Wendy Keneipp

Providing quality insight that's easy to share can build trust and lead to additional opportunities and conversations.

The better you know the target audience, the better you can target your message and services, and the more helpful and valuable you can be as an adviser.

Advisers who are ready to get serious about their prospecting and marketing efforts are probably ready to consider a separate system to help manage those activities.

Start slow and keep it simple to help prospects understand and appreciate your value proposition.

This outline will help you through the process of creating a plan for your agency that includes just what you need to make it a successful year.

As we approach the end of the year, this is the perfect time to establish a planning habit with your sales team, columnist says.

Adjusting your communications strategies can help lure prospects and build trust with current clients.

In a TMI world, advisers must make themselves knowable and accessible to buyers through the research and decision-making process.

Are you an insight-driven organization? If not, you’re losing out on a tremendous opportunity.

“Now it’s time to educate the clients. Stop calling them stupid, and stop blaming them. That’s not education,” our columnist says.

Your clients don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.

Even when your audience knows nothing about your product or service, talking for extended periods of time is not a good idea. That’s a lecture, not a conversation.

Forget bad business decisions on commission splits and hiring choices — the most reckless and irresponsible decisions we’ve seen is the public hostility at carriers and all they represent.

Agency owners have tried-and-true excuses for not finding and closing deals. Here’s how to face the hard truth that the need to get back to basics.

If you’re not engaging on Twitter and social media, you're leaving your messaging and ideas in a desk drawer.

To motivate their teams, brokers need a rallying cry that evokes shared goals and a larger vision.

To get your prospects’ attention, you need a highly visible presence that speaks to their needs.

Advisers need to put clients and prospects at the center of their online conversations.

For a business-to-business organization like a benefit advisory firm, a core function of growing the brand is to support sales efforts.

Brokers clinging to ways of doing business in the past, such as insurance spreadsheeting, are headed toward a quick retirement.