WINNING STRATEGIES
By Roger Sitkins
High-energy agencies don't just happen
To accelerate momentum, visit your best clients for "advice,"
take your entire sales team on a quarterly retreat and hold TALEs
(Trusted Advisor Luncheon Experiences).
When a top sports team experiences a winning streak, the team is said to have great momentum. They've got the "MO" working for them.
During a recent Sales Mastery Session, we discussed momentum in depth. This group of committed sales professionals is constantly seeking increased momentum. They have committed to doubling their books of business within three years or less. During this discussion, I experienced a Blinding Flash of the Obvious: If your pipelines are empty, you have no momentum!
Based on this brainstorming session, I stated to the group that I believe there are three stages of momentum:
1. Creating momentum
2. Maintaining momentum
3. Accelerating momentum
Let's review each of these with some suggestions concerning the momentum within your agency.
Creating momentum
It all begins with the creation of momentum in an agency. Some agencies are so stuck in their day-to-day routines that they have no momentum at all! They are simply coasting along with the tides of time and are totally reactive to outside factors.
Here are a few strategies you can use to create momentum in your agency:
Profiling. Have personal profiles on all of your key clients, prospects and centers of influence.
Meeting agendas. Use a specific agenda for every client and prospect meeting. This allows you to maintain control of the meeting and ensures that important steps, such as the referral request, always happen.
Ask for referrals and introductions. As stated above, if your prospect pipelines are empty, you have no momentum. Have an agency culture in which the goal is to generate 90% or more of all new business from a referral or an introduction. Formal processes must be in place to support the overall referral system.
Top 20 prospects. Every producer has a list of the 20 targeted prospects he or she will be pursuing this year.
Ideal client profile. Identify and document who your ideal client is. What does this person "look like," what business is he or she in, how big is the account, what is the ownership structure, etc. This profile is then used as part of your overall marketing process. You show it to your clients and centers of influence and ask them the following question: "Who do you know that I should know who looks like this?"
Value Added Services. If you've read any of my past articles, you know that I strongly believe that the very best agencies and producers sell based on Value Added Services, not on price. We call this "The Insurance and Risk Management Iceberg," wherein everything above the waterline is about product and price. Everything below the waterline is about Value Added Services. If you truly want momentum in your agency, your efforts will focus on working below the waterline.
A & B account blitz. Another great way to gain momentum is to complete an A & B account blitz, in which producers proactively visit every one of their A & B relationships. The "A" relationships are the top 5% of your customers and the "B" relationships are the middle 15% of your customers. Combined, these accounts represent 20% of your clients and 80% of your revenue. (Yes, the old 80/20 Rule.) The strategy here is to proactively meet with every one of these clients in order to: complete their personal profile; round out the account; begin the proactive renewal process (we call this the Continuation Process); and ask for referrals and introductions.
How many of the above strategies do you currently have in place in your agency? Have you created enough momentum?
Maintaining momentum
Renewal process. One of the keys to maintaining your overall momentum is to make sure that you have absolute positive net new growth each year. Part of this, of course, is that you have a proactive renewal process that virtually guarantees that clients stay with you from year to year. Do you really know the "Renewal Rules of the Game" with your clients?
Sales management ambushes. So much of maintaining momentum is about keeping the saw sharpened. Most of our sales managers use a technique known as the sales management "ambush." During a casual conversation with a producer, the sales manager will simply stop and "ambush" the producer by asking, for example: "Ask me for a referral," or, "Give me your opening purpose and position statement that you use during your new prospect appointment." These ambushes help keep the producer sharp and on top of the game. Let's face it, if a producer can't respond to an ambush in a low-risk situation, what do you think he or she will sound like in a high-risk situation?
Perfect producer schedule. This is a strategy I've shared before. The key is to have the producer literally block his or her time and identify the "Pay" vs. "No Pay" activities planned for the week. The goal is to have producers available for sales and sales-related activities 80% of the time.
Top 20 MVP. Again, each producer should have at least 20 key prospects identified. To maintain the momentum, you need an ongoing drip campaign with these prospects. We call it the MVP Program--Mail, Visit and Phone. Each month the top 20 prospects receive a piece of mail, a visit or a phone call from the producer. The goal is to maintain your position as the next logical choice.
High-performance teams. To truly maintain your momentum, you should stress the importance of developing high-performance teams within your agency. These teams consist of both the producers and the account manager or managers working in concert on the account. The ultimate goal of the high-performance team is to round out, retain and replicate your best relationships. Each member of the team is operating within the roles that he or she is uniquely qualified for. Salespeople sell and service people service.
Exit barriers. The installation of exit barrier strategies is crucial to maintaining your overall momentum. What are exit barriers? These are the things that make it very hard for your current clients to leave you. We believe the three main exit barriers are:
* Full-time, not part-time clients. Full-time clients place all of their insurance with you. Part-time clients have some of their coverage with your agency and some with other agencies.
* Relationship management programs that guarantee the A and B clients in your agency are seen two to four times a year.
* The Continuation Process as mentioned above.
O.K., you've created it, you've maintained it, now it's time to ...
Accelerating momentum
Ask for advice. One of the most important strategies we've learned is that to accelerate your momentum, you must take the concept of asking for referrals and introductions to the next level. You simply visit your very best clients for "advice." Tell them you would like some advice--that you are thinking about building your book of business around other successful business owners like them. Ask if that makes sense. Then ask, "If you were me, how would you do that?" You'll be amazed at the feedback and help you receive!
Quarterly sales retreats. If you really want to accelerate your "MO" and become a more aggressive and progressive agency, try this: Every quarter take your entire sales team on a one-day retreat.
Mandatory TALEs. One of the very best acceleration techniques is to hold mandatory TALEs--Trusted Adviser Luncheon Experiences--with your very best accounts. You get them together with their total Trusted Advisor Team (you, attorney, CPA and financial planner) and host a luncheon meeting. It's all about the clients and where they are going in their business. Nothing but great things can happen.
Formal pre-briefing and de-briefing. I was fortunate enough to review a recent presentation by two former Top Gun instructors. They related to the business world the lessons they learned during their time as Navy jet fighter pilots and instructors. One of the most important lessons that they learned was the concept of pre-briefing and de-briefing every mission. It's like looking at the game films--you learn from your losses and replicate your victories.
Where is your agency today on the "Momentum Curve"? Are you Creating Momentum, Maintaining Momentum or Accelerating Momentum?
As always, it's your choice. *
The author
Roger Sitkins, president of Sitkins Group, Inc., offers his Vertical Growth ExperienceTM programs exclusively to his client group, known as The Sitkins 100TM. These programs focus on continual improvement of agency operations, providing members ongoing development and strategies that force vertical growth in the agency's critical indicators of Closing Ratios, Revenue per Employee, Revenue per Relationship, and Revenue per Producer.