WISE IDEAS!

GREAT PASSERS!

Who are Joe Montana, Terry Bradshaw, Steve Young and T-Boy Boudreaux? The title of this article would result in most of us guessing -- great passers; it’s a title that would certainly fit the first three individuals named. The reality is that T- Boy was actually the best in the bunch. T- Boy could throw longer, harder and with more accuracy than any of the other quarterbacks.

Rumor has it that T-Boy on occasion would go deer hunting with a football. He’d sit in the stand with a single football and wait for a deer to approach then "bang", the pigskin would meet the deerskin with the result being venison!

The only reason most of us have never heard of T-Boy is because he never played on a team with adequate receivers. The reality of great passers is that they must have good (or ideally great) receivers. With Jerry Rice or Lynn Swan maybe the Saints could even win?

Effective passing has two elements - the pass and the reception. If either side of the relationship fails, you don’t have a completion. You don’t go anywhere. You may even lose possession of the ball and may lose the game.

Communications are nothing more than the "passing" of ideas - the exchange of meaning. A successful "play" requires the transmission of an idea / information and the reception of it. It includes the pass and the catch. Without both, our efforts are incomplete at best, or intercepted at worst.

The agency business is about communications. We don’t manufacture anything. We are a service industry. We sell knowledge and information, we sell solutions to problems and the meeting of expectations. Our product results in "peace of mind".

Our agency team is on the field each day to pass ideas, feelings, needs, etc. back and forth in a triangle between our customers and prospects and the companies and their personnel (underwriters, claims persons, etc.). The better we connect in these attempts, the greater our score. The more we have "incompletes or interceptions" the less progress we make, the greater our chance of failure.

Today, test the effectiveness of your passing game. Interview each of your employees. First, ask them about their "people skills". Most, if not all, will include at some point on their list of assets, "good communications" skills. Agency principals and producers will usually list this number one or very high on their personal check list. (Remember everyone wants to be a quarterback.)

Then ask each employee their frustrations in dealing with others. Almost without exception their list will include the fact that other people don’t listen. Others don’t get it. Your employees are suffering from the T-Boy syndrome - they are great passers but they are burdened by bad receivers! Just like T-Boy, this is not a winning combination.

Tomorrow’s world is a world of choice. Every consumer has unlimited sources of products and services. Consider yesterday’s world of the "big 3" of television - ABC, CBS, NBC, the "big 3" of auto manufacturing - Ford, GM, Chrysler, and the "big 3" publications - Time, Life, Look.

Compare this to tomorrow’s reality of 500 cable channels, nearly 50 auto manufacturers with hundreds of models and specialty magazines for any niche (my favorite - LEFT HANDED DIESEL MECHANICS THAT SMOKE).

Good independent agents were successful because of what they knew and the companies they represented. They had a needed product / service to offer to a marketplace with limited knowledge of the product / service and limited sources of distribution. An agent could be in control.

Technology, a global economy and competition have created a system with nearly unlimited products distributed through multiple sources. Comparative rating has "opened" the closet door on pricing. Regulators and consumer advocates have shined the light on product differences and technology has allowed the product to be delivered with a minimum of cost to the consumer. The agent no longer enjoys control.

Today and more so tomorrow the customer is king. They will better understand what they need and be able to buy that when, where and how they want with a minimum cost of delivery. For many agents, that is the "bad news" - for others agents it is the challenge for the future.

The "good news" for agents is that traditional customers will be buying more products and services. New and emerging markets that have in the past not been open to independent agents can now be targeted.

The one absolute in this new competitive world is that those agents that add value to the life of customers will survive and prosper. Those that don’t, won’t! The one critical element in supplying value is knowing what value is! In yesterday’s world we could tell customers what they needed. In tomorrow’s world we must know what they want!

To uncover this secret of success we must know our customers intimately. We must be great communicators. We must target market. We must be able to create a "niche of one". We must "get inside the head" of our customers and companies. We must fully understand customer wants and needs, be able to identify carriers and products that meet these needs and then shape our systems to assure profitable delivery.

Enough of this Monday morning quarterbacking - this discussion of concept. Now is the time to "hit" the field and improve our play -- move to concrete results. We must become efficient and effective communicators. We must throw passes and make certain that they are caught.

A list of drills and calisthenics that can make us better players - better able to compete include:

1. Focus on relationships - commit to developing the communications skills needed to develop, enhance and retain these.

2. Establish a new reality - determine the communication strengths and weaknesses of your organization and individual employees. Capitalize on the strengths and "get

working" to improve on the weaknesses!

3. Commit to a communications CE program - spend as much time, money and energy on making your employees better communicators as you do on making them technicians. Teach your employees about behavioral styles, values, cultures, etc.

4. Learn to listen and listen to learn. We must teach others how to do the same - you must catch what your customers are throwing and you must learn how to "throw" to them in a fashion that they can and will catch. Learn how to "walk the talk".

5. Read Stephen Covey’s book on The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Utilize this knowledge.

In closing, remember that we all have two ears and one mouth -- we’re designed to listen twice as much as we talk. Remember only our mouths can be closed!