How to Onboard a New Downline Agency: The IMO's 90-Day Plan
Onboard a new downline agency as a 90-day handoff, not a welcome packet. Agree in writing what 'onboarded' means before the agency signs, name an owner on both sides for every step, and score the agency on the same sheet at 30, 60 and 90 days. Deliver leads, a playbook, technology and real people in sequence so producers are dialing in the first month instead of waiting on a carrier kit.
| Phase | Goal | IMO owner | Agency owner | Done when |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Before signing | Agree the success definition | Agency success lead | Principal | One-page definition signed with your targets filled in |
| Week 1 | Kickoff and shared tracker | Agency success lead | Principal and floor manager | Tracker shared, meeting cadence on both calendars |
| Days 1 to 30 | Producers contracted, set up and dialing | Contracting and onboarding lead, technology owner | Principal, office manager | Every planned producer is appointed, has system access and has made live calls |
| Days 31 to 60 | Coach the floor | Trainer or sales lead | Floor manager | Weekly joint call reviews held, playbook in use on calls |
| Days 61 to 90 | Decide the relationship | Agency success lead and IMO principal | Principal | 90-day scorecard reviewed and a decision written down |
This post is the full operating detail behind the onboarding section of how to run an IMO. If you're still deciding which agencies to sign, start with how IMOs recruit agencies.
Agree what 'onboarded' means before the agency signs
Most onboarding problems start at the signature. The principal signs expecting leads and support. The IMO signs expecting a floor that dials. Nobody writes down what success looks like at day 30, so by day 60 each side is measuring something different. The principal says the IMO hasn't delivered. The IMO says the agency hasn't worked what it got. That's the 60-day drift, and a one-page definition agreed before signing prevents most of it.
Fill this in with the principal on the last call before the contract. Use their numbers and yours. Don't borrow targets from another agency.
First-90-day success definition (template)
| Measure | Day 30 target | Day 60 target | Day 90 target | Who reports it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Producers contracted and appointed | [number] | [number] | [number] | IMO contracting lead |
| Producers dialing on a normal day | [number] | [number] | [number] | Agency floor manager |
| First production submitted | [date] | Principal | ||
| Agency production for the period | [your target] | [your target] | [your target] | Principal |
| Playbook adopted (openers and objection answers heard on reviewed calls) | [yes/no] | [yes/no] | [yes/no] | IMO trainer |
| Lead plan in place and worked | [yes/no] | [yes/no] | [yes/no] | IMO lead programs |
| Weekly check-in held | [count] | [count] | [count] | Agency success lead |
What the IMO commits to: [lead program details], [playbook and training sessions], [technology setup], [named success lead and response time you can keep].
What the agency commits to: [producers available to dial], [floor manager time for call reviews], [contracting paperwork turnaround], [attendance at weekly check-ins].
Both sides sign it. It goes in the shared tracker on day one and comes back out at every checkpoint.
Week one: run the kickoff call
The kickoff is a working session, not a welcome call. Hold it in the first week, on video, with the people who will actually do the work.
Who attends
| IMO side | Why they're there | Agency side | Why they're there |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agency success lead | Runs the call and owns the relationship | Principal | Owns targets and decisions |
| Contracting and onboarding lead | Walks through the producer roster and paperwork | Floor manager or team lead | Runs the floor day to day |
| Trainer or sales lead | Schedules playbook sessions | Office or admin lead | Handles contracting paperwork |
| Technology owner | Plans system setup | ||
| Compliance team contact | Schedules the compliance process review |
Kickoff call agenda (template)
- Goals. Read the signed success definition out loud. Confirm the targets and the dates.
- Roster. Every producer by name: licensed or not, which lines they sell, start date, experience level.
- Contracting status. Where each producer stands on appointments and carrier contracting. Who sends what by when.
- Lead plan. Lead sources for month one, who pays for what, how leads get assigned to producers.
- Technology. What the agency runs today, what it needs, who sets it up, target date for every producer to log in and dial.
- Compliance review owner. Name the person from the IMO's compliance team who will review the agency's process, and set the date.
- Meeting cadence. Weekly principal check-in, weekly joint call review, and the 30, 60 and 90-day checkpoints, all on the calendar before the call ends.
- Open questions. Anything that could stall producers in the first two weeks.
Output: an onboarding tracker both sides can open and edit, with the success definition at the top and one row per producer below it.
The contracting and setup tracker
One row per producer. One owner per column. If a cell has no owner, it doesn't get done.
Per-producer tracker (template)
| Producer | Licensing and appointment status | Carrier contracting submitted | Contracting complete | System access | Playbook training complete | First call review | Blocker and next step |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| [name] | [status] | [date] | [date] | [yes/no] | [date] | [date] | [note] |
Who owns each column
| Column | IMO owner | Agency owner |
|---|---|---|
| Licensing and appointment status | Contracting and onboarding lead | Producer, with office lead chasing paperwork |
| Carrier contracting submitted and complete | Contracting and onboarding lead | Office lead |
| System access | Technology owner | Floor manager confirms the producer can dial |
| Playbook training | Trainer | Floor manager confirms attendance |
| First call review | Trainer | Floor manager |
Keep contracting in general terms on the tracker: submitted, pending, complete. Contract levels and compensation belong in your contracting team's process and your agreement with the principal, not in a sheet the whole floor can see.
Follow-up rhythm. Review every open row at the weekly check-in. Set your own threshold for how long a row can sit before it escalates to the IMO principal, and write that threshold on the tracker so nobody is surprised.
Days 1 to 30: get producers dialing
The first month has one job: every producer you planned for is contracted, set up and making live calls. Four deliveries make that happen.
Hand over the playbook, not just carrier kits
Carrier materials explain products. They don't tell a new producer what to say in the first ten seconds of a call. Give the agency your openers, discovery questions, presentation flow, objection answers and the scorecard a manager uses on a recorded call. If you don't have that written yet, build a sales playbook first, and put the operating steps in a shared SOP library with index so the principal can find them without calling you.
Walk the playbook through live with the floor manager and producers. Don't email a PDF and count it as delivered.
Size the first month's lead plan from the agency's own capacity
Don't hand a new agency a lead volume that worked somewhere else. Size it from their floor:
Leads for month one = producers dialing x dialing days in the month x leads each producer can work per day
Fill in the producers from the tracker, not the roster. A producer waiting on appointments isn't dialing. Then agree how leads get assigned and worked, and who reviews aged leads before they go stale. More detail is in lead management for insurance agencies.
Set up the technology the agency actually needs
Some agencies arrive with a working stack. Many arrive with a dialer in one place, a CRM in another and meetings on a third tool, or with nothing. If the agency needs a platform, this is where an all-in-one setup means one system to set up instead of several: Nohl puts the dialer, CRM and video meetings in one place, with one contact record behind every call and meeting. Prospects join a video meeting from a link, with no download or account. With Mogul, the principal can assign leads and manage reps from one place, and Mogul includes white-glove getting started.
Done when every producer on the tracker can log in, see assigned leads and dial.
Schedule the compliance process review
The IMO's compliance team reviews the agency's process: written calling standards, do-not-call process, calling hours, recording notices, and how lead sources are documented. That review checks that the agency has a process and that it's written down. It doesn't decide whether that process meets the law. That stays with the agency and its own counsel.
Days 31 to 60: coach the floor, not just the principal
The second month is where agencies drift if the IMO only talks to the principal. Producers ramp on the floor, so the coaching has to reach the floor.
Run joint call reviews by stage
Once a week, the IMO trainer and the agency's floor manager review recorded calls together. Pick calls by stage so you find where deals stall, not just which producer is struggling.
| Stage | What to listen for | Score (1 to 5) | One fix for next week |
|---|---|---|---|
| Opener | Playbook opener used, permission to continue | [ ] | [ ] |
| Discovery | Questions asked in order, needs confirmed back | [ ] | [ ] |
| Presentation | Tied to what discovery found | [ ] | [ ] |
| Objections | Playbook answer used, not improvised | [ ] | [ ] |
| Close | Clear ask, next step set | [ ] | [ ] |
The floor manager runs the next review. The trainer watches. By day 60 the agency should be able to run reviews without you on the call.
Nohl gives you searchable call recordings and transcripts, so a reviewer can search transcripts for the moments they want to hear instead of listening from the start. As of October 14, 2026, recording laws vary by state. Some states, including California, require consent from everyone on a call before it's recorded (California Invasion of Privacy Act, Cal. Penal Code § 632). The agency is responsible for recording notices and consent.
Put coaching on the live call
New producers lose calls in the moment, not in the review a week later. Nohl's Sales AI suggests the next line or an objection answer to the rep during the live call. The prospect never hears it, and the rep stays in the conversation and decides what to say. For a new producer, that means a suggested line on screen while they are still learning your playbook.
Weekly principal check-in agenda
- Tracker rows still open and what's blocking each one.
- Progress against the success definition for this period.
- Lead plan: what was worked, what's left, what's next.
- Coaching themes from this week's call reviews.
- What the IMO owes the agency before next week, with names and dates.
Keep it to the agenda. If the principal raises compensation or contracting levels, move that to a separate call with your contracting team.
Days 61 to 90: the review that decides the relationship
At day 90, pull out the signed success definition and score the agency against it. Same sheet as day 30 and day 60, so nobody argues about what was measured.
30/60/90 checkpoint scorecard (template)
| Measure | Target from definition | Day 30 actual | Day 60 actual | Day 90 actual | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Producers contracted and appointed | [ ] | [ ] | [ ] | [ ] | On track / Behind / Missed |
| Producers dialing on a normal day | [ ] | [ ] | [ ] | [ ] | |
| First production | [date] | [ ] | |||
| Agency production for the period | [ ] | [ ] | [ ] | [ ] | |
| Playbook adopted on reviewed calls | [ ] | [ ] | [ ] | [ ] | |
| Lead plan worked | [ ] | [ ] | [ ] | [ ] | |
| IMO commitments delivered | [ ] | [ ] | [ ] | [ ] |
Score the IMO's own commitments on the same sheet. If you didn't deliver the leads or training you promised, the agency's numbers aren't the full story.
Decision matrix
| Result | What it looks like | What you do next |
|---|---|---|
| On track | Most measures at or near target, producers dialing, playbook heard on calls | Move to your standard support cadence and set the next quarter's targets |
| Needs a support plan | Some measures behind, but the principal is engaged and blockers are known | Write a 30-day support plan with named owners, then rescore |
| Misfit | Producers not dialing, check-ins skipped, or the agency's model doesn't match what you support | Have a direct conversation with the principal about fit and next steps |
A misfit isn't a failure of the agency. It usually means the profile you signed against didn't match the agency you got. Feed that back into how you qualify the next one.
Check your support capacity before you sign the next agency
Onboarding agencies take more of your success team's hours than steady ones. Work out how many you can onboard at once:
Agencies onboarded at once = success team hours per week / hours per agency per week during onboarding
Example with placeholders: if your success team has [A] hours a week for onboarding and each onboarding agency needs [B] hours a week, you can onboard [A / B] agencies at once. Count only the hours left after your steady agencies get theirs. When onboarding agencies fill your open slots, pause new signings until one moves to steady support.
Where an all-in-one platform fits and where it doesn't
| Situation | Fit | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Agency has no phone stack | Fits | Dialer, CRM and video meetings in one place means one setup instead of three |
| Agency's dialer, CRM and meetings are split across tools | Fits | One contact record behind every call and meeting removes copying between systems |
| IMO wants the same tools across new agencies | Fits | Producers learn one platform, with one contact record behind every call and meeting |
| Agency is locked into tools it's happy with | Doesn't fit | Switching mid-onboarding adds risk; run onboarding on the tracker and scorecard instead |
| Agency's model doesn't sell by phone | Doesn't fit | A phone floor platform solves the wrong problem |
Where it fits, Mogul lets owners assign leads and manage reps from one place, and includes business analytics with call data and P&L today. Mogul includes white-glove getting started, so the technology row on your tracker has help behind it. For IMOs and larger floors, Enterprise is custom-quoted and reached through Mogul. You can also see how Nohl handles team visibility for agencies.
The tracker, the kickoff agenda and the 90-day scorecard work on any stack. The platform decision should follow the agency's needs, not the other way around.
Your next step
If your new downline agencies need a phone floor platform they can run from day one, see Mogul for agencies and IMOs.
This article is for general information only and is not legal advice. Laws and regulations about calling, texting, and AI change often and vary by state. Talk to a qualified attorney about your situation. Nohl provides software tools; you are responsible for how you use them, including getting and keeping valid consent. Information current as of October 14, 2026.
Frequently asked questions
How long does it take to onboard a new agency to an IMO?
Plan on a 90-day onboarding window with checkpoints at 30, 60 and 90 days. How fast an agency moves through it depends on contracting turnaround, how many producers are ready to dial and how quickly the playbook gets adopted, so set the targets with the principal before signing.
What should an IMO provide a new agency in the first 30 days?
A walked-through playbook and scripts, a lead plan sized from the agency's own producers and capacity, technology setup so every producer can log in and dial, contracting support, a named success lead and a scheduled review of the agency's compliance process by the IMO's compliance team.
Who should own agency onboarding at an IMO?
One agency success lead owns the relationship and runs the kickoff and check-ins. The contracting and onboarding lead owns appointments and carrier contracting, the trainer owns the playbook and call reviews, and the technology owner owns setup. On the agency side, the principal owns targets and the floor manager owns the floor.
What do you review at 90 days?
Score the agency against the success definition you both signed: producers contracted and dialing, first production, production for the period, playbook adoption and whether the lead plan was worked. Score the IMO's own commitments on the same sheet, then decide: on track, needs a support plan, or misfit.
How many agencies can an IMO onboard at once?
Use your own numbers: success team hours per week available for onboarding divided by hours each onboarding agency needs per week. When onboarding agencies fill those slots, pause new signings until one moves to steady support.