...And it's starting to pay off. Insurance Solutions, located in southern California, has this advice for agencies aspiring to develop a "World Class" sales culture:

Everybody in the organization plays an important role in the sales culture. You must let your team know exactly what is expected of them, how and when you will measure results, AND what's in it for them, when expectations are (or are not) met.

In addition, Insurance Solutions realizes you can't manage what you can't measure, so they've put technologies in place to monitor and track the success of all of their customer-facing team members. That's where the hard work begins.

This is the knowing vs. the doing part.

Knowing what needs to improve is different from actually helping people improve. Just telling team members to "sell" or "round out" more accounts is not going to work. Your agency must be committed to providing team members with a constant feedback loop that includes the good, the bad, and the ugly. Through open discussions that include listening to recorded phone calls, you must provide your staff with real time advice on how to better serve the modern consumer, starting with the notion that every call MUST have a beginning, a middle, and most importantly, an END.

The end is the part where the all the money is WON or LOST.

Million dollar suggestion:

Insurance Solutions will provide grades to their staff on how well they perform in each of these areas. Because the end result was clearly communicated to their team, everyone has embraced the concept and actually looks forward to the feedback. For them, it's exciting to know that they're growing as people and as an agency.

What happens when there is no one in the agency with the time or the experience to train and improve your existing staff?

Team members lose focus on what matters most: INCREASED SALES. Everything falls apart from there. Agencies who fit into this category must take immediate steps to regain control of their business and put systems in place that allow them to measure, manage, and improve the behaviors that will ultimately result in increased revenue. Without these systems, the growth of the agency is a function of LUCK. This would make any reasonable person very anxious.

Agents across the country have discovered how Astonish Results can help them regain control of their agency by providing the right combination of technology, education, and motivation required to drive sales and improve morale. To learn how you can do the same, take the 180-second tour at www.astonishresults.com. Start planning for 2010 now - you'll be glad you did.