Financial Services Cross-Selling: More Relevant Than Ever

FINANCIAL SERVICES CROSS-SELLING: MORE RELEVANT THAN EVER

by Eric Moberg

Tap into the goldmine of selling financial services to your P/C clients — before your competitors beat you to it.

THE CHALLENGE

“Business as usual” is no longer possible. Competition is brutal, company relationships are changing, and commission percentages are dropping. To prosper, your agency must grow.

You’re in business to sell: Every employee is either making or supporting sales; this includes customer service because its primary goal is to maintain the business with superior service.

Cross-selling financial services is a topic as old as the Independent Agency System itself. It’s been discussed for decades, and we’ve been preaching it to our producers and CSRs for years. So why aren’t we more successful in fully developing our accounts?

Commission income from financial services products as a group (including Life, Health, Group, Annuity) accounts for far less than 25% of the total commissions in most agencies I’ve visited. It’s often less than 10%. That certainly could not be considered effective cross-selling.

But this situation is changing. More and more P/C agencies are developing a financial services department that sells effectively to the agency’s own accounts, as well as developing new business. Each of these agencies, without exception, has an effective cross-selling plan in place. If you don’t penetrate your P/C accounts by cross-selling financial services to them, you can bet that the local competition will — and they’ll have a good chance to get your P/C business, as well.

THE SOLUTION

To sell financial services products to your Commercial Lines clients, you’ll need to develop and execute a thorough renewal-review program for every account. Here’s a four-step plan to do the job:

1. Schedule a review for 100 to 120 days before renewal, during planning sessions with each producer on a monthly set schedule (for example, the third Tuesday of each month at 9:00 a.m. for Producer No. 1, the second Wednesday at 4:00 p.m. for Producer No. 2, and so forth).
2. The meeting should include the producer, CSR, sales manager, marketing director (if separate), and always a financial services producer. All opportunities and potential problems for each account should be discussed: Is there competition? Does the agency need to remarket the account? What additional coverage(s) does the account need? Who writes the account’s financial services business?
3. Once these questions are answered, have the producer on the account introduce your financial services specialist to them.
4. Develop and use quotas. You can’t measure the program’s results without a measuring stick.

Success might not occur overnight, but with a well thought out and executed plan, you’re guaranteed to boost your agency’s sales and earnings.

Eric J. Moberg can be reached at The Moberg Group, Inc., Courthouse Square, 93 Church Street, Suite 206, Franklin, NC 28734, phone (800) 630-2884, fax (828) 349-5251, e-mail [email protected], Web www.MobergGroup.com. The Moberg Group provides independent agency consulting on such topics as mergers and acquisitions, agency procedures, workflow, and E&O risk-management services.