To maximize the value of our agency-management system to me as a principal, I use its management reports that deliver important sales metrics. These reports help me, my principal partner and our producers to better understand client and prospect behavior and how well we respond, providing real benefit that extends beyond issues like premiums and revenue or dollars and cents.

The second hat I wear is my account-development hat. As an agency, we're working to expand our sales effectiveness as we enter a hard market. Again, maximizing our agency-management system and taking advantage of industry resources—from association and industrywide offerings, including those from the Agents Council for Technology and AUGIE (ACORD User Group Information Exchange), to networking opportunities locally, online and at our national convention—are critically important.

Market and societal changes, including the shift to online shopping and a demand for speedier-than-ever response, brings the entire agency staff into the sales and account-development arena. No longer is account development and nurturing the sole responsibility of producers and principals; all employees are now part of the mix. We all need to reach customers and prospects where they are, communicate with them exactly how they want, and respond to their requests—for new business and service—in minutes or seconds, not days or weeks.

A third hat I wear is the people-management hat. This looks kind of like the principal's hat, but if you look closely, you notice subtle differences. As a manager, I am responsible for making sure employees have the right tools to do their jobs, that they are adequately trained in using these tools and that they're properly motivated to contribute.

Our goal as an organization is to meet commonly accepted best-practices standards while maintaining current staffing levels. We have weathered an economic downturn, and we intend to emerge stronger than ever. I need to continually learn and dig deeper into our agency-management system to find better ways to work and then implement new functionality—or at least functionality that is new to me. Yes, as an agency-management-system users' group leader I continue to find new features; I don't know it all. There's a lesson in there for all principals: Never stop learning.

It's nice to watch the Kentucky Derby, especially here in the heartland where so many horses are born and bred. However, unlike those fancy trackside bettors, if you're an agency principal like me, you don't wear just one fancy hat—you have to wear many, and look good in all of them at the same time.