In addition to working in the business, more and more agency principals and managers are working on the business by focusing on technology and workflow improvements. The latest Future One agency survey confirms this trend ― 72% of the agents surveyed responded that core management issues for them are to make their internal operations more efficient and to use technology to conduct business with carriers more efficiently. Jeff Yates shows you how to improve agency workflows with technology.

IMPROVED CORRESPONDENCE IMPROVES YOUR IMAGE There's nothing worse than receiving a business letter that contains errors, poor grammar, trite expressions, and the like. Even one typo is enough ...

IMPROVING AGENCY MORALE: ARE YOUR EMPLOYEES TRULY HAPPY? by Grace Bauer Are your employees truly happy? If you answered 'yes,' think again! After working in various positions from secre...

IMPROVING LEADERSHIP PERFORMANCE! by Mike Manes This is the sixth in a series of articles by Mike Manes on managing organizations and ...

IMPROVING PRODUCTIVITY TO INCREASE NEW SALES by Carol Hammes When setting your agency's production goals for the coming year, don't rely on help from the marketplace. In fact, it...

Fact Sheet No. OSHA 93-07 IMPROVING WORKPLACE PROTECTION FOR NEW WORKERS NEW WORKER, HIGH RISK! If you are new at your job, your risk of injury is much greater than for more experienced c...

Dear Dave:

Our agency has hired a full-time Life producer to handle Personal Lines only. We believe we have enough accounts to justify that move. She tested well for personality and potential, but she is fairly new in the Life business. She is closing about one out of four presentations, which sounds fine for a relative beginner, since the closing average for all agents is about one out of three. But since she deals with many Mortgage policies and writes reducing Term policies at fairly low premiums, the bottom-line dollars are low. We need to create more cash flow. What can you suggest?

INCREASING AGENCY MORALE: ARE YOUR EMPLOYEES TRULY HAPPY? by Grace Bauer Are your employees truly happy? If you answered 'yes,' think again! After working in various positions from secr...

The sale of Life insurance to Personal Lines Property/Casualty customers has long been an issue with traditional independent insurance agents and brokers. There are very few agencies that haven’t tried, at one time or another, to develop a program to cross-sell Life, Health, or Disability to existing customers. Many agencies have even hired a “Life Person,” only to end up with a big expense and little income to show for the effort. This has only added to the frustration of the agency owners. So what’s the answer?

INDEPENDENT AGENCIES ON SLIPPERY SLOPES? by Victoria Sonshine Pasher There's no letup yet for the independent agency squeeze that's persisted throughout the 1990s. Facing numerous challenges, agen...