Page 90 - The UnCaptive Agent

PREREQUISITES FOR SUCCESS 63

Whatever you do, do it professionally. I have seen
disasters at offices, like candlelight and red wine at 2:00
p.m. I once visited an agent who was living in his office
to save money. When I arrived, the office smelled like
breakfast, and there was a pile of laundry in the corner.
That did not make a good impression on me, nor would
it make a good impression on any prospective client. It’s
important that your office be professional and clean.
I sometimes visit insurance agencies that lose sight of
this, and their offices smell bad or look dirty or disor-
ganized. Don’t let that happen to you.
Many of your clients will never come to your office.
And so perhaps you think that it doesn’t matter. But
some will and it matters a great deal. It will certainly
matter to high quality people when you recruit them to
work for your agency. Occasionally, walk in your office
and look at it. Breathe deeply and smell it, like you’ve
never been there before, and make sure it makes a great
first impression.
If your plans are to sell primarily online as an elec-
tronic agency, the office is less important and can be
located almost anywhere so long as it’s in a business
location. It doesn’t even need to be in an office building.
It just can’t be at your house.
If you’re building a traditional and typical agency,
your office should have a reception area as well as a
private meeting space where you or other team mem-
bers can meet with clients. After that, you can either
have private offices, work out of cubicles, or whatever
arrangement satisfies you.
Dan Sullivan of The Strategic Coach® has a concept
he calls Front Stage/Backstage®. The idea is that every
business has a front stage where, as in a play, the audience
sees what the business has designed for it to see. The
front stage is composed of those parts of your office