Here are 5 prime industries – outside of insurance – where we’ve found successful producer candidates for our clients, the country’s top commercial insurance and risk management agent/brokers.
The common theme: go find Business-to-Business (B2B) outside sales reps in great foundation “starter” B2B sales JOBS (but crappy careers) ready for a transition to a superior “lifetime” B2B sales CAREER (commercial insurance broking).
- Payroll sales (company examples: ADP, Paychex, Paycom, Paycor). They are consultative sellers, well trained, and transition well to commercial insurance broking (group benefits too). Candidate pain points: they don’t get to maintain an ongoing relationship with the customer and they earn little or no residuals. Plus, some companies tend to micro-manage activity and wear out their top sales people.
- HR consulting or professional employer organization (PEO) or recruiting service sales (company examples: Insperity, Tri-Net, ADP Total Source). They are highly consultative and transition well to selling commercial insurance (some already sell some insurance products like workers compensation that are bundled with HR service) and group benefits too. Candidate pain points: similar to payroll sales.
- Office technology/document management sales (company examples: Shred-It, IKON/Ricoh, Toshiba, Canon, Xerox, Pitney Bowes). These are hustle, heavy prospecting starter jobs. They tend to be aggressive prospectors and bring a decent starter pipeline of local prospects. Candidate pain points: no residuals, caps on compensation, shrinking customer demand and these jobs get boring quickly (commodity service and short sales cycle) so the good sales rep wants to move up to bigger ticket, more consultative sales.
- Office/industrial supply sales (company examples: Cintas, UniFirst, Staples). These are hustle, heavy prospecting starter jobs. They tend to be aggressive prospectors and bring a decent starter pipeline of local prospects. Candidate pain points: no residuals, caps on compensation, the Amazon Effect is shrinking demand, and these jobs get dull quickly (commodity service and short sales cycle) so the good sales rep wants to move up to bigger ticket, more challenging, consultative sales.
- Car/truck rental sales (company examples: Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Hertz Local Edition, Ryder, Penske Truck Leasing). Not a pure outside B2B sales job but a great starter job for scholar athlete college graduates. They give new young professionals a ton of responsibility early — including making prospect calls to develop new rental business. Candidate pain points: notorious for low pay, long hours (including weekends and nights) and you either climb the ladder (which often requires relocating) or quit (most do) for a better career opportunity, more money, and to stop working nights and weekends.
