"Just in Time" Growth Model

How often does an insurance buyer, expecting to spend at least $400,000, pick up the phone just days before the renewal, place the order with someone he's never met?...with an agency he had never heard of?...and disrupt a twenty-year agency relationship?

Well it's happening more and more all the time. I heard about this concept last week. It's what others call the "Just-in-Time" business model. Let's start with the “why."

People want what they want. Typically, they want it "on-demand," hassle free, high-quality and with guarantees (thank you, Amazon and Google!).

In this case the insurance buyer was happy with his current agent. They were friends. He just had a sneaking suspicion he could get better workers compensation results. 

He made a few calls to his industry friends for their thoughts.  That's how he learned about an agency offering a proven workers compensation solution that packaged strategy, training and technology; the entire packaged solution was ready for immediate delivery. He had no time for a sales pitch. He simply needed help buying the collective solutions from the new agency team. The fast track was online and over the phone. With an endorsement from a highly regarded industry peer, he was on board.

So here's an overview of this emerging model...

1. Urgency trumps process - The consumer no longer endures the traditional insurance sales process to get what he or she wants. In today's "now" economy, the successful agency stands ready to deliver immediately when the customer initiates. Rapid response will rule.

2. A group solution – The solution is brought collectively by a team rather than through one individual. It’s a pre-planned, well-developed, packaged solution that goes beyond the purchase and placement of insurance. And the interaction of agency team players works like a choreographed performance.

3. Eliminates unnecessary meetings – Consumers are looking for expediency. A well-orchestrated online, tele-experience can simulate the simplicities of “going direct.” When you do have an in-person meeting, it must deliver huge value for the lives of the participants that they could not have achieved in any other way.

4. Proven results – The packaged solution has to work and, in fact, blow them away with value (again think Amazon, Disney and Apple). Otherwise the client will just as quickly slip out of our hands. It must address the deepest needs and be fully supported by super easy (maybe even fun) technology and cyber speed.

The faster we adapt to the “Just-in-Time” growth model, the bigger the opportunity to dominate our marketplace.

But this has to happen now! There’s no time to wait. Pick your most high value prospect or client outcome and vet it through the Just-in-Time model. What will it take for us to dominate our market?