Strictly Sales" is written by the faculty of the Dynamics of Selling program. This month's column is from Thomas Barrett, CIC, AAI.

In preparing for the 12% to 15% decline in revenue that's been widely predicted in the coming year, as falling rates catch up with renewals, we reviewed our agency operations and made some changes. Our plan included several sales strategies that your agency would do well to adopt, too:

1) Review revenue per CSR. We discovered that several of our newer producers (hired within the last two years) were working with CSRs who simply could not process their accounts fast enough. The average new CSR was handling $300,000 to $350,000 in revenue, and we felt they could do no more. We then identified the larger accounts that pay 80% of the producers' revenue and initiated a plan for them to call on accounts of that size or larger. Our seasoned producers had CSRs handling around $500,000 in revenue. If you write smaller accounts, your staffing costs will eat into your profits, so write larger accounts!