12 posts found
10/02/2023 · 11 min read
Insurance agencies fail at recruiting millennials because they pitch commissions instead of three things young professionals want: a defined career path, work with visible impact, and modern technology. Fix the offering, not the job posting.
09/27/2023 · 6 min read
Five hiring failures that show up predictably in P&C agencies: hiring from desperation instead of strategy, overweighting interview performance over job-relevant skills, skipping reference checks, ignoring red flag behavior, and sending new hires into ad hoc onboarding. Each one is structural and fixable.
09/25/2023 · 5 min read
Five hiring practices that reduce the randomness of agency staffing: define the role's success profile before posting, use structured behavior-based interview questions, screen for values alignment before competence, activate your team's referral network, and move fast on strong candidates. Agencies that do all five stop cycling through bad hires.
09/04/2023 · 6 min read
Empathy is a trainable skill, not a personality trait. In agency leadership, it's the ability to understand a producer's or client's experience well enough to respond effectively. Teams led empathetically outperform on retention and sustained performance under pressure.
08/16/2023 · 5 min read
Chaos in an insurance agency is rarely a people problem. It is usually a process problem. Defined, documented processes eliminate the ambiguity that creates drama and prevent the inefficiency that caps growth.
08/14/2023 · 6 min read
Solve the insurance agency people problem by filtering candidates on values alignment first and competence second, running behavior-based interviews, training for culture in the first 30 days, and separating clearly when performance gaps persist. Waiting to fire is the most expensive decision owners make.
08/09/2023 · 5 min read
Core values only work when operational. Translate each value into a specific behavior, make visible decisions that cost you something to defend it, reference it in hiring and reviews, and keep the list to three to five. Your real principles are what you reward and tolerate, not the poster.
08/07/2023 · 5 min read
Your insurance agency's purpose beats your marketing budget because it filters hiring, retention, and client decisions faster than any ad spend. Make it specific enough to test against real options, co-create it with your team, and live it before you put it on the wall.
08/02/2023 · 5 min read
Owner ego shows up as control: rejecting team input, overriding the processes you wrote, taking credit for wins while blaming the team for losses, and rewarding loyalty over loyalty to the agency. Hand off one piece of authority for 60 days, then ask what makes their job harder.
07/31/2023 · 5 min read
The 5 Ps break the agency plateau: a documented Purpose, Principles that decide behavior when you are not in the room, People hired against values first, Processes written down instead of trapped in heads, and Performance metrics that track all of the above, not just revenue.
07/26/2023 · 5 min read
Modern agency freedom is built from equity, not income. Reinvest profit during growth years, hire ahead of need, document every process so someone else can run it, and refuse to be the critical path on any client relationship or daily decision. That produces actual freedom in five years.
10/11/2019 · 6 min read
Going from captive to independent after 30 years takes a methodical transition: build carrier relationships before you leave, plan for the income gap with cash runway, stand up your own tech stack (CRM, quoting, compliance) on day one, and bring your clients with you transparently.