THE DECISION AND THE QUESTIONS by Mike Manes IMMS Consultant Mike Manes strives to facilitate change, communication, learning, and positive results. To that end,...

Follow these guidelines to develop a comprehensive, effective e-marketing program.
With spam at epidemic levels and phishing and virus attacks threatening the industry, e-marketers face the challenge of getting their messages through to the right audience, while following e-mail marketing best practices.
Although many of the principles that govern print and broadcast media apply to e-mail, e-marketing has its unique set of opportunities and pitfalls. Here is a list of do’s and don’ts to consider:

THE ELECTRONIC LOBBY by Jack Burke How the telephone can convey a positive first impression of your business. Salespeople who call upon businesses have a saying: The owner is the one outsi...

THE ELEPHANT HUNTERby Al Diamond Before you acquire an agency, make sure you acquire agency experience. I was recently contacted by a smart young agent who had come into the bus...

THE FIVE WAYS AGENTS GET FIRED! by Rob Ekern Independent agencies and brokerages are facing a growing threat to their middle market Commercial clients. These firms are being squeezed from...

THE FOUR FACES OF PROFITABILITY: PART I by Diane Herbert and Pamela Millard Even if you see a healthy profit when you look at the bottom line, you might want to consider your profitability...

THE FOUR FACES OF PROFITABILITY: PART II by Diane Herbert and Pamela Millard The first part of this article focused on two faces of agency profitability: Pretax profit and Cash Flow from ...

THE FOUR PILLARS OF AGENCY MANAGEMENT by Bill Schoeffler and Catherine Oak There's no single ideal way to set up and ad...

What we say does matter. Unfortunately, most of us don't listen to the words that we use. They might seem harmless, but what messages are we sending to others about ourselves and how we perform our jobs? In this article, John Graham looks at some of the words and phrases that we all utter on occasion. Very often, we use these phrases as excuses about why something didn't get done.

THE GENESIS OF MARKETING by Jack Burke 'In the beginning . . .' there was an idea. Then came the plan. Unfortunately, when it comes to marketing, the action often comes b...