How much Green Time (Money Making Time) do you have in your agency?

If you don't take the time to create wealth then all of your time will be spent fighting off poverty! I've heard this statement my entire life, it started with my father and continues on today through me to my children.

In business it is critical that you identify Green Tasks and Times. What is a Green Task? It is a critical task that drives or protects revenue in the agency. Examples would be: lead follow-up calls, conducting policy review appointments, making cancellation/termination calls, visiting business referral partners, etc.

So obviously Green Time is the time that is allocated and scheduled to perform Green Tasks

It is super easy to fall into a reactionary mode when it comes to being an insurance agency. By setting aside Green Time the agency can increase its efficiency, complete task that increase the agency's overall production, and develop habits that will easily transfer to other staff members.

There are two types of discipline in an insurance agency: self discipline and accountability. (I never rely on someone else's self-discipline to determine my success!) Green Time gives those that are self disciplined the ability to perform their tasks while others cover their back. For those that are not self disciplined and need accountability, it gives them a blocked off time to perform critical tasks that they might not schedule themselves. It also gives the agency leader or the person responsible for monitoring the undisciplined staff member the established time they need to make the undisciplined staff member accountable for their actions.

Often when I force the staff members of agencies we have acquired to perform Green Time Tasks and their efforts are actually monitored and tracked, we quickly discover that they are not nearly as knowledgeable or trained as they pretended to be with the previous leadership.

Let’s look at some of the problems and identify some easy to implement solutions related to this topic.

 

Problem – Agents don’t know what tasks produce the most revenue in an agency

Solution – If you are using a tracking spreadsheet or lead management tool, simply pull the report and identify where your lead sources are coming from and which source produced the most sales.

(Members a lead tracking spreadsheet is provided for you on Process 05 of the video and document library. If you prefer to use an automated tool, we recommend you look at Blitz Lead Manager – www.blitzleadmanager.com)

 If you can’t easily identify where your sales are coming from, choose a prospecting campaign and assign at least one hour a couple of times a week to get it done.

 

Problem – Agencies don’t know the main tasks that a licensed sales producer should consider as green time tasks.

Solution – Here are a few of the tasks that the partner agencies of the Williams Family Agency Investment Group assign as Green Time Tasks to licensed sales producers: lead follow-up and quoting, claims follow-up calls, new customer follow-up process, emergency contact follow-up calls, cancellation/termination process, x-sell prospecting calls, office visits to business referral partners, etc.

• (Members – Use the daily Schedule and the complete list of Green Time tasks located on Process 01A of the video and document library)

 

Problem – Every time we try to conduct green time it gets interrupted.

Solution – You are not truly conducting green time. Green time means you have prepared the environment to avoid interruptions. Examples of this would be: the person in green time has been moved from the front of the agency to an office in back, everyone has been briefed to only take messages for the person in green time, the person conducting green time knows they can’t take customer calls or handle walk ins during green time, if you are a one person shop, you lock the doors, and let the phone go to voicemail during your one hour of green time, you take your cell phone and make calls from your car, you hire an answering service to take messages for the agency during your green time, etc.

 

The tasks you are performing during green time should only be revenue generating or revenue protecting tasks. Green time is not to be used for filing, scanning, cleaning, admin catch-up or any other non revenue producing task.

 

As I stated earlier, there are two types of discipline in an agency: self-discipline and accountability. Used effectively and consistently, green time will give you the time and accountability that is needed for an agency to grow, you just have to muster up enough self-discipline to start the process.

 

Billy R. Williams, PhD

President – Inspire a Nation Business Mentoring and Williams Family Agency Investment Group