From 25% to 81%: The Sales Meeting System That Wins

Your sales meetings are backward-looking theater, and your close rate proves it. CRISP is the 4-part weekly framework one agency used to go from a 25% close rate to 81% and nearly double their new business per producer. 

Randy Schwantz breaks down every phase and shows you exactly what's different about a meeting designed to win. If your Monday morning meeting teaches producers nothing, this episode is the fix. 

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[00:00:00] Hey, it's Monday morning and all your producers are sitting around the conference table ready for the Monday morning sales meeting, and, oh, is it gonna be fun. [00:00:10] Because the biggest producer with the biggest personality is about to hold court for way too long. They're gonna tell you about their trip to Aspen and then how they went to New [00:00:20] York, followed up by that big account.

They just won. And you're like, oh, awesome. I wish we could get on with it. And then our fearless sales leader is gonna give you a motivational [00:00:30] speech that will move your soul. Come on guys. You should be writing bigger accounts, better accounts with higher close ratios. Look, if I can do it, you can do [00:00:40] it too.

And then next you review what's in the pipeline, account by account and learn. Well, nothing. Sales leader says, Hey [00:00:50] Bob, you've got Abbott Construction listed here. Looks like it renews in about 60 days. What's your strategy on this call? All Bob goes, well, I'm working on [00:01:00] getting the copy of the policies, the loss runs.

I got a couple of carriers lined up. Building a relationship with the COO. Things are looking pretty good. Sales leader says, okay, well who's got [00:01:10] the account now? Bob goes, well, I'm, I'm not sure. Sales leader. Well, how much revenue is it? Bob goes, I don't know. It should be around about 10 K. [00:01:20] And the sales leader goes, well, do you need any help?

And Bob goes, no, sir. I think we're good. And the sales manager goes to the next thing on the list and see, here's the key [00:01:30] question. What did you learn? And the answer in most cases, nothing. And that's why it's called a spreadsheet [00:01:40] Liar's Club meeting. It's a powerful ritual designed by, hmm, well, no one, and it turns [00:01:50] opportunities in almost nothing.

And about the best thing that comes of it is we get to build community. That is, if you like to hear the biggest producer talk about [00:02:00] himself. And occasionally, when you invite an underwriter to attend, you get a fresh tray of bagels with some strawberry cream cheese. Call it a sales meeting if you [00:02:10] want to meet the criteria of a sales meeting.

Well, it should help someone actually sell something, and for the most part, well they don't. [00:02:20] And it's not killing agency growth, but it does throw a big wet blanket on it. So stick with me and at the end of this episode, I'm gonna tell [00:02:30] you the one thing. That will change your sales meetings forever.

Welcome to the Agency Growth Machine Podcast, where it's all about [00:02:40] transforming potential into profit. And now your host, Randy Schwantz.

Hey there, I'm Randy Schwantz, founder of the Wedge Group, author of the [00:02:50] Wedge, and the guy that insurance agencies call when they want producers to stop quoting and start winning.

And last week on episode six, we talked about red [00:03:00] hot introductions, the fastest way to get in front of the right people because somebody you know opened the door. And today we're gonna go one level up. [00:03:10] What happens once your producers are in those doors? What's the system that prepares them to win weekend and week out?

[00:03:20] And before this episode is ever, I'm gonna give you a framework that I've taught hundreds of agency leaders that has helped them, raise average new business from under $50,000 to over [00:03:30] 103,000. And the more you run the method, the better it gets. So you're probably wondering why. Why would it make that much [00:03:40] difference?

Well, because it helps your average producer get ready for the number one biggest challenge. And here it comes. So [00:03:50] take a moment and think about your sales meetings. What are they actually about? And if you're like most agencies, well, they're a [00:04:00] review. You look at the pipeline spreadsheet. Which in most cases is incomplete and outdated.

When you get it and you ask producers where [00:04:10] things stand on the accounts they're working on, and you get a bunch of verbal fog working on it, building a relationship, carrier's looking at it, [00:04:20] oh, I think we got a shot. But here's the problem. The traditional sales meeting has pointed the wrong direction.

It looks backward [00:04:30] at what already happened. Who got a quote out who closed last week, what fell through. But winning isn't about last week. Winning is about next [00:04:40] week. It's about going into that appointment sharp and armed with the strategy to get the incumbent fired. Oh, Vince Lombardi said, winning [00:04:50] isn't everything.

It's the only thing. Now, I believe that applies to sales meetings. If your meeting isn't designed to produce wins. [00:05:00] What exactly is it designed for? And there's another problem, optional attendance. I mean, most sales managers let the veterans skip, [00:05:10] which sends a very loud message. This meeting isn't important enough to require your presence.

And then there's the worst version. The meeting that turns into a debrief section. [00:05:20] A public autopsy on why someone lost a piece of business.

It's not a bad idea, but most buyers never tell you the truth about why they didn't hire you. [00:05:30] It's generally a bunch of little white lies and how do you debrief a lie? I mean, nobody gets better in that room. And here's what CRISP [00:05:40] replaces all of that with. A forward-looking skill building strategy sharpening meeting that treats every producer like a professional athlete, getting [00:05:50] ready for game day.

The best coaches don't spend practice time replaying last week's mistakes.

They prepare their team to win the next game. [00:06:00] Your sales meetings should do the same thing. So CRISP, it has four distinct parts, four phases that make up the agenda every single week. [00:06:10] Number one is red hot introductions. Who knows who. Number two is new business interviews, pre-call strategy, getting people prepared to win.[00:06:20] 

Number three is qualifying your accounts that you're working on, which ones are actually worth pursuing, and the fourth track results and celebrate. So before I [00:06:30] walk you through each one, let me give you the structure. CRISP meetings happen weekly or every two weeks. They run 90 minutes, no more, no less.

You want five to seven [00:06:40] producers per group. So if you've got 25 producers, you form four teams. You mix your veterans with your new producers. The shared learning [00:06:50] is part of the point. And here's a non-negotiable attendance. Uh, that's mandatory, no exception for senior producers. [00:07:00] No. Well, I've got a client call.

I mean, this meeting is the job and the moment you make it optional, you've told your team, it doesn't matter. [00:07:10] And ideally, your team meets in a dedicated war room, big screen TV, whiteboards, your new business charts are posted. This room should [00:07:20] feel like a command center because that's what it is. Now let's walk through the four phases.

Phase one, identify [00:07:30] it.

Every CRISP meeting starts with one producer on the hot seat, breaking down one client and who they can introduce that producer to. Why? Because [00:07:40] introduced prospects close at dramatically higher rates than cold calls. They cost less to acquire and they stay longer. And why just one producer? Why not the whole [00:07:50] big team?

Well, it's simple. If I lift weights for you, will you get stronger? No. So you put that producer on the hot seat, you [00:08:00] bring their account up on the big screen. You challenge them to come up with the opportunities their client can introduce them to, and then you pull out the story, we call it sodar, that they [00:08:10] want that client to tell about them.

And the purpose of one producer at a time is you work them through their angst. And please [00:08:20] don't tell me your producers don't have angst and fear and hesitation and trepidation. 'cause if they don't, they probably have a huge book of business and they're [00:08:30] writing gobs of new business every year. But look, if that isn't happening, they have angst and you don't get rid of that by telling 'em that they're okay.

You get rid of it by [00:08:40] putting them in fire and helping them deal with it. A friend of mine that's a badass, special ops guy told me, they call it stress [00:08:50] inoculation. You put someone in a stressful situation sitting in front of your peers, mapping out introductions, answer the question, why haven't you asked this person in the [00:09:00] past for introductions?

You listen to all the BS and then you get the truth on the table and you work 'em through that. [00:09:10] Now, this might be tough. It might be too tough for a bunch of your producers. If it is, then they probably need it even [00:09:20] more so. Or you could just stay remarkably mediocre and not grow. Look, it's magic when you're big time producer that is [00:09:30] afraid to ask a client for introductions from one of about seven reasons

finally gets over it and goes to work. You should pat yourself on the back too. You finally stood [00:09:40] tall, quit preaching what they should do, and started coaching them through the process. And who knows? You do it long enough and you'll have a room full of Army Rangers ready to take action. [00:09:50] Now, phase two, strategize it pre-call strategy.

This is magic part two. Each producer brings an [00:10:00] upcoming appointment to the table. So you pick one producer. And instead of you asking, so how are you gonna sell this account? You ask something fundamentally different. [00:10:10] You ask, do you believe this account would be better off with you than their current guy, the incumbent agent?

'cause your [00:10:20] producers go, yeah, well then you go, why? What do you do that the incumbent is not doing? That question challenges everything. Now, the producer [00:10:30] can't just talk about their process in the abstract, yo, it's my knowledge, my experience, my relationships. They have to know who the incumbent is.

They have to know what the incumbent agent does and does not [00:10:40] do. Are they the typical price coverage relationship guy? If so, you know exactly what you can exploit. Are they the big regional firm with lots of capabilities that [00:10:50] never get implemented? If so, you know what to exploit. Are they the geek that used to work for Chubb?

That goes deep on coverage, but leaves everything else to change. [00:11:00] See, when they know this, they can clearly articulate what they do better. I watched a producer in Dallas do exactly this. She was [00:11:10] going after a mid-size manufacturing account, incumbent had been there for seven years. I asked her, do you really believe this prospect would be better off with you?

She said, yes. I go, [00:11:20] good. Why? What do you do better? So then I pulled up the account on the big screen TV and started breaking it down. She came up with eight specific proactive services that she [00:11:30] does that she believed the incumbent wasn't doing. She walked into that appointment ready with a set of questions that buried the incumbent.

She took the [00:11:40] account on BOR seven year incumbent gone, and that's what pre-call strategy looks like. And it's at the heart of a great crisp [00:11:50] sales meeting. You want your producers to win more, challenge 'em to define what they do better and defend how they do it better. You know, athletes get this, [00:12:00] musicians get this competitive cheerleaders get this.

The only person that doesn't is the person that grew up rich, who had everything given to them and never had to [00:12:10] compete for anything. And frankly, I don't know anybody like that. Phase three, submit it. [00:12:20] Now, not every account is worth chasing, is it? Your producers can't quote everything that moves. At this stage,

you run each submission through a [00:12:30] filter, a simple filter, I call the five did theys. Did the prospect tell you what the incumbent wasn't doing? Did they say it was a problem? [00:12:40] Did they tell you what they want? Did they invite you in and did they tell you they could fire the other guy and hire you when you bring them what they want?[00:12:50] 

Look, if you don't have all five yes answers, why are you letting your producers waste their time on a craps shoot like this? [00:13:00] I'd encourage you to go back, reread the wedge, or better, yet, sign up for the live training in that you'll learn how to find pain and get it confirmed. Find out what they want, get it confirmed, [00:13:10] and find out if they can fire the other guy.

When they get what they want. And if not, don't waste your time. And then phase [00:13:20] four, you won it. So track your results both as individuals and as a team. I mean, CRISP is a team sport. We're all trying to get [00:13:30] better. My enemy is not the guy sitting across the table from me, but all the incumbent agents that have our future money.

So you track two things. New business [00:13:40] written and revenue per account. Everyone gets added to the board and when someone closes something significant, celebrate [00:13:50] show the love and recognition. 'cause recognition is free. And post the sales banner, update it at every meeting. Call out the wins loudly. The scoreboard on the wall [00:14:00] isn't just motivational.

It's a signal to every person in that room that the team tracks results and that results matter. Look, you've got [00:14:10] the four part framework. Now I wanna show you what this looks like inside a real war room and tell you about one thing that happens in these meetings that most sales managers never do. [00:14:20] The agencies that do it, they build a competitive weapon.

Their market doesn't even know exist. And when their competition stumbles, [00:14:30] ooh, they're already waiting. So, lemme paint a picture of what this looks like in practice, because I've sat on hundreds of sales meetings across hundreds of agencies. I can tell you exactly what a [00:14:40] crisp meeting feels like versus a Liars Club meeting. In a spreadsheet liars club meeting, the sales manager is talking at producers.

He's reviewing the [00:14:50] spreadsheet, he's asking status questions. The veteran in the back row is checking his phone and the junior producer's writing something in her notebook just to look [00:15:00] engaged. Nobody's learning anything. Nobody's getting sharper. And at crisp meeting, the energy is completely different.

You pull up the account [00:15:10] on the big screen, everyone can see it. The prospect's name, the buyer, the incumbent agent, the carrier, the renewal date, the potential revenue, and now it's game time. [00:15:20] You turn to the producer and say, there it is, the incumbent. He's got the account, he's got the money, and you don't.

Do you really believe [00:15:30] this prospect would be better off with you than that guy? And of course they always say yes, so, okay, okay, great. Then if the buyer has that guy, why do they need [00:15:40] you? What do you do different? What do you do better? Why do they need you? And now you start breaking it down. You get specific, [00:15:50] you get actionable items, not vague stuff, like my experience, my knowledge, and my expertise, you know, in Bignition

Selling [00:16:00] 3.0. We provide commercial producers with 42 specific named proactive service differentiators under the categories of loss control, claims [00:16:10] management, workers' comp, transportation coverage and exposures, and marketing. It reduces the time it takes for an agency to go from throwing water balloons [00:16:20] at the incumbent to bricks.

Most of us need concrete brick like differentiation. Not abstract concepts. [00:16:30] You know, it's interesting.

Michael Jordan used to do this. Exactly. He'd watch game tape of whoever was going to guard him. He'd find their weakness. A specific one, not general one. [00:16:40] He'd go right at it. Game after game, he embarrassed offenders 'cause he knew exactly where they were vulnerable. Well, your producers can do the same thing, [00:16:50] but only if you build the wedge knowledge database.

Over time, your CRISP meetings create a running database of every incumbent agent in your market. What they do well, what [00:17:00] they don't do well, and where they're exposed. And then when that agent retires or gets fired or leaves the business and one day they will. You've got a list of every account they [00:17:10] control and a strategy for each one.

One agency we worked with did exactly that, $153,000 in new business the first time, and all he had [00:17:20] to do was click two buttons, had a list of all the accounts that producer controlled. Ironically, he'd called on them before the agent had that inherited it. [00:17:30] Do you think they would have done the handoff a lot better, but most agencies don't.

He did it again a few years later when an agency fired one of the top producers, 'cause they just couldn't [00:17:40] swallow the politics anymore, just signed $175,000 new business. So there it is, the question that changes everything. [00:17:50] Do you really believe this account be better off with you than where it is?

And if so, why? And it sounds almost too simple, but every time you ask that [00:18:00] question in a crisp meeting. Your producers get more specific, more confident, and more lethal on the sales call. And here's the other thing that happens that most managers don't expect. [00:18:10] When one producer is on the hot seat explaining why they're better than the incumbent, everyone else in the room is learning too.

They're learning about what that producer does [00:18:20] and how you leverage the service, not pricing coverage, the winner account. You also learn how mediocre most of your competition is. The shared knowledge [00:18:30] compounds over time. And your weakest producers started getting stronger because they're sitting next to your best producers watching out how they think.

[00:18:40] Now, at the beginning of this episode, I told you about an agency that made one change and went from 25% closing rate to 81% from $50,000 per producer to [00:18:50] over 103,000 and still growing. And here's what they changed. Their sales meeting, their management team was trained in [00:19:00] crisp. The producers were trained in the wedge and red hot introductions.

They had review sessions every 90 days. That's it. Same market, same territory, [00:19:10] same team, different system, different results. So why does this prospect need you when they already have someone? [00:19:20] Answer that question every week in front of your team? And what's, what happens to your producer's confidence.

What's what happens to your close rate. What's what happens to your revenue. [00:19:30] And here's your challenge this week. Look at your sales meeting. Ask yourself, is this a crisp meeting or a spreadsheet liars club? [00:19:40] Are we preparing to win? Are reviewing what already happened? And if you're honest with yourself, you'll know which one it is and now you know [00:19:50] what to do about it.

And next week, the million dollar producer. What separates the top 5% of commercial insurance [00:20:00] producers from everyone else in their agency? Look, it's not luck and it's not relationships. It's a system, a deliberate, [00:20:10] repeatable set of behaviors that compound over time. If you're a producers who's serious about building a book worth owning, you're not gonna want to miss this one.

[00:20:20] So subscribe, share this with your sales leader. But before you leave, think about this. Commercial insurance selling is going through three eras, and right [00:20:30] now, today, you and your agency are living in one of them.

The first era I call selling 1.0. And this is how your daddy did it or your granddaddy did it. [00:20:40] Three by five cards, yellow pages, a metal box on a wooden desk. The strategy was to quote it. Hopefully you had a good price. Hopefully you win it. [00:20:50] No real system, no process, no differentiation. In most cases, whoever had the lowest number on renewal, probably one.[00:21:00] 

And then there was selling 2.0, which is consultative selling, and a generic CRM, no path to grow. And finally selling 3.0. [00:21:10] One integrated sales operating system where the methodology is, the tech, and the tech is the methodology. Producers get a path to build [00:21:20] million dollar books. Leaders get a path to develop

producers. Technology fuses it all together. Agency stuck in selling 1.0 are being commoditized. [00:21:30] Agency stuck in selling 2.0 or working harder and wondering why nothing sticks. And agencies running 3.0. They're compounding every year, every [00:21:40] producer, every account. That's Bignition. So to find us, go to the wedge.net/bignition, [00:21:50] B-I-G-N-I-T-I-O-N.

Hey, and if you like this, leave a review. I'm Randy Schwantz. Go lock your deals in place and I'll see you next week.

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