2019 Distribution Conference for Financial Services

Distribution leaders know how important it is to build trust. The increased targeting of life and annuity policyholders, and participants in retirement plans, by fraudsters using more sophisticated schemes, has the potential to erode that trust.  In this workshop, you will learn how fraud is evolving, and learn about the fraud prevention defenses that are being developed in response, including a new and unique program called FraudShare.  In a competitive environment in which customers have many options, robust fraud prevention is likely to grow as an important differentiator in both sales and retention.

In this panel session, we will explore several areas impacted in recent years by aging field leadership. We will highlight the need for seamless succession planning, development of new leaders with enhanced skill sets, company consolidation of agency leadership, and the need for growth. Key takeaways: 

• CEO vs. Agency Manager/GA approaches
• Hub and spoke model for growth using internal developed local leaders 
• Use of shared services to leverage talent and share expenses 
• Functional team roles vs. traditional GA/sales manager role 
• Succession strategies — use of a successor team vs. a single leader

Practice management affects every client and advisor experience. If you have a practice management program, or are contemplating implementing one, this session is for you.

• Learn how practice management affects the entire field team not only the top producers. 
• Real life experiences of what is working and the challenges that lay ahead. 
• Hear what is driving better ROI, retention and improving advisor business experiences
• Discuss the benefits and challenges to home office operations

Producing and selling marijuana — medical, recreational, or both, is a legal and growing business in many states. The entrepreneurs engaged in the marijuana business have special insurance needs as well as unique financial restrictions. What do you need to know to consider this market niche? This session will provide several expert perspectives to support informed exploration into whether this is a market for your company and producers. As regulations shift and the business gains momentum, we will explore some of these key issues:

• Where are the opportunities? (market and growth potential, geographic concentrations, etc.)
• What are the key insurance needs and risks for business owners and entities?
• Regulation: legality, state borders, banking restrictions, and other factors

As teaming grows as an industry “must,” are you struggling with building a teaming program that will have impact? This session will cover: 

• Benefits of teaming to a distribution organization 
• The five attributes of a healthy team 
• Foundational requirements of the distribution organization to foster a teaming culture
• Changes that need to be made at the local level to support teaming, including leadership, culture, and systems

A lead is the starting point for all Life sales, whether it be filling the pipeline for an Agent to work in-person or flowing to a CSR in an 800# call-center.  The lead generation process; how to get them, and how to work them effectively, is changing.  Learn from Life Industry experts how you can help to jump-start your Life sales, how to leverage new technologies such as digital and how to harness established methods such as direct-response to grow your Life business. This workshop will explore real-world examples of successful direct-response, digital, aggregator, self-generated, and third party provided leads to help Lead the way to your life sales growth.

We spend a great deal of time ensuring that we hire the right people, but once we have them how do we ensure that we are getting the right results? Is it just about the objective, or do we inspect what we expect? Managing sales teams requires walking the fine line between motivation and micro-management. Join us for a discussion on the methods, tools and metrics that we use to get the results that we need from our teams in the right way. Among the topics we will explore are:

• Activity management and how to strike the right balance
• The key performance indicators to measure and evaluate
• Methods and frequency of communication & feedback – when is it too much or not enough?
• What systems are best and how are they used?

Learn how two companies have used data analytics over the last few years to drive successful fast starts for new financial professionals and to increase the effectiveness of their field management. Both companies have been using these analytics for a number of years and will provide insight into how they have impacted the business over time. You will learn:

• How data analytics have been used as a predictor of success, drove the creation of critical KPI for the business, and how that information has been built into compensation plans to help drive desired behavior
• How data analytics around dimensions of performance have been used to provide both qualitative and quantitative insight into field management performance