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Winning Strategies Encouraging individuality, not independence Best Practices helps producers use their unique strengths while maintaining agency’s game plan By Roger Sitkins I’m sure you’ve heard the quotation, “No man is an island unto himself.” Most people wouldn’t associate that idea with insurance, but I firmly believe that it applies to the average agency struggling with the problem of “producer islands.” To most, they present a formidable challenge. Basically, it’s like having a number of individual agencies within an agency. Everyone is doing his or her own thing because there is no “Agency’s Way” of doing business—no consistency in the way the agency operates on a daily basis. With producer islands, there are too many different teams operating as self-contained units. Problems For one thing, when everyone is doing his or her own thing, every team is going to operate just a little bit differently. Each team is driven by the wants, the needs, the personalities, the values and the belief structures of the individual producers on the team. As a result, producers and their teams can’t even help each other because they operate as independent units. Another problem with having different teams is that there are way too many “offenses” or strategies for selling. I’ve often talked about the need to have a set offense within the agency to outline the ways insurance is sold. Even more important, there are no standard procedures. When every island has its own set of procedures, it never develops a common approach to renewing business, handling claims or writing new business. Think how chaotic that can be within the agency. Have you ever wondered why some of your producer teams are so much better than others? In some ways the answer is simple: The best ones have figured out how to do it right, and the worst ones never figure it out. Obviously, management is one of the underlying problems when producers and their teams act as independent islands. Typically, the producer becomes the manager of his or her island team. Because each producer operates as the tribal leader or chief of his or her own little island and no two islands operate the same way, everyone relies on the chief to make all of the decisions. The “chief” is busy managing the team instead of operating creatively within the agency’s guidelines and, thus, loses focus of his or her number one goal—to sell. Solutions So how do you pull all the islands together as a contiguous, harmonious chain? Please note that by harmonious, I do not mean homogeneous. Each team (island) should have its own personality, just as each individual producer does. Expecting teams to be alike not only is unrealistic, it’s inadvisable. However, in order to thrive, it’s critical that the inhabitants embrace the same culture. Flexibility is the key to creating that culture, which in this case involves adopting one or more Best Practices. “What are your Best Practices as an agency?” Rather than having a string of disconnected, individual islands, why not look at each island and figure out what each does best and identify that aspect as a Best Practice for your agency? It’s important to keep in mind that Best Practices will and should vary from one agency to another. Just as each agency is different due to size, location, etc., each agency will have a different set of Best Practices. As you know, I’ve always been a proponent of referrals and introduc-tions and often stress that they are the only way to work. Recently, during a coaching session with one of our Sitkins 100 members, I was reminded of this. The member then challenged my Best Practice by telling me about one of his top producers. “Out of the entire agency, this particular producer is the only one who loves to cold call,” said the member. “Does this mean we shouldn’t allow him to cold call?” When I asked what kind of results he was getting, I was told that “he landed between one and three really big accounts each year. Cold calling really works for him.” And that’s the operative phrase: It works for him. So that might be one of the Best Practices for that agency. If so, then it needs to be included in a list of Best Practices that is distributed to every agent. That’s really the only way to capitalize on your producers’ individual strengths and bring them together for the common good. Otherwise, their talents remain confined to their individual islands. If you’re still in the process of identifying your agency’s Best Practices, it may be helpful to analyze those of other successful agencies. A convenient resource is The Best Practices Study, which is conducted regularly on behalf of the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America. It’s time to examine the entry strategies that the best teams employ to get their foot in the door of the most desirable larger accounts. Some questions to ask: 1. What are the entry strategies that your best team uses? 2. What (if any) are the entry strategies of your worst team? 3. What are the Best Practices of your teams with the highest retention rate? What do they do? 4. What are the Best Practices of your teams that get the most referrals? What do they do? 5. What are the Best Practices of your teams that seem to operate seamlessly and smoothly? What do they do? 6. What are the Best Practices of the teams that never seem to have a backlog and get all their work done? What do they do? Once you’ve identified the Best Practices of your agency and are working to bring all of those islands together into a unified chain, accountability is the glue that will keep them together and ensure their collective success. Accountability comes in the form of sales management, which is key to the entire sales process. The 12% factor Part of helping producers get a handle on operating within the agency’s Best Practices, is the 12% factor. This is a new strategy we’ve designed to make producers more aware of how their time is spent. Here’s how it works: Out of 168 hours in a week, 40 hours are spent working. That’s 24% of your time. Can you spend half of that time (20 hours) in front of clients, prospects and centers of influence? That’s what the 12% factor mandates—20 hours of your workweek spent in front of clients, prospects and centers of influence. Typically, that’s not how most producers schedule their time. Over the years, as I’ve traveled the country, I’ve found that the average producer spends closer to 6% of his or her time with clients, prospects and centers of influence. In some cases, it’s as little as 3%! The bottom line Without a unified approach to doing business, producer islands can create a significant separation between your agency and success. But if you link them with the same Best Practices, behaviors and strategies, you’ll have a chain much stronger than its individual islands. As always, it’s your choice. * The author |
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