This article should challenge your thinking and management style and create new opportunities for you to build more Personal Lines sales. To improve your sales, your staff must change how they see themselves, develop their own reasons for doing what you want them to do, establish strategies to use the skills they already have, and adopt new ways of communicating.

AGENCY COMPENSATION SURVEY by Carol Hammes As of this writing, the government has determined that the insurance industry as a whole has 2.2 million workers who earn an average of $3...

AGENCY COMPENSATION SURVEY by Carol Hammes Doing what youve always done in terms of raises and bonuses might not be giving you the 'bang for the buck' that it used to. This docume...

AGENCY PRODUCTIVITY LEVELS CONTINUE TO IMPROVE by Carol Hammes Despite the ongoing soft market in Commercial lines, the average insurance agency continues to show improvement in productivity lev...

CHARACTERISTICS OF STRONG AGENCY/CARRIER RELATIONSHIPS by John Jaques The compilation of agency/carrier relationship characteristics presented in this article is based on observatio...

I have always been a believer that the best salespeople we have working for us are our clerical staff. The biggest problem seems to be our lack of proper motivational tools to excite them into selling. I have attempted to change their method of thinking, and although our program is in its infancy, it appears to be a step in the right direction.

EVALUATIONS AND COMPENSATION by Al Diamond When you mention employee evaluations in most insurance agencies, the owners begin to fidget, admitting that they do them spora...

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...

TECHNOLOGY AND THE AGENCY: A PRIMER by Ken Buehler Recently I met with an agency that had a state-of-the-art computer system. The system did everything, and then some! ACORD certificates, bind...

THE AGENCY DATABASE by Tripp Leach Are your computers a fundamental part of your agency or just desk ornaments? Do they provide you with a competitive edge or a convenient excuse? Do they ad...