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Business wisdom said, “The customer comes first.”

Terrible idea. Unless you’re a solopreneur, your customers are dealing with your employees. If your employees don’t feel valued, customers won’t have a good experience.

So the wisdom evolved: “We put our people first.”

I bought into that idea for a long time. It worked pretty well. But something about the either/or proposition never quite felt complete.

Then it came to me: the mindset necessary to produce satisfied, loyal employees is the same mindset necessary to produce satisfied, loyal customers.

It turns out that employees and customers are people. We’re in the people business.

How often do you hear about the importance of customer satisfaction?

And how hard do you and your team work to deliver it?

And how many customers leave anyway?

Way too many, I’m guessing.

The truth is that customer satisfaction doesn’t translate into growth and profitability the way the gurus say it will. Why? Because the customer sees a better price and assumes that the service will be good enough. And if they’re wrong, by the time they figure it out, it will be too late for you.

Profit is virtuous.

Yes, it is.

And profit—not revenue, not headcount—is the key to everything you want in your business.

By the time this article is finished, you’ll be thinking about profit all the time. You and your insurance agency will be much better off as a result.

I know you have a ton of metrics to watch. Many of them don’t tell a story and don’t help you make critical decisions. They just stress you out.

This one will change your life: Custom Acquisition Cost, or “CAC”.

How will CAC make you smarter?

CAC answers 3 questions that you probably can’t answer today. And without these answers, you’re guessing about where to spend your money. The 3 questions are:

1. How much do I currently spend to get a new customer?

2. How long does it take me to break even?

3. Where should I be spending?

This might be jarring for some readers. 10% will get it, and 1% will do something about it. Those who do will still compete for sales but not revenue, profit, or market share. We’re talking massive advantage.

“Insurance Agency” is not a business model. It’s a business. And that matters WAY MORE than you think.

Matt Wagner of NAIFA Business Performance Center Partner, Client Focus, shares what agents and advisors need to know about AI and what it means for the industry.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) for the masses came online in December. It’s called ChatGPT. You can communicate with it at openai.com. It gives impressive answers to hard questions in seconds. Many think it will put Google search out of business. Maybe put schools out of business. AI is coming like a wrecking ball for repetitive, commodity work.

What about insurance agents? I was going to share my thoughts, but then it hit me.

Why not just ask AI?

So I did.

Matt Wagner of NAIFA Business Performance Center Partner, Client Focus, shares nine ideas on how to drive high-value sales and help grow your business.

When I was an engineer, I won sales where the sales team couldn’t. Customers felt like I understood them and their ideal outcomes, which was true.

These 9 ideas have helped me drive high-value sales, in addition to:

• building trust
• maximizing customer lifetime value
• generating a lot of referrals and repeat business
• making me love my job