NAILBA Perspectives Perspectives Fall 2018 | Page 19
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nailba’s agency successor networking group
ASNG 2019 and Beyond
A
Jerry C. Thomas, CFP®
s you can tell ASNG has
been a little quiet this year.
With all the great changes
occurring at NAILBA, we decided to
take a hard look at ourselves and fig-
ure out where we fit in with NAIL-
BA’s vision. We had to ask ourselves
“What does ASNG look like in 2019
and ahead?”
ASNG was created to help second
and third generation agency lead-
ers discuss succession planning and
business development. Since its in-
ception it has become more than just
succession planning, it has evolved
and helped members by becoming a
sounding board for ideas and topics
regarding leadership and manage-
ment. As we looked back at past pro-
gramming we realized a majority of
the topics dealt with leadership and
management. We then looked to see
if our membership reflected all those
who could and should participate in
ASNG. What we found was that we
may be missing out on influential
members because the group only ap-
pealed to those BGAs who had picked
someone out as a successor.
We want to incorporate not only
the successors but the leaders of the
BGA members. We found as our in-
dustry is evolving, so is the structure
of our agencies. Agencies were pre-
dominantly passed down through the
family but as we all know (from our
own clients planning) as we go fur-
ther down the lineage more agencies
end up in the hands of nonfamilial
owners. What we also found is that
as our agencies have grown, some-
times the leadership and large deci-
sion making is coming from the COO,
CFOs, or Vice Presidents and not the
Principals. This helped us shift our
focus from only attracting successors
to reaching out to BGA Leadership.
We felt it was time ASNG not just
look for the successors to be mem-
bers of the agency but to look for the
leaders of an agency to join ASNG. We
found many of us in leadership posi-
tions do not have a resource or sound-
ing board to review ideas or chang-
es we think will benefit the agency.
Some of us have ideas we want to try
but before we try them may want to
reach out to the group and ask, “How
would you approach this problem or
opportunity?” “Have I looked at ev-
erything I need to consider?” This is
where ASNG can be a good source for
members to help us create a commu-
nity of collaborative thought.
Some of us do have a group that
resembles the top idea. We may have
been lucky enough to be asked to
join a study group. I myself was lucky
enough to be invited to join TYGERS,
which has been one of the most in-
fluential groups in my business and
personal development. These groups
bring value not just to the individual
member but to their respective BGA.
It allows us to put an idea out there
and get feedback or to rely on a sup-
port group of people who are doing
and making the same decisions as
you. We want to take the activities
and ideas that make a study group
successful and incorporate it into
ASNG.
“ASNG can be a good source for members to
help us create a community of collaborative thought.”
To do so we looked at three things
that help a study group be successful.
The first is communication, by being
able to readily reach out to a group
of people who do and think similar to
you is highly valuable. The second is
meeting in person at least once per
year. The third thing is incorporating
partners to help create valuable con-
tent to review.
Here is a look of how we answered
the following questions.
1. Who is a good member for ASNG?
a. Leaders of their BGA.
2. What are we planning on doing?
a. Monthly webinars on different
topics revolving round the
major departments of a BGA.
3. How will we communicate?
a.
We will create central com-
munication system that ASNG
members can ask questions to
the group.
4. Annual Event/Meeting
a.
NAILBA Annual Meeting: We
will bring carrier executives
and consultants to review
how they create and manage
their annual planning in mul-
tiple business departments.
If you have someone in your agen-
cy who is a leader and would benefit
from this type of group, please have
them contact Jerry C Thomas, CFP®
at [email protected] or (216)
241-2300.
If you have any recommendations
for topics to discuss during one of
our webinars or topics to discuss
at the annual meeting please let us
know and we can follow up accord-
ingly. Here’s to a great NAILBA 2018
Annual Meeting and for a prosperous
2019!
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