6. Motivation - Step 3 to Create an Automatic Insurance Agency
Create Huge Financial and Non-Financial Opportunities for Those Who Succeed in Implementing Your Automatic Insurance Agency Vision.
Quick Summary
- Ensure that each team member is compensated accurately based on their role and responsibilities, rewarding them for specific achievements and results.
- Communicate the availability of advancement opportunities among the team members of the agency and inform them that they can progress and earn more as they evolve.
- Utilize a software system like Smart Bonus System to provide team members with immediate feedback on their performance and show them what they can earn based on their achievements.
- Establish a development path that requires individuals to excel at their current roles before moving on to more advanced positions to ensure that they are ready for new responsibilities.
- Motivate team members financially by communicating the income potential associated with achieving specific targets and results.
Full (Edited) Transcript
Motivation - Step 3 to Create an Automatic Insurance Agency
So we have our vision for the agency. We're clear about the roles of what we need for the agency. And now we need to get team members and employees excited about doing the type of results that we need done in the agency. And so this is where we want to get very clear about having compensation plans that really go to the heart of what that person is supposed to do. So if I again have a pilot as an example, I might reward that person based on how many miles they've flown, whereas the flight attendant I'm not going to reward them.
Perhaps maybe on miles flown, I might reward them on customer service or customer service happiness or lack of complaints. If it's baggage claim, I might reward them based on baggage accuracy, not how many miles the pilot flew. So we want to make sure each of the roles is being compensated in a way that is accurate to what they're doing. One of the most powerful things you can do is show a career path to your team members. This is something that we've done in the Bonus system company I have called Smart Bonus System, which we've been running for over 20 years now, helping multiline insurance and owners to compensate their team members and have a software that rewards them and pays them in real time to show them what they make based on what they've achieved.
When you show team members that there are different roles in the agency and that they can make more as they evolve, it allows you to communicate very clearly that there's opportunity for advancement. They might or might not take that opportunity, but it's there. So in this first example here, and these are just some sample dummy numbers. I've got a retention experts opportunity. And you see there's these different levels, level 1, 2, 3, 4, and five, and I'm indicating that in order to get bonuses, this person has to make two under retention calls per month.
So that's there I have a lapse rate target that allows me to say based on that, they can make additional money. And then each of these things auto docs, fire docs, and so on. This is them having clients bring in their documentation, their policies with other companies, and they can be rewarded for that. If they get appointments to show for discount reviews or multiline reviews, they can be rewarded for that. And then in this case, if the base size was 24, which that might be a little low for your area, or it might be high for your area, depending on where you're at probably low and most this is going to be what this person could make.
And then you could even have if you want the ability for this person to earn vacation days. So it's very clear if they go well below this, they might not be the right person for the job. But if they're hitting these, then they can be getting bonuses in addition to their base salary compensation. And then they can also see that if they get good at this, you can coach them and say once you've done level four or level five consistently for, let's say three months or six months, then we can start investing time to train you to be an auto fire growth expert.
And to be really clear, I'm not going to invest that time until you've demonstrated you can do the retention.
A lot of agency owners want to train people right away on auto and fire and life and health and retention and sales and service all at once when they end up putting all this energy into somebody all this time. And sometimes it takes so long to figure out if the person is working or not a retention expert from the field, you should know within 30 days a retention expert who's new to the field. You should know within 90 days at most. So again, we're going to create this somewhat hierarchical situation where before you can be an auto fire growth expert for the most part, at least, if you're coming through our development path that you need to first understand how to do retention and get awesome at that.
And when I know you're writing the policies properly, you understand our guidelines.
You understand how to write stuff in a good way. You're not just throwing stuff against the wall. You're not just collecting signatures and expecting somebody else to clean up after you. Once you've done that, then you get a chance to say, okay, you're going to work more and your P&C quotes will probably be higher than this. It depends where your quotes are coming from.
If they're more from centers of influence, you might need less quotes to make your sales. If it's from Internet lead list or other less, it might take more. But again, I've got some criteria to say, okay, if you can do this number of quotes, this sort of a lapse rate, these numbers of auto and fire sales, and these could be product sales or unit sales, or this could be based off of premium. Whichever way you like that based off of that, then there's more income opportunity, and then there's the additional opportunity to earn paid vacation days.
The next role is going to be the multiline expert opportunity.
And again, in order for you to get to that, you have to have performed well in each of the other opportunities. If you think about it, it makes sense. If you can't write the policy correctly in the first place, why would I have you scaling and writing more policies? If you can't solicit auto and fire, what are the chances you're going to be able to solicit a life sale or health sale? So this is also meant to protect the agency owner, but again, shows this opportunity that grows where in this case, we're looking at life and health and or bank or annuity whatever else you happen to sell in your business model, these sales again, a certain lapse rate for the agency, and then the auto and fire sales.
But in addition to that, you're doing life sales and health sales and bank sales. If that's part of what you do or annuity sales and client reviews, multiline reviews, discount reviews, and again, greater income opportunity, an extra vacation days. And in this case, depending on how you put this. And again, these are sample numbers and dummy numbers for the amounts. But you could be telling somebody, look, if you get certain levels, I'll let you earn up to 48 days of paid vacation.
I'll let you earn a four day work week or a three day weekend lifestyle. How do you want to word that? But again, it's going to be based off of results. It's not going to be gifted to you. So I don't have to take that risk and say yes, I guarantee you a four day work week, or I guarantee you all this time off.
But if you're a salesperson and you're getting these sort of results, do I really care if you show up on that Friday? No, because I know the retention expert team is taking care of the renewal sales. And I know you're doing the multiline sales. If you get them done in four days, good for you. And then once we have that understanding of the roles that they can grow in from step to step to step, we want to be able to show them with interal what it looks like.
So in this role, we're showing them if you did certain types of production, here's where you can make 30,000, here's where you can make 40,000. Here's where you can make almost 60,000. And again, based on your marketplace and your agency premiums, that would be something you'd be able to see accordingly. And again, this is all from our smart bonus system in our software that helps any owners compensate their team members and excite them to do the work. And so financially we can motivate people.
We can't fix people. We can't change people. We can't make people do something they don't want to do. But if a person is engaged and excited and wants to grow financially, we can help communicate that opportunity and communicate in a way that's engaging. That helps the person see that you're serious about compensating people really well for great results and that you're the right person for them to be working with.
In our next video, we're going to talk about how do you hold producers accountable. So in step three, we're showing them the carrot, the opportunity to great possibility of what could be in step four, we need to show them where we expect them to be and at what levels. They'll make a lot of money. At what levels, perhaps they'll either have a job review or be let go. I hope you find this helpful.
As always, I look forward to helping you help more people and make more money in less time. Do what you do best so you can better enjoy your family, your friends in your life. If you have any questions on this, please let me know. Thanks again for listening.
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