Every year at Q4intelligence, we choose a theme. We use the theme to keep us focused. It keeps us focused internally as a team and becomes a meaningful reminder of what we have committed to accomplish for the year. It also keeps us focused on what we communicate and share with our clients and the industry as a whole.
In recent years, we focused on embracing and creating a new normal, we spent a year challenging ourselves and the industry to get your shift together, and we are just wrapping up a year when we pushed you, and ourselves, to up your game.
Our themes aren't random, feel-good ideas. They are all born out of our observations of what the industry needs. They reflect our commitment to help transform and serve the industry. To borrow from our 2017 theme, they are very intentional.
What we’ve observed
We all know that 2020 was a year like no other. I could go into a laundry list of what made it so unusual, but THAT isn't necessary. 😑
We have all faced challenges we never expected at levels of which we could have never conceived. Never before have so many had so much change forced on them. It is true for us, for you, and for your clients.
But we all also know, at least the optimistic among us, that with challenges and change come opportunity. What is harder to discern is what we need to do to take advantage of that opportunity.
This brings me to our theme for 2021. Are you ready? Our theme for the year is – MORE.
Really?
You’re probably saying, “What the heck kind of greedy, excess-focused theme is that?!”
Let me explain. There is a bit more complexity to this theme than those of past years.
We have intentionally capitalized each letter. For the agencies in our network, MORE is the name of the sales system we teach. It is an acronym for the role we know advisors need to fill for their clients.
Benefits advisors in our network embrace their role to help their clients Maximize the Organizational Return on Employees. Commercial advisors help to Manage Organizational Risk Exposures.
This role and mission of helping clients in deeper, more meaningful ways is more critical now than ever before. As employers, we’ve all been forced to do more with less for years now and we just got another dose of that with 2020 that is testing everyone. Employers need to work with advisors who are able to deliver MORE.
The basics of the MORE system are as simple as they get:
- Focus on the problems you can solve.
- Help prospects/clients understand where they have problems and why fixing them is critical.
- Bring a systematic plan to address those problems and deliver improved results.
With employers having more problems than ever before, they need advisors to bring this kind of problem-solving commitment to their table. Our commitment this year to our network is to help alleviate the burden of having to figure it all out on their own. A couple things to expect:
- A certification process for our MORE System
- More interaction with our Friendors (vendor friends) to help structure conversations around solutions and plans
It’s more than an acronym
The theme is about way MORE (sorry, couldn’t help myself) than a sales process. As much as we'd all like to think the calendar change will take us back to the normal we once knew, that’s not the case. We will continue dealing with disruption for at least a while longer.
As we have watched what it takes to navigate the challenges and take advantage of the opportunities, it comes down to a couple of things: focus and discipline.
This may sound contrary to our theme of MORE. It isn’t. We aren't challenging ourselves or you to add a laundry list of new goals and behaviors – quite the opposite.
The most successful are doing LESS overall but are finding the focus and discipline to do MORE of the few most critical things. MORE does not correlate to quantity, but rather the quality or depth of something. And in many cases, less really is MORE.
This is the spirit in which we will embrace the theme.
So, are you ready for MORE? Watch for MORE messages in blogs and social posts near you. Here’s a sneak peek at what you can expect to find.
Content provided by Q4intelligence and partners
Photo by IdeaBug, Inc.
