You are not competing against your fellow Agent, at least not in the sense your corporate overlords want you to believe. Sure, you're competing for the business that’s up in the air, for the shoppers, for the the movers and the shakers… but you are NOT competing with other Agents in your town, with your carrier or in your territory.
You’re just not.
Corporate may make you THINK you are and they may even throw carrots and competitions out at you to get your competitive juices going, but you're never competing with any other agency.
You're battling and competing with your own Agency. And as long as it’s growing faster than you’re losing money in the beginning, as long as it’s doing better than the day before most days (Sales v attrition), and s long as you’re working on lowering expenses and adding more business and lowering attrition, you will win.
But if you begin to focus on how you can beat "Leaderboard Larry", you’ll wind up spending money to compete that you won’t see the same ROi on should you have just done your normal thing and work the leads properly.
We all want to write as much as we can.
We all want to be winners.
We all want to be leaderboard Larry.
The reality is... you’re not competing with Larry. Larry isn’t paying your bills. Larry isn’t thinking about you, but corporate wants you focused on Larry.
They WANT you chasing him. They don’t care if your margins are 1%, 10%, or 50%. Their margins are the same and they just want more business. So let’s get all the agents thinking they’re only good if they keep up with Larry and get them spending their money.
Who cares? Not our money! And we earn more when we get these hamsters running harder.
Run, hampster! Run!
The reality is you are competing against your own agency each and every day. And if you are growing revenues and bottom lines at a comfortable or better pace for YOU, then you are winning in agency.
You are in no way ever competing with your fellow Agent outside of the current prospect you are trying to earn. All the competitiveness you feel in this industry has been placed on you to make you run harder.
Understand there’s a point where you are seeing a diminished return trying to keep up with leaderboard Larry. And there’s a good chance leaderboard Larry’s finances may not be the healthiest in order for him to keep a crown that in reality means absolutely nothing.
The life you’re providing yourself and your family is your crown.
The agency you’re building is your throne.
Make sure your crown and throne are on point.
Don’t worry about Leaderboard Larry or Corporate Carl pushing you to be more like him.