Unintended consequence – You make yourself sound old and out of touch with the needs of today's buyer. By focusing on your (hi)story, you miss an opportunity to let your visitor/prospect see how you might improve their story.

The fix – Bury your story further back in the site and put success stories front and center showing how you've brought meaningful results to clients. Make it obvious how you can improve the story of your prospect.

Providing free quotes

Likely intention – Demonstrate value by attempting to save your prospect a little money.

Unintended consequence – You encourage the prospect to evaluate you on the one thing that makes you just like everyone else. You are asking to be evaluated on something you don't control, and you're giving the advantage back to the incumbent.

The fix – Educate the prospect on how the quoting process works and help them understand what they've traditionally used as broker selection is actually the process for evaluating the carrier/plan design. Help them to see that they need to choose a broker based on the broker's ability to bring value—not just to the quoting process, but also to the broader business needs of the company.

Segregating the office by working groups

Likely intention – Create efficiencies by focusing on the primary role of the position. This includes physical seating, communication/meetings, and goal setting (e.g., benefits producers separated from commercial producers, producers separated from the service team, etc.).

Unintended consequence – This approach has a certain amount of logic and would be fine if you were nothing more than a transactional business getting quotes and fixing problems. However, transactional agencies are the most vulnerable right now; client sees them as little more than vendors that are easily replaced.

The fix – Break down your silos. Instead of organizing around the transaction, focus on the results your clients need you to deliver (see fix under "Providing free quotes" above). Organize the office—physically, goal setting, who sits in on meetings, role clarity, accountability—to ensure you are able to predictably and efficiently deliver needed results to your clients. Do this and you become an indispensible partner for them.

Overly rich producer renewal commission (and too little on new business)

Likely intention – Attract the best producers.

Unintended consequence – Producers reach a comfortable income level and become complacent. You end up with overpaid and under-qualified service people.

The fix – Increase your commission split for new business, reduce it for renewals, and provide significant bonuses for exceptional new business written.

Lack of a formal sales process

Likely intention – Allow producers to be the "professionals" they are by letting them use their natural ability to earn business.

Unintended consequence – Because you have nothing around which to train, you end up with way too many failed producer hires. Your producers fall into the same trap as everyone else without a sales process and depend on a spreadsheet as a way to earn business (see "Providing free quotes" above).

The fix – Take inventory of the multitude of ways you can help a business owner, including insurance and non-insurance solutions. Build a process that helps those businesses see the larger needs and opportunities you can help them address and how it will bring improvement to their business.

Give away value added services.

Likely intention – To differentiate yourself from your competition and deliver more value.

Unintended consequence – Because these VASs aren't aligned with a specific need, nor delivered with effective implementation strategies (see "Lack of a formal sales process" above), they end up not being used. Instead of delivering value, they become a source of frustration for your client and wasted money for you.

The fix – Remind yourself the value of anything is reflected in its price. If you don't value it enough to charge for it, your client won't value it either. Start by understanding the impact the solution can have, communicate it clearly, and don't be afraid to charge a fair fee for fair value. You likely paid for the ability to offer the VAS—why wouldn't the client see that same value?

Promoting that "service" is your differentiator

Likely intention – Convince your prospects you care more than anyone else and make them feel they're in good hands.

Unintended consequence – Good service is NOT a differentiator; it is a minimum expectation. You reinforce the prospect's belief that all brokers are the same because EVERY broker promises better service than anyone else. By emphasizing your ability to meet minimum expectations, you miss an opportunity to show your real ability to deliver value.

The fix – Step back and look at your business and identify the real ways you're bringing value differently from your competition. If there are no clear answers, then go back to the "Lack of a formal process" step above.

These are just a few examples of the unintended consequences we expose ourselves to by not challenging the traditional agency business model. As you can see, too many of these issues are interconnected and become a cascade of bad outcomes. And notice that they all, either directly or indirectly, can be linked back to a lack of a formal, buyer-focused, value-based sales process. When you build this, everything else will fall into place.

Now, more than ever before in the evolution of our industry, the challenges you're facing require you to be much more purposeful in the ways you compete. Unintended consequences aren't as survivable as they've been in the past. Don't let your own demise be the next unintended consequence.