Becoming a trusted advisor while transforming your business model
For forward-thinking benefits advisors, all this uncertainty creates enormous opportunity, provided that they are prepared.
To do this, you will need to become much more consultative in your approach. And you will need a formalized process that’s replicable, as well as training and tools to make this transition successful. But your client’s need you to do just that, and they demand their advisor(s) provide this kind of counsel and expertise, or they will find someone who will. All of this will be independent of how they gain access to life and health insurance products in the future. Your primary value proposition cannot be as the access point to products. Your clients need your expertise and you need to reinvent yourself to remain relevant.
You may be asking yourself: “I get it, but where do I start?” It seems clear you need to start with first analyzing your clients and prospects. You need to focus in a very real and meaningful way on what they need now and over the next three to five years. What do they want to accomplish with their benefits program? Do they even want to offer benefits? Will their competition offer benefits? These are all real-world strategic questions that any thinking employer should be considering. Whether you acknowledge it or not, they will be thinking about these questions. So you need to embrace the process and lead the discussion.
For decades, the overwhelming majority of employers felt a “moral obligation” to be paternalistic and offer an increasing array of benefits. And when the global economy was expanding and there was stiff competition for human talent, business logic dictated that employer’s needed to be responsive in order to attract and retain talent. But the world has changed, and we are dealing with a new and very fluid reality. Now is the perfect time to engage your clients and prospective clients in a strategic discussion. The good news is that you can accomplish this dialogue by conference calls or video-conferencing (since you are not likely meeting in-person right now anyway), and your audience has the time and motivation to consider their options with your guidance, advice and counsel.
As a result, it would appear that you need to first focus on the employer’s values. What’s important to their business? Their culture? Their human capital strategies? If it’s doing business at the lowest possible cost, having a robust benefits program likely is not relevant or of concern. On the other hand, if artfully providing a benefits portfolio is of value to the business because it permits the firm to retain the talent it needs to maintain and grow business operations, then it’s worth the time to strategically plan what the benefits program should look like over the next few years.
Next, you need to focus on critical needs. If the client is going to offer employer-paid benefits, including medical coverage, what are the most critical needs that must be addressed that are relevant to that employer’s values, culture, and human capital goals? In this regard, you need to become more of a human capital consultant, rather than a benefits broker (perceived as a product vendor by many, anyway). The beauty of this approach is that by becoming much more consultative, you are making yourself relevant and valuable to your clients, while beginning to morph your business practice.
When engaging the client, simply focus on being collaborative and articulating critical needs. Build consensus with the client participants, and make absolutely certain that one of those participants is the CFO. That’s the pivotal executive position focused on strategic goals, managing expenses, and critically evaluating financial options, not the least of which are their benefits expenditures. And the CFO typically is the architect and author of the enterprise strategic plan. Just ask a CFO if they have a benefits strategic plan, and see what the reaction is. The “light bulb” goes on, and there is this “aha” moment. Benefits represent 9% to 11% of total operating expenses for most employers. How could their organization not have a written roadmap to guide all their major benefits decisions and expenditures for such an expensive budget line item? Having this conversation with a CFO is the fastest way to gain access to the C-Suite, differentiate your practice, and to take over accounts from brokers who are merely product vendors.
At this point, you undoubtedly have the client or prospect fully engaged and thinking strategically about what they are trying to accomplish with their benefits program. This is not the time to be in a sales mode; it’s the time to be consultative. This is not “I’ve got a widget to sell. Do you want to buy it?” Instead, you should be asking lots of open-ended questions and taking copious notes. Being facilitative and consultative will help you to engage the client in a discussion, rather than a sales pitch. It will also enable you to make more informed recommendations that are responsive to the client’s values and needs.
Once you have jointly identified the critical needs, you can turn your attention to solutions. And yes, your recommended solutions will likely entail group medical insurance plan design, or perhaps direct primary care; benefits communication and enrollment strategies; the application of technology, perhaps in the form of a benefits portal; and the intelligent integration of voluntary benefits and lifestyle benefits, among other products and services. With all the plan design and re-design of the last decade, gaps in coverage were inevitably created. However, the needs of employees have not diminished. If anything, they have increased. At a minimum there are opportunities to offer permanent life insurance, disability income, critical illness, auto and homeowners insurance, long-term care, pre-paid legal services, household budget and debt counseling, retirement plans, and a variety of new lifestyle benefits. The commissions from the sale of these voluntary benefits can increase your sales revenues, improve profitability, and enhance your business asset value. You also need to assess their executive benefits, which may be woefully outdated, and may impact that employer’s ability to retain key executive talent during these challenging times.
Finally, you need to memorialize your mutual discussions in a written document. Your clients need a roadmap, a strategic plan, to guide their tactical decisions — both their actions and reactions. And it needs to include contingency plans, because of all the possible changes that are completely out of their control. To do this, you will again need to become much more consultative in your approach.
If your clients are demanding answers, or counsel from someone who seems to have a process or approach to managing in this environment, then what are the implications for your business model? Have you objectively thought about the ramifications? Are you thinking strategically about your business and its future? Look, your time is undoubtedly consumed by all the day-to-day tactical activities required to manage your business and retain your clients. And in all likelihood, you are beginning to get used to the impact of your clients having a “work-from-home workforce”, staff meetings via conference calls and “team-building virtual happy hours” using video-conferencing as part of the “new normal.” Recognize that a substantial number of benefits advisers are still in denial. Most continue to act like these fundamental changes in the way business is being conducted will have no impact on their clients’ decision-making or on their own business operations. However, do you really believe that? Do you really think this is the time to play the ostrich game and continue to act like it’s “business as usual”? It’s time to be pro-active and act like your business life depends upon it. Because it does!
So can we agree that your role has changed and will continue to change? It’s not about accessing products. It never was, but it definitely is not that going forward. Your clients need your expertise, advice and counsel. They are confused and anxious, and rightfully so. The bottom line is that we all will be awash on a sea of uncertainty for the next two to three years. As a result, there isn’t a client organization out there that’s not willing to talk to an advisor that seems to have some information or some process for coping with all this change.
Denying it is not going to change the eventuality of all this. So where do we go from here? For forward-thinking benefits advisors, all this uncertainty creates enormous opportunity, provided that they are prepared. Once you can wrap your mind around the possibility of what we have been discussing, you will realize that you must take action, and you must take it now. You need to evaluate your business model and consider the possibilities. So how can you monetize the client relationships that you already have? You have already incurred the client acquisition expense, so how can you generate revenues going forward? You may be paid consulting fees for some services and commissions for certain products and services, so some financial modeling seems in order, correct?
You also need to evaluate your firm’s ability to offer other human resource services that are complementary or synergistic with benefits, such as payroll and tax filing services, benefits administration, workers’ compensation administration, outsourced human resource consulting, regulatory compliance training and audit services, employee surveys, total compensation planning, year-round benefits communications programs, human resource management training, and a myriad of other services that employers need and that are increasingly being outsourced to qualified third parties. You are already at the table handling a portion of their needs. Shouldn’t you be morphing your offerings to address your client’s changing needs? If you don’t, someone else will. And they won’t stop until they have the total account, right?
I realize that for many of you, we are taking you way outside your comfort zone. But going out of business won’t feel so comfortable either. With so much uncertainty, your clients need your expert advice and counsel now more than ever before. They need a trusted advisor and you can fulfill that role if you utilize the approaches discussed above. You need to have a process that you can communicate to your clients and prospective clients that will instill confidence and that will ultimately build consensus within their management team. The beauty of this approach is that you can also create new revenue streams in the process by charging consulting fees and earning commissions on voluntary benefits product sales. And in the process, you will be writing yourself into the script for the next 3-5 years from a client retention perspective. Now that’s a winning strategy.
Jack Kwicien is managing partner of Daymark Advisors, LLC, a boutique management consulting and merger & acquisition practice headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland.