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Sam foreign. Welcome back to B9 the power of one podcast. Thank you for joining me again today. We are back with your show Submissions Questions Topics submitted@bni power of1.com today's came in anonymously. They can all be that way as always. It says hi. Please answer this anonymously as it's a sensitive topic and highly time sensitive which is why we're moving it up. I'd love your perspective advice on what to do Our chapter recently lost the financial advisor seat. They were deployed in the military and is looking to replace that seat. There are three applicants as vp all the applicants seem fine. It would be good for the chapter. There are two, in my honest opinion that are a better fit than the third from their energy and level of engagement in the chapter. However, our life insurance seat is with a certain company and the third applicant is also in the same company so they are strongly rooting for this applicant to be accepted. I'm attaching their letter which I won't share meaning letter from the life insurance person. I have no idea how to direct our membership committee with this decision. Shouldn't a seat be chosen for the good of the chapter and not one individual? But how do we move forward with either of the other two applicants and not lose the goodwill of the existing life insurance seat? Please help. Also on a side note, I've always wondered about this. Doesn't this on some level present a conflict of interest if there are two separate seats that one company has members in a single chapter? Okay, so you're right first and foremost the focus of the membership committee and this is what I would drive them to is what is the best decision for the chapter as a whole. Not any one individual, the chapter. So when you have three applicants you're looking at base of their clientele. Who's got does somebody have a significantly larger clientele than the other that's going to offer more opportunity, experience in the industry, energy like you said, their engagement at the chapter level. Who is going to be the best fit for the group. I read the letter from the life insurance. I'm not going to read the whole thing but his argument in it is I'm not going to pass referrals to this person because I also do what they do. That doesn't mean anything because in the chapter you don't do those things, right? You don't do the advising and the investment planning and the financial planning. You only represent the financial insurance side of it which is life, disability, long term care maybe. So the fact that he's saying well, this person from my company, we can work together because then I can do everything that I do. Doesn't really matter, not from this chapter standpoint. He's basically arguing like I do both seats and I want to be able to do both seats. And if you let somebody from my company and I can do both seats, moot point. So I would just strip that letter out. You could take it. You should take as a membership committee, you should take any member who has an opinion, take their opinion in as part of your decision, but it's not the decision. So just because somebody says I really like this person doesn't mean it's the best fit for the group. Just because somebody says I really don't like that person doesn't mean they're the wrong fit for the group. It should all be taken in holistically as the membership committee when making that overall decision. So I would advise the membership committee look at each candidate for that seat independently of everything else. Okay, look at it and say which one is going to provide the most value for the most members. Is there a likelihood that you pick somebody and they don't refer back and forth with the life insurance? Yeah, maybe that could very much be the case. But that's one member versus the entire group and that's often the case in a lot of chapters. But it's the value that's giving out. Now if they build the right relationship, there's still referral opportunities for them to do it. I speak from experience. I worked for Northwestern Mutual. I only represented the life, disability and long term care in my chapter. Even though I was series six and all that certified and did financial planning and stuff like that. That was my my seat. And we found a financial advisor who was did the investment sides and we actually did business with each other because that individual didn't really want to sell life insurance and stuff. So there's still ways they could potentially work together. But the argument of bring somebody from my same company in so I can do all the things that I do even though they are not in my category isn't really the reason for doing it. Now to the second point is is there a conflict of interest to have two people from the same company in a chapter? Not necessarily that happens a lot. But there still has to be definitive lines. I would say if you take two people from the same company in this chapter, there's no definitive line. You basically have two financial advisors in your chapter and to think that they'll just going to get along is also naive. They will probably end up fighting with each other because they do the exact same thing. So now they're just going to argue who gets the referral. They probably, I don't know how well they'll work together. Maybe they don't end up working well together and that causes a whole nother conflict in the chapter. I would say almost, you know, if you think about it as a membership committee, you might have a certain level of risk by having two people from the same company who literally do the same thing in the chapter together a different way of this. I know chapters where there's a personal lines of insurance person and in the same chapter there's a commercial lines person who are from the same company. They often are strategically looking at different programs altogether. So they're not saying, hey, we're competing with one another. They have very distinct lines bringing in two people from this same company. I'm not going to name the company or anything. Literally there is no distinction of lines. They just will have two people who do exactly the same thing in the chapter, representing two sides of two different products. That kind of blend can be blended together. So I think your best bet, honestly, without knowing any of the candidates, would be to look at the first two. If you're already identifying that they have a different energy, different level of engagement, maybe they bring a different value. But this would be the advice of the membership committee and why you have a membership committee and why you don't have just one person making the decision. You need to all sit down and ask what's in the best interest for the chapter as a whole? What are the different levels of risk we bring in by any one of these choices and then vote and decide on what one's the best one for the group. That's again, policies are not personal until you start making them personal by making exceptions. These decisions are not personal until you make them personal by making exceptions. So the group of the membership committee needs to be thinking about the group as a chapter as a whole when making those decisions. So that'd be my advice. I don't think. I think you probably already leaning in a certain way. That sounds like that might be the right way. But I would encourage you to get together with your, your director, managing director, wherever you are in this as well and, and maybe see if they, they can help guide you. But ultimately the decision is that of the membership committee. So really great question, really appreciate it as always for everybody. Go to bnipower of1.com leave your questions there and you can, if needed, leave them anonymously. And if they were super time sensitive. I will do my best to get to them. I can't always promise I will. Hopefully this one is in time since it's only been a couple days and we'll be back with a whole lot more. And I appreciate each and every one of you. Have a great day. It.