Where In The World Is Carmen San Diego?
Well, sunny San Diego of course, along with the rest of
the NAIFA Washington delegation to the 125th Anniversary National
Conference of NAIFA (the National Association of Insurance and Financial
Advisors) September 6 – 8, 2014. It was
historic for not only its anniversary but also for the election of our first
woman President, Juli McNeely. And your
Washington delegation, led by President John “B.” Nichols, President Elect
Scott Fowler (recently released from Injured Reserve to Active Duty after foot
surgery), and Sec-Treas Neal Kloke plus 17 more local members, were there to
learn, vote, contribute, and have a lot of fun and conversation.
The Conference was shortened to two full days this year
in response to member requests, from Saturday afternoon to Monday so we packed
the time with meetings and seminars; we made the most of our time with an
afterhours cocktail party hosted by National Committeeman Alan Zalewski, CLU,
ChFC, still LUTCF, whose suggested voting mantra remains: “vote in the time
honored tradition for the candidate who provides most swag”. We had a lot to celebrate:
President John and our group personally presented Richard
Miller, CLU, ChFC, his “Man of the Year” Award – he could not be at State
Convention in May because he was representing us at the Congressional Fly In to
meet with senators and congressmen in Washington, D.C.
Our delegation qualified as a “100% Participating” State
for IFAPAC, meaning that all our delegates met minimum participation
requirements for IFAPAC and had contributed at least $120 by that date to the
fund. There was a bureaucratic issue, in
that many of our members contribute annually, and their due date was after
convention, so these members had to put up with some additional paperwork and
check writing, but in the end we did it.
Special thanks to all who helped us make it: Michael
Dayton, Amy Dalton, and Stephanie Christopherson as new IFAPAC members and for
re-arranging or increasing their contributions these great members: James
Scott, Monica Ewing, Tim Manry, Michael Staeb, David Bailey, and James
Penning. THANK YOU! THANK YOU!
You want education?
You want sales ideas? You want
the inside track and meet the greats?
We got it!
Dealing
with a new generation of consumers and prospects?
·
Reimagining your business: “You can’t read
the label when you’re sitting inside the jar!”
·
Are you a “Boomer” who sees your younger
customers as “children” rather than as potential clients?
I
wish I would have known that when I started out…
·
How powerful it is to truly believe in what
you sell!
·
To find a mentor early on
·
To go where the money is by target marketing
·
To realize that people are more interested in
what’s in your heart than what’s in your head!
Do
you want to be rich or do you want an absolute guarantee that you’ll never be
poor?
·
Ask, don’t tell…
Have you looked at www.lifehappens.org?
Maybe you should check out the Real Life Stories videos and show them to your
prospects and clients? What a highlight
to the event when 4 videos were presented and the people involved were able to
come to main stage and thank their agents for taking care of them or in the
case of one young lady for the scholarship that you as a member plus the rest
of the foundation provided her to return to college. Powerful!
One of my favorite presentations is our National
Legislative Forum, where all our NAIFA attorneys present what Congress is
getting ready to do for (to!) us. It
appears the national licensing reform is moving along but we have hit some
bumps in the road; even good ideas get sidetracked by certain congressmen. So we keep at it.
The
government is desperate for more revenue.
Expect these proposals to become part of new bills on “tax reform” next
year:
·
Income Tax of the inside build up of cash
values in life insurance
·
Increased taxes on life insurance company
policy reserves
·
Reduce the contribution amounts to IRA and
401(k) by 50% and freeze increases
·
Repeal of Traditional IRA, SEP, and SIMPLE
retirement plans
Many of these and more are in the Camp Tax Proposal…if
there was ever a reason to join NAIFA and IFAPAC, this is certainly it.
There’s more: at the state level we are watching as
several state Health Insurance Exchanges are proposing to offer consumers life,
disability, and a state sponsored retirement plan. Washington tried this last year; Colorado and
Minnesota are looking at this too. We
need to be on guard!
What
can you do?
·
Put January 27, 2015 on your calendar: Day on
the Hill in Olympia to meet with your legislators
·
May 19-20, 2015 is the Congressional Fly
In…there will be subsidy money available to go.
And next year, October 3-5, 2015 the National Conference
will be in New Orleans! See you there!
Al Zalewski, CLU, ChFC, LUTCF
National Committeeman
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