We recruit Business-to-Business (B2B) sales people into producer careers with the country’s top commercial risk management and insurance agent/brokers. Sometimes we present a great candidate to a client and they don’t get hired. Often another candidate was just a better fit for that particular firm. Sometimes we (the recruiting firm) don’t even understand exactly why. When one human being hires another, many factors go into the decision and they are not always rational.
If you’re the unchosen candidate, you can get mad about it or puzzle until your puzzler is sore but that’s not particularly productive since you’re never going to really know why. My advice to these folks — and anyone out there serious about entering the commercial insurance producer career — is to not accept any one firm’s no as the final answer. Instead, assess whether YOU want to become a commercial insurance producer. That’s a decision that YOU control.
If you really want to become a commercial insurance producer, then become a commercial producer. This is not a manned mission to Mars. Heck, it pains me to admit this, but you don’t even necessarily need a great recruiting firm like ours to help you enter this great career.
Follow this 3-step plan:
Step 1: Go get the state property and casualty producer license on your own time and dime. In most states, you can accomplish this while you still keep your day job via an online, self-paced class or a nights/weekend classroom.
Step 2: Draft a 90-day prospecting plan. I’ve written articles on how – see 90-Day Producer Plan and Reboot 2017 with a 90-Day Plan.
Step 3: Network into the top commercial insurance agent/brokers in your area and tell them that you are a newly licensed producer candidate with a 90-Day plan and that you are ready to meet them and present yourself and your plan for consideration to become a producer in their firm.
The basic formula is: show up with a license, a business plan, and a willingness to work hard and for relatively modest money while you’re learning the commercial insurance broker profession and building a clientele. Best of luck!
