Looking for a producer? Poach association executives from your target markets

Brokers looking to acquire good producers should consider poaching association executives from the brokerage’s target markets.
Al Diamond, president of Agency Consulting Group, offered the tip in his seminar at the 91st Annual Convention of the Insurance Brokers Association of Ontario (IBAO) on Oct. 21, entitled Paying for Productivity-Acquiring, Compensating and Managing Producers in the 21st Century and Incentive Compensation for Brokerages.
While a majority of the seminar dealt with growth-focused compensation methods for producers and non-producers alike, Diamond’s presentation contained a few tips for brokerages looking for new producers. One was to find well-connected experts in the brokerage’s target market.
“Association execs from our target markets are prime candidates,” said Diamond. “They hate where they are. They are under a great deal of stress, and they are looking for some place where they can use the skills or relationships that they have.
“So if you insure in construction, and there is a construction trade association,” approach an executive on the association, Diamond suggested. “They are respected, and they know everybody [in that trade].”
Diamond added that people who aren’t from the insurance industry have the potential to be good producers. “We can train insurance,” he said. “We can’t train sales.”
Diamond counseled not to poach producers from other agencies and brokerages. “Do you like the quality of producers you encounter in other agencies and brokers?” one of his presentation slides asks rhetorically.
“They go from one to another [brokerages], spend four to five years in each, they take the same $100,000 [worth of business] with them from one to another,” Diamond said. “They alienate your inside staff. They go after your underwriters. They are a little bitter.”
A caveat is producers on the fast track to ownership in other brokerages. “You will find some in people in other brokerages who were told one thing – ‘You will become an owner if you are successful’ – and it never happens,” Diamond said. “Make friends with them, because they could very well be your successor at your brokerage.”