New producers hired in their 20s report 15% greater success when welcomed into team-based sales cultures, according to Reagan Consulting’s “Producer Recruiting & Development” survey.

What contributes to the correlation between age and team selling?

“Team selling goes hand in hand with new producer development,” says Dan Horton, vice president of Horton Risk Advisory Solutions. “We didn’t start team selling just because we decided we liked working in teams; we started it out of development necessity.”

Horton “fell into” team selling at 25 years old after joining the agency in a group of fresh producers. To tackle large prospective clients, he teamed up with a fellow young producer—and found it gave “two is better than one” a whole new meaning.

“As we gained more experience, we parted ways because we didn’t need to team up with each other anymore,” Horton says. “But it only heightened the need to formalize. It was kind of an ad-hoc thing, and it really heightened the need to develop a real training and development program.”

Since then, Horton has seen success in overall new producer hires at his agency when it comes to development in team environments. By hiring and placing new staff into groups with a variety of skills, experiences and opportunities, the agency makes success rates much higher than when it simply lets them figure it out on their own.

“In order to develop talent, you have to have teachers and tutors to teach the new people,” Horton says—which requires “a scalable model for developing new producers in a team environment. I think the team is the means to the end—if the end is to try and develop new producers, this is one of the major means to help that.”

For independent agent Joey O’Connor, team selling was a way to train a non-industry salesperson on the technical ins and outs of insurance. When his best friend Nick Macaluso joined The O’Connor Insurance Group from the medical sales field last October, O’Connor used the opportunity to integrate a team-based approach to his sales strategy—an idea he developed through his service on the national Young Agents Committee and a host of industry publications.

“I didn’t have to teach him much about the sales process,” O’Connor says. “But since he was going to need me to help with the insurance side of things—the technical piece—I figured this is probably a great opportunity to see how this works. We’re coming up on year one, and he’s probably going to validate his salary.”

Millennials’ impact on the industry could be contributing to the boost in agencies implementing a team-selling strategy: Countless studies suggest the generation is less interested in monetary gains and more concerned about the collaboration culture a potential employer offers. That means splitting accounts and revenues doesn’t create ownership issues for millennial employees, as long as they’re working in groups and learning along the way.

Naturally, it’s important to keep millennials comfortable and inspired until they’re ready. “If you try to throw them into it and aren’t really sure how to do it, then they’re going to be under stress when they’re trying to sell,” says Mike Schultz, co-president at consultancy RAIN GROUP. “And that narrows the conversation, narrows their thinking—it doesn’t allow them to focus on the buyer and what they’re saying, and it limits their imagination.”

But ultimately, “team selling allows for faster development of young producers,” Horton says. “If you put them on a team, they’re able to observe, absorb, learn, sit in more advanced meetings at an earlier stage in their career and not have to carry the meeting or answer every question.”

Bob Sturtevant, a principal at Gibson Insurance with locations throughout Indiana, has a 25-year-old on his five-person sales team who’s now been with the agency for three and a half years. In his first year, the young employee was responsible for a hefty $100,000 in new revenue. But with help from his team members and fellow producers, he successfully managed the book.

“There’s no way he would have had that success as a kid out of college,” Sturtevant says. “But in a team environment, we all have a vested interest in his success, and every door we hope becomes a new account for the team. We see mentoring as an absolute must for a new person that’s hired in the agency—the team now is held responsible for that mentoring.”

Morgan Smith served as IA assistant editor.