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... x No Thanks Loading.. Mentoring For Agency Growth 4/30/2013 by CompleteMarkets Editor , Mona Carpenter This content has not been rated yet. According to Webster's, a mentor is a loyal advisor entrusted with the care and education of a student .. a wise and trusted counselor. In my experience, a mentor without these qualities can't successfully lead a rookie. Whether an agency's mentoring program succeeds and produces financial rewards depends on how it's structured and managed. I'll address methods for setting up a successful mentoring program for agency growth, including: Mentor-rookie matching Training schedule Compensation options Program monitoring and management MENTOR-ROOKIE MATCHING It's key to put together two people who are compatible. Most mentor relationships last 18 to 24 months. If mentor and rookie don't work effectively together or don't like each other, the relationship most likely will fail. An important tool in forming this team to give both participants a personality test. The test should cover communication styles, preferred working styles, motivational needs, and work ethic. The test I like is called Personalysis. The Mentor Let's examine the qualities of a successful mentor. I recommend setting a minimum book size to qualify a producer to become a mentor. The mentor should be one of the top producers in the agency, not whoever has free time to work with a new salesperson. Only the best should be teaching! A mentor must make a long-term commitment, usually two or more years, to working with the rookie. This individual should have a real vested interest, not just in his or her personal financial gains, but in the agency's ...

...le 'deal'. Think back to your mentors. Think how you treasure the gifts of...

...s to do that. Set up coaches and mentors to help people learn and grow. A men...

... x No Thanks Loading.. You Want To Be A Coach?5/22/2015 by Randy Schwantz This content has not been rated yet. Whether you're dealing with producers or athletes, helping players develop will win the game. In this cynical age, it's hard not to be suspicious of the establishment. When something goes wrong, it's easy to blame the government, your parents, or society — but a bit harder to find the flaws in yourself. The same is true for producers of all types. Whether young or old, polished or rough, successful or struggling, few people really take responsibility for their own development. That's why they need coaches. Coaching/Mentoring The purpose of a coach/mentor is to help producers take responsibility for their own development. There's a proverb: "Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach him how to fish and he eats for a lifetime." This philosophy holds true for coaching and mentoring. As a manager or principal, your goal is to help your producers learn methods to solve their own problems, take ownership of the solution, and stop waiting for the establishment (read: the agency) to fix it for them. This approach reduces producers' dependence on the sales manager and enables them to be much more proactive in achieving positive results. If your producers are in the middle of some activity, have a problem, and need an objective third party to help them think through their options, a good coaching session might last only two to five minutes. In another situation ...

... must be a capable and enthusiastic support staff to help the producer with the marketing and sales effort. Good technical back-up is particularly important if the salesperson has no  insurance sales experience. Service personnel who are already dealing with a backlog can't respond appropriately to the heavy flow of new business, and the producer will quickly become discouraged. The back office systems and procedures must be running smoothly before you bring a new producer into the mix. The second absolutely crucial ingredient is to make a conscious shift in emphasis from a service to a sales organization. All the principals and producers must renew their commitment to the sales process. This might mean that they'll have to participate in the sales center lead-generation program, writing some additional new business themselves. Or they'll have to volunteer to be a mentor for the new people, spending a substantial amount of time directing opportunities and assisting with the onsite sales activities of the fledgling salespeople. The entire agency compensation structure might need to be redesigned to reward all who help revitalize the sales effort. Most important, many if not all of the principals and employees might have to adjust their attitudes. You can't expect a new employee to concentrate on sales when the prevailing atmosphere is clearly directed toward maintaining a comfortable lifestyle for the incumbents. Everyone and everything in the agency must convey the importance of a high level of sales consciousness. Inactivity breeds more inactivity. The third step to take before hiring a new producer is to develop a program to hire the right kind of people for your agency. There are 30,000 independent agencies in the nation ...

... simple, it completely depends on what you are willing to risk. Some brokers start with big investments, and there are other small brokers as well. So, if you are not sure of the exact value of the investment, take advice from a broker to be on the right track. Keeping an eye on regular updates When you have decided to enter a market and start trading, you need to be updated with the latest rules and values. This would help you to understand the exact use and features of trading. Now, getting proper updates is also a very easy task nowadays. You can surf the internet and get to know the updates. To be a smart trader, make sure to use the news updates for your daily market work and trade. Getting a proper forex mentor Starting your career as a trading expert and winning it big needs some time. This is why you need to be strategic from the very beginning. If you are not sure of the exact way trade works, then try to hire a mentor for yourself. Other than losing big amounts while trading, it is best to know the value and start the trade. Try to take advantage of the mentor and use their knowledge for your work. Investing to gain knowledge Knowledge about trading can help traders a lot. Other than blindly following the current trends, try to understand the details. This will surely help you in the long run. The more you acquire knowledge, the better it will help you become an elite trader in the market. To ensure you are on the right track ...

... the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency Inter-agency Guidelines governing the sale of non-deposit investment products, or under state regulations for banks selling insurance. Thus, producers in agencies that affiliate with community banks must know what they can and can't say, the proper disclosure language and forms to use, how to handle complaints, and how the agency should be structured to handle bank business in their state. Community banks provide fertile ground in which to cultivate insurance programs, and the agency provides the necessary nourishment to support that growth. But what about insurance companies — the suppliers of the seed? Insurers will have to change the way they work both with community banks and the agencies that will affiliate with them by: Developing training modules that cover consultative selling, people skills, and relationship management; Creating mentoring programs to help bank sales personnel; Developing selection tools to aid in recruiting sales reps suitable to the bank culture; and, Installing oversight programs to monitor all aspects of the venture. Community banks, because of their customer focus, will prove worthy partners by providing a consistent, steady stream of business. It's up to the agencies that work with the banks, and the insurance companies that provide the product to make the relationship work. Valerie Jordan, president of Jordan & Jordan Associates (Chapin, SC), designs and implements full service insurance programs for financial institutions, serving agents and brokers, insurers, credit unions, and banks. She can be reached at (803) 932-9540, e-mail [email protected] , or visit www.jordanandjordan.com . Login or Register (for FREE) ...

... recognized and this reinforces your firm's commitment to the electronic world. Design Internet scavenger hunts to promote electronic research. Once you've implemented point No. 1, this is a fun way to motivate employees to learn their way around the cyberworld. Establish an electronic suggestion box. This offers the more computer-aware members of your company an opportunity to expand your technological horizons. Many of them were born into the computer generation and can offer you excellent ideas. Publish an electronic version of your employee handbook. Again, this reinforces your commitment to automation and promotes paper-free, efficient operations. Honor an electronic employee of the month. It may be the person who offered the best suggestion, the winner of the scavenger hunt, the person who gained the most ground in learning new technology, or the in-house automation mentor. Whatever the reason, acknowledge major efforts. Publish an electronic newsletter. Make it the joint effort of all your employees by asking them to submit articles of interest electronically. Investigate computer-based training programs and classes. Formal learning sessions are proving to be highly efficient and cost-effective for training and earning CE credits. Put your employees in your contact-management system. As you already do with your clients (I hope), use your database to help you remember birthdays, special events, anniversaries, and other appropriate moments of contact. Have employee pages on your Web site. Make each employee responsible for content about themselves, their families, their hobbies, and their interests. This gives your clients a chance to know your employees better. What's more, the employees will be attracting their friends to ...

... of topics from management to social marketing. Use company-wide e-mail to honor employee performance. Everyone likes to be recognized, and this reinforces your company's commitment to the electronic world. Establish an electronic suggestion box. This offers the younger, more computer aware members of your company an opportunity to expand your technological horizons. These people were born into the computer generation and can offer some excellent and creative ideas. Publish an electronic version of your employee handbook. Again, this reinforces your commitment to automation and ties in with the "paper-free" concept of efficient operations. Honor an electronic employee of the month. This might be he person who offered the best suggestion, the winner of the electronic scavenger hunt, the person who learned the most about new technology, or maybe the in-house trainer or automation mentor. Whatever the reason, acknowledge their efforts in expanding their technology horizons. Publish an electronic newsletter. Make this a joint effort of all your employees by having them submit articles of interest. Investigate computer-based training programs and classes. This provides a highly efficient and cost-effective method for both training and CE credits. Again, this will help make your personnel more computer savvy. Add your employees to your contact management system. Just like your clients, let your database help you to remember birthdays, special events, anniversaries, and other appropriate points of contact. Provide each employee with a personal page on the Web site. Employees provide the information, pictures, or other items that go on their page. This will help your clients get to know your employees, creates a sense of self-esteem ...

... price-sensitive to a value-rich sales approach. Make no mistake, these are deep organizations with a wide array of products and services to offer. As such, they routinely sell accounts without the lowest price but delivering much greater value than their competitors. These agencies are sales organizations. These agencies are, first and foremost, about selling. Everyone sells-from top to bottom. In an environment of increased competition, reduced premiums, and normal attrition (much of it resulting from client consolidation), growth demands an almost compulsive sales orientation, and these firms have it. They structure themselves to reward sales successes whenever possible. Cross-selling is an agency priority. Producers are compensated to produce. CSRs are licensed, empowered, and compensated to support the sales efforts of producers. Young sales talent is nurtured, mentored, and provided with a proven track to run on. Niches and areas of expertise are aggressively developed and used to gain a competitive advantage. Not only are accounts fully rounded, but these agencies find ways to touch the premium as many times as you can' that is, to provide as much service (and earn as much revenue) as possible during the insurance transaction. This involves providing (or for smaller agencies, subcontracting) a wide array of value-added services ,such as premium finance, risk management, claims adjusting, third-party administration, self-insurance programs, and loss control/engineering to maximize potential revenue from each account. We all know it's easier to keep (and ideally to cross-sell) an existing account than it is to produce a new one. It's also interesting to note ...