NAIFA's Apex East conference is a pure-play sales summit that brings together high-performing producers and their colleagues in the financial services industry, including professionals in the fields of estate planning law, accounting, financial technology, performance coaching, wellness, and others.

In the highly competitive insurance industry, brokers and agencies are constantly seeking new ways to drive growth. Agents must reach sales targets, and agencies must attract and retain high-performing talent. Fortunately, innovations in digital sales platforms are making these goals achievable.

John Boothman of NAIFA partner iLife Technologies will give you actionable tips on how to incorporate more digital solutions into your business to drive growth and keep up in today's ever-changing market.

The life insurance industry has been slow to adopt digital solutions, but recently I was introduced to a new company working to change that. Plum Life, founded by former executives in the life insurance industry, was created after they recognized a shift towards digitization was coming quickly and created a 100% digital platform exclusively for agents.

NAIFA marketing partner InsurTech Express recently launched their new IE Bookshelf to help promote and highlight books written by insurance and financial services professionals.

Current books by NAIFA members in the IE Bookshelf library include How Not to Tear Your Family Apart by NAIFA's Executive Director of the Centers of Excellence, Carroll Golden, The K-Method of Roulette by Ken Leibow, and Diversity Means Dollars by Vince Vitiello.

Digital Marketing had the biggest growth for generating insurance sales since 2021. In a recent global study conducted by Accenture, most insurance buyers now search for information on digital channels. 48% of insurance customers who responded to an Accenture survey stated that social media would factor into their insurance-buying decision. Introducing agents and training to effectively utilize email, social media, web-based advertising, text messages, and personalized videos which helps maximize their value delivery.

Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the technology driving the industry to new insurance sales as it does with other industries in e-commerce. Winning agencies will become more data-driven and introduce agents to tools that utilize data analytics and AI to grow their businesses. Whether finding patterns based on past data to predict future events or leveraging AI to make assumptions and predictions beyond human capabilities, successful agents and agencies will take advantage of these new technology tools.

In the past, I have written about lead generation solutions as well as tracking clients on customer relationship management tools (CRMs) and marketing programs, but there hasn’t been a focus on lead conversions. At an industry conference this year, I learned about Phonexa, the company working to bridge the gap to generate more sales from leads. It’s important that advisors, especially those who run agencies and invest heavily in lead generation through marketing, learn about maximizing those leads.  

Your prospects are just like you, they keep getting the same pitches to buy this and join that! That has made them numb to requests. Today you must provide immediate value if you want to be heard. That is where offering them on-demand education and premium money aggregation tool gives you the upper edge and goodwill. From there you can build trust and engagement.

NAIFA has teamed up with White Glove to present the webinar series: Hyper-Growth in a Hybrid Environment, September 13- 17th.  Each day will focus on a strategy to support advisors in prospecting and marketing. 

Whether you’re an Olympics aficionado like me, or perhaps just a casual observer it is hard to miss Toyota’s Olympic ads featuring the tag line, “START YOUR IMPOSSIBLE.” I have to admit, several of these ads got to me a little bit, especially the beautiful story of a Paralympic swimmer’s adoption. These ads resonated not because of what I saw and heard, but because of how they made me feel. They reminded me of what it means to be human, and to care for others.