Rethinking Your Marketing? Rethink Your Business Model, First.

[February 21, the Year of our Ford 2011]
Those of us in mature industries tend to think “if we can just improve our marketing, things could be better.”  We take the norms of our industry and business models as immovable givens.  We assume our only pursuit should be throwing more revenue against an established approach. We are fixed in our ways.

Look no further than the unexotic industry of personal lines insurance for a brave new brand that refuses to have a fixed mindset about how it does business.  Plucky Brightway Insurance is turning the insurance industry in Florida on its ear and will soon be growing into several additional Southeastern states.  How’d they do it?  They simply said, “yes you can be revolutionary in an established category” – and that created a marketing force all its own.

Having seen how the traditional insurance agency model worked and also witnessing how the direct writer carriers (State Farm, Allstate et al) had to limit their ability to provide coverage in coastal states like Florida, Brightway figured out a better way to help consumers buy insurance.  They “retailized” insurance.

Their model takes the wide availability of coverages that an independent agent offers and then multiplies that nearly 10-fold with the scale that their multiple retail locations give them.  Their agent owner franchisees can help consumers find home, auto, life and business insurance from more than 100 carriers.  The result is they can always save consumers money without compromising their coverage quality at all.  But that’s just half the magic of this better mousetrap.

The other key Brightway innovation is that each agent office does not have to handle servicing, accounting and renewals – tasks that typically saddle a traditional independent insurance agent, inhibiting growth and profitability. Rather, a centralized Brightway service center handles all of the administrative tasks so agents and their staff can focus on clients and revenue creation.

A quick video that Burdette Ketchum developed for Brightway tells the story. See www.brightway.com – the video is right on the home page.

The results have been amazing.  70+ offices in just seven years, 300+ employees and a growing line at the door for franchises.  Best of all, the positive buzz that Brightway’s innovation creates does a lot of the marketing for them.  They let satisfied customers do the talking through referral and social media.  And, happy, profitable agents spread the word in the insurance establishment and even to non-insurance-trained entrepreneurs who want to take advantage of this smart new model.

It’s a wonderful lesson in creative thinking – on one hand brilliant, on the other, so simple.  It is a case of simply rethinking the pieces and parts of your industry or business and rearranging them for better value creation (of course the outstanding leadership and execution of founders/owners David and Michael Miller doesn’t hurt, either!)

So as you consider how to grow your revenues, put marketing aside for a moment.  Gather your best thinkers and challenge them to answer the question, “what is a better and more innovative way to do what we already do?”  The answer may take care of the marketing for you.