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Under-Utilizing The Talent & Technology in Your Insurance Agency

How well does your agency maximize its current talent in your agency today? How well does your agency maximize the technology that you probably pay a lot of money for every year in your agency? Today, I'm going to tackle both of those questions on today's Agent Leader podcast. Enjoy.

Welcome into the Agent Leader podcast. This is the podcast for insurance agency leaders to learn, to grow, to develop, to think bigger than you've ever thought before, to have greater awareness and clarity, and ultimately design and execute a Best Version Possible insurance agency. My name is Brent Kelly. I am your host. I'm delighted to be with you on today's episode. On today's episode, I'm going to tackle good results trap number seven. That's right. Number seven. This is the final trap of seven that I've been going through on this podcast series. So if you've missed any of the past episodes, just look at the current podcast platform you're on or find another one.

They're on a bunch of podcast platforms and take a listen to the first six traps and the purpose of this entire series and the episode today is to help highlight a potential obstacle or trap that your agency may be facing to shine some light on it, to provide some solutions and ways for you to address it. And the reason we call them good results traps is because for insurance agencies, it's a great business, such a great business that if you do none of these things that I've been talking about, there's a good chance you're still going to get good results. But we also know that good results can be and oftentimes is preventing insurance agencies from that true Best Version Possible. And I also want to highlight this, a special opportunity for all insurance agency leaders and professionals listening to me right now. If you would like to receive your own Best Version Possible customized plan, a true plan with solutions and areas to identify for your agency to give you greater clarity, it all starts by booking a phone call.

There's no obligation or cost to this. If you go to sitkins.com/bookacall. We'll have an intro call for you just to make sure you are real human with real needs and a real agency. And if you qualify past that, we'll do an assessment. A coach will do an assessment with your agency, takes about an hour to go through the assessment. It's very thorough. And then you will receive a customized plan that will be personally delivered by that coach. Again, there's no cost, there's no obligation. We at the Sitkins Group want to provide as much value to agencies as we can. Yes, some agencies that get this plan may continue to work with us, some agencies may not. There's no obligation to this, but we want to provide as much value for you to see the light in certain areas and what's possible for your agency to truly aspire to that Best Version Possible.

So again, it all starts by going to sitkins.com/bookacall. Alright, let's get into our episode today, trap number seven, we've gone through all these traps. Trap number one, no strategic model trap number two with no unique selling proposition trap, three part-time producers trap four part-time clients trap number five, lack of accountability trap six, not utilizing the power of 80/20, which leads us to trap number seven, which is an under-utilization of talent and technology, an under-utilization of talent and technology. So we're going to talk about this in conjunction today because this is a big one, and I've talked about this in prior podcast episodes, but I believe this at the bottom of my heart, alright, with everything that I have that the number one job, the number one role, number one responsibility of an insurance agency leader above all else, and there are many responsibilities. Running and leading an insurance agency is hard, there is no doubt.

But if you ask me and ask the top agency leaders above all else as a leader, a leadership team, what's it all about? Number one, it's about the growth and development of your agency's number one asset. What is that? Your people, the growth and development of your agency's number one asset. Your people, obviously as a coaching and training and consulting company, we deal with this every day with agencies. The fact of what is your agency's growth and development plan today for your number one asset, your people? I'm going to ask that question to you. Obviously I'm not going to hear your response, but I want you to think about it. If I had to ask you and I will ask you, what is the growth and development plan or process or strategy for your people today in your agency? What would you answer? How would you answer?

Now, you may have a great one, but if you're like the majority of insurance agencies, it's kind of a, we hope that they're going to learn some things. We hope that maybe there's a training program. We hope that they read something. We hope that they see something. We hope that they learn from some other people. We hope they just get some experience in the marketplace and we'll get better. Now, this is an example of a huge good results trap because if you don't train or develop your people with intentionality, with a strategy, with a model, can you still get some semblance of good results? Yes, you can. This is why this is a trap. But what if you began to become more intentional and strategic with your people and really create a plan or process or model that says, we believe in you enough to give you as much resources and tools and training for you to improve your skills at the highest level?

Because isn't at the end of the day it about the people executing skills. It's no different than sports. You've got to go out there and execute skills on the field or the court or the rink or whatever it is the track. But we have to have our people to be able to execute skills at the highest level, whether it's communicating with people, whether it's our producers or service team, our leadership team, all these things work in conjunction. So I just want you to think about that. What is the growth and development plan or process or strategy for your agency's number one asset - your people. And if you're not sure or unsure, it's very likely a trap that's costing you not only relationships and culture, but a ton of money, right? A ton of money in terms of profit of growth and of course agency valuation.

It's been interesting to look at some studies out there, and I've referenced this on some prior episodes, but the best practice report that comes out from the Big I and Raegan Consulting, they do such a great job with that. They talk about the investment or there's some stats in there that show the investment into your people. And even based on best practices agency, the number is shockingly low. If you look at best practices and just general industries, I've done some research on this of what do some of the best service companies and companies out there in all industries, what do they invest? What percent of the revenue do they invest back into their people? The answer is range, obviously, but typically it's been 1 to 5%. You'll see that a lot about 1 to 5% of a company's revenue goes back into the true growth and development, the skill development of their people in the insurance industry.

For independent insurance agencies in particular, the number, the last number that I saw was one quarter of 1%, one quarter of 1%. And by the way, some of that includes certifications, licensing requirements. So it's not even a true skill development. It's almost just to maintain or be able to do the basic things of what you do. So the bottom line of this is I see time and time again, there's a major gap, and I think this comes back in the talent development and talent recruitment. I really believe this, and I talked about this on a previous trap, I think it was trap number five, but I believe so much right now that the talent issues we're having in the insurance industry is often the fact that we just expect good people to show up and thrive. Like, oh, well we have an agency here so they should, A, just want to work for us, and B, when they work for us, get better.

And C, when they work for us, stay forever. It doesn't work that way. It's very much like college recruiting in the college NIL world, which means that you've got to find ways to establish differentiation in your agency. You've got to find ways to show people that you're willing and able to develop them at higher levels so that they can succeed and also be able to do that so that they want to stay with you for a long period of time. In college athletics, you've got to be able to recruit, you've got to be able to develop. And now with NIL, you've got to be able to keep, and the same thing is true for independent insurance agencies, and I think sometimes we can take it for granted. Again, every agency is different, so I don't know your specific model, but I would just challenge you and ask you to think about what is your talent and growth strategy, and specifically how much are you investing in your people?

Because here's the thing, and here's the exciting thing, is there really is not a better investment. There is not a better investment you can make in your agency than investing in your people. Now, if you've got people you've invested in and they do nothing, and then there's other issues, well go back and listen to trap number five around accountability or maybe you're holding onto people too long because if you have people in your agency that do not want to grow and develop, just have no care about it, then they shouldn't be on your team. Now, if you have plans in place and strategies and you can demonstrate it, guess what? For some reason, better people want to show up better talent wants to stay better, talent gets to become even better talent. They continue to grow and develop, so there's no better investment. In fact, again, there's a lot of studies on this and this is a hard one to track, so I want to be careful on the numbers, but in general terms, every dollar you put into people in the right way creates $2 in return, if not more.

And when you think about the insurance industry and you think about multiples and valuation, it can be much, much higher than that. But at a basic level, here's how to ask you. If you were to give me a dollar and I were to give you $2 back, how many dollars would you give me? That may sound pretty stupid, but let me ask it again. If you give me a dollar and I give you $2 back, how many dollars would you give me? And the right answer, and hopefully you're saying and thinking to yourself right now, wherever you're listening is, I would give you as many dollars as I possibly could. Brent. Yeah, the answer is yes, right? And obviously that's a generality, but the point of it is, the more that agencies invest in their people, the more they tend to make, the better they tend to do shocking, right?

Shocking. I always love Roger Sitkins, our CEO tells the story, he'll go to the golf course and I don't remember the exact circumstances, but he'll go out there and play with a group of people and all of a sudden one guy is doing pretty well and they go, well, that's not fair. You've been taking lessons, right? I mean, think about that. Well, that's not fair. You've been working on your game, you've been getting better. No wonder you're kicking our butt. Yeah, the same is true with insurance agencies. It's not that complicated. If I can help you develop and grow in your skills and you continue to grow week after week and month after month and year over year, guess what? We have a huge competitive advantage in the marketplace, but we're so busy we don't have time. I don't know what to do. I'm not sure how to do it.

Guess what? I'll give you a hint. We have a really good plan at Sitkins Group and there's a lot of companies that do this, but we live and breathe this. Our sole focus is how can we help grow and develop your number one asset, your people? What does it look like from a leadership standpoint, from a sales standpoint, from a service standpoint, and from an operations standpoint to gather in alignment? What does that look like? Recently, I put a post on LinkedIn. By the way, if you'd like to follow me on LinkedIn, please do. I love to share videos and ideas and have great conversations on there. I learn a ton from different people. I think it's a pretty cool platform. Just go to LinkedIn and search for my name, Brent Kelly, and you can connect and follow me on there. I've got some stuff that I share pretty frequently, but I wrote this and I'm going to condense this a little bit, but I believe in this and I've got some pretty good response from it, from people out there in the marketplace.

Here's what I wrote. Your team wants and needs you to lead them. Your team wants and needs you to lead them. Your team wants to grow and develop alongside you. Now, that's an important caveat. I want to throw, and I'm going to stop here just for a second. I'll tell you this. One of the things that's been challenging and magical in some of the things that we've learned in coaching and training and development of agency teams over the years, and maybe this isn't shocking, but it's something that's certainly truthful, is that when agency leaders say, oh, I want my people to get trained. However, as a leader, I'm too busy to do any of that or be part of that. It doesn't work very well. I've got some people that I need to fix. By the way, your people don't need fixing. Your people need coached.

Your people need to be developed. They're not broken. They need to be poured into in different ways. But if it's, Hey, I'm going to get these people over here and then they're going to get better, and then our agency's going to be magically fixed, yet they're not part of it at all. They're not bought in, they're not working on themselves. They're not working on how that growth collaborates with them as leaders and the communication, if that's not part of it, it doesn't work very well. Have we had successes, for example, where a producer has gone to one of our ProducerFit programs or sales training programs, has walked away, got great knowledge and value and skills, and went out and improved their game? Yes. Does it work even better when the producer and the service team and the leader are all walking through growth and development together?

Oh my gosh, right? Oh my gosh. It's a different story. It's a different story. So that's why I think there's got to be intentionality of this. And your team wants to grow and develop, not just by themself, but alongside you. Your team wants to be challenged and encouraged. I talked about this a little bit in the accountability trap, but your team wants to be challenged. A good team wants to be challenged. They do. They may not always like it, but they want to be challenged. Why? This is an example with my daughter and my oldest daughter who's now in college, when she was in high school, I think it was her freshman or sophomore year, she's like, the coach kind of gets on me quite a bit. And there could be a lot of different aspects. Not all coaches are great, and not all coaches are created equal, but I said this, and this, I believe is so true, is that if your coach didn't get on you, or if your coach ignores you, it means they don't even think enough of you to challenge you.

But when they do get on you and they challenge you, it means they care enough about you or they see the potential that's really within you. So people within agencies, if they're not being challenged at all or asked to get better or do more, I mean, A, that's a huge culture problem, but B, what does that really say to them? What language is that speaking to that person? I guess I'm good as I'm ever going to be. I guess this is it, I guess, and maybe they don't say that verbally, but just think of the message subconsciously. So your team wants to be challenged and encouraged. And here's the last thing I wrote on this LinkedIn post. Your team is not looking for perfection, but they are looking for commitment. Your team is not looking for you as a leader to be perfect. You're not going to be perfect.

You never will be perfect. But you know what? They are looking, they're looking for leaders. I'm committed to helping us go to places we haven't thought about. I'm helping us to grow to X, I'm helping us to be better. I'm helping us to give back to more community. Whatever your commitments are, only you can make those commitments. But they're looking for a commitment, right? They're not looking for perfection, they're looking for commitment. And by the way, I shared another LinkedIn post, I did a video on there recently, and it highlights this idea of perfection. I'm going on a bit of a tangent here, but I think it's important to share because the best leaders, they don't talk about how perfect they are and how they always win. That's part of the story. It's not the whole story. They also talk about the challenges, the struggles.

They're authentic, they're vulnerable in certain ways. I'm not asking you to be perfect. I'm asking you to be committed. And by the way, if you're truly committed, you're going to run into stumbling blocks. And here's what I heard from a mentor years ago. People may hear your successes, but they will connect with your failures. People may hear your successes, but they will connect with your failures. Yeah, you could talk about how you did this and how you're doing that and what's going on. Great. And here's the things, how great we are here. And they'll hear you, and there's some great examples and stories you can learn from that. But they'll connect with your failures. Let me tell you how I struggled. Let me tell you how I dealt with that. Let me tell you how I fell flat on my face. Let me tell you how I messed up that appointment, right?

All of a sudden you're connecting with people because they go, oh, you're like me. I'm struggling too. And by the way, when you're authentic and vulnerable, they're willing to be more authentic and vulnerable. They may have real issues they're dealing with and struggling with, certainly from a professional side of things that they may not share with you because they're scared, because you're perfect and they're not. But when you show them that you are not perfect, and if there are mistakes being made and you struggle with things just like they might go, thank you for sharing that. Let me tell you what's really going on here. And now guess what you can do? You can actually solve the real problem, right? The real problem there. So I wanted to share that. I know it's a bit of a side, but it's important. Alright? So talent development under-utilization of talent development is absolutely a good results trap.

It goes in conjunction with technology under-utilization. So I'm going to keep this super simple because the amount of technology the agencies use is crazy. The amount of money that goes into technology is crazy. There are a billion platforms of different stuff. I'm exaggerating there a bit, but there's a lot of them. So I'm not going to get specific here, but I just want to ask you a few questions and some thoughts around this because it is a huge good results trap. What percent of your agency's technology is currently being used today? Let me just take a step back and for some of you, you go, well, that's a lot of technology. I have to think about that. But just if you had to give a quick response of all the technology that you currently have in your agency, all those resources provided what percent is actually being used?

And a lot of people will say 25 to 50% is pretty common. That's very much like if you were to hire someone for a hundred thousand dollars or $200,000, it doesn't matter the number. Let's just say a hundred thousand dollars and they only give you $50,000 of work. And you go, well, that's just the way it is. Which by the way goes back to trap number three. Part-time producers. But think about this again. Are we maximizing the technology? Of course, this is your agency management system. Do you have a built-in CRM or is it separate? Man, there's some tools out there that are huge that continue to grow. I mean, the big one out there i and other ones like that. Work comp tools, these data resources, there's so many things out there and you know them because you're probably using them or paying for them.

But I would just ask you, what percentage of the technology are your people using at a level? Are they learning how to use it better? Is it something that's talked about and reinforced? Is there accountability? And again, I talked about some of that. These all overlap in trap number five because by the way, it's the agency's job. It really is the agency's job to provide the tools and resources. And a big part of that is technology. But guess what? It's the team's job to execute the behaviors to use those. And those two things have to work in conjunction. And this goes back to the good results trap. If you don't utilize the majority of your technology, or certainly at least more than you're using today, can you still get good results? Of course, you can still get good results, but are you as efficient and effective, as productive as you possibly can be?

Are you leaving potentially millions of dollars on the table? Probably, probably in some way or another. So keep that in mind. Bottom line of all this, you think about under-utilization of talent and technology. What is the overarching result or KPI that we typically can see in working with agencies? Now again, there's a number of KPIs. There's a number of things you can look at. This isn't the end all be all, but one that's very, very telling is the revenue per employee. What is the revenue per employee at your agency? Which is pretty simple. What's your agency's revenue divided by your full-time equivalent employees? So you can take a look at that and what we typically see is this number is often way lower than it can or should be, right? We're not developing talent. So there's a lack of growth in development. We're not maximizing technology, the technology itself or the people utilizing the technology.

And because of it, we have a lower revenue per employee. We either have too many employees not doing enough things or they're not as efficient or effective. That's a common one that we see. Or we're simply just not maximizing their roles within the agency. And guess what typically happens? Well, we just hire more people. We just need another person for this, another person for this. We'll just throw another person at the problem. You can't just throw people at problems if you've never addressed what the problem actually is. And that's why this is a huge good results trap when you take a step back and go, gosh, maybe the problem is that we need more people. Maybe the problem is we don't have enough people doing the right things with what we currently have and we see this time and time again. Now, again, every agency is different.

You very well may need more people. I'm all for adding more people to your agency, don't get me wrong. But the problem we typically see is that we just think a person, another person, or two or three, that's going to be the solution. And we've never really addressed the underlying problem as far as KPIs go. And the number of this, and again, every agency is set up a bit different. So this is a bit abstract, but I want to give you some just basic numbers to think about. If your revenue per employee right now for your agency is less than $200K, you're in a bit of trouble. Certainly in today's world, you're in a bit of trouble. Certainly, you're in a danger zone. It doesn't mean, again, it doesn't mean you can't do okay, but you're definitely in a bit of a danger zone.

I've had some conversations the last few weeks with some pretty low revenue per employees, and it comes back with just this capacity issue and all these things that are going on with their people. So under 200 is a danger zone. I think 200 to $300,000, you're starting to do pretty well. I still think it's a bit of a yellow zone. In fact, we have agencies right now that are above $300,000 that are pushing towards $400,000 revenue per employee and beyond why? They've gotten really intentional. They've gotten really focused. They maximize their talent, they maximize their technology, they stay on top of things, right? They're very intentional with how they operate business and how they build relationships and how they instill culture in the agency. So under 200,000, not so good, 200, 300, you're doing better. Obviously closer to 300 is better than down by 200, but if you get over $300,000, you're starting to be really systematic in some of these areas.

So I want to highlight this and I want to thank you for being a listener. If you've listened to all seven of these traps, I'd love to get your feedback. Feel free to reach out to me or my team. I'd love also know what topics you'd like me to cover on this podcast. So again, always reach out to our team. If you go to our website, there's a contact form there. We'd love to hear from you. But I want to thank you for being a listener to this podcast. If this episode or other episodes have added value to your life, your agency, please leave a rating to review. We appreciate that. We want to continue to grow this platform. I have some amazing guests that I'm going to be interviewing from different perspectives. So excited to bring them on this podcast as well.

And also, final reminder, if you would like to get your own best version, customized plan, a customized plan for your agency. And again, this is not something that's for fodder. This looks crisp, it's sharp, it's impactful, and we as coaches will walk you through it for your agency. It all starts by booking a simple phone call. Go to sitkins.com/bookacall. And with that, I wish you, your agency, all the best in your success. Thanks so much for listening. Take care everybody.

Catch up on the entire Good Results Traps 7-Part Series