Stop Hiring Nice People to Do a Hunter's Job

 Eight months. Zero new revenue. And a nice guy who checked every box. If that story sounds familiar, you have a hiring problem, not a training problem. In this episode, Randy reveals the MCOP framework: four pillars that separate hunters from book sitters before you ever sign an offer. He also walks through the retirement math that reveals whether a new hire is truly motivated to grow. The all-in cost of a failed producer hire runs to $150,000. The fix starts before the offer is ever made. 

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Transcript

[00:00:00] an agency owner calls me. He has a problem. He hired a commercial insurance producer eight months ago. He was a nice guy. Came from a good family, good school, [00:00:10] came with solid references, checked every box on the interview, and then eight months in, zero new revenue, not [00:00:20] one account.

The guy who's managing a few house accounts, showing up on time, doing everything he's told, but he's not out hunting. He has [00:00:30] never hunted and he has no idea that hunting is what this job requires. And the agency owner's frustrated. He asked me, how do I fix this? [00:00:40] Well, I had to say, you don't, you hired the wrong person.

The time to fix this was before you made the offer. And that's the problem at the core of most [00:00:50] commercial insurance agency growth issues, it's not a training problem. It's not a market problem. It's not a carrier problem, it's a hiring [00:01:00] problem. You're filling seats with people who are well, great at a lot of things, and incapable of the one thing that matters [00:01:10] most.

Driving new business in a zero sum incumbent dominated market. Today on the Agency Growth [00:01:20] Machine Podcast we're talking about how to hire producers who actually hunt how to go grow your book of business by putting the right hunter in the seat in the [00:01:30] first place. And before this episode is over, I'm gonna give you the four pillar filter that separates hunters from everyone else.[00:01:40] 

And a retirement math formula that reveals whether your new hire actually has the motive to do this job for the long term. It will save you from making the [00:01:50] most expensive mistake in the agency business. So stay with me.

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

Hi. I am Randy Schwantz. I'm founder of the [00:02:10] Wedge Group, creator of Bignition. And the guy that insurance agencies call when they want producers who grow books instead of sit on them. I've trained over [00:02:20] 8,000 producers. The ones who win have four things in common. The ones who fail almost always fail at the front door, and today we fix that.

[00:02:30] This is episode 10. Look, for decades, the hiring model of most independent commercial insurance agencies has gone something like this. [00:02:40] Someone in your network mentions a person who's looking to make a move, or a young person comes in who seems sharp and driven. So you interview them, you like [00:02:50] them, they have a good attitude, good family, good school.

They seem coachable. So you give them a shot. That's the old game, and here's what it [00:03:00] produces. A revolving door of well-intentioned people. Who flame out in 18 to 24 months because nobody, including them was ever [00:03:10] honest about what this job actually requires. So what does this job actually require? Well, it requires someone who can operate in a zero sum [00:03:20] environment where the only way to win is to take business from an incumbent agent who has the relationship, who gets last look, and has 92% retention working [00:03:30] in their favor.

It requires someone wired to compete, someone motivated to grow their income significantly. Someone capable of absorbing [00:03:40] rejection well without collapsing. And most agency owners have never run the real numbers of what a failed producer hire actually costs. [00:03:50] So lemme give you a rough picture. Six to 12 months of salary, benefits, licensing, training, management, time access to your clients, your [00:04:00] staff.

And your reputation and at the end of that window, you have nothing or worse, you've got a damaged relationship with the prospect. They [00:04:10] mishandled. The all in cost is easily $150,000, and that's before you count the opportunity cost of everything you didn't [00:04:20] do because you're a busy nursing, a hire who was never gonna make it.

And the single most expensive mistake in the agency business. Is hiring a producer who [00:04:30] can't or won't hunt. And the single most preventable mistake is using feelings and impressions instead of evidence. So here's the [00:04:40] shift. The new game starts with an evidence based hiring system. Not, well, I like this person and not, do they come from a good [00:04:50] family?

The question is, does this person have the four characteristics that predict performance? In a zero sum commercial insurance sales role, [00:05:00] and can I prove it before I sign the offer? So instead of asking, can I see this person fitting in, you start asking, can I see this person [00:05:10] getting an incumbent fired?

And one of those questions hires hunters and the other one hires book sitters.

Now there's a disease that [00:05:20] cripples most agency owners when it comes to both hiring and managing producers. It's the laid back attitude that if someone isn't costing you money, well you should leave them [00:05:30] alone. The mediocre producer who shows up, manages their existing accounts doesn't cause problems and also doesn't write anything new.[00:05:40] 

You leave them alone because, well, they're not in trouble. That's not leadership. That's tolerance of decline. In a zero [00:05:50] sum game, standing still is losing. Every year that producer doesn't grow their book, someone else has taken it. Look, the [00:06:00] framework for identifying and developing great producers is built on four pillars.

I call them MCOP, which stands for [00:06:10] motivated confident. Organized and with a plan. Producers who have all four dramatically outperformed those who don't every time [00:06:20] in every market at every agency. So let me walk you through each one. Motivated first, and I wanna be precise about this because most [00:06:30] agency owners think that motivation is personality.

It's not motivation is motive a reason, a purpose? The producers who are generally motivated have [00:06:40] connected their work to something they deeply want or fear losing, and here's a number that should change how you talk about motivation. With every producer you hire [00:06:50] and every producer you currently have on the payroll, most people need 22 times their annual living expense and their retirement account to fund the rest of their life [00:07:00] without financial hardship.

22 times. If a producer wants to live on $100,000 a year in retirement, they need 2.2 million [00:07:10] in their account on the day they retire. Let that sit for a second. Now, I'll tell you what happens when most producers sit down and do this calculation. For this [00:07:20] first time usually was their spouse. Something shifts in the room.

They start seeing their new business goal as something they do to keep the [00:07:30] agency owner happy. And they start seeing it as the mechanism by which they fund their own future. This is authentic [00:07:40] motivation. That is the kind of motive that gets someone out of bed early and keeps 'em dialing when the rejections pile up.

If a producer hasn't done [00:07:50] the math or if they've done it and aren't willing to confront the gap, they're not motivated, they're comfortable and comfortable producers [00:08:00] don't hunt. Confidence is next. And here's the truth about confidence. It is not a personality trait. It is not something you either have or don't have.[00:08:10] 

Confidence is the feeling that says, I can do this. And it comes directly from both skills and knowledge. When a producer knows exactly what to [00:08:20] say, knows how to find pain, knows how to execute a pre-call strategy, knows how to walk into a room and run the wedge, they feel confident. [00:08:30] When they don't have those skills, they feel what most producers feel like they're winging it and hoping for a lucky break.

Confident [00:08:40] producers outperform unconfident producers, and confidence comes from the one thing, knowing what to do and having practiced it until it's muscle memory. [00:08:50] An organization matters more than most people realize. A disorganized producer is a leaky bucket. Constantly restarting. Losing track of follow ups, [00:09:00] letting hot prospects go cold.

Missing renewal dates. Organization isn't being a neat freak. It's having a system, a live [00:09:10] prospect list, a service timeline for top accounts, A pipeline they can speak to in 30 seconds. If a producer can't tell you right now, right now, this [00:09:20] very minute, the top five accounts, they're actively working. And when those accounts renew.

They're not organized, they're hoping. And then the fourth pillar, the [00:09:30] plan. The producers who write big books operate within a written specific plan. The top 20 accounts. The top 20 prospects, their top 20 [00:09:40] introductions, not vague intentions. A document updated, weekly reviewed in every crisp meeting. If a producer doesn't have a written plan, they don't have [00:09:50] a plan at all.

They have a wishlist. So motivated. Confident, organized, and with a plan. That's M-C-O-P [00:10:00] MCOP. Now, before we get into actually screen for these four, I wanna tell you what I'm going to give you in the next segment. I'm gonna walk you [00:10:10] through the exact four interview questions I used to test each pillar and the one 90 day deliverable I ask every candidate to produce before they ever get an [00:10:20] offer.

It is a single highest signal piece of evidence I've ever found in a commercial insurance sales interview. So stay with me. [00:10:30] So how do you screen for MCOP before you hire? You build evidence-based questions into your interview process. Questions that [00:10:40] reveal not what somebody says they'll do, but what they've actually done for motivation.

Ask them to describe their biggest financial goal for the next five years. [00:10:50] Not their career goal, the life goal. What do they want that they don't currently have? And if they can't answer with something specific and personal, [00:11:00] they haven't done the math on their future. They're not motivated by money, they're motivated by comfort.

And we already covered what comfortable producers do. They don't hunt [00:11:10] for confidence. Ask them to describe a time they went from something highly competitive where most people would've quit and they didn't. You are listening for [00:11:20] evidence. You're listening for a specific story where they were in a red zone, felt the pressure and pushed through it.

Not that they're upbeat and positive, but that they've [00:11:30] been tested and didn't break. And for organization, ask 'em to walk you through how they manage a complex set of competing priorities. Not hypothetically, [00:11:40] I mean, actually give me an example. Organized. People can give you specific examples. Disorganized people give you general principles and vague intentions.[00:11:50] 

Listen for the difference and for a plan. I mean, this is the one I want you to pay the most attention to. Before you hire anyone, ask them to come [00:12:00] back with a 90 day business plan, not a boilerplate template, a specific plan for your market, your agency [00:12:10] with their background. What accounts they will target, who they already know.

How will they prospect them? What does week one look like and what does day [00:12:20] 30 look like? The quality of that document will tell you more than any interview question ever will. I've seen hunters turn in 10 page plans with named accounts and named [00:12:30] industries. I've seen pretenders turn in a one page AI generated template with nothing specific on it.

You can tell the difference in about 30 seconds. And once you [00:12:40] hire the right person, the job is to make them stronger as fast as possible. The philosophy is hire them strong, [00:12:50] make them stronger. That means starting them in a training environment immediately, not throwing them a Yellow Pages and wishing them luck.

You run them through your [00:13:00] playbook, your pre-call strategy, the wedge red hot reductions. Keystone wedge proofing. You put them in crisp meetings from day one. You give them a [00:13:10] coach, a written service timeline model to learn and a clear set of expectations. The best commercial insurance producers don't become the best because they [00:13:20] were born hunters.

They become hunters because someone cared enough to develop them systematically. Intentionally over time. And here's the [00:13:30] summary. Four pillars, motivated, confident. Organized and with a plan retirement math that drives real motivation [00:13:40] 22 times your annual lifetime goal. Ask every producer you currently have to run that number and do that this week.

Most of them will be shocked [00:13:50] at how far off they are and that shock. That's the beginning of real motivation. That's what turns a book sitter into a hunter. The old game [00:14:00] says, find a nice person and give them a shot. The new game says, define exactly what you're looking for. Interview for evidence, and develop them relentlessly [00:14:10] once they're in the door.

And the difference between agencies growing at 2% and agencies growing at 12%. It's not the market, it's not the carriers, [00:14:20] it's the people and the system used to develop them. Look, subscribe and share this with your sales manager, but before you leave, think about this. [00:14:30] Commercial insurance selling has gone through three eras, and right now today, you and your agency are limiting one of them.

Era number one, I call it selling 1.0. [00:14:40] This is what your daddy did or your granddaddy did. Three by five cards, yellow pages, a metal box on a wooden desk. The strategy, quote it, price it. Hope you win it. [00:14:50] No system, no process, no differentiation. Just whoever has the lowest numbers probably renew wins on the renewal day.

Era two is selling 2.0. And that's when [00:15:00] Salesforce and HubSpot and Pipedrive all had big promises, big beautiful dashboards, enterprise grade, everything. But you know what? It actually [00:15:10] produced a pipeline report your manager could pull on Friday. That's your millions of dollars are spent on this, and it produces virtually nothing.[00:15:20] 

And then the training, well, it's in a binder somewhere. The technology lived on a browser and they never talked to each other. Meanwhile, the [00:15:30] incumbent already has the relationship, already knew the account, and already gets last look. Selling 2.0 was about relationship building, consultative selling along with [00:15:40] generic technology that slowed things down more than it sped things up.

What it never gave producers was a system to win and to grow a huge book of business. [00:15:50] And then era three, I call it selling 3.0. And that's what Bignition is. It's one integrated sales operating system where the methodology is the [00:16:00] technology. And the technology is the methodology. Seven steps to seven figures.

One platform goals tied to real life differentiation. You can [00:16:10] prove appointment setting that systematic, not random pre-call strategy that's built to displace an incumbent, not just have a nice conversation. A selling process [00:16:20] anchored on one brutal truth. No one else will say. The incumbent has to lose for you to win.

And retention Backed by documented [00:16:30] deliverables, not vague, abstract promises and results. They're measured at every level. Look, three errors, three tools, three completely [00:16:40] different games. 1.0 is beat. The price. 2.0 is build the relationship and 3.0. Listen to this is to engineer the [00:16:50] displacement. Run the system, win.

The account agencies stuck in 1.0 are being commoditized. Agencies stuck in 2.0 are working harder and wondering why [00:17:00] nothing sticks. And the agency's running 3.0. They're compounding every year, every producer, every account that's [00:17:10] selling 3.0, that's Bignition. I hope you come find us and look, if you like this, leave a review.

I'm Randy Schwantz. Go lock your deals in place [00:17:20] and I'll see you next week.