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AAMGA Special Section Marketing Committee participates in variety of promotions Products, services, designations and the AAMGA University are some of the offerings By Phil Zinkewicz In the Broadway and later Hollywood musical “The Music Man,” Robert Preston plays a salesman, selling the promise of creating “boys bands” to gullible residents of Midwest rural towns. In fact, other than collecting money from the towns’ residents for shabby costumes and instruments, Preston has no intention of leaving these towns with actual boys bands. In both the Broadway and Hollywood versions, Preston is successful at this subterfuge because of his likeability and charisma. But legitimate salespeople in the real world can’t depend only upon charisma. They need real products and services to sell if they are to be successful. It’s small wonder, then, that those involved with the Marketing Committee of the AAMGA are enthusiastic about their charges. Kathy Bacon, inter-association liaison for the AAMGA Marketing Committee, and Euclid Black, board liaison for the committee, describe with gusto the products they are charged with marketing. “Our responsibility is to work with other AAMGA committees to promote the products and services that the association has to offer its members, and to attract other potential members into the association by letting them know what AAMGA has to offer,” says Bacon of the Florida-based Program Underwriters, Inc. “For example, our committee has been working with the National Association of Insurance Women (NAIW), providing educational speakers for their conferences. The NAIW has nine regional conferences each year. Last year, we provided speakers for two of them, but this year we will be providing speakers for all nine.” In addition, the Marketing Committee also spends a good deal of time promoting the AAMGA designations, says Bacon. “There is the CIW, that’s the Certified Insurance Wholesaler designation; the CWIS, Certified Wholesaler Insurance Specialist; and the CMGA, the Certified Managing General Agent.” “Our job at the Marketing Committee is to create recognition of these designations,” says Black of Black/White & Associates in Henderson, Nevada. “We have to make the insurance industry at large understand the knowledge and training that go into these designations. The industry easily recognizes the CPCU, the CLU, the CIC and so forth. We want our designations to be as easily recognizable. Moreover, we want our own member insurers to realize that those who hold these designations are at the top of the list among wholesalers and MGAs.” Bacon says that promoting the AAMGA University is a top priority for the Marketing Committee. “The University is constantly adding to its curriculum that it offers to AAMGA members,” she says. “Each year, the University releases a ‘report card’ to measure its own performance. We make sure that the report card is distributed widely throughout the industry. Also, we want to make the industry aware of the University Web site, which we are constantly updating.” Black says that it is also the Marketing Committee’s charge to promote the Under Forty Organization (UFO). “The UFO brings young people into the organization to keep the culture going,” he says. “Two of our past presidents have come out of the UFO. It is an opportunity for younger members of the AAMGA to network with the seasoned executives and exchanges views.” Says Bacon: “Our job at the Marketing Committee is to keep the industry aware of the opportunities offered by the AAMGA and to keep reminding the industry that AAMGA members are highly professional.” * |
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