The IIABA publishes an excellent Best Practices study that provides objective benchmarks of the country's most successful agencies. Agency Consulting Group, Inc. publishes its highly successful Composite Group studies, now available on a state-by-state basis, that review a large number of agencies of all sizes, types, and success levels to determine the “average” industry benchmarks. This series by Al Diamond on the 'Secrets of the Successful' takes the objective measures and translates them into the characteristics that separate successful agents from the also-rans.
It's not enough to know that a successful agent has more than $150,000 revenue per employee. Unless you know how this agent achieved this result, only two things can happen to the average agency striving for success — both of them bad.
First, the agent comparing his results against the Composite Groups or against Best Practices will be very frustrated because his actions don't permit a level of success anywhere near those of the best agencies. The second possible result is that the agent will strive to adapt their agency to those results of the more successful agencies. Unless the “wannabe” agent changes their characteristics, physical changes (automation, training, etc.) will prove useless.
It's not how much money we spend on upgrading our agencies that counts. It's how much we're willing to change ourselves that determines the degree of success we'll achieve in the future. You see, the agency's potential and its limitations directly reflect those of the agency owner(s). Too many owners hire consultants, update systems and procedures, and try to implement changes that will permit easier growth and better profits without changing the most important ingredient: their attitudes.
Two such attitudes that are common in successful agents and missing from most others are focus and commitment.
FOCUS
The opposite of focused might be “unfocused.” However, the lack of focus in an agency often translates into “scattered.”
For instance, if you try something that sounds as if it would improve your business, yet the ideas or change never seem to last more than a few weeks, you belong to the “Good Idea of the Month Club.” Members of this club have great intentions, but are drawn from one concept or idea to another without giving it the chance to live and breathe within their agencies. This is an indicator of a “scattered” agent.
If your job is better described as “firefighter” than insurance agent, you're also scattered, rather than focused on the priorities that will drive your agency to its maximum success. Firefighters spend most of their days on crisis management. They often feel that they've accomplished nothing during the day. Many work long hours to accomplish what should have been done from 9 to 5.
Successful agents aren't firefighters. When they identify good ideas they study them carefully before instituting them. But once instituted, they manage these ideas to success and only change or abandon them if they don't work after an honest effort at implementation.
Focus is one of the basic characteristics of successful agents. They understand that if something is worth doing, it's worth devoting time and effort (the most costly assets we have) to doing it well.
Agencies that expand their product or service offerings provide a perfect example of focus. Successful agencies devote the full and dedicated time and effort of a manager to these products or services. If a key player in the agency is fully committed to a project, no roadblocks to success or distractions will cripple the project. An example is the addition of Long-Term Care to an agency's product line. Success is more likely if LTC is sold by one or more dedicated producers whose success, and compensation, depend on selling the product.
COMMITMENT
If focus means dedication to a project, commitment provides this focus over time.
In the example above, the agent expresses focus by devoting time and talent to a new product. They show commitment by allowing the process to be measured and managed for a full year, changing only to refine the focus. Too many agents change their focus and commitments far too quickly when initial results aren't as positive as projected. Staff will become “shell-shocked” when a topic or project is introduced and tried for a short period, only to be replaced by the next topic or project in the name of “flexibility.”
Although flexibility is important, it shouldn't become an excuse for changing a commitment in midstream. Flexibility permits an agent to monitor and refine objectives and action plans to accomplish the stated goal. This does not imply change for the sake of change; it's simply a judicious approach to planning that permits changes in plans to accommodate unexpected actions or results.
So if you can stick with a plan for a year at a time, you might have the focus to become a high performance agent. If you focus your time and effort or those of dedicated employees, you stand a far better chance of successfully selling products and services that have meant success for other agents.