Page 21 of 42 · 834 total episodes
10/21/2021 · 7 min read
Three de-biasing techniques that actually move agency decisions: the pre-mortem (assume the decision failed, list why), structured disagreement (assign one person to argue against the plan), and the information audit (where did this data come from, who has a different view).
10/21/2021 · 6 min read
Stop trusting your gut on big agency calls. Use the EGRIP framework: name your Emotions, clarify Goals, separate Reality from assumption, Integrate dissenting perspectives, and run a Planning pre-mortem. Build it into hiring, financial, and carrier decisions before you commit.
10/20/2021 · 5 min read
Four cognitive biases drain agency decisions: confirmation bias (only seeing what supports your call), sunk cost (keeping the producer because of past salary spent), availability bias (one vivid loss skews your whole strategy), and overconfidence (10 years of experience builds blind spots).
10/18/2021 · 5 min read
Every insurance agency owner operates in one of four modes at any given time: manifesting, thriving, surviving, or prevailing through adversity. Understanding which mode you're in and what it takes to shift changes how you approach every decision in your business.
10/18/2021 · 5 min read
Manifest, thrive, survive, prevail are four cycling stages of agency ownership. Manifest constructs a vivid three-year vision. Thrive executes. Survive triages two or three vital signs. Prevail integrates what survival taught you. Naming the stage targets the strategy.
10/16/2021 · 5 min read
Mega agency owners operate from a leverage mental model, not personal capacity. They build specialist team architecture (dedicated sales, service, and ops), manage culture as an active leadership function, and evolve the owner role from producer to system-builder to strategic leader.
10/16/2021 · 5 min read
Stephanie Hamilton's mega agency playbook comes down to three disciplines: define the role before you hire for it, treat retention as a growth strategy not just a defense, and accept that culture is determined by what you tolerate, not what you post on the wall.
10/15/2021 · 6 min read
Stoicism gives insurance agents three operating tools: the dichotomy of control (act only on what you can move), negative visualization (mentally walk worst-case scenarios to defuse them), and equanimity without indifference (care about the work, detach from the outcome). Daily reflection makes it stick.
10/15/2021 · 5 min read
Stoic philosophy isn't abstract ancient wisdom : it's a practical operating system for navigating the chaos, setbacks, and pressure that come with running an insurance agency. Brian Johnson's modern take on stoicism has direct application to how agency owners think and perform.
10/14/2021 · 6 min read
Structured onboarding has four parts: pre-start preparation, a detailed first-week agenda, a written 30-60-90 day plan, and weekly check-ins for the first 90 days. Cutting early turnover even 20 percent pays for itself many times. Make hard underperformance calls early.
10/14/2021 · 6 min read
Filter candidates with a follow-instructions test embedded in the job post, use behavioral questions tied to resilience and coachability, and run an observed 30-minute sales simulation before any offer. Then run 30, 60, and 90 day checkpoints. Catch misfits at month one, not month four.
10/13/2021 · 6 min read
Build a hiring circuit that runs even when no role is open: visible employer brand, formal referral program with a real bonus, monthly conversations with potential future hires, specific job descriptions that filter by self-selection, and behavioral interviews with a real skills sample.
10/13/2021 · 6 min read
Dave Williams's hiring circuit has five phases: attraction with a job post written as a sales document, initial filtering, structured behavioral interviews, observed performance simulation, and a 90-day onboarding ramp. Treat every bad hire as a circuit gap to fix, not a person to blame.
10/11/2021 · 6 min read
Sales scripts work for insurance agencies because every top-producing agent already uses one. They have just internalized it. Build the framework from your best conversations, drill it to fluency in role-play, and deploy it on live calls. Close rate, training speed, and coaching precision all improve.
10/11/2021 · 6 min read
Sales scripts work for insurance agents when built right and drilled to fluency. A strong script needs five components: an opener that hooks attention, discovery questions that actually discover, a bridge from need to solution, pre-thought objection paths, and a close that explicitly asks. Fluency requires volume, not just reading.
10/09/2021 · 5 min read
Lackluster leadership kills agencies through four quiet failures: abdication dressed as delegation, inconsistency that erodes trust, a feedback deficit that makes good work invisible, and pure reactive firefighting that never lets strategic work happen.
10/09/2021 · 5 min read
Bad leadership costs an agency its best people, best clients, and production ceiling. It shows up in five patterns: feedback only flows during problems, standards get applied unevenly, the owner is the decision bottleneck, hard conversations get postponed, and vision is announced once and never reinforced.
10/08/2021 · 6 min read
Write your agency's purpose as one paragraph with a premium target, team size, niche, role you want to play, and a deadline. That paragraph becomes the filter for every hire, market, tool, and calendar decision. Vague goals produce vague results.
10/08/2021 · 6 min read
Clarity of mission is an operating system, not a slogan. A definite purpose names what you're building, for whom, on what timeframe, and why it matters personally. That sentence then filters every hire, marketing dollar, and calendar block from the top down.
10/07/2021 · 6 min read
Delegation only works when you build the oversight layer. Kirk Baker uses three things: random sampling, visible metrics, and a regular one-on-one. Match the right person to the task, and never delegate culture, key client relationships, or producer hiring.