Looking for agency growth? Hone your business skills, not just sales skills
Sales skills are the foundation of an agency, but developed business skills comprise the infrastructure of profitable ones.
I recently met with an agency principal who, after two years in business, had experienced impressive sales growth, built a solid team of professionals, enjoyed strong relationships with his insurance companies due to low loss ratios, but had not yet found a sense of satisfaction, only frustration. The problem? He wasn’t making any money despite all his “success.”
His story serves as a great reminder that a business’ primary purpose is to generate profits and equity for its owners. Generating profits and equity requires a business-like approach to managing the enterprise.
Build a plan
Every success story begins with a plan. This agency principal had a great sales plan, and his business was performing to the plan. But he hadn’t prepared a “business plan,” which would define how he planned to operate, nor had he conducted a “pro forma” budget to demonstrate in advance the financial results that plan should have yielded. That’s why he found himself achieving great sales success, but with minimal results to report in the profit column.
Plans don’t need to be complicated or lengthy. But they must be comprehensive, including your target markets, marketing focus, and product sales. A solid plan should include an estimate of how many employees you will need and how they will be compensated. You should also include a plan for servicing customers. The most important piece of the plan is a financial projection (budget) of what you expect the results to be as the plan is executed.
Test assumptions
When preparing a budget, I think it’s wise to test assumptions against benchmarking studies like the “Growth and Performance Study” published by the National Academy for Producer Studies or the “Best Practices Study” available from the IIABA. Had the agency owner mentioned above done this, he would have realized that his agency would never make a profit, regardless of how much business it did. He would have recognized, in his particular case, he was failing because he was overpaying his employees.
A budget used in this way becomes a thinking tool that allows you to better consider the opportunities and challenges you may face and what you should expect in the form of financial returns for the risk you are taking.
Don’t let a focus on sales blind you
Successful business owners across industries develop the discipline of planning and financial analysis because they understand that not doing so can be costly.
I think many agency owners miss this because they have a strong sales orientation and don’t enjoy the rigor of analysis. This leads to investment based on hunches, guesswork or reliance on conventional wisdom. I see this regularly in the ways agencies spend their marketing dollars.
During a bank board meeting recently, I asked questions about the revenue results we were obtaining from magazine advertising we had been doing. The answer was that we didn’t track that. Money shouldn’t be spent on any marketing or advertising for which we can’t measure a return. This makes sense on its face, yet many agencies spend huge sums in a similar fashion. Instead, agency owners should find a way to track the results of every dollar of marketing spend so that they can double down on winners and cut the losers.
Identify loss leaders
Many businesses offer “loss leaders” to introduce themselves and their capabilities to new customers. Many agencies do something similar when they agree to write only one line of business for a customer. A typical example is selling only workers’ compensation to a business. This can be a great strategy, but only if you can track progress. In a year or two, your tracking should show you’ve picked up additional lines of business to make the account profitable.
Related to this, is the understanding of how much revenue every account needs to produce for the agency in order to be profitable. To figure this out you just need to estimate the amount of all employee time required, and the amount of overhead that should be allocated to service an account. With these figures in hand, you can easily determine the minimum account size. Once you have determined this, stick to it to be maximally profitable. After all, when you’re losing money on accounts, you can’t make it up in volume.
Forge ahead
Strong selling skills are usually the foundation of an insurance agency but developed business skills comprise the infrastructure of profitable ones. You may not have an MBA, but as an agency principal, you don’t need skills of that level to maximize your success. Begin with a plan for how you will operate, back that up with a detailed, well-researched, benchmarked budget and a regular review of your results. Analyze your expected results and compare them to what happened.
Ask yourself “is this what I expected?” If the answer is s “yes,” then keep doing what you’re doing!
If the answer is “no,” ask yourself “Why not?” and “What am I going to do about it?” Timely answers to this final question and the resulting changes in how the business operates are keys to success for every business, including insurance agencies.
Tony Caldwell is an author, speaker and mentor who has helped independent agents create over 250 independent insurance agencies. Learn more by visiting www.tonycaldwell.net or contacting him at tonyc@oneagentsalliance.net.
Opinions expressed here are the author’s own.
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