Agency management: sharing, caring and coaching.

As we all know, our first and foremost responsibility in management is to recruit. This principle has been emphasized by all of the management greats, for without our recruiting efforts, we have nothing to manage.

So what is the first step to recruiting? It is not just the great techniques that we all read and hear about. It is true, however, that agent referrals, warm nominators, seminar recruiting and personal observations are all important procedures, but the first step to successful recruiting is sharing. You as a manager must have such strong feelings toward this business and what it is that you can do for your agents, their families and clients, that you literally must have a missionary zeal for the managing part of this business.

Before I ever considered management, I had become a good recruiter on my own and for a very good reason. I found myself in a career that gave me both a greater personal satisfaction in my own abilities and the opportunity for intellectual growth, along with tremendous freedom to work as hard as I wanted to.

I enjoy work and I look at it as a refining principle; work refines us, as fire refines gold. Being in this career has given me the opportunity to pursue all of my family and church activities, and to be able to participate in several hobbies that mean a lot to me -- with a nice income to be able to enjoy it all.

In order for me to have the lifestyle I have chosen, I use proper time management principles and prioritizing techniques that were taught to me by my father when I was a young man. Tell me who would not want to share with others the freedom, the opportunity, the service to our fellow men all wrapped up in a career like this with one's own friends, family and the clients that one loves?

Belief We must believe we have the greatest career opportunity today. If we do not believe this, we will always have a difficult time recruiting and it will prove to be a drudgery to us. We will experience …