One of the most difficult tasks facing insurance companies is motivating their agents. A motivated agent engages with their peers and clients, looks for ways to strengthen their business relationships, and is willing to evaluate their own performance and personal growth prospects. Knowing what motivates you and using it as inspiration to expand and sustain your business is the key to success, whether you are new to the market or have been leading the way for years.
It can be challenging to stay focused and engaged every day, even if you understand your drive. After all, you aren’t a robot, and life has a way of causing us to lose sight of our goals. If you’re seeking for strategies to keep yourself or your insurance agents motivated, consider the following suggestions.
Creating a Motivational Work Environment
Your working environment has a direct impact on your capacity to execute a good job, whether you’re an independent agent or part of a larger organization. Distractions such as loud noises, strong odors, and the attitudes of coworkers might hinder your ability to work. So, how can you keep your insurance brokers motivated at your firm? While you may not be able to influence certain characteristics of your workplace, there are things you can do as a leader or employee to create a motivating environment.
- Set goals – one method to encourage individuals is to set goals. It is frequently used by business owners to assess employee productivity. Setting attainable goals can be motivating and ensuring that both your staff and your company are on pace to fulfill the agency’s long-term objectives.
- Pursue opportunities for training – Training opportunities are critical for keeping agents motivated and appreciated as employees. It also aids insurance agents in learning new methods of completing jobs and increasing sales.
- Work as a team – Developing a collaborative environment and fostering teamwork among your agents can help to build trust and open lines of communication. Long-term motivation can be maintained by providing opportunities for everyone to share ideas and contribute to the success of the insurance business.
- Accept digital solutions The insurance industry is rife with paperwork. Repetitive and time-consuming duties are common among insurance agent workflows. Researching and investing in digital technologies can help an insurance agent automate these operations and improve his or her work life. It will also free up agents’ time to focus on finding new clients and maintaining existing ones.
Overall, whether you’re a manager or a subordinate, you should endeavor to create a positive but constructive work atmosphere that prioritizes acknowledgment, continual education, and long-term objectives.
Increasing Personal Motivation
Motivation can be implemented in a variety of ways, including through the use of a team or an environment. You can always modify your internal attitude and find ways to keep yourself motivated, regardless of how much power you have over your team or the environment you operate in.
- Make mundane activities enjoyable Tasks that are performed on a regular basis can become monotonous. Everyday work, on the other hand, can be enjoyable if approached with the correct attitude and viewpoint. Consider setting up modest prizes for yourself when you meet your daily goals. When you finish a chore you’ve been putting off, a reward could be as easy as treating yourself to ice cream.
- Inquire among your peers Reaching out to coworkers or other commercial insurance agents with experience might assist you in avoiding the identical blunders. Learning what has worked effectively for other successful agents can also be a powerful incentive.
- Take it slowly Looking at a project or a goal might be intimidating at times. Breaking down your to-do list into smaller, more achievable tasks can help you reach your objectives.
Having distinct short- and long-term goals provides self-motivation. Motivated agents recognize that incorporating enjoyment, learning from others, and pacing yourself will help them meet their goals on a consistent basis.
How do you motivate a broker?
Let’s dive into some of the specific tricks and tips that can help keep your team on track, even on the toughest days, now that we’ve covered the critical role of hiring in building your fired-up real estate team and gotten crystal clear on the fact that you (yes, you!) as the team leader are the #1 person responsible for keeping your agents motivated.
#1. Keep your feedback specific
Material awards have been shown to be less helpful than specific, meaningful feedback about the effort (rather than the person).
Yes, you read that correctly: detailed feedback is frequently more beneficial to your agents than monetary compensation.
You can immediately determine who of your agents does best with Zillow leads, or who your speed-to-lead rockstar is, and give them well-deserved credit to help increase their motivation and encourage more of the same behavior, using Follow Up Boss.
Simultaneously, you can simply identify the agents who have trouble following up or addressing a specific sort of sales interaction, such as FSBO or expired leads, and provide them with targeted guidance, scripts, and sales training.
#2. Offer public recognition
All you have to do now is make sure that the rest of the team is aware of each Realtor’s outstanding effort. This will not only encourage your best performers to keep striving for the stars, but it will also encourage the rest of the team to want to be an MVP in the future.
To keep a public tally of team incentives, simply construct a visible chart, leaderboard, or white board.
Agents on the Orlando-based Funk Collection team, for example, are awarded with points for doing simple things like making a gratitude call, obtaining outstanding online reviews, or assisting other team members.
The previous contest’s winner received a one-week cruise for two, which isn’t a terrible reward for doing the things you should already be doing to assist meet your commission targets.
#3. Make your office funÂ
Although it may appear simplistic, there are some very genuine advantages to working in a joyful environment. According to Gartner, when employers evaluate employees’ work experience, they are 44 percent more likely to be high performers.
Debra Beagle and her team of market-leading agents transitioned from a regular office to smaller âoffice areasâ seven years ago, before finally settling on a 3,000 square foot café type workplace. Despite the fact that the majority of the agents at The Gary Ashton RE/MAX Advantage team (which, ahem, also happens to be the #1 RE/MAX team in the world) work from home, Debra and the team have noticed an increase in the number of team members coming into the office since the relocation. the â
ââThey’re getting together in groups to motivate and inspire one another. We’ve noticed an increase of millennials wanting to return to work, which has been intriguing. We’ll come in the morning and observe them grouped together in various âpockets.â âThey are clearly ecstatic to be here,â Debra adds.
This principle of keeping things lighthearted extends to the tools your team members use. In fact, research suggests that bad user experience leads to self-blame and stress, both of which are recognized productivity killers.
Don’t have access to a 3,000-square-foot café office? It’s not a problem. Here’s how Brandon Grass, a solo agent, utilized a basic dry erase board to keep himself so motivated that he scheduled 80 listing meetings in just six months.
#4. Use the right technology
Justin Havre, the leader of what is now Canada’s #1 RE/MAX team, previously admitted to making some big blunders early in his career.
One of those blunders, in his opinion, was running his firm with sixteen separate CRMs.
“Agents would be on multiple websites, and there would be some internal fighting because when a lead registered on one of our websites, they were likely to register on another of our websites as well, and then they would land with another agent on the team, causing some animosity and conflict,” Justin recalls.
The appropriate tools can help you ensure that the right leads go to the right agents automatically, while also allowing you to redistribute leads based on agent performance.
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A smart real estate sales software also assists agents in avoiding motivation-draining analytical paralysis by automatically responding to critical questions such as:
It becomes much easier for your agents to stay motivated when they can plainly understand what they need to do to gain and maintain momentum in their business.
#5. Strike the right balance in your performance tracking
In the real estate market, the capacity to monitor team performance and make data-driven decisions about how to expand your business is what distinguishes the wheat from the chaff.
But how you use Realtor performance data to inspire and engage your team members is even more crucial.
According to Gartner research, companies that make performance assessments forward-looking rather than backward-looking can boost employee performance by up to 13%. And drab, difficult-to-understand Excel reports are unlikely to assist you in this endeavor.
Performance reports should be interesting for team members while also displaying the whole history of their work to assist you and your agents in making the best judgments possible for the future.
Then, to keep your staff motivated and on track, all you have to do is back up that feedback with the appropriate coaching and training.
#6. Give your agents the right tools to work with
Let’s start with the obvious: if you’re in the real estate business, you’re missing out big time if you’re not employing a smart sales platform to fuel your firm.
After all, there’s a reason why agents who earn more than $100,000 a year are twice as likely to utilize a CRM as those who earn less than $35,000 a year.
The proper platform should be simple to use and intelligent enough to let your agents spend less time on non-revenue producing activities, which accounts for about 65 percent of their time. Because a highly motivated working atmosphere quickly becomes the norm when your agents are focused and doing what they love.
Try Follow Up Boss if you’re searching for a user-friendly platform that will assist drive your agents to stay on top of their game.
All of the tools and workflows you’ll need to keep your agents on track are included in our free trial. In addition, our 100% human customer support team will assist with you to ensure that the systems, tasks, and procedures that make your team unique remain at the forefront of your organization.
How do you convince customers to buy insurance?
Insurance salespeople typically try to be everything to everyone, but specialist marketing may be a better strategy. Concentrating your marketing efforts on a single business class can benefit you in the following ways:
- Develop a thorough understanding of an industry’s hazards. The dangers are sometimes evident. However, when you gain experience in a particular field, your ability to assess hazards improves.
- Obtain a competitive advantage. Clients are more inclined to select an insurance agent who is knowledgeable in their field.
- Raise your profile. Getting clients the right insurance at a reasonable price is a smart strategy to establish a reputation as the industry’s go-to agent.
- Make money by referring others. As your reputation grows, you may receive more business referrals.
To choose a speciality, start by looking into the different types of businesses that exist in your area. Joining trade organisations, reading industry periodicals to remain up to date on significant problems, and concentrating your networking efforts on people in that field may be beneficial.
What are the 3 factors that form the motivation model?
The following are the three variables that work together to create enthusiasm: Fairness/Equity – People want to be treated equally at work. Achievement – People want to be recognized for doing meaningful, worthwhile work. People want to have strong relationships with their coworkers, thus camaraderie is important.
What do successful insurance agents do?
A competent insurance agent will be able to provide a complete solution that meets the needs of their clients. They are knowledgeable about the products and services they are selling and can convey them in simple terms.