A hat pack is job-specific. Hat packs are most useful for high-turnover positions and those for which you plan to make multiple new-hires at once. Salespeople, assistants and receptionists, for example, should have hat packs. (The “hat pack” concept is part of the principles of Administrative Technology, developed by L. Ron Hubbard and taught at the the Hubbard College of Administration.)

In our receptionist hat pack, we provided explicit filing instructions. We explained our color-coded filing system (a yellow folder for workers comp, a turquoise folder for bonds, etc.) We pointed out where active and dead files should go. We even described our filing policies, so our employees would understand what to do as well as why they were doing it. Our explanations, coupled with step-by-step instructions for filing and other receptionist duties, ensured that the hat pack would be a reliable reference for our full-time receptionist as well as a valuable guide to a temporary receptionist, should we need one.

Regardless of the position for which it is created, a hat pack should be written with an expert, someone who knows the job behind the hat pack inside and out. The sales guru at ISU Curry Insurance is my father, the agency's founder. He's been in the insurance business for more than 30 years. I recruited him to help make our agency's salesperson hat pack.

We also hired a consultant, Carolyn Buri. She had been trained in creating hat packs and had a reputation for making ones that were comprehensive, yet simple to understand.

The three of us powwowed in my father's office every week for about two months. During the two-hour daily sessions, Dad and I would brainstorm pertinent topics to address in the hat pack while Carolyn recorded our musings on a laptop. Our goal was to create a hat pack that explored every activity a salesperson might have to perform, from making a cold call to servicing an account.

We described each activity in step-by-step detail. In one chapter of the commercial service representatives (CSR) hat pack, we explained how to create proposals using our agency management system. The first page of the chapter listed the general phases of the process. This overview was short–five sentences total. The first sentence explained the purpose of the agency management system: to create new proposals and store old ones. Next we described the two sections of the chapter–renewing an existing business proposal and creating a new-client or proposal–so our CSR would know what to expect as they read. The final sentence addressed the chapter's graphics. Screen shots–pictures of the computer screen as it should look at different steps of the process–would accompany each set of directions, we explained.

After the introduction, each succeeding page looked the same: a screen shot at the top, the number and title of the section in the middle, and a numbered list of instructions at the bottom. For the sake of clarity, we printed only a handful of directions on each page.

Agencies without hat packs may consider our level of specificity excessive. They may believe that if an agency hires an experienced salesperson or CSR, he or she will already know, for instance, how to properly service an account. Automated account management services differ from agency to agency, however. Employees new to your agency may need help getting acclimated to your system. A written guide can be of great assistance in this effort.

While we'd all like to believe that quality customer service is universal in insurance, in reality, levels of service differ among agencies. What one agency considers satisfactory may be regarded as subpar at your agency, or vice versa. Consequently, in our hat packs we explicitly stated what activities our agents need to complete to provide the desired level of service.

We also included helpful tips in our hat packs. With three decades of experience, my dad knows the tricks of the trade. Instead of having him sit down with each salesperson and share these pearls of wisdom, we save time by putting his advice in a hat pack.

Cold calling, for instance, is an important sales activity at our agency, but it is intimidating to many fledgling salespeople. Sure, anyone can make a cold call: Dial a number and ask to speak with a particular person. Making a successful cold call, one in which you pitch your product to a prospective client, however, is trickier. What do you do if a receptionist won't connect you with your target? Once you have the target on the line, what should you say? We answer such questions in a hat pack. These tips give our salespeople a point to start from and a game plan to follow, making success more likely.

Nothing teaches like experience, though, so we include an activities worksheet in each hat pack. During the first few weeks on the job, a new salesperson (or any hat pack user, for that matter) will read the chapters of the hat pack, then, under the supervision of a manager, complete the activities that follow each section.

Let's say the new salesperson has just read the chapter on cold calling and is now tackling the corresponding activity sheet. The first activity on a sheet is always a simulated scenario. For cold calling, it's pretending the manager is a prospect and pitching a product using the hat pack's cold calling techniques. Once the salesperson has done this to the manager's satisfaction, the manager initials the checkbox next to the activity's description on the worksheet. Next, the salesperson makes a live cold call while the manager observes. If the salesperson does this successfully, the manager signs off on the activity; if not, the salesperson reviews the hat pack and receives pointers from the manager, then tries again.

A hat pack is also useful for educating staff about your agency's products. To represent your agency well, your employees must know your products well. Our agency offers a workers comp service package comprised of nine components with which our salespeople need to be familiar. Instead of conducting a one-time training session, we include detailed information about this and other ISU Curry products in our salesperson hat pack. That way, our salespeople can use the hat pack as a study guide during their first days on the job and as a reference down the road.

As my dad and I pinned down details and hashed out directions, Carolyn not only typed up the hat pack but also ensured that we were on task. She stopped us when our explanations were unclear and burdened with insurance jargon. “If I can't understand it,” she'd say, “someone new to the insurance business won't be able to understand it either.”

From Carolyn we learned that pictures sometimes communicate better than words. Our salespeople need to know, for example, that once an insurance application is completed, it goes to the marketing department for processing. The marketing department then forwards the file to the servicing department, and so on. We could explain which departments a customer's file visits and what happens in each department in a few paragraphs, but a sketch of the office with arrows representing the file's path from one desk to another is easier to follow. Carolyn designed such graphics as well as the hat packs' charts and tables.

Carolyn's presence also kept us on task. Making a hat pack under any circumstance is time-consuming. Without a consultant involved in the process, however, busy executives may feel inclined to cancel a hat-pack production session in favor of more pressing matters. (Or at least that's what they'll claim.) Since we were paying for our sessions with Carolyn, we diligently worked on the hat pack whenever she visited our office.

Of course, you don't have to hire a consultant to produce an effective hat pack. All you need is persistence, patience and pragmatism. Set a schedule with your experts-in-residence immediately. Once your sessions begin, be consistent. If you commit to meet every day, follow through. But also remember to set goals that you can keep. Maybe your agency needs more than two months to create a salesperson's hat pack. So what? Slow progress is better than none. Celebrate each chapter of your hat pack, if necessary,to keep you motivated. The payoff will be a smoother-running, more efficient agency.

Scott Curry is the sales manager of ISU Curry Insurance in Pasadena, California. Scott's father, Michael Curry, founded the agency, which primarily handles workers comp coverages, in 1973. Scott can be reached at [email protected].