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 Six: Internal Perpetuation

If you’ve been building the next generation of leaders and they’ve been purposefully putting money away for the transaction, that’s great! You’ve helped perpetuate the entire system!

Again in this scenario, you are likely to be the bank, but do you have the faith that they can make it work and will pay you? If so, then this is a feasible option. As long as you have been developing the next generation of leaders in your agency, they should be established enough to...

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 Four: Prepare to Perpetuate

Something we absolutely know is that everybody eventually leaves their business. Hey, I just did and it took me a long time to do so! But I chose to perpetuate part of my business, which requires meticulous planning.

Step 1: Get the boat ready to sell! You may recall the story about the time my son, Patrick, and I wanted to sell our 16-foot flats boat and get a slightly larger one. Together, we worked really hard to clean it up so that we could sell it quickly. Once we were finished,...

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 Two: Commit to Growth

As we’ve talked about before, you must have the Three Cs if you want to grow your business: Commitment, Capacity and Capabilities. You just have to find the right systems and guidance that will create predictable and guaranteed sales and profit improvements. Also, you’ll need to invest at least two percent of your revenues for these growth initiatives. The goal is to create the “Agency’s Way” of growing that all team members buy into.

 Option Three: Shrink...

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...