Upskilling: Three Skills to Sharpen as a Seasoned Agent Who Wants More

Whether they own their own agency or not, an insurance producer is essentially an independent businessperson. Why? Because a producer’s income, as someone whose primary income is based on commissions, is largely up to the producer. This may be obvious, but I find many producers don’t think about their careers and their potential in this way. Those who not only recognize and accept this fact but choose to move forward by enhancing both their selling and business skills are following a formula to achieve never-ending increases in income.

“Time has no value until you run out of it.”

That’s what I like to tell busy insurance professionals who aren’t satisfied with their income. In other words, as long as you are willing and able to spend more time working, you can increase your income without having to think about what you make per hour. Income increases just come with more hours. But when you run out of time to add to your workday physically or practically, the only way to increase income is to determine what tasks in your day bring in the most revenue per hour and focus your time on those tasks.

The implication of this principle is that to continue to make increases in income, you have to become more efficient at income generation. This is, of course, outside of premium rate increases, which generally follow inflation and do not produce an increase in real income.

Three proven methods can help you achieve this.

Become a Better Salesperson

If you make a good living as an independent insurance agent, you are a skilled salesperson. The key to increasing your sales success and income, whether its closing rate, prospecting ability, account rounding, renewal success or other keys is additional education, training and practice.

When was the last time you took a sales course of any kind focused exclusively on the art, or science, of selling? When I ask most seasoned pros, it’s been years, often decades, ago. Some successful producers never had any formal sales education.

In our industry we recognize the need for continuing insurance education to reinforce what we already know, increase the depth of our knowledge and to keep up with changing trends. The same is important to maximize our sales capabilities.

Many excellent sales courses exist that are industry specific like Dynamics of Selling, the Wedge or even carrier-sponsored sales training. Valuable general courses are also available, often with coaching as an added component like the Sandler Training Program and the venerable Dale Carnegie courses. These programs offer the mid-career agent, who wants to grow their capability and income, a reinforcement of what they already know, additional techniques or skills, and perhaps updated information on buying styles or other important topics.

Becoming better at anything requires training in addition to education. While many producers confuse the two, training is taking learned information and putting it to work over and over again until a new skill, or an existing one, is honed to a sharp edge. Like the marathon runner who runs every day to maintain and increase fitness, the producer in search of more income finds ways to repeat new skills frequently.

The last part of becoming a better salesperson is perhaps the most neglected and the most important — practice. Practice differs from training because it takes place either in the classroom, in a group setting, or one-on-one with a coach rather than in a real-life sales setting. Practice helps the professional fine-tune a skill. Practice opens the door for mentors and coaches to provide perspective and feedback on performance to improve it.

Think of a professional golfer who studies the game in a class or through a book. They study the equipment, courses and match strategy. That player is getting educated. Of course, in addition, they keep playing every week and repeating the new things they have learned as they train themselves to get better. But the best aspiring golfer will also seek coaching and feedback as they fine-tune their performance. Great insurance producers, those who make the highest incomes, do the same thing.

Become a Better Business Manager

Early in my career, I encountered the Pareto Principal, which is often referred to as the “80/20” rule wherein 80% of results (like sales income) comes from 20% of customers. I decided to test the theory by giving away 80% of my customers while retaining 80% of my income (created by the other 20% of my customers). After a couple of months, I had replaced the income I’d given away and encouraged my partners to test the theory themselves. They weren’t willing to take the risk. Over the next several years, my income grew substantially while theirs stagnated. None of us had added additional hours to our workday.

Other ways to improve the management of your business or book of business include regularly analyzing it and determining key performance statistics like revenue per account, lines of business per customer and retention rate. Only when you know where you are, can you develop a plan to improve. Without working more hours, can you increase your income by managing your retention rate, revenue per customer and other performance metrics? Of course, you can and now you are increasing income with no additional work by managing your sales efforts.

You can also consider analyzing carrier compensation and competitiveness.

Agents should put more time where the rewards are greater and find ways to maximize time effectiveness with a more rigorous time management program. For example, you may want to try hiring your own assistant (not your agency provided CSR) to take scheduling, follow up and other activities, which will likely cost less than that calculated goal hourly income.

Strategies like these can improve your income results, often with less effort required going forward, as you manage your “business” better.

Become a Better Insurance Technician

Our books of business are largely built on relationships, it’s true. But often, those with whom you can build relationships are determined by how much you know. Larger, more complicated accounts require more technical knowledge to write them successfully. To move up the commission food chain, an agent might want to hone their expertise. Our industry offers many opportunities to do so.

As business changes ever more rapidly, those with the latest industry knowledge, are best positioned to sell to new businesses, or take existing business away from someone else because they are expert in a new area of risk that the incumbent may have ignored. For example, as artificial intelligence becomes more widely used, additional coverage expertise could be required as it was when cyber liability exposures exploded along with the “internet of things.”

As a mid-career insurance professional, you have a choice. You can settle for what you have already achieved, as most of your colleagues and competitors will. Or you can seek ways to become more successful — and do it without sacrificing work-life balance.

Never stop improving.

Sharpen your skills as an insurance expert, business manager and sales professional, and unleash unlimited earning potential.

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