Most insurance agencies would like to be driven by a regular flow of new business from their producer force. However, most agencies find that their producers (owners or not) spend most of their time caring for existing customers, with production relegated to a secondary position. They only have time to prospect and sell when they can break away from service tasks.

However, the producers feel that they should be making more money, whether for non-sales tasks they perform for the agency, for servicing existing customers, or from sales to new customers. Unfortunately, if an agency isn’t growing through the efforts of its producers, it has little additional income available to further compensate these key employees.

PROFILE CHECKSHEET OFAGENCY HEADING TOWARD BANKRUPTCY by Chris Burand How healthy is your agency? This checksheet and financial analysis criteria can give you the answer. Use thes...

REFERRALS: LETS TALK lsquo;BOOK VALUE by Gil Simonds In the last article, after talking about how to avoid getting referrals that were less than desirable, I noted that...

In most agencies today, the total commission of a Personal Lines account will equal or exceed the commission of a Non-exception Commercial account. In this document, Jack Fries asks why you’d pay a CSR more money to handle a lower commission account.

SELECTING AND HITTING YOUR TARGET MARKETS by Thomas R. Chapman, CIC, CPCU Target marketing is a great technique for writing new business. But to implement it effectively, an agency must choo...

SEVEN MANAGEMENT KEYS GO BEYOND SURVIVAL by John Jaques For independent agencies to thrive in today's tough economic environment, agency management must actively and strongly implement sev...

SHARK-PROOF YOUR ACCOUNTS! by David Connolly Use this strategy to insulate newly written accounts against the comeback attack of the incumbent agent. Youve sold y...

SPECIMEN CLUSTER AGREEMENT Prepared By: DAVID A. BAKST, ESQUIRE MORRISON, MAHONEY & MILLER AGREEMENT made and entered into this ___ day of ____________, 19__, by and among the followi...

In this document, Jack Fries excerpts questions from the Sales Success Profile, a sales skill test developed by Lousig-Nont and Associates (Las Vegas). The Sales Success Profile is the only sales test on the market based on assessing actual selling skills, not personality.

THE BENEFITS OF HAVING A LIFE BOOK A CASE HISTORY This is a true story. A P/C agency owner sold his agency to a buyer who was not interested in, nor equipped to handle, the Life business. (Too b...