Strictly Sales: Taking Action-Create Plans to Achieve Growth

In October’s Strictly Sales column, we discussed how to know prospects and establish rules. In this second of a two-part series, let’s explore how to implement prospect revenue growth plan and take the necessary steps.Let’s explore a question of utmost importance: What are six important activities you can engage in to help a new prospecting system take place in your agency? Another way to look at it is to ask: “How do I achieve prospect revenue growth in changing times?”The answers are:o Be an entrepreneur rather than a techniciano Understand the rules of growth as a sales organizationo Differentiate your agency from the competitiono Follow a system in all you doo Have a plan and a goalo Know your numbers.Let’s explore each of these in detail. The small business guru Michael Gerber in his recent book “The E-Myth Revisited” brings an astonishing fact to life:Be an entreprenuer rather than a technicianIt is true that most agency owners are good technicians. Great insurance technicians find themselves owning an agency or managing a book of business, but know little how to:o Follow a marketing plano Adhere to a solid sales processo Create business financial worksheets and manage capitalo Manage, lead and motivate peopleo Create a business plan.These are all things any business owner needs. The problem is finding the time for a small agency owner to learn these skills. If you are going to be successful over the long term, these items must be on your to-do list. Without exception, every successful business has an owner who one day realized there’s a choice of either being a slave to business and working “in it” every day, or creating systems and people that maximize the owner’s investment by working “on it” each day. Do you want to be a small, struggling technician who quotes and writes insurance for people who call you? It’s like living on a treadmill!Understand the Rules of GrowthVisiting prospects and trying to earn their trust and their business costs money. Would it sound prudent for commercial clients to run their businesses without:o Knowing the costs to acquire customerso Having processes to follow in marketing and saleso Having ideas of how many items they would sell in the next yearo Knowing how to budget for growtho Knowing how to take care of their best customers and solidify quality relationships.It would be ludicrous if a prospect had these answers. In fact, they probably wouldn’t qualify as a prospect for you and certainly not for your carriers.Is it OK to run an agency this way? To work on a prospect, a successful agency needs to understand the five crucial points of “The Rules of Engagement”: rapport, values, relationship, pains and rules. These are the new rules of engaging a prospect and the key items we need to understand before we waste our resources.Differentiate Your AgencyHow do we make ourselves different? We keep the sales process in a diagnostic format and create lists of issues to inquire about: