Life in a Day of a Top Producer

[FL P&C Broker]

One of large real estate agencies in my area used to send me a ton of deals. They had about 5 sister companies; title, inspections, mortgage, appraisals. The last missing piece for them was home insurance. They approached me to start a new LLC and run all their clients through the new agency so that they could have some equity. I let them pitch me the deal but declined. I heard they ended up buying equity in another agency and the deal hasn't been going so well. You can't be the jack of all trades.

Like P&CGuru said, I am more than happy to bring the food, gft cards, etc. but it isn't worth to give them part of the ongoing commission.

 

[insurance1822]

Hello Stalwart,

That's 210 personal lines P&C referrals/month..now closing a MINIMUM of 70% of referral biz (should be more,) that's 147 clients. At 1.5 policies per client (should be more,) that's 220 policies/month. In my PA market our average policy premium is $800 (and PA is cheap, let alone my area...) so that would be $176,000 per month in premium? Maybe my numbers are off.

 

[0b1kanobee]

I'm The Boss!

 

[JosephWilson86]

I opened my agency from scratch in 2007 with me and two other licensed staff and everyone did sales and service so we really didn't have a designated CSR. I was personally selling about 17k-20k per month and my agency was doing about 35-40k per month. It was in 2009 that I decided to get organized and have defined roles for sales, CSR, and telemarketing. At that point my book was about $1.5 mill.

Had I not opened from day one with staff i seriously doubt that I would have been able to build a medium size agency (4.3 mill) in just 5 years. Granted, it took an investment and I wasn't able to pay myself for the first 2 years but the payoff has been great. Hope this helps

So I assume you started with somr capital or a loan? Would you mind sharing how much?

Nm, found the answer.

 

[The Colonel]

I get up by 5am-check emails on iphone, get to office by 8am and first thing is go over the list of to-do's I made the night before. Then I "tee-up" the day for my folks based on internet leads that came in over night, renewals showing up in daily reports, ask about cases they are working on etc... Then I goof off all day...

 

[PhilL]

Talk to some producers who were trained by Brown & Brown.

 

[MattJohnson]

yes, I think that's right.

 

[nyc2phi]

Would like to resurrect this thread one more time to see if there is any new positive input to share...

 

[JosephWilson86]

I still haven't figured out how to produce consistently but I also haven't been listening to the people on here who claim to produce consistently so I've decided to start doing that tomorrow. Waiting on login info. for a power dialer.

Going to do what Todd said and cold call 430-730 every day and spend the rest of my time quoting and doing follow up.

So far I've determined that buying leads is a waste of money because they're being sold to so many agents all at the same time, the aged lead company is lying about the age and accuracy of their leads so that's also a waste of money, getting referrals is awesome, and Farmer's marketing program leads aren't bad but probably cost more than we're closing from them after my commission is subtracted.

I think it costs like $350/month and we're only closing a few policies. Good deal for me(producer) but bad deal for my agent.

I'm going to be calling numbers for people that my agent is direct mailing and then working just some targeted cold data when I run out of the mailing list people.

During the day I'm going to be figuring out how to get more referrals from RE agents, mortgage brokers, and existing clients. Ultimately I think referrals are the key to success. They're free or at least less expensive than leads in terms of time and money.

I'll post up my progress when I've got some useful data.

 

[tarobhap]

I just got another loan from them last year for expansion and it was even easier this time around, they did want 70% collateral though. But its still the best choice because it is almost impossible to get a start up loan from a brick and mortar bank.

About the incentives, i simply gave them a pay structure that rewarded them and I also wanted to hire folks that wanted to be an agent within 5 years so I told them that I would help them get their office set-up and invest in them when the time came and now one of my LSP's that started with me will be opening his office in 2013 as a partner and I am financing the start up.

By far though, staffing is the toughest part of the business and you need to dedicate a lot of time into it. Im always taking applications and interviewing candidates even when i dont have an open position because you never know when someone will quite on you or you may need to let somebody go.

PCGuru......I would like to privately message you regarding the process in which you started your agency.