In a recent Eastbridge/BenefitsPRO survey, brokers wereasked about their perception of current sales competition. Theresponses show that between 20 percent and 40 percent of brokerssense that competition is higher thanaverage. 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: the number of other people trying to capture a givensales opportunity; the activity level of those people (the numberof opportunities they can manage at a time); and how well-equippedthey 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. But over the last fouror five years, we have also seen voluntary productivity among thesenewer entrants (especially traditional employee benefit brokers)begin to soar.