If you're in Insurance Soup's private Facebook group, you get to see that Mike and Taylor are always popping on to talk about ways to help agents with whatever they need to make the most of their careers as agents. And if you follow any of the brands under the Insurance Soup umbrella, you know that Mike, Taylor, Brian, Matt and CJ are always talking about how important systems and processes are to creating a successful agency.
Last week, we posted a quick video of Taylor's tips for making the most of your work day but we want to give you all the details here. Check out how Taylor spends his day in the office and what he recommends to agents as the most productive way to structure their days.
Most agents let their day control them instead of controlling their day What does that mean?
When you are constantly being reactive, you have no control. You can not go through your day trying to squeeze in production time. It will drive you into a stage of being stagnant or to where your production starts to actually decline.
It only takes a few small tweaks to gain that control back. Structure your day down to every valuable minute. That doesn’t mean you have to be insane with it, but don’t let time be wasted.
Show up an hour early - this time is when you can accomplish twice as much because you have zero distractions. No email, no voicemails, no social media, nothing other than prepping quotes for the day.
The next 2 hours focus ONLY on selling. No answering phones, no email, no social media. This may sound crazy to some but if you were in a very important meeting for 2 hours, you would not being doing any of those things either. Anyone who called during this time, it’s easy to overcome it. “Hi Mrs. Jones, I apologize I missed your call earlier. I was in a very important meeting but I’m working on your X now...”
After that, get a sheet of paper and make two columns. Left side urgent, right side non-urgent. Go through emails and voicemails and put them in the appropriate column. The urgent gets done right away for the next 30-60 minutes. Not after lunch, not later, but right then.
By now, it should be around 11am for most people. Use the next 30-60 minutes to call who you didn’t reach during the first round or to set appointments for the afternoon/next day.
QUICK LUNCH.
When you return, back in sales mode for the next 2 hours. Only focus on selling.
The next hour, work the non urgent items.
It’s now around 3:30pm and back to production mode until normal closing hours.
Your day isn’t done. Stay an extra hour to wrap up any loose ends. Dont put it off until tomorrow. Do them and get them done.
This schedule won’t work for everyone but if you’re currently in “reactive mode”, this will make a massive difference.
You just took control of your day! You dedicated 6 hours of your day to being in production mode and 3 hours to service.
By showing up an hour early and staying an hour late, you just opened up 25% more time if you were only working 8 hour days. That’s an extra work day a week you just opened up. That’s 4 extra days a month and 48 extra days a year you created.
Once you control your day, you control your production.