Strictly Sales: Effective training is the key to new-producer success

o Agency operations. Examine the marketing support your agency provides. How do you represent business marketed to your companies? How are proposals prepared? How do you service the business you write? What are your producers' and staff's levels of expertise? What is the agency's reputation in the community?

o The marketing territory. Consider population growth, new business growth, principal industries, the health of the local economy, and unemployment.

o The competition. Identify the strongest agency and company competitors and evaluate their products and services, marketing tools, underwriting requirements, packaging, pricing, turnaround time, responsiveness, rating and financial stability.

Give new producers a marketing plan. There are a number of variables to consider when developing a new producer's marketing plan: Does the marketing territory contain enough of the right type of accounts? Is the average account size sufficient? Given the agency's current penetration, is there room for growth? Are company markets competitive? What will it take for the new producer to develop the necessary expertise to pursue the target market? How will he or she locate and contact prospects? Does the agency have adequate staff to support the marketing plan?

Develop clearly defined sales goals. Break down goals to identify the daily activities the new producer must complete to implement the marketing plan. For example, if the producer's annual income goal is $50,000, and you estimate that the average account will generate a $1,200 commission for the producer, he or she will have to make 42 sales to meet the goal. A 30% closing ratio would require 140 final presentations. If 75% of the initial appointments result in final presentations, the producer must carry out 187 initial appointments each year–about four per week, allowing for holidays and vacations. If the producer averages one initial appointment for every three X-dates contacted, a pool of 471 X-dates should suffice, but he must acquire them before the system can work. By collecting 50 X-dates each week, or 10 per day, the producer can reach the goal in less than 10 weeks. If it takes three phone calls to get one X-date, then plan on 30 calls each day.

Identify multiple prospect sources. Prospecting drives the entire sales system–no other sales activity is more important. Prospect sources can include:

o Observation/personal contact. Watch for new construction; contractors are needed to build most anything. Write down the names and phone numbers painted on trucks and vans. Friends, relatives, vendors and former co-workers all are potential prospects or referral sources. When making a sales call, look for prospects next door, across the street and in the same building or corporate park.

o Networking groups. Require new producers to join such networking groups as Business Network International (BNI). Make sure they're genuine networking groups, though, rather than civic or charitable organizations.

o Organizations/associations. Most valuable for prospecting purposes are trade associations that allow associate members to receive mailings, advertise in newsletters and other publications, exhibit in trade shows and attend meetings. Discourage new pro- ducers from taking on leadership roles during their first year in the business, however.

o Centers of influence. Anyone holding a position of influence in the community, a business, a church, an organization or a school is a potential center of influence. New producers should meet with at least two each week for breakfast or lunch.

o Referrals. The highest quality lead is a referral. It's easier to get an appointment with, and make a sale to, a referral than any other type of prospect, and also easier to get another referral from him or her. As a bonus, customers who give you referrals tend to stay on the books longer. From the beginning, train new producers to always ask for referrals.

o Purchased leads. Most "lead" lists really are "suspect" lists and should be treated as such. They can be useful, however, to a new producer with limited prospects.

Train new producers to pros-pect over the phone. Effective phone skills are essential. Write telephone scripts for X-dating, requesting appointments and the like, and role-play with new producers until they sound natural. Schedule time for phone prospecting just as you would schedule appointments.

Train new producers to pros-pect face-to-face. Nothing takes the place of "face time" with prospects and centers of influence. During the first week on the job, a new producer should prepare an "elevator speech" and practice it until he or she can deliver it perfectly when someone asks, "What do you do?" Such opportunities are too valuable to waste. Scripts for prospecting calls and meetings with centers of influence should be among the first ones developed.

Train new producers to manage their time. More new producers fail because of poor time-management and lack of organizational skills than for any other reason. Help new producers develop good work habits early on and they will benefit throughout their entire careers.

Train new producers to determine when to walk away. This is perhaps the most difficult skill to learn, and maybe also the most critical. Practice quoting is time-consuming, energy-draining and demoralizing. Long shots rarely pan out. If a producer is not dealing with the decision-maker, if the buyer has an unbreakable relationship with the incumbent agent, if the agency doesn't have appropriate company markets, if the risk doesn't meet carrier underwriting requirements, if the buyer doesn't supply requested information, if the deal will be based on price alone, or if every agency in town is quoting the account–the producer must be prepared to walk away.

Opportunities abound for new producers willing to invest their time and energy in building a book of property-casualty business. And profits await those agencies that know how to manage them. Effective producer training and development are the keys.