Page 202 - The UnCaptive Agent

EARLY DAYS OPERATIONS: CHASE THE VISION, NOT THE MONEY 175

limited in products, and therefore have become masters
at maximizing revenue from each client. That means
each client in their agency is worth significantly more
to them, and it also means that they have a chance
to increase their profitability, given the fact that they
are able to increase revenues without a corresponding
increase in expenses. This is important, and something
that independent agencies would do well to learn from.
The tipping point for you will come when you cross the
threshold of two policies per client (even though your
goal may be higher). If you seek to grow the revenue
you have per client every year as well as the number of
clients, you will grow very rapidly.
I had the opportunity to hear Roger Sitkins, a famous
sales coach in the independent agency system, talk
about the Pareto Principle (or the 80/20 rule) in 1996.
Roger challenged those of us in attendance to run our
commission statements, list our clients from highest
commission to lowest, and to go down that list until
we hit eighty percent of our total revenue on our books
of business (which he assured us would only represent
twenty percent of our clients). He then challenged us
to get rid of the bottom eighty percent of clients, which
he guaranteed us would represent twenty percent of
our revenue. He told us that if we would do this each
year, our agency would grow much more rapidly. So,
on January 3, 1997, I did just that. I eliminated nearly
three fourths of the clients in my personal book of
business. We didn’t fire them from the agency. I just
passed them on to someone else and said, “These people
are now going to be serviced by a client service agent,
not a producer.” I often ask people, “How long do you
think it took me to make back the revenue that I gave
up?” The answer was February 13 of that year. Every
year afterward that I worked as a producer, I got rid of