Mentoring For Agency Growth

• Mentor-rookie matching
• Training schedule
• Compensation options
• Program monitoring and management

It's key to put together two people who are compatible. Most mentor relationships last 18 to 24 months. If mentor and rookie don't work effectively together or don't like each other, the relationship most likely will fail.

An important tool in forming this team to give both participants a personality test. The test should cover communication styles, preferred working styles, motivational needs, and work ethic. The test I like is called Personalysis.

The Mentor

Let's examine the qualities of a successful mentor. I recommend setting a minimum book size to qualify a producer to become a mentor. The mentor should be one of the top producers in the agency, not whoever has free time to work with a new salesperson. Only the best should be teaching! A mentor must make a long-term commitment, usually two or more years, to working with the rookie. This individual should have a real vested interest, not just in his or her personal financial gains, but in the agency's growth and prosperity. A mentor should have patience and the ability to communicate and must accept the training structure and management involvement necessary to make the program successful.

The Rookie

The rookie should have a burning desire to become the best producer in the agency and be willing to put in long hours learning insurance, sales skills, strategic partnering with clients and prospects, specialty products and/or programs, and every aspect of the agency operations. The rookie also needs to understand that the initial compensation might not be comparable to the level and amount of work contributed to the sale.

I usually recommend that one rookie work with one mentor. It is difficult to answer to two masters. After you make the match, you need to analyze training needs.

Effective training is not putting the rookie in a room with books, manuals, underwriting guidelines, applications, prospect leads, and a telephone for several hours or even a week. If the rookie is new to insurance, my rule of thumb is not to give them more than two hours of reading at a time. Most salespeople become bored and restless if they're left to study longer than that.

Plan

Here's how I like to plan their training:

• First 4 weeks: every hour is scheduled-no free time
• Next 4 weeks: 80% of their time is scheduled
• Next 8 weeks: 50% of their time is scheduled
• Next 8 weeks: 30% of their time is scheduled
• After the first 6 months: activity is reviewed weekly

Look in my SalesWizard site at www.saleswizard.com for a sample evaluation and training guide.

Training activities scheduled:

• Increasing insurance knowledge. Even if the rookie came from another agency, inventory their technical knowledge the first week.
• Shadowing employees in every department to learn how your agency does business.
• Individual meetings with company underwriters (shadow for a day if possible) to learn what the carrier looks for in a risk.
• Following a claim from report through payment to insured.
• Insurance company training school, if necessary.
• Product training school.
• Professional designation courses.
• Accompanying every producer, including those selling products the rookie usually won't be selling, on at least three sales calls to different people.
• Sales training on communication styles, pre-qualification, relationship building, strategic planning to obtain new clients, obtaining referrals, presenting proposals to individuals and to boards of directors.
• Attending meetings of and becoming very actively involved in trade associations of prospects that the rookie is focusing on.
• Training on telephone prospecting.
• Listening to sales and motivation tapes.
• Reading industry trade publications and non-industry sales books.
• Developing a peer group among other agencies your organization is affiliated with.

It's easy to develop a rookie's schedule in a spreadsheet. Every person in your agency who the rookie will shadow should receive a copy of the schedule with their involvement noted. You may want to keep the spreadsheet to develop a track for the next rookie.

I've found that variety is the key to successful training. Many agencies have lost good producers because they were brought into the agency and left to figure things out on their own. Part of the mentor's responsibility is to make sure the rookie is learning and not losing interest and enthusiasm.

All parties will want to know how they'll be paid. The mentor, the rookie, and the agency all need to be treated fairly.

You need to understand the basic sales process to get a feel for the time commitment (which can relate to compensation) that the mentor and rookie make for each prospect. Here's a process that I've seen work very well:

The rookie usually is involved with a prospect from the start of the sales relationship. The lead may come from a referral from the mentor, the rookie's cold calling, or elsewhere. I prefer this sales process: The mentor and rookie attend the initial meeting with the prospect. The rookie (who should have a couple of months on the job) attends the second meeting alone to get underwriting information. In the final meeting, the mentor and the rookie present the proposal. After the account is sold, the rookie and service team perform the ongoing service. Only unusual circumstances would reinvolve the mentor in the account. The ideal process has the rookie doing most of the legwork and the mentor sharing the sales skills to open and close the deal. Assuming this is your process, let's look at compensation for all of the parties.

The mentor must be compensated for time and knowledge. I recommend that the mentor receive full commission on the jointly produced business for the first two years that the new business is on the books. After that, there are some options. Unless the mentor is actually servicing the account, though, I believe that after four years the mentor should no longer receive any portion of the commission for an account produced with a rookie. Here's how it might work:

A new account is produced and the commission split is as follows:

1 Full¹ Salary² Full³

2 Full Salary Full

3 (option 1) None Full Full

3 (option 2) Half Half Full

4 (option 2) Quarter Three-fourths Full

5 (option 2) None Full Full

1. Salary plus bonus schedule for reaching production goals.
2. Salary plus bonus schedule for reaching production goals.
3. Producers required to give house small accounts below a specified size to help to fund the mentor program.

The rookie needs to be compensated for their work and to pay for their sales education by giving up full commission. However, they shouldn't have to split commission on the account forever.

The agency must be profitable, so it needs to fund growth with a mentoring program. This is possible if the agency doesn't give accounts to producers without receiving back an equal value in small accounts. Because the house isn't paying the producer a commission on the small given accounts (only paying for service as it does on all accounts), it has a profit base available to bring in new rookies.

Compensation is a very sensitive subject for every salesperson. The program has to be financially attractive to all parties involved to establish a long-term method of agency growth.

How long would a university or college last if it had no administrators or managers to work with the teachers and students to ensure the conveyance of knowledge? A mentoring program really provides a process for real-world information to be imparted to another who hasn't yet had those knowledge-building experiences-much like higher education.

The sales manager or owner is the best person to manage and monitor the training and results of the mentoring program. This responsibility requires someone in a position with a big stick in case the program needs to be reinforced.

Use this schedule to determine what should be monitored by the manager and how often:

Weekly

• Monitor completion of the rookie's weekly training schedule.
• Monitor prospect activity.
• Hold individual meetings with the mentor and rookie to discuss progress.

Monthly

• Evaluate progress of the mentor/rookie relationship.
• Review sales and prospecting activity.
• Meet with key management people from other teams to determine how interaction with the rookie is progressing.

Quarterly

• Evaluate progress of the mentor/rookie relationship.
• Hold individual meetings with mentor and rookie to discuss progress.
• Review sales and prospecting activity.
• Meet with key management people from other teams to determine how interaction with rookie is progressing.

I assure you that a mentoring relationship will not manage itself. If your agency is going to invest in a rookie, be sure you monitor your investment.

Your mentoring program should succeed if you follow these rules:

• Hire an 'eagle' rookie (someone who can sell anything and is smart).
• Match the rookie with a producer who is also an eagle, is willing to commit two years to the relationship, and is compatible with the rookie.
• Provide technical and sales training.
• Manage the process.
• Always be on the lookout for your next rookie!