A View from the Top (of the Table)

The higher you are, the farther you can see. Being at the top gives you an enlightened perspective and access to information not otherwise available.

The top of the life insurance business is the Top of the Table (TOT) according to the Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT) - the premier association of the top 1% of the world’s life insurance professionals. MDRT defines TOT as an exclusive forum for the industry’s most successful life insurance and financial services professionals who are committed to providing exemplary client service while displaying the highest standards of ethics and professional knowledge.

Each year, TOT Members gather to consider, learn and discuss the most important issues to the future of the business of providing life insurance advice. The theme of this year’s TOT meeting was "Embracing Change" and included such renowned thinkers and speakers as:

• Seth Godin, who writes the most popular marketing blog in the world and authored multiple best-selling books that have changed the way people think about marketing, including his latest – "Tribes" – another national best-seller.

• Ian Morrison, an internationally-known consultant to more than 100 of the Fortune 500 companies, futurist and author of New York Times business and Business Week best-seller "The Second Curve – Managing the Velocity of Change".

• Paul Greenberg, author of the best-selling "CRM at the Speed of Light: Essential Customer Strategies for the 21st Century" and named as one of the most influential client relationship management (CRM) leaders in 2008 by CRM magazine.

• Mario Armstrong, technology correspondent for Nation Public Radio (NPR), featured contributor to Comcast’s "Your Morning" and "Money Matters", and has appeared on CNN, CNBC, TC-One, PBS and C-Span.

Seth Godin implored if you are not remarkable, then you are invisible. He analogized you have to be the "purple cow in the field of brown cows" to be remarkable. "The world is full of boring stuff (i.e., brown cows) which is why so few people pay attention to them." "Something remarkable is worth talking about, worth paying attention to. Boring stuff quickly becomes invisible." As such, "remarkable marketing is the art of building things worth noticing right into your product or service [and] understanding from the outset that if your offering itself isn't remarkable, then it's invisible -- no matter how … well-crafted [the] advertising [and/or sales presentation]." Only THEInsuranceAdvisor.COM is accepted by AICPA for independent client representation, endorsed by New York Bankers Association (NYBA) for Prudent Investor Act compliance, and compliant with FINRA standards for fair and adequate disclosure. As such, subscribers to THEInsuranceAdvisor.COM can build something that is remarkable into their advertising and sales presentations, and in-so-doing differentiate themselves as "purple cow" amongst the crowd of "invisible brown cows".

Ian Morrison lead off by applying the principles from his best-selling book "The 2nd Curve" to the life insurance business/industry. Morrison suggests looking for the transition from "the first curve (i.e., a company's traditional business carried out in a familiar corporate climate) to the all-important second curve. The second curve is the future - the new technologies, new consumers, and new markets that companies must command to survive and thrive. Traditional transaction-focused life insurance selling is on the first curve, which by Morrison’s definition eventually declines as the industry’s salesforce ages and new technologies emerge. On the other hand, THEInsuranceAdvisor.COM (TIA) provides the life insurance pricing and performance research and suitability ratings sought by clients and advisors alike, and is therefore the type of new (i.e., patented) technology that opens doors to new customers and new markets, and marks the transition to the "the 2nd Curve".

Paul Greenburg talked about the 21st century consumer, how they are not who they used to be, how they increasingly trust peer-group feedback more than unsubstantiated advertisements or sales presentations, how they will control the conversation going forward, and how they expect to be engaged (i.e., giving them the information they seek) and NOT managed (as in the typical "tell them only what they need to know" sales process). Greenburg calls this 21st century consumer the "social consumer" and counseled the audience to engage the consumer and/or their advisors with strategies to further empower them on their own terms with 24/7 service and accessibility. "Today’s successful businesses are embracing communication strategies that engage the consumer on their terms, not [their own]." THEInsuranceAdvisor.COM offers just such tools like the Policy Pricing Calculator (PPC) – a complimentary, online 24/7 self-service tool to empower clients and advisors alike to calculate how much they/their clients should be paying for life insurance – and Confidential Policy Evaluator (CPE) Research Reports that measure the pricing, performance and suitability of any given policy against representative industry benchmarks for its peer group.

Finally, Mario Armstrong discussed and recommended a number of useful technologies for non-tech audiences and, even though he discovered THEInsuranceAdvisor.COM only 24 hours before his presentation, he included THEInsuranceAdvisor.COM among those technologies that can increase personal productivity, uncover centers of influence and yield higher-quality sales. Our compliments to Mario for so quickly seeing the power of online and independent research for opening new doors to independent advisors as centers of influence and referral sources, for eliminating competition in advance by finding/confirming best-available rates and terms faster and more efficiently than by any other means, and for better advising clients and closing sales faster by providing all the information that clients (and their advisors) seek.

So whether you are already at the top of the life insurance advisor business, or want to get to the top, or would just like to be able to see life insurance pricing and performance with the clarity of those at the top, give TIA a try and get a jump on of the industry’s transition to "The 2nd Curve", to be remarkable like the "purple cow" in a field of "brown cows", and to empower your clients and their advisors with the industry’s most accepted research as to the appropriateness of pricing, the reasonableness of performance expectations for invested assets underlying policy cash values, and overall suitability for your clients' policies based on the 5 factors of suitability. Click here and get up to 3 Confidential Policy Evaluator (CPE) research reports under our NO-RISK trial subscription.