NAILBA Perspectives - May/June 2014 - (Page 38)

The MDRT Annual Meeting hosts thousands of financial services professionals every year. Among those attendees are independent producers, as well as the brokerage general agencies for which they write business. More and more, the principals of these BGAs participate in the MDRT Annual Meeting as individual members rather than vendors. Just what are these principals taking back to their agencies? What are they sharing with the brokers who write business for them, and how have MDRT resources impacted their business and relationships? R yan J. Pinney is vice president of sales and marketing for NAILBA member agency Pinney Insurance Center Inc., one of LifeMark's top-10 ranked BGAs. He is also a frequent Top of the Table qualifier and five-year MDRT member. As such, he shared his feelings for MDRT and how he incorporates its resources into his practice. In what felt like one breath, he described how MDRT has impacted Pinney Insurance's way of doing business. Pinney started by explaining one of the biggest problems he sees: "The industry has gotten to a point where the typical broker utilizes something like 2.7 BGAs to conduct business as part of normal operations," he said. "But why do they feel they need more than one? What are they not getting 38 perspectives MAY/JUNE 2014 from the first, and how do we reverse that trend to a 1-to-1 ratio?" The goal of Pinney Insurance, he said, is to make its agents want to do business with them and no one else-to make them "sticky," as the industry calls it. One way to do this, he said, is to move beyond the typical "CUPS" model (commission, underwriting, products, services), which is less of a selling point and more of a standard operating procedure. Instead, Pinney wants to see the discussion evolve, focusing more on producers' toptier concerns, such as how to be more effective at prospecting, how to make transacting business easier and how to push cases faster. So what role does MDRT play in this strategy? It starts with participation. Not only does Pinney-often with his father, Jan (owner of Pinney Insurance)-attend the MDRT Annual Meeting, he makes it a point to interact with peers, whether that means individual brokers, Pinney's agents, representatives of carriers, or even competitors. Additionally, he takes advantage of opportunities to speak-for instance, on the main stage at the 2014 MDRT

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NAILBA Perspectives - May/June 2014

NAILBA Perspectives - May/June 2014
Contents
Chairman’s Corner
CEO Insights
How to Train New Marketing Reps
Reading Ahead
Life Happens
The 3M Formula for BGA Marketing Success
NAILBA Charitable Foundation
Member Profiles
Agency Successor Networking Group
Agency Resources
member Profiles
MDRT Annual Meeting
Legislative Update
Calendar of Events
Index of Advertisers

NAILBA Perspectives - May/June 2014