Where are Your Producers?

Enforcing time management doesn’t have to mean micromanagement.

Maybe you remember the famous response of Lucy Van Pelt each time Charlie Brown kicked wildly at the football she lifted from the tee at the last second. It went something like this: HAHAHAHAHA!

Some agents and agency consultants have a similar response when asked how to enforce time management for producers; they chuckle before answering. “As long as they produce business, we don’t care where they are,” said one agency owner. “I don’t know where my producers are on a given day, and I don’t want to police them that closely,” said another. “If I had to do that, I wouldn’t keep them very long.”

Agency owners with a team of successful producers say that the key to producer productivity is not enforcing time management, but teaching good habits and then providing careful direction. “If you need to manage the time of people you shouldn’t see, you’re insecure that they’re doing something they shouldn’t be,” says Joe Merullo, president of Vreeland Insurance in Rockaway, N.J. “You need to manage their results, not their time.”

Environment of Necessity

In 2006, effective producer results are more critical than ever. Competition from all corners, a softening market and the rising cost of doing business demand that to be profitable, an independent agency have zero tolerance for slack producers.

But that doesn’t mean you should waste your time by trying to monitor theirs. “Producers must be self-motivated,” says Merullo, who directs five successful sales people. “Most good producers are entrepreneurs and free spirits,” he continues. As one himself, he says he would have resisted others’ efforts to manage his time, even when he was a new agent. “I may have done it,” he admits, “but I wouldn’t have had as good of results as I would have on my own.”

Instead of micromanaging your producers’ every move, set goals for each one and then provide the environment and the tools necessary to efficiently reach those goals. Then see what happens, and adjust your program as needed.

“One problem I see is that producers get involved in many things they shouldn’t, like [extended] administrative tasks,” says Virginia Bates, president of VMB Associates, Inc., a Melrose, Mass.-based insurance consultancy. “If you alter your agency’s job descriptions so that producers are cut out of the service work loop as much as possible—and you change their compensation program so that they will have to write more new business to live comfortably—producers will manage their own time, because they’ll have to, to get paid.”

In other words, your mission is to create an environment of necessity, not one that rewards renewals with comfortable commissions. That’s why Vreeland Insurance pays 50% less for renewals than for new business. “If the renewal split you’ve given them makes them comfortable,” Bates says, “they have no reason to change their strategies and write new business.” On the other hand, if they know renewals won’t bring in enough to pay their mortgage, producers must find ways to earn more, or leave their jobs in search of easier terms or a position outside sales. If they opt instead to settle for mediocrity, “the kindest thing you can do is remove them from sales,” Bates says. Tolerating one poor producer saps the morale of others and wastes everyone’s time. “Failure is contagious,” she warns. “Soon you’ll develop a time management problem in other layers of your agency.”

Provide the Tools

Before lowering the boom on failing producers, however, ask yourself if the agency has provided the tools to achieve success:
• Are all sales people equipped with laptops so they can enter and submit information off-site, or do you expect them to come into the office to use a desktop?
• Have you trained all producers to use the agency management system effectively, or do you allow them to turn in handwritten, incomplete applications to your CSRs?
• Do you provide and train your sales people to use helpful software, such as Microsoft Outlook and a lead-tracking program?
• Have you trained your CSRs to return incomplete applications and other forms to the originating producer?

Donald Wetmore, president of the Productivity Institute in Stratford, Conn., has found that everyone works differently and uses time in ways that deliver some type of gratification. Thus, to force every producer to work 40 hours a week would chain some to their desks while stopping others from finishing their tasks. “I’ve met super producers who put in only 20 hours a week,” Wetmore says, “and I’ve met others who work 70 hours a week, every week. If you buy into the idea that your work will take 70 hours a week, then it will. But if you don’t, you’ll figure out a way to work less and still be highly effective.”

If sales directors set goals and provide tools, producers must draw on their own motivation to do whatever is necessary to succeed. “I’m not a big fan of discipline, especially when you’re dealing with adults,” Wetmore says. “People will do what’s in their self-interest.” And that should include managing their time well enough to meet their quotas.

Laying Ground Rules

But as Garry Kaufman points out, established producers have figured out how to manage their time. It’s the newer ones who need help. “There are many have time to stand around and talk—but new people don’t.”

Accordingly, Kaufman enforces a degree of time management on new producers. “We need to help them establish good habits early,” he explains. “If we can teach them [how to use their time well] and they do it throughout their careers, they’ll be successful. Getting them there is the hard part.”

Nor does Kaufman give mid-stage producers complete autonomy. Developing producers, experiencing their first tastes of success, often mistakenly believe that they’ve learned everything there is to know. Meanwhile, renewals and service issues are springing up from previous sales. “These issues can consume them if not managed effectively,” Kaufman says. “I tell my producers to come in at odd hours if necessary so they can get this work done without staff interruptions.”

Even so, Kaufman knows from experience that producers spend too much time in the office completing applications, researching prospects and putting out fires when they instead should be writing new business. That’s one reason Galveston Insurance Associates created a sales center. Employees in the sales center set appointments, help with account research and generate leads. Producers are not charged for these services, but are expected to use them to generate more business. “Producers are pretty much out of the process after they collect all the [policy] information and hand it to a CSR,” Kaufman says. As a result, they are free to continue selling until the policy is ready for delivery to the customer.

Ironically, perhaps, the sales center monitors producer activities because employees must have access to producers’ calendars to set up sales appointments. “If they’re meeting their goals and playing golf on Thursday afternoons, I’m OK with that,” Kaufman says. “If they’re not meeting their goals and playing on Thursday, that’s a different story.”

Time vs. Crisis Management

One well-known obstacle to time management is the perception that it stifles creativity. But Keith Rosen, author of “Time Management for Sales Professionals” and president of ProfitBuilders.com, says nothing could be further from the truth. “I tell people that if they want to reach a goal, they first must have a routine,” Rosen says. A routine comprises of a list of tasks that you perform daily, from waking and enjoying coffee to going on appointments to writing business. Certain tasks, such as eating breakfast, are organized chronologically, while others, such as the processes required to land appointments, are prioritized by the amount of time allotted to them.

The alternative to time management is management by crisis—and, says Rosen, reliance on adrenaline rather than planning to get the job done. “We’ve learned that we can craft an entire lifestyle around adrenaline rushes,” he says. As a result, many people view time-management as boring and tedious, because it doesn’t require or produce as much of the energy producing hormone.

“Trying to instill routine into an adrenaline- powered life is like trying to mix oil and water,” Rosen posits. But by learning to enjoy and prioritize the processes that lead to results, the results take care of themselves. Clients who’ve released their addiction to adrenaline and embraced time management have told Rosen how much it changed their lives. “They’ve learned to eliminate distractions, say no [when necessary] and set priorities,” he says. “Now they’re using their routines to dictate their lives,” instead of the other way around. Some of Rosen’s converts to time management also say their lives are not only more productive, but more enjoyable and marred by considerably less stress.

The bottom line: Create the environment and provide the tools. But if you as the sales director or agency owner aren’t managing your own time well, don’t expect miracles from your employees. “Your staff is a reflection of you,” Rosen says. “They take on your strengths and weaknesses… and you can’t take others to a place you haven’t gone yourself.”

Susan Hodges (hodgeswrites@aol.com ) is an IA contributing writer.

Three Tips to Manage Your Time

Keith Rosen suggests these steps to begin managing your day:

1. Treat everything like an appointment. Waking, brushing your teeth, showering and getting to work should all be appointments on your schedule. “By treating everything this way, you become sensitive to the realization that everything you do takes time out of your day. It helps get you into the time-management mindset when you can see where your time is going.”

2. Plan for the unplanned. Let’s say you’ve mapped out your day, but no matter how well you follow your schedule, unexpected situations eat time reserved for other activities. The key is to understand that such events are part of life. By building into your schedule a buffer zone of time to allow for the unexpected each day, you’ll have time to deal with these issues and still stay on schedule. The addition of buffer zones may prolong the time needed to complete projects, but delays are realistic, and chances are, you wouldn’t meet an earlier deadline anyway, due to the very interruptions you seek to avoid.

3. Let your actions be your reward. Most sales people are results driven, continually crossing off items on their to-do lists. Instead, Rosen suggests becoming process-driven, a mode by which you allow the action to become the reward, knowing that results will naturally follow. “The process becomes part of your lifestyle, and where the pleasure resides,” Rosen says. And by enjoying the process, you avoid the stress and guilt of waiting until the last minute to do important tasks.

Where to Turn for Help

• Free Time-Management Assessment, from Keith Rosen, www.profitbuilders.com/timeassessment.htm
• Free Adrenaline Assessment, from Keith Rosen, http://profitbuilders.com/adrenaline-assessment.htm
• Time Management for Sales Professionals, by Keith Rosen, downloadable at www.profitbuilders.com
• The Productivity Handbook: New Ways of Leveraging Your Time, Information and Communications, by Donald Wetmore, 2005, www.amazon.com
• KISS Guide to Organizing Your Life, by Donald Wetmore, 2001, www.amazon.com
• Stress Management, Newsletter, free, by Elizabeth Scott, http://stressabout.com/gi/pages/mmail.htm
• The Low Stress Health Lifestyle Quiz, free, by Elizabeth Scott, http://stress.about.com/od/selfknowledgeselftests/a/lifestylequiz.htm

Is your agency ready for a possible avian flu pandemic? Take the following quiz, adapted for a flu pandemic.

• Have you reviewed your current sick leave and vacation policies to determine if any changes are necessary to meet the demands of a flu pandemic?

• Have you determined the minimal level at which your business could operate (e.g. staff, resources)?

• Do you have plans to stay open for business, even if you and your employees must work from home or other locations?

• If your employees needed to operate from home, do they have the necessary telecommunications and computer capacity to function?

• Are your vital records protected and accessible from alternative work locations, e.g. employees’ homes?

• Have you considered how the disruption of travel, meetings or conferences might affect your business?

• Have you considered alternatives if your current suppliers cannot deliver or your customer base is affected by the flu pandemic?

• Have you worked with your community—public officials and other businesses —to prepare for a flu pandemic?

Adopted from Institute for Business & Home Safety’s Open for Businesssm toolkit .