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... sure that the individual is disorganized. It's the "I forgot to follow up" excuse. Or just as likely, it applies to the person who just realized that the meeting is either tomorrow morning or a half-hour from now and dashes off an e-mail or picks up the phone and leaves a hurried message. How else have you attempted to make contact? Mail? E-mail? A personal visit? Have you been as persistent in this task as you would be in getting scarce concert tickets? Let's get real! "They haven't gotten back to me" is a lame excuse because it's simply attempting to blame someone else for your lack of effort. "I left messages" This, of course, is the other side of the "they haven't gotten back to me" coin. Translated, "I left messages" says, "I honestly believe that my responsibility begins and ends with leaving a message. What else can you expect?" Let's get through this quickly: Leaving messages doesn't count. It's nothing. Zero. "I left a message" is an attempt to pass the blame to someone else for your failure to get the job done. "I haven't heard back from my e-mail." This one is so common that it no longer makes much, if anything, of an impression. Because it's taken for granted, people continue to use it. The response is simple: "OK, you haven't heard. How long are you going to wait? What other steps might you take to complete the communication? A failure to understand the changing ...

... Develop an agency mission statement that defines these objectives. Create written statements of overall financial, operational, and personnel policies. These statements basically set the parameters within which other decisions will be made. For example: "In the interest of maintaining private ownership and to maintain a financially stable organization, we will maintain average annual earnings of 10% over the next five years." STEP THREE: DEVELOP A SALES AND MARKETING PLAN Once you know what you have and what you want to have, you can determine how to get from where you are to where you want to be. This third step in the sales management process will result in a Sales and Marketing Plan. The opportunities and weaknesses identified in the first step and the long-and short-term objectives defined in the second step need to be translated into specific strategies and goals. These goals will then follow certain broad strategies. The strategies state what has to be done, while the goals and objectives outline how this will be accomplished. An agency will usually have one or two major sales and marketing strategies, with other growth needs addressed in strategies that relate to the financial operation and support mechanism. These categories that should form the framework for your agency's specific list of goals and objectives: Sales and Marketing Sales Support Services External Communications Company Relations Financial Stability Personnel Development Automation Internal Communications Space Planning Perpetuation Set the specific goals in a format that facilitates monitoring their completion. Each goal must be measurable, time bound, and have someone with the ultimate responsibility for carrying it out. List all of the goals that apply to a particular strategy ...

... is not as great an issue, you can avoid relocation costs. The option of telecommuting makes your company more attractive to prospective employees. Chances are good that you will even reduce employee turnover by providing a work environment that adapts to a variety of circumstances. Saves money. You are guaranteed to save money with your telecommuters. The quality and quantity of work increase, office expenses decrease, and you retain productive, satisfied employees. BENEFITS OF A VIRTUAL OFFICE TO THE EMPLOYEE Offers flexibility. People are searching for quality of life as they balance work and family responsibilities. A virtual office provides you with flexibility and more control over your life. You can creatively work around personal errands, child care, continuing education, and so forth. Ultimately, the satisfaction derived from this new lifestyle usually translates into greater productivity. Eliminates commuting stress. Futurist Alvin Toffler wrote "Commuting is the single most anti-productive thing we do." For instance, it is estimated that Californians waste 300,000 hours in traffic delays every single work day. A trip that took 15 minutes on a southern California freeway in 1984 will probably take 47 minutes in 2010, and other urban areas are seeing comparable increases in commuting times. A virtual office allows you to translate the wasted time and stress of commuting into top-quality work performance. Enhances productivity. Telecommuters focus on achievement rather than time. Structure your work hours to the times you are most productive and creative. If you function best during the morning, you can begin work at 7 a.m. in your virtual office instead of wasting valuable time in traffic ...

... In other cases, many foreign nationals sent here on corporate assignments for multinational firms are choosing to stay, and many wealthy citizens from Asia are migrating here and purchasing homes and businesses with hard cash. Despite all this, most agents' tunnel vision ignores minorities, often precluding any marketing efforts to gain their business. One Business Tackles The Market A friend of mine is the second-generation owner of a Chevrolet dealership. He watched his sales plummet as the demographics of his community became predominantly Asian. He had failed to learn the negotiation and buying habits of this minority, let alone figure out how to reach them with advertising. Daily he watched his white sales staff idle away the hours without a single customer. When an entire family (we're talking three generations) would arrive, usually with a translator, the sales staff would seldom close a sale. They did not know how to handle a group negotiation. Finally, before either selling the dealership or going bankrupt, he hired a new general manager who was experienced in trading in the Asian community. The new GM (who, by the way, was not Asian) began a multifaceted campaign that started with an analysis of the community. It turned out that there were about five or six dialects in the local Asian community. Moreover, about 25% of the population was Hispanic. Advertising in the major papers was canceled; ads now run in about a dozen small, local papers written in specific languages. A new sales staff was hired, with language skills being one of the major job requirements. Now, each of ...

... is not as great an issue, you can avoid relocation costs. The option of telecommuting makes your company more attractive to prospective employees. Chances are good that you will even reduce employee turnover by providing a work environment that adapts to a variety of circumstances. Saves money. You are guaranteed to save money with your telecommuters. The quality and quantity of work increase, office expenses decrease, and you retain productive, satisfied employees. BENEFITS OF A VIRTUAL OFFICE TO THE EMPLOYEE Offers flexibility. People are searching for quality of life as they balance work and family responsibilities. A virtual office provides you with flexibility and more control over your life. You can creatively work around personal errands, child care, continuing education, and so forth. Ultimately, the satisfaction derived from this new lifestyle usually translates into greater productivity. Eliminates commuting stress. Futurist Alvin Toffler wrote "Commuting is the single most anti-productive thing we do." For instance, it is estimated that Californians waste 300,000 hours in traffic delays every single work day. A trip that took 15 minutes on a southern California freeway in 1984 will probably take 47 minutes in 2010, and other urban areas are seeing comparable increases in commuting times. A virtual office allows you to translate the wasted time and stress of commuting into top-quality work performance. Enhances productivity. Telecommuters focus on achievement rather than time. Structure your work hours to the times you are most productive and creative. If you function best during the morning, you can begin work at 7 a.m. in your virtual office instead of wasting valuable time in traffic ...

... sales costs. The traditional approach to increasing sales has been to increase the sales budget. However, rising sales costs can be a red flag that indicates a serious problem brewing. Simply throwing more money into a sales operation today may be a major mistake. Intense competition, the inability to gain access to prospects, and prospects who are better informed are actually causing sales productivity to decline. They're also driving salespeople to focus on reachable prospects and avoid those who are more difficult to reach. The traditional strategy is clearly flawed. The goal in the current marketplace is to get salespeople through more doors and connect with prospects in ways that trigger their desire to listen to the sales message. Companies such as Xerox, Micron Computers, and Chubb Insurance are very good at creating a marketing focus that translates into sales activity. What drives sales is a marketing strategy that does not increase sales costs. 3. Aim to be the leader in your field. Now we're getting to the heart of power marketing! If a company is perceived as the leader in its industry, field, or region, tremendous energy is released inside the company. What needs to happen? The task is to shift the emphasis to creating an atmosphere so more prospects will recognize and understand your company. It's important that they have an accurate appreciation of who you are and what you can do. The main job for any business is to develop techniques that will give prospects a desire to do business with it. When this happens, sales go up while the actual cost of making sales decreases. 4. Protect ...

... nonsense that obscures or distorts reality. Here are a few examples of the nonsense spouted by professionals who should know better: "We're the best." (Who says so?) "We have 12 service centers." (So what?) "Let our experts help." (Who says they're "experts"?) "Thirty years in the same location." (What's the value to the customer?) Phrases like this are designed to bolster the way the company sees itself, not to attract or hold customers. The same is true with much of today's advertising. The largest type in an ad, for example, is often the company name. This sends no message to a prospect. These ads focus on features, rather than benefits. How does that translate into helping the customer? Becoming customer-focused requires more than a mushy mission statement on the back of a business card. Sell ideas, not just products or services. Xerox takes the lead with its digital multi-task equipment's networking capability. These devices combine a good digital copier with a fax machine — yet that isn't enough anymore. Having a network is the benefit that makes the equipment different. The idea that you can copy and fax from your desk, increasing productivity, makes the sale. Today's customer isn't captured by the latest model, but by the powerful and persuasive idea. From a marketing perspective, differentiating a business from its competitors makes the difference — not the brochures, logos, ads, or direct mail. Be committed. Even though "commitment" is one of the big ...

... because it didn't fit into any existing category. The Japanese company that bought the rights did not limit its thinking; it let the consumers decide. Agency management should survey their clients annually for feedback on customer service and suggestions. QUALITY AND THE END RESULT The incorporation of quality techniques into the service industry lags behind a similar movement in the manufacturing industry, perhaps because the concept is confusing. Theories tend to be too simple, failing to allow for the complexity of dealing with real-time subordinates, changing needs, and conflicting demands. Other theories are so complex that only an armchair academic could love them. Faced with declining profits and competition from new sources, agency owners are discovering the advantage of quality. But even when the commitment to quality is made, the question remains, How do we translate our goal of quality to results? ' Quality is not just the process of checking policy forms for errors or documenting feverously to avoid Errors & Omissions claims. Quality is a thought process that everyone must develop. It requires focusing on the end result. Everything we do can have many different purposes. By keeping the end result in mind as we perform a task, we'll open our mind for more innovative approaches to any process. The end result that insurance agencies must focus on is satisfaction of existing clients and attraction of new customers. The decisions and actions made every day must be made with this result in mind. How does this all fit into an insurance agency? Very simple: Chuck out all your old beliefs and tear down the current system-but first finish reading this article! ...

... x No Thanks Loading.. Secrets Of The Successful: Focus And Commitment 4/30/2013 by Al Diamond , CompleteMarkets Editor This content has not been rated yet. The IIABA publishes an excellent Best Practices study that provides objective benchmarks of the country's most successful agencies. Agency Consulting Group, Inc. publishes its highly successful Composite Group studies, now available on a state-by-state basis, that review a large number of agencies of all sizes, types, and success levels to determine the "average" industry benchmarks. This series by Al Diamond on the Secrets of the Successful' takes the objective measures and translates them into the characteristics that separate successful agents from the also-rans. It's not enough to know that a successful agent has more than $150,000 revenue per employee. Unless you know how this agent achieved this result, only two things can happen to the average agency striving for success — both of them bad. First, the agent comparing his results against the Composite Groups or against Best Practices will be very frustrated because his actions don't permit a level of success anywhere near those of the best agencies. The second possible result is that the agent will strive to adapt their agency to those results of the more successful agencies. Unless the "wannabe" agent changes their characteristics, physical changes (automation, training, etc.) will prove useless. It's not how much money we spend on upgrading our agencies that counts. It's how much we're willing to change ourselves that determines the degree of success we'll achieve in the future. You see, the agency's potential and ...

... In other cases, many foreign nationals sent here on corporate assignments for multinational firms are choosing to stay, and many wealthy citizens from Asia are migrating here and purchasing homes and businesses with hard cash. Despite all this, most agents' tunnel vision ignores minorities, often precluding any marketing efforts to gain their business. One Business Tackles The Market A friend of mine is the second-generation owner of a Chevrolet dealership. He watched his sales plummet as the demographics of his community became predominantly Asian. He had failed to learn the negotiation and buying habits of this minority, let alone figure out how to reach them with advertising. Daily he watched his white sales staff idle away the hours without a single customer. When an entire family (we're talking three generations) would arrive, usually with a translator, the sales staff would seldom close a sale. They did not know how to handle a group negotiation. Finally, before either selling the dealership or going bankrupt, he hired a new general manager who was experienced in trading in the Asian community. The new GM (who, by the way, was not Asian) began a multifaceted campaign that started with an analysis of the community. It turned out that there were about five or six dialects in the local Asian community. Moreover, about 25% of the population was Hispanic. Advertising in the major papers was canceled; ads now run in about a dozen small, local papers written in specific languages. A new sales staff was hired, with language skills being one of the major job requirements. Now, each of ...