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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 · 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.
10/13/2021 · 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.
10/09/2021 · 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.
10/07/2021 · 6 min read
Delegation sticks when the owner debriefs instead of intervening, makes performance metrics visible, and builds redundancy across the team. Kirk Baker also flags the hard call: when a team member won't take ownership, the long-term cost of keeping them is bigger than the transition out.
10/06/2021 · 6 min read
Real delegation transfers ownership, not just the task. Kirk Baker sorts agency work into three tiers, points the owner only at tier-one decisions, and uses an explicit authority map so team members stop bouncing every question back to the top of the org chart.
10/06/2021 · 6 min read
Handing off agency service work requires written process, explicit standards, and repeated observation, not a single walk-through. Kirk Baker explains why the new frontier rewards agencies that document service tasks, train against the document, and inspect what they expect.
09/27/2021 · 6 min read
Seven staff principles that separate well-run agencies: clarity beats motivation, real-time feedback beats annual reviews, recognition isn't optional, culture is what you tolerate, hire attitude train skill, weekly one-on-ones, and exit promptly with grace.
09/24/2021 · 6 min read
The agency owners who build great teams share two characteristics: they have high hiring standards and they act on performance problems quickly. Most owners have the first or the second, rarely both.
09/18/2021 · 5 min read
Serial entrepreneurs compound pattern recognition across businesses, not within one. The combination that builds durable agencies pairs eye-of-the-tiger competitive drive with heart-of-gold investment in people. Drive sets standards. Care builds teams that outperform extractive cultures over time.
09/18/2021 · 6 min read
Dave Williams's serial-entrepreneur framework pairs competitive drive (eye of the tiger) with personal integrity (heart of gold). Treat failure as information, not identity. Anchor drive to specific people in your life so it sustains. Character compounds because the insurance product is trust.
09/17/2021 · 6 min read
Insurance hiring is brutal because licensing filters out potential, commission scares off salaried candidates, and the industry lacks employer brand recognition. Survive by running a warm pipeline year-round, shortening your interview process, and testing behavior instead of trusting resumes.
09/13/2021 · 6 min read
Emotional intelligence beats technical knowledge as the variable that separates top producers from also-rans. Insurance is an emotional transaction: prospects buy safety, not coverage details. Develop it with a reflection log, label emotions before responding, ask staff and clients how you make them feel.
09/13/2021 · 5 min read
Emotional mastery for an agency owner is real-time awareness of your internal state plus the ability to regulate it before it leaks into the team. Check in before calls and meetings, run a 5-minute reset between frustrating moments, and process hard emotions in private. Leader state spreads to team performance.
