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12PIA National

Agency Marketing Guide

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Welcome to the third edition of the PIA National Agency Marketing Guide! The 2012 edi-tion of this PIA Branding Program publication addresses a topic on the minds of many independent insurance agents: personal lines insurance. Steve Anderson, Alan Shul-

man and other esteemed authors make the case for including personal lines prominently in your agency and help agency owners better understand how they can do so in a way that is profitable.

Our guests authors will also help you get motivated to lead your agency to success (Adam DeGraide); protect your agency by utilizing professional sales techniques (Curtis Pearsall and Kitty Ambers); use technology to enhance your customer’s experience (Nancy Doucette); at-tract, grow and retain strong production talent (David Connolly) and much more.

The 2012 Agency Marketing Guide follows two previous editions. The 2011 publication in-cluded an Agents’ Guide to Internet Marketing and the 2010 publication featured the Agents’ Guide to Social Media. Current and past editions of the Agency Marketing Guide are available online at www.PIAAgencyMarketingGuide.com.

PIA National would like to extend a special thank you to the sponsors of the 2012 PIA National Agency Marketing Guide: Agoragate, Astonish, Bankers Insurance Group and Rough Notes. Please join me in thanking these sponsors.

Best wishes and happy marketing!

Thomas C. Adderhold President National Association of Professional Insurance Agents

Table of ContentsSponsors

Rough Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .page 4-5

Astonish . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .page 6-7

Bankers Insurance Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .page 8-9

Agoragate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .page 10-11

Special Report: Selling Personal Lines In Your Agency

Personal Lines – A Growth Opportunity By Steve Anderson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 12

Observations: Personal Lines Successes-2012 By John Macdonald . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 14

If You Build It, Will They Come? by Bill Jenkins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 16

If You Work in Insurance, This Should Be the Only Article You Read on the Future of Social Media by Ryan Hanley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 18

How to Compete for Personal Lines with the Direct Writers by Alan Shulman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 20

Features

Using Awareness, Commitment & Action to Sell to the Modern Consumer by Adam DeGraide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 22

Selling and E&O Loss Prevention – Is This a “Chicken and the Egg Scenario”? by Curtis M. Pearsall and Kitty Ambers . . . . . . . page 24

Keeping One Step Ahead by Nancy Doucette . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 26

Your Agency Facebook Page: What If You Build It and They Don’t Come? by Ted Janusz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 28

Finding the Needle: Attracting, Growing and Retaining Strong Producers by David Connolly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 30

Make Email Marketing Work for Your Agency by Laird Rixford . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 32

Just Imagine If Everybody Shopped at the Mall, But You Didn’t Have a Store There . . . . . . . . . . . . page 34

Delivering Presentations in the Clouds by Ted Janusz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 36

4 2012 PIA National Agency Marketing Guide

Insurance Video Blogsfor your agency’s Web site

Business Insurance CostsJoint VenturesArtisan ContractorsGeneral ContractorsVacancy ProvisionsDealing with Indirect LossCovering Your SignsCoverage for Business AutosCommercial Auto Medical PaymentsWorkers Compensation CoverageAccounts Receivable InsuranceInternet Insurance Information*

12 Commercial Lines Insurance Video Blogs to choose from:

Internet Insurance Information

13 Personal Lines Insurance Video Blogs to choose from:

Is your car worth less than your loan?Negotiating RecallsTeen Text MessYouthful Operator Driver Safety AgreementCar Pooling-1 Car Pooling-2Insuring SUVsUmbrella Coverages Part 1 and Part 2MoldUmbrellas and Uninsured Motorists LiabilityUnderinsured HomesEarthquake CoverageNeed Flood Insurance*Mold

*More video subjects are being added monthly. Call for an updated list.

• Hosted on our server and linked to your Web site for quality, uninterrupted play.

• Each video can be customized at the beginning and end for an additional cost.

To view a sample of our videos, go to http://www.roughnotestv.com/videoblogs/index.htm

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Rental Pricing: Rent any video for $40.00 per month. Call for quantity discounts that are available.

Also, professional quality videos are available to promote your agency, products, and services.

To order call 800.428.4384 and ask for video rental customer service.

For more information or a one-on-one demo, contact:

Nancy Lynch800.428.4384 ext. 1096

Margaret Rhodes800.428.4384 ext. 1029

Service Available Monday - Friday, 8 a.m. - 4 p.m. EST

2012 PIA National Agency Marketing Guide 5

Insurance Video Blogsfor your agency’s Web site

Business Insurance CostsJoint VenturesArtisan ContractorsGeneral ContractorsVacancy ProvisionsDealing with Indirect LossCovering Your SignsCoverage for Business AutosCommercial Auto Medical PaymentsWorkers Compensation CoverageAccounts Receivable InsuranceInternet Insurance Information*

12 Commercial Lines Insurance Video Blogs to choose from:

Internet Insurance Information

13 Personal Lines Insurance Video Blogs to choose from:

Is your car worth less than your loan?Negotiating RecallsTeen Text MessYouthful Operator Driver Safety AgreementCar Pooling-1 Car Pooling-2Insuring SUVsUmbrella Coverages Part 1 and Part 2MoldUmbrellas and Uninsured Motorists LiabilityUnderinsured HomesEarthquake CoverageNeed Flood Insurance*Mold

*More video subjects are being added monthly. Call for an updated list.

• Hosted on our server and linked to your Web site for quality, uninterrupted play.

• Each video can be customized at the beginning and end for an additional cost.

To view a sample of our videos, go to http://www.roughnotestv.com/videoblogs/index.htm

Loan Worth More Than Car Commercial Auto

Rental Pricing: Rent any video for $40.00 per month. Call for quantity discounts that are available.

Also, professional quality videos are available to promote your agency, products, and services.

To order call 800.428.4384 and ask for video rental customer service.

For more information or a one-on-one demo, contact:

Nancy Lynch800.428.4384 ext. 1096

Margaret Rhodes800.428.4384 ext. 1029

Service Available Monday - Friday, 8 a.m. - 4 p.m. EST

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billboard-double-spread.indd 2 7/25/12 10:56:16 AM



Personal Lines – A Growth Opportunity By Steve Anderson

According to the 2011 Organic Growth and Profitability Survey from Regan Consulting personal lines property and casualty business is the most profitable book of busi-ness for many agencies.

“Organic growth in Personal Lines P&C business, which totaled only 1.3% for the median broker, was slightly lower than last year. This business did, however, continue to deliver impressive EBITDA profit margins (31.2%). Personal Lines P&C business continues to be a major cash cow for many of our OGP Survey Participants.”

It’s a great feeling when the agency snags a large com-mercial account. Unfortunately, it really hurts when you lose the account — or when premiums are reduced by 20%, 30%, or even 50%.

On the other hand, writing a new personal lines account is not very exciting. Coverages are standard. Pricing is fairly straightforward. Personal lines accounts are… well… a little boring. Although pricing fluctuates, your overall book tends to move in much more manageable swings and in single-digit percentages, not double-digit. On the upside, when you have developed a decent size personal lines book, losing an account is hardly noticeable.

Today, personal lines should have a prominent place for any agency that wants to maximize their profits. Given the recent market conditions for mid to large commercial businesses, agencies that continued to develop and grow their personal lines books are glad they did. Agencies that turned personal lines away or relegated it to simply “an accommodation” now wish they had that high-margin revenue to offset dwindling commercial revenue.

If done well — and that might be a very big “if” — a healthy personal lines book of business will provide the biggest profit margin for the agency. You need to give per-sonal lines its due. If you can create and maintain a sys-tematic process that takes full advantage of the potential in personal lines, it will provide very profitable revenue.

Some reasons you should consider building a personal lines book for your agency include:

Technology: Agency management systems are designed to handle repetitive transactions quickly and efficiently. That is exactly what personal lines is all about. With well-defined processes and procedures, you should get far greater bang for your technology buck in personal lines. In commercial lines, your staff is always dealing with the

(costly) exceptions. Personal lines are very standard. Insur-ance companies have been a stumbling block to true au-tomation efficiency and fortunately, most have developed processes that streamline the communication between agency systems and their own internal systems.

Carrier interface: Agencies now have access to client poli-cies online through a carrier provided agency portal. Print on demand features make handling of paper declaration pages obsolete. Linking to these carrier sites allows for great on-demand service without all the work of data input and scanning. Using download (and upload when available) to reduce and streamline the amount of data entry into your system is another huge productivity gain.

Commission expense: Unlike commercial lines, your personal lines book may not require a producer to be involved with the sales process. As a result, your sales expenses are lower, making the account more profitable. If you are paying commission (to a producer or to inter-nal staff) there are ways that help minimize the total percentage being paid. To maximize margins, you should make sure your personal lines book is made up of 80% or more “house” owned accounts. This allows the agency to keep all of the commission income instead of incurring a producer expense of 30% to 50% of commission.

Employee expense: Personal lines are simply less expen-sive to operate than commercial. Personal lines customer service agents generally earn less than their commercial counterparts. Due to technology, they handle a much larg-er book of business than other departments. Remember that 60% to 80% of what was considered a normal day’s work 10 years ago should no longer exist for the personal lines customer service agent. With well thought out and implemented processes and procedures, data input, scan-ning, filing, and lost files are all things of the past.

Service centers: A good carrier service center needs to be a strategic option for any agency as a way to handle the transaction process needs of these accounts. To maximize the benefits of a service center, you need to have a strong strategic plan that either reduces existing staff or rede-ploys their efforts to sales and proactive customer service. They should be actively involved in increasing revenue through new opportunities presented by having more time to focus on existing customers and prospects.

Incentives: There are still plenty of carrier financial incentives available if you have a good size personal

Continued on page 38

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Observations: Personal Lines Successes-2012 By John Macdonald

As a system provider/support provider/trainer for agen-cies chasing personal lines growth through the employee marketing channel, Agency Revenue Tools is in a position to see what is working for some talented agencies. We would like to share with the reader some clear conclu-sions that this perspective makes possible, along with some conclusions of our own.

No agency with a large personal lines book has regretted it over the past 5 years.The insurance world seems to be separated into two distinct groups — one group loves personal lines and the other can’t imagine why anyone would spend time in that marketplace. The reality is that personal lines has helped many agencies weather the commercial lines “challenges” of the past 5 years. Agencies with a solid book of personal lines typically have no interest in draw-ing attention to how well they have done through the recent recession and slow recovery.

Personal lines business has been stable and extremely profitable for many agencies, and the annual 90-120 day fight for renewal just isn’t there. You put the business on the books, and it stays on the books. If your personal lines clients are paying their premium with payroll deduc-tion, the retention is even better and the service load is reduced.

MESSAGE: Personal lines has been profitable and reason-ably stable during this difficult 5 year period.

The direct writers are spending big money to attract new personal lines customers.A recent industry journal article provided the dollars being spent by the direct writers to attract new personal lines accounts, and the number is staggering. Anyone who questions the profitability of personal lines need look no further than the evening cable advertising. Companies and agencies are finding personal lines very desirable business.

Not too long ago, during a breakfast meeting, a senior ex-ecutive from one of our best known national companies shared this perspective:

“Agencies don’t realize how profitable personal lines is be-cause they allocate all kinds of expenses against the book that have nothing to do with the business. If an expense won’t go away when if you get rid of your personal lines department, don’t allocate the expense against the de-partment when evaluating its productivity. I believe most

personal lines departments have a 40% margin.”

MESSAGE: Personal lines has better profitability than many agents think.

Strategic Relationship #1 – Payroll CompaniesADP, Ceridian, and Paychex have all purchased insurance agencies, and they are selling insurance products to their payroll customers. In order to compete with these larger players and their multiple services, the smaller payroll companies are very willing to work with insurance provid-ers who can help them deliver more than just payroll. Agencies with the ability to consolidate multi-company payroll deduction of both P&C and traditional voluntary products will find a very warm audience when they seek a strategic relationship.

MESSAGE: Payroll companies have commercial clients and need to bundle in insurance services.

Strategic Relationship #2 – Voluntary Benefits Sales Organizations (Perhaps yours!)The fact is, in many agencies around the country, the three major departments (Commercial Lines, Personal Lines, Life and Benefits) do not cooperate well. In fact, many agencies would remind one of the Peter Pan story, where the crocodiles, Lost Boys, and pirates all have it out for one another. There is so much opportunity out there for an organization that can tap into the synergy created by cooperation between product line clienteles…we are always amazed when we see agencies failing to address this challenge.

If your agency does not have a life and benefits capabil-ity in-house, there are plenty of enrollment companies and voluntary benefits sales people out there who would entertain a strategic relationship. If you are doing P&C payroll deduction and you have a single source billing ca-pability, this is a tool they could use for their clients. Bill-ing multiple products from multiple companies through a single payroll slot is “hot” these days, and both parties can generate substantial commission revenues from mul-tiple products sales while capitalizing on this trend that is shifting the cost of benefits to the employees.

MESSAGE: Cooperative marketing and sales across all product lines is the route to maximum revenue.

What is fascinating is how the steady diet of cable televi-sion insurance ads is having a near hypnotic effect on


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If You Build It, Will They Come? By Bill Jenkins

This is a reasonable question for any agency spending time and resources on marketing to ask. The bottom-line for marketing success is measured in two ways: first, do prospects respond to your marketing, do they take action and second, do they then become customers?

There are many factors to consider when developing an agency marketing plan such as who to target, which media to use and how much to invest in time and expense. Re-gardless of how your marketing proceeds, one of the most important ingredients is that it needs to be built around the customer’s own perspective regarding their “insur-ance experience.” What are they looking for? What do they expect and how can those expectations be satisfied?

To find answers to these important questions, The PIA Partnership has conducted research with insurance customers of all types from across the country, to find out more about what they are looking for and what they ex-pect from personal lines insurance providers. The results from this research can help agents build their marketing efforts and create messages around aspects of the “insur-ance experience” customers value most.

Two surveys were conducted with personal lines custom-ers utilizing the “General Marketing Survey Panel” pro-vided by SSI (Survey Sampling International, LLC). The first set of questions collected 904 completed surveys from qualified participants. The second set collected 915 com-pleted surveys. The demographic distribution of survey respondents tracks well with the general demographics of the U.S. population. With the total number of personal auto policyholders set at 187 million one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of error is +/- 4 percentage points. This is the same level of accuracy typically cited by Gallup for their surveys.

Here are just a few highlights from the research:

Your Value PropositionAs you can see in the charts for two of the questions asked (see charts on page 40), after good value, custom-ers want to be able to trust someone who will take care of them when it comes to their insurance. In fact, “Value in the rates they find me,” “That they are taking care of my insurance needs” and “Trust in the person or compa-ny” are ranked 28% higher than other factors surveyed.

These results demonstrate that customers are looking for more than the lowest price. What they really want is value. Value not only in the price they pay, but also in the

benefits they receive. While it’s true that price is impor-tant, they need to hear about you first and not make their decision based solely on price. This is why proactively communicating your value proposition is important. It’s not enough just to say that you are able “to offer them a choice of companies.” What’s important is what you are able to do for them – how you can be trusted to take care of them and their insurance needs.

Customer ContactAnother chart (on page 43) further reinforces the impor-tance of the value beyond price that an agent provides. When asked about three different cases in which they want to be contacted, the results are surprising since adding or increasing coverage could increase the cost of their insurance in exchange for better coverage.

Frequency & Method of Contact69% of customers want to be contacted when their insur-ance agent or company has a suggestion for them to add coverage they may be missing or increase coverage when they may be underinsured.

67% of customers would like to receive contact from their insurance company, agent or agency every 6 months or less to inquire if there are any changes in their life or circumstances which could create the need for change or adjustment in their insurance.

63% of customers would like to receive contact from their


About The PIA PartnershipThrough its work with The PIA Partnership, PIA National and insurance company participants focus on identifying areas of effort which serve to enhance the success of professional independent insurance agents.

PIA recognizes and appreciates the participation and support of the following Partnership companies:

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If You Work in Insurance, This Should Be the Only Article You Read on the Future of Social Media By Ryan Hanley, CIC

I recently had the pleasure of attending a local lunch-and-learn presentation on the current state of insurance in relation to technology and how independent insurance agents will compete with direct writers in the future. The presentation was very well done and I took some excellent ideas away that I hope to implement into my own agency’s online presence at www.MurrayGRP.com. Presentations like these are the type of collaborative discussions that our industry needs more of in order to be successful in the future business world.

After the presentation I went back to my office but it was hard to concentrate on work. There were two specific conceptual ideas brought up during the presentation that had my brain tweaked. I needed to get the thoughts down on paper. That is what this is…

But before we dig into the two ideas I want you to under-stand something about me, (since many of you reading this do not know me personally), so you can hold a frame of reference throughout the article. I am very passion-ate about the ideas I believe in and my personal vision of how independent insurance agents will succeed through technology. When it comes to insurance my vision quest is destroying the misconception that insurance is a com-modity. I believe technology will allow us to do this.

Passion for the value of insurance and the importance of the independent insurance agency is what allows me to consistently pour my heart out about an industry I adore and career I cherish. I affectionately refer to this as Bleed-ing on the Keys…

I hope, with the preceding introduction, you will under-stand why as a thirty year old insurance agent and future standard bearer of the insurance industry, I am in such vigorous disagreement with the following two beliefs circulating throughout our industry:

1. The Millennial Generation does not value the service independent insurance agents provide and prefer to deal with direct writers.

2. The ability to provide Online Quotes is essential to competing with online direct writers.

Could it possibly be that these are the prevailing ideas of the insurance industry’s thought leaders?

I hope I’m wrong…But in case I’m not, let’s attack these two statements.

Belief 1: The Millennial Generation does not value the service independent insurance agents provide and prefer to deal with direct writers.

I’ve heard this statement packaged a couple different ways:

“Millennials grew up with computers and want to buy through computers…”

“Millennials associate anything with an “Agent” as more work and more expensive…”

“Millennials have been marketed to their entire life and don’t respond to brand value…”

Have you ever heard these arguments or some variation of them? I bet you have. When I hear and read something that is expressing a viewpoint such as those above I cringe.

The problem is not that Millennials do not relate to independent agents… The real issue is that independent agents do not relate to Millennials.

Too many of us are sitting in our agencies ignoring the Internet, marketing as if it’s 1979, and selling with the same tired pitch we’ve always used. Coverage this… Price that… Review once a year whatever…It’s all B.S.

What Millennials want is the same thing that your Baby Boomer clients want: a relationship. But Ryan, how can you say that when these people make insurance buying deci-sions based on conversations they’ve had on Facebook?

I didn’t say that Millennials want the same type of relationship that Baby Boomers want, I said they want a relationship.

The reason your independent agency is struggling to


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How to Compete for Personal Lines with the Direct Writers By Alan Shulman, CPCU

Let’s face facts. It’s unlikely that any individual indepen-dent agency will ever “beat” the direct writers. They have massive marketing budgets, a strong online presence, great name recognition, and enjoy a reputation for being low in cost.

Still, you can compete against direct writers on an account-by-account basis. Sometimes, you’ll write the business, other times you won’t. But if you don’t make a continuous effort, you’ll never win and that’s the death knell for the independents in personal lines.

The path to successfully compete with the direct writers requires a basic understanding of their marketing prow-ess, including when to emulate it and when to differenti-ate from it. This watchful eye is important as the nation’s largest direct insurers know what garners attention for their brand of coverage. It’s what makes their names household words. No, it’s not just their massive market-ing budgets; it’s also what they spend it on. How they invest their millions is seldom constant, as marketing by its nature is fluid; it changes with the times.

Be EntertainingToday, the direct writers draw upon entertainment themes in their promotions, with a focus on silliness. It’s a smart move as humor is the great equalizer. The wealthy, middle class, and working class insurance buyers all love to laugh. It’s why GEICO employs squealing pigs, people living under rocks, the Gecko at conventions, and more. It’s why Allstate manipulates mayhem. And it’s why State Farm has its insureds singing the “good neighbor” jingle to instantly summon their agent.

The lesson to independents is to be creative and enter-taining when marketing personal lines. Advertising that you sell “all forms of insurance” and displaying a list of policy types is no longer viable.

Creative promotional approaches for independents include imaginary resources such as amusing insurance advice columns, humorous coverage knowledge quizzes, transcripts of imaginary conversations, “fake” blogs, and more. Use multiple channels to promote your efforts, including both digital and traditional marketing. Activate these ideas, and others, to attract the attention of today’s entertainment driven insurance buyer.

Develop Your Web SiteIn addition to entertaining consumers through their advertising, direct writers utilize the Internet in all its

iterations to develop a continuous flow of leads, to deliver quotes, to close sales, and to perform various service functions. This includes the posting of robust Web sites and the persistent use of social media. Independent agencies that don’t emulate affordable aspects of these proven practices are fated to be hurt by them. A contem-porary, dynamic Web presence and the imaginative use of Facebook and Twitter are well within the budget of every survival-minded independent.

The place to start is at your agency Web site. It is the nucleus of your digital presence, so evaluate it objectively. Does it look outdated, contain obsolete graphics, text, and links? Is it enticingly promoted and interactive? Does it offer quotes and at least basic client service functions? Does it offer information packed landing pages with easy to type URLs for targeted prospects to instantly access? The wrong answers to these basic questions means that you need to upgrade your Web site and keep it current. There are tons of vendors out there who will do the job for you if you can’t do it in house.

The three social media biggies: Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, along with traditional media (direct mail, inserts, print ads, etc.), can all drive people to your site, but it has to be worth the visit, or your promotional expenditures are for naught.

Be SocialTo drive Web visits, and to attract a following, your social media involvement requires a steady feed of interest-ing insurance-related content. For instance, to compete against the direct writers and their skilled marketing staff, you can’t just open a few free social media accounts and forget about them. Nor can you just make random postings and retweet, or otherwise link to, the work of others. Instead, you must develop your own social mes-saging voice.

Some insurance agents worry about their postings be-ing too commercial. Don’t be overly concerned. People who voluntarily connect to an insurance agency expect insurance-related information to be posted. So, freely develop multiple campaign themes and use the top social sites to promote them.

Twitter example: Plant doubt in the minds of your pros-pects by beginning each tweet with the phrase “When was the last time your family insurance agent…” Then complete it with a positive action that you do but they probably don’t.

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Sample tweets: “When was the last time your fam-ily insurance agent contacted you? And bills don’t count. We stay in touch. [URL].” And “When was the last time your family insurance agent gave you any money-saving tips? We send them regularly. [URL].” Include the URL of a tie-in landing page on your site (with a fill-in Web form) to convert the person’s doubt into a viable lead.

Facebook example: Attach a series of mini-posters (converted into an online graphic file and placed in a photo album) to your wall, each with the head-line… “Bet you thought this was covered…” For in-stance, display a dramatic image of a flooded home and note that it’s not covered under a common homeowners policy. Present a solution. In this case, it’s a separate flood policy.

Talk SavingsPricing is unmistakably important to all consumers. It’s why the direct writers focus their policy promo-tions on this central issue. They prominently display various three-figure dollar amounts as typical savings. You too can use price as a hook. Just don’t get lost in the “you can save up to $XXX” shuffle. Instead, dazzle your prospects with the variety of discounts that you offer. Most people don’t real-ize that they can reduce their premiums through certain actions and forbearances, other than the obvious ones (no accidents, tickets, homeowners claims, etc.). Hook shoppers by distributing lists of the discounts that you commonly provide (one list per policy type). Then invite buyers to check off each insurance discount they believe they’re due and to return the list to you. An interested and informed prospect is often more salable than someone who responds to a savings promotion that cites a specific dollar figure. It’s because if you can’t approximate that number for the person, the sale is tougher to close.

Personal lines discount checklists can be distribut-ed in myriad ways, including as inserts, direct mail pieces, and online. You can easily create versions for auto, home, and watercraft policies.

Promotional ideas: Attract price conscious consum-ers by placing auto insurance checklist inserts into your local shopping news or penny saver. Insert homeowners checklists into homebuyers’ guides to attract future property owners before they close on a new house. Boating and marina newspapers are well suited for your watercraft checklists. Inserts are less expensive than direct mail and can be tar-geted to selected areas. Also, distribute the pages at auto, boat, and home shows, fairs, and craft



Using Awareness, Commitment & Action to Sell to the Modern Consumer By Adam DeGraide

Alright … so we are almost through 2012 and your busi-ness has still not grown … NOW WHAT? Seriously … NOW WHAT? How are you going to grow your agency? How are you going to FIND more customers? How are you going to SELL more policies? How are you going to KEEP your client base? Seriously … HOW? I realize these questions are never fun to answer; however, they are critical for you to evaluate.

At Astonish, we have more than 800 agencies as clients and it is amazing to me how so many of them had their most successful years of growth in these down market conditions. On the other hand, some didn’t grow at all and some even went in the opposite direction. What was the difference? Well it comes down to three words… Awareness, Commitment & Action!

First, you must be aware that you need to change. Sec-ond, you need the commitment to actually do something about it, and third you need ACTION – YOU ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!

You see, the industry as a whole knows we have been at a crossroads for quite some time but only a small percent-age of local agencies have actually done something about it. So let’s look at these three words in more detail.

AwarenessAccording to Dictionary.com, awareness is the state or condition of being aware; having knowledge; conscious-ness. So what does it mean to truly be aware? Well, it re-minds me of some counseling that I went through when I was a young lad and going through some very difficult times. My counselor at the time said, “admitting that you have a problem is the first step to recovery.”

In other words, once I was AWARE there was an issue and I embraced the truth of that, then real change began. This is true not only in your personal life, but in your business and professional life as well. Think about it. At what point are you going to come to the reality that the modern consumer has changed the way he or she buys insurance? That is the first step to awareness… to rec-ognize that we, as an industry, can no longer try and sell insurance the way we like or always have done. We must start selling insurance the way the modern consumer wants to buy it! Once you have this awareness, or awak-ening, that leads to knowledge of the problem, admitting

you are part of it, and then making the commitment to change. For me, commitment is not only lip service of the issue, but the careful and thought out strategy to bring about the change.

For example, if I ran an agency and I came to the aware-ness that the majority of insureds are at least starting their search for insurance online, I would map out and commit to a detailed plan of attack. I would make sure that not only my employees but I would receive training on the behavior of the modern consumers. I would look very intensely at their behaviors online, their expecta-tions, and I would put that against mine and my people’s core skill sets.

Modern consumers use the Internet to save time and to get things done quicker. I would monitor our response times within the agency to see if we were getting back to their requests quickly and accurately. If we weren’t, I would make sure to implement the change necessary to fix that issue. I have heard it said from hundreds of agen-cies that they “don’t want those types of leads” or “In-ternet leads are not as valuable as other forms of leads.” This has always bewildered me because the very next day I’ll meet an agency that not only values them, but literally has a 50 percent closing ratio and they can’t get enough.

What is at the core difference between these viewpoints? SPEED! That’s right, speed of response and getting to the consumer before they have gone somewhere else. It is a statistical fact that the ability to close an Internet op-portunity drops in half after 15 minutes of submission! Therefore, I would make sure that we not only had a tool but the right training and adequate staffing to respond within minutes, if not even seconds. That’s the difference. You’ll be amazed at how these previously “BAD LEADS” almost magically turn into gold.

CommitmentI would also commit to being the best at selling and servicing leads via my website and all social media platforms. And I would make sure that my employees and myself where in a continuous mode of improvement and training. I would look to partner with companies and other agencies that have the same passion and dedication that I have in selling and serving the modern consumer.


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Selling and E&O Loss Prevention – Is This a “Chicken and the Egg Scenario”?Which came first? By becoming a professional salesper-son, did you end up with fewer E&O claims or by taking various procedures to avoid E&O claims, did you become a more professional salesperson? The question resembles the old “chicken and the egg” dilemma.

The first formal E&O insurance really had its birth in the 1960’s. Professional salespersons have been around much longer than that. In actuality, there is a tremendous cor-relation between these two concepts. A solid focus on the techniques/skills and process should greatly assist and enhance your sales success. Maybe somewhat ironically, this also will reduce the potential that you will face an E&O claim. Bottom line, it sounds like an unbeatable combination.

Are you born a great salesperson? No, most would con-tend that to achieve great sales success requires a com-mitment to develop a plan and process, and then follow it. Here are some great sales resources for your “toolbox” that should enhance your ability to become a more pro-fessional salesperson.

Start with YOURSELF & the organization you represent. When was the last time that you truly assessed your per-sonal skill level and determined how to capitalize on your strengths? Have you been honest with yourself on who you really are and what your strengths and weaknesses are? What are your ethical standards? How would you assess your technical proficiency?

These are some issues that you need to address with yourself. Through this process, you will be more capable of answering some key questions. These include: 1) What opportunities do my strengths create? and 2) What threats do my weaknesses encourage? This should also allow you to better determine key training needs that will help you turn weaknesses into strengths.

Clients buy a relationship with you because of your exper-tise. As John Lee, AIMS Society Past President, stated very well: “The success of an agency doesn’t depend on its size. It depends on the perception that it brings value to its clients.”

What is your ethical make-up? If you are not sure of the answer to a client question, do you say, “That is a great question that I honestly don’t know the answer to” or do you tell them what they want to hear even if it is not the correct answer? Incorrectly advising clients how coverage applies has been a very common cause of E&O claims for years.

Do you have the tools available to improve your suc-cess? Are you readily using these tools? Tools such as Exposure Analysis Checklists can provide you with solid information on more than 650 different SIC codes. Also, consider proper use of various loss control services that are designed to improve the quality of your account and ultimately make or save your client money.

Does your agency offer 24/7/365 service options? If so, market this as part of the package that a client gets when they do business with you. As you interact with prospects/clients, you should be able to cite three unique aspects of your agency and what your clients really get for their money.

Do you truly know the industry you work in? Are you aware of the latest issues and the trends? Pricing pres-sures and legislative issues exist, regardless of the mar-ket. By understanding “what’s going on,” you will become more of a professional and this will be evident to your customers.

Not only are there many great periodicals to assist in this area, there are also a host of websites/e-mail news bulle-tins/automation vendor news that provide a steady flow of quality information. In addition, you definitely want to take advantage of the associations that your agency is a member of as they are dedicated and committed to help-ing their members be more successful.


By Curtis M. Pearsall, CPCU, AIAF, ARM, AU, CPIA and Kitty Ambers, CPIA, CIC, CISR, CPIW, CRMCS, IMIM

One tool that is often referred to as the “silver bullet in avoiding E&O claims” is an Exposure Analysis Checklist such as the Rough Notes Producer Online.


Keeping One Step AheadUse technology and social media to enhance your customer’s experience By Nancy Doucette

It’s hard not to get caught up in the frenzy. It seems like the invitation to “like us on Facebook” is everywhere you look. In an effort to better engage with customers and prospects, shouldn’t your agency be extending that invi-tation as well? Before you answer, take some time to con-sider why your customers came to your agency in the first place. What you discover may help you better define your marketing strategy, and how technology can support it.

Defining and implementing successful marketing strate-gies are what the agencies that are featured on the cover of Rough Notes magazine excel at. Following are some insights from two such agencies.

Understanding what your customers value about their re-lationship with your agency is an essential first step. But don’t assume. Ask. Once you know what your customers value about your agency, you can use that information to attract new customers.

For The Flanders Group in Pittsford, New York, under-standing what their clients value about their relation-ship with the agency began about 15 years ago. Valarie Aloisio-Webster, senior vice president, recalls that the agency worked with 21st Century Management Consult-ing to send questionnaires and conduct interviews with the agency’s customers to learn what they expected from their insurance agent. “Bottom line,” she says, “our clients wanted to know that we anticipated their needs, worked hard for their business, and that we cared about them. Those specific messages directed our client relationship management strategy.”

The agency serves six “crevice markets” (essentially niches within niches) and develops unique programs for those crevices. “Our agency has a specialization in workers compensation,” Webster explains. “So our philosophy has always been: ‘A strong human resources philosophy mar-ried with medically based injury management makes for an effective, cost contained workers comp program.’ ”

Steve Brown, president of Hoffman Brown Company in Sherman Oaks, California, points out that his agency is a “human to human marketing agency” which caters to high net-worth individuals. He’s doubtful that people want to do business with the agency because it’s on Facebook. So it isn’t. “We believe in social media, but not as a replacement for knowing our clients. They use us for what we bring to the table,” he observes.

Brown says the agency leverages technology to “touch customers when they don’t expect to be touched. Tech-nology tells us things about our clients that we didn’t — or couldn’t — pay attention to before,” he says.

Know Thy CustomersWebster says that social media is cer-tainly a part of the client experience at The Flanders Group and it’s one way to use technology. But, she emphasizes, whether and how an agency uses it depends on the agency, and it depends on the client base. “If you truly listen to your customers, you get a feel for their concerns and questions. Your staff can tell you what your clients are contact-ing them about; it changes constantly so you have to keep asking and ad-dressing the needs as they arise,” she says.

In July 2011, Webster began blogging for The Flanders Group. “The Flanders Group has a tremendous amount of workers compensation expertise,” she notes, “and we wanted to share that. It’s valuable to existing clients as well as people who don’t know about The Flanders Group, our unique workers compensation philosophy, or our expertise. For prospects, when they’re online looking for information about workers compensation, insurance, or one of our crevice markets, they’ll find that information in our blog at our Web site, they’ll learn that we provide insurance for many of their contemporaries here in New York State, and that we’re the experts in the industry.”

Webster says that blog topics are based on frequent questions posed by clients as well as insurance-related action in the state. As of July 2012, she says, “New York is going through a transition. The New York Compensation


Valarie Aloisio-Webster, senior vice president

The Flanders Group, Pittsford, New York

“If you truly listen to your customers, you get a feel for their concerns and questions. Your staff can tell you what your clients are contacting them about...”

—Valarie Aloisio-Webster, senior vice president of The Flanders Group in Pittsford, New York

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Your Agency Facebook Page: What If You Build It and They Don’t Come? By Ted Janusz

Q: Okay, so I took your advice in a previous edition of the PIA National Agency Marketing Guide and created a Facebook page for our agency. But now it’s just sitting there with hardly any fans. What should I do?

First of all, let me congratulate you! With nearly a billion users (that’s one of out every seven people on the planet who has a Facebook account) be assured that you are in the right place to promote your agency.

And let me assure you a Facebook page can work for you. When I spoke at the annual convention for the PIA of Tennessee, an agent told me that he was able to write numerous new policies by posting questions on his Facebook page such as, “If my tree falls down and hits my neighbor’s house, am I responsible for the damage?” He involved his fans in the conversation and then showed that he was an expert on the topic of insurance to his community. (Notice he did not use his Facebook page to shout: “Call me today for a free insurance quote!”)

In fact, just of few of the many insurance Facebook pages you may want to study and emulate include:

• McKinnon Insurance (Notice how this page doesn’t pitch insurance products but instead allows their prospects and clients to get to know them on a per-sonal level. People want to buy insurance from those they know and “like.”)

• Alan Galvez Insurance• Baker & Associates Insurance Agency• Hill & Hamilton Insurance and Financial Services• Westfield Insurance• Progressive• Flo, the Progressive Girl (This page was not cre-

ated by some corporate marketer, but rather by an 18-year-old male fan of Flo’s from Oklahoma. Notice how many millions of likes the page has today!)

• Securance Service• The National Alliance for Insurance Education &

Research• Allstate Insurance• State Farm Insurance• Nationwide Insurance• The World’s Greatest Spokesperson in the World• Aflac Duck• GEICO

Advice from the ExpertsHere are some of the best tips and tricks I have found on how to grow the fan base for your agency’s Facebook page from six other social media experts.

Our first expert, Ching Ya, of Socialmediaexaminer.com, suggests these three ideas:

1. Take the Initiative: Request Help from FriendsIt’s difficult to start a Facebook page with no engagement whatsoever. Why not send messages to your friends and clients who are supportive of your agency? Ask them to help out in some discussions, reward them with publicity, or return the favor. Ask them to use Facebook’s Suggest feature to “suggest” that their friends like your page. When the request comes from these community thought leaders, it’s a lot harder for others to decline to hit that “like” button.

2. Use Tagging One of the most popular features on Facebook is tag-ging, which gives you the ability to identify and reference people in photos, videos and notes. Friends you tag in your status updates will receive a notification and a Wall post linking them to your post.

3. Participate Outside Your PageUse Facebook Directory and Facebook Search to locate other Facebook pages in your insurance niche. Look for public discussions based on search terms related to your business.

Our second expert, Laura Rubinstein, of the Social Media Marketing Strategist, suggests two ideas:

1. Hold a Contest – Jupiter Research reported in 2001 that 49 percent of consumers enter an online sweep-stakes at least once a month. Sponsoring a contest will do two things for you: first, you will easily be able to


Use Facebook Directory and Facebook Search to locate other Facebook pages in your insurance niche. Look for public discussions based on search terms related to your business.

--Ching Ya, Socialmediaexaminer.com

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Finding the Needle By David Connolly

An excerpt from an interview with a successful agency owner:

DC: Historically, what has consistently been the biggest challenge you face as an agency owner?

Owner: “In our infancy we were always worried about cash flow, capitalization, and carrier appointments. Re-cently, it’s been the economy, and health care reform. But consistently over the course of our history, our biggest challenge has been attracting, growing and retaining strong production talent.”

How do agency principals develop successful production tal-ent? This my friends is “The Question.” I don’t believe there is one single model for success. I know there isn’t, because I’ve seen a wide variety of very different agency cultures have consistent success developing exceptional production tal-ent. What I can say with confidence, is that they all employ processes that help them maximize their chances for suc-cess. This article is a synopsis of these processes, and offers my personal observations on agencies that have better than average success with producer development.

I believe the first mistake agencies make is when they look to hire a “Sales Professional.” They are staffing the wrong position. Finding a pure “Sales Professional” is a piece of cake. The successful insurance agents I work with are not sales people. A strong sales aptitude is just one of many competencies required for success in this position.

The Prototype of a Successful Insurance Agent

(Deep breath)

The prototype of a successful insurance agent is a consul-tant and creative problem solver with exceptional com-munication and presentation skills. Possesses an intense entrepreneurial spirit, drive and work ethic. Can effectively manage and motivate service staff to deliver a wide range of business services. Is organized, can multitask, and has strong time management skills. Works effectively both independently and with teams on winning and retaining business. Possesses executive level negotiation skills to deal with marketing personnel and underwriters. Understands, evaluates and communicates insurance contractual lan-guage. Has strong computer, writing, math and analytical skills. Has strong marketing and advertising skills. Navi-gates fluid economic and legislative environments and shifting carrier appetites. Possesses a serious competitive drive, and is mentally tough to cope with frequent losses. Has a tireless motor and works early, late and on week-

ends. Is an intellectual, pragmatic, supportive, leader who can quickly build and develop strong relationships with all personality types. Is professional, honest, loyal, humble and has integrity. Is socially conservative but can lead, persuade, sell, qualify, close, and retain business.

Put that on a job search description and you won’t get many responses. Those who do would most likely be egomaniacs. It’s like finding the proverbial needle in the haystack, and we have all experienced the heartburn and the money pit associated with trying to make successful agents out sales people.

So with these incredibly steep qualifications, how do agency principals find, recruit, hire, train and grow suc-cessful production talent? All start with the end in mind, and all begin with very high standards for potential candidates. This gives them the raw material they need to work with, and the best chance for success at building a great producer. In short, all start by hiring “A” players.

What’s an “A” player? There are several definitions but this one I found on an entrepreneurial blog written by Andy Liu called Inspired Start Up describes A players well.

“They are always stretching goals that you set and they hate to lose. They take personal responsibility and owner-ship for everything. They push the people around them to set higher bars, to compete, to put in the necessary time. The A-players thrive on startup energy, they love how fast things can get done, they hate bureaucracy, they expect excellence, and they want to make a real difference. Ultimately, they care, and they treat your business like it is their business. How many A-players do you have? How are you investing more time and resources into them? How are you finding them?”

Steve Jobs described the process of building Apple around “A” players like this:

“For most things in life, the range between best and average is 30% or so. The best airplane flight, the best meal, they may be 30% better than your average one. What I saw with Woz (Steve Wozniak) was somebody who was fifty times better than the average engineer. He could have meetings in his head. The Mac team was an attempt to build a whole team like that, A play-ers. People said they wouldn’t get along, they’d hate working with each other. But I realized that A players like to work with A players, they just didn’t like work-


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Make Email Marketing Work for Your Agency By Laird Rixford

Email marketing is a great tool for any insurance agent looking to build better customer retention and increase his sales. It is very effective in driving new business because the email is delivered directly to the consumer helping to keep your agency in the forefront of the decision process. Sure, you can send a direct mail piece to a list of prospects, but how confident are you that they are actually receiving it? Thanks to tracking in email programs, you can easily identify not only who is receiving the email, but also who is opening and clicking on your message.

Also, email marketing is very budget-friendly for agents who are looking to make the most of their marketing dol-lars. It costs a lot less to send one message to a list of 5,000 prospects than it does to send one postcard to the same list, which means the return on your marketing investment is much higher for email marketing than direct mail.

In a recent MarketingSherpa Email Marketing Benchmark Survey, respondents said email marketing is effective at achieving their objectives 65 percent (or greater depend-ing on the objective) of the time. A few of those objectives: increasing sales conversions and revenue, driving website traffic, increasing lead generation, and improving retention.

Two Type of Email MarketingThere are two main types of email marketing: broadcast email and triggered email.

Broadcast email, also called batch-and-blast, is the same message being sent to everyone on a list. Think your agency newsletter or a holiday greeting. You can also seg-ment, or separate, your email list for broadcast emails to

send one message to your auto customers and a different message to your home customers.

Triggered email is a message initiated by time, events or action. It is automated and sent to a specific individual for a specific reason. Triggered email can also be a series of messages — sometimes called an event or dialog track. Because of its ability to send a message at the optimal moment based on a particular action, event or date, the conversion rates of triggered email are three times that of broadcast email.

Broadcast email can be sent with an email marketing tool or your email client. If you use your email client, be sure you use the BCC option to keep your customers’ email addresses private.

An automated email system can do both broadcast and triggered email. These systems can save you time and money because once your emails are set up, it runs automatically without requiring any more time other than an occasional content update. So your follow ups on prospective policies, your policy renewal and payment reminders, and your holiday messages will all happen without you having to remember or do anything. When you use an automated system to follow up on your pros-pects, you can instead focus on quoting the next prospect and developing new leads to feed the process.

A Triggered Email Example A lead comes in from your website. It is a young couple looking to insure their two cars and maybe a new home. You called and gave them an auto quote within minutes of receiving their information. As for the homeowner’s policy, they are going to wait a few months on that as they received a policy from their lender. Now what?

Your automated email marketing system sends the first email thanking them for their interest in your agency within minutes of supplying the auto insurance quote. The next day, it sends an email with your value proposition detailing why they should choose your agency. Two days later a reminder is sent to an agent in your office to call the couple and see if there is anything you can do to assist their decision. These continual touches are delivered from the system automatically with little interaction on your part.

Finally, after sending emails over the course of a week, the young couple is ready to buy. You write the business and move on, right? Of course not! Now you switch your


Source: MarketingSherpa Email Marketing Benchmark Survey


Just Imagine If Everybody Shopped at the Mall, But You Didn’t Have a Store ThereHow do potential insurance clients find your agency, espe-cially if they are new to town? In the past, they may have turned to the Yellow Pages or even the local newspaper to try to find you. Today, they go online.

It’s been determined that 92% of consumers use the Inter-net to discover local businesses they want to do business with. In fact, 75% of those shopping for insurance begin with an Internet search.

This fact is certainly not lost on Google, the world’s larg-est Internet search engine with an 81% market share. Of the $40 billion in revenue that Google brings in each year, nearly all of it can be attributed to their Google AdWords program.

The Google AdWords program consists of advertisements that contain a headline of 25 characters and two addition-al lines of text of 35 characters each. You have probably seen relevant Google AdWords that appear along the right side of your computer screen whenever you conduct a search on the Google site. Because of Google’s ubiquitous popularity, AdWords are purchased in thousands of differ-ent categories.

But what is the number one Google AdWords category? Insurance.

Currently Google AdWords states that nearly 25 million times a month people are conducting local searches on phrases containing the word “insurance.”

The Web has also paved the way to success for companies like Esurance. Launched on the eve of Y2K, the Esurance Website sells car insurance directly to consumers and now has nearly one million policy holders. In fact, Esurance has been Google’s number two revenue generator since 1999.

But the success of either Google AdWords or Esurance doesn’t necessarily mean that consumers want to buy their insurance right off the Web. Studies show that 82% of consumers want to do business with an insurance agent, someone much like you.

So let’s get back to our main question: how are new clients going to find your agency? You may say, “Not a problem! I have a Website.”

Here is a test: go to Google, where several hundred mil-lion search queries are conducted each day, or even your favorite Internet search engine, and type in a typical query a new insurance client might enter such as “Why is my homeowner’s insurance premium increasing?” Where does your Website show in the results?

Sure, if a potential client already knows the name of your agency and searches on that term, there is a good chance that a link to your Website will appear in their search results if they search on your agency name. But if they are new to the area and looking for insurance, how likely is it that they will actually know the name of your agency?

Instead they are likely to see in the search results the names of large insurance companies they already recog-nize, those that have the financial resources to spread their name through multimedia advertising. Further, these companies can also help ensure that their Websites will be found in the organic (non-paid) search results through a process known as search engine optimization (SEO). But how likely is it that your agency can match their multi-million dollar marketing expenditures?

Enter Enhance Insurance by AgoragateWouldn’t it be nice if you could tie your agency into such a Website? A Website that, for instance, posted 500 new pages of unique content in the last month that were con-tributed by 16 different authors. Search engines just love new content, and will reward those sites in the search engine rankings that are continually updated. (How often do you or I have the time or resources to update our own Websites?)

As a result, when a potential client types a query like “Why is my homeowner’s insurance premium increasing?” into a search engine they have a far more likely chance of dis-covering a Website like this that has been search engine optimized.


75% of those shopping for insurance begin with an Internet search.

The success of either Google AdWords or Esurance doesn’t necessarily mean that consumers want to buy their insurance right off the Web. Studies show that 82% of consumers want to do business with an insurance agent, someone much like you.


Delivering Presentations in the Clouds By Ted Janusz

You need to deliver a dynamic sales or marketing presenta-tion at your next client or prospect meeting but you want make sure that they will still be awake at the end. What can you do?

To help you as you develop your presentation, David Pierce, in his Internet article entitled “The 10 Command-ments of PowerPoint,” offers you these three, well, com-mandments:

• Thou Shalt Use 15 Words Per Slide – Think of it like a text message, or like Twitter – if you can’t get your message across in 15 words, shorten your message.

• Thou Shalt Not Only Use Text – Pictures say a thou-sand words, and videos are usually more interesting than you are.

• Thou Shalt Not Bullet – The text you do use should never, ever be bulleted.

But if you would like to make an even more dramatic impact on your audience, consider skipping PowerPoint entirely. Instead you may want to use a new, different, and cloud-based presentation tool called Prezi.

What is Prezi?Rather than slides, Prezi presents a zoomable canvas that helps you and your audience explore ideas and the con-nections between them.

If you have never seen a Prezi presentation before, it may be a challenge for you to actually visualize how this tool operates, how it is different from the PowerPoint applica-tion you may currently be using, and how you can use Prezi to give an impressive presentation. As David Pierce mentioned above, a picture is worth a thousand words, so a video may be even worth more. A great place to start is to watch a one-minute video that explains the use of Prezi. Simply go to YouTube and type “What is Prezi? The official intro video.”

Launched in April 2009, Prezi currently has 10 million users and is growing at the rate of a million new users every month. The software was designed by an architect and vi-sual artist. He originally created this innovative tool to see the overview of a floor plan and then zoom in to view the detail. The application has evolved to allow, the company says, “visually captivating presentations that evoke curios-ity and lead your audience down a path of discovery.”

Prezi’s CEO Peter Arvai says, “There is a prezi created every second and the new PowerPoint import feature makes this evolution of collaborative, interactive storytelling

accessible to all. It’s time to think outside the slide.” (An individual presentation is known as a “prezi,” whereas the tool to create it is known as “Prezi.”)

Moving from PowerPoint to PreziDo you have an existing PowerPoint presentation you would like to have come alive with Prezi? With the new PowerPoint Import function, you can quickly and easily upload your new or existing PowerPoint slides into Prezi presentations. You can either insert the entire presentation at once, or select individual slides and drag them anywhere on your Prezi canvas. Further, if you have an iPad, using the Prezi Viewer for iPad allows you to view and present prezis anywhere and to edit your content on the fly.

“Prezi is helping reinvent the art of presentation,” says Chris Anderson, the curator of TED Conferences. “Fare-well, one-dimensional thinking.”

How Prezi Presentations Can Be DifferentMarketing and social media expert Kelvin Claveria, in his Internet article entitled “4 Reasons Why You Should Use Prezi for Your Next Presentation” offers these three tips about the use of Prezi:

• It’s More Similar to How You Think – PowerPoints make it a little difficult to point out how concepts relate to each other, or how your points support each other. Prezi solves this issue by giving you a big white canvas.

• You Can Rotate and Zoom In and Out – This function-ality is definitely unique and something that Power-Point wouldn’t allow you to do. Personally, I find this handy when I’d like to highlight a certain word or a certain part of a picture.

• It’s Beautiful – People tend to be more attentive when I use Prezi.

Even though your presentation tool may reside in the clouds, you may discover that the minds of your audience members don’t need to be there also. You can find out more about this innovative application at www.prezi.com.

Ted Janusz speaks to insurance agents and PIA state af-filiates on “Social Media for Baby Boomers.” Learn more at www.januspresentations.com/social-media.htm.

PIA members, discover how to harness the power of so-cial media to bring new business into your agency. For your FREE copy of step-by-step instructions in the “Social Media Marketing Guide for Insurance Professionals” visit www.insuranceagoragate.com/social-media-guide.

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lines department. This can be for profitability, growth, mix of business, or other programs. The carriers that write personal lines business generally want more. And they are willing to partner with agents who have a well thought out growth plan. My personal experience shows that there are plenty of good plans that pass the smell test and that have the agency, customer, and carrier all aligned.

Internal growth: New business is good, but most per-sonal lines books have great internal growth opportuni-ties. Most agencies are leaving 50% to 75% on the table strictly by not having an active plan to upgrade existing coverage and cross-sell other lines of business. A good automated marketing system should constantly identify these internal growth opportunities.

Customers: A customer is a customer… A vibrant personal lines book will support all other lines in your agency. It can be the door opener to cross-sell both benefits and commercial. It certainly can cement relationships with key commercial decision makers as well. Too many only view it as a one-way street.

Annuity: The reality? People don’t change their personal policies very often. It’s too much work. Having a system-atic process that puts your agency in front of customers often means that they will have less reason to take a look elsewhere. Yes, you will lose some, but it doesn’t matter. A vibrant personal lines book should maintain its customer base at a 90% to 93% retention rate. For most personal lines accounts the renewal is not an “event” like it is with commercial lines. The policy continues to automatically renew without a great deal of involvement from the agency.

Putting each of these items into practice in your agency will allow you to continue to grow—even in turbulent times. Personal lines will help make your agency more profitable.

Steve Anderson has been an agent for over 30-years and is Executive Editor of The Anderson Agency Report (TAAR). He is a prolific writer who is known for his knack for translating tech-nology “geek speak” into easily understood concepts. He can be contacted through his web site at www.SteveAnderson.com.

Continued from page 12

Personal Lines – A Growth Opportunity By Steve Anderson

many independent agents and agencies. The direct writ-ers are claiming that they are offering the best service and the best price, but frequently this is not the case. Independent agents, with their multiple companies and varied underwriting guidelines, are nearly always price competitive. More importantly, our independent agent channel frequently makes appropriate coverage the focus, not price. The independent agent is doing the right job for the customer, and the independent agents out there should feel confident that their customers are fortunate to have them as insurance providers.

Independent agents have two key strengths that insur-ance consumers give up when they do business with the direct insurance marketers…local representation and multiple company capability. We believe that every initial business discussion with a prospect should include some variation on the following language:

There are a couple of things that are important to consider when you speak with our agency regard-ing your personal insurance—auto, home, umbrella, life…etc. Number one…whether you do business with our agency or not we suggest you work with an insurance agency that can offer you more than one insurance company. We work to match you with a company that is a good fit regarding both coverage and price. The reason we offer multiple companies is to be able to offer this match.

Number two…we are a local agency, and if you have a question or a concern, we encourage you to come in, sit down with us, and we will help you with the issue. You are certainly able to communicate with us via today’s efficient means of communication, such as phone and email. Still, if you have a major claim, or any questions, we encourage you to come in and see us.

As independent agents, we can’t let our desire for ef-ficient customer interaction make it easy for our custom-ers to give up their local agent…we don’t want to train our customers to do business with direct writers. Encourage them to call, and to feel free to come in. We all know they’ll call and email, but we want to emphasize the op-portunity to do business face-to-face.

In conclusion, there are many agencies out there


Observations: Personal Lines Successes-2012 By John Macdonald


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If You Build It, Will They Come? By Bill Jenkins

insurance company, agent or agency every 6 months or less to conduct a general review of their insurance cover-ages and costs to find out if they are paying too much or lacking coverage they may need.

73% of customers want to hear from their current insur-ance provider more often than just at renewal.

85% of customers say it is either important or very impor-tant that they are contacted by their preferred method.

Your customers want to hear from you. They want to know that you’re there for them — that you’re proactively interested in their insurance needs.

10 years ago it may have been impractical and too expen-sive to maintain frequent contact with customers. But today, it’s much easier by using inexpensive automated delivery of email messages and newsletters. These can be timed to renewal cycles and help you identify revenue and loyalty enhancing opportunities for your agency through annual reviews, cross-selling, account-rounding and coverage additions and improvements.

Using the Survey ResultsThe research clearly shows that many of the areas in which you provide added value, as independent agents,

have a high level of importance for the vast majority of customers.

This is great news — customers want what agents have to offer. By using the results from this research, agents can proactively deliver what customers want.

So, how can an agency use the way customers answer this and other questions from our research to make the most of their touch point opportunities?

In addition to the research itself, we have also created an online resource center which offers tools agents can use to make choices on how to use the research in ways which work best for themselves and their agencies. These tools help agents prioritize their efforts to plan, imple-ment change, refine their marketing messages and moni-tor and measure the results.

Here are a few of the approaches you’ll find in the tools section of our AgencyTouchPoints.com website:

• Helping your customers provide you with testimonials• Using Customer Data • Are You Covered?• How do you identify yourself?• Newsletters• Asking for referrals• Account Rounding Action Plan

Here is how customers rank the following in order of importance in response to the following question: “With regard to the individual or company you work with to provide you insurance coverage, please rank these factors in order of importance from 1 to 10, where a ‘1’ indicates the most important factor and a ‘10’ indicates the least important factor.”

CUSTOMER RANKING:1. Value in the rates they find for me

2. That they are taking care of me and my insurance needs

3. Trust in the person or company

4. Quick service response

5. They will “go to bat for me” when necessary

6. Personal attention

7. They are able to offer me choices of coverage

8. They provide me with confidence that I am making the right insurance decisions

9. They are recommending sufficient insurance protection

10. They are able to offer me a choice of companies

Here is how customers rank the following in order of importance in response to the following question: “Rank in order of importance the factors which give you the greatest level of trust and confidence in the individual (agent or company representative) who will help you make decisions when you purchase insurance from 1 to 6, where a ‘1’ indicates the factor that gives you the greatest level of trust and confidence factor and a ‘6’ indicates the factor that gives you the least level of trust and confidence.”

1. Provide value by finding good rates

2. They are taking care of my insurance needs

3. I have confidence in their insurance knowledge and/or experience

4. They demonstrate the ability to successfully address my insurance needs

5. They make it a priority to tell me what I need for the right amount of insurance protection

6. They offer me choices of insurance companies & coverage options


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If You Work in Insurance, This Should Be the Only Article You Read on the Future of Social Media By Ryan Hanley, CIC

attract Millennials is because you are either unaware, un-able or unwilling to provide the type of relationship that Millennials seek.

That my friend…Is a YOU problem, (an us problem really), not a Millennials problem.

Some of you are saying, “We’re old school here. We’ve been successful doing business the same way for 30 years. We work on referrals…” Do you think technology is going away? Do you think that technology is going to become any less integrated with our daily lives? Please tell me you don’t believe the whole “The World is Swinging Back to 1950’s Cold Calling and Direct Mail Marketing” thing.

Let me answer both those questions for you.

No, technology is not going away.

No, technology is only going to become a greater part of our everyday lives.

To pretend like that is not the truth is like saying the sun won’t rise tomorrow. It’s just silly and you don’t seem silly to me.

Just because YOU don’t like technology doesn’t mean you’re prospects and clients don’t like technology. Millen-nials want a relationship and they are going to seek out that relationship with whoever is willing to provide it.

But here is the trick, Millennials want the relationship, but they want it on their terms.

So far direct writers have been the only companies within the insurance industry willing to provide Millennials with the relationship they want.

But there is hope, direct writers stink at relationships.

Belief 2: The ability to provide Online Quotes is essential to competing with online direct writers.Lately I’ve been reading a lot about online quote integra-tion for independent agency websites with the idea being that today’s consumer wants to be able “shop” online for insurance themselves.

Go back and read the last two sentences of the third paragraph of this article. If that is too taxing a task, (I don’t blame you), here it is again:

“When it comes to insurance my vision quest is destroying the misconception that insurance is a commodity. I believe technology will allow us to do that.”

Do you think that as independent agents we have any chance of competing with big-budget direct marketers if our Value Statement is “Come to our site where you can shop for your own quote”?

You might as well walk outside your office right now and scream “PRICE” as loud as you can into the air. Then go back inside your office and hope someone comes running to buy insurance from you…Sound crazy?

Well…A marketing strategy of yelling into air will have ap-proximately the same results as playing the direct writers game of self-service online quote shopping.

OK, that was pretty aggressive and I’m sure some of you reading this have some form of do-it-yourself-online quote system that you pay some amount of money for and you’re completely offended by everything I’ve written so far.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t have the ability to provide an introductory quote Online. What I’m saying is if you lean on this tool and this tool alone to harness the power of the Millennial generation and Online insurance consumers YOU WILL FAIL.

But let’s skin this cat a different way.

As independent insurance agents how do we differen-tiate ourselves from direct writers? What is our value statement? What makes doing business with a human being a more advantageous insurance experience for the consumer than doing business with a computer?

At its simplest form…WE CARE!

We care that our clients have proper coverage.

We care that our client’s service needs are met in a man-ner they appreciate.

We care that our clients receive the most competitive price in the market.

We care that our client’s insurance carrier will respectfully and dutifully respond to a claim.



• Coverage reviews • Direct mail• Lead generation• Questionnaires

Additional survey data and re-sources designed specifically for agencies can be found online at http://AgencyTouchPoints.com

Bill Jenkins works with The PIA Partnership and has been involved in the insurance industry for more than 20 years in areas of marketing, advertising, communication and technology.

The following chart shows the percentage of customers who either agree or strongly agree with each of the following statements:

I want my insurance agent or company to contact me when they have a suggestion for me to add coverage which I may be missing or increase coverage when I may be underinsured.

69%Agree or strongly agree

How do you establish that value when insurance con-sumers are quoting their own insurance through an on-line rater? If your answer is “After they purchase a policy,” you are so sadly mistaken. You’re an order taker now…Your first impression has come and gone.

“Now process my change or I’m shopping my insurance for something cheaper. All I have to do is go online… NOW I SAID!”

Not me Compadre, I want to establish relationships of trust and respect with my insurance consumers…First!

The Future of Insurance and Social MediaTrue I don’t believe in online raters as the end-all-be-all solution to taking back market share from direct writers.

But I love the power of Internet. I extra love the market-ing, communication, relationship and trust building potential held within the online world of social media and content marketing.

The thing is, I don’t see myself as an insurance agent, as I’m sure many of you do not. We are relationship builders. That’s what we do, we build relationships with people, it just so happens that the service we provide is insurance (or risk transfer for you old school cats).

And I know that so many of you feel the same way. That is why you are so successful at selling insurance. And I’m hoping you are beginning to understand, that relation-ship building is what social media is all about.

Yes these relationships are built through a computer, but they’re certainly not meant to stay there. I try, if geo-graphically feasible, to sit face-to-face with every client.

What I’m trying to say is great relationship builders, (YOU!), absolutely kill it on social media.

This is what Millennials want, a relationship; they just want to build it on the computer first. Millennials still want to know that there is a living, breathing human being who gives a crap about their insurance program on the other side of that computer looking out for their needs.

This is why we as independent insurance agents should not be reliant upon using online self-service quoting platforms.

Our focus should be building the relationship upfront that sets us apart from the machines.

If done correctly, with diligence and dedication, an online social media presence can build the trust and respect necessary to establish a quality agent/client bond.

Which in turn means a lot more sales for your insurance agency.

I promise.

Over 1,500 words and you don’t believe me? See my real, exact results at www.RyanHanley.com/seo-experiment.

You will not be disappointed.

Now go get started!

Ryan Hanley is a producer with The Murray Group Insurance Services, Inc. in Albany, NY. He is also a sought after Social Me-dia and Online Marketing Speaker for the Insurance Industry and Small Business. You can read more about Content Market-ing Concepts that Create Sales at www.RyanHanley.com. Email Ryan at [email protected].



I want my insurance agent or company to contact me when my policy renewal date is approaching.


I want my insurance agent or company to contact me when they have a suggestion for how I could save money.




How to Compete for Personal Lines with the Direct Writers By Alan Shulman, CPCU

events or just hand deliver them to parked cars, homes, and docks (local laws permitting). Also, mail teaser post-cards to prospects to visit your Web site and download the desired discount checklist as a PDF or to complete it online. Socially speaking, tweet discount teasers via Twit-ter and attach images of the checklist, and links to it, on your Facebook wall.

Create Your FuturePersonal insurance marketing is in a state of transition. The production skill set of the 20th century is evolving to attract the post-baby boomer generations. Virtually all young insurance buyers use the Web to conduct research, yet many still buy from independents. So, make abso-lutely certain that your Web site is, and remains, contem-porary in appearance and functionality. Use social media to promote and to dialogue with everyone, especially the Gen X and Gen Y buyers. Don’t try to be cool with them; just provide timely information and helpful answers. These basic online actions help keep you in tomor-row’s game. Still, don’t neglect today. There are some 77 million baby boomers still kicking (not to mention the tens of millions of folks aged 65 and older) most of who buy insurance. They too use the Web to research major purchases, but you can also reach them with traditional marketing methods as well, including systematic direct mail, inserts, and advertising. GEICO uses such offline

marketing to reach beyond the young, and so should you.

Bottom line: Independent agents will continue selling personal lines as long as quality regional companies and national carriers remain dedicated to the channel. But to do so, they need their agents to continuously invest in new producers, new technologies — and most impor-tantly to unceasingly employ creative ideas. Without such approaches to marketing, selling, and retaining policies, independent agents are doomed to live off declining re-newal bases, sporadic referrals, and other incidental new sales. A long-term lack of creativity makes it extremely difficult to compete against imaginative direct writers for mainstream personal lines business and puts the entire independent agency distribution system into question.

Alan Shulman, CPCU is the publisher of Agency Ideas®, a subscription-only sales & marketing newsletter, published since 1990. He is also a long-time monthly columnist for Insurance Journal magazine and the author of hundreds of P&C sales resources. Alan has over 30 combined years of industry experience as a successful independent insurance agent and publisher. He may be reached at 1-800-724-1435 or by email at [email protected]. His website is www.agencyideas.com.

This article has been reprinted with permission from Insurance Journal. Copyright 2012 Insurance Journal.

generating substantial revenues through personal lines sales. There are agencies working the multi-product, multi-company approach via worksite marketing, and some of them have developed thousands of new custom-ers (per agency) in just a few years. Payroll companies are excellent prospects for strategic partnership, as are the voluntary products sales agents in your market area.

Most important of all…keep reminding every prospect you speak with that as an independent agent you bring them choices, options, and a local presence…someone they can meet with in person. There’s nothing better than that.

John W. Macdonald began his insurance career in 1983 with the New York Life, joined the Pike Conway Dahl Insurance Agency in 1989, and began serving as Vice President and

partner of Agency Revenue Tools in 1999. Throughout the lat-ter 90’s, John consulted nationally to the growing network of Independent Agents pursuing sales through worksite market-ing. In 2000, development of Worksite Marketing Manager (WMM) became the core focus, and in 2001 Worksite Market-ing Manager went live. Since 2001, the WMM system has been used by property casualty insurance agencies and companies, as well as benefits sales organizations. John is a licensed pro-ducer across all product lines sold within a full service agency.

Agency Revenue Tools provides the system, training, and sup-port that enables independent agents to offer their superior model to employers and groups seeking workplace market-ing, payroll deduction, and single payroll slot administration. John can be reached at [email protected] or (888) 756-8647 x-101.




Using Awareness, Commitment & Action to Sell to the Modern Consumer By Adam DeGraide

I have discovered over the years that you are who you spend time with. We even see it within Astonish. The suc-cessful agencies network with the successful agencies and the unsuccessful get together and complain together. In other words, like attracts like. “A” players attract “A” players and “B” players attract “B” players. It’s just human behavior.

So how do you break the cycle? Find someone better then you and then learn from them while finding someone worse than you that you can help too. Now that is a pow-erful networking strategy. It is important to note that there is no easy button when changing a culture within your business. I find that it always comes down to the agency’s principal and his or her managers. If we, as busi-ness owners, do not believe in the core of our being that our business needs to get better, then it never will. You see... no tool, widget, gadget, trinket, website, CRM, email, social media or training will ever fix a business with a broken leader or broken people.

Technology and marketing is only as good as the people. Don’t ever forget that. No lead will ever be good if we can’t answer the phone, respond quickly, and actually convince someone to purchase an insurance product. In most cases we don’t need more leads. We need better processes, tools, and sometimes different people.

So commitment is taking the awareness and putting a detailed strategy together to fix the issue.

ActionAction is where everything gets very difficult. What good is this commitment and plan if we don’t act on it? That’s right, no good at all. A very wise man once told me that businesses fail primarily because of two reasons:

1. Lack of knowledge or …2. Lack of execution

Instinctively which one do you think is the greatest cul-prit? I have discovered it is mostly our execution that kills us. I think of my own life of fitness. Two years ago a very good friend and I bought P90x. About a month ago we both went to the Bahamas together and one of us was walking around in great shape and the other still looked like a beached whale. What was the difference? We both had knowledge or awareness of the problem. We both made the commitment and bought the detailed program. But only one of us actually took it out of the box and began to use it. As you can guess it was me who left my P90x wrapped up beautifully in its original package. It

does no good in the wrapper, does it?

Well digital marketing and culture change within your agency or business is no different. You can have all the knowledge and plans in the world but if you fail to ACT you will definitely FAIL! People always ask me…“Adam, how can I do a better job motivating my people?” I re-spond with, “Well you must first motivate yourself!” You cannot give something to someone else that is not within you. Motivation and action must be in you in order for you to transfer it to your people.

I have discovered that most agencies don’t need to train their people more. Agency principals need to receive the bulk of the training. Your people will follow your lead. They will follow you either to the golf course, boat club, or to the office to sell and serve the modern consumer.

Remember…like attracts like. So, when you are evaluating the strategy of your agency, always keep in mind that you are the leader and your people are looking for someone to lead them into the future. The Internet and the modern consumer have definitely changed the way we all do busi-ness. Now that we are aware, we must commit and then act.

Your business can definitely grow through having a Digital Marketing strategy. The strategy must include a better website, social media, email, mobile, text, SEO, SEM, CRM, and other digital marketing strategies. However, these tools and strategies will only be life changing in the hands of agencies that can answer the phone, respond quickly, and ultimately bind insurance premiums. Now that you know this, are you willing to do something about it?

Adam DeGraide is the CEO and Founder of Astonish.

In 1997, DeGraide started his first company, BZ Results, in Providence, Rhode Island. BZ Results is a digital marketing company that helps car dealers use the Internet to grow their businesses. In 2006, with over 1,600 dealership clients and 150 employees, DeGraide and his partners sold BZ Results to Advanced Digital Processing (ADP). After the sale of BZ Results, DeGraide started Astonish.

As the founder and CEO of Astonish, DeGraide and his team are the driving forces behind a vision to help the insurance industry across the country grow their businesses by using the Internet. Now currently serving over 700 retail brokers in America Adam DeGraide and his team at Astonish are encour-aging the insurance industry across the country to “Join the Internet marketing revolution, or get left behind!”



Selling and E&O Loss Prevention – Is This a “Chicken and the Egg Scenario”? By Curtis M. Pearsall, CPCU, AIAF, ARM, AU, CPIA and Kitty Ambers, CPIA, CIC, CISR, CPIW, CRMCS, IMIM

The insurance industry is ever changing, and hopefully for the better. New companies and coverages are surfacing. For this reason, be sure to know the partners with which you are doing business. Understand the type of business they want and their competitive advantages.

Conversely, know their underwriting issues. This applies to both the standard markets and the Excess and Surplus Lines carriers that agents access through wholesalers. When they come to visit you, pick their brains on topics such as “in what classes of business do you consider your-self extremely competitive?”

As agents begin to market to prospects/clients, they typi-cally use hard copy material as well as websites to convey their message. Since agents can potentially be held legally liable for their written material, it is critical that this mate-rial be proofed for content, professionalism and accuracy. Special attention should also be paid to any customized material, including letters, e-mails, proposals, etc.

While you want to impress upon the prospect the quali-ties of yourself and the agency, producers should be careful to not over-promise. Statements such as “we will make sure that you are completely covered” may sound impressive. However this could position the agency as “an advisor” and thus held to a higher legal liability standard. Also exercise extra caution before using words such as “expert” or “specialist.”

Many producers, when they interact with prospects/cli-ents, may believe they need to dominate the conversation. Actually the opposite is more appropriate; they need to listen, and listen carefully. This will play a significant role in helping to better understand what the client is looking for.

In addition, in most states, the agent is held to the stan-dard of providing the coverage that the client specifically requested. If the agent is too busy talking, he is prob-ably not listening and may miss the message or the key ideas from the prospect or client. To quote Ira Hayes, the world’s greatest salesman, “Sales is 2% product knowl-edge and 98% understanding people.”

A significant part of a producer’s role is to determine the needs and expectations of his or her prospects and clients. Said another way, their goal is to help their client/prospect conserve assets and reduce the adverse effects of risk. One very common tool that is often referred to as the “silver bullet in avoiding E&O claims” is an Exposure Analysis Checklist such as the Rough Notes Producer Online.

These checklists provide a tremendous amount of infor-mation on over 650 different classes of business and the various lines of business pertinent for that class. The de-tail within these checklists is remarkable and they greatly enhance your knowledge of the specific class of business. In addition, checklists provide reminders regarding the exposures that a particular type of business presents. Reviewing this information should definitely be part of your pre-call or pre-visit homework.

The checklists also provide questionnaires detailing the key questions to ask that will ensure a solid understand-ing of the various exposures. Including these question-naires with the carrier submission helps the underwriter better understand the risk. Providing your carriers with full and unbiased information is a great means to avoid E&O issues down the road.

Having a solid reputation with your carriers can be a tre-mendous asset for a producer. One of the best means to establish a strong relationship is to provide your carriers with submissions that meet the 3 C’s criteria: complete, correct and current. In the completion of the application, it is highly suggested that you secure this information through direct interaction with the prospect.

Most applications ask questions to which producers may not know the answers. By asking these questions directly of the prospect, you can be assured that 1) all questions are completed and 2) the information is accurate. After the application has been completed, ask the applicant to review it and then look to secure their signature.

A very common defense of an agent in E&O litigation involves the signature of the applicant on the application. The applicant will be held to the contents of a signed application. Thus if they misled/“lied” on the application, their signature could hold them responsible for those misstatements. A producer should never ask the appli-cant to sign a blank application, advising them that they will fill it in later. It is definitely hard to hold the applicant


“The success of an agency doesn’t depend on its size. It depends on the perception that it brings value to its clients.”

—AIMS Society Past President John Lee


responsible for contents of an application when they never saw what was on it.

One of the additional great benefits of an Exposure Analysis Checklist is that it can provide all of the poten-tially applicable SIC codes for your account. Effective use of these checklists should greatly assist in identifying the right codes for the application.

As existing accounts come up for renewal, if a new appli-cation is necessary for either the incumbent or to market the account to other carriers, do not simply complete the application using last year’s information. Meet with the client to get the updated information; this will help to ensure the last of the 3 C’s – current.

As carriers underwrite the risk, they may have additional questions. Producers should not assume they know the answers. When these scenarios occur, advise the carrier “let me check with the applicant and I will get back to you.” Always provide your carriers/markets with unbiased, honest information.

Depending on the risk, it may be necessary to access the Excess & Surplus Lines marketplace through a wholesaler with which the agency has a relationship. E&S markets play a vital role in the industry, with many of the carri-ers/underwriters possessing tremendous expertise. It is important to be aware that typically there is no stan-dardization of E&S forms so extra attention is necessary to review and understand the forms not only within the agency but to also involve the prospect. Based on the policy language and the exclusions, the coverage may not provide what the prospect is looking for.

Also, it is important to pay close attention to the actual carriers and their financial ratings. With few exceptions, the various state Guaranty Funds do not provide coverage if one of these carriers is declared insolvent. Also, check your E&O policy to determine what coverage is provided for E&S companies.

The next step would involve the development of a quality proposal for your client to review. This a very important part of the sales process and can play a significant role in whether you/your agency secures the account. There are some excellent proposal software packages available including some via the Exposure Analysis Checklists.

Proposals, if properly structured, can greatly assist your prospect in understanding their insurance program. Where appropriate, look to include definitions of key insurance terms (these are also included in the Exposure Analysis Checklist tools) and claim examples.

It is best to avoid the use of the word “recommend” espe-cially when the discussion involves limits. For example, it is okay to recommend that the insured secure an umbrel-la but avoid discussion on what the “right” limit is. If you had recommended that the insured secure a $1,000,000 umbrella and they suffer a loss in excess of that amount, they could allege that they were “misadvised” by you.

Offer options for the prospect to consider and then, at the end of the day, let them make the decision. Do not make it for them. Also be careful answering questions as to whether a claim would be covered or not. There is a good chance that your client is going to remember (and actually document) your response. Tread carefully with these scenarios.

On those limits/coverages that they do not secure, a key to avoiding an E&O claim is to secure a sign-off from the client. If a problem develops and the client was under the impression that they had purchased certain coverage, their signature on those declined coverages could play a very significant role in the agency’s defense.

Including a disclaimer on the proposal is highly suggest-ed. Language similar to the following is common: This proposal is for the purpose of quotation and illustration only. Please refer to policy language for complete de-tails, including conditions, exclusions and definitions.

The bottom line is professional sales typically do not just happen; they require you to “PLAN YOUR WORK AND WORK YOUR PLAN”. By taking this information and using it effectively, you will enhance your reputation with your clients and within the industry.

Curtis Pearsall is an E&O consultant and AIMS Society Board President. He is president of Pearsall Associates Inc., a risk management consulting firm specializing in helping agents protect themselves. He is a Special Consultant to the Utica National Errors & Omissions Program. Mr. Pearsall holds the following designations: CPCU, AIAF, ARM, AU and CPIA.

Kitty Ambers, CIC, CISR, CPIA, CPIW, CRMCS, IMIM, has been involved in the insurance industry for over 27 years in a variety of facets including agency, company and association manage-ment. Over the past 17 years, Kitty has served as a consultant to independent agencies. Kitty is actively involved with the Personal Lines Growth Alliance (PLGA) Board, the ACORD User Group Information Exchange (AUGIE) and the Agent’s Council for Technology (ACT). Kitty’s firm — WorkSmart Consulting — provides association management services for the Ameri-can Insurance Marketing and Sales (AIMS) Society and the National InStar User Group (NIUG). Kitty invites you to stay in touch at 804-276-1300, [email protected] and http://twitter.com/InsAgencyMgmt.




Keeping One Step AheadUse technology and social media to enhance your customer’s experience By Nancy Doucette

Insurance Rating Board requested an 11.8% increase in loss costs. We will end up with a very small overall cost decrease due to a change in the New York State Assess-ment. They are also finishing the reforms that started in 2007. As those things are implemented and affect our clients and business owners in New York, we want to be able to share that information and help them understand what it means for their business.”

She says an easy way to “feed” the agency’s blog is to link to “pertinent, useful, well-written material. If I see a great article in Forbes or WorkCompCentral, I’ll write a blurb about it and link to that article. Business owners don’t always have time to seek out that information for themselves. So if we can enhance their client experience by allowing them time to focus on their business, then we are truly providing a service by doing some research on their behalf.”

The Flanders Group Web site includes a Google-like search capability so if a client or prospect is interested in lag time monitoring, for instance, they can key in those words and be directed to several blog posts on the sub-ject. Anyone interested in updates can simply enter their e-mail address to subscribe to the blog.

In the year since The Flanders Group began blogging, traf-fic to the Web site has increased, resulting in some sub-stantial new accounts, Webster reports. She says she uses Google Analytics (which is free) to understand where people are going on the agency’s Web site and where they came from. It targets areas where improvements are needed and where to expand because of interest.

Given the agency’s heavy concentration of workers com-pensation business, Webster explains that the agency has an in-house HR expert as well as an injury management department. The Flanders Group has two nurses on staff in addition to a team of people who manage claims. Addi-tionally, the agency offers the services of HR That Works, a human resources management program and consulting firm, as a value-added to interested clients.

She says the agency also uses Vertafore’s ClientConnect® self-service online portal for each of the crevices the agency serves. She notes that each portal includes an SIC code-specific safety manual as well as workers comp and commercial insurance information by industry. “A land-scaper is different from a machine shop,” she notes with a

smile. Each portal is refreshed monthly with the addition of the most recent newsletter from Don Phin, president of HR That Works.

“Our tools allow the customer to decide when and how to use our knowledge base. We’re using the Web site and blog to keep one step ahead of our clients’ needs and have the resources available before a client even knows they need it,” Webster says.

Anticipating Client NeedsSteve Brown is also using technol-ogy to keep one step ahead of clients’ needs. He says when a wild fire breaks out, the agency identifies the zip codes that are in harm’s way. He then pulls a client list from his Applied Sys-tems Epic® agency management sys-tem, sorts by zip code, and contacts those clients. Brown says the agency subscribes to IPN (Incident Page Network) that sends alerts on break-ing police, fire, and rescue incidents in real time. Subscribers can select the states, counties, and cities for which they want to receive information as well as the types of incidents about which they want to be notified. “We prefer that our clients not have a claim,” he notes. “But should a wild fire break out, we’re able to identify every house that we insure within a three mile radius of that fire.

“It’s a proactive step,” he adds. “We’re contacting the in-sured before the fire reaches them to remind them what they need to do to protect their property, and should they need to evacuate, how to contact us.”

Steve Brown, president

Hoffman Brown Company, Sherman Oaks, California


“Should a wild fire break out, we’re able to identify every house that we insure within a three mile radius of that fire. We’re contacting the insured before the fire reaches them to remind them what they need to do to protect their property, and should they need to evacuate, how to contact us.”

--Steve Brown, president of Hoffman Brown Company in Sherman Oaks, California

[email protected]


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Brown says the agency is doing more data mining than it’s done in the past, leveraging the informa-tion that is in its database to communicate with insureds more frequently and more effectively. “Using filters, we’re able to identify those clients with children who are 15 years old,” he explains. “With this information, we begin a communication campaign to provide driver safety-related informa-tion to the family — a contract between parent and child on how the car will be used, expectations about cell phones and texting, and such.”

He says the agency also uses Epic’s filtering capabil-ities to identify those clients with fine arts sched-ules and then looks for appraisals that are over five years old. “We contact these insureds, remind them that values have changed, and encourage them to get an updated appraisal.”

Using the online version of Epic allows Hoffman Brown Company to respond to customer needs anytime, anywhere. Brown says an insured was in an accident one weekend and contacted the agency’s claim rep who was on call not only to report the claim but to get his policy information because he couldn’t locate his ID card. The rep was able to access the insured’s policy information from his home computer and provide the necessary policy information.

Additionally, Brown says, having an online version of the management system is good risk manage-ment for the agency itself. “Katrina gave us all a little religion,” he remarks. “Earthquakes are a real possibility for us, so we need to be able run the agency remotely. If something terrible should hap-pen, we’ll be able to continue to serve our custom-ers at a time when they truly need us.”

For more information:The Flanders Group Web site: www.flandersgroup.com

Hoffman Brown Company Web site: www.hoffmanbrown.com

Nancy Doucette is senior editor for Rough Notes magazine and has been associated with the insurance industry for over 40 years. She covers technology topics for the magazine.




Your Agency Facebook Page: What If You Build It and They Don’t Come? By Ted Janusz

determine which of your fans want to interact with you, and, secondly, once they do, they will be more open to fu-ture marketing messages from you. Progressive and State Farm are just two of the insurance companies which have recently sponsored contests on Facebook.

To get ideas on how other companies have incorporated contests and social media, please see this article by David Spark entitled “10 Creative Contests Powered by Social Media,” http://mashable.com/2009/08/11/ social-media-contests.

2. Promote a Charity. This benefits you, your fans, and the charity. It’s a triple win! Let everyone know that for every x number of fans who join, you are going to donate x dol-lars to a certain charity.

Rob Dickens of Memeburn:1. Suggest to Friends Just below your Facebook page picture you’ll find a

link that says “Suggest to Friends.” This allows you to invite all of your friends on Facebook.

2. Promote Your Facebook Page If you send out a newsletter, be sure you include a

link to your Facebook page. Have a Facebook badge on your Website.

3. E-mail Signatures Just imagine how much exposure your page will

get if the link to your agency’s Facebook page is in-cluded in every single e-mail sent from your agency!

Ruth White-Cabell, Strategic Campaigns Manager at Cisco:

1. Create Exclusive Content – Ask yourself what valu-able, relevant content you can provide to your fans

on Facebook that they can’t get anywhere else. By offering exclusive content on Facebook, you imme-diately give users a reason to join. It also provides a powerful motivator to share your page with their own networks.

2. Ask Questions and Take Polls and Surveys – You want people to interact with you on Facebook. To drive engagement, be genuinely curious and ask questions. (Remember the success of the PIA of Tennessee convention attendee?) To get even broader feedback, use regular polls and surveys within your Facebook page. Two helpful tools: www.polldaddy.com and www.surveymonkey.com.

3. Respond to Comments – Encourage interaction by being interactive. Make sure you are responding to comments from your fans.

4. Share Content from Others – It’s not just about you and your agency. It’s important to share content – videos, photos, blog posts, articles and links from others as well.

5. Finally, Don’t be Afraid to Experiment – There is no cookie-cutter approach to success with social me-dia. Being actively engaged is a key part of success on Facebook.

Mari Smith, co-author of Facebook Marketing: An Hour a Day:

Invite Your E–mail and Ezine Subscribers – Send out an invitation to your subscribers via e-mail (several times, over time) letting them know about your Facebook page and encouraging them to join. Provide them with a description of the page and, rather than just asking them to “like our page,” tell them exactly what’s in it for them when they do.

Finally, our sixth expert, Cindy Ratzlaff of the Internation-al Social Media Association, asks:


By offering exclusive content on Facebook, you immediately give users a reason to join. It also provides a powerful motivator to share your page with their own networks.

--Ruth White-Cabell, Cisco


Did you know that video postings on Facebook are chosen more often to appear in the “Top News” stream of your fans and therefore have a better chance of being seen by their friends? Post short video messages with insurance tips that your fans can share with their friends. Keep these messages under one minute and include only solid advice or tips that your fans will be thrilled to share with their friends.

People love videos! In fact, YouTube is now the second largest search engine in the world behind Google. And if you want your video to be noticed, make sure that you don’t have someone from the agency in a headshot going blah-blah-blah in insurance speak. If you want to have your video stand out, make it witty, off-beat, or intensely personal.

Four Keys to Facebook SuccessLet’s conclude with these four key steps to build, grow and manage your Facebook page:

1. Develop a Strategy – Why do most of the more than 3 million Facebook pages fail? Because creat-ing one was a reactive, rather than a proactive, event. Many businesses create Facebook pages simply because it seems like everyone else is. (48% of all small businesses now have a Facebook page.) What do you want to accomplish with your page? As an example of an effective strategy for a Face-book page, the Buffalo, New York CPA firm of Freed, Maxick & Battaglia determined that it wanted to “humanize employees, showcase community in-volvement, and position the company as a thought leader” with their Facebook page. Once you develop a strategy for your agency, it will make your efforts on your Facebook page a whole lot easier.

2. Based upon what you want to achieve with your Facebook page, create great content. Your Facebook page is not the place to recycle your self-serving commercials and press releases. Develop fabulous

exclusive content (especially captivating videos and photos) that will make it easy for your fans to “like” your page, and to keep them coming back for more. The main reason people unsubscribe from blogs is because the blog holder doesn’t update the blog often enough with quality, consistent posts. Make sure that the content on your Facebook page is always fresh.

3. Promote Your Page. With a Facebook page, it is more than “build it and they will come.” Include your Facebook page URL on all of your marketing materials.

4. Track Your Successes by Using Facebook Insights. Want to see what’s working and not working on your Facebook page? This free analytics tool avail-able at www.facebook.com/insights will give you information that will show you, so you can refine your efforts along the way.

The effective use of social media in general and Facebook in particular requires us to shift our thinking. Using traditional marketing including your Website, you would simply “shout out” to your customers and your prospects about your agency. Now with Facebook you have the ability to actually engage with your fans, to have two-way communication with them. You can now find out how they really feel about your services, allowing you to deliver what they truly need. And once you do, you will be surprised how your fans will actually help you spread the word about your agency and your services to their friends. In the end, you’ll be able to deliver better results for your agency, your clients and yourself. And isn’t that what it’s all about?

Ted Janusz speaks to insurance agents and PIA state af-filiates on “Social Media for Baby Boomers.” Learn more at www.januspresentations.com/social-media.htm.



Did you know that video postings on Facebook are chosen more often to appear in the “Top News” stream of your fans and therefore have a better chance of being seen by their friends? Post short video messages with insurance tips that your fans can share with their friends.

—Cindy Ratzlaff, International Social Media Association

Using Facebook you can find out how your fans really feel about your services, allowing you to deliver what they truly need. Once you do, you will be surprised how your fans will actually help you spread the word about your agency and your services to their friends.



Finding the Needle By David Connolly

ing with C players. At Pixar, it was a whole company of A players. When I got back to Apple, that’s what I decided to try to do. You need to have a collaborative hiring process. When we hire someone, even if they’re going to be in marketing, I will have them talk to the design folks and the engineers.”

Instead of writing a book on how to hire A players (There are plenty out there) I suggest you conduct your own research on A players and also create the A - Position (requirements for the producer position in your agency). This will allow you to compare the competencies of can-didates to expected performance standards. The Harvard business review posted an interesting article entitled “A players or A positions”? which theorizes looking for one without defining the other is short sighted.

Once you know what to look for, employ a strategy to position yourself for the greatest chance of success. Start by breaking down the process into stages.

Finding TalentHiring/Compensating TalentGrooming/Growing TalentRetaining Talent

Finding talent: Where you find your production talent is completely unique to your geographic location. It is dependent upon your local talent pool and whether your location is a draw for talent from other areas of your state or the country. Regardless of your location and talent pool, the primary and unconditional goal when searching for production talent should be to find “A” Players.

Interviewing Candidates: Every agency should have signifi-cant prequalification requirements for candidates to get an interview. One of the best ways is if someone within the agency who has credibility knows and can recommend an A player they know as a candidate. Next, the best interviewers have a preset list of questions to ask each candidate, and have a method to score the candidates responses. At least 3 people with different roles in the agency should interview candidates independently and then meet after to discuss. An interview with someone from outside your firm can offer a good perspective. I frequently interview candidates for my clients. One of my clients requires each candidate to come back a week later with a list of at least 25 prospects who will grant them an opportunity to discuss their insurance needs. This rules out call reluctance and helps quantify a candi-date’s potential network which is critical to initial success. Last, all 3 interviewers must agree to the hiring decision, and every candidate should undergo a personality profile, background and reference check before hiring.

Your questions and conversations should be crafted around evaluating the following qualities and competen-cies you desire:

Prerequisites• Are they competent? Do they have the necessary

skills, ability, and knowledge to be successful in the role?

• Are they a quick learner? Do they learn new concepts and quickly apply them?

• Are they productive? Do they deliver in an efficient manner, minimizing waste and optimizing results?

• Are they a person of integrity? Do they always speak the truth? Do they have strong character?

• Are they low maintenance? Do they present solu-tions for the problems they identify, minimize their non productive complaining, and give their employer the benefit of the doubt?

• Are they self-motivated? Do they have an internal drive that fuels them to accomplish great things? Are they willing to do whatever it takes to accomplish their goals?

• Are they professional? Do they understand and use the appropriate behaviors, manners, dress, quality expectations, etc… for different business situations?

Essentials• Are they results oriented? Do they worry more about

delivering results than trying to impress? Do they spend their energy focusing on how to overcome a challenge rather than how to lower the bar or look better if they fail?

• Are they a creative problem solver? Do they “connect the dots”? Do they piece together information from disparate sources and topics in order to solve real problems and create real value?

• Are they humble (enough to realize they haven’t arrived)? Do they actively seek out advice, listen to criticism?

• Do they thrive off of a challenge? Do they look at obstacles as the next opportunity to succeed rather than the next opportunity to fall down? Do they rise to the occasion?

• Are they passionate? Do they genuinely care and have a strong desire to excel?

Differentiators• Are they a leader? Do people naturally follow them?

Do they motivate and inspire rather than manage and task? Are they able to rally the troops, build a team, and



add more value than they can possibly on their own? (By the way, the best leaders know how to follow.)

• Do they make the best of the hand they’re dealt? Can they bootstrap solutions out of nothing, willing their way to success?

• Are they a team player? Do they realize that two heads are better than one help bring individuals together into a cohesive unit?

• Are they a visionary? Are they able to imagine what it will be like down the road and are they able to paint the picture for others?

• Are they polished and dynamic? Do they command respect? Are they able to grab the attention of their team and others?

(Source for interview questions above: David DeWolf’s Leadership & Inspiration blog.)

Compensation: I won’t talk dollars, but I can share my philosophy and what the best agencies try to accomplish through compensation. A brand new producer will take 2.5 – 3 years to validate. The first 3 years of compensation is structured to help create success within the validation period including higher new business commissions and bonuses for early success. It is critical that the base salary is enough to provide comfort, but not extravagance. You don’t want desperate producers representing your agency, nor can you afford to overpay. Once validated, the compen-sation model changes to incentivize both new business growth and retention. Minimum production requirements are established and tied to renewal commissions. A 2-3% reduction in renewal commissions occurs if minimums are not hit. New business production goals are typically double the minimums. Incentives for reaching and exceeding these goals are built into the equation and are important. Significant incentives are paid at several levels of produc-tion after reaching goal to incentivize exceptional perfor-mance and prevent “sandbagging,” the process of stockpil-ing opportunities after hitting goal and saving them to help satisfy next year’s minimums. Renewal commissions are typically half of new business and incentives should be considered for exceptional retention ratios.

Grooming/Growing talent: The National Alliance cites a sad statistic that over 60% of all new producers fail within 2 years. The traditional self starter profile for a new producer is a thing of the past, and taking an unstructured approach to new producer development is what helps to create that alarming failure rate. New producers need a business plan and a personal growth plan. The entire first year should be very structured. Activities for the first 90 days should be mapped out from 8AM-5PM and include work with experienced producers, service staff and agency principals. It should include requirements and schedules for technical insurance, and production related education and training. Producers should be assigned 3-4 mentors to coach them

on critical success skills like organization, planning, pros-pecting, proposals etc. New producers should work with and for their mentors and on client and prospect related projects like research, proposals, prospecting etc. This gives the new producer actual hands on work experience and re-pays the mentor for their time and effort grooming new tal-ent. Every week, the producer should ride along with men-tors on their client and prospect calls. They should meet weekly with their sales manager to review and evaluate progress according to the growth plan. After a successful first year, the schedule can be relaxed. After validation, the mentoring and managing can be tapered, but production meetings with managers should continue throughout their career. Understand going in that a new producer is a 3 year investment on the part of several agency employees. I’ve created comprehensive producer development schedules for clients, and they definitely shorten producer learning curves and drive achievement of expectations.

Retention: In order to retain excellent talent, I have found the best agencies do the following. They help producers optimize their books when they plateau so they can keep growing and earning. They allow successful producers to participate in the selection process for their service teams. They involve their best producers in agency deci-sions with respect to markets, growth initiatives, hir-ing etc. They also turn to these producers to coach and mentor new producers, and they leverage the producers’ individual skills and talents to grow the agency. Last, frank discussions on perpetuation and ownership are conducted at the time of hire. Detailed requirements for consideration for ownership are communicated, and once those requirements are met opportunities for book ownership, agency ownership, and help with financing for agency stock purchases are provided. This will inspire and retain the best talent long term.

These are the activities the best run agencies engage in when finding and developing new production talent. I hope this has been helpful to you.

David Connolly is the founder of iQ Consulting, a Minneapolis based consultancy dedicated to improving agency production per-formance. He works with many of the top 100 Agencies and Bro-kerage firms in the US and Canada and has coached thousands of insurance professionals. His trademarked process is viewed by many as one of the most transparent and effective approaches to buyer facilitation. David develops and delivers seminars, custom keynotes and workshops for agencies, insurance companies and industry organizations. He conducts individual and open work-shops on sales performance and sales leadership and runs the High Performance Agent Academy for producer development.

For more information on David and iQ Consulting visit www.iqsalescoach.com. You can follow his blog at: www.insurancejournal.com/blogs/salesiq/. Contact David directly at 612-414-5618 and [email protected].




Make Email Marketing Work for Your Agency By Laird Rixford

automated email marketing into retention mode. When you update their record, the system will send a thank you email or postcard. After a week or so, a follow up is sent asking them to friend you on Facebook or follow your blog or Twitter account. You can also use the email marketing system to automatically send policy renewal reminders, ask for referrals or tes-timonials and wish them a happy birthday.

Best PracticesThere are some best practices you can apply to your email market-ing that will help you create high quality, successful emails that will positively impact your agency growth, develop longer-lasting re-lationships and build trust. Here are a few of my favorite tips:

Sourcing Email AddressesIt is difficult for an email market-ing campaign to be successful without email addresses. If your list is limited, the best place to start is with your own customers. Every time you talk to a customer, ask for an email address. Your list will quickly begin to grow. If you have a table or booth at a local event, offer a drawing where in exchange for a chance to win a great prize, people will give you their name and email address. Be wary of buying a list as there are many risks involved. Many of these lists have spam traps that will identify you as a spammer, which will harm your deliverability and IP reputation. You also have no idea how often that list is emailed, so many of the members may be experienc-ing list fatigue, which means no matter how awesome your email is, they will never even open it and will probably just flag you as

spam. Any good email marketing vendor will not allow you to use a purchased list. So be patient as you build your email list. The benefits will be much higher in the long term.

TimingThe day and time you choose to send your email can be as im-portant as your subject line. We have found that early morning email tends to have the lowest open rates as many people delete what they deem to be unneces-sary or unimportant first thing in the morning. Emails sent around lunchtime (11 a.m. – 2 p.m.) tend to have the best open rates as people take a break to check their inboxes. While these are good rules of thumb, the only way to know when to send your email is to run various tests and check your metrics to identify the tim-ing that works best for your list.

Subject LinesThe subject line is your first impression. It will help your audi-ence determine whether or not to open the email. The best subject lines do what it sounds like they should do… describe the subject of the email. Make your subject line actionable. An email with a subject line of “Get a Comparable Quote for Auto Insurance” will be opened more than one that says, “We Quote Multiple Companies.” Be brief, to the point and put your agency name in the subject line. Also, avoid spammer favorites like all caps, hard selling, exclamation points and words like free, save, win and call now. Testing differ-ent subject lines will help you determine what works best for your campaigns.


ImagesUsing images in your email marketing campaigns can add some style and make your emails look professional. However, too many images can make your email crowded and distract readers from your actual message. No more than 25% of your email should be images. You want the majority of the email to be readable without viewing images be-cause image viewing in email clients is turned off by default. For the same reason, you do not want to put any important information in an image. If a prospect cannot see what you are selling, why would they buy it? By leaving most of your email readable and not crowding your message with im-ages, you are less likely to be deleted and will make a better impression.

Calls to ActionIn order to get your readers to do something, you need to tell them what to do. This is your call to action. If you want them to visit your website, tell them and link to your website. If you want them to follow you on social media, tell them and link to your social media profiles. If you want them to call you to discuss their policies or get a quote, tell them and be sure to put your phone number in the email. Using buttons with strong text that includes action verbs like “Follow Us on Facebook” is a great way to clearly tell your audience what it is you want them to do.

Just a Piece of the PuzzleEmail marketing is only one of the many pieces required to execute a well-rounded automated In-ternet marketing strategy. The other pieces include a fully functional website, search engine optimiza-tion and social media presence. Your agency does not have to do all of it at once. However, the first step is to make sure you collect each and every email address you can to assist future efforts. If you don’t have the time to work on an email marketing strategy, find someone who will do it for you.

Laird Rixford, vice president of product development of Insurance Technologies Corporation (ITC), currently consults agencies nationwide on their online market-ing initiatives. Laird and the Insurance Website Builder team have launched more than 2,000 insurance agency websites nationwide. In addition to Insurance Website Builder, Laird designed AgencyBuzz, a drip email marketing and lead management solution, exclusively for the insurance industry. ITC’s insurance agency software for marketing, rating and manage-ment improves agency efficiency, makes growing an agency easy and allows agents to focus on what they do best… selling insurance.


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Just Imagine If Everybody Shopped at the Mall, But You Didn’t Have a Store There

EnhanceInsurance.com, created by Agoragate and endorsed by PIA National, is just such a Website. The site contains hundreds of articles written specifically to address insurance search terms that Web searchers enter into Google and other search engines.

Here’s how it works: when a prospective client clicks on the Google link to one of these articles, they not only get a professionally-written article that answers their ques-tion, they also see the photo, name and contact informa-tion of a local, professional independent insurance agent that they can contact for further information or to buy an insurance product. If you participate in the Enhance Insurance program, that agent could be . . . you!

As we mentioned above, most consumers want to deal with a trusted agent. Insurance is often a complex and confusing purchase and one that should be approached with a trusted advisor. So EnhanceInsurance.com spot-

lights you, the independent insurance agent, as the local hero.

Enhance Insurance by Agoragate presents your chance to have an “Internet billboard” located exactly where your potential clients are now looking. Just as if everybody shopped at the mall, you would need to have a store there. Your newly-expanded online presence will allow you to post information about your agency and invites online searchers to contact you through your phone, mail, online form, social media, or Website (if you have one). To find out how you can participate in this agency aware-ness program, which has the endorsement of PIA Na-tional and many PIA state affiliate organizations, please visit www.enhanceinsurance.com.

Ted Janusz of Janus Presentations assisted with the research and production of this article and writes some of the articles featured at EnhanceInsurance.com. Ted speaks to insurance agents and PIA state af-filiates on “Social Media for Baby Boomers.” Learn more at www.januspresentations.com/social-media.htm.


Search engines love new content, and will reward those sites in the search engine rankings that are continually updated. EnhanceInsurance.com, created by Agoragate and endorsed by PIA National, is just such a Website.

• Tailored Coverage for PIA Members with Standard & Enhanced Forms

• Fairness and Competitive Pricing

• Policyholder Services, Our Highest Priority

• Stability of Your E&O Market

• Ownership in Your E&O Program with Direct Input from You

We’re not just another agent’s E&O insurer, We’re your insurer.

www.pia-pro.com

For more information and a quote, fi nd your state PIA affi liate association at:

A Main Street E&O Solution for Main Street PIA Agents Designed by and for PIA Agents

PIA Membership must be in good standing at all times. This brochure is not intended to provide full coverage details. A complete listing of these coverages including exclusions and limitations can be found in the policy forms. If diff erences exist between these summaries and the policy forms, the policy forms will govern. The policies may vary or be unavailable in some states.

PIAPROGeneralAd as of 8x105.indd 1 8/6/2012 5:00:40 PM


PIA National Agency Marketing GuideEditor-in-Chief/Advertising Director Alexi Papandon, CAE [email protected] 703-518-1353

Publisher Ted Besesparis [email protected] 703-518-1352

The PIA National Agency Marketing Guide is published by the National Association of Professional Insurance Agents.

400 North Washington Street, Alexandria, Virginia 22314 703-836-9340 [email protected]

©2012 All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a database or retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise except as expressly permitted by the publisher.

The information in this publication is general in nature and is not intended to serve as legal, accounting, financial, insurance, investment advisory or other professional advice as to any reader’s particular situation. Users are encouraged to consult with competent legal, financial, insurance, investment advisory and or other professional advisors concerning specific matters before making any decisions and we disclaim any responsibility for any decisions or actions by readers.

For additional information on any of the subjects addressed in this publication, please access the PIA National website at www.pianet.com.

PIA’s Agency Marketing Guide Is Brought to You by the PIA Branding Program

It is the sincere hope of everyone at PIA that you and your col-leagues have found great value in this, the third installment of the PIA National Agency Marketing Guide.

PIA’s Agency Marketing Guide is made possible by our many wonderful sponsors and advertisers and is made available to you through the PIA Branding Program. Through this program, avail-able online at www.piabrandingprogram.com, PIA provides mem-bers of the association with a variety of marketing materials. These include print and radio ads in both English and Spanish.

The PIA Branding Program also recently unveiled a new internet marketing program now available to PIA members through Ag-oragate, pronounced “AGRA gate,” a sponsor of this publication.

Funding for the PIA Branding Program is provided in part by PIA’s Pinnacle Partners. Pinnacle Partners are highly regarded insur-ance companies that demonstrate their commitment to the independent agency distribution system and financially support the development of new marketing tools which are made avail-able to PIA members through PIA Branding Program.

2012 PIA National Pinnacle Partners

Bankers Insurance Group Encompass Insurance

Erie Insurance Harleysville Insurance Progressive Insurance

QBE the Americas State Auto Group

The Hartford The Motorists Insurance Group

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