Interview in Leading Edge Magazine, a Penn Mutual internal communication tool that highlights important people, events, and changes in the financial industry.

1. marketing
As Seen in Leading Edge Magazine
P E N N M U T UA L’ S
LEADING
Penn Mutual is pleased to provide its producers with the latest thought leadership
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vol 6
issue 1, 2014
PENN MUTUAL’S MARKETING DIRECTORS
bringing value to producers
Marketing is one of the nine diamonds in Penn Mutual’s Producer Value
Commitment. Within the home office, this diamond is supported by the Strategic
Marketing, Planning and Communications department. But there is also a group
outside the home office that helps support this diamond to producers in the field.
A growing number of Penn Mutual agencies and regional offices are bringing a
Marketing Director onboard who is dedicated to driving and supporting marketing
initiatives for their offices and producers. As a result, these agencies and the
producers whom they support have realized many benefits in a relatively short
period of time.
This article profiles three Penn Mutual Marketing Directors, emphasizing their
diverse backgrounds and the significant support they provide to each agency and
its producers. Leading Edge also spoke with producers and field leaders in these
agencies, for their perspectives on how the role helps contribute to their success.
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2. Sheerah Singer, Director of Marketing
and Communications, Empire Wealth
Strategies (Cooper Agency), New York, NY
“Sheerah’s support is
an important point
I emphasize in recruiting,
because our competition
doesn’t have someone
like her to help producers
build a personal brand.
When I am going out to
meet a CPA or P&C firm to
explore a strategic alliance,
Sheerah works as my back
office, pulling together
materials. She is also my
go-to internal person for
Professional Advisors
Alliance (PAA) support.”
–Evelyn Gellar, LUTCF,
Vice President,
Empire Wealth Strategies
Sheerah graduated from the University
of Florida with a bachelor’s degree in fine
art and a concentration in graphic design.
She is an accomplished graphic designer
who worked for a leading online greeting
card/invitation retailer, before getting her
foot in the financial services industry as
an executive administrator. This led to
her taking on additional roles including
recruiting and marketing for AXA’s New
York City agency.
At AXA, Sheerah’s talents caught the eye
of Susan M. Cooper, CFP®, CLU®, ChFC®,
CDFA, who left AXA to serve as coManaging Partner of Penn Mutual’s New
York City-based agency in June of 2009.
A few months later, Susan invited Sheerah
to join the agency as Marketing Director.
“Susan was aware of my background
and skills from our association at AXA,”
says Sheerah. “She believed in me and
understood the impact my role could have
with her agency long before I did.”
Once Susan became the agency’s sole
Managing Partner, Sheerah played an
instrumental role in a comprehensive
rebranding under a new name, Empire
Wealth Strategies. Her biggest challenge
when she was hired was learning about
Penn Mutual, the marketing support and
materials available from the home office
and then understanding the needs that
the agents had and how she could provide
them with support for their practices within
the agency. “It took about a year for me to
find my groove, and for our STAR producers
to understand how I can help them.”
Each STAR producer affiliated with the
agency has its own business identity
(DBA), which Sheerah supports with
coordinated marketing plans, marketing
collateral, presentations, and social media/
digital marketing strategies. One STARled producer group is heavily involved in
seminar marketing, with the presenter role
rotating among several of his producers.
To streamline seminar marketing costs,
Sheerah designed a bi-fold brochure for the
DBA, which was then printed in mass. She
also designed a bio-card for each producer,
printable in-house and on-demand. Each
seminar attendee’s bio-card is printed and
assembled inside the brochure on-the-fly,
as soon as the presenter is known.
Another producer was constantly handing
out business cards and getting little
response. Sheerah’s solution: A “contact
card” which the producer hands out to
prospects so that they can jot down their
name, address, contact information and
areas of interest. When this producer’s
response rate increased sharply, she
implemented the same idea across the
agency.
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3. Every producer in the agency now has
access to Sheerah’s templates and skills to
help develop a biography, personal bio card,
stationery, business cards, and “credibility
brochure.” After creating materials for the
agents, Sheerah realized that many agents
were lacking professional photos for these
materials as well as for their social media
presence, so she brings in a professional
photographer annually to take high-quality
photos of any producer or agency leader
who needs one.
In addition to supporting the agency’s
continuous recruiting efforts, Sheerah is
helping to guide Empire’s evolving social
media strategy, and taking advantage
of every opportunity to fill gaps in her
knowledge. The best-practices she is
sharing include LinkedIn search engine
optimization and ideas for expanding
contacts and recommendations to broader
groups of people, beyond associates and
clients.
“After Susan Cooper’s
leadership abilities, her
second most valuable
contribution to my success
was to bring in Sheerah.
She is intuitive, easy to
work with, and doesn’t get
frustrated. Sheerah’s been an invaluable part of our team, creating deliverables and presentations
and pushing them through compliance. Recently, she’s also helped in designing our website. Having
Sheerah in the office is like having another member of my Lance Drucker Wealth Management team”
–Lance Drucker, ChFC®, CLU®, Drucker Wealth Management, STAR Producer
Lisa Dall’Acqua, Director of Marketing,
Life Planning Group (Ganley Agency),
Hauppauge, NY
“Lisa helps me define
clear objectives I want
to complete over a full
year, and then we narrow
each objective down to
marketing initiatives and
track the results. With
her help, I am constantly
monitoring each initiative
to see if it is successful or
should be replaced.”
–Jeremy Isleman,
Producer,
Life Planning Group
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Lisa knows corporate marketing, and she’s
also very familiar with the local market
where most of her producers work, Long
Island. “I’ve lived on Long Island my whole
life,” she says, then adds in jest, “I know
where the bones are buried on Long
Island.”
Before joining the agency, Lisa worked as
the Manager of National Advertising for
New York Newsday and then as Marketing
Director for another mutual life insurance
company. She joined the Ganley Agency,
Life Planning Group, in May of 2013 with
responsibility for internal marketing at
all of its branches, and she also serves as
the agency’s PAA Regional Marketing
Director.
She works directly with each of the
agency’s producers, sharing with them
her basic concept of marketing: “I believe
marketing is about making your presence
felt, declaring that you exist in the
marketplace.”
Lisa’s major focus is to get each producer to
commit to an annual marketing plan, with
defined goals and action steps, in addition
to periodic progress reviews. “Even though
I’ve been in life insurance marketing for
13 years, I tread lightly. I start by giving
producers a few ideas. They think about
them, and we keep talking about them.
When producers adapt those ideas as their
own and then start to see the result—that’s
when I feel most successful.”
To help the agency build Long Islandbased networks, she is combining Penn
Mutual’s myWorth and Social Media

4. Marnie Brown, Director of Marketing,
1847Financial (Meehan Agency),
Conshohocken, PA
“For the last year and a half, I have had
a strategic alliance with a prominent
legal firm in Moorestown, NJ, which
Marnie has helped me maximize.
Our business from elder law cases
has increased 60% from last year,
mainly because we have the materials
on hand attorneys want and need,
which Marnie helped me organize.
Having Marnie available has been very
beneficial for my practice.”
–Kevin Gianfortune,
Producer, 1847Financial
initiatives. “I belong to a local marketing
group that consists of educated, talented
professional women. I’m using this group’s
LinkedIn network to show producers how
to connect through social media. In my
first wave, I targeted 15 of the 56 women in
the network and sent them the myWorth
newsletter. Then, I’ll expand the campaign
to the next 15 network members.”
Lisa works directly with the agency’s
sales managers to learn more about each
producer. Based on this knowledge, she
helps to define each one’s natural market
and customizes a compatible marketing
toolbox. “Every producer needs business
cards, a bio card, and a website presence,”
she says. “But if these marketing tools
aren’t being used to make phone calls and
meet people, they won’t do the job. I try
to make sure they are helping to make
personal connections, every day.”
Marnie is well known to the Penn
Mutual field, both as a former Manager
of Practice Development and as a
Manager in the Marketing Department,
working on various programs. In 2011,
she was recruited by Managing Partner
Jim J. Meehan, MSM (Jim), to be his
agency’s marketing director. As she
recalls: “Jim offered me the opportunity
to put the work that I had been doing
at the home office to the test. As a
home office associate, I often thought
that it would be beneficial to spend
time in a field office, so that I could
see how the work I did affected the
field. Thanks to Jim, I’ve been able to
“I worked with Lisa at
another mutual insurance
company, and she
convinced me to move
to Penn Mutual and Life
Planning Group. She’s
been invaluable in my
transition by formalizing
my announcement cards,
producing my marketing
material, and helping with
women’s market outreach.
As I begin to explore
strategic alliances with CPA
firms, I will definitely use
her help because she is our
resident PAA guru.”
–Alisha James, MBA,
Producer, Life Planning
Group
live the experience. Now that I am in a
field office, I get to work directly with
producers and help them get to the
next level, which is something I always
wanted to do. Every day is different and
I enjoy helping producers reach their
goals.”
When Marnie arrived at the agency,
it had just adopted a new name,
1847Financial, and was building a
brand she helped to implement across
materials and media. She also works
directly with most of the agency’s 70
producers. “I interact with producers
one-on-one, helping them build
and implement marketing plans.
Sometimes I act as their accountability
partner, and sometimes I just help
them get a marketing idea to the finish
line. With experienced producers,
I encourage going deeper with
existing clients as a first priority. With
CareerBuilders, I try to instill good work
and marketing practices right from
the start.” She recognized that each
producer’s practice and approach is
unique, so there can’t be a one size fits
all approach to her role.
Marnie is a firm believer in “not
reinventing the wheel,” and often helps
producers discover the benefits of
using the materials, resources, and tools
provided by Penn Mutual marketing
programs such as myWorth and the
Small Business program. She also is the
agency’s Regional Marketing Director
for PAA, which she says will be an
important part of 2014 marketing plans
for 1847Financial’s top producers.
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5. “I have been at 1847Financial since February of
2013, and I’ve been in the insurance business for 26
years. Knowing about the individualized marketing
support I would have at the agency was one of the
most important reasons I joined Penn Mutual.”
I believe the marketing support from Penn Mutual
and 1847Financial is exceptional. I have not seen
it on this level in other companies or agencies —
especially the personal attention from a person
with Marnie’s experience and talent.”
Michele Burkholder, ChFC®, CLU®,
Producer, 1847 Financial
“I spent 16 years in Penn Mutual’s home office and
it’s hard to believe that I’ve already been part of
1847Financial for an additional two years. It’s still
very exciting for me to have the ability to come
into the field and see all the programs that have
been developed being put into play and helping
producers’ practices. I find that most producers
are quite creative and I enjoy helping them use
that creativity to get in front of an existing client
or prospect or to explore a new target market. It’s
never dull, because producers’ needs change from
month to month and even day to day. ”
A Growing Partnership with the Home Office
In addition to all the work they do in the
field, Penn Mutual Marketing Directors
work with the home office to help
promote and educate producers about
programs and initiatives that will help
grow their practices. This year, Penn
Mutual will help to support marketing
directors through monthly WebEx calls,
bringing in strategic marketing, planning
and communications team members
and others to relay information and
answer questions—on everything from
new product launches and program
updates, to conference and recognition
plans. In addition, the monthly calls will
focus on best practices and tips designed
to help marketing directors coordinate
their local marketing efforts, maximize
new opportunities, and continue to
support producer practices.
In 2014, Penn Mutual also plans to host
two meetings for Penn Mutual marketing
directors to promote networking, provide
ongoing education, gather feedback on
10
our programs and marketing materials,
and perhaps most importantly give
marketing directors the opportunity to
strengthen relationships with each other
as well as many of the Penn Mutual staff.
As Sheerah, Lisa, and Marnie have
demonstrated, having a Marketing
Director on your team can play a crucial
role in attracting, educating and retaining
producers. Marketing Directors also
help to coordinate communications,
support the materials producers need
to be successful, and provide ongoing
ideas to help them reach and work with
target markets. Many are also providing
valuable support to producers holding
seminars and events, while at the same
time making sure agency websites,
presentations, and brochures are
updated and professional. As a growing
number of field offices are discovering,
hiring a good marketing director adds
value on so many levels. ❖
For Producer Use Only
© 2013 The Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company Philadelphia, PA 19172 www.pennmutual.com
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