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Last week I was talking with a friend of mine who owns a business, and he repeated something I’ve been hearing from a lot of business owners. He said, “Every year around my insurance expiration date, I have anywhere from three to six insurance agents, in addition to my current agent, show up looking to quote my insurance. You know how many showed up this year?” I knew the answer because, as I said, I’ve heard it from other business owners, but I humored him, “How many?” I asked. “Zero.”

What’s the definition of producer? (…fill in the blank.) Right. Then why are so many producers not producing? Here are the reasons producers don’t produce:

• They’re brand new.
• They aren’t putting in the necessary hours.
• They aren’t doing enough of the right activities.
• They aren’t new, but even after years of being in the business, they still don’t know what they’re doing and they’ve never made an effort to find out.

Of the above reasons, the only acceptable one for not producing is the first one. That said, that shouldn’t be an acceptable reason during the past six months. There are a number of reasons why a producer in the other categories may not be producing. Among them are these: no work ethic; they’re in their comfort zone because they, their spouse, or their in-laws are providing enough money to pay the bills; you keep paying them even though they aren’t producing; they are two years from retirement so they’ve stopped working; they don’t like people; they aren’t cut out for sales and should never have been in the position to begin with; they aren’t motivated or they lack mental toughness which can result in fear of making calls; anxiety; a lack of confidence; a lack of belief; and several other mental afflictions.

Some Solutions

Regardless of the issue, here are the solutions to make sure you have producers that produce:

• Hire correctly to begin with.
• Set rules and expectations upfront and hold people accountable to them.
• Supervise your people — Micromanage rookies, lightly coach top producers.
• Have a sales system and sales process in place.
• Provide training, tools and resources — Sales training is the most important.
• Have support staff in place so 80 percent or more of the producer’s prime selling time is spent on sales activities.
• Provide the right environment — One that is positive and supportive, and free from negativity, gossip, and other childish behaviors.
• Have a good relationship with them.
• Know what motivates and demotivates them and use that knowledge wisely.

A Note on Training

I’ve also found that about 35 percent of producers need mental-toughness training in addition to sales training. Even if you can get someone who’s afraid to make calls to make them, they’ll still fail because most of communication is non-verbal. If they lack belief and conviction and end most of their sentences on an up-note, they won’t get anywhere. An insurance producer in the business for 15 years recently increased sales by 638 percent in a year by combining mental-toughness training and sales skills training.

Winners Win

Of all of these solutions, hiring correctly is perhaps the most important. Why? Because winners find a way to win even in the direst of circumstances. You can throw them into almost any situation, and they’ll figure it out. On the other hand, you can give the wrong person every break and helping hand in the world, and they’ll still find a way to make a hell out of heaven.

Back to the story I opened with. Sixty to 80 percent of the producers I run into are looking for any distraction, any reason to avoid the discomfort of hard work. The pandemic has provided an excellent one because it gives the creative brain, which is constantly looking for ways to avoid pain, lots of “seemingly-valid” excuses to stop making sales calls. Let me give you another example that I run into this time of year.

This past Columbus Day at 9 a.m. I made my regular Monday phone call to an agent I’ve been working with for a couple of months. I got her voicemail and left a message to call me. She sent me a text about an hour later saying, “Our agency is closed today. Email me another day this week that works for you, or let’s chat next Monday! Have a great day!”

My rule has always been, if your customers’ businesses are open, you’re open, even if your office isn’t. Here’s what I know about Columbus Day, and similar holidays, for the individual in the story and many other salespeople — almost all the businesses they call on are open, there’s less traffic, and it’s easier to get to the decision makers. Oh, and most producers aren’t working, so you stand out. That’s a win, win, win, win.

You don’t train people to pro-actively think like that. They come to you with that factory-installed equipment or they don’t. When you try to train someone to call during a pandemic or on Columbus Day (when that’s not in their blood), they either laugh because they think you’re joking, cop an attitude, or lie, “Okay, I’ll go make some calls,” then hang up and promptly go back to bed or to watch television.

So do your best to hire hard workers who are positive and self-motivated, and who like people. Then provide as many of the above-bullet-pointed solutions as you can.

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