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Use Cross-Selling To Increase Client Retention
The more products and services your clients buy from you, the closer your relationship with them. In this document, Lynn Thomas discusses seven proven strategies for using cross-sales to boot your retention rate -- and bottom line. Most agents want their clients, especially their most profitable ones, to be so tied to their agency, so involved, that moving business to another agency would consume a lot of time and effort and produce a multitude of problems and headaches. Therefore, as an agent, your goal is to cross-serve clients so well that you create multiple exit barriers, deterring them from ever leaving your agency. The way to create these barriers is simple: The more products and services your clients buy from you, the more difficult it will be for them to create a similar relationship with someone else. People have less free time today than five years ago. Your clients don’t want to spend their precious, shrinking free time searching for another agency. The more effectively you cross-sell, the more time is on your side. It’s known in the banking industry that if a customer has seven products with a bank, they will almost never leave, no matter what occurs. In the insurance industry, the number is between five and seven. So why don’t most clients buy five to seven products or services from a single agency? Here are three reasons: Most agents don’t know about the power of cross selling and the way that it increases profits. Many salespeople aren’t aware that cross selling is a powerful retention tool. Once you’ve met your clients’ needs on repeated occasions, they won’t even think of leaving. Plain human habit. Most agents see themselves as the hunter, constantly looking for that new big client. They’re accustomed to the adrenaline rush of turning a total stranger into a client. Is this you? The insurance industry reinforces this behavior by measuring new business more diligently than it does cross-selling, referrals, or even revenue per client. Yet these latter three factors reflect your agency’s financial situation more accurately. The “new business” focus is reinforced by Americans’ unquenchable fascination with the new sale and the new client — even at the expense of profitability and higher retention rates. This ingrained pattern is neither logical nor economically sound. The good news is that we can form new habits. The not-so-good news is that the old habits don’t disappear from lack of use. Our old selling strategies can be powerful habits to break, but the rewards for those who have the determination and perseverance to do so are limitless. Here are seven new strategies that will produce more cross-sales: The first step starts with you. Be honest with yourself. Do you really want to take this road? Do you feel the fire in your belly? Is it your burning desire to adopt an easier, more profitable way to do business? Don’t fake it — you’ll fail! You have to want to change your habits to benefit yourself and your client. Establish a firm rule that your agency will not accept any monoline clients. Period. Monoline clients eat up your time and are unprofitable to keep on the books. They’re not part of your road to more growth and profits. Review your reward system. If it doesn’t provide substantial rewards for all employees to cross-sell, change it. Track cross-sales at a visible location in your agency. Ask employees for ideas on fun ways to celebrate when one of them makes a cross-sale. Select the most fun and outrageous ones. The more celebrations, the more momentum there is to keep everyone on the new groove of cross-selling. Create a method to capture your clients’ service preferences (for example, calling them between 7:00 a.m. and 9:00 a.m., before business starts). Awareness of these preferences allows you to provide customized service, which usually “wows” a client — and it’s easier to turn a wowed client into a cross-sale than any other type. Create opportunities to contact your most profitable clients proactively to provide them with value-added services. Create an annual relationship management plan for each client, and follow it. Show the plan to them. Ask for their input. How could it be improved? How can you “wow” them? Have they had an annual review? Do they want one? Do they need loss control? Could a captive reduce their premiums? Bring more and more of these value-added services to the table proactively, and soon your clients will perceive you as an advisor, someone they trust, who’s looking out for their insurance needs. They’ll no longer view you merely as the dispenser of a product. Based on my experience with hundreds of agencies, 80% of your current clients aren’t familiar with all of your products and services. Don’t keep them a secret! Take a lesson from the banking industry: Market your products and services to your clients regularly. Create a marketing plan and stick with it. Time is the test. Repetition is the key. Be innovative and outrageous. Your marketing material doesn’t have to look like it came from an insurance agency. Make it colorful, fun, entertaining, eye-catching, and easy to respond to. CONCLUSION You now have the basics of cross-selling. Remember, this is not a one-day, one-week, or one-month effort. It’s a long-term commitment to be the best agent for your clients -- which, not coincidentally, also means being the best agent for your agency. Cross-selling is about creating a win-win situation. You want to have many threads connecting you to your clients, each thread representing a product or service. You can’t have too many. You want to create thick intertwined ropes from these threads. Your clients will never leave because the costs of severing those ropes will far exceed the benefits of working through any problems with your agency. Be forewarned, though: You must stay proactive. Remain on top of your cross-selling program. Gone are the days when you could be reactive and still grow a profitable agency. Relationships today need value-added services. Retention tools are the name of the game for winning.

Tips On Writing Sales Letters
TIPS ON WRITING SALES LETTERS Sales letters have many purposes: to sell a specific product, to sell the agency image, to keep customers informed of new coverage options, to complement service functions. But when it comes down to it they all serve one end-to sell the product and then keep it sold. Here are some tips on writing sales letters. OPENINGS CAN MAKE OR BREAK YOUR LETTERS If your sales letters start by stressing benefits, there's a good chance you'll be successful in getting your message across. Here are some effective opening statements: examples of important concepts with which to begin your future letters. QUOTE-INDIRECT. According to a feature in Business Week, a man in your income bracket can expect to have approximately $175,000 in his estate by age 65. CASE HISTORY. The X Company, about your size, recently doubled sales in just six months. SHOCK. Every week, businesses just like yours waste up to $X in wasted copying costs. DO YOU REMEMBER? Do you remember when a gallon of gasoline cost 25 cents? (This type of thing can probably also go into the 'shock' category.) QUESTION. Would you bet $5 a day that your current copier is better than ours? You might just be making that bet-every day. ENVY. Mary lost 23 pounds in just four weeks. You can too. EMOTIONAL. While you read this, needy children . . . DO YOUR SALES LETTERS NEED A FACE LIFT? 1. More effective selling letters: Use direct-mail experience to improve business letters. Specific suggestions: Use an opening that promises the reader a benefit (a free booklet, time or money savings, and so on). Ask a question that gets the reader to agree with the points in your letter mentally. Get news into the message. Keep the opening paragraph short. Alternate long and short paragraphs. Address the reader as an individual. Get to the point quickly. Don't annoy the reader by saying obvious things about his or her own business. To carry a reader through the entire letter, use conjunctions liberally. They work particularly well at the opening of sentences and paragraphs. Keep the tone personal, low-pressured, friendly, sincere, informal. After writing the first paragraph, ask yourself: Is that what I'd say after the handshake if I were calling in person? 2. NEW! the 'Five Letter Word Formula' for easy reading. Short words. Short sentences. Short paragraphs. All help to make letters easy to read. And here's a new easy-to-use formula to check the readability of your letters. It's called the 'Five Letter Word Formula' and was developed by Maxwell Ross from a book called The Art of Plain Talk, by Rudolf Flesch. Here's what you do: Count the number of words in your letter, omitting all proper names, the salutation, and the close. Determine how many words with five letters or less you've used. Divide this total by the number of words in your letter. Thus you have your score. If you're near 75%, this is about right. If you fall below 70%, watch out! Your writing is more difficult to read than it should be. Why not print out some letters today and check their readability? It's time well spent. An Easy Way To Shorten Sentences Leave out the word 'that' whenever you can. While you're checking those copies for readability, check for unneeded 'that's' and 'which's.' Example: We are sure that you will like our new Zollywog. Simplified: We are sure you will like our new Zollywog. Another: Please endorse the check which you will receive. Simplified: Please endorse the check you will receive. Deleting a 'that' here and a 'which' there will streamline your writing. Yet the meaning will still be clear. But don't overdo this. Any writing technique, if overdone, brings attention to itself-and you don't want that! Headline Power. Two out of three readers notice an ad, but only two out of five start to read it. Once they start, about half will read at least half of the ad. To grab the most readers, write a headline that quickly and clearly communicates the subject, while making a convincing promise to the reader. A recent study found that the best headlines are no longer than 12 words, mention a product feature or benefit, and include the product name. WRITING THE 'GRABBER' Whether your sales letters are the first contact you have with your customer or prospect or the follow-up to a personal interview, you have to create a strong impression in your reader's mind. Some guidelines for writing effective, 'grabbing' letters can be found in this article from Small Business Report. SALES LETTER: MAKE IT WORK Selling by letter is the most demanding test of communication skills. Words alone must do the job. Write in strong, colorful language that gets ideas across in a way your reader will understand. Don't try to write a sales letter unless you have an idea to sell. Determine your audience: men, women, corporate presidents, salespeople, buyers. People in different positions and even different parts of the country often require different approaches. Being careful on this point can pay big dividends. A good sales letter has powerful sales arguments. Good writing, as such, has little to do with it. Grammar, style, and vocabulary take a back seat. Forget what your English teacher told you about redundancies. Don't be afraid to say, 'This gift is yours absolutely free without any obligation on your part whatsoever.' Aren't all gifts free? And doesn't 'absolutely free' mean 'without obligation'? But free gifts get more attention than mere gifts. Be redundant. Use precise, exact, and specific all in the same sentence. Use new, fresh, and revolutionary in another. Such sentences work. They sell! A writer who is not a sales writer might say that your letter is too repetitious, that you could easily cut it in half, that it should be a short, concise one-pager that tells its story quickly and directly. But a sales letter must sell, must lead the reader to take action. It must emphasize over and over and over again. It must stress the desired action repeatedly. Start thinking in terms of composition, and you're a dead duck. Your sales story has to be true. But more than that, it must sound true. Sometimes the plain facts can sound like a hopeless exaggeration. To gain credibility, use your facts and figures to build your case point by point. Then use testimonials that come across truthfully. The first step is to gather facts and come up with ideas. A good sales letter creates interest, desire, and reasons for buying or taking other action. Even then, the world's most compelling letter cannot endow a product with values it doesn't have. But if performance can live up to promise, a good sales letter will get you customers. The second step is to put the ideas on paper, first as notes and outlines, then as a rough draft. The first sentence of a sales letter must be a grabber. If you don't immediately grab the reader's interest and make him or her want to read further, all your efforts will be wasted as the letter gets tossed into the waste basket. Write and rewrite your opening sentence until you are sure it makes a compelling entrance for your presentation. Build your letter around the needs, fears, desires, happiness, or profitability of your readers. Slant the language and thought toward him or her. The reader is interested in his or her own problems, opportunities, and success, not in yours or your company's. The only reason a customer buys is for self-benefit. Stress what action you want the reader to take by explaining it, and then emphasizing it in several places in the letter. The third step is to be the critical editor and delete and rewrite until it says what you want it to say. Writers say, 'Cut it until it bleeds.' Keep rewriting, cutting out the flab until the substance of the thought is revealed. Lean writing moves people to action. When your sales letter is completed, evaluate it. Does the opening sentence arouse interest? Do subsequent paragraphs create desire? Are there convincing reasons for buying or taking action? Does each paragraph lead to the next and the next, giving your letter momentum? Is it written in the language of your average prospect? Does it give the prospect enough information to make a decision? Have you used testimonials? Do you ask for definite action and then make it easy for the prospect to act? Have you enclosed a folder, circular, or other sales literature with the letter? As A Follow-Up Sales letters should also be used to follow up sales calls. Even an impressive sales presentation will fade from your prospect's memory. Keep the door open with a series of letters that stress what was missed or slighted during the sales call. Develop a series of letters to fit the type of product each sale represents. Follow-ups work best spaced one to two weeks apart. Personalized letters are expensive. So make only the first letter in a series personal. Then switch to form letters. Include a reply card with each letter so the prospect can request literature, prices, or a sales call. Each letter should emphasize a different feature relating to such things as cost benefits, quality, service, delivery, workmanship, design, and so on. Enclose something the prospect can use-a catalogue, case history, feature story, testimonial, price list, or annual report. Also, remember people get promoted, transferred, and fired. One of your follow-up letters should be the 'list-cleaning' letter that updates your mailing list. To find out if your letters are still reaching the right person, enclose a reply card asking, 'Are we addressing you properly? If not, please make the change in Name, Title, Department, Address in the space provided below.' Not only will this direct your sales letter to the key people, it can also help identify new prospects. If one person is promoted, you can work to convince both that person and his or her replacement in your next sales letter. ONE THING AT A TIME The more ideas you put in a single letter, the less you can emphasize any one of them. This applies to all kinds of letters. The proof, however, is most obvious in the field of selling. In all the years we've been selling by mail, we have rarely succeeded in selling two different items in the same letter. Every time we introduce a second item, even briefly, total sales or leads produced by the letter declines. Sales of the second item or service, or sales response cards, rarely make up for the loss of sales caused by distracting attention from the first item. If you want to make an impression on your readers, sell one product at a time. Having Trouble Getting Started? Below are eleven suggestions for the opening paragraph of a letter. One of them is bound to fit almost any situation: 1. Use a tie-in with the letter you are answering: The problem raised in your letter of July 3 is not an easy one to answer. Ms. Smith, our president, has asked me to reply to your letter concerning late deliveries. 2. Plunge directly into the subject of your letter-especially if it is something that can be easily understood without a lengthy introduction. In your order, which was shipped today, two items were omitted. Here are the specifications on which we are soliciting bids. 3. Use the you point of view. Your courtesy in sending us advance notice is appreciated. You will be pleased to know . . . 4. Ask a question. It's a good way to force attention. Have you reviewed your requirements for the coming season? When do you expect to ship our order No. 6141? 5. Make a statement of fact pertinent to the subject at hand. Twenty of our home office salespeople are driving leased automobiles at considerable savings. 6. Show your appreciation! Thank you for your interest in our new models. You were very thoughtful to forward the samples. 7. Open with a name that means something to your reader. Your neighbor, Mr. Jones, suggested I write you. 8. Open with a story or saying that has a special meaning in this case. My father, a Vermont farm boy, had a favorite expression: 'A hit bird flutters.' Your recent letter caused such a flutter that I'm sure your criticism was justified. 9. Make an offer or give a gift. Please accept with our compliments the enclosed tickets to the Home Furnishing Show. 10. When appropriate, a bit of friendly sentiment is an excellent opening. It creates a friendly atmosphere for the entire letter. It's a pleasure to have an excuse for writing you. I still chuckle every time I recall the delightful evening we spent together at the convention. 11. Make a challenge! We can cut your utility costs by 10% -- if not, out service costs you nothing. There are other ways to start a letter, of course, but we hope this list will occasionally help you over the hump. Most important, don't be afraid to use an opening that gets immediately to the heart of the subject. Don't be afraid to write a short letter. As long as it is polite and friendly-not insultingly abrupt-a short letter is usually more forceful, more effective than a long one, especially if the longer one contains a lot of needless introductory remarks. WATCH YOUR LANGUAGE Nonsexist language is a must in your sales letters and promotions. The following excerpts from 'How to Avoid Sexism When Writing Copy' by Brian Christian Turley in Direct Marketing Magazine will give you some clues, and do's and don'ts, to avoid offending one-half of your potential prospects. P.S. Be careful about the salutations of your sales letters, too. In the absence of further information, 'Ms.' is better than guessing about the marital status of 'Mary Smith.' If a woman prefers to be called 'Miss' or 'Mrs.,' she will generally indicate that on her correspondence. HOW TO AVOID SEXISM WHEN WRITING COPY Women and men should always be treated equally in copy, and in illustrative material as well. At no time should a woman be described strictly in terms of her appearance. She should never be stereotyped in terms of life-style or job function or patronized in terms of femininity. Women and men should be treated with the same degree of respect, vis-a-vis job, physical attributes, and ability-mental, physical, or otherwise. At no time should women be demeaned through use of innuendo or cliches such as flighty, curvy, catty, fragile, gossipy, spinsterish, ladylike. Here are some common wrongs and rights: Wrong: Chairman Salesman Fireman Foreman Mailman Businessman Bakeryman Statesman Congressman Right: Presiding Officer, the Chair, Leader, Moderator Sales Representative Fire Fighter Supervisor, Group Leader Carrier, Delivery Person Business Executive Baker, Pastry Chef Leader, Opinion Maker Representative, Member of Congress Just eliminating 'man' whenever it's a suffix is most often the simplest thing to do when searching for the proper word. What's more difficult is to make judgements about situations and how people are portrayed in typical instances. Traditionally, men are portrayed as strong, decisive, risk-taking and athletic, and women as sensitive, demure, prone to tears, shy, delicate, and non-assertive. The trick comes in making the sexes equal no matter what their traditional roles or stereotypes. Unfortunately, English is without a pronoun that straddles the sexes-one which can be used as a 'neuter,' if you will, in he/she situations. The result is that we generally opt to use the masculine. The only way around the problem, most often, is to use 'his and her,' making an attempt to vary the masculine and feminine pronouns to 'her and his' for a change of pace and fairness. Unquestionably, this technique sometimes contributes to contrived, forced, and self-conscious writing. But there aren't too many other options. With thought, however, the pronoun need not appear at all: The typical sailmaker likes his thread heavy and waxed. The typical sailmaker likes heavy, waxed thread. The simplest thing to do is just reconstruct the sentence entirely, using the plural, the closest we have in the language to a generic, all-purpose pronoun: Sailmakers like their thread heavy and waxed. Alternatively, the 'his or her' can be replaced with 'one': The typical sailmaker is one who prefers heavy, waxed thread. The dictum is clear enough. Women and men should be cast as people, humans- not as beings in opposition. They should share characteristics and abilities, swap roles and missions, portrayals and personifications. Vive la difference! But please, don't make a big deal out of it in a letter. In essence, writers should avoid treating men and women as members of the opposite sex.

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The Next Generation Of Insurance Agencies
THE NEXT GENERATION OF INSURANCE AGENCIES by Bill Schoeffler The common thread in all the advice given in today's business and management books is that we're going through a period of change. This is especially true for the insurance industry. 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness.' These first lines from Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities could come from any of the numerous management books today. We now need to consider chaos the norm. Commission rate changes, carriers withdrawing from various areas, alternative marketing strategies, and legislative changes are a few of the many challenges facing agents every day. We need to learn how to excel in this turmoil. The service industry, of which insurance is a part, should take a look at the manufacturing industry and learn from their hard-earned lessons. The companies that survived and thrived pay attention to quality and customer service. Today, these are the same thing. Quality is not just theory anymore. It's necessary for survival. If we improve quality, we'll lower costs and improve productivity. We can then lower our prices, which will increase our market potential, allowing us to stay in business and give everyone a return on their investment. OLD WAY VS. NEW WAY Fredrick W. Taylor was the driving force behind the movement known as Scientific Management. This is the foundation for today's managerial practice of separating planning from execution. Assuming that the workers lacked the necessary educational base, planning became the province of managers and engineers. The workers executed plans that management developed. This concept was widely adopted and is a major reason for the United States becoming a world leader in productivity. This culture is still well entrenched in today's society-despite the global competition and information explosion that has made this model obsolete. A paradigm shift must occur to allow businesses to move to the next level and respond to the current trends in consumer needs and demands. The old way focuses on pleasing the managers and controlling the work force; the customers are taken for granted. The new way focuses on pleasing the customer by improving the system processes that deliver goods and services to the customer. When we practice the new way, management becomes secondary. The new way requires us first to understand our customers. Then we can work backward to understand our systems and redesign them to improve our service to customers. THE NEW CONSUMERS The sophistication of the consumer has greatly expanded. The typical insurance customer is demanding higher quality for less. Does this mean it's the worst of times for agencies? It depends. If proactive management is practiced, it will be the best of times. The Chinese character for crisis is the same character for opportunity. We must learn to turn crisis into opportunity. The U.S. auto industry was faced with being almost closed down by the Japanese competition. Instead, their profits have grown each year since this 'crisis.' Agency owners will find that focusing on quality is the road to opportunity. Due to the costs of producing and servicing an account, the average firm needs to retain an account for three to four years before they earn a profit. Firms with great customer service have account renewal virtually guaranteed. Find out not only what the customers need but also what they want. The U.S. inventor of the fax machine considered it to be useless because it didn't fit into any existing category. The Japanese company that bought the rights did not limit its thinking; it let the consumers decide. Agency management should survey their clients annually for feedback on customer service and suggestions. QUALITY AND THE END RESULT The incorporation of quality techniques into the service industry lags behind a similar movement in the manufacturing industry, perhaps because the concept is confusing. Theories tend to be too simple, failing to allow for the complexity of dealing with real-time subordinates, changing needs, and conflicting demands. Other theories are so complex that only an armchair academic could love them. Faced with declining profits and competition from new sources, agency owners are discovering the advantage of quality. But even when the commitment to quality is made, the question remains, 'How do we translate our goal of quality to results?' Quality is not just the process of checking policy forms for errors or documenting feverously to avoid Errors & Omissions claims. Quality is a thought process that everyone must develop. It requires focusing on the end result. Everything we do can have many different purposes. By keeping the end result in mind as we perform a task, we'll open our mind for more innovative approaches to any process. The end result that insurance agencies must focus on is satisfaction of existing clients and attraction of new customers. The decisions and actions made every day must be made with this result in mind. How does this all fit into an insurance agency? Very simple: Chuck out all your old beliefs and tear down the current system-but first finish reading this article! In the old way, managers used deductive thinking (define the problem, then seek the solution). In the new way, managers will think inductively (recognize solutions first then seek out problems to solve). WHO ARE YOUR CUSTOMERS? Let's explore how quality and customer service translate to practical information. At this point, we now need to expand the definition of a customer. A customer is anyone who receives the firm's product. In the case of a CSR, customers include the person purchasing the policy as well as the underwriter who is sent the application. Producers should treat prospects, underwriters, claims people, and CSRs as their customers. This concept does not need to be complicated. Just list the people who receive any of the firm's end products; they're the customers. Service them well and they'll stay satisfied. Employees must believe that they work for their customers, not their bosses. KEEP IT SIMPLE Every firm has five major functions: sales, marketing/placement, service, accounting, and administration. Every procedure and process in each function must be redesigned with the end result in mind: quality customer service and attracting new customers. In the old way, jobs and tasks were to be kept simple. This led to very complex processes and many layers. Today, the goal is to make the processes simple and to combine several jobs into one. The payoff in integrating all processes will be more production and fewer errors-reducing or eliminating the need for reconciliation. For the output to be improved, the system must be improved. To make this successful, address several concepts, including: Development of conditions to allow workers to exercise self-control and inspection Empowerment of employees to handle a wider variety of tasks Development of a team approach to service clients. Communication and training are fundamental to improving systems. Steps in any process should be in a natural rather than linear order. To generalize, the individual tasks for any job can be performed either in parallel or in sequence. The more tasks being performed in parallel (with fewer people), the simpler the process. The interaction of these systems results in quality. All steps within the systems are ultimately interdependent. TEAM UP TO SUCCEED With personnel handling a wider variety of tasks and the use of teams, processes become simplified. In the old way, bosses designed and allocated tasks. Now, teams assume these responsibilities. Quality is a result of teamwork, not individual effort. Teams break down the artificial separation of departmentalization. The organization will succeed only if all employees do their job and share joint responsibility for the end result. Firms that utilize teams need less management. Producer units can be the nucleus of a team. Still, pay attention to ensure the producer units do not become firms within a firm. A CSR's reluctance to help another producer when someone is out sick will destroy team spirit. The new model for an agency is 'a complex job for smart people.' Continued education over the lifetime of a job is now the norm. Producers need to work as if they're underwriters. CSRs need to understand the claims process. Bookkeepers need to think like owners. Everyone must be sales oriented. This doesn't mean that the producers should be doing the filing. Tasks like that should be performed by the least-paid qualified person. Employees however, must be well trained and should know what information is needed to service the client best, even if that information doesn't fall within the scope of their job. Beware of misusing technology to reinforce bad habits. Employees who don't use the computer system fully will actually be less efficient than those using a manual system. The proper use of technology is paramount to success and should be used to create new ways of working. A shared database can compress any process into parallel tasks-for example, when a CSR calculates a client's premium while the producer checks the client's record. The use of expert systems will allow semiskilled workers to operate at a nearly expert level. It may allow anyone to cross-sell or round accounts. With today's wireless technology, sales people can collect and send information from anywhere, including their car, an airplane, or the prospect's office. EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION Understanding what motivates each employee is crucial. The effective use of bonuses means more than promotions. Don't give out Christmas bonuses unless they've been earned. The criteria for evaluating employees are now contribution to the firm and customer-service performance. Develop compensation plans based on an employee's efforts to increase profitability. Institute a CSR incentive program. Give a paid day off to the employee of the month. Take top producers and their spouses to dinner. Everyone wants to be recognized for doing an excellent job; management's job is to find out what forms of recognition employees appreciate most. In Oak & Associates' consultations with hundreds of insurance industry firms across the United States and abroad, we've noticed certain patterns common to high-performing firms: tremendous energy, synergy, and commitment among everyone in the agency. This is more important than the leader doing everything by the book. The group acts as a cohesive team, going beyond just having all-stars. We also notice healthy competition among the employees, especially among the producers and CSRs. Finally, management believes in the abilities and intentions of employees, and creates new opportunities for top performers to advance. SUMMARY Everyone in your agency needs to share the same vision. Employees that understand, at least in a general sense, your firm's operations and goals will tend to act more like owners. They'll be more responsive to clients, leading to improved customer service. If quality is poor, everyone should feel shame. Agency owners should be creative in how they relate to employees. Firms that allow employees to act as entrepreneurs will generate creative thinking, and the staff will know that their efforts will allow them to share in the firm's success and profits. Today, you need wisdom, not foolishness. This may be the worst of times, but you can make them the best of times. Bill Schoeffler can be reached at Oak & Associates, P.O. Box 2047, Glen Ellen, CA 95442, (707) 935-6565, fax (707) 935-6515, E-mail [email protected].

General Agency Advertising
WHAT WE HAVE IN COMMON If there's any one common thread among independent agencies, it is that we are all very independent in the way we do things. For example, a new agency will have a totally different picture of how to advertise and promote its products than a well-established agency that dominates a market in a given community. So this discussion offers you tools and ideas to fit your own advertising needs rather than telling you how to advertise. CONSIDER COST $$$ If you can't come up with all the money to complete a particular advertising job, then starting it wastes the money you do have. Before undertaking a project, you should consider the job you want to accomplish, your resources, and any outside help you can get from companies. 'UNIQUE' IS THE KEY WORD No one, not even an insurance agent, gets excited about buying insurance. People get excited about buying new clothes, a car, or a house. Insurance is definitely not on the list. Since insurance is not something people want,the purpose of agency advertising is to make prospects and customers believe that they need you and your products, and that they should be in touch with you. How you reach that feeling and opinion among prospects and clients depends on your agency. If your competition is using all the normal methods of advertising, then you may have to find newer, exotic methods of reaching the public. For example, a very prominent agent happens to like to race stock cars, so he advertises his agency on the side of a stock car. It's his way of getting the community's attention. KNOW YOUR COMMUNITY You should know the economic facts of your community before advertising. This may sound elementary, but unfortunately, most independent agencies have little or no information available on their community. On the other hand, direct writers have this information down to the zip code. They know the number of homes in a community, the average income level, the number of cars per household, and so on. There are ways of finding out such information, so that you know to whom you are marketing your product. Clubs and franchises have economic data on the community they are serving. If you have a close friend in a service club or a community business that's a franchise (McDonald's, Montgomery Ward), have him or her get some of the data these organizations have on your area. This information might give you some insight into how another company views your community, as well as help you aim your target marketing. This type of information can also give you insight into a community's future long-term growth potential. You might be on the outskirts of an area that you should be pushing into, or perhaps you're already in a hot spot, or in an area that's going downhill. YOUR IMAGE REFLECTS THE COMMUNITY Your advertising should reflect you, your agency, your people, and your markets. If your business is in a small town, anything that is written or printed should not look too slick or too fancy. You're trying to create an image of the local agency-you're one of the folks. So if your advertising is too fancy, you're going to look like an outside expert. Of course, you don't want to appear too cheap either. You don't want to use a mimeograph when everything today is photocopied or computer-printed. You need to fit whatever your market is. One of the national associations released some marvelous advertising material recently, but the material constantly refers to the agent as 'he.' In our particular agency, the chief executive officer is a woman, and virtually all the first-line agency people are women. So the material that refers to an agent as a man does not apply to our situation. The material needs to be rewritten to fit our agency. Also, you shouldn't run pictures furnished by companies or national associations that show everyone in a suit and tie if you don't happen to wear suits and ties. LOOK FOR CREATIVE IDEAS You always want to check other advertisements for ideas. One simple creative idea can catch more attention and do more for you than all the year-round advertising you could dream up. One of the greatest ad programs was done by a Denver man who sells beach towels nationwide.The company that makes the towels sent people to see him to find out what his secret was. He simply took high-quality beach towels and printed 'Beech Aircraft' on them, and then invited people to come see a Beech airplane and pick up a beach towel. No one sells more beach towels than he does, and he's a thousand miles from the nearest ocean. Sometimes ideas like this can hit. If you find something that may work, capitalize on it. Look for a concept. One of the highest forms of intelligence is to take an idea and add to it. RADIO ADS When you're working with a radio station or a newspaper, they immediately try to tell you that you should advertise regularly. They of offer discounts if you do. Negotiate with them. Tell them that you want an annual contract along with the benefit of a lower rate, but you want to spread out the advertising to fit your needs. By having ads air only at the best times, you can get greater impact for the same cost or similar impact for less money. Here is one way you can do this: With the advent of computer billing, most of us are used to paying our bills around the first of the month. Also, most of the renewal bills are issued the first of the month. So if you concentrate your advertising during the last week of the month and the first week of the following month, you will reach a tremendous number of people whose insurance is coming up. People will be looking at the increase in their premiums, and consequently will be open to change. It doesn't do you much good to advertise the rest of the month when people don't have their bills coming in. Also, if you advertise during the hours that your office is open, you will get a better response from your advertising. CALENDARS Another popular form of advertising is calendars. There are two basic types of calendars: wall and desk. The wall calendar is used in many offices today. Good wall calendars cost from $3 to $5 each. You don't need to distribute many, but once you've established a spot in a local office, you tend to own that spot. People expect to see your calendar there. You literally have an obligation to furnish that calendar annually. When purchasing a desk calendar, you should choose the best. Remember, this item is common, and competition is hot. You want a calendar that your client call write on, one that can be used as a diary. This way your clients will save it and use it year after year. When customers receive a cheaper calendar, it usually gets passed down the line to whoever needs another desk calendar. But a good calendar will become an important part of the operations of that desk, and your agency will earn a place on that desk. Be sure to choose a calendar that you can obtain easily every year. You should require a guarantee from the supplier so that you can always get a particular calendar. Recently we chose three striking calendars, only to find out that they were not continued the following year. DIRECT MAIL LETTERS Direct mail can do a number of things. It can tie in with radio ads, newsletters, and newspaper ads. Direct mail can be used to combat competitors and specialty houses, and define your territory. If you've recently moved your office or you are just opening up, a general mailing to everyone in your neighborhood is the best advertising you'll ever do. For example, several years ago we opened a branch office in a growing community that was basically served by agencies bordering the town. We established ourselves and outlined our territory. But an agency from a neighboring town kept moving into our territory. So we sent some direct mail into their town. Our competition left our territory to protect their own turf-they thought we were going to expand into their area. Consequently, they started to concentrate on their territory and gave us the time to establish ourselves. Here are some areas where we have done direct mailing: Neighborhoods where our employees moved Areas where certain coverages may affect the residents a little differently than others An area where fire classes have been lowered (we also ran a newspaper ad) Our agency sends a lot of mail to 'Boxholder-Neighbor,' because we feel that it's a good way of covering every person in a specific geographical area. And next to the word 'Boxholder' we include some information so that when the prospect glances at it, he will get part of the message, whether he wants to read it or not. In addition, sending such mailings in envelopes is not really necessary and adds a cost you can do without. Direct mail can be sent in various ways: You can send it first-class, special delivery, as a mailgram, or bulk mail. Frankly, our agency had better luck with sending letters bulk mail to specific zip codes, specific post offices, and specific neighborhoods. This way we know we are truly saturating an area. Bulk mail costs approximately half the first-class rate, and it's easy and quick to do. In a matter of hours, we had 200 letters printed on a word processor and ready to go. And if your office is not automated, your secretary can type up a letter, photocopy it, and send it out. We never recommend sending a mailing of over 500 at one time. If you send out a mailing that large and a blizzard happens to hit, the impact of the mailing will be totally wiped out. As with radio spots and newspaper ads, direct mail letters should be sent prior to the first of the month, just before your prospects begin receiving bills. Again, if the next insurance bill looks high or the prospects are unhappy with their present service, you will ring a bell with them. We like to do a direct mailing so that it will arrive on Tuesday, which is a very light mail day, or on a weekend so most people will have a chance to read it. We have found that any mailing of any size should be sent over three to five consecutive days. If a particular direct mail doesn't get enough responses in the first few days to pay for it, we don't repeat that concept. If it has a positive response, we feel it was effective. Too often sales letters have dates on them. In my opinion, a letter doesn't need a date (unless there is a due date). All a date does is tell you when you received a letter and when it was written. If your client doesn't happen to see that advertising piece for three weeks, he might discard it, thinking it's outdated. Also, if he sees the letter is three weeks old, he might assume that somebody else did something about it, or that you would have called if it was important. We have found that advertising price in letters is beneficial. Some folks disagree-agents feel stating an insurance premium is not professional. But when you are selling things that people are not familiar with, such as Life insurance, Umbrella policies, and Snowmobile coverage, prospects want to know if the premium is in their ball park. They don't care if it's the lowest price around-the affordability is what matters. You can give the world's greatest selling pitch on low-cost, high-value Term Life insurance, but if your prospects think they can't afford it, nothing is going to happen. NEWSLETTERS A newsletter is a good vehicle for staying in touch with your client. And many types are available (such as those offered by IMMS) that will fit your agency. It is important to select a newsletter that fits what your agency is doing, as well as your clientele. You don't want to send something that is over their heads, nor do you want a newsletter that insults someone's intelligence. Your newsletter should be personalized. Our CPA firm sends out a newsletter with their name rubber-stamped on it. Frankly, it looks cheap. On the other hand, something too flashy may not fit a particular community. Along with the name, a newsletter should have the agency's logo on it. YELLOW PAGE ADS Most studies indicate that the first thing people look for in the Yellow Pages is a tow truck, and the second is an insurance agency. With that kind of impact, every agency should be listed in the phone book. In my opinion, the telephone book is the modern community business directory. It is printed annually and is current. You buy advertising space to tell your message, and if you want to be affiliated with an insurance company, you can list your agency under that company as well. In the Yellow Pages, your agency is easy as pie to find. If a person needs insurance, and you're who they spot, you'll get the call. LETTERHEAD You should never use white paper-it's too commonplace. Color is effective in this youth-oriented, changing world. People are used to seeing color; they look for it. Also, logo design is very important to your advertising. And your logo doesn't necessarily have to go on the top of a page. Putting your name and address at the bottom of the page rather than the top can be quite effective. At the top of the page you can start off talking about your client's needs, and continue with how you can help him. When he finishes reading the letter, he'll come right down to your name. This way, he doesn't keep looking back to the top of the page to see who the letter is from. WITH A LOT OF HELP FROM OUR FRIEND With computers you have the capability of writing and tying-in your specialty letters and direct mail letters, as well as following up on your single-line clients. If you're buying a system that doesn't have this word processing capability, it is already obsolete. With our word processor, we do direct mail, mass marketing with personal letters-sending a similar or repetitive letter to the same accounts every so often. You can keep track of business lists, homeowners lists, auto owners, boxholders, and so on with a computer. BE YOURSELF When advertising your agency, one of the most difficult rules to follow is to be yourself. Don't try to be something different. You must determine within your agency who and what you are and what your staff is. For example, we happen to live in a mountain area, so we bill ourselves as mountain people. We think that's important because that's the kind of folks we deal with. If you're very involved in one type of business, then you should look at yourself in that vein and promote yourself in that vein. When you relate to those people, make it clear that you are people who know that particular business. My favorite sales story is about the two shoe companies that decided to expand into Africa. Both sent salespeople. The first salesperson arrived and wired home: 'Send money for return ticket. No one hear wears shoes.' The second salesperson wired home: 'We hit a bonanza, no one here wears shoes.' Both said exactly the same thing, both had exactly the opposite viewpoints. And both probably did what was in the best interests of their company, considering their perspectives. If you don't think a market is right for you, don't waste time in it. Someone else may think it is perfect for them. Define what you are, see what the opportunity is, and find your degree of uniqueness to go after it.