The Preeminent Producer Podcast

When To Say "No" To An Opportunity

• The Preeminent Producer

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In today's episode of The Preeminent Producer Podcast, we are talking about when to say "no" to an opportunity. Let's dive in!

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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

...

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:

What's going on, guys? Welcome to another episode of the Preeminent Producer Podcast. Today, the coaches are going to dive into the topic of the power of saying no and when is the right time to actually say no. 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 I think one of the biggest challenges that new producers face is knowing when to say no to an opportunity. I know I struggled with that and even sometimes now I struggle with it and I need to check myself to say, you know, is this opportunity a good opportunity and one that we want to invest time and effort and money into going after? And so I had a situation the other day that is an example of what I'm talking about. It was a business that was referred to us by a trusted source, and let me just stop by saying we have had businesses referred to us or opportunities referred to us by competing brokers, which I hope that you know throws off some red flags to a new producer, like why in the world would our competitor be sending this person to us for insurance? And typically there's only one. Well, there's most reasons. Are they? They just don't want to deal with it? Or two, they want you to spin your wheels and go after something when they're grafting something of yours. But anyway, I digress.

Speaker 3:

So in this particular case, we were. This client, potential client was referred to us and on the face of it, you know, it looks like a good opportunity from a new producer's perspective, because it, you know, is a large property risk. So therefore there's some premium, which means there's some commission involved. And so, you know, the initial response is, yeah, we'll definitely go after it. Sure, well, you know, we'll help you out.

Speaker 3:

But the questions then become OK, who's your current provider? Well, I don't have insurance now. Well, how long have you been in business? I've been in business 20 some years. Okay, so what happened? And it's that kind of slowing down to find out.

Speaker 3:

Okay, why is this thing an urgent matter for this prospective client? Why is his urgency now becoming ours? Or is it a situation that perhaps maybe he didn't pay his insurance premium, maybe he now has tenants and he didn't carry insurance, the place is vacant. So now he's got to all of a sudden produce coverage, which, if that's the case and I'm not saying that is the case, but if it is the case we may be now playing in the surplus lines market, which isn't a bad thing, but it's a lot of spinning of wheels and we may get it when we go into the surplus lines market. Yes, we get commission, but it doesn't go towards feeding our lifeblood agent, our carriers and our contingencies.

Speaker 3:

So, again, as a new producer, how do I want to spend my time? Do I want to invest my time going after business that I know meets our carrier's appetites, that I know provides some additional incentives or bonuses on the back end to the agency that would benefit our agency? Or do I just want to take anything that comes across my desk and so I guess what I'm babbling about is new producers to make sure you take the time when business comes directly to you and it's not something that you vetted, that you're going after. You know you've already done your homework because we've talked before and you're going and they're coming after you now. What's the reasoning behind it? Ok, it Okay, and just be careful, because when we do spin our wheels as as producers, it takes away obviously from our time that we can put towards other good business and, as we've talked about, uh, choosing our clients that we want to partner with so that we have a long, fruitful, enjoyable career in this business.

Speaker 4:

You know, christian uh, a great topic that you bring up, and I think you mentioned a brand new producer starting out. It's a difficult thing to say no to anybody, and I remember I did it myself. You shoot at anything that moves at first because you're just desperate to get some action going, but it has a lot of implications knowing when to say no. Rick, one thing you've brought up frequently is the concept of controlling your time, controlling your calendar, and that's actually helped me personally reinforce that and I've really been a lot better about that over the last year or so. And so sometimes you got to say no the last year or so, and so sometimes you got to say no just because it's not fitting with your calendar or whatnot. And then we even share one quick story with you guys. We even from time to time if you've been in this business long enough we even say no to a current client, and by saying no I mean we ask them to go somewhere else once in a while, not often, but once in a while. You have to do it, and I'll share a quick story with you.

Speaker 4:

This is kind of an extreme example, but many, many years ago I had a particular client, a good-sized workers' comp account brought in a lot of revenue to my agency and we had a dispute.

Speaker 4:

The client had a dispute with the rating bureau about his classifications and he gave me a lot of information real detailed information about really what his business was and what his employees were doing, what their functions were, and it was a little bit complex account. He gave me a lot of information. Turns out it was misinformation intentional. He was basically trying to utilize my expertise I was negotiating hard with the Bureau and doing some good work on his behalf. He was trying to use my expertise to perpetrate fraud on the state rating Bureau and I found that out through a different channel and it was indisputable. So obviously I asked him to get another broker. I didn't want to be involved in anything like that, even though it was a big account. So this concept of knowing when to say no has a lot of different kind of faces to it. And one last thing that occurs to me is I know you guys have talked before about the concept of the best day to lose an account is the first day or something like that.

Speaker 3:

Well that it's an account or a boat, we don't know, but we think it's the accounts.

Speaker 4:

And anyway, we've probably all found ourselves in the situation we should be once in a while for doing our job correctly in that first meeting with a prospect. There are going to be times that you realize this is time to walk away and not get involved with it for one reason or another. That's true.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. So I'm sorry, rick, I just wanted to also jump in real quick and then I'll be quiet as you speak. I think it's also important to know kind of how to say no, because thinking about saying no it has a negative, very negative, just by nature has a negative connotation to it. And again, I've been there, I'm still there. There are times where I think we can write everything and anything and I have to check myself. I have to do what I'm saying and say is this really? The dollar signs are great as far as commission income, but is it really an account that I want to partner with that is going to benefit us and my team and everyone involved, because it's not just one person involved with writing an account, obviously.

Speaker 3:

So my point here is it also happens in our personal lines and I've seen it happen, probably more in personal than commercial, but it does happen in commercial and in personal.

Speaker 3:

I can tell the listeners with absolute, 100% certainty that, depending on how you say no, if you say no appropriately, it can actually pay in spades back to you, and that may sound strange, but, for example, in personal lines, this happened the other day where we had an opportunity to try to help someone out again and our carriers were significantly off the mark with what this particular client needed and as much as we wanted to help them, we told the client we want to help you, but it's in your best interest to contact or try to get to XYZ insurance company.

Speaker 3:

And the client actually took that as a true professional, knowing when to say no and coming to them and saying I'm not trying to take advantage of you in this situation of need. I'm trying to give you the best advice and sometimes the best advice is that we may not have you as a client, but I will sleep well at night by telling you this. And that's what our representative told the person. The person came back, actually sent me an email and said I just want you to know how professional this person was and greatly appreciate it. So I know we'll get some business from that person or their friends or what have you, because we did the right thing. So sometimes saying no is also the right thing in general for the client. So sorry, rick.

Speaker 5:

Oh, no problem, You're right, we probably all get those telephone calls that for someone shopping for insurance it's below your minimum account size. But you should have a minimum account size and I just don't want to mess with it. It has no account potential. But I just don't want to just say go away. So what I've done? I've memorized the telephone number for one of my competitors and I say to them why don't you call these people? And I give them the telephone number. But because we just don't have markets for smaller accounts like this, we're going to end up charging you too much money and I don't want to do that. You don't want to do that either. Call them and if they don't have a market for you, call me back, I will find somebody for you. So that's great.

Speaker 5:

The other thing, when you don't say no and I had this with my team recently somebody called us. They were being non-renewed. They gave us five days notice. So their broker has got a dumpster fire going on here. If we get involved in that freight now we have a dumpster fire. I mean because if they say my broker has no markets for us, guess what? We're on the hook. So we step away from those things as quickly as we possibly can.

Speaker 5:

The other thing that you mentioned it is the best day to lose a sale is the first day, and it's kind of counterintuitive to some of you young producers like wait, I want to go ahead and tell them how great we are. I want to tell them I give good service. I want to tell them all that crap that we used to tell everybody. I want to waste my time. I want to spend two weeks on this and have the guy roll me at the end. So no, no, no and Matt, you said it in that first appointment your first appointment is not to try to sell insurance. That's not what it's for. It's try to build a relationship.

Speaker 5:

It's try to interview them also. Are they going to be a good candidate for you? Do they meet your minimum account size? Do they look like people that are going to be easy to work with? Are they going to be the kind of client that really respects your professional advice and your counsel or not? So they're interviewing you as they should. What's in it for me? Why should they buy insurance from you? They're interviewing you as they should. What's in it for me? Why should they buy insurance from you? And you're interviewing them to see if they meet the criteria of a client that you want to have.

Speaker 3:

So, in essence, in saying yes to everyone, you devalue yourself, you devalue your profession, you devalue your agency, you devalue your brand, which is counterintuitive because you know we want to be everything for everyone, we want everyone coming through our doors, but you got to know when to say no because it devalues you and I think that's a. It's really hard. It's really hard as a new producer because, as we've said, you know you're beating the bushes. You need income. We've talked about on prior podcasts reasons. You know what's your, why, why do you do this? And I talked about four of mine and it's to make money. And so when I turn someone away, personally I look at that as that I just bite myself in the tail. But slowing down and really analyzing the opportunity before committing and saying yes, I think is so important and if you can get into that habit, you're just going to have a stellar, stellar career.

Speaker 5:

Yeah, one of our young team members said something a couple of weeks ago you only say yes to the best. I thought that's a great slogan. You only say yes to the best. I thought that's a great slogan. You only say yes to the best things. Everything else is a no.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, that's really good. What you guys are saying is so true. We think about our own careers. You probably have similar experience to mine. There was a time when things were going good and I was in my prime and really you know and everything. And there's an insidious danger of that in that you start thinking you can sell any account and maybe you haven't taken the time to analyze a particular prospect like you should. And again, and you realize, oh, here's a couple of red flags of this and that. But you know I think I can turn it around and you know I'm going to. You know we probably have all wasted, you know, quite a bit of time over the years doing that. You know, before you learn, okay, you just, you just got to walk away and say no if it's not meeting the criteria that you've, that you've set you speak it.

Speaker 3:

Just I started thinking about you know, Rick said I love that, say yes to the best, because you know, getting into an account there's winners and losers, and so you know. One question to maybe ask yourself is okay, this person's coming to me, kind of telling me that they need me, need me, need me and they need me in such a short time period. That's all great and feels good, but someone on the other end is going to lose this account. So why are they okay with it? And that's not always the case. I'm sure there's exceptions.

Speaker 3:

But the reason why that sticks with me and I think is an important concept for new producers is again, as we talk about it, if you're going after a specific manufacturer, you've done your research. You're going after them. Their agent's going to try to hold tight on that account. We have helped you. If you've been listening to our podcast and listened to us moving forward. We've given you the tools to break that relationship. We've given you the tools to break that relationship. We've given you the ways to get in and fight the fight, knock them out, and now you have the client that that other agent's trying to protect. Now you have that client to protect so you have the best. And that's really, I think, what being a producer, a professional you know good insurance producer being the best is being able to go after that, go after the good business and win it, which does mean you have to say no many times to people that are just coming at you.

Speaker 5:

Sure, I think one of the things that every viewer should remember is we are producers and we've had long producer careers and I know in the agency a young producer will come up to me and say, hey, did you ever make this mistake? And I won't even let him finish this. Yes, I did Absolutely. Whatever you're going to ask, whatever foolish thing you're going to ask me, yes, I've done it. And I think when you get coaching from us or for anyone in any career, you want to talk to people who have learned from their mistakes, who have said I didn't say no often enough. I said yes all the time. So you know, Christians made those mistakes, Maths, I've made those, we've made those. So we're trying to teach everybody from the bonehead things that we did and hopefully we can short circuit and you won't make the mistakes as often and you'll become a preeminent producer even faster.

Speaker 1:

All right, guys. I hope you enjoyed that. I hope it gives you new insight on when to say no. If you guys would like more information about what we do inside of the preeminent producer programs, please visit us at the preeminent producercom. Check out the different coaching programs where you can personally be coached by the coaches that you hear on this podcast. Until next time, guys. 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.