The Preeminent Producer Podcast
Discover how to become a Preeminent Producer in the commercial insurance industry with The Preeminent Producer Podcast! Join the Preeminent Coaches as they dive deep into the world of commercial insurance and discuss the strategies and tactics needed to stand out from the competition and grow a successful book of business. From marketing tips, prospecting, commercial insurance producer sales training and so much more. You’ll get the knowledge and insights needed to build a lasting and fulfilling career in the commercial insurance world. You will learn how to get unstuck and earn a game changing increase in income.Tune in now for the latest episode of The Preeminent Producer Podcast!
The Preeminent Producer Podcast
Facing Obstacles As An Insurance Producer - Part 1
On the journey on the road to becoming a Preeminent Producer, challenges will happen. How we deal with them will determine our results.
In this episode, I one of our coaches about a time where an obstacle rose up and how he dealt with it.
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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!
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Regardless if you are a seasoned professional or you are brand new to the insurance industry on the road to becoming a preeminent producer, it's safe to say that you're going to face obstacles, and in this episode of the Preeminent Producer Podcast, I asked the question to the coaches to share a story. You know what is an example of an obstacle that you have faced and how did you overcome it? So in this episode we're going to be hearing from Rick Greggs and tell his story of an obstacle he faced and how he overcame. 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 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 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 preeminent producer. Let's dive in.
Speaker 3:Like any producer who's been in business for a while, I probably have a lot of them, because we fall a lot before we get up and run. Life isn't easy. Business isn't fair. It's a full contact sport. But there's one that sticks out in my mind.
Speaker 3:I was a young, young producer and I wrote my first large account. I was so pleased. I remember talking to the underwriter about it and it was time to bind coverage. I went out, made my presentation. They said yes, we want to. There was a very large nonprofit. We want to buy insurance from you. And I thought, oh, that's great. Came back and I was a traveler's underwriter and I called him up and I said, hey, doug, we're going to write this. And he said okay, hey, listen, I want to tell you something. Make sure you get money, because the minute I bind this son of a god, it's accruing dollars. That scared me to death and I did it all as well. So I kept the account for several years and had an incredibly great relationship with the CFO and the CEO. There was a change at the top.
Speaker 3:Now again, I am a young producer here. I'm probably 28 years old and not very savvy in the world of insurance and all of a sudden I get this thing that they are going and they're going to do an RFP. I'm thinking RFP? I didn't know what an RFP was and I didn't really do an investigation. I was working before I had my own agency. I was working in a kind of a regional agency with a bunch of not heads that really had small books of business, and I didn't seek out help to figure out what an RFP was. I went in and did it myself and did a very miserable job, didn't even understand what it was and, of course, lost the account and it was a real wake-up call. It was devastating to me as a young producer who needed the money, who needed the experience, and it took me a while to get over that. But then the good thing about that, it's not what happens, it's what you do about it. And it became a tremendous learning experience for me on a number of levels. I now know, believe it or not, what an RFP is Done. Many of them done them really well. But more importantly than that, it was knowing not only the technical side of the business but the other side of the business.
Speaker 3:What is an RFP? How do you prepare for it? You need to seek out help from the insurance carriers, from other people in the agency. If you're a young producer and never done one of these, from your support staff, from anybody you can possibly think of including going to people who do RFPs in other industries. In other words, one of my large clients now is a large restaurant supply company and they do RFPs and sit down with one of their better sales men or women and say, okay, how do you do? What do you do it? Because I just had lunch the other day with a very successful stockbroker and his son.
Speaker 3:His son is taking over his business and we all have used euphemisms in our past of what we do. We sell insurance, they sell stocks and bonds, and he was really emphatic. He teaches that Everybody sells. So the point is selling is selling. Go to successful salespeople, find out what makes them tick, find out how they do RFPs, find out all of those kinds of things about them and make yourself better.
Speaker 3:I now, from that lame back, write some very large nonprofits have done so for years and years and years, but that was a devastating day in my insurance career. That came out to be one of the best days of my insurance career, looking at it through the rear view mirror, I learned and you know we're all gonna get knocked down and it's not gonna be fair man. It's not gonna be easy, but you've got to be able to learn from those experiences, to see them in the future, to see, to learn to be able to handle it the next time it comes up, because you know what, in some form or fashion, it's gonna present itself again and you'll be ready.
Speaker 4:You know, rick, there were kind of tooth takeaways that I jotted down from that story. One of them is there's kind of a I know a cliche or some expression out there, something like it's not as important what happens to you, but how you react to it. You know when things happen, something like that Boy. You know, paul, you had said the journey to being preeminence not always easy, and boy, it's never. I guess it's never easy, and so we're always going to have those situations. It's so great that you were able to take something from that.
Speaker 4:The other thing that jumped out at me and it's not always easy to do this, but it's sure this help it's just not being afraid to ask others for help. You know, yeah, yeah, one of the lessons I've learned, I think, over the last 40 years of doing this a little bit of a tangent, but not much of a tangent here, guys but one of the things when I was young I always kind of thought that I sort of knew it all, and the longer I live I realize that, yeah, other people have legitimate good ideas too. I'm not always right, you know so. So not being afraid to ask others for help in those situations, it's a way to go.
Speaker 3:You know, if you think you know it all and many of us did when we were young there's no opportunity to learn. If you think you know it all, there's no more to learn. Number one and number two I probably mentioned this once before reading a book and the title of the book is the Book. I don't remember anything about the book, who wrote it, who the author was, how big it was, but the title of the book is it's Not what Happens, it's what you Do About it. That's the book I mean. That really is it's.
Speaker 3:We're going to face situations that are beyond our control, that are not fair, and we're going to have to sit down and we're going to think, ok, this is, this is what's happened. What am I going to do? Am I going to yell and scream? Am I going to cry and kick the dog? Hopefully not. Or am I going to sit down? Am I going to learn from this thing? Am I going to go forward and say, ok, I'll never do that again, or I'll recognize that when I'm in that situation again? I think we learn more from our defeats than we do our victories, so that's why it's important. That's why defeats are important. I hope you minimize them, but they become catastrophes if you don't learn something from them. Yeah, wait.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you just got to be able to pick yourself up and keep going. And we've probably all known people I'm thinking of one producer years ago in my agency who, yeah, he could just never let go of those defeats. It just ate him up to eight. He just wasn't ultimately cut out for it. So you know he quit because. So you got it. Yeah, I guess I'm going to state the obvious. You got to. What can I learn from this? And then implement that and then move on. Hey, rick, I'm just curious, since that was such a big account early in your career, how long did it take you, if you recall to, to get back to, even to replace that income?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a good question. I would say I did it the next year. I mean, it was. It's such a wake up call. It's like, oh my God, and I was poor. It was my biggest account and it really motivated me through. You know, you can be motivated through all kinds of things. You can be motivated because your money motivated. But I was money motivated out of necessity at a young family. I had to go out and do it, so I hustled my tail off and went out. That's a good question. I replaced it that year through several accounts.
Speaker 1:Rick, what would you, what advice would you give to, maybe a young producer that is experienced something similar to what you experienced? And I know Matt just brought up someone who who ended up giving up because it just you know the failure eight, adam. What piece of advice would you give to a younger producer that's going through something similar?
Speaker 3:Well, I think the one thing you have to remember about this it's not a job, it's a career, and we've said that many times on these calls. There's going. You have to have persistence. You have to understand that this is a great career for those who it's a great career for, if you'll pardon the preposition at the end of the sentence there. You're going to face adversity and I don't care what you do. If you want to become preeminent, if you want to put in the time to excel, challenges are going to come and those preeminent people find a way to get over those hurdles and recover from them. It's worth doing. It's such a great career. It gives you the opportunity to do so many things that I couldn't have done in any other career, and you've got to be dedicated to the idea that it's a marathon. It's not. It's it's not a sprint. It's a career over a long period of time and it builds and builds and builds. It gets better and as you learn more about it. So be patient, perseverance prevail. All right, I hope you enjoyed that.
Speaker 1:I hope you're encouraged by that. If you are facing your own obstacle, know that this is all part of the process, and how you handle the process as well as the struggle is huge. Now I want you to stay tuned for part two next week. We hear what we're calling the gut punch story from Christian, and we're also going to be hearing from Matt Starchy as well on obstacles that they face, so you don't want to miss that. If you've enjoyed this story and you'd like more information about how to be coached by these guys, definitely visit us at the preeminentproducercom and again, we'll see you in the next episode for part two of the 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 podcast. 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.