Episode 315: The Producer Problem - Why Activity Doesn't Equal Revenue

Hello, and welcome to the Scale Your Insurance Agency podcast, where top-tier executive leadership and sales coaching gets amplified by AI and automation to maximize return on investment and help you fully scale your insurance agency. This is not theory, it's not tech hype, not motivation. This is a unified operating system for independent insurance agencies who are already successful and yet maxed out. Every week, we unpack the real conversations happening inside the Onyx operating system. Leadership identity, workflow friction, automation sprints, producer velocity, and the systems create a business that grows without depending on you. I'm your host, Daniel Metcalf, and along with my co-host, Mike Stromso, so if you are a $3 million in revenue plus agency and you know you've outgrown the old model, this podcast is going to be amazing for you. So, Mike, let's get into it. There's been a lot going on this past week when it comes to producers and production. And so that is our theme for this week, which is the producer problem. Activity does not equal performance.

Yeah, uh that I think that's an understatement to start it off, Daniel, uh, and saying that it's been ultra active this week concerning producers. And um when when agency owners start to unpack things and really start digging as to actually what's happening, uh they're finding in many, many situations that the producers were going to networking events, we're doing this, we're doing this, we're doing this, but the numbers aren't there. And the questions are starting to be asked: why aren't the activities that you're doing equating to revenue dollars? And so accountability is being brought into the picture. Um, performance plans, performance improvement plans are being brought into the picture, and and many producers, frankly and transparently, maybe this is just a good way to set the conversation, don't have the skills that are necessary to actually perform at that higher level. And that's a big issue. And some of them can overcome that gap, but what we're finding is many can't. So that's our encouragement for everybody today is you know, be aware of this, have this knowledge, but most importantly, you know, make sure that we identify the identity of your producer team and what they're truly capable of. Because I know the goal of most incredible agency owners out there, which is all of you, is that their producers perform at their highest capable level being a full-time producer, because that not only benefits them, but it benefits the agency, the culture, uh, the future of the agency, and its prosperity as a whole. Uh, let's unpack that, Danny. Where do you want to go first?

Okay, well, you know, we identified in this past week that the the pain that our Onyx agency members are having is that producers are busy, but revenue is inconsistent. So there's standard issues, there's scorecard issues, there's a rhythm issues. And what we want to unpack today is the hidden reason that your sales meetings aren't really moving the numbers forward. And ultimately one of the main areas that we want to cover is on where activity doesn't always equal performance. And so we want to start on a pack that kind of go through five different angles that we've that we've provided today and give some feedback and also on how AI and automation has helped not only agencies drive the revenue and drive where activity isn't medium performance, but also on where it's exposed some of those producers on where they are falling down on skill set, um, on uh time management, on other things when it comes to the actual flywheel effect that we can also get into as well. So let's start with Mike. Why busy producers often hide low skill selling and weak position?

Yeah, oh, there's so much to that. We could spend the entire podcast on that, but we want to get great value to everybody that's here. It's a little uncomfortable, but it's true. And we continue to identify this. You know, most producers say, Oh, I'm so busy. Well, the question is, busy doing what? Right? Quoting? They shouldn't be doing that. That's where automation and technology and maybe support teammates can come into play. They're chasing prospects. Now, when when I hear that, my the first thought that comes to my mind, have they been properly trained? And is there clarity on the ideal client avatar or the ideal client profile for the agency itself? Because we found this in our own agency and we continue to identify it in agencies that we work with. The producers are so hungry to meet a number and to write business that sometimes they will allow business to come in and they'll work on business that is outside the ideal client avatar or profile, and therefore it can't meet the numbers. And it's not a quality of prospect as well. And then the companion to that is they fail to be clear on you know what makes the agency unique, what makes it stand out, what are what are things that people can't get at your agency, you know, and they can't get anywhere else. We call them the three uniques. It's also called the points of differentiation. Okay, so the production team must be trained on that as well. They must be clear, and you must have a clear story that you tell in the engagement process with the prospect. You know, so it becomes more of an engagement and a relationship conversation, not necessarily a transactional sale. And I think that's a big thing, Daniel, that we're seeing a lot out there because unfortunately the industry is led to, and we've been commoditized by some of the big players out there who throw a ton of money at the TV and other advertising, transaction, transaction, transaction, and that's not what it's all about. So there's a lot more, you know, marketing activity. Well, what is that, right? Service work. Well, hey, wait a minute. I thought you were a producer. A full-time producer is not doing service. So our encouragement for anybody we work with is you know, share with your producers to set up the service team at the point of sale. Critically, critically important. And then putting out fires that they shouldn't be firefighting at all. Daniel, I could go on, but that's the short list.

Sure. So where AI and automation has started to expose some of the producers is we started looking at all of the different non-relationship generating tasks, right? And revenue generating tasks that Mike already so kindly started putting out there. And we started looking at, okay, what are ways that we can use artificial intelligence and automation to eliminate any, or obviously delegating or removing work even to a human as well, on any of those areas. And what it started to identify was a couple of things. Because now a machine can do a lot of that work for them, um, or it can help delegate the work to other people within the organization automatically based on whatever stage or whatever response comes in from the prospect, or through and it also identified areas in which they were not following the proven process of the revenue flywheel. And so y'all have heard of the flywheel from the good to grade. And if you haven't, right, you can go look it up, like creating that flywheel. It should just be the same thing over and over and over again as far as a revenue flywheel and and and how you gain that no-like and trust, how you go about converting leads, and how you go about positioning the agency, and what makes your relationship unique and the agency unique, all those portions were getting exposed. And so what we were able to find is we were able to find really busy producers hiding behind those some of that non-relationship revenue work. And then it quickly became apparent that they had areas of growth when it came to sales skills, positioning skills, um, how to how to trust the process of the flywheel and make sure everybody moves the stages instead of just always sales by hope, right? Because hope is not a strategy. And just like, hey, I hope that, you know, they seem like they really liked me and you know, eventually that they're gonna they're gonna buy from me, but we're not willing to reach out to them to find out, you know, where we where they're at in their journey, right? Things like that. And how we could start to automate and start to add to the flywheel, making sure that a long list of tasks that were relationship-based tasks, not just tasks for service or marketing or as you suggest, just you know, working inside the CRM or the AMS system. Oh, I've got all these things that data I need to put in here. So we were able to start to identify a lot of those. And and I think the big portion, Mike, that needs that a lot of our Onyx agencies are starting to realize is training is a big deal. Training, skill set, listening to calls, using AI for sentiment, right? To listen to figure out, wait, what could have been a right question to ask here? Well, what kind of buyer sentiment is there? Is there, you know, uh I used to have a sales mentor, Mike, I think you and I talked about this a long time ago. We used to call them get to the no carlmo, right? Like, hey, is there an opportunity where we can just get to the no so we can move on to the next one, right? But for every no, you got a yes, is it was right around the corner. So whether that's with that particular prospect or adding another, a new person, right, giving you space because the universe hates holes, right? So, you know, that that you put a hole of a no in there, and that means there's a spot in your pipeline. The universe wants to fill as fast as possible. So these are the kinds of things, kinds of the activities that the agency owners now are in this next quarter as we're coming up, are starting to put some of these trainings, some skill sets, maybe hiring differently, like you know, uh recruiting differently, whatever it might look like. They're different processes now that some of this has been exposed through AI and automation.

Daniel, I cannot love that term enough. I wrote it down and I want to repeat it here just to make sure it syncs for everybody. Proven process of revenue. The flywheel. Proven process of revenue, flywheel. I love that, love that, love that. And I'm gonna borrow that if I may, and we'll continue to build that into agencies. But you know, the day we stop learning is the day we stop growing. And school's never out for the pros. I mean, think about Olympic athlete athletes, right? How often do they train? World champion athletes who just got through the Olympics, the winter Olympics, daily. So if you are a world-class producer, you've got to continue to train often. And the other thing is, it's critical, critical, critical that you have a plan that is shared and known by all because there's got to be accountability. I mean, we are responsible and accountability to the agency. We're we're stewards of the agency. So uh great, great stuff.

Substitute for skill.

Activity is not a substitute for skill. Absolutely. Let's get on to our next subject, Mike. The difference between activity metrics, since we're talking about activity versus outcome metrics. So from the Onyx perspective, you know, what do we identify as activity metrics versus outcome metrics?

Let me reverse engineer this for just a moment. Is results.

And ultimately at the end of the day, it's about the results. I mean, you know, we we can be do-do-do. That doesn't mean, again, like we said in the beginning, it's producing the results. You know, number of calls made, that's great. Were you skillful in converting any of those either to the next appointment, to the next step, or to the close? And depending on your ideal client avatar and profile, it may involve many steps, right? So, and I hear this so much, Daniel. I sent a text or I sent an email, so alluding to that's good enough. Well, did it get the desired outcome? No, so it's not good enough, right? So it's got to be a combination of everything. I booked X a number of meetings. That's great. What kind of intentionality is built into those meetings? And I was standing in a personal situation. I'm privileged to teach kids as well on the weekend, and I and I remember one of the directors of you know, a group of kids that I teach was talking about a presentation where she was escorting one of her kids. They were interviewing colleges because her her child's gonna be at college next year. And she goes, you know, we went to a couple of presentations and the presentations were night and day. I mean, this one college, they were prepared. They, I mean, they told us everything we wanted to know, answered all our questions, and the other one, they were so unprepared, I couldn't believe it, right? So be prepared intentionally to win. Oh, I've sent X number of proposals, or my pipeline has X in it, X number of prospects. Well, how proficient are you right now at building relationships with those prospects in your pipe pipeline? And like we talk about all the time, Daniel, is your pipe full 90 days out or more? Because you're if your pipe's not full 90 days out, you're gonna be hungry in 90 days. So it should be a daily habit activity to not only build the size of your pipe, but build the relationships within the pipeline. And if you want to reach 100% of the marketplace, you've got to use 100% of the ways. Okay, so those are some of the things that many are currently measuring, but they're not providing the outcome results. So let's talk about the results, Daniel, and the outcomes or the desired outcomes.

What are the desired outcomes?

So there are things that most importantly measure actual performance. Okay, policies closed, new accounts closed, new relationships opened, and they are following the path of progression to close. There's a deadline for a desired outcome date. Actual revenue generated. Those are the kinds of conversations that you should be having. What is your close ratio? Or we talk about internally bind hit ratio. You know, we've got uh automation and everything that helps with that. So you know what it is. You don't have to search for it, you know what it is. Okay, it's at X, but it's not where we need it to be. Okay, so we work on that kind of stuff. Average account size, that's really back to ideal client avatar, and and more importantly than that, our old friend disqualification. You know, I learned that so many years ago. The art of disqualification is key to high performance and revenue generation outcomes that many agencies are looking for. You know, revenue per producer, revenue per account, retention on the book. See, it's so simple. Open new relationships and close new relationships and continue existing relationships. And it's not every agency where the producers are involved in continuing those relationships, but it's obviously vitally important to the agency. So it's the outcome metrics that really let you know if something is working or not. And thanks to you, Daniel, and your team who puts it up right in front of us for all to see, and so we know through the automation and technology. Great stuff.

Yeah, and AI where we've been able to start helping some agency owners who have multiple producers and also have other um other employees throughout the organization who also have licenses to help produce revenue and have those conversations. Where trying to build dashboards, trying to be able to identify the sales analytics, try to and do that all on their own through the tools that they already have, they don't have time to really be the analysts, right? So the tools can help them collect the data, put the data out there, start to build the dashboard so you can see them. But if you want to be able to analyze the data, that's where we're using these custom GPTs, that's where we're using artificial intelligence and having it then analyze the data along with some anonymized call uh transcripts, um, other things that can go along with it with that particular producer and their numbers and help us analyze more quickly on areas that we need to grow on. Hey, it looks like producer A is having a lot of open relationships. They're not closing the same amount of relationships as producer B. And with that, um, we've noticed that in many instances that they are not asking all the necessary questions when it comes to what they need in order to generate a great sales proposal to be able to present to the client. So then there's a lot of back and forth going on from that standpoint. Or when they're getting this particular objection, they're stalling on that objection. If we could start working on this and this, this would allow over the next quarter, this would allow us to measure if their conversion rate from relationships open to relationships closed can change, right? If it's like they this one seems to be closing a lot of relationships, but has a has a very small, a smaller, if you will, um uh lifetime value or total total policy value, whatever, whatever metric you're looking for, to say, hey, what's going on here? You're converting a lot, but what are we converting a lot of? Is there is there something that we can look at differently? Um, let's look at the transcripts. Are they act are they actually asking for referrals? Are they asking for uh upsells? Are they asking, you know, are they fully rounding out the accounts? Like we can start doing a lot of that, but until we get that outcome-based metric first, right? Then we can start backing into and and not having to dive so deep into the numbers ourselves, we can let this tool that can do it in a matter of seconds help us become data analysts at the same time. And so that is another place that we're able to expose. And again, expose for the positive, right? It doesn't always have to mean for the negative. Exposing that, hey, someone's doing a really great job as a producer, but they could be a triple the amount of results that they're doing with a couple of different tweaks. Um, hey, they're they're ready to take on more. Maybe we should be looking at other types of strategies to um throughput. That the the major pieces that artificial intelligence and automation have been able to do since 2022 is help drive throughput and conversion rate. That are that that is the two numbers specifically, and the two key performance indicators, if you will, where artificial intelligence can really move the needle. Throughput meaning any type of that throughput, whether it's more relationships built, more people to talk to, new niches to add, um more quotes done per minute, you know, per hour, whatever, whatever that might look like, more sales proposals uh per week, whatever that might be, they can they can increase the velocity of that throughput, as well as on the conversion rate side. And most of it is based on what is the training and skills that we need to update with inside the producer who is maintaining that relationship to help them with their conversion rate of those relationships, whether it's different ICPs, eliminating ICPs, uh changing ICPs, whatever that might be, all the way down to just some closing skills or some questions. question asking skills, whatever that might look like, in order to try that. So that's where we're looking from an outcome metric standpoint when it comes to AI and automation as well. So that leads into the the KPIs, Mike, right? So there are five producer KPIs.

Before we jump into that, let me add one thing because I mean you just unpack so much and I want to make sure everybody has clarity. And sometimes the ICP, the ideal client profile, I mean you might set it. Let's say we set an ideal client profile at the beginning of last year, right? But the marketplace consistently changes and updates. You can't be satisfied that it's always good enough. So I want to make sure that everybody understands how important the automation and technology piece is and that you learn to work with it consistently so it can let you know hey, something has changed. We need to update. And you have to be open to the agility piece. I can't emphasize that enough. So thank you Daniel for saying that because we need to make sure the human side of it you know when technology does the work of machines people finally get to do the work of humans. We got to make sure the human side of it is aware that hey we need to shift. Let's dive into KPIs Daniel.

Sure. So what are the five producer KPIs that help predict revenue and the two that don't the first one that predicts revenue is new and I'm going to say that slow down when I say this new qualified opportunities.

Not disqualified new qualified opportunities. Not leads these are people who fit within our ideal client avatar that we know that we can help they just don't know yet that they need our help. Right? So that's number one. Number two, first appointments discovery meetings is what we call them. Okay. This is where you really begin to effectively create your pipeline. Okay? So that discovery session you've got to be prepared for it. You've got to make sure you ask the right question because as we talk about the question is the answer to make sure that we confirm that they're either qualified or they're not next proposals presented. If they're qualified and we move them along the pipeline and it's decided yeah we want to see what you have to offer we want to evaluate how you might be able to help us then yes you want to track how many you're presenting and then how many you're actually closing because through the automation and technology partner which is partnering with the humans we're able to look at there were X number of proposals presented and we closed X. We're like ooh that really feels and seems low what's going on well that's an opportunity to improve in another area right and next the closed ratio the buy and hit ratio if we're proposing 20 you know are we closing 12? Are we closing eight? Are we closing two? What is it? Right? So we've got to know it's a skill that that really the the contributing factor there it's a skill combination metric as well okay the they might be highly qualified prospects. The discovery session might have gone great their proposal looked fantastic but the producer just might have needed a little extra training or skill improvement to be able to close I mean it's about you know if it's on the phone or you know via Zoom or Teams or whatever do you have that recording? Can you help work with the producer to learn Daniel we know the greatest attribute that a compute a producer could have in a sales situation is listening, right? Ask the great question and shut the heck up. And the last one is the average account size because when you properly qualify and you build in the average account size and know what the outcome is going to be the strategy the niche the positioning metric you can quickly do the math and AI and technology can also do the math and figure out we will get to our goal our needed outcome for production for this individual producer or we won't just based on all of those combined yeah predictive analysis and analytics is where is where scaling starts to happen.

If you can with all you know 99% right of it's like oh we can't predict the future you're right we cannot predict the future but we can start to at least be within a nice earshot of predictable revenue which allows us to then do math to where we need to invest in the future or invest in the present to change our future excuse me and so that is where we've really started to use that again the combination of intelligence along with flywheel along with key key performance indicators to start to determine where are we going to invest in the present for our future is it going to be in you know multiple different areas but if you know with all certainty that you need to have a hundred you know a hundred um discovery calls that are going to lead to 50 proposals that are going to lead to 20 sales and that average policy amount is going to be a thousand dollars as an example you can start backing into budgets you can start backing your way into training you can start backing your way into um adding more producers you can start backing your way into all that type to give you the confidence as an agency owner of this is where I can start to scale we're not talking about just growth right we're not that is from a different episode that you can go look up right growth versus scale. But what when you're really starting to see that flywheel go from you know one at you know 10% 30% 40% growth to 100 200 300 is when you can get those predictive analysis uh analytics and you can start to see where I push this flywheel even further or make it even larger that's when we can start to scale until that point where it is a literally a flywheel you will not see scale you'll only see you you know if if you're um I thought I I think I saw it in an and remind me in a meme today Mike of the of an old Japanese proverb of hey if you get on the wrong train get off on the first exit because the the further down that line you go the longer it's going to take you to get back on track. Right? So we don't want to create a flywheel going in the wrong direction either. We want to get off and off those tracks and start you know and start in the right direction. AI and automation for the first time in human history has given us the ability as agency owners as um as knowledge workers and and computer workers to help us get to that understanding as fast as possible faster than ever before. And so we got to be comfortable with that information to be able to make those adjustments and make those and make that difference.

Yep train or freeway or freeway in some areas of the country yeah if you get wrong get on a freeway going the wrong direction get off as fast as you can and get back in the right direction. So Daniel so good so good stuff. All right no I cut you off what were the two KPIs that don't predict revenue yeah I'm just gonna go there first of all quotes look quotes don't equal closing quotes don't equal closing as far as generation uh you know marketplace research finding the best carrier match etc etc that should all be done by somebody other than the producer okay next calls and emails okay it's easy to fake it's easy to say oh I was so busy you know following up via email or maybe even doing some work on LinkedIn or you know even making phone calls but if you're making phone calls for the wrong reason then that's not going to equal the close the closing ratio and the outcome and the results that you're looking for right they have to be the calls for the right reason to the right ideal client profile that's going to lead to the highest and best outcome that you're looking for. So that's really where you know back to having a plan, right? So that's why we work with uh producers and agencies to know what those right moves are they're gonna lead to the results.

So I mean I've seen producers make a hundred calls and write nothing and I've seen producers make 10 calls and knock down a hundred thousand dollars in premium calls are not the metric qualified opportunities and closure of those opportunities are the metric I just want to let that sink in because here's the deal we've seen plenty of technology out there today that can automatically make phone calls and automatically send emails based on people putting in information into your website form and a quote that gets attached along with it. If you can do the volume of a hundred thousand quotes and close and close at 0.5%, right, that might pale in comparison those results might do great compared to having an individual producer who makes a hundred phone calls and only encloses 10% right but are you willing to make the investment and to take the risk of doing that volume of calls using an AI tool versus using an AI assistant to help make the best calls, the best emails that drive the outcomes which are the relationship openings, the relationship proposals, right? The KPIs we talked about before. And so that is what you want to start to focus on in as an independent agency insurance agency is how can we make each move as effective as possible towards our goals. And that's where using an AI assistant is better than just using AI volume. But what we call doing a lot more with a little bit more rather than doing the same with less. And that's that's the difference between a growing agency and a scaling agency when working with the Onyx operating system. So beyond that Mike the next one um is the sales meeting resets from story time to coaching plus commitments. Let's talk a little bit about the difference of just activity with the sales meeting versus performance of a sales meeting.

And Daniel I want to go back to something you just said which was so good. That future agency that we're working towards we've got to start operating in the present like that future agency because that goal of the future agency is the filter for everything that we do it's the filter for everything that we do. So finally body important story time to coach and commitments. Commitment is the thing that you said you were gonna do long after the mood you set it in has passed. You know this is huge this is huge. I mean who loves another meeting huh do meeting equal dollars in the bank account Daniel generally not right okay so you know a lot of sales meetings they're war stories they're complaints about what's going on in the marketplace and carrier complaints the carrier won't do this won't do that rate complaints service complaints random pipeline updates no coaching no commitmentslash accountability to those commitments and so much more so our encouragement is that people strategically think about it because remember that future agency needs to operate in the present and this is a filter right so filter your meeting agenda before the meeting happens strategically think about what you need in that meeting and then get those things on the agenda get right to the agenda it's a business meeting it's not song and dance time it's a business meeting we're gonna get right to it we're gonna go through the things we need to talk about we'll help you and support you and learn how we can train you coach you whatever it is but after that we're done let's get on to it and then we will recap and do the accountability that's why like we said earlier it's critically critically important that you have a documented plan for each producer and we help with that right so that they know what the plan is right I mean things that should be included Daniel a scorecard right and that's where you our automation and technology team through the power of AI help with that in such a big big way so we know right yeah and let's get clear on the wins let's go over the wins for the week not the losses and complaints the wins and we're building that into our coaching cycles as well next review the pipeline is the pipeline full enough like we said if your pipeline's not full 90 days out you're gonna be hungry in 90 days. Deals where are you stuck? We've gone through the discovery we've gone to the second and the third session but we seem to be stuck we can't seem to convert that's where the coaching comes into play the level coaching within the agency and that's why we are so privileged to have our sales coaching arm in Onyx to help them work through those deals to make sure that we get to closure so they will win so the agency will win skill development you know it's recommended highly that there be an ongoing progression of skill development especially in today's world Dana we've done the research we've talked about this in our own collaboration you know the Reagan report uh from last year right what is the number of actual commission dollars that are much much higher in an agency that is implementing and using technology for their production team versus those that aren't I mean it's a big gap. Remember that Daniel it is big big gap so that's where the skill development and then what are the commitments for the next week public proclamation of the commitments for the next week okay and then the accountability from last week those are some examples of things that you can do starting right now starting today starting right here to reset your agenda for your sales and production team the great thing is every teammate every producer leaves the meeting with written commitments otherwise it was just another conversation and we don't deposit conversations do we?

No and humans they will always want to follow through with helping other humans right so if those commitments are based on not necessarily the commitments that they're going to do for themselves but their commitments to do for others right whether it's another person on the team or it's one or your prospect or your client or whatever it is, those commitments tend to get done more often and most often, right? So you're going to want to make sure to monitor those commitments to make sure that they are for somebody else right when that when that salesperson producer makes that commitment as well as we also want to look for while we're having the these conversations we in these sales meetings is we want to look at body language. We want to see that we're here that the meeting is here to support their future efforts not as just a place for them to record what happened the week before month before how often or the day before how often you do your sales meetings. So those are two vitally important things they want to look for. And I always say why not record wonderful day right technology record your sales meetings. Record them using an AI note taker record them so they don't have to remember what their commitments are. It automatically puts the commitments down for them. So right it allows you to to check back and allows it to ask hey how did we do in the sales meeting how was this sales meeting compared to the last sales meeting you can start using some of your custom GPTs and some of your artificial intelligence to help you make the meetings even better themselves right we always need partners and that's a beautiful thing about artificial intelligence is it's giving us a partner in our roles right it's giving us that very smart assistant that very smart you know AI co sales manager whatever sales leader whatever you want to call allowing us to be able to even do our jobs better right while we're working with the producers at the same time. So also some things to think about.

Okay last but not least Mike let's talk about how to stop letting your top producers set the culture for the producing team but Daniel they're bringing in so much revenue exactly they they well we must let them set the culture shouldn't we but yeah I I was being facetious when I said you know many agencies out there when we start working with them and when we talk with them the top producer does whatever they want to do right they don't use the CRM they don't document anything they don't follow any processes they don't attend meetings all of the time they're very hit and miss they don't track any of their numbers they don't cross sell they don't ask for the additional line of business they don't propose the entire account they don't document anything on specific accounts and specific goings on based on their research of the prospect and ultimately culture it becomes a rogue producer culture and if you're looking to build a sales driven organization full of higher high quality producing team members there is no I and team there is no I and team and you've got to set the culture tone that producers they aren't bigger than the systems unfortunately you will become dependent on that producer and a lot of these other producers may bail because they'll identify that oh we're just following what Joe says and does right this isn't about uh me it's about him right and that's truly not a business it's more like a hostage situation right so it's important that everybody's aware this is all about the agency and its result. Yes if you've got a high performing producer fantastic let them earn as much as they possibly can based on their own situation but you got to make sure from a leadership perspective and ultimately Daniel this is a leadership conversation it's a leadership conversation and look this is about the agency it's about its customers and there's no one person within this organization that's bigger or more important than anyone else okay it's about stewardship leadership of the agency so great stuff.

Culture will eat strategy for lunch right there we go culture will eat strategy for lunch and the biggest portion of it that we have to be careful of is that culture is the lowest denominator you'll allow within the organization right ooh so good that is and so based on what your top producer is if that is what you put on the pedestal and whatever they're willing to do the least of right or the lowest bar everyone is going to put themselves at that bar as the top for them. And so we have to set a place of culture in the sales realm and and production realm to be around what does an A player look like and can we no matter the revenue right what does an A player look like that fits within our culture of our agency. And if we constantly look for those A players And we constantly grow everyone up into those A players, then your culture will rise to the level of the A that you put in the player. And so that's that's because that is going to be the lowest bar that you accept. And we can spend hours and hours, Mike, talking about frames and focuses and signals and noise and all that other fun stuff as well. But the the key to this is that our agencies that scale understand that culture is what is the most important piece of the agency in order for it to scale. Because the other part about making the culture around your top producer is then you can only be as big as your top producer. And if that's all you're looking to try to do, that is completely okay. There's plenty of organizations out there that survive all on its own based on what the top producer can provide. But if you want to scale, it's about scaling the team. It's about scaling the brand, it's about scaling the agency, it's about scaling 3x, 10x, 100x, whatever that might look like. You cannot do that with one top producer and there and create the culture on there. It will not happen.

I guess the bottom line, Daniel, to wrap this up, it really depends on what agency leadership wants, right? Absolutely. What do they want? How can we help them find out?

Well, if this episode resonated with them, here's the real question. Are you building a business that grows without you or one that depends on you? Onyx is not just more tools, it's not just not more tasks. What it is is it's one dashboard, one strategy, one automation plan, one leadership rhythm, and one way to scale. If you're ready to move from operator to owner, your next steps are extremely simple. If you look in the show notes, we give you two opportunities to be able to learn more about how to scale your agency. One, we do a masterclass every so often that you can come to and see what Onyx is all about and how and what we are teaching and what we are taking to the next level in order to scale agencies. Or else you can have your own one-on-one private session with Mike and myself to discuss how your agency looks on its way to scale and what we could do to help you get to where you want to go. So, with that, Mike, it's been a fantastic time with you. You've had some really great golden nuggets, even for myself. I really appreciate you taking the time today to share all of this with the audience. And I look forward to seeing you next time.

Yeah, lots of gold nuggets, Daniel. I'm going to drop this one at the end. Proven process of revenue flywheel. Game on, everybody. Go make your own and make sure that it's generating what it needs to generate beyond, Daniel. Great job. So good. Thank you.

You too. Thanks, Mike.