ITB with Brent Kelly - Building Business from the Inside Out

Earning income doesn't begin with the sale. Building your business from the ground up happens from the inside, out!

Insurance The Brightway (ITB) podcast host Rick Fox welcomes the President of the Sitkins Group, Brent Kelly. This week, Brent shows you how the impact and investment you make internally at your agency can turn into the growth you want and the protection your customers need.

New episodes are available every Thursday at noon eastern.

Listen and subscribe to the ITB podcast at www.BrightwayDifference.com/Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts today!

ITB is a weekly podcast brought to you by Brightway Insurance, the insurance agency distribution leader coast-to-coast.

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Transcript

Rick (00:03.594)
Welcome back to another episode of the ITB Insurance, the Brightway podcast. I'm the host, Rick Fox. I am also today very happy to be joined by another podcast host, Brent Kelly. Brent, appreciate you being on, man.

Brent Kelly (00:20.438)
Yeah, thanks Rick. Great to be with you.

Rick (00:22.722)
So Brent, who probably is humble enough that he won't accolade himself, let me do it for him. He is the president of Sitkins Group. He is the author of Best Version Possible, the blueprint for achieving even greater profit and impact in your agency with less effort. And he's also, like I mentioned, a podcast host, the Agent Leader Podcast.

Really good episode a couple years back with yours truly on it, but that's not important today anyway. But Brent has been around this industry for a while, understands the business side, understands how agencies get things done. So I thought it would be really cool to have him on and kind of, you know, pick his brain on the way we should be thinking about going. We're in planning season, it's 2024 around the corner. How do we kind of set that up?

But before we do just kind of Brent, give us man. Tell us your journey. How did you end up here?

Brent Kelly (01:18.577)
Yeah, what's I keep this as succinct as I possibly can, Rick. I guess the good news for me is I started in the business in 2000, so it's easy to count the years as we go into 2024. So.

Rick (01:30.403)
That's the way I remember my anniversary, because I got married in 2000. That's the easiest way to do it.

Brent Kelly (01:33.662)
Heh.

That's, that's, yeah, that's how I had it all planned out. So I knew at some point in my career, I could, I've been doing this X amount of years, but I started, you know, like, like a lot of people who, who never had a, you know, like, hey, I'm never going to be in this industry or never thought about it. Of course, that being said, I joined it right out of college. I spent 15 years in production, worked for a couple of different agencies. And yeah, in fact, my, my brother was in the industry and had kind of mentioned, hey, you might want to take a look at this. And I said, nah, I don't think that's the direction I'm going to go.

Rick (02:03.918)
It's not sexy enough.

Brent Kelly (02:05.257)
Yeah. And it wasn't, but a few months later I thought, well, I guess I'll have an interview and, you know, 20, almost 24 years later I'm still involved in the industry. So there you go. But I spent 15 years in production, a couple of different agencies. And at one point, and this was going on for a while, I always had a passion, a true passion desire to get into coaching and development and leadership and sales, sales development, all the things that I'm doing now.

Rick (02:16.734)
Yeah, it's.

Brent Kelly (02:33.701)
And to be quite honest, I took a leap and it was a great leap. I'm glad I did it, but I didn't think I actually knew where I was going to land for a few years there. And 2017, I connected with Roger Sitkins, who's been an icon in the industry for 40 years. And we had some great conversations and talked about what he's doing and where he wants to go and how I could be involved. And so that's where I've been since 2017. Became the president of the Sitkins Group a few years ago.

Rick (02:50.166)
Yep.

Brent Kelly (03:03.805)
which is a great honor and privilege. And now we work with agencies across this great country and a few internationally, in different ways through our programs. And we help them in leadership and sales, collaboration, growth, and all the things that are important to agencies moving forward. So it's been a great adventure.

Rick (05:48.154)
That's awesome. And what's cool about Brent and anybody who listens to the show knows that I'm big on people that jump into this industry and help others. And Brent sits very, very high on that list. Sikins does a great job of helping agencies figure it out. I think the coolest thing about like the name of that book is be more productive with less effort. Like that's work that to me is the definition, which I love, which is work smarter, not harder.

And so, Brent, I appreciate everything that you do for us as an industry. And now we're just going to rip some of that stuff out of your brain and help some people listening in figure out how they can be better at what they do. So let me set this up. You said something to me, and I'm going to lob this in and let you kind of run with it. But you said an agency's biggest asset is its people. I'm just going to...

Openly say that and let you run and then we'll go back and forth on that

Brent Kelly (06:47.509)
Yeah, I mean, you know, I think this is a topic, and if you'd ask most agency leaders, if not all of them, and say, hey, listen, are your people an important asset? I mean, I think they would all say yes. But when you kind of break it down, you know, what we find, and again, a passion of helping people, is I believe this, Rick, I believe that the number one role of responsibility of any agency leader or leadership team is to grow and develop this asset, your people.

Rick (06:56.887)
Yeah.

Brent Kelly (07:13.893)
And I think the idea, the mindset is, yes, of course, I want to do that. But where we get into is tangibly, are we, are we actually doing that? What are we doing? How are our people growing? How are people developing? What about the attitudes? What about the skills? What about the processes they have? Because as we all know, if we can develop and grow those things, we'll grow the agency. And I think what happens too often, unfortunately, and again, this is not of malice, but probably more out of time.

is that they just don't get to it, or at least it's not a primary focus, right?

Rick (07:45.99)
Yeah. Well, and it's even like a box checking. Like, you know, we give good service check. What does that mean? No idea. And yeah, no, my people are really important. Well, what are you doing about it? Like, what are you doing to nurture, grow, develop? You know, because not only is that good for them and good for their mindset, I guess, would be the way I'd put that, but that helps you grow your...

Brent Kelly (07:52.226)
Yep.

Rick (08:10.694)
Agency, I mean it helps you grow your business the better they are the better the work the better the everything you know It trickles down to everything. I think if you think about it in those terms It it it's what you said and then and then kind of piggyback. It's not just oh, yeah Uh-huh. No, my people are super important. It's like, okay now what right? I mean, isn't that the way to look at this?

Brent Kelly (08:27.749)
Right, right. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it is. It's the tangible efforts of what actually the people are doing. And another part of this, Rick, and I know I'm sure you hear this all the time, right, and people you interview and just being in the business, it's really hard to find and retain great people. Right, I mean, it is. We all know that. And what's interesting, a lot of the studies that are coming out are showing that agencies, and this is actually true of any organization, but taking this from the insurance industry perspective, agencies that have a true people

Rick (08:43.735)
That's right.

Brent Kelly (08:56.385)
development plan not only retain people more, that seems likely, but they help get better recruiting efforts because a lot of people are asking the question, whether it's direct or indirect. They're saying, hey, listen, how would I grow with you?

Rick (09:02.834)
Yeah. No, I... Well, and I think... Brett, I want to cut you off because I want you to go, like, go... Let's go deep here because this, to me, is the thing that I get more than anything else. That's why I'm breaking you right in the middle here, but it's important because I get more than anything else. We don't know how to find good people. And...

My first question, and I've used this example, so please bear with me if you've heard it, but if you haven't, it's like the parent of the kid that plays sports, when I say, hey, oh, how was the game? Well, little Jimmy didn't play much. It's very political. No, little Jimmy might not be that good. And the same thing could be said when we can't find good people. Well, you might not be attractive to good people. So are you putting yourself, are you...

not only representing yourself, but then following through with something. Because people want, like, insurance is noble. We do something that is, it's like, it's way better than selling mattresses or cars. Like, we get to protect people from really bad things happening to them and making it worse. So, it's a noble thing that we do. But in that, there is a growth trajectory that people have to feel to want to be a part of it.

And so I think what you just said is super important. It's not just so that you can get your people better, but so your recruiting's even better, right?

Brent Kelly (10:32.661)
Absolutely. Yeah. And you don't even think about that. You know, even in the things that we do as an organization, work with agencies, we wouldn't, you know, we're not a recruiting firm, but it's interesting. We find that agencies that do pour into their people, we can go deep in this. Guess what? As you said, they become more attractive to talent. And you know, there's a law that's been around for a long time called the law of magnetism. And the law of magnetism says that we don't attract who we want, we attract who we are.

Rick (10:49.061)
Mm-hmm.

Brent Kelly (10:59.501)
Now, if you think about that for a second, as an agency, it's like, well, we don't attract who we want. Well, who are you? Right? Would a high level of talent or a certain standard of talent, would they be attracted to who you are and what you represent? Are you doing a good job of telling your story? Are you doing a good job of being able to tell a story of someone who would come into your organization of what their path or growth path may look like? Because if you can't articulate that, someone else will.

Rick (11:01.014)
Oh, that's interesting.

Rick (11:26.367)
Yeah.

Brent Kelly (11:27.081)
Right. So I think that to me is a critical point that, yes, there's resources and there's tools and there's financial considerations. What's really interesting, too, and again, I've heard a lot of studies is we know that millennials now make up the majority of the workforce. And, you know, I don't even like that term, so to speak, but just that demographic, they will value professional growth as much in some cases, if not more than certain financial benefits. But but we're not talking about it.

Rick (11:52.712)
Yeah, yeah.

Brent Kelly (11:55.633)
And like you said, it's what we do in insurance is extremely noble, but we just don't do a great job of telling the story or the path. And I think that's where a lot of agencies fall short in this area.

Rick (12:10.046)
I think it's right. And I think just if that's a wake up call to people out there, wake up, because this is the future and this industry, you know, I've said this probably as well, but I'll repeat it. The average age of today's agency owner in the United States is over 63 years old. So we are in the midst of what's called the silver tsunami. And I'm not telling most people what they don't already know, but

The way to attract, and I agree with you, Brad, like the name Millennials or whatever gen they are, I don't care, they're younger, and they have a different set of expectations because they grew up a different way. Like last spring was the first year that the kids that graduated college, they had lived their entire lives with Google and Amazon, their entire lives, the first year. And so think about the difference between that and an old fart like me that was...

Brent Kelly (12:56.101)
That's right.

Rick (13:03.342)
using the Dewey Decimal System in the public library to do research. It's a different world. And their expectation is not just that they're going to have a job and you're going to pay them money. They want it and there is an advantage to the nobleness of insurance, but then it's also got to mean something to them personally in their development. And so if you're looking at that, and I think that's, Brent, exactly what you guys do is look at it through that lens and help agencies see the light. But...

This is a big piece. This is a cheat code for agencies because there's so many of your competitors that haven't quite got it yet. Is that, am I reading that right?

Brent Kelly (13:43.497)
Oh yeah, I think you're spot on, Rick. And we joke about it. By the way, I also remember the Dewey Decimal System. What a great system that was. I had to laugh. But no, I...

Rick (13:49.622)
Ha ha ha!

Kids, anybody young right now, they don't even know what that is. They're like, what the hell are they talking about? Is that like an old mountain dew? They called it dew? I don't know. What is it? I don't know.

Brent Kelly (14:03.004)
I don't know.

teenage daughter, so they all think I'm nuts anyway. But no, I think you are spot on with that. And again, it's just part of whatever generation, I don't really care either. It's just a different way of thinking and approaching things. And I will tell you, I mean, like, and I'm sure you've seen it too. I mean, this idea and kind of joke and agency leaders will laugh about it sometimes. Yeah, you know, my day, you know, you got a desk and a phone and that you just went, right? And it's like, okay, great. And how was that?

Rick (14:09.344)
Yeah, exactly.

Rick (14:29.878)
Back in the day.

Brent Kelly (14:35.565)
And could there have been a better way? I mean, just because you did things that were hard and difficult, like, hey, listen, I prefer using an indoor bathroom versus an outhouse. You know, I don't need to prove my toughness by going outside to go to the bathroom, right? And I just, but I mean, as we continue to move forward, this will always be evolving and changing. And so, you know, part of that obviously is adapting, but I think, you know, here's the thing about developing people.

Rick (14:38.753)
Yeah.

Rick (14:51.234)
That's right. That's right.

Brent Kelly (15:02.241)
Not only is it really profitable for your agency and a great recruiting and retention, it's the right thing to do. It's just the right thing to do as a leader. So I don't think it has to get that complicated. And I will ask agencies, and this is some of our initial calls, hey, and this isn't to try to manipulate them in any way, it's just a genuine question. What is your professional growth process or plan for your number one asset, your people?

Rick (15:10.506)
right.

Rick (15:31.015)
Uh, is that the answer you get?

Brent Kelly (15:33.913)
Typically it's like, well, right, and again, at every agency's different, right? And again, I don't think it comes through malice. It just comes through lack of intention.

Rick (15:39.797)
Of course.

Rick (15:43.65)
Right. That's why I think this is a cheat code. Like this to me is like, you're saying things that we know and probably everybody knows, but is it in practice? And it can be a key differentiator. I would hope every agency would be working through some kind of a plan, a development plan for their folks. The reality is they're not. If you are, congratulations, if you're not and want to, you're going to give yourself a competitive advantage. I really believe that. Okay.

I want to do this. So let's frame that up. So we said that kind of the 30,000 foot view is you need to be thinking about it in this way. You need to be not only for your own folks, but for recruiting, for the younger people coming up in, hopefully coming into insurance. But let's frame this up. I'm going to give you the three levels or the three things. Number one is from a leadership level.

Rick (16:41.993)
How do they message that or how does that work? Then we'll go to producers and then we'll talk about staff. So we'll just kind of go down the chain there. So starting at the leadership level, what does that look like? What's step one?

Brent Kelly (16:57.005)
Yeah, I mean, you're talking about the idea of people development. I mean, I'm going to give you a really simple answer back to what I said earlier. Understanding what my role is, or at least a significant role of leadership, is an actual thought process and a plan to develop my people. And I said, you know, a lot of people about mission and vision and all these things, I think those are certainly important. But as a leader, what's interesting is that a lot of agency leaders, this isn't a shock, I know to you, Rick, started off as producers and became agency leaders.

Rick (17:01.451)
Yes.

Rick (17:25.544)
Yep.

Brent Kelly (17:26.113)
Right? So here's something to think about. You probably have done a really good job over your career of telling the story to your clients about the value you bring and the long-term relationship. Why can't we do that with people in terms of teams and agencies? So to me, it's a transfer, it's a message, right? It's no different of selling a client as it is to selling people on your team, which is what? Sales is about influence. So being able to tell a compelling story of differentiation of what your agency is, and of course, this comes back to the heart. Why does it matter?

Right? So I think a lot of agencies would actually struggle with that. If you're talking about producers, here's something, I'll just be very brief on this, Rick, cause I give a number of examples. I ask a lot of producers on a scale from one to 10, how important is a skill of communication to you as a successful producer? And they'll all say 10. And I say on a scale from one to 10, how intentionally do you develop that skill every single week?

Rick (18:15.104)
Yes.

Rick (18:22.87)
And that is not a 10. Not a 10. Yes.

Brent Kelly (18:24.181)
not a 10, right? There's a gap, right? So you talk about, okay, well, how do I develop? Well, there is a producer. I could say a similar message to the service team as well. And again, there's a lot more involved with this, but it, you know, I could use, communication is one of those things that we take for granted. I always go back to it because we all do it. It's just that we take it for granted that because we do it, we actually do it well. There's a skill.

Rick (18:45.571)
right?

Brent Kelly (18:46.389)
around that, right? And there's of course processes involved and I'll try to put a bow on this because this is a quick overview. Here's the biggest thing, Rick, is are these three areas leadership, sales and service, are they aligned? Is there a similar goal, vision, mission that we're sharing together, understanding, appreciating, respecting and trusting the importance of our different roles? That's an important question.

Rick (19:10.67)
So let me ask you, so the alignment piece, let me ask. So leaders set the strategy and they cascade that down through the organization. Do you see it more successful when they get buy-in along the way of the strategy or just that they're like, obviously you're not talking at your staff or your producers, but how do you see the best way to have everybody feel not only like they're part of it, but then buy into it?

Brent Kelly (19:39.105)
Yeah, I mean, the word you mentioned there, I guess the hyphenated word, buy-in, is critical. Right? And again, you're never going to get 100% buy-in. But I do think the idea of, to me, there's two different ways. You can try to convince people, or you can connect with them. And my mom said something years ago I thought was pretty smart. Those convinced against their will are of the same opinion still.

Rick (20:04.33)
Oh, that's awesome. Don, there's your sound bite. Uh, no, you know what? I agree with that because there's the times when people are, you know, the, sometimes you do with your kids and you say, you know, blah, blah. And they're like, why? And you're like, because I said so. Well, that's never the way you should run your business. Sometimes you have to do that with your kids. You do sometimes, but, but I think what you're saying is like, hey, we're, we're a team here. I've got.

Brent Kelly (20:20.378)
Hehe.

Brent Kelly (20:23.874)
Yeah.

Rick (20:33.086)
I've got, you know, in a leadership position, I've got some responsibility. I want to build out this development strategy, this plan, growth plan for, for the agency, for my producers, for my staff, for myself, even as it relates to, like you mentioned, communication. But, but if you along the way, and we're in, you know, the last part of the year right now, if along the way you are able to.

Put them in on that, connect with them versus tell them. I think is, I don't remember the word you used was, but connect instead of convince is what you said. And that's probably more than half the battle it feels like.

Brent Kelly (21:04.43)
Yeah.

Brent Kelly (21:10.319)
Mm-hmm.

Brent Kelly (21:15.697)
Oh, yeah, I mean, absolutely. And it's not easy, by the way. I think everyone knows that. This isn't like, you know, oh, everyone's gonna be connected now. No. But listen, part of this is just taking a little more time and effort to understand where people are at, right? And by the way, at some point you gotta call play and not everyone's gonna be, you know, maybe not everyone agrees. Here's my biggest thing. We don't have to agree on everything, but we do have to align when the play is called.

Rick (21:18.912)
Yeah, no, I know.

Rick (21:40.32)
Yes.

Brent Kelly (21:41.265)
Right? You're not going to agree on everything. But we do need to find ways to say, listen, share with me where you really want to go and let me see if we can find a way to help us both get there. Right? And I know there's work involved in that, but it's so impactful and powerful. And there's just this mentality of, well, I'm just like you said, and by the way, with my kids, I've been there. You're going to do it because I told you to. Right?

Rick (22:03.73)
I told you to do it. That's why. I'm the boss.

Brent Kelly (22:05.421)
Guess what? At some point they get a bit older and they go, you know what? Just because you told me to, now I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure this doesn't work. If you don't think teams, right.

Rick (22:13.386)
Yeah, or I roll my eyes at you or I give you the attitude or I get back on my phone. Anyway, we could talk for an hour on that. No, so to me, this is like gold. This is liquid. This is verbal gold is what this is. And so if I'm out there and I'm an agency owner and I'm thinking about, if you're, or a leader or a producer that's not feeling like this is coming from, like anybody can have these conversations. These are really powerful conversations to have inside your teams. Because...

Brent Kelly (22:19.745)
Yep, yep, yep.

Rick (22:43.546)
in this crazy market that we're in right now, every inch of opportunity and differentiation you can come up with is going to make a difference. This isn't an inch. This is a mile. If you get, if you start, and I'm glad you said it Brent, because it's not like, oh, hey, look, snap my fingers. And now we're all aligned and we have a perfect growth plan. That's not what this is. But man, if you're thinking that this is what you're all about, like one,

See if you can figure it out on your own. It's hard to find someone like Brent Kelly that's out there that's done this, that's basically got a blueprint for you, and take your agency to the next level. That's what this is. I am, Brent, I'm a fan. You know, I mean, I reached out because I wanted to have you on the show. I knew that you would drop this kind of incredible, incredible knowledge on our folks. I'm gonna ask you the question. It's the question I ask everyone.

It is the time capsule question. We're gonna record this next little bit. We're gonna bury it somewhere. Someone's gonna dig it up at some point in the future. What is Brent Kelly's one big piece of advice for the insurance industry?

Brent Kelly (23:59.701)
You are a product of your environment. And this is something that I had known and I had done some pretty good things early in my career, but I really got it probably later than even I wanted to. And when I say you're a product of your environment is this, I mean, I'll keep it very simple. And this comes back to a very famous quote by a gentleman by the name of Charlie Tremendous Jones, who said in five years, you'll be the same person you are today except for the books that you read and the people you meet.

And so my advice on this is be very, very cognizant of what you fill your brain with. What you read, what you listen to, it matters. Be very cognizant of who you surround yourself with. Who are the people that will challenge and encourage you in the direction that you want to go? Because as much as you may have willpower, I'm going to do this and this, what you consume

and who you surround yourself with will very much dictate the direction you go.

Rick (25:01.474)
Bam, mic drop right there. If you were holding a mic right now, I'd ask you to drop it, Brent, that's awesome. So hey, I wanna put a bow on this. This is great, and I really appreciate you coming on. And I do, for the rest of the industry, I appreciate everything that you do for us as an insurance industry. How do people get ahold of you? Like if they want the book, they wanna connect with you, they wanna talk to you about what you guys are up to over at Sitkins, like what's the best way to get ahold of you? One, you, and then two, how do they get the book?

Brent Kelly (25:31.605)
Yeah, so just a few things. Our website has everything you need. Go to sitkens.com, S-I-T-K-A-N-S.com. If you want to specifically go to the book, it is on Amazon, so you can just go there and check it out, best version possible. If you want to get a couple of bonuses, go to sitkens.com slash book, and it'll take you to that, so you can get ahold of the book. I think it's all of like three or four dollars on Audible, so hopefully anyone can...

can put a few bucks down. And we've got some great reviews on it, so we appreciate that. As far as getting in touch with me, I'd say social media, the best place on there to reach me is just go to LinkedIn and connect with me. I love to connect with people there. I use that platform quite a bit. And then I'll drop my email. Shoot me an email, say hello, brent at sifkins.com. Love to connect with you.

Rick (26:16.15)
Brent, as always, man, you are the man. I appreciate you being on. Thank you, sir.

Brent Kelly (26:20.533)
Yeah, thanks Rick, it was great.

Rick (26:22.594)
Thanks everybody for tuning in again to the ITB. We appreciate it. The community is growing. The episodes are awesome. Our guests are amazing. So please make sure to connect with me on LinkedIn and make sure that I've got any names of people you think would be really, really good to be on the show. We wanna keep giving this great information out to all of you so you can get better every single day. Also make sure you are subscribed to this podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

We'll keep doing it. You keep listening. We'll keep getting better. Thanks everybody and we'll see you next time.