NAILBA Perspectives - March/April 2015 - (Page 7)

chairman's corner You're Not Alone, NAILBA is here to Help! DAVID LONG NAILBA CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD W hen I ﬁrst joined the family business, everybody on the staff had the same last name, and looking around the ofﬁce was no different than looking around the dinner table of my childhood ("tightly held" was an understatement!). Also, although I had worked in a few different jobs already, I had never managed anybody but myself up to that point. Several years later, when the staff had nearly tripled, it dawned on me that one isn't born with all the basic skills required to manage various types and levels of staff. Hiring/ﬁring, training, ﬁnancial reporting/accounting, and human resources-to name a few- all became exponentially more complicated. Sure, I went to business school, but I must have been absent the day they taught how to deal with internal personality conﬂicts, or how to properly compensate a marketer. I may have missed a class or two, but it turns out, I'm not alone at NAILBA. As most of you know, NAILBA University is already here to help with many of these issues, and, new on the horizon, an expanded focus on Best Practices for running an agency. Around the same time that our team at my agency was growing, I was also involved with NAILBA's Education Committee (now the Professional Development Committee). That's when we rolled out NAILBA University with a mission to serve the educational and training needs of member agencies and the supporting brokerage community by increasing the number and value of professional development options available. Three of the options available at NAILBA U have been very valuable to me-the Agency Practices Workbook, the BGA Employee Training Series, and the BGA Contracts Manual. It turns out there were better ways to measure performance than asking my mom, "How we doing?"- who knew? The Agency Practices Workbook is a library of metrics focused on ﬁnancial, new business, recruiting/retention, and marketing benchmarks currently used by many of your NAILBA peers. The workbook gives you the tools to create a "scorecard" speciﬁc to your business model by selecting the metrics that are applicable to you. This was a collaborative effort of some of the best minds in the industry to not only help you grow your agency, but also help monitor the bottom line. Ever ﬁnd it difﬁcult to stop long enough to give new staff adequate training? Speciﬁcs are easy, but the big picture training can be tedious, especially when the underwriter on that big case is on hold and you're trying to explain to that new case manager what makes independent distribution different from the last three jobs s/he had at Feelings Mutual Life. There are some very unique characteristics about our business and odds are that new employee hasn't ever heard of a BGA or an IMO. The BGA Employee Training Series will help you accomplish this training. Whether the employee is new to the insurance business or just our corner of the business, these courses are well laid out, easy to use, and a great way to keep new staff learning while you are doing your job. We use this for every new hire that is new to our business. The ﬁrst contract I ever signed was with the local newspaper. I was 12, and it made me an ofﬁcial paperboy. I think my parents took a picture while I signed the document. Fast forward 14 years, and once again I was signing a contract that I read, but really had no idea what I was looking at. Apparently that business I wrote at a well-known career company didn't vest for 15 years-probably something I should have looked at more closely! As distributors, most of us have entered into dozens of contracts, and the small print DOES matter. As time goes on, the details are getting more and more critical. NAILBA's BGA Contracts Manual brings this contractual language to light in order to help BGAs make responsible choices. Give it a read, you may be surprised what some of those details and Latin words can mean! As we grapple with a constantly changing landscape, in our own industry as well as the global economy, the very basic elements of running a business have left many NAILBA members with lots of questions. They say misery loves company, but luckily, while you may have struggled with one issue, odds are you excelled in another. The same is true of the rest of the NAILBA membership. Our new strategic plan includes taking advantage of member agency knowledge in order to help each other with "Best Practices." Whether it's signing a lease, or simply deciding on the contents of your employee manual, NAILBA can help bring us together so we don't have to re-invent the wheel every time something new comes up. As this develops, you won't have to wait for the hallways of the annual meeting to learn from your peers; online forums, webinars, and the like will put this information at your ﬁngertips when and where you need it. Also, NAILBA will connect membership with outside experts in running a business. Whether it's just you or dozens of staff in your agency, NAILBA members are looking for assistance. Watch your email for announcements of opportunities to learn from the best with Best Practices. Although NAILBA agencies vary in strategy and size, we can almost all be considered small businesses. Look to NAILBA to help your agency be the best it can be, and if you'd like to share what has helped make you a successful small business owner, let me know (chairman@nailba.org). www.nailba.org 7 http://www.nailba.org

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NAILBA Perspectives - March/April 2015

NAILBA Perspectives - March/April 2015
Contents
Chairman’s Corner
CEO Insights
State of the Industry Panel
NAILBA Charitable Foundation
Life Happens
Member Profiles
Agency Successor Networking Group
Get STREAMLINED
Reading Ahead
Calendar of Events
Index of Advertisers

NAILBA Perspectives - March/April 2015