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CHIEF COOK AND BOTTLE WASHER 151

into it. Avoid spending it on your lifestyle for as long
as you want it to grow rapidly.
My second answer will refer you back to the bench-
marking surveys I’ve mentioned earlier. The average
client service agent in a personal lines agency services
about $140,000 of commission. The average client
service agency in a small agency, managing a commer-
cial lines book of business, manages something over
$200,000 in commission (you can find exact numbers
by agency size, focus, and location in the benchmark-
ing surveys themselves). When your agency begins to
approach fifty percent of the average amount of com-
mission serviced and you find yourself spending time
managing client relationships, that is the time to hire
your first client service agent.
You’ll know it’s time to hire an accountant when
you announce the opening of your business. Whether
that accountant is a contractor of some kind or not, you
should have that person on board from the beginning.
When do you know it’s time to hire a producer?
That’s simple. When you have client service agents that
are handling one hundred percent of the client service
in your agency, you have someone doing one hundred
percent of the accounting and administrative tasks in
your agency, when virtually one hundred percent of
your time is spent as a producer, and when the agency’s
growth is beginning to slow: that is the time for you to
consider hiring a producer.

Work on Your Business, Not Just in It

One last point about time management skills: you need
to set aside time daily and weekly to work on your busi-
ness and not only in it. Since your business should be
founded on you, as we discussed earlier, some of this