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... 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 ...

... x No Thanks Loading.. General Agency Advertising 4/30/2013 by CompleteMarkets Editor , John Farr This content has not been rated yet. 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, ...

... x No Thanks Loading.. The Next Generation Of Insurance Agencies 4/30/2013 by CompleteMarkets Editor , Bill Schoeffler This content has not been rated yet. 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 ...

... own. Make a commitment to the process and you'll enjoy handsome rewards. To maximize your response rate, make it easy for clients to respond, and be sure to provide an incentive. Include a fax-back option or an 800 telephone number as well as your e-mail or Web page address. For the incentive, offer the first 20 who respond a coupon for a free ice cream at a local ice cream parlor in the summer months, a tour of a building of local interest, or delivery of a bouquet of balloons to the children's ward of a nearby hospital. A Long-Term Commitment You now have the basics to start a highly focused, thorough, and profitable cross-selling and up-selling program. Remember this is not a one-day or one-week or one-month effort - it's a long-term commitment. Create many threads, each representing a product or service that connects your agency and its clients. You can't have too many. Weave thick ropes that are too intertwined for your clients to sever. In other words, the cost of severing these ties will far exceed the difficulties of working through any problems with your agency. Finally, you must be and stay proactive. Stay on top of this program. The days of being a reactive agency and expecting to grow and become profitable are gone. They're history. Relationships today require proactive nurturing and management to thrive. Retention is the name of the profit game. Lynn M. Thomas, JD is president of 21st Century Management Consulting, 32 Coyne Road, Waban, MA 02468, (781) 899-4210, E-mail [email protected] , Web site ...

... might say publicly that it's "customer focused," everyone knows that doing whatever it takes to make a sale is the real "core value." Exercise: Ask employees, customers, management, and directors to share their perception of your company's three most important values and what each one means. 4. Answering the customer's question. You might think we understand what's going on in your customers' heads, but your perception might be more distorted than you'd like to think. Asking one question can help expand your understanding of what your customers are thinking and how that compares with your views. Exercise: Ask employees, customers, management, and directors to answer the question: "Why do customers buy from us?" 5. The heart of the company. Is there a common thread that binds everyone together, including employees, customers, management, and directors? Is it an idea, a way of doing business, a feeling, or is it something else? Is it positive or even possibly negative? Exercise: What is the one quality that everyone in your company employees, management, customers, and directors all agree to, and why? The objective of this five-question exercise is to find out if the road map (the words we use) matches the actual territory. Although we all approach jobs, ideas, opportunities, the future, and problems from an individual perspective, a shared understanding gives your business an accurate picture of itself and where you're going. Can this exercise in understanding help a company improve its customer relations and better focus its marketing and ...

... x No Thanks Loading.. Communicate With Employees!4/30/2013 by Al Diamond , CompleteMarkets Editor This content has not been rated yet. Treat your employees like customers - not children! Most agency principals have owned one or two agencies and have been in a few dozen others. I've visited thousands of agencies during the past 23 years and one common thread is a lack of communication among the owners and the employees. The exceptions to this rule are always happier, more productive, and more profitable agencies. Why can't communicative agents communicate with their own employees? Because they treat their customers like customers and their employees like children. Agents know that prospects and customers alike must be treated with respect and deference. Right or wrong, they pay the bills. But although a customer only influences the amount of commission their account produces, employees influence revenues from hundreds of customers. The way your CSRs treat customers could influence them to either accept or reject your relationship-building efforts. But do agents really treat their employees like children? In many cases, yes. Children are tolerated in spite of their flaws. Many agents tolerate employees who display unwarranted behavior because: They've been with the agency for years They've done such good work in the past They're not that bad' they do work hard and stay late The question is whether you'd hire the person if they left and returned looking for a job. If the employee cant meet your standards for a new employee, why are they still with you? Meanwhile, employees who do well regularly are rarely thanked because: They're doing their ...

... x No Thanks Loading.. The Origins Of Diminished Agency Value 4/30/2013 by CompleteMarkets Editor , Roy Phillips This content has not been rated yet. THE ORIGINS OF DIMINISHED AGENCY VALUE by Roy Phillips and Dan King What factors contribute to the reduction of an agency's value? In our experience of evaluating hundreds of terminally ill agencies over the past decade, some common threads have emerged. It appears that the No. 1 cause of diminished agency value is poor management. An agency with skilled leadership is likely to be healthy. In the hands of its existing owners, the agency will probably continue to operate with consistent financial and market profiles, and hold its value. The relationships that develop between clients and owners over the years have an intangible, but real, value in goodwill. Conversely, a sick agency with plummeting market value might look to the following contributing causes: The agency suffers image damage with carriers due to underwriting losses, poor payment patterns, and sub-par knowledge of insurance coverage. Skill levels of staff personnel, including CSRs and producers, are below acceptable standards, and the agency doesn't conduct proper recruiting and training. Growth and attrition rates are inferior, with little emphasis on retention and account rounding. The agency depends on single-industry business and/or large-revenue accounts. Data-processing systems are absent or antiquated, with no online capability. Staff and producers are working without employment contracts. Agency owners and managers have few credentials in the areas of finances, sales, compensation, and marketing. There's a history of E&O allegations, arising from a lack of ...

... the partner who meets the above criteria and who also has a personalized book of business that will follow. This is difficult. Do you advertise; retain a executive search firm; hire a consultant that specializes in agency acquisitions; pass the word to your own network; or make direct approaches to targets you have already identified? I want a producer with a proven track record, one who has developed new business and effectively marketed and serviced his accounts. I need someone who is self-starter, one who is streetsmart and creative. I want a catalyst who will make things happen, a person with an entrepreneurial spirit who has a lot of energy and a good sense of business. My new partner will help me run the business and, therefore, he must have good judgement. A common thread must be a sense of humor. This is an obvious partner profile. How simple-yet so simple that it usually takes a back seat to moving a book of business or a few covered accounts. Good producers are trained to eat what they kill. If your goal is to bring in a producer who can also manage accounts, I urge you to first select the personal and professional traits. The business will follow. Although you may eat part of what he kills, his accounts are subject to the same pressures your existing business faces. When we recruit, candidates respond to the approach, Our client is far more interested in you as a potential partner than in the business you can immediately switch. When the recruiting pitch is slanted toward moving accounts, the focus is immediately on incentive compensation through commission ...

... phone, and voice-mail fosters its own forms of miscommunication. E-MAIL Without question, e-mail is the most useful form of business communication today, including the cell phone. Instead of looking at the whole, we now think in bits and pieces. It's as if we're no longer able to conceptualize. One executive received 47 e-mails from a client over a 10-day period on a small project. Rather than organizing the information, the client simply dashed off the series of e-mails as various thoughts came to mind. When the executive inquired about a particular issue, the client stated, "I sent you that several days ago." As e-mail recipients, the burden now rests with us to put the jigsaw puzzles together. Here are some easy ways to improve and facilitate e-mail communications. Create an e-mail thread. Going back and forth using the same e-mail to discuss a particular issue is the best way to create continuity and to avoid the "bits and pieces" problem. Now, you have a record and all the messages are in one place. Limit each message to a single subject. There's nothing worse than trying to deal with multiple subjects wrapped up in a single e-mail message. Sure it saves the sender time, but it drives the recipient to distraction! Use the subject line. There's no excuse for failing to use the subject line. Because of persistent virus problems, the best rule is to delete any message without a recognizable subject. Watch the shorthand. E-mail shorthand is fun and it saves keystrokes. But it also opens the door to misunderstanding and confusion. Keep the ...

... or track ball. If you've been using the alphanumeric keyboard for commands, switch to mouse or track ball for a while to do a report or calculate rates. Vary your tasks. If you've been typing a report or proposal, take time to hand-write a few thank-you and F.Y.I. notes. Stretch or rest between movements. Before you answer the next telephone call, drop your hands to your sides and shake them lightly. Or reach for the ceiling, stretching as you go. Avoid using too much force. Today's keyboards are much more sensitive to the touch than the keyboards many of us learned to type on. Lighten up! Give yourself gifts. Reward yourself with an armrest, a footrest, a wristrest, or a document holder with an adjustable angle and height. The common thread running through most of these tips is to change positions and activities at regular intervals. You'll find that improving your health will improve your performance. Login or Register (for FREE) to gain access to thousands of other great articles. Need more reasons to join? Need insurance for you, your business or your family? Get quality appointments - Save yourself a whole lot of time & money when you use our directory of carriers, wholesalers and service providers. Negotiate lucrative contracts with carriers and wholesalers. Net result. More revenue for your agency! Clients & Prospects will research you, your co-workers and your agency here. The most comprehensive online insurance industry reference library for - Personal Lines Professionals Commercial Lines Professionals Life/Health & Benefits Professionals Online newsletters and content that you can use for ...