Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Building Blocks of Agency Development: A Handbook of Life Insurance Sales Management
    The Building Blocks of Agency Development: A Handbook of Life Insurance Sales Management
    The Building Blocks of Agency Development: A Handbook of Life Insurance Sales Management
    Ebook192 pages2 hours

    The Building Blocks of Agency Development: A Handbook of Life Insurance Sales Management

    By C. Nguyen Canh

    5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Garry Kinder, CEO of The KBI Group says, In Dr. Canhs book, The Building Blocks of Agency Development - A Handbook of Life Insurance Sales Management, you will find systems that work and philosophies that win throughout the pages. Indeed this handbook will help new as well as experienced professionals in life insurance sales management with basic know-how to build a successful insurance agency and ideas to enable them to unleash their leadership potential and reach the pinnacle of their management career. Not only does this book clearly describe the fundamental systems and techniques that help lay a solid foundation for a growth agency, it also shows you step by step how to apply them in your daily management responsibilities. More importantly, you will learn from this book philosophies that guide you in the right direction to develop your leadership skills so that you may lead other people to achieve greater success in helping themselves and their clients in their goal to grow and protect their wealth.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAuthorHouse
    Release dateFeb 29, 2012
    ISBN9781468553970
    The Building Blocks of Agency Development: A Handbook of Life Insurance Sales Management
    Author

    C. Nguyen Canh

    C. Nguyen Canh, Ph.D., CLU, ChFC has 25 years of experience in sales, sales management and training in the life insurance business in the United States and Asia. He started as an agent at MetLife in Dayton, Ohio in 1983. Some highlights of his business career are Regional Sales Manager at MetLife in San Francisco, California; National Director for Asian Market at Prudential in Newark, New Jersey; Managing Director at Prudential in Chicago, Illinois; Regional Vice President of Sales for AIA in Hanoi, Vietnam; and Director of Training for AIA-Vietnam. Prior to his retirement in 2009 he was President of Sunrise Management Consulting, Ltd., Vietnam. He currently lives with his wife Kim-Chi in Dallas, Texas; they have two daughters. He can be contacted by e-mail at cncanh05@yahoo.com.

    Related to The Building Blocks of Agency Development

    Related ebooks

    Sales & Selling For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      10 Reasons to Own Life Insurance in Every Decade of Your Life

      Sep 21, 2020

      There has always been value in protecting your loved ones, perhaps even more now as the COVID‑19 global pandemic continues to devastate households and put the question of mortality front and center. While life insurance can be an unsettling topic, an

      3 min read

    • Article

      Sell Like a Human

      Mar 29, 2017

      Sell Like a Human
      1 min read

    • Article

      Simple Works

      Jun 17, 2018

      Simple Works
      2 min read

    • Article

      Millennials, What Will It Take for You to Buy Life Insurance?

      Jul 30, 2021

      Start-ups are going to ridiculous lengths to rebrand an industry in desperate need of some younger customers.

      6 min read

    • Article

      Whole Life Insurance: It's a Swiss Army Knife for Financial Planning

      May 1, 2020

      The stock market may be jittery right now, but my whole life cash value continues to chug along. In my 20 years of providing financial advice, I have found whole life insurance to be one of the most important, yet overlooked financial planning tools

      6 min read

    • Article

      Building Good Client Relationships

      May 14, 2021

      There are many pillars that support good customer relations (and hence business success); amongst these are recognition, acknowledgement and praise. The fresh-produce sector provides many opportunities to practise these. Indeed, they are essential it

      1 min read

    • Article

      Stand Out In A Sea Of Agents

      Mar 31, 2020

      Stand Out In A Sea Of Agents
      3 min read

    • Article

      Building Credibility in Business

      Dec 31, 2019

      Building Credibility in Business
      3 min read

    • Article

      Sales Engagement Process Design

      Aug 9, 2017

      Is it time to adapt your sales engagement process to align with today’s evolving buyers & buying processes? • Many sales engagement processes are informal and inconsistently executed • This makes it extremely difficult for sales managers to obtain co

      1 min read

    • Article

      The Roots of Entrepreneurial Success

      Jan 1, 2020

      You have been involved in start-ups for many years as a founder, co-founder and Chief Technology Officer. In your experience, does entrepreneurship demand specific traits, or can anyone with a great idea do it? I don’t subscribe to the idea that it t

      6 min read

    • Article

      Dear Home Business

      Mar 25, 2021

      Dear Home Business
      3 min read

    • Article

      Check, Please

      Apr 4, 2023

      Check, Please
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Usual Suspects

      Aug 12, 2018

      The Usual Suspects
      2 min read

    • Article

      You, The Advisor.

      Jun 16, 2017

      You, The Advisor.
      1 min read

    • Article

      Build Your Personal Brand To Stand Out In The Job Market

      Jan 6, 2021

      MOST matriculants and their families are no doubt wondering what kind of future lies in store for them. With the employment rate at an all-time high of 30.8% and the ravages of Covid-19 still being felt across the country, job opportunities are more

      3 min read

    • Article

      How to Keep Your Employees from Jumping Ship During the Great Resignation

      Mar 2, 2022

      “The news is filled with stories of employees refusing to come back to work, jumping ship to another employer, or trying their luck at becoming entrepreneurs,” observes Gorick Ng, the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The Unspoken Rules: Secr

      3 min read

    • Article

      In And Out

      Aug 23, 2018

      In And Out
      5 min read

    • Article

      Roadmap to Greatness

      Aug 17, 2021

      Roadmap to Greatness
      2 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Building Blocks of Agency Development

    5/5

    1 rating0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      The Building Blocks of Agency Development - C. Nguyen Canh

      The Building Blocks 

       of Agency Development

      A Handbook of Life Insurance Sales Management

      C. Nguyen Canh, Ph.D., CLU, ChFC

      US%26UKLogoB%26Wnew.ai

      AuthorHouse™

      1663 Liberty Drive

      Bloomington, IN 47403

      www.authorhouse.com

      Phone: 1-800-839-8640

      © 2012 by C. Nguyen Canh, Ph.D., CLU, ChFC. All rights reserved.

      No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

      Published by AuthorHouse 03/24/2012

      ISBN: 978-1-4685-5396-3 (sc)

      ISBN: 978-1-4685-5398-7 (hc)

      ISBN: 978-1-4685-5397-0 (e)

      Library of Congress Control Number: 2012903370

      Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

      Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

      Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

      Contents

      CHAPTER I

      PURPOSE OF AGENCY MANAGEMENT

      CHAPTER II

      BASIC AGENCY MANAGEMENT SKILLS

      CHAPTER III

      LEADERSHIP

      To my wife Kim-Chi for her loving care and patient support.

      To my two daughters Nhu-Y and Minh-Y with love.

      INTRODUCTION

      by 

       Garry D. Kinder, CEO 

       Kinder Brothers International

      In Dr. Canh’s book, The Building Blocks of Agency Development—A Handbook of Life Insurance Sales Management, you will find systems that work and philosophies that win throughout the pages.

      Dr. Canh has given good advice on how to build a successful agency. He has given information on recruiting the right people and helping them get off to a fast start, and also ideas and concepts on how to monitor and measure the agents on a regular basis.

      Read and study this book carefully and, as suggested by Dr. Canh, use it as a handbook. Remember that people who succeed, whether agents or managers, form the habits of doing the things that failing people do not like to do.

      There is only one thrill greater than selling and servicing a client and that is helping agents become the people they need to be.

      This book will help you build people in this tremendous industry.

      Garry D. Kinder

      CEO

      Kinder Brothers International

      FOREWORD

      I wrote this book with a view to sharing my management experience with young managers in the life insurance industry. Since insurance line managers don’t yet have much time on managing others, I hope that by taking advantage of my experience, many managers may be able to avoid the mistakes I made during my 30 years in the business, and advance their careers faster with satisfaction in achieving their personal goals as well as their mission of helping clients protect their financial future.

      This book was first published in 2010 in Vietnam where life insurance is a rather new concept and market. In my opinion there’s a great need for management development for the young industry; and I hope that this small handbook is of value to life insurance management training programs, and those who want to use it as a handy reference in their daily insurance sales management activity.

      I believe that to manage other people successfully one must be not only a manager but also a leader, and leaders are made, not born. Leadership can be learned although it requires hard work, determination, self-discipline, and personal sacrifices. It doesn’t take much to learn leadership technical competence, but it takes a great deal more to develop leadership character, without which no one can truly be called a leader.

      The book is divided into 3 chapters. Chapters I and II deal with the purpose, responsibility, activity, and skills of agency management. Chapter III deals with leadership. Although this handbook is about agency management, especially in the first two parts, the bulk of the last part discusses leadership development in general. I sincerely hope that this discussion will help anyone who aspires to lead others in any domain of management, be it insurance, banking, education, non-profit organization, politics, and so on. The book is arranged for easy reference with a detailed table of contents at the beginning and an index at the end.

      I want to apologize in advance for the repetition throughout many discussions of several important principles and philosophies. I mention them again and again aiming to emphasize their effectiveness in application, and in particular, to allow users who only consult the book for references the opportunity to have a quick review of these nuggets of wisdom.

      I trust that the responsible exercise of leadership to help others develop their full potential to achieve a common purpose is a worthwhile endeavor.

      C. Nguyen Canh, Ph.D., CLU, ChFC

      ACKNOWLEDGMENT

      I owe a great deal to Kim-Chi, my wife of 40 years, for her loving care and patient support, without which it would have been impossible for me to have the time and peace of mind to finish writing this book.

      Professionally I want to thank Garry D. Kinder, CEO of Kinder Brothers International for taking the time to review my draft and write the introduction. My thanks also go to David Smith, President and William L. Moore, Senior Consultant of The KBI Group for their valuable input.

      C. Nguyen Canh, Ph.D., CLU, ChFC

      CHAPTER I

      PURPOSE OF 

      AGENCY MANAGEMENT

      What’s the main purpose of agency management? Now that you’ve been promoted to be an Agency Leader (AL=Unit Manager, Sales Manager, Agency Supervisor) in your insurance company, your boss expects you, and so do you, to succeed in your new position. Your enthusiasm abounds because you were promoted rather quickly. You want to know a lot of things in order to succeed faster; however, since you’re a cautious person, you’ve been thinking hard but still aren’t sure where to begin and what you should focus on to ensure your success as you promised your company. Although you’re very confident, sometimes you wonder if you’ve promised management too far beyond your ability. You realize that you need to learn a great deal more to acquire new knowledge and skills. So, where should you start?

      Don’t worry! There are 3 things you need to determine and focus on:

      •   Objectives,

      •   Activities to achieve your objectives, and

      •   Methods to carry out your activities in order to achieve your objectives

      Like taking a trip, you need to know where you want to go, what to prepare, and how to get there. This first chapter will help you explore your objectives—what your company wants you to get done, how much pay you want for your work, and how far you want to move upward in your company.

      STOP HERE!

      Write down in the space provided on the next page, or on a separate sheet of paper, what you believe are the main objectives of what you do in your position of AL.

      In my opinion the main objectives of what I do as an AL are:

      SKU-000547102_TEXT.pdf

      IA.   Objectives

      The main objective of business is to grow profit over time. Your job as an AL is to:

      •   Grow staff

      •   Grow revenue, and

      •   Grow profit

      IA1.   Staff Growth

      You’re supposed to increase the number of your active (selling) agents every quarter. It doesn’t matter how many producers you have; it only matters how many of them sell. The number of agents on your sales staff is only a body count. The number of your active agents indicates how successful you are as an AL. It’s better to have a lower body count and a higher ratio of active agents. But, the important thing you need to bear in mind is the increase of this ratio as well as the absolute number. You should decide on a ratio higher than the company’s average but not unrealistic*. The ratio alone isn’t a good indicator of success. A 66% active ratio looks good on paper but it doesn’t reflect your talent and skill when your staff has only three or four agents. The same ratio is excellent when the number of your sales staff is 15 or 20 and keeps increasing. To achieve consistent growth, you’ll need to recruit to increase the body count, develop new salespeople into active agents, and manage to retain the majority of them over time. So, within your responsibility for staff growth, you’re responsible for recruiting, development, and supervision.

      *   You should discuss with your leadership team, and decide on a common goal. You should meet with your team to guide the discussion and group decision but avoid imposing your ideas on them or unilaterally deciding regardless of what the team thinks. If you don’t completely agree with them, you’ll need to convince them of the reasons and benefits of your position and persuade them to change their minds. Since you’re the leader, you can rather easily dictate and impose your will on the team but success isn’t certain when you lack the ardent support of the majority.

      IA2.   Revenue Growth

      Your agents’ premiums must grow over time. As the years go on, operation expenses increase due inflation and the ever rising cost of doing business. If they maintain the same level of premiums, your company’s revenue will decrease in value, and so will their income, and yours! When your agents do the right things and do them right, and have consistent and sufficient activity in prospecting and selling, they’ll naturally sell more and bring in more premiums. Exceptions do exist when you have the same number of selling agents but your premiums increase. This is due to either larger cases are sold or more cases sold per active agent. In the first scenario, luck can be a factor. However, in order to sell large cases on a continual basis your agents must upgrade their markets, which isn’t an easy thing to do. Agents rarely reach out of their comfort zones and venture into new territories. The second scenario doesn’t happen often either. For the same agents to sell more cases per week or month, a change of market is necessary. Again, unless you as a manager actively promote and help your agents develop new markets, the number of sales per agent and their case size remain rather consistent over time if your management capability remains at the same level. You need to get out of your own comfort zone and bring your agents with you on this uncomfortable trip to help them sell more and bigger to increase revenues for themselves, for you, and for your company.

      IA3.   Profitability Growth

      The bottom line in running a business is to make a profit. Lee Iacocca, former President and CEO of Chrysler, says in his autobiography that one is in business to make money. (1) In the life insurance business, an insurance company usually doesn’t make money in the first few years of policies sold. It varies from company to company and from product to product. It may take somewhere from three to five or seven years to earn a profit. The company makes money from old premiums, savings in expense and mortality experience, and investment income. Therefore, new insurance policies of questionable quality will lapse early and cause greater expense and lower profit. Business sold to relatives and friends by new agents normally have lower persistency. It was sold based almost exclusively on relationship; the buyer felt obligated to help the new agent due to blood relations or friendship. It wasn’t bought because of protection or savings needs. It’ll lapse when the agent leaves the business as the owner sees no reason to continue paying premiums. Business sold under pressure of contract continuation, or meeting sales contest deadlines, or under the agent’s high pressure sales techniques all fall into the non-quality business category. So, your job includes attention to quality business to help your company make a profit.

      The above explanation of life insurance profitability doesn’t appear to apply to individual sales managers because such profitability depends on long-term investment factors. Therefore, when we talk about profitability growth for you as an AL and your agents, we talk about your personal income, although most companies do pay a portion of your management income based on the business persistency of your staff. You need to keep an eye on your net income every quarter. You may hire more productive agents and bring in more premiums in the quarter but end up bringing home less money. In order to affect quick increase in staffing and revenue for a particular quarter, you may have spent too much money on advertising, travel, awards, and other incentives. Remember first and last that you’re a businessman or businesswoman. As such, you should bring home more income from your business. Otherwise,

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1