 |
 |
 |
Building star producers For this small agency, diversity is king … No clones need apply By Elisabeth Boone, CPCU Ask any agency owner about the challenges he or she faces in today’s demanding market, and you’ll get a lengthy list: adding value and building trust with clients, maintaining solid relationships with carriers, mastering and applying technology. All of these are serious concerns—but at the top of virtually every owner’s list, you’re likely to see The Big One: finding, training, and retaining good producers. If an agency owner has the good fortune to find a talented, eager, energetic, motivated producer, he or she may think: “Great! Now all I have to do is find one (or 10, or 20) more just like this super hero.” Wrong, says Ron Pitcher, owner of Pitcher Insurance Agency, Inc., in Palatine, Illinois. Including himself, his small shop has three producers and one in the wings, each with a different background, style, and talents—and that’s just the way Ron likes it. That said, Ron does look for certain attributes in a producer he’s considering bringing on board. “The producers who have been the most successful in our agency are those who have some insurance background and who have the tenacity to build a book of business instead of having it handed to them,” he says. “I want people who need to make that sale to feel fulfilled. We pay people based on their ability to sell, to persuade the prospect to purchase from them.” Pitcher Insurance was established in 1988 when Ron decided his route to success was to own his own agency rather than working for others, including the agency owned by his father and uncle. Pitcher Insurance was the Rough Notes Marketing Agency of the Month in May 1998. That same year, Pitcher Insurance was the winner of the IIABA 1998 Best Practices “Best in Class” Award. Since the 1998 article, Pitcher Insurance has nearly tripled its revenues. The firm specializes in arranging insurance and providing risk management services to mid-sized accounts in two key classes: artisan contractors and manufacturers. “About 70% of our business is manufacturers, and 30% is contractors,” Ron says. The agency targets accounts in the $25,000 to $250,000 premium range. Although its focus is on commercial lines, which accounts for 98% of its volume, the agency has markets that write personal lines coverages for high-end business clients. Account rounding is another key to his agency’s growth strategy, Pitcher says, so the firm not only offers personal lines coverages but also arranges group benefits and key-person coverage. That’s where Ron’s brother, Ken, comes in. Brother on board Ken joined the agency in 1998 as a property/casualty producer and now owns Pitcher Benefits, Inc., which operates from the offices of Pitcher Insurance to offer employee benefits programs to commercial lines clients. Thanks to the agency’s solid and growing book of business in its niche markets, Ken has a ready-made prospect list—and just as often, he opens the door to profitable new property/casualty accounts by virtue of his expertise in meeting their employee benefits needs. Ken still produces property/casualty business. Like his brother, Ken worked for the family agency before joining Ron’s agency. In between, he honed his sales talents in other fields. “When I joined the agency, I had little experience with benefits,” he says. “I had worked for my father’s agency for a couple of years, and that was the extent of my insurance knowledge.” His educational background, Ken comments, was excellent preparation for his eventual transition to group benefits specialist. “My undergraduate degree is in accounting,” he explains. “I have a graduate degree in marketing and communications.” His knowledge of accounting, he finds, gives him a major advantage in talking with a firm’s chief financial officer. “I can speak their language, and I think that’s what helps me be successful,” he says. “In the past I’ve sold to law firms and to CFOs in a hospital and doctor setting. I had a four-state sales territory and a quota, and I operated in a very high pressure environment. I think that experience was great preparation for what I’m doing today.” Ken, who came to the agency with little insurance knowledge but an impressive sales résumé, represents one approach his brother Ron is taking to the development of a crack producer force. A star CSR Almost the opposite approach to producer development is also proving successful for Pitcher Insurance. Two years ago, Ron was approached by Sharon Waldvogel, who had 16 years’ experience as a customer service representative with another agency and who wanted to put her strong background in handling contractor business to work as a producer. She had begun her career in the mailroom, and then was offered a CSR position at the previous agency. She earned the CISR designation and currently is working towards the CIC designation. For many years Sharon was a department head, overseeing the mailroom, the receptionist, and the 10 account managers. There she developed workflow procedures, organized the team, and tried to create an environment in which employees knew they had support and training to accomplish a job. Then, with some 12 years’ experience at her former agency to her credit, Sharon was given the opportunity to leave the desk and attend meetings, pay visits, and make appointments with the producer whose accounts she handled. “I started assisting at the insured’s office what I was doing over the phone behind the desk as an account manager. Giving our insureds a more hands-on approach to understanding the basics of insurance and the coverages they needed,” she says. Once she got out in the field, Sharon says, “I got a new vision of what I wanted to do. If I could help clients understand a product in my role as account manager, I could meet their needs as a producer.” Sharon’s father always told her: “Find out what it takes, work that backwards, and give your 110%!” Sharon has lived by that motto for many years now. That agency, Sharon says, already had so many producers that, as “low man on the totem pole,” she would have had to settle for a territory that was already saturated. As a highly successful account manager with top-flight credentials, Sharon was eager to take her skills to the next level as a producer, and in 2005 she met Ron Pitcher. Both Sharon and Ron saw a great opportunity for her to spearhead profitable growth in Pitcher Insurance Agency’s contractor niche. For Ron, helping a talented and ambitious would-be producer master selling skills was just another approach to building a solid sales team. Sharon had the in-depth knowledge to communicate effectively with contractors; her challenge was to make a successful transition from CSR to producer. “I serve as a mentor to a new producer and give him or her a track to run on,” Ron says. “We have some in-agency training resources that focus on negotiating, leadership, and teamwork, as well as programs from the Sitkins Group and The Wedge. Sometimes we augment those with formal education and training.” New producer school For Sharon, that training involved attending the Professional Insurance Sales Associate (PISA) producer development program offered by the Katie School of Insurance and Financial Services at Illinois State University (ISU). The program was created in conjunction with the Professional Independent Insurance Agents of Illinois to meet the needs of producers with less than two years’ experience. The program is designed to help new producers learn how to understand customers and to initiate and develop customer relationships. The PISA program begins with a one-week sales training program. Next, the new producer undergoes eight weeks of on-the-job training with weekly follow-up by a sales manager from ISU. The producer then goes to ISU for four days of advanced training and on-site mentoring, after which he or she returns to the job and is monitored by ISU sales managers until the producer’s pre-set goals are met. “I was in the first class that went through the program,” Sharon says. “The most important thing we learned was how to probe the prospect—not necessarily to sell something, but to find out what he or she needs.” She offers an example: “I can sell someone a pen without ink, but once that person finds out that the pen has no ink, he’ll drop me fast. But if I find out what kind of ink the prospect needs in the pen and I give him that, he’ll be my client forever. As our clients’ trusted insurance adviser, we are always selling them something they need, and something they can count on us to provide.” Another key component of the PISA program is role playing. “We role played with our classmates, and the Katie School also brought in company underwriters and marketing reps so we could role play with them,” Sharon says. “That was really good training.” The program also offered participants an invaluable opportunity to network. “Every year, the producers who attended the class get together,” Sharon says. “We’ve become friends, and we share what we’ve learned and what we’re achieving in our careers.” With the knowledge and skills she gained through the PISA program, Sharon was ready to launch her career as a producer. Her extensive background as a CSR and account manager, she believes, serves her well in her new role. “I approach a client or prospect from a customer service perspective,” she says. “My goal is to explain how I can offer a service to the client, rather than trying to sell something.” The contractor market, Sharon observes, is tough in more ways than one. “With most contractors, insurance is about price, not service,” she observes. “That is, until their mod gets too high or they take on a project that involves obtaining and coordinating multiple certificates. That’s when they realize that because I know how to handle those situations, I can add value to the insurance transaction.” Building bench strength The newest member of the Pitcher Insurance team is Amanda Balster, who joined the agency in January of this year. She’s learning the business from the ground up, Ron says, and currently is involved in an initiative to market the agency to prospective clients. “Amanda brings youth, energy, and enthusiasm to Pitcher Insurance, and we’re delighted to have her on board,” he says. “We think she has the potential to be a successful producer, and we’ll put all of our resources to work to help her achieve that goal.” Looking at what his agency has accomplished in the nearly 20 years since it was established, Ron expresses pride and pleasure. He’s quick to give credit to his talented team of producers, who he believes will drive the growth of Pitcher Insurance into its bright future. * |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
