Garry Kinder is back on the show to talk about the common denominator of success. He shares his key industry insights and talks about why you must set and measure goals. Learn more at MarkMiletello.com. Note: “Where The Insurance Pros Meet” is an audio podcast and is meant for the ear. A transcript of the audio is provided for referencing a particular section or for you to follow along. Listen to the episode to get the most out of our show. We use both speech recognition software and human transcribers to create the transcripts so they may contain errors. If you’re going to quote us in print, please be sure to check the corresponding audio.

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TRANSCRIPT

Speaker 1:

Where The Insurance Pros Meet, episode eight.

Mark Miletello:

Goals are set to be met.

Speaker 1:

Where The Insurance Pros Meet is a podcast that brings the greatest talent in the world together: managers, coaches, and producers. The very best experts the insurance and financial services industry has to offer. Get ready to change the way you do business to have your most successful year ever. Now here's Mark Miletello, a top 1% producer, manager, and your host of Where The Insurance Pros Meet.

Mark Miletello:

Welcome to the show. We're glad you joined us. I'm your host, Mark Miletello. Today we have a repeat guest on the show, one of the industry's greatest mentors, coaches, producers. I guess you've been in this industry for six decades now, five to six decades, but a true icon.

Mark Miletello:

How long has it been?

Garry Kinder:

Well, I came into this business in 1953 when I was a junior in college. I was at a university where you could get a degree in insurance, and I did that. My bother encouraged me to start selling life insurance when I a junior in college, so that's '53 to 2017.

Mark Miletello:

Well, that qualifies for six decades, 64 years. Congratulations and welcome back to the show, my mentor and one of my just ... personal friends Garry Kinder, welcome.

Garry Kinder:

Glad to be back.

Mark Miletello:

Well Garry, thanks for taking the time to join us. Last show, it was just one of the most exciting times for me to have someone that means so much to me... share. And really what I wanted to do on the last show was dive in and get to know you, and get to know you as a person. It was more about, I think, learning and walking through your life. But one thing that we did touch on a whole lot that I'm glad that you decided to come back, and I hoped that you would, is I really wanted to get in and talk about the things that you do so well, which is mentoring, coaching and teaching. And let's talk about the success and how to be successful of agents. Is that okay with you?

Garry Kinder:

Sure, sure.

Mark Miletello:

Garry

Garry Kinder:

You can ask the questions.

Mark Miletello:

Go ahead.

Garry Kinder:

No, you can ask the questions.

Mark Miletello:

Well, I think one of the first messages that I've read coming into this industry, and I believe maybe even you shared it with me. There's an old speech by Albert E. N. Gray, it's called, The Common Denominator or Success. I think anyone in this business should have, or maybe even knows about that, and really you can probably research it, find it. I think everyone should read it when they enter this business. But the crux of that speech he gave back, I guess ... I think it was, what, 50, 60, 70 years ago? It was a long time.

Garry Kinder:

Sure.

Mark Miletello:

The idea was that successful people form the habits of doing things that failures won't do, right?

Garry Kinder:

That's right. Successful people form the habits ... I'm giving you the exact words that he used. Successful people form the habits of doing the things that failing people don't like to do. This could've been given to students in college. It could've been given to athletes. For an example, students in college, what is a failing student in college, what is it they don't like to do?

Mark Miletello:

Study, go to class.

Garry Kinder:

They don't like to study. Go to class and study, that's right. And the ones that are going to class and studying, they don't like it either. But they do it because they have the discipline to do what they ought to do. Now you take athletes ... I've played athletics in high school and college and I've played with some pretty dad gone good people, but they never made it. They never got past the first practice because they were not willing to do the things that failing people don't like to do. And failing athletes don't like to practice. Who in the world would like to practice? They want to play. They just want to go play, but you got to practice. So, the common denominator of success is doing things that failing people don't like to do.

Mark Miletello:

Well, you've been in this-

Garry Kinder:

That's true in our business.

Mark Miletello:

Yeah. I mean you've been in this industry now for six decades, which congratulations. And can't tell you what you mean to this industry and you mean to us out here in the field. And obviously, you've been around a lot of people that have been both successes and failures. So, what is your interpretation of that? In your opinion, what are some of the things in our industry that successful people form the habits of doing?

Garry Kinder:

Okay, so in our industry the things that the people. First, most people do not like what I'm going to say, I mean that people do. Most people do not like to make phone calls after phone calls after phone calls to referred leads, to friends, to people they're associated with in religion or studying, or whatever. But they don't like to do the things that failing people don't like to do either, and that is they don't like to make phone calls. But the great ones discipline themselves to make calls every week, every day. Now some people turn it over to one or two days a week, and that okay, but the successful ones make the phone calls. They don't like it, but they do it.

Mark Miletello:

Right.

Garry Kinder:

Same thing to do with the loser. The loser doesn't like doing it, so it doesn't do it.

Mark Miletello:

Yeah, I'll tell you ... Well, number one is just making the calls because we know this is a numbers game. It always has been, and it always will be, getting in front of enough people. I think there's a lot of things that go into that but when you're coaching ... and I look back at the times where you've coached me. When you're coaching, what are some of the first things that you focus on in trying to launch an agent to have a successful career in the very beginning?

Garry Kinder:

Number one, you must memorize scripts, and there again, a lot of people don't want to memorize scripts. I've had people come to me, Mark, and I can' tell you the number of people that have come to me over the years and said, "I don't like ... the script doesn't sound like me." And I said to them, "Well, that's good." And they said, "What do you mean." I said, "What I mean is, if it sounded like you, it wouldn't work." You got to memorize these scripts. Then, the second thing in my opinion, most important ... these are the two most important things that people in our industry need to do, is have good scripts memorized. They sound like you. They're natural as can be, that's number one. Number two is keeping good records. And I'm telling you there's a lot of people in our industry that don't like to keep records. We're watching the World Series right now, do those people keep track of their batting average? Why they calculate it when they hit first ... If they get a single to the right field, when they hit first base, they recalculate what their batting average is up to.

Mark Miletello:

What their worth is?

Garry Kinder:

That's right.

Mark Miletello:

I mean the difference in the worth of a professional athlete can be one minor percentage of their ... Yeah, especially major league baseball, it's once a week the stats come out, all the stats. Yet we start a business and we don't even write down our simple goals, so I think you're right. I knew you were going to say that because that's one of the things you had me do when you mentored me back in the year 2000. You had me keep the stats and you said, "You can't monitor what you don't measure." And so, I started measuring and monitoring those numbers, and those numbers just kept increasing and increasing, and my stats grew better and better. Especially, in professional athletes, that's what they're paid for those stats, right?

Garry Kinder:

Sure. And that's what we must do. You've used our planning procedure, where you put down what you're going to do every year and then break it down into months and then break it down into weeks and then break it down into days. You want to keep good records. You want to have good scripts. You want to have good records. You want to study. A lot of things you must just discipline yourself to do that the unsuccessful people don't want to do.

Mark Miletello:

Well, I'll tell you, I'm coming from now, Garry, the management side of things. As you know, most of my career I was an agent. I find it hard when ... and you say when you're recruiting as a manager, you either hired them wrong or trained them wrong, it's all your fault. I agree with that, but sometimes it's hard. I find when it comes to measuring and monitoring, I there's a fine line between an agent wanting to do that for themselves, and a manager demanding those type of activities. Do you find that you being in a management position that ... Is it the agent's job, or is it the manager's job, is the question?

Garry Kinder:

Well, it's a little bit of both. But Mik