'21 AGENCY GROWTH &
LEADERSHIP SUMMIT

"Ascend made business fun for me again. I was so bored with previous strategies, I was preparing to exit the industry. Ascend, being a collaborative partnership, has given me a much larger footprint, enabling me to compete with the larger firms, and win. The partners within the Mastermind are like-minded and have different backgrounds and experience with various management techniques. Now my business is a collection of ideas I’ve learned from the partnership, some were mine that they’ve helped me coalesce, others were their brainchild that I’ve made a part of my story. Regardless, we’ve all been made better and stronger by our collaboration. Within 5 minutes of the start of Ascend, now 5 years ago, I knew I’d found something great. I had planned to enjoy some bar time in Nashville during the evenings, but frankly I was completely worn out. When I arrived back home my wife wondered if I’d attended a religious revival….I was PUMPED! The next year, I brought my daughter to Ascend (she had worked with me for two years at the time). She returned as excited as I had been following my first. She could now see the reason for my excitement. Before one thinks this is a closed, tight-knit group of people, I’ve witnessed new people join throughout my five years. Each were welcomed and quickly became one of “the partners”. We welcome and hope for new partners who will help us grow."

"Two years in, I had more than doubled my revenues. My clients prospered by my new ideas and I was having fun."

"I’ve met some wonderful partners/friends. Obviously, my business has prospered, but frankly I have grown as a person. I’ve met some awesome friends who will remain friends outside of business."

"Three years ago I attended my first Ascend conference, it changed the direction of my agency, my thought process, and what was possible for my clients. Through the NextGen Mastermind, we have increased the number of self-funded clients, reduced clients costs year after year, added consulting only clients, and increased revenue in just 2020 by over 42% ."

"Live sessions are what set you guys apart from most of the other [virtual] conferences we attended. If I know I’m watching a recording it’s a lot easier for me to mentally check out."

"ASCEND has been the experience at the beginning of the year that gets me fired up to tackle another year in the healthcare and benefits space. Q4 can be an exhausting experience in our world, so that freshness of concepts, strategies, and relationships has always been a great way to gear up for another growth year."

"ASCEND and the Mastermind have completely transformed my business. Instead of trying to chase and duplicate what the “industry” says we should be doing (which conveniently makes the carriers and larger broker houses a lot of money), we are creating a new way of doing things that returns that lost money back to our customers with the goal of delivering better results for the employers and better benefits and quality of care for their employees."

"Our firm has changed from a local insurance agency to a national innovation lab. Because of the collaboration with ASCEND and the Mastermind, our company and team are leaders and innovators in the NextGen Benefits movement on a national level with clients from coast to coast."