CONVEY BAD NEWS POSITIVELY There's nothing like being the bearer of bad new. Yet this letter shows how you can inform your clients of what's going on, to position yourself as the clien...

Developing new business is an integral part of every insurance agent’s regimen. There are endless ways to go about looking for new business. Jack Fries explains why successful agents must know how to focus their efforts to engage in the most efficient methods possible.

DO's AND DONT's FOR DEALING WITH THE PRESS DOs 1. Appoint one person in your organization to be the media contact to answer media inquiries. All such calls should be referred to that p...

FOR THE FUTURE-PRODUCER RECRUITING Producer recruitment should be a continuous process that provides the lifeblood for your agency. In th...

GEM SCAM RECYCLED: AN OLD FRAUD RETURNS by Joel Volker Recycling isn't always a good thing. Here's an example of a form of recycling we hoped we'd never see again: An American broker recently con...

GOOD COMPENSATION PLANS ATTRACT GOOD PEOPLE by Mark Shlien Many agencies have had to change their approach to compensation during the recession. Faced with declining revenues and profits,...

Finding out if someone is truthful is an art, not a science. The best truth-detecting machine on the market, the polygraph, is illegal in the hiring process. Imagine if there were an invention that could detect the truth with 100% accuracy, as predicted by futurist James Halperin in The Truth Machine.

HOW DO YOU HANDLE CLIENT COMPLAINTS? by Bill Cates In this extended hard market, the chances of having a client complain to you have increased. Although I assume that you work hard to ...

In 1976, 12 insurance executives spent a day trying to pinpoint the reasons for their success. Their large insurance agency had doubled in size over the last three years. The company's employees had worked hard to achieve a high rate of referrals and were aggressive in their roles as producers. But what factors led to their astonishing success? How did they attract a client? And most of all, what made each client buy and renew year after year?

IF YOU WANT THE SWEETEST MUSIC, YOU NEED TO PAY THE PIPER by Al Diamond 'You get what you pay for.' Can we assume that this is always the case? Al Diamond looks into whether compensati...