Explain This Book To Me Josh Lipstone

In the third and final episode of Book 5 of the Explain This Book To Me Podcast, Josh Lipstone concludes his discussion with the co-author of the book Best Version Possible, Brent Kelly. They discuss chapters 9-11 of BVP and learn how to define your PODs, what accountability and leadership look like, and answer the question Why Not You?

To purchase the book please visit this link, Sitkins Book, and to watch the documentary about the book please visit this link, Sitkins VIP.

Episode Highlights:

Brent explains the distinction between a unique selling concept and a unique sales strategy. (3:56)


Brent answers the three questions that are asked in the Law of Compensation. (10:49)


Brent shares a story from their Elite Sales Mastery program called the Elite 50 (25:45)


Brent outlines some of the open-ended questions an agent should ask clients to get them to start a new file with your firm. (28:29)


Brent discusses the foundation of the pyramid of success and its objective of inspiring individuals. (38:51)


Brent discusses his insights on how being a great salesperson translates to becoming a successful agency owner. (42:34)


Brent offers his recommendations on what Producers should be reporting to their Sales Leaders in their monthly meetings. (46:20)


Brent discusses how leaders can multiply the skills of their team members. (51:01)


Brent goes over what he would say to an agency if they were to ask why they need his organization to help them attain absolute freedom. (55:04)



Key Quotes:

“I'm less worried about title, and more worried about the impact, and how we actually tell those stories and create value in the marketplace. Not because it was on our business card, it's because how we're perceived and how we approach things.” - Brent Kelly

“You could have every strategy and tactic in the world and do things really well, at least of what you think. But if people aren't going to do those things that agreed to it, doesn't matter.” - Brent Kelly

“Going further is different than just going faster. And people have to understand that right? You might know exactly what you need to do. But the question is, Who are you going to take with you?” - Brent Kelly


Resources Mentioned:


Brent Kelly LinkedIn

Sitkins Group, Inc. 

Best Version Possible Documentary

Best Version Possible

Insurance Coach

Josh Lipstone

Explain This Book to Me

In the second episode of Book 5 of the Explain This Book To Me Podcast, Josh Lipstone has the honor of sitting down with the co-author of the book Best Version Possible, Roger Sitkins. They discuss chapters 5-8 of BVP and learn about overcoming team members' objections, how to narrow it down to one thing, how to turn your team members into a high-performing team, and making sure your FIC pipeline is overflowing.

To purchase the book please visit this link, Sitkins Book, and to watch the documentary about the book please visit this link, Sitkins VIP.

Episode Highlights:

Roger mentions a few of his favorite books. (1:40)


Roger shares that nurture was a stronger contributor to the person he is today. (3:12)


Roger talks about the importance of workplace culture and getting buy-in from your team. (4:56)


Roger shares that the Sitkins Group has three steps to help tackle seven different initiatives all at once. (10:46)


Roger talks about the four important parts of an agency's improvement cycle. (15:21)


Roger shares that, often time, producers are not separating the roles of sales and service. (21:43)


Roger provides the differences between activity-based versus result-based tasks. (24:21)


Roger walks the loyal readers through the ideal way to complete the Sunday evening review. (31:48)


Roger shares how many niches he thinks producers and agencies should have. (41:49)


Roger explains the importance of measuring the spread per employee. (48:00)


Roger discusses good conversion ratios, good closing ratios, and the difference between those two. (51:40)



Key Quotes:

"Competition to me, is a combination of services, coverages, and pricing, not just pricing." - Roger Sitkins

"We have to define culture, and in our world culture is the language and behaviors that are normal. And some agencies have very specific goals, very specific critical success factors. They're always talking about them. And they literally speak the same language." - Roger Sitkins

"It's not like in the old days, when the boss would just walk in and say, here's what we're going to do. And it was a dictatorship. In today's world, you want people to buy in, and we find the best way to get people to buy in, is if they understand where the agency is going." - Roger Sitkins


Resources Mentioned:


Roger Sitkins LinkedIn

Sitkins Group, Inc. 

Best Version Possible Documentary

Best Version Possible

Insurance Coach

Josh Lipstone

Explain This Book to Me

In the first episode of Book 5 of the Explain This Book To Me Podcast, Josh Lipstone begins his discussion with the co-author of the book Best Version Possible, Brent Kelly. They discuss chapters 1-4 of BVP and learn about how much money an agency owner can leave on the table when they go to sell, the seven deadly traps to avoid, how to gain clarity as an agency owner, and becoming your best version possible.

To purchase the book please visit this link, Sitkins Book, and to watch the documentary about the book please visit this link, Sitkins VIP.

Episode Highlights:

Brent shares that he likes both books and e-books, and his favorite book is 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth by John Maxwell. (2:20)


Brent shares that both nature and nurture made him the person he is today. (3:30)


Brent explains the quote at the beginning of his book and what it meant to him. (5:03)


Brent shares the tale of two owners and the path that each chose. (7:20)


Brent shares a reference to a chapter he wrote in the book regarding EBITDA. (10:38)


Brent shares how insurance agents are supposed to stand out and come up with their own unique sales approach. (16:53)


Brent agrees that the trap of part time clients is the largest trap but also one of the easiest to get out of at the same time. (22:15)


Brent elaborates on the trap that he sees most agencies start to tackle first and how they can begin dealing with it. (24:37)


Brent shares his memories of the beginning of the broke grow program. (28:29)


Brent shares his insights of being a therapist or psychologist for his clients. (33:37)


Brent shares about the four different versions of the book, the Best Version Possible. (39:32)



Tweetable Quotes:

"You've got to have a level of awareness of ‘Am I on the right path here?’ And sometimes you don't even know it until you talk to other people, whether it's peers or coaches." - Brent Kelly

"There is certain God-given wiring that we have. I think it's up to us to figure out what our strengths are in that wiring and then maximize the heck out of it through nurturing our environment." - Brent Kelly

"Agencies have too many things to do. It's not about doing more. It's about understanding the power of 80/20 and doing the right things and doing them better." - Brent Kelly


Resources Mentioned:


Brent Kelly LinkedIn

Sitkins Group, Inc. 

Best Version Possible

15 Invaluable Laws of Growth

Insurance Coach

Josh Lipstone

In episode 0 of Book 5 of the Explain This Book To Me Podcast, Josh Lipstone provides the roadmap for the Best Version Possible book written by co-authors Brent Kelly & Roger Sitkins of the Sitkins Group. Josh provides a 50,000-foot view for each chapter and what the Loyal Readers can expect from the next three episodes.

To purchase the book please visit this link, Sitkins Book, and to watch the documentary about the book please visit this link, Sitkins VIP.

In the third episode of Book 4 of the Explain This Book To Me podcast, host Josh Lipstone sits down with co-author of The Visual Sale, Tyler Lessard. They continue their discussion of the buyer's journey and how to use video in the Consideration, Decision, and Post-Sale stage. We also learn about a mutual hatred for cooking blogs.

Episode Highlights:

Tyler gives a piece of advice to those who are considering writing a book. (1:13)


Tyler shares a story about Uberflip and how to best utilize explainer videos. (5:48)


What are some examples of calls to action that have higher conversion rates? (9:12)


Tyler shares his thoughts about pricing transparency. (15:43)


Tyler discusses why someone may decide not to move forward with a call to action. (19:04)


Tyler gives an example of a great subject line and a generic subject line. (22:10)


What are Tyler’s thoughts on using emojis in subject lines? (23:31)


Why can't we embed videos into the email, and what’s preventing it from happening? (25:15)


Tyler shares the video and business benchmark report that VDR does annually. (32:43)


Tyler shares a story about a small tech company called Buck. (34:58)


Tyler explains why filming and production are the most important stages. (41:04)


Tyler outlines helpful tools that Vidyard offers. (55:01)



Key Quotes:

“First and foremost, if you're worried about your competitors learning about what you really do... Rest assured; they already know. To think that your competitors aren't doing research on you, they don't have somebody who signed up for an account and gave it a try...That's just not reality.” - Tyler Lessard

“The opportunity to have a video as your call to action...is that opportunity to be different, to be unique, to stand out and to offer them a type of action that feels more natural to them, as opposed to something that is going to require effort or action.” - Tyler Lessard

“I do find that in today's marketplace, it is simply an expectation of audiences, and there is very little tolerance for not having closed captions. So, I do think it's something that we need to consider not just for the convenience, but also for true accessibility for different audience members.” - Tyler Lessard


Resources Mentioned:

Joshua Lipstone LinkedIn

Lipstone Insurance Group

Tyler Lessard LinkedIn

The Visual Sale

In the second episode of Book 4 of the Explain This Book To Me podcast, host Josh Lipstone sits down with co-author of The Visual Sale, Tyler Lessard. They discuss Tyler's journey into the world of video, how the evolution of buyer behavior has changed and how to use video during the awareness stage of the buyer's journey. We also hear about a conversation that Tyler had with his son when he began writing the book.

Episode Highlights:

What does Tyler attribute to his success; nature or nurture? (2:41)


Tyler mentions his definition of connection. (3:52)


After his first discussion with Marcus, Tyler discusses the goals they set for the book. (5:53)


Tyler shares a story about his son, Alec. (8:21)


What are Tyler’s Four E’s of video? (11:53)


Tyler shares why he included home insurance as part of the video. (15:14)


What are some best practices for recording a video? (17:25)


Tyler shares what business owners must do before they start creating a video. (27:35)


Tyler mentions the five styles of educational videos. (33:16)


What advice would Tyler give to the listeners to overcome their hurdles? (43:08)


Tyler mentions the best strategy for video on social media. (53:08)



Key Quotes:

“We need to be mindful about how we enable people on the other ends of these connections. To connect with us, get to know us, to feel invested in our personality, in our success and to make them feel like we're invested in them as well.” - Tyler Lessard

“If all else fails, start with your website. Look at what you're trying to accomplish there. Could video help me tell a bigger, better story here? That's going to create a more emotional connection with those buyers.” - Tyler Lessard

“The best strategy for video on social, is to create video content that is meant for the social networks. But that being said, many of us have a lot of great content that we can repurpose and reuse on these different channels. And, that's absolutely an area that you can start and get value from quickly.” - Tyler Lessard


Resources Mentioned:

Joshua Lipstone LinkedIn

Lipstone Insurance Group

Tyler Lessard LinkedIn

The Visual Sale