| Greater Philadelphia Chapter October 12, 2024 | |
Greater Philadelphia Society of Financial Services Professionals Presidents Message Welcome everyone to another Chapter year! This year promises to be both an exciting and informative year. I want to thank Frank Branca, Kit McCarty and Tim Malarkey who completed their service to the board this past summer . Also I would like to thank Frank Lazarus who stepped down from the Board to take on the presidency of the new five county NAIFA. I am truly grateful for their commitment to the Board and to the members they served. Renew Now: Help Your Chapter Plan for a Successful Year Every June, Board Members of the Greater Philly Chapter get together for a half-day planning session. Our goal -- put together the most exciting and meaningful year of activities for YOU, our faithful chapter members. We believe that we have quite a year planned for you. Whether you will be attending events like the Professionals Dinner, the Annual Institute, or View from the Top, we believe that you will benefit greatly from our planning. And if continuing education is what you need, we have put together an array of CE offerings that is second to none. If you cant come out to an event, you can earn your CE on the SFSP Web site by accessing your online member benefits. The Society offers over 40 online courses at a very special price. Click on the link for more details - http://www.financialpro.org/member/sec/financialpronettm.cfm. Two new benefits have been added this year: These new benefits are part of the goal of bringing the membership benefits to YOU! Also, the Society publishes its own electronic newsletter check it out on the SFSP Web site! But to get all this, and more, you have to do something: renew your membership in the Society today. You can renew online by clicking the Chapters link at www.gpsfsp.org and then selecting the Membership Application button (monthly billing is an option). Or you can complete the dues notice you received and send it back to SFSP!
Article: When Value Really Matters There are some sales situations that are tougher than most. It will be harder to persuade the prospect to choose you. Four instances when you face a particularly tough challenge include:
If you are trying to replace somebody who is well accepted, you have an extremely difficult job. In government bidding, incumbents win nearly 90% of all contract renewals. In fact, even if there have been problems and the decision maker is unhappy with the incumbent, they still win almost half the time. How do you overcome that? You have to show that you can offer such a powerful advantage in terms of quantifiable, verifiable results that staying with the status quo would be foolish. If you are changing a process, you're likely to encounter resistance of another kind. Many people fear change. They fear that they can't perform under new rules, using new tools, with new processes. Several years ago, I was waiting to present our RFP automation tools to a utility company. I heard a group of people clumping up the stairs to the conference room, and one woman's voice rose loudly above the rest: "I don't care what they've got, it won't work here!" She was, naturally, the manager of the proposal operation. Selling to that company had suddenly become much more difficult. Without even seeing the software, she had convinced herself it couldn't and wouldn't work. Why would she take such an attitude? At some level, perhaps not even consciously, she probably feared that if she were forced to change the way she did her job, she wouldn't be able to perform. She would lose face and lose prestige. She would fail because she wouldn't be able to adjust. Changing a process creates risk for workers and their first instinct is to fight against it. One technique to eliminate the problem is show that the change may actually make their job easier and/or more valuable to the organization. Another technique is to talk with senior management who are looking for a solid economic return and make the sale there. Either way, it will be tough. What about relocating control of a valuable process or asset? Control means power, prestige, and job security. People are reluctant to give up control unless they're getting a huge return. They must get back so much value that hanging on to the process or the asset is no longer attractive. And it must be value that they care about, not some hypothetical benefit. Suppose that individual sales people have kept their customer information on their local laptops. Now you are proposing to centralize all customer information so that everyone in sales and marketing has access to the information. What you may find is that many sales people are "protective" of their customer data. They don't want others in the company contacting "their" customers. They don't want "their" references being used. So they will fight to maintain control. Or they will sabotage the effort by withholding important bits of information. Or they will just refuse to use the system. Unless you can show them there is a huge return for themselves, the sales people are not likely to endorse the relocation of customer data to a centralized location. Finally, there are situations where doing nothing is a reasonable choice. One of our clients provides complete facility management services, from the parking lot attendants to the security to the operation of the physical plant. They can provide those services cheaper and usually better than a facility owner can do them for themselves. But outsourcing means loss of control, changing processes, and in a sense replacing an incumbent: the existing internal staff. Although our client was winning more than 20 percent of their deals, their research showed that over 40 percent of all bids were being awarded to...nobody. The client simply decided not to make any changes. To do nothing. We worked to establish compelling value and to calculate the ROI from outsourcing to my client. We identified key differentiators and quantified how those differences added more value. And we made all of that as prominent as possible in their proposals. The result? They won 11 of the next 12 opportunities. The important point is this: if you find yourself in a competitive situation that includes one of the four characteristics listed above, allow yourself extra time to put special effort into establishing a compelling return on investment or other measure of value. Otherwise, your chances of winning are small. "Reprinted with permission from The Sant Corporation, www.santcorp.com"
NBC Television Personality As weatherman and a host of NBC's The Today Show, Al Roker greets more than 30 million viewers each week as America prepares for work. A ten-time Emmy Award winner, Al conducts celebrity interviews, cooking segments, technology updates, and a continuing series for Today called "Today's Dad," featuring parenting tips for fathers. Host of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, The Rose Bowl Parade, and the Christmas Tree Lighting at Rockefeller Center, Al has also presided over his own talk show on CNBC, Al Roker, and hosted MSNBC's information quiz show, Remember This?, which earned Al a 1997 Daytime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Game Show Host. (Phot Al Roker with Gene Hackman) A best-selling author with acclaimed books to his credit, Al's first book, Don't Make Me Stop This Car: Adventures in Fatherhood spent weeks atop the New York Times bestseller list. His second book, Al Roker's Big Bad Book of Barbecue was a summer blockbuster and New York Times bestseller. His third book, Al Roker's Hassle-Free Holiday Cookbook, was released in 2003. In addition to his network duties, Roker has carved out a successful career as an entrepreneur. Now in its fifth year, Al Roker Productions, Inc. is Al's thriving multimedia company set up to produce "all things Al." The company is involved in the development and production of network, cable, home video, and public television projects. Two of the most successful projects include the critically acclaimed special on PBS about severe weather, Savage Skies, and a highly rated travel series called Going Places. Other projects include Roker on the Road for Food Network and a series of specials, including Al Roker's World Championship Barbecue, Al Roker's Midwest Fest, Al Roker's Dining on the Strip, and Al Roker's Around the World in New York City. Al Roker Productions has also partnered with Lifetime, Court TV, and Fine Living. Plan now to join us on March 22nd for the Annual Financial Professionals Event of the Year! Sponsorships are available - limited number of opportunities! If you're interested in helping out with this event, contact Jeff Podraza, Professionals Dinner committee chair, at jeff.podraza@us.ing.com.
SAVE THE DATES FOR THESE UPCOMING CHAPTER EVENTS!
Employee Benefits Section Forum: Employee Stock Ownership Plans Retirement Planning Section Forum: Using Tax Qualified Retirement Plans for Family Business Succession Planning Other Sections Meetings dates: January 24, February 21, March 21 - All Sections Meetings are held at Tycor Benefit Administrators!
DVD Seminar: The Complexities of Buy-Sell Planning Other DVD Dates:February 16 and May 18, 2006 Annual View from the Top · J. Barry Griswell -Chairman, President and CEO, Principal Financial Group · Michael L. Kalen -Executive Vice President and Director of the Individual Life Division, Hartford Life, Inc. · Paul Grillo, CFA - Senior Vice President, Senior Portfolio Manager, Delaware Investments Registration and Coffee: 8:30 am
Annual Financial Professionals Dinner Another GP-SFSP Member Benefit! Editor: Robert M. Flood, III, Westport Worldwide - rflood@westportworldwide.com- T: 610.941.2775 Staff: Christine Boylan, CAE, Boylan+Associates, LLC
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