Sales vs. service: There is a difference!
As a former college football player, I still love the collegiate game and watch as many games as I can. As last year’s regular season was coming to a close, I was among the millions of fans who witnessed some of the best games with some of the most phenomenal plays in recent college football history. During one of them, I heard what I thought was a great comment from one of the coaches: “Just do your job!”
That got me to thinking back to my days on the gridiron, when we knew that every offensive play was drawn up to be a touchdown and every defensive play was designed to stop the opposing team. We never said, “Hey quarterback—Drop back seven yards and throw an interception!” or “Cornerback, why don’t you let the other guy beat you deep for an easy touchdown.” I’m sure you get my point. In order for any “plays”—strategies—to work, everyone has to do their job.
As many of you know, the Sitkins Vertical Growth Experience™ is built around what we call The 10 Great Plays™. These are the proven strategies that apply to eight specific areas of an agency:
- Sales
- Sales Management
- Account Managers
- CEO
- Business Development Center
- Financial Management
- Agency Perpetuation
- Total Agency
In order for these “plays” or strategies to work, everyone has to do their job!
In this column, I examine the main job of two crucial functions in any agency: Sales and Service. Let’s face it—you have to sell something and you have to service it. But these are two entirely different functions that involve different responsibilities.
Producer
What’s the main job of a producer? (This is not a trick question, so don’t overthink it.) As one of my best friends and clients said several years ago, “You’ve got to define the role of your producers and then don’t let them fake it!” So let’s start by defining “producer.” According to Siri on my iPhone, a producer is “someone who produces.” How profound!
I believe the best general description of the producer’s job is: To Obtain and Retain Ideal Clients. By “obtaining,” I mean systematically, not sporadically, adding net new clients and net new revenue to their book of business each and every year. “Retaining” means keeping clients for life. It’s one of the very best things about our business.
As we’ve discussed in previous articles, we’re talking about Effective Retention. Our goal is 100% Effective Retention of your clients. Do you know your effective retention rate? If you looked at all the clients you wanted to retain and could retain, what percentage stayed with you?
Of course, there is more to the producer’s job than just obtaining and retaining. Other producer responsibilities include:
Matching personal brand with agency brand. Part of your job is to manage your brand. What are the clear, powerful and positive thoughts that people have about you as a producer?
Developing business acumen. There’s much more to risk management than insurance, but unfortunately, most producers can only talk about insurance. Typically, they are young and have never had to run a business or meet a payroll. Because of that, they usually don’t understand finances and are unaware of the other things they can do to help a business grow. Only a few producers (the best ones) understand business and finances. In working with corporate clients, they are able to talk at the C level (to CEOs, CFOs and COOs). They bring value to the table vs. just an insurance quote. In order to differentiate yourself as a producer, it’s crucial to understand enough about business operations that you feel comfortable talking at the C level.
Managing and building pipelines. This is a biggie. You must make sure you always have more opportunities than time. But even though it’s a critical component of a producer’s job, it is usually done sporadically at best. Most producers really focus on their pipelines only when they’re absolutely empty. Instead, they should follow the lead of the best producers by prospecting every day.
Relationship management. Cultivating and sustaining relationships is a key part of the job that many producers neglect. You must be proactive about managing your relationships with clients, prospects, insurance carriers, fellow team members and centers of influence. The top producers certainly are!
Networking. Getting out there and getting your brand in the marketplace is what networking is all about. However, there’s more to it than just showing up at an event and handing out business cards. True networking is about being seen and bringing value on a regular basis in the business community and within the industries that you specialize in as well as meeting potential clients and centers of influence.
Having a continuation (renewal) process. The average business owner doesn’t think about insurance until it’s renewal time and has no idea what the agent has done to help the business during the year. That’s why part of the continuation process should be a stewardship report at the six-month anniversary. This allows you to discuss with your client what has happened since the purchase and placement of their insurance. Basically, it’s a review of the risk-reducing strategies and value-added services you promised to provide to help control their total cost of risk. Assuming you have done what you said you’d do, you then make a plan for the next six months.
Account manager or CSR
What’s the job of the account manager or CSR? Let’s first define Service. Service is everything that happens between renewal dates, other than an “emergency in flight.” We’ve often said that the producer’s job is like an airline pilot’s, with takeoffs (sales), landings (renewals) and emergencies in flight (problems to resolve). Although producers should address the emergencies in flight, we believe everything else that happens after takeoffs and before landings is the responsibility of the service rep.
PACS. While the account manager or CSR’s main job is to handle all incoming service requests from clients, they should do so with a focus on PACS (Prompt, Accurate and Courteous Service).
- Prompt—Respond to the client immediately and do things the right way the first time.
- Accurate—Gather all the information up front to prevent the need to respond to the same service request more than once.
- Courteous Service—Be extremely conscious of the customer experience.
Promise keeping. The service person also plays a key role in keeping the promises of the sales staff. Producers make the promises, and account managers and CSRs coordinate the actual delivery of those promises. This leads to a culture of accountability. Overall, is your agency—both sales and service—doing all that it said it was going to do?
I believe the account manager is also the person who:
- Drives the continuation process
- Drives the weekly HPT (high performance team) meetings
- Constantly looks for red flags.
For example, how many times have you had an account leave and someone says, “Wow, I saw that coming!” If that’s the case, couldn’t they have bothered to tell someone? The typical response: “Well, nobody asked me. Besides, that’s not part of my job!”
The bottom line
Want to have a really interesting meeting in your agency? Pull everyone together by function (personal and commercial lines service people, claims, producers, etc.) and ask each one to write down the answer to the question, “What’s your job?” Next ask them, “How are you doing at it?” And then do a comparison.
The results will surprise you. In fact, I think you’ll be amazed at people’s divergent views about their jobs and job responsibilities!
Are your people doing their jobs? Are they doing what you pay them to do?
As always, it’s your choice!
The author
Roger Sitkins is founder and chairman of Sitkins International, a private client group and membership program for some of the top independent insurance agencies and brokerages in the United States, Canada, and Latin America. Members participate in training, advising and networking opportunities focused around innovation, sales, growth, profitability and value. Sitkins International is inventing the future of the independent insurance system by providing intellectual property that empowers agents and brokers to become the innovators.
© The Rough Notes Company. Reprinted with permission.