Jonathan Lohman, insurance and benefits producer andmarketing specialist for Lohman Cos. Insurance, Real Estate andBenefits
Years at company: 10
College: Illinois State University, Katie Schoolof Insurance '07

Read Jonathan's previous nGI Q&A

How can employers retain young talent?
Retention is based on who you choose. Be selective and choosesomeone you know will fit in to the office atmosphere. Don’t hiresomeone who does hard selling and expect them to fit in with yoursoft sell sales force. They will disturb your atmosphere by making150 phone calls a day while your current sales force makes 10great phone calls a day and spends the rest of the day in thefield. You need to make it fun, whether it's running smalldaily contests or promoting a life with the office outside ofthe office like going to a game or out for dinner just to get toknow each other. Also, contrary to popular belief, today’sgeneration is very much in to giving back to the community anddoing service work. Engage the office to do something and that willcreate unity. You need to be wary of what your competition isoffering employees like yours. If you don’t, your employeeswill find out anyway. Good employees are hard to come by andif they offer something more competitive, be able to show why theyshould stay with you. The average young person is switching jobs upto nine times in their career in comparison with twotimes 25 years ago.

Do your top carriers recruit youngworkers?
No, but they do recruit middle-aged employees.

What's your mantra for success?
Work without limits. A pause in negotiation is worth moremoney than a response. Most of all, if you talk to anyone, you’vemet a potential client or referral partner. Treat all people as ifthey are worth a million dollars.

What are your future goals in thisindustry?
I’d like to see the terrible hiring practices of a few companiesget scrutinized and done away with. Hiring as many people as youcan just to get a leads list out of them and taking a goodpercentage of their commission is not setting them up for successand puts a sour taste in the rest of the pool of which to choosethe best agents from. If you are interested in insurance andare invited to go to a weekly or monthly “workshop,” that isnot insurance and it never will be. The right agents are soughtafter, have a one-on-one interview, have a training phase, andfinally shadow someone before they are put out on their own. I wantto see more agency principals to encourage associationparticipation in their fields for the younger agents, becausewithout those, your agents will feel undervalued and underage. Withthose associations they get to find out that there are young agentsout there and they can share their struggles and successes. It is amajor resource. If you find yourself questioning whether to join anassociation because you are meeting your competition, then youprobably haven’t realized how much business there is out there thatnobody is touching. I’d like to see our industry stopgetting shoved under the bus for many shortfalls of a nation’sproblems so I believe advocacy will be more crucial than ever forus in the coming years.

How do you balance work and personallife?
My work life can’t take more than 12 hours a day or I’ll be burntout before I’m 40. My rationalization is there are 24 hours in aday and half is spent working (12), then another third is spentsleeping (8), and finally the last 4 hours are spent for personaltime and relaxation. The weekends are reserved for working at most3 hours on Saturday and doing social things. If you can add clientsthat are fun to be with on the weekends then more power to youbecause that is more time you can save during the week.

What is an important lesson you learned when joining aprofessional working environment?
Teamwork. Teamworkis only as strong as it’s weakest link, it’s only as fast as it’sslowest person, it’s only as efficient as the laziest person, andmost of all it starts and ends with you. You determine theattitude, the rate, and the efficiency as the leader of anyproject. I once had a huge proposal that needed to be done the nextday and we’d barely scratched the surface so I offered to take outthe first two people who finished their work and gota certified review from someone else on the team. I also put thecaveat that everyone had to participate so we didn’t have someonegive up right away. There was a win for everyone because they allworked together, they all checked over everything, and althoughonly two got to go to lunch, everyone got dessert.

Where do you hope to take your career? What directionwould you like your career to go?
In the future I have large goals and see myself running a verylarge firm in a different direction than where the currentagency system is going.

Have you ever experienced any "generation gap" issueswith your carriers in terms of personal interaction or the productsthey offer?
No. I think most of the products arestandard and meant for a broad audience. Personalization will bekey to getting new customers in the future. I don’t think the ideaof selling the property plus or liability plus packages with 50coverages will be around forever. I believe we will need to allowthe consumer to choose 25 coverages for $100 or all of them for$250 so that the consumer feels as though they’ve made decisions intheir insurance. Most of the coverages are just fluff but if wewere to allow them to take out the fluff to make theircoverage what they wanted, I think it would help in the sale.If you asked a lawnmower to mow your yard and he offered you thatbut gave you the option to buy the plus package and offered to doyour weed eating, dandelion spraying, weed spraying, and treetrimming for $200 but you didn’t have dandelions, weeds, or a treeto trim then you wouldn’t want to buy the packack, but itwould still make you feel like you were involved in theprocess. Better yet, if or when you do need them or hear someonetalking about needing them, who do you think you’re going to becalling or recommending?

What skills do you think young agents will need in2012?
Adaptation, confrontation, and negotiation. You need to adapt tothe fast changing pace of the social norms and means ofcommunication as the young person in the office. Principals will belooking to you for information. Even if you aren’t in to it,you still have the best access to that knowledge and will knowmore, more quickly than the rest of the office. Confrontation iskey, because you will be butting heads with your principals wantingto do the next big thing, you’ll be running into your companieswith different ideas of where they want the business to go, andmost of all you’ll be running into regulation knocking at the doorat every step of the way. There seems to be regulation on theregulations now, just as much as there are exclusions to anexclusion in an insurance policy. Finally, the art of negotiationis changing from trying to find a middle ground to helping theother side think they have just a slightly higher hand than yours.Nobody thinks splitting things down the middle is a win anymore,let alone a “win/win” situation. They still want to feel that theygot a great deal and you are there to highlight what makes thingsgreat to make them think they are winning.

What do you see young agents struggle with in theirfirst years in this industry? What advice do youhave?
What to do. Most agents were thrown in to thepond to see if they sank or swam and expect you to do the same. Youhave to let them know they will be more profitable and so will youif you get to learn from their mistakes by talking about themrather than doing them. You also have a better chance at giving thecompany and the industry a better name with younger advisors. Findother advisors that are in the same situation and join a YoungProfessionals Network so you can see what other people your age aredoing in their industries. I can’t tell you how many contacts I’vemade and different sales ideas have come from different industries.I’ve traded sales and marketing ideas like baseball cards withpeople in other industries because you usually aren’t competing forthe same money.

What sales strategies worked for you in2011?
When I sell an auto policy, I start the service right at thesale. I give them five business cards. I have them stick onein their wallet so they never forget my info for questions. I tellthem to have one on hand in case they ever feel like I couldhelp someone similar to them. Then I have them stick three inthe auto insurance ID sleeve we give them in case they get in anaccident. One goes to the police officer for information or to seeif they need an update because their insurance card is out date.The other one goes to the other party involved in the accident. Thelast one is to give to any passengers that might have been in thecar with them. If I take care of everything correctly, I may havemade a bad situation a lot easier for everyone and picked upclients from anyone in either vehicle. I then tell them ifthey have a camera phone, to take a picture of the auto insurancecard so that if they ever get pulled over and forget it,they can show the officer or the tow truck operator theirinformation. Arizona is the only state that is approved by law tohave electronic proof of insurance, but I know of plenty of clientsthat have been pulled over and the officer thought showing thephone picture was as good as a piece of paper.

Jonathan Lohman was featured inthe June 2012 issue of AA&B. He is a producerfor Lohman Cos. Insurance.