The Dealer Group

You elicit the support of your industry. Yes, I know there’s plenty of comment that insurer BDM’s don’t do what they used to, and accessing training and development of a formal nature isn’t cheap either.

BDM’s roles have changed, with the market they are more focused on what their company does as the insurers have got more wary of the liability issues that come from stepping too far into an advisers business. And it is more product-focused too. Which should form part of your planning around this stuff which I’ll cover more on that soon enough.

The other area that has had significant change is that of the dealer group. Originally conceived to help smooth out the income with aggregation of commission structures, these businesses have evolved significantly. So much so that the missing role of the insurer BDM’s that gets complained about is now sitting with the dealer group teams. The insurers have smartened up and have started demanding their pound of flesh from the revenues they pay the dealer groups in the form of more general adviser business development.

And lastly, we have a range of training institutions around that provide development and training support for advisers, now under an NZQA framework, making it more significant than that piece of paper issued by the insurers in the past.