What Sets Your Agency Apart?

It seemed like yesterday when I was in my teens, observing my father, an insurance agent, as he rose from the dinner table every five minutes to answer a client phone call. Each call was the same: he patiently explained policies, reassured clients and helped solve problems. His methods paid off. He was a top agent throughout his career. Back in the day, providing quality service could set you apart from the rest. Unfortunately, times have changed.

Fast forward 30 years: mass media, the Internet and a plethora of choices available to consumers for every product and service imaginable mean that good service is no longer a bonus, it’s an expectation. People are savvier and, at the minimum, expect you to provide excellent service. And when something is expected, it doesn’t differentiate you from the other players; it’s just the minimum requirement for you to play the game.

Set yourself apart from the competition by promoting your strongest point of differentiation from your competitors—this is the basic premise behind branding. Include in your presentation one powerful reason that differentiates you from your competitors. Find that one differentiator by putting your offering to the VRIO test, created by Jay Barney, Ph.D., of The Ohio State University. According to the VRIO test, your brand should emphasize:

Valuable. What do you do that is valuable to your clients? Service and quality are valuable, but do they pass the next test?

Rare. The offering that is valuable must also be rare. If it’s not, it doesn’t set you apart. That’s why promoting your service, quality and communication skills are positive traits, but not differentiators.

Inimitable. If you have something that is valuable and rare, make sure it is also difficult for your competitors to imitate. For example, if a salesperson has a proprietary selling method that will save clients 30% over a one-year period, that’s valuable and rare. Since he created this system, it may be something difficult or impossible for the competition to claim or imitate. All of a sudden, this salesperson has set himself apart in a way that will leave his competition at a disadvantage.

Organization. Leverage your differentiator throughout your agency. Remind people regularly about the value you bring to the table. Include information on your cost saving system in your brochures, Web site, on-hold messages and sales presentations. Remind people regularly about your differentiation, and don’t be shy. Campbell’s is not reluctant to remind people that “soup is good food.” If you focus on one point of differentiation that is valuable, rare, difficult to imitate and leveraged throughout your organization, you not only will set yourself apart, you will also position your agency to have a sustainable competitive advantage.

Sandra Sellani (info@sandrasellani.com) is principal of The Sellani Group Brand Strategists and author of “What’s Your BQ? Learn How 35 Companies Add Customers, Subtract Competitors and Multiply Profits with Brand Quotient.”

Carrier Branding Connection:
W.R. Berkley Corporation

Financial services differ from most industries in that consumers can’t use their senses to recognize products. They can drive and touch a new car or taste a food product to tell if they like it, but when it comes to insurance, they rely on branding to “see” the product.

“Financial service is really a brand,” says W.R. Berkley Chairman & CEO Bill Berkley. “There’s no other way you can see it, but you know it by its brand. You don’t know it by its taste or how it drives; you know it by its reputation and the characterization and image of the brand. In financial services, the brand is the product.”

This is why it’s especially important for the insurance industry to brand itself, according to Berkley. His company relies on a dual-level strategy, with each of its 36 regional and specialty companies employing its own brand along with the overarching brand of the W.R. Berkley Corporation.

“Our brand is the local or specialty brand, which has a direct connection to the customer, and then we use the W.R. Berkley brand, in many ways, the way agencies use Trusted Choice®,” Berkley says. “That is, it’s a stamp of financial strength and large-scale stability. It’s sort of the ‘Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval’ with financial strength behind it.”

In today’s competitive marketplace, consumers are inundated with company names and messages everywhere they turn, so agents need to stress the stability, reliability and strength they provide. Berkley says that the Trusted Choice® brand is an effective way for agents to communicate with consumers the “unique moral relationship between agents and their customers.

“The connotation of the words ‘trusted’ and ‘choice’ tells the whole story about our distribution system: The customer can trust the agents, and they can rely on what they’re told,” he says. “From our point of view, we try to put forth the idea that Trusted Choice® means exactly what it says. You can trust the provider of this service. They’re going to give you good advice and steer you in the correct direction.”

—Jennifer Sikorski