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Mgmt. Perspectives
Profile
Revenues
Expenses
Profitability
Employee Overview
Producer Info
Staff Service Info
Technology
Insurance Carriers
Appendix
2010 Best
Practices Study
Agencies
with Revenues
Between
$10,000,000 and
$25,000,000
123
Analysis of Agencies with Revenues Between $10,000,000 and $25,000,000
Recruiting & Developing Talent
When asked about the most important driver of their
success, Best Practices agencies consistently point to
the talent of their employees. If they recruit the best
people, and then develop them to their fullest
potential, success becomes nearly inevitable.
Methods of recruiting and developing talent vary
widely. Each agency must develop its own strategy
based on a combination of factors including the
community in which it operates, the type of business it
writes and the demographics of its existing employees.
A clear trend in this year’s study is that a heavy
percentage of firms are striving to “get younger” now
that the baby-boom generation is starting to retire.
While the compensation requirements of younger
employees tend to fall below those of more established
employees, most of the“savings”must then be invested
in education and development. The good news: firms
in this size category frequently have the advantage of
being large enough to make the infrastructure
investments necessary to enable employees new to the
industry succeed.
Achieving Organic Growth
With the soft economy and soft P&C marketplace in
recent years, organic growth has become extremely
difficult to achieve, even for Best Practices agencies.
Since the Study was first introduced in 1993, there has
never been a single year in which organic growth was
below 5%. Contrast this with the past two years, when
organic growth was 1.0% and 1.6%, respectively.
BPS agencies are responding aggressively, however,
making investments that should pay off regardless of
when, and how much, the marketplace improves.
Keys to Recruiting/Developing Talent
(Top 5 Listed in Order of Frequency Mentioned)
1. Set recruiting as a key long-term strategy.
2. Maintain a pipeline of talented candidates at
all times, frequently by tapping into
employees’ relationship networks.
3. Screen candidates diligently with a
combination of outside testing and multiple
interviews.
4. Create a customized development path for
each new employee.
5. Hire youth, but be prepared to make heavy
investments in equipping and mentoring
Keys to Organic Growth
(Top 5 Listed in Order of Frequency Mentioned)
1. Industry specialization
2. Enhanced producer accountability for
achieving sales goals
3. Investments in new producers
4. Focusing on harvesting the low-hanging fruit
by account rounding and interdepartmental
cross-selling
5. Investments in sales training and producer
development
“Luckily we realized that we wanted
to strengthen our sales culture several
years before the downturn in the
economy. Moving from a service to a
sales culture is a slow and difficult
process. We now have regular sales
meetings, work within sales teams,
and we’ve formalized producers’ sales
and production plans and are holding
them accountable for results. All of
this has helped us navigate the
difficult economy and soft market.”