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..._____ ___________ ___________ Entertainment/Travel ___________ ___________...________ ___________ ___________ Entertainment/Travel ___________ ________...

... Michael J. Wolf writes in The Entertainment Economy, 'If the '80s and '90s we...ed vehicles in five days, and the entertainment business is moving quickly to ...

...h auto allowances, travel, and entertainment. The first thing the agency owne... Travel and Entertainment ...

..., health care, and interactive entertainment. But increasingly there will be i...nce of cable, telecommunications, entertainment, Internet, and E-mail? And how...

... to get clients to change their behavior. People Buy on Emotion In one of Zig Ziglar's books is a wonderful diagram showing the concept of emotional buying. A man has a large heart on his jacket. Two lines measure distances in the diagram, one going 24 inches from the man's back pocket to the heart on his jacket and the other going 36 inches from the man's back pocket to his head. See the point? If you want to get to that wallet, going through the heart is a shorter trip. The trick to getting to a person's heart is to tell a good story. Remember, people like people who are like them. If you can tell a story that illustrates your point well, enhances rapport by highlighting things you have in common with your client, and entertains, you'll probably never hurt for business. So why don't more people use this technique? Mainly because most people don't just come up with funny, concise stories out of the blue. You'll probably have to really think about your experiences and develop good stories from them. Developing Good Stories Did you know Bob Hope has a staff of writers who write jokes and one-liners for him? Sure, Bob Hope is very funny, and he comes up with plenty of material on his own. But Bob Hope isn't entertaining solely because he has great material. He also spends a great deal of time practicing and refining his craft. How much time have you spent developing and practicing what you'll say to the Commercial account's Risk Manager? You know they'll be a bit reluctant to introduce you to the ...

...ou are in the media, design or entertainment business). Let us examine some ve...ntial content than just games and entertainment. People are getting serious ab...

...tight budgets without room for entertainment might prefer a dinner out or a we...rs, half of them cover travel and entertainment expenses, and half either prov...

...nership perks, such as travel, entertainment, or advertising/promotion, have a... Travel & Entertainment ...

... income from Life and group business. The averages run from 7.9% to 12.5% . We recognize that an agency can't change its business mix overnight. But you should consider increasing your income from these sources in your long-range planning. They're generally much more profitable than writing P/C Lines. Another major difference is in the recommended executive payroll, which we've set at 5% versus 15.1% -25% . Most agencies in the average composite groups are privately held firms in which the owners take part of the profit as excess compensation. A pro-forma strips out any compensation that's not directly related to the principals' performance as agency employees. These excess amounts fall to the bottom line as an indication of true profit. Other actual expenses that might involve ownership perks, such as travel, entertainment, or advertising/promotion, have also been adjusted in the pro-forma percentages. After removing the ownership return, the profit margin for an average agency should be between 18% and 25% . Most of the categories in the composite are self-explanatory. They correspond to standard financial reports produced by the major computer systems. Some items might need to be clarified to make sure that you're comparing apples to apples. Brokers Commissions are only those commissions paid to outside people who are primarily associated with another organization. Note that we've removed this expense from the pro forma since we've found that traditional brokerage activities are expensive to maintain and often reduce contingent income and increase E&O exposure. Employee producers and independent contractors who work only through this agency are included in Sales Payroll. In the pro forma ...

... demographic of your existing customers, although you should already have that handy, but the target demographic of your website prospect. Personal Lines make a good starting example: Age Target – Boomer, X, or Y? Gender Target, if any. Household Income target. Now, based on that target follow the example decision tree below and see if your website has a clear path to lead your prospect to the goal, which is to call you. If your website doesn't follow a similar decision tree for every product and service you offer, then you are letting the fish off the hook. Function over Form The landscape is peppered with examples of what works and what does not work. I am a firm believer in function over form (unless you are in the media, design or entertainment business) . Let us examine some very successful examples of this truism. Google.com – As far as websites go, it doesn't get simpler than Google, and it's the best example of function over form. Enter your search term, hit go, get results. Google delivers exactly what users are looking for – no bells, no whistles and no other distractions. This is true of Google's other products as well, such as Google Analytics, Google Insights, etc. All of them function as you would expect, and give you the information you expect to find – no flash animation, or some corny lady walking across the screen, or fancy images appearing and disappearing. Amazon.com – What a great example of keeping things simple, clean, and most importantly, achieving the company's goal ...