Delegation is a critical skill for managerial and leadership success. Successful leaders and managers delegate to engage people, leverage the special skills, and get more done. Even the most talented person has a capacity limit when they do everything themselves. …
Every year a firm should develop a new sales and marketing plan. This is an essential element of strategic planning. Many carriers want to meet with the agency owners to set the game plans for the coming year and it …
Growth by merger or acquisition is still a popular and valuable tool, despite the economy being on hard times. One of the main reasons it remains popular among agencies is because it is a way to show growth even with …
A strategic business plan is very important to assuring the success of a business. Yet only 15 percent of small businesses actually have a plan! It may seem like a daunting task to write out the firm’s strategic business plan …
We are all familiar with the old saying, “the only thing certain in life are death and taxes.” With the new tax laws that came into effect for 2013, we know this is really true now! Capital Gains and Flat …
Each year businesses and individuals are impacted by disasters. However, a disaster does not have to be widespread to paralyze an agency. Every business (including your clients) should have a Disaster Preparation and Recovery Plan. The better the plan, the …
The traditional business plan includes short-term and long-term goals, and projections. But how do you plan when you can’t guess what will happen? Some things are shifting faster than you can keep up with, while other things can drastically change …
In 2010, I wrote an article on shark proofing new clients for the Insurance Journal. Because of it’s popularity, this topic expanded into webinars, and 1/2 day seminars. I thought I should revisit and update the original article, so I …
Size does matter. Small agencies can give the client a warm and fuzzy feeling, but they usually can offer only basic products. For those who need to be larger but don’t want to give up their autonomy, a cluster may …
