Haven, the new name of the Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, JPMorgan Chase joint venture, has launched their website outlining a high-level overview of their plan for the future of health care. The recent announcement of the intent of the new company confirms what we already intuitively know: like it or not, non-traditional competitors like Amazon, Walmart and even CVS are entering the employee benefits and health care space. On the Haven website, insurance companies were mentioned once, and brokers were not mentioned at all.

Haven states: “We are tasked with an important and challenging mission: to develop, test, and scale models of care that create better health outcomes, increase patient satisfaction, and lower costs for the people we serve. Our focus is the U.S.-based employees and families from Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JPMorgan Chase. In time, we intend to share our innovations and solutions to help others.”

Haven had a message for consumers as well. “Our mission is to transform health care to create better outcomes and overall experience, as well as lower costs for you and your family. We want you to get the right care every time, so that you can live your best life possible.”

Also read: Where do benefits brokers fit in Amazon's new health care venture?

There is no shortage of talk around innovation in our industry, often with similar messaging about new ways to provide our clients better, next-generation, lower cost health care programs. And yet we are still building our own employee benefits firms the same way our predecessors did in the 1970s and 80s. We can't deliver the programs of tomorrow with the producer model we have today.

Many firms ask producers to find prospects, schedule and conduct meetings with those prospects, convert them to clients, supervise the installation of the new client, and manage a block of business (even if it's just relationships) simultaneously. Relying on this model means that you have to find a unicorn who can do all of the above at a high level.

And now we want to add to this list the ability to understand, construct, and deliver patient-centric benefit plans committed to improved quality and lower costs? The issue isn't a matter of personnel or performance, it's the producer model itself that causes repeated failure and stifles firms' ability to grow.

Most firms find themselves in one of two positions when it comes to producers:

1. Our current producers aren't hungry to write new business anymore. How do we reinvigorate them or move them out?
2. We want to grow, but every producer we've hired hasn't worked out. How and where do we find new producers?

The key is to stop looking for producers. Maybe in a simpler time, when spreadsheets and auction-based solutions were the only thing we needed to lower costs for our clients, the producer model could have worked.  But somehow, over the last 30 years, we forgot to ask if that model was still viable. 

Stop looking for answers inside our industry

If we look at any high functioning technology company's sales force (who may well be our competition sooner rather than later), they don't waste their highly experienced, highly compensated sales executives' time on finding prospects, managing client relationships, cold calling or even qualifying prospects on the phone. They have built business processes that put the sales executive in a situation where they can use their honed skills to maximum effectiveness.

Tech companies break the functions of the producer model into multiple roles:

1. They have a consistent content marketing system that develops inbound leads.
2. They have qualified inside sales people who are connecting with and qualifying inbound prospects to set up hand offs of only the most qualified prospects to the sales executives.
3. Sales executives are now only working with highly qualified prospects. They piece together the sales presentation teams, make the presentation, and bring in the client.
4. The sales executives hand off to the implementation team for installation and breaks from the relationship
5. The implementation team hands off to the client success team for maintaining the ongoing relationship

Build your firm's differently, like a technology company

Building a model with all functions covered but by multiple professionals is more realistic, scalable, and reliable than relying on the chance that you have found the “right producer.” The tech companies have proven it can allow for exponential growth, and we've proven it in the benefits world, as well.

Maximizing everyone's expertise is inclusive, fosters team selling, and provides a solid career path for anyone who cares to grow in our industry. We've found it can provide a training ground for others with less experience so they can build stronger careers, which allows firms to have a stable of qualified and trained professionals when you need them in a higher role.

Related: Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated

Most firms deploying this system are also compensating everyone involved in the sales process, which causes them to work together to drive growth. There is substantial evidence that this model is more cost effective to operate.

If you think you're having challenges with a lack of production or complacency from your producers today, imagine what they'll look like competing with Amazon. If you think an infusion of new talent will solve the problem, ask yourself if a young producer would rather work for your firm or Amazon.

There's still time to evolve but as Mark Cuban says, you need to build your sales teams and process around a system or model with “a reliable duplicatable, scalable and consistent way to bring potential new customers in. If you don't have that, you don't have a business. You have a hobby.”

Be sure to join Mick Rodgers and Bob Gearhart Jr. for their session “The Advisor of Tomorrow” April 2 at the BenefitsPRO Broker Expo in Miami.