Agency Nation Sound

That's why it's important to stop and celebrate your first few wins because you'll remember them forever.

Sometimes they even come sooner than expected and from a place you didn't imagine.

But when they do the feeling the follows is one of joy and validation that you're not crazy and might be on to something.

That's exactly what happened to Tracy Cotton, of Marrow Insurance, and she wants to tell you what happened.

P.S. Tracy learned how to make it work inside Agency Nation University.

If you aren't, you'll miss your chance to grab a growth tool that's on its way to increasing your agency.

Because you don't need help maintaining your business where it's at.

It's dangerous, possibly even irresponsible, to have an opinion on what's coming if you have no interest in finding it.

There's no reason you shouldn't be able to see it, you just need to keep you head up long enough.

That's what Ryan Hanley and I talk about today as we grow tired of debating these tools and how fast their coming.

P.S. We're already teaching you how to use those tools in Agency Nation University.

The road map is there and no wheel's need reinvented to get there, you just have to do the work.

Maybe the people closest to you make the map harder to read.

You don't have to take the shortest path, in fact, you'll probably get lost a couple times.

Having the right mindset and determination to guarantee getting there is what will put you in the one percent.

That mindset is what will keep pushing the gap further and further between you and everyone else.

P.S. No excuses are allowed in Agency Nation University (if you have a few you need to get rid of).

It's possible your indifference to awesome design could be preventing you and maybe the whole industry from reaching its full potential.

So much is said through the design of your agency's website, logo and other materials without you having to say a word.

If it's done well it will and should look like it was effortless, which can commonly lead you to believe anyone can do it.

When the truth is making it look easy is the hardest part you shouldn't entrust to someone because they know how to open Photoshop.

That's what I talk to Jenn Haak, the Creative Director for Agency Nation and TrustedChoice.com, about how to help your agency clean up better.

P.S. You might want to take a peek at Agency Nation University to make sure your agency is attractive enough.

No matter what, one thing is certain, you have to be willing to invest in the necessary tools to give yourself a chance to stay ahead.

Those tools might look completely different for you than someone else, and that's fine.

That means your investing in the things most likely to benefit your agency based on your natural skills and personality.

That's what I called Rob McCarthy of GRBM Insurance and Woody Brown of The Rhoads Group up to talk about to kick off the new year.

P.S. Joining the Agency Nation newsletter is also a pretty important thing you should do in 2018.

You could take it all the way to crazy town, like Ryan suggests, and say the whole business is marketing.

But if you really stop and think about it, is it really that crazy? I don't know, maybe not.

Maybe not, because our job is to find people to sell products our companies created.

If we can't do that, then what good are we? Because the business of insurance, regardless of your personal opinion, has become more of a commodity.

That's what Ryan Hanley, Sydney Roe and I talk about as we contemplate the strategies and execution you need to bring them closer together.

P.S. Spend a little one-on-one time with Ryan every week in the Agency Nation newsletter.

The industry isn't going to check with you before something big happens, and depending on who you talk to it could be a lot sooner than you think. 

There isn't one skill or service that's going to save the day, instead it's an array of high level talents operating at the same time.

The sad truth is you might be one of the agent's that think you're going to make, but might not. 

That is unless you start to treat the impending change with a little more respect and start taking actions to move with it.

That's what I talk about with Jeff Roy as he does his best to create and calm your panic attack all at the same time.

P.S. Agency Nation University is a great place to how to protect you relevance.

It really comes down to discovery vs. delivery and which object is primary for your video.

If you want the easy answer, there are very few times when YouTube isn't going to be an acceptable answer.

However, if you're getting tricky with your video marketing and creating specific videos for different parts of the sales process there might be better place to put them.

That's what Ryan Hanley and I talk about today to settle this apathy inducing debate once and for all.

P.S. Did you know we publish three new videos every week to the Agency Nation YouTube channel?

Refusing to increase your speed won't be optional much longer, if it hasn't become already.

Because what will ultimately happen is you'll be left watching everyone else have all the fun.

If it doesn't look like fun now, you either might want to look harder or consider that you might be in trouble.

The marketing doesn't care how you want to do business, it only cares about how they want to do business.

Continuing to pretend that isn't true will only slow you down more.

That's what Marty Agather and I talk about today as we meander through several areas your speed needs questioned.

P.S. Check your speed here.

This was supposed to be a practical conversation about the efficiency online scheduling offers you. However, as things do when Ryan Hanley is involved, the conversation quickly escalated to manifesto levels about getting stuff done.

Because it's in your ability do to the work, over and over again, that separates you from everyone else.

Make no mistake about it, if you can't do more work, better than the next guy, what's the point?

Acquiring the knowledge to do the thing is such a tiny part of the process that anyone can do.

The real challenge comes when it's actually time to do something about it.

That's what Ryan and I talk about today to hopefully inspire you to do the work.

P.S. A lot of work will get done at Elevate 18 this year, you should be there.