How many of us were told to keep practicing if we wanted to be good at sports, instruments, dancing, singing, golf, etc.? Whether it was our mothers, our coaches, or our business consultants, that advice has resulted in ALL of the great performers, golfers, sports players, AND BUSINESS OWNERS that exist today.
How many of us were told to keep practicing if we wanted to be good at sports, instruments, dancing, singing, golf, etc., etc., etc.? Whether it was our mothers, our coaches or our business consultants, that advice has resulted in ALL of the great performers, golfers, sports players, AND BUSINESS OWNERS that exist today.
This, of course, doesn’t mean that some people with natural talent can’t excel without those many hours of practice that our moms or coaches imposed upon us as we learned our skills. Similarly, some businesspeople can do well in their profession, seemingly without exerting as much effort as most other successful businesspeople have had to do. We have seen “natural” insurance agents who, by the nature of their personalities, win clients, retain them for many years and, similarly, get the much more productivity, dedication and loyalty out of their employees than do other agency owners.
However, the BEST business owners are ones who certainly didn’t start at those high performance levels. If you would like to find out for yourself, pick the agency owner you respect the best as a successful manager and ask him/her how (s) he got that way and whether they were always successful. If our research bears true, you will get an embarrassed grin and an acknowledgement that they don’t understand why anyone dealt with them more than once when they were in their youth learning their trade. Most will admit that they became better in sales, management or in business in general by making many mistakes and learning from them in order to perform at more optimum levels as time progressed.
By the time these folks have had twenty years of experience they have found their groove and have begun performing at high levels. By the time they have thirty years of experience; they have practiced their trade sufficiently to know sales, management, insurance or any other business pursuit at the levels that permit them to be at the top of their game.
If you want to be a top salesperson, you must offer your product or services to people who have not dealt with you several times EVERY DAY, making mistakes and learning from them, until you are selling at a rate that satisfies your needs. The BEST salespeople find intoxication akin to addiction in making the sale. You may know a few of these folks. They no longer respond to financial need. Instead, they respond to the need to close the next sale. They are the sales “superstars” in our (or any) industry.
Similarly, managers are not born, they are MADE. These are people who find that they enjoy dealing with others and creating leverage through others that results in enhanced performance of individuals and groups. Only 1 in 7 people in the world have the personalities to make good managers. Unfortunately, most of them end up in jobs that are not centered on management. And, unfortunately, most managers are successful workers promoted beyond their skill sets. They can be good salespeople, service representatives or processors, but make lousy mangers of people. You can easily spot these folks. They are the ones working late every night because “it is easier to do it myself than to teach someone else how to do it.”
If you are one of those folks who have the desire to manage others to higher performance (and this should include many insurance agency owners) take your mother’s words to heart – PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE!!!
In your home that PRACTICE might have meant sitting at a piano or holding a violin for hours on end while your friends were out playing. At school it might have meant extra football drills, hours on a driving range or more time in a batting cage while the rest of the team was enjoying their free time. But in business, PRACTICE means doing three things:
1. Make a detailed Plan,
2. Execute the Plan diligently,
3. Evaluate the results as you execute and make changes accordingly.
These rules should also be familiar to many readers as the components of Strategic Planning that Agency Consulting Group, Inc. teaches and facilitates for agencies throughout the U.S. and Canada.
We have believed in these concepts for 40 years because we have seen the agencies that operate in the Planning Cycle succeed in good times and in bad while most agencies find peaks and valleys in their business success based on circumstances that are rarely in their own control.
How many of us have “boasted” that we operate our agencies by the ‘seat of our pants?’ We claim that planning is bunk because we can’t control our (pick one or more) clients, carriers, marketplace, economy, etc, etc, etc. These are the agents (and agency owners) who don’t particularly enjoy the management part of their jobs and have found the easy reasons why they shouldn’t “practice, practice, practice.” Why bother when the “fates” dictate how your business will perform?
Fortunately, we have had the good fortune to encounter agency owners (and other business owners) who understand the “practice” philosophies and have put them into practice in their lives. Their businesses perform at optimum levels EVERY YEAR, regardless of outside circumstances. The reason they can do this is that they are sensitive to changes within the performance of their plans on an on-going basis and change their plans to accommodate for needed changes in their operations. They flex, as needed, to sell the right products for the time, administer their businesses in as efficient a manner as possible all of the time and treat their employees as they would like to be treated themselves consistently.
Up until now we have known that these principals work because of our observations and the implementation that we have accomplished for the insurance agencies that have chosen to participate in the Strategic Planning process. But we now have empirical data generated by psychologist, K. Anders Ericsson, professor of psychology at Florida State University and compiled by economists, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, authors of FREAKONOMICS in their new book, SUPER FREAKONOMICS.
“…just as your grandmother always told you, practice does make perfect. But not just willy-nilly practice. Mastery arrives through what Ericsson calls “deliberate practice.” This entails more than simply playing a C-minor scale a hundred times or hitting tennis serves until your shoulder pops out of its socket. Deliberate practice has three key components: setting specific goals; obtaining immediate feedback; and concentrating as much on technique as on outcome.”
There you have it. “Setting specific goals” equates to both long term (strategic) and short term (tactical) planning objectives. “Obtaining immediate feedback” is the benchmarking process that determines on an on-going basis if our results live up to our expectations. And “concentrating as much on technique as on outcome” defines creation and changing Action Plans to flex to the realities of the year.
If you have a desire to be among the best managers and agency owners I urge you to contact us and begin the deliberate Strategic Planning process IMMEDIATELY. You can’t learn to play the violin using Henry Hill’s “Think” method (in the Music Man). You can only learn by picking up the instrument and learning the basics, practicing those “sour” notes until you have trained your fingers to act properly and coordinate your bow hand with your fingering hand and do it often enough that you become good at it.
The “instrument” is your business and your staff. The “basics” is the process of planning, implementation, monitoring and flexing your plan. “Training” is the process of managing your agency THROUGH the Plan instead of letting it operate, helter-skelter, out of control most of the time. Wouldn’t you like to feel that, in good times and bad, you are IN CONTROL of your surroundings and your business?
If you do not have the temperament to be a good manager you will find out soon enough. The smartest business owners who find that they will never be great mangers -- hire great managers and participate in the role that is most productive for the agency owner. However, every year we see young (and young-at-heart) agency owners and new generations coming into management who could be great. Will you be journeymen all your lives, making a living but not an impact? Or will you grow as a manager every year until you are also at the “top of your game?” Call us (800-779-2430) if you would like a “mother” or “coach” to get you on the right path to planning success.
Reprinted from the PIPELINE, the national newsletter for agency principals. The PIPELINE is published by Agency Consulting Group, Inc., a leading consulting firm for independent agents in the U.S. for over 20 years. Call 800-779-2430 for information about the content of any of these articles or PIPELINE subscription Information:
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Copyright 2010 by Agency Consulting Group, Inc. Used with permission.