Sales and Growth

Let’s talk about what’s keeping you up at night.

 "This agency is not growing and it’s because the producers aren’t selling. How do I motivate the sales team to sell."

You may need to ask and answer some difficult questions about the individuals you call producers and the team you call a sales team.

?         Is each producer’s individual book of business profitable, including expenses associated with servicing the book as well as sales expense and compensation? If not, why not?

?         Are you organized for growth? How much sales support do producers have, e.g., carrier marketing, proposal generation? How involved in renewal processing are the producers?

?         Does technology support the sales process as well as customer service and accounting?

The answers to these questions may help you identify obstacles to sales. Also look at the culture of your agency. Is “sales” even a word you and your staff use? Is everyone in your agency on the “sales team?” 

Take a critical look at your sales team. Identify changes that will get everyone working to increase sales, not just producers.

 

Share Your Vision

Times are tough. To achieve the best results, everyone on your team has to be working together. But they can't read your mind. It's up to you to make sure that all employees know what your plan is and how they fit into it.

For sustained performance, you need employees that are committed to your vision, not just hunkered down doing what's required to get by. For this you need 'shared vision.' To commit to your success, employees must be able to commit to their own success. Creating a shared vision is all about understanding that people do things for their own reasons. 
Read more about sharing your vision here.

Producer Compensation - 3 Keys

Having a conversation, that almost turned into an argument, with a producer about compensation. He was adamant that all it took was to pay a high percent of commission. "Any good producer is going to be motivated by money - and nothing else matters." Well, he should know, shouldn't he? He's a good producer. But it's been a tough year and he didn't get a raise - meaning his commissions were flat. He didn't feel he had worked any less but he lost a couple of large accounts and all his new business production just went to fill the void left by lost business and lower exposure bases. I think his situation is not all that unusual.

This producer wants a bigger piece of the pie - he wants the agency to increase the percentage of commission paid on new business. "It would be a good investment," he says. The agency owner, on the other hand, is looking at expenses and flat production and thinking he needs to lower the new commission rate, pay a level commission to encourage net new growth and only pay higher commissions when the book grows. He is convinced that the agency can't afford the current plan, let alone a richer one.

I'm going to help them update their producer compensation plan and try to help each meet his goals. Because I think that's what a good compensation package does. It balances the costs with the benefits (revenues) and the agency's goals with the producer's goals. In fact, I think there are three requirements for an effective sales compensation plan.

1. Affordability. If you pay too much, the financial health of the business is vulnerable. That doesn't help anyone.
2. Competitiveness. If you don't pay enough, you can't attract the best people and keep them satisfied.
3. Alignment. Producers should be incentivized to producer business that is aligned to agency goals. And, compensation plans should be flexible enough to ensure that producers can meet their personal goals as well.

If the compensation plan meets those three requirements, it should be a winning proposition all around. That won't cause the market to harden or the economy to improve. But it could improve the situation in this agency. Maybe others as well.

I recently recorded two webinars for "The Inside Track" on the IMMS website. Watch the Webinar here.

Ultimate Sales Planning

Sales Planning is both strategic or tactical. It is indeed a critical part of any strategic plan but the plan itself has to include all the tactical elements as well.
Frequently

The sales planning process should help each producer set personal goals and the action plans to achieve them. And, each individual sales plan should support the overall agency goals and objectives.

Sales isn’t a department–it’s an attitude!
The most profitable and successful businesses are highly focused on new business sales. In the face of economic turmoil, increased competition, and alternative distribution systems, every business needs a genuine sales focus built into its culture. Business development should be part of every individual’s job description. This is the ultimate in sales planning.

Read more about Sales Planning here.