Blood Sucking Growth Killers!

Blood sucking growth killers: If you read my last blog post, you know I’m talking about producers!  But, you knew that anyway, didn’t you?

Why is it that we take the best producers in our business and turn them into “Sales Managers”?  Do producers make the best managers?  If you’re a good producer, are you a good coach, teacher and manager?  If you’re a good producer, do you love managing people?

Usually, the drive and people skills that make a good producer don’t translate very well into producer management.  When we make a good producer a manager, we just frustrate that person because the “producers” he’s supposed to manage generally don’t work as hard, and aren’t as gifted as he is.  Plus, he quickly discovers that the time he spends selling makes him more money than the time he spends managing. 

So, when we who are agency owners and producers start hiring producers we have less time to produce ourselves, and, generally, we’re pretty good at it or we wouldn’t have started an agency!  We take time from what we’re good at and convert it into time spent on something we’re not good at.  That really hammers agency growth.  Worse, we don’t enjoy our work as much as we used to. 

I think the only time an agency should even consider hiring a producer is when the agency owner is already spending most of his time selling, has a staff to do all the service work, and has arrived at the place where the only way growth can occur is with more help selling.  Until then, “producers” just produce more headaches than they’re worth!