How To Turn A 3% Improvement Into 40% Growth For Your Agency

If you're planning on staying in business for awhile, you already understand the value in growing your agency. And since you're taking the time to read this, you're obviously interested in growth. Increasing the number of clients you bring into your agency each month has a direct impact on your bottom line - how profitable your agency is. Most agents think that in order to grow their agency they need to find the "next big thing" to revolutionize their business and get them to the next level, but nothing could be further from the truth.

The truth is, trying to hit a home run and catapult your agency towards success with one shot is often what drives agents out of business or keeps them stuck where they are. A home run would be nice, but most of the time if you swing for the fences you end up striking out. Too many agents invest a lot of time, effort and energy into one big program that ends up not working out. If you want consistent growth in your agency, you need to focus on the little things - hitting the singles. The singles take a lot less time and effort AND if you do it right, you can turn 3% more effort into 30% annual growth in your agency!

From 3% improvement to 30% growth, where's the magic? Whether you know it or not, there are only 6 major profit drivers in your agency that earn you a profit from new clients. Your goal is to lead clients through these 6 steps in order to grow your agency. The 6 drivers are:

1. Lead Generation: How many client leads you are producing
2. Request A Quote: How many leads you convert to prospects that request a quote
3. Deliver A Quote: How many prospects who request a quote follow through to review the quote on a favorable basis
4. Close The Sale: How many prospects become clients
5. Cross-Sales: How many of your new clients do you cross-sell into additional lines of business
6. Referrals: How many of your new clients provide you with referrals

For a typical agency, here is the breakdown of numbers from initial lead to closing the sale:

What if you could improve each of the 6 profit drivers by an average of just 3%, how would that affect your business? This is where the real magic happens! There are a plethora (one of my favorite words) of things you can do to improve your numbers by a measly 3%, and I'll save that topic for another time, but if you average 3% improvement in each of the 6 profit drivers, you've effectively made 18% worth of improvements. BUT, because of the magic of compounding (something you should be talking to all of your clients about!) each 3% improvement gets bigger as the number from the previous profit driver improves. The result is pure magic - a whopping 34% growth for your agency from a measly 3% improvement!

The best part about a 3% improvement is that you don't have to kill yourself to get it done. You don't have to go out and find the next big thing and you never have to strike out! You can still swing for the fences if the opportunity presents itself, but most of the time it's the small, steady improvements that add up to a big increase in your agency.

Take a little time to break down each of the 6 profit drivers and figure out how to improve it by just 3%. At the end of the year you'll be amazed at the extra 34% of new clients in your agency!