While the latest U.S. jobs data showed the unemployment rate rose to 3.9% in February 2024, from the prior month’s 3.7%, the insurance brokerage sector is likely to see elevated job growth in 2024 and into 2025. MarshBerry is seeing consistent year-over-year (YoY) increases in hiring across all functions, with insurance brokerage employment at a peak and potentially remaining tight this year. Hiring challenges remain front of mind for most brokerages.
So how can brokerage find the best talent to keep them competitive in this industry? Many firms focus on recruiting top producers, but this can be challenging and expensive. Oftentimes, after increasing their compensation costs to hire top producers and spending extensive time on-boarding, there’s the risk that these new hires may not share the company’s culture or values, or simply aren’t the right fit.
However, there are other ways to build a top performing team of producers.
Build a farm team
While everyone wants to get the top players, a strategy of building a multifaceted team can also be successful. This has worked well for sports teams that can’t recruit many top players, but they succeed by developing other players and are able to compete with the highest-ranked teams.
Empower your producers
According to MarshBerry’s Sales Culture Assessment, nearly half of those surveyed don’t believe their organization has a clearly outlined process that defines under-performance and how management should address it. Another 40% of respondents don’t believe the company has adequate sales training to help shape producers’ behaviors. These findings are important because they point to a failure by many organizations for creating a consistent sales process that holds under-performers accountable.
MarshBerry promotes several concepts for elevating the performance of producers, based on these questions:
- Does your organization have a sales culture?
- What is your producer accountability like?
- Do you have trust within your team?
- Do you know your prospects?
MarshBerry offers deeper insights on these strategies and tactics that will help firms enable their producers to thrive. Learn more about the tools and actionable steps to elevate the performance of your producers at MarshBerry 360 Forum.
