Agencies Look To Reinvent How They Manage Their Firms

Does your agency have a perpetuation plan in place? Is the agency creating enough value to see those plans come to fruition? What are you doing to boost sales and profitability? What will the next generation of workers demand of agency principals?

These are among the topics to be tackled during the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of America Legislative Conference and Convention in Washington later this month–which includes four April 27 seminars aimed at improving an agency's sales and office management.

In one workshop–”Analysis for Improving Your Agency Performance”–Shirley Lukens, senior vice president with Atlanta-based Reagan Consulting, will introduce agents to the tools needed to make critical self-evaluation and control and maintain agency growth.

“Too many agencies look inward and assume that because they are doing better than last year, they are doing well,” she said. “But if they look outside of their business, they will realize they are not doing that well.”

Using the “IIABA Best Practices Study”–the benchmark of agency performance, prepared by Reagan Consulting–agents will use self-diagnostic tools to determine where their agency stands in relation to its peers and where it needs to go to boost its value.

Also at IIABA, agents will get their first look at the “2007-2008 Non-Producer Compensation and Benefit Survey” from the Business Management Group–an agency consulting unit of The Hartford Financial Services Group. The results will be revealed at an IIABA workshop–”Recruitment and Compensation Strategies for Your Non-Producer Staff”–conducted by BMG's president, Sharon D. Cunningham.

Ms. Cunningham will focus on the new generation of support staff entering the workforce–Generation Y–which she said is used to technology in the workplace and is looking for a balance between work and life outside the office. They also seek more say over their jobs, expecting an environment that promotes team work and opportunity, she noted.

“Agencies have not done this, to a great extent,” according to Ms. Cunningham. “Principals need to understand what their needs are and what motivates them.”

“Most agencies see a lot of turnover because there is a lot of competition for trained people,” she said. “If you are going to keep people, you have to manage them differently. At some agencies, money is the answer, but it is not the whole picture.”

That afternoon, Chris Amrhein, president of Amrhein and Associates Inc. in Lorton, Va., will discuss “deconstructing” an agency in his workshop, “Power of Change 2007.” Any agency pursuing excellence must consider tearing down its operations and rebuilding itself, he explained, adding that the aim is to identify management failures and improve efficiency.

“There is a running joke that in the past you could anger 100 auto policy clients, but with technological advances today you can anger 400 clients,” said Mr. Amrhein.

Noting that “The Power of Change” is normally a 16-hour course, he said the two-hour workshop is intended to be an introduction to the benefits of taking the entire program.

In another seminar, Rodger Sitkins, president of Sitkins Group Inc. of Fort Myers, Fla., will discuss “The Vertical Growth Experience.” (Originally, Mr. Sitkins was to lead the “Ultimate Producer Challenge,” but scheduling conflicts changed plans.)

Mr. Sitkins will address agency selling and the issues that are preventing a firm from growing and making a profit. He will also examine what producers need to do to escape these failings with “The Proactive Sales Model.”

Mr. Sitkins contends that agents have trouble finding time to meet with clients, falling into a comfortable routine of renewing accounts without looking closely at the risk, while also failing to develop new prospect leads to grow their business.

Under “The Proactive Sales Model” producers increase their closure of new accounts, increase revenues and profitability, grow their pipeline to new clients, and increase agency value, he said.