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...tressed agency to get back on track and sustain any level of growth if it fail...ce the agency is positioned for growth and able to take advantage of opportuni...

... prospecting effort. Get a fax number, number of employees, expiration date or expiration month, current carrier and agency, etc. 2. If you or your producer are making cold calls, take along a camera and take a picture of each one you call on. While you are there, estimate the building size and other physical characteristics of the building: estimated age, existence of a bar or drive-up window, etc. Use cold calls to screen out undesirable and/or ineligible business and then update your prospect profile. Cluster cold calls in an area you need to be in anyway. Use the travel route as a cold-call route for prospects on the way to your appointment. If you are going to make only cold calls and have devoted a block of time to it, ... , short-term victories can be built upon. First, let's start with markets. Identify a class of business for which you have a market or two with competitive pricing and enhanced Property or Liability coverage forms. This tells you the carrier wants that class of business. Build your initial marketing around that area. For example, let's assume the agency has a good program and market for family-style and fast-food restaurants and is located in a growth area. If the program is relatively new and the carrier does not have a large group of agents in the agency's marketing area, prices will probably be competitive. This class of business is a focused-strength area that you would do well to pursue for some quick-growth business. Once the plan is developed for this class, you can follow the same approach for other ...

... do what to whom and when, all the talk is irrelevant and the program will fail. It isn't necessary to look very far for examples: A major-market TV station scheduled a free event for fans to meet one of the actors in a national TV show aimed at teenagers. Even with great PR, only a handful of people showed up. No one thought that holding the promo in a bar might not be an appropriate place for kids. Then there's the Solstice, the sleek, two-seater sports car from Pontiac that weighs in at $2K. Both the design and the price get rave reviews, but experts question whether it will make the hearts of the young and the would-be young go pitter-pat. "Like the other GM sports cars, it comes to market a tad underpowered, ... reached out and captured customers with a worthy idea. That's marketing demystified. 5. Raise the quality bar. A mailing arrived from what was touted as one of the outstanding new golf courses in the nation, with breathtaking views of Boston. But what came out of the envelope was anything but impressive. It was a "homemade" flyer produced on a poor quality printer regarding the venue's new restaurant and meeting rooms. Evidently, management didn't feel it was important to produce a first-class promotional piece that could properly reflect the quality of the facility. By trying to cut corners, they sent the wrong message. If you say you're first-class, then act first-class in the way you communicate with your constituency. Marketing is about making the appropriate impression. 6. Tell stories. Music videos sell ...

... Lead Blue Chips into Negative Territory' Seeing "news" like this day after day takes a toll on anyone, particularly those responsible for making sales. Although bad news infects the very air we breathe, it remains true that more than 90% of the workforce is on the job, the freeways are packed morning and night, homes are being bought and sold, and on Friday nights the bars and restaurants are filled to capacity in many places. In spite of all the bad news, the economy keeps on going. No matter how much bad news there is, the cup is far more than half full. 6. Avoid trying to convince customers what to buy. The best way to lose a sale is to tell the customer that you have what they need. That might ... worked in the past, but it's the wrong message now. A sales rep from a major radio station in the Boston market called, attempting to arrange a "20-minute" meeting. "I think we're a good fit for your client," she stated. Unfortunately, she didn't get the memo making it clear that what a salesperson "thinks" doesn't count. She made no attempt to communicate that she understood the client's goals. Even worse, the "product" she wanted us to recommend to our client was being touted to a variety of businesses. The bottom line was that the station expected the client to fit their program. What might be "a good fit" for the radio station might not meet the client's requirements. 7. Educate endlessly. The fact that today's ...