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, whichhas nothing to do with the x-date; go to battle with one or twoother agents and win the account with your best proposal; or offera bid for the prospect's business, which he or she may or may notaccept.

Let's walk through two scenarios.

1. Bid: Often we are lured into providing bidsto prospects. It's important that you are able to identify when youare 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 cango to or gives you the leftovers in the marketplace

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

Outcome: You present your bid to the persontasked with acquiring bids (who may or may not be the decisionmaker). At your presentation:

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

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

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

After your presentation, you learn that the firm has decided tostay 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 assuredthat the prospect does not understand your job. And if you submitto their process, you will give the prospect your risk managementanalysis, your policy review comments and your market and pricingintelligence for free.

2. Proposal: This is a formal presentation. Theprospect is sincere in his or her effort to evaluate whether thejob its current broker performs is what it needs and if your agencyis 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 riskmanagement 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 theprospect give you enough time to work on the account, do you haveaccess to the decision maker, did you get your first and secondchoice markets, did you get all of the data you needed, and did youget enough time with the prospect to establish a relationship.

If you have “okays” here, then you are ready to either take theaccount from the incumbent via Agent of Record letter, or take theaccount from any and all competitors by making a presentation thatwill 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-millpresentation; you must tailor it to the prospect through anexecutive summary. Please do not spend a lot of time and worktelling your prospect how different your agency is and then show upwith 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 onaccounts you really had no chance of acquiring in the firstplace

• You will establish yourself as a professional.

Welcome to the world of professional risk management andinsurance sales.