BISA Magazine - Quarter 4, 2017 - 14

FEATURE STORY

An Extension of
the Staff
Take the case of Hancock Investment Services (HIS), Inc. The bank
B/D wanted to build up its life insurance component. To that end, it made
extensive use of its business partners,
according to Keith LeBlanc, senior vice
president and director of sales for HIS.
"They are coming into the branches,
teaching tellers, conducting branch
huddles and telling them what to say to
customers," LeBlanc says.
Life insurance accounts for about 9
percent of program volume at the
Hancock Bank affiliate, but the investments unit is looking to get that higher.
Vendors may also supply permissible
"giveaways," like pins, for such occasions. "They are an extension of us,"
LeBlanc says.
The heightened involvement isn't
restricted to life insurance, either. Hancock Investment Services conducted a
"road show" for a new managed-money
platform last year, and one of its business partners, Envestnet, sent a support
team to help educate the bank's reps
on the new products and services.
"We're always piggy-backing on them,"
LeBlanc says of his business partners.
When HIS introduced a new structured
investment product offering, it leveraged its supplier, Incapital, in a similar
way; it did the same with First Trust
Portfolios in the unit investment trusts
area as well.

"I'm seeing deeper relationships
where the banks are getting more
and better training, far beyond
what's necessary to just support the
sales of their particular products."
- Paul Werlin, Human Capital Resources, Inc.

14
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"We're using [business partners] more
than in the past to make sure we're
educating people," LeBlanc says. "We're
not limiting our product set. We're adding a layer of approval."
One area where HIS is seeing less support is in the mutual fund area, though
it isn't clear why. Perhaps it is because
of more regulation and tighter budgets
for those manufacturers. "We used to
get more support, but it just fell off,"
LeBlanc says.
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of BISA Magazine - Quarter 4, 2017
