Consumers need to trust their benefit advisers because buying benefits is far more complicated than purchasing cold dairy concoctions. Significantly, employers are not only making a buying decision for their own families, but for the families of their work force as well. This is a big responsibility. When making a decision as complex, important and, ultimately, as personal as is the case when selecting benefit plans, the need for trustworthy, customer-focused expertise is critical.

So why then did the Trailblazed Sales Project Study find that high-growth producers spend less time on customer service than their less successful colleagues? In fact, it's noticeably less time— 15 percent less than low-growth producers and eight percent less than no-growth producers. Were successful brokers just talking a good game, but failing to walk the walk?

On the contrary. It seems high-growth producers spend more time focusing on their (future) customers before the sale, freeing them to spend less time on customer service after the sale. By actually listening to prospects successful producers are better able to find the right solutions, resulting in fewer problems later.

On the other hand, some brokers seem more interested in showing off the depth of their knowledge through data dumping than in making the time to understand their prospect's needs and proving their ability to find a proper solution. Which is too bad because the time spent addressing the problems that subsequently arise could be better spent. The Trailblazed Sales Project Study found that high-growth producers spend considerably more time than their less successful colleagues on prospecting for new business.

Again, no surprise here. What is often ignored, however, is the relationship between customer service and prospecting. These are not separate and unrelated activities. Instead, as the Trailblazed Sales Project Study reveals, it is their customer-focus that enables high-growth producers to spend more time prospecting—and in becoming successful.