Viewpoints

As agents look ahead to 2024 and work through budget planning and new client outreach, considering new avenues of business may be crucial to surviving in today’s market.

Across more than 25 years in the insurance industry, Chris Cline has established himself as an industry resource for topics such as perpetuation, agency culture, marketing and sales, data and analytics, technology, and more.

Business owners are mistakenly believing that there is a pool of workers waiting on the sidelines for something magical to happen to convince them to rejoin the workforce—that pool doesn’t exist.

Rod Hughes is president and principal of Kimball Hughes Public Relations and has consulted with Fortune 500 corporations, startups and nonprofits alike.

Joan Woodward is president of the Travelers Institute and the trailblazing host of the “Wednesdays with Woodward” webinar series.

“It takes the human element and an in-depth knowledge of our client’s business to creatively solve their challenges,” says young agent Andrew Silva. “The wall we’re trying to break down is proving we’re not just a line item on their expense books, but a m

“There are so many opportunities within the industry and oftentimes recent college graduates don’t see that,” says young agent Brooke Feldmeyer. “I think the solution is getting involved in universities and getting more face-to-face experience with studen

“When I came out of college, the agency was still mailing paper applications,” says young agent Joseph Iten. “It’s been a push for me to bring everything up to speed and teach the older generations to use technology like e-payments and e-signatures.”

“Automation and generational changes in the way that people do business is a challenge,” says young agent Ashton Fee, describing “the ‘click a button and get a quote’ mentality.”

“My overall goal is to make our office so appealing to my daughter that when she comes of age, she isn’t running away from it the way I did,” says young agent Kristin Swanson Scott. “That means investing in as much technology as we possibly can to streaml