February 1, 2010

New Compensation Structures on the way

Many of my clients have been clamoring for a fresh new perspective on creating highly incentivized compensation schemes for their producers with the objective of making them more accountable and for providing unlimited earning potential.

So how did we do this? I mixed and matched from similar industries and related sales organizations to come up with what we have termed the, "Declining Base Salary Structure" (DBSS).

The DBSS has five unique characteristics: 1) A base salary for some number of months during Year One; 2) Activity-based benchmarks used to determine quarterly bonuses; 3) a reduced commission rate during the first year only; 4) A declining salary over 24 months commencing in Month 7; 5) A ten year vesting schedule to provide ownership over a long period of time to incentivize a producer to stay a long time.

This structure is being adopted by many local insurance agencies/brokers right now and is changing the way P&C (commercial lines) and Employee Benefits are compensated in the WDC metropolitan area.

Please give us a call and I will send you the spreadsheet.

January 2, 2010

2009 in the rear window

2009 was a wild year in the insurance recruiting business with our entire practice being turned upside down between a P&C focus to an EB (employee benefits) focus. Demand for P&C (commercial lines) professionals essentially disappeared during the course of 2009 whereas demand for EB producers skyrocketed through the roof with unprecedented demand. Just give me a call or send me note if you would like our recently completed 2009 Salary Survey for the WDC metro market.

Regarding 2010, client demand is already building and this is shaping up to be another big year for our recruiting practice. Right now, just in the WDC area alone, we have more than 25 urgent searches for EB producers and supporting cast. Sorry to say, P&C continues to be DEAD in the water. We are hearing that P&C pricing is even getting softer for 2010. One client told us that would need to be a dozen "Katrinas" in 2010 to get back to a hard market once again - wow!