Let’s Fire An Insurance Agent | Insurance Agency Playbook

Discover the delicate balance of nurturing a thriving work environment while making the tough calls in our latest episode, where we venture into the art of firing with a heart. Uncomfortable as it may be, saying goodbye to a team member can be a necessary step towards preserving a robust agency culture. We walk you through the ins and outs of these challenging conversations, emphasizing the importance of clear expectations and the alignment of personal and agency goals. You'll learn how to approach these decisions with both precision and empathy, ensuring each role is filled by the right person who contributes positively to the team's dynamic and overall happiness.


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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to the Insurance Dudes. I'm Jason Feltman. I don't have my partner in crime with me today, but what I do have is a tactic that I think every insurance agent needs to have in their arsenal, and it's how to fire someone. Insurance dudes are on a mission to escape being handcuffed by our agencies. How? By uncovering the secrets to creating a predictable, consistent and profitable agency sales machine. I am Craig Pretziger, I am Jason Feldman. We are agents, we are insurance students.

Speaker 1: 0:39

So let's fire someone? No, but seriously like, there are people that you might want on your team and you might not want on your team. So how do we deal with this? It's a huge point of anxiety for an agent when you know somebody shouldn't be on the team, or it's a huge anxiety point for your team members as well. And if you have the wrong person on your team, the right person that's in your agency might wanna leave, right, because they're around this other person. That's just horrible to them. I've had this in my agency so many times and every time I think, man, why didn't I have this person leave sooner? Keeping that culture, keeping that, yeah, that culture in your agency is so important in making sure that that is the number one thing in your agency that you hold on to, and it's the most empathetic thing you can do for your agency. And why is that? Because when we're not around, how everybody talks and interacts matters so much, because they're also talking to our clients, and things only get worse. Right, it's the second law of thermodynamics Everything waxes old. We do this. How do we fire someone that we just like? What do we do? Do we talk to them? Do we, you know, give them a bunch of second chances? At what point do we do this?

Speaker 1: 2:15

Well, one of my favorite ways to handle this type of situation is to be very clear on expectations. So in your agency, you need to be very clear on what you expect each role in your agency to be and what to do and the outcomes that need to be had. It starts with us as the agency owner, and it starts with us letting them know. And letting them know it's not okay. As soon as you let somebody start getting away with a bunch of stuff, it shows everybody else that whatever you said doesn't matter. So what are we going to do? We're going to set clear expectations and what we're going to do is we're going to talk to everybody individually. This is what I've done in my agency and this probably works.

Speaker 1: 3:00

The best is when I meet with somebody one-on-one and I really find out what is the vision that they have for themselves, what do they want in life, and then you let them know what is the vision you have for your agency. And the idea that we want here is that we have a meeting of the minds where both of our outcomes are synonymous. It helps out both person's situation, right? Because if it doesn't, if it doesn't help out each person's situation, it's not going to be good for the agency. It's not going to be a situation that's going to last long. You'll know in that conversation if you guys are going on two different paths and at that point, even if it's not a problem in the agency, I would tell the other person listen, I don't know if this is going to work out. I don't know, because you plan on going here and we plan on going here with the agency, and I just don't know if it's going to align, because the last thing I want to do is micromanage or push somebody into doing something that they don't want to do.

Speaker 1: 4:08

And what I've learned in my agency and in business in general is that there is the right person for every seat. Just because we don't like to do it, just because Jason doesn't like to do something in my agency, doesn't mean that somebody else wouldn't love to do it. Just because Jason doesn't like to do something in my agency doesn't mean that somebody else wouldn't love to do it. Right, and I've learned this. It's crazy, and you see it so many times. I have four kids. I see each one of them likes to do different things, and when they find what they like to do, they can spend hours on it and it's it's not taxing what they like to do. They can spend hours on it and it's not taxing. I'm not a very meticulous person, but I know other people that love like my mom loves to put these like puzzles together in each little piece, and that would drive me bananas.

Speaker 1: 4:56

So really aligning with the person is the first thing that we got to do, making sure that both visions match, and then what else we're going to want to do is make sure that our team is committing to the actions, not just the outcomes, because we all have an outcome. We need to sell this much, we need to do this, we need to increase this, but there's a bunch of actions that need to take place to make that happen. But there's a bunch of actions that need to take place to make that happen. And if we can get a commitment to those actions and we look at it like math, not emotion, then we can talk emotionally about what the actions that need to be done. So if the actions need to be 100 calls and 10 quotes a day, then those are the actions that need to be met every single day. Then, when we're talking to everybody emotionally, they might've had a bad day.

Speaker 1: 5:50

Okay, let's talk about what's the deal. You know what? What can we do better? What, what? What happened that day? That that kind of veered off path. So we need to commit to the actions, not just the outcomes. And really, is this right for them? Is this not right for them? That's what we need to find out and this is what we expect. Like, just break it down and if the person isn't the right person and you're having these conversations and it just feels like you guys are butting heads a little bit, let them know this might not work for you. This, you know, we have a team of, you know, five people, 10 people. Whatever. You have a team of everybody rowing in the same direction.

Speaker 1: 6:40

It sounds like you don't want to do this and you know what, you're really good at stuff, you know you're good at this and that, but like, if you don't want to do it, man, go do the thing that you want to do. It's not serving you. By staying here and really that conversation. When I've had the realization that somebody might not be right for the business, I talk to them and I get real personal with them and be like well, you know, what do you want? What is it that you really want? Because if somebody's not, if you already have that feeling like they're not right for the team you're trying to push them, they don't want to do the actions, then it's not right for them, because if they really wanted to do it they would do it right. We only do what we want to do. People do what they want to do and they don't do what they don't want to do. So having that kind of conversation avoids having to fire them. You have a couple of those conversations and they will self-select out.

Speaker 1: 7:46

This is what I've done for the last two years. I haven't fired anybody. I've had these one-on-one, deep conversations. Well, it does get deep when it and I just say like, listen, I don't want to push you Like I don't I used to push the team so much and threaten and it's. It just stinks, Right, it doesn't. It creates a hostile kind of environment and it's not helping both people. Because it has to be a win-win, it has to or it's going to be that combative thing and there's no way I want that. I have four, again four kids. I don't want to be combative here, combative at home with my kids and all that stuff.

Speaker 1: 8:30

So how do we do this? We just let them know. Like I don't think this is going to work out. You either show me you know that you want this or not. I mean, it's simple. There's an eight hour day. You can break down all the hours that they're working and show the tasks and everything and what they're doing and really, step by step, go through it. Okay, well, you know this. All these activities add up to this many hours. What are you doing the rest of the time? You either want it or you don't.

Speaker 1: 9:01

So that's one of the things I like to use in my agency and I think it will serve you if you go that direction and it's really truly the empathetic thing, because you're looking out for them, right? If they don't want to do it and they want to do this other stuff, go do it, like you need to do that because you're not serving yourself, if that's the thing. And then usually they'll come back the next day or maybe a week later. It'll get the ball rolling on their thought process on what they want to do, and a lot of the times when it's gotten to that point, they just come back and they say you know what, you're right, you're right. I can't give what you need in here, I can't give a hundred percent, I can't do that, I don't want to do that, I want to try this other thing. And then I'm so excited for them, then you need to go do it, and then they'll go do it and they'll self-select out. Then we don't have to have that combative, you're fired conversation who likes that? Who likes firing?