Practice (management) makes perfect
Looking to make your benefits agency stand out from the pack? Here are a few key ingredients.
We asked our readers what the ingredients of a successful benefits agency are–what people, strategies and day-to-day details make the difference for a standout agency? Here’s what you said:
Are you experienced? Doesn’t matter
We have always believed it is better to hire for culture than health insurance experience. We never want employees who have learned bad habits at other agencies. Over the past 24 years, every employee started at the front desk and moved up over time to employee advocate/account manager positions.
We value care, compassion, empathy and a desire to help people come first. We are a tight-knit group who are passionate about helping people.
Related: People, processes and culture: The most important parts of a business
We develop strong, loyal client relationships because of our focus on building relationships and taking care of employers, their employees and dependents. We know that for a business to thrive, whether a brokerage or our clients, people must be well taken care of and feel safe and secure.
Barry S. Cohn, president and CEO, Really Great Employee Benefits
One brokerage, two perspectives
The secret potion in making a benefit brokerage successful isn’t in who you know, it’s in who genuinely knows you. We do a ton of networking here in New York City, connecting with anyone we are introduced to, as you never know where it may lead. Some calls or meetings that others may think of as a waste of time can lead to a 5th connection from that original person, which can possibly turn into your biggest opportunity yet.
We take pride in giving shout outs to our clients and colleagues by offering them ways to market themselves. For example, our communications calendar includes “Wonder Women Wednesday” and “Feature Friday” weekly posts. This allows us to promote women and business owners through our social media outlets and shine a spotlight on their biggest accomplishment in the past year.
I also just created a new podcast called “Try And Stop Me” where I interview business owners and entrepreneurs to allow them to share their stories of struggles, and more importantly, wins. This podcast has received a tremendous amount of excitement. It provides a platform for the interviewee to be able to turn around and blast the content to their own clientele and share a deeper journey for their clients to relate to.
Colleen M Blum, VP, Combs & Company, LLC
The skill we look for above all when bringing on a new team member or strategic partnership is tenacity. In our office, we call this “the ability to find the answer.” We are in NYC, living in a fast-paced culture and we don’t have a lot of extra time to spoon feed information that is easily accessible. We love brainstorming and thinking outside the box, so we also look for innovators who are willing to stand back and say, “What would it look like if…?”
Lastly, we look for people who align with our work ethic and drive. There is nothing harder than looking across the office and feeling that someone isn’t pulling their weight. It damages the team and the overall culture in the office. Having these skills on the team makes it exciting to come to the office, as we always know people are going to bring fresh new ideas to the table and be ready to roll up their sleeves and work.
Susan L Combs, CEO Combs & Company, LLC.
Talk to me
I’m not sure that there’s any one perfect combination of people, money, culture, expertise, creativity and technology that makes an agency successful. Yes, all of those are important, but I believe the single most important ingredient in an agency’s success is open, honest, effective communication. This is especially true today, with so many people working remotely and having to find new ways to work together and communicate with one another.
The ability to effectively communicate with our own team to make sure we are all on the same page, and more importantly effectively communicate with our clients and their teams, is the real differentiator in our businesses and success.
Nat Garfield, vice president, Novem Benefits
Lead the way
Success in any organization is driven by the leader: Someone who sets the tone and the expectations, and who the team can follow as a guide for their own behavior and motivations. In a small company, which many agencies tend to be, the leader is even more critically important. Everyone can see what the leader does, so it’s amplified.
The best leaders recognize where change is necessary, gather input, make decisions and clear calendars to train the team and lead the change. And they put in systems (technology and people) that encourage natural accountability among the team.
For a strong agency hire, a number two who can envision processes and create the systems is one of the best ways to take the ideas of a quick-start producer/owner and turn them into reality for the whole team.
Wendy Keneipp, partner and coach, Q4intelligence
Nothing to hide
I think transparency with clients is important, but transparency with our team is even more important. If they don’t understand why we are doing what we are doing and how it will benefit them, then we have failed them.
Jim Blachek, CEO, Dynamic Benefit Solutions
Seek balance
In my humble opinion, you hire both offensive and defensive team players. Your defensive players are skilled in all facets of benefits and have a nurturing personality. The offensive stars are hunters by nature, with curiosity and a passion to find unique solutions for clients’ issues. Together, these teams must be cohesive, stacked with the latest technologies and driven by a fun environment.
Brad O’Neill, CEO, Golden Bee Advisors
Perfect recipe
Every successful organization/team is built on a foundation of trust where individuals feel safe expressing their talent at the highest level without being encumbered with fear or concerns that they will be let down. This trust is built within the companies’ culture and is exercised and protected in relationships between management, employees, and peers within an organization.
Once trust is established, this is where we can create an environment where we can have “iron sharpens iron” moments. Those are moments when we come together to discuss an issue, opportunity or concern and sharpen ourselves with ideas and feedback to solve all of those scenarios in the best way possible.
The next ingredient is teamwork, because we can do so much more together than we can on our own. When you have a collective group of individuals expressing their talent in a trusted environment, this is where the magic happens and the sum of all parts has greater value than they do on their own. I believe that the best teams are built when you have ultra-talented people who will work their hardest, in their area of expertise, and they don’t care who gets the credit. We have seen countless examples of teams like this in the sporting world, and these are the teams that are usually making the playoffs and winning the championships. The same works in business and for benefits agencies.
Lastly, there needs to be a training element. Not only do we need talented individuals who work humbly within a team environment, but we need to equip these individuals with the proper knowledge, techniques, and tools to efficiently complete their tasks with excellence. This is where organizations can really miss the mark. You can have the best talent and a strong team, but if we aren’t properly training or mentoring our staff, they likely won’t succeed.
I know that this is an area where we struggled at times in the past, so we have committed ourselves to improvement in the last several years. We want to build excellent teams and hire talented individuals, but we need to follow that up with training those individuals so they have the opportunity to be as successful as possible.
Ben Conner, CEO, Conner Insurance
Keep it simple
For our firm, it’s about culture—connectedness, safe environment (physical/virtual) and a shared common vision. It’s about thought partnership and leadership. And it’s about exceptional people.
Mark Gaunya, principal, Borislow Insurance
The two Ts
Generally speaking, we view our entire organization through the lens of “tasks and talent.” We have an evolving set of tasks that we must complete on behalf of our clients and a team of talented people responsible for delivering. We’re constantly working to make sure that we have the right talent assigned to the right tasks. For the last two positions we’ve hired, we didn’t even have active openings or job titles. We were approached in one case and identified someone in another where we found their talents positioned them to be the most effective in completing the tasks required by our clients. We achieved a better fit by taking those tasks off another team member, who wasn’t as suited for the work, and were able to reassign them to tasks that better aligned with their skills.
The majority of our interview process centers around culture. The potential candidate meets for 30 minutes with at least five team members to assess if this potential new hire will fit in the culture we’ve built at our company. If they’re serious about joining our team, we owe it to them to allow them unfiltered access to our team. We spend very little time on industry-specific knowledge, because we feel strongly that we can teach that, but not whether someone will integrate well with our culture.
No one owns the market on good ideas. If you’ve hired the right people for the right reasons, your job as a leader is to encourage and help those people to provide their ideas and input. Allowing the team a stake in building their own future makes them more invested in the end product.
Firms who are leading the pack recognize that in a service-based business, the only lasting differentiator is your team and the output they’re able to achieve. If the entire team understands this and is incented to contribute, you will consistently evolve and remain ahead of the competition.
Bob Gearhart, Jr., CEO, DCW Group
The golden rule
We love working with agencies who treat us the way they want to be treated: like partners. Our best agencies communicate freely with us and are responsive (no ghosting). They propose us on most of their groups as part of their day-to-day process and bring us into conversations with their clients, when needed. It’s not a broker’s job to fully learn our story, but great agencies strategize with us on a regular basis. They speak about our services and value message with enthusiasm to the employer and employees. We’ve compiled many learnings and success triggers; great agencies trust our expertise and follow our lead to ensure their groups are successful.
One of my favorite books is “The Slight Edge” by Jeff Olson. In a time when quick success is valued, it’s important to remember that habits (good or bad) compound over time to produce results. Making better choices each day has a tremendous impact. No matter what the topic, the difference between run of the mill and leading the pack is consistency and discipline in everything we do: our marketing plan, our sales calls, our personal development, our workouts, our employee coaching, and so on.
People and partners make all the difference in business (and in life). Internally, we hire only those who match our F.R.E.S.H. core values: Fun, Right-thing doers, Educated innovators, Servant leaders, Heroes of the cause. We love having people on our team who want to have fun, who always strive to do the right thing, who love to learn, and then make changes to their actions based on the learning, who lead by serving others, and who believe in what we’re doing. Further, we always look for people who are tech savvy, fast-paced, great communicators and change leaders.
Heidi Rasmussen, co-owner, freshbenies
In it together
Shared vision. Everyone on the bus knows why they are there and where they are going. Sometimes that vision changes and everyone must agree that the plan moving forward is best for everyone. I look for those who want to make a difference.
Rachel Miner, founder, Thrive Benefits
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