How Much Should Producers Be Producing?

This article was originally published on InsNerds.com

How Much Should Producers Be Producing?

By: Kelly Donahue-Piro

President of Agency Performance Partners

Co-Founder Agency Appeal

If you are a new producer or are managing a new insurance producer, you may have questions on how much production you or your agency should expect? No doubt the first few months will feel like swimming up stream. However, the agency and the producer need to stay hyper-focused on identifying, working towards, and, ultimately, hitting sales goals. 100% of a new producer’s role needs to be prospecting, studying, and selling insurance. In the early days of being a producer, there is limited to no service, so all of their time needs to be spent generating opportunity.

Most producers have lackluster starts to their producing career because they don’t have enough structure. Left to their own accord, the learning curve on prospecting, structuring your day, and learning markets can be wildly inefficient. In the old days, you would hand a new producer a phone book, and tell them to have at it. Today’s world has changed. New producers need structure, a plan, and mini goals to achieve to identify success.

So the question that most people want to know is, what should I expect from a new producer and what goals should we target. No matter where you are or what you sell in the property and casualty world, you want a new producer to target $20,000 in new premium per month. Now, it may take them 3 months to get there, but hold the course. If the producer is committed, they will keep coming close. The idea is to keep the accelerator on, so they can keep working toward hitting a reasonable goal.

So what stops new producers from hitting their goals? We have outlined a few core reasons:

No work best friend. If they don’t have a peer to compete with, they most likely won’t succeed. We all work better with the buddy system. Remember, iron sharpens iron.
The team is not embracing a new producer. Let’s face it, the initial accounts a new producer brings in are not bright and shiny. They are hairy, and the producer has no idea what it takes to make these accounts work. Staff instantly judges the producer and not in a positive “let me help you” kinda way.
The producer has no plan, and everyone is too busy to mentor them. If you are going to have new producers, you have to have the time to mentor and support them. They need guidance just like you did when you first started.

We recommend a strong new producer plan where they focus on activity, activity, activity. Activity leads to sales. You don’t need to be the best salesperson; you just need to meet a ton of people. Here is a list of activities we recommend the producers tackle:

1. Call lost business list each week
2. Call unsold quotes coming up for renewal each week
3. Call monoline accounts for account reviews and account rounding opportunities each week
4. Meet with one center of influence each week
5. Attend one networking event each week

We have a great APPX sales training program your agency can check out if you need more assistance!

About Kelly Donahue-Piro

As a dynamic public speaker and consultant I have spent the last decade focusing on how small business owners can capitalize on opportunities within their reach. With over 5 years experience in the local insurance agent sector I can bring training, marketing and technology to your agency that helps you effective and efficiently grow your agency. My specialties include consulting and coaching on upselling, account rounding, agency culture change, sales scripting, executive level coaching and benchmarking as well as agency retention skills. Contact me today to learn more about how I can help your agency grow!