8 Habits of Highly Successful Insurance Producers

Your job as an agency leader is not to help your insurance producers be busy. They're all too busy. Just ask them. Your job and focus must be to help them get the best results. On today's Agent Leader podcast, I'm going to discuss the eight habits of highly successful insurance producers. If your agency is looking for proven agency results simplified, check out the Sitkins Network. Go to sitkins s I t k-I n s.comtsn sitkins.com. Hello there friends. This is Brent Kelly with another episode of the Agent Leader Podcast. Thanks so much for joining me here today. Well, as I said on the outset, I think many insurance producers would consider themselves really busy. But the question that I ask anyone listening agency leaders, producers, anyone part of a team, is our producers actually getting results or are they just busy? In fact, if you ask most insurance producers how their day was, it's likely you're going to receive an answer that revolves around the words, I was really busy. It was really busy. It was crazy out there today. Now, in most cases, I think this is true. Insurance producers are often very busy. The problem is that they're often busy with activities that do not correlate and into results. One of my favorite personal development books of all time is the seven Habits of Highly Effective People by the late Stephen Covey. This book outlines the seven key habits that separate successful people from all the rest. I looked at this book and I started to analyze producers, producers habits, producers behaviors and producer results. And over the past many years, both as an active producer and now as a consultant and a coach, I have found that high achieving producers focus their time and energy and eight key areas. And on this podcast today, I want to discuss these eight key habits and I want to help insurance producers move from too busy to productive. It all revolves around the idea of activity versus results. I can think back many days when I was an active insurance producer. I would leave the office feeling like I have accomplished a great deal. You know, you're busy all day long and it's like, what a great day. I'd come home and my wife would ask, how was your day? And I would respond, it was really busy. And then she would ask a far more challenging question. She says, great, well what did you do? Or better yet, as a wife with kids at home and I'm trying to support what did you sell? Now if I had to answer honestly, it would have mainly consisted of checking emails, returning basic phone calls, a client meeting or two maybe, and of course putting out whatever fires happened to start that day. I Began to realize that although I was undoubtedly busy, I wasn't very productive. I was truly an activity based producer, not a result based producer. Unfortunately, in the insurance industry with independent insurance agents, activity based producers are all too common. Understand this, just because you are busy doing something doesn't mean you are actually accomplishing anything. You know, the first step in moving from an activity based producer to a results based producer is you have to understand and you have to be able to execute specific roles. My mentor and Sitkins Group CEO Roger Sitkins states this. He says, activities are the agencies or the service team's responsibilities. Results are the producer or the sales leaders responsibilities. Too often producers are doing activity based work that is not only unproductive, but it's work they're not very skilled to perform. They make mistakes, they do stupid things, they rush through applications, you name it. Now here are some of the examples of activity based tasks that I believe should be handled by the agency and the service team. Things like call ins, basic renewal work, claims reporting, audit questions, accounts receivable, basic mail and email walk ins and policy changes. Now I know when I go through that some of you may be thinking to yourself, well Brent, how could a producer be successful if they're not responding to all of these clients needs? How could you miss an opportunity? See, high level agencies, highly successful agencies and producers understand that sales and customer service is a team sport. You know, I've never watched a basketball game in all my life where a person inbounds the ball to himself, he dribbles it himself, he passes it to himself, he shoots it himself, and then he goes back and plays defense by himself. However, in many insurance agencies, that's what producers often try to do instead of trusting and working with their team. We call it the Sitkins group setting up high performance teams. They try to do everything themselves. Great insurance producers, high level insurance producers focus only on key results based functions that lead to winning results. Great insurance producers focus only on those key base functions that lead to winning results. They realize that if they focus on functions that our other team members are better equipped to handle or maybe paid to handle, they're not only doing a disservice to their clients, but they're missing out other results based activities. So, eight habits of highly effective insurance producers. What are those? Well, some of these are going to be like duh, but they're important to understand. So let me go through these eight habits of highly successful insurance producers. Number one is simply client relationship management. You know, insurance producers are often so busy dealing with the routine Activities that they miss out on the most critical habit of every successful insurance producer. What's that you say? Building relationships. I can tell you I learned this personally the hard way several years ago as a producer, I had insured a large contractor that had been with our agency for over 10 years. And our team did a good job of taking care of their basic insurance needs and certificates and all that basic service work. But I personally did a very poor job of maintaining the relationship. I wasn't adding value where I could have because I was busy just doing service work that other people could have handled. You know what the result was? One of the most painful bor letters I have ever received. And it was a true lesson in the power of client relationship management. Number two, habit of insurance producers. Productive insurance producers. This one's going to be a real surprise. Sales activities. Seems like ridiculous, right? But it's true. A producer's job is guess what? Produce. I so often see the most qualified, successful, high energy sales producing sitting behind a desk. You know what? When you are doing any activity that can be handled by another member of your team, you're not producing. And the average producer spends only a small percentage of their week prospecting and presenting. I challenge you as a sales leader and an agency leader. And if you're listening to this, as a producer, I challenge you to track your activities for an entire day or week and be honest with yourself. What percentage of your tasks are sales based activities and what percentage is the other? The numbers will probably be a huge awakening. I know it was for me and I know when we go through insurance producers, we often see it with them as well. Number three, referral marketing. If I ask 100 producers if receiving referrals is important to their business production, 100 hands would go up in the air. How many think people think People in this room think referrals are important? Oh, me, me, me, me. However, when I ask producers how many of them ask for a referral every time they're with a client, future client or center of influence, only a handful of hands go in the air. See, referrals need to be non optional behavior. Highly successful insurance producers always ask for referrals. They understand the gap between knowing and doing takes consistent action. In addition, high achieving producers earn referrals. Let me say this again, earn referrals Due to ongoing relationship management. If you're nervous to ask for a referral, it's probably a powerful indicator that your current relationship is flawed or at least not as good as you think it is. So third habit is referral marketing. Number four, Insurance Carrier Relationship Management. This is so huge. I am flabbergasted on how many insurance producers never consider the true importance of developing positive relationships with their primary insurance carriers. The relationships with your underwriters, your marketing reps and other carrier executives is the lifeblood to consistent business growth. There are two sales in every insurance policy transaction. The first sales with your underwriter, your carrier and until you make that sale, the sale to the client's unachievable. Successful producers understand this and they invest their time and energy in into developing these key carrier relationships. Number five Habit Niche Marketing man it is all about specialization. You're going to hear more and more about that moving forward, especially with my team at the Sitkins Group. But I believe that it's the producer's job to know more about their clients and future clients than anyone else. And that starts by identifying a key industry or demographic that the producer can focus a great deal of time and energy on. Listen, there's a reason why specialists earn more than generalists. Specialists have a greater depth knowledge and they provide specific solution that generalists just simply aren't equipped to provide. High achieving producers spend time and energy getting to know a specific market and or industry and they really become a true trusted advisor. Not just on their business card trusted advisor but they understand the industry and the market so well that they provide solutions and ideas and they can speak that business language that they really are a trusted advisor. Number six Active prospecting. Highly successful insurance producers have one main thing in common. Their pipelines. They're always full and that's because active prospecting is a consistent habit. They don't wait until the pipeline is dry. Active prospecting is a process that's part of a daily schedule. How do you do this? Well, successful producers schedule prospecting time on their calendar just like they would with any other client or prospect client appointment. Any appointment prospecting isn't simply just picking up the phone and cold calling. It could be the old smiling and dialing. But better yet, finding events where their ideal clients gather. Using online resources like LinkedIn to build deeper relationships and to connect with people. Creating custom content that adds value to their ideal clients. All these things are form of active prospecting. But you have to be consistent with it. How much time are you spending each day adding value to your ideal future client? Number seven is leading through emergencies. Let's face it, there are times when the old yogurt hits the fan and when that happens, these things are called emergencies. And producers must quickly and proactively deal and lead their team through these emergencies. Now, not every single thing is an emergency. That's where a lot of producers get in trouble. But there are times when a key client relationship or a claim issue isn't handled well, that we know when there is a real emergency. My mentor says this. He says a problem left unattended becomes a crisis. Now I believe every insurance producer should be proactive. There are times when you must respond accordingly, when a difficult situation is encountered. And those are the moments where the insurance producer must step up and lead with confidence. And when you lead in times of crisis, guess what? You earn credibility, you earn trust, and in many cases you earn a client for life. Alright, the number 8 habit, 8th habit out of 8 of habits of highly effective insurance producer is proactive renewals. Now at the Sitkins Network, we don't teach agencies how to renew accounts, we don't talk about renewing accounts, we teach agencies how to continue relationships. And there's a fundamental difference that starts by being proactive on every renewal. Now when does the continuation process begin? Well, as soon as your future client becomes a client. Your job as an insurance producer is to make the renewal a non event. This occurs by agreeing on the expectations you both have up front and then delivering on your promise. When you set clear expectations and you deliver on those expectations through a stewardship report, you proactively earn trust and long term clients. Well, there you have it. There's the eight habits of highly successful insurance producers. Are there more habits that producers should be doing? Sure, I'm sure there are. But these eight we have found are the most effective in changing producers from just busy people to results based producers. High level producers spend 80% or more of every day in these eight key activities. Now you have a choice. As a sales leader, agency, principal sales producer. You can choose to be accidental and let things just happen to you and your agency or you can become very intentional and you can make things happen. High achieving insurance producers and of course high achieving agencies focus on consistent and proactive habits that lead to exceptional results. You can do the same. The Agent Leader podcast is brought to you by the Sitkins Network. If you want to transcend commoditization, defy comparison and become a category of 1, visit sitkins.com sitkins S I T K I N S combined.