Tag Archives: hiring

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I’m Helping Randy Get His Dream Job

I have played a very small part in an interesting marketing experiment that might be a good lesson for how agencies could leverage some of these new marketing tools.

A little background — I ran into my neighbor and friend, Randy Elrod, and his wife, Chris, at a local Mexican restaurant last week. They asked us (my daughter Stephanie) to join them and during the conversation I found out they were strategizing on how Randy could win a contest to land his dream job.

Murphy-Goode is a family-owned winery located within Sonoma Country’s Alexander Valley. They decided they wanted to leverage Web 2.0 tools to promote their wines to a wider audience. They wanted someone who really knows blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to get the word out about their wines. Randy is that person. He has taught me a lot about using social media.

To find just the right person, Murphy-Goode created a contest. They have asked each applicant to create a 60-second video and upload it to the contest site. They are then asking each applicant to demonstrate their social media influence by having their friends and followers vote for their video. Getting the most votes doesn’t guarantee a job, but it does help get an interview — the next step in the process. They will pick 10 people to interview and from them select the final candidate. The winner will live at the winery (at no cost) for six months and be paid $10,000 per month. The title of the position is: “Murphy-Goode Wine Country Lifestyle Correspondent.”

We talked for a while and brainstormed on what his 60-second video should look like. They invited me to their house the next night to participate in a tasting of all of Murphy-Goode’s wines. Randy wanted to make sure he liked the wines! So we tasted eight bottles ranging from white to red. I was glad I could walk home!

My small part is during the tasting they shot some video for background and I am in the final video he submitted to Murphy-Goode. Well, at least the back of me is in the video.

I want to help Randy, and you can help as well. Why would you do this? Because it is an opportunity for you to experience firsthand how you might be able to use social web tools in your agency.

Here is your part. Please take 70 seconds to complete these four simple steps:

  1. Watch Randy’s very cool video on the Murphy-Goode website.
  2. Enter your email address to vote for Randy.
  3. Wait for the verification email and click on the link inside the message body. Note: Your vote will not count until you do this!
  4. Tweet this post or mention it on your Facebook page, or anywhere else you might have some connections.

That’s it. Pretty neat little experiment, huh? Not only is Murphy-Goode getting hundreds of thousands of dollars in free publicity, they are using the tools they want to develop to find just the right person for the job.

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Attracting New Talent

It is becoming increasingly important for everyone in the insurance industry to take a hard look at our ability to attract new talent. Of the approximately 78 million Baby Boomers, about 8,000 turn 60 every day. The industry has a long way to go in order to attract and retain enough people to replace retiring Boomers.

An edited excerpt from a recent e-mail I received highlights at least part of the problem:

Dear Sir,

I found your article in the April edition of Rough Notes (Agency Marketing Technology column) of interest. I agree that the insurance industry has not embraced technology like it should… I joined the insurance industry in September 2006 and departed this past January. One reason I left was due to the lack of technology.

Most [insurance company] Web sites did not give good quotes. Or, two weeks after the sale, the company would terminate the sale. Needless to say, my clients were frustrated with me and the fact that their insurance rates kept changing. I found myself phoning underwriters on a regular basis with my clients sitting in my office reviewing quotes. Underwriters would then change and (for the most part) increase the rate, or tell me they wanted to pass on the sale. One company even had to approve all sales afterwards, again changing rates or canceling.

The agency owner didn’t want to invest in technology and didn’t see the need for basic items—such as a laser printer. Instead, my clients sat in my office while a multi-function copier/scanner/printer slowly printed documents. One client commented that his home printer worked faster than mine.

It was hard to find clients in our low-wage market who could afford insurance and deal with insurance company obstacles… I worked for $7 an hour while the agency owner spent the profits on herself.

You likely do a much better job of trying to provide the technology tools your staff needs to effectively “make the sale.” But don’t get too smug. The level and type of technology that a recent college graduate uses (dare I say expects?) is far above what exists in most agencies I have visited.

How many people who enter this industry end up leaving due to frustration with the antiquated ways we get our work done? The frustration that results from the cumbersome and time-consuming process of trying to obtain a bindable quote from an insurance company is only one example. How many more don’t we hear about?

Many who have been around for a while see that progress is being made— but are things changing for the better fast enough for the kids we need to hire? Or are they just going to give up and leave? Worse, maybe they’ll never come to work with us in the first place.

If you want to attract and retain the talent you need to be successful in the future, you have to be willing to invest in appropriate technology. There is no time like the present to begin exploring and experimenting.

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Plan Now for Changing Demographics

The biggest expense in any agency is the staff. Of course, a quality staff is also the most valuable asset. Unfortunately, most agents I meet report that they are having a hard time identifying, recruiting, training, and retaining qualified staff.

This problem is not going to go away. In fact, it is going to get worse. Changing demographics are going to have a profound effect on the ability of your agency to remain successful. Here are some trends to consider:

  • The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects a severe labor shortage by 2012—just four short years from now.
  • There are currently about 78 million Boomers who are beginning to retire in increasing numbers.
  • There are only about 48 million GenXers in the workforce to replace the retiring Boomers.
  • There are about 80 million Millennials (Gen Y) who will be entering the workforce in the years ahead, but most agency owners don’t understand how to attract or manage them.

Other businesses are facing the same problem and are aggressively implementing recruiting and training programs to bridge this growing gap.

Eye opener
Try this. Calculate the average age of your existing internal staff. Do the same for your producers. If your agency is like many that I see, the resulting number will be over 50 (maybe well over 50). What are you going to do when your existing staff begins to retire? How are you going to create an agency culture where a 20- or 30-year-old will want to spend his or her time?

There are some things you can do as you plan to fill this gap. These include:

  • Keep up to date: Are you providing the technology tools that younger employees expect? Keeping current can also create problems that need to be managed. Your existing staff has been doing their work the same way for a long time. Change always creates stress. Plan for the change so that you can at least minimize the stress.
  • Technology can be an advantage: Continually experiment with new technology tools to see which are worth using and which are not.
  • Outsourcing: Examine outsourcing as a strategic option. Outsourcing can take many forms, from carrier service centers to hiring an “employee” overseas.
  • Don’t pay lip service to training: Few agencies use the full potential of the technology they already have. Ongoing training always seems to take a back seat to other agency priorities. This is a mistake.
  • Try new things: Experiment with new recruiting tools. I met an agency last week that successfully used “help wanted” ads on CraigsList.com to find new sales talent. You need to go where the talent goes to find new employees. Don’t know what CraigsList is? Go find out.
  • Recruit second career retirees: Unlike their parents, when Boomers retire they often start second careers to remain active and engaged. These are mature people with knowledge and experience. While they may not want to work full time, they can be a valuable source of talent.

These demographic trends need to be part of your agency strategic planning process. Being open to new ideas and creative will help you weather these changes.

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Strategic Outsourcing

Outsourcing. Just saying the word out loud raises questions and emotions. During several recent presentations, I have started talking about outsourcing as an option that agencies should consider. In fact, a few agencies have already started hiring staff from another country to work for them. That said, many agency owners and staff react negatively to the thought of outsourcing. They ask: “Why would we take a job and move it overseas? What would my clients think?” These are valid concerns.

While outsourcing is not a good option for every agency, I do believe it is something that agency owners should at least consider. Thinking about outsourcing strategically allows you to select functions or specific tasks that can be done less expensively — and often more accurately — by someone not located in your agency.

As an example, I recently received a phone call from a person at a small agency in South Carolina who asked if I knew of any resources they could utilize to hire remote staff. The agency owner explained that he was very frustrated with the problems he had encountered trying to hire staff locally. When he did hire someone, he spent a significant amount of time and resources training that individual. Inevitably, the person left the agency just when he or she was becoming productive. This particular agency had already outsourced all of its accounting functions to a US-based firm that specializes in insurance agency accounting. The agency owner was very happy with the arrangement and wanted to explore a similar arrangement for other positions in the agency.

Where to outsource

Specific transactions: Review transactions that are completed in the agency that don’t add value, such as issuing standard certificates of insurance, or as described above, accounting functions.

A staff person: There is a growing list of agencies that have hired people located in China or India to work full-time for the agency. These people access the agency systems using a remote connection. The cost advantage is significant.

A virtual assistant: A growing number of people are hiring assistants to complete time-consuming and labor-intensive tasks. A friend of mine, who is a CEO of a large publishing company in Nashville, requires his direct reports to hire a virtual assistant for personal or business tasks. He gives them a $500 budget. He told me that he requires this so his staff will gain practical experience in how outsourcing can work.

Simple data entry: I’m currently working with an agency that is changing to a new management system. They have determined they are not going to convert any data from the old system. To reduce the amount of keystrokes necessary to get data into the new system, we have come up with three strategies. First, we will do initial downloads from their carriers. Then we will use the import function on the new system to import large schedules. Finally, we will hire (i.e., outsource) data entry for any items that are left. This allows staff to concentrate on their strengths and not waste time on simple data entry.

Outsourcing raises many questions. How do you find someone? What about security? What tasks can be assigned? How do you monitor quality? Be sure to consider each of these questions before you even think about outsourcing.

In my experience, using outsourcing strategically in an agency can build your competitive advantage. What’s your opinion?