Consider this: For years, the insurance industry has focused on providing a service to customers. However, if selling insurance grows your agency, and services keep your existing customers, shouldn’t your agency be focusing on a sales culture, as opposed to a service-centric culture? In a word: yes.

The long and short of it is simple: everyone in your agency must understand that their primary responsibility is to sell insurance to every prospect, and sell more to your existing customers. You want to bundle policies, cross-sell, and generate a customer out of every lead. That is how your agency will grow. That is how your agency will be successful. However, if you don’t understand where the sales forces driving motivation comes from, that’s your first obstacle.

• A sales force is built on the capabilities of its management
• Front-line supervisors are where your sales force drives its motivation from
• No matter how motivating your CEO is, the culture within your sales teams is derived from front-line management

When selecting supervisors and management, you want to be sure that you have people out there who can motivate and engage your sales force. The more motivated and engaged your sales force is, the more likely they are to sell more insurance, and generate more customer loyalty.

You may have someone who sells a policy to everyone who walks through the door, but without a focus on sales culture – promoting engagement and motivation – where is the customer loyalty created? You want customers who will renew every year, and you want customers who will bundle multiple policies through your agency. You can’t get that without a sales force that is focused on selling, engaged in their jobs, and motivated to do their jobs… the best way possible.

Looking for some innovative ways to promote a sales culture within your agency?

• Be sure everyone has an understanding of goals
• Provide adequate training – good leaders and sales people can be grown
• Competition can fuel sales – there is nothing wrong with some healthy competition between your sales representatives
• Always remember to reward and recognize top producers

The point is this: your sales force is motivated by management. Therefore, work hard to ensure management is focused on a world class sales culture, and the rest should fall into place.