do believe that that is wrong. I'm sure that the accolades are great, but the culture kind of speaks for itself. Right, we've been very blessed. We have a tremendous interest of employees, prospective employees, wanting to come to TrueNorth, and so we actually, as an example, we're just starting our internship program. We're doing it. We're actively doing internship interviews right now for next summer already we established what we're going to have as a new business development internship. Next summer we're going to hire six to nine positions specifically in a business development track. Within the first week we had 65 applicants just out of University of Iowa and Northern Iowa and we're still trying to get to Iowa State and some of the other local colleges. So we've got a tremendous interest in TrueNorth and the brand and the reputation and I don't know that I mean maybe it does the accolades maybe carry some weight, but I think it's our people in the community talking about who we are, what we do, what we're all about, and it just what it feels like to be part of our firm that allows the. You know we're getting a lot of great interest from a lot of great perspective colleagues, and so, as we look to grow, I had said years ago, our biggest challenge to growth isn't about unique things to sell. We have that. It's going to be making sure we've got access to great people to allow us to grow. So both staff and producers that is the trick. It's a people game. More than anything else. We have to be able to attract talent and so we've been blessed.

 

22:49

Cedar Rapids is a, you know we're a great community in Iowa. We're roughly a 200,000 people community, but it is it's kind of one of those you kind of want to be here and so in the city's done a good job of attracting more young talent and we're a half hour from the University of Iowa. But we've also opened up an office in Des Moines. We've got an office in Denver, Colorado, and an office in Chicago. So therefore we can recruit from the school. And if you got you know we have this, these examples where I want to go live in Denver, I want to live in Chicago, that's fine, we can, we can put you there, and so we've been able to grow those offices.

 

23:25

You know those started off as really acquisitions of some firms. What they really evolved to is those are just extensions of our, of the home office. It's we do have local presence and local business and that we're working on. We actually it's not uncommon to have staff members sitting in either any of those remote office that are servicing business in another office. So we've got a producer in Colorado who runs our real estate practice. He works with producers and all the other units and I should say all the other divisional or regional locations. We've got account managers that service books of business for producers in Cedar Rapids, but they live in Des Moines or Chicago. So we've been able to leverage that footprint to actually give people the opportunity to be where they want to be but also be a part of the firm at the same time. So that's been beneficial to us as well, and those are things that have come with growth. Those didn't exist 10, 15 years ago. So we've had to kind of just work our way to that place. But, it is kind of an extra arrow in our in our quiver right now yea.

 

24:25 - Brent Kelly

Well, I mean and you kind of said this I mean the accolades I'm sure are great. I mean it's, it's good PR and all that. But it's like with a client. You know, if I say it it might be true, if you say it it is. Yeah. If you've got a team of all these employees that are saying, hey, this is a great place, you know that that's what speaks volumes.

 

24:54 - Trent Tillman

Here's the thing with some of those deals like greatest places to work, for example. To be in that there's two things. It's a survey that all your colleagues take. So, then we get the survey results and we actually our biggest interest in partaking of that is simply to get the results of the survey. We want to understand what our people are feeling at work. We can continue to make fine tune and make improvements to get better, and we take that to heart, we share, we get the survey results, we summarize them, but we'll share them with all of our people. Like, all right, here's the feedback, here's where you said we're doing a good job, and here's the feedback. Here's where you said we're doing a good job and here's where we potentially need to make some tweaks, and we're going to do that. And so we continue to communicate that. We're here, we hear what you're saying. We're going to continue to fine tune and tweak and hopefully get better, and then we'll report back on how we're doing. And then we're going to do another survey and you tell us if we've made improvement.

 

25:40

And so the fact that you know you can, if you give a survey, you get results. You do nothing with it, people will never take it again or they'll give you really bad reviews the next time. We've been able to continue to enhance or move up in the rankings for some of those just because our people are giving us great feedback. Also, we get great engagement to even be considered for some of those. I think you have to have like 80% participation of your staff. If you don't, like they just kick you out. So we've got good engagement of our people and we're taking it serious for the feedback they give us from a leadership perspective to really act on it, to continue to fine-tune and oil the machine.

 

26:18 - Brent Kelly

Yeah, it's fantastic. I mean, yeah, 80% of that group. That's impressive alone.

 

26:23 - Trent Tillman

So yeah, it might be 60 or 80, I don't know the exact one.

 

26:29 - Brent Kelly

It's a lot. All right, we won't hold you to it, but anyway it's a majority. Yeah, well you one thing I want to hit on too, and obviously so much about culture. I mean, I know there's agency leaders listening. You know you're a, you're a producer. You still produce today. Even in your role of all these things. Obviously we have a relationship around production and development. I'm curious, just you know cause you're looking at 10% organic growth, 5% acquisition, right, and part of that is you continue to foster and of course, the bigger the numbers get, there's challenges to that. So maybe I'll phrase it this way what's one area where you believe TrueNorth has really excelled in the sales, the production game, and what do you think is the biggest challenge from right now moving forward to continue that growth?

 

27:57 - Trent Tillman

Yeah, that's a good question. I think you know where we've really excelled is where we've really gotten in a niche specialization. So I mentioned transportation is a good example. That was really the first niche, if you will, that we started to build a team around. That's the only thing these producers are going to target. Before that, when TrueNorth came together, one of the firms, they focused in larger risk management but the producers, you know, they had some trucking accounts. They also had some manufacturing accounts and some large contractors here in eastern iowa area.

 

28:30

Uh, we, we really went deep and when Jason came out of college in the late 90s and started at TrueNorth, he was the first to identify I'm just going to call trucking companies, um, and then, you know, a couple years later I joined and joined and some others and we started to build that focus and that team and we'll do $40 million or so of revenue in transportation today. We've been blessed. We really targeted the larger trucking companies and so we work with a big chunk of the top 100. We've got a unique niche there. Most of our competition on that side actually has historically been, you know, locked in. So it's kind of it's been fun, and particularly when we were younger and no one knew TrueNorth was, and then we'd show up eating with these guys. They're like, who is who are we competing with? And uh, we were able to play. We've  tried to replicate that.

 

29:21

So our construction specialty group has really grown. We'll do 10 plus million of revenue there. We've got a professional liability group. We've got really a thriving agriculture practice out of our Des Moines office. It's probably our fastest growing practice in all of TrueNorth. In the last three years they've grown at 25% each year. So I would say specialization has been huge for us. You know the thing. That's been interesting really. I'm going to probably list a couple challenges, if you will. One is one thing we identified is we really got deep into specialty, is we were ignoring our backyard. So it would be commonplace to be somewhere around town just seeing friends and you know, know they'd be talking about.

 

30:05

You know their insurance needs for whatever their local business is and you know I'd give a feedback and I got. We didn't know TrueNorth did that. I thought you worked on mega deals and specialty. No, we can. We can actually, we have that ability to. So one of the things we did earlier this year is we started what we call our community practice to really focus on and address this. You know eastern Iowa corridor and it's working extremely well and we're actually looking to replicate that in our other regional offices in Des Moines, Denver and Chicago.

 

30:37

Another challenge I would say that we've been faced with is we've, you know, to your point, growing at 10% organically when you get to these size of numbers. I mean, if you just take the TrueNorth part, which is 95 million, to grow at 10%, we got to, we got to add basically the size of TrueNorth when it was founded as new business next year, which is a. That's a heavy lift. Now we have a healthy group of producers and it's it's doable, but we need more producers and one of the challenges we have is really that development, dialing in that development of production capacity. So you know it used to be more of a one-on-one mentorship approach, and you could do that when we were smaller. Now we need to bring in classes of producers and so evolving our thinking to match their needs and give them the tools they need to succeed.

 

31:31

That's where we're at in our growth trajectory right now. That's, you know, part of our partnership with you guys is helping us through that, which is very valued, um, but it is a challenge. The other piece of it is to your point and I'd mentioned this, I mean myself, Jason, others, we still are producers, but we're not it's not a full-time job and for a long time, you could count on a group of us to drive a lot of growth. And so, in a roundabout way and I know a lot of smaller agencies face this as well I mean, you've taken the growth engine and diverted their energy to other things, and so we're trying to. How do we backfill for that?

 

32:13

And that's a tough one and we're working through it, but it's a definitely a growing challenge. What we were trying not to have to do is to just go out and start buying agencies to meet our growth goals. We are doing that with the first main side, but that's not, that's not the core and it's not kind of the larger account specialty world that we're. We're trying to grow organically. So, I don't know that I have a great answer, yet other than we're trying to figure it out.

 

32:39 - Brent Kelly

Well, you know. There always has to be an answer, because part of the answer is in the process and figuring it out, you know, I mean it's like there's probably things you know today that 10 years ago, like I don't know, we don't have the answer, we're just trying to figure it out, and then you figure it out.

 

32:50

And there's a bigger, badder problem, I guess, so to speak, in terms of you know higher levels and you know it. You keep getting larger. You've got imagine, like I don't know a person's a bunch of different marbles or whatever, and every time you give something away, you're giving a few marbles here and here and that engine gets a little smaller in different areas. So how do you build that back foundationally? And it's not, you're right, a lot of agencies struggle with that, for sure. It's not even just finding developing producers, but who are the people they're going to help, mentor and be around and share that?

 

33:24

And so it's to me it's continuing to evolve the model and I think that's, and I have no doubt you guys, will continue to do that. You know you mentioned our relationship and this is not about us, about you. But I'm always curious because you've known Sitkins well before I joined the firm seven years ago in different aspects. But what? What's an area again, whether maybe it's a philosophy, a strategy, a process, something that you all at TrueNorth have gravitated to and use. It's been helpful and successful for your business operations.

 

33:51 - Trent Tillman

You know, I think so, yeah, our, our relationship with Sitkins goes back to really the at the very beginning of TrueNorth, so 20 plus years ago. I remember my first year out of college. I went to the producer training camp, the three sessions, and, yes, we've had a long history. I would say that one of the things that's been very helpful for us. It's as simple as a slogan, but it's much more than that. But it's the same goals with different roles and we've used that throughout the entire firm and people get it and they understand it. Uh, it allows really the entire team to connect with what we're trying to do.

 

34:33

So one of the things we did at the beginning of this year is we rolled out there's a book and I couldn't tell you the guy that wrote it, but it was called vivid vision and it's through the coo alliance and our coo is part of that. But the whole idea being you know if you could craft a vision for who you want to be. You know, down the road, what is that, and so we spent a lot of time we read the book, we spent a lot of time crafting that vivid vision we added you know some aspirational numbers to it, just naturally that's we're wired that way.

 

35:04

But you know we, we put that all together but then you know we lay that out for our all of our people and done that different sessions with everybody in a lot of q a etc. And you know, as you can pre, we want to try to double the size of the firm in the next uh, by the end of 2028. We'd like to be 250 million. So when we rolled this out last year, you know we were wrapping up at 120 or so million.

 

35:25

So that was the doubling in five years and really getting our people to connect with that and understand that actually this is the goal and we all have the same goal. And everybody has their role in it. And starting to then connect everybody to what that vision is and where they play. You know we will talk about. I think we do a tremendous job of getting people engaged emotionally and attached emotionally to TrueNorth and who we are and what we're about. I mean now it's getting them attached intellectually to where we're going and so using that same goals, different roles has allowed us to really connect with the people and to help them think about what they're doing.

 

36:07

You know, everybody from the you know the front desk to the people in accounting, to HR or IT, to the account managers and so on and so forth, and certainly the producers were uh, kind of the most clearly uh, you know can see it clearly, but uh, it's, that's been very helpful for us and it's allowed us to also think about you know, one of the keys to growth is make sure we keep what we got right, our retention numbers. We can't cross the Atlantic if we've got a hole in the boat, right. So let's make sure there's no holes in the boat, we're not leaking and let's go, yeah.

 

36:54 - Brent Kelly

I know you've mentioned that book and I have to go back and, admittedly, I haven't read it, but I know you've talked about it before. I heard it from Jason or uh, but it is interesting. I've shared, shared this in other episodes, but I heard this quote a while back leaders see more and before others, right, and be able to create that compelling, powerful vision. And the other part of that is how do I attach people specifically with what they're trying to do? And I overuse sports analogies and I overuse this analogy too much, but I don't care, it's mine. I like it because it's simple, because it's football. I mean the vision, the goal is we've got to get in the end zone and we've got 11 different positions in this case and there's some similarities in some, but every role, every position is different and we've got to figure that out. Right, what's my specific function? How does this relate versus I joke about, you know, the quarterback snapping the ball themselves, dropping back, throwing the pass and throwing it and catching it himself? Right, it doesn't work that way. So being aligned is critically important on that and again, it'll be fascinating and seeing and working with you, how that continues to evolve and create to get those people to think about their role as it pertains to the vision, and I love the work you're doing there.

 

38:01

All right, Trent, I have one official final question and then anything you want to throw in that I didn't ask you that you wish I did or something you want to share if you'd like to do that. But this is more of a personal question, so to speak. When I say personal, I'm going somewhere too personal. But just about you specifically and again, you've had great success in your track record, building a book and other roles that you have and the position you have within a great organization like TrueNorth.

 

38:26

But I want to imagine for a second that you go back and see that that Trent, let's just say 2001. Sure, things kicked off and I don't know maybe you're at a football game, maybe you're at a Northern Iowa game or an Iowa game, I don't know and magically, through whatever this weird thing I'm telling you is you bump into the younger version of you in 2001. And that younger Trent Tillman looks up at you today and says, hey, wow, I've only got 30 seconds. If you can give me one piece of advice from what you've learned. What would it be? What would you share with your younger self?

 

38:59 - Trent Tillman

Oh man, it's a great question. I, I'm going to. I think this although I that's a tough one, because I feel like I just was lucky enough to have this told to me, Right, but it was, it was kind of this idea of and we've actually modified this. We were even used this inside, but and I was asked this question by actually an intern that I interviewed the other day what, what advice would you give me? And, I think more than anything else is find a good mentor and be a good mentee. And then what does that mean to be a good mentee? Um, I think there's really three things. One is do you listen, are you coachable and will you put in the work? And we use those three in general throughout TrueNorth. But those are the three. To me, those are key components for just a good developmental colleague. But also, if you want to be a good mentee, do that.

 

40:01

And because one of the things I've observed and I didn't I was fortunate enough to, I guess, grasp this in my early years and I was blessed with some great mentors Our original COO, Duane Smith. Our CEO, Jason you know so-and-so my dad, but I've seen so many young kids. They'll meet with a mentor and they kind of halfway listen, they don't put in the, they don't take the coaching and do anything with it and they don't put in the effort. And it's disappointing because they're not successful because of that and what they've just done is alienate what would have been a great mentor. What they've just done is alienate what would have been a great mentor, right. So, and I've had that happen.

 

40:45

Now is, you know, I'm 45 and I'm in the midterm of my career now, and so I have that at times and I have there's young folks that they are hanging on every word and they make every play that you recommend and they put in the effort and it's exciting and it's uh, it's rewarding. And then you have some that don't and it's like, oh, my goodness, that was a waste of my time. You know, I had to say it that crass, but it is and it's. So I would say that you know that be a good mentee.

 

41:18

Find a good mentor. Be a good mentee. Be a good mentee by listening, being coachable, putting in the effort work.

 

41:29 - Brent Kelly

That's great, I love it and you know, it just reminds me. I just think of this and I had. I was part of a leadership program years ago and they were talking about this. He said you know, not everyone is worthy of your mentorship. And when I first heard it I'm like that seems kind of you said, crass or harsh. It's like no, the reality of it is there are certain people that won't put in the time or effort and there's people that are dying. They're hungry for it and you got to feed the people that are hungry because otherwise you're just going to get majorly frustrated ones that aren't going to eat the food you're giving them.

 

41:54

Yes, and you know, like you said it, you know not only are that is that person not learning or growing, but you pretty much sabotage that opportunity relationship Because in my opinion I don't know what you think, Trent, but a lot of people that are mentors, I think they typically enjoy giving advice or feedback to people that are hungry, but the minute they don't listen to it, they're like I'm good and there's great opportunity. And again, for the agency leaders listening great opportunity, whether you've got a smaller agency or an agency the size of TrueNorth, of people there that are A want to be fed and people that are willing to feed, and there's part of that mentorship of continue to pour in, and I think what you shared there is super valuable, Trent. Yeah.

 

42:39 - Trent Tillman

And you know, the thing that I found, just to play on that a little bit more, is, and it's hard at times to kind of find this, but I guess you get enough wraps in of you know, when you're meeting with potential candidates for to come to the firm you can kind of think about this as you're, as you're meeting with them, of are they going to be, are they listening? Of are they going to be, are they listening? You think, do we feel?

 

43:07

they're coachable right are they going to put in the work like, right, you can, you can start to sense it. That’s huge when you're, when you're bringing on talent, because there's some people that seemingly, on paper, extremely overqualified for maybe some of the roles and positions you want, but they don't have these characteristics it's, it's a, you know, it's a. You know it's a danger, it's expensive, it's a lost year or two of opportunity versus if you could find those that have these characteristics like you can do a lot, they can do a lot. And it's grab those people.

 

43:38 - Brent Kelly

Yeah, yeah, it's again. There's so many different ways to look at this, but I mean, you know, we always joke too, like has anybody, was anybody born with insurance knowledge? No, or any other type of knowledge? Well, no, but we all can be coachable If we decided to be and learn and gravitate to that, and it is, and I don't know how. I wish there was like I'm sure you do too like a hunger or coachable box that was above their head. You see, like that right, um, but the reality of there's not, and some people are really good at pretending they are, but you can see pretty quickly who's that, and I love that. Listen, be coachable, do the work. It’s good stuff. So any final comments before we officially wrap up this episode. Again, thank you so much for hopping on here.

 

44:20 - Trent Tillman

This has been great yeah, no, I appreciate, appreciate you having me. It's been great to just connect. Hopefully some value for some of your viewership. And no, thank you. I appreciate that, but I would say this we appreciate the partnership with Sitkins. It's been valuable for us as we continue to grow on scale and develop our producers, and it's been really good, so we thank you guys for everything you do.

 

44:44 - Brent Kelly

Yeah, absolutely, and likewise again, it's great work with agencies like yourself. So thanks so much for listening. If this episode, other episodes, provided value to you. As always, like share, subscribe, do all that podcast stuff. We love to pass along this information to more people learning to grow. So thanks so much.