Security and Freedom Partners (S&FP), an insurance and financial services provider, faced a difficult strategic challenge: How would they pro-actively grow their business, providing the same excellent service without depending on key individuals to do all the work? S&FP’s own methods for producing and delivering its services were successful at a certain size; yet, when they had tried to grow their business, they were met with problems.

• costly employee errors
• ineffective management
• lack of accountability and the inability to produce sales consistently

The more sales they made the less profits they had. Most of their sales where from the results of key individuals and these results were not replicatable.

In response to this challenge S&FP hired Business Design Corporation. Under their direction S&FP learned how to work strategically on their business.

In Business Design Corp.’s initial assessment, they identified key functional areas on which to focus; Business Process Development and Marketing.

Using proven methods, templates and development tools, they starting with Process Development and created a complete set of systems and trainings. S&FP learned to create the necessary business systems for their current and future employees to work effectively, then developed a complete structure and internal management system so their business could easily hire, train and manage good people to run them.

Next they focused on Marketing. Business Design Corp.’s objective was to improve client retention, while still growing it with cross sales and upgrades and doing all of this in a consistent and reliable way that they could count on, no matter which sales person was doing the work. They worked strategically to develop a system that would get the results they needed. They first innovated their current process, then orchestrated, documented and quantified the complete system. The new system they implemented was called, “The Client Annual Review & Needs Assessment System”. And it produced quantifiable results every time and still does to this day. In recent quantification, they determined that the system produces 100% client retention and 45% cross sales and upgrades. Most importantly they can quickly train new sales people to use this system and achieve the same great results.

When the project was complete S&FP had the systems in place that allowed them to operate and grow their business profitability without depending on any key people in the organization. They had orchestrated their business systems and could now replicate the same great quality and efficiency over and over again.

What Bob Jugan, CEO of Security & Freedom Partners, said about the results of this project. “I was working 50-hour weeks and never had time for a vacation. My business was so people dependent that if one key person left, I would be in real trouble. We were really at a loss as to how to grow this business profitably. Business Design Corp. first worked with us to completely systemize our operations. It was hard work but it provided us with a replicatable way to grow our business. We then worked on the Annual Review and Needs Analysis System that we conduct over the phone with current clients and prospective clients. It’s all scripted — a comprehensive series of questions. Then we compile the results and mail it out with suggested remedies for their stated needs. I was amazed at what having real systems in place could do. We quantify every aspect of this process, including the cross selling. Our retention is 100%! We don’t lose a client. And often, in the course of the Needs Analysis, we discover a need and opportunity for additional products. The templates, materials and tools given to us by BDC made all the difference.”