Lack of focus and generalizing can limit your career

Specializing measurably benefits your career. It sets you apart from peers, offers instant credibility, allows for thoroughly understanding clients’ professions and creates efficiencies. For me, specializing and scaling are how I created a thriving business as an insurance professional.

My staff and I focus on selling disability insurance to doctors and medical professionals, especially early in their careers. Then as our clients move through their lives, we’re there with them taking care of their financial futures. Here’s how this works for me.

Effectively finding clients

At the core of our business are clients. The more effort spent on finding clients, however, the less time you have for working with them. Over the years, I’ve focused on defining and fine-tuning a process for efficiently finding new people I can help.

To start with, I don’t directly approach doctors. It would take a significant effort to convince them to individually talk with me. Instead, I work with the person handling benefits in a hospital’s human resources department to schedule times when I can talk with groups of doctors. This provides me with instant credibility, and it’s scalable. It’s just as easy for me to present to five or 5,000 doctors, and my practice is set up to support that.

Another way I differentiate myself is that I offer more than information at my seminars. I grab their attention by focusing on one of the most pressing needs of my target clients, which for medical residents is food. Unfortunately, residents in urban hospitals may be food insecure. So when I’m presenting to that group, I always look to bring pizza or any other food that will increase the attendance of our lectures.  

Deeper understanding of clients

Because of both the level of debt doctors incur for their education and the possibility they may experience a disability or medical issue that can make them uninsurable later, we work with them early in their careers.

Learn more by watching David Blake in “Specialize and scale to reach Top of the Table.”

These young physicians, like many young adults, often believe nothing bad will ever happen to them. It’s challenging for them to initially understand financially protecting themselves throughout their careers. We ask them to visualize the future they want as well as their future family obligations. We ask them if they envision themselves relying on others for help or relying on themselves.

To achieve that independent future, we make sure our clients have income replacement protection. As they amass assets and their income increases after graduation, we then talk to them about more advanced needs, such as retirement planning, succession planning and partnership agreements. Doctors often move around the country for their careers, so we’re sure to stay in touch and follow them wherever their careers take them.

Because we specialize, my staff and I also understand which products will best address the needs of our clients. Doctors are busy. If they call us looking for critical illness coverage or disability insurance coverage, they’re going to want to hang up if we start talking about something else. Focus on what’s important to them. 

Don’t make people struggle to understand what you’re talking about or how your business works. They’re too busy for that. Instead, understand your clients’ jargon and the rhythms of their profession. It distinguishes you from anyone else trying to talk to them. When you do that, you will get to the top of your profession.

David C. Blake, of Harrison, New York, has been an MDRT member since 1994 and is a Top of the Table qualifier. He’s the founder of Insmed Insurance Agency. Watch Blake in “Specialize and scale to reach Top of the Table.” 

For more about specializing as a financial professional

• Watch “Double your income and work less”
• Watch “Finding your niche”
• Read “Create your niche market”