Over the past months traveling around and observing the behavioral trends of advisers, I have written a lot about leadership, engagement, accountability and their relative relationships to success at both the adviser and firm level.

Changing direction slightly, let's talk about a subtle aspect of our business that is often lost in translation. Before approaching prospects or positioning solutions for clients, we should ask ourselves: Who is it about, anyway?

In a world increasingly cluttered with distractions, choices and demands for our time, research shows that the things that will best get (and keep) our attention are those things that have personal meaning for us. Everything else becomes white noise. Whether talking about our advisory approach, or our product and solution positioning, it's got to be about them, not about us.

When it comes to our jobs, our perspective can make the difference between winning business and not getting beyond the first call. If we are listening and developing an understanding of them, their goals and objectives, if we help them better understand their own situation, we are more likely to establish a connection. If we adhere to the philosophy, "Never offer a solution in the same meeting that you identify a problem," you build credibility and trust.

However, if your approach is more about telling them about all of your products, services, and 'capabilities,' you run a risk of being lumped into the crowd of other salespeople. If it is more about you and less about them, they will realize this and you will lose their interest.

In presenting products and solutions this is equally important. Two key examples are communications and wellness. Studies show that the 'perceived' value of benefit plans by employees has little to do with the richness of the plan, and much more to do with the way it is communicated.

As I have worked with employers and advisers around communication and engagement strategies, the truly innovative firms go well beyond just traditional open enrollment meetings. One platform that stands out is the philosophy adopted by Fort Worth, Texas-based eTekhnos; a technology firm that creates unique communication and engagement strategies for employee benefit advisers. Not satisfied with simply creating passive benefit Web sites that house plan information and waiting for employees to find them, President Jeff Hill says, "Our job is to help employers create strategies that proactively use multiple technologies to reach out to the employee where they are at and pull them in. We create a design experience with the end user in mind; one that combines function, efficiency and aesthetics."

It's not just enough to passively present the information, it has be efficient and compelling (meaningful) to the user.

Shifting focus, let's look at wellness. A very promising, yet elusive lever in impacting health costs, traditional wellness initiatives are notorious for poor or ambiguous results. Many wellness companies are reluctant to offer statistical results, and if you look at how most programs are presented, their lackluster performance is not surprising. Integrated around the health plan, a popular time for introducing wellness programs is during open enrollment. The unacceptable health renewal has come in; the president says something has to be done. The solution? Introduce a wellness program. In the same conversation that we communicate that rising costs make it necessary to increase contributions and reduce benefits (again), employees are told that the company is also 'excited' to introduce a wellness program! Who is that about? According to Doug Layman, national speaker, and executive vice president of Louisiana-based Gilsbar, an award winning TPA and architect of a highly effective and comprehensive 'Health and Lifestyle Management' program, "It can't be about the employer. In order for it to be successful, it has to be about the employees. If they are going to be engaged, the program can't look like a veiled attempt by the company to save money, employees will not get behind it."

Further, says Layman, "in order for a wellness program to gain traction and achieve the best results, it should reach out and focus on the needs of each individual. This is not a one-size-fits-all proposition. It is not only about losing weight or smoking cessation. It may involve retirement planning; it might involve family counseling, or a host of other topics.

"That is why we have expanded the traditional discussion of wellness to create a broader category around health and lifestyle management."

One can hardly argue with their results. Experiencing a 6% hard-dollar reduction on their own health costs over a six-year period, Gilsbar can also boast a multi-year cost trend of just over 2% for their block of TPA clients incorporating their entire 360-degree process of administration, claim management and wellness.

When we make it more about them and less about us, we win all the way around. We can connect better with our teams, our prospects and our clients to create more innovative, more effective, more lasting strategies and results.