Age of Indiependence: What Your Team Isn't Telling You Through Big Changes

In this episode of the Agency Intelligence podcast miniseries, Age of Indiependence, host Katlyn Eggar interviews Kelly Donahue - Piro, President at Agency Performance Partners. Kelly talks about the key challenges agencies face, how you should invest in your team, and why it’s helpful to have an outside perspective to help your agency transform. Episode Highlights: Katlyn introduces Kelly Donahue - Piro. (1:39) Kelly shares that she has worked with over 1,000 independent agencies within the US and Canada. (2:34) Where did Kelly get the passion for helping agency owners? (3:24) Kelly mentions that the insurance industry is the most stable business on the planet. (6:10) Kelly thinks that as people go through significant changes, it’s vital to keep in mind three elements. (9:46) When it comes to common threads, what are some of the mindset changes in agencies that Kelly and her agencies have partnered together to tackle? (13:59) Kelly explains that a company’s biggest investment every month is payroll. (15:08) Kelly shares that nowadays, it’s beneficial to invest in your team to have strong time management skills because you're going to hit in all different directions, and most of it is disorganized. (16:39) Katlyn believes that clients deserve options, and being in a role where you can provide professional advice and make sure that their family's taken care of is wonderful. (20:28) As independent insurance agents, how does Agency Performance Partners work with clients to make sure that they're best protected, without price becoming the focus of everything that they do? (21:02) Kelly explains the three key challenges that she sees in the frontline team. (21:17) Kelly mentions that you have to find something significant to your target market and grab it. (24:29) Kelly shares that agency owners have ideas in their heads of what producers are supposed to be doing and what an account manager is supposed to be doing. But at the desk level, the work coming in hasn't changed. (34:13) Key Quotes: “A lot of times small things make a big difference, but sometimes it's difficult decisions whether it's putting people in different seats on the bus, installing a process, and retraining people into better ways of doing things.” - Kelly Donahue - Piro “I think sometimes when you're inside of an agency, it's very cloudy. You need someone from the outside saying, hey, these are the couple steps we can do and we'll get there together. So I love what I do. I wake up every morning excited to do what I do and I think that in a lot of ways, it's the biggest blessing you've ever had.” - Kelly Donahue - Piro “You have to look at the numbers and have trust and faith in them. That’s the biggest challenge we see if you look at a report and you don't have faith in it, your staff won't have faith in it, and it just becomes a paperweight.” - Kelly Donahue - Piro Resources Mentioned: Agency Intelligence We Got Your Podcast Reach out to Jason Cass Katlyn Eggar LinkedIn Kelly Donahue - Piro LinkedIn Agency Performance Partners Advertisers: ePayPolicy Agency VA