The Preeminent Producer Podcast

Strategies for Acquiring Larger Accounts

• The Preeminent Producer • Season 1

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Are you an insurance producer that wants to start going after bigger accounts to grow your book of business?

In this episode of The Preeminent Producer, our coaches tackle this topic. 

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Are you a commercial insurance producer struggling to stand out from the competition? Do you find it challenging to grow your book of business and create a fulfilling career? 

Then welcome to The Preeminent Producer Podcast! 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. 

You'll discover what it really takes to become Preeminent & build your book of business, in a way that isn’t being taught anywhere else. Our hosts are experts in the field and have built thriving businesses by becoming the most trusted adviser to their clients. Welcome to your journey to becoming a Preeminent Producer. 

Let’s dive in!

Ready To Grow Your Book Of Business? 
For More Information go to: 
https://www.thepreeminentproducer.com/

Speaker 1:

How do I go after larger accounts to grow my book of business? This is a question that was posed by one of our clients inside of our coaching program that has really gone after a lot of smaller accounts and that's where they've been so far. But they recognize, hey, they want to grow their book of business and they want to go after bigger fish. So in this episode of the Pre-Eminent Producer Podcast, our coaches cover this topic, so let's dive in.

Speaker 2:

Are you a commercial insurance producer struggling to stand out from the competition? Do you find it challenging to grow your book of business and create a fulfilling career? If so, then welcome to the Pre-Eminent Producer Podcast. 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 pre-eminent producer. You'll discover what it really takes to become pre-eminent and build your book of business in a way that isn't being taught anywhere else. Our hosts are experts in the field and have built thriving businesses by becoming the most trusted advisor to their clients. Welcome to your journey to becoming a pre-eminent producer. Let's dive in.

Speaker 3:

You know there's a lot of ways that you can find out leads for larger accounts and you have your typical sources where you can Google and look for lists and talk to other producers in your office. The other thing is you can always look at and these are some old-school ways look at certificates of insurance that maybe your clients your smaller clients, if you have contractors or such have been giving to generals that they work for. That's another good source of looking for larger clients. I prefer to really look for businesses by doing a Google search or looking for them online first and trying to find out more information about the prospect so that I can determine, number one, they're going to meet our carers' appetites and, number two, what I can pull off of the internet about them that would lead me to go to offer a solution to a potential or a probable problem that they are having.

Speaker 3:

So when you're dealing with larger accounts, you really need to try to get your hands wrapped around. What issues are they dealing with? And if you don't know that without speaking to clients, again, a good friend, google or whatever search engine you use, you can look up issues surrounding manufacturers with revenues over $10 million or something like that and you'll find something. The point here, as we've talked about before, is making sure that, whomever you go after number one, it's a valuable investment in your time You're not wasting your time by going after them. And two, you know something about them that's going to give you something to talk to them about and, hopefully and you should have a solution for whatever you're going to speak with them about. I hope that makes sense. I'm sure, guys, you can jump in and maybe clean up some of this or give other suggestions. You have.

Speaker 4:

Sure, I want to back up half a step. First of all, it's a noble goal to increase the size of your average account and what most producers have been doing. This is just a little while. Discover that by doing so you ironically get more time in your hands, because there is that phenomenon that typically the smaller account generates more hassle and more questions, and it's just that weird phenomenon. You could write a jumbo account that really doesn't require much service because they know the score. So it's a really good goal.

Speaker 4:

A slightly adjunct to what you said there, christian, that I do, and it's just basic, is I always I try to build up databases of prospects to go after and I guess I'm gonna state the obvious. But you can reverse engineer, okay. I lead with workers comp typically okay, so it's really easy for me to kind of reverse engineer based on average hourly rates and number of employees and, given a class code, what the in California, what the pure premium rate is. Then take the X mod. I can figure out. I need a database of these, let's say, 25 class codes that have at least I'm just picking numbers here 25 employees or more and that that will generate what my personal minimum account size is so that, as you said, I think, a moment ago, christian, I'm not spinning my wheels marketing and trying to get in front of people that are not gonna generate the kind of income that I want, so that's a really good starting point.

Speaker 3:

One more thing that just jumped in, matt, and I'm sorry because if I don't say it now I'll forget it. Okay, that's how I am ADHD baby, I'm like moving fast. But the question of where to find leads sometimes, looking at your current book of business, your current clients, your best clients, even if they're small clients, look at what they do. There's gonna be a connection with a supplier they have or someone they have done work for. Or again, try to find some connection and then go to them and say, hey, do you know anyone at whatever a business? You might be surprised that if you're able to help out your current clients, they may be willing to help you to say, yeah, I know someone there. Now, that's just another morsel into getting into that larger account Again as a producer. You gotta build on those morsels so that you can go in and present a solution. Sorry about that, I agree.

Speaker 5:

Yeah, I think there's a mindset here also. There's an awareness, first and foremost, that you wanna build your book of business there's. You have to remember that big fish swim in big ponds. They're gonna be different than where you're finding your small accounts and you need to be prepared to go into those big ponds and, as both Matt and Christian have said, you've gotta do research, research, research to find out. Then you have to be prepared and you have to mentally get over the idea that, gee, can I write an account that pays $200,000 for their insurance? And the answer is yes, you can it really. If you can write an account for 50,000, you can do one for 100, if you can do 100, you can do 200, if you can do 200, you can do a million. Believe it or not, and I've done all of those in my career and what you will find is the larger the sale, the more they are typically not interested in the premium, but they are more interested in what you can do for them, what you can bring to them other than product and price, and I think that's critical.

Speaker 5:

The other thing is take a look at yourself. I was out with a producer recently. I was delivering a renewal. She was along with me. She is kind of a class clown and she's very bright and very sharp and I think will do well in this industry. She's fairly new and when this is all over, we come back to the office and you have to say listen, there's a switch that you have to flip. This is not funny, this is not. This is we just ask, we just. This guy just spent $500,000 with us. In other words, we just renewed his premium and it went from $400,000 to $500,000 for all of his coverage.

Speaker 5:

I love humor and I use humor a lot when I have a longstanding relationship with someone who understands when and where that's appropriate. That switch doesn't come on in every meeting and it certainly doesn't come on in appropriate times. You have to be yourself, you've got to go out there and if you're hunting big fish, you need to make a very professional presentation, like their CPA would like their attorney would. And you're entering that field. As I see in every one of these coaching calls, if you're in a large account, most likely they're spending more money with you than they are their CPA and their attorney combined. Unless some catastrophe happens to them, then, who knows, they may not even get around. But see there are some of that humor that didn't really fly very well, but anyway, you've got to be prepared to go out and make the presentation, to hunt with the big, big folks.

Speaker 3:

Go ahead then.

Speaker 4:

Okay, just real quick. I'm going to talk about the mindset, rick, because we've talked about there's so many different mindsets referral mindset, bor mindset. Our larger account mindset is a really good one to foster. One other quick thing you had mentioned that larger accounts tend to be more interested in what you can bring to the table. That's unique and what's there.

Speaker 4:

I was reminded of that in a prospect meeting that I had a couple of days ago, earlier this week, and I had confirmed the meeting via email and explained like hey, if you could have the following things ready for our discussion, it will help expedite things.

Speaker 4:

Some of those were basic things like number of employees or annual payroll stuff like that. The guy came in so this is the first time I met this guy and he came in and he said you know, matt, I got your email and he said and I don't have that information ready right now. I really wanted to meet you and kind of assess our compatibility. He literally said and what makes you different? He literally said that it was perfect. But it was a great reminder to me to keep that mindset of not just coming in there with a certain agenda that I want to drive and let's develop these specs and whatnot. So we spent the whole meeting just compatibility. It was a great meeting and we're going to move forward, but I really appreciated and I told him that that that was the and I think you'll see that with some larger, more professional accounts, you know where they know what's important.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and this, the mindset, is what I wanted to also say, matt. That I think is so important. The larger accounts are getting a lot of calls all the time from salespeople asking to write their insurance. Okay. Well, the smaller accounts I'm sure they don't get near as many calls. Okay, because there's not a lot of commission in the smaller accounts, right?

Speaker 3:

So if the larger accounts are getting all those calls, you have to be prepared to differentiate yourself. Why you comes back to circle what we just talked about what's in it for them, what's in it for that larger account? So therein lies do your homework, do your practicing, figure out your differentiation, figure out that you have a solution for them before you go see them. Have a reason why you stand out from the competition. It's like applying to a school. You got to stand out from the competition. There's a lot of other insurance agents fishing around and you want to be the fish that stands out.

Speaker 3:

But I do think mindset is so important when you go in after larger accounts. You're a hunter and you want to target. You don't just go hunting one day, pick up your gun and walk out in your pajamas and go hunting. You prepare yourself before you go hunting. You target where the prey is going to be. You target that prey with the proper ammunition. So that's what it's like to go after larger accounts. But open your eyes, be aware of trucks that go by that are clean trucks that you'll be proud to say that's a client of mine, maybe that if they meet your career appetite they're not a current client. Obviously You've done your research. That's a great place to get leads too, of how to look for those larger accounts. All right.

Speaker 1:

I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Preeminent Producer podcast. If you did, we would greatly appreciate. You like subscribe, leave a review, let us know what topics we can cover in future episodes, and if you'd like to find out more information on how you can get coached by our coaches, feel free to visit us at thepreeminentproducercom. Until next time, guys. We'll see you in the next episode of Preeminent Producer Podcast.

Speaker 2:

Thanks so much for joining us on this episode of the Preeminent Producer podcast. If you're enjoying the show, please feel free to subscribe, rate and leave a review wherever you listen to your podcasts. That helps others find the show and we greatly appreciate it. Once again, thanks for joining us and we'll catch you in the next episode of the Preeminent Producer podcast.