Many agents are attempting to hire and/or train new producers into their agencies.
We have given Agency Consulting Group, Inc. clients advice on where to find viable candidates and, unfortunately, most of the best sales candidates are NOT coming from the insurance industry. You are seeking youth, enthusiasm, high energy and driven individuals who will spend more time outside the office than in it.
We are often brought into an agency to train and manage producers who have already been hired. Agency owners who have either not lived up to their potential as producers or have not been able to historically manage people are hiring based on historic relationships (people they know), or on cursory interviews without testing personalities and expecting the new employee to be independent, aggressive and to use their own networks to drive new clients to the agency and support themselves.
We get called when the initial high hopes are found to be somewhat wanting and the producer doesn’t seem as self-directed as originally thought. Insurance agents are known for their faith I people that cause hiring too quickly and terminating too slowly so they will call us in to re-start the process correctly and set the producers on a course to success.
We can retain and retrain the producers about 50% of the time.
In the other 50% of the cases the personalities of the producers were never right for the role or for the culture of the agency. At the very least we identify that quickly and permit the agency to do itself (and the producer) the favor of releasing them to become more productive and successful someplace where they fit the culture and position better. The released employee will still not find it a pleasant experience, but we have numerous cases where the former employee actually thanks us for the termination that permitted them to re-set their careers to become successful.
Of course, we would prefer to come into the process at the beginning so that we don’t waste the time needed to recognize that a fit is not proper. When we come in at the front of the process, we guide the agency through the entire solicitation process, testing, interviewing to determine the “fit” with the agency owner and the culture of the agency.
STEP ONE: Setting the agency for successful producer selection
We come and visit your agency and determine if you are still in the Price/Quote Mode or if you have or if you can transition to Relationship Sales in which producers are more relationship managers than price quotes. We speak to all the owners and sales and service employees to determine what type of person would most likely succeed in the agency as a new producer. We make recommendations, outline the sources and methods to use to attract candidates and give you the testing mechanism and interview outline to determine the fit of the candidates that you attract.
STEP TWO: Hiring and Managing the Producer
We create a compensation schedule that fits the agency AND the new candidate’s goals so that both agency and employee know exactly what is expected from each in order to make the producer successful and the time frame to be expected for success. If desired, we manage the process that includes producer activity, short term and medium-term results expected and projected and the metrics required to be maintained to judge success.
STEP THREE: Training and Managing Expectations
Relationship Selling is true professional selling. The Relationship Manager seeks out prospects who reflect the same value set as that of the agency — Honesty, Integrity, The Desire for Achievement in their Business, and the Caring and Helper Personality for their employees and customers. We teach the producer/Relationship Manager how to determine whether a “suspect” is a “prospect” for the agency within fifteen minutes of the initial interview.
The hardest part of a professional salesperson’s job is walking away from suspects who would only use and abuse the producer and would not be a prime candidate for becoming an agency client.
The training (or re-training of any experienced producers) must be supported by agency management as sales “activity” is the prime effort of the Relationship Manager. The end result will be a much higher close rate than traditional price/quote selling but a longer lead time between first visit and the actual sale to validate the client and to prove the value of the agency in the risk selection process.
If your agency believes it already is a Relationship Selling agency and would like to recruit and build a sales team, we invite your call to 856 779 2430. Al Diamond has spent decades honing the sales skills that differentiate Asset Protection Model agencies from the myriad of quote/sales agencies that clog our system and fight against each other to lower the price of inadequate coverage instead of providing the needed insurance coverage that is required in our ever-more-complicated society. He looks forward to helping your agency, as well.