With the new year approaching, now is the time to make sure your insurance agency is organized and ready to handle what 2023 throws your way. With the right preparation, you can start the new year off right and set yourself up for success.
You don’t have to follow all of these tips immediately – you can take it slow if you need to! You can always save a few for later. That being said, the more of these methods you can embrace now, the better positioned your agency will be for success in the new year.
Evaluate How Your Agency Is Doing
To start the new year right, you need to know where your agency currently stands. Where do you stand financially? How many clients do you have? How many policies per household are you averaging? What went well this year? What challenges are you facing?
Take the time to look back at your metrics from 2022, potentially comparing them to 2021 and earlier.
Come Up with Realistic Goals
Once you have a better idea of where your insurance agency currently stands, you can start thinking about 2023 and beyond. What do you want to achieve in 2023? Do you want more clients (of course you do!)? Do you want to hire more agents? Are you looking to buy another agency? Perhaps expanding your marketing reach will be a major goal.
When coming up with your goals, make them realistic but something to strive for. If you aren’t sure if something is realistic, look back to your growth in 2022.
Break Down Your Goals
You have goals for the new year, so now you have to figure out how to start working to achieve them right from the start of 2023. You can even turn those larger goals into smaller tasks that bring your closer to the big picture.
You should brainstorm the various ways you can achieve each of the goals or the steps you need to take to do so. Brainstorming is most efficient when done with the teams and employees involved in these goals.
Look for Challenges and Areas of Improvement
While coming up with goals, consider what challenges you are currently facing. For example, maybe your clients can’t access their policy information easily. Or maybe your team has to switch between too many programs to communicate with clients, view policy information, send invoices, and perform other tasks.
After all, you can’t brainstorm solutions until you recognize your challenges. The challenges just mentioned, for example, can be solved with a solid insurance agency management system.
Evaluate Your Software
The new year is also the perfect time to take a closer look at your insurance agency’s tech stack. Is it doing everything that it needs to? Are you missing features or paying more than you need to? Upgrading to a more efficient, intuitive, or feature-filled agency management system can dramatically boost your agency’s productivity as well as your team’s enjoyment of the work they do.
Evaluate Your Digital Marketing Campaigns
This is also the time to reevaluate your digital marketing efforts. Is your website modern and professional? Does it have all of the information clients need? How active are you on social media? Do you make relevant posts, or do you just post for the sake of posting? Do you tell clients about your social media pages, or do they have to look for them? What do clients think about your email newsletter? Look for areas for improvement and then come up with a plan of action.
Think of Other Ways to Improve Your Agency
When brainstorming your goals for the new year, you don’t just want to address issues that have arisen. You also want to take action before any problems appear, as this will prevent stress and give your agency a competitive edge.
For example, consider doing some of the following next year to better serve your clients.
Get New Certifications & Designations
If you’ve been thinking about trying to add a few more suffixes to the end of your name, make 2023 the year you do so. Having additional designations and training can make your agency more competitive.
Consider encouraging your agents to do the same. If you have room in your budget, you can even cover part of the cost of additional certifications for your agents. After all, it will be a long-term investment in your agency.
Read More Relevant Books and Articles
Insurance agents and agency owners need to constantly update their knowledge. You need to stay on top of the latest changes in industry regulations, especially in such a highly-regulated industry like insurance.
But you don’t want to focus all of your efforts on reading about insurance. Reading some books or articles on marketing or sales can also be incredibly beneficial. If you don’t have time to read, get books on tape or look for informative podcasts. Then, listen on your commute.
Focus on Employee Satisfaction
Most of the ways to set your agency up for success next year focus on improving your ability to serve clients, but what about your agents and other staff members? You want them to enjoy work, as this will keep them from leaving your agency. On top of that, happy agents will deliver better customer service and are more likely to sell more policies.
Figure out what you can do to make your employees enjoy coming to work. Would they appreciate more flexibility when working on tasks that can be done remotely? Would they like some more snacks at work? Or do they want some simple games for the breakroom? When in doubt, talk to your team.
Conclusion
2022 is coming to a close, so it is time to make sure that your insurance agency is on track to succeed in 2023. Take the time to evaluate how your agency is doing overall, and then use that information to make goals for the coming year.
Don’t forget to consider things like growing your skills (and those of your agents) and making sure your team has the right tools to do their jobs efficiently.