This article is part of the Recruitment Ki SHAKTI Series of articles. This is my sixth article. You will find all articles on agency recruitment in my blog https://www.helpindiainsure.iistpune.in/category/agency-recruitment/

A personal experience

There are potential agents, wherever you go. One should have an attitude to tap this potential. Once, I accompanied my wife to a utensil shop. While she was looking at the vessels, I struck a conversation with the shop owner at the counter. In the discussion he mentioned that he had two sons. While one son would take over the existing shop, he is looking forward to starting another business for his second son.

I gradually suggested that agency is a promising career for his second son. He questioned me to find out what was involved in the agency career. After some time, he was convinced. I then sent one of the development officers I had trained to meet him, and an agent was recruited.

Don’t compartmentalise agency recruitment – Internalise it

Many development officers attend my training programs. Their focus is purely on the training during training hours. After the training hours, at the hotel, I observed that they devote the time to discussions with other development officers – sharing of experience, so to speak. Both are good activities and need to be undertaken in exactly that way.

The development officers are at the hotel for at least 3 days of training. I observed that in all my training programs, no development officer approached the hotel staff to canvas for agency. In their minds training and recruitment are two different things. The feeling is: “Since I am in training, I will not think of recruitment”.

This is because they have compartmentalised agency recruitment. They are now in the training-compartment and recruitment is another compartment, for another time. Hence, it does not occur to them that there is a lead right in front of them and they have the time to talk. There is the counter staff, the waiters, the accounts people, the banquet manager, etc. But they are all ignored. Recruitment of agents has not been internalised.

If one keeps one’s mind open there are agents everywhere.

Recruitment is not a part time activity

Many development officers, CLIAs, unit managers etc. (including the branch managers) look upon recruitment as a burden. Very often they do not know how to search or get leads. If they know they do not work on it.

This is because recruitment is seen as a special activity to be carried out once in a way. Amongst unit managers at least, recruitment of agents is seen as an activity to be carried out during the lean months of business. This, they believe, will give them sufficient agents for the rest of the year. Nothing could be farther than the truth.

Recruitment is not a one-time activity. It should be a daily activity. In one of my previous blogs, I had explained why recruitment should be a daily activity. (click here for the blog article https://www.helpindiainsure.iistpune.in/2025/10/30/why-recruitment-activities-must-be-conducted-daily/)

While focusing your energies with a well-directed effort as indicated in that blog post is necessary, there is one more method. Recruiting activity should a way of life. It should be your second nature.

The daily contacts we are ignoring

We, in our day-to-day life, come across a number of persons. It could be a shopkeeper. It could be a person we meet on our morning walk. We may attend a wedding ceremony. We may travel by bus or train, or even by air. It could be our vegetable vendor, or newspaper vendor. It could be someone we meet in a conference. It could be a cultural event. It could be a customer we meet. It could be people in your housing society. And so on. The list is endless.

We need an approach in life where we propose an agency career to at least one of them in a day. Daily propose to a different person and subsequently follow-up with the person. In a year you will contact over 350 persons. Even a 10 % conversion rate, gives you 35 agents. Remember, the important thing is working on this activity daily. In life insurance selling (including recruiting), daily work is your only guarantee of success.

This is what you will learn when you join the unique, tried and tested method of IIST’s Recruitment Ki SHAKTI course. Visit our website https://www.iistpune.in/recruitment-ki-shakti/ to know how we can help.

More tips in my next article. Look out for regular articles on agency recruitment. In the meanwhile, you may also visit the website (https://www.iistpune.in/) of The Institute of Insurance Sales Training (IIST) to know more about the number of ways we can help you reach great heights in life insurance sales team building and selling.