Learn Directly From Your Competitors to Grow and Succeed.

Posted on April 19, 2012 Written by 6 Comments

I recently attended a Professional Sales Forum hosted by our local chamber of commerce and moderated by Kevin Woods of Woods Consulting.  The topic was how to become a trusted advisor to your clients.  This was a great topic and something that all insurance professionals strive to attain. 

There were four tables with about 7-8 people at each table.  The attendees were from all types of different industries, but my table was filled with three other insurance professionals who technically are my competitors. 

I know for many people, this would be a scary proposition.  Sharing ideas about improving your business is great, but with your competitors?  If you are in a room with others that could potentially steal your business it always creates a slight amount of tension and I think that is normal, but have you thought about the benefits of talking with competitors in your industry? 

The insurance world is a tough business and competition is fierce, but the reality is that at the end of the day we are really on the same team.  That team is called, “serving your clients with excellence.” 

Good insurance agents always rise to the top.  If you have competitors that do a great job with their clients, you probably aren’t going to get them anyway so you might as well try to learn from them.  I don’t expect anyone to give away their “one magic sales secret” to their rival competitor, but the let’s be realistic, there never is and never will be “one magic sales secret”. 

If you are building your business correctly by finding the right clients, differentiating yourself, providing a high level of expertise, and becoming “a trusted adviser” the fear of competition dwindles.  You will have confidence in what you do and how well you do it.  Also, there are enough lower quality insurance agents that are asking for us to take their business. 

Building quality relationships with others in your own industry (especially competitors) is one of the best ways to grow, learn, and improve.  Who else can you talk to besides others in your own office that deal with many of the same struggles you do?  Your competitors wake up every day with similar challenges and similar opportunities.  Learning from each other can create a win-win situation. 

Don’t fear your competition.  Learn from them and share your experiences.  Together we can all improve to better serve our clients. 

"the glare"

Do you talk or get along with your competitors or do you just give them “the glare”.  I would love to hear your story.

 

 

 

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  • http://www.arborinsurance.com Kimberley J. Miller

    I think this is a great post. I think too often we work against other agents instead of with them. I have been involved in a business networking group where there is one category per person. (So you have limited competition in the group) Well naturally I sell both personal lines and commercial lines. But in this networking group I only market the personal lines side. There is a commercial agent in the group. Well I thought we would be competitors, but it turned out that we had more referrals to send back and forth to each other than any other business type in the room. His carriers just had a different appetites from mine. We could help each other out on several accounts both personal and commercial. It turned out to be a win win.

    • http://brentmkelly.wordpress.com brentmkelly

      Thanks for the kind words Kim. I am a member of BNI as well and used to be in a group with a personal and commercial lines agent. I agree that many times you can actually create great synergy with competitors if we create the proper relationships.

  • nathan ehrhardt

    Brent,

    Interesting concept and actually as I sit and think about I probably too often use the “glare” internally. After reading your post I found a moment of clarity where I have become more open minded about visiting with competitors especially my good ones on how we could have some sort of synergy between us and our industry while still competing.

    • http://brentmkelly.wordpress.com brentmkelly

      Thanks Nate. Gold luck. I think you will find many competitors more accommodating than you think.

  • ajperisho747

    Nobody can replicate you, so they can never compete :-)

    • http://brentmkelly.wordpress.com brentmkelly

      Amen.