Where Do You Hire Your Agents From?

[dhowell]

As a practice, I already mentioned that I had success with business school college students, but that their life cycle was shorter due to their matriculation from college.

On a different note, I've successfully hired from temp agencies. This practice more than not, brought in an untrained resource. It took longer for them to get licensed and trained, but their life cycle was almost 2 years. After a decade of this process, I've surmised that the cost of doing business includes the fact that many good employees will create oppportunites and leave.

While the 2 years sounds like a short cycle, the upside is the lower expense load hiring from a temp agency for 90 days. Another upside is that within the 90 days, I sent a number of people packing, and it is a "no foul" play for everyone concerned.

 

[glenbeck]

I have helped to Recruit a couple thousand agents / brokers. I had success with "old school" display ads in newspapers, followed by phone interviews and invitations to training seminars.

We would conduct 3 day training, A-Z , product knowledge, presentation, marketing.

This process also helped to "cure" the looky-loo's. In addition we'd charge a $300 attendance fee, refunded with your 1st application. The $300 did not cover the cost of running Ads, providing Hotel & Meals, but, it eliminated a lot of the garbage you deal with in Recruiting. (of course this was recruiting done to a captive agency with leads/ preset appts provided, and no inexperienced agents were hired).

I like this approach. Get a guy to make a "Committment" to travel to your training school. To spend a few bucks and some Time. If he isn't willing to do this, then i take a Pass.

Bottom line, whatever you choose, spend some money, have a plan to weed out undesirable prospects Or deal with 100's of time-wasting hours.

This is based on my personal experience & opinion. 20 years in the industry, take it for what it's worth.

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

That's one of the best ways of recruiting I've seen on this board. I remember hosting a free training session in Atlanta - food also provided and had a lot of emails and phone calls about whether they'd have to pay for parking.

 

[moonlightandmargaritas]

I remember hosting a free training session in Atlanta - food also provided and had a lot of emails and phone calls about whether they'd have to pay for parking.

Don't leave us in suspense...did they?

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

Yes, they did.

 

[RJT Consulting]

Actually, I provide the largest majority of the leads. My agents are on a 50/50 split first and renewal. I spend most of my time generating leads through my efforts and then distributing them to the agents in accordance to seniority. It's very rare that I have to do any selling. Instead, my time is spent developing relationships and assisting my agents in strategic planning. It's not your typical setup but has worked very well for me.

RJT, I am in the Peoria area so we are sort of neighbors. I'll ponder your question but I would agree finding agents is tough enough and tougher yet in this economy. What kind of commission split on P & C are you offering and are you able to come up with leads on the commercial side other than giving the new guy the yellow pages of Champaign - Urbana? These are the kind of things I would be looking at.