It’s easy to forget the value of talking to someone face to face. In modern business, you have an infinite number of options for contacting clients, colleagues and prospects. These days, when you get a business card it’s not just a phone number or an address, you get Twitter handles, LinkedIn profiles and Skype addresses. Technically, you could conduct all of your business without ever meeting anyone in person.
We use a marketing agency that operates hundreds of miles from my office, we speak regularly but we have never met. We have worked with agencies that use a variety of service providers who work in a similar way. Meetings are conducted over phone lines and video chats. Files are shared by email and conversations occur in little chat boxes. The flexibility and sheer volume of communication possibilities is amazing.
Meeting & ‘Meeting’
However, just because you can ‘meet’ people without actually meeting them doesn’t mean you should. This is especially true when it comes to insurance agency acquisitions. The ability to speak to someone thousands of miles away is great, but it doesn’t always make for a perfect conversation.
There is something unique about meeting in person that technology will never be able to replicate. Even with the advancement of video chat technology, unless you are in the same room, you’re never really face to face. Business meetings have energy, the rooms in which they are conducted have their own ‘mood’ and that shared ‘mood’ is vital to an agreement.
When you discuss an insurance agency acquisition, whether you are buyer or seller, you need to build a relationship with the other party. You are planning to work together for anything from a few months to a number of years, so you need to lay the groundwork for that working relationship in the initial meetings.
Insurance Agency Acquisitions
In an acquisition, you are either handing over or taking over the legacy of a lifetime’s work. The only way that legacy can be properly exchanged is if both parties share similar goals and values. It’s almost impossible to communicate your engagement with those values from behind a webcam.
We take that need a step further when we meet new clients. We will, of course, conduct initial meetings in any way that’s convenient, but we will always strive to meet in person as early as possible. We develop full-on partnerships with our clients, built on honesty and shared goals. We have never encouraged a client to make a decision we thought was bad for them.
In fact, we have regularly discouraged clients from making decisions that would have benefitted us, because we felt it was the wrong move for the client. Specifically, we work hard to ensure that our clients are truly emotionally ready to perpetuate their business before we go to work. The only way to truly understand that motivation is to sit down and talk, face to face.
We are strong believers in talking things through and taking time to make the right choices. If you need to discuss anything in relation to insurance agency acquisition or selling your agency; we’d like to meet with you and discuss it, face to face.
Contact Us to arrange that conversation.
The Value of Your Agency
As a firm, we believe an accurate valuation is part of our responsibility and the foundation of a great working relationship – even if that is further in the future. Because of this we, unlike most firms, offer free insurance agency valuations for those who qualify. Click below to apply!
