How well do you know your clients?
While you can know everything there is to know about the products and services you market, it all means very little if you don't know your clients – their wants, needs, objectives. That's especially true when you offer employee benefits.
Information is the ultimate sales tool.
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I recently brought some facts and figures to you from the 2015 Principal Financial Group Business Owner Survey, conducted by Harris Interactive. Survey results like these provide a wealth of good information, generally in the form of analyzing people's responses to questions.
But they're only part of the equation. Information brought to light by conducting everyday business can be just as telling.
Insight from a different kind of data
In the course of doing business, employers and financial professionals stir up plenty of data that can be used to draw some pretty revealing conclusions. For instance, benefit shoppers such as HR departments may utilize tools to analyze other companies' benefit designs compared to their own.
While the user receives useful data out of these tools, they also leave behind a data trail that may include information about their industry, benefit goals, products offered … and more.
In my experience, the interesting thing about survey data verus business-driven data is that it can be contradictory. For example, the No. 1 consideration of business owners/employers in offering employees a benefit package differs depending on the data source.
| Business Owner Survey Top Consideration: Affordability of Benefits Why? Some business owners may not view their cost outlay on employee benefits as an investment; they see it primarily as an expense. | Tools Analyzing Benefit Designs Top Consideration: Attract and Retain Talent Why? Many employers using these tools recognize the value of their benefit programs and are looking for ways to differentiate – ways to attract and retain talent. |
One is not right or wrong. They simply offer different perspectives.
What can we learn from the data?
A key component to helping clients determine what a benefit package should look like is to understand the client's goals. And one of the common goals discussed is controlling cost. But should we look at this as a goal? I tend to think of this as more of a concern or consideration and, accordingly, I don't think it should be positioned in the context of a goal.
Cost will, of course, have an impact on decisions around what an employer offers and who pays. As you work with your clients, help them separate goals from concerns or barriers to offering benefits. I believe that will give you a better perspective on what is important to them.
The bottom line?
Don't design a benefit program around a concern. Instead, design it around a goal, but do it in in a way that addresses the concern. Voluntary, for example, is a great option to address the affordability concern, but can also be used to create a benefit package that will help meet an employer's goal to attract and retain employees.
And use data to adjust the way you work with your clients to better meet their needs and fulfill their goals. In the process, you'll likely build stronger relationships and position yourself as a valuable employee benefits resource.
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