SET & TRACK™
Software to set producer goals and track the results.

ESTABLISH "SET & TRACK" GOALS FOR EVERY AGENCY PRODUCER.

As an agency principal or sales manager you have undoubtedly set mental goals for each producer you’ve hired. However, as time passes and your attention is diverted to other matters, your agents are often left to manage themselves. With certain individuals, this is desirable. But, they are the exception. Most new and veteran producers need and want to be actively supervised. This includes the setting of specific prospecting and sales goals and regularly tracking the progress made to accomplish them. And since the "secret" to successful personnel management is consistency, if you decide to establish and monitor goals for any individual producer, you should do it for every P&C agent in your office, including yourself, if you’re still active in sales.

Here’s our thoughts on going about it, using Set & Track™ producer software.  No promises, just some ideas for you to consider.

Goal-setting.

The place to start this process is where all sales start: prospecting. When setting goals for these pre-sale activities, always take into account the common elements and distinct differences for each major line of insurance. For example, direct mail, email marketing, telemarketing calls, contacts made, and premiums quoted are common across all lines. However, only personal, commercial, and group have x-dates or the equivalent. Life insurance does not. Therefore, Set & Track™ lets you set an agent’s prospecting goals to include each of the following...

Marketing activities.
Successful contacts made.
Renewal dates collected (appointments made -- for life lines).
Quotes or full proposals presented.

Additionally, you should recognize that since personal lines generally requires a larger number of prospects than commercial (or group) to generate favorable results, the anticipated hit ratio of quotes delivered to sales made will vary greatly by line. Also account for variances based on a given producer’s experience level, sales skills, and target markets. Accordingly, you should negotiate separate sets of prospecting goals for each agent, for each major line that’s sold.

Next, use Set & Track™ to establish goals for each type of sale. In personal and life lines, you can set goals by policy type (auto, HO, term, etc.). In commercial, you can set them by account size (small, medium, and large). The goals you'll be able to set includes the number of annual sales, written premiums, and written commissions expected from the agent.

Sale counts help to establish the relative spread of production desired. This is important if you don’t want an agent to sell too many auto policies, for example.
When it comes to written premium and commission goals, Set & Track™ centers your setting and tracking around the latter. Premiums are how companies are paid -- not you. And for simplicity’s sake, you can optionally set all goals for new business only. This makes the tracking function easier and provides a very accurate gauge of what your producer is actually doing. Including renewals in the process complicates what is otherwise a very straightforward process. Besides, you can easily monitor renewal activity through your management system (or by reviewing company reports) and take immediate action if you spot a retention problem.

However, if you don’t want to leave renewals of out the equation -- no problem. Set & Track™ lets you include them along with new business to make up the agent’s total commission goal. But it also sets prospecting, sales, and premium goals solely for new business. This dual approach lets you monitor both.

Additional tips: Establish annual goals for a period of three years at a time. This gives everyone involved a long-term sales plan. Don’t dictate goals to your producer. Negotiate instead. Give each person the time and opportunity to share their ideas and to sign on to the final goal agreement. After all, they’re the ones doing the actual selling. Set & Track™ provides an optional goal agreement form with room for you and your agent to sign.

Tracking.

Regardless of how carefully you set a producer’s goals, they’re valueless unless you regularly monitor them. The ideal way to accomplish this is to schedule individual weekly meetings with each producer. Require agents to submit Set & Track™ self-reporting forms to you for past week -- for each line of insurance sold.  These reports make it easy for you to enter weekly results into the software's tracking grid for the given week.  It'll take you only a minute or two to enter in these numbers.  The self-reports track ...

Number and type of prospecting activities performed.
Number of sales made.
Premium dollars booked.
Commissions dollars booked.

After you enter the information into Set & Track™ from a producer's tracking report, the program automatically updates the totals and percentages-to-date and compares them against the annual goals you’ve established.  Print out an activity report and to discuss and review with your producer.  Also view or print out a graph to share with your agent. Additional tips: Recognize that your producer is entitled to a bad week or month. That’s why you should work on meeting predetermined quarterly goals -- not weekly goals.  Set & Track™ automatically organizes your goal-setting and tracking by quarters for you.

Use the weekly get-togethers with your new or veteran agent to focus positively on meeting the goals for the quarter -- even if last week’s results were disappointing. Expressing continuous negative feedback to an agent is very self-defeating.

Return to Set & Track