Do you ever get the feeling that trying to successfully develop producers is like banging your head against a brick wall? Many agency owners wonder how many times they have to spend $100,000, $150,000 or even $250,000 on producers that never make it before owners find ones that do. With the industry success rate of developing a producer at around 20 percent, why deal with the turmoil and problems a poor producer creates?

Many agency owners are familiar with this frustration. They redily understand the stress and toil a new producer takes on as an agency owner. To break this endless cycle of trying and failing, agency owners have only two other options: Give it up or do it right.

Give it up
Giving up may go against a sense of propriety, but it is a perfectly legitimate strategy. In business, some strategies just do not work because the time, skills, money or tools are unavailable. In those situations, the reality “is what it is,” and giving up makes plenty of sense. If the appropriate resources are missing, it does not matter if someone gives 100 percent. Without the necessary resources, he or she will still not succeed. The better strategy is to focus on goals that fit the specific skills, resources and tools that are available. Most agency owners seem to believe they should be developing producers, which is great if the tools, abilities and resources are available. If the agency does not have those ingredients, then no amount of effort is going to achieve success. I find agency owners are much calmer, happier–and often wealthier –when they quit fooling themselves about trying to develop producers if they will not or cannot do it right. Do it right The other end of the spectrum is to commit to doing it right. Agents who choose this path also seem calmer, happier and wealthier. However, this option requires a huge commitment. The following is a brief summary of the four key ingredients to doing it right. 1 Proper pre-employment testing: Choose a test that determines whether the person can ask for the sale, period. Although the “nice guy” stuff is okay, it is meaningless when it comes to making sales. 2 Proper training: We now have some of the best producer training programs ever available in the industry, and these programs are a great place to start. These programs alone, however, are not enough. Too many owners send new producers off to a training program, and that's where training ends. Successful training is an ongoing process. New producers usually require training for a minimum
of 2 years. “Once-and-done” is simply not enough. 3 The three Ms of mentor, monitor and manage: Successful producer development requires agency owners to commit to mentoring, monitoring and managing new producers. Rare is the agency owner who got into this business dreaming of the three Ms, but the three Ms are absolutely critical for developing new producers. Sure, there are producers who can succeed without the three Ms, but those producers are generally members of the 20 percent success rate. Can you bet your future on those kinds of odds? Study after study has shown that new producers do better with a mentor. A mentor is not a boss, nor a trainer. A mentor provides technical guidance and is a resource for professional growth. A mentor helps monitor the producer by assisting him or her with setting and accomplishing specific goals. A mentor also provides timely and helpful feedback. Managing is the biggest part of the commitment and in most agencies, managing new producer development is an area in which management exerts the least effort.