GanisCo

Monitor and Measure Everything in your Insurance Agency

Stuart Ganis — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 16:32:10 +0000

As we travel the country and meet with insurance agency owners, they often tell us they’re a referral based business. When we ask how many referrals they received in the past month the answer is always “not sure”. The reality is, these agency owners have no idea how many referral quotes come into their agency or any type of quotes for that matter.

The CEO of Astonish; Adam DeGraide, always uses the example of air traffic control. Can you imagine if airports didn’t measure and monitor every single in and outbound flight in airports? What would happen? Chaos! Same thing applies to your insurance agency. Would it be helpful if you knew how may quote, endorsement, payment and other service or sales calls came into your agency? Would it be helpful for you to look at a spreadsheet at the end of each month and know exactly how many calls each CSR/Producer took, how many were sales, how many were service and how many were sold or rounded out? You don’t need to answer the question because it’s invariably YES.

As you look for ways to increase the production of your agency, the most important thing to remember is that you can’t set goals on where you want to go if you don’t know where you are today. Developing a bullet proof sales and service process that enables you to measure and monitor every inbound phone call will help you determine your next course of action.

You could centralize certain functions if you’re receiving a lot of a certain service request, you can give new opportunities to closers if you know everyone’s closing ratio and you can make intelligent staffing decisions by knowing these metrics.

Before you spend money on hiring, monitor and measure everything in your agency. In most cases people are a lot less busy then they claim to be when you track the numbers. And remember, numbers don’t lie.

If you’d like help implementing a sales process in your agency, please contact us for a free no obligation phone consultation to learn how we can help you Find,Sell and Keep more clients for less cost.

Insurance Agency Coaching and Consulting is a Great Investment

Stuart Ganis — Tue, 31 May 2011 03:08:56 +0000

I’ve been in nearly 300 insurance agencies in the past 5 years for training, coaching, consulting, marketing and M&A services. It’s amazing how much the business has changed in the past 5,10,15 years. Days of running a yellow page ad, sponsoring a little league team and ringing phones are long gone for most. The fact is, the modern consumer moved and changed their buying habits; but the independent insurance agent hasn’t.

For an insurance agency to grow in 2011, you need a strong web presence to capture your local community. You need a solid social media strategy and most importantly, you need a World Class Sales Culture. Whether your agency has 8 employees or 80, your People, Process and Tools must all be in working order. Many agencies we meet with don’t know how to start building these essential functions, so they do nothing. The key to succeeding is to do something, anything!

If you’re ready to implement some of these strategies but have no idea where to start, you can hire professionals that specialize in the Independent Agency System to help you get started. Our firm has been in the independent agency system for 22 years and can help you Find-Sell and Keep more clients for less cost.

Happy Memorial Day

Stuart Ganis — Tue, 31 May 2011 02:49:03 +0000

We’d like to thank all of the men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice to ensure our freedom. Sometimes we take freedom for granted and it’s important for us to recognize the people that make it all possible. As we head into the summer, keep in mind that your charisma, motivation and attitude are the keys to your success in your personal and professional life. Stay focused on what’s important and have a great month of June. If there’s anything we can do to help you or your business, please do not heistate to contact us.

This is a Great Time to Sell your Independent Insurance Agency

Stuart Ganis — Sun, 22 May 2011 18:35:50 +0000

Many agents that own insurance agencies are under the impression that this is a bad time to sell their agency. Our statistics show that over the past 5 months, we’ve received 32 buyer inquiries to every 1 seller. Many agency owners that are considering selling, are afraid that the soft market and bad economy will not fetch them top dollar for their book of business. The reality is, it’s the exact opposite!

You can tell by the numbers of 32:1, that there’s a lot of demand for independent agencies. In addition to this, many of these buyers have larger books and because they’re not growing organically, they want to acquire books of business in order to show some growth for the year.

Agencies are in a tough position these days. If you don’t have a World Class Sales Culture, an above average web presence and a staff that understands how to sell to the modern consumer, growing is a very difficult proposition. With Cap Gains taxes constantly under fire, the market showing no signs of hardening and direct writers taking market share with their online presence, there’s no better time to sell than NOW.

If you’d like a free, confidential, no obligation consultation about selling your agency or book of business, please contact us today for more information.

Personal and Commercial Lines Departments need to Collaborate

Stuart Ganis — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 23:39:53 +0000

As I tour the country and meet with countless insurance agencies about building a sales culture, it amazes me how many agency departments don’t collaborate with one another. We’ve implemented numerous ideas into agencies for Personal Lines to contact Commercial clients and cross-sell clients Personal Lines products. In most cases the Commercial Producers are uncomfortable with the Personal Lines Department contacting “their” clients. The question you have to ask yourself is; am I doing my clients an injustice by not offering every product we sell? If the answer to that questions is no, stop reading. If you firmly believe that you’re hurting your client(s) by not offering them every product you sell, then why do you let this happen? Often times it’s not a technical issue, but a heart issue within the agency. It’s important for everyone in the agency to communicate and collaborate to make sure we sell every line of business we offer to every client we have.

Tim Sawyer, the President of Astonish Results has articulated this message well. Take a few minutes to watch this video and learn the importance of colloboration between all departments in your agency.

If we can ever help you put together a sales process for this or anything else in your agency, please contact us.

We can Help you Grow or Sell your Insurance Agency

Stuart Ganis — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 21:32:13 +0000

It’s been a while since we posted in this space. One year ago, Ganis Consulting merged into Astonish Results and became a part of their Training and Coaching team. In addition to joining their Training and Coaching team, we launched a new division focusing on helping Insurance Agency Owners Sell their Insurance Agency.

Agency Acquisitions has helped over 15 insurance agency sellers maximize the value of their book by matching the agency with a buyer that fits their particular agency. We have over 10 years experience selling insurance agencies and can definitely help you sell yours.

Astonish Coaching has been helping insurance agencies grow organically by helping them Build a World Class sales Culture, make workflows more efficient and teaching sales basics every Sales Agent and CSR should practice.

Our former GanisCo team has had Astonishing Success as members of Astonish Results and hope you’ll check this blog often for tips on how to Find-Sell-Keep more clients in your insurance agency.

If we can ever help you with any area of your insurance agency, please contact us.

Insurance Agencies Should Focus on Sales Training

Stuart Ganis — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 01:34:11 +0000

Sales Training in Insurance Agencies is not something practiced regularly. If an insurance agency offers any type of guidance, meetings or courses, the material usually revolves around insurance. It’s obvious that we all need to understand the product we sell and one of the greatest parts of this business is that you learn something new every day. However, Insurance Agencies don’t pay enough, or in many cases any attention into the art of selling. If you look at the top growing agencies in the country, they all have one thing in common. The culture, in the agency emphasizes sales and growth. At the end of the day, we can know more about insurance than any of our competitors, co-workers and clients but it won’t help us grow if we don’t know how to build rapport, relationships and use basic sales technique.

Since joining Astonish Coaching, we’ve created the best training program for insurance agencies in the world. Clients that implement and utilize our training programs have grown their insurance agencies substantially. Our trianing program combines onsite and offsite training and has changed the lives of hundreds of agencies throughout the US.

We urge you to contact us so you can learn how to Find-Sell and Keep more clients profitability.

Selling an Insurance Agency Needs Expert Representation

Stuart Ganis — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 01:13:43 +0000

We recently took a listing from an insurance agency owner that has been trying to sell their agency for over a year. They called us extremely frustrated over the lack of results they were getting from a Business Broker that sold all types of businesses. This wasn’t the first time we heard this, since we’ve been selling insurance agencies for over 5 years.

The difference between hiring Business Brokers and an Insurance Agency Consultant is that we understand your business. We know to look for a buyer that has the same markets, agency management system and of course money. When an insurance agency is listed for sale, there are dozens of inquiries from people in the insurance business and many from people not in the insurance industry.

Hiring representation can help you weed out the liars from the buyers so you can focus on running your agency and generating income. It also allows the firm representing you to ask the hard questions to a buyer and help you sell your agency.

Since Ganis Consulting merged with Astonish Results, we’ve launched a new Insurance Agency M&A division. That new division has the most experienced Insurance M&A Specialists in the country that can help you sell your Personal, Commercial or Life/Health Insurance Agency. We urge you to contact us if you’re considering selling your insurance agency in the next 6 months-1 year.

Astonish Coaching Site is a Great Tool for Insurance Agents

Stuart Ganis — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 00:57:12 +0000

As many of our followers know, we recently merged forces with Astonish Results. We’ve joined their Coaching Division which specializes in creating customized training packages for insurance agencies. For more information about this new division, please visit astonishcoaching.com

Our team has stayed in tact and whether you’re looking to increase the production in your current agency, conduct sales or other training, or even sell your insurance agency, we can help. Please contact us for a free consultation to see how we can help your agency.

Do you have Questions about Astonish Results Digital Marketing System?

Stuart Ganis — Wed, 05 May 2010 05:34:41 +0000

A number of insurance agents and brokers have contacted us recently to ask questions about Astonish Results and how their Digital Marketing System is literally changing the insurance industry. I always suggest that people visit the Astonish website as well as the Astonish Results Blog. There are tons of press articles, videos and other information for people to learn about Astonish. What most people don’t realize is that this isn’t just a website and some internet marketing, this is an entire system packed with benefits to help you change the culture of your agency. In our consulting and training endeavors over the past 5 years, we’ve heard the same excuse a million times. “I’m doing everything I’ve always done, I can’t figure out why my business is shrinking”. If you keep doing the same thing, how can you possibly expect a different result? The reality is, there are as many people insured today as there were in your best years as an agent. The problem is, you’re still looking for them in places they’re not. The direct writers spend 100’s of millions on TV and Radio telling people to go where? Yes, the internet!

Do you have a strategy to find these customers? Do you have a strategy to generate not only leads but business on the internet? Whether you are or not, this Digital Marketing System deserves a look if you’re in the Insurance Business.

Nowadays there’s no such thing as staying the same, you’re either growing or your not.