Are you happy with your sales productivity? In speaking with hundreds of benefit professionals every year, I have found that few people answer this question directly. Instead, I hear answers such as these:

"I am so busy with service work and renewals that I just do not have time to do any marketing." This issue has nothing to do with marketing, but with the way the benefit professional approaches his or her business.

"I only work with referrals." For most benefit professionals, this translates into: "I write three or four new cases per year and that is when someone calls in for a quote." These are not really referrals, but that is a discussion for another article.

"I have a lot of appointments, but have trouble converting those appointments into clients." Approximately one-third of the calls I receive fall into this category. These are salespeople who have not figured out how to attract high-quality prospects and are focused on the quantity of appointments rather than the quality. This is a marketing issue.

"I hate making cold calls and do not have enough appointments." This is all about a failure of marketing. In this situation there is no cohesive strategy for filling the calendar with great leads.

Before we go any farther, let's make a distinction between marketing and prospecting. Marketing is a holistic approach to generating appointments utilizing multiple tools such as Web sites, e-mail, mail, speaking and more. Prospecting is simply the act of making a cold call, either in person or on the telephone. Prospecting is a key component of the marketing plan, but not the sole component. Marketing is about creating a steady flow of high-quality prospects over time; the focus is not on the next business week. As I work with salespeople, I find that the great majority are still using the tools of the 20th century, which are outdated and ineffective.

20th century marketing

Here is what I know for sure: Tools such as direct mail, the traditional cold call and a 20th century Web site are no longer effective. Fortunately for you, those are exactly the tools that most benefit professionals rely on to get appointments. It is important to recognize that we live in a world where we are bombarded by sales messages. In any given day, you receive three to five sales-oriented mail pieces at home and another three to five at the office, you get 20 or more spam messages in your e-mail, and you are subjected to numerous commercials on television and radio. Both consciously and unconsciously, we tune out these messages, which makes it harder for a salesperson to break through the clutter and deliver a compelling message to the prospect.

It is always a surprise to me when a client asks me about direct mail. Just yesterday one of my coaching clients e-mailed me a letter that one of his carriers provides as a part of the direct mail program it provides to this agency. Even if direct mail actually was effective, this letter was so bad from a sales perspective that it is less than worthless. Assuming that a prospect would actually open the envelope, there was nothing in this form letter that would grab his attention.

The sad truth is that the likelihood of getting the prospect to open the envelope is near zero. There are ways to get envelopes opened, but that is not today's subject, and the insurance company does not know the secret nor do they care. The basic goal of most companies' direct mail program is not to generate leads, but to give the salesperson an anchor - something to take the pain out of picking up the telephone. In my opinion, any marketing effort should be about generating high-quality prospects - not just about providing a security blanket to the salesperson.

Tele-prospecting and face-to-face cold calls do still work, but they are less effective than they have been in the past. If your only goal is to secure the renewal date and an opportunity to quote the health insurance, then cold calls are an effective tool, but if your goal is to secure high-quality appointments, then this is less effective. As soon as the decision-maker recognizes that you are a salesperson, his defenses go on high alert. Before you know it, you are hearing the words: "I am not interested." If you attempt to overcome the objection (never recommended) you initiate an adversarial relationship, which actually makes it harder to close the sale even if you secure the appointment.

This is not to suggest that if you actually like cold calls you should cease. A good salesperson with a well-crafted script can still effectively utilize the cold call to secure high-quality appointments, and in fact, several of my clients do just that. One of my clients recently secured two broker-of-record letters by using the cold call to get the first appointment.

I want to close this article with a brief discussion of Web sites. Most agencies' Web sites are absolutely worthless - they are nothing more than a glorified online brochure that does nothing to differentiate the agency from the competition. If you do not believe me, simply Google "benefit consultants" or "group health insurance" and look.

Other than the cosmetics, what is different about yours? You may have a client portal and your competitor doesn't, but so what? For the most part, you all have the same first page and the same tabs. Regardless of the amount of the money that you spent on your site, no one ever asked the important questions.

In part two of this series, I will share with you how to bring your marketing into the 21st Century.

It's open enrollment season, and communications is top of mind. We know that effective communications means the difference between success and failure of benefit plans, but Watson Wyatt research shows that effective HR-benefits communications also has a significant impact on a company's market value.

Watson Wyatt has been conducting its "Communications ROI" study every other year since 2003 and was analyzing the 2009/2010 results at press time. John Finney, a senior communications consultant for the consulting firm, previewed some of the findings for EBA in a Web seminar, "Communicating with employees about pay, benefits and the new employment deal," on Sept. 30.

Finney's first number- $663,168,000- was a real attention-grabber. That's the potential increase in company market value that would have been realized by the 50th company on the Fortune 500 list if it had implemented the best-practices communication methods identified in the study, he said. "Even if the improvement in market value was only 10% of that number, you could still build a credible case for investing in effective employee communications," he maintained.

What differentiates companies with highly effective communications programs? Finney plucked these examples from the 2009/2010 survey:

•  Highly effective firms are more than five times more likely to have a coordinated and branded approach to communicating the total value of their health- and wealth-related benefits.

•  Sixty-two percent of highly effective companies have a clearly defined employee value proposition- they make sure that employees understand the value of their health care benefits, understand how pay levels are set and the company bonus program works, and appreciate the value of their pension program. In comparison, only 23% of the survey respondents whose communications programs ranked "low" have a clearly defined EVP.

•  Sixty percent of firms ranked "high" based on their communications programs train managers on how to communicate the employee value proposition, compared to only 27% of firms ranked low. Fifty percent of the "high" companies train managers in communicating change, compared to 35% of the "low.

" Communication should be constant, Finney maintained, urging employers to define and discuss their employer "brand" year-round.

•  Acknowledge that the employment deal is changing and help employees adjust," he said. "Include what's not changing in all change communications ... Compare and contrast your employment deal with those of your competitors ... Publish a total rewards philosophy- and walk the talk."

Got a question for Mel? Call or e-mail Managing Editor Elizabeth Galentine at (571) 403-3840 or 

elizabeth.galentine@sourcemedia.com.