Episode 341: How to Build an Insurance Agency Team That Takes Ownership Without Micromanagement

Welcome to the Scale Your Insurance Agency Podcast. This podcast will give you all of the tools to scale your insurance agency and live life on your own terms. Wherever you are today, if you're stuck or well on your way to the success you desire with the right people, processes, and promotions in place, you will be unstoppable. And now I'd like to introduce your host, Mike Stromzo.

Hey everybody, welcome back to the Scale Your Insurance Agency podcast. Super pupped and excited to bring this to you today because, you know, when I think back to all the things that have occurred in my 41-year journey as a proud independent insurance agent, 35 plus years as an owner leader. Um, this is one of the definitely top three items that changed everything for me. And it was absolutely critical in me finally having freedom, finally having the time to think and to do things that I really needed to do to continue to grow and scale the agency. So that's why I want to make sure I bring this to you. Um, it should definitely be on your radar for the coming year if it's not, or if you need to improve or better how you already do this, and if you're not doing it at all, even better that you're here. So let's start off with this question. Do you ever wonder why your team keeps bringing decisions back to you? Do you ever wonder why? Of course you've told them. Hey, take care of it, take ownership. But still they keep on coming back. They just want approval. Or they just want you to help them problem solve. So let's talk through this for just a couple of minutes. Before you jump to the conclusion that they lack initiative, and there's an outside chance they might. Ask yourself this question. Remember, the mirror of truth doesn't lie. So give yourself permission to tell yourself the truth here. Have you made their authority clear? Crystal clear. And what happens when they make a decision differently than you do? By the way, that's okay if they do. The most important things are your core values, your core purpose, obviously moral and ethically sound. But on top of all that, it's the result. It's the result, the outcome. That's the highest priority. Because we'll take me and my wife as an example. We both know, and coming on 36 years, we both acknowledge openly that we're different. We're very different in some ways. But we know our desired outcome for everything we do, or the results. So let me run through five different things that I want to touch on today to make sure that things just don't keep coming back to you. So if you don't have something to write with and write on, pause, grab it, whether it be hopefully electronic form somehow, remarkable, or however you take notes, or if you gotta get the good old pen and paper, so be it. And then dictate it. I'm going to digress for just a minute. I had something earlier this year happen earlier this year that changed my life. And I want to share it with you right here, right now. I was deep into a very high-level training that I invested in for the majority of this year. By the way, phenomenal and life-changing. And I was, it had a lot of homework. I had homework every single week, and some weeks it was like six, seven hours of homework. So I was working really hard on the homework one Saturday, and it was long and a lot of typing and all this kind of stuff. And I just learned about this new product on the market, and I was in the beta testing mode. It's called Whisper Flow, if you don't know about it. Game changer. And if you do, then you agree, hopefully you agree with me. Game changer. So anyway, so I'm using it and using it, and I started getting through the homework a lot faster because it it's an AI tool that grabs your voice dictation. It works on any platform. I got on my phones, my laptops, everything. I've got it. And so, and because of the AI, and you're training the LLM of its AI, LLM large language model, by the way. You're training the LLM of its AI, and it learns everything about you pretty quickly. And so I started jamming on my homework, you know, I'm dictating everything and I'm getting done in a third of, you know, two, what used to take me, you know, five hours. You know, I'm getting it done in probably two and a half, three tops, right? So I'm jamming along, and all of a sudden it says, Oh, you've reached the maximum limit of your trial. Thank you very much. If you like it, go here. I went to that next page. It was 144 bucks for the year. I would have given them 1,444 at that moment. It's so valuable. So, anyway, let me get back to the topic that we're talking about today. The result is what we're after. The result. And why decisions keep coming back to you. So, and you've told them. And you've told them, and you've told them. Repeated requests for approval can reveal a problem and how the agency operates on an overall basis. Repeated requests for approval can reveal a problem and how the operate agency operates as a whole and its standards. It could be leadership. That's a strong chance that is. Leadership. Expectations are vague, or they keep changing depending on the situation. There is no consistency. C plus F plus D, consistency, focus, and discipline. Don't be vague. Be clear, crystal clear. Put it in writing. Two, employees are responsible for results, but they lack the authority to act. Give them permission. Tell them that they have permission to do this. Three, the owner of the outcome, the owner of the decision, routinely reverses their decision without explaining why. Don't do that. When you empower somebody else, do it and let it go. Next, mistakes receive more attention than sound judgment. It's like, you know, always focusing on the negative and never the positive. Is the glass half full or half empty? Neither. We just need to be grateful there's a glass at all. Focus on sound judgment. Praise and recognize the good thing just as much as you have to discipline and correct the things that need to get fixed. Next, bringing a problem to the owner is the fastest way to get it solved, and they're just lazy about it. No, that's not acceptable. And if they need additional knowledge or practice to do it confidently, get them the training. And if this person is unwilling to decide, have we allowed them or enabled them to just make the safe choice and keep asking? Tell them no. Or on a light note, I was in a training of my own earlier this year, and the trainer that day, she goes, write this one down, everybody. FFO. Flipping figure it out. So you can use FFO. Just kidding. May I not want to do that. Number two, define the outcome or what done looks like and the boundaries. Define the outcome or what done looks like and the boundaries. Taking care of our clients. That's an intention. Team members also need to understand what good performance looks like. So, case in point, if you're working with an account manager on renewals, you want to get clarity. Which, by the way, this brings me to another point. Do you have your entire client journey documented? And has your team been trained on what that looks like? How many of your clients write a check to nobody else for any insurance need except your agency? I'm guessing not very many. I remember years ago when we identified that game changer. So, team members need to understand what good performance looks like. So, for your account managers, for instance, on renewals, which is the wealth of your agency, so it's a great place to start. You need to have it documented and trained when the outreach should begin. One, two, what the conversation should look like and the communication should look like with the client, and that they should understand before the renewal process starts. Three, everybody must be understand what must be documented. Four, there must be clarity what decisions the account manager can and will make on their own. Now, some account managers have a processor that's available to them, or maybe even some technology tool. Fantastic. Allow them to use it. I know of some technology tools, like the intelligent agents out there, and I know of an agency what used to take 10 minutes now takes 30 seconds. Technology. Keep the decisions within that person's areas of competence and authority, along with the agency guidelines and procedures. So it warrants ongoing inspection. I'm going to get to how you can do that in just a minute. Make sure that your agency standards are clear and that they give people room to act confidently. And make sure that they completely understand. That's where I think documenting the lifetime journey of a client in your agency, yes, it takes a little bit of time and effort, but if you do that and share it with your team and train your team on how we do that, it's a game changer. I remember when we did that. I remember an agency that I was working with that did that. They had a butcher paper roll and they had it on their conference room wall for all to see. And they talked about it all the time. And they could teach off of it, et cetera, et cetera. And allow your team members to match their personality with some of those standards. As long as you're focused on the outcome and the desired result, so be it. Micromanaging every single step of the way sometimes is not the most effective and best way to lead the team to an outcome. So be flexible. Next, number three, give your team explicit decision-making authority. And here's a simple framework that you can use starting right now, starting today. So their authority level, give them permission to decide and act. Decide and act. Say, hey, go ahead and take action, handle the situation within these guidelines. It's yours. Take action. I mean, what I think about when I hear that, Ritz-Carlton. I've studied the Ritz-Carlton in detail. I'm not only read the book and listened to the book multiple times. I'm after that, I was inspired to go to the Ritz-Carlton. I decided to take my wife there for our wedding anniversary one year after going through all of that. It was all about her on that trip, nothing about business at all, of course. And so when we went there, I learned a ton, but Ritz-Carlton has an authority level for all of their team members. Any team member is authorized to spend up to $2,000 in any situation to wow their clients. That's their authority. Spend it however you want. A great book about Ritz Carleton and how they operate. It's called Excellence Wins by Horst Schulze. Horst Schulze. So great, great, phenomenal book, Excellence Wins. So there's a story in the book about, you know, the Ritz-Carleton team members. A uh a bride and groom were honeymooning, and one of, I can't remember if it was the bride or the groom, lost their wedding ring on the beach when they were at the beach that night. So anyway, the Ritz-Carleton team was combing the beach. They were all authorized to spend $2,000. So they got five of those machines that picked up metal on the beach, right? They found it. Because of the authority that they were given. They found it. So decide and act. Give your team explicit decision-making authority to decide and act, handle the situation. Number two, decide and inform. Act, then update the leader through the agreed protocol. All right. Case in point, I just had this come down my pike earlier today. Super, super fortunate that an organization reached out and said, hey, we want to have you keynote our event next year. And so my executive assistant reached out for our protocol and everything else. And through the back and forth, she got to the point where she included me as an update. That's all I want. I just want to be aware. Now I will take that and I will be more aware in the upcoming meeting. Next, recommend and obtain approval. Recommend and attain approval is the authority level. And all I ask, for an example, in our company, and all I asked as part of the leadership team in our independent insurance agency, and all I asked back in the earlier days, bring me a proposed decision and the reasoning behind it before acting. And if you didn't make the decision, we will make a decision. Because no decision is a decision. And don't let that be your protocol. Even if the decision is to revisit it in two days, that's a decision. Hey, you're in. Put on the calendar for two days from now. I want to sleep on this for a couple days. It's a big deal. All right, great. And next, the authority level is escalate immediately. Escalate immediately. Raise situations outside the authority or involving a risk to the agency or to the client or to our communities or our team. Know this as an example. One of the things that we recommend, and it's a great idea, as far as how you inspect what you expect within the organization for anything. You can position a processor or a VA to do spot checks on everything that's happening. And if they identify that some, you know, something was missed or we missed a step, have them go to the team member, not you as the leader. Why? Because it trains the team to work together. And that's the goal. Without you. And nowadays, there's a number of companies out there that build bots, yes, a piece of technology to also inspect what you expect. And so the bot does the work. If they're not happy, have them go talk to the bot. Another joke for a Friday. Anyway. Number four, build a scorecard, scoreboard. Build a scoreboard. Because people gain influence and authority through the scoreboard. And they can influence the scoreboard through their actions. So let's take this to a sports analogy. Think of your favorite sport right now, whatever it might be: basketball, baseball, football, soccer, hockey, whatever it is. Name a sport that does not have a scoreboard. You can't, right? Because the scoreboard shows who's winning. Same thing. Give each role in your business measurable, meaningful items that are tied to the outcomes that it helps deliver. Okay. Let me give you a couple of examples. We'll take sales and then service and maybe team leadership as our three examples. For the service aspect, renewal outreach completed on time, unsolved unresolved requests, and documentation quality. Okay? Those are three things that you can keep score on. Is our renewal outreach completed on time? Yes or no? What's the score? How many unresolved requests are present within the system? What's the score? And documentation quality. What's the quality of our documentation within our systems? We had we called it file integrity. Okay? What's the score? Create a scoreboard for that and make it publicly visible. Scoreboard, dashboard, whatever you want to call it. Let's move over to the sales team. Scoreboard measurable. Qualified opportunities. How many qualified opportunities are on the docket for you this week? Or this month? Two. Follow-up completion. What's the score? How often do they follow up? And three, new business revenue or new business premium. What's the score? Let me go up back to one of my favorite statistics. And I shared this with one of my new teammates within the last couple days. It's the sales statistics that I've studied for years. 48% of salespeople never follow up with the prospect. 48%. And 80% of sales are closed on the 5th to the 12th contact. And it may be more than 12 contacts in today's world. 80%. So 40% of salespeople aren't even following up, and 80% are closed on 5 to 12. What competition does your sales team have? What's the scoreboard in your agency? Next, team leadership. Team commitments completed. What's the score? Coaching follow-through on requested items. What's the score? Recurring issues resolved. What's the score? Within your scoreboard, balance the speed and the volume with quality. A fast response that creates errors and rework does not represent success. It makes me think of my dad. My dad's best friend of the world was Les. Leslie C. Fielder. And he used to tell me about contests that they would have for eating corn on the cob. And part of the scoreboard was how many kernels of corn were left on the cob when they were done. He would tell me that his friend Les would always finish first, but my dad won the overall score because he had a lot less kernels left on the corner cob. Corn on the cob, right? Consistency and discipline to the ultimate outcome. People need to see whether their decisions are creating improved results. People need to see whether their decisions and the actions they're taking are creating improved results. Scoreboard. Number five, coach judgment and hold people accountable. Coach them to their decision. I mean, back to our kids, right? We had six children. And my wife did a great job, by the way. Give all the credit where credit is due. But she would coach the decision they made. You made a great decision by telling your friend, no, I need to go home because I'm supposed to be home at 11 o'clock, versus, eh, I'm gonna blow it off, I'll come in late and suffer the consequences. Because those conversations would happen. Or you made a great decision by calling to discuss it before you instead of just blowing it off. Coach the judgment. When somebody brings a decision ask, what do you recommend? What do you think we should do? Then explore it. Tell me about what led you to that decision or what facts did you consider? How many options did you look at? And what options did you see? Does it fall within your authority? I mean, if you can make this decision, go for it. As long as it's in alignment with everything we believe and our standards. And out of curiosity, what outcome did you expect? Coach their judgment and hold them accountable. Check in. Do a check-in. It doesn't have to be every time, just once in a while. I mean, in our agency, we huddled with our team on a monthly basis and they were required to complete their PX3 books so that we had enforced accountability on a consistent basis. And we weren't there to necessarily, unless it was necessary, you know, to exercise discipline every month. We just want to keep them moving towards their goals on an individual basis. Distinguish what a reasonable decision was versus a disciplining outcome for them. Have the conversation. It's always better to have the conversation. And number six, stop teaching the team to wait. Stop teaching the team to wait. Many leaders and owners actually discourage ownership of tasks and therefore destroy the authority with their team members. By taking work back at the first sign of difficulty. You destroy everything you've built by taking work back at the first sign of difficulty. Support and cause your team to push through those difficult conversations, those difficult situations, those complex accounts. Don't give different answers to different team members. Be consistent. Don't override sound decisions because of your personal preference. There's two kinds of relationships personal relationships and business relationships. In business, drop whatever your personal agenda is. It's about the agency. And it's about keeping the agency healthy. Don't demand approval after previously granting authority. And for goodness sake, don't allow team members to bypass their team leader. Let's say they just run into you in the hall. Hey, by the way, can I ask you, Joe, since you're right here? I don't, you know, I'm trying to get hold of uh Andrea and she's on the phone, and I can't get a hold of her to run this fire, and I need your decision quickly. Don't do it. Say, hey, that's actually something Andrea needs to make a decision on. And I know she's on the phone. Do me a favor. Write a quick note and put it in front of her and let her know that you need to speak to her ASAP. That's top priority. And she will respond. Remember, praise initiative and only hold them accountable or be critical from Airbnb departure from their own method, their action. So my question for you is what do your daily reactions teach people, or your daily responses teach people about making decisions? And what do your daily responses or reactions, how does that actually lead your people to make their own judgment calls and their own decisions? And so here's your action item out of today. Choose one recurring decision that keeps reaching your desk. Look at your desk. Look at your inbox, look at your task list, whatever it is for you. What's one recurring thing that keeps reaching you? And take that, define the expected outcome, decide what the authority is. If you would like, identify some escalation triggers, review the method that that would happen if need be, and simply coach the person through that decision and let them own the next one within the guidelines and boundaries. That's what we did. And that's why I invested. Because frankly, they were constantly coming back to me, constantly coming back to me. I said, enough is enough. And I said, I'm going to conduct team trainings for all of us to help all of you be able to make decisions on the fly on your own so you can make the right call on your own. I want to empower you to be able to do things without having to ask anybody else. So I'm going to personally work with you as long as it takes. It took three months. Three months weekly, weekly team meetings, weekly team meetings, weekly team meetings. That was without today's technology as well. And finally, the team was trained. They were confident in making their own decisions, they were trained on making judgment calls. And within a short period of time, they stopped coming in, asking about what seemed like a lot of every little thing. And I had freedom. So I could do the things that I needed to do. Because, as you know, as a leader, you should only be doing the things that only you can do. You should only be doing the things that only you can do. So do it. I hope this has helped you. If you want to jump into a deeper discussion about this, happy to help. A way to contact us is somewhere around the show notes. And if you got great value out of this podcast, please share it with somebody else. Please pass it on and pay it forward. Just simply send them to scaleyourinsurance agency.com. ScaleYourInsuranceAgency.com. That's where all of these podcasts are housed. Or for them the link off of your listening choice on where you found this podcast. And we hope that it's helped you. We hope that it's helped you take the next step to your next level in the evolution and growth and scale of your independent insurance agency business. I will see you on the next episode. Until then, one recurring decision. What is it? Take action starting right now.

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