Community Webinars Presented by David Estrada, Founder of Rainmaker Advisory Sales Strategies: 10 Mistakes Producers Make 1 “Our Mission is to help insurance professionals grow their practices and flourish!”

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Rainmaker Advisory 5 Established December 2008 In Portland, Oregon with offices in Oregon, California and New York Focus on providing services to retail insurance broking firms ranging from $2M to $20M of annual revenues Relationships with approximately 7,800 Insurance Agencies and Producers of all practice disciplines nationwide 28 Affiliate Solution Provider Partners Resources and Tools Library of approximately 1,200 templates and best practice resources Average tenure in the insurance industry of our professionals: 32 years Backgrounds and experience of our professionals include production, single and multi-location agency operations, Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A), senior leadership positions in top 10 public brokerages, and practice specialty group leadership - all within local, regional, national and global insurance broking segments, public and private We are now the 4 th largest consulting firm in the US dedicated to providing services to the retail insurance broking sector

“Our Mission is to help insurance professionals grow their practices and flourish!” 1)We show insurance producers how to win more new business and successfully manage the growth of their book - Sales Builder 2)We show insurance agency owners how to scale their organization’s on a sustainable basis - Agency Builder 3)We provide tools, resources & vendor solutions to increase the competitiveness of insurance producers and agency owners - ThunderCloud 4)We provide outsourced campaigns, marketing polls, customer surveys, and PR&Media Relations – Campaign Management

THE SOURCE: Producer Skill Set Survey Respondents & Our Observations working with Coaching Clients During 2010 n1=358 n2=38

Survey Demographics

#1 Insufficient Cross-Selling Between Disciplines Damaged Caused: Foregoing a contribution to new business revenues of at least 20%! Retention suffers – the more lines of business the higher the client retention rate! Remedy: Team Building: who does what, and who does it well Cross-Sell Matrix: identify the top 25 accounts held by your organization and reference across all lines of coverage sold by your organization For single line or specialty organizations – develop strategic alliance partners who can sell those lines

#2 Managing a Sales Pipeline Damaged Caused: Inability to predict future revenues! Inability to make adjustments to improve the sales process! Inability to establish a ‘critical path’ and communicate process to potential customers Remedy: Establish an easy to use pipeline which identifies: 1) contact information, 2) estimate of commission per account, 3) source of business, 4) stages of the sales process, 5) weighted closing percentage based on stage, 6) next steps/action items required to move from one stage to the next, 7) total commission volume and net commissions (estimate of future commissions)

#3 Updating a Sales Pipeline Weekly Damaged Caused: Nearly 2/3 of total opportunities are ‘forgotten’ without weekly record-keeping Nearly 1/2 of prospects recorded have no ‘next step’ or ‘action item’ established to move them from one stage to the next = the culmination of a sale! Remedy: Establish one day/time per week to update the pipeline and tie ‘next steps’ to each prospect for tasking the following week NOTE: 92% of producers who establish this discipline maintain it because it GENERATES RESULTS!

#4 Developing & Managing Focused Sales Campaigns Damaged Caused: “A&E Prospecting applies only to relationship based transactions! Without sales campaigns or ‘verticals’ a producer cannot establish themselves as an expert for a given transaction type Difficulty in generating introductions to preferred transactions “Any road leads to nowhere!” Remedy: Establish and promote the ‘one thing’ you are great at – an industry, a situation, a pervasive problem that requires resolution and can be addressed by your expertise Look at your book for clues Listen to testimonials for clues Assess your behavior for clues

#5 Establishing Drip Campaigns to Lower Buyer Anxiety & Increase Client Intimacy Damaged Caused: Statistically only 12% of buyers will engage on the first attempt – 88% are not ready to buy, yet! Failure to take advantage of accumulated inventory of people you’ve met and organizations who will ‘buy when they are ready’ Failure to put yourself in a position ‘to get lucky’ ie coincide a communication with a life event or change that could not be predicted Remedy: Establish 4-6 communications per year “Pre-package” the communications = content + call to action, eg register for webinar or download a whitepaper Use an engine, such as iContact or outsource this function

#6 No Use of Technology to Stay Informed about ‘Agents of Change’ Damaged Caused: Inability to act on a ‘timely’ basis as agents of change arise with prospective clients during the course of the year Inability to track competitor shifts of position or changes in service platform Remedy: Google Alerts LinkedIn Yahoo Finance

#7 No Time Dedicated for Prospecting Damaged Caused: Neglect of new business development Deep production troughs between cycles Failure to reach production goals and achieve full potential Remedy: Establish 4 days with two hour block minimums and a ‘spill’ day that either is used to ‘catch up’ on a prospecting session that was missed or a respite from prospecting Dedicate the time on your calendar and schedule around it – you’ll be surprised how flexible other demands upon your time are when you lock down this time on your calendar

#8 Not Enough Hours Dedicated to New Business Development Damaged Caused: Failure to achieve objectives Remedy: Sustainability is created by not only dedicating time on one’s calendar, but by mixing up the new business development activity to keep things fresh. Have a day of direct dialing Have a day where you attend a networking event or mixer Have a day of cold canvassing Have a day of asking for introductions Etc

#9 Lack of “Center of Influence” Development Damaged Caused: Failure to leverage relationships which surround the buyer Failure to ride ‘channels’ that have already been established to the buyer by other service providers Remedy: Identify your buyer and establish vendor paths to the buyer Ask your top 10 clients who their vendors are in the paths you’ve identified Introduce yourself to those vendors and use tools such as capabilities presentations, lunch and learns, workshop invitations, drip campaigns, etc., to establish the relationship prior to asking for introductions

#10 Too Many Small Accounts! Damaged Caused: Available new business development time is impacted by too many small accounts Lack of profitability and poor top line growth, i.e. revenue stagnation Remedy: Conduct book audit Identify accounts that are not cross sold, no relationship, zero chance of growth Sell the block (2.0X-3.0X) Re-deploy the capital to offset topline loss for 12 months and purchase telemarketing services, a drip campaign engine, etc., dedicated towards securing larger accounts

Summary of Recommendations for Producers 1.Cross Sell with other disciplines – internal or external 2.Develop an easy to use pipeline 3.Update your pipeline every week to capture ‘next steps’ for each prospect 4.Focus your sales efforts towards 2-3 verticals 5.Establish a Drip Campaign using technology or outsourcing service 6.Use technology to keep informed through auto-notifications 7.Dedicate time on your calendar for new business development 8.Budget at least 20% of your week (8 hours) for prospecting 9.Develop centers of influence that have the same buyer you do 10.Audit your book and scrub out the small accounts Remember, “there is no such thing as ‘secret sauce,’ work your plan, work your numbers, and keep the faith!”

Thank You! We’ll be sending a survey as a follow up to all attendees We’ll be sending a pipeline template, vertical builder template and a cross sell matrix from our ToolKit Library Look for upcoming webinars we’ll conduct throughout the year For more information about Rainmaker Advisory and our services, please go to: