We have unique views here at Partners Advantage when it comes to elevating and innovating your financial services and insurance practice. 

In order to make more money and maybe even work less hours doing what you love (helping people not just survive but thrive in retirement), you have to do things differently. However, that's not the way many of us were taught in this industry... 

One of the first questions we have to answer as a business is… who is our customer?

The term “customers” can be a grey area in the insurance agency and IMO space. We could assume that our only customer is the end-user: the insured or annuity contract owner. But that’s not the case.

We have many “customers” and for the purposes of this blog post, I want agency owners to consider producers your number one customer.

Financial success is not the sole indicator of a healthy organization. In fact, it’s more an outcome of a healthy organization. Let me explain --

If you’ve ever completed a SWOT analysis in your business — identifying the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats and then never spoke of it again… then you know what I mean when I say an ‘exercise in futility.’

In this post, we’ll walk through how to take the SWOT analysis of your insurance agency and turn it into something you can use to improve organizational health, grow in profitability and develop a long-term strategic plan.

If you are at all interested in marketing, you may have heard of marketing expert and author of Building a StoryBrand, Donald Miller. I was listening to a video Don did recently where he talked about the book, Top 101 Mission Statements from Top Companies. And he said, truthfully, most were pretty awful. Here's why: 

Are you crazy-busy running the day-to-day operations of your insurance agency? 

Maybe a little afraid of how this boat would stay afloat if you weren't there paddling like your life depended on it? 

Always rushing to meet a deadline or make a deal.

Rarely taking the time to consider what would happen to the agency if you were to ever leave the business...

Recruiting top talent to your insurance agency can not only warrant a higher multiple at sale but also increase current growth potential and cultivate a more stable investment. But it requires you to have a plan to create your magnetic offer for senior level talent. 

There’s one (of many) aspects of your agency that even when all else seems to be running smoothly, has the potential to make or break it.

What is that? 

You've built your agency — now what?

As an agency owner, you’ve put in the years of work — sometimes 60-80 per hour weeks. Maybe you even had to spend time away from family to get the thing off the ground just so you could have the lifestyle you want now. I know I did when I started Partners Advantage 26 years ago.

My daughter will soon be graduating high school and is in that stage of life where she’s puzzling over which career path to take. Being in the financial services industry, I asked if she’d considered becoming a financial advisor¹. Her response?