Craig Pretzinger: 0:00

Well, hello, Mr. Jason.

Jason Feltman: 0:01

Hello there.

Craig Pretzinger: 0:03

I like to believe that,

Jason Feltman: 0:05

you know that you like that.

Craig Pretzinger: 0:07

I like it. And I know that

Jason Feltman: 0:08

it's the first step. The first step to believing is believing it's the first step to any outcome. That's true,

Craig Pretzinger: 0:16

you gotta believe it,

Jason Feltman: 0:17

you gotta believe it, then

Craig Pretzinger: 0:18

what happens,

Jason Feltman: 0:19

though you will you won't behave, and then you won't become oh, by the head of the

Craig Pretzinger: 0:25

insurance dudes are on a mission to escape, being handcuffed by our agents,

Jason Feltman: 0:31

Tao by uncovering the secrets to creating a predictable, consistent, and profitable agency Sales Machine.

Craig Pretzinger: 0:39

I am Craig Pretzinger.

Jason Feltman: 0:40

I am Jason Feldman. We are agents, we are insurance.

Craig Pretzinger: 0:47

So that's interesting that that hat takes us to where we're gonna go, I noticed something here in the agency. And we know that everything is kind of cyclical, right, we go up and down. And, and we can, we can have some great months. And what will happen is maybe we take the foot off the gas a little bit, or start getting a little bit lazy with some stuff, because now we just won the Super Bowl, we had a great month, and then it starts. Yeah,

Jason Feltman: 1:13

you're in it takes seven vacations, right? One year,

Craig Pretzinger: 1:17

and you don't have the right people working. And then all of a sudden it goes crazy. Who knows? Right? Anything could happen. Right? So I know, I and you're right, I've been out a lot. And what I what I've noticed, is, I think you can't set the expectations so high, that when you're gone, or when you're not involved directly in the day to day operations, the expectations? Sure, you can set your expectations anywhere. But I think that at least in my experience, having expectations too high, maybe the same or better than then I would expect of myself to occur if I'm not there is unrealistic, right? Those are unrealistic expectations, because I don't think that anybody who works for you is ever going to care, or be more passionate about your business than you write for them as job, right. And so by default, the more that somebody is away, the more the owner is away, the greater likelihood that things are going to start to atrophy a little bit, right? Things are going to say, well, maybe we will skip a meeting, or maybe we're going to stop listening to calls. Or maybe we're gonna, you know, some some little little parts of the process start potentially falling off, show that we're not fully optimized. And then eventually, right, because we know that that there's some lag, right, there's some leading and some lagging indicators, but but whatever we're following, there's a potential that now, because we stopped doing these things in a couple of months, or even in a month or in a couple of weeks, whatever, in some timeframe, we're going to start getting that decline. And it's gonna it and it may be difficult at that time to identify exactly the cause of the of the decline, right? Yep. So I'm sharing my story. And I know I'm eating up. Do you have anything you want to comment so far?

Jason Feltman: 3:09

Yeah. And I know the way you are, because I know the way I am. And I were very similar. And I, you know, and I think that we probably have a problem that not a lot, I think agents probably have less of a problem with so I don't know how relevant it is, but is being consistent with checking those KPIs. Right, you right, you expect, like certain KPIs, and you might set the expectation out there. Yeah. But our employees know that. Sometimes we forget about them for a while. So it's like, are they going to keep asking me or whatever, then then it falls off. And then you go back to him? Like, oh, I didn't know we're still doing that. Like, right. Come on.

Craig Pretzinger: 3:51

Yeah. When did when was the memo that circulated that said, we're no longer going to be tracking our quotes, right? Like, why why would that make sense? So yeah, totally. Right. So we, we get, we get to this point where, okay, we have all the tools and the resources, right, you and I have both built the thing because we know that we can not be as consistent personally, all the time. So in doing so we create the process that creates the consistency, right, so we don't have to deal with that. So I know, if our sales are this, then it means I should have or let me go the other way. I know that if I spent this much on leads, and I have this many people making dials, I have this many people doing quotes, I have a pretty good idea how many quotes need need to be done to get to a certain result. And based on a certain spread, where I should be right like a pretty good game, like for historically. So we know we know what we need to put in and we know where we need to get. But if we we take our hands off the wheel and put it on cruise control. We may not be watching some of those leading indicators that are going to tell us that we're going to have some problems. So I'll give Be an example. I go back to like, as I noticed that I get back from Portugal gone a month, then I go to Hawaii gone almost another month. So that's two months not very engaged. And I hope nobody, none of them are listening because well, you know what I am, I do hope they're listening because they'll know that I am much more engaged and looking at those numbers now. So. So those numbers, I was I was getting lazy at looking at right. And it's easy look for the week for if I if there's four producers that should be 40 quoted households a day. That's 200 quoted households for the week. 800 for the month, not very difficult, right. So I know. Okay, week one, did we do 200? Week two, did we do? Are we at 400? Week three? Are we at 600? Did we hit these leading indicator numbers that have to be hit in order to get to the result that we want to get? And as I look back, guess what? What? Nope. So it wasn't terrible. But it's like seven, right? Seven, seven, everybody's get seven, eight instead of 10? Well, okay, that's 30% less. So if they're doing 30% Less quotes over the month. Do you think it's safe to say that we did 30 30%? Less business? Yep. Guess what we did? 40% 30%. Less business? Like the numbers always worked out? Right. Yeah. So it's so funny that we have the formula right up front, we know the path. And still it's challenging, just to manage all of the pieces. Yeah, time's right.

Jason Feltman: 6:33

Yeah, it's funny too, because like, there's leading indicators, which are all the activity leading up to the thing. And then you have your lagging indicators, which is after the thing, like after the sales, and then like, we had this conversation the other day, about a post that we we did in the in the in the books of face, and like we were talking about, like, which is better, right. And the thing is, is you do have your leading indicators and your lagging indicators, your lagging indicators are going to be the thing that you feel, you're going to feel that way, you're going to feel that in the pocket book, you're gonna see it on the sales, the sales is the lagging indicator, in the sale pipeline, the leading indicators are the activities. So it's very important for us as a high performance agent, if that's what you want to be, if you want to be one, you have to be paying attention to the leading indicators, because that is going to represent what's happening in the future, your lagging indicators are in the past. So that has to do with the leading indicators of a month ago, or two months

Craig Pretzinger: 7:37

ago, yeah, if you're making decisions on on your based off of sales, then you're driving by looking in the rearview mirror. And

Jason Feltman: 7:45

I think no matter what we're doing in the office, like you can, like the pros have all leading indicators, whether it's on service on just like every part of everything that you're doing, you need to figure out those leading indicators. And that is what you need to control instead of being because a lot of times we get those lagging indicators, and then we get emotional about them. I can't believe that's not happening. It's like, wow, how can you not believe it? Like, because, but what was it that lead up to that if you have poor retention? If you have a bad loss ratio, then you need to put in those leading indicators, like what are the indicators that like that would show that those policies are written poorly, that you're getting the bad loss ratio? What's showing the that people are leaving, like, what little things can we do? And how can we create those KPIs, those leading indicators, so that we can know whether or not we're gonna get that poor outcome? Right. And if we focus on the lead on the front end, like prior to the thing happening and create the systems there, then the things won't happen. We won't have to be a moat like Don't ever be emotional about the result of something use the result of something to show what's actually going on because the result going back to the belief behaved become Yeah, it's like once something has become something it's because of the prior activities. Yes. Like, don't be mad at that. Just look at it as like, Okay, we suck at this right now. So what are the things that led up to this and what can we do to change it put that in place and don't be mad at the result because the results will change as long as you have a system in place that that you're constantly looking at the KPIs your your team knows exactly what to do to change it and stay consistent daily.

Craig Pretzinger: 9:47

Yeah, I love it. I love everything you just said there and I think that it's it's so

Jason Feltman: 9:52

great. You just said there I love it.

Unknown: 9:55

You complete me know the

Craig Pretzinger: 10:00

I'd love the I don't even know. The I'm just messing with you. So I'm thinking about how that'd be even, even fairly recently, where I'm talking about that where the sales are lower, and I get upset, right? I'm over there getting upset and maybe complaining to you, Mister go lucky, doesn't get as upset over there. And I go and and I know that you've looked at me and said, Well, maybe you're mad at yourself. It's really hard to hear, especially when you're mad. And you realize it is on me, right? Like, I'm mad that they didn't write 120 When they should have written 120. But instead, they wrote 90, but then it's like, had I been looking at the leading indicators, I would have known 777 every day just doesn't get you to where I needed to get. They have to quote 10 new households each. If it was 1010 10, guess what? We would have done? 120 I wouldn't have to be mad at myself. Yep. Because I didn't actually would have looked at those things.

Jason Feltman: 11:12

Right. So it's like, yeah, and if it's hard for you to like, follow up on those things. And it's like, then have your manager your team, like text you those numbers? You know what I mean? Like, every week, on Fridays? If there's four people in the office, and it's supposed to be What did you say to it? Well, minus 10 coded households works worked it out. That's for agents. 40. Yeah. So 200. So there's should be 200. So then it's like, 200? And then what was the actual number? And why? Where did the other three go? Or, you know, 25? And how are we going to make it up the next week? Like, that's what I want the service manager to text me every single Friday? Because that is the most important metric in? You don't I mean, like, yeah, set up stuff like that, that that can help you in your agency. And if you're like me, and Craig, you're gonna need that stuff. And that's what we do to like, make up for, you know, make up for last time? Well, if, for us, it's like, we're not going to be the most detail on that. But like, put somebody in charge of that one thing that you don't I mean, you don't have to do it. I mean,

Craig Pretzinger: 12:19

this is a one of the highest value activities of the agency, right? I basically wasn't really plugged into anything. And that's why this wasn't done. If I'm gonna, if I'm gonna not. And so it's important. If I know this is the highest value thing, I definitely should not be answering the phone and helping somebody with a claim instead of doing this. Right, like, right. And I think that Well, I know that for many years, I would find the other thing, reactionary thing that's much easier just to handle instead of the proactive thing that actually is going to that's actually going to contribute to better results.

Jason Feltman: 12:54

Yes. And I know that probably came off cold, the if somebody has a claim to not help them. But I know what you're saying,

Craig Pretzinger: 13:01

Well, no, because you know what, there's nothing else in the office that's much better equipped 100% to do it better. And that's what they should be doing. Right. That's what the team should be doing. If the team was the ones holding themselves accountable for doing 10 quoted houses during the day, that is not going to happen? Well, it's

Jason Feltman: 13:23

like this, you using your time as an investment, looking at it as an investment, what's going to serve you in the future, what's going to pay off over and over and over again, setting that those systems up like you focusing on that is going to pay off time it's going to be compound results, where it's like if you handle that immediate thing, it's just what you're handling that day, and it's done. So it's squashed. It's gone. It's like you're not getting the compound results from it. So I think the high level agent, neither needs to look at the compounding result type thing. Like how do we take our time, 10 minutes today that will pay off dividends in the future? Right. Which is it's hard to do. It's not the easiest thing.

Craig Pretzinger: 14:12

It's not, it's not you got to do it.

Jason Feltman: 14:16

You want to sign us out credit. Can you do that? Well,

Craig Pretzinger: 14:20

if you haven't been to our webpage on the worldwide web, that's WWW dot the ids.com. There's a great cartoon of Mr. Jason over there without his belief hat. And if you like this, go ahead and go to pound the subscribe button with one of those hammers from Super Mario Brothers.

Jason Feltman: 14:39

Yes. The link to the hammer to the Amazon link will be in the comments below.

Craig Pretzinger: 14:46

Can you get those now? From the Koopa Troopas, right. Oh, no, they have boomerangs. Anyway, we'll see you on the flippety flip.