What do brokers think about the current sales competition?

Related: 10 years of voluntary

The Eastbridge/BenefitsPRO survey recently askedbrokers about that. The responses show that between 20 percent and40 percent of brokers sense that competition is higherthan average. We believe that is just the tip of the iceberg.

Other than an upheaval in business fundamentals, the level ofcompetition for salespeople usually revolves around threevariables:

1. The number of other people trying to capture a given salesopportunity

2. The activity level of those people (the number of opportunitiesthey can manage at a time)

3. How well-equipped they are to win

In the voluntary/worksite arena, theflood of new brokers entering the field over the last 10 years hasgreatly increased the number of overall competitors and, in theory,the number who can focus on any given case. See the chartbelow.

But over the last four or five years, we have also seenvoluntary productivity among these newer entrants (especiallytraditional employee benefit brokers) begin to soar.

That movement towards handling a larger number of cases andopportunities each year has magnified the perception of increasedcompetition.

On the third variable, the increased productivity of these newerplayers has allowed them to gain more experience and move up thelearning curve more quickly.

They are rapidly learning the intricacies of the business, thequality of the various players, the shortcuts and the pitfalls.

If you are a long-time voluntary broker, you are seeing greaternumbers of competitors, each handling more cases, and each doing itbetter than before.

Given that, it is not surprising that almost 40 percentof voluntary brokers saythat competition is higher than average.

But if you are a newer entrant, such as a traditional groupbroker who is new to voluntary, you do not have that basis ofcomparison.

You may not be able to appreciate the trend towards higheractivity and greater expertise.

You have been part of a large-scale migration that has shakenevery aspect of the voluntary business. But the migration is nowcoming to an end.

Roughly 95 percent of all employee benefit brokers now offervoluntary. The number of new entrants is dwindling.

Whichever camp you are in, it is only logical to expect theactivity and quality variables to keep moving skyward.

Given the drop-off of new entrants, if sales are increasing(which they are), then the average broker must be gaining moreexperience and at a faster rate.

And if that's true, the average broker must be learning newskills and refining old ones.

Therefore, it is unavoidable that we will all face morecompetition from more highly-skilled competitors.

And that means, if you stand still, your share of the pie willshrink.

Get better, get busier, or get left behind. Starting today.