The All Aboard Newsletter

Today we’re breaking down our October numbers and talking about how we’re training our Sales and Service teams to thrive through the tough rate and RMP markets!

Lets take a ride!

Reading Time: 8-12 Minutes

September Results + Breakdown

839 Items Sold

$702,325 of Written Premium

$1,102,653 of Annualized Premium

On October 23rd, we took another rate increase, this time a flat 18% on all standard auto policies.

And even with our 2nd rate in less than 60 days, we improved our numbers vs September results.

That improvement can partly be attributed to two extra days in the month.

However, we were able to do bigger numbers than September and do it with less LSPs. This indicates training is working, and close is coming back up (slowly).

Two challenges that remain after October are:

• Item close is down to 17% (from 21% in August)

• Average premium per item is down roughly 8%

For context, we’re doing about 5,000 quotes per month. That means a 1% drop in close rate is worth 50 items.

Aka, we’re missing out on about 200 items because of the drop in close rate alone.

That means that we have a lot of training to do in a number of areas to both:

• Improve close rate back to 20-21%

• Improve Premium per item by upselling coverages/packages.

On a positive note, October was our first full month with our Monoline Producer and we’re cautiously optimistic about the results.

Our producer is making outbound calls on our monoline policies, offering a review, then working to sell additional lines.

We finished with 16 items, with most of those being homeowners. You might be thinking “Thats not very impressive” - True, 16 items isn’t anything crazy.

But here is the kicker - our ROI was 158% on the project in month one.

So yea, I’ll take that and celebrate that all day.

Now we need to improve it and, if possible, scale it.

These small, high ROI projects are the types of things we’ll be looking to do in the end of the year push while we prepare for 2024.

We need to get profitable.

We’ve been burning the candle at both ends driving growth, and we’re extremely happy with the numbers we’ve posted this year ($7million+ in premium and 8,600+ items).

But its looking more and more like bonus is out of the question for this year, and who knows what the 2024 bonus plan will look like.

So we’re tightening the group, and slowing hiring.

We aren’t laying people off, but we’re not backfilling people as they quit or fail to hit goals.

Our goal is going to be 15 producers writing 55+ items each. If we do that, we’ll land right about 800-850 items every month.

Right now, we have 17 LSPs, and believe me, I’ll take 55 Items across 17 LSPs too.

In a tougher rate environment, with tight RMPs, its hard to feed a massive team, and we feel good about our decision to do this and really focus on training up the people we have to level off before growing the team size again.

Not having new people ensures that our trainer can spend all of his time really refining the process for our existing salespeople.

Our close rate targets on specific lines are as follows:

• Auto = 30%

• Home = 15%

• PUP = 15%

A year-long surprise, Landlord policies have been absolutely amazing for us this year.

Premium averages over $1,000 per policy, and close rate is fantastic (30%ish). We need to continue to ask every single person they quote if they have any rental properties. Its too lucrative not to.

Our hope, is that by the end of November, we see a meaningful rise in close rate back to pre-RMP and pre-rate levels.

We’re extremely proud of how the team has weathered the changes, and we’re confident with the extra training they’re going to receive, that we’ll be back on track in no time.

Training + How People Learn

I went to a 1-day Sales Coaching event held by one of my vendors last week when I was in Nashville.

The event was timely. We’re in a place where we’re thinking and talking about training a lot in our organization.

Even though I had a handful of takeaways, one of the most profound things I learned is about the four learning styles.

To some, this might be common knowledge or obvious, but to me, eye opening.

I’ve heard people claim they are a visual learner, or an auditory learner, but I thought it stopped there. Apparently, there are 4 types of learning.

So I asked myself: How do I learn?

So I took a test - Turns out, its auditory (which is what I would have guessed).

And something that was said at the event absolutely floored me.

“Around 65% of the population are visual learners”

That was eye opening. I immediately thought of how much of our content, both for our clients and our employees is tailored to that learning style.

Here’s a hint: Not much of it.

So not only do we have some work to do on creating graphs and visuals for our team when learning/training/drilling

But we ALSO need to do that for our clients.

We need a visual representation that helps them understand insurance, or what they need to do to switch their policy to us, or to file a claim.

The reality is, that while we may skew towards one of these learning styles, its not so black and white. We can all learn in all these ways. One just tends to be most effective.

Our training plan needs to account for ALL learning types though and here are some ways to do that.

Lets say we’re trying to teach someone the concept of Bodily Injury Liability

• Auditory → Call Recording of someone explaining coverage to a client

• Visual → Graphic showing the math of who pays what in an accident

• Read/Write → Ask them to read the definition of Bodily Injury in the Policy Jacket and rewrite it in simple terms.

• Kinesthetic → Role Play explaining the coverage with a peer or manager

When we stop to think about how we apply these concepts, its not very hard to think about how we can do it.

We just have to do it.

What would it look like in your business if you could train a producer in 4 weeks instead of 8?

I don’t know if this is the trick to doing that, but I don’t think it is going to hurt.

Creating training content that we can use multiple times over is an investment in the agency that will pay dividends for years to come.

Training process

We use “training” as a blanket team when talking about working with our teams, but it really should be broken down into three categories:

• Teaching

• Training

• Practice/Drilling

They all sound similar, but here is the difference.

Teaching is you talking at someone. You’re imparting knowledge on the other person and its their job to take it in. Think of a teacher at the front of the classroom talking to the class.

Training is something that you and the employee do together. You may lead with them assisting, and over time they’ll lead with you assisting. Think of riding a bike with training wheels, until eventually those training wheels come off.

Practicing or “Drilling” is going to be all about repetitions. Here, the employee is going through the motions to drill in the fundamentals. Like a slugger goes to batting practice or a musician plays their chords, consistent and deliberate practice makes things stick.

All three of these methods are important and have their use cases.

Don’t over emphasize one or the other, mix them in, and then vary the presentation to ensure there is visual, auditory, reading/writing, and kinesthetic focused content.

Drive-by’s

I’m not sure who came up with the term “Driveby” in our agency, but it has seemed to stick over the last year or so.

A drive-by is simple: Its an impromptu role-play between a trainer and a sales or service rep.

They should last about 5 to 10 minutes, and be 100% focused on role-play.

The idea here is to drill the talk paths, tactics, and strategies into the team’s head so what we’re training becomes second nature or “sticky.”

These work well because lets face it, how many reps want to sit in a training listening to someone pontificate at them for an hour?

Nobody! Because thats not how the brain learns. It needs to be active!

And Driveby’s aren’t just for sales, they’re for Customer Service as well.

We’ve been doing some drive-by’s with our service team for the last several months and here is an example of what we’re starting to see:

Drive-by’s can be used to train and role-play on any topics you’d like, but I would recommend picking 5-10 topics per quarter and doing those.

Use the format we listed above. Early in the quarter, ensure there is awareness and knowledge around products, tactics, and strategies. Then ensure people know how to execute on those tactics and strategies.

Once you’ve done that, Drill - Drill - Drill.

Here are some of the topics that we’re currently focused on:

These topics will change over time, and shouldn’t remain static.

Don’t only think about the things the team needs to do better. Focus on the fundamentals too.

You might think - why would you need to train your LSP on the talk-path to “save the number in phone.” Well, haven’t you ever thought something was happening, only to find out people weren’t actually doing it anymore?

Yea, me to. Thats why you do the fundamentals in regular role-play.

We aim to do 2-4 drive-by’s per LSP per week. If there is capacity to do more, go for it, but remember: Too much training can actually be a bad thing.

People can’t focus on 10 things at a time. Pick one or two things to practice, then have the LSP’s implement it between now and the next drive-by.

When it comes to training, the most common reason I hear that there isn’t training happening is: “I don’t have the time”

With drive-by’s, you need 5-10 minutes, here or there, a few times a week.

Our calendars reveal our priorities.

We can all find 5-10 minutes a couple times a week to train our team.

If you’re curious how to get started on this, or want some pointers, shoot me an email.

I’m happy to help.

Training is and will continue to be transformative for our agency, and I’m confident it will be for you too.

On my mind this week:

Do what they don’t

Over the last few weeks I’ve spent a lot of time talking to agents that represent a number of different carriers.

I’ve spoken to Farmers, Allstate, StateFarm, Prudential, American Family, and Independent Agency owners.

And one major theme sticks out: Everyone is focused on what the best are doing instead of thinking about what they’re NOT doing.

Focusing on what other people are doing well is only half of the battle.

I get it. Success breeds success. We are who we hang out with. Why reinvent the wheel?

But you don’t get to the top doing what everyone else does. And maybe you don’t want to get to the top. Maybe you just want to improve the standing that you’re at today.

Thats ok.

But if you want to catch, and then pass the people in front of you, you can’t only do what the best of the best are doing.

Because when you do, you’re banking on taking what they’ve mastered, and doing it better. Seems pretty unlikely right?

But as I talk with agents and owners across the country, its become clear that pretty much every company has ignored and undersold products and markets that are ripe with opportunity.

For instance:

State Farm = Mortgages and Commercial Banking

Farmers = Commercial and Medicare

Allstate = Workplace Benefits (maybe) and Life Products with Renewals

Independent = Trucking, Cyber, and other Limitless opportunities.

There are agents in these companies attacking these product niches, and doing it well.

But most people (myself included) are not.

So when we think about what everyone else is doing, and what they’re NOT doing, we need to ask the 2nd question:

Why are they not doing it?

The answer is rarely “because its not worth it”

Often times its that their skillset doesn’t line up well, they’re focused elsewhere, or maybe they aren’t even aware it exists.

I know I’ve been in the “I didn’t know we had that” multiple times over the last few years.

How often do you look at every market you have and how you get paid on it?

My guess is either not often, or never.

There are riches in the niches.

Is there a product or market you have that pays well, that most people ignore? Probably.

The marketing will be cheaper, and the competition will be low or non-existent.

Every agent has a niche somewhere they can attack. They just need to find it.

P.S - I know that Allstate may not have their Workplace Benefits division forever, but there will be more markets and more niches.

P.P.S - This idea is largely influenced by the “Blue Ocean Strategy” - Check it out.

Andrew’s Picks

A great article on Focus that any leader or business owner should read: Link

A contrarian opinion on hiring - I just loved the writing. Prime example of amazing copywriting: Link

Learning Style Test: Link

I love anything that David Perell creates. Lately, I’ve been listening to his podcast “How I write” - Recently, he had Mark Manson on: Link 

What did you think of this week’s newsletter ?

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