"Put me in, Coach, I'm ready to play today," sings John Fogerty in "Centerfield," his ode to the promise of a new baseball season.
Coach Roger Sitkins calls the plays for another championship season
By Elisabeth Boone, CPCU
"Put me in, Coach, I'm ready to play today," sings John Fogerty in "Centerfield," his ode to the promise of a new baseball season.
If you were in Phoenix in March for The Sitkins 100 Extreme Networking session, you'd feel exactly like Fogerty: ready to play. Coach Roger Sitkins was suited up for action with his trademark baseball cap and whistle, and he moved his team briskly through warm up drills and on to the Big Show. Even inside the hotel, you could feel the sun warming the field and get the irresistible urge to dig your cleats into the glorious red dirt.
Energy, enthusiasm, and excitement--that's what Sitkins generates with his patented blend of cheerleading and horse sense. Is it all right for your success to be easy? Of course! Should work be fun? Why not? Deftly dealing favorite acronyms (ROPE: Referral Only Production Explosion; SOS: Solutions Oriented Selling), Sitkins served up the system that has helped so many agents make it to the majors.
The Ten Great PlaysTM
The linchpin of Sitkins' strategy is The Ten Great Plays, which he presented in three categories: sales, sales management, and CEO. Here are the plays for the sales category:
1. Service Hand Off--Once you've written an account, hand it off to your account manager. Let him or her provide great service to the new client while you get ready to put yourself in front of the next prospect.
2. Trading Down--"If you don't let go, you will plateau," Sitkins cautioned. When you hang onto small accounts, you don't allow yourself room to grow. Trade them down to new producers or account managers, and bait your hook for bigger fish.
3. Minimum Account Size--Some accounts simply aren't worth the time and money it takes to write them. Whatever your cutoff point--it varies by agency--stick with it. Then increase it 25%--then 50%.
4. Relationship Management--One of Sitkins' sacred tenets is: "We don't sell insurance; we manage relationships." Relationships with best clients, top prospects, centers of influence, trusted advisors, and insurers all must be tended and cultivated. Item: What happens at a cocktail party when someone asks what you do and you say, "I sell insurance"? A weak smile, followed by, "Oh, that's what my brother-in-law does." Next time, try saying, "I'm a relationship manager" and watch what happens.
5. Value Added Services--Sitkins says: Sit down with your colleagues and make a list of the services your agency provides that truly add value for clients. Here's how: Picture yourself fishing in a lake. At the end of your line is a bobber that floats on the water's surface. Above the waterline, insects hover and dart. If you as an agency are above the waterline, you're dealing in the realm of product and price. If you're at the waterline, you're just skimming the surface. Below the waterline, Sitkins said, you can't be beat. "If you aren't hearing, 'No one's ever done that before,' you're not differentiating yourself from the competition," he declared.
6. Continuation Process--The corollary to "We don't sell insurance; we manage relationships" is "We don't renew accounts; we continue relationships." If you've done everything you and the client agreed you would do (see Value Added Services), your relationship will continue--regardless of price.
7. Solutions Oriented Selling--Product and price are not solutions. In Solutions Oriented Selling, you design your proposal to address the prospect's problems. "In your first diagnostic meeting with a prospect, identify five problems the prospect is experiencing in his or her business," Sitkins advised. "In the second diagnostic meeting, find five problems related to insurance." The way to tease out these issues is with "spear" questions, which are intended to cause the prospect pain. Ask the prospect, "Does your current broker ..." (Fill in the blank; for example, "Does your current broker show you how to use enterprise risk management to reduce risks and maximize profits?")
8. Referral Only Production Explosion--When you're starting out, asking for referrals can be almost as daunting as was asking for the sale on your very first call. Take it step by step, Sitkins counseled. First, just begin to ask. Next, aim to have 50% of your new business come from referrals, then 75%. Ultimately, he said, 100% of your new business should be generated by referrals. Does it work? A number of attendees displayed business cards that were inscribed "By Referral Only"--and they attributed some impressive increases in production to the respect commanded by that statement.
9. Business Development Center--The Business Development Coordinator has total control of all producers' calendars. He or she sets all appointments except diagnostic appointments and handles all sales-related correspondence. The coordinator functions as an "assistant relationship manager" for new and renewal business.
10. Trusted Advisor Marketing--Are you having lunch at least once a week with a member of your Trusted Advisor Network? Bankers, attorneys, accountants, financial advisors, and other business professionals can introduce you to desirable prospects and also can partner with you to provide value-added services to clients.
Great ideas from agents
A Sitkins 100 Extreme Networking event wouldn't be complete without input from the top-performing agents who attend, and they had plenty of great ideas to share.
Strategic Planning--Those who fail to plan, plan to fail, declared John Pollock of Oswald Trippe & Company, Fort Myers, Florida. Why develop a strategic plan? First, it lets you leave as little as possible to chance. Planning also helps you build important relationships, optimize capabilities and resources, and grow agency value. Planning participants at Oswald Trippe include the CEO, president, senior vice presidents, consultant, significant partners, producers, and others, Pollock said. The agency's strategic plan sets initiatives in a variety of areas: sales, recruitment and retention, management development, expansion (via merger, acquisition, or branch offices), and new products. Pollock shared these "winning strategies" for strategic planning (paraphrased from an article in the June 19, 1999, issue of Fortune magazine):
* Put the right people in the right jobs
* People first, strategy second
* Fix people problems in time
* Don't adopt a strategy so flawed it's doomed
* Don't refuse to confront reality in your markets
* Execute properly and decisively
* Sustain emotional strength
* Use processes to drive decisions, not delay them
* Focus on initiatives that are clear, specific, and few
* Note exactly what is supposed to be done by whom and when
* Meeting preparation is critical to success
* Deliver on commitments
* Hold people accountable
* Listen to your inner voice telling you whether things are going well or badly
A New Kind of Test--Evaluating job candidates and assigning the right people to the right position are no longer seat-of-the-pants procedures, thanks to a myriad of sophisticated testing instruments designed to measure aptitude, intelligence, psychological traits, and personal preferences. Jack Allen of Chandler Frates & Reitz, Tulsa, Oklahoma, introduced attendees to his favorite assessment tool: The Kolbe Concept®, developed by psychologist Kathy Kolbe. This profile measures a person's instincts vs. his or her learned behavior, and the results, Allen says, can be invaluable in helping team or staff members understand each other's needs and motivations. He described The Kolbe Creative Process®, which explains the interactions of the three parts of the mind in producing and creating. This process is the path that integrates otherwise separate elements of the mind's capacity: the abilities to act with motivation, determination, and reason. Allen is so enthusiastic about The Kolbe Concept that he promotes it on a Web site (www.whateveryoudo.com).
Managing Culture Shock--When the Millennium Alliance Group LLC of Hicksville, New York, was formed in 1998, management faced the formidable task of transforming three agency cultures into one streamlined organization. In the new entity, principal Frank Gallina said, the sales and service operations were separated and the branch office staffs were pooled to reduce duplication of effort and enhance efficiency. Progress toward integration, however, was sporadic rather than systematic. "We weren't getting the desired results," he commented. "Not everyone was committed, and it was clear that we needed to change." To achieve buy-in and help employees focus, the agency created Ten Great Plays committees that met weekly to discuss goals and progress. Throughout the process, Gallina said, Millennium took a page from fellow Sitkins 100 member Lynne Wallace: "We continually asked ourselves, 'What does it look like to the client?'"
Home-Grown Newsletter--If you think your clients and companies would turn up their noses at an agency newsletter that looks any less glitzy than Vanity Fair, think again. Ken Mogren of the Winona Agency in Winona, Minnesota, says recipients in his largely rural market respond favorably to his agency's self-produced newsletter. "For our market, we don't want it to look too snazzy," he commented. "We send it to prospects, clients, companies, and centers of influence like bankers, attorneys, accountants, and Realtors." And you can't beat the cost, Mogren said with a grin. "We spend about three hours putting together each issue. It costs 20 cents per issue to print and 24 cents to mail, and for sealing and sorting we have a crew of retired farmers who are happy to work in exchange for a box of doughnuts."
Trusted Advisor--Has a valued client ever asked your advice about a non-insurance-related problem? When a key client of the San Francisco Insurance Center approached Herb Moran with such an issue, the agency swung into action. "Our client was a third-generation family-owned wholesale distributor with offices throughout California," Moran explained. "They had a clear vision of their business, but growth had caused them to split up branch management among several senior executives. They feared this was causing a decline in employee morale."
Seeing an opportunity to provide a value-added service, the agency retained a human resources consultant, who developed a questionnaire that was distributed randomly among branch offices. "The response was high, and it showed that employees perceived a deterioration of the company's vision and communication, and that they weren't really sure what they were supposed to be doing," Moran said. "Our client asked us to become more involved to help them create a new vision and improve communications. This wasn't an insurance-related issue, but responding to it definitely elevated our status with the client."
Soft Money--"We've bought 16 agencies since 1991, and we never use our own money--our companies pay," declared Dave Sinclair of the Sinclair Insurance Group in Wallingford, Connecticut. "One agency we acquired was totally service oriented and not focused on selling. We went to companies and said, 'We need computers and other equipment so we can train these people to do business a new way. We need $40,000, and in return we'll give you $40,000 in volume.' We got $56,000." Another time Sinclair asked a company for $400,000 and got $560,000. "We told one company we needed a $6 million letter of credit to buy agencies," he said. "We got $12 million, and now we have $20 million."
"The big reason companies want to give us money is that we sell," Sinclair said. "Carriers are desperately looking for agencies that know how to sell. And most regional vice presidents have money in their budget that they don't talk about."
Sinclair has a strict rule: "If we don't make our volume commitment, we write the company a check immediately," he said.
"Companies that give you money want to see you succeed," he said. "When companies give you money and see you succeed repeatedly, they give you more money."
Incentive Bonuses for "Noncommissioned" Employees--An agency's non-sales employees often feel left out at bonus time, because the rewards always go to the producers and agency owners. Professional Concepts Insurance Agency of Ann Arbor, Michigan, recognized this problem and took action. "At the end of the year, each employee receives an annual income growth bonus," Kim Fricke said. The formula for determining the bonus is:
* The agency will pay eligible employees 10% of the agency's total growth in property and casualty commission income from the previous year.
* Once the amount of the agency's gross annual income growth over the previous year has been established, the 10% bonus will be divided among employees, based on each employee's percentage of the entire payroll for the current year.
The incentive bonus program, Fricke said, helps non-sales employees understand the importance of their role in achieving agency growth and encourages them to provide outstanding service, round out accounts, and write new business.
Fishing for Business--A Sitkins mantra is: "People like to do business with people who are like themselves." This piece of wisdom struck a chord with Terry Flood of the Flood Group, LLC, in Flushing, New York. An avid sport fisherman who spends every spare minute trolling the waters off Montauk, Flood saw an opportunity to combine business with pleasure. "Sport fishing is a pricey hobby, so other people who do this must have money," he reasoned. In what he calls "talk at the dock," he discovered that 75% to 80% of his fellow sport fisherman are business owners, and that most of the businesses are worth between $25,000 and $100,000 in premium. "This is a great group of people to network with," he declared.
Flood's challenge was: "How can I network with this group without looking like a life insurance salesman?" His solution: "I talked with the marina salesman, and they agreed to serve as the point of sale for boat insurance for their customers," Flood explained. "I use this as a lead-in to the commercial accounts of business owners." Flood's success with this initiative supports another Sitkins saying: "It's all right to have fun while you're working!"
Bird Dog--In the same vein, Ken Elliott of Diebold Agency Company in West Branch, Michigan, has bagged lucrative new business with the help of Riley, his Labrador retriever. Elliott's passion is hunting, and Riley is widely known as the best bird dog around. "One day a client called and said he was taking a party out to a hunting preserve. He wanted to know if I'd be willing to come along and bring Riley so his guests could see a great bird dog in action." Elliott wasted no time in fetching his guns and calling to Riley, and the two took off in Elliott's truck.
While Riley made friends with his stellar retrieving skills, Elliott connected with the prosperous business owners who made up the hunting party. "It was almost too good to be true," he chuckled. "The next time my friend asked me to bring Riley along on a hunt, I said. 'Sure, if I can tell the guests what I do for a living.'"
The rest is history. Riley (the subject of several photographs displayed to attendees) wins kudos for his bird dogging, and Elliott builds relationships while practicing his passion.
As Coach Sitkins says, "It's okay for your success to be easy!" *