Behind every good agent lies a good back office. To be able to concentrate on selling to current customers and generating relationships that will hopefully create new customers, agents must be cognizant of everything that needs to happen smoothly behind the scenes.
Agents can get a significant amount of help from master agents or carriers, especially in the areas of proposal tools, lead generation and quoting. But what if you have to do it yourself? Or what if you have to fill in the gaps? And whether supported by a staff or handling such necessities yourself, laying the groundwork in a few areas will promote a supportive and productive back office.
Business Basics
Advisers. You will require a relationship with an attorney, an accountant and a banker. The attorney will assist with paperwork and guidelines that need to be followed to establish the type of business and to set up legal status as a business — S Corp, partnership or DBA as examples. An attorney also can help you develop an engagement letter or statement of work to protect you against customers using your work (pricing, plans, etc.) to negotiate with other carriers or agents.
Furthermore, the accountant will advise when to pay, what tax and how much to pay. And, the banker will help set up your new business account and will lend startup monies if and when needed.
Need some free advice? Agents recommended SCORE, a nonprofit association that offers free and confidential small business advice for entrepreneurs. Both working and retired executives and business owners donate face time and expertise as business counselors. It has 389 chapters throughout the United States and its territories, with 10,500 volunteers nationwide.
Facilities. Once these fundamentals are in place, you will need a place to work: office space, fax, e-mail, Internet access, telephone system and service.
Agents just starting out might find it easier to keep costs down if they work from their homes — and nowadays, with so many distributed workforces and telecommuters, home offices are more widely accepted. If you decide on a home office, consider setting up a post office box to make it look like you have an actual office. And whether you have a small office or a home office, you also can go with an automated hosted phone service instead of a PBX to give the appearance of a larger shop. If you choose not to work out of your home, use a local real estate agent to help you find office space that’s right for you. And make sure to tap one of your carriers or master agents to outfit your office with communications services.
Whether a BlackBerry or other smartphone, a good mobile device with a voice and data plan is a must for any agent. Although some might think this goes without saying, it’s important to note that as an agent, you are a relationship manager; and in order to successfully manage any relationship, you must be available and reliable. Furthermore, if you don’t already have a QWERTY keyboard on your phone, you’ll find it essential as you begin answering not only calls, but e-mails, on the go.
