Bob Veres Interview Excerpt, Insider Information, April 2020:

Bill Glubiak, CEO of Cedarbrook Group in Cleveland, OH is no stranger to marketing; in his former life he worked for the largest marketing firm in Cleveland. Even so, when the 2008-9 Great Recession crisis rolled through the financial services industry, Glubiak realized that his firm really didn’t have a strong identity in the marketplace. “We had a name but not a brand”, he says.

In Glubiak’s mind, the brand is a rallying cry internally (What do we stand for?) and a way of explaining your firm externally. “I meet somebody at an event and they say What do you do? If I say I have a financial planning firm, their response is going to be: there are so many of those people after me and I’m not in the market for buying insurance. The problem I was looking to solve with Jennifer was: how do we engage in that first five to 15 seconds before I’m turned off?”

The first result of those initial meetings was something that Glubiak calls The Humanity Factor. “Humanity is a state of human kindness.” He explains. “Factor is one who contributes to an accomplishment or result. And so it is our job to help you, Mr. or Ms. Prospect, whatever your humanity is, whether it’s your family, or your community, or your church or synagogue, whatever it is. And we help you discover that and lead you down a successful journey.”