Whether it’s year or decades off, you can be doing something right now to impact your agency’s perpetuation. Each day is an opportunity to increase your value, all you need is the right insurance agency support tools and methods.
Essential Tools to Elevate Your Agency’s Worth
- Customizable agency management system: Notice we didn’t just say “agency management system” – that “customizable” piece is what makes the difference. Invest in a system that adapts to your agency’s specific needs, with room to grow. You want a system you’ll instinctively use every day, tracking and analyzing data that’s critical to assess your value.
- Integrated accounting: Accounting integration is an essential piece in your management system. With integrated accounting, your policy, client, and financial data is stored in one place, so you get a clear picture of where your agency stands.
- Customer relationship management tool: Also known as a CRM, a customer relationship management tool helps producers better manage their sales pipelines. With an integrated CRM, agents can turn even more prospects into lasting clients, adding to your overall agency value.
Find out how to leverage your management system to track agency progress
- Stellar customer support elements: The top three customer support tools to have are: an intuitive and informative website, agency customer portal, and customer agency app. Each of these three is part of a trifecta of reliable customer support, leading to higher retention rates and attractive growth potential.
- Secure cloud hosting: Safe data means a safe future, and a secure future means higher value. Ensure your agency’s data is protected on cloud servers with redundant back-ups and multi-character encryption for increased security.
Steps for Perpetuation Prep
- Pay attention to cash flow
Current and projected cash flow make buyers take notice. That means your accounting needs to be accurate and your growth needs to be steady. Invest in quality marketing and customer service to maintain a steady influx of new customers and base of lifetime clients.
- Focus on cost reduction
Your income will look even better when next to lowering expenses. Pay attention to ways you can reduce waste or streamline processes, knocking down your superfluous output. Tech advances like paperless processing, e-signing, and streamlined document management are game-changers here.
See what our partner agencies had to say about perpetuation in the SIS Perpetuation Survey
- Hire right, and get them to stay
Investing in tech is one of the ways to create value for your agency. Another is hiring the right people. The knowledge and experience possessed by your staff are invaluable assets. Knowing your team’s value, build in funds to offer stay bonuses to keep them around after you retire. You want to pass on an agency with the team that helped build it.
- Identify a successor
Part of hiring right is hiring with your departure in mind. Identify potential successors early on and put time into mentoring them. Regardless of whether they’ll be buying, you need to have someone in place to take over the reins when it comes time to retire.
Look for someone who possesses superior leadership skills, is willing to learn, and wants the job. Too often, agency owners want to pass on their business to their children, but the next generation has no interest. Be sure your selected successor is in it for the long haul.
Should you pass on your agency or sell? Get tips on how to decide here
- Know (and commit to keep to) your role
Now is the time to decide how you’ll be involved after passing on your agency. Don’t wait till the moment comes to make a decision! Chances are you will have more emotional attachment that you expect and may not make the right choice. Be specific in your succession plan how you’ll stay connected (or not) once retirement rolls around.
Ask yourself these 5 questions when preparing your agency for perpetuation
Prepping for the Future, Now
What you do today has a significant influence on your agency’s (and your) future. You need the right tools to help you do business well today and improve it for tomorrow.
Partner Platform and SIS are here to help. With integrated accounting, a Producer Results CRM, and other agency valuation and business tools, along with a dedicated SIS team and Partner Community, you have all you need to thrive today and for years to come.
Set up your agency up for success – contact us at [email protected] today.
Sarah Deak has been contributing to the SIS team since 2013, covering topics like agency perpetuation, workflow improvements, data security, and marketing. She has a background in small business, working with organizations to improve their online presence and client engagement. Sarah also writes for the SIS newsletters and website, and counts herself lucky to hear from our many passionate, hard-working clients for our client stories. Her favorite part about working for SIS are the dedicated, service-minded people.