Strategically Preparing For The New Year As A Producer

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Of the time of this recording, it is December 1st Can you believe it?
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And Christmas will be here, a new year will be here, and this is when people start talking about setting new year's resolutions, goals, things of that nature.
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Well, in today's call, we're going to have a quick conversation of a conversation the coaches were having on not necessarily resolutions, but setting targeted, specific goals, and what are some of the goals that they would recommend.
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As a producer on the journey of becoming a preeminent producer, what goals would they recommend?
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You guys considering and really starting to plan now, not waiting until January.
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So let's dive into this conversation.
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I'll see you at the end.
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Are you a commercial insurance producer struggling to stand out from the competition?
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Do you find it challenging to grow your book of business and create a fulfilling career?
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If so, then welcome to the preeminent producer podcast.
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Each week, we'll be tackling important topics, sharing proven strategies and insights from successful producers that are in the trenches and have traveled the journey to becoming a preeminent producer.
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You'll discover what it really takes to become preeminent and build your book of business in a way that isn't being taught anywhere else.
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Our hosts are experts in the field and have built thriving businesses by becoming the most trusted advisor to their clients.
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Welcome to your journey to becoming a preeminent producer.
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Let's dive in.
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There are so many things that are going on this time of year and we're getting ready for the holidays.
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We're doing all this other stuff, but in business, we need to be planning on.
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The one thing that I think we need to do and this is going to encompass a whole lot of things Whatever you're going to do, do it now.
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Don't wait to set goals.
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Don't wait to implement goals on January 1st.
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You're already behind the game.
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Anything that you're doing now and we'll go over this in later podcasts about the important things that we're going to be doing but whatever you do, whatever you're doing right now, do it now so you hit the ground running.
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Don't be on January 1st what I call getting ready to sell.
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The next thing you know is February 1st and you're still planning.
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Plan it, implement it, have it outlined of what you're going to do and be ready to hit it fully on the running on the ground, ready to go on.
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January 1st.
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That's really good advice.
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Today is December 1st.
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I can't believe it's December already.
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In my agency we have two principles.
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I have a business partner and we're actually meeting a little bit later than we'd like to, but we're meeting next week.
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It's still before January 1st to really go over and do our planning.
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Doing it now I agree with, and now is early, december's almost too late, but we can still be effective with it.
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We have a little pattern.
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We go through a certain list of subjects that we really revisit every year and try to analyze and make our adjustments and our planning.
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Both of us come into that meeting, I think, prepared with our ideas.
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Usually we end up doing that planning session over the course of a couple days, not full days, but over the course of a couple days.
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I guess just, paul, to answer the question, I guess just doing it.
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I don't think in my agency that I've ever failed to do that.
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We might talk about this when we do a deeper dive.
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One thing that I have failed to do and I think it would be prudent for everybody probably is to not just wait once a year I don't know what you guys do, but maybe partway through the year six months of nothing else, just checking our own track?
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And do we need to make some adjustments?
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Just because we come up with some grandiose plans, december 15th doesn't mean that we have to be slavishly follow those.
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To be a little flexible, I guess, is what I'm saying.
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Yeah, well, I'll bring up the tail.
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I think at this time of year, it's really important for producers to look back so that they can look forward.
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Look back on the past year, look at your successes, look at your failures.
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Get with someone Hopefully you have an agency leader that you can go to discuss those with them get your data, pull your data from your systems, pull your financial planning.
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If you've hopefully done that, to know what you need to hit to make your goals be it your short-term, mid-term, long-term goals personally.
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But to plan for the new year, in my opinion, you really gotta look at okay, this is what really went well and how am I gonna team myself up to have more wins like that and it may be a specific business segment, whatever it is.
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Do more of that in the new year.
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Look back at some of your failures and say, okay, did I really have a shot?
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How did I miss this?
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Did I miss it in the first meeting?
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Like picking up that this person was blowing smoke or I just had high hopes, that I really wasted my time, and just take some time to really have some introspection with that, but also, as I say, if you can meet with someone else to kinda bounce it off of them.
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You might tease some things out that you don't wanna repeat in the next year, or shouldn't repeat.
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So it's really a time to kinda just press the pause button, look back, to look forward and then get rolling at the first of the year.
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And you know, christian, something I like that you said and there is, and you didn't put it this way, but it's the way I took it.
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Yeah, we gotta be.
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We should be brutally honest with ourselves, right?
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Hopefully we're all somewhat preeminent and we're having some success, but on our failures, yeah, we really gotta look at that and see if that suggests some adjustments that we have to make.
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So no sense pretending.
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We gotta be honest about it.
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Don't all progress starts with the truth, otherwise there is no progress.
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Yep, well said.
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I mean, you can't be afraid of talking about failures, of you know, you can't be afraid of looking back at what went wrong as well as what went right, because if not, you will repeat it.
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I mean, it's, you know, we're humans and that happens and so if we bury it, it's gonna come out again and it's already proven to be a problem.
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It's gonna be a problem again.
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So just get real, but definitely do that.
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Look back to look forward.
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Is there one thing that you guys find that you always, always, always make sure that you address during your strategic planning for the new year?
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Is it whether it's numbers, whether it's making sure your team's organized?
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I mean, whatever it might be and you might be different than some of the listeners, but is there one key thing that you would recommend every producer definitely taking to account when strategically planning?
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Sure, I think so.
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I think.
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Knowing your numbers, just know your numbers, and the number is just not the goal that you wanna hit.
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Know your average account size, know your minimum account size, know what it takes to get there.
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Run through the little formula that we have here that'll walk you through your numbers.
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Knowing your numbers always, not just.
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You don't set your goal at the beginning of the year and you look at it on December 30th to go damn, I guess I didn't make it, or damn I guess I did.
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You know, monitor, know your numbers, monitor through the year.
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I would say the one thing that we make sure to do is look at our carrier mix and make sure that we align ourselves with insurance company or companies that we've had success with, and for our producers to try to align themselves with an underwriter and establish that relationship.
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If they already have it, make sure we solidify it in the next year.
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If they don't have one and the carrier has been knocking it out, we want to get to know that underwriter and have that close relationship.
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That's really important, guys.
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As we enter into a hard market, relationships with underwriters are extremely helpful.
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I have one and a half golden nuggets.
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My half golden nugget is clean your damn desk off.
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You got to start the new year with a fresh slate.
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That's a simple thing Clean off so you can start it now.
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Hey, christian, on that last note and that could be the subject of a whole other discussion is kind of organization.
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It does kind of start with your desk.
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I got to the point a few years ago at one point.
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I've always been pretty neat and tidy.
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I got to the point where my desk was just such a mess that I really made an effort to clean it off.
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I have techniques to do that and how you don't lose track of anything.
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It's so much more efficient and so much lower stress when you do that.
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That's an interesting subject.
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I think I would say the one thing that we never when I say we again, my business partner and myself we never fail to do, it's related to knowing your numbers.
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I guess in a way and Christian, you brought this up actually already we look at target classes of business, and not only where we've had successes, but through analyzing rate structure, number of employees, et cetera, and carrier appetites and what we enjoy working on.
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We factor all that in and really assess do we need to beef up our database in certain business segments?
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It's the only thing.
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If it's garbage and it's garbage out, it can be hard enough to get up to the plate with a new prospect.
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You don't want to get up to the plate and then find out that now, here, my baseball analogy is going to completely fall apart.
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But you don't want to get up to the plate and then find out it's not even something you want to write for one reason or another.
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So, paul, the one specific thing that we do, among others, but one thing is we always assess our target classes for our database of prospects and what we want to go after.
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All right, guys, I hope you got some good takeaways from that.
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A huge one is knowing your numbers.
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That's a huge, huge one.
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But also it rakes in the very beginning of not waiting.
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Don't wait till January to start setting these goals.
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Month of really November, but also December, should be strategic planning Getting very clear, getting very specific on what your goals are, what your targets are, whether it's the financial targets, maybe even skill sets, things you want to improve on as a producer, communication, follow up systems, all of it.
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This is the time to be planning.
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So, guys, make it a point this month to be strategically planning so you can make 2024 the best year yet.
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If you'd like more information on how you could get personally coached by the coaches that you have listened to, visit us at thepreeminentproducercom.
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Again, that's thepreeminentproducercom, and we'll see you in the next episode of the Preeminent Producer Podcast.
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Thanks so much for joining us on this episode of the Preeminent Producer Podcast.
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Once again, thanks for joining us and we'll catch you in the next episode of the Preeminent Producer Podcast.