There are dozens of ways to reach your goals and expand your business. A quick scroll through LinkedIn will give you the Cliff’s Notes on how successful team leaders are fueling thir growth or leveraging leads in 2023. But in this article, we’re going to focus on one aspect of successful expansion, and that’s hiring the right support team.
Did you know that behind every successful Public Adjuster, there’s a successful staff member who fits into one of the five categories below?
Maybe you’re a Public Adjuster who wears multiple hats? And hey, we get it! You gotta start somewhere. But slowly adding a support team will allow you to delegate administrative tasks so that you can focus on what’s truly important.
Let’s take a look at the five main categories of support roles:
Front end office support: This person is answering the phones, checking emails, supporting clients, onboarding new claims, and setting up appointments.
Back end office support: This team member is creating and filing claim paperwork, entering claim data into tracking systems, following up with vendors, and sitting on the phone with carriers.
Financial support: What would we do without that one team member who processes payroll, invoices clients, files taxes, manages expenses, and handles the mortgage processing? While this role is sometimes outsourced to a firm, eventually it’s a good idea to get a part-time financial support member on your team.
Management support: Your manager is the glue that holds the office together. Whether they’re running your office staff or running the adjusters - this person will always interface with you first and take the onus off of you.
Business support: Think of this role as several support team members wearing different hats that contribute to the growth of your business. They’re not necessarily IN your office, but they’re focused ON supporting different divisions of your company, i.e.; sales, marketing, strategists, etc…
Now that we’ve established five key supportive roles, let’s talk about growing your team the SMART way. If you’ve never heard of the acronym SMART, you’re not alone.
SMART goals are a list of parameters that guide team members in setting goals and objectives in order to achieve better results. When you’re setting a goal, you want to make sure it includes the following traits:
And then we added two more just for good measure.
Evaluation & Re-adjust.
But we’ll talk more about them later.
So, here’s the burning question: How do you apply these SMART goals to your public adjusting business? That’s simple, actually. Let’s break this down even further.
When you’re in the process of hiring a team member, what they need to provide to you (and vise versa) are these specific parameters. Let’s break down how SMART goals might be applied to projects/ tasks in your PA office.
Specific - Make sure you’re clearly defining the work that you do, and that those outcomes are equally as defined.
Measurable - How can you improve something if you can’t measure it? Being able to track data and identify when tasks are falling out of that “normal” range is crucial to your success.
Achievable - Ensure that the task is able to be completed successfully. This means that your team member has the expertise and resources to complete said task.
Relevant - Is the task you are working on relevant to the company’s overall goals? Make sure you’re completing a task at the right time and with the right resources.
Time Bound - This is where deadlines become your friend. Make sure you’re giving each task a start and stop date. This also allows for better productivity, in terms of time management.
Remember those two additional goals we mentioned earlier? They may not fit into the clever acronym, but they’re equally as important.
Evaluation - In other words, take notes! It’s good to write down how processes are working (or not working) to your (and the company’s) advantage.
Re-adjust - And if the process isn’t working out so well, then it’s time to implement changes to improve outcomes.
Taking these SMART goals into consideration before you hire your support team will ensure that you’re on the right path to expansion and success. Otherwise, hiring blindly could potentially hold you back from reaching and achieving your goals. Apply this acronym to all facets of your business, and you’re certain to reap great results.
For more great tips on how to apply SMART goals to your public adjusting business, check out this podcast: https://blog.claimwizard.com/how-to-grow-your-public-adjusting-support-team-the-smart-way
To learn more about ClaimWizard, schedule a demo with one of our wizards today. If you’re already a client, but need additional help with specific features, you can schedule a private online training session with our education team. We look forward to hearing from you!