Market your business skills to clients and prospects

By | October 23, 2006

Insurance agents are a very talented bunch. Over the years, many have fine-tuned the entrepreneurial skills needed to grow their businesses while competing and surviving in an often cutthroat sales environment. Firms in many other fields also deal with these similar life and death issues. It is this commonality that opens up an interesting new revenue opportunity.

Sell what you know

All for-profit concerns are involved, to varying degrees, with sales and marketing, customer service, automation, the Internet, and more. However, it is the typical property/casualty office that excels in virtually every one of these disciplines. That is because without them, agencies as we know them simply cannot exist. And excellence in business always has cash value. Accordingly, this expertise might be packaged and sold as training seminars to insureds, prospects, and out-of-town competitors.

Some producers already provide these or similar services to certain commercial clients and prospects. Business owners and executives frequently turn to their agent for practical how-to advice in areas well beyond insurance. They recognize that by interacting with hundreds or thousands of firms, plus being in business themselves, the agency has inside knowledge about the practical side of commerce. As a result, they can advise them on many issues or at the very least, refer them to someone in the know. Professional consultants charge substantial fees for this type of information. Your agency can establish a gainful profit center by doing the same thing, so long as it is permitted by your state’s insurance department regulations.

Open another profit center

It is common for agencies to sell complementary services like real estate, travel, and income tax preparation. These non-insurance profit centers sometimes share clients, personnel, or office space. Often they are established as separate business entities.

Conducting training seminars is another such possibility. The classes that you conduct showcase your firm’s business talents and serve as a magnet to attract fresh dollars, fresh leads, and more. They can also open up lucrative joint-venture opportunities with CPAs, attorneys, and trade or civic organizations by tailoring courses to specific industries and groups. As the service economy grows, so does the demand for training. Your abilities in a broad range of areas helps to keep you alive in a competitive industry. So, it makes sense to share your survival experiences with others. Doing so helps you to step up the level of your firm’s abilities, retain more clients, and make a contribution to your bottom line.

Start the process by checking with your insurance regulator to learn if this type of fee-based training is permitted with your existing insurance clients and prospects. If so, the next step is to talk to your staff and managers. List the areas in which your office has high-level proficiencies. Once you have identified them, sample your business insureds to learn where they seek additional education. When matches are found between your skill set and the training demands of your clients, you are on your way. Set an affordable tuition; one that’s competitive with any local or Web-based rivals. Conduct your initial classes in your office or a borrowed conference room. As you fine-tune and target your offerings, the profit center and resulting profits expand. This is not a traditional method of agency growth, but it has definite potential.

Topics Training Development

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