John Cerasani, author of "Paid Training," meant to play in the NFL, but life had different plans for him.

"I played football in college at Northwestern University," he explains, "and I think that I'd planned up until probably the last game of my senior year that I was going to be playing in the NFL. Then I had an injury and realized it wasn't going to happen. So I started interviewing with every single company that came through the career services center at the university."

That's where he landed his first insurance job: a sales rep at a self-funded health insurance company, Great West. And now, the president of Northwest Comprehensive focuses on employee benefits for colleges and universities.

"I think the biggest challenge brokers have today is finding a way to differentiate themselves and distinguish themselves from the competition out there," Cerasani notes.

"Items like Affordable Care Act compliance, looking at options such as consumer-driven health care, looking at things like wellness programs—all of those are areas that should be focused on. Brokers should be bringing that to the table. Those aren't really additional values; those aren't differentiators. So when I observe brokers out there talking about things like transparency of permissions as a value to their client, it's funny to me, because those aren't added values, those are givens.

"All of those things put a broker on a level playing field with the upper tier of the rest of the competition," he adds. "And once you're in that category, once you're a part of that and you're in that company of the more sophisticated, upper tier of brokers up there, now the challenge is how to distinguish yourself from that group."

That's why, he says, Northwest Comprehensive has established a niche in the college and university employee benefits realm.

"That's why we've been able to grow," Cerasani explains. "We've really been a small player, but we've dominated a very specific niche. Year in and year out, different opportunities will come up to explore different avenues. The issue has been that it's never made sense because year after year, our college and university book of business keeps growing substantially."

Cerasani says he would like to explore other types of employers — but he wants to make sure the quality of his offerings isn't compromised.

"I would want to explore with very strong quality control measures, and obviously do it in a way that would not sacrifice any of the level of service that our current customers are already getting," he says.

And Cerasani thinks it's an exciting time to be an insurance broker.

"Anyone entering the industry right now is in the midst of health care reform," he notes. "It's not something that happened five years ago. You're going to learn a lot about something that's a groundbreaking social policy issue. To me, it goes beyond your career. You're jumping into a career path that really is in an industry that everyone's paying attention to right now, which I think is exciting."

Ed Oravetz

Ed Oravetz draws his strength from home and family.

"A lot of times in this industry, we try to find that silver bullet," says Ed Oravetz, president and senior benefits consultant at VISICOR.

"We say, 'It must be wellness, or having a clinician on staff, or ancillary or voluntary benefits.' But I don't think there is a silver bullet," he says. "I think it's a broad picture of this thing we call employee benefits; I think the difference is, we cannot look at it as just going in and performing a duty. We really have to become engaged. We have to partner with our clients, understand where they want to be—what's worked, what hasn't worked, the long-term vision for their employee benefits package, and then we have to dig deep and find long-term solutions."

That philosophy has created a company that's known for approaching clients in a different way. Oravetz designed the agency from the ground up specifically because he wanted to approach his clients in a new way. After personal tragedy struck Oravetz in December of 2007—he and his wife lost their son—he decided he wanted to spend his days working on something meaningful.

"That literally was my 'Jerry Maguire' moment, where I sat down and reevaluated everything," he remembers, "knowing I wanted to be in this business but wanted to create something different, unique. I really took a hard look at the industry and where it was going with health care reform projected at that time, and I wanted a different approach with clients, so we sat down and really mapped out where we would like an agency to be.

"We're a value-based organization with a unique set of principles, grounded in transparency," he explains. "We want to shoulder the burden in all four areas of employee benefits: compliance, consulting, communication and administration. So all employee and employer questions, billing reconciliation, qualifying events, new hires, terminations—we want to manage that for the client. We just want to be really engaged and walk shoulder-to-shoulder, side-by-side, and guide them through the maze of employee benefits."

Oravetz acknowledges it's more difficult than simply providing clients with information, but it's how VISICOR operates—and it's what sets Oravetz and his colleagues apart from their competition.

"We don't want the most clients; we're not looking for numbers," he explains. "We're looking for high-quality, high-touch clients that we can actually deliver value to on a daily, weekly, monthly basis.

"I understand being profitable," he adds. "In this business, we're not selling widgets. Whatever we're doing is resonating in the market—we're getting the attention of some of the largest firms in the country. And we're very transparent. When we go in with a new client, we let them know about every dollar of revenue, so there's no wondering. There's no hiding behind that revenue number. And then we can show them: 'You're generating $5,000 a month for VISICOR. Now we have to create enough value for that to be a positive transaction for you."

Darrell Phillips

Darrell Phillips loves spending time with his granddaughter when he's not helping clients.

Manhattan, Kansas, known locally as the Little Apple, is a small city with small-town values. And Darrell Phillips, owner of DPI Benefits, shares those values.

That's one reason why he's thrived in an evolving industry so many brokers find challenging—but Phillips insists he's only one part of the team he's built, and the team should enjoy any accolades collected.

"We have 100 percent client retention over five years," he says. "And it's because we have such a great team of people here. Our client services manager is like a psychic; she reads my mind, and she really does truly, personally care about these clients—and her staff then develops that same conscientiousness."

Phillips entered the insurance industry in his early 20s, when his wife was pregnant with their first child and he worked as a welder.

"I remember driving to work one day," he says. "I pulled up to this stoplight, and I'm driving my old beater car, wearing old, nasty blue jeans and a flannel shirt. And it's dark; it's about six in the morning. And sitting next to me is a guy about my age in a nice shirt and tie, driving a brand new car. And I'm thinking to myself, 'I'm getting ready to have a baby. I need to find a better job than what I have."

With that in mind, Phillips bought himself a life insurance policy—and the agent who sold it to him told his manager about the young man looking for something better; the manager then recruited Phillips. What kept him there and made him successful was his ability to build trust with clients and vendors.

"This job has so much riding on it," he notes. "Your clients rely on you so much. Everything's dependent on you being right and consistent and truthful. And when you do that consistently over time, you develop this incredible relationship of trust and reliability. That's been our critical success factor, just doing that day after day after day."

Phillips and his staff make a point to see their clients face-to-face on a regular basis, traveling around the state in order to make sure everyone is happy with their offerings or to help with any changes or issues.

"One of our clients had their human resources director retire," Phillips says. "And this is not a big client—it's a good client, we do everything there, and they're not getting fragmented services. I literally had my client services manager get in the car. She went down and spent an entire day with the new director, getting her up to speed on the various benefit plans.

"Yes, we have administrative booklets that the new director could go through, and it's got everything you need for each of the benefit plans—but when you sit down and look at that, it's overwhelming," he adds. "Especially for someone going into a new job. But going down there and sitting with that lady, talking through the nuances and the details, gave us a brand-new relationship."

Colin Smoak

Former footballer Colin Smoak still loves the beautiful game.

Colin Smoak, a principal consultant at McLaughlin Smoak & Clarke Benefits, is the second principal at his firm to be nominated for the Broker of the Year award. His partner, Trey McLaughlin, was a finalist last year.

And that says something, Smoak says, about how their agency does business.

"Salespeople are promise-makers," Smoak explains. "But we have such a great staff behind us that we refer to them as our promise-keepers. Our staff is superlative—they are the same personality, the same tribe, the same guild of the agency, and we all work in the same direction at the same time."

Although Smoak began his career out of college in teaching—his degree is in education, and he intended to teach children with various challenges.

"I quickly learned I didn't have the emotional stability for that," he confides. So he coached college soccer for several years before a friend of his encouraged him to look into the insurance industry as a potential career.

Education to insurance might not seem like the most intuitive career switch, but when Smoak explains his path, it makes perfect sense.

"I still enjoy helping people," he notes. "I still get a thrill out of educating people. That's the thrill I get out of this: Watching the lights go on in somebody's eyes, and then having them call me up or write a letter saying thank you."

And for Smoak, his experience in the insurance industry has been a journey, one that started with a fixed destination in mind before he realized the destination was the least important aspect of the ride.

"I will admit to you that for probably longer than I care to remember, I definitely chased the dollar," he explains. "I really worked hard at it, and I never caught it. And then I had that 'aha' moment where I realized I was never going to catch it—and it wasn't catching it that made the difference. It was the journey. That's really the part that's kept me going. I focused on the journey, and I have done well financially."

That journey has resulted in some innovative methods that McLaughlin Smoak & Clarke Benefits has used to provide an extra level of service to clients.

"We go to our clients and say, 'Look, here's where we are. We want to turn left, and everybody else is turning right. So what is it that you need that we're not doing?'" he says. "Through questions and rapport with our clients, we have built an agency that is, in large part, a response of listening to our clients.

"At the end of the day, it's about people," he adds. "Any successful agency has to have the services and programs to compete. It's about how we respond to the question when the need comes up—especially if we don't have the answer. It's being people of our word and surrounding ourselves with people like ourselves."

Butch Zemar

Ex-Navy veteran Butch Zemar would be underwater right now if he wasn't in the benefits business.

If teaching scuba diving in Chicago were more lucrative, then it's likely the Windy City would be missing one of its top insurance salespeople.

"I got into the insurance business by accident," explains Butch Zemar, health care reform consultant for Elite Benefits of America in Chicago. "I went for a group interview for selling products to the self-employed market. It wasn't until the end of the presentation when I asked what the product was—it was health insurance. I didn't even have health insurance myself."

That was the beginning of Zemar's career, and although he's maintained a love of scuba (and taken several dives in Lake Michigan), now his focus is on the broader spectrum of employee benefits rather than individual health products. He's written a health care reform guide for manufacturers that's being reformatted to address small businesses. And, apart from his ebooks, Zemar has been churning out both written articles and videos since 2008 to help guide consumers and industry experts alike, giving him increased visibility and credibility in the marketplace.

"The ebook didn't start from scratch," he explains. "What happened is, I wrote segments of it for articles, blogs, guest writing or whatever it might be, and then it formulates into an ebook.

"I usually write the articles while I'm on the road in between meetings or enrollments and have to grab a bite to eat," he says. "I'm an Average Joe, but I somehow have the ability to break things down to make them easier to understand."

And that ability also has led to Zemar's success in the insurance industry, where he's willing to spend one-on-one time with his clients in order to ensure their satisfaction.

"If I were to give somebody advice, I would say, 'Bring all your work ethic to the table. Show up. Be persistent. And build relationships.'"

In a city the size of Chicago, that attention to personal relationships is one thing that makes Zemar's business model unique.

"You get so busy that it's not always easy to call and tell your clients that their insurance card is in the mail—but they need that to feel comfortable," he says. "Every five blocks in Chicago, there's an insurance agent. And the only way you can really set yourself apart is to build a relationship with people.

"When you start adding up all your clients, sometimes it's hard to get back to all of them," he acknowledges. "But you have to set up a rotation and figure out how to stay in front of your clients all the time, provide them resources or give them facts about what's going on in the industry. Otherwise, it gets to a certain point where they haven't heard from their agent in years. And now you have a problem—because if you call them now, are you sure they'll give you a call back?"