Building a strong personal brand is imperative for P&C insurance producers because a positive brand can improve sales and client retention. Inc. Magazine recently noted, "Personal branding is becoming increasingly important because modern audiences tend to trust people more than corporations." If you want to continue to remain a top producer in the industry, managing your professional reputation is critical. It's also important for your company to ensure you have a positive personal brand as you are the face of the business to all your clients.
Here are a few ways you can begin building your personal brand:
- Keep Your Word. If you say you are going to do something for your client, follow through. We've all experienced times when a representative promised to follow up on our discussion, but we never hear back. If you want your clients to trust and respect you, you must keep your word and communicate throughout the process - even if you can't give them the answer they want.
- Welcome Critical Feedback. Top professionals in every industry want to continue to learn how they can improve their business. Requesting feedback from clients and other professionals shows you are humble enough to want to improve. Clients respect someone confident in their job but always eager to learn and better themselves for improved client relations and business management. It proves to them that you care how your work is impacting them, not just getting your paycheck.
- Create a Social Media Strategy and Presence. Social media is prominent in both our personal and business lives. Utilizing social media to your professional advantage is an easy way to network, connect with clients on an intimate level, and feature thought leadership on relevant/trending industry news. However, you must be cautious when using social media to avoid sharing information you would not want associated with your business.
- Understand Branding Is a Long-term Strategy. Knowing that a personal brand/reputation isn't just created with the development of a social media page or a promotion at your company offers motivation for your continued growth and development. Be patient and work hard at developing your brand, and you will give people an easy way to differentiate you in the marketplace as a trustworthy and go-to source.
Ensure Your Agency's Brand Matches Your Brand
When the agency you work for has an incident that causes negative perceptions, your performance can suffer because clients will associate that negative perception with you as a member of the organization. Even though a strong personal brand can help distinguish you from the company, your agency's brand will impact your business to some degree.
This can be even more frustrating when your agency doesn't provide ownership opportunities and you have no power to influence the organization's reputation. Unlike most traditional agencies, entrepreneurial or lifestyle agencies offer equity in your book of business, higher commissions on both renewals and new clients, influence over management, and ownership options as well as more flexibility.
It's important that the company you work for has similar brand reputation and value goals that you do as a professional. Working for a company that equips you with the appropriate tools can set you and the business up for success. Reputation management is one of these critical tools. Learn more about brand reputation tools and other tools top P&C insurance producers need to accomplish their goals in Inforum's ebook "The Top 5 Insurance Agency Tools Important for Producer Success."
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