Building an Organization with Production

Whether someone is licensed or not, many people wonder, "now that I'm signed up, what should I do first? How do I build a team? What does it take to attract other people to this business?" I have put a great deal of thought towards this and also looked back over my 25 years in business to analyze these questions.

My conclusion is based on personal experience and is absolutely effective. What I am writing is proven if someone is willing to get to work and lead by example. In 1989, after 8 years with the first company I was with in this industry, the owner of the company sold out to a large corporation and it was obvious that the great building opportunity was over. At the same time, I was being recruited by another company and was excited about my new opportunity.

However, I was making good money at the first company, mostly overriding my organization and was naturally concerned about starting over again. My concern was almost entirely negated by my enthusiasm and excitement about a new start and a ground floor opportunity. I believed that the 8 years I had spent learning how to recruit, sell, build and motivate people had ideally positioned me for a new opportunity. In order to maximize my new opportunity and to prove to all potential recruits that it was viable, I concluded that my first and best course of action was to do as much personal production and make money as fast as possible. So, in my first month with the new company, I wrote exactly 30 new sales and earned over $15,000. My second month I wrote 28 sales and made over $14,000. Simply, I proved to myself and everyone else that it was possible to not only succeed but prosper by starting over again. The key was to lead by example, to set the pace, to create an environment where others could prosper, and maybe most of all, to operate with a tremendous sense of urgency.

My organization absolutely exploded. 50 new recruits signed up the second month. By the end of the fourth month we did over $135,000 in premium and within the first 18 months we recruited over 1,500 agents and were writing over $300,000 a month in new business.

In 1991, when Dan Ward and I founded HBW, we started the company from scratch with just the two of us. We didn't choose to bring anyone over from the company I had just left and so we had a big task ahead of us. Once again, we applied the same philosophy of setting the pace and leading by example. We sold like maniacs, out in the field practically every night. We were spending our days prospecting, recruiting, making appointments, sending kits out to prospective agents, etc., and at night we were sitting across the table from clients. Dan and I never did less than $10,000 a month in personal production and in our first year recruited over 200 agents. Also, we stayed full-time in the field for the first 15 months and were doing over $100,000 a month in production before we backed off somewhat from personal production. From the momentum we created, by our fourth year we were recruiting over 1,000 agents a year into our company. We were still personally producing and, as a matter of fact, still produce today; however, the time demands of a rapidly growing company forced us to back off somewhat in order to support the efforts of the people in our company. A great aspect is that our ability to do lots of personal production gave us the confidence that we could make a secure income regardless of what anyone else did.

The bottom line is that, if you want to win and be attractive to other people, being a leader means being first. Make sales, make money, prove to yourself that what we do really works and act with a sense of urgency as if what we do is important, because it is. Recruit new people and get them in the field quickly and effectively. Thinking that you are going to just recruit a few people and sit back and watch the money role in is wishful thinking. Doers are attracted to other doers and people want to work with successful people.

Now, someone doesn't necessarily have to do the volume we did initially in order to get great results. Every person's goals and sensibilities are different. Most likely however, the best recruiters and builders are the pacesetters who show us the way through their efforts and production. Be the pacesetter in your organization.

Barney Hellenbrand
CEO
HBW Insurance & Financial Services, Inc.