By Lucretia DiSanto Jones

Kip Gregory has been buzzing in and around the technology of the insurance industry for close to two decades now. He first put his toes in the financial services water in 1984, when he faced what some would consider the unenviable task of pushing financial products and services into the banking industry. Then, he tackled the launch of an independent brokerage distribution effort.

With each of these challenges, Gregory recognized the enormous need for the insurance industry to systemize management information. He went on to form The Gregory Group, a Washington, D.C.-based marketing, sales and technology consulting firm. Its mission is to help financial services professionals harness technology and the Web to operate more effectively and profitably.

Gregory spoke with AdvisorToday.com about current trends in the industry and what advisors can do to ensure that they come out with their heads well above water. He will expand on these themes when he addresses the NAIFA Convention and Career Conference in Charlotte on Tuesday, Sept. 24.

Compensation migration
One trend Gregory sees is the industry's movement toward fee-based compensation. This shift makes it vitally important for advisors to hone their relationship management skills. He says, "The clearest distinction between fee-based and transaction-based compensation is that you have to know your client well and keep in touch with them. You have to know what’s going on in their lives. You have to have information in a database that you can access quickly: information on their work life, their community, their family. What they do in their spare time." Otherwise, as Gregory points out, "what do you talk to them about?"

Falling fees
Another trend Gregory predicts is a by-product of the shift to fee-based compensation: The competition among the increasing number of fee-based practitioners is forcing their fees down.

"People don’t need more tools to choose from. What’s already available to them can solve their problems.” —Kip Gregory

"I’ve spoken with advisors who have good businesses because the do-it-yourselfers are looking for help," says Gregory, "but with fees going down; they're working twice as hard to make the same money."

Moving toward the Web
The delivery of products and services to advisors and consumers via the Web is another trend that Gregory has his eye on: “The availability of information, news, resources, and where you get your data is now in digital form. Smart advisors are taking advantage of that information. The challenge is to wade through the junk out there, to get to the things that will help you get and stay close to your client by tapping into their areas of interest.”

No quick fixes
These trends paint a picture that may be uncomfortable for some advisors. According to Gregory, “those advisors who are willing to accept and deal with change, and have a clear picture of what they want to achieve" will survive and thrive.

“To create the vision, advisors need to say, 'I want my business to look like this, and I’m going to keep my eyes open for opportunities that will help it look like this,’” he adds. From there, advisors need to figure out who their best clients are, create a profile of them and get the information relevant to them into a database so the advisor can communicate with them.

Gregory says the next step for advisors is to look at their businesses as a process and identify the steps in that process: “Think about what can be automated, what am I uniquely skilled to do, what can support people do, what can be eliminated. What are the steps that my team and I take to service and acquire the clients we work with? Before you even get to the technology, you have to embrace the notion of change, or continuous improvement.”

Gregory cautions that advisors have to implement change gradually. “Do the easy things first to build your confidence. It may be as simple as putting everyone in a database. Then you have to ask yourself how you are using the information. Do you have email addresses for your clients? Can you communicate electronically? It all brings us back to managing the relationship,” he says.

Making it work for you
This fall, Gregory will launch a coaching effort to help professionals automate their businesses so they can have more time for family and fun. "Everybody says ‘leverage technology, get a website, buy a contact manager,’ but that’s where it begins and ends. Many advisors, however, don’t know how to take the first step to do it or the right questions to ask,” says Gregory. His coaching efforts will guide clients in understanding the true capability of their technology and then make it work for them. “It happens all the time,” he says. “Advisors buy it, find one function that does something neat, and then leave nine other things on the table that could rocket them forward.”

What makes Gregory different from the scads of other coaches out there? In a word, practicality: “People don’t need more tools to choose from. What’s already available to them can solve their problems. They’re operating in the dark trying to find the light switch. I’m trying to help them get up the learning curve, get their arms around the technology they already have, and actually use it."

Kip Gregory will present "Leveraging Technology to Build Your Business" at the NAIFA convention on Tuesday, Sept.r 24, 2002, 8:30 a.m. He can be reached at 202-364-6913 or kip@gregory-group.com. Visit his website at www.Gregory-Group.com.

To register for the NAIFA convention, visit www.naifa.org/charlotte2002.

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