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 a principal in a privately held insurance agency, establish a value creation quota for each shareholder. Here's how: A month before your next planning retreat, provide each shareholders with a statement showing the value of his or her share of the agency's stock. If you don't have an appraisal, simply use your best estimate.

AVOID THE EMPATHY TRAP by Chris Burand The ability to empathize is admirable. It requires listening, understanding, ...

COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT CHECKLIST: Organize a neighborhood cleanup project; Support or start a community job training center; Offer free assistance to needy area r...

CURBING WORKPLACE DRUG AND ALCOHOL ABUSE $100,000,000, 000 a year. Thats how much the federal government estimates that drug and alcohol abuse costs American businesses. If you th...

CUSTOMER SERVICE: ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS by Jack Burke I recently attended a city council meeting in Hollister, Missouri, a sister city to Branson. I attended in order to support...

DO YOU WANT TO SUCCEED? by Robert Reagan Start planning now for your agencys future success. The concept of long-range strategic planning has become all but obsolete. Twenty-five...

EMPLOYEE ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS, 1 by Michael Manes 'Poor Old Mike' 'He was the best employee I ever had. Then, about two years ago, he started drinking. I really can'...

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...

FORMALIZING THE PLAN A plan is only as good as its execution. It is essential that progress be monitored and adjusted and changes made when necessary. Which means that once you prepare the plan, you ...