Account Manager vs Producer - combined role?

[BizInsLady]

Hi All! My role is a CL account manager/producer. There is no other role to help like marketing or service. It’s difficult to juggle sales goals and good customer service. It’s also hard to tell if the pay is fair since it’s hard to compare. Have you seen this type of role work well or is it better to keep them separate? Also, should the commission be lower (30%/30%) since there is a salary (50k) for the account management piece? Should commission be earned on all written or only what has been personally brought in as green new? How about book size to be managed (approx 30 renewals per month)?

I have a meeting with the agency owner on Friday to discuss the role, work load, and comp and would love some ideas and feedback. Thanks!

 

[fed up]

You will be lucky to receive a commission not based on a quota since you are receiving a salary and those commissions are generally in the 10-20% of the 10-15% of what the agency owner receives. Also the more commission percentage you receive is often offset by chargebacks received by the agency as stipulated in your contract and 0 on renewals

 

[Markthebroker]

Have you seen this type of role work

No, not really. Usually people will do one well, and the other poorly. Usually what I see is a decent or good account manager, and a poor or mediocre producer. Many more people seem to be able to succeed as an account manager than a producer.

or is it better to keep them separate?

Yes

Most people are good at either sales or account management. Few people are good at both. Almost no one is equally good at both.

While we are always looking to better ourselves, and that's great, you will typically see successful people did so by exploiting and leveraging their strengths, and delegating their weaknesses.

 

[Al3x Lee]

Hi All! My role is a CL account manager/producer. There is no other role to help like marketing or service. It’s difficult to juggle sales goals and good customer service. It’s also hard to tell if the pay is fair since it’s hard to compare. Have you seen this type of role work well or is it better to keep them separate? Also, should the commission be lower (30%/30%) since there is a salary (50k) for the account management piece? Should commission be earned on all written or only what has been personally brought in as green new? How about book size to be managed (approx 30 renewals per month)?

I have a meeting with the agency owner on Friday to discuss the role, work load, and comp and would love some ideas and feedback. Thanks!

I hope your meeting went well, but as Mark said, it's rare that people are good at both. Our agency is primarily commercial P&C, but I'm probably the only producer who knows who to even access our agency management system because the bulk of producers hate the account management and customer service side of the business. The account managers hate the sales side of the business and often times come running to me freaking out when there's a large price change on a renewal because they're scared of telling the customer that they'll have to pay more.

Additionally, both take an extraordinary amount of time and different sets of skills. The likelihood of someone being good at both is low.


With that being said, if you can do account management for a salary and get some extra incentives to cross sell those accounts or set up new accounts that come in the door, it may be a role that could work out. From your post though, it sounds like they want you to have producer sales goals and manage a book of business on the account management side.

 

[InsuranceAgent411]

I sell service and manage a small personal lines book of business. My renewal list is any where between 80-100 renewals a month. 99% of the renewals are contacted via e-mail or given a phone call; if I have an option or it is just time to renew contact is made.
I make a base salary and get a commission on the new business at 20%. I enjoy both the sales and service part of the process.

 

[Markthebroker]

I sell service and manage a small personal lines book of business. My renewal list is any where between 80-100 renewals a month. 99% of the renewals are contacted via e-mail or given a phone call; if I have an option or it is just time to renew contact is made.
I make a base salary and get a commission on the new business at 20%. I enjoy both the sales and service part of the process.

Good on you. You are what I would call a unicorn. I hear about them on the internet, but have never seen one in real life.

 

[Txmade99]

I have a meeting with the agency owner on Friday to discuss the role, work load, and comp and would love some ideas and feedback. Thanks!

Were you able to come up with a fair agreement with the Agency owner?
This dilemma sounds like the same situation our Account Manager is in. She is required to manage the accounts plus produce Life sales. Lately she has been overwhelmed with the servicing of all the customers and has not been actively producing Life sales unless a customer specifically asks about it. She's been falling behind in her daily tasks with the customers and our agency owner is unhappy about that, because the owner has had to pick up the slack. Our agency owner has been falling behind on the Life and really needs to boost that up as its required to produce 4 Life sales in month. So she's been really putting the pressure on the Account Manager.

This has been causing the account Manager to become overwhelmed that she asked for time off. She does however manage to get Condominium/Commercial accounts once or twice every other month due to her previous connection working with HOA's/Condos, she has brought those businesses to the agency which is pretty good as I feel they acxount for the Life sells, but the Owner says this will not suffice as she wants her to produce more Life and PC. For the amount of customers she needs to handle daily and what the owner is paying, the owner feels she should be able to accomplish and complete specified goals.

As of now she has been allowed to take 3 weeks off to refresh her mind. When she comes back, the agency owner wants to take her position away of account management, reduce her pay by having her come in part time and have her sell Life and PC, she can also work on her HOA condo/ commercial accounts and sales since she is the only one who knows how to service them.

In my opinion I think once she gets back and hears about this she is going to quit. She thinks auto is beneath her, she will only do Homeowners if a customer reaches out to her, since she would prefer to do commercial accounts instead since they pay more, and I can't actively see her hammering the phones and badgering the customers for Life sales. This is State Farm by the way. Don't know if I can really blame her.

 

[Al3x Lee]

In my opinion I think once she gets back and hears about this she is going to quit.

I figured it was state farm as I read through. I would ABSOLUTELY quit if I were in her shoes. She could probably go become an account manager at an independent agency and make more money. The industry is starved for talented account managers right now. The fact that the agency owner can't see the value of staff like this will be their downfall.

 

[Txmade99]

I figured it was state farm as I read through. I would ABSOLUTELY quit if I were in her shoes. She could probably go become an account manager at an independent agency and make more money. The industry is starved for talented account managers right now. The fact that the agency owner can't see the value of staff like this will be their downfall.

Yep, the owner has been getting on her everyday with all the frustration. I'm sure any agency would love to have the HOA policies she produces once or twice a month or even two months. She's even willing to train on how to service them and there unique needs. But it never did happen and don't think it should since the owner never offered to pay her for her training time anyway.

Ironically, there was another account Manager that quit because the owner demanded that she produce more life. She simply said let me talk it over with my husband, then the next day she quit. No one is wanting to sell SF Life policies for some reason.

The owner said account management and servicing is the easy part, she doesn't want anybody to get spoiled with just servicing customers. She wants sales, she will do the account management herself I guess if she has to...but I don't know what she's thinking because it can be alot. It also doesn't help that SF is behind on there technology and still using 1980's wordperfect system to service accounts.

The agency owner has put career ads out but no one with an active insurance license seems to be interested in applying with State Farm. I just gave my resignation last weekend to pursue independent opportunities. I kinda feel bad for the owner, but it's gonna be her responsibility in the end to come up with clear marketing strategies to achieve her quota with SF. She made me fully responsible for all of her Auto and PC sells since she didn't want to do it and she had no one else. She would only focus on life since that is where the commission is at, but she's still not making her quota, maybe one Life a month, she would be lucky to get two. I was no longer attracted to State Farms business structure. Maybe it was just how my agency at State Farm was ran. I did learn alot.

 

[Al3x Lee]

Yep, the owner has been getting on her everyday with all the frustration.

Ironically, there was another account Manager that quit because the owner demanded that she produce more life.

No one is wanting to sell SF Life policies for some reason.

The owner said account management and servicing is the easy part, she doesn't want anybody to get spoiled with just servicing customers. She wants sales.

She made me fully responsible for all of her Auto and PC sells since she didn't want to do it and she had no one else. She would only focus on life since that is where the commission is at, but she's still not making her quota, maybe one Life a month, she would be lucky to get two.

This is a terrible owner. She could retain staff is she inspired and rewarded them, instead she wants to be a servicer and have her staff that she hires for SERVICING to be her producers. It's a different skillset, and telling people that their job is easy and that they need to try harder is a terrible recipe for success.

It sounds like she herself can't sell her way out of a cardboard box if she's only able to personally produce 1-2 life policies a month and expect her servicing staff to carry her dead weight.

Sounds like someone who went into owning a state farm agency without the proper skills or talent to do so and thinks she can bully others into making her successful