The Spark team (Sam Wiener, James Jiang, Henry Figueroa, Tom Loach, and Norma Garcia), along with a number of our agency partners, had the opportunity to connect with industry leaders in Las Vegas last week at the annual Medicarians conference and discuss strategy, operations, and compliance. 

The Medicarians conference is always a terrific event for Medicare enthusiasts to share the latest in innovation, brainstorm the next generation of distribution, and build relationships with existing and prospective partners. The 2023 conference was no different and, in fact, helped highlight several trends that are pervading across the industry. For example, it’s clear that:

1. Technology will continue to play a bigger role across the Medicare distribution, especially in effort to make agents more efficient by streamlining workflows and generating business insights 
2. Support, for both agents and their clients, will become increasingly more important as service expectations grow in the face of new CMS rules, carrier expansion, and plan benefit changes
3. Strong partnerships based on transparency, hustle, and experience will be the ultimate formula for growth in the future - no cutting corners! 

At the 2023 Medicarians conference, James Jiang (Spark CEO and co-founder) and I were able to elaborate on these trends when moderating a number of panels with some of the best minds in the industry. These panels included:

• Transitioning from an individual agent to a successful agency principal

• Panel: Sam Wiener, Veronica Neal, Jason Vallejos, Joanna Wyckoff

• Agent & provider relationships 

• Panel: Sam Wiener, Tony Feijoo, Claudio Arellano

• Star ratings changes: what they mean for agents

• Panel: James Jiang, Brent Crawley, Justin Jacobs, Rich Vollmer

• Buying another agency: what to know

• Panel: James Jiang, Jim Quinn, Patrick Nichols, Alex Lewis

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What a great experience to be able to share with others, even if our partners did the majority of the heavy lifting - James and I just asked the questions ;-) 

The climax of the conference was certainly the Spark agency partner dinner. We are so lucky to have the opportunity to partner with such an incredible group of agency principals. Although distributed across the country with unique business strategies, it’s amazing to see the mission driven and hyper growth culture that transcends all of our partners. Lots, and lots, of momentum and good vibes!

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Thank you to everyone that made the conference so memorable. Already looking forward to Medicarians 2024!

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