I would say one of the biggest things that we have done that has been successful in retaining quality staff members is to really try to find out what their strengths are.

When it comes to hiring staff, because I have a small firm, I would not claim to be an expert by any stretch of the imagination. I truly believe I have a superstar team that we built. That process started with hiring an individual that originally thought she wanted to try sales. As that journey was moving on for that individual, a service position opened up, and one of the greatest things we ever did was we moved her from a sales into a service role.

She is an absolute rock star in that. She's been with my firm over 15 years, and she is really the foundation of what we do. When clients come in the door, she's the first person that greets them. I purposely hang back and don't go into the conference room for about 15 minutes, and I let her just catch up on life with those clients. And the relationship that she builds with those clients is absolutely amazing.

One of the hardest things in our business is if you make the wrong hire. One thing I've learned from other high-level producers at MDRT is be slow to hire, and to some extent, be quick to fire. I would add to that that maybe don't look to fire, but really look at the individual and their qualities that you brought them into your firm with. And really ask yourself, Are there other qualities that they really might bring to the table that don't fit well with their existing role?

So, if they're in a production or sales role, maybe they might be better off in service. If they're in service, maybe they might be better off in marketing. You want to consider all aspects as far as where they might fit and just have an open conversation.

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Building a superstar team

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Layne Jeffrey Brown, ChFC, CLU