When choosing someone to do business with, you trust the people who are just like you. You feel you understand their motives, so they feel like natural partners. As an insurance agent, your job is to build that trust quickly. No matter how much you would prefer to work with familiar clients, you need to deal with strangers too. Which means you need to build trust.
Insurance Agents and Trust
Building trust can be difficult for insurance agents. You work in an industry where profit for you means higher costs for your clients. It can be difficult to trust the guy who profits when you lose. The best way for an insurance agent to build trust is to focus on needs.
If you can show your clients that your focus is to manage risk and improve their business, you can earn their trust. You can’t be like them, but you can demonstrate that you have shared goals. You don’t need me to tell you that, you do it every day. What a lot of agents seem to miss, is the similarities between their relationship with their clients and their relationship with a financial advisor.
Being Needs Focused
If you are selling your agency, the advisor will profit from you earning a higher multiple. That may make it seem like the opposite of the insurance agent/client relationship. However, the valuation is not the most important part of the deal. We strongly believe that the most important thing in a sale is meeting our client’s needs.
Suddenly the relationships are starting to look similar. Too many agents become obsessed with the valuation and lose sight of their true goals. In those situations, an advisor should be able to put profit aside and remind the client of what is really important. Even if that means taking a lower valuation. That kind of conversation can only be had with an advisor you trust.
Financial advisors and insurance agents have very similar roles. They both focus on client’s needs first and they both rely heavily on trust. When you decide to sell your agency, make sure you choose to deal with someone that you can trust. Someone just like you.
As you build your business, you may find it difficult to think about ever selling your insurance agency. Sukay & Associates recently represented Behnke & Associates in the sale of their agency. Fred Behnke, the agency owner, has talked us through the process of selling his agency. To read this free case study, click here.
