A brief look back

As Benefits Selling celebrates its fifth anniversary, it provides a good time to take a brief look back over my "Competitive Advantage" columns, which debuted in the December/January 2004 issue.

At that time, Benefits Selling published bimonthly and the commitment they asked of me was for a year's worth of columns. I said, "Sure, writing six columns would be pretty easy."

So I wrote one off the top of my head ("Why employers need your voluntary plan") and was off to the races.

About a week later, I had a business trip to the West Coast and the flight gave me time to rattle off four more columns. I thought, well, now I will have a few months off and can write a wrap-up column if I decide to pack it in after the year.

One issue later, Benefits Selling switched to a monthly schedule and I had to get back to work. I still haven't figured out when the year is up. (Editor's note: Not yet, Marty.)

Some columns still stand out. The memorial I wrote honoring the late Harlan Sher was the longest, possibly my best, and certainly the most difficult to write. Harlan was, in fact, the person who put me in contact with the magazine and suggested I write a column.

I feel proud of the April 2006 column, "At the plate on opening day," because it used a baseball metaphor in the days before every baseball reference turned to the dark side of performance enhancement. Besides, if you look at the photo next to the column, I'm almost in a batter's stance.

I also liked "First chapters of my business book" for its series of quick insights.

One of my fears is repeating myself. I keep a log of the column names with a brief description to try to avoid this. While not repeating exact words, there are certainly some common themes:

"Understanding market and product trends"
"Benefits sales ideas (especially voluntary benefits)"
"Benefits selling ethics (competitive edges should be ethical, always) "
"Planning for success through knowing customers and their needs"
"The importance of service in competing (benefits are more than paper) "
"Training yourself and your staff to compete effectively"

Most of all this has been fun for me. The e-mails and notes I've received from long-ago contacts to new friends who know me through the column are always appreciated. I even enjoyed Joe Beckham's letter to the editor complaining about the free exposure my employer was getting (when his was also a big supporter of the magazine). Feedback is the lifeblood of improvement.

The insights in this column owe a great debt to many people I have worked with over the years. This includes several groups. The Benefits Selling staff has been great to work with (especially when Storey sends me one of those "gentle reminder" e-mails about an overdue column). The corporate communications/brand people I work with have helped make sure the columns are well written, logical and properly represent my employer. And then there are the hundreds of producers, co-workers and enrollment company managers I have been able to work with. Thanks to all.

It's fun to look back at the past, but even more fun to look forward to the future.

April is the time to celebrate the anniversary of Benefits Selling, and also the time to pick up ideas to help build or the future at the Benefits Selling Expo in Atlanta. I'll see you there.

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