How one young adviser is rapidly advancing her career

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Lauren Fabbri

At just 27 years-old, Lauren Fabbri has been promoted four times and now oversees 10 people at brokerage Austin Benefits Group in Bloomfield Hills, Mich.

That rapid advancement from marketing to adviser to director of new business to now director of account services is part of the nature that has always driven her. This is one reason why she is a 2017 EBA Rising Star in Advising.

In her marketing role, Fabbri interacted with potential and current clients and felt she had the aptitude to help them on a deeper level with consulting. The transition to agent was “natural,” she explains, because, when you have “a business like insurance, you need to know it and know way more than you ever thought you wanted to know.”

She learned a lot in the first couple of years, she says, adding, “so it made the transition pretty natural.” Her current book of business includes more than 25 clients in the medical, law, communications and manufacturing industries.

Despite her advancement, she knows as a young adviser there is a “stereotype of inexperience in an industry led by seasoned benefit professionals,” she says.

To overcome that experience she recalls advice she got early on in her career from Austin Benefit Group’s CEO. “He said, 'Lauren, you can’t think about it and have to trust when you go into a client. You need to be competent, be yourself and talk to them like you talk to anyone else. If you don’t acknowledge it, they won’t.'"

That conversation taught Fabbri that she can’t allow her age to slow her down. “I have a purpose and mission — to make an impact and difference in people lives. I have something to teach them and bring to table,” she says

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EBA’s 2017 Rising Stars in Advising are starting their own firms, experiencing monumental growth and embracing change at every turn.

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“It’s not about age,” she adds. “It’s about how can we help each other.”

Fabbri plans to continue advancing her career. “I have always seen myself as someone who will continue to grow,” she says. “I don’t plan on staying in the same place. I am not going to be content doing what I am doing and I always want to find new ways to grow professionally.”

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