Profile Mix

When I first started recruiting insurance agents team, I was taught to hire anybody who is alive, how is breathing. The process or correct approach of recruiting an insurance agent was not defined. After wasting a lot of time and energy, I ended up getting frustrated. Then I regrouped and decided to review all the errors and mistakes which I was making and rectified them. So, let me save you wasting you time and energy and answer the one question, you are asking yourself.

As a Sales Manager, Agency Manager or an Insurance Recruiter, what kind of people should be approached ? To have an answer for this question one should understand what type of people one should approach for recruitment.

Lets understand it in a more simpler way. If you are putting a cricket team together, and you have a room full of 500 people, who would you select in you team ?

The answer is quite obvious, however if you are not a professional insurance recruiter, you might not know the answer.

Here is how you will go for it. For an ideal cricket team you need players with different skill sets. You need people who are expert in their own skills, for e.g. you need to pick up a fast baller, a spinner, a best batsman, good fielders, wicket-keeper etc. When we are having people from different skill sets, then we can implement different strategies for winning the game. Now there may be many ballers, spinners and good batsman among those 500 people in the room, but do you really want to go through trying out every one of them ? Of course not. You will start selecting those people who will give you the best chance at winning, but how will you select them. Here we first need to make all of them understand how tough it is to win a game of cricket, at the same time we will also show them the excellent growth opportunities which they would be getting if they are selected in the national cricket team. Then it will be very easy to know who among those 500 people are ready to face the challenges and are able to work in the toughest time.

The same is true in recruiting quality insurance agents. It means, we need to maintain a profile mix in our team. We need to recruit housewives, ex-army men, professionals like Doctors, Lawyers, CAs etc. When we are having a good profile mix in our team than we will be able to tap or explore all the segments of our society for generating business. Mostly these profiles are considered to be the quality insurance agents. So, then we have landed up on an another question, i.e., How do we define quality insurance agent ?

Lets understand, what are we looking in an prospective insurance agent ?

• Someone that knows how to communicate and not just talk.
• Someone who can teach and make people understand.
• Who can create a consensus with a prospective client.
• Knows how to prospect, this is why we are hiring him.
• Has credibility in society.
• Should look and behave professionally.
• Can learn your style and system of selling.
• Has a particular type of target market.
• Has to be extroward and not introward.
• Has enough time to commit to be associated with you.
• Should be responsible enough who understands the value of earning money.

The prospective insurance agent which we are looking for should be able to communicate with people, not just talking serves the purpose and should also possess many of the other above qualities.

The job of an insurance agent is to make his potential clients understand and teach them what the purpose of insurance actually is, and how it provides peace of mind to them. People are not going to buy something which they don't clearly understand.

A new Sales Manager, Agency Manager, Agency recruiter or an Insurance Recruiter, usually ends up searching someone who is unqualified and who is ready to join insurance business. Who says, " Yes, I think, I should try this insurance business. " and then the insurance recruiter ends up spinning around and wondering why they are working so hard and getting no where ? Then he continues to hire and recruit wrong people which results in draining out their energy, time and money.