1. Anthony C. Smith, CLU, ChFC
Leadership & Interpersonal Skills Experiences
Leading the Team That Re-brands the Society of Financial Service Professionals (FSP)
The Challenge
This project involved changing an organization’s marketing and branding approach by delivering
more impactful training and content; making the organization more diverse with respect to types
of professionals and ethnicity; and unifying messaging and imagery of sometimes disparate
populations while ensuring everyone was moving in the same direction. The organization
involved is over 85 years old, somewhat resistant to change and had not attempted any
meaningful re-branding in some 10 to 12 years, all the while operating in a declining industry,
where new members were not joining.
How It Was Approached
The process involved overseeing/coordinating the work of multiple participants including: two
different consultants; the organizations professional development department (managing director,
director and manager levels); FSP membership; marketing (director and manager levels); FSP's
CEO and CIO; and FSP chapters, member's clients and volunteers (FSP Board of Directors and
National Advisors). The consultants were tasked with conducting brand and communications
audits to determine the organization’s current image and how it was communicating with its
members and prospective members. Qualitative surveys and interviews were conducted with
members and clients to better understand content and planning needs, the value of continuous
learning, and where the organization needed to improve on content, image, marketing, and
delivery.
We created a Strategic Plan document that identified all participants, organization goals,
individual project components, target component completion dates, and responsible parties. We
created cross departmental/cross volunteer teams to ensure buy in, established a schedule of
regular reporting meetings, developed smaller plans that fed into the overall strategic plan, and
then went to work.
We also conducted a series of qualitative interviews with members, and chapter leaders to
understand how they felt about the organization, why they joined, and whether they told others
about the organization they belonged to.
The primary goals included:
• Attracting financial advisers, CPA's, JD's, brokers and agents regardless of age, ethnicity,
gender, or practice specialty.

2. • Understanding and delivering their content and professional development needs, when
they wanted it, and using our proven practitioner-to-practitioner approach.
• Positioning the Chapters as the key point of delivery and value for all professionals.
• Creating excitement and buy in for marketing the organization to prospective members.
The Results
These results included producing a number of new techniques and strategies including:
• Delivering more timely webinars, audio conferences, video teleconferences, live
presentations, etc. Included in this result was identifying strong content sources from
multiple companies, experts, and related subject matter experts. A new slogan was
coined: “Education even when no one is looking.”
• Establishing a new brand story, complete with inclusive looking collateral designed to
minimize the perception that we might be viewed as elitist and not very diverse. Stock
photos showing diversity in age and ethnicity involved in meetings was both effective
and very well received (focus groups helped to validate this).
• Creating new Chapter website templates that were consistent with our new, corporate
look, while making the Chapters appear strong and vibrant, regardless of their size.
National’s content was strategically placed on Chapter websites in ways that increased
the likelihood of it be used. This strategy resulted in a 25-33% increase in attendance as
Chapters began showcasing more of National’s content.
• Launching a Chapter Ticket System that will provide speedy resolution to Chapters
experiencing challenges/difficulties in using National’s tools to showcase themselves and
to more efficiently run their Chapters. These Tickets will enhance speedier resolution
and effective tracking, while also identifying potential issues that others may yet
experience. Two-way communication improved immeasurably leading to greater
problem resolution, effectively giving the Chapters a voice.
• Launching a Chapter Speaker Grant system that will allow Chapters to pay for speakers
for their live events, and greatly elevate their local value proposition. The system
involved multiple companies with sought after content from strong subject matter experts
being used and strategically positioning them in front of FSP's multidisciplined audience.
• Improved the monthly management/staff meeting by developing meaningful reports;
coordinating work projects; creating strong buy in - internally and externally; and
fostering consistent messaging and look. The management/staff meeting evolved into a
meeting that could not be missed.

3. • Developing elevator speech templates that facilitate members ability to tell why they
joined the organization, making their stories much more personal.
Development of Better Attended/Better Planned Audio Conferences and Live Presentations
The Challenge
The organization's attendance for audio conferences, webinars, and live event breakouts was
declining precipitously over the last 5 to 6 years. This trend was adversely affecting the
organization's image within the industry as well as the caliber of its content. The compound
impact of these declines resulted in lower meeting attendance, declining sponsorship revenue,
and increasing difficulty in marketing and positioning FSP's value proposition.
How It Was Approached
We phased out the long term company dinners that used to dominate one evening during the
conference. After conducting attendee and company surveys, we learned that companies wanted
to elevate their expertise in front of the organization's members, especially during live events.
Meeting attendees also wanted better content, from sources that reflected multiple disciplines.
Following a series of planning sessions involving marketing, membership, and professional
development, we recommended migrating to what we called Professional Showcase Sessions -
or live presentation breakouts conducted by sponsoring company experts. These Showcase
Sessions involved a vetting process, ensured that desired content was sought out and delivered,
and engaged staff working collaboratively with companies throughout.
The marketing team involving myself, a director, a marketing copywriter, graphics director,
production manager and membership director also developed an audio conference speaking
package that was called Sponsored Education Online (SEO's). These one hour slots were made
available to companies and other sources of subject matter experts as sponsorships that were
delivered via the Internet. Prospective speakers were identified at industry conferences like
AALU, NAILBA, LIMRA's Distribution Conference, and Forum 400, to name a few. FSP's
Corporate Partners were also invited to participate in this new offering.
The Results
The Showcase Session sponsorships lead to an average additional sponsorship amount of
approximately $30,000 more per year for FSP's annual meeting. In addition, a greater number of
subject matter experts began approaching FSP in order speak, and the breakout session
evaluations for these Showcase Session sponsorships were, in most cases, equal to if not better
than the typical evaluations for non-sponsored sessions.

4. The Sponsored Education Online sponsorships increased greatly in numbers over the last two
years, and outstripped standard audio conference attendance by 50-75% on average. We also
added an additional $260,000 in revenue over that same time frame. Care was taken to ensure
that these sponsored audio conferences represented true content, and not commercial
presentations for the sponsoring companies.
Redesigned Approach To Marketing Company Specific Education
The Challenge
The College had traditionally sold 10- and 8-course designation programs to institutional clients
and individual advisors. Sales had been declining over an 8 to 10 year span (and based on
industry recruiting and retention trends back then, the decline had been predicted).
Consequently, unit and course revenue figures had been steadily declining over this period, and
morale was low.
How It Was Approached
We modified our approach by creating smaller, certificate programs based on an advisor's and a
company's target market. We pulled together the College's faculty, along with marketing, and
some company representation (who represented the eventual end users) to essentially shave
down the number of courses and earn a certificate, which were really subsets of designation
programs. The certificate programs focused on areas like retirement counseling, risk
management, and financial planning. An assortment of 3 to 4 course certificate programs made
it easier for the advisor to earn a certificate, while focusing more effectively on their target
market or markets. These certificate programs were matched up with target company's markets
as well as with their approach to the market.
The Results
Sales increased by 33%, bottom line net profit increased as well, and company participation
increased and greatly facilitated the certificate program marketing efforts. The College's faculty
morale improved, which lead to more speaking opportunities and better College branding.
Marketing became much better in evaluating opportunities, providing solutions, and positioning
the College's content and courses to meet the needs of the market. Consequently, company
relationship improved and agents and advisors appreciated how much more quickly they could
earn one or more certificates from the College.