March emailer

It is hard to believe as I write this update we are nearing the end of the first quarter already.  Time has flown by, but that is a good thing as it means we are all busy and activity is picking back up.  In the midst of the busyness, we have noticed some intriguing trends already in 2012.

• Companies are returning to and embracing the philosophy of thinking outside of the box regarding candidate interviews.  The idea of having at least a cup of coffee even if the candidate isn’t a “perfect” match on paper can turn into an unexpected reward and we’ve seen it happen more than once in the past three months.

• Social media is playing a bigger role for everyone, not just advertising and public relations consultants.  I have started my personal blog (http://winterboerposts.blogspot.com/) and have been surprised how useful it can be.  I am working with a candidate at an agency right now as a matter of fact whose only function is to provide support to their social media and internet presence to find new ways to attract people to their website and eventually turn into new revenue streams.  If you aren’t already employing some basic ideas to your marketing strategy, we have seen some very successful agencies do this and we can help provide you with a template or point you to some of these agencies who are doing this with some wild success.

• The definition of a producer has been expanding.  Instead of the “all or nothing” philosophy of bringing a book of business or bust is going away.  We have had some clients hire life experience producers, relocating producers with past success but starting from scratch in a new location, younger producers who will need some grooming, and even in a few instances producers who are coming from the carrier side with no previous agency sales experience.  We have also experienced a few cases where the book previously thought to be unable to be purchased was negotiable.  Common sense has returned to some of those conversations, similar to my first point of just having an initial discussion you might not have had 12-18 months ago.

The formerly passive candidates are beginning to surface after what I describe as the “white knuckle” period of the past 18-24 months.  We see this with both client service minded candidates, as well as producers.  The idea is that the market has been so bad the past couple of years that making a change is a risk in and of itself because you expose yourself to the “last in, first out” risk of layoffs or RIFs.  These are mostly really solid candidates that have been missing but now are beginning to explore opportunities.  Producers that aren’t 100% happy are beginning to see the market open up to other opportunities that might provide more advantage than where they’re at currently.  This makes the idea of starting from scratch more appealing because the long term incentives are there again – higher splits, owning part of your book, more account management support, more markets, etc. 


I would welcome your feedback to see if you are seeing the same trends and/or questions regarding where we might be able to employ some of these recruiting strategies together as we move into the second quarter.  As always, I hope to provide some ideas that you might not otherwise be thinking about or could improve upon.  We are trying every day to break out of the mold of “just another recruiting firm” to provide levels of value that no other firm can provide.  We are striving to become true business partners and trusted advisors for all of our clients.  Part of that process is learning where else we might be able to come up with new and innovative ideas together.