Articles by Tony Caldwell

Caldwell is an author, speaker and CEO of One Agents Alliance, an alliance of 185 independent insurance agents in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas and California.

Relationship Refresher: 5 Ways to Keep Your Professional Relationships Fresh

With technology relentlessly simplifying many parts of our business, and consolidations changing the competitive landscape as well, personal service businesses will continue to be challenged to rethink their business models in the coming years. Typically, when an industry sees change …

Tomorrow’s Insurance Agent: Leveraging New Skill Sets Next Gens Bring to the Table

For the last decade and a half, business leaders have struggled to comprehend, motivate and manage the millennial generation. Recently, I read an online article where business owners discussed the “new” generation of workers and it was both amusing and …

3 Areas for Agents to Focus Growth Efforts in 2024 As the Hard Market Continues

We are obviously in one of the most intense hard markets of the last several decades. While much has been said and written about how to navigate the challenges the market is creating for agents, I’d like to take a …

Buying and Selling: 5 Tips for Successful Agency Transactions

You are going to sell your interest in your agency at some point. Whether the sale is internal, external, to a family member, employees, or to a large national organization, there are steps you can take in advance to make …

Leveraging Memberships to Boost Business, Improve Community

As a young professional I was very interested in becoming active in my community. Of course, I knew that this would help my business career but I also had the philosophy, from an early age, that we all stand on …

5 Top Mistakes Every Independent Agent Should Avoid

One of my favorite sayings is “failure is tuition for something else.” I adopted this phrase during a conversation with another senior leader one day on the consequences of some mistakes we’d made organizationally. I think that failure is a …

Dodging Distractions: Focus on Relationships for Long-Term Agency Success

Life has never held more opportunities for our attention to be pulled away from what is most important. We have all seen the statistics about the number of messages the average American has bombarding them every day. While these distractions …

The Secret Sauce: The Keys to Long-Standing Client Relationships

Recently I renewed two large accounts for the twenty-sixth time. Over the years, I’ve found the loyalty of these particular clients professionally and personally rewarding. It’s also created a stable source of revenue for a long time. Though these two …

ChatGPT: What’s the Big Deal?

Late last year, most Americans began to hear about a new application of artificial intelligence (AI) called ChatGPT. Soon, this application, from a data science company called OpenAI, became the hot topic at every meeting, trade conference or internet search. …

The Talent Crunch Part 2: Rethinking Your Approach to Recruiting

From time to time, my doctor prescribes a treadmill test to check out how strong my heart is. Perhaps you’ve experienced this test, but in case you haven’t, the idea is to make you run faster and faster up an …