Before you read any further, I want you do a little exercise with me. No stretching or running or anything like that. However, this exercise may actually be a little more painful. Here's what I want you to do: Pretend like you are your own prospect and research yourself. You know, Google, LinkedIn, website, the whole bit. So, what did you learn about yourself? Did you show up on the first page of the Google search? What were you talking about on Twitter? Does your agency website sound just like every other agency website? What recent business books did you…

You are all aware of MetLife's commercials talking about the "ifs" in life, right? Well, I think it's long past time for us to start thinking about the "what ifs" in our business. I'm talking about those exciting conversations that start with "What if . . .?" I think that those two words are almost magical when used correctly. Think about it, kids use them all the time: What if the sky was orange? What if turtles spoke French and could fly? Starting a question with "what if..." immediately unlocks our imagination and envisions exciting new possibilities. Unfortunately, somewhere between…

We all know the old saying, "You can lead the horse to water; but you can't make him drink." Perhaps no better saying applies to agencies and producers changing their model than this. They can surround themselves with people who will tell them all the reasons they need to take a drink; they will even find people to teach them how to drink the water. But we all know they can't have someone who drinks the water for them, someone who wants that drink more for them more than they do themselves. Well, I suppose that sometimes that becomes the…

We talked about many different topics at our BGNLive conference, and over the next few months we'll be sharing some of those ideas here on our blog. This is one. We talk frequently about getting paid for the value you deliver. And in the insurance industry this tends to be difficult because of the way we've worked for so long. We've gone through an evolution in the way we deliver services to clients based on industry offerings, the way businesses operate, and the state of the competitive market. At one point in there, value-added services became all the rage. (See…

If you have read any of my past articles, you have seen me make a case for changing the model of today's benefits producer/department/agency. I have talked regularly about how our role with clients needs to change. I've even described in some detail what that role should encompass and how innovation is no longer a luxury but a necessity for our very survival.  We all know that change is usually difficult and that the gravity of "how we've always done it" is a strong force indeed. Rarely do we push through the challenges of change until we realize it is…

There are just certain types of people you want on your team. And if you take a few minutes to think about those people, I bet you’ll find they share a few things in common: Good intentions Enthusiasm and contagious energy Willingness and/or excitement to try new things These are things that are innately part of someone’s personality and not really skills to be developed. Although you might be able to coax some of this behavior out of some folks, mostly, it’s just part of the make-up of the personality. The great thing about these traits is that it doesn’t…

If you don't like the behaviors you see in your clients, don't waste time evaluating their behavior and trying to force change. Instead, look at your own behaviors and processes and see if it is you who is inadvertently causing the undesired client behaviors. The flight As I was packing and preparing for my return flight on a recent trip, I received an email from the airline informing me the first leg of my flight was delayed and would arrive too late in my connecting city for me to make my second flight. I called flight services and quickly learned…

When you look around a company and see a common set of behaviors, you can usually tie it back to the behaviors of the leaders. Positive, focused, driven behaviors by leaders set an example for the team, and it's very common for the team to generally behave in the same way and have similar attitudes. It's contagious. And people tend to rise to the level of expectation or standard. And the same is true for the negative behaviors displayed by leaders. When the team regularly sees poor behavior, they begin to see it as acceptable and respond accordingly. People also…

Every employee exposes his/her employer to significant cyber risk every single day. To say this is a huge area of risk for all businesses would be a monumental understatement. Computers, cell phones, laptops, iPads, flash drives, copy machines – anything that stores information and connects to the Internet is a potential opportunity for a data breach. If that's not alarming enough, here are a few stats to consider. Malicious cyber attacks increased 81% in 2011 (according to security vendor Symantec Corp) Almost half of small and medium sized businesses with over 100 employees have spent over $10,000 recovering lost data,…

President Obama in a recent campaign speech discussing individual success – "You didn't get there on your own. I'm always struck by people who think, well, it must be 'cause I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something. There are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there. If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we…