Becoming more sales driven

Becoming more sales driven

One of the most important things agency owners can do to grow their agencies and increase shareholder value is to take actions that will make their agencies more sales driven. When done correctly, this can be accomplished with no unfavorable impact on service.

Increasing Your Agency’s Sales Assets
Whether you are the only producer in your agency or you have several producers, it is important to assess what your sales assets are and then take action to increase those assets. The fastest and least expensive way to do that is through more effective use of existing people.
Let’s consider what the sales assets are in a typical single-producer agency, because the same logic will hold true for an agency with multiple producers. If you are the only producer in your agency and you currently spend 90% of your time servicing accounts, or handling other non-sales activities, your agency’s sales assets consist of 10% of one producer. This means the vast majority of your selling is likely to be passive. Passive selling is like order-taking. The prospect hears about your agency from a relative or friend and contacts you for a quote.
In the same one-producer agency, if you can shift 20% of the non-sales work you currently perform (preferably service work on the smallest and least complex accounts) to well-trained service personnel, you will increase your agency’s sales assets 200% (from 10% of one producer to 30% of one producer). This can mean 200% more time for proactive new business selling, cross selling, client relationship development, and referral or testimonial selling -- all of which can have a favorable impact on revenue.
This single action of shifting simple non-complex tasks to service people can establish the foundation needed to build your sales culture and improve new sales. If you have a multipleproducer agency, the effects will be even more dramatic. The goal should clearly be for all producers (who have no management responsibilities) to spend the majority of their time engaged in selling and account development.
To get the proper payoff for an increase in sales assets, you need: (1) To have well trained service-focused Customer Service Representatives (or Account Managers) on the service team; and (2) To have a well understood relationship between sales and service teams in the agency. These must be accomplished before any account hand-offs should occur.
Only then will service issues be passed from producers to the service team with confidence. Only then will clients be assured of receiving the service they deserve. The key is to commit the agency to delivering quality service, whether an account is serviced entirely by the service team or by a combination of the service team and the producers, and then to provide the training and support necessary to make it so.

Sales Management Functions
If your agency has one or more producers (in addition to you), someone needs to take on the role of Sales Manager. Only with someone taking ownership for guiding the agency’s sales assets will the agency achieve all it is capable of achieving.
The Sales Manager, in addition to his or her other duties, should have the following responsibilities:
• Managing the agency’s sales resources to build their pipelines with leads and facilitate growth of new business;
• Supervising all producers and sales support personnel;
• Developing specific sales strategies for all business segments;
• Monitoring the effectiveness of all sales strategies and adjusting as needed;
• Recruiting, training, coaching and tracking the development of all producers.

The Sales Manager’s duties should typically include:
• Creating a systematic approach to developing outside leads, increasing sales activity and obtaining interdepartmental leads;
• Participating in joint sales calls as needed;
• Analyzing attempted sales that fell through;
• Role playing with producers;
• Assisting producers in developing individual sales action plans;
• Promoting the receipt and use of referrals and testimonials to facilitate sales;
• Conducting weekly sales meetings to increase the size and quality of pipelines and to discuss results verses plan.
With a Sales Manager at the helm, your agency will be well positioned to move forward on the journey to becoming more sales driven.

Differentiation and Effectively Telling Your Story
Regardless of your agency’s size or resources, there should be positive things about what you do for your clients that distinguishes you from your competitors. The differences could involve the scope of your services, your agency’s core values, the way you treat your customers, your special renewal review process, your unique check-list process to be certain they have no coverage gaps, the way you help customers reduce risk, or any number of meaningful things. It is important for all agency employees to articulate and capitalize on these qualities, processes, or services in their discussions with clients and prospects. Only through having a good honest story to tell about why their experience with your agency will be superior to their experience elsewhere will your agency be able to unleash its full sales potential.
Agencies that are most successful at sales promote the concept of becoming the prospect’s trusted advisor. The primary goal of their sales calls is to become the broker of record on the prospect’s insurance plans. They do not see the primary goal of their sales calls being to sell a policy. The trusted advisor mind-set can be a very powerful tool in bringing in new business when used correctly.
It works best when the producer believes in the difference his or her agency can mean to prospects in terms of reducing their risk, reducing their cost of risk, and making them look better to the insurance industry. It also works very well when the producer believes in the difference in attention his agency will place on serving the prospect, verses the attention the prospect is presently getting from the incumbent agent. The best way to get a prospect to change agents is to make the prospect uncomfortable with the incumbent agent, not by attacking the other agent, but by articulating the value of what you will do differently for the prospect.

Why Some Agencies Always Have a Full Pipeline:
Communications, Monitoring and Recognition
The starting point to always having a full pipeline is usually to promote a “Sales Mind Set” throughout the agency. In any business, what gets communicated gets done; what gets monitored gets done; and what gets recognition gets done.
Changing to a Sales Mind Set often requires changing the emphasis of management communications. What gets monitored and what gets top billing in recognition need to send a subtle message that Sales are the agency’s life blood. Sales are something everyone should be proud of because they are the true measure of how the public views the agency. If the public thinks your agency is better than the competition, they will purchase from you. If they do not, they will stay with the competition.
Always remember that success breeds success. Referrals and testimonials received from clients should be celebrated in the agency. Leads generated by the service team and referred to the sales team should be celebrated. All sales should be celebrated. Service support which frees up producers to sell should be celebrated. Service results which contribute to referrals and client retention should be celebrated. By creating an exciting sales supportive environment, your team will be better positioned to grow agency revenue to the next level.

For more information on how The Iroquois Group can help your agency, contact us.