Tag Archives: tips

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Helping Agents Stay Ahead in the Technology Game

As I travel across the country talking to agents, the question I hear most often is, “Can you just give us a couple quick tips on the top things we can do right now to make our agency more profitable and effective?”

The answer is, YES!

As an insurance technology consultant and editor, I’ve been able to discover the cool new tools, websites, gizmos and gadgets that can make your life easier, more productive, and more competitive.

I have created a new, weekly emailed newsletter — Steve Anderson’s Tech Tip — that will highlight one new “thing” that will help an agency increase productivity and effectiveness: Tech Tip is short, to the point, and quick to read.

After working with literally hundreds of agencies of every shape and size, I’ve come up with what I believe are the best agency technology resources available anywhere.

Is there a charge for Tech Tip? The answer is: NO!

This is my way of supporting agents in these trying economic times — not to mention that I really do love finding the latest gizmos and gadgets that can increase productivity — just ask my wife!

All you have to do to sign up is go to www.SteveAnderson.com and complete the simple Tech Tip subscription form on the right sidebar. Once you verify your email address, you will begin receiving the newsletter every Thursday morning. And, of course, I will never give your name out to anyone and you can unsubscribe at any time.

One more thing: As you begin to get my Tech Tip newsletter, always feel free to email me with comments, new ideas or products that have worked for you. I’ll check them out and spread the word!

Question: What technology tools do you use to gain a competitive edge and increase profitability?

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Working with Word Tables

Most agency management systems use Microsoft Word to create proposals and schedules of insurance. These documents typically rely on the use of Word tables as a formatting tool. Unfortunately, many people in the agency do not have adequate training on how to edit these tables once they are created. Here are a few tips that may make working with tables a little easier.

A table has columns, rows, and cells. Some parts of a table can only be seen if you display all formatting marks by clicking “Show/Hide” on the Standard toolbar.

Insert text before a table: To insert text before a table that is on the first line of the first page in a document, click in the upper-left cell in the first row of the table, and then press ENTER. Note: If you have text in the upper-left cell, place the insertion point before the text. Then, type the new text you want to appear above the table.

Align table on a page: Select the table by clicking on it. On the Table menu, click Table Properties, and then click the Table tab. Under Alignment, select the option you want. To center a table on the page, select the center alignment option. You can indent the table if you aligned it left and then enter a number in the Indent from left box.

Table Properties: The Table Properties dialog box described above also allows you to make many adjustments to columns, rows, and cells. For example you can also align text within an individual table cell by clicking the Cell tab and then selecting the alignment you want (top, center, bottom).

To insert a tab within a table cell, press CTRL+TAB.

Sort lists inside a table: Select the table you want to sort. Then, click the Table menu item and click Sort. Select the sort options you want.

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Add Branding to your Web Site

As you are surfing the web you may have noticed some web site that add a logo to the address field in your browser. Called a Favicon (which stands for “Favorite Icon”), it is a customized icon image that you can add to help your web site stands out from the crowd. Every time someone navigates to or bookmarks your site, your customized icon will be displayed in their Favorites folder in place of the generic Internet Explorer logo. This function cannot be turned off and is completely transparent to the browser. Your site can become much more noticeable among the other bookmarks, something that may help you draw more repeat visitors.

Creating your own Favicon is an easy process. First, you’ll need to design your icon. Because the image size is 16×16 pixels, you need to keep the detail to a minimum and use only a few colors. You’ll need to make a file called “favicon.ico” in authentic icon format. It is important to note that an icon file is not a bitmap, and a bitmap file cannot be renamed with an .ico extension. There are a number of different online Favicon programs that will help you create your version. Google for Favicon to see the options.

After you’ve created your icon and named it correctly (favicon.ico), you have a few choices: First, you can place a copy of your icon in the root directory of your Web site where most of your pages likely reside. If you have a large site with multiple directories, you should place a copy of your icon in each directory. Once this is done visitors to your site will automatically see your new logo.