Think of your insurance agency as a restaurant for a moment. Generally, your favorite restaurants have both diversity and consistency with a variety of dishes, but not so many choices as to be overwhelming. Rare are the restaurants that can serve great Chinese food, pizza, and Greek food all at once. Rare too are the restaurants that put all of their focus on a single menu item. If that item falls out of favor, they won’t be in business for long.
Most restaurants specialize in a particular type of cuisine. This makes it easier to order the supplies and ingredients for dishes, and it also generates more competency in the staff. The cooks understand how to make the dishes that customers want.
Providing Diversity in Your Insurance Products
Likewise, as an insurance agency, you want to provide enough diversity in your insurance products to attract a wide range of insurance clients. While you might provide auto insurance, it’s quite possible that you also offer home insurance, for example.
You probably offer a number of specialty variations to suit clients’ needs. For instance, you may serve clients who have vintage cars or special sports equipment and who need coverage for those items. Providing diverse insurance products ensures that:
- You attract a wide variety of clients to your business
- Your clients find many types of insurance to buy from your business, such as home and auto
- Clients refer their friends to your business because they know that they’ll find what they need there
Providing Consistency in Your Insurance Products
On the other hand, providing consistency in your insurance products is also essential. Both your employees and your clients need to know what range of insurance products you sell.
You know that you’ve gone too far in the variety of insurance products that you offer when:
- People are confused about what types of insurance you offer
- Your employees require a lot of extra training in order to learn all of the details of your products
- Employees have a hard time remembering the details of products when talking to clients
- Your knowledge or lack thereof becomes a liability risk, since your employees could make an error or omission due to their lack of understanding of your products.
Becoming known in your field as the people who sell specific types of insurance isn’t a bad thing. It allows you to build competency in key areas and to become known as the insurance agency that sells certain types of insurance. Creating content and competency to teach people about what you sell is a powerful way to become known as a reputable insurance agecncy.
According to Risk Heads, “your customers benefit from specialization because it gives them added security in circumstances when they are most vulnerable. For your business, the main reason specialization is important is because it elevates you above your competition.” While you want to offer up diverse products, you also want to be able to know what you offer and understand it inside and out.
At American Agents Alliance, we help your insurance agency build its competency. We provide you with networking and educational opportunities that help your employees grow in their understanding of your insurance products. Contact us today to discover how we can help your independent insurance agency grow.
