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AGENCY OF THE MONTH
Creating the unique client engagemenT Second generation at Lacher focuses on helping business clients reach their goals By Dennis H. Pillsbury
"Our focus has been on innovation and being unique in our space," says Lacher & Associates Chief Operating Officer Maura Derstein. "By unique, I mean taking insurance somewhat out of the conversation. Instead, we focus on helping businesses reach their goals. That broader approach has created much deeper relationships. That also meant pre-qualifying our clients so that we worked only with clients that fit our vision and values. We weren't looking for clients that just wanted a quote. The decision was made that we would grow with clients that we wanted to work with and would find value in our relationship." "By creating that kind of unique client engagement," Partner Chad Lacher continues, "our clients began to see us as partners in their business. We no longer sit across the table from them, providing insurance quotes, we are seen as sitting next to them, helping their business grow and working to make all their employees successful. It requires a great deal of transparency and vulnerability to reach that level of trust," he adds. "Just as we get to know our clients intimately, the reverse is true. We become part of their business family, experiencing both the good and the bad times and helping them."
Mark Lacher says "Our firm's culture continues to reflect our legacy values but has changed in the way that it does business by embracing innovation. When Chad and I took over, we committed to reinventing the firm without losing the family atmosphere. We recognized that we needed to professionalize the organization, so that every member of the team was on the same page. The transition was difficult and educational. We learned a lot about becoming a sales organization and have been able to apply the lessons we learned with our clients. At the same time, it has allowed us to attract a number of young people into our business and work with them to be successful in our environment of focusing on helping clients." The legacy The firm's legacy started in 1958 when four people who owned a real estate firm in Souderton, Pennsylvania, decided it would be a good idea to offer homeowners insurance to its clients. While the focus remained on real estate, the insurance business grew commensurately and, in 1977, recognizing that there were additional opportunities in insurance, the real estate firm, Lapp & Alderfer, brought in Greg Lacher to oversee the insurance operations. And by 1981, the insurance division was split off into a separate corporation.
The strong growth continued under the leadership of Greg, who became a partner in 1984, and Robert Alderfer, who changed the name of the agency to Robert C. Alderfer Insurance Agency, Inc. Greg purchased the firm from Robert in 1996 and the name became Lacher & Associates, which it remains today. Greg didn't let any grass grow beneath his feet. Recognizing the importance of taking care of all aspects of a client's business, he launched an Employee Benefits Division in 1997. By 2003, perpetuation of the firm had become a concern and Greg began to explore his options. "Mark and I decided that we would talk to dad about joining the firm and see how it went for a while," Chad remembers. Obviously, it went well. "In 2007, Mark and I purchased the firm and started working on the future of L&A. We began our journey of finding out how we wanted to engage with clients and have fun at the same time."
Bringing the lessons to clients Since 2009, the firm has enjoyed a steady march forward, growing between 10% and 15% each year in a soft market to reach about $5 million in revenue being handled by 37 employees. And as they learned more about effective selling, the firm started to offer sales and leadership training to its clients. "If we can help our clients' sales growth," Chad points out, "that will produce the biggest impact to their top line. That's why we offer a number of training solutions, including: sales system training, sales leadership, sales team training, and supporting cast training. It's all stuff we learned during our transition, and it's proven successful, so what could be better than offering it to our clients so they can enjoy similar success?" To start the process, the members of the Lacher & Associates team do something that many agents and brokers fail to do—they listen. "We don't have any ready solutions for clients or prospects that we will try to lead them to," Mark points out. "Instead, we listen so we can collaborate with the client in developing a tailored plan that addresses their unique problems. And a lot of our solutions don't involve insurance. We work with the client to develop a strategic plan to mitigate or remove risks and, only after that is completed, do we look at ways to transfer those risks that cannot be handled through other means. "To accomplish this," he continues, "we require clients to engage in our Impact™ process. This process goes right back to listening. We sit down with the client and find out everything we can about the business so, together, we can design and implement a proactive plan that controls costs, solves problems, and fulfills the client's risk management strategy.
Bringing the same approach to benefits Just as risk management solutions can be brought to bear on the risks faced by businesses, so too can solutions be brought to bear on the health concerns of people. That's why Lacher & Associates partnered with Denise Lantz, president of Attentive Health, in 2008 to provide the same type of long-term planning that characterizes the Impact™ approach for their clients. The mission of Attentive Health is to provide long-term wellness solutions aimed at transforming the health, vitality and quality of life for people. The company works with clients to provide a comprehensive plan that will equip employees with the skills and resources necessary to maintain health for a lifetime. "The result is reduced absenteeism and health care costs, while morale and productivity are increased," Chad points out. More recently, Chad continues, "we saw the need for better technology in health and wellness so we invested in a partnership with FELA (Financial Education & Literacy Advisers)." Also working with Attentive Health, the three firms developed "SPRING," an integrated, online wellness platform. The online solution helps employees and participants to: • Discover health and financial risks unique to them and how to mitigate them • Identify activities to improve their well-being • Engage with mentors and coaches who can help provide guidance and support • Track personal achievements, progress, and outcomes over time • Access rewards and other incentives based on goal achievements • Gain a holistic view of their overall wellness in a private, secure environment Mark notes that "we learned from our clients that a truly comprehensive approach to corporate wellness meant incorporating both health and financial wellness. This partnership helps us provide a great solution to our clients."
Getting everyone on board "We see our job going forward as one where we continue to address those broader issues that impact our clients," Chad says. "Today, health and wellness are at the top of that agenda because they can have such a strong impact on our clients' bottom line. But that's just today. We have worked very hard on developing a team that is resilient, constantly looking to be innovative, and focused on providing unique and remarkable service to our clients." "One of our organizational mantras," Maura adds, "is to make sure that we are consistent in communicating our values and getting everyone at the firm to understand them. Everyone's performance is measured against his
or her ability to innovate, be remarkable and to say 'why not' instead of 'no.' "We have weekly meetings with our High Performance Team and all-team meetings every other month to discuss where we are. We will talk about something unique we did for a client. We now use Yammer for internal communications and that's allowed us to be completely open with those communications. We show everything. We use it to praise team members who offered new ideas. All this goes into communicating our vision of being remarkable in our client's eyes." "It's a continually moving target," Chad admits. "We keep on working on developing team members with Friday morning meetings for skills development, mentorship, and presentations. We understand that we need to keep working diligently so that everyone understands what we're doing and why. And that will change over time as we learn from those remarkable things that our team members do for clients and incorporate them." Mark concludes: "We want people who are involved and feel free to introduce new ideas. And we recognize that this means we need to provide outlets for them to give of themselves in other ways as well. We have a philanthropy committee where team members can get involved in giving back to the community. We provide days off for people to do charitable work. It is all part of a culture that is active and focused on doing what is best for our clients, our community, and our insurance companies." Lacher & Associates continually looks ahead to create a client engagement that is so strong and productive that its team members become active partners with the firm's clients. It is that kind of innovation that has made the independent agency system the strongest and most vibrant marketing force in the insurance community. And it is why Rough Notes magazine is pleased to recognize Lacher & Associates as our Marketing Agency of the Month.
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