We mentioned the importance of setting goals in our last article, and said that the goals we set for our insurance businesses must be SMART: specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely.
In this article, we’re going to delve deeper and talk about four different types of goals that are a must-have for every insurance agent. These goals should be SMART, and are what you need if you want to take our insurance business to the next level:
1. Overall Business Goals
Having comprehensive goals for your insurance business gives you direction and helps you focus on where you want to go or what you want to achieve. This doesn’t only apply to insurance agencies, but also to agents.
The goals could be how much you want to earn by the end of the year, how many new clients you want to sign up within a certain period, the percentage by which you want to reduce your ongoing business expenses this year, and so on.
As an individual, you probably want to look at your past performance before you set your new business goals. For example, looking at how much commission you made in the first quarter of 2020 will help you set specific goals for the first quarter of 2021. It will show you where you were last year and give you direction on where you want to be.
Similarly, if you have an agency, you can analyze previous data to help you set your new business goals. You can also analyze your competitors’ data, especially if their businesses are older than yours. For example, to come up with growth forecasts, you can look at the data of how your competitors grew over time. This will help you to set realistic goals.
2. Sales Goals
These goals are a must-have because, as an insurance agent, you’re in the business of sales. They’re usually tied to specific sales KPIs and are often tied to the overall business goals. Some great examples of sales goals are:
- Increasing monthly or yearly sales/revenue
- Decreasing the rate of customer turnover by a certain percentage
- Increasing the rate of customer acquisition by a certain percentage
- Increasing the profit margins for your insurance business by a certain percentage.
- Increasing the number of qualified leads
- Reducing customer acquisition costs
Ensuring that these goals are specific makes it easier to achieve them.
As a side note, keep in mind that it’s not just you who will use sales goals to measure your success or the success of your business. The insurance companies and insurance bodies, like AKI, will also use sales goals to award/reward the best performing agents.
3. Marketing Goals
With more than 10,000 licensed agents in Kenya, marketing is necessary if an insurance agent or agency wants to have competitive advantage in the market. However, you can’t market effectively without strategic marketing goals.
As mentioned in our last article, marketing goals are described in the marketing plan. These goals need to be measurable if you want your marketing efforts to be fruitful. Examples of marketing goals are:
- Building brand awareness for your insurance agency
- Increasing customer engagement, and so on.
- Generating a large number of qualified leads
- Increasing sales
Basically, you should set marketing goals that help you achieve your sales goals.
4. Operational Goals
There’s no business that can run effectively without operations. For the insurance business, operational activities mainly involve customer service activities. They include:
- Filing and following up claims
- Sending thank you emails or messages for all referrals
- Sending renewal reminders to clients
- Sending clients good wishes on their birthdays or during public holidays
- Calling clients or prospects
- Prospecting
- Attending meetings, and so on
These activities are conducted with the goal of;
- Achieving customer satisfaction
- Improving turnaround time
- Improving administrative efficiency, and so on.
Operational goals should guide you to conduct your business effectively, to enable you to provide great customer service. Setting these goals ensures that you can evaluate your business and make service improvements where necessary, so that your business can function better.
The Agencify app in development will come in handy when it comes to setting overall business goals, sales goals, marketing goals, and operational goals. To learn more about it, send an email to dennis.njenga@agencify.insure or call 0768 759 399.
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