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Contact HPN Just drop us a line today to explore how we can assist you in increasing your productivity. We look forward to hearing from you! Hoopis Performance Network 790 Frontage Rd #300 Northfield, IL 60093 ​ Phone: (847) 716-1800 Contact Us First name* Last name* Email* Phone* Position* Company name* Which area are you interested in learning more about?* Choose one Your Preferred Method of Communication* Choose one Message* By using this form you agree with the storage and handling of your data by this website. Submit

Jim Effner ​ Master Sales Trainer, Financial Services Speaker, President of P2P Group Jim Effner is a financial services speaker and master sales trainer with 27 years of experience. Formerly, Jim was Managing Partner of the Effner Financial Group, one of the largest Northwestern Mutual offices in the country, consisting of 117 full-time advisors, insuring over 65,000 policyholders with a face amount of nearly $27 billion. Jim began the first 12 years of his career as an advisor and is a lifetime Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT) qualifier. He was also a three-time Forum qualifier, representing the top 5% of all Northwestern Mutual advisors, and the youngest person to make Forum the first two times he qualified. Jim has also overcome numerous life challenges, including losing his hearing just 30 days after taking his managing partner contract. Now, as President of P2P Group, Inc., he shares his proven systems for success with financial professionals around the country. Previous Speaker Go back to Speaker Network Next Speaker

Harley Gordon ​ Founding Member of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys Harley Gordon is a founding member of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys, a professional organization that deals with legal and ethical issues facing the elderly. He has been voted as one of the 100 most influential people in long-term care by McKnight’s Long-Term Care News. His views on the consequences of not having a plan for long-term care have been featured in the national media including, The CBS Evening News, The Today Show, CNN, and The Wall Street Journal. Mr. Gordon has spoken at numerous national conferences including, The Financial Planning Association, The National Association of Insurance & Financial Advisors, and The National Association of Health Underwriters. Mr. Gordon’s experience led him to create the Certified in Long-Term Care (CLTC) program (www.ltc-cltc.com ). It is the country’s first designation focused on training financial service professionals. Previous Speaker Go back to Speaker Network Next Speaker

Next Item Previous Item Go back to White Papers List As technology continues to advance at warp speed and as the demographics and dynamics of the workplace change, it’s easy to fall behind. Here’s the good news: many common challenges that companies, firms and agencies face can be solved with e-learning. Here are six key areas in which e-learning can conquer the challenges that erode morale and profits in our organizations. 1. Generational Differences Can Cause a Disconnect With 80 million Millennials in the population, these 17- to 36-year-olds (in 2017) are the largest generation to date. Myriad companies have conducted research to discover how to provide training that will appeal to Millennials and result in the optimum outcome for organizations. In many companies, firms and agencies, there is a yawning gap in communication and mutual understanding among the generations. It’s important to train Millennials in a way they respond to. It’s also critical that Millennials, Baby Boomers and Gen Xer’s understand and respect one another’s differences in communication style, career mind-set and learning preferences. This type of communication gap can be an obstacle to your organization’s success, especially if your training manager is not on board with modifying training in a way that appeals to generations other than the one he or she represents. If that’s the case, that manager probably needs training and/or coaching to learn and accept generational differences. Here are a few tips for creating Millennial-friendly training, gleaned from our personal experience in training and from myriad research studies: Keep Millennials informed. They want to know what we expect of them, what criteria we will use to evaluate them and how it will impact them. Make the training tech-based. For Millennials, education has always been delivered via online platforms. Many are “digital natives” who don’t know anything else. Make it visually compelling. Millennials are accustomed to icons, infographics and other visual representations of data. Massive blocks of text will bore them. Coach them. Follow up with them regularly. Guide them through the entire learning program, one step at a time. Many are accustomed to “sound bites,” and a longterm training program can seem overwhelming. Make training flexible and easy to access. Deliver it in a format that fits younger advisors’ lifestyles. Many younger advisors log in at 1 a.m. or midnight to watch training videos. It’s not about our schedule; it’s about their schedule. We need to note here that flexible and 24/7 training is important for veteran advisors, too. Sometimes older advisors feel like their lives are being turned upside down because of the constant, frenetic pace of change. Many of them are self-conscious about needing to get up to speed in certain areas in which younger advisors already excel. Deliver training and education they can watch anytime, anywhere, in the privacy of their homes or offices. Numerous studies show this is what veteran producers want. When we interview experienced advisors, and ask them what aspects of their current role they’re unhappy about, they often say something like, “When I first joined the firm, I got great training for the first three months, but then it disappeared.” 2. External Managers and Specialists Need to Adapt to Your Systems When you hire managers and specialists from outside the organization, it’s important to make sure their initiatives align with what you’re already doing. This is especially critical if you hire more than one external person at once. You want to make sure that if they are building something new, it’s all done according to consistent guidelines that anyone in the organization can duplicate. Each manager doing something differently is not the way to run an organization. It should be something anyone can grab off the shelf and use. Training also can help you make sure your external managers aren’t bringing ineffective systems with them. If they had used those systems successfully in their previous roles, they wouldn’t have left. 3. Staff Members Need to Learn Something New Too often, when companies and firms train staff members, they provide training that teaches them how to do the job they’re already in. Sometimes that’s necessary, but we also need to teach them skills that will help them progress and learn something new. Research shows that a lack of training is one reason talented people leave. We often see producers with anywhere from 3 to 20 staff members who do 99 percent of the client interaction. These critical support staff won’t talk with clients about subjects they don’t understand — and that translates into missed opportunities for cross-selling. Offer them training that teaches them about all the products you sell. Make it part of their responsibility to recognize what products each client needs, and reward that effort with an incentive. Your sales will skyrocket. 4. Day-to-Day Documentation Should Be a Priority Accepting the responsibility for annual compliance is something everyone learns early in this career. But what about documentation of day-to-day occurrences that can have a significant impact on your organization? What if someone hears a conversation that turns out to be important, but no one documents it? What if a customer complaint snowballs, and there is no record of what happened? Training is a simple solution. Educate everyone in your organization about the importance of documenting various interactions with clients. Specify who is responsible for what, and provide them with guidelines. Everyone needs to be able to prove that they’re handling things as they are required to by law and according to the organization’s expectations. Building a training program like this will require your management team to make some business decisions. But it needs to be done. As the old saying goes, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” E-training can help, whether you hire someone to customize it or you produce it in-house. 5. There Is a Lot of Expertise in Your Organization That You Can Leverage People often learn their most valuable strategies from their colleagues. By establishing focus groups, study groups, joint-work opportunities, teams and mentoring partnerships, you can leverage the vast knowledge and wisdom that already exists in your organization. Offering this type of in-house training will help you retain your reps because they are likely to value being able to learn new things. This shouldn’t be the traditional Monday new-agent school; it should be an ongoing effort to encourage reps to share what they know with their colleagues. This will be especially helpful to second-to-fifthyear agents and veteran agents, who have already completed all the formal training and may feel like they’re no longer growing. They can watch training videos together and share best practices regarding what is and is not working. And they can find ways to combine their expertise in a way that provides clients with more value. You can use e-learning with these groups for brainstorming, to look for something they haven’t seen or heard before and to serve as a refresher on concepts they may have neglected, such as networking. Advisors can use the training resources to help them grow their businesses, develop their staff or junior associates in a team-building arrangement or bring a son or daughter into the business. For example, with e-learning, a veteran producer can spend his or her time teaching the next generation valuable relationship-building skills and have the younger reps supplement that unique perspective with videos that teach the fundamentals of selling. This cannot be a set-it-and-forget-it program. I am amazed at the number of organizations that spend a lot of time building a system and delegating tasks to people, but then there is no follow-up. They have no idea if the system is working or not. But they never followed up on it, promoted it or assessed its value. 6. E-Learning Can Be a Resource, Not a Curriculum Often, bite-sized training is more effective than a longterm, formal curriculum-based program. E-learning makes it easy for reps to access ideas, concepts, education, knowledge and skills. Many reps, especially Millennials, are more likely to use training that they view as a resource, not a curriculum. It needs to be something they want to learn, not something their managers expect them to do. With “sound bites” of training, such as short videos, reps can watch a brief segment over and over again. Repetition is the mother of all learning. When you hear something many times, you become indoctrinated into it, and your recall and retention improves. Lawyers don’t know every case study or precedent. They know the fundamental concepts by heart, and they know where to find the laws, regulations and proceedings that will help them with a case. 6 Common Challenges E-Learning Can Solve

Ben Newman ​ Best-Selling Author, International Speaker Ben Newman is a Best-Selling Author, International Speaker and highly regarded Performance Coach whose clients include top companies around the world, business executives, high performing sales organizations and professional athletes in the NFL, MLB, PGA and NCAA. Ben’s most recent book, “Own Your Success” was ranked by CEO READ as their #13 business book of 2012! In addition in 2012, The Napoleon Hill Foundation recognized Ben as one of the TOP 51 speakers & thought leaders in the World! Ben’s renowned Boot Camp’s, speaking, books, blogs and videos empower and inspire thousands of individuals each year to maximize results in their lives personally and professionally. Participants are able to uncover their true potential, ready to create the life they are meant to fight for and enjoy. Ready to take on THEIR relentless pursuit of greatness: Their Prizefighter Day! Ben’s mother, Janet Fishman Newman’s death, 11 days before his eighth birthday, left a cavernous hole in his universe. Yet while his mother passed away all those years ago, not a single day goes by without the reminder that she helped Ben become the man that he is today. Her strength, her love, her work ethic and her legacy live on through him, through the family he has created, and through the work he does. He has come to realize that she was demonstrating a very important truth – our circumstances in life are much less significant than our responses to them. Ben empowers audiences to recognize that “YOUR success is not just about changing YOUR habits, it’s about changing the way YOU think.” His clients have included: United States Army, MARS Snackfoods, St. Louis Cardinals, Northwestern Mutual, AFA Singapore, Mass Financial Group, Wells Fargo Advisors, Great West Life Canada, Boston Medical Center, Boys & Girls Club of America, St. Croix, New York Life, The Minnesota Vikings, as well as thousands of executives, entrepreneurs, athletes and sales teams from around the globe who attend his speeches and seminars. His authentic, powerful, and engaging presentations have become nationally recognized. Ben has shared the stage with Tony Dungy, Colin Powell, Brian Tracy, Ken Blanchard, Jon Gordon, Dr. Jason Selk, Floyd Little, Aeneas Williams, Walt Jocketty and other leaders and legends in the world. Ben is a 6-time author and his latest book, Own YOUR Success: The Power to Choose Greatness and Make Everyday Victorious is a #1 Business Best-Seller. The highly anticipated release of Leave YOUR Legacy will be in March of 2015. He is also the author of YOUR Mental Toughness Playbook, Fight the Good Fight, Pocket Truths for Success & Pocket Principles for the Insurance Business. In addition, Ben was a co-author of the recently released “Napoleon Hill’s 17 Principles of Success.” Ben lives in his hometown of St. Louis, Missouri with the true measure of his success, his wife, Ami, and their children, J. Isaac and Kennedy Rose. Previous Speaker Go back to Speaker Network Next Speaker

David Resseguie ​ Chief Shepherding Officer Dave Resseguie began his career in the financial services industry in August of 2007. He spent 10 years working in leadership roles within both Northwestern Mutual & MassMutual agencies in Chicago, Ft. Lauderdale, & Miami. He specialized these roles in coaching leadership teams and top-performing financial advisors. In April of 2011, Dave began what many refer to as a “side hustle.” As Chief Shepherd of The Resseguie Group , Dave works virtually and in-person, with leadership teams & entrepreneurs as they lead themselves, lead others, & lead their businesses. The Resseguie Group serves others in the following focus areas: Keynote Speaker New Advisor Training One on One Coaching Dave attended the Moody Bible Institute receiving a bachelor’s degree, double majoring in both Bible & Youth Ministry. Dave serves on the board of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes for the South Atlantic region. He is married to Gennifer. They live in Coral Springs, Florida with their 7 year old daughter, Charli, their 4 1/2 year old son, Chaz, and their almost 2 year old son, Cameron. The Resseguie’s are huge New York Mets fans! Previous Speaker Go back to Speaker Network Next Speaker

Next Item Previous Item Go back to White Papers List Having a strong organizational culture enables you to hire, conduct business and attract clients in a consistent way that aligns with your overall values. With the fast pace of technological change today, a training culture can give you a competitive advantage when it comes to recruiting and retaining the best talent. Imagine that a quality candidate is considering your organization and another one, but you offer continuous training as a benefit. That will normally make the candidate’s choice simple and obvious. Investing in training for everyone in your organization shows them that you value their professional development and advancement potential. According to Arie de Geus, head of Shell Oil Company’s Strategic Planning Group and a visiting professor at London Business School, a learning culture is not only a strong source of sustainable competitive advantage; it is a critical corporate asset. He says, “Learning is the only source of sustainable competitive advantage.” Instead of investing in training once in a while — when someone requests it or when compliance requires it — make training a key element of your company’s or firm’s makeup. So how do you build training into your culture in such a significant way that it defines your organization? Here are some tips to get started. Survey everyone in your organization to find out what types of training they want to take. What skills do they want to improve, and what type of training do they prefer — online courses, webinars, on-site classes or off-site classes? Offer training to everyone. Instead of focusing only on advisors, for example, offer training to managers and support staff as well. Hire a training manager. Or assign the job of assessing, scheduling and evaluating training to one of your existing team members. This will show the people in your organization that you are committed to making training an integral part of your culture. Establish a mentoring program. Have your senior advisors mentor newer advisors and offer jointwork arrangements. Consider participating in the MDRT/GAMA International Mentoring Program. Create a coaching program. Coach everyone. Many managers make the mistake of focusing their coaching efforts on the rookies or poor performers. Offer coaching to your top performers. They will value the extra guidance on top-level issues, and it’s important to keep them happy. Leverage the expertise of your own people. Build a company e-learning program that enables your more experienced team members to share their expertise with newer employees. Let them be the subject-matter experts who provide some of the training, and reward them for doing so. Offer training in both “hard” and “soft” skills. Some of your team members need training in skillbased areas, while others probably need training in “soft” skills like negotiation, resolving conflicts and being more customer-focused. Attach specific goals to the training. Ask every team member what he or she hopes to gain from the training and how it can also benefit the organization. After the training, have your managers find out to what extent the training lived up to those expectations. This will help you evaluate the ROI. Communicate and celebrate training outcomes. If a training program was at least partially responsible for a team member being promoted, let everyone in the organization know about it. This is an effective way to reinforce the connection between the training you offer and the advancement of those who take the training. Measure the effectiveness of your training program. Consider using a feedback app, which can contain different sets of several questions for different situations. You can repeat the questions at various intervals to create a trend analysis. Use a SharePoint-based intranet to help employees track the progress they make in implementing improvements. Building a training culture requires an ongoing commitment and strategy. Unfortunately, too many agencies, firms and companies have a set-it-and-forget- it formula, which does not move the needle in the proper direction. The rewards of establishing a training culture will help turn each of your top goals and objectives into reality, in increased productivity, expanded markets, recruitment and ultimately retention. An Effective Training Platform for Managers and Advisors An effective resource for training financial advisors is Hoopis Performance Network, which features online, on-demand, total video-based training built on four Disciplines of Success with access to more than 400 sessions. The coursework can be either self-study or facilitator-led, and it complements any firm, agency or company training programs and marketing selling systems. Your advisors can access the video training anytime, anywhere, on their computers, smartphones, or tablets. It’s a cost-effective, time-efficient way to increase productivity, thus retention. An effective resource for training new or experienced sales leaders is HPN, an innovative virtual platform designed for financial leaders who are building a region, an agency or firm, a sales unit, or a sales team. You can get access to hundreds of high-impact sessions for all levels of experience, divided into five distinct elements of success. These sessions are short and easily digestible, averaging less than 10 minutes. Your managers can access the video training anytime, anywhere, on their computers, smartphones, or tablets. 10 Tips for Building a Training Culture

Next Item Previous Item Go back to White Papers List When an agency or firm needs a new sales manager, top management’s logical first choice is often the star sales producer. Most top performers are excited about the promotion, and they don’t want to let their bosses down, so they take the job. They think it would-be career suicide to turn it down. That’s why many top salespeople end up taking a sales management role, even though they never really wanted to be a manager. They want to please others around them, and they want to help the company, but many are not prepared for the challenges and changes that lay ahead of them. Being Good in One Job Doesn’t Guarantee Success in Another Remember the classic “Peter Principle”? It was an observation that in any kind of hierarchy, people tend to rise to their “level of incompetence.” In other words, as people are promoted, they become progressively less effective because good performance in one job does not guarantee similar performance in another. Sales producers are conditioned to excel on their own, and they know what works for them as individuals. Teaching others how to have similar success is an entirely different skill. That’s why, once promoted to sales management, great salespeople often struggle to succeed in the new role. Tiger Woods isn’t known as a great golf coach, and you don’t see LeBron James conducting shoot-arounds. Their gift is in their own performance, and great coaches know that. Why Salespeople Often Fail at Management When we promote top sales producers into management, we lose their extraordinary sales production. And if they aren’t happy in the management role, we run the risk of losing their talent altogether if they leave the firm or agency. Without management training, new managers typically struggle to excel in the unfamiliar role. They might not enjoy leading others to succeed, and they might become impatient with producers who lack the talent they have. To compound this problem, their associates want strong leadership but might not be getting it, so they often leave the agency or firm, too. You can see why promoting your top producer into management without the proper preparation can be a costly mistake. Two Potential Solutions Here are your primary options. Choose the one that’s right for your organization: Conduct an external talent search for a sales manager with a successful track record of management success. Promote a top sales producer only if he or she has expressed a genuine interest in management and only after providing the person with management training. Before you do that, establish a process for evaluating sales management candidates, the same way you evaluate potential agents or advisors. Hold them to the same standards you would hold external candidates. This will help you avoid moving a producer into management just because you like him or her. Consider Hoopis Performance Network for Management Training One effective resource for training new or existing managers is HPN, an innovative virtual platform designed for financial leaders who are building a region, an agency or firm, a sales unit or a sales team. You can get access to hundreds of high-impact sessions for all levels of experience, divided into five distinct elements of success. These sessions are short and easily digestible, averaging less than 10 minutes. Your managers can access the video training anytime, anywhere, on their computers, smartphones or tablets. Think Twice Before Promoting Your Star Producer into Management

Next Item Previous Item Go back to White Papers List The other day, I saw a question that a software company owner posted online. He asked if it’s necessary to be “nice” in business. He was frustrated with employees who’d complained about feeling pressured to work 70+ hour weeks, having to chase new business with a fierce competitiveness and working within a tyrannical internal culture. His feeling was that true professionals are born fighters. I don’t agree. I believe a strong firm culture builds a strong firm. This is not to suggest that success can be achieved, individually or as a firm, without focus, energy, initiative and passion. It can’t. Success can be achieved, however, in a culture that values integrity, employees, compassion and high ethical standards. I believe that a strong firm culture develops and sustains a strong firm. Employees who are part of a strong culture that aligns with their own personal values tend to be more engaged in the organization, and therefore more productive. This article makes the case for a strong firm culture that emphasizes happy employees and strong values. It also lays out a framework for analyzing your firm’s culture and strategies for making improvements where needed. Take a Cue from Scrooge Who doesn’t know the story of Ebeneezer Scrooge, the penny-pinching, mean-spirited old grouch of a business owner who Charles Dickens brought to life in his 1843 novella A Christmas Carol? As the story went, Scrooge was an aging and bitter business owner with no family of his own. The ghost of a deceased former business partner was haunting his subconscious. Scrooge had one lone employee, Bob Cratchit, to handle the company’s books and collect from customers with the ferocious zeal of an IRS agent working for a bonus. A family man with a disabled son named Tim, Cratchit meekly asked Scrooge for Christmas Day off from work. It was a request for which he would pay dearly in the form of nonstop verbal and emotional abuse from Scrooge. Scrooge eventually granted Cratchit Christmas Day off without pay, only because of the Christmas custom. Besides, no businesses would be open for business on Christmas Day and, thus, no collections could be made. Bob eventually persuaded the sad and lonely Scrooge to join the humble Cratchit family for Christmas dinner. Scrooge saw the positive spirit of the sick son, Tim, and the struggles of this loving family to make ends meet on the paltry wage Scrooge was paying. He heard the warnings of his ghost-partner, Jacob Marley, urging him to choose love over money. Eventually, Scrooge rose to become a business owner who knew the value of values. He learned that a happy employee with a healthy work–life balance could help him build a successful firm. Happy Firm, Happy Life OK, I’m taking some liberties here with the old phrase, “happy wife, happy life.” A happy employee is absolutely necessary to building a strong firm. Employees who come to work excited to fulfill the firm’s mission, effervescent with energy and ideas, and with a plan and the focus to execute the plan are typically successful employees. Successful employees set goals. They meet and exceed deadlines. They contribute to the success of their teams and to the firm as a whole. Compare these successful employees with the disgruntled employee who chronically shows up late or barely on time. The one who has a tired, disinterested look on his face. The one who takes too-long lunches, shuffles out early and complains to co-workers about colleagues or leadership. Employees like that are a cancer to an entire organization. They can breed negativity throughout the ranks with their bad attitude and divisive behavior. They can turn a high-octane sales meeting on its head with disruptive comments and sighs or scare off potential clients by complaining or being unprepared. Imagine what can happen to a firm in which many employees give off an unprepared and negative vibe. If your firm isn’t fostering a strong and positive culture, you will end up with a weak and negative firm. Studies prove this point from many angles. Let’s take a look at some eye-opening facts. Happy Employees Are Up to 20 Percent More Productive than Unhappy Employees A study conducted in 2015 by Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy looked at the correlation between employee happiness and workplace productivity. This study found that happy employees give more effort at work. As a result, they are 20 percent more productive than unhappy employees. This is not to say that happy employees are more productive because they are working more hours. Happy employees know when to put in extra time and when to take a break. They aren’t distracted with unattended at-home responsibilities or with a fear of unreasonable demands at work. As a result, happy employees are free to focus on work tasks at hand because they are not distracted by stress. They are properly rested, and they are physically and mentally strong. They have a clear focus for achieving goals at work and responsibilities at home. Happy Employees Are More Accurate in Their Work than Unhappy Employees Perhaps because of their state of happiness, happy employees are not only more productive than unhappy employees, they’re also more accurate in their work. According to the same study just mentioned, those employees averaged 19 percent greater accuracy than employees who reported they were unhappy at work. According to the study, the improved accuracy can be attributed to three key factors: Fewer distractions and, thus, better focus Greater investment in personal and organizational results Stronger desire to achieve goals and meet expectations Employees Who Are Encouraged to Live a Healthy Work–Life Balance are Twice as Likely to Be Happy at Work A Robert Half study on workplace happiness found that employees with a happy home and work–life balance were two times as likely as “workaholics” to be happy at work. According to the study, happier employers were also more loyal, more accurate in their work and more productive. Not surprisingly, organizations known to promote a healthy work–life balance also are able to attract and retain happier (and more productive) employees, according to that same study. So what is considered to be a healthy work–life balance? Here are some of the top factors mentioned in the study and other employee surveys: Flexible work options — Telecommuting and working from home are no longer new concepts. According to the Robert Half study, these are important factors that successful employees consider when choosing an employer. Flexible schedules — Flextime is an increasingly common option, allowing employees to combine work, home and downtime into a schedule that promotes personal productivity. Healthy-living support — On-site gyms or gym memberships, employer-sponsored wellness programs and stress-management programs have been shown to improve employee happiness, productivity and retention. If your firm lacks the financial or human resources to manage a wellness program or offer flexible working arrangements, there are other things you can do to promote a healthy work–life balance for employees. Here are just a few ideas: Contact your health insurance provider to see if it offers wellness programs, wellness incentive initiatives or other programs at no cost to your firm. I know of a few firms whose health insurance plan gives employees up to $30 per month in a health savings account if they wear a fitness bracelet and log 10,000 or more steps each day. Contact local gyms to inquire about workforce membership discounts. 3. Contact wellness professionals in your area to see if they sponsor health fairs or conferences. You might find integrative wellness teams of physicians, nurses and even licensed massage therapists willing to go to your location for a wellness day of health screenings and chair massages. Consider employee incentives that reward productivity with a gift certificate for a massage or paid time off. Look to your corporate vendors for positive ideas. For example, perhaps your retirement plan administrator offers free on-site financial planning workshops, or your accounting firm offers free tax-planning classes. Plan a team-building event annually or quarterly. You can do this to announce a new initiative such as a new corporate code of ethics (more on this below) or to promote a day of fun like a spring picnic, a day at the ballpark or a walk for a cause. A Happy Sales Force Produces Nearly 40 Percent More In his bestselling book The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work, former Harvard professor and popular TEDx speaker Shawn Achor turns traditional thinking on its head. In the book, Achor scientifically lays out why happiness breeds success, not the other way around. When it comes to sales force happiness and productivity, Achor says happy sales reps are nearly 40 percent more successful than unhappy sales reps. If that’s not a compelling argument for doing everything reasonable to foster happiness in your firm, I don’t know what is! You can get Achor’s book new or used here. (Tip: think about giving a copy of this book to everyone on your leadership team to ignite the happiness spark in your firm.) The Case for an Ethical Workplace Happiness and numbers are important, but they’re certainly not everything. A strong firm is supported by a strong code of ethics, which conveys trust and reliability to employees, customers and the community at large. Think about it: if clients don’t trust your firm to act with integrity, will they stay with you? Probably not. Trust is critical to long-term customer retention, and longterm customer retention is necessary for the long-term success of any organization. The problem with the discussion of ethics is that it’s difficult to define. You know it when you feel it. Here are some examples of what ethics looks like (and doesn’t look like): Employees laughing it up by the water cooler might be having a great time and appear happy, but if they’re spending more time at the water cooler than they are on achieving goals, they’re not the productive employees you want. Productive employees respect their employer’s time and money. An employee who will do or say whatever it takes to close a sale might be driving numbers, but if she’s untruthful or doesn’t deliver what she promises, then she’s going to cost you dearly over time. An employee willing to break your rules for clients might be making them happy in the short term, but he is cheating your firm. Those clients’ temporary satisfaction can’t last because in their gut, they know they can’t trust your employee to do the right thing. Creating a code of ethics is important to encouraging team members — requiring them — to act with integrity. It conveys your firm’s values in writing and makes it clear that team members and leaders are expected to uphold those values at all times. A corporate code of ethics is a complex set of ideas and expectations distilled into an easy-to-understand and easy-to-follow guide for employees and leadership. Creating a code of ethics can take a lot of time, but it’s worth it. It protects your firm’s reputation and your client relationships, and it promotes a high-quality workplace and workforce. I recommend reading this guide for help with researching, developing and upholding a strong code of ethics. Once you understand the importance of having a code of ethics and work through the process of creating one, you will increase employee pride in your firm and respect among your clients and within your community. Why Top-Down Passion Produces Bottom-Up Results Happiness alone doesn’t produce results; a happy workforce led by passionate leaders does. You can’t fake passion. If you don’t believe in your firm or love what you do, it’s going to show. Employees, clients and your community will feel your lackluster vibe. On the other hand, if you love the work you’re doing and the impact you’re making, your potential and existing clients will feel your positive energy. High-quality advisors will want to work for your firm. Clients will want to refer you to their friends and family. The community will seek you out for solutions, speaking engagements and leadership roles. If there’s something you don’t love about your firm, from your employee relations or customer quality to your bottom line, or even your interior décor, figure out why and change it. In my white paper “Igniting Passion into Your Firm’s Culture,” I spell out the importance of passionate leadership and a passionate workforce. If you haven’t downloaded this white paper yet, please do. It offers great ideas for finding your passion for what you do and fostering it among your employees. The key takeaways in that white paper center around a common theme: empowering your employees by investing in them. Here are examples of ways to do that: Implementing a mentorship program in which employees are heard, motivated, helped and held accountable Considering and using external coaching and training programs like the ones we deliver at HPN Encouraging and providing continuing education to employees (beyond what’s required by law) Giving recognition where recognition is due Offering incentives and rewards for performance Encouraging an open-door policy that allows employees a safe avenue for discussing concerns and ideas. Without an open-door culture, disgruntled employees might take their grievances to the breakroom instead, and that can spell trouble for your team. In other words, passionate leadership means thinking actively about how to promote and encourage employee success. In the process of educating and supporting happy, productive and ethical employees, passionate leaders naturally deliver success for the firm. Is Your Firm Culture Working? Is your firm culture at the top of its game? Are you and your leadership passionate about tomorrow, satisfied with your numbers and proud of the work you’re doing? Are your employees happy, loyal and productive? If yes, then keep doing more of what you’re doing. It’s working! If not, or if you know in your gut there’s room to improve, then it’s time to think about how to create a stronger firm culture and, ultimately, a stronger firm. We can help. Hoopis Performance Network training and courses are designed specifically to help financial services firms grow and thrive ethically, passionately and successfully. Contact us to see how our team can get to work with you and your team to help you ignite your passion, create a happier workforce and build a stronger firm. How a Strong Firm Culture Builds a Strong Firm

Joey Davenport CLU, CLF President of Hoopis Performance Network Joey is President of the Hoopis Performance Network in Chicago. He has over twenty years of experience in the financial services industry as a producer, manager, entrepreneur and international speaker. His organization, the Hoopis Performance Network, was recognized for the 3rd year in a row by Inc. 5000 as one of the fastest growing privately held businesses in the U.S. As a Certified Trainer and Master Coach, he is considered the Executive Producer of Northwestern Mutual’s Enduring Relationships program and the Hoopis University. He is also one of the principal authors and co-producers of the advanced sales training program, Factfinding DNA. Joey is co-author of the #1 best-selling book, “The Power of Coaching: Engaging Excellence in Others.” He is the executive producer of the award-winning Trustworthy Selling sales effectiveness program developed with LIMRA International and the Advanced Planning Channel. His web-based training programs have received top recognition including multiple Digital Media Innovators Awards and the ROI Institute’s Top 10 Case Studies. Joey is Past President of NAIFA Chicago and a graduate of NAIFA’s Leadership in Life Institute. He received the NAIFA Illinois Young Advisors Team Leader of the Year award and the Jack E. Bobo Award for Association Excellence from the NAIFA Federation. Joey lives in Chicago with his wife Lyndy and their 13 year old son William. He enjoys spending time with his family, traveling and playing music in his blues/rock band Hot LZ. Previous Speaker Go back to Speaker Network Next Speaker