Playing The Long-Game
I had a question this week as to what is the advantage of playing the long-game as it can mean some short-term sacrifices. Thinking on this question, it was interesting to look back on how decisions we made years ago affect our present business.
From the very beginning we chose to play the long-game as our primary product line is built on the premise of rate stability. We have been fortunate over the last 2.5 years as our client and advisor base has continued to grow, despite the most challenging business conditions we have experienced since I started in the financial industry in 1987.
How did we do this? From the very beginning we did a lot of research and developed a set of guidelines that we follow to this day. The overarching principle is the focus on long-term rate stability regardless of short-term market pressures. And yes, and from time-to-time we have to resist external market pressures.
Here are examples of the issues we have faced:
Its important to learn from history, or else it will be repeated
Regardless of short-term market pressures, we stayed with the basics. After a lot of research, we found lots of reasons and examples to stay with our approach. The main questions were:
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Can a case be made to take some short-cuts for a quick gain in market share? Sure, as long as we are willing to undermine and possibly destroy our business. This is something we have watched happen to many others companies over the past 20 years.
Why do we take the approach we do? Because so many people are relying on us to be consistently stable. Clients, advisors, underwriters and our staff.
The conclusion we came to is by playing the long-game and by staying with the model we developed years ago, it paid dividends through this past 2.5 years.
Well that was the question that stood out this week. More again next week :-)
Dale