Gauntlet Unite.
The AR proposition for start-up broking ‘teams’

It has been born out of an increasing number of enquiries, received by the Gauntlet AR Network, from ready-made ‘teams’ wanting to start a brokerage in tandem.

Typically ranging from two to three individuals in size, these teams have usually spent a significant period of time working together.

Often, they have moved together between different companies as their employer’s brokerages have been sold. Now, the individuals concerned believe the culture in which they are working is not a good fit and potentially feel alienated by it. Driven by a desire to deliver better service to clients, they want to found their own brokerage, to do things differently, but still together.

What is Gauntlet Unite?

Our Gauntlet Unite solution makes what could be seen as a bold move perfectly feasible. It leverages the power of the team involved, in which there is typically:

• a relationship between team members built on mutual trust for each other’s abilities and work ethic;
• often a history of a shared responsibility for clients, which delivers a degree of confidence that, once covenants are served, those clients will work with them again;
• a recognition that the individual skills of team members dovetail perfectly, to provide the required balance for the running of a successful start-up brokerage.

Gauntlet Unite: our Gauntlet Start-up Broker 2.0

Gauntlet Unite is what we regard as our Gauntlet Start-up Broker 2.0. It factors in the need for our Gauntlet AR Network’s head office managers to mentor a team, rather than an individual.

But, on the other hand, it also recognises the added dynamism that a tried-and-tested team can bring to the market.

Based on these two things, it adjusts our core Start-up Broker proposition accordingly. In so doing, it delivers a range of tools that the Gauntlet Unite start-up brokerage can immediately utilise, given their greater resource at the outset of the brokerage’s life.

What support does a Gauntlet Unite team of start-up appointed representatives target?

A Gauntlet Unite team of appointed representative brokers gain all of the elements of our core proposition, the major elements of which are:

• ability to choose a preferred trading name
• full compliance services
• excellent commission rates based on Gauntlet’s significant buying power
• wide access to the insurance market, with well over 200 insurers and facilities
• back-office accounting and money-handling services
• Acturis IT provision
• Professional Indemnity insurance
• full suite of administration and marketing services provided by the back-office team
• broking services, if required
• mentoring from an AR broker
• networking events and workshops

Focused sales support for Gauntlet Unite ARs

In addition, a Gauntlet Unite start-up brokerage receives:

• insight into sales leads and successful sales campaigns;
• access to ready-to-use sales materials;
• detailed analysis relating to cross-selling opportunities.

Whilst instant provision to these additional services could overwhelm a new appointed representative going solo, it is a dynamic injection of opportunity-filled collateral that can help keep a new team, which is restricted by covenants, busy and driven to bring in business. The moment they have chosen their company name, they can dive into the data and start to target leads.

These same facilities are provided to Gauntlet Start-up brokers at the time in their development at which they are ready to embrace them, but Gauntlet Unite provides them instantly and through intense, focused sales mentoring.

This is because Gauntlet recognises that a team of former account execs or sales/broking professionals starting their new appointed representative business together, require a good volume of business from the get-go. By leveraging the input of our own direct sales team, and utilising the services of our marketing consultants, we can provide the growth mentoring they require, through the Gauntlet Unite proposition.

Income-earning potential of Gauntlet Unite appointed representatives

Coupled with top-level commission rates, fuelled by our direct sales team’s contribution to our buying power, and additional ways of earning extra income through, for example, our own in-house credit facility, Gauntlet Unite can keep a team of start-up brokers fed and watered during that period before their covenants expire, and beyond.

Gauntlet Unite is the proposition that will satisfy their hunger and need for new business, in both a strategic and focused way, to make a joint business dream a reality.