Page 127 - The UnCaptive Agent

100 THE UNCAPTIVE AGENT

a $500,000 book of business, this could mean a loss
of $15,000 to your agency in profit-sharing income.
But this isn’t the only loss. Remember, you voluntarily
cut premiums $50,000. And the commission reduc-
tion, at fifteen percent, is another $7,500, making your
self-inflicted income cut $22,500 (which means as
much as $350,000 in agency value in today’s acquisition
environment).
The last point about this is that if you are a
cut-the-price-to-the-bone type of agent, you’re always
going to be a transaction-oriented producer, not some-
one focused on creating value for clients and customers
via relationships, quality products, and so forth. Those
kinds of agencies have a very limited future.