Three years ago, when I assumed leadership of a financial services agency that serves greater Atlanta, I was determined to create a firm that reflects the communities we serve.
Over time, through careful planning, hard work, and commitment, we have altered our agency's face and, not coincidentally, its performance. As of Sept. 1, 2007, about half of our financial service professionals were either women or people of various races and ethnicities, including black, Vietnamese, Laotian, Hispanic, and Korean.
Three years into this ongoing commitment, the lessons we have learned are instructive not only for other agencies and agents, but also for our industry as a whole. Following are four lessons from among many.
- Lesson 1: Diversity matters. Don't let anyone tell you differently. And if they do, tell them to look at the numbers. Since committing our firm to greater diversity, our performance as an agency has greatly improved. Net field force production has doubled, certain sales measures are up as much as 60 percent, and life insurance sold per financial professional has risen dramatically each year for the last three years.
- Lesson 2: Commitment to diversity is a top-down issue. Seek the support of your BGA and your insurer in your diversity marketing efforts.
- Lesson 3: Take the time and make the effort to know your community. To learn about the various cultures and diverse groups that make up our community and our agency, our recruiter became involved with Atlanta's many different cultural groups and centers of influence. These groups have become valuable sources of referrals, both for new candidates and new clients.
- Lesson 4: Consider new approaches to selling. Credit for our results rests, in part, on our firm's adoption of a pictorial-based sales process that transcends language and culture. It can be used very easily by agents (even among those for whom English is a second language) and understood easily by prospects.
Perhaps the biggest lesson to remember is that commitment to diversity is not a check-the-box, one-and-done initiative. It is an ongoing process that, when done genuinely and effectively, brings you closer to the communities you serve and makes you better able to serve them.
William Brill is general agent of Brill Financial Group, a general agency of Massachusetts Mutual Insurance Company. He can be reached at 770-551-3400.
