Your Calendar Doesn't Lie

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Being an agency owner isn't for the faint of heart. Strategy, market conditions, building a team that lasts. This is From the Field, where Josh and Joe help you do it all without losing your mind.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Accountability session is in order with this next episode of From the Field. My boy Josh, what's going on? Good morning, good morning, good morning. Well, hey, we're going to jump right into it. So you and I talk about all kinds of different topics, but you shared something with me that I thought led perfectly into something that should be discussed. And that was you get consulted by a lot of agency owners for guidance, right? And I know recently you had one where somebody came to you and they had all kinds of issues with all kinds of things. And you talked me through the way that you approached it. And I thought it was super interesting. So if you wouldn't mind taking us back through that conversation, I think it's going to set the tone well for this session.

SPEAKER_01 0:51

Yeah, this is one of our phone calls that turns into a session, right? Hey, you're not going to read what happened today. So, no, all right, the guy calls me and you know he needs 30 minutes of my time. Hey, can I can I bug you? Can I bug you? I really need your help. He's got every problem that everyone out here has, right? His underwriting sucks. He has bad rates, uh, poor leadership, like everything that you can possibly think of that's wrong. And he goes on for the first five minutes. I go, hey, do me a favor, show me your calendar. He goes, what? I'm like, screen share, show me your calendar. He goes, Well, what? I'm like, just do it. Don't even think about it, just share it. He pulls it up. I go, hey man, one of these things is not like the other. I go, I go, I don't think the problem is underwriting and rates and leadership. Like your calendar doesn't look like what you're telling me your goals and your expectations are. And it was crazy how just incongruent. They just didn't match. It was like, this is what he was expecting from everybody else. And this is what he was expecting from himself. And I mean, it took a quick turn. Sure. And I don't, I don't think he liked, I mean, I think a lot of times we call somebody just to be told that what we're feeling is right. Like we're just looking for affirmation. Like I think he was just calling me to have me telling me, oh, yeah, you're you're not wrong. Our rates suck, you know, you should switch companies, you should go somewhere else, you should do this. The leadership is dumb. And I don't think he was expected to be called out. So I just thought it was great. And then when I told you about it, you were like, oh, you'd be shocked. And then like, you know, I think what you told me about that was the best. You know, how many times do you see that? And you're like, oh, a lot more than you would think. So I'd love to hear kind of what you or at least share what you told me and kind of your feedback on it from the leadership side.

SPEAKER_00 2:24

Yeah, I have I have some specific questions I think relative to the calendar, I'll jump into in a second. But I think the important thing is if if growth is what you're really worried about, I think your question is perfect. And that is show me your calendar, but don't show me next week's. And I really don't want to see this week's. I want to see last week's because I can tell you personally, when it's Sunday, the way I'm gonna eat from Monday to Sunday the next week is perfect, right? Like I'm gonna, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna snack, I'm gonna work out every day. Like my intention, I would be ripped if if my Sunday intentions just carried to the next Sunday. So I'm not, I'm not judging a soul from the standpoint of not following through. But I think the important thing that we're talking about is it's the self-awareness piece, right? It's going back to last week's calendar and doing an inventory of where did I where did I do what I said I was going to do and where did I come up short? Because I think to your point, I think when things are going bad, bad, bad, we can find challenges in anything, but when we feel like things are trending the wrong way, it's so easy to put the goggles on and the blinders and everything is outside of our control and we don't have shared accountability. And I think it's important to know that you've got a ditch on each side of the road, and part of it might be on the corporate side or the or the environment, but part of it's us. So that part of it we at least have to have eyes on. Yeah. I mean, if intentions were abs, I'd have a six-pack, right? Like you're not far off though, man. You got yourself in great shape, you know.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

I I appreciate it, but I'll tell you, uh, you know, I I I I I attend crumble cookie more than I attended Ob Damel classes. So, you know, it's I I've got my own uh demons when it comes to the sugar and and and that. But I just I thought it was good. And it was neat how you, you know, you told me you're like, hey, I I'm sure you really think this is what next week's gonna look like. But show me what actually happened. Right. And and so often we can see, you know, hey, you you you meant to have this. You might have even put it on your calendar that you were gonna do this. But what did you actually do and execute and how does that translate to meeting your goals? So I just really liked your thing on there. I you had this this uh couple questions you go through that I hadn't heard before. And I, you know, I wish I had had heard heard them before I was helping this gentleman because I would have, I would have kind of coached him through that. And you know, not just I I didn't feel like I ruined his day, but I I don't think he got the answer he was going. Can you go ahead and share a couple of those uh and kind of how you walk through through this with somebody?

SPEAKER_00 4:48

Yeah, so I have five main ones, and they're they're pretty simple, but thinking through what I see on kind of a repeatable scale, I feel like these are the five that I can go to consistently. And I'd be curious to hear your feedback across all five. Uh the first one is did I have block time out that was specific to growing my business? So I I had I remember I had a agency owner years ago, and when you pulled her calendar, um every day, I'm not joking, from nine to two, it said processing. That's that's what the calendar read. Every day for five hours. And it's like there's nothing, there's nothing inside of that that's moving us to where we want to go. And I think a you coach in football, right? If if everything was about the day that's in front of us, like the kid showed up and you said, here's we're not gonna do individual work, we're not gonna look at film, we're not gonna be any any conditioning. Um, we're just gonna tackle what's in front of us today. Your team's gonna suck down the road. I mean, they just are they are, right? I mean, you're you're doing things that should be moving you forward. So the first one's blocking specific time to grow your business. And did you follow through? So we're talking again, looking in arrears, not looking forward. The second one, did I personally prospect or ask for referrals? We talked on a a past video about the referral side. Um, you know, if if you actually put yourself out there and and and do it the way you want to do it, go color code it on your calendar that hey, last Tuesday I I asked for the perfect referral. And if you can find that the looking back, all of a sudden you go from one to two to five, you're gonna see that on the scoreboard. So I think logging those things is important. Um, I'll just run through all five and then then you can weigh in on these. Did I intentionally spend additional time and help develop one of my team members? You know, maybe it was only 30 minutes, but I did I go out of my way to make them better at what they do, make them feel seen? Did I spend some time? All of that's gonna move the business forward. The fourth one, um, did I spend some time on something specific that's not gonna benefit me for at least six months? So again, it goes back to not worrying about exactly what's in front of you, even though that's important, but we should have team members to do that. It's am I doing things so down the road my life is easier and I feel better about things? And the last one just reiterates if I did all of these things for 52 straight weeks, would I reach my goals? And I can't imagine anyone says no if they hit those first four. So that's kind of the way we run through those.

SPEAKER_01 7:14

Yeah, I wish we had had that conversation before I talked to that guy because you know it it reminds me of John Wooden, talks about, you know, what are the characteristics of a good day? You got to help somebody, you gotta cry, you gotta laugh, you know, all those things he talked about. But what I liked about how you quantify it is there's something short-term. There's something medium, you know, range, and there's something long range that you're talking working on. You're investing in others, you're investing in your business. You're being very strategic about it. So I think it's a lot more tactful way of approaching it and really giving somebody something they can control as far as you know, your calendar uh is a reflection. And it's it's also, you know, it's not just a mirror, right? It's also a predictive thing. Like you you put five hours, five days a week for processing, you better have a hell of a lot of business to process. You know, I'd I'd hate to see what the calendar looked like the week before. Did you have 900 appointments? Like what did you do the week before that you need to process? So I I think the investing in others part um spoke to me the most, right? Uh are you really being intentional about taking time out of your day, week, month to invest in others? Because that that bears fruit down the road. And and in that part was really, really, you know, stuck out to me. And I think you can help people because everybody probably knows somebody they can help out. There's there's somebody you can help on a on a call or a task or teaching. So I just I just really appreciate the approach. I thought this was a great um, you know, phone call turned into a topic that would share that you know, people are probably gonna get a kick out of of the idea of, man, my calendar, look how busy I am. And it's like, no, you're not.

SPEAKER_00 8:39

Yeah. Well, and and we've all been guilty of it, right? I've I told you in our conversation, I've had times I felt like, boy, I've done a lot. And I look back on a Friday through my week and I say, I didn't take that many actions that moved the district and our team forward. You know, I stayed busy, but it it wasn't busy in the right way. Um, and let me close with one question for you. If if you go back over your 20 plus years, is there something that you think now that is added to your calendar that probably was omitted in that first five years that um you feel like is something that's of a lot of value?

SPEAKER_01 9:15

Yeah, there is. I mean, I I put professional development down now. Uh I can tell you Wednesdays at 9 a.m., I block off 30 minutes. And it's it's I look forward to it. Um, because it could be something as simple as somebody sent me an article, I saw something, and I'll drag it over to that inbox. And I know I give myself 30 minutes each week to do something that I wouldn't normally block off to do. It may be an article about mortgage rates and how it's gonna affect, it may be an article about something else, it may be, you know, a phone call with somebody in the industry that I respect that I'm looking forward to spending 15, 20 minutes of time with. But that professional development and in receiving coaching myself uh is something I wouldn't have even thought of when I was new. I thought I, you know, I don't need a coach. You know, I I I just need to do more. I need to quote more, I need to, you know, sell more, all the crap you hear when you're new. Uh and I wish I'd have worked more on really developing myself professionally and giving myself the grace of a little bit of time on that.

SPEAKER_00 10:09

I appreciate you sharing that. And I'm sure there's a lot of people that uh will now add that to the calendar, which should be a great thing. If you're somebody that is listening to this and you're not really sure about how to build the calendar out, which is a real thing. There's a lot of people that don't know exactly what should go on there, what the cadence should look like, what they should prioritize. You hear Josh talk a lot about working with Troy Korsgod and Michelle Hubert. Um, I consider both good friends as well. They do a tremendous job of setting the tone through publications and programs they have. So if you're not sure where to turn, that's a great resource to be able to build out and learn how to actually block out the right things the right way. So it ends up putting your business where you want to go. So, as always, Josh, I appreciate the time. Good seeing you, and I will catch you on the next one. See you guys. Take care.