Many years ago, the United Negro College Fund (I told you it was many years ago!) had a series of TV ads with the slogan “A mind is a terrible thing to waste”. The idea was we should invest in what’s important. People.
I’d like to think about the same idea with respect to the people who create sales (also known as income) for our agencies.
But. Generally speaking they aren’t producers. They are agency owners!
It seems most agency owners want to hire producers because they think they are the answer to agency growth. If you think about it much, though, you’ll realize that most producers are just blood sucking growth killers!
I say that because producers often demand a commission rate, which is too high for the agency to make a profit paying, they frequently demand to own their book of business, most don’t produce much, there is a tremendously high turnover rate, they demand a tremendous amount of time to train and manage, and often, if they’re any good, they leave and start their own agencies!
All of this creates a huge drain on an agency’s capital, staff time, and agency owner’s time!
What if, instead of hiring producers, an agency hired more service people? Well, then the agency owner, who usually is a good producer, could spend more of his time selling and creating growth.
More on this topic in my next blog post…