Minding Your Business

                             Shark Proof The three I’s in Shark proofing are Insulation –Investment – Influence In the first two installments, we covered Insulation & Investment. Today I finish the series with Influence. As you remember, a ” Shark”  is what I …

Each year businesses and individuals are impacted by disasters. However, a disaster does not have to be widespread to paralyze an agency. Every business (including your clients) should have a Disaster Preparation and Recovery Plan. The better the plan, the …

The traditional business plan includes short-term and long-term goals, and projections. But how do you plan when you can’t guess what will happen? Some things are shifting faster than you can keep up with, while other things can drastically change …

In 2010,  I wrote an article on shark proofing new clients for the Insurance Journal. Because of it’s popularity, this topic expanded into webinars, and 1/2 day seminars. I thought I should revisit and update the original article, so I …

Size does matter. Small agencies can give the client a warm and fuzzy feeling, but they usually can offer only basic products. For those who need to be larger but don’t want to give up their autonomy, a cluster may …

Finding a good, qualified producer has always been difficult. When one finds a good producer, that person might be restrained by a contract from another agency or specialize in a line the agency does not sell,or the person could be …

One needs to understand and exploit current and future trends in order to be proactive. It is easy to predicate trends by understanding recurring cycles and applying that knowledge to the current insurance marketplace. So what will 2013 be like …

Creating a business plan does not have to be a daunting task. Yet, only about 15 percent of agencies have a written plan or track to follow, according to a recent agency survey. Now is a good time to plan …

Owners are the firm’s leaders and need to set the right example and tone for the rest of the people in the firm. If they do not set their compensation based on what they are each doing, resentment can occur …

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 …