How to Become a Highly Effective Business

The best way I can explain this process is to give you a “before” and “after” case scenario.  The “before” is when I used to run my brick-and-mortar.  The “after” is after we became a 100% virtual company.

BEFORE:   THE BRICK-AND-MORTAR PERIOD

We had approximately 21 phone lines; a full time receptionist and an entire faxing department.  We occupied the entire top floor of a local building and had about 23 employees.  The phone never stopped ringing — and never is the truth — in the morning we would have gazillion voice mails from the night before.

The days were excruciating, we literally needed roller blades to get from one side of the office (sales) to the other (service).  We had rows and rows of filing cabinets; files being prepared; applications being processed; commissions being posted; new marketing and enrollment material arriving in boxes from different carriers day after day…I mean it was just an endless marathon, day in and day out.  I was working between 60 to 70 hours per week.  We even had the personal cell number of the DHL guy!

REASON FOR CHANGE:
A few things happened that finally hit me…I HAD TO DO SOMETHING!

1. We could not grow.  The more business we brought in, the more support staff we needed.  The more staff we needed, the more training and office space we needed.  The more office space we needed, the more our expenses went up.  Yes we were bringing in the dough, but it was going out faster than it was coming in.  The more that was going out, the more we needed to generate to cover expenses, therefore the more we had to sell.  Which meant we had to hire more support staff…well, you get the idea…It was an endless vicious cycle
2. I clearly remember a phone call I took from a very upset client.  Her application was taking forever for the carrier to process…but the call went like this:
   • Jackie:  “Hello, may I help you?”
   • Client:  “You f*ng b*tch…when are you going to get my application approved”.  It’s been quite a few years since that incident…but I can still hear her voice.
3. In one of those years, I ended up having five surgeries due to stress (well, four really, one was a c-section).
4. The straw that broke the camel’s back was when the massive amount of hours I was putting into my business cost me my marriage.  Then my teenage son started acting up…that is when I said ENOUGH!

THE MIDDLE:  THE TRANSITION PERIOD
Identifying and eliminating my inefficiencies:

• I closed my individual sales department; this is where most of the client harassment was coming from.  I didn’t go into business to be anyone’s punching bag.  I converted all my individual sales into an online process…if you wanted individual insurance; you had to go to our individual insurance site.  If you were not interested in buying individual insurance online, then you could call another agent.
• We stopped selling all products that were not leveled commissions and eliminated every single product that gave us a one-time commission.    We kept only the group insurance products which paid us year after year as long as we kept the client.  No more servicing a client for which we were paid once…five years ago!
• Eliminated our paper faxing and converted all our faxing into digital systems and processes.
• We implemented 5 intranets; one for each group insurance line.  Every carrier contact, forms, applications, rules, guidelines, underwriting and marketing material were streamlined into each intranet for each product line.
• We implemented a robust CRM.  Every customer call was processed, logged and resolved via the CRM.  Questions were logged into our knowledgebase so that next time another customer called with the same question, our employees would have the answers right then and there.
• We implemented a support desk so that clients could find the answers to their questions themselves.  Additionally we added a chat system to reach us directly online.  All forms, applications, policies and anything related to their group were added to their online account.  They no longer needed to call us; they had everything at their fingertips.
• We stopped meeting physically with our clients.  Everything was now done online or over the phone.  For the few customers that still wanted us to go to see them, and could not get used to the idea of dealing with us virtually…we parted ways.
• The final step was implementing a sophisticated virtual PBX and VoIP phones that allowed us to answer our phones from any location at any time…without a receptionist.
• Since most people realized they did not need to come into the office to do their work, we made the final transition by closing our physical offices and moving the remaining top of the line support staff to work from their homes, including me!

When the entire transition was completed we went from 23 support staff to 4.  Our performance and client retention soared.

AFTER:  100% VIRTUAL

1. New clients can request a quote by going to our website and filling out the quote request form.
2. Groups that don’t want to change carriers or plans and want us to service their accounts can fill out our online digital “Agent of Record” letter.  They digitally sign it, the form comes to us online, it gets processed, and voila we take over their account…all in a matter of seconds.
3. Phones seldom ring.  Clients and carriers got used to dealing with us via our support desk.  They realize it is faster, more efficient and they have records of each transaction.  Additionally, they can see the entire process of their service issue simply by logging into their account.
4. Faxes are integrated into our Support Desk, everything is digital.  All our mail comes via email or support desk.  For the rare paper that arrives, it is immediately scanned and uploaded into our online document system.  It then gets added to the process flow.
5. All our accounting is done online.  Our accountants, access, process, close our book, prepare and file our taxes, online.
6. I work from anywhere, but I have mainly developed the habit of working on service issues twice a day.  At 9:00 a.m. and at 3:00 p.m., I usually invest no more than 1 hour processing and completing all service issues.  There is the rare occasion that takes 2 hours, but that is the exception not the rule.

Not bad huh!

If you want to find out how I did it (and how YOU can do it too), then just enter your email address in the form below for instant access to the “How to Build a Virtual Business Architecture” training video…

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How to Become a Highly Effective Business