In my June AA&B column, we looked at major areas where agency management issues exist, and identified five of them: processes, communication, client relationships, employee attitudes and training. Processes–how things are done within your agency–are crucially important, not only in how efficiently you operate, but in how you are perceived by your employees, clients and insurance company underwriters.

This month we'll look at how to improve processing the business.

I never thought the doctrine that “you can't manage what you can't measure” applied to our industry. An insurance agency is not a manufacturing assembly line subject to stop-watch time measurement and items-per-minute evaluations. But I have learned that measurement is an important ingredient of sound management, and that adherence to predetermined steps and timelines can make a world of difference in how processes are carried out.

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