Things I learned the last 9 months after presenting 5 Signs it’s Time to Sell Your Agency and unveiling Escape Velocity—our 5 point platform for agency success. 

If you recall, we walked through the lives of two special individuals in our industry who created agencies that are well recognized.

If you are reading this, you have heard of the 5 Forces for business growth. But which force will be the most impactful to the industry? Talent? Technology? Model? Experts? Funnels?

Marketing Funnels.

Marketing Funnels enable the industry to connect the need to the professional by offering guidance on products. The introduction of AI and machine learning will create stronger relationships both to the firm and product solution at a faster pace relative to traditional marketing efforts (mail, email, phone calls).

Are you like me? If we’ve ever met, you’d know I’m a “cup half-full” guy. I feel the pressure of all that is happening in our industry – economic uncertainty, fewer agents coming into the business, the average age of advisors nearing retirement – and know the challenges agencies like yours are facing every day. Then, my mind races as I think of all the opportunities these challenges present.

Let me share some solutions with you in this post.

Consider who you partner with to bring your strategic plan to life.

You know how important it is for an agency or financial professional to establish trust with clients. It’s the key for being the firm agents come to for large or complex cases and to staying in business for the long-term.

In my last blog post about creating a profitable business model, I discussed the potential in niching down and serving a select group of clients in all areas. But that only works if you can demonstrate your expertise in doing that.

Keep reading to learn how to leverage expertise to grow your practice.

Just imagine if… You no longer had to worry about a key account calling you up and saying they were a) leaving you for a competitor, b) retiring, or c) selling…

That sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach? Gone.

Instead, your agency would continue to flourish.

But what about right now—would this situation concern you?

This is called concentration risk, and your business model is at the root of it. In this article, I tackle this topic. Keep reading to discover how choosing the right business model can help eliminate this potential threat and others.

Have you ever wondered what “improved tech” for your agency really means? Or where you should make investments to build a better agency management system or sales enablement system? How about which solutions offer the most seamless experience?

I'm tackling these questions and more in this article, so stay tuned.

We’ve compiled a few CARES Act resources into a Quick Reference Guide for Small Business Owners and Sole Proprietors with the financial professionals and agency owners we work with in mind.

We all have brand new goals we can’t WAIT to tackle. Many will make a huge push in January and then unfortunately, slip back into the same old patterns of doing business. Would you like to change that? To see a positive difference in your profits and your people this year?

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... 

Last updated: October 2020

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.