Independent Broker - Dealers Miss Majority of Ideal Recruiting MethodsApparently, the marketing and recruiting directors of Independent Broker-Dealers have very little recruiting experience or are completely unaware of profitable methods to recruiting opportunities to expand. Their first way of bringing aboard new producers is insurance and financial publications. The full page ads tout their own horn, and gain name recognition from their peers. The amount of inquiry interest from quality variable contact insurance agents is very minimal, and therefore ineffective. The other method of recruiting used, is to rely on a myth, and bypass the insurance agents they really need. This great myth is believing all the worthwhile variable contract life agents have signed on with variable contract dealers. Therefore, efforts and expenses applied here would not be profitable. The option chosen is to only go after agents WITHOUT a current vc license. However before these insurance agents could even write a case, they would need to get the proper NASD licensing. Trying to persuade an agent to jump into new water, results in bringing aboard so few. COMPETITION IS NOT GREAT 100 Independent Broker-Dealers currently control 90-95% of the market share by independent agents. In fact, the top 50, I show as controlling over 80%. Let's say 900 of their representative firms did some recruiting, that would still bring the total to only 1,000. In turn there are slightly over 15,000 marketing and brokerage firms competing for the life, health, and annuity business of semi-independent agents and independent brokers. A SMALL PIE TO FIGHT OVER. Only around 1,500 wirehouse brokers (not 15,000 or 100,000) leave their wirehouse each year, with about 1,200 of them joining an independent broker dealer. Big, big money is stupidly spent pursuing these few brokers. In fact many of the independent broker-dealers offer upfront cash incentives to join their firm. The following paragraphs show why this is so stupid MISSING THE OPPORTUNITY Never Assume! Independent Broker-Dealers Assume. They assume the already licensed variable contract agents are almost all taken. A Bad Assumption. Thinking the pool is by now jammed with Stockbrokers, Captive Agents licensed with their company, and agents licensed with other broker-dealers is very, very wrong. My figures show they are right about 40% right about eligible variable contract agents taken. However, my analysis and computations show 60% are remaining as ideal targets.. 105,000 VC AGENTS OVERLOOKED There is a base of roughly 250,000 insurance agents with variable contract license qualifications that could be considered semi-independent agents or independent brokers. Deducting the 100,000 or so aligned with independent broker-dealers, leaves 150,000. Of the 150,000 nearly half are semi-independent agents with still a main company connection. My figures show that within the next 24 months, more than 20% with become fully independent. That totals 30,000. Added to the 75,000 current independent agents without broker-dealer affiliation, that totals 105,000 strong production producers. It also means 105,000 overlooked agents not using their variable licenses. 15,000 DISCONTENT VC AGENTS Time to be realistic. Of the current 100,000 insurance agents under the wings of independent broker-dealers, not everyone is happy. Some are not currently producing vc business, while others in the next 12 months will be searching for green pastures. Adding these 15,000 to the 105,000 above is how the 130,000 figure is arrived. That's makes up over half the total possible base!! There are four targeted groups that independent broker-dealers hire man hunters to locate for them. The Low Range, up to $99,000 production brokers, often sell many insurance products are well. They are profitable as the compliance risk is greatly reduced, there is a substantial profit spread for broker dealers. $100,000 to $299,000 production brokers also provide a low compliance risk. Many of these brokers are on their way up, but some firms do not want the additional time to provide and train with the technology tools these brokers need.. The $300,000 to 749,000 production level brokers is where the highest level of competition lies. Even at this level their compliance risks are low. What the broker-dealers lose in profit spread amount, they make up for in volume. $750,000%2B production brokers can virtually call their own shots. They are excellent for the "image" of the broker-dealer, but the service and technology that is provided must be high end. PROVEN CAPTURE TECHNIQUE Do not rely heavily on financial magazine advertising. Either the ads do not inspire them enough, they don't read the ads, or they do not subscribe to the magazines. Find a targeted insurance agent list comprised of licensed variable contract agents only. Go 5 times better and find a specialized list comprised almost entirely of semi-independent agents and independent brokers with variable contract licenses. Direct mail this list at least twice. Here you are selling gigantic investment products yet you do not correctly know how to market and recruit ready made producers. Labels: Independent Broker |
