Training Objectives and Course Modules
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TMD 01 60 Target Market Development: Marketing Yourself and Your Business
This session will address marketing and how students can plan to more effectively deliver the company’s products to the customer. They will learn the basic components of marketing and will analyze how successful companies around the world use unique marketing techniques to make people buy from them. Students will learn how to differentiate themselves from competitors to add value to the transaction of the sale of insurance, and to deliver the marketing message that will turn prospects into clients.
TMD 02 60 Target Market Development: Being a Creative Businessperson
A businessperson needs to be creative to stand apart from the competition, but most people do not feel that they are as creative as they could be. This session will teach students how to engage their creativity and show it through their marketing, selling, and service to clients. Students will encounter challenging situations to give them practice in using their creativity.
TMD 03 75 Target Market Development: What Is Target Marketing?
Target marketing is the key to success for thousands of agents around the world.
Students will learn what target marketing is and the advantages of focusing on specific groups of people. The traits of a market will be discussed, and students will learn the five major categories of markets. Students then will discover what the five characteristics of an ideal market are, to avoid wasting time with poor-performance markets. Learning how major world corporations market their products will be included as a team project.
TMD 04 70 Target Market Development: How to Analyze Marketing Areas
Students will be introduced to the fictional city of Athena to learn how to analyze a marketing area and determine the best potential markets available for penetration. It is through this case study that students will discover almost 50 possible opportunities hidden among the wealth of data that can be collected for analysis from any metropolitan area.
TMD 05 60 Target Market Development: Analyzing My Marketing Area — Pre-Requisite: How to Analyze Marketing Areas
As part of their pre-course assignment, students will be asked to bring data on their own business marketing area. Having developed analytical skills with the Athena case study in the prior session, students now will analyze their own marketing areas for possible markets. This will be done as a team with as many as six people and is the first step in an eight-step process to designing a complete market penetration plan.
1. MARKET DEVELOPMENT
Penetrating new markets allows your producers to generate business growth and a more sustainable business
practice. In this series of workshops, participants will learn how to successfully penetrate new markets,
convert non-clients into clients, and generate a whole new set of business opportunities.
Training Objectives and Course Modules
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TMD 06 90 Target Market Development: Marketing Self-Analysis
Using a market identification guide called Project 100, students will analyze various characteristics of people they know and sell to. This proven marketing tool is one important step in identifying possible natural markets to penetrate. Students then will be introduced to the Marketing Self-Analysis form, which will help them explore 13 facets of their own personal characteristics that will point toward additional possible lucrative markets.
TMD 07 60 Target Market Development: Selecting Markets
Through analyzing their marketing area and doing a marketing self-analysis, students will have identified a host of possible markets that can be targeted and penetrated. In this session, students will narrow their search for markets and choose three markets to target, ranking them first, second, and third, according to their success potential.
Students will learn from studying a sample approach and will work in teams to practice the skill.
TMD 08 60 Target Market Development: Market Information
Once markets are prioritized and targeted, students will learn that it is important to know everything possible about the target market. They will learn a variety of sources they can use to obtain information about a market. Several examples will be included in the student notebook, including a proven, effective survey for a simple method of gathering data. One of the evening assignments for the first day will ask students to gather as much information about their top market as possible.
TMD 09 60 Target Market Development: Refining Market Information — Pre-Requisite: Market Information
This session will begin by discussing the part of the students’ evening assignment that challenged them to find information about their markets. This information will be shared in teams. The team’s project during this session will be to help each other refine their information — add to it, correct it, and update it based on the personal
knowledge of the students and the instructor.
TMD 10 65 Target Market Development: The Market Narrative
The Market Narrative is an important step in building a complete market penetration plan. Students will take the refined information developed for their chosen markets and organize it in a unique way that makes it pertinent and usable. They will learn that the narrative is very much like a story written about the people in their markets. In an individual exercise, students will write their “story” expanding upon their own market information in 16 specific categories or “chapters.”
1. MARKET DEVELOPMENT (continued)
Training Objectives and Course Modules
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WM 11 80 Working Your Market: Product/Services Assessment
Students will analyze the products and services available to them to determine which ones will likely be used to meet the needs of the clients within their target markets. An assessment form will be used, and work will be done in teams. Nineteen categories of products will be listed on the assessment tool, along with 23 services that are rendered by most companies. A different assessment tool, one without generic categories, also will be available for use.
WM 12 130 Working Your Market: Planning the Sales Process
This session will be the highlight of building a complete market penetration plan.
Students will review the steps of the sales process and learn that target marketing is most meaningful when the sales process steps are tailored precisely for the targeted market. By tailoring the steps, a marketing strategy will be created. Students will review a sample marketing strategy first and then develop a marketing strategy for their own chosen markets.
WM 13 60 Working Your Market: Market Aspirations — Pre-Requisite: Planning the Sales Process Now that students have learned how to develop their plan for market penetration, the course will focus on developing students’ skills in crucial areas to actually implement the plan. This session will look at understanding the motivations and desires of the people they serve in markets. Based on recent LIMRA research on the middle markets, clients are divided into four key aspirational segments. Students will learn what marketing techniques are best for each segment and what products will most likely solve each segment’s needs.
WM 14 100 Working Your Market: Interacting With the Market — Pre-Requisite: Market Aspirations In this session, students will divide into teams of three for role-play. They will be given four situations where an agent is dealing with a prospect at a particular step in the sales process. The prospect in each of the four situations will assume the personality of one of the four aspirational segments learned in the prior session. The teams will rotate, with each member playing agent, prospect, and observer. The role-play will teach the students to adapt their style of interaction to the personality of the prospect.
WM 15 70 Working Your Market: Setting Goals to Increase Sales
It is expected that the students will accomplish higher goals after developing skills in targeting and penetrating markets. As part of the pre-course preparation, students will be asked to collect and bring information on their current sales achievements. In this session, students will set new goals in activities such as prospecting, fact-finding interviews, presentations, and closes. They will set goals to upgrade their “success ratios,” such as prospects-to-interviews and interviews-to-closes. Students also will set new objectives for increasing the number of prospects from various sources.
1. MARKET DEVELOPMENT (continued)
Training Objectives and Course Modules
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WM 16 60 Working Your Market: Marketplace of the Future
Students will explore how their markets are expected to change and evolve in the coming years. Students will learn that consumers have independent characteristics and that they must be treated as a market of “one.” They will learn the eight key factors that will shape the future environment of our customers. This session also will investigate the connection between the propensity to save and the purchase of industry products. Students will explore five major factors that affect saving.
WM 17 75 Working Your Market: Relationship Selling
Relationship selling is the trend in the industry today that describes the establishment of a unique connection or bond between agent and client. Students will learn how to establish this connection, which will lead to more sales and greater success. In this session, students will learn how to earn the trust of their clients and how to make clients respect them. Students will take a personal assessment, allowing them to discover what must be done to improve in both areas. In teams, students will address the subject of how they can build added value into the insurance sale transaction.
WM 18 60 Working Your Market: Beating the Competition
This session will allow the students to explore who their competition is and how they can overcome the competition. It will be a new and unique approach that will give students the knowledge they need to better understand today’s challenges. Students will learn the four basic levels of competition — and they are not just other insurance companies! A team project will require the students to identify major competitors and discover ways to beat them.
PM 19 90 Penetrating Your Market: Focusing on the Right Customer
In this session the students will develop criteria and profiles of the best customer type to match company, agency, and personal marketing strengths. The emphasis will be on client development that will lead to persistent business resulting in long-term relationships, not just one-time sales.
PM 20 60 Penetrating Your Market: Developing Customer Categories
The students will work in small groups to develop customer clusters within their activity records, and to develop the beginning of a market profile to maximize productivity and effective client development activity.
PM 21 60 Penetrating Your Market: Learning What Your Customers Want
This segment will present several ways for students to gain insight into the minds and concerns of their customers. Through interactive team discussions, the students will examine their own attitudes in situations where they are the “customers,” and then draw conclusions about their own business practices from these insights.
1. MARKET DEVELOPMENT (continued)
Training Objectives and Course Modules
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PM 22 75 Penetrating Your Market: Creating a Marketing Profile and Rating System
Using a rating system based on matching of company and personal market criteria to the student’s own client list, the students will create a marketing profile of the “best matches” among his or her clients. Students will use this rating system to identify those customers with the highest long-term relationship development potential. The session will include discussion of persistency and cross-selling implications for higher-scoring clients.
PM 23 90 Penetrating Your Market: Your Business Development
Individually and in small groups, the students will develop plans for building their advisory practices. Group activity will focus on defining professional images, identifying the types of referral sources and activities that will enhance professional credibility, and creating effective methods of building referral business.
PM 24 90 Penetrating Your Market: Developing Relationships to Create New Markets
Using examples from the case study, students will develop plans for creating relation- ships with people who can help them to penetrate new markets. They will explore a process that will enable them to build relationships for career and market development.
PM 25 60 Penetrating Your Market: Expanding Your Influence in the Affluent Market Students will work in teams to discuss what success they have had in the affluent market. They will learn how to further segment the affluent market by occupational, geographic, social, language, and other special subsets. Students will discuss those things that they should know about any market they want to penetrate.
PM 26 180 Penetrating Your Market: Conducting Financial Seminars
Students will learn how to plan, conduct, and follow up on one of the most popular marketing techniques in the financial services industry — the financial seminar.
Although seminars can be aimed at various audiences, this session will concentrate on seminars for business owners. The mechanics of arranging seminars will be explored along with a procedure for writing and delivering a dynamic and effective presentation. The session will include an actual seminar conducted by the
students themselves.
1. MARKET DEVELOPMENT (continued)
Training Objectives and Course Modules
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PM 101 01 70 Practice Management 101: The Business Environment
Students will learn the importance of monitoring the business environment in their country and around the world. A presentation will be given that provides key data about the country (e.g., demographics, economics, and competition) that will affect their business. In teams, the students will discuss the nature of these effects and how they can ensure the impact is positive.
PM 101 02 75 Practice Management 101: Coping With Change
Students are affected not only by change from external sources, but also by changes that occur within their company. They will learn to deal with changes and how to manage them to their advantage. Students will review mistakes that businesspeople make in times of change and how those mistakes can be avoided.
PM 101 03 60 Practice Management 101: The Planning Process
Students will learn how to do effective planning beginning with the creation of a philosophy, mission, and vision statement. A complete planning process will be learned, which includes how to assess the current situation, set objectives, design methods to accomplish objectives, and set up evaluation checkpoints. The concept of a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis will be introduced and students will learn to use the concept while working in teams.
PM 101 04 60 Practice Management 101: Solving Problems
One of the most frustrating parts of a producer’s career is dealing with problems.
In this session, students will learn a proven problem-solving process. They will learn how to determine the difference between problems and symptoms. Students will be introduced to a specially designed tool to help them use the problem-solving process and will practice its use with real cases.
PM 101 05 75 Practice Management 101: Analyzing Your Performance
When a producer’s performance is less than expected, it is often difficult to understand
“why.” If this is not answered, a producer may never get back on track and may eventually fail. Students will learn what affects their performance, how to analyze what might cause them to perform at low levels, and what to do to remedy the situation.
PM 101 06 60 Practice Management 101: Time Control
A popular topic of discussion in any course, time control will be addressed in a hands- on manner. Students will analyze how they currently spend their time and make decisions about how they can better spend their time. They will learn some major concepts put forth by experts in managing time. Students will study 16 common business problems that result in poor time control and determine what causes them.
2. PRACTICE MANAGEMENT
Growing a successful financial services practice requires mastering numerous management activities and
being mindful of the true purpose of your business. Help your producers to understand the intricate details
and perform exercises that will help them run a profitable practice.
Training Objectives and Course Modules
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PM 101 07 60 Practice Management 101: Decision Making — Pre-Requisite: Time Control
This session will teach students how to effectively make decisions. Students will learn a decision-making process and will apply it when deciding how they will overcome the business problems identified in the previous session. Discussion will be generated in this session which can lead to a more effective and efficiently run business practice.
PM 101 08 80 Practice Management 101: Organizational Skills
Being organized is a challenge for people in general and for many producers in the financial services industry. Students will learn how to become better-organized and how being organized can make their business more profitable. Through teamwork and discussion, students will learn the art of organizing their desk, office space, paperwork, filing, and record keeping.
FPP 09 65 Financial Planning for Your Practice: Having an Entrepreneurial Spirit
This session will present the students with tips on how to be more entrepreneurial in their business endeavors. They will explore techniques that successful entrepreneurs use to make their businesses grow and prosper.
FPP 10 60 Financial Planning for Your Practice: Being a Creative Businessperson
A businessperson needs to be creative to stand apart from the competition, but most people do not feel that they are as creative as they could be. This session will teach students how to engage their creativity and show it through their marketing, selling, and service to clients. Students will encounter challenging situations to give them practice in using their creativity.
FPP 11 60 Financial Planning for Your Practice: Developing Your Professional Practice In this session, students will consolidate the program content to create individual plans for personal and professional practice development when they return to their own agencies.
FPP 12 75 Financial Planning for Your Practice: Principles of Business Management
This session will review, individually and in small discussion groups, the students’ own business practices and strategies. Principles are introduced to guide a professional business practice.
FPP 13 65 Financial Planning for Your Practice: Financial Aspect I
In the first of two sessions on the important subject of finances for their businesses, students will learn the importance of creating and managing a budget. They will be introduced to two major tools in the industry created by LIMRA: the planning book Looking Ahead and the activity recorder The Weekly Sales Planner. Students will be provided with time to do some individual work from Looking Ahead by assessing their personal effectiveness.
2. PRACTICE MANAGEMENT (continued)
Training Objectives and Course Modules
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FPP 14 90 Financial Planning for Your Practice: Financial Aspect II — Pre-Requisite: Financial Aspect I
This session continues to explore knowledge and skills vital for a successful business.
Students will learn the profitability equation and how to implement it. The subject of expenses will be addressed and students will learn how to control expenses and therefore increase profit. This session will also cover distinguishing between profitable and unprofitable activity, business, and expenditures, and students will learn to perform a cost-benefit analysis.
FPP 15 75 Financial Planning for Your Practice: Your Business Inventory
Students will establish, with their pre-course information and the input of others, the elements of their business inventories. This includes knowledge and information, materials, equipment, and resources available to help them accomplish their goals.
FPP 16 75 Financial Planning for Your Practice: Planning and Leveraging Your Resources
In this workshop setting, students apply inventory resources to a case study, and then work in teams to apply their inventory resources to their own personal objectives.
FPP 17 60 Financial Planning for Your Practice: Your Business Financial Plan
This session will identify the “profit levers” of business operations, and will define the relationship between profitability and advisor compensation principles.
FPP 18 90 Financial Planning for Your Practice: Business Financial Workshop
Using a simplified cost-benefit analysis process, students will practice using financial decision-making principles with a case study.
BT 19 45 Building Your Team: The Administration Dilemma
Students will apply the problem-solving process to the administrative issues of their busi- ness practices. A list of “top 10” administrative organization guidelines will be given.
BT 20 75 Building Your Team: Working as a Team
Producers may form their own teams by hiring people with specific skills to help their business grow, or they may be part of a team by belonging to a unit or an agency within the company. In either event, it is important to know how to work as a team player and contribute to the success of the group. This session will explore the four stages of a team’s growth and what makes teams successful. Students will form teams in this session to role-play a simulation that will help them learn the dynamics of team interaction.
2. PRACTICE MANAGEMENT (continued)
Training Objectives and Course Modules
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BT 21 90 Building Your Team: Expectations and Responsibilities
The students will work with a case study and their own situations to identify what expectations they have of others and others have of them, and the responsibilities involved in informing others and completing commitments.
BT 22 60 Building Your Team: Personal Development
In this session, students will be given a tool to help them think through what future training they will need and how to plan for it. Students will learn how to help their managers and trainers train them. They will learn how training needs are assessed and how to use the Prepare, Explain, Show, Observe, and Supervise (PESOS) training method. Principles of how learning takes place and barriers to learning will also be explored.
BT 23 90 Building Your Team: Your Personal Work Style
Through use of a short questionnaire, students will gain insight into their own working style and the work style possibilities of others. This tool will be used as a basis for discussing differences in behavior, communication, and decision making.
BT 24 75 Building Your Team: Interpersonal Skills
Students will learn the art of interpersonal skills, whether making presentations before groups or dealing with people on a one-on-one basis. Platform presentation skills will be explored. Good listening and the concept of active listening will be introduced.
Barriers to good communication will be reviewed, as well as types of nonverbal communication and how to react to it. Students will role-play in realistic one-on-one situations that will require that they use the skills learned in this session.
BT 25 90 Building Your Team: Planning, Problem Solving, Delegation
In this session, students learn a complete planning process. They begin by addressing the importance of establishing a philosophy, mission, and vision for their practice. A problem-solving process will then be explored and students will get a tool to help them analyze and solve performance discrepancies. The idea of hiring staff to which specific tasks can be delegated is discussed and students will be shown the basic elements of bringing staff into their practice and training them.
BT 26 105 Building Your Team: Handling Difficult Situations
As an advisor’s career develops, there will be more possibilities for difficult situations to arise, requiring sensitive and ethical handling. In this session, students will use the inventory of skills and knowledge developed through this curriculum to deal, in role- play, with several difficult situations. Students will deal with a death claim, a possible market conduct problem, and a client’s financial distress and potential policy lapse.
2. PRACTICE MANAGEMENT (continued)
Training Objectives and Course Modules
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BT 27 40 Building Your Team: Dealing With Change
Students will be given guidelines and a process for thinking through and responding to change, both planned and unexpected, in their own work situations.
BT 28 75 Building Your Team: Communicating About Change
In discussion and role-play, the students will explore the process of analyzing and preparing others for change in their working situations. Both case study and actual student situations will be used.
BT 29 30 Building Your Team: Managing Time and Goals
In this session, students will take a look at two important factors they must manage in order to be successful businesspeople: time and goals. They will learn the difference between capital investment activities and current cost activities and how to shift their activities and time expenditure from one to the other. Students will analyze how they currently spend their time and learn ways to improve. A team work exercise enables students to list their most common time problems and determine what must be done to counter them. Alan Lakein’s principles of time management will also be discussed.
BT 30 90 Building Your Team: Improving the Performance of Your Staff
As the business of the financial advisor grows with personal and business owner clients, it becomes necessary to add staff to the practice. The financial advisor simply cannot do the entire job. However, staff members who perform poorly actually cost the advisor’s business money. This session will introduce a checklist and procedures for dealing with poor performance and will show students how to reverse the situation resulting in successfully performing staff members.
BT 31 75 Building Your Team: Building a Team of Specialists
This session will explore the idea of creating a team of specialists to work with an advisor to give clients access to more expertise than the advisor is able to give. The team may consist of such professionals as lawyers, accountants, investment specialists, etc. Students learn how to identify what is needed, how to approach professionals to be on the team, and how to make it successful.
BT 32 60 Building Your Team: Succession Planning
Although financial advisors assist business owner clients with their succession planning, few actually apply the same diligence to their own practice. This session will teach students how to plan for their own succession. Students will begin developing their own plan in this session and will receive feedback.
2. PRACTICE MANAGEMENT (continued)
Training Objectives and Course Modules
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BP 101 01 60 Business Planning 101: The Planning Process
Students will learn how to plan effectively. A complete planning process will be learned, which includes creating philosophy, mission, and vision statements, assessing the current situation, setting objectives, designing methods to accomplish objectives, and setting up evaluation checkpoints. The concept of a SWOT analysis will be introduced and students will learn to use the concept working in their teams.
BP101 02 75 Business Planning 101: Analyzing Your Performance
When a producer’s performance is less than expected, it is often difficult to understand why. If this is not answered, a producer may never get back on track and may
eventually fail. Students will learn what affects their performance, how to analyze what might be cause them to perform at low levels, and what to do to remedy the situation.
BP 101 03 60 Business Planning 101: Time Control
A popular topic of discussion in any course, time control will be addressed in a hands- on manner. Students will analyze how they currently spend their time, and make decisions about how they can better spend their time. They will learn major concepts put forth by experts in managing time. Students will study 16 common business problems that result in poor time control and determine what causes them.
BP 101 04 60 Business Planning 101: Decision Making
This session will teach students how to effectively make decisions. Students will learn a decision-making process and will apply it when deciding how they will overcome their business challenges. Discussion will be generated in this session which can lead to a more effective and efficiently run business practice.
BP 101 05 80 Business Planning 101: Organizational Skills
Being organized is a challenge for people in general and for many producers in the financial services industry. Students will learn how to become better-organized and how being organized can make their business more profitable. Through teamwork and discussion, students will learn the art of organizing their desk, office space, paperwork, filing, and record keeping.
BP 101 06 65 Business Planning 101: Financial Aspect I
In the first of two sessions on the important subject of finances for their business, students will learn the importance of creating and managing a budget. They will be introduced to two major tools in the industry created by LIMRA: the planning book Looking Ahead and the activity recorder the Weekly Sales Planner. Students will be provided time to do some individual work from Looking Ahead by assessing their
3. BUSINESS PLANNING
The time that producers invest in planning and maintaining a direction for their business pays big dividends
in the long run. Provide your producers with tools for creating effective, usable plans they can integrate into
their business lives.
Training Objectives and Course Modules
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BP 101 07 90 Business Planning 101: Financial Aspect II — Pre-Requisite: Financial Aspect I
This session continues to explore knowledge and skills vital for a successful business.
Students will learn the profitability equation and how to implement it. The subject of expenses will be addressed and students will learn how to control expenses and therefore increase profit. This session will also cover distinguishing between profitable and unprofitable activity, business, and expenditures, and students will learn to perform a cost-benefit analysis.
BP 101 08 60 Business Planning 101: Marketing Yourself and Your Business
This session will address marketing and how students can plan to more effectively deliver the company’s products to the customer. They will learn the basic components of marketing and will analyze how successful companies around the world use unique marketing techniques to make people buy from them. Students will learn how to differentiate themselves from competitors to add value to the transaction of the sale of insurance, and to deliver the marketing message that will turn prospects into clients.
BP 101 09 60 Business Planning 101: Being a Creative Businessperson
A businessperson needs to be creative to stand apart from the competition, but most people do not feel that they are as creative as they could be. This session will teach students how to engage their creativity and show it through their marketing, selling, and service to clients. Students will be presented with challenging situations to give them practice in using their creativity.
BP 101 10 70 Business Planning 101: Setting Goals to Increase Sales
In this session, students will set new goals in activities such as prospecting, fact-finding interviews, presentations, and closes. They will set goals to upgrade their “success ratios,” such as prospects to interviews and interviews to closes. Students also will set new objectives for increasing the numbers of prospects from various sources. This module requires precourse preparation: Students will collect and bring information on their current sales achievements.
BP 101 11 75 Business Planning 101: Analyzing Your Business
This session will review, individually and in small discussion groups, the students’ own business records. The concepts of business planning, productivity patterns, and market analysis will be introduced and related to the students’ own activity.
ABP 12 45 Advanced Business Planning: The Working Environment
As part of the planning process, the business environment and its relation to the students’ and company’s business plans will be discussed. Participants will develop relevant lists of “critical issues” in the working environment that may affect their business plans.
3. BUSINESS PLANNING (continued)
Training Objectives and Course Modules
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ABP 13 45 Advanced Business Planning: The Three-Year Business Plan
In this session students will begin to develop the criteria to set their personal productivity, marketing, and professional development goals for the next three years.
ABP 14 45 Advanced Business Planning: Providing Professional Sales and Service
Students will develop a working definition of “professionalism” and create a list of skills and knowledge that are requirements for a professional business practice.
ABP 15 45 Advanced Business Planning: Your Business Plan and Financial Objectives
Individually and in small work teams, the students identify the components of a realistic business financial plan.
ABP 16 45 Advanced Business Planning: The Logistics of Your Business
In this session students will analyze the logistics of their business practices, including location, travel, administrative and time constraints, and complications. The impact and implications of logistical considerations will be explored.
ABP 17 75 Advanced Business Planning: Your Working Environment
In this session the students will develop a full analysis of the context in which they are building their practices, including the macro-economic, company, and agency environments. Implications and impact of environmental factors will be added to the planning process.
ABP 18 45 Advanced Business Planning: Solving Problems in Your Business Plan
Using a simple problem-solving process, students work in problem-solving teams to analyze and resolve logistical problems in their own business settings.
ABP 19 40 Advanced Business Planning: The Importance of Evaluation
In this session, students will discuss in small work teams to finalize their plans started in the course. They will learn the importance of and techniques for setting up a system of monitoring metrics to make sure they stay on track with their plans.
ABP 20 75 Advanced Business Planning: Managing Activity to Improve Performance
The key to performance and accomplishing income objectives is to manage one’s activity — contacts made, appointments, closing interviews, etc. Students will analyze their own weekly activity reports brought to the course, evaluate the positive aspects of their results, and determine what could have been done better.
3. BUSINESS PLANNING (continued)
Training Objectives and Course Modules
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ABP 21 90 Advanced Business Planning: Planning, Problem Solving, Delegation
In this session, students learn a complete planning process. They begin by addressing the importance of establishing a philosophy, mission, and vision for their practice. A problem-solving process will then be explored and students will get a tool to help them analyze and solve performance discrepancies. The idea of hiring staff to which specific tasks can be delegated is discussed and students will be shown the basic elements of bringing staff into their practice and training them.
ABP 22 50 Advanced Business Planning: Fundamentals of Business Planning
Students will gain an understanding of the business owner market. They learn what the world of the business owner is all about — most importantly, how they can help business owners solve their problems. Finally, students will begin making plans to move into the business owner market.
3. BUSINESS PLANNING (continued)
Training Objectives and Course Modules
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BR 01 45 Relationships and Commitment
This session will review, individually and in small discussion groups, the students’
own business relationships and the meaning of commitment within those relationships.
Guidelines for forming strong business relationships will be given as the foundation of the session.
BR 02 45 Stakeholders — Who Cares?
In groups, students will identify the “stakeholders” for their businesses and what
“stakes” each has in the advisor’s success and effective business management.
BR 03 45 Success Patterns
A research-based list of career success and danger patterns will be presented. Students will be given a basis for considering interpersonal relationships in the context of long- term career development.
BR 04 90 Your Personal Work Style Profile
Through use of a short questionnaire, students will gain insight into their own working style, and the work style possibilities of this tool will be used as a basis for discussing differences in behavior, communication, and decision making.
BR 05 90 Relationship Skills I
Processes will be given for the interpersonal skill sets; asking for and giving support, and influencing others.
BR 06 90 Asking for and Giving Support — Pre-Requisite: Relationship Skills I
Students will practice the process and skills involved in asking for support in a professional work setting. Both case study and real student situations will be used for the role-plays.
BR 07 90 Influence Skills — Pre-Requisite: Relationship Skills I
Students will practice the process and skills involved in influencing others in a professional work setting. Both case study and real student situations will be used for the role-plays.
BR 08 90 Relationship Skills II
Processes will be given for the interpersonal skill sets for negotiations and conflict resolution.
4. BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS FOR PROFESSIONAL GROWTH
Take producers’ personal business relationships to a new level by giving them fresh insights into their own
work style. By better understanding their own business personalities, producers more effectively relate to
clients, associates, friends, and family. Team workshops concentrate on skills such as influencing others,
negotiating, conflict resolution, and ethical selling.
Training Objectives and Course Modules
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BR 09 90 Negotiation Skills — Pre-Requisite: Relationship Skills II
Students will practice the process and skills involved in negotiation in a professional work setting. Both case study and real student situations will be used for the role-plays.
BR 10 70 Conflict Resolution — Pre-Requisite: Relationship Skills II
Students will practice the process and skills involved in conflict resolution in a professional work setting.
BR 11 75 Difficult Relationships — Pre-Requisite: Relationship Skills II
Students will use the processes from the program to plan a way to work more effectively with an individual they have found it difficult to work with in their organization. Role-play and small team discussion will be used to prepare for the actual process as part of the post-course project.
BR 12 60 Doing the Right Thing
In a case study situation, students will practice using processes to respond to a situation in which ethical decision making is required.
BR 13 60 Relationship-Building Forum — Pre-Requisite: Relationship Skills I & Relationship Skills II
To develop a full list of relationship-building tactics, the students will have an opportunity to exchange “best practices” in a small-group and large-group setting.
“Best practices” will be compiled and distributed to all participants for follow-up and implementation after the course.
BR 14 90 Developing Relationships to Create New Markets
Using examples from the case study, students will develop plans for creating relation- ships with people who can help them to penetrate new markets. They will explore a process that will enable them to build relationships for career and market development.
4. BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS FOR PROFESSIONAL GROWTH (continued)
Training Objectives and Course Modules
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TH 01 75 What Is Target Marketing?
Target marketing is the key to success for thousands of agents around the world.
Students will learn what target marketing is and the advantages of focusing on specific groups of people. The traits of a market will be discussed, and students will learn the five major categories of markets. Students then will discover what the five characteristics of an ideal market are to avoid wasting time with poor-performance markets. Learning how major world corporations market their products will be included as a team project.
TH 02 75 How to Analyze Marketing Areas
Students will be introduced to the hypothetical city of Athena, a major urban area in the country of Fairland. This city will serve as the backdrop for learning how to analyze a marketing area to determine the best potential markets available for penetration. It is through this case study that students will discover almost 50 possible opportunities hidden among a wealth of data that are similar to what can be collected for analysis from any metropolitan area in the world.
TH 03 60 Analyzing My Marketing Area — Pre-Requisite: How to Analyze Marketing Areas As part of a pre-course assignment, students will be asked to bring data on their own business marketing area. Having developed analytical skills with the Athena case study, students now will analyze their own marketing areas for possible markets. This will be done as a team with as many as six people and is the first step in an eight-step process to designing a complete market penetration plan.
TH 04 90 Marketing Self-Analysis
Using a market identification guide called the Project 100, students will analyze various characteristics of people they know and work with as clients. This proven marketing tool is one important step in identifying possible natural markets to
penetrate. Students then will be introduced to the Marketing Self-Analysis form, which will help them explore 13 facets of their own personal characteristics that will point toward additional possible lucrative markets.
TH 05 60 Selecting Markets — Pre-Requisite: Marketing Self-Analysis
Through analyzing their marketing area and doing a marketing self-analysis, students will have identified a host of possible markets that can be targeted and penetrated. In this session, students will narrow their search for markets and choose three markets to target, ranking them first, second, and third, according to their success potential.
Students will learn from studying a sample approach and will work in teams to practice the skill.
5. TARGETING MORE AFFLUENT CLIENTS AND BUSINESS OWNERS
Help your producers master the art of target marketing to enter viable new markets. Equip them with the
latest techniques for identifying more affluent prospects and business owners, creating a plan to appeal to
them, and developing effective interpersonal skills that best relate to the market.
Training Objectives and Course Modules
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TH 06 60 Market Information — Pre-Requisite: Selecting Markets
Once markets are prioritized and targeted, students will learn that it is important to know everything possible about the target market. They will learn a variety of sources they can use to obtain information about a market. Several examples will be included in the student notebook, including a proven effective survey for a simple method of gathering data. One of the evening assignments for the this day will ask students to gather as much information about their top market as possible.
TH 07 60 Refining Market Information — Pre-Requisite: Market Information
Students will begin by discussing the part of their evening assignment that challenged them to find information about their markets. This information will be shared in the students’ teams. The team’s project during this session will be to help each other refine their information — add to it, correct it, and update it based on the personal knowledge of the students and the instructor.
TH 08 60 The Market Narrative — Pre-Requisite: Selecting Markets
The Market Narrative is an important step in building a complete market penetration plan. Students will take the refined information developed for their chosen markets and organize it in a unique way that makes it pertinent and usable. They will learn that the narrative is very much like a story written about the people in their markets. In an individual exercise, students will write their “story” expanding upon their own market information in 16 specific categories or “chapters.”
TH 09 80 Products/Services Assessment — Pre-Requisite: Selecting Markets
Students will analyze the products and services available to them to determine which ones will likely be used to meet the needs of the clients within their target markets. An assessment form will be used, and work will be done in teams. Nineteen categories of products will be listed on the assessment tool, along with 23 services that are rendered by most companies. A different assessment tool, one without generic categories, also will be available for use.
TH 10 180 Planning the Sales Process — Pre-Requisite: Selecting Markets
This session will be the highlight of building a complete market penetration plan.
Students will review the steps of the sales process and learn that target marketing is most meaningful when the sales process steps are tailored precisely for the targeted market. By tailoring the steps, they will create a marketing strategy. Students will review a sample marketing strategy first and then develop a marketing strategy for their own chosen markets.
TH 11 60 Market Aspirations — Pre-Requisite: Planning the Sales Process
Now that students have learned how to develop their plan for market penetration, the course will focus on developing students’ skills in crucial areas to actually implement the plan. This session will look at understanding the motivations and desires of the people they serve in markets. Based on recent LIMRA research on the middle markets,
5. TARGETING MORE AFFLUENT CLIENTS AND BUSINESS OWNERS (continued)
Training Objectives and Course Modules
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TH 12 100 Interacting With the Market — Pre-Requisite: Market Aspirations
In this session, students will divide into teams of three for role-play. They will be given four situations where an agent is dealing with a prospect at a particular step in the sales process. The prospect in each of the four situations will assume the personality of one of the four aspirational segments learned in the prior session. The teams will rotate, with each member playing agent, prospect, and observer. The role-play will teach the students to adapt their style of interaction to the personality of the prospect.
TH 13 80 Setting Goals to Increase Sales
It is expected that the students will accomplish higher goals after developing skills in targeting and penetrating markets. As part of the pre-course preparation, students will be asked to collect and bring information on their current sales achievements. In this session, students will set new goals in activities such as prospecting, fact-finding interviews, presentations, and closes. They will set goals to upgrade their “success ratios,” such as prospects-to-interviews and interviews-closes. Students also will set new objectives for increasing the number of prospects from various sources.
TH 14 60 Marketplace of the Future
Students will explore how their markets are expected to change and evolve in the coming years. Students will learn that consumers have independent characteristics and that they must be treated as a market of “one.” They will learn the eight key factors that will shape the future environment of our customers. This session also will
investigate the connection between the propensity to save and the purchase of industry products. Students will explore five major factors that affect saving.
TH 15 75 Relationship Selling
Relationship selling is the trend in the industry today that describes the establishment of a unique connection or bond between agent and client. Students will learn how to establish this connection, which will lead to more sales and greater success. In this session, students will learn how to earn the trust of their clients and how to make clients respect them. Students will take a personal assessment, allowing them to discover what must be done to improve in both areas. In teams, students will address the subject of how they can build added value into the insurance sale transaction.
TH 16 60 Beating the Competition
This session will allow the students to explore who their competition is and how they can overcome the competition. It will be a new and unique approach that will give students the knowledge they need to better understand today’s challenges. Students will learn the four basic levels of competition — and they are not just other insurance companies! A team project will require the students to identify major competitors and discover ways to beat them.
TH 17 60 It Is Not a Job, It Is a Profession
5. TARGETING MORE AFFLUENT CLIENTS AND BUSINESS OWNERS (continued)
Training Objectives and Course Modules
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HF 01 65 The Need for Financial Planning
Students will discuss the benefits of financial planning to the general public and the advantages of a career in financial services. Statistics on death, disability, as well as financial independence and their implications, will be examined. Finally, students will analyze what their competition really is — competition for the disposable dollar of the client — and why purchasing other things can be more appealing to the prospect or client.
HF 02 75 The Evolution of the Profession
After reviewing the three stages of growth of an industry, students will look at industry trends that are in evidence around the world. In teams, they will analyze how these trends would affect their business and how they can prepare themselves to survive and thrive in times of change. Students will learn how the industry is evolving into more of a total needs financial services business, and they will discuss the difference between a traditional agent and a financial advisor. The concept of product push-and-pull will be discussed and students will learn the advantages of pulling clients to them by solving their needs. The knowledge and skill components of a financial advisor will be reviewed including linking skills, where an advisor links solutions to good fact-finding, and a concentration on client needs and objectives. Finally, students will look at the traditional financial planning process and how it evolved from the practical planning process using Diagnosis, Objectives, Methods, and Evaluations (DOME).
HF 03 75 Ethics and the Financial Advisor
An important subject for the times, students will understand the necessity of a code of behavior in dealing with today’s client. They will explore the merits of having high integrity, maintaining objectivity, increasing competence, being fair, maintaining confidentiality, practicing diligence, and always being the ultimate professional.
Scenarios will be presented to the students where, depending on decisions made by a hypothetical advisor, ethics could be compromised. The situations are realistic and will force the students to analyze the situation and decide what they would do if they were the case advisor. Students will come to realize that their integrity may be challenged and it is important to make the right decisions about their actions.
HF 04 75 Psychology of the Financial Planning Process
Being effective with a prospect or client involves good communication and
understanding that prospect or client. Students will look at the importance of the first impression they make on a prospect and discover that how they look, how they sound, and what they say is crucial. Looking successful, body space, eye contact, and body language of both the advisor and the client will be explored. The session also includes
6. HIGH-NET-WORTH CLIENT FINANCIAL PLANNING
Financial planning for prospects with complex financial needs requires advanced skills. Provide your top
producers with these skills, including conducting a thorough needs analysis, recommending appropriate
products, and motivating people to take action. Participants will learn the keys to creating long-term
trusting relationships — and referrals.
Training Objectives and Course Modules
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HF 05 75 Steps in the Financial Planning Process
The nine steps of the financial planning process, from finding a market to giving good client service, will be explored in detail in this session. The concept of consultative sell- ing will be reviewed including the five skills of consultative selling — connecting, encouraging, questioning, confirming, and providing. The concept of time value of money will be discussed along with the practical Rule of 72, giving students
appropriate tables to work with and practical problems on which to try the concepts.
HF 06 170 Prospecting for Quality Clientele
Expanding on the first step of the financial planning process, students will explore markets and how to find quality prospects who, hopefully, will later become long- lasting clients. The session concentrates on the high-net-worth market, that group of people most closely identified with full financial planning and who will benefit greatly from an advisor’s services. Using extensive, recent LIMRA research on the affluent market, students will learn the characteristics of this lucrative group and how to further dissect the market based on aspirations. Finally, students will be introduced to the Upscale 100 tool, which will help them identify their own targeted group of people among high-net-worth individuals.
HF 07 70 The Approach to the Prospect
Discussing two crucial steps in the financial planning process, students will be introduced to the fine art of turning a quality name into a prospect. They will discover the importance of the pre-approach, the initial contact, and the approach, arranging a meeting with the prospect. Students will learn how to compose pre-approach letters and how to make successful telephone calls to prospects to secure appointments.
Given a telephone approach script, students will role-play realistic situations, making calls to secure appointments and answering objections. Students will be introduced to the importance of storytelling and shown how the right story, especially one about their own personal experiences, can motivate a prospect to agree to a complete fact find.
HF 08 60 The Initial Interview — Fact Finding
The initial interview is the first meeting between the prospect and the financial advisor and is important in many respects. The student will be taught how to answer four key questions that the prospect usually has about the advisor before entering into the interview — Who are you? Do you know what you are doing? What are you going to do to me? And, What is in this for me? Students will create and master a credibility statement and an opening statement all with the intent to convince the prospect to begin the fact-finding process.
6. HIGH-NET-WORTH CLIENT FINANCIAL PLANNING (continued)
Training Objectives and Course Modules
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HF 09 45 Completing the Fact Find
This session will help students master the fact find, perhaps the single element of the financial planning process that distinguishes the professional financial advisor from the typical “push” salesperson. Students will be introduced to two fact finds: a detailed fact find that will provide an in-depth view of the client, and an abbreviated fact find that can be used when time is a factor. The detailed fact find is methodically
explained, sample calculations are presented, and then students will get hands-on practice by actually using the form themselves. Role-play is an important part of the skill development of this session. By the end of this session, students will have learned how to develop crucial information about clients, including their goals and objectives, their current situation, their attitude toward risks, and an idea of what is needed to accomplish their goals and objectives. Having this information paves the way for the next step, the preparation of solutions.
HF 10 60 Preparation of Solutions
After the fact find, the important task of reviewing all the information and designing a plan for the client is the next step of the financial planning process. Students will learn a step-by-step process, and will explore matching products with the client’s goals and objectives. Students will learn how to prepare illustrations, brochures, and forms and how to write an effective report for the client. A complete sample financial report will be provided for students. Students will also learn how to review clients’ budgets to discover possible funding sources for purchasing products to meet their needs.
HF 11 75 The Presentation (Closing) Interview
This session provides the knowledge and skills to conduct an effective recommendation interview, where an advisor will review client needs and objectives, present solutions, and motivate the client to take action. Students will be provided with sample scripts to know what to say and when. They will explore the various buying signs that clients can give during the interview, but often go undetected by the advisor. In teams, students will actually role-play reacting to buying signs and attempting trial closes to build skills in this important step.
HF 12 90 Negotiating Client Resistance
At the conclusion of the recommendation interview, when the advisor encourages the client to take action, resistance to moving ahead may be encountered. Students will be taught to recognize various objections and how to handle them. Students will learn the five-step process of handling objections — qualify, understand, accept, solve, and close — and engage in team role-play for practice and skill building.
HF 13 60 Asking for Referrals
Students will be taught the advantages of getting referrals, the keys to getting good referrals, and the steps in asking for referred leads. After a demonstration of how to effectively implement the steps, students will be given the opportunity to role-play in teams for practice and skill building.
6. HIGH-NET-WORTH CLIENT FINANCIAL PLANNING (continued)
Training Objectives and Course Modules
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HF 14 60 Servicing Your Clients
Giving good service to clients completes the financial planning process and students will understand the importance of making a commitment to service. They will explore the five “Rs” of service and will complete a worksheet in class which illustrates how profitable good service can be. The idea of segmenting the client base will be discussed, and students will determine how, although all clients are valued, certain client groups require and deserve higher levels of service than others. For each segment of the client base, the student will establish a service “pledge” acknowledging the service levels. Finally, students will discuss the client review service, usually con- ducted on an annual basis, and its importance to the client (for example, countering the effects of inflation on the client’s plan). Service will be discussed as it relates to compliance issues in today’s highly regulated industry.
HF 15 30 Managing Time and Goals
In this session, students will take a look at two important factors they must manage in order to be successful businesspeople — time and goals. They will learn the difference between capital investment activities and current cost activities and how to shift their activities and time expenditure from one to the other. Students will analyze how they currently spend their time and learn ways to improve. A team exercise will enable students to list their most common time problems and determine what must be done to counter them. Alan Lakein’s principles of time management will also be discussed.
HF 16 65 Creating Your Own Future
This is the last session of the course and will focus on preparing the students to go back to their practice with renewed clarity, determination, and energy. A post-course project will be assigned to help students implement what they have learned in the course when they are back in the field.
6. HIGH-NET-WORTH CLIENT FINANCIAL PLANNING (continued)
Training Objectives and Course Modules
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BF 01 60 Making the Transition to Business Financial Planning
This session will establish the tremendous opportunities for the financial advisor in the small-business-owner market. The advisors will learn the basics of the business- owner market and be able to list reasons why they should explore this lucrative area.
Students will be reintroduced to the financial planning process and how it applies to business owners.
BF 02 125 Needs and Plans for Business Owners
Students will explore the world of the small business owner to understand what their world is actually like. They will come to understand the risks that business owners face and also the opportunities that are sometimes never taken advantage of. Students will be able to list a number of plans that business owners can use that will help them avoid risks and take advantage of opportunities.
BF 03 90 Business Finance and Accounting
In this session, students will learn the basics of business finance. They will have hands- on examples and cases to help the them understand how their business owner clients rely on these tools to run their businesses, and also how they can also use these same tools in running their own practice.
BF 04 60 Approaching Business Prospects
Students will learn successful pre-approach and approach methods in this session.
The intent of both is to secure an interview with a business owner, to get the financial advisor in front of a prospect. Students will learn and practice a proven telephone script which can lead to several interviews in the business market.
BF 05 130 The Business Interview and Fact Find
Students will learn what to do on the initial interview with a business owner. They will develop their own credibility and opening statement which should lead them directly into conducting a fact find with a business owner. A business fact find will be introduced to the students and they will actually practice using the tool in role-play.
BF 06 65 Designing the Solution for the Business Owner — Pre-Requisite: The Business Interview and Fact Find
Once the fact find interview has been conducted, the financial advisor must match the business owner’s needs to products and services available from the advisor. This session will teach the students how to do that, and a team session at the end will give them actual practice in matching needs to products.
7. BUSINESS OWNER FINANCIAL PLANNING
Business owners have special needs for protecting their families and their businesses now and into the
future. Participants will learn how to conduct a thorough needs analysis, develop and present effective
solutions, and close sales opportunities. They will also learn how to provide excellent customer service
that solidifies the relationship and generates referrals. Participants can also learn how to conduct financial
seminars that attract business owners.
Training Objectives and Course Modules
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BF 07 60 The Presentation (Close) Interview — Pre-Requisite: Designing the Solution for the Business Owner
This session will illustrate to students how to take their solutions (recommendations) back to the business owner and present them in a compelling way to get the owners to take immediate action. Students will learn how to review the data from the fact find, get the prospect to agree on needs, show solutions, and close. In teams, students will practice watching for buying signs and answering common objections.
BF 08 60 The Personal Side of the Business Owner
Students will learn how they can cross sell by transitioning to handling the business owner’s personal needs. Specifically, they are encouraged to perform a personal fact find, help the business owner with retirement distribution planning, and assist with estate planning. Estate planning tools, such as wills, trusts, and gifts will be explored.
BF 09 60 Ethics in the Business Market
This session will explore the important subject of ethics and compliance. Students will learn how laws, ethics, and morality affect their decisions in every situation. They will be introduced to an ethical decision-making model and work through several cases where they will be taught to apply the model.
BF 10 180 Conducting Financial Seminars
Students will learn how to plan, conduct, and follow up on one of the most popular marketing techniques in the financial services industry — the financial seminar.
Although seminars can be aimed at various audiences, this session will concentrate on seminars for business owners. The mechanics of arranging seminars will be explored, along with a procedure for writing and delivering a dynamic and effective presentation.
The session will include an actual seminar conducted by the students themselves.
BF 11 60 Improving the Performance of Your Staff
As the business of the financial advisor grows with personal and business owner clients, it becomes necessary to add staff to the practice. The financial advisor simply cannot do the entire job. However, staff members who perform poorly actually cost the advisor’s business money. This session will introduce a checklist and procedures for dealing with poor performance, and will show students how to reverse the situation resulting in successfully performing staff members.
BF 12 60 Succession Planning
Although financial advisors assist business owner clients with their succession planning, few actually apply the same diligence to their own practice. This session will teach students how to plan for their own succession. Students will actually begin developing their own plan in this session and will receive feedback.
