MOVING A BOOK OF BUSINESS by Paige Proctor As insurance companies restructure, reposition, and reevaluate their effectiveness in the marketplace, change is inevit...

MOVING A BOOK OF BUSINESS by Paige Proctor As insurance companies restructure, reposition, and reevaluate their effectiveness in the marketplace, change is inevitable. Your agency will ...

Procrastination is the greatest labor-saving device ever invented. Agency owners look at various changes they can make in their agency and say, 'This is a great idea and I’ll implement it as soon as I can get around to it.' In this document, Jack Fries suggests that you eliminate the talk and resolve to take action in the New Year — and watch your profits grow.

NO EXCEPTIONS by Grace Bauer 'Harm me once, shame on you. Harm me twice, shame on me.' In other words, we should learn from our mistakes. Better still, learn before you ever make...

'ONLY' AN INDEPENDENT AGENT: YOUR VALUE IN TODAY'S MARKET by Chris Burand With so many Web-based insurance sites and direct writers bypassing insurance agent...

Though faced with the realities of dramatic economic change, the reconfiguration of the business landscape, and globalization, U.S. companies continue to go down the wrong path. Former U.S. Treasury Department official Michael Jacobs calls it "business myopia."

It may be argued that "enhancing shareholder value" drives the myopic vision of publicly-traded companies, but "shareholder demand" is perhaps more accurate. In privately held companies, myopic thinking results from a desire to increase market share or simply beat last month's figures.

PAPER FILES: ARE THEY WORTH THE TROUBLE? A TRANSACTIONAL FILING COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS What is transactional filing? Transactional filing is a method of filing paper documents b...

Do customers really want more personal service? The answer may seem obvious, but is it? It's true that there are plenty of complaints-many of them justified-about shopping in stores where sales and service personnel are in short supply and the workers lack training, courtesy, and a desire to be helpful. But is all this a plea for bringing back old-fashioned personal service? It may seem so, but what's actually happening is quite different and far more significant.

'PLEASE DON'T HANG UP' Have you ever heard of a business sales letter beginning with the words, 'Please don't hang up'? Use anything to get the customer into the letter and keep him or her rea...

Imagine a forest ranger complaining of a forest having too many trees. Absurd, isn't it? And yet how often in your own job have you thought about how great work would be if you only didn't have to deal with customers? This business - and our jobs - depend on customers. They are not an annoyance; they are our employers!