Discovering the Right Independent Marketing Organization (IMO) for You. & associates.

Transcription

1 Discovering the Right Independent Marketing Organization (IMO) for You & associates

2 11225 N. 28th Dr. Suite C100 Phoenix, AZ (800) Unkefer & Associates is an insurance marketing organization (IMO) focused on helping independent advisors increase their life and annuity business. Our Vision: We are your number one resource in developing your annuity and life insurance business.

3 It s a pretty simple formula. The better you do, the better we do. How does Unkefer & Associates increase your business? Delivering proven prospecting systems Advanced training Unique / Proprietary product offerings Competitive technological advantages Personal coaching and mentoring Systematic marketing campaigns Branding and Logo Design Point of sale literature Cooperative learning opportunities with other advisors Exciting incentive trips Today, many IMOs are owned (in part or in whole) by an insurance company. Consider why the insurance company acquired the IMO to begin with. Certainly, it was to control their distribution and push their own product regardless of benefits to you or your client. This reduces product selection, choice and the entrepreneurial drive necessary to help you maximize your success. Truly Independent! How we get paid Our firm derives 100% of its revenue and our employees are paid 100% from the sales generated by the agents we serve. Our attitude is simple, we work for you. Our office is designed to be an extension of your own. When you work with our firm, you will feel a tangible difference. The solutions and effort we provide are designed to serve you. We make no money unless you make a sale. Our commitment to this business model is complete. We have no desire to draw a check or salary without earning the business! It s a pretty simple formula. The better you do, the better we do. We remain one of the last significant and completely independent marketing firms in America. This allows us to provide you with unbiased advice, unique services and innovation not available anywhere else. $ unkefer & associates - 3

4 You are known by the company you keep. It s true! Serving the Ideal Advisor Rather than attack the business model of other IMOs, we would like to share with you our philosophy. Our firm is known nationwide for honesty, integrity and commitment. We communicate truthfully to the agents we serve. We operate with integrity, looking to protect your interests whether you are aware of it or not. We are committed to long-term, positive relationships with highly industrious professional advisors. We have been blessed to serve some of the most industrious and successful agents in America. Our advisors have produced billions in premium for some of the most capable insurance companies in the world. What we value about them most, however, is working with committed producers who thrive on honest hard work and passion to see their client s fully succeed! More important than the numbers, we seek to align our company with Advisors who exhibit high character, admire integrity and tirelessly pursue excellence in their practice. Why consider working with Unkefer & Associates, Inc? You re seeking better opportunities for your business. You desire to run your practice more effectively. You want to be on the leading edge of high volume trends rather than follow in the wake. Our firm aligns with high character agents who are committed to investing consistently in their business and achieving their full potential. Your Success! You want to work with an IMO that truly invests in your success. You want to be recognized for the significant value you bring to the table. You desire consistent, proactive assistance to build your company each day. unkefer & associates - 5

5 ? Is your IMO too swamped to help? Without question, certain IMOs have simply focused on hiring masses without evaluating the results of this effort. This type of business model is beginning to fail and we know why. Sure, there are hundreds of thousands of advisors who produce a little here and a little there. The problem is, if you are actively working to grow your business, an IMO with thousands of small producers will have difficulty catering to your unique needs. Our firm has been careful to focus on quality rather than quantity. This has allowed us to reinvest in life long relationships, business building technology and services that simply are not available anywhere else. It s that unique balance of growth, quality, technology and experience that allows our firm to be your number one resource in your annuity and life insurance business. It Takes a Team(s)! Each Advisor we agree to serve is placed with a three person team who coordinates all the other resources and departments within our company. All this coordination provides you with an amazing experience. Effortlessly tap into our many departments and teams. We could keep going but you get the idea! Access the deep resources and advanced services we offer. Big Production? Yes! Our top 100 associates consistently produce astounding results. As a result, we consistently rank as a top IMO for numerous insurance companies. Big Character? That s the key! We like production but we LOVE high character agents - agents who keep promises and improve the lives of their clients. Our remarkable Resources & Departments ❶ Agent Services Team ❷ Milestone Marketing Development Team ❸ Print on Demand Marketing Team ❹ Digital Design & Branding Team ❺ Agent Focused Technology Team ❻ Case Design Team ❼ Business Development Team ❽ SuperAgentTools.com Consultants ❾ Agent Supply Team ❿ Licensing, Contracting & Commissions 6 - unkefer & associates unkefer & associates - 7

6 Our balanced approach to adding agents also means that we can afford to go one-on-one with you on any educational topic. Ongoing learning! Without question, Unkefer & Associates is recognized as a leader in advanced planning sales training. We are consistently recognized for the quality of the information we deliver and we have been the source of many campaigns that caught fire across the USA. Collectively, we offer better than 60 opportunities per year for agents to go beyond the product and dive into planning. This is one way you can positively impact your revenue immediately. New Concepts, Ideas, Strategies, Products and Techniques Available Anywhere, Anytime. Unkefer & Associates is the only IMO to receive the prestigious Industry Innovation Award from the National Underwriter Magazine for the development of SuperAgentTools.com (SAT). This platform puts everything at your fingertips! SAT is loaded with over 40 hours of training along with countless tools, calculators, product search engines, client management systems and more. Our systems are not just industry best. There is nothing to compare it to. Be sure to read up on SAT. It s so expansive that we have dedicated a brochure just to this problem solving, idea generating, business growing technology platform unkefer & associates unkefer & associates - 9

7 Unkefer & Associates has proven time and again that we are willing to make the tough choices. Working for the Industry, Agent Advocacy, Innovation & More Unkefer & Associates has proven time and again that we are willing to make the tough choices and do the right thing even if it costs us to do it. It is true that most of our competitors continued investing in themselves during this challenging time and did very little to help agents protect their practice. For example, only two marketing firms have ever been recognized by the National Association of Fixed Annuities (NAFA) for their role in defeating the Securities and Exchange Commissions rule 151a that was created to redefine Fixed Indexed Annuities as a registered security product. We worked tirelessly to drive thousands of producers to contact Congress, send letters and even fly to Washington, DC. We coordinated with other firms and managed the direction of this national effort. Ultimately, we were successful in getting a bill passed that permanently protects Fixed Indexed Annuities and our collective future! The fact is they didn t believe we could succeed. While they were working toward their goals, we were working to preserve one of the most important products in our industry s history. We believe in standing up for what is right and we are willing to make the difficult decisions on behalf of the agents we serve. When the moment of truth arose, most firms cut and ran. Instead, we held fast and drove a national effort that defeated SEC Rule 151a. Strategic Alliances That Benefit Your Business! Since 1994, our firm has aggressively developed strategic alliances with key insurance industry leaders, investment advisory services, broker dealers, tax and legal experts, lead generation firms and technology firms to help you accomplish more with less. Our firm is trustworthy and the industry leaders know it. This results in better advice, discounted programs, better protection and greater problem solving capability than you could access anywhere else unkefer & associates unkefer & associates - 11

8 Develop Your Staff! Our specialists will help you further develop your own staff to rapidly drive your business. Need to learn how to interview, hire and retain a top flight assistant? We ll show you. Do you wish your office was more organized and efficient? We have a sure fire system for this objective. We ll sit down with your own staff and implement business management techniques that absolutely work. You must acquire great processes that leverage your productive time rather than consume it. We ll show you the way. The Product Selection Will Amaze! The age of suitability requires that each advisor perform proper due diligence to make high value recommendations. Our independent platform combined with our product search engine allows you to evaluate more than six hundred different annuities in just minutes. Our broad life insurance selection can be compared using our quote engine in just seconds! Fingertip access to Universal Life, Indexed Universal Life, Term and hybrid products is all yours! Investing In Your Success We invest heavily in technology as you have already seen, heard and read about. Every piece we develop is created with the sole purpose of helping our producers accomplish more with less expense, time and effort. We invest in training and development. We invest in branding and marketing. We invest in your staff. We provide cooperative opportunities allowing you to truly use our office as an extension of your own. These wisely selected economies of scale have proven to benefit our agents allowing them to produce greater momentum and revenue for your business unkefer & associates unkefer & associates - 13

9 The Keys to Success For us, it is the industrious, high volume, high character agents we serve. Our mission is to create a closely knit team of highly effective advisors who build from a foundation of integrity. Top producers are not enough. To flourish, our firm and our industry need these top producers to be elite ethical advisors with a keen eye for the client s needs and a creative capacity for solving problems. What you don t know will help you. Many miss the fact that our company provides support and business development resources to large captive sales groups and even other IMOs. We work discreetly with these firms so that they maintain their own brand and identity. In some instances, these IMOs are even owned by another insurance company. This is one example of how our firm has established deep lines of trust with other experts. Our years of experience in this area puts us in the unique position to help producers truly attain what is often called, the next level. Establishing winning business practices often comes from extensive experience and interaction with other business models. This deep pool of experience and knowledge ready to help you expand your own practice. Multiple Product Lines Open More Doors Perpetual evaluation, comparison and testing keeps us delivering the broadest array of products in the United States of America. Even better, through our one-ofa-kind system, you can discover, learn and use new products with greater ease and less effort. Our sales support staff are always present to guide you through the details. It s your choice! We believe in only earning our revenue from advisors who truly value the relationship with us. We believe in the power of the independent agent and we want you to succeed. If you believe your path lies elsewhere, you will instantly be provided with a release assuming there are no outstanding issues such as an unpaid debit balance for example. Together, we accumulate information, alliances, products and resources that benefit all the producers we are fortunate to assist. Improving Your Bottom Line When you commit and begin using our total agent resource package, you will not only achieve greater productivity, you will reduce your operational costs through free technology including our award winning Client Management System (CMS), time saving tools, print on demand capacity, branding, packaging, marketing and our accurate and helpful consultation. Don t forget our ability to help you capture new opportunities that result in new revenue streams for you unkefer & associates unkefer & associates - 15

10 OUR STORY It was November, I was 27 years old with 3 kids, $10,000 and no job. That was the situation. Just one-month prior, I was working for a small insurance company developing their sales distribution, training producers and assisting marketing firms and agencies in their growth. Only a short time before that, I had been promoted to Vice President. I was the answer guy who was able to dig into any planning situation and conjure up a solution. The advisors knew I was committed to them and they came to trust me. Now it was all gone; or was it? Building permanent, trusting relationships puts you in position, whether you know it or not, to overcome adversity and reinvent your future direction. How do you start a National Marketing Organization with just $10,000? How do you acquire the necessary products to distribute with no sales volume? It comes from relationships. It comes from blessings. At the end of 1994, several agents who depended upon me for accurate, fast and honest information asked me to form an IMO so they could continue working with me. There is no greater compliment anyone could receive that this. They knew things would be tight but they believed in the service, knowledge and integrity they had experienced. I rapidly incorporated Unkefer & Associates having given little thought to the name. As a side note, if you are naming your firm for the first time, try to be more creative than I was. The urgent matter of generating revenue took precedent and I was off to the races! 16 - unkefer & associates unkefer & associates - 17

11 One of the many blessings I experienced came from the fact that my wife Amy and I had made a choice to live as close to debt free as possible. Without knowing it, years later this choice allowed me to roll the dice on starting my own business. Even though we had three kids to support, we had little debt to service. So, I put together a plan, a postcard and spent $7,000 in printing and mailing to contact agents. My postcard had a short message about how hard I would work for the agent and on the other side there was information on a new annuity. The postcard was intentionally small so I could afford to print more of them. It was one color on white card stock. Certainly, this was not a dynamic start. I sub-leased an office that was less than 100 square feet and surrounded myself with a typewriter (remember those?), a fax machine, phone and my computer. This became my one man command center. Some of the agents who still work with us will remember how crammed it was and how I had to squeeze into my chair as I was encircled by every resource I had to my name. Because I was just getting started, it was necessary that I team up with a more experienced marketing firm so that I could access the products. After just 12 months, this firm, who pretended to help me, was actually trying to pull my agents away to another deal. They were using my efforts to steal from me! By this time, I had 4 kids. I began considering my options. Amy and I talked about how difficult it was to find people we could truly trust to do business with. The future looked grim as everything we had accomplished was once again at risk. Then came another blessing. I was contacted by an insurance company who had been tipped off that they should talk with me. Amazingly, this tip had come from a national competitor. He had explained to the company that I was honest, trustworthy, hard working and smart. After several interviews, they awarded Unkefer & Associates a national distribution contract. I pounded the phones, mailed more postcards and accomplished an extraordinary feat contracting 100 agents in 90 days. This still seems impossible me. At that time, there was no and no digital contracting. For me, overnight shipping was too costly so it was all done with the US Post Office. Working feverishly, our firm began developing a set of services designed to help agents learn more rapidly so they could further their success. We pioneered lead generation and marketing techniques. Criss crossing the nation, we grew and created an amazingly deep resource for agents that now perpetually accumulates momentum through sharing all the ideas, concepts, strategies and techniques used to ethically make substantial sales throughout the United States. As I said earlier, we have been blessed. We have helped our core agents consistently produce billions in annuity sales along with hundreds of millions in life insurance and final expense sales. Our firm has designed numerous products still being sold in today s market. We have advocated successfully for our industry and been recognized by the National Association for Fixed Annuities in our role to defeat the serious threat of SEC Rule 151a. Most recently, the National Underwriter Magazine gave us their prestigious award for industry innovation for creating SuperAgentTools.com unkefer & associates unkefer & associates - 19

12 Agents working with our firm now have the number one industry resource at their fingertips. Our online systems deliver more capability and cost saving opportunities for our producers than ever before. The future is bright with a highly competitive environment but one where honestly, integrity and commitment can still make a difference. And that s how you come full circle. All the tools and concepts in the world can t replace a honest, trusting and you focused relationship. Over time, as you work with us, you will find a never-ending resource to improve every element of your business. But that s not where it ends. Our people are compensated based on your success. We know your improvement, growth and profitability will drive our own. Consider our many resources, teams and tools as your own. At anytime you like, draw from our marketing and lead generation systems. Attend training day or night instantly. Surround yourself with our Account Executives, Business Development Experts, Case Design Consultants, Creative Design Services, Lead Generation Coordinators and Advanced Planning Answers. We are here for only one reason. YOU! W. Andrew Unkefer, Founder 20 - unkefer & associates

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