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... x No Thanks Loading.. Smart Agencies Should Stay On Offense In A Soft Market 4/30/2013 by CompleteMarkets Editor , Robert Reagan This content has not been rated yet. SMART AGENCIES SHOULD STAY ON OFFENSE IN A SOFT MARKET by Bobby Reagan and Brian McNeely With no end in sight to the soft market, the question that agency leaders must ask themselves is: "Are we going to play offense or defense?" The answer is going to depend on the agency's situation — and everybody's situation is different. The public brokers must maintain their earnings or they will be penalized by Wall Street. Therefore, they will turn to acquisitions to drive earnings growth and focus on cost containment strategies. Private equity firms are also under pressure to generate the same level of earnings to satisfy the returns promised to their investors. However, privately held agencies with no debt are in a far different position. In fact, they have a tremendous amount of freedom and can develop a strategy to capitalize on the soft market. ON THE DEFENSIVE During downcycles in business, leaders across all industries often turn to a strategy of playing defense, which includes multiple cost-containment strategies such as headcount reductions, hiring freezes, and the suspension of discretionary spending. The focus of playing defense is maintaining current profitability at lower revenue levels. The challenge with this strategy is implementing it while maintaining customer service levels and the ability to grow your revenues in the future. This is especially true in our industry. We're seeing lots of defense being played in the insurance distribution arena — cutbacks in advertising, program development, ...

... Thanks Loading.. x No Thanks Loading.. x No Thanks Loading.. ASE Insurance Services 1 2 3 4 5 Rating history (0 Reviews - 0 of 5.0) Shows who have rated the content, and the rating score. Write your review here. (Required) Please consider the following: 1. Would you recommend this company? 2. What about this company do you like/dislike? 3. Why did you choose this rating? Submit This Anonymously Submit Cancel Contact Us contact_phone Click to call Unfollow First name: Last name: Email: Are you sure you want to deactivate your CompleteMarkets Company Profile Deactivate Cancel Loading.. About Us Services Jobs PR Newsletters Employees Articles Blog Photos Group Connections Reviews Member Content Member Content - Content Package Categories Popular Recent All Back 11 Ways the Internet is Playing Havoc with Every Business 2/28/2018 12:00:00 AM by CompleteMarkets Editor , John Graham This content has not been rated yet. Referring to Wal-Mart's upcoming redesign of its Web site, one analyst said it will give retailing a "jolt" and another said it will "change Internet retailing." Evie Black Dykem, of Forrester Research, Inc., said, "It will be the shot heard round the retail world." When the world's largest retailer stakes its claim on the Internet, many predict that life will never again be the same. "The power to navigate the world at the click of a mouse is a force that is transforming our lives like none before," wrote the editors of Business Week. A few paragraphs later, they ...

... x No Thanks Loading.. Playing Team 5/18/2015 by Don Phin This content has not been rated yet. During recent months, I've been asked to do a number of workshops on team building. These principles cover the basics. The team comes first. A recent Men's Health magazine interviewed Navy SEALS about what's critical to their success. They said that the most important thing was understanding that the team comes first. Because we live in a society that prizes rugged individualism, this can be a difficult concept to grasp fully. Often, the most difficult challenge for management is the employee who's productive, but not a team player. Is it worth keeping the Prima Donna at the cost of destroying the team? That's the question. You know the answer. Teams need leadership and a sense of direction. What are the vision, mission, and goals for the team? Who's in charge of communicating them and making sure they get accomplished? Is the person in charge a good leader, or just someone with the most experience? Are they motivating or demotivating, by nature? Do they spend most of their time praising or criticizing? All team members must lead by example. Can you honestly say that you gave it your best today? Do genuinely care about other team members? Are you committed to constant improvement of your skill sets? Do you enjoy playing team or would you rather be a solo flier? One of the things I teach is understanding the "processional" effect of our actions. For example, how we treat a team member impacts how ...

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... x No Thanks Loading.. 11 Ways the Internet is Playing Havoc with Every Business 2/28/2018 by CompleteMarkets Editor , John Graham This content has not been rated yet. Referring to Wal-Mart's upcoming redesign of its Web site, one analyst said it will give retailing a "jolt" and another said it will "change Internet retailing." Evie Black Dykem, of Forrester Research, Inc., said, "It will be the shot heard round the retail world." When the world's largest retailer stakes its claim on the Internet, many predict that life will never again be the same. "The power to navigate the world at the click of a mouse is a force that is transforming our lives like none before," wrote the editors of Business Week. A few paragraphs later, they added, "Anyone with a computer is a citizen of the world-and a richer world at that." The extent of the Internet's impact on life and business can be measured by Merrill Lynch's willingness to place at risk its sales force of 14,800 stockbrokers as the company heads straight into the E-economy. When all of Merrill Lynch's explanations and assurances of protecting its brokers are stripped away, it's clear that the company sees its future on the Net. Auto manufacturers are right there, too. The move to cut costs by cutting out dealers is clear, and it's driven by the possibilities created by the Internet. Whether it's real estate sales or travel agencies, these functions will soon be Net-based. Beyond the obvious impact, such as displacing stockbrokers or bookstore clerks ...

... x No Thanks Loading.. Service Excellence: Anticipating Needs 4/30/2013 by CompleteMarkets Editor , Mary Beth Bolen This content has not been rated yet. Making a movie requires several types of people: Directors, Producers, Actors, and Crew Members Each have specific roles to play in expediting the desired outcome. In the insurance industry, the agency and customers also have specific roles to play to achieve a desired result. But service consumers, not agency staff members, are the players that determine results. Service consumers play varying roles, depending on certain personality traits. Some like to direct, some like to control from afar, some like to follow. Service consumers can be categorized into three distinct types: producers, directors, and camera operators. The role of a customer service representative (CSR) is that of the assistant director-the person who interacts with and takes care of others to ensure the operation runs smoothly and efficiently. To do so, the CSR/assistant director must first determine which categories customers fall into in order to know how best to interact with them. Awareness of personality types and their corresponding roles allows a CSR to maximize the time and energy required to satisfy customer needs. Check past call records to find out who has called, how often, and why. Call records provide excellent clues to character. Then establish a proactive service contact schedule accordingly. The three types of customers along with appropriate handling strategies are: THE DIRECTOR: This type of service consumer is a regular' caller, a constant complainer. Directors are the ones who need ...

... x No Thanks Loading.. Zeroing In On Specific Prospects 4/30/2013 by CompleteMarkets Editor This content has not been rated yet. ZEROING IN ON SPECIFIC PROSPECTS &# 160 PLAY THE NUMBERS GAME' &# 160 Don Eve of the Eve Agency in Flint , Michigan , has this advice for prospecting: play the numbers game. You must contact a certain number of prospects to obtain a given number of interviews, which should lead to so many sales. You are working with the law of averages; and the averages will improve with experience. &# 160 Begin each week with a minimum of fifty names. Send these prospects a preapproach letter on Monday of each week and start calling on them one week later. Continue with this until you can no longer keep up with the volume of letters, calls, and surveys. Then, and not before, cut back on the number of letters. &# 160 ZEROING IN ON SPECIFIC PROSPECTS &# 160 If you know to whom you're going to sell, you will improve your chances of making the sale. That's why the sales personnel at Pembroke Agency in Virginia Beach , Virginia , do an outstanding job of directing their sales efforts towards prospects who can be handled by markets this agency represents. Here is a list of broad individual one-year solicitation goals for each agency salesperson. Note the breakdown of the number of expiration dates needed in specific industries. X-dates are used, since obtaining these dates is the first step toward most successful sales: &# 160 BROAD INDIVIDUAL SOLICITATION GOALS &# 160 Annual Inventory' Goals & ...

... x No Thanks Loading.. Producer Success Lesson 11: Visual Rapport 5/29/2015 by Randy Schwantz This content has not been rated yet. Nothing happens until somebody sells something. To make sales happen, IMMS.com Key Sales Consultant Randy Schwantz has created a comprehensive series of 43 Producer Success Lessons. Used singly or in combination, these powerful tools can help your producers build their skills - and grow their sales. I conducted a role play for a client a while ago. The group split into pairs, and one person played the salesperson while the other played the client. One of the teams was having a lot of trouble - the salesperson' couldn't establish rapport with the client. I asked what was wrong. The client said that the salesperson looked too eager - almost nervous. The salesperson also seemed tense. I asked the salesperson what he was trying to accomplish, and he said he wanted to appear professional. To him, professional' meant sitting up straight in his chair and getting down to business. I told the salesperson he was making the client nervous, which didn't promote trust or rapport a bit. When I asked him to relax to match the client's posture, he said he couldn't because it wouldn't be professional. So I asked him what his desired outcome was - to be professional or to get the client to buy something from him. When he finally did relax, the client immediately felt more at ease. The salesperson in this role play was concentrating so much on his own image that he couldn't get in tune with his client. It isn't ...

... others so that you can succeed is simply the nature of business. Not so if you want to have an effective team! Remember: "A rising tide floats all boats." In his eye-opening book, The Case Against Competition, Alfred Cohen points out that when it comes to teams, we should focus on cooperation, not competition. We can compete against those outside the team, but certainly not within it. Again, this doesn't mean that all team members have all the same responsibilities or the same compensation structures; it does mean that they should receive equal, and respectful, treatment. After all, they're teammates! 3. Be clear up front about your commitments. Assuming that everyone will follow team rules is guaranteed to produce failure and resentment. For example, if you've played team sports for your entire life, your perception of what constitutes team play will differ from that of someone who has never played on a sports team. Build mutual rules, commitments, values, or understandings through dialogue and consensus. In game theory, there's a classic story of the Prisoners' Dilemma. For example, assume that two men are arrested for robbing a bank. The police separate them immediately and offer each one a deal, saying, "we'll let you go or give you a lighter sentence if you rat out your partner." Because the prisoners failed to define their commitments under such circumstances up front, they now find themselves wondering what the other guy will do. Inevitably, one or both will crack, believing that they're more committed to the relationship than the ...

... . The answer says a lot about your performance management. If the employee has been performing poorly, to what degree have they addressed this challenge? Have you provided disciplinary notices or performance plans? Check to see if the employee falls into any protected categories. Although employment is "at-will," the exceptions have, in a sense, swallowed the rule. If an employee fits within a protected category (such as race, religion, age, gender, etc.), they might claim that the real motivation behind their termination has nothing to do with performance. Bear in mind that courts will usually uphold "mixed motivation" cases in which a poorly performing employee faced discrimination. In other words, the employer treated them differently than other employees who have performed poorly. Determine whether discrimination played any role in the termination decision. Give the employee a way to complain if they feel that discrimination played any part in their poor performance reviews or termination decision. Review employee complaints. Employees who complain about health or safety issues and other concerns regulated by state or federal laws often file whistleblower and retaliation cases. If these people have also complained about discrimination or harassment, you might well face a claim of retaliation. As a loose rule of thumb, most attorneys and judges will consider any adverse action taken within three months of a complaint as "retaliatory" which means you'll have to prove that it wasn't. Good luck! Make sure your documentation is in place. Do you have performance evaluations which show the deficiency for which you're firing the employee? What about their disciplinary notices or ...