It’s that time of year again. Time for you to take a constructive look at your performance in 2021 and see how your annual business and marketing goals align with reality. Here’s a cohesive “end-of-year checklist” for independent insurance agents and business owners.
Identifying Metrics
As you’re running your end-of-year reports, review your metrics for growth. Throughout the year, what goals have you set for your agency? How are you measuring performance and successes?
You’ll want to run financial reports but also look at other metrics like client growth, conversions, website activity, lead generation, etc. Look at data from analytics tools to determine where you have been successful in reaching your goals and where you have failed.
If you’ve been consistently reviewing your marketing campaigns and business strategies to assess performance and adapt according to the data, you shouldn’t be too surprised by your end-of-year reports.
Remember, failure is an opportunity for growth, so don’t get too frustrated if you haven’t achieved all goals set at the beginning of the year.
Third-Party Vendors
Be sure to run reports and check the performance of any work you have outsourced, particularly if you’re using an agency to run your digital marketing and online presence. Have they delivered on their promise? Are they providing a service that is in line with your expectations? Are they a good use of your marketing and business budget?
Review work done by your accountants to make sure that all of your finances are in order and all your taxes are being paid on time. While you may be entrusting accountants and tax attorneys to handle these things for you, as a boss, it’s your job to keep tabs on everyone working for you, whether they are a third-party vendor or a direct employee.
Processes and Company Culture
Get feedback from your staff regarding company culture, processes, and workflow. While numbers and charts give great insight, if your employees aren’t happy or you are not working efficiently and effectively, the rest of your efforts will fall short.
Your end-of-year review should look at your agency from every angle to give you a clear and realistic overview of how your agency is doing.
Once you know your current situation and how you got there - good and bad - you can start to make adjustments and plan for 2022. We’ll go over that in another article.
Celebrate Successes
Finally, don’t forget to celebrate your successes, both big and small. You’ll spend plenty of time tweaking your strategies and marketing campaigns to correct mistakes, so it’s important to take time out to celebrate.
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