The Preeminent Producer Podcast

How To Develop Your Teams & Operations To Grow Your Book Of Business

• The Preeminent Producer

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We have something special for you in today's episode of The Preeminent Producer Podcast. We are going to be hearing from Rick Gregson, master of BOR Selling. He is walking us through his teams & operation in how he has built a smooth running machine. 

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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/

Also, check us out on Youtube:    / @thepreeminentproducer  

Speaker 1:

Welcome everybody to another episode of the Preeminent Producer podcast. This episode is sponsored by Busisher, and Busisher was kind enough to give us a clip from a six part series that they did with one of our coaches, rick Gregson. Now you know, rick is a master at BOR selling and that's what this whole training was about. But specifically today we're going to be diving into a portion where Rick basically dives in and shares strategies about how he runs his day using teams and operations. How does he structure the team? What does the team do? Very insightful, so sit back, relax, grab a pen and paper, because this is going to be jam-packed with gold. 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:

So here's what we do. Mondays are a tough day for everybody in the agency. We try to load as many meetings as we can into Monday. We start out with an all-staff meeting for all of our folks. That looks like right now, again in new times. We have a few people here in the office and then we have an awful lot of remote employees, so everybody is on the call on Monday. We kind of bring them up to date with what's going on in the agency. A typical meeting that maybe you have to start the day off. It's a fairly brief meeting. We try to get in and out fairly quickly. Then on Monday I've got a team meeting. So this is Rick's team meeting. It's me and the support staff that I have. We meet at 10 o'clock religiously every Monday and Friday. We'll get to Friday in a minute. That's a meeting where I bring in my schedule and I talk about my week and what I need from them. I'll say I need this your.

Speaker 3:

A's and B's are already set up. My appointments are already set up by Madeline. My week is already determined and it will be filled in, of course, by me and by other people as the week goes by. But my week is set up for no appointments with clients, if at all possible on Monday or Friday afternoons. Monday is a tough day. They don't want to see us. Plus, monday, I'm getting ready to play the game with my staff, the game being for the rest of the week. So we'll have a team meeting on Monday where we'll review my schedule and what I need from my team for that week. Then they will tell me what they need from me that week. So that way, when we leave, they know the meetings I have. They have got copies of my. They have access to my calendar. They can see what's going on After that.

Speaker 3:

I rarely talk to them in person, not the you know hi how you doing over the coffee pot, but I'm not going to ever go down and really, or almost never, interrupt their workflow. I'm going to send them an email and they're going to do these tasks as they can Every now and then they're going to come down to my office and ask me a question, but I've found they appreciate this more than I do. I don't. I'm just not always in their workflow, interrupting their day. Other agency meetings could happen on Monday. I'll have producer meetings, I'll have other internal meetings. So we really sort of destroy Monday with internal meetings, leaving Tuesday, wednesday and Thursday ready to play the game hard. In other words, I also don't want meetings in the agency between nine and about three 30. Let's leave that for prime time. Selling nine to four, something like that is good, because that's when we want to spend time either with clients or prospects. That's prime selling time.

Speaker 4:

And this this is without question now major, not life, family more predictable, but a lot more fun, because Monday's your inside with the team here. Tuesday, wednesday, thursday, you're out and about.

Speaker 3:

I'm doing what I love to do. I'm out seeing people. Remember, I've given a service handoff so I'm not hiding behind service. The service that needs by these clients of mine are being done by my team and they're being done better than if I would do it myself, leaving me an opportunity to go have those quarterly meetings. Leaving opportunities start creating new relationships with people, developing centers of influence, things that are really kind of the factory installed equipment of a producer.

Speaker 4:

And I would imagine also that from a stress level standpoint you know I remember so often that the the big quote of the week, big account that you had the renew or just a meeting, a brand new account for the first time, when perhaps you did not think you had walk away power I would imagine Tuesday through Thursday now feels completely different because the pressure is off.

Speaker 3:

Well, the pressure is off and with renewals, the renewal date should be just another day. In other words, this renewal should be done now. Producers, you need to watch this because I will say to my staff hey, it's 60 days before the renewal and it's done. Well, it's done for me and it's done for the client. The internal staff still has to issue certs, binders, id card, all the stuff that goes with it, but but it really is done, most importantly in the eyes of the client. So, really, for the producer, your time is done. Now, as things go, you might want to deliver ID cards. Do you need to deliver ID cards? No, but you might want to again touch relationship, those kind of things. So Tuesday, wednesday, thursday should be fun event for producers lunches, building relationships, meeting new people, creating new opportunities Right, all right, friday.

Speaker 3:

Friday is a little bit different day. There's another team meeting Friday at 10 o'clock. They know to be here and we are going to talk about what happened this week. They're going to bring me up to date with things that my clients did that I should probably want to know about, anything really important I would know about. These could be other things, like saying hey, did you know? Jerry opened up another location oh no, where that's really cool, or or something great is happening, or something on the other side is happening. We're going to talk about that. I'm going to talk about something really important with them. What are you doing this weekend? It's a relationship building opportunity for me and my team.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I want to know about what's going on fun in their life. I'm going to tell them what's going on in my life. I want to build that very, very important relationship with them. There's very little that I wouldn't do for them. I mean, I don't look at this. You're doing service work because you are beneath me. You're doing service work because it's critically important and that's what you do best. You do better than I do. I can't live their life. They don't want to live my life, and I think there's there's that thing that has always been the internal staff and external staff kind of rub where I get to go do all that fun stuff and I do. But it is work. Building your relationships, creating new opportunities, is the work that a producer should be doing. Do not get sucked into service or being drug into service.

Speaker 4:

Let's talk about that. You mentioned this a while ago that producers should only be doing takeoffs in flight, emergencies and landing.

Speaker 3:

That's right. You write the business, you renew the business and your staff should bring you up to date on anything that would jeopardize you retaining that account during the year.

Speaker 4:

So what do you say to the producer right now? I know it's going through your mind and you're saying but I'm the only one that can handle some of these technical issues for my account.

Speaker 3:

What is what? I'll steal something from your Saku, source of all knowledge in the universe. I'm stealing that from an old buddy of mine You're the important. There's no one on your staff more important, more knowledgeable than you. Oh, that's just bullshit. You know that. I mean, are you important in that relationship? Yes, if you have a good team that you trust, if you have a good team that you help become a real team, you want them to have that relationship.

Speaker 3:

Sure, I'm hard to track down. If I'm doing my job, I'm out in the community, I'm doing those things and I tell my clients that I prepare them for the service handoff and that's the most important thing you can do. They never call me about a service thing. So what I'll hear all the time is I'll sit down and say, jerry, howard, things going other going great. Hey, rick, before we get any further, I want to let you know Laura is doing a great job and I'll say, oh, it's good, I'm glad you, how about me? Yeah, we don't care about you, laura is doing a great job. So I come into an all staff meeting and say, well, it happened again Now with the client last week. Jerry, how am I doing for it? Well, you're okay. But that Laura, or that D or that Josh, they're killing it and it makes me feel wonderful. It makes it gives me the knowledge that you have a relationship with me and you have a relationship that is deeper in the agency than just me.

Speaker 4:

So if I'm a producer and I'm still struggling with this because I think my skill set is I, that's how we brought the client in with my knowledge, or whatever. Sure, tell me how I should rationalize this, because, is it, is it not true? I can make a lot more money with that skill set that I have if I limit my current service work to take off landings and emergencies.

Speaker 3:

Well, if you look at the photo that we have right here, that pilot's not going to be serving coffee. It's really not what he does. Well, we don't want him serving coffee, we want him driving that little airplane down the road and we want to make sure that the and I talk about this all the time. When I get on an airplane, I want to look left as I get in. I want to see a guy or a gal with gray hair going don't worry, gregson, I've done this for 30 years and I'm going to bring us in and then, on the right seat, I want to see a guy or a gal with dark hair that's young and saying and if this guy drops over, I got you, so I got you with an experience. I want people doing what they do best. So if I brought this account in based on my technology, my expertise, my education, by all those things, it's already here. I need to go get another one. And that's how I make money.

Speaker 3:

Don't fall into the trap, producers, that you want to make $100,000 a year. That's not good. Don't fall into comfort. Don't fall into. I've never made more money than that. Put your eye out there a long, long way. It's a great career. It's a great opportunity. You can make a lot of money and have a lot of happiness at the same time. Money is not happiness, but you can create a wonderful life. My life has exceeded its wildest dreams and I tell you that from the heart, because of the insurance industry, surrounding myself with talented people and letting the flight attendant, this servers serve and the pilots fly and the ground crew take care of the plane.

Speaker 1:

Alright, guys, I hope you enjoyed that. That was a clip from a six-part series, like over six and a half hours of trainings over on BOR selling that Rick did. I got permission from Visisher to do something very special. If you would like access to the entirety of that training whereas jam packed, where Rick dives into the nitty gritty and into nuts and bolts of BOR selling we're going to be able to give this to you absolutely free by simply joining the preeminent producer coaching program. So check us out at thepreeminentproducercom, find out more about what we offer inside of our coaching program, and we're going to give you access to the entirety of that BOR training as our way of saying thank you and as an awesome bonus. Check us out thepreeminentproducercom and we'll see you in the next episode 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 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.