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.

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.

Many in business have elevated the process of marketing to an almost magical, mystical level, either to help them maintain control, or because they don’t understand the process. In this article, John Graham examines six basic principles that will make marketing work.

Times have certainly changed. It wasn’t so long ago that you could open your doors and find a steady stream of customers ready to buy whatever you offered them. If they liked your company, they were loyal 'customers for life.'

Six questions every company should consider in their hiring process.
Companies today face the same daunting problem that confounds so many job seekers: The high hurdle of transferable experience.
Whether it’s an individual attempting to get a job or a company trying to break into a new market, both face the difficulty of having someone recognize the value of their knowledge and experience, even though these qualities might not be directly related to a new field or industry. Although applicants offer experience, a proven track record, and skills that are an ideal match for a particular position, they’re passed over. Why? The individual has worked in a different field.

HOW PEOPLE MAKE BUYING DECISIONS (AND HOW WE STOP THEM) by Michael Lovas Caution: this article contains ideas that might upset you! About 25 years ago, when I began writing profess...

MAKING CUSTOMER SURVEYS WORK by Al Diamond Customer Satisfaction Surveys have not yet become popular in the insurance agency business. Too many agency owners fear, rather than look forward to, ...

SELLING: GOT QUESTIONS? by Bill Hoos When you meet potential buyers, do you ask or do you tell? If youre like most salespeople, you probably do the latter. In fact, you probably te...

SHOULD CSRs SELL? by Joanna Brandi Although most customer service reps don't like to sell, they love to help and to be useful. If you ask them if they would feel good if...

STRATEGIC VS. TACTICAL COMPETITIVE INTELLIGENCE by Patricia Berry Any information about a competitor is i...