What are Your Options: Keep Doing What You're Doing

One of the really great things about owning an independent insurance agency is that you are Independent! You can and do make choices every day that affect your agency’s performance and success, both in the short-term and long-term. In other words, you have options and you’re exercising them, some more purposefully than others.

As we look forward to 2015, now’s a great time to examine some of the options you have concerning the future of your agency.

Option One: Keep Doing What You’re Doing

There’s an old saying that I really like and often use: “If you always do what you always did, you’ll always get what you always got!” Another favorite of mine, courtesy of Albert Einstein: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

Actually, I’ve noticed that when agencies repeatedly do the same things, they ultimately wind up getting less. Their book of business slowly but surely declines, their cost of doing business continues going up and in the final analysis, they make less. However, the good news is that they’re still making a lot more than the average person does!

If you’re in a holding pattern like that, you’re on track to end up like the guy in the old Dunkin Donuts commercial who laments each morning that it’s “time to make the donuts.” There’s no energy or joy in what he does. His job is a daily grind and he’s just going through the motions.

If you’re simply getting up and going to “work,” basically, you’ve got a job. For many people, that’s okay (particularly if you’re an independent agent who’s not at risk of getting fired). In fact, it affords a pretty good lifestyle.