The changing marketplace is presenting several new pressures and challenges for the owners of independent agencies. The success...

If you’re in sales, you know the feeling. It’s the middle of the night about two weeks after starting a new job. You were enthusiastic and could hardly wait to get going. Now, your head is full of doubts. You try to shove them aside, but they don’t go away. “Everything is new,” you tell yourself. “I just need to give it a little more time.” However, the doubts keep coming back.
The gap between what you were told about the job and what’s actually happening grows wider by the day. After about three weeks, you finally ask yourself, “Have I made a mistake?”

If you're in sales, you can identify with this situation - about two weeks after starting a new job, you begin to doubt your decision. You detect a widening gap between what you were told to expect and what actually occurs. After only a month on the job, you conclude, 'I think I made a mistake.' You're probably right, because salespersons seem to be more prone to selecting the wrong job. Too often, their profession's tendency to stress the positive and minimize negative factors extend into their approach in choosing a job.

BASIC FACTS ABOUT REGISTERING A TRADEMARK Part 2 of 5 Use of 'TM,' 'SM,' and 'r' Symbols Anyone who claims rights in a mark can use the TM (trademark) or SM (service mark...

Every company faces crises that have the potential for doing serious damage to its reputation, image, and/or financial stability. Events that might’ve been minor or even unnoticed a few years ago could now wind up on the evening news or on page one of the newspaper. While some incidents are insignificant, others can be devastating. Yet when they occur it’s often difficult, if not impossible, to know whether the problem will evaporate or escalate, blow over or boomerang.

CUSTOMER SERVICE: IT'S NOT ABOUT TECHNOLOGY by Ed Higgins One interesting observation about technology applications is that agents have focused strongly on improving efficiency. M...

DON'T LET AN E&O DEDUCTIBLE HURT YOUR AGENCY by Ronald Anderson Insurance agency managers may believe that employees who are key to causing an Errors & Omissions (E&O) claim should reimburse t...

DRIP MARKETING: ART AND SCIENCE by Al Diamond As Al Diamond tells it, a marketing campaign combines art (getting your message across effectively) with science (doing so...

E&O: ARE YOU A GOOD AGENCY OR A GREAT ONE? by Curt Pearsall Obviously, determining whether youre a good agency or a great one is a matter of opinion. But whose opinion counts: those of ...

Whether children or adults, people will live up to others' expectations of them. What are your employee evaluations telling your employees? How are these appraisals affecting their performance? In this document, Don Phin examines how employees react to performance evaluations, personally and professionally.