[S2E15] Chris Fisher: What 500+ Benefits Pitches Taught Me

Brokers are drowning in meeting requests. Vendors think they have the next great solution. And somewhere in the middle, the best ideas in employee benefits never get a fair shot because nobody has time to figure out who's actually worth listening to.

Chris Fisher built Benefits Ally to fix that. As the creator of the 3x3x3 Challenge, an on-demand elevator pitch format where vendors get 3 questions, 3 slides, and 3 minutes to explain what they do, how they're different, and who they're right for, Chris has seen over 500 vendor pitches and developed a clear-eyed view of what separates the real ones from the noise.

In this episode, Vincent Catalano sits down with Chris to pull back the curtain on what actually works in benefits vendor communication, why so many point solutions fail to break through despite having good ideas, and what brokers and advisors are really thinking when a new vendor shows up in their inbox. Chris also shares why anonymity matters for advisors evaluating solutions, how Benefits Ally became a level playing field for startups and Fortune 500 vendors alike, and what vendors get catastrophically wrong when they say they're a good fit for everyone.

If you're a broker, consultant, HR leader, or a vendor trying to get in front of the right people, this one will change how you think about trust, messaging, and what it actually takes to earn a seat at the table.

About Chris Fisher: Chris Fisher is the Founder of Benefits Ally and the creator of the 3x3x3 Challenge, an on-demand elevator pitch for the employee benefits industry. In a market full of confusing, too-long, lookalike messaging, Chris is known as a straight shooter who pushes vendors to explain what they do, how they're different, and who they're right for in 3 questions, 3 slides, and 3 minutes. Built around the idea of "3 minutes to earn 30," the format gives brokers, consultants, HR leaders, and other benefits professionals a faster way to decide whether a deeper conversation is worth having. Chris speaks on what's broken in benefits communication, why so much industry messaging sounds the same, and what it takes to keep building when the personal side of life gets heavy.

About Vincent Catalano: Vincent Catalano brings over 23 years of employee benefits experience as an independent consultant and host of The CLEARly Beneficial Podcast. His unique position outside corporate constraints allows him to have frank conversations about healthcare issues that others can't address.

This episode is brought to you by HealthNEXT. HealthNEXT partners with employers to transform their employee health benefits through innovative, results-driven solutions that prioritize both cost savings and improved health outcomes.

Disclaimer: The information provided in this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be construed as legal, financial, or professional advice. Listeners should consult with qualified professionals regarding their specific situations.

Subscribe & Connect:

YouTube: @CLEARlyBeneficialPodcast 

Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/clearlybeneficialpodcast 

Website: www.clearhcs.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

I think if you want to build trust and relationships and do business with people, you nailed it early on. You know, people do business with people they trust. Um, that's one of the things to me that's cool about the three by three by three is it's not a cartoon character, it's not a flyer, it's a real human being. You are seeing their name, their face, their voice, and that's great. But if you want to take it to the next level, go out and get in front of those people. We're gonna be doing some some new stuff in 2026 called Benefits Ally Live, where we're gonna be doing some road shows, uh, which I'm excited about. But I think um if you truly want to have success in this space, you gotta be visible, you gotta get people to trust you. And it's a lot easier to develop trust when they can see your name, your face, your voice, the way you explain it, whether it's on a three by three by three challenge, which is great, uh, or it's physically face-to-face, shaking someone's hand, looking them in the eye. You gotta you gotta build trust.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

I think welcome to the Clearly Beneficial Podcast, the show where we rip off the band-aid and explore the future of healthcare, benefits, and the people driving innovation in the industry. This episode is brought to you by Health Next, the company leading the way in helping employers build enduring cultures of health and well-being, reducing medical cost trends, and increasing organizational performance. To learn more how they can help you, visit healthnext.com.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

Well, welcome everybody to the Clearly Beneficial podcast. I'm Vincent Catalano, your host, and uh today I'm very excited to have uh a gentleman that I met uh on LinkedIn. And we've known each other probably about uh I feel like four or five years. Um, Chris Fisher, the uh founder of Benefits Ally. And uh I I like to call Chris the uh the point solution wrangler because he uh he has figured out how to bring information about um companies in the employee benefits marketplace that do specific things uh for employers. Um and um welcome to the podcast, Chris. Thank you so much for having me, Vincent.

SPEAKER_03 2:12

It's a pleasure to be here.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

Well, great. I am really happy to have you because I I followed you for a long time and watched the work you've done and uh have been fascinated because you know, back in the day, and well, say back in the day, I feel like it's really came to the fore in COVID. A lot of VC-backed companies, a lot of companies started coming to the market that were providing solutions to employers beyond just health insurance and the classical health dental vision and all the things, these folks were were solving for very specific problems like uh musculoskeletal issues, mental health, um, you know, HSAs and funding, telemedicine, and anything in between, well-being, wellness, and all this. And so um you started Benefits Ally.

SPEAKER_03 3:03

Uh I mean, I technically started probably a decade ago. I don't exactly remember the date, but I started probably a decade ago doing something sort of related to what we're doing, but a little bit different. Uh, it was really uh about still bringing the point solutions to advisors, but it was really based on data. Um, so we would we had some data warehouse technology we were leveraging to kind of uh go to advisors and say, hey, give me uh you know a bunch of raw claims data and we'll come back and generate this uh really nice report that shows you specific savings opportunities. And um, you know, that worked really well, but it ultimately pivoted into the three by three by three challenge uh kind of during COVID, which is how a lot of people kind of know me today, for better or worse, is hey, three by three by three challenge, right? Yeah, that's that's what I do. So explain explain more about that. Yeah, so the three by three by three challenge, the way I kind of describe it is it's really an on-demand elevator pitch. Um, I think so many people in the benefit space, and I've been in the benefit space for you know 15 plus years at this point, um, um they're just they're overwhelmed by the sheer number of meeting requests they get. And unfortunately, I think it's just only getting worse. And so for you know, now if you're a you know, benefits broker, consultant, client manager, employer, kind of anybody in the benefits ecosystem, the sheer number of meeting requests you get, emails, LinkedIn, DMs, phone calls, is just endless. And, you know, it's really tough because you know, you're still trying to stay informed, you still want to stay plugged in, you want to have, you know, innovative solutions, solving problems, et cetera. But it you're you're really in a tough spot because you can't say yes to everything. Because you say yes to every meeting request, you're gonna sit through 90% of meetings that are a waste of time and do nothing other than take meetings. But if you reflexively say no to everything, you're gonna end up saving a lot of wasted time, but you're also gonna miss the five, 10, 15% of solutions that can make a real difference for your clients or prospects. So that's that's really where the three by three by three challenge is built. Um, it's a it's an on-demand elevator pitch, like I said, and it stands for three questions, three slides, three minutes. So I interview someone and we ask them the same three questions every time. We ask them very directly, what is it? What do you do? How are you different? And then who's a good fit? And they have three slides in three minutes to answer those three questions. So the idea is whenever someone watches a video on our website, they know exactly what questions are going to be answered, and they know it's gonna be under three minutes with no more than three slides. So they, as a broker, consultant, employer, whatever, can watch it and make an informed decision. Does this make sense to have a longer meeting on? Does this make sense to forward to my client or prospect? Should I share this with my practice leader, my account manager, whatever? Um, or can I safely move on from this because it's not a good fit for my client, not interesting, you know, I've already got a solution in this space, whatever. So it really goes back to this idea of, you know, three minutes to earn 30. I kind of joke with people all the time. Three minutes to earn 30. Uh, watch first, then decide. Like, you know, watch the three by three by three challenge, and then you can make that informed decision about what to do with that information.

SPEAKER_01 6:30

No, I I think this is this is this is it's always I've always thought it was brilliant, you know, because with with the preponderance of these things in the marketplace, it's it's impossible for, you know, given any category of point solution for uh a benefits team in an organization to properly evaluate those things. And so at least what the three by three by three does, it gives everybody a flavor of deciding to want to move forward uh with another conversation or or not. So, how many of these companies have you had on the three by three by three uh in in let's say in the last five years? I mean, let's let's let's let's not go all the whole time, but I mean last five years, what's what's the what's the rough number?

SPEAKER_03 7:10

Yeah, I think I tell if they first started it, you know, in 2022. So it's it's definitely been less than five years. It's over 500 at this point, you know. Uh it's it's it's quite a few. If you go to my website, there are 10 plus pages of videos that kind of just go on and on and on. And it's it's really grown, I think, beyond what I ever thought it would. I thought we might do a couple a month. Um, and now we're recording usually multiple, you know, every single week. Um, there's a little bit of seasonality to it. Q4 things slow down a little bit. People are are out, you know, on vacation. I take some time off. But um, we record a lot. I'm recording two or three this week. I just had another vendor reach out to me out of nowhere and was like, hey, sign up. Cool, bring it on, let's do it. And I think the big go ahead. No, no, go ahead. Go, go keep going. I think the other thing that I think appeals to a lot of people now on the benefit side is that uh whether you're again an employer, advisor, consultant, broker, they're using it kind of as a filter, just as a way to say, like, I'm not saying yes to a meeting request, I'm not saying no. I'm asking, do you have a three by three by three challenge? And one of the things that I'm particularly proud of, and I'd like to say this was uh, you know, uh uh like a planned thought coming into it, but it was just more happenstance around it, is that it's a level playing field. I think there are a lot of, you know, when you have these big conferences or other, you know, solutions or whatever, and you know, it's it's it's um you got to spend thousands of dollars and to have a you know booth or sponsor something. And and that's fine. There's nothing wrong with that, don't get me wrong. But to me, I like the idea of a level playing field where if you're a bootstrapped startup with three people, you have the exact same opportunity on my platform versus a public traded company with a seven-figure marketing budget and 50 people in their on their marketing team. Um, everybody gets the same three questions, three slides, three minutes, period, end of story. And I think that's something that, at least for me, maybe as a as a fan of the little guy, you know, um, I just like the idea of everybody being able to compete on a level playing field. Your ability to tell your story and get in front of the right people, um, at least in my maybe idealized world, should not be contingent on the size of your marketing budget.

SPEAKER_01 9:25

Yeah. And and a lot of these companies, you to your point, are small, they're they're they're angel investors, you know, which has always been an interesting kind of thing for me because you know, a lot of these companies come to the table and you know, they then need or want the employer's data to do the thing they need to do. And and I've always questioned that from a security point of view. You know, how how does a small company ask the a large employer for you know all the employee data? And, you know, here's a group of maybe 12 people in a room somewhere, you know, pounding out of point solution. You have any thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_03 10:00

I mean, yeah, I mean, I, you know, I guess I'd say a couple things. I don't, you know, people sometimes um I have been a broker years and years and years ago uh at a boutique farm that that doesn't exist anymore. It's now part of a bigger firm, uh Higginbaum based in Texas. You know, and data integrity is important. You know, I mean, obviously we have, you know, lots of laws and HIPAA, and there's things like SOC2 compliance, et cetera. Um, yeah, I mean, look, I think if you're gonna ask for data, you know, people need to have faith that you're gonna trust it uh or you know, protect it. Um, but I, you know, I view at least what I'm trying to do as a uh kind of an open architecture. You know, people sometimes ask me, it's like, well, Chris, you know, are you like, are you vetting? What process are you, you know, requiring to have people be on your platform? And my answer, which I think makes sense to me, and I'm sure some people may disagree with it, but I'm like, the reality is as long as they're willing, as long as they're in the employee benefit space and they're willing to kind of follow the rules of our format, um, we're gonna give them the chance to tell their story because the reality is every brokerage firm, even individual people, employers, total rewards leaders, have different approaches about the things they care about. I know, you know, some consultants that only want to work with companies that um, you know, have been in business for 10 years and audited financials, a lot of other very, very in-depth, you know, compliance rules to engage with them. And I know other people that have no problem being someone's very first, you know, client. Like we have no track record, no nothing, because they pride themselves on being a little bit more pleasing. So from my perspective, I want to give everybody the opportunity to tell their story and then let you as the individual employer, advisor, you know, broker decide what you want to do with that information. Um, because the reality is, you know, um, just like anything else, right? There's no best car, no best hamburger, no best, you know, uh, you know, home builder, no best, you know, phone, right? Some guys like Android, some guys like Apple, some guys like, you know, whatever. So um, I try to take the approach of, I'm gonna give you all the options, anybody who wants to step into the you know arena, so to speak, and do a three by three by three challenge, come on in and then let the chips fall where they may.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

So no, I I I think you know, to your point, I this the fact that everyone has access, free access to the site to be able to explore and and do uh the research uh they want to do. And that could be, you know, in an organization, it could be a benefits manager at any level, it could be a CHRO, it could be a broker, it could be an account manager, it could be anybody who's really interested in a specific topic. I'm just curious, I haven't been to the site in a minute. Um, are the solutions sorted chronologically only, or are they sorted in buckets of the general type of solution? Like, are all the telemedicine solutions in a telemedicine bucket, or how how is this the site sorted?

SPEAKER_03 13:05

It's a really good question. And it's there's the and I'll I'll tell you how we do it right now, and I think it makes sense to me. So um uh, first of all, all of the videos are all uh sorted chronologically based on the date that they were recorded. Um, and we do that for a couple of reasons. Number one, I think when people are browsing our site, you know, they want to see kind of what's newer versus what's older. They go to the site, they haven't been to the site in a couple weeks, they want to see what new videos are. Um, and that's a way to do it. And also all the videos actually have the date that it was either first recorded or the date it was refreshed right on the page. So when someone is watching a video, it's another frustration for me about kind of the traditional benefits approach, is you're looking at a piece of content, flyer, you know, fly deck, you know, uh even a video necessarily. You're like, well, when was this recorded? Is this a month old or is this three years old? That can impact how much faith you have in the accuracy of the information, especially with how fast things change. So to me, by sorting it chronologically, um, it makes it easier for people to surface relevant videos and it also or newer videos, and it also creates an incentive for people who have participated to refresh their content on a periodic basis because as your video ages and it becomes on page seven, and someone's got to scroll past 350 videos to see it, you're just naturally gonna get less traffic. Um, that being said, though, we do have a couple other ways that we try to make it easier for people to navigate the site. Um, every video uh on our site is fully transcribed. So, you know, there are captions on there, which also means people can read as well as watch if they want to read, like the read the transcript below. Um, it's essentially acts like come almost like a de facto flyer. But all of those transcriptions are also indexed, uh indexed um for uh keyword searching. So if you go to our website and type in student loan, captive, telemedicine, clinic, dpc, pbm, gLP one, whatever, any video you or uh any uh keyword or words you search for, it will look in the transcript of over 500 videos in a fraction of a second and kick out any video that has GLP1 student loan in it, whatever, to try and surface those. Um tagging by category is really complicated. Um, and what I mean by that, and I'll use telemedicine as your example, telemedicine is both very straightforward and also very complex. Like, what is telemedicine? Is telemedicine like the traditional teledoc? You call a doctor, you're sick, you get a script. Well, what about, you know, a maybe a disease-specific program that uses telemedicine to facilitate that? You know, like as an MSK vendor or a diabetes vendor that does virtual care coaching, is that telemedicine? What about an on-site clinic component that has a telemedicine piece of it? Is that telemedicine? Yeah, um, you know, and you can go on and on and on about that kind of stuff. So um, to me, the keyword search is the most logical way to do it. And then we also added a tagging feature that basically surfaces other videos, almost like YouTube or Netflix, where based on what you're watching, it looks at what you're watching. And if you scroll down, it will surface uh up to four other videos that we think you might want to watch based on what you're watching. So it's really helpful if someone's looking at, you know, an RBP vendor or a you know a diabetes you know solution, cardiomalabolic, whatever, decision support, perfect example. They're watching a decision support video, they're like, oh, cool, what else should I be looking at? Scroll down, I'll surface four other videos that share the most uh kind of competitors in common, um, which is really cool. If if you're an advisor looking for other solutions, you're like, okay, I like this. What else should I be looking at? Yeah, that's helpful. And if you're a vendor, that's incredibly valuable too. Someone might not be looking for your solution explicitly, but they're looking at one of your competitors and they scroll down and go, Oh, never heard of these three companies before. Let me check them out before I make a decision.

SPEAKER_01 17:08

No, that's brilliant. I mean, I really like that idea of uh being able to let let the let the search engine search in the in the larger documents to find the keywords versus people uh missing out on the right tag for their own thing. You know, so I I think that that that's a really good way to do it. So so how I guess I have a couple of different questions. How do people how does the brokerage industry engage with the site and specific specifically the brokerage industry? And are you seeing more interest from smaller independents, you know, mid-sized regionals or the big houses in terms of because I mean the big houses tend to, depending on the culture of the organization, and I've worked for two of the large two of the top tens in my career, you know, they either have their own centers of excellence or or solution vetting teams that will only allow you to pick from this menu of of point solutions that that are there. So so where are you seeing the the uptake in the brokerage space for what you are doing?

SPEAKER_03 18:17

So it's been really interesting. I I think um there are a couple of things that uh I'll say to answer your question. We have people who follow our content from the largest national firms down to the smallest boutiques and everything in between. Um, you know, I think you're right, a lot of larger firms have access to either internal tools, centers of excellence, et cetera. And my attitude always is I'm not trying to replace anything that they are doing. I am just saying this is another resource for you. Use it if it's helpful, if it's not disregarded. Because there's no cost to access our platform. There's also no login required either, which is one of the things that I think really people really appreciate is that when they go onto our site, you know, there's no tracking. If you go on and watch five videos, that data is not shared with anybody, you know, especially for the advisors and employers. They're often, you know, uh reticent, I think, sometimes to engage with content because it's like, oh, Chris looked at our LinkedIn profile, looked at our video, downloaded this case study. Now you're in a CRM with an email sequence going, oh my God, how do I make these emails stop? Um, with us, you can browse completely anonymously and privately because there's no login. You just browse, watch, and then if there's something that grabs your attention, great. If not, move on. Um, and I think the the people that tend to engage with our content, and we have again, I'm gonna have 22, 23,000 people who follow our content on social media, probably over 7,000 who follow our, you know, our our weekly newsletter, email newsletter. Um, um, I mean it's it's a pretty healthy, healthy community of people who follow it. Um, it's gonna be people also who tend to be more innovative and forward thinking. Like if you're the type of advisor, and there's nothing necessarily wrong with this, this is your approach, but if you're kind of an advisor who always does the same things, you've got your handful of solution partners and they are your solution partners, period. You don't play outside the sandbox, you're probably not gonna use our platform at all. And that's okay. Um, but to me, there are a lot of people who pride themselves on being innovative, creative, solving problems. Um, and those are the people that I think really like what we're doing. Um, you know, I got I've got multiple testimonials on my website from three of the top 10 national firms. I had uh I've had I had I've got several comp two compliments I can think of recently from both top five national firms. One of which was she was like, Chris, don't tell my corporate team this. I get better ideas from you than I do from our corporate office. Uh our corporate team that's supposed to do this. Um, and the other one uh told me a long time ago, which is again a tremendous compliment to me, is you know, this is a guy who was running a region. And he's like, Chris, whenever you're in town, I'm like, I will often cancel other meetings, not client meetings, you're not crazy. He's like, I will move my schedule around to meet with you because I know that I'm gonna walk away smarter, having learned something. And that to me is what this is about. I want to help people become smarter, better informed consultants. Um, and I I really I truly view the videos on our site and the companies and the people we're highlighting as tools in a toolkit. Is everything gonna apply to everybody all the time? Absolutely not. That'd be a ludicrous claim to make. But what I what I will say is, you know, while you're sipping your morning coffee, while you're sitting in a waiting room at the terminal waiting for your flight, pull it up on your iPhone, and in you know, 10 minutes, you can pick up, you know, two or three or four new tools to your toolkit. And if you do that regularly, you know, a year from now, you've got 150, 200, 250 new tools in your toolkit. And so when you're out there talking to employers, clients, colleagues, prospects, and something comes up, you're like, oh, what have you ever considered doing this? Oh, you haven't. Why? To me, it's a way to consistently level up your game in a in an efficient manner, is a lot of what's going on.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

I love that. I love that. And you and I can have an offline conversation because one of one of the things I hope to be working on, you know, later this year is a broker training academy. You know, I really want to be able to take my years of experience as a broker and translate it because everybody keeps telling me that you know even the large firms aren't doing what's necessary to train. And it's not just on the technical side, it's it's really, you know, what happens when they get in the room, when a broker or consultant gets in the room with a potential client? What's what's what should that conversation look like? How should that conversation go? And so this is some of the knowledge that that I really want to impart with this. But um, so in all the interviews, so you so you've been doing this for a while, you you've got all the content, you've got a lot of people who've who've done this. So the first question I want to ask you is you know, obviously, you're no altruist, um, you know, you're not giving this away for free. And and share what you're comfortable sharing about your business model. Yeah. Scott does Chris pay the rent, I guess.

SPEAKER_03 23:28

It's a good question. And the reality is not very well, you know, uh uh um being you know candidly honest. We we've we've tried a few different ways to kind of monetize it. Candidly, it's it's usually been kind of a side venture and hustle for me. Um, I've had other full-time jobs during the time I do this. Um, and for me, a lot of it has been um uh you know a good way to grow my network. Uh a lot of my last of multiple of my last full-time jobs have been people that have often said, Chris, like you know everybody. And I don't know if I know everybody, but I know a lot of people. Um, and I think I know a lot of people from again, you know, the top, you know, five, 10, 15 national firms down to regionals, down to boutiques. And by virtue of what we do, especially with a content social media perspective, my network, you know, goes from you know, San Diego to Portland, Maine, and Seattle down to Miami, Florida, where a lot of people in this industry have strong networks, but it's very geographic based. Like, hey, I'm um, no, I know Philadelphia like the back of my hand, or I know, you know, hey, I've I worked with you know these two large national firms for five years. I know them great, but you ask me to go outside those two, it gets real dicey real quick. Um, and I think that's where you know I can add some value. One of the things we've done, um, and we're gonna be doing more of it, I think, in 2026 is some messaging help. I think a lot of vendors, whether they'd like to admit it or not, are not as good at messaging as they think they are, um, especially when it comes to short form uh content. You know, doing a 30-minute presentation might be okay, but when we ask them to get it down to three minutes, they struggle. Um, my my kind of overarching uh uh to me, the three keys for any good messaging, whether it's three minutes or 30, is it needs to be clear, concise, and compelling. And a lot of vendors or just people, I think, struggle with that. Their message is muddled, they're too close to it, they can't see the forest for the trees, they want to overexplain, you know, they want to just throw a bunch of stuff against the wall and hope something sticks. And they don't realize how competitive the industry is. And if your message is not crystal clear, if it's not compelling, if it doesn't respect people's time, why is someone gonna want to have a second or third or a fourth conversation with you? Why are you?

SPEAKER_01 25:57

I was struck, I was struck a lot by the, you know, and in interacting with point solutions in the last several years. I'm struck by almost their naivete. You know, you you come up with a good idea, you you you you hire some people to execute it, and you literally have no clue as to how to bring it to market. And and I I felt like that that to me was, I mean, and some of them have done it well, and some of them have scaled, and some of them have gotten critical mass. The one that sticks out to me uh the most is is Garner Health. I mean, they they I remember when they started from nothing and uh and and that company has has grown because they had a good solution with immediate ROI for an employer. A lot of these other solutions, they're nice add-ons, but do I really need that? But but to your point, a lot of them don't um enunciate or or or explain what they're doing to take a customer, potential customer over the edge to want to buy. And and I think that's that's a challenge. So so in in your in your evaluation, I mean, because you you you're sitting there too, evaluating these vendors yourself. I mean, you've got experience, you know the deal. You know, you're sitting there when someone's doing a three by three by three and you're going, oh man, this is not right. Um, or this is amazing, you know, you're doing one or the other. Um, I'd love to hear from you sort of the stand, don't name names or anything. I'm interested in hearing from you your experience with those A light bulb moments where you're like, damn, this is amazing. Then I also want to hear the oh my god, this is crap. You know, I'm I'm interested in hearing your your balanced story about those vendors who've come to you and you're like, yay!

SPEAKER_03 27:51

So it's a good question. And I'll always say a couple of things. I try to, you know, really be Switzerland in the sense that I don't like to say, you know, the people come to me all the time and say, Chris, who do you like in this space, whatever? And I always like to say, look, I I'm not gonna, you know, I I one, I'm the biggest thing is I'm not just qualified to make that judgment because I don't work with employers anymore, right? You know, I'm not the one seeing, you know, my knowledge of most of these companies is limited to what they said in their three-minute elevator pitch. And you wouldn't expect someone to make a, you know, to make a super solid recommendation based on what someone heard at a three-minute elevator pitch. What I will say is I think the the the ones to me that um that you know resonate and often have more traction um is they've got a clear problem they are solving. They can articulate why solving that problem matters. Um uh and I think they're also tend to be pretty clear about who their target market is. Um, I think a lot of vendors, not a lot, but I would say a number of vendors make a mistake when the uh pitch is too generic. They're like, look how cool we are, look how cool this is. Isn't this fancy? Isn't this exciting? And I think the thing that a lot of them underestimate is that they are one of a hundred, two hundred fifty, whatever the number is, of carriers, point solutions, TBAs, captives who want to do business with you as a consultant, employer, advisor, broker, whatever. So you got to, it can't just be that, hey, we've got a neat widget. Um, great, that might get you to number 14 out of 100 on their list of cool things to do this year. But as I tell people all the time, you need to be in the top like three, five, you know, for them to do anything with it. Because if you're number 14 out of 100, okay, you're better than you know, 86 other solutions, but it doesn't really matter. You might as well be number 99 at that point because you're you're just you're not gonna get implemented. The other thing that I always say is, and this goes back to some of the stuff that I hear more often than I would like to, candidly, is when people talk about things that have almost become just like generic. You know, they talk about you know, transparent or service is probably the biggest one. It's just is a pet peeve of mine. It's like, well, we provide ourselves, we we we in court, we're all about customer service. Like, okay, that may or may not be true. I hope it is true, but the reality is that's not something people can validate in a three-minute interview. It's something you earn over time working with people and references, et cetera. But if your video or your marketing material is so generic where I could take your logo and put someone else with a logo on, it's the same flyer, that's a problem. And that happens way more often than I think companies would like to admit. And um it why, if I'm an advisor, consult an employer, why am I gonna get excited about that? Um, that's that's a problem to me. The last thing I'll say that to me is really important is also being clear about who your target market is. Um, I get a lot of vendors, I just talked to one earlier this week, um, where I was fortunate enough to be at a conference, the U-powered symposium, shout out to Emma Fox for putting on another trade event. Um, and you know, when when vendors sometimes talk about who's a good fit, so we're good fit for everybody. And I always kind of roll my eyes, trying not to roll my eyes when they say that, because it may or may not be true, but what I hear as an advisor or former advisor is when you say you're good for everybody, it means you're really, you're really, you know, not you're you're you're not a good fit for anybody. It's like we'll take we'll take whatever you got. We're desperate, you know, come on board, you know, we can do it this for everybody. To me, the mistake a lot of vendors make, and though they should be doing instead, is you want to narrow down and give the person you're talking to a sense of who you're really a good fit for. Because most advisors, I'm sure in your career, you know, Vincent, you had, you know, a dozen, 10, 20, 30, 40, whatever clients you were working with. To me, they should be trying to say, well, you know, we work with groups of all sizes, but our our most of our groups are between a hundred and a thousand. Um, and we've got a lot of success in, you know, the blue collar space thing.

SPEAKER_01 32:40

Okay, you froze. So we're gonna cut here and we're gonna try to re-establish communications.

SPEAKER_03 32:49

This segment, now I know where to bring you in, if I like you, etc. And there's a logical next step. And then you know, from the vendor's perspective, if you know you work well in that space, now if you get a chance to get in front of that employer and you know, even better sell it, you know you're gonna execute on it because that's part of your wheelhouse. The advisor then feels good about working with you, goes, great, you know what, Chris, you guys killed on the last two clients. You know, what about a white collar group? I might want to bring you in here and you build some trust with that advisor, which is something way too many vendors don't think about at all.

SPEAKER_01 33:27

No, absolutely. I I mean, a lot, a lot of them, you know, it's like they they they come to market with the, you know, you know, if you build it, they will come strategy. And um it doesn't work. You know, if there's any industry that that relies on relationships, um, it's it's the employee benefits industry, I think. And and it's it's the advisor relationships with their clients, the advisor relationships with their vendors and and uh everybody in between, uh, even within an organization, you know, obviously relationships are super important. So I appreciate that answer um because it it's uh it it it it it tells a story that you know some of these folks come to the table with brilliance, and some of them all think they're brilliant, you know, and they all think they're brilliant, yeah. They all think they're brilliant, and um, and and they still at the end of the day, they you're you are but one of many platforms that they have the opportunity to market themselves through, and they still have to execute. Um, but I think the way you've done it for the industry, uh, by being, you know, Switzerland, like you said, I think speaks highly of you and and and your interest in educating the industry and let all comers come, whether they're the vendors themselves or the or the consumers of the of the information, and let people make up their own minds. You're not you're not like you know getting a solution come in and you're not ranking it on a scale of one to five. You're just putting it out there and let the chips fall. And if there's a curiosity and something interesting. Um in and I and so I want to wrap up with this one question, and then I want to go to the last one, really. Um in doing this for the last several years, tell me about the one surprise that you might have experienced if there is one, that a vendor came to the table and you were like, wow, that is a solution that I hadn't heard of before. It's amazing, it's gonna solve something that hasn't been solved before. Um is there a surprise you want to share?

SPEAKER_03 35:29

Yeah, and and your your audio cut out, Vincent. You might want to restate the question. I think I heard the question, but I think it's a good question. Let me restate it.

SPEAKER_01 35:36

Let me restate the question. Let me restate it, and then I'll my editor will fix this. So let me just do that and to re-edit. So I want one of the last questions I want to ask you before I ask you another one is this notion of in your experience in the last several years of doing this, um, tell me about a surprise. Tell me about something that came to the table that you were genuinely surprised by. That signed up, you you brought them on the three by three by three, and you were like, wow, that's that's I wasn't expecting I wasn't on my bingo card today.

SPEAKER_03 36:13

I think I mean there are probably several. And again, you know, in an effort to be Switzerland, I'm not going to mention kind of anybody by name, but I will tell a story that I think will be illustrative and helpful to the audience. One of the first vendors I met, it was actually pre-3x3x3, although they have three by three by three style, you know, or they've recorded multiple takes on it. But when I first met these, uh uh this company, and I I forgot how we got connected, but was an intro, et cetera. And I first heard their pitch, I was like getting totally skeptical. I was, I, I, I have a reputation, I think, of being a straight shooter sometimes. Like, I'm not afraid to call out bad behavior when I see it and be like, you know, no, you're whatever, uh, and just kind of calling out things and et cetera. And I was just like, no, that can't be true, you know. And and um, it turned out that, you know, it really was what they were saying. What they what they were doing was possible. And over time, you know, I kind of learned it and and at least it built up trust with me, you know, from my perspective. And again, I'm just one person, so I will tell people, you know, that's a whole idea of kind of, you know, you do your own due diligence, you decide what you'll do with the information um out there. But the reason I say that is that I think a lot of vendors underestimate, and employers for that matter, uh uh just underestimate how skeptical buyers are because they've been burned so many times. And people come in and make absurd claims that can't possibly be true. And so, you know, look, at the end of the day, a lot of you know, benefits brokers, advisors, consultants, you know, they're the risk averse, and I don't mean that in a negative way, but it's like, look, you know, my client hasn't trusted me as this trusted expert to help them navigate this increasingly complex employee benefits environment. And if I bring a solution in place that doesn't work, that fails, that something bad happens, it's ultimately my judgment and reputation that's on the line, um, more so than yours, Mr. or Miss Vendor. So I think there are a lot of people that are inherently skeptical. And when I first heard this pitch, that I thought was just like, well, that's too good to be true. That can't possibly be right. And I was ultimately proven, you know, at least from my own judgment, wrong that what they were doing was possible. But I think it's indicative of how skeptical people are and why it's so important if you were selling in this space. And this is true again, whether you're an advisor, vendor, point solution, whatever. People are inherently skeptical. So if you're a vendor coming in saying, oh, we can save money on your pharmacy or we got a better captive mousetrap, whatever, expect advisors to be skeptical. And how do you how do you not eliminate, but how do you reduce that skepticism so they feel comfortable spending more time, you know, talking with you about it? And the same thing if you're an advisor or consultant. If you're going out there and saying, hey, I can save you money on your health insurance, cool. You and the 400 last people who called me and said the same stupid thing, um, and my health insurance costs continue to go up. So if you're gonna go in there and make a claim, which most people are of some form or fashion about what they're doing, whether it's MSK or benefit costs or TPA, Cobra, whatever, um, be prepared in your messaging to reduce skepticism and demonstrate that you can do what you say you're gonna do. And to use kind of a cliche analogy, the juice is worth the squeeze. That's the other thing, is that it doing any of this stuff requires some level of work, some more work than others. So you want to make sure that if you're gonna ask people to do this, that whatever the outcome is is of it, it's worth the effort they are putting into it.

SPEAKER_01 40:07

Absolutely. No, I I that that's a that's a super valid point, and I and I appreciate you you you bringing that up. You know, we're we're kind of at time. So um, you know, I I want to just uh you know, first of all, the last question I really want to ask you is um that I not asked, is was there something I missed? Is there something in our in our conversation about the three by three by three that you feel that you want to add to it that that I didn't ask you?

SPEAKER_03 40:32

I don't think so. I think the other thing I would just tell people uh is um you know, get out on the road again and get face to face with people. Like I love ops talking to you on Zoom, you know, it's it it's getting to Sacramento isn't isn't like a 30-minute drive for me from my hometown of Houston, Texas. But uh I would just say I am planning to be on the road a lot in 2026. Um, I think if you want to build trust and relationships and do business with people, you nailed it early on. You know, people do business with people they trust. Um, that's one of the things to me that's cool about the three by three by three is it's not a cartoon character, it's not a flyer, it's a real human being. You are seeing their name, their face, their voice, and that's great. But if you want to take it to the next level, go out and get in front of those people. We're gonna be doing some some new stuff in 2026 called Benefits Ally Live, where we're gonna be doing some road shows, uh, which I'm excited about. But I think um if you truly want to have success in this space, you gotta be visible, you gotta give people to trust you. And it's a lot easier to develop trust when they can see your name, your face, your voice, the way you explain it, whether it's on a three by three by three challenge, which is great, uh, or it's physically face to face, shaking someone's hand, looking them in the eye. You gotta, you gotta build trust. And how agreeing more do that is important.

SPEAKER_01 41:54

I could I couldn't agree more. I mean I mean, this is this is we you know, this industry is all about getting in front of people and you know, you know, it it's a how do I put it? The the benefits as a broker, as someone who is trying to open doors, it's it's a deflector shield business. You know, you're constantly trying to figure out how to build that trust, how to ask good, how to ask good questions, how to even challenge the people you're talking to about their own assumptions. And and I find those are the best conversations you can have with people, not just walking in trying to pitch something. You know, you you you have to understand them first before you you can even come up with any solutions. So I think that's something that that is that is maybe I don't want to call it a lost art, but there's a lot of sales training companies out there trying to get brokers to do that. Um, and and the healthcare space in specifically and the employee benefits cost structures are so getting so out of control and high that when the right solutions come along with the right arm a lot, it's good in the industry. So um I want to thank you for being here on the on the podcast. Um really appreciate your insights. And um, you know, um let's stay in touch and we'll talk again.

SPEAKER_03 43:05

Thanks again for the opportunity, Vincent. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 43:10

This podcast reflects the personal views of the host and guests, not their employers or sponsors. See you next time.