We unapologetically believe that insurance professionals both in the field and on the carrier side must understand marketing and sales skills and tools. Training and its application is the key to gaining that understanding.

A key statistic will tell you why agents today are servicing an average of 1.4 policies per household. But the average level of opportunity is six-to-eight policies per household.

That gap between reality and opportunity is not due to a lack of product knowledge or technical expertise. It's due to a lack of marketing, customer contact, and seeking out the need and asking for the sale.

Industry courses, so good at providing technical information, often don't address the basics of marketing and sales. These technical courses, as good as they are, simply doesn't address the needs of agents as sales people. In fact, it's common for insurance producers to go outside the industry for marketing and sales training.

One major cause of this dilemma is that regulators, agency leaders, carrier executives and producers themselves often belittle marketing and sales training. This line of thinking seems to support the notion that successful producers are born, not formed that they only need to know the latest product and technical information to be successful.

We say: While some people are born to succeed in sales, many aren't.

Truly, some sales training is not worthy of the insurance industry. We do have to prove to skeptical regulators and other leaders the worth of marketing and sales training, and get more of this type of curriculum approved for continuing education credit.

But the fact is that good, solid marketing and sales training are vital elements along with technical capability and product knowledge in helping insurance producers become conversant, professional providers of information to help people protect the financial well-being of themselves, their families, and their businesses.

Another cause of the problem is there's a common mindset in our industry that training someone in marketing and sales steals their time and diminishes their professionalism.

We say that good marketing skills, selling know-how and technical knowledge are not mutually exclusive. Successful producers need all of those elements.

Yet another problem is the shortage of training opportunities, with the burden for training shifting more and more onto the shoulders of the agent.

In the 1970s and into the 1980s, major property-casualty insurance carriers had home-office schools. Each year, after companies hired new people, they tested them and assigned them to sales, underwriting or claims based on their skills. New hires were shipped off to school for six weeks, whether they were headed for the field or the home office.

Today, some carriers still offer schools to new producers, but not with the depth and frequency of 25 years ago. That long-term trend has created a void for producers who need to learn sales and marketing skills, and a networking void has been created as well.

Even veteran producers who in the past could take advantage of regular training and development offered on a preferred basis by carriers have found these training and networking opportunities in decline. And while the training that comes from carriers today continues to offer strength in insurance knowledge, it typically doesn't cover sales or marketing in depth.

As the resources that come from carriers and agencies diminish, producers must be nimble and aware enough to provide for themselves.

So, producers, when you make your training plans, please remember that for all these reasons, it's vital to include marketing and sales training.

Michael Grace (left), CPIA ([email protected]), is an account manager with Wright & Percy Insurance, Baton Rouge, La. He is president of the American Insurance Marketing and Sales Society, based in Richmond, Va., and is past national president of the National Association of Professional Insurance Agents. John P. “Jack” Monahan, CPIA, CLU, ChFC, CIC, AAM ([email protected]), is senior manager of the consulting firm Agency Revenue Consultations, and chair of the education committee of the AIMS Society.

Reproduced from National Underwriter Edition, June 25, 2004. Copyright 2004 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.