By Bill Rusteberg
It’s easy to spot a Me-Too Broker. You know the type. The kind that goes along to get along. Remember Little Johnny in second grade? He was the teacher’s favorite. Remember that? Well………..Little Johnny changed his name to John and he’s now a group health insurance broker posing as a consultant.
John is a Me-Too broker. “If you like it, I do too. If you don’t like it neither to I!” There are more Me-Too brokers posing as consultants than you can shake a stick at. They are everywhere, under every rock, in every crook and cranny.
What makes them tick?
The motivation to “go along to get along” stems from greed and fear of being fired while knowing all along they’re not serving the client’s best interests.
A Don’t-Do-It-It’s-Stupid broker on the other hand knows a client that stops taking their advice is a client not one worth keeping. As difficult as it may seem to those living in the Me-Too world, firing an errant client is cleansing. And it’s the right thing to do.
Flipping a Me-Too broker is great entertainment, particularly when watching in real time. We’ve seen it happen. Holding back the beginnings of a nervous breakdown, struggling to demonstrate a cogent thought process under questioning public pressure transformed the Me-Too consultant for a large South Texas school district into a Me-Too-Too consultant posing broker. Realizing his client’s interests, unfolding before his very own eyes in real time, were incompatible with his, he nodded in solid agreement offering positive reinforcement. Faster than a melting raspa in deep South Texas on an August afternoon his last ranked vendor quickly became the first ranked vendor.
Plan sponsors are better served by “Don’t-Do-It-It’s-Stupid brokers. They tell it like it is and don’t care if feelings are hurt.
