No time to spare: a new approach to time management has producers delegating, planning, qualifying, and performing self-analysis.

The need to achieve organic growth has led many agencies to raise producer goals and provide more incentives for new business production. They also have reviewed their sales process and what producers can do to be more productive. As a result, a new sales approach is emerging which is helping producers gain sales time and use that time more effectively. Following this approach means changing old ways and old habits, but the results can be dramatic. The key to this new approach is good time management, which requires delegating, planning, qualifying, and self-analysis.

Delegating

Top producers spend at least 30% of their time in new business sales activities. Many producers miss this mark because they spend too much time in other activities such as servicing customers or marketing accounts. People who fail to delegate usually believe that no one else is capable of doing the work or that customers will not accept anyone else. In fact, most agencies have experienced people who can handle these tasks well. And customers can be easily transitioned to work with these staff members once producers make the decision to delegate.

Producers usually grow their books by initially working on smaller accounts and gradually selling larger accounts. Once the book reaches a larger size, a producer's sales time becomes limited. To create more sales time, producers need to give up accounts to someone else in the agency. Small accounts ($1,000 to $3,000) can be handled by customer service representatives with little or no producer involvement. Larger accounts can be assigned to new producers whose salaries can be offset by the newly assigned accounts. Many agencies require their producers to shed accounts each year as part of the sales process.

Planning

Many producers will work on any size account and any class of business. Other producers target accounts by size, by niche and their fit with agency carriers. They pass on accounts that are too small or do not fit their profile of a desirable account. Once the target account has been determined, producers plan their prospecting activities to identify and reach those accounts. Top producers develop a list of key accounts, but they also have key centers of influence and referral sources. They gain prospects, not by taking call-in referrals, but by soliciting leads from their referral sources and current clients or by becoming active in civic organizations.

Producers who are most effective also plan their week's calls, constantly filling their calendars with sales appointments a week or two ahead. They also plan meetings with their service staff who benefit by knowing when their producers will be available for questions and updates.

Qualifying

Producers who are good qualifiers ask questions designed to determine the prospect's fit with their target account. They want to find out, for example, whether the client is interested in the high-quality products and services that the agency offers, or if the only consideration is price. But they also want to determine the client's interest in buying from them. If the client does qualify, the producer will want to determine whether the client actually will commit to buying. If certain conditions are met either in product or price, will the client agree to "fire" the current agent? If the producer does not get this commitment, the producer moves on to the next prospect.

Effective producers take responsibility for their part of the submission process. They take time with the prospect to gather information necessary to complete the application, and they follow up quickly to ask for additional information. In doing so, they save the many hours that service staff spend trying to construct applications with little information. They can also feel confident that carrier underwriters will be able to work on the complete submission, rather than begin their own follow-up for missing information.

Self-analysis

Top producers understand that sales effectiveness comes from their own efforts to improve, so they review their sales plans, their hit ratios, their lead sources, and their sales calls to see what they can learn and where they can make improvements. They discuss sales calls with their managers or their peers and ask for feedback. They are students of sales who work at improving their core sales skills, such as listening, questioning, positioning and closing. Their enthusiasm for their craft and their resulting success keeps them motivated.

Sharon Cunningham, a Best's Review columnist, is president of Business Management Group, a management consulting firm in Hartford, Conn. She can be reached at [e-mail].