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PREREQUISITES FOR SUCCESS 61

it’s an insurance agency). After that, I would sim-
ply recommend avoiding the limitations we’ve
discussed here.
Choose your name carefully. You’re going to live with
it for the rest of your career. Or, spend a lot of money,
and lose any built-up brand equity, to change it.

Location, Location or No Location

The next prerequisite that you need to think about is
your office. You will need to have a business address in
a business location. Many insurance carriers will not
contract with an insurance agency that is operated out
of the principal’s home. Think about it—marketing
representatives and other insurance company personnel
are uncomfortable going to someone’s home to conduct
business. It also doesn’t make the agency seem busi-
nesslike if it operates out of someone’s back bedroom.
While there may be businesses that can be operated in
that fashion, a property and casualty insurance agency
isn’t one of them.
Rent is expensive, and it’s difficult to forecast how
much space you’ll need in the early days of an agency.
One solution to this is to operate your business in an
office-sharing arrangement. Office sharing can take
one of three forms. We have had two different agencies
who started in business at the same time share an office
temporarily at One Agents Alliance. We have had other
startups rent office space inside the offices of CPAs,
law firms, wealth management companies, and other
similar kinds of professional businesses. These kinds
of arrangements not only provide a professional envi-
ronment, they facilitate referrals back and forth which
help all parties build their businesses. We have also had
successful startups that leased their first offices from an