Can Your Agency Run Without You?

What really happens in your agency when you walk out the door? Do things keep moving? Or does everything stop and wait on you? Tonya and Mike look at what it means to build an agency that can actually function without the owner in the room. From vacations and conferences to unexpected time away, they discuss how culture, trust, and decision-making show up when leadership isn’t there.

They talk about the habits that create owner dependency, the difference between busy and scalable, and why many agency owners struggle to let go even when they know they need to. You’ll hear practical ways to build a team that can think, act, and serve clients with confidence, along with the small shifts that turn task-takers into decision-makers.

Because the truth is simple: If everything stops when you leave, you don’t own a business. You own a job with overhead.

Learn more at IntegraPartnerNetwork.com.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This is IA Forward, your playbook for success as an independent insurance agent. Now, here to help you knock it out of the ballpark for your hosts, Shane Tatum, Tanya Leed, Mike Basil, and Robbie Javore.

SPEAKER_02 0:13

Welcome to IA Forward, and it is the Mike and Tanya show today. Shane is out of town, and Robbie has retired from his brief podcasting career.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

I haven't spoken out loud since 8 30 this morning Eastern time, and we're recording at 12. So I have been saving up all my words since 8:30 this morning just to make sure that I can, you know, help cover the massive void in words that we are going to try to overcome.

SPEAKER_02 0:53

I know, right? I mean, and but but we can do it. I have I have I have total faith in us. And so our topic, let's talk about what happens when the agency owner, when the principals walk out the door, whether you're going on vacation, whether you're at a conference, an unexpected absence, maybe it's medical, maybe it's family. How do you make sure that your team members are doing what they're supposed to do? How do you trust your team members? How do you make sure that you create an agency that still does what it's supposed to do when you're not there?

SPEAKER_01 1:36

Yeah. So I guess the perception that you would probably leave the office with is that people are hanging off the chandeliers when you're not there, right? But that's that's more than likely not happening because the chances of you having a chandelier are probably pretty slim. Um, but I think it's all culture, right? Like that's what it boils down to is you're going to lead a certain way from the day that that person steps through the door uh to uh to be your employee, or those people step through the doors to be your employees, and they're gonna follow your lead, and really it's up to you to create that culture in the amount of time you have them prior to you leaving for the first time. But it's not gonna be easy, like it's gonna be weird, it's gonna be like leaving your kids for the first time, right? You know, you're gonna go on a trip with your wife and you're gonna leave the kids with somebody. That feels weird, but they've parented before because you're here, so they know what they're doing. These people have done their job before you left, they're going to continue to do your their jobs while you're gone.

SPEAKER_02 2:52

So many agency owners feel as though they have to touch every account that they want to be the person that um that the client is talking to, or at some point they want to check things before it goes out to the client, right? And the challenge with that long term is that makes your agency busy, that makes you busy, but that's not scalable, right?

SPEAKER_01 3:25

For sure. Now there's different levels to that, right? So your personality is going to play into this to some degree. You know, if you're starting an agency and you are ex-military, you're going to check in on things a little more than someone else would. And that's fine. You can budget into your time a little bit of that, but you cannot be an oversight committee all by yourself at all times, or you're not going to accomplish anything other than watching other people work. And the whole point in an agency of bringing employees on is to free yourself to do more sales, right? I mean, you're probably going to bring on the first thing you're going to bring on in most cases is a CSR so that you can do more selling and you can make more money for the agency. And if you're spending all your time watching over this person do their job, that is super counterproductive.

SPEAKER_02 4:21

Well, we love when the first person you bring on is a CSR. I've really seen that the first person that most brings most agency owners bring on as a producer because they want to see that book grow. If it's the producer that you've brought on board, that really does make it more difficult to leave the office because you've got two people that are great at sales and nobody that's really fantastic about paperwork and following up.

SPEAKER_01 4:53

That's exactly right. In fact, the prospect I just spoke with uh that was interested in joining our group last week, one of their first questions was how how should I structure my compensation for another producer? And that's almost exactly what I said to them is well, slow down on producers. Uh, you're the producer at the moment, and you know, maybe you would want to consider bringing on someone with a different skill set as your first employee, but you know, to each his own. But I I am in agreement with you that um if you have two people that are doing the same job and there's only two people, that is a that is that's problematic. I mean, where do you go from there?

SPEAKER_02 5:39

You know, Shane's answer to this question would go back to core values and the idea of setting core values, making sure that your employees know what they are, and then every single question that they have, the way they treat the customer, the way they create the customer experience, everything they do goes back to the core values. And and I have this piece of crystal that sits on my desk that apparently is covered in fingerprints when I just showed it, but it has our core values on there, right? Honesty wins, dependability, earn your way, serve others, and then make it personal. And then it has our corporate mantra all do the right thing on the back. And so um that is that is how Shane would tell you that this has to be done. If you're out of the office, your team members have to know your core values and be able to solve any challenge, make any decision based on those things. And if you don't have those core values written down, if you don't have them ingrained in your team members, if you don't have them in front of your team members all the time, then I believe, and I I know that's what Shane would say, is you know, that's where challenges happen. Not everyone in your agency was brought up with the same moral and ethical code that you were. And we believe that everybody's brought up the same way we are, and they're not. And that's one of those things that we've kind of learned over the years is teach people how you want them to make the decisions, what to make those decisions based off of, and then they're gonna make the right decisions.

SPEAKER_01 7:39

So first, did the office send you that?

SPEAKER_02 7:44

What my my my piece of crystal?

SPEAKER_01 7:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:48

Um, they were uh bosses day gifts from our team members one year. They uh the year that we had our 40th anniversary, each of the team members chipped in together and bought these for the members of the leadership team.

SPEAKER_01 8:03

Okay, so this was before I was on the leadership. All I've gotten is a hand-me-down shirt from Shane that he didn't want anymore. So he said, Oh, since you don't currently have an Integra shirt, why don't you take this one? It doesn't fit me. So I was like, Okay, thanks.

SPEAKER_02 8:29

No, no, no, sorry. Yeah, no, you were you were not with us at 40.

SPEAKER_01 8:33

Okay, hi. So I think we should back up. Uh maybe this is worth saying just in case no one thinks about this beforehand. You have this big trip coming up in like a month or two months, that is not the time to go find someone. You need to figure this out a little before that, because there has to be you you have to show them all of these processes that you already have in place. You have to become comfortable with how they talk to your client base. And you know, if this is a run and gun situation, that that is a bad way to roll.

SPEAKER_02 9:14

So a run and gun situation.

SPEAKER_01 9:17

Yeah, run and gun.

SPEAKER_02 9:19

I've never heard that before.

SPEAKER_01 9:23

You don't know this one, yeah. Run basketball, run and gun.

SPEAKER_02 9:28

Okay, so I'm not a basketball girl, I'm a I'm a football, baseball, hockey, you know, softball, tennis, golf. Pretty much anything but basketball. That that would be why. That would that would be why. I am not as you do. And I love I love something you just said, Mike. You you just said you're gonna teach them all these processes you have in place. People don't have processes in place. Are you crazy?

SPEAKER_01 9:55

I knew you were gonna say, I knew you were gonna say that.

SPEAKER_02 9:58

All those processes are in my head.

SPEAKER_01 10:01

They're here, yep.

SPEAKER_02 10:02

Right, right. And I mean, yes, you can use the chat GPT, you can video yourself, you can tell it to create the processes, but that would take time to do that, right? And when your processes are in your head and and you know what you're doing, it is really hard to bring somebody on board, and then you get mad at them because they're not doing it your way.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:27

Right. But uh one of the one of the agents that um is a member of our Integra Partner Network is Brian Poole and uh Lone Star uh Insurance in Deer Park, Texas, which is right outside of Houston. And I have loved watching his agency grow over the last nine years because Brian used to be that person that had his hand in everything, right? I mean, every customer uh talked to Brian. He he he had his own processes in place. And then he realized there were other things he wanted to do. He wanted to be able to travel with his children. He takes a vacation with each of his children every year individually, and he takes a vacation with his wife individually, right? And so that was several trips a year that he was going to be out of the office. So not only did he put processes in place so his team members could function while he was out of the office, Brian checks his email in the evening, and that's kind of how he handles it, but he had to go back and train his customers because he had such a hand in everything at first that training his customers that it's okay to talk to other people was actually a challenge.

SPEAKER_01 11:51

Yeah, I can definitely see that. Um maybe not as big a deal with the younger generation of customers, but that is a always a struggle when you get into you know your 55 plus neighborhood of clientele, especially if they've been with you for quite some time. Um, yes, there is definitely a training process there. And you know, you have to be willing in that first phase of it to be a little less productive. You're gonna be a little less productive. Maybe every once in a while you have to get on a call with both the customer and the person in your office to kind of give a warm handoff, right? So, you know, that does stifle productivity a little bit, but in the long run, you're gonna be better off. So you have to go in there with the appropriate expectations. But I think one thing it would be interesting to talk about is what if you're someone that really has their heart set on just being a solopreneur? Like you just want to get the client base you can get um as just one person, and you don't want to have a staff and you're happy with the income you're making, but of course you still want to get out of the office, or in some cases, need to get out of the office. And what are some things that we can think of that would help you in a situation like that? First thing I go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 13:27

Like the Sean Nunleys of the world. Sean Nunley is is one of our former integra partner agents of the year. Absolutely fantastic solo veneer, and doesn't doesn't want to take own a team member. He has fantastic internal systems that are a little bit different, but has great success, makes a wonderful living by himself.

SPEAKER_01 13:54

It's like this in any business. You know, you can be one person and make X amount of dollars, and you can stay there and be happy, but you could also, okay, I'm gonna make this step, I'm gonna bring people on, but that doesn't guarantee that you're gonna make more. You may, but you you may not as well, right? So there's some people will will be happy just staying at where they're at. All those headaches of having employees, I can't make it in today, I've got a toothache, I just don't like you that much, so I'm not coming today. Like that's happens, right? Yeah, those those are called mental health days now. Yeah, like those didn't exist. Uh 20 years ago, there was no such thing as a mental health day. My daughter comes to me and asks me about mental health days. What are you talking about? How do you a mental health day?

SPEAKER_02 14:51

Give me the ducks and let's go. Yeah. I'm going to step beyond this wall of glass to the pool out there. Have my mental health day.

SPEAKER_01 15:05

But anyway, um, you know, there's things you can do. You can introduce a VA. I think that's a really great way to not not only will it take some of the pressure off of you uh in remedial day-to-day tasks, but that can help uh when you're out of the office. Uh some careful.

SPEAKER_02 15:26

And I want to jump in on that one. The we uh we have a partnership uh with IA Blueprint for insurance trained virtual assistants. Um we have to Shane took mine away from me because I loved Kathleen and I miss her very much. But uh if you want somebody that knows the insurance world, um IA Blueprint is a great place to go for uh a virtual.

SPEAKER_01 15:57

Now some carriers, some groups have service centers. Yeah, we do. Um that are optional fans.

SPEAKER_02 16:09

Some groups require them, some groups have them that are optional. Ours is optional.

SPEAKER_01 16:14

Yeah, some carriers, always optional with carriers. Um, but that is another great way to go. Um, for someone who's interested in getting out of the office for a little while. Same things really as the VA, but in this case, you're getting a little more than you would with the VA in terms of the insurance ability.

SPEAKER_02 16:36

We have several partners that have um friendships, uh mutual business agreements that if agent X goes, you know, is going out of the office for the week, then agent Y will help them out. And then when agent Y goes out, then Agent X will help them out as well. So we do see a lot of that internally where our guys will will help each other out, where our ladies will. Um, I would be careful on that, making sure it's somebody that you trust, not just like some random person that you're you're picking up the phone and calling and saying, hey, will you talk to my customers? But if there's somebody that you have a really great relationship with, that is that is always an option. One of the things that when I go out of Tieron and work remotely, beyond working remotely at my home office, um the cute boy and right, remote from remote. But the cute boy and I will always try to get one of the little mini suites that separates, has a separate room from the bedroom. And so we have our whole our office space that we could work in, and then the the bedroom space just to have that separation of when we're at work. Um, and it also gives us separation that if I am working and he's working and we're on calls at the same time, there's a wall between us, or he will go downstairs to the business center and I will stay in the room, or vice versa. Um, in that same situation when I'm working remote from remote, I always pay for the internet. I mean, you you're gonna get free internet, I get it, but make the investment in that extra$4,$5,$9 a day to get the good internet because it's gonna make your life a lot easier.

SPEAKER_01 18:31

Just to go back real quick to the friends helping each other out, because I've heard about some of that that happens. I gotta be honest with you, I hate that idea.

SPEAKER_02 18:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 18:42

Um, there's just no spot that I think that works. I know it works for some people, but it's like if you don't know the person that well, then it doesn't work. Right. If it's a great friend of yours, I still feel like it could blow up on you guys in some spectacular way. Like, oh, all this I had this problem. I'm a client now. I had this problem, I called in, and your friend helped me out four days in a row, and now I kind of want to go be their client, and now you're in this weird spot, and I don't know. I just don't like I don't love that one. Okay, to each his own. I know people, like I said, I know people do it, but for me, I just would not put myself in that situation because it just especially if it's a good friend of mine, like I just don't want to have some something come up that what why did I lose this customer while I was gone? That I would never want to hear that question.

SPEAKER_02 19:47

I want to think about the idea of when you are out of the office, are you truly out of the office? Or are you focused on micromanaging, making sure that everything in the office is going well? We told you right now that that Shane is out of the office, he's out, he's he's actually in Florida right now. So I was talking with his daughter this morning and she's like, Are you are you are you with mom and dad? And I'm like, No, I'm I I don't really know where they are. So but um I mean have you talked with him?

SPEAKER_01 20:25

I have not.

SPEAKER_02 20:26

I haven't either. And so he's been gone since Thursday, and he trusts us as his leadership team that we are taking care of business, right? We're not swinging from the chandeliers. Um I think he would probably be more concerned that I was doing that than you were doing that. What do you think?

SPEAKER_01 20:51

I don't know because he's gotten out of my case several times about hair gel. So I feel like he thinks that maybe I am capable of that.

SPEAKER_02 21:02

Yeah. Well, you do have crunchy hair.

SPEAKER_01 21:05

It's not crunchy.

SPEAKER_02 21:06

Is it not crunchy?

SPEAKER_01 21:07

No, it's just trained to do well, no, it's just it you I use a little bit more expensive gel, so you can actually still and it's not crunchy. Which so this is the deal. This is why this is how he came to find out all this. So I was flying somewhere and I was meeting up with Robbie um when I got there, and Robbie's like, Oh, I you know, I got my luggage, let's just go. I was like, Well, I checked mine, and his first thing he says is, Well, how much stuff did you bring? We're only gonna be here for like three days. I was like, No, it's that my suitcase is the same size as yours. I just don't want to deal with the TSA checking of the size of stuff like that. That's like that would be a problem for me. And he's like, Well, why? Like my hair gel is more than whatever else is, and I can't find this hair gel in small enough quantity to be okay. And I'm not gonna sit here but and I'm gonna squeeze it into a smaller bottle. Like, I'm not doing all that. So then, of course, Robbie tells Shane, and now everybody's on me.

SPEAKER_02 22:19

Okay. I I missed all of that, by the way. So I I'm glad you so so you won't just put your stuff in a smaller bottle.

SPEAKER_01 22:28

That's what I'm saying. I'm not gonna sit here with one bottle over the top of another bottle and try to squeeze the thing out and do all this. I'm not I'm not doing it.

SPEAKER_02 22:37

Okay, okay. I respect that. I I can resp I can totally respect that. So plus back to back to when the boss is out of the office. Uh you know, I mean I think it's one of those situations where you have to decide who in the agency who can approve changes, you know, who can uh who's gonna be owning those client conversations? Who's gonna be talking to carriers if that needs to happen? Like what are the authority levels within the office? What are the decision guardrails?

SPEAKER_01 23:18

What are the things that need to be made in that moment that can wait? Make a list. Yeah, right. But I think what this one I know Shane would push back on, but I'm gonna say it anyway. And and maybe this is me coming from a tech background where you're almost never completely off. But there are things you probably still need to look at and do on a daily basis, even when you are on vacation, right? I mean, there has never been a day that I've gone on a vacation that I haven't checked my email at least a couple of times that day and answered a couple of emails. You're you're never gonna be completely off. That is a trade-off, or you own your own business, you can do what you want to do when you want to do it, but you also do have to stay engaged. You can't go to Europe for seven days and just turn the light switch off.

SPEAKER_02 24:23

So you know, if that's unless you have a substantial leadership team in place.

SPEAKER_01 24:30

And probably most of the people we're talking to are small businesses. Yeah, if you're a small agency, it's not happening.

SPEAKER_02 24:38

One of the things that I I believe that you have to be conscious of is knowing if you're training decision makers or are you training task takers, right? Do your people know how to make decisions or do you just tell them what to do?

SPEAKER_01 24:59

I think one good way, in my opinion, to learn that is when you're showing someone something or you're teaching them something new, are they asking questions, or are they just blindly following exactly what you said? Are they asking questions to see if maybe it could be done a little bit differently, or maybe there's another way to do it, or asking a bigger picture question that leads you to think that they're really thinking about what's happening? If they're just saying, okay, got it, okay, got it, okay, got it, then I think that's a red flag.

SPEAKER_02 25:42

The flip side to that, and I really think this is why Robbie retired from the podcasting uh career, is that I ask too many questions, right? So if I am, if I'm trying to teach somebody how to do something, I'm gonna say, well, how would you do this? Or why would you do it that way, as opposed to necessarily saying this is exactly how I do it, a lot of times I'll say, okay, this is this is what I need to create have happen. How would you do this? And will I lead them through it? Yes, absolutely, 100%. But if you're asking questions while you teach, then they're gonna take ownership of it and it's gonna be theirs rather than your exact process. Because like I use control C to copy on my keyboard. My husband's a right clicker. Okay, and so he'll say, you know, how did you do this? And I'll start to get down in the weeds, and he's like, No, no, no, no, no, no, no, I don't, I don't need but or whatever. But there are going to be ways that your team members do things that are different from the way you do them, that are just either naturally their way, or they may have found a more efficient way to do it. Be open to that, right?

SPEAKER_01 27:08

Yeah, that's right. No, I love that. You can't create a lecture hall, that's not what's going to be productive. That's that's outstanding. You get there has to be interaction and you have to be working together. And if there isn't that level, then I would be a little bit concerned about what things are going to look like when you get back.

SPEAKER_02 27:30

So I want you to think about your agency that if you had to be away for 30 days, if you disappeared, if you were kidnapped, whatever, would your agency grow? Would it stall or would it shrink? And if you believe that it would stall or if it would shrink, maybe take some intentional absences, kind of as a leadership development exercise that are short term, a day, two days, a last minute 24-hour, hey, I'm I'm not gonna be available for 24 hours, see what happens, right?

SPEAKER_01 28:08

And there's plenty of great opportunities within the structure of things that need to get done for you to do that. Like you can go to conferences, right? You can go to a carrier's conference. If there's a couple of carriers you have that you're doing really doing well with, go to their conference or the management system you use is having a conference, go to that conference. And at least you're getting something uh out of being out of the office for a couple of days if it's not necessarily time for a family vacation.

SPEAKER_02 28:38

One of the things that you have to watch out for is energy, right? And is production consistent when you're not there? Or are there production spikes that are tied to your energy? And usually that there's some energy going on with an owner that is creating that momentum, right? So one of the challenges is figuring out how to create that energy when you're not there.

SPEAKER_01 29:08

Yes. You know, another thing that you also have to keep in mind once you get to the third employee, is what your employee dynamic looks like. Um unfortunately, it's not always great. So not only are you working through, you know, I have to teach all these people all these things that need to get done, but now you have to figure out do these people interact with each other in a civilized manner? And sometimes they don't. You see it all the time, especially when you start getting into you know, six, eight, ten employee offices. There are going to be people who don't get along. That is guaranteed? Yes. It is, or just short of guaranteed? Yes. So now that's something else you have to keep in mind. What does that look like when no one is babysitting that situation? Is that tenable? Or do you have to move on from one of the two in order to alleviate whatever pressure is there?

SPEAKER_02 30:18

And to me, that goes to that whole idea of guardrails. And if people know what positions they're supposed to be in when the boss is out of the office, then that does help with that, knowing where those authority levels are. So one person's not trying to upsurb another person's authority level. If people have very specific ideas of what they're supposed to be doing, um if there is a problem with culture, then that can really get out of hand when when the owner is not there. So we had a uh speaker at our Integral Partner Network conference a few years ago that talked about chairs. And when you have two team members that have a challenge, and and so they'll they'll turn their chairs away from each other. Well, the next time there's a challenge, their chairs are already faced away from each other, so so they take their chairs out further, and then they they take their chairs out further, right? And so that that that chasm only gets wider and wider. And there's two ways to handle that. You either as a leader say, okay, these people are going to figure this out on their own, which usually happens. But if not, that's a difficult, a difficult conversation that needs to be had with your team members. Uh, because you definitely don't want that to come to a head when you're not in the office, because that not only affects those two people, but that affects everyone else within the office space.

SPEAKER_01 31:53

Oh, yeah. Things get toxic quickly. The other thing, going back to what you're saying about taking some trips uh just to see how things go. Another reason that I think that's fantastic is you could also have that one person or even more than one person in the office that feels like they're in charge when you're not there, and that can become problematic as well. So that would give you an opportunity to find out if there is someone or multiple people in the office that feel as though they are in charge when you're not there. And I've seen that before, and that can be a problem. They start over stepping their boundaries, starts irritating other people in the office, incorrect decisions get made. So that is something you would definitely want to keep an eye on.

SPEAKER_02 32:49

The whole idea of operational resilience while you're out of the office, there are there are so many places that that that touches, and this is gonna be one of those things that stuff's gonna go wrong. Be sure you're you know, check that email once a day, twice a day. Um, I know going back to to Brian Poole at Run Star, you know, that's what he does late evening when everybody else goes to bed. Like he goes in, he checks, checks the email, checks how things went. And that is what agency maturity does. It allows you to be able to step away. You know, if you have two people that are brand new, you're not going to be able to get as far away as you are if you have two people that have been with you for two, three, four years, right? And if you create a mature agency, a strong culture, you know, you have people that are there that their whole idea is how do I solve this problem? How do I protect my client experience? If you have a weak culture, then people are waiting. They're waiting. Well, well, you know, I can't I can't do this until the boss gets back. Um, there's blame that's going on. Um, and there's that that protective, you know, that I I'm not gonna let this person get into my territory. And you know, you always hear when the the when the cat's away, the mice will play, right? But but really I I love the other version of that, which is when the boss is away, the culture is on display.

SPEAKER_01 34:30

I've never heard that. I like that.

SPEAKER_02 34:32

And what was yours about running, running, doing run and gun. Run and gun. Okay, so there we go. We have our two new phrases of the day.

SPEAKER_01 34:40

But to that point, uh, you were talking about periods of time. Like when you look at the integra leadership team as a whole, who on the leadership team has known Shane for less than 10 years?

SPEAKER_02 34:57

It's yeah, it's nine years for me. Okay, it's nine years. I I get I'm probably the one that has known in the the the least amount of time at nine years, but it's close to ten.

SPEAKER_01 35:07

So I I mean, everyone knows him well enough to know the thought process. Yes, and that's why he can go and he's not worried. I can guarantee you he's not worried.

SPEAKER_02 35:24

Now, before he had a leadership team in place, he would have been worried.

SPEAKER_01 35:28

Agreed.

SPEAKER_02 35:29

Yes, but that comes with agency maturity, right? That comes with uh with knowing the right team members are in place that can take care of things the the way that you do. He always laughs. We um we have three retail agencies along with the Integra Partner Network, and we have one in Atlanta, Texas. I never knew there was an Atlanta, Texas before I came to work for the Integra family, but there is an Atlanta, Texas, it's a Texas because up until about a year ago, I always thought we were talking about Atlanta, Georgia.

SPEAKER_01 36:08

And then somehow it came up in conversation. I was like, Texas somehow came up in conversation. I was like, wait, what? Because I had no clue.

SPEAKER_02 36:19

Yeah, there were no we now we have partner agents in Atlanta and uh in Atlanta, Texas in Atlanta, Georgia. Hold on. We have we do have partner agents in Atlanta, Georgia, and I I love working with them. But yes, we have a retail location in Atlanta, Texas, my Texwork, yeah. And he always jokes about Jamie Kirkland. And if you've listened to our podcast for for a long time, you've heard us talk about Jamie and how fantastic she is, and Jamie runs our retail location up there. And Shane always says he has no idea if Jamie showed up for work that day to open the office. Like he doesn't know. Yeah, like there's no way to like he just like she just does her thing and doesn't ask questions, and and she runs that agency by our core values and and does an absolutely wonderful job. The team in Atlanta, Texas, but that goes to trusting your people, finding the right people, find the people that fit your culture and trust them, right? And that trust part, I think is the hardest because this is our livelihood. This is our this is the major investment of our lifetime. It's either, you know, equal to your house, more than your house, it's your baby.

SPEAKER_01 37:44

Yeah. So it's you know, especially with a situation like Shane's where you're second generation, probably feel a little you've you probably feel a little bit more weight, but you can't let paralysis set in due to that either. You have to be careful and and say, Well, I can't do this because this might happen. Sometimes you just need to jump and just have a contingency plan in place for if this doesn't work out. In fact, you should always have a contingency plan in place if it does not work out. But don't stop advancing your agency just because something may go wrong.

SPEAKER_02 38:26

Trust your people. I mean, there's a reason that you hired them. If you can trust them, they're if they're doing what they're supposed to do when you're in the office, they're probably gonna do what they're supposed to do when you're when you're out of the office, right?

SPEAKER_01 38:44

That's right. Unless, of course, you hired them because they were the only applicant, then the situation would be different.

SPEAKER_02 38:53

I'm gonna give you I'm gonna give you a phrase, and I know we've heard this. Well, we didn't want to bother you while you were gone. And that sounds super respectful. I get it. Like I've said that, but that is operationally dangerous.

SPEAKER_01 39:14

It is. This one's a little harder for me because I've never said that to Shane ever.

SPEAKER_02 39:20

I will I don't know if I've ever said it to Shane.

SPEAKER_01 39:23

I will I will bother.

SPEAKER_02 39:29

Yeah, I don't think I've ever said it to Shane.

SPEAKER_01 39:32

No, but that but uh to the point you're making, um, it is important for people around you to know the difference between something that is super important and something that can wait. And that is just going to come with time and them learning that, along with you becoming comfortable with them as a good employee. You know, that of course is going to be the first thing is is this a good employee? Secondly, is now let's teach them the things that can wait two days until I come back, and the things that I need to know about right away before we lose a carrier.

SPEAKER_02 40:11

And that's a that's an extreme example, but as agency owners switch from a producer mindset to an ownership mindset, there are a few things that really have to transition. And these may sting a little bit, so if they do, it's okay. I say this with love and respect. But a lot of business owners like being needed, and it makes it hard to step away because you like to be needed, and and that control is is a thing, and there's this fear that if you loosen that grip, then everything is going to crash, right? And you're you're in a bit of an identity crisis when you're that way.

SPEAKER_01 41:08

Yes, and I think just shifting your mindset a little bit and looking at it from the correct perspective can help a lot. You're still needed there, but you're also needed on whatever this other thing you're doing is as well. You are you need to spend time with your significant other, you need to spend time with your children, you need to spend time with your parents, you need to spend time by yourself. A break, yes. That's what I was gonna say. A break. You need to go to a conference about insurance to educate yourself more about insurance. You still need it, but you also need time away and you need to do these other things.

SPEAKER_02 41:54

Uh going back to the book, the e-myth, the entrepreneurial myth, it's everything stops when you leave. You don't own a business. You own a job with overhead, you should be able to go to the beach.

SPEAKER_01 42:14

That's right. At the end of the day, the reason you own this business is to be able to do things. Right? You want to live on your own terms. So now what you've created, if you you don't want to create a business that is imprisoning you in doing things for the business at all times. That was not your intention when you went into it, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_02 42:42

So I something I want to challenge you to think about is what would break first in your agency if you were unreachable tomorrow and fix it. Because this is a huge undertaking to think about, to try to fix all of this at once. But if you know there's one thing that's gonna fix that's that's gonna break, fix that one thing, right? And then after you've done that, design some of an intentional leadership moments that you can step back. Maybe it's one day out of the office, two days out of out of the office, and observe what happens. Um, Shane's not a rah-rah person, so he's not gonna, he he wouldn't agree with this. But like if you're if you can stay away for 48 hours and your team does what they're supposed to do, acknowledge that when you get back, right? Celebrate your teams when they perform well. And especially in an instance where you're really not giving them notice, if they're able to figure out how to keep everything going, yes, that is their job. Yes, that is what you're paying them to do 100%. But if they're figuring out it, they're figuring out processes. And they're solving problems. That's the team that you want to keep.

SPEAKER_01 44:08

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 44:13

So let's take this from a different perspective. We are employees. The boss is frolicking around Florida somewhere. What do we want when he's out of the office?

SPEAKER_01 44:27

Catering?

SPEAKER_02 44:29

Well, I can I could go with that as well. I think But seriously, as employees, what are we looking for from a leader when they're out of the office?

SPEAKER_01 44:42

I think it goes back to what you get from them before they're out of the office. It's consistency and authenticity. Those are the two words when I thought about this before we started that really popped into my head. Um let me start with authenticity. I think it's going to go sideways on you if you bring an employee on and you act different than who you actually are, because you think that's the way a boss is supposed to act. I'll go back to the example we used earlier where if you're ex-military, you're going to lead differently because of the way you were raised in that particular job than someone else. If you try to change that when this new employee comes on, you are going to temporarily change because you're very hyper-focused on it, and then later you're just going to slip back to all of those things that are more comfortable to you. And now this person you've brought on doesn't necessarily know which end is up. You acted a certain way to start, and now you're acting differently, and which is the real you, and things can get really complicated from there. So always be who you are, and then you'll find out right away if there's some sort of issue where your personalities don't fit together, and that's fine. But get out of that situation as quickly as you can and start training someone new if that's not going to work.

SPEAKER_02 46:25

I would encourage you to also be honest with your customers. This is one of the things that makes you different from, and I used to say the British Lizard, but now the British Lizard is actually one of our uh one of our carriers that we provide in the Integra Parker Network. So I can't say that anymore. But this is one of the things that makes you different from the big insurance company that you call the 800 number and you never know who you're going to speak with, right? And so when you go out of town, let your people know ahead of time. Let your let your customers know ahead of time. Send that email that says, I will be out of the office uh Monday through Wednesday watching my daughter's softball team play a tournament. Um if you need something immediately, email my team at let's chat at xyzinsurancegroup.com. Um, or set that email up where it's going to a distribution list and your team members are going to automatically reach out, right? Put it on your uh on your voicemail, what you're doing, where you are. And that is what humanizes you as an agent, and it puts things on that personal level, right? So I believe there's absolutely nothing wrong with letting people know ahead of time you're going to be out of the office, but they're going to be talking with your team, and your team's got it taken care of. And, you know, train your customers that way. Let your people know that you're doing that. It doesn't have to be this big deal. I'm going to on my cruise for a week. I'm going to be out of the office for the afternoon working with my uh, you know, working with XYZ team member. I'm at the ballgame or I'm at a rehearsal for a dance recital. You know, all of those things matter to you. And I truly believe with all of my heart that the customer that you want in a standard preferred agency will fully support that, right? I mean, like if I call somebody and their voicemail tells me that they're at their daughter's dance commercial practice, well, the first thing when they call me back, I'm gonna be like, oh my gosh, how did how did your daughter do? Is she amazing? Did she warn her feet? Is she smiling? Does she have a good time? You know, I'm gonna ask all of those questions, right? I'm gonna ask if your son won his football game. And that creates a relationship with your customers, right? Same things with your team members. And you know, that if you trust your team members to have that information to share that information, you're creating a wonderfully symbiotic relationship with customers that way.

SPEAKER_01 49:34

It's also great touch points, right? If you're gonna be out for a week and you send out that email, that's a correspondence that they're getting from you where you're sharing something about yourself, but you're also talking to them at a time you wouldn't generally speak to them. Your renewal's not up. It's there's no claim, it's just some some spot for them to remember your name and why they decided to do business with you. So that is a fantastic idea.

SPEAKER_02 50:03

And you were important to not you were important enough as a customer that they let you know that you're going to be out of the office, right? I mean, that that makes me feel good that hey, you know, I'm gonna be out of the office. I've got you taken care of. As a customer, I'm gonna continue to do business with you because I mattered to you. You let me know that.

SPEAKER_01 50:25

Yeah, you're you're creating brand differentiation. That's that's a tough one.

SPEAKER_02 50:30

Oh, go, Mike. Very nice. Well, I think we did it. What do you think?

SPEAKER_01 50:40

We absolutely did it. Yeah, we crushed that.

SPEAKER_02 50:42

We crushed it. We crushed it. You know, Shane, you could just stay out of the office. We've got this. Enjoy your time in Florida. You trusted your team, we made it. And I'm gonna leave us today with this quote from Paul Bear Bryant: Leadership is what you do when you're not there. Mike, so you gotta close us out.

SPEAKER_01 51:08

Attitude's a choice, make a great one.

SPEAKER_00 51:11

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