18. Many Parts of Your Insurance Agency Should Be Very Boring

Your reputation in the community should be awesome. And it shouldn't be that you are boring. But the level it's at should always be at a level that is consistent and steady. And people know what they're going to get from you. Your clients know they're going to get things delivered.

It's going to be simple. There are no surprises.

Hey, it's Wade here, and I have a public service announcement for you. If you are an insurance agency owner, many parts of your agency and its operations should be really boring. Like, ridiculously boring make you fall asleep boring. There are some parts of your business that you want to be exciting. You want to be excited about the prospect of new business.

You want to be excited about connecting with your clients and helping them take care of their families. You want to be excited about that new hire that might help you take your business to another level. Those are certain things that, yes, you want to be engaged in and excited about. And hopefully there's a little bit of energy and passion there. On the other hand, there are parts of your business that should be so predictable, so steady, that they're boring.

And some of the examples are your cash flow. Sometimes I'll talk with agency owners and they'll say things like this. I'm not sure if my cash flow is going to be able to pay my bills each month. And so I'm really hoping that at the end of the year, I have enough company bonus money to pay myself back for the loans I've taken this year. That's way too exciting.

That's way too much drama. That's way too much commotion. Maybe as a brand new agent, that might be something you need to do in the short run. But overall, you should be cash flowing every month with room for you to take home a profit, with room for you to be able to know that you're putting aside money for you. You're investing money in your business.

You've set aside money for your taxes, and you're able to make payroll confidently and consistently, knowing that the way you're paid on a regular basis on the initial policy sales, as opposed to, let's say, company bonuses or promotions. You know that usually those numbers are going to be pretty steady. And so you want to have a business that in that way is very simple. You want to have client renewal processes, retention processes that are very simple. You want to have team members that follow up with your clients and connect with your clients and check in with them.

Let's say a few weeks before the policy is set to renew and make sure everything's okay. Now, some agency owners will actually mention to the policyholder, hey, your policy is about to renew. Let's see if there's any questions you have or changes. Some believe that that creates a possibility of a client leaving. And so what they prefer to do is just check in and see how the clients do it.

Hey, just calling to see how everything's going. If there's anything we can help you with, make sure everything's good. Either way, those are processes that again, they're not exciting. There's not a newest, latest, greatest way to say that it's pretty much the same thing. You look out for people and or your team members more precisely, perhaps, are the ones executing that.

But that's something you do that, again, is not very exciting, but it gets you great results. And it allows you to then have that firm foundation that allows you then to try other things, much like in an investment portfolio. If you have 80% or 90% of your money in steady investments, you can afford to with, let's say five to 10% or even a little bit more, tap into some of the riskier, higher risk, possibly higher reward investments because you're taking advantage of the part that's steady. And then the other part is your reputation in the community should be awesome. And it shouldn't be that you are boring.

But the level it's at should always be at a level that is consistent and steady. And people know what they're going to get from you. Your clients know they're going to get things delivered. It's going to be simple. There are no surprises.

And so what I want to remind you is, as much as we as entrepreneurs bring our passion and our desire to make things clever and interesting and shiny and whatever it might be, sometimes you want to take that energy that really hyper creative energy and apply it somewhere outside of your agency. Because a lot of times your agency doesn't need to change. Your team members definitely don't need a new change or a new idea or a new program every 30 days or 60 days, or every time you go to a seminar and come home, or every time you watch a webinar, they need steadiness and they want that your clients, the insurance industry is based on stability. And so as much as many of us, again, love doing daring and adventurous things, I'm going to suggest to you that in your agency that there's something pretty exciting about being pretty boring. I hope you find this helpful.

If there's any questions you have on this, please always feel free to reach out to me either on social media or through the information you see below with how you can connect me. If you want to look at your agency in this situation, you can always reach automatic insurance agency comSTRATEGY and schedule a strategy session with me to go over what's going on with your agency and how, if at all, we can help you. As always, I look forward to helping you create the agency you most desire and help more people and make more money in less time. Do what you do best so you can better enjoy your family, your friends and your life. Thanks so much for listening.