How We Almost Lost Our Agency
(Screenshot of last month’s record month: $1.3M in P&C Premium)
(Our Sales Team)
Last month our agency wrote over $1.1M in P&C premium (for the third month in a row).
But just 2 years ago, we were fighting to survive.
Here’s what happened.
Six months after opening my agency, my wife and I were on an evening walk when she asked me a question I dreaded:
“How’s the agency doing?”
I hesitated.
We had just uprooted our life, moved cross-country to Dallas, and started this agency from scratch. And every time the topic of work came up, I kept it surface-level because I didn’t want her to worry.
“Are things going the way you expected?” she asked next.
Another question I wasn’t ready to answer.
The truth was painful.
The agency was bleeding cash. We weren’t selling enough. We weren’t covering our expenses.
And it wasn’t because I wasn’t trying.
I had done what I thought I was supposed to do:
- Hired great people
- Bought leads
- Gave my team a great sales script
But it still wasn’t working.
“We’re doing okay,” I said.
But that wasn’t entirely true.
I wasn’t doing okay.
When I opened the agency, my goal was simple: every producer would close one deal a day.
We weren’t even close.
Our producers were averaging only $25k/month in P&C premium per producer, and that wasn’t enough.
And just when it felt like things couldn’t get worse, in the middle of one of our toughest months, our top producer resigned.
He wasn’t just our best sales producer, he was the heart of our team.
The culture setter.
He brought positivity and energy to our team.
And now he was gone.
I feared the rest of the team would follow.
For the next few days, I barely slept. I stayed up late at night, staring at my computer, desperate to find what I was missing.
Then, staring at my computer late one night, I saw it.
It had been right in front of me the whole time, hiding in plain sight.
It was so obvious, how could I have missed this?
My producers were “working” 8 hours a day in the office, but spending only 1 hour actually talking to prospects over the phone.
The rest of their day? Quoting, emailing, requoting, trying to find the “perfect” price.
Busy work.
Not selling.
It wasn’t that my team was lazy, they were misdirected.
And for the first time, I asked myself a new question:
“How do I get my producers to spend 7 hours a day on the phone, quoting one new prospect every hour?”
I didn’t expect 7 hours of talk time, but I did want each producer to do 7 new quotes a day.
That one question changed everything.
It led me on a journey to rebuild the structure of our agency:
- We changed our phone system
- We started measuring new KPIs
- We redefined what a “productive day” actually meant
Since then, our average premium per producer kept increasing.
Today when I look back, I’m incredibly proud of our team.
Over the last three months our agency wrote over $1.1 million in P&C premium each month, but what I’m most proud of is that our average premium per producer has grown to $65k/month.
(Individual Production For Our Sales Team)
Some days, it still feels surreal.
Because two years ago, I felt like I was drowning.
I know that God leads us through storms not to break us, but to build us.
In my darkest nights, I asked for help and promised that I would give back to those walking through storms of their own.
That time is now. I’m due to give back.
I spend a lot of time thinking about what I can share with agency owners to help them write more premium, and do it profitably.
I don’t want agency owners going into debt to grow. I want to help their producers write enough premium
to cover their expenses, and then some.
And to do so, I’ve realized it comes down to 5 Core Systems that every agency needs to have.
These systems:
- Don’t cost money
- Are not a “vendor” you sign up for
- Don’t even require being a member of Insurance Sales Lab (aka the best training platform for
insurance agents)
Agency owners who have these 5 Core Systems in place write a lot more premium than those
without these systems.
These 5 Core Systems provide the answers to some of the most important questions agency
owners face:
- How to hire the best people
- How to I get producers to write $40k in their first month
- How to motivate the team to produce their best results
- How to measure the right daily, weekly and monthly metrics
- How to reduce service work while increasing client retention
This Thursday, May 1st, I’ll be hosting a one-hour Zoom call where I’ll break down these 5 Core
Systems, and how you can implement them in your agency at no cost.
If you’re an insurance agency owner, I invite you to register for this Zoom call using the form below.
Webinar - BM-5-Core-Systems
Webinar Host
Vlad Cherchenko
Vlad Cherchenko is an agency owner whose agency writes over $1.1M a month in premium. He is also the founder of Insurance Sales Lab, a training platform that helps agents run high producing and profitable agencies.
P.S. If you know an agency owner who wants to write more premium, please share this invitation with them. It could be exactly what they need.
