Page 208 - The UnCaptive Agent

RESOURCES 181

habit). Dan Sullivan, founder of The Strategic Coach®
Program, has remarked that many business books have
a great deal of filler in them. He recommends that you
read the first and last chapter of any business book to
get eighty percent of the useful information from it.
Then, only if you find the first and last chapter useful
should you invest the time to read the balance of the
book. I have found that advice incredibly useful in my
attempts to learn as much as possible from the wisdom
of successful entrepreneurs, as I set a goal to read about
fifty books each year.
With that in mind, here is a list of books and
resources that I think will be particularly useful to you
as you plan and execute the startup of your agency (and
a more comprehensive suggested reading list may be
found at my company’s website www.oneagentsalliance.
net/recommendations/).

A. “Growth Agent Insight” by Tony Caldwell. I
have been writing a weekly blog on the chal-
lenges, opportunities, best practices, value, and
philosophy of starting, growing, and ultimately
perpetuating insurance agencies since 2012.
There now exists a collection of hundreds of
short (and I hope entertaining) blogs and
vlogs (video blogs) on Agency Management,
Commercial Lines selling, Human Resources,
Personal Lines, Managing Producers, and a
raft of other topics gathered into sixteen sub-
ject clusters, all completely searchable. www.
oneagentsalliance.net/blog-2/.
B. Strategic Insurance Agents Alliance is a
national developer of independent insurance
agencies that performs its work through master