Build a Growth Playbook for Your BGA or IMO

Activate Your Next Stage of Growth with a Plan

For decades, many BGAs won business because they had access to the right products, competitive pricing, or favorable underwriting. That formula doesn’t create much differentiation anymore. Most firms have access to the same carrier relationships and product shelves.

When an advisor can place business through several BGAs offering nearly identical solutions, what makes one organization easier to remember and ultimately easier to choose?

Most leaders answer that question by talking about service. Better service. Personal service. White-glove service. Unfortunately, everyone says that.

Differentiating your company

The firms creating real momentum have done something different. They’ve documented how they operate, how they communicate, and how they present themselves, so every interaction reinforces the same story. Their brand has become a management tool rather than simply a marketing function.

A growth playbook captures those decisions once, allowing the organization to execute them hundreds of times without starting over. How?

Here are five areas worth documenting.

1. Start with your positioning. Every BGA should be able to answer a simple question: Why us? Not why you were established. Not why your people care. 

Why would an advisor intentionally move business to your organization instead of the one they’ve worked with for years?

If another BGA could borrow your website copy and nobody would notice, your positioning still needs work.

2. Define your voice. Organizations develop personalities whether they plan for them or not. The question is whether yours is intentional.

Does your company sound educational? Direct? Practical? Relationship-focused?

Without guidance, every salesperson, marketer, and executive communicates differently. Over time, the organization begins to feel inconsistent. Familiarity is difficult to build when every touchpoint sounds like it came from a different company.

3. Collect your proof. Claims are inexpensive. Evidence is harder to assemble, which is exactly why it matters.

Document the client stories, operational advantages, proprietary technology, measurable results, and expertise that support your value proposition. Those examples shouldn’t live in someone’s memory or an old presentation deck. They should be readily available to everyone responsible for representing your business.

4. Set experience standards. A prospect doesn’t experience your company through one interaction.

They see your website, receive onboarding emails, browse your producer portal, review a proposal, attend a webinar, and exchange messages with your team.

Each touchpoint shapes the overall impression. When those experiences feel disconnected, confidence erodes. When they feel cohesive, people assume the business behind them is equally organized.

5. Build a toolkit people will truly use. Every organization benefits from reusable assets: proposal templates, presentation decks, email campaigns, social content, case studies, and sales collateral.

The objective isn’t uniformity for its own sake. The end goal is to reduce the number of decisions employees make every week.

Organizations gain speed when people aren’t recreating presentations, rewriting emails, or searching for the latest version of a document. They spend more time serving advisors because the foundation has already been built.

The overlooked value of a growth playbook

Many executives hear the word brand and immediately think about logos, colors, or typography. Those elements have their place, but they don’t create business value.

A well-defined brand gives people direction. It answers questions before they arise. It shortens review cycles, reduces duplicated effort, and helps every employee tell the same story with confidence.

As products continue to converge, differentiation will increasingly come from the experience surrounding the sale. The organizations that recognize that shift — and document it — will spend less time deciding how to grow and more time doing it.

Put Your Growth Playbook to Work

Knowing what needs to change is a good start. Knowing what to do next, where to invest, and how to put the right pieces into motion is where growth happens.

Apis helps life insurance and annuities companies develop a practical Growth Playbook built around their business goals, market position, and growth opportunities. We look at the bigger picture: how you differentiate your organization, communicate your value, reach the right audiences, strengthen your marketing, and give your sales team the tools to move prospects forward.

From positioning and messaging to websites, content, campaigns, and marketing programs, we help connect the strategy to the work that drives business growth.

Ready to put a clearer plan behind your growth goals? Let’s talk about where you want to go, what’s getting in the way, and how Apis can help you get there. Get in touch.

A version of this article was first published in the 2026 November/December issue of Aspire Magazine.