Elite Sales Force

As president of the Insurance Brokers Association of Canada (IBAC), I am pleased to announce the launch of the Elite Force–Best Practices Insurance Producer School in Canada in 2009. Looking at the education courses being offered within the industry over the last number of years, we realized there was no specific course targeting insurance brokers on the selling side of the equation. We asked ourselves the question:Why not? Is selling not important to our profession? Brokers from across the country also wondered why there was no specific course tailored to sales.

Instead of re-inventing the wheel, we looked outside of Canada and discovered there was such a course offered in the United States by our coun- terparts, the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America (IIABA).They have generously offered to make it available to us. We have customized it to the Canadian broker marketplace and will be offering it beginning in February 2009.

The program covers everything from prospecting to data gathering and closing. Participants in the Elite Force will learn the full psychology of the sale, not just tricks or gimmicks. We will teach personality traits, negotiation skills, time management, consultative relationship building, building credibility and more. Several popular sales techniques are reviewed. Guest speakers are brought in. Case studies and the students’ own actual experiences are discussed among the group so they learn from each other’s successes and failures. Plus, they learn about presentation skills, using the Web for prospecting, and how to set, measure and track their sales goals.

The program has been delivered in the United States for more than 10 years. It is the most comprehensive insurance sales training course available.

Graduates of the course in the American industry averaged more than $62,000 in first year commissions! Data from the United States shows us that first-year graduates’ commissions increased between US$15,000 and US$269,000. If this is not an incentive for both brokers as well as their employers, I fail to see what is.

The Elite Force intends to develop skills in order to encourage life-long learning in insurance and sales. This limited-seating program is designed to train the best and brightest in our industry in the most elusive of skills — sales. The Elite Force program is designed to be complete training for young brokers who have a basic understanding of sales and need the foundation of a strong education to transform them into superstars in production. The course is recommended for brokers who have fewer than three years’ experience in sales and less than five in the industry. The Elite course builds accountability into the daily habits of the student.

The IBAC Canadian program will be 12 days of classes, held three days per quarter, in Toronto in February, June, August and December 2009. Class sizes will be limited to conference rooms so that students will receive individual attention during and after the classes.

Provincial broker associations will contact students monthly via e-mail. Students will be required to report monthly sales activities to their association; that activity will be reviewed quarterly with the facilitator.

One of the most successful advertisers in Britain once said: “Selling is not an event, but a process . . . It has a beginning, a middle, but never an end. You improve it, perfect it, change it, even pause it. But you never stop it completely.”

This course is intended to provide tools for brokers to improve their technique, perfect it or change it. We are pleased to offer it and look forward to hearing success stories in the years to come. Please contact the manager of professional development at IBAC for further information about this course.

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“Selling is not an event, but a process. It has a beginning, a middle, but never an end. You improve it, perfect it, change it, even pause it. But you never stop it completely.”