Out-marketing your competitors is easy if you do it right. It takes a combination of work and savvy, but the results can...

BOTTOM-UP PLANNING by Ted Silver When an agency understands what individual agency employees want to accomplish from a production standpoint in terms of new and renewal business as ...

Successful marketing of Commercial Lines requires a detailed plan. The first step is to assess where you are right now. In this first of a three-part series, Jack Fries examines the preliminary steps that an agency should take in marketing Commercial Lines.

Now that you’ve decided on the markets to pursue and your marketing approach, it’s time to initiate the plan. In this final article of a three-part series Jack Fries discusses the steps you’ll take to implement a successful marketing and sales strategy.

In decades past, specialty insurance programs were often fraught with folly. Today, underwriters know that a combination of inexperienced underwriting with an ineffective national sales organization can kill almost any program. How do you create or participate in one with a significant life span? Thomas Gillingham’s document should answer all of your questions.

FRAMEWORK FOR AGENCY SUCCESS by Patty Vaughn NEW BEGINNINGS I'm not quite sure why, but for me, fall is the time of year that signals new beginnings. Maybe it's because students are...

LEARNING PLANS FOR CSRs by Mary Beth Bolen Customer service is a dynamic, changing field. A stick-in-the-mud agency that clings to outdated practices often stays right where it started - in the ...

In recent reports, I have addressed the changing nature of the relationship between the American agency companies and the independent agents that have historically been the backbone of their sales force. A new type of distribution system is evolving out of the need to provide a more rational and cost-effective method of delivering the insurance product to the consumer. No longer are agency-company relationships based upon blind loyalty to a shared history but more upon the concurrence of strategic business and marketing plans.

MANAGING COMPANY RELATIONS by Carol Hammes In recent reports, I have addressed the changing nature of the relationship between the American agency companies and the independent a...

SECURE A COMPANY APPOINTMENT, PART I: ANALYZE THE NEED by Jack Fries This two-part article focuses on how to get the companies and markets your agency needs. Securing a com...