Should Agency Owners Find or Develop Salespeople?

I was going through some old files and found an article from 20 years ago discussing how difficult it was to find quality new producers. The author discussed the partial solutions he had discovered running his agency. Two points struck me when I read the article:

Nothing has changed in 20 years regarding what partially works.

The article focused, as almost all such articles do, on finding producers. No mention is made of developing producers.

Good salespeople are a precious resource in every industry. This is why the old adage, “If you can sell, you’ll never find yourself unemployed for long,” is so true. A shortage of good producers always seems to exist. In fact, many acquisitions are driven by the seller’s inability to find enough good producers to grow their agency. When they sell, they are effectively giving up.

One reason these people give up is because they are following the points listed everywhere relative to what partially works. That which is partially effective fails totally. The key missing ingredient is the agency owner’s self-awareness. The key to building anything is a strong foundation, and when hiring and developing producers, the cornerstone of the foundation is the owner’s level of self-awareness.

Get Out and Hustle

Over time, I have tired of hearing agency owners tell me the solution is for producers to just get out and hustle, be “a man,” and work brutally hard the way they did to build their books. Hard work is clearly required and often deficient, but that approach shows a clear lack of self-awareness.

First, it is patronizing and self-aggrandizing. Second, pure hard work in today’s world is unlikely adequate in the time-frame required unless the person has far more than their share of charisma. Third, it is an abdication of leadership responsibility.

To develop a salesperson rather than finding one, the agency owner must take responsibility for being an internal leader. The leader must establish a clear direction. The leader must establish accountability for following a specific course. That course includes accountability for everyone in the agency involved in developing the producer. (I find it interesting how many people selling themselves as consultants, sales trainers, etc., put all the burden of developing producers on the producers and virtually none on the agency owners. Maybe they know that if they allocated the required effort to the agency owners, the owners would not buy their consulting services.) For a producer to just go out and work hard means the producer sets his or her own course, which may or may not correlate to the direction, ethics or model the agency seeks. This is a key reason so many producers that do succeed are so disruptive within the agency.

A reluctant leader, a term my associate Jay Brenneman uses so well, likely will not find more than one, if even one, good producer in their career. Simply finding a quality producer is so improbable that it seems by now, fewer agencies would still be pursuing this course. But it makes sense so many do because pursuing that winning lottery ticket is easier psychologically than becoming a true leader. This sounds harsh, and although it is accurate, it is somewhat unfair. It is unfair because many agency owners became agency owners without ever having any intention of being an internal leader. The conundrum is that to grow with producers, one has to be a leader, hire a leader, or partner with someone who becomes this inside leader.

Create a Passion

I am a firm believer that a person must have certain innate traits to sell. The good news is that more people than might be expected possess at least some of these traits. The job of the leader then is to develop these traits in people other agencies would dismiss. An option for accomplishing this is to develop a person with considerable innate selling skills, but without insurance experience, and teach them insurance. This works exceptionally well in agencies with leadership that is willing to invest the time and money to build the producer’s success. To me, if these qualities exist, this is a no-brainer solution.

However, finding these people is still easier said than done. The odds are far higher though than finding a seasoned, successful producer without a non-compete. One key method for improving these odds is to pay more. A good salesperson needs your agency far less than your agency likely needs him or her. The fact is the higher the compensation for most any position, the higher quality applicants you will get.

But, if you do not want to pay more and/or you need to find an alternative or enhance this solution, consider also developing salespeople with less innate talent. No one in this industry ever truly discusses this solution, and the reason is the lack of leadership. One way to overcome sales reluctance is to create a passion. This is why people who have had a life-changing event, whether it is a religious event or a health event, become so passionate about their message they have to share it. Barring a life-changing event, creating passion in an agency requires leadership.

Who would ever believe so much in insurance they would become so passionate as to overcome their reluctant tendencies? Yet making this happen, being the leader that makes it happen, is essential. The Gallup Organization did the largest study ever of organic growth-drivers. The No. 1 factor per their book, The Coming Jobs War, is whether the employees are engaged. In other words, do all the employees believe in their employer and what the employer is selling?

Value of Insurance

I meet and speak to thousands of insurance agency personnel annually. Rarely do I find people that truly understand how important insurance is. The people that work most closely with clients treat insurance as a commodity, as a purchase to get through, as drudgery rather than understanding the great good that insurance provides. For anyone interested in an inspiring story of how insurance has advanced the welfare of common people, read Against the Gods: A Remarkable Story of Risk, by Peter L. Bernstein. Insurance is the one essential purchase that all concerned hope to never use. But when an agency sells the right coverage that enables a family or a business owner whose operations support dozens or hundreds or thousands of families to recover from an otherwise devastating loss, what a great result. How can someone not get excited about providing that outcome?

Insurance is incredibly beneficial. It is incredibly important to society and to our economy. We already have a start because most CSRs, especially, already truly care for their customers’ well-being. They just do not know how to take it to the next level.

Lead the agency. Show ALL your employees, staff and producers, how the agency, by selling the most complete coverages (vs. quoting requested coverages or minimal coverages or expiring coverages), absolutely benefits their clients. Some training for the leaders may first be required, but that is easy. The leadership is the tough part. If you care enough and lead your staff to care enough, you will realize an increase in sales.

Furthermore, you will get more referrals because your customers will recognize how much everyone in your agency cares. Your people will care so much about making sure their customers have the best coverage, they will not fear rejection. They will be led by their hearts rather than their fears. And you may very well find the missing piece to the puzzle of developing successful producers.