MDRT Power Sellers Charge Into Miami Beach
One takeaway is that many MDRT members speak Chinese. And Thai.
The Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT) is continuing to get bigger — by continuing to go global.
One thing MDRT leaders are doing at their group’s annual meeting in Miami Beach, Florida, this week is promoting the group’s next major, in-person event: a global conference in Sydney, in Australia.
(Related: Million Dollar Round Table Brings the World to Los Angeles)
The MDRT plans to start that four-day event, which is the first MDRT event of its kind, Sept. 1.
International Aspirations
MDRT is a Park Ridge, Illinois-based networking organization for top insurance and financial services sales representatives. The organization has strong roots in the United States, but the current president is Ross Vanderwolf — the head of a financial planning firm based in Brisbane, Queensland, in Australia.
MDRT offered sessions in many different languages in 2018. The effort to reach out to the wider world of successful financial services professionals is continuing this year.
Attendees can choose from session options in Spanish, Hindi, Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Thai.
Vanderwolf noted Sunday, in remarks at the annual meeting’s opening ceremony, that MDRT has been holding its annual meetings, and giving members a chance to learn from one another, for 91 years.
“When I joined the executive committee in 2015, we had 43,200 members from 69 countries,” Vanderwolf said at another general session, Monday, according to a written version of his remarks provided by MDRT. “Today, we have over 72,000 members from 73 countries — an increase of 67% in membership in just four years.”
Vanderwolf said Monday that MDRT decided to add the global conference to avoid making the annual meeting too big.
“By adding the global conference, we can now accommodate twice as many attendees,” and still maintain event quality, Vanderwolf said.
The Speakers
Many of the breakout session speakers are ThinkAdvisor Life/Health bloggers. The list of ThinkAdvisor Life/Health bloggers on the agenda includes Bryce Sanders and Larry Schneider.
Michael Morrow may have offered one of the sessions with the most concrete, easy-to-borrow ideas: a discussion of specific strategies, novelty items and modest gifts that financial professionals can use to attract top prospects’ attention.
One of Morrow’s ideas is to give a great, happy client who’s retiring a box of free business “retirement business cards.” Morrow said each card should give the client’s name, the client’s phone number and the client’s email address, along with a line such as “Available 24/7 for fun. Planned Ahead.”
The bottom line on the card should be the financial professional’s web address, Morrow said, according to a written version of his remarks provided by MDRT.
“Your clients will hand out these business cards, and your name will be shared with every person whom they give it to,” Morrow said. “Your website traffic will increase.”
— Read Ross Vanderwolf to Lead MDRT, on ThinkAdvisor.
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