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Myth vs. Reality

Top producers work long hours, manage time well, have fun

By Kenneth L. Fields, CIC, CPCU | Updated on May 31, 2012
My partner and I have had the privilege of working closely with more than 1,300 new property-casualty insurance producers during the past 16 years. We carefully document their prospecting and sales activities for a year or more during scheduled 30-minute weekly phone coaching sessions. A few of these producers are extremely successful, some learned they were not an ideal fit for the business, and most are methodically building lucrative insurance careers. This is in an industry where some experts say two-thirds of the new entrants don’t survive to the second year.

Agency owners sometimes complain that they “can’t find young people who want to work hard” (our top producer of the past 16 years was just 6 months out of graduate school and living with his parents). Or they excuse the lack of new blood in the agency with, “My agency is located out in the country. We don’t have enough business to sustain a new producer” (one of our top producers is located in Attica, Kan., population 626). Or they refuse to give an opportunity to an internal candidate by saying, “She’s been a CSR for years. I don’t see how she could make the transition” (another of our top producers was a CSR for 20 years).

Related: Read another column by Ken Fields “Relationships Are Everything.”

Our top producers are male and female, young and old, experienced and inexperienced, from all parts of the country—urban, suburban and rural. Through observation, we have found differences between those producers who make it, those who don’t, and those who become rising stars. What it is about these top producers that set them apart from the others? Here are the top lessons that we’ve learned during the past 16 years.

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