How To Train Your Team And Boost Your Agency’s Results

Your agency will only ever be as good as your team. Recruit and train a “rock star team”—in the words of Heather Powell, an accomplished agent with a remarkable history of consistently great results—and you’ll be well on your way toward building your own mini insurance empire.

This isn’t always easy, however. Training your team effectively can be tricky, especially if you go into it with a hands-off mindset. As Colter Johnson, former insurance producer and current agency coach, says: “Training isn’t something we did with our team. It’s something we do. We’re either getting better or getting worse. We don’t stay in one place.”

We’ve put the combined knowledge of these two experts below so you can learn how to train competent, driven employees from the day they accept the job.

Even the best teams can’t do much without high-quality leads. Fill your agency’s pipeline with motivated customers by contacting EverQuote today.

Train your insurance agency team members effectively with these eight tips.

Note: The best time to lay the groundwork for a strong team is before hiring. If you’re still building out your agency (or filling in some personnel gaps), check out these posts on recruiting talented agents and conducting informative interviews.

1. Provide structure in your training regimen.

Heather recommends using a structured training program for every person you hire rather than winging it whenever someone new joins your agency. Laying out a clear training plan shows your new hire exactly what they’ll need to learn. It also ensures you don’t forget to teach them anything important before you set them loose on the floor.

Specifically, team members in her office learn about:

• Cold calling, including using word tracks and giving quotes
• Daily responsibilities like managing tasks or leaving notes for the rest of the team
• Appointment setting, scheduling, and follow-ups

Heather also uses specialist training models—for example, focusing on auto policies only—so each person can learn one role deeply without getting overwhelmed by other responsibilities. Once an agent has mastered the content, he or she can move on to learn other roles or practice additional skills.

2. Use role play in addition to traditional teaching methods.

Colter takes what he calls a “bucket” approach in agencies he works with. The first bucket is the information phase, where the team member learns concepts, sales processes, and pitfalls to avoid. The second bucket is the practical phase, where they implement what they’ve learned through role-playing common situations.

Colter says, “A lot of agencies do one or the other, but often they’re not doing both.” Giving your team members the opportunity to learn and practice skills can be a game-changer for employees who struggle to close deals. According to Colter, “The whole purpose of training is to build competence. Competence leads to confidence.”

Once your team members can handle role-played situations with confidence, you’ll know they’re ready (or at least close to ready) to start closing deals with customers.

3. Develop training and systems manuals.

Heather’s office contains numerous manuals detailing, in her words, “how we do everything!” From opening the building in the morning to processing claims, there is always a road map in easy reach for employees who need a refresher on the correct protocols.

Heather says the manuals “ensure a consistent experience for all our customers,” which is critical to building a good reputation. Setting the protocols down in writing also means there’s already a resource available when one is needed—which frees Heather up to focus on coaching the softer skills and concepts that aren’t easily conveyed in a book.

4. Focus on “prospect training” rather than product training.

While in-depth knowledge of each product is important, Colter thinks most insurance industry training concentrates too heavily on product training at the expense of other skills. After all, policies may change over time, and it’s likely the agency will add or remove products at some point, rendering some of the training obsolete.

Instead, Colter prefers to take a “prospect training” approach. He wants team members to understand what each product does for the customer, rather than the tiny details of each policy. He advocates for getting inside the mindset of prospects to understand what they need, how they think, what they feel, and how they’d like to handle certain situations.

For instance, understanding a worried parent’s mindset as they purchase car insurance for their teen driver will help a team member find the right policy match for that customer’s needs. Repeating jargon and talking about the complex details of a policy will not.

5. Promote regular, two-way communication.

Though Heather makes a point of giving her employees responsibility for their own tasks, she does so with the understanding that they’ll be communicating frequently about how things are going. In fact, she holds daily meetings with her team.

“Every morning we huddle at 8:05 in my office. It’s about getting our heads right for the day.” She also conducts weekly Friday meetings over breakfast, monthly one-on-ones to check in with team members individually, and one annual planning meeting to go over strategies for the next year.

The communication habits you build in your agency will inform your team how they should, in turn, communicate with you. “Create an environment that allows them to be vulnerable and honest,” Heather recommends. “They’ll learn faster.”

She also emphasizes the importance of staying positive in your communication: “Think of the people who have coached you over your career, the things people have said to you. There are always negative little nuggets we hold on to.”

Colter advises working some teachable moments into your daily conversations. When a team member asks a question, for example, you don’t need to give the answer. Instead, ask “What do you think you’re going to do?” and allow the person to problem-solve a little bit on their own.

6. Provide detailed feedback on each employee’s performance—both during training and on the job.

Setting and discussing KPIs is a great way to keep the lines of communication flowing. Establishing numeric, objective measures of performance also helps motivate team members by giving them goals within their control.

If you tell someone to do better with closing sales, that’s hard to measure. In the team member’s opinion, perhaps they did “better” by selling one more policy than last month. But if you give a firm goal—for instance, improving by ten percent within three months—you’ll both be able to tell if they are on track.

During feedback conversations, Colter likes to ask: “What’s one thing you did really well? And one thing you think you could improve on?” This encourages self-awareness and can be far more productive than launching into criticism when things haven’t gone smoothly.

7. Address underperformance.

Speaking of things not going smoothly… there will inevitably come a time when an employee struggles, either with completing training or with taking on full responsibilities after training ends.

When one of your team members lags behind, Heather recommends asking yourself the following questions to narrow down the root of the issue:

• Ability: “Can they do the job you are asking them to do?”
• Capacity: “Are there too many things on their list?”
• Desire: “Do they want to do the work? Are they motivated, or might they be in the wrong job?”

Colter likes to focus on KPIs that can be tracked objectively. If you can identify which tasks the person struggles with, you can monitor things like:

• Conversations started
• Pivots to additional products
• Outbound calls
• Quotes given
• Policies sold

Both strategies will allow you to keep an eye on the team member’s performance over time and intervene if they continue having trouble.

8. Foster a positive culture.

Part of training a new hire is incorporating them into your workplace culture. If your culture could use improvement, training (or re-training) your existing team gives you the opportunity to change how the team perceives working in the office.

Both Heather and Colter place a huge emphasis on positivity:

• Heather likes to create a “family-like” environment in her office with consistent interaction and check-ins.
• Colter ends meetings with a “motivation” segment that inspires team members to go out there and work hard toward their goals. Colter says, “This gets them out of their own heads and into conversations.”
• Heather spends time getting to know her team one on one and listening to their dreams and aspirations. “The first people I’m taking care of are my family and my team,” she says.
• Both experts agree that celebrating successes, such as beating office records, is a great way to keep the team motivated and drive morale up.
• If a certain team member just isn’t working out, it might be better to let them go so you can focus on the team members who need your positive attention. Heather likes to help employees she lets go find their “next big thing” to end the relationship on a positive note.

It’s far easier for agents to succeed when they have access to high quality leads.

Training is crucial but you can’t out-train bad leads. That’s why EverQuote sends only the best-matched leads to your agency’s specifications, so you have the highest chance to close deals and secure new customers.

Contact EverQuote to start receiving high-intent leads today!