Tom Avery shares 11 quick ways to increase productivity in your agency. How many can you check off your list? 

Over the past year and a half, many of us have had to learn and master new technologies. These new tools can be a double-edged sword, with some offering up time savings and productivity increases and others creating more problems than they're worth. Knowing how to evaluate a new solution and seek out new technology to enhance your business is what sets the most tech-savvy brokers apart from the pack.

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At our recent BenefitsPRO Broker Expo 2021 in San Diego, Tom Avery of Signal Sync walked brokers through what to look for, and avoid, when searching for a new tech solution, how to set realistic and achievable operational goals, and insights into coming tech trends. He also offered up 11 quick and easy "hacks" that brokers can use to save time and increase productivity. How many of these are you using during your day?

Hack 1: Ctrl+refresh

"This is amazing for individuals to increase productivity," Avery said. "The control-refresh hack is typically used when a website is malfunctioning. You may call your help desk and they say you need to clear your cookies. You hit the control and refresh circle, and instead of it taking four to five steps to get to your cookies, this can all be done in one step."

Hack 2: Emjoi keyboard

Think there's no place for emojis in professional communication? Time to ditch that thinking. "Personal is in," says Avery, "and our customers actually enjoy it." Emoji keyboard is a Chrome extension that allows brokers to quickly and easily add a little extra touch to their emails.

Hack 3: Duplicate tab

"Right-click tab plus duplicate," says Avery. "It duplicates your current browser in a new tab and allows you to do new activity in the new tab without losing the current activity." Ever working on filling out a multi-page form and need to reference back to data entered on a previous page? Here's how to easily do it without risking the loss of everything you've done so far.

Hack 4: Password manager

A good system for managing passwords is a must in any business today. For teams working with shared systems and passwords, a password manager extension not only keeps data more secure but can be a real time saver. "Let's say you have 10 people working for you and they need to look up some info," Avery posited. "They get prompted for a new password and they update it. When the person updates the password, any time the other nine team members want to get on that same website, they autofill it in with the updated password."

Hack 5: Grammarly

This is an amazing productivity gain for individuals and also helps with your professionalism," Avery said, noting that it goes beyond a typical spell check to include grammar, as well. (Editor's–and Grammarly user's–word of warning: Grammarly can get things wrong. If a suggestion doesn't look right, trust your gut. Or get a second opinion.)

Hack 6: Loom

Here's one you might not be familiar with: a video creation service. "I'm not suggesting that everyone is going to be comfortable with turning on a camera and waving 'hi' to your clients, but we have a hard time getting facetime with our clients. Why not try it?" Brokers can also save time by creating how-to videos in response to clients' most commonly asked questions.

Hack 7: Dual computer monitors

"I almost didn't even put this in my presentation," Avery said, but anyone whose desk setup includes multiple monitors understands the difference it makes. "I put it in here because it's such a huge productivity gain that even if one or two of you aren't using it, it's worth the time to mention it."

Hack 8: Calendly

Avery is also a big fan of Calendly, an appointment-setting service. Once again, it improves productivity by eliminating some repeatable functions. "It can autoschedule in-person and Zoom calls," he says. "It can also check your schedule to prevent rebookings."

Hack 9: HubSpot

Having a go-to sales and marketing platform should be a no-brainer for any broker looking to enhance productivity, and there are many out there besides HubSpot. "If you're using them and happy, that's great, but HubSpot will help with contact management, store information, do email marketing and integrate with email," Avery said.

Hack 10: Advocacy/HelpDesk

"This one is more of a strategy," Avery said. The idea is to set up a generic email address, something like "[email protected]" that, when clients email it, will automatically open up a helpdesk ticket within your agency. "Yes, I am suggesting you automate some of the customer service functions within your agency. Why not take these routine tasks and use automation?"

Hack 11: Social by Zoho

Maybe you're an ace at social media marketing, or maybe you know you should be doing it but haven't gotten the ball rolling yet. Either way, a service like Social can be a real time-saver. Rather than logging in individually to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc., to share a post, a number of options are available that can be used to publish to multiple sites at once or even pre-schedule posts.

Emily Payne

Emily Payne is director, content analytics for ALM's Business & Finance Markets and former managing editor for BenefitsPRO. A Wisconsin native, she has spent the past decade writing and editing for various athletic and fitness publications. She holds an English degree and Business certificate from the University of Wisconsin.