Avoid these common traps that can waste producers’ time - and your money.
Time management is an essential ingredient to the success of every producer and indirectly to their agency. Today’s agents have many electronic organizers and time savers available, but the very best ones are only as good as how well they’re used. As with any technique, commitment and consistency are essential
To manage time, you must first identify when you don’t use time as well you should and look at the causes, which include:
1. The “office traps:”
a. Drop-in visitors from outside and from inside the office
b. Telephone
c. Meetings
2. Failing to set priorities
3. Failing to delegate
4. Failing to finish projects
5. Failing to recognize prime sales time
To deal with these causes, you must change your mindset to recognize that the only thing they have to sell is time. Follow a producer around all day, and you’ll probably discover that they spend very little time on actual sales activity. Even a producer who spends an above-average amount of time in sales situations must still prepare for every sales call and then travel to and from the appointment.
To keep focused on sales activity, you need to deal with the five items. Let’s discuss each one:
1. The office traps .
The easy way to avoid these is to stay away from the office. Although this is impractical, you can schedule office time around low sales times and be out making sales calls during prime sales time. Use office time for sales preparation by managing visitors, telephones, and meetings. Certain clients are going to drop in without an appointment; while you can’t avoid these people, meet with them briefly and then turn them over to a CSR.
Too many producers think that they have to solve every problem personally — a part of the mindset that needs to be changed. A kind word to the client and then turning them over to someone who can help them is reasonable. Deal with in-office visitors honestly by telling them that you have a deadline to meet and little time. Most people will understand this.
The telephone can also be a trap. As with visitors, deal with the social niceties and turn the call over to your CSR. You can have calls screened, transferred to voice mail, etc. While there will always be calls that you can’t avoid, recognize that you don’t need to take them all. If you’re “not in the office,” you can return calls when you are. With telephone technology improving continually, you’re never far from clients, anyway. A CSR-screened call will probably take care of whatever the client wanted.
Meetings are normally required; for instance, some agencies have production meetings. However, most agencies do not — and should not — schedule production meetings during prime sales time. If other meetings are needed, schedule them either late in the afternoon after sales calls or in non-prime sales time.
2 . Failing to set priorities.
This can be a serious problem for some producers. The nature of our business involves constant interruptions, emergencies, putting out fires, etc. Nonetheless, you still need to set and continually update priorities. Too many producers do the easy things or the things they like doing first, rather than taking care of their priorities. It’s important to complete each priority in order
3.Failure to delegate
Don’t get involved in activities that a CSR can do just as easily. It’s important to stay focused on sales. Never perform a task just because it’s easy, doesn’t take much time, or is something that you enjoy. Ask yourself, “Should I be doing this?” or “Could I spend my time more effectively?” If the answer is “yes,” reassess your attitude toward delegation.
4. Failing to finish projects.
The nature of our business seems to move us from one crisis to another. Because open files and activities are a way of life, treat them as such. Take each project, break it up into segments, and complete the segments one at a time. For example, working on a new business account can be broken down into segments. If you need to meet with the prospect, collect data so applications can be done, complete the applications. and then submit the risk to a number of carriers, you have a number of activities in one large project.
Think of this task in terms of four projects: (1) preparing for meeting the prospect; (2) collecting the data to do a coverage analysis; (3) completing the applications: and (4) submitting them to the proper carriers and following up as needed.
Of course, this task will probably involve additional activities needed to prepare a quote, present it, and do what it takes to close the sale. The entire project might take two or three months; but if you think of it as five or six projects, you can complete one segment and suspense the file until it’s time for the next one, and so on. The worst thing you can do is keep the file on your desk where no one can find it. Most agency automation systems have effective suspension and monitoring capabilities: use them you can keep control of what you’re doing.
5. Failing to recognize “prime sales time”
During prime sales time, it’s essential to focus on sales activity and nothing else. Even if you’re golfing with a client or a prospect, ask them to invite a couple of friends or business associates to join your foursome, so that you can reach additional prospects
TEN PROSPECTING TIPS:
Let’s finish with 10 quick time-saving ideas for prospecting efforts:
- Be realistic about who and what you can sell. Don’t waste time on long shots.
- Get an upfront commitment. If you can meet the prospect’s criteria (price, solve problems, etc.), ask them for their business
- Set short-term goals that you can reach with some effort.
- Once you get the order to bind, issue a binder and collect the down payment as quickly as possible. This will keep the incumbent agent from getting their foot back in the door and save you a lot of stress in the long run.
- Stay focused on the task at hand; don’t be distracted.
- When you realize that you’re procrastinating, take some action and move ahead.
- Whenever you go on a sales call, check the businesses on either side of the prospect or client, and drop in on them to leave your business card, with a promise to follow up later. Identify the insurance decision-maker, and when you return to your office, enter this information into your prospect database.
- Carry a camera in your car; if you see an account that you’d like to write, take a picture, jot down the address, and take it back to your office to set up a prospect file in your database. If your agency has a sales center, have the center contact the prospect and try for an X-date or an appointment.
- Don’t wait for X- dates to contact prospects. Call on them or meet with them any time that they’re willing to meet with you. At renewal time, you will already have done the initial work, giving you an advantage over the competition.
- Once you have a prospect in your database, start sending them newsletters and other communications, so that they start to identify with you and the agency — or at least recognize your name.