A topic that I’m often asked about is how to motivate agents. Executives are always looking for ways to improve the attitude and performance of their agents. Clients will tell me about how they’ve met and worked with each of their agents to get them to improve their performance but can’t seem to make a [...]
Internet Recruiting is Dead!
June 9, 2007 By Leave a Comment
Internet recruiting is dead. Or at least it should be put to sleep. Recruiting independent agents and financial advisors on the internet is basically good for one thing – appeasing corporate offices. It produces lots of activity – which corporate loves to see. But let’s face it, while it does produce lots of activity, it’s [...]
Protect Your Attitude
January 30, 2007 By Leave a Comment
An important key to high productivity and effective leadership, not to mention sales and marketing success, is to have and maintain a positive attitude. Nothing else will have a greater effect on you than your attitude. Remember the saying, “Your Attitude Determines Your Altitude”? It’s true. Having a negative attitude or even a neutral, apathetic [...]
How to Drive Agent Production
October 28, 2006 By Leave a Comment
I’m regularly asked by clients how to increase agent production. After all, only two things matter in this business – making a difference in the lives of others and increasing production. My suggestions are effective and proven, but nevertheless, are often not what managers and company executives expect. My philosophy is simple, but it’s not [...]
Effectively Developing People
August 25, 2006 By Leave a Comment
One of our obligations as a leader is to develop people. In fact, I believe it to be one of the cornerstones of excellent leadership. Effectively developing people accomplishes several important things for us and our organization. When we develop others, we add to their value. They become more versatile, more productive, and more confident. [...]
Is Your Leadership Effective?
July 28, 2006 By Leave a Comment
In many ways, good leadership is hard to define. It can’t be directly measured. There’s no leadership “score” or report card. In fact often the measure of leadership is qualitative rather than quantitative – although quantitative results always follow. So, the questions remains, how can you tell if your leadership skills are effective? Plain and [...]
Dealing with Employee Terminations
November 17, 2005 By Leave a Comment
In a recent workshop I conducted on “The Art of Dealing with Difficult People”, we spent some time discussing terminations. If you’ve ever had to terminate someone, you know how difficult and stressful this can be. (Donald Trump excluded!) Over the years, I’ve developed a leadership philosophy that has enabled me to let someone go [...]
Effective Delegation: The Secret Tool for Growth
September 15, 2005 By Leave a Comment
Effective delegation can be a springboard that launches your success to new heights. Successful people master delegation, while mediocre performers desperately hang on to tasks which are important but better left to administrative experts. Over the years, I’ve found that often people don’t or won’t delegate tasks because they’re not quite sure what to do [...]
Assessing vs. Judging
May 17, 2005 By Leave a Comment
This past week I had an interesting conversation with one of my favorite clients. He’s a C-level executive for a national company and was doing a bit of venting about another executive in the company who displayed a behavior which my client felt was weak for someone in that position. It was nothing unethical or [...]
Don’t Strive for Mediocrity!
December 20, 2004 By Leave a Comment
This is the time of year when insurance professionals are focused on finishing the year strong and reaching all those goals their company has set – premiums written, policies issued, agents recruited, etc. It’s also the time we begin to think about next year. We think about what goals we’d like to attain, how we’re [...]
