3 Tips for Every Producer

Today, I’m going to give you some advice that I wish I would’ve gotten really, really early in my career. I’m going to give you three things that every producer should know before they ever get started in the game. But the good news is, even if you’ve been at this for a long time, it’s never too late to change.

What’s going on, everybody? I wish I would’ve known the three things I’m going to share with you today when I started as a producer, and I would’ve saved myself a lot of headache and heartache and, truthfully, probably a few of my mentors and coaches as well. So today, I will talk to you about the three things that every producer must do and be.

Be Proactive

The first thing you have to do is be proactive. When you’re going to work with a coach or an agency principal who’s been there, done that, they don’t want to have to deal with teaching you from scratch. Let’s face it, you’ve probably got some basic business skills already, or you wouldn’t have gotten the job, use those. So when you’re asked to prepare a business plan or identify ideal prospects or all of those things, give it your absolute best effort before you meet with that person for advice. Do your absolute best to be proactive in doing that. That will get rewarded through respect. Your agency principal and your coach will respect the fact that you’ve put forth your absolute best effort without them having to force you to do that. Trust me; it’s a big deal.

Be Thorough

The second thing I want you to do is to be thorough and diligent in whatever work product you attempt. None of us ever got it right the first time. I still don’t get it right every time, not even close, but what I do is I get better, and I try my hardest. Every single time with everything I do, it is 100% my best effort. Is that always good enough? No, it’s not. That’s why I have people who are better at things than me: my mentors and my coaches who help me make those things better. But if you’re thorough in intentional, in your thought processes as you go through all of your activities, again, you’re going to earn respect.

Be Coachable

I want you to be the third thing, and listen up, people, I’m saving the most important for last. You’ve got to be coachable, period. I don’t care if you’ve got a dollar book or a million-dollar book. If you’re not coachable, you’re not somebody that would ever be on my team. You have to be willing to let people give you feedback. If you turn in a work product, and everybody says, this is perfect, this is great, this work product is precisely what we were looking for, they’re lying to you. There’s one thing in every ounce of work product that can get changed to make it even better. And truthfully, if you’re not getting constructive criticism and having your work product shredded so that you can build it back up and be better next time, you’re not getting pushed, and you’re not going to reach your full potential. A lot of the time, though, it’s because agents aren’t coachable. I deal with tire-kickers from all over the country that want to book time on my calendar.

I love talking to other agents, don’t get me wrong.  But what I hate more than anything else is when I give people advice that I know works, that I have personally written business with, that my friends in other parts of the country have personally used as tips and tricks. And it falls on deaf ears. People, if you’ve got the mentors in your life if you got the agency principal that’s willing to invest in you. If you’re part of an accountability group, allow yourself to be vulnerable and coachable. And when you can do that, you’re going to kill it in commercial insurance.

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