Jack Dewald – Agency Services, Inc.
Bill Zimmerman – LifePro
Every business has its own recruitment needs. If a business is seeing a lot of success, it will need to hire quite a few new employees to keep on top of the demand. If a key executive has just left the business then they’ll need to look for the best executive search firms montreal (or wherever they’re located) has to offer in order to find a suitable replacement. And, if they are trying to think about their future, they’ll want to hire younger talent that they can train and coach through the company. But how do you attract this young talent, especially if you’re in the brokerage industry?
Q: What initially appealed to you that made you want to join the insurance industry?
Jack Dewald: I was fortunate to have grown up in the business and watched my parents build ASI from scratch beginning in 1963. Dad retired in 1994, and I purchased the agency from him at that point. I was 34 at the time I acquired 100 percent ownership of the firm.
What always is important to point out is this: Our industry allows you to control your own destiny. You set your own schedule and you reap rewards based on how hard you work. When I am able to explain to my personal friends that my business makes money (even when I’m not there every day) because it has essentially zero inventory costs and basically no accounts receivables (except from carriers who generally pay commissions on time and correctly)-a business model that makes others say “wow.” I’m a blessed man, and I recognize that.
Bill Zimmerman: There is no question, I was attracted by the entrepreneurial opportunity that was described to me when I was recruited. I was 22 and just out of college. I knew friends who were struggling to find jobs, and some were even considering using resume services such as ARC Resumes (https://www.arcresumes.com/local/minnesota/) to see if that would help them be more successful in their job hunt. I knew that I was one of the lucky ones. LifePro offered me an initial guarantee (for one month) that was higher than job offers if I went to a two-week class memorizing sales talks and being exposed to motivational material. The result has been a 46-year career (so far) in a business that delivered on every promise.
Q: What role can the following segments of the industry take in encouraging the younger generation to consider a career in insurance: (1) companies, (2) associations, (3) independent marketing organizations/brokerage general agencies, and (4) individual producers?
Zimmerman: It’s been said that sales are best made within 10 years of one’s age. That is not necessarily true, but my experience is that it is more that way than not. That being said, the products need to be designed and packaged for younger generations. The purpose of the exciting new cash value products like indexed universal life is to provide a permanent life insurance benefit that protects insureds whether they have an untimely death or live well beyond life expectancy. It is a perfect financial tool for the young family. The safety and excellent liquidity of the tax-advantaged accumulation account can be borrowed against for a lifetime of financial needs including large purchases, children’s college, tax-free income at retirement, long term care funding, and even those financial emergencies that will occur along the way. And then, unlike term insurance, or any other liquid asset, if the money is not used up while living, the remaining funds, along with all the earnings of a lifetime, pass on to the beneficiaries income tax-free.
Young agents need to be attracted to our industry and need to be taught how these products work and how to use them. They need to be taught how to build a clientele through referrals, generated annual reviews and policy service. Finally, the companies need to focus on telling that story to the public and getting involved in helping young advisors with clients. I understand that this is a long term proposition for the carriers, but otherwise the industry as we know it will die with the baby boomer generation.
A few years ago I became involved, first in MDRT, then Top of the Table, and then NAIFA. I found out that NAIFA was experiencing a two-decades long decline in membership. It was obvious to me that this coincided with the shrinking of the “career shops” and the growth of independent distribution. I became active and started attending the state and national association meetings.
When I became president of my local chapter, my goal was to somehow help NAIFA become more “independent friendly.” What I found out while doing that is that we need to focus on providing a YAT (young advisor team) friendly association. Not every YAT is obsessed with the same things that the “old guys” are. They want opportunities for networking and fellowship between them. Like us, they are fiercely independent and need to be encouraged to “do it their way.”
Independent marketing organizations (BGAs) are where most of the independent distribution gets their product. This segment of the market started gaining a foothold about 35 years ago and has had most of its success serving producers that were brought up in the career world. That “feeder system” is not what it once was, and the health of this market cannot be sustained into the future.
The firms that will be successful in the next 35 years are the ones that learn how to embrace the young advisor and provide training, mentoring, systems, processes and financing in a way that fits them, to help these young entrepreneurs get a foothold in this amazing industry.
Mankind has always passed knowledge from generation to generation. The process is much more spiritual than it looks on the surface. On its face it appears as though the journeymen gain from the cheap labor of the apprentices and the apprentices gain by learning a craft. While this is true, the larger benefit is that the journeymen exponentially expand their knowledge of the craft by teaching it, and the intangible rewards are ever more superior to that.
The same is true for the independent producer. I have seen producers explode their production and reinvigorate their practices and their lives by taking on apprentices. I would recommend to every producer that the secret to their personal success is to take a younger advisor under their wing and show him how it is done.
Dewald: On the career side, demutualization meant too many carriers managed for the next quarter’s earnings release. My time as LIFE Foundation chairman gave me an in-depth look at all distribution models, which affirmed that hiring a brand new, green agent can’t be “managed” into a one-quarter earnings release.
The economic downturn of 2008 actually led to a resurgence of traditional recruiting, because our industry was able to recruit individuals from other industries. Within the brokerage model, hiring young go-getters must be managed well. They have to have an excellent work ethic and be fearless. I’ve made my share of mistakes, and I now lean more toward hiring staff with prior expertise. We can always train specifics, but instinct and salesmanship are unique traits which take precedence for me in the hiring process. Demonstrated ability to build, maintain and deepen relationships with clients is what we’re looking for when adding to our staff.
Last time I checked, the associations weren’t doing much hiring. Almost universally, their memberships are down as the industry “ages.” Ten years ago we were saying that the average agent was 48 years old; now the average age is 58-and nothing much is changing. Keep doing the same thing and expect different results is the definition of insanity. If our agency had counted on associations as being the primary source for recruiting, we would have closed our doors many years ago!
As a BGA, we’ve shifted a lot of our focus to working with financial advisors in regional and national wirehouses. Our point-of-sale staff is able to help these individuals sell life insurance to their clients because they are not likely to be joiners of the traditional agent associations we all know.
Both IMOs and BGAs can have great influence. Teaming up innovative younger staff at a BGA with sales teams or in internal wholesaler roles to financial advisors has been successful. BGAs that offer capable resources in terms of sales tools, social media training and other innovative techniques can be appealing to older agents/brokers/financial advisors. BGAs offering “referral” tools that allow them to interact with actual clients of a broker who need some type of specific help can be unique. For example: We offer a long term care insurance and Medicare referral service for agents who are not well-trained in selling these products but have clients in need of them. Agents refer their clients to us, we work with the client on behalf of the agent/broker and, when possible, we pay a referral fee upon successful placement of coverage. This approach allows our younger staff to gain essential point-of-sale experience dealing with real world issues from real clients. A satisfied broker is one that keeps referring clients (and other brokers) to a BGA that truly helps.
IMOs that provide resources, backroom and other value-added tools to the BGA only help their BGA be more successful. For example, we use TMA’s central processing office in Omaha, NE, for a good bit of our life case management functions. This allows me to off-load processing work to others so I can focus on hiring and developing income-producing employees.
Older producers who are starting to slow down should seek a younger agent with whom to “partner.” This approach gives long-time clients of the experienced agent confidence that they will be served going forward and, at the same time, allows the younger agent to “go to school” on the back of more experience and wisdom. Wirehouses often use this “team” approach. Our firm is often asked to play “matchmaker” between younger agents/advisors looking for an affiliation and those more seasoned advisors who wish to find a young associate.
Q: What approach has worked best for your organization with the next generation of producers?
Dewald: The “next generation” is much more tech savvy. Getting them to use online quote engines, drop-ticket application tools and webinar training are examples of efficiencies we realize. Of course, not every “young gun” has the “religion of life insurance” like the more seasoned agents, so we have to watch things like multiple submissions, non-taken cases and other items where less experienced agents sometimes tend to give up too easily when things get off track.
Zimmerman: The most important thing we have done at LifePro is to build and embrace multiple training platforms utilizing internal, carrier and third party resources. While I can’t give an actual number, I would say that 20 to 30 percent of our resources-therefore revenue-is spent on training. About one-third of that is professional development training, which includes lead generation, client building, practice building, sales fundamentals, etc. In addition, most of our entry level employees at LifePro are recent college graduates, and they seem to match energies excellently with the next generation of producers.
Q: What advice do you have for someone considering a financial services career?
Zimmerman: This is the hardest, easy business in the world…or the easiest, hard business in the world. I was in the business for about a year and very discouraged with the rejection I was getting in my sales activity. I didn’t know it then, but it is obvious to me now that what I was feeling was fear of failure.
When I was a young man in this business, Warren Hyde, one of the mentors of my life, told me three things that I will never forget. First, he said, “Bill, everyone who stays in this business for 10 years has any life they want.” He added, “Remember, I said what they want, not what you want.” I’ve spent 45 years in this business and not found one person who didn’t fit what Warren said.
Second, he said, “If this was easy to learn, it wouldn’t pay much.”
Finally, he told me that, “All charities try to lessen the suffering of people. Almost every human being has a grieving family sooner or later, and we get paid handsomely for providing them financial comfort.”
This is the most amazing business in the world! Don’t miss it! [BZ]
Dewald: Ask a lot of questions. Find out all you can about the company or agency with which you are considering affiliating. Don’t believe all you hear. Have a trusted confidant to whom you can go to get the real scoop. Don’t think it’s easy, because it’s not-work hard and have fun. Seek advice from others you know in the industry or related industries. Fully understand the flow of business and how long the pipeline is from prospect to paid commissions. Use volunteer boards and activities as networking tools to get you connected. Take advice from those who have been there before. Realize that there’s always a better product, rider or gizmo right around the corner and don’t get so hung up on what I call “analysis paralysis.”
Know that clients don’t really care how much you know until they know how much you care. Keep it simple when dealing with clients. Products solve your client’s problems, but can’t fix the problems after they happen.
Concentrate on what insurance does…not what it is. Insurance keeps families in homes, provides dignity, creates and funds legacy, provides cash when it’s needed most, and replaces income. It’s not about the type of insurance or the special, super-duper rider that carrier X or Y just introduced. It’s about solving problems.
Ask for referrals. Do joint work with others when you’re in over your head. Don’t be afraid to say “I don’t know, but I’ll find out.” Try to under-promise and over-deliver. Always tell the truth. [JD]
