It’s exciting times in the industry. For the first time in I don’t even know how long, there are some truly exciting ideas and strategies being utilized by benefit brokers/advisors on behalf of their clients.
The collective “we” have decided enough is enough. We are ripping back the curtain to expose many of the factors that have led to a healthcare system that is beyond broken. But, as we are also seeing, it’s also not beyond being fixed.
The change is real
There are employee benefit advisors designing and implementing direct-pay-to-provider programs to help their clients bypass traditional carriers/networks. There are advisors who have embraced compensation transparency with their clients. There are advisors out there who have started tying their compensation to the performance of the programs they put in place for their clients.
And, there are many of these advisors who are very generous in sharing their ideas and successes online for the benefit of others.
I’m concerned
However, I get concerned that brokers/advisors who aspire to break the traditional model may become discouraged and give up too soon because they fear they are too far behind. My fear is that they watch all of these ideas and successes being shared online and become overwhelmed by a sense of inadequacy. I fear that, in addition to finding the new ideas motivating, they are paralyzed by the reality that they are nowhere close to taking these ideas to their clients, much less in position to be reporting such tangible successes.
It’s easy to assume that some of the success stories shared by these forward-thinking advisors represents what they do 100% of the time. And, for some, that MAY be the case. But, I think mostly those success stories are still a relatively small, but growing, sample of what they are doing for their clients.
A healthier, more accurate, perspective
Don't get me wrong, for those who are sharing these great successes (and, huge kudos to you for being out in front), please keep sharing. But, assuming your motivation is to encourage other advisors to start down a similar path, maybe you can share the inevitable fears and failures you’ve had to overcome? Maybe you can share the push back you received from skeptical clients and how you finally broke through? Maybe you can share the path of learning you had to endure before you started leading your clients down a path of improved results?
And for the rest of you who aspire to have these types of successes for your own, but who may just be approaching the starting line, recognize that for every online example you see of these forward-thinking and forward-acting advisors who have given themselves a head start, there are hundreds of other advisors out there oblivious to the fact there is a new race to be run.
And also remember, as you read these successes online, most of the time you are seeing other's highlight reels and not their everyday performance.
photo by Kurt Bauschardt
