Agency Management & Planning Seminars
Successful Agency Management
Perpetuation: Preparing for the Future
The simple fact is: all agencies will change ownership. Therefore, all agencies need a perpetuation plan and a perpetuation plan can take up to five years to implement.
Planning for perpetuation can be one of the most difficult and emotional decisions agency owners must make. By avoiding the inevitable though, they risk losing their agency and their financial security for their family and their retirement.
This seminar helps agency owners sort through their goals and covers the intricate details of preparing for perpetuation, including:
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Addressing post-retirement goals and needs
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Getting assistance
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Deciding who to sell to: an insider or an outsider
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Preparing the buyer
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Preparing the agency for sale
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Phasing out responsibilities
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Improving profitability
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Sharpening procedures
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Getting company relations in order
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Shaping-up financials
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Auditing liabilities
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Determining agency value
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Completing the sale
Audience members learn to prepare today for their agency’s and their family’s secure future.
State of the Insurance Industry
A simple fact of life for independent insurance agencies is agencies depend on insurance companies. With thousands of companies setting prices, cutting commissions, merging, and constantly changing, agents need to understand the facts and trends that shape the industry in which they must grow and prosper. This presentation helps agents learn facts about the state of their industry, how they are effected, and what they can do to build stronger company relationships.
Agents that understand the state of the industry, and know which companies have the greatest market share and can run the highest loss ratios, are able to make better, more informed decisions. Better decisions lead to larger profits, greater prosperity, and much less frustration!
Creating Unity: Integrating Benefits & P&C
The future can truly be bright for independent insurance agencies. Agencies that achieve large books of business (at least $500,000 written premium) with at least three major carriers can realize:
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20% profit margins
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15% growth
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Bigger contingencies
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Fewer company problems
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Increased agency value
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And More!
Many agency owners and managers only dream about such a rosy outlook. This presentation provides the keys to making these dreams reality. These key topics include:
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Account development
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Involving all employees in sales
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Improving producer productivity
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Companies and company contracts
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Clusters & acquisitions
Audience members walk away with a clear picture of what it will take to pave their way to greater profits and a prosperous future!
The Road to the Future is Paved with Gold
Opportunities for independent agencies are greater today than ever before IF agency owners accept the reality that smart agency management is crucial to achieving that success. Simply being a great guy and a good salesman is no longer enough. Those agency owners that focus on building their leadership skills and developing people rather than just focusing on clients, will achieve far faster growth, higher profit margins, happier clients, and significantly less frustration. So much success will be achievable because the industry has created opportunities like never before and consumers are more willing to change agencies. Yet many agencies remain amazingly reactive and complacent making perfect targets for those agencies that are proactive in building their agency culture.
Attendees will learn just how much success is possible and what culture they need to create to achieve that success.
The Best Growth Strategy
Organic Growth or Acquisitions?
Many agencies struggle with which of these two paths is the best. This presentation compares these two alternative strategies, including a discussion of the financial, management and cultural issues that determine success for both.
10 Myths of Agency Management
Lessons Learned
While consulting with insurance agencies throughout the years, I have notice a few common themes that frequently plague the welfare of agencies. These are very often small issues, usually unnoticed by the agency, that can turn into huge problems. This seminar helps agents identify similar issues in their own agencies and offers suggestions to get the agency back on track before the problem explodes.
Some of the "Lessons Learned" include:
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Accounting Issues
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Spending/Capital Appreciation
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Partner Issues
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Staff Compensation
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Leadership
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Tax Issues
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Issues with Associated Corporations
Before a problem can be solved, it must be identified. This seminar shines a light on issues that most often go undetected until it is too late.
Strategic Planning
Even if agents minimize their cost of sales, they still have to sell more. The solution some agents are considering, changing CSR roles to include sales, is a short-sighted solution. It is kind of like telling the second baseman they should also learn to pitch. This is easy to say and near impossible to do. Most agencies’ CSRs are CSRs because they like to service, not sell. Brain wave technology even shows this is not a good solution.
Some have suggested the solution is hiring new CSRs that can sell and letting others go. This may or may not be a good solution. Maybe the new CSR can sell, but what is the price? Some customers will be lost, and finding and hiring a CSR that can sell is going to be difficult and expensive (roughly 50% of their annual wages). Plus, because they can sell, the agency will have to pay them more. Will that CSR sell enough to cover all that cost?
This presentation will cover that question, provide good alternative solutions, discuss the need to revise your carrier relationships to make them more profitable to cover some of the cost of decreased rates, detail how to take advantage of the opportunity presented by agencies that are not prepared for this huge transition, and discuss how to maintain a solid financial foundation.
What is your agency's goal: to make a sale or make a profit?
The Cost of a Sale and Producer Compensation
This is no longer a cost plus industry. Agencies have to do far more work than ever before which is why even some large accounts now cost an agency more than it makes. To be adequately profitable, agencies must know and control their cost of sales. Otherwise, like some agencies who have already failed, an agency may find itself writing plenty of new business while simultaneously going bankrupt.
The key is increasing sales AND simultaneously decreasing the cost of writing that business. The solution is not one or the other, but a combination of both. This detailed presentation covers how to measure the cost of a sale, how to minimize the cost of a sale, proper producer compensation, and producer requirements. Each of these factors is critical to an agency’s success.