Last month I challenged your thinking by telling you about someof my own non-traditional sales activities that you can do withyour present book of business — i.e., “inside” activities.

In this month's article, we'll take a look at “outside”activities, or those that reach beyond the internal structure ofyour agency.

For example: Some of my agency's greatest revenue opportunitiescame from the insurance companies we represented. I'm not talkingabout commissions or profit-sharing or contingencies, but aboutdifferent ways of working with these companies for our mutualbenefit.

Sponsored Download

Learn the businessbenefits of cloud-based services in reducing operating costs andimproving key business processes with this white paper.

Download Now

Beyond-the-norm carrier partnerships

For a period of time in the 1990s, Allstate made an underwritingdecision to allow their representatives/agents to market lines ofinsurance that Allstate was not writing, primarily Homeowners'policies, to outside brokers.

Concerned about who would be best to align its agents with,Allstate turned to Northbrook P&C, which was distributing itsproducts and services through the independent agency system.

As one of Northbrook's largest agencies in Long Island, N.Y., wewere invited, among others, to submit a strategic plan that wouldwork for Allstate, its agents, its customers and us. Our proposal,in which we created two response teams for Allstate agents tocontact, was the one accepted by Allstate. The response teams werecalled “SMART1” and “SMART2”: SeigermanMulvey AllstateResponse Team. Two of our agencyproducers — one a former Allstate producer trainer and another asuccessful personal lines producer — headed the teams. Both of ourproducers were also Life licensed.

The arrangement worked very well, with Allstate agents able toplace business they ordinarily couldn't write.

Through my participation on several insurance company producercouncils, I became privy to internal carrier issues andparticipated in discussions to resolve them.

Two of our primary agency company partners had a major problemwith an agency that was going bankrupt. (This agency was engagingin activities that left the two carriers with a financial exposureamounting to more than $1 million and no one to serve customers.)The companies, deciding they didn't want the negative publicity,would close the agency and walk away.

We proposed a solution to both carriers: The companies wouldbasically give us the agency book of business and we would continueto service the accounts on a split-commission basis until theentire debt to each company was satisfied in full. At the end ofthe day, the total indebtedness to the carriers was satisfied andwe acquired an agency by osmosis with no payment. The customertransition was seamless.

The moral of the story is to stay involved with your companypartners. They need your input and, hey, you never know whatopportunities might arise.

Keeping your options open

Keep an eye open for the eventual exit strategy you will need atthe end of the journey.

I started to think about my exit strategy 10 years in advance.At the same time, the law that prevented banks from being in theinsurance business was repealed. I had been on the board ofdirectors of a fast-growing community bank for about 15 years. Theboard was considering new ways to generate revenue, especiallynon-interest fee income, and it seemed a natural fit for the bankto acquire an insurance agency — namely, mine. This was the samebank that gave me a $10,000 loan in 1975 to start my agency, so Ihad a very long, successful track record with them.

We created a joint venture to test the waters and see how therelationship would work. It was very profitable and resulted in thebank acquiring my agency several years later. Very few banks, andan even smaller number of agencies, looked at that scenario in the1990s. But we did, and it really paid off.

To achieve success with outside activities, you literally haveto go outside so that you can be in the right place at theright time. That means being out of the safety of your office,which is the graveyard for wannabe salespeople.

These non-traditional activities to grow sales revenue, bothinside and outside, are not formulas, but rather examples of whereyour creativity can take you and how it can allow you to seizeopportunities for success. If you dream it, you can do it.

Barry Seigerman founded the Seigerman Agency, afull-service, multi-line agency in 1975, and is now a producer forPeople's United Insurance Agency. Contact him at [email protected].

Related: Agency mergers and acquisitions hit record high in2015

Join us and give us a Like on Facebook