As best as I know, there are three ways to land a new account: You can get an Agent of Record letter and take the account, which has nothing to do with the x-date; go to battle with one or two other agents and win the account with your best proposal; or offer a bid for the prospect's business, which he or she may or may not accept.

Let's walk through two scenarios.

1. Bid: Often we are lured into providing bids to prospects. It's important that you are able to identify when you are bidding work. Does the prospect:

  • Ask you to participate in his or her renewal

  • Use the term “bid”

  • Want an “apples-to-apples” quote

  • Say it is “first come, first served” regarding markets you can go to or gives you the leftovers in the marketplace

  • Fail to give you the meetings you request, the information and time that you need?

Outcome: You present your bid to the person tasked with acquiring bids (who may or may not be the decision maker). At your presentation:

  • You perform a coverage analysis and put your findings of your perceived coverage shortcomings and overlaps in your bid

  • You put in your bid a presentation on your company and a list of provided services

  • You provide a pricing summary page showing “apples to apples” and perhaps an optional pricing page showing the additional costs or cost savings of the options you disclosed.

After your presentation, you learn that the firm has decided to stay with the incumbent agent or it has selected another agency. Welcome to the world of bidding. You just got skinned!

When a prospect asks you to bid its business, you can be assured that the prospect does not understand your job. And if you submit to their process, you will give the prospect your risk management analysis, your policy review comments and your market and pricing intelligence for free.

2. Proposal: This is a formal presentation. The prospect is sincere in his or her effort to evaluate whether the job its current broker performs is what it needs and if your agency is capable of performing what it needs.

Do you have a legitimate prospect?

  • Can the incumbent relationship be broken

  • Have you uncovered any significant service, coverage or risk management issues

  • Can you bring a proposal to the table within their budget

  • Do you know the competitive situation on the account

  • Do you know and agree with the rules of the game—did the prospect give you enough time to work on the account, do you have access to the decision maker, did you get your first and second choice markets, did you get all of the data you needed, and did you get enough time with the prospect to establish a relationship.

If you have “okays” here, then you are ready to either take the account from the incumbent via Agent of Record letter, or take the account from any and all competitors by making a presentation that will blow your competition away. This is not just a presentation, but a “presentation of solutions.”

A presentation of solutions is not just a run-of-the-mill presentation; you must tailor it to the prospect through an executive summary. Please do not spend a lot of time and work telling your prospect how different your agency is and then show up with a presentation that looks just like your competition.

Outcome:

  • You will win the account 75% of the time or better

  • You will not waste your most valuable commodity: your time

  • You will gain a lot of self-respect by not getting skinned on accounts you really had no chance of acquiring in the first place

  • You will establish yourself as a professional.

Welcome to the world of professional risk management and insurance sales.

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