11 posts found
10/09/2021 · 5 min read
Bad leadership costs an agency its best people, best clients, and production ceiling. It shows up in five patterns: feedback only flows during problems, standards get applied unevenly, the owner is the decision bottleneck, hard conversations get postponed, and vision is announced once and never reinforced.
06/21/2021 · 5 min read
Five canary signals every agency owner must watch weekly: staff disengagement before resignation, slowing client service response times, top producer production dips, renewals processed without review, and owner complacency. Track them on a weekly scorecard, not monthly.
05/28/2021 · 5 min read
Real coaching starts with the agent's self-assessment, moves into exploration questions instead of prescriptions, and ends with the agent naming the specific change they will make and why. Anything else is management, performance review, or cheerleading dressed up in coaching language.
09/04/2020 · 6 min read
Empathy is a production multiplier, not a soft skill. Lead with curiosity in one-on-ones, learn each producer's actual motivator, deliver hard feedback in a way it lands, and treat conversations as information gathering. Highest leverage: staff retention, client retention, owner decisions.
09/02/2020 · 7 min read
Leadership is a responsibility agency owners accept the moment they hire. Kris Plachy teaches four practices: written, specific expectations, performance conversations separated from the relationship, coaching toward the answer instead of giving it, and the clean transition when coaching has run its course.
06/10/2020 · 6 min read
Bad management in insurance agencies looks like avoidance or micromanagement, never anything dramatic. The fix is five repeatable moves: hold the avoided conversation, write down expectations, run tighter meetings, push three decisions down, and stay consistent week after week.
06/01/2020 · 6 min read
Martin Amador built his Denver Allstate agency on community presence (sponsorships, local events, knowing clients' kids) and motivational management that aligns each team member's daily work to an outcome they personally care about. Relationship-sourced clients stay longer, refer more, and pay less attention to price.
03/11/2020 · 6 min read
Most P&C agency underperformers are misplaced, not bad hires. Sort your team into hunters, farmers, and operators using behavioral signals: what they gravitate to, where they outperform, and what energizes them. Move them into roles aligned with their wiring and watch the numbers move.
02/12/2020 · 6 min read
Craig's three worst leadership mistakes: micromanaging instead of leading (his top producer quit), only giving feedback when things went wrong, and hiring fast then firing slow (one bad 8-month hire cost $40K+). Fix the ratio to 3:1 positive to corrective, define decision boundaries, act on poor fit inside 30 days.
11/29/2019 · 6 min read
Millennial producers stay where they get purpose, frequent specific feedback, and thoughtful flexibility. Keep production and activity minimums firm. Replace the annual review with weekly 15-minute one-on-ones, pair every new hire with a mentor, and recognize progress, not just top writers.
09/04/2019 · 6 min read
Restructure agency pay in four steps: diagnose mismatches between earnings and production, design a base plus commission plus targeted bonus, communicate the why and model the math, then run old and new in parallel for 60 days. Grandfather top producers individually to avoid losing them.