Felt pretty proud of myself yesterday…closed on the contractor business I’d been working on..thanks to my good friends at Indiana Insurance…kudos Ms. Teri….and I’m three for four lately….which means my closing ratio is back where it should be after a terrible fourth quarter….referral from my son, the Banker…(I love referrals) If I can write four more of the same size accounts as my Contractors…I’ll make up for the big one I just lost….and that’s the game….keep moving forward regardless of the circumstances, market, weather or how I’m feeling on any given day…next a Distributor and if I can nail that one…I’ll be well poised for the second quarter of this year..

“Like Me Gal” and I just reviewed and updated the “Agency Manual”… something that has been on the back burner for sometime…. so this’ll be a great time for an agency meeting with everyone…so we can review and get sign offs…and get everyone current.

I interviewed a potential Producer Candidate on Monday….nice enough guy…dressed like a pro….. and said the right things….. but who doesn’t?… Every interview I’ve ever had has been like that…. except not once did he ask me how much money we’d pay him… that was refreshing….I think by now I must’ve interviewed at least 300 possible sales guy candidates over my career…. My instincts are neutral on this one just now..but you never know the whole story till you dig a bit into the details….there are two thoughts I always have about a potential producer…

“Is he a Diamond in the Rough?” and “you can’t polish a turd”…

Two of my partners are naturally guarded about investing money in new producers….and that makes sense…. but this guy has a book of business we could buy that would support him…so we’ll just need to see how things develop…meanwhile, I think our partnership needs to come to some agreement on how we are going to grow the agency…another normal issue all businesses face….

Today I can catch up on paperwork and make a few new business calls….. Those of us in Sales have this thing called a Sales Pipeline…and it has to be full all the time or we suffer from dead spots…that’s when we don’t have anyone to present our solutions to….so I gotta get cracking on getting more prospects into it….