Is personal lines costing the agency money? How profitable is that new program business the agency is promoting? What would happen to the bottom line if employee benefits sales increased by 25 percent? When is it time to hire a …
The first step to a successful merger, acquisition or cluster is to determine the compatibility of the firms. Our observation is that when transactions fail the reason is usually poor compatibility. The “urge-to-merge” is often based on satisfying market volume …
One of the most difficult decisions that an owner will have to make is to sell their agency or merge with another party. The typical owner has spent more time working and building up the business than they have with …
The practice of “sales management” is embraced by some and ignored by others. It is considered a powerful tool for some agencies, yet others see it as a total waste of time. The bulk in the middle will exercise various …
Here is a pop quiz. Who is your target market? If you answered with a specific list of target markets take one step forward. If you said you are a generalist wait to the end of the article before you …
An interesting event happened at a recent strategic planning session with a client. Action items for each department were being discussed. What stood out was that the majority of the action items had a heavy reliance for work to be …
A key factor to the success of an agency is the way producers are compensated. If the compensation is too high, the agency will lose money. If the compensation is too low, then the agency will lose the producer. The …
While this article was being written, Southern California was still on fire. Thousands of homes were burned to the ground along with hundreds of thousands of acres of forests. This is one of the key times that the insurance industry …
So what is the going rate for agencies nowadays?” is the question we often hear from interested buyers and seller of agencies. Our answer always includes that the price paid is not directly related to the net proceeds, since terms …
Perpetuation planning should begin as soon as the business is acquired. While immediate action is not necessary, there should be initial consideration given to the process. The four major techniques to transfer ownership of a business are: • Internal sale …
