We just attended a Bend Venture Conference event this past week (in Bend, Oregon) that included many angel investors on various panels, as well as several new ventures pitching for those angel investments. There was a good session on how …
One of Oak & Associates’ key clients in Oregon, Blake Schellenberg of RPIS wrote a newsletter to their clients outlining all of the rate increases they were seeing by line of business. RPIS’ management sent it to all of their …
The merger and acquisition arena has never been this busy. All deals currently on the table and many more sellers now appearing or being thrown into this process want and need to close their transactions by year-end. Private equity (PE) …
The insurance industry is so intertwined with the economy and society. Any noticeable change in either will have impacts on the insurance industry. There is nothing like what has occurred with COVID-19, and there is no exact end in sight. …
Let’s face it, insurance is a commodity. The insurance consumer will not see any significant value difference between insurance companies and insurance agencies. Products, price and service are roughly the same. Consumers have new options to access insurance through, as …
Much of life is a sales process. At some point in every relationship we are, in effect, negotiating, selling and buying ideas. Communication is not an exact science. When we communicate, we use our words, in our own style to …
Much of life is a sales process. At some point in every relationship, we are, in effect, negotiating, selling and buying ideas. Communication is not an exact science. When we communicate, we use our words, in our own style to …
How to Get Employees to Do What You Want We just finished the book “Influencer: The Power to Change Anything” by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, et. al. The authors lay out a simple formula to create useful shifts in people’s …
After reading Walter Isaacson’s great book about Steve Jobs, I began to imagine: What would Steve Jobs do if he were running an insurance agency? The first obstacle I thought about was that Steve Jobs could not do it because …
Personnel expenses remain the largest expense for any independent insurance agency today. Typically, personnel expenses account for about 50 percent to 70 percent of revenue. Therefore, smart agency owners should think through the agency’s compensation issues ahead of time. It …
