Summary:

In this episode of The Digital Broker, Ryan Deeds and Melissa Wilder confront the day-to-day challenges affecting so many account managers, how they often lead to burnout, and what to do about it. By listening to this episode, you will learn:

• Why the account manager’s job has become more challenging in recent decades, even as technology has made everybody else’s job easier
• Why account managers tend to inherit everybody else’s tasks and mistakes, and how to correct this injustice
• How to separate account manager responsibilities from everyone else’s at the agency by applying the principles of operational excellence, relieving account manager burnout and restoring passion and purpose to the job

The Digital Broker podcast is brought to you buy Indio Technologies. Indio turns the application and renewal process into an online TurboTax like experience for your clients. As a result, the 1,000+ agents using Indio provide their clients with a top-rated customer experience, reduce their E&O exposure, and outgrow their competition. To learn more about Indio, click here!

Recap:

This is going to come as a shock to a lot of people, but being an account manager used to be fun. You were on the road more, playing a bigger part in the negotiation process: meeting with clients and carriers, getting to know the insured, honing and using finesse and other stimulating skills.

What a far cry from the account manager lifestyle today. From the moment they enter their office, which they’ll never leave before the day is up, account managers are inundated by a stream of tedious, disparate tasks and overwhelmed by the pressure to get them all done today.

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Summary:

In this episode of The Digital Broker, Steve and Ryan examine compensation structures and the impact they have on insurance agency operations. By listening to this episode, you will learn:

• How the compensation structure makes or breaks an agency
• What a typical compensation structure looks like inside an agency
• How increasing or decreasing different commission points incentivizes different behaviors
• How to design a compensation structure that scales, maximizes potential and pays everyone fairly

The Digital Broker podcast is brought to you buy Indio Technologies. Indio turns the application and renewal process into an online TurboTax like experience for your clients. As a result, the 1,000+ agents using Indio provide their clients with a top-rated customer experience, reduce their E&O exposure, and outgrow their competition. To learn more about Indio, click here!

Recap:

Ask 10 principals to name the challenges facing insurance agencies today, and about 9 of them will say something about motivating producers to get out there and produce. After all, that’s what feeds agency revenue: new business and renewals. In an effort to drum up both of those, principals will sometimes apply compensation structures that are all over the place. This is especially the case at smaller agencies, where business is done more informally, with agents and brokers cutting each other in on improvised, handshake deals.

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Summary:

In this episode of The Digital Broker, Steve and Ryan discuss the benefits of outsourcing via freelancing platforms like Upwork. By listening to this episode, you will learn:

• Why freelancing platforms are the way to go for any agency looking to outpace the competition by achieving more goals
• The basics of putting together a job listing, posting it on Upwork, filtering applicants, and selecting who to work with
• Which issues come up most often—transparency, accountability, and payments—and how to deal with them

The Digital Broker podcast is brought to you buy Indio Technologies. Indio turns the application and renewal process into an online TurboTax like experience for your clients. As a result, the 1,000+ agents using Indio provide their clients with a top-rated customer experience, reduce their E&O exposure, and outgrow their competition. To learn more about Indio, click here!

Recap:

There are times inside an agency when it feels like everything is happening at once. Various to-do items trickle down and overwhelm the people at their desks. Sometimes, there simply isn’t enough time or personnel to do everything. Other times, some items will require technical skills nobody possesses. Either way, you’re stuck with two options.

Eliminate some items.

Or outsource them—but how, and to whom?

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Summary:

In this episode of The Digital Broker, Steve and Ryan talk about the challenge of holding producers accountable to a process. By listening to this episode, you will learn:

• Why producers are inclined to resist any process
• Where the interests of producers clash with those of everyone else at the agency, and where they converge
• How to get producers on the same page as everyone else
• When it’s wise to let producers do their own thing

The Digital Broker podcast is brought to you buy Indio Technologies. Indio turns the application and renewal process into an online TurboTax like experience for your clients. As a result, the 1,000+ agents using Indio provide their clients with a top-rated customer experience, reduce their E&O exposure, and outgrow their competition. To learn more about Indio, click here!

Recap:

Any talk of sales and marketing inside an insurance agency must involve producers. There can be no sales and marketing reform without their approval and participation. If you’re serious about integrating your sales and marketing processes into your operations, which we’ve recommended doing in a previous episode, you’re going to have to hold your producers accountable to a process.

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Summary:

In this episode of The Digital Broker, Steve and Ryan talk about sales and marketing as an operational process. By listening to this episode, you will learn:

• How the sales and marketing processes differ, and where they intertwine
• How the processes tend to fall apart in the absence of operational oversight
• How an operational makeover of sales and marketing makes the processes sustainable, repeatable, and scalable, ensuring growth and the survival of the agency

The Digital Broker podcast is brought to you buy Indio Technologies. Indio turns the application and renewal process into an online TurboTax like experience for your clients. As a result, the 1,000+ agents using Indio provide their clients with a top-rated customer experience, reduce their E&O exposure, and outgrow their competition. To learn more about Indio, click here!

Recap:

Though we’ll talk about sales and marketing as a single process, they ought to be defined differently. Marketing is the process by which you identify leads and prospects—people who might have an interest in what you’re selling. Sales is everything you do after that to get a check.

Here, we won’t be so concerned with how to market or sell better, but rather the operational aspect of either process. How do you integrate sales and marketing into your agency’s operations so that the process is more sustainable, repeatable, and scalable?

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