Maximizing Agency Growth: The Power of Closers in Insurance Sales

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We give a lot of weight, a lot of, a lot of ego derived from the producer position. I'm a, I'm a producer. Now, some of the more bougie and I think fake elitist kind of, "I'm an insurance advisor," or, "I'm a..." No, no, that's nonsense. You're a producer.

That's what, that's what we call it in the industry. We call it a producer. Some people, should we call it a salesperson? What- You're a producer. It is unisex, so it matches if anyone is still woke out there, it matches that.

It matches, it talks about exactly what your job is. It is, it is ... I used to not like this word. Today, I believe it is absolutely, positively the perfect word for what this position is, which is you produce new business, meaning you are a hunter. In a crude laboratory in the basement of his home.

What's up, guys? Welcome back to the show. Today, we are gonna discuss the missing revenue position that most independent insurance agencies are either getting wrong or don't have at all. All right, we're gonna come with some fire here on episode number 236 of the show. I wanna thank you for listening to the show.

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Uh, I put a lot of work into making sure that that comes out consistently and that it's always adding value, and I appreciate everyone who subscribes. Okay, so let's get into this topic because this is something that I'm very proud that we pioneered this position at Rogue Risk. And, and really, when I say pioneered, I mean, I feel like it was ultimately perfected, but I've been working on this concept from all the way back in my Murray Group days. This is, this is something that I wrote about, that I've talked about in different keynotes, that I've done social media posts about, talked about in interviews on other podcasts, et cetera. It is this position that most of us would think of as an inside sales rep, but ultimately what I call it today is a closer.

And the reason I call it a closer is because we give a lot of weight, a lot of, a lot of ego derived from the producer position. I'm a, I'm a producer. Now, some of the more bougie and I think fake elitist kind of, "I'm an insurance advisor," or, "I'm a..." No, no, that's nonsense. You're a producer.

That's what, that's what we call it in the industry. We call it a producer. Some people, should we call it a salesperson? What- You're a producer. It is unisex, so it matches if anyone is still woke out there, it matches that.

It matches, it talks about exactly what your job is. It is, it is ... I used to not like this word. Today, I believe it is absolutely, positively the perfect word for what this position is, which is you produce new business, meaning you are a hunter. If you are a producer, I do not believe it is the agency's responsibility to provide you with new leads.

Now, if they do, tremendous. But I don't believe that for producers, if you're gonna chest thump and say, "I'm a producer," right? It is not the agency's job to give you leads. It's just not. Now, I think that agencies should provide producers with some tools, maybe some resources, access to leads potentially, maybe subsidize purchasing lead lists.

I think that all that stuff is cool and fine, and depending on your agency culture and philosophy, I have no problem with any of that stuff. But if you're a producer, you're a hunter. That's what that position is. And the people who succeed in production positions have a hunter's mentality. They're, they're, they're Ds.

They're, they're driven. They're, they're, you know, they have goals. They're competitive. They're aggressive. Uh, it doesn't always mean they're extroverts, but they are determined, and they're willing to work through any fear they have around prospecting, and they hone their craft, and they become very successful, oftentimes building, uh, a niche or, uh, several niches that they work in and becoming a sugge- subject matter expert.

And I also believe that producers should tend to work on larger accounts. That all being said Sometimes leads call in cold, right? They look at your website, they see a YouTube video, they are referred in by a friend and don't mention such. Who handles that business? Today, most often, that is either given to a producer or it's passed off to an account manager.

And account managers are also not the right individuals to be handling inbound leads. Account managers, if properly staffed, should be relationship builders. They should be, uh, focused on retention. They should be focused on renewals. They should be focused on problem-solving and, and triaging service-oriented requests.

They're not salespeople, nor should they be by their nature. So what ends up happening is you have account managers and you have producers, and a new lead comes in, and maybe the agency owner takes it, uh, that-- I see that quite often. But the agency owner may not even be the best fit for that. So it either gets sent to a producer who doesn't wanna waste their time on it because they wanna go out and hunt the accounts that they wanna, uh, hunt, uh, or it's sent to an account manager who isn't a great salesperson and is ultimately just gonna gather some information, provide a quote, and if they don't take it, they just throw their hands up in the air and move on. And tech- technically, I tell you that neither one of those people are wrong.

Producers who are compensated on production, uh, new business production, and ultimately their ability to bring in business that is profitable over the long term, they shouldn't be handling inbound leads, nor should an account manager whose job is to maximize the relationship of the accounts that are already in the door. So neither one of those individuals and their psychological profile, if properly staffed, is a good fit for an inbound lead who needs problem-solving and quasi-transactional help, right? "I'm raising my hand as an inbound lead saying, 'I need workers' compensation. Can you help me?'" And I believe that by not properly staffing this closer position, we are drastically reducing our ability to maximize revenue from inbound accounts.

I think that the misappropriation of this position also leads to the general perception that inbound leads are tire kickers or they're unqualified business, or it's not the type of business that we want, and all of that is inaccurate. So what do we do? We have to build a third position into our agencies, and that position is the closer position. Now, why do I call it a closer? Well, one, closer is way cooler than inside sales rep.

And two, closer actually, just like account manager and producer, clearly defines what that individual's role is inside the agency. Your role is to not go out and produce business. Your job is to close accounts. Your job is to take people who've raised their hand and said, "I am interested in working with your agency," and closing that account, solving that problem, providing a solution, and closing the account as efficiently and effectively as possible. Additionally, I do not particularly care for, nor do I think it is culturally appropriate inside of an agency to create a hierarchy between producers and inside sales reps, which is als- ulti- which is oftentimes producers are up here and inside sales reps are down here, like it's a lesser position, right?

Or we take a, uh, uh, a producer who isn't doing as well for some reason, and we put them on inside sales, and they do even worse, and it's like, "Well, they just stink." No, maybe they're not trained properly. Maybe they're just not meant to be a producer. But just because you're not a great producer doesn't mean you're gonna be a great inside sales rep or closer. Um, you could be, but it doesn't necessarily mean that.

And the same thing with account managers. And if, if an account manager is, uh, acc- an account manager can oftentimes, uh, be placed in that position, but they don't really love it. They're not, they're not motivated by new sales. They're not maybe necessarily competitive in that particular way, and it's not a good fit either. Now, I do think that there are closers who are misclassified as producers and misclassified as account managers that could be great fits, but my point is, it's not just a position to be filled.

It's a psychological profile that needs to be addressed. I'm gonna say that again. The closer position, the, the inbound sales rep, which I would like to have us as an industry start referring to this position as a closer. The closer position, different from producer, different from account manager, is not a position just to be filled, but a psychological profile that needs to be addressed. Because the process is different.

Producers are hunting. They're doing outreach. They're networking. They're wedging their way in. They're, they're, you know, working through whatever your preferred process is for, for, for production, for outbound production.

That's their job, right? They are, they're, they're, they're, they're hunter-gatherer. They're, they're not gatherers. They're hunters. They're, they're out in the marketplace, right?

They're banging people over the head and dragging them back to the office. That is not the mentality of a closer. You do not want a closer with that mentality because what I've found is that if you take someone who is clearly fits the psychological profile of a producer and you stick them in a closer position, one, they're most likely gonna be miserable, two, they're gonna do a terrible job Closers tend to be more entrepreneurially minded, right? They tend to be-- Or sorry, producers tend to be more entrepreneurially minded. I apologize.

They, they're focused on, on, on how do I maximize my personal income using the incentive structure I've been given and the accounts that are available i- to me in the marketplace versus the appetite of the carriers that I have access to, right? And that's the appropriate way to think about it. Closers, on the other hand, should be more process-driven. We, we want them to be competitive, we want them to be outgoing if possible, we want them to, uh, be ambitious, but they tend to be more process-driven. They tend to be the people who want a structure, who are willing and ca- and able to work a consistent, standardized structure.

Because without a consistent, standardized structure, your inbound sales process is going to struggle. You're going to, uh, be less optimized. You're, you're never gonna maximize your conversion rate without a standardized process. So if you take an entrepreneurially minded, uh, producer and you stick them in this inbound position, they're gonna feel caged, they're gonna wanna, you know, round out every account, and they're gonna be pushy, and none of that is good for business. None of that fits what you need them to do.

Th- this is not, uh, this is not open mic night at a comedy club, right? Inbound sales production, the closer position, is someone who is working a process over and over and over again, and by doing so, is cranking out accounts, and that's what you ultimately want. So if that inbound sales rep or closer, right, is a more process-driven person, then what that means What's up, guys? Sorry to take you away from the episode, but as you know, we do not run ads on this show, and in exchange for that, I need your help. If you're loving this episode, if you enjoy this podcast, whether you're watching on YouTube or you're listening on your favorite podcast platform, I would love for you to subscribe, share, comment if you're on YouTube, leave a rating review if you're on Spotify or Apple iTunes, et cetera.

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Peace. Let's get back to the episode. Is there is a different process ... Not what that means. There is a different process associated with inbound sales, and the-- and that process, that differentiated process for inbound sales versus outbound production, requires a process-driven person.

And this is why I believe that this position needs a different psychological profile. You want entrepreneurial, driven, you know, willing to be outgoing, willing to inject themselves, willing to network on the production side. On account managers, you want empathetic, understanding, caring, compassionate, uh, people who can listen, who can solve problems, who can, um, uh, uh, uh, uh, detach themselves from emotional reactions of, of customers who may have issues or misconceptions, et cetera, and retain that business and, and keep that business on the books. And ultimately, that's why our model is so amazing. But that person in the middle, they need to be competitive and driven similar to a producer, but with a process-driven mentality.

They need to be okay, appreciate, and/or want a structure that they can work over and over and over again and appreciate the fact that leads are coming in. Their job is to solve their problem and move the, move on to the next one. And you want them closing account after account after account. They don't get overwhelmed. I often-- This, this is gonna sound maybe, uh, maybe interesting, maybe crazy to some, but in my own experience, I've actually found that producers get overwhelmed quite quickly with large numbers of accounts, right?

You give a, a producer is great at handling 100 accounts, right? That they might be prospecting on over the course of a month. But a true inbound closer, a closer position, you want them hun- handling 100 accounts a week. You want, you know, 10, 12, 15 accounts coming in in a day should not overwhelm them because they're willing to work a process. They don't get overwhelmed by that kind of volume.

And this is where the psychological, uh, bifurcation takes place in those two positions. So the three revenue positions should really be categorized as producer, closer, account manager. And what that allows us to do is produce business outbound, targeted, niche, et cetera, hopefully larger accounts. Inbound, gather, uh, uh, a broad set inbound, willing to, uh, can, can handle and not easily get overwhelmed, solve problems quickly, and, uh, deliver proposals and/or, uh, close accounts very quickly and pass them on to the account management team who can then nurture that account, retain that account, and if necessary, upsell, cross-sell that account to keep them on the books. Those are your three primary revenue-generating positions.

The closer position, the middle position Is the one that is so often either, either m- the person who's in there is not a great fit or the position doesn't exist at all and there's no real inbound strategy and, or, um, what you find is that, uh, inbound business in general is seen, wrongly so, as being less than business produced by a producer and therefore never prioritized. So, you know, this differentiated process that I've talked about is fairly simple. It is the one-call close process that I teach to, uh, my clients and/or, uh, anyone in our coaching program at Finding Peak. Uh, if you want more information on that or you're interested in what we're saying here, you can reach out to me, ryan@findingpeak.com. You can go to Ryan@FindingPeak, just email me, uh, or you can check us out, go to ryanhanley.com and, uh, just kind of snoop around.

You can learn a little bit more. Uh, happy to talk to you about this position, about building out this flow process if you need it. But at a high level, the one-call close process flips the script on how we classically onboard a new process-- uh, a new prospect. And what I've found is that in our automation, VA-driven, outsource all non-closing activities, what we've done is diminish the importance of the relationship of inbound leads. We assume that because someone is reaching out to us, filling out a form, that somehow relationship is not as important or that we believe we can backfill relationship during a proposal delivery, which is wholly wrong, like wrong to the nth degree.

And while you may even be seeing some success, you know, gathering information, you know, ripping through a bunch of quotes and then just delivering our proposal and trying to build relationship on the back end, I promise you, I absolutely guarantee 100% you are leaving business on the board by, by working a traditional production process through your inbound leads. You just are. And you need to flip that and build relationship first, and that's the one-call close process. So the process associated with inbound leads must be different from the process that a producer uses and, and, and that's why there needs to be a separate position. You need to literally train these people differently.

You train producers on one set of skills, a, a very classic and traditional set of skills, and I have a lot of friends out there in the industry that teach high level all the way down to hand-to-hand help on, on being a great producer. And if you don't know those individuals, uh, many of them have already been on the show. You know, Charles Speck, Mick Hunt, um, uh, David Caruthers, um, uh, um, Nick Aubie. Uh, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's a lot of these guys out there. Find one who match, matches your personality, that you appreciate their way.

They're all top class, and if you follow their process, the guys at Max Revenue are doing this, obviously, uh, uh, Trey and Micah, big fans of them. There are many others. And if I'm leaving you out, please don't take it personally. I just wanted to throw out a few names. But ultimately, all of them can teach you classic production, and that is a way of doing business that can be highly profitable and absolutely should be part of your business.

The part that we are missing is the inbound piece. It's a different process. It's a different set of trainings. It's a different psychological belief structure. It is, again, it is about limiting your cost of acquisition, maximizing your conversion, and then ultimately minimizing the process for, um, limiting the, uh, service cost.

And if, if you wanna learn more about this, go two episodes prior, uh, to an episode where I think, I think the title is, uh, "Are Independent Agents Over-Indexing on Middle Market Accounts?" Go back and listen to that account where I break down, uh, in particular the, the cost of service portion of, of that process. But you cannot train a closer the same way you train a producer and expect to get maximum, maximized results out of that closer. It's just not gonna happen. It is a different process.

So if you have any type of inbound lead f- flow coming in in any substantial or even significant way and you wanna maximize that business, you need to either find the right psychological profile inside that, that we defined earlier in the episode that, that meets what that closer needs to be, uh, cordon them off from whatever they're doing now and, uh, put them into that closer position, and then, and then train them to handle inbound leads in the proper way, separate from producers, separate from account managers. Absolutely, absolutely crucial. There is two more pieces to this that I wanna hit on before we finish, okay? One, we have to compensate. This is another reason why this needs to be a distinctive and separate position.

We need to compensate. We need to compensate closers differently than we compensate our production staff and our account managers. It is a different compensation structure. It is a, uh-- So, so again, incentives dictate action. I wrote a LinkedIn post that went quasi-viral about this.

You can go back and look at my LinkedIn if you want. Um, I'll try to link up to it in, uh, the show notes, whether you're watching on YouTube or, or listening to the audio podcast. Um, but incentives dictate action. So with a, a production-oriented and an outbound producer, we wanna have a higher retention and maybe a lower new business. And the idea there is that individual, while we want them to be compensated for new business, 'cause new business, you know, you're either growing or you're dying We also want them to be highly incentivized because ultimately they should be go after l- being go-- they should be going after larger accounts.

We want to incentivize them to do the right things and be part of, in some inst- in some instances or circumstances, uh, the renewal process. So they should be compensated more, uh, than a closer in renewal and slightly less in new business. Where in a closer position, we want to maximize the amount of new business commission that we're willing to pay them and drastically reduce the renewal commission, because ultimately, we don't want our closers handling renewals. That's what the account management team is for. We want our closers taking leads and closing them, taking leads and closing them, taking leads and closing them over and over and over and over again all day long.

We want them to be machines just dominating new business production, putting it on the books, you know, optimizing it for maximum lifetime value, and then sticking into our account management team using a tiered service structure, setting expectations properly so that you are dominating your ROI in inbound business. Okay? But if you do not properly incentivize separately your production team and your closing team, you're gonna get all kinds of mislined, all kinds of misaligned actions applied to the different processes, right? Because if you bring in, if you put a closer on the same comp structure that you have a pro- producer at who is maybe m- m- a little more over-indexed on, uh, renewals, then that closer is not going to be motivated to write the next inbound account, to write the next inbound account, to write the next inbound account, because they're gonna start to get to a level where like, "Eh, I can let that one go. Eh, I'll respond to him in a half hour.

Eh, I'll get back to him when I get back to them. Eh, I won't send that video proposal out till tomorrow." Because they're getting, they have that renewal book that's building up, and that's not what an inbound position demands. An inbound position should be high volume, problem-solving, um, building relationships, setting expectations, and getting onto the next account. And I know what some of the, some of you who disagree with what I'm saying are going to, you know, this is what I would write if I were you, "Well, that sounds transactional."

Well, it is a transaction, but that doesn't mean that it is transactional in the negative connotation. You are still-- In, in order to pr- to maximize your conversion ratio, you have to focus on relationship. Have to. That's the missing piece that so many agencies get wrong with inbound business. You have to, you have to build relationship.

You have to develop trust and respect first. And there's a very specific way to do that, which is what we teach in the Wonka Close process. But, but as we have discussed on this show before, it is a transaction. You are solving someone's problem and moving on. You are not wasting time on rounding out accounts unless it's a layup.

Now, if it's a layup, right, if it's a layup, round out the account 100%. But if there's even a, a, a modicum of pushback or friction, write the policy that you need to write, become a value creator in the eye of that inbound prospect, set expectations, pass that person on to your account management team, and let them round out, cross-sell that account, and ultimately turn that into a multi, uh, multi-policy account. And we all know the more policies you have with, someone has with you, the higher the retention goes up. Because you want that closer onto the next account, onto the next account, onto the next account. The other valuable part of this equation is that closers can be remote.

I do think there is value in producers being in office. I just think there is. They don't have to be, uh, and there's plenty of case studies that prove otherwise. But closers very much so can be remote. And I'll give you an example.

You know, we had, uh, one of our best producers at Rogue Risk, uh, lived in St. Louis and wrote most of the business that he wrote was on the East Coast. I mean, he was licensed in all those states, et cetera. I mean, it's, we were doing it legally. But the, the idea is that he, m- the vast, vast majority of the business that he wrote was in states that he'd never even been to.

And my point is, with a closer position, you can pull from talent around the entire country. Now, I do think of like you're on the East Coast, you don't necessarily want someone on the West Coast, the time differential, you know, you wanna be within one, I think, within one time zone, you know, give or take. Uh, but that being said, you, you, you can pull from talent anywhere. With a closer position, you can pull from talent anywhere. These people most likely will never meet and/or never shake hands with and/or never walk into the businesses who reach their hand up and say, "I need help," and that's completely fine.

That person can have a local relationship with your agency. They don't have to have a local relationship with the closer. You can pull from the best talent anywhere in the country to fill your closer position. So I think that this, this position is highly important. I believe it is a big part of the future of growth-focused independent agencies, and I do believe that we need a broader and deeper conversation, which I hope this episode of the show, uh, has been, uh, a spark for, right?

This isn't the entire conversation. There is lots to talk through. There are nuances, there are exceptions, et cetera. There is technology that needs to be in place. Um, I shouldn't say needs to be in place.

There is technology that helps optimize this process, but I know for certain that this closer position is something that we do not have a good feel for And if you are willing and able to build this position into your agency and focus on inbound business and maximizing the conversion of your inbound business, separate from, being the key word, your traditional production and your account management team, there is a whole new vein of revenue at your disposal. Guys, I would love your thoughts on this. Leave them in the comments on the YouTube video. If you're listening on, you know, an audio podcast platform, come over to the YouTube video, leave your comments. I respond to every comment.

I love you guys for listening to the show. I really want to know your thoughts on this. This is a conversation we need to have more. We need to-- This, this idea of a closer position in agencies is something that we really need to work through, and I hope starts to spread throughout our industry because it's a big part of the future. It's a huge part of the future of our industry is inbound business.

And right now, only the m- the, the, the large carriers with their own internal agencies and/or, uh, D2C insurtechs, et cetera, are really capturing this business. And as independent agents, to me, that should spell opportunity to you. And if you need help, reach out, ryan@findingpeak.com, or you can just go to my website at ryanhanley.com and, uh, reach out to me, guys. Reach out to me on social if you need help or you have questions. And, uh, I just, I love you for listening to the show.

If it's your first time here, please subscribe wherever you're listening, and I'll catch you on the flip side. I'm out of here. I'm going to shoot you. Close twice as many deals by this time next week. Sound impossible?

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