Longfellow Benefits Adds Two VPs

Lynn Gillis was hired as vice president of client services and Ryan P. McDermott, as vice president of business development by Longfellow Benefits.

Gillis works with clients on setting and reaching goals and objectives and resolving issues in employee benefits. With a background in underwriting health insurance, she specializes in complex financial analysis such as stop-loss and alternative health care plans. She is experienced in the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA) and flex spending account (FSA) issues. Gillis was a lead consultant with Strategic Benefit Advisors, a senior underwriter with HealthNet Northeast and a group underwriter of major accounts with Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Rhode Island. She holds bachelor’s degree in economics and a bachelor’s of science in finance from Rhode Island College.

McDermott is responsible for creating new business opportunities, meeting with entrepreneurs, financial executives, and HR professionals. Most recently he was a managing director and sales representative with consultancy McDermott & Thomas Associates, working with group health plans. Before that, he was an investment adviser at Boston Partners Financial, a general agency of John Hancock. McDermott is a graduate of The Catholic University of America.   

For more stories like this, sign up for the PLANADVISERdash daily newsletter.

Longfellow Benefits, in Boston, provides consulting services for employee and executive benefits.

If You Build It, They Will Come

Ann Schleck & Co. and ShoeFitts Marketing have teamed up to offer Voilá, a marketing and branding program for retirement plan advisers.

While some marketing workshops focus on theory, Voilá takes a hands-on approach to brand definition and design. In a competitive industry, a lot of the growth has been coming from advisers who are adding more advisers to their practice, Sheri Fitts, founder and owner of ShoeFitts Marketing, told PLANADVISER, but their marketing and branding are not keeping up.

“Branding can help David battle Goliath,” Fitts said, “especially in the environment we’re in.” For one thing, she said, effective branding can help a practice appear bigger, which is half the battle when you are going after those big plans.

Never miss a story — sign up for PLANADVISER newsletters to keep up on the latest retirement plan adviser news.

During the full-day workshop, retirement plan advisers will learn what makes a good brand better and how design can transform a corporate image.  Retirement plan advisers will work with experienced retirement plan branding and marketing experts Fitts and Ann Schleck of Ann Schleck & Company to create a tangible and easy-to-implement marketing plan along with a complete set of customized marketing materials.

A simple, effective brand, well thought out and executed, helps build credibility, Fitts said, and it helps convey confidence to an adviser’s prospects and clients. At the end of the workshop, advises will have their own brochure and other materials to use during prospecting. “We will walk them through a very tactical marketing plan,” Fitts said.

 

Hands-On Brand Building 

Instead of speaking theoretically, Fitts and Schleck discuss the idea of an editorial calendar, and then spend half an hour outlining the next 12 months of a calendar with blog and Twitter topics, and marketing. Retirement plan advisers will learn what makes a good brand better, and how design can transform a corporate image. Advisers will learn how an effective marketing plan and a related system of support materials— including a professionally written and designed full-color brochure, customized personal and team bios and introduction sheets, and a branded presentation deck—can transform their brands.

Leveraging that plan and the materials through social media (also discussed during the workshop) will amplify the power of the retirement plan adviser’s brand, resulting in increased awareness of each adviser’s distinctive value proposition, leading more powerful engagement with prospects and an opportunity to increase retirement plan sales.

“Marketing doesn’t have to kill you. It doesn’t have to be hard,” Fitts said. “It just has to be consistent. Having a marketing plan already mapped out for you helps with consistency. Advisers say they help simplify the complex nature of retirement planning. We’ll be helping simplify marketing for advisers.”

Registration for Voilá, open through June 10, is restricted to qualified retirement plan advisers in the defined contribution space. The first full-day workshop is slated to take place in Boston on July 23. Workshops are planned but not yet scheduled for Atlanta, Chicago and San Francisco. The cost is $1,500, and space is limited. To learn more about attending, contact Sue Kelley, sue@annschleck.com or 651.236.8280.

 

 

«