Business owners and executives face many challenges when it comes to running a successful organization. Concerns range from protecting and maintaining the business to ensuring profitability to retaining key employees to contribute toward the company’s growth. As a business owner, employee benefit plans remain a primary concern—employees who are taken care of directly impact the success of an organization. Additionally, business owners have personal financial needs such as income protection that are of equal concern.

The Principal Life, in conjunction with Harris Interactive, has published a whitepaper titled “Business Owner Market Study: A Balancing Act — Priorities vs. Plans.” The study interviewed over 500 business owners to determine the top-10 priorities and percentage of benefits being offered. The results indicate that business owners and executives are having a challenging time achieving the right balance of benefits offered and required.

Moreover, the study looked at the impact of small businesses on the economy, and in addition to asking business owners to rank priorities, they were also asked about the likelihood of offering new benefits and/or changing the benefits offered within the next 12 months.

It’s clear there is a disconnect between priorities and the benefits business owners possess / offer to employees.

Download Principal's Business Owner Market Study

Here are key learning points from the Business Owner Market Study:

  • A complete breakdown of business owners’ priorities ranked and the percentage of each benefit currently offered (showing the disconnect)
  • Clear definitions of seven (7) issues business owners currently face
  • Implications from the discrepancy between priorities and offerings
  • A breakdown of each top-10 priority, individually, including survey results, explanations, figures, and a conclusion

The study provides fantastic insight into a business owner’s needs and priorities, as well as gaps in need of solutions. Arming yourself with this knowledge will help you craft an approach and get a foot in the door with numerous potentially affluent clients facing challenges.

Understanding what these challenges are and how to solve these problems with a turnkey process is what all business owners and key executives are looking for from their agent and advisors. To obtain the right solutions for this task, Pinney Insurance pieced together best-in-class offerings from our partners to provide a comprehensive review process to address all of the needs of today’s businesses.  We call the process Business Owner and Executive Review Planning (BOERP). Having contracts with over 100 carriers allows us access to the brightest minds and best-in-class strategies and resources. We have provided you with a solution-based evaluation to provide to business owners and executives centered specifically around eight of the 10 priorities.

Lastly, here are a few other learning opportunities we recently shared:

  • Generate Sales with Informal Business Valuations (video webinar)
  • Opening Cases with a Business Valuation and Buy-Sell Review (video webinar)
  • Introducing MetLife’s BOSS Strategy (Podcast)

Look over the key findings in this document, and then check out one of the above links (webinars and/or podcast). When you’re ready to start, just give us a call at (800) 823-4852 or email [email protected].