NAILBA Perspectives - Winter 2018 - 15

Other Educational Offerings
Within NAILBA University you will
find many educational offerings.
These include online educational
programs developed by LOMA/
LIMRA and offered at a discount to
NAILBA member agencies. Designed
for agents, the Agent Training Series
includes 11 self-study courses from
the basics of life insurance, annuities, and long term care insurance to
more sophisticated material on how
to sell these products. The nine selfstudy courses of the BGA Employee
Series provide similar information
for BGAs' staff members. The three
course BGA Staff Communication
Series focuses on communication,
customer service, and time management. Each course within a series
has from one to six lessons that take
about one hour each to complete.
Successful completion of the
free online Anti-Money Laundering
Training meets all federal requirements. In addition to courses, other
online NAILBA educational materials include the Brokerage Desk Reference, the Recruitment Practices Workbook, and the BGA Contract
Manual (soon to be updated as well).
Webinars of educational sessions
presented at NAILBA's Annual Meeting will also be added this year.
Find links to all of these NAILBA
provided resources at http://www.
nailba.org/nailbamain/university.
Thoughts from
NAILBA's Leaders
NAILBA's leaders want all of the
members of the association to use
the educational resources NAILBA
provides to improve their businesses. It's one of the top priority
goals in the three-year strategic
plan introduced last year. When
asked why more members don't participate in these programs, 2018
NAILBA Chairman Jeff Mooers,
who is President of H.D. Mooers

& Co. said, "Clearly, one of two
things is happening:
■■ We're building the wrong stuff, or
■■ Nobody knows what we're doing.
"There are other factors-timing, cost, ease, and the like-but
we need to make sure what we offer
has value, and, if so, that it's easy
to find," he added. "I think this is
one area where you'll see new CEO
Dan LaBert's influence fairly quickly.
Without question, we need an overhaul when it comes to our web presence and our marketing.
"But this focus on education is
more of a global, inclusive, narrative," Mooers continued. "As much
a philosophy as a plan-and without question, it's in the plan. What
we're about is our members' Return
On Investment. Our ONLY focus is on
how we can help the NAILBA member grow. Everything else will fall
into place. So we're going to look
at everything through the prism of
member ROI. We'll focus on what we
do best: share ideas, tell stories,
nurture relationships, and teach."
LaBert thinks many NAILBA members focus on the Annual Meeting,
so he plans to improve the educational offerings there starting with
the 2018 meeting. "Membership in
NAILBA must be an experience, not
just a transaction," he pointed out.
"While much of the NAILBA experience takes place at the Annual Meeting, we are committed to increasing
professional development opportunities for not only agency leaders
but their teams as well. Professional
development helps employees continue not only to be competent in
their profession, but also to excel in
it. Education should be an ongoing
process that continues throughout
an individual's career.
"Quite candidly, sometimes
you have to get out and 'sharpen the ax,'" continued LaBert.
"NAILBA is exploring ways the

Annual Meeting can offer continuing education credits as part of the
breakout sessions. In addition to
the fabulous networking (or 'Hallway Magic' as I like to call it), members will see increased professional development opportunities with
both timely and relevant content.
Indirectly, we want to help impact
a member's bottom line. This is the
responsibility of any professional
association. We hope these professional development opportunities
will do just that and make the next
meeting, scheduled for November 1
-3, 2018 in Orlando, a must attend."
Both Mooers and LaBert are looking forward to the positive benefits
of NAILBA's new partnership with
FSEdNet. "This is a game changing
strategy to help with the education
of new advisors," said LaBert. "The
key to any training is to focus on
being brilliant in the basics. This is
a turnkey educational program that
helps leadership teams implement
an easy to deliver training system
for success. The FSEdNet curriculum
is designed to help establish the
skills, knowledge, and habits which
will ensure consistent distribution growth, leading to higher levels of productivity through stronger broker hiring and retention. It

also helps the member value proposition as FSEdNet will be offered to
our members at a discounted rate."
"My hope is that this 'new' NAILBA
will be much more agile and progressive and impactful," Mooers
stressed. "There's a new generation
on the Board and the staff. We need
to be the change we want to see
with a focus on inclusion and interaction. I want to see ten times more
activity on the NAILBA Network. It
feels almost weird to try to explain
to people how excited I am about
NAILBA. With the distractions of
the past year behind us, now we get
to drill down on moving forward.
The energy is palpable."
LaBert cites a meme from social
media to illuminate the importance of NAILBA's many educational offerings:
CFO asks CEO: "What happens if
we spend money training our people
and then they leave?"
CEO: "What happens if we don't
and they stay?"
"This is a great question that
gets at the core of your beliefs
about creating your company's culture," he said. "Membership in NAILBA will continue to dive deeper in
supporting our member BGAs."
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NAILBA Perspectives - Winter 2018