CBSG Aids PMG Securities in Taking Care of Top Sales People.

Business Editors

PHILADELPHIA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 5, 2001

PMG Securities President Michael Sherrman built his Long Grove, Illinois annuity and mutual fund company with a decided preference for independent sales representatives.

"Our sales people don't have blinders on and aren't told how to sell and the way to sell it," says Sherrman. "We don't handcuff them or threaten them to sell a particular product."

Sherrman is quick to admit that having an independent sales force offering financial retirement solutions has its own challenges. Unlike many brokers and dealers in the industry, PMG views its 575 PMG sales representatives, also associated with Zurich Financial Services Group, as its customers. This perspective created some unique sales and customer service problems.

That's when Competitive Business Strategy Group entered the picture.

"We were first called upon to conduct an analysis of their back office," recalled Mark Heisler, an experienced sales executive and principal of CBSG, a Mount Laurel, and NJ-based management-consulting firm.

"We also developed strategic service solutions and a service center," added CBSG principal and customer service expert Suzanne Baldino Jones. "It became obvious that a support structure had to be developed for their top sales people in order for PMG to maximize its market potential."

Heisler and Jones quickly recommended usage of a client survey identifying the service needs of the sales force in the field. "Regardless of industry or locale, we often discover a need to upgrade the links between customers and their providers," Jones points out. "Many times sales representatives don't talk with their customers and vice versa, yet the most common sales and customer satisfaction problem is that people inside the company don't talk to each other."

CBSG developed an integrated sales and service model that enables top sales people--and everyone else in the company--to concentrate on the customers rather than simply satisfy the needs of their own internal bureaucracy.

CBSG also analyzed PMG services offered to its top sales reps and discovered either too little--or too much--information was being provided.

"We focus on the 403 (b) market and are a leading tax-sheltered annuity dealer in the marketplace," Shermann elaborated. "We offer support, and some training, but we now tailor our services to the niche of the sales representatives."

When customers call up the PMG Web site for account information, for example, the logos of the independent sales reps appear, not those of PMG. Top producers also get separate lines to assure client access.

"We practice what we preach," notes Jones. "Just as PMG has become an industry leader, we have doubled in growth and revenue each of the five years we have been in business."

For more information, contact Heisler or Jones at 888/411-5800.

Website: www.cbsg.com