“Goods and Services” and 2nd Grade

As many of you know we live in Atlanta and our kids are already in week 3 of school. I have a 4th grade son and 2nd grade daughter who go to a great City of Atlanta public school – Sarah Rawson Smith Elementary.  The school is an International Baccalaureate member and has a great team in place from Principal to teachers to a dedicated staff. Most importantly the staff and classes all look like America today, not like the Leave it to Beaver days of my education. A cute quilt of Black, white, brown, yellow . Some international students as well to add to mix…

As a 56 year old I attended 2nd and 4th grade 49 and 47 years ago respectively in the then all white suburb of Oak Park, IL and I am just blown away by the difference between our “reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmetic” education and all the things that our children are learning in the course of the normal school curriculum, in concert with the the “3 R’s”.

Last night my 7 year old was engaged in a conversation with my wife asking her what she did when I walked in.

“Daddy” she said “You work with software so that’s a service, right?” I told her it was. The she asked my wife who is a designer/decorator/artists if she was in “goods” since she made things for people. She said that was right. I looked at wife and just shook my head amazed that this small child was already looking at the world so much more expansively and differently through her 2nd grade eyes.

This morning I had to drop off some paperwork at school and decided to drop into her class since I had not met her teacher, a very nice young man named Mr. Monroe. I popped in for a sec shook his hand and as I was leaving he had the kid’s full attention and was saying “Now remember yesterday when we learned about goods and services..”

I shook my head as I walked up the corridor past the 2nd then 1st grade classes pausing to look at their artwork and stories on the way… “Goods and Services”. Learning about the world at 7 from that perspective…amazing.

When I got to the office I said to one of the school administrative staff who is a good friend – “You won’t believe what they are studying in Lilly’s class. Goods and services.”  She laughed and we both agreed we had probably never heard the terms until high school…if not from Samuelson in Econ 101 in college!

So half a century after my time in grade school we live in an diverse community in an interconnected world and the kids take French daily (full immersion, the teachers speak French only), have a really interesting cross disciplinary curriculum from the IB program that helps ties the world into all they do from culture to history to ecology and a reading program called “Great Books” that teaches the kids to read, understand, write, tell stories and engage with world through books.

We knew about lions, tigers, bears, elephants and giraffes. They study all kinds of whales, sharks, Pandas, penguins and can tell you all about the habitats and ecosystems they live in. In first grade they even did their own Powerpoint type multimedia presentations standing in front of  the parents and class on a polar creature!

Technology of course plays a big role – plenty of networked computers in every class – and my daughter – who complains like any kid about her 10 minutes of daily homework thinks nothing of spending an hour on a great tool -  “First in Math” on the computer for fun and to win digital ribbons and medals and maybe help get a pizza party for her class.

So ” Goods and Services” , understanding and interconnectedness. That is a lot different – and lot more interesting – than the plain old “3 R’s” of 1962…

We’re #1 – Insurance Broker and Benefits Consultant Ratings and Rankings

Our website rankings and survey have been an incredibly popular with brokers checking out their ratings and competitors as well as with employers…Yes lots of your customers are checking you out using our rankings.

For example for a specific broker in Woodland Hills CA – on Friday a firm named “One Lambda” specifically searched for your firm’s ratings and  spent a lot of time looking at our site and your competitors as well…

If you search for “insurance broker rankings” or “benefits consultant ratings” or vice versa the Industry Radar comes up first, second or third on EVERY major search engine!!!!

Even more impressive is the fact that try these terms and append a city or a state to them and you’ll find us in the top 5 every time..

Thanks to our Googleability and local Googleability, if you are on our list you will be found as well.

If you are not on our list – or your local locations are not – they will not be seen…

The big question is if a prospect, or customer,  finds your website will they like what they see??

Yes – Our Readers Listen!! Dinosaurs Disappearing..

In early May we posted about how backward the insurance industry was in just the browsers they used.

Apparently some of you paid attention and acted to improve your web experience!! In fact over 10% of you already have in just 90 days!!!

In April Internet Explorer made up 91.2% of all of our site visits and the dinosaur from the pre – 9/11 days – IE6 was 58.3% of the IE total.

At the end of July IE made up only 87.4% of our visits and IE 6 had dropped to 50.2% of all IE visits.

The big gainer was IE8 which went from 1.2% to 9.89% of the IE totals. Firefox grew nicely from 7% to 9.14% or nearly a third.

Safari is nearly 2% now (up from 1.2%) and Opera (my favorite) and  Google Chrome both are approaching 1% from nearly nothing earlier this year.

Mobile access is now about 1% of all visits – it should be MUCH more. Look for the Mobile icon and try it on your Blackberry, iPhone  et al….they are really useful on your smartphone.

If you are still part of the 44% of our viewers using IE6 – PLEASE – try a modern browser.

All the new browsers let you subscribe to the newsfeeds you like directly in them as well as offer a more secure and faster web browsing experience.

Go hear to learn more…and join the 21st century on the web!!

Are You Googleable? Have You Ever Been…

Check our our Broker website survey and if your firm is in the Top 10 on Google for your area...

UBA – “David” Outshines the Goliath Brokers on the Web

Now my final site for this first group of posts – United Benefit Advisors (UBA). The only overall “4″ ranking I gave. They are the David among the Goliaths here with a focus, plan and strong local focus.

I am sure many of you readers from the large firms reviewed here are snickering at this comparison but be sure you read what is said here in its entirety.

Comparing UBA directly to all the largest US brokerage firms is impossible on one level – size – but very realisitic in terms of how an employer, looking for a real partner to help them would view them and their “local offices” or member firms.

Even Aon and Marsh have new initiatives in the mid market and most of the other firms all compete already in the 50-3000 employer space.  That is HRH’s sweetspot for Willis as well.

The reason I included them is that their firms compete solely in the employee benefits part of the business. Some are very small, most are mid sized and a few are larger. How each member firm’s expertise stacks up to all the other benefits brokers in their markets I cannot say but their local approach online is much more friendly and engaging than the Borg-like websites of the national brands.

To start with UBA describes themselves in a different and interesting way:

“Shared Wisdom. Powerful Results.”

“..a unique community of nearly 140 of the most successful and most trusted independent employee benefits advisory firms in North America…”

Unlike any of the other broker websites their “corporate” site exists to promote their local member’s presence and expertise. How do I get referrals to the right member as fast as possible – not let me tell you all about me then make you search all over our site for a local office. They are everything an NFP is not.

Their site is clear on UBA’s mission -the value they add for firms. If a prospect clicks on the UBA logo on a member’s website they see exactly the value adds that they will get from their local broker being part of this organization. For example The lead item on their site is also employer focused and forward thinking:

Electronic Distribution of SPDs and other Participant Communications:
As e-mail, IM, and Twitter become the norm, and with “green” being the color of the day, benefit plan sponsors and administrators are naturally interested in meeting their participant communication obligations via electronic means. Unfortunately, the applicable statutes and regulations have not kept up with reality.

Their local firms have some of the best websites we have reviewed  – and a great many that are not – but at least the main UBA site gets a well informed viewer delivered to the local “door” – that is their job or reinforces what they saw on the local site in terms of the tools they provide customers. At that point the local firm has to be ready to deliver.

This type of umbrella site to a nice local web presence is the way all the large firms sites should operate to help drive business locally and raise their web visibility locally.

Don’t laugh – more UBA firms are in the top 10 in their local market on Google than any of the national firms.

Per the BI survey this is still a relationship business done at a local level and technology levels the playing field even more…

Tomorrow – “Googleability

The Big 3 – AON, Marsh and Willis Website Reviews

Now the big 3 – Willis/HRH, Marsh and AON. In all 3 cases we used the description of their business from their websites. All 3 approach their web presence different reflecting different business cultures.

The Willis site is well designed and very attractive – flashy -  but other than bragging about the Sears Tower or promoting a speech by their CEO seems to lack any real substance and their mission is vague -

“Bold. Dynamic. Driven. This is Willis.”

Marsh is sort of straightforward:

“As the world’s leading insurance broker and risk advisor, Marsh is devoted to finding the opportunity in risk.”

But their Mercer brand gets a bit less so-  “Mercer is the global leader for trusted HR and related financial advice, products and services.” Their site tagline – “Consulting, Outsourcing and Investments” only confuses the issue more.

The MMC websites seem intent on offering lots of information – all at one time and thus are very confusing.

Aon is by far the most focused and describes itself very directly regardless of the product areas you are in:

“… the leading global provider of risk management services, insurance and reinsurance brokerage, and human capital consulting.”

The Aon site is the cleanest and is well designed and as we will see in future posts they are the only one of all these brokerage firms that seems to have any type of cohesive integrated web strategy.

So of the 3 only AON is completely effective and none of the 3 really help with a regional focus for their offices…

Next – Why UBA’s site works for its members and beats the big boys on the ground…

Top National Brokers Website Reviews – Part II

Broker Specific Observations

As you can see the only firms whose sites fail our test completely are the banks – as their sites are nice if you have a bank account or mortgage with them but useless for insurance. Yes they have special insurance sites but they still are tough to use. There are a lot of great firms owned by Wells especially whose identity has been subsumed into this this large corporation (with the best logo ever). BB&T’s strategy of being a player in lots of small local markets probably benefits from their name whereas Wells Fargo may not competing in the larger US cities.

Of the traditonal brokers Brown and Brown and USI both fail to deliver a site that supports the quality of their organizations. The cheetah growl for Brown and Brown’s site serves no purpose and USI’s site is as bland as is their description of their business – “diversified insurance and financial services firm focused on providing fully integrated distribution of general and specialty property and casualty insurance and financial services such as employee benefits outsourcing and related consulting.”

NFP also once again baffles me. Their site is very attractive but fails completely to explain to a potential customer why they add value. Their description of who they are is odd as well – “…distribution of financial services products”. This is the same firm as you recall from a prior post whose CEO refers to “same store sales” and dealing with “product manufacturers” in her annual report investor communication.

Gallagher’s site falls victim to the trying to be all things to all people, though they do have sites for the benefits and P&C businesses those are not where one goes when looking for them. Gallagher too has acquired a lot of great firms and subsumed their sites into generic pages like this one for The Stanton Group in Minneapolis. Stanton was a top 10 firm in Minneapolis Google ratings, the only one Gallagher had other than their headquarters address.

Hub and CBIZ do a very nice job overall in looking fresh, getting their message across and getting the viewer to the local office to service them.Good solid sites here that you can build on to make even more useful and visible on the web.

I have become a fan of “no nonsense” sites that simply tell you what they do and then do it. Segal does that well at the same time being attractive, easy to navigate and clear on why they provide customer value.They also have RSS feeds easily accessible for communication.

The new Lockton site does the same thing. It is very businesslike but upfront on who they are and what they do – “Global insurance, employee benefits, surety and risk management services for clients interested in the highest level of service.” It is well organized and even employs “Share This” to allow viewers to post pages to multiple social media tools, the only site to show any visible interest in the use of social media. With a few tweaks here and there they could have the best and most visible brokerage site on the web.

Next – “The Big 3″ …

Top National Brokers Websites Reviewed – Part I

The Players

In light of our research and this BI survey now it is time to take a good look at the major national firms. With these firms being so large and resource rich I held them to higher standards than I did the smaller brokers. Clearly they have large teams and budgets to manage their technology and web needs and should be innovators and leaders. For the most part they are not.

There are well over 100 local/regional broker websites better than all but 3 or 4 of this group.

The large brokers break down into 3 groupings:

• The big 3 – AON, Marsh and Willis
• The other publicly traded firms and the fomerly publicly traded (plus Lockton and Segal)
• The Banks – Wells Fargo and BB&T

I also included as a contrast United Benefit Advisors(UBA), a group of independent firms focused on employee benefits consulting. Their firms are “David” competing in over 125 markets nationally with many of these large “Goliath” firms. You will find the comparison quite interesting.

Our Methodology

We looked at 5 major categories in reviewing these top firm’s web efforts from the perspective of a prospect doing research and looking for a new broker:

1. Overall Visual Appeal/Site Value to a visiting prospective customer
2. “Googleability” – how visible are they on the web for 14 key industry terms so prospects can find them
3. SEO – have they optimized their site at least for metatags and the use of analytics tools to monitor their site’s effectiveness
4. Social Media – how are they using the web 2.0 tools like RSS and social media sites to connect with customers
5. “Local Googleability” -  Ours is a local relationship business so how visible are these large firms in 60 top US markets when Googling for “employee benefits”?

So how are the big boys doing from a web perspective?

Overall  Impressions – We broke this group’s overall into visual appeal an overall value of the site for a typical visitor.

• How attractive is a site?
• Is it easily navigable?
• Is it focused on customers needs or corporate ego?
• Is there value there for a visitor?
• Are local offices easily found?
• Is there a clear communication of their basic business?

In reviewing these firms we also took into account that their websites need to serve a multitude of audiences – customers, prospects, investors, analysts and the media. The problem with this is that in trying to be a jack of all trades they often master none of them.

Also many failed at a simple description of what they do – often seeming to be afraid to say they are insurance brokers and using a lot of words to say everythng but that.

If you take commissions or fees for the placement of any type of insurance or financial products you are a broker. It’s okay to be a broker!

See next post for site reviews…

What Clients Want from their Broker

Over the last few weeks we have reviewed and updated over 650 local and regional broker websites. The results were quite revealing but not surprising – nearly 70% of all firms sites were ranked as 1 or 2 – essentially online brochures or billboards – and less than 1 of 8 could be found when Googling for the term “employee benefits” in their area.

These results are quite telling in light of the Business Insurance survey released last week that made it clear that the size of the firm did not matter to clients but the traditional values of culture, relationships, competent and responsive people all did make the list. it is entirely possible that in light of the “too big to fail” issues our economy is suffering from that customers realize that size is often an inhibitor to success rather than one that works on their behalf.

The real surprise is for the first time the firm’s ability to leverage technology on the client’s behalf did.

Clearly a firm with a nice updated website providing online tools and value to customers is more likely to make a positive impression on customers expecting technological competence than one that is a billboard or online brochure.

So if size is not viewed as a real differentiator and technology competence is, smaller firms, or the larger ones properly focused – have a great window to innovate and compete.

A Little Good News from Detroit

It may not seem like much to you but some good friends of mine – Joe Coan and Jim Scoggin – the principals of Great Lakes Employee Benefits- scored a new client win with the United Way and in this economic climate it is worth celebrating every one! It even made Google News for Detroit!!

Great Lakes (GLEBS) is a great boutique benefits consulting firm and Joe and Jim are experienced professionals with a great team and have a broad national client base.

This may be just one small positive story but to have found on my Google reader this morning made my day!